The European Parliament on Thursday evening passed a $40 billion emergency package to help countries and their citizens most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.Only President David Sassoli returned to the building from protective quarantine for the extraordinary plenary session, while members cast their vote by email.The so-called Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative is intended to help people and businesses cope with the crisis.The package includes an extension of the EU Solidarity Fund for public health emergencies in Europe.Members of European Parliament also approved temporary suspension, until October, of an EU rule requiring air carriers to use 80 percent or more of their flight slots during a year to keep them.  
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The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced narcoterrorism charges against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other top officials, accusing them of collaborating with a leftist Colombian guerrilla group to traffic cocaine to the United States.The charges are likely to heighten tensions between the United States and Venezuela.  Relations deteriorated last year after the Trump administration recognized Maduro’s electoral rival as the country’s interim president and later imposed sweeping economic sanctions designed to remove Maduro from office.In a sweeping indictment unsealed in New York, prosecutors accused Maduro of running a drug cartel in partnership with two Colombian guerrilla leaders and several top Venezuelan officials, including the speaker of Venezuela’s national assembly; a former director of military intelligence; and a former general in the Venezuelan armed forces. The four men face charges of participating in a narcoterrorism conspiracy, conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and two weapons-related charges.  In a separate indictment and criminal complaint, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine on board an aircraft registered in the United States, while Supreme Court Chief Justice Maikel Jose Moreno Perez was accused of money laundering in connection with receiving tens of millions of dollars and bribes to fix dozens of civil and criminal cases in Venezuela.In all, 15 current and former Venezuelan officials, along with two leaders of the Colombian FARC group, were indicted. The dramatic charges were announced by Attorney General William Barr and other senior law enforcement officials at a virtual press conference.  “Today’s announcement is focused on rooting out the extensive corruption within the Venezuelan government — a system constructed and controlled to enrich those at the highest levels of the government,” Barr said. “The United States will not allow these corrupt Venezuelan officials to use the U.S. banking system to move their illicit proceeds from South America nor further their criminal schemes.” This image provided by the U.S. Department of Justice shows a poster of Venezuelan leaders, March 26, 2020. The U.S. Justice Department has indicted Venezuela’s socialist leader Nicolás Maduro and several key aides on charges of narcoterrorism.On Twitter, Maduro accused the United States and Colombia of conspiring against Venezuela.It is only the second time in recent decades that the Justice Department has indicted a sitting foreign head of state, though one not officially recognized. In 1988, the Justice Department indicted Manuel Noriega, then the military ruler of Panama, on drug trafficking charges.  He was captured the following year during the U.S. invasion of Panama and subsequently spent 17 years in prison in the United States.   Barr said the United States expects “eventually to gain custody” of Maduro, Venezuela’s president since 2013, and his associates, and will explore all options to arrest them. But Barr declined to say whether the United States would send in the military to capture them. “Some of them do travel, and that may be an opportunity,” Barr said. “Hopefully, the Venezuelan people will see what’s going on and eventually gain control.”The State Department announced a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest and or conviction of Maduro.  Awards of up to $10 million were also announced for four other officials wanted by the Justice Department. In a statement, the department said the officials “violated the public trust by facilitating shipments of narcotics from Venezuela, including control over planes that leave from a Venezuelan air base.”FARC signed a peace deal with the Colombian government in 2016, ending more than 50 years of conflict.  But a group of 2,500 FARC dissidents, backed by the Maduro regime, remains involved in trafficking cocaine from Colombia to the United States via Venezuela and Central America, officials said.  The indictment alleges that Maduro began cultivating FARC as early as 2006 when he was foreign minister and agreed to help the group in exchange for receiving $5 million.  He later agreed to keep the Venezuelan border open to the group to facilitate its drug trafficking, according to U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York.”The scope and magnitude of the drug trafficking alleged was made possible only because Maduro and others corrupted the institutions of Venezuela and provided political and military protection for the rampant narcoterrorism crimes described in our charges,” Berman told reporters via video link. “As alleged, Maduro and the other defendants expressly intended to flood the United States with cocaine in order to undermine the health and well-being of our nation,” Berman said.  “Maduro very deliberately deployed cocaine as a weapon.” 
