QNA — WASHINGTON

The State of Qatar has affirmed its commitment to assisting its partners worldwide, including the United States, to overcome the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.

This came in a speech by Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the United States of America H E Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, during his par-ticipation as a keynote speaker at a video conference organised by the American Chamber of Commerce with a group of American businessmen to discuss how the State of Qatar managed the COVID-19 crisis and the current economic situ-ation of the country, with the presence of 58 participants rep-resents prominent American companies in a variety of sectors including Abbott Labo-ratories, MetLife, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, General Electric, Motorola, and Inventus Power, an American company that recently expanded and entered Qatar by opening a manufacturing center in the free zones.

His Excellency stressed during the conference the flex-ibility of the Qatari economy, pointing to several reports issued recently by inde-pendent organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and Moody’s, which emphasized the economic

strength of the State of Qatar.H E the Ambassador

briefed the American com-panies on the extent of regu-lation and the comprehen-siveness of the response of the government of Qatar to combat the coronavirus, noting that these measures contributed to the State of Qatar being one of the coun-tries that experienced the lowest death rate in the world

due to the strength of its medical system.

His Excellency pointed out that, despite the impact that the coronavirus has had on the mis-sions of the Qatari Embassy and its activities in the United States, as well as on the local economy, the basic goals of the country have not changed, and that the country’s economic prospects and the future of bilateral Qatari-American relations are

still bright, stressing the com-mitment of the State of Qatar to assist its partners throughout the world, including the United States, to overcome the crisis.

H E the Ambassador touched on the important, vital, and effective role that Qatar Airways played during the coro-navirus pandemic crisis, stressing that many countries, including Germany, France, and Britain, have formally requested

their citizens to use Qatar Airways company to return to their countries, and even praised Doha through social media for its effective contri-bution in facilitating this task. He pointed out that the company has been described as a lifeline between Asia and Europe, and also between Asia and America to help people return to their homes.

For their part, represent-atives of American companies praised the State of Qatar’s response to combat the coro-navirus, as many companies indicated that their opera-tions in the State of Qatar were not affected at all by the pandemic and that its employees in the country enjoy wide access to health care, medicines, food, and all other amenities.

Several conference attendees also praised the intensive humanitarian efforts being made by the State of Qatar around the world to support the global response to the virus, including in the United States.

The member companies of the American Chamber of Com-merce have expressed their desire and interest in organizing such partnerships with the Qatari Embassy to continue to strengthen the Qatari-American economic partnership despite the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus.

Monday 18 May 2020

25 Ramadan - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 25 | Number 8261

*Valid during Ramadan

Enjoy double data and a complimentary

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BUSINESS | 01 PENMAG | 06 SPORT | 12

Qatar's football

season to

resume on

July 24

Classifieds

and Services

section

included

Qatar offers great

opportunity for

long-term equity

investors

Ramadan Timing

Today's Iftar:6:16pm

Tomorrow's Imsak:03:12am

COVID-19 QATAR UPDATES ON MAY 17, 2020

NEW RECOVERIES

ACTIVE CASES

TOTAL RECOVERIES

TOTAL DEATHS

582 28,219

4,37015

NEW CASES ANNOUNCED

1,632

Qatar committed to assisting partners in virus fight Amiri Diwan announces Eid Al Fitr holidayQNA — DOHA

On the occasion of Eid Al Fitr, the Amiri Diwan yesterday announced the Eid holiday.

According to the announcement, Eid holiday for Ministries, other gov-ernment entities and public institutions starts tomorrow (Tuesday May 19, 2020) and ends on Thursday (May 28, 2020). Employees are to resume their work on Sunday May 31, 2020.

As for Qatar Central Bank (QCB), banks and financial institutions working under the supervision of QCB and Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA), HE the Governor of Qatar Central Bank shall specify the start and the end of the holiday.

HMC caring COVID-19 patients with state-of-the-art treatmentQNA — DOHA

Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) is using state-of-the-art treatment options for patients with COVID-19 who are currently under its care.

The healthcare provider has six hospitals dedicated to the treatment of COVID-19 patients who require specialised care Hazm Mebeireek General Hos-pital, the Communicable Disease Center (CDC), The Cuban Hospital, Ras Laffan Hospital, Mesaieed Hospital, and the newly opened field hos-pital in Al Shahania, bringing the total bed capacity in all these facilities to more than 4,000.

“There are no approved vaccines or medicine for COVID-19, but patients can receive medical care to relieve their symptoms. While most COVID-19 patients in Qatar experience only mild symptoms, some do require additional levels of care and support,” said Dr. Muna Al Maslamani, Communicable Disease Center Medical Director.

One treatment uses the

blood plasma of recovered COVID-19 patients.

The plasma contains anti-bodies that have been shown to help improve immunity against COVID-19. Dr. Al Maslamani said that there is some evidence suggesting the plasma treatment improves the overall condition of COVID-19 patients.

“The plasma therapy is showing promise as a treatment for COVID-19. It is also called convalescent plasma treatment

and requires blood plasma donations from people who have recovered from COVID-19. We have started using plasma treatment at the Communicable Disease Center using plasma from patients who have recovered from COVID-19,” said Dr. Al Maslamani.

To date, 91 patients have received plasma from 79 recovered donors and the team is seeing the number of dona-tions from recovered patients rise each week. �P2

Qatar reports record number of recoveries in a dayTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar has recorded 582 people newly recovered from COVID-19 yesterday, making it the highest number to recover from the disease within 24 hours in the country. With the newly recovered cases, the total number of recoveries in Qatar has reached 4,370.

Also, the Ministry of Public Health has announced the reg-istration of 1,632 new con-firmed cases of COVID-19. The total number of positive COVID-19 cases recorded in Qatar till now stands at 32,604 and there are 28,219 active cases under treatment. So far, 15 people died from the COVID-19 in Qatar.

Ministry conducted 4,874 tests yesterday taking the total tests done so far to 157,570 tests. Yesterday, the Ministry recorded 18 cases admitted to intensive care due to compli-cations resulting from the infection, bringing the total number of cases receiving care in intensive care to 165 cases.

The Ministry has stated that the new cases are due to expa-triate workers who were infected with the virus as a result of contact with indi-viduals who were previously infected, in addition to recording new cases of infection among groups of workers in different regions.

The new cases have been iden-tified after conducting investi-gations by the research and investigation teams of the Ministry.

Cases of infection have also increased among citizens and residents as a result of contact with infected family members who had been infected in the workplace or through visits and family gatherings. In this context, the Ministry affirmed that the high number of injuries among citizens and residents is due to the lack of compliance by some with precautionary measures, the most important of which is social separation and reduced exit from the home and social visits.

The Ministry stated that Qatar has now entered the peak phase of the virus outbreak, which is seeing a rise in the number of infections recorded daily. It is therefore more important than ever to strictly follow recommended pre-vention and social distancing measures.

The Ministry also stressed the importance for the elderly or those suffering from chronic diseases and their family members to follow strict measures to reduce the chances of infection with the virus and to refrain from social visits during the rest of Ramadan as well as on the occasion of Eid Al Fitr. �P2

Domestic workers can authorise employers to submit National Address applicationSIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

Simplifying the National Address registration process for domestic workers, the Ministry of Interior said yesterday that they can authorise their employers to submit their application after filling and signing it.

“Domestic workers can reg-ister their national address using the form for registering domestic workers and authorizing their employer to submit the appli-cation to the competent author-ities after filling it out and

signing it by the worker,” the Ministry of Interior said on its official twitter account.

It also said that the “required data for national address include residence address, mobile and landline numbers, email address and work address.”

The Ministry added: “This information will be used to complete your transactions with governmental and non-governmental agencies.”

The registration for National Address started on January 27, 2020 and will continue until July 26. Every applicant is

responsible for giving the correct information and there is QR10,000 fine for giving false information. The fine also applies for not registering during the six-month period, which ends on July 26. The fine can be reconciled to QR5,000 before reaching the court.

The National Address came within the framework of the stra-tegic development of e-gov-ernance and the completion of the legislative structure necessary for e-government transactions and the transition from the descriptive address to the digital address.

So far, over one million people in Qatar have registered themselves in the National Address. About its importance, the Ministry said that “National Address is a paradigm shift in quick delivery of services and ensures prompt conduct of judicial procedures.”

It will serve many gov-ernment entities such as the Ministry of Municipality and Environment; the Ministry of Justice; the Supreme Judiciary Council and Planning and Sta-tistics Authority, a senior official had said earlier.

Mandatory face mask decision enforced across the country

SIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

For people’s safety and limit the spread of coronavirus outbreak, the Ministry of Interior started yesterday implementing Cabi-net’s decision on wearing mandatory face masks on stepping out of homes.

According to the decision, wearing face masks is man-datory for all upon leaving house for any reason, except in the case when a person is alone while driving a vehicle. The Ministry of Interior has been authorised under Cabi-net’s decision to take the nec-essary measures in this regard.

In case of non-compliance, the penalties stipulated are fine not exceeding QR200,000, imprisonment for a period not exceeding three years or one of these two penalties.

The residents termed the decision good saying that the decision is in the interest and safety of, after the high numbers of infected cases recorded because of non-adherence to precau-tionary measures by some. �P3

H E Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani addresses American Chamber of Commerce

Qatar's economic prospects and the future of bilateral Qatari-American relations are still bright

Effective role played by Qatar Airways during the pandemic stressed

Intensive humanitarian efforts being made by the Qatar around the world to support the global response to the virus draw praise

American companies praised the State of Qatar’s response to combat the coronavirus

H E Sheikh Meshal stressed the flexibility of the Qatari economy, pointing to several reports issued recently by independent organisations such as the IMF and Moody’s, which emphasized the economic strength of the State of Qatar.

To date, 91 patients have received plasma from 79 recovered donors

Most patients experience mild symptoms

Severely ill patients get ECMO therapy

OFFICIAL NEWS

02 MONDAY 18 MAY 2020HOME

Amir sends congratulations to King of Norway

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin

Hamad Al Thani and Deputy Amir

H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad

Al Thani sent yesterday cables of

congratulations to H M King Har-

ald V of Norway on the occasion

of his country’s Constitution Day.

Prime Minister and Minister of Inte-

rior H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa

bin Abdulaziz Al Thani also sent a

cable of congratulations to Prime

Minister of the Kingdom of Norway,

H E Erna Solberg, on the occa-

sion of her country’s Constitution

Day. - QNA

Eighth underpass on Mesaimeer Interchangenow open: AshghalTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) has announced the opening of a new 600m underpass on Mesaimeer Inter-change to traffic towards Rawdat Al Khail Street and D-Ring Road from Doha Expressway, in coordination with the General Directorate of Traffic.

The new underpass is the eighth underpass to be opened, as part of a series of openings, among nine underpasses on Mesaimeer Interchange, bringing the completion per-centage of the vital interchange to about 87%. The new underpass consists of one lane and can accommodate about 2000 vehicles per hour, coming from Doha Expressway, which undergoes great traffic throughout the day.

On this occasion, Eng. Hassan Al Ghanim stated that the new underpass provides free traffic flow in front of vehicles coming from Doha Expressway and 22 February Street towards Rawdat Al Khail Street to serve residents of Nuaija, and those heading to

E-Ring Road, Al Mansoura, Rawdat Al Khail and Doha Central. Accordingly, it will reduce traffic congestion on other surrounding roads and provide new alternatives.

The new three-level inter-change is the first of its kind in Qatar as it contains nine under-passes providing free flow traffic. The interchange also consists of two major bridges. One of them connects Rawdat Al Khail Street and Industrial area road in both directions, and the other one connecting E-Ring Road with the southern part of Doha Expressway in one direction, ensuring a smooth flow of traffic in all directions.

The 6.1 km long, inter-change consists of three to four lanes in each direction to accommodate about 30,000 vehicles per hour in both directions.

The new interchange, once completed in 2020 will signif-icantly improve traffic flow, reducing travel time by more than 70% of travel time.

The Mesaimeer Interchange is the first of its kind in Qatar connecting six main roads, namely Mesaimeer Interchange,

Doha Expressway, southern part of Doha Expressway, Sabah Al Ahmed Corridor, Industrial Area Road and Rawdat Al Khail Street.

The interchange also pro-vides a vital traffic link between the south, central and north of the country. It links traffic from the south through the southern part of Doha Expressway, main carriageway of Doha Expressway and Al Shamal Road.

It also connects traffic between Industrial area road and the heart of Doha through

a connection to Rawdat Al Khail Street, which intersects with D-Ring and C-Ring Road, also between the busy areas of Nuaija, Al Thumama, Bu Hamour, Al Maamoura, Mesaimeer providing an easy access to Al Wakra, Al Wukair and the Industrial area

It is located in a vital area that has many facilities including Al Thumama Stadium, one of the World Cup stadiums, where the interchange has three pedestrian bridges to ease peo-ple’s access to Al Thumama Stadium. The interchange also

serves many important educa-tional, health and commercial facilities such as the Medical Commission, Meteorological Department, many schools, health centers and nearby shopping malls.

The Mesaimeer Interchange integrates with Sabah Al Ahmad Corridor linking Al Watiyyat Interchange, which is a strategic link between the southern part of Doha Expressway and its main highway. This link pro-vides a free flow traffic between the north and south of the country through Doha.

An aerial view of Mesaimeer Interchange.

QRCS, QFFD to provide aid for Palestinian refugees in LebanonTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) and Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to co-launch an immediate response to coronavirus in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

This project is part of Qatar’s ongoing support to many friendly countries of the world. It is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 3.

The joint project seeks to reduce the spread of corona-virus at the camps, as well as to mitigate the socioeconomic impact of nationwide miti-gation measures on vulnerable Palestinian families.

The total estimation of direct beneficiaries is 139,400 individuals, mostly children, including 8,430 individuals with disability. Twelve refugee camps are targeted, six in the South, three in Beirut, two in the North, and one in Al-Bekaa.

Ten hospitals and health centers would receive personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect at least 400 health care providers while dealing with cases, five ambulance vehicles would be provided to transfer an average of 300 cases per month from camps to hospitals, and one quarantine hospital would be equipped and pre-pared to serve camp inhab-itants infected with COVID-19.

Also, 1,000 families would receive hygiene promotion kits for prevention of infection, and 27,800 families would receive food parcels to meet their needs during the lockdown period.

The project will be co-implemented by QRCS’s rep-resentation mission in Lebanon, the Lebanese Red Cross, and Palestine Red Crescent Society in Lebanon. They will work together on selecting lists of beneficiaries; identifying the target health facilities; procuring and storing the medical, food, and nonfood items; and distributing the aid through their field personnel.

HBKU’s QCRI offers perspectives on quest for COVID-19 treatment, news manipulationTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), part of Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), delivered the fifth and sixth instalments of its webinar series centred on COVID-19.

The webinar series is organised by the institute’s Qatar Center for Artificial Intel-ligence and focuses on the use of artificial intelligence and data science for COVID-19 data. With confirmed cases worldwide surpassing 2.7 million and growing, presenta-tions focused on the race to develop vaccines and treat-ments and the ‘infodemic’ of inaccurate and false news undermining efforts to overcome the pandemic.

A Data-Driven Perspective on Drug Discovery highlighted technologies and methodol-ogies used by scientists in their pursuit of finding a treatment or a vaccine for COVID-19. QCRI speakers: Raghvendra Mall, research scientist, and Ehsan Ullah, software engineer in the Health Group, discussed the pros and cons of some of the directions being pursued in search of a treatment, show-casing quantitative measures

that are widely utilized to m e a s u r e a d r u g ’ s effectiveness.

