Teargas fired on Greek-Turkish border as migrant tensions flare - Reuters

KASTANIES, Greece (Reuters) - Teargas and smoke bombs clouded a Greek-Turkish land border on Saturday in a fresh flare-up in tensions over migrants seeking access to European Union territory.

Greek riot police officers walk amid clouds of tear gas near Turkey's Pazarkule border crossing, in Kastanies, Greece March 7, 2020. REUTERS/Florion Goga

A Reuters correspondent in the area said the projectiles were coming from Turkish territory and being fired towards Greek police near the crossing at Kastanies. Some tear gas was also being fired by Greek police.

Meanwhile hundreds of people could be seen on the Turkish side of the high perimeter fence, with some pushing at it.

Thousands of migrants have been trying to get into Greece, an EU member state, since Turkey said on Feb. 28 it would no longer try to keep them on its territory as agreed in 2016 with the EU in return for billions of euros in aid.

Turkey argued it could no longer contain the hundreds of thousands of migrants it hosts, or the likelihood of more refugees on the way from intensified fighting in northwestern Syria, but Greece has sought to keep out the fresh influx.

Greek soldiers and riot police have been manning the borderland, as thousands of migrants have made a rush for the frontier in recent days. Their Turkish counterparts have been stationed on the other side.

Greek officials say authorities have thwarted thousands of attempts by migrants to cross in the past eight days. Over a 24-hour period by Saturday morning, there were more than 1,200 attempts to cross and 27 arrests, a government source said. Most of the migrants were from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Greece is doing what every sovereign state has the right to do, to protect its border from any illegal crossings,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told the CNN network on Friday night.

“I’m afraid this is a constant and very systematic provocation on Turkey’s behalf which has nothing to do with the plight of these people. They are being used by Turkey.”

Heavy machinery was moved to the border crossing area on the Greek side on Saturday morning and a bulldozer was seen digging embankments close to Kastanies.

Turkey on Friday accused the European Union of using migrants as political tools and allowing international law to be “trampled”, after EU foreign ministers said they would work to stop illegal migration into the bloc.

The EU on Friday pleaded with migrants on the Turkish border to stop trying to cross into Greece but dangled the prospect of more aid for Ankara as the standoff entered a second week.

Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas; Writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Alison Williams and Frances kerry

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-03-07 10:45:36Z
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Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Outbreak Spreads as East Coast Sees Its First Deaths - The New York Times

Here’s what you need to know:

• U.S. cases pass 300, and the first East Coast deaths are reported.
• In the province where the virus emerged, the only new cases are in Wuhan.
• A South Korean city orders church members to submit to testing.
• The epidemic grows at an alarming rate in Europe.
• China says its exports tumbled as the outbreak took hold.
• Malaysia and Thailand turn an Italian cruise ship away.
• N.B.A. gives teams a refresher on playing in empty stadiums.

Travelers at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York this week.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

U.S. cases pass 300, and the first East Coast deaths are reported.

Authorities across the United States reported 308 cases of coronavirus and 17 deaths as of Friday, with Florida reporting the first deaths on the East Coast. The number of infections does not count the 21 people who have tested positive aboard a cruise ship off California, the Grand Princess.

Florida officials on Friday night said there had been two deaths in the state related to the coronavirus. Both of the people who died had traveled internationally, they said.

Hawaii reported its first confirmed infection, a person who had been on the Grand Princess.

The West Coast has borne the brunt of the toll in the United States. Washington State has recorded the most coronavirus cases, more than 80, and the highest number of deaths, 14. Most of the fatal cases emerged from a Seattle-area nursing home. Officials in King County, Wash., said 15 residents of the facility, Life Care Center, had been taken to hospitals over the past 24 hours.

Two residents of other Seattle-area complexes that largely serve elderly people have now also been hospitalized and tested positive, officials said, identifying them as Issaquah Nursing & Rehabilitation Center and Ida Culver House Ravenna.

Tracking Every Coronavirus Case in the U.S.: Full Map

Maps show the extent of the coronavirus outbreak and the number of cases and deaths by state.

