Tons of covid-related medical supplies are arriving in Argentina from China. A second plane of masks, protective suits, and chemicals used for coronavirus tests purchased from Beijing arrived in Argentina Monday, with more supplies expected to follow. Argentina is boosting its inventory to combat the virus as the country’s month long- lockdown comes to an end on Sunday. The imported supplies are flowing into Argentina just as the country’s Ministry of Productive Development issued a disposition to change the tariff codes, making it easier for supplies needed by medical professionals and the public to fight the virus to enter the country. Argentina is hoping by simplifying guidelines for importing certain products that its less likely to face shortages. Argentina has reported more than 2,900 coronavirus cases and 142 deaths linked to the disease.
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Month: April 2020
Trump Says US Suspending Immigration Due to Coronavirus
U.S. President Donald Trump says he will temporarily halt immigration due to the coronavirus outbreak. In a late Monday tweet, Trump called the outbreak “the attack from the Invisible Enemy,” and he cited a “need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens.”In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2020He offered few details, saying only the move would come by way of executive order. The United States has by far the most confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world. In March, the Trump administration closed the Mexican and Canadian borders to non-essential travel, and it also barred entry to any foreign nationals who in the past 14 days had been in China, Iran or the countries that make up Europe’s Schengen area.
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South Texas ER Doctor Self-Isolates in His Kids’ Treehouse
A South Texas emergency room physician has chosen a novel place to self-isolate as he’s treating patients with the novel coronavirus. Dr. Jason Barnes made a temporary home of his children’s treehouse in the backyard of the family’s Corpus Christi home. He is among many health care workers who are leaving their homes or taking other precautions to protect their families after being exposed to the virus. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. Barnes, a 39-year-old physician at Christus Spohn Hospital Beeville and Christus Spohn Hospital South in Corpus Christi, told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times that he has spent nearly three weeks in the cabin treehouse and often shouts down to his kids if he needs something — or sometimes walks up to the back picture window door of their home to make his request. “They’re within yelling distance,” Barnes said. “But I can call or go up to the glass. They know not to open the door and risk catching something.” Of course, this self-isolation means his two sons, ages 6 and 9, lose their playhouse. “They love that thing, but they understand, so they’re not missing the treehouse, per se,” Barnes said. “They tell me they miss me once a day.”
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3 Killed by Suspected Tornado, Lightning as Storms Hit South
Suspected tornadoes killed at least two people as severe weather blasted the Deep South, and a house fire believed to have been caused by lightning claimed a third person, officials said Monday. Jerry Oliver Williams, 61, of Henry County died when the storm struck a rural area about 11:30 p.m. Sunday, Coroner Derek Wright said. The area was under a tornado warning when winds flipped the home Williams shared with his wife and child, Wright said. “He was in a mobile home, and the mobile home was destroyed by a tornado. He was in the wreckage of the mobile home. His wife and child were with him, and they were OK,” said Wright. A suspected twister also resulted in one death in Marion County, Mississippi, said Coroner Jessie Graham. Jerry Johnson, 70, died when his home took a “direct hit” from the storm in the Sandy Hook community, Graham said. The National Weather Service said it had received reports of large hail and broken power poles in the area, and emergency management officials said 20 homes were damaged. In south Georgia, Wilcox County Coroner Janice Brown said a 95-year-old woman died in a house fire early Monday that the state fire marshal’s office suspected was caused by a lightning strike. Heavy storms were in the area at the time, said Brown, who declined to identify the victim since extended family members hadn’t been notified. The deaths came as firefighters worked through storms to contain a blaze at the main music building at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Authorities haven’t determined the cause of the fire, but it happened while strong storms with lightning were in the area. Firefighters saved most of the instruments and uniforms belonging to Alabama’s “Million Dollar Band,” Mayor Walt Maddox said in a tweet. Rainfall totals in excess of 2 inches (5.08 centimeters) were widespread, and isolated spots in central Alabama received more than 8 inches (20.32 centimeters) of rain in a day, the weather service said. More than 35,000 homes and businesses in Alabama and Mississippi were still without power around noontime Monday. The Storm Prediction Center received more than 250 reports of possible tornadoes, high winds, hail and storm damage from east Texas to central Florida on Sunday and Monday. A tornado touched down on Interstate 75 in north Florida, tossing a portable building being hauled by a truck into a nearby pickup truck, where the driver suffered minor injuries, authorities said. Teams from the National Weather Service will assess tracks to determine where tornadoes struck. The storms hit a week after a two-day outbreak of more than 100 tornadoes that began Easter Sunday killed at least 36 people across the region.
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Top South Sudan Opposition Members Ditch Machar, Jump to Ruling Party
More members of South Sudan’s main opposition party have defected to the ruling party led by President Salva Kiir, with one former member accusing First Vice President Riek Machar of running the opposition like a family dynasty.Dak Duop Bichiok, a former SPLM-IO (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition) political bureau member, announced his resignation and that of hundreds of his followers in the diaspora at a Juba news conference late last week.“We are declaring that we are not any longer part of Dr. Riek Machar, and we are not alone. We have a group in Nairobi, Egypt, Khartoum and also in Addis Ababa and in the diaspora elsewhere in the world,” he said.The defections began after Machar’s wife, Angelina Teny, was appointed minister of defense in South Sudan’s transitional unity government. FILE – South Sudan President Salva Kiir, right, and opposition leader and now Kiir’s deputy, Riek Machar, congratulate each other after a swearing-in ceremony in Juba, South Sudan, Feb. 22, 2020.Another recent defector, Yien Thiang, said Machar is biased when he appoints officials and squanders party resources.“The party has been turned into a family dynasty where the chairman and his family run it like his personal property. The functions of important organs like the political bureau and national liberation council have been rendered irrelevant. The chairman single-handedly manages the affairs of the party with impunity,” Thiang told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.Bichiok, a former petroleum minister, said Machar no longer follows the party’s regulations.However, Thiang and Bichiok declined to offer specific instances of Machar acting inappropriately. SPLM-IO spokesman Manawa Peter did not respond to repeated phone calls or text messages for comment on this story. Machar’s Deputy Chief of Staff James Koang and other SPLM-IO officials announced their defections last month over allegations the party has lost its direction and vision. They, too, joined Kiir’s ruling party. A former SPLM-IO official, Peter Adwok Nyaba, said he left the party two years ago because Machar refuses to share power. “It is the same situation, because if you read what they said, it is that this guy took the party even to a prison. So, he was managing it from the prison in South Africa as if he is the only person who can lead,” Nyaba told South Sudan in Focus.Before South Sudan’s transitional unity government was formed in February, Machar was in South Africa, where SPLM-IO representatives said he was being held under house arrest.Unless things change, Machar should expect more defections, Nyaba said.“The issue of lack of democracy, transparency and accountability is still there. The leader has refused to apply democracy, to listen to the people, and that is why people are leaving. And you will have more who will also get angry and will leave,” Nyaba told VOA.
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Countries Reopen After Flattening Coronavirus Curve
Several countries in Europe and Asia are gradually easing their coronavirus lockdowns this week. From extensive testing to strict social distancing, these countries took aggressive measures before cautiously lifting some restrictions. On Monday, South Korea lifted closure advisories on high-risk venues such as churches, bars and sporting facilities. The number of new infections had dropped to a single digit the day before.“We have the room to consider balancing infection control and economic activities,” said South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, while announcing eased rules on social distancing Sunday. Dr. Kent Calder, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told VOA that East Asian countries including Korea, Taiwan and Singapore employed rigorous contact tracing to contain the virus successfully. “Contact tracing, including digital techniques, is especially important. … Tracking infected individuals so that society generally can operate more freely,” Calder said. He added widespread testing should support the tracing efforts. South Korea has, to date, tested more than 500,000 people, among the highest number in the world per capita. People walk to a shopping center as many smaller stores are allowed to open in Essen, Germany, April 20, 2020. Europe’s biggest economy, starts reopening some of its stores and factories after weeks of lockdown.Testing and treatment capacity Some German retailers began reopening on Monday, along with car dealerships and bicycle shops and bookstores. Under the agreement Chancellor Angela Merkel reached with state leaders, retailers with shops up to 800 square meters are allowed to open this week. Like South Korea, Germany quickly rolled out widespread testing at the outset of the outbreak and captured asymptomatic infections. Dr. Wenhui Mao, a researcher at Duke Global Health Institute, told VOA sufficient testing capacity is essential before easing the lockdown. She explained that suspected cases must be tested as much as possible before reopening to make sure infected patients are receiving proper care or self-quarantined before recovery. On top of widespread testing, Germany was also able to keep fatalities low thanks to its universal health care system. The medical journal Lancet put Germany in 18th place in the world in access to quality health care. Germany leads other countries in terms of the number of beds in intensive care units with 22,000 beds, and with 10,000 of them still free. A woman shops as the farmers markets open in Prague, Czech Republic, April 20, 2020.First lockdowns in Europe Several countries among the first in Europe to implement lockdowns are reopening this week with precautionary measures. The Czech Republic moved quickly to impose restrictions on travel and large events and closed businesses after declaring a state of emergency March 12.It also ordered everyone to cover their faces. After strict containment measures, the government allowed hardware stores and bike stores to reopen.Other stores and restaurants will be allowed to open gradually over the next two months. Students are also returning to schools in phases from Monday.One month after declaring a state of emergency, Spain allowed manufacturing and construction work to resume Monday with about 4 million workers estimated to have returned to work. Police handed out masks at transit hubs to returning workers.After five weeks of closures, hairdressers and other small businesses in Denmark reopened Monday, following the reopening of elementary schools last week. Austria and Norway also eased lockdowns. Spike in infections Singapore was able to suppress cases without lockdown measures because of its aggressive testing and quarantining. But a second wave has hit hard, with cases growing from 266 to more than 8,000 since March 17, according to the Johns Hopkins University.Experts say government testing missed clusters of infections that grew rapidly. Singapore since announced a “circuit breaker,” a package of strict restrictions to stem the spread of the virus. Experts fear easing of such restrictions carries the risk of starting a second wave.The Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security noted in its recent report on phased reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic, that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to reopening. It advised policymakers to consider testing and health care capacities, careful risk-assessments, and weigh the risks and benefits sector by sector.Mao, the Duke University researcher, said “even for regions that ease lockdown, covering mouth and nose, keeping social distancing, having good hand hygiene is still encouraged.”
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Hungary’s DC Ambassador Back in Budapest to Run Pro-Orban Media Group
Hungary’s ambassador to Washington has stepped down and returned to Budapest on short notice to take charge of a beefed up messaging operation in support of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling party.The party, Fidesz, announced last week that it was launching an Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Dec. 12, 2019.The announcement brought an end to several days of speculation in Washington, where friends and acquaintances of Szabo had been puzzling over the Hungarian envoy’s departure from the U.S. capital with less than 48 hours’ public notice. For many in the diplomatic community, the first word of Szabo’s plans came in an April 11 email inviting recipients to listen in on an online virtual concert to mark the occasion. Szabo was in an airplane on his way home less than two days later. “After almost three years as the Ambassador of Hungary to the US, I am leaving office next week to take over an exciting new responsibility in Budapest in the private sector,” wrote Szabo, who holds a degree as a doctor of medicine. Given that Szabo had worked for 20 years in the global pharmaceutical industry, including over a dozen years at U.S.-based Eli Lilly, some had assumed that he was returning to that sector to engage in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic. “It is always sad to see an esteemed colleague go, but Laszlo had a life ‘outside’ diplomacy … This might just be the right moment for him to return to the private sector – I wish him best of luck for all future endeavors,” said Austria’s ambassador to the United States, Martin Weiss, before learning of the KESMA appointment. He told VOA he had always “enjoyed working with” Szabo. Some members of the D.C. diplomatic community, when told of the departed envoy’s new responsibilities, suggested that KESMA is not quite “the private sector as most of us understand it.” KESMA is described as “a government-funded foundation” by Hungary Today, which says the media holding company known as Mediaworks “consists of almost 500 media outlets” including a leading national daily as well as “almost all the regional daily news sources in the country.” The same report acknowledges that the KESMA foundation “has drawn much controversy” since its founding in late 2018. At the time of its formation, Prime Minister Orban declared the consolidation of pro-Fidesz media outlets as a matter of “national strategic importance in the public interest.” But critics say Orban has created a virtual media monopoly, reducing the space for media outlets critical of the current government. More recently, Orban has been criticized for using the coronavirus crisis to push through parliament legislation entitling him to rule by degree for an indefinite period. The legislation, approved late last month, also provides stiff jail terms for spreading what the government deems to be false information. Budapest has yet to announce who will succeed Szabó to represent Hungary in Washington. For the time being, an embassy spokesperson told VOA that a chargé d’affaires is at the helm, and “all embassy staff is working full-time.” No matter whom Budapest selects, some in the Washington policy community warn that the next ambassador can expect his or her efforts to be greeted with the same skepticism and reluctance to engage that Szabo might have experienced. “It’s not engagement with the embassy or ambassador that’s the issue per se, but rather engaging with the Orban government,” one analyst told VOA. The idea behind limiting contact, the analyst said, “is to not give the Hungarian government a platform for its undemocratic, nationalist positions.” Szabo and his staff worked diligently during his three-year tenure to combat that image, including with regular emails to the news media. Yet, a similar protocol may exist in some U.S. government agencies. According to a former Pentagon official, “the policy [at Pentagon] was to refrain from engaging above the DASD [Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense] level.” Nevertheless, the United States and Hungary have increased collaboration on some levels. One year ago, the two countries signed a defense cooperation agreement covering such areas as infrastructure improvements and missile defense cooperation.”
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Supreme Court Bans Nonunanimous Jury Verdicts in Oregon
Until Monday, Oregon was the only state that allowed nonunanimous jury convictions.The U.S. Supreme Court ended that in a decision involving a murder conviction in Louisiana which, until 2019, had also allowed nonunanimous jury convictions.The Oregon District Attorneys Association said it is reviewing the opinion for its immediate impact on pending and closed criminal cases.State Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum had warned the U.S. Supreme Court that the criminal justice system would be “overwhelmed” if it ruled that nonunanimous jury verdicts are unconstitutional. She wrote in a brief to the court last August that the ruling could invalidate hundreds or even thousands of convictions.In 1934, voters decided to amend the state constitution to allow split-jury verdicts — a decision fueled by white supremacy and anti-minority sentiment. One newspaper said immigrants from southern and eastern Europe had made the requirement for unanimous verdicts “unwieldy and unsatisfactory.”Rosenblum had supported a move to repeal the amendment, noting the jury rule’s links to racism and anti-Semitism. But she said such a change should be for cases “going forward,” not retroactively.Rosenblum did not immediately respond for a request for comment Monday.In 2019, several lawmakers sponsored a resolution calling for a ballot measure to repeal the constitutional amendment. The resolution unanimously passed the House but died in the Senate.The District Attorneys Association had supported the ballot initiative, saying it “would have allowed Oregon voters to decide this issue, without the uncertainty of retroactivity.””ODAA acknowledges that a change to unanimous verdicts could make criminal convictions more difficult. However, it is a hallmark of our justice system that it should be difficult to take someone’s liberty,” the association said.The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 vote Monday that juries in state criminal trials must be unanimous to convict a defendant.Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the practice is inconsistent with the Constitution’s right to a jury trial and that it should be discarded as a vestige of Jim Crow laws in Louisiana and racial, ethnic and religious bigotry that led to its adoption in Oregon in the 1930s.The decision “has finally ended an unjust rule with a shameful past in Oregon,” said professor Aliza Kaplan, director of the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.”Now Oregon will be able to join the rest of the country and require unanimous juries in all criminal cases ensuring a more fair trial for all those accused of crimes and ensuring that all jurors’ voices are heard and part of the decision making process as they should be,” Kaplan said.The clinic is available to assist those with non-unanimous jury convictions who remain in custody along with those no longer incarcerated who wish to revisit their convictions, she said.The justices overturned the conviction of Evangelisto Ramos. He is serving a life sentence in Louisiana for killing a woman after a jury voted 10-2 to convict him in 2016. In 2018, Louisiana voters changed the law for crimes committed beginning in 2019.
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New York Appears on Coronavirus ‘Descent’
After weeks on a warlike footing and suffering thousands of deaths, New York’s governor said Monday that the state appears to be on the “descent” from its apex of coronavirus cases.New York is approaching a quarter-of-a-million confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 14,000 deaths. What was anticipated to be a mountain-shaped peak on the statistical curve has been more of a plateau, but at a very high level for an extended period.“The question now is, assuming we are off the plateau and we are seeing a descent — which the numbers would suggest we are seeing a descent — the question is now, how long is the descent and how steep is the descent?” Governor Andrew Cuomo said. “And nobody knows — just the way nobody knew how long the ascent was.”New York is the hardest hit state in the United States. It has been 51 days since its first diagnosed case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.Vice President Mike Pence, right, and President Donald Trump watch a video of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaking, during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, April 19, 2020, in Washington.The governor said indicators including persons being hospitalized with the virus and those being put on ventilators continue to come down, albeit very slowly. The state’s emergency rooms are still over capacity, but not in the way they were just days ago. But he quickly cautioned that New York is not yet out of danger and that although deaths have dropped, they remain “horrifically high” – 478 on Sunday.“This is cause and effect on steroids,” Governor Cuomo told reporters at his daily briefing in the state capital, Albany. “What we do today will determine tomorrow: We make smart decisions, you will smart outcomes in two weeks; we make bad decisions, you will see bad outcomes in two weeks.”Non-essential business closures and social distancing continue to remain in effect statewide until at least May 15.The governor has repeatedly said that testing will be a crucial element in helping the state restart its economy.“We are starting the largest antibody test ever done today in New York,” the governor said. He said about 2,000 people statewide would be randomly tested to see if they have contracted the virus and developed antibodies to it.New York is also participating in a drug trial of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine at about 20 hospitals. The governor said the state is sending its results Monday to the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which are overseeing the study.
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Singapore Posts Record Number of New Coronavirus Cases
Singapore said Monday it has an additional 1,426 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infections, the single biggest day increase for the city-state.The new numbers bring the total number of COVID-19 infections in Singapore to 8,014, including 11 deaths, giving the financial hub the highest number of cases in Southeast Asia.Singapore had initially contained the disease at the start of the outbreak with a strict regime of testing and contract tracing, but nearly all of the new cases are among the 200,000 low-wage foreign workers living in crowded dormitory complexes.Health authorities have ramped up testing among the foreign workers and have imposed strict mitigation efforts, including mandatory quarantine and social distancing.
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COVID-19 Diaries: Living With the Unknown as Pandemic Widens in Istanbul
COVID-19 came late to Turkey, compared to its European neighbors, but the reality of the threat is increasingly impacting life — and with it fears that we are in it for the long term.Turks are accustomed to living through turbulence and, invariably adapt quickly to change. Dramatic change soon becomes the norm, and life moves on — a habit I too have picked up after decades living in Istanbul.There is no compulsory curfew for people over 20 and under 65. But outside life has more or less come to an end, other than the welcome shopping trip or a quick stroll. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyWalking around once-bustling streets and formerly busy restaurants, I try to remind myself how it once was. It seems now a forgotten time, as this has become the new reality.The web savviness of the country’s food providers is facilitating its transition into this new reality. Whether it’s supermarkets or far-away organic farmers, all send welcome food packages, ordered online and swiftly delivered by the country’s extensive courier services. Deliveries are made within days or a week at the latest. This is a stark contrast from the experiences of my friends across Europe, who say two weeks’ delivery time is “good” for anything ordered online.Sending food by courier is nothing new, here. My Turkish wife’s parents, like so many others, often send local delicacies from their home on the Black Sea.Life goes on for my son Mir, with his fencing classes online as he has spent weeks locked down at home, as all people under twenty are forbidden to leave home. (Courtesy D. Jones)My 12-year-old son Mir has been the quickest among us to adapt to life at home. Online classes start at 10 am, ending at 4 pm. For him, homeschooling means no longer rising with the dawn chorus to catch his school bus. Instead, a more leisurely rise at 9 am has become the order of the day. That, I have to say, is welcomed by all the family.Mir also says doing classes in pajamas is much more fun, although the school is now insisting that all children must wear uniforms at least one day a week. “Why, why, why?” Mir demands, and all I say is, “It is what it is.”Mir plays with his friends online with the shoot-em-up Fortnite. I am now used to hearing him screaming to his friends, with a mixture of reprimands and congratulations.Even his fencing classes continue online, with Mir waving his wooden sword as directed and with relentless training — another new norm for home.Turkey has a well-developed and relatively inexpensive internet along with widespread smartphone use, something which is undoubtedly helping the country get through the epidemic.But the smooth transition into social isolation hit a wall earlier this month with the chaotic imposition of a weekend curfew in all of Turkey’s main cities.The curfew, announced only two hours before it was imposed at midnight, provoked chaos. For us, we discovered too late that we had no salt or milk at home, as our local grocer, or “bakkal” as it is called in Turkish, was shut.Across Istanbul, images of people queuing to buy food, desperately trying to beat the midnight deadline, circulated on social media. The experience appears to have instilled a deep unease in the country. Since that weekend of chaos, Istanbul feels far more foreboding. Online deliveries from supermarkets appear to be no longer working. Numerous attempts to order are met with the message “delivery time unavailable.” The online service seems overwhelmed by demand as people seem now to be stocking up for a future with more prolonged curfews. I recently interviewed a man who told me with exasperation that a quick trip to the supermarket had ended up lasting three hours. “I went early thinking it would be empty, but it was packed, I never saw anything like it,” he said.
Ramadan starts later this month, and there is gossip that a full-scale lockdown could be enforced in Turkey’s main cities for the four weeks of fasting.The Health Ministry daily briefing exudes confidence that everything is under control, despite Turkey rapidly moving up the world league table of infections.The government claims that within weeks, the virus will be tamed and the country can start to return to normal. But at the same time, emergency hospitals are being built in Turkey’s principal cities.For now, returning to normal, when Istanbul streets are full and the vibrancy of the city rings with a deafening cacophony, still seems far away. Now there is silence, and I am looking at my small terrace and asking myself, should I dig up some of my flowers and plants and start growing potatoes and other vegetables and fruits?But first, I need to dash to the shops before another weekend curfew.
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Kenya Activists Fear Spike in Violence Against Women During Coronavirus
Rights activists in Kenya have raised alarm after indications that gender-based-violence may be on the rise with restrictions on movement due to the coronavirus. The East African country has more than 280 reported cases of COVID-19 so far, and at least 14 deaths. Community organizer Jane Anyango, 48, has for years documented cases of gender-based violence in Nairobi’s Kibera neighborhood, Africa’s largest urban slum. People walk across a bridge with a message written on the barriers advocating personal efforts to stem the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the Kibera slum, Nairobi, on April 14, 2020.But, since Kenya announced restrictions on movements over coronavirus, she says the number of reported cases has increased. Two weeks ago, a 13-year-old girl called Anyango when her parents started to physically fight. “We got the report from a child which was really sad — that there is no peace in their home. That is why to me this is very unique because mothers and fathers fight but, when it bothers the children, it’s more than what people should take. And then with the curfew, most conflicts are happening in the night or late in the evening so the kids cannot even run out,” said Anyango. Kenya in March imposed a nationwide nighttime curfew and restrictions on public gatherings and transportation. Schools went to remote learning and many people began working from home.FILE – Vendors look at cabbage loaded on the back of a tricycle, as it is brought to the market to be sold in the town of Kiu, south of Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 12, 2020.However, Kenyans who rely on a daily wage in markets or through manual labor suddenly found themselves struggling to put food on the table, as shops closed down and economic activity came to a halt. Wangechi Wachira, the director of the Kenyan feminist Center for Rights Education and Awareness, says the Center has seen an increase in reported cases of violence against women. “In our office, in a day, we receive between three to seven cases and these are cases where someone walks into the office or someone makes a call,” she said. “But within this period, we have seen those numbers go up. Just last week we had about an increase from seven cases to between 10 to 12.” Agnes Odhiambo , a researcher on sub-Saharan Africa with the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch, says that during coronavirus restrictions, a large spike in violence against women is almost certain. FILE – Residents desperate for a planned distribution of food for those suffering under Kenya’s coronavirus-related movement restrictions push through a gate and create a stampede, at a district office in the Kibera slum of Nairobi.“Gender based violence or violence happens mainly for two issues. One is an issue of power and control, and two, is an issue of inequality,” she said. “Now this is the situation that COVID has created where people are behind closed doors, there is no money. It’s a perfect environment for people who are abusive to even be more abusive or even for those who are usually not abusive to become abusive because of that stress, where they feel they need to exert their dominance in an environment where they are feeling kind of emasculated.” Rights groups say until coronavirus restrictions are relaxed, cases of gender-based violence in Kenya will only rise. They also note that when so many people remain behind closed doors, most of the violence will go unreported.
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China’s Vice Minister of Public Security Arrested in Corruption Probe
China’s vice minister of public security, Sun Lijun, has been arrested for alleged “severe violations of party discipline and law,” the Communist Party’s top anti-graft body said late Sunday in what observers say is an indication of corruption.Analysts describe Sun as an “invisible hitman,” who had played a key role in top leader Xi Jinping’s past efforts to maintain social stability by rounding up dissidents including Falun Gong followers and rights lawyers during a 2015 crackdown.They add that his arrest, which follows the jailing of former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei earlier this year for bribery, is baffling, but indicates undercurrents in Xi’s power fight amid the global coronavirus pandemic. There has been rife speculation that Xi’s authority has been seriously challenged after China failed to swiftly contain the outbreak.Political purge“This isn’t a corruption probe. This is sending a chilling effect to anyone else inside the party, which allows Xi to control them with fear so that he can further consolidate his grip of power,” a rights lawyer told VOA on condition of anonymity. The lawyer likened Sun’s being purged to Mao Zedong-style infighting. Mao was founder of the People’s Republic of China and advocated strict Communist Party control over all aspects of life.The lawyer said he suspected that Sun was ousted because he was seen as “not loyal enough.”Another rights lawyer also said that, according to the ministry’s statement, Sun was accused of “being disrespectful” – an indication that he may be seen as disloyal to Xi.Late Sunday, China’s Ministry of Public Security released a statement, throwing support behind what it calls the “timely and correct” investigation into Sun as it showcases Xi’s pledges to root out corruption.The ministry said Sun “had long ignored the party’s political discipline and rules.”Officials did not elaborate on the alleged corruption.Instead, the ministry went to great lengths to explain how party members should pledge “absolute loyalty” to the core – a reference to Xi – and refrain from double-dealing as what they called a “two-faced man.”Sun, 51, led the ministry’s First Bureau, which manages the country’s army of state agents while handling domestic political security and Hong Kong’s security affairs.Prior to that, he served as the ministry’s director of the office of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan affairs and a deputy director of the 610 Office, which was in charge of suppressing Falun Gong practitioners.Sun was last seen in Wuhan by Xi’s side, helping to contain the coronavirus outbreak and keeping social order there. Wuhan was where the outbreak was first reported.Exiled tycoon Guo Wenqui said that Sun was never considered a protégé to Xi since Sun formerly worked under Meng Jianzhu – the former secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission before 2017.Shanghai GangFILE – Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, chats with former President Jiang Zemin during the closing ceremony for the 19th Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Oct. 24, 2017.Guo said both Sun and Meng belong to a group known informally as the Shanghai Gang, led by Xi’s political rival, former President Jiang Zemin. Jiang oversaw the return of Hong Kong from British rule and is credited with reforms that helped turn China into a global economic power.The exiled tycoon called Sun a “murderer,” saying Sun should be held responsible for the persecution and torture of detained dissidents at home and abroad over the years. Guo also blames Sun for the seizure of the tycoon’s assets.Guo also said Sun had stashed away assets worth of billions in his wife’s bank account in Australia, where Sun’s wife and 19-year-son currently live as citizens.Xi’s “scapegoat”Thailand-based Wang Xili is a Chinese political dissident in exile and says he does not think Sun’s arrest is part of a corruption probe or due to political infighting. Wang says he believes the party is trying to use Sun as a scapegoat to cover up past wrongdoings in persecuting rights lawyers. Wang also says Sun himself also deserves blame for what happened during the 2015 crackdown.“Sun Lijun was the commander-in-chief of the July 9 crackdown [against rights lawyers]. Many sources have revealed that all investigators [including state agents] had to report directly to Sun…Upon Sun’s arrest, [the authorities] will either doctor the documents or take whatever necessary actions before they seal up these documents for archiving and forbid anyone to read,” Wang said.The political dissident said his personal experience with China’s security apparatus shows its latest shake-up is a tactic used by the Communist Party to shift blame so that Sun’s bosses, including Xi, won’t be held accountable in the future for the persecution of lawyers.Sun’s arrest has sparked heated discussion on Twitter with some users calling his case a wake-up call to many of his party comrades, who will end up being sacrificed if they take the wrong side.On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging site, thousands of online comments, however, were censored except for those that mostly voiced support for Sun’s arrest.
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Russian Court Postpones Trial of Journalist Prokopyeva Due to Coronavirus
A Russian court has ordered a delay in the trial of journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva, who faces terrorism-related charges for publishing an online commentary that linked a suicide bombing with the country’s political climate. The Pskov court on April 20 ordered the trial postponed due to the coronavirus epidemic now sweeping through Russia, “until the normalization of the sanitary and epidemiologic situation in the country.” Prokopyeva, a freelance contributor to RFE/RL’s Russian Service, called the decision “correct, because what we need is an open trial accessible to all.” Her lawyer, Vitaly Cherkasov, said it was impossible to say exactly when the trial may start due to the coronavirus restrictions imposed by the government. The charges of “justifying terrorism” stem from a November 2018 commentary published by the Pskov affiliate of Ekho Moskvy radio in which she discussed a bombing outside the Federal Security Service offices in the northern city of Arkhangelsk. Russian media reported that the suspected bomber, who died in the explosion, had posted statements on social media accusing the security service of falsifying criminal cases. In her commentary, Prokopyeva linked the teenager’s statements to the political climate under President Vladimir Putin. She suggested that political activism in the country was severely restricted, leading people to despair. Prokopyeva has described the case against her as an attempt to “murder the freedom of speech” in Russia. If found guilty, she faces up to seven years in prison. The case has drawn criticism from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and media rights groups like Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the European Federation of Journalists. RFE/RL President Jamie Fly called the charges “a cynical effort to silence an independent journalist.”
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Ghana’s Decision to Lift Partial COVID-19 Lockdown Criticized by Some
Ghana has lifted a three-week partial lockdown in major cities over the coronavirus – one of the first African countries to ease such restrictions. Some Ghanaians say they fear the restrictions are being lifted too soon, while struggling shop owners and daily wage workers were already back at work as the lift took effect Monday.President Nana Akufo-Addo announced an end to the partial lockdown in a televised address late Sunday.Akufo-Addo said the nation is not letting down its guard against the pandemic.Public gatherings are still banned, schools remain closed and social distancing measures continue. The borders will remain closed for a further two weeks to stop the virus from entering the country.He said Ghana was taking action to protect its people from the virus was but using an approach which suits the country.“We shall be nimble and adapt as the situation changes. We will tailor our solutions to our unique social, economic and cultural conditions. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but I pledge to you that government will do whatever is required, in our particular circumstances, to safeguard the lives of our people, and keep our economy going,” said the president.Reaction to the speech was mixed. Many on social media say the move is premature. Ghana has seen more than 1,000 cases of coronavirus to date, although the death toll has been low, with only nine fatalities.Ernest Agyei Badu, who sells television sets in Accra, said he is pleased the lockdown is over. He had spent the time in Kumasi, which was also in partial lockdown.On Monday morning, he took a bus back to the capital so he could return to work.“There were a lot of issues. I had imported a lot of TVs and they were all locked up in the warehouse, and nothing was going on, so I personally didn’t support the lockdown. I have workers; how am I going to pay them when we are not selling? So, it was a big problem,” he said.People wait to receive food and water in Accra, Ghana, during a partial lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), April 4, 2020.To try to relieve suffering from the lockdown and ongoing pandemic, Ghana is providing food for the vulnerable and free or subsidized electricity. It has also borrowed one billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund to help close the financing gap created by the pandemic.William Nyarko is the executive director of the Africa Center for International Law and Accountability, a non-partisan research group. He said the impact of the lockdown is significant as Ghana’s economy is largely informal, and people rely on daily wages.Nyarko said he would have preferred incremental steps in lifting the lockdown to avoid further spread of the virus.“An incremental approach would have been that he would lift the restrictions in phases like he did when he was doing a partial lockdown, so for example, he could have lifted the restrictions for two weeks and then would be monitoring to assess how things were going.”As the streets return to life in Accra, Ghana’s government has said it will keep a clear focus on the situation and continue testing contacts of positive cases.So far, it has traced 86,000 contacts and tested 68,591 of them, of which 1.5%, have come back as positive.
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Turkey Blocks Saudi and UAE News Websites
Turkish authorities blocked Saudi and United Arab Emirates news websites on Sunday, days after the sites of Turkey’s state broadcaster and news agency were blocked in Saudi Arabia. The apparently reciprocal moves come four weeks after Turkish prosecutors indicted 20 Saudis over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a killing that soured relations between Ankara and Riyadh. Internet users in Turkey trying to access the sites of Saudi news agency SPA, the UAE’s WAM news agency and more than a dozen other sites saw a message saying that they were blocked under a law governing internet publications in Turkey. A spokesman at Turkey’s Justice Ministry declined to comment on the actions and Saudi Arabia’s government media office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The Turkish website of the U.K.-based Independent newspaper, which is operated by a Saudi company, was one of the sites to blocked on Sunday, in a move that its editor said reflected political tensions between Saudi Arabia and Turkey. “We believe the tensions between Saudi Arabia and Turkey reflected on us,” editor Nevzat Cicek told Reuters. Sunday’s decision appeared to be “retaliation against Saudi Arabia,” he said. Saudi Arabia had blocked access to several Turkish media websites a week earlier, including state broadcaster TRT and the state-owned Anadolu agency. Residents in the United Arab Emirates, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, said the Turkish websites were accessible on Sunday. FILE – In this Oct. 10, 2018 photo, people hold signs during a protest at the Embassy of Saudi Arabia about the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in Washington.Tensions between Turkey and Saudi Arabia escalated sharply after Saudi agents killed Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Last month Istanbul prosecutors indicted one of the prince’s close aides and a former deputy head of Saudi general intelligence on charges of instigating Khashoggi’s killing, as well as 18 men it said carried out the operation. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the killing was ordered at the “highest levels” of the Saudi government. Prince Mohammed has denied ordering the killing but said he bore ultimate responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto leader.
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Tradition-Bound Washington Adjusts to Life in Pandemic
The cherry blossoms were the first to go.
Not the pink flowers themselves; they arrived on schedule in mid-March along Washington’s Tidal Basin. But for Washingtonians, the cherry blossoms are more than a tree. They’re the kickoff to the capital’s prettiest season: yes, clogging downtown streets with tour buses, but also spurring locals to make a predawn detour to the National Mall or providing a good excuse to cut out of work early.
But as the coronavirus began bearing down on the United States, hulking dump trucks and police cars swept into downtown, blocking off the streets around the Tidal Basin and abruptly halting one of Washington’s most cherished traditions.
As it turns out, Washington is indeed still a city of traditions, even in the era of Donald Trump, whose presidency seemed to have turned the nation’s capital upside down. But the pandemic has wreaked more havoc on Washington than even Trump could, forcing old institutions to draft new playbooks, upending the city’s prized social calendar and narrowing the gap between the political elite and the average Americans they’re supposed to be serving.
“Washington has never had an experience like this,” said George Condon, historian for the Gridiron Club, the capital’s oldest social club for journalists, and a reporter for the National Journal. “Right after Pearl Harbor, we canceled dinners but everything else resumed. Things didn’t shut down like this for the (1918) flu pandemic.”
Even in the anxious and fearful days after 9/11, which initially sent lawmakers and West Wing staffers fleeing the Capitol and the White House, the return to those landmarks was swift. Being physically present in the center of Washington was seen as a sign of American resolve. The streets are empty in the usually crowded shopping district of Georgetown, one of the very busy shopping areas of Washington, DC, April 4, 2020. (Photo: Diaa Bekheet)Now, the nation’s capital, like most of the nation itself, is largely shuttered. Everything from the annual White House Easter Egg Roll — a tradition dating to 1878 — to a lavish state dinner for the Spanish royals has been scrapped (not to mention opening day for baseball’s Washington Nationals, fresh off their first World Series title).
Of course, since it’s Washington, a see-and-be-seen town where proximity to power is currency and actual power brings real responsibilities, the three branches of government and many of the the institutions that have sprung up around them are scrambling for ways to adjust.
The few congressional lawmakers still required to show up to Capitol Hill during spring recess are scouring the internet or turning to family members for help sewing homemade masks. Wealthy political donors are still shelling out money to politicians, but in exchange for a spot in a Zoom meeting instead of the opportunity to mingle over wine and hors d’oeuvres in hotel ballrooms.
Even at the Supreme Court, an institution that has long prided itself on resisting the encroachment of modern technological advances, the justices are making one of their most significant breaks with tradition in decades. Next month, for the first time, the public will be able to listen to live audio of arguments before the high court. The justices themselves will be listening and questioning lawyers over the phone.
“I can’t think of anything comparable to the court. They just don’t change,” said Lucas Powe, a Supreme Court historian and former high court clerk. He expressed surprise at the justices’ decision.
At the White House, the pandemic at first revived a tradition that had been dormant through much of the Trump presidency: the daily press briefing. When Trump began adding his evening coronavirus briefings to his schedule, journalists literally cleaned cobwebs and dusted off briefing room chairs that had sat empty for months.
But the briefings, too, have been altered by the pandemic. Entry is no longer conditioned simply on a press pass but a normal body temperature, recorded each day by a staffer from the presidential medical office.
The carefully allocated seating chart in the briefing room — the networks and wire services in the front row, smaller regional outlets in back — has also been upended. Several news organizations have been told to stay away, while those that have retained a seat were asked to spread out to account for social distancing.
“It loses a lot of flavor,” Trump said Friday of the more sparsely attended briefings.
On Capitol Hill, breaking with tradition has proved harder to do.
The pandemic and the swift economic collapse that followed have increased pressure on lawmakers to pass a rescue package to help struggling businesses and individuals. The big problem: congressional rule-makers never envisioned lawmakers might need to vote remotely instead of on the crowded House and Senate floors.
So lawmakers stayed in session until they could pass the $2 trillion rescue package. Some even continued to use the Senate gym, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul — despite the fact that he was waiting for the results of a coronavirus test.
He tested positive. So did multiple other lawmakers.
Now Congress is in recess until early May, when another economic relief package is certain to be needed. Congressional leaders, particularly in the 435-member House of Representatives, are scrambling to figure out a way to vote without violating the guidance of public health officials.
Meanwhile, a rotating cast of lawmakers is still showing up to preside over pro forma sessions of the empty chambers. The podium is disinfected before they arrive, a black covering has been placed over the microphone and most of the lawmakers are wearing face coverings. Like many Americans, they’re using whatever will do.
That was true for Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif. Gesturing to his homemade mask, he told reporters: “I have an 11-year-old daughter. She made this out of an old T-shirt.”
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US Navy Complains of Another ‘Unsafe’ Russian Jet Interception
U.S. military officials have complained that a Russian fighter jet came dangerously close to a U.S. surveillance plane in the Mediterranean Sea, the second such encounter in four days in the region. In its statement on Sunday, the U.S. Navy did not say where exactly the encounter occurred, only that it happened over international waters. Several aircraft tracking sites said the incident occurred in the eastern Mediterranean, not far from the Syrian coast. The Russian Su-35 fighter jet approached the P-8A plane twice on Sunday, and during the second time, it came within 8 meters of the U.S. plane, the Navy said. “The second intercept was determined to be unsafe and unprofessional,” it said. A similar encounter occurred in same vicinity on April 15, the Navy said. The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement on Facebook on Monday, confirming the encounter and saying the Sukhoi jet was dispatched from the Hmeimim air based to meet the U.S. plane, but gave no further details. The P-8A Poseidon is an anti-submarine, anti-surface-warfare plane. Russia has a sizable naval contingent based at the Syrian port of Tartus, in support of Russian air and ground operations in Syria. U.S., NATO, and Russian planes routinely engage in cat-and-mouse flying encounters around the world. Russian long-range bombers regularly fly close to NATO member borders and U.S. surveillance planes frequently skirt Russian waters in the Baltic and Black seas, monitoring and probing Russian defenses.
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Australia Slaps Heavy Fines on People Spitting on Workers During COVID-19 Crisis
A $3,000 on-the-spot fine for spitting or coughing on health workers during the COVID-19 crisis in the Australian state of New South Wales has been expanded to include other essential staff. There are more than 6,600 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia. 70 people have died with the virus.Videos posted online have shown just how vile some of the abuse of emergency workers has been in Australia during the COVID-19 crisis. A woman arrested for traffic offenses is seen spitting in the face of a police officer before she is thrown to the ground. In another, a store worker is physically assaulted and spat on by a woman, who was reportedly angry at restrictions at supermarkets. Australia’s retail union has said its members had “borne the brunt of a huge upsurge in customer abuse” during the coronavirus pandemic. A spokesman said such anti-social behavior was “disturbingly common.” It is now subject to on-the-spot penalties. Beginning Monday, police in the state of New South Wales will be able to fine people who abuse all types of workers, not just those in emergency services or healthcare.
“If you cough, or you spit on any worker in New South Wales, the police are open to giving you a (AUD)$5,000 fine, and I for one would like to see that happen to anybody who thinks that is acceptable,” said Brad Hazzard, the New South Wales health minister.
Police officers have reported that people receiving fines for flouting physical-distancing guidelines in Australia were coughing on them and then claiming they had COVID-19. Nurses and midwives have also said they had been assaulted on trains and buses, refused service at grocery stores and spat on by members of the public who have accused them of spreading the virus. The New South Wales state government said imposing heavy fines on perpetrators was necessary because of a “sufficient minority” of Australians causing harm. Unions have described the assaults as “despicable and vile behavior.”
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Forced to Stay Home, Neighbors Are Discovering Teddy Bears – and Each Other
With the wider world off-limits to those practicing physical distancing, new bonds are forming closer to home. In communities around the world, neighbors are now doing curious things like hunting teddy bears and joining in evening rituals to honor frontline workers. Matt Dibble looks at one community in Oakland, California.
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China Steps up Patrols in Disputed Sea; Here’s What Malaysia and Vietnam Will do
Malaysia and Vietnam, militarily weaker than China, are expected to protest through diplomatic channels over a Chinese survey ship fleet that entered disputed waters this month, inviting a long but nonviolent standoff. Both Southeast Asian countries are monitoring movement of the Chinese Haiyang Dizhi 8 fleet, which multiple news reports say passed through disputed tracts of the South China Sea last week. The same vessel spent four months in 2019 in an oil-rich tract of the sea claimed by Vietnam and blocked Vietnamese crews from exploring for oil underwater. This time both states will probably protest diplomatically to China but do little more, analysts believe. They lack China’s overall military might. Malaysia’s prime minister, in office for less than two months, also has little foreign policy experience. Against that muted response, China could keep its survey fleet in disputed waters and stymie the energy drilling efforts of Malaysia and Vietnam, experts believe. “It’s just the status quo,” said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “China is doing its survey work and Malaysia’s searching for oil, and occasionally they have harassment and close calls — diplomatic pressure behind the scenes – and then at some point weather changes or what not and China, if Malaysia doesn’t cave in, takes the vessel and brings it back,” Thayer said. This sort of friction surfaces regularly in the broader South China Sea dispute. China, Malaysia, Vietnam and three other governments claim all or part of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer waterway. They prize it for fisheries, shipping lanes, oil and natural gas. China has grown more powerful than the other claimants over the past 10 years by landfilling tiny islets for military installations. Claimant states have made little headway diplomatically in settling disputes. The U.S. Navy periodically passes ships through the South China Sea as a warning to Beijing. New PM in Malaysia Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, a former interior minister appointed in March, will probably take a low-key approach to Chinese presence in the sea, analysts say. His predecessor Mahathir Mohamad had publicly questioned the basis for China’s claims and warned against use of any warships. “This new prime minister is no Mahathir,” said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. “He is not well known for taking a harsh diplomatic or political stand.”In this photo released by Malaysia’s Department of Information, the country’s new Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin poses for pictures on his first day at the prime minister’s office in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Monday, March 2, 2020.Expect instead low-key negotiations between Malaysia and China, which in turn will move its vessels “peacefully but deliberately” in the disputed waters, Oh said. China resents Malaysia for filing documentation in December to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf about plans to extend its rights in the South China Sea beyond 370 kilometers from its baselines, Thayer said. China claims about 90% of the sea and cites historical usage records as support. Malaysia began in October looking for oil and gas just outside those 370 kilometers. A British company-managed contract drillship West Capella became the “heart of the standoff” that has also attracted Chinese coast guard vessels, the U.S. think tank-operated Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative says on its website. The survey ship came last week with about 10 escort boats and might return with 20 or 30 –an unprecedented show of force by China toward Malaysia – said a scholar doing research for the Malaysian government. The vessel was sailing near China’s mainland east of Hong Kong as of late Sunday, according to ship tracking website Marine Traffic. Vietnam learned from 2019 In July last year, the same Chinese energy survey ship began patrolling near Vanguard Bank 352 kilometers off the coast of southeastern Vietnam. Vietnam operates an undersea energy exploration platform near Vanguard Bank. The vessel left in October. Vietnamese and Chinese boats rammed one another in 2014 when China allowed an oil rig into disputed waters. But when the survey vessel showed last year, China just kept Vietnam away from its oil drilling site and the standoff came down to “who blinks first”, Thayer said. Vietnam will probably protest again this time and avoid use of force, scholars say. In that case, Haiyang Dizhi 8’s fleet could spend two to three months in disputed waters this year by using landfilled islands for resupply, said Nguyen Thanh Trung, Center for International Studies director at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam hopes eventually for backup from other Southeast Asian states, he said. “This is like the annual,” Nguyen said. “It seems to me this is the second time the survey ship is back to the South China Sea. If the Southeast Asian countries do not collaborate right now, maybe next year the survey ship will be back again and maybe they will choose another area of the South China Sea for the survey.”
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Could Virus See Rohingya ‘Floating Coffins’ Crisis Return to ASEAN?
Malaysia is using COVID-19 as an excuse to reject Rohingya Muslim refugees, human rights groups say, bringing flashbacks of 2015 when boat refugees died after escaping Myanmar in what the United Nations called “floating coffins.” The Malaysian military confirmed it had turned back at least one “suspicious boat” full of Rohingya Friday, though Amnesty International said it had received information that there are a handful of other boats in limbo, possibly heading to Malaysia and Thailand. “Refusing to help the people on these boats would not be willfully blind, it would be consciously making their plights even worse,” Clare Algar, senior director for research, advocacy and policy at Amnesty International, said. She added, “The battle against COVID-19 is no excuse for regional governments to let their seas become graveyards for desperate Rohingya people.” The nearly 400 refugees were then rescued by Bangladesh after almost two months at sea, but 30 others may have died on the journey, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The agency said the Rohingya were malnourished and in need of medical care. When turning away the refugee boat, Kuala Lumpur said it was merely enforcing its “movement control order,” one of the measures to fight the virus that also included thousands of arrests of citizens and a crackdown on speech.Coast guards escort Rohingya refugees following a boat capsizing accident, in Teknaf on February 11, 2020.The pandemic has left refugees vulnerable to infection around the world. In Greece, activists want the government to evacuate the refugee camp on Lesbos island, which is holding seven times the number of people allowed. In Guatemala, the government has stopped receiving deportation flights from the United States after dozens of asylum seekers returned to the Central American country infected. Malaysia had the most COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia last month, but it has since been narrowly surpassed by Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore. However Algar noted that Malaysia can both carry out its international refugee duties, while at the same time also fighting the pandemic. She pointed to another boat full of Rohingya that Malaysia brought to shore earlier this month. The Muslim majority country has taken in those more than 200 refugees, including putting them in quarantine, without harming the rest of the population. The Rohingya have been fleeing from Myanmar for years, where the Buddhist majority has engaged in what the United Nations referred to as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” “Haven’t the people of Rakhine State suffered enough?” Maria Chin Abdullah, a Malaysian Member of Parliament, said last month, referring to the region in Myanmar where Rohingya live. “Recent years have brought nothing but pain and violence for the communities there.” Boats believed to be carrying refugees have also been spotted off the coast of Thailand, which is sandwiched in between Myanmar and Malaysia, according to Amnesty International. Bangkok has not said whether it will accept any of the Rohingya refugees coming by boat if they arrive in Thailand. The country, which was the first outside China to report a case of COVID-19, had 2,765 cases and 47 deaths as of Monday, while Malaysia had 5,305 cases and 88 deaths, according to data compiled by the World Health Organization.
