VOA News for Monday, October 26th, 2020

VOA News for Monday, October 26th, 2020
This is VOA news. Via remote, I'm Marissa Melton.
Spain declared a national state of emergency on Sunday to tackle a second coronavirus wave as the World Health Organization reported a third straight day of record new infections around the world.
The WHO has warned that some countries are on what it called a "dangerous track", with too many witnessing a huge increase in cases, and the U.N. agency called on countries to take further action to curb the spread of the disease.
In total, WHO figures showed that over 465,300 cases were declared on Saturday alone, half of them in Europe.
COVID-19 has now claimed the lives of 1.1 million people and infected more than 42 million globally.
In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s new state of emergency includes overnight curfews across the entire country except for the Canary Islands. The move came after Spain became the first EU member state to pass the grand milestone of one million cases.
The United States remains the hardest-hit country and on Saturday it set a daily record for new COVID-19 cases for the second straight day at nearly 89,000, with a further surge expected as cold weather comes.
The virus has become a central issue ahead of the November 3 national election, with President Donald Trump sparring over his handling of the pandemic with challenger Joe Biden.
After the United States, the worst affected countries are Brazil, India, Mexico and Britain while Colombia is the latest country to record one million confirmed coronavirus cases.
The disease is taking its toll on politicians, with Bulgaria's prime minister joining a growing list of leaders who've tested positive for coronavirus.
From Washington, you're listening to VOA news.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have announced a third attempt to establish a cease-fire in their conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh starting from 8 a.m. Monday local time. The announcement comes after two earlier Russia-brokered cease-fire agreements frayed immediately after taking forces with both sides accusing each other of violations.
The new agreement was announced Sunday night in a joint statement by the governments of the United States, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan that (but) has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994.
The latest fighting that began on September 27 has involved heavy artillery, rockets and drones and killed hundreds of people in four weeks.
A key al-Qaeda leader has been killed in Afghanistan's eastern Ghazni province by Afghan forces. Abu Mohsin Al-Misri was an Egyptian national believed to be the group's number two in the Indian sub-continent.
He was wanted by the United States for providing support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization and plotting to kill U.S. nationals. That's according to the U.S. FBI.
The Afghan government on Sunday accused the Taliban of still keeping close ties with the Islamist militant group despite promises the Taliban had made to the contrary.
Afghanistan's interior minister said that the killing of the all-Qaeda shows the close ties which still exist between the Taliban and terrorist groups.
The Taliban's sheltering of Al-Qaeda was the original reason for the U.S. invasion [of Afghg...] of Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
In a landmark deal with the United States in February, the Taliban agreed to not allow Afghan soil to be used by foreign extremists including al-Qaeda in return for Washington withdrawing its troops from the country.
Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López arrived in Spain Sunday after fleeing his home country. He had been sheltering at the Spanish ambassador's residence in Caracas for the past 18 months.
López had left Spanish embassy several days ago and crossed the border into Colombia on Friday before making his way into Spain.
López is a former Caracas mayor. He was arrested in 2014 when mass opposition protests began in Venezuela. He served several years in prison before being released to house arrest. He then sought refugee inside the Spanish ambassador's residence.
Founder of the centrist Popular Will party, López is considered a political mentor of National Assembly President Juan Guaidó, whom almost 60 countries have recognized as the interim Venezuelan president.
Via remote, I'm Marissa Melton. You're listening to VOA news.