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Spain is reeling under the onslaught of the coronavirus, with fatalities surpassing those of China, the health system collapsing and retirement homes becoming open graves. Hospitals are running out of critical supplies, and about a third of medical staff have been contaminated by the highly contagious virus, carried by tens of thousands of infected people cramming clinics in Madrid, Barcelona and other large cities.   “Intensive care units and hospitals are on the verge of collapse,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told Congress on Wednesday evening, when he asked for his emergency powers to be extended until April 12.   Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez holds a videoconference with some of his ministers over the coronavirus outbreak, at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid, March 13, 2020.He also asked Congress for $350 billion in emergency funding to confront the crisis and cushion the country against the economic consequences of confining people to their homes for a month. The government expects three months of economic paralysis, which could cause a 9.7% drop in GDP this year and a 10% rise in its deficit, according to Goldman Sachs. “There are more dark and uncertain days ahead,” Sanchez said before an almost empty congressional chamber. Most lawmakers could not attend because of quarantines and other travel restrictions. Several leading ministers have caught the virus. Spain’s coronavirus cases have risen to 48,000 this week, according to the health ministry. But Social Security Minister Jose Luis Escriva has said that almost twice that number could yet be infected, as there are 83,000 workers reporting coronavirus symptoms who have not yet been diagnosed. Twenty-five percent of hospital workers have contracted coronavirus, according to the health ministry, which reports that 5,400 medical staff have been contaminated on an accelerating scale, with 2,000 falling ill in the past two days.   Patients are being neglected at Madrid’s Gregorio Marañon hospital, where videos broadcast over national television have shown patients strewn across the floor. A nurse at the hospital told reporters that they are out of essential supplies and that she and other medical staff are using garbage bags as protective gowns.   Despite overstretched resources, health workers in Spain have managed to cure more than 5,000 coronavirus patients, who have been discharged, according to the health ministry. Spain’s King Felipe VI visits a military hospital set up at the IFEMA conference center in Madrid, March 26, 2020.The daily death toll was reported to be dropping Thursday, although Spain’s deaths have surpassed the 4,000 mark, well above the 3,200 reported in China, according to a tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University in the United States. Italy remains the worst-hit country with more than 8,000 fatalities and more than 80,000 confirmed cases, almost equal to China’s figure.  Coronavirus deaths have mostly struck people older than 70, considered the most vulnerable age group. Military emergency teams inspecting retirement homes in Madrid and other cities have found them abandoned by staff and with most of the residents dead in their beds. “Survivors mingled among cadavers,” an army officer told reporters. Army engineering units have set up field hospitals in parks and turned empty warehouses, fair pavilions and other public spaces into makeshift clinics to relieve the overcrowded hospitals. This has led to ugly scenes in some neighborhoods, where protests have erupted over the busing-in of potentially contaminated people. A youth gang in the city of La Linea, which has until now been a zone of low contamination, fought police in an attempt to block buses bringing groups of elderly citizens from badly hit regions. In a first-ever electronic vote, Congress unanimously passed the 15-day extension of emergency powers and funding requested by the government. But Sanchez faced strong criticism from opposition parties, which accused his administration of “dithering” and being late to act despite clear warning signs from health experts weeks before the pandemic broke out. Far-right leader Santiago Abascal held separatist authorities in Catalonia responsible for the spiraling number of coronavirus cases reported in Barcelona, where they tried to block a deployment of the army. 
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As Italy continues to battle the coronavirus, a patient who contracted the virus earlier this month warns the world to be careful because the virus can be passed by those who show no symptoms.Italy’s rate of coronavirus infection slowed for a fourth day Thursday, with many hopeful that the long lockdown is providing the results everyone has been praying for.  Authorities are cautious, though, asking Italians not to lower their guard and continue to respect the rules.  One hospitalized patient is speaking about his experience. Fausto Rossi, 38, started feeling unwell with a fever March 5 and four days later he was taken to Santa Maria Goretti Hospital in the city of Latina, where he tested positive for the coronavirus.  He says, “the problem with this virus is when it gets to your lungs because it attacks them aggressively and causes a very serious pneumonia with an extremely high percentage of death.”  He stressed that this pneumonia is devastating.He said, “It’s incredibly strong and has a very high mortality rate.” He added that, if he suffered from other ailments or was of a different age, he would probably not be here today.  “It’s a horrible feeling not to be able to breathe,” he said.Rossi, who is still in the hospital, but has been released from the intensive care unit and hopes to soon return to his family at home, said everyone in Italy underestimated this virus. He said he hopes this pandemic will end as quickly as possible so that everyone can return to their normal lives. He offered his advice.People wear masks as they line up to enter a pharmacy, in Rome, March 16, 2020.People must respect the restrictive measures that have been put in place, leaving the house only for primary needs; they must stay at home and avoid social contact with others because “this virus walks on his own legs of those who have no symptoms, so anyone could have it.”Rossi is very grateful towards those who treated him.”My thanks go to all the doctors and nurses of the hospital’s infectious diseases unit, they are the true heroes of this battle. Every day they work in extreme conditions, psychologically under pressure and with the constant fear of contracting the virus and of not being able to return home to their families,” he said.This Italian coronavirus patient says his days in the hospital were passed in great solitude with no family members nearby and no one to support him.  He said the experience has changed his life and taught him to appreciate the small things he took for granted: “living, breathing, a walk, a hug, a glass of wine, freedom.”
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Illegal migration flows to Greece have dropped to their lowest point since the start of the year, counting upwards of 100 cases this week, after the governments in Athens and Ankara lock down their countries to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
 
