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As the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment.A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers.By that time, hospitals in several states were treating thousands of infected patients without adequate equipment and were pleading for shipments from the Strategic National Stockpile. That federal cache of supplies was created more than 20 years ago to help bridge gaps in the medical and pharmaceutical supply chains during a national emergency.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyUS Hospitals Get Ready For COVID-19Now, three months into the crisis, that stockpile is nearly drained just as the numbers of patients needing critical care is surging. Some state and local officials report receiving broken ventilators and decade-old dry-rotted masks.“We basically wasted two months,” Kathleen Sebelius, health and human services secretary during the Obama administration, told AP.As early as mid-January, U.S. officials could see that hospitals in China’s Hubei province were overwhelmed with infected patients, with many left dependent on ventilator machines to breathe. Italy soon followed, with hospitals scrambling for doctors, beds and equipment.HHS did not respond to questions about why federal officials waited to order medical supplies until stocks were running critically low. But President Donald Trump has asserted that the federal government should take a back seat to states when it comes to dealing with the pandemic.Trump and his appointees have urged state and local governments, and hospitals, to buy their own masks and breathing machines, saying requests to the dwindling national stockpile should be a last resort.“The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile,” Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, said at a White House briefing Thursday. “It’s not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use.”Experts in emergency preparedness and response have expressed dismay at such statements, saying the federal government must take the lead in ensuring medical supplies are available and distributed where they are needed most.“States do not have the purchasing power of the federal government. They do not have the ability to run a deficit like the federal government. They do not have the logistical power of the federal government,” said Sebelius, who served as governor of Kansas before serving as the nation’s top health care official.Because of the fractured federal response to COVID-19, state governors say they’re now bidding against federal agencies and each other for scarce supplies, driving up prices.“You now literally will have a company call you up and say, ‘Well, California just outbid you,’” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, D-N.Y., said Tuesday. “It’s like being on eBay with 50 other states, bidding on a ventilator.”For nearly a month, Trump rebuffed calls from Cuomo and others to use his authority under the Defense Production Act to order companies to increase production of ventilators and personal protective equipment. He suggested the private sector was acting sufficiently on its own.More than three months after China revealed the first COVID-19 cases, Trump finally relented last week, saying he will order companies to ramp up production of critical supplies. By then, confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the United States had surged to the highest in the world. Now, the number of people infected in the U.S. has climbed to more than 312,000 and deaths have topped 8,500.Trump spent January and February playing down the threat from the new virus. He derided warnings of pandemic reaching the U.S. as a hoax perpetrated by Democrats and the media. As the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global public health emergency on Jan. 30, Trump assured the American people that the virus was “very well under control” and he predicted “a very good ending.”His administration was so confident that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Feb. 7 that the government had airlifted nearly 18 tons of donated respirator masks, surgical masks, gowns and other medical supplies to China.On Feb. 24, the White House sent Congress an initial $2.5 billion funding request to address the coronavirus outbreak. The next day, federal health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the virus was spreading quickly in the U.S. and predicted that disruptions to daily life could be “severe,” including school and business closures.Unfazed, HHS Secretary Alex Azar told lawmakers on Feb. 27 that “the immediate risk to the American public remains low.”During those crucial early weeks when the U.S. could have been tracking the spread of the disease and containing it, hardly anyone was being tested after a series of federal blunders led to a shortage of tests and testing capacity, as AP reported last month.Without data showing how widespread the disease was, federal and state governments failed to prepare.By the middle of March, hospitals in New York, Seattle and New Orleans were reporting a surge in sick patients. Doctors and nurses took to social media to express their alarm at dwindling supplies of such basic equipment as masks and gowns.Trump accused some Democratic governors of exaggerating the need and derided those that criticized the federal response as complainers and snakes.“I want them to be appreciative,” Trump said on March 27.At the start of the crisis, an HHS spokeswoman said the Strategic National Stockpile had about 13 million N95 respirator masks, which filter out about 95% of all liquid or airborne particles and are critical to prevent health care workers from becoming infected. That’s just a small fraction of what hospitals need to protect their workers, who normally would wear a new mask for each patient, but who now are often issued only one to last for days.Trump during a White House briefing on March 26 claimed that he had inherited an “empty shelf” from the Obama administration, but added that “we’re really filling it up, and we fill it up rapidly.”Federal purchasing records, however, show the Trump administration delayed making big orders for additional supplies until the virus had taken root and was spreading.HHS first announced its intent to purchase 500 million N95 masks on March 4, with plans to distribute them over the next 18 months. The following day, Congress passed an $8.3 billion coronavirus spending bill, more than three times what the White House had originally asked for.Eight days later, on March 13, Trump declared the outbreak a national emergency. That was almost six weeks after the WHO’s action. By then, thousands of U.S. schools had closed, the National Basketball Association had put its season on temporary hiatus and there were 1,700 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country.The government had already sent tens of thousands of masks, gloves and gowns from the stockpile to Washington state, which was hit early with a coronavirus outbreak. But state officials even then said the supplies weren’t enough.Federal contracting records show that HHS had made an initial order March 12 for $4.8 million of N95 masks from 3M, the largest U.S.