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Eight months after the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic , COVID-19 is reaching the last places on Earth that remained untouched by the coronavirus. On Wednesday, Vanuatu , a Pacific island nation about 1,200 miles northeast of Australia, reported its first COVID-19 case. Two other countries in the Pacific Ocean, the Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands, reported their first infections in October. In Samoa, workers who serviced a ship with COVID-19-positive crew members are in quarantine. By most estimates, just nine countries have not yet reported any COVID-19 cases. Except for North Korea and Turkmenistan, where experts say COVID-19 likely exists, all of them are far-flung Pacific island nations—Kiribati, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Samoa. Most Pacific island countries closed their borders early in the COVID-19 outbreak. But as infections surge around the globe, with cases surpassing 50 million, the coronav...

LONDON — The United Kingdom on Wednesday became the fifth country in the world to record more than 50,000 coronavirus-related deaths, a level that one of the nation’s leading doctors says “should never have been reached.” Figures from the British government showed that 595 more people in the country died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus, the highest daily number since May. The figure took the U.K.’s total death toll from the pandemic to 50,365. The U.K, which has the highest virus-related death toll in Europe, joins the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico in reporting more than 50,000, according to a tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The U.K.’s overall death toll is widely considered to be far higher than that as the total reported only includes those who have tested positive for the virus and doesn’t include those who died of COVID-related symptoms after 28 days. Like other nations in Europe, the U.K. is experiencing a resurgence of the ...

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Wednesday said it looked forward to better relations with the United States under the leadership of President-elect Joe Biden, and expressed hope the presidential transition will not be “bumpy.” EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell warmly congratulated “Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris for their historic victory” and said the 27-nation bloc looked forward to better relations than under President Donald Trump. “It is not a secret, (either), that in the past 4 years things have become complicated,” Borrell told legislators at the European Parliament. Both sides, despite being longstanding allies, disagreed over key topics from trade and security to the fight against climate change. The EU is expected to invite Biden soon to videoconference talks in an attempt to give new impetus to the trans-Atlantic alliance. “You can rest assured that we are ready to engage fast with the new administration,” Borrell said. But he also all...

North Korea watchers are warning that Kim Jong Un could ratchet up tensions with the U.S. as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office in January. Biden will have daunting domestic challenges—the coronavirus pandemic and the recession chief among them—but he could also find his Administration quickly drawn into a nuclear standoff with North Korea. “It is possible Pyongyang will conduct a nuclear or long-range missile test prior to the inauguration or shortly thereafter as a way of laying down a marker with the new president and increasing its negotiating leverage with Washington,” Evans Revere , a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former State Department official with extensive experience in negotiations with North Korea, tells TIME. In many ways, North Korea is more isolated, more desperate and more dangerous than ever. The pressures of crushing international sanctions, natural disasters and the coronavirus pandemic have worsened living conditio...

They’ve reportedly found it on packages of Ecuadorian shrimp , squid from Russia and Norwegian seafood . Since June, Chinese health authorities have been detecting genetic traces of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on refrigerated and frozen foods from around the world. Then, on Oct. 17, the Chinese Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced it had isolated active SARS-CoV-2 on packs of imported fish. The agency says this world-first discovery , made while tracing a recent outbreak in Qingdao to two dock workers , shows contaminated food packaging can cause infections. While it remains unclear if the dock workers actually contracted COVID-19 from the seafood they were handling, the government is stepping up precautions. Qingdao will now scrutinize all incoming frozen food (after testing all 9 million residents), while the Beijing city government has urged companies to avoid importing frozen foods from countries badly hit by the pandemic — though it di...

(YANGON, Myanmar) — A nationalist Buddhist monk in Myanmar noted for inflammatory rhetoric surrendered on Monday to police, who have been seeking his arrest for over a year for insulting comments he made about the country’s leader, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. The surrender of the monk Wirathu came just days ahead of a general election on Sunday which Suu Kyi’s ruling National League for Democracy party is expected to win. “Mainly, I would like to request my fellow monks around the country to ask their followers to vote for the parties that work to protect the country’s race and religion,” Wirathu said to a small crowd of followers outside the police station in Yangon before entering. Wirathu and his supporters were successful in lobbying for laws making interfaith marriages difficult, but unsuccessfully endorsed the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party in the 2015 general election, which Suu Kyi’s party won in a landslide. His appeal Monday was ...