The dramatic decrease offers some respite for Greece, which has been struggling to fend off thousands of asylum seekers from streaming into the country after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in late February he no longer would block their access to Europe.
 
Faced with a burgeoning health crisis, the Turkish leader rescinded his orders last week. By that time, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu explained Thursday, some 150,600 migrants and refugees had managed to enter Greece — the biggest migrant push to the West since more than 1 million, mainly Syrian refugees, fled to Europe to escape their country’s civil war in 2016.  
 
Athens refutes the figures, and United Nations’ data show the total number of migrant entries to Greece totaling 9,486 since the start of the year. Just 105 were recorded in the last week, 10 times less than the 1,288 documented in early March, according to the U.N.’s refugee agency.
 
Coast guard and migration officials are calling the swoon “dramatic,” saying it is among the largest drop-offs since the EU and Turkey stitched together a landmark deal to limit the 2016 refugee crisis.“We’re seeing zip, zilch, zero rubber rafts for days now,” said a senior coast guard official on Lesbos, an island on the forefront of Europe’s lingering migration crisis. “Even so,” the official said on the condition of anonymity, “we remain vigilant.”
 Many refugees are arriving at Istanbul’s bus station broke, exhausted and often sick after failing to cross the border into Greece. Formal aid organizations or journalists are not on the scene, March 20, 2020. (Courtesy of aid workers)NATO allies Greece and Turkey have been at loggerheads for years over conflicting sea and air rights, mainly in the oil and mineral-rich Aegean Sea. Athens frequently has accused Erdogan of using the more than 3 million refugees in his country to pressure the EU and Washington into supporting its own military offensive in the nine-year Syrian war.
 
