Belarusian deputy police chief Aleksandr Barsukov has vowed that all of those who were taken into temporary custody amid unrest that has gripped Minsk since Sunday's presidential election will be released by 6am local time on Friday.

The official made the announcement as he was visiting a temporary detention facility in one of the capital’s boroughs, amid allegations that officers were brutalizing detainees there. Barsukov has rejected the claim.

Cities across Belarus have been swept by a wave of protests, occasionally escalating into violence and scuffles between demonstrators and law enforcement, after exit polls showed incumbent President Aleksander Lukashenko winning about 80 percent of the vote in Sunday's election. His critics, who rallied behind united opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, have insisted that the government rigged the tally, demanding Lukashenko's resignation. Around 6,000 people in total have been arrested across Belarus

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Three unguided projectiles have landed on the premises of Al-Balad military airbase, which houses US troops, Iraqi authorities confirmed. No information on damage or potential casualties was immediately available.

The military compound, located some 80 km (50 miles) north of the capital Baghdad, came under attack on Thursday. At least three projectiles landed on its premises, yet did not cause any "significant" damage, Iraq's Security Media Cell has said, promising to provide further detail to the public later.

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The government in Finland recommended the use of face masks in public for the first time on Thursday as the number of coronavirus cases rises. Prime Minister Sanna Marin said masks should be worn in situations where social distancing is not possible, such as on public transport.

Prior to Thursday, Finland had not officially backed the use of masks.

Marin clarified the new quarantine rules for travelers from high-risk countries. She said the government had no legal grounds to order general quarantines.

However, local health authorities and doctors were able to mandate coronavirus tests and quarantine decisions for travelers arriving from high-risk countries, Reuters quoted the PM as saying.

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The FBI will join Lebanese and international investigators in a probe into last week’s massive Beirut explosion that killed at least 172 people, a senior US diplomat said on Thursday.

US Under Secretary for Political Affairs David Hale said in Beirut this was at the invitation of Lebanese authorities, Reuters reports.

The high-ranking US diplomat headed to Lebanon to stress the “urgent need” for the country to embrace fundamental reform, the State Department said. The visit comes in the aftermath of a blast that caused large-scale damage in the capital, Beirut.

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The president of North Macedonia on Thursday handed a mandate to pro-Western ex-PM Zoran Zaev to form a new government after his party bloc narrowly won a July 15 election.

“I will lead a government that will not… veer away from the road leading to membership of the European Union after obtaining membership of NATO,” Zaev said.

The Social Democratic leader will have 20 days to ensure the support of parties representing Macedonia’s ethnic Albanian minority before getting the green light to form a cabinet, Reuters said.

Zaev, who had led the previous government of the former Yugoslav republic since 2017, put the country on a path toward EU membership by agreeing to add “North” to its name.

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Taiwan unveiled a T$42.1 billion ($1.4 billion) increase in next year’s planned defense spending on Thursday. President Tsai Ing-wen’s cabinet is proposing T$453.4 billion in military spending for the year beginning January 2021, compared to the T$411.3 billion budgeted for 2020 – an increase of 10.2 percent, Reuters said, citing its calculations.

“The steady increase in the defense budget will facilitate the implementation of various military-building and war-preparation tasks … and ensure national security and regional peace and stability,” Taiwan’s Defense Ministry explained.

On Monday, Taiwan said Chinese fighters briefly crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, the same day US health chief Alex Azar met Tsai in Taipei.

After the budget announcement, China’s People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command said its forces had carried out combat drills in the Taiwan Strait and to the north and south of the island during Azar’s trip.

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Israel has decided to stop shipments of fuel into Gaza in response to Palestinians in the enclave launching incendiary balloons that have torched tracts of farmland on the Israeli frontier.

Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza have launched dozens of helium balloons laden with incendiary material in recent days to pressure Israel to ease its blockade of the territory, Reuters reported.

Fuel shipments were stopped “in light of the continued launching of incendiary balloons from the Strip toward [Israel] and of the undermining of security stability,” the Defense Ministry said.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum has described the measure as a “grave act of aggression” that would deepen Gaza’s economic hardship.

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Paris will send two Rafale fighter jets and the naval frigate 'Lafayette' to the Eastern Mediterranean, France’s Ministry of Armed Forces said on Thursday. The move is part of plans to increase the country’s military presence in the region.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called on Turkey to halt oil and gas exploration in the disputed waters in that area, which has resulted in heightened tensions with Greece, Reuters said.

On Wednesday, the French president voiced concern over “unilateral” exploration by Turkey in a call with Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

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Schools in Turkey will start to reopen on September 21 in a gradual transition back to in-person education, Education Minister Ziya Selcuk said on Wednesday. The reopening was delayed by three weeks after a rise in coronavirus cases.

Selcuk said that distance learning would begin on August 31, when schools had previously been set to open. Ankara announced the initial closure of schools in mid-March after the emergence of the first coronavirus cases in Turkey.

Last week, Turkey rolled out new inspection and enforcement rules after daily new coronavirus cases jumped above 1,000 for the first time in three weeks, Reuters said.

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The United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, on Wednesday condemned the use of violence by the Belarusian authorities to quash peaceful protests.

After President Aleksandr Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory in Sunday’s election, Bachelet said police were reported to have used excessive force, firing rubber bullets, using water cannon, and throwing stun grenades, Reuters reports.

“Reports suggest that [approximately] 6,000 people have been detained in the last three days, including bystanders, as well as minors, suggesting a trend of massive arrests in clear violation of international human rights standards,” Bachelet said in a statement.

Even more disturbing are the reports of “ill treatment during and after detention,” she said. The human rights commissioner called for the release of all those unlawfully detained and for investigations into the abuses of power.

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The leader of one of the parties in Dutch PM Mark Rutte’s ruling coalition joined opposition lawmakers on Wednesday in criticizing the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, AP reported. In particular, a decision to make some quarantine measures mandatory was slammed. The criticism came during a debate that interrupted the Dutch parliament’s summer recess, and amid sharply rising infection rates in the Netherlands.

“If I look at how the Cabinet has reacted over the past weeks, the word that springs to mind is chaos,” opposition Labor Party leader Lodewijk Asscher said, as he opened the debate with Rutte and Health Minister Hugo de Jonge.

The government said on Tuesday evening that it is planning to introduce mandatory quarantine for people identified by local health authorities as having been in close contact with somebody infected with the coronavirus, and for travelers returning from high-risk countries. Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders called the measure “disproportionate.”

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The government in Oslo said it would reimpose quarantine measures on travelers from more foreign countries and reiterated its advice that Norwegians should avoid going abroad.

Norway diagnosed 357 people with Covid-19 last week, the highest since April, still well below the record 1,733 cases found in a single week in late March, Reuters reports.

Last week, Norway put on hold a plan to further reopen society and urged its citizens to refrain from foreign travel.

The co8ntry will now reimpose 10-day quarantines from Saturday for all travelers from Poland, Malta, Iceland, Cyprus and the Netherlands, the Faroe Islands and some Danish and Swedish regions.

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Swiss authorities will allow events of more than 1,000 people from October 1, provided organizers follow hygiene measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, the government decided on Wednesday. Permission from local authorities will also be required for events.

While easing audience limits, the government on Wednesday also ordered that face masks must be worn by passengers on all flights. Masks have been compulsory on buses, trains and trams since early July.

The country is seeking to strike a balance between the need to kick-start its economy as the number of coronavirus infections start to rise again following the easing of previous measures.

“The main argument to easing, after six months of pandemic in Switzerland, is learning to live with the virus, while returning to some semblance of normalcy,” Health Minister Alain Berset told reporters.

