CODOGNO: Scrambling to contain rapidly rising number of new coronavirus infections in Italy, the largest amount outside Asia, authorities on Sunday stepped up measures to ban public gatherings, including stopping Venice’s famed carnival events, which have drawn tens of thousands of revelers to a region that is now in the heart of the outbreak.
“The ordinance is immediately operative and will go into effect at midnight,” announced Veneto regional Gov. Luca Zaia, whose area includes Venice, where thousands packed St. Mark’s Square to join in carnival fun. Carnival, would have run through Tuesday. Buses, trains and other forms of public transport — including boats in Venice — were being disinfected, Zaia told reporters. Museums were also ordered to shut down after Sunday in Venice, a top tourist draw anytime of the year.
Authorities said three people in Venice have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, all of them in their late 80s and who are hospitalized in critical condition. Zaia said among those infected was a nurse.
Nearly all of Italy’s 133 known cases are clustered in the north, at least 25 of them in the Veneto region.
Authorities expressed frustration they haven’t been able to track down the source of the virus spread in the north, which surfaced last week when an Italian man in Codogno in his late 30s became critically ill.
“The health officials haven’t been yet able to pinpoint Patient Zero,” Angelo Borrelli, head of the national Civil Protection agency, told reporters in Rome.
At first, it was widely presumed that the man was infected by an Italian friend he dined with and who recently returned from his job, based in Shanghai. When the friend tested negative for the virus, attention turned to several Chinese who live in town and who frequent the same cafe visited by the stricken man. But Lombardy Gov. Attilio Fontana told reporters all of those Chinese have tested negative, too.
So for now, Borrelli indicated, strategy is concentrating on closures and other restrictions to try to stem the spread in the country which already had taken such measures early on in the global virus alarm, including banning direct flights from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau. Italy has also tested millions of airport passengers arriving from other places for any sign of fever.
In Lombardy, with 90 cases, so far the hardest-hit region, schools and universities were ordered to stay closed in the coming days, and sporting events were canceled. Lombardy’s ban on public events also extended to Masses in churches in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation.
But while public Masses were forbidden in some towns in the hardest-hit areas, in the south, thousands turned out in the port city of Bari for a Mass by visiting Pope Francis, who shook hands with the faithful during his public appearance.Among those shaking the pope’s hand in Bari was Italian President Sergio Mattarella, who came to Bari for the event.
Museums, schools, universities and other public venues will be shut as well in Venice and the rest of Veneto. The shutdown is expected to last at least through March 1.
In Turin, the main city of the northern Piedmont region, a least three cases were diagnosed. That region also announced closure of all schools and universities.
The biggest jump in cases of confirmed COVID-19 was reported by authorities in Lombardy, a populous region which includes the country’s financial capital, Milan. Nearly all the cases were in the countryside, mainly in Codogno and nine neighboring towns, where only grocery stores and pharmacies were apparently allowed to stay open while other businesses were ordered shuttered and people — in theory at least — weren’t supposed to enter or leave the towns.
Melissa Catanacci, who lives on one of Codogno’s main roads, said that while entry points were open, others were closed.
Speaking by telephone from her home, she said she ventured outside for a stroll in the morning along with her husband and two children, ages 10 and 13.
“Every quarter-hour or so a car goes by” on the main road, she said. With businesses closed, the usual Sunday “passeggiata” — a leisurely stroll through local streets — didn’t last very long, she said. ”Nothing is open,” not even the town supermarket despite permission to do so, she said. “After a half hour, one turns around and goes back home.”
With school to stay shut through the week, her children were visiting other friends’ houses and vice versa, she said, to break the boredom. For Catanacci, there was no reason to be overly concerned. COVID-19 is “a new virus, it’s still unknown to our body” and its antibodies, Catanacci said, adding: “it’s similar to influenza.”
Italians’ other cherished Sunday routines – from soccer to church-going – were being touched by the spread of the contagion, almost entirely based in the north. Sports events in the affected northern areas, including local kids’ sports team practices to three Serie A soccer matches, were canceled following a long meeting Saturday night by the Italian government to decide infection-containing measures.
Italy’s explosion of infections was sparking concern elsewhere on the European continent.
Austria’s top security official, Franz Lang said that the country could activate border controls to Italy within one hour. Normally both countries are part of the visa and passport-free Schengen zone, but in specific situations, single countries can reactivate border controls. Lang said the situation on the border and possible reactions to the virus outbreak would be discussed in meetings Monday, local Austrian media reported.
Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte on Saturday night said for now Italy wasn’t suspending Schengen zone rules.
In Switzerland, which, like Austria, borders Italy, there was a call for calm. Daniel Koch, the head of the department for contagious diseases at the heath office, told SRF public broadcaster that the country had not been contacted regarding possibly infected persons traveling to Switzerland and that there was no need to change the current strategy.
“The news from Italy are worrisome ... but it is too early to think that a wave is rolling our way,” Koch said.
German travelers returning from northern Italy were being asked to check the official German health adviseries online regarding possible exposure to the virus. The German health ministry said it had initiated a phone conference for all European Union public health authorities about the outbreak in northern Italy on Monday.
Italy’s first cases — that of a married Chinese couple who were on vacation in Rome — surfaced in early February.
To date, two deaths — of elderly persons in the north — have been reported among the 133 cases.
Elsewhere in Europe, French Health Minister Olivier Veran said that authorities were getting ready for a possible outbreak in France of the new virus. In an interview published Sunday in French newspaper Le Parisien, he said he was monitoring very closely the “very serious” situation, including in neighboring Italy.
France reported earlier this month the first death outside Asia of a person infected with the virus, an 80-year-old Chinese tourist.
Italy cancels Venice Carnival in bid to halt spread of virus
https://arab.news/p5ara
Italy cancels Venice Carnival in bid to halt spread of virus
- Authorities said three people in Venice have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, all of them in their late 80s
Trump says would ‘love’ to send US citizens to El Salvador jail
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump stepped up his extraordinary threats to send Americans to foreign jails, saying Tuesday he would love to deport “homegrown” US citizens who commit violent crimes to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.
Trump raised the idea in talks on Monday with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele — the self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator” who has already taken detained migrants from the United States into his country’s jails.
But the 78-year-old Republican doubled down on the idea of sending US citizens to El Salvador too, amid fundamental questions about whether it would actually be legal.
“I call them homegrown criminals,” Trump said according to excerpts of an interview with Fox Noticias, a Spanish-language program being broadcast later Tuesday.
“The ones that grew up and something went wrong and they hit people over the head with a baseball bat and push people into subways,” he added.
“We are looking into it and we want to do it. I would love to do it.”
On Monday, Trump said during his meeting with Bukele in the Oval Office that he had asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to examine the possibility of sending Americans to El Salvador.
The White House said Tuesday it was still exploring whether such a move would be within the law.
“It’s a legal question that the president is looking into,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told journalists at a briefing.
“He would only consider this, if legal, for Americans who are the most violent egregious repeat offenders of crime who nobody in this room wants living in their communities.”
The iron-fisted Bukele made the extraordinary offer to take in prisoners from the United States shortly after Trump’s inauguration for a second term.
Trump has already sent more than 250 migrants there, mostly under a centuries-old wartime law that deprives them of due process — in exchange for a fee of $6 million paid to El Salvador.
But he has increasingly started talking about sending US citizens to foreign jails too.
Trump’s administration already faces pressure over the case of a migrant who was mistakenly deported from the United States to El Salvador under the Bukele deal.
Bukele on Monday dismissed the “preposterous” idea of returning the man — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father who was living in the US state of Maryland — to the United States.
The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return from the notorious jail after the White House said he was deported after an “administrative error.”
Trump officials insist he is an illegal migrant and a member of El Salvador’s notorious MS-13 gang, despite never having been convicted.
Pandemic treaty talks inch toward deal
Five years after the Covid-19 pandemic hit, killing millions of people and devastating economies, experts stress the urgent need for an accord as new health threats lurk
GENEVA: Countries were on Tuesday painstakingly tweaking the text of a hoped-for landmark agreement on tackling future pandemics, amid fears that US tariffs on pharmaceuticals could still derail the long-negotiated deal.
After more than three years of talks, and a marathon session last week, observers had hoped Tuesday would be about dotting some i’s and crossing some t’s.
But the talks at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva were advancing slower than expected.
Five years after the Covid-19 pandemic hit, killing millions of people and devastating economies, experts stress the urgent need for an accord as new health threats lurk, ranging from H5N1 bird flu to measles, mpox and Ebola.
There are also fears that deep cuts to US foreign aid spending could weaken global health, and that its threatened tariffs on pharmaceuticals could jeopardize the hard-won consensus already reached on swaths of the text.
One of the main remaining sticking points was Article 11, which deals with technology transfer for production of health products for pandemics — particularly to benefit developing countries, several sources told AFP.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, poorer countries accused rich nations of hoarding vaccine doses and tests.
A number of countries that are home to large pharmaceutical industries have meanwhile strenuously opposed the idea of mandatory tech transfers, insisting they be voluntary.
Early Saturday, after five days and a full night of negotiations, it appeared consensus had been reached by adding in that any tech transfer needed to be “mutually agreed.”
But several sources told AFP that the discussions had since hit a bump after pharma-hosting countries began demanding that this phrase be added to parts of the text already agreed upon.
“Today the pharma industry and its G7+ allies are proposing that every mention of technology transfer also mention mutually agreed,” James Packard Love, head of the NGO Knowledge Econology International, said on the Bluesky social network.
“This is a terrible outcome and a huge reverse from Saturday’s text.”
The talks were taking place behind closed doors at the WHO headquarters, but delegates frequently stepped out for informal discussions in the corridors, huddling over coffee and pizza as they tried to unblock the sticky bits.
A group of African delegates gathered in the hallway around the French vice-chair of the talks, while others engaged in lively discussion with WHO’s chief legal adviser Steve Solomon.
The negotiations are taking place as the global health system finds itself in deep crisis after the United States, long the world’s top donor, slashed its foreign aid spending.
Washington has not taken part in the negotiations, since President Donald Trump decided on his first day in office in January to begin withdrawing from the United Nations’ health agency.
The US presence, and not least Trump’s threat to slap steep tariffs on pharmaceutical products, nonetheless hangs over the talks, making manufacturers and their host countries all the more jittery.
But NGOs insist it is time to close the deal.
“Although the agreement went through several compromises, it includes many positive elements,” medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Tuesday.
Michelle Childs, Director of Policy Advocacy at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), voiced hope countries would cross the finish line.
“It would be a first in the history of international agreements,” she said, in its recognition that when countries fund research and development of vaccines and other medical products, you “need to attach conditions to that funding that ensure public benefit.”
If an agreement is sealed, the text will be ready for final approval at the WHO’s annual assembly next month.
Four journalists who were accused of working for Kremlin foe Navalny are convicted of extremism
- All four maintained their innocence, arguing they were being prosecuted for doing their job as journalists
- The closed-door trial was part of an unrelenting crackdown on dissent that has reached an unprecedented scale after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022
MOSCOW: A Russian court on Tuesday convicted four journalists of extremism for working for an anti-corruption group founded by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny and sentenced them to 5 1/2 years in prison each.
Antonina Favorskaya, Kostantin Gabov, Sergey Karelin and Artyom Kriger were found guilty of involvement with a group that had been labeled as extremist. All four had maintained their innocence, arguing they were being prosecuted for doing their jobs as journalists.
The closed-door trial was part of an unrelenting crackdown on dissent that has reached an unprecedented scale after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
The authorities have targeted opposition figures, independent journalists, rights activists and ordinary Russians critical of the Kremlin with prosecution, jailing hundreds and prompting thousands to flee the country.
Favorskaya and Kriger worked with SotaVision, an independent Russian news outlet that covers protests and political trials. Gabov is a freelance producer who has worked for multiple organizations, including Reuters. Karelin, a freelance video journalist, has done work for Western media outlets, including The Associated Press.
The four journalists were accused of working with Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption, which was designated as extremist and outlawed in 2021 in a move widely seen as politically motivated.
Navalny was President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest and most prominent foe and relentlessly campaigned against official corruption in Russia. Navalny died in February 2024 in an Arctic penal colony while serving a 19-year sentence on a number of charges, including running an extremist group, which he had rejected as politically driven.
Favorskaya said at an earlier court appearance open to the public that she was being prosecuted for a story she did on abuse Navalny faced behind bars. Speaking to reporters from the defendants’ cage before the verdict, she also said she was punished for helping organize Navalny’s funeral.
Gabov, in a closing statement prepared for court that was published by the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, said the accusations against him were groundless and the prosecution failed to prove them.
“I understand perfectly well ... what kind of country I live in. Throughout history, Russia has never been different, there is nothing new in the current situation,” Gabov said in the statement. “Independent journalism is equated to extremism.”
In a statement Karelin prepared for his closing arguments that also was published by Novaya Gazeta, he said he had agreed to do street interviews for Popular Politics, a YouTube channel founded by Navalny’s associates, while trying to provide for his wife and a young child. He stressed that the channel wasn’t outlawed as extremist and had done nothing illegal.
“Remorse is considered to be a mitigating circumstance. It’s the criminals who need to have remorse for what they did. But I am in prison for my work, for the honest and impartial attitude to journalism, FOR THE LOVE for my family and country,” he wrote in a separate speech for court that also was published by the outlet, in which he emphasized his feelings in capital letters.
Kriger, in a closing statement published by SotaVision, said he was imprisoned and added to the Russian financial intelligence’s registry of extremists and terrorists “only because I have conscientiously carried out my professional duties as an honest, incorruptible and independent journalist for 4 1/2 years.”
“Don’t despair guys, sooner or later it will end and those who delivered the sentence will go behind bars,” Kriger said after the verdict.
Supporters who gathered in the court building chanted and applauded as the four journalists were led out of the courtroom after the verdict.
