Category: Foreign

Russia plans to build a new space station because the current International Space Station will last only another decade at most, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos said on Monday.

“It’s still unclear whether the new station will be international or national,’’ Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said in comments carried by the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Rogozin said that the International Space Station (ISS) would be operable for another seven to 10 years.

The ISS, with segments built by Russia and the U.S., has been in continuous use for the past two decades.

READ ALSO: Russia suspends use of ventilator type sent to U.S. after fatal fires

The orbiting laboratory has been a collaboration of mostly U.S. and Russian crew members, tasked with conducting scientific research that would be impossible on Earth’s surface.

It is a unique source of cooperation between these two rival powers.

Rogozin did not provide a timeline for the construction of Russia’s new space station.

He said the issue of whether it would host international crews would be decided in the near future.

“The technical preparations are supposed to start now,’’ Rogozin said.

(dpa/NAN)

Italy is planning to send out into the streets some 60,000 volunteers to tell people to keep respecting social distancing rules in the country’s post-lockdown phase.

The scheme, announced by Regional Affairs Minister Francesco Boccia, on Monday came amid mounting concern that people are mingling dangerously close to one another on beaches, in bars and on public squares.

“The volunteers will not be vigilantes, but spreaders of good behaviour,’’ Bari Mayor and head of the Italian Mayors’ Association (ANCI) Antonio Decaro told Monday’s La Repubblica newspaper.

According to Boccia, they will be called “civic assistants” and wear blue vests.

“They will be armed with the strength of persuasion, reason and their smiles,’’ he told La Stampa daily.

Boccia wrote on Facebook that a recruitment call, open to all citizens but with priority given to the unemployed and recipients of welfare aid, is to be published by the Civil Protection Agency this week.

READ ALSO: Brazil overtakes Spain, Italy in COVID-19 cases

Italy suffered a devastating outbreak of the coronavirus, however the epidemic peaked in late March, and after weeks of falling infection numbers the country’s lockdown was de facto ended on May 18.

In his La Stampa interview, Boccia said the goverment used “a carrot-and-stick approach” which “has worked,” but warned that a further easing of restrictions could be delayed if people misbehaved.

Authorities are currently scheduled to end a ban on travel between regions from June 3.

On the same date, Italy is set to reopen its borders to tourists from other European Union countries.

As of Sunday, Italy reported 32,785 deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus and 229,858 virus cases.

(dpa/NAN)

A kindergarten pupil in Seoul, South Korea, has been infected with the novel coronavirus, the city’s education office said on Monday.

The development has led to the shutdown of several education institutes in Gangseo Ward, where the young patient lives.

The news quickly raised fear among parents with young children, just two days ahead of the planned second-phase resumption of schools, including kindergartens.

The six-year-old boy is believed to have contracted the virus from his art teacher at Young Rembrandts, a private art school in Magok of Gangseo on the south side of the Han River.

The teacher, who tested positive on Sunday, had taught 35 students at the institute until Friday and had contact with three other teachers there.

The teachers all wore masks and followed the institute’s quarantine guidelines and social distancing rules, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education.

The art school’s 91 students, three teachers and two parents have been tested for the virus and are awaiting their results, which will come out early on Tuesday.

READ ALSO: Construction site fire in South Korea kills at least 38

The teacher’s 38 contacts have been ordered to self-quarantine for 14 days, and 13 educational institutes in the same building as the art school will be closed for disinfection.

The boy’s kindergarten, 10 nearby kindergartens and five nearby elementary schools, including Gongjin and Gonghang elementary schools, will remain closed for two days for disinfection and other precautionary measures.

Under the government’s phased school reopening plan, schools are scheduled to resume in-person classes for the two lowest grades of elementary school, kindergarten students, middle school seniors and second-year high school students on Wednesday.

High school seniors returned to school last week after more than two months of delay due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The education office is mulling whether to have the boy’s kindergarten offer online classes to prevent the potential spread of the virus.

