Countries must protect people in detention from the COVID-19 pandemic by releasing vulnerable prisoners, the UN's rights chief said on Wednesday.
"Covid-19 has begun to strike prisons, jails and immigration detention centres, as well as residential care homes and psychiatric hospitals, and risks rampaging through such institutions' extremely vulnerable populations," Michelle Bachelet said in a statement.
"Authorities should examine ways to release those particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, among them older detainees and those who are sick, as well as low-risk offenders.

UN urges prisoner releases to avoid virus contagion

PTI Automatic

NBA star center Karl-Anthony Towns revealed in an Instagram video Wednesday that his mother has been hospitalized for a week and is in a coma with what he thinks is coronavirus.
The 24-year-old Dominican-American, the top pick of the 2015 NBA Draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves, said his mother had to be placed in a medically induced coma and has been put on a ventilator.
"It's important that everyone understands the severity of what's happening in the world right now with the coronavirus, and I think where my life is right now could help, so I decided to do this video," Towns said in his early morning post.
"My sister told her she needs to get checked for corona. I don't think anyone really understood what it was, with deteriorating condition. She kept getting worse...and the hospital was doing everything they can."
Towns, pausing several times to gather himself, said his mother's temperature would hover near 103 degrees, dipping slightly only to spike again as she deteriorated.
"We .

NBA center Towns reveals mother in coma in emotional video

Canadian lawmakers on Wednesday morning approved a Can$82 billion (USD 57 billion) aid package to help individuals and businesses through the pandemic, after all-night negotiations on what emergency powers to grant the minority government.
Thirty-two members of Parliament, proportionally representing each party instead of the full 338, had gathered in Ottawa for a vote on the emergency measures on Tuesday.
But opposition parties balked at additional provisions giving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals unlimited borrowing and spending powers for 21 months without oversight.
Parliament had been suspended from March 13 through April 20, but reconvened only to approve the cash injection to help individuals and businesses.
South of the border, a similar drama played out in Washington, where US Senate leaders and the White House finally agreed on a USD 2 trillion aid package late Tuesday.
In Ottawa, the opposition Conservatives offered their support for the aid, but pushed back ...

Canada lawmakers pass coronavirus aid package after all-night session

MotoGP, like other sports and other businesses, is scrambling to deal with the problems posed by the coronavirus pandemic.
In the elite motorcycling championship, the 2020 season has yet to start. Teams, riders and organisers are trying to work out how they can rearrange the calendar, make up for financial losses and ensure a level track technically.
While the Moto2 and Moto3 categories competed in the opening race in Qatar, the headline MotoGP event was cancelled.
Dorna, the series promoter, has also postponed the next three events in Thailand, Texas and Argentina and hopes to run them in the second half of the season.
The May races in Spain, France and Italy are in doubt.
Dorna has already said it will push back the end of the season two weeks to 29 November.
It could  also add races during the summer break (July 13-August 2) or extend the season further, within the limits imposed by logistics, time differences and weather.
"Our aim," said  Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta, "is to ...

MotoGP grapples with problems of an interrupted season

Spain has signed a multi-million-euro contract with China to acquire medical supplies to fight the coronavirus epidemic, Health Minister Salvador Illa said Wednesday.
Worth some 432 million euros ($467 million), the deal will cover 550 million masks, 5.5 million rapid test kits, 950 respirators and 11 million pairs of gloves to address shortages in Spain.
The announcement came as Spain saw the number of deaths surge to 3,434 after more than 738 people died in the past 24 hours, overtaking the figure in China where the virus originated late last year.
"We have secured entire production chains (in China) which will be working solely for the Spanish government," Illa said.
The supplies will be delivered "on a staggered basis, every week, with the first -- a major delivery -- arriving at the end of this week," he said.
Despite the fact that Spain's population of 47 million has been under an unprecedented lockdown since March 14, the numbers have continued to spiral with more than 47,000 ..