In the province where the virus emerged, the only new cases are in Wuhan.

Hubei, the Chinese province at the center of the coronavirus outbreak, reported on Saturday that for two consecutive days, the province had seen no new infections outside its capital, Wuhan. The news confirmed that China’s new cases and deaths are increasingly concentrated in that city, where the virus emerged, while the rest of the province — and the rest of the country — are largely spared.

Hubei reported 74 new infections on Saturday, all in Wuhan. China also recorded 24 cases in people who had arrived from abroad, including 17 in Gansu, a northwest Chinese province. Excluding the infections in Wuhan and among arrivals from abroad, there was only one other new infection in the rest of China.

China also reported 28 deaths among those with the virus, all in Hubei Province. By comparison, there were 49 deaths from the virus in Italy on Friday.

The downward trend in China is a result of an all-out effort by the government to contain the spread of the disease, which has come at a great cost to the country’s economy and its social life. Since January, the government has enacted nationwide quarantine and travel restrictions and placed Hubei under a strict lockdown, effectively penning in 56 million people.

The new numbers reflect a steep decline from just a few weeks earlier. At one point in early February, Hubei reported more than 1,400 new cases outside Wuhan in one day.

One of the government-appointed Chinese researchers working to control the outbreak told the state-run newspaper People’s Daily on Thursday that, based on the data, he expected Wuhan to hit zero new infections later this month.

A South Korean city orders church members to submit to testing.

The South Korean city of Daegu has ordered members of a Christian sect at the center of the country’s coronavirus outbreak to be tested for the virus by the end of Saturday.

Daegu, a southeastern city of about 2.4 million, has been scrambling to test more than 10,000 members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus within its jurisdiction since last month, when it became clear that its followers had been spreading the virus in Daegu and elsewhere. Local officials are still trying to locate and test more than 1,000 members of Shincheonji, which is considered a cult by many other South Korean Christian churches.

South Korea, whose coronavirus outbreak is the biggest outside China, reported 483 new infections on Saturday, bringing its total caseload to 6,767, including 47 deaths. More than 5,000 of those infected are Daegu residents, and a vast majority of them belong to the church.

”Yesterday alone, we tested 709 Shincheonji members and 236 of them tested positive,” Daegu’s mayor, Kwon Young-jin, said on Saturday. “This is why church members should extend their self-isolation and must subject themselves to testing.”

Mr. Kwon issued an executive order that made the testing mandatory. Anyone who disobeys it can be fined under South Korea’s laws on controlling epidemics.

Mr. Kwon said the church members’ tendency to live and worship in groups made them likelier than others to spread the virus. The church’s founder, Lee Man-hee, recently apologized for its role in the outbreak but said the church had been cooperating with the authorities.

On Saturday, Daegu placed two adjacent apartment buildings under quarantine after 46 of their residents, all of them Sincheonji members, were confirmed to have the virus.

The epidemic grows at an alarming rate in Europe.

The number of infections climbed past 7,300 in Europe on Friday — more than doubling in just three days.

France, Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy and others each recorded their biggest one-day increases in cases. More than 30 European countries now have cases; 10 of them have at least 100 each.

A member of the French Parliament tested positive for the virus. Doctors in Britain warned that the already-strained health care system there could be overwhelmed as the outbreak grows, and the country had its second coronavirus death.

Get an informed guide to the global outbreak with our daily coronavirus newsletter.

In Italy, with the worst outbreak outside of Asia, the toll rose on Friday to more than 4,600 cases, 197 of them fatal, increases of almost 800 infections and 49 deaths from the day before. Only China has had more people die from the new coronavirus.

Pope Francis has had a cold for over a week, and on Thursday, a Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said that the pontiff’s illness was “running its due course.”

He also told reporters that the Vatican was “studying measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19,” the disease caused by the new coronavirus, that could affect coming activities involving the pope.

Germany, France and Spain, with the next-largest outbreaks in Europe, reported more than 1,700 cases combined, up from fewer than 1,200 on Thursday. In Switzerland, the confirmed caseload doubled, to more than 200.