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The foreign ministers of Greece and the United States will meet in Vienna on Friday to discuss tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Foreign Ministry in Athens said. The statement comes amid a dispute between Athens and Ankara over hydrocarbon resources.

The meeting between Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will take days after Turkey dispatched the seismic survey vessel 'Oruc Reis' to an area of sea claimed by both nations, Reuters reports.

In Ankara, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Wednesday that Turkey wants to resolve a dispute with Greece over energy exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean through dialogue. He added, however, that Ankara would defend its rights and interests in the region.

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Sweden withdrew its recommendation to citizens not to take unnecessary trips to Austria and Liechtenstein on Wednesday. However, Stockholm kept in place warnings over travel to the United Kingdom and several European states amid an upturn in coronavirus infections.

Stockholm had already withdrawn advice against unnecessary trips to countries like neighbors Denmark, Norway and a number of other destinations in Europe, such as France, Germany and Spain.

Restrictions will remain in place for Britain, Ireland, Latvia, Finland and a number of other countries until at least August 26, Reuters reports.

The Swedish government continues to advise against travel to the rest of the world, but will review that decision at the end of the month.

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The Israeli military said on Wednesday it carried out overnight strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip after incendiary balloons were launched across the border from the Palestinian enclave.

The strikes were “retaliation” for the launching of multiple balloons from the Hamas-run enclave in recent days, the army said.

Jets, attack helicopters and tanks struck a number of Hamas targets, including “underground infrastructure and observation posts,” the AFP news agency reports, citing the statement.

The fire service in southern Israel said the balloons caused 60 blazes on Tuesday alone, but reported no casualties.

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Clashes between soldiers and civilians during a disarmament exercise in the central South Sudanese town of Tonj have left 127 dead, an army spokesman said Wednesday.

The fighting erupted on Saturday as security forces carried out an operation to disarm civilians in the area, which has seen deadly inter-communal clashes, Major General Lul Ruai Koang told the AFP news agency.

More than six years after a civil war broke out in the country, and in the absence of a functioning government, many communities have a stockpile of weapons that they keep for protection or defense against cattle raids.

The violence in Tonj began after several armed youths got into a disagreement with soldiers.

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Belarusian police detained more than 1,000 protesters on the third night of protests in Minsk and other cities on Tuesday, the Interior Ministry has said. It added on Wednesday that 51 protesters and 14 police officers were hurt during the protests overnight.

The protests broke out after an election handing a new term to President Alexander Lukashenko.

On Tuesday, Belarusian law-enforcement agencies said they had detained more than 2,000 people during the protests. The Health Ministry said on the same day that more than 200 people injured during nighttime protests were in hospitals.

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Sweden’s Foreign Minster Ann Linde said she has been invited to an extraordinary EU foreign affairs meeting on Friday to discuss potential sanctions on Belarus.

“This morning there has been a summons to an extraordinary EU foreign ministers’ meeting on Friday where we will discuss precisely this [sanctions],” Linde told Swedish radio in an interview on Wednesday.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday condemned what he described as “disproportionate” violence by Belarus authorities against protesters following Sunday’s presidential election. Borrell said the EU could take measures, without giving details, Reuters reported.

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Seoul and Washington will kick off their annual joint military drills this week but without mobilizing US-based troops, after scaling back the program due to coronavirus concerns, Reuters quoted a military source in the South Korea capital as saying on Wednesday.

The allies have been discussing how to adjust the exercises, which usually begin in August, with the coronavirus threatening to disrupt the travel of US personnel.

The program involves tens of thousands of soldiers from both sides, although it is largely focused on computerized simulations rather than live field training.

The exercises will be held from August 16 to 28 but in a reduced scale, the military source said. Seoul’s Defense Ministry spokesman said the plans have not yet been finalized.

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Authorities in New Zealand are investigating the possibility that its first Covid-19 cases in over three months were imported by freight, as the country’s biggest city plunged back into lockdown on Wednesday.

The discovery of four infected family members in Auckland led PM Jacinda Ardern to swiftly reimpose tight restrictions in the city and social distancing measures across the entire country.

Health officials said they were confident there had been no local transmission of the virus in New Zealand for 102 days. Investigations were zeroing in on the possibility that it was imported by freight, Reuters reports. Testing was underway at an Auckland cool storage facility where a man from the infected family worked.

Residents of Auckland, which is home to around 1.7 million people, were given hours to prepare for the return to level 3 restrictions on Wednesday, requiring people to stay at home except for essential trips.

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The top legislature in Beijing has extended the mandate for the current group of Hong Kong lawmakers for a year from its expiry date of September 30, after a scheduled election was delayed.

The decision by China’s legislature means Hong Kong’s 70-member Legislative Council, or LegCo, will continue to perform its duties for “no less than a year” and until the next LegCo starts its four-year term, the Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.

Critics say the decision to postpone the election was political and came after China adopted new national security laws in late June that affect the city, Reuters said.

The standing committee of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, supported the Hong Kong government’s decision on July 31 to postpone a September 6 election for the next LegCo for a year, calling it “necessary and appropriate.”

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PM Jean Castex said on Tuesday that the coronavirus infection rate in France was headed in the wrong direction, adding that a collective response was necessary.

The public was becoming careless, Castex warned, after official data recorded nearly 5,000 new coronavirus cases from Saturday to Monday. The epidemic has killed more than 30,300 people in France, Reuters said.

France is extending a ban on gatherings of more than 5,000 people until the end of October, Castex said. New restrictions will be drawn up in the 20 largest cities to curb the rising infection rate. Local officials wil be asked to encourage the wearing of masks in public spaces nationwide.

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London and Paris are working on a new plan to shut a Channel migration route from France, British immigration minister Chris Philp said on Tuesday. The minister was speaking to reporters at the British Embassy in Paris after holding talks with his French counterparts, Reuters said.

Hundreds of people, including some children, have been caught crossing to southern England from makeshift camps in northern France over the last week. Many were navigating one of the world’s busiest shipping routes in overloaded rubber dinghies.

Britain wants greater flexibility to return illegal migrants to France after they risk the journey across the English Channel in small boats, a junior health minister, Edward Argar, was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

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Israel’s military has announced a reduction of forces on its northern border with Syria and Lebanon, after deploying reinforcements in recent weeks in response to a spike in tensions. “Troop reinforcements in the area are being reduced,” an army statement said on Monday.

Being technically at war with northern neighbors Lebanon and Syria, Israel maintains a military presence along the frontier.

Over the past three weeks, Israel has twice struck Syrian military targets in response to border unrest, AFP said. Israel also said that it had repelled an attempt by Hezbollah fighters to penetrate the border, but the Shiite group denied any involvement in the incident.

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Authorities in New Zealand said on Tuesday they were shutting down the largest city, Auckland, after four new coronavirus cases were discovered.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Auckland would move to level-three restriction from noon on Wednesday as a “precautionary approach.” People should stay away from work and school, and gatherings of more than 10 people would again be restricted. The curbs would be applied for three days until Friday.

“This is something we have prepared for,” Ardern told reporters, adding that the source of the virus was unknown.

“We have had a 102 days and it was easy to feel New Zealand was out of the woods. No country has gone as far as we did without having a resurgence. And because we were the only ones, we had to plan. And we have planned,” she said.

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Three staff members of the Russian Embassy in Bratislava and their families have left Slovakia, RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday. Slovakia’s PM, Igor Matovic, says the decision to expel Russian diplomats has been made in connection with the murder of a Georgian national in Berlin, the TASS news agency reports.

