US President Donald Trump claims he has seen evidence of Covid-19 originating in a Wuhan lab. When asked at a press briefing if he has seen anything that gives you a “high degree of confidence” that coronavirus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, President Trump replied: “Yes, I have." He added that he was "not allowed" to tell reporters what that evidence was.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Trump implies he has seen evidence Covid-19 was created in a Wuhan lab
US President Donald Trump claims he has seen evidence of Covid-19 originating in a Wuhan lab. When asked at a press briefing if he has seen anything that gives you a “high degree of confidence” that coronavirus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, President Trump replied: “Yes, I have." He added that he was "not allowed" to tell reporters what that evidence was.
Coronavirus: key to easing lockdown is low transmission rate
Boris Johnson has said the government will release a plan for gradually easing the lockdown. However the Prime Minister made clear that lifting restrictions will depend on keeping transmission rates of coronavirus infection low. The scientific term for the transmission rate is known as the R-number. Boris Johnson said that keeping the R-number down was going to be "absolutely vital to our recovery".
Coronavirus: How contagious are children and how sick can they get? | COVID-19 Special
Experts are divided as to how much of a risk coronavirus poses to kids. Or whether they are even able to spread the virus. It's also unclear why children either have no symptoms or very mild ones. So far, studies have come to varying conclusions. Are kids safe from the virus? Or are they at risk?
Questions And Answers
Question: Was Mike Pence told he had to where a mask while visiting the Mayo clinic?
Answer: Of course not because his mommy didn't tell him too. Mommy knows best.
Question: Donald Trump will try and blame Don Quixote, The Wicked Witch of the West or Ren and Stimpy for his failure to get reelected?
Answer: No. He really, really wants to blame Xi Jinping.
Question: Is the state of Ohio the first state to have all mail in voting?
Answer: No. But you wouldn't know that from the way the media has been covering the vote.
Question: Did Sean Hannity gift tickets to healthcare workers for a Yankees game?
Answer: The fortunate 500 were given magical tickets to a nonexistent game.
Question: Will Lindsey Graham being playing a dead body in an upcoming melodrama?
Answer: Lindsey's dead body will be used to stop unemployment insurance.
Answer: Of course not because his mommy didn't tell him too. Mommy knows best.
Question: Donald Trump will try and blame Don Quixote, The Wicked Witch of the West or Ren and Stimpy for his failure to get reelected?
Answer: No. He really, really wants to blame Xi Jinping.
Question: Is the state of Ohio the first state to have all mail in voting?
Answer: No. But you wouldn't know that from the way the media has been covering the vote.
Question: Did Sean Hannity gift tickets to healthcare workers for a Yankees game?
Answer: The fortunate 500 were given magical tickets to a nonexistent game.
Question: Will Lindsey Graham being playing a dead body in an upcoming melodrama?
Answer: Lindsey's dead body will be used to stop unemployment insurance.
30 million Americans have filed for unemployment since mid-March
First-time claims for unemployment benefits totaled 3.8 million in the week ending April 25, after factoring in seasonal adjustments, according to the US Department of Labor. The adjustments accounted for around 300,000 claims.
Six In The Morning Thursday 30 April 2020
Where did it go wrong for the UK on coronavirus?
Updated 1108 GMT (1908 HKT) April 30, 2020
The British government is on the brink of missing a crucial target in its fight against coronavirus.
A headline-grabbing aim of conducting 100,000 daily Covid-19 tests by the end of April is unlikely to be achieved, with the government saying that only 52,429 had been carried out on Tuesday, two days before the deadline. Capacity is available for about 73,000, Downing Street says. Government sources argue, with some justification, that the target -- up from about 10,000 a day at the beginning of the month -- was always incredibly ambitious, and the fact that capacity has been expanded so quickly is a huge achievement.
But, critics say, that only serves to illustrate the inadequacies of Britain's testing regime in the first place.
Revealed: 100,000 crew never made it off cruise ships amid coronavirus crisis
Guardian investigation finds workers stranded on at least 50 ships with Covid-19 outbreaks, limited medical equipment, some without pay, and no end in sight
While most cruise ship passengers have now made it back to land, another crisis has been growing – with no safe haven in sight.
Around the world, more than 100,000 crew workers are still trapped on cruise ships, at least 50 of which have Covid-19 infections, a Guardian investigation has found. They are shut out of ports and banned from air travel that would allow them to return to their homes.
Many of these crew are quarantined in tiny cabins, and some have had their pay cut off. They have effectively become a nation of floating castaways, marooned on boats from the Galapagos Islands to the port of Dubai.
