The U.S. and India discussed the “possibility” of a free trade pact, India’s Commerce and Industry Ministry said in a statement Thursday, just days after India began free trade agreement talks with the European Union.
Criminal charges against a Virginia pastor who held a Palm Sunday service in violation of coronavirus lockdown orders were dropped on Friday. He faced a $2,500 fine and possible jail time.
Days before California churches closed due to a surge in coronavirus cases, there was a massive evangelical Christian gathering on Huntington Beach near Los Angeles.
European Union negotiations on an unprecedented nearly two trillion euro budget and coronavirus recovery fund entered the third day amid warnings the summit could end without an agreement.
Western security services say Russian spies try to steal coronavirus research in several Western nations. Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warned Friday that Russian hackers “almost certainly” operated as “part of Russian intelligence services.”
A pro-Western party in North Macedonia is trying to form a coalition government after it claimed victory in somewhat historic but troubled elections. The Balkan nation’s first national vote under a new state name faced a suspected hacking attack impacting the publishing of results.
Israeli officials are anticipating the likelihood of renewing a nationwide lockdown as the country had 1,575 new cases of COVID-19 Monday, the Times of Israel reports. With a population of fewer than nine million residents, Israel has now had over 43,000 cases, including over 23,000 currently active cases and 375 coronavirus related deaths.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new financial aid package for the economic crisis set off by the coronavirus pandemic came under fire on Wednesday after Netanyahu announced the proposal.
The Trump administration is planning to extend restrictions barring non-essential travel across the Mexican and Canadian borders until at least late August as coronavirus cases and deaths continue to spike in the U.S. and Mexico, according to three people familiar with the plans.
Researchers at Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem and New York’s Mount Sinai Medical Center believe they could potentially downgrade COVID-19’s severity into nothing worse than a common cold.
Iran saw two further explosions at sensitive sites Sunday, with fire at a petrochemical plant in the Khuzestan province and a blast in a building believed to hold gas cylinders in Tehran, Fox News reported. These incidents were the latest in a series of sometimes deadly, mysterious explosions that have been taking place at military or infrastructural sites since June 26.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said a further summit of European Union member states may be required if Friday’s planned meeting fails to produce agreement on an economic stimulus package to help the bloc recover financially from COVID-19, the Washington Times reports.
The French government and unions have signed an agreement to give over eight billion euros in pay rises for the nation’s troubled health workers. France’s recently appointed Prime Minister Jean Castex said the move was overdue amid the devastating coronavirus pandemic in the European Union member state.
The Federal Reserve’s $3 trillion bid to stave off an economic crisis in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak is fuelling excesses across U.S. capital markets.
The U.S. government, faced with a surge in COVID-19 cases and their economic impact, said it incurred its biggest monthly deficit ever in June, an $864 billion figure that is more than the country usually has recorded annually throughout its history.
President Donald Trump said Friday that he isn’t thinking about a possible next stage of the U.S. trade deal with China, adding that the relationship between the two nations has been “severely damaged” by the coronavirus pandemic.
Hong Kong scientist Dr. Li-Meng Yan was stepping into uncharted territory. Hours before she boarded an April 28 Cathay Pacific flight to the United States, the respected doctor who specialized in virology and immunology at the Hong Kong School of Public Health had plotted her escape, packing her bag and sneaking past the censors and video cameras on campus.
Hungary’s fiercely anti-migration government warned Sunday it would reimpose far-reaching coronavirus restrictions on people arriving from nations with a moderate or high number of coronavirus infections. The measures include mandatory two-week quarantines or bans and other limitations.
People in Poland went to the polls Sunday in what commentators called a razor-blade-close presidential election runoff amid a coronavirus pandemic. Voters were deciding whether to give another chance to the current conservative President Andrzej Duda, or to make the liberal mayor of Warsaw the next head-of-state.
Bosnia-Herzegovina commemorated over the weekend the 25th anniversary of Europe’s worst atrocity since World War Two. Some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were shot end killed by invading Serb forces in and around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in one of the darkest episodes of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.