The European Union approved a $580 billion aid package to help mitigate the consequences of coronavirus pandemic lockdowns in member countries.European Council President Charles Michel said Thursday the package was expected to be operational by June 1. Michel said it would help pay lost wages, keep companies afloat and fund health care systems.”We all agreed that the health and safety of our citizens comes first,” Michel said. “We also agreed to continue to follow the situation closely, in particular as we approach the holiday season and to coordinate as much as possible to ensure a gradual and orderly lifting of restrictions.”At Thursday’s virtual summit, the EU leaders also agreed on a recovery fund, without giving a specific figure, intended to rebuild the 27-nation bloc’s economies. However, officials said $1.1 trillion to $1.6 trillion would be needed.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the impact of the economic crisis following the coronavirus outbreak is unprecedented in modern times.”While the pandemic knows certainly no borders and is blind to nationalities, some countries are certainly hit harder than others,” she said. “And unless we act decisively and collectively, the recovery will not be symmetric and divergences between member states will increase. I am therefore very happy that the leaders this evening tasked the Commission with shaping our collective response to the crisis.”The funds are urgently needed in the hardest-hit European countries, Italy and Spain.       
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European governments are rolling out plans outlining how they will start to cautiously unlock their countries and fire up their economies, but the lifting of lockdowns is being complicated by a string of studies suggesting that even in cities and regions hit hard by the coronavirus, only a small fraction of the population has contracted the infection.That presents governments with exactly the same dilemma they faced when the virus first appeared: Lock down and wreck the economy to save lives and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed with the sick, or, allow the virus to do its worst and watch health care systems buckle and the death toll mount.There had been hope that sizable numbers — many more than confirmed cases — had contracted the virus, protecting them with some immunity, even if temporary, from reinfection. That would help ease the complications of gradually lifting restrictions.“The choice we face is no different to the one we faced at the beginning,” noted British commentator Daniel Finkelstein, a onetime adviser to former British Prime Minister John Major. “How long can we socially, economically and politically sustain the lockdown before we decide that the cure is worse than the disease?”It is a question every government is asking.Hopes of swift exits from lockdowns have been dealt a blow in Europe, as well as in the United States and Asia, by a series of studies indicating how few have been exposed so far to the coronavirus, thanks to the lockdowns. A study in California by public health officials and scientists at Stanford University and the University of Southern California suggests that 2.5%  to 4% of residents in Santa Clara County, south of San Francisco, and Los Angeles County have had the virus.FILE – Residents enjoy the weather despite an ongoing lockdown imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus, in Nantes, France, April 23, 2020.A French study suggests less than 6% of France’s population will have been infected by the coronavirus by the time the country begins to unlock slowly in May, according to a study led by the prestigious Pasteur Institute. That would mean few people would have developed any possible immunity by the time the lockdown ends, meaning that if people mix more, more will contract the virus and more will go on to develop the disease COVID-19.“To achieve a sufficient level of collective immunity to avoid a second wave, you need 70 percent of the population to be immune,” said one of the authors of the study, Simon Cauchemez. He and his fellow Pasteur Institute researchers warn that a rapid lifting of restrictions could prompt a second huge wave of the epidemic. Collective immunity, also known as herd immunity, means the virus is less likely to spread to people who aren’t immune, because there are not enough infectious carriers to transmit it.Officials across Europe also say that the lack of testing capacity, or even of reliable enough quick antibody tests, is further hampering their plans to ease home confinement. Without better and speedy testing, public health officials won’t know if, when or where a second wave of virus infections is taking shape, making it harder to take preemptive measures with contract tracing. There remains a fierce debate among public health officials, virologists and government leaders about whether prior infection affords people any immunity, and if so, for how long.The World Health Organization has said it’s not known whether people who have been exposed to the virus become immune to it, and if so, for how long. Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the WHO, told reporters this week that some preliminary studies suggest “some people will develop an immune response.” She added, “We don’t know if that actually confers immunity, which means that they’re totally protected.”Some European governments are trying to prepare their citizens for highly complicated unlocking plans, which will involve ambitious and long-term road maps to manage the impact of the unprecedented medical, economic and social stress the pandemic has caused.In Britain, the government’s medical and scientific advisers say that it is highly unlikely that a large percentage of people have already been infected. Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, said at a news conference that Britain will have to live with disruptive social measures for at least the rest of the year, saying it is “wholly unrealistic” to expect life will return to normal anytime soon.FILE – A woman takes photos of flowers in a park in London, April 22, 2020, as the lockdown in Britain continues due to the coronvirus pandemic.“This disease is not going to be eradicated; it is not going to disappear,” he said at the government’s daily coronavirus briefing. “So, we have to accept that we are working with a disease that we are going to be with globally … for the foreseeable future,” he added. He warned that the chance of having a vaccine, or even highly effective therapy for COVID-19, within the next calendar year was “incredibly small.”As the government remains highly cautious, Conservative lawmakers are becoming restive, warning midweek that its “safety-first” strategy was putting tens of thousands of businesses at risk. Senior Conservative lawmaker Charles Walker said, “There has got to be an economy to go back to. All MPs right now are dealing with dozens, if not hundreds, of local businesses that are fearing for their future.”  Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, is also coming under mounting pressure to ease restrictions quickly. She said Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic is “still at the beginning” and warned, “We will be living with this virus for a long time.” Merkel told the country’s parliament that she understood public frustration and the urge to relax coronavirus restrictions as soon as possible, but moving too fast, she added, risked setting back what had already been achieved with the restrictions.“Let us not squander what we have achieved and risk a setback. It would be a shame if premature hope ultimately punishes us all,” she added. Germany has the fifth-highest COVID-19 caseload behind the United States, Spain, Italy and France, but extensive and early testing has allowed fatalities to remain low. The country’s authorities have reported more than 150,700 infections and 5,354 deaths to date.The problem for all governments is they are running out of money to support their deflated economies. And Europeans are showing signs of tiring with the lockdowns and draconian restrictions. A study of data this week by Mannheim University in Germany suggests that the proportion of people avoiding friends and relatives has slipped from nearly 70 percent maintaining strict social distancing to less than 50 percent.FILE – People wind-skate at the Theresienwiese, site of the annual Oktoberfest beer festival in Munich, southern Germany, April 23, 2020. This year’s Oktoberfest has already been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.Most European governments have started to offer some concessions and are feeling their way nervously to relaxing some restrictions. In Germany, the latest case figures show that people who are recovering outnumber new infections. “It is precisely because the figures give rise to hope that I feel obliged to say that this interim result is fragile. We are on thin ice, the thinnest ice even,” Merkel told lawmakers.Nonetheless, Germany’s gradual easing of restrictions will see schools and hairdressers allowed to reopen on May 4. And stores no bigger than 800 square meters were permitted to resume business this week, along with bookshops and car showrooms.In the coming days, France too will present a plan detailing how slowly to unwind its lockdown after May 11. Protective masks, increased testing and maintaining social distancing will likely be highlighted, say officials. French retailers are to be allowed to restart their business on May 11, although with some curbs in areas with high infection rates.The easing comes as the government of President Emmanuel Macron has come under mounting pressure to get the economy running again. Restrictions may remain in place on traveling between regions.Italy has earmarked May 4 for relaxing some quarantine restrictions. Pressure has mounted on Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to get the country working again, with southern regions reporting zero infections. Across the nation, the numbers of new infections are declining daily. But problems remain in the north of the country, especially in Lombardy, the hardest-hit Italian region of all and the country’s commercial and manufacturing powerhouse, which accounts for a quarter of Italy’s GDP.Italy’s representative on the executive board of the WHO, Walter Ricciardi, has warned it would be highly premature to ease Lombardy’s lockdown. “May 4 is just too optimistic for Lombardy,” he said. Stefano Patuanelli, Italy’s economic development minister, has argued publicly for a patchwork approach, with regions with fewer cases being allowed to lift lockdown restrictions sooner.Some southern governors have warned that if a lockdown is not maintained on Lombardy and another hard-hit northeastern region, Marche, they will bar entry into their territories to anyone arriving from the north.
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A new World Bank study predicts remittances sent home by migrant workers from low- and middle-income countries may plummet by one-fifth this year, prompted by the coronavirus-driven global economic downturn.In Europe, that translates into billions of dollars lost to families in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. Shuttered shops and empty sidewalks on the normally bustling Avenue de Paris in Montreuil. (L. Bryant/VOA)Almost every business in the Paris suburb of Montreuil is shuttered on what is a normally bustling street — except for the Western Union money transfer office. Even so, it is seeing only a trickle of customers.  Retiree Boubacar Baka is sending his usual quarterly payment back to his family in Abidjan. He said it’s not much — times are tight. But he said his family has to eat.  With its many African residents, especially from Mali, Montreuil is sometimes called “Little Bamako.” On this day,  Western Union customer Sidi Djiabate, who is from Mali, has business to do.  Djiabate is sending a small sum to family in western Mali as a Ramadan gift. He said he is an office clerk here, and his job is secure. But he says times are tough in his homeland, where the coronavirus has also arrived. With Mali’s borders closed to slow the pandemic, he says people lack basics like sugar.  France is one of Europe’s biggest exporters of migrant worker remittances. The African diaspora here, estimated at 3.6 million people, sent more than $10 billion home in 2017.  Graffiti in the Paris suburb of Montreuil, nicknamed ‘little Bamako’ because of its large Malian diaspora. (L. Bryant/VOA)But coronavirus-triggered layoffs and lost wages are affecting those transfers. Staff at the Montreuil Western Union declined to be interviewed but said their clientele has dropped sharply in recent weeks.  There are other reasons for the slowdown in remittances. One is that a number of money transfer offices are closed under the current shutdown. Companies like Western Union have launched communications campaigns urging clients to send payments via internet or phone app.  But not everyone has a computer or smartphone.  A market in the Paris suburb of Saint Denis before the lockdown. (L. Bryant/VOA)Laurent Russier, mayor of the nearby town of Saint-Denis where about a third of the population is foreign born, said some remittances are going the other way, as well. He said migrant workers who have lost their jobs here are getting money from families back home.  The World Bank forecasts Africa alone could lose more than $11 billion in remittances from its diaspora this year, even as experts fear foreign investment and aid could also drop.     
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The Novosibirsk-based news website Taiga.info recently published an interview with a woman who told the independent outlet that she called an ambulance after experiencing severe flu-like symptoms that she feared could be COVID-19. The paramedics who showed up had no gloves, masks, or other personal protective equipment (PPE), she said.
 
