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Sobbing friends and relatives filed into a Jakarta cemetery Thursday to bury the remains of a flight attendant from the crashed Indonesian passenger jet, as divers restarted their hunt for its second black box. Okky Bisma, 29, was the first confirmed victim of Saturday’s disaster after fingerprints from his retrieved hand were matched to those […]

A closed-door mass trial of 150 Cambodian opposition figures resumed in Phnom Penh Thursday, in what critics labelled a politically motivated sham. The case is linked to attempts by exiled opposition figurehead Sam Rainsy to return to Cambodia in 2019 from France, where he has lived since 2015 to avoid jail for convictions that he […]

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged to strengthen his country’s nuclear arsenal as he delivered his closing address to a top ruling party meeting, state television showed Wednesday, days before Joe Biden takes office as US president. Kim is looking to grab the attention of the incoming Biden administration, analysts say, with his country […]

Bad weather forced scores of divers to temporarily suspend their hunt for a crashed Indonesian jet’s cockpit voice recorder Wednesday, as investigators worked to read critical details on a flight data device that had already been salvaged. The two “black boxes” could supply key clues as to why the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 plunged about […]

WhatsApp on Tuesday reassured users about privacy at the Facebook-owned messaging service as people flocked to rivals Telegram and Signal following a tweak to its terms. There was “a lot of misinformation” about an update to terms of service regarding an option to use WhatsApp to message businesses, Facebook executive Adam Mosseri, who heads Instagram, […]

Nearly a third of Taiwan’s corals are dying from bleaching caused by warming oceans in an alarming phenomenon that poses a severe threat to the island’s delicate underwater ecosystem, conservationists warned Wednesday. An investigation conducted last year in 62 locations around the island by the Taiwan Coral Bleaching Observation Network (TCBON) showed bleaching had reached […]

A Chinese province of more than 37 million declared an “emergency state” on Wednesday to snuff out a handful of Covid-19 cases, as the country moved decisively to contain infections. China had largely brought the coronavirus under control since its emergence in Wuhan late in 2019. But recent weeks have seen smatterings of cases, prompting […]

by Andrew MCKIRDY Tokyo Olympics organisers played down a poll showing plunging support for the Games on Tuesday and said a report claiming cancellation could be discussed next month was “fake news”. The comments, less than 200 days before the postponed Games start in July, come with greater Tokyo under a state of emergency over […]

Chinese authorities sealed off a city of almost five million people and imposed strict travel restrictions on several others on Tuesday as they worked to quash a number of Covid-19 clusters near Beijing. The country had largely curbed the spread of the coronavirus, which first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, with small outbreaks swiftly […]

by Danny KEMP with AFP bureaus The European Union started the approval process for its third vaccine on Tuesday after WHO scientists warned that herd immunity from coronavirus was unlikely this year even with mass inoculation schemes. The 27-nation EU — under fire for lengthy approval processes and slow national rollouts of drugs — promised […]

by Deborah COLE A German-led police operation has taken down the “world’s largest” darknet marketplace, whose Australian alleged operator used it to facilitate the sale of drugs, stolen credit card data and malware, prosecutors said Tuesday. At the time of its closure, DarkMarket had nearly 500,000 users and more than 2,400 vendors worldwide, as the […]

A judge has granted a stay of execution to Lisa Montgomery, who was set Tuesday to be the first female inmate executed by the US federal government in 70 years. Montgomery, 52, has been imprisoned for 16 years after she killed a pregnant woman in order to steal her fetus. She was scheduled to receive […]

by Haeril HALIM The crew of an Indonesian passenger jet that crashed off Jakarta at the weekend with 62 people aboard did not declare an emergency or report technical problems before it suddenly plunged into the sea, an investigator said Monday. So far, inspectors have so far been unable to say why the 26-year-old plane crashed […]

More than half a million people were placed under lockdown in Beijing on Monday as the government imposed strict measures to stamp out a handful of Covid-19 cases. China has largely brought the virus under control, but is tackling a number of local infections with lockdowns and mass testing. Authorities are keen to stem any […]

A sumo wrestler in Japan said he had “no choice” but to quit the sport after his request to skip a tournament for fear of catching coronavirus was rejected. The 22-year-old known as Kotokantetsu said the Japan Sumo Association had insisted he fight in the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament, which began on Sunday and […]