China's foreign ministry today said foreigners with valid residence permits can enter the country without needing to re-apply for visas from September 28.

In his centerpiece address to the historic and unprecedented 75th session of the UN General Assembly, Secretary-General António Guterres has appealed for global solidarity to overcome Covid-19, and again called for a global ceasefire during the pandemic, by the end of the year.

The death toll from an apartment block collapse in western India climbed to 20 yesterday, with more bodies likely to be recovered, officials said, as rescuers searched for survivors.

US President Donald Trump has telephoned two Scandinavian MPs to thank them for nominating him for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, the two lawmakers said yesterday.

US authorities have charged a New York police officer with espionage, accusing him of gathering information about the city’s Tibetan community for the Chinese government.

UN chief yesterday warned against a new “Cold War” between US and China as the leaders of the world’s most advanced economies delivered their speeches at UN.

Senior EU and British officials will hold urgent talks next week on the Brexit withdrawal agreement, which has been threatened by London’s attempt to override parts of the treaty, Brussels said yesterday.

Russia yesterday said it will develop military cooperation with Tehran after a United Nations arms embargo on Iran expires next month, despite US efforts to block arms deals.

Warming in the Arctic shrank the ice covering the polar ocean this year to its second-lowest extent in four decades, scientists announced Monday, yet another sign of how climate change is rapidly transforming the region.

Palestine has quit its current chairmanship of Arab League meetings, the Palestinian foreign minister said yesterday, condemning as dishonourable any Arab agreement to establish formal ties with Israel.

China sentenced a former property executive who once called President Xi Jinping “a clown” to 18 years in prison for graft, a court said yesterday, in what some critics called an especially harsh sentence amid an ongoing clampdown on dissent. Ren Zhiqiang, the former chairman of Huayuan, a state-owned real estate group, was convicted for illegal gains totalling 112 million yuan ($16.5 million), according to a notice on the website of Beijing No.

US President Donald Trump has said at the United Nations General Assembly that the world body “must hold China accountable” for its actions related to the outbreak, while China’s President Xi Jinping has called for enhanced cooperation over the pandemic and stressed that China had no intention of fighting “either a Cold War or a hot one” with any other country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the UN General Assembly the World Health Organization should be strengthened to coordinate the global response to the coronavirus pandemic and proposed a high-level conference on vaccine cooperation.

Global airlines called on Tuesday for airport Covid-19 tests for all departing international passengers to replace the quarantines they blame for exacerbating the travel slump.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told people today to work from home where possible and ordered bars and restaurants to shut earlier in a bid to tackle a fast-spreading second wave of Covid-19.

In a write-up published in The Guardian today, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the climate crisis and Covid-19 desperately need international cooperation.

The richest one percent of people are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest half of the world’s population -- 3.1 billion people -- new research showed yesterday.

Demanding Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s immediate resignation, the country’s major opposition parties have launched an alliance to hold a countrywide protest movement to oust his government.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres yesterday deplored the lack of multilateral solutions to global challenges as he opened a summit for the world body’s 75th anniversary.

A ‘People’s Plaque’ installed by protesters near Bangkok’s Royal Palace was also “planted in the hearts of the Thai people,” activists said yesterday, vowing its removal marked only the beginning of their battle to reform the monarchy.