World

President Joe Biden speaks about the situation in Myanmar in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, on February 10, 2021. President Joe Biden spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping by phone Wednesday evening for the first time since taking office, according to the White House. According to a White House statement, Biden raised his "fundamental concerns" about Beijing's "coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan." The statement said the two leaders also discussed countering the Covid-19 pandemic, and "the shared challenges of global health security, climate change, and preventing weapons proliferation." Offic...

Myanmar’s internet-savvy younger generation is finding ways around communication blackouts almost as quickly as restrictions are imposed, says a human rights lecturer. SYDNEY: Social media has given us valuable access to the actions of both the military and anti-coup protesters in Myanmar, but a communication blackout may be coming. The country’s military seized control of the government on Feb 1, after the National League for Democracy (NLD) won the general election in a landslide. The opposition-backed army has since detained hundreds of NLD members, including party leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Thousands have taken to the streets in protest, relying heavily on open communication channels to broadcast military abuses from inside and receive support from outside. And activists likely h...

COVID-19 insurance policies are increasingly joining passports and sunscreen as vacation staples, creating opportunities for insurers as more countries require mandatory coverage in case visitors fall ill from the coronavirus. Airline bookings are on the rise in some regions, driving cautious hopes of a revival in summer traffic, but also raising fears among tourist destinations of getting hit with bills should vacationers become stranded by the virus. More than a dozen countries from Aruba to Thailand require COVID-19 coverage for visitors, with Jordan the latest to consider such protections, organisers of an emergency services plan told Reuters. The market for all types of COVID-19 travel coverage is estimated to be between US$30 billion to US$40 billion a year, according to trave...

related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery. 2 related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery. WASHINGTON: U.S. consumer sentiment unexpectedly fell in early February amid growing pessimism about the economy among households with annual incomes below US$75,000, even as the government is poised to deliver another round of COVID-19 relief money. The ebb in sentiment reported by the University of Michigan on Friday was also despite a decline in new coronavirus cases and an improvement in the distribution of vaccines. It underscored the so-called K-shaped recovery, where better-paid workers are doing well while lower-paid workers are losing out. The government provided nearly US$900 billion in additional fiscal stimulus in late...

Despite Europe’s record of regional integration having been recently tarnished by Brexit, the Franco-German partnership — a response to the massive numbers of casualties sustained during the world wars — has been pivotal for the process toward that integration. Their shared vision of achieving lasting peace in the region is a key motivation behind their joint effort to promote European integration. But what about the Asia-Pacific region? It has only a short history of regional integration compared with Europe, but its parallel with the Franco-German relationship is the partnership developed between Japan and Australia, the former war enemies whose relations are now classed as a “Special Strategic Partnership” involving a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) and a defense pact. Looking ba...

President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Wednesday aimed at addressing a global semiconductor chip shortage that has forced U.S. automakers and other manufacturers to cut production and alarmed the White House and members of Congress, administration officials said. The scarcity, exacerbated by the pandemic, will be the subject when Biden meets a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday to discuss the issue. Administration officials said Biden's executive order, to be signed at 4:45 p.m. EST Wednesday, will launch an immediate 100-day review of supply chains for four critical products: semiconductor chips, large-capacity batteries for electric vehicles, rare earth minerals and pharmaceuticals. The order will also direct six sector reviews - modeled after the process use...

HANOI: Vietnam will receive 60 million COVID-19 vaccines this year, including 30 million under the WHO-led COVAX scheme, the health minister said on Friday (Feb 19) as the Southeast Asian country battles its biggest virus outbreak since the pandemic began. Vietnam has been one of the world's virus-mitigation success stories, thanks to targeted mass testing and strict quarantining. Its total number of cases since the coronavirus was first detected in the country more than a year ago stands at 2,347, including imported cases, with 35 deaths. But the new outbreak of the more contagious UK variant of the disease detected in the northern province of Hai Duong last month is Vietnam's biggest pandemic challenge yet, health minister Nguyen Thanh Long told a COVID-19 taskforce meeting. "This...