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Latest archeological finds uncover evidence of ‘Bahrain’s lost paradise’TDT | Manama

Evidence of a lost paradise was amongst the latest archeological discoveries

in Bahrain, it was revealed yes-terday.

Bahrain Authority for Cul-ture and Antiquities president Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa announced in an online press conference marking World Heritage Day a unique discovery

that gives proof of what is said to be “Bahrain’s lost paradise”.

The find showed evidence of an abundance of greenery and spring water, Shaikha Mai said, noting that further upcoming studies will confirm what has been uncovered.

Recent excavations have been carried out in the Kingdom in cooperation with a number of in-ternational missions from Japan, the UK, Denmark and France.

Another of their latest arche-ological discoveries was a build-ing in Samaheej dating back to seventh century AD, which was perhaps a church, Shaikha Mai said. She explained that Sama-heej was once a centre of Chris-tianity before the emergence of Islam.

Shaikha Mai also noted that tombs were discovered in Ma-qaba dating back to the Tylos pe-riod, while research work and

exploration was being done at Bahrain Fort for the first time since 1978.

Shaikha Mai was speaking at the conference alongside the Cul-ture Authority’s Museums and Antiquities Department direc-tor Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa.

World Heritage Days is also known as the International Day for Monuments and Sites, and it is observed every year on April 18.

H I S T O R I C D I S C O V E R Y

Shaikha Mai

TDT | Manama

His Majesty the King’s Hu-manitarian Works and Youth Affairs representa-

tive, National Security Advisor and Royal Humanitarian Foundation (RHF) Board of Trustees chairman His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa lauded yester-day the unprecedented response of Bahrain’s citizens to the nation-al campaign “Feena Khair” (There is Good in Us), through their do-nations aimed at contributing to the national efforts to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19).

HH Shaikh Nasser stressed that the outstanding success of the cam-paign is in response to the great initiatives launched by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to protect the safety of the Kingdom, as well as that of its citizens and residents.

He noted that since the outbreak of the pandemic, His Majesty the King has placed the health of the citizens and residents at the top and ordered the allocation of a huge budget to safeguard them and the national economy, thus making Bahrain a leader in fighting COV-ID-19 at the global level.

HH Shaikh Nasser made the statements marking the success of the “Feena Khair” campaign on its first day.

“We dedicate the success of this campaign to the leader of this na-tion, HM King Hamad, the Hon-orary President of the RHF,” HH Shaikh Nasser said.

HH Shaikh Nasser commended the tremendous efforts exerted by the government, led by His Royal Highness the Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, as well as those made by the National Taskforce for Combatting Coro-navirus, led by His Royal High-ness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, for apply-ing all international standards and precautionary measures to fight the virus.

He asserted that the Bahraini

people have proven that it is stand-ing united behind the leadership of His Majesty the King to combat

COVID-19, and ensure the success of the national efforts in this regard, which are led by HRH the Crown

Prince.HH Shaikh Nasser expressed

deep pride in the participation of

the citizens, companies and insti-tutions in the national campaign, valuing highly their donations.

HH Shaikh Nasser prayed to Allah the Almighty to preserve Bahrain, under the leadership of HM the King.

Meanwhile, RHF secretary-gen-eral Dr. Mustafa Al Sayed said that Friday was a day to remember in the history of Bahrain, as a total of BD21million was donated by Bah-raini people to support efforts to eliminate the pandemic.

He asserted that the campaign will continue until after the Holy Month of Ramadan, and that the way is paved for every-one to contribute to it through financial or in-kind donations through the RHF’s website rco.gov.bh or NBB account BH66N-BOB00000082109370.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, HM the King placed the health of the citizens and residents

at the top, and ordered the allocation of a huge

budget to safeguard them and the national economy.

HH SHAIKH NASSER BIN HAMAD AL KHALIFA

Mumtalakat pledges BD9,910,000 to ‘Feenah Khair’TDT | Manama

Mumtalakat Holding Company, the sover-eign wealth fund of the

Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain and its investment arm for the strategic non-oil assets, has pledged BD9,910,000 to the “Feenah Khair” (There is Good in Us) campaign aimed at harness-ing national efforts to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“Out of its responsibility to-wards society, Mumtalakat sup-ports all national efforts to confront this virus and prevent the spread of the pandemic, in a manner that translates the royal directives of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa,” said Deputy Premier and Mumtalakat chairman Shaikh Khalid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa.

Shaikh Khalid commended the drive of the government, chaired by His Royal Highness the Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Sal-man Al Khalifa, and paid tribute to His Royal Highness Prince Sal-man bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown

Prince, Deputy Supreme Com-mander and First Deputy Prime Minister, for his keen follow-up.

He hailed the success of “Feenah Khair” which was launched by His Majesty the King’s Human-itarian Works and Youth Affairs representative, National Security Advisor and Royal Humanitari-an Foundation Board of Trustees chairman His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

Shaikh Khalid said that Mumta-lakat’s support to the campaign reflects its commitment to the principle of social responsibility and its permanent willingness to contribute effectively to all that enable Bahrain to continue the comprehensive development pro-cess, led by His Majesty the King.

“Mumtalakat and subsidiary and associate companies are proud members of The Bahrain Team, which deserves our full support, whether as individuals or enterprises, so as to further strengthen the determination of loyal citizens who stand valiant-ly and courageously in the first

line of defence, to keep Bahrain safe and stable and reassure all nationals and residents,” Shaikh Khalid said.

He expressed full confidence in the ability of Team Bahrain, led by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince to turn challenges into opportunities.

The Deputy Premier prayed to Allah the Almighty to bless the Kingdom of Bahrain and its leadership and people with security, health and well-being and to protect all people from any harm.

The Mumtalakat subsidiary and associate companies which pledged support to the “Feenah Khair” campaign include: Alba (BD3.5 million), Batelco (BD3.5 million), National Bank of Bah-rain (BD2.5 million), Gulf Hotels Company (BD200,000), Bahrain Airport Services (BD100,000), Bahrain Real Estate Invest-ment “Edamah” (BD100,000) and The Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones “DANAT” (BD10,000).

Standing united

against COVID-19!HH Shaikh Nasser lauds unprecedented response of Bahrain’s people to “Feena Khair” campaign

Health Ministry reports 29 more COVID-19 recoveriesTDT | Manama

Twenty-nine more patients have recovered from the

coronavirus (COVID-19) and were discharged, the Ministry of Health announced yesterday.

That brings the total num-ber of discharged individuals to 755, as of last night.

The total active COVID-19 cas-es in Bahrain was 1,011, all but three of which were stable.

The total number tested went to 82,568.

HM the King holds call with US President TrumpTDT | Manama

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa held a

call yesterday with US Pres-ident Donald Trump and discussed the two countries’ friendship, solid historic re-lations and means of further bolstering ties in all fields.

HM the King hailed the strong relations and strategic cooperation and stressed a common desire to further de-velop ties.

He offered heartfelt condo-lences to President Trump and all Americans for their coun-trymen who lost their lives to the coronavirus (COVID-19), and stressed the importance of international cooperation to combat the disease.

The US President commend-ed the precautionary measures taken by Bahrain in this current crisis, stressing his country’s readiness to provide any assis-tance to combat COVID-19.

02SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

The General Director of Traffic yesterday called upon road users to be cautious while commuting due to expected rain over the next few days. The General Director advised that drivers keep a safe distance between vehicles for everyone’s safety. According to the Meteorological Directorate at the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications, rain and thunder is forecast the next three days until Tuesday. Medium rain is then forecast for Wednesday, after which the skies will be cloudy heading into next week.

Caution advised on roads as rain forecast Notifications being sent to potential contacts of

COVID-19 cases• Contact tracing feature on BeAware Bahrain app sending push notifications and SMS messages, requesting individuals who may have come into contact with active coronavirus cases to get tested

TDT | Manama

The Information and eGovernment Authori-ty (iGA) announced that

people who may have been in contact with active cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) are being informed and asked to get tested.

This is being done through the contact tracing feature of the BeAware Bahrain app, which has been launched as part of the national fight against COVID-19.

The iGA announced on its Instagram account: “Over the couple of weeks, the optional data of registered individuals through the BeAware Bahrain app has been automatically collected and compared and matched with locations of ac-

tive COVID-19 cases.“The app’s contact tracing

feature sent push notifications and SMS messages to individ-uals who may have come into contact with active cases, re-questing them to be tested for their own health and safety.”

The iGA added that it urg-es the public to support ef-forts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 by downloading the BeAware app, free of charge, for iOS and Android via the eGovernment App Store on bahrain.bh/apps.

A screenshot of a push notification

• One Bahraini national from Pune developed a high fever and was advised to rest and could not board the flight

TDT | Manama

A total of 125 Bahraini na-tionals stranded in India due to the nation-wide

lockdown there were finally flown home yesterday.

Gulf Air flight number GF7753 carrying citizens who were re-siding in different parts of In-dia touched down at Bahrain International Airport last night shortly after 9pm.

The Bahrainis were flown home after being brought to-gether at Pune International Airport, from where they re-turned on a special chartered flight via Chennai.

They were scheduled to ar-rive at 9.05pm but were delayed.

Their repatriation is a part of national efforts to bring home Bahraini citizens abroad in light of the global outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pan-demic.

According to reports, chargé d’affaires at the Bahrain Embas-sy in New Delhi Ali Abdulla Al Noaimi said that Bahrain sup-ports India’s efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We had a list of all the Bah-

raini citizens who were staying in various parts of the country; some were tourists, some seek-ing medical services, and most of the nationals were students,” Al Noaimi was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.

Al Noaimi also revealed that one Bahraini national from Pune developed a high fever and was advised to rest and could not board the flight. It is understood that he was taken to the hospital for treatment.

Bahrain Consul General in Mumbai Ali Al Balooshi was in Pune to see to the safe travel of the Bahraini nationals.

According to the report, the Bahrainis not located in Pune had arrived there three days pri-or and were staying at Hotel Taj Blue Diamond, where they were waiting for yesterday’s flight.

Meanwhile, Pune airport di-rector Kuldeep Singh noted that all precautionary arrangements had been made to ensure the safe travel of the Bahraini pas-sengers.

“All arrangements were made for thermal screening at depar-ture entry: Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) [wore] protective gear; immigration,

customs, tea-coffee snacks counter, sanitisation machine at entry gate; frequent cleaning/sanitisation of the washrooms; markings for physical separa-

tion on the floor and on chairs.“We opened only l imit-

ed areas for the passengers’ movement to ensure focused cleaning.”

Gulf Air blocks off additional seats for social-distancingTDT | Manama

National carrier Gulf Air announced yesterday additional moves to

one of its “golden principles”, which were introduced to help maintain the health and safety of its valued passengers and crew members, in response to the global outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

The airline declared yester-day that all middle seats in the Economy class cabin and the aisle seats in the Falcon Gold

cabin on narrow-body aircraft will be blocked off, where pos-sible, to provide extra space during flights.

These are in line with its “golden principle” related to modifying seating arrange-ment, which Gulf Air had an-nounced previously, saying that it will be maintaining dis-tances on-board between all passengers on all its operating flights.

It added that ground staff and cabin crew will seat pas-sengers as far as possible from

each other, depending on the flight load, to maintain the required social distances be-tween passengers.

Amongst the other “gold-en principles” announced by the airline are maintaining social distancing at check-in counters and boarding gates, supporting safe interactions on board, keeping shared spaces spotless, serving on-board meals in disposable containers and limiting their selection, and reducing items on board.

We had a list of all the Bahraini citizens

who were staying in various parts of the country; some

were tourists, some seeking medical

services, and most of the nationals were students.

CHARGÉ D’AFFAIRES AT THE BAHRAIN EMBASSY IN NEW DELHI ALI ABDULLA

AL NOAIMI

• 18,000sqm plot in Duraz will contain 44 incubators and produce about 460 tonnes of vegetables, while 24,000sqm plot in Hoorat A’ali will have 46 incubators and expect to produce 463 tonnes

TDT | Manama

More than 900 tonnes of vegetables are expected to be produced in land

plots located in Duraz and Hoorat A’ali, which are among the sites designated to achieve the food se-curity initiative of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

The Ministry of Works, Munic-ipalities Affairs and Urban Plan-ning’s Agriculture and Marine Re-sources undersecretary Dr. Nabil Abul Fateh paid an inspection visit to the sites, in line with the direc-tives of Works Minister Essam bin Abdulla Khalaf.

Dr. Abul Fateh, who was accom-panied by assistant undersecretary Dr. Abdulaziz Abdul Karim, was informed about the lands’ pre-paredness, as well as their infra-structure services and the main

requirements for the success of the royal project.

The undersecretary said that HM the King’s initiative is based on adopting soil-less farming meth-ods, adding that six sites across the Kingdom have been earmarked for the implementation of the scheme, including two in the Northern Gov-ernorate.

The first in Duraz is an 18,000sqm plot which will con-tain 44 incubators and produce about 460 tonnes of vegetables. The second in Hoorat A’ali covers

24,000 square metres, containing 46 incubators and expecting to produce 463 tonnes of vegetables.

Dr. Abul Fateh pointed out that the soil-less farming project will contribute to increasing local veg-etable production by 20 per cent. He added that the Agriculture and Marine Resources Department has held a series of meetings with the competent authorities to devise a schedule for the implementation of the royal initiative.

The undersecretary affirmed that HM the King’s project aims to encourage Bahraini youth to engage in the agricultural and fish-ing fields, as well as to adopt inno-vative techniques for sustainable production.

He noted that the ultimate goal is to prepare an ambitious generation whose members are trained on modern agricultural production and fish farming.

It also aims to deepen the sense of patriotism in achieving food se-curity, Dr. Abul Fateh added.

He stressed that the Agriculture and Marine Resources Department will harness all available resources in order to translate the projects into the ground, and achieve HM the King’s vision on boosting the Kingdom’s food security.

