A Pakistan journalist living in exile in Sweden who has been missing since March has been found dead, police said Friday.”His body was found on April 23 in the Fyris river outside Uppsala,” police spokesman Jonas Eronen told AFP.Sajid Hussain, from the troubled southwestern province of Baluchistan, was working part-time as a professor in Uppsala, about 60 kilometers north of Stockholm, when he went missing on March 2.He was also the chief editor of the Baluchistan Times, an online magazine he had set up, in which he wrote about drug trafficking, forced disappearances and a long-running insurgency.”The autopsy has dispelled some of the suspicion that he was the victim of a crime,” Eronen said.The police spokesman added that while a crime could not be completely ruled out, Hussain’s death could equally have been the result of an accident or suicide.”As long as a crime cannot be excluded, there remains the risk that his death is linked to his work as a journalist,” Erik Halkjaer, head of the Swedish branch of Reporters without Borders (RSF), told AFP.According to the RSF, Hussain was last seen getting onto a train for Uppsala in Stockholm.Hussain came to Sweden in 2017 and secured political asylum in 2019.The Pakistan foreign ministry declined to comment when asked about Hussain by AFP.
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In Brazil’s bustling Amazon city of Manaus, so many people have died within days in the coronavirus pandemic that coffins had to be stacked on top of each other in long, hastily dug trenches in a city cemetery. Some despairing relatives reluctantly chose cremation for loved ones to avoid burying them in those common graves. Now, with Brazil emerging as Latin America’s coronavirus epicenter with more than 6,000 deaths, even the coffins are running out in Manaus. The national funeral home association has pleaded for an urgent airlift of coffins from Sao Paulo, 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles) away, because Manaus has no paved roads connecting it to the rest of the country.  The city of about 2 million people carved from the jungle has been overwhelmed by death in part because it’s the main site where those from remote Amazon communities can get medical services, according to Lourival Panhozzi, president of the Brazilian Association of Funeral Service Providers. As of April 30, Brazil’s Health Ministry said that there were over 5,200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Amazonas state and 425 deaths, although there are concerns that inadequate testing for the virus has meant that the numbers may be much higher. A funeral worker wearing protection gear prepares a coffin to remove the body of Raimundo Costa do Nascimento, 86, who died at home amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Sao Jorge, Manaus, Brazil, April 30, 2020.Before the outbreak, the city of Manaus, the capital of the state, was recording an average of 20 to 35 deaths a day, according to the mayor. Now, it is recording at least 130 a day, data from the state’s health secretary show. People in the region also have been widely ignoring isolation measures.  There also are signs in the much larger cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo that suggest authorities may not be able to handle a huge increase in the death toll. A field of fresh graves that was dismissed in April by President Jair Bolsonaro as excessive has since been filled.  Latin America’s grimmest scenes occurred last month in Ecuador’s city of Guayaquil, where residents said they had to leave bodies on the street after morgues, cemeteries and funeral homes were overwhelmed. Many in Brazil fear the rising deaths will hit hardest in the favelas, the vast neighborhoods of the poor that are well-known in Rio and Sao Paulo but which also exist in most big Brazilian cities and even in smaller ones. “There is a great fear that uncontrolled contamination will happen there,” said Panhozzi, whose group represents Brazil’s 13,400 private funeral companies. In Rio’s Complexo do Alemao cluster of favelas, the body of Luiz Carlos da Rocha, 36, lay untouched for more than 12 hours Tuesday. Relatives didn’t know why he died but said he had epilepsy. The state’s military police, which normally picks up bodies found outside, no longer does so for nonviolent deaths, said an officer at the scene who would not give his name. He said without elaborating that the policy change was due to the coronavirus. The military police press office did not respond to requests for comment. FILE – Relatives mourn at the site of a mass burial at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery, in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, April 21, 2020.The next day at Rio’s Hospital Salgado Filho in a lower-middle class neighborhood, Clovis de Castro, whose ailing sister Genina had just died, found himself helping out in the hospital’s morgue. He waited six hours to sort out death certificate paperwork in what he described as a chaotic scene in the morgue, with grieving relatives arriving to identify bodies and only one worker available to move corpses. At one point, he was asked to lend a hand. “I had to help a person to put a body in a coffin,” de Castro said, adding that the experience made him “realize that people need help, the hospital needs help, the country needs help.” De Castro left with a death certificate saying his sister’s cause of death was undetermined. He was angry that no autopsy was conducted that might have confirmed his suspicion she died of COVID-19 or complications from the disease. “Why hide this stuff?” he asked. Sao Paulo director of ambulance services Francis Fuji blamed a recent surge of deaths in homes on coronavirus patients who were discharged from hospitals with mild symptoms, only to have their conditions deteriorate rapidly. FILE – Health professionals hold up photos of people they say were their colleagues who died of COVID-19, as they protest outside “Pronto Socorro 28 de Agosto” Hospital, in Manaus, Brazil, April 27, 2020.Paramedics don’t have the training to identify COVID-19 as a cause of death, he said, and many relatives have lied about their loved ones’ symptoms to avoid the corpses being handled as though they were contagious. “They think that if they get that diagnosis, then their loved one will be removed in a sealed plastic bag, they’ll never see him or her again, and they won’t even have a funeral,” Fuji said. Authorities in Sao Paulo dug hundreds of graves last month in anticipation of a rise in deaths. Bolsonaro has likened the coronavirus to “a little flu” and insists that sweeping state measures to close all but essential business are more damaging than the illness. On April 2, he questioned whether photos by The Associated Press of the new graves were “fake news” or “sensationalism.” By Thursday, all those graves were filled with the dead, as were dozens of other new ones, according to images by the AP photographer who took the original photos and revisited the site on Sao Paulo’s eastern region. Refrigerated trucks to hold overflows of bodies are now seen outside hospitals and cemeteries.  In Manaus early Thursday, Raimundo Costa do Nascimento, 86, died of pneumonia in his home. Funeral workers were so swamped that his relatives had to wait 10 hours for someone to retrieve his body. A week after Panhozzi’s association appealed for the coffins for Manaus, he said the request is still being considered. “That won’t work,” he said. “I need it now.”  
 
