Respects for healthcare professionals

Saturday 18 April 2020

25 Sha'aban - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 25 | Number 8231

SPORT | 08BUSINESS | 02

World Bank says no

‘free ride’ for

commercial creditors

on debt relief

Vettel could

seal new deal

before season

starts

560 49 4663 464 7

2,188,194 147,632 556,734

COVID-19 QATAR UPDATES ON 14 APRIL 2020

TOTAL POSITIVE TOTAL DEATHS TOTAL RECOVERED

COVID-19 GLOBALLY

NEW CASES

ANNOUNCED

NEW

RECOVERIES

TOTAL

RECOVERIES

TOTAL

DEATHS

TOTAL

CASES

COVID-19 QATAR UPDATES ON 17 APRIL 2020

A citizen’s house decorated with lights, sculptures and posters to pay respects to healthcare professionals for their fight against COVID-19 pandemic. PIC: BAHER AMIN/THE PENINSULA

QA brings 436 Qataris back from JordanTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

In the framework of the country’s efforts to bring citizens back who wish to return to the country, Hamad International Airport received two special flights of Qatar Airways yesterday coming from Amman, the capital of Jordan, carrying 436 Qatari citizens.

The citizens were in Jordan for different purposes among them stu-dents and patients and others who were on tourism purposes, Qatar TV reported.

Mubarak Al Kuwari from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that everyone passed through the nec-essary medical examinations, and also they will be subject to health quarantine for 14 days. �P3

MoCI releases list of 500 discounted products for Ramadan

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) has announced the launch of its discounted consumer

goods initiative, which covers more than 500 products during Ramadan.

The initiative, which was launched in cooperation with major shopping malls, comes into effect today and will

remain applicable until the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

The initiative comes within the framework of the Ministry’s efforts over the past years to meet citizens and

residents’ needs for consumer goods at reduced prices during the holy month, when spending on food com-modities traditionally increases.

The initiative covers basic com-modities consumed during Ramadan, such as flour, sugar, rice, pasta, chicken, oil, milk, and other food and non-food items of relative importance to consumers, and whose consumption increases during the holy month.

The Ministry has engaged and coordinated with suppliers to identify and secure the various types of in-demand goods at appropriate and affordable prices.

The list of discounted consumer goods has been circulated to all major shopping malls across the country, and is accessible to consumers through the Min-istry’s website and social network pages.

The Ministry has stressed that it will not tolerate any violations of the Consumer Protection Law and its reg-ulations, and will intensify its inspection campaigns to crack down on violations. The Ministry said it will refer those who violate laws and min-isterial decisions to competent author-ities, who will in turn take appropriate action against perpetrators to protect consumer rights. �P3

MoPH reports 560 new casesTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) yesterday announced the registration of 560 confirmed new cases of COVID-19.

In a statement, the Ministry stated that the noticeable increase in the number of con-firmed new cases of infection is due to several reasons, including the fact that the spread of the virus has started to enter into the peak stage, which is the highest wave that affects the country, which may continue to increase for a period before it starts to decline.

It is also due to the steady increase in efforts of the MoPH and its medical teams to track the transmission chains of the coronavirus and conduct intensive and proactive investi-gations of groups of contacts with people who were diagnosed

Traffic Department launches fleet of modern patrolsSIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

In order to modernise the fleet of traffic patrols, the General Directorate of Traffic yesterday launched a number of modern traffic patrols in The Pearl Qatar.

Lt. Col. Jabr Ali Al Kubaisi, Assistant Drector of the Patrols and Traffic Investigation Department at the General Directorate of Traffic, said that these patrols contribute to enhancing the work of traffic patrols, as they have most sophisticated capabilities that enhance their performance of tasks.

He also stressed the depart-ment’s keenness to raise the level of traffic patrols to achieve the highest levels of security and safety around the clock, noting the importance of cooperation with patrols to reduce accidents and traffic jams.

Al Kubaisi, called on motorists to further enhance cooperation with traffic patrols, and adhere to traffic rules, saying that traffic patrols are providing support to drivers in emergency situations.

Meanwhile, a source at the traffic department said that the exemption from technical inspection for renewal vehicle registration (Istimara) at Fahes centers includes all vehicles even the ones having not renewed Istimara for more than one year.

Regarding question about the possibility of renewing

Istimara in case there is traffic violation by the vehicle, he said that one of the conditions for renewing Istimara is that there should be no violation/penalty against the car and if there is any it would be paid first.

“Due to COVID-19 pan-demic and for the betterment of our esteemed customers, and in coordination with Traffic Department, the vehicle inspection registration could be done using WOQOD Mobile App effective from March 22, 2020,” Fahes had said earlier in a statement.

All vehicles are exempted from technical inspection at Fahes centre for renewal of their Istimara (registration) from March 22, 2020 until further notice.

So far, according to the Traffic Department, over 8,000 people have renewed their vehicle registration (Istimara) via Metrash2.

They were exempted from technical inspection at Fahes centres under preventive measures to contain COVID-19.

To limit spread of coro-n a v i r u s , t h e T r a f f i c Department said many traffic services are available through Metrash 2 and the website of the Ministry of Interior, without any need to visit service centers.

Among the services are vehicle registration (Istimara), renewal of driving license, transfer of vehicle ownership, inquiries about violations and payment of fines etc. �P3

Qatari citizens at Hamad International Airport on return from Jordan, yesterday.

Doha Film Institute launches first online screenwriting labRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

For those who wish to hone their writing skills and build a career in screenwriting, Doha Film Institute (DFI) has launched its inaugural online screenwriting lab for beginners.

The fresh online pro-gramme announced on DFI’s website and official social media accounts will help par-ticipants discover the creative process of writing for the screen, all from the comfort of their own homes. It will guide budding screenwriters into the ‘architecture’ and ‘formatting’ of screenplays.

The lab, which is offered in English and Arabic sessions,

blends online lectures, assign-ments and group discussions to give participants a compre-hensive and well-rounded understanding of screenwriting. Participants will also have the opportunity to continue their filmmaking journey with the DFI development team, working towards further edu-cation and grants, said DFI.

The lab is scheduled on May 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 from 9pm to 10.15pm. Lab fee is QR300 and Qatar Museums Culture Pass members will receive a 10% discount.

Only eight to 10 participants aged 18 years and above will be selected for each lab. Thos who wish to join should send an email not later than April 23 to

development@dohafilmin-stitute.com with their original short film logline and synopsis, CV or short bio, ID copy and a short paragraph explaining their interest in this lab.

Lab mentors include Anthea Devotta, Amna Al Binali and Fahad Ahmed Al Kuwari.

Born and raised in India, Devotta holds an honours BA in Film and Television Studies from Royal Holloway, Uni-versity of London and has over a decade of experience in the film industry. She currently works at DFI’s Film Training and Development team, where she coordinates filmmaking workshops and labs with a focus on short and feature-film development. �P3

with the disease previously. This has contributed to the early detection of many cases of infection and reducing the spread of the virus.

The Ministry has said that most of the new cases of COVID-19 are expatriate workers, as the majority of them are in quarantine due to exposure to COVID-19 con-firmed cases, while other new cases are due to people being

in contact at home or work with existing cases among citizens and residents. The newly infected cases have been placed under complete isolation and they are receiving necessary medical care.

The total number of positive COVID-19 cases recorded in Qatar until yesterday was 4663 and there are 4192 active cases under treatment.

The Ministry has also

requested all members of society to stay at home and cooperate fully with all health guidelines and preventive measures to reduce the risk of infection, including sticking to social and physical distancing guidelines.

The Ministry also recom-mended people to regularly visit the MoPH website for the most up-to-date guidance on how to stay safe.

The initiative, which was launched in cooperation with major shopping malls, comes into effect today and will remain applicable until the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

The initiative covers basic commodities consumed during Ramadan, such as flour, sugar, rice, pasta, chicken, oil, milk, and other food and non-food items of relative importance to consumers.

The Ministry has stressed that it will not tolerate any violations of the Consumer Protection Law and its regulations, and will intensify its inspection campaigns to crack down on violations.

02 SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2020HOME

FAJR SUNRISE 03.50 am 05.09 am

W A L R U WA I S : 19o↗ 31o W A L K H O R : 19o↗ 28o W D U K H A N : 19o↗ 32o W WA K R A H : 19o↗ 30o W M E S A I E E D 19o↗ 30o W A B U S A M R A 19o↗ 33o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 01:48– 16:00 LOW TIDE 09:52 – 19:56

Partly cloudy with chance of scattered rain may be thundery at places and slight dust at times.

Minimum Maximum21oC 30oC

ZUHRMAGHRIB

11.33 am06.00 pm

ASR ISHA

03.03 pm07.30 pm

QSC presents activities, technical solutions to curb COVID-19

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Qatar Scientific Club (QSC) at the Ministry of Culture and Sports presented many activ-ities and workshops in various scientific fields with the aim of encouraging community members to utilise their time.

The club also provided tech-nical solutions to contribute to the efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 by developing a new plan that fits with the current situation, completely based on electronic and remote communication.

It presented several

different workshops in the fields of electronics, mechanics, man-ufacturing, innovation, software and statistics.

The statistics indicate the success of this experiment through the number of fol-lowers which crossed over 500 followers and participants.

The Qatar Scientific Club held a scientific competition to encourage young people for research works by announcing valuable in-kind prizes such as iPads and mobile devices.

The competition was part of a series of competitions that will be announced one by one.

The club also published a number of awareness videos for the public in addition to designing and implementing several important projects that help in preventing the infection of coronavirus including per-sonal safety kits and face masks.

The club also made some changes in the arrangement of scientific researcher compe-tition that it organises annually

in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Higher Edu-cation, as the entries of researches were checked electronically.

And the exhibition which was scheduled for the compe-tition was cancelled based on the directives to prevent gath-erings in all its forms.

The club announced the competition results few days

ago on various social media platforms and distributed it to the schools participating in the competition.

Fatima Al Muhannadi, Man-aging Director of the Qatari Sci-entific Club, said that the club, apart from its activities like workshops and competitions online, receives engineering consultations from members and discuss them online, pro-

viding the appropriate consul-tancies to them.

“We also provide interactive educational programmes and educational videos on YouTube. We have activated the appli-cation for membership regis-tration electronically for those wishing to renew membership or submit a new application for membership of the club,” said Al Muhannadi.

The club took a set of imme-diate decisions since the beginning of the crisis at the various administrative, tech-nical and operational levels, as the club instructed those employees whose work nature allows to work from home, to do so.

For those employees required to report to the club are assured to not be more than one employee in the same office at the same time, and working hours were limited to one shift.

Qatar Scientific Club presents technical solutions to curb the spread of COVID-19.

QU-CPH conducts final year OSCE exam onlineTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar University’s College of Pharmacy (QU-CPH) success-fully executed its first online Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) utilizing one of the online distance education platform due to suspension of classes for students and precautionary measures to prevent novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The College of Pharmacy imple-mented the “Telehealth” concept, with the participation of 22 final year BSc pharmacy students and 11 faculty members.

The exam assesses the clinical skills of prospective pharmacists and is currently the ‘exit from degree’ assessment used in pharmacy programs in many countries around the world like and the United States, and which all students take simultaneously. Usually,

simulated patients (SPs) play the role of real-life patients in the OSCE.

However, due to the pan-demic we are facing, the structure and the regular flow of the OSCE were changed where faculty members played the SP role while having a video conference with each student who in turn role-played the pharmacist. The exam consisted of four different case-scenarios over two days that simulate the real work of a pharmacist in community, hospital and primary care settings. Students were graded based on their ability to demonstrate profes-sional pharmacy practice skills as part of their final cumulative assessment prior to graduation.

In addition, students’ grades were cross-assessed by two faculty members to ensure fair evaluation of students and inter-rater reliability. Some of

the important skills assessed as part of this exam included: Pro-motion of public health awareness , demonstration of managerial leadership skills, maintaining the code of ethics while dealing with difficult patients, communication and collaboration with other healthcare team members to provide optimal care to hospi-talized patients, and counseling patients about their medications with trusted information taking into account their specific char-acteristics while dispensing the medication safely.

Dr. Maguy El Hajj, CPH Associate Professor and Head of Clinical Pharmacy and Practice Department said: “Due to COVID-19 pandemic, health consultations in Qatar and in the world started to be delivered through telehealth. It was amazing to have OSCE con-ducted virtually with our final year pharmacy students. I

would like to congratulate Dr. Ziad and the CPP team for their efforts in successfully imple-menting it.”

Dr Ziad Nasr, CPH clinical assistant professor and course coordinator said: “It was quite challenging to change the whole format of the OSCE and execute it online in such a short period of time given the uncertain cir-cumstances we are facing. But when there is a will, there is a way; and with the support of faculty members along with the dedication and perseverance of our final year students, we made it happen successfully.”

Bassant Amr, CPH fourth year pharmacy student and QU-CPH public relation officer, said: “Having the OSCE exam online was one of a kind, exciting and definitely unfor-gettable experience, a challenge we faced and decided to rise to. The idea of having it online was stressful for both students and

the faculty, but with the collab-oration and preparation, we made it happen successfully. Glad to be part of the first batch of CPH students to graduate with an online OSCE!”

Sara Thiab, CPH fourth year pharmacy student said: “This specific OSCE did not treat us as dispensing pharmacists. It high-lighted advanced pharmacist role in the provision of pharma-ceutical care. In addition to allowing us to showcase how a community pharmacist or a clinical pharmacist would act, more importantly, we were able to play leadership and public health educator roles. I truly enjoyed the diversity of the given scenarios; not easy nor impos-sible to get through, but were certainly challenging in their own special way. I would like to thank our dear faculty for their accumulated efforts to carry out the OSCE in its new online format.”

Lulu cautions public against online frauds

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Lulu Hypermarket Qatar has warned public not to fall for fake websites offering $500 coupons for shopping due to the current pandemic situation.

The scammers have launched a website http://lulu.bpromos.net on which people will be asked few simple questions like: Do you think Lulu is the best hyper-market? Will you rec-ommend Lulu Hypermarket to friends and family?

When a user answers in the affirmative, there is the next task-based level, in which a person is asked to send the message to 20 friends or five groups on WhatsApp to receive the $500 coupon to shop at any of the Lulu hypermarkets. There is also an option to make purchases online.

“This is totally fake and we have alerted authorities to take appropriate action. We urge everyone not to fall for such fraudulent messages and not to spread it further. Always refer to Lulu Hyper-market’s official social media handles for any updates and announce-ments,” said Lulu Hyper-market Management in a statement issued.

DPS-MIS students

attend online

workshop of

Qatar Debate

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Debate offered an online evening workshop on ‘Critical Thinking’ on April 7 from 3.30pm to 5pm which was conducted by the debate instructor, Abdur Rahman. Few students of DPS-MIS from class VIII to XI along with their coach Jaya Majumder attended the workshop online.

The workshop focused on various essential debating aspects regarding critical thinking, differentiating between fact and opinion, logic, well-reasoned judge-ments based on facts, exam-ining truth and validity, biases and their implica-tions, and calling out logical fallacies.

The instructor motivated the debaters to engage in debating. The debaters were recommended to use media tools to update themselves in current affairs.

The meeting concluded on a joyful note wherein the attenders gained knowledge in understanding the insights of debating.

QC projects benefit 844,334 last yearTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The number of beneficiaries of the projects implemented by Qatar Charity (QC) last year in Qatar reached 844,334 persons, at a total cost of more than QR130m in the field of social welfare, programs, and assistance. This come to support families with low incomes, those in debts, workers, and others.