“The management of Novosibirsk’s ambulance service wrote a complaint to the prosecutor’s office and [state media-monitoring agency] Roskomnadzor,” the Siberian website’s editor, Aleksei Mazur, told RFE/RL. “A few days later, an ambulance paramedic who had been handling possible coronavirus infections was diagnosed with COVID-19. It turned out he had only a normal mask and had not been issued a respirator.”
 
Earlier this month, St. Petersburg journalist Tatyana Voltskaya, who writes for RFE/RL’s Russian Service, published an interview with a local doctor  who warned of a looming shortage of ventilators and qualified emergency doctors in the city. The doctor, concerned about possible retribution for speaking out, insisted that his name be withheld.
 
Days after the interview was published, Voltskaya received a phone call from a police investigator. “He immediately asked me to reveal my source,” Voltskaya said. “I refused.”
 
Voltskaya said the investigator claimed that he only wanted to make sure the hospital where the doctor worked had adequate supplies.
 
“The investigator said that Bastrykin was interested in the interview,” she recalled, referring to the head of the federal Investigative Committee, Aleksandr Bastrykin. “If that is true, then get to work! They should put on masks and go and see [what is going on]…. Is that so hard? Why drag me into it?”
 
A few days later, local state-friendly media reported that St. Petersburg Governor Aleksandr Beglov had warned that the city faced a dire shortage of ventilators and PPE for medical workers.FILE – People watch a broadcast of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address to the nation on measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus, in a cafe in Omsk, Russia, March 25, 2020.Real pressure on ‘fake news’
 
Independent journalists across Russia are facing similar encounters as they work to cover the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian government’s efforts to cope with it. On March 31, even before the government had announced a general lockdown and other emergency measures, the legislature adopted a law criminalizing the distribution of “fake information” about the health crisis, a measure that President Vladimir Putin signed into law on April 1.
 
On April 4, St. Petersburg activist Anna Shushpanova became the first person to face investigation under the law because of a social-media post sharing concerns about the adequacy of hygiene measures at a local hospital.
 
