Maradona autographs shirt to help Buenos Aires poor

 AT FIRST I THOUGHT IT SAID MADONNA ......

AFP / JUAN MABROMATADiego Maradona's autographed shirt is displayed at a community eatery in Buenos Aires

Diego Maradona has lent a hand in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in his hometown by autographing an Argentina national team jersey for a raffle.

The sale raised money for an underprivileged area on the outskirts of Buenos Aires affected by quarantine rules.

"We're going to get through it," Maradona wrote on the jersey, a replica of the one he wore when he led his country to victory in the 1986 World Cup.

AFP/File / STAFFDiego Maradona has contributed a replica of the shirt he wore in the 1986 World Cup to charity

The jersey was first offered at auction, but is being raffled to those who have given donations in an initiative that has collected hygiene products, masks and around 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of food for charity.

"Diego can't even imagine what he has done for us, it's priceless. I'll be grateful to him until the day I die," said local resident Marta Gutierrez.

In addition to the pandemic, Argentina is facing a serious economic crisis and is in laborious negotiations on debt restructuring with creditors.

US women's national team files appeal after legal setback

AFP / Lionel BONAVENTURELevinson said the women are being discriminated against because they are not getting as much as the men on a per game basis

The US women's national team on Friday filed an appeal against a legal setback in their equal pay lawsuit, saying they are being paid less than the men even though they win twice as much.

In dismissing their equal pay claim last Friday, Judge Gary Klausner said the case was unwarranted because they had previously turned down an offer in the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations to be paid along the lines of the US men's team.

"The argument that women gave up a right to equal pay by accepting the best collective bargaining agreement possible in response to the Federation's refusal to put equal pay on the table is not a legitimate reason for continuing to discriminate against them," said USWNT spokesperson Molly Levinson on Friday night.

She listed a series of grievances in the motion to appeal which was filed in a federal district court in California and is part of a larger lawsuit for equal pay.

Levinson said the women are being discriminated against because they are not getting as much as the men on a per game basis and that making "close to the same amount" is not valid.

"Equal pay means paying women players the same rate for winning a game as men get paid," Levinson said.

"The argument that women are paid enough if they make close to the same amount as men while winning more than twice as often is not equal pay.

"The argument that maternity leave is some sort of substitute for paying women players the same rate for winning as men is not valid, nor fair, nor equal.

"Today, we are filing a motion to allow us to appeal immediately the district court's decision so that the Ninth Circuit will be able to review these claims."

The US women, who clinched back-to-back World Cup wins with victory at last year's finals in France, had based their claim for back pay in the disparities between prize money distributed by FIFA at the men's and women's World Cups.

The USWNT also takes issue with Klausner pointing out that between the years 2015-2019, the women were paid more money than the men on both a cumulative and an average per game basis.

During that period the women's national team received $24 million and an average of $220,747 per game while the men's team received payments of $18 million and $212,639 per game.

Under the current CBA, which was signed in 2017, more than half the women's team players receive an annual base salary of $167,000.

Klausner did allow some claims of gender discrimination to go ahead in areas such as travel, housing and medical support.

With attention on virus, Amazon deforestation surges

AFP/File / CARL DE SOUZABrazilian farmer Helio Lombardo Do Santos walks through a burned area of the Amazon rainforest near Porto Velho, Rondonia state on August 26, 2019

It has not gotten much attention with the world focused on coronavirus, but deforestation has surged in the Amazon rainforest this year, raising fears of a repeat of last year's record-breaking devastation -- or worse.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon hit a new high in the first four months of the year, according to data released Friday by Brazil's National Space Research Institute (INPE), which uses satellite images to track the destruction.

A total of 1,202 square kilometers of forest (464 square miles) -- an area more than 20 times the size of Manhattan -- was wiped out in the Brazilian Amazon from January to April, it found.

That was a 55 percent increase from the same period last year, and the highest figure for the first four months of the year since monthly records began in August 2015.

The numbers raise new questions about how well Brazil is protecting its share of the world's biggest rainforest under President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right climate change skeptic who advocates opening protected lands to mining and farming.

"Unfortunately, it looks like what we can expect for this year are more record-breaking fires and deforestation," Greenpeace campaigner Romulo Batista said in a statement.

