Authorities say Chile, which has one of the highest totals for coronavirus cases in Latin America, confirmed 87 deaths from the virus in one day Wednesday, the largest single-day spike since the outbreak began more than two months ago.A surge in coronavirus cases in Chile has overwhelmed the country’s healthcare system.The increase in cases and deaths prompted authorities to extend a quarantine in Santiago for a fourth week.So far, Chile has confirmed more than 113,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 1,200 deaths.Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Haiti, Argentina and Bolivia comprise the Latin American countries with the largest caseloads.Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO’s executive director, told reporters earlier this week, Central and South America have become the intense zones of transmission for the coronavirus.Ryan said he does not believe the region has reached its peak in transmission and that he could not predict when the peak will occur.He is calling for support and international solidarity for countries in the region.
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Former Ecuadorian President Abdalá Bucaram is under arrest in connection with a corruption investigation linked to the coronavirus pandemic.Police arrested Bucaram on Wednesday after locating an unlicensed gun during a raid on his home in Guayaquil, the coastal city where some of the first coronavirus cases were confirmed in Latin America.Police said they also found thousands of coronavirus test kits and face masks as part of their criminal probe.Authorities said the raid was part of their investigation into suspected embezzlement at a large public hospital.The police carried out more than two dozen raids in Guayaquil and the city of Quito, but there were no immediate reports of additional arrests. 
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Brazil announced Tuesday that it has recorded another one-day record of coronavirus deaths. The Health Ministry said it had confirmed another 1,262 COVID-19 deaths, bringing the total death toll to 31,199, with the number of total confirmed cases now at 555,383, second only to the United States, which has more than 1.8 million total cases. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, wearing a face mask amid the new coronavirus pandemic, stands amid supporters taking pictures with cell phones as he leaves his official residence of Alvorada palace in Brasilia, May 25, 2020.Despite the escalating spread of the virus and the growing death toll, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro continues to dismiss the severity of the outbreak as nothing more than “a little flu.”  He told supporters outside the presidential palace in Brasilia that he regrets each of the deaths, “but that’s everyone’s destiny.” According to Johns Hopkins University, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases now stands at 6,395,327 around the world, with 380,580 deaths.  More than 106,000 confirmed deaths have been recorded in the United States. JapanElsewhere Tuesday, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike issued a warning for a possible resurgence of the coronavirus in the city.   Tuesday’s warning came after 34 new cases were reported, the highest total in a month, and just days after the city lifted its state of emergency.  Only a handful of new cases were reported at the end of May.  A public screen shows Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaking at a press conference, May 25, 2020, in Tokyo.Koike said she is not ready yet to reimpose an official citywide alert, but said if the number rises to at least 50 new cases a day, she will again order businesses to shut down.  The governor said she suspects the new infections were brought on by the return of Japanese nightlife, including in karaoke bars.   Health experts around the world have been warning of a spike in new cases if governments and businesses reopen too soon.   South Africa
South African officials say the number of cases there has doubled every two weeks and now stands at more than 35,000.  Some businesses in Bolivia, Mexico, and Venezuela started reopening this week even after the WHO declared Latin America and the Caribbean the world’s coronavirus epicenter.  FILE – Medical workers look over paperwork at the entrance to the COVID-19 triage area at the Mexico General Hospital, in Mexico City, May 12, 2020.“Clearly the situation in many South American countries is far from stable. There is a rapid increase in cases and those systems are coming under increasing pressure,” WHO Emergencies Director Dr. Mike Ryan said Tuesday.   The experts also warn of a possible resurgence in the United States, where thousands have been protesting in the streets against racial violence, ignoring the social distancing warnings and urgings to wear masks.   Britain
A new British report Tuesday say minorities in Britain have died of COVID-19 at rates higher than whites.  The Public Health England report says ethnic Bangladeshis are at risk of death at a rate twice as high as white Britons. Britons of other Asian backgrounds, including Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani, and black Caribbean ethnicities have a 10% to 50% greater chance of dying from COVID-19.   The report just stated the findings and did not give any recommendations on how to reduce these alarming numbers.   
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said it cannot be disputed that blacks and other minorities are at greater risk of death, but also expressed some dismay at the lack of guidance at this time.  “This is a particularly timely publication because right across the world people are angry about racial injustice. I totally understand the urgency, the importance and the sensitivity of getting this right,” Hancock said, referring to the uproar over the death of African American George Floyd in the United States while in police custody in Minneapolis. “I get that. Black lives matter,” he said.  
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The World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday that COVID-19 is on a slow but steady decline in most of western Europe but remains on the rise in Russia and parts of eastern Europe. Speaking to reporters via video conference from WHO headquarters in Geneva, spokeswoman Dr. Margaret Harris said the number of new cases in the west remains “significant,” and the decline is slow.   New cases in Russia, she said, along with other areas of eastern Europe, are still on the rise. She said the latest figures show Russia to have 414,878 cases of infection with 4,855 deaths. Harris was asked about a recent study in the city of Wuhan, China – where the virus is believed to have emerged in December – in which Chinese authorities were said to have tested nearly 10 million people and found only 300, mainly asymptomatic cases of COVID-19.   She said much more research is needed globally to put this data into context. Harris said a study of that size “gives you a little piece of the puzzle, gives you a little bit of information. But it may be related to a setting, there’s much more work that needs to be done around the world.” Harris said a WHO-led international mission to China and Wuhan earlier this year suggested that while asymptomatic transmission might play a part in spreading the disease, it did not appear to be the main “driver” of the outbreak. As of Tuesday, the WHO reports more than 6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, including 373,548 deaths.  By region, the WHO says the Americas are the epicenter of the pandemic, with more than 2.8 million cases, followed by Europe (2.2 million), the Eastern Mediterranean (536,148), Southeast Asia (272,512), the Western Pacific (184,305) and Africa (108,121). 
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Activists in Brazil fed up with police crimes against blacks rallied in solidarity Monday night, with protesters in the United States, demonstrating against the death of a black man by a white police officer who knelt on his neck during his arrest on suspicion of committing a forgery.  Police in Brazil used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up the anti-racism protest in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba that ended in violence. Blacks and people of multi-ethnic backgrounds make up a small portion of the million plus residents of Curitiba. The otherwise peaceful demonstration was winding down when scores of protesters  began shouting slogans against racism and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and vandalizing buildings near the governor’s palace. There were no immediate reports of police making arrests.   On Sunday, police used tear gas to break up a protest in Rio de Janeiro called “Black Lives Matter.” 
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A day after the 2020 hurricane season began, the National Hurricane Center warns if Tropical Depression 3 in the Gulf of Mexico strengthens it could become the next named storm, Cristobal.  A tropical storm warning has been posted for the Mexican coast, with forecasters saying the weather system could move through the Gulf of Mexico over the next few days.   The storm is a remnant of Tropical Storm Amanda, which is blamed for killing at least 17 people in El Salvador and Guatemala, where heavy rains caused flooding and landslides. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele decreed a State of National Emergency for 15 days and Civil Protection issued a red alert for the entire country after the storm displaced several thousand people and destroyed hundreds of homes.  El Salvador Interior Minister Mario Durán said the storm exposed how vulnerable the country is, citing what he called a lack of investment in infrastructure. 
