Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States has posted a toll of less than 700 new coronavirus deaths for the third day in a row, the Johns Hopkins University tracker said Tuesday. A total of 657 people have died in the past 24 hours as of 8:30 pm (0030 GMT), the Baltimore-based institution said. The overall death toll is now 98,875, and the number of cases of infection stands at more than 1.68 million, […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Huge swarms of desert locusts are destroying crops across western and central India, prompting authorities Tuesday to step up their response to the country’s worst plague in nearly three decades. Drones, tractors and cars have been sent out to track the voracious pests and spray them with pesticides. The locusts have already destroyed nearly 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres) of cropland. “Eight to 10 swarms, each measuring around a square kilometer […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — France on Tuesday reported 83 new deaths in hospital from the coronavirus over the last 24 hours as key indicators remained steady two weeks into the relaxation of a lockdown. A total of 28,530 deaths have now been recorded in France since the epidemic began, the health ministry said in a statement. This includes a slight revising down by 10 of the numbers who have died in nursing homes. The numbers […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The World Health Organization said Tuesday that Dutch workers apparently infected with the coronavirus by minks could be the first known cases of animal-to-human transmission. The WHO told AFP that it was in close contact with Dutch researchers investigating three cases where the virus appears to have been passed to humans from minks. “This would be the first known cases of animal-to-human transmission,” the UN health agency told AFP in an […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — An exchange of gunfire between North and South Korean forces in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula was a violation of the armistice agreement, the United Nations Command (UNC) said Tuesday. The two sides remain technically at war, since fighting in the Korean War ended with an armistice in 1953 that was never replaced with a peace treaty. North Korean gunfire hit a Southern guard post on May 3, prompting […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government was hit by its first resignation Tuesday over the controversy surrounding top aide Dominic Cummings’ cross-country trip during the coronavirus lockdown when Douglas Ross, a minister for Scotland, quit in protest. Undermining attempts by ministers to try and move on from the crisis which has dominated British politics for four days, Ross said he could not justify Cummings remaining in post to his constituents. […]
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) — Saudi Arabia will end its nationwide coronavirus curfew from June 21, except in the holy city of Mecca, the interior ministry said Tuesday, after more than two months of stringent curbs. Prayers will also be allowed to resume in all mosques outside Mecca from May 31, the ministry said in a series of measures announced on the official Saudi Press Agency. The kingdom, which has reported the highest number of […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Spanish health workers on the front line of the fight against coronavirus gathered on Monday outside hospitals in the Madrid region to rally against shortages of protective equipment. Nurses, doctors and other workers protested in their uniforms, some in scrubs, under the slogan “health workers essential”. They stood silently for two minutes at the gates of several institutions in and around the capital, holding placards and homemade signs that read “we […]
by Jerome TAYLOR / Yan ZHAO HONG KONG, China (AFP) — China’s plans to impose a new security law on Hong Kong will not erode freedoms, the city’s leader said Tuesday, as she tried to reassure international businesses and investors alarmed by the proposal. Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the controversial law would “only target a handful of lawbreakers” but she would not be drawn on what actions and opinions would be deemed illegal once […]
by Dmitry ZAKS Agence France Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday failed to draw a line under a scandal over his top aide Dominic Cummings allegedly breaching coronavirus rules as pressure mounted on the Brexit mastermind to go. Johnson faces the threat of his government’s authority being undermined in the heat of a health crisis that has claimed nearly 37,000 lives in Britain and thrown one of […]
by Natsuko FUKUE Agence France Presse TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan lifted a nationwide state of emergency over the coronavirus on Monday, gradually reopening the world’s third-largest economy as government officials warned caution was still necessary to prevent another wave. “We had very stringent criteria for lifting the state of emergency. We have judged that we have met this,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a nationally televised news conference. Compared with hard-hit areas in […]
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AFP) — A moderate 5.6-magnitude earthquake rattled New Zealand’s North Island early Monday but failed to crack Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s trademark composure as she conducted a live television interview. The quake struck just off the coast before 8:00 am local time (2000 Sunday GMT) at a depth of about 52 kilometres (32 miles) near Levin, about 90 kilometres north of Wellington, the US Geological Survey said. St John Ambulance and […]