Outside Europe, in Iran’s outbreak, one of the world’s largest, the government reported more than 4,700 infections, an increase of more than 1,200 from the day before.

Edouard Philippe, the French prime minister, announced a 15-day school closure in two regions, Oise and Haut-Rhin.

Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Spread of the Outbreak

The virus has infected more than 102,100 people in at least 89 countries.

China says its exports tumbled as the outbreak took hold.

China’s trade has suffered as the epidemic crippled factory production, paralyzed much of the country’s trucking industry and created temporary backlogs at ports.

Exports from China, the world’s largest manufacturer and its second largest economy, tumbled 17.2 percent in the first two months of this year compared to the same period last year, according to data released Saturday morning by the General Administration of Customs. Imports fell 4 percent.

China’s imports of meat, soybeans, medicines and medical equipment offset declines in imports of semiconductors, as the country’s electronics factories shut down for weeks.

The timing of Lunar New Year celebrations affected the data, making it hard to compare either January or February separately to the same months last year. The weeklong holiday fell in late January this year and was in early February last year.

Companies try every year to export and import as much as possible before the holiday. Such shipments in early January, when the Chinese authorities were still concealing the spread of the disease, may have dampened the steepness of this year’s drop.

The decline reflected two problems: fewer goods were being produced, and what was being made could not be transported. Gao Gao, a deputy secretary general of the Chinese government’s National Development and Reform Commission, said at a news briefing on Friday morning that 80 percent of China’s logistics companies had told the government that they had been severely affected.

By the end of February, only 70 percent of the industry’s trucks and other vehicles were operating, partly because many drivers are stranded far from their employers by quarantines and other obstacles, Mr. Gao said. China is trying to address the problem by ordering that once drivers complete a 14-day quarantine upon their return from their hometowns at the end of holidays, they do not have to undergo additional quarantines in cities that they visit while driving cargo.

Malaysia and Thailand turn an Italian cruise ship away.

An Italian cruise ship has become the latest luxury liner to be kept at sea over coronavirus fears, as Malaysia and Thailand denied it entry for fear that passengers from Italy had been exposed to the virus before boarding.

Malaysia turned away the ship, the Costa Fortuna, which has more than 2,000 people aboard, under a government policy announced on Saturday, which bars all cruise ships from docking at any of the country’s ports until further notice.

The ship was denied permission to dock at the island of Penang in northern Malaysia on Saturday morning. On Friday, it had been turned away from the island of Phuket in southern Thailand, about 220 miles from Penang.

Thai officials refused to allow the Costa Fortuna to dock because 64 of its passengers had departed less than 14 days earlier from Italy, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus. Fourteen days is believed to be the virus’s maximum incubation period.

The operator of the Costa Fortuna, Costa Cruises, confirmed on Twitter that the ship had been turned away by Thailand, but it said none of the ship’s passengers on board were suspected of having Covid-19, the illness caused by the virus.

According to its itinerary, the vessel departed from Singapore on March 3 on a seven-day cruise to Malaysia and Thailand and had been scheduled to return to Singapore on Tuesday.

“Please be informed that all cruise vessels are temporarily restricted from entering at any Malaysia port until further notice,” the Penang Port Commission announced in implementing Malaysia’s new policy.

Cruise ships have become a significant contributor to the international spread of the virus. Many of their passengers are often older people, who are particularly vulnerable to Covid-19.

N.B.A. gives teams a refresher on playing in empty stadiums.

With the coronavirus spreading in the United States, the N.B.A. reminded its teams on Friday about the protocol for postponing or canceling games, and for playing without fans in attendance. The basketball league has not indicated that it plans to pursue any of those options.

According to a memo sent to teams on Friday, the league’s protocol requires a series of actions before such changes, including consultation with the affected teams and written notice from a top league official. Separately, the N.B.A. and its players’ union recently advised against high-fives and handshakes in favor of fist bumps, to limit the spread of germs.

