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Brazil’s new health minister said the government will more than double the country’s capability for coronavirus testing and devise a plan to end social isolation, which Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said is bad for the economy.  Nelson Teich’s video taped comments released Monday night comes after several governors and mayors said they were looking into imposing stricter isolation measures to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.      President Bolsonaro replaced Luiz Henrique Mandetta with Teich last week after he clashed with Mandetta over self isolation policies, which Bolsonaro is seeking to end this week.  Bolsanaro could be facing a legal challenge by exiting self isolation measures after the country’s top court ruled governors and mayors can decide on social isolation measures regardless of the federal government’s position.     So far, Brazil has confirmed more than 40,700 COVID-19 cases with 2,587 deaths. 
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Tons of covid-related medical supplies are arriving in Argentina from China. A second plane of masks, protective suits, and chemicals used for coronavirus tests purchased from Beijing arrived in Argentina Monday, with more supplies expected to follow.  Argentina is boosting its inventory to combat the virus as the country’s month long- lockdown comes to an end on Sunday. The imported supplies are flowing into Argentina just as the country’s Ministry of Productive Development issued a disposition to change the tariff codes, making it easier for supplies needed by medical professionals and the public to fight the virus to enter the country. Argentina is hoping by simplifying guidelines for importing certain products that its less likely to face shortages. Argentina has reported more than 2,900 coronavirus cases and 142 deaths linked to the disease.  
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the death toll in Sunday’s 12-hour shooting rampage across the province of Nova Scotia, already the worst of its kind in Canada’s history, has risen to 18.Trudeau spoke to the nation Monday, one day after a gunman disguised as a police officer went on a 12-hour rampage shooting people in their homes, setting fires and killing at least 18 people, including a 23-year veteran policewoman.In his comments, Trudeau said, “Such a tragedy should have never occurred. Violence of any kind has no place in Canada.”Police say the incident began overnight Saturday in the rural town of Portapique, about 100 kilometers north of Halifax. They say they responded to a house where gunshots were reported and found bodies inside and outside the house.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau comments on the shooting in Nova Scotia during a news conference, April 20, 2020, in Ottawa.Bodies were also found at several other locations within a 50-kilometer area from that neighborhood. Authorities believe the shooter may have targeted his first victims but then began attacking randomly. Several houses in the area were set on fire.Royal Canadian Mounted Police Chief Superintendent Chris Leather told a news conference Monday that police expect to find more victims.Police teams were spread out at 16 locations across central and northern Nova Scotia, he said. Some of the victims knew Wortman, and some didn’t, he added.”We’re relatively confident we’ve identified all the crime scenes,” Leather said. “We have had five structure fires, most of those being residences, and we believe there may be victims still within the remains of those homes which burnt to the ground.”Officials said the suspect, identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, was shot and killed by police. No motive for the killings was given.Trudeau noted how close-knit the small province of Nova Scotia is.”The vast majority of Nova Scotians will have a direct link with one or more of the victims. The entire province and country is grieving right now as we come to grips with something that is unimaginable,” Trudeau told a news conference.”The pandemic will prevent us from mourning together in person, but a vigil will be held virtually to celebrate the lives of the victims,” Trudeau added, saying it would take place Friday night through a Facebook group.The Associated Press contributed to this report. 
 
