At least 23 people were trapped under a building that collapsed in central China, officials said, as rescuers pulled apart the rubble brick by brick in an effort to reach survivors. The building, comprising a hotel, apartments and a cinema, caved in on Friday afternoon in Changsha city, Hunan province, leaving a gaping hole in a...
Shanghai reported a record number of symptomatic Covid-19 cases on Saturday and other areas across China tightened controls as the country kept up its “dynamic clearance” approach that aims to stamp out the highly transmissible Omicron variant. The Zhengzhou airport economic zone, a central Chinese manufacturing area that includes Apple supplier Foxconn, announced a 14-day lockdown on...
Joe Biden has announced an attempt to crack down on “ghost guns”, kits which can be bought without a background check, from which a working gun can quickly be made, and which have been used in an escalating number of shootings. In a release, the White House said 20,000 “unserialized, privately made firearms” were reported to...
When Qatar won the bid to host the World Cup in 2010, the triumphant Gulf State unveiled plans to host what it promised would be the most spectacular of all World Cup tournaments and launched an ambitious construction venture to build state-of-the-art stadiums, luxury hotels and a sparkling new metro. Yet, over the next decade,...
Tigrayan rebels have agreed to a “cessation of hostilities”, marking a turning point in the nearly 17-month war in northern Ethiopia after the government’s announcement of an indefinite humanitarian truce a day earlier. The rebels said in a statement sent to AFP they were “committed to implementing a cessation of hostilities effective immediately” and urged Ethiopian authorities...
Hong Kong authorities said supplies of vegetables and chilled poultry to the global financial hub may be temporarily disrupted after some mainland goods vehicle drivers preliminarily tested positive for Covid-19. Hong Kong imports 90% of its food, with the mainland its most important source, especially for fresh food. Consumers have already seen a shortage of...
Australia “will not hesitate” to ratchet up sanctions against Russia amid growing tensions over the military buildup near Ukraine’s border, a senior federal minister has warned. The finance minister, Simon Birmingham, said the Australian government was staying “in close contact with many allies, with countries across Europe and the United States” and directly with Ukraine to...
It’s been one year since a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol, as the “stop the steal” rally demanding to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election turned into a deadly insurrection. After the attack, the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation mobilized one of the largest criminal...
Begum Khaleda Zia, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh is critically ill. She is now admitted as a patient in Dhaka’s Ever Care hospital. She got admitted to this hospital on 13 November 2021. She was hospitalized several times earlier also with several health problems. This time her condition deteriorated so much that she has to...
A Libyan parliamentary committee has said it has become “impossible” to hold a long-awaited presidential vote on Friday as scheduled, in a blow to international efforts to end a decade of chaos in the oil-rich country. It was the first official statement that the vote would not go ahead, although the news had been widely...