International team’s visit to China not about ‘playing blame game’: WHO

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- A major technical fault in Pakistan's power generation and distribution system caused a massive power outage that plunged the country into darkness overnight, the energy minister said. Hours after the late Saturday outage, Energy Minister Omar Ayub said on Twitter that power was being restored in phases, starting with Islamabad. He said later Sunday that power had been restored...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Saturday that the State Department is voiding longstanding restrictions on how US diplomats and others have contact with their counterparts in Taiwan, another move that is expected to upset China as the Trump administration winds to an end. The Trump administration has sought to strengthen bilateral relations with Taiwan. It announced T...

BERLIN (AFP) -- The total number of Germany's coronavirus deaths crossed 40,000 on Sunday, as Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the coming weeks would be "the hardest" yet. Germany recorded 465 deaths over the past 24 hours, the Robert Koch Institute for disease control said, raising the toll since the start of the pandemic to 40,343. More than 1.9 million people have been infected so far, w...

JAKARTA (AP) -- A jet carrying 62 people lost contact with air traffic controllers minutes after taking off from Indonesia’s capital on a domestic flight on Saturday, and debris found by fishermen was being examined to see if it was from the missing plane, officials said. Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said Sriwijaya Air’s Flight SJ182 was delayed for an hour before it took off at 2:3...

BEIJING (AFP) -- China confirmed Saturday that preparations were still ongoing for a World Health Organization mission to Wuhan to investigate the origins of Covid-19, following a rare rebuke from the UN body over a delay to the long-planned trip. The comments came after the WHO chief said on Tuesday he was “very disappointed” that Beijing had yet to finalise permission even as the team of exper...

WILMINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Joe Biden says that President Donald Trump isn't “fit for the job,” but he repeatedly refused to endorse growing Democratic calls to impeach him a second time. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to members of her chamber that lawmakers could move as early as next week to impeach Trump for inciting a violent mob that overran the US Capitol if the presid...

Asian shares were mostly higher Friday on hopes for additional economic stimulus after President-elect Joe Biden takes office. A new state of emergency in the Tokyo region to combat surging coronavirus cases did little to dampen market optimism. The benchmark Nikkei 225 surged 2.4 percent to close at 28,139.03, its highest finish in more than 30 years. The emergency declaration, announced by Pr...

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ), a Korean American congressman, received wide attention and praise on Thursday for helping clean up the mess from the previous day's insurrection at the US Capitol. Thousands of angry protesters stormed the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday while the Senate and the House of Representatives were trying to certify the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential election....

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Donald Trump's supporters stormed a session of Congress held Wednesday to certify Joe Biden's election win, triggering unprecedented chaos and violence at the heart of American democracy and accusations the president was attempting a coup. Vowing not to be deterred, lawmakers resumed business after dark and voted down the first challenge to Biden's win, with several Trump loy...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A violent mob loyal to President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday and forced lawmakers into hiding, in a stunning attempt to overturn America’s presidential election, undercut the nation’s democracy and keep Democrat Joe Biden from replacing Trump in the White House. The nation’s elected representatives scrambled to crouch under desks and don gas masks, while p...

The European Union's medicines agency gave the green light Wednesday to Moderna Inc.'s COVID-19 vaccine, a decision that gives the 27-nation bloc a second vaccine to use in the desperate battle to tame the virus rampaging across the continent. The approval recommendation by the European Medicines Agency's human medicines committee -- which must be rubber stamped by the EU's executive commission ...

German listed companies must include women on their executive boards as part of a landmark bill agreed by the country's coalition government Wednesday after voluntary efforts failed to close a gender gap. Listed companies with four executives or more must appoint at least one woman to their boards, according to a draft law to be voted on by parliament. The law sends "a very strong signal", Just...

China has moved to crush Hong Kong's democracy movement in recent months but Wednesday's mass arrest of democracy figures for subversion under Beijing's new national security law was particularly momentous. Here's why. What's so significant about this operation? The most eye-catching element is the scale of the crackdown and the variety of figures caught in the dragnet. Prior to Wednesday, ar...

A British judge on Wednesday denied bail to WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, who has been jailed in Britain since 2019 as he fights extradition to the United States. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ordered Assange to remain in prison while the courts consider an appeal by US authorities against a decision not to extradite him. On Monday, the judge rejected an American request to send Assange...