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Several countries in Europe and Asia are gradually easing their coronavirus lockdowns this week. From extensive testing to strict social distancing, these countries took aggressive measures before cautiously lifting some restrictions. On Monday, South Korea lifted closure advisories on high-risk venues such as churches, bars and sporting facilities. The number of new infections had dropped to a single digit the day before.“We have the room to consider balancing infection control and economic activities,” said South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, while announcing eased rules on social distancing Sunday. Dr. Kent Calder, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told VOA that East Asian countries including Korea, Taiwan and Singapore employed rigorous contact tracing to contain the virus successfully. “Contact tracing, including digital techniques, is especially important. … Tracking infected individuals so that society generally can operate more freely,” Calder said.  He added widespread testing should support the tracing efforts. South Korea has, to date, tested more than 500,000 people, among the highest number in the world per capita. People walk to a shopping center as many smaller stores are allowed to open in Essen, Germany, April 20, 2020. Europe’s biggest economy, starts reopening some of its stores and factories after weeks of lockdown.Testing and treatment capacity Some German retailers began reopening on Monday, along with car dealerships and bicycle shops and bookstores. Under the agreement Chancellor Angela Merkel reached with state leaders, retailers with shops up to 800 square meters are allowed to open this week.  Like South Korea, Germany quickly rolled out widespread testing at the outset of the outbreak and captured asymptomatic infections.  Dr. Wenhui Mao, a researcher at Duke Global Health Institute, told VOA sufficient testing capacity is essential before easing the lockdown. She explained that suspected cases must be tested as much as possible before reopening to make sure infected patients are receiving proper care or self-quarantined before recovery.  On top of widespread testing, Germany was also able to keep fatalities low thanks to its universal health care system. The medical journal Lancet put Germany in 18th place in the world in access to quality health care. Germany leads other countries in terms of the number of beds in intensive care units with 22,000 beds, and with 10,000 of them still free. A woman shops as the farmers markets open in Prague, Czech Republic, April 20, 2020.First lockdowns in Europe Several countries among the first in Europe to implement lockdowns are reopening this week with precautionary measures.  The Czech Republic moved quickly to impose restrictions on travel and large events and closed businesses after declaring a state of emergency March 12.It also ordered everyone to cover their faces. After strict containment measures, the government allowed hardware stores and bike stores to reopen.Other stores and restaurants will be allowed to open gradually over the next two months. Students are also returning to schools in phases from Monday.One month after declaring a state of emergency, Spain allowed manufacturing and construction work to resume Monday with about 4 million workers estimated to have returned to work. Police handed out masks at transit hubs to returning workers.After five weeks of closures, hairdressers and other small businesses in Denmark reopened Monday, following the reopening of elementary schools last week. Austria and Norway also eased lockdowns. Spike in infections Singapore was able to suppress cases without lockdown measures because of its aggressive testing and quarantining. But a second wave has hit hard, with cases growing from 266 to more than 8,000 since March 17, according to the Johns Hopkins University.Experts say government testing missed clusters of infections that grew rapidly. Singapore since announced a “circuit breaker,” a package of strict restrictions to stem the spread of the virus. Experts fear easing of such restrictions carries the risk of starting a second wave.The Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security noted in its recent report on phased reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic, that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to reopening. It advised policymakers to consider testing and health care capacities, careful risk-assessments, and weigh the risks and benefits sector by sector.Mao, the Duke University researcher, said “even for regions that ease lockdown, covering mouth and nose, keeping social distancing, having good hand hygiene is still encouraged.” 
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Hungary’s ambassador to Washington has stepped down and returned to Budapest on short notice to take charge of a beefed up messaging operation in support of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling party.The party, Fidesz, announced last week that it was launching an Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Dec. 12, 2019.The announcement brought an end to several days of speculation in Washington, where friends and acquaintances of Szabo had been puzzling over the Hungarian envoy’s departure from the U.S. capital with less than 48 hours’ public notice. For many in the diplomatic community, the first word of Szabo’s plans came in an April 11 email inviting recipients to listen in on an online virtual concert to mark the occasion. Szabo was in an airplane on his way home less than two days later. “After almost three years as the Ambassador of Hungary to the US, I am leaving office next week to take over an exciting new responsibility in Budapest in the private sector,” wrote Szabo, who holds a degree as a doctor of medicine. Given that Szabo had worked for 20 years in the global pharmaceutical industry, including over a dozen years at U.S.-based Eli Lilly, some had assumed that he was returning to that sector to engage in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic. “It is always sad to see an esteemed colleague go, but Laszlo had a life ‘outside’ diplomacy … This might just be the right moment for him to return to the private sector – I wish him best of luck for all future endeavors,” said Austria’s ambassador to the United States, Martin Weiss, before learning of the KESMA appointment. He told VOA he had always “enjoyed working with” Szabo. Some members of the D.C. diplomatic community, when told of the departed envoy’s new responsibilities, suggested that KESMA is not quite “the private sector as most of us understand it.” KESMA is described as “a government-funded foundation” by Hungary Today, which says the media holding company known as Mediaworks “consists of almost 500 media outlets” including a leading national daily as well as “almost all the regional daily news sources in the country.”  The same report acknowledges that the KESMA foundation “has drawn much controversy” since its founding in late 2018. At the time of its formation, Prime Minister Orban declared the consolidation of pro-Fidesz media outlets as a matter of “national strategic importance in the public interest.” But critics say Orban has created a virtual media monopoly, reducing the space for media outlets critical of the current government.   More recently, Orban has been criticized for using the coronavirus crisis to push through parliament legislation entitling him to rule by degree for an indefinite period. The legislation, approved late last month, also provides stiff jail terms for spreading what the government deems to be false information.  Budapest has yet to announce who will succeed Szabó to represent Hungary in Washington. For the time being, an embassy spokesperson told VOA that a chargé d’affaires is at the helm, and “all embassy staff is working full-time.” No matter whom Budapest selects, some in the Washington policy community warn that the next ambassador can expect his or her efforts to be greeted with the same skepticism and reluctance to engage that Szabo might have experienced. “It’s not engagement with the embassy or ambassador that’s the issue per se, but rather engaging with the Orban government,” one analyst told VOA. The idea behind limiting contact, the analyst said, “is to not give the Hungarian government a platform for its undemocratic, nationalist positions.”  Szabo and his staff worked diligently during his three-year tenure to combat that image, including with regular emails to the news media. Yet, a similar protocol may exist in some U.S. government agencies. According to a former Pentagon official, “the policy [at Pentagon] was to refrain from engaging above the DASD [Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense] level.”   Nevertheless, the United States and Hungary have increased collaboration on some levels. One year ago, the two countries signed a defense cooperation agreement covering such areas as infrastructure improvements and missile defense cooperation.”  
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the death toll in Sunday’s 12-hour shooting rampage across the province of Nova Scotia, already the worst of its kind in Canada’s history, has risen to 18.Trudeau spoke to the nation Monday, one day after a gunman disguised as a police officer went on a 12-hour rampage shooting people in their homes, setting fires and killing at least 18 people, including a 23-year-veteran policewoman.In his comments, Trudeau said, “Such a tragedy should have never occurred. Violence of any kind has no place in Canada.”Police say the incident began overnight Saturday in the rural town of Portapique, about 100 kilometers north of Halifax. They say they responded to a house where gunshots were reported and found bodies inside and outside the house.Bodies were also found at several other locations within a 50-kilometer area from that neighborhood.  Authorities believe the shooter may have targeted his first victims but then began attacking randomly. Several houses in the area were set on fire.Officials said the suspect, identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, was shot and killed by police. No motive for the killings was given. 