Stranded Bahrainis in India flown homeRepatriation complete of 125 citizens residing in different parts of country; departed from Pune

Food security visionMore than 900 tonnes of vegetables are expected

to be produced in Duraz, Hoorat A’ali land plots

Dr. Abul Fateh and Dr. Abdul Karim during their inspection visit

20is the increase in

percentage that the farming projects will

contribute to local vegetable production

More than 100 caught for violating face masks rule

TDT | Manama

More than 100 peo-ple have so far been caught for violat-

ing the ministerial order that obliges the wearing of face masks while in public, as part of precautionary measures be-ing taken against the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

This was revealed yester-day by Public Security Chief

Lt.-General Tariq Al Hassan, who said that the police direc-torates continue to take legal steps against violators.

Al Hassan added that the vi-olations were registered even after awareness campaigns by community police personnel were conducted, to highlight the importance of wearing masks in public places and only to leave home when nec-essary.

03SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

Strengthening real estate valuation

Regulatory Authority issues measures to further strengthen process and practice in Bahrain

• All real estate valuations must be conducted by RERA-licensed valuers, including those commissioned by government agencies, banks, CBB-licensed financial institutions, companies and private individuals

• Real Estate Valuation course launched specifically for bank and financial institutions’ employees who commission or require real estate valuation reports

TDT | Manama

The Real Estate Regulato-ry Authority (RERA) has announced a number of

measures to further strengthen the real estate valuation process and practice in the Kingdom.

As per the Law 27 and with effect from May 2, all real estate valuations must be conducted by RERA-licensed real estate val-uers. This includes valuations

commissioned by government agencies, banks and other finan-cial institutions licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), companies and private individ-uals.

The implementation of this policy will lead to greater con-sistency, transparency and pro-tection for all key stakeholders including investors, financial institutions, home buyers, and sellers of real estate.

RERA is also introducing a Real Estate Valuation course designed specifically for bank and finan-cial institutions’ employees who commission or require real estate valuation reports as part of their role, such as mortgage brokers, commercial lending managers, risk assessment, audit or asset managers.

The course will cover issues such as identification of the most appropriate valuation ap-proaches, bases and methods of valuation, and the benefits and obligations of the recently intro-duced Bahrain Valuation Stand-ards (BVS) for all stakeholders involved in the real estate sector and valuers in particular.

Given the current challenges, the one-day course will be de-livered by webinar in collabora-tion with RICS and BIBF. The first training session will take place on Tuesday from 9am to 5pm.

To register, e-mail realestate@bibf.com.

Speaking at the announce-ment, RERA CEO Shaikh Moham-med bin Khalifa Al Khalifa said: “Valuers play a critical role in the real estate ecosystem and we are pleased to see the response from valuation practitioners who are embracing the changes recent-ly implemented, including the adopting of the Bahrain Valua-tion Standards and the Profes-sional Progression programme, which will provide valuers with the opportunity to attain qualifi-cations that are internationally recognised.

“We are seeing increasing

numbers undertaking the Con-tinuous Professional Devel-opment training programmes which augurs well for the future of the real estate sector by build-ing greater investor trust and confidence in the market.”

The RERA CEO added: “Banks and financial institutions depend on professional, valid and relia-ble valuation reports to ensure the quality and accuracy of asset values on their loan books. In-creased confidence in the real estate valuation process will pro-vide an impetus and encourage-ment for financial institutions to increase their levels of financ-ing for real estate transactions,

which will ultimately impact on the performance of the banks and financial institutions books and eventually of Bahrain economy.”

Unlicensed valuers are pre-cluded from conducting real es-tate valuations and as per Reso-lution 2 of 2019, unlicensed real estate valuers will now be sub-ject to sanctions and fines for non-compliance with the Law.

Article 41 of Law 27 of 2017 promulgating the real estate reg-ulation law outlined the require-ment for valuers to be licensed and the fact that practicing real estate brokerage may not be com-bined with the practicing of real estate valuation.

Resolution 2 of 2019 on li-censing of real estate valuers, issued in May 2019, outlined the requirements for those practising real estate valuation and allowed until November of last year to regularise their operations and apply for a real estate valuer li-cense.

To ensure the adoption of in-ternational best practices, RERA launched the Bahrain Valuation Standards in October 2019 and announced details of the real es-tate valuer training and profes-sionalisation programmes.

RERA website rera.gov.bh pro-vides full details on the licensing process for real estate valuers and other information.

5.7million visits to eduNet

TDT | Manama

Ministry of Education In-formation Systems act-

ing director Nadia Al Muraisi revealed yesterday that there had been more than 5.7million visits to the educational portal eduNet since the suspension of studying in the third week of February until April 14.

Al Muraisi added that the Education Ministry has been able to respond quickly to 40,705 technical assistance requests by users through a special page at the portal.

Al Muraisi explained that in light of the increasing use of the educational portal for online learning, the Ministry has developed the technical assistance service for users – including students, teach-ers and parents – to solve any problems they may face ensur-ing their easy access to eduNet, without any obstacles.

Regarding the technical support for the students’ ac-counts on Microsoft 365, the acting-director said that the Ministry had cooperated with Microsoft to design a special page, yalla365.net, that enables students, from third interme-diate to third secondary, to receive their user names and passwords to enter the Micro-soft Teams platform.

Another webpage, yalla365.net/yalla-form, was devoted to responding to students’ in-quiries about their accounts, she said.

Increased confidence in the real estate valuation process will provide an impetus and encouragement for financial institutions to increase their levels of financing for real estate transactions, which will eventually impact the Bahrain economy. RERA CEO SHAIKH MOHAMMED BIN KHALIFA AL KHALIFA

Al Muraisi

Jaffari Endowments Chairman lauds Bahrain’s unity in COVID-19 fight

TDT | Manama

Jaffari Endowments Chair-man Yousif bin Saleh Al Saleh expressed full sup-

port for the on-going national humanitarian efforts to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19), in line with the directives of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

This affirms that the Bahraini people stand together behind HM the King’s leadership in fac-ing and defeating the virus, Al Saleh said.

While participating in the TV programme broadcast with-in the “Feena Khair” (There Is Good in Us) national cam-paign to combat COVID-19, Al Saleh commented: “We extend profound thanks to HM King Hamad, and affirm our sup-port and appreciation to the

programmes and plans imple-mented by the government, led by His Royal Highness the Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, to pro-tect the health and safety of the citizens and residents, as well as to the unprecedented efforts and initiatives of Team Bah-rain, led by His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Premier.”

Al Saleh highlighted the im-portance of the “Feena Khair” initiative, launched in line with the directives of HM the King’s Humanitarian and Youth Affairs representative, National Security Advisor and Royal Humanitarian Foundation Board of Trustees chairman HH Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, in paving the way for the donations of all in-

stitutions, companies and indi-viduals.

He also commended the ef-forts of the various state depart-ments and society to overcome the current situation, lauding the efforts exerted by the Health Ministry, the National Taskforce for Combatting Coronavirus, the Bahrain Defence Force and the

Interior Ministry in this regard. He also praised the keenness of individuals and civil society institutions, including mosques, community centres and Hus-sainiyas to be committed to the instructions and directives of the competent authorities.

He asserted that the direc-tives issued by the competent authorities aim to achieve public interests, and noted that the state has harnessed all its potentials to achieve health and social secu-rity, adding that the prevailing discipline among various so-cial segments reflects the high awareness of Bahraini citizens.

Al Saleh stressed that con-tributions to the campaign is a religious duty, noting that the Islamic religion calls for soli-darity, compassion and cohe-sion among members of society through thick and thin.

Al Saleh

Bahrain to mark Arab Deaf Week

TDT | Manama

Bahrain will join the Arab world in celebrating the 45th edition of Arab Deaf

Week.This year, it is being held

with the theme: “The Right of the Deaf to an Easy Marriage Supported by Social Institu-tions”.

The event is observed in the last week of April every year as a reminder of the deaf in society, in line with the recommenda-tions of the second conference of the Arab Federation of Deaf Organisations, which was held in Damascus in April 1974.

The event aims to raise aware-ness of deaf people’s rights and capabilities, and ways of pre-venting this handicap.

It also seeks to cast light on ways of enabling the deaf and the associations in charge of

them to play an active and posi-tive role in comprehensive, sus-tainable economic and social development.

Labour and Social Devel-opment Minister Jamil bin Mohammed Ali Humaidan stressed the great care accord-ed to the deaf by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and the government, led by His Royal Highness the Prime Min-ister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.

He also commended the support of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Premier. He pointed out concerted efforts to provide this category of people with the needed care and assistance to help them implement projects that are consistent with their capabilities.

Muharraq Police arrest two robbery suspectsTDT | Manama

Two robbery suspects in two different cases have been arrested.

This was announced yesterday by the Muharraq Governorate Police director-general.

The first one is suspected of stealing a wallet from a car parked near a shop in Hidd while the other is being held for a mobile phone robbery from a shop in Muharraq.

Legal proceedings were taken and they were referred to the Public Prosecution.

Bahraini teen arrested for car arsonTDT | Manama

A 19-year-old Bahraini has been arrested over a car arson case.

This was announced yesterday by the Southern Governorate

Police director-general.The vehicle was parked in

front of a house in Isa Town, and the fire reached a nearby car.

The director-general said that an investigation into the incident led to identifying and arresting

the suspect. Initial details in-dicated that he committed the crime because of personal dis-putes with the car’s owner.

Legal proceedings were taken, and the case was referred to the Public Prosecution.

04SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

BenefitPay gets big boost “Fawri+” transaction surges 1257pc

TDT | Manama

BENEFIT, a leading compa-ny in electronic financial

transactions, announced re-cording a significant jump in the number of transactions and payments through its elec-tronic wallet, BenefitPay.

The increase, BENEFIT said, also reflects the activation of the Kingdom’s precautionary measures and efforts to limit the spread of the recent Coro-navirus outbreak.

BenefitPay recorded a mas-sive BD 103 million worth of electronic financial transac-tions through “Fawri+” dur-ing March, which is a 1257 per cent increase in comparison to the previous year, in addi-tion to an increase of 27pc in comparison to February 2020.

The application also wit-nessed a 43pc increase in its QR code payment function, as well as an increase in the use of transfers.

“Fawri” electronic financial payments witnessed an annu-al increase of BD 13 million, which is a 407pc increase dur-ing March 2020, in addition to a monthly growth of 12pc in comparison to February 2020.

The “Fawateer” service grew 397pc during March 2020, in comparison to March 2019, totalling BD 1.5 million worth of electronic financial transactions.

Commenting, Abdulwahed AlJanahi, Chief Executive of BENEFIT, said: “The remark-able growth of usage of elec-tronic financial payments re-flects on the awareness and commitment of our commu-nity to take the precautionary measures, reducing paper us-age to limit the spread of the Coronavirus.”

“We have also witnessed a large number of businesses and home-businesses that be-gan providing their customers with the option to pay via Ben-efitPay, ensuring the success of our national team to limit the spread of this pandemic.”

Since its launch in the King-dom of Bahrain, BenefitPay has become the most desirable method of payment for over 300,000 users.

Abdulwahed AlJanahi, Chief Executive of BENEFIT

Ebdaa Bank backs national campaign to combat COVID-19Donates BD10,000 to “Feena Khair” Campaign

TDT | Manama

The Board of Directors of Ebdaa bank for micro-

financing headed by Chair-man, Mona Yousuf Khalil Al-moayyed, pledged to contrib-ute ten thousand Bahraini di-nars in support of the national efforts to combat coronavirus “COVID- 19”.

Ebdaa Bank is contributing to “Feena Khair” campaign launched by His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Representative of His Majesty the King for Human-itarian Affairs and Youth Af-fairs, National Security Advi-sor and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Royal Hu-

manitarian Foundation.Commenting, Mona Yousuf

Khalil Almoayyed said,“ The bank, works in the field of microfinance with a capital that does not exceed 2.2 mil-lion Bahraini dinars, decided to provide this donation as a gesture that affirms the bank’s constant desire to support the pressing issues in the Kingdom of Bahrain and to contribute as much as possible in the na-tional efforts to combat and prevent the spread of coro-navirus.”

CEO of Ebdaa Bank, Dr Khaled Al- Ghazzawi ex-pressed his appreciation to the Board of Directors for approv-ing such a donation.

Dr Khaled Al-GhazzawiMona Yousuf Khalil Almoayyed

Bahrain Islamic Bank donates BD250,000 to ‘Feena Khair’ TDT | Manama

Bahrain Islamic Bank (BisB) announced a donation of

BD250,000 to the ‘Feena Khair’ National Campaign led by His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Represent-ative of His Majesty the King for Humanitarian and Youth Affairs, National Security Advisor and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Royal Humanitarian Foundation.

This donation follows on the heels of the Bank’s BD30,000 donation to its customers who are members of the medical teams working on the front-lines to combat COVID-19 at governmental hospitals and health centres, in addition to the BD30,000 donation to the Capital Governorate’s ‘Togeth-er We Care’ campaign which was launched to support the underprivileged and those who have been adversely af-fected by the virus, by provid-

ing much-needed meals.The Chairman of the Board

of Directors of BisB, Dr Esam Abdulla Fakhro, said, “We commend the efforts and achievements of the wise lead-ership in combating COVID-19 and remain committed to sup-porting these humanitarian initiatives, standing together in solidarity to overcome this crisis.”

Chairman of the Board of Directors of BisB, Dr Esam Abdulla Fakhro

Investcorp contributes $1 million to COVID-19 Relief Campaign TDT | Manama

Investcorp yesterday an-nounced a US $1 million do-

nation to the Royal Humani-tarian Foundation to support its COVID-19 Relief Campaign.

Commenting, Mohammed Alardhi, Executive Chairman of Investcorp, expressed his sincere thanks to the Leader-ship of the Kingdom of Bahrain for continuous efforts to miti-gate the spread of COVID-19. “Investcorp is committed to supporting our communities and stakeholders in helping to address the many urgent needs stemming from the pandemic. We also thank those on the front lines for their tireless ef-forts and we are proud to sup-port the Royal Humanitarian Foundation (RHF) in helping to provide relief for those who need it most.”

