BRAZIL
Veteran, 99, beats virus
A 99-year-old World War II veteran was released from hospital with military honors on Tuesday after recovering from COVID-19. Ermando Piveta, who served in the Brazilian artillery in Africa during World War II, was brought out of Brasilia’s Armed Forces Hospital to trumpet music and applause. “It was a tremendous fight for me, greater than in the war. In war, you kill or live. Here, you have to fight in order to live, and you leave this fight a winner,” Piveta said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
AUSTRALIA
Jailed lovelorn cut quarantine
A man who repeatedly left quarantine, reportedly to visit his girlfriend, was on Tuesday jailed for a month — the first person imprisoned under the country’s lockdown laws. Jonathan David, 35, was arrested earlier this month after jamming open a fire escape and slipping out of mandatory quarantine at a Perth hotel, Western Australia Police said in a statement. He told Perth Magistrates Court on Tuesday that he first flouted the law to get food, but hours later broke quarantine again because he missed his girlfriend, Seven News reported. By escaping through the fire exit, he successfully avoided hotel staff several times, but was caught on CCTV, police said.
CHINA
Virus survey begun: report
The government has started an epidemiological survey in nine regions in an effort to determine the full scale of asymptomatic COVID-19 infections and overall immunity levels, the China Daily reported yesterday. The survey began on Tuesday in Wuhan. Blood samples and throat swabs were taken from randomly selected residents for testing, the China Daily said. The survey is expected to test 11,000 citizens in Wuhan, one-thousandth of its population. The cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing, as well as the provinces of Liaoning, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Sichuan, are also to be surveyed.
INDONESIA
Dead ‘mistook for rebels’
The military is to investigate an incident in Papua in which two men were shot dead, it said yesterday, after rights advocates and a family member said that the men were wrongly identified as separatist rebels. The men were killed at a river near the Grasberg Mine after security forces mistook them for members of the Free Papua Movement, rights advocate Patris Wetibo said. Demi Bebari, the father of one of the dead men, a 19-year-old student, said that the two had gone fishing to find food, because the nearby markets had been closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
INDIA
Rural factories to resume
The government is to allow construction of roads and other infrastructure projects in rural areas from Monday next week, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced yesterday. “To mitigate hardship to the public, select additional activities have been allowed,” it said, adding that states are responsible for ensuring that all COVID-19 safety and social distancing protocols remain in place. The government would lift restrictions to allow e-commerce goods and other firms’ goods to move by road, as well as restarting port operations and air cargo, the ministry said.
AFRICA
Debt freeze crucial: Macron
French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday called for a moratorium on the debt of African countries as “an essential step” to help the continent get through the COVID-19 pandemic. Speaking in an interview with Radio France Internationale, Macron urged a meeting of G20 finance ministers to take action on a moratorium as the pandemic threatens to overwhelm the fragile health systems of the poorest countries. The moratorium would be a first step toward full cancelation of African debt, he said. “At a time of crisis, we need to give the African economies a break rather than servicing the interest on the debt. This is an essential step and I think it is a huge step forward,” he said. “Every year, a third of what Africa exports commercially is used to service its debt. That’s crazy.”
GERMANY
Four IS suspects arrested
Police in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia have arrested four suspected members of the Islamic State (IS) group alleged to be planning an attack on US military facilities. Federal prosecutors said the suspects, all citizens of Tajikistan, were arrested by tactical police units early yesterday at various locations. The men’s alleged leader, a 30-year-old Tajik man identified only as Ravsan B, has been in jail since March last year on unspecified charges. All suspects will be charged with membership in a terrorist organization, prosecutors said.
UNITED STATES
Distancing until 2022: study
The nation might need to endure social distancing measures adopted during the COVID-19 outbreak until 2022, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health said in findings published on Tuesday in the journal Science. “Intermittent distancing may be required into 2022 unless critical care capacity is increased substantially or a treatment or vaccine becomes available,” they said. Even in the case of “apparent elimination,” surveillance should be maintained, as a resurgence in contagion might be possible as late as 2024, they added.
UNITED STATES
No change to soot standards
President Donald Trump’s administration has said it will not tighten rules for soot pollution, despite research showing that doing so could save thousands of lives each year. Under the current standard set in 2012, polluters can emit enough soot to measure 12 micrograms per cubic meter. Strengthening the standards to 11 micrograms could save about 12,000 lives per year, a Harvard study found. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the agency’s science review “identified a number of uncertainties” and based on those believes that “the current standard remains protective and does not need to be changed.”
CHILE
Pardon for 1,300 prisoners
About 1,300 prisoners at high risk of contracting COVID-19 are to be pardoned after the Constitutional Court on Tuesday approved a special law sent by the government. The law allows prisoners over 75, mothers of children younger than two and pregnant women to serve the rest of their sentences under home confinement.
MEXICO
Hand sanitizer recovered
Detectives on Tuesday said they recovered a truck that was stolen while carrying 12 drums of hand sanitizer gel on the outskirts of Mexico City. The truck had a tracking device. The truck and its cargo — which also included auto parts — was parked at a walled-off lot. No arrests have been made.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Nauru said it would hold a referendum to change its official name, described as a colonial relic from a time when “foreign tongues” mangled the native language. Nauru would change its name to Naoero to “more faithfully honor our nation’s heritage, our language and our identity,” Nauruan President David Adeang said in a statement on Tuesday. The Pacific island nation’s native language is Dorerin Naoero, which is spoken by the vast majority of its approximately 10,000 inhabitants. “Nauru emerged because Naoero could not be properly pronounced by foreign tongues, and was changed not by our choice, but for convenience,” the government said in
RSS