Exclusive: Venezuela Socialists, opposition leaders begin secret talks amid pandemic - sources

Corina Pons, Mayela Armas


CARACAS (Reuters) - Allies of both Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his bitter foe, opposition leader Juan Guaido, have secretly begun exploratory talks as concerns grow about the possible impact of the spread of the coronavirus, according to sources on both sides.



FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a news conference at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, March 12, 2020. REUTERS/Manaure Quintero/File Photo

The discussions emerged from concerns about the respiratory illness COVID-19, hyperinflation and growing fuel shortages, as well as worries among some members of the ruling Socialist Party about how to ensure their political survival under a possible change of government as Washington tightens sanctions, the sources said.

The talks, which have no clear agenda, show that allies of both Maduro and Guaido remain unconvinced they can defeat the other amid a global pandemic and a broad U.S. sanctions program meant to push Maduro from office.

“There are two extremes: Maduro and those who believe that the virus will end Guaido’s leadership, and those on the other side (who) hope this crisis will bring down Maduro,” said an opposition legislator in favor of the rapprochement.

“I think we have to find solutions.”

Reuters was unable to determine when the talks began, where or how they are taking place, and how Maduro and Guaido view them. Seven sources, who represent both sides of Venezuela’s deep political divide, confirmed the talks.

Maduro and Guaido are competing with one another to help combat the effects of the pandemic, with each side convinced the outbreak will undermine the other politically, said the sources, who asked not to be identified.

Activists and rights groups around the world have urged the two factions to seek a truce in order to coordinate the delivery of aid and boost gasoline imports.


The U.S. State Department in March offered to begin lifting parts of the sanctions if members of the Socialist Party form an interim government without Maduro, a plan backed by Guaido but quickly shot down by the government.

Venezuela’s information ministry and Guaido’s press team did not reply to a request for comment about the current talks.

Guaido later on Tuesday denied the approach after the initial Reuters story was published. “This information is false,” he wrote on his Twitter account. “The democratic alternative is united in its cause and there is only one possible agreement to save Venezuela: to form a National Emergency Government, without drug traffickers in Miraflores, that can access international aid that we need.”

A source in Washington familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday: “There are many private conversations among people in the regime and the opposition, especially since the U.S. announced the transition plan.” The person added: “And there are certainly efforts by Guaido and others to get more aid in to fight the pandemic. That’s led to more conversations by individuals in the opposition and individuals in the regime. What has not happened is any political negotiation.”

The State Department confirmed conversations between representatives of the opposition and officials in Maduro’s government.

“For weeks, Interim President Juan Guaido has been urging the former Maduro regime to take the pandemic more seriously and has been seeking ways to use Venezuelan official funds he can access in the United States to help the struggle against COVID-19,” said a representative of the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. “This has led to many conversations by representatives of international organizations with regime officials, and some direct conversations between opposition representatives and regime officials, seeking a practical way forward.”

Maduro has frequently said he is willing to hold dialogue.

“We are ready for dialogue, to understand one another and reach a humanitarian agreement to attend to the coronavirus (pandemic),” Maduro said during a televised broadcast over the weekend, without making reference to any specific set of talks.


Guaido, head of the national assembly who assumed an interim presidency last year after disavowing Maduro’s 2018 re-election, is recognized by the United States and more than 50 countries as the nation’s legitimate leader. But other powers such as China and Russia still back Maduro.

One source linked to the government acknowledged the talks were going on.

“There are proposals coming and going” between Maduro allies and members of the four principal opposition parties, said the source.

“There are approaches,” said one opposition deputy who is aware of the discussions. “There are key elements in the government that want to negotiate their salvation.”

The two sides last year participated in a dialogue brokered by Norway in which the opposition had pressed for a new presidential election. But Maduro’s side walked away from the process in protest of U.S. sanctions.

Maduro assures his government has controlled the coronavirus outbreak in Venezuela with the support of China, while Guaido accuses him of using the pandemic as an excuse for disastrous economic policies.

A senior Trump admninistration official said Maduro alone was responsible for “the humanitarian toll in Venezuela, compounded by the recent COVID-19 crisis and the gas shortages.”

Venezuela as of Monday had reported 285 coronavirus infections. The United Nations has called it one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the virus due to the lack of soap and water in hospitals and the overall impoverishment of the population.

Guaido, who controls Venezuelan government funds held in offshore accounts, is seeking to provide $20 million to the Pan American Health Organization to acquire supplies, according to three sources.