President rages at TV news anchors as coronavirus death toll tops 60,000 after denying testing pledge he made just 24 hours earlier
Donald Trump was up late on Twitter again on Wednesday night continuing to stew over negative press coverage of his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, attacking TV news anchors Brian Williams, Don Lemon and Joe Scarborough, saying of the former he “wouldn’t know the truth if it was nailed to his wooden forehead”.
With the US death toll from the outbreak now soaring beyond 60,000, the president’s latest briefing at the White House on Wednesday saw him refuting a claim he himself had made just a day earlier that the country would “soon” be hitting 5m tests for Covid-19 per day.
Keen to resume 2020 campaign rally rallies, Trump also said the government would not be extending its social distancing guidelines expiring on Thursday while his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, predicted the country would be “really rocking again” by July in a Fox News interview in which he also pronounced the rate of American fatalities ”a great success story”.
How deforestation can lead to more infectious diseases
The world's forests act as shields, keeping humans safe from coronaviruses and other diseases. Their destruction can unleash devastating consequences for global public health.
Scientists have been repeating the warning for at least two decades: As humans encroach upon forests, their risk of contracting viruses circulating among wild animals increases.
That's why Ana Lucia Tourinho wasn't surprised when she heard about the novel coronavirus, which was first detected in China in December and has since spread around the world. An ecologist at the Federal University of Mato Grosso in Brazil, Tourinho studies how an environmental imbalance can cause forests and societies to become sick.
Women on the front line (3/3): For those teaching remotely, much of the job is reassuring parents
Schools have been closed in France since a nationwide lockdown began in mid-March. Almost 70 percent of primary and secondary teachers are women, and FRANCE 24 spoke to a group who are determined to keep teaching – even if they are not in the classroom.
For Émilie Bocqueho, a teacher in the Paris suburb of Châtillon, the first week of lockdown was "chaotic". With 2-year-old twins at home, she had to work out a tight schedule.
"There is so much anxiety associated with this way of teaching. I had to imagine how it would work so that it would be fair to my partner," she explained. So she organised online lessons during her children's naps and late at night for her class of 24 primary school students.
Kim health rumours spotlight succession in secretive North Korea
Kim Jong Un has ruled over North Korea with an iron fist, eliminating those who could threaten his position.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was last pictured centre stage at a key political meeting on April 11, but has been out of the country’s state media ever since. Now, after failing to appear at one of the secretive nation’s most important annual events, there is mounting speculation about his health.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Trump erupted at campaign manager over sliding poll numbers, sources say
As the coronavirus pandemic complicates the 2020 presidential election, sources say President Donald Trump erupted at his campaign manager Brad Parscale. CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports.
Coronavirus: major drugs trial offers hopes for treatment - BBC News
At present there is no drug proven to be effective in treating coronavirus infections. But several existing medicines for other conditions are undergoing trials. It’s the world’s biggest study of potential treatments, involves thousands of patients. Five drugs are being studied, including treatments currently used for malaria and HiV.
How Sick And Twisted Are These People?
The White House gift shop is selling Coronavirus commemorative coins for $125.
— Travis Akers (@travisakers) April 29, 2020
No, this is not a joke.https://t.co/CyQ7Fc8z7E
Only a nihilist like Donald Trump would sell coronavirus commemorative coins in the middle of a global pandemic.
Don Lemon: This is a time when we need our leaders to show up
CNN's Don Lemon gives his take on Vice President Mike Pence choosing not to wear a mask during his recent visit to the Mayo Clinic.
Coronavirus Russia: Putin extends lockdown as cases surge | DW News
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the country's coronavirus outbreak has not yet peaked. He said the current lockdown would be extended until May 11. There's also been a significant increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, with an additional 5,800 infections in one day, bringing the nationwide total to over 99,000. The country's healthcare system is reaching its limits.
Six In The Morning Wednesday 29 April 2020
Trump still seems to not understand how bad the coronavirus crisis is
Updated 1110 GMT (1910 HKT) April 29, 2020
Three months in -- after a million infections, nearly 60,000 US deaths and a potential economic depression -- it's still unclear whether President Donald Trump grasps the gravity of the coronavirus crisis.
The man who said he knew more about ISIS than the generals and claimed to have stunned dumfounded aides with his scientific acuity prides himself on a mystical instinct to make right calls.