-based manufacturer, which had ramped up production weeks earlier in response to the pandemic. HHS followed up with a larger $173 million order on March 21, but those contracts don’t require 3M to start making deliveries to the national stockpile until the end of April. That’s after the White House has projected the pandemic will reach its peak.On Thursday, Trump threatened in a Tweet to “hit 3M hard” through a Defense Production Act order, saying the company “will have a big price to pay!” He gave no specifics.HHS declined this past week to say how many N95 masks it has on hand. But as of March 31, the White House said more than 11.6 million had been distributed to state and local governments from the national stockpile — about 90% of what was available at the start of the year.Dr. Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, testified before Congress last month that the country would need roughly 3.5 billion N-95 respirators to get through the pandemic, but the national supply chain then had just about 1% of that amount.Greg Burel, director of the Strategic National Stockpile from 2007 until his retirement at the start of this year, said the cache was only ever intended to serve as a short-term “bridge-stock.”The stockpile was created in 1999 to prevent supply-chain disruptions for the predicted Y2K computer problems. It expanded after 9/11 to prepare for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks. Congress provided money in 2006 to prepare for a potential influenza pandemic, though Burel said much of that stock was used during the H1N1 flu outbreak three years later.“There’s never enough money to buy everything that we want to see on those shelves,” said Burel, who stressed the stockpile uses its annual funding to prepare for a wide array of potential threats.“Most of the time, commercially available products like masks can be bought in quantity at the time of an event.”This time, it hasn’t worked out that way. As AP reported last month, much of the world’s supply of N95 masks and other basic medical supplies is made in China, the first nation hit by COVID-19. As a result, the Chinese government required its producers to reserve N95 respirators for domestic use. China resumed exports of the precious masks only in recent days.Experts are now worried the U.S. will also soon exhaust its supply of ventilators, which can cost upward of $12,000 each.The White House said Tuesday that it had already distributed nearly half the breathing machines in the stockpile, which at the beginning of March had 16,660; some of them dated back to the flurry of post-9/11 purchasing. An additional 2,425 were out for maintenance.Cuomo said New York may need as many as 40,000 ventilators to deal with the outbreak that is already overwhelming hospitals there.Throughout March, governors and mayors of big cities urged Trump to use his authority under the Defense Production Act to direct private companies to ramp up production of ventilators. It wasn’t until last week that Trump finally said he would use that power to order General Motors to begin manufacturing ventilators — work the company had already announced was underway.The federal government had made an effort to prepare for a surge in the need for ventilators, but it was allowed to languish. Since 2014, HHS has paid a private company, Respironics Inc., $13.8 million to develop a cheaper, less complicated ventilator that could be bought in bulk to replenish the national stockpile. In September, HHS placed a $32.8 million order with the Dutch-owned company for 10,000 of the new model, set for delivery by 2022, federal contracts show.Respironics’ parent company, Royal Philips, said it’s planning to double U.S. production of ventilators to 2,000 a week by the end of May.Steve Klink, a spokesman for Royal Philips in Amsterdam, said the company is now focused on producing its other commercial models and will deliver the first ventilators to the national stockpile by August, long after the White House projects COVID-19 cases will peak.Trump, who pledged on March 27 that his administration would ensure that 100,000 additional ventilators would be made available “within 100 days,” said on Thursday that he’ll use the Defense Production Act to order Respironics and other ventilator makers to step up production.It’s not clear that Trump’s order would translate into the 100,000 new ventilators he promised. In a House Oversight and Reform Committee briefing last week, top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials hedged, saying 100,000 ventilators would be available by late June “at the earliest.”Cuomo predicted on Friday that New York would run out within days. With coronavirus deaths in his state surging, the governor vowed to use his authority to seize ventilators, masks and protective gear from private hospitals that aren’t utilizing them.Meanwhile, federal health authorities are lowering standards.New guidance from the Food and Drug Administration allows hospitals to use emergency ventilators typically used in ambulances and anesthesia gas machines in place of standard ventilators. The agency also said nightstand CPAP machines used to treat sleep apnea and snoring could also be used to keep coronavirus patients breathing, as a last resort.The CDC advised health care workers last month to use homemade masks or bandanas if they run out of proper gear. Across the country, hospitals have issued urgent pleas for volunteers who know how to sew.President Trump provided his own input, suggesting that Americans without access to factory-produced masks could cover their faces with scarves.“A scarf is highly recommended by the professionals,” Trump said during a White House briefing Wednesday. “And I think, in a certain way, depending on the fabric — I think, in a certain way, a scarf is better. It’s actually better.” 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was diagnosed with the new coronavirus more than a week ago, was admitted to a hospital Sunday for tests.  Johnson’s office said he was hospitalized because he still has symptoms 10 days after testing positive for the virus. His admission to an undisclosed hospital in London wasn’t an emergency.Downing St. said it was a “precautionary step” and Johnson remains in charge of the government.Johnson, 55, has been quarantined in his Downing St. residence since being diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 26.Johnson has continued to chair daily meetings on Britain’s response to the outbreak, and has released several video messages during his 10 days in isolation.In a message on Friday, he said he was feeling better but still had a fever.The virus causes mild to moderate symptoms in most people, but for some, especially older adults and the infirm, it can cause pneumonia and lead to death.Johnson has received medical advice by phone during his illness, but going to a hospital means doctors can see him in person.Johnson’s fiancee Carrie Symonds, 32, revealed Saturday that she spent a week with coronavirus symptoms, though she wasn’t tested. Symonds, who is pregnant, said she was now “on the mend.”The government said Sunday that almost 48,000 people have been confirmed to have COVID-19 in the U.K., and 4,934 have died.Johnson replaced Theresa May as prime minister in July and won a resounding election victory in December on a promise to complete Britain’s exit from the European Union. But Brexit has been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe.Johnson’s government was slower than those in some European countries to impose restrictions on daily life in response to the pandemic, but Britain has been effectively in lockdown since March 23.Several other members of Johnson’s government have also tested positive for the virus, including Health Secretary Matt Hancock and junior Health Minister Nadine Dorries. Both have recovered.News of Johnson’s admission to hospital came an hour after Queen Elizabeth II made a rare televised address to the nation, urging Britons to remain “united and resolute” in the fight against the virus.Drawing parallels to the struggle of World War II, the 93-year-old queen said that “while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.”
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The Midwestern U.S. state of Wisconsin is set to hold elections, including a Democratic presidential primary, on Tuesday, with its state officials at odds on how to stop voting during the national coronavirus pandemic.More than a dozen U.S. states have postponed Democratic presidential primaries in April and May between former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders until weeks from now in hopes by then that the effects of the virus will have dissipated enough to allow voters to show up at polling places to cast ballots.  But as of Sunday, Wisconsin’s vote is still planned, even if hundreds of polling places throughout the state cannot open for lack of Election Day workers. The workers by the droves have canceled their promise to work at the polls checking in voters from registration lists.Biden appears to hold an insurmountable lead over Sanders in pledged delegates to the Democratic presidential nominating contest in August and is likely to face Republican President Donald Trump in the November national election. But on Sunday Biden did not directly call for postponement of the Wisconsin election, telling ABC’s “This Week” show, “Whatever the science says, we should do.”Sanders has called for the election’s postponement.More than 2,100 confirmed coronavirus cases have been reported in Wisconsin and 56 deaths.A total of 41 U.S. states are under orders from their governors — including Democrat Tony Evers in Wisconsin – to stay at home except for essential trips out into the public, but Evers did not include voting as essential in issuing his edict.However, Evers and his Republican political opponents in the state legislature have been unable to agree on how the election should be postponed and the terms of how it could be held later. Numerous state and city elections are also on Tuesday’s ballot.Republicans have suggested that Evers did not aggressively push to win votes by postponing until recent days. On Saturday, Evers sought to move the voting to May 19 and convert it entirely to mail-in voting, but the legislature quickly adjourned until Monday without taking any action.Federal judge William Conley refused to stop the election saying he did not have the power to do so.“Let’s assume that this is a bad decision from the perspective of public health, and it could be excruciatingly bad,” he said last week. “I don’t think it’s the job of a federal district judge to act as a super health department for the state of Wisconsin.”Conley has ruled that absentee ballots should be counted if they are received by April 13 because tens of thousands won’t get their forms for absentee voting until after the Tuesday vote. He said that voters who requested ballots deserve to have their votes counted.On Saturday, however, the state Republican Party and the Republican National Committee asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block absentee ballots from being counted in the days after Tuesday’s election.On Sunday, the mayors of Milwaukee, the biggest Wisconsin city, and the state capital of Madison and other Wisconsin mayors asked state homeland security officials to make the decision to postpone Tuesday’s election.
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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that “low risk” economic activities would resume on April 11 as the country continues to battle an outbreak of the novel coronavirus. “Restarting these activities does not mean we have abandoned the principle of staying at home,” Rouhani said in a televised meeting. The president did not specify what constitutes “low-risk” activities, but said that “high-risk” ones such as school and large gatherings would continue to be banned until April 18.The announcement comes as Iran reports a decline in new infections for the fifth straight day, but the number of recorded deaths continue to climb. Over 150 people have perished from COVID-19 in Iran just in the last 24 hours, raising the country’s total to 3,603, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Health authorities have warned that Iran could see a new wave of infections and suspect that the current rate is underestimated. Rouhani has been resistant to lock down cities, but banned intercity travel until April 8.Economic experts warn that lockdowns could devastate the country’s economy, which is already inhibited by international sanctions.  