- 'Paracetamol for a toothache' -

Mato Grosso State Communication Department/AFP / Mayke TOSCANOThis photo from the state of Mato Grosso shows deforestation in the Amazon basin in the municipality of Colniza on August 29, 2019

Last year, in Bolsonaro's first year in office, deforestation soared 85 percent in the Brazilian Amazon, to 10,123 square kilometers of forest.

That loss -- nearly the size of Lebanon -- fueled worldwide alarm over the future of the rainforest, seen as vital to curbing climate change.

The destruction was driven by record wildfires that raged across the Amazon from May to October, in addition to illegal logging, mining and farming on protected lands.

The trend so far in 2020 is all the more worrying given that the usual high season for deforestation only starts in late May.

"The beginning of the year is not the time where deforestation normally happens, because it's raining, and it's raining a lot," said Erika Berenguer, an ecologist at Oxford and Lancaster Universities.

"In the past, when we see deforestation increase in the beginning of the year, it's an indicator that when deforestation season starts... you're going to see an increase, as well."

Bolsonaro this week authorized the army to deploy to the Amazon to fight fires and deforestation from May 11.

He also deployed the army last year, after facing scathing international criticism for downplaying the fires.

Environmentalists said a better plan would be to give more support to Brazil's environmental protection programs.

Under Bolsonaro, environmental agency IBAMA has faced staffing and budget cuts. Last month, the government fired the agency's top environmental enforcement officer, after he authorized a raid on illegal miners that was broadcast on television.

Another problem with the government's military strategy, said Berenguer, is that it has focused exclusively on fires.

That ignores the fact that fires are often caused by illegal farmers and ranchers bulldozing trees and then burning them, she told AFP.

Addressing only the fires "is like me taking paracetamol because I have a toothache: it's going to reduce the pain, but if it's a cavity, it's not going to cure it," she said.

- Twin tragedies -

AFP / MICHAEL DANTASA man mourns at a site where new graves have been dug for suspected and confirmed victims of the coronavirus pandemic at the Nossa Senhora cemetary in Manaus, Amazon state on May 6, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic is only making things more complicated in the Amazon region.

Brazil, which holds more than 60 percent of the Amazon, is the epicenter of the pandemic in Latin America, with nearly 10,000 deaths so far.

The state of Amazonas, largely covered in forest, has been one of the hardest hit.

With only one intensive care unit, the state has been overwhelmed by the outbreak.

There are also fears of the potentially devastating effects the virus could have among indigenous communities, which are historically vulnerable to outside diseases.

With attention, resources and lives taken away by coronavirus, the fear is that officials, environmentalists and inhabitants could have less capacity to protect the forest.

The mayor of the state capital, Manaus, Arthur Virgilio, drew a link between the two tragedies this week in an appeal for help from world leaders.

"We need medical personnel, ventilators, protective equipment, anything that can save the lives of those who protect the forest," he said.

It is unclear whether the pandemic will have an impact on deforestation, but the fact that they have surged in tandem in Brazil is cause for concern.

"There is a web of connected factors (driving deforestation), and in the context of coronavirus, things are even more worrying," Greenpeace Brazil spokeswoman Carolina Marcal told AFP.

Iraq's new govt reaches out to October protesters

IRAQI PRIME MINISTER'S PRESS OFFICE/AFP/File / Handout

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhemi (L) sits next to outgoing premier Adel Abdel Mahdi during a meeting with members of the new government in Baghdad on May 7, 2020

Iraq's new government promised Saturday to release demonstrators arrested during mass protests that erupted in October and pledged justice and compensation to relatives of over 550 people killed during that unrest.

The announcement was made in a televised address following Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhemi's first cabinet meeting.

Kadhemi, who with 15 of his proposed 22 ministers won the confidence of Parliament on Wednesday evening, promised "the truth about everything that happened" during the months-long protests.

He vowed to "hold to account all those who shed Iraqi blood".

Kadhemi was Iraq's spy chief when the protests broke out and the address to the nation comes as calls spread on social media for renewed demonstrations on Sunday.

The government of his predecessor Adel Abdel Mahdi had since October repeatedly said it could not find the "unidentified gunmen" who fired on protesters who took to the streets to demand the overhaul of the political system.

At the start of the protests that would become the largest and bloodiest social movement in Iraq's recent history, many demonstrators carried portraits of General Abdulwahab al-Saadi -- a highly popular figure in the military campaign to dislodge the Islamic State from Mosul in 2017. He had been dismissed by Abdel Mahdi in September.

