Taliban says prisoner release by Afghan government to start by end of March
The Afghan government said on Wednesday that it would free 100 Taliban detainees on humanitarian grounds at the end of March, raising uncertainty about the fate of a prisoner release deal with the insurgents, who have demanded that 5,000 detainees be f…
UK government orders 10,000 ventilators from Dyson: BBC
The British government has ordered 10,000 medical ventilators designed by vacuum cleaner company Dyson, the BBC reported on Wednesday.
Finland restricts movement to and from capital region
Finnish government decided on Wednesday to issue a three-week blockade of the Uusimaa region around Helsinki, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Finland, to prevent people from traveling and spreading the virus to other parts of the country, …
Person who lives in papal residence tests positive for coronavirus: report
A person who lives in the same Vatican residence as Pope Francis has tested positive for coronavirus and is being treated in an Italian hospital, the Rome newspaper Il Messaggero reported on Wednesday.
After smallpox and malaria, Brazil’s tribes fear coronavirus is next lethal import
When Europeans first arrived in the Amazon rainforest, their smallpox decimated local tribes. Then rubber tappers, gold miners and settlers brought malaria, measles and influenza.
Turkey says two soldiers killed, two wounded in Kurdish militant attack in Iraq
Two Turkish soldiers were killed and two others wounded after a mortar attack by Kurdish militants in northern Iraq’s Haftanin region, the Turkish Defence Ministry said late on Wednesday, adding the attack was retaliated.
London Zoo seeking donations to safeguard animals
The world’s oldest zoo is shut to the public for the first time since World War Two as London locks down because of the coronavirus pandemic, but for the roughly 18,000 animals housed there life, if a little quieter, must go on as normal.
Coronavirus cases in Ireland top 1,500, two more deaths
The total confirmed cases of coronavirus in Ireland rose to 1,564 on Wednesday from 1,329 a day earlier, with two more deaths reported to bring the number of fatalities to nine, the health department said.
Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre closes amid coronavirus fears
Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, revered in Christian tradition as the site of Jesus’s crucifixion and burial, was closed on Wednesday as a precaution against the coronavirus.
France’s Macron pledges massive investment in health system after virus crisis
French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday pledged “massive investments” in the country’s public hospital health system, close to a breaking point as it copes with the coronavirus outbreak which has already caused 1,331 deaths in the country.
