Australia's fight against coronavirus sees confusing mixed messages

ANOTHER RIGHT WING NATIONAL LEADER SCREWS UP OVER COVID-19

Kirsty Needham

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The fight against the coronavirus in Australia is being hampered by mixed messages from the national and state governments, leaving the public confused, as the prime minister’s incremental approach contrasts with a state push to ‘go hard, go fast’.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has set up a National Cabinet of national and state leaders, but the goal of a unified response appears to be fraying as states forge their own paths.

As in the United States, power in Australia is separated between the states and national government. U.S. president Donald Trump has expressed unhappiness at shutdowns by U.S. states and says he wants “packed churches” on Easter Sunday.

Morrison hasn’t downplayed the health impacts of the crisis but is seen to be prioritizing the economy, while the biggest states, New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria, which have the most coronavirus cases, have pushed for faster containment measures and even talked of some form of lockdowns.

So as Morrison said schools would stay open, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews brought forward school holidays and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian asked parents to keep kids at home.

“At a time of great public uncertainty, Mr Morrison has only succeeded in adding to the sense of dread,” Professor Mark Kenny of the Australian Studies Institute at the Australian National University told Reuters.

Morrison moved decisively in declaring a pandemic weeks before the World Health Organization and applied early travel bans on coronavirus hotspots like China, Iran and Italy, but the messaging since then has been “hot and cold, and some aspects of policy have undermined others”, he said.

The different priorities are partly driven by how power is divided: states run schools and hospitals, while the national government, which will foot the bill for skyrocketing stimulus measures which already total 10 percent of national output, wants to avoid completely shutting down the economy.


“I am going to fight for every job I can,” Morrison said after the national cabinet met on Friday.

PUBLIC CONFUSION
Australia’s tiers of government and size make it harder to match the much-cited success of Singapore in limiting both the transmission and death rates of coronavirus.

Victorian Premier Andrews said on Friday that coronavirus transmission curves differed between states and that states would take action driven by their own needs for the next stage in the fight against the virus.

Andrews and Berejiklian have indicated they are ready to move towards a more complete shutdown, while states such as Tasmania, Queensland and South Australia have closed their borders to non-residents.

Morrison has warned Australians not to wish for a complete lockdown as such a drastic move could be in place for at least six months and would severely hurt livelihoods.

A sign of the zeitgeist, retired cricket star Shane Warne drew praise for describing Morrison’s late-night explanation of a selective shutdown of non-essential services including pubs, gyms and restaurants, and limiting funerals to 10 people but still allowing people to get a haircut as a “shocker”.

“Listening to the PM like everyone here in Australia and what I understood was ‘It’s essential. Unless it’s not. Then it’s essentially not essential,” Warne told his 3.5 million followers on Twitter.


The public confusion wasn’t helped by quick reversals on decisions to immediately cancel elective surgery in private hospitals, and to remove a 30-minute limit for haircuts.

Comparing the situation to the 2008 global financial crisis, the ANU’s Kenny said consistency in government messaging can add to or subtract from public confidence.

“In 2008, then prime minister Kevin Rudd managed to convince Australians that even if they could not understand the scale and duration of the financial meltdown, their government did. Mr Morrison on the other hand, seems unsure and has failed to inspire confidence,” said Kenny.

Some Kenyan nurses refuse coronavirus patients in protest over shortages: union
Katharine Houreld

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Nurses in Kenya’s capital and at least two towns have launched protests or refused to treat suspected coronavirus patients because the government has not given them enough protective gear or training, a medical union chief said.


FILE PHOTO: Kenyan nurses wear protective gear during a demonstration of preparations for any potential coronavirus cases at the Mbagathi Hospital, isolation centre for the disease, in Nairobi, Kenya March 6, 2020. REUTERS/Njeri Mwangi

Only a fraction of Kenya’s estimated 100,000 healthcare workers had received any instruction in how to protect themselves, Seth Panyako, the secretary general of the Kenya National Union of Nurses, told Reuters.

Government spokesman Cyrus Oguna said he would check into the reports of the training and protective gear shortages.

Kenya had reported 28 cases of the coronavirus and one death as of Friday. The virus has so far been multiplying across Africa more slowly than in Asia or Europe - but the World Health Organization has warned the continent’s window to curb the infection is narrowing every day.