Spain buys 432 mn euros in medical equipment from China

Tennis great Roger Federer on Wednesday donated more than a million dollars to help support his "most vulnerable" Swiss compatriots through the coronavirus crisis.
The 20-time Grand Slam champion and his wife donated one million Swiss francs ($1.02 million, 943,000 euros), saying nobody should be left behind as Switzerland battles against the global pandemic.
According to official figures reported to the World Health Organization, Switzerland has the ninth-highest number of infections in the world.
According to the Swiss health ministry, more than 8,800 people have tested positive for COVID-19, while 86 people had died as of Monday.
"These are challenging times for everyone and nobody should be left behind. Mirka and I have personally decided to donate one million Swiss francs for the most vulnerable families in Switzerland," world number four Federer, 38, said on Instagram.
"Our contribution is just a start. We hope that others might join in supporting more families in need. Together 

Federer donates $1 million to vulnerable Swiss in virus crisis

The United States said Wednesday it has urged Saudi Arabia to "reassure" oil and financial markets as the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, which has paralyzed major economies like America's.
The appeal was made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a telephone conversation Tuesday with Crown Prince Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the State Department said.
"The Secretary stressed that as a leader of the G20 and an important energy leader, Saudi Arabia has a real opportunity to rise to the occasion and reassure global energy and financial markets when the world faces serious economic uncertainty," the department said in a statement.
On Thursday Saudi Arabia is hosting a virtual summit of G20 leaders on the health crisis sweeping the world because of the coronavirus.

US urges Saudis to 'reassure' oil and financial markets

Nine EU countries, including France and Spain, on Wednesday called for eurozone countries to jointly issue debt in order to fight the devastating impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
The idea of mutualised debt is a frequent request of heavily indebted EU nations and is championed by the European Central Bank, but it is seen as political poison in Germany and other rich northern members.
"In particular, we need to work on a common debt instrument... to raise funds on the market on the same basis and to the benefits of all member states," said the letter, which was also signed by the leaders of Italy, Greece, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Portugal.
France, Spain and Italy have long called for a some kind of eurobond, that is in effect joint borrowing by the 19 members of the euro single currency.
They say it could serve as the bedrock of a safer and more unified European economy and would become a globally respected asset on par with the US Treasury bills that help make the 

Nine EU leaders urge joint borrowing in Europe

Everton and England defender Michael Keane said on Wednesday that players will be able to return to Premier League action after only a "couple of weeks' proper training".
The coronavirus pandemic has seen professional football in England suspended until at least April 30.
Premier League clubs are due to meet on April 3 to discuss what the English top flight does next.
"All the lads have been sent individual training programmes to carry out at home," Keane told Talksport radio.
"It's not easy because you've not got the normal equipment, you've just got to improvise and do what you can.
"The Premier League could start again in a month, it could be longer.
"So we've just got to keep that base level of fitness. As long as we get a couple of weeks' proper training before the next game -- and the lads have worked hard in the meantime -- we'll be fine."
The centre-back said Everton's backroom staff were monitoring the players' progress.
"We log on with the sessions we've done, and they keep .

Everton's Keane says players can be ready in a fortnight

The obituaries posted on a board where the newspapers might otherwise hang tell the story of an Italian village living through a disaster the mayor calls "worse than the war".
The war Vertova mayor Orlando Gualdi refers to is World War II -- a cataclysmic event more and more Italians cite while describing the damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.
Italy's death toll is somewhat hard to grasp when they are read out every evening in Rome. The total across the country soared to 6,820 by Wednesday.
It is 36 in Vertova. But the village -- its ancient stone houses hugging the side of a mountain 70 kilometres northeast of Milan --- has 4,600 inhabitants and usually sees around 60 deaths the entire year.
"It's worse than the war," Gualdi told AFP in one of the village's empty squares.
Four freshly made coffins are bunched together near the entrance of a chapel nearby.
They are waiting to be cremated and then buried in the cemetery in the back.
Funerals have been banned for weeks and the .

Italian village where virus is deadlier than war

Ethiopia announced Wednesday it would free thousands of inmates from the country's overcrowded prisons as part of a bid to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Attorney General Adanech Abebe told state media the measure would apply to more than 4,000 prisoners, many of whom are locked up for "petty crimes" and drug offences or have less than a year remaining on their sentences.
"Considering the nature of the transmission of the virus and to end the overcrowding in prisons, the cases of 4,011 prisoners have been discontinued and given pardons," Adanech said, adding that the releases would begin Thursday.
Conditions in Ethiopia's prisons are "harsh and in some cases life threatening," marred by "gross overcrowding and inadequate food, water, sanitation, and medical care," according to the latest annual human rights report on Ethiopia from the US State Department.
As of Tuesday evening, Ethiopia had confirmed 12 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, after conducting ...

