Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
by Cat Barton SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Kim Jong Un personally oversaw the successful test of a hypersonic missile, state media said Wednesday, and urged North Korea to press ahead with building more “strategic military muscle” despite international sanctions over its nuclear weapons program. Pictures in state media showed Kim using binoculars to observe the second missile launch by the nuclear-armed nation in less than a week. Hypersonic missiles are listed among the “top […]
by Cat Barton SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un personally oversaw the successful test of a hypersonic missile, state media reported Wednesday, the second such launch by the nuclear-armed nation in less than a week. The missile carrying a “hypersonic gliding vehicle” hit “the set target in waters 1,000 km off,” the official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said. Photographs posted on the website of Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper […]
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — The United Arab Emirates has threatened to jail people who make fun of its anti-Covid measures after mocking photos and videos appeared online. Federal prosecutors said social media users could be punished under new laws which allow at least two years’ jail and 200,000 AED ($54,000) fines for sharing misleading information during a pandemic. The UAE has introduced a number of measures to tackle a wave of Omicron variant […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan will extend measures barring almost all new foreign arrivals until the end of February and reopen mass-vaccination centres as it battles an Omicron-fuelled coronavirus surge, the government said Tuesday. “We will keep the current border control policy until the end of February while taking necessary measures from a humanitarian viewpoint and considering the national interest,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters. Local media said there would be some new […]
by Matthew Walsh with Jerome Taylor in Hong Kong BEIJING, China (AFP) — Five million residents of a central Chinese city were confined to their homes Tuesday while another megacity shuttered all non-essential businesses, as the country battles a spate of coronavirus outbreaks including from the Omicron variant. Beijing is on high alert as it prepares to host the Winter Olympics next month, sticking to a zero-Covid strategy of targeted lockdowns, border restrictions and lengthy […]
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AFP) — A 6.6-magnitude quake hit off the west coast of Cyprus early Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said. The relatively shallow quake was centered 48 kilometers (30 miles) west-northwest of the town of Polis on the Mediterranean island, the USGS said. © Agence France-Presse
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea fired an “unidentified projectile” into the sea, South Korea’s military said Tuesday, less than a week after Pyongyang reported testing a hypersonic missile. The projectile was fired into the sea east of the peninsula, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, without giving further details. The launch was also reported by Japan’s coast guard, which said the North had fired a “ballistic missile-like object”. […]
SHANGHAI, China (AFP) — The northern Chinese city of Tianjin on Sunday advised its nearly 14 million people to stay home while it conducted mass Covid testing after a spate of recent cases, including two caused by the Omicron variant, state-controlled media reported. Tianjin emerged as a new area of concern after more than 20 Covid cases were reported there in the last few days, most of them imported from abroad, according to the National […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China reported more cases of the highly transmissible Omicron coronavirus variant on Monday, with authorities on high alert over flare-ups in major cities just weeks ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The emergence of the fast-spreading variant is yet another test of China’s zero Covid strategy, with authorities already battling several outbreaks — including in Xi’an where 13 million city residents were in their third week of lockdown. Fears grew about […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — A Myanmar junta court on Monday convicted Aung San Suu Kyi of three criminal charges, sentencing her to four years in prison in the latest in a slew of cases against the ousted civilian leader. The Nobel laureate has been detained since February 1 when her government was forced out in an early morning coup, ending Myanmar’s short-lived experiment with democracy. The generals’ power grab triggered widespread dissent, which security forces […]
by Christopher RICKLETON Agence France Presse ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN (AFP) — More than 160 people were reported Sunday to have died in several days of unrest in Kazakhstan and almost 6,000 have been arrested after riots in Central Asia’s largest country. The energy-rich nation of 19 million people has been rocked by a week of upheaval, with a number of foreigners detained over the unrest. A government-run information portal on Sunday said that 164 people […]
JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — Israel could see up to nearly 40 percent of the population infected by coronavirus during the current wave, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday, as testing facilities nationwide buckled. “Data presented at the cabinet meeting indicates that here, in Israel, between two to four million citizens in total will be infected during this current wave,” Bennett wrote on his Twitter account. A country of just 9.4 million, Israel has seen infections […]
