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MONDAYMONDAYMAY 18, 2020MAY 18, 2020VOL: 4 - ISSUE 362VOL: 4 - ISSUE 362

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RIGHT NOW EVERYTHING IS COMPLETELY

DISORGANIZEDPAGE 02 HOT TOPICS PAGE 03 GLOCAL

SRI LANKANS URGED TO RETHINK PLANS TO BE

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WHY ARE WOMEN-LED NATIONS DOING BETTER WITH

COVID-19?

Trending News

Quote for TodayQuote for TodayRemember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.

Word for TodayWord for TodayDishabille [disuhbeel, bee] –noun – the state of being dressed in a careless, dishevelled, or disorderly style or manner; undress

Today in HistoryToday in History2009 - The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are defeated by the Sri Lankan government, ending almost 26 years of fighting between the two sides

Today is...Today is...Visit Your Relatives DayA day to share your life with those who helped raise you, and to ensure they’re getting the support they need

Benin: The country stages local elections minus key opposition parties with authorities pushing ahead despite the coronavirus threat and calls for a delay.China: The government's senior medical advisor warns the coun-try faces a potential second wave of coronavirus infections due to a lack of immunity among its popu-lation.Egypt: Security services arrest the editor-in-chief of prominent independent news outlet Mada Masr, the latest in a crackdown against journalists.

USA: A large explosion at a com-mercial building in downtown Los Angeles draws hundreds of fire-fighters to the scene and injures at least 11.- The White House hits back at fierce criticism over the firing of the State Department's top watch-dog, suggesting he was a disloyal member of a "Deep State" con-spiracy out to get President Don-ald Trump.DR Congo: Local officials say women and children were among at least 20 civilians murdered in the north-easternIturi province.

Spain: The country reports 87 coronavirus deaths over a 24-hour period, the first time in two months that the daily toll has dropped below 100.Algeria: The death of a pregnant doctor from the COVID-19 disease after she was denied maternity leave sparks uproar and prompts the dismissal of a hospital direc-tor.Germany: Football champions Bayern Munich kick off their first match in more than two months as coronavirus restrictions ease in parts of Europe.

Afghanistan: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomes a power-sharing deal signed by President Ashraf Ghani and his ri-val Abdullah Abdullah, and press-es for a political settlement to end surging militant violence.-NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg hails the power-sharing deal struck between the country politi-cal rivals and urges them to renew their efforts to bring peace.France: Catholics in virus hit east gather for their first mass in weeks, praying and singing hymns from the relative safety of their cars.

Children sit on a wall overlooking the city of Kabul yesterday (17). Af-ghan President Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah signed a power-sharing deal yesterday, ending a bitter months-long feud that plunged the country into po-litical crisis. The breakthrough, which sees Abdullah heading peace talks with the Taliban, comes as

Afghanistan battles a rapid spread of the deadly coronavirus and surging militant violence that saw dozens killed in brutal attacks last week. "Doctor Abdullah will lead the National Reconciliation High Commission and members of his team will be included in the cabi-net," Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for Ghani, wrote on Twitter. Abdullah's

spokesman, Fraidoon Khawzoon said the agreement ensures Abdul-lah's group gets 50% of the Cabi-net and other provincial governors' posts. Ghani said it was a "historic day" for Afghanistan and that the agreement was reached without any international mediation. "We will share the burden and our shoulders, God willing, will be lighter," he said,

addressing Abdullah at the signing ceremony broadcast on a State-run television channel. Abdullah said the deal commits to forming a "more inclusive, accountable and competent administration". NATO, which maintains a training mission in Afghanistan, hailed the agree-ment and urged Afghan leaders and the Taliban to work for peace

- WAKIL KOHSAR / AFP

JERUSALEM - Israel’s Parliament yesterday (17) approved Prime Min-ister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new uni-ty government, ending more than a year of political deadlock, but he still faces a trial starting next week for al-leged corruption.

His decision to share power with former rival, centrist Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, opens the way for Netanyahu to proceed towards a pledged annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank, land that Pales-tinians seek for a state.

After three inconclusive elections, the conservative Netanyahu will re-main prime minister for 18 months before handing over to his new part-

ner. Gantz, a former armed forces chief, will be Netanyahu’s defence minister and “alternate prime minis-ter”, a new position that Netanyahu will hold when Gantz takes the helm.

By assuming that “alternate” pre-miership once he hands over to Gantz, Netanyahu hopes to avoid having to resign under legal rules that allow a prime minister to remain in office even if charged with a crime.

Israel’s longest-serving leader, Ne-tanyahu, 70, first came to power in 1996 and has served three consecu-tive terms since 2009. He goes on trial on May 24 on charges of brib-ery, breach of trust and fraud, which he denies.

“The people wanted unity, and that is what it got,” Netanyahu told Par-liament, citing a desire to steer clear of a fourth election and the need for a national battle against the corona-virus crisis.

Lawmakers ratified the new ad-ministration by a vote of 73 to 46.

Netanyahu can now push forward his plan to extend Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank, territory Palestinians want for their own independent state.

“These regions are where the Jew-ish nation was born and rose. It is time to apply Israeli law on them and write another great chapter in the an-

nals of Zionism,” he said. But while Netanyahu has set July 1 as a starting point for cabinet discussions on the highly contentious issue, there is no publicly stated deadline for annexa-tion of land that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestin-ians have vehemently opposed such a move, urging international sanctions against Israel in response. It would be certain to heighten tensions in the West Bank and Gaza.

“These colonial and expansion-ist positions confirm once again his (Netanyahu’s) ideological enmity towards peace,” the Palestinian For-eign Ministry said in a statement.

-Agencies

Netanyahu's new Israeli government approved, eyes West Bank annexations

COVID-19 and curfew in Sri Lanka

US and UK ‘lead push against global patent pool for COVID-19 drugs'

Hamster tests show masks reduce coronavirus spread

• Ten people were confirmed as COVID-19 positive yester-day (17), taking Sri Lanka’s tally of the novel coronavirus infection to 970. Twenty five cases were confirmed by late Saturday (16) night. Four hundred twenty three individu-als are receiving treatment, 538 have been deemed com-pletely recovered and nine have succumbed to the virus.• The country-wide curfew imposed at 8:00 p.m. Saturday (16) is lifted in all districts expect Colombo, Kalutara and Gampaha at 5:00 a.m. today (18).• Curfew to continue in the Colombo and Gampaha Dis-tricts till further notice, but the mechanism to recommence civilian life and economic activities, introduced on May 11, while curfew is in force resume from today onwards.• Railways Department says 19 trains are scheduled to ply to Colombo from today, seven along the main railway line, six on the coastal line, four on the Kelani Valley Railway line and one each on the Puttalam and the Northern lines.• Malaysian Consultative Council of Islamic Organizations calls on Sri Lanka to allow the bodies of Muslims COV-ID-19 dead to be buried according to the Islamic practice.• NIC last digit based system - those who have 1 and 2 as the last digit can walk to nearby shop for purchase of es-sential items, but not drive.• Those with suspected COVID-19 symptoms are urged to call 1390 - emergency hotline- set up for free medical ad-vice and assistance, and to facilitate hospital admissions.

Coronavirus toll

Scientists say

PARIS -The novel coronavirus has killed at least 311,959 people since the outbreak first emerged in China last De-cember, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT yesterday (17).

At least 4,647,980 cases of coronavirus have been reg-istered in 196 countries and territories. Of these, at least 1,656,100 are now considered recovered.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Or-ganization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.

Many countries are testing only the most serious cases. The United States has the highest number of deaths

overall with 88,754 from 1,467,884 cases. At least 268,376 people have been declared recovered.

Britain has the second highest toll overall, with 34,466 deaths from 240,161 cases.

It is followed by Italy with 31,763 deaths and 224,760 cases, Spain with 27,650 fatalities for 231,350 cases and France with 27,625 deaths and 179,365 infections.

China - excluding Hong Kong and Macau - has to date declared 4,634 deaths and 82,947 cases. It has 78,227 re-covered cases.

