The COVID-19 pandemic has forced Australia and New Zealand to abandon almost all Anzac Day services Saturday. Lockdowns and social distancing regulations have forced many to mark the occasion, a day of remembrance of Australians and New Zealanders who have died in combat, with simple services at home.
“This year we may not stand shoulder-to-shoulder but let us stand together in that spirit at dawn,” said a video by a veterans’ group to mark the occasion.
Under lockdown, many Australians and New Zealanders stood outside their homes to remember the Anzacs, and other servicemen and women.
Marches and parades that would usually attract large crowds were canceled because of the COVID-19 outbreak.A national service in Canberra was attended by a handful of political leaders and military veterans.
Returned Service Nurse, Wing Commander Sharon Bown, spoke of her great-uncle, who landed at Gallipoli 105 years ago.
“In this time of crisis, let us realize the innate capacity within each of us to do the same. To unite and protect the more vulnerable among us. To realize that the qualities for which we honor the Anzacs live on in each of us; endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humor, mateship and devotion to duty, to each other, to Australia — lest we forget,” Bown said.
In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke of her hopes for the future.
“We honor the Anzac commitment and we reflect on our enduring hopes for peace and a world that does not ask for the sacrifice of war, but instead asks for a commitment to empathy, kindness and to our shared humanity. May we remember that as we stand together this Anzac Day,” Ardern said.
Anzac Day commemorates the disastrous landing by the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli in Turkey on April 25, 1915. To many, the courage of those troops under devastating enemy fire helped to forge the identities of both former British colonies.
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Month: April 2020
‘My Sorrow Is Deep and Bitter’: Woman Dies of Coronavirus Shortly After Giving Birth
The Ethiopian community in the Washington, D.C.-area is mourning the loss of a woman who died from coronavirus shortly after giving birth, without seeing her newborn.Wogene Debele of Takoma Park, Maryland, was eight months pregnant when she began experiencing symptoms including fever, shortness of breath and loss of sense of smell. On March 25 she was hospitalized, and her son was born one month early via emergency cesarean section. On April 21 she died due to complications from the virus. Her son is healthy and does not have the disease.On Friday at the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex in Virginia, mourners wore masks and stood at a safe distance from one another. Her husband, Yilma Asfaw, collapsed on the casket, crying out in Amharic. “You didn’t see the boy you were looking for. You left your four children, and what would I do for them?” Despite his distress, his friends and family were unable to comfort him due to the distancing restrictions.Her 17-year-old daughter, Mihret Yilma, said the loss is impossible to process. “I didn’t just lose one person. I lost three. I lost my mother, my sister and my friend. We were very close. She left without saying goodbye,” she told VOA, speaking a mix of Amharic and English. “She taught me the meaning of strength and faith. We are safe because of her prayer night and day.”The daughter has been thrust into the role of mother, mixing milk formula to feed the baby and taking care of the newborn for three weeks. She said she takes solace in her new responsibility.“The newborn baby reminds me of my mother,” she said. “I feel like I am finding my mother through my siblings. From now on, they are all I’ve got. Mom used to say when I have my own children that I wouldn’t need a babysitter and that she would raise my children.”A mourner is seen grieving at the funeral of Wogene Debele of Takoma Park, Maryland, who was eight months pregnant when she contracted the coronavirus.Yilma, 50, and Wegene, 43, won the Diversity Visa Lottery to come to the United States 10 years ago, bringing their daughter Mihret and son Naol Yilma, now 10. They had their third child, another son, Asher Yilma, after arriving in the U.S. The father is a school bus driver for Montgomery County, Maryland.The Washington, D.C.-area is home to the largest population of people of Ethiopian descent in the U.S., with an estimated 100,000 living in the region.“This family is going to need us in the future. They’re going to need our support and our assistance, like so many families in our community,” Takoma Park Mayor Kate Stewart told local television station WUSA9.Etsegenet Bekele is a neighbor and had known Wegene since she came to the U.S. She lived on the third floor and Wegene on the eighth. “This is so painful for a new mother. I have no words. It is so painful,” she said. “She was a good person for everyone, but she would die for her children more than anything. She is a soldier for her children.”She said to mourn in such circumstances is painful, as people are keeping distance and can’t console each other. “You can’t get over it even after crying and everything is done from a distance. In our culture to be buried like this is deeply painful.”Yilma said he still can’t accept the loss of the woman he has loved since they were both children.“We have been together for 25 years,” he said. “She was my childhood friend; she was my childhood partner. She was my adviser, my lead, I don’t even know what to say. She loved her children. She was the kind of person who welcomed people with open arms. My sorrow is deep and bitter,” he told VOA.This story originated in the Africa Division with reporting from VOA Amharic Service’s Tsion Girma.
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$484 Billion in Stopgap Coronavirus Funding Ready for Trump Signature
The U.S. House of Representatives passed $484 billion in additional funding for small businesses and hospitals Thursday, a stopgap effort to add more money to the largest relief package in U.S. history. Lawmakers have now passed four measures worth trillions of dollars in a six-week period to address the economic and public health crises caused by the coronavirus outbreak.The vote, 388-5-1, marked the first time the entire House had returned to Washington since mid-March, when stay-at-home orders preventing the spread of the coronavirus began to take effect. Voting stretched over several hours as lawmakers recorded their responses in small groups, with pauses every 30 minutes while the House chamber was cleaned.The measure will now head to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.The majority of the additional funding passed Thursday will be targeted at small businesses that missed out on an earlier pool of rescue money. Congressional Democrats negotiated for some of the $320 billion in new funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) assistance to be specifically directed to women and minority-owned businesses as well as individuals who do not have access to banks.A sign indicating proper social distancing measures is displayed ahead of a vote in the House of Representatives on an additional coronavirus economic stimulus package, on Capitol Hill, April 23, 2020.Under the PPP, if a business uses the aid to pay employees during the next two months, then the government will assume responsibility for the costs and the business will not have to pay it back. The program was enormously popular, running out of funds within days of its April 7 launch date.Republican Representative Kevin Brady, speaking in support of passage on the House floor, said the program “is helping nearly 1.6 million local businesses, impacting 30 million jobs for local construction, retail, manufacturing, health care, hospitality and service businesses.”Jobless numbers Unemployment numbers released Thursday showed another 4.4 million Americans lost their jobs in the past week, bringing the total to 26 million jobs lost during the time coronavirus-related shutdowns took effect.Lawmakers say the PPP will allow businesses to keep workers employed until they can reopen. The governors of several states have announced plans to begin relaxing stay-at-home orders, including some beginning next week. Some states have seen small protests calling for a return to regular economic activity.The additional funding set to pass this week also provides $25 billion to help states with testing for the coronavirus as well as $75 billion for hospitals whose resources have been exhausted by the crisis.CARES Act 2Lawmakers will immediately turn to negotiations on a second massive aid bill, already referred to as CARES Act 2. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday that Democrats’ efforts to include additional funding for state, local and tribal governments failed in this round of negotiations but would be pursued for the next measure.In this image from video, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., takes his face covering off as he speaks on the floor of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, April 23, 2020.But that funding has already become the focus of intense political debate.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested Wednesday that lawmakers proceed cautiously on the next round of aid.”This whole business of additional assistance for state and local governments needs to be thoroughly evaluated,” McConnell told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview Wednesday. McConnell said many states should not receive money because they had overfunded retirement plans for state workers.”There’s not going to be any desire on the Republican side to bail out state pensions by borrowing money from future generations,” he said.U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wears a face mask as she walks to the House Chamber ahead of a vote on an additional economic stimulus package, during the spread of the coronavirus disease, on Capitol Hill, April 23, 2020.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized McConnell, saying his resistance to funding would force states to declare bankruptcy, jeopardizing essential workers.”Oh, really?” Pelosi said on the House floor Thursday. “And not pay for health care workers and public hospitals and the rest of first responders and the rest? Oh, really? What made you think that was a good idea? It’s just more notion-mongering to get attention.”Lawmakers are scheduled to fully return to work on Capitol Hill on May 4.
