LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday defied pressure from within his own party and backed top aide Dominic Cummings over allegations he breached coronavirus lockdown rules. Cummings has been a highly divisive figure in British politics since masterminding the successful 2016 Brexit campaign alongside Johnson. But Johnson rejected
MOSCOW: An alligator who survived a bombing raid on the Berlin zoo in 1943 and found himself east of the iron curtain after World War II has died of old age at 84, the Moscow Zoo said. Saturn’s demise marked the “end of an era”, the zoo said in a
HONG KONG: Most Asian markets rose Monday as a further opening up of economies from lockdown offset worries over worsening China-US tensions, while Hong Kong sank again after the city was rocked by protests at the weekend over a controversial proposed security law. While Donald Trump has limited travel from
BEIJING: China said Sunday that its relations with the United States were “on the brink of a new Cold War”, fuelled partly by tensions over the coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly 350,000 people worldwide and pitched the global economy into a massive downturn. Fresh tensions between Beijing and Washington
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia: Muslims around the world began marking a sombre Eid al-Fitr Sunday, many under coronavirus lockdown, but lax restrictions offer respite to worshippers in some countries despite fears of skyrocketing infections. The festival, one of the most important in the Muslim calendar marking the end of the holy
NAKHON PATHOM, Thailand: Smearing clay mixed with the dust of cremated bodies onto the base of a figurine, a Thai Buddhist monk chants incantations to invite lucky spirits into a relic dubbed the “Golden Son”. Thailand is overwhelmingly Buddhist but beliefs are entwined with strains of animism and superstition, especially
TOKYO: Forty years ago, a new video game featuring a bright yellow, dot-chomping, ghost-dodging character called Pac-Man appeared in Tokyo. It would become the most successful arcade game of all time. The hero — shaped like a mouth opening and closing — races around a maze noisily gobbling dots and
DARBHANGA, India: A 15-year-old girl who pedalled her injured migrant-worker father more than a thousand kilometres across India after a coronavirus lockdown left them destitute has been invited to try out for the national cycling team. Jyoti Kumari rode a bicycle with her father, Mohan Paswan, sitting on the pillion
SINGAPORE: A Singapore quiz contestant has been handed a cash prize following a row with a radio station over his pronunciation of Spandau Ballet star Tony Hadley’s name — after the singer intervened. Railway worker Muhammad Shalehan took part in the competition on popular Singapore station Gold 905, in which
KARACHI, Pakistan: One of the two people to survive a plane crash in Pakistan that killed 97 people has described jumping from the burning wreckage of the aircraft after it hurtled into a residential neighbourhood. The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane came down among houses on Friday after both engines