Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Tuesday that donations of medical equipment by foreign companies like Huawei in the fight against the coronavirus will have no influence on future government policy.
"We will be receiving donations of equipment from various companies and we're happy that people are offering that," he said.
"But no, we do not expect this to have any impact" on future decisions, he said.
"This will not affect our decision on other issues in the years to come." The prime minister was asked if donations to Canada by Huawei could influence his government's policies toward the Chinese telecoms giant, which is at the center of a protracted diplomatic crisis between Ottawa and Beijing.
At a time when the world faces a shortage of masks, Huawei gave Canada more than a million masks, 30,000 face shields and 50,000 pairs of gloves, according to the Globe and Mail daily.
A Huawei spokesperson in Quebec confirmed those figures in a statement to AFP.
"Numerous companies 

Canada says medical donations won't sway policies

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US Navy Secretary Thomas Modly resigned Tuesday over his mishandling of an outbreak of the coronavirus on the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, a senior senator confirmed.
Modly stepped down five days after removing the Roosevelt's captain, Brett Crozier, for writing a letter, which was leaked to the media, describing the virus-struck vessel's dire situation and alleging the Pentagon was not paying adequate attention to it.

US navy chief out over handling of ship virus outbreak: senator

Former Ecuador president Rafael Correa was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison for corruption during his 10-year term in office, the attorney general's office said on Tuesday.
Correa, who was president from 2007-17 but now lives in exile in Belgium, was one of 18 people convicted of bribery, the attorney general's office said on Twitter.

Ecuador ex-president sentenced to 8 years for corruption: prosecutor

Paris on Tuesday banned daytime jogging to keep people from bending anti-coronavirus lockdown rules as France breached 10,000 deaths due to the outbreak.
Other cities also announced stricter restrictions, some controversial, on the day top health official Jerome Salomon told journalists 10,328 people had died of COVID-19 in France since March 1.
Of these, 7,091 had perished in hospitals -- 597 in the last 24 hours -- and 3,237 in old age homes, Salomon said, warning "the epidemic is continuing its progression."
"We are in the ascending phase of the epidemic, even if it is slowing a bit," he said, adding "we have not yet reached the peak."
Senior government officials warned it was too early to think of lifting the nationwide lockdown which entered into force on March 17 and is set to run until April 15, for now.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner has urged municipal officials to toughen restrictions on movement if necessary, and Paris announced it would enforce a ban on individual ..

Paris bans daytime jogging as virus deaths hit new high

The United States will hold talks with Iraq in June on the future of its troop presence in the country, whose parliament has voted to expel them, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday.
With Iraq increasingly becoming a proxy battleground between Iran and the United States, President Donald Trump has refused to pull the 5,200 US troops and earlier even threatened sanctions on Baghdad if it moved forward.
But Pompeo, without signaling a decision on troop levels, said the military presence would be on the table in a "strategic dialogue" scheduled for mid-June.
"With the global COVID-19 pandemic raging and plummeting oil revenues threatening an Iraqi economic collapse, it's important that our two governments work together to stop any reversal of the gains we've made in our efforts to defeat ISIS and stabilize the country," Pompeo told reporters.
"All strategic issues between our two countries will be on the agenda, including the future presence of the United States forces in that 

US, Iraq to hold talks on troop future

Authorities in Germany have fallen victim to a multi-million-euro fraud  involving masks much needed in the coronavirus pandemic, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state and one of the hardest hit, paid 14.7 million euros for some 10 million masks in March only to discover they did not exist, according to prosecutors in Traunstein, Bavaria.
The German managing director of two distribution companies based in Zurich and Hamburg raised the alarm after realising he had been tricked.
According to the man's police report, he received an offer from companies allegedly based in Asia in mid-March to supply the masks and subsequently attracted the large order from North Rhine-Westphalia.
State authorities transferred 14.7 million euros to the company, which then made a 2.4 million euro down payment.
According to the Bavarian investigators, 52 vehicles had been lined up to pick up the coveted masks in the Netherlands and deliver them under police ...

