Hailed this week as a pandemic game-changer, the new Covid-19 vaccine offered countries that had pre-ordered doses a potential escape from a cycle of lockdowns and new waves of sickness and death.

A shipwreck off the Libyan coast has killed 20 people, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said, just hours after news of a separate incident in which at least 74 migrants died.

German prosecutors have charged 12 men with plotting well-funded, armed attacks on mosques in which they planned to kill or injure as many Muslims as possible, authorities said yesterday.

The US government has decided against enforcing its ban on Chinese-owned social media sensation TikTok to comply with a federal court ruling issued in the national security case, a media report said Thursday.

At least 10 civilians and five security personnel were killed in cross-border shelling between India and Pakistan on Friday, in one of this year’s deadliest days along the heavily militarised frontier separating the nuclear-armed rivals, officials said.

For a mask producer in Japan, the transition from US President Donald Trump to Joe Biden has been a smooth one, as it switches production to masks of the Democrat president-elect.

Dutch students have created a fully functioning electric car made entirely out of waste, including plastics fished out of the sea, recycled PET bottles and household garbage.

Volkswagen has announced plans to spend more on digital technology, saying it would be crucial to have a leading position in car software in the changing mobility sector.

Twitter labeled 300,000 tweets related to the US presidential election as “potentially misleading” in the two weeks surrounding the vote, making up 0.2 percent of election-related posts, the company said Thursday.

China has congratulated US President-elect Joe Biden, who won the November 3 election that President Donald Trump has not conceded, nearly a week after the former vice president clinched enough states for the win.

Aung San Suu Kyi's ruling party secured an absolute majority in Myanmar's election, official results showed on Friday, in a poll disputed by the military-aligned opposition and criticised by rights groups.

Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Thursday he took four coronavirus tests on the same day, with two showing positive results, while the other two were negative.

An Afghan journalist working for a US-funded radio network was killed in a blast in southern Afghanistan yesterday, officials said, just days after a former television presenter was murdered in Kabul.

Archaeologists on Wednesday unveiled a fortified structure from the time of the King David on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that sheds light on the borders of a Biblical Israeli ally.

An international conference in Paris aims to raise more than $500 million towards ensuring fair access to coronavirus tests, treatment and vaccines for all, including poor countries, the organisers said yesterday.

US President-elect Joe Biden rang round allies in Seoul, Sydney and Tokyo yesterday, vowing to repair frayed partnerships and reaffirming mutual-defence pacts thrown in doubt by the current White House.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday ordered government agencies to hasten relief efforts after a powerful typhoon killed at least seven people and unleashed some of the worst flooding in years in the capital Manila.

Ethiopia’s military has defeated local forces in the west of Tigray state, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said yesterday, accusing his foes of atrocities during a week of fighting that threatens to destabilise the Horn of Africa.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman yesterday urged world powers to take a “firm stance” against its arch-rival Iran, as expectations mount that US President-elect Joe Biden will seek to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.

Britain yesterday said China had broken its main bilateral treaty on Hong Kong by imposing new rules to disqualify elected legislators in the former British colony, cautioning that it would consider sanctions as part of its response.