Geneva, May 27: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide has increased by nearly 100,000 over the past 24 hours to surpass 5.4 million, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
According to the WHO, the global case tally currently stands at 5,404,512 -- a rise by 99,780 over the past day.
The death count worldwide amounts to 343,514 -- an increase by 1,486.
Most cases of infection are recorded in the Americas -- 2,454,452, with 143,739 deaths.
May 18: Risk managers expect a prolonged global recession as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a report by the World Economic Forum showed on Tuesday.
Two-thirds of the 347 respondents to the survey - carried out in response to the outbreak - put a lengthy contraction in the global economy top of their list of concerns for the next 18 months.
Half of risk managers expected bankruptcies and industry consolidation, the failure of industries to recover and high levels of unemployment, particularly among the young.
“The crisis has devastated lives and livelihoods. It has triggered an economic crisis with far-reaching implications and revealed the inadequacies of the past," said Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the World Economic Forum.
Environmental goals risk being discarded as a result of the pandemic, the report said, but governments should try to carve out a "green recovery".
"We now have a unique opportunity to use this crisis to do things differently and build back better economies that are more sustainable, resilient and inclusive," Zahidi said.
The report was compiled by the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Advisory Board together with Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc and Zurich Insurance Group.
Risk managers were surveyed between April 1 and 13.
Langkawi, Jan 20: Malaysia will not take retaliatory trade action against India over its boycott of palm oil purchases amid a political row between the two countries, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Monday.
India, the world’s largest edible oil buyer, this month effectively halted imports from its largest supplier and the world’s second-biggest producer in response to comments from Mahathir attacking India’s domestic policies.
“We are too small to take retaliatory action,” Mahathir told reporters in Langkawi, a resort island off the western coast of Malaysia. “We have to find ways and means to overcome that,” he added.
The 94-year-old premier of Muslim-majority Malaysia has criticised New Delhi’s new religion-based citizenship law and also accused India of invading the disputed region of Kashmir.
Mahathir again criticised India’s citizenship law on Monday, saying he believed it was “grossly unfair”.
India has been Malaysia’s largest palm oil market for the past five years, presenting the Southeast Asian country with a major challenge in finding new buyers for its palm oil.
Benchmark Malaysian palm futures fell nearly 10% last week, their biggest weekly decline in more than 11 years.
New Delhi is also unhappy with Malaysia’s refusal to revoke permanent resident status for controversial Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, who has lived in Malaysia for about three years and faces charges of money laundering and hate speech in India.
Mahathir said even if the Indian government guarantees a fair trial, Naik faces the real threat of vigilante action and that Malaysia will only relocate the preacher if it can find a third country where he would be safe.
“If we can find a place for him, we will send him out.”
Tehran, Jan 7: The Iranian Parliament on Tuesday ratified a motion dubbed as "harsh revenge", that considers all members of the US Pentagon and those responsible for the death of Major General Qasem Soleimani as "terrorist forces".
The triple-urgency motion is a modification of a previously ratified bill on April 23, 2019, that designated the US Central Command (CENTCOM) as a terrorist organization in retaliation to the same designation imposed on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by Washington, the Tehran-based Mehr News Agency said in a report.
Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said in Tuesday's open session that in the previous anti-US law, CENTCOM was designated as a terrorist entity.
"Today, following the cruel US measure in assassinating General Soleimani, the responsibility of which was accepted by the US President, we modify the previous law and announce that all members of Pentagon, commanders, agents and those responsible for the martyrdom of Gen Soleimani will be considered as terrorist forces," Larijani was quoted as saying in the report.
All of Iran nation supports the resistance, he added.
The modified law also allows withdrawal of $223 million to the IRGC's Quds Force from the National Development Fund of Iran for the next two months, added Larijani.
He said that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's permission to withdraw the fund has been obtained, the Mehr report added.
Following its ratification, MPs chanted anti-US slogans at the Parliament.
Soleimani and his son-in-law and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Front (PMF), along with eight other people were killed in the January 3 drone attack ordered by US President Donald Trump.
Soleimani, 63, was the elite Quds Force chief in charge of IRGC operations outside Iran, and has been on the ground in Syria and Iraq supervising militias backed by Tehran.
The Quds Force holds sway over a large number of militias across the region ranging from Lebanon to Syria and Iraq.
The attack has led to widespread condemnation in Iran. Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani has vowed revenge on the US.
On Sunday, Iranian MP Abolfazl Aboutorabi threatened to attack the heart of American politics.
During an open session of the Iranian Parliament on Sunday afternoon, President Trump was called a "terrorist in a suit" after he threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites hard if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets.
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