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COVID-19 came late to Turkey, compared to its European neighbors, but the reality of the threat is increasingly impacting life — and with it fears that we are in it for the long term.Turks are accustomed to living through turbulence and, invariably adapt quickly to change. Dramatic change soon becomes the norm, and life moves on — a habit I too have picked up after decades living in Istanbul.There is no compulsory curfew for people over 20 and under 65. But outside life has more or less come to an end, other than the welcome shopping trip or a quick stroll. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyWalking around once-bustling streets and formerly busy restaurants, I try to remind myself how it once was. It seems now a forgotten time, as this has become the new reality.The web savviness of the country’s food providers is facilitating its transition into this new reality. Whether it’s supermarkets or far-away organic farmers, all send welcome food packages, ordered online and swiftly delivered by the country’s extensive courier services. Deliveries are made within days or a week at the latest. This is a stark contrast from the experiences of my friends across Europe, who say two weeks’ delivery time is “good” for anything ordered online.Sending food by courier is nothing new, here. My Turkish wife’s parents, like so many others, often send local delicacies from their home on the Black Sea.Life goes on for my son Mir, with his fencing classes online as he has spent weeks locked down at home, as all people under twenty are forbidden to leave home. (Courtesy D. Jones)My 12-year-old son Mir has been the quickest among us to adapt to life at home. Online classes start at 10 am, ending at 4 pm. For him, homeschooling means no longer rising with the dawn chorus to catch his school bus. Instead, a more leisurely rise at 9 am has become the order of the day. That, I have to say, is welcomed by all the family.Mir also says doing classes in pajamas is much more fun, although the school is now insisting that all children must wear uniforms at least one day a week. “Why, why, why?” Mir demands, and all I say is, “It is what it is.”Mir plays with his friends online with the shoot-em-up Fortnite. I am now used to hearing him screaming to his friends, with a mixture of reprimands and congratulations.Even his fencing classes continue online, with Mir waving his wooden sword as directed and with relentless training — another new norm for home.Turkey has a well-developed and relatively inexpensive internet along with widespread smartphone use, something which is undoubtedly helping the country get through the epidemic.But the smooth transition into social isolation hit a wall earlier this month with the chaotic imposition of a weekend curfew in all of Turkey’s main cities.The curfew, announced only two hours before it was imposed at midnight, provoked chaos. For us, we discovered too late that we had no salt or milk at home, as our local grocer, or “bakkal” as it is called in Turkish, was shut.Across Istanbul, images of people queuing to buy food, desperately trying to beat the midnight deadline, circulated on social media. The experience appears to have instilled a deep unease in the country. Since that weekend of chaos, Istanbul feels far more foreboding. Online deliveries from supermarkets appear to be no longer working. Numerous attempts to order are met with the message “delivery time unavailable.” The online service seems overwhelmed by demand as people seem now to be stocking up for a future with more prolonged curfews. I recently interviewed a man who told me with exasperation that a quick trip to the supermarket had ended up lasting three hours. “I went early thinking it would be empty, but it was packed, I never saw anything like it,” he said.
Ramadan starts later this month, and there is gossip that a full-scale lockdown could be enforced in Turkey’s main cities for the four weeks of fasting.The Health Ministry daily briefing exudes confidence that everything is under control, despite Turkey rapidly moving up the world league table of infections.The government claims that within weeks, the virus will be tamed and the country can start to return to normal. But at the same time, emergency hospitals are being built in Turkey’s principal cities.For now, returning to normal, when Istanbul streets are full and the vibrancy of the city rings with a deafening cacophony, still seems far away. Now there is silence, and I am looking at my small terrace and asking myself, should I dig up some of my flowers and plants and start growing potatoes and other vegetables and fruits?But first, I need to dash to the shops before another weekend curfew.
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A Russian court has ordered a delay in the trial of journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva, who faces terrorism-related charges for publishing an online commentary that linked a suicide bombing with the country’s political climate. The Pskov court on April 20 ordered the trial postponed due to the coronavirus epidemic now sweeping through Russia, “until the normalization of the sanitary and epidemiologic situation in the country.” Prokopyeva, a freelance contributor to RFE/RL’s Russian Service, called the decision “correct, because what we need is an open trial accessible to all.” Her lawyer, Vitaly Cherkasov, said it was impossible to say exactly when the trial may start due to the coronavirus restrictions imposed by the government. The charges of “justifying terrorism” stem from a November 2018 commentary published by the Pskov affiliate of Ekho Moskvy radio in which she discussed a bombing outside the Federal Security Service offices in the northern city of Arkhangelsk. Russian media reported that the suspected bomber, who died in the explosion, had posted statements on social media accusing the security service of falsifying criminal cases. In her commentary, Prokopyeva linked the teenager’s statements to the political climate under President Vladimir Putin. She suggested that political activism in the country was severely restricted, leading people to despair. Prokopyeva has described the case against her as an attempt to “murder the freedom of speech” in Russia. If found guilty, she faces up to seven years in prison. The case has drawn criticism from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and media rights groups like Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the European Federation of Journalists. RFE/RL President Jamie Fly called the charges “a cynical effort to silence an independent journalist.” 
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Turkish authorities blocked Saudi and United Arab Emirates news websites on Sunday, days after the sites of Turkey’s state broadcaster and news agency were blocked in Saudi Arabia. The apparently reciprocal moves come four weeks after Turkish prosecutors indicted 20 Saudis over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a killing that soured relations between Ankara and Riyadh. Internet users in Turkey trying to access the sites of Saudi news agency SPA, the UAE’s WAM news agency and more than a dozen other sites saw a message saying that they were blocked under a law governing internet publications in Turkey. A spokesman at Turkey’s Justice Ministry declined to comment on the actions and Saudi Arabia’s government media office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The Turkish website of the U.K.-based Independent newspaper, which is operated by a Saudi company, was one of the sites to blocked on Sunday, in a move that its editor said reflected political tensions between Saudi Arabia and Turkey. “We believe the tensions between Saudi Arabia and Turkey reflected on us,” editor Nevzat Cicek told Reuters. Sunday’s decision appeared to be “retaliation against Saudi Arabia,” he said. Saudi Arabia had blocked access to several Turkish media websites a week earlier, including state broadcaster TRT and the state-owned Anadolu agency. Residents in the United Arab Emirates, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, said the Turkish websites were accessible on Sunday. FILE – In this Oct. 10, 2018 photo, people hold signs during a protest at the Embassy of Saudi Arabia about the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in Washington.Tensions between Turkey and Saudi Arabia escalated sharply after Saudi agents killed Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Last month Istanbul prosecutors indicted one of the prince’s close aides and a former deputy head of Saudi general intelligence on charges of instigating Khashoggi’s killing, as well as 18 men it said carried out the operation. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the killing was ordered at the “highest levels” of the Saudi government. Prince Mohammed has denied ordering the killing but said he bore ultimate responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto leader. 
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Police in Canada are searching for clues as to what motivated a gunman to go on a 12-hour rampage across the Canadian province of Nova Scotia that killed 16 people, the deadliest such attack in the country’s history.The gunman, identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, was disguised during at least part of the time as a police officer and traveling in vehicle made to look like a police cruiser. He shot people in their homes and set fires before police shot and killed him early Sunday.Police say they were first called late Saturday to a scene at a home in the small, rural town of Portapique, about 100 kilometers north of Halifax, where gunshots were reported. They found several bodies inside and outside the house, which police say is where the rampage started.Among those killed was Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Constable Heidi Stevenson, a 23-year police veteran.From his twitter account, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decribed the attack as “senseless”, saying “Canadians across the country are mourning” with those who lost loved ones. 
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Berthe Badehi, who hid from the Nazis as a child during World War II, has become one of the many Holocaust survivors confined in their homes to evade the coronavirus. “It’s not easy, but we do it to stay alive,” the 88-year-old said of her current self-isolation at home in Israel. “One thing I learnt during the war was how to take care of myself.” Movement and travel restrictions in place to contain the pandemic have forced this week’s Holocaust Remembrance Day — Yom HaShoah in Hebrew — to be exclusively digital for the first time. In a normal year, symbolic events are organized at various locations, notably with survivors at the sites in Europe where the Nazis built concentration and extermination camps. This year, testimonials from survivors will be streamed online and featured in a pre-recorded ceremony to be broadcast in Israel by Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center, when Yom HaShoah begins on Monday evening. The limitations on organizing events this year served as a reminder that in the not-too-distant future ceremonies with survivors will no longer be possible because the last of them will have passed away. “We have talked a lot about what happens when survivors are not here,” said Stephen Smith, who heads the Shoah Foundation at the University of Southern California. This week’s scaled-back commemorations, “made us realize what the future might be like,” Smith told AFP. “It is a test of our resolve…” “Maybe it is an opportunity to say… we won’t get 10,000 people at Auschwitz, but maybe we can get a million people (watching) online,” he added, referring to the Nazi concentration and extermination camp in Poland. ‘Attacking the Memory’ For survivors like Badehi, any comparison between COVID-19 isolation and Nazi-era confinement in ghettos and camps is inappropriate. “In France, during the war, we lived in fear, we hid our identity and we lost contact with our parents…” “Today, we may be locked inside, but we have contact with our children and grandchildren through the phone and internet,” added Badehi, who volunteered at Yad Vashem until it closed due to the virus. Dov Landau, a 91-year-old Auschwitz survivor, said it was “indecent” to make comparisons between the two eras. “Today we are neither hungry nor thirsty. Men, women and children