Nurses in the western Kenyan town of Kakamega and the coastal town of Kilifi ran away when patients with coronavirus symptoms came to their hospitals over the past two weeks, Panyako said on Thursday.

Nurses at Nairobi’s Mbagathi County Hospital went on a go-slow protest last week in protest at a lack of protective gear and training. They feared catching the disease and infecting their families, Panyako said.


“The government is not taking it seriously when health workers run away,” he said.

“My clear message to the government ... give them the protective equipment they need.”

Panyako, whose union represents 30,000 health workers, said he had only heard of 1,200 staff getting training in how to protect themselves.

A host of initiatives have sprung up to fill the gaps.

Kenyan start-up Rescue.co, whose Flare app functions as the Uber for private ambulances in Kenya, last week began offering training and protective equipment for the 600 nurses and paramedics using its network.

One paramedic on a course told Reuters he had previously refused to attend a suspected coronavirus patient because he did not have training.


“The team was scared so we didn’t go,” he said, declining to give his name.

Caitlin Dolkart, who co-founded rescue.co, said her company had applied for government permission for trained paramedics to carry out coronavirus tests in patients’ homes.

“They are on the frontlines of responding to patients,” she said. “They have to be protected.”

Use soap, not guns, and fight virus 'bare hands', Pakistan video says

Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A deeply conservative, tribal region of Pakistan is spreading an animated, Pashto-language video to warn its population about the coronavirus - and taking a shot at its gun culture in the process.



A cartoon character washes his hands in this undated screenshot taken from an animated video about fighting the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak with hand washing, no guns. STUDIO ROKHAN/via REUTERS

In the video set in a field amid lightning, protagonist Pabo “Badmash”, or Pabo the Thug, is setting out to defeat the virus. Villagers offer him a wooden bat, a pistol, a sword and even a rocket launcher.

But Pabo astounds them by refusing, saying he will defeat the enemy with his “bare hands”.

He then proceeds to wash his hands with soap - and even checks to ensure he has lathered them for 20 seconds, as recommended.

“The soap is my law,” says Pabo, playing on the saying “the gun is my law,” a common refrain among many Pashtun tribes for whom gun ownership is deeply engrained.

Pakistan is the latest country to employ creative public safety campaigns to increase awareness.

Last month, Vietnam initiated a project involving a catchy music video, which includes demonstrations of hand-washing. India has roped in celebrities to push their campaigns.

Pakistan has more than 1,200 confirmed infections, the highest number in South Asia. Nine people have died.

Many parts of the country have imposed lockdowns, but authorities say they have struggled to get people to cooperate due to a lack of awareness.

They say that is particularly a problem in Khyber-Pakhutunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan, which saw the country’s first death from the virus last week.

So, two weeks ago, the government reached out to media and communication specialists asking them to help.

“The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government realizes that this war will only be won if we win the public awareness war,” the province’s health minister, Taimur Khan Jhagra, told Reuters.


Zeeshan Parwez, a Pakistani-Canadian who owns a video production house in Peshawar, the provincial capital, said the idea was to make the video relate to people sometimes overlooked in government campaigns.

“‘The gun is my law’ is one of the most used lines in Pashto slang. To replace ‘gun’ with ‘soap’ was the perfect rhyming choice.”


Reporting by Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Alexandra Ulmer and Nick Macfie
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Pope faces coronavirus 'tempest' alone in St Peter's Square

POOL/AFP / YARA NARDI

In a historic first, the pope said prayers to an empty Saint Peter's Square


Pope Francis stood alone in vast Saint Peter's Square Friday to bless Catholics around the world suffering under the coronavirus pandemic, urging people to ease their fears through faith.

"Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by," he said.

In a historic first, the Argentine performed the rarely recited "Urbi et Orbi" blessing from the steps of the basilica to an empty square, addressing those in lockdown across the globe via television, radio and social media.

"We find ourselves afraid and lost," he said in a homily ahead of the blessing, as he stood under a canopy protecting him from a downpour.

He described the coronavirus "tempest" which he said had put everybody "in the same boat".

The hour had come to "reawaken and put into practice that solidarity and hope capable of giving strength, support and meaning to these hours when everything seems to be floundering", he said.

- 'Did not listen' -

The blessing -- which translates as "To the City (Rome) and the World" -- is usually given on just three occasions: when a pope is elected, and each year at Christmas and Easter.


