Бізнес

Nigeria on Thursday said it had launched a “massive” joint offensive with troops from Chad and Niger against jihadists waging a decade-long insurgency in the region.    FILE – Chadian soldiers drive through the streets of Gambaru, Nigeria, Feb. 4, 2015.The announcement comes after Chad’s defense minister said Tuesday his country had deployed forces across its neighbors’ borders to battle insurgents who killed almost 100 Chadian soldiers last month.   Nigeria’s military said attacks by fighters from Boko Haram and a splinter group affiliated to the so-called Islamic State group had “necessitated the contiguous nations of the Lake Chad basin to jointly launch this massive onslaught.”   Details about the operation were sketchy. Nigeria has made repeated claims in the past to have rolled back the insurgents.   The 10-year revolt has left at least 36,000 dead and displaced around 1.8 million people in northeast Nigeria alone.   The conflict has spilt over into neighboring countries as the Islamists have established camps and launched attacks against military and civilian targets.   The countries around Lake Chad have set up a multinational force to counter the jihadists but it has so far failed to end the bloodshed.   The militants on March 23 killed at least 98 Chadian soldiers in an attack on an island army base in Lake Chad.    Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno declared the surrounding area a “war zone” as he pledged a “lightning response” to the killings.    Chad earlier withdrew some 1,200 troops from Nigeria in January after a months-long mission battling the jihadists.   
…

The head of the World Health Organization’s office in Europe says figures show that more than 95% of people who have died of coronavirus on the continent have been aged over 60.   But Dr. Hans Kluge said age is not the only risk factor for severe disease, adding: “The very notion that COVID-19 only affects older people is factually wrong.”   In an online news conference Thursday in Copenhagen, Kluge said “young people are not invincible” — echoing similar recent comments from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.   The U.N. health agency says 10% to 15% of people under 50 with the disease have moderate or severe infection.   “Severe cases of the disease have been seen in people in their teens or 20s with many requiring intensive care and some unfortunately passing away,” Kluge said.   He said recent statistics showed 30,098 people have been reported to have died in Europe, mostly in Italy, France and Spain.   “We know that over 95 percent of these deaths occurred in those older than 60 years,” he said, with more than half aged over 80.   Kluge said more than four in five of those people had at least one other chronic underlying conditions, like cardiovascular disease, hypertension or diabetes.   “On a positive note, there are reports of people over the age of 100 who were admitted to hospital for COVID-19 and have now — since — made a complete recovery,” he said. 
…

Thousands of Peru reservists are joining security forces and police in enforcing the mandatory quarantine aimed at stopping the spread of the new coronavirus.President Martin Vizcarra is calling up more than 10,000 reservists to patrol neighborhoods as thousands of people continue to violate a national stay-at-home order and guidelines for social distancing.Reservists who refuse to report for duty face a fine of $1,200.Although President Vizcarra declared a state of emergency and ordered people to stay home through April 12, a military spokesman said Wednesday that thousands of people have been detained for violating the dusk-to-dawn stay-off-the-streets order.So far, Peru has 1,065 cases of coronavirus, and 30 people have died.
…

