Blogroll

Lebanese authorities warned of a new wave of coronavirus cases after the number jumped to its highest point in more than a month as the government eased some restrictions on public life.

A new surge in coronavirus cases took Russia's tally past those in Italy and Britain on Monday, making it the third highest in the world just hours before President Vladimir Putin was due to issue an update on the situation.

President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would start gradually easing coronavirus-related lockdown measures from Tuesday, but that individual regions would need to tailor their approach to varying local conditions.

The number of coronavirus cases in the six Gulf Arab states surpassed 100,000 on Monday, with 557 deaths, according to Reuters calculations based on official figures.

Togo reported an outbreak of African swine fever in a farm northwest of the capital Lome, where 44 pigs have died of the disease since April 18.

About half of Spain's 47 million population on Monday entered the second stage of a four-phase plan to lift a coronavirus lockdown and return to normal by the end of June.

Britain's COVID-19 death toll has risen by 210 to 32,065, according to figures announced on Monday by the Department of Health.

Germany reported on Monday that new coronavirus infections were accelerating exponentially after early steps to ease its lockdown, news that sounded a global alarm even as businesses opened from Paris hair salons to Shanghai Disneyland.

Men in the lowest-skilled jobs have the highest death rates involving COVID-19 among working-age people, according to data for England and Wales that also showed fatalities among nurses and doctors were no higher than the average.

Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, reported on Monday its first cluster of infections since a lockdown on the city was lifted a month ago, stoking concerns of a wider resurgence of the disease.

Vice President Mike Pence is not in quarantine and plans to be at the White House on Monday, a spokesman said on Sunday, despite media reports that Pence was self-isolating after a staffer tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

The Trump administration has no plans to keep President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence apart, a person familiar with the matter said on Sunday, as concerns rise about the spread of the coronavirus within the White House.

New Zealand businesses including malls, cinemas, cafes and gyms will reopen on Thursday after some of the tightest restrictions in the world to stop the spread of the coronavirus were further loosened on Monday.

Indigenous peoples across Latin America are cutting off their communities from the outside world, worried that the coronavirus could pose a grave threat to their culture by putting at risk tribal elders, the keepers of their heritage.

South Korean officials scrambled on Monday to contain a new coronavirus outbreak, searching for thousands of people who may have been infected in a cluster of cases linked to nightclubs and bars in the capital Seoul.

The European Central Bank currently sees no "business case" for launching its own digital currency but is looking at how one would work should that change, ECB board member Yves Mersch said on Monday.

China will require local health authorities to tighten their supervision over how virus strains and their samples are handled in labs, the National Health Commission said in a draft rule issued on Monday.

Thailand began the year with a ban on single-use plastic bags that Bangkok office worker Nicha Singhanoi hoped would cut back the waste that puts her country among the world's top five choking the oceans with plastic.

Russia's coronavirus cases overtook Italian and British infections on Monday to become the third highest in the world after a record daily rise hours before President Vladimir Putin was due to review the country's lockdown regime.

Spain's daily coronavirus death toll fell on Monday to 123, the health ministry said, its lowest level in seven weeks.