| NY nursing home reports 98 deaths linked to coronavirus Posted: 01 May 2020 04:47 PM PDT  A New York City nursing home on Friday reported the deaths of 98 residents believed to have had the coronavirus — a staggering death toll that shocked public officials. "It's absolutely horrifying," Mayor Bill de Blasio said. It is hard to say whether the spate of deaths at the Isabella Geriatric Center, in Manhattan, is the worst nursing home outbreak yet in the U.S., because even within the city facilities have chosen to report fatalities in different ways.
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| UN: COVID-19 deaths for people over 80 are 5 times average Posted: 01 May 2020 04:26 PM PDT  U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the COVID-19 pandemic is causing "untold fear and suffering" for older people around the world who are dying at a higher rate, and especially for those over age 80, whose fatality rate is five times the global average. The U.N. chief said that beyond the health risks, "the pandemic is putting older people at greater risk of poverty," with an especially devastating impact on the elderly in developing countries. Guterres issued a 16-page policy briefing on the impact of COVID-19 on older people with several key messages, most importantly that "no person, young or old, is expendable" and "older people have the same rights to life and health as everyone else."
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| Facebook video pries open rift within Syria's ruling family Posted: 01 May 2020 03:51 PM PDT  A cousin who has been a bulwark of support for President Bashar Assad posted a homemade video on Facebook late Thursday pleading with the Syrian leader to prevent the collapse of his major telecommunication company through what he called excessive and "unjust" taxation. The unprecedented video pries open what has been rumored as a major rift in the tight-knit Assad family, which has ruled Syria for nearly 50 years. Disputes and intrigue are not new to the family, including feuds and defections within the family's inner circle, particularly in the course of the country's nine-year war.
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| N Korea's Kim Jong Un appears in public amid health rumors Posted: 01 May 2020 02:49 PM PDT  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his first public appearance in 20 days as he celebrated the completion of a fertilizer factory near Pyongyang, state media said Saturday, ending an absence that had triggered global rumors that he may be seriously ill. The North's official Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim attended the ceremony Friday in Sunchon with other senior officials, including his sister Kim Yo Jong, who many analysts predict would take over if her brother is suddenly unable to rule.
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| Ex-Green Beret led failed attempt to oust Venezuela's Maduro Posted: 01 May 2020 02:06 PM PDT  Along the way, they would raid military bases in the socialist country and ignite a popular rebellion that would end in President Nicolás Maduro's arrest.
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| Prisoners in Iran 'disappearing', British inmate claims Posted: 01 May 2020 12:44 PM PDT  Prisoners with suspected coronavirus in Iran are "disappearing" due to illness or being given sleeping pills and sent back to crowded cells where the virus can easily spread, a British-Iranian father who is jailed on spying charges has claimed. Retired engineer Anoosheh Ashoori, 66, secretly recorded an audio diary detailing the chaotic conditions in Evin prison, Tehran, where he is serving a 10-year sentence for "spying for Israel", which he strongly denies. Several inmates have fallen ill due to suspected coronavirus, Mr Ashoori claims, adding that once a sick prisoner goes to the prison's medical centre, "he does not return… nobody knows any more about his fate." Another prisoner complained of Covid-19 symptoms but was not tested, he added. Instead, he was given sleeping pills and told by a prison doctor to "go back and rest" in a cell shared with 11 other men. Iran has been the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East and has recorded more than 95,000 cases and 6,000 related deaths, although the official figures are heavily disputed. As a precaution in March, the Islamic Republic temporarily released thousands of prisoners from its over-crowded jails, including British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who has been allowed to stay with her parents in Tehran while being monitored by an ankle tag. But other dual nationals accused of espionage, including Mr Ashoori and the British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, have remained behind bars in Evin, while other inmates are now returning following their temporary release. "It is just enough for one contaminated person to arrive and the rest will soon contract the virus," Mr Ashoori said in the diary, recorded last month [April] during phone calls to his wife, Sherry Izadi. Ms Izadi, from South London, today [Friday] criticised the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab for a lack of action to release her husband, saying he had become "forgotten" since being arrested in August 2017 while visiting his family in Iran. "Every time I hear Dominic Raab talk about returning Britons who have been trapped on holiday by coronavirus, I wonder why he is not giving the same priority to those, like my husband, who are held unlawfully in a foreign prison", she said. "Other countries are doing deals to free their citizens, but the government that is showing the least action has to be the British. It's as if they have forgotten my husband exists." A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We strongly urge Iran to reunite British-Iranian dual national Mr Ashoori with his family. Our Embassy in Tehran continues to request consular access and we have been supporting his family since being made aware of his detention. The treatment of all dual nationals detained in Iran is a priority and both the PM and Foreign Secretary have recently raised this issue with their Iranian counterparts."