The N.B.A. could be particularly affected by the epidemic in states that have declared a state of emergency, such as California. The mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, has called for sporting events to be canceled. San Francisco is the home of the Chase Center, where the N.B.A’.s Golden State Warriors play. On Friday, the Warriors released a statement that listed new sanitizing measures the team had implemented.

As for games without fans, the league has advised teams to prepare contingency plans that would include deciding which staff members would need to attend. Teams were also told to prepare for the possibility of implementing temperature checks for anyone who would be considered essential for such a game, including players and referees.

LeBron James of the Lakers told a reporter that he wouldn’t play if fans weren’t present.

The league rarely postpones games and almost never cancels them. This season has been an exception because of the death of Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26. Mr. Bryant, who retired in 2016, spent 20 seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, who were scheduled to play a game two days after his death. That game, against the Los Angeles Clippers, was postponed until April, causing three other games to be rescheduled.

The N.B.A. also announced on Tuesday that because of the coronavirus, it would postpone the first season of its Basketball Africa League, a professional league of 12 teams that had been set to debut in Senegal on March 13.

Chinese Communist Party official says Wuhan should be “grateful.”

The leaders of Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the heart of the global coronavirus epidemic, have a suggestion for residents who have been confined in their homes for more than a month while thousands have died: be grateful to the Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping.

Over the past week, the official daily count of new infections from the coronavirus in Wuhan has fallen markedly, as has the daily toll of deaths. Officials in the ruling Communist Party are eager to cast a possible end to the crisis as a great victory for Mr. Xi, the party’s general secretary, and his bulldozing authoritarian style of rule.

The Communist Party chief of Wuhan, Wang Zhonglin, has now taken that theme to a new level by telling residents that they should be thankful.

“We must be thoroughgoing in educating the great numbers of the city’s residents to be grateful — grateful to the general secretary and grateful to the Communist Party,” Mr. Wang told officials, according to a report in an official Wuhan newspaper on Saturday. “Obey the party, follow the party, forming a powerful positive energy,” Mr. Wang said, using one of Mr. Xi’s signature phrases.

Gratitude may be a lot to ask of many people in Wuhan. The coronavirus, which began spreading across the city from December, has so far killed 2,349 people in Wuhan, about three-quarters of the national death toll, according to official estimates. Residents believe that count misses many victims who were not formally diagnosed with the virus.

Residents have been angered by evidence that officials tried to downplay the extent and severity of the coronavirus outbreak in January. Since Jan. 23, they have also endured draconian restrictions on their movement, and many must largely rely on neighborhood committees to deliver food and other necessities.

When Sun Chunlan, a vice premier helping to oversee the response to the epidemic, visited an apartment compound in Wuhan on Thursday, residents yelled “fake!” from their windows. Reports in the state-run news media later said they were angered that Ms. Sun was being given a falsely sunny impression of how well residents were being supplied with their daily needs.

Still, Mr. Xi and his propaganda strategists appear confident that China’s sweeping efforts to stifle the epidemic can be cast as a triumph for him and the party, especially if infections continue to multiply in other countries.

“For more than a month, Xi Jinping has personally commanded the battle at the front lines,” said an online commentary extravagantly praising Mr. Xi that was published Friday by China’s main state broadcaster, CCTV. “He has been racing with time to fight it out with the devil-disease.”

South by Southwest leads a long list of canceled events.

The 34th annual edition of South by Southwest, the annual festival of music, film and technology in Austin, Tex., that has become a global draw, was ordered canceled on Friday by local officials over fears about the spread of coronavirus.

Festival organizers and government officials had come under intense pressure in recent days to pull the plug, with more than 50,000 people signing an online petition and a growing list of tech companies — among them Apple, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok — announcing their withdrawal.

The festival was to have run from March 13-22, with events spread across bars and party spaces in Austin, in addition to the main conference activities.

The cancellation is perhaps the largest collateral damage of the virus so far on the international cultural calendar. Last year, South by Southwest’s various events had a combined attendance of 417,000, including 159,000 who came to the music portion, according to festival figures.