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Latin America is the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization declared Monday, as the region’s daily death rate now exceeds that in either the United States or Europe. The WHO said Monday there are nearly 938,000 COVID-19 related cases throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and almost 50,000 deaths a day. Brazil, Chile and Ecuador lead Central and South America with the most cases. In the United States, COVID-19 has killed about 26,000 nursing home residents, the government reports, accounting for nearly one-fourth of all U.S. deaths from the disease. About 450 nursing home staffers have also died of COVID-19. “This data, and anecdotal reports across the country, clearly show that nursing homes have been devastated by the virus,” CDC Director Robert Redfield and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Seema Verma said in a letter to state governors. COVID-19 is especially devastating to the elderly, many of whom already have other health issues. Some experts say the number of COVID cases in nursing homes could be undercounted because some of the deaths may be attributed to other causes.A health worker holds a glove outside the San Jose public hospital emergencies entrance, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Santiago, Chile, May 28, 2020.Federal officials are recommending one-time tests for all nursing home residents and staff and weekly follow-up tests. Verma also says nursing facilities must take “extreme caution” before deciding whether to reopen their doors to visitors. She also says her office is increasing penalties on nursing homes that fail to take the proper precautions against infections. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, authorities reported a new outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus on the same day they announced the country has 3,200 COVID-19 cases. The DRC health ministry said it found six cases in a region along the Congo River on the border with the Republic of Congo. This comes just as the DRC was planning to declare the end of an earlier Ebola outbreak in North Kivu, in the eastern DRC.  The Ebola and COVID-19 outbreaks in the DRC come on top of what experts say is the world’s largest measles outbreak.  Meanwhile, more world tourist sites started to welcome visitors again Monday. They include the Florida Keys, the Coliseum in Rome, Greek hotels, beaches in Turkey, and museums in the Netherlands. But all visitors are still urged to take appropriate precautions.  
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The U.N. refugee agency warns some 1.5 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants face extreme risks and hardships during the winter season in the southern region of South America. The UNHCR reports six countries of asylum — Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay — are overstretched and unable to help the Venezuelans.
Life has not been easy for the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants who have fled political oppression and economic misery in Venezuela. But the U.N. refugee agency fears their plight will increase during the harsh, bitterly cold winter season. Added to this mix of inclement weather is COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo notes Latin America now is the new epicenter of the pandemic. She says the health and economic consequences will have a profound impact on displaced Venezuelans in the region. “In addition to health risks, COVID-related lockdowns and confinement measures have already resulted in severe hardship for Venezuelans in those countries,” she said. “Many have now lost their livelihoods and are faced with poverty, destitution, eviction, widespread hunger and food insecurity as well as increased protection risks.”   Mantoo says this humanitarian crisis will deepen as temperatures drop. She says the Venezuelans, most of whom are living in rented accommodations, often lack fuel to heat their homes. Mantoo also says they need blankets, warm clothing and medicine.She says many who fall ill with respiratory diseases, such as influenza, in the six countries of asylum will not be able to get the treatment they need. “As national capacities are stretched to breaking point, access to public health services and timely medical care is also a challenge, especially for those in irregular situations,” she said. “Shelter, food, and hygiene kits, as well as cash assistance are already critically needed for many vulnerable Venezuelans who are living in precarious conditions and who are at risk of becoming homeless or living on the streets in exile.”  The UNHCR is stepping up its response to this crisis. Together with partners, the agency is providing emergency shelters, rental subsidies and other material relief. It also is providing essential health care and cash assistance to refugees and migrants who are particularly vulnerable.     
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The White House announced Sunday that it has delivered two million doses of  hydroxychloroquine, or HCQ, to Brazil to help the South American country in its fight against the coronavirus. “HCQ will be used as a prophylactic to help defend Brazil’s nurses, doctors, and healthcare professionals against the virus,” the White House said in a statement Sunday.  “It will also be used as a therapeutic to treat Brazilians who become infected.” HCQ is a widely used malaria drug.  Trump, in a controversial move, has ignored his public health advisers and has pushed for the use of the drug in the fight against the coronavirus even though there is no evidence that the drug is effective against the virus.  Trump recently announced that he has taken a round of HCQ. The statement also said the two countries have entered a joint “research effort that will include randomized controlled clinical trials.  These trials will help further evaluate the safety and efficacy of HCQ for both prophylaxis and the early treatment of the coronavirus.” There are more infections in the U.S. and Brazil than anywhere else. The U.S. has 1.7 million cases while Brazil, which is emerging as the world’s hotspot for the virus, has more than 514,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.Relatives are seen during a mass burial of people who passed away due to the coronavirus disease, at the Parque Taruma cemetery in Manaus, Brazil, May 26, 2020.U.S. health officials say they are bracing for a surge in coronavirus infections, following  protests around the country over the death of George Floyd, an African American man who died after a police officer in Minneapolis was charged with  pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck as Floyd was handcuffed while lying on the ground.  Some protesters wore masks and some did not. Social distancing was almost impossible. The prime minister of Armenia has tested positive for the coronavirus. Nikol Pashinyan told Public Radio of Armenia that he and his family have tested positive, but all of them are asymptomatic.  Australia is continuing to ease coronavirus restrictions, allowing more people to gather in restaurants, public parks and other attractions.  Gatherings in the country’s largest state, New South Wales, had been limited to 10 people. That limit has been increased to 50.  Museums, libraries and zoos are reopening. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he hopes the easing of restrictions will help the economy rebound which, like so many other global economies, has been hit hard by the pandemic.Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison makes a joint statement with Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo at Parliament House Monday, Feb. 10, 2020.But Morrison said another government stimulus package may be necessary.  About 90,000 mosques across Saudi Arabia opened for the first time in more than two months Sunday, but some restrictions remain in place.  Worshippers 15 years old and younger are not allowed inside, and the elderly are being encouraged to stay home to pray. Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, remains closed, but Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque – Islam’s holiest site outside Saudi Arabia – was open again Sunday for the first time since mid-March. All who enter must have their temperatures checked.    With the U.S. Atlantic hurricane season officially starting Monday, the Associated Press reports many counties across the southern U.S. still do not have complete plans on how to open up public shelters if a storm strikes during the coronavirus outbreak.  “Our biggest change to our hurricane plan is sheltering. How are we going to shelter those that have to evacuate? How are going to shelter those that are positive COVID patients? There are multiple ideas that we are considering right now,” Mississippi Emergency Management Agency Director Greg Michel said. Vice President Mike Pence said last week that the federal government is ready should there be the twin disaster of a hurricane and COVID-19. The federal emergency plan includes urging people to stay in hotels. But some state officials say that may not be an option because of the current unemployment crisis caused by the pandemic.   U.S. forecasters say this will be an unusually busy hurricane season with as many as six major storms hitting the U.S. 
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Hundreds of demonstrates converged on the square in front of the Rio de Janeiro state government palace Sunday, protesting crimes committed by the police against black people in the Brazilian city’s poor neighborhoods, known as favelas. Protesters chanted, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” in reference to George Floyd, the black man who died while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota.    “We are here today because we want to live. We are here today because we are tired of this genocidal state. We are here to say no more, no more!” activist Santiago said.  Protesters were holding signs reading in Portuguese “Stop killing us” and “Favela asks for peace.”Military police fire the shotguns at demonstrators during a protest against crimes committed by the police against black people in the favelas, outside the Rio de Janeiro’s state government, Brazil, Sunday, May 31, 2020.As recently as May 18, a 14-year-old black boy was killed during a Federal Police operation in the Complexo Salgueiro favelas. The teenager, Joao Pedro Pinto, was at home with cousins when police broke into his house, allegedly pursuing drug traffickers, and shot him dead. The protest in Rio de Janeiro called “Black Lives Matter,” was interrupted when police used tear gas to disperse people.  In 2019 Rio’s police, one of the deadliest law enforcement units in Brazil, killed 1,546 people during police operations. That was the highest number since 1998 in the country, and most of the killings took place in favelas. 
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The arrival in Venezuela of five Iranian oil tankers is expected to ease the South American nation’s gasoline crisis, while challenging U.S. sanctions targeting both countries.  
 
