Briefly

UNITED STATES

IMF revises down forecast for 2020

The International Monetary Fund, or IMF, has sharply lowered its forecast for global growth this year because it envisions far more severe economic damage from the coronavirus than it did just two months ago. The IMF predicts that the global economy will shrink 4.9 percent this year, significantly worse than the 3 percent drop it had estimated in its previous report in April. It would be the worst annual contraction since immediately after World War II. The US economy is set to contract 8 percent in 2020, even more than its April estimate of a 5.9 percent drop, the IMF says.

SOUTH ASIA

Embassy staff expelled in tit-for-tat action

Pakistan on Tuesday demanded that India reduce its staff numbers at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad by 50 percent in a tit-for-tat action hours after a similar decision by the Indian government. Pakistan and India have been involved in a diplomatic row in recent days over what both sides claimed was harassment of staff members of the high commissions in New Delhi and Islamabad. Both countries said the affected officials had been asked to leave within a week. Neither country has a permanent ambassador in place and in the last month each country has accused the other of illegally detaining its diplomats. Relations between the two neighbors have been under added pressure since India revoked special status to India-controlled Kashmir in August.

UNITED KINGDOM

Beware of the second wave, medics warn

Top medics have warned British political parties that local flareups of the novel coronavirus are likely and a second wave is a real risk. "While the future shape of the pandemic in the UK is hard to predict, the available evidence indicates that local flare-ups are increasingly likely and a second wave a real risk," the medics said in an open letter to British political leaders. The United Kingdom has one of the world's worst official death tolls from the coronavirus, though the lockdown has tipped the country toward the deepest economic contraction in three centuries.

SYRIA

Israeli strikes hit posts in Hama Province

Syrian air defenses responded to Israeli attacks on military posts in a central province early on Wednesday, shortly after similar attacks in the south killed two soldiers, the Defense Ministry in Damascus said. State media cited a military official as saying the attacks targeted posts in rural areas of Hama Province. Air defenses were activated and reportedly intercepted a number of the incoming missiles. Israel rarely comments on such attacks in Syria. But in recent weeks, it has carried out several attacks on targets inside Syria. In the past two months alone, Syria has accused Israel of carrying out at least eight air raids on its territory.

JAPAN

Okinawa marks 75th anniversary of battle

Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa on Tuesday observed the 75th anniversary of the end of Battle of Okinawa, a bloody World War II ground battle that saw more than 200,000 lives lost on the island. In his "peace declaration" at the ceremony held at the Peace Memorial Park in Itoman, located on the southern tip of the island, the site of the final stage of the battle, Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki urged the world to unite in peace. "We send our heart-seeking peace to the world and ask people to share it," Tamaki said at the ceremony attended by 160 Okinawan residents, scaled down from last year's 5,000 attendees, due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

Agencies - Xinhua