It’s August and 38C outside a greenhouse on a fruit farm in suburban Nanjing, China. Inside the farmhouse, customers sample organic grapes and peaches. Ms. Wang, who owns the farm, carefully lifts the cover off a large bin of earthworms. She is raising thousands of them to produce organic fertilizer for her farm. Wang is […]
A comic strip is making rounds on the internet showing how famous tragedies of William Shakespeare would have ended differently if characters had “stayed home”. In the now-viral comic strip, famous tragedy dramas, including King Lear, Hamlet, Antony & Cleopatra, goes through interesting plot twists as many lead characters can be seen following social distancing norms. Take […]
My mother is a sparrow. Humble, small. Muted of colour and quick to dart away for cover at attention. She fades into the underbrush with a flit of a wing, a whisper of a rustle … then nothing, leaving in her wake just a feeling of warmth at catching in action something so typically below […]
The United States has offered up to $10m for information on Hezbollah commander Sheikh Mohammad al-Kawtharani, who was an associate of slain Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Kawtharani was branded a “global terrorist” by the US in 2013, accused of funding armed groups in Iraq and helping transport Iraqi fighters to Syria to join President Bashar al-Assad’s effort […]
Lifting coronavirus lockdown measures too early could spark a “deadly resurgence” in infections, the World Health Organization chief has warned. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said countries should be cautious about easing restrictions, even as some struggle with the economic impact. Europe’s worst hit countries, Spain and Italy, are both relaxing some measures, while their lockdowns […]
The confirmed death toll from the new coronavirus has exceeded 100,000 worldwide, as the United Nations’ global health agency – the World Health Organization – warned governments against rolling back measures introduced to curb the spread of the pandemic. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday the agency would like to see an easing, […]
At the UN Security Council’s virtual meeting on the coronavirus pandemic late on Thursday, the United States called for “science-based data collection and analysis of the origins, characteristics and spread of the virus”. “We cannot stress enough how important these methods are,” Ambassador Kelly Kraft told the security council at its first closed-door meeting to discuss […]
Singapore had been a master class in how to handle the Covid-19 outbreak. Before the disease even had a name, the country had stringent travel restrictions and an efficient contact-tracing operation which contained the virus’s spread. But in recent days, the number of confirmed cases has rocketed. Thursday brought the highest day of new infections […]
Spain is close to passing the worst of its coronavirus outbreak, the prime minister said, as parliament debated extending the national state of emergency. “The fire starts to come under control,” PM Pedro Sánchez told MPs in Madrid, saying the country would have “total victory” over the virus. Spain has Europe’s highest number of confirmed […]
Once the largest outbreak outside of China, South Korea has now managed to push the number of cases confirmed each day to around 50. Swift action and free or affordable mass-testing have been the country’s most effective weapons in countering the virus. But South Korea has also turned to technology for help. Routes taken by […]