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday a ban on assault-style weapons following the slaying of 22 people in the worst mass shooting in the country’s history.In his announcement broadcast on Canadian television, Trudeau said the ban applied to 11 categories of assault rifles and other weapons, saying they “were designed for one purpose and one purpose only:  to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time. There is no use and no place for such weapons in Canada.”He said the ban would take effect immediately.The action followed last month’s shooting rampage in Nova Scotia. While government officials said the move had been planned for some time and was not a direct response to that incident, Trudeau mentioned the victims, who included a police officer, in his remarks.“Their families deserve more than thoughts and prayers,” he said, “Canadians deserve more than thoughts and prayers.”Officials said the ban would apply to about 125,000 weapons.
 
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Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Friday the country will have the capacity to test 12,000 people for COVID-19 by the middle of the month.Speaking at her regular coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh, Sturgeon said Scotland had exceeded its target for testing, and currently has the capacity to conduct 8,350 tests per day in its labs.Testing is considered crucial in getting coronavirus under control, as it allows cases to be identified and isolated.Sturgeon also confirmed 40 additional deaths from coronavirus from Thursday to Friday, bringing Scotland’s COVID-19 death toll to 1,515.The first minister also reported that 2,659 patients who had tested positive and been admitted to the hospital have been discharged.  Scotland has reported 11,654 positive cases of the coronavirus. 
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The establishment of one-man rule in the heart of Europe has enraged civil libertarians and Hungary’s opposition leaders, who accuse Viktor Orbán of manipulating the coronavirus pandemic to establish what’s effectively an elective dictatorship. Pressure is mounting on the European Union to take action against Hungary for passing sweeping emergency measures that will allow populist leader Orbán to rule by decree indefinitely. Orbán insists the measure is only temporary. And his foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, told CNN that it was “unfair” to say the rule-by-decree measure amounts to a threat to the country’s democracy. Although there’s no deadline on Orbán’s enhanced authority, he said, the parliament can remove his new powers when the virus subsides.”There are many fake news and lies spread about Hungary based on this new law,” Szijjártó said.  Orbán’s foes doubt his good faith. They say his emergency measure fits into a disturbing pattern from Ankara to Beijing and Caracas to Moscow, with authoritarian-minded leaders using the pandemic to consolidate or expand their power.A man sits on a road in Budapest during a demonstration to protest the Hungarian government and its measures to respond to the novel coronavirus pandemic, April 20, 2020.In Hungary’s case, the emergency coronavirus measure cancels the country’s elections, allows eight-year prison sentences for anyone breaking quarantine and gives Orbán  the power to shut down media outlets that spread what is deemed “fake news.””Parliament can, technically vote to end this extra power,” Umut Korkut, a politics professor at Scotland’s Glasgow Caledonian University wrote in a recent commentary. “But Orbán’s party Fidesz has a two-thirds majority. The Constitutional Court can investigate the legality of any governmental decrees Orbán produces, but again, he has made sure it is packed full of judges chosen by his party. It has been a long time since the court last voted against the government.””The legislation therefore effectively delivers the country to Orbán in full, without any checks and balances,” Korkut wrote.Since Orbán’s re-election in 2010, civil libertarians have denounced him for initiating a concerted erosion of democratic checks and balances. They include curbing judicial independence, politicizing the civil service and interfering in media and civil society.”He moved quickly to consolidate power now because the public health crisis provides the perfect opportunity to take advantage of Hungarians’ sense of vulnerability, fear, and anger,” according to Markos Kounalakis, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank on the campus of Stanford University in California. The Hungarian leader has remained undeterred in his shaping of what he likes to call an “illiberal democracy.” His political message has been that national sovereignty is being undermined by globalization, and nation states and their traditional cultures and lifestyles are being weakened by bankers and Eurocrats.Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is seen on a laptop screen in a flat in Budapest as he makes an April 9, 2020, announcement that the government extended the partial curfew for an indefinite time in Budapest.Orbán has at various times cited Russia, Turkey and China as useful models for Hungary and opposed Western sanctions on Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea. The European Commission, which has clashed with Orbán before over rule-of-law issues, said it was monitoring developments in Hungary and may now need to take action against Hungary. A spokesman said the commission was carrying out a ”mapping exercise” of member states to examine whether any laws adopted during the crisis comply with EU and international laws.  ”There is particular concern about the case of Hungary, and I can tell you that we will not hesitate to take further action if this is deemed necessary,” said the spokesman, who requested anonymity to speak frankly at a briefing.Donald Tusk, the former European Council president who now heads the largest political grouping in the European Parliament, the center-right European People’s Party, said it should consider expelling Orbán’s Fidesz party as a member once the coronavirus crisis ends.The Fidesz party was suspended last year from the main pan-European center-right alliance as controversy flared over alleged rule-of-law violations in Hungary.”Making use of the pandemic to build a permanent state of emergency is politically dangerous, and morally unacceptable,” Tusk said. As the vote passed on the emergency legislation, Orbán assured the national assembly: “When this emergency ends, we will give back all powers, without exception.” He added: “Changing our lives is now unavoidable. Everyone has to leave their comfort zone. This law gives the government the power and means to defend Hungary.”But Norbert Röttgen, head of the German Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee and a candidate in the race to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor, also condemned the law, writing on Twitter that it “effectively eliminates opposition” and was a breach of basic principles the EU “cannot accept.”Legally the EU could suspend Hungary’s membership of the bloc until it decides Hungary is in compliance. That would require the backing of all member states, however. The EU could also withhold funding and subsidies, which amount to 6   percent of Hungary’s gross domestic product. That, too, needs unanimous consent.There are doubts whether the commission will act decisively, despite mounting pressure. Last week, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, a center-left political group in the European Parliament, issued a statement saying ”Orbán has crossed all red lines” and that ”Hungary is becoming the first dictatorship in the EU.” The parliament’s president David Sassoli has called for ”swift action.” The commission’s formal response, however, has not gone beyond the rhetorical stage. The threats contain no suggestion of possible economic punishment. Brussels has ducked taking sharp action before against Hungary over rule-of-law breaches.The European Commission is the executive arm of the EU and makes recommendations to the heads of national governments. All EU member states are supposed to observe rule-of-law standards and separation of powers. In 2017, for example, the commission brought a case in the European Court of Justice against Poland over laws that allegedly politicized the judiciary.In the past, Orbán has had the support of like-minded nationalist leaders in neighboring states in Central Europe — although this time they have also expressed disapproval at what they see as an over-reach. Othmar Karas, a lawmaker and member of Austria’s ruling conservative OVP party, which has been supportive of Orbán in the past, told reporters that the emergency measure “puts Orbán on the path” of authoritarianism.But Orbán’s defenders say actions under Hungary’s emergency legislation can be struck down both by parliament and the constitutional court, the country’s top tribunal.John O’Sullivan, a former adviser to Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and the president of the Danube Institute, a pro-Orbán think tank based in the Hungarian capital Budapest, says Orbán’s action is no different from other Western leaders during the coronavirus crisis.Writing in the National Review, the U.S. political magazine, he says: “Macron is already ruling by decree, and both Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel are doing the same in effect, through primary and secondary legislation.”Orbán made his name as a young anti-Communist dissident delivering a fiery anti-Russian speech at the 1989 reburial of Imre Nagy, leader of the Hungarian revolt of 1956 against the Soviet Union. But since the 2008 financial crash he has morphed from a libertarian leader into a populist conservative.Last year, Freedom House, a U.S.