But Maduro’s government is aiming to block the operation via the United Nations, which still recognizes his government.

The Venezuelan offices of the Pan American Health Organization and the United Nations did not respond to requests for comment.

Guaido has offered to pay $100 per month to doctors and nurses with the help of the Organization of American States, a mechanism that has not yet started.


Reporting by Corina Pons, Mayela Armas and Sarah Kinosian in Caracas, and Humeyra Pamuk and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Alistair Bell and Matthew Lewis

Lebanon legalizes cannabis farming for medicinal use
BACK IN THE DAY WE GOT GREAT HASHISH FROM LEBANON AND THEN A WAR BROKE OUT
FILE PHOTO: A farmer is seen tending to cannabis plants in a field in the Yammouneh area west of Baalbek, Lebanon, August 13, 2018. REUTERS/Mo
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Lebanese parliament legalized cannabis farming for medicinal use on Tuesday, a potentially lucrative export for an economy in dire need of foreign currency as it grapples with a paralyzing financial crisis.

Although growing the plant is illegal in Lebanon, cannabis has long been farmed openly in the fertile Bekaa Valley.


Parliament’s decision was “really driven by economic motives, nothing else”, said Alain Aoun, a senior MP in the Free Patriotic Movement founded by President Michel Aoun. “We have moral and social reservations but today there is the need to help the economy by any means,” he told Reuters.

The move would bring revenue for the government and develop the agricultural sector while legalizing cultivation which was in any case going on illegally, he said. “We don’t want to speculate on numbers ... but let’s say it is worth a try”.


Hezbollah, a Shi’ite Islamist group backed by Iran, was one of the only parties to oppose the legislation approved in a session on Tuesday.

The idea of legalizing cannabis cultivation with the aim of producing high value-added medicinal products for export was explored in a report by consultancy firm McKinsey commissioned by Lebanon in 2018.

Last month, Lebanese police carried out the country’s biggest drug bust when they seized about 25 tonnes of hashish that were set to be smuggled to an African state.


Reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Mark Heinrich

Famed Buenos Aires opera house turns its sewing machines to mask masking

Women sew face masks at the Colon Theater's sewing workshop during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Buenos Aires, Argentina April 24, 2020. 

REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian

(Reuters) - A Buenos Aires landmark and one of the world’s great opera houses, Teatro Colon has adapted its enormous basement workshops to making face masks, churning out 1,500 a week to help Argentina’s health workers cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

“This is a factory of dreams,” said stage director Enrique Bordolini. “The Colon has this advantage that everything you see on stage, when the curtain opens, is made right here.”

More than 50 volunteers who normally work to create stage props, sew tutus, and manage special effects, have been cutting and stitching felt and cloth to make face masks, stamped with the theatre’s logo.

“I feel the same joy that I do when I make costumes. For me, it’s the same pride and I do it just as happily,” said Stella Maris Lopez, the Colon’s head seamstress.

All performances and tours of the theatre have been suspended. Most public places have been closed since March 20 in Argentina, which has reported over 3,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 167 deaths.

Despite risks, auto workers step up to make medical gear

This photo provided by Cindy Parkhurst. shows Cindy Parkhurst working at the Ford Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Flat Rock, Mich. Like hundreds of workers at Ford, General Motors, Toyota and other companies, Parkhurst has gone back to work to make face shields, surgical masks and even ventilators in a wartime-like effort to stem shortages of protective gear and equipment during the coronavirus pandemic.(Cindy Parkhurst via AP)

DETROIT (AP) — Cindy Parkhurst could have stayed home collecting most of her pay while the Ford plant where she normally works remains closed due to coronavirus fears.

Instead, she along with hundreds of workers at Ford, General Motors, Toyota and other companies has gone back to work to make face shields, surgical masks and ventilators in a wartime-like effort to stem shortages of protective gear and equipment.

“I didn’t give it a second thought,” said Parkhurst, 55, a tow motor driver who is now helping Ford and its partner 3M manufacture and ship respirators. “It’s a neat thing to do for the community, for the first responders who definitely need this kind of protective gear.”

All over the country, blue-collar and salaried workers have raised their hands to make medical equipment as companies repurpose factories to answer calls for help from beleaguered nurses, doctors and paramedics who are treating patients with the highly contagious virus. Workers also are making soap and hand sanitizer, which early in the crisis were in short supply.

At Ford, over 800 people returned to work at four Detroit-area sites. General Motors, which President Donald Trump had alternately criticized and praised for its work, has about 400 at a now-closed transmission plant in suburban Detroit and an electronics factory in Kokomo, Indiana, working on shields and ventilators. About 60 Toyota workers, both salaried and blue-collar, are making protective equipment in Kentucky, Texas, Michigan and Alabama.

Most automakers in the U.S. temporarily stopped making vehicles about a month ago after workers complained about the risks of infection at the factories. Many white-collar workers are being paid to work remotely but members of the United Auto Workers who don’t have that option are still collecting pay and unemployment benefits that equal about 95% of regular take-home wages.

Those workers making medical gear will get their full base pay, but that’s not what’s motivating them to keep coming to the factories. Many simply want to help.

Jody Barrowman has been making face masks at a repurposed former General Motors transmission factory near Detroit since early April.

“Instead of being home and not helpful, I thought I’d be productive here,” she said.

She jumped at the chance to work because GM is donating the masks to hospitals and first responders “which is where it needs to go,” she said.

Barrowman said that the operation has been so efficient that workers have been allowed to take masks home for family members.

“I dropped some off at my grandparents. My parents took a full packet of masks at my house. So, it’s not just helping the first responders. It’s helping me and my family feel safe,” she said.
This photo provided by Toyota shows Toyota employee Kirk Barber making face shields at the Toyota factory in Georgetown, Ky. Hundreds of workers at Ford, General Motors, Toyota and other companies, have gone back to work to make face shields, surgical masks and even ventilators in a wartime-like effort to stem shortages of protective gear and equipment during the coronavirus pandemic.(Toyota via AP)

Inside a building on Toyota’s giant factory complex in Georgetown, Kentucky, mechanical engineer Kirk Barber helps to ship thousands of face shields that workers are making while plants are shut down. Sometimes he personally delivers boxes to hospitals or the state government, which is distributing them.


All of the workers, he said, had to undergo a cultural change to make sure they stay more than 6 feet apart to protect themselves from possible contagion.

“It’s a hard habit to break when you’re typically up and talking to someone, pointing to a document,” Barber said. “People are very quick to point out ‘hey, you guys need to keep your distance.’”

Twenty-four UAW members have already died from COVID-19 but it’s unclear when or where they contracted the disease. Ford, GM and Toyota said they aren’t aware of any infections among workers who returned to make medical gear. Still, there’s no denying the risks are likely higher at the factories than in the safety of one’s home.
Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak

Joseph Holt, associate professor at Notre Dame’s business school who specializes in ethics and leadership, said the workers and their companies are examples of business doing its best to quickly fill a critical unmet need.

“Courage is doing what you think is right even when it might cost you,” Holt said. “Those workers being willing to go in to work to produce the medical equipment and personal protective gear, even at personal risk — that is moral courage in action.”

The Detroit automakers are trying to restart production on their vehicles, perhaps as soon as early May, but both Ford and GM say medical gear production will continue. Ford says it has enough workers to do both while GM says it won’t need all factory workers right away because it plans a gradual restart.

Back at the Ford complex in Flat Rock, Michigan, where Parkhurst works, she’s hoping the respirators she’s helping to ship make their way to the hospital in nearby Dearborn, where nurses treated her mother with compassion before she died of a stroke about a year ago. She knows they must be “going through hell” now because the Detroit area one of the national hotspots for the virus.

“When I compared that to taking maybe a small risk and going in and making respirators, I feel all right,” she said.

____

AP Video Journalist Mike Householder contributed to this report from Warren, Michigan. This story has been corrected to show that Cindy Parkhurt’s mother died about one year ago, not 15 years ago.

Brazil becoming coronavirus hot spot as testing falters

By DAVID BILLER, DIANE JEANTET AND LEO CORREA

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A cemetery worker stands before the coffin containing the remains of Edenir Rezende Bessa, who is suspected to have died of COVID-19, as relatives attend her burial, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, April 22, 2020. After visiting 3 primary care health units she was accepted in a hospital that treats new coronavirus cases, where she died on Tuesday. “People need to believe that this is serious, it kills", said her son Rodrigo Bessa who works at a hospital as nurse in the Espirito Santo state. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Cases of the new coronavirus are overwhelming hospitals, morgues and cemeteries across Brazil as Latin America’s largest nation veers closer to becoming one of the world’s pandemic hot spots.

Medical officials in Rio de Janeiro and at least four other major cities have warned that their hospital systems are on the verge of collapse, or already too overwhelmed to take any more patients.