Now that migratory pressures having eased, though, officials in the Greek capital are scrambling to shield more than 100,000 asylums seekers trapped in the country since a host of Balkan states sealed their borders and threw up steel fences to stop them from reaching the heart of Europe during the 2016 refugee crisis. More than 40,000 refugees are crammed in unsanitary and overcrowded camps on a host of Aegean islands.
 
“We are enforcing the strictest possible controls, even tougher than those imposed on the rest of the population in Greece, to cope with the situation,” Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis said.
 
But Athens is refusing to heed pressure from the EU to move migrants from five island camps to the Greek mainland – a move the government fears could enflame the spread of coronavirus.
 
To date no cases of COVID-19 have been reported among Greece’s community of refugees and migrants.
 
On Thursday, Greek Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said she was working with the Greek government “to agree on an emergency plan to help reduce the risk as much as possible in the overcrowded hotspots on the islands.”
 
She suggested the plan could include relocating the most susceptible to the virus – mainly the disabled, elderly and chronically ill.  
 
Earlier this month, the government imposed strict restrictions on the movement of asylum seekers in camps. It also has designs to turn at least two of the five Aegean camps into enclosed facilities.
 
Aid workers and human rights advocates have been critical of the measures, warning that if the virus spreads to the camps, it could decimate the migrant communities.
“The government’s strategy is to lock everyone in one place and throw away the key,” said Eva Cossé, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“Thousands of people, including older people, those with chronic diseases, children… pregnant women, new mothers, and people with disabilities, are trapped in dangerously overcrowded, deplorable conditions on the islands amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” Human Rights Watch said.“Forcing asylum seekers to remain in conditions that violate their rights and are harmful to their well-being, health, and dignity cannot be justified on grounds of public health,” the international, New York-based non-governmental organization said in a statement.
    
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A 72-year-old woman diagnosed with the coronavirus died in Armenia on Thursday, the Health Ministry’s spokeswoman said, reporting the country’s first death related to the virus.Armenia, a country of around 3 million people, had reported 290 coronavirus cases as of Thursday, the highest number among countries in the South Caucasus region.
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The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced narco-terrorism and other criminal charges against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and 14 other current and former officials of the country, accusing them of collaborating with a leftist Colombian guerrilla group involved trafficking cocaine to the United State.
 
Maduro was named in a four-count indictment unsealed in New York along with Diosdado Cabello Rondón, the speaker of Venezuela’s national assembly; Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, a former director of military intelligence; and a former Clíver Antonio Alcalá Cordones, a former general in the Venezuelan armed forces. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez and Supreme Court Chief Justice Maikel Jose Moreno Perez were indicated separately in Washington and Florida.  
 
The dramatic charges were announced by Attorney General William Barr and other senior law enforcement officials at a virtual press conference.   
 
“Today’s announcement is focused on rooting out the extensive corruption within the Venezuelan government – a system constructed and controlled to enrich those at the highest levels of the government,” Barr said. “The United States will not allow these corrupt Venezuelan officials to use the U.S. banking system to move their illicit proceeds from South America nor further their criminal schemes.”  
 
The United States does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.  Last year the Trump administration officially recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the country’s interim head of state.  Most European countries followed suit.   
 
It is only the second time in recent decades that the Justice Department has indicted a sitting albeit not officially recognized foreign head of state.  In 1988, the Justice Department charged Manuel Noriega, the military ruler of Panama.  
 
The State Department announced a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest and or conviction of Maduro. Awards of up to $10 million were also announced for four other officials wanted by the Justice Department.  
 
The charges accuse Maduro, Venezuela’s president since 2013, and his top lieutenants of running “a narcoterrorism partnership” with the Colombian guerilla group FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), for the past 20 years. Two FARC leaders were also charged by the Justice Department in connection with the narco-terrorism conspiracy.   
 
FARC signed a peace deal with the Colombian government in 2016, ending more than 50 years of conflict.    But a dissident group of 2,500 FARC dissidents, backed by the Maduro regime, remains involved in trafficking cocaine from Colombia to the United States via Venezuela and Central America, officials said.  
 
“The scope and magnitude of the drug trafficking alleged was made possible only because Maduro and others corrupted the institutions of Venezuela and provided political and military protection for the rampant narco-terrorism crimes described in our charges,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York told reporters via video link.
 
“As alleged, Maduro and the other defendants expressly intended to flood the United States with cocaine in order to undermine the health and wellbeing of our nation,” Berman said.  “Maduro very deliberately deployed cocaine as a weapon.”
  
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In a redeveloped urban park in Lisbon, a “drive-thru” clinic is performing five-minute swab tests through car windows on people with coronavirus symptoms, as Portuguese authorities ramp up testing facilities to tackle the growing health emergency.Portugal reported on Thursday 3,544 confirmed cases of the virus since the start of the epidemic, with 60 deaths. That is still far below neighboring Spain or Italy, but the government expects the epidemic only to peak around mid-April.The model of mobile clinics now popping up across Europe and the Americas began in South Korea in February and has been recommended by the World Health Organization as a way of alleviating pressure on hospitals and reducing the risk of contagion by keeping patients in their cars.The Lisbon “drive-thru,” which opened on Monday and expects to perform 150 tests a day, is one of 10 new testing centers to be launched in coming weeks in Portugal.Portugal’s first such site, in the northern city of Porto where the country’s first coronavirus case was detected, started operations last week and now tests about 400 people a day.
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The South American nation of Bolivia has tightened restrictions already in place to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
 
Interim President Jeanine Anez said a state of public health emergency begins at midnight Thursday, and will last until April 15.
 
