Iraqi President Barham Saleh has officially tasked prime minister-designate Mustafa al-Kadhimi with forming a government after the intelligence chief received the endorsement of the majority of the country’s top political figures.

The land border between China and Russia has been closed, leaving an unknown number of Chinese nationals stranded on the Russian side of the border, China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday.

A ceasefire declaration by Saudi Arabia in war-shattered Yemen that was due to come into effect on Thursday has been welcomed by United Nations chief António Guterres as a way to promote peace and slow the advance of COVID-19.

Finding a cure to the current pandemic sweeping the Western Balkans – and the world – may well be easier than purifying the region of the malign influence of its political class.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed private sector workers in the Balkans to sudden job losses, salary cuts and forced unpaid leave as rights violations stack up.

While the Coronavirus continues to ravage almost every nation on earth, Arab countries remain unable, or unwilling, to formulate a collective strategy to help the poorest and most vulnerable Arabs survive the deadly virus and its economic fallout.

The coronavirus pandemic can wipe out 6.7 per cent of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020, which is equivalent to 195 million full-time workers. This number far exceeds the effects of the 2008-09 financial crisis, the International Labour Organization (ILO) warned on Tuesday.

Russia, nevertheless, has had to pay for the Chinese support. Virtually every analysis of the relationship concedes that China is the rider and Russia the horse, to use Bismarck’s metaphor for alliances.

The ruling effectively removes the sovereignty of EU member states to make their own decisions regarding the keeping of public law, order and national security in the case of EU migration policies, if those decisions conflict with EU obligations.

In Spain, which recently overtook Italy as the epicenter of the coronavirus in Europe, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez committed €200 billion — 20% of the country’s GDP — to alleviate the economic and social consequences of the pandemic. When asked how he would pay for that amount of spending, Sánchez …