The number of Covid-19 cases in Spain has risen from 85,195 on Monday to 94,417 by Tuesday morning, while its death toll rose by 849 to 8,189, according to the latest figures from the Spanish Health Ministry.
The increase in the death toll was the highest one-day total in the country since the outbreak began. However, despite this, it still marked a slightly lower increase in percentage terms than on previous days.
Spain’s emergency health chief Fernando Simon tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday night and he was replaced by his deputy chief, Maria Jose Sierra, who confirmed that at least 12,298 health workers have tested positive for Covid-19 infection so far, accounting for roughly 14 percent of the total infections in the country.
Meanwhile, almost 20,000 people have recovered from the infection, which has decimated the country's healthcare system in what is still the second-worst outbreak in Europe, behind Italy.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
President of the Robert Koch Institute Lothar Wieler believes that Germany’s current Covid-19 mortality rate of 0.8 percent would rise further but defended his optimism on flattening the curve of infection in the country.
During Tuesday morning's briefing, Wieler stated that Germany's coronavirus strategy would remain the same for the time being: containment, protection of the most vulnerable demographics in society like the elderly and immunocompromised and increasing hospital capacity where possible.
He warned that the pandemic will continue for months, not weeks, however.
"Whoever does so, of course, underestimates the risk," he said, warning that the pandemic will continue for months, not weeks, adding that the picture will be clearer after Easter.
As of Tuesday morning, Germany has 67,051 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection resulting in some 650 deaths.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
An Islamabad accountability court has turned down PPP leader Faryal Talpur’s plea to unfreeze her bank accounts which were previously frozen in the fake bank accounts and money laundering case.
Judge Azam Khan heard the case on Tuesday.
The PPP leader had approached the court after her release on bail, asking it to unfreeze her bank accounts of her children.
During the hearing, NAB opposed Talpur’s appeal.
After hearing the arguments of both the parties, the court ordered the restoration of the accounts of Talpur’s children but denied doing so for her.
Authorities in the Swedish municipality of Eslov have warned residents that teenagers are knowingly coughing, sneezing, and spitting beside the elderly in the so-called ‘coronavirus challenge.’
Parents have been advised to “talk” with their children after a number of reports of targeted unsavory and unsanitary behavior by the local youth against the elderly. Sweden has opted not to impose restrictions on the freedom of movement of its citizens, contrary to most other countries.
However, universities and high schools have shut, meaning a bored youth is apparently looking to entertain itself at the expense of the elderly.
“Some of our elders have been exposed to youths knowingly coughing, sneezing, and spitting in their vicinity in the streets and in stores. Talk to your youth and, above all, respond if you see someone out to provoke and behave disrespectfully,” Eslov Municipality wrote on Facebook.
Many people online called the behaviour “disgusting” and “absolutely senseless” though some accused the municipality of spreading “fake news” from “racists” and that “young people” was a code word for something entirely different.
“It has come to our knowledge that older people feel insecure. That young people cough and shout ‘corona’ only to walk away and laugh,” Ingrid Westerlund, the head of operations at Eslov Municipality, told Swedish Radio.
Meanwhile, a migrant duo from Eskilstuna behind the YouTube account “Alpha & Ali” posted a video several days ago in which they approached random people on the street while pretending to cough while claiming they have coronavirus.
Local Social Democrat politician Maria Hind Alias tweeted, describing the pair as “general idiots” while inviting them to try and prank her, promising she’ll “be nice” before vowing to call their parents and inform them that they have raised “two full-scale idiots.” As of Tuesday morning, Sweden has a reported 4,028 cases of coronavirus infection, resulting in 146 deaths.
Sweden is not alone when it comes to distasteful coronavirus-themed pranks, however, as similar instances of attention-whoring have appeared online as Generation Z tries to outdo itself in the middle of a pandemic, all for the sake of staving off boredom.
The #CoronaVirusChallenge has evolved. Now these absolute fools are targeting grocery stores. 5-6 years in prison should be enough to make other wannabe internet-celebrities think twice before endangering the health of the rest of us. #Idiocracy#Modernitypic.twitter.com/mv6MXuTHBE
Irish police have made several arrests after youths were caught coughing on or spitting at members of the general public in what Ireland’s Health Minister Simon Harris described as “disgusting” and “pathetic” behaviour.