Since Saturday (16) 1900 GMT, Nepal has announced its first virus-related death.

Europe has a total of 165,725 deaths from 1,882,402 cas-es, the United States and Canada have 94,512 deaths and 1,543,654 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean have 28,629 deaths and 505,427 cases, Asia has 12,157 deaths and 353,577 cases, the Middle East has 8,108 deaths and 273,241 cases, Africa has 2,702 deaths from 81,294 cases, and Oceania 126 deaths from 8,391 cases.

Corrections by national authorities or late publication of data mean the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day's tallies.

-AFP

LONDON- Ministers and of-ficials from every nation will meet via video link today (18) for the annual world health assembly, which is expected to be dominated by efforts to stop rich countries monopoliz-ing drugs and future vaccines against COVID-19.

As some countries buy up drugs thought to be useful against the coronavirus, caus-ing global shortages, and the Trump administration does deals with vaccine companies to supply America first, there is dismay among public health experts and campaigners who believe it is vital to pull togeth-er to end the pandemic.

While the US and China face off, the EU has taken the lead. The leaders of Italy, France, Germany and Norway, together

with the European commission and council, called earlier this month for any innovative tools, therapeutics or vaccines to be shared equally and fairly.

“If we can develop a vaccine that is produced by the world, for the whole world, this will be a unique global public good of the 21st century,” they said in a statement.

The sole resolution before the assembly this year is an EU proposal for a voluntary patent pool.

Drug and vaccine companies would then be under pressure to give up the monopoly that patents allow them on their inventions, which means they can charge high prices, so that all countries can make or buy affordable versions.

-The Guardian

HONG KONG - Tests on hamsters reveal the widespread use of face-masks reduces transmission of the deadly coronavirus, a team of leading experts in Hong Kong said yesterday (17).

The research by the University of Hong Kong is some of the first to spe-cifically investigate whether masks can stop symptomatic and asympto-matic COVID-19 carriers from infect-ing others.

Led by Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, one of the world's top coronavirus ex-perts, the team placed hamsters that were artificially infected with the dis-ease next to healthy animals.

Surgical masks were placed be-tween the two cages with air flow travelling from the infected animals to the healthy ones.

The researchers found non-contact transmission of the virus could be reduced by more than 60% when the

masks were used. Two thirds of the healthy hamsters were infected with-in a week if no masks were applied.

The infection rate plunged to just over 15% when surgical masks were put on the cage of the infected ani-mals and by about 35% when placed on the cage with the healthy ham-sters.

Those that did become infected were also found to have less of the virus within their bodies than those infected without a mask.

"It's very clear that the effect of masking the infected, especially when they are asymptomatic -- or symptomatic -- it's much more im-portant than anything else," Yuen told reporters yesterday.

"It also explained why universal masking is important because we now have known that a large number of those infected have no symptom."

-AFP

311,959 deaths at 1100 GMT yesterday

NEW DELHI - India extended its coronavirus lockdown to the end of May yesterday (17) as it reported its biggest single-day jump in cases, but said some sec-tors would be permitted to open up as its economy takes a ham-mering.

The lockdown affecting 1.3 billion people - the world's larg-est - has been in force since late March and has been devastating for India's poor, with millions of migrant workers losing their jobs.

"Lockdown measures to con-tain the spread of COVID-19 will continue for a period of up to (May 31)," the Home Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

Schools, places of worship, shopping malls, cinemas and gyms must remain closed, the ministry said, adding bans on large gatherings for religious and sporting events would also be ex-tended. City metro train services

and domestic and international air travel will also remain sus-pended, it said.

Restaurants will now be al-lowed to operate their kitch-ens for takeaway services while sports complexes and stadiums are permitted to host events, but without spectators.

The National Disaster Man-agement Authority said the re-strictions would be updated "as necessary, keeping in view the need to open up economic activi-ties" in Asia's third-biggest econ-omy while containing the virus.

Further state-based details were expected to be finalized later yesterday.

The lockdown extension came as India recorded its biggest sin-gle-day jump in virus cases with 4,987 new infections in the last 24 hours.

It took the total number of cas-es to 90,927 with 2,872 deaths.

-AFP

India extends nationwide lockdown until end of May

-Alexander the Great

2 MONDAY, MAY 18, 2020 DAILY EXPRESS

By Audra D. S. Burch and John EligonBy Marlise Simons and Norimitsu Onishi

By Ernesto Londoño, Manuela Andreoni and Letícia Casado

HOT TOPICSHOT TOPICS

SAO PAULO - Thronged banks. Packed subway cars. Buses full of President Jair Bolsonaro’s fervent supporters, heading to rallies that call on Brazilians to brush aside stay-at-home orders from mayors and governors and instead follow the president’s directive to get back to work.

Scenes like these are a reflection of Brazil’s contradictory and chaotic re-sponse to the coronavirus pandemic, which was on glaring display on Friday (15) when the health minister resigned — just weeks after his predecessor was abruptly fired following clashes with Bolsonaro.

The national confusion has helped fuel the spread of the disease and contributed to making Brazil an emerging centre of the pandemic, with a daily death rate second only to that of the United States.

Public health experts say the disorder-ly approach has further saturated inten-sive care units and morgues and contrib-uted to the deaths of scores of medical professionals as Latin America’s largest economy plunges into what may be its steepest recession in history.

The crisis facing the country stands in stark contrast to Brazil’s track record for innovative and nimble responses to health care challenges that made it a model in the developing world in dec-ades past.

“Brazil’s could have been one of the best responses to this pandemic,” said Marcia Castro, a professor at Harvard University who is from Brazil and spe-cializes in global health. “But right now everything is completely disorganized, and no one is working toward joint so-lutions. This has a cost, and the cost is human lives.”

Brazil had months to study the errors and successes of the first countries struck by the virus. Its robust public health care system could have been deployed to conduct mass testing and trace the movements of newly infected patients. Its failure to act early and aggressively is

at odds with the country’s ingenious ap-proaches to past medical crises, health experts said.

After a surge in HIV infections in the 1990s, Brazil offered free and universal treatment and pushed the pharmaceuti-cal industry to lower costs. It threatened to disregard a Swiss drug maker’s pat-ent for an HIV drug in 2001, and did so in 2007, manufacturing its own generic version and greatly reducing the preva-lence of HIV.

In 2013, Brazil vastly expanded access to preventive health care in poor areas by hiring thousands of foreign doctors, most of them Cuban. And to combat the Zika outbreak in 2014, Brazil created genetically modified mosquitoes that helped decrease the insect’s population, a tactic that will soon be deployed in Florida and Texas.

Brazil’s prior success resulted from in-vestment in science and empowerment of scientists, said Tania Lago, a professor of medicine at Santa Casa University in São Paulo, who worked in the ministry of health in the 1990s.

“Now there’s been a rupture in the na-tion with its scientific community,” she said. “What saddens me is that we are and will continue to lose lives that could be saved.”

As countries started taking drastic measures to curb the spread of the vi-rus in February and March, Bolsonaro played down the risks and encouraged public gatherings. Now he is urging Bra-zilians to return to work even as the num-ber of new cases and deaths are spiking.

This past week, the president issued an executive order classifying gyms and beauty salons as essential businesses that should reopen.

“Health is life,” he said. As with some of his other decisions related to the pan-demic, it went against state and local measures and caught the health minister by surprise. As of Saturday (16), Brazil had 233,142 diagnosed cases of the coro-

navirus and 15,633 deaths. But the actual death toll is likely to be much higher, ac-cording to death records compiled by Fi-ocruz, a government institute that stud-ies health care trends.

Between Jan. 1 and May 9, official gov-ernment figures say 10,627 people died in Brazil of COVID-19.

During that period, an additional 11,026 people who were not diagnosed with the coronavirus died from acute respiratory infections. Experts do not expect the epidemic to peak in Brazil for several more weeks. As of early May, it had the highest contagion rate of 54 countries studied by Imperial London College, which also found that existing containment measures in Brazil have failed to put transmission on a down-ward trajectory.