The Iranian fuel tankers began arriving in Venezuela last week under the protection of Venezuelan military forces, with the fifth cargo reportedly arriving on Sunday.
 
Venezuela’s oil sector has been acutely damaged by years of political and economic instability. Iran says the fuel shipment provided to Venezuela is about 1.53 million barrels of gasoline and petrochemical components.
 
U.S. sanctions imposed on Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA also have crippled Venezuela’s ability to import certain types of fuel from abroad, but the government of President Nicolas Maduro has turned to Iran for refining parts and fuel.
 
On Saturday, Venezuelan officials announced that the Iranian gasoline has arrived at hundreds of gas station across the country.
 
“Venezuela has the right to buy in the world whatever it wants to buy,” Maduro said in a recent speech. “Fortunately, Venezuela has more friends than what people can imagine.”
 Defying Washington   
 
Iran and Venezuela are under U.S. economic sanctions, which has brought the two countries closer economically and politically.
 
“Iran and Venezuela have always supported each other in times of difficulty,” Venezuelan foreign minister Jorge Arreaza said in today last week, adding that, “Today we see the fruits of the multipolar world, of our Bolivarian Diplomacy for Peace and South-South Cooperation.”
The South-South cooperation refers to the technical cooperation among developing countries in the Global South, including the sharing of skills and resources.
 
Some experts believe that the Iranian move to transport oil to Venezuela is a show of defiance against the U.S. by the two allies.A Venezuelan oil worker holds a small Iranian flag during a ceremony marking the arrival of Iranian oil tanker Fortune at the El Palito refinery near Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, May 25, 2020.“This move is very significant,” said Alireza Mehrabi, a political analyst in Tehran. “It sends a message that U.S. hegemony is nose-diving, and countries of the South should strengthen their relations and circumvent threats and sanctions imposed by Washington through building strategic ties.”
 
Other Iranian experts, however, say that this dominant narrative propagated by the Iranian government could send mixed signals.
 
“This sends a signal that [U.S. President Donald] Trump’s maximum pressure policy on Tehran has been effective so much so that Iran is willing to take grave risks to sell its oil (products) to Venezuela under a very uncertain barter deal,” said Mehdi Mottaharnia, a Tehran-based international affairs analyst.
 US pressure
   
U.S. officials said the United States was applying pressure to deter Iran and Venezuela from carrying out the oil transfer, while also warning foreign governments, seaports, shipping companies and insurers that they could face U.S. sanctions if they assist the tanker fleet.
 
“We’ve alerted the shipping community around the world, ship owners, ship captains, ship insurers, and we’ve alerted ports along the way between Iran and Venezuela,” Elliott Abrams, U.S. special representative on Venezuela, told Reuters Friday.
 
Earlier in May, the U.S. issued a global maritime advisory, giving guidance to the shipping industry on how to avoid sanctions related to Iran, North Korea and Syria.
 
But Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned last week that any U.S. intervention against Iranian oil tankers bound to Venezuela would be met with retaliation.
 
“Any pirate-like action by the U.S. Navy against the Iranian fuel shipments to Venezuela would trigger a harsh response,” Rouhani was quoted as saying by pro-Iranian government Nour News Agency.Men push a car that ran out of gas to a state-run oil company gas station, in Caracas, Venezuela, May 25, 2020.No desire for conflict
 
Observers believe that Washington has no desire to start a conflict with Venezuela over a fuel shortage that could be seen “a humanitarian crisis.”
 
“Under the circumstances, the passing of the tankers can be interpreted as a weakness for the United States,” said José Toro Hardy, a prominent Venezuelan economist and a former director of the country’s PDVSA.
 
“But I thought for humanitarian reasons, (the Americans) were going to let the tankers pass. I also thought that they could have stopped some of the tankers to guarantee if the only thing they brought was gasoline, because it has also been said that (Iranian tankers) could bring other things,” he told VOA.
   
“I believe that any action the U.S. takes or has been taking in the form of sanctions, is taken when the U.S. is interested to do so,” Hardy added.
 
Washington backs Maduro’s rival Juan Guaido and considers him as Venezuela’s legitimate leader following a presidential crisis in January 2019.
 
Yousof Azizi, a research assistant at the Virginia Tech university, says while this oil transaction between Iran and Venezuela “is not significant and plays no major role in Iran’s sanction-stricken economy,” it could have a political motive behind it.   
 
“Tehran has meticulously evaluated the U.S. political climate in the months leading to the (presidential) election and decided to challenge Washington, reckoning that no response should be expected from Washington despite pressure from ‘Hawks’ within the incumbent administration,” he told VOA.
 
Azizi noted that the U.S. hasn’t decided to take any immediate action against Iran, “partly due to the fact that the U.S. is aware that escalating tensions would not be beneficial to Trump’s bid for a second term.”
 Workforce shortage
   
The supply reportedly will help Venezuelans authorities expand retail sales of gasoline under a system combining subsidies and international prices.
“Iran has sent additives, in this case alkylate, one of the components necessary to refine gasoline,” said Ivan Freitas, leader of the Unitary Federation for Oil Workers in Venezuela.A worker wearing a face mask to protect against the coronavirus waits while a tanker truck fills the gasoline reservoir of a state oil company gas station, in Caracas, Venezuela, May 31, 2020.“Iran assumes that Venezuela can obtain the other components on its own to restart the refineries. But even if this is the case, the conditions in which these plants find themselves, four in total in the country, are very bad,” he told VOA.
 
But Freitas noted that Venezuela faces a massive shortage of qualified oil workers capable of operating oil refineries.
 
Qualified workers have left Venezuela. Only 2 or 3% of qualified (workers) have remained,” he said, adding that if the Venezuelan government “put a plant into service, it would be a lottery to know for how long it will work. There will be no operational stability. In these conditions, the refineries are of high risk.”
 Gold payment
   
Some experts say that given Venezuela’s deteriorating economy and following the departure of Russian oil company Rosneft from the country, Caracas will likely pay Iran in gold for its fuel supply.
 