The US has renewed sanctions curtailing Iran's nuclear program for another 60 days, as Iran issued pleas for the US to ease its pressure campaign during the Covid-19 pandemic to avoid humanitarian and economic crisis.
"We will continue to use the full range of our diplomatic and economic tools to constrain Iran's destabilizing proliferation activities," the US State Department said in a statement.
The US re-imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran after Washington unilaterally left the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran's nuclear program in 2018. The move was blasted by the EU, Russia and China, who were also signatories of the agreement.
US President Donald Trump claimed that the Islamic Republic was secretly violating the JCPOA. However, the global nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), confirmed at the time that Iran was complying with the deal.
After the US ramped up the sanctions aiming to torpedo Iran's oil trade, Tehran started scaling down its commitments under the JCPOA. Iranian officials pledged to return to the agreement if the EU provides the nation with sanctions relief.
Iran, which insists that the US sanctions are illegal under international law, has been warning that Washington's 'maximum pressure' campaign undermines its ability to fight the Covid-19 pandemic and hurts regular Iranians. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the sanctions are leading to a "humanitarian catastrophe" as they hamper Iranians' access to life-saving drugs.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
The US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic passed 3,000 on Monday, according to the running tally compiled by the Johns Hopkins University, with more than 163,000 confirmed cases.
The United States has recorded 3,008 deaths, according to the tally, while its 163,429 cases are by far the highest national number ahead of Italy, Spain and China.
President Donald Trump has been criticized for an initially slow response by the federal government to the now-accelerating pandemic spread.
Harrowing scenes from hospitals in New York and elsewhere revealed a health system unprepared with basic supplies such as face masks, as well as life-saving devices like respirators.
On Sunday, Trump cancelled his plans to re-open much of the country by Easter — April 12 — and extended social distancing guidelines until the end of April after his top scientists confronted him with data on the rising coronavirus crisis.
Trump said America’s death rate was likely to increase for two weeks, describing as “horrible” a prediction by senior scientist Anthony Fauci that COVID-19 could claim up to 200,000 lives.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany has risen from 57,298 to 61,913 in 24 hours, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has reported. The disease has claimed 128 more lives, bringing the total death toll to 583.
Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia remain the parts of Germany with most cases and deaths, according to the latest tally.
Germany is considering new measures that would help deal with the coronavirus, including tracking movement of patients through their phones. The approach is used by several other nations like Singapore and Israel, but digital surveillance is a touchy subject in Germany. Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said tracking apps may be used in the country only voluntary.
The leading European economy remains among the nations in which a high number of identified cases has resulted in a relatively low number of deaths. France has fewer virus-positive patients but more fatalities, with its death toll sadly surpassing 3,000 on Tuesday.
The coronavirus epidemic is “far from over” in the Asia-Pacific region, and current measures to curb the spread of the virus are buying time for countries to prepare for large-scale community transmissions, a WHO official said on Tuesday.
Even with all the measures, the risk of transmission in the region will not go away as long as the pandemic continues, said Takeshi Kasai, Regional Director for the Western Pacific at the World Health Organization (WHO).
The new coronavirus first surfaced in central China in late 2019. Infections have now exceeded 770,000 cases worldwide, with the United States, Italy and Spain overtaking mainland China in confirmed cases.
“Let me be clear. The epidemic is far from over in Asia and the Pacific. This is going to be a long-term battle and we cannot let down our guard,” Kasai told a virtual media briefing.
The PML-N has criticised the response of the government towards the coronavirus pandemic.
The party leaders held a meeting on Monday via video link. It was chaired by Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif.
Shehbaz said that the prime minister cares more about the opposition and media than the country’s people.
They expressed their concerns over the way the funds for coronavirus are being distributed among the people. The PML-N has asked for the formation of a parliamentary committee to look into the distribution of funds.