The political turmoil that has whip-lashed the health ministry over the past few weeks has further hurt the country’s ability to prepare for the pandemic.

The health minister, Nelson Teich, re-signed on Friday, just days shy of com-pleting a month on the job.

Bolsonaro fired his predecessor, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, after the two clashed over the president’s disdain for quarantine measures. The impoverished state of Amazonas, in the north, has seen its hospitals overloaded and its cemeter-ies resorting to mass graves in order to cope with the deluge of bodies.

Arthur VirgílioNeto, the mayor of Manaus, the state capital, has cried dur-ing televised interviews as he pleaded for federal assistance. Bolsonaro, with his disregard for social distancing and other preventive measures, has been part of the problem, Virgílio said.

“People never stopped roaming the streets; there has been flagrant disregard for our decrees,” he said, blaming Bol-sonaro. “He is against social distancing, and that explains part of the disobedi-ence.”

-New York Times

Obama attacks Trump’s virus response Without the springtime rituals of tra-ditional graduation ceremonies, former President Barack Obama delivered two virtual commencement addresses Satur-day (16), urging millions of high school and college graduates to fearlessly carve a path and “to seize the initiative” at a time when he says the nation’s leaders have fumbled the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The speeches, aired hours apart, com-bined the inspirational advice given to graduates — build community, do what is right, be a leader — with pointed criticism of the handling of an outbreak that has killed more than 87,000 Americans and crippled much of the economy.

“More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing,” Obama said in his first address, directed at graduates of historically black colleges and universities. “A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”

Although Obama did not mention Presi-dent Donald Trump by name, some saw his comments as criticism of his successor.

“President Trump’s unprecedented cor-onavirus response has saved lives,” Kay-leigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that cited the administration’s travel restrictions, small business loan program and use of the private sector “to fill the stockpile left depleted by his predecessor.” In speeches that spoke to social inequities, Obama said the pandemic was a wake-up call for young adults, showing them the importance of good leadership and that “the old ways of doing things just don’t work.”

“Doing what feels good, what’s conveni-ent, what’s easy — that’s how little kids think,” he said during a prime time special for high school seniors. “Unfortunately, a lot of so-called grown-ups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs, still think that way — which is why things are so screwed up. I hope that instead, you de-cide to ground yourself in values that last, like honesty, hard work, responsibility, fairness, generosity and respect for oth-ers.”

Obama’s comments were one of his few public addresses to a national audience during the outbreak, and he said a leader-ship void had created a clear mandate for the graduates: “If the world’s going to get better, it’s going to be up to you,” he said.

The prime-time event, ‘Graduate To-gether: High School Class of 2020 Com-mencement,’ was organized by XQ Insti-tute, a think tank that works with schools, in partnership with LeBron James’ foun-dation and the Entertainment Industry Foundation, a philanthropic organization. It aired on major television networks.

Obama told the seniors the outbreak had forced them to “grow up faster than some generations,” as they have had to deal with the pressures of social media, school shootings, climate change and, now, a pandemic. He encouraged the high school graduates to face down those challenges, as scary as they might be.

“If we’re going to create a world where everybody has the opportunity to find a job and afford college; if we’re going to save the environment and defeat future pandemics, then we’re going to have to do it together,” he said. “So be alive to one an-other’s struggles.”

Hours earlier, Obama addressed more than 27,000 students at 78 participating historically black colleges and universities, known as HCBUs.

That two-hour event, ‘Show Me Your Walk HBCU Edition,’ was streamed on the social media platforms of its corpo-rate sponsor, JPMorgan Chase. Hosted by Kevin Hart, it also featured dozens of prominent African American athletes, pol-iticians and entertainers, many of whom were HBCU graduates.

Obama told the college graduates, most of whom are black, that the coronavirus “just spotlights the underlying inequalities and extra burdens that black communi-ties have historically had to deal with in this country.” The disparities are not just in public health but also “just as we see it when a black man goes for a jog, and some folks feel like they can stop and question and shoot him if he doesn’t submit to their questioning,” he said.

It was a reference to the killing of Ah-maudArbery, a 25-year-old black man who was chased by a white father and son and fatally shot in a coastal Georgia communi-ty in February. As communities across the country emerge from stay-at-home meas-ures and people clash over how much free-dom they should have, Obama suggested that Americans needed to be considerate of others. He encouraged the graduates to work with other marginalized groups in their efforts to create societal change.

“It doesn’t matter how much money you make if everyone around you is hungry and sick,” he said, later adding that, “our soci-ety and democracy only works when we think not just about ourselves but about each other.”

Ariel Turnley, 21, watched her own Spelman College virtual graduation with her mother and aunt in the living room of her Lauderhill, Florida, home, then tuned into Obama’s speech for HBCU students.

“I think President Obama said what so many of us feel, that those in power are not doing the best things they can during this pandemic with the power they have,” said Turnley, who graduated with a degree in computer science. “I also appreciated him talking about the injustices that have been highlighted during this pandemic. This is not the graduation that we imagined, but I felt like he offered the words I wanted to hold on to during this crisis.”

-New York Times

The coffin of Jose Maria Silva, 79, who died of COVID-19, is taken to an area exclusively for people who have died in the pandemic, at Caju cemetery in Rio de Janeiro, May 14, 2020

-Dado Galdieri/ The New York Times

PARIS — He was behind the radio station whose hate-filled invectives turned Rwandan against Rwandan, neighbour against neigh-bour, even spouse against spouse. He was the man, it was said, who imported the hundreds of thousands of machetes that allowed countless ordinary people to act upon that hatred in one of the last genocides of the past century.

One of the most-wanted fugitives of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Félicien Kabuga, was ar-rested Saturday (16) morning in a rented home just outside Paris, protected by his children, the French authorities said. The capture of Kabuga, 84, who was living under a false identity, was the culmination of a decades-long international hunt across many countries on at least two con-tinents.

His arrest — considered the most important apprehension by an international tribunal in the past decade — could help bring long-await-ed justice for his actions more than a genera-tion after the killing of at least 800,000 and perhaps as many as one million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the small central Afri-can nation.

His trial could also help unravel some of the enduring mysteries of the killings, particularly how much planning went into the genocide, which also led to a catastrophic war in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and continues to destabilize much of central Africa today.

Kabuga, one of Rwanda’s richest men be-fore the genocide, is accused by the Interna-tional Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda of being the main financier and logistical backer of the political and militia groups that committed the genocide. He had been on the run for 23 years since he was indicted on multiple charges of genocide.

“It is historical on many levels,” Rwandan’s justice minister, Johnston Busingye, said in a phone interview from the country’s capital, Ki-gali. “You can run, but you cannot hide. It can’t be forever.”

A tribunal official said on Saturday that Ka-buga had been tracked down in France after investigators followed communications among members of his family who, the official said, had acted as his support network.

It was not known how and when Kabuga entered France, and how he had managed to evade detection while living in Asnières-sur-Seine, a well-off suburb just northwest of Paris.

He was arrested at his home around 7 a.m. after a long investigation by French national police specializing in crimes against humanity, with help from the federal police in Belgium and the Metropolitan Police in London, accord-ing to France’s justice ministry.

Kabuga was expected to be handed over to United Nations prosecutors, with his trial ex-pected to take place in the tribunal’s successor court in Arusha, Tanzania.

“Kabuga has always been seen by the victims and survivors as one of the leading figures,” Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor at the tribunal, said by phone on Saturday from The Hague. “For them, after waiting so many years, his arrest is an important step toward justice.”

Kabuga’s capture could be the most impor-tant arrest of a figure wanted by an internation-al tribunal since the 2011 apprehension of Gen. Ratko Mladic, the Serbian military leader who was later convicted of having committed geno-cide during the Bosnian war of the early 1990s, Brammertz said.

The arrest ended a lengthy and often-frus-trating search for Kabuga by international in-vestigators across multiple countries.

