A volcanic ash cloud was blasted by lightning during an eruption on Thursday, lighting up the Japanese night sky with a show of bright orange lava and white-hot electrical bolts. The fearsome Sakurajima, an active volcano in Kagoshima prefecture, erupted this week with a lightning storm breaking out above it. This is not, however, the […]
GHAZNI, AFGHANISTAN (AFP) – At least 15 children were killed when a motorbike laden with explosives blew up near a religious gathering in eastern Afghanistan on Friday (Dec 18), officials said. The children had gathered at a home in Ghazni province to recite Quran verses, a regular activity on the Islamic holy day of Friday, […]
NEW DELHI – Malnutrition appears to be deepening in a worrying trend for the South Asian country, already home to the highest number of malnourished children in the world. According to the recently released findings of the National Family Health Survey 2019-2020, conducted before the pandemic, over a dozen out of 22 states surveyed recorded […]
FILE PHOTO: The skyline with its financial district is photographed during sunset as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Frankfurt, Germany, October 26, 2020, REUTERS/Kai PfaffenbachBERLIN (Reuters) – German business morale rose unexpectedly in December even as Europe’s biggest economy went into a strict lockdown to contain a second wave of coronavirus […]
SINGAPORE – The year started off on a grim note, but it looks like 2020 will end with some good news: Mass Covid-19 inoculations have started to take off, fuelling hopes that the pandemic can finally be reined in. Several health regulators have cleared Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, while Moderna’s is on the […]
As China intensified its clampdown on independent reporting, the authorities detained a journalist who recently worked on books that were critical of Communism and the Chinese Communist Party, the journalist’s friends and family said on Friday. The journalist, Du Bin, 48, was detained on Wednesday by police officers in Beijing, said his sister, Du Jirong. […]
SINGAPORE – Residents of Block 202 Clementi Avenue 6 will now be notified on their mobile phones of new mail and can collect it with a touch of their phone screens during a year-long trial. All they have to do is to launch the SingPost app on their phones to generate a QR code. They can […]
WUHAN, China (REUTERS) – In late 2019, Wuhan businesswoman Duan Ling and her surgeon husband Fang Yushun began to hear snippets in hospital chat groups about a disease emerging in the city’s respiratory wards. Ms Duan didn’t pay much attention at first. Dr Fang had that year returned from a stint studying in the United […]
TOKYO (Reuters) – The Bank of Japan on Friday unveiled a plan to probe more effective ways to achieve its 2% inflation target, following in the foot steps of its U.S. and European counterparts as a renewed spike in infections threatened to derail a fragile recovery.FILE PHOTO: A man wearing a protective mask walks past […]
BANGKOK (BLOOMBERG) – Thailand is easing travel restrictions on visitors from 56 countries, including Singapore, Japan and the United States, ahead of the peak holiday season to boost the nation’s ailing tourism sector. Tourists are allowed to enter Thailand without prior visas but will need to carry a health certificate to prove they are free […]