Formula One can be expected to ‘hit a glitch’ as the sport tries to complete a 2020 season stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic but 14-15 races looks feasible, McLaren boss Zak Brown said on Monday. The American told motorsport.com that number could be achieved at 10 circuits. Organisers have...

Residents of the southern Libyan town of Awbari on Monday requested a government security force to wrest control of the surrounding area from the forces of renegade general Khalifa Haftar.  Locals called on the presidential council of the government to "form a security force to...

Sudan has appointed its first ambassador to the United States for almost a quarter of a century, its foreign ministry said Monday, in a move to normalise relations after decades of antagonism. Both countries pledged to improve ties after the fall of veteran Islamist ruler Omar al-Bashir to...

US President Donald Trump now says his worst-case coronavirus scenario would be 100,000 deaths, but the country will probably reach that grim milestone by next month, according to several scientific models -- none of which predict a summertime halt to the virus's spread. "We're going to...

The Libyan military on Monday conducted strikes on seven oil tankers belonging to militias loyal to renegade general Khalifa Haftar.  The tankers were hit in an airstrike in the Al Qaryat region, 400 kilometers (248 miles) south of the capital Tripoli, according to a statement by the...

Yemen has reported two new coronavirus infections in Hadhramout, the national emergency coronavirus committee said Monday, raising the number of diagnosed infections in the war-town country to 12 with two deaths. The province of Hadhramout was where Yemen recorded its first case of COVID-19...

China's state broadcaster CCTV on Monday attacked US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's "insane and evasive remarks" over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, further fuelling Sino-US tensions. Pompeo on Sunday said "enormous evidence" showed the virus originated in a lab in China,...

France's labour ministry on Monday refused a request by Amazon for emergency funds to pay its employees during the coronavirus crisis, after the retail giant shut its warehouses over a French court ruling ordering the company to deliver only essential goods until its health protocols were...

The head of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement on Monday condemned Germany's ban on his group as bowing to US pressure and insisted it was not active in the country. Germany designated Hezbollah a "Shiite terrorist organisation" on Thursday as its security forces raided mosques and associations...

Israel's Supreme Court on Monday tackled the vexed question of whether a political deal to form a coalition government after three inconclusive elections in less than a year is actually legal. A ruling against the pact could leave the country facing a fourth poll. Under the proposed...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out his plan to ease a nationwide coronavirus lockdown next Sunday, media reports said, as new guidance emerged on how to maintain social distancing in workplaces. Stay-at-home orders imposed in late March are up for review on Thursday in...

Protest-hit Lebanon has approved an economic rescue plan and requested aid from the International Monetary Fund as it battles its worst financial crisis in decades. But how did Lebanon become one of the most indebted countries in the world? What's the plan out of this quagmire, and how...

The coronavirus death toll in Iran, one of the hardest hit countries in the Middle East, rose by 74 in the past 24 hours to 6,277, the Health Ministry said Monday, as mosques were due to reopen in many cities. The total number of diagnosed cases rose to 98,647, ministry spokesman Kianush...

 Millions of people were allowed to return to work in Italy Monday as Europe's longest lockdown started to ease, while countries from Iceland to India took a patchwork of steps to loosen coronavirus restrictions. Businesses including hairdressers in Greece and restaurants in Lebanon were...

A former senior North Korean diplomat apologised on Monday after saying leader Kim Jong Un was likely so ill he could not stand, days before he emerged in state media chain smoking and walking briskly at an event attended by hundreds of officials. Kim disappeared from state media for weeks,...

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to extend the country’s state of emergency on Monday until the end of May following a meeting of the government’s coronavirus task force later in the day. While much of the world is relaxing lockdown measures, Japan is extending its state of...

Hundreds of people are rolling up their sleeves in countries across the world to be injected with experimental vaccines that might stop COVID-19, spurring hope - maybe unrealistic - that an end to the pandemic may arrive sooner than anticipated. About 100 research groups are pursuing...

Jordan's cash-strapped economy is expected to contract around 3 percent in 2020 due to the impact of the coronavirus as government revenue plunges due to a tight lockdown that paralyzed businesses, the finance minister said Sunday. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which last March...

The Trump administration is "turbocharging" an initiative to remove global industrial supply chains from China as it weighs new tariffs to punish Beijing for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, according to officials familiar with U.S. planning. President Donald Trump, who has stepped...

Iran's parliament has passed a bill allowing the government to slash four zeros from the rial, Iranian state media reported Monday, after a sharp fall in the value of the currency as a result of crippling U.S. sanctions. Iran's national currency will be changed from the rial to the Toman,...