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4.4 Million More US Workers File for Unemployment Compensation
Another 4.4 million U.S. workers claimed unemployment compensation last week as the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the U.S. economy, the Labor Department reported Thursday.The newest total boosted the five-week total to 26.5 million, even as a few states are beginning to devise ways to reopen some businesses in the coming weeks. But millions more workers could file for jobless assistance in the next few weeks as the full effect of the coronavirus crisis on the world’s biggest economy takes hold.The United States has not seen this level of job losses — nearly one out of every six workers — since the Great Depression in the 1930s. The scope of the layoffs has wiped out the entirety of U.S. job growth since the 2008 recession.Percy Johnson waits for a customer at Public Square in Cleveland, April 23, 2020. With so few pedestrians downtown, Johnson said business is slow.Some companies laid off workers quickly in mid-March as the spread of the coronavirus became apparent. But other companies vowed to keep paying their workers, at least for a while, even as many of them had little work to do as their potential customers stayed home to protect themselves and their families.Some companies have now laid off these workers as well, as the depth of the country’s economic turmoil takes hold. Economists say the current U.S. unemployment rate could be approaching 20%.The U.S. Congress has boosted the widely varying unemployment compensation paid by states by $600 a week for four months. States often make payments to laid-off workers that account for not quite half of what they were being paid.Some forecasters say the U.S. economy will shrink in the April-to-June period by its biggest figure since the end of World War II.Credit Suisse is predicting a 33.5% decline, with investment banker Goldman Sachs slightly higher at 34% with a 15% unemployment rate.However, Goldman is predicting a robust 19% gain in the third quarter from July through September as the U.S. moves toward a possible recovery from the pandemic.Unknown timelineThe newest weekly total for jobless assistance claims is smaller than those of the last three weeks, when millions more applied for help. That possibly suggests that the downturn has stabilized to a degree.A person wearing a protective face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus walks past a shuttered business in Philadelphia, April 23, 2020.But what is unknown is how long businesses will remain shut or operating only on a curtailed basis, leading to weeks of heightened layoffs. Millions of people could be out of work through the end of 2020.U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing to reopen parts of the country to business again in a week, but he said Wednesday that he “disagreed strongly” with one state governor, in Georgia, who announced plans to move quickly to reopen such businesses as hair and nail salons and gyms.”It’s just too soon,” Trump said.Plea for testingExecutives of some of the country’s biggest corporations have warned Trump that more coronavirus testing needs to be done before workers return to their jobs.With federal authorities recommending that Americans maintain at least a two-meter physical distance from other people through the end of April, businesses have been forced to curtail work or shutter operations and lay off workers.The rapid pace of layoffs is unprecedented in recent U.S. history, although the extent of the economic damage is not precisely known. It took two years during the Great Recession in the two-year period between 2007 and 2009 for 8.6 million people to lose their jobs.Numerous supporters of Trump have been pushing him to reopen the U.S. economy. Some relatively small street protests have occurred in recent days, with demonstrators demanding that government officials call off the business shutdowns to let them go back to work.But numerous stories are also appearing in U.S. media outlets of the deaths of people who voiced doubts they could be fall victim to the coronavirus and instead ventured into public places and were fatally infected.
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Nigerian Muslims Adapt to Different Ramadan in Age of Coronavirus
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins Friday with many countries in lockdown over the coronavirus, including Nigeria, which is home to West Africa’s largest Muslim population. Communal prayer and breaking the daily fast with a large meal will be disrupted by social distancing measures. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
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As Coronavirus Hits European Economies, Remittances Plummet
A new World Bank study predicts remittances sent home by migrant workers from low- and middle-income countries may plummet by one-fifth this year, prompted by the coronavirus-driven global economic downturn.In Europe, that translates into billions of dollars lost to families in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. Shuttered shops and empty sidewalks on the normally bustling Avenue de Paris in Montreuil. (L. Bryant/VOA)Almost every business in the Paris suburb of Montreuil is shuttered on what is a normally bustling street — except for the Western Union money transfer office. Even so, it is seeing only a trickle of customers. Retiree Boubacar Baka is sending his usual quarterly payment back to his family in Abidjan. He said it’s not much — times are tight. But he said his family has to eat. With its many African residents, especially from Mali, Montreuil is sometimes called “Little Bamako.” On this day, Western Union customer Sidi Djiabate, who is from Mali, has business to do. Djiabate is sending a small sum to family in western Mali as a Ramadan gift. He said he is an office clerk here, and his job is secure. But he says times are tough in his homeland, where the coronavirus has also arrived. With Mali’s borders closed to slow the pandemic, he says people lack basics like sugar. France is one of Europe’s biggest exporters of migrant worker remittances. The African diaspora here, estimated at 3.6 million people, sent more than $10 billion home in 2017. Graffiti in the Paris suburb of Montreuil, nicknamed ‘little Bamako’ because of its large Malian diaspora. (L. Bryant/VOA)But coronavirus-triggered layoffs and lost wages are affecting those transfers. Staff at the Montreuil Western Union declined to be interviewed but said their clientele has dropped sharply in recent weeks. There are other reasons for the slowdown in remittances. One is that a number of money transfer offices are closed under the current shutdown. Companies like Western Union have launched communications campaigns urging clients to send payments via internet or phone app. But not everyone has a computer or smartphone. A market in the Paris suburb of Saint Denis before the lockdown. (L. Bryant/VOA)Laurent Russier, mayor of the nearby town of Saint-Denis where about a third of the population is foreign born, said some remittances are going the other way, as well. He said migrant workers who have lost their jobs here are getting money from families back home. The World Bank forecasts Africa alone could lose more than $11 billion in remittances from its diaspora this year, even as experts fear foreign investment and aid could also drop.