are unlikely to be burned alive. Sure, I’m bored… but it’s nothing serious,” he told AFP. He regularly travelled from Israel to Auschwitz to speak to school groups, but those trips came to a stop because of the pandemic. Beyond cancellation of educational events, COVID-19 has posed a particularly grave threat to Holocaust survivors, given their age. The virus “is absolutely attacking the memory of the Holocaust because it is attacking the elderly,” Smith said, adding that he is aware of several survivors who have died from coronavirus-related complications. “It is also attacking our ability to (collect) these stories,” he said. ‘Sense of Urgency’The Shoah Foundation has developed an augmented reality application to document the journey across Europe endured by many Holocaust survivors. One survivor whose experience was scheduled to be documented this year was Eva Schloss, whose mother married Anne Frank’s father Otto after the war. Schloss “has an amazing story,” Smith said. “Very, very similar to Anne Frank, the only difference is that she survived.” “She was literally in the kitchen watching Otto prepare the diary for publication,” he said. Because of the pandemic, the foundation had to cancel plans to collect material with Schloss in Vienna, Amsterdam and Auschwitz. The foundation is partnering on the augmented reality project with The March of the Living, the prominent educational program that brings young people to the sites of concentration camps. Eli Rubenstein, a Toronto-based rabbi who heads March of the Living Canada, said he has spoken to many survivors who insisted they will be available to give testimonials next year. “They are very strong people, full of optimism,” he told AFP. But, he added, the delay forced by the pandemic “gives us a new sense of urgency.” 
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The global health crisis is taking a nasty political turn with tensions worsening between governments locked down to keep the coronavirus at bay and people yearning to restart stalled economies and forestall fears of a depression.Protesters worrying about their livelihoods and bucking infringements on their freedom took to the streets in some places. A few countries were acting to ease restrictions, but most of the world remains unified in insisting it’s much too early to take more aggressive steps.In the United States, there was clear evidence of the mounting pressure. The Trump administration says parts of the country are ready to begin a gradual return to normalcy. Yet some state leaders say their response to the pandemic is hindered by a woefully inadequate federal response.  Washington state’s Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, even accused President Donald Trump of encouraging insubordination and “illegal activity” by goading on protesters who flouted shelter-in-place rules.”To have an American president to encourage people to violate the law, I can’t remember any time during my time in America where we have seen such a thing,” Inslee told ABC’s “This Week.” He said it was “dangerous because it can inspire people to ignore things that actually can save their lives.”Trump supporters in several states ignored social distancing and stay-at-home orders, gathering to demand that governors lift controls on public activity. The largest protest drew thousands to Lansing, Mich., on Wednesday, and others have featured hundreds each in several states. The president has invoked their rallying cry, calling on several states with Democratic governors to “LIBERATE.”With the arc of infection different in every nation and across U.S. states, proposals have differed for coping with the virus that has killed more than 165,000.Restrictions have begun to ease in some places, including Germany, which is still enforcing social distancing rules but on Monday intended to begin allowing some small stores, like those selling furniture and baby goods, to reopen.  Authorities in Spain, which had some of Europe’s strictest restrictions and a virus death toll only exceeded by the U.S. and Italy, said children will be allowed to leave their homes beginning April 27. Albania planned to let its mining and oil industries reopen Monday, along with hundreds of businesses including small retailers, food and fish factories, farmers and fishing boats.The death toll in the U.S. climbed past 41,000 with more than 746,000 confirmed infections, while the global case count has passed 2.38 million, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University of national health reports. The European Center for Disease Control said the continent now has more than 1 million confirmed cases and almost 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus.The actual extent of the pandemic is likely to be significantly higher due to mild infections that are missed, limited testing, problems counting the dead and some nations’ desires to underplay the extent of their outbreaks.The International Monetary Fund expects the global economy to contract 3% this year. That’s a far bigger loss than 2009’s 0.1% after the global financial crisis. Still, many governments are resisting pressures to abruptly relax lockdowns.”We must not let down our guard until the last confirmed patient is recovered,” South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said Sunday.In Britain, which reported 596 more coronavirus-related hospital deaths on Sunday, officials also said they’re not ready to ease efforts to curb the virus’s spread. U.K. minister Michael Gove told the BBC that pubs and restaurants “will be among the last” to leave the lockdown, which is now in place until May 7.  France’s health agency urged the public to stick to social distancing measures that have been extended until at least May 11 and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said people could be required to wear masks on public transportation, and suggested no one plan faraway summer vacations even after that.The streets are empty in the shopping district in downtown Washington, DC, April 4, 2020. (Photo: Diaa Bekheet)Trump is pushing to begin easing the U.S. lockdown in some states even before his own May 1 deadline, a plan that health experts and governors from both parties say will require a dramatic increase in testing capacity nationwide. But Pence insisted in television interviews Sunday that the country has “sufficient testing today” for states to begin reopening their economies as part of the initial phases of guidelines that the White House released last week.  The Trump administration has repeatedly blamed state leaders for delays, but governors from both parties have been begging the federal government for help securing in-demand testing supplies such as swabs and chemicals known as reagents. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio made a direct appeal to Washington: “We really need help … to take our capacity up,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said his state can’t begin lifting restrictions until it is able to test more people daily. “Right now, we’re not even close as a nation, let alone as a state, to where we should be on testing,” he said.  Trump pushed back in a tweet before his scheduled Sunday evening briefing at the White House. “I am right on testing. Governors must be able to step up and get the job done. We will be with you ALL THE WAY!” he wrote.Economic concerns that have increasingly collided with measures to protect public health are now popping up throughout the U.S.  Business leaders in Louisiana have slammed New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell for imposing restrictions that they say have unfairly shuttered economic activity outside the city. A full-page ad in Baton Rouge’s “The Advocate” newspaper on Sunday urged an easing of lockdowns, even as the New Orleans Times-Picayune featured nearly nine pages of obituaries in a city hard-hit by the virus.States including Texas and Indiana have announced plans to allow some retail and other activity to resume and some restrictions were either lifted or set to be on beaches in Florida and South Carolina. But in New York, where the daily coronavirus death toll hit its lowest point in more than two weeks on Sunday, officials warn that New York City and the rest of the hard-hit state aren’t ready to ease shutdowns of schools, businesses and gatherings.  Geopolitical and religious tensions stretching back centuries have further complicated the global response to the virus. But Jordan’s King Abdullah II said the outbreak has made “partners” out of “our enemies of yesterday, or those that were not friendly countries yesterday — whether we like it or not.””I think the quicker we as leaders and politicians figure that out, the quicker we can bring this under control,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
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Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday again attended a public rally and attacked lockdown measures meant to fight the coronavirus, as supporters of the right-wing leader joined political motorcades around the country.Brazil has more cases of the new coronavirus than any other country in Latin America. On Sunday, confirmed cases rose to 38,654 with 2,462 deaths.Bolsonaro, who was not wearing a face mask, addressed a crowd of a few hundred in Brasilia, many of them wearing Brazil’s yellow-and-green soccer jersey.His brief address, which was punctuated by the president coughing, touched on talking points that have become his usual rallying cry.He called those in attendance “patriots” and said they were helping defend individual freedoms that he said are under threat by lockdowns imposed by authorities at the state level.”Everyone in Brazil needs to understand that they are subject to the will of the people,” Bolsonaro said.Protesters in Brasilia chanted slogans against the country’s Supreme Court, which has upheld state-organized lockdowns, and against Congress, whose opposition lawmakers have also defended quarantines.Some of the protesters also called for a return to authoritarian measures used during Brazil’s last military regime, known as AI-5.In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s richest and most populous state, Bolsonaro supporters have been demanding that governor Joao Doria resign because he has been a staunch supporter of shelter-in-place measures. 
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Some 180 migrants rescued at sea will be held in isolation on an Italian ferry off the coast of Sicily, the coast guard said Sunday.Italy has refused to take in saved migrants due to the coronavirus epidemic, saying the outbreak, which has killed over 23,000 people, meant it could no longer be considered a port of safety.Thirty-four people pulled to safety by Spanish NGO rescue vessel Aita Mari were being transferred Sunday to the Rubattino ferry, which is anchored outside the port of Palermo and staffed by 22 Red Cross volunteers.They join 146 migrants who were transferred to the ferry on Friday from the The Alan Kurdi rescue vessel, run by the German NGO Sea Eye.     They will be tested for the virus and redistributed among EU countries once the 14-day isolation period is up, according to Italian media reports.The 180-metre long Tirrenia ferry can carry 1,471 passengers, and has 289 cabins, a medical center, restaurant, bars, and a children’s play area.
 
