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

World Business Dec. 30, 2020

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

World News Dec. 16, 2020

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.

World News Nov. 18, 2020

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

World News Nov. 15, 2020

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

World News Nov. 15, 2020

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’

Mobility Oct. 19, 2020

REUTERS -- Scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of a method for genome editing, the award-giving body said on Wednesday. “Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna have discovered one of gene technology’s sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement on awarding the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.1 million) prize. “This technology

Technology Oct. 7, 2020

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The US Justice Department asked a federal judge in San Francisco early on Friday to allow the government to bar Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google from offering WeChat for download in US app stores pending an appeal. The filing asked US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler to put on hold her preliminary injunction issued Saturday. That injunction blocked the US Commerce Department order which was set to take effect late on Sept. 20 and that would also bar other US transactio

World News Sept. 25, 2020

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Organizers of the Tokyo Olympics on Friday proposed cutting back the number of staff at next year's Summer Games and shortening the opening period for training venues, as part of a plan to hold a streamlined event amid the pandemic. The Games, originally scheduled to start this summer, were postponed for a year by the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government due to the novel coronavirus. Since then, organisers and government officials have been looking at

Olympic Games Sept. 25, 2020

A South Korean vigilante website that published personal details of people it accused of sex crimes suddenly went dark this week after a public backlash sparked by the death of one of its targets, as police hunt for its operators. Calls have grown for tougher punishment for those guilty of sex crimes after a South Korean man convicted of running one of the world's largest online child pornography operations was released this year from 18 months in jail. The "Digital Prison" website

Social Affairs Sept. 11, 2020

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga will join the race to succeed his boss Shinzo Abe as prime minister, local media said on Sunday, as the competition heats up to succeed Japan’s longest-serving leader. Suga, a longtime lieutenant of Abe’s in a key supporting role, had denied interest in the top job but attracted attention with a series of interviews, to Reuters and other news organisations, in the days before Abe’s abrupt resignation for

World News Aug. 30, 2020

LONDON (Reuters) -- A study by French scientists which suggests a man was infected with COVID-19 as early as Dec. 27, nearly a month before France confirmed its first cases, could be important in assessing when and where the new coronavirus emerged, experts said on Tuesday. A man identified as the patient told a French TV station that he was surprised to learn that he had contracted COVID-19 since he thought he had flu at the time. French researchers led by Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation a

World News May 6, 2020

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- US President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged China to be transparent about the origins of the novel coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than a quarter of a million people since it started in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. Trump, speaking before leaving on a trip to Arizona, said the United States would release a report detailing the origins of the virus, but gave no details or timeline. “We will be reporting very definitively over a period of time,

World News May 6, 2020

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- US President Donald Trump on Saturday welcomed the reemergence of North Korea's Kim Jong-un after weeks of speculation about his health, but prospects for the US efforts to persuade Pyongyang to denuclearize appear as bleak as ever. On Saturday, North Korean media said Kim cut a ribbon at a ceremony on Friday to mark the completion of a fertilizer plant. It had not reported on Kim's whereabouts since he presided over a meeting on April 11, provoking speculation that he

North Korea May 3, 2020

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- US President Donald Trump said on Monday he has a good idea how Kim Jong-un is doing and hopes he is fine, after days of speculation over the North Korean leader’s health. Kim’s whereabouts and whether he had a heart procedure have been a subject of intense speculation in recent weeks. Daily NK, a Seoul-based website, reported last week that Kim was recovering after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure on April 12, citing one unnamed source in North Korea.

North Korea April 28, 2020