The speakers presented an AI-based approach to design the drug repurposing task to identify potential drug candi-dates for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Speaking after the lecture, Dr. Mall said: “As scientists across the globe work nonstop to find a vaccine for COVID-19, the world waits with hope and uncertainty. This webinar explored the scientific tech-niques and methodologies used by these scientists and provided a perspective on the possible consequences of fast-tracking the process.”

Flattening the Curve of the COVID-19 Infodemic, presented by Kareem Darwish, principal scientist and acting managing director of Arabic Language Technologies, QCRI, Preslav Nakov, principal scientist, and Giovanni Da San Martino, sci-entist at QCRI, discussed the politicization of the pandemic and its effect on the perception of medical realities.

They also presented tools developed by QCRI to help address misinformation and information manipulation in the context of social media and

traditional media outlets. These include “Tanbih”, a news aggre-gator developed to limit the effect of fake news, propa-ganda, and media bias by pro-moting media literacy and critical thinking.

Dr. Nakov said: “The prolif-eration of fabricated news that has accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic is putting many lives at risk and impeding the progress in containing the virus. With this webinar, we aimed to educate and direct the public to resources that can help them identify fake news.”

The final installment in QCRI’s online webinar series on COVID-19 will be a panel titled Responding to Global Crises in the Age of Data and Information Overload on May 18. Experts from QCRI’s Qatar Center for Artificial Intelligence will discuss the outcomes of COVID-19 covering the physical reality on the ground and the overload of new information. The free webinar can be accessed at HBKU website. QCRI is one of three national research institutes operating under HBKU’s umbrella. The Institute conducts computing research relevant to the needs of Qatar and the Arab region.

Car trips dropped 50% in late-March to mid-AprilTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Weekly number of car trips dropped by about 50 percent in late March to mid April, according to the Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC) analytics report. However, level of activity increased in late April and early May, coinciding with Ramadan.

The Qatar Mobility Innova-tions Center (QMIC) launched its COVID-19 Mobility Analytics report which provides insight into movement and mobility behaviour in Qatar since the beginning of the pandemic till the first week of May 2020.

According to the report, the weekly congestion level dropped significantly by 55-66 percent since late March, with biggest drop of 66 percent noticed in the first week of May.

Also the weekly outdoor mobility activity dropped by about 45 percent in late March to late April, however level of activity increased in early May.

The report also indicated that the weekly trip activities to/from Hamad International

Airport started to drop noticeably since early March reaching a steady weekly reduction of 80 percent since early April.

The report is based on the unique and rich traffic data bank produced by QMIC’s Advanced Traffic Monitoring & Analytics Platform (Masarak) which collects millions of data records on a daily basis about mobility behaviour in Qatar.

Using mobility behaviour during the first half of February as a baseline ( before the COVID-19 Pandemic), the report focuses on a few key per-formance metrics that show

how mobility behaviour has changed on a weekly basis since the middle of February till the first week of May.

Dr. Adnan Abu Dayya, the Executive Director (CEO) of QMIC commented by saying “For the last few weeks, our team has been busy into looking into how we can utilize our existing digital platforms and how to leverage our technology know-how to build new appli-cations and services to support the national fight against COVID-19.”

“This mobility report is an example of how our extensive traffic data bank can be used to

track mobility behaviour in Qatar which can be useful in aiding decision makers and planners in assessing com-pliance with national guidelines associated with COVID-19,” he added.

For many years, QMIC has been utilising its vast multi-source data collection network and mobility analytics platform to collect various metrics and inputs in order to analyze and draw important conclusions regarding mobility in Qatar. This data is in turn used to power a number of applications and services, including but not only the annual Qatar Traffic Report as well as monthly reports shared with QMIC’s key partners.

QMIC plans to update its mobility report on a weekly basis starting on the second half of May in order to track weekly trends and changes in mobility behaviour. Additionally, this data could serve as a rich and informative source for stake-holders and a valued tool for future and current planning purposes.

MME records 17

environmental

violations in

Industrial Area

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Industrial Inspection and Pollution Control Department of the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) has carried out inspection of industrial facilities in the Industrial Area, to ensure their compliance with environ-mental requirements.

This came within the framework of the Ministry’s efforts to curb the violations to preserve the environment, said the Ministry in a statement.

The campaign covered over 92 factories in the Indus-trial Area where municipal inspectors recorded 17 envi-ronmental violations.

Legal action was taken against the erring factories.

After recording the viola-tions, violators are being referred to the security author-ities for further legal actions.

Three factories were also asked to rectify their environ-mental conditions.

State-of-the-art

treatment for

COVID-19 patients

FROM PAGE 1

Most critically ill COVID-19 patients are currently being treated at the Intensive Care Unit at Hazm Mebeireek General Hospital and severely ill COVID-19 patients often require mechanical venti-lation. A small percentage will require extracorporeal mem-brane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy.

“The ECMO technology can oxygenate a severely sick COVID-19 pneumonia patient’s blood without the need to transfer the oxygen through fluid-filled lungs. ECMO replaces the function of the lung like the dialysis function for a kidney,” said Dr. Ahmed Al Mohammed, Acting Chairman of HMCs Intensive Care Units.

Dr. Al Mohammed said COVID-19 patients who undergo ECMO therapy are among the sickest being treated. “Severely ill COVID-19 patients require sophisticated treatment and we have not only sufficient numbers of staff and equipment but also the specialized skills and expe-rience required to care for the sickest patients.

“The average length of stay for COVID-19 patients in the ICU has been between two and tree weeks but patients with existing medical conditions often take longer to recover from the virus. Should the number of COVID-19 patients who require ICU-level care rise, HMC has contingency plans in place which would enable us to redeploy man-power from other parts of the healthcare system,” he added.

Qatar reports record number of recoveries from COVID-19

FROM PAGE 1

The reasons for the high numbers of new cases are due to the Ministry’s redoubling of its efforts in tracking the tran-sitional chains of the virus and expanding the circle of searching for infected people through intensive and proactive investigations of large numbers of contacts with people who have been con-firmed with the virus recently.

The Ministry stressed that because the coronavirus out-break is at the peak stage in Qatar, it is important not to leave the house except for when absolutely essential.

It also stressed the impor-tance of adhering to all measures to protect against virus infection, including maintaining social distancing both in the workplace and public places, as well as wearing a medical mask and avoiding social visits to reduce the risk of contracting the virus.

FAJR SUNRISE 03.22 am 04.48 am

W A L R U WA I S : 24o↗ 31o W A L K H O R : 24o↗ 35o W D U K H A N : 25o↗ 33o W WA K R A H : 23o↗ 35o W M E S A I E E D 23o↗ 35o W A B U S A M R A 23o↗ 37o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 01:09–16:02 LOW TIDE 09:26 – 20:19

Hot daytime with some clouds, mild by night.

Minimum Maximum27oC 38oC

ZUHRMAGHRIB

11.30 am06.16 pm

ASR ISHA

02.57 pm07.46 pm

03MONDAY 18 MAY 2020 HOME

Ooredoo Money

sub-wallets

launchedTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar’s leading telecommuni-cations operator has announced a brand-new feature of its popular Ooredoo Money service, allowing users to register family members and domestic staff by sharing their wallet’s limit so they can have their own sub-wallet and get the same quick, easy and efficient access to Ooredoo Money services.

The new feature means family members — over the age of eight for Qatari nationals, and over the age of 18 for residents of other nationalities — and any domestic staff with their Ooredoo mobile number reg-istered under the main Wallet holder’s QID can have their own sub-wallet which they can operate independently.

This will enable them to access the raft of services offered by Ooredoo Money from the safety of their home.

Family or staff members can request a sub-wallet by using the ‘Register’ option on the Ooredoo Money app, and the main Wallet-holder will then be prompted to approve the request.

Or, a sub-wallet can be assigned by the main wallet holder by using the ‘sub-wallet’ option on the app. QF opens way for entrepreneurs to

play their part in battling COVID-19THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Although much of the world remains in lockdown in the fight against an invisible enemy called COVID-19, people are continuing to work around the clock in search of ways to overcome the challenges global society is facing.

Among them are the world’s entrepreneurs, who are shifting focus and re-evaluating their priorities in order to help develop creative, functional, and effective solutions to the difficulties that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented. Whether it’s helping parents school their children whilst jug-gling household duties and full-time jobs, providing Personal Protective Equipment to medical staff, or ensuring the delivery of necessities to people who are self-isolating, entre-preneurs, start-ups, and SMEs are playing their part in com-bating this crisis.

Q a t a r F o u n d a t i o n Research, Development, and Innovation (QF RDI) offers a number of programs that help entrepreneurs take their ideas from the drawing board to the market. These include Qatar Science & Technology Park’s Incubation and XLR8 pro-grams, Product Development Fund, Tech Venture Fund, and MENA Dojo, as well as QF RDI’s

Innovation Coupon. While these programs are geared towards supporting any eli-gible tech ventures, they are now specifically calling for entrepreneurs who have novel solutions to the challenges posed by COVID-19 — in the fields of healthcare, remote learning, and supply chain optimization — to apply.

These programs usually run on a yearly schedule, but are now accepting applications on a rolling basis with no deadline, and applications with ideas specifically targeting issues sur-rounding COVID-19 will be expedited, with the MENA Dojo being open to regional appli-cants and the Tech Venture Fund open to international applicants.

“At Qatar Foundation, we are determined to play our part in the global fight against COVID-19,” said Yosouf Al-Salehi, Executive Director of Qatar Science and Technology Park.

“Technology and inno-vation are at the forefront of this global battle against the pandemic. QSTP has been a byword for tech innovation that addresses the needs of Qatar and global society since its establishment more than 10 years ago, and, as COVID-19 continues to affect our world, we are striving to address the

challenges it has created and to be what these unprecedented times demand.

“We want to make a pos-itive and tangible contribution to developing solutions that our world urgently needs right now, and that is why we want to hear from local and international start-ups and SMEs with ideas that can support the fight against COVID-19.”

Start-ups and SMEs accepted into these programs have the opportunity to be incubated, acquire funding, and gain access to mentorship, training, and technical guidance that supports them in taking their products and services to t h e p o i n t o f commercialization.

QSTP is a premier envi-ronment for start-ups and SMEs to develop their technologies, with its Incubator offering an array of benefits that include rapid and affordable incorpo-ration in a collaborative co-working space, business facil-itation, and access to a network of mentors, funding schemes, and prototyping facilities.

The Tech Venture Fund supports embryonic companies in Qatar, and also provides backing to more established, international start-ups with investment of up to $500,000 at a seed stage and up to $3m at a Series B round.

Survey: 95% telecom consumers aware of fraud messagesTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Around 95 percent of telecom consumers in Qatar are aware of fraud messages, a survey conducted by the Communica-tions Regulatory Authority (CRA) has shown.

The CRA recently con-ducted a bilingual survey in Arabic and English on social media channels about fraud messages. The survey was con-ducted in line with CRA’s efforts to spread awareness among telecom consumers in Qatar and aimed at measuring telecom consumers' level of awareness of fraud messages, that inform consumers that they won a prize, or that their bank card has been suspended or compromised, and ask them to call on suspicious mobile number, so they can get their personal or bank information. The survey covered around 1,200 participants.

The results indicate that 95 percent of telecom consumers are aware of fraud messages and its purposes and that they take the necessary measures to protect themselves and devices from hacking, by either

ignoring the messages, deleting it, or by blocking the number and reporting it to their telecom service provider.

“We urge telecom con-sumers not to respond to fraud messages, delete the messages to avoid the risk of replying to it accidentally, avoid calling the mentioned number, report it to their telecom service provider or bank to validate this message, and avoid opening the link attached as hackers use this method to obtain their per-sonal information or direct them to a malware site that can affect the data on their devices,” said Amel Salem Al Hanawi, Director of Consumer Affairs Department, CRA.

“Due to the increase of fraud messages recently, I want to confirm that telecom service providers and banks will never contact their customers through messaging and Voice over IP (VoIP) mobile applica-tions to ask for their passwords, activation code, or personal and financial information. By following these preventive measures, telecom consumers can help to limit these fraud messages,” she added.

Public advised to donate through proper channelsSANAULLAH ATAULLAH THE PENINSULA

The Regulatory Authority for Charitable Activities (RACA) has asked residents to make dona-tions through proper channels to avoid legal action.

“Do not to be exploited in sending funds outside the country to suspicious entities for charitable purposes. You may be held legally accountable. In case of sus-picion, report to RACA on the hotline 16010,” the Authority said in a tweet.

Any person or entity who exploits the wishes of others to do good and raise funds through chat programs and electronic messages without a license from RACA shall be held legally accountable, said the Authority. The Authority asked people to make sure that the donations are made through the bank accounts of non-profit organizations licensed by the Regulatory Authority for Char-itable Activities.

RACA makes policies and measures that enhance accountability and trans-parency in the NPO sector for protecting NPOs from exploi-tation in terrorist financing.

RACA issues licenses for charities and private charitable foundations and supervises and monitors their administrative

and financial affairs to ensure that donations are made to the deserving beneficiaries.

To ensure the transparency in charity works, registration and other necessary details of nonprofit organizations oper-ating in the State of Qatar can be found at RACA’s website: http://raca.gov.qa.

Non-profit organizations are committed to disclosing background information and making their final accounts and financial reports available to the public on their websites.

Non-profit organizations in the State of Qatar shall abide by the controls and procedures stipulated in the rules and instructions of integrity and transparency issued by RACA.

Any person or entity who engages in the collection of donations without prior authorisation from RACA is held liable in accordance with the law. Donors are asked to make sure there is a valid license from RACA.

The Authority said that with the spread of COVID-19 pan-demic, fraudsters exploit peo-ple’s love for charity, so make sure to donate to the entities licensed by the Regulatory Authority for Charitable Activities.

RACA has asked the donors to not engage with those raising funds without a license.

Qatar an essential pillar of global cooperation: Sheikha AlyaTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations, H E Ambas-sador Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani, has affirmed that Qatar is an active player, thanks to the wise policy of the State's leadership, in most activities of the UN organs, and in regional and international groups active in issues that fall within the political priorities of the State of Qatar.

In an interview with Al-Diplomacy Magazine, prepared by the Diplomatic Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ambassador said that the UN selection of Qatar to open offices for its organs and organ-izations is an important message indicating that Qatar is at the forefront of the reliable countries in the region.

She stressed that the State of Qatar is an essential pillar of international cooperation for burden-sharing and for the UN to carry out its functions and achieve its goals, in accordance with its Charter.

The Ambassador said that Qatar's role and contributions

could be seen in the political, humanitarian and social fields of concern to the international community, also, its role in pro-moting international peace and security and human rights, implementation of the UN Development Plan 2030, the response to the effects of climate change, fight against terrorism and extremism, the dialogue of civilizations, cul-tures, and religions, education, youth, women and children,

and humanitarian relief. In addition, this role is visible in mediating peaceful settlement of disputes, so, these efforts and the impressive results are uni-versally admired.

Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani said, “Perhaps the last major achievement of the State is the signing of the peace agreement by the US and the Afghan Taliban at the end of February in Doha after four decades of cruel wars.

"Worth mentioning, Qatar is also a signatory to a number of international treaties, agree-ments, and instruments, and it has demonstrated an active role in promoting human rights and protecting it, and accordingly, the Permanent Delegation is active in all matters that fall within the priorities of the state’s foreign policy.”

“As Permanent Represent-ative of Qatar, I have been assigned by the UN to many of core functions of the interna-tional organization of interest to member states,” she added.