It was not clear whether the migrants would be confined to individual cabins.                
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Police in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia on Sunday arrested a 51-year-old gunman suspected of shooting several people, whose conditions were not specified.The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the shootings occurred in the small Atlantic coastal town of Portapique, about 130 km north (80 miles) of the provincial capital Halifax.”Gabriel Wortman, suspect in active shooter investigation, is now in custody,” the force said in a tweet. It gave no details and did not say whether the victims were injured or killed.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking to reporters in Ottawa, deplored what he called “a terrible situation.”One local resident said she had come across two burning police vehicles while out driving on Sunday morning.”There was one officer we could see on scene and then all of a sudden, he went running toward one of the burning vehicles,” Darcy Sack told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.”We heard gunshots,” she said, adding that one police officer looked to have been injured.Portapique residents said the incident started late on Saturday night when police urged everyone to stay indoors. Police said Wortman was 51 years old.Police were due to give a news conference at 5 p.m. EST (2100 GMT).Police initially said Wortman was driving what appeared to be a police car and was wearing a uniform but later reported he was at the wheel of a Chevrolet sports utility vehicle.Mass shootings are relatively rare in Canada, which has tighter gun control laws than the United States.The worst incident in recent years occurred in January 2017, when a man shot dead six people at an Islamic cultural center in Quebec City.In August 2018, a man in the province of New Brunswick, which borders Nova Scotia, shot dead four people, including two police officers, in an apartment complex. In June 2014, in the same province, a man shot dead three police.
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Passengers on a luxury liner’s around-the-world cruise, begun before the globe was gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, are finally approaching the end of their odyssey after 15 weeks at sea. The ship, the Costa Deliziosa, was heading Sunday toward a port in Spain before ending its journey in Italy — both countries devastated by the coronavirus outbreak. Costa Crociere, an Italian cruise company, said that the Deliziosa, which set sail from Venice in early January with 1,831 passengers, had no cases of COVID-19 aboard.  The Deliziosa, a nearly 300-meter (1,000-foot) vessel, will disembark 168 Spanish passengers on Monday at Barcelona’s port. Then the Deliziosa will head to its final destination, Genoa, Italy, where it is expected to let off the remaining passengers, Italians and those of other nationalities, on Wednesday.  A company spokesman said a passenger left the ship earlier in the week in Marsala, Sicily, for health issues and had a COVID-19 test, which was negative. Being on the liner for weeks during the pandemic “was not surreal, it was incredible,” said passenger Carlos Paya’, who lives in Valencia, Spain, and is sailing with his wife. He added that they have family members in Spain.  “The news that was arriving from home was causing us all a lot of worry and grief,” he told The Associated Press by text message Saturday evening. “For us it was a stroke of good luck to be where we were.”  “From Perth [Australia] given the growth of the pandemic, and of course for those of us who have children in Spain, we would have preferred to return,” he added. “Other passengers, on the other hand, given their old age, wanted to stay on board knowing that the boat was safe and secure.” French authorities had rebuffed a request by Costa for permission to disembark several hundred passengers from France and nearby countries at Marseilles. “The health situation on board the ships, with 1,814 guests and 898 members of the crew, doesn’t present any problem for public health and no case of COVID-19,” Costa’s statement said.  While people infected with the coronavirus often experience mild or moderate symptoms, possible complications like pneumonia can put their lives at risk. The Deliziosa was originally due to return to Venice on April 26. After the U.N. World Health Organization pandemic alert in March, the ship, which had just made a port call in Fremantle, western Australia, made only technical and refueling stops, before the journey back toward the Mediterranean, which took it through the Suez Canal, according to the company. Passenger Jean-Pierre Escarras, from Marseilles, shot a video of their cabin that their daughters shared on social networks, in which he says: “This is our place of confinement. We are lucky to have a window.”  The couple said that after a stop in Sydney, the ship’s activities were “reduced or sometimes canceled. We haven’t been able to get out on land since March 14 — that’s 34 days.” The passengers said that ports in Oman, along the Suez Canal, as well as in the Seychelles and Indian Ocean ports, refused to let the ship dock. The Spanish passenger, Paya’ praised the captain and crew.  Costa said the passengers were confined to their cabins only for the period until the ship heard back that the ill guest who got off in Sicily had tested negative. It didn’t say how long that period lasted. The company said, because the ship is Italian-flagged, it followed Italian precautionary measures used in the pandemic, including safety distancing between guests such as managing the numbers of who could enter food areas at any one time, and transmitting entertainment to cabin TV sets.  A French woman whose in-laws are aboard the Costa Deliziosa garnered about 100 signatures on an online petition to urge the French government to intervene to get them home. But French authorities barred the Deliziosa from disembarking more than 1,000 passengers before its final destination in Italy. The regional administration for Bouches-du-Rhone in southern France cited a nationwide ban on allowing foreign cruise ships to dock, as part of France’s virus-related confinement measures. Italy has also barred foreign cruise ships as it battles the virus outbreak. The French administration has granted exemptions to six other cruise ships in recent weeks to allow French passengers to get off, but refused this time, saying the previous stops overstretched local police and health authorities already mobilized to fight France’s severe virus crisis. Last month, two other Costa cruise ships pulled into Italian ports, including one that earlier had aboard passengers who tested positive for COVID-19 before being disembarked in France. It was unclear if or where the passengers who were due to finally step aboard land after weeks of sailing aboard the Deliziosa would be quarantined as a precaution. 
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Orthodox Christians observed the Easter holiday amid extraordinary coronavirus-related restrictions on services that forced many parishioners to watch services on TV or online. Church leaders have struggled to figure out how to observe the April 19 holiday — the holiest day in the Orthodox calendar — while avoiding spreading the coronavirus. Some local parishes have defied orders from public health officials and church leaders and vowed to allow people to attend services in person. In Russia and Ukraine, two of the biggest Orthodox denominations, priests in St. Petersburg and Kyiv held services beginning late on April 18 that were televised and shown online. Police deployed outside churches in Ukraine to ensure that anyone who came remained outside and observed regulations calling for social distancing and a ban on large gatherings. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged Ukrainians to celebrate from home. Most church leaders complied and agreed to broadcast their services. One exception was the famed Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, where police regulated entry to the church to one worshipper at a time. The complex was placed under quarantine after more than 90 of its monks were identified as infected with the coronavirus. At least two have died. The monastery is controlled by a rival Orthodox denomination in Ukraine that is loyal to the Russian church in Moscow. The Russian Orthodox Church ordered churches to close their doors to large groups during the week leading up to the holiday. Patriarch Kirill led the Russian church’s main service on April 18 at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. In an Easter sermon, he said Orthodox Christians should not despair in difficult circumstances and should not panic. President Vladimir Putin, who has regularly attended the nighttime rituals in the past, did not attend this year. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin stayed at his suburban presidential residence and lit a candle at a chapel on the property. The most contentious debate over Orthodox Easter occurred in Georgia, where church leaders and the government agreed to allow parishioners to attend dusk-to-dawn Easter vigil services. The agreement meant worshippers were allowed to attend overnight services in large cathedrals despite a curfew, but they were required to maintain a distance of 2 meters. Those who attend small churches had to remain outside. Dozens went to the main cathedral in Tbilisi, where Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II said that the virus had caused fear among many people. In Bulgaria, the government urged people not to attend services but didn’t ban them. Hundreds flocked to outdoor services late on April 18, but many opted to watch on television. “In the current situation, we must be better and more humble,” Prime Minister Boyko Borisov wrote in Facebook. “Let’s do everything we can to be proud of our decisions and actions in years to come.” Easter for the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christian is celebrated about a week after Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians observe the holiday.     
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Hundreds of Christian parishioners went to churches in ex-Soviet Georgia to attend Orthodox Easter Vigil despite a state of emergency and calls from the government and doctors to stay home amid outbreak of the coronavirus.Dozens went to the South Caucasus country’s main Sameba (Saint Trinity) cathedral in Tbilisi, where 87-year-old Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II held the service.More attended services in big churches across the country, although some bishops in different regions called on their flocks to stay at home, encouraging them instead to tune in to Easter services streamed live on TV or Facebook.Crowds were unusually small everywhere compared with the tens of thousands who normally attend this service every year.The Catholicos-Patriarch said in his Easter address that the problem of the new virus had caused fear among many and their gaze had turned to God.”We should not be afraid of temptation, the Christian takes problems with gratitude and sees God’s hand in everything … and at the same time tries to find the right solution in the current situation,” he said.Holy FireHoly Fire had been brought to Georgia on Saturday night by a charter flight from Jerusalem, where the ceremony in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which symbolizes the resurrection of Jesus after his death on the cross, was attended only by Christian clergymen for the first time in centuries.A clergyman and believers wearing protective masks hold candles outside a church during an Orthodox Easter service, amid the coronavirus disease outbreak in Marneuli, Georgia, April 19, 2020.Worshippers came to the Sameba cathedral in Tbilisi before the 9 p.m. start of curfew and planned to stay on church premises until its end at 6 a.m.Violators face a 3,000-lari ($1,000) fine.”It took me more than three hours to come here and I will stay till the morning as my presence demonstrates my dedication and my belief,” Mariam, a 27-year-old Tbilisi resident, said.Almost everyone, including some priests, were wearing face masks.The Georgian Orthodox Church Patriarchy said earlier this month that all Easter services would be held in a traditional manner, but parishioners would be required to maintain social distancing between each other to stem transmission of the virus.Sacrament from same spoonThe Patriarch and majority of Georgian priests were reluctant to call on their flocks to stay at home and have continued to provide the holy sacrament from the same spoon to parishioners, which critics said threatens efforts to contain the coronavirus.Georgia has in place a state of emergency until May 10 entailing a 9 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew, closures of restaurants, cafes, shops, a ban on public transport and on gatherings of more than three people. Grocery stores, pharmacies and petrol stations remain open.Government officials and doctors have pleaded with citizens to refrain from mass gatherings and to stay at home during Easter celebrations.The Caucasus republic of 3.7 million people has reported 388 cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, and four deaths as of early Sunday.
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Fifty unaccompanied minors have been transferred from Greece to Germany. They are the second group of relocations in a week and hundreds more are expected to follow as Greece moves ahead with a plan to ease overcrowded conditions at camps on the front line of Europe’s lingering refugee crisis.
    