“It looks like the only way [Venezuela)] can pay is with gold. Simply because Venezuela’s oil production has declined, and oil represented 97% of Venezuela’s foreign exchange earnings,” economist Hardy said.
 
He added that “there is no foreign exchange income. The other foreign exchange income was through the remittances of the more than 5 million Venezuelans who have left and were sending money to their families, but during the COVID-19 pandemic that has been abruptly interrupted.
 
“The only alternative that Venezuela could have that interests Iran in economic terms is gold,” Hardy concluded.
 Some information in this report came from Reuters.
 
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Tropical Storm Amanda has killed at least seven people in El Salvador as heavy rains made rivers overflow, flooded city streets and produced landslides, Interior Minister Mario Duran said Sunday.”We’ve seen people asking for help, asking for the government. We haven’t deployed everywhere, the situation is overwhelming,” Duran said.Among those killed was an 8-year-old boy, who died after the house he was in collapsed, while another person was killed by a falling wall and another drowned in a swollen river, Salvadoran civil protection authorities said.The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Amanda or its remnants are expected to produce rain totals of 10 to 15 inches (25-38 centimeters) across El Salvador, southern Guatemala, western Honduras, and the Mexican states of Tabasco and Veracruz.The storm’s heavy rainfall could “cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides across portions of Central America and southern Mexico, and these threats will continue over the next several days even after Amanda is no longer a tropical cyclone,” the NHC said.Amanda was packing maximum sustained winds of nearly 40 miles per hour (65 kilometers per hour) with higher gusts and was expected to weaken “very soon” as its center moves farther inland, the NHC said.It is forecast to degenerate into a remnant low or dissipate over the mountains of Central America later Sunday.
 