Germany caught up in mask fraud scheme

The head of a top Russian research centre told President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday that his lab was ready to start human trials of experimental coronavirus vaccines in June.
Rinat Maksyutov, head of the Vektor State Virology and Biotechnology Centre, said his facility proposed first-phase clinical trials of three vaccines from June 29, on 180 volunteers.
Maksyutov was speaking during a video-link meeting between Putin and the heads of top research centres.
"Groups of volunteers have already been formed," he told Putin, adding that a lot of people wanted to take part in the trials.
"We have already received more than 300 applications."
Maksyutov said scientists at the top-secret lab complex located in Koltsovo outside the Siberian city of Novosibirsk had developed several prototype vaccines.
Tests were currently underway on mice, rabbits and other animals to determine the most promising by April 30, he said.
Vektor planned pre-clinical studies by June 22 before launching the testing in 

Russia ready to start testing coronavirus vaccines on humans in June

France on Tuesday crossed the threshold of 10,000 deaths due to the coronavirus, with 7,091 recorded in hospital and 3,237 in old age homes, a government official said on Tuesday.
A total of 7,131 people were being treated in intensive care, top health official Jerome Salomon told journalists, warning that "the epidemic is continuing its progression.

France coronavirus deaths now exceed 10,000: official

Office-sharing giant WeWork on Tuesday sued SoftBank claiming the Japan-based technology investment group breached its contractual obligations by backing out of a USD 3 billion rescue plan.
The lawsuit filed in a US court in Delaware came just days after SoftBank said it was backing out of the plan to purchase WeWork shares to shore up the finances of the struggling sharing economy giant.
WeWork's board of directors called the SoftBank action "a clear breach of its contractual obligations" under an agreement between the two firms last year as well as a breach of SoftBank's fiduciary obligations to the firm's current and former employees who were to sell their equity.
The complaint alleges SoftBank yielded to pressure from "activist investors" and made the move after it had "received most of the benefits" under the deal, including control of WeWork's board.
WeWork is asking the court to force SoftBank to live up to the agreement or pay damages.
Last week, SoftBank said it was ...

WeWork sues Japan's SoftBank for backing out of deal

Qatar on Tuesday called allegations it bribed FIFA officials for the right to host the 2022 World Cup "baseless" and said they "will be fiercely contested".
According to US Justice Department documents released Monday, FIFA officials received bribes to vote in favour of awarding the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar.
The Kremlin has also refuted the allegations.
Qatar said it "strongly denies the allegations contained within the court papers".
The timings of the global football spectacle, due to be held in November and December of 2022, remain unchanged by coronavirus which has already forced the postponement of the European football championships and the Tokyo Olympics.
Both will now take place in 2021.
The allegations are linked to a wide-ranging 2015 corruption scandal that left world football's governing body FIFA in turmoil and led to the downfall of then-president Sepp Blatter.
In the ensuing years, the US government has accused a total of 45 people and ..

Qatar denies bribing FIFA officials to host 2022 World Cup

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte consulted top scientists Tuesday about ways to safely end a month-long lockdown aimed at stemming a pandemic that has killed thousands and left millions unemployed.
Conte's videoconference with the government's scientific committee came one week before Italy's economically-crippling closure of most businesses and factories is set to expire. Few expect it will.
The shutdown and an accompanying ban on almost all outdoor activity have helped slow the spread of a novel coronavirus that has officially claimed a world-topping 17,127 lives.
The daily reported toll reached 969 on March 27 and has since levelled off. There were 604 new fatalities on Tuesday and the rise in infections fell to a new low of just 2.3 per cent.
But health officials warn that the outbreak appears to have peaked only because of the various closures and bans.
They insist on keeping the containment rules in place as long as possible -- perhaps until a vaccine is developed or some ..