This come within the framework of the “Charity Starts at Home” campaign launched by Qatar Charity as an expression of its initiatives and projects, which have been being implemented for the community service in accordance with the Qatar National Vision 2030 in the areas of economic, social and human development.

Qatar Charity extended thanks and gratitude to the phi-lanthropists, benefactors and donors in Qatar for their tre-mendous and continuous support for the activities and projects that Qatar Charity implements for various sections of society within the country

across the globe, hoping their constant support in the future.

The cost of domestic aid provided by Qatar Charity in 2019 amounted to more than QR84m, which was allocated for families with low incomes, those in debt, patients, widows, divorced women, people with special needs, the elderly, stu-dents, and others within Qatar.

Last year, this assistance contributed to repaying the debts for 110 persons in debt within Qatar, bringing social stability to them, especially before the month of Ramadan and Eids. The total value of these contributions amounted to more than QR60.5m.

QC continues its efforts during the current year 2020, which relieved many people of their trouble to reunite them with their families before the onset of the holy month of Ramadan. The aid covered 503 medical cases in 2019, by con-ducting medical examinations and providing treatment for them. The number of students benefiting from Qatar Charity’s programs, activities and aid reached more than 19,611

students.During the past year, the

total beneficiary families reached 5,000 families. Some 307 families with limited income, widows and divorced women benefited from monthly financial assistance valued at more than QR10.7m, while other families received lump sum aid to address the excep-tional circumstances they went through. .

Last month, Qatar Charity has decided to automatically renew the monthly aid dis-bursement to all of its regis-tered beneficiaries, including families with limited income, widows and divorced women, for the next three months without the need to appear in person.

In appreciation of the efforts of the workers in the field of construction and devel-opment of the country, Qatar Charity, with the support of benefactors in Qatar, has pro-vided aid to 630,420 workers, in cooperation with several government and private agencies, voluntary initiatives, schools and universities.

The number of beneficiaries of the projects implemented by Qatar Charity last year in Qatar reached 844,334 persons, at a total cost of more than QR130m.

QRCS treats 124 with chronic diseases last week, aims to reach 2,000 patients this yearTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Red Crescent Society’s (QRCS) Patient Support Fund has continued to cover the costs of treatment for poor patients. Last week, 124 patients with chronic diseases received the much-needed treatment, to avoid any serious health complications in case of delay.

These included follow-up patients with heart disease, kidney failure, cancer, rheu-matism, and autoimmune dis-orders. All the necessary pre-cautions were strictly taken to prevent Coronavirus infection risks.

This year, the Fund is planned to reach out to 2,000 patients, in addition to pro-viding social health support and other charitable services for up to 12,000 persons, with a total budget of QR11,230,000.

Over the past year, 1,605 poor patients were covered, 9,000 persons received social health support, and 3,395 persons benefited from the Cordiality Iftar implemented at hospitals during the holy month

of Ramadan.Under the bilateral strategic

partnership, the Fund works in cooperation with Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC). Other partners include AbbVie Biopharmaceuticals GmbH, Qatar Center for Organ Trans-plantation (QCOT), HMC Department of Gastroenter-ology, and Roche (a Swiss-based health care company).

The Patient Support Fund is a humanitarian program that addresses the needs of poor patients whose lives are badly affected by health problems. By providing the necessary med-ications and medical services, it helps to promote solidarity and compassion among the rich and the poor, with no discrim-ination on the basis of color, race, or religion.

Funded mainly from the revenue of charity paid by indi-vidual and institutional donors in Qatar, it ultimately seeks to enhance public health in Qatar, in light of the national health strategies, towards the human development goals of Qatar National Vision 2030.

Qatar Red Crescent Society’s Patient Support Fund continuing to cover the costs of treatment for poor patients.

The club also provided technical solutions to contribute to the efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 by developing a new plan that fits with the current situation, completely based on electronic and remote communication.

03SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2020 HOME

Vodafone Qatar

opens pre-orders

for iPhone SE

THE PENINSULA — DOHA Vodafone Qatar will open pre-orders for the powerful and affordable new iPhone SE at 3pm today (April 18, 2020) at www.vodafone.qa/preorders, that retails starting at QR1,699.

Featuring A13 Bionic, the fastest chip ever in a smart-phone, iPhone SE offers unparalleled performance with great battery life, and the best single-camera system in an iPhone that unlocks the benefits of Portrait mode.

Creatives have vital role to play amid COVID-19 pandemicRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

Artists and designers have a respon-sibility and an important role to play in creating solutions in response to the immense challenges posed by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s a responsibility that we have specially in a moment like this to act as creative practitioners to react to the moment that is so extraordinary for all of us. We have the responsi-bility and we have the skills to observe the world, to identify problems, to respond to the world, and to, perhaps, propose some solutions that might be helpful in dealing with a particular cir-cumstance,” Amir Berbic (pictured), Dean of Virginia Commonwealth Uni-versity School of the Arts in Qatar, has said.

Berbic was speaking at an online coaching session on Thursday evening which was hosted by Qatari fashion designer Fahad Al Obaidly and organised by M7, a creative startups hub dedicated to innovation and entrepreneurship established by Qatar Museums for the nation’s growing

fashion and design industry.Designing or advising others to

design face masks and fabricating face shields are some of the examples of immediate solutions that designers can do responding to the current situation.

“Our digital fabrication lab are producing face shields using acrylic and other materials that we have which will be helpful to some people within our community that need them. I was in conversation with the fashion design department on the possibility to fabricate vests for volunteers in the Ministry of Public Health so that they

can be recognised when they go out in the field,” he said.

On his advice to creatives in Qatar to become more relevant to the current situation, he said: “There are some people who can’t be stopped being productive, but for others they need assignments, so I think one way to deal with that is to give yourself assignments to respond to the current situation.”

He added that creatives can also respond to existing assignments to

keep them productive and at the same time make a contribution for the col-lective good, one of which is the World Health Organisation’s call for crea-tives to create public service announcements.

“It’s not easy but I think ultimately we can do a lot if we choose to really act and accept our responsibility as citizens and as creative professionals to be active in a time like this rather than wait for things to change. There are lots of people who are risking their lives for the good of the world so cer-tainly we can make a contribution,” he said.

While the world’s focus is mainly on containing the disease and searching for a cure, Berbic under-lined the importance of education.

“In addition to staying physically and mentally healthy in a time like this, I think academic continuity is the second most important thing to do right now. I believe in that mission and that’s what we are trying to do,” he said.

It cannot be denied that adapting to new circumstances set by virtual education has become a challenge for

professors and students of design as in many cases design creation and production are tactile.

“It comes with challenges but I think it might also lead us to some new pedagogical approaches or methods of doing art and design that we haven’t seen before. Every week brings new challenges, but so far so good. Human beings are resilient and I think artists and designers are particularly adaptable,” he said.

“Online education is not going to kill on-campus education but it might compel us to rethink or reevaluate the way we do certain things. The mag-nitude of the pandemic is extraor-dinary. We will certainly remember it, and it will certainly have an impact on us going forward,” he added.

The biweekly online coaching ses-sions which M7 started last week are aimed to guide and encourage aspiring designers. They are held every Thursday and Saturday at 6pm on the M7 Instagram account, @M7.qatar.

This evening’s session will feature Maryam Alsumait, co-founder of Makery, who will talk about service design.

Designing or advising others to design face masks and fabricating face shields are some of the examples of immediate solutions that designers can do responding to the current situation.

Online platform launched to support workers in QatarTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Connecting For Care, an inter-active online platform, has offi-cially launched to provide social support to quarantined workers in Qatar, offering members the opportunity to talk to someone in their own language about community-related topics, by logging onto www.cfc.qa.

The interactive Connecting For Care website will be resourced by trained volun-teers who will offer multi-lingual conversations with w o r k e r s , a n d

provide government-approved information about protective measures against COVID-19, including useful advice about staying fit and healthy and opportunities to continue learning Arabic and English languages, virtually. Through live one-on-one chats, conver-sations will take place in English, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Nepali, Bengali, Malayalam, Sinhala, Tamil, and Tagalog.

Developed in response to the current COVID-19 crisis, Connecting For Care is a digital community collaboration between Qatar Foundation

(QF), with the World Inno-vation Summit for Health (WISH) – QF’s global health initiative – playing an important role; Education Above All Foundation through its program Reach Out To Asia (ROTA) ; and Modaris (Dlala Smart), a local EdTech company that was founded by an alumnus of QF partner uni-versity Texas A&M University at Qatar. The initiative is endorsed by the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Transport and Communica-tions, as it complements the o n g o i n g w o r k o f

the government to tackle the pandemic. The volunteers, who are specially selected from ROTA’s extensive database, receive comprehensive online and virtual training to provide the service digitally from within their homes, ensuring physical distancing require-ments are maintained across both volunteers and com-munity members at all time.

By facilitating a connection between communities, the project aims to build bridges between the different members of society, improve literacy through training tools, and

contribute to the social well-being of all parties.

Providing a helpful and meaningful connection alongside physical health and language learning in the public health response to COVID-19 is of great importance to the multiple stakeholders involved in the Connecting For Care Project. People may find them-selves vulnerable to heightened stress during this time, and therefore this initiative aims to not only support people amidst the current health crisis, but to also reduce anxiety and fear during this challenging time.

Traffic Department launches fleet of modern patrols

The modern traffic patrols, which were launched by the General Directorate of Traffic, in order to modernise the fleet of traffic patrols, in The Pearl Qatar, yesterday.

Qatar Airways brings 436 Qataris back from Jordan

Qatari citizens at Hamad International Airport on return from Jordan, yesterday.

Lt. Col. Jabr Ali Al Kubaisi, Assistant Director of the Patrols and Traffic Investigation Department at the General Directorate of Traffic, said that these patrols contribute to enhancing the work of traffic patrols, as they have most sophisticated capabilities that enhance their performance of tasks.

List of discounted

products releasedFROM PAGE 1

According to list, QFM Flour No1 (5kg) will be sold at QR16; QFM whole wheat flour (10kg) at QR22.25, Yara pure sunflower oil (1.8litre) at QR11.75, Yara pure corn oil (1.8litre) at QR16, Baladna fresh yogurt full fat (2kg) at QR10, Rawa orange juice (1litre) at QR5.5, Lurpark butter (400gram) at QR14.25, Dandy orange juice (1.5litre) at QR8.25.

Under discounted prices for Ramadan, Baladna 1.5litre juices will be sold at QR8, Punjab garden rice basmati (5kg) at QR32, Al Kabeer chicken samosa (240gram) at QR6.25, Sadia frozen chicken (900gram) at QR11.25, Al Saffa frozen chicken (1200gram) at QR15, Brook Band red label tea (900gram) at QR26.75, Lipton Yellow Label tea (900gram) at QR35, Al Naseem Khalas Dates (1kg) at QR12.5.

Doha Film Institute launches first online screenwriting labFROM PAGE 1

Al Binali graduated from Qatar University with a degree in English Literature and Linguistics and holds an MA in Screenwriting from Goldsmiths, University of London. She has been working with the development team at DFI

since 2013, where she reads scripts and helps local filmmaking talent.

With an art and design back-ground, Al-Kuwari is a writer and art director, who holds a bach-elor’s degree in Fine Arts from Vir-ginia Commonwealth University,

and a master’s degree in Film and Screen Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London. He has worked on several short films as part of DFI’s Qatari Film Fund ini-tiative. His first participation in a feature-length film was on the set of Mira Nair’s ‘The Reluctant

Fundamentalist.’Earlier this week, DFI also

announced its first-ever online youth animation workshop, which is part of the Institute’s Youth Pro-gramme aimed at empowering young people to make films that address issues that are important

to them. Both programmes, which are being organised online for the first time, follow the success of the recently concluded adapted online mentorship and support program for the 2020 edition of Qumra, DFI’s annual talent incu-bation event. The online format

of the programme was introduced in lieu of the event which was can-celled amid global COVID-19 out-break, a decision, which DFI said was made as part of its contri-bution to the responsible man-agement and prevention of further spread of the virus.

04 SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2020MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

A group of volunteer theatre artists producing face masks at Hafez Theatre Hall converted into a workplace to fight against coronavirus pandemic in Tehran, Iran, yesterday.

Iran parades medical gear, not missiles on Army Day as coronavirus deaths hit 4,958REUTERS — DUBAI

Iran yesterday paraded disin-fection vehicles, mobile hospitals and other medical equipment to mark its Army Day as the country’s death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose by 89 to 4,958.

The total number of cases of infection in the Middle East country hardest hit by the pan-demic rose to 79,494, of which 3,563 were in critical condition, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said on state television.

A parliamentary report released earlier this week said the coronavirus death toll might be almost double the figures announced by the health min-istry, and the number of infec-tions eight to 10 times more given a lack of widespread testing.

Y e s t e r d a y ' s s m a l l “Defenders of the Homeland, Helpers of Health” army parade was held at a training centre before a group of commanders in face masks to underscore the military’s role in battling the highly infections COVID-19 lung disease.

It was a far cry from the typical Army Day parades, which normally feature spec-tacles of infantry, missiles, sub-marines and armoured vehicles, with warplanes flying overhead.

“Due to health and social protocols, it is not possible to hold a parade of soldiers...The enemy now is hidden and

Turkey to bring home 25,000 stranded expats for RamadanANATOLIA — ANKARA

Turkey will bring back 25,000 stranded expats from 59 coun-tries so that they can spend the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with their families.

National flag-carrier Turkish Airlines will bring them home latest by April 27 as part of an operation initiated by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Earlier yesterday, Vice- President Fuat Oktay announced the expat evacu-ation operation on Twitter.

Turkey has always stood by its people regardless of their whereabouts amid the pan-demic, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives across the globe, Oktay added. Ramadan is due to start on April 24.

Turkey’s Health Ministry will test the returnees for coro-navirus. Anyone showing symptoms will be taken to hos-pital, while others will be kept in quarantine for 14 days.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) will transfer people to their residence at the end of the quarantine period.

A total of 3,269 people will be brought back from Germany, the country with the highest figure of expats.This is followed by Saudi Arabia with 2,201 people and the U.S. with 1,632.

A total of 1,559 people will

be brought home from the U.K., 1,469 from Kuwait, 1,200 from Algeria, 863 from Ukraine, 861 from Iraq, 696 from France, 662 from Azerbaijan, 649 from the Netherlands, 543 from Canada, 540 from Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, 538 from United Arab Emirates, 488 from Poland, 455 from Spain, 380 from Russia, 394 from Northern Macedonia, 352 from Kyrgyzstan, and 341 from Switzerland.

Some other countries that will be covered by the evacu-ation operation are: Belgium, Malta, Egypt, Ireland, Moldova, Hungary, Romania, Czechia, Kosovo, Albania, Bahrain, Serbia, Italy, Sweden, Jordan, Oman, Iran, Sudan, Austria, Slovakia, Morocco, Thailand, Montenegro, Denmark, Ghana, Senegal, Benin, Qatar, Ethiopia, Somalia, Mauritania, Niger, Kenya, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, India, and Bosnia.

doctors and nurses are (instead) at the frontlines of the battle-field,” President Hassan Rouhani said in a message to soldiers, disseminated by state media. Army forces chief Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi thanked the more than 11,000 military medical staff fighting to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus in Iran, which has one of the world’s highest death tolls.

Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi warned earlier this

week that infections could spread further in autumn.

“We have to get used to living with the virus until an appropriate medication or vac-cination is found,” Harirchi said on Friday. A recent resumption of “low-risk” business activities “doesn’t mean that conditions have returned to normal,” he said, warning that the easing of restrictions could lead to increased infections.