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| Trump Officials Are Said to Press Spies to Link Virus and Wuhan Labs Posted: 01 May 2020 12:20 PM PDT  WASHINGTON -- Senior Trump administration officials have pushed U.S. spy agencies to hunt for evidence to support an unsubstantiated theory that a government laboratory in Wuhan, China, was the origin of the coronavirus outbreak, according to current and former U.S. officials. The effort comes as President Donald Trump escalates a public campaign to blame China for the pandemic.Some intelligence analysts are concerned that the pressure from administration officials will distort assessments about the virus and that they could be used as a political weapon in an intensifying battle with China over a disease that has infected more than 3 million people across the globe.Most intelligence agencies remain skeptical that conclusive evidence of a link to a lab can be found, and scientists who have studied the genetics of the coronavirus say that the overwhelming probability is that it leapt from animal to human in a nonlaboratory setting, as was the case with HIV, Ebola and SARS.Trump's aides and Republicans in Congress have sought to blame China for the pandemic in part to deflect criticism of the administration's mismanagement of the crisis in the United States, which now has more coronavirus cases than any country. More than 1 million Americans have been infected, and more than 60,000 have died.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former CIA director and the administration's most vocal hard-liner on China, has taken the lead in pushing U.S. intelligence agencies for more information, according to current and former officials.Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser who reported on SARS outbreaks as a journalist in China, pressed intelligence agencies in January to gather information that might support any origin theory linked to a lab.And Anthony Ruggiero, the head of the National Security Council's bureau tracking weapons of mass destruction, expressed frustration during one videoconference in January that the CIA was unable to get behind any theory of the outbreak's origin. CIA analysts responded that they simply did not have the evidence to support any one theory with high confidence at the time, according to people familiar with the conversation.The CIA's judgment was based in part on the fact that no signs had emerged that the Chinese government believed the outbreak came from a lab. The Chinese government has vigorously denied that the virus leaked from a lab while pushing disinformation on its origins, including suggesting that the U.S. military created it.Any U.S. intelligence report blaming a Chinese institution and officials for the outbreak could significantly harm relations with China for years to come. And Trump administration officials could use it to try to prod other nations to publicly hold China accountable for coronavirus deaths even when the pandemic's exact origins cannot be determined.Trump made clear Thursday evening of his interest in intelligence supporting the theory the virus emerged accidentally from a Wuhan lab. In response to a question from a reporter, the president said he had seen intelligence that supported the idea but quickly backtracked, adding that he "was not allowed" to share the intelligence and that his administration was examining multiple theories about the origin of the virus."There's a lot of theories," he said, "but we have people looking at it very, very strongly. Scientific people, intelligence people and others."In a statement released earlier Thursday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that the intelligence community "will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan."Intelligence agencies, the statement said, concur "with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified."The State Department declined to answer questions about Pompeo's role. Spokesmen for the White House and the National Security Council declined to comment.NBC News reported earlier that administration officials had directed intelligence agencies to try to determine whether China and the World Health Organization hid information early on about the outbreak.For months, scientists, spies and government officials have wrestled with varying theories about how the outbreak began, and many agree on the importance of determining the genesis of the pandemic. In government and academia, experts have ruled out the notion that it was concocted as a bioweapon. And they agree that the new pathogen began as a bat virus that evolved naturally, probably in another mammal, to become adept at infecting and killing humans.A few scientists and national security experts have pointed to a history of lab accidents infecting researchers to suggest it might have happened in this case, but many scientists have dismissed such theories."We do not believe any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible," five scientists wrote in a paper published in March in Nature Medicine.Trump has spoken publicly about the administration's "very serious investigations" of the virus's origin and China's culpability. Those inquiries took on new urgency in late March, when intelligence officials presented information to the White House that prompted some career officials to reconsider the lab theory. The precise nature of the information, based in part on intercepted communications among Chinese officials, is unclear.The current and former officials did not say whether Trump himself, who has shown little regard for the independent judgments of intelligence and law enforcement officials, has pressured the intelligence agencies. But he does want any information supporting the lab theory to set the stage for holding China responsible, according to two people familiar with his thinking.He has expressed interest in an idea pushed by Michael Pillsbury, an informal China adviser to the White House, that Beijing could be sued for damages, with the United States seeking $10 million for every death. At a news conference this week, Trump said the administration was discussing a "very substantial" reparations claim against China -- an idea that Beijing has already denounced."President Trump is demanding to know the origins of the virus and what Xi Jinping knew when about the cover-up," Pillsbury said.Looking at the LabsMajor gaps remain in what is known about the new pathogen, including which kind of animal infected humans with the coronavirus and where the first transmission took place.Richard Grenell, the acting director of national intelligence, has told his agencies to make a priority of determining the virus's origin. His office convened a review of intelligence officials April 7 to see whether the agencies could reach a consensus. The officials determined that, at least so far, they could not.Intelligence officials have repeatedly pointed out to the White House that determining the origins of the outbreak is fundamentally a scientific question that cannot be solved easily by spycraft.A former intelligence official described senior aides' repeated emphasis of the lab theory as "conclusion shopping," a disparaging term among analysts that has echoes of the Bush administration's 2002 push for assessments saying that Iraq had weapons of mass of destruction and links to al-Qaida, perhaps the most notorious example of the politicization of intelligence.The CIA has yet to unearth any data beyond circumstantial evidence to bolster the lab theory, according to current and former government officials, and the agency has told policymakers it lacks enough information to either affirm or refute it. Only getting access to the lab itself and the virus samples it contains could provide definitive proof, if it exists, the officials said.The Defense Intelligence Agency recently changed its analytic position to formally leave open the possibility of a theory of lab origin, officials said. Senior agency officials have asked analysts to take a closer look at the labs.The reason for the change is unclear, but some officials attributed it to the intelligence analyzed in recent weeks. Others took a more jaundiced view: that the agency is trying to curry favor with White House