Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta was inaugurated as East Timor's president on Friday, pledging to break a longstanding political deadlock in Southeast Asia's youngest country as it celebrated its 20th independence anniversary.The former Portuguese colony, which became independent from Indonesia in 2002 after 24 years of occupation, marked the occasion with a concert and fireworks for thousands in the capital Dili.The 72-year-old revolutionary hero, himself a former president of East

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday gave the green light to Chinese manufacturer CanSinoBIO's COVID-19 vaccine – the ninth jab to get the WHO seal of approval.The WHO granted emergency use listing (EUL) authorisation to the single-shot Convidecia vaccine as China battles a resurgence of the virus triggered by the Omicron variant.It is the third Chinese-made vaccine to be approved by the United Nations (UN) health agency, after Sinovac and Sinopharm.Convidecia was found to hav

Last week, Adarna House – a publisher of children’s books in the Philippines – posted on social media about a discount it was offering: 20 percent off on a #NeverAgain book bundle. The selection includes Ito Ang Diktadura, the Tagalog translation of Equipo Plantel’s Así es la Dictadura, or This is a Dictatorship.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine could cause global food shortages in the coming months, the United Nations (UN) has warned.Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the war had worsened food insecurity in poorer nations due to rising prices.The world could face famines that last for years if Ukrainian exports are not restored to pre-war levels, he added.The conflict has cut-off supplies from Ukraine's ports, which once exported vast amounts of sunflower oil as well as cereals such as mai

China's premier called for greater "urgency" in rolling out measures to support the virus-battered economy, state media reported Wednesday, days after data highlighted the stark impact of COVID-19 restrictions.China – the last major global economy sticking to a rigid zero-COVID policy – is battling an economic slump due to prolonged virus lockdowns that have constricted supply chains, quelled demand and stalled manufacturing."All localities and departments should step up t

For a long time, the Nordic countries saw themselves as sleekly humanitarian, peace-keeping powers.

The European Union (EU) has resolved to step up its defence strategy in the Indo-Pacific region in light of fears about China’s growing presence and concerns for the international order sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.“Our motto is always to cooperate whenever possible, but to defend whenever necessary as well,” said Gabriele Visentin, the EU’s special envoy to the Indo-Pacific.

As southern Australia continues to recover from the destruction of the 2019-2020 ‘Black Summer’ bushfires, towns in Queensland and New South Wales (NSW) have just experienced devastating floods.Some towns have even seen ‘once in 100-year’ floods occur twice in several weeks. In Lismore, an NSW town of nearly 30,000 people, the river rose more than 14 metres in late February, breaching the town’s levees and inundating people’s homes and businesses.

The racist mass shooting at a supermarket in New York state dominated a bloody weekend of gun violence across the United States (US), a scourge that has increased since the pandemic began.While the murder of 10 Black people by an alleged white supremacist teenager in Buffalo captured news headlines, smaller incidents elsewhere embodied how common public shootings have become in America.One person was killed and five others wounded in a shooting Sunday near Los Angeles, where a Chinese immigra

North Korean military medics ramped up the distribution of medicines to fight a growing coronavirus outbreak, state media said on Tuesday, with the number of reported cases of "fever" nearing 1.5 million.Leader Kim Jong-un has ordered nationwide lockdowns to try and slow the spread of the disease through the unvaccinated population, and deployed the military after what he has called a botched response to the outbreak.Hundreds of personnel in camouflage uniforms from the Korean Peopl