The Russian human rights group Memorial designated all four as political prisoners, among more than 900 others held in the country. That number includes Mikhail Kriger, Artyom Kriger’s uncle, a Moscow-based activist who was arrested in 2022 and is serving a seven-year prison sentence.
Mikhail Kriger was convicted of justifying terrorism and inciting hatred over Facebook comments in which he expressed a desire “to hang” Putin.
Superyacht that sank off Sicily killing seven to be raised
- Inquests into the deaths of Lynch and the other three British victims are being held in Ipswich in eastern England
- The retrieval operation was due to begin on April 26
LONDON: The superyacht “Bayesian” that sank off Sicily in August, killing British tech mogul Mike Lynch and six others, is to be raised and brought to shore next month, an investigator said on Tuesday.
The luxury 56-meter (185-foot) yacht was struck by a pre-dawn storm on August 19 as it was anchored off Porticello, near Palermo, and sank within minutes, killing Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, and five others.
Lynch, the 59-year-old founder of software firm Autonomy, had invited friends and family onto the boat to celebrate his recent acquittal in a huge US fraud case.
Inquests into the deaths of Lynch and the other three British victims are being held in Ipswich in eastern England.
Simon Graves, a principal investigator for the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) — a British government organization that investigates maritime accidents involving British ships around the world — told a pre-inquest hearing that the Bayesian was going to be raised and expected to be on dry land by the end of May.
The retrieval operation was due to begin on April 26.
Inquests were opened and adjourned last October pending the completion of probes by both the UK investigators and a criminal inquiry by Italian prosecutors.
Graves said a MAIB interim report on whether there were any breaches of maritime legislation could be published online in four to six weeks, with the final report to follow in “months not weeks.”
Coroner Nigel Parsley said he was “in the hands of the criminal investigations” as to when a final inquest hearing date could be set.
There were 22 passengers on board, including 12 crew and 10 guests, when the yacht sank.
The inquest in the UK is examining the deaths of Lynch and his daughter, Hannah, 18, as well as Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his 71-year-old wife Judy Bloomer, who were also British nationals.
The others who died were US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo, and Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, who was working as a chef on the yacht.
Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife and Hannah’s mother, was among the 15 survivors.
Bangladesh restores ‘except Israel’ clause in passports after public pressure
- Bangladesh’s previous government dropped the wording in 2021 without public notice
- Immigration says it may take several weeks to finalize procedures to print it again
DHAKA: Bangladesh is reinstating the “except Israel” clause in its passports, the Department of Immigration said on Tuesday, after public pressure to reverse its removal by the previous government.
Bangladeshi passports carried the sentence “This passport is valid for all countries of the world except Israel” until 2021, when authorities rolled out a new travel document and the phrase was removed without any public notice.
While authorities justified it by saying it was meant to “maintain international standard,” many people in the country — which has no diplomatic relations with Israel — questioned the move.
The new interim government, which took charge of Bangladesh in August after the ouster of its long-standing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has decided to undo her cabinet’s decision.
“We’ve received the government’s directive to reinstate the ‘except Israel’ clause in Bangladeshi passports. We are currently working to implement it,” Brig. Gen. Mohammed Nurus Salam, passports director at the Department of Immigration, told Arab News.
“For many years, our passports carried the ‘except Israel’ clause. But the previous government suddenly removed it. We were used to seeing ‘except Israel’ written in our passports. I don’t know why they took it out. If you talk to people across the country, you’ll see they want that line back in their passports. There was no need to remove it.”
Pressure to reinstate the clause has been mounting since the beginning of Israel’s ongoing deadly onslaught on Gaza, which began in October 2023.
Over 51,000 people have been killed, 116,000 wounded, and 2 million others face starvation after Israeli forces destroyed most of the region’s infrastructure and buildings while blocking humanitarian aid from entering.
A clear ban on travel to Israel in Bangladeshi passports was one of the key demands raised during a series of Gaza solidarity protests, which have been held regularly in Dhaka since last month after Israeli forces unilaterally broke a ceasefire agreement and resumed bombing hospitals, schools and tents sheltering displaced people.
The biggest such protest took place in Dhaka on Saturday, with about 1 million people taking to the streets to call on the international community to “take effective and collective action to end the genocide,” and especially on Muslim countries to immediately sever all economic, military, and diplomatic relations with Israel and to “impose commercial blockades and sanctions on the Zionist state” and begin active diplomatic efforts to isolate it on the international stage.
“People will definitely welcome this new decision. It reflects the feelings of the people of this country,” Salam said, but he was not able to specify when the new passports will be available.
“There are some technical challenges involved with this change. Currently, we import e-passports from Germany under a government-to-government agreement … It may take another week to finalize the necessary procedures. In the meantime, we are exploring whether there’s any option to modify the existing stock of printed booklets.”