Yet Trump's leadership in the worst domestic crisis since World War II has consistently featured wrong, ill-informed and dangerous decisions, omissions and politically fueled pivots.
Myanmar military may be repeating crimes against humanity, UN rapporteur warns
Yanghee Lee says the army is ‘maximising suffering’ on Rohingya and other people in attacks reminiscent of the 2017 assault in Rakhine state
Myanmar’s military may once again be committing crimes against humanity in Rakhine state, the UN special rapporteur on human rights has warned, urging the international community to prevent further atrocities.
In a damning statement issued on Wednesday, Yanghee Lee said the military was inflicting immense suffering on communities living in conflict-affected states, and called for increased efforts to “ensure that there is not another systemic failure like in 2017”. The military had also expanded its campaign against minorities from Rakhine to neighbouring Chin state, she said.
Myanmar is already facing allegations of genocide over a brutal military crackdown that began in August 2017, and which forced more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee over the border to Bangladesh. Earlier this year, Myanmar was instructed by the UN’s highest court to take action to prevent genocidal violence against Rohingya citizens and to report back on its progress.
Coronavirus: Inmate dies after giving birth on ventilator
Advocates of prison reform have criticised Justice Department measures on releasing low-risk inmates amid coronavirus pandemic as not going far enough
A pregnant woman serving a prison sentence for maintaining a drug-related business has died during the birth of her child by c-section while she was on a ventilator.
The US Bureau of Prisons said on Tuesday that the 30-year-old, Andrea Circle Bear, had died during childbirth at a hospital in Texas, about a month after she was first hospitalised.
Circle Bear, who was serving a 26-month sentence, is believed to be the first female federal inmate to succumb to the Covid-19 disease and the 29th federal inmate to die in the custody of the US Bureau of Prisons since late March.
The liberation of Dachau, 75 years ago
When US soldiers reached the gate of the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945, they had no idea what horrors awaited them. War reporter Martha Gellhorn shared what she saw with the world.
On the morning of April 29, 1945 the "Rainbow Division" of the Seventh US Army reached the closed gates of the Dachau concentration camp near Munich. The German Wehrmacht had long since withdrawn, and most of the SS guards were on the run.
Without exchanging fire, the US soldiers entered the camp, and were shocked by what they saw: hundreds of corpses in barracks and freight cars, half-starved traumatized prisoners, many with typhoid. Only a few of them could stand on their own.
Women on the front line (2/3): Cashiers face 'warlike' conditions working under Covid-19
With the Covid-19 pandemic and most French workers being asked to stay at home, supermarket cashiers are more than ever on the front lines as France enters its seventh week in lockdown. The profession, which is 90 percent female, has proven to be essential. But what price do they pay for being behind the till?
Since the beginning of the lockdown, it is estimated that some 25 percent of French workers are heading into their workplace, according to a survey for France Info. Véronique, 55, is one of them. A supermarket cashier for almost 20 years, she does not plan to stay at home while there is work: "We have a knot in our stomach but we go in regardless.”
In her store in the small town of Carqueiranne in south-eastern France, she explains that protective equipment has been brought in but not everything is usable.
Google races to replace Zoom as live video app of choice
Google is moving to cut Zoom’s popularity in the video conferencing market down to size, with the web giant making its Meet teleconferencing service free to the public.
The tech titan joins Facebook in expanding its video offering to the home isolation crowd, with the social network introducing the Zoom-like Messenger Rooms over the weekend. Both services are aiming to catch up to Zoom, which was relatively unknown outside of business circles before the global pandemic but has since managed to become an overnight mainstream hit on the back of its simple "click a link to join" operation and solid call quality.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Documents suggest coronavirus task force prioritized which labs got testing supplies
Smaller labs and hospitals are reporting a critical shortage of Covid-19 testing supplies as President Donald Trump touts that there are enough tests to reopen the country.
Is freedom a casualty in the fight against coronavirus?
Many countries are accused of using the fight against the pandemic as an excuse to crack down on human rights.
Coronavirus restrictions are meant to save lives, but for authoritarian leaders they can be an excuse to adopt repressive measures.
And the coronavirus emergency is fast becoming a human-rights crisis - that's the warning from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
He has highlighted an increase in hate speech, targeting of vulnerable groups and heavy-handed security responses.
He has also said there is discrimination in the way public services are being delivered to tackle the pandemic.
Irish Daily Mirror To Trump: 'Imbleach Him'
Trump has turned America into a world-wide joke.
Trump has turned the United States into a worldwide laughingstock.