The Ambassador pointed out, “The international status achieved by H H the Amir, places us with a great respon-sibility to maintain this status. As His Highness has so well deservedly placed Qatar in the ranks of influential countries in the world, and to continue the path of prosperity and progress in various areas. This is what motivates us to exert our utmost efforts to preserve the status and reputation of our country, which has become respected and appreciated by all.”

The Ambassador pointed to the success of Qatar's diplomacy, led by H E the Deputy Prime Minister and Min-ister of Foreign Affairs, partic-ularly during the blockade, stressing “defending our interests, was impressive and had become an approach to our diplomacy.”

Qatar’s Permanent Repre-sentative to the UN added, “The Delegation has adopted a strategy based on Qatar’s record, position and world con-fidence in it to respond to the baseless accusations that the blockade states have been charging Qatar with, where we have strongly responded, with argument and clear evidence, to any attempt by those states to convince the Member States of their allegations.”

She said, “There is a common saying in the UN, that we in Qatar “say and do”, unlike the blockade states that ‘say and do not do”, speaking about Qatar contributions, practically, in drying up the sources of ter-rorism, underscoring that the crisis greatly consolidated Q a t a r ’ s p o s i t i o n internationally.”

The international status achieved by H H the Amir, places us with a great responsibility to maintain this status.

As His Highness has so well deservedly placed Qatar in the ranks of influential countries in the world, and to continue the path of prosperity and progress in various areas. This is what motivates us to exert our utmost efforts to preserve the status and reputation of our country, which has become respected and appreciated by all.”

The Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations, H E Ambassador Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani

Mandatory face mask decision enforced across QatarFROM PAGE 1

“The decision is for every-one’s safety and we must abide by it. We should not expose our lives and the lives of others to risk as this attitude is not unac-ceptable,” said a resident Ahmed.

He further said, “Anyone who violates the decision, deserve the penalties because infection sometimes leads to death.”

For his part, Mawloud Azher pointed that he used to

wear masks and gloves in public places, because it was meant protect him and his family.

“People who do not abide by the State’s instructions should be punished for greater cause of protecting the society from pandemic,” he added.

The country has made great efforts to protect society from the virus as it has established factories to produce masks and they are easily available in the market on controlled prices.

Many companies have also dis-tributed face masks among their workers for free.

The Ministry of Interior (MoI) has urged people to abide by safety measures issued by the authorities concerned to limit the spread of coronavirus. It launched drive in many lan-guages such as Arabic, English, Hindi, Urdu, Nepalese, Bengali, Sinhalese, Tagalog, Tamil, Malayalam, Pashto and Indo-nesian languages to educate people about this decision.

Retail Mart, New Indian Supermarket open 24 hours THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Four branches of Retail Mart Hypermarket and New Indian Supermarket will be open to customers 24 hours from now onwards.

Retail Mart management has taken this step to help the residents of Qatar to procure daily groceries and households at any convenient time they require. All the branches are equipped with thermometers, gloves and hand sanitizer at the entrance and exits for cus-tomers safety.

The management also said that they have completed 48 years of serving the residents of Qatar and also relocated their oldest outlet New Indian Supermarket to a 24,000sqft outlet in the same street for their valuable customers. They are also launching their web-store and delivery services soon.

Twenty four hours of services are available in Retail Mart Al Wakra, Retail Mart Messaied, Retail Mart Al Ghanim, Retail Mart Madinath Khalifa and New Indian Super-market in Old Airport area.

Men wearing protective face masks walk on a jogging track in Doha's Old Airport area. Wearing face masks in public has been made mandatory by the government. PIC: BAHER AMIN/THE PENINSULA

04 MONDAY 18 MAY 2020HOME

World needs COVID-19 clarity to preventmental health problems: QF’s Doha DebatesTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Safeguarding jobs, providing the public with clear governmental guidance, and avoiding using the phrase “social distancing” have been marked out as key to avoiding people’s mental health plummeting across the world amid COVID-19, during an online discussion staged by Qatar Foundation’s Doha Debates.

Coping With The Crisis: Mental Health and COVID-19 — the theme of the latest edition of Doha Debates’ #DearWorldLive series — saw a Uni-versity of Oxford academic whose work focuses on human wellbeing warn that, after a period of early resil-ience, people’s mental state may now be starting to decline with no end to the pandemic currently in sight.

Dr. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, an economics professor who has won accolades for his contributions to the scientific study of happiness, told the show: “In the first month following the lockdown, people adapted, and we were quite resilient.

“However, the latest data shows we are now at an inflection point where we are muddling through, and there are the first signs of things pointing downward again, partially driven by people being fed up. I think that’s because people are now coming to terms with the idea this is not going to be a V-shaped recovery where we sprint back to the old normal.

“People are fearful about what will

happen in the next few months and governments are not being clear on this. This raises uncertainty and psy-chological instability, and we could see a general decrease in our mental health and wellbeing without government guidance on what to do, what is right, and what is wrong.”

According to Dr. De Neve, the importance of retaining jobs “cannot be stressed enough”, as he said” It’s not just the income loss that matters when people are being made redundant — it’s the loss of routine, self-esteem and social identity, and the social network of a work environment.

“We also need to change the wording and start to say

‘physical distancing’ rather than ‘social distancing’. The notion of ‘social dis-tancing’, from a mental health and wellbeing perspective, could not be more poorly chosen. In times of crisis, we have to rely on the quality of our social relationships and social capital, re-appreciate them, and reinvest in them.”

The #DearWorldLive discussion — moderated by Nelufar Hedayat — also included psychiatrist, writer, film-maker, and entrepreneur Dr. Kamran Ahmed, who specialises in treating mental issues. He told the show he has seen patients “severely anxious about catching the virus”, struggling with losing jobs and businesses, and grieving

for loved ones.“In psychiatry, there is the idea of

defence mechanism — unconscious ways of dealing with difficulty — and they include creativity and altruism,” he said. “People can be inclined to help others as a way of helping themselves through this.

“But the challenges of being alone in lockdown are significant. People struggle with negative thoughts, espe-cially if they have a very loud ‘inner critic’ — the voice in your head that puts you down for no apparent reason. I encourage people to take this oppor-tunity to challenge that inner critic and test what it is telling you, because it can hold you back.

“We should also keep following the health advice we are given, because doing things that we know will protect us will make us feel better.

We should limit the amount of information we consume about COVID-19 because it can become over-whelming. And it’s important not to be hard on yourself — if you are feeling anxious or worried you are not being productive, it’s OK, because this is a difficult time.”

Emmy Award-winning writer and speaker Suleika Jaouad, a cancer sur-vivor, told #DearWorldLive: “We need to recognise how the imprints of an experience like a global pandemic will remain long after the crisis is over — there will be a long-term fallout, and we need to give people space and give a language to the very real hardship people are experiencing.

“It’s important to focus on acts we can do beyond our own lives, in the service of others, and take precautions to protect our mental and emotional wellbeing just as we take precautions in terms of staying at home. The temp-tation is to focus on physical illness without also focusing on the more holistic impact of this pandemic.”

And Dana Al Ali, a fourth-year medical student at Qatar Foundation partner university Weill Cornell Med-icine-Qatar, said: “People should look at this as a time for self-learning and self-growth — although life may seem on pause, it is not necessarily a pause on yourself.

Experts during an online discussion organised by Doha Debates.

QNL supports open access for Qatari research

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

This week experts at Qatar National Library (QNL) have guided researchers through the Library’s Open Access Author Fund, as part of a commitment to sharing knowledge and infor-mation across the world. The online sessions saw practical advice given to researchers wishing to publish open access articles, as well as detailed instructions of gaining access to funding for publishing in open access journals.

The Open Access Author Fund aims to support Qatar-based research through the pro-vision of a national fund that covers costs related to open access publishing. It is available for students, faculty, researchers and staff from any institute of higher education or non-profit research institute within Qatar.

QNL is a leading centre in open access in the Gulf and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and is working towards making a global impact, particularly in areas where access to information is limited due to factors such as funding.

The Library has funded 782 articles since 2017. The Qatar National Library Consortium recently announced a partnership with a major publisher Elsevier

for an open access publishing pilot in Qatar. This linkup repre-sents the company’s first com-bined reading and publishing agreement in the Gulf region.

The Library also has open access agreements with other traditionally subscription-based publishers, including Springer Nature, Taylor and Francis, Emerald, Sage, Ovid, Wolters, Karger, De Gruyter and Wiley.

Dr Alwaleed Alkhaja, Senior Intellectual Property Librarian and OA fund manager at Qatar National Library said: “We are committed to supporting the researchers of Qatar to dissem-inate their findings as far and wide as possible. Wherever we can, we will support innovative scholars, creative thinkers and scientific pioneers to maximise the impact of their findings across the world.

“We were delighted to be able to assist researchers in Qatar this week to understand how they can finance their research publications. Open access is one

of our core values, which can also be seen in our commitment to offering free, unrestricted access to our collections and services such as the Qatar Digital Library and our repository.

“We have created opportunities for scholars across Qatar to publish in open access journals by covering article processing charges (APCs) for local and international journals, as well as negotiating agreements with major publishers to make sure that research findings create as many waves as possible across the research community and beyond.

"Many researchers in Qatar may not have sufficient support available through grants or institu-tional funds, so it’s vital that we are helping to bridge that gap to make open access an easier choice.”

QNL takes part in various international open access initia-tives and is contributing to the development of international open access principles through the International Federation of Information & Library Associa-tions (IFLA).

Indonesian orphans express delight at receiving Eid clothes from Qatar CharityTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Charity (QC) has distributed Eid clothing to orphans in Indonesia, benefiting 160 children in Jakarta, Depok, and West Java. The beneficiaries thanked the benefactors in Qatar for their generous giving, support, and assistance.

“I would like to extend my heartfelt to donors and Qatar Charity for providing me with the precious gift that delighted me in these difficult

circumstances, under which we are living due to the corona-virus (COVID-19) pandemic,” said Ahmed Elias Hafiz from the Jakarta suburb, who received an Eid clothing.

“I am very grateful to donors and Qatar Charity for giving me this special attention by providing me with an Eid clothing,” said Nadia Yulianti, adding that, “I thought I would not wear new clothes this Eid, because my mother became jobless due to

the coronavirus outbreak.” Shifa Botari, a beneficiary

of Eid clothing, said that the salary of her mother, who works as a maid, is only enough to meet the daily needs of the family, adding that the prices of daily necessities became very high in the last two months, bringing further difficulties to the family. “Now, I am very happy that we will wear new clothes on this Eid,” Botari expressed her delight thanking donors in Qatar.

A Qatar Charity official giving Eid Al Fitr gifts to a child in Indonesia.

QVPF holds virtual Iftar meetingTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Vanimal Pravasi Forum (QVPF), an expat community hailing from South Indian state of Kerala, hosted its virtual Iftar meet on Friday. Since its inception 18 years ago, the QVPF has been holding Iftar meet every year as a way to meet new and existing members.

This year, the members connected through Zoom app with social distancing still in place amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The meeting started off with

Rezin Abdul Salam reciting a verse from the Qur’an. General Secretary Shammas Kalathil welcomed the members, while President Sadique Chennadan delivered a speech on ‘How to Survive Socio-Economic Impact of the Covid-19 Pan-demic’. He stressed the impor-tance of strengthening ties in communities and supporting each other by extending financial aid, sharing important information, resources and tools to try to cope with the situation.

Dr Arif NP, a long-time member of QVPF, delivered his

key note address on ‘COVID-19 and Preventive Measures’. With so much conflicting information about the coronavirus pan-demic swirling around the social media, Dr Arif answered members’ questions in a live session.

Pravasi Forum Thanal chairman MK Abdul Salam explained its activities and future prospects.

The e-Iftar meeting, which saw the participation of around 100 members, was literally once in a blue moon experience for both new and long-time members.

Qatar Vanimal Pravasi Forum members during the virtual Iftar meeting.

The importance of retaining jobs cannot be stressed enough. It’s not just the income loss that matters when people are being made redundant — it’s the loss of routine, self-esteem and social identity, and the social network of a work environment."

Lockdown effect

05MONDAY 18 MAY 2020 MIDDLE EAST

Israel swears in unity govt, PM insists on West Bank annexationAFP — OCCUPIED JERUSALEM

Israel’s parliament swore in a new unity government yesterday led by Prime Minister Netanyahu and his former rival Benny Gantz, ending the longest political crisis in the nation’s history.

After more than 500 days without a stable government and three inconclusive elec-tions, lawmakers in the 120-seat parliament approved a three-year coalition, with 73 voting for and 49 against. One member was absent.

The new government was set to confront serious crises in its first weeks, including the economic devastation wrought by the coronavirus and a looming battle over Israel’s pos-sible annexation of large parts of the occupied West Bank.

Addressing the parliament, or Knesset, before the vote, Netanyahu said his incoming government should apply Israeli sovereignty over Jewish West Bank settlements.

“It’s time to apply the Israeli law and write another glorious chapter in the history of Zionism,” Netanyahu said.

Such a move is seen as likely to cause international uproar and inflame tensions in the West Bank, home to nearly three million Palestinians and some 400,000 Israelis living in settlements considered illegal under international law.

Netanyahu told the

chamber that annexation “won’t distance us from peace, it will bring us closer”.

The coalition government was agreed last month between veteran right-wing leader Netanyahu and the centrist Gantz, a former army chief.

Plans had been set for an inauguration last Thursday, but Netanyahu asked for three more days to decide on cabinet assignments among his Likud party loyalists.

Under the coalition deal, Netanyahu will serve as prime minister for the coming 18 months — a major victory for a leader due to stand trial in a week on corruption charges, which he denies.

Gantz will be alternate prime minister, a new position in Israeli governance, for the first half of the deal. He and Netanyahu will swap roles on November 17, 2021.

The Netanyahu-Gantz deal says the government can from July 1 initiate moves to implement US President Donald Trump’s controversial peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The plan, rejected by the Palestinians, gives the green light from Washington for Israel to annex Jewish settlements and other territory in the West Bank.

Some experts warn that Jordan may back away from its historic 1994 peace deal with Israel if the Jewish state tries to annex the strategically crucial Jordan Valley border region.

Speaking to German mag-azine Der Spiegel days ago, Jor-dan’s King Abdullah II said: “If Israel really annexes the West Bank in July, it would lead to a massive conflict with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Friday that the bloc would use “all our diplomatic capacities” to try to dissuade Israel’s incoming government from going ahead with annexations.

Gantz and incoming Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi are both known to have reserva-tions about annexation and the international backlash. Gantz did not mention the issue in his Knesset speech.

Elderly men wearing protective face masks walk down stairs at Pierre Loti Hill, in Istanbul, after a-month-and-a-half of lockdown restrictions aimed at stemming the spread of COVID-19.

Turkey’s senior citizens allowed out for second SundayAP — ISTANBUL

Turkey’s senior citizens were allowed to leave their homes for a second time as the country continues to ease some coro-navirus restrictions.

People above 65—the age group most at risk of devel-oping serious COVID-19 symptoms— can be outside for

six hours on Sunday, but their lockdown on other days con-tinues. The health minister urged them to wear masks and practice social distancing.

Turkey has instituted partial lockdowns with people above 65 and under 20, who are ordered to stay at home. The measure towards senior citizens came

into force on March 21 and were relaxed for the first time last week.

Children and teenagers were also allowed out this week on different days for several hours.

The latest statistics by the health ministry put confirmed infections at 148,067 and the death toll at 4,096.

Iran to allow Eid prayers in open spaces; virus deaths near 7,000AFP & QNA— TEHRAN

Iran said yesterday that it had recorded nearly 7,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus, warning of infection clusters in new regions after it partially eased lockdown measures.