Two other large-scale, multiday gatherings were also called off or pushed back on Friday: Emerald City Comic Con, a convention that draws thousands of people to Seattle each year, was postponed until the summer; and the Ultra Music Festival, an electronic dance music event held annually in Miami, where city officials blocked the event from going on.

Everyone on the Grand Princess cruise ship will be tested, after 21 tested positive.

All of the 3,533 people aboard a cruise ship idling off San Francisco will be tested for the coronavirus, after 19 crew members and two passengers tested positive, Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday.

The ship, the Grand Princess, had been halted off the coast on Wednesday, until passengers with possible coronavirus symptoms or exposure could be tested. On Thursday, a Coast Guard helicopter flew testing kits to the ship and flew samples for 46 people back to shore.

“Twenty-one of those on the ship tested positive for the coronavirus, 24 tested negative and one test was inconclusive,” Mr. Pence said at a White House news briefing — blindsiding the passengers and the ship’s operators.

“We have developed a plan which will be implemented this weekend to bring the ship into a noncommercial port,” he added. “All passengers and crew will be tested for the coronavirus. Those that need to be quarantined will be quarantined. Those that require additional medical attention will receive it.”

Mr. Pence said the Defense Department was working to locate a California military base where passengers on the ship could be tested. Two air bases in the state have been used to house quarantined Americans repatriated from Asia.

Shortly after Mr. Pence’s briefing, the ship captain came over the loudspeaker and apologized that passengers were getting updates from television news rather than him. The captain said that he had not received any advance notice about the news briefing and that the ship would notify individuals of their test results “as soon as possible.”

The Princess cruise line said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials had told the doctor on board of the results as Mr. Pence was speaking.

President Trump, speaking at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said he would have preferred not to let the passengers disembark onto American soil. “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault,” he said. “And it wasn’t the fault of the people on the ship either. Okay? It wasn’t their fault either. And they are mostly Americans.”

He added that, after all, he had authorized federal health officials to make the decision.

How to quarantine yourself. (Don’t even pet the dog.)

If you’re returning from an area that’s had a coronavirus outbreak, or if you’ve been in close contact with someone who tests positive, you may be asked to isolate yourself at home for two weeks, the presumed incubation period for the coronavirus.

It’s not easy to lock yourself away from your family and friends. These are the basics.

Isolation If you are infected or have been exposed to the coronavirus, you must seclude yourself from your partner, your housemates, your children, your elderly aunt and even your pets. If you don’t have your own room, one should be designated for your exclusive use. No visitors unless it’s absolutely essential. Don’t take the bus, subway or even a taxi.

Masks If you must be around other people — in your home, or in a car, because you’re on your way to see a doctor (and only after you’ve called first) — wear a mask. Everyone else should, too.

Hygiene Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue to cough or sneeze, and discard it in a lined trash can. Immediately wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. You can use sanitizer, but soap and water are preferred. Wash your hands frequently and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, if you haven’t just washed them.

Disinfecting Don’t share dishes, drinking glasses, eating utensils, towels or bedding. Wash these items after you use them. Use a household cleaner to wipe down countertops, tabletops, doorknobs, bathrooms fixtures, toilets, phones, keyboards, tablets and bedside tables. That also goes for any surfaces that may be contaminated by bodily fluids.

Household members When around the patient, wear a face mask, and add gloves if you’re touching anything that might carry the patient’s bodily fluids. Dispose of the mask and gloves immediately. The elderly members and those with chronic medical conditions should minimize contact with the secluded individual.

More Times coverage.

The Times is publishing many articles daily on the coronavirus, which help inform this briefing. Here is a list of articles from the last day or so.

International:

As Death Toll Mounts, Governments Point Fingers Over Coronavirus

China Pushes Back as Coronavirus Crisis Damages Its Image

On Nile Cruiser, 12 Crew Test Positive for Virus, and Egypt Fears Broader Outbreak

National:

Americans’ Demand for Tests Grow as Cases Spread.

California Coronavirus Warning: ‘This Is Not Business as Usual’

Top Coronavirus Official for U.S. Has Fought an Epidemic Before

First U.S. College to Close Classrooms as Virus Spreads. More Could Follow.

