DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates yesterday granted emergency approval for use of a coronavirus vaccine, six weeks after human trials in the Gulf Arab state started. A phase III trial of a Covid-19 inactivated vaccine developed by Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company Sinopham began in the UAE in July and is […]
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MILAN: A group of scientists sent a formal letter to the Lancet yesterday outlining doubts about the accuracy of early data on Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine, one of the authors said, adding further fuel to a dispute surrounding the “Sputnik-V” shot. Fifteen scientists from five countries signed the letter presenting their […]
WASHINGTON: The US announced on Monday (Sep 14) it would block a range of Chinese products made by “forced labour” in the Xinjiang region, including from a “vocational” centre that it branded a “concentration camp” for Uighur minorities. “The Chinese government is engaged in systematic abuses against the Uighur people” […]
TOKYO: Yoshihide Suga, the man expected to become Japan’s next prime minister, is a farmer’s son with a reputation for inscrutability, who has become a key government adviser, spokesman and policy enforcer. The 71-year-old easily won the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership race today and is all but certain to […]
HONG KONG: Concerns were growing today for the fate of a group of Hong Kongers in mainland custody after a senior Chinese official declared them “separatists” and lawyers were pressured to drop them as clients. Authorities said they intercepted the 12 Hong Kongers trying to flee by boat to Taiwan […]
WASHINGTON: US ambassador to China Terry Branstad is stepping down, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced today, at a time of increasingly strained ties between the world’s two biggest economies. Thanking Branstad for his service, Pompeo said in a tweet that he had “contributed to rebalancing US-China relations so that […]
COPENHAGEN: The World Health Organization (WHO) expects Europe to see a rise in the daily number of COVID-19 deaths in October and November, the head of the body’s European branch told AFP. Cases in Europe have risen sharply in recent weeks, especially in Spain and France. More than 51,000 new […]
SYDNEY: Australia reported its lowest one-day rise in novel coronavirus infections in nearly three months today as authorities began to ease restrictions aimed at slowing its spread. Thirty-nine people were found to be infected with the virus in the past 24 hours, the lowest one-day increase in new cases since […]
TOKYO: Japan’s ruling party today elected chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga as its new leader, making him all but certain to replace Shinzo Abe as the country’s next prime minister. Suga easily won the ballot, taking 377 of a total of 534 valid votes from Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers and […]
MUMBAI: India has recorded 92,071 new cases of the coronavirus, taking total cases to 4.85 million, the federal health ministry said today. The world’s second-most populous country lags only the United States globally in overall number of infections, but it has been reporting more daily cases than the United States […]