The Dutch health minister collapsed today in parliament because of 'fatigue from intense weeks' of working against the coronavirus crisis.

Bruno Bruins, 56, fell behind the speaker's lectern while taking questions and was helped up by fellow ministers. He took a sip of water and was seen leaving the room unassisted.

'I was feeling faint from fatigue and intense weeks. I am feeling better now. I am going home now to rest this evening so I can return tomorrow to fight the corona crisis,' he said in a message on social media.

Bruins is the top government health official in the Netherlands, where the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus rose by 346 on Wednesday to 2,051, with 58 deaths, the country's National Institute for Health (RIVM) said.

President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday Iran has responded, and will respond, to America's assassination of Major-General Qassem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guards commander killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in January.

Rouhani was speaking following a Cabinet meeting that was broadcast on state television.

Soleimani, leader of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, was instrumental in expanding Iran's military influence in the Middle East as the operative who handles clandestine operations outside Iran. The 62-year-old general was regarded as the second-most powerful figure in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"The Americans assassinated our great commander. We have responded to that terrorist act and will respond to it," Rouhani said in a televised speech.

The UK government has proposed closing the book on most unsolved killings during the Troubles, prompting dismay from the Irish government and Northern Ireland's nationalist parties.

A new independent body will review cases, and only those deemed to have compelling new evidence and a realistic prospect of prosecution will receive a full police investigation, the government announced on Wednesday.

The legislation would close the vast majority of almost 2,000 unsolved cases and prevent them being re-opened, marking a new approach to so-called "legacy" issues that have plagued politics and reconciliation efforts in Northern Ireland.

When all else fails, blame Russia. That seems to be the EU approach to deflecting blame from its response to the coronavirus pandemic, no doubt because it has worked so well for Democrats in the US or London in the Skripal affair.

As Brussels finally got around to locking down the EU borders on Tuesday, London's Financial Times ran a 'bombshell' story blaming "Russian pro-Kremlin media" for a "significant disinformation campaign" to stoke "confusion, panic and fear" in the West and "aggravate the coronavirus pandemic crisis."

This is based on a nine-page report by the strategic communications division of the European External Action Service, the EU's de facto foreign ministry. The EEAS did not officially comment on the FT story.

Health industry executives themselves are at risk because they've put profit before public health, says Joe Lauria.

"The red death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. ... But Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his crenellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts.

They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death." - Edgar Allan Poe, "The Masque of the Red Death" (1842).

"It's outrageous that during the worst health crisis facing our country in decades, insurers want to make clear that they still plan to profit from the treatment of coronavirus victims. This is just the most recent egregious example of the greed of the for-profit health insurance system and highlights why we need a Medicare for All system, which would guarantee testing and health care to everyone living in the U.S. If costs are waived for tests, but not for treatment, people who test positive for the coronavirus may not be able to afford treatment and will continue to infect others." - Melinda St. Louis, Director of Public Citizen's Medicare for All Campaign.

The political landscape is changing as the Covid-19 outbreak undermines Donald Trump and his allies, such as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The fear caused by the coronavirus outbreak is greater than that provoked by a serious war because everybody is in the front line and everybody knows that they are a potential casualty. The best parallel is the terror felt by people facing occupation by a hostile foreign army; even if, in the present case, the invader comes in the form of a minuscule virus.

The political consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic are already vast because its advance, and the desperate measures taken to combat it, entirely dominate the news agenda and will go on doing so for the foreseeable future, although it is in the nature of this unprecedented event that nothing can be foreseen.

History has not come to a full stop because of the virus, however: crucial events go on happening, even if they are being ignored by people wholly absorbed by the struggle for survival in the face of a new disease. Many of these unrecognised but very real crises are taking place in the Middle East, the arena where great powers traditionally stage confrontations fought out by their local proxies.

Warsaw is a lot closer to Moscow geographically than to Washington, so Poland and Russia have no choice but to find common ground, Lech Walesa, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, believes - otherwise both countries are losing.

Walesa, who was the Polish president between 1990 and 1995, is confident that having "good" bilateral relations is essential for both Poland and Russia.

"But with the current level of our ties, we're all losing - both Russia and Poland. And allow the third party to benefit. It's always closer to Moscow from... Warsaw than to Washington. So let's make this neighboring a pleasant one, instead of causing each other problems."

The iconic leader of the Solidarity movement, who fought against Communist rule in the 1980s believes that Poland and Russia are "fated" to be together.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is said to have arrested his cousin, Princess Basmah Bint Saud Bin Abdulaziz, who has been missing for a year, Spanish ABC newspaper reported. According to the paper, a group of eight men appeared in the princess' home in Jeddah on 28 February 2019 as she was preparing to leave with her family to Switzerland for treatment.

The paper said the princess, who is known for advocating for women's rights and political reform in the kingdom, has been detained in Al-Hayer prison for the past year. The newspaper quoted a source close to the princess as saying that "since then, she has been held in cell 108 of Wing B where she is allowed to contact her family once a week", adding that the family does not know when she will be released.

In 2016, Princess Basmah returned to Saudi Arabia after then-Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Nayef intervened with the king securing her return. The princess was demanding King Salman return vast lands owned by her father, the late King Saud Bin Abdulaziz in Taif, and $2 billion held in Swiss bank accounts.

Israel's President Reuven Rivlin has decided to task ex-chief of staff and Benjamin Netanyahu's main rival Benny Gantz with forming a government, that is after he receives the 61 seats needed to do so.

Blue and White party chief Benny Gantz will now have 28 days to succeed in completing a task that both he and Netanyahu have failed twice to accomplish - forming a coalition.

Speaking at a ceremony where he received the mandate from the president, Gantz vowed that he "would do everything in his power" to establish a broad government within days that "represents all Israel's citizens".

New Government? Not So Fast

But, as previous rounds have proven, that won't be easy. Gaining only 33 seats in the recent general polls, Gantz will need the support of other parties to reach the magic number of 61 that would give him the keys to become Israel's PM.

Defence lawyers for Oleg Pulatov, one of the four men charged by the Dutch government with murder in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, have told the court the prosecutors were acting illegally in the case they have presented so far.

A lawyer for the 298 victims killed on board the aircraft, and their next of kin, also accused the prosecution of unlawfully keeping the evidence in the case file secret. No reporters for the international or Dutch media have published this part of the trial.

The Dutch Justice Ministry does not allow public release of the transcript of the proceedings, nor the livestream archive its cameramen have produced at the two days of hearing so far, March 9 and 10.

For the record and legal analysis of the March 9 hearing, dominated by presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis, click to open. For the report of the prosecution claims on March 10, read this.

The video record of the defence lawyer, Sabine ten Doesschate, commencing her argument on March 10 can be viewed here, starting at Min 4:18:30.