Kadhemi on Saturday reinstated the general as the head of counter-terrorism, putting him back in charge of units created and armed by the Americans.
The new Iraqi premier has long been seen as Washington's man in Baghdad, but he has also forged close ties with America's arch-foe Iran.

Kadhemi also called on parliament to adopt a new electoral law needed for early elections that had been promised by his predecessor.

The new government had presented itself as a "transitional" cabinet on Wednesday evening.

It rescinded a decision taken by the outgoing government just before it stepped down that blocked all state spending, including civil servants' salaries and pension payments -- relied on by one in five Iraqis.

Pensions will be paid out in the coming days, Kadhemi promised.

But an implosion of oil prices amid the coronavirus pandemic indicates that Iraq will have little option but to impose austerity policies that could give rise to renewed protests.

10MAY2020

Tests show UVC lamps could light the way in virus fight
REMEMBER TRUMPS LIGHT SOLUTION TO COVID-19

Columbia University/AFP / Manuela BuonannoThis photo taken on March 26, 2020 by Columbia University researcher Manuela Buonanno shows an experiment being conducted on the use of a special kind of ultraviolet rays against the coronavirus

Could a new type of ultraviolet lamp be used in stations, airplanes and schools to kill dangerous viruses, becoming a gamechanger in the COVID-19 fight?

Researchers at Columbia University have been working on such uses for years, and the current pandemic could confirm the value of their efforts.

UVC lamps have long been used to kill bacteria, viruses and molds, notably in hospitals and in the food-processing industry. As the coronavirus pandemic knocks world economies on their heels, this technology is experiencing a boom.

But UVC (for Ultraviolet-C) rays are dangerous, causing skin cancer and eye problems, and can be used only when no one is present.

The New York subway system, following the example of Chinese subways, plans to use ultraviolet lamps to disinfect its trains, but only during nighttime closures.

A team at Columbia's Center for Radiological Research is experimenting with so-called far-UVC, rays whose wavelength of 222 nanometers makes them safe for humans but still lethal to viruses, the center's director, David Brenner, told AFP.

At those frequencies, he explained, the rays cannot penetrate the surface of the skin nor of the eye.

That means they could be used in closed and crowded spaces where contamination risks run high, with potentially huge promise for use during the current pandemic.

In late April, President Donald Trump offered confusing remarks about somehow projecting ultraviolet rays into people's bodies to kill the coronavirus.

He appeared to be inspired by federal research on the effects of natural light on the virus -- but natural light has no UVC rays.

In 2013, the Columbia team began studying the effectiveness of far-UVC against drug-resistant bacteria. It next examined the rays' use against viruses, including the flu virus. Only recently did it turn its attention to the coronavirus.

"We were thinking, how can we apply what we are doing to the current situation," Brenner said.

But to test the impact of UVC on the extremely contagious coronavirus, the team had to move its equipment into a highly bio-secure laboratory at Columbia.

Experiments carried out starting "three-four weeks ago," Brenner said, have already made clear that UVC rays destroy the virus on surfaces within minutes.

The team next plans to test the lamps on viruses suspended in the air, as when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

Columbia University Irving Medical Center/AFP/File / -David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University in New York, is seen in an undated photo provided by the university's medical center

In parallel, tests are being conducted to confirm that these rays are harmless to humans.

For 40 weeks now, the lab has exposed mice to far-UVC rays for "eight hours a day, five days a week, at intensities 20 times higher than we might think of using with humans."

The results?

After testing the rodents' eyes and skin, "we have found absolutely nothing; the mice are very happy -- and very cute as well," Brenner said.

The experiment is set to continue for 20 more weeks.

The findings cannot be fully validated by the scientific community until all remaining steps have been taken, even if the team has already submitted its preliminary results to the journal Nature.

- 'The world has changed' -

But the pressure to reopen the world's economies has become so enormous that factories are accelerating their production of ultraviolet lamps without waiting.

"We really need something in situations like offices, restaurants, airplanes, hospitals," Brenner said.

If UVC lamps have already been in commercial use for two or three years -- notably in the diamond industry, where they can be used to distinguish artificial from real gems -- potential clients are now legion, say companies producing them.

"We felt for a long time this is a great application for this technology," said John Yerger, the CEO of Eden Park Illumination, a small producer based in Champaign, Illinois.

But with the pandemic, "the world has changed a lot in the last three months," he added.

And the US Food and Drug Administration has relaxed its regulation of tools or agents that can be used for disinfection, encouraging manufacturers to find a solution.