“When a couple of days ago I was informed about the activities of some staff members of the Russian embassy [in Slovakia] and about confirmations of misuse of [Slovakian] visas in order to commit murder in Germany, I immediately, without hesitation, understood that such actions cannot remain without response,” he was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

Slovakia’s Foreign Ministry said on August 10 that the authorities were expelling three staff members of the Russian Embassy in Bratislava over suspected espionage activity. Moscow said it would retaliate.

A Georgian national was killed in Tiergarten on August 23, 2019, and the Berlin prosecutor’s office said the arrested suspect was a Russian citizen. The Russian authorities have repeatedly denied Russia’s involvement in the Berlin incident.

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Greece wants the EU to hold an emergency meeting of its foreign ministers, the prime minister’s office said on Tuesday. The statement comes amid a row with Turkey over the eastern Mediterranean.

Tensions were stoked on Monday when Ankara sent the research ship Oruc Reis into waters off the Greek island of Kastellorizo, where Turkey disputes Greek maritime rights, the AFP news agency said.

The situation is “extremely worrying and needs to be solved in a dialogue,” a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

Last week, Greece and Egypt signed an agreement to set up an exclusive economic zone in the region. Greece, Cyprus, and Israel sealed the contract in January for a huge pipeline project to go ahead that will transport gas from the eastern Mediterranean to Europe, despite Turkey’s hostility to the deal. Ankara and the UN-recognized government in Libya signed a security agreement in 2019.

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Egypt’s citizens began voting on Tuesday for members of a newly created second chamber of parliament, with restrictive measures in place aimed at curbing a resurgence of coronavirus infections.

The Council of Senators – an advisory body without legislative powers – will include 200 elected members and 100 appointed by the president.

Nearly 63 million people out of a total population of more than 100 million are eligible to vote. As in Egypt’s main parliamentary chamber, supporters of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi are expected to dominate.

The Senate will enhance political participation, officials say. However, the buildup to the elections was low key, which commentators attributed to the coronavirus pandemic and a lack of awareness about the new chamber, Reuters said.

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Ankara will issue seismic exploration and drilling licenses in new areas of the eastern Mediterranean by the end of August, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday.

NATO allies Turkey and Greece are at odds over overlapping claims for hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean. On Monday, Turkey sent a vessel to conduct a seismic survey in a disputed area in the region, Reuters reported, and Greece said the move was illegal.

Cavusoglu said Turkey would issue new licenses for operations near the western borders of its continental shelf and continue “all sorts of seismic and drilling operations” in the area.

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Japan’s top government spokesman said on Tuesday it was extremely important to maintain the framework of the Group of Seven (G7) meetings. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga’s comment came after US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he has not decided whether to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to this year’s summit meeting, Reuters reports.

The G7 includes Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Canada in addition to the United States. Russia participated in the then G8 group until 2014.

Suga also said it is up to the United States, this year’s chair nation, to decide what form the forthcoming summit meeting will take.

Germany has rejected a proposal by Trump to invite Russia back into the group, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on July 27.

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US Health Secretary Alex Azar, who is visiting Taiwan, attacked China’s response to the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday. The Trump administration has repeatedly criticized Beijing for trying to cover up the virus outbreak, first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. China denies the accusations.

“The Chinese Communist Party had the chance to warn the world and work with the world on battling the virus. But they chose not to, and the costs of that choice mount higher every day,” Azar said in Taipei.

As the virus emerged, China did not live up to its “binding” international obligations, Reuters quoted the US official as saying. “I believe it is no exaggeration to say that if this virus had emerged in a place like Taiwan or the US, it might have been snuffed out easily,” Azar said.

The health secretary arrived in Taiwan on Sunday as the highest-level US official to visit in four decades. The trip was condemned by China.

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On Tuesday, Israel closed one of its main border crossings with the Gaza Strip. The decision was made after Palestinians launched incendiary balloons that set fire to areas on the Israeli frontier, Reuters reports.

More than 30 fires were set around border communities by balloons carrying incendiary devices launched from Hamas-run Gaza, Israeli media said.

“The Kerem Shalom Crossing will be closed for the passage of all goods, with the exception of the entry of essential humanitarian equipment and fuel,” according to Israel’s Defense Ministry. Kerem Shalom is one of three main Gaza border crossings with Israel and Egypt, and it is where most goods pass through daily.

Palestinian officials say the closure will particularly affect the delivery of construction materials.

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Slovakia has expelled three staff at the Russian embassy in Bratislava, the Slovak Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

“According to information from the Slovak intelligence services, their activities were in contradiction with the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations,” Reuters quoted a ministry spokesman as saying in an emailed statement.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday it will respond in kind to Slovakia’s expulsion of Russian diplomats, RIA Novosti reported.

The diplomatic workers were declared persona non grata on August 6, according to Slovak media.

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Face masks became compulsory in tourist hotspots in Paris on Monday amid warnings of a resurgence of coronavirus cases.

The requirement came as France along with much of Western Europe sweltered in a heatwave, with temperatures soaring above 35 degrees Celsius (95 F), AFP reports. The heat sent crowds flocking to beaches at the weekend despite health warnings about the risk of infection.

In the Paris region, people aged 11 and over are now required to wear masks in crowded areas and tourist hotspots. These include the banks of the Seine River and more than 100 streets in the French capital.

Several French towns and cities have already introduced similar measures, as well as parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain.

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Visitors to Greece arriving from Sweden, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic will need proof they have tested negative for the coronavirus to gain entry, the government has said.

Tightening controls after a recent spike in coronavirus infections, the government said on Monday the requirement will go into effect from August 17. The required test cannot be older than 72 hours prior to entry.

On Sunday, Greece reported its highest daily tally of coronavirus infections, 203 cases, since the start of the outbreak, Reuters reports.

The government in Athens also moved to suspend public gatherings, including shows and concerts, where audiences are not seated.

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The EU must take steps in order to prevent the possibility of the use of force in Belarus, Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said on Monday. He denied that Warsaw had inspired post-election protests in Belarus, and added that the Belarusian authorities had to understand that they had not been incited by actions from abroad but instead resulted from a lack of satisfaction on the part of the people, PAP reports.

Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki earlier in the day called on EU’s leaders to convene an extraordinary summit to discuss the situation in Belarus.

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko had said participants in post-election protests in Belarus were being steered from Poland, Great Britain, and the Czech Republic.

In Prague, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the elections in Belarus “cannot be said to be free and democratic.” The Czech Republic “fully respects and supports the independence and sovereignty of Belarus, but at the same time, will under all circumstances promote freedom of expression and assembly and equal political competition,” the ministry said.

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Opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in her complaint to the Central Election Commission (CEC) demanded on Monday that the published results of the vote be declared void. She also wants a recount of the votes at some polls or a repeat election to be conducted there, spokeswoman of her electoral headquarters Anna Krasulina told TASS.

“Due to the violations of the legislation that occurred during the vote count, a recount of votes is needed… In case the recount is impossible to conduct, the election at some polling stations should be considered void based on Article 79 of the electoral code,” she added.

According to the electoral authorities, incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko is winning the election with 80.08 percent of the vote. Tikhanovskaya has 10.09 percent, according to the (CEC).

Law enforcement agencies detained about 3,000 people while dozens of protesters and policemen were injured in Minsk and other cities in clashes after the election.

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Tehran has rejected as “unrealistic” a call by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for the UN to extend an international arms embargo on Iran that ends in October.

The GCC is made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The group said Sunday that Iran’s continued interference in neighboring countries made an extension necessary.

“The GCC is currently at the apex of its incompetence and its unrealistic policies have rendered it ineffective,” Reuters quoted Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi as saying on Monday.

The arms embargo is currently set to end on October 18 as part of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The US quit the pact in 2018.