Iran announced yesterday that it will allow Eid Al Fitr prayers to be held in open spaces in all cities.

Hossein Kazemi, secretary of the committee tackling the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, said that the prayer will be held in open places and in all cities, adding that it will not take place where participation is likely to be intense, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (Irna).

He explained that

restaurants will be opened after Ramadan, taking into account health protocols. Health min-istry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said the COVID-19 illness had claimed a further 51 lives over 24 hours. The min-istry raised the overall death toll to 6,988 since Iran announced its first fatalities in the Shia city of Qom in February.

Jahanpour warned that cases were rising “in the province of Lorestan, and to some extent in Kermanshah, Sistan and Baluchistan”.

“Khuzestan province is still in a critical situation,” he added. The southwestern province has become Iran’s new coronavirus focal point, with the most critical “red” ranking on the country’s

colour-coded risk scale. It is the only region so far

where authorities have reim-posed business lockdowns after a country-wide relaxation in April. Iran stopped publishing provincial figures for the coro-navirus last month, but the health ministry’s latest report said there is a “rising trend or the beginning of a peak” in eight

provinces, including Khuzestan. The country on Friday reported its highest number of new infec-tions in more than a month.

A virus taskforce official said Sunday that the increase was due to a surge in testing, not just of COVID-19 patients with severe symptoms.

Early in the outbreak “our focus was on severe cases that

had to be hospitalised, but as we started to manage the disease we looked at those infected and not hospitalised,” said Ali Akbar Haghdoost, head of the task-force’s epidemiology com-mittee. “It is possible that the reported number of infections have gone up, but this in no way means more have been infected with COVID-19,” he told Isna.

Kuwait reports 1,048 new cases, five deaths

QNA — KUWAIT

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Health announced 1,048 new coro-navirus (COVID-19) infections in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 14,850, while five deaths were reported as well, bringing the fatalities’ toll to 112.

In the daily press briefing, Health Ministry spokesperson Dr. Abdullah Al Sanad said that 168 patients were in intensive care, According to Kuwait news agency (KUNA).

Earlier yesterday, the Min-istry announced the recovery of 250 patients, bringing the total to 4,093 recoveries.

Chinese envoy to Israel found dead, ‘health reasons’ likely cause: BeijingAFP — HERZLIYA, ISRAEL

China’s ambassador to Israel, Du Wei, died at his home in Tel Aviv yesterday, apparently from natural causes, a statement from Beijing said.

The 57-year-old envoy, who had arrived in Israel in mid-February, was found dead in his home in Herzliya, north of the city, spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

A statement from China’s foreign ministry said: “The pre-liminary verdict is that Ambas-sador Du Wei died unex-pectedly of health reasons. The

details await further confirmation.”

Rosenfeld said that officers had gone to the scene as part of “regular procedure”, but that police did not conduct an inves-tigation into Du’s death.

Du’s wife and son were not with him in Israel.

Du had previously served as ambassador to Ukraine, according to his biography on the embassy’s website.

Du had undergone a 14-day home quarantine on arrival in Israel because of the new coro-navirus outbreak, according to an interview with local media

in May. On April 2, Israel Hayom, the top-circulation Hebrew newspaper, published an editorial by Du on the theme that “Collaboration is the Cure for the Virus”.

China and Israel, a strong US ally, have boosted cooper-ation in the high-tech and other sectors, leading Washington to urge Israel to limit Chinese investment in its strategic sectors. Chinese embassy spokesman Wang Yongjun in a recent Jeru-salem Post commentary rejected the claim and called Sino-Israeli cooperation a “win-win” situation.

A deserted avenue on the eastern outskirts of the Lebanese capital Beirut yesterday, during a lockdown imposed by the authorities due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Addressing the Knesset before the vote, Netanyahu said his incoming government should apply Israeli sovereignty over Jewish West Bank settlements. “It’s time to apply the Israeli law and write another glorious chapter in the history of Zionism,” Netanyahu said.

06 MONDAY 18 MAY 2020MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Bombs kill 7 in shelter for displaced in LibyaAP & ANATOLIA — CAIRO

Bombs hit a shelter for displaced people in Libya’s capital Tripoli, killing at least seven people including a 5-year-old child from Bang-ladesh, health authorities said yesterday.

The shelling of the facility in the city’s Furnaj district late on Saturday also wounded at least 17 people, including a 52-year-old Bengali migrant and his 5-year-old child, Malek Merset, a spokesman for the capital’s ambulance services, said. The man is also the father of the dead child.

It was the latest attack on civilians in the fighting over Tripoli between eastern-based forces under military com-mander Khalifa Haftar and an array of militias loosely allied with the UN-supported but weak government in the capital.

A fire broke out in parts of the shelter housing people dis-placed by previous clashes in Tripoli, Merset said.

The ambulance services did not say which side was respon-sible for the shelling.

The self-styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces, led by Haftar, launched an offensive to take Tripoli in April last year. In

recent weeks, the fighting has intensified as foreign backers of the two sides stepped up their military support.

Haftar is backed by France and Russia, as well as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and other key Arab countries. Merce-naries, mainly from the Syria battlefield, are now fighting on both sides and complicating an already complex proxy war.

Earlier this year, Tripoli-allied militias took several western towns from Haftar’s forces and stepped up their attacks using drones supplied by Turkey on a key military base and the town of Tarhuna.

Libya has been in turmoil since 2011, when a civil war toppled and later killed long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The country has since split between rival administra-tions in the east and the west, each backed by armed groups and foreign countries.

The Tripoli fighting has threatened to push Libya into a major conflagration on the scale of the 2011 civil war.

Meanwhile, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) company pur-chased six helicopters and two boats to raid ships off Libya in a move to support Libyan ren-egade commander Khalifa

Haftar, a UN panel revealed.According to confidential

letters by a Panel of Experts, under the Security Council’s Libya Sanctions Committee, the sale of at least $18m in military equipment was made through a Jordan-based company that was founded by Fulcrum Holding in the UAE.

A source familiar with the letters, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the com-mittee got a tip-in mid-January that the UAE was trying to fund a special team of mercenaries to back Haftar, the leader of illegal armed forces in eastern Libya, in Benghazi.

Madagascar records its first coronavirus death

ANATOLIA — ANTANANARIVO

Madagascar has recorded its first coronavirus death, local media reported yesterday.

The case is a 57-year-old man, a parking lot security officer at a hospital in the city of Toamasina, according to local daily L’Express de Mada-gascar. The Indian Ocean island also reported 21 new cases, bringing the total number of cases to 304, according to the daily.

The first death comes weeks after the country’s Pres-ident Andry Rajoelina launched Covid Organics (CVO), an organic herbal drink he claims can prevent or cure coronavirus patients.

The World Health Organ-ization (WHO) had warned against the use of CVO without any medical supervision and cautioned against self-medi-cation. The WHO on Thursday said it is in touch with Mada-gascar over its herbal drink.

‘’We have offered to support the design of a study to look into this product (Covid Organics),’’ Matshidiso Moeti, the regional director of WHO office in Africa, told a media briefing.

The number of coronavirus cases in Africa went up to 81,307 yesterday, said an update by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the center, 2,704 people were killed in virus-related complications, while 31,078 recovered. West Africa recorded 23,600 cases, 490 deaths and 6,800 recoveries while Southern Africa reported 15,500 cases, 280 deaths and 6,900 recoveries.

Suicide bombing kills governor, three others in PuntlandREUTERS — MOGADISHU

The governor of Mudug, a region in Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland, was killed with three of his bodyguards in a suicide car bombing yesterday that was claimed by Islamist group al Shabaab, police said.

“A suicide car bomb hit the governor’s car. Governor Ahmed Muse Nur and three of his bodyguards died,” police captain Mohamed Osman said.

Al Shabaab has been fighting for years to topple Somalia’s western-backed central government and fre-quently carries out bombings in Somalia and elsewhere in the region. The group wants to

establish its own rule in the Horn of Africa country.

“We are behind the explosion. It was a suicide car bomb. We killed Mudug region governor and his three body-guards,” Al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said.

Benin votes in controversial poll despite virusAFP — PARAKOU, BENIN

Benin staged local elections minus key opposition parties yesterday with authorities pushing ahead despite the coro-navirus threat and calls for a delay.

The West African nation of 11 million this week lifted a raft of restrictions aimed at halting the spread of the virus. COVID-19 has caused 339 con-firmed infections and two deaths in the country.

The autonomous national election commission (CENA) made face masks mandatory for voters and enforced social dis-tancing measures at polling stations.

“We have received a lot of hydro-alcohol gels and masks for all voters,” returning officer Mathieu Daki said at N’dali in the north of the country.

In the economic capital Cotonou where most corona-virus deaths have occurred, election officials ensured voters were more than a metre apart.

However, not everyone appeared to have been reas-sured. In the city’s 5th district election agent Dimitri Assani admitted voters were “few and far between”.

Donatien Sagbo Hounga wore a mask to enter the polling station, but said he was waiting “till there were no other voters in front of the election agents” to move forward to cast his vote.

“It may seem excessive but it’s necessary,” Hounga said.

Campaigning has been limited to posters and media appearances as candidates were forced to call off rallies due to a ban on gatherings of over 50 people.

Critics warned the health risks were too high for a vote that opponents of President Patrice Talon insist should not be happening in the first place.

Talon sported a mask when he voted early in Cotonou’s Zongo-Ehuzu area.

In the city’s first district Arnold Migan voted early in the morning. “With the threat from COVID-19 it’s best to vote quickly and go home before a lot of people arrive,” he said.

Benin, seen as one of the region’s most stable democ-racies, has been in political crisis since a disputed parlia-mentary poll last April sparked protests.

Talon, a former business magnate who came to power in

2016, has been accused of a crackdown that drove key rivals into exile.

Parties allied to the pres-ident won all the seats at the polls last year after opposition groups were effectively banned from standing but turnout was only 25 percent.

Now leading opposition parties again find themselves barred from the vote for control

of 77 councils across the country. The exclusion drew a legal challenge from Talon opponent Sebastien Ajavon, a businessman living in exile after he was sentenced to prison on drug charges in Benin.

The regional African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights ruled the vote should be sus-pended as it was not inclusive.

But Benin disregarded the

ruling and severed some ties with the court in protest at the decision.

Opponents called on voters to boycott the poll over the political situation and the risks from coronavirus.

Many among the electorate appeared set to heed the call to stay home given the result looks certain to go in favour of those backing Talon.

Benin President Patrice Talon casts his ballot at the Charles Guiyot Zongo public school yesterday, as voting operation was under way for the local election.

Nurses assigned to the Infectious Diseases Unit at the Kenyatta University Hospital practise dance moves during a Zumba class held at the hospital compound in Nairobi, yesterday. Coinciding with the morning shift rotation, the class aimed to offer some respite to nurses charged with the management of patients infected with COVID-19. The class was organised by the Nursing Council of Kenya and the Kenyatta University Teaching, Refferral and Research Hospital in Nairobi.

Israel army shoots man who crossed from LebanonAFP — OCCUPIED JERUSALEM

Israel’s army yesterday shot and wounded someone who illegally entered the country across the closely-guarded Lebanese border, the military said.

“A short while ago... troops spotted a suspect who crossed the Blue Line from Lebanon into Israeli territory,” it said in a statement, referring to the UN-demarcated border line.

“The suspect was injured from (army) fire and is being evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment in Israel.”

The statement gave no indication of his ethnicity but said “the incident is being looked into”.

Israel and Lebanon are technically at war, with the Jewish state having fought a full-fledged war against Hez-bollah, Lebanon’s Iran-back Shiite militia, in 2006.

A United Nations peace-keeping force patrols the “blue line” drawn up to mark Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.

Coronavirus crisis punctures Tunisia's tourism reboundAFP — TUNIS

As the novel coronavirus pandemic wipes out a recovery from militant attacks in 2015, Tunisia’s vital tourism sector is trying to find ways to avoid going under.

“Normally, the season starts now. But there is nobody,” said Mohammed Saddam, who owns an antiques shop in the famous blue and white village of Sidi Bou Said, near the capital Tunis.

Usually its streets are filled with tourists at this time of year, but now Saddam is only opening his store for an hour a day to air it out.

“We are waiting for the air-space to reopen,” he said. “But 2020 is a write-off.”

The North African country has registered 45 deaths from the COVID-19 illness, and for several days this week saw no new infections, putting it among Mediterranean countries faring

relatively well in the pandemic.

But the crisis has led to a shortfall in tourism revenues of six billion dinars (over $2bn), the country’s national tourism office has estimated, and some 400,000 jobs are at risk.

The sector had been bouncing back to levels not seen since before the 2011 revolution that toppled longtime autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

“Tunisia had started off the year well, with an increase in (tourism) revenue of 28 percent,” said Feriel Gadhoumi, a coordinator at the tourism office. But that all came to a halt in March as countries imposed travel restrictions and border closures to curb the spread of the pandemic.

Now, seaside resorts are empty and hoteliers are trying to salvage what they can of the season, counting on the coun-try’s relatively optimistic health

situation and sector-specific virus prevention measures.

While most hotels have shut for now, some are providing accommodation for people in compulsory quarantine, notably Tunisians repatriated from abroad.

The tourism ministry is pre-paring protocols for facilities that reopen, with some planning to do so from June.

Measures are expected to include temperature checks at hotel entrances, rooms being disinfected and left empty for 48 hours between guests and the intensive cleaning of common areas.

Such steps are necessary to “regain the trust of partners”, Gadhoumi from the tourism office said.

The UN World Tourism Organization has warned that international tourist numbers could drop by 60 to 80 percent in 2020.

The sector accounts for around 14 percent of Tunisia’s GDP, according to the tourism ministry.

Other changes could include offering fixed menus instead of buffets and giving guests the same tables and umbrellas for the length of their stay, hotel sales manager Anis Souissi said.

Clients will focus “on health and hygiene”, he added.

But it is unclear whether hotels, some of which are already on the edge of bank-ruptcy, will be able to make the necessary investments.

Even before the pandemic struck, a series of crises had weakened Tunisia’s tourism sector.

After the political instability that followed the fall of Ben Ali, militant attacks in 2015 targeted European holiday-makers at the Bardo museum in Tunis and the coastal tourist resort of

Sousse. The attacks killed 60 people, many of them British tourists, and dealt a heavy blow to the sector.

The security situation has greatly improved since then, and tourist numbers last year had returned to pre-2011 levels, with 9.5 million visitors.

But the collapse in Sep-tember of British tour operator Thomas Cook, which brought five percent of Tunisia’s European tourists, shook some hotels.

Thomas Cook had sus-pended trips to Tunisia after the attacks, but had returned in force in the last two years.

Now, the sector is searching for ways to survive, as the coro-navirus crisis persists and as passenger flights from Europe, Tunisia’s main market, are expected to remain grounded for much of the summer.

Although thousands of for-eigners remain stuck in the

country due to border closures and flight suspensions, their presence won’t be nearly enough.

Instead, hoteliers have their eyes set on local tourists, as well as Algerian or Russian holiday-makers who helped dampen the previous crises.

But domestic tourism accounts for just 20 percent of Tunisia’s market, and many locals have seen their income and holiday allowances dis-appear during the lockdown.

Bringing more bad news, Algeria has been seriously affected by the pandemic and reopening its borders is not envisaged in the short term, while Russia currently has the second-highest number of reported infections in the world.

“Targeting the local market and preparing for the next season are the only choices we have,” sales manager Souissi said.