Health experts expect the number of infections in the country of 211 million people will be much higher than what has been reported because of insufficient, delayed testing.

Meanwhile, President Jair Bolsonaro has shown no sign of wavering from his insistence that COVID-19 is a relatively minor disease and that broad social-distancing measures are not needed to stop it. He has said only Brazilians at high risk should be isolated.

In Manaus, the biggest city in the Amazon, officials said a cemetery has been forced to dig mass graves because there have been so many deaths. Workers have been burying 100 corpses a day — triple the pre-virus average of burials.

Ytalo Rodrigues, a 20-year-old driver for a funerary service provider in Manaus, said he had retrieved one body after another for more than 36 hours, without a break. There were so many deaths, his employer had to add a second hearse, Rodrigues said.

So far, the health ministry has confirmed nearly 53,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 3,600 deaths. By official counts, the country had its worst day yet on Thursday, with about 3,700 new cases and more than 400 deaths, and Friday was nearly as grim.

Experts warned that paltry testing means the true number of infections is far greater. And because it can take a long time for tests to be processed, the current numbers actually reflect deaths that happened one or two weeks ago, said Domingos Alves, adjunct professor of social medicine at the University of Sao Paulo, who is involved in the project.

“We are looking at a photo of the past,” Alves said in an interview last week. “The number of cases in Brazil is, therefore, probably even greater than what we are predicting.”

Scientists from the University of Sao Paulo, University of Brasilia and other institutions say the true number of people infected with the virus as of this week is probably as much as 587,000 to 1.1 million people.

The health ministry said in a report earlier this month that it has the capacity to test 6,700 people per day — a far cry from the roughly 40,000 it will need when the virus peaks.


“We should do many more tests than we’re doing, but the laboratory here is working at full steam,” said Keny Colares, an infectious disease specialist at the Hospital Sao Jose in northeastern Ceara state who has been advising state officials on the pandemic response.

Meanwhile, health care workers can barely handle the cases they have.

In Rio state, all but one of seven public hospitals equipped to treat COVID-19 are full and can only accept new patients once others have either recovered or died, according to the press office of the health secretariat. The sole facility with vacancy is located a two-hour drive from the capital’s center.

At the mouth of the Amazon, the city of Belem’s intensive-care beds are all occupied, according to online media outlet G1. As the number of cases rises in the capital of Para state, its health secretary said this week that at least 200 medical staff had been infected, and it is actively seeking to hire more doctors, G1 reported.

On Saturday, the city of Rio plans to open its first field hospital, with 200 beds, half reserved for intensive care. Another hospital erected beside the historic Maracana football stadium will offer 400 beds starting next month.

In Ceara’s capital, Fortaleza, state officials said Friday that intensive care units for COVID-19 patients were 92% full, after reaching capacity a week ago. Health experts and officials are particularly worried about the virus spreading into the poorest neighborhoods, or favelas, where people depend on public health care.

Edenir Bessa, a 65-year-old retiree from Rio’s working-class Mangueira favela, sought medical attention on April 20; she was turned away from two full urgent care units before gaining admission to a third located 40 kilometers (25 miles) away.

Hours later, she was transferred by ambulance almost all the way back, to the Ronaldo Gazzola hospital, according to her son, Rodrigo Bessa. Still, she died overnight, and he had to enter the hospital to identify her body.

“I saw a lot of bodies also suspected of (having) COVID-19 in the hospital’s basement,” said Bessa, a nurse at a hospital in another state.

The hospital released Edenir’s body with a diagnosis of suspected COVID-19, meaning that her death — like so many others — doesn’t figure into the government’s official tally. A small group of family members gathered for her burial on Wednesday, wearing face masks.

“People need to believe that this is serious, that it kills,” Bessa said.

Bolsonaro has continued to dismiss health officials’ dire predictions about the virus’s spread in the country. Last week, the president fired a health minister who had supported tough anti-virus measures and replaced him with an advocate for reopening the economy.

Bolsonaro’s stance largely echoes that of his counterpart and ally U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been stressing the need to put people back to work as unemployment figures reach Depression-era levels. Unlike Bolsonaro, however, Trump has moderated his skepticism about the virus.

The fight to reopen business “is a risk that I run,” Bolsonaro said at the swearing-in of his newly appointed health minister, Nelson Teich. If the pandemic escalates, Bolsonaro said, “it lands on my lap.”

