Category: Foreign

The rate of new COVID-19 infections continued to fall in Germany as the number of confirmed cases increased by 679 within one day to 163,175, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said on Monday.

At the height of the outbreak in Germany, more than 6,000 new infections were recorded by the RKI on a single day.

The RKI announced that the number of deaths from COVID-19 in Germany increased by 43 to 6,692 on Monday, resulting in a fatality rate of 4.1 per cent.

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The number of people, who had already recovered from COVID-19, increased by around 2,200 within one day to 132,700 on Monday, according to the RKI.

The reproduction rate of COVID-19 in Germany was at 0.74 as of Sunday.

The RKI and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have repeatedly stated that restrictions would only be eased if this number was well below one.

Merkel and minister presidents of the federal states are scheduled to announce the next steps of Germany’s reopening strategy on Wednesday.

(Xinhua/NAN)

The European Commission on Monday approved French loans worth 7.65 billion dollars (7 billion euros) to help Air France weather the coronavirus pandemic, noting that the aviation giant would otherwise face the risk of bankruptcy.

The funding will “provide urgent liquidity for the company in the context of the Coronavirus outbreak,” the commission said in a statement.

The EU executive has relaxed its state aid rules to help companies during the global health crisis.

Paris plans to lend Air France 3 billion euros directly and to guarantee bank loans for a further 4 billion euros, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire announced in April.

Commissioner Vice President Margrethe Vestager praised Air France’s “essential” role in repatriating citizens and transporting medical equipment during the pandemic, while welcoming French “green policy choices” for the airline.

READ ALSO: UK says China has questions to answer over coronavirus outbreak

“This 7-billion-euro French guarantee and shareholder loan will provide Air France with the liquidity that it urgently needs to withstand the impact of the coronavirus outbreak,” the EU’s top competition official added.

The French government is currently the largest single shareholder of Air France-KLM, with a 14.3 per cent stake.

The Dutch government also has a 14 per cent stake, bought in a surprise operation last year.

The aviation industry has been hit by measures to contain the Coronavirus outbreak, with flights grounded around the world due to international travel restrictions.

(dpa/NAN)

The coronavirus death toll in Iran, one of the hardest-hit countries in the Middle East, rose by 74 in the past 24 hours to 6,277, the Health Ministry said on Monday, as mosques were due to reopen in many cities.

The total number of diagnosed cases rose to 98,647, ministry spokesman, Kianush Jahanpur, said in a statement on state TV.

Iran was due to open mosques in 132 cities on Monday, President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday, part of a broader plan to ease restrictions.

READ ALSO: Iran to target U.S. bases if national security threatened – official

In the areas where mosques reopen, worshippers must maintain social distancing, wear masks and gloves and not stay for more than half an hour, the ISNA news agency reported on Monday.

Iran has already lifted a ban on inter-city trips and malls, with large shopping centres resuming activities despite warnings by some health officials of a new wave of infections.

(Reuters/NAN)

Britain said on Monday that China had questions to answer over the information it shared about the novel coronavirus outbreak, but refused to comment on reports that a U.S.-led intelligence consortium had accused Beijing of a cover-up.

The U.S. has scaled up its rhetoric over Chinese culpability for the coronavirus in recent days, with U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, saying on Sunday there was evidence the disease emerged from a Chinese lab.

Washington has so far presented no evidence publicly that the virus came from a lab, which Beijing strongly denies.

The Australian Telegraph reported the U.S.-led Five Eyes intelligence consortium had in a 15-page research dossier said China had deliberately suppressed or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak in an “assault on international transparency” that cost tens of thousands of lives.

The Five Eyes group compises U.S., British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand intelligence services.

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British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: “Every day I get intelligence bulletins from our agencies around the world.

“I don’t comment on individual bulletins, what I have and haven’t seen. That would be wrong.”

Asked if China had questions to answer over how quickly it made the world aware of the extent of the crisis, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: “I think it does.”

“China needs to be open and transparent about what it leant, its short comings but also its successes,” Wallace said, adding that the time for a post mortem was after the outbreak.

Reuters has not seen the Five Eyes dossier and was unable to immediately verify the Australian Telegraph report.

