World

The Delta variant, the significantly more transmissible strain of Covid-19, is expected to become a “dominant lineage” if current trends continue, the WHO has warned after it was reported in 85 countries and continues to be detected in more places around the world. The Covid-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update released on June 22 by the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that globally, the variant

Russia on Wednesday fired warning shots at a British Navy destroyer in the Black Sea after it violated the country's territorial waters, the Russian defence ministry said in a statement to news agencies. The HMS Defender "was given a preliminary warning that weapons would be used if the state borders of the Russian Federation were violated. It did not react to the warning," the ministry said as

Kabul, June 23: The Taliban has captured Afghanistan’s main border crossing with Tajikistan, an Afghan provincial official and army officer said on Tuesday, with some security forces abandoning their posts and fleeing across the frontier. The seizure of Shir Khan Bandar, in the far north of Afghanistan about 50km (30 miles) from Kunduz city, is the most significant gain for the Taliban since it

United Nations, June 23: Searing, unrelenting heat scorches large swathes of the Earth, killing millions who have no means to escape. Shade is useless, and shallow bodies of water are warmer than the blood coursing through people's veins. This is a scene from a new sci-fi novel, but the suffocating horror it describes may be closer to science than fiction, according to a draft UN report that warns

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in advance of his June 16 meeting with United States President Joe Biden, said relations between the US and Russia are at a nadir. “We have a bilateral relationship that has deteriorated to its lowest point in recent years,” Putin told NBC News in an interview broadcast Friday with an English translation of his remarks. Putin and Biden will meet in Geneva next

South Africa’s NICD (National Institute for Communicable Disease) has announced that the country has technically entered the third wave of COVID-19. "South Africa technically entered the third wave today as the national 7-day moving average incidence (5959 cases) now exceeds the new wave threshold as defined by the Ministerial Advisory Committee," the institute tweeted. The MAC advisory defined

Ottawa, June 8: A man driving a pick-up truck slammed into and killed four members of a Muslim family in the south of Canada’s Ontario province, in what police said on Monday was a “premeditated” attack. A 20-year-old suspect wearing a vest “like body armour” fled the scene after the attack on Sunday evening, and was arrested at a mall seven kilometres (four miles) from the intersection in London

Washington, June 1: Joe Biden warned in a speech commemorating America’s war dead on Memorial Day that US democracy was “in peril” and called for empathy among his fellow citizens. Speaking at Arlington National Cemetery, the US president, joined by first lady Jill Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris and her husband, paid tribute to America’s war dead whom he described as making the ultimate

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that a variant of Covid-19 behind the acceleration of India's explosive outbreak has been found in dozens of countries all over the world. The UN health agency said the B.1.617 variant of Covid-19, first found in India in October, had been detected in more than 4,500 samples uploaded to an open-access database "from 44 countries in all six WHO regions"

Seychelles, which has vaccinated more of its population against Covid-19 than any other country, saw active cases more than double in the week to May 7, raising concerns that inoculation is not helping turn the tide in some places. The World Health Organization said vaccine failure couldn’t be determined without a detailed assessment and that it was working on evaluating the situation. Kate O