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was at the airport in Athens to see the minors off.  
 
The 50 are among the first of at least 350 young refugees who Germany has agreed to resettle from Greece, helping them re-unite with their families after months of separation.
 
Earlier this week, a batch of about a dozen minors aged between 11 and 15 were transferred to Luxembourg, the European Union’s tiniest member state. Eight other EU nations, along with Switzerland, have also agreed to accept youths, resettling a total of 1,600 young migrants.
 
But with Greece hosting more than 100,000 migrants and refugees, can this make a difference? Deputy Migration Minister George Koumoutsakos expressed hope for more such relocations to come.The number of transfers, he said, may seem small. But the expectation, he explained, is that they will pave the way for more resettlements to happen, allowing other EU member states to shoulder the burden of the refugee crisis.
 
A third of the 100,000 migrants and refugees in Greece are children. And of them, more than 5,000 are unaccompanied, left to fend for themselves, living in the rough in abysmal and overcrowded camps on a host of Aegean islands.
 
Most of the 50 young migrants who left Saturday for Germany were relocated from Lesbos’ dreaded refugee camp of Moria, a facility built for some 2,000 people which now is hosting more than 20,000 in appalling conditions.
 
Most of the unaccompanied migrants are from Syria and Afghanistan. separated from their families and left behind in a bid to make the crossing to Europe
 
Koumoutsakos said the transfers will help ease overcrowded conditions in Aegean islands like Lesbos, something required so much more now during the coronavirus outbreak, when social distancing is critical to containing the pandemic.
 
Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch called on Greece to release all unaccompanied minors. It said keeping them in unhygienic detention centers increased the risk of the virus spreading.
 
While cases of COVID-19 have been documented in refugee camps here, officials insist they have managed to keep the virus from spreading to other communities because of draconian lockdown orders.
 
