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Public health officials and epidemiologists are at odds over how deadly COVID-19 will prove to be, with forecasts ranging from 1% to 3.4% of infected people dying.​
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The disparity, disease modelers and virologists say, isn’t surprising for a novel virus. They warn national differences could skew predictions — especially if health care systems are overwhelmed by patients needing hospitalization and buckle under the strain.​
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Some epidemiologists worry that may be happening now in the worst affected parts of northern Italy. The death-to-case ratio in Italy climbed Sunday to an alarming 5%, with the Civil Protection Agency reporting a disturbing 51% spike in deaths, bringing the total death toll attributed to coronavirus to 366.The almost empty St. Mark’s Square is seen after the Italian government imposed a virtual lockdown on the north of Italy including Venice to try to contain a coronavirus outbreak, in Venice, Italy, March 9, 2020.Italy’s spike in mortalities exceeded worst-case forecasts, as well as the overall rate in other stricken countries. But public health officials say the death toll is not extraordinary considering Italy has a large elderly population with nearly a quarter of Italians over 65. Only Japan has an older demographic among advanced countries. China has seen about 9% of over-80-year-old coronavirus victims die. In Italy, the death rate for infected seniors is just over 8%.​​As of Monday, Italian authorities reported only two deaths under the age of 63, and said that many who succumbed to the virus were in their 80s or 90s. Most already had weakened immune systems from chronic health conditions, including kidney disease, diabetes and heart problems.Nonetheless, public health officials say that while the health care system is holding up, it is under extraordinary strain that will likely worsen if drastic containment measures announced Sunday by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte don’t start having an effect. ​
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Italy is taking unprecedented steps to handle the patients needing hospitalization by bringing doctors out of retirement and accelerating graduation dates for nursing students. Lombardy, the worst affected Italian region, already has more than 10% of its doctors and nurses unable to work because they tested positive for the virus and are in quarantine, according to the Lombardy region’s top health official, Giulio Gallera.FILE – Paramedics stand by a tent that was set up outside the emergency ward of the Cremona hospital, northern Italy, Feb. 29, 2020.Hospitals in the towns of Lodi and Cremona last week were so packed that they had to shutter their emergency rooms and send patients elsewhere.”Some of the hospitals in Lombardy are under a stress that is much heavier than what this area can support,” Dr. Massimo Galli, head of infectious disease at Milan’s Sacco Hospital, told Sky TG24. “This epidemic is on a scale that is larger than anyone could have thought, imagined or prevented.”More than 300 triage tents have been erected outside medical facilities to handle the volume.​
​Trump predictionItaly aside, the disparity in death-toll forecasts sparked a political dispute in the U.S. last week when U.S. President Donald Trump speculated the death-to-case ration will end up at around 1%, contradicting the World Health Organization (WHO), which has pegged the global mortality rate for the coronavirus at around 3.4%.”Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number. Now — and this is just my hunch — but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this. Because a lot people will have this, and it’s very mild. They’ll get better very rapidly. They don’t even see a doctor. They don’t even call a doctor,” Trump said during a television interview. ​
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British medical officials say they also suspect the mortality rate of the virus will be about 1%. Chris Whitty, the country’s top medical officer, told lawmakers last week it was heartened by the decline in cases in China and the slowing death rate there.​Unknown variables
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Epidemiologists and disease modelers are united on one thing — they all acknowledge that forecasting the case fatality ratio is highly tricky because of unknown variables. Not everything is understood about the novel virus, and trying to adjust for undetected or unreported cases is also a challenge. Refined treatment protocols and the use of repurposed existing drugs could alter the picture significantly, they say.Officials from hospital support services talk outside negative pressure screening tents set up outside the emergency room entrance at University of Utah hospital as they prepare for coronavirus testing, in Salt Lake City, Utah, March 9, 2020.”It is surprisingly difficult to calculate the death rate during an epidemic,” said John Edmunds, a professor in the Center for the Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases, at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “This is because it takes some time to die. In the case of COVID-19, the time between onset of the disease and death is quite long — two to three weeks or more— so the number of cases that you should divide by is not the number of cases that we have seen to this point, but the number of cases that there were a few weeks ago. Estimating what fraction of the cases might be reported is very tricky.” ​
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He noted that not all cases of infection will be reported, because only mild symptoms are suffered.”If there are many more cases in reality, then the case-fatality ratio will be lower,” he told the Science Media Center website. ​
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And there are other factors that can upset predictions, including people’s adherence to or disregard of protocols like self-isolation and handwashing. The efficacy of the containment and delay strategies governments craft and implement to retard the spread of the disease will also be critical. ​Infection spikes 
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Avoiding significant infection spikes will be crucial — high volumes of patients needing hospitalization at the same time can overwhelm health care services, leading to a shortage of beds or attending staff. The end result can be inadequate treatment and more deaths.​
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While Italy, with its soaring numbers of infections, is focusing on what Conte described Monday as “shock therapy” with a Chinese-like containment policy, British virologists and epidemiologists are advising Downing Street to pursue a much more phased approach, arguing that timing is everything. They worry a draconian containment policy may help now but could set the stage for a large second wave of contagion later in the year. ​FILE – Medical staff in protective suits treat coronavirus patients in an intensive care unit at the Cremona hospital in northern Italy, in this still image taken from a video, March 5, 2020.​The British hope to avoid large numbers of people in hospitals at the same time. Disease modeling by the Statistics and Epidemiology Department at Britain’s Lancaster University, which is advising Downing Street, suggests an extreme approach like China’s quarantining of Hubei province, where the virus first appeared, initially can be highly effective, but that when measures are relaxed, a higher peak subsequently emerges, according to Britain’s Sky News. ​
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“One of the things which is clear, if you model out the epidemic, is you will get 50% of all the cases over a three-week period, and 95% of the cases over a nine-week period, if it follows the trajectory we think it’s likely to,” Whitty told British parliamentarians last week.He said his aim is to try to space out the cases, making it easier for Britain’s public National Health Service, the NHS, to manage them.
 
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Venezuelan officials are vowing not to let a fire that destroyed thousands of voting machines deter their quest to hold legislative elections this year that could help President Nicolas Maduro consolidate his power.
    
Tibisay Lucena, president of the government-stacked National Electoral Council, said the fire that tore through a warehouse Saturday, obliterating 49,323 voting machines and nearly 50,000 fingerprint readers, would not prevent a planned vote to replace lawmakers in the last opposition-controlled federal institution.
    
“If there are groups who think that they’re going to stop electoral processes, constitutionally established, they are very wrong,” she said Sunday.
    
Maduro has been vowing to quickly convoke legislative elections for several months, threatening to hold them earlier than usual. The election is constitutionally scheduled to take place in 2020, though it usually is held at the end of the year. Opposition leaders have not yet stated whether they will participate.
    
The opposition has boycotted other recent elections, refusing to participate in an election run by the current electoral body, which is dominated by pro-Maduro officials. Authorities have barred a number of high-profile opposition leaders from running and are accused of manipulating the vote in which Maduro’ was reelected in 2018.
    
Opposition leaders have expressed concern about running in a legislative vote without a reformed National Electoral Council that would allow what they consider a free and fair election, though analysts also warn that if they do not participate, Maduro allies could assume control of the opposition’s only remaining national platform in the government.
    
