Britain's ambassador to the United States Wednesday backed calls for an investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus and the response of the World Health Organization, but said the first priority should be containing the outbreak. The comments came after Britain's foreign affairs...

GlaxoSmithKline, the world's largest vaccine maker, said the global push to develop an immunization against the coronavirus would not lead to widely available products before the second half of next year. "If things go right ... to get to scale of manufacturing in the hundreds of millions...

At least 36 people were killed Wednesday when one of South Korea's worst fires in years broke out at a construction site near the capital, officials said. They said the death toll could rise because more people were believed to be trapped inside the warehouse that was under construction in...

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said in a letter to President Donald Trump he hoped the U.S. Congress would better understand the strategic importance of their relations, given solidarity and supplies shared during the coronavirus pandemic. Erdogan's letter arrived Tuesday with a delivery...

The United States reported its millionth coronavirus case as hard-hit European countries took tentative steps towards lifting lockdowns, with masks mandatory in all German shops from Wednesday. Excitement over a move towards normality in many places was tempered by fear of new outbreaks and...

Two months after the US and the Taliban signed a deal Washington heralded as the way to end Afghanistan's war, violence is spiralling out of control and experts say a fragile peace process risks collapse. Dozens of Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters have been dying almost daily...

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is considering ordering coronavirus tests for people arriving in the United States on international flights, and highlighted Brazil. "We're probably going to be doing that. Brazil has pretty much had an outbreak, as you know," he said at a White House...

The World Health Organization (WHO) appealed for more flight capacity on Tuesday to step up shipments of diagnostic tests and protective equipment to areas where COVID-19 is spreading, especially Latin America. Paul Molinaro, chief of WHO operations support and logistics, said global...

A Turkish military cargo plane carrying medical supplies for use against the coronavirus pandemic departed on Tuesday for the US. "The loading process of the medical aid supplies to be delivered to the US by Turkish Armed Forces aircraft has been completed. Our aircraft carrying the medical...

US President Donald Trump suggested he may seek damages from China over the coronavirus pandemic which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan and spread around the world, prompting a furious response from Beijing on Tuesday. Beijing and Washington have clashed repeatedly over the outbreak as...

The arthritis drug tocilizumab has shown early promise in preventing extreme inflammation in gravely ill COVID-19 patients, according to a French clinical study. The treatment, which suppresses the body's natural immune response, was found to reduce "significantly" the number of deaths or...

Kim Jong Un may have missed a key holiday on April 15 because of concerns over the coronavirus, not because he is ill, South Korea's minister for North Korean affairs said Tuesday. North Korean leader Kim's absence from public ceremonies on the birth anniversary of his grandfather and...

A Brazilian supreme court judge on Monday ordered an investigation into accusations by ex-justice and security minister Sergio Moro that President Jair Bolsonaro sought to "interfere" with police investigations. In his decision, obtained by AFP, Judge Celso de Mello gave the federal police...

Despite recent progress, the majority of US states don't yet have sufficient COVID-19 testing capacity to consider relaxing stay-at-home orders after May 1, according to an analysis by Harvard researchers and the health news site Stat. It directly contradicts the position held by President...

The World Health Organization chief said Monday that the agency had sounded the highest level of alarm over the novel coronavirus early on, but lamented that not all countries had heeded its advice. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pointed out that the WHO warned the COVID-19 outbreak constituted...

Violence surged in Afghanistan in the weeks after the United States and the Taliban signed a deal supposed to pave the way for a peace process, a UN agency said Monday. Afghans had enjoyed a period of relative calm ahead of the February 29 accord, but the conflict resumed almost as soon as...

Joe Biden won the endorsement for US president Monday of Nancy Pelosi, who hailed him as a "voice of reason" capable of leading America out of the coronavirus crisis. Pelosi was the last leading Democrat to endorse formally Biden's run for the White House against Republican Donald Trump in...

The U.N. rights chief warned Monday that countries flouting the rule of law in the name of fighting the novel coronavirus pandemic risk sparking a "human rights disaster". United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called on countries to refrain from violating...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has not been seen in public for more than two weeks, missing commemorations for a key political anniversary, and reports he underwent a cardiovascular procedure have spiralled into speculation he could be incapacitated or even dead. Both Seoul and Washington...

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...