By virtue of one thousand pieces of unearned gold and the fact that my floppy white buttcheeks are planted on the top of a horse, I am a leader of soldiers. Well, I say soldiers. What I mean is four grubby drifters with spears and more ear hair than combat experience.

This notice is to be bellowed from the tops of the belfries and into every widow's hovel.

The mayor of Manaus, the biggest city in the Amazon rainforest region, asked world leaders Tuesday for help fighting the novel coronavirus, which has brought his city's health system to the brink of collapse.

Venezuela will try two Americans allegedly captured during a failed raid by mercenaries, President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday as the US vowed to "use every tool available" to bring them home.

Chancellor Angela Merkel announced steps on Wednesday to ease the coronavirus lockdown in Germany but at the same time launched an "emergency brake" mechanism allowing for renewed restrictions in case infections pick up again.

In the United States, the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted glaring social inequality. Many workers cannot afford to be confined to their homes because they are not eligible for unemployment benefit and have not been able to put money aside. Those who have to go to work must find their own face masks. A Covid-19 test costs $150, while being hospitalised with the disease costs $70,000 on average. For the millions of Americans without health insurance, these amounts are beyond their means. Our correspondents report from California.

Brazil could face "economic collapse" in a month's time due to stay-at-home measures to stem the coronavirus outbreak, with food shortages and "social disorder," Economy Minister Paulo Guedes warned Thursday.

The woman who accused Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993 called on him to drop out of the US presidential race, saying Thursday she'd take a polygraph about the alleged encounter if he would.

Chinese and US trade representatives agreed Friday to "create favourable conditions" for the phase one trade deal signed in January, Beijing officials said, despite recent tensions over the coronavirus pandemic.

A white former police officer and his son were arrested on Thursday in Georgia and charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed black man, an incident that touched off a furor in the community and among civil rights activists nationwide.

In an interview with FRANCE 24, Taiwan's Vice President Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist by training, discussed his country's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, while criticising the response of China and the World Health Organization. Chen refused to rule out the "possibility" that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan. He also expressed concern about a second wave of the virus appearing in autumn or winter.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) is warning of potential famines of "biblical proportions" as the Covid-19 pandemic affects countries in an already dire situation. In an interview with FRANCE 24, the United Nation's WFP Executive Director David Beasley said he was especially worried about a breakdown in the supply chain that allows his agency to provide food to dozens of millions of people around the globe.

Dozens of Afghan migrants are feared dead after Iranian border guards allegedly forced them into a river on the Iran-Afghan border on May 1. Of the 57 men and boys in the group only 12 are known to have survived. One of the survivors told the France 24 Observers team that he and the others were arrested and tortured by guards from an Iranian border post overlooking the Harirud river. His account, along with amateur videos circulating on social media in Afghanistan, allowed the Observers team to pinpoint the location of the Iranian border post. 

Despite being one of Greece's best-known folk singers, Natassa Bofiliou is among thousands of artists worried about the economic impact of coronavirus lockdowns that have only just begun to be eased.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, about 30 different quotes attributed to public figures including French infectious disease expert Didier Raoult, French president Emmanuel Macron and Madagascar president Andry Rajoelina have been making the rounds on Congolese Facebook pages. But it turns out all of them were made up. The FRANCE 24 Observers team tracked down the source of these widely circulated fake quotes and discovered a 20-year-old keen to generate “a buzz”.

The United States on Friday stunned other members of the UN Security Council by preventing a vote on a resolution for a ceasefire in various conflicts around the world to help troubled nations better fight the coronavirus pandemic, diplomats said.

Russia marks 75 years since the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two on Saturday, but the coronavirus outbreak has forced it to scale back celebrations seen as boosting support for the Kremlin.

Brazil, the country in Latin America that has been hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis, said Friday it had reached a new daily record for COVID-19 fatalities with 751 deaths.

While residents of Benin haven’t been ordered to stay home like their neighbours in Nigeria, the Covid-19 pandemic has forced them to slow down nevertheless, putting many at risk of food insecurity.

Britain is to introduce a 14-day quarantine period for almost everyone arriving into the country to avoid a second peak of the coronavirus pandemic, The Times newspaper reported on Saturday.

Since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, there has been no shortage of solidarity with those on the frontline on the pandemic. One such example comes from the French NGO Aviation Sans Frontières ("Aviation Without Borders"), which has brought together key players in the aviation sector to allow medical professionals to travel by plane free of charge from one French region to another. These flights help take some of the pressure off overwhelmed hospital staff. Our reporters Benoît Perrochais and Natalia Ruiz Giraldo went on board.

France’s lockdown measures are among the strictest in Europe as the country bids to stamp out the Covid-19 pandemic. Paris is usually known for its night wanderers but the last few weeks has seen its lively and vibrant atmosphere replaced by calm and silence. However, not all Parisians are respecting lockdown measures and FRANCE 24 went out to meet them. Some are simply wandering the streets. Others are out and about because the streets are what they call home.

Protests against growing economic hardship erupted in Tripoli and spread to other Lebanese cities on Tuesday, with banks set ablaze and violence boiling over into a second night.

At least 40 civilians were killed, including 11 children, when a bomb detonated in the northern Syrian town of Afrin on Tuesday, the Turkish Defence Ministry said, blaming the attack on the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

The Lebanese government on Thursday approved a long-awaited plan to rescue the economy from its worst crisis in decades following a fresh wave of angry street protests this week. Nationwide protests broke out in October accusing the country's political class of corruption and mismanagement.

Hundreds of Lebanese rallied Friday outside the central bank in Beirut and elsewhere in the country, a day after the prime minister said he would seek a rescue plan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to deal with a spiraling economic and financial crisis.

The head of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement on Monday condemned Germany's ban on his group as bowing to US pressure and insisted it was not active in the country. 

We continue our coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Middle East. Iran is one of the worst-hit countries in the region – authorities there have reported more than 6,000 deaths. But observers and health experts say the numbers are in reality much higher. After weighing up economic risks against health ones, the country's leadership decided to reopen businesses in late April, followed by schools and mosques. We speak to a doctor from Tehran, who has been on the frontlines of the battle against Covid-19. He has asked for his identity to be concealed.

A third of people in the Afghan capital Kabul have tested positive for Covid-19, according to a recent study. FRANCE 24 spoke to Afghan doctors on the Covid-19 frontline as civil war continues to ravage the country.

Iraqi lawmakers approved a new government on Wednesday after six months without one as parties squabbled until the last minute over Cabinet seats in backroom deals.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced they had successfully launched the country’s first military satellite on Wednesday, at a time of fresh tensions with US forces in the Gulf.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his first public appearance in 20 days as he celebrated the completion of a fertilizer factory near Pyongyang, state media said Saturday, ending an absence that had triggered global rumors that he may be seriously ill. 

North and South Korean troops exchanged fire along their tense border on Sunday, the South’s military said, blaming North Korean soldiers for targeting a guard post.

Robots delivering meals, ghostly figures in hazmat suits and cameras pointed at front doors: China's methods to enforce coronavirus quarantines have looked like a sci-fi dystopia for legions of people.

South Korea's assessment is that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un did not have surgery, local news outlet Yonhap said, citing an unidentified senior official at presidential Blue House. 

India will within days roll out a version of its coronavirus contact-tracing application that can run on mobile carrier Reliance Jio's cheap phones, as it looks to increase the reach of the system, a senior government official said on Thursday.

"That's what I consider true generosity. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing."

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"A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs."