USA

21 May 2020; MEMO: The UN special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, said on Tuesday that the Syrian government and opposition have agreed to resume negotiations on the constitution in Geneva.

Pedersen added during a virtual conference with reporters that after nine years of war, there is “relative calm” in the last opposition-held areas in Idlib, which could be an opportunity to build confidence.

UNITED NATIONS, May 20 (APP): At a virtual meeting of OIC Ambassadors to the UN on Tuesday, Pakistan highlighted the “ new and virulent” phenomena of Islamophobia in various parts of the world, saying it is most dangerous when sponsored by a state– as in India and Myanmar, according to informed sources.

UNITED NATIONS, May 21 (APP): Global human development-which can be measured as a combination of the world’s education, health and living standards — could decline this year for the first time since 1990 mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned.

“The world has seen many crises over the past 30 years, including the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-09. Each has hit human development hard but, overall, development gains accrued globally year-on-year,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said.

NEW YORK, May 21. /TASS/: Russia’s coronavirus death data is accurate, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNBC.

According to an article on the CNBC website, Peskov "hit back at claims that the Russian data was inaccurate and insisted to CNBC that Russia is not misreporting virus fatalities."

UNITED NATIONS, May 21. /TASS/: The United States has blocked a Russia-initiated United Nations Security Council statement condemning interference into Venezuela’s domestic affairs and infringement on its sovereignty, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky tweeted after the UN Security Council meeting on Venezuela.

21 May 2020; AFP: Construction cranes at Huawei's headquarters busily expand an already massive faux-European campus that Walt Disney would envy, as well as an in-house "university" that trains the Chinese telecom giant's growing global workforce.

If the United States hoped to stop the company in its tracks, it hasn't yet.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday recent treatment of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists made it more difficult to assess that the territory remains highly autonomous from China, a requirement for the special treatment it enjoys under American law.

Pompeo said a congressionally mandated State Department assessment as to whether the former British colony has such a degree of autonomy was still pending.

“We are closely watching what’s going on there,” he told a news conference.

WASHINGTON, May 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he will finish his preventative hydroxychloroquine regimen "in a day or two."

"I think the regimen finishes in a day or two. I think it's in two days," Trump told reporters at a White House event.

The comments came two days after he announced he had taken the anti-malaria drug on a daily basis for some two weeks as a preventative measure against the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.

WASHINGTON, May 20 (Xinhua) -- World Bank Group President David Malpass on Wednesday announced that Harvard University professor Carmen Reinhart has been appointed as its new vice president and chief economist, effective on June 15.

"I am very pleased to welcome Carmen to the World Bank Group, as we boost our efforts to restore growth and meet the urgent debt and recession crises facing many of our client countries," Malpass said in a statement.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is running against himself.

With his cries to “Reopen our country!” and his rebukes of the federal bureaucracy and health regulations amid the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has tried to tap into the same populist, anti-Washington anger he rode to victory in 2016. The difference: He is now, by definition, the face of government.