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As a nurse on the front lines of Mexico’s coronavirus battle, Gisela Hernandez has stayed away from her children for nearly two months, sleeping in a hotel and even her car to avoid infecting them because she feels inadequately protected at work.At night, she video calls Santiago, 5, and Renata, 9, who are both asthmatic, to hear about what they’ve done during the day and remind them how much she misses them.While Hernandez says she loves her work, and considers the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (INER) in Mexico City her second home, she is also afraid of contracting the novel coronavirus. COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, has killed 9,415 people in Mexico.“I don’t regret becoming a nurse, because I like to help my patients,” said Hernandez, 40, whose hospital is one of the city’s main treatment centers for COVID-19.But she said she is “scared of getting sick … scared of never seeing my kids again.”Health workers account for about a quarter of all of Mexico’s coronavirus infections, government data shows, one of the highest rates in the world. The risks are made worse by shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE).COVID-19 cases are surging in Latin America, which along with the United States is now an epicenter of the global pandemic. Frontline workers in Mexico City’s hospitals, including Hernandez, have taken to the streets to complain about the conditions. A national march is planned for Monday.INER, which has been at full capacity over the past week, said 49 of its workers have been infected at the hospital and another 54 have contracted the virus in the community, of which two have died.In a May 8 memo seen by Reuters, INER’s Biosafety Committee said a global PPE shortage would require workers to don reusable surgical uniforms and cloth hospital gowns, instead of disposable gear. The letter also told workers to use their N95 masks for full shifts.In response to requests for comment, the hospital shared with Reuters a statement it sent workers this week in which it said the measure regarding usage of masks was in line with World Health Organization advice. It also confirmed that workers were instructed to use non-disposable gowns and uniforms.“To date, no sterilized N95 masks have been reused.”However, a video seen by Reuters shows an official at INER telling staff to reuse sterilized N95 masks.“We exploded when we were told we were going to recycle the N95s,” said Alejandro Cabrera, an INER nurse with two decades of experience.Cabrera said workers are required to put their names on masks so the gear can be sent off for sterilization. “It’s terrible!” he said.Heavy TollMexico ranks eighth in the world in COVID-19 deaths, with Mexico City and a neighboring state accounting for some 40 percent of the country’s fatalities.The Mexican government says it needs another 6,600 doctors and 23,000 nurses to battle the crisis, a shortage exacerbated by the high infection rate among medical staff — 11,394 health workers had contracted the virus and 149 had died as of May 17.Medical professionals had accounted for 23 percent of all of the country’s infections as of that date. That compares to 3.7 percent in the United States, according to data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week.Despite the danger, Hernandez is doing her part to combat the disease.She points to a box of chocolates and a yellow note from the family of one of her patients thanking and encouraging her to keep “working to save lives.”“That’s one of the reasons I love my job so much, and despite the risks I still enjoy taking care of my patients,” she said. 
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A report released this week by the U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP) warns that social and economic measures aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 could create a food crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean, threatening nearly 14 million people with food insecurity.The WFP estimates that in 2019, there were already 3.4 million people in the region facing food insecurity – that is, they were not able to meet their basic food needs. But speaking in Geneva Friday, WFP Senior Spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said the socio-economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic is likely to push another 10 million people into food insecurity.The WFP runs projects in Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Peru and other small island developing states in the Caribbean. Byrs says she is particularly concerned about Haiti, where, she says 700,000 people are already facing severe food shortages. She expects that number to jump to 1.6 million in the coming months.The WFP is urging governments in the region to adapt and expand programs to serve the most vulnerable populations. They also urged the general public to make donations to the WFP or directly to food programs in their countries.
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In Brazil, the crippling coronavirus appears to be no match in defeating true love.Dozens of couples anxious to wed in the midst of the pandemic are taking advantage of a drive-thru wedding facility offered by a marriage registry office in Rio de Janairo.The couples wore masks as they pulled up and exchanged their vows and rings, sealing their union, with one witness in the backseat.One bride said she was surprised to wed at a drive-thru but said that it was very good.An official of the marriage registry, Alessandra Lapoente, said the drive-thru system allows more couples to move forward with their nuptials, despite the ongoing threat of the coronavirus.Brazil is at the top of the coronavirus epicenter in Latin America, with more than 430,000 infections, the second-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world.Brazil has also confirmed more than 26,000 deaths.  
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For years, Cruz Pelico made a living by tending to onions, carrots and lettuce in the rolling fields outside his small Guatemalan town. But even with the long, labor-intensive hours, the 25-year-old farmer struggled to support his wife and 5-year-old son. So in 2019 he began planning to migrate to the United States to lift his family out of poverty.But as coronavirus tears through the U.S. and lockdowns cut off migrant pathways, Pelico dropped his plans to migrate.“I’m not thinking about going anymore. With this situation, you can’t get there now,” Pelico said. “The United States has fallen into crisis, too. Many Guatemalans who are there have told me,” he said. “There’s no work anymore. I’ve started thinking it’s better to be here.”Instead of embarking on their journeys northward as people in his town, Zuníl, had done for decades, Pelico said recently departed Guatemalans were returning out of fear. It is unprecedented for a town whose economy was sculpted by generations of migration.A health worker takes a sample from a vendor to test for COVID-19 at La Terminal market in Guatemala City, May 21, 2020.DeterredZuníl’s situation is not unique. Migration northward is dropping off across the region as rising obstacles — fear of contagion, lack of work in the U.S., mobility restrictions and the Trump administration’s restrictions on migration during the pandemic — have made the journey all but impossible.“They never made it,” Pelico said. “They are returning because they were scared of this pandemic we’re suffering, because of everything happening in the United States.”That could be disastrous for tens of thousands of Central American and Mexican migrants who have fled not just poverty but also an onslaught of violence in recent years.From March to April, when the U.S. began to lock down, total apprehensions along its southern border dropped by 50%, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection People stand in line to buy food from a small grocery store in the “La Reformita” neighborhood during a lockdown in Guatemala City, May 15, 2020.CriticismCritics like Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), said that with the latest measures, the Trump administration was “taking advantage” of the health crisis to end asylum.The clampdown comes after months of the U.S. government implementing policies that make it harder to legally migrate or seek asylum. Among those policies are Trump’s A woman wearing a mask against the spread of the new coronavirus poses for a photo at La Terminal market in Guatemala City, May 21, 2020.LimboKino’s soup kitchen once bustled with recent deportees, and volunteers offered medical, psychological and legal help to migrants. In 2019, more asylum-seekers began arriving at its doorstep, a product of the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires those seeking asylum to wait in Mexico for their cases to be heard.Gonzalo, a Venezuelan asylum-seeker whose surname is being withheld for his safety, had been waiting since June 2019 in Nogales on the Mexican side of the border, just opposite the U.S. state of Arizona.Gonzalo fled Venezuela after he was kidnapped and faced death threats, and is among 5 million people who have fled the crisis-stricken country in recent years. He said the terror he felt in Venezuela, he also feels in Mexico as illegal armed groups sow violence and target and kidnap migrants like him. “There are urban terrorist groups, there’s a lot of narco-trafficking. We’re very scared to be here for so much time because we’re easy targets for these groups,” he said.Now, with the U.S.’s indefinite migration restrictions, Gonzalo said he has nowhere to go, and fears exposure to the virus as he washes cars on the streets and struggles to find small handyman jobs to survive. The shelter he and many other migrants once stayed at has closed its doors, and other organizations like Kino say that they have had to reduce services to protect staff and the migrants they serve from infection. Returning to Venezuela is not an option, but waiting on the border might kill him all the same.“The hardest thing is waiting with this virus, to be so exposed.” he said. “We’re living with the same fear for our lives.”A small handful of asylum-seekers who have been let through in recent weeks allow him to hold on to hope and continue his yearlong limbo.Bolter, the MPI analyst, said it’s likely that the Trump administration will continue these heightened migratory measures even after the pandemic ends in order to continue deterring migration to the U.S.At the same time, Pelico in Guatemala, also feels stuck. He worries that staying may mean starvation for his family as a government quarantine makes it impossible for him to work more than a few hours a day or sell his crops in markets. Before, he earned less than $10 a day.“I’m just a farmer. Day to day, we live off what we grow,” he said. “My fear, my worry, is if they close us in for a month, two months, what are we going to eat?”But Pelico knows the risks of going north: He made the journey through Mexico and perilous border desert terrain in 2013. He worked in Oklahoma and returned home less than a year later because his mother was sick. With the pandemic, though, he said the risks are too great.Guatemala is where he will stay for now, but Pelico said that as time ticks on, his mind might again wander northward.“I hope that God will give us a future that will let me go in the next year, but not until what we’re going through calms down,” he said. “Then, I’d think once again about if I stay or if I go.”
