Saudi-led ceasefire in Yemen begins, lifting hopes for peace


ADEN/SANAA (Reuters) - A nationwide ceasefire in response to the global coronavirus outbreak went into effect in Yemen on Thursday, raising hope for an end to the five-year-old war that has pushed millions to the brink of famine.

A Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthi movement said it would halt military operations from 0900 GMT for two weeks in support of United Nations efforts to end the conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people.


The Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which controls the capital Sanaa and most big urban centres, has yet to announce whether it will follow suit in what would be the first major breakthrough in peace efforts since late 2018.

The coalition said its move is intended to facilitate talks sponsored by U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths for a permanent truce, motivated in part to avoid a potential outbreak of the new coronavirus, though no cases have been reported in Yemen.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement said Washington welcomed the ceasefire announcement and urged Houthis to respond in kind to the coalition’s initiative. He called on all parties to cooperate with Griffiths’ efforts for talks.

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Saudi-backed government and the Houthis to engage “in good faith and without preconditions” in the talks to agree a nationwide truce mechanism, humanitarian and economic confidence-building steps and a resumption of negotiations on a political settlement.

“We are tired of the war,” said 49-year-old Abd al-Basset Muhammad, who owns a juice shop in the southern port of Aden, interim seat of the Saudi-backed government. “If the war hasn’t already killed you, you are dying of hunger or disease.”

The conflict, widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has been in military stalemate for years. Riyadh last year took over most of the costly and unpopular military campaign after coalition partner the United Arab Emirates significantly scaled down its presence.

Some Saudis and Yemenis residing in the kingdom, where cities have been targeted by Houthi missiles, welcomed the news.

“A lot of money was spent on the war. If there was no war, that money would be spent on education,” Saudi national Ammar Khaled told Reuters outside a supermarket in the capital Riyadh.

A Houthi official said on Wednesday the group had sent the United Nations a proposal calling for an end to the war and what it describes as a coalition blockade. The coalition, which patrols the coast and controls airspace, denies imposing a blockade and says it aims to halt import of weapons.

In the Yemeni capital, some remained sceptical.

Engineer Abdulrahman al-Qadi said he saw no point in only a two-week ceasefire. Ahmed al-Nuwaira, a member of Sanaa’s parliament, agreed: “Let them (the coalition) open the airports, (humanitarian) corridors and ports,” he said.

CORONAVIRUS FEARS

The United Nations and Western allies have pointed to the threat of the coronavirus to push the combatants to restart talks to end the war, which has shattered Yemen’s health system.

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Lise Grande, told Reuters at least half of Yemen’s population was in a “very degraded health status” while three quarters require some form of humanitarian assistance or protection.

“There aren’t sufficient supplies, capabilities, facilities. If the virus spreads the impact will be catastrophic,” she said.

The warring parties last held U.N.-sponsored political negotiations in Sweden in 2018. They agreed a peace deal for the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, but this has yet to be fully implemented because of deep mistrust on all sides.

Yemen witnessed a lull in hostilities after Saudi Arabia and the Houthis began back-channel talks late last year. But there has been a recent increase in attacks, including Houthi missile launches at Saudi cities and retaliatory coalition air strikes.

“We cannot control a global pandemic amongst bombs and airstrikes,” said Tamuna Sabedze, International Rescue Committee’s Yemen country director.

Two weeks was not enough time to prepare for any coronavirus outbreak, she said.

The Houthis ousted the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi from power in Sanaa in late 2014, prompting the coalition to intervene in March 2015 to restore him. The Houthis say they are fighting a corrupt system.

Reporting by Muhammad Ghobari, Reuters TV teams in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, Lisa Barrington and Aziz El Yaakoubi; Writing by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Ghaida Ghantous, Peter Graff, Timothy Heritage and Daniel Wallis

'Coronavirus ceasefire' in Yemen's long conflict dismissed by rebels

AFP/File / MOHAMMED HUWAISA Yemeni volunteer sprays disinfectant in a poor district of the capital Sanaa amid fears of a coronavirus outbreak

The Saudi-led coalition said it began observing a unilateral ceasefire in war-wracked Yemen on Thursday to prevent the spread of coronavirus, but Huthi rebels dismissed the initiative as political manoeuvering.

