Britain faces a “tipping point” in a second wave of coronavirus infections, forcing the government to take tougher lockdown measures unless people obey social distancing rules, Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned on Sunday.

China said Friday it was conducting military exercises near the Taiwan Strait, as a top US diplomat visits the self-ruled island in a move that has angered Beijing.

The wave of devastating forest fires currently sweeping parts of the western United States are in part a result of man-made climate change, according to an expert at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

The number of coronavirus cases registered worldwide topped 30 million on Thursday, according to an AFP tally based on official sources.

President Donald Trump expressed renewed confidence Wednesday that a viable Covid-19 vaccine would be ready by October, directly contradicting a top administration health expert and facing fierce criticism from his Democratic election rival Joe Biden

The World Health Organisation on Thursday warned of “alarming rates of transmission” of Covid-19 across Europe and cautioned against shortening quarantine periods as countries in the region scrambled to find ways to reduce infections without reso

President Donald Trump has admitted he wanted to “take out” Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2017 but was deterred by then Defence Secretary James Mattis after having previously denyied an assassination was even discussed.

Iranian President Hassan Rowhani has strongly criticized Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates for normalizing ties with Israel.

President Donald Trump suggested global warming will reverse itself and dismissed climate change as a cause of the ferocious fires engulfing the west of the United States.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Tuesday he was able to breathe unaided in his first public comments after his suspected poisoning in Siberia, while his aide said he planned to return to Russia once recovered.

Russia’s political opposition Monday claimed a symbolic victory in regional elections while the ruling party said exit polls showed they were headed for a win in a vote observers said was marred by fraud.

Crews were to resume searching for the dead on Sunday among blackened ruins left by massive wildfires raging in three western U.S. states, where millions of acres have burned in weeks and “mass fatality” incidents are feared in Oregon.

South Korea on Sunday eased its tough social distancing policy for the next two weeks in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, with new daily novel coronavirus cases hovering stubbornly within triple digits.

Israel is poised to declare the whole country a “red zone” due to a spike in Covid-19 cases, limiting people’s movements to a 500-meter radius from home and closing all non-essential businesses that serve customers in person.

Israel’s coronavirus cabinet met on Thursday, with a nationwide lockdown on the cards as the number of daily infections continued to climb towards 4,000.

A huge fire raged in Beirut port on Thursday, sparking alarm among Lebanese still reeling from the devastating dockside explosion that disfigured the capital last month.

A huge fire has almost completely destroyed the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, home to thousands of migrants living in already dire conditions, dialing up the pressure on European countries to respond to the crisis.

India reported 89,706 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, taking its total caseload to 4.3 million, data from the federal health ministry showed.

China on Tuesday said it has made “stern representations” to the Indian government after Indian troops allegedly crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh and fired warning shots at Chinese border personnel on Monday.

Belarus said Tuesday that a leading opposition figure, Maria Kolesnikova, had been detained while trying to cross the Ukrainian border, but Kiev said she was being held after resisting a forced deportation.

India overtook Brazil on Monday to become the second-worst affected country in terms of coronavirus cases behind the United States, according to an AFP tally.

Russian dissident Alexei Navalny has been removed from his medically induced coma and is being weaned off mechanical ventilation, the Berlin hospital where he is being treated said on Monday.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday said leaving the European Union without a deal on future trade would be a “good outcome” for Britain, warning that London will walk away from talks with Brussels unless agreement can by found by mid-October.

US President Donald Trump has demanded that Fox News fire its national security correspondent after she confirmed claims that the Republican leader had disparaged the military -- a bombshell that has dogged him for two days.

India and China said on Saturday they had agreed to work towards reducing tensions along their contested border, following a meeting of the defence ministers of the nuclear-armed Asian giants.

Australian officials on Sunday extended a strict virus lockdown of the country’s second-biggest city by two weeks, saying new cases had not dropped enough to prevent another spike.

New Zealand recorded its first coronavirus death in more than three months on Friday when a man in his 50s succumbed to the virus.

China’s national security law for Hong Kong poses a serious risk to the city’s freedoms and breaches international legal obligations, UN special rapporteurs on human rights have warned.

The poisoning of Alexei Navalny will be discussed at an urgent NATO meeting on Friday after European leaders threatened fresh sanctions against Moscow, which has furiously denied targeting the Russian opposition leader.

U.S. President Donald Trump has urged residents of North Carolina to vote twice in the Nov. 3 election, once by mail and once in person, openly urging an act of voter fraud even as he has decried mail-in ballots.