Life in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus first emerged, is slowly returning to normal as the government relaxes a more than two-month-old lockdown that cut the city off from the world and kept most of its 11 million residents at home.

The worldwide number of officially confirmed fatalities from the novel coronavirus rose to 43,082 yesterday, according to a tally compiled by AFP from official sources.

One minute they’re dancing in the street in comical coronavirus helmets, the next they’re seen beating people for flouting a nationwide lockdown -- Indian police have played good cop, bad cop in a bid to halt the spread of coronavirus.

The coronavirus pandemic has claimed more than 30,000 lives in Europe alone, a global tally showed yesterday, in what the head of the United Nations has described as humanity’s worst crisis since World War II.

Star Wars actor Andrew Jack has died in Britain as a result of the coronavirus, his agent says. He was 76.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and Rakuten Viber are collaborating to fight misinformation on coronavirus using an interactive multi-language chatbot that will be available globally.

Saudi Arabia is urging Muslims to wait before making plans to attend the annual hajj pilgrimage until there is more clarity about the deadly coronavirus pandemic, the kingdom’s minister for hajj and umrah has said.

President Donald Trump warns Americans to brace for a “hell of a bad two weeks” ahead as the White House projected there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the US from the coronavirus pandemic even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo holds out the possibility that the United States may consider easing sanctions on Iran and other nations to help fight the coronavirus epidemic but gives no concrete sign it plans to do so.

About 30 doctors from Albania, one of Europe’s poorest countries, were at work in northern Italy on Monday helping overwhelmed hospitals at the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Saudi-led military coalition on Monday carried out multiple air strikes on Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sanaa in retaliation for missile strikes on Riyadh.

Eighteen firefighters and one forestry guide died while fighting a huge forest fire in southwestern China, the local government said yesterday.

Researchers in the US and China reported Monday they have developed an artificial intelligence tool that is able to accurately predict which newly infected patients with the novel coronavirus go on to develop severe lung disease.

A coronavirus-free tropical island nestled in the northern Pacific may seem the perfect place to ride out a pandemic -- but residents on Palau say life right now is far from idyllic.

New York’s governor put out an urgent plea for medical volunteers, and a Navy hospital ship pulled into port as coronavirus deaths in the city mounted and hospitals buckled in what authorities say could be a preview of what other communities across the United States could soon face.

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan formally step down as senior members of the British royal family yesterday, as they start a controversial new life in the United States.

A Myanmar journalist faces up to life in prison for publishing an interview with a rebel group operating in the country’s restive Rakhine state a week after the insurgents were classified as a terrorist organisation.

The United States has deployed Patriot air defence batteries to Iraqi bases to protect American troops recently targeted by Iranian missiles, US and Iraqi military sources told AFP Monday.

Middle-aged people, and not just the elderly, have a dramatically higher risk of dying or developing serious illness from COVID-19, new research from Britain showed yesterday.

More than 790,640 cases of infection have been recorded in 185 countries and territories since the epidemic started in China in December, according to an AFP tally compiled at 1000 GMT Tuesday based on official sources.