The plans of 900 Muslim pilgrims to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj will be deferred to 2021, the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore has said, according to local media.

Saudi Arabia has not made an official announcement on the status of this year's Hajj, which is due to start in late July.

The council said more than 80% of those registered to go were above the age of 50 - a group health authorities say are at greater risk from Covid-19.

Every year millions of Muslims travel to the holy city of Mecca. Muslims are required to make the journey at least one in their life if they are physically able and can afford to do so.

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The Chinese city of Wuhan - where the virus emerged last year - has begun testing its entire population for coronavirus after a small cluster of cases emerged in the city.

About 11 million residents are getting tested in makeshift tents in parks, residential communities and car parks. Watch how they're doing it here:

Brazil recorded a daily record of 13,944 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Thursday.

Brazil, the most populous country in Latin America, now has 202,918 confirmed cases and 13,933 deaths, the health ministry data shows.

But despite experts saying Brazil is at the peak of its pandemic curve, President Jair Bolsonaro has urged business leaders to push for lifting lockdown orders, which are imposed at state level.

Image source, European Photopress Agency

Sharanjit Leyl
BBC News, Singapore

As the latest numbers confirmed a quarter of Americans had lost their jobs in the last two months, the chief executive of one of the country’s biggest credit card firms has reassured his employees that they won’t lose theirs this year.

Ajay Banga who runs Mastercard - which employs nearly 20,000 globally - told me in an exclusive BBC interview that one of the first things he did when the lockdowns started was to tell his employees “there would be no Covid-related layoffs this year”.

"So instead of being worried about their jobs," he said, "they should be worrying about each other, worry about their families, and worry about their clients."

Banga, who regularly ranks as one of the world’s top performing CEOs, took over as chief executive of the global payments processing firm at the height of the last financial crisis a decade ago.

He describes the current scenario as "many multiples of that" - and doesn’t see Mastercard or the global economy getting back to "a pre-Covid growth scenario" until later next year, when a vaccine may be available.

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Sydney is now on lockdown "level 2", meaning pubs can serve up to 10 customers a drink with their food.

Social distancing must be observed, and many larger venues are still closed - saying the capacity limits don't make it worthwhile. New South Wales has suffered the highest number of cases in Australia at over 3,000.

Watch how pub landlords are feeling today.

BBC World Service

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Scientists at the World Health Organization say nearly a quarter of a billion people in Africa could catch coronavirus in a year.

Their study, published in BMJ Global Health, says between 150,000 and 190,000 Africans could die from Covid-19.

It says 5.5 million people would need hospital treatment, overwhelming services already struggling to treat malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.

Coronavirus has been relatively slow to spread in Africa, but has already taken hold in camps for displaced people in South Sudan.

• AFRICA TRACKER: Updates on the continent's cases

Two Rohingya refugees have tested positive for coronavirus in the world's largest refugee camp, Bangladeshi officials say.

They are the first confirmed cases among refugees in Cox's Bazar, where around one million Rohingya are encamped, a government doctor said.

Officials told the BBC that those infected were being treated in isolation and that around 1,900 other refugees were being isolated for tests.

The Rohingya in the crowded camps of Cox's Bazar - who fled brutal treatment in Myanmar - have been living under lockdown since 14 March.

Aid agencies have been warning for weeks about the potential impact of the virus on the Rohingya refugees, who live in cramped, congested conditions, and have limited access to clean water.

• Click here for the full story

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The coronavirus pandemic could cost the global economy between $5.8 trillion and $8.8 trillion (£4.7tn-£7.1tn) as measures to slow the spread of Covid-19 paralyse economic activity.

The latest estimate from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) equates to 6.4% - 9.7% of the world's economic output - and is more than double its prediction last month.

The ADB said the top end of the estimate was based on the assumption that curbs to movement and businesses operating would last six months.

The bottom end assumed the restrictions would remain in place for three months.

Read more here

Anna Jones
BBC News

As we've mentioned, Vietnam has had no virus-related deaths so far, and just over 300 cases - despite its proximity to China.

Nearly a month has passed since its last community transmission and the country is already starting to open up.

So how has it achieved this?

"When you're dealing with these kinds of unknown novel potentially dangerous pathogens, it's better to overreact," says Dr Todd Pollack in Hanoi.

Read the full story here about how "extreme" action early on helped Vietnam fight the virus.

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Mexico has recorded its worst day for new coronavirus cases since the outbreak began.

The health ministry said on Thursday there had been more 2,400 new cases as well as 257 deaths.

The total number of Covid-19 deaths in Mexico is now at nearly 4,500.

The country’s coronavirus tsar, Hugo Lopez-Gatell, said Mexico was at the peak of its pandemic cycle and could not relax restrictions.

Image source, NT News

The folks over at NT News in Darwin, Australia have made it quite clear what their thoughts are on pubs reopening today.

The Northern Territory, like New South Wales and other states, will allow residents to head to their nearest pub. But there's a caveat - drinks will only be served with meals and there's a two-hour time limit to dining.