Ellis Marsalis Jr., jazz pianist, teacher and patriarch of a New Orleans musical clan that includes famed performer sons Wynton and Branford, has died after battling pneumonia brought on by the new coronavirus, one of his sons said late Wednesday.He was 85.Ellis Marsalis III confirmed in an Associated Press phone interview that his father’s death was sparked by the virus causing the  global pandemic. “Pneumonia was the actual thing that caused his demise. But it was pneumonia brought on by COVID-19,” he said.He said he drove Sunday from Baltimore to be with his father as he was hospitalized in Louisiana, which has been hit hard by the outbreak.  Others in the family spent time with him, too.Four of the jazz patriarch’s six sons are musicians: Wynton, trumpeter, is America’s most prominent jazz spokesman as artistic director of jazz at New York’s Lincoln Center. Branford, saxophonist, led The Tonight Show band and toured with Sting. Delfeayo, a trombonist, is a prominent recording producer and performer. And Jason, a percussionist, has made a name for himself with his own band and as an accompanist. Ellis III, who decided music wasn’t his gig, is a photographer-poet in Baltimore.In a statement, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said of the man who’d continued to perform regularly in New Orleans until December: “Ellis Marsalis was a legend. He was the prototype of what we mean when we talk about New Orleans jazz. He was a teacher, a father, and an icon – and words aren’t sufficient to describe the art, the joy and the wonder he showed the world.”Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis and Delfeayo Marsalis perform in the Ellis Marsalis Family Tribute in the Jazz Tent during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 28, 2019.Because Marsalis opted to stay in New Orleans for most of his career, his reputation was limited until his sons became famous and brought him the spotlight, along with new recording contracts and headliner performances on television and tour.”He was like the coach of jazz. He put on the sweatshirt, blew the whistle and made these guys work,” said Nick Spitzer, host of public radio’s American Routes and a Tulane University anthropology professor.The Marsalis “family band” seldom played together when the boys were younger but in 2003 toured East in a spinoff of a family celebration that became a PBS special when the elder Marsalis retired from teaching at the University of New Orleans.Harry Connick Jr., one of Marsalis’ students at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, was a guest. He’s one of many now-famous jazz musicians who passed through Marsalis’ classrooms. Others include trumpeters Nicholas Payton and Terence Blanchard, saxophonists Donald Harrison and Victor Goines, and bassist Reginald Veal.Marsalis was born in New Orleans, son of the operator of a hotel where Marsalis met touring black musicians who couldn’t stay at the segregated downtown hotels where they performed. He played saxophone in high school; he also played piano by the time he went to Dillard University.Although New Orleans was steeped in traditional jazz, and rock ‘n’ roll was the new sound in the 1950s, Marsalis preferred bebop and modern jazz.Spitzer described Marsalis as a “modernist in a town of traditionalists.””His great love was jazz a la bebop – he was a lover of Thelonious Monk and the idea that bebop was a music of freedom. But when he had to feed his family, he played R&B and soul and rock ‘n’ roll on Bourbon Street,” Spitzer said.The musician’s college quartet included drummer Ed Blackwell, clarinetist Alvin Batiste and saxophonist Harold Battiste playing modern.U.S. saxophonist Branford Marsalis performs with his father, Ellis Marsalis, at the 51st Jazzaldia Jazz Festival in San Sebastian, northern Spain, July 22, 2016.Ornette Coleman was in town at the time. In 1956, when Coleman headed to California, Marsalis and the others went along, but after a few months Marsalis returned home. He told the New Orleans Times-Picayune years later, when he and Coleman were old men, that he never figured out what a pianist could do behind the free form of Coleman’s jazz.Back in New Orleans, Marsalis joined the Marine Corps and was assigned to accompany soloists on the service’s weekly TV programs on CBS in New York. There, he said, he learned to handle all kinds of music styles.Returning home, he worked at the Playboy Club and ventured into running his own club, which went bust. In 1967 trumpeter Al Hirt hired him. When not on Bourbon Street, Hirt’s band appeared on national TV – headline shows on The Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, among others.Marsalis got into education about the same time, teaching improvisation at Xavier University in New Orleans. In the mid-1970s, he joined the faculty at the New Orleans magnet high school and influenced a new generation of jazz musicians.When asked how he could teach something as free-wheeling as jazz improvisation, Marsalis once said, “We don’t teach jazz, we teach students.”Jazz musician Ellis Marsalis (second from left) makes a curtain call with former student Harry Connick Jr. (left) and sons, Wynton, Delfeayo and Branford at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans on August 4, 2001.In 1986 he moved to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. In 1989, the University of New Orleans lured him back to set up a jazz-studies program.Marsalis retired from UNO in 2001 but continued performing, particularly at Snug Harbor, a small club that anchored the city’s contemporary jazz scene – frequently backing young promising musicians.His melodic style, with running improvisations in the right hand, has been described variously as romantic, contemporary, or simply “Louisiana jazz.” He’s always on acoustic piano, never electric, and even in interpreting old standards there’s a clear link to the driving bebop chords and rhythms of his early years.He founded a record company, ELM, but his recording was limited until his sons became famous. After that he joined them and others on mainstream labels and headlined his own releases, many full of his own compositions.He often played at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. For more than three decades he played two 75-minute sets every Friday night at Snug Harbor until he decided it was exhausting. Even then, he still performed on occasion as a special guest.On Wednesday night, Ellis III recalled how his father taught him the meaning of integrity before he even knew the word.He and Delfeayo, neither of them yet 10, had gone to hear their father play at a club. Only one man – sleeping and drunk – was in the audience for the second set. The boys asked why they couldn’t leave.”He looked at us and said, “I can’t leave. I have a gig.’ While he’s playing, he said, ‘A gig is a deal. I’m paid to play this set. I’m going to play this set. It doesn’t matter that nobody’s here.”Marsalis’ wife, Dolores, died in 2017. He is survived by his sons Branford, Wynton, Ellis III, Delfeayo, Mboya and Jason.
…

NASA may have just found the next man to walk on the moon — or the first woman to land on Mars — or someone who can float above the Earth and make repairs to the International Space Station.Wednesday was the deadline for submitting an application to join the next class of astronauts.NASA says more than 12,000 people applied — the largest number in three years — proving that those who believe Americans have lost interest in space are wrong.“We’ve entered a bold new era of space exploration with the Artemis program, and we are thrilled to see so many incredible Americans apply to join us,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Wednesday. “The next class of Artemis Generation astronauts will help us explore more of the moon than ever before and lead us to the red planet.”The Northrop Grumman Antares rocket, with Cygnus resupply spacecraft onboard, launches from Pad-0A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, Feb. 15, 2020.Artemis is the name NASA has given to its next big era in space exploration — and among the 12,000 would-be astronauts could be a name that becomes as legendary as John Glenn, the pioneering Gemini program, Neil Armstrong and Apollo.NASA received applications from every one of the 50 states and four U.S. territories. But the odds of being picked to fly into space are remote.Candidates must have a master’s degree in science, technology, math or engineering.NASA’s Astronaut Selection Board will assess each applicant’s qualifications and invite those who pass to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for interviews and medical tests before making a final selection.The board must pare down the 12,000 hopefuls to around 12.It’s an exclusive club. Only 350 men and women have been chosen for astronaut training since the 1960s. NASA currently has 48 astronauts in the pool.FILE — A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying the U.S. Air Force’s Space Test Program-2 mission, lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., June 25, 2019.“We’re able to build such a strong astronaut corps at NASA because we have such a strong pool of applicants to choose from,” selection board manager Anne Roemer said. “It’s always amazing to see the diversity of education, experience and skills that are represented in our applicants. We are excited to start reviewing astronaut applications to identify the next class of astronaut candidates.”So how does one person who dreams of space stand out among 12,000 other dreamers?Astronaut Kayla Barron, who was part of the NASA class of 2017, said if you’re lucky enough to qualify as a finalist, there is no reason to feel intimidated or that you can’t be yourself.“When I go into that interview room and sit at the end of this long table with all of these astronauts and senior NASA officials … what are they looking for? What do they want from me? For some reason the last thing I thought before I walked [in] the door was,  ‘Don’t make any jokes,’ ” she recalled with a laugh. “Because I was so worried I was going to say something sarcastic or whatever.”This NASA image obtained March 24, 2020, shows the city lights at the intersection of Europe and Asia as they sparkle as the International Space Station orbited 262 miles above.But when one of the panel members made a joke seemingly at Barron’s expense, she said, “I dished it right back at him. And there was this moment of silence and I was like, ‘Oh, no, that was the one I wasn’t supposed to do.’ But then [astronaut] Kjell Lindgren started laughing … everyone started laughing and it just relaxed me … just be yourself, be honest about who you are. I think that goes a long way.”When the astronauts are chosen, they will go through about two years of training in such skills as spacewalking and robotics. They must also show people skills, including leadership and teamwork — two qualities that are essential for living on the International Space Station, taking a trip to the moon or enduring a long journey to Mars.NASA expects to introduce the new astronaut candidates in the summer of 2021 with plans for a trip to the moon in 2024 and a mission to Mars in the next decade.
…

