* The Chinese mainland on Friday reported no new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases, with six newly confirmed cases all arriving from outside, the National Health Commission said Saturday. No new suspected cases or deaths related to COVID-19 were reported. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland reached 86,501 by Friday and 4,634 had died as a result of the virus.
* The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 13 million on Friday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. US COVID-19 case count rose to 13,047,202, with a total of 264,624 deaths, as of 4:26 p.m. local time (2126 GMT), according to the CSSE tally.
* India's COVID-19 tally reached 9,351,109 on Saturday as 41,322 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, said the latest data from the federal health ministry. According to the data, the death toll mounted to 136,200 with 485 new deaths since Friday morning.
* The Department of Health (DOH) of the Philippines on Saturday reported 1,893 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the country's total tally to 427,797. The DOH said that 474 more patients recovered, raising the total number of recoveries to 388,062. The death toll rose to 8,333 after 79 more patients died from the coronavirus epidemic.
* World stocks rose to close at a fresh high and remained on track for their strongest monthly performance on record but the Nasdaq outperformed on Wall Street and Treasury yields fell, indicating lingering concerns over rising cases globally.
* Doctors believe most Canadians could be vaccinated against the coronavirus by next September rather than the end of 2021 as previously projected, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
* Canada next week will reveal the breadth of the emergency spending it has made during the pandemic and lay the groundwork for future stimulus and social measures, like a national childcare program, government sources told Reuters.
* Germany's partial lockdown measures could be extended until early Spring if infections are not brought under control, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday. There were 21,695 new confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Saturday, bringing total cases since the pandemic began to 1,028,089.
* Mexico on Friday reported 12,081 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 1,090,675, said the country's Health Ministry. Meanwhile, the country's death toll of the novel coronavirus increased by 631, reaching 104,873.
* Argentina reported 275 new COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide total to 38,216, the country's Health Ministry said Friday. Meanwhile, 7,846 new cases were reported, taking the national count to 1,407,277.
* As of Friday, 51,914 people have died of coronavirus in France, with 957 new fatalities registered in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, COVID-19-associated hospitalizations continued their week-long decline, the country's health authorities said. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases was 2,196,119.
* Belgium will let shops reopen from Tuesday, but keep other curbs over the festive period, while Italy will ease anti-COVID restrictions in five regions from Sunday. Ireland will allow shops, restaurants, gyms and pubs serving food to reopen next week, and permit travel between counties from Dec. 18
* The COVID-19 epidemic in Britain is shrinking slightly, with the reproduction "R" number estimated to be below 1, government scientists said.
* Turkey's daily death toll hit a record high for a fifth consecutive day, Health Ministry data showed.
* At least 13 insurgents were killed in a security forces airstrike on the Taliban militants gathering in the Ab Kamari district of the western Badghis province on Saturday, army spokesman in the province, captain Abdul Latif Sultan said.
* The Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a US$300-million policy-based loan targeting macroeconomic stability in Pakistan by improving trade, the ADB said on Friday.
* The Irish government announced on Friday night that the country's current Level-5 or the highest COVID-19 restrictions will be lowered to Level-3 on Dec. 1, with some special adjustments designed for the coming Christmas.
* Mexico registered a record trade surplus of US$6.224 billion in October, amid a rebound in exports mainly to the United States, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) reported on Friday. Exports in October totaled US$41.945 billion, a year-on-year increase of 2.9 percent, underpinned by non-oil exports, the autonomous statistics agency said in a report.
* Iranian high-ranking nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhri Zadeh was assassinated near capital Tehran on Friday by "armed terrorists," Iran's Ministry of Defense announced. Local media reported that Fakhri Zadeh, head of the defense ministry's nuclear program, was attacked in the afternoon in Absard village, 60 km northeast of Tehran.
* A United Nations spokesman on Friday called for exercising restraint and avoiding escalation in the Middle East region following the assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhri Zadeh.
* Peru's President Francisco Sagasti on Friday called on all social and political sectors to start a process of national dialogue to overcome the socio-economic and political challenges facing the country.
* Kenya's central bank has cut its forecast for 2020 economic growth by more than half, joining the Treasury in realising that the coronavirus had inflicted more damage to the economy than previously thought.
* The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Refugee Agency, on Friday disclosed that more than 43,000 Ethiopians fled to neighboring Sudan amid the ongoing fighting between the Ethiopian federal government and an insurgent Northern Tigray regional government.