Italy ponders how to exit crippling virus lockdown

Thousands of travellers flocked to catch trains leaving Wuhan early Wednesday as authorities lifted a more than two-month ban on outbound travel from the hard-hit Chinese city where the global coronavirus pandemic first emerged.
The removal of the ban at midnight (1600 GMT Tuesday) ends an isolation that began when the government imposed an unprecedented lockdown in late January in an ultimately failed bid to contain the contagion.
Crowds of passengers filed into the city's Wuchang station to catch the first trains set to pull out of the city of 11 million shortly after midnight.
"Wuhan has lost a lot in this epidemic, and Wuhan people have paid a big price," said a 21-year-old man surnamed Yao, who was heading back to his restaurant job in Shanghai.
"Now that the lockdown has been lifted, I think we're all pretty happy."
China's ruling Communist Party imposed a quarantine lockdown on tens of millions of people -- first in Wuhan and then the rest of Hubei province -- beginning January 

Thousands flock to leave Wuhan as outbound travel ban ends

The Taliban will no longer participate in "fruitless" discussions with the Afghan government over a prisoner swap that had formed a key part of a deal with the US, the insurgents have said.
The Taliban's political spokesman Suhail Shaheen blamed the administration of President Ashraf Ghani for delaying the release "under one pretext or another".
"Therefore, our technical team will not participate in fruitless meetings with relevant sides starting from tomorrow," Shaheen, who is based in Doha, said in a tweet first sent in Pashto around midnight Tuesday Afghanistan time.
The two foes have been holding talks in Kabul since last week to try to finalise the prisoner swap that was originally supposed to have happened by March 10 and paved the way for "intra-Afghan" peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban.
Matin Bek, a member of the government's negotiating team, said the release had been delayed because the Taliban are demanding the release of 15 "top commanders".
"We cannot release the .

Taliban end 'fruitless' meetings with Afghan govt over prisoner swap

A forest fire in the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone spread further Tuesday, fanned by strong winds, authorities said, insisting that radiation levels remained normal.
Firefighters have been battling a blaze that broke out at the weekend in the wooded zone around the ruined Chernobyl reactor that exploded in 1986 in the world's worst nuclear accident.
On Tuesday, the fire covered some 35 hectacres (87 acres), having tripled in size due to strong winds, the emergencies service said in a statement, adding that background radiation levels remained "within normal limits".
Kiev has mobilised helicopters and around 100 firefighters, with firefighting planes dropping tons of water on the fire.
Police said the blaze broke out after a man set fire to dry grass near the exclusion zone.
The man was detained by police.
On Sunday, Yegor Firsov, acting head of Ukraine's state ecological inspection service, said in a Facebook post that radiation levels at the centre of the fire were higher than ...

Forest fire intensifies in Chernobyl nuclear zone

ExxonMobil announced Tuesday it will slash its budget by 30 percent for oilfield projects as the petroleum industry reels from sharply lower demand due to the coronavirus.
The move, the latest cutback in spending by an oil giant, comes as US oil prices remain stuck in the mid-$20 per-barrel range, less than half their price a year ago as the sharp economic slowdown due to coronavirus thrashes oil demand.  ExxonMobil said the bulk of the 2020 cut -- to $23 billion from $33 billion -- would come in the Permian Basin, a shale-rich region in Texas and New Mexico that has attracted heavy investment in recent years.  The Permian has more short-term drilling and development projects than some other bigger oilfield ventures that are more difficult to ramp up if they are suspended.  The biggest US oil company by market capitalization said it planned to push ahead with a big investment to boost output at an offshore project in Guyana, but that it delayed a final investment decision on a giant ..

ExxonMobil latest petroleum giant to slash oilfield spending

The UN Security Council made its now video-conference-only meetings public on Tuesday for the first time in nearly a month, after criticism of what was called a lack of transparency during the coronavirus pandemic.
The part of the meeting made public online was short -- just 10 minutes -- and addressed events in Mali, where the government is fighting a jihadist insurgency.
This was made possible by the Dominican Republic, which is president of the 15-member council for the month of April.
In March the post was held by China, where the coronavirus pandemic first started. Part of a Security Council meeting on March 12 was accessible online, but that was the only time it happened that month.
This drew criticism from 25 countries from around the world that call themselves the ACT Group. The letters stand for accountability, coherence and transparency. The grouping is led by Switzerland.
"The ACT Group is concerned that the meetings of the Council that have taken place since the crisis ...