Stephen Rapp, a former chief prosecutor at the UN Rwanda tribunal, said that immediately after the genocide Kabuga fled to Switzerland, where he unsuccessfully applied for asylum, and was then seen in other European countries before settling in Kenya for several years. Rapp said the fugitive had used assumed names and several different passports.

Believed to have been one the most powerful men in Rwanda before the genocide, Kabuga, an ethnic Hutu, made his fortune in trade. Through the marriage of a daughter, he was linked to a former president, JuvénalHabyari-mana, a Hutu, who was killed after his plane was shot down by a missile over the Rwandan capital in 1994. Extremist Hutus accused Tut-sis of carrying out the assassination, eventually triggering 100 days of killings in which tens of thousands of Rwandans, including civilians, militia and the police, participated.

The Rwandan government has tried thou-sands of people, and the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has tried close to 80, among them senior government figures. After Kabuga’s cap-ture, at least six senior figures suspected of participating in or orchestrating the genocide remain on an international most wanted list.

-New York Times

Right now everything is completely disorganized

After 23 years on the run

After surrogate births

Brazil, once a model, becomes an emerging centre of COVID-19 amid political turmoil

By Andrew E. Kramer

By Mujib MashalBy Ofira Koopmans

100 babies stranded in Ukraine MOSCOW — The babies lie in cribs, sleeping, crying or smiling at nurses, swaddled in clean linens and apparently well cared for, but separated from their parents as an unintended consequence of coronavirus travel bans.

Dozens of babies born into Ukraine’s booming surrogate motherhood busi-ness have become marooned in the country as their biological parents in the United States and other countries cannot travel to retrieve them after birth. For now, the agencies that arranged the sur-rogate births care for the babies.

Authorities say that at least 100 babies are stranded already and that as many as 1,000 may be born before Ukraine’s trav-el ban for foreigners is lifted. “We will do all we can to unite the children with their parents,” Albert Tochilovsky, director of

BioTexCom, the largest provider of sur-rogacy services in Ukraine, said in a tel-ephone interview. He said he released a video showing dozens of stranded babies in cribs to call attention to the problem.

Ukraine does not tally statistics on sur-rogacy, but it may lead the world in the number of surrogate births for foreign biological parents, Tochilovsky said. His company alone is awaiting about 500 births. Fourteen companies offer the service in Ukraine. Ukraine is an outlier among nations, although not alone, in al-lowing foreigners to tap a broad range of reproductive health services, including buying eggs and arranging for surrogate mothers to bear children for a fee. The business has thrived largely because of poverty. Tochilovsky said doctors and caregivers now live at a company-owned

hotel in Kyiv together with the babies, feeding them formula, taking them for walks and showing them to parents in video calls, all while in quarantine to protect against infection.

As of Saturday (16), 60 babies were at the hotel. The parents of 16 of them were also present, having arrived before the lockdowns or having found a way in afterward. BioTexCom offers parents a 50% discount on the usual $54 daily fee per baby for care until travel becomes possible.

Lyudmila Denisova, a human rights ombudsman for Ukraine’s Parliament, said the stranded babies underscore a pressing need for the country to bar for-eigners from hiring Ukrainian women as surrogate mothers.

-New York Times

Rwanda’s most wanted fugitive is arrested

The promotion for Dostum Chinese ambassador found dead in Israel home

Afghan power-sharing deal promotes general accused of rapeKABUL— The two sides in the months-long dispute over Afghanistan’s presi-dential election are close to signing a power-sharing deal, the terms of which include giving top military honours to a former vice president who is accused of torturing and ordering the rape of a po-litical rival while in office.

A political deal is seen as critical as the government prepares for direct peace talks with the Taliban. But the agreement to honour the former vice president, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, by giving him the rank of marshal — awarded only twice before in Afghani-stan’s history — comes as many Afghans are demanding that accountability for terrorism, war crimes and other brutal-ity be a central part of those talks.

The bitter election dispute has stretched on since the vote in Septem-

ber. In February, President Ashraf Gha-ni was declared to have been re-elected, but his main opponent, Abdullah Abdul-lah, called the results fraudulent and took the oath of office at the same time. The deadlock raised concerns that the Afghan government would be divided and weakened in talks with the Taliban.

The promotion for Dostum — a former vice president under Ghani who became one of Abdullah’s key backers — was promised by Abdullah in return for his support, and Ghani has now consented. The deal is expected to be signed on Sunday.

Dostum, who is accused of human rights abuses stretching back to the country’s civil war in the 1990s, was ac-cused in 2016 of abducting and attempt-ing to rape Ahmad Ishchi, a fellow Uz-bek and a former deputy who became a

political rival. Ishchi broke down on na-tional television as he described the epi-sode, saying the vice president had beat him up in front of thousands of people at a sports arena; brought him to a home he owned, where he tortured him for days and tried to rape him; then ordered his guards to sexually assault him with the barrels of their guns.

Medical reports after Ishchi’s release showed injuries consistent with sexual assault.

There has been little accountability for any of the warlords involved in Afghani-stan’s 1990s civil war, which left Kabul in ruins and plunged the country into bloody chaos that still continues. Many of those men grew prosperous with the backing of the American military over the past two decades.

-New York Times

TEL AVIV - The Chinese ambassador to Israel has been found dead in his home, Israel's For-eign Ministry and police confirmed yesterday (17).

Du Wei had arrived in the country in Feb-ruary after having served as ambassador to Ukraine from 2016 to 2019.

He was 58, said the statement, adding his wife and son were not with him in Israel.

Police are at the scene investigating the cir-cumstances surrounding his death, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Rosenfeld confirmed that Du was found in the early morning by his staff in his home in Herzliya, a town north of Tel Aviv.

He did not confirm a radio report that ac-cording to an initial assessment, Du appears to have died of a cardiac arrest.

-dpa

Express Newspapers (Cey) Pvt. Ltd.,185, Grandpass Road, Colombo 14, Sri LankaTelephone: 0117 322 705 (Editorial) 0117 322 731 (Advertising)0117 322 789 (Circulation)Email – editor.dailyexpress@encl.lk/weekendexpress@encl.lk Epaper - http://epaper.newsexpress.lkFacebook –News Express Sri Lanka

3 DAILY EXPRESS

GLOCALGLOCAL

By Meera Srinivasan

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2020

COLOMBO - Foreign Secretary Ravi-nathaAryasinha has called on migrant workers as well as students and parents, to carefully calibrate the effect repatria-tion could have at this time on their jobs and education, before making decisions to seek their return to Sri Lanka even as over 38,980 said they want to return home

Making an appearance on a news pro-gram on a State television channel on Saturday (16), he also noted there were only a limited number of flights being op-erated by the government for those facing compelling circumstances. The Ministry of Foreign Relations in a statement yes-

terday (17), said 38,983 Sri Lankans in-cluding dual citizens, currently living in 143 countries want to return home, citing information gathered mainly through the ‘Contact Sri Lanka’ Web Portal.

The number it said, includes 3,078 students, 4,040 short term visa holders, 27,854 migrant workers, 3,527 depend-ents and 484 duel citizens and others.

The ministry also said since April 21, 3,600 Sri Lankans, largely comprising students and government officials on training, as well as their dependents have been repatriated from 15 countries.

Aryasinha told the news program that

the priority of the government right now was to bring back the migrant worker category which needs to come, but more so in some cases have to come. “Because they have gone out of status and are il-legal, they also as a result of being illegal do not have access to the health facili-ties and anything else in those countries. There are many who have been thrown out of jobs. They are pretty much desti-tute. Thereafter we can consider those who want to come, but who have jobs and who simply want to come on holiday to avoid any corona vulnerability,” he urged.

He appealed to employees and students to carefully calibrate the possible loss of jobs or loss of educational opportunity or major delays which can occur from their coming, elaborating, “because from the foreign ministry perspectives, we are working very hard to get them back today, but I know that one month, two months from now, we will once again be asked to try to reconcile their status as students, when there are difficulties for them to get back or lose out on semester. It is the same with those who lose their employment.”