The coalition said a two-week pause in the five year-conflict took effect from 0900 GMT, but a spokesman for the Huthis alleged air strikes continued to pound targets in Yemen after that.

"The aggression didn't stop... and until this moment there are tens of continuous air strikes," Huthi spokesman Mohamed Abdelsalam told Al Jazeera news network some five hours after the truce began.

"We consider the ceasefire a political and media manoeuver" to bolster the image of the coalition "in this critical moment when the world is facing" the coronavirus pandemic, he added.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen's conflict in support of an internationally recognised government in 2015, pitting it against the Iran-aligned Huthi rebels.

If the ceasefire were to take root, it would be the first breakthrough since the warring parties agreed to a UN-brokered truce in the port city of Hodeida during talks in Sweden in late 2018.

The truce offer was welcomed by the United States, key Saudi-led coalition partner the United Arab Emirates, UN chief Antonio Guterres and the Arab League.

"The announcement is a constructive response to the UN Secretary General's call for the parties to focus on countering the COVID-19 pandemic", US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.

"We urge the Huthis to respond in kind to the coalition's initiative," he added.

The UAE, which drew down its troops in Yemen last year as the conflict became increasingly intractable, said the Saudi move was "wise and responsible".

"Hope the Huthis rise to the occasion. The COVID-19 crisis eclipses everything -- the international community must step up efforts & work together to protect the Yemeni people," UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash tweeted.

- Wider solution -

Yasser Al-Houri, secretary of the Huthis' political council, poured cold water on the coalition's declaration, saying that the Saudis "are dishonest and violate every truce they announce".

"The announcement of this truce is to evade the true national vision that offers real solutions," he said, referring to a roadmap for peace unveiled by the rebels on Wednesday.

AFP / Mohammed HUWAISYemen has not recorded any cases of coronavirus but aid groups have warned it would be catastrophic 

The declaration of the ceasefire follows an escalation in fighting between the warring parties.

Saudi Arabia said Wednesday that the truce, which may be extended, could pave the way for a wider political solution.

Officials indicated they are keen for a UN-sponsored face-to-face meeting with the rebels to achieve a permanent ceasefire.

Hours before the announcement, the Huthis released a document that called for a withdrawal of foreign troops and the end of the coalition's blockade on Yemen's land, sea and air ports.

The rebels also demanded that the coalition pay government salaries for the next decade and hand over compensation for rebuilding, including homes destroyed in air strikes.

Guterres, who has called for an "immediate global ceasefire" to help avert disaster for vulnerable people in conflict zones, welcomed the truce offer, urging the government and Huthis to enter negotiations.

"Only through dialogue will the parties be able to agree on a mechanism for sustaining a nationwide ceasefire, humanitarian and economic confidence-building measures to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people, and the resumption of the political process to reach a comprehensive settlement to end the conflict," he said.

- 'Rare opportunity' -

The declared ceasefire comes as Saudi Arabia, reeling from plunging oil prices, seeks to extricate itself from the costly conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Yemeni people and triggered what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

AFP/File / MOHAMMED HUWAISThe Iran-backed Huthi rebels have not yet commented on the unilateral ceasefire by the Saudi-led coalition

Yemen's broken healthcare system has so far recorded no cases of the COVID-19 illness, but aid groups have warned that when it does hit, the impact will be catastrophic.

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit hailed the ceasefire offer as a "rare opportunity to stop the bloodshed in Yemen".

Fighting had recently re-escalated between the Huthis and Riyadh-backed Yemeni government troops around the strategic northern provinces of Al-Jouf and Marib, after a months-long lull.

Fatima Abo Alasrar, a scholar at the Middle East Institute, noted that "the Huthis have currently opened multiple battlefronts they cannot afford to close."

Saudi air defences intercepted Yemeni rebel missiles over Riyadh and the border city of Jizan in March, leaving two civilians wounded in the curfew-locked capital, state media reported.

It was the first major assault on Saudi Arabia since the Huthis offered last September to halt attacks on the kingdom after devastating missile and drone strikes on Saudi oil installations.

