More than 30,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Malaysia on Sunday as the country battles some of its worst floodings in years.The tropical Southeast Asian nation often sees stormy monsoon seasons towards the end of the year, with flooding regularly prompting mass evacuations.Downpours since Friday have caused rivers to overflow, submerging many urban areas and cutting off major roads, leaving thousands of motorists stranded.More than 30,000 flood victims across eight states and te

At least 75 people have been reported killed in the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, official tallies showed Sunday, as efforts to deliver water and food to devastated islands ramped up.More than 300,000 people fled their homes and beachfront resorts as Typhoon Rai ravaged the southern and central regions of the archipelago.The storm knocked out communications and electricity in many areas, ripping off roofs, toppling concrete power poles and flooding villages.Arthur Yap, g

At least 12 people have died in the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, the disaster agency said Friday, after the storm swept across the archipelago uprooting trees, toppling power poles and flooding villages. More than 300,000 people fled their homes and beachfront resorts as Typhoon Rai pummelled the southern and central regions of the country, knocking out communications in some areas and tearing roofs off buildings.Rai was a super typhoon when it slammed into Sia

Typhoon Rai is rapidly strengthening east of the southern Philippines and may be on the verge of becoming a super typhoon.

Rohingya refugees sued Facebook on Monday for US$150 billion over claims the social network is failing to stem hate speech on its platform, exacerbating violence against the vulnerable minority.The complaint, lodged in a California court, says the algorithms that power the United States-based company promote disinformation and extremist thought that translates to real-world violence."Facebook is like a robot programmed with a singular mission: to grow," the court document states.&qu

Future pandemics could be more lethal than the current COVID crisis, one of the creators of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has warned.Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert, delivering the 44th Richard Dimbleby Lecture, said there needed to be more funding for pandemic preparedness to prevent the advances made from being lost.She also warned vaccines could be less effective against the Omicron variant.Dame Sarah added that people should be cautious until more was known about it.She said: "This will not

The death toll from a sudden, spectacular eruption of Indonesia's Mount Semeru has risen to 13, disaster officials said Sunday, as rescuers searched villages blanketed in molten ash for survivors.

Across a quarter century of United Nations (UN) climate conferences tasked with saving humanity from itself, one was deemed a chaotic failure (Copenhagen/2009), another a stunning success (Paris/2015), and the rest landed somewhere in between.This year's COP26 inspired all these reactions at once.Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, leading a 100,000-strong march through the streets of Glasgow, dismissed the two-week meet as a "greenwashing festival".But dedicated experts in the ne

The social and economic burden of COVID-19 has fallen disproportionately on women around the world, the Red Cross has warned, in a stark analysis of the impact of the pandemic.Women were particularly affected by the loss of income and education, rises in domestic violence, child marriage and trafficking, and responsibility for caring for children and sick relatives, according to a comprehensive report published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on

China's #MeToo movement has stumbled in the face of swift internet censors, a patriarchal society and a legal system that places a heavy burden on the claimant.Explosive claims this month by tennis star Peng Shuai that a former top Communist Party politician had sexually assaulted her marked the first time allegations have hit the top layer of government.But her accusations were swiftly scrubbed from the Chinese internet, and she has not been seen publicly since.Others have faced the sam