This week, Russia officially recognized the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.

French pharmaceuticals giant Sanofi said Wednesday that its COVID-19 vaccine, developed with Britain's GSK, had delivered positive results after nearly a year of delays left it lagging far behind its rivals.The two drugmakers said they will "seek regulatory authorisation" for their vaccine in the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) following phase 3 trials involving thousands of people.The trials indicated that the vaccine was 100 percent effective against severe COV

Putin has sent soldiers on a ‘peacekeeping mission’ but is likely to threaten Ukraine with a broader war.What Has Vladimir Putin Ordered?The Russian president has recognised the independence of two Russian-controlled territories in east Ukraine. They call themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. The territories have been armed, financed and politically controlled by Russia since 2014.

When Deng Xiaoping launched China’s strategy of “reform and opening up” in 1978, economists in the West had their doubts. In their view, a vibrant market economy was fundamentally incompatible with China’s authoritarian political system. But many in the East – including Koreans like me, who witnessed the East Asian miracle while living under developmental dictatorship – were hopeful.

The current military standoff in Ukraine somewhat mirrors one of the most frightening and nerve-wracking episodes of the Cold War, and that’s the “Cuban Missile Crisis” where leaders of the United States (US) and the Soviet Union was engaged in a tense and stressful 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba just 90 miles from US shores. The US then was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize

Having COVID-19 puts people at a significantly increased chance of developing new mental health conditions, potentially adding to existing crises of suicide and overdoses, according to new research looking at millions of health records in the United States (US) over the course of a year.The long-term effects of having COVID are still being discovered, and among them is an increased chance of being diagnosed with mental health disorders.

The world's biggest economies are committed to taking a careful approach to unwinding support introduced during the coronavirus pandemic, Indonesia said Friday at a meeting of G20 finance chiefs.Some central banks, including in the United States (US), are moving towards hiking rates and withdrawing stimulus as economies rebound strongly from COVID-induced downturns and inflation surges.But there are concerns that aggressive policy tightening could knock a fragile recovery off course, and

In Seize the Hour, her excellent book about the first meeting between United States (US) President Richard Nixon and Communist Party of China (CPC) Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing, the historian Margaret MacMillan enumerated some of the profound implications of this extraordinary encounter. The meeting, which took place 50 years ago this month, ended a long political standoff between the United States and communist China, and marked the beginning of a new geopolitical era.

Much of the democratic world would like the United States (US) to remain the preeminent global power. But with the US apparently committed to strategic overreach, that outcome risks becoming unlikely. The problem with America’s global leadership begins at home. Hyper-partisan politics and profound polarization are eroding American democracy and impeding the pursuit of long-term objectives.

United States (US) Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts declared their unity on confronting security threats in the Asia-Pacific Saturday, even as Washington was intensely occupied by the possibility of war in Eastern Europe.Blinken, South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong, and Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa met in Honolulu for a day of talks focused on North Korea's nuclear threat as well as the China challenge.Washington org