So-called low-risk busi-nesses - including many shops,

factories and workshops - resumed operations on April 11 across the country, with the exception of the capital Tehran, where they will reopen from Saturday.

Iran’s reported temporary release of 100,000 prisoners since February including pris-oners of conscience and dual and foreign nationals to help stem the virus was welcomed by the United Nations on Friday as a good step but one that must be expanded.

Dubai extends 24-hour pandemic curfew by one weekREUTERS — DUBAI

Dubai has extended by one week a 24-hour curfew imposed as part of a sterilisation drive to control the spread of the new coronavirus, the government’s media office said in a Twitter post yesterday.

The UAE has imposed a nationwide nightly curfew since March 26 for the disinfection campaign, but Dubai on April 4 expanded it within the emirate to a 24-hour lockdown for two weeks.

The UAE on Thursday reported 460 new cases and two more deaths from the virus, taking its tally to 5,825 with 35 deaths. It does not give a breakdown for each of the seven emirates.

It has the second-highest infection count after its much larger neighbour Saudi Arabia among the six Gulf Arab states, where the total infection count has surpassed 22,000 with more than 140 deaths.

Oman announced the death of a 66-year-old resident with coronavirus yesterday, raising the country’s death toll to five, according to the country’s health ministry.

The Omani Ministry of Health announced the regis-tration of 50 new coronavirus

(COVID-19) cases, bringing the total number of cases registered in the Sultanate to 1,069 cases.

Twenty- Six cases belong to Omani citizens, while 24 cases belong to others, indicating that 176 cases have recovered, Oman’s ONA reported.

The Kuwaiti Ministry of

Health reported yesterday 134 coronavirus (COVID-19) infec-tions in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of infections to 1,658. It announced two deaths to bring the total fatalities to five patients.

Health Ministry spokes-person Dr. Abdullah Al Sanad

pointed out that the two death cases are related to a 58 years old Kuwaiti citizen and a 69 years old Iranian resident, Kuwait’s Kuna reported.

Earlier, the ministry announced the recovery of 33 new patients, bringing the total to 258 recoveries.

Kuwait’s Minister of Health Sheikh Dr. Basel Al Sabah said lab tests and analyses had shown the recovery of the patients. The minister explained that the already treated case will be admitted to a rehabili-tation ward before being dis-charged from hospital.

The Iraqi capital Baghdad’s Al Mutanabbi street, known for its book sellers, remains deserted yesterday, during the novel coronavirus pandemic crisis that urged authorities to shut down social gathering places in a bid to slow its spread among the population.

COVID-19 casesin Israel at 12,855

ANATOLIA — OCCUPIED JERUSALEM

The number of novel corona-virus cases in Israel has risen to 12,855, with 148 deaths, the country’s Health Ministry said yesterday.

A total of 148 people have died and 264 more tested pos-itive for the virus, while at least 182 people are in critical con-dition, said the ministry.

Meanwhile, more than 2,967 have gone on to make a full recovery.

The government has taken several steps to stem the spread of the virus, including closing all educational institu-tions and banning gatherings of more than 10 people.

All businesses except supermarkets, pharmacies, gas stations and banks have remained shut since March 15.

The capital Tel Aviv also banned the entry of foreign cit-izens except those with Israeli residency.

Iran says illegal US presence in Gulf causes insecurityREUTERS — DUBAI

Iran’s defence minister yesterday dismissed US reports of harassment by Iranian vessels as “baseless” and said the “illegal and aggressive” American presence in the Gulf was causing inse-curity in the region.

“What leads to insecurity in the Gulf region is actually the illegal and aggressive presence of the Americans who have come from the other end of the world to our borders and make such baseless claims,” Defence Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami told reporters in Tehran, according to IRNA.

The US military said on Wednesday that 11 vessels from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) came danger-ously close to US Navy and Coast Guard ships in the Gulf, calling the moves “dangerous and provocative”.

Palestine govt denies

receiving US aidANATOLIA — RAMALLAH

Palestinian authorities yesterday denied having received any aid from the U.S.

At a press conference Pal-estinian Spokesman Ibrahim Melhem while briefings about measures taken to combat the coronavirus of COVID-19 pan-demic said there has been no contact with the U.S government.

He said the Palestinian government did not need any U.S. aid. Official spokesperson, however, expressed appreci-ation to the American people and to the U.S. institutions that support Palestinian rights.

He was reacting to the statement of the U.S. Ambas-sador to Israel David Friedman who said that the U.S. was pro-viding $5 million to the Pales-tinian Authority to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.

According to the US-based John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, West Bank and Gaza have so far reported 402 infections and two deaths. This includes 95 infections in eastern Jerusalem.

In 2018, the Trump admin-istration had cut financial aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Pal-estine Refugees (UNRWA) and also slashed an aid of more than $200m to Palestine in the same year.

UN sends humanitarian aid to Syria's Idlib ANATOLIA — HATAY, TURKEY

The United Nations yesterday sent 56 truckloads of humani-tarian aid to Idlib, a north-western Syrian province where millions remain in desperate need of assistance.

The aid trucks entered Syria through the Cilvegozu border gate in Turkey’s southern Hatay province, which borders Idlib.

The supplies will be dis-tributed to people in Idlib city and nearby rural areas.

Syria has been ravaged by a civil war since early 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy pro-testers. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million remain displaced, according to UN esti-mates. Idlib falls within a

de-escalation zone laid out in a deal between Turkey and Russia in late 2018. The area has been the subject of multiple cease-fire agreements since then but the deals have been frequently vio-lated by the Assad regime. The de-escalation zone is currently home to 4 million civilians, including hundreds of thousands displaced in recent years by regime forces.

A girl stands near a woman on the rubble of a damaged building in the rebel-held town of Nairab, in northwest Syria’s Idlib region, Syria, yesterday.

Civilian killed in attacks by Haftar militias

ANATOLIA — TRIPOLI

A civilian was killed yesterday in attacks south of Libya’s capital by militias loyal to warlord Khalifa Haftar. Amin Al Hashemi, a spokesman for the Health Ministry of the Government of National Accord (GNA), told Anadolu Agency that 11 other people were injured in the rocket attack in al-Hashimiyya region.

Earlier in the day, a doctor of the Tripoli University Hospital in Ain Zara died in another rocket attack by Haftar’s militias.

As part of measures against the novel coronavirus, a cease-fire came into effect on March 21. Despite this, Haftar’s militias have continued their attacks on the capital. Libya has reported one death from the virus, 49 cases and 11 recoveries. It recorded its first case of the coronavirus on March 24.

National flag-carrier Turkish Airlines will bring them home latest by April 27 as part of an operation initiated by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

05SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2020 AFRICA

Africa’s billionaires called to help coronavirus fightAFP — KAN0, NIGERIA

Workers in the northern Nigerian city of Kano set out rows of new hospital beds inside two cavernous tents that have been hastily erected on the pitch of an empty football stadium.

The facilities have been built to become an isolation centre for COVID-19 patients as Africa’s most populous nation braces for a potential surge in infections.

The person behind this project is Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, who was born in Kano and has built up a per-sonal fortune on the back of his concrete empire that Forbes estimates at some $8bn.

Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and biggest economy, boasting a handful of billion-aires whose super yachts can be seen bobbing on the waters of megacity Lagos.

But it is also a land of vast inequality where almost half of the 200 million population live in dire poverty and years of neglect has left the health system in tatters.

Now those who have made it big in Nigeria’s cutthroat

business world are being called on to help tackle a crisis that experts warn could overwhelm the country.

At the end of February, a coalition of some 50 leading businesses spearheaded by Dangote’s foundation and Nigeria’s Access Bank pledged around $57m to bolster

capacity. “If everyone does their own thing then it creates a cacophony,” Zouera Youss-oufou, the managing director of the Dangote Foundation, said.

“So everyone puts in what they can depending on their size and they can pool resources.”

The private sector is building seven emergency

isolation centres in key cities and looking to help increase testing rates which currently languish at around just 5,000.

Around the globe, wealthy individuals from Bill Gates to Twitter’s Jack Dorsey have promised major contributions to take on the global pandemic. China’s richest man Jack Ma, the

founder of online retailer Alibaba, has dispatched over a million test kits and protective equipment to Africa.

So far Nigeria — and the continent more broadly —appears to have been spared the worst of disease.

Across Africa there have been some 18,500 documented infections and under 1,000 deaths, but experts warn the real numbers could be much higher as testing has been limited. Now, as the figures mount, businesses and govern-ments around the region are stepping up their own efforts to mobilise funds.

In South Africa, mining magnate Patrice Motsepe, the Rupert family and diamond kingpins the Oppenheimers have each pledged some $53m to help with the fallout of the crisis. The African Union (AU) has launched a public-private fund aiming to raise up to $400 million from governments, international lenders and busi-nesses to curb transmissions and support the medical response.

“We must now focus on efforts to marshal every resource at our disposal to

ensure that this pandemic is contained, and does not result in the collapse of already ailing economies,” South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

Tony Elumelu, the pres-ident of UBA bank and one of Nigeria’s wealthiest people, said that there needed to be a “Mar-shall Plan” to help Africa weather the storm.

“There is an urgent need for African governments and inter-national partners to step up with an emergency COVID-19 Economic Stimulus package for the continent,” said the magnate, who has offered $14m of his fortune to tackle the crisis.

But officials complain that getting big businesses in Africa and international lenders to cough up quickly for a con-tinent-wide push is not easy.

“For now, no one has really participated,” one senior AU official said on condition of anonymity. “The most inclined to give quickly are the Chinese. That is why we got the aid quickly from Jack Ma.”

We would like the African billionaires to follow that example but unfortunately too often it is a case of appearances only.”

A township resident carries a food package handed out by a non governmental organisation during a 21-day nationwide lockdown aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus disease in Cape Town, South Africa, yesterday.

South Africa scrambles to isolate prison virus cases as infection spreadsAFP — PORT ELIZABETH, SOUTH AFRICA

In the past two weeks, more than 55 inmates and 29 workers at the correctional facility in East London have been diag-nosed with the potentially deadly disease.

“This is a ticking time bomb,” said Ayanda Botha, whose nephew is serving a 10-year term at the over-crowded jail in eastern South Africa. “There is no physical distances in prisons, none at all,” he said. “So how do you expect to contain the spread?”

The tale encapsulates the problem facing the world’s jails, where close confinement is a red-carpet invitation to a res-piratory virus. Overcrowding and poor sanitation have prompted a growing number of countries to release low-risk prisoners after coronavirus was detected among inmates.

Botha hoped South African authorities would follow suit.

The country has registered the highest number of corona-virus cases in Africa, with 2,605 infections, including 48 deaths.

Its 242 jails house around 160,000 inmates, according to official figures, although data on overcrowding is not available. So far, only four prisons say they have detected the disease, prompting gov-ernment to opt for prevention rather than release.

The authorities are taking steps to disinfect facilities, reduce cell numbers and ensure infected inmates can isolate.

Some of the East London cases — which has more than 300 inmates and employs some 80 staff— will be treated in hos-pital. Justice Minister Ronald Lamola assured that all infected prisoners had been put in single cells on a separate quarantine site.

“We have absolute confi-dence in our Covid-19 measures and we are confident that they

will lead to recoveries that will ‘give birth’ to a correctional services free of the virus,” Lamola told reporters earlier this week. Family visits have also been restricted and testing ramped up in all detention centres.

“Even with the testing, I am not convinced that the net will catch each and every prisoner,” said Botha, who remained worried. Coronavirus outbreaks in detention centres are often traced back to prison officials who contracted the disease outside office hours.

The first case at the East London facility was a staff member who fell ill after attending a funeral in the nearly city of Port Elizabeth. South Africa’s correctional services department said it was consid-ering how best to deal with “officials attending gatherings and movements from their res-idences to places of work”.

Two suspected coronavirus cases were meanwhile reported by the St Albans correctional centre, on the outskirts of the city of Port Elizabeth in the same Eastern Cape province.

Dozens rally in Sudan to support Omar BashirAFP — KHARTOUM

Dozens demonstrated in eastern Sudan yesterday in support of toppled president Omar Al Bashir, eyewitnesses said, a year after the longtime dictator was ousted amid mass protests.

Yesterday's demonstra-tions in the eastern city of Kassala demanded the over-throw of a transitional gov-ernment led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok since September.

“Dozens of Bashir’s sup-porters gathered in the city centre after Friday prayers, holding banners... and chanting ‘down with Hamdok’,” said eyewitness Abdelrahman Ahmed. The protests, fuelled by growing economic hard-ships, were held defiance of a government ban on large gath-erings amid the novel corona-virus pandemic.

Another eyewitness, Hamed Mohamed Shahed, said that protesters had set out from several streets and rallied at a marketplace in the city, close to the border with Eritrea.

There were no immediate reports of the police inter-vening, but Sudan’s security forces dispersed similar small protests on Thursday outside K h a r t o u m ’ s a r m y

headquarters, site of a weeks-long sit-in last year.

Later, the army had sealed roads leading to the building with concrete blocks and barbed wire, saying they would remain blocked until further notice to “maintain security and stability”. Bashir was ousted by the army on April 11, 2019 following months of nationwide protests triggered by bread price hikes.

Hamdok took power as head of a transitional gov-ernment which was sworn in last September, but Sudan’s economy remains in deep crisis. The secession of oil-rich South Sudan in 2011 hit state revenues. Despite Washington lifting some sanctions in 2017, Khartoum remains on a US blacklist as a state sponsor of terrorism, stifling investment.

Earlier this month, S u d a n e s e a u t h o r i t i e s announced another increase in bread prices, with a Sudanese pound now buying only a 50-gramme loaf, down from 70 grammes. In response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the government has also announced a 24-hour curfew for three weeks starting Sat-urday across Khartoum state, including the capital and its twin city Omdurman.

Turkey’s medical aid packages are being prepared for a military cargo plane, that will deliver them to Somalia to support the fight against coronavirus pandemic in Etimesgut Air Base in Ankara, Turkey, yesterday.

Turkey sends coronavirus aid to SomaliaANATOLIA — ANKARA

Turkey dispatched a planeload of medical supplies on Friday to Somalia in order to aid its fight against the novel coronavirus.

The aircraft will land in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu. In line with its policy of helping countries in need, Turkey has dispatched aid to Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, as

well as Libya, Italy, and Spain, among others.

At least six health workers including doctors in Somalia have contracted coronavirus, officials said on Thursday.

According to the country's health ministry, the officials contracted the virus from a patient in the capital Mogadishu. Dr Ibraahim Guled, the secretary general of Somali Medical Association, is among

the infected.Somalia confirmed its first COVID-19 case in mid-March. Since then, a total of 80 people have been diagnosed with the disease. Five people have also died, along with two regaining health.

The African nation, in order to contain the pandemic, imposed a night curfew in Mogadishu from Wednesday. Schools and universities, mean-while, are already closed.

Algeria mobilises prisoners to make virus protection gearAFP — ALGIERS

Inmates at 30 Algerian prisons are being mobilised to make personal protective equipment to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, official news agency APS reported.

Authorities will “open sewing workshops for the pro-duction of 200,000 masks by prisoners in 30 penitentiaries... to meet their own needs and those of the courts”, prisons chief Faycal Bourbala said.

Prisoners will also make clothing and protective suits for medical personnel, he added, with disinfection chambers also

being manufactured at three facilities.

Prisoners will take part on a voluntary basis at the sewing workshops, which already exist and mainly attract female detainees who want to become dressmakers.

Authorities say no con-firmed cases of the COVID-19 illness have been detected among 58,000 inmates at the country ’s 150 prison facilities.