The pontiff traditionally speaks out against armed conflicts around the globe before delivering the Urbi et Orbi blessing.


But on Friday, the COVID-19 pandemic which has already killed more than 23,000 people was in his sights -- and humanity's errors and lack of faith leading up to the crisis.


"We have gone ahead at breakneck speed, feeling powerful and able to do anything. Greedy for profit, we let ourselves get caught up in things, and lured away by haste," said Francis in his homily.
"We were not shaken awake by wars or injustice across the world, nor did we listen to the cry of the poor or of our ailing planet. We carried on regardless, thinking we would stay healthy in a world that was sick."


Today was not "the time of your judgement," the Pope clarified, but rather a time for people to focus on the important, "a time to separate what is necessary from what is not."
- 'Forgotten people' -


The pontiff saluted "ordinary people – often forgotten people" who are showing courage and selflessness in the current crisis, citing doctors and nurses, supermarket employers, police forces, volunteers, priests and nuns.

And at the end of the service, Francis granted Catholics the chance to have a rare remission for the punishment of sins.


Earlier this month, when the Italian capital was already in lockdown, Francis made a solitary pilgrimage to two of the city's churches.


At one, he borrowed a crucifix believed to have saved Rome from plague in the 16th century. On Friday, that crucifix was placed in front of Saint Peter's.


"During the plague in the Middle Ages, the Church was the only visible presence in public, through the processions of priests who were supposed to produce miracles," Vatican expert Marco Politi told AFP.
"The Pope wants to recapture a part of that scene and of the collective imagination," he said.


The head of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics is a high-risk subject for the virus himself. Since coming down with a cold late last month, the 83-year-old has remained largely secluded within the Vatican.


Italian media reported that the pope had tested negative for coronavirus after a prelate who lived at his residence -- a guest house in the Vatican -- was hospitalised on Wednesday with the virus.


"The anti-contagion cordon has been tight around the pope for weeks," La Stampa daily wrote.


The Vatican has only officially reported four positive cases of the coronavirus within the tiny city state, without confirming the alleged case in the guest house.

Pope gives special prayer for COVID-19 victims, healthcare workers
By Danielle Haynes


Pope Francis prays on the sagrato of St. Peter's Square to deliver a special Urbi et Orbi blessing to the world Friday. Photo by Stefano Spaziani/UPI | License Photo

March 27 (UPI) -- Pope Francis gave a special prayer Friday evening in the Vatican, seeking an end to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed nearly 27,000 people.

He celebrated the Urbi et Orbi blessing, which is normally held only on Christmas and Easter, in a deserted St. Peter's Square. The prayer was live streamed on TV, the radio and online.

"We find ourselves afraid and lost," the pope said. "We were caught off-guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented ... all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other."

The blessing came as Italy reported its highest single-day death toll increase Friday -- 919. The country's overall death toll as of Friday evening was 9,100, and case total was 86,000, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

As part of the blessing, Pope Francis granted plenary indulgences to those with COVID-19, as well as those in quarantine and healthcare workers.

He said God asks the faithful "to reawaken and put into practice that solidarity and hope capable of giving strength, support and meaning to these hours when everything seems to be floundering."

"Because this is God's strength: turning to the good everything that happens to us, even the bad things. He brings serenity into our storms, because with God life never dies."

Pope holds dramatic solitary service for relief from coronavirus

Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis said the coronavirus had put everyone “in the same boat” as he held a dramatic, solitary prayer service in St. Peter’s Square on Friday, urging the world to see the crisis as a test of solidarity and a reminder of basic values.

“Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities,” he said, speaking from the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica into an eerily empty and rainy square before delivering an extraordinary “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) blessing - something he normally does only twice a year.

“It has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air...We find ourselves afraid and lost,” he said.


The Vatican called the service “An Extraordinary Prayer in the Time of Pandemic,” a sombre echo of an announcement by Italian officials minutes earlier that the coronavirus death toll in the country had surged past 9,000.

In the United States, the total number of infections has topped 85,000, making it the world leader in confirmed cases.

Francis walked alone in the rain to a white canopy on the steps of the basilica and spoke sitting alone before a square where he normally draws tens of thousands of people but is now closed because of the pandemic.

“We have realized that we are in the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other,” he said.

Francis said the virus had exposed people’s vulnerability “to those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules”.

