Worldwide

When Italy won the Eurovision Song Contest with an over-the-top glam-rock performance, the victory signaled more than just a psychological boost for one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19: Held before a live, indoor audience of 3,500, the annual kitsch fest confirmed that Europe was returning to a semblance …

Pyongyang has declared North Korea coronavirus-free, with zero confirmed cases since the outbreak of the global pandemic, while the authorities have imposed severe restrictions to stop the disease from entering the country. North Korean authorities have ordered the elimination of cats and pigeons in border areas due to pandemic fears, …

The incumbent US administration has named China as its main threat and rival, representing the greatest danger to the United States. Since the previous administration of Donald Trump, the US has exerted significant diplomatic and economic pressure on China over a range of issues, including trade and military development. US …

Sri Lanka is facing its worst beach pollution crisis as tons of plastic waste from a burning container ship wash ashore, a senior environment official said Saturday. Fishermen have been banned from an 80-kilometer (50-mile) stretch of coast near the Singapore-registered MV X-Press Pearl as an international firefighting operation went …

Four people die in and around protest-hit Cali as talks to end month-long demonstrations remain stalled. Colombian President Ivan Duque has deployed military troops to the western province of Valle del Cauca and its capital, Cali after four people died in protests that marked a month of anti-government demonstrations. The …

Manila lodges diplomatic protest against the ‘incessant and prolonged’ presence of Chinese vessels near Thitu Island. The Philippines has protested China’s “continuing illegal presence and activities” near islands it holds in the South China Sea. In a statement on Saturday, the Philippines’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had lodged …

Coup leader’s appointment raises the stakes as West African leaders prepare to respond to the coup in Mali. Mali’s constitutional court has named the colonel who led a military coup this week as the country’s new interim leader. The ruling, issued late on Friday, said Assimi Goita would “lead the …

In one of his sharpest attacks so far, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has taken the Narendra Modi-led government to task for not having handled India’s COVID-19 situation properly. India’s main opposition party, Congress, on Friday, slammed the Narendra Modi-led government for mishandling the country’s COVID-19 crisis. While addressing a press …

The White House on Friday sent Congress a $6 trillion budget plan that would ramp up spending on infrastructure, education, and combating climate change, arguing it makes good fiscal sense to invest now, when the cost of borrowing is cheap, and reduce deficits later. The first comprehensive budget offered by …

Russia has signed a deal with Pakistan to build a major gas pipeline linking the nation’s southern port of Karachi to industrial hubs in the north. The deal is set to be the biggest between Moscow and Islamabad since the 1970s. Russia’s Energy Minister Nikolay Shulginov and the Pakistani Ambassador, …

A container ship broke down in the Suez Canal on Friday but was refloated and repaired with no impact on traffic in the waterway, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said. The 353-meter (1,158-foot) Maersk Emerald experienced sudden engine failure near Ismailia during its passage southwards through the canal but was …

Property owners operating with ‘total impunity’ in areas where the building is forbidden, zone’s head says. Just beyond the towering pyramids of what was once the largest city of the Americas, an illegal building project threatens to cause irreparable harm to the remains of temples and some two dozen other …

Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian during clashes in the occupied West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. A few hundred Palestinians had gathered near Nablus in the northern West Bank to protest Israeli settlements. Israeli soldiers opened fire, killing one man, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. …

Nigerian authorities have recovered the bodies of more than 70 people after an overloaded boat capsized in the northwestern state of Kebbi on Wednesday, a state spokesman said. “Seventy-six corpses have so far been recovered, while 22 (people) were rescued, divers are still looking for more bodies,” Abubakar Dakingari, spokesman …

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved the Covid-19 vaccine made by the US-German partnership Pfizer-BioNTech for children aged 12 to 15, allowing kids in the bloc to be vaccinated against the virus for the first time. New data shows that the ‘Comirnaty’ vaccine is safe for the younger cohort, …

The United States said on Friday it was deeply concerned by the detention of a U.S. citizen who was working as a journalist in Myanmar and pressed the military government for his immediate release. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said consular officers from the U.S. Embassy in Yangon …

Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Friday derailed a bipartisan inquiry into the deadly assault on the Capitol by former President Donald Trump’s supporters, despite a torrent of criticism they were playing down the violence. Democrats and some moderate Republicans had called for a commission to probe the events leading …

More than 100 years after the crimes were committed, Germany formally confessed on Friday to having committed genocide as the colonial power in what is now Namibia. After years of negotiations, the German government recognized the atrocities committed against the Herero and Nama ethnic groups as genocide and said reparations …

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro visited two indigenous reservations in the Amazon on Thursday for the first time as head of state, despite protests from some tribal leaders against his drive to open up their protected lands to commercial mining. Bolsonaro, flanked by army officers and a Tukano chieftain with feather …

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson “unwisely” allowed a refurbishment of his residence to proceed without more rigorous consideration of how it would be funded but did not break the ministerial code of conduct, an official report said on Friday. Johnson has in recent weeks faced intense scrutiny over how the …