THE death toll from three days of heavy rain and flooding in southern Japan rose to 40 on Monday, including 14 who drowned at a riverside nursing home, as rescuers searched for 10 missing people and rain threatened wider areas of the main island of Kyushu, officials said...

AN estimated 13 UK universities, educating around 5 per cent of students in the country, would not be able to survive the coronavirus pandemic lockdown without a Government bailout support, a new report claimed. The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) estimates that long-term losses for the UK’s higher education sector could come in anywhere between 3 billion pounds and 19 billion pounds, with the biggest losses stemming from a fall in international student enrolments – including those from India who ..

AMID global concerns that China delayed giving information regarding the novel coronavirus outbreak, a team of WHO (World Health Organisation) will visit the country next week to investigate the origins of the virus and its spread to human beings. The visit will take place more than six months after the WHO’s Country Office in China picked up a statement from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on cases of ‘viral pneumonia’. ..

DEMOCRATIC presidential candidate and former US Vice-President Joe Biden has said that if he wins the November elections, strengthening America’s strategic relationship with its natural partner India will be a “high priority” for his administration. Biden is challenging incumbent President Donald Trump, a Republican, in the November 3 US presidential election. “India needs to be a partner in the region for our safety’s sake and quite..

THE world surpassed two sobering coronavirus milestones on Sunday -- 5,00,000 confirmed deaths, 10 million confirmed cases -- and hit another high mark for daily new infections as Governments that attempted reopenings continued to backtrack and warn that worse news could be yet to come. Worldwide, there are 10.1 million confirmed cases and over 5,01,000 reported deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University of government reports. About 1 in 4 of those deaths – more than 1,25,000 – have ..

SOUTH-EAST Asian leaders said a 1982 UN oceans treaty should be the basis of sovereign rights and entitlements in the South China Sea, in one of their strongest remarks opposing China’s claim to virtually the entire disputed waters on historical grounds...

A SMALL-SCALE miner in Tanzania has become an overnight millionaire after unearthing two of the biggest rough tanzanite gemstones ever found. Tanzania’s Government bought the book-sized stones weighing 20 pounds (9 kg) and 11 pounds (5 kg) from miner Saniniu Laizer for USD 3.4 million. Minerals Minister Doto Biteko said on television Wed..

IN A landmark development, China has lost a dispute to the European Union at the World Trade Organization (WTO) for a market economy status, as the former allowed the dispute to lapse. The development comes after four years of battle for the market-economy status by China. The designation would have put the country in a stronger position in respect of its commercial and trade partners. A note by the WTO Secretariat said China allowed the dispute to lapse...

THE US is “closely monitoring” the situation following a fierce clash between Indian and Chinese forces in eastern Ladakh, and hopes that the differences will be resolved peacefully, a senior State Department official has said. Twenty Indian Army personnel, including a Colonel, were killed in the clash with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley on Monday night, the biggest military confrontation in over five decades that has significantly escalated the already volatile border stand-off between the two ..

 SEATTLE  ANelderlymanwhobattledcoronavirus for 62 days at a hospital in the US has been handed over a staggering 181-page bill of $1.1 million (nearly Rs 8 crore). Michael Flor, 70, who became the longest-hospitalised COVID19 patient at Swedish Medical Centerin Issaquah, a city inKing County, Washington State, and survived, knew the bill would be a hefty one but looking at 181- page long bill left him in shock. He came so close to death in the spring that a nurse held a phone ..

OVER 5,000 mourners from across the US, wearing face masks and gloves, lined up outside a church here to pay their final respects to African-American George Floyd, whose custodial killing stoked widespread protests in America and other countries over racial injustice. Floyd died in Minneapolis on May 25 after white police officer Derek Chauvin handcuffed and pinned him to the ground, and knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes while the 46-year-old from Houston gasped for breath. The footage, ..

FACEBOOK has removed nearly 200 social media accounts linked to white supremacy groups that planned to encourage members to attend protests over police killings of black people — in some cases with weapons, company officials said Friday. The accounts on Facebook and Instagram were tied to the Proud Boys and the American Guard, t..