Key opposition members did not respond to news of the fire, instead pushing forward in calling for a planned march on Tuesday.
    
Lucena said two prosecutors have been assigned to investigate the fire, which took place at a warehouse in the state of Miranda, not far from the capital.
    
“The CNE wants to know the truth: What was the origin of the fire and how did it spread so rapidly?” she said in a state broadcast. “No hypothesis is being discarded.”
    
First responders were able to rescue only 562 voting machines and 724 fingerprint readers.
   
 “Very little could be recovered,” Lucena said. “It was a great effort, but the fire was greater.”
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A Turkish court on Monday sentenced the ex-mayor of a major Kurdish city to more than nine years in prison after convicting him of “membership in an armed terror group.”  The Turkish authorities removed from their positions more than 20 mayors from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) last year over their alleged ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), just months after they won local elections in March.Critics say the suspensions were aimed at removing political opposition to Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party in the country’s southeast after poor election results.Adnan Selcuk Mizrakli was mayor of Diyarbakir until he was suspended in August along with the mayors of Mardin and Van — all of them replaced by government-appointed trustees.The court in Diyarbakir on Monday convicted Mizrakli, who refused to attend the final hearing, “of membership in an armed terror group,” the Anadolu state news agency reported.Prosecutors said he attended the funerals of PKK militants and meetings that were used for the group’s propaganda.He was sentenced to nine years, four months and 15 days in prison, Anadolu said.The government has repeatedly claimed the HDP has links to the PKK, which has fought a bloody insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.The HDP says it has no official connection to the PKK but has tried to broker peace talks between the insurgents and government. 
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Greeks and Turks are waging a proxy war on social media with photos, video and commentary purporting to show the other side behaving badly in a migrant crisis that has seriously strained already tense relations between Athens and Ankara.An estimated 35,000 migrants from the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere have been trying to enter Greece, a European Union member state, since Ankara said on Feb.28 it would no longer keep migrants on its territory as required under a 2016 deal with the European Union in return for aid.Greece has used tear gas and water cannon to hold them back.On Greek Twitter, the hashtags GreeceUnderAttack and GreeceDefendsEurope have become common. On Turkish Twitter KahpeYunan (GreekBitch) was briefly a trending topic. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu used the tag GreeceAttacksRefugees.One video circulating on Monday appeared to show a tractor on the Greek side spraying liquid towards the border fence, dousing hundreds of migrants gathered on the Turkish side.Some Greek social media users speculated it was a farmer spraying pig urine along the border. Turkish social media users said it showed Greek police and farmers spraying chemical weapons and tagged the United Nations.The heated online exchanges draw on a long history of conflict between Muslim Turkey and Christian Greece, which today remain at loggerheads over issues such as Cyprus and drilling for gas in the eastern Mediterranean, as well as over migrants.Turkey, which hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees, says the EU has failed to honor its promises of aid. Brussels and Athens accuse Ankara of goading migrants to storm the border in a bid to “blackmail” Europe into offering more cash and supporting its geopolitical aims in the Syrian conflict.Stripped to underwearPhotos unverified by Reuters have shown migrants apparently being stripped to their underwear after being caught on the Greek side of the border, and then sent back. Others show Turkish forces allegedly attempting to dismantle parts of the border fence to make it easier for migrants to cross.Turkey says Greek forces are firing live ammunition and that they killed four migrants last week, claims that Athens denies.As nationalist passions have flared on both sides, Greek television interviewed three men dressed in combat fatigues who were headed out in a small boat with their German shepherd dog to patrol the Evros river delta along the border for migrants.Among the accounts frequently retweeting videos and commentary from the Turkish side has been Russia Today, while other Russian commentators have suggested that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is increasingly focusing his military attention on Greece. Turkey and Greece are NATO allies.All this comes as Turkey and Russia face off in the Syrian conflict, where Ankara backs anti-government rebels while Moscow is key ally of President Bashar al-Assad.The media manipulation and disinformation have even extended to the coronavirus outbreak.One Turkish commentator suggested that Greece was “filled with coronavirus, unlike Turkey”, and recommended “never visit Greece”, even as Erdogan actively encourages migrants to move there.Greece has 73 confirmed cases of coronavirus but no fatalities, a relatively low toll for Europe. Turkey has no confirmed cases so far. 
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Italy’s coronavirus death toll spiked Sunday by 133 to 366, the most in any country outside China.With the growing health risks, Rome imposed a new emergency decree, locking down the northern part of the country with a quarter of Italy’s population.That includes the Lombardy region and the financial capital, Milan. In addition, Italy is closing off 14 other provinces, including Veneto, home of Venice.Travel into and out the areas will be highly restricted until early next month, as the country seeks to slow the tide of fatalities from the virus. Museums, theaters, cinemas and other entertainment venues have also been ordered to close.Italy has also asked retired doctors to return to service to help treat coronavirus victims.Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said that 100 countries are now reporting coronavirus cases with more than 106,000 people reported as being ill, while deaths have surpassed 3,500.”While very serious, this should not discourage us,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “There are many things everyone, everywhere can and should do now.”FILE – World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a daily press briefing on COVID-19 at the WHO headquarters on March 6, 2020 in Geneva.Tedros praised Italy for “taking bold, courageous steps aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus (and) protecting their country. They are making genuine sacrifices.” He said the WHO “stands in solidarity” with Italy and “is here to continue supporting you.”In the U.S., where there have been at least 19 deaths, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter, “We have a perfectly coordinated and fin- tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!”We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Carrying multiple people who have tested positive for COVID-19, the Grand Princess maintains a holding pattern about 30 miles off the coast of San Francisco, March 8, 2020.Nearly 1,000 Californians on board, will be quarantined for 14 days at military bases in California, Georgia and Texas, where they will be monitored for COVID-19. The ship carried passengers from 54 countries, and the State Department is working to send several hundred foreign passengers home.France, which has also had 19 deaths and 1,126 cases as of Sunday, is banning events of more than 1,000 people in hopes of slowing the spread of the coronavirus.Across the English Channel, Great Britain reported its largest one-day increases in confirmed cases: 273 cases, up by 64 cases, or 30%. A third person has died.Iran said Sunday the coronavirus has killed 49 more people, an increase of 25%, in the last 24 hours, bringing its death toll to 194. The country has 6,566 confirmed cases.In China, a hotel used to quarantine people who had had been exposed to the virus collapsed Sunday. At least 10 people were killed and 23 are missing. The virus first erupted in China late last year.Saudi Arabia announced early Sunday it was suspending classes and activities at mosques starting Monday. It reported later the closure of a winter wonderland and the shopping and entertainment district of Riyadh boulevard because of the virus. It reported four more cases, for a total of 11.Bahrain announced Sunday that Formula One’s Bahrain Grand Prix will be run March 22 without spectators; it will be televised only.    
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Italy’s coronavirus death toll spiked Sunday by 133 to 366, the most in any country outside China.With the growing health risks, Rome imposed a new emergency decree, locking down the northern part of the country with a quarter of Italy’s population.The northern part of the country includes the Lombardy region and the financial capital, Milan. In addition, Italy is closing off 14 other provinces, including Veneto, home of Venice.
Travel into and out the areas will be highly restricted until early next month, as the country seeks to slow the tide of fatalities from the virus. Museums, theaters, cinemas and other entertainment venues have also been ordered to close.
