05-05-2023 NEW YORK: The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), an illness that kills thousands of Americans each year. The vaccine still needs approval from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before it can be rolled out to the public. …

05-05-2023 NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar’s generals say they have pardoned more than 2,000 political prisoners to mark Wesak, a major Buddhist holiday. The military said 2,153 people jailed for “incitement” would be released on “humanitarian grounds”, Myanmar Now reported on Wednesday, citing a statement signed by Military Council Secretary Lieutenant General Aung …

05-05-2023 MEDAN, INDONESIA/ GUANTANAMO BAY: Military prosecutors at Guantanamo Bay have suggested that the full trial of Hambali, detained over attacks that killed hundreds in Indonesia, start in March 2025, even though he and his two co-accused have been in detention for 17 years. Hambali, an Indonesian whose real name …

05-05-2023 LONDON: On Saturday, May 6, Britain’s King Charles III will be crowned, eight months after he ascended to the throne, following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, last September. Officiated by the archbishop of Canterbury, the highest Church of England cleric in the country, the ceremony will …

05-05-2023 BEIJING: China has denied media reports of a Chinese consular officer “coercing” a Canadian legislator and his family, saying the claim has “no factual basis and is purely baseless”. The statement from the Chinese consulate-general in Toronto on Thursday came days after The Globe and Mail newspaper reported that …

05-05-2023 NAIROBI: Kenya’s opposition has suspended the latest anti-government protests planned for Thursday after reaching an agreement with the government of President William Ruto. The opposition Azimio La Umoja (Declaration of Unity) alliance, led by veteran opposition politician Raila Odinga, said in a statement on Wednesday that its leadership had …

05-05-2023 BEIJING/ TAIPEI: Chinese authorities monitor the phones of ethnic minority Uighurs for the presence of 50,000 known multimedia files that are used to flag what Beijing views as extremism with possession of the Quran enough to trigger a police interrogation, according to a forensic investigation by Human Rights Watch …

05-05-2023 PRETORIA: Some South Africans are calling for the United Kingdom to return the world’s largest diamond, known as the Star of Africa, which is set in the royal sceptre that King Charles III will hold at his coronation on Saturday. The diamond, which weighs 530 carats, was discovered in …

05-05-2023 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI/ KOZHIKODE, KERALA: A cash reward of 10 million rupees ($122,280) has been announced by a Muslim group in India’s Kerala state for providing evidence of claims made in an Indian film that thousands of Hindu and Christian women from the state were recruited …

05-05-2023 KYIV: Ukrainian air defences said they downed 18 out of 24 kamikaze drones that Russia launched in a pre-dawn attack on Thursday. In a statement, Kyiv city administration said that all missiles and drones targeting the Ukrainian capital for the third time in four days, have been destroyed. “The …