-based watchdog group, described Hungary as only “partly free,” the first time in history it withheld the designation “free” from an EU member state. It accused the Fidesz-led government of having “moved to institute policies that hamper the operations of opposition groups, journalists, universities, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) whose perspectives it finds unfavorable.”One punitive step the EU could take, said Renata Uitz of the Comparative Constitutional Law program at the Central European University in Vienna, is to block Hungary from accessing a €861 million fund set up to assist with the pandemic.  ”Conditioning access to EU funds based on member states’ respect for the founding values of the European Union has never been more urgent – and has never been more achievable,” Uitz said. “Otherwise,” she said, “the Union will continue to support a regime that has already demonstrated its commitment to abusing the unlimited emergency powers it arrogated.”
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Well-known Mexican protest singer Oscar Chavez has died at the age of 85, one of the latest casualties of the coronavirus pandemic.Mexico Cultural Secretary Alejandra Frausto confirmed Chavez’s death Thursday, just two days after he was admitted the hospital Tuesday, with symptoms of COVID-19.Frausto posted a tweet which said Chavez was worthy of his life’s journey. She also expressed condolences to his family and those who joined in the campaign for personal rights through songs.Chavez last performed in public in 2019.Mexico has confirmed 19,224 coronavirus cases and 1,859 deaths. 
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Argentinians staged loud protests in Buenos Aires on Thursday evening, banging pots from balconies in a show of opposition to the government’s release of prisoners to slow the spread of the coronavirus.The protests across the capital were promoted by lawmakers critical of the government of President Alberto Fernández.Since Monday, more than 1,000 prisoners have been released in Argentina after Fernández said the government should consider granting house arrest to inmates who are at risk of contracting COVID-19.A week ago, the first confirmed COVID-19 cases inside an Argentine prison included prisoners and guards.Shortly afterwards, local media say prisoners at Devoto prison in Buenos Aires set fires, demanding the release of some prisoners over fears of contracting the coronavirus.Argentina has confirmed at least 4,415 COVID-19 cases and 215 deaths linked to the virus. 
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Street performers in Mexico City marched through the Mexican capital Thursday to showcase their request for the government’s financial help after being sidelined for more than a month by restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus.The performers dressed as superheroes and clowns made their pitch before a supportive audience as Mexico celebrated Children’s Day.Jose Amado Villegas, a professional clown, made an affectionate appeal for public  support in getting the government to act on their behalf, saying to all the children who did not see clowns in their schools, who did not see clowns in parks, who did not see clowns at the national level, “we are here to give joy to all children.”There was no immediate government response to the street performers’ appeal.Meantime, the performers could be heading into tougher days ahead, with health authorities anticipating the month of May to be the most difficult in the pandemic for Mexico, possibly reducing their chances of resuming their livelihoods.So far, Mexico has reported 19,224 COVID-19 cases and 1,859 deaths. 
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A man armed with an assault rifle was arrested after opening fire outside the Cuban Embassy in Washington early Thursday, his bullets tearing holes into the walls and pillars near the front entrance in what authorities suspect was a hate crime.The gunfire broke out around 2 a.m. outside the embassy in northwest Washington. Metropolitan Police Department officers were called to the scene after neighbors reported hearing gunshots, authorities said. No injuries were reported.Officers found the man, Alexander Alazo, 42, of Aubrey, Texas, armed with an assault rifle, and they and took him into custody without incident, police said.A police report obtained by The Associated Press describes the shooting as a “suspected hate crime” and says Alazo “knowingly discharged multiple rounds from an AK-47 rifle into the Cuban Embassy.” But the report also says Alazo’s motivation is unknown.Officers recovered the rifle, ammunition and a white powdery substance that was found in a small baggie after Alazo’s arrest, according to the report.Alazo was arrested on charges of possessing an unregistered firearm and ammunition, assault with intent to kill and possessing a high-capacity magazine, a U.S. Secret Service spokeswoman said.Alazo remained in custody Thursday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he had a lawyer.Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that embassy staff members were “safe and protected” but that the shooting caused “material damage” to the building. Photos showed large holes left in the building’s facade near the front door and in pillars outside the building.The Cuban government didn’t know the suspect’s potential motives, the statement said, adding that the State Department was aware of the incident.”It is the obligation of States to adopt appropriate steps to protect the premises of diplomatic missions accredited to their country against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity,” the statement said.Photos from the scene posted to social media showed a group of police officers outside the embassy after the shooting and investigators searching through an SUV parked there. Other images showed investigators surveying the damage in front of the ornate embassy in Washington’s Adams-Morgan neighborhood, including a bullet hole in a window over the front door and damage to a flagpole and a column flanking a statue of Cuban independence hero José Martí.Officers from the Metropolitan Police Department and the Secret Service were investigating. 
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Russia’s top diplomat on Thursday angrily dismissed media reports alleging a Russian plot to poison the mayor of Prague and another official in the Czech capital. Prague’s mayor Zdenek Hrib and Zhanna Nemtsova, daughter of Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov smile after unveiling a sign renaming the square where the Russian Embassy is located in Prague, Feb. 27, 2020.Respekt weekly said in its latest edition published on Monday that Czech intelligence services suspected a Russian agent was sent to Prague three weeks ago to poison Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib and Prague 6 mayor Ondrej Kolar. The story was based on anonymous sources.  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ridiculed the claims, saying that the notion that Czech authorities spotted a Russian man with powerful poison ricin and let him through doesn’t make any sense. Czech officials didn’t comment, but Kolar said in a television interview Tuesday that he has been under police protection because of “some facts that have been found, the fact that there’s a Russian here whose goal is to liquidate me.” He added that the alleged assassin was also targeting Hrib and Pavel Novotny, Prague’s Reporyje district mayor. Lavrov scoffed at the allegations. “They found a deadly poison and let him into the country?” he said at Thursday’s briefing. “Would any sound person believe in these fabrications.” Moscow and Prague have been at loggerheads for weeks after Kolar’s district removed the statue of Soviet World War II commander Ivan Konev whose armies liberated Prague from Nazi occupation. Officials in Prague 6 said the statue will be moved to a museum and a new monument honoring the city’s liberation will be installed in its place. The statue’s removal caused outrage in Russia, which has angrily lashed out at any attempts to diminish the nation’s decisive role in defeating the Nazis. Lavrov charged Thursday that the Prague authorities’ action violated a 1993 friendship treaty that carried a Czech pledge to protect memorials to Russian World War II heroes. 
 