Italy has also asked retired doctors to return to service to help treat coronavirus victims.Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said that 100 countries are now reporting coronavirus cases with more than 100,000 people reported as being ill.”While very serious, this should not discourage us,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “There are many things everyone, everywhere can and should do now.”FILE – World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a daily press briefing on COVID-19 at the WHO headquarters on March 6, 2020 in Geneva.Tedros praised Italy for “taking bold, courageous steps aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus (and) protecting their country. They are making genuine sacrifices.” He said the  WHO “stands in solidarity” with Italy and “is here to continue supporting you.”In the U.S., where there have been at least 19 deaths, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter, “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!” We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Nuns watch Pope Francis on a giant screen as he delivers the Angelus, in St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, March 8, 2020.In a break with centuries of tradition, Pope Francis did not deliver the annual Angelus prayer live Sunday in Saint Peter’s Square. The Vatican, which has already reported one coronavirus case, is hoping to keep crowd size down in the tiny city-state in its attempt to stop the virus.  The pontiff instead utilized 21st-century technology and delivered the prayer “via livestream by Vatican News and on screens in Saint Peter’s Square,” the Vatican said.Iran said Sunday the coronavirus has killed 49 more people in the last 24 hours, bringing its death toll to 194. The Middle Eastern country has 6,566 confirmed cases.In China, a hotel used to quarantine people with the virus collapsed Sunday. At least six people were killed in the incident. The virus first erupted in China late last year.Reuters reported that at least two federal health screeners at Los Angeles International Airport had tested positive for the coronavirus and have been ordered to self-quarantine until March 17.  The news agency said screeners, many of them federal workers, had already “asked their supervisors . . . to change official protocols and require stronger masks.”The Grand Princess cruise ship, hit by a coronavirus outbreak, is scheduled to dock in Oakland, California, Monday. The ship has been held at sea since last week when San Francisco refused to allow the ship to return there because of the outbreak. The Grand Princess is carrying more than 3,500 passengers and crew.Worldwide, there were more than 106,000 infections Sunday, while the death toll has surpassed 3,500.Bahrain has announced it will hold its Formula 1 Grand Prix later this month, but without any spectators.  “Given the continued spread of COVID -19 globally, convening a major sporting event, which is open to the public and allows thousands of international travelers and local fans to interact in close proximity would not be the right thing to do at the present time,” the Bahrain International Circuit said Sunday.
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Relatives of the victims of the MH17 plane crash set up 298 empty chairs outside the Russian embassy in the Netherlands, a day before four individuals will stand trial at the Hague over their alleged involvement in the downing of the passenger jet.The Malaysian air flight crashed over territory in Ukraine held by pro-Russia separatists in July of 2014.  Russia has denied accusations of involvment, but relatives of the deceased are calling on Moscow to participate in the investigation into the crash which killed all 298 people on board.The silent protest was staged a day before three Russians and a Ukrainian are to be tried at the Hague for their alleged roles in the missile attack.  Rows of white folding chairs were arranged to resemble seats on the airplane. Among the victims of the 2014 crash were 196 Dutch citizens, 43 Malaysians, and 38 Australians. “We have the utmost confidence in the Dutch legal system to establish the truth and do justice in this case,” a statement released by the U.S. State Department Sunday said. “We again urge Russia to cease its continuing aggressive and destabilizing activities in Ukraine,” the statement went on.Tomorrow, the trial will begin for four individuals indicted for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight #MH17. We support the ongoing investigatory work of the Joint Investigation Team and urge #Russia to cease its continuing aggressive and destabilizing activities in #Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/26eGUqp1bs— Morgan Ortagus (@statedeptspox) March 8, 2020Two independent investigators determined that the plane was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile sent to Ukraine by Russia to help pro-Russia separatists fight Ukraine.  Russia has denied providing financial or military support for separatists in Ukraine.Russian citizens Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky, and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian separatist Leonid Kharchenko are the four individuals going on trial Monday, though none are expected to appear in court. If they do not send legal representatives, the Dutch court is expected to order that their trial be conducted in absentia.
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Countries hit by outbreaks of the novel coronavirus are celebrating International Women’s Day despite the cancellation of multiple events.In China, the epicenter of the COVID-19 virus which originated in the northeastern city of Wuhan, state-run news outlets celebrated the female health workers on the frontlines of the crisis.State-run media outlet Xinhua profiled female laboratory technicians, nurses, and psychological professionals helping those affected by the outbreak to honor International Women’s Day.According to the World Health Organization, roughly 70% of the global health workforce is female.Women make up 70% of the global health workforce. That’s why on #WomensDay, I remind everyone that the world needs 9 million more nurses & midwives to achieve #HealthForAll. 2020 is the year to #SupportNursesAndMidwives & to invest in their education & jobs. pic.twitter.com/ueK07bP5qO
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) March 8, 2020In South Korea, which is reporting the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases outside of China, many events scheduled to celebrate the day were cancelled, the French Press Agency reported.”Although we can’t be physically together, our minds for realizing gender equality are stronger than ever,” the country’s gender equality minister Lee Jung-Ok said in a video message.In Italy, which has reported the most deaths from COVID-19 outside of China, a quarter of the country was on lockdown as of Sunday.The theme of International Women’s Day 2020 is “Each for Equality”. “An equal world is an enabled world,” International Women’s Day wrote on their website. 
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The number of female parliamentarians in the world has more than doubled since the groundbreaking U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, 25 years ago, the Inter-Parliamentary Union said Friday. Part of the reason may be quotas.While female representation in national parliaments has increased, gender parity remains a distant dream. However, significant changes have occurred. In 1995, the top-ranked country in terms of female members of parliament was Sweden, followed by other Nordic and developed countries.This year, Rwanda, with more than 60% female MPs, beat 171 other countries for the top spot, followed by Cuba, Bolivia and United Arab Emirates. Sweden has been bumped down to seventh position.The Inter-Parliamentary Union finds countries in the Americas have made the most progress in terms of representation of women in parliament, followed by Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia. The Pacific, which holds up the bottom of the rankings, is the only region where some parliaments have no women.IPU Secretary General Martin Chungong said women fare best in countries that apply quota systems for their representation.“Wherever quotas are being used during electoral processes, we see an increase in the women’s representation when compared with the countries where there are no quota systems. So, we continue to lay emphasis on the need for quotas to be legislated in order to achieve gender equality,” he said.Chungong told VOA statistics show strong female participation in parliaments leads to better-designed and -implemented gender equality laws.“It is more often possible to address some of those issues that may be specific to women; such as, maternal and newborn and child health to be on the agenda, women’s political participation, violence against women, sexism. Those things tend to come to the fore when you have strong women’s participation in parliament,” he said.Chungong said he believes the MeToo movement could help boost women’s political representation. He said the movement directly confronts sexism, sexual harassment and gender-based violence, which help keep women from seeking and winning electoral office. 
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The World Health Organization said Sunday that 100 countries are now reporting coronavirus cases with more than 100,000 people reported as being ill.”While very serious, this should not discourage us,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “There are many things everyone, everywhere can and should do now.”Tedros praised Italy for “taking bold, courageous steps aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus [and] protecting their country. They are making genuine sacrifices.” He said the  WHO “stands in solidarity” with Italy and “is here to continue supporting you.” 
Italy, with 233 deaths, more than any other country outside of China, imposed a new emergency decree on Sunday, locking down the northern part of the country with a quarter of Italy’s population.The northern part of the country includes the Lombardy region and the financial capital, Milan. In addition, Italy will close off 14 other provinces, including Veneto, home of Venice.Travel into and out the areas will be highly restricted until early next month, as the country seeks to slow the tide of fatalities from the virus. Museums, theaters, cinemas and other entertainment venues have also been ordered to close.Italy has also asked retired doctors to return to service to help treat coronavirus victims.In the U.S., where there have been at least 19 deaths, President Donald Trump said on Twitter, “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!”We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Nuns watch Pope Francis on a giant screen as he delivers the Angelus, in St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, March 8, 2020.In a break with centuries of tradition, Pope Francis did not deliver the annual Angelus prayer live Sunday in Saint Peter’s Square. The Vatican, which has already reported one coronavirus case, is hoping to keep crowd size down in the tiny city-state in its attempt to stop the virus.  The pontiff instead utilized 21st-century technology and delivered the prayer “via livestream by Vatican News and on screens in Saint Peter’s Square,” the Vatican said.Iran said Sunday the coronavirus has killed 49 more people in the last 24 hours, bringing its death toll to 194. The Middle Eastern country has 6,566 confirmed cases.In China, a hotel used to quarantine people with the virus collapsed Sunday. At least six people were killed in the incident. The virus first erupted in China late last year.Reuters reported that at least two federal health screeners at Los Angeles International Airport had tested positive for the coronavirus and have been ordered to self-quarantine until March 17.  The news agency said screeners, many of them federal workers, had already “asked their supervisors . . . to change official protocols and require stronger masks.”The Grand Princess cruise ship, hit by a coronavirus outbreak, is scheduled to dock in Oakland, California, Monday. The ship has been held at sea since last week when San Francisco refused to allow the ship to return there because of the outbreak. The Grand Princess is carrying more than 3,500 passengers and crew.Worldwide, there were more than 106,000 infections Sunday, while the death toll has surpassed 3,500.Bahrain has announced it will hold its Formula 1 Grand Prix later this month, but without any spectators. “Given the continued spread of COVID -19 globally, convening a major sporting event, which is open to the public and allows thousands of international travelers and local fans to interact in close proximity would not be the right thing to do at the present time,” the Bahrain International Circuit said Sunday.   
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More than 15 million people were placed under forced quarantine in northern Italy early Sunday as the government approved drastic measures in an attempt to halt the spread of the deadly coronavirus that is sweeping the globe.Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said via Twitter he had signed off on plans to strictly limit movement in and out of large areas including Venice and the financial capital Milan for nearly a month.“#Coronavirus, the new decree is finally approved,” Conte wrote, confirming earlier reports of the lockdown in the newspaper Corriere Della Sera and other media.With more than 230 fatalities, Italy has recorded the most deaths from the COVID-19 disease of any country outside China, where the outbreak began in December.Military and policemen inside Milan’s main train station as Italian authorities prepare to lock down Lombardy to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in Milan, Italy, March 7, 2020.Second-oldest populationItaly has the world’s second oldest population after Japan, according to the World Bank, and older people appear to be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill from the new coronavirus.Without a serious reason that cannot be postponed, such as urgent work or family issues, people will not be allowed to enter or leave the quarantine zones, Corriere Della Sera reported.These include the entire Lombardy region as well as Venice and its surrounding areas, and the cities of Parma and Rimini — affecting a quarter of Italy’s population of 60 million.Museums, nightclubs, gyms and casinos will be closed in these places, with people advised to stay at home as much as possible, the newspaper said, adding that the restrictions would be in place until April 3.People will be allowed to return home from outside these regions, while bars and restaurants are allowed to remain open provided it is possible for customers to stay a meter (three feet) away from one another.Protective masks and health care facilities are displayed in a pharmacy in Rome, March 7, 202,0 amid fear of COVID-19 epidemic. On March 6, Italy reported 49 deaths from the new coronavirus, the highest single-day toll to date.Following ChinaThe measures echo those taken in China’s central Hubei province, whose nearly 60 million residents have been under lockdown since late January when the government rushed to put a lid on the virus that first emerged in the regional capital, Wuhan.Worldwide, the total number of people with COVID-19 has passed 100,000 while 3,500 have died across 95 nations and territories.The disease has convulsed markets and paralyzed global supply chains, and Italy has found itself at the forefront of the global fight against the virus, with more than 5,800 infections recorded in the past seven weeks in all 22 Italian regions.The virus has now spread to all 22 Italian regions and the first deaths are being recorded in Italy’s less well medically equipped south.
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Over the years, villagers who live near Greece’s border with Turkey got used to seeing small groups of people enter their country illegally. The Greek residents often offered the just-arrived newcomers a bite to eat and directed them to the nearest police or railway station.But the warm welcomes wore off. When Turkey started channeling thousands of people to Greece, insisting that its ancient regional rival and NATO ally receive them as refugees, the Greek government sealed the border and rushed police and military reinforcements to help hold back the flood.Greeks in the border region rallied behind the expanding border force, collecting provisions and offering any possible contribution to what is seen as a national effort to stop a Turkish-spurred incursion.’We know the crossings’In several cases, authorities asked villagers familiar with the local terrain to help locate migrants who managed to slip through holes cut in a border fence or to cross the River Evros — Meric in Turkish — that demarcates most of the 212-kilometer border.”We were born here, we live here, we work here, we know the crossings better than anyone,” Panayiotis Ageladarakis, a community leader in Amorio, a village that lies 300 meters from the river banks.Other villages also responded to the call for volunteer trackers. Small groups of unarmed men monitor known crossing points after dark.”We sit at the crossings, and they come,” Ageladarakis told The Associated Press as he drove a pickup truck with a fellow Greek border village resident along a rough track at night. “We keep them there most of the time, call police, and they come and arrest them. Then, it’s a matter for the police. We aren’t interested in where they take them. We just try to help this effort taking place by the army and the police.”Pitching inHelp for the border units also came from Evros businesses and store owners. Nikos Georgiadis, head of the local restaurant owners association, said his colleagues delivered food and water to units stationed at four points on the border.”They also asked us for masks and gloves, and we’ll try to find some,” he said.Ageladarakis said all the migrants he encountered over the past few days were cooperative.”These people are frightened. Nobody has caused any trouble,” he said.But the village community leader said that in his view, the people he encountered did not look like they were fleeing wars in their own countries.”There’s nobody coming from a war,” he said. “None of them are refugees. They’re all illegal migrants and that’s why they’re trying to get into Europe [this way].”Greek authorities said that out of a the 252 people arrested for illegal entry over the past week as of Friday, 64% were Afghans, 19% Pakistanis, 5% Turks and 4% Syrians. The others were from Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Egypt.
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Britain is expected to announce next week a new levy on banks and other firms regulated for anti-money laundering to raise up to 100 million pounds ($130 million) to tackle dirty money, the government said Saturday.London has long attracted corrupt foreign money, especially from Russia, Nigeria, Pakistan, former Soviet states and Asia, and the police estimate that around 100 billion pounds of dirty money is moved through or into Britain each year.In his first budget on Wednesday, finance minister Rishi Sunak is expected to unveil plans for an Economic Crime Levy to generate cash for new technology for law enforcement and to hire more financial investigators.The levy is likely to come into force in 2022-23 and the Treasury will consult in the spring about which firms will be asked to contribute.”Criminals will have nowhere left to hide their illicit earnings,” Sunak said in a statement. “We’re going to put more financial investigators and better technology on the front line to fight against money laundering.”Last year the government and business leaders agreed an Economic Crime Plan to try to better tackle dirty money with improved information sharing and more cash for police to tackle fraudsters and money launderers.
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Protests against gender violence in Mexico have intensified in recent years amid an increase in killings of women and girls. The killings are often accompanied by sexual assault and sometimes grisly mutilations. Women are expected to express their outrage in a march in Mexico City on Sunday, International Women’s Day. Smaller demonstrations will be held across the country. Women and girls also plan to hold protests on Monday. Mexican women are being urged to skip school, shun housework and stay home from work to show the country what it’s like to go one day without them.Why are they marching?Government statistics show that more than 10 females are slain on average every day in Mexico, making it one of the most dangerous countries in the world for girls and women. As recently as 2017, an average of seven women were killed each day in Mexico.”The context of violence against women and against girls in Mexico is especially grave,” said Nira Cardenas, coordinator of the gender unit at the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico.In addition to half the population being at high risk of violence, impunity is a major problem. Few reported crimes in Mexico result in convictions.Participation in the annual march on Sunday is expected to be higher than during previous marches as a broader swath of society joins the families of the killed and missing who frequently take to the streets, accompanied by feminists and activists.A woman walks past a sign with a message in Spanish: “Making sexual jokes about your female colleagues is also violence; together we can stop violence against women,” inside a subway station in central Mexico City, March 5, 2020.Who are the victims?A series of recent, highly publicized killings in Mexico has led to more debate and calls for protests against gender violence.The ex-wife of an influential technology entrepreneur was shot to death in November after testifying in a child custody case. A young woman was skinned and disemboweled, allegedly by her boyfriend, in February. Days later, a 7-year-old was kidnapped outside her elementary school and sexually abused; the child’s lifeless body was disposed of in a plastic bag found in an empty lot.The victims shared a history of abuse in their households, and failings by Mexican authorities.A contingent of mothers of victims will march together Sunday in a show of sorority and tears.”We want to give a hug not just to those who are no longer physically here with us, but also to each and all of those women who will soon become part of our family [of victims],” said Araceli Osorio, mother of Lesvy Berlin, who was strangled to death by a boyfriend on the campus of Latin America’s largest university in 2017.What is Mexico doing about the problem?Mexico has aggressive legislation for punishing violent crimes against women. The deficit comes in the application of the law.”Mexico is the country of rights on paper,” said Ana Pecova, director of advocacy group EQUIS Justice for Women.Since 2011, killings of Mexican women that carry signs of hatred for the gender, such as mutilation, have come with a stiffer minimum sentence than regular homicides.Congress increased the femicide sentence again in February, to 65 years, and passed a constitutional amendment last year that allows for preventive detention for those accused of domestic