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Indonesian Activist Held Over Messages Spreading ‘Hatred’
Indonesian police said on Thursday they had detained an activist accused of broadcasting messages to instigate violence and hatred, but rights groups said they believed he had been framed by someone who hijacked his WhatsApp account.Ravio Patra, an Indonesian researcher with the U.K.-based Westminster Foundation for Democracy, was detained Wednesday night on suspicion of “broadcasting messages to instigate violence and/or spread hatred,” Jakarta police spokesman Yusri Yunus said during a streamed news conference.Yunus said Patra had not been charged, and he declined to say more because he said the investigation was continuing. He did not respond when asked to address the accusation that Patra had been framed.Patra could not be reached for comment. Lawyer Muhammad Arsyad said investigators had not allowed him access to represent Patra. The Westminster Foundation for Democracy could not immediately be reached for comment.A joint statement issued by 11 rights groups said Patra had told activists before he was detained that he lost access to his WhatsApp account for five hours Wednesday, during which time messages were sent from it to unknown contacts reading: “CRISIS HAS ALREADY BURNED! LET’S UNITE AND BURN ON 30 APRIL FOR THE MASS LOOTING NATIONALLY, ALL STORES ARE FOR US TO LOOT!”Reuters saw an image of the message that had been captured from the screen of one recipient, who subsequently sent it to Patra before his arrest.’Compromised’Two sources at Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, told Reuters that Patra’s WhatsApp account had been found on Wednesday to be “compromised,” possibly in a targeted attack. They declined to provide details.A WhatsApp spokeswoman said: “While we can’t comment on specific users, our primary concern is for the security and safety of our users.”Activists urged police to release Patra and investigate who was behind the alleged hacking. Their statement was jointly issued by groups including Amnesty International Indonesia and the Legal Aid Foundation.”We see and believe that the motive for spreading these fake messages is to frame Ravio, as if he was the provocateur attempting to create riots,” Damar Juniarto, executive director of Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network, said in the statement.They did not accuse any specific individual or group.The statement noted Patra, 27, had been critical of the government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and of its actions in the easternmost province of Papua, where the army has fought a low-level separatist insurgency for decades.On social media platforms and local websites, Patra had criticized the government for an insufficient response to the coronavirus. Officials have repeatedly rejected this, saying they have taken appropriate measures.Patra had also accused the government of a lack of transparency around projects in Papua. The government has also rejected these assertions.Government offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Patra’s views.
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Russia’s Journalists Walk Dangerous Tightrope Covering COVID-19 Pandemic
The Novosibirsk-based news website Taiga.info recently published an interview with a woman who told the independent outlet that she called an ambulance after experiencing severe flu-like symptoms that she feared could be COVID-19. The paramedics who showed up had no gloves, masks, or other personal protective equipment (PPE), she said.
“The management of Novosibirsk’s ambulance service wrote a complaint to the prosecutor’s office and [state media-monitoring agency] Roskomnadzor,” the Siberian website’s editor, Aleksei Mazur, told RFE/RL. “A few days later, an ambulance paramedic who had been handling possible coronavirus infections was diagnosed with COVID-19. It turned out he had only a normal mask and had not been issued a respirator.”
Earlier this month, St. Petersburg journalist Tatyana Voltskaya, who writes for RFE/RL’s Russian Service, published an interview with a local doctor who warned of a looming shortage of ventilators and qualified emergency doctors in the city. The doctor, concerned about possible retribution for speaking out, insisted that his name be withheld.
Days after the interview was published, Voltskaya received a phone call from a police investigator. “He immediately asked me to reveal my source,” Voltskaya said. “I refused.”
Voltskaya said the investigator claimed that he only wanted to make sure the hospital where the doctor worked had adequate supplies.
“The investigator said that Bastrykin was interested in the interview,” she recalled, referring to the head of the federal Investigative Committee, Aleksandr Bastrykin. “If that is true, then get to work! They should put on masks and go and see [what is going on]…. Is that so hard? Why drag me into it?”
A few days later, local state-friendly media reported that St. Petersburg Governor Aleksandr Beglov had warned that the city faced a dire shortage of ventilators and PPE for medical workers.FILE – People watch a broadcast of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address to the nation on measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus, in a cafe in Omsk, Russia, March 25, 2020.Real pressure on ‘fake news’
Independent journalists across Russia are facing similar encounters as they work to cover the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian government’s efforts to cope with it. On March 31, even before the government had announced a general lockdown and other emergency measures, the legislature adopted a law criminalizing the distribution of “fake information” about the health crisis, a measure that President Vladimir Putin signed into law on April 1.
On April 4, St. Petersburg activist Anna Shushpanova became the first person to face investigation under the law because of a social-media post sharing concerns about the adequacy of hygiene measures at a local hospital.
“Our deputies live in a world that they have spent years creating in their minds — a world in which information that is disseminated in the interests of their bosses is ‘correct’ information,” said Viktor Muchnik, editor in chief of the TV2 information agency in the Siberian city of Tomsk. “And any ‘incorrect’ information is distributed to help their bosses’ enemies. And they can’t imagine any other kind of information, so they need to put an end to all this ‘fake information’ that is coming either from abroad or from some sort of [opposition leader Alexey] Navalny or some other enemies of the regime.”
“And the bosses, of course, welcome any such initiatives,” he concluded. “It is obvious why this is being done.”
In such a climate, Muchnik said, “doctors are really frightened.” He recently interviewed one doctor who told him “everything was normal” at her hospital. Later that night, however, she called him back and told him the hospital was critically short of qualified personnel. “Earlier, I had caught her at work, and she was not able to speak honestly,” he said.
Maria Bukhtuyeva, editor in chief of the TVK television company in Krasnoyarsk, said the best way to combat rumors and speculation would be for the authorities to work better with the media. “Our politicians and parliamentarians and law enforcement personnel and others involved in this matter locally have lost the ability to make independent decisions and therefore they are not in a position to give adequate, timely commentary [to the media],” she said. “What can be prosecuted as ‘fake news’? Whatever they want.”FILE – Workers in protective suits spray disinfectant in the center of Grozny, capital of Russia’s Chechnya region, April 6, 2020. Ramzan Kadyrov, the region’s strongman, has taken extreme measures to fight the spread of the coronavirus in Chechnya.And more than pressure…
In addition to the intimidating law on “fake news,” some Russian regional figures have been intimidating journalists more directly. Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, recently accused journalists of the independent Novaya gazeta of being “traitors.” Shortly after he called an article about the region’s COVID-19 crisis “absurd,” the Russian authorities forced Novaya Gazeta to take it off the Internet.
