Some 2,000 protesters staged an opposition rally in North Macedonia late Thursday to demand the resignation of the country’s Social Democrat PM Zoran Zaev, AP reported.

Speaking to reporters on the Thanksgiving holiday, the US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden. But he also repeated claims of "massive fraud" in the election, without providing supporting evidence, and said an Electoral College appointment of Biden would be a "mistake." The electors are scheduled to meet on 14 December.

The White House is considering rescinding entry bans for most non-US citizens who recently were in Brazil, Britain, Ireland and 26 other European countries, five US and airline officials told Reuters.

Most Western Balkan countries have failed to fulfil the first requirement to meet European Union industrial emissions standards despite commitments governments made in 2005, environmental campaigners warned on Tuesday.

Declaring "America is back," the US president-elect Joe Biden introduced selections for his national security team on Tuesday, news wires reported. The nominees are all Washington veterans with ties to the Obama administration, as the president-elect has sought to deliver a clear message about his desire to reestablish a more predictable engagement from the United States on the global stage.

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen to head the US Treasury, a choice that, if confirmed by the Senate, would make her the first woman in the job, news wires reported. The 74-year-old, whose nomination was confirmed to AFP by a financial source close to the Biden administration, would be tasked with steering the world's largest economy as it struggles with mass layoffs and a sharp growth slowdown caused by the pandemic.

After refusing for weeks to concede the election and work with Joe Biden on the smooth transfer of power, US President Donald Trump has given the nod to a key federal agency to begin working with the incoming administration.

China hailed as a success its pre-dawn launch on Tuesday of a robotic spacecraft to bring back rocks from the moon in the first bid by any country to retrieve lunar surface samples since the 1970s, a mission underscoring Chinese ambitions in space.

China on Tuesday announced two new coronavirus cases in the cities of Shanghai and Tianjin as it seeks to prevent small outbreaks from becoming larger ones, AP reported.

Like the rest of Europe, Switzerland was hit by a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. But there has been no second lockdown. Economic arguments prevail as people continue to go about their daily lives, dpa reported.