violence for a second time. The majority of women killed in Mexico are targeted by their own partners.Authorities often lack the tools, motivation and capability to investigate crimes, leading family members of victims to pursue the cases themselves. Several mothers complain that their missing girls were initially dismissed as runaways and their killings wrongly ruled suicides.Some protests become rowdy. Why?A women’s protest in February became rowdy, following a pattern of street outrage in the past. A masked protester tried to set fire to a wooden door of the presidential palace while others drenched it with red paint.Destruction of public property has become a mainstay of feminist protests in Mexico City since a small group trashed a bus station, police precinct and a major monument in August in disgust over the city’s bungling of an alleged rape by police of a teenager.The vandalism drew heavy criticism. The vandals argue that women are more important than statues or broken windows, which can be repaired. A woman whose life is cut short by violence never returns, they say.”We ask ourselves all the time: What else can we do?” said Cardenas.What’s next?The grassroots movement for a nationwide strike by women on Monday was inspired in part by similar actions in countries such as Argentina and Chile.”We have to say: Enough already,” said Maria de la Luz Estrada, coordinator of the National Citizens Observatory of Femicide. “We’re calling for the rule of law to work. They have to guarantee the integrity of the lives of every male and female.”Major banks, media companies and law firms have joined the call for women to become “invisible” for a day. The Coparmex business group encouraged its more than 36,000 members across the country to take part, estimating the one-day work stoppage would cost the economy hundreds of thousands of dollars.The Education Ministry issued a last-minute endorsement of the initiative, cognizant that schools depend heavily on female personnel.Participants hope the national dialogue will spur change. Households where men share the chores, they note, have lower incidences of domestic abuse. Prevention is key, but so are consequences. Authorities need more funding to investigate cases, and instruction on how to do so in a timely and empathetic manner.
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Pope Francis’s Angelus prayer on Sunday will be livestreamed in a break with centuries-old tradition, the Vatican announced as the number of coronavirus deaths in Italy soared past 200.Worldwide, the number of cases exceeded 100,000 and the overall death toll was more than 3,500 across 95 nations and territories.The World Health Organization called the spread “deeply concerning” as several countries reported their first cases of the COVID-19 disease.In Rome, the Angelus prayers — normally delivered by the 83-year-old pontiff from his window — will “be broadcast via livestream by Vatican News and on screens in Saint Peter’s Square,” the Vatican said.Italy is the worst-hit European country and its toll shot up Saturday by a single-day record of 1,247 cases to 5,883, along with 233 deaths.Retired doctors were being recruited to bolster the health care system with 20,000 more staff, but civil protection officials said the northern Lombardy region was “experiencing difficulties with the [number of] beds available in hospitals.”Export data from ChinaIn China, where the outbreak began in December, the virus wreaked havoc on the world’s second-largest economy, shutting down businesses and disrupting global supply chains.The negative impact was shown in official data Saturday, with Chinese exports plunging 17.2 percent in the first two months of the year.However, the number of new cases reported Saturday in China was the lowest in weeks.The government has hinted it may soon lift the quarantine imposed on Hubei province, the locked-down epicenter where some 56 million people have been effectively housebound since late January.For the second consecutive day, there were no new cases reported in Hubei outside Wuhan, the province’s capital.But the number of infections beyond the epicenter rose for the third straight day, fueling fears about cases being brought into the country from overseas.
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The tent camps sprouting around Paris are a potent affirmation that Europe has never figured out a sustainable migration strategy since its 2015-16 migrant crisis. In periodic pre-dawn raids, police dismantle them. But eventually they sprout back, often in tougher, grimier places.   Today, fears of another mass influx of asylum-seekers have come roaring back, and not just in France. The trigger came a week ago, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would no longer comply with a 2016 migrant deal with the European Union to keep Syrians and other asylum-seekers on Turkish soil.Those now pressing to cross Turkey’s border with Greece number in the thousands, rather than the nearly 1 million migrants that flooded into the European Union a few years ago.But they have again fueled nationalist rhetoric and, on the other side, concerns that the EU risks breaching international humanitarian law and its own values. More broadly, the current situation underscores Europe’s piecemeal strategy at best of handling another mass influx.FILE – Migrants are seen near a bus station in Edirne, Turkey, March 6, 2020.“The EU-Turkey deal was always presented as a temporary measure that would allow EU member states and leaders to catch their breath and stop firefighting, and really look at how they could improve their asylum system,” said Hanne Beirens, director of Migration Policy Institute Europe, a Brussels research group.But, she added, “nearly four years onwards, we have not reached a new agreement on how we will reform the common European asylum system, or how we will share responsibility for newcomers who ask for asylum.”A positive gestureOn Saturday, Ankara offered one positive gesture, as officials announced they would no longer allow migrants to reach Greece through the Aegean Sea because of safety concerns. But it has put no similar restrictions on its land borders with Bulgaria and Greece, where days of clashes between migrants and Greek border guards are exacerbating tensions.   In back-to-back emergency meetings of European interior and foreign ministers this week, along with visits to the Greek border by senior EU officials, member states pushed back, saying they would not be blackmailed by Ankara. Turkey must fully honor the migrant agreement, they said, before they will consider further assistance.   “Encouraging refugees and migrants to attempt illegal crossing into the European Union is not an acceptable way for Turkey to push for further support of the European Union,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Friday.The 2016 deal saw Turkey keeping asylum-seekers within its territory, in return for nearly $6.8 million in humanitarian assistance. But today, Ankara complains the money has been slow to arrive and it is funneled through aid agencies rather than its government. Adding to the pressure of hosting roughly 3.7 million refugees is another wave of refugees pressing to enter Turkey following fighting in Idlib.   FILE – Migrants walk on a dirt road following their arrival on a dinghy on a beach near the village of Skala Sikamias, after crossing part of the Aegean Sea from Turkey to the island of Lesbos, Greece, March 5, 2020.Even as they stood by member state Greece this week, the Europeans also expressed empathy for Turkey.   “We understand the big pressure that Turkey is suffering,” Borrell said.Analyst Beirens doesn’t believe the current standoff with Ankara will lead to another mass influx of asylum-seekers into Europe. For one, she said, Turkey needs support from its European NATO allies in its conflict in Syria. For another, European governments have too much at stake.   “A lot of governments that came to power have campaigned on the issue of migration,” she said, “and have publicly announced they would never allow a new migration of the size and proportion of 2015-16 to happen again.”Outsourcing migrant managementEurope has also reached out to countries across the Mediterranean Sea, including Tunisia and Morocco, to help reduce migration flows. In Niger, a French outpost screens asylum claims from West African migrants before they get anywhere near the coast.   The EU has also channeled millions of dollars to Libya, funding coast guard efforts to apprehend migrants off its shores. But an Associated Press investigation in December found that accompanying European promises of improved migrant detention centers in Libya were never realized, with the funds diverted to militiamen, traffickers and coast guard members.   While controversial, the outsourcing has produced results. Fewer than 129,000 migrants arrived in Europe in 2019, according to the International Organization for Migration.   Less successful have been Europe’s own efforts to handle its migrant influx. Central and Eastern European nations have long opposed burden sharing, leaving front-line Mediterranean states like Greece and Italy shouldering outsized caseloads.   FILE – Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks at a news conference in Prague, Czech Republic, March 4, 2020.Meanwhile, nationalist rhetoric is again heating up. In Budapest this week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban vowed to defend the EU border against the potential influx from Turkey. “As a last resort, as in 2015, there are the Hungarians,” he said.In France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen accused Erdogan of trying to “Islamize” Europe and described the migrants now on the Greek-Turkish border as trying to “invade” Europe.   For their part, rights groups have sharply criticized a number of Europe’s migration measures, both inside and outside its borders. An Amnesty International report this month, for example, claimed European activists trying to help refugees and migrants were being harassed and prosecuted using “flawed anti-smuggling laws and counterterrorism measures.”  The recent border clashes between Greek riot police and migrants have fueled more criticism, with Human Rights Watch calling for EU migrant policies to be “guided by solidarity, humanity and respect of international law.”  European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced she will present a new EU migration pact in the first half of 2020.   Beirens of the Migration Policy Institute believes the current EU-Turkish faceoff could prove a tipping point.   “It could go in two directions,” she said. “If it strengthens and unites member states to come up with an agreement to deal with migration internally, that’s a very good thing. But it could actually deepen tensions.”
