WORLD

Paris, France | AFP |  The dancers gyrate and contort their bodies into sculptures made by the human body but which look distinctly other-worldly. A choreographer favoured by superstars like Madonna, Radiohead singer Thom Yorke and Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine, Damien Jalet is on a mission to reinvent …

Paris, France | AFP |  Can a single COVID-19 patient infect dozens of others? Although transmission rates in the current outbreak appear to be far lower, a variety of factors can lead to an individual infecting many. The concept of so-called “super-spreaders” — patients who typically infect far more people than …

Washington, United States | AFP |  US President Donald Trump declared a national emergency in what critics say was a long-delayed admission of the gravity of the coronavirus crisis that has triggered the shutdown of schools, sporting events, offices and travel in the world’s richest country. Trump’s declaration Friday frees up …

Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Some of Rome’s Catholic churches reopened Friday after Pope Francis voiced displeasure with the Italian authorities’ push to shut them because of the coronavirus pandemic. The rare standoff between the 83-year-old pontiff and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government came as Italy’s death toll …

Washington, United States | AFP | Thousands of people have died, the US response has infuriated European allies, and China has gone on a propaganda offensive. The new coronavirus is shaping up to be a cataclysmic event with far-reaching consequences in global politics. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected more than …

Moscow, Russia | AFP |  Armed with a selfie stick holding a dosimeter-equipped smartphone, nuclear physicist Andrei Ozharovsky is on the hunt for gamma radiation. Waving the device over a shallow dip in the thawing ground, the contraption crackles as the reading climbs, turning first yellow then red. The dosimeter is …

San Francisco, United States | AFP |  The US Department of Defense said Thursday it wants to reconsider its decision to award a multi-billion-dollar military cloud computing contract to Microsoft in a bidding process Amazon claims was tainted by politics. A judge last month issued an order at Amazon’s request temporarily …

Beijing, China | AFP | A Chinese government campaign to cast doubt on the origin of the coronavirus pandemic is fuelling a row with the United States, with a Beijing official promoting conspiracy theories and Washington calling it the “Wuhan virus”. The spat comes as China tries to deflect blame for …

Athens, Greece | AFP | Greece on Friday swore in the first woman president in its history as the country grapples with over 100 coronavirus cases. Katerina Sakellaropoulou, a 63-year-old senior judge, becomes the new Greek head of state for a five-year term. She took a religious oath in parliament before Archbishop Ieronymos, head of …

Rome, Italy | AFP |  It’s not easy being Italian these days. Especially without coffee. For Alessandro, a 30-something businessman in suit and mask in central Rome, an espresso at the local bar in the morning is “indispensable”. But on Thursday, after the government’s latest measures to stem the rise of …