World News

A team of international virus experts working with Chinese counterparts failed to pinpoint the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic during a visit to China, amid mounting questions over stonewalling by Beijing and whether the virus escaped from a Chinese research laboratory.

More than 20 world leaders want all nations to unite under a new global settlement saying it is the only way to prevent future pandemics and stamp out nationalism. They made the appeal Tuesday in an open letter published in Britain’s the Daily Telegraph and publications such as Le Monde in France and El Pais in Spain.

Iran will not stop its 20% uranium enrichment before the United States lifts all sanctions, Iranian state TV quoted an unnamed official as saying on Tuesday in reaction to a US media report that Washington would offer a new proposal to jump-start talks.

The United States will provide more than $596 million in new humanitarian aide to respond to the Syrian crisis, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.

Britain’s High Court ruled on Friday that parents will be allowed to give consent for their children to take puberty-delaying drugs during gender identity treatment without having to gain a judge’s approval.

The planet could have a year or less before first-generation Covid-19 vaccines are ineffective and modified formulations are needed, according to a survey of epidemiologists, virologists and infectious disease specialists.

A series of brutally murderous attacks by Islamic State terrorists in northern Mozambique, close to the site of a multi-billion gas project, has caused thousands of people to flee for safety, CBS News reports. According to international aid agencies, some 6,000 to 10,000 people are awaiting evacuation to the provincial capital of Pemba after the attacks began in Palma on Wednesday last week.

One member of the World Health Organization investigative team said the WHO took the word of Chinese lab workers about the possibility of COVID-19 originating through a Wuhan lab escape, as a new WHO-China joint report concluded it was unlikely and didn’t need further study.

Security forces in Belarus have launched a new crackdown on people protesting against the country’s long-time president Alexander Lukashenko who has refused to step down after a disputed election. Police in Belarus’s capital detained more than 100 people who assembled for a protest march Saturday after detaining hundreds since Thursday.

A huge container ship that blocked the crucial Suez Canal for nearly a week was almost completely freed early Monday, officials confirmed.

More than 90 people, including children, were killed on Myanmar’s bloodiest day since last month’s military coup, despite appeals from local church leaders for peace.

Iran and China on Saturday signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement addressing economic issues amid crippling US sanctions on Tehran, according to Iranian state media.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Iran on Friday for a visit that Iranian state media said would see the signing of a 25-year cooperation agreement between the two countries, which are both under U.S sanctions.

Saudi Arabia said on Friday that its air defense systems had intercepted a ballistic missile over the southern city of Najran. It was the latest in a series of escalating attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have consistently targeted Saudi infrastructure in retaliation for the Saudi-led war against their insurgency in neighboring Yemen.

European Union leaders agreed to toughen export controls of coronavirus vaccines amid a row with Britain over deliveries. At an online summit attended by U.S. President Joe Biden, they also stressed the importance of a reliable global supply chain of COVID-19 jabs.

A new “double mutant” variant of the coronavirus has been detected from samples collected in India.

The Prince of Wales has called on major cities around the world to set an example and join the “drive towards greater sustainability” as Athens has become the first city to adopt his Terra Carta (Earth Charter).

For the past year, an assumption — sometimes explicit, often tacit — has informed almost all our thinking about the pandemic: At some point, it will be over, and then we’ll go “back to normal.”

American aircraft supported strikes targeting ISIS in Iraq that left more than two dozen terrorists dead.

Experts have said it may take weeks to move the enormous Ever Given container ship which ran aground in the Suez Canal on Tuesday, blocking all shipping through the vital waterway, and causing some $9.6 billion per day in lost cargo traffic worldwide, the Washington Examiner reported Thursday.