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The United States has linked international aid for Afghanistan to the settlement of a protracted political crisis, which has seen the war-shattered country politically paralyzed and threatens to derail a nascent peace-building deal with the Taliban insurgency.Separately, an American military spokesman has rejected insurgent allegations it was violating terms of the U.S.-Taliban deal signed on February 29.The political stalemate between President Ashraf Ghani and his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah, stems from the disputed September 28 Afghan election.FILE – Afghan presidential election opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah (L) and President Ashraf Ghani are seen after a press conference at the presidential palace in Kabul, Feb. 29, 2020.The national election commission declared Ghani as the winner but Abdullah, the runner-up, rejected the outcome as fraudulent. Both men held rival presidential inaugurations early last month.“It can’t be business as usual for international donors in Afghanistan,” Alice Wells, the top American diplomat for South and Central Asian affairs, warned in a tweet Sunday.“International aid requires partnership with an inclusive government and we all must hold Afghan leaders accountable to agree on a governing arrangement,” wrote Wells, the principal deputy assistant secretary.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, meets with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, at the Presidential Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 23, 2020.On March 23, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo visited Kabul to mediate between the two Afghan rivals but failed in his mission. Pompeo immediately announced a $1 billion reduction in aid to Afghanistan this year, and potentially another $1 billion in 2021 unless the political feud is settled and an inclusive government is formed in Kabul.US-Taliban Deal under ScrutinyOn Sunday, the Taliban accused Washington of not upholding commitments under the agreement the two adversaries signed in Doha, Qatar.The insurgent group asserted and alleged that while it is respecting the deal and reducing battlefield violence, American and coalition forces in recent days have carried out airstrikes against non-combat targets in Taliban-held areas.The Taliban statement listed a number of other alleged violations, including the delay in releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners under a prisoner swap with the Afghan government, a move it said outlined in the accord.“If such a breach continued, it would create an atmosphere of mistrust that will not only damage the agreements; but also force Mujahideen (insurgents) to similar response and will increase the level of fighting,” warned the Taliban.But the U.S. military spokesman swiftly rejected the insurgent allegations and assertions.“U.S. Forces-Afghanistan has upheld, and continues to uphold, the military terms of the U.S.-TB (Taliban) agreement; any assertion otherwise is baseless,” tweeted Col Sonny Leggett. He stressed that in compliance with the agreement, the U.S. military will defend Afghan security forces if attacked.Leggett was apparently referring to recent Taliban attacks against government positions that killed dozens of Afghan forces and overran territory.“The TB (Taliban) must reduce violence. A reduction in violence is the will of the Afghan people & necessary to allow the political process to work toward a settlement suitable for all Afghans,” stressed the military spokesman.The U.S.-Taliban deal requires the insurgents to engage in negotiations with Afghan political and civil society representatives to negotiate a sustainable peace and power sharing.FILE- Jailed Taliban pray inside the Pul-e-Charkhi prison after an interview with The Associated Press in Kabul, Afghanistan, Dec. 14, 2019.But the Taliban insists it is committed to engage in intra-Afghan talks only after the release of all 5,000 insurgent prisoners. The prisoner exchange requires the Taliban to free 1,000 detainees, mostly Afghan forces.Looming COVID-19 threatThe Ghani-Abdullah feud and growing fears of increase in hostilities in spring come as the threat of pandemic coronavirus looms over Afghanistan.The country has confirmed the number of COVID-19 infections stood at nearly 350 as of Saturday, including four foreign troops. At least seven Afghans have died from the virus and officials say the number of infections are likely to increase, citing capacity issues.“We once again call on all parties to focus their efforts on the global pandemic of COVID-19,” said Col Leggett.
The U.S.-Taliban agreement binds the Islamist group to prevent terrorists from using Afghanistan as a base for international attacks.In return, American and coalition partners are committed to withdraw all their forces from Afghanistan in 14 months and the “conditions-based” drawdown has already. 
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Pope Francis is celebrating Palm Sunday Mass without the public, since the traditional ceremony in St. Peter’s Square was scrapped because of the coronavirus pandemic.Normally, tens of thousands of Romans, tourists and pilgrims, clutching olive tree branches or palm fronds would have flocked to an outdoor mass led by the pontiff. Instead, Francis was leading the ceremony inside St. Peter’s Basilica, which seemed even more cavernous than usual because it was so empty.Besides his aides, a few invited prelates, nuns and laypeople were present, sitting solo in the first pews and staggered meters (yards) apart to reduce the risks of contagion.Looking pensive, Francis blessed braided palms held by the others, then held one himself.Palm Sunday solemnly opens Holy Week leading up to Easter, which on this year falls on April 12. The Vatican has announced Francis will preside over all the traditional ceremonies without the public in keeping with lockdown measures in Italy and at the Vatican to contain the spread of COVID-19.Among the usual events is the Good Friday Way of the Cross procession. This year, instead of the customary candlelit procession at Rome’s Colosseum, the Way of the Cross will be presided over by Francis in St. Peter’s Square.The Vatican has said there are seven cases of COVID-19 among the residents or employees of the tiny independent city state. 
 