Earlier in April, Kadyrov issued a video in which he threatened the head of RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service, Aslan Doukaev, for an article about how the region’s farmers are struggling through the pandemic. “The head of that region has been quite effective at using extrajudicial means to resolve issues,” Taiga.info’s Mazur said, referring to Kadyrov. “But the main complaint shouldn’t be to him, but to the federal authorities.”
Kadyrov “has always tended to test the limits of the laws and instructions. When you draw a line in the sand for him, he crosses it and waits to see what happens. When nothing happens, he goes further,” he said. “It’s a shame that the federal government and the [president] put up with this.”
There are similar examples elsewhere in Russia. In an interview with state media on April 17, Tomsk region Governor Sergei Zhvachkin warned those who “smear the authorities with dirt” during a “semi-war period.”
“The government knows your names and where you live,” he said. “Don’t be offended, but if you cross the line, we will be forced to stop you…. Don’t play around.”
TV2’s Muchnik and his team are used to working under government pressure. The company’s flagship TV station was closed down in 2014 after a campaign against it by local officials.
“If this had happened in the late 1990s or early 2000s, we would have had the people who were responsible in our studio, constantly communicating with our viewers,” he said. “We would have found ways to convey in detail what was happening. And not only us — there were many media outlets who were competing with one another.
“But over a period of many years, the media space has been made flat and regulated,” he concluded. “Of course, we have our sources of information, but the people now are in a panic and a lot of unreliable information is out there. We have to spend a lot of time checking things. And we also have to check official information, of course.”
Written by Robert Coalson based on reporting by Aleksandr Molchanov of the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service.
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Trump Officials Eye Blocking Uranium From Russia, China to Help US Industry
Trump administration officials on Thursday recommended granting U.S. energy regulators the ability to block imports of nuclear fuel from Russia and China and detailed plans for setting up a government stockpile of uranium sourced from domestic miners.The recommendations are meant to address growing concern in Washington that the United States has ceded its global leadership in nuclear technology in recent decades, and to boost domestic nuclear power producers and uranium miners suffering from a lack of investment.U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told reporters on a call that the report from the Nuclear Fuel Working Group was a “road map for what we think needs to be done to not only revitalize but re-establish American leadership in this entire industry.”President Donald Trump created the working group last July after he rejected a request by two U.S. uranium mining companies, Energy Fuels Inc and Ur-Energy Inc, seeking quotas for domestic uranium production to protect them against foreign competition.The report recommended enabling the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to deny imports of certain uranium supplies from Russia and China for national security purposes.FILE – U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette gestures during an interview after visiting the deepwater port in Sines, southern Portugal, Feb. 12, 2020.It also recommended that the Commerce Department extend the Russian Suspension Agreement, which established a maximum cap for imports of Russian uranium to 20% of the U.S. market, “to protect against future uranium dumping.” It also suggested “further lowering the cap” on Russian imports in the agreement, which expires this year.The report mentioned TVEL, a unit of Russian state-owned Rosatom, which launched a project in 2008 to develop replacement fuel for reactors using U.S. technology abroad and in the United States. That project is on hold, but would pose a risk to the U.S. nuclear industry if revived, it said.The report also recommended the U.S. government set up a uranium reserve allowing it to make direct purchases of uranium from domestic producers. Trump’s budget released in February proposed $1.5 billion over 10 years for the creation of a uranium reserve, but Congress has yet to act on it.Brouillette said it was possible Trump would issue executive orders to support the findings of the report, which also sought to boost research and development of new reactor technologies, and streamline permitting for uranium mining.Opposition to recommendationsAmerica Fitzpatrick, a senior representative of The Wilderness Society environmental group, said her organization opposed efforts to bolster the U.S. nuclear industry and worried that it would increase mining near national parks.”Enriching special interests with taxpayer resources so they can plunder national treasures like Bears Ears and the Grand Canyon will harm our land, water, and public health,” she said.Energy Fuels Inc and Ur-Energy Inc, as well as more than two dozen western state lawmakers, have argued that U.S. nuclear generators rely too heavily on foreign suppliers, including Russia, China and Kazakhstan. Canada has also long been a top supplier of uranium to the United States.The U.S. nuclear energy industry is suffering from high safety costs and low prices for natural gas, a competitor in generating power. Since 2013, about nine nuclear plants have closed, and eight are scheduled to close in coming years.
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US Offers Greenland $12 Million Aid Package
The U.S State Department announced Thursday a $12.1 million aid package for Greenland along with plans to re-open a consulate in the capital, Nuuk. A State Department official, briefing reporters in a teleconference, said the aid will go to developing natural resources, energy technologies, education and tourism, among other investments.The official said the package is part of an effort by the U.S. to adjust its Arctic policy after China and Russia’s recent military and economic investments in the region.Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Demark, welcomed the aid package, though several lawmakers added they supported it as long as it did not come with any conditions.The move comes less than a year after U.S. President Trump expressed an interest in buying Greenland from Denmark, an idea that was rejected and mocked by both Danish and Greenland officials. When Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredrickson called the idea “absurd,” Trump canceled a planned state visit to the country.Greenland has a population of 56,000 but is rich in natural resources.