Gaza factories roar back to life to make protective wear
By FARES AKRAM

In this Monday, March 30, 2020 file photo, Palestinians make protective overalls meant to shield people from the coronavirus, to be exported to Israel, at a local factory, in Gaza City. For the first time in years, some sewing factories in the Gaza Strip are back to working at full capacity — producing masks, gloves and protective gowns, some of which are bound for Israel.(AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — For the first time in years, sewing factories in the Gaza Strip are back to working at full capacity — producing masks, gloves and protective gowns, some of which are bound for Israel.

It’s a rare economic lifeline in the coastal territory, which has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since the Hamas militant group seized power from rival Palestinian forces in the strip in 2007. The blockade, and three wars between Hamas and Israel, have devastated the local economy, with unemployment hovering around 50%.

But the sudden opportunity also shows how Gaza’s economy is at the mercy of those enforcing the blockade — and how depressed wages have become. Workers earn as little as $8 a day.

So far, Gaza appears to have been largely spared from the coronavirus pandemic, with only 17 cases detected, all within quarantine facilities set up for those returning from abroad. Many still fear an outbreak in the impoverished territory, which is home to 2 million people and where the health care system has been battered by years of conflict. But for now, authorities are cautiously allowing most businesses to stay open.

Rizq al-Madhoun, owner of the Bahaa garment company, said he has produced more than 1 million masks in the past three weeks, “all for the Israeli market.”

Gaza may not have the advanced machinery seen in other places, but he said residents’ sewing skills are unmatched. “Gaza workers are distinguished in handiwork and they are better than workers in China or Turkey,” he said.


FILE- In this Monday, March 30, 2020 file photo, Palestinians make protective overalls meant to shield people from the coronavirus, to be exported to Israel, at a local factory, in Gaza City. For the first time in years, some sewing factories in the Gaza Strip are back to working at full capacity — producing masks, gloves and protective gowns, some of which are bound for Israel. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)
Another factory, Unipal 2000, is able to employ 800 workers across two shifts to produce protective equipment around the clock.

Both factories import fabric and other materials from customers in Israel and then produce items like masks, gloves and surgical gowns. Unipal makes about 150,000 pieces a day, and demand is high as countries around the world grapple with shortages.

Asked about doing business with Israeli customers, both factory owners said they did not want to discuss politics and framed their work in terms of business and humanitarian needs.

“Despite the siege in Gaza, we export these masks and protective clothes to the whole world without exception,” Bashir Bawab, the owner of Unipal 2000, said. “We feel we are doing a humanitarian duty.”

In recent years, Tamer Emad, a skilled textile worker, was able to work one week per month at best. But over the past month, he has been on the Unipal factory floor every day, earning around $8 per shift.

“This has provided us with a good opportunity ahead of Ramadan,” he said, referring to the Muslim holy month, which began Thursday, when families traditionally splurge on food and shopping.

Such wages are typical in the depressed Gazan economy, but would barely keep a family afloat. It costs around $250 a month to rent a two-bedroom apartment.

Omar Shaban, an economist who heads a local think tank, said the conditions created by the blockade allow for “exploitation,” but that low-wage jobs still provide income for many people.

Unipal 2000 first opened in an industrial zone along the frontier in 1998, when the peace process was in full swing. But like many other Gaza businesses, it was forced to shut down after the Hamas takeover and the blockade. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas, an Islamic militant group that opposes Israel’s existence, from arming itself.

Israel began easing some restrictions after the 2014 Gaza war, and the factory reopened two years later. But by then most of its clients had found suppliers elsewhere, so it only operated intermittently.

Its fortunes could change again — especially if there is an outbreak.

Gisha, an Israeli group that advocates for easing the blockade on Gaza, appealed to Israeli leaders to do more to promote economic activity in the territory.

“The pandemic has created demand for these products,” it said. “But Israel must lift restrictions on trade entirely so that Gaza residents can work and so that Gaza’s faltering economy can brace itself as much as possible against the wider global crisis caused by the pandemic.”

The virus causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms in most patients, who recover within a few weeks. But it is highly contagious and can cause severe illness or death, particularly in older patients or those with underlying conditions.

Israel has reported more than 14,800 cases and nearly 200 deaths. The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, has reported around 260 cases and two deaths. Both imposed strict lockdowns more than a month ago.