"There will be thousands and thousands of these things (UVC lamps) for sure," Yerger said. "The question is, will it be millions?"

"What we are seeing is a tremendous amount of customer interest" to produce lamps for airlines, cruise ships, restaurants, movie theaters and schools, said Shinji Kameda, chief operations officer in the US for Ushio, a Japanese manufacturer.

USHIO/AFP/File / HandoutA model of a far-UVC lamp, the Care222, produced by the American subsidiary of the Japanese company Ushio, which provided the photo; far-UVC rays are being tested for their ability to kill the coronavirus

Production of its 222-nanometer lamps, sold for $500 to $800 and already used in some Japanese hospitals, will be stepped up in October, he said.

In the meantime, Brenner said he has been losing sleep.

"I spend nights thinking -- if this far-UVC project had started one or two years earlier, maybe we could have prevented the COVID-19 crisis," he said.

"Not completely, but maybe we could have prevented it being a pandemic."

BRAZIL THE NEW HOT SPOT COVID -19 STATS INFOGRAPHIC

Satere-mawe indigenous people of Brazil use a smartphone to contact a doctor in Sao Paulo state to receive medical guidance at the Sahu-Ape community in Amazonas state, Brazil

SOS SAVE OUR RAIN FOREST FROM BOLSONARO 

4.1 million U.S. homeowners past due on their mortgage, data show

May 8 (UPI) -- More than 4 million American homeowners are past due on their mortgage, a figure that's been fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, industry data showed Friday.

The analysis by Black Knight's McDash Flash Forbearance Tracker said the figure is now 4.1 million U.S. homeowners.

Forbearance is a term indicating a special agreement between lenders and borrowers to delay a foreclosure. Payments were missed last month on 7.7 percent of all active mortgages.

The numbers are higher than federal regulators expected, but requests for forbearance have temporarily slowed, dropping in the fourth week of April to 0.6 percent of borrowers from 1.1 percent the week before.

RELATED U.S. mortgage applications rise, indicate market rebound

"The share of loans in forbearance increased once again in the last full week of April, but the pace of new requests slowed," said Mike Fratantoni, chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association. "With millions more Americans filing for unemployment over the week, the level of job market distress continues to worsen. That is why we expect that the share of loans in forbearance will continue to grow, particularly as new mortgage payments come due in May."

In the past week, 225,000 more borrowers sought forbearance programs, Black Knight said.

"What remains an open question at this point is to what degree forbearance requests will look like at the beginning of May, when the next round of mortgage payments become due, and with nearly 30 million Americans newly unemployed in the last month," said Ben Graboske of Black Knight.

RELATED Poll: More Americans say now is not a good time to buy home in U.S.

The Labor Department reported Friday that the U.S. economy lost 20.5 million jobs in the month of April.

Pakistan's fight against COVID-19 threatens polio, measles vaccine programs

Authorities and international organizations have halted vaccination programs for diseases like polio and measles, and redirected the resources to tackle the pandemic. Experts warn of a surge in other infectious diseases.


The decision of global health organizations to suspend mass vaccination campaigns amid the coronavirus pandemic could result in a new wave of polio and other highly infectious diseases in Pakistan, health experts have warned.

In an unprecedented move, the Geneva-based Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) recommended suspending polio vaccination campaigns worldwide to help stop the spread of the new coronavirus. As of Friday, Pakistan registered 25,837 coronavirus infections — one of the highest rates in the region after Iran — with 594 deaths.

However, the decision to suspend the inoculation campaigns was not without its criticism. "I fear the post-coronavirus situation in Pakistan will be worse due to the looming threats of other diseases that have been totally neglected," Qaisar Sajjad, the secretary-general of Pakistan Medical Association, told DW.

Subscribe to Corona Compact — DW's newsletter tracking coronavirus in Asia

Sajjad stressed that preventive measures such as vaccines are vital in a country with an already overburdened health system and a rapidly growing population. He said that preventative measures would avert a "huge burden" on Pakistan's health sector in the coming months.

Pakistan, along with neighboring Afghanistan, are the only remaining countries found with cases of the polio virus. The disease, which mainly affects children under the age of five, can infect the spinal cord, causing paralysis.
'Two terrible situations'

On March 24 — with the endorsement of WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the approval of the Center for Global Health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — the GPEI called on all countries to postpone mass campaigns to boost immunity to the polio virus up until at least the second half of 2020.