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It was mid-January and Jordan Goudreau was itching to get going on a secret plan to raid Venezuela and arrest President Nicolás Maduro when the former special forces commando flew to the city of Barranquilla in Colombia to meet with his would-be partner in arms.
To get there, Goudreau and two former Green Beret buddies relied on some unusual help: a chartered flight out of Miami’s Opa Locka executive airport on a plane owned by a Venezuelan businessman so close to the government of the late Hugo Chávez that he spent almost four years in a U.S. prison for trying to cover up clandestine cash payments to its allies.
The owner of the Venezuela-registered Cessna Citation II with yellow and blue lines, identified with the tail number YV-3231, was Franklin Durán, according to three people familiar with the businessman’s movements who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Durán over two decades has had numerous business ties with the socialist government of Venezuela, making him an odd choice to help a band of would-be-mercenaries overthrow Maduro, the handpicked successor of the late Chávez
Durán and his associates are now at the center of multiple investigations in the U.S., Colombia and Venezuela into how Goudreau, a combat veteran with three Bronze Stars but little knowledge of Venezuela, managed to launch a failed raid that ended with the capture and arrest of his two special forces colleagues.  
Durán’s role and his closeness to top officials have revived allegations floated by opposition leader Juan Guaidó and U.S. officials that he was secretly working on Maduro’s behalf and had co-opted “Operation Gideon,” the name of Goudreau’s foiled plot.
“There’s financing here from the dictatorship,” Guaidó said in an interview following the raid with EVTV Miami, an online media outlet run by Venezuelan exiles. “A businessman, a front man closely linked to the host of the gossip show,” he said in reference to socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello, whose weekly TV program, fed by nuggets from Venezuela’s vast intelligence network that he controls, first aired in March the accusations of a planned attack by Goudreau.  
Maduro has claimed that Guaidó, whose aides signed a 42-page agreement last year with Goudreau in Miami outlining a plan to take control of the country, was behind last month’s raid, with backing from the CIA or the Drug Enforcement Administration. However, Goudreau said he was never paid and the two sides angrily split. For its part, the Trump administration has denied it was behind the plot, with the president joking that had the U.S. been involved it would have gone very badly for Maduro.
The Associated Press on May 1 first broke the story of Goudreau’s bizarre plan to train a volunteer army made up of a few dozen Venezuelan military deserters at clandestine camps along the border in neighboring Colombia. They planned to attack military bases and ignite a popular uprising. Goudreau’s partner, in what some opposition leaders called a suicide mission, was retired Venezuelan army Gen. Cliver Alcalá, who had been living in Barranquilla after fleeing his homeland in 2018.  
Alcalá surrendered to U.S. authorities in March after he was indicated on drug charges, just a few days after Colombian police seized a cache of weapons that the retired military officer said belonged to the rebel cadre he and Goudreau were readying to bring down Maduro.
But despite no overt U.S. support, a poorly-trained force that stood no chance against Venezuela’s sizable military and indications that Maduro’s spies had infiltrated the group, Goudreau nonetheless pushed ahead with his plans.  
On May 3 — two days after the AP article — he appeared in a video from Florida claiming that a few dozen “freedom fighters” he commanded had launched a beach raid to enter Venezuela and capture Maduro. The invaders were caught almost immediately and the embattled leader paraded on state TV the American combatants as evidence of a U.S.-backed coup attempt. The raid has been widely ridiculed on social media as the “Bay of Piglets,” in reference to the 1961 Cuban fiasco.
Why the plan went forward remains a mystery. But much attention has now shifted to the role of Durán and his brother Pedro.
Both men were quietly arrested Sunday in Venezuela, although Pedro was later released, according to Edward Shohat, Franklin Durán’s Miami-based lawyer. The government has yet to comment on the arrests and has not indicated if it intends to charge either with a crime.
The story of Goudreau’s flight aboard Durán’s plane was first reported by the PanAm Post, a conservative online publication run by mostly Venezuelan exiles from Miami.  
According to Colombian flight documents the PanAm Post shared with the AP, the Jan. 16 trip was chartered by Servicios Aereos Mineros (SERAMI), a for-hire airline that started in the gold-producing Venezuelan state of Bolivar.  
An aviation industry executive confirmed the authenticity of the documents and said SERAMI was used by the Durán brothers to charter their frequent flights between Colombia and Venezuela.
The person said Franklin Durán would frequently travel to Barranquilla — passenger manifests provided to the AP show he made at least four flights between the two countries between November 2019 and January 2020 — to bring back food and other supplies to Venezuela, where U.S. sanctions and years of mismanagement have stripped store shelves of many goods.  
SERAMI is partly owned by Juan Carlos Ynfante, according to two people familiar with the company. Ynfante was arrested last year in Grand Cayman island for piloting an aircraft with $135,000 in undeclared cash. Ynfante was also named as SERAMI’s president in a 2008 U.S. federal forfeiture case in which a plane with the company’s logo was seized in Ft. Lauderdale trying to smuggle 150 kilograms of cocaine.  
In addition to Goudreau and Durán’s two longtime pilots, passengers on the mid January flight included Luke Denman and Airan Berry — two of the former Army veteran’s colleagues from the 10th Special Forces Group in Stuttgart, Germany, where he was based before retiring from the U.S. Army in 2016. The two Texas natives have said in videotaped confessions that they believed Goudreau’s company, Silvercorp USA, had been hired by Guaidó.
Its unclear why the men traveled on the plane to Colombia or if Durán even knew about it. Goudreau hung up when contacted by the AP on Wednesday. He did not respond to a text messages asking about the flight.  
Also on the flight was Yacsy Álvarez. The would-be insurgents in the Colombian camps described the 39-year-old as a trusted aide to Alcalá who also worked for Durán.  
One volunteer solider said that when he needed to fly for meetings between Bogota and Barranquilla it was Álvarez who would purchase his tickets. On other occasions, he would electronically transfer her via Zelle, the digital payments network, small amounts of money he had collected from friends and family to feed the ragtag army. Denman, in his jailhouse statement, said it was Álvarez who drove him and Berry from Barranquilla to a rustic camp where the rebels were training.  
Álvarez’s whereabouts are unknown.  
Álvarez was named in 2017 director of Industrias Venoco de Centroamerica, two years after the company was registered in Panama. The company is a subsidiary of Industrias Venoco, a once market-leading auto lubrication manufacturer that Durán controlled before it was nationalized by Chávez in 2010.  
Durán at the time he lost Venoco was serving out a 4-year sentence in the U.S. for acting as an unregistered agent of Chávez. The firebrand leader had sent Durán to pressure businessman Alejandro Antonini, who was implicated in the so-called “Suitcase Scandal” when an attempt to smuggle $800,000 in cash to the 2007 campaign of former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez aboard a chartered aircraft was caught.  
During the trial, prosecutors pointed out that Durán used to carry a badge identifying him as a Venezuelan naval intelligence officer. The men urged their one-time friend to take the fall and stay quiet but unbeknownst to them Antonini was cooperating with the FBI and recorded their conversations.  
Upon Durán’s release in 2011 and return to Venezuela, a legal battle with the Venezuelan state to reclaim Venoco ensued. Durán maintained a low profile while he received treatment for cancer. Eventually some of Venoco assets, including the brand name, were returned to him, including a unit in Barranquilla. His brother, going by the artistic name Pedro “The Voice,” tried to develop a career singing salsa.  
A woman answering the phone at the Panama-based unit listed on Venoco’s website said the company is privately held and run from Barranquilla. An email sent to the Panama unit through Venoco’s website went unanswered and the two phone numbers listed for the Barranquilla-based unit on Venoco’s website did not work.
 