In pigtails and a bright red letterman jacket, Carmen looks just like any other 7-year-old girl. But she suffers from a rare brain disorder called lissencephaly, and can experience seizures at any moment. Up until about two months ago, Carmen and her mother Jenny, asylum seekers from Honduras, lived in a makeshift refugee camp in Matamoros for a year, an encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande river across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Despite official guidelines to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that anyone with “known physical/mental health issues” are exempt from the Trump Administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), otherwise known as “Remain in Mexico,” a policy that keeps asylum seekers in Mexico throughout the duration of their legal proceedings, they are still being forced to wait in Mexico for their case to be heard. Carmen is listed as one of 22 individual plaintiffs named in a class action lawsuit filed at the U.S. District Court ...

(BANGKOK) — Under increasing pressure from protesters demanding reforms to the monarchy, Thailand’s king and queen met with thousands of adoring supporters in Bangkok, mixing with citizens in the street after attending a religious ceremony inside the Grand Palace. Crowds of royal devotees waited for hours Sunday outside the white walls of the storybook palace compound to greet them, carrying portraits of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida and waving national flags. The monarch waved to the crowd and smiled, surrounded by aides who crouched beside him as he walked. He paused briefly to make a rare comment when asked what he would say to the protesters who have been demanding reforms. “We love them all the same,” the Thai king told the UK’s Channel 4. Asked if there was room to compromise with protesters, the king said, “Thailand is the land of compromise,” and quickly turned to walk away. The unprecedented challenge to decades of tradition has led royalists — mai...

TAOYUAN, Taiwan — Two lesbian couples tied the knot in a mass wedding held by Taiwan’s military on Friday in a historic celebration with their peers. Taiwan is the only place in Asia to have legalized same-sex marriage, with more than 4,000 such couples marrying since the legislation passed in May 2019. The mass wedding with 188 couples was the first time same-sex couples have been wed and celebrated at a military ceremony. Both couples viewed their ceremonies with a sense of responsibility towards representing the LGBT community. “We are hoping that more LGBT people in the military can bravely stand up, because our military is very open-minded. In matters of love, everyone will be treated equally,” said Chen Ying-hsuan, 27, an army lieutenant who married Li Li-chen, 26. Chen wore a rainbow wristband and said she has always been open about her sexual orientation while serving. The ceremony at an army base in the northern city of Taoyuan was brief. The couples took par...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealanders voted to legalize euthanasia in a binding referendum, but preliminary results released Friday showed they likely would not legalize marijuana. With about 83% of votes counted, New Zealanders emphatically endorsed the euthanasia measure with 65% voting in favor and 34% voting against. The “No” vote on marijuana was much closer, with 53% voting against legalizing the drug for recreational use and 46% voting in favor. That left open a slight chance the measure could still pass once all special votes were counted next week, although it would require a huge swing. In past elections, special votes — which include those cast by overseas voters — have tended to be more liberal than general votes, giving proponents of marijuana legalization some hope the measure could still pass. Proponents of marijuana legalization were frustrated that popular Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wouldn’t reveal how she intended to vote ahead the Oct. 17 ballo...

While many countries around the world are hitting new highs in coronavirus cases, Taiwan has achieved a different kind of record — 200 days without a locally transmitted case. Taiwan holds the world’s best virus record by far and reached the new landmark on Thursday, even as the pathogen explodes anew in Europe and the U.S. Taiwan’s last local case came on April 12; there has been no second wave. What did this island with 23 million people do right? It has had 550 confirmed cases, with only seven deaths. Experts say closing borders early and tightly regulating travel have gone a long way toward fighting the virus. Other factors include rigorous contact tracing, technology-enforced quarantine and universal mask wearing. Further, Taiwan’s deadly experience with SARS has scared people into compliance. “Taiwan is the only major country that has so far been able to keep community transmission of Covid eliminated,” said Peter Collignon, an infectious disease physician and prof...