World

In a week by Monday, Hanoi had recorded 670 severe Covid-19 patients, up 3.5 percent against the week before. Of those patients, 33 rely on high-flow nasal cannula oxygen, up 25.5 percent, 58 use invasive mechanical ventilation, an increase of 21.6 percent, while 25 use non-invasive ventilation, up 27.7 percent, …

Hanoi has recorded its first Covid-19 community transmission case with the Omicron variant, authorities announced Wednesday. Vu Cao Cuong, deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Health, said the capital’s first Omicron community transmission case, a holtel employee, has made contact with foreign entrants infected with the variant. The employee …

Business investment commitments into Singapore dropped about 31 percent last year, marking the first decline in five years and after hitting a more than decade high in 2020, government data showed on Wednesday. Commitments for investments in fixed assets such as facilities, machinery and other equipment shrank to S$11.8 billion …

Hong Kong may only reopen in early 2024 because of its stringent Covid-19 policies, which could trigger an exodus of foreign firms and staff and jeopardise its role as a financial hub, the city’s European Chamber of Commerce said in a draft report. The limited effectiveness of locally developed vaccines …

The Airports Corporation of Vietnam has said Long Thanh, the country’s biggest airport, will be completed six months earlier than originally scheduled. Lai Xuan Thanh, the company’s chairman, said almost all the land needed for the airport – in Dong Nai Province next to Ho Chi Minh City – has …

South Korea’s daily new coronavirus cases exceeded 13,000 for the first time, data showed on Wednesday, while the government sought to revise its Covid-19 response to focus on the highly contagious but less-lethal Omicron variant. The record of 13,012 comes just a day after the tally topped 8,000 for the …

Japan’s justice minister on Tuesday ordered the immigration agency to investigate violent workplace abuse allegedly suffered by a Vietnamese intern. A video appearing to show the man being punched, kicked and battered with a stick by his co-workers at a construction company sparked outrage after it was released by the …

A devil-horned newt, drought-resilient bamboo and a monkey named after a volcano were among 224 new species discovered in the Greater Mekong region in 2020. The discoveries listed in a report Wednesday by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) include a new rock gecko found in Thailand, a mulberry tree species …

Two years after Japan locked down its borders to block the coronavirus, some 150,000 foreign students still aren’t able to enter the country, left in limbo by a policy that has disrupted lives and caused headaches for universities and businesses. The absence of the foreign students and researchers is being …

Indonesia and Singapore signed on Tuesday a bilateral extradition agreement, a move that Jakarta expects to help authorities in their effort to bring to justice people accused of stashing offshore billions of dollars in state money. Senior cabinet ministers from both countries also signed bilateral agreements covering airspace and defense …