The declaration extends Bolivia’s border closure to April 15, two weeks beyond the previous date.  Anez said no one will be allowed to enter or leave the country during that time.  However, she reportedly has said there may be exceptions under special circumstances.
 
Anez says the declaration was also necessary because some people were not abiding by the 14-day quarantine, potentially increasing their chances of getting the virus.  
 
A new revision to the quarantine stipulates only one person per household can go out between 7 am and noon on weekdays.
 
Bolivia has more than 30 confirmed cases of coronavirus.
 
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From Caracas to Tehran, officials are calling on the Trump administration to ease crippling economic sanctions they contend are contributing to the growing death toll caused by the coronavirus pandemic.  The idea has gained support from prominent leftists in the U.S., including Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who say throwing a financial lifeline to some of the United States’ fiercest critics is worth it if lives can be saved.”It’s absolutely unconscionable to keep sanctions on at this moment,” Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, said in an interview. “The only moral, sane and legal thing to do is stop the madness that is crippling other countries’ health systems.”
But almost in the same breath, the same officials in Iran have rejected U.S. offers of aid — a sign to critics that scapegoating and pride, not U.S. policies, are causing immense harm.  American companies have been blocked from doing business with Iran and Venezuela for almost two years, after the Trump administration unilaterally pulled out of Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers and launched a campaign seeking to oust Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, for allegedly committing fraud in his 2018 re-election.The escalating restrictions have drastically reduced oil revenue in both countries and led to tensions that, in the case of Iran, culminated in a January drone strike that killed a top Iranian general.  U.S. officials have brushed aside the criticism, saying that the sanctions allow the delivery of food and medicine. But most experts say shipments don’t materialize as Western companies are leery of doing business with either of the two governments.”In most cases, compliance by banks makes it virtually impossible to do business,” said Jason Poblete, a sanctions lawyer in Washington who has represented American citizens held in Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.  Iran has reported more than 1,810 coronavirus deaths as of Monday, the fourth-highest national total in the world, and its government argues U.S. sanctions have exacerbated the outbreak. It has been supported by China and Russia in calling for sanctions to be lifted. The European Union’s top foreign policy chief on Monday called on the U.S. to make clear its sanctions don’t target humanitarian aid.  “Even amid this pandemic, the U.S. government has vengefully refused to lift its unlawful and collective punishment, making it virtually impossible for us to even buy medicine,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a video statement.  He also published on Twitter a list of the supplies that Iran urgently needs, including 172 million masks and 1,000 ventilators.”Viruses don’t discriminate. Nor should humankind,” he wrote.U.S. officials say providing sanctions relief to Iran would only fund corruption and terrorist activities, not reach people in need. They point out that Venezuela’s medical system has been in a free fall for years and shortages predate the sanctions.  Far from pulling back, the Trump administration has been expanding its “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, finding time in the middle of the virus frenzy to blacklist five companies based in China, Hong Kong and South Africa that it says are facilitating trade with Iran’s petrochemical industry.  “This is a sort of tired regime talking point, saying that the sanctions are impacting their ability to deliver assistance for their people,” said Brian Hook, the State Department’s representative for Iran. “If the regime is sincere about looking for resources to help the Iranian people, they could start by giving back some of the tens of billions of dollars they have stolen from the Iranian people.”Kenneth Roth, the head of New York-based Human Rights Watch, which has issued scathing reports on abuses in Iran and Venezuela, said the international community should come together to help every country, even those under sanctions, gain access to needed medical supplies.  “The U.S. government should clearly state that no one will be penalized for financing or supplying humanitarian aid in this time of a public-health crisis,” he told The Associated Press.The virus’ spread in Iran was exacerbated by days of denial from the government about its severity amid the 41st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution and attempts to boost turnout for February parliamentary elections. Hard-liners in its Shiite theocracy, meanwhile, have stormed shrines closed due to the virus as the public largely ignores guidance from health officials to stay home.In Venezuela, the impact has been less severe — only 77 confirmed cases and no deaths. But its health care system was already in shambles like the rest of the economy, with as many 70% of hospitals reporting electricity and water shortages, so even a small disease outbreak can trigger major havoc.  
Together the two countries control around 30% of the world’s petroleum reserves, so they are expected to be among the hardest hit from a halving of crude prices this month that reflects forecasts for a global recession.  Underscoring the economic fragility, both have gone hat in hand to the International Monetary Fund seeking billions in emergency loans.  Iran’s request, its first since 1962, underscores how overwhelmed what was considered one of the Middle East’s best medical systems has become, even as authorities so far have refused to impose nationwide — or even citywide — quarantines in the nation of 80 million people.  Maduro, who only a month ago was railing against the IMF as a tool of U.S. imperialism, also sought help from the international lending body. But his request was rejected in less than 10 hours, with the IMF saying there is no clarity among its 189 members whether he or Juan Guaidó, the U.S.-backed head of Venezuela’s opposition-dominated congress, is the country’s lawful leader.  Those calling for sanctions relief say the political fight needs to be put aside to prevent even more people crossing into neighboring Colombia and joining the almost 5 million Venezuelans who have fled the economic calamity in recent years,  “Even if you agree with the rationale for sanctions, it makes little sense to pile on in the middle of a global pandemic,” said Francisco Rodriguez, a Venezuelan economist who opposes Maduro and recently launched Oil For Venezuela, a U.S.-based group lobbying for greater assistance to the most vulnerable.  There is precedent for suspending U.S. sanctions in times of crisis. In 2003, President George W. Bush temporarily did so after an earthquake near the Iranian city of Bam killed thousands. The move cleared the way for U.S. military planes to land in Iran for the first time since the 1979 revolution, delivering aid.Instead of easing sanctions, the U.S. has been offering aid to Iran. But those offers were angrily rejected Sunday by Iran’s supreme leader, who took the opportunity to air an unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus was made by America. A similar theory was propagated by Maduro last month.
 
