The US Commerce Department said it will issue an order Friday that will bar people in the United States from downloading Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat and video-sharing app TikTok starting on September 20.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has said that five more countries are seriously considering striking a normalisation deal with Israel after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed accords.

Twitter on Thursday said it is tightening security of high-profile politicians, campaigns and journalists as a “critical preventative step” ahead of the US presidential election.

The World Health Organization’s European director warned national governments Thursday against reducing the quarantine period for people potentially exposed to the coronavirus, even as he acknowledged that COVID-19 “fatigue” was setting in with growing public resistance to the measures needed to control the pandemic.

Despite the recent five-point India-China consensus for defusing the border situation, China on Wednesday put the ball for disengagement in India’s court and said it was imperative for the latter to correct its “mistake”, disengage on the ground and take concrete steps to ease tensions.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) yesterday warned that the novel coronavirus is driving discrimination towards vulnerable communities in Asia, including migrants and foreigners.

US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden warned the United Kingdom that it must honour the Northern Irish peace deal as it extracts itself from the European Union or there would be no separate US trade deal.

With incense smoke, flowers and photos of President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden, Peruvian shamans performed an ancestral ritual on Wednesday for the US elections, but there was little agreement about who would win the Nov. 3 ballot.

Russia yesterday said it would be a “mistake” to think lasting peace in the Middle East could be secured without resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The nerve agent used to poison Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was detected on an empty water bottle from his hotel room in the Siberian city of Tomsk, suggesting he was poisoned there and not at the airport as first thought, his team said yesterday.

The US Justice Department said on Wednesday it has charged five Chinese residents and two Malaysian businessmen in a wide-ranging hacking effort that encompassed targets from videogames to pro-democracy activists.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi wished Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his birthday yesterday. “Wishing PM Narendra Modi ji a happy birthday,” tweeted the Congress MP as PM Modi turned 70.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday said France was being led by an “incapable” president as he stepped up his personal feud with Emmanuel Macron.

One in seven cases of Covid-19 reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) is a health worker and in some countries that figure rises to one in three, the agency said on Thursday.

The Covid-19 pandemic threatens hard-won gains in health and education over the past decade, especially in the poorest countries, a new World Bank Group analysis finds.

With incense smoke, flowers and photos of President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden, Peruvian shamans have performed an ancestral ritual for the US elections, but there was little agreement about who would win the November 3 ballot.

Oil prices have steadied after a decline as production started in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Sally while a drawdown in US crude and gasoline inventories supported the market.

Libya’s internationally recognised Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj has said he wants to quit by the end of October, which could feed political tensions in Tripoli amid new efforts to find a political solution to the country’s conflict.

Two Palestinian travel bloggers are promoting local Palestinian tourism in the West Bank as an act of defiance against Israeli occupation.

Oil prices have jumped more than 4% following a drawdown in US crude and gasoline inventories and as Hurricane Sally forced a swath of US offshore production to shut.