European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde announced a bond-buying program (FT) worth 750 billion euros ($820 billion) and said there are “no limits” to the bank’s support for the euro during the coronavirus pandemic. European leaders praised the measure, which also allows for purchases of Greek debt (Reuters) for the first time since the country’s sovereign debt crisis.
 
Rising coronavirus deaths across Europe stood in contrast to China’s report of no new domestic virus cases (SCMP) for the first time since the outbreak began. In the United States, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study of the country’s first 2,500 recorded cases found that 38 percent of hospitalized patients were between the ages of twenty and fifty-four (NYT).

The trial (AP) of Para Wijayanto, the suspected leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah militant group, began in Jakarta. The group was blamed for the 2002 bombings in Bali that killed 202 people.
 
China: Clinical trials in China suggest the Japanese flu drug Avigan may be an effective treatment (FT) for the new coronavirus, according to Chinese authorities. Japan previously supplied the drug as emergency aid in response to an Ebola outbreak in Guinea.

Four Pakistani soldiers and seven militants died in an antiterrorism operation (Dawn) near the border with Afghanistan, Pakistan’s military said.
 
Afghanistan: Concerns about the new coronavirus are slowing the U.S. troop withdrawal (NYT) from Afghanistan. The Taliban promised medical workers safe passage (Al Jazeera) in areas under its control.

Iran will pardon ten thousand prisoners (Reuters), including political ones, in honor of the Iranian new year. Earlier this week, Iran said it temporarily released eighty-five thousand prisoners to limit the spread of the new coronavirus.
 
In Foreign Affairs, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani discusses Iran’s response to the coronavirus.
 
Egypt: Authorities revoked the press credentials (Al Jazeera) of a Guardian journalist and denounced tweets by the New York Times Cairo bureau chief, saying their reporting on the coronavirus showed “intentional bad faith to harm Egyptian interests.”

Malawian President Peter Mutharika fired (AFP) army General Vincent Nundwe, whose troops have protected demonstrators protesting recent presidential elections. Last month, Malawi’s Constitutional Court annulled presidential election results and called for a new vote.
 
Uganda: A former top official seeking to unseat Uganda’s president in upcoming elections was charged with treason (Reuters) and weapons possession, prompting accusations of a government crackdown on opposition.
 
CFR’s Michelle Gavin discusses troubling trends in Uganda’s democracy.

A Russian disinformation campaign is publishing information in five languages in order to hinder the European response to the coronavirus, according to a European Union document seen by Reuters.

A Mexican judge issued an arrest warrant (AP) for six former officials, including the former chief of investigations at the Office of the Attorney General, for wrongdoing in the probe of forty-three students who disappeared in 2014.
 
CFR’s Shannon K. O’Neil discusses Mexico’s failing anticorruption efforts.
 
Canada: The U.S.-Canada border will temporarily close to all but nonessential traffic (CBC) in an effort to slow the coronavirus’s spread.

President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order allowing the federal government to take broad control (Bloomberg) over the supply chain and distribution of health-care products, saying such powers would be used only in a worst-case scenario.