“We are behind the explosion. It was a suicide car bomb. We killed Mudug region governor and his three bodyguards,” Al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman said.

Taking brief respite

07MONDAY 18 MAY 2020 ASIA

India extends lockdownuntil May 31, to relaxrules in some areasREUTERS — NEW DELHI/AHMEDABAD

India yesterday extended a nationwide lockdown to May 31, as cases exceeded 90,000 and further clashes erupted between police and stranded migrants.

Schools, malls and other public places will remain mostly closed, though rules will be relaxed in areas with low numbers of cases, according to an order from the interior ministry.

“New guidelines have per-mitted considerable relaxations in lockdown restrictions,” the ministry said in a tweet accom-panying the order.

Large gatherings are still prohibited, but outside of con-tainment zones with high numbers of active cases “all other activities will be per-mitted”, it said, potentially allowing commerce and industry to reopen across much of the country.

Decisions on where to set containment zones would be decided by district authorities, the order said.

India has now reported more cases than China, where the virus first emerged late last year, although deaths at 2,872 remain much lower than China’s 4,600. The death toll in the United States and some

European countries is much higher.

India’s lockdown, intro-duced on March 25 and extended several times, had been due to expire at midnight yesterday.

The curbs have sparked a crisis for the hundreds of mil-lions of Indians who rely on daily wages to survive.

With no work — and little public transport — many urban migrants attempting to return to their home villages have set out on gruelling journeys on foot or hitched rides in the back of trucks.

In Rajkot in the western state of Gujarat, more than 1,500 migrant workers blocked roads, damaged more than a dozen vehicles and threw stones at police on Sunday, after two special trains that were sup-posed to take them home got cancelled.

A police official in Shapar said police baton-charged the migrants to disperse them, with

several officers injured in the process.

“The workers had not gathered with the intention of violence. Two or three trains were rescheduled, but the workers misunderstood that the trains had been cancelled, and resorted to violence,”

Balram Meena, Rajkot’s super-intendent of police, told local media.

“We are identifying the people who were involved in the violence,” Meena added.

At least 23 migrants were killed trying to reach their homes on Saturday when a

truck crashed in northern India.Sixteen migrant workers

died on May 8 after being struck by a train. They had fallen asleep on the tracks while walking back to their village after losing their jobs in a coronavirus lockdown, police said.

Police personnel stand guard as stranded migrant workers and their families wait to get thermally screened behind the gate of the Guru Nanak Auditorium before going to a railway station to take a train to Bhagalpur in Bihar state back to their hometowns after the government eased a nationwide lockdown imposed as a preventive measure against COVID-19, in Amritsar, Punjab, yesterday.

Nepal police deter Indian farmers cross the borderAFP — KATHMANDU

Nepal’s police fired live rounds into the air to deter Indian farmers trying to cross the border to harvest their corn amid the coronavirus lockdown, an official said yesterday.

Nearly 150 Indians who rent land in Jhapa district in far-east Nepal — which borders India’s Bihar and West Bengal states — tried to force their way across

on Saturday, district chief Udaya Bahadur Ranamagar said.

“Our border police opened fire into the air after the crowd attacked their base post,” Ran-amagar said.

No-one was injured, he added.

Earlier this month police in the same district fired blank rounds to disperse dozens of Indians trying to cross the

border, Ranamagar said. It was not clear if they were also farmers.

Nepal shares a 1,850km open border with India, and communities commonly travel across it for work and to visit family.

But Nepal closed its inter-national borders on March 22 amid the pandemic, before imposing a nationwide lockdown two days later.

Cyclone ‘Amphan’

intensifies into

severe storm over

Bay of Bengal

IANS — NEW DELHI

The India Meteorological Department yesterday said that Cyclonic Storm Amphan in Bay of Bengal has intensified into a Severe Cyclonic Storm and will cross West Bengal and Bangladesh’s Sagar and Hatiya island on May 20.

“The cyclonic storm over Southeast Bay of Bengal moved slowly north-west-wards with a speed of three kmph during past six hours [and] intensified into a severe cyclonic storm,” said Sunitha Devi, IMDAscientist in-charge for cyclones.

The cyclone currently lies centred about 990km south of Odisha’s Paradip, 1,140km south-southwest of West Ben-gal’s Digha and 1,260km south-southwest of Bangla-desh’s Khepupara. “It is likely to intensify further into a very severe cyclonic storm during the next 12 hours,” she added.

It is also likely to move nearly northwards slowly during next 24 hours and then curve north-northeastwards and move fast across northwest Bay of Bengal and cross West Bengal-Bangladesh coast between Sagar Island and Hatiya Island during the afternoon or evening on May 20.

Heavy to extremely heavy rainfall, accompanied by high speed winds and tidal waves are expected in the region.

Fishermen are advised not to venture into the south Bay of Bengal for the next 24 hours. They are also advised not to venture off North Odisha, West Bengal and adjoining Bang-ladesh coast between May 18 and 20.

Squally wind speed reaching 45 to 55 kmph gusting to 65 kmph is likely to commence along and off south Odisha coast from May 18 evening, extend to along and off north Odisha coast from May 19 and along and off West Bengal coast the next afternoon.

South Korea reports 13 new infections; plans to reopen schoolsREUTERS — SEOUL

South Korea yesterday reported five new domestic cases of coronavirus, all linked to a cluster of cases centered around clubs in the capital which has raised fears in the country of a fresh wave of contagion.

After weeks of nearly no new domestic coronavirus cases, South Korea relaxed its lockdown on May 6, but a sub-sequent spike in infections linked to Seoul’s Itaewon neighbourhood forced a rapid re-think.

The government has stood by its decision to ease broader restrictions by reopening offices, public facilities and sports centres, but some clubs and restaurants in the capital were ordered to close again, and authorities have also delayed the planned reopening of schools by a week.

South Korea reported 13 new cases as of midnight on Saturday, bringing the coun-try’s total to 11,050 with 263 deaths.

Of those new cases, five were linked to the outbreak from the clubs in Seoul, and

seven were people with the infection entering South Korea from abroad.

It was the second consec-utive day in single figures for new domestic cases since the latest scare erupted, but so far there have been 168 cases linked to the Itaewon cluster, including club-goers as well as secondary infections in family members, co-workers, and students.

Director Jeong Eun-kyeong of Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) warned the club-goers to stay in isolation as their incubation

period hasn’t passed yet.“Even if you have been

tested negative, there still is a risk of infection during the incubation period. Please do get tested again if you have any symptoms,” said Jeong.

South Korean authorities confirmed that 6,800 out of about 9,000 clubs nationwide were shut down on Saturday and 61,000 tests have been carried out linked to the Itaewon outbreak, Health Min-ister Park Neung-hoo told a briefing.

Park said schools will reopen in phases as planned,

starting with high school seniors on Wednesday.

The education ministry will keep track of whether teachers or students have a fever using an online self-diagnostic system and anyone with a tem-perature over 37.5 degrees Celsius would be kept from attending school.

The ministry will partner with the National Fire Agency to transfer any students who develop symptoms at schools to local health clinics to get tested, Vice-Minister of Edu-cation, Park Baeg-beom, told a briefing.

Quarantine ending certificates in Thailand

Thai officials (left) hand over certificates to people allowed to leave a 14-day quarantine imposed to halt the spread of COVID-19, at a school in Panaret, in southern Thailand’s Pattani province, yesterday.

UN chief wants Rohingya on Bangladesh island moved to refugee campsAFP — DHAKA

Hundreds of Rohingya rescued by Bangladesh and sent to a flood-prone island after being stranded at sea for weeks should be moved to existing refugee camps, the UN Secretary-General said.

The appeal by Antonio Guterres to Bangladesh’s foreign minister in a letter obtained yesterday comes as concern grows over a corona-virus outbreak in the sprawling, crowded camps near the border with Myanmar.

The Rohingya were rescued in early May after floating adrift in the Bay of Bengal. Dhaka has said they were not sent on to the camps in the southeast as authorities were afraid they might have COVID-19.

Guterres said the 308 refugees on Bhashan Char island — a silty strip of land prone to violent and potentially deadly monsoon storms — should be moved to the camps after their time in quar-antine is completed.

Dhaka has not said how long they will remain in isolation.

“While those rescued at sea may be quarantined for public health purposes, they must also be extended the protection they deserve as refugees,” Guterres said

in the letter to Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen dated Friday.

“I trust that they too, will benefit from the humanitarian services offered to the Rohingya in Bangladesh and that, at the end of their quarantine period... they will be allowed to rejoin their families in Cox’s Bazar.” Momen told AFP he had yet to receive the letter, but said those concerned about Bhashan Char — where facilities for 100,000 people were built last year — should host the Rohingya in their own countries.

“We don’t want any more Rohingya,” Momen said.

“We don’t have any other place to keep them. If they (other countries) don’t like Bhashan Char, let them take them back to their countries. (Or) else, let them return to Myanmar.” He said more pressure should be put on Myanmar to repatriate the Rohingya to their home state of Rakhine.

The foreign minister previ-ously said the refugees would “most likely” have to live in the shelters on Bhashan Char until they return to Rakhine.

Nearly one million Rohingya live in squalid camps in Cox’s Bazar. Many fled Myanmar after a 2017 military crackdown.

Trauma endures of South Korea’s Gwangju UprisingAFP — GWANGJU

It is 40 years since Choi Jung-ja saw her husband, who has been missing since South Korea’s military dictatorship killed hundreds of people when they crushed the pro-democracy Gwangju Uprising, a scar that burns in the country’s political psyche to this day.

On May 18, 1980 demon-strators protesting against dictator Chun Doo-hwan’s declaration of

martial law confronted his troops and 10 days of violence ensued.

But conservatives in the South still condemn the uprising as a Communist-inspired rebellion backed by the North, while left-leaning President Moon Jae-in wants to enshrine it in the constitution.

Choi’s husband was 43 when he left their house in the southern city to buy oil for a heater at the family pub, never to return.

Once the violence was over Choi frantically searched for him, even opening random coffins in the streets covered with blood-stained Korean flags.

“I couldn’t continue after opening the third coffin,” she said. “The faces were covered with blood — there were no words to describe them. The faces were unrecognisable.” She still takes medication to deal with the trauma, she said, and

curses whenever Chun appears on television.

There is no agreed toll for Gwangju, with reports of secret burials both on land and at sea. The military remaining in power for another eight years offered ample opportunity to dispose of the evidence.

Official bodies point to around 160 dead — including some soldiers and police — and more than 70 missing. Activists say up to three times

as many may have been killed.

But the search for justice has gone through multiple twists and turns and Gwangju is one of the most politicised historical events in a viciously polarised country.

The South is still technically at war with the nuclear-armed North. At the time of the uprising, Chun’s military regime described it as a rebellion led b y s u p p o r t e r s o f

then-opposition leader Kim Dae-jung, who comes from the Gwangju area, and pro-Pyongyang agitators.

Kim was arrested, convicted of sedition and sentenced to death. But the penalty was com-muted under international pressure and he was granted asylum in the US, before being elected president himself in the 1990s after the restoration of democracy and winning the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize.

Large gatherings are still prohibited, but outside of containment zones with high numbers of active cases all other activities will be permitted, potentially allowing commerce and industry to reopen across much of the country.

Like all global crises, COVID-19 also created challenges and opportunities for local and international stakeholders in Afghanistan.

08 MONDAY 18 MAY 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANDR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

m.salim@pen.com.qa

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

EDITORIAL

YESTERDAY'S decision of the Qatar Football Asso-ciation (QFA) to resume local competitions from June 24 is a massively pleasing news in time of gloomy headlines grabbed by the coronavirus pandemic impacting the world. Just a day after Germany’s first division Bundesliga kicked off a successful round of matches - following a break of more than two months of no action - QFA has confirmed football teams will play the remaining matches in the QNB Stars League and the Amir Cup, the country’s most popular football tournament.

The football window in Qatar is June 24 to August 26 with matches from the 18th round onward in the QNB Stars League and two semi-finals and a final of the Amir Cup. More details are to be announced at a later date but for the sports fans in the country, there’s plenty to look forward to after months of inactivity on the sporting calendar. In another football news yes-terday, the Qatar Stars League (QSL) announced the players will be on vacation from May 17 until June 7 and then report back at their respective clubs for coro-navirus tests that will be conducted on every tech-nical, administrative staff and players on June 8 and 9. The QSL said the team training sessions - to be carried out with strict safety protocols - will start on June 10.

The Bundesliga matches on Saturday and Sunday attracted record TV audiences although the matches were played in front of empty, echoing stadiums across Germany. Official stats released yesterday showed record numbers tuning into to watch the five matches played on Saturday. TV viewership topped six million in Germany alone, a record for the football-crazy nation. A spokesman for the German Football League (DFL) informed international media that the first five matches - played on Saturday - were televised by more than 70 broadcasters around the world. Although the French league has already announced PSG as the winners of the 2019-20 season but football pundits are expecting TV viewership to keep breaking records when action resumes in England, Spain and Italy in the coming weeks.

The football activity in Qatar will also be similar in terms of matches being staged in front of empty sta-diums considering governments are trying limit the spread of the virus that has already infected more than 4.6 million people around the globe. Empty stadiums may not be the ideal scenario to watch the games but football clearly is providing significant relief to eve-ryone seeking a desperate return to some form of nor-malcy in everyday life.

Football leads the way

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Quote of the day

It was a historic day for Afghanistan and that the

agreement was reached without any international

mediation. We will share the burden and our

shoulders, God willing, will be lighter.

Ashraf Ghani, Afghan President

Men wearing face masks as a precautionary measure against the novel coronavirus walk past a wall painted with images of US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Kabul.

The coronavirus pandemic is swiftly rearranging global priorities. The contagion, which has killed more than 288,000 people globally, gave rise to some new rivalries, but it also forced old foes in several parts of the world to pause their conflicts. In March, responding to the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s appeal for a global ceasefire, conflicting parties in Colombia, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen have expressed their willingness to pause hostilities.

Like all global crises, COVID-19 also created chal-lenges and opportunities for local and international stake-holders in Afghanistan.

The Taliban and the Afghan government agreed to cooperate to stem the spread of the virus, and this led to a reduction in violence in the urban areas of the country. In

other areas, the Taliban are not publicising their attacks. The Taliban not only reduced violence, but also agreed to a complete truce in provinces most affected by the corona-virus. The armed group is also encouraging people with COVID-19 symptoms to go to government hospitals for tests, exercise social distancing and maintain proper hygiene.

In the coming months and years, this budding cooper-ation can potentially help the government and the Taliban to reach a power-sharing deal and bring sustainable peace to Afghanistan. However, if pan-demic causes large-scale dev-astation in the country - a likely scenario given the scarcity of resources and the broken health system - it can encourage the United States to hasten its exit and push Afghanistan towards civil war.

For the Afghan gov-ernment, COVID-19 has pro-vided a way out of the impasse it found itself in fol-lowing the disputed presi-dential election, and brought President Ashraf Ghani and his political rival Abdullah Abdullah closer to a power-sharing agreement. Reportedly, Abdullah has pre-sented a plan to the gov-ernment to end the political crisis, asking for a 50 percent share in the cabinet, the authority to appoint gov-ernors in provinces where he won the majority of votes and a decision-making role in the peace process. Ghani and Abdullah are now believed to be close to reaching a final agreement in which the latter would get a leadership role in the peace process but rec-ognise the former as the legit-imate president of the country.

COVID-19 has also earned

the Afghan government some breathing space in the intra-Afghan peace process. Social distancing measures and travel restrictions have made it difficult for Afghan officials to hold face-to-face meetings with their American counter-parts. As a result, Washington eased the pressure it has been applying on Kabul to move the process forward. Exploiting this relaxation, President Ghani released only 100 Taliban prisoners instead of the 1,500 originally promised to ensure progress on peace negotiations.

