Under-pressure Europe pleads for joint fight against COVID-19

UAE reports 1,078 new cases, 857 recoveries and 2 deaths; Dubai fines 7 businesses and warns one for violating virus rules; thousands protest virus curbs in London; Iran to impose new lockdowns.

Struggling to contain resurgent virus infections, European leaders decried a collective failure to vanquish the pandemic and told the UN General Assembly on Friday that the time has come for countries to reinvent international cooperation.

This year’s unusual work-from-home General Assembly — with leaders communicating only in prerecorded speeches — comes as COVID-19 cases escalate in many regions but especially in Europe, where some of the world’s most advanced hospitals in some of the world’s richest countries are again under strain.

“This emergency has, more than a thousand treaties or speeches, made us suddenly realise that we are part of one single world,” said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

The pandemic “has also revealed the fragility of countries that thought they were strong. It has thrown us all into the same sudden battle, against the same common enemy,” EU Council President Charles Michel said.