An immediate nationwide ceasefire is needed across Syria to enable an “all-out-effort” to stamp out the coronavirus and prevent it from ravaging a beleaguered population, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday. Prisoners and millions of displaced...

The number of coronavirus cases in Italy is probably 10 times higher than the official tally, the head of the agency collating the data said Tuesday as the government readied new measures to force people to stay at home. Italy has seen more fatalities than any other country, with latest...

 Forces from Yemen's Houthi movement Tuesday blocked a UN chartered ship carrying representatives of the internationally recognised government from leaving Hodeidah port, the government and a source familiar with the matter said. The ship was prevented from leaving for a second time by...

Confusion rippled through Britain Tuesday, a day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered a three-week virtual lockdown halting all non-essential activity to fight the spread of the new coronavirus. The measures came into force as the UK recorded its biggest daily rise in COVID-19 deaths so...

India's 1.3 billion people will go under "total lockdown" for 21 days to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday. "From 12 midnight today (1830 GMT Tuesday), the entire country will be in lockdown, total lockdown," Modi said in a national...

Russian authorities do not know the full extent of the coronavirus outbreak across the country and should step up measures to stem the pandemic, a top official said Tuesday. Russia, which shares a border with China and has a population of 144 million, has officially reported 495 cases of...

Anxious patients wearing masks form a line zig-zagging back several streets outside a hospital in the French Mediterranean port city Marseille. Young and old all keep strictly one metre (yard) apart and an eerie silence hangs in the air, punctuated only by indignant shouts as some try to...

The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria called on Tuesday for an immediate nationwide ceasefire across Syria to enable an “all-out-effort” to stamp out COVID-19. In a statement, Geir Pedersen also appealed on humanitarian grounds for “large-scale releases of detainees and abductees” in Syria and...

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday reported its first death from the coronavirus, a 51-year-old Afghani resident, while the United Arab Emirates’ main airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi said they would temporarily suspend all passenger flights from Thursday. Saudi Health Ministry spokesman Mohammed...

U.S. President Donald Trump Tuesday acknowledged the difficulty of procuring crucial healthcare supplies amid the coronavirus pandemic as state and local officials raise alarms about a healthcare delivery system in danger of collapse. In an early morning tweet, Trump said: "The World market...

Japan's prime minister and the head of the International Olympic Committee agreed to postpone the Tokyo 2020 Games by a year Tuesday in an extraordinary move, unprecedented in peacetime, as the world battles the coronavirus pandemic. "I proposed to postpone for about a year and president...

More than 1,600 people have been arrested in Jordan in three days for violating a curfew aimed at stemming the spread of coronavirus, a security official said Tuesday. The source said the 1,657 people arrested across Jordan since the curfew came into effect on Saturday had been placed in...

 Egypt has declared a curfew from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. for two weeks starting Wednesday to counter the spread of coronavirus and those who violate the measure will be penalised under the country's emergency laws, the prime minister said. A closure of schools and universities, which were...

Footballers at Germany's top teams including Bayern Munich have agreed to take pay cuts to help other clubs survive the economic impact of the coronavirus, media reports said Tuesday. Newspaper Bild reports that players and club officials at champions Bayern, top of the Bundesliga when the...

A German army shipment of six million face masks needed to protect against the novel coronavirus has vanished in Kenya, the defense ministry in Berlin confirmed Tuesday. "We are trying to find out what happened" to the massive order of protective equipment meeting the FFP2 standard for...

 Iran Tuesday announced 122 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, raising the official toll to 1,934 in one of the world's worst hit countries. Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said a record 1,762 new cases have been confirmed in Iran over the past 24 hours and 24,811...

At least 70 Nigerian soldiers were killed in an ambush on their convoy by militant fighters in the restive northeast, military and security sources said Tuesday. Insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at a lorry carrying troops as it travelled near Gorgi village in Borno state on...

Chinese authorities said Tuesday they will end a two-month lockdown of most of coronavirus-hit Hubei province at midnight, as domestic cases of the virus continue to subside. People with a clean bill of health will be allowed to leave, the provincial government said. The city of Wuhan,...

Veteran Afro-jazz star Manu Dibango died on Tuesday after contracting the coronavirus, his music publisher told AFP. The 86-year-old Cameroonian, best known for the 1972 hit "Soul Makossa", is one of the first worldwide stars to die as a result of COVID-19. "He died early this morning...

The U.S. Senate could pass a $2 trillion coronavirus economic stimulus package as soon as Tuesday, negotiators said, insisting they had made significant progress despite failing so far to reach a bipartisan deal on the sweeping legislation. Steven Mnuchin, President Donald Trump's treasury...