Chanting demonstrators held signs including “Kurz Must Go” and “Make Influenza Great Again” during marches through the city center.

It has been a year of mounting US-China friction on a host of issues, including human rights, trade, and the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.

An analyst says Washington’s decision to lift restrictions on contacts with Taiwan is another provocative move against Beijing.

Indonesia outlaws the politically influential Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), headed by popular cleric Habib Rizieq Shihab.

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock announces that another new, possibly more infectious variant of the coronavirus has been found in the UK.

European countries are suspending flights to and from the UK as a new and much more transmissible strain of coronavirus takes hold in South East England

In a seemingly arbitrary move Prime Minister Boris Johnson has cancelled family Christmas gatherings for people living in London and southeast England.

Germany says it expects restrictions imposed to curb the coronavirus pandemic will continue through winter, with life unlikely to get back to normal in December or January even if infections fall.

In Florence, bars offered takeaway croissants and coffee for breakfast.

The Iranian government has intensified restrictions amid a resurgence of the novel coronavirus.