Keeping a higher number of Taliban fighters in prison could give the Afghan gov-ernment extra leverage in future negotiations, and keep these people off the battlefield for longer. However, this is a strategy fraught with risks. Health experts across the globe have warned that prisons and jails can become hotspots of coronavirus. If the Afghan government does not release these prisoners soon, and coronavirus reaches the country’s prisons, this will not only make the government look bad and add to its woes, but will also exacerbate the country’s COVID-19 crisis, as these prisoners will become new vectors for the disease.

The pandemic has left the Taliban in a bind as well.

The Taliban is a decen-tralised movement that unites different groups with diverse interests and goals through violence. The reduction in violence, coupled with the stalling of the peace process, will test the organisational coherence of the militant movement. This year, for the first time since the start of the Afghan war, the Taliban has not launched a spring offensive. The hardliner

factions in the movement are undoubtedly disturbed by the Taliban leadership’s reluc-tance to take action and will likely pressurise the Rahbari Shura (Executive Council) to resume fighting. If they do not get their way, these factions may splinter off to continue violent attacks.

The Islamic State of Kho-rasan (ISK) is already exploiting the Taliban’s decision to reduce violence to launch high-impact attacks of its own. In recent weeks, ISK has targeted a Sikh temple in Kabul, killing 25 people and launched a missile attack on the Bagram airbase. On May 12, gunmen suspected to be part of ISK stormed a maternity hospital in Kabul, killing 24 people including two newborn babies, their mothers and an unspecified number of nurses. The armed group also attacked a funeral in eastern Nangarhar province on the same day, killing a further 24 people. The hardline Taliban factions may eventually choose to join the ISK and continue their violent attacks under the group’s banner.

Despite knowing that it may cause upheaval in the movement and give ISK space to expand, the Taliban lead-ership chose not to launch a spring offensive because such a move could have under-mined the deal it reached with the US in Qatar. Moreover, violence amid a pandemic would have allowed the Afghan gov-ernment to portray the Taliban as a self-centred and power-hungry entity only concerned with a power grab.

Abdul Basit is a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore.

THE WASHINGTON POST

If it was already true that a lie can fly halfway around the world before the truth can put on its shoes, imagine the accelerating effects of a pandemic that sends millions inside and online, hostile foreign powers keen to sow disruption, and tech platforms with a spotty record on moderating speech. Since the covid-19 outbreak began, bogus cures and a litany of false claims have flooded the Internet, making clear that the fight against the novel coronavirus also entails a fight against misinformation.

Coronavirus misinfor-mation is taking many forms, which are dangerous in

different ways. Most alarming is advice that would lead to direct harm if followed, such as directions to drink bleach or expose yourself to very hot temperatures to kill the virus. Also concerning is material that undermines official public health guidance, such as a recent viral video that suggested wearing a mask “activates your own virus.”

So far, Facebook has focused on removing false content that could lead to imminent physical harm. These measures haven’t been enough to keep coronavirus misinfor-mation off the platform, though, in all fairness, Facebook is working with a reduced workforce. The company sent many

employees home in March to slow the spread of coronavirus, including content moderators, many of whom cannot do their work from home. Although Facebook has diverted some in-office employees to content moderation and is using arti-ficial intelligence to flag content that violates its policies, dan-gerous content is still getting through, and other troubling content is on the rise.

Other tech companies are responding with new measures. Google is stepping up its process of verifying advertisers, with special measures for regulated indus-tries such as health care and medicine. Facebook-owned WhatsApp is restricting highly forwarded messages to try to

slow rapidly spreading misinformation.

Confronting the massive amount of quickly moving coronavirus misinformation is challenging enough without President Trump exacer-bating matters by endorsing unproven and often dan-gerous advice. A man in Phoenix died after ingesting fish tank cleaner that con-tained chloroquine, a chemical that Mr. Trump touted as a possible corona-virus treatment. After the president suggested that ingesting disinfectants could be effective against the virus, poison control centers in several states saw spikes in calls from people reporting disinfectant exposure.

Coronavirus can still be an opportunity for peace in Afghanistan

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09MONDAY 18 MAY 2020 ASIA

Afghan President, rivalsign power-sharing deal REUTERS — KABUL

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah signed a power-sharing deal to end a months-long political stalemate, Ghani’s spokesman said yesterday, a step that could smooth efforts to end the coun-try’s long-running war.

Abdullah had disputed the results of an election in Sep-tember and announced the for-mation of a parallel government earlier this year, undermining Ghani’s administration at a time when the United States was trying to advance a peace process with the Taliban to end the 19-year Afghan war.

“Today is a historic day for our dear Afghanistan. Afghans have proven that they are com-mitted to their national interests with common thinking,” Ghani said during the signing ceremony.

“In the coming days, we hope that with unity and coop-eration, we will be able to provide the ground for a ceasefire and lasting peace,” he added.

Discussions over the final sticking points including the allocation of some key posts had been underway throughout the day, three sources said.

Abdullah had wanted to control a major portfolio such as finance or foreign affairs, and while Ghani has not agreed to this, he could offer control of the interior ministry, sources said shortly before the deal was signed.

It was not immediately clear which ministries each camp controlled after the agreement was struck.

Washington has been frus-trated by the growing impasse

between the two men, even after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travelled to Kabul in March to mediate. It had announced a plan to cut $1bn in aid because the men could not agree.

Pompeo said in a Tweet that he was “glad” to hear about the agreement. “We welcome their commitment to act now for peace in Afghanistan,” he added.

It was not immediately clear whether yesterday’s agreement would result in the aid com-mitment being reinstated. Afghanistan is facing growing fiscal pressures, with tax rev-enues falling and foreign aid pledges due this year expected to shrink.

“Please reconsider your potential $1bn aid cut. In fact, since we have the COVID-19 pandemic, add more to it. Thank you,” Shamroz Khan Masjidi, a spokesman for the ministry of finance said on Twitter, tagging the Secretary of State.

The US Embassy in Kabul declined to comment on the future of the aid cut.

Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also welcomed the deal and called on the Taliban to reduce violence and for all sides to work towards peace.

Officials say a deal between Ghani and Abdullah is crucial to launching peace talks, as Abdullah’s camp represents much of the country’s north-west.

But the talks face a number

of stark challenges, as violence in the country increases. An attack on a Kabul maternity ward this week prompted Ghani to switch the military to an “offensive” stance against insurgent groups.

The Taliban has denied involvement in the attack, but the government has remained sceptical and angry at ongoing Taliban attacks against the

Afghan military, fraying the momentum for peace talks, which were due to start in March.

US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said on Friday that a new date for intra-Afghan peace talks was under dis-cussion, and that he would soon travel to the region and try to encourage a reduction in violence.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani (right) and his rival Abdullah Abdullah during a signing of a power-sharing deal agreement at the Presidential Palace, in Kabul, yesterday.

A poster reminding shoppers to maintain social distancing to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease is placed beside an escalator in a shopping mall in Quezon City, Metro Manila, yesterday.

Manila urges vigilance as shoppers ignore safety protocolsREUTERS — MANILA

The Philippine government yesterday called for vigilance against the coronavirus, a day after hordes of people trooped to shopping malls and ignored safety protocols, as authorities began loosening a two-month lockdown.

Photos and videos showing shoppers in some malls in the capital Manila violating physical distancing rules went viral on Saturday, drawing widespread public criticism and alarm, prompting the government to issue fresh health warnings.

“We advise the public not to be complacent and to follow

health protocols set by author-ities after we received reports of people who trooped to the malls with complete disregard of social/physical distancing measures,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque said.

The government warned malls would be closed again if they do not strictly implement physical distancing and crowd control measures.

The Southeast Asian country has reported 12,513 cases of coronavirus infections and a death toll of 824.

Fears linger over the possi-bility of a new wave of novel coronavirus cases following reports of infections accelerating

again in Germany, new cases in the city of Wuhan in central China, the origin of the outbreak, and in South Korea.

The Philippines has joined a growing number of countries gradually reopening economies shut down by restrictions aimed at containing the pandemic, although its biggest cities —Manila and Cebu — remain in lockdown.

“We must understand that we have started to slowly ease restrictions in order to revitalise the economy, and not because we are safe,” Roque said in a statement. “We must continue to be vigilant of the risks of COVID-19.”

Vietnam’s biggest city facing extreme risk from floods by 2050BLOOMBERG — HANOI

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s biggest metropolis, faces an increasing risk of flood disasters given rapid infra-structure expansion driven by economic growth, according to McKinsey Global Institute.

The chance of such events could increase five to 10 times by 2050, resulting in economic and infrastructural damage that could cost billions of dollars, according to a McKinsey report, dated April. The analysis is based on hydrological simulations, land-use maps, infrastructure databases and damage curves.

Ho Chi Minh City, a historic flood area located some 1,000 miles south of Hanoi, con-tributes about a quarter of the Vietnam’s gross domestic product. While the metropolis can cope with flood risks today

that could hit 23 percent of its area, further urbanisation is raising the potential for land subsidence and an increase in sea levels. Those could cause about $8.4bn of realestate damage from flooding by 2050, six times the current estimated impact, McKinsey said.

The city still has time to adapt to avoid such risks by having better plans in place, including relocating homes and infrastructure assets away from flood-prone areas, McKinsey said. Investments and fund-raising are also needed to reduce exposure for roads and other critical utilities, according to report.

Vietnam is forecast to become the world’s 20th-largest economy by 2050, given an annual economic growth rate of 5.1 percent estimated by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also welcomed the deal and called on the Taliban to reduce violence and for all sides to work towards peace.

Two arrested in Pakistan for alleged ‘honour killings’AFP — PESHAWAR

Pakistani authorities have arrested two men for allegedly murdering two female family members after a video was posted online, police said yesterday.

The two women were killed on Thursday in a north-western district near the Afghan border, where women often have few rights and are subjected to strict tribal codes that limit their movement outside of the home.

“Both men have confessed to killing them,” said police official Mohammad Nawaz.

The two men — one of whom was the father of the first victim and the other was the brother of the second, were both being held in custody pending trial.

Police said that the victims were in their 20s and had appeared in a short video that was posted online that showed them with a man.

The women were later gunned down in North Waziristan’s remote Garyum village and buried by family members, according to Nawaz.

Police said authorities were searching for two other suspects who were believed to have been involved in the killings.

Around a thousand Pakistan women are murdered in so-called “honour killings” each year — in which the victim, normally a woman, is killed by a relative for bringing shame on the family.

Doctors on frontline in Japan lack fresh masks, hazard pay: PollREUTERS — TOKYO

Japanese hospital doctors on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic face tough working conditions, with many reusing masks and few getting hazard pay, a survey by a labour union showed.

The survey of about 170 doctors, conducted online from

late April through May 6, found three-quarters said they were ordered to work on the coro-navirus front line, while four-fifths said they receive no hazard allowance for the work.

In the global scramble for protective gear and medical equipment, some Japanese doctors and other experts say there has been a failure by the

national and some local govern-ments to provide adequate financial assistance and pro-tective gear to hospitals and medical staff.

The survey by the Zenkoku Ishi Union, posted on its website on Friday, found nearly 70 percent of doctors saying the government is failing to handle the situation properly.

An official at Japan’s health ministry said no one was available yesterday to comment on the survey’s findings.

The survey found 31 percent of doctors reusing N95 respi-rator masks, which are essential for protecting healthcare workers from contagion and meant to be discarded imme-diately, with some using the

masks indefinitely.One doctor reported using

“the same mask until the ear bands break.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted his state of emergency for 39 of Japan’s 47 prefectures on Thursday, easing curbs on 54 percent of the population. The greater Tokyo area, accounting for one-third of the nation’s

economy, and other major cities remain under restrictions.

Japan has reported some 16,300 cases of the coronavirus, not counting infections on a cruise ship that was quaran-tined in Yokohama port early this year, and 748 deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, according to public broadcaster NHK.

China warns US of ‘all necessary measures’ over Huawei rulesAP — BEIJING

China’s commerce ministry says it will take “all necessary measures” in response to new US restrictions on Chinese tech giant Huawei’s ability to use American technology, calling the measures an abuse of state power and a violation of market principles.

An unidentified spokes-person quoted yesterday in a statement on the ministry’s website said the regulations also threatened the security of the “global industrial and supply chain.”

“The US uses state power, under the so-called excuse of national security, and abuses export control measures to con-tinuously oppress and contain specific enterprises of other countries,” the statement said.

China will “take all nec-essary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enter-prises,” it said.

Under the new rules, foreign semiconductor makers who use American technology must obtain a US license to ship Huawei-designed semicon-

ductors to Chinese company.Chip design and manufac-

turing equipment used in the world’s semiconductor plants is mostly US-made, so the new rule affects foreign producers that sell to Huawei and affiliates including HiSilicon, which makes chips for supercom-puters with scientific and mil-itary uses. The US Commerce Department said foreign foun-dries would be granted a 120-day grace period for chips already in production.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Friday that

Washington wants to prevent Huawei from evading sanctions imposed earlier on its use of American technology to design and produce semiconductors abroad.

Huawei Technologies Ltd, China’s first global tech brand and a maker of network equipment and smartphones, is at the center of a US-Chinese conflict over Beijing’s tech-nology ambitions.

American officials say Huawei is a security risk, which the company denies.

It wasn’t clear what form

China’s response would take, but the sides are already deep in con-flict over US accusations of cop-yright theft and unfair trading by firms in China’s heavily state-controlled economy.

Canada arrested Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Hua-wei’s founder, in December 2018 in a case that sparked a diplomatic furor among the three countries and compli-cated high-stakes US-China trade talks. China detained two Canadians in apparent retali-ation for Meng’s arrest.

Chinese expert warns of potential 2nd virus waveAFP — BEIJING

China faces a potential second wave of coronavirus infections due to a lack of immunity among its population, its government’s senior medical adviser has warned.

After months of lockdowns and curbs on travel China has largely brought the virus under control, but fears of a second wave have risen as clusters have emerged in northeast provinces and in the central city of Wuhan.

“The majority of... Chinese at the moment are still suscep-tible of the COVID-19 infection,

because (of) a lack of immunity,” Zhong Nanshan, the public face of government’s response to the pandemic, said.

“We are facing (a) big chal-lenge,” Zhong added. “It’s not better than the foreign coun-tries I think at the moment.”

Zhong, who helped expose the scale of the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), also said authorities in ground-zero Wuhan had under-reported cases during the early days of the pandemic.

“The local authorities, they didn’t like to tell the truth at that time,” said Zhong, who was part

of a team of experts sent to Wuhan to investigate the outbreak.

“I didn’t believe that result (the number of cases reported) so I (kept) asking and then, you have to give me the real number.”

But he added he believed data published after Wuhan was locked down in late January, and when the central government took control of the response, “will be correct”.

Zhong cautioned that a “perfect” vaccine for a disease that the World Health Organi-zation (WHO) says may never disappear could take “years”.

10 MONDAY 18 MAY 2020EUROPE

Johnson accepts public frustration with lockdown easing rulesREUTERS — LONDON

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted yesterday that there was public frus-tration with his government’s measures to ease the corona-virus lockdown following widespread criticism of the new rules, which he admitted were more complex.

As a poll for the Observer newspaper indicated growing dissatisfaction with Johnson’s handling of the crisis, he wrote in the Mail on Sunday paper: “I understand that people will feel frustrated with some of the new rules.”

