Category: World

  • Donald Trump announces visa sanctions on countries refusing to accept their citizens

    Order comes in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic

    PTI

    U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the relevant departments of his administration to impose visa sanctions against countries that do not accept their citizens who are currently in the U.S., if the U.S. seeks to repatriate them to their home countries. The order is motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as per a memorandum issued released by the White House on Friday night (Washington DC time).

    “Countries that deny or unreasonably delay the acceptance of their citizens, subjects, nationals, or residents from the United States during the ongoing pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 create unacceptable public health risks for Americans. The United States must be able to effectuate the repatriation of foreign nationals who violate the laws of the United States,” the order says.

    As it is worded, the scope of the order is unclear. While the clause above says it is motivated by the U.S. wanting to repatriate foreigners violating U.S. , there is another clause that says the sanctions process could be initiated if a foreign country delays accepting its nationals and such an action hampers the U.S.’s response to the ongoing pandemic.

    The Secretary of Homeland Security shall inform the Secretary of State, “… if any government of a foreign country denies or unreasonably delays the acceptance of aliens who are citizens, subjects, nationals, or residents of that country after being asked to accept those aliens, and if such denial or delay is impeding operations of the Department of Homeland Security necessary to respond to the ongoing pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2.”

    Within seven days of receiving such a notice from Homeland Security, the Secretary of State is required to initiate a plan to impose visa sanctions. Sanctions shall end when the Secretary of Homeland Security certifies that the host countries are accepting their nationals.

    The memorandum expires on December 31 this year unless extended.

  • Lifting virus lockdowns too quickly could spark ‘deadly resurgence’: WHO

    A hasty lifting of restrictions imposed to control the COVID-19 pandemic could lead to a fatal resurgence of the new coronavirus, the World Health Organisation warned on Friday.

    WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was working with countries on ways in which lockdowns could be gradually eased, but said doing so too quickly could be dangerous.

    “I know that some countries are already planning the transition out of stay-at-home restrictions. WHO wants to see restrictions lifted as much as anyone,” he told a virtual press conference in Geneva.

    “At the same time, lifting restrictions too quickly could lead to a deadly resurgence. The way down can be as dangerous as the way up if not managed properly.

    “WHO is working with affected countries on strategies for gradually and safely easing restrictions.”

    The global death toll is rapidly approaching 100,000.

    More than 1.6 million infections have been recorded globally, according to an AFP tally, since the virus first emerged in China in December.

    Tedros welcomed signs that the spread of the virus was slowing in some of the hardest-hit countries in Europe — namely Spain, Italy, Germany and France.

    But he also warned of an “alarming acceleration” of the virus in some countries, highlighting Africa, where he said the virus was beginning to spread to rural areas.

    “We are now seeing clusters of cases and community spread in more than 16 countries” on the continent, he said. “We anticipate severe hardship for already overstretched health systems, particularly in rural areas, which normally lack the resources of those in cities.” Tedros also sent his best wishes to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been moved out of intensive care as he battles the coronavirus.

  • Atif Aslam’s recitation of the azaan has won the internet

    Pakistani singer Atif Aslam recently took to social media to share the azaan he offered. It is the most beautiful thing you will find on the internet today.

    The call to prayer has been delivered beautifully by the singer who has previously recited hamds and naats such as Taj dar-e-haram and Wohi Khuda Hai.

    “Azaan recitation by Atif Aslam. A call for help,” the singer simply wrote in an Instagram post. Undoubtedly, the azaan is a form of therapy that we need as the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across the world

  • Israel’s coronavirus cases top 10,000, with 92 fatalities

    The number of newly confirmed cases is decreasing in the country for the third day running, according to official data

    AP

    The number of identified coronavirus cases in Israel have risen to 10,095 on Friday, a single day increase of 340 infections which is the lowest figure since the beginning of April. The death toll in the country now stands at 92, with 13 people dying in the past 24 hours, the national Health Ministry reported.

