World News in Brief: May 9

Shelling of Tripoli's Mitiga airport early on Saturday (May 9), part of an intensified barrage of artillery fire on the capital in recent days, hit fuel tanks and damaged passenger planes, the Transport Ministry said in a statement. Mitiga is the last functioning airport in the Libyan capital, though civilian flights stopped in March because of repeated shelling even before the country imposed a lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic.

People have lunch at the Penguin Eat Shabu hotpot restaurant after it reopened in Bangkok, Thailand, May 8. Thailand reported four new coronavirus cases and one more death on May 9, bringing the total to 3,004 cases and 56 deaths since the outbreak started in January.(Photo: Reuters)
People have lunch at the Penguin Eat Shabu hotpot restaurant after it reopened in Bangkok, Thailand, May 8. Thailand reported four new coronavirus cases and one more death on May 9, bringing the total to 3,004 cases and 56 deaths since the outbreak started in January.(Photo: Reuters)

* China reported one new coronavirus case for Friday (May 8), unchanged from the day before, data from the national health authority showed on Saturday. One new imported case was recorded on May 8, the National Health Commission said in a statement. The commission also reported 15 new asymptomatic cases for Friday, versus 16 the previous day.

* The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday reported 1,248,040 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 28,974 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 2,180 to 75,477.

* Russian authorities said on Saturday they had recorded 10,817 new cases of the coronavirus in the last day, pushing the nationwide tally to 198,676. Russia's coronavirus taskforce said that 104 people had died overnight, bringing the national death toll to 1,827.

* More Britons should cycle or walk to work when the country's coronavirus lockdown is eased to take the pressure off limited public transport capacity under social distancing requirements, Transport Minister Grant Shapps said on Saturday. He urged people to continue to work from home if they could, but said if they did have to travel to work they should consider cycling or walking rather than taking to their cars, which would choke up the roads.

* More than 1,000 people queued up on Saturday to get free food parcels in Geneva, underscoring the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on the working poor and undocumented immigrants even in wealthy Switzerland.

* Spain's daily death toll from the coronavirus fell to 179 on Saturday, down from 229 on the previous day, the health ministry reported. Overall deaths rose to 26,478 from 26,299 on Friday and the number of diagnosed cases rose to 223,578 from 222,857 the day before, the ministry said.

* Singapore registered 753 new coronavirus infections, its health ministry said on Saturday, taking the city-state's total to 22,460 cases. The vast majority of the newly infected people are migrant workers living in dormitories, the health ministry said in a statement. Nine are permanent residents.

* Malaysia health authorities on Saturday reported 54 new coronavirus cases for a total of 6,589. The health ministry also reported one new death, bringing total fatalities to 108.

* Indonesia reported on Saturday 533 new coronavirus infections, the biggest daily increase, taking the total number to 13,645, health ministry official Achmad Yurianto said. Yurianto reported 16 more have died from the disease, taking the total number of death to 959, while 2,607 have recovered.

* The Philippines' health ministry reported on Saturday that coronavirus deaths have reached more than 700. The country recorded eight new coronavirus deaths, bringing the total to 704, the health ministry said in a bulletin. Infections increased by 147 to 10,610 while 108 patients have recovered, bringing total recoveries to 1,842.

* Australia's most populous states held back from relaxing coronavirus restrictions on Saturday although other states began allowing small gatherings and were preparing to open restaurants and shops. Prime Minister Scott Morrison outlined a three-stage plan a day earlier to remove most curbs by July and get nearly 1 million people back to work, given that new confirmed coronavirus infections have fallen to less than 20 a day due to strict lockdowns.

* New Zealand reported two new coronavirus cases on Saturday, taking the country's total to 1,492. It has had 21 deaths linked to the coronavirus.

* German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a newspaper interview on Saturday there was a growing risk of a hard Brexit in the midst of the coronavirus crisis as negotiations between Britain and the European Union so far on the future trade relationship had yielded hardly any progress.

* Tokyo reported 36 new cases of coronavirus infections on Saturday, TV Asahi said, three less than a day earlier and the seventh consecutive day that new infections have remained below 100.

* Argentina extended until May 24 a quarantine for its capital Buenos Aires but relaxed the restriction aimed at slowing the spread of the new coronavirus elsewhere in the country, President Alberto Fernandez said on Friday. The lockdown, which was due to expire on Sunday, will remain in place in the capital and its outskirts, Fernandez said in a televised address.

* Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday he aims to present plans next week to reopen the economy, as key sectors like carmaking look to begin business again after over a month of quarantine measures to curb the coronavirus outbreak.

Reuters