Ethiopia to release thousands of prisoners to limit coronavirus spread

Closed borders and social distancing rules to stem the coronavirus outbreak failed to stop one transnational couple in Indonesia from tying the knot on Wednesday, minus the customary kiss to seal the deal.
Irra Chorina Octora, 29, and her Turkish partner Yavuz Ozdemir, 32, swapped vows at Al Akbar mosque in Surabaya, as friends and family -- each sat two metres apart -- looked on.
The couple both wore facemasks and kept their distance through the ceremony to comply with strict rules imposed by authorities, who have banned mass gatherings including weddings but allowed some exceptions for marriages booked before the pandemic began.
Virus precautions were on full display, with a maximum of 25 people at the event, temperature checks at the door and hand sanitiser throughout the venue. The wedding was also wrapped up in just 30 minutes.
The only hint of physical intimacy came when Ozdemir, whom Octora first met on social media, briefly took off his mask for his bride to feed him a piece ..

You may not kiss the bride: social distancing in force at Indonesia wedding

The number of deaths around the world from the novel coronavirus cases stood at 19,246, according to a tally compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT Wednesday from official sources.
More than 427,940 declared cases have been registered in 181 countries and territories since the epidemic first emerged in China in December.
The tallies, using data collected by AFP offices from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), are likely to reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.
Many countries are now only testing cases that require hospitalisation.
Italy, which recorded its first coronavirus death in February, has to date declared 6,820 fatalities, with 69,176 infections and 8,326 people recovered.
Like Italy, Spain now has more fatalities than China with 3,434, as well as having 47,610 infections and 5,367 recoveries.
China -- excluding Hong Kong and Macau -- has to date declared 3,281 deaths and 81,218 cases. The other worst-hit countries are Iran 

Coronavirus toll at 1100 GMT Wednesday

A global stocks rally petered out Wednesday as Europe took up the baton, despite US lawmakers agreeing a mammoth stimulus package to help the world's biggest economy resist effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After huge gains for equities Tuesday, which continued into Wednesday with Tokyo soaring and European indices jumping at the open, London lost some of its gains and Frankfurt was in the red nearing the half-way stage.
Elsewhere, the dollar was lower against main rivals and oil prices retreated.
"The stimulus is now by and large in place, the question is whether it's enough for the markets or whether the expected spike in cases and deaths in the US and Europe, combined with the emerging picture of the economic damage, means we need to take another leg lower before the bottom is found," said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at trading group Markets.com.
While COVID-19 continues to spread, traders have a rare semblance of optimism after weeks of carnage across global markets, with ...

Surge for stocks fades despite huge US stimulus package

The UN's health agency has faced criticism in the past for overreacting and for moving too slowly in fighting epidemics, but it has rarely faced as much scrutiny as with the coronavirus pandemic.
The World Health Organization was deemed too alarmist when it faced the H1N1 epidemic in 2009 but five years later it was accused of dragging its feet in declaring an emergency over the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, which would go on to kill more than 11,000 people.
After that debacle, the WHO reformed and created a rapid response unit that has since helped to tackle two Ebola outbreaks in Democratic Republic of Congo.
And yet, the organisation is once again under fire, with critics saying it did not react quickly or strongly enough to the new coronavirus, which emerged in Wuhan, China, late last year.
The agency has been accused of delaying sounding the alarm for fear of offending Beijing, for waiting too long to declare the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic and for failing to coordinate .

COVID-19 pandemic puts WHO back in hot seat

France's stay-at-home orders to combat the coronavirus outbreak have produced a 20 to 30 percent decline in overall air pollution levels in Paris, according to a report from the region's air quality monitoring agency.
The lockdown has taken countless cars and delivery trucks off the roads since coming into effect on March 17, and massively reduced the number of flights at the two airports serving the capital.
The Airparif report said that just two days after the self-confinement began, it registered "a 20 to 30 percent improvement in air quality in the Paris metropolis, after nitrogen oxide emissions dropped by more than 60 percent."
Major thoroughfares saw the biggest improvements, with pollution levels falling to those normally seen only in the city's parks.  "This decline in air pollution was accompanied by a drop in carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, underscoring the links between these two problems and the joint benefits for the climate of any improvement in air quality," Airparif 