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Hamas fired rockets into the sea on Monday following repeated exchanges of fire with Israel in recent days, according to Palestinian security sources and eyewitnesses. At least eight rockets were seen in the sky heading toward the Mediterranean Sea from the Gaza Strip, which has been under Israeli blockade for more than a decade.

The Interior Ministry of the Palestinian enclave referred to “an act of resistance.” The rockets were a “message” to Israel to let it know that armed groups in Gaza will not “remain silent” in the face of an Israeli blockade and “aggression,” a source close to Hamas told AFP.

Monday’s rocket fire coincided with the recent launch of incendiary balloons into Israel. In the past week, such balloons have flown three times from Gaza into Israel, each time triggering retaliatory strikes against Hamas positions.

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The World Health Organization trusts the Group of Seven countries to reach a consensus on how to approach health crises such as the coronavirus, according to Mike Ryan, head of WHO’s emergencies program.

“We are all vulnerable to risks, we need to find global solutions,” Ryan said on Monday. “We trust the G7 will play a major part in that in the months and years to come.”

France and Germany have quit talks on reforming the WHO in frustration at attempts by the US to lead the negotiations, despite its decision to leave the WHO, Reuters reported, citing three officials.

The move is seen as a setback for President Donald Trump. Washington, which holds the rotating chair of the G7, had hoped to issue a joint roadmap for a sweeping overhaul of the WHO in September, two months before the US presidential election.

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Chinese fighter jets briefly crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Monday morning before being “driven out” by Taiwan’s air force, the island’s Defense Ministry said. The Chinese fighters were also tracked by Taiwan’s land-based anti-aircraft missiles, the military said.

The incident took place on the first full day of a high-profile visit to Taiwan by US Health Secretary Alex Azar, which China has condemned.

Azar said on Monday that his visit to Taiwan represented an acknowledgment of deep mutual friendship and partnership. The official said in Taipei that Taiwan is a model of transparent, collaborative public health information-sharing, Reuters reports.

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The Social Democrats in Germany have proposed Olaf Scholz, the vice chancellor and finance minister – and their most high-profile and popular politician – to run to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel in next year’s elections.

The decision marks a comeback for the former Hamburg mayor, who was last year defeated in the race to lead his party by two left-wing outsiders. Now, Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans have nominated their erstwhile rival, Reuters reports.

“Now it’s official,” Scholz tweeted. “The party leadership have unanimously nominated me as chancellor candidate. I look forward to a fun, fair and successful campaign.”

The party, which for decades vied with Merkel’s Christian Democrats to dominate the political scene, has not won a national election since 2002. Merkel’s fourth and final term is expected to end next year.

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Poland on Monday called for an emergency European Union summit on the situation in Belarus after a night of clashes in Minsk following a presidential election in the country.

“The authorities have used force against their citizens, who are demanding change in the country,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a statement. “We must support the Belarusian people in their quest for freedom,” AFP quoted him as saying.

The Belarusian Central Election Commission said on Monday that President Alexander Lukashenko won a landslide re-election victory. Following the voting on Sunday, bloody clashes began between riot police and thousands of protesters who said the poll was rigged.

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Peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban are expected to start in Qatar within a week, once the final batch of Taliban prisoners is released, the US special envoy and sources in Kabul said on Monday.

The government accepted the advice of a loya jirga, a grand assembly of elders, on Sunday to release 400 “hardcore” Taliban prisoners. The move paves the way for talks aimed at ending a war that has ground on since US-backed Afghan forces ousted a Taliban government in late 2001.

“We are ready to sit for talks within a week from when we see our prisoners released. We are ready,” Taliban spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, told Reuters on Monday.

President Ashraf Ghani would likely sign the decree to release the prisoners on Monday, according to a government source. “The original plan is to travel to Doha on Wednesday and the talks will begin on Sunday,” the source added.

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A group of French tourists along with their local tour guide and driver have been shot and killed by gunmen in Niger. French President Emmanuel Macron's officer confirmed the deaths of the French citizens.

The shooting took place in the Koure region, which is home to the last herd of West African giraffes and a popular tourist destination.

The unidentified armed men were riding motorcycles and waited for the arrival of the tourists to the area, a source told AFP. “Most of the victims were shot… We found a magazine emptied of its cartridges at the scene,” the source explained, adding that the tourists' vehicle belonged to the French aid organization ACTED.

“We are managing the situation, we will give more information later,” said Tidjani Ibrahim Katiella, the governor of the country’s southwestern Tillaberi Region.

Al-Qaeda-linked militants, against whom France waged a military campaign, have been in control of a large area in the northern part of neighboring Mali since 2012, while also carrying out attacks in Niger and Burkina Faso.

Macron has called Niger's President, Mahamadou Issoufou, to discuss the tragedy. France's foreign ministry warns on its website that the "terrorist threat is high" in Niger.

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The number of US forces stationed in Afghanistan will be reduced to less than 5,000 in the coming months, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in an interview with Fox News. The withdrawal, which would account for around half of the 8,600 personnel in the country, will be completed by November, he said.

“Right now we think that we can do all the core missions – first and foremost ensuring the United States is not threatened by terrorists coming out of Afghanistan – we can do those at a lower level,” he told Fox News’ Judge Jeanine. US President Donald Trump said earlier this week that he wanted to cap US troop presence in Afghanistan at 4,000.

The US has begun pulling forces from the country as part of a phased deal with the Taliban. Esper remarked that the peace process in the war-torn nation has been a “windy road” but was nonetheless making progress.

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“We have stated that our port of Mersin may be used by Lebanon until the reconstruction of the Port of Beirut is complete,” Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay told reporters. He said that Lebanon may use the country’s Mediterranean Sea port for customs clearance and storage space.

Oktay visited Beirut on Saturday and met with Lebanese President Michel Aoun, as rescue teams continue to clear the rubble in search of victims of the two powerful blasts that devastated much of the capital. More than 150 people were killed and 60 more are believed to be missing.

Officials linked the explosions to a large stash of ammonium nitrate stored in Beirut’s port, but the exact cause of the blasts is yet to be determined.

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Investigators have retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the crash site at Calicut International Airport. Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced the news on his Twitter.

Digital Flight Data Recorder & Cockpit Voice Recorder of the ill-fated aircraft have been retrieved. AAIB is conducting investigations. pic.twitter.com/WCOPV5ETTf

— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) August 8, 2020

The recordings will help investigators determine the details of the crash. According to air traffic data, the pilots experienced difficulties due to the bad weather and had to make several approaches before attempting to land.

The Air India Express flight 1344 overshot the runway amid heavy rain on Friday and broke into two pieces.

The death toll from the crash rose to 18 on Saturday, with 16 others hospitalized and in serious condition.

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Malta banned mass gatherings and made it mandatory to wear masks in public on Friday. The move came as new coronavirus infections surged after having been reduced to zero for a week early in July.

Health authorities reported 49 new infections on Friday, the second highest daily number since the first case was detected in early March. Nine patients have died, Reuters reported.

The decision to reimpose controls represents a sharp turnaround for Malta, which depends on tourism for a third of its GDP.

The Mediterranean country has conducted the third-highest level of testing in the EU and had lifted restrictions and re-opened some overseas travel last month as case numbers fell. It now joins a growing list of countries forced to reimpose controls after early successes in controlling the disease.

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Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday denied statements made in Lebanon and abroad that the group had arms warehoused at Beirut port. He also called for a just and transparent investigation into blast that occurred there on Tuesday.

“We know more about the port of Haifa than the port of Beirut,” the Jerusalem Post quoted him as saying. “The port of Beirut is not our responsibility, whereas the port of Haifa is part of our defense strategy.”

