Region

The World Bank announced Saturday a new program to mobilize funds quickly against virulent disease outbreaks after the world was caught unprepared in the 2014 Ebola disaster in West Africa. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said the new Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) will accelerate global and national responses to disease outbreaks that threaten […]

Global leaders and key NGOs gather in Istanbul on Monday for an unprecedented UN-backed summit aimed at transforming the world’s response to humanitarian crises, despite scepticism the talks will have little impact. With an estimated 60 million people displaced around the world and conflict and climate change posing a growing risk, there is widespread agreement […]

They fled hardship and war only to find misery and squalor, but migrants who met a gruesome end in northern France hoping to reach England are finally getting a touch of dignity in death. More than 30 people have perished since June last year in and around the vast, infamous camp known as the “Jungle” […]

Doctors treating Thailand’s hospital-bound monarch Bhumibol Adulyadej have drained excess fluid from his spinal cord and brain, the palace said in a statement late Friday. The king, 88, is the object of an intense personality cult and his frail health is a subject of significant public concern. The wheelchair bound monarch has spent most of […]

Donald Trump’s inflammatory presidential campaign and the prospect of the brash-talking tycoon actually becoming commander-in-chief has left progressive Americans obsessing about one thing: moving to Canada. Stars from Cher to Lena Dunham have declared their intention to head north if the former reality star, famous for insulting Muslims and Mexicans, and under the microscope for […]

Dozens of lawsuits brought against former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou reopened Saturday as his presidential immunity lapsed after the island swore in its new leader. Ma left the presidential office Friday as Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took the reins as the island’s first female leader, after winning a landslide victory in […]

Cyclone Roanu was poised to make landfall in southern Bangladesh Saturday, as strong winds and heavy downpours unleashed by the storm left five people dead and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes. Officials said the cyclone was expected to hit the Bangladesh coast around 12:00 pm local time (0600 GMT) packing winds of […]

The Zika virus strain linked to surging cases of neurological disorders and birth defects in Latin America has now been found in Africa, health officials said Friday, as the first fatality on French territory was reported on the Caribbean island of Martinique. The World Health Organization announced that the strain of Zika circulating in Cape […]

JERUSALEM: “He’s a magician, he’s a magician,” the partisan crowd chanted as a beaming Benjamin Netanyahu strode into his party headquarters a little over a year ago to declare a come-from-behind victory in Israel’s election. Now, with the expected entry into his right-wing government of ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman as defense minister, it looks like Netanyahu, […]

BRUSSELS: NATO will on Thursday consider a bigger role for the alliance in Libya to help a new unity government push back the growing Islamic State threat, but some allies want the focus to be on a naval mission to stop refugees teeming into Europe. Just three days after world powers met in Vienna to […]