SEOUL (AFP) -- A major South Korean broadcaster apologized Saturday for using offensive images and captions to describe participating countries during the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony on Friday night. Coronavirus restrictions meant a stripped back celebration with the traditional delegations of athletes masked and far smaller than usual, ranging from just a handful of people to a few dozen. ...

TOKYO (AFP) -- Ice-cold Chinese shooter Yang Qian claimed the first gold of the Tokyo Games on Saturday, keeping her cool while Russian Anastasiia Galashina lost hers in a dramatic finale. Galashina had looked poised to claim gold heading into the last shot, but stumbled with 8.9 on her final effort to allow Yang to seal victory. Yang looked the picture of serenity as she waited with eyes close...

TOKYO (AFP) - Olympics chief Thomas Bach revealed “doubts” and “sleepless nights” over the postponed Tokyo Games on Tuesday as the opening ceremony nears after a year‘s delay and coronavirus chaos that has made them deeply unpopular with the Japanese public. Bach, speaking at the International Olympic Committee session in Tokyo, said the unprecedented step of postponing the Games “weighed on m...

LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought to avoid a second lockdown last autumn, arguing that most of those dying were over 80, according to his former aide-turned bitter foe Dominic Cummings. In a BBC interview airing on Tuesday, the mastermind of Johnson‘s anti-EU Brexit campaign said his former boss “put his own political interests ahead of people’s lives”. In the latest ...

NAYPYIDAW (AFP) -- Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her personal staff have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 since being taken into military custody, her lawyer said Tuesday, as the country battles a spike in cases. Suu Kyi has been all but invisible since being detained by the military in February, with a handful of court appearances in a special court in Naypyidaw her only link...

BEIJING (AFP) -- China's central bank warned companies on Tuesday against assisting cryptocurrency-related businesses as it shut down a software firm over suspected involvement in digital currency transactions. Beijing has turned a sharp eye on cryptocurrency in recent months as it widens its regulatory crackdown on the tech sector. Cryptocurrency trading is banned in China, and authorities hav...

LONDON (AFP) -- Delayed second and third doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine boost immunity against Covid-19, a study by Oxford University, which developed the jab with the British-Swedish firm, said on Monday. An interval of up to 45 weeks between the first and second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine led to an enhanced immune response, rather than compromising immunity, the study said. Giving a th...

GENEVA (AFP) -- The UN rights chief called Monday for "concerted action" to help recover from the worst global deterioration of rights seen in decades, highlighting situations in China, Russia and Ethiopia among others. "To recover from the most wide-reaching and severe cascade of human rights setbacks in our lifetimes, we need a life-changing vision, and concerted action," Michelle Bachelet tol...

Tokyo 2020 organisers threw open the doors of the Olympic Village to the media on Sunday, showcasing virus upgrades including a fever clinic just over a month before the Games begin. Organisers are in the home stretch before the July 23 opening ceremony, and are trying to build confidence that the mega-event will be safe for athletes and the Japanese public. On Sunday, they unveiled the dedicat...

Iran's ultraconservatives Sunday hailed the election victory of their candidate Ebrahim Raisi, after Washington charged the vote was unfair and Tehran's arch-foe Israel labelled him the "most extremist" president yet. Raisi, 60, won Friday's election in which more than half the voters stayed away after many political heavyweights had been barred from running and as an economic crisis driven by U...

PARIS (AFP) - France on Wednesday said it was ending the obligation to wear masks outside and would bring forwards by 10 days the lifting of a nighttime curfew, as Covid infections fall and the country‘s vaccine drive picks up. Prime Minister Jean Castex said the requirement for people to wear masks outdoors would be lifted from Thursday, with some exceptions, while an unpopular Covid curfew wi...

GENEVA (AFP) -- The pandemic has taken a harsh toll on domestic workers who have lost far more jobs than others despite a decade-old international pact guaranteeing their rights, the UN said Tuesday. In a fresh report, the International Labour Organization warned that working conditions for many of the world‘s 75.6 million domestic workers had not improved since the adoption in 2011 of a convent...

PARIS (AFP) -- Fossil fuels have held their share of the energy mix over the past decade, a report published Tuesday found, despite a drop in the cost of electricity from renewable wind and solar. Coal, oil and gas -- fossil fuels which are the main cause of global warming, accounted for 80.2 percent of final energy consumption in 2019, according to a report by the REN21 think tank. That compar...

Global plastics production declined slightly in 2020 as a result of the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, only the third time since World War II that output has fallen, an industry body said Thursday. Previously, only as a result of the oil crisis in 1973 and during the financial crisis in 2008 had plastics production fallen since the start of the 20th century. But last year, worl...

BEIJING (AFP) -- China expressed fury over US Senators visiting Taiwan to donate coronavirus vaccines, saying it could embolden "separatist forces" on the island. Beijing sees democratic, self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory which is to be seized one day, by force if necessary, and rages at any diplomatic attempts to recognise it as an independent nation. A delegation of three US lawmaker...