In a televised speech, Nasrallah said that Tuesday’s huge explosion in the Lebanese capital was an exceptional event in the country’s modern history which required internal unity and calm, and that it should not be politicized.

He also praised the solidarity shown by countries around the world and said this presented an opportunity for Lebanon, Reuters reports. Lebanon is grappling with a deep economic crisis.

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Israel’s military said on Friday it had shot down a drone overnight that crossed into Israeli airspace near Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights. The strategic plateau is at the frontier with Syria.

The army said the incident was not connected to the triggering of sirens later in the day by a false alarm regarding a drone infiltration, Reuters reports.

Israel has been on high alert as tensions have escalated with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Earlier in the week Israeli aircraft attacked targets in Syria.

Most of the Golan Heights were captured by Israel from Syria in a war in 1967.

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A court in Belgium on Friday rejected Spain’s demand to have a former high-ranking politician from the region of Catalonia extradited. The Brussels prosecutor’s office said the court had decided not to enforce the European arrest warrant for former Catalan Culture Minister Lluis Puig on the grounds that “the Spanish authorities who issued the warrant are not competent to do so,” AP reports.

Puig’s lawyers had argued that Spain’s Supreme Court does not have the jurisdiction to judge him and that only a Catalan court is competent to do so.

The move is seen as yet another setback for Madrid’s efforts to try several officials in exile over their alleged roles in an independence referendum that Spain sees as illegal.

Puig has been living in exile in Belgium since he, former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, and a number of their associates fled to Belgium in October 2017, fearing arrest over the holding of an independence referendum that the Spanish government had banned.

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Bulgarian police on Friday removed dozens of tent camps that had blocked key city intersections across the country amid continuing anti-government protests.

Police said they cleared away tents in the capital of Sofia during the early morning hours and briefly detained 12 people. Police Commissioner Toni Todorov said authorities respect and guarantee the rights of citizens to protest peacefully but that such activity can not violate the rights of other Bulgarians.

The protesters vowed to erect even more road blockades, AP reports. The mostly young demonstrators accuse those in power of refusing to fight corruption and suppressing freedom of speech.

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Norwegians should avoid all travel abroad, even to countries with few Covid-19 cases, Health Minister Bent Hoie said on Friday. “There is still little contamination in Norway but we see increased contamination in countries that used to have control over their situations,” Bent Hoie told reporters in Oslo.

While not a member of the European Union, Norway belongs to the passport-free Schengen travel area. It had some of the strictest travel restrictions in Europe in the early phase of the pandemic before gradually lifting them from June.

In another move, bars and restaurants may no longer serve alcohol after midnight, Hoie said. Authorities would also issue fresh recommendations on wearing face masks on August 14, Reuters reports. Norway and other Nordic countries, unlike many other European nations, are not currently mandating masks in public spaces.

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Britain’s top minister overseeing the post-Brexit talks said on Friday that progress had been made with the European Union, and that he thinks the two sides will clinch a free trade agreement.

“All the evidence is that we are making progress with the EU,” Michael Gove told reporters in Northern Ireland. “I believe that there will be a successful negotiated outcome.”

The tone of the comments from Gove was distinctly more positive than in recent months, Reuters said. In late May, Gove was demanding that the EU break the impasse in talks.

Brussels is willing to compromise by softening its demand that Britain heed EU rules on state aid in the future, diplomatic sources said earlier this month.

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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey has resumed drilling operations in the eastern Mediterranean as Greece had not kept its promises regarding energy exploration in the region, Reuters reports. Erdogan was speaking to reporters after Friday prayers at the Hagia Sophia mosque.

NATO allies Turkey and Greece have long been at loggerheads over overlapping claims for hydrocarbon resources and tensions have flared up between them again.

In late July, Ankara said it could pause energy-exploration operations in the eastern Mediterranean Sea for a while, pending talks with Greece.

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Poland reported 809 coronavirus cases on Friday, the sixth record daily rise in two weeks. However, Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin ruled out a new nationwide lockdown.

Poland sees no need for new curbs aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus, despite the number of daily cases hitting record highs, Deputy Health Minister Janusz Cieszynski said on Friday.

The previous day, the government imposed stricter rules on a number of Polish counties, including compulsory wearing of face masks outside the home, Reuters reports.

According to the Health Ministry, most of the cases were in and around big cities including the capital Warsaw, Katowice and Krakow.

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Kim Jong-un has ordered North Korean officials to provide food and shelter for hundreds of families who lost their homes in floods, the KCNA state news agency said on Friday.

Heavy rain across the Korean peninsula has brought flooding to both North and South Korea in recent days. Concern is growing about damage to North Korean crops and its potential impact on food supplies, Reuters reports.

Kim made the remarks while inspecting a flood-hit part of North Hwanghae Province, on the border of South Korea. Torrential rain for several days has inundated more than 730 single-story houses, destroying 179 of them, and flooded rice-growing land, according to KCNA. There were no reports of casualties.

South Korea on Thursday donated $10 million to the UN World Food Program for its efforts to help North Korean children and women. Parts of South Korea have seen more than 40 consecutive days of rain, the longest monsoon since 2013, and more is expected across the peninsula.

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Thousands of Afghan elders, community leaders and politicians gathered on Friday to debate government efforts to make peace with the Taliban. The fate of 400 hardcore Taliban prisoners, whose release could clear the way for talks, is on the agenda.

Some 3,200 people have been invited to the grand assembly, a loya jirga, in Kabul amid tight security, to debate for at least three days and then advise the government on whether the prisoners should be freed.

As part of a February pact between the US and the Taliban allowing for the withdrawal of US troops, it was agreed that some 5,000 Taliban prisoners should be released from Afghan jails as a condition for talks between the militants and the US-backed government.

The government has released all but some 400 militants it says have been convicted of the worst crimes, Reuters reports.

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The United States should stop arms sales to Taiwan to avoid affecting bilateral relations, China’s Foreign Ministry has said. The US arms sales seriously violate the “one China” principle, Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing on Friday.

Washington is negotiating the sale of at least four sophisticated aerial drones to Taiwan, as previously reported by Reuters.

The Sea Guardian surveillance drones have a range of 6,000 nautical miles (11,100 km), far greater than the 160-mile range of Taiwan’s current fleet of drones.

The sale of the unmanned aerial vehicles has been tacitly authorized by the State Department, according to sources. However, it is not clear whether US officials have approved exporting the drones with weapons attached.

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Norway is halting its planned easing of coronavirus restrictions and will likely reimpose others to prevent a full lockdown of society, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said on Thursday. “We need to slow down now to avoid a full stop down the road,” Solberg told reporters.

Earlier, Norway said it will reimpose a 10-day quarantine from Saturday for all travelers from France, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, due to the rising number of coronavirus cases in those countries.

Norway will also reimpose quarantine for people traveling from Monaco and from certain regions in neighboring Sweden, while lifting quarantine obligations for other regions, Reuters said. Authorities in Oslo are also discussing whether to update guidelines on the wearing of face masks in crowded spaces.

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Egypt and Greece signed an agreement on Thursday, designating an exclusive economic zone in the eastern Mediterranean between the two countries, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said. The area contains promising oil and gas reserves.

Shoukry made the announcement after meeting his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias in Cairo, Reuters reports. The agreement is within the framework of international law and contributes to security and stability in the region, Dendias said.

Cairo and Athens are at odds with Turkey, which last year angered the two states by signing a maritime delimitation agreement with the internationally recognized Libyan government. The move escalated disputes over potential offshore gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean.

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Austria’s Foreign Ministry has warned against trips to Spain except for the Balearic and Canary Islands. The measure will take effect from Monday, and people returning to Austria will be required to present a negative test for coronavirus.

