World News

A leading democracy watchdog has suggested that Hungary has become the first non-democratic European Union member state, prompting an angry reaction from the government. Washington-based Freedom House also warned that Poland is heading towards the same direction.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed progress in combating the coronavirus pandemic along with arms control issues and oil prices in a phone call Thursday, the White House and the Kremlin said.

The United States will be relocating four Patriot missile batteries from Saudi Arabia that were deployed amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

On the morning of Jan. 3, an email was sent from the Indonesian Embassy in Australia to a member of the premier of Western Australia’s staff who worked on health and ecological issues. Attached was a Word document that aroused no immediate suspicions, since the intended recipient knew the supposed sender.

Rights group Amnesty International has condemned the Hungarian parliament’s rejection of an international treaty to combat violence against women amid a coronavirus pandemic. “This decision is extremely dangerous,” said David Vig, Amnesty’s Hungary director. “It comes at a time when reported domestic violence incidents in Hungary have doubled since the start of the [new coronavirus] COVID-19 lockdown” to halt the virus outbreak.

UN experts are concerned South Sudan’s peace deal is at risk because unity government partners are arguing about security and resources instead of implementing the terms of the 2018 agreement, VOA News reports. A panel of experts on South Sudan reported to the UN Security Council last week that “selective and incomplete implementation” of agreed security arrangements threatened peace and stability in the country.

Donors have pledged 7.4 billion euros ($8 billion) for developing a vaccine against the new coronavirus disease COVID-19. But after the online-meeting with world leaders, banks and organizations, officials warned more money might be necessary.

Iran officially called off its annual anti-Israel al-Quds Day rallies due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The United States and Britain will begin negotiations Tuesday on a post-Brexit free-trade agreement.

The world’s biggest lockdown forced 122 million people out of jobs in India last month, according to estimates from a leading private sector think tank.

President Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have each said in recent days that there is significant evidence COVID-19 originated in a lab in China’s Wuhan province. At the same time, the Trump administration says it is looking into the cause of the coronavirus outbreak and has not published the evidence referred to. China has vehemently denied the allegations.

In the first such operation since the Cold War of the 1980s, U.S and British Navy vessels sailed into the Arctic Barents Sea Monday, between the northwest coast of Russia and Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. The US military said Russia had been given prior notice of the operation in order to avoid any “inadvertent escalation.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper says the peace process in Afghanistan is not going as quickly as expected, with the Taliban failing to reduce violence in the war-torn country.

The 30th anniversary of Hungary’s first freely elected Parliament since the end of Communist dictatorship has been overshadowed by fresh doubts over the government’s democratic credentials. Opposition parties stayed away from this weekend’s ceremony in Parliament, citing concerns about policies by the increasingly autocratic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province has announced it will be compulsory for all students in all provincial universities to attend lectures on the Quran, The New International reports. The announcement has raised concerns for the welfare of the many Christian students in Punjab.

An international pledging marathon has begun where world leaders are to raise at least 7.5 billion euros ($8.2 billion) to find a coronavirus vaccine. With social distancing the world’s new norm, world leaders choose video conferencing to raise the billions of dollars needed for research into a possible vaccine.

Iran has suggested it will abandon an already shaky deal to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons if an arms embargo on Tehran remains in place. The United States wants to extend the ban, which was due to end in October this year.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he has seen “enormous evidence” indicating the coronavirus pandemic originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

China has refused to cooperate with the World Health Organizations’ efforts to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, a WHO official told Sky News.

Tensions between China and the United States are rapidly escalating into a possible trade war with Beijing and Washington accusing each other of responsibility for the coronavirus outbreak.