officials. A spokesman for the agency, James M. Kudla, disputed that characterization."It's not DIA's role to make policy decisions or value judgments -- and we do not," he said.Some U.S. officials have become convinced that Beijing is not sharing all it knows.Among Trump's top aides, Pompeo in particular has tried to hammer China over the lab. On Wednesday, he said that the United States still had not "gained access" to the main campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, one of two sites that U.S. officials who favor the lab accident theory have focused on, along with the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention.Labs in Wuhan research bat viruses and are known to U.S. officials; they are part of a coordinated global effort to monitor viruses. The virology institute has received funding and training from U.S. agencies and scientists.Pompeo seemed to refer to internal information about the outbreak during an interview April 17 with Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio host."We know that the Chinese Communist Party, when it began to evaluate what to do inside of Wuhan, considered whether the WIV was, in fact, the place where this came from," said Pompeo, referring to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.The State Department declined to indicate what was behind his assertion.Scientists Weigh InScientists who study the coronavirus have maintained that the initial spillover from animal to person could have occurred in any number of ways: at a farm where wild animals are raised, through accidental contact with a bat or another animal that carried the virus, or in hunting or transporting animals.The scientists have also scrutinized the new pathogen's genes, finding that they show great similarity to bat coronaviruses and bear no hints of human tampering or curation.The odds were astronomical against a lab release as opposed to an event in nature, said Kristian G. Andersen, the lead author of the paper published in Nature Medicine and a specialist in infectious disease at the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California.He acknowledged that it was theoretically possible that a researcher had found the new virus, fully evolved, in a bat or other animal and taken it into the lab. But, he said, based on the evidence his team gathered and the numerous opportunities for infection in the interactions that many farmers, hunters and others have with wild animals, "there just isn't a reason to consider the lab as a potential explanation."No evidence supports the theory that the coronavirus originated "in a laboratory either intentionally or by accident," Daniel R. Lucey, an expert on pandemics at Georgetown University who has closely tracked what is known about the origins, wrote this week.He has called on China to share information about animals sold at a market in Wuhan that was linked to some of the earliest known cases of people infected with the virus, though not the first one. Lucey has raised questions about whether the market was, in fact, where the virus spilled over from animals to people. The limited information released about environmental samples taken from the market that were positive for the coronavirus do not resolve whether the source was animals sold there or people working or visiting the market, or both, he wrote.But Richard Ebright, a microbiologist and biosafety expert at Rutgers University, has argued that the probability of a lab accident was "substantial," pointing to a history of such occurrences that have infected researchers. The Wuhan labs and other centers worldwide that examine naturally occurring viruses have questionable safety rules, he said, adding, "The standards are lax and need to be tightened."U.S. officials said they closely watched China's government this winter for signs of a lab accident but found nothing conclusive. In February, President Xi Jinping stressed the need for a plan to ensure the "biosafety and biosecurity of the country." And the Ministry of Science and Technology announced new guidelines for laboratories, especially ones handling viruses.Global Times, a popular state-run newspaper, then published an article on "chronic inadequate management issues" at laboratories, including problems with biological disposal.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| How Sadiq Khan could be thorn in Government's side for lifting UK lockdown Posted: 01 May 2020 12:00 PM PDT  A week after Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour party, Sadiq Khan launched a blistering attack on the Marxist MP for Islington North over his refusal to sing the National Anthem. "I'll be my own man and work closely with a Tory Government if it is in London's interest," insisted the then Labour MP for Tooting in 2015 as he campaigned to become Boris Johnson's successor as the capital's Mayor. A Brownite on the soft left of the party, the former lawyer took pride in presenting himself as the 'everyman' candidate - a Muslim bus driver's son who vowed in his election speech in 2016: "I promise to always be a mayor for all Londoners." Yet Mr Khan's approach to running London over the past four years has proved to be rather more politicised than he pledged. First the staunch Remainer pitted himself against Downing Street over Brexit. Then he openly criticised President Donald Trump, causing a diplomatic row between the UK and the US. And now it seems his coronavirus strategy is putting him at odds with the Government once again. Only this week, the 49-year-old politician was once again stoking controversy by attacking Number 10 for not implementing a mask policy - insisting that 'non surgical' face coverings should be used on public transport contrary to the official scientific advice. Yet Mr Khan himself has resisted repeated calls by the unions to provide personal protective equipment for London's transport workers. His reason? Government guidance stating that PPE should only be worn by carers. As Shaun Bailey, his Tory rival for the London mayoralty, put it: "He's taken Government advice when it's suited him and briefed against it when it hasn't."
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| East Libyan forces bomb Tripoli despite cease-fire; 2 killed Posted: 01 May 2020 10:48 AM PDT |
| Emma Thompson left new home in Venice to self-isolate at 'mum's house in Scotland' Posted: 01 May 2020 10:46 AM PDT  Dame Emma Thompson finally sealed her departure from "misery-laden" Britain in the last week of February, shortly after Brexit. During a ceremony on February 28, the Hollywood actress and her husband Greg Wise were declared citizens of Venice, and residents of Italy. After the documents were signed, Italian officials presented the famous pair with a Lion of St Mark statuette, a symbol of the ancient city. It was clear that Dame Emma was here to stay. "They wanted to be resident citizens to come and live in Venice," said deputy mayor Simone Venturini afterwards. "They bought in the historic centre, not a second home. We are truly happy and proud to have Emma Thompson and Greg Wise as our fellow citizens, for what they represent and for the love they show for Venice." According to Dame Emma, her new status represented "the realisation of a dream she had cherished for years". Within days, however, Dame Emma's plans were shattered. Italy had become the epicentre of Europe's coronavirus outbreak, and the disease was spreading uncontrollably. Soon her new home city was placed on total lockdown, and the canals fell silent.
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| UN Libya mission urges return to joint military talks Posted: 01 May 2020 10:29 AM PDT  The UN mission in Libya has urged warring parties to resume military talks that were launched in Geneva in February aimed at achieving a lasting ceasefire. The call came after eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar on Wednesday declared a unilateral truce, rejected by the UN-recognised Government of National Accord. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), in a statement late Thursday, urged the rivals to "immediately halt all military operations and resume the 5+5 Joint Military Commission talks -- on a virtual basis, if needed" because of the coronavirus.
