Oil prices rose on Friday as President Donald Trump laid out plans to ease the U.S. coronavirus lockdown and on reports, later played down, that a drug may potentially help treat COVID-19. Brent rose by 54 cents, or 1.9%, to $28.36 a barrel by 1133 GMT, and U.S. crude CLc2 for June was up 4...

The French military has defended its handling of the spread of the coronavirus aboard its flagship aircraft carrier, after more than a third of sailors tested positive for the disease. Nearly 700 out of 1,767 sailors in the carrier group that includes the flagship Charles de Gaulle have so...

 Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh, the highest religious authority in the country, said that Muslim prayers during Ramadan and for the subsequent Eid al-Fitr feast should be performed at home if the coronavirus outbreak continues, Saudi's Okaz newspaper reported...

Japan will offer a cash payment of 100,000 yen ($930) to every resident, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Friday, as measures to contain the coronavirus decimate the world's third-top economy. "We are moving quickly to deliver cash to all people," Abe said in a televised news conference...

Germany said on Friday a month-long lockdown had brought the coronavirus pandemic under control, announcing plans to manufacture 50 million masks a week ahead of the first steps to loosen restrictions. Smaller shops will be allowed to reopen from Monday and some children could soon return...

Russia’s oil output deal with leading global producers will have an impact on global markets once it begins to be implemented, the Kremlin said on Friday. “The impact from the deal will come,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters on a conference call. Russia and other...

Iran’s death toll from the new coronavirus rose by 89 in the past 24 hours to reach 4,958 on Friday, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said on state TV. The total number of cases of infection reached 79,494, of which 3,563 were in critical condition, he said. A parliamentary...

Britain's Prince William on Friday revealed his concern for his father Prince Charles after he contracted coronavirus -- and his worries for his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II. Charles, 71, the monarch's eldest son and heir, tested positive for COVID-19 last month but recovered after a week...

The World Health Organization is urging Middle East and North African governments to "seize the opportunity" to combat the coronavirus while numbers of cases in the region are still relatively low. "We have to seize the opportunity to act in the region because the rise in cases was not so...

 Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has notified some refiners in Asia that it will supply full contractual volumes of crude in May, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday. This comes after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and...

Iran on Friday paraded disinfection vehicles, mobile hospitals and other medical equipment as it marked its national Army Day, to underscore the military’s role in battling the coronavirus pandemic which has hit the country hard. The small “Defenders of the Homeland, Helpers of Health”...

Italy plans to use a smartphone app developed by tech start-up Bending Spoons to track people who test positive for the new coronavirus as part of efforts to lift its nationwide lockdown. The original epicenter of the virus outbreak in Europe, Italy has the world's highest coronavirus death...

The coronavirus is poised to reshape the political map, pummeling battleground states and alarming Republicans who see early signs of an election that could be a referendum on President Donald Trump’s management of the crisis. The pandemic, which has killed more than 30,000 Americans and...

Iran's defence minister Friday dismissed U.S. reports of harassment by Iranian vessels as "baseless" and said the "illegal and aggressive" American presence in the Gulf was causing insecurity in the region. "What leads to insecurity in the Persian Gulf region is actually the illegal and...

An unknown gunman shot dead six local workers from the main American military base north of Afghanistan’s capital and wounded three others, an Afghan official said Friday. The nine workers, all Afghan nationals, were on their way home late Thursday when a gunman riding a motorcycle opened...

China's coronavirus ground-zero city of Wuhan on Friday admitted missteps in tallying its death toll, and abruptly raised the count by 50 percent following growing world doubts about Chinese transparency. The United States has led the charge in questioning China's handling of the pandemic...

Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel on Friday cautioned against the temptation to shoehorn too many Formula One races into a revised calendar, describing the move as "not realistic". The 22-event F1 season has been decimated by the coronavirus with nine races either cancelled or...

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, held a phone talk on Thursday and said in a joint statement they were ready to take measures with other OPEC+ members on the oil market if necessary. They also said both Russia and Saudi...

The United States is giving $5 million to the Palestinians to help them fight the coronavirus epidemic, a U.S. envoy said on Thursday. The donation announced by U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman follows years of aid cuts by President Donald Trump’s administration to the...

China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday the World Health Organization has said there is no evidence that the coronavirus that has infected more than 2 million people globally was made in a lab. Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian made the remark in response to a question about accusations the...