Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday claimed New Zealand had scored a significant victory against the spread of the coronavirus, as the country began a phased exit from lockdown. "There is no widespread, undetected community transmission in New Zealand," Ardern declared. "We have won...

Turkey’s health ministry has announced 99 new deaths from COVID-19, the lowest in nearly two weeks. The total death toll has risen to 2,805. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca shared daily figures Sunday, showing 2,357 new confirmed cases, bringing the number of confirmed infections to 110,130....

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday said he was "confident" he will be able to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank this summer, with support from the U.S. Speaking to an online gathering of evangelical Christian supporters of Israel, Netanyahu said President Donald...

France reported a big fall in its coronavirus toll Sunday, with 242 deaths in 24 hours, a drop of more than a third on the previous day. The epidemic has now claimed 22,856 lives in the country since the beginning of March, health officials said. The number of deaths in hospitals -- 152...

North Korea has never announced who would follow leader Kim Jong Un in the event he is incapacitated, and with no details known about his young children, analysts say his sister and loyalists could form a regency until a successor is old enough to take over. South Korean and Chinese...

Iran plans to reopen mosques in parts of the country that have been consistently free of the coronavirus outbreak as restrictions on Iranians gradually ease, President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday. Iran, one of the Middle Eastern countries hardest hit by the pandemic, will be divided up into...

The U.S. peace envoy to Afghanistan Sunday called on the country's feuding leaders to set their differences aside to combat the coronavirus pandemic and advance a stalled peace agreement signed with the Taliban earlier this year. "The well-being of the Afghan people and the country itself...

Israel's embattled health minister on Sunday said he would step down following a public uproar over his handling of the coronavirus crisis and his own COVID-19 infection. Health Minister Yaakov Litzman informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would step aside as the country forms...

Lebanon’s politically influential Maronite Christian patriarch backed the long-serving central bank governor on Sunday, after the prime minister cast bank chief Riad Salameh as responsible for a currency crash that worsened sharply in recent days. The pound, which has lost more than half...

The magnitude of how damaged the energy industry is came into full view on April 20 when the benchmark price of U.S. oil futures, which had never dropped below $10 a barrel in its nearly 40-year history, plunged to a previously unthinkable minus $38 a barrel. In just a few months, the...

Coronavirus is continuing its spread across the world, with about 2.9 million confirmed cases in 185 countries as of Sunday afternoon, according to a running tally by U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University. The university's data showed that the number of virus-linked deaths reached 203,332,...

Russia registered on Sunday another spike of coronavirus cases as a new record number of people tested positive over the last 24 hours. The tally rose to 80,949 with the new 6,361 cases reported since Saturday, the country's emergency team said in a statement. The number of fatalities...

 Israel's Labor party is voting Sunday on proposal to join a government headed by arch-rival Benjamin Netanyahu despite repeated campaign promises to never sit with a prime minister facing criminal indictments. The once-mighty left-wing party dominated Israeli politics for the...

Six weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over the spreading new coronavirus, the United States is deeply divided over the correct economic and health response. What was meant as a grand experiment in fast action, nearly $3 trillion in federal support to keep...

The Syrian dancer and choreographer has drawn crowds across France for her performances in public squares and parks. As she performed a series of spectacular ballet gestures before deserted grand monuments of Paris recently, there wasn’t a soul in sight -- except AFP cameraman Sameer al-Doumy...

Australia has launched a smartphone app to trace people who come in contact with coronavirus patients despite privacy concerns that authorities insisted Sunday were unwarranted. The COVIDSafe app uses a phone's Bluetooth wireless signal to store information about people's interactions, and...

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte vowed Sunday to reopen schools by September and allow many businesses to resume in a week's time as the country emerges from a near-total shutdown. Conte told La Repubblica newspaper that he will spell out the full details of how Italy will ease its way...

After six weeks stuck at home, Spain's children were allowed out Sunday to run, play or go for a walk as the government eased one of the world's toughest coronavirus lockdowns. Spain is among the hardest hit countries, with a death toll running at more than 23,000, putting it behind only...

China has confiscated over 89 million poor quality face masks, a government official said Sunday, as Beijing faces a slew of complaints about faulty protective gear exported worldwide. Demand for protective equipment has soared as nations across the globe battle the deadly coronavirus,...

Saudi Arabia's King Salman issued an order to partially lift the curfew in all regions of the kingdom, to become from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., starting Sunday through Wednesday May 13, while keeping a 24-hour curfew in Mecca and in previously isolated neighbourhoods, state news agency (SPA) said early...