Since the start of the out-break, the justice ministry has suspended family visits and ordered new prisoners into 14-day quarantines in isolated

rooms. Inmates are not allowed to leave the prisons except in case of emergency, and all direct contact with their lawyers has been banned.

According to officially

declared figures, Algeria has seen Africa’s deadliest corona-virus outbreak so far.

It has seen 348 deaths and 2,268 cases since the end of February, from a population of 44 million.

In this file photo taken on June 13, 2019, policemen stand guard outside the El Harrach prison in the suburbs of the capital Algiers.

AFP — TUNIS

Tunisian engineers have created a web-based platform that scans lung X-rays and evaluates whether patients are likely to be suffering from the novel coronavirus.

While it’s not the first initiative of its kind in the world, its creators say it is the first to be openly available. And though not a diagnostic tool, the technology pro-vides a “90 percent” reliable indication of the probability of infection, they add.

Teachers and students at the Tunisian engineering and technology institute INSAT have been developing the platform — Covid-19 Exam Ct/XR images by AI —since mid-March, with the support of

German development agency GIZ, the Italian Society of Medical Radiology and US tech giant IBM.

Thousands of X-rays of the lungs of both healthy people and COVID-19 patients have been fed into the platform, allowing arti-ficial intelligence to learn to recognise the marks of the virus on the lungs.

Improvements still need to be made for patients presenting with few symptoms, but the technology “allows the classifi-cation of a large number of images in a very short time, at low cost,” Mustapha Hamdi, an academic and one of the plat-form’s developers, said. “The more images we upload to the platform, the more exact and reliable it becomes.”

It is still in the test phase, under eval-uation by Tunisia’s health ministry. But if approved, the technology would be par-ticularly useful in areas of the country that lack major hospitals and specialist doctors.

“The initial idea was to allow the remote interior regions (of Tunisia) to do mass analysis”, Hamdi said. Uploading an X-ray image to the platform and running the test generates a recognition score, he explained -- requiring just an X-ray image and an internet connection. X-ray proce-dures are inexpensive and common in Tunisia’s public hospitals. Fawzi Haddad, a doctor in Tunisia’s main hospital for coronavirus patients, called the platform “a very good idea”.

Tunisia researchers use AI, X-rays to create online virus scan tool

The country has registered the highest number of coronavirus cases in Africa, with 2,605 infections, including 48 deaths.

06 SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2020ASIA

Australia may keep COVID-19curbs for a year; NSW mullssending kids to school in shiftsREUTERS — SYDNEY

Australian public life could be constrained for another year because of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned yesterday, as the country’s most populous state mulled sending children to school in shifts.

Australia has so far avoided the high numbers of coronavirus casualties reported around the world after closing its borders and imposing strict “social dis-tancing” measures for the past month.

Restaurants and other “non-essential” businesses have closed and public gatherings of more than two people are banned under the threat of fines and even prison, measures that are expected to double the unemployment rate by mid-year.

In response, the daily growth rate of reported new infections has steadied in the low per-centage single digits, or less than 50 per day, from about 25% several weeks ago, for a total of about 6,500 infections, including 63 deaths. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said some measures,

like a rule requiring people to stand at least 1.5 metres apart, would likely remain for several months, given there was no guarantee a vaccine would be developed in that time.

“Social distancing is some-thing we should get very used to,” Morrison told radio station 3AW. “It could be a year, but I’m not speculating about that.” Mor-rison has said wider social dis-tancing measures will stay for at least another four weeks while advocating reopening schools across the country, citing medical advice that children are a low risk of transmission. That guidance has been contradicted

by several states and territories, which run schools, and brought a public backlash from parents and teachers concerned about exposure to the virus.

“We are considering our options around a rostering system which will have some students go back on a particular day to increase that level of face-to-face,” New South Wales (NSW) Premier Gladys Bere-jiklian told reporters.

“The alternative is that unfortunately students could face up to a year or longer at home and we don’t that’s appro-priate,” she added.

For universities which rely on fees from international stu-dents, the international border closure could cost them as much as A$19bn, Victoria University said in an analysis released yes-terday, forecasting a further A$38bn hit to the broader economy.

Morrison yesterday talked up the controversial rollout of smartphone software that will track a user’s movements, which the government plans to use to detect whether people have been in contact with others who may have been infected.

Indian fishermen, who said they were refused entry at two ports after a nationwide lockdown was imposed to fight the coronavirus disease, travel in the Arabian Sea attempting to reach to their home state of Maharashtra from the western state of Gujarat, yesterday.

Indian fishermen, caught out by virus lockdown, dock after weeks at seaREUTERS — DAHANU

Hundreds of exhausted Indian fishermen, who said they were refused entry at two ports after a nationwide lockdown was imposed to fight the new coro-navirus, docked in the western state of Maharashtra yesterday after about a month at sea.

The men were out in the Arabian Sea on March 24 when

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown, which has now been extended to May 3.

They tried to dock at Nargol in the state of Gujarat to the north, but said that locals, fearful they were carrying the disease, stopped them from dis-embarking. At a second Gujarat port, Umbergaon, locals pelted them with stones from a bridge,

they added. The fishermen, on around two dozen boats, finally managed to dock in the Mahar-ashtran town of Dahanu, 135km north of state capital Mumbai, yesterday. They were quickly whisked off for medical tests, according to a Reuters witness.

“It was stressful and we were scared because of the incident in Gujarat,” said a fisherman.

New Zealand PM sued over month-long lockdownANATOLIA — ANKARA

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s decision to impose a month-long lockdown to stem the spread of corona-virus has been challenged in court, local media reported yesterday.

Two petitions filed in the Auckland High Court likened the restrictions to “detention of

people” and said Ardern’s decision was “for her political gains”, the New Zealand Herald reported.

One of the petitioners argued that the alert level 4 lockdown, which remains in force until April 22, “has left them unlaw-fully detained and is not worth the economic cost compared with the low number of COVID-19 related deaths.” New

Zealand has 1,409 confirmed cases so far, while 11 COVID-19 patients have died in the country to date. The petitioner, however, claimed Prime Minister Ardern “had no grounds” to restrict public life, comparing her to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and the lockdown to the Holocaust.

“I don’t want my democratic rights to live in a society taken away on a whim,” the unnamed

petitioner said. The second petition claimed more people would die at home from diseases such as cancer “because they will not be able to get diagnosed due to hospital resources being focused on the fight against COVID-19.” “The Prime Minister made the wrong decision … all for her political gain,” the peti-tioner alleged. Lawyer Austin Powell, who virtually

represented Ardern, argued that the restrictions imposed to stem the virus’ spread did not amount to detention.

After hearing both sides, the judge reserved her decision but said it would be given urgency.

Ardern’s government will take a decision on the lockdown early next week, with expecta-tions that the alert level will be reduced and restrictions eased.

Nearly 25,000 prisoners to be freed in MyanmarAP — YANGON, MYANMAR

Myanmar announced yesterday that it was releasing almost 25,000 prisoners under a pres-idential amnesty marking this week’s traditional New Year celebration.

The release for the Thingyan holiday was announced in a statement from President Win Myint’s office. Mass amnesties on the holiday are not unusual, though the number this year was the highest in recent memory. Friends and family of inmates quickly gathered outside prisons to await the releases.

The president’s statement did not say if the release was related to calls to free them because of the hazard of con-tracting COVID-19 in the close quarters of prison. Myanmar has reported 85 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, including four deaths, but health experts believe the actual totals are higher.

Human rights groups estimate Myanmar’s over-crowded prisons hold 92,000 people, including those awaiting trial. It wasn’t clear if any political prisoners were among those being released.

According to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, there are 92 political prisoners serving prison terms, and other 124 in detention awaiting trial. The government has said it con-siders them to simply be law-breakers rather than political prisoners. The New York-based group Human Rights Watch

earlier this month said Myanmar should reduce its prison population immediately to curb the spread of COVID-19. London-based Amnesty Inter-national last week called on the authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners, whom it charges are victims of injustice.

Outside Yangon’s Insein

Prison authorities handed out face masks to the waiting crowds as buses full of those to be released passed through the gates. Most of those waiting had no idea if their relatives had been included in the amnesty.

“I’m waiting for him. I hope he’s on the list,” said 38-year-old Ei Ei Nwe, waiting in the heat for her son.

A man reacts as he will be released from Insein Prison in Yangon yesterday, as part of an annual amnesty to thousands of prisoners to mark its April New Year holiday.

32 dead asinsurgents,Myanmar military clashREUTERS — GENEVA

A surge in fighting between the Myanmar military and insur-gents has killed at least 32 people, mostly women and children, in the restive Rakhine and Chin states, the UN human rights office said yesterday, adding the military had destroyed homes and schools.

The Arakan Army, an insurgent group seeking greater autonomy for the region, has been battling gov-ernment troops for more than a year.

“Myanmar’s military has been carrying out almost daily airstrikes and shelling in pop-ulated areas resulting in at least 32 deaths and 71 injuries since 23 March, the majority women and children, and they have also been destroying and burning schools and homes,” UN human rights office spokesman Rupert Colville told a Geneva news briefing.

In response to a question, he said it was “very difficult to get precise information from Rakhine on whether the reported casualties are the result of targeting or were caught in the crossfire between the Arakan Army and Myanmar army”.

Myanmar mi l i tary spokesmen could not imme-diately be reached for comment on the report. The army has dismissed some of the accusations of civilian cas-ualties as fabricated.

Shelling in Rakhine state’s Kyauk Seik village on Monday killed eight people, two local officials and a resident said.

Nepal to rescue

migrant workers

stranded abroad

REUTERS — KATHMANDU

Nepal’s top court has ordered the government to bring back vulnerable migrant workers stranded abroad in the coro-navirus crisis after the country barred its own citizens from returning.

Up to 2.6 million Nepali migrants are estimated to be in the Gulf, Malaysia and Korea and labour rights activists say many have lost their jobs due to coronavirus lockdowns in those countries, leaving them highly vulnerable.

The government has banned them from returning home for fear they could spread the virus in a country that has so far registered only 30 cases and no deaths and is ill equipped to deal with a major epidemic.

But the Supreme Court, ruling on a petition filed by a human rights charity, said the government could not sit by while its own citizens struggled.

“The government... must take additional and effective steps to ensure the security and good health of its migrant workers,” the judge said in her order on Thursday, requiring authorities to allow them to return or provide help where they are.

Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali said the gov-ernment was assessing the sit-uation and collecting reports about the migrant workers’ conditions.

“We are sensitive to the interest of our nationals... and will fulfil our responsibility to ensure their welfare,” he said.

The People Forum for Human Rights (PFHR), which filed the petition, said the lives of many Nepali migrants were badly disrupted by lockdowns, movement restrictions and the closing of businesses in coun-tries where they work.

When Nepal ordered the lockdown, one man jumped into a river on the border with India and swam to the other side to get back home, only to be arrested by Nepali police.

North Korean leader's absence from event fuels speculation over healthREUTERS — SEOUL

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s absence from an important anniversary event this week rekindled speculation over his potential health problems, analysts said yesterday.

North Korea on Wednesday marked the anniversary of the birthday of its national founder and Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, as a national holiday known as the Day of the Sun.

Senior officials paid tribute to the embalmed body of Kim Il Sung enshrined in the Kum-susan Palace of Sun, state media KCNA said on Thursday. But did not mention Kim as part of the delegation, unlike the past. He was also absent from

photos released by party mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun.

His purported absence trig-gered speculation among experts that Kim, who is aged 36 and overweight, might be having health problems.

A spokeswoman at Seoul’s Unification Ministry, which handles North Korea affairs, said on Thursday it was aware that state media has not reported on Kim’s visit but declined to provide any analysis.

Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Korea’s Sejong Institute, said it was the first time in decades Kim’s visit to the palace on that holiday was not reported state media since he took power in late

December. “He has been going there on the birthdays of his grandfather and father to flaunt his royalty to them and sacred bloodline,” Cheong said.

“It is possible that there was a problem with his health or safety even if temporary, though it is difficult to assess how the situation might be.” Pyongyang fired multiple short-range missiles on Tuesday which Seoul officials said was part of the celebration. Such military events would usually be observed by Kim, but there was no KCNA report on the test at all.

Kim was last publicly seen presiding over a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party’s politburo last Saturday.

Scientists try ‘cloud brightening’ to protect Great Barrier ReefAFP — SYDNEY

An ambitious “cloud bright-ening” experiment has been carried out over Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in an early-stage trial that scientists hope could become a futuristic way to protect coral from global warming.

In an attempt to cool waters around the reef by making clouds reflect more sunlight, researchers said they used a boat-mounted fan similar to a snow cannon to shoot salt crystals into the air.

Results from the trial were “really, really encouraging”, the project’s lead scientist Daniel Harrison from Southern Cross University said on Friday.

“All the research is

theoretical... so this an absolute world first to go out and actually try and take seawater and turn it into these cloud condensation nuclei,” he said.

Harrison stressed that despite the success of the experiment, at least four years of further research would be needed to prove the theory.

Warmer seas caused by climate change have damaged the health of the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral system.

The experiment was carried out by the university and the Sydney Institute of Marine Science late last month, just before a comprehensive scientific survey found that the reef had suffered its most widespread coral bleaching on record.

Australia has so far avoided the high numbers of coronavirus casualties reported around the world after closing its borders and imposing strict “social distancing” measures for the past month.

07SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2020 ASIA

China says 1,290 virus deaths not counted in Wuhan, cites early lapsesREUTERS — BEIJING/SHANGHAI

Nearly 1,300 people who died of the coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan, or half the total, were not counted in death tolls because of lapses, state media said yesterday, but Beijing dismissed claims that there had been any kind of cover-up.

The central city where the outbreak emerged late last year added 1,290 more fatalities to the 2,579 previously counted as of Thursday, reflecting incorrect reporting, delays and omissions, according to a local government task force in charge of controlling the coronavirus.

Reflecting the additional deaths in Wuhan, China revised its national death toll later yes-terday up to 4,632.

The revision follows wide-spread speculation that Wuhan’s death toll was significantly higher than reported.

Rumours of more victims were fuelled for weeks by pic-tures of long queues of family members waiting to collect ashes of cremated relatives and reports of thousands of urns stacked at a funeral home waiting to be filled.

“In the early stage, due to limited hospital capacity and the shortage of medical staff, a few

medical institutions failed to connect with local disease control and prevention systems in a timely manner, which resulted in delayed reporting of confirmed cases and some failures to count patients accurately,” state media cited an unidentified Wuhan official as saying.

Suspicion that China has not been transparent about the out-break has risen in recent days as death tolls mount in many coun-tries, including the United States, with President Donald Trump on Wednesday expressing scep-ticism about China’s previously

declared death figure of about 3,000.

“Do you really believe those numbers in this vast country called China, and that they have a certain number of cases and a certain number of deaths; does anybody really believe that?” he said.

Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said yesterday that while there might have been data collection flaws earlier during the outbreak, China has “a respon-sibility to history, to the people and to the deceased” to ensure numbers are accurate.

“Medical workers at some facilities might have been preoc-cupied with saving lives and there existed delayed reporting, under-reporting or misreporting, but there has never been any cover-up and we do not allow cover-ups,” he said.

Wuhan’s total number of cases was revised up by 325, sug-gesting that some of the new deaths had been recorded as cases but not confirmed as fatal-ities, taking the total number of cases in the city of 11 million people to 50,333, or about 60 percent of mainland China’s total.

The topic “Wuhan revises its death toll” was one of the most read on China’s Weibo

microblogging platform, which is heavily moderated.

Many commentators praised the government for admitting its mistakes and correcting them, although some still questioned the numbers and one urged other provinces to reassess their data.

