WORLD

New York, United States | AFP |  Hedge funds have lost billions of dollars as coronavirus has stalled the economy and sent Wall Street into a tailspin. But the financial institutions favored by the world’s richest investors are plotting a recovery by betting on the markets’ slump. US-based hedge funds are …

  Washington, United States | AFP | President Donald Trump signed into law Friday the $2 trillion rescue plan to salvage a US economy crippled by the novel coronavirus, on a day the nation recorded more than 100,000 confirmed cases of virus infections. Hours earlier, the House of Representatives passed the …

Paris, France | AFP | As Europe and the United States struggle to contain the coronavirus pandemic, aid groups warn that without measures millions could die in low-income countries and war zones such as Syria and Yemen, where hygiene conditions are already dire. The outbreak has infected some 580,000 people …

  Madrid, Spain | AFP | International travel will likely fall by 20-30 percent in 2020 due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, putting millions of jobs in the global tourism sector at risk, the World Tourism Organization said Friday. This revises sharply lower a forecast made on March 6 of a …

Beijing, China | AFP | China and the United States should “unite to fight” the deadly coronavirus pandemic, President Xi Jinping said in a call with Donald Trump on Friday, as he called for the US to improve relations. The two countries have clashed in recent weeks over the virus, and …

  London, United Kingdom | AFP |  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Friday that he is self-isolating after testing positive for COVID-19. “Over the last 24 hours I have developed mild symptoms and tested positive for coronavirus,” he said on Twitter, posting a video message. “I am now self-isolating, …

Budapest, Hungary | AFP |  A “dictatorship” at the heart of the EU? A draft law to grant anti-coronavirus emergency measures set for adoption by Budapest has alarmed observers who fear it will hand Prime Minister Viktor Orban unlimited power. “Hungary is a special case, nowhere else have you the kind …

Washington, United States | AFP |  New Orleans, the Louisiana city known as the “Big Easy” famed for its jazz and nightlife, has become an epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic gripping the United States. Bourbon Street, the normally bustling heart of the French Quarter, is eerily quiet, its music silenced and …

Washington, United States | AFP |  The United States now has more COVID-19 infections than any other country, and a record number of newly unemployed people, as the coronavirus crisis deepens around the world. Healthcare systems in even the most developed nations are being stretched to breaking point with grim warnings …

Washington, United States | AFP | President Donald Trump, keen for an early lifting of economically costly social distancing measures against the coronavirus, said Thursday he would propose dividing the United States by risk levels. In a letter to state governors released by the White House, Trump said that better testing now allows the mapping …