On Wednesday, ministers began a gradual easing of restrictions in England, with people who could not work from home encouraged to return to their jobs whilst being told to avoid using public transport if possible.

The changes do not apply to people in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, whose semi-autonomous governments have not eased the lockdown.

There has been criticism that the government’s message is confusing and sent out mixed

messages. People are forbidden to invite friends and relatives into their homes, for example, but can allow in prospective home buyers for property viewings.

Yesterday’s Observer poll showed 42 percent now disap-proved of the government’s handling of the crisis — a fall of nine points from last week. That compared with 39 percent who approved, the first time more people were unhappy with the government’s per-formance than supportive.

“We are trying to do some-thing that has never had to be done before — moving the country out of a full lockdown, in a way which is safe and does not risk sacrificing all of your hard work,” Johnson said in the Mail on Sunday.

“I recognise what we are

now asking is more complex than simply staying at home — but this is a complex problem and we need to trust in the good sense of the British people.”

So far 34,466 people have died in Britain after testing pos-itive for COVID-19, the respi-ratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, the highest figure in Europe.

The lockdown has also dev-astated the economy, with figures last week showing it had shrunk by 5.8 percent in March. The Bank of England has said economic activity could contract by nearly 25 percent in the April-June period, leading to the largest annual decline in more than three centuries.

As it wrestles with how to restart the economy while

avoiding a second wave of infections, the government has found itself at odds with the devolved administrations outside England, some regional authorities and teaching unions who dispute that schools should reopen for some pupils from June 1.

“We cannot have a situation where we keep our economy and our schools and our public services continually closed down, because the health con-sequences of doing so would be malign as well,” Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove told BBC

TV. He said the government was on course to meet its target of hiring 18,000 contact tracers, who will help identify the contacts of people who test positive for the coronavirus, having already recruited 17,200.

Health experts say contact tracing is critical to isolating potentially contagious people to limit further outbreaks.

The Sun tabloid reported Johnson had told lawmakers in his Conservative Party that he wanted a return to “near-nor-mality” in July but this

depended on the public sticking to the rules.

Other papers reported that there were plans to reopen cafes, pubs and restaurants as street stalls to help bring business back to high streets which have been all but closed down.

“If we all stick at it, then we’ll be able, gradually, to get rid of the complexities and the restrictions and make it easier and simpler for families to meet again,” Johnson wrote.

“But we must move slowly, and at the right time.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancee Carrie Symonds participate in a national 'Clap for Carers' to show thanks for the work of Britain’s National Health Service workers and other frontline medical staff, in London.

Macron pays tribute to de Gaulle on WWII battle anniversaryAFP — DIZY-LE-GROS

President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute yesterday to World War II resistance hero Charles de Gaulle at the site of a key battle he said epitomised French resil-ience in the face of overwhelming odds.

Macron took time out from directing the country’s latest battle, against the coronavirus, to hail his predecessor’s courage in taking the fight to Nazi soldiers sweeping across western Europe in the early years of the war.

“De Gaulle tells us that France is strong when it knows

its destiny, when it stays united, when it searches the path of cohesion...” Macron said in the town of La-Ville-aux-Bois-les-Dizy in northeast France.

It is near the site of the Battle of Montcornet, where French fighters inflicted heavy losses on German troops and briefly stalled their advance before ultimately being defeated. Though lost, the battle is considered one of few effective counter-attacks by French soldiers against the Nazis, and de Gaulle himself later said it was the moment that hope returned to the campaign.

Even as the Paris government

of the day capitulated before the German military might, a then-unknown colonel de Gaulle embodied the French spirit: “Fiercely free and proud, deter-mined and unwavering,” said Macron. He laid a wreath at a monument honouring France’s war dead, and commended the military bravery that ultimately allowed the country to shake off its Nazi occupation.

The president did not wear an anti-virus mask for the occasion to mark the battle’s 80th anniversary, but he and a handful of other participants observed a safe social distance.

Europe has been hard hit by the coronavirus outbreak, with more than half the global death toll of over 300,000 in what is described as the biggest crisis since WWII. The health emer-gency has seen the continent, and much of the rest of the world, impose strict lockdowns that have devastated economies to an extent not seen in peace time.

Eighty years ago, de Gaulle launched a resistance army from abroad as France’s wartime leader Philippe Petain capitu-lated to the Nazis, which occupied large swathes of the country. The general-turned

president is a personal hero of Macron, who features de Gaulle’s war memoirs on his desk in his official photograph, and had the Cross of Lorraine — a symbol of the Free French Forces — added to the logo of the Elysee Palace.

Yesterday’s event was Macron’s first official outing unrelated to the coronavirus out-break in over two months.

He will mark two more de Gaulle anniversaries this year — his Appeal of 18 June from exile in London for French citizens to resist, and the 50th anniversary of the general’s death on November 9.

Daily deaths from virusin Spain below 100 forfirst time in two monthsREUTERS — MADRID

Spain’s daily death toll from the coronavirus fell below 100 for the first time in two months, the health ministry said yesterday, as some parts of the country prepared for a further loosening of lockdown measures.

Total deaths from the virus rose by 87 to 27,650, while the number of confirmed cases edged up to 231,350 from 230,698, the ministry said.

Spain introduced one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns on March 14 in a bid to contain the virus, which threatened to over-whelm the country’s health service.

As the population has remained largely confined to their homes, the rate of new infections and fatalities has steadily fallen, prompting the government to begin unwinding the lockdown.

Health emergency chief Fernando Simon cautioned

however, that the low death tally yesterday could be due to delays in reporting at weekends.

Asked at a press conference if health authorities had sufficient resources to deal with current patient levels, he said: “The min-istry is gathering reserves, but now there is enough material for current needs.”

A doctor in Madrid said that she was worried hospitals would not be able to cope if there was a second surge of the disease.

“I have to say that we are not yet ready to face a second wave even if it is smaller,” said Belen, who did not give her second name.

As the government begins to lift restrictions on movement, authorities are considering extending mandatory mask use on public transport to cover all public spaces.

“There is an ample con-sensus that we should reinforce the obligatory use of masks,”

Health Minister Salvador Illa told a news conference.

From tomorrow, inhab-itants of the sparsely populated Canary Islands of La Graciosa, El Hierro, and La Gomera, and Formentera in the Balearics, will be able to go for walks at any time of day.

However, in Madrid and Barcelona, which have been particularly badly hit, tougher restrictions will remain in place.

Protests have sprung up around the country in the past week, with disgruntled Span-iards airing their frustration at the government’s handling

of the crisis. Prime Minister Pedro

Sanchez said on Saturday he would seek parliament’s approval to extend the coun-try’s state of emergency until the end of June, when most regions should have returned to normality.

Volunteers carry food boxes to distribute to people in need, in Madrid.

UK police quiz man over death of rail workerfrom COVID-19

REUTERS — LONDON

British police said yesterday officers had questioned a suspect over an incident where a rail worker died of COVID-19 after being spat at by a man who said he had the novel coronavirus.

Belly Mujinga, 47, who worked in the ticket office at Victoria station, one of Lon-don’s busiest rail hubs, was on the concourse in March when a man who claimed to have the virus spat at and coughed over her and a female colleague, her union said on Tuesday.

Both women fell ill within a few days of the incident and Mujinga, who had underlying respiratory problems, was later taken to hospital and put on a ventilator.

She died on April 5, 14 days after the assault at Victoria.

British Transport Police said detectives had now iden-tified a 57-year-old man in connection with the incident.

“He was interviewed under caution at a London police station,” a spokes-woman said.

“Detectives will continue to collate evidence and inves-tigate the circumstances behind the incident. They are not looking to identify anyone further in relation to the incident.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson told parliament on Wednesday that the death of Mujinga, who had an 11-year-old daughter, was tragic.

“The fact she was abused for doing her job is utterly appalling,” he said.

Italy to reopen shops, restaurants as lockdown eases furtherREUTERS — MILAN

Shops, restaurants and hair salons prepared to reopen in Italy today as the government further eased one of the world’s strictest coronavirus lock-downs, saying it was taking a “calculated risk” to put the country back on its feet.

The eurozone’s third biggest economy is slowly emerging from more than two months of hibernation, with businesses allowed to gradually go back to work as long they can enforce tight sanitary protocols and keep people at least 1 metre apart.

At Milan’s upscale

Rinascente department store, guards will keep count through an app of how many people are in the store at any one time. Clothes tried on in changing rooms will be quarantined for 24 hours and shop assistants will spill perfumes on paper tissues rather than having cus-tomers handle testers. Access to restaurants will be strictly limited, with only family members allowed to sit close to each other.

Rinascente’s Chief Executive Pierluigi Cocchini said it was difficult to predict what appetite there would be to shop after weeks of isolation. The store is reopening with markdowns of

up to 60 percent as, like most retailers, it needs to clear unsold stocks.

“The hope is to take a step towards normality. It won’t be business as usual given all the protocols, but this is the new normal for now and we have to accept it,” he said.

Tourists, still absent, would normally generate a third of the store’s sales.

Italy’s fashion industry alone, boasting brands like Armani, Prada and Moncler, accounts for 5 percent of gross domestic product.

Business association Con-fcommercio expects consumer spending for clothing, which

stood at $65bn in 2019, to shrink by 20 percent this year and a quarter of the country’s 115,000 fashion retailers to go bust.

“I know that for several sectors of the economy, reo-pening does not mean recovery,” Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said late on Sat-urday as he announced the lifting of the restrictions.

With its economy facing severe recession and public debt expected to spiral to more than 150 percent of its annual economic output, the gov-ernment has been desperate to get the country back to work without triggering a second wave of the epidemic.

An employee wearing a face mask works inside a department store, which is reopening with social distancing measures in Milan, Italy.

There has been criticism that the government’s message is confusing and sent out mixed messages. People are forbidden to invite friends and relatives into their homes, for example, but can allow in prospective home buyers for property viewings.

11MONDAY 18 MAY 2020 EUROPE / AMERICAS

Virus spread in Russia stabilising

AFP — MOSCOW

The growth of new corona-virus cases in Russia is stabil-ising, a top health official said yesterday as the daily tally fell under 10,000 for the third time this week.

The country has the world’s second highest number of infections at 281,752, topped only by the United States.

Yesterday, it announced new cases had dropped below 10,000 for the third day this week at 9,709.

“We’ve moved towards the level of stability that we’ve all been waiting for,” said the head of Russia’s public health watchdog, Anna Popova, in a televised interview.

“I would say that of today, we have halted the growth” in numbers of cases, Popova said on Rossiya-1 television.

“For the last 10 or 11 days now, we haven’t seen

additional growth or it’s been very small.” “Stabilisation can be seen over the whole country. All the regions have managed to stabilise the situ-ation,” she said.

The state watchdog Rospot-rebnadzor announces daily virus numbers and is working to develop a viable vaccine within months at its Vector virus research centre in Siberia.

Popova said it was too early to say if Russians can make plans for summer travel, saying “we need to look at the next two or three weeks”.

Russia on Saturday announced the highest daily death rate at 119, while it has confirmed a total of 2,631 deaths, 10 times fewer than Britain, France, Italy and Spain.

Critics have cast doubt on Russia’s low official mortality rate, accusing authorities of under-reporting deaths in order to play down the scale of the crisis.

Russian health officials say one of the reasons the count is lower is that only deaths directly caused by the virus are being included.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova denied any manipulation of numbers

yesterday, saying hospitals had a financial interest in identifying coronavirus cases since they get allocated more money to treat such patients.

“From the economic point of view, any hospital should have an interest in diagnosing

more “Covid cases,” she said in televised comments.

Authorities say that since the virus came later to Russia, the country had more time to prepare hospital beds and launch wide-scale testing to slow its spread.

Women wearing face masks walk at a street, in Moscow, yesterday.

Russian newborn

has coronavirus:

Health officials

AFP — MOSCOW

A baby was born with the coro-navirus in Russia’s Caucasus region, health officials were quoted by TASS news agency as saying yesterday, to a mother who is also infected.

The birth in the North Ossetia city of Beslan follows one in mid-April in Peru, which health officials there said was the second known case of a COVID-19 positive newborn worldwide. In North Ossetia, “a pregnant woman was infected by the coronavirus, and her baby was born infected”, a regional health ministry spokesman was quoted by the state agency TASS as saying.

“They are now at home, their state is satisfactory,” the spokesman added.

The head of the hospital’s maternity unit, Hassan Tagaiev, was quoted by local television as saying that 17 of 35 women who were about to give birth there had tested positive for COVID-19. Beslan was the site of a hostage crisis in 2004 that left 300 civilians dead, including 186 children, after Islamist gunmen seized a school and security forces launched an assault.

Brazil surpasses Italy and Spain in confirmed virus casesREUTERS — BRASILIA

Brazil’s confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus rose on Saturday past those of Spain and Italy, which was once the epicenter of the pandemic, making Brazil’s outbreak the fourth largest in the world, according to official figures.

Brazil’s Health Ministry registered 14,919 new con-firmed cases in the prior 24 hours, taking the total to 233,142, behind the United States, Russia and the United

Kingdom. Brazil has done just a fraction of the testing seen in those three countries.

The global distinction is likely to pile pressure on Pres-ident Jair Bolsonaro, who lost his second health minister in a month on Friday as he defies public health experts and calls for widespread use of unproven drugs.

Bolsonaro has been fiercely critical of the orders by many of Brazil’s state governors for strict social isolation and quar-antine to combat the spread of

the virus, including the closure of schools, shops and restaurants.

Bolsonaro argues that the toll on the economy is becoming unbearable and businesses must be allowed to reopen as soon as possible.

The government now expects Brazil will post its biggest annual economic con-traction this year since records began over a century ago.

Brazil’s vice president, Hamilton Mourao, underwent a COVID-19 test and was

placed in isolation at his official residence on Saturday, after a public servant who had been near him last week tested positive.

Mourao, 66, will not fulfill official duties today, when the results are expected.

Bolsonaro has undergone several coronavirus tests after ministers and other close aides tested positive.

Nationwide testing in Brazil still lags far behind European nations.

Brazil had processed nearly

338,000 novel coronavirus tests in official labs by the beginning of the week, according to the Health Ministry.

Another 145,000 tests were under analysis or waiting in line.

By contrast, Italy and Spain have each run some 1.9 million official diagnostic tests for the virus.

Brazil’s Health Ministry on Saturday also reported 816 new deaths related to the virus, bringing the total to 15,633.

Demolition of Albanian national theatre sparks angry protestsREUTERS — TIRANA

Albanian authorities began demolishing the national theatre building yesterday after dragging away two dozen actors and activists protecting the site, drawing a large crowd chanting “shame” and “dicta-torship”.

For more than two years actors, activists and the oppo-sition have contested plans by Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama to build a new theatre, saying the existing building was part of the country’s heritage, and accused him of corrupt practices.

A large police force showed up before dawn and removed members of the Alliance to Protect the Theatre, using pepper spray. Mechanised diggers then began demolishing its front column, bearing the words “National Theatre”.

The fate of the building, constructed in 1939 and made into a national theatre in 1945, has divided society, with many angry that Rama had chosen to act during the coronavirus

lockdown.“This is no longer about the

theatre’s demolition but the downfall of democracy and freedom. We are in a dicta-torship,” an unidentified member of the alliance said on a Facebook video.

Rama, whose government says the theatre was decrepit and in need of modernisation, stuck to his idea he was pushing for progress, after building a new soccer stadium and market.

“These are the same people who rise against every project in Tirana. They do not want development, but they cannot stop Tirana,” Rama said in a Facebook post.