Virus lockdown makes big dent in Paris air pollution: report

Iran's president warned that his government was poised to introduce tough new measures against the coronavirus Wednesday as the death toll from one of the world's deadliest outbreaks topped 2,000.
President Hassan Rouhani said that the new measures, which could be adopted as soon as Wednesday evening, included Iran's first restrictions on movement to try to stem the spread of the virus and were likely to be "difficult" for the public.
So far, Iran has resisted imposing any lockdown, choosing instead to rely on verbal appeals for people to stay home.
But those have been widely ignored. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the roads as usual last weekend to spend the two-week Persian New Year holiday with family despite fears of the disease spreading from the big cities to the countryside.
"There has been a long debate within the National Committee for Fighting the Coronavirus about how to strengthen the measures we have taken," Rouhani said in televised comments to the cabinet.  ..

Iran president warns of tough new measures as virus toll tops 2,000

Israel's parliamentary speaker, an ally of Benjamin Netanyahu, resigned Wednesday, clearing the way for a vote that could see him replaced by an opponent of the embattled premier.
Yuli Edelstein, a member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, had refused to schedule a speakership vote until a new government was formed, but stood down after the Supreme Court set a Wednesday deadline for the vote to take place.
"The High Court ruling constitutes crude and arrogant intervention of the judiciary in the matters of the elected legislature," Edelstein said.  "I won't allow Israel to descend into anarchy. I won't lend a hand to civil war," he said as the court's deadline approached.
"I hereby resign from my position as Knesset speaker." The announcement could pave the way for the opposition, led by the centrist Blue and White party, to take control of the legislative agenda.
It also came after a year of political turmoil that has seen three inconclusive elections, and after Netanyahu imposed 

Netanyahu ally resigns as speaker of Israel parliament

Governments and central banks around the world are ripping up the policy rulebook as they battle to immunise their economies from deeper coronavirus carnage.
Printing new money, gargantuan debt spending, loan guarantees, tax breaks and even direct payments to workers are all in the highly unorthodox mix.
AFP surveys the latest responses by major economies as COVID-19 has spread from China to the rest of the world, making a global recession all but inevitable.
In the United States, Senate leaders and the White House early Wednesday struck agreement on a USD 2 trillion stimulus package for the world's largest economy.
The biggest ever spending plan in US history had been knocked back by Democratic objections to the Republican plan, which was decried as a "slush fund" for bosses.
But party leaders overcame their differences to clinch a "wartime level of investment into our nation", Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.
The Senate and House of Representatives still need .

Coronavirus economics: roundup of radical policy steps

The leaders of EU institutions on Wednesday expressed solidarity with Spain as it struggles with an escalating coronavirus emergency.
"I want you to know that we are working tirelessly to help you -- you are not alone," European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a video message posted on her official Twitter account.
Charles Michel, the head of the European Council that coordinates between the leaders of the EU member states, said in a public letter to Spain that "Europe stands by your side in full solidarity, and we will spare no effort to help you".
European Parliament speaker David Sassoli joined in by tweeting to Spanish citizens that "the difficulties and problems you are experiencing are also ours".
Spain is the second-worst-hit country in the EU, after Italy, with more than 47,000 infected cases counted by authorities and some 3,400 deaths.
The country of 46 million -- the EU's fourth-biggest economy -- has been in lockdown since March 14 in a bid to slow the spread 

EU leaders voice solidarity with virus-hit Spain

Mali announced its first two cases of novel coronavirus on Wednesday, to fears that the war-torn and impoverished West African state will struggle to handle an outbreak.
Two Malian nationals who arrived from France in mid-March tested positive for the virus, the government said in a statement on Wednesday, and are receiving medical treatment.
The statement added people should "remain calm and  strictly respect the recommended preventive measures".
There are fears that Mali is at particular risk in the event of an outbreak, however.
The country has been struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that erupted in the north in 2012, and which has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives since.
The conflict has since spread to the centre of the country -- and large swathes of the vast semi-arid state lie outside of government control.
All of Mali's seven neighbouring countries have also declared coronavirus cases.

AFP

AFP

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