Asia

Elderly, sick, essential workers will get virus vaccine first: US

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States plans to give priority to the elderly, those with pre-existing conditions and essential workers once there is a vaccine against COVID-19, a senior Trump administration official said Tuesday. Under Operation Warp Speed (OWS), the US government is aiming to deliver 300 million vaccine doses by January 2021, investing in manufacturing capacity to relieve pharmaceutical firms of the financial risk. “Before any vaccines are approved or authorized, Operation […]

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Beijing imposes partial travel ban, closes schools over virus outbreak

by Jing Xuan Teng and Beiyi Seow BEIJING, China (AFP) — Beijing on Tuesday urged its residents to not leave the city and closed schools again as authorities scramble to contain a “severe” new coronavirus outbreak in the city of 21 million people. The coronavirus resurgence — believed to have started in the capital’s sprawling Xinfadi wholesale food market — has prompted alarm as China had largely brought its outbreak under control through mass testing […]

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India says 20 troops killed in deadliest clash with China in decades

by Bhuvan Bagga and Jalees Andrabi with Parvaiz Buhkari in Srinagar and Jing Xuan Teng in Beijing NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a “violent face-off” with Chinese forces along the disputed Himalayan frontier, the Indian army said Tuesday, in the deadliest clash between the nuclear-armed neighbours for more than four decades. Both sides blamed each other for Monday’s clash in the precipitous, rocky terrain of the strategically […]

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Kim Yo Jong: North Korean leader’s increasingly powerful sister

by Claire LEE SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister warned at the weekend that a Korean liaison office would soon be seen “completely collapsed”. On Tuesday, Pyongyang reduced it to rubble. Kim Yo Jong is one of her brother’s most trusted advisers and among the most powerful women in the isolated regime, but her public profile is mounting rapidly and she has been mooted as a potential successor. The […]

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New virus cases in China, N. Zealand sound pandemic alarm

  by Beiyi Seow and Jing Xuan Teng, with AFP Bureaus Agence France Presse BEIJING, China (AFP) — More than two dozen new coronavirus cases in China and the first New Zealand infections in almost a month on Tuesday underlined the immense challenges still ahead in containing the deadly pandemic, even as some EU nations reopened their borders to fellow Europeans. More than eight million people have now been infected with the virus worldwide since […]

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Office politics: Symbol of inter-Korean liaison reduced to rubble

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The inter-Korean liaison office that Pyongyang blew up on Tuesday was opened in September 2018 as part of an agreement the North’s leader Kim Jong Un and the South’s President Moon Jae-in signed at their first summit five months earlier. The office occupied a four-storey building in an industrial zone in the North’s city of Kaesong, where companies from South Korea employed Northerners, paying Pyongyang for their labour. It was […]

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India says three soldiers killed in clash on Chinese border

NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Three Indian soldiers have been killed in a “violent face-off” on the Chinese border, the Indian army said Tuesday following weeks of rising tensions and the deployment of thousands of extra troops from both sides. Brawls and face-offs flare on a fairly regular basis between the two nuclear-armed giants over their 3,500-kilometre (2,200-mile) frontier, which has never been properly demarcated, but no one has been killed in decades. The Indian […]

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North Korea blows up inter-Korean liaison office near border with South

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border on Tuesday, the South’s Unification ministry said, after days of increasingly virulent rhetoric from Pyongyang. “North Korea blows up Kaesong Liaison Office at 14:49,” the ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, said in a one-line alert sent to reporters. The statement came minutes after an explosion was heard and smoke seen rising from the long-shuttered joint industrial […]

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North Korean army ‘fully ready’ for action against Seoul: KCNA

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea’s army is “fully ready” to take action against the South, state media said Tuesday in the latest verbal sabre-rattling from Pyongyang, days after its leader’s sister threatened military moves against Seoul. Since early June, North Korea has issued a series of vitriolic condemnations of the South over activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border — something defectors do on a regular basis. Last week, it announced it was […]

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Beijing virus situation ‘extremely severe’ as 27 new cases reported

by Jing Xuan TENG BEIJING, China (AFP) — The coronavirus situation in China’s capital is “extremely severe”, a city official warned Tuesday, as 27 new infections were reported from Beijing where a new cluster has sparked a huge trace-and-test programme. The COVID-19 resurgence — believed to have started at the sprawling Xinfadi wholesale food market in the capital — has sparked alarm as China had largely brought its outbreak under control through mass testing and […]

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Over 100 cases in new Beijing COVID-19 outbreak: WHO

by Robin MILLARD GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — More than 100 cases of the novel coronavirus have been officially recorded in the fresh outbreak in Beijing, the World Health Organization said Monday. As lockdown restrictions, ease and countries in Europe lifted their borders, the WHO warned countries to stay on alert for a possible resurgence of COVID-19 infections. The UN health agency said it understood no new deaths have been reported thus far in the Chinese […]

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UAE says low oil price unsustainable, warns of shocks

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — UAE Energy Minister Suheil al-Mazrouei said on Monday current low oil and gas prices are unsustainable and warned that if they last longer, it could lead to energy shocks. Mazrouei said that “very good signs” of rising demand for oil have been seen in China and India, two of the world’s biggest crude consumers, and to some degree in Europe. “This environment of low oil and gas prices, I […]

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