-ENCL

Sri Lankans urged to rethink plans to be repatriated At a time when the world is feeling sorry for itself, amid a pandemic that is laying bare all that is wrong and unjust about it, an apology from Facebook made headlines in Sri Lanka.

Over two years after an ugly episode of anti-Muslim violence in the island’s Cen-tral and Eastern Provinces, Facebook has said it “deplores” the misuse of its plat-form then. The mob violence, unleashed by hardline Sinhala-Buddhist groups, led to at least two deaths and enormous loss to property. Perpetrators carried out planned arson attacks, targeting dozens of mosques, shops and homes of Muslims, even as ru-mours and hate speech spread like wildfire on Facebook. Then President Maithripala Sirisena declared an emergency and briefly banned Facebook that was seen as a co-conspirator.

“We recognize, and apologise for, the very real human rights impacts that result-ed,” the tech giant told Bloomberg News. The admission came after human rights consultancy Article One, hired by Face-book to conduct an investigation, in its re-cent report noted that the hate speech and rumours shared on Facebook “may have led to offline violence.”

Facebook has since hired “dozens more” Sinhala and Tamil-speaking moderators, to review and remove content violating what it calls its “community standards.” “We deployed proactive hate speech de-tection technology in Sinhala to help us more quickly and effectively identify po-tentially violating content,” according to a statement from Miranda Sissons, direc-tor of human rights at Facebook. Further, the company said it launched a third-party fact check programme, partnering AFP Sri Lanka and Fact Crescendo to counter misinformation. What does Facebook’s apology mean to social media users in Sri Lanka? It was both overdue and welcome, says SanjanaHattotuwa, doctoral scholar at the University of Otago, New Zealand, researching social media and politics.

In his view, the recently released report acknowledges Facebook’s failure to heed warnings from Sri Lanka for nearly a dec-ade, around how the platform and other products were being used and abused to spread racism, Islamophobia, hate and vio-lence against specific communities.

No one blames Facebook for the preva-lent racism or discrimination in society, but incidents like the violence in Digana town in 2018 show the platform might be more than a passive observer. And even now, “they are not apologising for the company’s inability and unwillingness to respond to user-generated reports and research noting the increasing risk of the digital spilling over to the physical and ki-netic violence,” Hattotuwa said.

While the company claims it has in-vested more resources to monitor content in all languages, the platform’s “enduring unevenness” of making redress or report-ing tools available in English, accessible in Sinhala and Tamil is a concern, given that inflammatory content goes viral in no time. Despite its attempts to automate detection of content that could incite hate crimes, the company lacks contextual awareness and grounding, said Hattotuwa.

Moreover, guidance, help, redress and reporting tools are all there on the plat-form, but many users are unaware of them. “It’s hard enough in English. It’s close to impossible in Sinhala. There are ways the company can make these more visible, at specific times, or to specific users and groups, in specific languages, over each product. It is the company’s choice to do so, and not a technical inability.”

Tamil pages too present the risk of high-ly polarised debates, according to Jaffna-based journalist BenislosThushan. “While you see some constructive pages, like the Jaffna Photography Society’s, I see a lot more of arm-chair criticism or rant, espe-cially from users among Sri Lankan dias-pora who have strong views on develop-ments here. The debates get risky because they are highly polarising,” he told The Hindu. Young Sri Lankan Tamils and Ta-mil-speaking Muslims are quite active on Facebook, according to Thushan. “There is a lot of cross-pollination in terms of con-tent, but little accountability.”

Of Sri Lanka’s 21-million population, Facebook has 6.85 million monthly active users and 4.4 million daily active users, ac-cording to Article One. Like any company geared towards profits and a greater mar-ket share, Facebook too would count its users in numbers. Not dealing with hate might have offline costs for users, but deal-ing with it might, for the company. Will the tech giant see beyond numbers?

-Meera Srinivasan is the Colombo based correspondent of The Hindu where

this article was originally featured

Online hate and its offline costs

Security officials spray disinfectants on the pathways of an empty Manning market, the central market place for essential food such as vegetables, in Colombo yesterday (17) ahead of its opening today (18), after a countrywide curfew imposed at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday. (16). Spraying disinfectant on the streets, as practised in some countries, does not eliminate the new coronavirus and even poses a health risk, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Saturday (16). In a document on cleaning and disinfecting surfaces as part of the response to the virus, the WHO has said spraying can be ineffective. "Spraying or fumigation of outdoor spaces, such as streets or marketplaces, is... not recommended to kill the COVID-19 virus or

other pathogens because disinfectant is inactivated by dirt and debris," the WHO explain, noting that even in the absence of organic matter, chemical spraying is unlikely to adequately cover all surfaces for the duration of the required contact time needed to inactivate pathogens. The WHO said that streets and pavements are not considered as "reservoirs of infection" of COVID-19, adding that spraying disinfectants, even outside, can be "dangerous for human health." The document also stresses that spraying individuals with disinfectants is "not recommended under any circumstances." Sri Lanka’s Public Health Inspectors (PHI) union and the Sri Lanka College of Microbiologists (SLCM) have also said disinfectant is not effective and warned it could be harmful

– J Sujeewakumar/ENCL

COLOMBO - Ten more cases of COV-ID-19 was confirmed yesterday (17) even-ing, taking Sri Lanka’s tally of the novel coronavirus to 970.

Twenty five cases were confirmed late Saturday (16), of which 23 were identified as being from the Sri Lanka Navy. The other two, according to Army Commander Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva, had been identified from quarantine centres in Miyankulama and Kandakadu. One of the COVID-19 positive cases had come from Chennai, India last week.

According to the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health, 423 active cases are currently under medical care at select-ed hospitals across the country, and 538

have recovered and have been discharged from hospital.

The government said this was the first time the number of COVID-19 patients who have been cured and discharged from hospital has exceeded the number of pa-tients receiving treatment for the virus in State-run hospitals,

The country experienced a surge in the number of COVID-19 positive patients from April 22 to May 6 as the virus spread rapidly inside the Welisara naval base.

In all 534 navy personnel and their close associates contracted the disease. The base has been shut down and is in quarantine.

-ENCL

COLOMBO – Sri Lanka has asked fish-ermen to stay ashore and those at sea to return as a cyclonic storm in the Indian Ocean was set to intensify in the Bay of Bengal off the eastern coast of the island, with shore areas also likely to see storm surges.

The Department of Meteorology advised naval and fishing communities not to ven-ture into the shallow and deep sea areas around the island until further notice and urged those who are out at sea to return to coasts or move to safer areas immediately.

The Department warned that the storm was very likely to intensify further into

a ‘Severe Cyclonic Storm’ during next 12 hours and a ‘Very Severe Cyclonic Storm’ by today (18).

Cyclonic storm Amphan was about 600 kilometres off Trincomalee in the early hours of yesterday (17).

The Met Department said waves of up to 2.5 metres could develop resulting storm surges. “There is a possibility that near shore sea areas off the coast extending from Mannar to Pottuvil via Colombo, Galle and Hambantota may experience surges due to the effect of swell waves, having (2.0-2.5) m height,” it warned.

-ENCL

COLOMBO - Several checkpoints have been set up in and around Mullivaikkal by the Sri Lankan police and military, as the North prepares to mark May 18 Remem-brance Day, today (18).

Reports from the North said more than ten intelligence officers have taken over an unoccupied house near the Mullivaikkal memorial monument and have been un-dertaking surveillance and photographing those who come to the monument, order-ing them to leave immediately.

Two new military checkpoints have been set up in the area. One checkpoint in Irat-

taivaikkal, the area where Mullivaikkal starts, has been used to register all passing road users. A large number of troops were also deployed in front of the Vadduvakal Bridge to man a new checkpoint.

A police checkpoint has also been set up on the Paranthan-Mullaitivu main road, at the start of the lane leading up to the Mul-livaikkal monument.

Organizers of memorial events planned for today have said they will still go ahead with the remembrance event with appro-priate safety precautions put in place.

-TG

COLOMBO – State-run SriLankan Air-lines is getting ready to resume scheduled flights by June if health authorities give the go head, Chairman Ashok Pathirage said as the carrier battled to survive a cor-onavirus crisis.