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North Korea accused several European nations of “illogical thinking” Saturday after they called a closed-door U.N. Security Council meeting to condemn missile launches by the reclusive state earlier this week.Britain, Germany, France, Estonia and Belgium raised North Korea’s latest missile firings at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday, calling them a provocative action that violated U.N. resolutions.North Korea fired two short-range missiles off the east coast into the sea on Monday after a three-month halt. The launches, which officials have said were routine military drills, were personally overseen by its leader Kim Jong Un.”The illogical thinking and sophism of these countries are just gradually bearing a close resemblance to the United States, which is hostile to us,” a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement to the state-run KCNA news agency.The spokesperson, who was not named, described the European action as “reckless behavior … instigated by the United States.”Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korea’s leader and a senior government official, defended Monday’s launches as military drills, saying they were not meant to threaten anyone. 
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Employees at the government-run General Hospital in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, fear the day when the first coronavirus patient checks in.Dr. Jacques Mackenzie told VOA that no measures have been taken to protect the staff at the nation’s largest health facility.“It’s sad to say this but the hospital receives a lot of patients daily and we are not — I repeat — we are not ready, as far as I know, to diagnose a person who has the coronavirus,” he said, adding that they don’t even have the test to determine if someone is infected.“The diagnosis is biological so the laboratory has to confirm the diagnosis. We don’t have the test. We, the medical personnel, have not received any instructions at all with regards to detecting coronavirus cases, nor how to protect ourselves. We are seeing (in the news) all the equipment other countries have to deal with the coronavirus, their doctors, their technicians are well equipped. We, on the other hand, have never received anything that would allow us to face the possible arrival of coronavirus in the country.”The statement was in sharp contrast to the assurances given by Public Health Minister Greta Roy Clement earlier this week during a National Palace press event, where she detailed steps the administration is taking to handle possible coronavirus cases.FILE – Minister of Public Health and Population of Haiti, Marie-Greta Roy Clément, left, and Minister of Health of Brazil Ricardo Barros, center, visit the Dr. Zilda Arns Lieu Hospital in Bon Repos, Port-au-Prince, June 23, 2017.Health Ministry initiativeClement told reporters that health officials had been meeting with professionals at institutions such as the Haitian College of Internal Medicine, and epidemiologists and private hospitals, on how to handle coronavirus patients. She said Haiti would follow the World Health Organization (WHO) protocols being adapted for the country. She said those directives were published online this week for anyone who needs them.For security reasons, “we are not identifying the hospitals which have been designated to receive coronavirus patients, but I will say we have approximately 200 beds available to receive those patients, nationwide at private and public hospitals,” she said.Clement said the National Health Ministry laboratory received coronavirus test kits on Feb. 12, which will be administered to patients suspected of being infected with the virus. She said samples will be taken from the hospital to the national lab for testing.Confirmed Caribbean coronavirus casesThere have been no confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Haiti. However, the Dominican Republic, which shares a border with Haiti, announced one confirmed case. The French island of Guadeloupe also reported its first confirmed case of the coronavirus this week. There were no other known cases of coronavirus in the Caribbean as of Friday.The health minister told reporters that in addition to the protocols in place, the government would be relying on the experience of health professionals who were trained to handle Ebola and cholera patients, and that measures are already in place to screen all passengers before they board planes for Haiti.Nurse Marie Catherine is disappointed in the lack of communication and support from the Public Health Ministry. (Matiado Vilme / VOA Creole)At the general hospital, nurse Mary Catherine was unaware of the directives Clement spoke about. She told VOA the arrival of any coronavirus patient would be like pouring salt on an open wound.“We are already working under conditions that are not normal for most hospitals and now it’s gotten worse. The Ministry of Public Health has never discussed with us its policy for what to do when we receive the first coronavirus case in Haiti,” she said. “The General Hospital is the first place people come. It’s people’s ‘go to’ place when they are ill. But nothing has been said, nothing has been done about the eventuality of coronavirus.”Haiti’s hospitals were hit hard during the mass anti-government and anti-corruption protests last year, during which roads were barricaded, public sanitation employees stayed home and basic supplies were critically low. As conditions deteriorated, ‘In God’s hands’Lebien Joseph, president of the medical employees union, says the general hospital staff is basically in God’s hands.Lebien Joseph, the General Hospital employers union president prays they will be spared from the Coronavirus. (Matiado Vilme / VOA Creole)“I don’t think God will allow the coronavirus to enter Haiti,” he said. “Our government operates under a fireman mentality — they wait for the disaster to hit and then they start asking if there is water to extinguish the fire. Then, if they don’t see any water they go out and search for it.”Inside the hospital’s laundry room, a small group of women were hand-washing items such as gowns and bed linens. The hospital does not have washing machines and dryers. The women told VOA they are not optimistic about surviving the virus, which currently has a mortality rate in the single digits worldwide.“I believe in God’s grace but believe me, if that virus comes into the country it will kill us all. That’s what I believe,” a female employee said. “I don’t know what others believe, but I believe there’s no way that virus reaches us, and doesn’t destroy us.”In the General Hospital laundry room, linens are washed by hand. (Matiado Vilme / VOA Creole)If that happens under the current circumstances, the hospital employees VOA spoke with agree that they do not plan to stick around.“There are people I’ve spoken to at the hospital who say they plan to leave when the first coronavirus patient arrives, because they don’t want to risk their lives when the government has not given them any tools to face this,” Dr. Mackenzie said.Nurse Marie Catherine says she is not willing to risk her life if the government doesn’t take proactive measures.“A lot of the women, the nurses are saying as soon as the coronavirus patients enters the front door they will be exiting from the back door,” she said “They don’t want to risk their own health if the government health officials don’t act to address the situation.”A female hospital employee agreed.“They have to do something to prepare us to treat patients adequately. Otherwise we will not risk our lives — we don’t want to die alongside the patients,” she said.Patients and vendors stand in front of the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Matiado Vilme / VOA Creole)A male patient undergoing treatment told VOA he is anxious about the possibility of coronavirus patients being admitted.“If I wasn’t sick I’d head home, but I don’t have a choice so I’ll just deal with whatever happens,” he said.The only thing Clement and the people VOA spoke with at the hospital agree on is that “coronavirus is everyone’s problem.”More than 100,000 people worldwide have been infected with the coronavirus, and 3,400 have died. Most of the deaths were in China, where the pandemic is believed to have originated.VOA’s Renan Toussaint in Port-au-Prince contributed to this report.
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The European Union said Friday that it would host an international donors conference in June for refugees from Syria and surrounding countries, even as the bloc criticized Turkey for using asylum-seekers as political pawns.Announcement of the June 29-30 donors conference came during an EU foreign ministers meeting in Zagreb that addressed two related refugee crises. The first involved the roughly 1 million Syrians hoping to cross Turkey’s now-closed borders to safety, following an uptick in fighting in Idlib. It remains unclear whether their situation might ease under a new cease-fire in the region, agreed upon by Ankara and Moscow.  Europe’s second migrant concern relates to the thousands now clamoring to cross Turkey’s borders with Greece and Bulgaria, which now are also closed. Their massive arrival over the past few days came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country needed more EU support to handle its Syrian refugee burden.  Under a 2016 deal, the Europeans earmarked nearly $6.8 billion in assistance for Turkey to care for the refugees within its borders and block them from moving on to Europe. But Ankara says the EU has been slow to pay up, and the money goes to aid agencies rather than directly to the government.  European foreign policy chief Josep Borrell speaks during a news conference after an EU foreign affairs council in Zagreb, Croatia, March 6, 2020.The Europeans say they will not be blackmailed with the migrant surge. That also was the message sent by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.“Encouraging refugees and migrants to attempt illegal crossing into the European Union is not an acceptable way for Turkey to push for further support of the European Union,” he said.The migrants put the EU in a difficult spot. Those now clamoring at the frontier have helped to sharpen tensions between Turkey and EU member Greece. At the same time, it needs Turkey to prevent another major migrant influx, as happened a few years ago. And, like Greece, Turkey is a NATO ally.  ‘Big pressure’So, along with criticizing Ankara, the Europeans are expressing sympathy for Turkey’s migrant dilemma.“We understand the big pressure that Turkey is suffering,” Borrell said. “Four million people. Four million refugees. It’s the biggest number of refugees that any country in the world is facing.”The EU is considering increasing assistance to Turkey. But diplomats say Ankara first must fully honor its migrant deal with Europe.
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European Union health ministers held an extraordinary meeting to discuss the latest developments regarding the coronavirus outbreak. The continental bloc is trying to improve its collective response to the coronavirus outbreak, aside from some members’ decision to ban the export of protective equipment such as masks.
 