“Our deputies live in a world that they have spent years creating in their minds — a world in which information that is disseminated in the interests of their bosses is ‘correct’ information,” said Viktor Muchnik, editor in chief of the TV2 information agency in the Siberian city of Tomsk. “And any ‘incorrect’ information is distributed to help their bosses’ enemies. And they can’t imagine any other kind of information, so they need to put an end to all this ‘fake information’ that is coming either from abroad or from some sort of [opposition leader Alexey] Navalny or some other enemies of the regime.”
 
“And the bosses, of course, welcome any such initiatives,” he concluded. “It is obvious why this is being done.”
 
In such a climate, Muchnik said, “doctors are really frightened.” He recently interviewed one doctor who told him “everything was normal” at her hospital. Later that night, however, she called him back and told him the hospital was critically short of qualified personnel. “Earlier, I had caught her at work, and she was not able to speak honestly,” he said.
 
Maria Bukhtuyeva, editor in chief of the TVK television company in Krasnoyarsk, said the best way to combat rumors and speculation would be for the authorities to work better with the media. “Our politicians and parliamentarians and law enforcement personnel and others involved in this matter locally have lost the ability to make independent decisions and therefore they are not in a position to give adequate, timely commentary [to the media],” she said. “What can be prosecuted as ‘fake news’? Whatever they want.”FILE – Workers in protective suits spray disinfectant in the center of Grozny, capital of Russia’s Chechnya region, April 6, 2020. Ramzan Kadyrov, the region’s strongman, has taken extreme measures to fight the spread of the coronavirus in Chechnya.And more than pressure…
 
In addition to the intimidating law on “fake news,” some Russian regional figures have been intimidating journalists more directly. Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, recently accused journalists of the independent Novaya gazeta of being “traitors.” Shortly after he called an article about the region’s COVID-19 crisis “absurd,” the Russian authorities forced Novaya Gazeta to take it off the Internet.
 
Earlier in April, Kadyrov issued a video in which he threatened the head of RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service, Aslan Doukaev, for an article about how the region’s farmers are struggling through the pandemic. “The head of that region has been quite effective at using extrajudicial means to resolve issues,” Taiga.info’s Mazur said, referring to Kadyrov. “But the main complaint shouldn’t be to him, but to the federal authorities.”
 
Kadyrov “has always tended to test the limits of the laws and instructions. When you draw a line in the sand for him, he crosses it and waits to see what happens. When nothing happens, he goes further,” he said. “It’s a shame that the federal government and the [president] put up with this.”
 
There are similar examples elsewhere in Russia. In an interview with state media on April 17, Tomsk region Governor Sergei Zhvachkin warned those who “smear the authorities with dirt” during a “semi-war period.”
 
“The government knows your names and where you live,” he said. “Don’t be offended, but if you cross the line, we will be forced to stop you…. Don’t play around.”
 
TV2’s Muchnik and his team are used to working under government pressure. The company’s flagship TV station was closed down in 2014 after a campaign against it by local officials.
 
“If this had happened in the late 1990s or early 2000s, we would have had the people who were responsible in our studio, constantly communicating with our viewers,” he said. “We would have found ways to convey in detail what was happening. And not only us — there were many media outlets who were competing with one another.
 