Last week, the coalition carried out multiple air strikes on Yemen's rebel-held capital Sanaa in retaliation for the missile strikes.

Saudi-led coalition declares 2-week coronavirus ceasefire in Yemen

AFP / -The unilateral ceasefire follows an escalation in fighting between the warring parties

The Riyadh-led military coalition fighting Yemen's Huthi rebels has declared a two-week ceasefire in the country starting Thursday in a bid to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

The unilateral ceasefire follows an escalation in fighting between the warring parties despite a call by the United Nations for an immediate cessation to protect civilians in the Arab world's poorest nation from the pandemic.

The announcement, due to take effect from 0900 GMT Thursday, marks the first breakthrough since the warring parties agreed to a UN-brokered ceasefire in the port city of Hodeida during talks in Sweden in late 2018.

"The coalition is determined... to support efforts towards combatting the spread of COVID-19 pandemic," Turki al-Maliki, the military alliance's spokesman, said on Wednesday.

"The coalition announces a comprehensive ceasefire in Yemen for a period of two weeks, starting on Thursday."

The two-week truce, which could be extended, was aimed at creating "appropriate conditions" for a UN-sponsored meeting between the warring parties to enable a "permanent ceasefire" in Yemen, Maliki added.

There was no immediate reaction from the Iran-aligned rebels.

AFP / -The war has already left Yemen gripped by what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis

But hours before the announcement, the rebels released a comprehensive document that called for a withdrawal of foreign troops and the end of the coalition's blockade on Yemen's land, sea and air ports.

The coalition, which launched its military intervention to support Yemen's internationally recognised government in 2015, said it was fully committed to a two-week ceasefire.

But when asked whether it will respond if the rebels persist with attacks during the truce, a Saudi official said it reserved the right to "defend our people".

UN special envoy Martin Griffiths welcomed the truce, calling on the warring parties to "cease immediately all hostilities with the utmost urgency".

The ceasefire comes as Saudi Arabia, reeling from plunging oil prices, seeks to extricate itself from the costly five-year conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and triggered what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Saudi deputy defence minister Prince Khalid bin Salman called on the rebels to "show good will" by seriously engaging in dialogue.

"The two week ceasefire will hopefully create a more effective climate to deescalate tensions, work with (Griffiths) towards a sustainable political settlement," Prince Khalid said on Twitter.

- 'Litmus test' -

The United Nations has repeatedly called for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Yemen to help avert potentially disastrous consequences of the coronavirus outbreak.

Yemen's broken healthcare system has so far recorded no cases of the COVID-19 illness, but aid groups have warned that when it does hit, the impact will be catastrophic.

"The ceasefire seems to be more of a courtesy than a policy -- it comes in response to UN calls to deescalate during the COVID-19 crisis," Fatima Abo Alasrar, a scholar at the Middle East Institute, told AFP.

Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni government and the Huthi rebels had all welcomed an appeal from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for an "immediate global ceasefire" to help avert disaster for vulnerable people in conflict zones.

"It is most important to watch if the Huthis will stop their military operations," Alasrar said.

"That will be the real litmus test of a successful ceasefire as the Huthis have currently opened multiple battlefronts they cannot afford to close."

Fighting recently escalated again between the Huthis and Riyadh-backed Yemeni troops around the strategic northern districts of Al-Jouf and Marib, ending a months-long lull.

And Saudi air defences intercepted Yemeni rebel missiles over Riyadh and the border city of Jizan late last month, leaving two civilians wounded in the curfew-locked capital, state media reported.

It was the first major assault on Saudi Arabia since the Huthi rebels offered last September to halt attacks on the kingdom after devastating assaults on Saudi oil installations.

Last week, the coalition carried out multiple air strikes on Yemen's rebel-held capital Sanaa in retaliation for the missile strikes.

9APR2020

   

Canada lifting a freeze on arms exports to Saudi Arabia, opposition wants big deal scrapped

THIS WAS A HARPER CONSERVATIVE GOVT DEAL 

THE LIBERALS COULD NOT GIVE UP FOR VOTES

YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY IN QP; SHAME, SHAME

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada is lifting a freeze on weapons exports to Saudi Arabia and has renegotiated a much-criticized $14 billion contract to sell General Dynamics Corp armored vehicles to Riyadh, Ottawa said on Thursday.