After criticism, a snippet of UN Security Council meet made public

US airlines have been all but paralysed by the coronavirus, and as they face an uncertain future they have turned to Washington for financial help, but that might mean ceding part of their companies to the federal government.
Industry sources say a behind-the-scenes tug of war has begun between airline executives and the US Treasury, which is in charge of distributing the USD 2.2 trillion stimulus package signed by President Donald Trump into law late last month that includes USD 50 billion specifically for airlines.  Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has spoken of airlines as a priority, saying on Tuesday he was aiming to move "very quickly" to determine how to spend the money, half of which is earmarked to pay employee salaries through September 30.  The Treasury wants to avoid the impression that it is giving airlines a blank check, fearful of a repeat of the public ire that followed Washington's response to the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.  Aiming to get ...

US airlines desperate for cash but fear government involvement

Saudi Arabia will host a virtual meeting on Friday of energy ministers from the Group of 20 major economies in a bid to ensure "market stability" amid a coronavirus-led slump in crude prices.
The video call will follow an emergency meeting on Thursday of OPEC and other oil producers to address the virus-sapped demand for crude and a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.
"The Saudi G20 presidency will hold an extraordinary G20 energy ministers' virtual meeting on Friday... to foster global dialogue and cooperation to ensure stable energy markets," said a statement released on Tuesday by the Saudi hosts.
"The G20 energy ministers will also act, alongside invited countries, and regional and international organisations, to alleviate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the energy markets."
Crude oil prices collapsed to 18-year lows last week owing to a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, which have ramped up output despite weak demand.
The global markets will closely watch ..

Saudi to host G20 energy ministers' meeting on Friday

Spain's daily coronavirus death toll shot up to 743 on Tuesday after falling for four straight days, bringing the total to 13,798, the health ministry said.
However, it emphasised that the rise was due to weekend deaths being tallied and that the overall "downward trend" is continuing.
The new figure represents a 5.7 per cent increase over the 637 deaths recorded on Monday, the lowest number of fatalities since March 24 in the world's second hardest-hit country after Italy in terms of fatal outcomes.
The number of new infections also grew at a faster pace, rising 4.1 per cent to 140,510, the health ministry said. The number of new cases rose 3.3 per cent on Monday.
The "slight" rise was due largely to the fact that many deaths and new infections which occur over the weekend are only now being recorded, said Maria Jose Sierra of the health ministry's emergencies coordination unit.
"In reality the downward trend is what we continue to observe in the reports we have received in recent ...

Spain daily virus death toll spikes to 743 after drop

New York state has recorded its highest number of COVID-19 deaths in 24 hours, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Tuesday, adding though that hospitalizations appeared to be "plateauing".
Cuomo said 731 people succumbed to the new coronavirus on Monday, bringing the state's total death toll to 5,489. The previous single-day record was 630, set on Friday.

New York registers record 731 coronavirus deaths in 24 hours

Manchester United coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer insisted on Tuesday it was unfair to single out footballers over the issue of pay cuts during the coronavirus pandemic and said they are an "easy target".
England's wealthy top-flight stars have come under fire over their lack of action, with British Health Secretary Matt Hancock calling for them to take a cut and "play their part".
The Premier League has urged players to accept wage reductions of 30 percent but ongoing talks have hit a stumbling block.
Professional Footballers' Association boss Gordon Taylor said his members had "agreed to play their part" and Solskjaer said it was time to stop criticising players.
"For me football is an easy target sometimes," Solskjaer told Sky Sports.
"For me it's unfair to call on any individual or footballers as a group because I already know players do a great amount of work in the community, and players are doing a lot to help this situation.
"Discussions are taking place between players and clubs, .

AFP

AFP

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