He praised doctors, nurses, supermarket employees, cleaners, care givers, transport workers, police, and volunteers, saying they, and not the world’s rich and famous, were “writing the decisive events of our time”.

The leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics said God was asking everyone to “reawaken and put into practice that solidarity and hope capable of giving strength, support and meaning to these hours when everything seems to be floundering.”

MAGICKAL FETISH OBJECT
He prayed before a wooden crucifix which is normally kept in a Rome church and brought to the Vatican for the special service.

According to tradition, a plague that hit Rome in 1522 began subsiding after the crucifix was taken around the streets of the Italian capital for 16 days in 1522.


Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Mark Heinrich

Red lights out: Singapore's sex industry shuts due to coronavirus

Joe Brock

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Shortly after midnight on Friday, a young Asian sex worker dressed in a baggy cotton dress and slippers stepped out of a brothel in Singapore’s deserted red light district and rolled a wheelie bin to the side of the street.


A view of Orchard Towers after it shut down shortly before midnight, as part of measures to curb the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Singapore March 27, 2020. REUTERS/Edgar Su

Two hours earlier, Singapore’s vibrant Geylang neighborhood was having a more typical night - clusters of men negotiating with chain-smoking pimps on the street as women in tight dresses tapped at phones inside neon-lit houses alongside.

Singapore closed bars, nightclubs and cinemas from Friday until the end of April in an effort to contain a sharp rise in coronavirus cases.

Although the announcement made no mention of the government-sanctioned brothels in Geylang, pimps and sex workers said they were passed the message that they too would need to close shop.

“I got nice girls for you. Might be your last chance for a while,” a grizzled pimp mumbled in the hours before midnight outside one of the dozens of brothels dotted along Geylang’s streets, which are monitored by police security cameras.

Singapore announced massive stimulus measures on Thursday to soften the economic shock from the coronavirus outbreak, including generous cash handouts for locals.


But for the hundreds of low-income Asian migrant sex workers and nightclub entertainers in the wealthy city-state, there is huge uncertainty about their future.

“I don’t know how we’ll survive,” said one freelance sex worker, sitting on a plastic chair across the street from a brothel decorated with Chinese red lanterns, a nod to customers about the nationality of the women working inside.

“We don’t get looked after like people in other jobs.”

Government departments and police did not respond to requests for comment on the closure of brothels.

Singapore, known for its strict laws, does not explicitly criminalize prostitution although aspects of the industry are illegal, including soliciting, pimping and running a brothel.

That has not stopped the sex trade operating in the Asian financial hub, from rendezvous in high-end hotel bars to the infamous Orchard Towers, a drab 1970s commercial building in Singapore’s prime shopping district.


Orchard Towers is now closed with police tape around its entrances.

“What am I gonna do now?” said one young woman in a sequined dress as men shuffled out of the tower’s drinking holes, including Naughty Girl Nightclub and the Downunder Bar, on Thursday night.

“I guess we’ll work something out, honey. People still got to have fun.”

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Exclusive: Support for Hong Kong protesters' demands rises even as coronavirus halts rallies: poll

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Support for the demands of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong has grown even as rallies have paused due to the coronavirus outbreak, according to a survey conducted for Reuters that also showed a widespread lack of confidence in the government’s ability to manage the COVID-19 crisis.


Demands for the resignation of Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, were supported by 63% of respondents in the poll, conducted by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute between March 17-20, versus 57% in a poll it conducted in December.

Supporters of the protests outnumbered opponents by a ratio of roughly two to one, with 28% against them compared with 30% in a poll in December, and 58% supporting them, versus 59% previously.

The poll showed a significant increase in the levels of support for key demands of the often-violent demonstrations which rattled the city for most of last year and into early January before the coronavirus crisis.

The survey also showed a widespread lack of confidence in the government’s coronavirus measures, with 54% expressing distrust and 33% giving the thumbs up.

The anti-government protests escalated in June 2019 over a since withdrawn bill that would have allowed extraditions of defendants to mainland China, and later morphed into a movement for greater democracy in the Chinese-ruled city.

Many protesters say Beijing has used its authority under the “one country, two systems” formula, agreed when Britain handed over the city to China in 1997, to undermine freedoms enjoyed in Hong Kong that are unavailable in the mainland.

“It is understandable that protesters resort to extreme means,” said Patrick Yeung, a 32-year-old IT worker who responded to the survey. “I hope Beijing can meddle less in Hong Kong’s affairs, which could actually stabilize Hong Kong and curb people’s anger.”

