Singapore’s foreign minister yesterday said it was a “national shame” for the armed forces of a country to use weapons against their own people as he called on Myanmar’s military rulers to seek a peaceful solution to the unrest in the country.

China yesterday moved to grant itself veto powers over selecting Hong Kong’s lawmakers, part of a campaign to eliminate dissent and ensure a “patriotic” government in the city following huge democracy rallies in 2019.

Monday marks 110 years since a designated annual International Women’s Day was first commemorated.

Indian vets have extracted 71 kilograms (156.5 pounds) of plastic, nails and other garbage from a pregnant cow, but both the animal and her baby died.

A female doctor was killed in a bomb blast claimed by the local affiliate of the Islamic State (IS), in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad in yet another targeted hit, officials said yesterday, just days after three women media workers were gunned down in the area.

Expressing a view which is different from a decision taken by the federal government cannot be said to be seditious, India’s Supreme Court has observed.

The number of new coronavirus cases has risen in Europe after six weeks of decline, the World Health Organization said yesterday.

A sweeping police reform package that bans choke holds and combats racial profiling cleared the US House of Representatives Wednesday, five days before the trial of a white officer charged with murdering African-American George Floyd.

Seventeen percent of the food available to consumers worldwide in 2019 -- almost one billion tonnes -- was thrown away by households, retailers, institutions and the hospitality industry, far more than previously suspected, the UN said yesterday.

How about this for bargain-hunting? A small bowl bought for $35 in a yard sale in the US turned out to be a rare 15th century Chinese artifact possibly worth $500,000.

India’s top court yesterday said it favoured a screening mechanism for online video streaming services, dominated in the country by Amazon and Netflix and which currently are aired freely.

Meghan Markle says Buckingham Palace is “perpetuating falsehoods” about her and her husband Prince Harry, according to part of an interview she has done with Oprah Winfrey.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the United States was ready to confront China wherever necessary, calling Washington’s ties with the Asian power the “biggest geopolitical test” of the century.

Officials in New Zealand issued a tsunami warning for coastal areas after a shallow, powerful earthquake struck off its northeastern coast on Thursday night. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or casualties.

New Zealand police said on Thursday they had charged a 27-year-old man after he threatened to attack two mosques that were the scene of mass murder by a white supremacist two years ago.

It’s the sort of chance that comes along just once in a blue Moon: a Japanese billionaire is throwing open a private lunar expedition to eight people from around the world.

President Emmanuel Macron has admitted for the first time that French soldiers murdered a top Algerian independence figure then covered up his death in the latest acknowledgement by Paris of its colonial-era crimes.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court yesterday said that she had opened a formal probe into alleged crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories, a move strongly opposed by Israel.

Pakistan, Nigeria and Indonesia will be among the biggest recipients of free Covid-19 vaccines before June -- more than 10 million doses each -- the Covax scheme has announced.

India’s top judge was facing calls to resign yesterday after telling an accused rapist to marry his schoolgirl victim to avoid jail.