AUSTRALIA
Prankster coughs on officer
A man has been charged over a “prank” in which he coughed on a police officer while pretending to be infected with COVID-19 as a friend filmed the incident, authorities said. On Tuesday, the 21-year-old entered a police station in Coffs Harbour and approached a 71-year-old female officer. “[He] deliberately coughed on the woman and claimed that he had COVID-19, while a friend filmed,” police said. The station was closed and isolation protocols enacted, but a check by authorities showed that the man was not infected.
AUSTRALIA
Health system threatened
Officials yesterday warned that the number of COVID-19 infections could start overwhelming intensive care units. If the long lines outside offices of the main welfare agency, Centrelink, start forming at hospitals, there would be fatal consequences, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said. “If this gets away from us, our health system will be overrun and people won’t just be queuing for Centrelink payments, they’ll be queuing for heart, lung machines and ventilators and intensive care beds and we know what that means — you cannot queue for intensive care,” he said.
INDONESIA
Cases vastly underreported
A study released on Monday by the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases said that as few as 2 percent of the nation’s infections have been reported. Other modelers are projecting that cases could rise to as many as 5 million in Jakarta by the end of next month. “We have lost control, it has already spread everywhere,” public health economist Ascobat Gani said. “Maybe we will follow Wuhan or Italy. I think we are in the range of that.”
PHILIPPINES
Ceasefire announced
Communist guerrillas yesterday said that they would observe a ceasefire in compliance with a UN call for a global halt to armed clashes during the COVID-19 pandemic. New People’s Army guerrillas have been ordered to stop assaults and shift to a defensive position from today to April 15, the Communist Party of the Philippines said in a statement. The rebels said the ceasefire could foster the possible holding of preliminary talks to resume long-stalled peace negotiations.
RUSSIA
Quake strikes Kuril Islands
The Kuril Islands yesterday suffered a magnitude 7.5 earthquake, prompting residents to seek higher ground due to a tsunami threat, authorities said. The Ministry of Emergency Situations said the quake’s epicenter was 210km southeast of Severo-Kurilsk, a town of about 2,500 people on Paramushir island. Officials reported no casualties or damage.
UNITED KINGDOM
Vicar sets himself on fire
A vicar got more than he expected from his first attempt at an online sermon when he leaned too close to a candle and his sweater caught fire. “It’s a great thing to pause in the presence of God and to ask the question: ‘Lord God, what are you saying to us?’” Stephen Beach of St Budeaux Parish Church in Plymouth said. “And then, of course, to wait for an answer. I’ve just been pausing between these...” he added, before realizing his left shoulder had moved too close to the flame. “Oh dear, I just caught on fire,” he said. Video sermons are part of the church’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Beach said. “My family love it, and the youngest grandchildren want to know when grandad is going to set himself on fire again,” he said.
UNITED STATES
China hiding info: Pompeo
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday sharpened his criticism of China’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, accusing Beijing of still denying the world information it needs to prevent further cases. In an interview with the Washington Watch radio program, Pompeo repeated previous charges that China’s delay in sharing information about the virus had created risks to people worldwide and said this had “truly put thousands of lives at risk.” “My concern is that this cover-up, this disinformation that the Chinese Communist Party is engaged in, is still denying the world the information it needs so that we can prevent further cases or something like this from recurring again,” he said. Russia, Iran and China have continued their disinformation campaign about the virus, he said. “They’re talking about it coming from the US Army and they’re saying maybe it began in Italy, all things to deflect responsibility,” he said.
UNITED STATES
Virus triggers gun sales
Gun sales have exploded in the past two weeks as the COVID-19 outbreak worsens, with people stocking up on weapons and ammunition out of fear the pandemic might lead to social unrest. “We have had about an 800 percent increase in sales,” said David Stone, owner of Dong’s Guns, Ammo and Reloading in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “I’m still not out of any caliber, but I’m getting close to running out.” Most of the customers rushing to stock up on firearms and ammunition are first-time buyers grabbing anything available, he said. Several other store owners across the nation said they have also seen a surge in sales as people fear social order would unravel if the health and economic crisis caused by the virus escalates.
UNITED STATES
Playwright McNally dies
Terrence McNally, the famed playwright, librettist and screenwriter whose long career earned him four Tony awards and an Emmy, died on Tuesday following coronavirus complications. He was 81 years old. McNally was a lung cancer survivor who lived with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his publicist said in a statement that the artist. He died while hospitalized in Florida. An openly gay writer whose subject matter included love, homophobia and AIDS, McNally’s notable plays included Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class, along with the musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime. Tributes quickly poured in from Broadway, with Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame dubbing the prolific McNally “a giant in our world, who straddled plays and musicals deftly. Grateful for his staggering body of work and his unfailing kindness.”
BRAZIL
President blasts quarantines
President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday lasted out at what he called “scorched-earth” quarantine policies to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, saying they risked wrecking the economy. Never one to shy from controversy, Bolsonaro condemned the containment measures taken by authorities in places such as Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, saying they risked killing people’s jobs in a misguided effort to save lives. “Some state and local authorities need to abandon the scorched-earth concept: blocking transport, closing businesses and confining people en masse,” he said in a national address. “We need to preserve jobs and families’ livelihoods.” Bolsonaro, 65, has repeatedly courted controversy with his statements on the new coronavirus, calling it a “little flu” that has provoked an “overblown” reaction.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not