Elsewhere in Gaza, a startup has produced hundreds of medical face shields using 3D printers.
The Glia project, established by Tarek Loubani, a Palestinian physician based in Canada, has previously used 3D printers to produce inexpensive stethoscopes in the isolated territory. Last year it produced tourniquets for first responders to treat Palestinians shot and wounded by Israeli forces during weekly protests along the frontier.

“Because of the global shortages, we are trying to provide a resupply with alternatives from the local market,” said Mohammed Attar, of Glia team in Gaza.

The initiative currently produces 30 face shields a day and hopes to one day export them.

BELLA CIAO APRIL 25 RESISTANCE DAY ITALY

AP PHOTOS: Veterans honor Italy’s WWII uprising from home

By BEATRICE LARCO

THE OTHER 12 PICTURE BIOS HERE

A combo of 15 images showing fifteen former Italian partisans posing at their home in several Italian cities between Thursday, April 23, and Friday, April 24, 2020. On April 25 every year Italy celebrates the end of the Nazi occupation during WWII. The date is also the occasion for the members of the National Association of Italian Partisans to celebrate their uprising against the fascist rule of dictator Benito Mussolini, backed up by the Nazis, with marches throughout the country. The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy this year forced the cancellation of all the activities to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Italian Liberation Day. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini. Alessandra Tarantino, Luca Bruno, Antonio Calanni, Domenico Stinellis, Bruno Anastasi)

Former partisan Laura Wronowki, 96, poses at her window in Milan, Italy, Friday, April 24, 2020. On April 25 every year Italy celebrates the end of the Nazi occupation during WWII. The date is also the occasion for the members of the National Association of Italian Partisans to celebra Liberation Day. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni) On April 25 every year Italy celebrates the end of the Nazi occupation during WWII. The date is also the occasion for the members of the National Association of Italian Partisans to celebrate their uprising against the fascist rule of dictator Benito Mussolini, backed up by the Nazis, with marches throughout the country. The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy this year forced the cancellation te their uprising against the fascist rule of dictator Benito Mussolini, backed up by the Nazis, with marches throughout the country. The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy this year forced the cancellation of all the activities to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Italian of all the activities to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Italian Liberation Day.

Former partisan Teresa Vergalli, 93, nicknamed Annuska, holds a note reading in Italian "Resistance always, long live Aprile 25", as she poses at her window in Rome, Thursday, April 23, 2020. On April 25 every year Italy celebrates the end of the Nazi occupation during WWII. The date is also the occasion for the members of the National Association of Italian Partisans to celebrate their uprising against the fascist rule of dictator Benito Mussolini, backed up by the Nazis, with marches throughout the country. The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy this year forced the cancellation of all the activities to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Italian Liberation Day. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Former partisan Rodolfo Lai, 92, nicknamed Rudy, waves from his balcony in Rome, Thursday, April 23, 2020. On April 25 every year Italy celebrates the end of the Nazi occupation during WWII. The date is also the occasion for the members of the National Association of Italian Partisans to celebrate their uprising against the fascist rule of dictator Benito Mussolini, backed up by the Nazis, with marches throughout the country. The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy this year forced the cancellation of all the activities to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Italian Liberation Day. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)


ROME (AP) — Veterans of Italy’s anti-Fascist World War II resistance have held marches throughout Italy every April 25 since 1945, to honor the uprising that helped end their country’s Nazi occupation.

This year’s 75th anniversary was long anticipated among the dwindling band of elderly survivors. But lockdown measures in the coronavirus-afflicted country mean no marches can be held. So the veterans have resorted to the inventiveness they once employed in sabotage missions and guerrilla tactics against the Germans.

At 3 p.m. on Saturday, when the traditional parade would have started in Milan, where Italian Fascist ruler Benito Mussolini’s body was publicly displayed after his execution by resistance fighters, the National Association of Italian Partisans has invited all to sing “Bella Ciao,” the anthem of Italy’s communist resistance, a major component of the liberation efforts.

On the eve of the anniversary, Associated Press photographers portrayed 15 former partisans at their balconies and windows in several Italian cities. Two display their arrays of medals, most drape the tricolored Italian flag around their necks.

Rodolfo Lai, 92, who, aged 15, killed a German paratrooper with a hand grenade to protect an escaping Italian officer, lamented the cancellation of the marches.

“Never we would have imagined that after 75 years of our resistance against a visible enemy ... today we would have found ourselves resisting an enemy ... invisible and insidious,” Lai said from his Rome apartment, referring to the novel coronavirus.