The campaign has been launched following the orders of His Majesty the King to help

needy families registered with the RHF and the Ministry of Labour and Social Develop-ment who have been affected by COVID-19. The campaign, under the theme of “There is Good in Us”, is aimed at raising donations to support people and families impacted by the virus.

Mohammed Alardhi, Executive Chairman of Investcorp

The CEO and members of the executive management team of the National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) visited a number of the bank’s branches across the Kingdom to congratulate the staff for their commitment and hard work, ensure their wellbeing and that social distancing measures were being maintained. Durand praised the efforts of the staff and their resilience during this difficult time and stressed the importance of demonstrating unity and team spirit and the positive impact of continuing to work together despite the circumstances.

US judge blocks Twitter’s bid to reveal govt surveillance requestsReuters

Twitter Inc will not be able to reveal surveillance re-

quests it received from the US government after a federal judge accepted government ar-guments that this was likely to harm national security after a near six-year long legal battle.

The social media company had sued the US Department of Justice in 2014 to be al-lowed to reveal, as part of its “Draft Transparency Report”, the surveillance requests it received. It argued its free-speech rights were being vio-lated by not being allowed to reveal the details.

Australian Lamb and Beef - meat packed with nutritional goodness Manama

You don’t have to com-promise on flavour to eat

healthy. Australian red meat is known all over the world for its tender quality, consistent tex-ture, freshness, and exception-al flavour. Perhaps what may not be as well known about Lamb and Beef from the land down-under are the health ben-efits it provides for the entire family.

Natural NourishmentNaturally raised, in harmony

with the environment, Austral-ian Lamb and Beef is produced to the highest standards of qual-ity and integrity. When it comes to a natural habitat, very few countries are as fortunate as Australia, with animals having access to an abundance of clean water, natural food and fresh air. Australian red meat is tasty and tender with consistent texture because it is from the healthiest and most well-cared-for live-stock on earth.

Health benefits Australian Lamb and Beef

bring both flavour and nutrition to the table and is a perfect fit for an active lifestyle. Being a popu-lar choice on menus all over the Middle East, red meat is a nat-ural source of protein, iron and zinc. Protein-rich foods pro-vide a satisfying meal for those trying to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Apart from protein, iron is important for the overall health and wellbeing of the human body. Iron-rich foods are recommended from 6 months of age for good growth and development.

Variety in every meal Having red meat 3-4 times

a week makes it easier to meet your daily nutrition needs. In an interview, Nick Meara, the Regional Manager for Meat & Livestock Australia (MENA) said: “It is important to main-tain a balanced diet, and with Australian Lamb and Beef you have a variety of cut choices that offer a versatile diet with numerous meal options.

Depending on the cut, Aus-tralian Lamb and Beef can be prepared in many ways; grilling, broiling, roasting, pan-frying, slow cooking and braising to name a few. Lamb and beef form the basis for many well-known cuisines around the world. While very popular in Arabic dishes, red meat is also a favour-ite ingredient in Italian pastas, Mexican fajitas and tacos, cur-ries and casseroles from all over the world. And of course, simply grilled as a beautiful steak or lamb chop on the BBQ. There are endless choices when using

Australian Lamb and Beef.

Home-cooked meals made easy for the family

The Arab world’s first Mas-ter Chef, Tarek Ibrahim says his favourite meal is lamb with roasted vegetables and sweet potatoes. “I love how easy it is to cook up a healthy meal for the entire family with Aussie Lamb. Just rub a mix of garlic, salt, pepper, mint leaves and olive oil on a 2 kg lamb leg and place it in a dish with cut veg-gies and sweet potatoes. Put it in the oven to roast for 2 hours and that’s it! Simple and done in a matter of just a few steps.”

Tarek goes on to say “I’m of-ten asked why I prefer Austral-ian meat over others, and here’s why: Every meal eaten is phys-ically and emotionally satisfy-ing, as it’s easy to prepare and is enjoyed by everyone around the table.”

Fresh and guaranteed Halal in the Middle East

Australian Lamb and Beef on Middle Eastern supermar-ket shelves are still as fresh as the day it was packed. This is because the Australian meat industry implements world leading hygienic practices and employs the latest technologies in processing and packing to deliver wholesome, safe food to Middle East markets. All red meat processed for export from Australia is produced un-der government supervision to strict guidelines which are mon-itored throughout the entire supply chain.

In addition, Australia has one of the strictest halal pro-grammes in the world. Local Islamic organisations work with the Australian Government to implement best practices of pro-duction and slaughter stand-ards according to halal tech-niques. This has contributed to the worldwide recognition that Australia’s halal programme is amongst the most rigorously enforced halal systems in the world.

Nick Meara, the Regional Manager for Meat & Livestock Australia (MENA)

05SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

This is the period that the hibiscus is

blooming. If we don’t sell them, we’re going

to have to eat it in our salad

FRANCISCO GONZALEZ

THE OWNER OF PRIMAVERA NURSERY, A SMALL NURSERY IN HOMESTEAD, JUST

SOUTH OF MIAMI.

Virus throttles Florida’s lucrative ornamental plant industryHomestead | United States

The palm trees that line many US boulevards, the orchids

sold in supermarkets, the bushes that form park hedges -- many of

these plants come from Florida. And sales have collapsed due to the coronavirus lockdown.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a sudden halt to this year’s crop, throttling the industry just as it was reaching high season with the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere.

“This is the period that the hibiscus is blooming. If we don’t sell them, we’re going to have to eat it in our salad,” said Fran-cisco Gonzalez, the owner of Primavera Nursery, a small nurs-ery in Homestead, just south of Miami.

Florida and California pro-duce nearly half of all ornamen-tal plants in the United States -- plants sold to builders, landscap-ers, supermarkets, and Home Depots and Walmarts across the country.

Traditionally March -- pre-cisely when coronavirus lock-downs began in the US -- is when American buyers begin to focus on landscaping and gardening.

“The whole year we’ve been waiting for this moment and we’re faced with this calamity,” sighed Gonzalez, 46, a native of Guatemala.

Across six hectares Primavera

Nursery produces 70 different types of ornamental plants, in-cluding ficus, croton, clusia and heliconia, hardly essentials for those in lockdown across the US.

“Sales for April are nearly 60 per cent below where we should be,” said Gonzalez, who had in-vested money to expand produc-tion for this season.

“We should be... about 125 percent above compared to last year,” he said.

Rampant unemployment Gonzalez has cut working

hours for his 11 employees, hop-ing to extend their jobs for two more weeks. But he fears he will have to let them go if the market doesn’t recover.

“With this disease, the last thing that people are going to worry about is buying these kinds of plants,” said Antonio Tovar, general coordinator of the Farmworkers Asso-ciation of Florida. “The whole market has col-lapsed.”

As for ornamental plant growers, “90 percent of the work-ers have lost their job,” Tovar told AFP.

It is hard to know how many farmwork-ers have been affected in Florida because the vast majority are undoc-umented -- an open secret in the agricul-tural world.

These workers are off the books, with no access to unemployment bene-fits or the emergency federal aid check for employees.

Since the corona-

virus pandemic struck the US in mid-March some 22 million Americans have been left with-out a job.

Please fix your gardenForty-five percent of the $4.7

billion generated nationwide in ornamental plant sales comes from just Florida and California, according to a May 2019 US De-partment of Agriculture report.

Agriculture is Florida’s second most lucrative business sector after tourism.

Within that sector, the orna-mental plants industry generates 28 percent of cash receipts, ac-cording to the state Department of Agriculture.

“Few people may be aware of the importance of this industry... because everyone relates Miami

t o Miami Beach and tourism,” said Va-

n e s s a

Campoverde, a University of Florida expert who gives techni-cal aid to ornamental nurseries.

“But agriculture and the com-mercial ornamental industry is a huge economic impact driver, because it employs a lot of indi-viduals,” she said.

Furthermore, with fewer workers there will be less care available for the health and qual-ity of the plants.

“If it has maybe one, two or three spots on some leaves or even on the flowers - you’ll think twice” if you want to pay full price for the plant, she said.

The solution? Buy some plants and work on your garden. “Gar-dening can actually provide some mental health wellness during the isolation,” she said.

And remember that behind every plant “there are farm workers, there are families that depend on their salaries.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a sudden halt to this year’s crop, throttling the industry just as it was reaching high season with the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere.

Agriculture is Florida’s second most lucrative business sector after tourism

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a sudden halt to this year’s crop of ornamental plants, throttling the industry just as it was reaching high season

Trump announces $19 bn relief for farmers amid COVID-19 epidemicWashington

President Donald Trump on Friday announced a $19 billion financial res-

cue package to help the agri-culture industry weather the staggering economic downturn sparked by measures to defeat the coronavirus.

Trump told a press confer-ence the government “will be implementing a $19 billion relief program for our great farmers and ranchers as they cope with the fallout of the global pan-demic.”

The program will include direct payments to farmers, ranchers and producers who Trump said have experienced “unprecedented losses during this pandemic.”

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said US farmers have been hit hard by a sharp shift in demand, as schools and restau-rants close and more Americans eat at home.

That has disrupted the food supply chain, forcing farmers in many places to destroy dairy output and plow under crops that no longer have buyers.

“Having to dump milk and plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing, but it’s heartbreak-ing as well to those who produce them,” Perdue said.

Perdue said some $3 bil-lion of the money would go to buying produce and milk from such farmers, and redis-tribute it to community food banks.

Millions of Americans have recently turned to food pantries for meals and groceries after losing their jobs.

The US farm and food indus-try has been hit in numerous ways by the coronavirus epi-demic.

Farmers are having trouble finding seasonal laborers to pre-pare and harvest crops; some meatpacking plants have been hit hard by COVID-19 outbreaks.

But the change in the way consumers eat has had a huge impact.

“Shuttered schools, universi-ties, restaurants, bars and cafe-terias are no longer buying milk, meat, fruits, vegetables and oth-er food, causing a downward spiral in crop and livestock pric-

es,” the American Farm Bureau said recently.

Perdue praised farmers, who have enjoyed billions of dollars in support payments over the past two years due to the impact of Trump’s trade war with Chi-na, as “heroic.”

“Our farmers have been in the fields planting and doing what they do every spring to feed the American people, even with a pandemic, as we speak.”

Volunteers load food into vehicles during a mobile market day at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia

India toughens rules on investments from neighboursReuters | New Delhi

India has stepped up scrutiny of investments from com-

panies based in neighbouring countries.

India’s trade ministry said in a notification dated April 17 the changes to federal rules on investment were meant to curb “opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions”.

Investments from an enti-ty in a country that shares a land border with India will require government approval, it said, meaning they can not go through a so-called auto-matic route.

“These times should not be used by other countries to take over our companies,” a sen-ior government official told Reuters.

Similar restrictions are al-ready in place for Bangladesh and Pakistan. But up to now, they have not applied to China and India’s other neighbours including Bhutan, Afghani-stan, Myanmar and Nepal.

“This will certainly impact sentiment among Chinese in-vestors. However, greenfield investments will not be im-pacted,” said Santosh Pai, a partner at Indian law firm Link Legal that advises several Chi-nese companies.

Australia has also said all foreign investment proposals will be assessed by a review board during the coronavirus crisis to prevent a fire sale of distressed corporate assets. Germany has taken similar

measures.A February report by re-

search group Gateway House said Chinese foreign direct investment into India stood at $6.2 billion.

China’s Bytedance has plans to invest $1 billion in Indian, while automakers including Great Wall Motor Co Ltd and MG Motor, a unit of China’s SAIC, have said they intend to invest millions.

Delano Furtado, a partner with law firm Trilegal, said the notification may also impact Chinese companies with exist-ing investments in the country.

“Any follow-on investments in those entities may now re-quire approvals,” he said.

India’s notification also said government approval would also be needed to change the ownership of an Indian entity that had existing foreign in-vestment.

Representative picture (Courtesy of ToI)

SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

This means they were broadly advocates of a federated (or

confederated), centralized European state, without

ever having the necessary political debate that

raged in the US in the 1790s between the

advocates of centralism (Alexander Hamilton) and decentralization (Thomas

Jefferson).

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: news@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 36458394 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

DR. JOHN C. HULSMAN

I have long suspected that the endless undoubtedly boring Eu-ropean summit meetings are so

turgid for a reason. It is easy to get lost in the byzantine complexities of false agreements that actually solve nothing. And that is how the EU likes it: For us to have little idea that it is a paper tiger, so much less than meets the eye in terms of its geostrategic power.

But crises clarify. And there is absolutely no doubt that the coro-navirus has made crystal clear that the old model governing the EU has finally, after a brilliant 70-year run, entirely run out of steam. The sup-posed deal over emergency Europe-an coronavirus funds pledged last week to the plague-ravaged south, far from being a concord, has ex-posed the EU’s haplessness for all to see.

First, if you are brave enough to wade through the actual agreement reached, it becomes palpably clear that it is full of policy holes. The Eurogroup of finance ministers has recommended using the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), estab-lished in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession, to meet the southerners’ needs.

A basic problem with this is that the ESM was set up in the wake of an asymmetric shock — the par-ticular economic follies of Greece and possibly other southern econ-omies — rather than the symmetric shock of a global pandemic. In other words, there can be no doubt that Greece was largely to blame for its own parlous situation. The same

cannot now be said of the Southern European states ravaged by a global pandemic. The basic issue of fairness is in real question.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte rightly calls the proposed €540 billion ($587 billion) rescue plan “a trap.” The accord is there to only deal with the immediate impact of the virus. However, over the much larger rescue efforts necessary to revive the Italian and other south-ern economies necessitated by the debilitating lockdown, normal con-ditionality will be imposed.

This is understandably political-ly toxic in Italy, where it is seen as surrendering basic sovereignty to the uncertain mercies of economic overlords the EU, the International Monetary Fund and the Europe-an Central Bank. No Italian leader could accept such colonization and survive. In true Kafkaesque fash-ion, no country in the south that truly needs the ESM can politically accept it. These design flaws have become so obvious that the deal has unraveled almost immediately upon delivery.

