Benedict XVI, who resigned as pontiff eight years ago, warned in an interview published Monday that Pope Francis’ historic upcoming trip to Iraq was “dangerous”. “I think it’s a very important trip,” the 93-year-old pope emeritus, who lives in a monastery in the Vatican City, told the Corriere della Sera daily. “Unfortunately, it comes at […]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he is currently in talks with U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer on the establishment of a plant to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines in the country. “I am also in talks with Pfizer to build a vaccine factory here, in Israel,’’ Netanyahu told the Galei Zahal, the radio of […]

Preliminary data by Statistics Korea, on Monday, revealed that the portion of male births of the total newborns in South Korea declined to a record low in 2020. The information came amid the latest sign that traditional preference for male children had waned as the ratio of baby boys to every 100 newborn girls came […]

China’s new rules governing school disciplinary methods came into force on Monday, banning physical punishment and verbal abuse in primary and secondary schools. Educators are prohibited from carrying out disciplinary procedures that would inflict direct physical pain on students, according to the trialed regulations released by the Ministry of Education last December. Other forbidden disciplinary […]

China has used extra surveillance and restrictions ostensibly imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic to block the work of foreign reporters already struggling with threats of detention and punitive visa restrictions, a press group said Monday. As the country has largely brought the coronavirus outbreak under control since it emerged in late 2019, Beijing has […]