India recorded more than 50,000 new coronavirus cases yesterday for the first time since November as a new wave of infections forcing lockdowns and restrictive curbs around the world.

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with tackling an influx of migrants on the Mexican border, aiming to take charge of a situation that has energized opponents of the new administration.

Myanmar security forces fired at pro-democracy activists taking part in street demonstrations yesterday, killing at least four people, news reports said, a day after a nationwide silent strike in protest against last month’s military coup.

A Saudi official yesterday denied he threatened UN investigator Agnes Callamard following her probe into journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s 2018 murder, after the United Nations confirmed she was issued a death threat.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has vowed a new approach to work closer with allies, promising Washington would not force them to take sides against China.

North Korea fired two suspected ballistic missiles into the sea yesterday, in its first substantive provocation to the new US administration of Joe Biden.

Deadly heatwaves in South Asia are likely to become more common in the future, with the region’s exposure to lethal heat stress potentially nearly tripling if global warming isn’t curbed, researchers said.

Google announced on Wednesday it has signed licensing deals with numerous Italian media publishers to pay for news content, in the US tech giant’s latest move to tamp down media anger over lost advertising revenue.

London’s Court of Appeal yesterday refused Johnny Depp permission to challenge a verdict last year that concluded the Hollywood actor was a “wife beater”, meaning his attempt to restore his reputation will shift to US legal action.

A digital artwork by humanoid robot Sophia was sold at auction yesterday for $688,888 in the form of a Non-Fungible Token (NFT). NFTs, a digital signature saved on blockchain ledgers that allows anyone to verify the ownership and authenticity of items, have become the latest investment craze, with one artwork selling this month for nearly $70 million.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan has written a letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, congratulating her on 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence and Mujib Borsho, seeking to fortify the existing bonds between the two countries and to build new ones for the succeeding generations.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, has called for an emergency summit of the UN member states, including ASEAN, European Union, the United States and China, to head off the deepening crisis in Myanmar.

In the last days of the Trump administration, some US officials urged outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to formally declare that the Myanmar military’s campaign against the Rohingya minority was a genocide.

Strung across remote mountain settlements, a secret network of activists and volunteers is helping spirit hundreds of defecting Myanmar policemen away from the military’s brutal crackdown on dissent and into relative safety in a small northeastern Indian state.

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday named Vice President Kamala Harris to lead US efforts with Mexico and Central America’s Northern Triangle countries to try to stem the flow of migration to the United States.

The United States is planning to impose sanctions on two conglomerates controlled by Myanmar’s military over the generals February 1 coup and a deadly crackdown, two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday said that no Indian was ‘outsider’ in West Bengal and promised the Bharatiya Janata Party, if voted to power in West Bengal assembly poll, would make a “son of the soil” the chief minister of the state.

North Korea fired two short-range missiles at the weekend, US and South Korean officials said, but Washington played down the first such tests under President Joe Biden and said it was still open to dialogue with Pyongyang.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan received a letter of goodwill from his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Tuesday, a Pakistani senior Cabinet minister said, as relations thaw between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

A Singaporean blogger was ordered yesterday to pay almost $100,000 in damages for defaming the prime minister by sharing an article on Facebook linking the leader to a corruption scandal.