Doctors and government officials in Wuhan have been repeatedly questioned about the accuracy of the death toll by jour-nalists on government-arranged trips.

Some of those officials acknowledged that people may have died without being counted in the chaotic early days of the outbreak, before

testing was widely available.“There couldn’t have been

many because that was a very short period,” Wang Xinghuan, head of one of two field hospitals built for the outbreak, told reporters in Wuhan on April 12. He stressed that he was not speaking for the government.

It is not unusual in epidemics for case and fatality numbers to be revised after authorities carry out retrospective re-testing or reclassify the cause of infection or death. Before the revised Wuhan numbers were released, China said it had recorded 26 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, down from 46 cases a

day earlier, according to the National Health Commission.

It brought the total number of cases in mainland China to 82,367.

Of the new cases, 15 were imported infections, the lowest since March 17. The remaining 11 confirmed cases were locally transmitted, down from 12 a day earlier. The number of new asymptomatic cases increased to 66 from 64 a day earlier.

China does not include patients with no clinical symptoms such as a cough or a fever in its tally of confirmed cases. No new deaths were reported.

People wearing protective face amid coronavirus outbreak leave work after office hours at Central Business District, in Beijing, yesterday.

Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said yesterday that while there might have been data collection flaws earlier during the outbreak, China has ‘a responsibility to history, to the people and to the deceased’ to ensure numbers are accurate.

Japan PM urges people to avoid going out as virus crisis widensREUTERS — TOKYO

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a forceful appeal to the nation yesterday to stay indoors to avoid further coronavirus contagion, in his starkest remarks since the crisis began.

New cases hit a daily record in the capital, Tokyo, before the speech in which Abe said this week’s nationwide expansion of a state of emergency was prompted partly by fear that medical services could fail in rural areas home to many elderly.

“Please avoid going out,” Abe said, adding that reductions in person-to-person contact in Tokyo and Osaka, two of Japan’s

hardest-hit regions, were still well short of targeted levels.

“Everything depends on the action of each individual.” Abe, who has seen his support hit over his handling of the pandemic, also apologised for confusion over a plan to start distributing coronavirus relief payments next month. Abe said the widening of the emergency also aimed to limit travel, with Japan’s Golden Week holidays looming.

On Thursday, he had extended the emergency beyond just the main population centres, including Tokyo, that were covered when the measure was first declared on April 7. okyo remains the hardest-hit, with a record 201 additional cases

reported by its governor yes-terday, for a total of 2,796. Japan’s total infections stand at more than 9,000, with 190 deaths, according to a tally by national broadcaster NHK.

Japan’s Cabinet Office, which helps to coordinate policy, reported its third case of an official testing positive for the virus. The victim, who was not identified, is in his 50s and works on the council for science, tech-nology and innovation. He was confirmed to have the virus on Thursday, an official said. No ministers had been in close contact, usually defined as within two metres, since the man showed symptoms on April 10, the official said

Indonesia reports 407new virus infectionstaking total to 5,923REUTERS — JAKARTA

Indonesia reported yesterday 407 new coronavirus cases, taking the total number to 5,923 and surpassing the Philippines as the country with the highest number of infections in Southeast Asia.

The announcement came a day after an Indonesian official said the number of cases could reach 106,000 by July and follows criticism that a low rate of testing has hidden the extent of the spread of the virus.

Indonesia has accelerated testing and Achmad Yurianto, a health ministry official, said yes-terday 42,000 tests had been performed, up about three-fold in two weeks.

“Transmission is still occurring. This has become a national disaster,” Yurianto told a televised broadcast, in which he reported 24 additional deaths,

taking the total to 420, the highest number of fatalities from the disease in east Asia outside China.

Health researchers have said the number of infections could spike because of the traditional exodus from cities, known in Indonesia as mudik, after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. In a model seen this week, researchers at the Uni-versity of Indonesia forecast there could be one million infec-tions by July on Java, the coun-try’s most populous island and home to the capital Jakarta.

President Joko Widodo has resisted pressure for a total ban on mudik, though the head of the government’s COVID-19 task-force said those going would have to undergo a 14-day quarantine.

In a separate news con-ference yesterday, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said 75 Indonesians out of 717

contracted the coronavirus in India after participating in a gath-ering of Muslim pilgrims last month. Thirteen had recovered, she said.

The Tablighi Jamaat movement behind the gathering in India also hosted an event in

Malaysia that drew 16,000 fol-lowers and led to more than 500 coronavirus infections.

“We already had a plan to evacuate them. But we had to postpone it because everyone in the Tablighi Jamaat in India is in quarantine,” she said, adding

some also faced a “legal process”.Authorities in Maharashtra

have filed cases against more than 200 members of Tablighi Jamaat for allegedly helping to spread the disease, including by hiding in mosques, a police official said.

Laboratory staff wearing face masks stand in front of a new laboratory for the COVID-19 patients in Lambaro, Aceh province, Indonesia .

Pakistan to get $1.4bn IMF aid as virus cases top 7,000ANATOLIA — KARACHI

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will provide around $1.4bn to help Pakistan address the economic fallout of the coronavirus outbreak, the country’s central bank confirmed yesterday.

“IMF Executive Board approves a $1.386bn dis-bursement to Pakistan to address the COVID-19 pan-demic,” the State Bank of Pakistan said in a tweet.

“The outbreak of COVID-19 is having a significant impact on the Pakistani economy. The domestic containment measures, coupled with the global downturn, are severely affecting growth and straining external financing. This has created an urgent balance of payments need,” said Geoffrey Okamoto, acting chair of the IMF Executive Board, in a statement. With nearly 500 new cases over the past 24 hours, Pakistan’s overall coro-navirus count crossed 7,000 yesterday.

The Health Ministry said 497 more people tested positive for COVID-19, raising the total to 7,027.

The death toll climbed to 135 after 11 more patients died, while recoveries are up to 1,765, the ministry added.

Over 1,500 cases have been confirmed in Pakistan over the past three days, which health experts believe is the result of increased testing capacity, thanks to longtime ally China.

Kazakhstan provides humanitarian aid to its neighboursTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in an effort to provide economic support to his neighbours amid the fight against the coronavirus pandemic has taken a decision to provide humanitarian assistance to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, sending them 5,000 tonnes of flour, worth more than $3m to each country.

The decision was made after

appeals from the Kyrgyz and Tajik sides in order to ensure uninterrupted food supply to the population, according to a press release issued yesterday.

In a telephone conversation with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the President of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon expressed his gratitude for sup-porting the Tajik people during these challenging times and pro-viding humanitarian assistance.

He also expressed his

gratitude for the assistance in the evacuation of Tajik citizens to their homeland and in the transit of goods through the territory of Kazakhstan.

The telephone conversation between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, Mukhtar Tileuberdi and Foreign Minister of Kyrgyzstan, Chingiz Aidar-bekov, the Kyrgyz side expressed sincere gratitude to Kazakhstan for the decision to provide humanitarian assistance.

At the earliest possible time, the goods will be sent to their destination in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Kazakhstan as a responsible member of the international community continues providing the necessary humanitarian aid to countries.

In February this year, Kaza-khstan was one of the firs coun-tries to provide support to China amid the COVID-19 pandemic, carrying out several deliveries

of medical protective equipment.

The provision of humani-tarian aid is one of the important areas of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy.

The past years have seen Kazakhstan sending various types of assistance to Antigua and Barbuda, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Serbia, Syria, Turkey, Japan, and other countries.

Tajikistan leader’s

son named

Senate Speaker

REUTERS — DUSHANBE

The eldest son of Tajik Pres-ident Emomali Rakhmon was elected as speaker in the senate yesterday, cementing the family’s grip on power in the Central Asian nation ahead of a presidential election.

Rustam Emomali, 32, who also serves as mayor of the capital Dushanbe, was elected speaker of the upper house of parliament unanimously, the senate press office said.

Under Tajikistan’s consti-tution, the speaker assumes presidential powers in the event of the president’s death or any inability to perform his duties.

Philippines’ Duterte threatens martial law-like virus crackdownAFP — MANILA

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened a martial law-like crackdown to stop people flouting a virus lockdown in the nation’s capital.

Duterte spoke a day after authorities reported an upsurge of cars on Manila’s roads, which have been nearly deserted since a sweeping lockdown was imposed a month ago on about half the country’s 110 million people.

“I’m just asking for a little discipline. If not, if you do not believe me, then the military and police will take over,” Duterte said in a televised speech late Thursday.

“The military and police will enforce social distancing at curfew... It’s like martial law. You

choose,” he added.Duterte has repeatedly

threatened to impose nationwide military rule over the Philippines, where the mere words evoke the worst rights abuses of the Fer-dinand Marcos dictatorship.

The closest Duterte has come is the imposition of martial law over Mindanao, the nation’s southern third, in response to Islamic State-inspired militants’ siege of the city of Marawi.

As reported cases of the new coronavirus started to climb in March, Duterte ordered a quar-antine of the main northern island of Luzon, which includes the capital’s 12 million people.

Only essential workers and people buying food or medicine are officially allowed outside their homes, yet many others have flouted the rules.

America’s biggest companies have enjoyed record profitability in recent years, and the CEO-to-worker pay ratio has swelled to more than 300 to 1, an obscene spread when many workers struggle to afford housing, health care, child care and other basic necessities.

08 SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANSHEIKH DR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

m.salim@pen.com.qa

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI osman@pen.com.qa

EDITORIAL

LIKE the citizens and residents, the ambassadors of different countries are also lauding timely measures taken by the State of Qatar to curb the spread of coro-navirus disease in the country and minimise effects of pandemic on country’s vibrant economy.

A number of envoys in Qatar, in their opinion columns, published last week in The Peninsula appreciated role of the Supreme Committee for Crisis Management in managing the crisis with crucial steps taken promptly.

In the op-ed pieces, the ambassadors of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Nepal and Sri Lanka also thanked Qatar’s leadership for providing quality care to expatriate community members, especially migrant workers. They also lauded Qatar’s humani-tarian efforts of providing medical assistance to a number of nations fighting COVID-19.

Ambassador of India to Qatar, P. Kumaran, says that as far as our host country Qatar is concerned, there has been a fair amount of success till date in con-taining the spread of the COVID-19 within manageable levels. “The government has taken a number of decisive steps to address the crisis, including through reducing public gatherings, ordering the closure of non-essential businesses, imposing a ban on entry of foreigners into Qatar, and enforcing a lockdown of the Industrial Area which houses a large number of blue-collar workers.”

Syed Ahsan Raza Shah, Ambassador of Pakistan to Qatar, thinks that the State of Qatar is fighting against pandemic in ‘resolute and effective manner’. “It is indeed reassuring for me, that in keeping with its won-derful traditions, the State of Qatar has made no dis-tinction between citizen, resident or even visitor. Medical and healthcare support of the highest standard has been provided to everyone who has unfortunately been infected by the virus,” the Ambassador wrote.

The Ambassador of Nepal to Qatar, Dr Narad Nath Bharadwaj, thinks that the State of Qatar has been man-aging the spread of infection smartly and efficiently under the wise and enlightened leadership of His Highness Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Ashud Ahmed, Ambas-sador of Bangladesh to Qatar, says that Qatar is one of the countries that are handling the COVID 19 pandemic prag-matically and well-coordinated manner from the very beginning of the outbreak. “Qatar has again demonstrated its far-sighted leadership by taking right steps in right time for the health safety of all its residents without any dis-crimination,” he wrote.

Ambassador of Philippines to Qatar, Alan L. Tim-bayan, wrote that Qatar has taken considerable measures to mitigate the negative economic impact of COVID-19. “The way that the State of Qatar has tackled COVID-19 is the best and clearest represen-tation of its capability in handling the issues presented by the pandemic.”

Praiseworthy response

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OFFICE: TEL: 4455 7741 / 767FAX: +974 4455 7758

MANAGING EDITOR: TEL: 4462 7505

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR: TEL: 4455 7769

LOCAL NEWS SECTION: TEL: 4455 7743

BUSINESS NEWS SECTION: TEL: 4462 7535

SPORT NEWS SECTION: TEL: 4455 7745

ONLINE SECTION: TEL: 4462 7501email: INFO@PEN.COM.QA

PUBLIC RELATIONS: TEL: 4455 7613email: PR@PEN.COM.QA

ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT: TEL: 4455 7837 / 780FAX: 4455 7870, email: adv@pen.com.qa

CLASSIFIED DEPARTMENT: TEL: 4455 7857email: adv@pen.com.qa

SUBSCRIPTION & DISTRIBUTION: TEL: 4455 7809 / 839 FAX: 44557819, email: info@tawseelqatar.com

D-RING ROAD, POST BOX: 3488, DOHA - QATAREMAIL: editor@pen.com.qa

Quote of the day

We are shocked by the news that more than 30 Rohingya

refugees from Myanmar have died on board a boat in

the Bay of Bengal, and that nearly 400 others were found

dehydrated, malnourished and in need of immediate

medical attention after nearly two months at sea.

Rupert Colville, UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Spokesperson

Seasonal workers maintain a safe distance as they wait to depart for Germany during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, at Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport, in Otopeni, Romania, yesterday.

America’s top executives are warning of “economic catas-trophe” if workers don’t return in May, according to Axios. Several of them told the media company that “they want to have a hard national conversation about trade-offs involved in any wide-spread lockdowns beyond the middle of next month.”

That conversation needs to include a general increase in wages, probably not a subject the CEOs want to talk about. Amer-ica’s biggest companies and their CEOs have feasted on low-wage labor for years, even as evidence mounted that workers failed to make ends meet. It’s not that companies couldn’t afford to pay workers a living wage. Indeed, America’s biggest companies have enjoyed record profitability in recent years, and the CEO-to-worker pay ratio has swelled to more than 300 to 1, an obscene spread when many workers struggle to afford housing, health care, child care and other basic necessities.

Simply put, corporate execu-tives valued fattening their coffers more than looking after workers. So they hid behind shareholder primacy, the idea that enriching shareholders is their highest priority. They

complained that unilaterally raising wages would put them at a competitive disadvantage, even as they fought efforts to raise the minimum wage. They even blamed the market: If it decrees that workers should receive inadequate wages, who are they to second-guess it?

Any competent observer could see that the status quo was unsustainable. After all, the whole point of work is to make a living. If employers were unwilling to uphold their end of the bargain, what could they expect from workers in return? Some CEOs recently came to that realization, or said they did. The Business Roundtable, an associ-ation of top American CEOs, adopted a new “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation” in August signed by 181 CEOs com-mitting to “lead their companies for the benefit of all stake-holders,” including workers. Days later, Business for Inclusive Growth, a coalition of 34 multi-national companies, unveiled an initiative to tackle inequality at the Group of 7 summit.

Companies were slow to act, however, and now time is short. The complaints by CEOs are a last-ditch effort to avert two con-flicting situations. The first is a severe earnings recession. Public companies have begun reporting first-quarter earnings this week, and it won’t be pretty. Wall Street analysts have already slashed their 2020 earnings estimate for the S&P 500 Index to $142 a share from $175 when the year began. And that assumes business will return to normal in short order. If it takes companies

longer to wrangle workers, earnings are likely to take a deeper dive.

The second is a spike in wages. The coronavirus has laid bare that without workers to produce and consume their products, even the most formi-dable companies are just empty shells. The problem is that unless companies sweeten the deal, workers may not be so eager to return. After years of beaten-down wages and growing pay disparity, workers have far less to lose than their bosses. The federal government and central bankers have also conceded that they will have to spend whatever it takes to keep Americans fed and housed, so workers may rea-sonably decide that government assistance is preferable to flirting with the virus until reliable treatment or a vaccine is available.