Silvio Anastasi, 88, said life during the war “was much easier for me. The shrewdness, courage and tactical skills we used against the Nazi-Fascists are of no help today in fighting the coronavirus. I feel helpless.”

Elderly people are considered among the most vulnerable for potentially fatal complications of COVID-19.

When Umberto Graziani, 96, was asked how he will celebrate this year, he sounded resigned: “Nothing, no march, I’ll stay home, how sad.”

FEMA field hospitals expand Navajo Nation's COVID-19 response

Care on the Navajo Nation has been expanded with recovery centers built by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA as the COVID-19 pandemic sickens more reservation residents. Photo via FB Live, courtesy of the Navajo Nation.
DENVER, April 24 (UPI) -- Expecting the cases of COVID-19 on the Navajo Nation to peak in mid-May, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Federal Emergency Management Agency are constructing three reservation field hospitals to be used as alternative care sites, the tribe said Friday.

"COVID-positive patients will be kept here isolated so they can recover here and then go home," said the nation's President Jonathan Nez said in a live video feed from the Miyamura High School gymnasium in Gallop, N.M., which had been converted into a 60-bed recovery center.

"It looks nice, but believe me, you don't want to end up here, you don't want to be away from your family for a long time. ... We're preparing for a worst-case scenario," Nez said.

Two other care sites are being built in Chinle, Ariz., and Shiprock, N.M., Nez said.

RELATED Navajo Nation extends shelter-in-place order for COVID-19 outbreak

The reservation, with a population of around 175,000 people, has been a national hotspot for reported positive cases of the coronavirus. Its an infection rate is higher than any state except New York and New Jersey, according to state health care department statistics.

The Navajo Epidemiology Center has reported 78 new cases confirmed positive cases since Wednesday, reaching a total of 1,360.

Fifty-two deaths on the reservation have been attributed to the virus, and about 7,500 tests have been completed. The average age of positive virus patients was 43, and the average age of death was 65, the health agency said.

RELATED Navajo leaders self-quarantine after COVID-19 exposure

As the reservation prepares for a third weekend curfew and stay-at-home orders, the tribal government on Thursday organized a drive-through distribution of care packages, food supplies and firewood to about 250 remote reservation residents in Jeddito, Ariz.

The Window Rock, Ariz.,-based Navajo Times newspaper has published a list of resources and non-profit groups that were providing emergency relief to tribal members.

The Navajo Nation, about the size of the state of West Virginia, has only 13 grocery stores, and about 30 percent of residents lack running water or electricity.

RELATED Solar-powered cisterns bring running water to Navajo homes

The Hopi Nation, located within the Navajo Nation, has three villages with no running water, Cassandra Begay, communications director for the non-profit Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund, said in a video.

The group has delivered 1,500 food baskets across the two reservations and is coordinating volunteers to sew masks for residents, especially the elderly.

"In many homes on the reservation, there are multi-generational families that live there," Jessica Stago, who coordinates water for the relief effort, said in a statement. "The virus is attacking this important family unit by spreading among entire families who cannot isolate from each other," she said.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Navajo Nation joined a multi-tribe lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that asks the U.S. Treasury Department to exclude 230 Alaska Native corporations from the $8 billion in federal COVID-19 relief of CARES Act funds.

Three Sioux tribes, the Cheyenne River, Oglala and Rosebud Sioux, and others, including three Alaskan native tribes, say the corporations are for-profit entities, owned by shareholders, many of them non-Indian.

"Allocating funds from the Coronavirus Relief Fund to the Alaska Native corporations will severely impact the Navajo Nation's ability to fight COVID-19, and will impact every other tribe, as well," Navajo President Nez said in a statement.

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=NAVAJO

Tribes prepare hemp, CBD strategies after USDA approval

The U.S. Department of Agriculture approved an industrial hemp plan for the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, which has incorporated new hemp and CBD companies. Photo courtesy of Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa

DENVER, April 24 (UPI) -- Newly approved federal plans for tribal industrial hemp production are giving U.S. sovereign nations a competitive advantage in growing the plant and selling CBD, the tribes say.

As U.S. farmers rush to plant industrial hemp after 80 years of prohibition, tribal sovereign governments find they have an advantage because they can cut through red tape and become the first entrepreneurs in state markets to offer their own CBD and hemp products.




"The tribe is very excited about hemp," said Joseph VanGorp, hemp operations director for the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa. "It's been a long time coming."

