BRAZIL
Bolsonaro tested for virus
President Jair Bolsonaro, who has long minimized the risks posed by COVID-19, on Monday said that he had been tested after showing symptoms, including a fever. He also said he was taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure. Local media said the 65-year-old Bolsonaro had cleared his schedule for the week. “The president is in good health at the moment and is in his residence,” his office said in a statement. Bolsonaro has been tested three times before.
UNITED STATES
Atlanta mayor tests positive
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Monday tested positive for COVID-19. “COVID-19 has literally hit home. I have had NO symptoms and have tested positive,” Bottoms tweeted. In an interview with CNN, she said that she and her husband, who also tested positive, had decided to get tested because he had been sleeping more than normal since Thursday. “I’m still in a state of shock because I don’t have any idea how we were exposed,” Bottoms said. She said she had also experienced light symptoms — a mild headache and dry cough — but attributed them to allergies.
GUATEMALA
Ex-Panama head’s sons held
Two sons of former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli on Monday were arrested as they tried to board a private plane out of the country. Luis Enrique and Ricardo Alberto Martinelli were supposedly headed to Panama with stops scheduled in El Salvador and Nicaragua, Ministry of the Interior spokesman Vinicio Pacheco said. There is an international order from Interpol for their arrests on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, he said. Panama has been seeking their arrest since 2017 for allegedly receiving more than US$20 million in bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. They have denied any illegal activity.
UNITED STATES
Earlier date for tell-all book
A tell-all book by President Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, is to be released on Tuesday next week, two weeks earlier than expected, publisher Simon & Schuster said on Monday. The publisher said it was advancing the release date due to “high demand and extraordinary interest. It also released an image of the back cover of Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. “Today, Donald is much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses or take in and synthesize information,” the cover text reads.
COLOMBIA
Truck inferno kills seven
At least seven people were killed and dozens injured after the contents from an overturned tanker exploded in a fireball in the northern town of Pueblo Viejo, police said on Monday. Dozens of people had gathered around the overturned tanker and were trying to siphon off fuel when it ignited, they said. They said 49 people were burned. “There are people who have burns over 90 percent of their body,” Magdalena Governor Carlos Caicedo said, adding that efforts were underway to transport people suffering serious burns to specialist hospitals. “We are working with the air force for a medicalized flight in order to be able to send patients to other cities where they have burn wards. Let’s not forget that in Magdalena there is no burn ward,” he said.
PHILIPPINES
Nation lifts travel ban
The task force on COVID-19 has allowed Filipinos to resume non-essential travel to countries that will allow their entry, as long as they have round-trip tickets, visas and health insurances, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said at a televised briefing yesterday. Departing passengers will also be required to sign declaration forms acknowledging they are aware of risks of traveling, and to undergo quarantine upon their return. Beauty salons in areas under the lowest quarantine level can also start offering hair color, treatment and services other than haircut, which resumed last month, Roque said. The nation had 46,333 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Monday, including 1,303 deaths. It is set to reopen a terminal in an airport in Metro Manila today, allowing eight airlines, including Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd and Emirates Airline, to operate.
NEW ZEALAND
Limits on returning Kiwis
The government yesterday began restricting the return of its own nationals, as the nation faces an accelerating influx of citizens fleeing COVID-19 outbreaks overseas and limited quarantine facilities. National carrier Air New Zealand put a three-week freeze on new bookings and the government is in talks with other airlines to limit capacity, officials said. The nation has gone 67 days without any cases of COVID-19 in the community and its 22 active cases are all in managed quarantine facilities for New Zealanders flocking home from worsening epidemics elsewhere. There are nearly 6,000 people undergoing the mandatory 14-day quarantine in the facilities and another 3,500 are due to arrive this week. Housing Minister Megan Woods said the government was working to add to its 28 isolation facilities, but had to be certain the new sites were fit for purpose.
TURKEY
Eight human traffickers held
Authorities yesterday foiled an attempt to smuggle 276 migrants to Europe on board a ship, and detained eight suspected smugglers, state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Acting on a tipoff, police and coast guard teams carried out an operation on the ship that docked near the coast of Narlidere, close to the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, the report said. The boat was preparing to sail with the 276 migrants, including 46 women and 59 children, on board. The migrants were from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Syria, Somalia and Iran, it said. It was not immediately known where the ship’s destination was, but the nation is a main crossing point for migrants trying to reach Europe via Greek islands across from Turkey’s Aegean coast.
VIETNAM
British pilot to head home
A British pilot who was the nation’s most critical COVID-19 patient is virus-free and has recovered enough to make the long flight home next Sunday, doctors said. A group of Vietnamese doctors who have been overseeing the treatment of the 42-year-old man from Scotland on Monday evening announced that he “has made substantial progress and his health condition allows him to travel” on the 12-hour flight to London. The man is virus-free, breathes normally without any support and is no longer treated as a COVID-19 patient, said Tran Thanh Linh, deputy head of the ICU ward at Cho Ray hospital where the man is receiving treatment. The nation has gone all out to save the man, who was working for national carrier Vietnam Airlines when he tested positive for the virus in March. The pilot had been critically ill and spent 65 days on life support.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
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