VATICAN CITY (AFP) -- Pope Francis said on Sunday the worst of the coronavirus crisis was over in Italy, addressing the faithful for the first time in Saint Peter's Square since the health emergency began. The pontiff's address came a day after the Vatican said there were no more cases of COVID-19 within its population. "Your presence in the square is a sign that in Italy the acute phase of the...

HONG KONG (AFP) -- Hong Kong protester Crystal has yet to tell her parents she has fled overseas to seek asylum in Canada, one of a growing number of residents choosing self-exile as Beijing tightens control. The 21-year-old student spent months on the front lines of the pro-democracy protests, which first exploded with huge marches last June and descended into increasingly violent battles with ...

HONG KONG (AFP) -- Police fired tear gas and water cannon at thousands of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters who gathered Sunday against a controversial security law proposed by China, in the most intense clashes for months. As the demonstrators and police were facing off in the semi-autonomous financial hub, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi insisted in Beijing that the proposed law must be impo...

BEIJING (AFP) -- The United States is pushing relations with China to "the brink of a new Cold War", China's foreign minister said Sunday, rejecting Washington's "lies" over the coronavirus while saying Beijing was open to an international effort to find its source. Keeping up the worsening war of words with Washington over the pandemic and a Beijing move to tighten control over Hong Kong, Wang ...

South Korea's FC Seoul were fined a record 100 million won ($81,000) for using sex dolls to fill seats at a match held behind closed doors, with K-League officials saying the football club had "deeply humiliated women fans". With spectators barred because of the coronavirus, FC Seoul came under fire after dozens of dolls wearing T-shirts or holding placards with the logo of a sex-toy seller appe...

Second populist wave "I consider this type of protest to be extremely dangerous," Felix Klein, the government's pointman on tackling anti-Semitism, told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. "It undermines confidence in our democratic state and forms a reservoir in which conspiratorial anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers can be found alongside others with sometimes very obscure attitudes," he adde...

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- US President Donald Trump threatened to cut ties with China over its role in the spread of the coronavirus, as the global death toll from the disease topped 300,000. Despite fears of a second wave of infections, national and local governments around the world are easing lockdown orders as they try to get stalled economies moving again. But there were warnings Friday that som...

LONDON (AFP) -- The deadly coronavirus pandemic will cost the global insurance industry about $203 billion (188 billion euros), Lloyd's of London insurance market forecast on Thursday. Lloyd's said it had examined underwriting losses and reductions in the value of investments that companies hold to fund future claim payments. Lloyd's itself expects to pay out up to $4.3 billion on coronavirus c...

THE HAGUE (AFP) -- A vaccine for the novel coronavirus could be ready in a year's time under an "optimistic" scenario, based on trials that are underway, the European Medicines Agency said Thursday. The Amsterdam-based EU agency also played down fears expressed by the WHO that the virus might never go away, saying it would be "surprised" if a vaccine was not found eventually. "We can see the po...

WUHAN (AFP) -- Nervous residents of China's pandemic epicentre of Wuhan queued up across the city to be tested for the coronavirus on Thursday after a new cluster of cases sparked a mass screening campaign. Lines of socially distanced people formed at makeshift testing sites set up under tents in parking lots, parks and residential communities as it rained in the metropolis of 11 million people....

BRUSSELS (AFP) -- The EU insisted Thursday that any vaccine against coronavirus must be available fairly to all countries after French drug giant Sanofi said it was reserving first shipments for the US. "The vaccine against COVID-19 should be a global public good and its access needs to be equitable and universal," European Commission spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker told reporters. Sanofi's ch...

GENEVA (AFP) -- The coronavirus may never go away and populations will have to learn to live with it just as they have HIV, the World Health Organization has warned, as the global death toll from the disease nears 300,000. There were also gloomy forecasts from the US Federal Reserve, which said prolonged shutdowns to stem the spread of the virus could cause lasting economic damage in America. W...

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Cars sales in Russia plummeted by a historic 72.4 percent in April, manufacturers said Wednesday, after the industry was hit by the sweeping restrictions imposed to slow the coronavirus pandemic. Year-on-year sales in April totalled just 38,922 units across the country, according to the Association of European Businesses which represents foreign investors in Russia. This is "the...

HONG KONG (AFP) -- Hong Kong's government risks reigniting last year's political unrest by pushing ahead with a controversial bill outlawing insults to China's national anthem, opposition lawmakers said Tuesday. Pro-democracy lawmakers warned history was repeating itself, noting that the fast-tracking of a bill last year to allow extraditions to the authoritarian mainland was the spark that lit ...

'A tremendous snapback' Kudlow, pushing back on reports of growing partisan tensions in Washington over another tranche of emergency relief, said informal talks with Democrats were under way, but he and Mnuchin emphasized the need to move ahead with deliberation. "We just want to make sure that before we jump back in and spend another few trillion of taxpayers' money, that we do it carefully," ...