Because of the coronavirus outbreak, the 50 children transferred to Germany on Saturday will need to spend their first two weeks there in quarantine. 
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BREMEN, GERMANY — While countries around the world struggle with a lack of hospital beds and equipment for coronavirus patients, German cities such as Bremen have taken in patients from neighboring countries.  
 
On a recent Saturday, Bremen received its first two French coronavirus patients from Strasbourg as Germany’s neighbor France struggles with hospitals at their limits.
 
The city could theoretically take more patients from abroad, hospital group Gesundheit Nord spokeswoman Karen Matiszick told local news outlet Buten un Binnen – although the situation could rapidly change. Bremen currently has had 567 cases and 24 deaths, according to official statistics.  
 
The capacity to take in patients has been attributed to the lower number of cases that need intensive care, and Germany’s comparatively low death rate has caught the world’s attention.
 
Of the more than 130,000 diagnosed cases in Germany, about 3,900 people have died as of Friday. In contrast, the U.S., Italy, Spain and France have each recorded more than 10,000 deaths linked to the disease. In Italy alone, more than 20,000 deaths have been registered – among 160,000 cases.
 
Susanne Glasmacher, a spokesperson for government’s Robert Koch Institute, pointed to multiple factors.  
 
“At the beginning, the majority of affected people in Germany didn’t belong to a risk group, as many of the transmission paths happened during ski holidays, on international travels, carnival, and other festivities,” she told VOA.
 
The median age of diagnosed cases is comparatively low in Germany at 49, compared to Italy’s 62.  
 
The average age of those who have died from the virus in Germany is about 80, and 87% of the deceased patients were older than 70. Similarly, 83.7% of those in Italy who died were older than 70, according to the Italian National Institute of Health.
 
In recent weeks, though, an increasing number of cases in German nursing homes have raised concern. Forty-one people have died in a single nursing home in the north German city of Wolfsburg as of Thursday. Hundreds of nursing homes across the country have found their first cases.
 
“If more transmissions take place in homes for elderly people or hospitals, it’s to be feared that the rate increases,” Glasmacher said.
 
The current low median age of German cases can to an extent be explained because of the number of tests conducted. Glasmacher said that Germany had tested on a much larger scale than other countries.
 
“Infections get recognized in more people with mild symptoms than in other countries where sometimes only severely ill people in hospitals are tested,” she said.  
 
With a current weekly capacity of about 500,000 tests, Germany is also testing those only showing mild symptoms and those who have not been in known contact with coronavirus cases.FILE – Benches and tables are taped to ensure social distancing protocols, in a courtroom in Bremen, Germany, March 20, 2020.Last month, Germany ordered closure of all nonessential shops to prevent the spread of the disease. Groups of more than two people who don’t live in the same household are not allowed in public.
 
However, the number of deaths has also depended on how strained the health system is, Glasmacher said.
 
“If the hospitals become overcrowded, the ratio of those who cannot be helped will increase,” she said. “The number of deaths can, therefore, change dramatically in the future.”
 
Making similar assessments, Dietrich Rothenbacher, director of the Institute of Epidemiology and Medical Biometry at Ulm University, said the number of deaths depends on how many hospital beds are available for intensive care.
 
He said a 2012 study found that the number of intensive care beds per 100,000 inhabitants was 29.2 in Germany, 12.5 in Italy, 11.6 in France, and 6.6 in England.
 
“This has a positive effect on the treatment options for severe cases and the lethality,” he said.
 
Yet, he, cautioned against comparing death rates among countries, as he said the numbers in different countries were highly distorted and not representative of the true picture.  
 
“Based on representative numbers, the Covid-19 pandemic would look less deadly also in Italy,” he said.  
 
However, all experts warned that death rates would rise in coming weeks as Germany is still at the beginning of the epidemic. Severe cases often lead to death only after a prolonged period of illness.
 
“In two to three weeks (or in later phases of the pandemic) the numbers might look differently in Germany,” Rothenbacher said.   
 
Bremen itself has a lower infection rate than the German average. The national average is about 161 cases per 100,000 inhabitants; Bremen has only 81 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Robert Koch Institute.
 
While Andreas Dotzauer, a University of Bremen virologist, said that reasons for this difference were still unclear, he speculated that the character of the city’s population – known for being reserved – might play a role.
 
“In general … it seems that the population [in Bremen] has implemented all rules and restrictions in a very disciplined manner,” he said.  
 
“Perhaps the typically more distanced, northern German, Bremen character also contributes to this.”
 