Protesters shoved police blocking access to the site and chanted “down with the dicta-torship”, leading to 37 arrests. One policeman was hospitalised after being hit by protesters, while a Reuters witness also saw one protester with head injuries. One of those arrested, media analyst Alfred Lela, said after his release that police had used unjustified violence and

verbal abuse. Policemen kicked protesters, who threw water bottles, according to a Reuters witness.

The police said accusations of violence were untrue.

Critics of the original plan for a new theatre said the work had been awarded to one of the government’s preferred partners without being subject to tender, with the construction of several new high-rise prop-erties included in the deal.The

Socialist government withdrew that plan in February.

Protesters have claimed that a six-month period is required by law for a new project to be approved, and that the gov-ernment has not secured the proper permits to carry out the demolition. Mariya Gabriel, the European Union’s Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Commissioner, last week urged further discussions before any decision was made

on the theatre.Opposition Democratic

Party leader Lulzim Basha said the demolition was illegal, and had also “demolished the foun-dations of society”.

President Ilir Meta, who holds a largely ceremonial role in government, has complained to the constitutional court about the demolition, which he has called an “legal, moral and con-stitutional crime”. The court is yet to rule.

Activists from some artists and non-governmental organisations, who opposed the demolition of the National Theatre building, clash with police during the demolition, in Tirana, Albania, yesterday.

Belgium: Workers

protest during

PM’s hospital visitANATOLIA — BRUSSELS

Hundreds of medical staffers, in a sign of protest, turned their backs on Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes during her visit to a hospital in the capital Brussels on Saturday.

The premier was on her maiden to two healthcare insti-tutions since the coronavirus outbreak.

The employees of the Saint Peter hospital gave a “guard of dishonour” to the prime min-ister at her arrival. They stood in line next to each other at the entrance, and turned their backs on the PM’s car.

The unfriendly welcome was meant to express disap-proval of the government’s managing of the COVID-19 pan-demic, and a recently passed legis lat ion regarding employment in the health sector. Doctors and nurses, as well as the staff dealing with administrative, cleaning and logistical tasks, participated in the demonstration.

The Saint Peter hospital is Belgium’s reference institution to treat virus patients since the beginning of the pandemic.

Medical staff across Belgium have been complaining of extreme fatigue and burnout due to long working hours during the virus outbreak, as well as low salaries and budget cuts. Besides, the government has passed a “controversial” legislation that increases the workload on healthcare workers, and allows the recruitment of medically non-skilled workers for nurse positions.

Following her visit, Wilmes told a news conference that she perceived the protest as a call for talks between the gov-ernment and the health sector.

“Nothing will be the same after the crisis, we need to reevaluate the importance of nursing profession,” she said.

Santiago begins strict quarantine after surge in casesAFP — SANTIAGO

With near-deserted streets and police checks, the seven million people of Chile’s capital, Santiago, began a strict quar-antine on Saturday after a sharp resurgence of coronavirus cases.

Normal activity in the capital was down 85 percent, the government said, as people were only allowed to leave their homes for essential food and medicine and a short period of exercise.

“Blocks and blocks of the city are completely empty and we can take it that this is a good start,” Health Minister Jaime Manalich told reporters at San-tiago airport after a fly-over of

the city. Long lines of cars caused gridlock on Friday evening as people streamed out of capital for the coast, 100km away, hours before the lockdown came into force at 10pm.

The lockdown order, announced by Manalich on Wednesday and due to last at least a week, dealt a blow to earlier hopes the South American country could reopen its economy following evidence it had flattened the curve.

New infections had reduced to between 350 and 500 a day in late May, leading to the gov-ernment of conservative Pres-ident Sebastian Pinera relaxing some restrictions, and allowing businesses and stores to reopen.

However, new cases have doubled in the past 10 days.

Having remained below 1,000 a day last month, the daily average has shot up to well over 2,000 new infections a day.

The South American country had 41,428 infections by Saturday, with 421 deaths — 27 of those fatalities coming in the previous 24 hours.

Santiago has reported 80 percent of the country’s cases, amid concern that the country’s emergency services were already operating near their limit.

“We have kept the case fatality rate close to 1 percent, but when we see a greater number of people infected,

obviously the number of deaths also increase,” said Arturo Zuniga, a health ministry official with responsibility for care networks.

Some patients have been transferred to a hospital in the southern city of Concepcion to free up intensive-care beds in the capital ahead of expected increased demand in the coming weeks, authorities said.

Santiago’s main avenues were almost entirely deserted on Saturday. Supermarkets and small neighbourhood grocery stores remain open, though the numbers of people entering was being strictly limited.

Some people walked their dogs in the 30 minutes available for them to do so.

Workers wearing protective suits spray disinfectant to clean a house in a migrant neighbourhood, in Santiago, Chile, on Saturday.

The country has the world’s second highest number of infections at 281,752 topped only by the United States. Yesterday, it announced new cases had dropped below 10,000 for the third day this week at 9,709.

12 MONDAY 18 MAY 2020AMERICAS

Democrats probeTrump’s move tooust watchdogREUTERS — WASHINGTON

Democrats in Congress on Saturday launched an investi-gation into President Donald Trump’s move to oust the State Department ’s internal watchdog, accusing the pres-ident of escalating his fight against any oversight of his administration.

Trump announced the planned removal of Inspector General Steve Linick in a letter to House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi late on Friday night, making Linick the latest government inspector general to be ousted in recent weeks under the Republican president.

The top Democrats on the House and Senate Foreign Rela-tions Committees questioned the timing and motivation of what they called an “unprece-dented removal.”

“We unalterably oppose the politically-motivated firing of inspectors general and the Pres-ident’s gutting of these critical positions,” House panel chairman Eliot Engel and Senator Bob Menendez, the

ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations panel, said in a statement announcing the probe.

The two Democrats said it was their understanding that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo personally recommended Lin-ick’s firing because the inspector general “had opened an investigation into wrong-doing by Secretary Pompeo himself.”

Asked about the investi-gation, a White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “Secretary Pompeo recommended the move and President Trump agreed.”

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on the probe. It earlier said that Stephen Akard,

director of the Office of Foreign Missions, would take over the watchdog job.

Linick, who was appointed to the role in 2013 under the Obama administration, is the fourth inspector general fired by Trump since early April fol-lowing the president’s February acquittal by the Republican-led Senate in an impeachment trial.

Pelosi called the ousting an acceleration of a “dangerous pattern of retaliation.”

In April, Trump removed a top coronavirus watchdog, Glenn Fine, who was to oversee the government’s COVID-19 financial relief response. Trump also notified Congress that he was firing the inspector general of the U.S. intelligence com-munity, Michael Atkinson, who was involved in triggering the

impeachment investigation.Earlier in May, Trump

ousted Christi Grimm, who led the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, after accusing her of having pro-duced a “fake dossier” on American hospitals suffering shortages on the frontlines of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

“Trump is methodically eliminating anyone who would bring wrongdoing to light,” Senator Jeff Merkley, a Dem-ocrat on the Foreign Relations panel, tweeted.

Trump’s letter provided 30-days’ notice as required and

said he no longer had confi-dence in Linick’s ability to serve as inspector general, but gave no specific reasons.

Engel and Menendez called on the Trump administration to turn over any related docu-ments by May 22.

Trump and his adminis-tration have repeatedly balked at Congress’ power to check the executive branch, refusing to turn over records in multiple other probes and triggering lawsuits over its oversight power. It was not immediately clear what, if any, other action lawmakers would take outside the probe.

Walter Shaub, the former

head of the U.S. Office of Gov-ernment Ethics, who exited after clashing with Trump, said the 30-day notice gave law-makers a window to act, if they wanted to, including calling Pompeo to testify.

“It is part of a purge to remove legitimate watchdogs and replace them with loy-alists,” he tweeted.

Representatives for Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jim Risch did not respond to a request for comment.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said in a statement that citing “a general lack of confi-dence simply is not sufficient detail to satisfy Congress.”

A file photo of US State Department Inspector-General Steve Linick departing after briefing the House and Senate Intelligence committees at the US Capitol, in Washington, DC.

Leaders ‘aren’t even pretending to be in charge’: ObamaAFP — WASHINGTON

Former US President Barack Obama on Saturday criticised the response to the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging America, in what was widely regarded as a rare public rebuke of his successor Donald Trump.

His remarks came as he spoke at two virtual commence-ments for high school and uni-versity students locked down instead of celebrating their grad-uations, a rite of passage every spring in the United States.

“More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge

know what they’re doing,” Obama told graduates from several dozen historically black colleges and universities at the first ceremony.

“A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge,” he said as he discussed the impli-cations of the pandemic during the online event, without naming any specific leaders.

That celebration was fol-lowed by a second, star-studded prime-time ceremony for high school students in which Obama continued along the same lines, telling students to step up where leaders had failed.

“If the world is going to get better, it’s going to be up to you,”

he said.“Doing what feels good,

what’s convenient, what’s easy — that’s how little kids think. Unfortunately, a lot of so-called grown-ups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs, still think that way — which is why things are so screwed up,” he continued.

“I hope that instead, you decide to ground yourself in values that last, like honesty, hard work, responsibility, fairness, generosity, respect for others.”

The ceremony, carried by all the major American television networks, flashed between stirring speeches and

performances students and celebrities alike, including bas-ketball superstar Lebron James and singers the Jonas Brothers.

James echoed Obama’s call for the students to step up, urging them to “Stay close to home” and help rebuild commu-nities devastated by the virus and shutdowns.

The US leads the world with coronavirus cases and deaths, at 1.4 million and nearly 90,000, respectively.

This year’s graduates face a grim reality: the US unem-ployment rate has shot up to nearly 15 percent and more than 36 million people have filed for unemployment benefits as

America grapples with the fallout from months of lockdown and business closings.

The gravity of Obama’s message was underscored by the fact it was the second time in a week he had hit out at the response to the pandemic, having pointedly refused to crit-icize Trump in public in the three years since leaving office.

He kept his profile low despite being frequently attacked by the president.

But on May 9, in remarks leaked from a web call with people who worked in his administration, he called Trump’s handling of the pan-demic a catastrophe.

No spike in virus inplaces of reopening: US Health SecretaryREUTERS — WASHINGTON

US authorities are not yet seeing spikes in coronavirus cases in places that are reopening but it was still too early to determine such trends, health secretary Alex Azar said yesterday.

“We are seeing that in places that are opening, we’re not seeing this spike in cases,” Azar said on CNN’s “State of the Union” programme.

“We still see spikes in some areas that are, in fact, closed.” However, Azar said identifying and reporting new cases takes time. A critical part of reopening will be surveillance of flu-like symptoms in the population and other hospital admissions data, as well as testing of asympto-matic individuals, he said.

“It’s still early days,” Azar cautioned in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

He said data will take some time to come in from states that reopened early such as Georgia and Florida.

Nearly all 50 US states have begun to allow some businesses to reopen and residents to move more freely, but only 14 states have met the federal govern-ment’s guidelines for lifting measures aimed at fighting the pandemic, according to a analysis.

The top Democrat in Con-gress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said it was impossible to know the trajectory of the virus, which has killed close to 90,000 Americans, without more testing.

“We have no idea the size of this challenge to our country because we have not suffi-ciently tested,” Pelosi said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Legislation passed by the House of Representatives on Friday would provide for the keys to a successful reopening: testing, tracing and treatment, she said. Republicans have called the bill dead on arrival in the Senate.

“We haven’t had a plan.

Let’s go forward in a bipartisan way to have a plan, a plan to test,” she said.

The United States has lagged far behind most other industrialized nations in coro-navirus testing that public health officials deem critical to preventing further outbreaks.

Azar put the onus on local governments to handle reo-pening plans, as cooped-up

Americans begin to flock to bars, beaches and parks.

“These are very localised determinations. There should not be a one size fits all to reo-pening but reopen we must because it’s not health versus the economy. It’s health versus healthy,” he said, adding there were serious health conse-quences to not reopening.

Asked about images being

broadcast from some areas of the country showing people gathering near bars and con-gregating close together, Azar said that was the cost of freedom.

“I think in any individual instance you’re going to see people doing things that are irresponsible. That’s part of the freedom that we have here in America,” he said on CNN.

A medical worker transports a patient outside a special COVID-19 illness area in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, yesterday.

Peru plans tobuild hospitalin Amazon forvirus patientsAFP — LIMA

Peru said it will construct a fast-build hospital in the Amazon as it seeks to respond to a growing COVID-19 emergency sweeping through the indigenous popu-lation.

State social security body EsSalud said it expects the 100-bed hospital in Pucallpa, capital of the remote Ucayali region on the border with Brazil, to be operational within three weeks.

“EsSalud will install a fast-build hospital in Ucayali to serve COVID-19 patients,” the gov-ernment body said in a statement late on Friday.

The Peruvian Amazon is already facing a dire emer-gency, with hospitals in its largest city Iquitos over-whelmed with COVID-19 patients and local morgues unable to cope with the number of bodies.

The government said it would rush 220 healthworker reinforcements to the Amazon.

“We have been working intensively to expand the services and provide hospitals in the Peruvian Amazon with all the necessary means to care for patients with COVID-19,” said Federico Tong Hurtado, a spokesman for the social security services.

Prime Minister Gustavo Zeballos said the government would ensure the supply of oxygen and other vital medical materials via “an air and land bridge” to the region.

Roads are practically non-existent in the Peruvian jungle and rivers are the main means of transportation.

The government has pledged to ramp up the fre-quency of flights from Lima to ensure aid deliveries.

An oxygen plant will begin operating in Iquitos, capital of the neighboring Amazon region of Loreto, on Monday, supplying a local 40-bed hospital.

Desperate COVID-19 patients have been dying in the region’s hospitals for lack of oxygen, officials say.

“The world’s lung is dying from lack of oxygen and this is our sad reality,” the director of Health for the Amazon Region of Loreto, Carlos Calampa, said in a video call on Thursday.

Loreto, which borders Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, is the largest and least populated region in Peru but also the worst affected by the pandemic.

Puerto Rico to hold statehood referendum amid disillusionAP — SAN JUAN

Governor Wanda Vázquez announced on Saturday that she will hold a nonbinding refer-endum in November to decide whether Puerto Rico should become a US state, a move that comes amid growing disillusion with the island’s US territorial status.

For the first time in the island’s history, the referendum

will ask a single, simple question: Should Puerto Rico be immedi-ately admitted as a US state? It’s an answer that requires approval from US Congress and a question that outraged the island’s small group of inde-pendence supporters and members of the main opposition Popular Democratic Party, which supports the status quo.

But it’s a gamble that m e m b e r s o f t h e

governor’s pro-statehood party are confident will pay off given that Puerto Rico has struggled to obtain federal funds for hur-ricanes Irma and Maria, a string of recent strong earthquakes and the coronavirus pandemic amid growing complaints that the island does not receive fair and equal treatment.

“Everything important in life carries some risk,” said former Puerto Rico governor

Carlos Romero Barceló, a member of the Progressive New Party.

Previous referendums have presented voters with more than one question or various options, including inde-pendence or upholding the current territorial status, but none have been so direct as the one scheduled to be held during the November 3 general elections.

“Our people will have the opportunity once and for all to define our future,” Vázquez said.

“It’s never too late to be treated as equals.” Puerto Ricans are US citizens but cannot vote in US presidential elections. And while the island is exempt from the US federal income tax, it still pays Social Security and Medicare and local taxes and receives less federal funding than US states.

The two Democrats said it was their understanding that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo personally recommended Linick’s firing because the inspector general “had opened an investigation into wrongdoing by Secretary Pompeo himself.”