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Rise in COVID-19 Cases Convinces Sudanese to Take Pandemic Seriously
Many Sudanese are taking the threat of coronavirus more seriously, as the number of confirmed cases has now topped 160, with 13 reported deaths as of Thursday.Sudanese health officials say Khartoum has by far the most cases with 155. White Nile and Jazeera states each have three confirmed cases and River Nile state has one. FILE – Sudanese Health Minister Akram Ali Al-Tom speaks during a press conference in Khartoum, Sudan, Friday, March. 13, 2020. Sudan reported its first case of the coronavirus , a person who had already died.Residents who earlier did not believe there would be a COVID-19 outbreak in Sudan now say they’re following protective measures advised by the World Health Organization and the government.Samia Argawi, a resident of Khartoum’s Jabra neighborhood, is one who changed her view. “I make sure I wear gloves and mask and I have to keep a distance. And in most cases when the place is crowded, I… get back home without buying anything. We can still survive on Chapatti or anything else,” Argawi told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.Bella Ufendi Ndima, a South Sudanese national living in Khartoum’s Jebel Aulia neighborhood, said reports of new coronavirus cases are causing panic in her community. A member of a medical team wearing protective suits clean the airfield, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the Juba International Airport in Juba, South Sudan April 5, 2020.Ufendi says she now practices social distancing and drinks herbal tea, believing it treats coughs and any other chest infections.“Every two days, I do prepare hibiscus at home and all us at home drink it every morning and evening. We wash our hands with soap frequently and used sterilized [products] and overall, I do encourage everyone at home to continue praying so that we don’t get infected with corona,” Ndima told South Sudan in Focus.Authorities in Khartoum have closed all mosques, churches and banned all forms of social gatherings for 21 days to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the country.Elsewhere, calls for people to follow coronavirus safety guidelines are sinking in more slowly. Abdurrahim Mohammed Hassan, a resident of Al Obeid town of Northern Kordofan state, said people are not following travel restrictions or the night-time curfew.“We don’t see the implementation of curfew in the town, people move around all the time. I am speaking from my shop in the town market. People here don’t adhere to the curfew directives, and our people also don’t have enough awareness about the disease,” Hassan told South Sudan in Focus.However, Mahmood Dagash says people are panicking about the rise in cases in the eastern state of Al Gadarif. There, health officials collected samples this week from 14 people suspected of having coronavirus. All 14 have been isolated and are awaiting test results.“After we have these 14 suspected cases, you find that all the people talking just about these cases,” Dagash told South Sudan in Focus. He added that some are taking about closing nearby borders with Ethiopia and Eritrea.
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Polish Couple Fights Prejudice and Virus with Rainbow Face Masks
Married gay couple Dawid Mycek and Jakub Kwiecinski say they face frequent abuse in Poland for being part of a so-called “homosexual plague.””So we thought that if we are dealing right now with a real plague (the new coronavirus) we could help protect people from this plague and do something good,” said 37-year-old Kwiecinski.He and his husband gave out 300 rainbow face masks on the streets of the northern Polish city of Gdansk this month to help people protect themselves from COVID 19 and raise awareness of the situation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the country.A video of them distributing the masks was watched on Facebook over 2 million times.Poland has reported 10,346 cases of the coronavirus and 435 deaths, and wearing a face mask is mandatory in public spaces.Kwiecinski and Mycek, 35, who married in Portugal, said reactions to their masks were overwhelmingly positive, but the general attitude towards LGBT people in Poland has become more hostile in recent years.In Poland, which doesn’t recognize any form of same-sex union, parades to celebrate LGBT life became violent flashpoints last year in the buildup to October elections.The country is due to hold presidential elections on May 10.”The situation of LGBT people in Poland is getting worse I would say day by day, we have the right-wing in power… the Law and Justice party and they are against LGBT,” Kwiecinski said.”They also encourage people to attack us, to insult us.”A spokeswoman for the ruling conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) did not respond to requests for comment.PiS officials have previously said they are not against gay couples, they just want them to exist as couples in private.Kwiecinski and Mycek said in recent years they have received death threats from 80 people.”We’ve heard many times in Poland from people and from Polish bishops, and from Polish politicians that we are a plague,” Kwiecinski said referring to comments made by the archbishop of Krakow, Marek Jedraszewski last August.Jedraszewki described Poland as under siege from a “rainbow plague” of gay rights campaigners he compared to Poland’s former Communist rulers.
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US Blasts China at Southeast Asian Meeting on Coronavirus
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told his Southeast Asian counterparts on Thursday that China is taking advantage of the world’s preoccupation with the coronavirus pandemic to push its territorial ambitions in the South China Sea.
Pompeo made the accusation in a meeting via video to discuss the outbreak with the foreign ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Beijing’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea conflict with those of ASEAN members Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, and are contested by Washington, which has an active naval presence in the Pacific.
“Beijing has moved to take advantage of the distraction, from China’s new unilateral announcement of administrative districts over disputed islands and maritime areas in the South China Sea, its sinking of a Vietnamese fishing vessel earlier this month, and its ‘research stations’ on Fiery Cross Reef and Subi Reef,” Pompeo said.
He also accused China of deploying militarized ships to intimidate other claimant countries from developing offshore gas and oil projects.
Most other participants focused in their statements on health, economic and social problems resulting from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
“The Foreign Ministers exchanged views on the COVID-19 situation in their respective countries, as well as information and best practices on dealing with the outbreak from a public health perspective,” Singapore said. “They noted the grave socio-economic impact of COVID-19, and emphasized the need for ASEAN and the U.S. to work closely together on a forward-looking approach to address post-pandemic economic recovery.”
Pompeo thanked Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia for their material aid in fighting the outbreak and noted U.S. financial assistance.
“To date, the United States has released more than $35.3 million in emergency health funding to help ASEAN countries fight the virus, building on the $3.5 billion in public health assistance provided across ASEAN over the last twenty years,” he said, announcing also a new project to promote ASEAN health security through research, public health and training.
Pompeo also called on China to close its wildlife markets. It is generally believed the coronavirus originated at one such “wet market” in Wuhan in China, though blame for the epidemic has become a hot debate between Beijing and Washington.
Pompeo said the U.S was also concerned by a recent scientific report “showing that Beijing’s upstream dam operations have unilaterally altered flows of the Mekong,” endangering the livelihoods of tens of millions of people living downstream in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
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$2.6 Million Payout to Legislators Angers Ugandan Public
Uganda’s parliament has come under scrutiny after legislators allocated themselves a total of $2.6 million to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Lawmakers say the funds are being used to feed constituents. But the High Court may order them to return the money. Early this month, Uganda’s parliament passed a supplementary budget of $80.2 million meant to support the fight against the spread of COVID-19.The budget included $2.6 million in pay to legislators, or about $5,250 to each member.Describing the payout as fundamentally wrong and criminal, lawmaker Gerald Karuhanga says parliament violated legal procedures on how a supplementary budget is passed and says the money for members was smuggled into the budget.Karuhanga, speaking to VOA, argues that the $2.6 million should have been handed to the Ministry of Health.“What message are we sending to the nation? That when people are busy donating, we can’t donate from what we’ve earned,” Karuhanga said. “That we can even easily, take away, literally, even the food meant for a patient in intensive care.”Ssemuju Nganda, the opposition chief whip, says the money is being used to feed hungry constituents. Nganda says that before the supplementary budget was passed, their constituents were thronging their homes, seeking help ranging from food to health service requests.FILE – Member of Uganda’s armed forces, and a Red Cross worker distribute foodstuffs to people affected by the lockdown measures aimed at curbing the spread of the new coronavirus, in the Bwaise suburb of Kampala, Uganda, April 4, 2020.This, says Nganda, shows how deaf the government has been to the pleas of Ugandans. “I am doing work that is supposed to be done by government. We gave them 59 billion shillings to distribute food relief to vulnerable people in Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono during the first 14 days of lockdown,” Nganda said. “The 14 days ended when they had distributed food in less than ten percent of the targeted one point five million people, so really, there is no government in Uganda.”President Museveni has said that any legislator found distributing food to the public will be charged with attempted murder. One legislator, Francis Zaake, was on Monday arrested from his home constituency in Mityana district, Central Uganda.The payout has caused an uproar among Ugandans. Nana Nalongo is a mother of six.“It makes me very angry. The things that Ugandans would think were the ones to be tackled by Parliament, like put a voice for us to get services at subsidised rates, it’s not what’s happening,” Nalongo said. “Health, food and water and power, we kept waiting, will Parliament talk about this, they haven’t done that. We wait for the top, from the head of State, he just makes it a comedy show. People are starving, we are having one meal, when we had three meals.”Uganda’s High Court has ordered the $2.6 million frozen until it holds a hearing on the matter, scheduled for April 29th. On Wednesday, Speaker Kadaga summoned the attorney general to advise parliament on how to handle the matter, as the money has already been disbursed.