“Who in their right mind would trust you to bring them medication?” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said. “Possibly your medicine is a way to spread the virus more.”Despite Venezuelan attempts to reach out to the Trump administration, no such aid offers have been made to Maduro, according to a senior U.S. official. Instead, all assistance is being channeled through Guaidó and a plan to contain the spread of the coronavirus will be revealed in the coming days as well as additional sanctions on Maduro’s inner circle, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss future actions.Despite the campaigns against the sanctions, Iranians and Venezuelans also increasingly blame their own governments’ failures for their dire situation.Anger with Iran’s government has led to sporadic protests, such as when Iranian authorities denied for days they had shot down a Ukrainian jetliner in January, killing all 176 people on board.  In Venezuela, the economy has been cratering for years due to bad policies, mismanagement and corruption. The country has seen a steep rise in malaria cases amid a resurgence of long-eliminated preventable diseases. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, there have been reports of scattered looting across the country as food and gasoline grow scarce.  “Venezuela is facing two tragedies: one caused by the coronavirus and the other by Maduro,” Julio Borges, an exiled lawmaker who is serving as Guaidó’s foreign policy coordinator, said in an interview.  “Maduro claims he’s the victim of U.S. sanctions, but in reality he’s the one who has destroyed our health system. Now it’s up to us to rescue Venezuela from these two evils.”
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One of the most famous stadiums in Latin America is being transformed into a field hospital to treat patients infected with coronavirus in Brazil.The Maracana in Rio de Janeiro, home to Olympics and World Cup contests, is among a group of stadiums and convention centers that will be used to accommodate the growing number of coronavirus cases in Brazil.In Sao Paulo, which has the most case confirmed cases of the virus and deaths, the mayor’s office said that a combined 2,000 hospital beds would be added to the Pacaembu stadium and the Anhembi convention center in just a few weeks.Dr. Luiz Carlos Zamarco, director of the Sao Paulo’s Public Servants Hospital, said the Anhembi Convention Center will have a capacity for 1,800 hospital beds, 72 of those will serve as an intensive care unit.Brazil has more than 2,400 confirmed cases of coronavirus and at least 57 people have died of the disease.
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Brazil’s governors on Wednesday rebelled against President Jair Bolsonaro’s call for life to return to pre-coronavirus normalcy, saying his proposal to reopen schools and businesses runs counter to recommendations from health experts and endangers Latin America’s largest population.State governors, many of whom have adopted strict measures to limit gatherings in their regions, defied the president’s instructions in a nationwide address Tuesday evening that they lift the restrictions and limit isolation only to the elderly and those with longstanding health problems.The governors weren’t the only defiant ones. Virus plans challenged by Bolsonaro were upheld by the Supreme Court. The heads of both congressional houses criticized his televised speech. Companies donated supplies to state anti-virus efforts. And even some of his staunch supporters joined his detractors.In a videoconference Wednesday between Bolsonaro and governors from Brazil’s southeast region, Sao Paulo Gov. João Doria threatened to sue the federal government if it attempted to interfere with his efforts to combat the virus, according to video of their private meeting reviewed by The Associated Press.“We are here, the four governors of the southeast region, in respect for Brazil and Brazilians and in respect for dialogue and understanding,” said Doria, who supported Bolsonaro’s 2018 presidential bid. “But you are the president and you have to set the example. You have to be the representative to command, guide and lead this country, not divide it.”Bolsonaro responded by accusing Doria of riding his coattails to the governorship, then turning his back.“If you don’t get in the way, Brazil will take off and emerge from the crisis. Stop campaigning,” the far-right president said.Bolsonaro argues that a shutdown of activity would deeply wound the country’s already beleaguered economy and spark social unrest worse than the impact of addressing the virus with only limited isolation measures. He told reporters in the capital, Brasilia, that he has listened to his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, and found their perspectives to be rather similar.“What needs to be done? Put the people to work. Preserve the elderly, preserve those who have health problems. But nothing more than that,” Bolsonaro said. “If we cower, opt for the easy discourse, everyone stays home, it will be chaos. No one will produce anything, there will be unemployment, refrigerators will go empty, no one will be able to pay bills.”He has found some support among his base — #BolsonaroIsRight was trending atop Brazilian Twitter — but such backing has been largely drowned out in public by a week of nightly protests from many of those respecting self-isolation, who lean from their windows to bang pots and pans.His administration has also faced criticism from economists including Armínio Fraga, a former central bank governor, and Claudio Ferraz, a professor at Rio de Janeiro’s Pontifical Catholic University.“Brazil is seeing something unique, an insurrection of governors,” Ferraz wrote on Twitter. “This will become a new topic in political science: checks and balances by governors in a Federal System.”Candido Bracher, president of Brazil’s largest private bank, Itaú Unibanco, criticized Bolsonaro’s crisis management in an interview with the newspaper O Globo published Wednesday. His bank and companies like oil giant Petrobras, iron miner Vale and the brewery Ambev have made large donations to state governments for helping fight the outbreak.Rio de Janeiro Gov. Wilson Witzel, another former ally of Bolsonaro, told the president in the videoconference that he won’t heed the president’s call to loosen social distancing protocols.Last week, the governor announced he would shut down airports and interstate roads, which Bolsonaro annulled by decree contending that only the federal government can adopt such measures. By the time the president took to the airwaves Tuesday evening, a Supreme Court justice had ruled in favor of Witzel and the governors.Two days earlier Brazil’s top court issued another ruling allowing Sao Paulo state to stop repaying federal government debt amounting to $400 million so that it can beef up its health sector. The decision may set a precedent for other states.As of Wednesday, Brazil had about 2,400 confirmed coronavirus cases and 57 deaths related to the outbreak. Experts say the figures could soar in April, potentially causing a collapse of the country’s health care system. There is particular concern about the virus’ potential damage in the ultra-dense, low-income neighborhoods known as favelas.For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.Sao Paulo, Brazil’s economic engine, is home to the majority of the coronavirus cases. It has been under partial lockdown since Tuesday, and schools, universities and non-essential businesses have mostly been closed for more than 10 days. Rio state has adopted similar measures, including closing its beaches.Other governors who hadn’t voiced criticism have begun doing so.Gov. Ronaldo Caiado of Goiás state, a doctor who had been a close Bolsonaro ally, told reporters Wednesday he is redefining their relationship.“I cannot allow the president to wash his hands and hold others responsible for coming economic collapse and loss of jobs,” Caiado said. “That is not the behavior of a leader.”Caiado joined a meeting late Wednesday of Brazil’s 26 state governors to coordinate their efforts. The federal government wasn’t invited.Carlos Moisés, governor of Santa Catarina state, which gave almost 80 percent of its votes to Bolsonaro in the 2018 presidential runoff election, issued a statement saying he was “blown away” by the president’s speech. Moisés said he will insist that residents stay home during the pandemic, ignoring the president’s advice.
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Germany’s lower house of Parliament – the Bundestag – approved an $814 billion aid package Wednesday to cushion the economy from the direct impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
 