Coronavirus Hits a Nursing Home and a Retirement Complex in Seattle Area

New York area:

Coronavirus in N.Y.C.: Why Closing Public Schools Is a ‘Last Resort’

Business:

Spiraling Virus Fears Are Causing Financial Carnage

Oil Prices Nose-Dive as OPEC and Russia Fail to Reach a Deal

Fed May Need to Buy Other Assets to Replenish Tool Kit, Official Says

Why the Coronavirus Could Threaten the U.S. Economy Even More Than China’s

Why a Coronavirus Recession Could Be Extra Painful: Its Suddenness

Paid to Stay Home: Europe’s Safety Net Could Ease Toll of Coronavirus

The Week in Tech: Welcome to the Age of Mandatory Videoconferencing

Florida Lobster Got a Break on China Tariffs. Then Came Coronavirus.

Climate:

Coronavirus Could Slow Efforts to Cut Airlines’ Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Culture:

South by Southwest Is Canceled as Coronavirus Fears Scuttle Festival

From Coughing Fits to Closings, Cultural World Girds for Coronavirus

TEFAF Art Fair Carries on. But Business Isn’t Usual.

Lifestyle:

The Handshake Is on Hold

Coronavirus Puts a Wrinkle in Wedding Industry

How to:

How to Help Protect a Family Member in a Nursing Home

How to Quarantine Yourself

Reporting was contributed by Eliza Shapiro, Katie Rogers, Roni Caryn Rabin, Keith Bradsher, Thomas Fuller, Rick Paddock, Sarah Mervosh, Tim Arango, Jenny Gross, Ben Sisario, Julia Jacobs, Amy Qin, Sopan Deb and Marc Stein.

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2020-03-07 10:12:10Z
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Saudi Arabia detains three senior members of royal family - BBC News

Three senior members of Saudi Arabia's royal family, including the king's brother, have been arrested for unexplained reasons.

Two of the men were among the kingdom's most influential figures.

The detentions are seen as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tightening his grip on power.

In 2017 dozens of Saudi royal figures, ministers and businessmen were confined to Riyadh's Ritz-Carlton hotel after the crown prince ordered their arrests.

Mohammed bin Salman, a controversial figure, has been considered the de facto ruler of the kingdom after he was named crown prince by his father in 2016.

The detentions were first revealed by the Wall Street Journal newspaper, which said they took place early on Friday.

The three men arrested are the king's younger brother Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef, and a royal cousin, Prince Nawaf bin Nayef.

Mohammed bin Nayef was interior minister until he was removed from his role and placed under house arrest by Mohammed Bin Salman in 2017. In his previous role, he was seen as a close and trusted partner by US intelligence officials.

Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, 78, is the king's only surviving full brother. In 2018 he made comments seen as critical of the crown prince to protesters in London but later said he had been misinterpreted.

Both men were seen as potential rivals to the 34-year-old crown prince, who is first in line for the throne.

Guards arrived at the homes of the royals wearing masks and dressed in black, and searched the properties, the Wall Street Journal says.

This is a significant move by Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to consolidate his position. Prince Ahmed bin Abdelaziz is one of the last surviving sons of the country's founder, King Abdelaziz, and widely respected amongst older members of the ruling family.

The other senior prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, was next in line to the throne before he was suddenly replaced three years ago. Before that, as interior minister, he was credited with defeating the al-Qaeda insurgency that gripped Saudi Arabia in the 2000s.

There has been no immediate official confirmation or denial of the story published in the US media but palace affairs in Saudi Arabia are often shrouded in secrecy.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman won international praise in 2016 when he promised a series of economic and social reforms to the deeply-conservative country.

However he has been embroiled in a series of scandals, including the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in 2018.

He has also been criticised over the continuing conflict in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia backs pro-government forces, and the harsh treatment of women's rights activists. despite the lifting of some restrictions including the right to drive.

In recent days Saudi Arabia has been taking measures to contain the spread of the deadly new coronavirus.