“But over a period of many years, the media space has been made flat and regulated,” he concluded. “Of course, we have our sources of information, but the people now are in a panic and a lot of unreliable information is out there. We have to spend a lot of time checking things. And we also have to check official information, of course.”
 Written by Robert Coalson based on reporting by Aleksandr Molchanov of the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service. 
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Married gay couple Dawid Mycek and Jakub Kwiecinski say they face frequent abuse in Poland for being part of a so-called “homosexual plague.””So we thought that if we are dealing right now with a real plague (the new coronavirus) we could help protect people from this plague and do something good,” said 37-year-old Kwiecinski.He and his husband gave out 300 rainbow face masks on the streets of the northern Polish city of Gdansk this month to help people protect themselves from COVID 19 and raise awareness of the situation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the country.A video of them distributing the masks was watched on Facebook over 2 million times.Poland has reported 10,346 cases of the coronavirus and 435 deaths, and wearing a face mask is mandatory in public spaces.Kwiecinski and Mycek, 35, who married in Portugal, said reactions to their masks were overwhelmingly positive, but the general attitude towards LGBT people in Poland has become more hostile in recent years.In Poland, which doesn’t recognize any form of same-sex union, parades to celebrate LGBT life became violent flashpoints last year in the buildup to October elections.The country is due to hold presidential elections on May 10.”The situation of LGBT people in Poland is getting worse I would say day by day, we have the right-wing in power… the Law and Justice party and they are against LGBT,” Kwiecinski said.”They also encourage people to attack us, to insult us.”A spokeswoman for the ruling conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) did not respond to requests for comment.PiS officials have previously said they are not against gay couples, they just want them to exist as couples in private.Kwiecinski and Mycek said in recent years they have received death threats from 80 people.”We’ve heard many times in Poland from people and from Polish bishops, and from Polish politicians that we are a plague,” Kwiecinski said referring to comments made by the archbishop of Krakow, Marek Jedraszewski last August.Jedraszewki described Poland as under siege from a “rainbow plague” of gay rights campaigners he compared to Poland’s former Communist rulers. 
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned German lawmakers some regions in the nation were moving too quickly to ease COVID-19 restrictions, risking a setback to the progress the country has made in getting the virus under control.In an address to the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, Merkel said she fully supports the decision made last week – after consultations with regional governors – to begin easing some restrictions, such as allowing smaller businesses to reopen. But she said she is concerned some areas are relaxing those rules too quickly.Merkel said nobody likes to hear it but “we are not living in the final phase of the pandemic, but still at the beginning.” She said Germany’s early success bought them time that has been used to bolster the health care system and moving too quickly could set all that back.Turning the European Union, the German chancellor said in the spirit of solidarity, Germany should be willing to contribute more to the EU budget to help other nations in the region recover economically. 
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the coronavirus outbreak is “fast becoming a human rights crisis.”In a statement Thursday, he called on governments to ensure that health care is available and accessible to all people, that economic aid packages help those most affected, and that everyone has the ability to obtain food, water and housing.Women wearing face masks ride past the Opera House in Hanoi on April 23, 2020, as Vietnam eased its nationwide social isolation efforts.“We have seen how the virus does not discriminate, but its impacts do — exposing deep weaknesses in the delivery of public services and structural inequalities that impede access to them.  We must make sure they are properly addressed in the response,” Guterres said.He added: “And in all we do, let’s never forget: The threat is the virus, not people.”The U.N. chief’s message comes as world health officials warn that while some countries have seen great progress and are starting to relax lockdown measures, the fight against the virus is very much not over.”Make no mistake: We have a long way to go. This virus will be with us for a long time,” said World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.  “Most countries are still in the early stages of their epidemics. And some that were affected early in the pandemic are now starting to see a resurgence in cases.”U.S. health officials also are urging the public to look ahead to the next flu season and get flu shots in order to help mitigate a potential huge strain on health resources if there are large numbers of flu and coronavirus patients at the same time.With the illnesses sharing similar symptoms, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told reporters, “We’re going to have to distinguish between which is flu and which is the coronavirus.”“I need them to help now to best prepare us by getting the flu vaccine and taking flu out of the picture,” he said.Many countries remain focused on stopping the current outbreak with stay-at-home measures in place.Those restrictions are complicating usual routines for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that starts this week.Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, banned tens of millions of people who live in big cities from traveling home. Officials in the capital city of Jakarta extended lockdown restrictions until May 22 and asked Muslims to forego attending mosques.Turkey’s health minister urged similar measures, saying people should put off the tradition of holding fast-breaking meals with friends and family for Ramadan until next year.A man wearing a face mask walks at sunset in a park in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on April 19, 2020.Turkey has been instituting weekend curfews and has banned those younger than 20 and older than 65 from leaving their homes.Muslims in Malaysia’s capital also have been told to pray from home with their mosques closed.Pakistan is taking a different approach, ignoring pleas from doctors and keeping mosques open, though encouraging people to observe social distancing rules.The question of whether to allow people to gather for worship is being confronted in many countries, and among many religions.U.S. officials largely told people to avoid gathering for the Christian Easter holiday earlier this month, while some churches have defied state lockdown orders and held in-person services.A federal judge in California said Wednesday he would reject a request by three churches seeking a temporary restraining order to set aside the governor’s orders.  They argue the government is violating the constitutional First Amendment rights to freedom of religion and assembly.But the judge said in such a time of emergency, the government has the power to “provide emergency remedies, which may infringe on fundamental constitutional rights.”  
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Japanese health officials say 48 crew members of an Italian cruise ship docked in the port city of Nagasaki have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, including 14 cases confirmed Thursday.The Costa Atlantica and its 623 crew members have been docked in Nagasaki since January to undergo repairs by a unit of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry. The crew was tested for COVID-19 last week after the ship reported that one crew member had developed a cough and fever.The total number of infections include 34 crew members who were first confirmed on Wednesday. At least one crew member has been taken to a Nagasaki hospital, where he is currently on a ventilator. Health officials say they hope to test the remaining crew members by Friday.This is the second time Japan has dealt with a coronavirus outbreak onboard a cruise ship. The U.S.-flagged Diamond Princess cruise ship was quarantined in Yokohama after a passenger tested positive for the disease, but more than 700 passengers eventually tested positive.Japan has nearly 12,000 COVID-19 infections and nearly 300 deaths, not including the figures from the Diamond Princess. The nation is currently under a state of emergency.    
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Police in the Netherlands have released security camera video showing a thief who stole a prized Vincent van Gogh painting from a Dutch museum late last month.The video of the March 30 theft shows how the perpetrator used a sledgehammer to smash his way through reinforced glass doors at the Singer Laren Museum in Laren, Netherlands, east of Amsterdam.Police hope that publicizing the images will help them track down the thief who stole “The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884” while the museum was shut down due to coronavirus containment measures.Police have made no arrests in connection with the theft of the painting, which was on loan from the Groninger Museum when it was stolen, and it remains missing.The 25-by-57-centimeter oil-on-paper painting shows a person standing in a garden surrounded by trees with a church tower in the background.It dates to a time when Van Gogh had moved back to his family in a rural area of the Netherlands and painted the life he saw there, including his famous work “The Potato Eaters”, in mostly somber tones.The exact value of the missing painting is uncertain, but recent Van Gogh paintings have gone for tens of millions of dollars when sold at auction. 
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France’s parliament votes next week on plans to use a controversial tracing app to help fight the coronavirus, as the country eyes easing its lockdown next month.French Digital Affairs Minister Cedric O says the downloadable app would notify smartphone users when they cross people with COVID-19, helping authorities track and reduce the spread of the pandemic.In a video on the ruling party’s Facebook page, O said the so-called “Stop COVID” app will fully respect people’s liberties, and will be completely voluntary and anonymous. It also will be temporary — lasting only as long as the pandemic, he added.A man rides his bike in an empty street during a nationwide confinement to counter the COVID-19 in Paris, April 21, 2020.The government wants to launch the app on May 11, the date it has set to begin easing a two-month lockdown in the country. It initially announced a parliamentary debate on the technology, but that’s been changed to a vote, after major pushback from lawmakers.The app’s critics include ruling party member Guillaume Chiche, who told French TV the app would reveal people’s health status and lead to discrimination and exclusion.He’s not the only one worried.”We think that it is very dangerous for the government to say to French people that the solution will be this kind of application,” said Benoit Piedallu, a member of La Quadrature du Net, an advocacy group defending digital rights and freedoms.The potential problems he sees range from chances the app could infringe on individual liberties, to whether it would actually work effectively.”We think that the digital application is not the correct answer to this problem,” Piedallu said. “The government should buy masks, the government should open new hospitals. … There are a lot of other solutions than an application.”A recent poll showed eight in 10 French respondents said they would be willing to download the app. But Piedallu believes the numbers of those actually using it will likely be much smaller, and many seniors —who are among the most vulnerable to the coronavirus — don’t have smartphones.France isn’t the only European country working on tracing apps and sparking similar rights debates, including in neighboring Germany. Reports say the French government is also pushing Apple to allow the app to work on its iPhones without built-in privacy measures.  
 
