World

KEY FACTS 7:02 a.m.: Philippines virus cases top 100,000 in ‘losing battle’ 6:57 a.m.: India’s cases cross 1.75M 6:50 a.m.: Australia declares disaster in Victoria, imposes curfew The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Sunday. This story is no longer updating 9 p.m.: The City of Toronto is reporting 14 new infections Sunday, bringing the total to 15,401. There were no new deaths reported, 82 are still in hospital and 24 more have recovered, for a total of 13,945. 7 p.m.: Toronto teens will attend high school every day for half a day, taking two courses at a time in classes of 15. They won’t eat lunch there, can’t use their lockers and all sports are on hold. Details of what schools will look like starting this September are part of a final report that Toronto D

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is considering “adjustments” to its military presence in South Korea and around the globe as it shifts from years of countering insurgencies and militants in the greater Middle East to focusing on China, Defence Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday. Esper said he has issued no order to withdraw from South Korea. Without discussing specifics, Esper said he favours more emphasis on rotational deployments, as opposed to permanent stationing, of American troops “because it gives us, the United States, greater strategic flexibility in terms of responding to challenges around the globe.” Esper’s chief spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, said later the goal of shifting to more use of rotational forces in Asia and Europe would be to “remove some of the footprint of having forces

WASHINGTON - Should former Vice-President Joe Biden win the White House in November, America will likely be in for a foreign policy about-face as Biden reverses, dismantles or severely curtails many of President Donald Trump’s most significant and boldest actions. From the Middle East to Asia, Latin America to Africa and, particularly, Europe, and on issues including trade, terrorism, arms control and immigration, the presumptive Democratic nominee and his advisers have vowed to unleash a tsunami of change in how the U.S. handles itself in the international arena. With few exceptions, Americans could expect Biden to re-engage with traditional allies. Where the iconoclastic Trump has used blunt threats and insults to press his case, Biden, a former senator, would be more inclined to seek

Microsoft to keep exploring TikTok deal after talks with Trump In one of many fronts in the increasingly poisonous US-Chinese relationship, President Donald Trump has threatened to ban the wildly popular app TikTok, citing national security concerns. WASHINGTON: Microsoft announced Sunday it would continue talks to acquire the US operations of popular video-sharing app TikTok, after meeting with President Donald Trump who was seemingly backing off his earlier threats to ban the Chinese-owned platform. "Following a conversation between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and President Donald J Trump, Microsoft is prepared to continue discussions to explore a purchase of TikTok in the United States," the company said in a statement, acknowledging the "importance of addressing the President's conc...

Another 5 Covid quarantine cases Monday A referee and Muay Thai boxers wearing face shields gather before their fight in front of empty spectator seats behind closed doors due to the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) at the Siam Boxing Stadium in Samut Sakhon province, on Saturday. (Reuters photo) The government on Monday reported five new imported coronavirus cases, taking the total in Thailand to 3,195. The new infections were in Thai nationals who recently returned from Kuwait and were in state quarantine, the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration announced on its Facebook page. Four of the new cases were males who worked as labourers, while the fifth was a masseuse. All arrived in Bangkok on June 29 and entered state quarantine in the capital. Three tested positi...

BANGKOK—No one knows exactly why Thailand has been spared. Is it the social distancing embedded in Thai culture — the habit of greeting others with a wai, a prayerlike motion, rather than a full embrace — that has prevented the runaway transmission of the coronavirus here? Did Thailand’s early adoption of face masks, combined with a robust health care system, blunt the virus’s impact? Was it the outdoor lifestyle of many Thais or their relatively low rates of pre-existing conditions? Is there a genetic component in which the immune systems of Thais and others in the Mekong River region are more resistant to the coronavirus? Or is it some alchemy of all these factors that has insulated this country of 70 million people? One thing is certain. Despite an influx of foreign visitors early i

Northern couple behind smuggling of tonne of 'ice' The six-wheel truck impounded in Surat Thani province after police found more than one tonne of crystal meth in bags concealed beneath a cargo of cow dung last Saturday. (Photo: Supapong Chaolan) CHIANG RAI: Police arrested a couple on Wednesday for overseeing the smuggling of more than one tonne of crystal meth, or "ice", from the North to southern Thailand. The 48-year-old man and his wife, 31, were apprehended at their home in Mae Chan district of Chiang Rai. Police accuse them of arranging and supervising the transport of 1,199 kilogrammes of crystal meth to the South for smuggling to a third country. A source said that investigators found that the couple, whose names have not been released, were at a condominium in Lat Phrao area...

A woman wears a face mask while passing by posters for a famous mango shaved ice restaurant in Taipei on May 22, 2020. (Reuters photo) TAIPEI: A trial visa-free travel programme for visitors to Taiwan from Thailand, the Philippines, Brunei and Russia will be extended for another year, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday. The ministry said the visa-free programme for the four countries will be extended to July 31 next year, starting Aug 1. Taiwan began to relax visa rules for the 18 "New Southbound Policy" countries in August 2016 as part of President Tsai Ing-wen's efforts to advance ties with Asian countries and offset a significant slump in tourists from mainland China. The "Southbound" countries are the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, six South Asian countr...

Standing up to hate speech As a regular social media user, I find it annoying whenever I scroll through my Facebook account to find many ads that aren't relevant to my interests. My main purpose for using social media is just that: social. I like to hear from people I don't see regularly or long-lost friends from my school days. And while I check my Instagram less often than Facebook, I'm also noticing more ads on the platform that many of my friends use to follow celebrities that they like. Sometimes I wonder how much extra business advertisers generate from the messages they place on these platforms that are part of nearly everyone's daily lives. But Facebook makes a fortune, taking in US$69.7 billion last year from millions of advertisers, or roughly 98% of its total revenue of $70.7...