The “significant improvements” to the contract would secure thousands of jobs at the U.S. firm’s Canadian subsidiary, where the vehicles are being made, Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said.

The announcement marks a retreat by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said in December 2018 he was looking for a way out of the deal.

A month earlier the government had frozen new permits pending a review. Some exports though continued under permits which had already been issued.

Human rights groups and political opponents, citing the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the Yemen war, had insisted Ottawa scrap a deal agreed by the previous Conservative government in 2014.



Champagne said that under the terms of the renegotiated agreement, Canada could delay or cancel permits without penalty if it discovered Saudi Arabia was not using the vehicles for their stated purpose. Ottawa would also boost its scrutiny of all proposed weapons sales, he added.

“This not a blank check to anyone who wants to export anything to Saudi Arabia,” he told reporters.

Trudeau had said there would be huge penalties for scrapping the deal but gave no details. Champagne said the penalty clause had potentially been worth the entire value of the deal.



The opposition New Democrats said Ottawa was “sending armored vehicles to an undemocratic authoritarian regime with a terrible human rights record” and demanded the deal be scrapped.
“We are troubled by the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia, particularly with women’s rights,” Champagne said. BUT NOT TROUBLED ENOUGH TO END THE SALE

The agreement was signed despite a diplomatic dispute between the two nations which erupted in August 2018 after Canada criticized Saudi Arabia over human rights.

The General Dynamics plant is based in London, Ontario, an area of relatively high unemployment. The Saudi announcement came the same day Canada reported record job losses amid the coronavirus outbreak.

“As we enter a world of deep economic recession, countries - including Canada - will likely be even less willing to give weight to human rights considerations in decisions over arms exports,” said Thomas Juneau, an assistant professor and Middle East expert at the University of Ottawa.

“Basically this is good money and we need it.”

NO IT'S NOT AND NO WE DON'T

THEY FORGOT ABOUT THIS CANADIAN RESIDENT IN SAUDI PRISON FACING DEATH

Child labour still prevalent in West Africa cocoa sector despite industry efforts: report

LACK OF EFFORT MORE LIKE IT

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The use of child labour on cocoa farms in top producers Ivory Coast and Ghana has risen over the past decade despite industry promises to reduce it, according to a draft of a U.S. government-sponsored report seen by Reuters.

FILE PHOTO: Workers sift cocoa beans in Soubre, Ivory Coast, July 19, 2018. 

REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon/File Photo
More than 2 million children worked in the sector last season in the West African countries that produce about two-thirds of the world’s cocoa, according to the draft of a report funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. It is expected to be published later this month.

The level of child labour is higher than in 2010 when companies including Mars, Hershey, Nestle and Cargill [CARGIL.UL] pledged to reduce the worst forms of child labour in their West African supply chains by 70% by 2020.

In terms of the proportion of children from families working in the cocoa sector that are engaged in child labour, that increased to 46% in the 2018/19 season from 44% when the last survey was conducted in 2013/14, the U.S. report showed. The proportion engaged in hazardous labour, such as using sharp tools, stayed steady at 42%.

Those figures are more than 10% higher than when the first survey was conducted during the 2008/09 season and reveal the difficulty of eradicating child labour from a growing and sprawling sector that provides much-needed livelihoods for thousands of poor communities.

It may also add to pressure on cocoa traders and chocolate companies, who have faced criticism from U.S. lawmakers for failing to root out child labour from their supply chains.

“This report makes a strong case for understanding child labour and hazardous child labour in cocoa production as a complex problem requiring multiple complementary solutions,” said the report.

Ghana cocoa regulator Cocobod spokesman Fifi Boafo rejected the report’s findings.

“Cocobod has registered its disagreement with the findings of the report,” he said. “We believe the methodology used (was) wrong just as how some questions were framed.”

The Ivorian government committee responsible for child labour issues said the numbers in the draft shouldn’t be considered final because there were some issues with the methodology that have yet to be resolved to the government’s satisfaction.