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Kenyan Police Accused of Killings, Excessive Force While Enforcing COVID-19 Curfew
Rights groups in Kenya say police are using excessive force while enforcing a nighttime curfew to contain the coronavirus. The groups say the excessive force has left at least a dozen people dead and hundreds more with life-threatening injuries.Eighteen-year-old Ibrahim Onyango was coming home from Dandora dump site in Nairobi, where he worked collecting plastics for recycling. It was the first night that Kenya implemented a dusk-to-dawn curfew to contain the coronavirus.His brother, Francis Otieno, said Ibrahim must have missed the announcement of the curfew, because he worked all day at the dump, without radio or television.“He was going home, it was the first day of the curfew, Saturday [March] 29th. Together with his friend they met cops. It was around 7.30 p.m. and they asked him where he had come from and then started to beat him. In between the beatings, he got a chance to escape. That’s how he got to his house. When he got in, my sister Rita says he was bleeding, one of his ears was hanging; he had deep wounds on his head.”Ibrahim died two days later, despite treatment at a Nairobi hospital.Security officers arrests a man selling alcohol door to door during curfew hours in Kisumu, western Kenya, March 29, 2020.Human Rights watch on Wednesday said that at least six people died in the first 10 days of the curfew.Otsieno Namwaya was one of the lead researchers for the report.“Most of those six are as a result of beatings from the police but beside the beatings and killings, I think the brutality of the police is much more widespread that the number of those who are dead. There are lots of people who are nursing injuries because of police beatings; there are a lot of people who have lost businesses because of police either demanding bribes or looting,” said Namwaya.Wilfred Olal, a coordinator at the Social Justice Centers Working Group, a collective voice for grassroot activist groups in Kenya, said other deaths arising from police brutality during the curfew period may be going unreported.“On the police killings, we have been using our monitors on the ground, and we have also been following the desktop survey, looking at what the media is reporting. So far, we have recorded 14 killings, and we even have the names,” said Olal.Most of the deaths have taken place in Kenya’s urban slums, areas that have a long history of police killings.Namwaya said the government needs to persuade people to respect the curfew, rather than impose it by force.“This is a containment measure, to prevent an infectious disease from spreading and therefore what government needs is not force but engagement with the public and persuasion. That is what government has failed on and the thinking in government seems to be that if they cannot persuade, they should threaten and beat people to submission, which is totally wrong,” said Namwaya.Kenyan police did not respond when asked for comment on allegations of excessive force and killings by officers.Kenya has now more than 300 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with 14 deaths.
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Merkel Warns Against Easing Restrictions Too Quickly
German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned German lawmakers some regions in the nation were moving too quickly to ease COVID-19 restrictions, risking a setback to the progress the country has made in getting the virus under control.In an address to the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, Merkel said she fully supports the decision made last week – after consultations with regional governors – to begin easing some restrictions, such as allowing smaller businesses to reopen. But she said she is concerned some areas are relaxing those rules too quickly.Merkel said nobody likes to hear it but “we are not living in the final phase of the pandemic, but still at the beginning.” She said Germany’s early success bought them time that has been used to bolster the health care system and moving too quickly could set all that back.Turning the European Union, the German chancellor said in the spirit of solidarity, Germany should be willing to contribute more to the EU budget to help other nations in the region recover economically.
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US Adds Cameras at Mexico Border Despite Drop in Crossings
The Trump administration has been quietly adding military surveillance cameras at the U.S.-Mexico border in response to the coronavirus pandemic, though fewer people appear to be crossing illegally. It’s the latest move as operations at the U.S.-Mexico border have become increasingly militarized and secretive.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press show the Department of Defense, at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, sent 60 mobile surveillance cameras and 540 additional troops to the southwest border this month. The documents are unclassified but for official use only and were part of PowerPoint slides created last week to brief Lt. Gen. Laura J. Richardson, commander of U.S. Army North, the primary unit overseeing military operations at the border.
The cameras are manned by the military and will be removed after the pandemic has ended, said Matthew Dyman, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, which is under the Department of Homeland Security.
The request for cameras was not “based on border flow numbers” but on rising coronavirus cases in Mexico, he said.
“Each person that avoids arrest and makes further entry into the United States has the potential to be carrying the COVID-19 virus and puts American lives at risk,” Dyman said in a email.
Apprehensions of people crossing illegally have declined by 77% since a peak in May, according to Customs and Border Protection. April figures have not been released yet but are expected to be even lower.
The cameras were set up days before President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday placing a 60-day pause on issuing green cards in an effort to limit competition for jobs in a U.S. economy wrecked by the coronavirus.
Trump has used emergency powers during the pandemic to implement an aggressive border crackdown that has included turning away or immediately deporting asylum-seekers, including minors.
The military help means more Border Patrol agents can focus on apprehending people who cross illegally or expelling foreigners under a rarely used public health law that the Trump administration tapped amid the pandemic, Dyman said.
The addition of the mobile cameras, which are are mounted in the back of trucks, bring the total to 192, according to the documents.
Southern border expert David Shirk sees no justification for adding cameras and troops. He pointed out that Mexico so far has a fraction of the number of COVID-19 cases that have been confirmed in the United States, while deportees flown back from the U.S. have introduced cases in their home countries.
“There is no evidence that suggests there are hordes of COVID-19 patients lined up along the border,” said Shirk, an associate political science professor at University of San Diego. “And there is no evidence that COVID-19 is even contributing to a surge in people trying to cross the border.”
The government’s own numbers show the opposite. Apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border have been declining for nine straight months.
As of Sunday, the 60 added mobile surveillance cameras planned to be manned and operational, according to the documents. That day, the six Mexican states bordering the U.S. reported a total of about 125 confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to Mexico’s health secretary. By comparison, the four U.S. states that border Mexico — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — recorded about 55,000 infections Sunday.