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Brazil’s virtually uncontrolled surge of COVID-19 cases is spawning fear that construction workers, truck drivers and tourists from Latin America’s biggest nation will spread the disease to neighboring countries that are doing a better job of controlling the coronavirus.  
Brazil, a continent-sized country that shares borders with nearly every other nation in South America, has reported more than 70,000 cases and more than 5,000 deaths, according to government figures and a tally by Johns Hopkins University — far more than any of its neighbors.
The true number of deaths and infections is believed to be much higher because of limited testing.
The country’s borders remain open, there are virtually no quarantines or curfews and President Jair Bolsonaro continues to scoff at the seriousness of the disease.  
The country of 211 million people surpassed China — where the virus began — in the official number of COVID-19 deaths this week, prompting Bolsonaro to say: “So what?”
“I am sorry,” the far-right president told journalists. “What do you want me to do?”
In Paraguay, soldiers enforcing anti-virus measures have dug a shallow trench alongside the first 800 feet (244 meters) of the main road entering the city of Pedro Juan Caballero from the neighboring Brazilian city of Punta Porá, to prevent people from walking along the road from Brazil and disappearing into the surrounding city.  
Paraguay has fewer than 250 confirmed coronavirus cases and its borders have been closed since March 24, with enforcement particularly focused on the largely open frontier with Brazil.  
Argentine officials say they are particularly worried about truck traffic from Brazil, their top trading partner. In provinces bordering Brazil, Argentina is working to set up secure corridors where Brazilian drivers can access bathrooms, get food and unload products without ever coming into contact with Argentines.  
“Brazil worries me a lot,” Argentine President Alberto Fernández told local news outlets Saturday. “A lot of traffic is coming from Sao Paulo, where the infection rate is extremely high, and it doesn’t appear to me that the Brazilian government is taking it with the seriousness that it requires. That worries me a lot, for the Brazilian people and also because it can be carried to Argentina.”  
One of eight known cases in the Argentine state of Misiones is that of a 61-year-old truck driver who apparently caught the disease in Sao Paulo and then returned to Argentina, where he died after infecting his wife. Argentina has about 4,000 cases and more than 200 dead, according to the Johns Hopkins tally.  
Even officials in the United States, which has registered more than 1 million cases and more than 60,000 deaths, have expressed concern about Brazil.  
Florida, which has a large population of people of Brazilian heritage, could face a threat of air travelers from Brazil carrying the coronavirus to the state, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis told President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday.
“We could be away on the other side doing well in Florida, and then you could just have people kind of come in,” DeSantis said.
The governor said Trump’s ban of flights from China helped control the virus in the western U.S. Trump asked him if that meant “cutting off Brazil.”
DeSantis replied that one possibility was “not to necessarily cut them off” but to require airlines to test passengers before they board planes bound for Florida.
Authorities in Colombia are also worried, said Julián Fernandez Niño, an epidemiologist at National University in Bogota.  
“In a globalized world, the response to a pandemic can’t be closed frontiers,” he said. “Brazil has great scientific and economic capacity, but clearly its leadership has an unscientific stance on fighting coronavirus.”
In Uruguay, President Luis Lacalle Pou said the spread of the virus in Brazil was setting off “warning lights” in his administration and authorities are tightening border controls in several frontier cities.
 
