President Trump says he'll announce guidelines for reopening the US economy later on Thursday. Speaking to journalists at the White House, he said that data suggested that nationwide, the US had passed the peak on new cases of coronavirus. Here's our correspondent David Willis.
President Trump has been eager for some time to see the country emerge from beneath the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic. Members of his administration set the May 1, two weeks from tomorrow as their goal, and now that the rate of hospital admissions here has started to fall, the president has even gone as far as to suggest that some states could be back in business before then. Health officials have warned that lifting social distancing guidelines too soon could trigger a second wave of the virus.
The International Monetary Fund has warned that Asia's economic growth will ground to a halt this year for the first time in 60 years because of the coronavirus pandemic. It said the impact of the virus would be severe and across the board. It would take an unprecedented toll on the region's service sector and major export destinations.
The governing party of the South Korean President Moon Jae-in has won a landslide victory in Wednesday's general election on the strength of its response to the coronavirus outbreak. The left-leaning Democrats and their allies won the largest majority since South Korea held its first democratic elections. With some analysis for us, here's Laura Bicker.
The prospects for President Moon's party did not look good in January, but the country has managed to combat coronavirus with aggressive tracing and testing measures. Millions turned out to cast their ballots in masks, using hand sanitizer and wearing plastic gloves. The turnout was over 66%, the highest in a parliamentary election since 1992. Meanwhile, the North Korean defector and Pyongyang's former deputy ambassador to the UK Thae Yong-ho has won a seat in Gangnam, the capitalist heart of Seoul. He is the first defector from the North to win a seat in the South. Laura Bicker reporting.
Many of the world's leading aid agencies have called on the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar to restore internet access for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees. Rajini Vaidyanathan reports.
For the nearly 1 million Rohingyas living in the world's largest refugee camp in Bangladesh, it's hard to get reliable information about coronavirus. The government blocked internet access last September, citing security concerns. Aid agencies are calling for this decision to be reversed immediately. Without this data, they say it's hard for people to share health, hygiene and isolation tips, which could save many lives. They're also urging authorities in neighboring Myanmar to restore mobile internet in nine townships close to the border.