In order to fund the emergency measures, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is planning to take on more than $168 billion in new debt for the first time since 2013.
 
The package was presented by Finance Minister Olaf Scholz while Merkel is at home after a doctor who treated her tested positive for the coronavirus.As a precaution, members of Parliament were spaced widely apart during the debate in Berlin’s Reichstag building for the session.
 
Among other measures, the plan provides funding for the suffering tourism and service industries, support for small businesses, and unemployment benefits for freelance work and contract workers.
 
The measures passed easily in the lower house and now will move on to the upper house of Parliament, where a vote into law is expected Friday.
  
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Neighbors on British street this week pulled together to help an eight-year-old girl celebrate her birthday after coronavirus lockdown regulations left her stuck in her house. The entire street in a Southhampton neighborhood Wednesday sang “Happy Birthday” out their windows for the girl — named “Sophia” — who stood outside her home in tears as she listened. Cell phone video of the serenade was shared heavily on social media in Britain. The British government Monday banned gatherings of more than two people — unless they’re from the same household — and told everyone apart from essential workers to leave home only to buy food and medicines or to exercise.     
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The Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano, which Pope Francis has jokingly called “the party newspaper,” suspended printing for only the third time in nearly 160 years on Wednesday due to the coronavirus. The paper, which was founded in 1861, will continue publishing online and most of its staff of about 60, including 20 journalists, will work from home, editor Andrea Monda said. “A newspaper and the paper on which it is printed are inextricably intertwined so it sad that this is happening but the reality is that we are all facing a crisis,” Monda told Reuters. Wednesday evening’s edition will be the last for the time being. The newspaper’ print run of about 5,000 is disproportionate to its wider influence in reflecting Vatican opinion on international affairs and Church matters. It is followed by many ambassadors. “We will try to make the best of the moment to boost our online readership until we are able to print again,” Monda said. Ten copies will continue to be printed. They are for Pope Francis, former Pope Benedict, a few top officials and several to be archived for the historical record. “We had to stop primarily because both the printers and the distributors could not guarantee their services in safe conditions because of the lockdown in Italy and the Vatican,” Monda said. Pope Francis told reporters last year he reads only two newspapers – the Osservatore and Rome’s Il Messaggero. It is very rare for the paper not to be published. Even the Nazi occupation of Rome during World War Two did not halt printing. However, the paper was not published on Sept. 20, 1870, when forces fighting for Italian unification conquered Rome and ended the Church’s temporal power over a large swathe of Italy known as the Papal States. Publication was also suspended for a period in 1919 due to labor unrest and other difficulties in Italy after World War I, Monda said.  
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A provincial official in Italy says a soccer game and a missed opportunity to detect one early coronavirus case might have contributed to the rapid spread of the disease in his hard-hit country. The mayor of Bergamo, Giorgio Gori, says his province, like many others in Italy, were not prepared for the coronavirus outbreak. Bergamo did not go into lockdown initially like 10 other towns in Lombardy and one in Veneto.  A case of pneumonia at a hospital in Bergamo province in late February was not recognized as coronavirus at the time. Gori believes that patient infected others, including doctors and nurses.Gori says another event is also believed responsible for the rapid spread of the virus in his province: a Champions League soccer game played February 19.Gori says 40,000 fans from the Bergamo area watched the match played at Milan’s San Siro stadium between Atalanta and Valencia.Many others watched the game at home in large groups, Gori added, and no doubt all those gatherings caused an escalation of the virus to nearly 7,000 cases.A moment of a funeral service without relatives in the cemetery of Zogno, near Bergamo, Northern Italy, March 21, 2020.Hospitals in the province of Bergamo have since been overwhelmed with patients. The death toll has not stopped rising and the province had nowhere to take bodies.Gori says the government was forced to request help from funeral services of other Italian regions and the army helped to take many of the bodies to crematoriums in other cities.For the past three days the number of confirmed cases in Italy has dropped and there is cautious optimism it is the start of a downward trend. But the head of the government’s coronavirus relief effort, Domenico Arcuri, implored Italians to continue to respect the stringent measures imposed on them because it will be the only way out of this crisis.Arcuri says that, “in a very short time we were harshly attacked by a strong, invisible and unknown enemy, adding that in the midst of “thousands of difficulties we reacted immediately and before many other countries in the world.The commissioner said Italy is facing an emergency without precedent and everyone must do their utmost to ensure that “this emergency does not spread to those regions where so far it has been contained.”  
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Britain’s Prince Charles has tested positive for the coronavirus.  A statement Wednesday said he “has been displaying mild symptoms” but is otherwise in good health.  His wife, Camilla, tested negative for the virus.  The couple is in self-isolation at a home in Scotland. 
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Turkey’s main city – Istanbul – is at the center of the country’s efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus.  Almost 40 people have died in Turkey and the virus has infected more than 1,500 people. Authorities are now ramping up restrictions, closing schools, shuttering entertainment venues and even halting prayers at mosques. As Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the city is learning to adapt to a new way of life.
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The Vatican is inviting Christians around the world to join Pope Francis in prayer against the coronavirus pandemic as some workers in Vatican City complain they are being discouraged from working from home. A church tweet says Francis will conduct his prayer service Wednesday at 1100 UTC.  Vatican officials have confirmed at least four coronavirus cases so far.  Although the church has said it is encouraging people TO work from what it calls “remote locations,” the Associated Press reports that workers in three different Vatican offices complain they have been told to show up in person from two to five days a week.  The offices include one that is said to handle sensitive church matters from which officials fear documents could disappear if the office is short-staffed. Another office, the so-called Propaganda Office, oversees the church’s work in developing countries.  “The whole of Italy closes down but not so the Vatican, at least not Propaganda Fide,” one commuter’s wife posted on Facebook. “It is dangerous, moving between cities, trains, metro and buses. I cannot believe that this is actually happening!” While church officials have yet to respond to such grievances, they again said that while Vatican offices will stay open, department heads should make sure “essential services”  are carried out with minimal staff while “incentivizing as much as possible remote working.” Pope Francis says he feels like he’s living in a “cage,” avoiding contact with the faithful and conducting video services instead of greeting pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square.  Some Catholic churches around the world still remain open despite the risks posed by congregations gathering in close contact during the coronavirus pandemic. 