The 2018 Farm Bill allowed tribes to apply directly for approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for hemp programs. USDA has approved 20 tribal nations' plans, with 18 more under review or in drafting stages.

As sovereign nations, tribes can craft their own hemp plans, and tribal hemp companies do not have to be licensed by the agriculture departments of states in which they are situated.

Tribal-owned hemp operations can potentially bring new revenue into the tribal coffers to pay for member social services.

In Tama, Iowa, the 7,000-acre sovereign Sac & Fox Tribe, or Meskwaki Nation, can use its sovereign jurisdiction to regulate the CBD that the tribe will produce, hemp director VanGorp said.

Iowa has some of the most restrictive laws for CBD, which can only be sold with a doctor's prescription, according to the state attorney general. The tribe will sell its own CBD at its truck stop in Tama and through wholesalers. It already sells tobacco and vaping products.

"CBD is difficult to obtain in Iowa," VanGorp said. "It will be a lot easier for people to just come to Tama and choose what they want to buy."

VanGorp, who formerly worked in Colorado as a chemist in CBD extraction, said the tribe also plans to open an extraction facility -- the first in the state.

RELATED Navajo Nation positive COVID-19 cases, deaths continue to rise

After hemp was allowed again in the 2018 Farm Bill, the Iowa Department of Agriculture approved a hemp plan for 2020 and some farmers are obtaining licenses. But no processing facilities have been approved in the state.

Iowa had a rich history of industrial hemp production before the plant was federally prohibited. "There were about 11 processing plants for hemp in the state in the 1940s," VanGorp said.

In New York's Cayuga Nation, the new hemp program this year will get a jump on other New York farmers, said Clint Halftown, the tribe's federal representative.

New York does not yet appear on the USDA's list of state-approved plans, although Gov. Andrew Cuomo approved hemp regulations in December 2019. As a result, hemp-growing still must be coordinated through a university pilot program.

Approved hemp programs for Cayuga Nation, and the affiliated Seneca Nation, will have more flexibility to grow hemp and market their own CBD products, tribal leader Halftown said.

The tribe, which grows vegetables and soybeans and raises cattle near Seneca Falls, N.Y., plans to plant hemp this spring.

"Our nation-owned and operated hemp program and our own line of CBD will stimulate another avenue revenue source for the community," Halftown said.

The USDA last week also approved a hemp plan for the Montana-based Blackfeet Nation. The tribe belongs to the Blackfoot Confederacy, a family of tribes on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border.

Canadian farmers have been growing hemp for seed and fiber for more than 20 years, and some Canadian sovereign nations began to grow cannabis last year. Canada legalized recreational marijuana in 2018.

Flight attendants union: Halt leisure travel until coronavirus contained

Grounded commercial aircraft are stored at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif., on Wednesday. All U.S. carriers have cut most flights and parked aircraft during the coronavirus emergency. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

April 24 (UPI) -- The head of a large flight attendants union has called on the Trump administration to end all non-essential flights until the coronavirus has been contained to stop the spread and protect its tens of thousands of members.

In a letter Thursday, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA urged the U.S. Departments of Transportation and Health and Human Services to bar all leisure travel until the virus is contained.

"We call on lawmakers and regulators to take further action to limit the spread of the virus by restricting air travel to only that necessary to continue essential services," AFA International President Sara Nelson wrote in the four-page letter, addressed to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and HHS Secretary Alex Azar.

"While this global system is integral to our modern economy, its essential inter-connectedness also provides a convenient pathway for opportunistic pathogens to hitch rides on unsuspecting crewmembers and travelers and spread all over the world.

"As some of the most frequent travelers, flight attendants feel a deep responsibility to ensure that our workplace risks of acquiring and spreading communicable diseases are minimized as much as possible."

Nelson said flight attendants have been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and have been "hit hard" as at least 250 of the union's 50,000 members at 20 carriers have so far tested positive for the virus, and some have died.

"The scars run deep," she added. "Recent media reports document the guilt felt by those who question if we are helping to spread the virus, feelings of fear and grief as coworkers die and wonder about when this will all be over."

The letter calls for the departments to mandate the use of masks by crew, employees and passengers on airplanes and in airports, as well as require employers to provide workers with personal protective equipment.

"We believe that ... ensuring air travel is not aiding in spread of the virus requires a halt to all leisure travel until the pandemic is brought under control according to health authorities," it concludes. " In addition, we request messaging from all leadership to encourage the public to end leisure travel until we have 'flattened the curve.'"

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