A national stay-at-home directive was rejected by U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday, but he said he might order airlines to stop flying between coronavirus hot spots.”It’s very tough. You have them going from hot spot to hot spot,” said the president at a briefing for reporters at the White House. ”We are looking at it. Once you do that, you really are clamping down industry that is desperately in need.”Trump said at one point during the news conference, “We do not give in to fear.”The U.S. government is projecting that even if social distancing guidelines in effect are strictly adhered to in the weeks ahead, up to nearly a quarter of a million people in the country could die of COVID-19 infections.The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States surged past 213,000 Wednesday, with deaths exceeding 4,700.  More than 1,100 of the fatalities were recorded in New York City.FILE – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks during a news conference against a backdrop of medical supplies at the Jacob Javits Center that will house a temporary hospital in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, March 24, 2020, in New York.The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, said 391 people had died of the virus in the state since the previous day. He noted a projection by the Gates Foundation that the death toll would reach 16,000 in New York and 93,000 nationwide.Cuomo expressed frustration that some people in New York City continue to ignore social distancing guidelines, and he said he wanted the city’s playgrounds shut down.“How reckless and irresponsible and selfish for people not to do it on their own,” the governor said. “I mean, what else do you have to know? What else do you have to hear? Who else has to die for you to understand you have a responsibility in this?”Florida, home to 21 million people, has become one of the latest states to be put under a stay-at-home order through the rest of April by its governor.Some COVID-19 hot spots in other states, such as Louisiana, another Southern state, “are really exploding,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.Asked by VOA whether the coronavirus task force headed by Vice President Mike Pence was halting aid shipments of personal protective equipment bound for foreign countries to ensure that the U.S. was not releasing critically needed items at home, Trump said there was “no truth whatsoever” to that.“Why would I do that?” he remarked in reply.FILE – A man wears personal protective equipment (PPE) as he walks on First Avenue, during the coronavirus disease outbreak, in New York City, March 31, 2020.During the briefing, Trump did confirm news reports that the national strategic stockpile of such equipment was nearly depleted.The briefing began with the president announcing an enhanced effort to halt drug smuggling.The U.S. military is beginning enhanced counternarcotics operations in the east Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which will include the deployment of more U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships and aircraft.There is a “growing threat” that cartels and criminals will try to take advantage of the pandemic, the president said. “We must not let that happen.”“Corrupt actors, like the illegitimate Maduro regime in Venezuela, rely on the profits derived from the sale of narcotics to maintain their oppressive hold on power,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said. “The Venezuelan people continue to suffer tremendously due to Maduro’s criminal control over the country.”“We have a job and we will continue to do it: defend the United States of America,” Esper vowed.FILE – This U.S. Navy handout photo shows the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt as it transits the Pacific Ocean while conducting a tailored ship’s training availability off the coast of Southern California, April 30, 2017.The military was facing its own particular battle against the novel coronavirus. The Navy was struggling to quarantine crew members of an aircraft carrier, docked at the Western Pacific island territory of Guam.Nearly 100 of the 3,000 sailors on the USS Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive for the coronavirus.Several thousand sailors will leave the ship, while others will remain on board in order to continue to protect the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered carrier and run its critical systems, according to Navy officials.  Trump acknowledged Wednesday that he recently began taking the virus much more seriously after earlier comparing it to normal seasonal influenza.“It’s so contagious. Nobody’s ever seen anything like this,” he responded when asked about his change of stance.Outside expertiseThree U.S. senators have sent a letter to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, calling on the private, nonprofit institutions to serve as a trusted authority outside the executive branch for coronavirus information.
“Conflicting messages from the Trump administration have caused confusion and chaos in the national response,” said Democrats Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, joined by independent Bernie Sanders, in a statement.“Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health are capable and well-qualified to help address many of these questions, we have seen the Trump administration’s willingness to stifle the ability of these agencies to communicate openly with the public,” their letter said. “The public needs a trusted authority outside of the executive branch.”VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.  
…