Thirty workers recently crossed from Brazil to the Uruguayan border city of Rio Branco to help build a cement plant. Four tested positive for the virus, prompting Uruguay to place the whole crew in quarantine.
Officials in some Uruguayan border towns have discussed setting up “humanitarian corridors” through which Brazilians could safely leave the country.
Even socialist Venezuela, where the health system has been in a yearslong state of collapse, has said it’s worried about neighboring Brazil.
 
“I’ve ordered the reinforcement of the frontier with Brazil to guarantee an epidemiological and military barrier,” President Nicolás Maduro said on state television last week.
Bolivia’s government, a right-wing ally of Bolsonaro’s, declined to comment on its neighbor’s anti-virus measures, but Defense Minister Fernando López promised this month to strongly enforce the closure of the border.  
“If we keep being flexible on the border, our national quarantine will be useless,” he said. 
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Christian Etchebest’s Parisian bistro is a shadow of its usual bustling self. Five lunch specials sit in neat paper bags on the bar awaiting takeout customers — a tiny fraction of his normal midday business before the coronavirus. A skeleton staff rotates in daily at La Cantine du Troquet near the banks of the Seine River, just blocks from the Eiffel Tower. One day they packaged a streamlined version of his Basque menu: sausages with a celery and beetroot remoulade, mashed potatoes and a dessert of strawberries with lemon sauce. Yet Etchebest isn’t facing bankruptcy — not yet anyway — thanks to a French government program that lets him put staff on reduced hours and makes up most of their lost salary, on the condition they are not fired. That is giving him a chance to keep his team together, awaiting the day when restrictions are lifted and sit-down meals are again allowed at this restaurant and his six others across Paris.  Similar programs are keeping hard-hit businesses across Europe afloat, preventing millions of workers from losing their jobs  and income for now, and thousands of bosses from seeing their trained staff scatter. Some 11.3 million workers in France are getting up to 84% of net salary. The government estimates the cost at 24 billion euros ($26 billion), with half of all private sector employees expected to take part. FILE – Femke Zimmerman, manager of Brasserie Berlage, a cafe and restaurant nestled in the manicured gardens of The Hague’s historic art deco Kunstmuseum, poses for a portrait as she prepares the restaurant for reopening, April 24, 2020.Femke Zimmermann, manager of Brasserie Berlage in The Hague in the Netherlands, has her eye on re-opening even as she spends most days at home looking after her 1-year-old and 5-year-old sons while the restaurant’s owners pay her with government help.  For now, she is not overly worried about losing her job. She stays in contact with her team and asked them to come in to give the restaurant a two-day spring clean.  “They hate sitting at home. They want to do something for the business,” she said. Athens waiter George Sakkas, 26, is getting by on a Greek government program that lets businesses suspend workers’ contracts and replaces their pay with a flat stipend of 800 euros ($870). Businesses that take the help cannot fire staff.  “The stipend definitely helped,” he said, noting the amount was roughly what he would make anyway.  “In the beginning we didn’t know about the stipend, so [the closing] hit us very badly,” he said. “When the stipend arrived it gave us some breathing space.” 
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Britain Thursday went all out to honor the 100th birthday of a World War II veteran who has become a national hero for his $37 million fundraising effort for the nation’s health service.A retired engineer and captain in the British Army during World War II, Tom Moore wanted to do something nice for the National Health Service for the treatment he received after breaking his hip.Earlier this month he started an online campaign, pledging to do 100 laps – using his walker- around his 25-meter yard in exchange for donations. He had hoped to raise about $1,200. Instead, within days, he had raised millions.Since then his effort made “Captain Tom” a British celebrity, and the nation showed its appreciation Thursday.The Royal Air Force sent two World War II-era planes over his home. Congratulatory massages poured in from, among others, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Prince Charles and England football captain Harry Kane. About 125,000 birthday cards came in from around the world, enough to fill a hall in his grandson’s school.Birthday cards are seen on display at Bedford School ahead of Captain Tom Moore’s 100th birthday in Bedford, Britain, April 28, 2020.And the British Army – with the approval of Queen Elizabeth – gave him an honorary promotion to colonel and replaced a medal he had received for his service but had lost.The Guiness Book of World Records says Moore set a record for most money raised by an individual charity walk.Moore said Thursday he was very moved by the outpouring of gratitude, and for being made an honorary colonel. He said “I’m still Captain Tom, that’s who I really am. But if people choose to call me ‘colonel’, well, thank you very much.” 
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The Brazilian army, in conjunction with the country’s prison administration, conducted a large-scale disinfection operation to slow the spread of the coronavirus at the Gericinó Prison Complex in Rio de Janeiro. A prison spokesman said Wednesday, soldiers outfitted in full body protection suits and face masks cleaned the infirmary, coronavirus isolation cells, administrative areas and visitor sections of the prison. Colonel Rego Barros of the army’s East Joint Command said the proactive measures were taken after seeing situations in which inmates became infected by COVID-19 in other states. So far, Brazil has reported at least 78,000 covid-19 cases and more than 5,400 deaths. Peru has the second highest coronavirus case total in Latin American behind Brazil. On Monday, Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute confirmed reports of inmates setting fires and demanding to be freed, as more prisoners become infected with the disease. Reuters news agency says human rights groups are calling on the Peruvian government to allow house arrest during the pandemic.   
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Chile will begin opening malls to the public for the first time on Friday, three months after imposing a nationwide lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic.People going to malls must wear face masks, allow their temperature to be taken, and not gather in groups.On Wednesday, Joaquin Lavin, the mayor of Las Condes municipality, began a measured approach to reopening, beginning with workers testing sanitary and safety protocols.He said on Thursday they will bring in people to see how the measures work and close on Friday to evaluate what occurred.  Lavin said a decision to open up malls to the public will be based on the results of the trial opening.When the malls open, social distancing is still required and stores will only permit a limited number of people inside the stores at one time.Chile plans to reopen more than 100 malls over the coming weeks as it relaxes restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus.Also on Friday, jurisdictions viewed as being a moderate to low risk in spreading COVID-19 will be placed under a general community quarantine that is less restrictive.So far, Chile has 14,885 COVID-19 cases and 216 virus-related deaths.  
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Mexican news agencies say the Ministry of Health confirmed 32 people in the state of Jalisco were poisoned recently and half of them died after drinking a name brand cane alcohol. Authorities suspect the 96-proof brand of El Chorrito was tainted with high levels of methanol during the production process. Authorities were alerted to the first victims on Saturday in Mazamitla and Tamazula.  A 66-year old woman died and another woman was hospitalized. The 30 other victims are men in their 20’s to early 80’s. The state prosecutor’s office says it will launch an investigation into the poisonings, including a review of El Chorrito’s parent company, Grupo Sáenz. Last year in Costa Rica at least 20 people died from drinking methanol laced Alcohol. 
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Russia is warning that any U.S. attempt to use a low-yield nuclear weapon against a Russian target would set off a massive nuclear response.The Russian foreign ministry was reacting to a State Department paper released last week that says placing low-yield nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles launched from submarines would counter what it sees as possible new threats from both Russia and China.Experts describe a low-yield weapon as the kind the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.The State Department asserts that the low-yield weapons “reduce the risk of nuclear war by reinforcing extended deterrence and assurance.”It alleges Russia is considering using such nonstrategic nuclear arms in a limited war.  Russia denies it is a threat to the U.S. and accuses Washington of “lowering the nuclear threshold.”“Any attack involving a U.S. submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), regardless of its weapon specifications, would be perceived as a nuclear aggression,”  Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday. “Those who like to theorize about the flexibility of American nuclear potential must understand that in line with the Russian military doctrine such actions are seen as warranting retaliatory use of nuclear weapons by Russia.”Russia says it wants to extend the 2010 New START treaty limiting the number of deployed nuclear missiles, warheads, and bombers along with strict inspection regimes. The pact is set to expire next year.The Trump administration says it wants a new arms control agreement that also includes China — which Russia calls impractical. 
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British people love to talk about the weather. Never more so than when they’re locked in their houses, it seems. With perfect irony, the sun hasn’t stopped shining since the coronavirus lockdown began on March 23 – and everyone’s talking about it. It’s been unseasonably warm, with temperatures in London topping 25 degrees Celsius. For those with gardens or with easy access to the countryside, the fine weather has been a perfect antidote to the mind-spinning news headlines; nature, at its finest in spring, has been a tonic for many. For those living in cities, particularly in high-rise apartments, the sunshine has only underlined the claustrophobia of confinement. Staff work at a the COVID-19 testing facility at Ikea near the Wembley stadium in London, April 29, 2020.Across Britain, the skies have never been clearer. I live not far from Gatwick, London’s second biggest airport, and normally the sky is crossed with vapor trails. But there are just a few high cirrus clouds amid the deep blue. There are far fewer cars on the roads too. Instead, families cheerfully cycle past, enjoying their daily hour of exercise. The air smells cleaner. You can hear more birdsong. There are countless stories of wildlife slowly re-colonizing towns and cities as humans enter their own hibernation.All these might seem like trivial observations in the face of a devastating global pandemic. But it’s inevitable that people will look for positives after such disruption to their lives. And it has a lot of people talking about what kind of country we all want to emerge from this crisis.Millions of people are working from home. Can commuting be cut down to save carbon emissions and allow workers to spend more time with families? Are those international business meetings really necessary when it’s all being done by video link? With scientists warning repeatedly that climate change is an even bigger imminent threat to humanity, can we afford to go back to life as it was before? There are other changes to life on a more personal level. Out of concern, I’ve been in touch with family and friends whom I haven’t spoken to for many years. We’ve set up a weekly video chat with close family. Everyone is talking about the parties and reunions we’ll have when this is all over. After years of relationships being conducted through social media, the world is craving human company. Maybe we’ll value those close bonds even more in the post-coronavirus world. And in Britain, which has been torn apart by Brexit in recent years, many people crave some kind of healing. There are clouds on the horizon. Another Brexit deadline looms at the end of the year as the transition period ends, with the threat of even more economic disruption. And it’s quite possible, perhaps justifiable, that the world will rush back to its old ways after the lockdown to recover the vast economic losses. But in my neighborhood, and in communities across Britain and beyond, the same question is being raised: what sort of world do we want to emerge when this is all over? 
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Poland’s prime minister said Wednesday that the presidential election must be held in May despite the coronavirus pandemic to meet the requirements of the constitution. Mateusz Morawiecki said, however, that the May 10 election date may be pushed back by a week or two.  “Constitutional experts say that the election is also possible on successive dates: May 17 or May 23,” Morawiecki said.  “We will be taking the decision in the nearest future,” he said.  The ruling conservative Law and Justice party is pushing for the May vote by postal ballot only, driven by the fact that its candidate, President Andrzej Duda, is leading in opinion polls. It argues voting by mail is safe. But it has also empowered the parliamentary speaker to alter the May 10 date. The opposition wants the vote pushed back by a year or two, for social health reasons. All its candidates are trailing in opinion polls behind Duda. With less than two weeks to the vote, the bill formally regulating procedures for the vote still hasn’t been adopted in parliament, raising questions about whether the election can be held as planned.  
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Swiss investigators concluded Sepp Blatter knew that a World Cup broadcasting contract was breached illegally and that it would cost FIFA millions of dollars, according to a federal police file obtained by The Associated Press.