THROUGHOUT January, the World Health Organisation publicly praised China for what it called a speedy response to the new coronavirus and thanked the Chinese Government for sharing the genetic map of the virus “immediately,.” But in fact, Chinese officials sat on releasing the genetic map, or genome, of the deadly virus for over a week after multiple Government labs had fully decoded it, not sharing details key to designing tests, drugs and vaccines. Strict controls on information and competition within ..

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump on Friday said that America is terminating its relationship with the World Health Organisation as he blamed it and China for the deaths and destruction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe. Stating that the funding of the WHO would now be diverted to other global public health organisations, Trump announced a series of decisions against China including issuing proclamation to deny entry to certain Chinese..

A MONOLITHIC sandstone Shiv Linga from the ninth-century was discovered during an on-going conservation project in the Cham Temple Complex in Vietnam -- over 5,000 kilometers from here. The Archeological Survey of India (ASI) has undertaken several major conservation works across various countries of Asia, including the My Son Temple in Vietnam...

FOR the first time,Twitter put a warning labelunder two posts by Donald Trump , prompting the US President to accusethepop-ular social media platform of“ interfering”in the presidential election scheduled in November.Twitter highlighted two ofTrump’s tweets on Tuesday that falsely claimed mail-in ballots would lead to widespread voter fraud in the elections, append-ing amessagethe social mediagiant has introducedrecently tofight mis information or unveri-fied claims.“There is NOWAY (ZERO!) that Main-in ..

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Director-General, said that a clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) on COVID-19 patients has come to “a temporary pause”, while the safety data of the the anti-malaria drug was being reviewed. According to the WHO chief, ‘The Lancet’ medical journal on May 22 had published an observational study on HCQ and chloroquine and its effects on COVID-19 patients that have been hospitalised, reports Xinhua news agency. The authors of the ..

NEW coronavirus cases dropped to zero in China for the first time on Saturday but overwhelmed hospitals across Latin America – both in countries lax about lockdowns and those lauded for firm, early confinement. The virus hit a reopened church in Germany and possibly a restaurant, too. The pandemic’s persistence stymied authorities struggling to keep people safe and revive their economies at the same time, disrupting the Memorial Day weekend in the United States and collective celebrations around the ..

TWO sets of Indian-origin siblings dominate the annual tally of Britain’s wealthiest as the Hinduja and Reuben brothers share the second spot with a fortune of 16 billion pounds each, while British inventor-entrepreneur James Dyson tops ‘The Sunday Times Rich List 2020’ with 16.2 billion pounds. Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja, who run the Hinduja Group of companies, lost 6 billion pounds to slip from the top slot in last year’s list. Mumbai-born David and Simon Reuben lost 2.66 billion pounds over ..

THE World Bank on Friday approved a USD 1 billion loan to support India’s efforts for providing social assistance to the poor and vulnerable households, severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The “Accelerating India’s COVID-19 Social Protection Response Programme” will support the Government’s efforts towards a more consolidated delivery platform – accessible to both rural and urban populations across state boundaries. This takes the total commitment from the World Bank towards emergency COVID-19 ..

THE global death toll from the novel coronavirus has reached 3,00,000, mark with over 4.42 million cases of infections, according to the Johns Hopkins University. Some 1.58 million people have also been cured of the illness, as per US-based tracker. As of 4 am Friday, the number of people infected globally stands at 4,426,937 with at least 301,370 deaths reported. The United States has the highest case count in the world, 1,413,012, including 85,581 fatalities...

BRITISH Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a COVID-19 survivor, has warned that a mass vaccine for the highly contagious disease may be over a year away and may in fact never be found. In his foreword to the Government’s new 50-page guidance on a step by step easing of the lockdown measures in place to control the spread of the deadly virus, the UK Prime Minister lays out plans for businesses to gradually start reopening with“COVID-19 Secure” measures of social distancing and for the public to use“good ..

A TWO-WEEK course of antiviral therapy that combines the power of three drugs has shown promise in treating hospitalised patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 in a carefully undertaken phase 2 clinical trial. The results of the trial, published in the journal The Lancet, involved 127 adults from six public hospitals in Hong Kong. The drug combination tested in the trial included -- interferon beta-1b which was developed to treat multiple sclerosis (MS), lopinavir-ritonavir which is normally used ..