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| Virus surge in Brazil brings a coffin shortage, morgue chaos Posted: 01 May 2020 10:00 AM PDT  In Brazil's bustling Amazon city of Manaus, so many people have died within days in the coronavirus pandemic that coffins had to be stacked on top of each other in long, hastily dug trenches in a city cemetery. Now, with Brazil emerging as Latin America's coronavirus epicenter with more than 6,000 deaths, even the coffins are running out in Manaus. The national funeral home association has pleaded for an urgent airlift of coffins from Sao Paulo, 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles) away, because Manaus has no paved roads connecting it to the rest of the country.
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| Sudan criminalises female genital mutilation (FGM) Posted: 01 May 2020 09:18 AM PDT  An amendment to the law states anyone who performs FGM faces three years' imprisonment and a fine.
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| With virus, US higher education may face existential moment Posted: 01 May 2020 09:06 AM PDT  When Jamie Bolker started teaching composition at MacMurray College in January, she felt she'd won the lottery. While the Jacksonville, Illinois, school's financial troubles were years in the making — fueled by declining enrollment, an inadequate endowment and competition — MacMurray spokesman James Prescott said the challenge of securing funding during or after the economically crippling pandemic helped seal its fate. The dramatic and widespread fallout from the COVID-19 virus has thrown the U.S. higher education system into a state of turmoil with fears that it could transform into an existential moment for the time-honored American tradition of high school graduates heading off to college.
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| Canada bans assault-style weapons after shooting rampage Posted: 01 May 2020 08:34 AM PDT  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an immediate ban Friday on the sale and use of assault-style weapons in Canada, two weeks after a gunman killed 22 people in Nova Scotia. "Canadians need more than thoughts and prayers," he said, rejecting the reaction of many politicians after mass shootings. Trudeau cited numerous mass shootings in the country, including the rampage that killed 22 in Nova Scotia April 18 and 19.
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| Coronavirus: South Africans exercise the freedom to jog Posted: 01 May 2020 08:29 AM PDT  South Africans take to the streets and beachfronts as lockdown restrictions are slightly eased.
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| US pushing to punish Iran by invoking nuclear deal Trump abandoned Posted: 01 May 2020 08:13 AM PDT  The United States is pushing ahead with a scheme to extend a United Nations arms embargo on Iran that is due to be lifted in October as part of the nuclear deal that Washington abandoned two years ago.To force the extension, Washington will attempt to lobby the Security Council to continue the arms embargo, which bars weapons sales to or from Iran.
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| Pharmacies become safe spaces for domestic abuse survivors during coronavirus pandemic Posted: 01 May 2020 07:53 AM PDT  As shelter-in-place orders and lockdowns came into place around the world, domestic violence cases have increased significantly. The U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) has predicted that at least 15 million more cases of domestic violence will occur around the world for every three months that government lockdowns are extended, amid the new coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Across the UK, Boots pharmacies will now become safe spaces where domestic abuse survivors can contact specialist support services.
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| Muslims in Jerusalem pray outdoors amid virus lockdown Posted: 01 May 2020 07:52 AM PDT  Muslims in Jerusalem are praying outside in small groups during the holy month of Ramadan as measures aimed at curbing the coronavirus pandemic remain in place, including a halt to prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam. Prayers at Jerusalem's world-famous religious sites, sacred to Muslims, Christians and Jews, were halted or heavily restricted last month as Israel and the Palestinian Authority imposed sweeping lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus. Group prayers can only be held outside by up to 19 people standing at least two meters (yards) apart.
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| AP: DEA agent accused of stealing PPE from agency warehouse Posted: 01 May 2020 07:22 AM PDT  A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a telecommunications specialist are accused of stealing personal protective equipment, toilet paper and other supplies from an agency warehouse in Florida amid shortages caused by the coronavirus pandemic, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. Special Agent Javier Hernandez and the telecommunications specialist whose name was not disclosed are just the latest employees of the DEA's high-profile Miami field division to be accused of misconduct. Hernandez is suspected of swiping an array of items including PPE, toilet paper and batteries from storage in the early weeks of the pandemic, the officials said, and the telecommunications specialist also took materials from the warehouse but returned them after a supervisor confronted him about a missing supply of toilet paper.
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| 'I died and came back': 12-year-old recovers from virus Posted: 01 May 2020 06:29 AM PDT  As her desperately sick daughter was being airlifted to a hospital, Jennifer Daly was thinking about all the parts of life that still lay ahead for her 12-year-old and whether she'd ever experience them: Would she get to fall in love? Driving across the causeway that separates the family's home north of Lake Pontchartrain from the New Orleans hospital where their daughter was taken — with what was later determined to be a coronavirus infection — she was forced to imagine a life without her Juliet. As Juliet and her 5-year-old brother spar with each other using pool noodles, it's hard to imagine that just last month Juliet was fighting for her life.
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| Iran denies US claim it's helping Venezuela oil sector Posted: 01 May 2020 06:01 AM PDT  Iran on Friday rejected US claims it is helping Venezuela to rebuild its oil industry, saying the accusations are designed to increase pressure and disrupt the two countries' trade ties. Elliott Abrams, the envoy leading US efforts to topple Venezuela's leftist leader Nicolas Maduro, has alleged that the cash-strapped country is paying Iran in gold to restore the troubled sector. US President Donald Trump's administration has imposed unilateral sanctions aimed at ending oil exports from Iran and Venezuela, both major crude producers.
