Like the leading character in a long-running television series, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has kicked off the latest crisis on the Korean Peninsula with familiar theatrics. After cutting off all communications with South Korea earlier this month, the Kim regime bombed the building in which it had previously hosted South Korean diplomats. It has redeployed troops into demilitarised border areas and issued renewed threats of violence against the South.

By the time COVID-19 reached South Asia, it had already penetrated most other regions of the world. Pakistan was one of the first in the region to be hit. In late February, Shia pilgrims who had come in contact with Chinese pilgrims while visiting holy sites in Iran brought it home with them. Not long after, Indian expatriates visiting from the United States (US) carried the virus to India.

United States (US) President Donald Trump's all-out assault on the United Nations (UN) is doing "lasting damage" to international cooperation as the world faces a range of "existential threats", a former World Health Organization (WHO) chief warned Friday.Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Norwegian prime minister who served as head of the UN health agency from 1998 to 2003, said she was deeply concerned about concerted efforts by populist leaders in the US and elsewhere

The United States (US) finds itself confronting several daunting challenges simultaneously. There is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already claimed nearly 120,000 lives and shows little sign of abating in large swaths of the country.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned Friday of a "new and dangerous phase" of the coronavirus pandemic with people tiring of lockdowns despite the disease's accelerating spread.The warning came as it emerged the virus was present in Italy in December, months before its first confirmed cases and about the same time as the disease was first reported in China.The virus, which has now killed more than 454,000 people and infected 8.4 million people worldwide, is surging in the

Western societies are currently gripped by the ominous idea that we are entering a new cold war, this time between the United States (US) and China. This narrative started coming to the fore as a result of the Sino-American trade dispute, and now the COVID-19 crisis has given it the final nudge to centre stage.

The United States (US) on Thursday questioned China's credibility on reporting fresh coronavirus cases in Beijing and called for neutral observers to assess the extent of the outbreak.China has locked down the capital as it seeks to prevent a second wave of COVID-19, reporting 158 cases since a fresh cluster was detected last week.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an outspoken critic of China, urged greater transparency during talks Wednesday in Hawaii with senior Chinese official Yang Jie

United States (US) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet a top Chinese official in Hawaii Wednesday in the powers' first senior-level talks since tensions skyrocketed over the coronavirus pandemic, reports said.Pompeo will hold talks with senior Chinese foreign policy official Yang Jiechi, The South China Morning Post said, quoting an unnamed source.Politico and CNN also reported on plans for the meeting.

Chinese diplomats have long had a reputation as well-trained, colourless, and cautious professionals who pursue their missions doggedly without attracting much unfavourable attention. But a new crop of younger diplomats is ditching established diplomatic norms in favour of aggressively promoting China’s self-serving COVID-19 narrative.

North Korea criticised Donald Trump in a stinging denunciation of the United States (US) on Friday, the second anniversary of a landmark summit in Singapore where the US president shook hands with leader Kim Jong-un.It was the latest in a series of vitriolic statements from Pyongyang aimed at both Washington and Seoul, and came a day after the North implicitly threatened to disrupt November's election if the US did not stay out of inter-Korean affairs.