Japan dived into its first recession since 2015, according to official data on Monday, with the world's third-largest economy shrinking by 0.9 per cent in the first quarter as it wrestles with the fallout from the coronavirus.
The World Health Organisation will on Monday kick off its first ever virtual assembly, but fears abound that US-China tensions could derail the strong action needed to address the COVID-19 crisis.
Global tensions simmered over the race for a coronavirus vaccine Thursday, as the United States and China traded jabs, and France slammed pharmaceuticals giant Sanofi for suggesting the US would get any eventual vaccine first.
Over 140,000 people were forced into cramped shelters as a powerful typhoon hammered the Philippines on Friday, compounding the nation's battle with the coronavirus pandemic.
Chinese police have seized counterfeit notes with a face value of 422 million yuan ($59 million) in the largest haul since the 1949 founding of the People's Republic of China.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Israel on Wednesday, a day before its new government was to be sworn in, to discuss plans to annex much of the occupied West Bank into the Jewish state.
Japan's government said Thursday it wants to lift a state of emergency declared over the coronavirus in most of the country, though not yet the capital Tokyo and other urban centres.
The Taliban on Wednesday said they were prepared to battle Afghan forces after the president told troops to resume offensive operations following grisly attacks that have further unravelled a fragile peace process.
A leading publisher called Thursday for Google and other tech giants to pay Australian news outlets some US$400 million a year under a mandatory code of conduct ordered by the government.
Mozambique's constitutional court on Tuesday declared null and void loans worth US$1.4 billion that triggered the country's worst financial crisis when they were revealed, in a ruling welcomed by debt campaigners.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday urged the Afghan government and Taliban to cooperate after grisly attacks on a maternity hospital and a funeral dealt a blow to US efforts to end the war.
Authorities in Chile have asked the International Monetary Fund for a flexible line of credit of around US$23.8 billion over two years, the Washington-based institution said in a statement Tuesday.
Germany and Estonia submitted Tuesday a resolution to the UN Security Council on a ceasefire in various conflicts around the world during the coronavirus pandemic, to replace one drafted by France and Tunisia that the United States has blocked.
The United States and Iran clashed on Monday on the prospect of a prisoner swap, with a US official mockingly urging the adversary to send a plane to repatriate its citizens.
Swathes of Europe as well as New York began the long process of reopening from coronavirus lockdowns on Monday, but a resurgence of infections in China and South Korea offered a sobering reminder of the dangers of a second wave of cases.
Joe Biden is rapidly scaling up his digital campaign as he scrambles to compete with Donald Trump's formidable online operation, but Democrats say the presidential hopeful must move beyond flat speeches delivered from his basement.
Fighting broke out Monday between pro-government troops and separatists in southern Yemen, leaving 10 dead, security and medical officials said, in the first major clash since separatists declared self-rule in the south.
Bandits riding motorbikes killed 20 villagers in a string of attacks in Niger's western region of Tillaberi, the governor there told AFP on Sunday.
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