This amounts to more than Eu-rope’s glaring inability to behave as a union when it truly counts; it also illustrates the limits of the guiding philosophy of the EU. The “Monnet method” — functionalism — is a pol-icy strategy based on the advocacy of small, technocratic, apolitical agree-ments being agreed to precisely be-cause they seemed secondary, or technical, eventually amounting to decisive movement toward a con-federated European state.

In the 1950s, rather than talking about grand visions of European

union (a Valhalla that had far less than majority support), it was better to discuss seemingly inoffensive coal and steel union, even as the latter led to further economic union, and then to a degree of political union. Large political questions were to be pur-posefully avoided in favor of getting to large political answers (always in the direction of ever closer union) through the backdoor of technical, apolitical initiatives. Over decades, functionalism met with the great-est of success, as a broadly united Europe emerged, all without ever answering the basic question of what sort of political construct was truly being created.

While this seemed clever and it worked for a long while, in actuality, functionalism has stored up a great deal of trouble for Europe, which has come home to roost since the Great Recession of 2008. The founders of the EU wanted a powerful Hamilto-nian Brussels without ever having their Hamiltonian moment..

This means they were broadly advocates of a federated (or confed-erated), centralized European state, without ever having the necessary political debate that raged in the US in the 1790s between the advocates of centralism (Alexander Hamilton) and decentralization (Thomas Jef-ferson). In the end, the federalist ad-ministration of George Washington opted for Hamilton’s centralizing vision, won overwhelming re-elec-tion and a popular mandate for the national government to assume state debt, while at the same time estab-lishing a powerful national Treas-ury, brilliantly headed by Hamilton himself.

Due to an overly clever function-alism, present European leaders (with the honorable exception of President Emmanuel Macron of France) shied away from this diffi-cult argument in the happier times that preceded the coronavirus. But the failure of functionalism over the past 70 years to decisively answer the question of what sort of union Europe was to become is now fatally handicapping basic and necessary efforts to combat the coronavirus — the political risk event of our gen-eration.

The result is an EU built only for sunny weather, which trundles along nicely in good times, but is fatally overmatched in bad ones. A political union that no one really believes in and whose members are not willing to make the basic sacrifice of blood and treasure for is a union only in name. And, without the Hamiltoni-an moment in these times of crisis, Europe will be increasingly unfit for purpose.

A FOOL THINKS HIMSELF TO BE WISE, BUT A WISE MAN KNOWS HIMSELF TO BE A FOOL.WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Once again the leaders, the busi-ness houses and the people of the Kingdom of Bahrain have

come together in the spirit of patriot-ism and unity to raise defenses against an unusual and unseen enemy – the COVID-19 virus pandemic.

In just 24 hours, these parties, led by the example of HH Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, have raised over BD 21 million to help people and business-es struck by the impact of the virus. The funds, under the project ‘Feena Khair’ (There is Good in Us) will be used for business support and medical support as well as humanitarian food and clothing aid.

The Bahrain Chamber of Commerce & Industry also provided its spacious and centrally-located old premises for use by the COVID-19 task force.

In the midst of our peculiar con-dition of isolation, social dis-tancing and despair, we must rejoice in this stream of com-passion that has sprung from amidst us to counter the harsh reality of the crisis. It is praise-worthy of the big businesses to have come forward to sup-port the vision of the leaders of Bahrain and keep the hu-manitarian consideration as the first priority in this crisis.

Long after the dust has set-tled around the world, those who will be remembered are leaders who led from the heart. Undoubtedly, the response of Bahrain’s lead-ership will shed a beacon of light on our historic response. Inspired by His Majesty, our Crown Prince and First Dep-uty Premier guided the gov-ernment in the crucial early days to approach the sensi-tive themes of quarantine and treatment with compassion. When he returned from his

sojourn abroad, our beloved Prime Minister immediately galvanized the Cabinet and government officials, displaying his admirable energy and crisis management in managing the situation.

I am sure you will all agree that this has inspired our business houses and individuals to donate so generously and tap the vein of goodness within us and reach out to help fellow-residents of Bahrain. The days are challenging but when we have great leaders, we all rise to the occasion and to greater heights of goodness than we ourselves thought possible.

Yes indeed. There is good in us all..

(Captain Mahmood Al Mahmood is the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Tribune and the President of the Arab-African Unity

Organisation for Relief, Human Rights and Counterterrorism)

Great leaders inspire us to

goodness

CAPT. MAHMOOD AL MAHMOOD

I am sure you will all agree that this has inspired our

business houses and individuals

to donate so generously and

tap the vein of goodness within us and reach out

to help fellow-residents of

Bahrain.

EU doomed without the Hamiltonian moment

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte calls the proposed €540 billion rescue plan a trap.

HH Shaikh Nasser

06SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

Pay the rent or eat? Suddenly jobless Americans face dilemma• Washington’s plan to jumpstart the US economy includes checks of about $1,200 or more for many American

• Many people struggle with debt and lack a financial safety net

• In 2018, 40 per cent of Americans said they had less than $400 saved for emergencies

San Francisco

Terra Thomas, one of the millions of Americans who

have lost their income due to the coronavirus pandemic, was stuck between a rock and a hard place -- pay her rent or put food on the table?

“Looking at my finances, it was, ‘do I give the last little bit of my money to my landlord -- who has a billion-dollar corporation -- or do I save this for necessities like food and health care?’” said Thomas, who lives in Oakland in the San Francisco Bay area.

Thomas is participating in a “rent strike” with four other res-idents in her building, a growing movement across the US among people who face the same di-lemma.

“I risk a lot,” said Thomas, but “I don’t have a choice but to strike.”

She works as a freelance florist for events, particularly

weddings, so Thomas’s income depends completely on the re-sumption of group activities. Re-fusing to pay her $833 rent “feels like a pretty common sense de-cision. It feels like a matter of survival,” she told AFP.

Over the past month, a stag-gering 22 million Americans have lost their jobs as stores, restaurants and other business-es deemed non-essential were forced to close, shedding legions of workers.

The shutdown of all this non-essential activity, an at-tempt to slow the spread of COVID-19, has had serious con-sequences in a country where many people struggle with debt and lack a financial safety net.

In 2018, 40 per cent of Amer-icans said they had less than $400 saved for emergencies, without selling belongings or borrowing, according to a report by the Federal Reserve.

Some small-scale landlords

have proposed repaying rent via instalments. Several cities and states, including California, have passed executive orders prohib-iting eviction of tenants affected by the coronavirus crisis.

But when the lockdown lifts, the moratorium will end. And tenants will have to pay their back-rent or move out.

Indebted“We can’t have people ac-

cumulating debts during this time so when this is all over, they might end up on the street. They’re working to pay off debts as opposed to getting their life back together and up and run-ning,” said Hillary Ronen, a San Francisco district supervisor.

“It’s going to stall the econo-my. It makes no sense at all.”

With other local elected offi-cials, she called on the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, on Congress and on President Donald Trump to cancel rents

and extend mortgage payments for landlords.

Washington’s plan to jump-start the US economy includes checks of about $1,200 or more for many Americans, particu-larly lower-income and mid-dle-class households.

But the checks often won’t be enough to cover fixed expenses, particularly in cities with high rent.

In San Francisco, the average rent for a one-bedroom apart-ment is “around $3,500-3,700 a month. It’s obscene,” said Ronen.

“We need either a mass infu-sion of cash directly to renters, or we need cancelation of rents during the period of stay-at-home order. If we do not have one of those two things, we will have a mass eviction crisis where individuals and families will end up homeless on the streets of this country, in huge large num-bers,” said Ronen.

About 2,000 people have pledged not to pay their next month’s rent to the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, which provides legal aid to rent strikers as one of several organizations overseeing the movement. It is not known how many people are taking part overall.

In survival mode nowRicky Zepeda, 44, ended up

paying $600 of his $1,600 rent for April on his three-room apartment in Richmond, in the Bay Area.

He acted as main spokesman for everybody in the seven oc-cupied units of his building, who

initially agreed to join the rent strike.

“Everybody said ‘yeah let’s do it,’ but then they got scared and backed out. In April, half of them paid whole thing, most of the other paid part of it,” Zepeda said.

Zepeda is legally blind, his wife lost her job at a food pack-ing plant and his 22-year-old daughter, who also lives at home, say her hours cut to one day a week at the check cashing place where she works.

So what Zepeda did pay for the April rent came from his dis-ability check.

He said he does not know what he will do in May. “We are in survival mode right now,” Zepeda said.

“For a rent strike to work you need millions people doing it. It doesn’t work unless a good portion of us do it,” said Freder-ick Joseph, a New Yorker who founded his own marketing firm.

He issued an appeal for dona-tions to help families struggling to buy even the basics of every-day life, and since the beginning of the crisis he has collected and distributed $170,000.

He, too, called on governments to pass laws forgiving back rent, insisting people will never be able to come up with that money anyway.

“People will try to find a way to pay it. Some might start crimi-nal activity, people who feel they have to keep a roof over their head,” said Joseph.

“It’s in their best interest that elected officials step up right now.”

A street in Brooklyn, in New York, which has become the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the US

Checks being sent out to American households to help cope with the fallout from the coronavirus lockdown often won’t be enough to cover fixed expenses, particularly in cities with high rent

A staggering 22 million Americans

have lost their jobs as stores,

restaurants and other businesses

deemed non-essential were forced to close,

shedding legions of workers

Landmark Lebanon hotel closes over economic crisisAFP | Beirut

A five-star hotel in Beirut that once hosted royalty and survived the civil

war has been forced to close over Lebanon’s economic crisis and coronavirus lockdown, its manager said yesterday.

Lebanon is grappling with its worst financial crunch since the 1975-1990 civil war, now compounded by a nationwide lockdown since March 15 to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The crisis has pushed the owners of Le Bristol to close down the landmark hotel after almost seven decades in busi-ness, its general manager Jo-seph Coubat said.

“It’s because of the economic situation which has become unbearable,” he said.

“Now with the coronavirus, and with the financial problems we are going through in the country, the level of occupan-cy has fallen very low,” he told AFP, saying it was less than 10 percent.

He said the owners had de-cided to shut the hotel “while waiting for better days”, but that for the moment the closure was definitive.

Designed by French interior designer Jean Royere, Le Bris-tol was first opened in 1951.

It boasts the oldest ballroom in Beirut and once housed Leb-anon’s first ever skating rink

before it was turned into a con-ference room.

Its guests have included the late shah of Iran Moham-mad Reza Pahlavi and his wife Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari, American jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and former French president Jacques Chirac.

Le Bristol never closed dur-ing the civil war, when it hosted foreign journalists, though it was shuttered for refurbish-ment between 2013 and 2015, when owners poured millions of dollars into its renovation.

Between 2004 and 2005, the political opposition met there in what was the first large gathering against the then Syr-ian presence in Lebanon. The group was dubbed the “Bristol meeting”.

Occupancy at the hotel start-ed dropping from October last year, Coubat said, when a crum-bling economy and frustration with the political elite led to an unprecedented anti-govern-ment street movement.

After the COVID-19 pandem-ic reached the country, the airport’s closure from March 19 as part of measures to halt the spread of the virus dealt a further blow to the hospitality sector.

Many hotels have zero occu-pancy at the moment, the head of the hotel owner syndicate has said.

“It’s catastrophic. Those in charge now need to really think up a rescue plan,” Coubat said, referring a new government struggling to redress the econ-omy since January.

Le Bristol hotel in Beirut has been in business for almost seven decades and even stayed open during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil wa

Lockdown cuts India’s fuel demand 50pc in first half of April

Reuters | New Delhi

Indian state retailers sold 50 per cent less refined fuel in

the first two weeks of April than the same time a year ago as a nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of the new coronavirus hit transportation and industrial activity, indus-try sources said.

State companies - Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Bharat Petroleum - own about 90pc of India’s retail fuel outlets.

India’s gasoil sales by state retailers in the first 15 days of April dropped by 61pc from a year earlier while gasoline and jet fuel sales declined by 64pc and 94pc, provisional industry data provided by two sources, who asked not to be named, show.

India’s overall refined fuel demand includes consumption of fuel oil, bitumen and lique-fied petroleum gas (LPG).

State-retailers sold 21pc

more LPG in the first fortnight of April from a year earlier. India is providing free cooking gas cylinders to the poor for three months to June to help them weather the impact of the lockdown.

India has extended the over-all lockdown until May 3, but has announced a roadmap to restart some industrial activity after April 20 in locations that are not coronavirus hotspots to try to revive the economy.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) in its latest re-port said India’s annual fuel consumption - a proxy for oil demand - will decline 5.6pc in 2020 compared with growth of 2.4pc forecast in its March report.

It estimates India’s gasoline demand will decline by 9pc, while diesel will drop by 6.1pc.

The slump in fuel demand has already forced some refin-ers to halve crude processing and increase prompt exports of refined fuels.

Employees direct a vehicle towards the fuel pump at a fuel station in New Delhi, India

Amazon deploys thermal cameras at warehouses to scan for fevers faster

Reuters

Amazon.com Inc has started to use thermal

cameras at its warehous-es to speed up screening for feverish workers who could be infected with the coronavirus, employees told Reuters.

The cameras in effect measure how much heat people emit relative to their surroundings. They require less time and contact than forehead thermometers, earlier adopted by Amazon, the workers said.

Cases of the virus have been reported among staff at more than 50 of Amazon’s U.S. warehouses. That has prompted some workers to worry for their safety and walk off the job. Unions and elected officials have called on Amazon to close build-ings down.

The use of cameras, pre-viously unreported, shows how America’s second-big-gest corporate employer is exploring methods to con-tain the virus’ spread with-out shuttering warehouses essential to its operation.