Durán was also the founder of Ruibal & Durán, a company that used to sell bulletproof vests and other equipment to Venezuela’s security forces — gear that would’ve been valuable to an invading army.  
He and his brother were also close to Alcalá. Photos circulating on social media show Pedro Durán and Alcalá together including one  where the two are sitting casually around a dining table with the army general sporting a Venoco t-shirt.
Franklin Durán’s U.S.-based attorney on Wednesday declined to discuss what, if any relationship, he had with Goudreau or to discuss the January flight.  
But Durán appears to have never wavered in his support of the anti-imperialist revolution to which he owed his fortune.
“I’m a man of principles and convictions, which were put to the test when they tried to force me to accept a set-up against the institutions of Venezuela,” he wrote in a public letter from his Texas prison cell in 2010. “Despite all the weight of the empire’s media, and having spent more than nine months in solitary confinement, I never gave up my values.”
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Alec de Rham sat with his back against a stone obelisk marked “International Boundary” as he and his wife visited with a daughter they hadn’t seen in 10 weeks.  
Hannah Smith took a bus and a bicycle from Vancouver, British Columbia, to the border to meet her “main person,” Jabree Robinson, of Bellingham, Washington.
And beside a large, white arch symbolizing U.S.-Canadian friendship, Lois England and Ian Hendon kissed giddily, reunited for a few hours after the longest separation of their three-year relationship.
Families, couples and friends — separated for weeks by the pandemic-fueled closing of the border between the U.S. and Canada — are flocking to Peace Arch Park, an oasis on the border where they can reunite, and touch, and hug.
The park covers 42 acres (17 hectares) of manicured lawn, flower beds, and cedar and alder trees, extending from Blaine, Washington, into Surrey, British Columbia, at the far western end of the 3,987-mile (6146-km) contiguous border. As long as they stay in the park, visitors can freely roam from the U.S. to the Canadian side, and vice versa, without showing so much as a passport.  
It’s a frequent site of picnics and sometimes weddings, not to mention an area for travelers to stretch their legs when holiday traffic clogs the ports of entry. And for now it’s one of just a few areas along the along the entire border where those separated by the closure can meet.
Officials closed the park in mid-March over coronavirus concerns. The U.S. side reopened early this month, as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee eased some of the restrictions in his stay-home order, and the Canadian side reopened two weeks ago. England, of Sumas, Washington, said she cried when Hendon called to give her the news and they quickly made plans to meet.
England said she and Hendon have generally been careful about social distancing, but there was no thought of keeping 6 feet apart when they saw each other.
“I was really getting depressed over it — this was a huge reprieve,” she said.
It typically takes 40 minutes for England to get to Hendon’s home in Surrey, and they have usually seen each other at least once a week since they met online three years ago. Hendon, an electrician, has kept busy with work during the pandemic, while England has spent time with her daughter and her mother, who live nearby.
The couple chat by Skype almost every morning, but England missed Hendon so badly a few weeks ago that she tried to enter Canada as an “essential” visitor — a category reserved for medical workers, airline crews or truckers hauling crucial goods. Canadian guards turned her away.
One reunion was not enough. The next day, they returned with a barbecue and steaks.
About a half-hour drive to the east, other families met where roads on either side closely parallel a small ditch marking the border. Visitors set up chairs across from each other and had long chats; there’s less freedom to touch there.  
Before they tried it, Tim and Kris Browning thought it might be too hard to see each other without touching. Kris lives north of the border in Abbotsford, where she is a hospital cook, and Tim lives just south, where he works as an electrician for a berry grower. They married in 2014 after meeting online; the virus has delayed Tim’s application to move to Canada.
But chatting across the ditch and a rusty guard rail, or in a nearby raspberry field owned by Tim’s employer, has become a weekly highlight — much better than a device, they said.
“It’s been really heartwarming to see all the families out, and everyone’s been so nice,” said Tim, who usually spends three days a week with Kris and her two children in Canada. “One Border Patrol agent came by and said, ‘Why aren’t you hugging your wife? Go on, hug your wife!'”
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The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) is warning that at least 14 million people could go hungry in Latin America, with the COVID-19 outbreak continuing to rise as jobs and economies decline under the weight of the pandemic.The WFP Latin America regional director, Miguel Barreto, has dubbed COVID-19 the “hunger pandemic. He said social protection networks are now necessary for people who normally didn’t need it.Many governments across Latin America are providing food assistance for the most vulnerable groups.While insisting the government do more, many people in poor communities are organizing soup kitchens, sharing what they have to try and sustain themselves.Pan American Health Organizations say the hunger situation is a major concern as Latin America becomes the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.Brazil leads the region with more than 400,000 confirmed cases. Other Latin America countries struggling to contain the virus include Mexico, Peru and Chile. 
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Archaeologists are celebrating the discovery of dozens of mammoths near Mexico City, which may shed light on the capital city’s ancient footprint.Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said Wednesday the remains of 60 mammoths were found in a dig site that is a former lakebed.Archaeologists suspect the herd may have gotten stuck in the lake’s mud.A spokesperson for Mexico’s archaeology department, Jose De Jesus, said the mammals date back more than 10,000 years to the Pleistocene era, which is part of the so-called Ice Age period.The discovery is the latest prehistoric find made near the construction site for Mexico City’s new international airport.Remains of mammoths were first unearthed in the vicinity in October.     
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In the closely watched extradition proceedings against Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzho, a Canadian court found that the fraud the tech executive is accused of by the United States, if proven, would also be criminal in Canada.In her 23-page decision, British Columbia Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes found on Wednesday the charge “the making of intentionally false statements” meets the requirements of the crime of fraud. The finding came after a January hearing.The narrowly focused decision is important because Canada will not extradite an accused person unless the charges are illegal in both countries, a Canadian legal doctrine known as “double criminality.”The ruling does not determine guilt or innocence. It only concerns whether Meng’s actions would be considered a crime under Canadian law. Meng and Huawei have denied the U.S. allegations.Meng was hoping the charges would not be found illegal in Canada, and she would have been freed from modified house arrest. She is expected to appear in court next month in another move to block extradition.Her case has put Canada in the middle of the trade struggle between China and the U.S., which is trying to persuade allies to avoid using Huawei equipment in their next-generation mobile telecommunications systems, known as 5G. Washington views the Huawei equipment as a security threat, and many countries are phasing it out, according to the Statistica website.Canadian authorities, acting upon a request by the U.S., arrested Meng at Vancouver International Airport on December 1, 2018, as she was in transit to Mexico. She has been living under a form of modified house arrest in one of her two mansions in Vancouver, pending court deliberations.Meng is accused by the U.S. Justice Department of helping Skycom Tech Co. Ltd., an “unofficial” Huawei subsidiary in Iran, attempt to circumvent American sanctions against Iran, while serving as the chief financial officer of Huawei, the Chinese tech giant founded by her father, Ren Zhengfei, in 1987.The U.S. Justice Department’s indictment also alleges that Meng deceived four banks into making transactions that smoothed the way for Huawei to evade United States sanctions against Iran.Canadian prosecutors, acting on behalf of the U.S. Justice Department, had alleged that Meng, Huawei and a subsidiary committed fraud and endangered U.S. financial institutions.During the January hearing, Robert Frater, a lawyer for the attorney general, said, “Lying to a bank in order to get financial services that creates a risk of economic prejudice is fraud.” He added that the actions put the bank, HSBC, at risk of U.S. penalties for sanctions violations and reputational damage.Skycom is alleged to have sold telecommunications equipment to Iran, a sanctions violation.Canada and IranHowever, Justice Holmes found that allegations brought forth by the U.S. Justice Department that Meng committed fraud by endangering HSBC bank in breaking the sanctions, “do not set out on a causal basis to economic or reputational risk.”Canada currently has no sanctions against doing business in Iran, and Meng’s lawyers had argued she could not be extradited for violating sanctions.Holmes also found that the submission by Meng’s legal team on double criminality was too narrow and “would seriously limit Canada’s ability to fulfill its international obligations” in extraditing people for fraud and other economic crimes.Meng’s next court appearance is set for June.Richard Kurland, a Vancouver immigration lawyer and policy analyst, has been watching the case closely.He said there is still an argument that will be made that Meng’s rights were violated at the time of her arrest.Kurland also said there is a chance for a Canadian political solution, as the justice minister has the ability to cancel any final decision that would extradite Meng to the United States.”Canada allows a minister to not extradite a person at the last minute, even though there’s an extradition order to return the person to the requesting country,” he said.  “That means Beijing’s not wrong here to put pressure on Canada, economically diplomatically, to motivate Canada to bring extradition to an end.”