The last time EU health ministers met, on Feb. 13, no deaths had yet been reported in Europe.  Now there have been more than 110 coronavius fatalities on the continent, according to the latest figures from the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC).
 
With confirmed cases being reported daily in Italy and France, some member states are moving unilaterally to protect against the outbreak, but officials say a coordinated approach is most effective.EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides says each state’s readiness is important but so is acting in coordination.
 
“We need to remain calm, we need to remain focused but the greatest strength that we all have, as an EU is our solidarity. And we need to work together and work closely because it is on this strength that we would be able to overcome these difficulties,” Kyriakides said.
   
Some EU member-states publicly criticized countries that blocked the export of some medical supplies to protect against the coronavirus. Germany has banned the export of face masks and gloves and France has requisitioned all its own supplies.
 
The European commissioner for risk management, Janet Lenarcic, called on countries to consider the interests of all member states in addition to their own.”Restrictions are possible under the treaty, they can be introduced under certain conditions. However, the commission believes that such measures should be taken in a such way that they would ensure that they would be protective equipment available to all citizens across the European Union on equal footing. We would not favor measures that would favor one member state at the expense of others,” Lenarcic said.
 
Some EU members — notably Italy, where at least 148 people have died as of Thursday — have been hit harder than others and some ministers, like Italy’s Roberto Speranza, called for shared resources.
 