This headline tells it all from the Irish Daily Press from Saturday:
The Irish are now calling the U.S. so-called president, a moron.
'Imbleach Him"
The White House needs to answer coronavirus questions, not play musical chairs with CNN
By trying to reassign seats in the White House briefing room, the Trump administration is attempting to stifle real journalism, says media critic Erik Wemple.
On Monday, The Washington Post published a video opinion piece after obtaining footage of part of the incident.
“The White House is invoking the Secret Service and using cheap intimidation tactics to scare reporters into other seats,” Erik Wemple, the newspaper’s media critic, said in the video.
Trump blames China; UK mourns victims; First countries ease restrictions
The British public will hold a minute's silence today to pay tribute to frontline workers who've died after contracting Covid 19. The government has announced it will make a 60,000 pound compensation payment to families of health workers and social care staff who die fighting the outbreak. After years of underfunding, and now a severe lack of personal protective equipment, the pandemic has laid bare the crisis within the UK's national health system.
‘Mad dysfunctional kingship’: Historian Jon Meacham explains how Trump’s ‘adolescent response’ on coronavirus cost lives
On “The 11th Hour,” Meacham told host Brian Williams that one of Trump’s failures during the pandemic has been an inability to express genuine empathy the way that President Lyndon B. Johnson expressed genuine empathy in response to Hurricane Betsy in the 1960s when he said, “I am your president, and I’m here to help.” Meacham lamented Trump’s inability to become a sympathetic figure during the pandemic, telling Williams, “We can’t normalize what is fundamentally a mad dysfunctional kingship.”
The following morning, Meacham defended two U.S. presidents of the past who faced a major crisis — Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt with Pearl Harbor and Republican George W. Bush with 9/11 — and explained why it’s unfair to compare either of them to Trump with coronavirus.
An argument that has been used against Trump during the coronavirus pandemic was also used against President George W. Bush following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and against President Franklin Delano Roosevelt following the Japanese military’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941: he should have seen it coming. But Meacham, on “Morning Joe,” explained why it is unfair to blame Bush for 9/11 or FDR for Pearl Harbor but quite fair to attack Trump’s response to coronavirus: 9/11 and Pearl Harbor were “singular events,” whereas coronavirus was a crisis that grew worse and worse while Trump ignored warning after warning.
The following morning, Meacham defended two U.S. presidents of the past who faced a major crisis — Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt with Pearl Harbor and Republican George W. Bush with 9/11 — and explained why it’s unfair to compare either of them to Trump with coronavirus.
An argument that has been used against Trump during the coronavirus pandemic was also used against President George W. Bush following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and against President Franklin Delano Roosevelt following the Japanese military’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941: he should have seen it coming. But Meacham, on “Morning Joe,” explained why it is unfair to blame Bush for 9/11 or FDR for Pearl Harbor but quite fair to attack Trump’s response to coronavirus: 9/11 and Pearl Harbor were “singular events,” whereas coronavirus was a crisis that grew worse and worse while Trump ignored warning after warning.
Back in January and February, Trump downplayed the severity of coronavirus —insisting that it didn’t pose a major threat to the United States. He was dead wrong, of course: according to researchers at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, COVID-19 had killed more than 56,200 people in the U.S. as of early Tuesday morning, April 28. Worldwide, the staggering death toll stood at 211,894.
In January and February, Meacham told “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, coronavirus was an “unfolding crisis” that Trump was warned about repeatedly. And Trump’s “refusal to accept a fact,” according to Meacham, was an “adolescent response.”
Why Did Trump Downplay Warnings On Coronavirus?
New reporting lays out when U.S. intelligence agencies issued warnings to the president about the coronavirus and how the president dealt with the intelligence
Six In The Morning Tuesday 28 April 2020
Coronavirus: America’s ‘essential’ farmworkers fearful as Covid-19 infections rise
Andrew Buncombe travels to Yakima Valley in Washington state to meet the farmers and immigrant labourers risking their lives to keep America fed during the pandemicAndrew BuncombeWapato
Standing amid lines of wire fencing that soon should be laden with hazelnuts, Jose Louis Jimenez was careful to keep some distance from his fellow workers.
The company had provided them gloves and masks, but while standing at such a distance from other people, he did not feel the need to wear one now.
Not that he was taking the threat of coronavirus lightly. Officials recently revealed at least 70 farmworkers in Yakima County had tested positive for the disease, and the 56-year-old knew two people who had died – both of them men who owned stores in the valley.