Foreign pilgrims have been prevented from entering the country to perform Umrah, or pilgrimage, and there are questions over whether the hugely important annual Hajj will go ahead this year,

On Thursday Islam's holiest city Mecca was emptied to allow a deep clean.

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2020-03-07 09:11:15Z
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Kabul Shooting Kills Dozens At Shiite Memorial; Taliban Deny Responsibility - NPR

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Emergency response workers load an injured man into an ambulance after an attack Friday in the Afghan capital, Kabul, left more than two dozen people dead. Rahmat Gul/AP hide caption

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Rahmat Gul/AP

Gunmen opened fire on a memorial ceremony Friday in Kabul, killing at least 27 people and wounding dozens more in the first major attack in the Afghan capital since the U.S. signed a peace framework with the Taliban late last week. Several prominent politicians, including the country's chief executive and recent presidential candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, were in the audience but escaped unharmed.

A spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of the Interior said the gunmen retreated to a nearby building, where they were killed during an hours-long standoff with security forces.

It is unclear whether a larger group is responsible for the violence.

The Taliban, which have launched a wave of attacks against Afghan forces across the country in recent days, denied any connection with the assault Friday. Given the focus of the targeted ceremony — which marked 25 years since the death of Abdul Ali Mazari, a leader of the country's Shiite minority — suspicion has fallen on the Islamic State, the Sunni militant group that targeted a similar event last year.

"This situation looks endless in our country," one of the people injured in the attack told local media. "There are political games, but only the poor people pay the price — how long will this continue?"

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he called Abdullah, his erstwhile rival for the presidency, and Karim Khalili, the chief of Afghanistan's high peace council. Khalili had been delivering an address at the ceremony when loud gunfire erupted, followed by screams. He emerged from the attack unscathed.

"The attack is a crime against humanity and against the national unity of Afghanistan," Ghani said in a statement posted to Twitter.

YouTube

For Afghans, the attack caps a bloody week across the country.

Just six days ago, the U.S. and Taliban announced that they had signed an agreement, offering hope for peace between the two longtime adversaries. The deal outlined a 14-month timeline for the withdrawal of the thousands of Americans still stationed in Afghanistan, which would bring an end to the longest war in U.S. history.

The U.S. troop drawdown is partly conditioned on the Taliban fulfilling their promises to combat and prevent the spread of terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida.

But trouble quickly followed, as Ghani pushed back against the deal's proposal for a prisoner exchange, and the Taliban — after a seven-day reprieve — redoubled their deadly attacks on Afghan troops throughout the country. The violence escalated to the point that the U.S. said it carried out a "defensive strike" on the Taliban, seeking to support its Afghan allies at a military checkpoint earlier this week.

Now Afghanistan must cope with yet another spasm of violence — this time in its capital, and so far with the assailants unknown.

"We extend our condolences to the families of the victims & thank the Afghan security forces for swift response," Ross Wilson, the U.S. charge d'affaires in Kabul, tweeted. "We stand with Afghanistan for peace."

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2020-03-06 17:50:40Z
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Coronavirus cases surpass 100,000 worldwide while US deaths top 14 - CNBC

Fire fighters and municipality workers with protective suits disinfect the streets, buses and taxies as a precaution to the coronavirus (Covid-19) in Tehran, Iran on March 06, 2020.

Fatemeh Bahrami | Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

COVID-19 cases surpassed 100,000 worldwide on Friday as the new flu-like coronavirus continues to spread outside of China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

The total number of cases now stands at 100,055 as of 8 a.m. ET on Friday, according to data compiled by John Hopkins. The majority of the cases are in mainland China, followed by South Korea, Iran and Italy. In the United States, there are at least 233 cases and 14 deaths, according to John Hopkins. 

At least 3,398 people have died due to the virus, which emerged a little over two months ago.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization called on all nations to "pull out all the stops" to fight the COVID-19 outbreak as it continues to spread across dozens of countries.