Social distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19 is changing the tactics for political campaigns, especially for candidates running for president of the United States. VOA’s Steve Redisch examines the changing strategies and endangered traditions.
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Wednesday for global oil producers and consumers to address “challenging” oil markets, while U.S. President Donald Trump complained that oil cheaper “than water” was hurting the industry.Oil prices fell nearly 70% from January highs as coronavirus lockdowns hammered demand and as Saudi Arabia and Russia have flooded the market in a race for market share after a deal they engineered on supply curbs broke down.Oil and natural gas sales are a key revenue source for Russian coffers, while low prices are also hurting shale oil producers in the United States.  Speaking at a government meeting, set up via a video link as a precaution against the coronavirus, Putin said that both oil producers and consumers should find a solution that would improve the “challenging” situation of global oil markets.He also said if investments into the oil sector fell, oil prices would be sure to spike, something he said “no one needs.””That’s why we, together with the main producers and consumers, should work out such decisions, which would mitigate the situation on the market on the whole,” Putin said, according to the readout of the meeting.FILE – U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette gestures during an interview at the LNG terminal of the deepwater port of Sines after visiting the port, in Sines, southern Portugal, Feb. 12, 2020.Flurry of diplomacyOn Tuesday, U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette spoke with his Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak, about the price slump, and they agreed to hold future discussions involving other major world oil producers and consumers.The call occurred a day after Trump and Putin agreed in a phone conversation to have their top energy officials discuss global oil market turmoil.Putin said that the United States was also worried about the state of the oil market as shale oil producers need a price around $40 per barrel to turn a profit.”That’s why this is also a hard challenge for the American economy,” he said.Trump plans to meet with oil executives on Friday to discuss potential aid to the industry, including possible tariffs on oil imports from Saudi Arabia, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified sources.The meeting is to take place at the White House and will include Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Occidental Petroleum Corp., the newspaper said in a report on Wednesday.Crude oil benchmarks ended a volatile quarter with their biggest losses in history. On Wednesday, oil slid toward $25 a barrel, after touching its lowest level in 18 years.”There is so much oil and in some cases it’s probably less valuable than water. At some points of the world the water is much more valuable. So we’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump said.Pact’s collapseThe discussions between Washington and Moscow mark a new twist in oil diplomacy since the collapse this month of a deal between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers, including Russia, on cutting production.The failure to agree on an extension to a pact that had propped up the market since 2016 led to the scrapping of all restrictions and a dash for market share.FILE – Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak is pictured at EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Oct. 29, 2014.Brouillette and Novak “had a productive discussion on the current volatility in global oil markets,” Energy Department spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said.”Secretary Brouillette and Minister Novak discussed energy market developments and agreed to continue dialogue among major energy producers and consumers, including through the G-20, to address this unprecedented period of disruption in the world economy,” she said.The Russian Energy Ministry said on Wednesday the ministers noted that the fall in the demand and oversupply created risks for stable supplies to the markets.The United States has grown in recent years into the world’s largest oil and gas producer, thanks to a technology-driven shale drilling boom. But the current price of oil is below the production cost of many American drillers, threatening the highly leveraged U.S. shale industry.’Crazy’ productionTrump on Monday said Saudi Arabia and Russia “both went crazy” with their production after the supply deal failed. “I never thought I’d be saying that maybe we have to have an oil [price] increase, because we do,” he said.The Trump administration is trying to persuade Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, to cut crude output. It will soon send a special energy envoy, Victoria Coates, to the kingdom.The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Russia and Saudi Arabia were not holding talks regarding the oil market at the moment and that Putin had no immediate plans to have a phone call with Saudi leadership.But the Kremlin added that such talks could be set up quickly if necessary. 
…

Most of the world calls this year’s deadly respiratory disease outbreak COVID-19 and attributes it to a novel coronavirus. When U.S. President Donald Trump described the virus last month as “Chinese” because of its origin, China fumed and Trump eventually dropped it.   All along, Taiwanese officials, media and the public have been using the term “Wuhan pneumonia” in Mandarin Chinese, a reference to the central Chinese city where the disease was first reported in December. Local media sometimes call it “China Wuhan pneumonia.”   The label will eventually create a new fissure in already strained relations between Taiwan and China, analysts say. “Relations between the two sides have become even worse since Covid-19,” said Chao Chien-min, dean of social sciences at Chinese Culture University in Taipei. “If you keep using a location-based name, it’s unfriendly toward others.” Taiwanese came up with the term “Wuhan pneumonia” because they were talking about it in December and needed a descriptor before the World Health Organization gave it an official name in mid-February. But Taiwan and China are at odds politically. Use of the earlier term instead of the formal WHO one pivots Taiwanese people’s attention back to where Covid-19 was discovered and stands to sour their impression of China.Trump dropped the “Chinese virus” in late March and said it was important to avoid blaming Asian Americans for the outbreak.   In Taiwan, the government’s Central Epidemic Command Center uses the term “Wuhan pneumonia” on its daily news releases in parentheses after the English word Covid-19 and the foreign ministry uses the term “Wuhan pneumonia” only in some of its statements. Taiwan’s government-funded Central News Agency calls the disease “Wuhan pneumonia” in its many news flashes every day about the disease outbreak in other parts of the world. On the streets, people speak of the disease almost always as “Wuhan pneumonia.” People wear face masks to protect against the spread of the new coronavirus as they visit the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020.The World Health Organization recommends in its 2015 document “Best Practices for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases” against mentioning cities, countries, regions or continents. Spanish flu and Japanese encephalitis are on its “examples to be avoided” list.   Taiwanese mobilized against the virus before most of the world because they fought off the severe acute respiratory syndrome 17 years ago. That disease too came from China. The government in Taipei began boarding flights from Wuhan three months ago before other parts of the world caught on. Officials do contact tracing of known cases and strictly enforce quarantines. Taiwan has logged a total 329 cases including recovered patients.   A disease’s name targets no one, Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shi-chung told a news conference Monday. “No matter what name, whether an academic name or a colloquial term, they’re fluid ways of talking and convey no discriminatory meaning,” he said. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan despite the island’s self-rule of more than seven decades. Most Taiwanese oppose Beijing’s goal of making Taiwan fall under its flag, government opinion surveys showed last year. “If people in Taiwan call it (Wuhan pneumonia), I don’t think Beijing will do very much about it, but if the officials in Taiwan government call it, Beijing may react,” said Lin Chong-pin, a retired strategic studies professor in Taiwan. That reaction would reduce any odds of dialogue between the two governments and raise distrust instead, scholars in Taiwan say. China may send more military aircraft near Taiwan’s airspace too, Chao said. Today’s government in Taiwan already irks Beijing for declining to hold dialogue on the Communist leadership’s condition that both sides belong to China. Chinese officials have not called out Taiwan specifically so far for its label of Covid-19, a government media liaison said Wednesday. Resentment will build in Beijing if the name Wuhan keeps getting used, said Alex Chiang, associate professor of international politics at National Chengchi University in Taipei.   “Unless we stop using the term ‘Wuhan virus’, I don’t think the people in the mainland or the government in the mainland will be friendly to Taiwan,” Chiang said. “They look at it as discriminating, demonizing people or the government of mainland China.” 
…