Shehbaz remarked that the Corono Relief Tigers Force is nothing but a sham. The government should’ve asked the relevant authorities to come into force, he added.
At a time of crisis, the PM has dissolved the country’s biggest authorities on medicine, he said while referring to the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council.
While some Asian countries appear to have slowed down the spread of the deadly Covid-19 disease, no nation should let its guard down, World Health Organization (WHO) experts have warned.
"Let me be clear. The epidemic is far from over in Asia and the Pacific," WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific Takeshi Kasai told reporters on Tuesday.
This is going to be a long-term battle and we cannot let down our guard... We need every country to keep preparing for large-scale community transmission.
While positive news has been coming out of China and South Korea, whose response seems to have slowed down the spread of the virus, WHO technical adviser Matthew Griffith explained that this should not be interpreted as Covid-19 leaving particular areas.
"Whereas countries and areas in this region have shown how to flatten the curve, outbreaks continue to pop up in new places and importation remains a concern," he said.
Meanwhile, Chinese health officials reported on Tuesday that there were no new confirmed Covid-19 cases recorded in the Hubei Province – where the outbreak initially started – for the seventh day in a row. All new 48 cases reported on Tuesday were linked to people arriving from abroad.
Chinese authorities said that although the domestic transmission of the disease has been largely stopped, the growing number of imported cases risks triggering a secondary wave of the infection.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Pakistan’s national railway has converted all of its business class coaches into rolling quarantine wards for Covid-19 patients, adding thousands of beds to the fight against the virus, a move mirroring a similar project in India.
The mobile isolation units are ready to ship out to any part of the country connected by rail lines, offering much needed relief to local authorities in Pakistan’s hardest-hit regions, Railways Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmad announced on Monday at the Rawalpindi train station in Punjab, a major stop on the Karachi–Peshawar line.
Some 220 coaches have been specially equipped to house and treat patients, each containing nine beds, the Dawn newspaper reports. Train stations in all seven divisions administered by Pakistan Railways – in Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Sukkur, Rawalpindi and Multan – have also been fitted with 100 beds and a ventilator each, further taking pressure off local healthcare systems.
Pakistan Railways has launched Quarantine special train including two AC sleepers and three normal sleepers pic.twitter.com/UB1D7eHrWa
Pakistan has suspended all passenger rail services amid the Covid-19 outbreak, allowing only freight cars to deliver vital food and supply shipments around the country. While Ahmad said he hoped passenger lines could reopen sometime in April, he noted they would remain shuttered until authorities could get a handle on the outbreak, which has sickened some 1,700 Pakistanis and killed 21, according to Johns Hopkins University.
India, too, has signaled plans to convert rail cars into moving isolation wards, with the state-owned Indian Railways presenting a prototype for the project over the weekend. Once cleared by authorities, the train operator hopes to convert 10 coaches into quarantine units each week to serve its 16 zones, which make up the world’s fourth largest rail network. Despite boasting a population of over 1.3 billion, India has confirmed only around 1,250 cases of the virus to date, with 32 deaths.
The Pentagon’s one-time top propaganda producer in Afghanistan billed the US millions of dollars to produce ads it knew full well would never air, let alone win hearts and minds, a lawsuit by a company whistleblower has alleged.
The Leonie Group took in upwards of $425 million in military contracts from 2008 until 2015 to produce TV, radio, and billboard ads on behalf of the US in Afghanistan, knowing the lion’s share of the propaganda would never be seen by Afghan eyes, a recently-unsealed lawsuit by Scott Kreller, the company’s former president, claims. Adding insult to injury, Leonie allegedly retaliated against Kreller for trying to clamp down on the “fraud.”
Kreller claimed he was fired in February 2017 after refusing to submit an inflated $4.5 million invoice to the US government for “double-billed” psychological operations despite “several months” of pressure “on an almost weekly basis” from the company’s owners.
But that final invoice was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, Kreller claims, describing how the Pentagon essentially poured money into a black hole for four years before demanding a minimum of accountability from his former employer — and even afterwards got precious little return on its investment. Despite accepting a $120 million contract to churn out propaganda for the population of occupied Afghanistan over the 2010-2014 period, Leonie had no way to verify that any of the work it billed the Pentagon for was actually being seen by the target population.