How the face mask became the world's most coveted commodity
The global scramble for this vital item has exposed the harsh realities of international politics and the limits of the free market. By Samanth SubramanianTue 28 Apr 2020 06.00 BST
If Ovidiu Olea is astonished by the fact that he’s gone from being a finance guy to a mask mogul in four months, he shows no sign of it. The transition started innocuously. Late in January, when the coronavirus spread beyond Wuhan, Olea decided he would buy masks for his staff. He lives in Hong Kong, where he runs a payment technology firm. His staff isn’t large – just 20 employees – but finding even a few hundred masks proved hard. Part of the problem was that last year, after protesters in Hong Kong used masks to hide their identity, the Chinese government restricted supplies from the mainland. Before the pandemic, half the world’s masks were manufactured in China; now, with production there shifting into overdrive, that figure may be as high as 85%. If China isn’t sending you masks, you likely aren’t getting any at all. We have no masks, local pharmacies told Olea, but if you find some, we’ll buy them from you.
Will Covid-19 end the age of Big Oil?
by Nafeez Ahmed
US oil prices have dropped below zero for the first time in history. The crisis is a direct consequence of the sudden slump in economic demand as the world locks down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But given the likely duration of our economic woes, this could well be the beginning of the end for the age of oil.
The global oil crisis is laying bare structural vulnerabilities in the hydrocarbon energy system — and industrial civilization — that Big Oil has obscured for decades. Seven years ago, I wrote in detail about some of those structural vulnerabilities: ‘The shale gas revolution was meant to bring lasting prosperity,’ I warned. ‘But the result of the gas glut may be just a bubble, producing no more than a temporary recovery that masks deep structural instability.’
Extreme weather disasters and wars displace millions
Forced from their homes by floods, storms and wars, millions of internally displaced people are now at risk of a pandemic.
Extreme weather displaced 24 million people within their countries in 2019, with conflict and other disasters driving a further 9.5 million from their homes, according to a report published Tuesday by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC).
Floods and storms — particularly cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes — displaced 10 million and 13 million people respectively, with wildfires, droughts, landslides and temperature extremes contributing to another 900,000 displacements. About one million people fled volcanoes and earthquakes.
China is installing surveillance cameras outside people's front doors ... and sometimes inside their homes
Updated 1142 GMT (1942 HKT) April 28, 2020
The morning after Ian Lahiffe returned to Beijing, he found a surveillance camera being mounted on the wall outside his apartment door. Its lens was pointing right at him.
After a trip to southern China, the 34-year-old Irish expat and his family were starting their two-week home quarantine, a mandatory measure enforced by the Beijing government to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.
He said he opened the door as the camera was being installed, without warning.
Kim Jong-un: Who might lead N Korea without Kim?
Speculation and rumour about Kim Jong-un's health may amount to nothing, but questions about who might succeed him in the short or long term will always be there. The BBC spoke to analysts about the contenders and whether history is on their side.
A male member of the Kim family has been in charge of North Korea ever since its founding by Kim Il-sung in 1948 - and the mythology of this family runs deep throughout society.
Propaganda about its greatness begins for citizens before they can even read: pre-schoolers sing a song called: "I want to see our leader Kim Jong-un."
Monday, April 27, 2020
Venezuela gas shortage makes quarantine unavoidable
Afghanistan: The Healers
As war continues to cripple Afghanistan, health workers are restoring the limbs, and lives, of their patients.
Almost 180,000 patients, nearly 200,000 artificial limbs: For 30 years, orthopaedic centres run by the International Committee of the Red Cross have provided a lifeline for Afghanistan's physically disabled -victims of air raids, accidents, and congenital illness.
No matter how many limbs they make, the patients keep coming.
In Afghanistan, disability often carries a heavy stigma. But when patients come to the Red Cross centre in Kabul, they get more than just a new prosthetic limb; they get a hefty dose of hope.
Many of the staff treating them are former patients, who provide powerful examples that disability does not have to mean the end of life as they know it.
Conspiracy theorists said she started the coronavirus pandemic. Now she's afraid for her life.
Maatje Benassi, a US Army reservist and mother of two, has become the target of conspiracy theorists who falsely place her at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, saying she brought the disease to China.
The false claims are spreading across YouTube every day, so far racking up hundreds of thousands of apparent views, and have been embraced by Chinese Communist Party media. Despite never having tested positive for the coronavirus or experienced symptoms, Benassi and her husband are now subjects of discussion on Chinese social media about the outbreak, including among accounts that are known drivers of large-scale coordinated activities by their followers.
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