Sri Lanka faced renewed criticism yesterday over a new “de-radicalisation” law which rights groups see as another weapon targeting dissidents and minorities in the fractured nation.

Australia’s endangered regent honeyeater bird is losing its song, a sign that it could be nearing extinction, scientists warned in new research released yesterday.

Six Asian women were among eight people shot and killed at spas around the US city of Atlanta Tuesday, with a white man in custody on suspicion of staging all three attacks, police said.

President Joe Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin will face consequences for directing efforts to swing the 2020 US presidential election to Donald Trump, and that they would come soon.

Chinese factories torched as mainland workers hunker down under martial law -- Beijing is being pulled into the ulcerous crisis in Myanmar, an unravelling country it had carefully stitched into its big plans for Asia.

India needs to take quick and decisive steps soon to stop an emerging second “peak” of Covid-19 infections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said yesterday as several countries reported spike in cases raising the possibility of new curbs.

Eight people, including at least six Asian women, were shot dead at three day spas in the Atlanta, Georgia area, police said, and man suspected of carrying out all of the attacks has been taken into custody.

The Philippines’ coronavirus task force said it will suspend the arrival of foreigners and some returning citizens as the Southeast Asian country battles a renewed surge in Covid-19 cases and increasing infections of new variants.

Iran has started enriching uranium at its underground Natanz plant with a second type of advanced centrifuge, the IR-4, the UN nuclear watchdog said in a report reviewed by Reuters, in a further breach of Tehran’s deal with major powers.

Comments by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on the AstraZeneca vaccine are “encouraging”, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said.

Thousands of residents fled an industrial suburb of Myanmar’s commercial capital after it was placed under martial law by the ruling junta following bloody anti-coup protests over the weekend.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Monday to combat violence against women, at the start of the annual Commission on the Status of Women, which is expected to call for greater action against sexual harassment.

Recent summer droughts in Europe were the most severe the region has seen in 2,110 years as climate change has stoked punishing heat waves, according to new research Monday that raises the alarm for ecosystems and agriculture.

Britain is to announce an increase to its nuclear weapons stockpile as part of a wide-ranging review of security, defence and foreign policy, two newspapers said on Monday.

US Representative Deb Haaland was confirmed on Monday as Secretary of the Interior, becoming the first Native American to lead a cabinet agency and securing a central role in President Joe Biden’s sweeping plans to fight climate change.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday warned China against using “coercion and aggression” as he sought to use his first trip abroad to shore up Asian alliances in the face of growing assertiveness by Beijing.

India reported 24,492 new coronavirus cases yesterday, the sixth straight day of more than 20,000 infections, as curbs to try to stop the spread of Covid-19 were expanded in parts of the country that have recorded a surge.

Gunmen ambushed a bus carrying university staff in northeastern Afghanistan yesterday killing the driver and a student, officials said, as attacks on civilians continued, while peace talks between the government and the Taliban remained stalled.

Israel yesterday said it had discovered pieces of a biblical scroll dating back some 2,000 years, describing the find as one of the most significant since the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Sri Lankan government insisted yesterday that preventing Muslim women from wearing a burqa or niqab was a national security move, as it faced protests over the decision.