 
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The high-speed train whooshing past historic World War I battle sites and through the chateau-speckled Loire Valley carried a delicate cargo: 20 critically ill COVID-19 patients and the breathing machines helping keep them alive.The TGV-turned-mobile-intensive-care-unit is just one piece of France’s nationwide mobilization of trains, helicopters, jets and even a warship, deployed to relieve congested hospitals and shuffle hundreds of patients and medical personnel in and out of coronavirus hotspots.”We are at war,” President Emmanuel Macron tells his compatriots, again and again. But as the 42-year-old leader casts himself as a warrior and harnesses the might of the armed forces, critics charge that he waited far too long to act against this foe. France, one of the world’s wealthiest countries with one of the best health care systems, they say, should never have found itself so deep in crisis.Macron had just emerged from weeks of damaging retirement strikes and a year of violent “yellow vest” protests over economic injustice when the pandemic hit. Now he is struggling to keep the house running in one of the world’s hardest-hit countries. The Rungis food market south of Paris, Europe’s biggest, is transforming into a morgue as France’s death count races past 7,500. Nearly 7,000 patients are in intensive care, pushing French hospitals to their limit and beyond. Doctors are rationing painkillers and re-using masks.France’s centralized state and powerful presidency make it easier to coordinate the exceptional patient-moving efforts, which have crisscrossed the country and even extended to overseas territories. 
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Scientists, doctors, mayors and governors – everyone emphasizes the importance of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. But one American artist couple tried to pass the message across with a short animated video explaining why it is so important to stay at home during these challenging times. In just a day, the video went viral leading to millions of views and shares. Anna Nelson talked to the talented couple in this story narrated by Anna Rice.
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Scientists say COVID-19 likely originated through “animal to human” transmission at a wild animal market in Wuhan, China.  New studies by the Global Virome Project, a worldwide effort to increase preparedness for pandemics, indicate the world can expect about five new animal-borne pathogens to infect humans each year, creating a sense of urgency to curb the wild animal trade. Steve Sandford files this report for VOA from Krabi, Thailand.
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Tunisian soldiers and members of the national guard shot dead two “terrorist elements” in the center-west of the country, the Interior Ministry said late Saturday.The operation took place in the mountainous Kasserine region near the border with Algeria, it said in a statement.The Kasserine range is known as an area where jihadists take shelter, such as Jund al-Khilafa, which is affiliated with both Islamic State and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI).The country has been in a state of emergency since a suicide attack in Tunis in November 2015 that killed 12 members of the presidential guard.On March 22, it ordered a shutdown as part of measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic. It is due to stay in place until April 19.
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For Pope Francis at the Vatican, and for Christians worldwide from churches large and small, this will be an Easter like none other: The joyous message of Jesus Christ’s resurrection will be delivered to empty pews.Worries about the coronavirus outbreak have triggered widespread cancellations of Holy Week processions and in-person services. Many pastors will preach on TV or online, tailoring sermons to account for the pandemic. Many extended families will reunite via Face Time and Zoom rather than around a communal table laden with an Easter feast on April 12.”I’ll miss Mass and the procession,” said Aida Franco, 86, a retired teacher from Quito, Ecuador. “But God knows better.”Pope Francis, the first pontiff from Latin America, will be celebrating Mass for Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Easter in a near-empty St. Peter’s Basilica, instead of in the huge square outside filled with Catholic faithful.In the pope’s native Argentina, the archbishopric of La Plata encouraged the faithful to use any type of plant at home for a “virtual” blessing that will be livestreamed during Palm Sunday services this weekend.The pandemic has prompted cancellation of a renowned annual tradition of sawdust and handmade flower carpets coating the streets of Antigua, a colonial Guatemalan city, during its Holy Week procession. Instead, some residents will make smaller carpets to display outside their homes.”We know this is happening because of some message from God,” said Cesar Alvarez, who has been making the multicolored carpets with his family for 28 years. “But we’re taking it with a lot of sadness.”A leaflet listing Holy Week activities sits among empty pews during a live-streamed mass at the St. Augustine Church & Catholic Student Center, March 29, 2020, in Coral Gables, Fla.In some communities, there are innovative efforts to boost Eastertime morale.At Asbury United Methodist Church in Prairie Village, Kansas, family ministries director Heather Jackson is organizing an Easter egg hunt that embraces social distancing. Parents and children are creating colorful images of Easter eggs to display in windows or on garage doors, and the “hunt” will entail families driving around in their cars, or strolling on foot, trying to spot as many eggs as possible.”It’s about keeping people safe while maintaining that sense of joy,” Jackson said. “It will be a difficult time, because it’s a time for families to come together and right now we just can’t do that.”If not for the virus, 32-year-old Chris Burton — a writer, teacher and devout Baptist in Brooklyn, New York — would be planning a trip to Maryland for Easter dinner with his family.Instead, he plans to watch the online service of his church, Trinity Baptist, and then catch up with relatives by phone.Burton, who has experienced five bouts of pneumonia since 2011, has blogged about the need to shelter in place. Yet he still hopes this Easter will rekindle the uplifting emotions he’s cherished since wearing his Easter suit in childhood.”All that’s happening doesn’t mean we need to be somber,” he said.In Venezuela, Catholic officials said that after the Holy Week liturgies, some priests would try to take the Blessed Sacrament — the wine and bread of Holy Communion — on a vehicle and, using loudspeakers, invite congregants to join in spirit from their windows and balconies.A similar used of priest-carrying vehicles was proposed in the Philippines, Asia’s bastion of Catholicism.In Brazil, the world’s biggest Catholic country, Rio de Janeiro’s huge Christ the Redeemer statue has been closed indefinitely. Large Holy Week gatherings are banned in several states after a federal court overruled a decree by President Jair Bolsonaro exempting religious services from quarantine measures.Many faithful across Latin America say they’ll miss Holy Week’s observances, yet there is acceptance of the cancellations.The owners of a house known for their seasonal decorations have put up a display combining Easter and coronavirus-related social distancing measures in their yard, seen April 1, 2020, in Washington, D.C.”It’s sad because we can’t be with our Lord in his Calvary, but it’s fine,” said Felipe Navarrete of Santiago, Chile. “The health of the population comes first, and we have to be responsible with older people who join these rituals the most.”Many pastors are pondering their upcoming Easter sermons, including the Rev. Steven Paulikas of All Saints Episcopal Church in Brooklyn. His sermon will be transmitted online but delivered in an empty church.”It’s started me thinking about the empty tomb,” he said, referring to the biblical account of Christ’s resurrection after his crucifixion.”That emptiness was actually the first symbol of this new life,” Paulikas said.On the evening of April 9 — Holy Thursday commemorating the Last Supper of Jesus and his apostles — Paulikas is organizing a communal supper for his congregation, hoping members will join via Face Time.At St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Brunswick, Ohio, Father Bob Stec also is organizing a pre-Easter initiative, arranging for each of the parish’s 5,500 families to get a friendly call from another member.He’s expecting upwards of 20,000 people to watch the online Easter service.”We’re going to try to flood their senses visually and audibly with the sounds and images that will give them hope,” he said.Stec knows the key point of his own message.”This is one of those wake-up calls,” he said. “We’re more aware than ever how desperately we need God in our lives.”In Atlanta, an Easter message for Emory University is being prepared by Robert Franklin, a professor at Emory’s Candler School of Theology.”The first Easter with its joyful surprise emerged out of suffering, fear, suspicion, death, sorrow and grief,” Franklin writes. “Easter in the time of COVID-19 is closer existentially to that first Easter than to our customary cultural festivals of self-indulgence and triumphalism.”  
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Afghanistan’s spy agency announced Saturday that it had arrested Islamic State’s regional leader, along with 19 key operatives of the terrorist group.The National Directorate of Security (NDS) identified the militant chief as Abdullah Orakzai, a Pakistani national also known as Aslam Farooqi. He was detained along with others in a “complex operation” by Afghan special forces, it added.The NDS also released a video of the captured militants.  But the statement did not say when or where the operation was conducted against Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), the regional affiliate of the Middle Eastern terrorist group. It operates in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the vicinity.
 
