An explosion near Thai capital Bangkok's international airport Monday left a plastics factory in flames, killing at least one firefighter and wounding 29 people, officials said.Heavy plumes of black smoke could be seen rising up to the sky from the city's downtown 35 kilometres (21 miles) away, as helicopters continued to dump fire suppression foam from the air on the site.The blast occurred around 3:00 am at Taiwan-based Ming Dih Chemical Co., located on the outskirts of Bangkok ne

At least 45 people were killed and dozens injured Sunday when a Philippine military aircraft carrying troops crashed and burst into flames after missing the runway in the country's south, officials said.Nearly a hundred people, most of them recent army graduates, were on the C-130 Hercules transport plane which was trying to land on Jolo island in Sulu province around midday.Some of the soldiers were seen jumping out of the plane before it hit the ground and exploded into flames, said Ma

Many rich countries have at times failed to provide enough personal protective equipment (PPE) for their health-care workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

A year has passed since the coronavirus outbreak spread from Wuhan in China to Southeast Asia and the rest of the world. Yet, we are still in a ferocious battle with the deadly pandemic. As COVID-19 vaccines are being rolled out in some parts of the world, a number of countries have reported new waves and have resorted to fresh lockdowns. New coronavirus variants have been identified in Britain and South Africa – which are said to be even more contagious – and spreading fast.

On 11 January, the first coronavirus death was officially recorded in China. Eight months after the identification of the disease that appeared in Wuhan in December 2019, the world has recorded over one million deaths.1,000 Deaths In The First MonthThe Sars-CoV-2 virus which causes the illness known as COVID-19 first spread rapidly in China, particularly in the province of Wuhan.

When hundreds of Rohingya refugees paid traffickers to escape their squalid camp in Bangladesh, they were promised a new life in Malaysia after just one week at sea.Instead, the group of mostly women and children suffered more than 200 days of terror on the high seas, until they landed this week on Indonesia's northern coast, where they are now back in refugee tents.Beaten by the traffickers, they battled hunger and thirst as storms lashed their wooden vessel, and watched in horror as th

The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged countries hit by serious coronavirus outbreaks to "wake up" to the realities on the ground instead of bickering, and to "take control"."People need to wake up. The data is not lying.

Certainty is like a rainbow: wonderful but relatively rare. More often than not, we know that we don’t know. We may seek to remedy this by talking to people who may know what we want to know. But how do we know that they know? If we cannot ascertain whether they actually do know, we must trust them.Historically, we have bestowed our trust on the basis of science, experience, or divine inspiration.

Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis:India's SurgeIndia now has more than 500,000 confirmed cases, according to government figures that show a record daily leap of 18,500 new infections."Unlike China, where the pandemic was relatively more concentrated around Wuhan and a few other cities, India has a more diffused spread that makes it a bit more challenging for the healthcare system," says Anant Bhan, a leading public health expertIndia may see several pea

Just last week, a 39-year-old man was killed and his wife was seriously injured after their motorcycle was hit by a car driven by a man believed to be intoxicated. He was a father to five young children, while the driver was left unharmed in the accident. And three days ago, another horrendous accident was reported where a suspected drunk driver rammed into a car and three other motorcycles. Four people were injured and one person died at the scene of the unfortunate event.