Pentagon officials as recently as August were considering a request from the Department of Homeland Security to send reconnaissance planes and military drones designed for battlegrounds in Afghanistan and Iraq to the border.
Administration officials have declined to say whether that plan, first reported by Newsweek on Aug. 9, is still in the works. In December, Richardson, the U.S. Army North commander, ordered historically unclassified documents and daily briefings on the U.S.-Mexico border to be moved to a classified system to prevent further leaks.
With the additional troops, about 3,000 active-duty service members are on the border along with 2,500 National Guard troops. Barred from law enforcement duties, they have kept a low profile and are largely doing on-the-ground surveillance.
The border mission — marking one of the longest deployments of active-duty troops to the border in U.S. history — has cost more than $500 million since October 2017. The Defense Department also has reallocated nearly $10 billion to building Trump’s border wall.
“The U.S. border is the most militarized peacetime border in the world, and the border is more militarized today than it ever was in the entire history of our two countries,” said Shirk, the professor. “I think the administration is clearly exploiting a crisis to try to advance its ulterior domestic policy objective of restricting immigration.”
Trump uses the monthly border tallies on apprehensions as a benchmark to determine how his policies are working, and that’s become particularly important in an election year. The number of people crossing the border traditionally declines when it’s hot outside, and the winter months often see increases.
However, as COVID-19 cases in the United States jumped dramatically in March, apprehensions at the border dipped further, to 29,953 from 30,074 in February and a peak of 132,856 in May.
That coincided with the U.S. expelling more than 10,000 Mexican and Central American asylum-seekers under public health rules that the administration quietly began using March 20 — the same day Trump announced the southern border was closed to nonessential travel.
The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, on Monday extended the rules largely shutting down the asylum system until May 20. His order described a “serious danger” of COVID-19 being introduced at Border Patrol stations and ports of entry as well as further into the country.
At least 272 Customs and Border Protection employees have tested positive for the virus, including 62 in states bordering Mexico.
Redfield also noted that many places on the U.S. side of the border have not yet experienced widespread community transmission of the virus and therefore the pandemic in Canada and Mexico remain “a serious danger to such locations.” That’s despite the U.S. having the most cases in the world by far.
The Department of Homeland Security requested the cameras under the Economy Act, which allows federal agencies to order goods and services from other federal agencies.
Congress passed the law in 1932 to eliminate overlapping activities of the federal government. It has been abused, so conditions have been added, including a requirement that the requesting agency demonstrate that its request meets a bona fide need that either exists or is arising within the fiscal year.
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26 Million Have Sought US Jobless Aid Since Coronavirus Hit
More than 4.4 million laid-off workers applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week as job cuts escalated across an economy that remains all but shut down, the government said Thursday.
Roughly 26 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the five weeks since the coronavirus outbreak began forcing millions of employers to close their doors. About one in six American workers have now lost their jobs since mid-March, by far the worst string of layoffs on record. Economists have forecast that the unemployment rate for April could go as high as 20%.
The enormous magnitude of job cuts has plunged the U.S. economy into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Some economists say the nation’s output could shrink by twice the amount that it did during the Great Recession, which ended in 2009.
The painful economic consequences of the virus-related shutdowns have sparked angry protests in several state capitals from crowds demanding that businesses reopen. Some governors have begun easing restrictions despite warnings from health authorities that it may be too soon to do so without sparking new infections. In Georgia, gyms, hair salons and bowling alleys can reopen Friday. Texas has reopened its state parks.
Yet those scattered re-openings won’t lead to much rehiring, especially if Americans are too wary to leave their homes. Most people say they favor stay-at-home orders and believe it won’t be safe to lift social distancing guidelines anytime soon. And there are likely more layoffs to come from many small businesses that have tried but failed to receive loans from a federal aid program.
The total number of people who are receiving unemployment benefits has reached a record 16 million, surpassing a previous high of 12 million set in 2010, just after the 2008-2009 recession ended. This figure reflects people who have managed to navigate the online or telephone application systems in their states, have been approved for benefits and are actually receiving checks.
In some states, many laid-off workers have run into obstacles in trying to file applications for benefits. Among them are millions of freelancers, contractors, gig workers and self-employed people — a category of workers who are now eligible for unemployment benefits for the first time.
“This has been a really devastating shock for a lot of families and small businesses,” said Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist at the University of Minnesota. “It is beyond their control and no fault of their own.”
Just about every major industry has absorbed sudden and severe layoffs. Economists at the Federal Reserve estimate that hotels and restaurants have shed the most jobs — 4 million since Feb. 15. That is nearly one-third of all the employees in that industry.
Construction has shed more than 9% of its jobs. So has a category that includes retail, shipping and utilities, the Fed estimated. A category that is made up of data processing and online publishing has cut 4.7.
When the government issues the April jobs report on May 8, economists expect it to show breathtaking losses. Economists at JPMorgan are predicting a loss of 25 million jobs. That would be nearly triple the total lost during the entire Great Recession period.
A $2 trillion-plus federal relief package that was signed into law last month made millions of gig workers, contractors and self-employed people newly eligible for unemployment aid. But most states have yet to approve unemployment applications from those workers because they’re still trying to reprogram their systems to do so. As a result, many people who have lost jobs aren’t being counted as laid-off because their applications for unemployment aid are still pending.
Among them is Sasha McVeigh, a musician in Nashville. Having grown up in England with a love of country music, she spent years flying to Nashville to play gigs until she managed to secure a green card and move permanently two years ago. McVeigh had been working steadily until the city shut down music clubs in mid-March.
Since then, she’s applied for unemployment benefits but so far has received nothing. To make ends meet, she’s applied for some grants available to out-of-work musicians, held some live streaming concerts and pushed her merchandise sales.
By cutting expenses to a bare minimum, McVeigh said, “I’ve managed to just about keep myself afloat.” But she worries about what will happen over the next few months.
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Report: US Believes China Spread False Information in US About Coronavirus Response
U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Chinese operatives helped spread false messages that claimed the Trump administration was planning to impose a nationwide lockdown to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak, according to The New York Times. The Times says the messages, which first appeared last month as cellphone texts and social media feeds, claimed President Donald Trump would announce the lockdown as soon as troops were in place “to help prevent looters and rioters.” The messages became so widespread over the next two days the National Security Council was prompted to issue a statement on Twitter declaring them as fake. The newspaper based its story on information from six American officials from six different agencies who spoke to them on condition of anonymity. Two of the officials said they believed the messages were not created by Chinese operatives, but instead amplified existing ones. The Chinese Foreign Ministry called the accusations “complete nonsense and not worth refuting.” The U.S. and China have engaged in a back-and-forth information war over who is to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. President Trump has in the past labeled the disease the “Chinese virus,” referring to the fact that the virus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, while other U.S. officials have accused Beijing of a lack of transparency at the start of the outbreak. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian had accused the U.S. Army of transporting the virus to Wuhan in a post on Twitter last month. U.S. officials rejected the allegation.
