All news

Emergency video linkup of G20 leaders to take place on March 26 — Kyodo

The event is expected to take place in the evening, Japan time (afternoon in Russia and Europe)

TOKYO, March 24. /TASS/. The emergency summit of G20 leaders in the form of a video linkup to discuss the novel coronavirus pandemic is scheduled for March 26, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday citing anonymous sources in the Japanese government.

The exact time of the conference is yet to be agreed.

The event is expected to take place in the evening, Japan time (afternoon in Russia and Europe).

On March 18, the Saudi Press Agency reported that Riyadh planned to call a virtual emergency summit of the G20 group to discuss the coronavirus situation. Saudi Arabia is presiding over the G20 this year. The 2020 summit of the group is scheduled for November.

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in more than 150 countries, including Russia. On March 11, the WHO declared the outbreak a global pandemic. As of now, over 350,000 people have been infected around the world and about 16,000 have died.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued a message to the Group of Twenty leaders calling for closer coordination to stop the global spread of the infection.