- Massive EU aid plan -

The European Union proposes a 750-billion-euro ($825-billion) post-virus recovery fund for Europe and urges skeptical member states to back it.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday said the European Union should take more global responsibility in the coronavirus crisis, especially as ties with the United States were currently "difficult".

The United Kingdom is “working together with countries across the Middle East to tackle coronavirus and protect the most vulnerable,” UK Minister for the Middle East James Cleverly has said, as Muslims around the world celebrated Eid al-Fitr.

More than 350,000 deaths from the new coronavirus have been recorded worldwide since it first appeared in China in December, according to a tally compiled by AFP from official sources as of 0600 GMT.

The French government on Wednesday banned treatment of COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine, a controversial and potentially harmful drug that US President Donald Trump has said he is taking preventively.

Russia on Tuesday recorded its highest daily coronavirus death toll of 174 but said more than 12,000 people had also recovered over the past 24 hours.

More than 5.5 million cases of the new coronavirus have been officially declared in the world, more than two-thirds of them in Europe and the United States, according to a tally compiled by AFP from official sources as of 0740 GMT on Tuesday.

Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born, reopened on Tuesday more than two months after closing in the face of the coronavirus.

Ukraine's capital on Monday welcomed passengers into its subway system after more than two months of lockdown imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The Kiev metro, which normally transports 1.5 million people daily, remained deserted, with only 20 passengers or fewer  in each car even during rush hour, AFP journalists saw. 

The Palestinian government is ending its two-month coronavirus lockdown in the occupied West Bank, prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh announced Monday after a steady decline in new cases.