World

The death toll from the eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Semeru volcano rose to 34 on Tuesday, the national disaster agency said, as aid was rushed to the affected region. The biggest mountain on the island of Java on Saturday ejected a mushroom of volcanic ash high into the sky and …

While travel stopped and the world locked down, in the dazzling blue waters of Thailand’s idyllic Phi Phi islands, a gentle renaissance was underway. Mass tourism had brought the archipelago, immortalized in Leonardo DiCaprio movie “The Beach”, to the brink of ecological catastrophe. Now Thailand hopes to make Phi Phi …

The United States will not send government officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics, the White House said on Monday, after Beijing threatened unspecified “countermeasures” against any diplomatic boycott. President Joe Biden said last month that he was considering such a boycott amid criticism of China’s human rights record, including what …

Covid treatments using plasma taken from the blood of recovered coronavirus patients should not be given to people with mild or moderate illness, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. Convalescent plasma showed some early promise when given intravenously to people sick with Covid-19. But in advice published in the British …

Thailand has detected its first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in a U.S. citizen who had traveled to the country from Spain late last month, a health official said on Monday. The confirmed case in the man, who had arrived on Nov. 29, makes Thailand the 47th country to …

Asian markets broadly fell in morning trading Monday, tracking uncertainty over the Omicron variant of Covid-19 as well as disappointing U.S. jobs data and the future of Chinese tech firms on Wall Street. The Omicron variant has been detected in 38 countries but no deaths have yet been reported, with …

Vietnam will pay more attention to its monetary policy as it is not only a domestic matter but a concern for the country’s big trade partners, a central bank deputy governor said on Sunday, days after the U.S. Treasury’s semi-annual currency report. The U.S. Treasury report on Friday said that …

China’s factory activity unexpectedly picked up in November, growing for the first time in three months as raw material prices fell and power rationing abated. The official manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) was at 50.1 in November, up from 49.2 in October, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) …

Oil prices rose on Nov. 19 after wild swings the day before, as investors bet that potential coordinated releases by major economies may have less impact on markets than expected. Brent crude was up 73 cents, or 0.9 per cent, at US$81.97 a barrel by 7.03am GMT (3.03pm, Singapore time), …

More than 50,000 pilgrims were at the Huong Son complex in Hanoi Sunday, overwhelming roads and cable cars. Tens of thousands of devout Vietnamese flocked to the Huong Son complex on Sunday, the first day of the Huong Pagoda festival. The Huong Pagoda, in Huong Son Commune, Hanoi’s rural district …