Amazon workers in a facility in Robbinsville, New Jersey

7 SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

C R O S S W O R DAcrossBellyache; 5- Ships’ officers; 10- Thought-provoking; 14- Presidential battleground state; 15- Steamed; 16- Track numbers; 17- Significance; 19- Change for a five; 20- I ___ vacation!; 21- Water faucet; 23- Cleaning agent; 25- Approaches; 26- Bone: Prefix; 29- Stuff; 31- Les ___-Unis; 35- ___-Foy, Quebec; 36- Noteworthy achievement; 37- Irish tongue; 38- Angelic musician?; 40- One’s first needlework piece?; 41- Wide of the mark; 42- Wife of Osiris; 43- It may come before long; 44- Maker of Pong; 45- Rind; 46- Wall St. letters; 47- Mary of “The Maltese Falcon”; 49- “___ don’t say!”; 51- Honcho; 54- Dome home; 58- Yours, in Tours; 59- Partly gilded; 63- Cheer (for); 64- Group character; 65- Expel gas or odor; 66- Sat on the back of a horse; 67- Chambers; 68- Up ___ good; Down1- Fountain-bottom sight; 2- Words of woe; 3- Ready for plucking; 4- Breed of dog; 5- Cambridge sch.; 6- First name in Notre Dame football; 7- Light brown color, common to pale sunworshippers; 8- One engraving; 9- Later, dude!; 10- Threshold; 11- Actress Best; 12- Biblical garden; 13- Hey, over here!; 18- Narrow beam of light; 22- Visions; 24- Discharge; 25- Rebellious Turner; 26- Milo of “Barbarella”; 27- Square one; 28- ___ firma; 30- Gobble up; 32- Narrow street; 33- Layers; 34- Rocky debris; 36- Complete; 37- Merrily; 39- Sponger; 40- Wind dir.; 42- Occupational suffix; 45- Edible tuber; 46- Gold lump; 48- Hard drinker; 50- Petroleum; 51- Roseanne, once; 52- Langston Hughes poem; 53- Well-behaved; 55- Prom wheels; 56- Actress Lena; 57- Director Preminger; 60- 17th letter of the Greek alphabet; 61- Dot follower; 62- Pothook shape;

Yesterday’s solution

How to playPlace a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

Yesterday’s solution

S U D O K U

Lindsay Lohan finds lockdown life in Dubai challenging

Los Angeles

Actress Lindsay Lohan is doing her best to survive in Dubai amid strict lockdown orders.

Lohan, who calls the United Arab Emirates her home, says it has been a struggle to get the supplies she needs amid the region’s serious COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, reports aceshowbiz.com.

“It is very strict here… You are not allowed outside, they take it very seriously,” Lohan said during a video chat with David Spade for his show called “Lights Out”.

She added: ”Just one person can go out of the house at a time. If you don’t have a reason or aren’t approved for a permit to go to the supermarket, are found without gloves or a mask, or surpass 90 minutes.”

Lohan, who was planning to tour the US to promote her new song “Back to me” when the lockdown began, spends her time between New York and the UAE, and can’t see herself returning to the US anytime soon.

Alaya F pulls off a complicated inversion yoga pose

Mumbai

Actress Alaya F took to Instagram and posted a clip where

she is seen striking an in-version yoga pose. She got the complicated pose right after a few failed attempts, she informed, adding that she was in-spired by Jacqueline Fenrnandez and ce-lebrity fitness trainer Kuldeep Shashi.

“Inspired by @jacque-linef143 and @kuldeep-

shashi sir. I was dying to try this inversion challenge

but everyone told me ‘this is not something you can just get

up and learn in one day’.. I fell on my face a few times but DID IT

ANYWAY (wait for the end where I try to be very cool and fall)” Alaya, daughter of actress Pooja Bedi, captioned the image.

Alaya made her Hindi film de-but with Nitin Kakkar’s “Jawaani Jaaneman”, a comedy-drama in which she played a 21-year-old girl claiming that a 40-year-old person who hates commitment and mar-riage (played by Saif Ali Khan) is her her father.

When ‘Joker’ Joaquin Phoenix was almost cast as BatmanLos Angeles

“Joker” star Joaquin Phoenix was almost

cast as Batman way back in the nineties.

After George Clooney’s 1997 outing as the caped crusader in “Batman & Rob-in” flopped, “Black Swan” director Darren Aronofsky was tipped to direct a new Batman film, and Phoenix was his first choice for the role.

A r o -n o f s k y said that he wanted to re-invent Batman and s u g g e s t e d Phoenix as the leading role, reports ace-showbiz.com.

“The studio wanted Fred-die Prinze Jr. and I wanted Joaquin Phoenix. It was a different time. The Batman I wrote was definitely a way different type of take than they ended up making,” Ar-onofsky tells Empire of his plans for “Batman: Year One”.

He added: “The Batman that was out before me was ‘Batman & Robin’, the famous one, so I was really trying to under-mine that, and reinvent it. That’s where my head went.”

Los Angeles

Singer Taylor Swift is pushing all her sched-uled shows of this year

to 2021.“I’m so sad I won’t be able to

see you guys in concert this year, but I know this is the right decision,”

Taylor said on Instagram Stories, ad-dressing her fans, according to a report

in eonline.com.“Please, please stay healthy and safe. I’ll

see you on stage as soon as I can but right now, what’s important is committing to this

quarantine, for the sake of all of us.”This summer, she was scheduled to perform

at select arenas as part of her Lover Fest.Meanwhile, Taylor has been practicing

social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.

“During this time I know that a lot of my friends and I have been doing a sort of weekly family FaceTime, which is al-ways hilarious,” Taylor said on a show.

Why Dua Lipa needs ‘lots of windows’ to write musicLos Angeles

Si n g e r D u a L i p a s a y s s h e w r i t e s

best when she is in a bright and airy mi-lieu — that is during daytime.

Asked what her cho-sen spot to write mu-sic was, the pop star replied: “In the studio, but it has to be bright and airy with lots of win-dows. I like to write during the day, I’m not such a big fan of, like, dark studios with purple lighting.” Dua Lipa was speak-ing to Attitude.co.uk, reports aceshowbiz.com.

Last month, She shared that Kim Petras and Sam Smith are her favourite LGBTQ+ artists.

“Kim Petras. I really like ‘Heart To Break’, such a good song. But then, wait! Can I take it back? I love Kim, but then my baby, Sam Smith!”

New York feels the same as 9/11 amid coronavirus crisis, says Robert De NiroNew York

As New York has become the epicenter of coro-

navirus pandemic in the US, Robert De Niro says the city feels the same as it did dur-ing 9/11.

The veteran actor, who has never minced his words while criticising President Donald Trump, said he was unimpressed by the delayed response of the federal government, re-ported Deadline.

I wish that people, the government had acted earlier. They had enough warning. Because we would not be at this stage of this pandemic, I think, if that had happened, De Niro said during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

The New York native was asked how New York feels compared to after 9/11.

It feels the same, except this is like something we see in a movie. It happened so fast. It’s unreal to see every big city in the world just sort of empty. You only see that in a movie, and it’s hap-pening to us, De Niro said.

The 76-year-old Holly-wood star, however, praised the state’s governor Andrew Cuomo for his great job.

COVID-19: Shah Rukh Khan urges people to donate for stray, abandoned animals during lockdownMumbai

Superstar Shah Rukh Khan on Friday urged people to donate for stray and aban-

doned animals which are going hungry due to the nation-wide lockdown imposed to contain coronavirus spread.

The superstar took to Twit-ter and wrote, “As the world is coping with the outbreak of

COVID-19, We must not forget those without a voice. Let’s make sure stray & abandoned animals are treated with care and compassion. Help @amt-mindiavia http://amtmindia.org/donate/”

The ‘My Name is Khan’ actor has also come forward to help in the battle against coronavirus by contributing 25,000 personal protective equipment (PPE) kits

to the Maharashtra Health De-partment for the safety of the

doctors and healthcare workers in the state.

Moreover, Khan along with his group of companies have pledged to donate to a number of relief funds, including the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assis-tance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM-CARES) fund and the Maharashtra Chief Minis-ter’s Relief Fund to combat the coronavirus.

Joaquin Phoenix

John Krasinski hosts virtual prom with Billie Eilish, Jonas Brothers

Washington

Even though so many high school students will miss out on proms this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic,

actor John Krasinski hosted a star-studded virtual prom to give high schoolers that special night.

Since the pandemic began, Krasinski has taken to YouTube with a new series, Some Good News, where he tries to highlight positive things going on while

everyone is confined to their own homes. Past stories include ICU

teams inventing dances for people coming off of ventilators,

nuns lip-syncing to Queen, and a young boy who finds

it necessary to greet every person he sees in the

street.

John Krasinski

Alaya F

Shah Rukh Khan

Lindsay Lohan

COVID-19 effect: Taylor

Swift pushes all 2020 concerts to

next yearTaylor Swift

Dua Lipa

08SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

158,028

588,634

Deaths

Recovered:

New cases

New deaths +57,153

+3,883

Covid-19 Cases:

Country Total cases

new cases

Total deaths

New Deaths

Total recovered

Active cases

Serious, Critical

Tot cases/1m pop

Bahrain 1,773 +27 7 755 1,011 3 1,038

Saudi Arabia 8,274 +1,132 92 +5 1,329 6,853 78 238

UAE 6,302 37 1,188 5,077 1 637

Kuwait 1,751 +93 6 +1 280 1,465 34 410

Oman 1,180 +111 6 176 998 3 231

Egypt 3,032 +188 224 +19 701 2,107 30

Middle East

Country Total cases New deaths Total Deaths

USA 726,856 +1,046 38,200

Spain 191,726 +41 20,043

Italy 175,925 +482 23,227

France 147,969 18,681

Germany 142,751 +60 4,412

UK 114,217 +888 15,464

China 82,719 4,632

Turkey 82,329 +121 1,890

Iran 80,868 +73 5,031

Belgium 37,183 +290 5,453

Russia 36,793 +40 313

Brazil 35,025 +62 2,203

Canada 33,137 +36 1,346

India 14,792 +2 488

G l o b a l C o u n t r i e s w o r s t a f f e c t e d

Figures as of closing

News in brief After more than three weeks stranded in Australian waters, the Artania cruise ship set sail for Germany on Saturday to cheers by locals and relief from officials who had been keen to see the virus-stricken vessel leave the country.

The ship left Fremantle with a skeleton crew cleared to pilot the ship to Germany, and will first ferry about 300 staff and 11 passengers Indonesia before heading for Europe, Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan told media.

Singapore announced more than 900 new cases of coronavirus yesterday, a new record high, with nearly all

infections traced to packed dormitories housing foreign workers. The affluent city-state had initially been held as a gold standard in the global fight against COVID-19, but a surge in the number of cases has left the government scrambling to contain the spread.

The number of coronavirus victims in Britain’s care homes could be as

high as 7,500, five times more than the official estimate, the sector’s main charity warned yesterday. Care England, Britain’s largest representative body for care homes, told the Daily Telegraph that estimates based on “some of the death rates since April 1” suggested up to 7,500 may have died of the virus.

Tests on the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, which was struck by an outbreak of COVID-19, found that two-thirds of sailors who tested positive were asymptomatic, a top military official said Friday. Nearly the

entire crew was tested after the coronavirus outbreak forced the nuclear-powered carrier to dock in Guam. One crew member has died.

President Donald Trump appeared to lend support on Friday to protestors in several US states who have been demonstrating against stay-at-home orders imposed because of the coronavirus pandemic. “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” Trump tweeted. “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”

The Nigerian president’s chief of staff died on Friday from COVID-19, the presidency said on Saturday, making him the most high profile person in the country to die in

the coronavirus outbreak.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has had some contact with ministers while he is recovering from COVID-19, housing minister Robert Jenrick said yesterday.

Pakistan has lifted restrictions on congregational prayers at mosques, but put in place a host of safety conditions to avert the further spread of the

coronavirus in the country, a statement said yesterday.

Captain Tom Moore, a 99-year-old British war veteran who has raised

more than 23 million pounds ($28.77 million) for the health service by walking laps of his garden, will be a guest of honour at the opening of a new field hospital next week. Moore will praise National Health Service (NHS) workers via video link at the opening of a new “Nightingale” Hospital in Harrogate, northern England

Experimental Coronavirus drug remdesivir effective in monkeysAFP | Washington

The experimental antiviral drug remdesivir has proven effective

against COVID-19 in a small exper-iment involving monkeys, US gov-ernment scientists reported Friday.

The study, which is preliminary and has not yet been peer reviewed, was designed to follow dosing and treatment procedures used for hos-pitalized COVID-19 patients in a large human trial.

It involved two groups of six rhe-sus macaques that were deliberate-ly infected with SARS-CoV-2.

One group received the drug, which was developed by Gilead Sciences, and the other group did not.

The group receiving the drug got their first intravenous dose 12 hours after infection then every day subsequently for six days.

The scientists timed the initial treatment to occur shortly before the virus reached its highest levels in the animals’ lungs.

The treated animals showed sig-nificant improvement 12 hours af-ter their first dose, a trend that con-tinued over the week-long study.

One of the six treated animals

showed mild breathing difficul-ty, while all six of the untreated monkeys had rapid and difficult breathing.

The amount of virus found in the lungs was significantly lower in the treated group compared to the untreated group.

The treated group also had less lung damage.

R e m d e s i v i r w a s among the first drugs mooted as a treatment for

the novel coronavirus and its ran-domized clinical trials are at an advanced stage.

The health news website Stat on Thursday reported the drug had shown great efficacy at a Chicago hospi- tal where patients who

are part of those trials are being treated.

Remdesivir causes the vi-

rus to add muta-tions that can destroy it.

Representative image

WHO unsure antibodies protect against COVID, little sign of herd immunityReuters | Geneva

The World Health Or-ganisation is not sure

whether the presence of an-tibodies in blood gives full protection against reinfec-tion with the new corona-virus, Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies expert, told a briefing on Friday.

Ryan also said that even if antibodies were effective there was little sign that large numbers of people had developed them and were beginning to offer so-called “herd immunity” to the broader population.