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The top U.S. military commander for Latin America said Friday that the Trump administration isn’t looking to use military force to remove Nicolas Maduro even as it expands counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean. Adm. Craig Faller, head of U.S. Southern Command, said in an interview that the recent decision to double anti-narcotics assets in Latin America was months in the making and not directly tied to Maduro’s indictment in New York on charges of leading a narcoterrorist conspiracy that sent 250 metric tons of cocaine a year to the U.S. Faller said economic and diplomatic pressure — not the use of military force — remain the U.S.’ preferred tools for removing Maduro from power. “This is not a shift in U.S. government policy,” said Faller, who nonetheless celebrated that enhanced interdiction efforts would hurt Maduro’s finances and staying power. “It’s not an indication of some sort of new militarization in the Caribbean.”  The deployment announced this month is one of the largest U.S. military operations in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama to remove Gen. Manuel Noriega from power and bring him to the U.S. to face drug charges.It involves assets like Navy warships, AWACS surveillance aircraft and on-ground special forces seldom seen before in the region. Faller said the coronavirus did force some in the Pentagon to rethink the timing of the deployment out of concern for the safety of service members.While controls to protect the workforce have been enhanced, it was determined that over the long term, the U.S. is positioned to take advantage of the disruption in narcotics supply chains caused by the virus as drug cartels scramble to source precursor chemical and other inputs. “We thrive in uncertainty and are going to try and capitalize on that,” said Faller.  He cited two “quick wins” since the start of the deployment — a 1.7 metric ton seizure in the Pacific Ocean near Costa Rica last week and another 2.1 ton interdiction a few days ago.  He said growing instability in Venezuela is leading to an “uptick” in piracy in the Caribbean, although he didn’t cite any statistics or evidence to back the assertion. He said the recent sinking of a Venezuelan naval ship after it allegedly rammed an Antarctic-hardened cruise ship without passengers near Curacao was indicative of the readiness of Maduro’s armed forces.  “It was a bad day for them,” he said. “Their lack of seamanship and lack of integrity is indicative of how it all played out.”  
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For Orthodox Christians, this is normally a time of reflection and mourning followed by joyful release, of centuries-old ceremonies steeped in symbolism and tradition.But this year, Easter — by far the most significant religious holiday for the world’s roughly 300 million Orthodox — has essentially been canceled.There will be no Good Friday processions behind the flower-bedecked symbolic bier of Christ, to the haunting hymn of the Virgin Mary’s lament for the death of her son. No hugs and kisses, or joyous proclamations of “Christ is risen!” as church bells ring at midnight on Holy Saturday. No family gatherings over lamb roasted whole on a spit for an Easter lunch stretching into the soft spring evening.As the coronavirus rampages around the globe, claiming tens of thousands of lives, governments have imposed lockdowns in a desperate bid to halt the pandemic.  Businesses have been closed and church doors shut to prevent the virus’s insidious spread.For some, the restrictions during Easter are particularly tough.”When there was freedom and you didn’t go somewhere, it didn’t bother you,” said Christina Fenesaki, while shopping in Athens’ main meat market for lamb — to cook in the oven at home in the Greek capital instead of on a spit in her ancestral village. “But now that we have the restrictions, it bothers you a lot. It’s heavy.”In Greece, where more than 90 percent of the population is baptized into the Orthodox Church, the government has been at pains to stress that this year’s Easter cannot be normal.Greek Orthodox priests hold aloft the bier depicting Christ’s preparation for burial during the Good Friday procession of the Epitaphios, held without worshippers in an empty church in Thessaloniki, Greece, during a lockdown April 17, 2020.It imposed a lockdown early on, and so far has managed to keep the number of deaths and critically ill people low — 108 and 71 respectively as of Friday, among a population of nearly 11 million.But officials fear any slippage in social distancing could have dire consequences, particularly during a holiday that normally sees people cram into churches and flock to the countryside. Roadblocks have been set up, and fines doubled to 300 euros ($325), for anyone found driving without justification during the holiday.”This Easter is different. We will not go to our villages, we will not roast in our yards, we will not go to our churches. And of course, we will not gather in the homes of relatives and friends,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas said. “For us to continue being together, this year we stay apart.”Easter services will be held behind closed doors with only the priest and essential staff. They will be broadcast live on television and streamed on the internet.One particularly complex issue is how to handle the “Holy Light,” the flame distributed throughout the Orthodox world each year from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to mark the resurrection of Christ.Greek and Russian authorities have arranged to pick the flame up from Israel but won’t distribute it. Cyprus won’t even pick it up; there is “no need,” the island nation’s Archbishop Chrysostomos said.”Today, faith is not at risk but the faithful are,” Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said.Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox, has urged the faithful to adhere to government measures and World Health Organization guidelines. But keeping people out of churches hasn’t proved easy.In Serbia and North Macedonia, authorities imposed nationwide curfews from Good Friday through Easter Monday. Ethiopia, with the largest Orthodox population outside Europe, also restricted access to liturgies and deployed security outside churches. Liturgies are broadcast live, although several churches outside the capital, Addis Ababa, were violating restrictions, alarming authorities.But in some Orthodox countries, such as Georgia and Bulgaria, limited church services will go ahead.In Greece, after days of delicate diplomacy with the country’s powerful Orthodox Church, the government banned the public from all services after the church’s governing body imposed restrictions but not a full shutdown. Authorities also quickly scotched a Greek mayor’s plans to distribute the “Holy Light” door-to-door throughout his municipality just after midnight on Saturday.The church of Prophet Ilias is illuminated during the Good Friday procession of the Epitaphios, held without worshippers near the port town of Lavrio about 75 kilometers south of Athens on April 17, 2020.Some priests have defied the shutdown. One recently offered communion — where the faithful sip from the same spoon — through an Athens church’s back door. On Good Friday, a handful of churches opened briefly, allowing people in.Russia’s Orthodox Church initially seemed similarly reluctant to impose restrictions. When authorities in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, banned church visits on March 26, the Moscow Patriarchate condemned the move as an infringement on religious freedom. Only three days later did Patriarch Kirill publicly urge believers to “strictly obey the regulations imposed by the health authorities” and “refrain from church visits.”On Friday, Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vladimir Legoida said churches would stay open in some regions, even though the Church urged people to stay home.”The epidemiological situation varies in different regions, and so do rules for attending churches,” he said.Closing churches during Easter has been hard on Russians used to attending services. Many have turned to the internet and video conference prayers.”At first it was just a shock,” said believer Andrei Vasenev. “How is that possible — not go to church? But then we realized it was a matter of finding a way.”Vasenev, two dozen others and a priest from his Moscow parish have started praying via Zoom and plan to do the same during Easter. For him, going to church is about community, and Zoom prayers keep this community together.For Anna Sytina, another participant of the online prayers, the hardest part is being away from people and the warmth of human contact. “There’s a moment in a liturgy when you kiss each other three times,” Sytina said. “Now we see each other on monitors and displays.”Greek Orthodox priests hold aloft the bier depicting Christ’s preparation for burial during the Good Friday procession of the Epitaphios, held in an empty church in Thessaloniki, Greece, April 17, 2020.Both are prepared to pray at home for as long as it takes. “It is a sacrifice in the life of every believer, but it is necessary,” Sytina said.It is a sentiment echoed in Greece.”Each person has the church inside of them,” said Kleanthis Tsironis, who heads Athens’ main meat market. He will spend Easter at home with his wife and two daughters and will miss the resurrection liturgy. But churches will eventually open, he said, and Easter traditions will return.”Souls are being lost,” he said of the virus deaths across the world. “And we’re going to sit and cry because we didn’t roast on a spit? We’ll do that later, when the measures are over.”  
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MANCHESTER/TENNESSEE — Two professors at Middle Tennessee State University are helping indigenous filmmakers in Brazil tell the story of their efforts to save the Amazon rainforest, according to a news release from the school.The professors previously created a film with the indigenous Kayapó people about the descent of the Star Goddess and the origin of agriculture. Then Richard Pace, with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, helped write a grant request for National Geographic, according to the release. That resulted in about $70,000 in funding for Kayapó filmmaker Pat-i and his colleagues for a project called “Indigenous Filmmaker Warriors in Defense of Biocultural Conservation.” It will consist of two short films and a film series for social media that will document the struggles of the Kayapó to protect the rainforest, according to the release.Paul Chilsen, associate professor of video and film production at MTSU’s Department of Media Arts, is also involved in the project. He hopes to travel to Brazil this summer to conduct workshops in writing for film, operating cameras, designing sets and costumes, and acting. “They want to speak to an outside world in a language that the outside world understands,” Chilsen said in the news release. “The language of the screen is a global language.” 
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Two U.S. space agency NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut landed Friday in Kazakhstan after months on board the International Space Station.
 
NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir and Russian space agency Roscosmos Cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka undocked from the ISS in the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft early Friday.
 
Just over three hours later, the trio parachuted to Earth in the steppe of Kazakhstan, outside the remote town of Dzhezkazgan. Following post-landing checks, the three were taken by helicopter to the Russian-owned spaceport in Baikonur.
 
Morgan’s 272-day mission began on July 20, 2019, while Meir and Skripochka left Earth Sept. 25 last year.
 
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