That’s particularly true for the two sectors in the crosshairs of this crisis. One is consumer discretionary, which includes travel, entertainment and retail. Workers in that sector will arguably be most at risk when consumers decide it’s safe to leave the house again. They are also the most poorly compen-sated. My Bloomberg colleague Jenn Zhao compiles the median employee compensation for the biggest US public companies by market value. The average across 76 consumer discretionary com-panies was roughly $33,000 in 2019, which is the lowest of the 11 sectors and half the amount real-istically needed to raise a family of four in the cheapest places in America.

Returning to business is going to take a pay raise

/PeninsulaQatar

/ThePeninsulaQatar

/Peninsula_Qatar

/ThePeninsulaNewspaper

+974 6698 6188

www.thepeninsula.qa

Established in 1996

NIR KAISSAR BLOOMBERG

JARED DILLIAN BLOOMBERG

Doing “whatever it takes” to save the global economy from the coronavirus pandemic is going to cost a lot of money. The US government alone is spending a few trillion dollars, and the Federal Reserve is creating another few trillion dollars to keep the financial system from collapsing. A custom Bloomberg index measuring M2 figures for 12 major economies including the US, China, euro zone and Japan shows their aggregate money supply had already more than doubled to $80 trillion from before the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

These numbers are so large that they no longer have any meaning; they are simply abstractions. It’s been some time since people thought

about the concept of money and its purpose. The broad idea is that money has value, but that value is not arbitrary. Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker once said in an interview that “it is a govern-mental responsibility to maintain the value of the cur-rency they issue. And when they fail to do that, it is some-thing that undermines an essential trust in government.”

The dollar has no real intrinsic value, backed only by the full faith and credit of the US government. Under a fiat currency system, the gov-ernment says that a dollar is a dollar. Its value relative to things such as other currencies and gold is determined on global markets. Gold is con-sidered to be an objective store of value, and the metal’s rise in dollar terms can be expressed another way, which is that the

dollar fell in gold terms. That implies the market has ren-dered a decision on the value, or rather, the purchasing power of the dollar.

The three main functions of a currency are as a unit of account, a medium of exchange and a store of value. It is that last function that is most important. Ideally, a central bank would want its currency to retain its value over time. The era of flexible mon-etary standards, however, allow central banks to manip-ulate a currency’s value to help fight recessions as well as smooth out and lengthen business cycles at the expense of inflation. But even low inflation, say on the order of 2%, will greatly erode the pur-chasing power of a currency over time.

And if there are too many dollars in circulation, the

monetarists would say that the value of those dollars has diminished, eventually leading to higher prices for things. That theory hasn’t worked too well in the last decade, because inflation has been low and stable, but it is too soon to declare it discredited. The transmission mechanism that results in inflation is not well understood, even 45 years after the last great period of inflation.

It took a while, but it seems as though the US gov-ernment has decided that it has no constraints on its spending, as long as the Fed continues to monetize gov-ernment borrowing by pur-chasing the debt issued to finance expenditures. It’s not crazy to think government spending may reach $10 trillion - for just one year! And the numbers will go up from there.

Money is losing its meaning

09SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2020 EUROPE

UK launches virus vaccine taskforce; toll rises to 14,576AFP — LONDON

Britain’s death toll from the coro-navirus rose by 847 yesterday, health ministry figures showed, a slightly slower increase than the previous day but still among the worst rates globally.

The rise takes the total number of deaths in UK hospitals from COVID-19 to 14,576, leaving Britain behind only the United States, Italy, Spain and France.

The grim statistics came as British authorities said they had launched a taskforce to spearhead efforts to create and mass produce a coronavirus vaccine.

The government faces mounting criticism of its strategy to end a nationwide lockdown introduced on March 23, and renewed on Thursday for at least three more weeks.

“This taskforce is up and running and aims to ensure that a vaccine is made available to the public as quickly as possible,” Business Secretary Alok Sharma told a Downing Street press conference.

He said the group, led by Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance and Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam, would coordinate efforts by

government officials, academics and industrialists to find a vaccine.

Sharma said 21 new research projects focusing on the virus will receive government backing from a £14m investment fund to develop treatments and vaccines as quickly as possible.

But he warned Britons should be “under no illusions” about such a “colossal undertaking.

“There are no guarantees, but the government is backing our scientists, betting big to maximise the chance of success.”

Vallance added that the gov-ernment was adopting a broad approach because “each single project does not have a high probability of success.” Researchers at the University of Oxford said yesterday that its vol-unteers could be given the first dose of a potential vaccine within the next week.

Britain remains among the countries worst-hit by the pan-demic, with the latest data showing the number of reported infections has climbed to nearly 109,000.

In the latest 24-hour reporting period, 5,599 people tested positive, the health min-istry said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson

himself contracted COVID-19 and, after a week in hospital that included three days in intensive care, is now recovering at Chequers — the country estate of British premiers.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has been deputising in his absence.

Despite the rising toll of deaths and new infections, the government insists its lockdown is working and points to signs the pandemic is peaking in Britain, where the infection rate is believed to have dropped markedly.

“The worst thing we could do now is ease up too soon,” Sharma said.

Senior ministers have not yet said when and how the country might relax a strict

social-distancing regime that has shuttered shops and services and banned gatherings of more than two people.

And coronavirus testing that many people see as key to easing the confinement measures has expanded slowly.

Health Minister Matt Hancock, who had pledged to scale-up testing to 100,000 a day by the end of April, said yesterday that priority would be given to a group of key workers.

Police officers, the fire service, prison staff, “critical”

local civil servants, members of the judiciary and some other gov-ernment workers were among them.

But Britain remains far from its target, conducting just 21,328 tests in the most recent 24-hour period.

National Health Service workers take part in the 'Clap For Carers', in London, yesterday.

Virus toll in Italy edgeshigher; new cases seenamong family membersREUTERS — ROME

Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy rose by 575 yesterday, up from 525 the day before, while the number of new cases declined slightly and scientists warned that infections were now mainly happening among family members.

The daily tally of new cases stood at 3,493, down from a previous 3,786, with both deaths and infections extending the broadly stable situation in place over the last 12 days.

This plateau is considerably lower than the peaks reached around the end of March, but the downtrend has not pro-ceeded as was widely hoped in a country that has been in lockdown for almost six weeks.

“Probably most of the infections that have occurred since the lockdown have occurred within families,” Gio-vanni Rezza, a director of Italy’s top health body, the Superior Health Institute (ISS), told a news conference.

Nuclear physicist Paolo

Branchini, who has been focusing on the trend of cases and deaths in Italy, told daily Corriere della Sera yesterday that the lockdown initially put a lid on infections but had now “exhausted its beneficial effect”.

Branchini said that because the main source of infections was now within families, the only way to reduce deaths and cases further was to put all people who tested positive in dedicated centres away from their relatives.

The official death toll since the outbreak came to light on February 21 has risen to 22,745, the Civil Protection Agency said, the second highest in the world after that of the United States.

However, the Italian authorities acknowledge that the true number of fatalities is much higher.

The Superior Health Institute said a survey on a sample of nursing homes sug-gested more than 40 percent of residents who died from

February 1 to April 15 had either tested positive for the new coronavirus or had symptoms consistent with the disease.

The government has said its tough restrictions on movement and the closure of most busi-nesses will continue at least until May 3, but there is not yet any clear plan over to what extent, or how gradually, it will then be lifted.

In the meantime, some of Italy’s 20 regions are threat-ening to take autonomous action. Luca Zaia, the head of

the northern Veneto region which has made particular progress in bringing the out-break under control, said yes-terday he wanted to relax restrictions before May 3.

“The lockdown doesn’t exist anymore,” Zaia told reporters, in reference to the government having allowed a few types of business to reopen over the last week.

In response, the chief of the southern Campania region around Naples, Vincenzo De Luca, said if northern regions

did not respect all the curbs in place, Campania would “close its borders” and refuse entry to non-residents for any reason.

The outbreak remains heavily concentrated in the northern regions of Lombardy, around the financial capital Milan, and neighbouring Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna. The number of offi-cially confirmed cases in Italy yesterday totalled 172,434, the third highest global tally behind those of the United States and Spain.

France finds more than 1,000 virus cases on aircraft carrierAP — PARIS

The French navy is investigating how the coronavirus infected more than 1,000 sailors aboard the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, amid growing pressure on government leaders to explain how it could have happened.

The ship, France’s biggest carrier and the flagship of its navy, is undergoing a lengthy dis-infection process since returning to its home base in Toulon five days ago.

One person remains in intensive care and some 20

others hospitalized, navy spokesman Cmdr. Eric Lavault said.

Two of four US sailors serving aboard the Charles de Gaulle as part of an exchange programme also tested positive, according to a US Navy statement. A British sailor was aboard another vessel, Lavault said, refusing to reveal the sailor’s health status.

Lavault insisted that the air-craft carrier’s commander sought to increase the physical distance among the crew on the vessel, where there was no testing equipment and for most of its

three months on operations, no masks. It is “very difficult to apply social distancing measures … on a combat vessel,” Lavault said.

But “security of the crew is the first concern. A combat ship, especially an aircraft carrier, is nothing without its crew.”

A similar outbreak on the USS Theodore Roosevelt and a dispute about how the at-sea health crisis was handled led to the firing of its captain and the resignation this month of the acting US Navy secretary.

The French navy has been spared major controversy so far,

but the defense minister and the head of the French military’s health service arm were ques-tioned Friday about the infections at parliamentary hearings.

Defence Minister Florence Parly told lawmakers that 1,081 of the 2,300 people aboard the Charles de Gaulle and its escort vessels have tested positive so far — nearly half the overall per-sonnel. While the virus has immobilised the immense and important ship, Parly insisted that otherwise “our forces continue to assure the defence of our country at sea, under the sea, on

land and in the air.” An investigation to retrace

the paths of the personnel is in progress. Lavault noted that the aircraft carrier made a call in the French port of Brest, on the Atlantic Ocean, had been in the North Sea as part of a “naval diplomacy” mission with Nato partners, and had stopped in Cyprus during an operation in the eastern Mediterranean Sea to join in the fight against the IS group.

So far, 350 crew members have been grilled about their movements on and off the vessel, according to Lavault.

People going to receive the protective masks being distributed free of cost, in Rome, yesterday.

Ireland mulls tougher airport checks against coronavirusREUTERS — DUBLIN

Ireland may have to bring in more stringent checks at its airports to ensure the corona-virus remains contained whenever the country eases stay-home restrictions, Health Minister Simon Harris said yesterday.

“I would not rule out the fact that we may need to be more stringent in relation to our airports, particularly as we move out of the very, very, very serious restrictions that are in place,” Harris told the Newstalk radio station in an interview.

“There may then be a need for more stringent checks to make sure that while we’re all doing what we’re meant to be doing here, that we don’t have other people coming in who aren’t taking it perhaps as seri-ously in their countries as we are here.”

Sweden to ramp

up virus testingAFP — STOCKHOLM

The government said yesterday that testing for COVID-19 would be dramatically increased as Sweden maintains its softer stance on curbing the spread of the novel corona-virus.

It would be rolled out over coming weeks and primarily target those in key roles, such as police and firefighters, in addition to patients with severe symptoms and healthcare per-sonnel who are already prior-itised, to allow them to return to work faster after showing symptoms.

“We are talking about testing and analysis capacity of 50,000, perhaps as many as 100,000, a week,” Health Min-ister Lena Hallengren told a press conference.

So far almost 75,000 people have been tested in Sweden, Hallengren said.

The Public Health Agency said it had looked at the whole testing chain and would lev-erage new actors, such as employers, to collect samples via take-home kits and private sector companies to help analysis.

Sweden has not imposed the extraordinary lockdown measures seen across Europe, instead urging people to take responsibility and follow official recommendations.

The government has banned gatherings of more than 50 people and barred visits to nursing homes. On Thursday, Sweden reported 12,540 con-firmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,333 deaths.

COVID-19 toll in Spain reaches 19,478 with 585 new fatalitiesAFP — MADRID

Spain’s death toll spiralled towards 19,500 yesterday as the government revised its data collection methodology despite controversy over a system that counts only deaths among those who tested positive.

The country reported 585 new fatalities in the past 24 hours, but it was difficult to compare with previous tolls after the government amended its counting mechanism.

The total number of deaths in Spain now stands at 19,478, the third-highest in the world after the United States and Italy.

The government issued revised guidelines overnight for reporting deaths in order to standardise the data sent in from the country’s 17 auton-

omous regions.The change was an apparent

move to eliminate any deaths where the patient had not been tested for COVID-19. Officials said they would revise previous fatality counts, and also apply the new rules to death tolls moving forward.

“This could mean that some of the figures may seem a little strange,” said Fernando Simon, the health ministry’s emer-gencies coordinator, pointing to a “discrepancy” in the data supplied by one particular region.

There have been growing questions over the death toll in recent days with Madrid and Catalonia, the two worst-hit regions, this week insisting they had thousands more victims than the official count.

On Wednesday, Catalonia said it would use new criteria by including figures provided by the region’s funeral services who count virus victims and those who have died at old peo-ple’s residences or at home with symptoms compatible with COVID-19.

But not all of those victims would have necessarily been tested for the virus.

According to this new cri-teria, the region says it has suf-fered more than 7,500 deaths, while the ministry’s count gives a figure which is some 50 percent lower — 3,752.

Without mentioning Cata-lonia, Simon yesterday said that the data submitted by one region “did not have the con-sistency that we would wish to have in a data set”.

Health officials wearing protective gear as a precaution against coronavirus are seen with a patient at a hospital, in Madrid, yesterday.

Britain remains among the countries worst-hit by the pandemic, with the latest data showing the number of reported infections has climbed to nearly 109,000.

10 SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2020EUROPE

Top US and Russian diplomats discuss arms controlAP —MOSCOW

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed arms control and other issues yesterday as Moscow has signalled readiness to include some of its latest nuclear weapons in the last remaining arms control pact between the two countries if Washington accepts the Kremlin’s offer to extend it.

The State Department said

the two top diplomats discussed next steps in the bilateral strategic security dialogue.

Pompeo emphasized that any future arms control talks must be

based on US President Donald Trump’s vision for a trilateral arms control agreement that includes China along with the US and Russia, the State Department

said. Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to extend the New START arms control treaty that expires in 2021.

The Trump administration has pushed for a new pact that would include China as a sig-natory. Moscow has described that goal as unrealistic given Bei-jing’s reluctance to discuss any deal that would reduce its much smaller nuclear arsenal.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said yesterday that Russia’s new Sarmat heavy

intercontinental ballistic missile and the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle could be counted along with other Russian nuclear weapons under the treaty.

The Sarmat is still under development, while the first missile unit armed with the Avangard became operational in December.

The New START Treaty, signed in 2010 by US President Barack Obama and Russian Pres-ident Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to no more than

1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers.

The treaty, which can be extended by another five years, envisages a comprehensive ver-ification mechanism to check compliance, including on-site inspections of each side’s nuclear bases. New START is the only US-Russia arms control pact still in effect. Arms control experts have warned that its demise could trigger a new arms race and upset strategic stability.

The Trump administration has pushed for a new pact that would include China as a signatory. Moscow has described that goal as unrealistic given Beijing’s reluctance to discuss any deal that would reduce its much smaller nuclear arsenal.

Acrid smoke hangsover Kiev after firenear Chernobyl zoneAFP — KIEV

Thick smoke hung over Ukraine’s capital Kiev yesterday as forest fires smouldered on in the Chernobyl nuclear zone, but city officials said no radiation spike had been detected.

The acrid haze hindered visibility all over the city of three million people and the smell of smoke permeated homes as Kiev jumped to the top of high air pollution rankings.