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday pledged to begin charging citizens for gasoline, as the fourth cargo of a five-tanker flotilla bringing fuel from Iran approached the South American nation’s exclusive economic zone.Iran is providing the country with up to 1.53 million barrels of gasoline and components to help it ease an acute scarcity that has forced Venezuelans to wait in hours-long lines at service stations or pay steep prices on the black market.With the arrival of the gasoline, Maduro said he would end the policy of providing fuel effectively for free after more than two decades of frozen pump prices. He provided no details.”Gasoline must be paid for,” Maduro said in a state television address, saying that the price increase would be part of a “normalization and regularization plan.””I have Venezuela’s support and understanding,” Maduro said, blaming the shortages on the United States, which sanctioned state oil company PDVSA last year as part of a push to oust Maduro, whom the U.S. accuses of having rigged elections in 2018.New payment systemService stations have begun testing new payment systems, three people with knowledge of the matter said.In recent weeks, more than 100 service stations across the country have received new equipment that would allow them to charge for gasoline and ration retail sales, though their operators have not yet received clear instructions from the government or PDVSA, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.Maduro in 2018 had pledged to increase prices at the pump, but never went through with the plan. Ending fuel subsidies is seen as politically risky in Venezuela, where a 1989 effort to raise gasoline and transportation prices contributed to a deadly wave of riots and looting.”Pariah states”While applauded by the Venezuelan government, the Iranian supply has been criticized by U.S. authorities as both OPEC-member countries are under sanctions. The vessels have so far navigated undisturbed to their destinations.The fourth tanker, the Faxon, was passing north of Venezuela’s neighboring dual-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago as of Wednesday afternoon, the Eikon data showed. The third, the Petunia, was approaching the El Palito refinery, while the first two were discharging at ports.David Schenker, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, said on Wednesday that Washington was “not pleased” with the shipments and was looking at “options” for a response.”These are two pariah states,” Schenker said during a webinar organized by the Beirut Institute. “One could imagine them sending other things, I mean weapons, who knows.”Maduro added that Venezuela had paid for the shipments with dollars, after U.S. officials said the government had likely paid Iran using part of its gold reserves.
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Defying dire predictions, Venezuela so far seems to have avoided the coronavirus wave striking much of South America.  
But experts warn that while the virus may have been slow to spread here, due in large part to Venezuela’s isolation, the number of daily illnesses could soon climb high enough to severely test the country’s already dilapidated health system.  
President Nicolás Maduro’s government says the nation of roughly 25 million people has done widespread testing while recording just over 1,200 virus cases, along with 11 deaths, since the first case was diagnosed in mid-March.  
The low figures raise doubt among some critics about the accuracy of the testing program and government reporting. Other independent health experts, however, don’t think Maduro could conceal a significant surge in cases.
“If things were worse than they are now, we would have seen a lot coming out from social media — people talking about the increase of cases, hospitals being overrun,” said Dr. Gerardo de Cosío, the Caracas-based head of the Venezuela office of the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization.  
Neighboring Brazil has seen more than 270,000 cases and nearly 20,000 deaths so far, while Peru, Chile and Ecuador have each had tens of thousands of cases. There have been thousands of deaths in Peru and Ecuador and hundreds in Chile.  
In Venezuela, officials had been reporting under a dozen new illnesses daily. But that’s started creeping upward, and new illnesses now exceed 100 some days.
The rise is worrying many observers.  
New York-based Human Rights Watch and Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Public Health and Human Rights and Center for Humanitarian Health reported Tuesday that Venezuela’s health care system is “grossly unprepared” for the pandemic’s arrival.  
A main concern is a lack of running water.  
The report cited a hospital that officials identified as needing better water services. However, human rights investigators found that nearly a year after work began in mid-2019, the hospital still doesn’t have consistent running water or access to potable supplies — despite being designated as one of 46 hospitals in Venezuela to treat coronavirus patients.
At another hospital, investigators said, health care workers wash their hands with condensation that drips from the air conditioner. Some of its patients are told to bring their own water to drink and flush toilets.
José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of Human Rights Watch, said these conditions create a “time bomb” in Venezuela.  
“Maduro’s statistics are absolutely absurd,” Vivanco said. “They are not credible in a country where doctors do not even have water to wash their hands.”  
Venezuela was wealthy two decades ago from the world’s largest oil reserves. It’s since fallen on hard times as crude oil production has fallen to a 76-year low. Critics of the socialist government blame its interference in the economy. Maduro blames what he calls economic war being waged on Venezuela by the U.S. and others.
An estimated 5 million Venezuelans have fled poverty, blackouts, sporadic running water, shortages of food, medicine and gasoline, and high inflation. Thousands of doctors and nurses have joined the exodus.  
The Academy of Sciences, Physics, Mathematics and Nature of Venezuela, a Caracas-based institution, said mathematical models based on the first six weeks of infections forecast a big surge in new cases in the coming months.
“The country must prepare for the peak of the epidemic, as has happened in other Latin American countries,” said the academy’s president, Mireya Goldwasser.
That report drew a threat from Diosdado Cabello, the socialist party leader who is Venezuela’s second most powerful official after Maduro. Cabello called the scientists politically motivated on his weekly TV show and accused them of generating alarm.  
“This is an invitation for state security agencies to come calling on these people,” Cabello said. “They’re saying the government lied.”  
Skeptical Venezuelans distrust the government’s claims that so few coronavirus cases exist, given its history of hiding basic figures. Still, no obvious signs indicate the coronavirus has spun out of control.
Maduro’s government took quick action after the first cases were diagnosed March 13, which is credited for the low numbers so far. He ordered one of the region’s first nationwide lockdowns. Health workers go house-to-house screening people in poor hillside barrios, tracing cases to stomp out its spread, experts and residents say.
Maduro and his deputies appear on state TV nightly to provide an update of each new case. The president also announces each new aid shipment of medical supplies from allied nations as well as the promise of 1 million test kits from China.  
“We’ll go on a radical offensive to hunt down the coronavirus wherever it is,” Maduro said in a recent state TV address. “More work, more perseverance, more diagnostic tests, more house-to-house visits, more quarantine. This is our response.”
The government says it has done over 865,000 coronavirus tests, but the majority are less reliable rapid tests, raising the possibility that people are mistakenly found healthy when they are infected and could spread the virus.
Jose Manuel Olivares, a physician and opposition lawmaker, said Maduro’s government has concealed at least four COVID-19 deaths from the 10 it has made public.  
Aside from face masks, there is little outward sign of concern about the coronavirus on the crowded streets of Catia, a poor neighborhood of Venezuela’s capital. Vendors push carts of potatoes and onions or stand shoulder to shoulder hawking bags of rice and cornmeal.
Staying home to protect yourself is no option, said auto mechanic José Blanco, who was navigating through pedestrians on a motorcycle. People have no choice but to go out to work so their families can eat, he said.  
“To tell you the truth, I’d rather get sick and die than let my family go hungry,” Blanco said. “Here, the pandemic isn’t stopping anybody.”
Maira Chávez, a life-long Catia resident standing in line to drop off her 15-year-old daughter’s homework at a school closed in the lockdown, said she worries about the virus, so she wears a mask and gloves and frequently washes her hands.  
“We have to take care of ourselves, because if we don’t something bad could happen, we could be infected,” she said. “We hope that this just passes. God is the only one who knows.”
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Brazil’s four largest news media outlets say they have withdrawn their reporters from coverage of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro’s official residence because of the lack of security to protect them from heckling and abuse by his supporters.Organizações Globo, owner of the country’s largest network, TV Globo, as well as the O Globo and Valor Economico newspapers, joined TV Bandeirantes and the large-circulation dailies Folha de S.Paulo and Estado de S.Paulo and decided Monday night to suspend coverage for now at the Alvorada Palace.Bolsonaro has made a habit of stopping at the residence’s entrance to speak to cheering supporters, take selfies with them and make comments to the journalists.But in recent days his supporters at the gates have turned on the reporters with angry verbal attacks. On Monday, about 60 supporters heckled the reporters loudly, with shouts of “liars,” “scum” and “communists.”The attacks on journalists have intensified as Bolsonaro’s political situation has deteriorated under criticism of his handling of the coronavirus crisis that has killed more than 20,000 Brazilians and paralyzed the economy. He is also under investigation for allegedly interfering in law enforcement, and his supporters see the media as part of a plot to oust him.On May 3, angry demonstrators at a pro-Bolsonaro rally in Brasilia knocked a photographer off his ladder and kicked and punched him on the ground.Folha said it would resume coverage only when there were guarantees given to ensure the security of the journalists.Globo said in a statement sent to Bolsonaro’s national security adviser, Augusto Heleno, that the “aggressions” had been increasing and its reporters would no longer go to the residence because it was not safe.Heleno’s office said in a statement that it regularly studies the situation and has taken “sufficient measures to guarantee adequate security.”
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