The Americas continue to register some of the worst coronavirus numbers in the world, failing to flatten the curve.   Worldwide, there are nearly 30 million confirmed cases, half of which have been recorded in the region.  Latin America and the Caribbean have surpassed 8...

Japan's ruling party on Monday elected chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga as its new leader, making him all but certain to replace Shinzo Abe as the country's next prime minister. Suga easily won the ballot, taking 377 of a total of 534 valid votes from Liberal Democratic Party...

Taliban and Afghan government forces clashed across Afghanistan hours after the start of long-awaited peace talks in Doha on Saturday, officials said, underscoring the uphill challenge of settling a 19-year insurgency. Talks between the two sides were to begin shortly after a U.S.-Taliban...

 Taliban and Afghan government forces clashed across Afghanistan hours after the start of long-awaited peace talks in Doha on Saturday, officials said, underscoring the uphill challenge of settling a 19-year insurgency. Talks between the two sides were to begin shortly after a...

India’s coronavirus pandemic figures crossed the 4.7 million mark Sunday after it recorded more than 94,000 new cases, according to health ministry figures. India has registered a daily increase of more than 90,000 infections for five straight days and has added 1 million new cases in less...

"This is just stuff. We're gonna move on from it," says Margi Wyatt, holding back tears as she stares at her burned-out mobile home destroyed by one of the fires raging through the US state of Oregon. The 70-year-old fled 30 miles (50 kilometers) from her home to Estacada in Portland's...

Thousands of anti-Shiite protesters including demonstrators linked to Sunni extremists rallied in Pakistan's Karachi Friday, sparking fears that rising tensions between the religious groups may unleash a new round of sectarian violence. The rally follows a raft of blasphemy accusations...

Afghan government negotiators left for Doha on Friday to hold landmark peace talks with the Taliban aimed at ending the country's long running conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people. Negotiations set to begin on Saturday had originally been slated to start in March but were...

The US police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd, the 46-year-old African-American man whose death sparked nationwide protests, was due to appear in court in person for the first time on Friday. Derek Chauvin, who was filmed on May 25 pressing his knee on handcuffed Floyd's...

The United Nations independent expert on poverty is warning that the worst impacts from the coronavirus pandemic on poverty are yet to come, and that measures taken by governments to protect people so far have been insufficient. "The social safety nets put into place are full of holes,"...

Firefighters were battling unprecedented wildfires up and down the US West Coast on Friday that killed 15 people and forced more than half a million others to flee their homes, with officials warning of more deaths to come in the days ahead. The true scale of destruction was impossible to...

The coronavirus tally passed the 8 million mark in Latin America, the region with the most infections in the world, while India reported another record daily jump of 96,551 cases. AMERICAS * The Brazilian state of Bahia has signed an agreement to conduct Phase 3 clinical trials for...

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed long-awaited “historic” peace talks between the Afghan government and the insurgent Taliban while on his way to the opening event in Qatar’s capital of Doha, late on Thursday. The United States has been attempting to ease negotiations...

Donald Trump barely mentioned Tim Kaine when he was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2016. But four years later, the president has plenty to say about Kamala Harris. Trump said this week that "nobody likes" Harris, feeding into a standard of likability that is applied to women in...

The Indian and Chinese foreign ministers have agreed that their troops should disengage from a tense border standoff, maintain proper distance and ease tensions in the cold-desert Ladakh region where the two sides in June had their deadliest clash in decades. India’s S. Jaishankar and...

Long-delayed peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government negotiators will begin Saturday in Qatar, officials and the insurgent group announced Thursday. "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would like to declare its readiness to take part in the inauguration ceremony of the...

AstraZeneca, the British pharmaceutical company, said on Thursday it was still possible for its coronavirus vaccine to be available at the end of this year or the beginning of 2021. The claim was made by Pascal Soriot, the company’s chief executive, at a media event. It came after...

India on Thursday recorded its biggest one-day COVID-19 case rise yet, with nearly 96,000 fresh cases in the last 24 hours bringing the total number to date to 4.4 million. Indian Health Ministry figures Thursday morning showed that 95,735 new cases and 1,172 deaths were recorded in the...

The cat-and-mouse campaigning by Donald Trump and Joe Biden has led the president and his Democratic challenger to the same locations, sometimes on the same day, while displaying radically different styles as they court American voters. As the candidates criss-cross the battleground states...

The coronavirus has upended everyday life in the six months since the crisis was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). While our understanding of the new respiratory disease has steadily increased since it was first detected in China last year, what lies ahead over the...