Investigation reports sent to prosecutors in December and January showed FIFA wrote off a $3.8 million debt from a Caribbean TV deal signed in 2005 by then-FIFA president Blatter and long-time vice president Jack Warner. The deal was later alleged to have been illegally mismanaged by Blatter.
“Blatter acted … more in the interests of Warner than in the interests of FIFA,” concluded one investigation file seen by the AP.
However, the office of Switzerland’s attorney general decided in March it would drop a criminal proceeding  from 2015 against Blatter for the Caribbean deal. No reason was stated.
Swiss federal police believed Blatter knew in 2007 that Warner had breached — and would personally profit from — a Caribbean rights deal for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups that was sold to a Jamaica-based broadcaster.
Details of the original FIFA contract were revealed by Swiss media in September 2015, showing a $600,000 sale to the Warner-controlled Caribbean Football Union.
At the time, FIFA defended the contract by saying it required soccer’s governing body to get a 50% profit share of any future licensing arrangement. The re-sale was valued at about $15 million.
But FIFA did not try to collect money due in August 2010 within 30 days of the World Cup ending, according to the Swiss police file.
The investigation cited documents and staff emails showing FIFA was due half of any gross revenue from the Caribbean deal, into which Warner had inserted a company he owned.
“FIFA were very reluctant to implement any measures in connection with enforcing their rights against the CFU,” Swiss police said in its 491-page report.
FIFA calculated it was owed almost $3.8 million in 2011 after Warner resigned from soccer. He had been implicated in bribing Caribbean voters to oppose Blatter in that year’s FIFA presidential election.
Only then did FIFA management terminate the Caribbean rights and pursue the debt, though not directly with Warner. Instead, it asked the CFU, which had few assets after Warner left.
FIFA wrote off the debt weeks later, the police file showed. It included $3.625 million of estimated revenue from broadcasting sponsors and advertising, and $155,000 of unpaid rights fee instalments, the investigation file said.
A different police report detailed more than 15 years of FIFA’s working relations with Warner. It suggested FIFA granted favors and gifts in apparent exchange for election support to help Blatter retain the presidency.
Blatter, who is now 84 and banned from soccer until October 2021, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He has long denied wrongdoing.
Blatter faces a second criminal proceeding over a $2 million payment he authorized in 2011 to former UEFA president Michel Platini. That payment was revealed by Swiss authorities in September 2015 and led to both men being suspended and then banned from soccer.
Swiss investigations of Blatter are handled by a second prosecutor who took over after the federal office’s head of financial crimes had his contract terminated in November 2018.
Attorney general Michael Lauber was recused from FIFA cases last year. He was disciplined in March  after having secret meetings with current FIFA president Gianni Infantino and failing to tell the truth about them.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancee Carrie Symonds announced the birth of a son on Wednesday, just two days after Johnson returned to work following hospitalization for the coronavirus.
Johnson’s office said Symonds gave birth to a “healthy baby boy at a London hospital” on Wednesday morning, and both mother and infant were doing well.
Johnson, 55, and Symonds, 32, announced in February that they were engaged and expecting a child together. At the time they said the baby was due in early summer. No wedding date has been announced.
Johnson only returned to work Monday after suffering from a bout of coronavirus that left him dangerously ill. He spent a week in London’s St. Thomas’ hospital, including three nights in intensive care, before recovering for two weeks away from London.
Symonds, an environmental campaigner and former Conservative Party staffer, also said she was sick for a week with COVID-19 symptoms, though she wasn’t tested for the virus. The newborn boy is her first child.
Johnson has four children with his second wife Marina Wheeler, from whom he is divorced, and has fathered at least one other child outside his marriages.
The baby is the third born to a sitting British prime minister this century. The wives of leaders Tony Blair and David Cameron also had babies while their husbands were in office.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Johnson planned to take paternity leave.
The birth comes as the British government faces big decisions about how and when to ease the nationwide lockdown imposed March 23 to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The measures are due to be in place at least until May 7.
Britain is among the countries hardest hit by the pandemic. As of Tuesday, 21,678 people with COVID-19 had died in U.K. hospitals, and several thousand more in nursing homes and other settings.
Johnson’s government faces growing criticism over its slowness in getting enough protective equipment to medics and nursing home staff and its struggle to increase the number of tests being performed for the virus.
Johnson had been due to return to Parliament on Wednesday to take part in the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will stand in for him.
Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, who had been due to face off against Johnson in the Commons, tweeted that the birth was “wonderful news.”
House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle congratulated the couple.
“Such happy news amid so much uncertainty – 2020 is certainly a year they will never forget,” he said.
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Authorities in Peru say nine prisoners were killed earlier this week when a protest demanding better healthcare amid the coronavirus outbreak turned violent. Inmates at the Miguel Castro prison rioted Monday after two fellow inmates died of COVID-19, which has spread unchecked through Peru’s notoriously overcrowded prisons. At least 13 inmates have died from the disease, out of a total of 600 infections. Over 100 prison workers have also been diagnosed with COVID-19. Inmates gather around the corpses of other inmates during a prison riot in Miguel Castro Castro prison, in Lima, Peru, Monday, April 27, 2020.Along with better healthcare, the inmates were also calling on President Martin Vizcarra to grant them humanitarian pardons.   Earlier this week, President Martin Vizcarra extended a national quarantine until May 10 following a surge in COVID-19 cases, but no plan was unveiled for inmates. Reuters news agency is reporting that the total number of COVID-19 infections in Peru has gone over the 30,000 mark, the second highest total in Latin America after Brazil, with 782 people deaths. 
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The coronavirus crisis risks becoming an existential crisis for the European Union, say diplomats and analysts, as the EU struggles to coordinate a financial response to the pandemic. 
 