Facing intense surges in the need for hospital ICU beds, European nations are on a building and hiring spree, throwing together makeshift hospitals and shipping coronavirus patients out of overwhelmed cities via high-speed trains and military jets. The key question is whether they will be able to find enough healthy medical staff to make it all work.Even as the virus slowed its growth in overwhelmed Italy and in China, where it first emerged, hospitals in Spain and France reached their breaking points and the U.S. and Britain  braced for incoming waves of desperately ill people.
“It feels like we are in a third world country. We don’t have enough masks, enough protective equipment, and by the end of the week we might be in need of more medication too,” said Paris emergency worker Christophe Prudhomme.
In a remarkable turnaround, rich economies where virus cases have exploded are welcoming help from the less wealthy. Russia sent medical equipment and masks to the U.S. on Wednesday. Cuba sent doctors to France. Turkey sent a planeload of masks, hazmat suits, goggles and disinfectants to Italy and Spain.London is just days from unveiling a 4,000-bed temporary hospital built in a massive convention center to take non-critical patients so British hospitals can free up space and keep ahead of expected virus demand. Still, there are concerns about finding thousands of medical workers to run it.Spain has already boosted its hospital beds by 20%. Dozens of hotels across Spain have been turned into recovery rooms, and authorities are building field hospitals in sports centers, libraries and exhibition halls.Europe’s greatest need at the moment, however, is intensive care units, which are essential in a pandemic in which tens of thousands of patients quickly descend into acute respiratory distress. Those ICU units are much harder to cobble together quickly than standard hospital beds.Milan opened an intensive care field hospital Tuesday at the city fairgrounds for 200 patients, complete with a pharmacy and radiology wards. It expects to eventually employ some 900 staff. The move came after the health situation turned extreme in Italy’s Lombardy region, where bodies overflowed in morgues, caskets piled up in churches and doctors were forced to decide in some cases which desperately ill patient would get a breathing machine.”We aren’t happy to have done this,” fairgrounds foundation head Enrico Pazzali said. “It something I never would have wanted to do.”The pressure is easing on hard-hit Italian cities like Bergamo and Brescia as the rate of new infections in Italy has slowed and hospitals have boosted ICU capacity. Still, many people are dying at home or in nursing homes because hospitals are saturated and they could not get access to ICU breathing machines.  With over 12,400 dead so far, Italy has the most coronavirus deaths of any nation in the world.
Italy, Britain and France are among countries that have called in medical students, retired doctors and even airplane attendants with first aid training to help, although all need re-training.
The medical staffing shortage has been exacerbated by the high number of infected medical personnel. In Italy alone, nearly 10,000 medical workers have been infected and more than 60 doctors have died.Dr. Silvio Brusaferro, the head of Italy’s institutes of health, said three weeks into a nationwide lockdown, the country is seeing the rate of new infections level off.  “(But) arriving at the plateau doesn’t mean we have conquered the peak and we’re done,” he warned. “It means now we should start to see the decline if we continue to place maximum attention on what we do every day.”In neighboring France, nearly 500 people died Tuesday and Paris hospitals are overflowing.
“We had an extremely difficult night, we are at the end of our hospitalization capacity,” Aurélien Rousseau, director of the Paris regional health agency, said Wednesday on France-Info radio.The Paris region more than doubled its ICU capacity over the past week – but the beds are already full. So Paris was sending some critically ill patients to less-saturated regions on specially fitted high-speed trains Wednesday and Thursday. Others have been moved by military plane, helicopter or warship.  One reason Germany is in better shape  than all other European countries is its high proportion of ICU beds, at 33.9 per 100,000 people, compared to 8.6 in Italy.For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause severe symptoms like pneumonia and can lead to death.As U.S. health authorities warned the number of dead could reach up to 240,000 even with social distancing measures in place, the New York region also rushed to set up extra hospital capacity.A 1,000-bed emergency hospital set up at the mammoth Javits Convention Center began taking non-coronavirus patients Tuesday to help relieve the city’s overwhelmed health system. A Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds was expected to accept patients soon, and the indoor tennis center that hosts the U.S. Open tournament is being turned into a hospital.”I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” President Donald Trump said at a Tuesday briefing, as he extended social distancing guidelines until April 30. “We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks.”The U.S. recorded a big daily jump of 26,000 new cases, bringing its total infections to more than 189,000, the highest in the world. The U.S. death toll leapt to over 4,000, and refrigerated morgue trucks were parked on New York streets to collect the dead.Worldwide, more than 860,000 people have been infected and over 42,000 have died, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Italy and Spain accounted for half of all the deaths. China, where it began late latest year, on Wednesday reported just 36 new COVID-19 cases.Some have chosen to ignore social distancing guidelines. In Louisiana, buses and cars filled a church parking lot Tuesday evening as worshippers flocked to hear a pastor who is facing charges for holding services despite a ban on gatherings.A few protesters also showed up at the Life Tabernacle Church, including one with a sign that read: “God don’t like stupid.”  Two ships carrying passengers and crew from an ill-fated South American cruise are urging Florida officials to let them dock. Two people aboard with the virus have died, and nine have tested positive. Trump said, for humanitarian reasons, Florida should do so.
…

