China’s biggest short-video and social media platforms have said they will punish users seen to be wasting food in their broadcasts, as the government urges against food wastage in the middle of a pandemic, with President Xi Jinping terming it “shameful”.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn has told ZDF television that he expected there would be a COVID-19 vaccine in the coming months and definitely next year.

India reports a record single-day spurt of 66,999 Covid-19 cases, taking the country-wide total tally of infected patients to 23, 96,637.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said he warned his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that there would be “an enormous price to pay” if Moscow is offering bounties to kill US soldiers or other Western troops in Afghanistan.

Russia says the first batch of the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine would be rolled out within two weeks and rejected as “groundless” safety concerns aired by some experts over Moscow’s rapid approval of the drug.

Britain’s official death toll from the Covid-19 pandemic has been lowered by over 5,000 because the government adopted a new way of counting fatalities after concerns were raised that the old method overstated them.

Some skin, eggs and tissue samples are all that remain of Malaysia’s last rhino, Iman, who died last November after years of failed breeding attempts.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has said it is a “lie” that fires are ravaging the Amazon rainforest, despite data from his own government showing the number of blazes is rising.

Daughters cannot be deprived of their right of equality and they will have equal coparcenary (joint heirship) rights in joint Hindu family property even if the father died before the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, India’s Supreme Court has ruled.

The condition of India’s former President Pranab Mukherjee continued to be critical today and he remains on ventilator support after undergoing a brain surgery two days ago, the Army’s Research and Referral hospital in New Delhi said.

Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa named two more relatives to a new government unveiled yesterday, further consolidating his family’s grip on power.

Experts agree that the elderly are at greater risk of dying from the coronavirus, but in Mexico dozens of centenarians have beaten the odds and overcome the disease, authorities say.

Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt, whose life has been so colourful and tragic that it became the subject of a biopic, has been diagnosed with lung cancer, Indian media reports said yesterday.

On the bridge of one of the world’s biggest container ships, a worker in a grey protective suit installs the compass that will guide the leviathan across the world.

Although none of the coronavirus vaccines under development has proved its efficacy yet in clinical trials, at least 5.7 billion doses have been pre-ordered around the world. Five vaccines -- three Western and two Chinese -- are in Phase 3 efficacy trials involving thousands of people.

Russia’s claim that it has developed the world’s first vaccine met with scepticism about its effectiveness, as New Zealand warned the re-emergence of COVID-19 could delay its upcoming election.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad has said that sweeping new US sanctions amounted to a new stage of economic warfare against his government and were part of Washington’s long- standing efforts to “choke” Syrians’ living standards.

Microsoft Corp has said the Surface Duo, its dual-screen smartphone powered by Alphabet Inc’s Android operating system, will start at a price of $1,399 and arrive in stores beginning September 10.

With hospitals in Beirut turned into trauma centers and coronavirus cases still rising, some healthcare workers are asking: how can the system cope?

A C-130J transport aircraft of Bangladesh Air Force -- carrying 71 repatriated Bangladeshi nationals from Lebanon -- has returned home after handing over humanitarian and relief assistance to the victims of the horrific explosion in Beirut, Lebanon on August 4, according to a press release of the Inter Services Public Relations Directorate (ISPR).