Thousands of people flooded into Cairo’s Abbasiya Cathedral on Tuesday to say a final farewell to Pope Shenouda III, the spiritual leader of Egypt’s Coptic Christians for more than four decades. Shenouda III died Saturday at the age of 88. The funeral could bring millions of Christians onto the streets of Egypt at a time [...]
Boeing has denied claims by the Indian government that it had agreed to pay compensation to Air India for delays to aircraft deliveries. Prashant Sukul of the Ministry of Civil Aviation had claimed that “two weeks back they agreed to pay” $500m (£319m). The carrier has been seeking compensation for delays in the delivery of [...]
Bo Xilai, once seen as one of the rising stars of Chinese politics, has been removed from his prominent provincial post after a scandal involving one of his key deputies. Zhang Dejiang, a Chinese vice premier, will replace Bo as Communist Party chief of Chongqing, the biggest metropolis in southwestern China, the official news agency [...]
There were no immediate reports of damage after northern Japan was hit by an earthquake which the Japan Meteorological Agency said had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8. The epicenter of the quake was in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of northern Japan, the agency said, adding that a tsunami warning for a wave with [...]
The US is set to file a case against China at the World Trade Organization challenging its restrictions on rare earth exports. The European Union and Japan are expected to support the US in its case. Beijing has set quotas for rare earth exports, many of which are critical to the manufacture of high-tech products. [...]
A suicide bomber targeted a funeral in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 37 others, officials said. The blast took place just outside Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said city police official Kalam Khan. While no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, authorities believe the target [...]
Japan has ended its whaling season with less than a third of its annual target, said the country’s Fisheries Agency. The whaling ships headed home from the Antarctic Ocean this week with 266 minke whales and one fin whale, said the agency on Friday. This is far short of the quota of about 900 set [...]
Talks between U.S. and North Korean officials in Beijing to thrash out the details of a plan to allow the resumption of food aid to the North continued into a second day Thursday. Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, is meeting representatives from Pyongyang to finalize points like what [...]
China’s authoritarian government is restricting the police’s power to secretly detain people, at least on paper, announcing stricter revisions to a key criminal law Thursday after a wave of public complaints. Scholars welcomed the changes, saying they will offer better protection of suspects and reflect increasing awareness in China of the need for stronger detainee [...]
Chinese officials sought Wednesday to discredit about two dozen Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest China’s rule over their region as outcasts, criminals and mentally ill people manipulated by the exiled Dalai Lama. The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader has said he does not encourage the self-immolations. However, Chinese officials have sought to [...]