Richard Scobey, the head of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), an industry group that represents companies including Nestle and Hershey, acknowledged that the industry was not on track to meet its target set in 2010. But he said the report was not complete and he could not yet comment.

“Government and company programmes to reduce child labour have shown significant success,” he said, pointing to one initiative - the International Cocoa Initiative - that is backed by the chocolate and cocoa industries and civil society and says it has reduced child labour by half where it operates.

“The challenge now is to scale up these interventions,” Scobey said.

Nestle referred Reuters to the WCF. Mars and Hershey both said it was too early to discuss the report. Cargill did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The report, conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago, is the third in a series of surveys of cocoa farmers called for by an agreement between the industry and U.S. lawmakers first struck in 2001. It was based on a survey of more than 2,000 households.

It estimated that approximately 2.1 million children in the two countries’ cocoa sectors are engaged in child labour, which includes work by under-12s and by older children that is hazardous or exceeds a certain number of hours.


That is similar to the estimate from the 2013/14 survey, but the report said those two numbers could not be compared because of methodological differences.

It said rises in the proportion of children working in the sector could be due to increased cocoa prices and production, which have pushed farmers to grow cocoa.

Cocoa output in Ivory Coast and Ghana rose to about 3 million tonnes last season from around 2.65 million tonnes in 2013/14.

Canada expects coronavirus deaths to soar; job losses hit 1 million

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada’s coronavirus death toll is set to soar from more than 500 currently to as high as 22,000 by the end of the pandemic, health officials said on Thursday, while the economy lost a record 1 million jobs last month.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the country would not return to normal until a vaccine is developed, which could be as long as 18 months.



Health officials said the two most likely scenarios showed between 11,000 and 22,000 people would die. The total number of positive diagnoses of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, ranged from 934,000 to 1.9 million.

They said they expected between 500 and 700 people in Canada to die from the coronavirus by April 16. There have been nearly 21,000 positive diagnoses so far.

Chief public health officer Theresa Tam said it was crucial that people continued to stay at home as much as possible.

“While some of the numbers released today may seem stark, Canada’s modeling demonstrates that the country still has an opportunity to control the epidemic,” she told a briefing.

Howard Njoo, Tam’s deputy, said if all went well, the first wave of the outbreak could end by July or August. But he emphasized there would be subsequent smaller waves.

Local governments across Canada have ordered non-essential businesses shut to combat the spread, throwing millions out of work.

Canada lost a record-breaking 1 million jobs in March while the unemployment rate soared to 7.8%, Statistics Canada said, adding that the figures did not reflect the real toll.

“This was about as bad as it could be,” said Derek Holt, vice president of capital markets economics at Scotiabank.

More than 5 million Canadians have applied for all forms of federal emergency unemployment help since March 15, government data showed, suggesting the real jobless rate is closer to 25%.

Energy is among the hardest-hit sectors, as the pandemic cuts oil demand. OPEC and allies agreed to cut output by 10 million barrels per day, and Alberta’s premier said his province had not been asked to contribute to the curtailments.

Trudeau told reporters the country was “at a fork in the road between the best and the worse possible outcomes,” predicting that once the first wave was over, the economy could partially be reopened.

“Normality as it was before will not come back full on until we get a vaccine for this and ... that could be a very long way off.”

The Liberal government has announced a range of measures to help businesses totaling around C$110 billion ($78.3 billion) in direct spending, or 5% of gross domestic product.

Trudeau’s government recalled the House of Commons to meet on Saturday and vote in limited numbers on measures including a wage subsidy worth C$73 billion to soften the economic blow.

Canada’s independent parliamentary budget officer predicted the budget deficit would balloon to C$184.2 billion in the 2020-2021 fiscal year from C$27.4 billion in the 2019‑2020 fiscal year.

Reporting by David Ljunggren and Kelsey Johnson; additional reporting by Rod Nickel; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis, Paul Simao, Dan Grebler and Cynthia Osterman

Pass the salt: The minute details that helped Germany build virus defences

MUNICH (Reuters) - One January lunchtime in a car parts company, a worker turned to a colleague and asked to borrow the salt.



As well as the saltshaker, in that instant, they shared the new coronavirus, scientists have since concluded.