Last week, the EU’s national leaders struck an interim agreement on a recovery deal with an emergency fund of about $581 million (a half-billion euros), which the hardest hit member states can tap into for immediate assistance.  
 
But the wrangling over how to cope with the economic impact of the pandemic is far from over, and the overall $2 trillion-plus economic package mooted last week by the national leaders includes the budget costs of the EU itself for the next seven years.  
 
In fact, no final numbers, aside from the emergency fund, have yet been agreed upon, according to analysts. Members states already were at loggerheads over money before the coronavirus appeared, with sharp arguments between them about how to make up for the loss of Britain’s financial contribution to the EU.   
 
The emergency relief package came after an ill-natured squabble and warnings by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte that the EU project itself was in jeopardy unless the wealthier northern states help bail out their poorer southern neighbors. It also has left unresolved whether aid from the emergency fund to countries like Italy and Spain will be in the form of loans, which must be paid back, or grants, which won’t.Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte delivers his message to the Lower House of Chambers of the Italian Parliament, in Rome, April 21, 2020.Another key issue is whether the eurozone countries will eventually have to mutualize their debt by issuing jointly so-called “coronabonds” to meet health-care costs and mitigate the impact of a deep economic slump, one that could rival the Great Depression almost a century ago. 
 
As the behind-scenes quarreling continues over money, euro-skepticism, which before the pandemic appeared to be ebbing, is rising once again. It’s being fueled by southern Europeans smarting over what they see as an absence of solidarity by the more affluent nations, reminiscent, they say, of the debt crisis following the 2008 financial crash that nearly tore the EU apart. The pandemic is opening up the wounds of that crisis, which also saw a sharp split between the north and south. 
 
“The coronavirus pandemic could well be the ultimate acid test of its resilience as a community based on solidarity and common values,” according to Stefan Lehne of Carnegie Europe, a think tank based in Brussels. In a posted commentary, he wrote: “The mindset of everybody for itself, which is so tempting under the acute stress of the crisis, must be countered by stepping up cooperation and mutual assistance among the member states. Otherwise, the EU will be in great danger.” 
 
A poll published last found 40 percent of Italians would now support exiting the EU and scrapping the euro as its official currency. A further 6.1 percent would support just quitting the EU, while 7.3 percent support remaining in the bloc but replacing the euro with the lira. Just 41.7 percent agreed the status quo should be maintained. 
 
Last month another poll found 88 percent of Italians felt let down by their European neighbors in terms of health-care support for the country’s overwhelmed hospitals. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen apologized to Italians earlier this month for the lack of solidarity shown to Italy, offering “a heartfelt apology” during a speech to the European Parliament. “Too many were not there on time when Italy needed a helping hand at the very beginning,” she said.A man walks along Naples promenade, Italy, Monday, April 27, 2020. Italian factories, construction sites and wholesale supply businesses can resume activity as soon as they put safety measures into place aimed at containing contagion with COVID-19.On Tuesday, Italy became the first country to apply for financial aid from an emergency fund of $581 million. Others will be making their applications shortly, including Spain. But the emergency funds on offer are likely to fall short of what is needed, admits Klaus Regling, director-general of the European Stability Mechanism, an EU agency that provides financial assistance, in the form of loans, to eurozone countries. 
 
He told Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera: “I would say that for the second phase we need at least another €500 billion [$ half-trillion] from the European institutions, but it could be more.” He has warned that economic recovery from the virus will be “long and costly.” Italy—along with France and Spain—are demanding another $1 trillion be earmarked for emergency aid. 
 
So far, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands are resisting the idea of joint debt issuance, which would combine securities from different European countries. But Conte and other south European leaders have been doubling down on the demand for pooling debt, mainly underwritten by the EU’s northern states. 
 
A former adviser to France’s Emmanuel Macron, economist Shahin Vallée says greater financial and political integration will be the only way out of the impasse, which could include pooling taxes. Otherwise, only the countries with strong balance sheets able to subsidize their industries and households will recover quickly, further adding to the north-south divide.  
 
Vallée acknowledges, though, there is little political will to go down this route. The economic recovery plan so far “is incomplete and unbalanced, and it is planting the seed of profound divergence between member states,” he has warned. 
 
Others worry that further mutualizing eurozone debt and integrating more will allow Brussels to demand even more power over the fiscal and political affairs of member states, its due as the loan broker. That, in turn, could fuel the ire of the continent’s populist nationalists, who want nation states less hedged in by the EU.  
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