The health ministers of Denmark and Indonesia have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) regarding five fields of health cooperation: basic health services, remote medicine and digital health; noncommunicable disease prevention and control; pharmacy and health equipment; health human resources development; and health research and development. 

Total deaths are 400,312, according to the health ministry -- behind only the United States and Brazil -- with total cases almost 30.5 million.

"All coalition forces are off Bagram," the official -- who asked not to be identified -- said without specifying when the last US and NATO troops left the base, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Kabul.

With almost half of the nation's population under stay-at-home orders, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said quotas for overseas arrivals would be cut by around 50 percent to help prevent further outbreaks.

A further 22 people were reported as having died within 28 days of a positive test for COVID-19, taking the seven-day rise to just under 11 percent.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price told a news briefing the build-up had become more difficult for China to hide and it appeared it was deviating from decades of nuclear strategy based around minimal deterrence.

Friction emerged between India and Europe in recent days over the exclusion by the European Union vaccine passport programme of Covishield as one of its accepted vaccines.

The move follows Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid's visit to the UAE this week to inaugurate the country's first Gulf embassy in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi.

Shown on Kremlin-friendly media, the annual session with Putin sees the president field in real time queries submitted by Russians throughout the country.

"It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Donald Rumsfeld, an American statesman and devoted husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather," the statement said. "At 88, he was surrounded by family in his beloved Taos, New Mexico."

China considers democratically-ruled Taiwan its own territory, and under Xi has stepped up efforts to assert its sovereignty claims, including regularly sending fighter jets and bombers close to the island.

The charges by a Manhattan grand jury against the Trump Organization and its CFO Allen Weisselberg are expected to be unsealed on Thursday.

Indonesia's top diplomat reiterated the importance of setting aside differences among the world's major economies in providing early and equitable global access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines as a means to overcome the pandemic.

At a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea on Tuesday, Kim also sacked senior party members, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

As part of its annual assessment of the media, Pew researchers found losses of some 12 percent of newsroom jobs, or some 4,000 reporters, editors or photographers in 2020, to bring total employment to 30,820 at the end of the year.

Some parents in mainland China had been questioned by Chinese police about the activities of students in Australia and Hong Kong police had questioned a returning student about pro-democracy activities, the group said in a report released on Wednesday.

At least 134 people have died suddenly since Friday in the Vancouver area, according to figures released by the city police department and the Royal Canadian Mounted police.

The government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison had aimed to launch a similar "travel bubble" arrangement with Singapore by the end of the year and possibly extend it to other countries, including Japan, but the latest development may complicate the plan.

The medal award ceremony took place in Beijing's Great Hall of the People with much fanfare and was broadcast live on national television, as the party prepares to mark its 100th birthday on Thursday.

Two Japanese training warships have paid a port visit to Surabaya as part of its journey around the region as well as to conduct logistics replenishment at Tanjung Perak Port’s North Jamrud Pier.

Lapid landed at Abu Dhabi airport after earlier tweeting a picture of himself from inside a plane, with the caption: "Taking off for a historic visit to the UAE."

The government has secured Japan's commitment to donate 2 million AstraZeneca doses as it scrambles to secure more vaccines and medicines to combat Indonesia's second and worst wave of infections to date

"If Russia continues to attack us, or to act as it did with the SolarWind attacks, the intrusions into our elections and the aggression against Navalny, then we will respond," Blinken told Italian daily La Repubblica.

The three-day snap lockdown for Brisbane, starting on Tuesday evening, comes on top of similar orders imposed in Sydney, Perth and Darwin residents in recent days.

Families in India's north and east gave up the bodies of their loved ones to the river or buried them in shallow graves on its banks, unable to afford the cost of funeral pyres at the height of the outbreak in April and May.

Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi is participating at the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting this week as Indonesia is set to chair the group in 2022, when COVID-19 grievances are expected to continue impeding developing countries’ growth.

Neeraj Kumar Singh, an official in the northern city of Allahabad, said that almost 150 bodies have had to be cremated in the past three weeks.

Restaurants, bars and cafes were shuttered after stay-at-home orders for central neighbourhoods were extended across Sydney and to the coastal and mountainous regions surrounding the sprawling city.

Official figures said the city, which has already hosted six Euro 2020 matches and is due to host a quarter final on Friday, recorded 107 virus deaths over the last 24 hours. 

"I can say there is no meeting planned between Secretary Blinken and the Chinese foreign minister at the G-20 ministerial," Susannah Cooper, director of the department's Office of Monetary Affairs, told a conference call, referring to the G-20 gathering scheduled for Tuesday.