That their exchange was documented at all is the result of intense scrutiny, part of a rare success story in the global fight against the virus.

The co-workers were early links in what was to be the first documented chain of multiple human-to-human transmissions outside Asia of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

They are based in Stockdorf, a German town of 4,000 near Munich in Bavaria, and they work at car parts supplier Webasto Group. The company was thrust under a global microscope after it disclosed that one of its employees, a Chinese woman, caught the virus and brought it to Webasto headquarters. There, it was passed to colleagues - including, scientists would learn, a person lunching in the canteen with whom the Chinese patient had no contact.

The Jan. 22 canteen scene was one of dozens of mundane incidents that scientists have logged in a medical manhunt to trace, test and isolate infected workers so that the regional government of Bavaria could stop the virus from spreading.

That hunt has helped Germany win crucial time to build its COVID-19 defences.

The time Germany bought may have saved lives, scientists say. Its first outbreak of locally transmitted COVID-19 began earlier than Italy’s, but Germany has had many fewer deaths. Italy’s first detected local transmission was on Feb. 21. By then Germany had kicked off a health ministry information campaign and a government strategy to tackle the virus which would hinge on widespread testing. In Germany so far, more than 2,100 people have died of COVID-19. In Italy, with a smaller population, the total exceeds 17,600.


“We learned that we must meticulously trace chains of infection in order to interrupt them,” Clemens Wendtner, the doctor who treated the Munich patients, told Reuters.


Wendtner teamed up with some of Germany’s top scientists to tackle what became known as the ‘Munich cluster,’ and they advised the Bavarian government on how to respond. Bavaria led the way with the lockdowns, which went nationwide on March 22.

Scientists including England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty have credited Germany’s early, widespread testing with slowing the spread of the virus. “‘We all know Germany got ahead in terms of its ability to do testing for the virus and there’s a lot to learn from that,’” he said on TV earlier this week.

Christian Drosten, the top virologist at Berlin’s Charite hospital, said Germany was helped by having a clear early cluster. “Because we had this Munich cohort right at the start ... it became clear that with a big push we could inhibit this spreading further,” he said in a daily podcast for NDR radio on the coronavirus.

Drosten, who declined to be interviewed for this story, was one of more than 40 scientists involved in scrutiny of the cluster. Their work was documented in preliminary form in a working paper at the end of last month. The paper, not yet peer-reviewed, was shared on the NDR site.
ELECTRONIC DIARIES

It was on Monday, Jan. 27, that Holger Engelmann, Webasto’s CEO, told the authorities that one of his employees had tested positive for the new coronavirus. The woman, who was based in Shanghai, had facilitated several days of workshops and attended meetings at Webasto’s HQ.

The woman’s parents, from Wuhan, had visited her before she travelled on Jan. 19 to Stockdorf, the paper said. While in Germany, she felt unusual chest and back aches and was tired for her whole stay. But she put the symptoms down to jet lag.

She became feverish on the return flight to China, tested positive after landing and was hospitalised. Her parents also later tested positive. She told her managers of the result and they emailed the CEO.


In Germany, Engelmann said he immediately set up a crisis team that alerted the medical authorities and started trying to trace staff members who had been in contact with their Chinese colleague.

The CEO himself was among them. “Just four or five days before I received the news, I had shaken hands with her,” he said.

Now known as Germany’s “Case #0,” the Shanghai patient is a “long-standing, proven employee from project management” who Engelmann knows personally, he told Reuters. The company has not revealed her identity or that of others involved, saying anonymity has encouraged staff to co-operate in Germany’s effort to contain the virus.

The task of finding who had contact with her was made easier by Webasto workers’ electronic calendars – for the most part, all the doctors needed was to look at staff appointments.

“It was a stroke of luck,” said Wendtner, the doctor who treated the Munich patients. “We got all the information we needed from the staff to reconstruct the chains of infection.”

For example, case #1 - the first person in Germany to be infected by the Chinese woman - sat next to her in a meeting in a small room on Jan. 20, the scientists wrote.

Where calendar data was incomplete, the scientists said, they were often able to use whole genome sequencing, which analyses differences in the genetic code of the virus from different patients, to map its spread.

