* China’s capital city of Beijing reported 17 new confirmed domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases and four asymptomatic cases Friday, the municipal health commission said Saturday (June 27). No new suspected cases were registered on Friday, the commission said in a daily report. From June 11 to 26, Beijing reported 297 confirmed locally transmitted cases, all of whom were receiving treatment. Meanwhile, there are 25 asymptomatic cases still under medical observation, the commission said.
* Brazil registered 46,860 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours and 990 additional deaths, the Health Ministry said on Friday. The nation has now registered 1,274,974 total confirmed cases of the virus and 55,961 deaths.
* Mexico's health ministry reported on Friday 5,441 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections and 719 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 208,392 cases and 25,779 deaths.
* Cambodia on Saturday confirmed nine new imported COVID-19 cases, raising the total number of infections to 139, according to a Health Ministry's press statement. The Southeast Asian country has so far recorded a total of 139 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 129 patients cured and 10 remained hospitalized, she said.
* The Indonesian province of West Java on Friday decided not to extend its large-scale social restrictions (PSBB), also known as a partial lockdown policy, a move in line with President Joko Widodo's directive to reopen the economy carefully and gradually. As of Friday, the number of COVID-19 cases in West Java, home to some 48 million people, reached 3,014 with the death toll increasing to 175.
* Malaysia reported six new COVID-19 cases on Friday, pushing the national total to 8,606 while active cases dropped to 191, the health ministry said. Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a press briefing that another 23 cases had been released, bringing the total cured and discharged to 8,294 or 96.4 percent of all cases. No new deaths had been reported, leaving the total deaths at 121.
* Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 219 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 42,955. Of the new cases, 98 percent are linked to known clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing. Meanwhile, 221 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 36,825 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities, the ministry said.
* The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 687 to 193,243, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Saturday. The reported death toll rose by six to 8,954, the tally showed.
* European Union countries failed to settle on Friday on a final "safe list" of countries whose residents could travel to the bloc from July, with the United States, Brazil and Russia set to be excluded. Ambassadors from the 27 EU members convened from Friday afternoon to establish criteria for granting quarantine-free access from next Wednesday.
* Britain will ditch a 14-day quarantine period for people arriving from countries it deems to be lower risk for COVID-19 , the government said on Friday. Official travel advice against all but essential travel outside Britain will also be eased for some countries and regions. Taken together, these changes will make it easier for Britons to travel abroad for summer holidays.
* US President Donald Trump on Friday canceled a planned weekend visit to his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, and said he was staying in Washington "to make sure LAW & ORDER is enforced."
* Argentina will extend and tighten a lockdown in and around Buenos Aires following a sharp rise in cases of the novel coronavirus in recent weeks, President Alberto Fernandez said on Friday. Overall cases in the country have risen fivefold since late May, hitting over 50,000 on Thursday when there were 2,606 new confirmed daily cases. The death toll stands at over 1,150.
* Costa Rica will open its international airports on Aug. 1 to tourists from countries that have "controlled transmission" of coronavirus, Health Minister Daniel Salas said on Friday. Starting this weekend, Costa Rica will also open more public spaces such as movie theaters, shopping centers and beaches in most of the country, Salas said.
* Pakistan's Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan said on Friday evening that the government has started taking action against the country's pilots having suspicious or fake credentials to ensure quality, merit and reforms in the aviation sector. Addressing a press conference, the minister said that 262 pilots out of total 753 pilots in Pakistan have been stopped from flying until they get clearance from inquiries because of their suspicious credentials.
* Sri Lanka will re-open all museums and other cultural attractions from July 1 for local tourists after being shut for over three months due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country which has to date infected over 2,000 out of which over 1,600 have recovered, the Cultural Affairs Ministry said in a statement here Friday.
* The number of confirmed COVID-19 infections in Bangladesh totaled over 130,000 while fatalities stood at 1,661 on Friday. According to the official, a record high 18,498 samples were tested in the last 24 hours in labs across the country.
* Fourteen people were found dead in the Mexican state of Zacatecas on Friday, the state government said, as violence in the country continues to worsen. State officials said in a statement that they were investigating to determine the cause of death. The corpses were found in Fresnillo, one of the largest cities in the central mining state.
* Leaders of Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt agreed that Ethiopia will not start filling its Nile dam without reaching an agreement within two weeks, Sudan and Egypt said on Friday. Ethiopia, which is building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) which worries its downstream neighbours Egypt and Sudan, only confirmed "fruitful discussions" with the help of the African Union, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