“We are working with Airport and Avia-tion Services to resume our scheduled commercial flights by the first of June,” Pathirage told an online forum organized by Sri Lanka’s National Chamber of Com-merce.

“We can be ready, but it is up to the government and health authorities… they will have to evaluate and tell us when this could be possible.”

SriLankan stopped scheduled flights as airports closed and travel restrictions were introduced.

Pathirage said airports are gradually opening up. India had just given the nod to resume domestic flights.

“We have to learn to live with this pan-demic,” Pathirage said. “I do not think we think this is going to go away in three months.

“We have to take all the important meas-ures and walk with this. We have to think about the economy and the government revenues side.”

-economynext.com

COLOMBO- Defence Secretary Maj. Gen.(Retd) Kamal Gunaratne yesterday (17) refuted social media comments that the defence ministry had ordered service per-sonnel to donate a day’s pay to the govern-ment, saying the government request for salary donation was not applicable to the Tri-Forces, Police and Civil Defence Ser-vices personnel.

Last week, President's Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundara made a request from the pub-lic servants to donate their May salary, or a part of it or a day’s salary to the Widows' and Orphans' Pension Fund to help the government overcome the financial con-straints faced due to the coronavirus pan-demic.

Following the request, a circular had been sent to heads of all State sector es-

tablishments instructing they request their staff to contribute either the whole salary for May or a portion of the salary, to the government to help overcome the present financial constraints.

Gunaratne, in a statement yesterday said the Ministry of Defence had requested the staff to donate their salaries only accord-ing to their willingness to contribute to the request made by President’s Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundara.

He said instructions had also been issued to the Chief of Defence Staff, Acting In-spector General of Police and the Director General Civil Security Department specify-ing donating a day’s salary is not relevant to Tri-Forces, Police and Civil Security De-partment.

-ENCL

COLOMBO– Sri Lanka’s hotels are ready to open for tourists in July if authorities give permission though health rules to contain the risk of coronavirus is push-ing up operating costs, an industry official said.

“July is speculated as the possible month of opening but we haven’t received any of-ficial communications yet,” SanathUkwat-ter, Chairman of The Sri Lanka Hotel As-sociation of Sri Lanka (THASL) said.

“We haven’t received any official mes-sages from the governments on when we can open at least for the local tourists and perhaps foreign travellers after the air-ports are open. And we are very eager to start our operations.”

He was speaking at an online forum or-ganized by Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance, an industry association.

Ukwatte said Sri Lanka doesn’t expect many tourists until late December this year. Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) had circulated a set of

guidelines, for which feedback has been sent.

The guidelines were in the lines of those proposed by the World Health Organiza-tion (WHO) and also Singapore, noting they covered the entire journey of a guest from arrival to departure.

“We have already sent our feedback and we are waiting for a reply from SLTDA,” he said.

Ukwatte said the main problem faced by small and medium sector hotels is high cost of maintaining the guidelines in their premises, as it comes with an investment and increasing work load.

“That means you need to hire additional hands. Two, three and four star hotels can be reluctant to make additional invest-ments at this moment. Especially as they are struggling to pay wages,” he said, add-ing that hotels also need to train their staff to face COVID-19 situations in the hotels and bear the cost.

-economynext.com

COLOMBO– The on-line edition of The Guardian newspaper has taken down a question it asked about islands around the world after the Sri Lankan government ob-jected.

Colombo’s envoy to London High Com-missioner Saroja Sirisena wrote to the edi-tors of the newspaper after seeing a ques-tion in a travel quiz which read ‘Eelam is an indigenous name for which popular holiday island?’

When a reader selects the correct answer which was Sri Lanka, a further description ‘the full name of the island’s recent military insurgency was LTTE – Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam’ appeared.

Sirisena in her letter said that the word Eelam was used by the LTTE to propagate their ideology of a separate state in Sri Lanka and that it has never been used as an indigenous term for the country.

-ENCL

Sri Lanka’s coronavirus tally reaches 970

Fishermen asked to stay ashore as cyclone Amphan intensifies

Security forces ramp up surveillance in Mullivaikkal

SriLanka readying to start scheduled flights by June 1

Armed forces, police don’t have to donate day’s salary

Tourist hotels ready to open in July

The Guardian takes down quiz question After Sri Lanka objects to the use of ‘Eelam’

As health rules drive costs up In BriefLandslide warning

The National Building Research Organi-zation (NBRO) has warned landslide risk for the Districts of Galle, Matara, Matale, Ratnapura, Kalutara, Kegalle, Colombo, NuwaraEliya, Kurunegala, and Kandy have intensified owing to prevailing cyclonic weather conditions. Residents are urged to remain vigilant of risks. Tamils urged to act strategically

Global Tamil Forum has urged the Tamil people and their leaders to take stock of the challenges and opportunities in the pre-sent political climate and act strategically by forming partnerships with all relevant stakeholders in Sri Lanka and in the inter-national community.Ranil wants Govt. to re-evaluate recent decisions

Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickra-masinghe yesterday (17) called on the gov-ernment to re-evaluate some of the recent decisions it had taken in the face of a global

recession, thereby providing Sri Lankan lo-cal industries with the maximum possible financial support.14,617 soldiers to be promoted

A record 14,617 soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army are to be promoted on May 19 to mark National War Heroes’ Day, the Army said the promotions will take place concur-rent with the pinnacle of the day’s State commemoration scheduled to be held at the National War Heroes’ Monument at Bat-taramulla, headed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

SC to take up FR petitionsA five-judge bench of the Supreme Court

is set to examine at least six Fundamental Rights petitions today (18) challenging the holding of the parliamentary general elec-tions on June 20 and the president’s refusal to reconvene the recently dissolved Parlia-ment. Court is set to decide whether they are to accept the petitions and grant “leave to proceed” with the cases.

4 DAILY EXPRESSMONDAY, MAY 18, 2020

By Amanda Taub

By Shaun Walker

By P.K. BalachandranBy Vivian Yee

India-Nepal borderrow amidst COVID-19 pandemic

-Mark Mitchell / POOL / AFP

NEW DELHI - The COVID-19 scenario is grim in India. In China, it is worrying, given the discovery of new cases. And in Nepal, there are 281 cases though there has been only one death to date. By Saturday (16), India had registered 85,940 cases and 2,752 deaths. China, which had earlier recov-ered completely from the pandemic, saw six more cases in two clusters on May 11, triggering fears of a more deadly second wave. Nepal this week regis-tered its first COVID death – that of a 29-year-old lactating mother.

However, even as COVID-19 ravages, the three nations are locked in conflicts over borders, which could lead a military confrontation at any time.

India and China had a border clash at Naku La on the Sikkim/India-China stretch. India and Nepal are fighting over the Kalapani area in the tri-junction of India-Nepal and China, with India alleging that China is playing a background role in this row by in-stigating Nepal against India.

In the Naku La clash, soldiers on both sides suf-fered injuries. When China sent a helicopter to rec-onnoitre the area following the clash, India flew a jet fighter over it. Even though both India and China of-ficially downplayed the skirmish, claiming that both sides had over-reacted and that, generally, both na-tions are committed to maintaining tranquillity on the border, those who read the tea leaves in Sino-Indian relations say that such incidents are symp-tomatic of a larger conflict hidden from the public view.

The Naku La incident could be traced to India’s strong objections to the further incorporation of the disputed territory of GilgitBaltistan into Pakistan, which considers it disputed territory for its own rea-sons.

Pakistan, which until recently had been keeping GilgitBaltistan out of its constitutional structure in order to press its claim to the whole of Jammu and Kashmir, of which GilgitBaltistan is part, has been slowly integrating the territory into its formal set up to enable better control the area. This is significant given the fact that the China-funded US$ 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) enters Pakistan at GilgitBaltistan.

Both Pakistan and China are now keen that law and order and political peace be maintained in GilgitBaltistan and favour political integration of the region with Pakistan to achieve that end. In this con-text, India’s objections to holding elections in Gilgit-Baltistan for its legislature appears jarring to both Pakistan and China.

