World News

The coronavirus pandemic that has crippled big-box retailers and mom and pop shops worldwide may be making a dent in illicit business, too.

The chief of the European Union’s executive has warned the block’s elderly that they may have to stay in lockdown till 2021 due to the new coronavirus pandemic. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made the comments in a German newspaper. Her remarks further overshadowed Easter and Passover celebrations in Europe. Von der Leyen told Germany’s daily Bild that older people might have to be kept isolated until the end of the year.

A second wave of desert locusts, projected to be 20 times the size of earlier swarms that the UN has called “unprecedented,” is expected to arrive in Africa and the Middle East over the summer.

Britain has pledged 200 million pounds ($248 million) to charities and the World Health Organization (WHO), which has come under U.S. pressure over its handling of the new coronavirus pandemic. Its Easter present came while British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been suffering from the virus COVID-19, said he “owed” his life to British medics.

OPEC and its oil producing allies on Sunday finalized a historic agreement to cut production by 9.7 million barrels per day, following multiple days of discussions and back-and-forth between the world’s largest energy producers. The cut is the single largest output cut in history.

U.S. tech giants Apple and Google have unveiled a plan to track down people who may have been infected by the new coronavirus, despite concerns among rights activists. Their software allows governments to roll out apps for “contact tracing” that will run on smartphones such as iPhones and Android.

France’s competition regulator has ordered online search giant Google to pay French publishing companies and news agencies for re-using their content under Europe’s new digital copyright legislation.

The US State Department announced Monday that it is classifying a Russian white supremacist group as a terrorist organization. This is the first time an American government has categorized white supremacists as terrorists – the classification is normally assigned to Islamic extremist groups.

Islamic State–Khorasan (ISIS-K) claims it carried out Thursday’s rocket attack on Bagram airfield, the largest US base in Afghanistan. There were no casualties or injuries. Bagram’s NATO-led US military mission, Operation Resolute Support, confirmed in a tweet that five rockets were fired at the base early in the morning on Thursday.

American and British cybersecurity officials are warning that state-backed hackers and online criminals are taking advantage of the coronavirus outbreak to further their operations, echoing concerns from digital safety experts.

World powers scrambled on Thursday to build a global response to the human tragedy and once-in-a-century economic collapse caused by the coronavirus epidemic, as death tolls in the US and Europe soared higher.

Saudi Arabia and Russia ended their price war and are poised to deliver the oil production cut President Trump has been demanding in order to raise historically low prices that have damaged the U.S. shale industry.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson was taken from intensive care late Thursday but remained in a London hospital recovering of the new coronavirus COVID-19, his office announced. “The prime minister has been moved this evening from intensive care back to the ward…He will receive close monitoring during the early phase of his recovery,” it added.

European Union finance ministers agreed Thursday on a half-a-trillion euro ($550-billion) rescue package for European nations hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. The chairman of the Eurogroup, Mário Centeno, confirmed the deal following marathon talks in Brussels where Italy warned the EU would collapse without financial solidarity.

Powerful cyclone Harold slammed into the South Pacific island nation of Fiji Wednesday, cutting off communications, causing buildings to collapse and injuring residents in Suva, the capital. The category 5 cyclone has already killed 27 people in the Solomon Islands and wreaked havoc in Vanuatu. The cyclone crisis in the South Pacific comes as local Island nations brace for the coronavirus pandemic.

A new report shows the “dramatic reversal” of a five-year trend as US companies commanded a considerably larger share of manufacturing in 2019 than the 14 Asian exporters that were tracked for the study. According to the seventh annual Reshoring Index report by global manufacturing consulting firm Kearney, Chinese exporters suffered the greatest losses.

A disagreement over eurozone loans on Wednesday halted European Union (EU) efforts to agree on a deal on managing the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Negotiations between European finance ministers were suspended until Thursday after 16 hours of talks brought no resolution. Yesterday’s discussions followed similar talks that were held last month, when no agreement was reached either.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said Wednesday that it was halting military operations nationwide in support of U.N. efforts to end a five-year war that has killed over 100,000 people and spread hunger and disease.

Worldwide debt reached 322% of GDP last year, according to new figures which will worry governments planning post-coronavirus economic recoveries.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) rushed to defend his agency’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic after President Donald Trump threatened to cut U.S. funding to them. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appealed for unity and a halt to “politicization” of the global health crisis, saying China and the United States should show “honest leadership.”