One Western intelligence source said it was now widely accepted that China had not been fully transparent.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was confident the coronavirus originated in a Chinese virology lab.

“Virus samples ordered destroyed at genomics labs, wildlife market stalls bleached, the genome sequence not shared publicly, the Shanghai lab closure for ‘rectification’,” the Telegraph quoted the document as saying.

“As we repeatedly point out, China has been fighting COVID-19 in an open, transparent and responsible manner,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular daily briefing on April 24.

(Reuters/NAN)

The French government on Monday faced mounting questions and criticism about its plan to gradually ease the country’s coronavirus lockdown starting on May 11.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and more than 300 other mayors in the Ile de France region around the capital demanded that the government postpone the planned return for some schoolchildren on that day.

French schools have been closed since mid-March. Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer says some 4 per cent of children have lost touch with their teachers since then and other are falling behind.

The timetable was “in most of our communes, untenable and unrealistic,” the mayors wrote in an open letter to President Emmanuel Macron and published by newspaper La Tribune.

The mayors said they had not enough time to prepare the reopening, faced with shifting government plans and logistical issues such as the supply of masks for teachers and secondary school pupils.

READ ALSO: French daily COVID-19 hospital deaths drop below 200

Allowing parents to decide whether their children would return could sabotage efforts to make up for the impact of the closure on the most vulnerable students, the mayors argued.

Public transport operators have also expressed concerns about the lockdown exit plan.

Newspaper Le Parisien reported that the main operators had warned the government that they would not be able to ensure full physical-distancing of passengers on May 11.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe was due to present the exit plan to the opposition-dominated Senate later on Monday.

France has suffered one of Europe’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks, with almost 25,000 deaths as of Sunday. (dpa/NAN)

Chinese state media hit back at the U.S. on Monday, accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of trying to divert attention from its own “incompetence” with allegations about the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The commentary in the Global Times newspaper, published under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily, dismissed as “groundless” allegations that China had covered up the scale of coronavirus outbreak.

It said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s claim that intelligence agencies were following up “significant” evidence that the virus came from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan was “bluffing.”

“The truth is that Pompeo does not have any evidence. If Washington has solid evidence, then it should let research institutes and scientists examine and verify it.

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“The U.S. government’s goal was to blame China for the pandemic as well as to manipulate public opinion and to avoid being accused of “pandemic malfeasance,” the paper said.

It added that the ultimate goal of President Trump now was to win election and gain a second term in November.

Meanwhile, Canadian media have reported the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, as saying that it is “too early to draw firm conclusions,” about the theory that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory.

Canada is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance with the U.S., the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Scientists consider it more likely the virus was transmitted to humans from bats via another animal.

The U.S. intelligence community last week concluded that the virus was not man-made.

(NAN)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on Saturday appeared in public for the first time in weeks, State News Agency (KCNA), reported, amid speculation that he might be sick or even dead.

North Korean media ran photographs showing the leader apparently attending a ceremony marking the completion of a fertilizer plant in Sunchon, some 50 kilometres North of the capital Pyongyang.

According to the agency, Jong-Un was welcomed by thunderous cheers from the participants in the ceremony.

South Korea’s Ministry of Unification confirmed the events, saying that “groundless reports about North Korea” had “caused unneccessary confusion for the economy, security and society.”

Ever since South Korea-based online Newspaper Daily NK reported in April that he had to undergo heart surgery, followed by his conspicuous absence from some key events, Korea watchers had been wondering about his fate.

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U.S. President Donald Trump told newsmen when asked about the reports of Kim’s public appearance, “I’d rather not comment on it yet. We’ll have something to say about it at the appropriate time.

Kim had not been seen in public for about three weeks.

He was last seen attending a key party meeting in Pyongyang on April 11 and missed celebrations marking his late grandfather’s Kim Il Sung’s birthday on April 15.

In its over 1,500-word report on Saturday, KCNA did not address speculations about Kim’s health.

According to Yonhap, North Korean state media, Jong-Un expressed his appreciation to workers who built houses in the Northern city of Samjiyon.

However, the agency also noted that the North Korean report did not disclose his location or include any images.

(NAN)