But for India it is a question of its ‘sovereignty’ over GilgitBaltistan which it says is a part of Jammu and Kashmir which, in turn, is an integral part of In-dia since the legal accession of the State to India in 1947.

Though China refused to comment on the India-Pakistan spat over GilgitBalitstan, saying that Kash-mir is a bilateral matter to be addressed through dialogue between India and Pakistan, it is neverthe-less concerned about the India-Pakistan spat over GilgitBaltistan. China’s alleged role in the Nepal-India border row over Kalapani could be linked to its displeasure over India’s stand on GilgitBaltistan.

The Indian army chief, Gen. M. M. Naravane told the media in New Delhi last week that Nepal is rais-ing the Kalapani issue at “somebody’s behest,” by which he meant China.

When India built a road linking Dharchula in the Uttarakhand State of India to Lipulekh Pass in the Kalapani area on the India-China-Nepal tri-junc-tion, Nepal strongly protested saying the road passes through Kalapani over which it has had a claim for years. Nepal says that as per the 1816 Sugauli Treaty with the then British rulers of India, Lipulekh Pass in Kalapani belongs to Nepal.

Gen. Naravane made the remark about China’s indirect involvement because the Nepalese Foreign Secretary Shanker Das Bairagi had met the Chinese Ambassador Hou Yanqi in Kathmandu apparently to discuss the boundary row with India.

Gen. Naravane believes Nepal should have no ob-jections to the road because it lay to the West of the MahakaliRiver which is Indian Territory. The Ma-hakaliRiver is the border between India and Nepal with the Western side being India and the eastern side being Nepal. But this is disputed by Nepal.

In 2015, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to build the road, Nepal had protested, but to no avail. It protested again when India produced a new po-litical map following the conversion of Jammu and Kashmir from a state into two Union Territories. The new political map showed Kalapani as being part of India.

Nepal proposed Foreign Secretary-level talks on the Kalapani row. India said it was ready for talks but only after the coronavirus crisis. Nepal however wanted talks urgently as nationalistic and anti-India feeling were running high.

The strategically located Lipulekh Pass in Kalapa-ni serves as an important vantage point for India to keep an eye on Chinese troop and civilian move-ments. But for Nepal it is both a strategic as well as a nationalistic issue.

“India thinks that it can do whatever it likes with its military might. India’s bullying attitude should not be tolerated, and if needed, Nepal should stand up to India and increase its army’s deployment in the disputed territory. What is the use of the 90,000-strong army, if Nepal cannot defend its ter-ritorial sovereignty?” asked Krishna Pokharel, Polit-ical Science Professor Krishna Pokharelof Tribhuvan University in an interview to South Asian Monitor.

The Nepalese government has now announced it would issue a new map of Nepal including the “encroached areas.” Unveiling the policies and pro-grams of the Khadga Prasad Sharm Oli’s government on Saturday (16), Nepalese President Bidya Devi Bhandari said a new map of Nepal will be produced in which Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani ar-eas will be included.

“A map of Nepal will be issued including the en-croached land and an additional border post will be set up,” she said.

BEIRUT — Saudi Arabia knows about head-spinning change.

“One day there was nothing, the next day there was everything,” a business student, Noura Khalid, 23, said in Riyadh in December, describ-ing how it felt to watch her once-staid country welcome international rap stars and wrestling champions, cars steered by women, movie thea-tres, gender-mixed cafes and other previously un-imaginable innovations in just the last few years. “There’s no break! It’s happening so quickly.”

Now the kingdom faces yet more whiplash.Not only is the coronavirus redefining daily life

for Saudis, but plummeting oil prices are robbing the kingdom of the enormous wealth that was un-derwriting the new Saudi Arabia. The twin blows threaten to sink Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s sweeping social and economic agenda, and have already curtailed the vast welfare state that has given most Saudis a comfortably subsi-dized life.

Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, has upended his country out of a recogni-tion that the kingdom could not keep living off oil forever. Alongside the social reforms have come swaggering moves to diversify the Saudi economy by building up tourism, entertainment and even a futuristic new city called Neom, under a grand scheme he called ‘Vision 2030.’

But with tourism cancelled, concerts out of the question and oil prices crashing, a country that was jangling with nervous excitement a few months ago is confronting a very different future from the one Prince Mohammed had promised.

“I think Vision 2030 is more or less over,” said Michael Stephens, a Middle East analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “I think it’s finished.”

Saudi Arabia, he said, was facing “the hardest time it’s ever been through, certainly the most dif-ficult period of Mohammed bin Salman’s tenure.”

The crown prince has given no indication of scratching any specific plans, and his finance minister, Mohammed al-Jadaan, told Bloomberg News that projects such as Neom would simply be delayed.

Still, Saudis long accustomed to generous fuel and electricity subsidies, cushy government jobs and free education and health care may live far less comfortably than previous generations did, rewriting the relationship between Saudis and their rulers.

The government announced last Monday (11) that it would triple the country’s value-added tax on goods and services from 5% to 15%, strip a roughly $266 monthly allowance for state work-ers and review other financial benefits paid to employees and contractors.

“We are facing a crisis the world has never seen the likes of in modern history,” al-Jadaan said in a statement. The changes in taxes and benefits, he said, “as tough as they are, are necessary and beneficial to maintain comprehensive financial and economic stability.”

While the austerity measures may not make a noticeable dent in the lives of the rich, they are likely to hit hard in the rest of the country.

“A lot of things that were free may not be free anymore,” said Kristin Smith Diwan, an analyst at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “It’s a test of the new nationalism. It’ll be more, ‘you’re part of this nation and you have to con-tribute to the nation.’

The government has taken care of its own dur-ing the pandemic in ways that Americans can only dream of: It has paid to fly Saudis from around the world back home, quarantined them in hotels at government expense and subsidized up to 60% of the salaries of private-sector workers.

By tripling the tax, Saudi Arabia is accelerat-ing the shift away from a welfare state, argued Ali Shihabi, a Saudi commentator. The kingdom’s huge public payroll, which provides stable and well-paying jobs to a majority of Saudis in the la-bour force, will cushion the tax’s impact, and the coronavirus would have kept people from spend-ing much this year anyway, he said.

Other analysts found the move counterproduc-tive. Instead of helping businesses and consum-ers stimulate the economy, Stephens said, the government was putting the burden of austerity on the people least equipped to weather it.

On social media, some Saudis responded with resignation or patriotism. Others questioned why the Saudi sovereign wealth fund was financing a $370 million takeover of Newcastle United, an English Premier League soccer team, while the government cut spending at home.

If the flashy investments and spending on star-studded concerts continue, analysts said, the kingdom could risk public grumbling, but prob-ably no more than that.

-New York Times

With the news this week that Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, is in hospital with COVID-19, the virus has now penetrated the Kremlin, 10 Downing Street, the Palácio do Planalto and the White House.

Putin, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump are all very different politicians. But all have had one thing in common in their responses to coronavi-rus: a belief or suggestion, at least in the early stages, that taking personal protec-tive measures against the virus is some-how unseemly and at odds with their ma-cho political brands.

Trump has refused to wear a face mask, even when touring a mask-making facil-ity; Bolsonaro has questioned the need for social distancing and been pictured shaking hands and hugging fans. John-son infamously announced that he had shaken hands with everyone when he vis-ited a coronavirus ward, an admission that was crying out to be overlaid with music from the Ghanaian pallbearer’s meme but became less amusing when he was sub-

sequently admitted to hospital with the virus. Putin has also seemed unclear on how the virus spreads, donning a full-body banana-yellow hazmat suit to visit a coro-navirus ward back in March but then shak-ing hands with the head doctor, who later tested positive for the virus. His prime minister and now his press secretary also have the virus.

Of the four leaders, Johnson is the only one known to have contracted COVID-19 himself, and he emerged from his hospi-tal stay with very different rhetoric about this virus. Putin did eventually introduce a strict lockdown, but much later than in most other European countries. Minis-ters or aides to all four leaders have come down with COVID-19, and macho postur-ing in the face of the pandemic may be part of the reason.

