Monthly Archives: April 2020

5, April 2020

War looms as Biya and Obiang of Malabo feud over border wall ⁰

The Francophone dominated government in Yaoundé has launched an unprecedented attack against the regime in Equatorial Guinea for starting the construction of a six kilometers road inside Cameroonian territory.

Two senior Cameroon government ministers in charge of security issues recently travelled to the borders with Equatorial Guinea to assess the situation and hundreds of Cameroonian soldiers have been deployed to the area.

Joseph Beti Assomo, the Minister Delegate in charge of Defense and Paul Atanga Nji, Minister of Territorial Administration met with officials from Malabo on the disputed territory and are expected to report to President Biya who has not been seen ever since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that the Equatorial Guinea government does not intend to stop the construction work currently going on which includes a huge wall that will separate the two countries.

Sources in Yaoundé say the Biya regime wants to play the diplomatic card and are considering referring the matter to the African Union.

By Rita Akana

5, April 2020

Coronavirus pandemic ‘amplifying’ poverty in UK ⁰

The coronavirus pandemic is increasing poverty in Britain, where levels are already high after a decade of austerity triggered by the global financial crisis, according to experts.

Official data shows that more than 14 million people in the UK are classed as living in poverty, or nearly one-quarter of the population.

Some 4.2 million children are poor, or around 30 percent of the total, government figures show.

The situation is worsening with Britons losing jobs en masse as the UK experiences lockdown.

“The risk of poverty is particularly high for workers in sectors like hospitality and retail where people are more likely to be on low wages and in insecure work,” said Dave Innes, head of economics at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an organisation for social change.

Over the past fortnight, almost one million adults in the UK have applied for Universal Credit, the government’s main form of state aid.

That is nearly 10 times the level in an average two-week period.

– ‘Education poverty’ –

“If families who were earning decent wages before the pandemic move on to the Universal Credit, they will very suddenly find themselves living in poverty,” said Louisa McGeehan, a director at Child Poverty Action Group UK.

As for families who were already classed as living in poverty prior to the outbreak — and whose children are stuck at home owing to schools being shut — the demands of online education add to the problem, she said.

McGeehan noted that “a lot of schools are putting lessons on the Internet for children to do at home.

“If those children are in households who don’t have Internet or don’t have a computer, they are not able to do that learning.”

McGeehan told AFP: “We have a nation where a child poverty crisis has been amplified by the impact of coronavirus.”

But unlike the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis when the government slashed public spending, COVID-19 has sparked huge state stimulus, including a boost to Universal Credit.

An adult receiving the benefit who is aged over 25 will receive £1,000 ($1,239, 1,137 euros) extra per year.

However an increase in the monthly amount to £400 remains far below the level of £600 considered sufficient for a single-person household to avoid “poverty” in the UK.

“Economically we know there is very likely to be a big recession and it’s difficult to recover quickly from a big recession,” said Innes.

“We know that recessions tend to hit people in poverty — or in risk of poverty — hardest,” he told AFP.

Meanwhile foodbanks, which help feed the most vulnerable people including the homeless, are seeing fewer donations amid fallout from the coronavirus.

The Trussell Trust, which has a national network of 1,200 food banks, said it faced an “unprecedented challenge”.

The government is however still providing children who ordinarily received free school meals with lunches.

“In my own school, we provide packed lunch that kids can come and pick up,” said teacher Amanda Martin, who is also president of the National Education Union.

But she added: “In the short term, there is a real worry that some of these people that would be in school, that would be warm and safe and being fed, aren’t.”

Source: AFP

5, April 2020

COVID-19: Biya faces rising criticism over his public absence ⁰

The coronavirus pandemic could narrow one gaping inequality in Africa, where some heads of state and other elite jet off to Europe or Asia for health care unavailable in their nations. As countries including their own impose dramatic travel restrictions, they might have to take their chances at home.

For years, leaders from Benin to Zimbabwe have received medical care abroad while their own poorly funded health systems limp from crisis to crisis. Several presidents, including ones from Nigeria, Malawi and Zambia, have died overseas.

The practice is so notorious that a South African health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, a few years ago scolded, “We are the only continent that has its leaders seeking medical services outside the continent, outside our territory. We must be ashamed.”

Now a wave of global travel restrictions threatens to block that option for a cadre of aging African leaders. More than 30 of Africa’s 57 international airports have closed or severely limited flights, the U.S. State Department says. At times, flight trackers have shown the continent’s skies nearly empty.

Perhaps “COVID-19 is an opportunity for our leaders to reexamine their priorities,” said Livingstone Sewanyana of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, which has long urged African countries to increase health care spending.

But that plea has not led to action, even as the continent wrestles with major crises including deadly outbreaks of Ebola and the scourges of malaria and HIV.

Spending on health care in Africa is roughly 5% of gross domestic product, about half the global average. That’s despite a pledge by African Union members in 2001 to spend much more. Money is sometimes diverted to security or simply pilfered, and shortages are common.

Ethiopia had just three hospital beds per 10,000 people in 2015, according to World Health Organization data, compared to two dozen or more in the U.S. and Europe. Central African Republic has just three ventilators in the entire country. In Zimbabwe, doctors have reported doing bare-handed surgeries for lack of gloves.

Health experts warn that many countries will be overwhelmed if the coronavirus spreads, and it is already uncomfortably close. Several ministers in Burkina Faso have been infected, as has a top aide to Nigeria’s president. An aide to Congo’s leader died. For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms.

“If you test positive in a country, you should seek care in that country,” the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. John Nkengasong, told reporters Thursday. “It’s not a death sentence.”

In Nigeria, some worried their president might be among the victims. Long skittish about President Muhammadu Buhari’s absences from public view, including weeks in London for treatment for unspecified health problems, they took to Twitter to ask why he hadn’t addressed the nation as virus cases rose.

Buhari’s office dismissed speculation about his whereabouts as unfounded rumor. When he did emerge Sunday night, he announced that all private jet flights were suspended. International airports were already closed.

An even more frequent overseas traveler, Cameroon’s 87-year-old leader, President Paul Biya, faces rising criticism over his public absence since the virus spread to his country. Cases in Cameroon leapt Friday to over 500, the second most in the sub-Saharan region after South Africa.

While travel restrictions have grounded the merely wealthy, political analyst Alex Rusero said a determined African leader probably could still find a way to go abroad for care.

“They are scared of death so much they will do everything within their disposal, even if it’s a private jet to a private hospital in a foreign land,” said Rusero, who is based in Zimbabwe, whose late President Robert Mugabe often sought treatment in Asia.

Perhaps nowhere is the situation bleaker than in Zimbabwe, where the health system has collapsed. Even before the pandemic, patients’ families were often asked to provide essentials like gloves and clean water. Doctors reported using bread bags to collect patients’ urine.

Zimbabwe’s vice president, Constantino Chiwenga, departed last month for unrelated medical treatment in China, as the outbreak eased in that country. Zimbabwe closed its borders days later after its first virus death.

Chiwenga has since returned — to lead the country’s coronavirus task force.

But some in a new generation of African leaders have been eager to show sensitivity to virus-prevention measures.

The president of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, initially defied his country’s restrictions on travel by government employees to visit neighboring Namibia for its leader’s inauguration. But he entered self-quarantine and now reminds others to stay home, calling it “literally a matter of life and death.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced he had tested negative, just ahead of a three-week lockdown in Africa’s most developed country. Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina has as well.

Other leaders, including Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, have tweeted images of themselves working via videoconference as countries encourage people to keep their distance.

While African leaders are more tied to home than ever, their access to medical care is still far better than most of their citizens’.

In Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, medical student Franck Bienvenu Zida was self-isolating and worried after having contact with someone who tested positive.

The 26-year-old feared infecting people where he lives, but his efforts to get tested were going nowhere. In three days of calling an emergency number to request a test, he could not get through.

Source: AFP

4, April 2020

UK: Keir Starmer replaces Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader ⁰

Britain’s main opposition Labour Party named Keir Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions who opposed the country’s exit from the European Union, as its leader on Saturday.

Starmer, who has tried to carry the socialist supporters of outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn while also keeping more centrist Labour members on board, beat Rebecca Long-Bailey, an ally of Corbyn, and Lisa Nandy in the contest.

He won with 56.2% of the vote by party members and supporters.

“It’s the honour and privilege of my life to be elected as leader of the Labour Party. It comes at a moment like no other in our lifetime,” he said in a pre-recorded statement, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Under my leadership we will engage constructively with the government, not opposition for opposition’s sake. Not scoring party political points or making impossible demands. But with the courage to support where that’s the right thing to do.