“A lot of preliminary in-formation coming to us right now would suggest quite a low percentage of population have serocon-verted (to produce antibod-ies),” he said.

“The expectation that ... the majority in society may have developed antibod-ies, the general evidence is pointing against that, so it may not solve the problem of governments.”

Wife of Sheikh Talal Al-Thani accuses Qatar of torturing husbandLondon

Wife of detained Qatari roy-al Sheikh Talal Al-Thani,

Asma Arian, yesterday in an appeal to the UN alleged that her husband is being tortured and ill-treated in custody by the Qatari authorities.

In a statement released via a video on her Twitter handle, she said: “Sheikh Talal has been imprisoned in extremely harsh conditions and in violation of his fundamental human rights.”

Sheikh Talal, who has been detained for seven years, has not been charged by the Qatari au-

thorities. “The mistreatment to which he has been subjected to has put his life in serious danger.

It has also forcibly separated his younger children and myself,” she said in the statement to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Sheikh Talal is the grandson of the late Sheikh Ahmed bin Ali Al-Thani, the former Emir of Qatar who reigned from 1960 until 1972. Sheikh Ahmad was then deposed by his cousin Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad, the grandfather of Qatar’s current Emir Tamim bin Hamad.

“I’m v worried reading re-ports of Qatar refusing to test prisoners suspected of having

#coronavirus. My husband has medical conditions & vulnera-ble. Human right groups must intervene to release him urgent-ly & unconditionally. His life is in danger. Regime bears full responsibility,” Arian tweeted on March 29.At a conference held by the Geneva Press Club in March last year, Rayyan said that tensions between family members escalated following the death of one of the founders of Qatar, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Ahmed, after his exile in Saudi Arabia in 2008, an Arab News report said.

Screen showing of video showing Asma Arian

Afghan prez palace staff test positive for coronavirusReuters | Kabul

At least 20 officials work-ing at Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s palace

have tested positive for corona-virus, prompting the 70-year-old leader to limit most of his contact with staff to digital communication, government sources said yesterday.

An official document deliv-ered to the Presidential Palace in Kabul is thought to have infected staff, many of whom began feeling unwell and were tested earlier this month, ac-cording to a senior health of-ficial.

“A contaminated document was sent to an office inside the palace from another gov-

ernment department and that ’s how the employees were infected,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Some of the employees were still working in their of-fices when the results came out, and we had to quarantine them and their families, but the numbers could be higher,” the official added.

A government source said that Ghani, who in the past has said he suffers from health issues related to his stomach, has limited contact with staff, conducting most meetings through video con-ference calls and meeting only a handful in his inner circle in person.

Putin orders daily coronavirus projections as Russia’s tally nears 37,000Reuters | Moscow

Ru s s i a n P r e s i d e n t Vladimir Putin ordered

the government to provide daily forecasts of the spread of the novel coronavirus as Russia recorded almost 5,000 new cases in a single day.

Coronavirus infections in Russia began rising sharply in April after reporting far fewer infections than many western European coun-tries in the outbreak’s early stages.

On Saturday, Russia’s of-ficial tally of coronavirus cases was 36,793, a record overnight rise of 4,785, and death toll rose by 40 to 313.

The government must “provide a short-term prognosis of the number of citizens who may contract the new infectious disease (COVID-19)” and report its estimates on a daily ba-sis, according to an order published on the Kremlin’s website.

2,306,016

09SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

You’ve been hearing that this is a

breathing problem, but it also affects

what we most care about, the brain.

If you become confused, if you’re having problems

thinking, those are reasons to seek

medical attention.The old mantra

of ‘Don’t come in unless you’re short of breath’ probably

doesn’t apply anymore

S ANDREW JOSEPHSONCHAIR OF THE NEUROLOGY DEPARTMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN

FRANCISCO

Confusion, seizure, strokesHow COVID-19 may affect the brain

AFP | Washington

A pattern is emerging among COVID-19 patients arriving at hospitals in

New York: Beyond fever, cough and shortness of breath, some are deeply disoriented to the point of not knowing where they are or what year it is.

At times this is linked to low oxygen levels in their blood, but in certain patients the confu-sion appears disproportionate to how their lungs are faring.

Jennifer Frontera, a neurol-ogist at NYU Langone Brooklyn hospital seeing these patients, said the findings were raising concerns about the impact of the coronavirus on the brain and nervous system.

By now, most people are fa-miliar with the respiratory hall-marks of the COVID-19 disease that has infected more than 2.2 million people around the world.

But more unusual signs are surfacing in new reports from the frontlines.

A study published in the Jour-nal of the American Medical Association last week found 36.4 percent of 214 Chinese pa-tients had neurological symp-toms ranging from loss of smell and nerve pain, to seizures and strokes.

A paper in the New England Journal of Medicine this week examining 58 patients in Stras-bourg, France found that more than half were confused or ag-itated, with brain imaging sug-gesting inflammation.

“You’ve been hearing that this is a breathing problem, but it also affects what we most care about, the brain,” S Andrew Jo-sephson, chair of the neurology department at the University of California, San Francisco said.

“If you become confused, if you’re having problems think-ing, those are reasons to seek medical attention,” he added.

“The old mantra of ‘Don’t come in unless you’re short of breath’ probably doesn’t apply anymore.”

Viruses and the brainIt isn’t completely surprising

to scientists that SARS-CoV-2 might impact the brain and nervous system, since this has been documented in other vi-ruses, including HIV, which can cause cognitive decline if un-treated.

Viruses affect the brain in one of two main ways, explained

Michel Toledano, a neurologist at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

One is by triggering an abnor-mal immune response known as a cytokine storm that causes in-flammation of the brain -- called autoimmune encephalitis.

The second is direct infection of the brain, called viral enceph-alitis.

How might this happen?T h e b r a i n i s p r o t e c t -

ed by something called the blood-brain-barrier, which blocks foreign substances but could be breached if compro-mised.

However, since loss of smell is a common symptom of the coronavirus, some have hypoth-esized the nose might be the

pathway to the brain.This remains unproven -- and

the theory is somewhat under-mined by the fact that many patients experiencing anosmia don’t go on to have severe neu-rological symptoms.

In the case of the novel coro-navirus, doctors believe based on the current evidence the neurological impacts are more likely the result of overactive immune response rather than brain invasion.

To prove the latter even hap-pens, the virus must be detected in cerebrospinal fluid.

This has been documented once, in a 24-year-old Japanese man whose case was published in the International Journal of Infectious Disease.

The man developed confu-sion and seizures, and imaging showed his brain was inflamed. But since this is the only known case so far, and the virus test hasn’t yet been validated for spinal fluid, scientists remain cautious.

More research neededAll of this emphasizes the

need for more research.Frontera, who is also a pro-

fessor at NYU School of Medi-cine, is part of an international collaborative research project to standardize data collection.

Her team is documenting striking cases including seizures in COVID-19 patients with no prior history of the episodes, and “unique” new patterns of tiny brain hemorrhages.

One startling finding concerns the case of a man in his fifties whose white matter -- the parts of the brain that connect brain cells to each other -- was so se-verely damaged it “would ba-sically render him in a state of profound brain damage,” she said. The doctors are stumped and want to tap his spinal fluid for a sample.

Brain imaging and spinal taps are difficult to perform on pa-tients on ventilators, and since most die, the full extent of neu-rologic injury isn’t yet known.

But neurologists are being called out for the minority of patients who survive being on a ventilator.

“We’re seeing a lot of consults of patients presenting in confu-sional states,” Rohan Arora, a neurologist at the Long Island Jewish Forest Hills hospital told AFP, saying that describes more than 40 percent of recovered virus patients.

It’s not yet known whether the impairment is long term, and being in the ICU itself can be a disorienting experience as a result of factors including strong medications.

But returning to normal ap-pears to be taking longer than for people who suffer heart fail-ure or stroke, added Arora.

A study published in the Journal of the

American Medical Association last week found 36.4

percent of 214 Chinese patients had neurological

symptoms ranging from loss of smell and nerve pain, to

seizures and strokes.

US halts sale of bleach product touted as ‘miracle’ virus cureWashington

The US Justice Department on Friday moved to halt

sales of a chemical agent mar-keted by a self-described church group in Florida as a “miracle” coronavirus cure.

The department filed a com-plaint early in the day against the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, and several of its key members, for their promo-tion of “Miracle Mineral Solu-tion” (MMS).

A federal judge in Florida quickly granted a temporary injunction halting its sale and distribution.

The church had claimed MMS would help “cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent coronavirus, which includes COVID-19, as well as other diseases includ-ing Alzheimer’s, autism, brain cancer, HIV/AIDS, and multiple sclerosis,” the Justice Depart-ment said in a statement.

“MMS is a chemical product which, when combined with the included activator, creates a powerful bleach product,” the department said.

The US Food and Drug Ad-ministration had warned years ago that the product could cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and symptoms of severe dehydra-

tion.Authorities issued a f i-

nal warning to Genesis on April 8, but so far, the group has refused to stop selling MMS, primarily through its websites.

In a statement, Genesis said: “They are attacking a Church Sacrament. This is something that is ‘sacred’ or ‘holy’ to us as a Church.”

“The Genesis II Church of Healing has continued to ac-tively place consumers at risk by peddling potentially dangerous and unapproved chlorine di-oxide products,” FDA Commis-sioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement.

“We will not stand for this.”The United States has set up

specialized units tasked with combating fraud linked to the coronavirus pandemic, which has so far claimed more than 35,000 lives nationwide.

Viruses affect the brain in one of two main ways, explained Michel Toledano, a neurologist at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

A picture of a human brain taken by a positron emission tomography scanner

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is seen under a microscope, in this photo provided by the US National Institutes of Health

Thai premier mocked after cash appeal

AFP

An appeal to Thailand’s 20 richest tycoons for

help in easing the impact of the pandemic has been mocked online by social media users, who accused the kingdom’s premier of running a “beggar govern-ment”.

“These billionaires influ-ence the Thai economy -- I will ask them to play a key role in helping the coun-try,” Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said in a tele-vised address Friday, adding that an open letter would be issued next week.

Thailand’s tourism and export-reliant economy has been hit hard by the pan-demic, with the state bank predicting growth will con-tract by a 22-year low of five percent this year.

Thai premier Prayut Chan-o-cha is appealing for help from tycoons

North Korean lecturers say there are confirmed coronavirus cases in the country: RFA

Reuters | Seoul

North Korean author-ities told citizens in

public lectures that there were confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the country as early as the end of March, in contrast to official Pyong-yang claims that it has not had any confirmed cases, Radio Free Asia reported on late Friday.

The lecturers, speaking to organisations and neigh-bourhood watch groups, said there were COVID-19 cases within the country, without giving any num-bers, Radio Free Asia (RFA) said, citing two sources, one in Pyongyang and one in Ry-anggang province.

The lecturers said the confirmed cases were in Pyongyang, South Hwang-hae province and North Hamgyong province, RFA reported.

North Hamgyong is in the northeast region of the country, while South Hwanghae is in the south-west.

Portraits of late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are seen on the facade of a government building in Pyongyang, North Korea

Lockdown hinders Vanuatu cyclone relief AFP

Vanuatu’s drastic virus lockdown is hinder-

ing critical relief efforts to rebuild the island country after it was pummelled by Tropical Cyclone Harold, aid agencies said.

Nearly two weeks after, local media reported that newly homeless families were still sleeping in the open.

Foreign aid distribution has been hampered by strict quarantine requirements after Vanuatu -- one of the few remaining countries without confirmed COV-ID-19 infections -- closed its borders.

Aid agencies said around a third of the country’s 3 0 0,0 0 0 p e o p l e we re in need of emergency shelter.

10SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

We will not be marking Her

Majesty’s birthday in any special way’ this year due to the #coronavirus crisis

ITV REPORTER CHRIS SHIP, WHO FIRST REPORTED THE QUEEN’S REQUEST,

TWEETED CITING A SOURCE

Violence and looting point to food crisis in S.Africa lockdown

Cape Town

“Mr President we are in the middle of a food crisis. It’s

war out here,” warned Joanie Fredericks, a community leader in Mitchells Plain township in Cape Town.

The desperate plea was made in a video posted on social media to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa who imposed a five-week lockdown to try curb the spread of the coronavirus .

“People have broken into tuck shops. They have attacked peo-ple. The simple reason is be-cause they are hungry,” she said from a kitchen dishing cooked meals into packs for distribution to the poor.

Four weeks into a 35-day lock-down poor communities are fac-ing food shortages as incomes for mostly informal workers have dried up.

Imposed from March 27, the lockdown has placed already

cash-strapped citizens under further strain.

The numbers of people lining up for food at the self-funded scheme run by Fredericks and other volunteers are growing by the day.

“When we started out feeding people we started out with the very vulnerable, ...the children, the disabled people and the pen-sioners.

“But we are way past that Mr President, we are past the stage of sending people away,” an emotional Fredericks pleaded.

Already, several violent pro-tests have broken out across the country over access to food par-cels handed out by authorities.

Hundreds of angry people fought running battles with the police, hurling rocks and set-ting up street barricades with burning tyres in Mitchells Plain over undelivered food parcels on Tuesday.

Police fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse them.

Social com-m e n t a t o r s fear such vio-lent episodes could esca-late.

“There’s a bunch of us at home getting fat and there’s a bunch of people who really have nothing,” said Julian May, director of the Centre of Excel-lence in Food Security, at the University of the Western Cape.

“And it speaks a lot about the inequalities in South Africa (that) are likely to come out,” said May.

“As people are not getting food parcels or hear of other people getting parcels they are starting to react. And I don’t think that’s

going to ease unless there’s more rapid delivery of food to people in poor areas.”

South Africa is ranked one of the most unequal countries in the world.

A study by the national statis-tics agency in 2017 found that 20 percent of households in the country of 57 million, had inad-equate access to food.

The lockdown and its impact on the poorest is at breaking point.

“It’s a very, very dangerous

situation,” said Scott Drimie, of the think-tank Southern Africa Food Lab.