Beijing denies meddling in Hong Kong and blames the West for fomenting unrest.
Lam’s office and China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, which comes under the State Council, or cabinet, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Support for universal suffrage in Hong Kong, a core demand of protesters aimed at strengthening the territory’s level of autonomy, rose to 68% from 60% in December.

An independent commission of inquiry, which protesters want to look into how the police handled demonstrations, is now supported by 76% of respondents versus 74% previously.

The demands of the protesters “haven’t been diluted, or forgotten, due to the epidemic situation,” said Ma Ngok, associate professor of government and public administration at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Opposition to the demands of the protesters has remained virtually unchanged at 15%.

“The government should investigate the culprits behind the political crisis and should not accede to other demands from the protesters,” said another respondent, Ming Hon, an unemployed 49-year-old who moved to Hong Kong from mainland China recently and had jobs in cleaning and construction.

For the poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points, 1,001 respondents were randomly surveyed by telephone in Cantonese, which is spoken by the vast majority of people in Hong Kong. The results were weighted according to the latest population figures.

VIRUS RESPONSE

Following a large rally on New Year’s Day in which some protesters clashed with police, crowds on the streets have dropped from many thousands to a few hundred as Hong Kongers adopted social distancing to fight the coronavirus.

Some recent protests focused on the government’s decision not to fully close the border with mainland China, where the virus is believed to have originated. The administration has since banned all tourist arrivals.

Although Hong Kong has won praise for limiting the outbreak to roughly 450 cases and four deaths, the poll showed that many citizens remain distrustful of the government.

“The results in combating the pandemic are because of the self-discipline of Hong Kong people. The government has nothing to do with it,” said Evelyn Lau, a 23-year-old tutor who participated in the poll.

OPPOSITION TO INDEPENDENCE

Another key finding of the survey is that while calls for Hong Kong’s independence from China grew within the margin of error, opposition to the idea has dropped significantly and indifference has increased dramatically.

Support for independence rose from 17% in December to 20%, but opposition tumbled from 68% to 56%, and those not leaning either way doubled to 18%.

“People talk more about it, so it becomes more easy to accept,” said Samson Yuen, assistant professor in the political science department at Lingnan University, referring to the independence issue. “When people talk more about ‘liberating Hong Kong’, it shifts the frame.”

With Legislative Council elections due in September, the pro-democracy/pro-Beijing split remained virtually unchanged from last year’s district council vote, with 58% saying they would vote for a pro-democracy candidate and 22% for a pro-Beijing one, with the rest undecided or not planning to vote.

The degree of support for the protests varied sharply by age, education and whether respondents were born in Hong Kong. Younger and better-educated people born in the city were far more likely to lean pro-democracy or support the protests.

The poll, the second in a series commissioned by Reuters from the independent polling firm to gauge public sentiment amid the city’s worst political crisis in decades, showed respondents mainly blamed Lam’s administration for the state of affairs.

Some 43% of respondents primarily blamed the Hong Kong government, compared with 47% in the previous poll, while 14% blamed the central government in Beijing versus 12% in December. The police and protesters were blamed by about 10% each in both polls.


Many protesters say they are incensed by what they see as an abuse of power by the police in dealing with the unrest. The police say they have used reasonable and appropriate force against illegal acts including vandalism and rioting.

China has denounced acts of violence in the protests, which it sees as being aimed at undermining Chinese sovereignty.


Factbox: What Hong Kong opinion poll respondents are saying about protests

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Reuters commissioned Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute to conduct a poll on public sentiment amid the city’s worst political crisis in decades and he spread of the coronavirus.

Of the 1,001 people surveyed, 150 were given the option to share contact details with Reuters. Of the 80 who did, Reuters interviewed 10. Some did not want their full name published.

LAI, 80-YEAR-OLD WOMAN, RELYING ON ELDERLY BENEFITS

“The government insisted on pushing forward the extradition bill. That was a big misstep. Then the government withdrew it, but protesters insisted on their demands and overreacted. Both sides are damaging the economy and Hong Kong is deadlocked.”

“The government is never doing its job. Officials just sit in air-conditioned rooms and never feel for common people.”

MA, 55-YEAR-OLD WOMAN

“The government has undoubtedly made a mistake. But hurling petrol bombs is too much.”