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Haiti Launches Criminal Investigation into Children’s Home Fire That Killed 15
Haitian authorities are conducting a criminal investigation into a February fire at an orphanage operated by a U.S.-based church near Port-au-Prince, where 13 children and two adults died.Authorities suspect the fire was started by candles used during frequent power failures.The Associated Press reported that at one point the Haitian orphanages run by the Church of Bible Understanding, were stripped of accreditation by Haitian officials over compliance with safety and health criteria and three years ago both of the church’s homes in Haiti failed inspections but stayed open.The AP said an attorney for the church said the church, the orphanage operators and the Haitian government should all bear some responsibility.The operational problems and reported poor condition of the homes is glaring because of the revenue wealth and property assets of the church.
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Asian Markets Trading Mostly Higher
Asian markets were on the upswing Thursday as investors were encouraged by the steady recovery of the U.S. crude oil market after this week’s historic plunge.Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index gained nearly 300 points, or 1.5 percent, to close out Thursday’s session at 19,429.44.The indexes in Hong Kong and Seoul also were in positive territory in late morning trading, while Shanghai and Sydney were flat.In oil futures trading, the price of U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil was 6.2 percent higher at $14.64 per barrel, continuing its turnaround from Monday, when it fell to $-37.63 per barrel — the first time the price dropped below zero.Economic activity has ground to a halt worldwide amid the coronavirus pandemic, wiping out demand for gas and causing such a massive glut of oil that producers may have to pay their customers to take the excess supply off their hands.Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, also was back in positive territory, trading at $21.32 per barrel, up nearly 1 percent.
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UN Chief Warns Governments to Heed Human Rights in Coronavirus Responses
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the coronavirus outbreak is “fast becoming a human rights crisis.”In a statement Thursday, he called on governments to ensure that health care is available and accessible to all people, that economic aid packages help those most affected, and that everyone has the ability to obtain food, water and housing.Women wearing face masks ride past the Opera House in Hanoi on April 23, 2020, as Vietnam eased its nationwide social isolation efforts.“We have seen how the virus does not discriminate, but its impacts do — exposing deep weaknesses in the delivery of public services and structural inequalities that impede access to them. We must make sure they are properly addressed in the response,” Guterres said.He added: “And in all we do, let’s never forget: The threat is the virus, not people.”The U.N. chief’s message comes as world health officials warn that while some countries have seen great progress and are starting to relax lockdown measures, the fight against the virus is very much not over.”Make no mistake: We have a long way to go. This virus will be with us for a long time,” said World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Most countries are still in the early stages of their epidemics. And some that were affected early in the pandemic are now starting to see a resurgence in cases.”U.S. health officials also are urging the public to look ahead to the next flu season and get flu shots in order to help mitigate a potential huge strain on health resources if there are large numbers of flu and coronavirus patients at the same time.With the illnesses sharing similar symptoms, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told reporters, “We’re going to have to distinguish between which is flu and which is the coronavirus.”“I need them to help now to best prepare us by getting the flu vaccine and taking flu out of the picture,” he said.Many countries remain focused on stopping the current outbreak with stay-at-home measures in place.Those restrictions are complicating usual routines for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that starts this week.Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, banned tens of millions of people who live in big cities from traveling home. Officials in the capital city of Jakarta extended lockdown restrictions until May 22 and asked Muslims to forego attending mosques.Turkey’s health minister urged similar measures, saying people should put off the tradition of holding fast-breaking meals with friends and family for Ramadan until next year.A man wearing a face mask walks at sunset in a park in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on April 19, 2020.Turkey has been instituting weekend curfews and has banned those younger than 20 and older than 65 from leaving their homes.Muslims in Malaysia’s capital also have been told to pray from home with their mosques closed.Pakistan is taking a different approach, ignoring pleas from doctors and keeping mosques open, though encouraging people to observe social distancing rules.The question of whether to allow people to gather for worship is being confronted in many countries, and among many religions.U.S. officials largely told people to avoid gathering for the Christian Easter holiday earlier this month, while some churches have defied state lockdown orders and held in-person services.A federal judge in California said Wednesday he would reject a request by three churches seeking a temporary restraining order to set aside the governor’s orders. They argue the government is violating the constitutional First Amendment rights to freedom of religion and assembly.But the judge said in such a time of emergency, the government has the power to “provide emergency remedies, which may infringe on fundamental constitutional rights.”
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Nearly 50 Crew Members on Cruise Ship Docked in Japan Test Positive for Coronavirus
Japanese health officials say 48 crew members of an Italian cruise ship docked in the port city of Nagasaki have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, including 14 cases confirmed Thursday.The Costa Atlantica and its 623 crew members have been docked in Nagasaki since January to undergo repairs by a unit of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry. The crew was tested for COVID-19 last week after the ship reported that one crew member had developed a cough and fever.The total number of infections include 34 crew members who were first confirmed on Wednesday. At least one crew member has been taken to a Nagasaki hospital, where he is currently on a ventilator. Health officials say they hope to test the remaining crew members by Friday.This is the second time Japan has dealt with a coronavirus outbreak onboard a cruise ship. The U.S.-flagged Diamond Princess cruise ship was quarantined in Yokohama after a passenger tested positive for the disease, but more than 700 passengers eventually tested positive.Japan has nearly 12,000 COVID-19 infections and nearly 300 deaths, not including the figures from the Diamond Princess. The nation is currently under a state of emergency.
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Kenya Begins 21-Day Partial Lockdown Amid Rise in Coronavirus Infections
Kenya’s Mandera County began a 21-day lockdown Wednesday night at the direction of Interior Minister Fred Mating’i because more citizens are becoming infected with the coronavirus.Kenya’s latest self-isolation measure bars road travel and flights in and out of the county.Additionally, Matiang’i said Kenya’s National Command Center on the Coronavirus Pandemic is reviewing the enforcement of public health measures in Mombasa, Kwale and Kilifi counties. The results are expected by Friday.Kenya is stepping up its monitoring of compliance with safety measures just as President Uhuru Kenyatta revealed that law enforcement is trying to locate dozens of people who escaped from a quarantine facility in Nairobi.Meanwhile, Kenya reported Wednesday that seven more people tested positive for the virus, raising the total of known infections nationwide to 303. So far, 14 deaths have been reported.
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