A forest fire broke out almost two weeks ago close to the Chernobyl reactor that exploded in 1986 in the world’s worst nuclear accident.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian authorities said the blaze had been largely extinguished thanks to heavy rain.

But yesterday a thousand firefighters aided by two planes and three helicopters were still

battling a number of small blazes in the wooded area some 80km north of Kiev, the emer-gency service said.

The sky became clearer in the evening as Kiev dropped from the top of the list to seventh place in the ranking compiled by IQAir Group.

The smog has been blown in by strong winds from dozens of forest fires in surrounding regions, including from the nuclear exclusion zone around the Chernobyl power plant.

Yesterday, Ukraine’s interior minister Arsen Avakov and head of emergency service Mykola Chechotkin reassured President Volodymyr Zelensky that the smog does not pose a chemical or radiation threat.

Kiev authorities made similar assurances to residents in the capital.

“In Kiev, smoke and air pollution are being observed

as a result of fires but there is no radiation,” Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a video address.

Officials nevertheless urged locals not to go out without

urgent need and to keep their windows shut.

The Kiev air pollution hit a city already under lockdown due to the coronavirus epi-demic, with 4,662 confirmed

cases in Ukraine and 125 deaths.

In Kiev, people are allowed to walk outside but only wearing masks and not in groups of more than two.

Buildings covered with smoke from forest fires raging in the 30km exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in Kiev yesterday.

Russia to treat

virus cases

with malaria drugAFP — MOSCOW

The Russian government has authorised the use of an anti-malarial drug to treat corona-virus patients despite interna-tional concerns over its safety and effectiveness.

The government published an order on Thursday allowing the use of hydroxychloroquine on patients after China donated more than 68,000 packs of the tablets to Russia. The order was published after President Vladimir Putin had a phone con-versation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday evening.

It said the drug would be distributed to hospitals that are caring for patients who have tested positive for coronavirus or are suspected of having it. It said the drug’s safety and effec-tiveness will be monitored by the state health watchdog.

Hydroxychloroquine has been used for decades against malaria and is being tested worldwide against the virus along with another anti-malarial drug, chloroquine.

Bulgaria bans all travel to and from SofiaAFP — SOFIA

Bulgaria imposed on Thursday a ban on all travel to and from the capital Sofia after a spike in coronavirus infections and the risk for a further spread over the Orthodox Easter.

“From midnight until further notice we are banning the entry and departure from Sofia of all passenger vehicles,” Health Minister Kiril Ananiev

announced at a late-night press conference.

Exceptions will be made for transport trucks, ambulances, police cars, vehicles trans-porting people for treatment or medical staff, he added.

People travelling for work would need to provide their employer’s contacts in addition to the letter of proof required so far. They would also be allowed to leave and return only

during certain hours in the morning and evening.

The strict measures were taken after long lines of vehicles formed at checkpoints around the capital on Wednesday and Thursday as many disregarded calls from the authorities and left for the countryside ahead of a four-day Easter holiday in the largely Orthodox Christian country.

Previously Bulgarians have

been allowed to travel from the regional centres like Sofia only for work and for a limited number of other reasons such as health treatment or the need to take care of a sick relative.

But Interior Minister Mladen Marinov said that many were faking their letters of proof.

“Over 5,000 vehicles were turned back because they could not prove the necessity and urgency of their trip,” Marinov

said on Thursday. He could not give an exact number but said that probably several times more cars had left the capital.

Bulgaria has been one of the least affected countries in Europe so far, recording 800 novel coronavirus infections and 38 deaths, mostly in the capital Sofia.

The highest daily number so far of 53 new infections was recorded on Thursday.

Russia protests after Norway detains trawler near SvalbardREUTERS — MOSCOW/OSLO

Russia yesterday said it had filed a protest to Oslo after Norwegian coastguards detained a Russian trawler near a remote chain of islands in the Arctic earlier this month.

The Norwegian archi-pelago of Svalbard, about 850km north of mainland Norway, is seen as a potential flashpoint between Moscow and the West as climate change has opened up the resource-rich region.

Foreign Ministry spokes-woman Maria Zakharova said yesterday Russia was seriously concerned after a Russian fishing vessel named the Borey was detained on April 2, within Norway’s fishery protection zone that Russia considers illegal.

“We believe the practice of detaining foreign vessels by the Norwegian coastguard in the so-called fish protection zone is in line with Norway’s policy of illegally expanding its rights in the archipelago region,” Zakharova was quoted by TASS news agency as saying.

In a statement the Nor-wegian foreign ministry con-firmed the Borey had been arrested by coastguards, saying it was suspected of having con-travened Norwegian regula-tions relating to fishery oper-ations and catches in the fishery protection zone.

“The case was solved under normal procedure at sea and the vessel was released,” the emailed statement added, confirming the ministry had received a verbal protest from Moscow but reiterating the fishery zone had been estab-lished legally.

US-Russian space crew lands safely in KazakhstanAP — MOSCOW

A US-Russian crew landed safely yesterday in the steppes of Kazakhstan following a stint on the International Space Station and was greeted with extra precautions due to the coronavirus.

Nasa astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan. and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka touched down as scheduled at 11.16am yesterday. Their Soyuz capsule landed under a striped orange-and-white parachute about 150km southeast of Dzhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan.

Russian officials said they took stringent measures to protect the crew members amid the pandemic. The recovery team and medical personnel assigned to help the three out of the capsule and to perform post-flight checks were under close medical observation for nearly a month before the landing and were tested for the coronavirus.

Dmitry Rogozin, director of Russia’s Roscosmos space cor-poration, said the three astro-nauts were feeling well.

Morgan wrapped up a 272-day mission on his first flight into space. He conducted

seven space walks, four of which were to improve and extend the life of the station’s Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which looks for evidence of dark matter in the universe.

Meir and Skripochka spent 205 days in space, with Meir carrying out the first three all-women spacewalks with crewmate Christina Koch, who returned from space in February.

The crew members smiled as they talked to medical experts wearing masks. Fol-lowing a quick checkup, they were flown by helicopter to Baikonur.

The Intenational Space Station crew members Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir of Nasa and Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos are seen inside the Soyuz MS-15 space capsule shortly after the landing in a remote area outside Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, yesterday.

Orban defends moveto free up thousandsof hospital bedsAFP — BUDAPEST

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban defended yesterday his decision to free up thousands of hospital beds for coronavirus patients, despite criticism by some experts who say the move endangers the lives of people with other serious medical conditions.

On April 7, Hungary’s min-ister in charge of health ordered hospitals to keep at least 60 percent of the country’s around 70,000 hospital beds free for patients infected with COVID-19.

“We are right in the middle of a large military-like operation, which is causing discomfort,” Orban said in his weekly public radio address yesterday.

“Obviously, this was an uncomfortable decision, but we can’t solve it differently,” he said.

Hungary, which has a pop-ulation of almost 10 million, has recorded nearly 1,800 COVID-19 infections and 156 deaths.

But Orban said the number of cases was expected to grow significantly as Hungary “enters

a mass infection phase.” “We hope for the best, but

are preparing for the worst,” he said.

Hungarian media have reported that hospitals are struggling to relocate patients, some suffering from chronic ail-ments, either to other medical institutions or to the homes of family or relatives.

The abrupt dismissal of two hospital directors who failed to comply with the order sparked protests by staff.

Experts, too, argue that Hungary’s current rate of coro-navirus infections does not justify the move.

“It is not possible that 30,000 people will be sick at the same time,” Ferenc Falus, a former chief medical officer, told a press conference on Thursday.

“There will be a catastrophe if non-virus patients needing round-the-clock care are unleashed on families,” he said, adding that the government should instead erect temporary hospitals for coronavirus patients.

Small shops to reopen in Slovenia next weekAFP — LJUBLJANA

Some small shops in Slovenia will be allowed to reopen from next week, officials said yesterday, claiming that a month-long lockdown has brought the coro-navirus pandemic under control.

The number of those infected with the virus is no longer increasing rapidly, said the head

of the Health Ministry’s expert team Bojana Beovic.

The government said from next Monday small hardware shops, vehicle repair shops and dry cleaners could reopen if they ensure customers can keep enough distance between each other. Golf courses and outdoor venues for other non-contact

sports will also be allowed to reopen. From May 4, shops of up to 400s quare metres will be allowed to open again along with hairdressers and cosmetic shops. A ban on travelling between municipalities remains in force although people will now be allowed to travel to their weekend houses.

Coronavirus deaths in the US rose above 34,000 yesterday, according to a Reuters tally. The United States has reported more coronavirus infections than any other country, with nearly 670,000 cases.

11SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2020 AMERICAS

Trump taunts governors as virus-hit states grapple with reopeningREUTERS — NEW YORK

President Donald Trump lashed out at four Democratic gov-ernors yesterday for their han-dling of the coronavirus pan-demic, as tensions heightened between the Republican leader and states over how and when to ease restrictions put in place to contain the outbreak.

In a Twitter post, Trump taunted Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer by tweeting “Liberate Michigan”, an apparent reference to sharp criticism that included street protests over her strict measures to tamp down the outbreak in her state.

Trump directed similar “Liberate” tweets at Minnesota and Virginia, where Democratic governors have been the targets of similar protests from Trump supporters opposed to tough stay-home measures designed to contain the coronavirus.

At the same time, strains between Trump and Demo-cratic Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York erupted into quar-reling and pointed sarcasm in an extraordinary real-time exchange between Trump on Twitter and Cuomo at a tele-vised daily news briefing.

On Thursday, Trump unveiled guidelines for a stag-gered, three-stage process by states to lift restrictions on business and social life to curb the pandemic.

Trump, who is seeking a second term in a November 3 election against presumptive

Democratic nominee Joe Biden, played down the threat posed by the coronavirus in the early stages and has sent contradictory messages about the responsibil-ities of states and the federal gov-ernment in dealing with the crisis.

Public health experts and some other state governors have said that only a comprehensive testing program would help them to safely restart business.

Trump has pushed back against governors calling for the federal government to play a bigger role in increasing and coordinating coronavirus testing, saying it was up to the states to “step up their testing”. With more than 20 million Americans seeking unem-ployment benefits, states are under pressure to let non-essential businesses reopen despite a shortage of testing needed to prevent the outbreak from regaining traction.

The weeks of shutdown have affected about 97% of the US

President Donald Trump answers questions during an announcement of the administration’s guidelines for “Opening Up America Again” at the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington, US, on Thursday.

population. States meeting federal criteria can move into the first phase of re-opening later.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued three executive orders yesterday aimed at opening his state’s economy, the second-largest in the country. Abbott said the opening would be slow and gradual and that it would be reversed if any outbreaks occurred.

In heavily industrial Michigan, Whitmer said she hoped to begin re-engaging parts of the economy on May 1, but she offered no specifics. Michigan, a state that Trump narrowly won in 2016, has faced one of the fastest growing infection rates, but residents

have pressed to reopen the state’s economy, some even taking to the streets in protest.

The United States has reported more coronavirus infections than any other country, with nearly 670,000 cases. The infections and casu-alties are spread unevenly across the country, with more densely populated places such as New York and New Jersey suffering the most.

Coronavirus deaths in US rose above 34,000 yesterday, according to a Reuters tally. The United States got some good news on Thursday, when the number of new deaths declined after setting record high increases two days in a row. US

deaths were at nearly 34,700 yesterday, up by nearly 1,400 with many states yet to report.

Coronavirus confirmed cases in US passed 680,000, having risen by about 33,000 on Thursday. The number of new cases reported has increased for three days in a row and is the highest since a record high increase of 35,715 new cases was reported on April 10.

Sweeping stay-at-home orders in 42 states to combat the new coronavirus have shuttered businesses, dis-rupted lives and decimated the economy, and some protesters have begun taking to the streets to urge governors to rethink the restrictions.

Facebook offers a hug — from a distance — with emoji update

AFP — SAN FRANCISCO

Facebook is reaching out to give the world a hug — in the form of an emoji people can share while staying safely apart.

The lineup of characters available to express feelings in the social network will be expanded next week to include a well-known round yellow cartoon face with arms that gently embrace a red heart.

The move to express “care” adds to the existing emojis including the well-known “like” button and more recent icons to express love, laughter, sadness, anger and awe.

“We’re launching new care reactions on Facebook app and Messenger as a way for people to share their support with one another during this unprece-dented time,” spokesman Alex-andru Voica said in a series of tweets yesteday.

“We hope these reactions give people additional ways to show their support during the #COVID19 crisis.” It has been about five years since Facebook expanded its emoji options for expressing feelings by tapping on a character and sharing it with a friend.

The new symbol “will start rolling out next week globally and you can use it to react to posts, comments, images, videos, or other content on the app and Facebook.com,” Voica said. Facebook’s mobile Mes-senger service is getting a new emoji as well, this one a multi-hued bluish red heart drawn as though it is beating.

The use of Facebook and its services including messaging and video chat — used by more than two billion people — has surged as users around the world turn to the social net-works to remain connected during the virus lockdowns.

Comic-Con San Diego cancelled due to virus

AFP — LOS ANGELES

Comic-Con San Diego, one of the world’s largest pop culture gatherings, has been cancelled for the first time in its 50-year history due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The sprawling convention which draws Hollywood A-listers, billion-dollar fran-chises and 135,000 screaming fans each year had been due to take place in July.

But it became the latest major festival to be scratched due to the global pandemic, after California Governor Gavin Newsom this week indi-cated mass gatherings were unlikely to be allowed for months to come.

Organizers announced yesterday “with deep regret that there will be no Comic-Con in 2020”. Fans who had already purchased tickets for the four-day extravaganza will be offered refunds, or the option of attending in 2021.

Comic-Con follows other major US events such as the Coachella music festival, Las Vegas Cinema-Con summit, and SXSW media and tech-nology festival in Texas.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro wants borders reopenedREUTERS — BRASILIA

Brazilian President Jair Bol-sonaro yesterday called for the reopening of the country’s borders, as he pushes to restart South America’s largest economy, but conceded he may be blamed if the new corona-virus outbreak worsens as a result.

Bolsonaro fired his health minister on Thursday after clashing with him over lockdown measures, which the president argues are overly damaging to the economy and should be rolled back.

But the right-wing populist conceded yesterday that it’s not up to him to decide whether or not social distancing measures should be relaxed in states and cities after the supreme court ruled that governors and mayors are responsible for the decisions. The borders, however, are Bolsonaro’s to control. He said he had discussed the possi-bility of reopening land borders, particularly those with Uruguay and Paraguay, with Justice Min-ister Sergio Moro.

“Opening trade is a risk that I take, because if (the outbreak) gets worse, it will fall on my lap,” Bolsonaro said at the inauguration event for his new health minister, Nelson Teich. To slow the spread of the virus, Brazil closed its borders last month to nonresident for-eigners, with some exceptions, although cargo shipments

largely still flow freely.Medical experts say the out-

break of the coronavirus is still far from its peak in Brazil as cases and deaths, already the highest in Latin America, con-tinue to rise sharply. Brazil has 33,682 confirmed cases, with some 200 fatalities per day in the last four consecutive days, bringing the death toll to 2,141 as of yesterday, according to Health Ministry data.

Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria, who has clashed with Bol-sonaro over lockdown measures, yesterday extended the social iso-lation order in the state through May 10. Sao Paulo is Brazil’s most populous state and has been hardest hit by the virus. But there have been signs in recent weeks that lockdowns could be getting more lax, with a Sao Paulo gov-ernment analysis of mobile phone data finding that as of Thursday only 49% of people were in social isolation.

Incoming Health Minister Teich said at his inauguration that the outbreak could be further complicated in coming months when the dengue and influenza season hits the country.