“I am totally against independence. Take national defense for example, do we have our own army?”

“Our government is not working for the people, it is working for Beijing.”

“The effort of curbing the pandemic belongs to the Hong Kong people, not the government.”

KIM CHAN, 32, MARKETING OFFICER
“The government tells us to combat the pandemic together, but I can’t see what they are doing. The idea of a border closure was initially raised by medical workers.”

“I will vote pro-democrats because they are the lesser evil. Beijing has gone deep in our political and financial system, and has an enormous influence on our freedoms.”

“Five demands, not one less.”

MING HON, 49, UNEMPLOYED MAINLAND IMMIGRANT
“The government should investigate the culprits behind the political crisis and should not accede to other demands from the protesters.”

“Protesters vandalized and set fire to public facilities, banks, etc. They are arsonists and rioters, who should be put in jail. No demand they raised was rational.”

“Without the extradition bill, Hong Kong will become a haven for criminals.”

“Hong Kong belongs to China no matter the circumstances.”

“I hope the government can help us secure a job after the pandemic.”

SHUI-YIN TSANG, 60-YEAR-OLD RETIRED WOMAN

“I am scared when I see people in black. Protesters’ demands are attempts to rationalize outrageous behavior, like an ugly, foolish child bargaining with his parent.”

“It is undeniable that Hong Kong forever belongs to China.”

“All government policies come too late ... Anyway, we have to still support the government and give more time to (Carrie Lam) to wake up.”

PATRICK YEUNG, 32, IT WORKER
“It is understandable that protesters resort to extreme means. I hope Beijing can meddle less in Hong Kong’s affairs, which could actually stabilize Hong Kong and curb people’s anger.”

“People in Hong Kong helped each other, sharing masks and disinfectant. This is not the government’s success.”

LI, 74-YEAR-OLD RETIRED DRIVER

“The only way to secure the greatest extent of freedom is to make Hong Kong independent. The existing political system is flawed. Freedom is not just a slogan, it is something of utmost importance.”

“The Communist Party is the symbol of dictatorship.”

“The Hong Kong government is rubbish.”

EVELYN LAU, 23-YEAR-OLD TUTOR

“The results in combating the pandemic are because of the self-discipline of Hong Kong people. The government has nothing to do with it.”

“It is a shame to have this government... I won’t vote pro-establishment, in order to protect my freedom.”

“Hong Kong is inseparable from China. If we want to go independent, there are too many obstacles.”

FUNG, 35, TRANSPORTATION WORKER
“One-country, two-systems still works. I want the economy to flourish.”

“The government acted really slow on the pandemic.”

PAUL LO, 60, RETIRED TEACHER
“We have to go independent. Beijing’s regime is not transparent and respectful to human rights. We cannot live under ‘one country, two systems’, a freak product.”

“If China truly adopted freedom, I wouldn’t mind Hong Kong staying with China.”

“The Hong Kong leader should ... act as a bridge between Beijing and Hong Kong people. But now, they are the puppet of Beijing and only know how to please Beijing.”

“The five demands should be answered.”

Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Philip McClellan

Exclusive: Brazil scales back environmental enforcement amid coronavirus

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil will cut back on efforts to fight environmental crimes during the coronavirus outbreak, an official at environmental agency Ibama told Reuters, despite concerns that reduced protection could lead to a spike in deforestation.
FILE PHOTO: A deforested and burnt plot is seen in Jamanxim National Forest in the Amazon, near Novo Progresso, Para state, Brazil September 11, 2019. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli

Ibama Director of Environmental Protection Olivaldi Azevedo said the outbreak has left him little choice but to send fewer enforcement personnel into the field because of the highly contagious virus.

He estimated that one-third of Ibama’s field operatives are close to 60 years old or have medical conditions that put them at greater risk for severe symptoms of the virus.

Ibama has not hired new agents in years because of government budget cuts and its ranks are rapidly aging.

“There’s no way you can take these people who are at risk and expose them to the virus,” Azevedo said. “There is no choice between one thing and the other. It’s an obligation.”


Two sources at Ibama, who were not authorized to speak to the media, said rank-and-file field agents are worried about their own health and the risk they could spread coronavirus to the rural regions where they operate.

Deforestation experts said that while health concerns must be a top priority, the policy may have grave environmental consequences.