A decision on other affected schools will be determined based on the test results. (Yonhap/NAN)

The New York Times has filled the front page of its Sunday’s edition with the names of those who have died from the novel coronavirus.

All of the usual articles, photographs and graphics were replaced by the list of names and excerpts from their obituaries to memorialise the dead as the U.S. approaches the “grim milestone” of 100,000 coronavirus fatalities, the news outlet wrote.

The assistant editor of the paper’s graphics desk Simone Landon said she and her colleagues realised that “both among ourselves and perhaps in the general public, there’s a little bit of fatigue with the data.”

The page was put together by a researcher who combed through online sources for obituaries and death notices and compiled a list of nearly 1,000 names, the newspaper said in an announcement Saturday.

Short passages were lifted to use on the front page and give a sense of the “uniqueness of each life lost,” including “Alan Lund, 81, Washington, conductor with ‘the most amazing ear’” and “Theresa Elloie, 63, New Orleans, renowned for her business-making detailed pins and corsages.”

Overall, the U.S. has confirmed about 1.6 million cases, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. currently has the world’s highest number of deaths related to the disease.

In New York State, the U.S. state hit hardest by the pandemic, there are more than 360,000 confirmed cases and about 29,000 deaths.

But Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced signs of progress on Saturday, as the state reported its lowest death toll for weeks.

At 84 deaths, the Friday tally marked the first time since March that the daily toll was down in the double digits

Cuomo gave Westchester and the Hudson Valley the green light to reopen starting tomorrow as the coronavirus death toll dipped below 100 for the first time since the crisis erupted in March.

The governor also suggested hard-hit Long Island could start the reopening process on Wednesday if the death toll and case numbers keep dropping in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

“What’s safe in Buffalo is safe in Albany is safe in New York City,” Cuomo said on Saturday.

The death toll dropped to 84 people Friday, the first time it’s dipped below 100 since the pandemic slammed the city and surrounding suburbs more than two months ago.

Cuomo called it a bittersweet benchmark that shows how far New Yorkers have come.

 

Growing tensions between the U.S. and China have extended to the airline industry as the Transportation Department accused its counterpart in Beijing of blocking American carriers’ attempts to resume service there.

The DOT late on Friday announced that China had violated a bilateral agreement allowing airline service between the two countries by failing to respond to requests by Delta Air Lines Inc. and United Airlines Holdings Inc.

China “impaired the operating rights of U.S. carriers and denied them the fair and equal opportunity to exercise their operating rights,” the department said in a notice posted to a government website.

The order stopped short of imposing any restrictions or penalty on the four airlines from China serving U.S. markets, but is a warning after repeated objections by the U.S. failed to get action, the government said. It requires the Chinese carriers to notify the department of their schedules and any proposed changes they intend. China’s embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an increasing rift between the U.S. and China. President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed China for the virus’ spread and both nations have taken actions aimed at the other, such as expelling journalists.

READ ALSO: China replies to Trump’s threat to cut off ties, urges cooperation

Starting in February, the U.S. began restricting arrivals of people from China to prevent the spread of the virus. Flights between the two countries fell from about 325 per week in January to only a few dozen.

Earlier this year, China set March 12 as a baseline for resumption of service between the two countries. Because Delta, United and American Airlines Group Inc. had already halted service to the Asian nation by then, it put them at an unfair disadvantage, the DOT said.

“The department is taking this step because Chinese aviation authorities have imposed restrictions on U.S. carriers that are making it impossible for them to resume passenger services between the US and China and operate those services at levels that they have a right to operate under the U.S.-China air transport agreement,” the department said in a statement on Saturday.

United had no comment on the DOT order, spokesman Frank Benenati said in an email. “We look forward to resuming those flights — to the benefit of our customers and communities in the U.S. and China — when the regulatory environment allows us to do so,” he said.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)

The US could finally be free of the coronavirus in late September, and the whole world can expect to put the pandemic behind them in December, says a group of scientists in Singapore.

