ROME: Italy on Monday extended an economically crippling lockdown until “at least” mid-April to stem coronavirus infections that have claimed a world-leading 11,591 lives.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said any easing of containment measures would be done incrementally to ensure Italy does not give up gains it has made against the extraordinary disease.
The near three-week shutdown “had been very tough economically,” Conte told Spain’s El Pais newspaper.
“It cannot last very long,” he said. “We can study ways (of lifting restrictions). But it will have to be done gradually.”
Health Minister Roberto Speranza later announced that “all containment measures would be extended at least until Easter” on April 12.
Business closures and a ban on public gatherings were to have expired on Friday.
Italy was the first Western nation to impose sweeping restrictions to stem a pandemic that has claimed more than 36,000 lives worldwide.
Its own toll grew by 812 on Monday and the number of infections reported by the civil protection service surpassed 100,000.
But fresh evidence also suggested that COVID-19 was spreading more slowly than when the first victim died in Italy on February 21.
The daily rate of new infections dropped to 4.1 percent — a fraction of the 62 percent level registered a month ago.
The number of people suffering from the illness at its epicenter in the northern Lombardy region also dropped for the first time.
And the number of people who have recovered from COVID-19 across the nation of 60 million people hit a new high.
“We saw 1,590 people recover in the past 24 hours,” civil protection service chief Angelo Borrelli told reporters.
“This is the highest number of recoveries recorded since the start of the pandemic.”
Deputy Health Minister Pierpaolo Sileri said the latest data showed that Italy might see “a drop in the number of people infected within seven to 10 days.”
Italy’s ISS public health institute chief Silvio Brusaferro also felt the infection rate was approaching its peak.
“We are witnessing a flattening of the curve,” Brusaferro told the La Repubblica daily.
“There are no signs of a descent yet, but things are improving.”
Health officials said one of the most encouraging figures was a drop from 25,392 on Sunday to 25,006 on Monday in the number of people in Lombardy testing positive for COVID-19.
The figure had grown continuously for more than a month.
“The picture has improved a lot over the past four days,” Lombardy’s chief medical officer Giulio Gallera said.
The latest data was released nearly three weeks into a national lockdown that has emptied cities and paralyzed most business activity.
Store and restaurant closures were reinforced last week by a shutdown of “non-essential” factories.
Forecasts by several global banks and analysts point to Italian economic output shrinking by seven percent this year.
Italy extends lockdown until ‘at least’ April 12
https://arab.news/66tn8
Italy extends lockdown until ‘at least’ April 12
- Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said any easing of containment measures would be done incrementally to ensure Italy does not give up gains it has made
- Health Minister Roberto Speranza later announced that ‘all containment measures would be extended at least until Easter’ on April 12
German president urges unity after ‘dark shadow’ of Christmas market attack
- Steinmeier recognized that there was a “great deal of dissatisfaction about politics” in Germany but insisted that “our democracy is and remains strong”
BERLIN: Germany’s president said Tuesday that a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market had cast a “dark shadow” over this year’s celebrations but urged the nation not to be driven apart by extremists.
In his traditional Christmas address, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sought to issue a message of healing four days after the brutal attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg killed five people and left over 200 wounded.
“A dark shadow hangs over this Christmas,” said the head of state, pointing to the “pain, horror and bewilderment over what happened in Magdeburg just a few days before Christmas.”
He made a call for national unity as a debate about security and immigration is flaring again: “Hatred and violence must not have the final word. Let’s not allow ourselves to be driven apart. Let’s stand together.”
His words came a day after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) held what it called a memorial rally for the victims in Magdeburg, where one speaker demanded that Germany “must close the borders.”
Nearby an anti-extremist initiative was held under the motto “Don’t Give Hate a Chance.”
Steinmeier recognized that there was a “great deal of dissatisfaction about politics” in Germany but insisted that “our democracy is and remains strong.”
A Saudi doctor, Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, 50, was arrested Friday at the scene of the attack in which a rented SUV plowed at high speed through the crowd of revellers, bringing death and chaos to the festive event.
His motive still remains unclear, days after Germany’s deadliest attack in years.
Abdulmohsen has in his many online posts voiced strongly anti-Islam views, anger at German authorities and support for far-right conspiracy narratives on the “Islamization” of Europe.
News outlet Der Spiegel reported he wrote on social media platform X in May that he expected to die “this year” and was seeking “justice” at any cost.