“But we will test the arguments that are put forward. We will shine a torch on critical issues and where we see mistakes or faltering government or things not happening as quickly as they should, we’ll challenge that and call that out.”

The leadership contest, under way since Corbyn led Labour to a crushing defeat in the December election, has been overshadowed by the coronavirus outbreak, which all but silenced the three candidates’ campaigns.

(REUTERS)

4, April 2020

Spain to extend lockdown, as deaths down for second day ⁰

Spain’s prime minister announced Saturday an extension of the country’s lockdown to combat the coronavirus, saying the measures are “bearing fruit” as the number of deaths fell for a second day in a row.

A nationwide 15-day state of emergency was first announced on March 14 barring people from leaving home except for essential outings such as buying food or seeking medical care. It was to end on April 11 after being extended by two weeks.

“The cabinet on Tuesday will again ask for authorisation from parliament to extend for a second time the state of alert until Saturday April 25 at midnight,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a televised speech.

The extra weeks are “the time that our health system needs to recover,” he said.

Hospitals, in particular the intensive care units, have been overwhelmed by an influx of coronavirus patients.

However, Spain on Saturday recorded a second successive daily fall in coronavirus-related deaths with 809 fatalities. The total number of deaths in the country stands at 11,744, second only to Italy.

The number of new Spanish cases also slowed to 7,026, taking the total to 124,736.

“We know that these three weeks of isolation are bearing fruit,” Sanchez said.

The confinement has allowed “a containment of the avalanche on the hospitals, the care of the sick and saved lives.”

But to “ease up now would have a worse result,” he said, warning of a “second wave” of infections.

“Yes, we are seeing a glimmer of hope,” but ” we are entering a new phase that will not be easy, the transition phase,” said Dr Maria Jose Sierra of the health ministry’s emergencies centre.

Sanchez said he could not rule out further extentions, but said an easing of the strict regulations could be possible if the situation improves.

About 50 arrived from Germany on Friday, after Spain appealed to its NATO allies.

Another shipment was to be sent from Turkey but was eventually requisitioned by Turkish authorities.

Source: AFP

4, April 2020

US ‘war on coronavirus’ may end up the most expensive in history ⁰

A former American counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer at the CIA has said that Washington’s “war on the novel coronavirus might well wind up being the most expensive conflict in American history.”

“The United States has been at war almost continuously since the founding of the nation in 1783,” Philip Giraldi said in a recent article published by the Strategic Culture Foundation.

“Some of the wars were undeclared like the centuries-long eradication of the native Americans, while others – the Mexican and Spanish-American wars – were glorified by including the names of the countries defeated by Washington’s war machine. America’s bloodiest war actually has multiple names, including the Civil War, the War Between the States, The War of the Rebellion and the War of Northern Aggression, allowing one to pick and choose reflecting one’s own political preferences,” he wrote.

“More recently wars in Korea and Vietnam were named in straightforward fashion, though current conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan do not really have names. In fact, it has become somewhat politically incorrect to name a war after an ethnic group or a country in the old fashion way. But this shortage of wars has been somewhat made up for by an increase in the number of metaphorical wars to include a war on drugs, a war on poverty and a war on terror. Now Americans are confronting what might some day be called the War on Coronavirus,” he added.

He noted that Trump has already declared himself to be a “wartime president” and he is preparing to help the economy with a $2.2 trillion injection.

The analyst pointed out that most this money “will go to the salivating profiteers that are already lining up as well as to the greedy corporate constituencies who will do their best to use the cash to increase their value for potential shareholders.”

He observed that the $2.2 trillion amount is “considerably more than the Vietnam War cost in today’s dollars ($1 trillion) though it does not yet come close to the $5-7 trillion in borrowed dollars that the going-on-twenty-years engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq has cost.”

The United States recorded 1,321 deaths from the contagious coronavirus between Thursday and Friday, according to statistics site Worldometers, which is the highest single-day death toll recorded by any country in the world.

A total of 7,844 people have now died of COVID-19 in the United States and about 300,000 have been infected with the virus, Worldometers said.

New York was the worst-hit state in the US. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded with the US government for more help, as new statistics have confirmed that hundreds of thousands of people across the country have lost their jobs.