By following all these links, they discovered that case #4 had been in contact several times with the Shanghai patient. Then case #4 sat back-to-back with a colleague in the canteen.

When that colleague turned to borrow the salt, the scientists deduced, the virus passed between them. The colleague became case #5.

Webasto said on Jan. 28 it was temporarily closing its Stockdorf site. Between Jan. 27 and Feb. 11, a total of 16 COVID-19 cases were identified in the Munich cluster. All but one were to develop symptoms.


All those who tested positive were sent to hospital so they could be observed and doctors could learn from the disease.

Bavaria closed down public life in mid-March. Germany has since closed schools, shops, restaurants, playgrounds and sports facilities, and many companies have shut to aid the cause.

HAMMER AND DANCE

This is not to say Germany has defeated COVID-19.

Its coronavirus death rate of 1.9%, based on data collated by Reuters, is the lowest among the countries most affected and compares with 12.6% in Italy. But experts say more deaths in Germany are inevitable.

“The death rate will rise,” said Lothar Wieler, president of Germany’s Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.

The difference between Germany and Italy is partly statistical: Germany’s rate seems so much lower because it has tested widely. Germany has carried out more than 1.3 million tests, according to the Robert Koch Institute. It is now carrying out up to 500,000 tests a week, Drosten said. Italy has conducted more than 807,000 tests since Feb. 21, according to its Civil Protection Agency. With a few local exceptions, Italy only tests people taken to hospital with clear and severe symptoms.

Germany’s government is using the weeks gained by the Munich experience to double the number of intensive care beds from about 28,000. The country already has Europe’s highest number of critical care beds per head of the population, according to a 2012 study.

Even that may not be enough, however. An Interior Ministry paper sent to other government departments on March 22 included a worst-case scenario with more than 1 million deaths.

Another scenario saw 12,000 deaths - with more testing after partial relaxation of restrictions. That scenario was dubbed “hammer and dance,” a term coined by blogger Tomas Pueyo. It refers to the ‘hammer’ of quick aggressive measures for some weeks, including heavy social distancing, followed by the ‘dance’ of calibrating such measures depending on the transmission rate.


The German government paper argued that in the ‘hammer and dance’ scenario, the use of big data and location tracking is inevitable. Such monitoring is already proving controversial in Germany, where memories of the East German Stasi secret police and its informants are still fresh in the minds of many.

A subsequent draft action plan compiled by the government proposes the rapid tracing of infection chains, mandatory mask-wearing in public and limits on gatherings to help enable a phased return to normal life after Germany’s lockdown. The government is backing the development of a smartphone app to help trace infections.

Germany has said it will re-evaluate the lockdown after the Easter holiday; for the car parts maker at the heart of its first outbreak, the immediate crisis is over. Webasto’s office has reopened.

All 16 people who caught COVID-19 there have recovered

LGBTQ activist Phyllis Lyon dies at 95

LGBT activist Phyllis Lyon (R) seen here at her 2008 wedding to her partner of more than 50 years, Del Martin, died on Thursday of natural causes. File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

April 9 (UPI) -- LGBTQ activist Phyllis Lyon, known as a pioneer of same-sex marriage in California, died on Thursday at the age of 95.

Calfornia state senator and chair of the legislative LGBTQ caucus, Scott Wiener, announced on Twitter that Lyon died of natural causes.

"We lost a giant today," Wiener wrote. "Phyllis Lyon fought for LGBT equality when it was neither safe nor popular to do so. Phyllis and her wife, Del, played a crucial role in winning the rights and dignity our community now enjoys."

Lyon and her wife, Del Martin, co-founded the first lesbian rights organization in the United States in 1955.

The couple first married in 2004 when Lyon was 80 years old and Martin was 83, after San Francisco allowed same-sex couples to wed, but the union was ultimately voided by the courts.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who served as mayor of San Francisco from 2004-2011, officiated a second wedding between the couple in 2008 after the Supreme Court struck down the state's same-sex marriage ban.

"Phyllis and Del were the manifestation of love and devotion. Yet for over 50 years they were denied the right to say 2 extraordinary words: I do," Newsom wrote on Twitter Thursday afternoon. "Phyllis -- it was the honor of a lifetime to marry you and Del. Your courage changed the course of history."