Investigators found his will in the BMW that he used in the attack, the outlet said — he stated that everything he owned was to go to the German Red Cross, and it contained no political messages.
Die Welt daily, citing unnamed security sources, said that Abdulmohsen had been treated for a mental illness in the past, thought this was not immediately confirmed by authorities.
The attack has fueled an already bitter debate on migration and security in Germany, two months before national elections and with the far-right AfD party riding high in opinion polls.
The government is facing mounting questions about possible errors and missed warnings about Abdulmohsen, who was arrested next to the battered BMW sports utility vehicle.
Saudi Arabia said it had repeatedly warned Germany about its citizen, who came to Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status 10 years later.
A source close to the Saudi government told AFP that the kingdom had sought his extradition.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has pledged to fully investigate whether there were security lapses before the attack.
The Saudi suspect has been remanded in custody in a top-security facility on five counts of murder and 205 of attempted murder, prosecutors said, but not so far on terrorism-related charges.
German Christmas markets have been specially secured since a jihadist attacker rammed a truck through a Berlin Christmas market in 2016, killing 13 people.
The Magdeburg event too had been shielded by barricades, but the attacker managed to exploit a five-meter gap when he steered the car into the site and then raced into the unsuspecting crowd.
Steinmeier offered his condolences for relatives of those injured and killed “in such a terrible way” — when the attack killed a nine-year-old boy and four women aged 45 to 75.
“You are not alone in your pain,” he told the hundreds of affected families. “The people throughout our country feel for you and mourn with you.”
Legendary drug lord Fabio Ochoa is deported to Colombia after spending two decades in US prisons
- Ochoa’s name has faded from popular memory as Mexican drug traffickers take center stage in the global drug trade
BOGOTÁ, Colombia: One of Colombia’s legendary drug lords and a key operator of the Medellin cartel has been deported back to the South American country, after serving 25 years of a 30-year prison sentence in the United States.
Fabio Ochoa arrived in Bogota’s El Dorado airport on a deportation flight on Monday, wearing a grey sweatshirt and carrying his personal belongings in a plastic bag.
After stepping out of the plane, the former cartel boss was met by immigration officials in bullet proof vests. There were no police on site to detain him — an indication he may not have any pending cases in Colombian courts.
In a brief statement, Colombia’s national immigration agency said Ochoa should be able to enter Colombia “without any problems,” once he is cleared by immigration officers who will check for any outstanding cases against the former drug trafficker.
Ochoa, 67, and his older brothers amassed a fortune when cocaine started flooding the US in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to US authorities, to the point that in 1987 they were included in the Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires.
Living in Miami, Ochoa ran a distribution center for the cocaine cartel once headed by Pablo Escobar. Escobar died in a shootout with authorities in Medellin in 1993.
Ochoa was first indicted in the US for his alleged role in the 1986 killing of Barry Seal, an American pilot who flew cocaine flights for the Medellin cartel, but became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Along with his two older brothers, Juan David and Jorge Luis, Ochoa turned himself in to Colombian authorities in the early 1990s under a deal in which they avoided being extradited to the US
The three brothers were released from prison in 1996, but Ochoa was arrested again three years later for drug trafficking and was extradited to the US in 2001 in response to an indictment in Miami naming him and more than 40 people as part of a drug smuggling conspiracy.
He was the only suspect in that group who opted to go to trial, resulting in his conviction and a 30-year sentence. The other defendants got much lighter prison terms because most of them cooperated with the government.
Ochoa’s name has faded from popular memory as Mexican drug traffickers take center stage in the global drug trade.
But the former member of the Medellin cartel was recently depicted in the Netflix series Griselda, where he first fights the plucky businesswoman Griselda Blanco for control of Miami’s cocaine market, and then makes an alliance with the drug trafficker, played by Sofia Vergara.
Ochoa is also depicted in the Netflix series Narcos, as the youngest son of an elite Medellin family that is into ranching and horse breeding and cuts a sharp contrast with Escobar, who came from more humble roots.
Richard Gregorie, a retired assistant US attorney who was on the prosecution team that convicted Ochoa, said authorities were never able to seize all of the Ochoa family’s illicit drug proceeds and he expects that the former mafia boss will have a welcome return home.
“He won’t be retiring a poor man, that’s for sure,” Gregorie told The Associated Press earlier this month.