The NDS noted without elaborating that Farooqi in a “preliminary confession” had disclosed his group’s close contacts with a “region intelligence agency.”Suicide attackThe arrests came nearly two weeks after ISKP claimed credited for plotting a deadly suicide attack against a minority Sikh worship place in the Afghan capital, Kabul, which killed at least 25 worshippers.U.S. counterterrorism forces, with the help of Afghan partners, have killed several ISKP chiefs and hundreds of terrorists linked to the group since 2015, when the central Islamic State leadership formally announced its expansion into Afghanistan.The terrorist outfit has demonstrated resilience, however, and has plotted major terrorist attacks in the country despite getting hit hard by U.S.-backed Afghan counterterrorism forces and the rival Taliban Islamist insurgency.The terrorist outfit began its regional operations in eastern Nangarhar province and neighboring Kunar province five years ago before expanding its footprint to several other Afghan provinces.Both the Afghan government and the Taliban repeatedly claimed in recent months that their forces had uprooted ISKP bases in the country.U.S. military commanders say that initially, ISKP’s ranks consisted mostly of Pakistani militants who fled counterterrorism offensives in neighboring Pakistan. In subsequent years, analysts say, disgruntled Afghan Taliban members and militants from neighboring Central Asian states pledged their allegiance to the group.
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The family of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002, say they will appeal a decision by a Pakistani court this week that acquitted Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three others convicted of the murder.“We absolutely, as Danny’s friends and family, believe that the overturning of the convictions for murder is a great injustice to Danny,” said Asra Nomani, a close friend and former colleague of Pearl.“We believe that it’s a travesty of justice,” Nomani told VOA, adding that “Danny’s family is investigating and appealing the decision.”Pearl, 38, was a Wall Street Journal reporter covering Pakistani extremists when he was kidnapped in Karachi in January 2002 and was killed weeks later. Three men accused of involvement in the murder subsequently were convicted and handed sentences of life imprisonment, while the fourth one, British national Sheikh, was convicted and sentenced to death.The four men had been in prison for 18 years until Thursday, when the high court in Sindh province overturned their convictions and decided to release them. Despite the ruling, the men remain in detention as Pakistani authorities Friday said they had “sufficient reason” to rearrest the men and hold them for three more months as the government announced it would challenge the court’s verdict.WATCH: Pakistani court decision in Daniel Pearl case comes under scrutinySorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
FILE – Pakistani police escort Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was convicted in the 2002 killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl, as he exits a court in Karachi, Pakistan, March 29, 2002.Meanwhile, the Sindh provincial government’s Home Department said it ordered the rearrest of the four men for three more months, starting Thursday. A top Sindh official said the decision was made because of concerns the released men might act “against the interest of the country,” Reuters reported.It remains unclear if the appeal will be heard next week, as Pakistan’s court system has remained partially shut down because of the spread of the coronavirus.Sindh’s prosecutor general, Faiz Shah, told VOA he was filing an appeal for homicide and ransom charges, stating that the case had “some infirmities.”He added that the appeal could be challenged by “many technical faults and a defective investigation.”“The most important thing is the FBI agent who appeared in the witness box and deposed. There is a serious contradiction in his statement, which the appellate court was really inspired by that piece of evidence,” said Shah.The Pearl Project, an investigative journalism team led by Pearl’s colleague Nomani at Georgetown University, in a three-year investigation concluded that Pearl was beheaded and dismembered by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.Mohammad is believed to be the mastermind of September 11, 2001, terror attacks and is currently held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He initially claimed responsibility for beheading and dismembering Pearl, but he was never charged after his lawyers said his confession was made after he had been subjected to waterboarding.VOA’s Muhammad Saqib and Khalil Ahmad contributed to this story from Karachi. VOA’s Urdu service contributed to the story from Washington.
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The U.N. human rights office is urging countries to release prisoners from overcrowded facilities to reduce the risk of coronavirus infections spreading throughout the prison population and into the wider community
 