‘Hunger, depravation, violence’

Already South Africa has a history of frequent protests over basics like water and housing crisis.

“Now when you add hunger to that, now there’s deprivation ...and then you add the enforce-ment with the army and police

that needs to be handled very carefully,” warned Drimie.

The Institute for Pover-ty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) warned that if people cannot get food, “there is every likelihood of violent conflict, including widespread looting”.

Several videos have been shared on social media of su-permarkets being stormed in recent days.

One of the raids was at a branch of one of South Africa’s largest grocery store chains.

People were shown carting away baskets filled with unpaid goods in a township in the West-ern Cape province.

Social Development minister Lindiwe Zulu this week prom-ised to increase food aid deliv-eries after only 48,500 parcels were distributed in the first week of April.

Government has budgeted 43 million rand ($2.2 million) to feed the most vulnerable and more will be needed, she said.

South Africa has one of the largest social security schemes on the continent, handing out grants to 18 million vulnerable people every month.

Zulu said government will build on the already existing safety net “because we know that the demand is going to be much bigger”.

The South African Social Se-curity Agency reported that the number of calls for help have ballooned in recent weeks.

With 2,783 cases, including 50 fatalities, the country has declared the most infections on the continent.

Four weeks into a 35-day lockdown poor communities are facing food shortages as incomes dry up

Aerial view of chairs arranged in order to maintain social distancing at a parking lot in Soweto for food distribution

“People have broken into tuck shops. They have attacked people. The simple reason is because they are hungry”

UK suggests using reusable medical gowns • Doctors criticise UK government over coronavirus protection shortages

• Britain is at or near the peak of an outbreak of the coronavirus

• More than 14,000 people have already died

Reuters | London

Doctors and health workers criticised the British gov-

ernment on Saturday for sug-gesting that gowns used to pro-tect them while treating corona-virus patients could be re-used, as supplies run low across the country.

Britain is at or near the peak of an outbreak of the coronavi-

rus in which more than 14,000 people have already died - the fifth highest national death toll of a pandemic linked to at least 150,000 deaths worldwide.

On Friday the government is-

sued new guidance to hospitals, setting out that alternatives to fluid-repellent full length gowns may need to be used, includ-ing reusable gowns or even long sleeved laboratory coats.

“This guidance is a further admission of the dire situation that some doctors and health-care workers continue to find themselves in because of gov-ernment failings,” said Rob Har-wood, Consultants Committee chairman at the British Medical Association - the trade union for doctors.

“If it’s being proposed that staff reuse equipment, this must be demonstrably driven by sci-ence and the best evidence – rather than availability – and it absolutely cannot compromise the protection of healthcare workers.”

Britain’s response to the coro-navirus outbreak - which has lagged that of European peers - is a source of increasing polit-ical criticism for Prime Minis-ter Boris Johnson, who himself contracted the virus and is now recovering from a spell in inten-sive care.

Health minister Matt Hancock

told a committee of lawmakers on Friday that Britain was “tight on gowns” but had 55,000 more arriving and was aiming to get the right equipment where it was needed by the end of this weekend.

A health department spokes-man said the new guidance was to ensure that staff knew what to do to minimise risk if short-ages did occur. They said the new rules remained in line with

international standards.The Royal College of Nurs-

ing said it had written “in the strongest terms” to express their concerns over the rules change, and said they had not been con-sulted about them.

NHS Providers, a body which represents hospitals and other parts of Britain’s publicly funded National Health Service (NHS), said supply levels of gowns were critical.

“It is now clear that some trusts will run out of fully fluid repellent gowns this weekend,” deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery said.

The body said China was the only immediately available source of the gowns, meaning there was international compe-tition for supplies. It also said there had been problems with consignments arriving from China, such as stock labelled as gowns actually containing face masks.

A person walks past street art in tribute to the NHS in Lewisham, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, London

On Friday the gov-ernment issued new

guidance to hospitals, setting out that alter-natives to fluid-repel-lent full length gowns may need to be used,

including reusable gowns or even long sleeved laboratory

coats.

Queen Elizabeth cancels birthday plans as coronavirus hits BritainReuters | London

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth will not celebrate her 94th birthday in any special

way and has asked that there be no gun salutes to mark the occasion because it would not be appropriate while the coun-try battles a deadly coronavirus outbreak.

Ceremonial gun salutes, in which blank rounds are fired from various location across London, are typically used by

the royal family to mark special occasions such as anniversa-ries and birthdays. The Queen’s birthday is on April 21.

The Queen was keen that no special measures were put in place to allow gun salutes as she did not feel it appropriate in the current circumstances, a royal source said.

It is believed to be the first such request in the Queen’s 68-year reign, the source said.

“‘We will not be marking Her Majesty’s birthday in any spe-

cial way’ this year due to the #coronavirus crisis,” ITV report-er Chris Ship, who first reported the queen’s request, tweeted cit-ing a source.

Buckingham Palace last month said a parade to celebrate the Queen’s official birthday, which is celebrated in June, would not go ahead in its traditional form in light of restrictions on social gatherings.

There are no alternative plans to replace the parade, the source said yesterday. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth

Dubai opens 3,000-bed field hospital for virus response

Dubai

Dubai opened a 3,000-bed capacity f ie ld

hospital on Saturday in its World Trade Centre to pre-pare for a potential surge in novel coronavirus cases.

The towering event and exhibition centre is located in the heart of the city, one of the seven members of the United Arab Emirates.

The hospital will rein-force Dubai’s healthcare system and “take advan-tage of all resources and infrastructure to fight the COVID-19 pandemic”, said a statement from the emir-ate’s media office said.

The hospital has a capac-ity that can be expanded quickly to over 3,000 beds, the statement added.

The UAE has imposed strict social distancing measures and a night-time curfew to combat the spread of the virus.

Dubai’s Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al-Maktoum inaugurated the field hospital

11SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

The new guidance allows for operational

deployments and redeployments... and allows travelers who are in the middle of

temporary duty travel or permanent change of station... continue

on to their home stations or new duty

stationDONOVAN

It’s potatoes, again, for circus animals in Italy lockdownAFP | Savona, Italy

What do you call a hungry alligator during a coro-

navirus lockdown? An Italian circus stuck in a car park for two months has the answer: a problem.

The Mil lennium Circus was supposed to be perform-ing along the Ligurian coast in northern Italy, but the vi-rus and a national shutdown of the country stopped it in its tracks.

A kangaroo lies listlessly in its enclosure, while llamas, camels and ponies gather at the fences dividing their respective pens, keeping each other company.

Like the rest of the country, they can do little but kill time, while waiting for the potatoes to be handed out.

The 40 animals -- parrots, geese, a huge-horned buffalo -- and 35 circus performers and staff were only supposed to be at the vast car park for a few days, before heading up the coast to seaside resorts.

But the troupe has been at a standstill since February 20 and has to rely on the help of local associations and animal lovers to feed its beasts.

“They eat about 200 kilos of fodder a day, as well as apples and carrots. And they drink about 1,000 litres of water dai-ly,” Derek Coda Prin, the artistic director, told AFP.

Amid the lorries, trucks and caravans, an acrobat is rehears-ing her vertical bar act.

Locals arrive with donated bags of fruit, vegetables, bread or meat.

“At this point, unfortunate-ly, the animals have become a problem,” said Coda Prin, whose family has worked in the circus for five generations.

“They are our life compan-

ions, our friends, and we try to look after them in the best possi-ble way. But they’re not like dogs or cats you can give your leftover lunchtime pasta to”.

Paradoxically, among those helping the Millennium Circus is the ENPA, the national associ-ation for the protection of ani-mals, which fights the exploita-tion of animals in circuses.

As well as the pressing issues

of the current lockdown, the circus is also worried about the future.

Coda Prin said he was worried the virus -- believed to have orig-inated in wild animals -- may put the paying public off circuses featuring feathered and fanged creatures.

“I think it will have created a bit of a dangerous psychosis for our line of work,” Coda Prin said.

Animals the “Circo Millennium” stand in a pen at fairgrounds in Savona, northwestern Italy, during a strict lockdown in the country to fight the novel coronavirus.

Children and a performer of the “Circo Millennium” train in Savona, northwestern Italy, during a strict lockdown. The show cannot be performed and the animals depend on donated food.

A member of the “Circo Millennium” feeds the animals with the little food available in Savona, northwestern Italy, during a strict coronavirus lockdown. The troupe relies on local associations and animal lovers to feed its beasts

Circus director Derek Coda Prin poses in the “Circo Millennium” which is stuck in Savona, northwestern Italy, during a lockdown to fight the novel coronavirus. The fairgrounds cannot perform their show and the animals need more food.

Pentagon extends travel restrictions through June 30• The new order will go into effect on Monday

AFP | Washington

The US Defense Depart-ment said yesterday it would extend travel re-

strictions through June 30 in a bid to curb the spread of the coronavirus, but will allow for some redeployments and repa-triation of troops serving abroad.

The new order will go into effect on Monday, Matthew Donovan, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told reporters in a

telephone briefing.In a bid to squelch the spread

of the coronavirus within the US armed forces, Pentagon chief

Mark Esper had ordered in late March a 60-day halt on all trav-el for civilian and military em-ployees, as well as their family members.

That order was due to expire in May, and so the new measure extends it for a month.

But local commanders can authorize deployed soldiers -- notably those serving abroad who had been ordered to remain -- to return home if circumstanc-es on the ground permit such a move.

“The new guidance allows for operational deployments and redeployments... and allows travelers who are in the middle of temporary duty travel or per-

manent change of station... con-tinue on to their home stations or new duty station,” Donovan said.

The undersecretary did not specify if the allowance for re-patriations would affect soldiers in conflict zones such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

On Friday, the Pentagon announced a total of 2,986 c o n f i r m e d c a s e s o f C OV-ID-19, the disease caused by the virus, within the US military.

Two military personnel have died, including a sailor on the stricken aircraft carrier USS The-odore Roosevelt, and 44 have been hospitalized.

The Pentagon has extended travel restrictions through June 30, 2020 in a bid to curb the spread of the coronavirus

New York reports lowest virus death toll in two weeksNew York

New York state, the epi-center of the coronavi-

rus pandemic in the United States, has experienced its lowest one-day death toll in two weeks, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday.

Cuomo said 540 people had died in his state of 20 million inhabitants in the preceding 24 hours, and he suggested New York may now be on the downslope after a recent pla-teau in deaths.

That would be the lowest to-tal since 432 deaths were reg-istered on April 2, according to data from the authoritative Covid Tracking Project.

On April 3, the state logged 562 deaths, and six days later it reached a peak of 799 deaths.

But Cuomo, who has extend-ed the state’s stay-at-home rule to May 15, said the recent im-provement should be viewed

with some caution.“We’re not at the plateau an-

ymore,” he said, “but we’re still not in a good position.”

Cuomo, who in recent days has engaged in a war of words with President Donald Trump, called Saturday for an end to division.

“It’s no time for politics,” said Cuomo, who is a Dem-ocrat.

“How does this situation get worse and get worse quickly? If you politicize all that emo-tion. We cannot go there.”

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo

Italian church-turned-morgue ‘finally empty’ of coffinsAFP | Rome

A church in Bergamo that served as an overspill

morgue at the height of Italy’s coronavirus epidemic “is finally empty”, the mayor said yester-day.

Where dozens of coffins once stood, nothing but flowers are left to be seen in a photograph tweeted by mayor Giorgio Gori that symbolises the easing of a crisis that has killed over 23,000 people in Italy.

Bergamo is in the wealthy northern region of Lombardy, which accounts for over half Italy’s virus victims.

Italy’s coronavirus emergency czar Domenico Arcuri said Sat-urday that five times as many people had died in the region during the epidemic than had been killed in Milan during World War II bombings.

“We are living through a great tragedy, which we have not yet overcome,” he said, describing

the nearly 12,000 Lombardy dead as an “astounding” figure.

Over 90 percent of saturday’s new coronavirus cases in Italy were in Lombardy, the civil pro-tection agency said.

As local morgues failed to cope with the number of deaths in Bergamo, the country’s worst-hit city, the Italian army was brought in last month to take dozens of coffins to churches and then to crematoriums in neighbouring cities.

Harrowing pictures emerged

of officers in protective hazmat suits stacking coffins in church-es.

‘Blink of an eye’Gori said the death toll in

Bergamo was much worse than officially recorded.

Some 795 Bergamo residents died in the six weeks since the start of March, 626 more than the average toll in the same pe-riod over the past ten years, he said last week.

Only 272 people were offi-

cially recorded to have died of the virus in Bergamo, as Italy logs deaths in hospitals but not in homes or assisted living fa-cilities.

The epidemic has been slowly on the decline, with the num-ber of intensive care patients in Lombardy falling below the 1,000 mark for the first time in a month Friday.

Many are urging the govern-ment to lift strict restrictions imposed for the country’s two-month lockdown, which is due to expire on May 4 and has been crippling the economy.

But Arcuri said it was “bla-tantly wrong to talk about a conflict between health and economic recovery”.

“Without health and safety, economic recovery would last like the blink of an eye,” he said.

And the WHO’s Italian govern-ment adviser Walter Ricciardi insisted a second wave of the virus was “not a hypothesis, it is a certainty.

At one point, dozens of coffins were laid out in the church as the death toll in the region soared

13

sports

SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

Thomas raises £300,000 with turbo bike challengeAFP | London

Former Tour de France champion Geraint Thom-as has raised £300,000

($375,299, 345,288 euros) for Britain’s National Health Ser-vice after a 36-hour indoor cy-cling stint.

The Welshman rode a trio of 12-hour rides over three days on a turbo bike in the garage of his home in Cardiff in a bid to raise funds to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

The 12-hour rides were to em-ulate a typical shift of an NHS worker.

“No exaggeration, the last two hours were the hardest I have ever had on the bike,” Thomas told the BBC yesterday.

“I could barely sit down,” the 2018 Tour de France champion added.