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| Clashes in Yemen UNESCO site threaten rare species Posted: 01 May 2020 05:53 AM PDT |
| Locust swarms will add to Pakistan's Covid-19 crisis warns UN Posted: 01 May 2020 05:53 AM PDT  A new wave of ravening locust swarms threaten to devastate crops in parts of Pakistan, just as coronavirus risks pitching some of the country's poorest into destitution, the United Nations agriculture agency has warned. The voracious insects have in the past two years torn through much of the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa in their worst plague for 25 years. The devastation is set to continue without urgent action, with the insects already breeding in Pakistan after a wet winter. Further swarms are then set to migrate from Iran and the Horn of Africa later in the year. Britain's Department for International Development last month gave £1 million to help Pakistan fight the locusts. Desert locust swarms can fly up to 90 miles per day and if good rains fall and conditions are favourable, can increase their numbers 20-fold in three months. Almost all crops and non-crop plants are vulnerable and the insects are one of the biggest threats to food security in large parts of the world. "In the midst of additional impacts by Covid-19 on health, livelihoods and food security and nutrition of the most vulnerable communities and populations of Pakistan, it is imperative to contain and control successfully the desert locust infestation," the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said earlier this week. The current regional upsurge in locusts began in the Arabian Peninsula in mid 2018. The pests reached Pakistan last spring and the government last year declared a national emergency. After a wet winter they are now breeding again in Pakistan, while migrating swarms are expected later in the year. The descent of the swarms caught Pakistan unprepared last year, after a quarter of a century of limited threat. Crop dusters and spraying equipment were found to be obsolete or in need of repair. Half a million acres in 22 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Sindh provinces are under threat. Wheat, cotton, and oilseed crops have been affected so far. At the same time the country is experiencing deep economic pain because of the lockdown precautions to halt the spread of the new coronavirus. Poor daily labourers have been worst affected. Christian Turner, High Commissioner to Pakistan, said: "Covid-19 will impact the poorest and most vulnerable in countries like Pakistan. That is why we are repurposing our UKAid development portfolio in Pakistan to help save lives and livelihoods. This includes immediate health assistance through the WHO, and the rapid response to the threat to crops from locusts."
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| Working from home may not be better for the planet, study says Posted: 01 May 2020 05:47 AM PDT  Working from home may not be better for the environment in the long-term as it could be offset by emissions in the home and additional car journeys, according to a study from the University of Sussex. Road transport has halved worldwide during the lockdown as commuters are forced to stay home, contributing to what will likely be the biggest drop in carbon emissions in history. Working from home has been touted as one of the most likely long-term impacts of the pandemic, as both employers and employees adjust to more flexible behaviours. But maintaining a work-from-home lifestyle after the lockdown has lifted is likely to lead to emissions being offset elsewhere, the study by the university's Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions has concluded. This is particularly true if workers spend part of their time in the office, because they are more likely to live further away and have longer journeys when they do travel in, said the study, published in Environmental Research Letters. People are also likely to use their newly disposable time and income taking more journeys and buying more goods that have associated carbon emissions. Furthermore, much of the energy savings from the office are simply transferred to increased electricity and heating at home. Jonathan Marshall, the head of analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said the study showed that large-scale infrastructure change would be necessary to achieve deep emissions cuts. "We still use gas in almost all homes to keep warm for instance. So if you saw a lot more working from home in winter, you'd see a lot more emissions because it's likely that most offices will have their heating still on, and then you'd have all the additional homes," he said. "If people are going to spend their saved money on something else, there needs to be government policy in place to make sure the industries that are providing these goods and services aren't doing so in a way that offsets environmental benefits." Researchers looked at 39 studies on the subject from the US, Europe, Thailand, Malaysia and Iran that were published between 1995 and 2019. While most of the studies found there was a significant drop in emissions from travel to the office and the energy used there, those that expanded their scope to the knock-on effects suggested working from home could have a negligible and possibly negative impact. One study found that in the UK, people who normally work from home have a commute that is 10.7 miles longer than average when they do go into work. Steven Sorrell, Professor of Energy Policy at the university's Science Policy Research Unit, said the study showed that: "While the lockdown has clearly reduced energy consumption, only some of those savings will be achieved in more normal patterns of teleworking. To assess whether teleworking is really sustainable, we need to look beyond the direct impact on commuting and investigate how it changes a whole range of daily activities."
