AFTER the violent June 15 Galwan Valley clashes, India has shown the confidence of standing solo against China in any future border dispute despite the United States’ offer of forming a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad alliance against Beijing, a European-based think tank said. Since the clashes in Eastern Ladakh, several negotiations between India and China have taken place...

IN ANOTHER huge blow to Indian IT professionals eyeing the US job market, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order asking federal agencies to hire Americans and preventing them from contracting or subcontracting foreign workers, mainly those with H-1B visas. ..

ANALYSIS of sediment found in a central Texas cave in the US shows volcanic eruptions responsible for the cooling of the Earth around 13,000 years ago, say researchers. Some researchers believed the event - which cooled the Earth by about 3 degrees Centigrade, a huge amount - was caused by an extraterrestrial impact with the Earth, such as a meteor collision. But the current study, published in the journal ‘Science Advances’, shows the evidence left in layers of sediment in Hall’s Cave was almost ..

US BIOTECHNOLOGY company Moderna’s experimental vaccine to prevent COVID-19 induced robust immune responses and rapidly controlled the novel coronavirus in the upper and lower airways of monkeys exposed to SARS-CoV-2, according to a study...

AN additional 6.7 million children under the age of five across the world could suffer from wasting this year due to the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UNICEF warned on Tuesday. According to the UNICEF, in India, there are still around 20 million children under five years of age who are suffering from wasting. According to the Global Hunger Index 2019, wasting among children in India rose from 16.5 per cent in 2008-2012 to 20.8 per cent in 2014-2018...

THE first batch of eleven members of the minuscule Sikh community from Afghanistan, who have been facing persecution at the hands of Pakistan backed Taliban, arrived in India at 1:20 pm on Sunday in a special flight facilitated by the Government of India...

OVER the years China has remodelled its tactics to wipe out the Muslim Uyghur community. In recent years, the Beijing Government has begun using technology to conduct its own kind of genocide. By putting Xinjiang under a grid management system, China is now able to control every aspect of Uyghur’s life -- religious, familial, cultural and social, the ‘Foreign Policy’ reported. Under the grid management system, the cities and villages are split into squares of about 500 people wherein each square ..

EMIRATIS brimmed with joy and pride as the UAE made history on Monday by successfully launching its spacecraft “Al Amal” towards Mars from a Japanese launch centre, marking the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission. Al Amal, or Hope Probe, weighing 1.3 tonnes was launched from the H-2A rocket from Japan’s remot..

FOUR persons have been arrested in Pakistan’s northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province for vandalising a rare statue of Gautam Buddha discovered during excavation at an agriculture farm, police said on Saturday. The statue that was discovered in tehsil Takhtbai of Mardan district was destroyed on the orders of a local Maulvi (prayer leader), local residents said. Four suspects have been arrested and an FIR under the antiquity act has been filed, police said..

INDIA is emerging as a big competitor to China and New Delhi’s corporate tax rate cuts makes it attractive for investors, according to US President Donald Trump’s top economic advisor. Addressing reporters at the White House on Thursday, Larry Kudlow, head of the National Economic Council, said: “People are losing trust in China and India becomes a big competitor. And if I’m not mistaken India has slashed its corporate tax rate. ..

THE time has come for the world to push back against the challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said as he contended that the US “slept on this threat for too long.” Pompeo also said the Chinese Government was aware of human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus before they shared this information with the world. “Countries not only in Southeast Asia but in Asia more broadly, in Europe, have come to understand the threat that the Chinese Communist Party ..

MARS is about to be invaded by planet Earth — big time. Three countries — the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates — are sending unmanned spacecraft to the red planet in quick succession beginning this week, in the most sweeping effort yet to seek signs of ancient microscopic life while scouting out the place for future astronauts...

TAKING a cue from recent studies that examine COVID-19 transmission by and among children, researchers say that children infrequently transmit COVID-19 to each other or to adults and schools can and should reopen in the fall while adhering to social distancing guidelines. The authors of the commentary published in the journal Pediatrics based their conclusions on a new study published in the current issue of Pediatrics and four other recent studies on kids and COVID-19 tran..

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 ..