US President Joe Biden will make his first visit to Europe since the invasion of Ukraine to discuss the crisis with NATO allies next week, the White House said on Tuesday as the refugee tally hit 3 million amid more Russian air strikes. Moscow has not captured any of the 10 biggest cities in the country following its incursion that began on Feb. 24, the largest assault on a European state since 1945. Local authorities said Tuesday's bombardments on Kyiv killed at least five people as buildings w

France will make it easier for citizens to take their mother's name once they are adults, Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said on Sunday. He said the government would support a bill proposed by ruling LREM party lawmaker Patrick Vignal to allow children, when they turn 18, to easily change their family name through a simple procedure at the local town hall.  French citizens will be free to keep their father's family name, take their mother's family name or take both in whichever ord

Global airlines on Monday projected a sharp reduction in industry losses next year as a multispeed recovery from the coronavirus crisis gets under way, but revised up the financial toll inflicted by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The International Air Transport Association, the industry's main trade body, predicted that net losses at airlines would narrow to $11.6 billion in 2022 from $51.8 billion this year.The losses for 2021 were revised up from $47.7 billion estimated in April. IATA also r

Britain and South Korea have agreed to swap over 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses with each other, with the UK sending a first batch of Pfizer shots in the coming weeks and Korea returning the same volume by the end of the year. Britain said it would send Pfizer doses which it does not immediately need, so they can be used more quickly in South Korea. "By working closely with our friends in South Korea, this vaccine swap will maximize their rollout speed without having an impact on the UK

South Korean lawmakers will vote as early as Monday on whether to require hospitals to place surveillance cameras in operating rooms after a series of medical accidents involving unqualified staff who stood in for surgeons. If the bill is approved by parliament, South Korea will be the first developed country to require closed-circuit cameras to record surgical procedures. The push for having cameras in operating theatres intensified after a case in 2016 in which surgeons at private clinics we

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -- Malaysia's new Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said on Sunday he will inviteopposition leaders to join the government's special committeesto address the COVID-19 crisis. Ismail Sabri took charge on Saturday with a slim parliamentary majority as the SoutheastAsian nation battles its worst COVID-19 surge and public angergrows over mismanagement of the pandemic. The 61-year-old was deputy premier in the administration ofMuhyiddin Yassin, which collapsed on Monday due

SEOUL (Reuters) -- South Korea is in talks with mRNA vaccine makers including Pfizer and Moderna to produce COVID-19 shots in the country and is ready to offer the capacity to make up to 1 billion doses immediately, a senior government official said. The plan, if agreed, would help ease tight global supply of COVID-19 vaccines, particularly in Asia which lags North America and Europe in vaccine rollouts, and put South Korea a step closer to its ambition to become a major vaccine manufacturing c

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Up to 10,000 domestic spectators will be allowed in Tokyo 2020 venues, Olympics organisers said on Monday, a decision that cuts against the recommendation of medical experts who said holding the event without fans was the least risky option. The announcement ends months of speculation and highlights Japan's determination to push on with the Games and salvage the multi-billion-dollar extravaganza amid public opposition and deep concern about a resurgence in infections. The de

SHANGHAI (Reuters) -- A few malls and residentialcomplexes in Shanghai have started asking visitors to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination, with one shopping centre's temporarydecision to bar entry sparking a backlash on social media. A video showing a local resident arguing with securityguards about the legitimacy of barring unvaccinated people atthe entrance of the Pacific Life Plaza in Shanghai has beenshared tens of hundreds of times on China's Twitter-like Weibo. Several vendors told Reute

BEIJING (Reuters) -- Remnants of China's biggestrocket landed in the Indian Ocean on Sunday, with the bulk ofits components destroyed upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, according to Chinese state media, ending days ofspeculation over where the debris would hit. The coordinates given by state media, citing the ChinaManned Space Engineering Office, put the point of impact in the ocean, west of the Maldives archipelago. Debris from the Long March 5B has had some people lookingwarily skywa

Facebook said onWednesday it was launching a "lite" version of Instagram in 170 countries that will enable people with poor internet to access the photo and video sharing social networking service. Instagram Lite will be available for Android-based phonesand require less bandwidth than the traditional version.The app itself requires just 2 megabytes (MB) -- versus 30 MB for Instagram -- and runs even on slower 2G networks, allowing customers in parts of India, Africa, Asia and Latin

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior figures from the ruling party have been detained in anearly morning raid, the spokesman for the governing National League for Democracy (NLD) said on Monday. The move came after days of escalating tension between the civilian government and the powerful military that stirred fears of a coup in the aftermath of an election the army says was fraudulent.  Spokesman Myo Nyunt told Reuters by phone that Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and othe

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japan's government has privately concluded the Tokyo Olympics will have to be cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic, The Times reported, citing an unnamed senior member of the ruling coalition. The government's focus is now on securing the Games for Tokyo in the next available year, 2032, the newspaper said. Japan has been hit less severely by the pandemic than many other advanced economies, but a recent surge in cases has spurred it to close its borders to non-reside

  Iraq agreed a $2.625 billion deal with South Korea's Daewoo Engineering & Construction on Wednesday to build the first phase at its planned Faw commodities port in the south of the country. Under the contract, signed in Baghdad by representatives of Iraq's transportation ministry and the South Korean company, Daewoo E&C will handle construction work including building fiveberths to unload ships and a yard for containers. (Reuters)

Britain on Wednesday became the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, hoping that rapid action would help it stem a surge of infections driven by a highly contagious variant of the virus. Boris Johnson's government, which has already ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine, said it had accepted a recommendation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to grant emergency authorization. The approval

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -- Violence at a Wistron Corpfactory in southern India is likely to stall the company's and its client Apple Inc's drive to expand local manufacturing, while forcing the government to redouble efforts to encourage foreign investors. Thousands of contract workers angry over the alleged non-payment of wages, destroyed equipment and vehicles at a Wistron plant in southern India on Saturday, causing an estimated $60 million in damages. The Taiwanese company, one of Apple's top

Pfizer said Wednesday that final results from the late-stage trial of its COVID-19 vaccine show it was 95 percent effective, adding it had the required two-months of safety data and would apply for emergency US authorization within days. The drugmaker said efficacy of the vaccine developed with German partner BioNTech SE was consistent across age and ethnicity demographics, and that there were no major side effects, a sign that the immunization could be employed broadly around the world.

BEIJING (Reuters) -- The Chinese city of Jinan said over the weekend it had found coronavirus on beef and tripe and their packaging from Brazil, Bolivia and New Zealand, while two other provincial capitals detected it on packaging on pork from Argentina. China is ramping up testing on frozen foods after repeatedly detecting the virus on imported products, triggering disrupting import bans, even as the World Health Organization says the risk of catching COVID-19 from frozen food is low. In

PARIS (Reuters) -- French police stepped up controls in Paris over the weekend to ensure residents were complying with strict lockdown rules imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19, amid signs that some people were breaching them. Prime Minister Jean Castex has said people are not abidingby the rules as strictly as during the first lockdown back inthe spring. Police had to break up an illegal party hosting up to 400 people at Joinville-Le-Pont near Paris early on Saturday. Under the lockdo

Hyundai Motor and affiliate Kia Motors  warned of another $2.9 billion of provisions related to engine issues, bringing their total hit from the years-long quality problem that has tarnished their credibility to nearly $5 billion. Hyundai Motor Group said on Monday their third-quarter earnings would reflect quality-related costs of a combined 3.36 trillion won ($2.94 billion), of which Hyundai accounted for 2.1 trillion and Kia for 1.26 trillion. Hyundai and Kia, together the world’