The Afghan Taliban have launched a public awareness campaign about the new coronavirus in the areas under their control in the eastern province of Nangarhar. But locals want them to do more.
…

U.S. officials say Americans should be prepared for a potential 100,000 to 240,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus outbreak, while stressing the need to keep social distancing measures in place to give the best chance of lessening the toll.Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he hopes the number will not go that high, but that realistically people should be ready.“People are suffering. People are dying,” he said. “It’s inconvenient from a societal standpoint, from an economic standpoint to go through this. But this is going to be the answer to our problems. So, let’s all pull together and make sure, as we look forward to the next 30 days, we do it with all the intensity and force that we can.”Countries all over the world have locked down cities, regions and even their entire nations to try to stop the virus from spreading.One of the latest to put in place a two-week ban on all but essential activities is Vietnam, which started Wednesday.Last week, New Zealand shut down restaurants, bars, offices and schools. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Wednesday it is too early to tell to what extent those measures have helped so far and advocated more testing to actively track down infections and stop new transmissions.Her government reported 61 new cases to push New Zealand’s total to 708Vietnam has ordered a national lockdown, as well as moved to decrease public transit, Ho Chi Minh, March 31, 2020.”If virus is in the community in this way… then worst thing we can do is to relax and be complacent, and allow the silent spread,” Ardern said.In South Korea, where mass testing has helped level off local transmission rates, official reported 101 new cases Wednesday. The country also started enforcing new 14-day quarantines for anyone entering the country.The risks of imported cases undermining successes in controlling community spread of COVID-19 have prompted similar measures in China, which for several months was by far the world leader in coronavirus cases but now has become a sign for hope with gradual lifting of lockdown restrictions.The United States, Italy and Spain remain the global hotspots with the most cases and deaths.German health officials said Wednesday there were about 5,500 new cases there, putting the country on track to soon become the next to surpass China.Meanwhile, in keeping with a plea from U.N. chief Antonio Guterres for parties in the world’s conflicts to take this opportunity to halt their fighting, the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday urged Afghanistan’s warring sides to implement a cease-fire.The Council “called on the political leadership of Afghanistan to put aside their differences and put the interest of the country first.”
…