“We don’t have problems at this moment. What we think is that the European level we need a coordination. Not every country, not every region will need masks at the same moment. If we have a European coordination, everyone could give a better solution to the problem with have,” Speranza said.
    
The European Union also increased its research funding by an additional $42 million, which together with the $11 million announced in January, will finance 17 projects involving 136 research teams from across the EU.
  
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Pope Francis on Friday accepted the resignation of a French cardinal who was convicted and then acquitted of covering up for a pedophile priest in a case that fueled a reckoning over clergy sexual abuse in France.
    
Lyon Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, 69, had offered to resign when the Lyon court in March 2019 first convicted him and gave him a six-month suspended sentence for failing to report the predator priest to police.
    
Francis declined to accept it then, saying he wanted to wait for the outcome of the appeal. He allowed Barbarin to step aside and turn the day-to-day running of the archdiocese over to his deputy.
    
In January, after an appeals court acquitted Barbarin, the cardinal said he would again ask Francis to accept his resignation. He said he hoped his departure would allow for the church in Lyon to open a new chapter with new leadership.
    
In a tweet sent Friday from an account that now labels him emeritus archbishop, Barbarin thanked members of his flock and offered them a final prayer: Follow Jesus closely.
    
Francis didn’t name a replacement archbishop on Friday. A brief Vatican statement merely said he had accepted the resignation. At 69, Barbarin is six years shy of the normal retirement age for bishops.
    
The French bishops’ conference said Monsignor Michel Dubost would continue serving as temporary administrator until a new archbishop is announced. The bishops said in a statement that they prayed the Lyon church would follow the work of truth and reconciliation that it has begun and renew its missionary zeal with a pure heart.
    
Barbarin had been accused of failing to report the Rev. Bernard Preynat to civil authorities when he learned of his abuse. Preynat has confessed to abusing Boy Scouts in the 1970s and 1980s. His victims accuse Barbarin and other church authorities of covering up for him for years.
    
Barbarin told the appeal hearing that he followed Vatican instructions in his handling of the case.
    
Preynat’s is on trial in Lyon. During days of testimony earlier this year, he said he couldn’t recall exactly how many boys he abused but gave an estimate of at least 75.
    
He testified that his bishops knew of his attraction to young boys but that none of them acted to stop or report him. Preynat was defrocked in July, about 40 years after parents first wrote to the Lyon diocese to raise alarms about the priest.
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Britain’s biggest domestic airline is the latest casualty of the coronavirus outbreak. Flybe was rescued from near collapse in January but finally went bankrupt Thursday, hit by low demand and customer cancellations in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak. Britain had reported close to 100 infections as of Thursday.
 
Flybe served mainly British and European regional airports rather than major hubs. Its collapse is being seen as a setback for government efforts to improve connectivity and re-balance the British economy away from London.”We feel really sad, just really sad,” Flybe crew member Katherine Denscham said as she prepared to leave her workplace at Exeter airport in Britain’s southwest.
 
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) warned Thursday that the entire global airline industry is suffering amid a huge downturn in bookings.
 
“We could see the effect on revenues exceed $100 billion, around about 19 percent of global passenger revenue. So this would be a revenue shock equivalent to what was seen in the global financial crisis,” IATA Chief Economist Brian Pearce told a press conference in Singapore.
 
Cases of Covid-19 in Britain have risen sharply in recent days. The government said Thursday the focus is moving from containment to delaying its peak impact. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters that planning is underway for the worst-case scenario: a breakdown in law and order.”There are long established plans by which the police will… obviously keep the public safe, but they will prioritize those things that they have to do. And the army is, of course, always ready to backfill as and when. But that is under the reasonable worst-case scenario,” Johnson said this week.An electronic flight departure board displays ‘cancelled’ statuses for all Flybe flights at Exeter Airport in Exeter, England, March 5, 2020, following news that the airline had collapsed into bankruptcy.Across Europe big gatherings are being canceled or postponed, from trade shows to sporting events as the economic impacts are starting to bite. Italy has closed all schools and universities. In Venice, normally packed with visitors year-round, the famous canals are all but empty. Tourism numbers are down across the world.
 
Car sales in China have plunged by 80 percent in a month. Supply chains are disrupted across the globe. The International Monetary Fund has slashed growth forecasts – and announced this week that it will offer up to $50 billion in loans for poorer countries that could struggle to deal with a Coronavirus outbreak.
 
“We do have up to $10 billion available for low income countries to tap in with zero interest rates,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters. “And obviously we would prioritize countries, especially countries in Africa, that have already been faced with difficulties.”
 
Many African countries would struggle to cope with a large outbreak according to a recent study published in the Lancet, which highlighted Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Angola, Tanzania, Ghana, and Kenya as being among the most vulnerable.”Preventing the entry of the virus will become increasingly difficult, especially if the international spread continues,” report co-author Marius Gilbert of the Free University of Brussels told VOA. “And given those data that indicate that the quality of care really has a strong impact on how serious it can be and how fatal it can be, I think that moving toward funding better healthcare in general would be quite a useful strategy.”
 
The one bright spot is that new infections in China, the source of the virus, continue to fall. Whether other countries can replicate Beijing’s response remains to be seen. 
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Greek authorities used tear gas and a water cannon Friday morning to prevent migrants from crossing the border into their country from Turkey.On the other side of the border, Turkish authorities fired volleys of tear gas into the Greek territory.Thousands of refugees have reached Turkey’s eastern border from land and sea, and have been camping out since last week in hopes of making their way to Greece and eventually to other Western European countries.Greece has declared its border closed, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country would no longer serve as the gatekeeper for Europe after airstrikes by Russian-backed government forces in Syria killed 33 Turkish soldiers last week.Erdogan’s decision has alarmed governments in Europe and the EU is insisting that Turkey is obliged to keep the refugees and other migrants since Brussels is disbursing billions of euros as part of a deal reached with Turkey in 2015.More than 3.5 million Syrians have taken refuge in Turkey to escape the civil war in Syria.Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Thursday to a cease-fire in northwestern Syria, following talks on easing tensions in the region.
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The U.S. Thursday slapped sanctions on Nicaragua’s national police and three top police commissioners for what it calls serious human rights abuses against anti-government demonstrators.“The Ortega regime has utilized the Nicaraguan National Police as a tool in its campaign of violent repression against the Nicaraguan people,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. “Treasury is committed to holding accountable those who seek to silence pro-democracy voices in Nicaragua.”Any assets the police or the three officials (Juan Antonio Valle Valle, Luis Alberto Perez Olivas and Justo Pastor Urbina) have in the United States are frozen and U.S. citizens are barred from doing business with them.The Trump administration accuses Nicaraguan police of using live ammunition against peaceful protesters, organizing death squads, arbitrary killings, and kidnappings. It says some of the victims have been opposition political leaders.Protests erupted in Nicaragua in 2018 over cuts in welfare benefits and soon grew into overall anger against President Daniel Ortega’s government. The opposition accuses Ortega — a one-time leftist hero — of becoming more and more autocratic, like the dictatorship he helped topple in 1979.He has so far refused resign or to call for early elections.Human rights groups say the police crackdown on protesters has killed more than 300 people, a number Nicaraguan officials dispute.
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