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Robots and cameras: China's sci-fi quarantine watch
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.
Authorities have taken drastic steps to ensure that people do not break isolation rules after China largely tamed the virus that had paralysed the country for months.
With cases imported from abroad threatening to unravel China's progress, travellers arriving from overseas have been required to stay home or in designated hotels for 14 days.
Beijing loosened the rule in the capital this week - except for those arriving from abroad and Hubei, the province where the virus first surfaced late last year.
At one quarantine hotel in central Beijing, a guard sits at a desk on each floor to monitor all movements.
The solitude is broken by one of the few visitors allowed near the rooms: A 1m-tall cylindrical robot that delivers water bottles, meals and packages to hotel guests.
The robot rides the elevator and navigates hallways on its own to minimise contact between guests and human staff.
- AFP
Europe prepares for more lockdown easing as virus hopes rise
Europe on Sunday prepared for a further cautious easing of coronavirus restrictions following signs the pandemic may be slowing, after Spaniards flocked to the streets to jog, cycle and roller-skate for the first time after 48 days of confinement.
More than 242 000 people have been killed and 3.4 million infected worldwide by the virus, which has left half of humanity under some form of lockdown and pushed the global economy towards its worst downturn since the Great Depression.
With signs that the spread of the contagion has been brought under control, parts of Europe and the United States have begun to lift restrictions to try to inject life into economies crippled by weeks of closures and ease the pressure from populations wearying of captivity.
- AFP
Iran to reopen many mosques as lockdown eases: Rouhani
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said mosques would reopen across large parts of the country on Monday after being shuttered since early March over the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Rouhani said 132 counties, or about one third of the administrative divisions, would "reopen their mosques as of tomorrow", speaking at a televised virus taskforce meeting.
Maintaining "social distancing is more important than collective prayer", he added, arguing that Islam considers safety obligatory while praying in mosques is only recommended.
- AFP
Saudi stocks dive after finance minister vows 'painful' measures
Saudi shares slumped 6.8% as trading opened on Sunday, a day after the finance minister announced "painful" measures to tackle the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Almost all the listed stocks on the Arab world's largest bourse were in the red just minutes after the start of trading.
Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said late on Saturday that the kingdom would take "drastic measures" to face the double shock of the novel coronavirus and low oil prices.
"Some of these measures could be painful," he said in an interview with Saudi-owned news channel Al-Arabiya.
He said the world's leading crude exporter would borrow close to $60 billion this year to plug a huge budget deficit.
Saudi Jadwa Investment, an independent think-tank, forecast Thursday that the kingdom would post a record $112 billion budget deficit this year.
The International Monetary Fund in April projected that the Saudi economy would contract by 2.3% this year.
Capital Economics, a London-based think-tank, said the contraction would be at least 5%.
- AFP