The Trump administration is prepared to lift crippling sanctions on Venezuela in support of a new proposal to form a transitional government requiring both Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaidó to step aside in favor of a five-person governing council, U.S. officials said. The one-page “Democratic Transition Framework for Venezuela” was presented Tuesday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It echoes a proposal made over the weekend by Guaidó that shows how growing concerns about the coronavirus, which threatens to overwhelm the South American country’s already collapsed health system and economy, are reviving U.S. attempts to pull the military apart from Maduro.  “This framework can provide a path that ends the suffering and opens the path to a brighter future for Venezuela,” said Pompeo in Washington. Under the plan, both Maduro and Guaidó, who some 60 countries recognize as Venezuela’s rightful leader, would step aside and cede power to a five-member council of state to govern the country until presidential and parliamentary elections can be held within 6-12 months. The military high command — the traditional arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela and a key plank of support for Maduro — would remain in place for the duration of the transitional government. Four of the members would be appointed by the opposition-controlled National Assembly that Guaidó heads. To draw buy-in from the ruling socialist party, a two-thirds majority would be required. The fifth member, who would serve as interim president until elections are held, would be named by the other council members. Neither Maduro nor Guaidó would be on the council but Pompeo said Guaidó would be free to run for president when elections are held. “The hope is that this setup promotes the selection of people who are very broadly respected and known as people who can work with the other side,” U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams told the AP in a preview of the plan. “Even people in the regime look at this and realize Maduro has to go, but the rest of us are being treated well and fairly.” The plan also outlines for the first time U.S. requirements for lifting sanctions against Maduro officials and the oil industry — the source of nearly all of Venezuela’s foreign income. While those accused of grave human rights abuses and drug trafficking are not eligible for sanctions relief, individuals who are blacklisted because of the position they hold inside the Maduro government — such as members of the supreme court, electoral council and the rubber-stamp constitutional assembly — would benefit.  But for sanctions to vanish, Abrams said the council would need to be functioning and all foreign military forces — from Cuba or Russia — would need to leave the country.  “What we’re hoping is that this really intensifies a discussion inside the army, Chavismo, the ruling socialist party and the regime on how to get out of the terrible crisis they’re in,” Abrams said. Maduro’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza all but rejected the call for dialogue, saying Maduro “never will betray the vote of confidence that the people gave him.” For months, the U.S. has relied on economic and diplomatic pressure to try and break the military’s support for Maduro and last week U.S. prosecutors indicted Maduro and key stakeholders — including his defense minister and head of the supreme court — on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.  Still, any power-sharing arrangement is unlikely to win Maduro’s support unless the thorny issue of his future is addressed and he’s protected from the U.S. justice system, said David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America.  “It’s a little hard to see how this is going to be convincing to the major players in the government,” said David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America. “They seem to think the military is going to step in, but that seems extremely unlikely.” It also would require the support of Cuba, China or Russia, all of whom are key backers of Maduro.  The standoff between Maduro and Guaidó has only grown more tense in recent days. Maduro’s chief prosecutor on Tuesday summoned Guaidó to testify after one of the individuals indicted on drug charges said he signed a contract with the opposition leader and his American “advisers” to purchase U.S. assault rifles for a planned coup.  Guaidó’s team said he has never met the retired general, who subsequently surrendered to officials and was taken to the U.S. from his home in Colombia where he had lived since 2018 despite having been previously sanctioned by the U.S. for drug smuggling. A senior administration official said Monday that the U.S. is willing to negotiate with Maduro the terms of his exit even in the wake of the indictments. But recalling the history of Gen. Manuel Noriega in Panama, who was removed in a U.S. invasion after being charged himself for drug trafficking, he cautioned that his options for a deal were running out. “History shows that those who do not cooperate with U.S. law enforcement agencies do not fare well,” the official said in a call with journalists on condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. policy.  Guaidó’s called on Saturday for the creation of a “national emergency government” was accompanied with the promise of $1.2 billion in loans from international financial institutions to fight the pandemic.  The spread of the coronavirus threatens to overwhelm Venezuela’s already collapsed health system while depriving its crippled economy of oil revenue on which it almost exclusively depends for hard currency.  Last September, Guaidó proposed a similar transitional government in talks with Maduro officials sponsored by Norway, which never gained traction.  But with the already bankrupt country running out of gasoline and seeing bouts of looting amid the coronavirus pandemic, calls have been growing for both the opposition and Maduro to set aside their bitter differences to head off a nightmare scenario. 
…

As the novel coronavirus continues to spread around the world, Kurdish officials and rights groups are warning of a catastrophe if thousands of Islamic State (IS) militants held in northeast Syria become infected with the deadly virus.The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led military alliance that has been a major U.S. partner in the fight against IS in Syria, said the possibility is highly likely because local authorities lack adequate resources to prevent the virus from spreading.“If the coronavirus reaches to these prisons, it will be out of control,” Nuri Mahmud, a senior SDF official, said.“If the world is struggling to contain the spread of this virus, you can imagine how extremely difficult it is for us to deal with this crisis with our limited capacity,” he told VOA.The SDF is holding at least 10,000 IS fighters, including nearly 2,000 foreign nationals, captured following the military defeat of the terror group in March 2019.Rights groups fear that COVID-19 could spread quickly in prisons and detention centers in Syria because of poor sanitation, lack of access to clean water and severe overcrowding.“In light of the pandemic, we have asked that all detainees in Syria have access to adequate medical personnel and for NGOs that can provide such support be allowed access to the detention facilities,” said Philippe Nassif, the Middle East and North Africa advocacy director at Amnesty International.Looming threatExperts say local forces and the U.S.-led, anti-IS global coalition are not prepared to prevent the spread of the virus among prisoners affiliated with IS, also known as ISIS.“The threat from COVID-19 exploding among the ISIS prison population in SDF areas due to prison overcrowding and a lack of SDF resources is not abstract, it is looming,” said Nicholas Heras, a Middle East expert at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in Washington.“With the SDF trying to prevent the spread of coronavirus among the local population in northeast Syria, the ISIS prison population will be neglected,” he added.On Monday, the central government in Damascus reported the second death from the coronavirus in the war-torn country.Syrian authorities say there have been 10 confirmed cases of the virus, but health groups believe the number is much higher as the country has limited resources to test patients for the virus.But Kurdish officials complain they are left alone to deal with a possible coronavirus outbreak in areas under their control in northeast Syria.“Damascus is monopolizing the aid that comes from international organizations like the U.N,” SDF official Mahmud charged, adding that “whatever preventive measures taken so far in our region have been done with limited local resources.”Prison break attemptLast weekend, IS militants held in a detention center in the city of Hasakeh in northeast Syria attempted a prison break that caused panic in the region.But SDF officials confirmed that no prisoners succeeded in the escape attempt.“Due to great efforts made by our forces and swift intervention against the insubordination of ISIS detainees inside one prison, we were able to avoid catastrophe and take control,” Mazloum Abdi, general commander of the SDF, said in a tweet Monday.Col. Myles B. Caggins, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Syria and Iraq, told VOA in a statement that now “the SDF have full control of all the detention facilities. They’re doing a good job,” acknowledging that, “10,000 detainees is a lot to manage.”What is next?Kurdish military officials are calling on the intentional community to help them find a permanent solution to the issue of IS prisoners in Syria.“Our allies must find a quick, radical solution to this international problem,” SDF’s Abdi said.Amnesty International says it “has been calling on the international community to implement international justice solutions for IS detainees suspected of committing crimes under international law.”“We are calling for suspects to be prosecuted in fair trials that preclude the death penalty and for victims and their families to receive justice and full reparation,” Nassif of Amnesty International, told VOA.But experts say amid the coronavirus outbreak, swift measures should be taken to address the present crisis.“The best that could be done is support from coalition countries to reduce crowding by building more detention centers and provide medical support from now, but these are only half measures and are likely to be too little, too late,” analyst Heras of ISW said.
…