Meanwhile, public health specialists have warned that mass shutdowns of businesses and schools to enforce social distancing measures over the coronavirus outbreak will lead to thousands of deaths and suicides in the US that are unrelated to the disease itself.

Source: Presstv

4, April 2020

Holy Week and the Trajectory of World History ⁰

He had always loved those who were his in the world, but now he showed how perfectly his love was” (John 13:1)

Dear Holy People of God,

God is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good!

This Sunday, we celebrate what our Christian tradition calls Palm Sunday, which is the start of Holy Week. St Paul writes to us in his Letter to the Romans: “But what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Having died to make us righteous, is it likely that he would now fail to save us from God’s anger?” (Romans 5:8-9). Given the times that we are living in, it might be difficult for many to believe in the love of God. Even for the believer, it can be very tempting, a great trail of faith. But Holy Week has something to say, even to the perilous and precarious situation of a world plagued by COVID 19. Holy Week tells us that though we can humanly be paralyzed by fear, the fear of the unknown, the fear of the present and the future, the fear of death, as disciples in mission to the world, we have a message to the world of the Coronavirus. There is no denying that uncertainties leave us profoundly disturbed, especially the uncertainty of contracting a deadly virus. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) wrote these words that I find meaningful to us today, perhaps more so than when they were first written. Permit me make an extensive citation from the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes:

“Nevertheless, in the face of the modern development of the world, the number constantly swells of the people who raise the most basic questions or recognize them with a new sharpness: what is the human being? What is this sense of sorrow, of evil, of death, which continues to exist despite so much progress? What purpose have these victories purchased at so high a cost? What can men and women offer to society, what can they expect from it? What follows this earthly life?

The Church firmly believes that Christ, who died and was raised up for all, can through His Spirit offer man and woman the light and the strength to measure up to their supreme destiny. Nor has any other name under the heaven been given to man and woman by which it is fitting for them to be saved. She likewise holds that in her most benign Lord and Master can be found the key, the focal point and the goal of man, as well as of all human history. The Church also maintains that beneath all changes there are many realities which do not change and which have their ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.

It is in the face of death that the riddle a human existence grows most acute. Not only is man tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body, but even more so by a dread of perpetual extinction. He rightly follows the intuition of his heart when he abhors and repudiates the utter ruin and total disappearance of his own person. He rebels against death because he bears in himself an eternal seed which cannot be reduced to sheer matter. All the endeavors of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm his anxiety; for prolongation of biological life is unable to satisfy that desire for higher life which is inescapably lodged in his breast. Although the mystery of death utterly beggars the imagination, the Church has been taught by divine revelation and firmly teaches that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery.

In addition, that bodily death from which man and woman would have been immune had they not sinned, will be vanquished, according to the Christian faith, when man and woman who was ruined by his own doing is restored to wholeness by an almighty and merciful Saviour. For God has called man and woman and still calls them so that with their entire being they might be joined to Him in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. Christ won this victory when He rose to life, for by His death He freed man and woman from death. Hence to every thoughtful man and woman a solidly established faith provides the answer to his anxiety about what the future holds for him. At the same time faith gives the human being the power to be united in Christ with his loved ones who have already been snatched away by death; faith arouses the hope that they have found true life with God. The root reason for human dignity lies in man and woman’s call to communion with God. (Gaudium et Spes, #10, 18, 19).

Dear Holy People of God, as we continue to live with hope during these uncertain times, let us remember that the Christian’s ultimate hope and meaning in life resides in Jesus Christ, who died and rose again from death, opening the possibility of eternal bliss with God for all humanity. Yes, it is human to fear death. But it is Christian to know that in Christ, the dead do not enter into nothingness, into extinction, but enter into what Gaudium et Spes calls the “blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery.” And Holy Week teaches us that it takes a certain kind of people, a certain kind of life, to be able to enter into this blissful mystery at the end of our biological life here on earth.

St John gives us what that kind of life is: “It was before the festival of the Passover, and Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to pass from this world to the Father. He had always loved those who were his in the world, but now he showed how perfectly his love was” (John 13:1)! That is the message we Christians have for a frightened world, a world, perhaps, in need of a new soul, a new direction: That in spite of the global pandemic of Coronavirus, in spite of all the uncertainties marking life in the present, God loves the world (John 3:16), God has not abandoned the world, God will never abandon the world. In Jesus Christ, one of the human race, of us, a truly human being (Council of Chalcedon), has definitely responded to God’s love for the love, a love that binds God forever to the human condition. In Jesus, a human being has definitely committed humanity in a resounding YES to the God’s offer of love for the world. And because of this irrevocable commitment of a human being to the irremovable offer of love to the world by God, the believer, in Christ, with Christ and to Christ (Augustine of Hippo), brings this Divine love to the world. The believer offers the world the GPS of Love that reflects itself in love for other and prepares us for eternal bliss with God. Only a heart that loves can enter into the mysteries of Holy Week, the Week of God’s Total Love that changed the trajectory of world history from the human tendency to absolutize economics, politics, science, power, et cetera, to a civilization of mutual love.

Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai

4, April 2020

Migrant farmworkers in Italy working with no protection amid Covid-19 outbreak ⁰

As the coronavirus crisis enters its sixth week in Italy, Italian farmworkers’ labor union FLAI-CGIL has sounded the alarm over the high number of migrants working in the fields without adequate protective measures.

Last month, in an attempt to contain the virus outbreak, the government ordered the closure of all non-essential businesses also introducing stiff restrictions on activities considered essential.

Social distancing and the use of masks, gloves and disinfectant have been made compulsory in factories, supermarkets and public offices still operating.

However, FLAI-CGIL has warned that as many as 250,000 legally-employed migrants and many more undocumented ones working for little pay in the agriculture sector are at risk of being infected.

The mayor of Bergamo, one of the worst affected cities from Covid-19 in northern Italy, has recently called on the government to speed up the issuing of the yearly decree that regularizes non-EU migrant workers.

The national Farmers’ Association Coldiretti estimates that a quarter of the food produced in Italy relies on the hands of more than 370,000 seasonal workers coming from abroad every year. With just a few days to go before the picking of fruit and vegetables, the situation is becoming alarming.

Unions believe tens of thousands of undocumented migrants could be granted a temporary permit thanks to a clause included in a security decree aimed at curbing migrant flows issued by previous government’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

Source: Presstv

4, April 2020

US records 1,169 coronavirus deaths, new global daily high ⁰

The United States recorded 1,169 COVID-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the Johns Hopkins University tracker showed on Thursday, the highest one-day death toll recorded in any country since the global pandemic began.

The toll reflected figures reported by the university between 8.30pm on Wednesday and the same time on Thursday.

The grim record was previously held by Italy, where 969 people died on Mar 27.

The US has now recorded 5,926 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Globally, Italy still has the highest total death toll, with 13,915 dying of the disease there, followed by Spain at 10,003.

The US also recorded more than 30,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the same 24-hour period, bringing the total number of officially reported cases in the country to more than 243,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

That is roughly a quarter of the more than a million cases reported globally.

New York City is at the epicenter of the American outbreak, recording more than 1,500 deaths and nearing 50,000 positive cases, according to figures released late Thursday by city health authorities.

More than 1.3 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted in the US, Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday at a daily White House press conference on the virus.

“We are now conducting over 100,000 coronavirus tests per day,” President Donald Trump added at the same briefing, saying that was “more than any other country in the world, both in terms of the raw number and on a per capita basis”.

White House projections show the virus is expected to kill between 100,000 and 240,000 people in the US.

(Source: AFP)

4, April 2020

Cameroon records 203 new cases as COVID-19 tally hits 509 ⁰

Cameroon’s coronavirus tally as of April 3 stood at 509, Health Minister Manaouda Malachie confirmed in his daily briefing posted on Twitter.

Of the current figure, 203 were new cases that came from tests run 800 travellers arrived in the country recently. Cameroon also has 17 recovered patients with eight deaths.

“Our active case finding strategy is starting to pay off. We did 800 tests (majority of travelers) 203 of them are positive but asymptomatic, that we must leave the community and treat,” the Minister wrote in his post.

Cameroon is the most impacted country across Central Africa. Only DR Congo have passed the 100 mark in the region with 134. Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo Republic, Central African Republic and Chad have 21, 16, 22, 8 and 8 cases respectively.

The Minister in outlining government strategy to deal with the pandemic said six main measures were being implemented: massive and generalized testing, placement in immediate treatment of cases, active surveillance of suspect cases.

The remaining are awareness of the populations (hygiene, distance, etc.), border control and development of reliable local expertise for the response.

Source: Africa News