Digest year-ender for international stories for month of May, 2020

May 5Washington The US plans to borrow a record USD 2.9 trillion during the April-June quarter to deal with the coronavirus pandemic that has wreaked the worlds largest economy and claimed the lives of over 69,000 people in the country.May 6United Nations The number of confirmed coronavirus cases suggests that Afghanistan could have one of the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the world.

May 1:New York: May is bringing cautious reopenings from coronavirus lockdowns, from Beijing's Forbidden city to shopping malls in Texas, as the grim economic toll from the pandemic ticks higher. May 2:Washington: The US has committed over USD 775 million in emergency health, humanitarian and economic assistance that will help over 120 countries in fighting the pandemic, the State Department has said, as the deadly disease claimed over 230,000 lives and infected over 3.3 million people.

May 3:Rome: From the United States to Europe to Asia, the easing of some coronavirus lockdowns brought millions out of their homes to enjoy the outdoors and warm spring temperatures. May 4:Islamabad: PM Imran Khan said that the nationwide lockdown will be lifted gradually, as Pakistan cannot afford an indefinite closure, hours after 1,083 new infections were diagnosed. May 5:Washington: The US plans to borrow a record USD 2.9 trillion during the April-June quarter to deal with the coronavirus pandemic that has wreaked the world's largest economy and claimed the lives of over 69,000 people in the country.

May 6:United Nations: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases suggests that Afghanistan could have one of the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the world. May 7:Jerusalem: Israel's Parliament approved amendments to two basic laws, paving the way for PM Benjamin Netanyahu to form a fully functioning unity government for the first time since December 2018.

May 8:Washington: An unprecedented 20.5 million Americans lost their jobs in April and the unemployment rate in the US jumped to 14.7 per cent, the highest level since the Great Depression. May 9:Kathmandu: Nepal raised objection over India inaugurating a strategically crucial link road connecting the Lipulekh pass along the border with China in Uttarakhand with Dharchula.

May 10:Washington: The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a ''biggest negative'' shock to the US economy that anyone has ever seen in their lifetime, a top White House official said. May 11:United Nations: International tourism could shrink by 60-80 per cent in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the revenue loss of USD 910 billion to USD 1.2 trillion, according to the World Tourism Organization.

May 12:Beijing: China released a list of 79 American products which will be exempted from the second round of retaliatory tariffs imposed at the peak of the bilateral trade war. May 13:London: The UK's economy shrank by 2 per cent in the first three months of the year, the biggest quarterly decline since the global financial crisis of 2008.

May 14:Jerusalem: Israel's new government is set to be sworn in under PM Benjamin Netanyahu, bringing an end to the longest political deadlock in the country's history. May 15:Washington: US layoffs soared in March to a record 11.4 million after state and local governments closed restaurants, bars, movie theaters and other nonessential businesses in response to the viral outbreak.

May 16:Washington/New Delhi: The US will donate ventilators to India to treat the COVID-19 patients and help it fight the ''invisible enemy'', President Donald Trump announced. May 17:Jerusalem: The Chinese ambassador to Israel was found dead in his home north of Tel Aviv, Israel's Foreign Ministry said.

May 18:Geneva: The WHO bowed to calls from most of its member states to launch an independent probe into how it managed the international response to the coronavirus, which has killed over 300,000 people. May 19:Washington: In an ultimatum to the WHO, President Donald Trump has said he would ''reconsider'' America's membership of the UN health body and threatened to ''permanently freeze'' the funding to it if it failed to demonstrate its ''independence'' from China in the next 30 days.

May 20:Washington: Amidst the global economic recession due to the coronavirus pandemic, foreign investors have pulled out an estimated USD 26 billion from developing Asian economies and over USD 16 billion out of India. May 21:Washington: The US has backed India amidst a flare-up of border tensions with China with a top diplomat describing Beijing's aggression as ''not always rhetorical''.

May 22:Karachi: At least 66 people were killed when a Pakistan International Airlines plane with 99 people on board crashed into a densely populated residential area, officials said. May 23:Jerusalem: After entering the record books last year as Israel's longest-serving PM, Benjamin Netanyahu will once again make history when he becomes the country's first sitting leader to go on trial.

May 24:Colombo: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has requested India to provide a USD 1.1 billion currency swap facility to boost the country's draining foreign exchange reserves. May 25:New York: Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian-American physician Sid Mukherjee and compatriot higher education leader Satish Tripathi have been named by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo among members of a commission that will focus on plans to jumpstart the state's economy.

May 26:Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered the military to scale up the battle preparedness, visualising the worst-case scenarios. May 27:New York: Boeing is cutting more than 12,000 jobs through layoffs and buyouts as the coronavirus pandemic seizes the travel industry.

May 28:Washington: The US has surpassed the ''sad milestone'' of over one lakh coronavirus-linked deaths, the highest in the world, President Donald Trump acknowledged. May 29:Minneapolis (US): The police officer who was seen on video kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died in custody after pleading that he could not breathe, was arrested and charged with murder. May 30:Cape Canaveral (US): A rocket ship designed and built by Elon Musk's SpaceX company has lifted off with two Americans on a history-making flight to the International Space Station.

May 31:Washington: US President Donald Trump has postponed the G7 Summit till September and expressed his desire to expand the ''outdated'' bloc to G10 or G11, including India and three other nations to the grouping of the world's top economies. MAH MAH.