Martin died in August 2008, months after their wedding.

Votes for women: S. Korea's first feminist party seeks parliament seats

AFP / Jung Yeon-jeSouth Korea's Women's Party has about 10,000 members, around three-quarters of them in their 20s

South Korea is regularly ranked lowest in the developed world for gender equality, but for the first time a feminist party is seeking parliamentary seats at Wednesday's election, accusing the political establishment of having failed women.

The party was founded last month on International Women's Day on the back of a surge of anger over the country's spycam porn epidemic and other crimes, and against a backdrop of an enduring pay gap and employment and childcare issues.

But it has a mountain to climb.

It has put forward four candidates in the proportional representation section of the vote, and to secure a single seat will need three percent of the popular vote.

"I had signed petitions, I participated in rallies against sexual violence against women, but realised it wasn't going to work. So I've decided to go to the National Assembly," said Kim Ju-hee, one of the four, who at 25 is among the youngest candidates in the whole election.

The party has about 10,000 members -- around three-quarters of them in their 20s -- and Kim says she will never marry nor have children in her efforts to fight patriarchy.

AFP / Jung Yeon-jeSingle-issue parties have long struggled in South Korea

But with the party unlikely to attract male voters, the threshold means it needs to secure the backing of six percent of all women.

It is an ambitious goal when the South's two major parties -- the ruling left-leaning Democratic party and the conservative main opposition United Future Party (UFP) -- and their satellite entities dominate the political system.

And single-issue parties have long struggled. "For many women, it's hard to support a party only because it deals with women's issues," acknowledged Kwon Soo-hyun, president of Korea Women's Political Solidarity, a rights organisation.

Chai Hyun-jung, a 33-year-old mother who works in Seoul, said she would vote for a party that offered solid pledges on children's education and tackling the South's sky-high housing prices.

"I have too many other responsibilities in my life to solely focus on gender issues," she told AFP.

"Of course I'm angry about cyber sexual violence, but I'm sceptical giving a single seat to a feminist party can actually lead to a significant difference."

- Glass ceiling -

Despite its economic and technological advances, South Korea remains socially traditional and patriarchal, and has one of the world's thickest glass ceilings for women.

It has the highest gender wage gap in the OECD club of developed economies, and only 3.6 percent of Korean conglomerates' board members are female.

AFP / Jung Yeon-jeWith the party unlikely to attract male voters, the threshold means it needs to secure the backing of six percent of all women

Similarly in politics, women make up just 17 percent of assembly seats in the outgoing parliament -- 125th in a global ranking maintained by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, just behind North Korea in 120th place.

"Almost all male politicians, regardless of being progressive or conservative, are traditionalist when it comes to rights of women," said Lee Soo-jung, a criminology professor at Kyonggi University, adding that some do not understand the difference between pornography and crime.

Former UFP presidential candidate Hong Joon-pyo admitted in his memoirs that at university he supplied a stimulant to a friend who tried to drug and have sex with a female student.

In 2019, a provincial governor from the Democratic party who used to proclaim himself a feminist was convicted and jailed for raping a female aide.

- Stones thrown -

Young South Korean women have enjoyed unprecedented campaigning successes outside parliament in recent years -- fighting to legalise abortion and organising a widespread #MeToo and anti-spycam movement that led to the largest women's rights demonstrations in Korean history.

But being an open feminist can lead to social stigma in a society where the movement is often framed as selfish, extreme and even irrational.

Women's Party candidate Lee Ji-won said party members had received online death threats and had stones thrown at them while on the stump.

AFP / Jung Yeon-jeYoung South Korean women have enjoyed unprecedented campaigning successes outside parliament in recent years

Linda Hasunuma, a politics scholar at Temple University in the US, said feminist issues were often framed as "not representing the mainstream", and portrayed instead as the "concerns of extreme activists".

"It's hard for women's issues to gain traction in a society that has devalued women's status and labour for generations."

But the party's Kim said winning isn't impossible.

"Thousands of women joined our party within the first week," she said.

"I believe in young women's collective wish to live a dignified life."