AUCKLAND (New Zealand): Naomi Osaka retired from the final of the Auckland Classic due to an abdominal injury yesterday, just a week shy before the Australian Open. In her first WTA final in three years, Osaka won the opening set 6-4 against Denmark’s Clara Tauson before calling for a physio.
FOLK legend Neil Young has pulled out of this year’s Glastonbury music festival, alleging it has fallen under “the corporate control” of its partner, the BBC. The 79-year-old musician, who was once one of the line-up of the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, said he had been “looking forward
SEOUL: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit South Korea for talks next week, the two countries announced on Friday, with Seoul mired in political turmoil as its impeached president resists arrest. Blinken, on what will likely be his last international trip before president-elect Donald Trump’s return, will also visit Japan and France,
Kyiv: At least five people were killed in a series of Russian and Ukrainian strikes on Friday, officials said, the latest casualties of the nearly three-year war. Among the strikes was an afternoon Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Chernigiv, which left at least one person dead and
KUTA: Hundreds of volunteers joined a cleanup in Bali, Indonesia, yesterday as monsoon rains brought what an activist described as “the worst” waves of plastic waste to hit its tourist-favoured beaches. The Southeast Asian nation is one of the world’s biggest contributors of plastic pollution and marine debris, with annual
Tokyo: The world’s oldest person, Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka, has died aged 116, the city where she lived, Ashiya, announced yesterday. Itooka, who had four children and five grandchildren, died on December 29 at a nursing home where she resided since 2019, the southern city’s mayor said in a statement.
SHANGHAI (China): Leading Chinese electric car maker BYD’s vehicle sales surged in 2024, the company said in a statement, as the firm grows its overseas presence. The EV and battery giant is the most prominent of Chinese automotive firms expanding abroad – plans that are increasingly threatened by thorny trade
Wildly popular with young people for their dizzying array of flavours, including apple, watermelon and cola, the time is up for disposable e-cigarettes in Belgium — the first EU country to ban them. From January 1 this year it will be forbidden to sell single-use vapes in Belgium, a bid
Seven out of 10 UK family doctors are worn out and suffering from “compassion fatigue”, finding it hard to empathise with their patients, a poll published on Friday said. The survey of 1,855 doctors across the UK carried out by the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland showed a
Greece on Monday announced a campaign to protect teens from “website addiction” after a similar move by Australia targeting social media companies last month. Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said his government would introduce a “step-by-step” national strategy to inform parents and children, and encourage social media firms to “show