    According to the healthcare agency, 164 patients are said to be in critical condition with 125 of them put on ventilators, while 1,061 recovered. The number of newly confirmed cases is decreasing for the third day running.

    On April 7, the Israeli government tightened the already strict lockdown measures for the first days of Passover (Pesach, major Jewish holiday) to curb coronavirus spread. Between 19:00 (local time) on April 7 and 06:00 on April 10, citizens were banned from leaving their cities and towns. Moreover, people were prohibited from leaving their homes even to buy food between 15:00 on April 8 and 07:00 on April 9.

    The first coronavirus case in Israel was reported on February 27 in a citizen returning from Italy. On March 20, the Health Ministry announced that the first coronavirus patient died.

    In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named COVID-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

    On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 1,600,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 95,800 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 357,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

  • Yemen confirms first coronavirus case

    The country’s supreme national emergency committee revealed this on Friday.

    Reuters

    Yemen has reported its first coronavirus case in Hadhramaut Governorate, supreme national emergency committee tweeted early on Friday.

    The committee added that the patient was stable and receiving health care, without elaborating.

    The United Nations and Western allies had pointed to the threat of coronavirus outbreak in the war-battered country.

  • Record 16.8 million have sought U.S. jobless aid since coronavirus outbreak

    The equivalent of 195 million full-time jobs could be lost in the second quarter to business shutdowns caused by the viral outbreak, according to the United Nations’ labor organisation

    AP

    With a startling 6.6 million people seeking unemployment benefits last week, the United States has reached a grim landmark. More than one in 10 workers have lost their jobs in just the past three weeks due to the coronavirus outbreak.

    The figures collectively constitute the largest and fastest string of job losses in records dating to 1948. By contrast, during the Great Recession it took 44 weeks roughly 10 months for unemployment claims to go as high as they now have in less than a month.

    The damage to job markets is extending across the world. The equivalent of 195 million full-time jobs could be lost in the second quarter to business shutdowns caused by the viral outbreak, according to the United Nations’ labor organisation. It estimates that global unemployment will rise by 25 million this year. And that doesn’t even count workers on reduced hours and pay. Lockdown measures are affecting nearly 2.7 billion workers about 81% of the global workforce the agency said.

    Around half a billion people could sink into poverty as a result of the economic fallout from the coronavirus unless richer countries act to help developing nations, Oxfam, a leading aid organisation, warned Thursday.

    In the United States, the job market is quickly unraveling as businesses have shut down across the country. All told, in the past three weeks, 16.8 million Americans have filed for unemployment aid. The surge of jobless claims has overwhelmed state unemployment offices around the country. And still more job cuts are expected.

    More than 20 million people may lose jobs this month. The unemployment rate could hit 15% when the April employment report is released in early May.

    “The carnage in the American labor market continued unabated,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist for RSM, a tax advisory firm.

    The viral outbreak is believed to have erased nearly one-third of the U.S. economy’s output in the current quarter. Forty-eight states have closed non-essential businesses.

    A nation of normally free-spending shoppers and travellers is mainly hunkered down at home, bringing entire gears of the economy to a near-halt. Non-grocery retail business plunged 97% in the last week of March compared with a year earlier, according to Morgan Stanley. The number of airline passengers screened by the Transportation Security Administration has plunged 95% from a year ago. U.S. hotel revenue has tumbled 80%.

    Applications for unemployment benefits are a rough proxy for layoffs because only people who have lost a job through no fault of their own are eligible.

    The wave of layoffs may be cresting in some states even while still surging in others. Last week, applications for jobless aid declined in 19 states. In California, they dropped nearly 13% to 9,25,000 still a shockingly high figure. In Pennsylvania, they dropped by nearly one-third to 2,84,000. That’s still more than the entire nation experienced just four weeks ago.

    By contrast, in Georgia, which issued shutdown orders later than most other States, filings for unemployment claims nearly tripled last week to 388,000. In Arkansas, they more than doubled. In Arizona, they jumped by nearly 50%.

    On Thursday, the Federal Reserve intensified its efforts to bolster the economy with a series of lending programs that could inject up to $2.3 trillion into the economy. Chairman Jerome Powell said that the economy’s strength before the viral outbreak means it could rebound quickly in the second half of the year.

    “There is every reason to believe that the economic rebound, when it comes, will be robust,” Powell said.

    In many European countries, government programs are keeping people on payrolls, though typically with fewer hours and lower pay. In France, 5.8 million people about a quarter of the private sector workforce are now on a “partial unemployment” plan. With government help, they receive part of their wages while temporarily laid off or while working shorter hours.

    A similar system is in place in Germany, where the federal labor agency says 6,50,000 companies have registered to put people in the short-time work program and so still on payrolls. That’s up from 4,70,000 about 10 days earlier.

    In both countries, such workers aren’t counted in unemployment figures but will likely still suffer a drop in income.

    Because the U.S. government-mandated business shutdowns that are meant to defeat the virus have never brought the American economy to such a sudden and violent standstill, economists are struggling to assess the duration and severity of the damage.

    “We’re just throwing out our textbooks,” said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global Ratings.

    The Penn Wharton Budget Model, created at the University of Pennsylvania’s business school, projects that the U.S. economy will shrink at an astonishing 30% annual rate in the April-June quarter even including the government’s new $2.2 trillion relief measure, the largest federal aid package in history by far. An economic contraction of that scale would be the largest quarterly plunge since World War II.

    A key aspect of the rescue package is a $350 billion small business loan program that is intended to forestall layoffs. Small companies can borrow enough to cover payroll and other costs for eight weeks. And the loans will be forgiven if small businesses keep or rehire their staffs. The Treasury Department has begun to roll out the loans to mixed results. Many small businesses have had trouble accessing loan applications, and many economists say the $350 billion is insufficient. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said he will seek an additional $250 billion for the program from Congress.

    The rescue package also added $600 a week in unemployment benefits, on top of what recipients receive from their states. This will enable many lower-income workers to manage their expenses and even increase their purchasing power and support the economy. It also makes many more people eligible for jobless aid, including the self-employed, contractors, and so-called “gig economy” workers such as Uber and Lyft drivers.

    But many of these people have been expressing frustration and bewilderment about the process for seeking benefits as a flood of applications has overwhelmed many state offices. Margaret Heath Carignan said she called the unemployment office in Maine, where she lives, 291 times on the day that people with the last names A through H were eligible to call.

    She never connected to anyone.

    Carignan, 57, was laid off temporarily, she hopes from her position as a certified medical assistant at an orthopedic practice in Portland, Maine, a job she had held for 20 years. The office furloughed her and others because they’re unable to see many patients. She hopes to return once the coronavirus is contained.

  • Pakistan’s contribution triggers debate over SAARC COVID-19 Emergency Fund

    Pakistan declared a $3 million contribution to the Fund to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak in South Asia.

    PTI

    Pakistan is trying to score “narrow political points” by tying its contribution to the SAARC COVID-19 Emergency Fund to the bureaucracy of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), sources said on Thursday.

    The comments from the Indian side came minutes after Pakistan declared a $3 million contribution to the Fund to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak in South Asia saying that the amount should be administered through the SAARC Secretariat located in Kathmandu and its utilisation should be finalised through consultations with the SAARC members “as per the SAARC Charter”.

    In contrast, India has maintained since the Fund was launched on March 15, by the initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that it should be considered as a “stand-alone” emergency step that should remain “outside the SAARC calendar of approved activities”.

    Officials here feel that by linking the Fund with the SAARC Secretariat and the SAARC Charter, Pakistan will “block all our initiatives and proposals ….for each and every step of the way”. The Indian and Pakistani positions on how to use contributions from the SAARC member countries have thrown up two divergent positions regarding the modality to be followed for utilising the dedicated multi-nation aide.

    Speaking off the record, a source from a third member country said, that other SAARC member states have not enunciated any such established method nor have they insisted on a particular expenditure modality so far indicating that they maintain a flexible “crisis based approach” to the Fund.

    After Prime Minister Modi announced $10 million at the video conference of SAARC leaders on March 15, other member countries came forward with contributions for the initiative. The Ministry of External Affairs has said earlier that the Indian contribution has been activated to help member states in need of assistance to counter the pandemic. “Keeping control of the activities that emerged from PM’s video conference of March 15 has helped us move much faster and without any hindrances,” said a source explaining India’s critical response to Pakistan’s contribution to the Fund.

  • Pray at home during Ramadan, says Khamenei to Iranians

    TEHRAN: Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday appealed for Iranians to pray at home during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

    Iran has reported more than 4,100 deaths and 66,000 infections from the novel coronavirus, making the country’s COVID-19 outbreak one of the worst in the world.

    Khamenei called on Iranians to avoid mass gatherings, such as collective prayers, during Ramadan, which starts later this month.

    “In the absence of public gatherings during Ramadan, such as prayers, speeches… which we are deprived of this year, we should not neglect worship, invocation and humility in our loneliness,” he said in a televised speech.

    “We need to create humility and supplication in our families and in our rooms.”

    Iran, which announced its first COVID-19 cases on February 19, is by far the worst hit by the pandemic in the Middle East, according to official tolls.

    But there has been speculation abroad that the real number of deaths and infections in the country could be higher. Ramadan is set to start in the last week of April this year.

    —Agencies

  • Oil producers put heads together over output cuts

    Top oil producers started a crucial meeting on Thursday to discuss a possible cut in output after a collapse in demand due to the coronavirus and a Saudi-Russian price war caused the market to crash.

    AFP

    The videoconference meeting began between OPEC, its OPEC+ allies, including Russia and other key non-members.

    Oil prices rose sharply as the meeting opened, extending earlier big gains, but then fell back again later to post more modest gains as nervous traders took profits.

    The meeting is seen as the best chance of providing support to prices which have been wallowing near two-decade lows.

    Experts warn that without concerted action the commodity risks a steep sell-off.

    Last week U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Russia and Saudi Arabia would step back from their stand-off and agree to slash output.

    Then OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia called for an urgent meeting of producers “to try to reach a fair deal” to “stabilise the oil market” following a phone call between its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Mr. Trump.

    Thursday’s meeting intends to conclude an agreement to cut production by between 10 and 15 million barrels per day, Kuwait’s Oil Minister Khaled al-Fadhel said in an interview with the Kuwaiti Al-Rai daily.

  • World faces ‘worst economic fallout since Great Depression’, says IMF’s Kristalina Georgieva

    Kristalina Georgieva warned that “global growth will turn sharply negative in 2020.”

    AFP

    The global coronavirus pandemic is causing an economic crisis unlike any in the past century and will require a massive response to ensure recovery, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday.

    She warned that “global growth will turn sharply negative in 2020,” with 170 of the International Monetary Fund’s 180 members experiencing a decline in per capita income.

    “In fact, we anticipate the worst economic fallout since the Great Depression,” Ms. Georgieva said in a speech previewing next week’s spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank, which will be held virtually due to the restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19.

    Even in the best case the IMF expects only a “partial recovery” next year, assuming the virus fades later this year, allowing normal business to resume as the lockdowns imposed to contain its spread are lifted.

    But “it could get worse,” and “there is tremendous uncertainty around the outlook” and the duration of the pandemic.

    Countries already have taken steps worth a combined $8 trillion, but Ms. Georgieva urged governments to do more to provide “lifelines” for businesses and households to “avoid a scarring of the economy that would make the recovery so much more difficult.”

    On Tuesday the IMF will release its World Economic Outlook with grim forecasts for its members for this year and next. In January, the IMF projected global growth of 3.3 percent this year and 3.4 percent in 2021. But that was a different world.

    “The bleak outlook applies to advanced and developing economies alike. This crisis knows no boundaries. Everybody hurts,” Ms. Georgieva said.

    She noted that about $100 billion in investments already had fled emerging markets — more than three times the capital exodus seen in the 2008 global financial crisis.