Coronavirus live news: Spain deaths lower for fourth day in a row as Germany sees further case drop

A group of 24 senior diplomats and defence officials, including four former Nato secretary generals, have urged Donald Trump to ease medical and humanitarian sanctions on Iran, writes Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor.

The call has the backing of the former EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, the former director general of the World Health Organization Gro Harlem Brundtland, and senior American diplomats in the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations.

Trump reimposed crippling sanctions on Tehran in May 2018 after withdrawing from an international deal that put curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme.

The bipartisan group is not pressing for a generalised lifting of the sanctions but instead a targeted effort to ease US rules that prevent Tehran trading in medical and humanitarian goods. The group says the move “could potentially save the lives of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians and, by helping to curb the virus’s rapid spread across borders, the lives of its neighbours, Europeans, Americans and others”.

After falls in the daily death tolls reported by Spain and the UK today, and Italy yesterday, the latest figures released by health authorities in Greece are also offering a glimmer of hope, Helena Smith reports from Athens.

In his daily briefing the government’s spokesman on coronavirus, prominent infectious diseases expert, Sotiris Tsiodras, said data suggested the country was “flattening the curve.”

Overnight 20 new coronavirus cases had been confirmed compared to 62 on Sunday, bringing the total number to 1,755.

Similarly the death toll was also displaying signs of stabilising, rising by six to 79 – compared to the five fatalities announced on Sunday. Of those hospitalised, an additional 90 people remain in intensive care.

But although Greece appears to have kept transmissions of the potentially lethal virus under control – after enforcing strict restrictions on movement early on – officials have repeatedly warned that this is not the time to be less vigilant.

Addressing the same health ministry briefing, the deputy civil protection minister Nikos Hardalias predicted that what would happen this month would be key – even if there were signs that “the chain of transmission” could be broken.

“April will be the most difficult and crucial month. If we relax the measures we could pay the price and regret it,” he said.

Mahmoud Jibril, the Libyan politician most closely involved in the fall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and Libya’s troubled transition to democracy, has died from Coronavirus in exile in Egypt, Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, reports.

Jibril was Libya’s first post transition head of government, and was supported by the French President Nicholas Sarkozy, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the British prime minister David Cameron.

He was critical to persuading western leaders that Gaddafi had to be stopped from trying to enter the eastern city of Benghazi to commit a massacre in 2011. He then worked especially closely with the United Arab Emirates and France on plans to liberate Tripoli from Gaddafi’s rule issuing the decisive broadcast that was the signal for the uprising in the capital.

He had been in quarantine since 26 March in Cairo, and aged 67 suffered from a complex of health issues, including a heart condition. As head of Libya’s executive office of the national transition council, he led the apologies to the British people of the new regime for the Lockerbie bombing and provision of arms to the IRA. He resigned soon after Gaddafi was ousted.

He gradually lost the support of Islamist militia and proved unable to bring the country together as the country’s battered civil institutions tried to adjust to the end of Gaddafi’s dictatorship. In 2012 he stood for the premiership only to be defeated by two votes when the national assembly voted by 96 to 94 for his rival.

The British embassy in Libya said on Monday it had heard of his passing with great sadness and said he has played an important role in helping usher Libya towards a more democratic future.

His death comes as the disease only slowly starts to take a grip in Libya itself. A total of 18 cases have been detected with only one death inside the country. There is a widespread concern that the country is badly prepared for any outbreak.

Fighting in the Libyan civil war continues with Turkish supplied drones backing the UN recognised government of national accord based in Tripoli causing damage on Sunday and Monday to eastern forces led by General Khalifa Haftar.