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Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, is at the center of the country’s efforts to control the spread of COVID-19. Authorities are ramping up restrictions, as the number of infections increase. On Tuesday, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced the pandemic’s latest figures — seven new deaths, bringing the death toll to 44, with a total of 1,872 infections. With a population of more than 16 million people, Istanbul accounts for a fifth of Turkey’s population. It is seen as an indicator for the entire country’s ability to win or lose in its battle against COVID-19. Every night across Istanbul, like in other Turkish towns and cities, people cheer and whistle from their balconies or windows in support of the country’s medical workers.  The city is learning to live behind closed doors, including its children, who woke up Monday morning with their schools shuttered in the latest effort by Ankara to contain the coronavirus. Schools closed for two weeks, but many believe that remains an optimistic target, given that the epidemic remains in its infancy.  COVID-19 came late to Turkey. The first official infection was reported two weeks ago. Among the first steps taken by Ankara to contain the virus was to close cinemas, theaters and restaurants until further notice. With its culture of street restaurants, Istanbul is a city that loves to live outside. Now, the streets are silent and empty, devoid of bustling tables of customers enjoying the city’s famed culinary pleasures. Istanbul’s Kadikoy district a hub for the city’s famed restaurants is now empty and silent as all the country’s restaurants are closed as part of the battle to contain the epidemic. (VOA/Dorian Jones)Even prayers at mosques are suspended, possibly a first in the city’s long history.  Despite the severe measures, there is a growing awareness among Istanbul’s residents about the dangers of the virus. “Definitely there is a big danger, both for our country and the world,” said Muhammet, a student. “Immediately, precautions should be taken. We have no doubt scientists and health workers are doing their best.” But others are more critical of the government’s response. “They hid the virus. My nephew works at a hospital. There are six or seven virus victims at a time, when they kept saying that there is no virus. Who are they kidding?” said a retired woman who declined to give her name. “How come there isn’t? Why did they deny this? Why didn’t they take precautions, like stopping the planes coming to Istanbul?”  Ankara denies such criticism, insisting it is reacting with speed and transparency.  Private hospitals on the front line Istanbul’s numerous and well-equipped private hospitals are being put on the front line to fight the virus. “The government has declared all private hospitals “pandemic hospitals,” which gives it the authority to force them to accept corona patients and to set aside the facilities to treat them,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.  “Medical residents have been drafted into active duty,” he added. “The administration is trying to soothe public concerns about a health crisis by assurances that staff, facilities, medicine and test kits are adequate for even dire scenarios.” Yesilada pointed out, however, that anecdotal evidence suggests there is growing criticism about exhaustion, poor safety standards, a lack of masks, gloves, and other vital equipment for hospital staff. On Sunday, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu announced that authorities had raided depots belonging to medical suppliers suspected of hoarding vital equipment, including face masks. The Turkish Medical Association warned Sunday that inadequate regulations meant that all health care professionals are in danger of being infected. It also added that Turkey must immediately install new intensive care units. The Health Ministry rejected such criticisms as unfounded. The Interior Ministry introduced a nationwide measure controlling the number of people using food shops to ensure against overcrowding.  Earlier, people over 65 were banned from leaving home.  Istanbul municipal authorities have even started removing benches to discourage people from sitting and chatting. Police cars are touring Istanbul’s popular seafront areas telling people to go home. For now, Ankara has refrained from introducing compulsory lockdown measures for most of the population. But in Istanbul, much of the population is already heeding government calls to stay home and only work if essential. The use of the city’s public transportation has collapsed in two weeks. According to figures released by Istanbul’s Municipal Authority on Sunday, 800,000 people used the transport network, down from 4.8 million users two weeks prior — a 68% drop. Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), is calling on the city to stay strong. “Together, we will get through. Our country, our city, can be an example for the world on how to keep the coronavirus cases and fatalities low,” he said Imamoglu at a recent press conference. “My fellow citizens of Istanbul, we do have difficult days ahead of us, but everything will be beautiful. Don’t lose hope.”  In its 3,000-year history Istanbul has faced plagues and invasions. It is now bracing itself for this latest challenge. 
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Rising coronavirus infections aren’t only testing Europe’s national governments to their limits but also straining European Union solidarity with the governments of member states shrugging off pleas for greater coordination.  Instead, national governments have been paying little heed to Brussels and are pursuing their own ways of containing the virus and coping with the economic fallout, say diplomats and analysts. One after another, the governments of the 27 member states have ignored Brussels’ appeals to keep their borders open to each other, ending the bloc’s hallowed principle of freedom of movement, and they have been ignoring the bloc’s rules on state support for their domestic industries. While EU leaders have talked about the need for “more Europe,” national leaders have elected to follow the path of “less Europe,” say observers. “Logically, the coronavirus now ravaging parts of Italy and Spain and sweeping across the continent should be the ideal opportunity for the EU to move away from complacency and national individualism to solidarity and European integration. Instead, the pandemic, so far, has proven the opposite,” according to Judy Dempsey, an analyst at the Carnegie Europe research organization. Each member state’s government has adopted its own way of containing the virus, she says. “But this is not a European response. The pandemic has not generated a sense of solidarity among the member states or forced a reappraisal of the EU’s role in setting the agenda, even on something as fundamental as safeguarding the health system,” she adds. Rome’s Spanish Steps are seen empty as Italy tightens measures to try and contain the spread of coronavirus in Italy, March 24, 2020.Italian politicians have complained about the lack of solidarity. Mauirzo Massari, Italy’s representative to the EU, appealed for help. “Rome should not be left to handle this crisis alone.” “In addition to national measures, this is a crisis that requires a global and — first and foremost — a European response,” he wrote this month in an open letter in Politico Europe. But the early appeals for protective gear from neighbors for Italy’s overwhelmed health workers fell on deaf ears, a breach, Italians say, of the principle of European Union solidarity.  According to treaty law, member states are meant to act jointly to assist another to cope with “a natural or man-made disaster.” Instead, France and Germany imposed bans on the export of medical equipment they anticipated needing, although Berlin lifted the prohibition earlier this week. Massari says Rome “asked for supplies of medical equipment, and the European Commission forwarded the appeal to the member states, but it didn’t work.” Today, this means Italy; tomorrow, the need could be elsewhere. Italy, like some central European states, has turned for support to China, which has dispatched medical equipment and doctors. Italy’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio gives a press conference at the Foreign Press Association in Rome, Feb. 27, 2020.Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio has heaped praised on China, pointedly noting, “We are not alone, there are people in the world who want to help Italy.”  Other Europeans have found China more responsive than near neighbors. Aleksandar Vucic, president of Serbia, which has applied for EU membership, has highlighted Chinese assistance over the “fairy tale” of European solidarity. Nor have member states adopted a common approach to detecting and reporting coronavirus cases, with common guidelines for the entire bloc, critics complain. An almost empty road leads towards the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, March 24, 2020.With COVID-19 case numbers and deaths soaring — only Germany has shown early signs of managing to “flatten the curve” of confirmed infections — COVID-19 would seem to have torpedoed the logic of “more Europe,” according to The Economist magazine. “The EU evolved to deal with a post-modern world, where borders are blurred and markets ruled. Pandemics are a pre-modern problem, best solved by the tool that brought order to a brutish world: the modern state.” EU loyalists say the criticism leveled at Brussels is unfair. Health care systems are meant to be overseen by national governments and not the EU and Brussels has scant authority or power to act. Governments will always prioritize the health and well-being of their citizens. Critics say the breakdown of neighborliness has highlighted inherent flaws in the bloc and will leave a lasting imprint. Some Italian populist politicians say they doubt the Schengen open-border system will ever be fully restored — at least they hope it won’t. But while the virus has served mainly as a centrifugal force, the devastating economic fallout from the pandemic may well force EU member states closer together, say some analysts. The most Euro-skeptical states tend to be the weakest economically and as they struggle to right their economies, they will need their debts underwritten by the bloc as a whole — most especially by Germany. On March 18, the European Central Bank launched a $809 billion bond-buying program with strong French backing, although some richer member states were less enthusiastic. 
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