All the leaders have built brands as strongmen offering maverick solutions, and want to be seen as recovery presidents sweeping the illness aside, even if the vi-rus has other ideas. Of course, coronavirus does not only hit at those who foolishly

defy it, and not all politicians who have contracted coronavirus are part of ma-cho administrations. Equally, not every strongman leader has been willing to risk their health for fear of looking weak in a mask. In Hungary, prime minister Viktor Orbán caused controversy for the oppo-site reason, when he was pictured visiting a hospital early in the pandemic wearing an N95 mask, while the head doctor had to make do with a simple surgical one.

Trump and his vice-president, Mike Pence, have both refused to take what many scientists agree is the simplest pre-caution, and wear a mask. Even as cases of coronavirus spread inside the White House, the president has balked at the idea: “I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dicta-tors, kings, queens, I don’t know, some-how I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t. Maybe I’ll change my mind,” he has said.

This has created a paradox: Putin and Trump are two of the world’s best-protect-ed leaders, cocooned by their protection officers to minimise security risks from

the people they meet, the places they go to and the food that they eat. Yet both leaders refused to take simple precautions against a deadly virus.

Compare all of this to the European na-tion with the lowest death toll per capita – Slovakia. There, a new government coa-lition was sworn in in March, all in masks, president Zuzana Čaputová has made all public appearances in a mask, and even television presenters have read the news in masks, to drill the message home to the population that there should be nothing embarrassing or emasculating about wear-ing one. The country is now coming out of lockdown, having suffered just 27 deaths from the virus.

Bolsonaro, and to some extent Trump, appear to be driven by a populist mistrust of science, while other leaders may feel constricted by the political brands they have built themselves. There may also be a more natural human impulse at work: understanding the risks but nevertheless feeling above them.

-The Guardian

Monday (11) was a day of triumph for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Thanks to the efforts of the entire nation, she said, New Zealand had been largely successful in meeting its ambitious goal of eradicating, rather than just controlling, outbreaks of COVID-19. The lockdown she had put in place March 25 could now end.

Ardern’s success is the latest data point in a widely noticed trend: Coun-tries led by women seem to be particu-larly successful in fighting the corona-virus.

Germany, led by Angela Merkel, has had a far lower death rate than Brit-ain, France, Italy or Spain. Finland, where Prime Minister Sanna Marin, 34, governs with a coalition of four female-led parties, has had fewer than 10% as many deaths as nearby Swe-den. And Tsai Ing-wen, president of Taiwan, has presided over one of the most successful efforts in the world at containing the virus, using testing, contact tracing and isolation meas-ures to control infections without a full national lockdown.

We should resist drawing conclu-sions about women leaders from a few exceptional individuals acting in ex-ceptional circumstances. But experts say that the women’s success may still offer valuable lessons about what can help countries weather not just this crisis, but others in the future.Brown M&M’s and male politicians

Rock band Van Halen famously in-cluded a clause in its tour rider that re-quired venue managers to place bowls of M&M’s in their dressing room. But “WARNING” it said in underlined capital letters, “ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES.”

The clause’s true purpose had noth-ing to do with chocolate. Rather, it was an easy-to-spot signal of whether the venue’s managers had taken care to read and follow the entire set of instructions in the rider — including the safety guidelines for the band’s ex-tremely complex sets and equipment.

Just as the absence of brown M&M’s signalled a careful, safe venue, the presence of a female leader may be a signal that a country has more inclu-sive political institutions and values.

Varied information sources, and leaders with the humility to listen to outside voices, are crucial for a suc-cessful pandemic response, Devi Srid-har, chair of global health at the Uni-versity of Edinburgh Medical School in Scotland, wrote in an op-ed in the British Medical Journal. “The only way to avoid ‘groupthink’ and blind

spots is to ensure representatives with diverse backgrounds and expertise are at the table when major decisions are made,” she wrote.

Having a female leader is one signal that people of diverse backgrounds — and thus, hopefully, diverse perspec-tives on how to combat crises — are able to win seats at that table. In Ger-many, for instance, Merkel’s govern-ment considered a variety of different information sources in developing its coronavirus policy, including epide-miological models; data from medical providers; and evidence from South Korea’s successful program of testing and isolation. As a result, the country has achieved a coronavirus death rate that is dramatically lower than those of other Western European countries.

By contrast, the male-led govern-ments of Sweden and Britain — both of which have high coronavirus death tolls — appear to have relied primarily on epidemiological modelling by their own advisers, with few channels for dissent from outside experts.

However, a signal is not proof. And the surrounding political system can trump the different perspectives that a diverse group might bring to the is-sue.

When Ruth Carlitz, a political sci-entist at Tulane University, analyzed governors’ track records in the United States, she found that women were not quicker to impose lockdowns to fight the coronavirus. (Her analysis is recent and has not been peer-re-viewed.)

That may be because any gender ef-fect has been muffled by the all-con-suming power of political partisan-ship. Carlitz found that Republican governors in the United States, male and female, took longer to impose stay-at-home orders than Democrats did.Escaping the gender double bind

After President Donald Trump was criticized for failing to wear a mask during public appearances, David Marcus, a conservative journalist, ar-gued in an article for the website The Federalist that Trump was “projecting American strength.” If Trump were to wear a mask, he wrote, that “would signal that the United States is so powerless against this invisible enemy sprung from China that even its presi-dent must cower behind a mask.”

Medical accessorizing is not usually seen as so crucial to great-power con-flict. But Marcus’ analysis is actually quite consistent with the traditional idea of a strong American leader: one

who projects power, acts aggressively and above all shows no fear, thereby cowing the nation’s enemies into sub-mission.

In other words, a strong leader is one who conforms to the swaggering ideals of masculinity.

That has often created difficulties for women in politics. “There is an expectation that leaders should be ag-gressive and forward and domineer-ing. But if women demonstrate those traits, then they’re seen as unfemi-nine,” said Alice Evans, a sociologist at King's College London who studies how women gain power in public life. “That makes it very difficult for wom-en to thrive as leaders.”

Ardern’s approach to fighting the pandemic could not be further from that traditional archetype. But on this new kind of crisis, her cautious lead-ership has proved successful. “I would say that shutting down the economy early was a risk-averse strategy,” Ev-ans said. “Because no one knew what was going to happen, so it’s the strat-egy to just protect life first.”

In Britain, Boris Johnson rose to power as a prominent Brexit backer, promising to play hardball to win the best “deal” in the country’s exit from the European Union. But the skills he used to battle Brussels bureau-crats turned out not to be useful in the fight against the pandemic. His government delayed lockdowns and other crucial protective measures like increasing testing capacity and order-ing safety equipment for hospitals. Britain’s death toll is now the second-highest globally.

Male leaders can overcome gen-dered expectations, of course, and many have. But it may be less po-litically costly for women to do so because they do not have to violate perceived gender norms to adopt cau-tious, defensive policies.

That style of leadership may become increasingly valuable. As the conse-quences of climate change escalate, there will likely be more crises arising out of extreme weather and other nat-ural disasters. Hurricanes and forest fires cannot be intimidated into sur-render any more than the virus can. And neither can climate change itself.

Eventually that could change per-ceptions of what strong leadership looks like. “What we learned with COVID is that, actually, a different kind of leader can be very beneficial,” Evans said. “Perhaps people will learn to recognize and value risk-averse, caring and thoughtful leaders.”

-New York Times

Why are women-led nations doing better with COVID-19?

In Saudi Arabia

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks at a post-Cabinet media conference at Parliament House in Wellington on April 20, where she announced the COVID-19 coronavirus lockdown level 4 will continue for another week. Ardern’s success is the latest data point in a widely noticed trend: Countries led by women seem to be particularly successful in fighting the coronavirus

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A grand ‘Vision’ hits a wall

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Putin, Johnson, Bolsonaro and Trump: men too macho for masks