After years of civil war, Sudan’s new transitional unity government is urging citizens to work towards reconciliation and forgiving perpetrators of violence. But will these measures work in a deeply divided nation? Chika Oduah reports from the South Sudanese capital of Juba.
…

Komal Godiwal, who works as a cleaning lady in several homes in a business hub adjoining the Indian capital, has been struggling to cope in her tiny two-meter by three-meter room where she lives with her husband and four children. “We have to go out to use the shared toilet and to fill up water for cooking,” she said.Two or three members of the family curl up at night on the one bed in the room, the rest sleep on mattresses on the floor.The call on Indians not to step out of their homes for three weeks as the country races to contain the coronavirus includes some 65 million people packed into tiny low-income tenements and tin-roofed shanties in squalid urban slums.Since announcing the lockdown last Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stressed the importance of social distancing, warning that the infection could spread like “wildfire” if there was a single misstep.In densely populated metropolises like Delhi and Mumbai, though, only the middle class and the affluent can heed the clarion call of physical distancing and isolation because they have the luxury of private spaces.Family members stay indoors inside their single-room apartment at a Chawl, home to hundreds of families, during a 21-day nationwide lockdown to slow the spreading of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Mumbai, India, March 31, 2020.Cheek-by-jowl livingFor those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, cheek-by-jowl living is the grim reality and staying two meters apart is not an option.Komal Godiwal’s family shares a toilet with seven other families. Water is filled at community taps and clothes are washed there. Her husband steps out to buy rations at the neighborhood grocer because, unlike the country’s middle class, she did not have enough cash reserves to stock up on food and does not know how to get online deliveries.Still, she could count herself more fortunate than many.For Mumbai’s 5 million slum residents there is one toilet for every 190 persons. In its largest slum Dharavi, featured in the Oscar-winning movie, Slum Dog Millionaire, the population density is 280,000 per square kilometer and the lanes are so narrow that it is difficult to pass through without rubbing shoulders.Public health experts warn that these could be “potential hot spots” for the infection.These densely packed settlements highlight the challenges facing a developing country like India in getting a grip on the pandemic. The unprecedented lockdown while cases were still relatively small has been praised. Whether the country wins or loses the battle it is waging, however, will depend on controlling it in such areas.FILE – A man brushes his teeth outside a shanty in Dharavi, one of Asia’s largest slums, in Mumbai, India, Dec. 27, 2016.’Time bomb’Alarm bells have sounded in Mumbai after more than 10 people living in densely packed low-income areas and slums tested positive for the infection in recent days.“I think we are sitting on a time bomb,” said Rajmohan Panda, a health expert at the Public health Foundation of India.“There has to be an effort on a war footing to supply water of good quality in a manner that enables them to practice some sort of hygiene. For example, you can position water tankers and temporary hand-washing stations in the slums. You have to provide them the resources to fight the infection,” Panda said.India has recorded more than 1,250 cases of coronavirus and 32 deaths. Officials say the infection still has not entered the stage of community transmission when numbers spike exponentially, but several public health experts believe that is inevitable.“We are managing to contain it where the lockdown is working efficiently. But intra-cluster spread is happening and if you don’t monitor this, at the end of 21 days, the virus will get out,” warned T. Jacob John, former head of the Indian Council for Medical Research’s Centre for Advanced Research in Virology.Noting that not enough planning went into plugging “leaky, densely packed points,” he says more attention should be focused on raising awareness about coronavirus transmission in such areas. Experts are calling on India to widen testing that has focused so far on those with travel histories, or those showing symptoms in densely populated low-income settlements that could emerge as the next frontier.The lives of middle-class India intersect closely with those living in low-income settlements — tens of thousands who work as cleaning women, maids, cooks and drivers in their homes are vulnerable and could carry the infection into their crowded communities. India has one hospital bed for 2,000 people.“If community transmission begins happening, then it is going to be a very difficult journey for the health system to tackle,” said Panda. “Many of those living in low-income areas are undernourished and their immunity levels are low. This is going to be a huge problem, especially if poverty levels rise due to loss of livelihoods.”Indian medical officers inspect a quarantine center at the Sarusojai sports complex in Gauhati, India, March 31, 2020. India is adding more resources to tackle its increase in coronavirus cases.Few optionsHowever, for many poor people, those worries dwarf concerns about contracting coronavirus or living in cramped spaces.Sahin, who gives only one name, lives in a temporary shelter with three others near New Delhi. He makes about $120 a month picking up garbage from city homes — work he continues, as garbage collection has been deemed an essential service.He wears a thin mask but heaps trash into his cart with his bare hands and then ferries it to a municipal truck. The last few days have been tough for him, and not because of the health risks he runs working with minimal protective gear. The extra money he made by sifting through the garbage and selling trash that has been recycled has been suspended due to the lockdown. It is posing a challenge as prices surge for vegetables and food rations.   
   
Does Sahin have concerns about the falling sick? The answer is quick and short. “So, what if I worry? Do I have an option to carrying on with my work?”  
 
…

From the East Coast to the middle of the country, U.S. governors say the worst is yet to come as the death toll and the number of people infected with the coronavirus increase. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
…