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In Shadow of Coronavirus, Muslims Face a Ramadan Like Never Before
Days before the holy fasting month of Ramadan begins, the Islamic world is grappling with an untimely paradox of the new coronavirus pandemic: enforced separation at a time when socializing is almost sacred. The holiest month in the Islamic calendar is one of family and togetherness – community, reflection, charity and prayer. But with shuttered mosques, coronavirus curfews and bans on mass prayers from Senegal to Southeast Asia, some 1.8 billion Muslims are facing a Ramadan like never before. Across the Muslim world the pandemic has generated new levels of anxiety ahead of the holy fasting month, which begins on around Thursday. In Algiers, Yamine Hermache, 67, usually receives relatives and neighbors at her home for tea and cold drinks during the month that Muslims fast from dusk till dawn. But this year she fears it will be different. “We may not visit them, and they will not come,” she said, weeping. “The coronavirus has made everyone afraid, even of distinguished guests.” In a country where mosques have been closed, her husband Mohamed Djemoudi, 73, worries about something else. “I cannot imagine Ramadan without Tarawih,” he said, referring to additional prayers performed at mosques after iftar, the evening meal in which Muslims break their fast. In Jordan the government, in coordination with neighboring Arab countries, is expected to announce a fatwa outlining what Ramadan rituals will be permitted, but for millions of Muslims, it already feels so different. From Africa to Asia, the coronavirus has cast a shadow of gloom and uncertainty. ‘Worst Year Ever’ Around the souks and streets of Cairo, a sprawling city of 23 million people that normally never sleeps, the coronavirus has been disastrous. “People don’t want to visit shops, they are scared of the disease. It’s the worst year ever,” said Samir El-Khatib, who runs a stall by the historic al-Sayeda Zainab mosque, “Compared with last year, we haven’t even sold a quarter.” During Ramadan, street traders in the Egyptian capital stack their tables with dates and apricots, sweet fruits to break the fast, and the city’s walls with towers of traditional lanterns known as “fawanees.” But this year, authorities have imposed a night curfew and banned communal prayers and other activities, so not many people see much point in buying the lanterns. Among the few who ventured out was Nasser Salah Abdelkader, 59, a manager in the Egyptian stock market. “This year there’s no Ramadan mood at all,” he said. “I’d usually come to the market, and right from the start people were usually playing music, sitting around, almost living in the streets.” Dampening the festivities before they begin, the coronavirus is also complicating another part of Ramadan, a time when both fasting and charity are seen as obligatory. ‘All Kinds of Togetherness Missed’ In Algeria, restaurant owners are wondering how to offer iftar to the needy when their premises are closed, while charities in Abu Dhabi that hold iftar for low-paid South Asian workers are unsure what to do with mosques now closed. Mohamed Aslam, an engineer from India who lives in a three-bedroom apartment in downtown Abu Dhabi with 14 others is unemployed because of the coronavirus. With his apartment building under quarantine after a resident tested positive, he has been relying on charity for food. In Senegal, the plan is to continue charity albeit in a limited way. In the beachside capital of Dakar, charities that characteristically hand out “Ndogou,” baguettes slathered with chocolate spread, cakes, dates, sugar and milk to those in need, will distribute them to Koranic schools rather than on the street. Meanwhile in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, some people will be meeting loved ones remotely this year. Prabowo, who goes by one name, said he will host Eid al-Fitr, the celebration at the end of the fasting month, via the online meeting site Zoom instead of flying home. “I worry about the coronavirus,” he said. “But all kinds of togetherness will be missed. No iftar together, no praying together at the mosque, and not even gossiping with friends.”
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Pandemic Forces First-ever Digital Holocaust Remembrance Day
Berthe Badehi, who hid from the Nazis as a child during World War II, has become one of the many Holocaust survivors confined in their homes to evade the coronavirus. “It’s not easy, but we do it to stay alive,” the 88-year-old said of her current self-isolation at home in Israel. “One thing I learnt during the war was how to take care of myself.” Movement and travel restrictions in place to contain the pandemic have forced this week’s Holocaust Remembrance Day — Yom HaShoah in Hebrew — to be exclusively digital for the first time. In a normal year, symbolic events are organized at various locations, notably with survivors at the sites in Europe where the Nazis built concentration and extermination camps. This year, testimonials from survivors will be streamed online and featured in a pre-recorded ceremony to be broadcast in Israel by Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center, when Yom HaShoah begins on Monday evening. The limitations on organizing events this year served as a reminder that in the not-too-distant future ceremonies with survivors will no longer be possible because the last of them will have passed away. “We have talked a lot about what happens when survivors are not here,” said Stephen Smith, who heads the Shoah Foundation at the University of Southern California. This week’s scaled-back commemorations, “made us realize what the future might be like,” Smith told AFP. “It is a test of our resolve…” “Maybe it is an opportunity to say… we won’t get 10,000 people at Auschwitz, but maybe we can get a million people (watching) online,” he added, referring to the Nazi concentration and extermination camp in Poland. ‘Attacking the Memory’ For survivors like Badehi, any comparison between COVID-19 isolation and Nazi-era confinement in ghettos and camps is inappropriate. “In France, during the war, we lived in fear, we hid our identity and we lost contact with our parents…” “Today, we may be locked inside, but we have contact with our children and grandchildren through the phone and internet,” added Badehi, who volunteered at Yad Vashem until it closed due to the virus. Dov Landau, a 91-year-old Auschwitz survivor, said it was “indecent” to make comparisons between the two eras. “Today we are neither hungry nor thirsty. Men, women and children are unlikely to be burned alive. Sure, I’m bored… but it’s nothing serious,” he told AFP. He regularly travelled from Israel to Auschwitz to speak to school groups, but those trips came to a stop because of the pandemic. Beyond cancellation of educational events, COVID-19 has posed a particularly grave threat to Holocaust survivors, given their age. The virus “is absolutely attacking the memory of the Holocaust because it is attacking the elderly,” Smith said, adding that he is aware of several survivors who have died from coronavirus-related complications. “It is also attacking our ability to (collect) these stories,” he said. ‘Sense of Urgency’The Shoah Foundation has developed an augmented reality application to document the journey across Europe endured by many Holocaust survivors. One survivor whose experience was scheduled to be documented this year was Eva Schloss, whose mother married Anne Frank’s father Otto after the war. Schloss “has an amazing story,” Smith said. “Very, very similar to Anne Frank, the only difference is that she survived.” “She was literally in the kitchen watching Otto prepare the diary for publication,” he said. Because of the pandemic, the foundation had to cancel plans to collect material with Schloss in Vienna, Amsterdam and Auschwitz. The foundation is partnering on the augmented reality project with The March of the Living, the prominent educational program that brings young people to the sites of concentration camps. Eli Rubenstein, a Toronto-based rabbi who heads March of the Living Canada, said he has spoken to many survivors who insisted they will be available to give testimonials next year. “They are very strong people, full of optimism,” he told AFP. But, he added, the delay forced by the pandemic “gives us a new sense of urgency.”
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