Only when the Pentagon ordered Leonie to begin to “monitor and verify” its ad placements in 2014 did the company even make an effort to see its work made it onto the airwaves — and even then, it didn’t try very hard, according to Kreller. At any given time, fewer than 75 percent of the company’s TV ads and less than 45 percent of its radio ads were actually being seen by a single Afghan — and those two mediums accounted for over 95 percent of the material Washington was paying for. Kreller’s suit alleges all this happened with the full knowledge and consent of the “owners, officers, managers, and employees” — presumably including himself — who “knowingly submitted false bills” to the US government.
While Kreller initially filed suit in the US District Court of Washington DC in July 2017 under the False Claims Act, the case was only unsealed earlier this month, after the government declined to join the case. The Pentagon severed its relationship with Leonie in 2016 for reasons including, but not limited to, its mounting doubts about the company’s ability to deliver effective propaganda. The False Claims Act allows private citizens to file suit on behalf of the government, but the government only joins in less than a quarter of such cases, according to the Justice Department.
Claiming he was told by a Leonie board member that he was fired for refusing to submit the last fraudulent invoice, Kreller is asking for double his back pay plus interest, compensation for “special damages,” reinstatement to his position, and litigation and attorneys’ fees. It’s not clear how warmly his old company will welcome him back after suing it and airing its dirty laundry, however.
In 2012, USA Today obtained an internal report revealing the Pentagon was concerned about where the hundreds of millions they were paying Leonie to win Afghan citizens’ hearts and minds was going. Not only was the company unable to provide any metrics showing success, but it had failed to pay over $4 million in taxes on the same massive contracts the Pentagon was beginning to feel conflicted about paying. Instead of squaring with the Pentagon, Leonie’s owners launched an anonymous online smear campaign against USA Today, which was subsequently exposed. While the Pentagon briefly suspended Leonie from doing business with the government, they were quickly reinstated, with over $123 million in contracts for 2014 and 2015.
After finally ditching Leonie in 2016 for rival SOS International, the Pentagon insisted to USA Today that its propaganda programs had functional oversight and were more closely tracked. However, a request for effectiveness metrics on a pamphlet drop in Syria was met only with the comment: “That’s classified.”
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Astronomers have managed to capture a supermassive black hole firing out streaking jets of plasma after hungrily devouring matter in its vicinity, in a development that promises to cast light on early galaxies.
The observation is made even more impressive by the fact that the supermassive black hole sits in the heart of a galaxy a staggering 11 billion light-years away. So, the light the boffins observed dates back to the early days of the Universe, when it was a mere three billion years old.
The breakthrough was possible thanks to the peculiar process of gravitational lensing. Because another massive galaxy sits between us and the source of the light, gravity bends and magnifies the origin galaxy and allows it to be seen in much greater detail.
“This distortion works as a ‘natural telescope’ to enable a detailed view of distant objects,” explained Takeo Minezaki, one of the researchers from the University of Tokyo.
Using the ALMA astronomical interferometer and taking advantage of the lensing allowed the scientists to obtain exceptionally sharp vision, 9,000 times better than human eyesight would allow.
The observations promise to cast light on the mystery of how galaxies evolved in the early Universe. One remarkable feature that was observed was that the supermassive black hole in the galaxy’s center had recently - at least in cosmic terms - violently spewed out enormous jets of plasma.
Observing the interaction between black hole jets and the gaseous clouds they leave in their wake is crucial to learning more about how galaxies evolve.
The exceptionally clear images enabled the scientists to learn the distribution and motion of the clouds. They found that the wisps created by the gigantic jets have a violent motion, with speeds as high as 600 kilometers per second. This led them to the conclusion that they witnessed the very early phase of jet evolution in the galaxy.
“We found telltale evidence of significant interaction between jets and gaseous clouds even in the very early evolutionary phase of jets. I think that our discovery will pave the way for a better understanding of the evolutionary process of galaxies in the early Universe,” the study’s lead author, Kaiki Inoue, said.
The research is published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