Teich has previously written articles defending broad social isolation measures to combat the outbreak. But since his appointment was announced on Thursday, he has emphasized that he is aligned with Bolsonaro and seeks to strike a balance between the economy and health.

First SpaceX crewed flight on May 27AFP — WASHINGTON

A SpaceX rocket will send two American astronauts to the International Space Station on May 27, Nasa announced yes-terday, the first crewed space-flight from the US in nearly a decade.

“On May 27, @NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil!” Jim Bri-denstine, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Admin-istration, said in a tweet Since July 2011, the United States has relied on Russian Soyuz rockets

to send American astronauts to the ISS.

The US space agency had been aiming to conduct the crewed mission in May and is sticking with the plan despite the global coronavirus pandemic.

Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will fly to the ISS on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft also built by SpaceX, the company founded by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.

They will lift off at 4:32pm (2032 GMT) on May 27 from historic launch pad 39A, the same one used for the Apollo

and space shuttle missions, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Nasa said.

Behnken and Hurley have been training for years for the mission, which would move the United States closer to no longer being reliant on Russia for crewed flights. The Crew Dragon capsule is a modified version of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule which has been used to send supplies to the ISS since 2012.

It will take approximately 24 hours after liftoff for them to dock with the ISS. The length of their stay aboard the ISS has not been determined.

Mexico’s indigenous towns impose their own coronavirus lockdownsREUTERS — MEXICO CITY

Indigenous communities across Mexico have installed blockades and imposed curfews in a bid to protect their isolated towns from the new coronavirus, leaders and local officials said.

In areas of at least five of the country’s states there have been shutdowns in communities that are often used to self-organizing — whether by choice or necessity, according to com-munity members and local news reports.

Mexico’s health ministry has reported more than 6,000 con-firmed cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, which has killed about 480 people.

More than 70 of confirmed cases have been people that speak an indigenous language, and at least 13 have died, according to an open gov-ernment database.

Often far from any hospitals and with limited healthcare, rural indigenous communities may be particularly vulnerable to the pandemic, said Ramon Martinez of advocacy group Forum for Sustainable Development.

“There are no (healthcare providers) — it’s very pre-carious,” said Martinez, who spent 10 years working with the indigenous Guarijio people in northern Mexico.

The government declared a health emergency on March 30, ordering non-essential

businesses to close and asking the population to stay at home.

So far, it hasn’t called for curfews or stopped flights in and out of the country.

But in the hills of Oaxaca state, a five-hour drive from the capital of the same name, local authorities in Santa Maria Yaviche agreed to stop anyone entering or leaving unless there is an emergency, and no one can be out after 9pm.

Anyone not following the rules in the town of fewer than 1,000 people face fines, according to a copy of the agreement seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“In our communities often we don’t realize how bad the situation is, because we’ve

always lived isolated and resolved problems in com-munity and in solidarity,” said Oswaldo Martinez, who hosts a radio show in Yaviche in the local Zapotec language.

The lockdown, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, “is a mechanism to make people aware of the seriousness of the situation”. Mexico’s interior min-istry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

About one-fifth of Mexico’s population identifies as indig-enous, according to government statistics body INEGI.

In the southwestern state of Michoacan, at least 10 indigenous Purepecha communities have restricted access to their towns amidst the pandemic, according

to Pavel Guzman, a spokesman for the state’s Supreme Indig-enous Council. “We’re scared... that the coronavirus will arrive,” said Guzman. “Once it does, we won’t be able to control it.”

The head of Mexico’s National Human Rights Com-mission (CNDH), Rosario Piedra, said in a phone interview that the institution was against towns shutting down of their own accord. “There has to be free transit, human rights shouldn’t be violated,” she said, adding the CNDH was providing information on protection measures to indigenous areas.

Only 1.5% of Mexico’s public hospital facilities are in rural areas, according to a 2018 report by the National Council

for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy, which measures poverty levels.

After years of feeling aban-doned by authorities, an increasing number of indigenous communities in Mexico have sought autonomy in recent years - many of these towns have been the first to restrict their borders.

In southern Chiapas state, the rebel Zapatista group ordered its villages to shut weeks before such measures were implemented by the federal government.

With the U.S. and Mexican economies in a bind, many indig-enous migrants who sought work elsewhere have been forced to return home to rural villages — potentially bringing the virus back with them.

US-Canada border crossingThe US-Canada border crossing is seen amid the coronavirus disease outbreak in Lacolle, Quebec, Canada, yesterday.

The Governor said the President should “maybe get up and go to work” instead of watching TV and accused him of favouring the airline industry and other business cronies in a recent bailout package that Cuomo said left little for the states. The Governor said that a total of 17,316 people were hospitalised across New York because of COVID-19, down from 17,735 a day earlier and the lowest since April 5.

12 SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2020AMERICAS

Medical workers at Maimonides Medical Center stand together for a portrait while on break in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US.

‘New York, New York’ rings out across Big Apple to honour medical workersAFP — NEW YORK

New Yorkers usually clap, bang pots and pans, or simply cry “thank you” out of their windows every evening at 7pm, honouring the health care workers risking their lives on the frontlines of the battle against the coronavirus.

But the evening’s ritual does vary. On Thursday, a volunteer choir called “Peace of the Heart” led thousands singing “New York, New York,” the beloved song made famous by Frank Sinatra.

That classic echoed across neighbourhoods for roughly 10 minutes, coming out of windows and balconies, according to people posting on Facebook and other social media.

“It’s iconic, it’s New York,”

said Robert Hornsby, fund-raising director of “Peace of Heart” about why they picked the song, “and it has a great message about getting out of it”.

He added: “it is beloved, it is well known, and if you just don’t know the words, you can just repeat the parts you do know.”

Streamed through the choir’s Facebook page, New Yorkers could sing along or simply play the music out of their windows and from their balconies.

Vivian Young, who lives on First Avenue with her husband and two children, said from behind a mask that the eve-ryday tribute to nurses, doctors and other health care profes-sionals improves morale.

“It’s something you look

forward to at the end of the day, instead of watching all the bad news,” she added. Her husband Mark, 49, said he hoped Amer-ica’s economic capital had turned a corner, citing the latest death figures and declining hospital admissions.

“I think you are going to see the markets rebound. People will want to be outside. They will fight to get a table at res-taurants,” he said. “Hopefully, I am right.” Yet, the ritual will continue for now.

Although COVID-19 appears to have stabilized in the state — after more than 213,000 infec-tions and over 11,500 deaths — Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday that he would prolong confinement measures in place across New York City for another month.

NY Governor slams Trumpfor ‘passing the buck’ on pandemic responseREUTERS — NEW YORK

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo yesterday launched a blistering attack on President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus crisis, accusing him of “passing the buck” to the states and favoring big business over communities hardest hit.

Cuomo, who had previously kept his criticism of Trump in check, unleashed a flurry of broadsides following a reporter’s question about the president’s comments sug-gesting New York had asked for too much aid that was never fully used.

The Governor said the Pres-ident should “maybe get up and go to work” instead of watching TV and accused him of favouring the airline industry and other business cronies in a recent bailout package that Cuomo said left little for the states.

Cuomo said that he had been quick to praise the pres-ident when the state was in dire need of hospital beds and ven-tilators and that his requests for help with those were motivated by the White House’s own dire projections for the virus.

“We built more beds than we needed,” Cuomo, said pointing to initial federal pro-jections on the impact of the virus which predicted that as many as 2.2 million people could die. “Our only mistake was believing your numbers and your projections.”

Cuomo, whose state is at the epicenter of the US outbreak,

accounting for nearly half of the country’s deaths, said the Pres-ident had repeatedly refused to help states with ramping up testing because it was “too complicated”.

He said he needs federal funding to significantly ramp up testing capacity and to fill a $10bn-$15bn budget shortfall that is hampering the state’s ability to fund such efforts on its own.

He criticized the aid packages passed by Congress to date for a lack of funds to hard-hit states like New York.

“Is there any funding so I can do these things that you want us to do? ‘No,’” Cuomo told a daily briefing on the coronavirus. “That is passing the buck without passing the bucks.” He spoke one day after the Trump administration out-lined plans for a phased reo-pening, starting with the states least affected by the virus.

“The federal government has passed three bills to address this crisis. Of those three bills the state governments have gotten precisely zero, zilch,

nada in unrestricted aid,” Cuomo said.

“Okay, it’s up to the states, but then don’t ask the states, don’t give them this massive undertaking that has never been done before and then not give them any resources to do it.”

On Thursday, Cuomo extended the closure of busi-nesses and schools in his state until at least May 15, but he has started to plan on a phased reo-pening that would hinge on keeping hospitalizations and other key metrics on a downward trend.

Cuomo said yesterday that a total of 17,316 people were hos-pitalized across New York because of COVID-19, down from 17,735 a day earlier and the lowest since April 5. Intubations and admissions to intensive care units also fell, he said.

Cuomo said that about 2,000 infected people were newly admitted to hospitals on Thursday, hovering at a high level, while the state recorded an additional 630 deaths, up from 606 deaths the previous day.

Waiting for foodPeople wait in a line around the block for a pop-up food pantry amid the coronavirus disease outbreak in Chelsea, Massachusetts, US, yesterday.

Paparazzi vie for scraps as Hollywood celebrities hide from virusAFP — LOS ANGELES

With Hollywood A-listers self-quarantined in their sprawling mansions due to the novel coro-navirus, Los Angeles’ notorious paparazzi have almost nobody to shoot — despite soaring demand for celebrity pictures.

The trendy clubs, restau-rants and movie sets which are typically surrounded by pho-tographers at all hours have been closed since California went into pandemic lockdown a month ago.

This has meant images of gossip magazine staples such as Ben Affleck walking his dogs, or

Cameron Diaz popping out for groceries, are a hot commodity, with dozens of paparazzi vying for the same photos.

“Every photo is with sun-glasses and a mask on at this point... those are the only pic-tures you’re going to get,” said Randy Bauer, founder of celebrity photo agency Bauer-Griffin. “It’s really not a pretty situation,” he added.

Bauer estimates that his agency’s photo output dropped almost overnight by 95 percent after stay-at-home orders were issued and most businesses shuttered.

His agency, which employs

around 20 photographers mainly on a freelance basis, went from issuing up to 7,000 celebrity pho-tographs a month to around 500. “That’s if we’re lucky,” he said. “The whole thing has been turned upside down.”

Paparazzi are just one of countless strands of the Hol-lywood entertainment industry decimated by the lockdown.

With movie premieres can-celed, traditional red-carpet photographers are also out of work. Ironically, the absence of these glitzy images — used by newspaper, magazines and tel-evision networks around the world — has heightened

demand for the street snaps delivered by paparazzi.

Even images of D-listers who previously wouldn’t have drawn global interest are being greedily snapped up by showbiz publishers. “It’s very bittersweet, because we’ve got the demand, but no supply!” said Bauer. “But you can’t have it all.” And there is another silver lining for those still in the paparazzi game.

The long-lens nature of street shots — often taken from cars — at least allows for social distancing, in contrast to the massed photographers previ-ously breathing down each other’s necks at premieres or

outside clubs. Of course, the industry’s controversial repu-tation means sympathy for paparazzi is likely to be limited.

“Some outside my house right now. Waiting, waiting for a walk that will never happen,” wrote model Chrissy Teigen this week in a tweet that drew 350,000 “likes”.

For the first time, gig workers are eligible for benefits due to the coronavirus, providing paparazzi with some relief. Still, with celebrity sightings in such short supply, the prospect of a big payday continues to draw many out to the same handful of Hol-lywood stars’ homes.

Zoom rolls out series of new measures as security fears mountAFP — SAN FRANCISCO

Videoconferencing platform Zoom is rolling out a number of measures meant to stem crit-icism over how it has handled security as users flock to the application during the corona-virus pandemic.

Zoom Chief Executive Eric Yuan laid out steps that the company is taking against problems such as data hacking and harassment by individuals who crash sessions in what is referred to as “Zoombombing”.

By week’s end, paid account holders will be able to select which regions their data is routed through during their sessions in a move apparently aimed at concerns over infor-mation passing through China where it might be subject to snooping.

“As a reminder, meeting servers in China have always been geofenced with the goal of ensuring that meeting data of users outside of China stays outside of China,” Zoom said in an online post.

The Silicon Valley startup also said that it is working with cyber-security firm Luta Security to overhaul processes and its “bug bounty” program that pays rewards to researchers who find security flaws in its operations.

Zoom also addressed a

recent report that users’ log-in information was being sold by criminals on the “dark web”. The credentials were likely stolen elsewhere on the internet, or by malicious code slipped into people’s com-puters, according to Zoom advisor Alex Stamos, former chief of security at Facebook.

It is not uncommon for hackers to take passwords and account names pilfered in data breaches and then check whether people use them for other online services.

Zoom said it is building systems to “detect whether people are trying out username and password pairings and block them from trying again.”

Improvements to Zoom security also include a toolbar to easily access features such as locking chats from strangers and making meeting password requirements a default setting.

“To successfully scale a video-heavy platform to such a size with no appreciable downtime and in the space of weeks is literally unprece-dented in the history of the internet,” Stamos said in a post.

Prosecutors from several US states are meanwhile inves-tigating the company’s privacy and security practices, and the FBI has warned of Zoom ses-sions being hijacked.

California orders sick leave for essential food workers

AFP — LOS ANGELES

California on Thursday ordered that food workers, considered essential during the coronavirus pandemic, receive two weeks’ extra paid sick leave if they are affected by the virus or quarantine orders.

Governor Gavin Newsom said the executive order would benefit “the people that grow our food... pick our food... pack our food, deliver our food, cook, serve and sell our food.” Almost all 40 million Califor-nians are under orders to stay home due to the pandemic, with the exception of essential workers such as health, security and public transit employees.

But many food workers, including farmers and grocery store attendants, continue to work in fear that they will lose their jobs if they call in sick, said Newsom.

“We don’t want you going to work if you are sick,” he told a virtual news conference.

“If you’re sick... it’s okay to let your employer know -- and still know that you’re going to get a supplemental paycheck for a minimum of two weeks.” Newsom said food workers could “easily dial it in, file for unemployment” but had con-tinued to work “at great cost” and with dignity.

“I heard a few grocery workers say ‘We’re called essential workers, but increas-ingly we feel like we’re dis-posable,’” said the governor.

“I want you to know you’re not disposable, you are essential and you’re valued.” The move, which applies to employees of large companies with more than 500 workers, was welcomed by the United Farm Workers (UFW).

“Protecting these small, tight-knit communities is vital to the protection of our food supply,” said UFW president Teresa Romero.

Many workers in the sector are undocumented, meaning they cannot benefit from the federally approved relief plan.

73% say worst is still to come: PollAFP — WASHINGTON

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say President Donald Trump was too slow in taking major steps to address the threat to the United States from new coronavirus, a poll published late on Thursday said.

According to the Pew Research Center, 65 percent said Trump was tardy in responding when cases of the COVID-19 illness were first

reported in other countries.The Pew survey was con-

ducted on April 7-12 among a sample 4,917 American adults.

It found that 52 percent said Trump’s public comments on the coronavirus outbreak are making the situation seem better than it really is.

Thirty-nine percent said he is presenting the situation about as it really is, while eight percent said he is making the situation seem worse than in reality.

The Pew survey found that 73 percent of US adults said the worst is still to come in terms of problems the US is facing from the outbreak.

With state governors also working on plans to ease up on economic restrictions, 66 percent said their greater concern is that states will lift restrictions on public activity too quickly. About half that number, 32 percent, said a reopening will not happen quickly enough.