The measures are the latest blow to Spain’s tourism-dependent economy. Britain, Germany and Switzerland recently warned their citizens against summer holidays on Spanish beaches or at least in certain regions of the country.

New coronavirus cases in Spain have started rising again and hit a post-lockdown record of 1,772 new infections on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

The Austrian government has already imposed tight testing requirements for arrivals from the Balkans after it saw an increase in cases among people returning from the region.

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Poland’s conservative President Andrzej Duda was sworn in for a second five-year term before parliament members on Thursday. Most opposition parliamentarians and former presidents and prime ministers did not attend.

Duda is being criticized for what some say was disregard for the constitution during his first term, and his almost total acceptance of the ruling right-wing party’s policies that have put Poland at odds with European Union leaders, AP said.

Duda has been a close ally of the ruling right-wing coalition of the Law and Justice party and two small partner parties.

He won 51.03 percent of votes in the July 12 election runoff while his challenger, liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, received 48.97 percent.

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Washington on Thursday imposed sanctions on three individuals and a Malta-based company, accusing them of acting as a network of smugglers and of contributing to instability in Libya.

The US Treasury Department said in a statement it blacklisted Faysal al-Wadi, accusing the Libyan national of having smuggled drugs and Libyan fuel into Malta. Also blacklisted were two associates, Malta-based company Alwefaq Ltd, and the vessel Maraya, which the Treasury said Wadi had used in his alleged smuggling operations.

The Treasury also said that “competition for control of smuggling routes, oil facilities, and transport nodes is a key driver of conflict in Libya and deprives the Libyan people of economic resources.” Thursday’s action freezes any US assets of those blacklisted and generally bars Americans from dealing with them.

“Faysal al-Wadi and his associates have smuggled fuel from Libya and used Libya as a transit zone to smuggle illicit drugs,” Reuters reported Deputy Treasury Secretary Justin Muzinich as saying.

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Swiss authorities have amended their list of countries that pose a risk from high rates of coronavirus infection to all outside Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone, barring some exceptions.

The exceptions include Australia, Ireland, Japan, Canada, South Korea and New Zealand, the government said on Thursday.

The move, which aims to curb the spread of the coronavirus, takes effect on Saturday. It tightens a list that was expanded only on Wednesday, when mainland Spain was added.

Switzerland’s health minister said that new country-wide measures to check the recent spike in coronavirus cases are unlikely at present, Reuters reported.

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Beijing on Thursday threatened to take countermeasures over a trip to Taiwan by US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar. The island is gearing up for its highest-level US official visit in four decades.

The visit, which begins on Sunday, adds to tensions between Beijing and Washington as China calls Taiwan the most sensitive and important issue in its bilateral ties.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in Beijing that any attempt to deny or challenge the “One China” principle, which states that Taiwan is part of China, would end in failure, Reuters reports. “China will take strong countermeasures in response to the US behavior,” Wang said, referring to Azar’s visit.

Last month, China said it would impose sanctions on Lockheed Martin for its involvement in US arms sales to Taiwan.

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The leading Druze politician in Lebanon, Walid Jumblatt, called on Thursday for an international probe into the Beirut port explosion. Jumblatt said he had “no trust” in the government to find out the truth about it.

Jumblatt’s party has lawmakers in parliament but is not in the current cabinet, which took office in January with backing from the Hezbollah movement and its allies. If not for the help of foreign states and the Arab region, “Lebanon would disappear,” he said, calling for “a government of neutrality.”

France's President Emmanuel Macron told angry Lebanese crowds in downtown Beirut on Thursday that French aid would not go to “corrupt hands” and he would seek a new deal with political authorities, Reuters reports. Macron was the first foreign leader to visit the Lebanese capital since the explosion on Tuesday.

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President Aleksandr Lukashenko was quoted as saying on Thursday that Belarus had detained a number of people who possessed US passports and were married to US women ahead of the country’s presidential elections to be held on August 9. Lukashenko provided no further details of the detainees. The US embassy has not immediately commented on the statement.

The president said that “quite a lot of people have been detained who were going to destabilize the situation in the country ahead of elections,” Belta news agency reported.

The campaign manager of Belarus’ leading opposition candidate was briefly detained on Thursday, her office said. Maria Moroz was detained by the Interior Ministry after visiting the Lithuanian embassy in Minsk, a spokeswoman for presidential hopeful Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told AFP, then quickly announced that she had been freed.

The ministry said that Moroz had been “invited for a conversation” and denied she had been arrested.

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The federal government in India on Thursday named a former telecoms minister to lead the disputed region of Kashmir. Manoj Sinha, a leader in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party, will replace career bureaucrat GC Murmu as lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir.

New Delhi hopes to accelerate economic development and end years of strife in the territory. The appointment came a day after the first anniversary of the revocation of Kashmir’s constitutional autonomy passed off without any street protests amid heavy deployment of police and restrictions on public movement, Reuters said.

Last August, Modi’s government removed the special privileges accorded to Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, took away its statehood and split it into two federally administered territories by carving up Buddhist-dominated Ladakh.

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Melbourne began the first day of a six-week total lockdown on Thursday. The second-biggest city in Australia is closing most shops and businesses.

Shops were shut and streets were deserted in the city of about five million people, the capital of Victoria state, which reported 471 new coronavirus cases and eight deaths in one 24 hour period.

Australia has now recorded about 20,000 Covid-19 cases and 255 fatalities, Reuters reports.

New South Wales reported 12 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, taking the national tally to 483. There were no cases reported in other states and territories.

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Beijing said on Thursday it was firmly opposed to the US government’s action to block Chinese apps. China’s Foreign Ministry said that the move went against market principles and had no factual basis.

China also urged the United States “to correct its mistake,” ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters.

The Trump administration said earlier it was stepping up efforts to purge “untrusted” Chinese apps from US digital networks. It described the Chinese-owned short-video app TikTok and messenger app WeChat as “significant threats,” Reuters reported.

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The European Union must do more to fill a power void in the eastern Mediterranean brought on by a perceived US disengagement from the region, Cyprus’ foreign minister said on Wednesday. The island nation is ready to host an EU task force to achieve that goal, AP quoted Nikos Christodoulides as saying.

The EU has so far failed to use its ample “soft power” to position itself as the leading player in a region fraught with problems such as terrorism and illegal immigration, the minister said.

The bloc should pursue a more muscular policy, with a larger military footprint in the region, the diplomat noted, lauding France for supporting this line. French President Emmanuel Macron is organizing a summit of the EU’s seven Mediterranean nations on September 10 to discuss developments in the eastern Mediterranean.

Cyprus can act as a base of operations for the EU’s humanitarian and other missions. The island is 180km (120 miles) away from Lebanon and could serve as the EU’s hub for delivering assistance in the wake of Tuesday’s deadly blast in Beirut, Christodoulides also said.

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The Israeli military said on Wednesday it was establishing a coronavirus task force aimed at cutting the chain of infection in the country. The new force will begin operating next week and will connect all the different bodies under one umbrella.

The unit, headed by a brigadier general, will operate a sampling center, a quarantine center, recovery hotels, an evaluation complex, and an epidemiological investigations center, AP reports.

The Defense Ministry has long advocated utilizing the military’s vast infrastructure and resources to combat the spread of the virus but has been rebuffed until now because of inter-government squabbling.

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A leading role in the nuclear disarmament should be played by Moscow and Washington, but not Beijing, because China’s nuclear arsenal is noticeably smaller, according to Chinese Ambassador to US Cui Tiankai.

During the annual Aspen Security Forum, the envoy was asked whether China was interested in signing any arms control deals with the participation of Moscow and Washington.