RESEARCHERS studying the structure of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 have found a unique feature in the virus that could explain its high transmissibility between people, an advance that may help develop new drugs against the disease. The study, published in the Journal of Molecular Biology, identifies a structural loop in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, an area of the virus that facilitates its entry into cells. In this loop, the researchers, including those from Cornell University in the ..

ISRAELI Defence Minister Naftali Bennett has said that scientists at the country’s main biological research institute has made a “significant breakthrough” in developing an antibody to the novel coronavirus, as the researchers wrapped up the development phase and moved to patent and mass produce the potential treatment. Bennett visited the labs of the Israel’s Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), supervised by the Prime Minister’s Office and mandated to develop a..

NASA’s first Mars helicopter has a name now and the credit goes to 17-year-old Indian-origin girl Vaneeza Rupani. Rupani, a high school junior from Northport, Alabama, earned the honour of naming the helicopter after she submitted her essay into NASA’s “Name the Rover” contest. Destined to become the first aircraft to attempt powered flight on another planet, NASA’s Mars Helicopter officially named: Ingenuity, as suggested by Rupani. While NASA announced in March that its next rover would be named ..

AFTER more than three months of an arduous fight, Wuhan, the city located at the heart of China and epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, has cleared all remaining cases related to the deadly infection in its hospitals, health authorities told Xinhua news agency on Sunday. This came as a 77-year-old man surnamed Ding tested negative for the second time for coronavirus in the capital city of Hubei province. He no longer had clinical symptoms and was able to be discharged, an official with Wuhan Municipal ..

STEPHEN Hawking, one of the world’s best-known physicists, has left behind 16.3 million pounds in a will which he signed with a thumbprint due to his motor neuron disease. Hawking, who died in Cambridge aged 76 in 2018, put the large fortune in a trust fund for his three children and three grandchildren and also bequeathed 10,000 pounds to his loyal personal assistant Judith Croasdell, 71, according to a report in ‘The Sun’ newspaper. A legal note to go with the will notes: “Signed with his ‘mark’ ..

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday said that the COVID-19 crisis will not end any time soon, with several countries only in the initial stages of the fight against the virus. “Make no mistake, we have a long way to go. Coronavirus will be with us for a long time. There is no question that stay at home orders and other physical distancing measures have successfully suppressed transmission in many countries,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press conference. “Most countries ..

PHILANTHROPIST and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has commended Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership and his Government’s “proactive measures” such as lockdown and expansion of focused testing in combating the COVID-19 pandemic in India...

TEDROS Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), warned that “the worst is yet ahead of us” in the coronavirus pandemic that has infected millions and killed thousands across the globe. Addressing the media here on Monday, the WHO chief said: “Trust us. The worst is yet ahead of us... Let’s prevent this tragedy. It’s a virus that many people still don’t understand,” the ‘Evening Standard’ newspaper reported. “There is no secret in WHO because keeping things confidential ..

THE US wants to send a team of experts to China to investigate the coronavirus, President Donald Trump has said, a day after he warned Beijing of “consequences” if it was knowingly responsible for the spread of COVID-19 which has killed more than 165,000 people globally, including over 41,000 in America. Describing the coronavirus as a plague, Trump, during his White House news conference on Sunday, said that he is not happy with China where the pandemic emerged in December last year in the central ..

SWITZERLAND has expressed solidarity with India in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic by projecting the tricolour on the famous Matterhorn mountain in the SwissAlps to give“hope and strength” to all Indians. Swiss light artist Gerry Hofstetter has been lighting up the 4,478-meter pyramidal peak straddling between Switzerland and Italy with spectacular displays of flags of different countries and messages of hope as part of a nightly series supporting the nations combating the deadly COVID-19 ..

SOCIAL distancing measures such as restrictions on public gatherings may have to remain in place intermittently for at least a couple of more years to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the absence of vaccine against the virus or dramatic increase in critical care capacities, researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health have warned. These tough measures which have already pushed the world economy into recession may be necessary because the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes ..

SCIENTISTS have discovered six new coronaviruses in bats in Myanmar -- the first time these viruses have been found anywhere in the world. The findings, published in the journal PLOS ONE, will help understand the diversity of coronaviruses in bats and inform global efforts to detect, prevent and respond to infectious diseases that may threaten public health, particularly in light of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. According to the researchers from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology ..