Battered by Lebanon’s economic crisis, Hassan Zeitar was already struggling to keep his family fed when the coronavirus lockdown stripped him of the little money he made as a minibus driver. Now housebound in Beirut, Zeitar is racking up debt at a local grocery to provide rice and lentils...

The UN envoy to Yemen said Thursday he was engaged in talks with the country's warring parties to secure a nationwide ceasefire to help counter the threat of the coronavirus. Martin Griffiths' office said he is discussing "concrete steps" with the warring sides despite a recent escalation...

Google on Thursday said it is pumping $6.5 million into fact-checkers and nonprofits as it ramps up its the battle against coronavirus misinformation. Fact-checking organizations, which often operate on relatively small budgets, are seeing a surge in demand for their work as mistaken or...

More than 500,000 coronavirus infections have been diagnosed in Europe, over half the global total, according to a tally by AFP from official sources at 1000 GMT Thursday. The continent has recorded 508,271 cases and 34,571 COVID-19 deaths, compared to global figures of 940,815 and 47,836...

Saudi Arabia imposed a 24-hour curfew Thursday in Mecca and Medina , the interior ministry said, extending measures taken to combat the spread of the coronavirus, which has infected more than 1,700 people and killed 16. The interior ministry said in a statement there were some exceptions,...

Spain's death toll from coronavirus surpassed the 10,000 threshold after a record 950 people died overnight, the country's health ministry said on Thursday. The country's total death toll caused by the coronavirus outbreak was 10,003 while the number of cases registered rose to 110,238...

Iran said Thursday it "only acts in self-defence" after President Donald Trump warned it against attacks on US troops in Iraq, as a new war of words heated up despite the coronavirus pandemic. Tensions between the arch-foes flared in Iraq where the United States deployed Patriot air defence...

Iran on Thursday reported 124 new deaths from the coronavirus, raising its total to 3,160, as President Rouhani warned that the country may still battle the pandemic for another year. Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour announced the latest toll in a news conference and confirmed...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Turkish artillery fire pounded a Kurdish village near the border town of Ras al-Ayn in northeastern Syria, leaving four people wounded, residents told Zaman al-Wasl Thursday. At least 20 artillery shells hit the village of al-Rabiaat on Wednesday, targeting the Kurdish...

Lebanese authorities have introduced "discriminatory restrictions" exclusively targeting Syrian refugees as part of their response to the coronavirus, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. Lebanon hosts between 1.5 and 2 million Syrians, nearly one million of whom are officially registered...

The death toll from the novel coronavirus in the U.S. pushed past the 5,000 mark Thursday, according to data by Johns Hopkins University.  The number of infected cases rose to 216,721, while 8,672 have recovered from the virus. Most of the deaths were reported in New York state....

Ellis Marsalis Jr., jazz pianist, teacher and patriarch of a New Orleans musical clan that includes famed performer sons Wynton and Branford, has died after battling pneumonia brought on by the new coronavirus, one of his sons said late Wednesday. He was 85. Ellis Marsalis III confirmed in...

Israeli Health Minister Yaakov Litzman and his wife were diagnosed with coronavirus and are in isolation following guidelines, his ministry said on Thursday. Several other senior officials, including the head of Israel's foreign intelligence agency Mossad, were also self-isolating due to...

Iran has no proxies but it has friends, tweeted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said that the country or its proxies planned a sneak attack on U.S. targets in Iraq. "Don't be misled by usual warmongers, AGAIN,...

President Donald Trump has held an unequivocal position about China and the coronavirus - several of them. Trump initially praised China, then excoriated Beijing after it made unsubstantiated claims that the virus originated in the United States. Now, Trump is back to offering niceties....

While the world is gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, war-shattered Libya marks one year Saturday of its latest bloody conflict that is plunging it ever deeper into chaos. Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and others have fuelled the fighting in the oil-rich but poverty-stricken...

 The Turkish and Russian presidents on Wednesday discussed over phone ways to combat the novel coronavirus, according to an official statement. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin also discussed bilateral relations and regional issues, Turkey's Communication Directorate said....

The war in Syria killed 103 civilians in March, marking the lowest monthly non-combatant death toll since the start of the conflict in 2011, a war monitor said Wednesday. Of the total deaths, some 51 people were killed in shelling and air strikes by the Syrian regime, the Britain-based...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Civil Defense agency said Wednesday it has sterilized more than 1500 facilities in northern Idlib province, such a move seeks to halt the spread of Coronavirus pandemic. At least 1520 public facilities has been sterilized, including 26 colleges and institutes, 315...

 BlackRock’s Managing Director Amer Bisat said on Wednesday that the world economy could contract by 11% in the first half of 2020 and lose $6 trillion in economic output due to the coronavirus pandemic. “To put this in context, this will be worse than the contraction that we saw in...