“I think that there are now very important negotiations between the US and Russia concerning the existing treaties between those countries. And these treaties are extremely important for international strategic stability,” TASS quoted the diplomat as saying. “We hope those treaties would continue… We could have reasons to be optimistic, but I don’t know.”

The US and Russia have the largest nuclear arsenal, while China has a very small amount of nuclear weapons, according to the ambassador. He noted that one of his colleagues had earlier asked whether the US was ready to reduce its current nuclear stockpile to the size of the Chinese one as a precondition for launching the negotiations.

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The two most populous cities in the Netherlands began ordering people to wear face masks in busy streets on Wednesday, amid rising coronavirus infection rates. Police in Rotterdam said a number of people opposed to the mask order staged a protest in the downtown area where masks became obligatory.

Amsterdam ordered masks to be worn in the red-light district and busy shopping streets and markets. Many visitors to the narrow lanes and canal-side roads of the neighborhood ignored the instructions, despite signs informing people of the new measure.

The mask orders came into force a day after the Dutch public health institute reported a near-doubling in confirmed infections in a week to 2,588, the AP news agency reports.

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The Polish government intends to fully reopen schools on September 1, Education Minister Dariusz Piontkowski said on Wednesday, despite a recent renewed spike in coronavirus infections. Cases started rising after restrictions on public gatherings were eased. On Tuesday, authorities reported the fourth record daily increase in a week, with 680 new infections.

Poland, a nation of 38 million people, had recorded a total of 48,789 cases and 1,756 deaths as of Wednesday, Reuters reports.

“We want students to come back to normal education in schools from September,” Piontkowski said.

The ministry will impose strict hygiene and safety rules for schools, as well as criteria under which some schools could switch to online or a mix of online and in-class tuition in the event of of local infection spikes.

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Thai police have summoned five organizers of student-led protests against the government, saying they had violated a coronavirus emergency decree that forbids large gatherings.

Among those called for questioning was human rights lawyer Anon Nampa, who on Monday had demanded reforms of Thailand’s powerful monarchy, a highly sensitive topic. However, police said on Wednesday that Anon, 35, was being summoned over an earlier protest in July that was held outside the army headquarters.

The organizers were “summoned for questioning and to hear the charge of breaching the emergency decree,” police lieutenant colonel Athich Donnanchai, deputy director of Nanglerng police, told Reuters.

Last month, the government said the emergency decree in place since March would only be used as a measure against the coronavirus and from August onwards said it would not be used to prevent political rallies.

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Swiss health authorities have added mainland Spain to its list of countries from which people arriving must enter a 10-day coronavirus quarantine.

Patrick Mathys, head of crisis management for the federal public health office, told reporters in Bern the move would take effect from Saturday. The measure excludes Spain’s Balearic and Canary Islands.

“For the first time we did not put an entire country on the list,” Mathys said on Wednesday. Russia, Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates were removed from the list, Reuters reports.

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Regional governments in Japan should act independently to contain a resurgence of coronavirus infections, and holidaymakers should refrain from domestic travel, the country’s top doctors’ association warned on Wednesday.

Japan Medical Association president Toshio Nakagawa cautioned against traveling around the country as the Obon ancestor-honoring holiday season begins. Local governments should decide for themselves whether to issue mandatory restrictions on business or travel, Nakagawa added.

The country imposed a nationwide state of emergency in April that was lifted for all regions in late May. But as cases increase in Tokyo and other pockets, policymakers have been hesitant to reinstate a nationwide emergency declaration, Reuters said.

Okinawa Prefecture in the south declared a state of emergency on Monday. Aichi Prefecture in central Japan was reported to be doing the same on Wednesday.

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President Michel Aoun said on Wednesday that a transparent investigation into a powerful blast that rocked Beirut would reveal the circumstances of what happened as soon as possible. Aoun also appealed to other nations to speed up assistance to Lebanon, which was already grappling with an economic meltdown.

The country’s main grain silo at Beirut port was destroyed in a blast on Tuesday, leaving the nation with less than a month’s reserves of the grain, but still with enough flour to avoid a crisis, Reuters quoted the economy minister as saying.

French President Emmanuel Macron will fly to Beirut on Thursday and will meet the country’s political figures, his office said. Macron has already ordered French emergency assistance be sent to Lebanon, a country with deep historical ties to France.

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A new coronavirus outbreak in Vietnam spread to two more provinces on Wednesday, the country’s health minister said. However, the country’s Covid-19 task force declared the contagion “under control” in the central city where the outbreak began.

It was first reported on July 25 in the tourist resort city of Danang and has spread to major urban centers like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Authorities have since closed entertainment venues, have restricted gatherings and have tested tens of thousands of people.

Aggressive contact-tracing, targeted testing and strict quarantining has helped Vietnam contain earlier outbreaks. It is now battling infections in at least 10 cities and provinces, after going more than three months without domestic transmission, Reuters reports.

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China has lodged stern representations with the United States over the upcoming visit of US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar to Taiwan, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said on Wednesday. China is firmly opposed to official interactions between the US and Taiwan, ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters.

Azar’s trip would be the highest-level visit by an American Cabinet official since the break in formal diplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei in 1979.

Azar will meet with President Tsai Ing-wen, Reuters reports, citng Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry. “Taiwan has been a model of transparency and cooperation in global health during the Covid-19 pandemic and long before it,” Azar said in a statement.

“I look forward to conveying President Trump’s support for Taiwan’s global health leadership,” the US official added.

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PM Scott Morrison said on Wednesday that building an Indo-Pacific alliance with like-minded nations will be a “critical priority” for Australia’s government, and warned that the pace of militarization in the region was unprecedented. “Today, the Indo-Pacific is the epicenter of strategic competition,” Morrison told the Aspen Security Forum. “Tensions over territorial claims are growing.”

The annual conference is being hosted using virtual digital platforms this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Australia last month said it would boost defense spending by 40 percent over the next 10 years, buying long-range military equipment that will be focused on the Indo-Pacific region, where both Beijing and Canberra are competing for influence.

Morrison also said China and the US together have a “special responsibility” to respect international law and should resolve their disputes peacefully.

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The top scientific adviser in Greece has warned against complacency over continuing risks from coronavirus, after the country reported its highest single-day increase in infections in weeks.

Authorities reported 121 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday after a steady rise over the past 10 days. Tuesday’s tally was the highest since April 22, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 4,855 since the start of the outbreak in late February. There have been 209 deaths recorded in total, Reuters said.

Professor Sotiris Tsiodras, who gave his first public briefing after a more than two-month hiatus, said there had been no pressure on the public health system, but cautioned that the situation could get out of hand without vigilance.

Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday announced a limited government reshuffle to improve performance on health and EU fund management.

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Ireland plans to take “a very cautious approach” to easing Covid-19 restrictions in the coming weeks, Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has said.

Tuesday’s statement came ahead of a government meeting that will decide whether to reopen bars or ease travel restrictions, Reuters reported.

“I know that is going to come as a further blow to some of the sectors that are not being reopened, but we just can’t risk going backwards,” he told reporters in Dublin, following advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team.

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Paris wants to make the wearing of face masks mandatory in certain outdoor areas in order to prevent a new spike of coronavirus infections, Le Monde wrote on Tuesday.

The newspaper said that mayor Anne Hidalgo would put in a formal request with the Paris prefecture about ordering the use of face coverings in specific areas. The government on Friday gave local authorities the power to order the wearing of masks in outdoor public spaces, Reuters said.

The outdoor areas targeted would be shopping streets, the banks of the river Seine, parks and gardens, open food markets and all areas where people have to stand in line, according to the report.

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The Joint Commission on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program is considering the possibility of holding a meeting in the near future, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Tuesday.