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French President Emmanuel Macron told the Australian prime minister now was not the time for an international investigation into the coronavirus pandemic and that the urgency was to act in unison before looking for who was at fault, an official said.
 
“He says he agrees that there have been some issues at the start, but that the urgency is for cohesion, that it is no time to talk about this, while reaffirming the need for transparency for all players, not only the WHO,” an Elysee official told Reuters on Wednesday.
 
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has sought support for an international investigation into the pandemic in phone calls with U.S. President Donald Trump and the German and French leaders overnight, the government said on Wednesday.
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British lawmakers upended 700 years of history on Wednesday, grilling stand-in leader Dominic Raab by video link in an unprecedented but largely successful ‘hybrid parliament’ session forced by the coronavirus outbreak.
 
As Britain endures its fifth week of a national lockdown, with businesses shuttered and citizens ordered to stay at home, parliament has returned from an extended Easter break in a very unfamiliar form.
 
A maximum of 50 lawmakers are physically allowed in the debating chamber, with another 120 permitted to join in via Zoom video conference beamed onto television screens dotted around the walls of the ornate wood-panelled room.
 
Raab, deputising for Prime Minister Boris Johnson who is recovering from a spell in intensive care with COVID-19, faced questions from lawmakers – absent the usual jeering in the crowded chamber, replaced by an orderly and largely glitch-free interrogation.
 
Earlier, speaker Lindsay Hoyle said he had his “fingers crossed” that the new arrangement would work – and it mostly did.
 
A couple of early questions in the session just before Raab’s question time were partly inaudible, and one questioner was unable to connect, but the overall process was not derailed.
 
Lawmakers, dressed formally in line with the Commons’ usual dress code, quizzed Raab from their homes, showing off an array of artwork, wallpaper – and even a pair of signed soccer balls.
 
Raab spoke from the debating chamber, where a handful of other lawmakers sat on the green benches, observing social-distancing markers taped on the carpet. The leader of the opposition Labour Party Keir Starmer also attended in person.
 
One lengthy question was inadvertently cut short, leaving lawmaker Peter Bone’s face animatedly reaching the climax of his interrogation on screen without audio.
 
Raab retorted: “I’m pretty sure I got the gist!”
 
Prior to the session, lawmakers had expressed concerns that the choreographed question session would blunt their ability to skewer ministers with unexpected follow-up questions.
 
“The only thing that brings any fear to ministers is the unknown supplementary,” former cabinet minister Liam Fox said on Tuesday in a debate on the new measures.
 
After Raab finishes, health minister Matt Hancock will make a statement on the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
 
The new arrangement is so-far limited to questioning ministers, although officials are looking at ways that legislation can be discussed and even voted upon digitally.
 
“It’s symbolic, isn’t it? 700 years of working, and then suddenly we change to something new,” Hoyle told Sky News. “This is a starting point, this isn’t the end. What we want is a robust system that we build up from this point.” 
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British Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced Tuesday that two separate British research teams are making significant progress on a COVID-19 vaccine, with one them planning to run trials on people on Thursday.At a news briefing in London, Hancock said researchers at both the Imperial College of London and Oxford University had are moving into the trial stage with their potential vaccines.He said the Oxford team, which has been working closely with Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) was prepared to begin conducting clinical trials on people this week. He said the government is allocating about $25 million to fund their effort.He said the government is also allocating more than $27 million to Imperial College to fund phase two of its clinical trials, and for it to start a phase three trial.Hancock said normally it would take years to get to this stage of vaccine development. He said Britain will invest heavily in manufacturing capability so that, in event one of the vaccines is proven effective, they can quickly make it available. 
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As Europe counts the human and economic costs of the coronavirus lockdowns, Hungary appears to have gotten off lightly. It has nearly 2,100 reported cases and 213 deaths so far, compared to tens of thousands in the worst-hit countries. Nevertheless, economists predict the country’s GDP will shrink by close to 10 percent. As Henry Ridgwell reports, many workers are having to adapt quickly to the dramatically changing labor market in the nation of nearly 10 million people. Gabor Ancsin and Justin Spike in Budapest also contributed to this report.
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Britain is marking Queen Elizabeth II’s 94th birthday with silence Tuesday, as the nation in lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic forgoes the usual gun salutes and ringing of bells. With thousands dead amid the outbreak, the monarch decided that the celebratory display of military firepower would not be appropriate. Nor will there be a celebratory peal of bells at Westminster Abbey, as the church where the queen was married and crowned is currently closed. The royal family took to social media to share images of Elizabeth as she marks the occasion — but in keeping with social distancing rules, there will be no visits. The queen will mark the day with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, 98, at Windsor Castle in Berkshire.  
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Spain, with one of the highest death tolls from coronavirus, enacted strict social-distancing measures in mid-March. But with the number of infections and deaths now slowing, the prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, has announced the kingdom is cautiously moving to relax those measures.  In this report narrated by Jonathan Spier, Alfonso Beato in Barcelona says Spaniards are anxiously awaiting a return – even if it is a slow one – to normal life.
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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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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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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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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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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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