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| Millions Had Risen Out of Poverty. Coronavirus Is Pulling Them Back. Posted: 01 May 2020 05:30 AM PDT  She was just 12 when she dropped out of school and began clocking in for endless shifts at one of the garment factories springing up in Bangladesh, hoping to pull her family out of poverty.Her fingers ached from stitching pants and shirts destined for sale in the United States and Europe, but the $30 the young woman made each month meant that for the first time, her family had regular meals, even luxuries like chicken and milk.A decade later, she was providing a better life for her own child than she had ever imagined.Then the world locked down, and Shahida Khatun, like millions of low-wage workers around the world, found herself back in the poverty she thought she had left behind.In a matter of mere months, the coronavirus has wiped out global gains that took two decades to achieve, leaving an estimated 2 billion people at risk of abject poverty. However indiscriminate the virus may be in its spread, it has repeatedly proved itself anything but that when it comes to its effect on the world's most vulnerable communities."The garment factory helped me and my family to get out of poverty," said Khatun, 22, who was laid off in March. "But the coronavirus has pushed me back in."For the first time since 1998, the World Bank says, global poverty rates are forecast to rise. By the end of the year, 8% of the world's population, a half-billion people, may be pushed into destitution largely because of the pandemic, the United Nations estimates.Khatun was among thousands of women across South Asia who took factory jobs and, as they entered the workforce, helped the world made inroads against poverty.Now those gains are at grave risk."These stories -- of women entering the workplace and bringing their families out of poverty, of programs lifting the trajectories of families -- those stories will be easy to destroy," said Abhijit Banerjee, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize for economics.While everyone will suffer, the developing world will be hardest hit. The World Bank estimates that sub-Saharan Africa will see its first recession in 25 years, with nearly half of all jobs lost across the continent. South Asia will most likely experience its worst economic performance in 40 years.Most at risk are people working in the informal sector, which employs 2 billion people who have no access to benefits like unemployment assistance or health care. In Bangladesh, 1 million garment workers like Khatun -- 7% of the country's workforce, many of them informally employed -- lost their jobs because of the lockdown.For Khatun, whose husband was also laid off, that means that the familiar pangs of hunger are once again filling her days, and she runs into debt with a local grocer to manage even one scant meal of roti and mashed potato a day.The financial shock waves could linger even after the virus is gone, experts warn. Countries like Bangladesh, which spent heavily on programs to improve education and provide health care, may no longer be able to fund them."There will be groups of people who climbed up the ladder and will now fall back," Banerjee, the MIT professor, said. "There were so many fragile existences, families barely stitching together an existence. They will fall into poverty, and they may not come out of it."The gains now at risk are a stark reminder of global inequality and how much more there is to be done. In 1990, 36% of the world's population, or 1.9 billion people, lived on less than $1.90 a day. By 2016, that number had dropped to 734 million people, or 10% of the world's population, largely because of progress in South Asia and China.Some of the biggest gains were made in India, where 210 million people were lifted out of poverty from 2006 to 2016, according to the U.N.Since 2000, Bangladesh brought 33 million people -- 20% of its population -- out of poverty while funding programs that provided education to girls, increased life expectancy and improved literacy.Famines that once plagued South Asia are now vanishingly rare, and the population is less susceptible to disease and starvation.But that progress may be reversed, experts worry, and funding for anti-poverty programs may be cut as governments struggle with stagnant growth rates or economic contractions as the world heads for a recession.In India, millions of migrant laborers were left unemployed and homeless overnight after the government there announced a lockdown. In parts of Africa, millions may go hungry after losing their jobs and as lockdowns snarl food aid distribution networks. In Mexico and the Philippines, remittances that families relied on have dried up as primary breadwinners lose their jobs and can no longer send money home."The tragedy is, it's cyclical," said Natalia Linos, executive director of Harvard University's François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. "Poverty is a huge driver of disease, and illness is one of the big shocks that drive families into poverty and keep them there."When it comes to a pandemic like the coronavirus outbreak, Linos said, the poor are even more outmatched than people with means. They cannot afford to stock up on food, which means they must go more frequently to stores, increasing their exposure. And even if they have jobs, they are unlikely to be able to work from home.A resolution that committed the U.N. to eliminating poverty and hunger and providing access to education for all by 2030 may now be a pipe dream.More than 90 countries have asked the International Monetary Fund for assistance. But with all countries hurting, well-to-do nations may be too strapped to provide the aid the developing world needs or offer debt forgiveness, which some countries and aid organizations are calling for.To avoid having large chunks of their population slipping into devastation, countries need to spend more, Banerjee said. In times of crises, like after World War II, economies rebounded because governments stepped in with big spending packages like the Marshall Plan.But so far, economic stimulus packages and support for those newly out of work have been weak or nonexistent in much of the developing world.While the United States has committed nearly $3 trillion in economic stimulus packages to help the poor and small businesses, India plans to spend just $22.5 billion on its population of 1.3 billion -- four times the size of America's. Pakistan, the world's fifth-largest country, has committed about $7.5 billion, far less than Japan's $990 billion stimulus package.In Bangladesh this week, several hundred garment factories decided to reopen -- a move almost certain to worsen the country's coronavirus caseload.Khatun's employer, however, remains shuttered.The owner told employees that even after the pandemic, he may no longer have work for them. The demand for clothing in Western countries may drop if people have less to spend, he said.Khatun worries she and her family will be evicted from the small room they rent, with a bathroom and kitchen they share with neighbors.If they are thrown out, she said, they will return to the village she left a decade ago as a child determined to improve her lot in life."My only dream was to ensure a proper education for my son," she said. "I wanted people to say, 'Look, although his mother worked for a garment factory, her son is well educated and has a good job.' That dream is now going to disappear."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Trump's new press secretary pledges not to lie from podium Posted: 01 May 2020 05:27 AM PDT  President Donald Trump's new spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, vowed Friday not to lie to reporters from the podium as she made her debut at the first White House briefing by a press secretary in more than a year. "I will never lie to you," McEnany told reporters. McEnany, who joined the White House last month, took the stage behind a podium that had quite literally been collecting cobwebs before the president began the practice of holding his own daily briefings because of the coronavirus.