Bill Clinton is hospitalized with a fever but in good spirits, spokesperson says
- “He remains in good spirits and deeply appreciates the excellent care he is receiving,” Urena said
WASHINGTON: Former President Bill Clinton was admitted Monday to Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington after developing a fever.
The 78-year-old was admitted in the “afternoon for testing and observation,” Angel Urena, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement.
“He remains in good spirits and deeply appreciates the excellent care he is receiving,” Urena said.
Clinton, a Democrat who served two terms as president from January 1993 until January 2001, addressed the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this summer and campaigned ahead of November’s election for the unsuccessful White House bid of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Greek lawyers call for further investigation into 2023 deadly shipwreck
- “The case file contains serious gaps and omissions,” they said in a statement, adding that the captain and the crew of the coast guard vessel monitoring the migrant ship had been summoned by the court, but not the coast guard officials supervising them
ATHENS: Greek lawyers representing the survivors and victims of a deadly 2023 shipwreck said on Monday a naval court needed to examine more evidence after a preliminary investigation failed to shed light on the case.
Hundreds died on June 14, 2023, when an overcrowded fishing trawler, monitored by the Greek coast guard for several hours, capsized and sank in international waters off the southwestern Greek coastal town of Pylos.
A local naval court, which opened a criminal investigation last year, has concluded a preliminary investigation and referred the case to a chief prosecutor, the lawyers said on Monday, adding they had reviewed the evidence examined by the court so far.
“The case file contains serious gaps and omissions,” they said in a statement, adding that the captain and the crew of the coast guard vessel monitoring the migrant ship had been summoned by the court, but not the coast guard officials supervising them.
Evidence, including the record of communications between the officials involved in the operation, was not included in the case file, they added.
“The absence of any investigation into the responsibilities of the competent search and rescue bodies and the leadership of the Greek coast guard is deafening,” they said.
The chief prosecutor will decide if and how the probe will progress.
Under Greek law, prosecutors are not allowed to comment on ongoing investigations.
The vessel, which had set off from Libya, was carrying up to 700 Pakistani, Syrian and Egyptian migrants bound for Italy. Only 104 people were rescued and 82 bodies found.
Greece’s coast guard has denied any role in the sinking, which was one of the deadliest boat disasters in the Mediterranean Sea.
Mozambique death toll from Cyclone Chido rises to 120
- The cyclone not only ravaged Mayotte’s fragile infrastructure but also laid bare deep-seated tensions between the island’s residents and its large migrant population
MUPATO: The death toll from Cyclone Chido in Mozambique rose by 26 to at least 120, the southern African country’s disaster risk body said on Monday.
The number of those injured also rose to nearly 900 after the cyclone hit the country on December 15, a day after it had devastated the French Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte.
The cyclone not only ravaged Mayotte’s fragile infrastructure but also laid bare deep-seated tensions between the island’s residents and its large migrant population.
Thousands of people who have entered the island illegally bore the brunt of the storm that tore through the Indian Ocean archipelago. Authorities in Mayotte, France’s poorest territory, said many avoided emergency shelters out of fear of deportation, leaving them, and the shantytowns they live in, even more vulnerable to the cyclone’s devastation.
Still, some frustrated legal residents have accused the government of channeling scarce resources to migrants at their expense.
“I can’t take it anymore. Just to have water is complicated,” said Fatima on Saturday, a 46-year-old mother of five whose family has struggled to find clean water since the storm.
Fatima, who only gave her first name because her family is known locally, added that “the island can’t support the people living in it, let alone allow more to come.”
Mayotte, a French department located between Madagascar and mainland Africa, has a population of 320,000, including an estimated 100,000 migrants, most of whom have arrived from the nearby Comoros Islands, just 70 kilometers away.
The archipelago’s fragile public services, designed for a much smaller population, have been overwhelmed.
“The problems of Mayotte cannot be solved without addressing illegal immigration,” French President Emmanuel Macron said during his visit this week, acknowledging the challenges posed by the island’s rapid population growth,
“Despite the state’s investments, migratory pressure has made everything explode,” he added.
The cyclone further exacerbated the island’s issues after destroying homes, schools, and infrastructure.
Though the official death toll remains 35, authorities say that any estimates are likely major undercounts, with hundreds and possibly thousands feared dead. Meanwhile, the number of seriously injured has risen to 78.