A mathematical model created by the Singapore University of Technology and Design is allowing the scientists to predict the future of the virus using data from already confirmed cases and deaths around the world.

Based on “a predictive-monitoring” technique, the model inputs global data which is converted to a bar chart. A curve over the top of the chart displays the trajectory of the disease. At the end of April, predictions showed that the US would be virus-free by Sept. 20 and the UK could see the end of the coronavirus by Aug. 27.

READ ALSO: SUSAN FAJANA-THOMAS: Life taught me everything is temporary

Scientists at the university cautioned that their dates were not exact and that the predictions should not lead to hasty ends of lockdowns around the world.

“Over-optimism based on some predicted end dates is dangerous because it may loosen our disciplines and controls and cause the turnaround of the virus,” they said.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)

United Kingdom on Thursday said it would be investing up to 20 million Pounds in the African Union’s new ‘Africa anti-COVID-19 fund’ to slow down the spread coronavirus and save lives.

The British High Commission in Nigeria said in a statement that the funding was announced by UK International Development Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan.

According to the statement, this makes the UK the largest national donor to the fund which was announced by Cyril Ramaphosa, Chairperson of the African Union (AU) and South Africa President, Cyril Ramaphosa, last month.

It said that the funds would support African leaders and technical experts to slow the spread of coronavirus and save lives in Africa and worldwide.

It said that the fund would tackle the pandemic by recruiting African health experts and deploying them where they are needed most thereby strengthening global tracking of the pandemic.

READ ALSO: 253 Nigerians evacuated from United Kingdom 

It noted that it would also combat potentially harmful misinformation, providing specialist with coronavirus training for health workers and making information about the virus more accessible to the public.

“As the UK faces its biggest peacetime challenge in tackling coronavirus, it’s never been more important to work with our partners in Africa to fight disease.

“No one is safe until we are all safe and this new funding and support for African leadership will help protect us all in the UK, Africa and around the world from further spread of the virus, “Trevelyan was quoted as saying in the statement.

She said the fund would also promote an evidence-based approach for surveillance, diagnosis, treatment and control of coronavirus in Africa.

Speaking on the contribution, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing said: “The truly global scale of the current crisis means that international cooperation and solidarity is more important than ever.”

She said that the 20 million Pounds UK funding contribution to the African Union would provide important additional support to Nigeria and other countries across Africa.

The British High Commissioner said that it was testament to the fact that the UK stands shoulder to shoulder with Nigeria in their collective challenge to defeat the terrible virus.

“This new support for the African Union comes after the UK has already pledged over 900 million dollars to the international fight against coronavirus.

“The UK is also using its existing aid programmes to help vulnerable countries in Africa to strengthen their health systems.

“It also comes ahead of the UK hosting the virtual Global Vaccine Summit on June 4, to secure future funding for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which has already saved the lives of millions of children in Africa from infectious diseases

“Many countries on the continent are beginning to see exponential increases in case numbers, presenting a severe risk to fragile healthcare systems,”Laing said.

She noted that the high prevalence of HIV, malnutrition and other illnesses in parts of Africa may also worsen the impact of the virus.

Laing said that in sub-Saharan Africa, there were on average just two doctors for every 10,000 people, compared to 28 per 10,000 in the UK.

“If healthcare systems become overwhelmed, the worldwide spread of the virus will be difficult to slow, risking new waves of infection.

“The UK’s contribution to the Africa anti-COVID-19 fund will prevent this by working in partnership with the AU to help fight the virus, strengthen healthcare systems and save lives in the AU’s 55 member states.

“Today’s announcement brings the total UK aid contribution to fighting coronavirus to up to £764 million ($935.6 million), ” she said.

Laing said the money would assist in finding a vaccine, providing vital humanitarian relief, feeding the world’s poorest people, strengthening global healthcare systems and managing the risk of a global economic downturn.

(NAN)