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| Why the WHO, often under fire, has a tough balance to strike in its efforts to address health emergencies Posted: 01 May 2020 05:16 AM PDT  The Trump administration recently declared, in the midst of the coronavirus emergency, that it would suspend the United States' financial support for the World Health Organization, a United Nations agency that coordinates a wide range of international health efforts. The United States typically contributes more than US$400 million per year to the organization, roughly 15% of its annual budget. In announcing the suspension of U.S. funding, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that WHO had failed to provide "real information about what's going on in the global health space." President Trump suggested that the agency had colluded with the Chinese government in withholding information about the nature of the outbreak: "I have a feeling they knew exactly what was going on," he said. And he sought to deflect blame for his administration's disorganized response by pinning responsibility on global health officials: "So much death has been caused by their mistakes." To assess these claims, it is important to understand the context in which WHO officials make critical decisions at the early stages of a disease outbreak. As I explore in my recent book, "Unprepared: Global Health in a Time of Emergency," WHO is constrained in its ability to gather knowledge about disease outbreaks and to intervene in national settings. It must rely on national governments for information about an outbreak and for permission to send investigators to learn more details. The agency's power is limited to providing technical assistance and issuing recommendations. Critical moments of decisionIn January 2020, infectious disease experts scrambled to understand key aspects of the novel coronavirus, such as its rate of transmission and its severity. At that point, it was not yet possible to know exactly what was going on with the disease. Nonetheless, WHO officials had to make urgent decisions – such as whether to declare a global health emergency – in a situation of uncertainty.More generally, much critical information about what is happening in the global health space can be known only in retrospect, once data on the event has been gathered, analyzed and disseminated by the scientific community.Two other recent global health emergencies are instructive: the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic and the 2014 Ebola epidemic. In the aftermath of each of these outbreaks, WHO was sharply criticized for its early response. When a novel strain of H1N1 influenza was first detected in the spring 2009, global health officials feared that it could spark a catastrophic pandemic. Within weeks of the virus's appearance, WHO officially declared a global health emergency. The declaration urged countries to put their existing pandemic preparedness plans into action. In response, a number of national governments implemented mass vaccination campaigns, making advanced purchases of millions of doses of H1N1 vaccine from pharmaceutical companies.Over the next several months, as the vaccine was manufactured and vaccination campaigns were implemented, epidemiological studies revealed that H1N1 was a relatively mild strain of influenza, with a case fatality ratio similar to that of seasonal flu.In many countries, when the H1N1 vaccine finally became available in the fall 2009, there were few takers. National governments had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on campaigns that immunized, in some cases, less than 10% of the population. Critics in Europe accused WHO of having exaggerated the pandemic threat in order to generate profits for the pharmaceutical industry, pointing to consulting arrangements that the agency's influenza experts had with vaccine manufacturers. According to one prominent critic, the WHO declaration of a health emergency in response to H1N1 was "one of the greatest medical scandals of the century."A later investigation exonerated the WHO experts from wrongdoing, noting that the severity of the disease had not yet been determined when vaccine orders were made, and that "reasonable criticism can be based only on what was known at the time and not on what was later learnt." Retrospective criticismFive years later, in the aftermath of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, WHO officials again found themselves under sharp attack for their initial response to a disease outbreak. This time, officials were accused not of acting too hastily but rather of having failed to act in time. At the earliest stages of the epidemic, in Spring 2014, the agency's experts did not consider the event to be a "global emergency." Based on prior experience, they felt that Ebola, while dangerous, was easily containable – the disease had never killed more than a few hundred people, and had never spread much beyond its initial site of occurrence. "We know Ebola," as one expert recalled the early stages of response. "This will be manageable." It was not until August 2014, well after the epidemic had spun out of control, that WHO officially declared a global health emergency, seeking to galvanize international response. By this point it was too late to avoid a region-wide catastrophe, and multiple critics assailed the agency's slow response. "WHO's response has been abysmal," as one commentator put it. "It's just shameful." Whose failure?Today, as the world confronts the coronavirus pandemic, the agency finds itself again under a storm of criticism, now with its very financial survival under threat. To what extent can we say that the agency did not provide adequate information in the early stages of the pandemic – that it failed to "do its job," in Secretary of State Pompeo's scolding words?It is worth remembering that we are still in the early stages of the event as it unfolds, still seeking answers to critical questions such as how quickly the virus spreads, what its severity is, what proportion of the population has been exposed to it, and whether such exposure confers immunity. We also do not yet know whether the Chinese government fully informed global health officials about the seriousness of the initial outbreak. We do know, however, that while WHO made its most urgent call for vigilance by national governments in late January, with the declaration of a global health emergency, it was not until nearly two months later that the U.S. began – haltingly – to mobilize in response.[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read The Conversation's newsletter.]
Este artículo se vuelve a publicar de The Conversation, un medio digital sin fines de lucro dedicado a la diseminación de la experticia académica. Lee mas:
Andrew Lakoff has received funding for this research from the National Science Foundation and the Social Science Research Council.
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| In a US now in puppy love, Labs still tops, but corgis rise Posted: 01 May 2020 05:05 AM PDT  The rankings indicate the relative popularity of different breeds among the 589,868 purebred dogs, mostly puppies, that joined the nation's oldest dog registry last year. The list includes the 193 breeds that the AKC recognizes — no Labradoodles, puggles, Yorkipoos or other "designer" hybrids, at least for now.
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| Virus-hit Iran holds drive-in religious ceremonies Posted: 01 May 2020 04:56 AM PDT  With mosques in Iran closed as it battles the coronavirus, worshippers have adopted the novel solution of getting behind the wheel at drive-ins to gather during the fasting month of Ramadan. Gatherings have been banned as part of Iran's efforts to eliminate COVID-19, the disease that has claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people in the Islamic republic. Deprived of the opportunity to pray at mosques following iftar, the meal breaking the Ramadan fast, families are jumping into their cars to attend drive-in religious ceremonies.