U.N. officials say they are encouraged by the number of countries heeding High Commissioner Michele Bachelet’s prisoner release appeal.  For example, they say Iran has released around 100,000 prisoners or 40 percent of its prison population on a temporary basis. They note Indonesia has announced plans to release some 30,000 prisoners convicted of minor crimes and Turkey is considering a similar action.
 
U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said prisoners at high-risk of infection, such as the elderly, people with disabilities, and pregnant women who pose no risk to society should be immediately released.   
 
He told VOA people who are being held illegally should be released immediately.  They include political prisoners and those detained for critical, dissenting views, such as journalists and human rights defenders.  He said very few political prisoners are among the thousands that have been released in Iran.
    
“That is a big issue and obviously, these are not rapists, murderers, people guilty of serious crimes.  Indeed, under international law, many are not guilty of any crime at all.  So, we believe these should be absolutely among the first prioritized for release,” he said.   
    
Colville said the mass incarceration of people in Syria’s overcrowded central prisons and detention facilities run by the government security branches and military is alarming.  Even before COVID-19 became an issue, he says his agency had received reports of people dying in these facilities due to torture and denial of medical care.
 
He said similar conditions exist in facilities run by non-state armed groups, but on a smaller scale.
 
The U.N. human rights office is appealing to the Syrian government and armed groups to urgently thin out their prison populations to prevent COVID-19 from spreading and adding to yet more loss of life after nine years of brutal civil war.
  
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Conservation groups are concerned the wildlife trade will be allowed to resume as China begins to ease restrictions on movement and work in areas of the country hit hardest by COVID-19, which could pose a threat to human health.  
 
Scientists say the coronavirus outbreak likely originated through animal-to-human transmission at a wild animal market in Wuhan, and studies by the Global Virome Project, a California-based effort to prevent pandemics, predict about five new animal-borne pathogens will infect humans each year.
   
The wildlife trade in Asia is big business; China’s annual wildlife trade market is estimated  to be worth more than $7 billion, “and this goes up tenfold when you include the business surrounding it,” according to Steve Galster, founder of Freeland, a Bangkok-based environmental conservation and human rights organization.  
 
Most experts are calling for a permanent ban on the trade and consumption of wild animals.  
 
“We’re not talking about banning deer or duck hunting. We’re talking about ending the global commercial trade in wild animals,” Galster said.
 
“This COVID-19 started in a wildlife market in Wuhan, China. The Chinese know it. That’s why they closed that and every other market across the country and have banned wildlife trade and wildlife consumption,” he said.   
 
Asia’s appetite for pangolins and other wildlife led to several virus outbreaks in the early 2000s including the SARS pandemic and bird flu.
 
Coronavirus transmission was believed to have occurred from bats to civets and pangolins, whose scales are highly valued in traditional Chinese medicine.
 
Early COVID-19 infections were found in people who had had exposure to Wuhan’s wet market, where snakes, bats, civets and other wildlife were sold.  
 
China temporarily shut down wildlife markets in January, warning that eating wild animals posed a health and safety threat. The country took similar action in 2003 during the spread of SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome.
 
None of the past animal-borne diseases have had the coronavirus’s devastating effect, though.
 
Dr. Wittaya Reongkovit, a Thai public health officer was working in Bangkok during the SARS outbreak that began in November 2002 and spread to 29 countries, including Thailand.
 
“This pandemic is spreading faster right now but we also have better and faster communication in the era of big data on a real timeline and that is helping develop our newer biotechnology,” Wittaya said.
 
“If they can ban the wildlife trade permanently it will be good because many people in Asia like to eat the wildlife meat raw or barely cooked because it is in their tradition,” he said.
 
“If you cook and clean the meat properly it is much safer but people in the poorer areas of Asia are without access to proper hygiene and nutrition.”
 
As China continues easing restrictions in former COVID-19 hotbeds, conservation groups say they will continue applying pressure to ban wildlife trade and the deadly viruses that come with it.  
 
“There are divisions within the Chinese government now on whether to keep a strict ban, or eventually loosen it up,” Galster said.
 
“If we don’t treat the cause of this mess, current efforts will amount to expensive Band-Aids the that need frequent changing,” adds Galster.
  