“An in-person meeting is possible, it is under consideration,” he told TASS. “No date has been set yet but it’s not a matter of distant future,” Ryabkov said.

The meeting’s date will depend on the further easing of lockdown measures, including transport restrictions, the Russian diplomat noted.

The previous meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission, which involved political directors, took place in Vienna, Austria in February 2020.

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The government of Afghanistan will convene a grand assembly of elders, known as a loya jirga, in Kabul on Friday. The centuries-old institution will decide the fate of hundreds of prisoners the Taliban insists should be released before entering peace talks with the government.

A pact reached by US and Taliban negotiators in Doha in February had agreed that 5,000 Taliban prisoners should be released from Afghan jails as a precondition for the militant movement holding talks with the government. President Ashraf Ghani’s government has released all but 400, saying their crimes were too grave.

On Sunday, it declared that a loya jirga, a traditional consultative gathering of elders, community leaders and politicians was needed to debate what to do with the remaining prisoners. On Tuesday, the government fixed the date.

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The state epidemiologist of Denmark said on Tuesday he could not recommend proceeding to the next phase of reopening society during the coronavirus outbreak, Ingenioeren media reported.

“It is not something that I can recommend from a healthcare perspective that you go ahead with,” Kare Molbak, director of the state’s Serum Institute, was quoted as saying.

The government and parliament are due to begin discussing the fourth phase of reopening, including nightclubs, this month. The weekly number of people infected with Covid-19 in the country has risen in the past couple of weeks, Reuters said.

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A team from the World Health Organization in China, which was sent to probe the origins of Covid-19, had “extensive discussions” and exchanges with scientists in Wuhan, where the outbreak was first detected.

The talks included updates on animal health research, a spokesman said on Tuesday. China shut down a wildlife market in Wuhan at the start of the outbreak, a day after discovering some patients were vendors or dealers. The WHO says the virus most likely came from bats and probably had another, intermediary animal “host.”

Scientists and governments around the world are awaiting the results of the WHO investigation. The Trump administration accuses the WHO of being China-centric and plans to leave the agency over its handling of the pandemic.

The three-week advance mission, comprising two specialists in animal health and epidemiology, was tasked with laying the groundwork for a broader team of Chinese and international experts. They will seek to discover how the virus that causes Covid-19 jumped the species barrier from animals to humans.

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Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Tuesday asked student-led protesters “not to create chaos” in Thailand, after some broke longstanding taboos by openly calling for reform of the constitutional monarchy, Reuters reports.

General Prayuth, a former army chief who staged a coup six years ago and has led military-backed governments ever since, also promised that parliament would consider protesters’ demands to amend the constitution. “I beg people not to create chaos at this time. We are solving these problems together,” he told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

The prime minister said he was “worried” about the young protesters who have been gathering in small groups across the country calling for the dissolution of parliament and for new elections.

Opposition activists say that, under the constitution, General Prayuth was virtually assured of staying on as prime minister by the creation of a junta-appointed Senate after the disputed 2019 general election.

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South Korea’s longest spell of monsoon rain in seven years triggered floods that have forced more than 1,000 people to flee their homes. At least 13 people were killed in landslides and in swept-away cars, authorities said on Tuesday.

Heavy rain, which has also battered China, India, Myanmar and Thailand in recent days, has inundated farmland and flooded parts of key highways and bridges in the capital, Seoul, Reuters reported.

President Moon Jae-in expressed concern for public workers battling the coronavirus pandemic after 42 days of rain, which weather officials said was the longest such stretch since 2013.

In India, the city of Mumbai issued a red alert on Tuesday and warned people not to venture out after heavy overnight rain in the financial hub brought flooding and travel chaos. Some suburbs have seen more than 300mm of rain in the 24 hours to Tuesday morning and more heavy rain is expected over the next two days.

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Germany is contending with a second wave of the coronavirus, the head of the country's doctors' union said in an interview published on Tuesday. The number of daily confirmed coronavirus cases has risen steadily in recent weeks.

“We are already in a second, shallow upswing,” Susanne Johna, president of Marburger Bund, which represents doctors in Germany, told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. She said there was a danger that a suppression of containment measures would fritter away the success Germany had achieved so far. She urged people to stick to social distancing, hygiene rules, and to wear masks.

In France, the top scientific body said “it is highly likely that we will experience a second epidemic wave this autumn or winter” as the country grapples with a marked increase of new cases of the disease over the past two weeks, Reuters reports.

The situation is under control “but it is precarious with a surge of virus circulation this summer,” the scientific committee on the disease said.

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The foreign ministry in Beijing said on Tuesday it will retaliate if Washington continues its “hostile actions” against Chinese journalists based in the United States.

The ministry understands that no Chinese journalist in the US has had their application for a visa renewal approved since Washington moved in May to limit their visas to 90 days, with an option for an extension, Reuters quoted spokesman Wang Wenbin as saying.

Editor-in-chief of China’s Global Times newspaper Hu Xijin tweeted earlier on Tuesday that “given that the US side hasn’t renewed the visas of Chinese journalists, the Chinese side has prepared for the worst scenario, that all Chinese journalists have to leave” the US. “If that’s the case, the Chinese side will retaliate, including targeting US journalists” based in Hong Kong.

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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic has led to the largest disruption of education in history. Schools were closed in more than 160 countries in mid-July, affecting over a billion students, according to the UN chief.

He added that at least 40 million children worldwide have missed out on education “in their critical preschool year,” AP reports. Guterres warned that the world faces “a generational catastrophe that could waste untold human potential, undermine decades of progress, and exacerbate entrenched inequalities.”

“We are at a defining moment for the world’s children and young people,” Guterres said in a video message and a policy briefing. “The decisions that governments and partners take now will have lasting impact on hundreds of millions of young people, and on the development prospects of countries for decades to come.”

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Paris has decided not to ratify an extradition agreement with Hong Kong after China’s central government in Beijing imposed a new national security law on the city. “In light of the latest developments, France won’t proceed with the ratification” of the 2017 extradition agreement with Hong Kong “as it stands,” AP quoted the French Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson as saying in a written statement on Monday.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong last month amid fears that the central Chinese government was infringing on the city’s freedoms and local autonomy.

Germany made a similar decision last week following the disqualification of 12 candidates from Hong Kong's legislative elections and a subsequent decision to postpone the vote by a year.

Beijing says the new security law is needed to combat terrorism and separatism, and to prevent Hong Kong from becoming a base for undermining Chinese state power.

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Authorities in Spain aim to roll out a contact-tracing app across the country in September. They said on Monday that a pilot showed it could detect almost twice as many potential infections as human trackers during a simulated outbreak on La Gomera, an island next to the tourist hotspot of Tenerife in the Canary archipelago.

Spain used a new system developed by Google and Apple, which holds data on individual devices to ensure privacy, to build an app that it tested in July, Reuters reports.

Now the government aims to offer it to regional health authorities who could have it ready by mid-September, and from August 10 to tourism-dependent areas or places where cases are rising.

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The Supreme Court of Poland on Monday upheld the re-election of President Andrzej Duda. The court decided that complaints about the validity of the presidential election did not necessitate a rerun.

The ruling paves the way for Duda to take the oath of office before both chambers of parliament on Thursday, AP reports. The court evaluated some 6,000 election complaints from voters as well as from the team of the candidate that Duda faced in a runoff, the liberal Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski.

Duda won 51.03 percent of the vote and Trzaskowski 48.97 percent in the July 12 election.

Ninety-two alleged violations were found to be justified, but the court said the irregularities did not affect the election’s outcome. The justices said the complaints from Trzaskowski’s team lacked the necessary evidence about the time and location of the alleged breaches.

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