Professional cycling, in com-mon with all major sport world-wide, has been suspended fol-lowing the spread of the virus, with this year’s Tour de France delayed from June and July un-til August and September.

The suspension of the road race calendar prompted Thom-as to set himself a challenge which he likened to completing eight or nine stages of the Tour itself.

“It has been solid,” said Thom-as, winner of the 2018 British sports personality of the year

award.“I am going to have a week off

to recover from this. It was 36 hours in the saddle over three days which would normally be a big training week for me.

“The longest ride I have done on the road is eight hours and 20 minutes in a group and that was with a coffee stop.

“On a turbo the longest was three hours and there is a lot of difference from that and rid-

ing outside where you have the scenery and downhill.”

The 33-year-old, a two-time Olympic pursuit gold medallist, added there were particularly personal as well as general fund-raising reasons for his effort of endurance.

“My mum’s gone back to work at Velindre cancer hospital in Cardiff -- she’s retired three times already and my best mate’s a GP (doctor) up St Helens way

as well,” said Thomas.“I’ve heard so many stories

about what people are doing and it made me just want to try and play a tiny, tiny part by trying to help out in a small way.”

Thomas lags a long way in funds raised behind a 99-year-old former soldier, Captain Tom Moore, who has become a na-tional hero by raising over 20 million pounds by walking 100 laps of his garden.

Geraint Thomas rides during a tour (file photo)

Mercedes F1 boss Wolff takes a stake in Aston MartinReuters | London

Mercedes Formula One boss Toto Wolff has tak-

en a stake in British sportscar maker Aston Martin, whose executive chairman Lawrence Stroll runs the Racing Point F1 team, according to company filings.

A Mercedes F1 spokesman said Wolff ’s move was purely an investment on the Austrian’s part and would be diluted by a rights issue on Monday from 4.77% to less than 1%.

“Fully diluted following the pending rights issue, this in-vestment will represent a 0.95% stake in the company,” he add-ed.

“It is a financial investment and Toto’s partnership and ex-ecutive role with Mercedes are unaffected by the transaction.”

Swiss billionaire Ernesto Ber-tarelli has also bought a 3.38% stake which will be similarly diluted.

Wolff previously had a 16% shareholding in former cham-pions Williams but sold that after he joined the Mercedes team, where he serves as prin-cipal and owns 30%.

Canadian billionaire Stroll, whose son Lance drives for Racing Point alongside Mexican

Sergio Perez, is close to Wolff. The Silverstone-based team -- to be renamed Aston Martin next year -- use Mercedes en-gines and gearboxes.

Mercedes-Benz’s parent Daimler also has a small stake in Aston Martin.

“It’s clear that Aston are now Mercedes’ B team,” the Daily Mail quoted one Formula One insider as saying.

Wolff ’s future at Mercedes has been the subject of some media speculation, with the 48-year-old linked variously to senior management roles with Liberty Media-owned Formula One and at Aston Martin.

His Aston Martin shares were

bought from Yew Tree Overseas Limited, a vehicle controlled by Stroll who acquired a roughly 25% percent holding in Aston Martin with a consortium of investors.

Mercedes have won the past six Formula One drivers’ and constructors’ titles but have six times world champion Lewis Hamilton out of contract at the end of the 2020 season, which has yet to start due to the COV-ID-19 pandemic.

Hamilton, who has also been linked to Ferrari, had told re-porters before the global crisis changed the sporting and finan-cial landscape that his decision would depend on Wolff’s plans.

Mercedes Formula One boss Toto Wolff lloks on prior to Russian GP race (file photo)

MLS extends hiatus until ‘at least June 8’AFP | Los Angeles

Major League Soccer won’t resume before

June 8 the league said on Friday, and is exploring multiple scenarios for com-pleting the 2020 season.

The league is also dis-cussing changes to play-er compensation because of the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic that has brought sports to a standstill worldwide.

“We are seeking to work collaboratively with the MLS Players Association to find a solution that provides a safety net for all players, opportunity to earn full sal-ary in the scenario where all matches are played with fans, and in particular pro-vides protection for the players at the lower end of the salary scale,” the league said in a statement.

ESPN reported Friday that the league has suggested most of its players take as much as a 50% pay cut in a shortened season -- depend-ing on how many matches must be cancelled. Playing games without fans in at-tendance could also affect the extent of player paycuts, the sports site reported, al-though to what degree re-mains unknown.

A general view outside the London Stadium, the home of West Ham United

Premier League return date still not clear, says BradyAFP | London

West Ham chief executive Karren Brady claims

the Premier League’s return date is still unclear despite hopes the top-flight season can restart in June.

The Premier League said on Friday that wrapping up the remaining 92 fixtures remains their goal, but the on-going coronavirus crisis means no fixed schedule can be drawn up yet.

Brady’s West Ham were perilously placed in the Eng-lish top flight when football was suspended, sitting above the relegation zone on only goal difference with nine games remaining.

“Players will have been able to retain some physical fitness at home,” Brady wrote in her column in The Sun yesterday.

“But if social-distancing rules are still in place, physical match-play training will not be allowed -- you can’t tackle from two metres away.

“So, how match-fit will players be if the season com-

mences, as we all hope it will, by mid-June?”

With most clubs having nine games left, it was reported that Friday’s meeting of the 20 clubs discussed finishing the season in a 40-day window.

There have been claims that clubs were told domestic sea-sons must end by July 31 and the 2020-21 campaign must start by the first week of Sep-tember at the latest.

But Brady is adamant diffi-cult questions over training, testing of players, hygiene and medical protocols will need to be resolved first.

The Premier League has been suspended since March and the UK’s lockdown is in place until May 7 at the ear-liest.

Brady questioned how Pre-mier League clubs could reg-ularly test players for the virus when the same situation is not yet in place for all NHS workers.

She also highlighted a po-tential unfairness in some squads having a number of players in self-isolation.

Athletes banned until 2020 can compete at Olympics: Athletics Integrity headReuters | London

The postponement of the Tokyo Olympics will al-

low athletes banned until 2020 to qualify for the Games next year as doping bans are based on time periods and not events, Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) head Brett Clothier told Reuters.

Last month, the Interna-tional Olympic Committee and the Japanese government agreed to postpone the Tokyo Games, due to start in July, to 2021 because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed over 150,000 people worldwide.

World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) bans are designed to prevent athletes from com-peting during an Olympic cy-cle and Clothier said stopping athletes whose bans expire this year from competing in 2021 would lead to legal com-plications.

“The standard penalty un-der the WADA code for doping is a four-year ban,” Clothier said. “And that’s been de-signed that way to tie in with

the Olympic cycle.“But in this case, of course,

it’s an anomaly that the Olym-pics have moved so some ath-letes will benefit from that.

“It’s an unfortunate situa-tion but one that is very clear under the legal framework so the ban is based on time and not tied to particular events.”

The anomaly could prove to be a double-edged sword, however, with Clothier saying athletes caught after August this year would be banned for two Olympic Games -- in To-kyo and Paris -- since they fall within the four-year sanction range.

But with social distancing protocols and lockdowns in place in several countries, Clothier said the biggest im-pact the pandemic has had on anti-doping agencies is the lack of regular testing.

KHK Heroes Challenge goes globalThe challenge has been accepted in Indonesia while Fuddruckers became the

latest company in Bahrain to join the campaignTDT | Manama

KHK Heroes Challenge, which was started as a National

Campaign, has quickly become a global one.

KHK Heroes had called on the nation for a united cause, help-ing those most vulnerable dur-ing the Coronavirus Pandemic but were not expecting the call to be answered beyond inter-national waters with Indonesia being the latest.

Rika Aryuna SE.SH.MM Pres-ident Director PT. Smexindo Garuda CITI and SMEXINDO Law firm has accepted the chal-lenge from Indonesia. Along with a team of volunteers, they donated food packs in Indonesia to the elderly and less fortunate.

Fuddruckers has also an-swered this call and accepted the challenge.

Mateo Ramos, General Man-ager of Fuddruckers and Car-ibou Coffee said, “As we live through this global pandemic together, we must each do our share to support one another. In addition to our other phil-anthropic efforts, we are proud today to announce our partner-ship with KHK Heroes to help the migrant workers who are negatively affected by the loss of salaries and other problems as a result of the Covid19 Pandemic.

The mission of KHK Heroes is to inspire Global compassion and we could not have found a

better partner. We hope that by this donation, we can give those in need some comfort.”

KHK Heroes National Chal-lenge was initiated upon the directions of HH Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa to sup-port the vision HRH Prince Sal-man bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander, and First Deputy Premier and HH Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, His Maj-esty the King’s Representative for Charity Works and Youth Af-fairs, National Security Advisor and President of the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports.

Public can take part in the challenge by making donations, volunteering time to KHK He-roes or taking up the challenge to post a video online and nom-inate someone to pay it forward.

14SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2020

The mission of KHK Heroes is to inspire Global compassion

and we could not have found a

better partner. We hope that by this donation, we can give those in need

some comfortMATEO RAMOS

Djokovic shares Olympic regrets with Murray

Murray and Djokovic discussed a rivalry which began in childhood during a Live chatReuters | London

Live tennis action is a fading memory during the corona-virus shutdown but 20,000

fans tuned in to watch old rivals Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray chew the fat on Instagram.

Sitting on their sofas at home, the duo spent an entertaining hour reminiscing about some of the classics in their 36-match se-ries, painful losses and even came up with the perfect tennis player.

The knockabout banter offered some candid reflections on their glittering careers -- both on hold as tennis awaits the end of the pandemic which has claimed more than 150,000 lives globally.

Asked which losses hurt the

most, both selected matches against each other.

“For me it was the French Open final against you in 2016,” Murray, who has also finished runner-up at the Australian Open five times, said.

“Obviously I would have loved to win the Australian Open or the French Open but I think as a challenge for me, because clay was such a tough surface for me throughout my career, that would have been for me my biggest achievement.”

The Serb hit back from losing the first set to outplay Murray in that Paris showdown, complet-ing his career Grand Slam in the process.

World number one Djokovic

has never won the Olympic gold medal though, a feat Murray achieved in 2012 and 2016.

Djokovic said his semi-final de-feats against Murray and Rafa Na-dal in the 2012 and 2008 Olympics were two of his toughest losses -- together with his defeat by Juan Martin del Potro in the first round of the 2016 Rio Games.

“Maybe that match against you in London, or the semi-final against Rafa in Beijing (in 2008),” Djokovic, who won the bronze medal in Beijing said. “In Rio I felt really good but two days be-fore the match I felt my wrist. It started to be more painful. It’s no excuse, I got injections, but I felt sad that I wasn’t at my best and could work my way in the

tournament.“If I could change any outcomes

would be Rio and London.”Three-time Grand Slam cham-

pion Murray, trying to salvage his career after hip surgery at the start of 2019, admitted he wished he had enjoyed his successes more.

“After the issues I’ve had the last few years, I sometimes do wish I had enjoyed those mo-ments more. When you see the end coming you think... I shuld have enjoyed the wins or even the losses that were great matches.”

Asked to come up with the per-fect player if they could combine strokes from different players, both picked each other for having the best service returns.

Novak Djokovic of Serbia talks with Andy Murray of Great Britain before their practice match ahead of the 2019 Australian Open (file photo)

Arsenal psychologist in constant touch with players says Arteta

Reuters | London

Arsenal’s psychologist has been in constant com-

munication with the Premier League club’s players to offer any help they may need during the lockdown due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, manag-er Mikel Arteta has said.

Soccer in England has been suspended since March 13 be-cause of the virus that has in-fected more than 2.23 million people globally causing over 151,000 deaths.

Arsenal’s players have been self isolating since March 12 when Arteta tested positive for the virus -- before the lockdown in Britain -- and the Spaniard said that all efforts were being made to ensure the players were in good spirits.

“We have our psychologist that is looking after the players and is always in constant com-munication with them,” Arteta told the club’s website.

“But as well we’re having feedback from different people and we’re constantly sending information and videos and keeping them busy... keeping them close to their job and the people that are related to their job, which is us and my coach-ing staff.”

Arteta, who took over as manager in December after compatriot Unai Emery was sacked, said he was using the lockdown to understand his players better.

“We’ve been having some really good conversations,” the former Manchester City assis-tant added.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta gives instructions during a training session (file photo)

England’s Moeen Ali ready to return to Tests despite ‘scapegoat’ pastAFP | London

Moeen Ali says he is ready to return to Test action for

England after a self-imposed exile from the red-ball game de-spite having been made to feel like “a scapegoat” in the past.

All-rounder Moeen missed the Test matches during England’s winter tours of New Zealand and South Africa after taking a spell away from the longest format of the game.

The 32-year-old, who con-

tinued to play limited overs matches for England, has been reflecting on his absence dur-ing the coronavirus lockdown and suggested he would be willing to return to Tests if se-lected when cricket eventually resumes.

“I think I’d probably be ready (to play Test cricket) now, to be honest. Clearly I would have to be playing well and win a spot back on merit,” Moeen told the Guardian.

“But in terms of being availa-

ble – and obviously I’m speaking hypothetically – if there was a Test match tomorrow and I got the call, I’d say ‘yes’.

“We’re all missing cricket right now and coronavirus makes you realise what you love. It could take out the whole summer and that would be a big thing.”

Moeen was dropped after the first Test against Australia last year and admitted to feeling like a scapegoat.

He has played 60 Tests for England, scoring five centuries

and taking 181 wickets.“When you find yourself sur-

rounded by a few negative com-ments, somehow it’s all you can focus on. You have to be mental-ly stronger and filter more of it out,” Moeen said.

“It’s almost been a case of for-giving anyone who has ever said anything I didn’t like and now looking to start afresh when we get back playing.

“I may have felt a scapegoat at times in the past but I’m over it now. It’s time to move on.”Moeen Ali in action during nets (file photo)

Volunteers distribute food packs in Indonesia

KHK Sports CEO Mohammed Shahid (C) with Fuddruckers General Manager Mateo Ramos (R) and Mohammad Mansoor, Exelon Director