President-elect Joe Biden has chosen Lloyd Austin, who led US troops into Baghdad in 2003 and rose to head the US Central Command, as the first African-American secretary of defense, US media reported Monday.

Far from the rifle cracks that occasionally rip through the rainforest as local tribesmen hunt mature primates for their meat and soft pelts, a sanctuary in a corner of the Colombian Amazon is offering new life to the orphaned monkeys left behind.

What’s for dinner? Lego sushi, credit card burgers, or a well-done piece of PVC pipe?

Railway tracks and highways were blocked across India as farmers launched a national day of action yesterday against reforms deregulating the agriculture sector, upping the stakes after 10 days blockading the capital.

Indonesia’s state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma has said the efficacy of a Covid-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac could not yet be determined, after previously saying that interim data showed 97% efficacy.

A United Nations team visiting refugees in Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region had failed to stop at two checkpoints when it was shot at over the weekend, the government has said, proclaiming it does not need a “baby-sitter”.

Iran said on Tuesday its Supreme Court had upheld a death sentence against a high-profile dissident journalist who was captured last year in what Tehran calls an intelligence operation, after years in exile in France.

Canadian High Commissioner Benoit Préfontaine virtually delivered remarks on the occasion of UNFPA’s 16 days of activism against gender-based violence campaign, towards strengthening efforts to end gender-based violence and make progress in the gender-equality agenda. The event brought together a broad group of experts, policymakers, women’s rights organisations, activists, young people, human rights defenders, international organisations, and members of the international community to discuss the challenges in preventing and responding to gender-based violence in Bangladesh.

New Zealand security agencies were “almost exclusively” focused on the perceived threat of Islamist terrorism before a white supremacist gunman killed 51 Muslim worshippers last year, a report into the country’s worst massacre found.

UK health authorities began rolling out the first doses of a widely tested and independently reviewed Covid-19 vaccine today, starting a global immunisation programme that is expected to gain momentum as more serums win approval.

The United States has imposed financial sanctions and a travel ban on 14 Chinese officials over their alleged role in Beijing’s disqualification last month of elected opposition legislators in Hong Kong.

China’s top diplomat yesterday called for the resumption of talks with the incoming US administration of president-elect Joe Biden, as relations

Candidates supporting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro have secured control of the national congress, the electoral board said yesterday, after a

An Australian surfer told yesterday how he managed to paddle back to shore and walk hundreds of meters to get help after being attacked by a great

Iran yesterday flatly dismissed a call by Saudi Arabia for Gulf states to be consulted on any potential negotiations with the Islamic republic on its

Ethiopia’s government yesterday denied that northern forces whom its troops have fought for a month would be able to mount a guerrilla insurgency, while diplomats said a United Nations team was shot at while trying to visit a refugee camp.

Police in northern India have arrested 10 men for allegedly compelling women to change their religion after getting married, using a new anti-conversion law popularly called the “Love Jihad” law, officials said yesterday.

US and Chinese companies dominated the global arms market in 2019, while the Middle East made its first appearance among the 25 biggest weapons manufacturers, a report by the SIPRI research institute said yesterday.

Post-Brexit trade talks between the EU and UK neared a decisive point yesterday as Europe pushed a leaders summit later in the week as the final chance for a deal.

Japan is seeking to boost its flagging birthrate by funding the use of artificial intelligence to help match lonely hearts, an official said yesterday.