But NT News , externalhas not let that stop it celebrating.

"For the first time in 53 days, Territorians can go back to the pub," yelled the cover of the paper.

"Why? Because we're the safest place in Australia. Are we going to rub salt into the wounds of peasant Southerners?

"Too bloody right we are!"

The Northern Territory will from today also allow other indoor activities like going to gyms, visiting museums - or even getting a manicure.

More than 140 flights will go to 31 countries to rescue 30,000 stranded Indians abroad starting tomorrow, the country's aviation minister has said.

This is the second phase of India's mammoth repatriation mission. The first phase has already brought home more than 8,000 citizens, external from at least a dozen countries, Hardeep Singh Puri said earlier this week.

Air India tweeted on Thursday that bookings for flights in the second phase, which include the US, UK, Germany, Australia and France, have opened.

Since it closed its borders in March, India has operated a few flights to bring back Indian citizens. But the latest exercise, which has been dubbed the Vande Bharath (Hail India) mission, is the most organised effort so far.

India has reported more than 80,000 Covid-19 infections, including 2,649 deaths.

As countries around the world - including Australia - start to emerge from lockdown, they’re experimenting with ways to get people dining out again.

From 1 June, Dutch bars can reopen their terraces with restrictions in place. Restaurants, bars, cinemas, theatres and museums can also start operating again, under strict conditions.

One restaurant in Amsterdam is currently trialling an innovative solution to social distancing...

A High Court judge in Fiji has thrown out fines handed to 49 people who were caught breaking curfew or social gathering orders.

There is currently a ban on social gatherings in Fiji, which has only 18 confirmed virus cases.

Justice Salesi Temo said the fines were too hefty, calling them disproportionate for the offences committed.

In one instance, a 19-year-old girl was fined FJ$500 (£181) for hugging her boyfriend at a seawall.

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The head of the World Trade Organization is stepping down a year earlier than planned, at a crucial moment for the global economy.

Roberto Azevedo's surprise departure comes as the WTO faces the coronavirus pandemic and criticism from US President Donald Trump.

Mr Azevedo said his early departure was a "personal decision" that was in the best interests of the organisation.

• Read more here

As part of its $266bn (£216bn) economic plan to combat the Covid-19 lockdown, India will provide free food to domestic migrants for two months.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that grain supplies worth $463m would benefit 80 million migrants on Thursday.

Since the lockdown began, tens of thousands of migrants have been fleeing cities on foot, trying to return to their villages.

Many of these informal workers, who form the backbone of city economies, feared they would starve in the lockdown.

The plight of these workers - many of whom have been walking for days without adequate food and water - has caused widespread anger in the country.

The announcements on Thursday - the second tranche of a series of economic stimulus measures - were aimed at migrant workers, street hawkers, small traders and small farmers.

• Click here for the full story

Image source, EPA

China has reported four new locally-transmitted virus cases - all in the north-eastern province of Jilin, which has seen a spate of new infections.

The city of Shulan in the province has already entered a state of lockdown.

The city of Jilin, which shares a name with the province, went into a partial lockdown after six cases emerged - almost all of which were traced to the cluster in Shulan.

Image source, Getty Images

Robin Brant
BBC News, Shanghai

Authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan say they have tested more than three million people for the coronavirus, as part of fresh efforts to monitor the outbreak.

Earlier this week, officials announced plans to test all 11 million people in the city where the outbreak began last year, after a very small - but worrying - resurgence in reported cases.

Wuhan intends to give a nucleic acid test to all residents to try to find people who are asymptomatic - those who are infected and can pass on the virus, but do not show any symptoms themselves.

There has been a cluster of new cases reported in a housing compound in Wuhan, with dozens of people infected - attributed to an 89-year-old man who fell ill in March.

• Read more about Wuhan's testing plans here.

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Two pandas are expected to be returned to China from a zoo in Canada because of a shortage of bamboo.

They'd arrived in Canada in 2014 and were due to stay for 10 years. But pandas only eat fresh bamboo, which the zoo had been importing from China - until coronavirus grounded most flights.

Vietnam is fighting to save the life of its most critically-ill Covid-19 patient, a British pilot who works for Vietnam Airlines.

The 43-year-old man, identified only as Patient 91, has just 10% of his lung capacity left and has been on life support for more than 30 days, said state media outlet Tuoi Tre.

It's thought he caught the virus in a bar in Ho Chi Minh City in mid-March.

The only way to save his life, the health ministry said, is through a lung transplant. Ten people - including a 70-year-old military veteran - have volunteered as lung donors, but have been turned down.

The country's regulations don't allow living people to donate their lungs.

Vietnam has suffered no deaths as a result of the virus - and it's clear it doesn't want this to change.

The country has spent more than $200,000 trying to save the pilot, said the Vietnam News Agency, with a foreign ministry spokeswoman saying the country's "best doctors" were on the case.