“Weakening enforcement definitely means a greater risk of deforestation for obvious reasons,” said environmental economist Sergio Margulis, author of a paper on “Causes of Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon.”

The additional risk comes in the wake of soaring deforestation and a spike in fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest after right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, sparking global outcry that he was emboldening illegal loggers, ranchers and land speculators.

Brazil is home to roughly 60% of the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, which absorbs vast amounts of greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

Bolsonaro has defended development plans for the Amazon region by arguing that they are the best way to lift more Brazilians out of poverty. But the spike in deforestation threatens to derail a South American free trade deal with Europe and hurt exports.

ESSENTIAL BUT UNDERSTAFFED

In a decree last week, Bolsonaro defined environmental enforcement as an essential service during the coronavirus pandemic, allowing Ibama to keep sending agents into the field.

But Azevedo said even essential services, such as health care and police, must be cut back to protect at-risk workers.

Bolsonaro’s press office directed questions to the Environment Ministry. The Environment Ministry, which oversees Ibama, did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The most important operations will be prioritized, while some areas will need to be cut back, Azevedo said, adding that protecting the Amazon is a priority.

“There won’t be a reduction in enforcement agents in the Amazon,” he said, predicting some parts of the rainforest may even see falling deforestation.

Ibama sources said the pandemic presented more logistical challenges given that many hotels and restaurants are closed and flights have been canceled en masse.

Azevedo said that while agents can still choose to fly, Ibama is allocating vehicles and prioritizing ground transportation to reduce the risk of contagion.

Some agents drive for days to reach their assignments in the Amazon, one of the sources said.

Researchers agree that reduced enforcement allows for more deforestation. However, a deep recession triggered by the pandemic could create rising unemployment, which can boost criminal activity, but also depress prices for illegally acquired wood and land.

Paulo Barreto, a senior researcher for non-profit Amazon institute Imazon, said it was impossible to predict the reaction of criminals, who are hard to study. Commodity prices remain high and a weakening Brazilian real currency means farmers are seeing greater profits for their exports. Demand to clear new land for farming therefore remains strong, he said.

Illegally clearing and selling land is inherently speculative, so Barreto said criminals may still deforest with the hope of impunity, then sit on the land until they can sell.

Deforestation was already up 71% from a year earlier in January and February, according to preliminary government data, and researchers will be watching March and April data closely.

“My guess is that deforestation will not go down,” said Carlos Nobre, an earth systems scientist at University of Sao Paulo.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/mutual-aid-solidarity-and-humor-in.html

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Pandemic could spark unrest among West's urban poor: Red Cross aid agency


GENEVA (Reuters) - Social unrest could erupt among the urban poor and marginalized in the West’s biggest cities as they lack sources of income amid the COVID-19 crisis, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Friday.


More than 80,000 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Italy since the outbreak emerged little more than a month ago and some 8,215 have died, far more than in any other country.

Francesco Rocca, an Italian who heads the world’s largest disaster relief network, said that as well as social unrest the risk of suicide is increasing among vulnerable isolated people.

“We have a lot of people who are living very marginalized, in the so-called black hole of society... In the most difficult neighborhoods of the biggest cities I am afraid that in a few weeks we will have social problems,” Rocca told a U.N. news briefing.

“This is a social bomb that can explode at any moment, because they don’t have any way to have an income,” said Rocca, whose Geneva-based agency also deploys volunteers in hard-hit Spain and France.

He said the largest Western cities could see these problems emerge “in a few weeks”.

Rocca, who is also president of the Italian Red Cross, spoke from Milan in the north, epicenter of the country’s outbreak, after visiting Codogno, Bergamo, Brescia and Lodi.

Some people with a family who normally live on odd jobs that earn them 20-25 euros a time are often outside social assistance programs, Rocca said, adding: “Think about the Roma camps.”


In Italy, Rocca met mayors and some of the 180,000 Red Cross volunteers who visit elderly people confined to their homes, do their food shopping and get medicines from pharmacies. There is a shortage of ventilators in the north and the south, he said.

The IFRC, which has 14 million volunteers in 192 countries, and the International Committee of the Red Cross appealed on Thursday for 800 million Swiss francs ($830 million) to help vulnerable communities worldwide fight COVID-19.


Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Hugh Lawson
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Senegal's graffiti artists join fight against coronavirus

DAKAR (Reuters) - The mural stretched over 10 metres of wall in Senegal’s seaside capital Dakar shows a giant pair of hands reaching out for sanitiser, and a woman in hoop earrings and a facemask colored blue, red, gold and green.


Serigne Boye aka Zeus, a graffiti artist from RBS crew works on his mural to encourage people to protect themselves amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Dakar, Senegal March 25, 2020. Picture taken March 25, 2020. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

It is the work of RBS CREW, a collective of graffiti artists who have offered up their spray cans in the cause of public health.

Black and yellow block letters spell out the message “Together against COVID-19,” referring to the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“A big thank you to the caregivers,” reads another message scrawled out like a graffiti tag, next to the government’s health hotline on the high school wall.


“As Senegalese we have a duty, a responsibility to raise awareness,” said Serigne Mansour Fall, the 33-year-old head of the collective who goes by the name “Mad Zoo”.

“Especially as the majority of the population is illiterate, as artists, we can communicate through visuals,” said Fall, whose past work has focused more on Dakar street life and Malcolm X.

Senegal had reported 119 cases and no deaths as of Friday. Figures reported across Africa are still relatively small compared with parts of Asia and Europe, but the World Health Organization has warned the continent’s window to act is narrowing.

That, said Fall, makes it even more important to encourage prevention measures and head off false information, including one online rumor that only white people can catch the disease.

Other murals painted around Dakar by the collective show people washing their hands with soap and water and sneezing into their elbows.

Each year for the past decade, Dakar has also hosted the Festigraff festival, which bills itself as the leading graffiti festival in Africa and attracts artists from around the world.

RBS CREW was set up in 2012 with the goal, according to its website, of making messages ring out “like blasts of gunfire”.

Canada attacks 'damaging' Trump plan to deploy troops at border
David Ljunggren, Idrees Ali

OTTAWA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Canada on Thursday slammed a U.S. proposal to deploy troops along their undefended border to help fight the spread of the coronavirus, saying the idea was unnecessary and would damage relations.

The uncompromising comments were a surprise, since Ottawa has enjoyed smooth relations with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration over the past 18 months. Last week, the two nations agreed to close the border to non-essential travel to ease the outbreak’s strain on health systems.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday evening that Washington had dropped consideration of the plan, citing an unnamed U.S. official. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.

Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland had made clear the Liberal government had no time for a plan to send hundreds of troops to the border to boost security.

“Canada is strongly opposed to this U.S. proposal and we have made that opposition very, very clear ... this is an entirely unnecessary step which we would view as damaging to our relationship,” Freeland told a news conference.

“The public health situation does not require such action,” she said, noting Washington had yet to take a final decision.

Speaking at the White House, Trump appeared to lack details on the possible troop deployment and said he would look into the matter.

He said it would be “equal justice” since the U.S. military had deployed to play a support role on the border with Mexico.

A U.S. official familiar with the matter said that U.S. Customs and Border Protection was stressed on the northern border because virtually all patrol officers and border crossing officials were shifted to the southern border, where they are supplemented by a brigade from the 101st Airborne Division, a Marine battalion and National Guard personnel.

The Canada-U.S. border stretches 8,891 km (5,525 miles) and is a crossing point for one of the world’s largest bilateral trading relationships.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier that Ottawa was in touch with U.S. authorities and would adjust border security measures if needed.

The United States now has the most coronavirus cases in the world, with over 82,000 infections and more than 1,200 deaths.

Canada, with a population about 1/9 that of its southern neighbor, has reported 4,043 coronavirus cases and 39 deaths.

The state of New York, which shares a border with Canada, has been an epicenter of the U.S. outbreak.



Tim Currier, the mayor of Massena, New York, a town of 13,000 people 9 miles (15 km) from the border, said a deployment could spark panic if it were not communicated properly.

“I’m concerned about how citizens look at that,” he said.

Canada is no longer accepting migrants who walk over the border at unofficial crossings, instead sending them back to the United States. Washington plans to return them to their countries of origin.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration policy with the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center, said the undefended U.S.-Canada border had long been a point of pride.

“I have not seen any reporting whatsoever of an increased threat posture at the U.S.-Canada border,” she said. “Did we not have other stuff that troops could and should be doing?”



Reporting by David Ljunggren and Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay and Ted Hesson in Washington, Steve Scherer in Ottawa and Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Lisa Shumaker and Peter Cooney