World

As clocks struck 9 p.m. this week, customers packed up and left restaurants and other eateries across South Korea as a reimposed curfew designed to help stem a surge in coronavirus infections sparks fears of economic disaster for some businesses. Last week authorities announced a series of social distancing measures …

The fast-spreading Omicron variant is now the dominant strain of Covid-19 in the United States, health authorities reported Monday, as the WHO called for greater efforts to ensure the pandemic ends next year. The new variant has helped fuel record case surges, forcing a return to harsh restrictions in some …

After moving to the north of Vietnam’s Paracel Islands, Rai, once a super typhoon, has turned into a tropical depression. According to the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, the center of the depression lay 180 km south of China’s Hainan Island at 10 p.m. Monday with the strongest wind speed …

Australia must move past “the heavy hand of government” and authorities must stop shutting down people’s lives with Covid-19 lockdowns, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday, as daily infections in the country shot up to a new pandemic high. Covid-9 cases have been breaking records over the last several …

More than 300 people have been in killed by a powerful typhoon in the Philippines that destroyed homes, flooded towns, severed power and communications lines and displaced hundreds of thousands in its central and southern regions. Military airplanes and naval vessels were dispatched on Monday to carry aid to areas …

The Health Ministry confirmed 14,966 new local Covid-19 cases Monday, down 1,127 cases from the previous day, pushing the ongoing wave’s tally to 1,549,032. The three localities with the highest number of new cases were Hanoi with 1,612 cases, Ben Tre with 985 cases, and Ca Mau with 967 cases. …

Israel’s prime minister on Sunday called on parents to vaccinate their children against the coronavirus as the new omicron variant showed signs of spreading, while authorities prepared to expand a travel ban to include the U.S. In a prime-time televised address, Naftali Bennett said the number of cases of the …

Functional forces have seized 50 kilos of synthetic drugs from a truck disguised as a vehicle transporting eels from Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh City. As the truck entered Binh Dien wholesale market in HCMC’s District 8 early Monday, it was stopped for inspection by a special force comprising the …

The E.U.’s drug regulator will decide Monday whether to approve a Covid jab by Novavax, which uses a more conventional technology that the U.S. biotech firm hopes will reduce vaccine hesitancy. Novavax’s jab, a protein-based vaccine of the kind used around the world to protect against many childhood illnesses, would …

Typhoon Rai has moved closer to the Hoang Sa Peninsula (Paracel Islands) off Vietnam’s central coast after changing direction from northward to north-northeastward. At 7 a.m. Monday it was centered west of the Paracels and packed wind speeds of 90-120 kph, according to the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting. In …