The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that the second stage of an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 should include further studies in China and lab audits.In a closed-door briefing to member states, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus proposed five priorities for the next phase of the investigation.They included "audits of relevant laboratories and research institutions operating in the area of the initial human cases identified in December 2019", according to

Afghanistan is on the brink of catastrophe, and it is United States (US) President Joe Biden’s fault. By overruling America’s top generals and ordering the hasty withdrawal of US troops, Biden opened the way for Taliban terrorists to capture more than a quarter of Afghanistan’s districts. Now, the Taliban is pushing toward Kabul, and the US is looking weaker than ever.

Scuttled listings and share prices hammered by official threats: Beijing has launched a withering and very public assault on some of China's biggest tech names.The travails of ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing this week carried a cautionary tale for digital big hitters: what goes up, can come down...

Nations across the globe hit new pandemic highs and reimposed COVID-19 restrictions on Saturday as G20 finance ministers meeting in Venice warned the economic recovery was threatened by variants and uneven vaccination campaigns.The highly transmissible Delta variant, first detected in India, is sweeping the world as countries race to inoculate their populations to ward off fresh outbreaks and allow for economies and daily life to resume."The recovery is characterised by great divergences

The Taliban has claimed to be in control of 85 percent of Afghanistan as authorities Saturday prepared to retake a key border crossing seized by the insurgents in a sweeping offensive launched as United States (US) troops pull out of the war-torn nation.Hours after President Joe Biden issued a staunch defence of the US withdrawal on Thursday, the Taliban said its fighters had seized two crossings in western Afghanistan – completing an arc of territory from the Iranian border to the frontier w

More than four million people have now died from COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, as many rich nations prepare to loosen restrictions even as countries in Asia battle surging infections.Millions are facing new lockdowns across Asia and Indonesia has emerged as a global hotspot with death rates rising tenfold in a month to a record 1,040 on Wednesday."The world is at a perilous point in this pandemic," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, calling

The United States (US) began sending Vietnam two million doses of COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday, the White House said, in its latest assistance to countries struggling to tame the pandemic.The Moderna vaccine shipment – part of a first 80 million doses that President Joe Biden has pledged to allocate worldwide – should arrive in Vietnam this weekend, a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. "This is just the beginning of doses being shipped to Southeast Asia

President Joe Biden celebrated United States (US) Independence Day on Sunday with an upbeat assessment of a country he said is roaring back to post-pandemic life, even if COVID-19 has yet to be fully "vanquished."Speaking before a festive crowd of 1,000 guests on the White House South Lawn, Biden drew a comparison between the declaration of independence from the British Empire in 1776 and today's rapid recovery from the coronavirus."Two hundred and forty-five years ago, we

On 1 July, the Communist Party of China (CPC) celebrated its centenary anniversary.

Two astronauts conducted China's first tandem spacewalk on Sunday, working on the outside of their nation's new Tiangong station in orbit around Earth.Three Chinese astronauts blasted off in June, docking at the space station where they are to remain for three months in China's longest crewed mission to date.On Sunday morning, two of them exited the core module, said the China Manned Space Agency.The first, Liu Boming, was transported with help from a mechanical arm to a work s