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| The daily business briefing: May 1, 2020 Posted: 01 May 2020 04:18 AM PDT |
| Jobless fret as rent comes due again amid virus outbreak Posted: 01 May 2020 03:53 AM PDT  Rent and mortgage payments are due again as more than 30 million people around the U.S. have filed for unemployment benefits after losing work in the coronavirus pandemic. Jason W. Still has been waiting six weeks for his first unemployment check since losing his job as a cook at an upscale restaurant in Spokane, Washington. Out-of-work bartender Luke Blaine in Phoenix got his first check three weeks ago, but now has to pay his landlord again.
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| Record ozone hole over Arctic in March now closed - U.N. Posted: 01 May 2020 03:10 AM PDT |
| Russia ditches Putin mosaic in army church Posted: 01 May 2020 02:34 AM PDT  A mosaic featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin will no longer be displayed in a grand military church being built outside Moscow after the leader objected, a cleric said on Friday. Russian Orthodox Bishop Stefan of Klin told news agency Interfax the committee in charge of the church's interior decoration "decided not to display it" because it was "the wish of the head of the country". The mosaic is still in a workshop and is likely to be dismantled, said the bishop, who will be the archpriest of the military church.
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| Iran death toll from coronavirus rises by 63 to 6,091 - Health Ministry Posted: 01 May 2020 02:34 AM PDT |
| Turkish police detain gathered union leaders on May Day Posted: 01 May 2020 02:27 AM PDT  Police in Istanbul detained at least 15 people, including trade union leaders who tried to stage a May Day march in defiance of coronavirus lockdown rules and a ban on demonstrations at a historic square. The Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey, or DISK, tweeted that its chairman, Arzu Cerkezoglu, and several other union leaders were detained Friday while going to lay wreaths of carnations at Taksim Square.
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| Explosions hit Syrian military warehouse, 10 civilians hurt Posted: 01 May 2020 02:16 AM PDT  Explosions at a Syrian military base housing a weapons warehouse Friday were the result of "human error" while moving ammunition, the defense ministry said. Ten civilians outside the base were hurt, a local doctor said. The group said Syrian air defenses were activated before the explosions, suggesting they were responding to an incoming attack.
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| Easing of lockdown begs the question: Who's family in Italy? Posted: 01 May 2020 12:13 AM PDT  When Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said the government would relax some parts of a nationwide lockdown, residents entering an eighth week of home confinement to inhibit the coronavirus dove for their dictionaries. Conte announced that starting May 4, people in Italy will be permitted to travel within their home regions for visits with "congiunti," a formal Italian word that can mean either relatives, relations or kinsmen. The correct definition is more than pedantic in Italy, a country where the generous concept of family embraces extended clans tied by blood or marriage.
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| 'Everyone's watching': Biden's VP audition process begins Posted: 30 Apr 2020 11:34 PM PDT  Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wore a T-shirt on television emblazoned with the words "that woman from Michigan," a cheeky reference to President Donald Trump's dismissal of her. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar joined her onetime nemesis, Pete Buttigieg, for a friendly virtual chat on a late-night show. Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden began the process of selecting a running mate in earnest on Thursday by announcing a committee to vet potential candidates. The panel's work will likely last through July, he said, meaning months in which some candidates will appear up one day only to fade and potentially be replaced with someone who isn't on anyone's radar the next.
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| Biden declares sexual assault 'never, never happened' Posted: 30 Apr 2020 11:26 PM PDT  Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday emphatically denied allegations from a former Senate staffer that he sexually assaulted her in the early 1990s, declaring flatly that "this never happened." Biden's first public remarks on the accusation by a former employee, Tara Reade, come at a critical moment for the presumptive Democratic nominee as he tries to relieve mounting pressure after weeks of leaving denials to his campaign. "I'm saying unequivocally, it never, never happened," the former vice president and senator said in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
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| AP PHOTOS: Virus-era glimpses of a world without humans Posted: 30 Apr 2020 10:07 PM PDT  Being human, the world of human beings is the one we tend to notice most. As humans have disappeared into that coronavirus cocoon, though, other things have asserted themselves. The goal: Capture a changing landscape that contains few — if any — humans and showcase the things that, for this moment in history, have taken their place.
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| Lives Lost: Virus silences angelic voice of WWII evacuee Posted: 30 Apr 2020 10:01 PM PDT  After Adolf Hitler annexed his native Austria and Allied bombs laid waste to Vienna, Hannelore Cruz traveled to Portugal without her parents as a refugee from hunger, cold and postwar deprivation. A Portuguese family raised her and she later married.
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| Hairstylist gives free haircuts to Thai health frontliners Posted: 30 Apr 2020 09:55 PM PDT  Scrubs may be in fashion during the coronavirus crisis, but split ends — never. The 43-year-old hairstylist is boosting the morale of frontline medical workers by dispensing free haircuts at Bangkok hospitals. Thailand's hair salons have been closed for more than a month, to help stop the spread of the virus.
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| Dem lawmakers say Trump's freeze for WHO to hurt Venezuelans Posted: 30 Apr 2020 09:02 PM PDT  As much as $110 million in U.S. funding for disease prevention in Latin America as well as U.S. support for Venezuelan migrants has been thrown into doubt as part of President Donald Trump's decision to halt funding to the World Health Organization over its response to the coronavirus pandemic. Rep. Eliot Engel, the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter Thursday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo complaining that freezing funds for the Pan American Health Organization threatened to worsen the plight of Venezuelans suffering at the hands of Nicolás Maduro. "We believe it is dangerous and shortsighted of the Trump Administration to pause U.S. funding for the life-saving work" by PAHO in Venezuela, the New York Democrat wrote in the letter, which was also signed by Rep. Albio Sires, chairman of the subcommittee focused on Latin America.
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