The GPEI is a public-private partnership led by national governments with five partners — the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, CDC, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the vaccine alliance.

"We are caught between two terrible situations," said GPEI chief Michel Zaffran of the WHO. "We have no choice … We did not want to have the program be responsible for worsening the situation with COVID-19."

On March 26, WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) also recommended all preventive mass vaccination campaigns for other diseases, including measles and yellow fever, to be temporarily put on hold.

Read more: COVID-19: Why Ramadan could be a disastrous month for Pakistan

Zaffran said suspending polio campaigns will enable GPEI to free up its resources and tens of thousands of frontline health workers to aid in the COVID-19 fight, adding that going door-to-door delivering oral polio vaccine would put both communities and health workers at risk of infection with the coronavirus.

Ahsan Ali, an official with the polio eradication program in the southern port city of Karachi, told DW that his vaccination work had not been well received amid the pandemic. "My role has been changed and people are not tolerating us out of fear that we are potential carriers of the coronavirus due to our door-to-door work," he said. Ali warned that it could take months before anti-polio vaccination programs resume in Pakistan.

In response to an enquiry regarding the suspension of vaccine campaigns in Pakistan, GPEI spokesperson Sona Bari told DW: "WHO has noted several times that services such as immunization are suffering from the impacts of COVID-19 on health systems."

Hundreds of thousands of children at risk

Pakistan's polio numbers already drastically increased last year with 146 reported cases. This year, there have been 47 registered cases to date. Health experts warn that the side effects of the pandemic such as the disruption of regular life-saving immunization services could ultimately put hundreds of thousands of children at risk.

Zaffran and his expert group had stressed that despite the suspension on vaccination campaigns, routine immunization at clinics and doctor's offices against polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases should continue.

Read more: COVID-19 in Pakistan: Why the government and doctors are at odds

However, an official with the Pakistan Emergency Operations Center for Polio Eradication (EOCPE), who spoke to DW on condition of anonymity, said that more than 40 million children missed routine polio vaccinations in April alone, including other routine vaccinations.

Pakistan has a long history of tackling infectious diseases, including polio, hepatitis and tuberculosis, under severe financial constraints. But Ashfaq Hassan Khan, an economist and adviser for various Pakistani government agencies, is worried that the coronavirus pandemic is pushing the country's already weakened and underfinanced health system over the brink.

"Pakistan is spending less than 1% of its GDP on the health sector, which is quite alarming. Pandemics such as COVID-19, polio and measles require reasonable financial means to handle it properly," Khan said, calling for greater public financing to serve Pakistan's poorer populations.

More than 1.5 million people worldwide die annually from diseases that could easily be prevented by vaccinations, according to figures from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

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Date 08.05.2020
Author Haroon Janjua (Islamabad)
Related Subjects Health, Asia, Pakistan, Coronavirus
Keywords Asia, Pakistan, coronavirus, COVID-19, Health, polio
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Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3buJy

Indian pharmacist dies after drinking coronavirus 'cure'

A 47-year-old man in Chennai has died after consuming the concoction he helped create with his boss in an effort to beat the novel virus. His employer is recovering in hospital after also drinking the corrosive chemical.


An Indian pharmacist died after drinking a chemical concoction he helped develop in an effort to beat COVID-19, police confirmed Saturday.

The pharmacist's boss was left hospitalised after he, too, consumed what the pair had hoped would be an effective treatment for the virus that has infected four million people across the globe.

According to The Indian Express, the owner of Sujatha Bio Tech, along with his employee, tried to invent a cure for the deadly virus, but ingested a "corrosive chemical used to refine petroleum during testing." This led to the death of the employee, K. Sivanesan.

The 47-year-old died instantly, local police chief Ashok Kumar said.

The two men worked for a herbal medicine firm and were testing their remedy, a mix of nitric oxide and sodium nitrate, at a home in southern Chennai city, in effort to defeat the infection that has resulted in at least 2,000 deaths in India.

Read more: How crowdfunding is helping India's poor in the age of COVID-19

Police chief Kumar said Sivanesan bought the chemicals from a local market and created the formula after carrying out research on the internet.

Vaccine hunt

There are no approved medicines or vaccines for treating the novel coronavirus, sparking a race for a new drug for the disease that has killed nearly 300,000 people worldwide.

Roughly 60,000 cases have been registered so far in India, which has imposed a strict lockdown measures in an effort to prevent the virus from spreading.

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