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BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said Thursday he’d been sacked by President Jair Bolsonaro, after weeks of clashes between the two over the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Mandetta made the announcement on Twitter following a meeting with Bolsonaro at the presidential palace in the capital Brasilia. Their relationship had deteriorated since the start of the virus crisis. Mandetta promoted isolation as a tool to contain the spread […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he is recommending a gradual reopening of the US economy from the catastrophic shutdown ordered to stop the spread of the coronavirus. “Based on the latest data, our team of experts now agrees that we can begin the next front in our war,” he told a news conference. “We’re opening up our country.” However, the recommendations are a far cry from Trump’s previous hopes for […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — The coronavirus outbreak has claimed another 753 lives in the last 24 hours in France, bringing the country’s total fatalities to 17,920, top French health official Jerome Salomon said Thursday. But the number of virus patients hospitalized dropped by 474 and the number in critical care fell by 209, the health ministry’s number two official said. “The spread of the virus is stabilizing at a high level,” he added. Among the […]
OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that his country’s border with the United States would not fully reopen for at least several weeks, rejecting US President Donald’s Trump overtures to do so sooner. The border — the world’s longest international frontier at 8,900 kilometers (5,500 miles) — was shut to all non-essential travelers on both sides on March 21 in response to the coronavirus crisis. Cross-border trade has continued. “We […]
by Jeff Kowalsky with Chris Lefkow in Washington Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — As US President Donald Trump unveils plans on Thursday for a partial reopening of the country, some Americans are chafing at the stay-at-home orders imposed because of the coronavirus epidemic. There have been scattered protests in several US states this week against lockdown measures aimed at halting the spread of the highly contagious virus. A handful of stay-at-home opponents […]
by Shaun Tandon with AFP bureaus Agence France Presse BEIJING, China (AFP) — China on Thursday came under mounting pressure over the coronavirus pandemic from Western powers led by the United States, which said it was probing whether the virus that has infected more than 2.1 million people actually originated in a Wuhan laboratory. The new focus on China’s role came as the world wrestles with a crisis that has killed more than 140,000 people […]
by Alice RITCHIE Agence France-Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — The British government on Thursday was expected to extend a nationwide lockdown for another three weeks, while the country’s coronavirus death toll spiked by 861 — a greater increase than in recent days. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is standing in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he recuperates after spending a week in hospital with COVID-19, met with ministers and officials to finalize the […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The confirmed coronavirus death toll in the United States surpassed 30,000 on Thursday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. The tracker says 30,990 people have now died in the country from COVID-19 since the start of the global health crisis. The US has the highest death toll in the world, followed by Italy with 21,645 dead although its population is just a fifth of that of the US. […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Spain’s coronavirus death toll soared past 19,000 on Thursday with another 551 deaths, but questions over the counting method have raised some regional concerns the real figure is much higher. After nearly five weeks of confinement, the rise in deaths and infections has slowed over the past fortnight, with the overnight fatalities taking the toll to 19,130. But regional authorities in Madrid and Catalonia said they each had thousands more […]
ABUJA, Nigeria (AFP) — Nigerian security forces have killed 18 people in their enforcement of measures to curb coronavirus, a figure higher than the documented toll inflicted by the disease, the country’s human rights body said. Africa’s most populous nation has imposed a total lockdown in megacity Lagos and the capital Abuja and set restrictions in other regions in a bid to contain the virus. According to official figures, coronavirus has so far infected 407 […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — A former senior North Korean diplomat won a parliamentary seat in Seoul Thursday, becoming the first defector to be directly elected by South Korean voters. Thae Yong Ho, who was Pyongyang’s deputy ambassador to London before fleeing to the democratic South in 2016, shed a tear as he sang South Korea’s national anthem after his win was confirmed in the early hours. He stood for the main conservative opposition United […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Switzerland announced on Thursday a three-stage easing of restrictions imposed to suppress the COVID-19 pandemic, with some stores and services allowed to reopen from April 27. “In light of epidemiological developments and the recommendations of scientists, the Federal Council has decided to relax measures to protect the population against the new coronavirus from April 27,” the government said in a statement. © Agence France-Presse
