World

The Paralympics began Tuesday in the same empty National Stadium — during the same pandemic — as the opening and closing ceremonies of the recently completed Tokyo Olympics.

Vice President Kamala Harris called on Vietnam to join the U.S. to challenge China’s “bullying” in the South China Sea, a continuation of her sharp rhetoric against Beijing as she tours Southeast Asia this week. “We need to find ways to pressure and raise the pressure, frankly, on Beijing to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and to challenge its bullying and excessive maritime claims,” she said, in remarks at the opening of a bilateral meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

A firefight outside Kabul’s international airport killed an Afghan soldier early Monday, highlighting the perils of evacuation efforts as the Taliban warned that any attempt by U.S. troops to delay their withdrawal to give people more time to flee would “provoke a reaction.”

Earth is getting so hot that temperatures in about a decade will probably blow past a level of warming that world leaders have sought to prevent, according to a report released Monday that the United Nations called a “code red for humanity.”

Japan's capital, Tokyo, reported its highest number of new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, days after the Olympics began. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga urged people to avoid non-essential outings, but said there was no need to consider a suspension of the Games.