"This epidemic can be pushed back but only with a coordinated and comprehensive approach that engages the entire machinery of government," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing at the agency's headquarters in Geneva. "We're calling on every country to act with speed, scale and clear-minded determination."

Tedros said world health officials are "deeply concerned" about the increasing number of countries reporting cases, especially those with weaker health-care systems. He's also worried that some countries aren't taking this seriously enough or have decided that there's nothing they can do to curb local outbreaks.

World health officials said Tuesday the mortality rate for COVID-19 is 3.4% globally, higher than previous estimates of about 2%.

Health officials have said the respiratory disease is capable of spreading through human-to-human contact, droplets carried through sneezing and coughing and germs left on inanimate objects. 

The COVID-19 epidemic has not yet met world health officials' designation of a global pandemic that spreads far and wide throughout the world.

Tedros has said WHO hasn't declared a pandemic in part because most cases of COVID-19 were still traced to known contacts or clusters of cases, and there wasn't any "evidence as yet that the virus is spreading freely in communities."

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2020-03-06 14:35:42Z
CAIiENZCMHQ6KGk277Z0N8llic4qGQgEKhAIACoHCAow2Nb3CjDivdcCMJ_d7gU

Donald Trump calls off trip to disease control agency over staffer’s ‘Covid-19’ - Yahoo News

President Donald Trump’s visit to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has been called off because of concerns that a staff member may have been infected by Covid-19.

Mr Trump told reporters that concerns were raised Thursday about “one person who was potentially infected” who worked at the CDC.

“Because of the one person they didn’t want me going,” he added, explaining why a planned stop at the agency, which is working with state and local officials to help combat the spread of the new virus, was left off his schedule.

A Centres for Disease Control and Prevention logo at the agency’s federal headquarters in Atlanta (David Goldman/AP)

Mr Trump said the person has since tested negative for the new virus.

He said he still hopes to visit the agency.

Covid-19 so far has killed 12 people in the US, most of them in Washington state.

Mr Trump had planned to sign an 8.3 billion US dollar coronavirus response funding bill at the CDC.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar looks on as President Donald Trump shows a spending bill to combat Covid-19 (Evan Vucci/AP)

Instead he signed it at the White House before his departure to travel to view tornado damage in Tennessee.

The White House said in a statement that Mr Trump would no longer visit the agency because he “does not want to interfere with the CDC’s mission to protect the health and welfare of their people and the agency”.

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2020-03-06 14:45:00Z
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No new coronavirus cases reported in China's Hubei province in 24 hours, excluding Wuhan - Fox News

For the first time since the outbreak began, zero new cases of the coronavirus were reported in China’s Hubei province in 24 hours as of Thursday – excluding the city of Wuhan.

Chinese health authorities reported on Friday that while there were 143 new COVID-19 cases confirmed throughout the country, there were no new infections elsewhere in wider Hubei as of March 5, The Wall Street Journal reports, marking a notable first.

Meanwhile, schools in other provinces that have not reported new coronavirus cases in numerous days have begun to announce reopening dates, according to Reuters.

FIRST CORONAVIRUS CASE CONFIRMED AT VATICAN: REPORT

Medical workers attend a a morning conference outside a tent on the square in front of the Wuhan Living Room Temporary hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province in this February photo.  (Zhang Junjian via AP)

The northwestern Qinghai province, which had not seen any new infections for 29 days as of March 5, said that schools will tentatively reopen with staggered opening dates between March 11 and March 20. In southwestern Guizhou, schools are said to begin reopening from March 16.

Now, some Chinese authorities are focusing on fighting potential infections from abroad.

In Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, officials have all sworn to quarantine travelers arriving from other nations that have been hard hit by the ongoing outbreak. Reuters reports that travelers from South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy have been listed by Beijing as high-risk.

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As of Friday morning, the viral disease has reportedly infected at least 97,993 people in about 83 countries and claimed the lives of 3,383 others. Among the total count, there are at least 80,710 cases of COVID-19 in China.

The pneumonia-like novel coronavirus first originated in the eastern city of Wuhan in December 2019.

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2020-03-06 15:01:38Z
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