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The International Committee of the Red Cross is calling for immediate action to curb the spread of COVID-19 and save lives in Somalia, saying the country is at a critical juncture.In a statement issued in Nairobi, Kenya, ICRC expressed deep concern for “the impact that the virus could have on communities weakened by violence and conflict, where displacement, malnutrition, and outbreaks of disease are already widespread.”About 500 health workers and SRCS volunteers have been trained in COVID-19 prevention and symptoms, the statement said.Head of ICRC’s delegation for Somalia, Juerg Eglin said “Speed is critical, and we are working with our colleagues at the Somali Red Crescent to fight COVID-19 from fully taking hold.”SRCS and ICRC are stepping up efforts to reach 130,000 households, organizing information sessions and providing guidelines on how to prevent the COVID-19. They emphasize that use of soap and chlorine is crucial under the present circumstances.In addition, the ICRC is distributing gloves, bleach, and other equipment to hospitals and clinics across the country. It has also provided six-months’ worth of soap for all inmates and staff to detention centers in Mogadishu and Kismayo.“We must do everything we can to prevent the virus from entering a prison,” health coordinator for the ICRC in Somalia, Ana Maria Guzman, said. “Physical distancing is nearly impossible, and an outbreak of COVID-19 in a jail would be devastating for both inmates and staff.”Compounded with violence and poverty, the situation in Somalia is particularly critical.“Violence continues. Climate shocks continue. We will have to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable in Somalia, with the additional threat that COVID-19 brings,” Eglin said.“If we have a surge in cases, the health system will not be able to cope,” Guzman said.
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With parties championing Malaysia’s Malay Muslim majority back in power following February’s FILE – Supporters of People’s Justice Party gather outside the National Palace to give support to Anwar Ibrahim in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020.“I am a brother to the Malays, the Chinese, the Indians, the Sikhs, the Ibans, the Kauaians, the Dusun, the Murut,” Muhyiddin, a Malay Muslim, said in his first public address after taking power. “I am your prime minister.”Many have their doubts.”The core of this government coalition is really the three most popular ethnic Malay conservative parties. That means that these politicians are likely to push for a revival of the kind of racial policies that we have seen prior to the 2018 election,” said Harrison Cheng, an associate director with consulting firm Control Risks who follows Malaysia.Malaysia’s ethnic Malays and Bumiputra draw on a raft of affirmative action benefits that help placate a deep-seated complex about losing out to the country’s generally better-off ethnic Chinese. With the main Malay and Muslim parties at his back, Cheng said, Muhyiddin will likely push those benefits forward by increasing the majority’s promised quotas for jobs and public contracts, even at the risk of scaring off some foreign investment.Parliament is not due to reconvene until May 18, after Muhyiddin postponed the original March 9 start date to give himself time to shore up support in case of a no-confidence vote.Ahmad Martadha Mohamed, a professor of government at Utara Malaysia University, said the new government has begun beefing up subsidies for Malays and Bumiputra already. Because they make up a disproportionate share of the lowest-income earners, he said they will also benefit most from the economic stimulus plans sure to follow the coronavirus outbreak.”After all, UMNO, PAS and Bersatu, these are the Malay groups, they get the support from the Malays, so of course what they are doing now is to make sure that they are targeting this group first,” Martadha Mohamed said.The return of UMNO and PAS to power also comes with a fear of more race-baiting politics.”There is nothing in UMNO and PAS’ track record in opposition in the past 18 months [to suggest] that they would shy away from using inflammatory rhetoric to stir up public anger against the Chinese and the Indians,” said Cheng.FILE – A supporter of People’s Justice Party wearing a national flag face mask as he gathers with others outside the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020.”That is their modus operandi, and I don’t think they’re going to move away from that, because they have seen how it has helped them to secure several by-election victories in the past 18 months as well as propel them into federal office now.”How high Malaysia’s racial and religious tensions run will turn heavily on how hard PAS pushes its Islamist agenda, including the federal application of Islamic law. The party has imposed a degree of it in the few states it runs but had efforts to take it nationwide rebuffed by UMNO during its first stint in power.The new government has sought to allay fears of an Islamist push and conspicuously passed PAS over for the religious affairs portfolio.Cheng and Martadha Mohamed said the new government could not afford to rile other groups and parties too much before its strength in parliament is tested and proven but added that PAS may be given more rope if and when it is.”I’m sure sooner or later it will come time when, you know, they will try to push for their own agenda … now [that] they are also part of the government, because that’s been the objective of the party,” Martadha Mohamed said.Before its demise, Pakatan had lined up several reform-minded bills to make the government more open and accountable. They included a bill that would set up an independent committee to hear complaints against the police and another to make the funding of political parties more transparent. In an article for Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia, an advocacy group Tricia Yeoh of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, a Malaysian research group, said those bills “will likely be shelved.”Thomas Fann, chairman of the Malaysian democratic rights group Bersih, said the country was in for the return of a more repressive brand of government as well.FILE – I this Feb. 22, 2020, photo, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, center right, speaks during a press conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia.In the days that followed Pakatan’s collapse and Muhyiddin’s rise by royal decree, protesters took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur, the capital, complaining of a “backdoor” government and calling for new elections. Police ordered them to stop.Some were called in for questioning and investigated for sedition.”They were very quick to call people in for questioning, and even people who showed up to show solidarity were also called in for questioning. So that was, I think, a sign that the police are taking their cue from the new government that they should crack down more on any sort of dissent,” said Fann.”We do expect that this government … will be less tolerant of civil rights.” 
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