In meeting with Bezos, Amazon executives conspired to smear fired worker who led protest over Covid-19 safety conditions
rt.com | 2020-04-03
Amazon's top lawyer crafted a strategy to scapegoat the man who organized a protest at a New York warehouse, calling the African-American ex-employee 'not smart, or articulate.' President Obama's ex-spokesman helped carry it out. | Chris Smalls was fired on Monday, after he led up to 50 of his colleagues at a Staten Island warehouse to walk out in protest over what they described as unsafe working conditions at the mammoth facility, including the lack of protective gear for the workers. A number of political and media figures, including the Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) condem…
rt.com/usa/484843-amazon-smears-protest-leader/

Modern-day slavery, corruption & deaths: RT doc looks into desperate African migrant journeys to Europe through Libya
rt.com | 2020-04-02
Hundreds of thousands of migrants are risking slavers and the treacherous waters of the Mediterranean in rubber dinghies to get to Europe

Tunisia Leads the Way: New Report Exposes Israel's False Democracy
Ramzy Baroud | dissidentvoice.org | 2020-04-02
Tunisia is the Middle East's greatest success story, according to the findings of the V-Dem Annual Democracy Report 2019. One of the world's most regarded annual reports on democracy and good governance, the V-Dem Report is produced by the V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. While Tunisians can be …
dissidentvoice.org/2020/04/tunisia-leads-the-way-new-report-exposes-israels-false-democracy/

Stop Trump's anti-Asian Racism; Speak out against hate crimes!
Fight Back | fightbacknews.org | 2020-04-02
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following March 29 statement from the Twin Cites based Anti-War Committee. | Racism against Asian Americans is on the rise with 650 attacks reported this last week of March, 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic deepens, Donald Trump is PURPOSEFULLY inciting these attacks. President Trump is using anti-Asian racism to distract from his bungled COVID-19 response and to demonize China. Despite the fact that Trump previously praised China's transparency and heroic efforts to curb the pandemic, he is now maliciously labeling the coronavirus as the "Chinese virus." | Trump has repea…
fightbacknews.org/2020/4/2/stop-trumps-anti-asian-racism-speak-out-against-hate-crimes

Confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa exceeds 6,000 with more than 200 deaths
wsws.org | 2020-04-02
The UN recently warned that half of all jobs could be lost on the African continent due to the disruption caused by the pandemic.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/02/afri-a02.html

'People Should Not Be Forced to Put Their Lives on the Line to Vote'
John Nichols | thenation.com | 2020-04-02
'People Should Not Be Forced to Put Their Lives on the Line to Vote'…
thenation.com/article/politics/wisconsin-democratic-primary/

COVID-19 infections surge in several Arab countries
yenisafak.com | 2020-04-02
Health authorities in Morocco, Oman, Palestine and Lebanon confirmed new cases and deaths from the novel coronavirus on Thursday. The Moroccan Health Ministry said 22 coronavirus infections were confirmed, bringing the country's total infections to 676 in addition to 39 deaths. | In Oman, health authorities said 21 new cases were added to the country's COVID-19 infections, raising the total to 231. | On Wednesday, Oman's first fatality from coronavirus was reported. | In Lebanon, total infections jumped to 494, along with 16 fatalities related to the virus. | In Palestine, the Health Ministry said 21 coronavirus…
yenisafak.com/en/world/covid-19-infections-surge-in-several-arab-countries-3515773

From chatbots to online markets, Africans craft weapons against coronavirus
yenisafak.com | 2020-04-02
From a WhatsApp chatbot to a self-diagnosis tool, Africans are devising mobile tech solutions to contain the spread of the coronavirus amid fears it could have disastrous effects for the continent's most vulnerable.Africa has not been as badly hit by coronavirus as other continents so far – with roughly 6,000 people infected, according to a Reuters tally, compared to about 500,000 in Europe.But experts fear the respiratory disease could have a catastrophic impact on a continent with shaky healthcare systems and where soap and clean water for hand washing are out of reach for many.Governments, charities and entrep…
yenisafak.com/en/world/from-chatbots-to-online-markets-africans-craft-weapons-against-coronavirus-3515778

Twitter Takes Down 20,000 Accounts Allegedly Linked to Saudi, Egyptian, Serbian Governments
sputniknews.com | 2020-04-02
The US-based microblogging and social networking service regularly responds to requests to delete content and accounts, including information posted by officials or media services of countries with whom Washington has strained relations.
sputniknews.com/world/202004021078805240-twitter-takes-down-20000-accounts-allegedly-linked-to-saudi-egyptian-serbian-governments/

First Case of COVID-19 in a Refugee Camp in Greece
telesurenglish.net | 2020-04-01
A woman who recently gave birth in Greece has become the first refugee to have contracted the coronavirus in the country, Greece's Migration Ministry said Tuesday. | RELATED: | Greece: Covid-19 Case in Lesbos Spreads Fear Among Migrants | The unidentified woman lives at Ritsona, a refugee camp some 80 km (50 miles) north of Athens and, according to local media, she could be of African origin. | She had given birth last week in a hospital near the camp, which has a population of abo…
telesurenglish.net/news/First-Case-of-COVID-19-in-a-Refugee-Camp-in-Greece-20200401-0013.html

Nigeria: UN and partners acting to avert coronavirus spread in displacement camps
news.un.org | 2020-04-01
The UN system in Nigeria and its partners are working to reduce the spread of the new coronavirus disease in some of the most vulnerable areas in the country: communities and camps housing millions of internally displaced people (IDPs) uprooted by the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast.
news.un.org/feed/view/en/story/2020/04/1060812

A rosy phantasmagorical (and probably counterfactual) report from Israel's future
Ron Skolnik | peoplesworld.org | 2020-04-01
As Israel celebrated its centennial Independence Day in May 2048, its media reflected back on the many red-letter dates that had marked the tumultuous life of the nation: The UN vote of 1947, the various wars, of course, and the diplomatic agreements reached, first with Egypt and Jordan, and decades later with the rest of …
peoplesworld.org/article/a-rosy-phantasmagorical-and-probably-counterfactual-report-from-israels-future/

Somalia: Zero accountability as civilian deaths mount from US air strikes
commondreams.org | 2020-04-01
______________________________…
commondreams.org/newswire/2020/04/01/somalia-zero-accountability-civilian-deaths-mount-us-air-strikes?cd-origin=rss

Stranded UK tourists wait for news on charter flights
The Canary | thecanary.co | 2020-04-01
Hundreds of thousands of UK citizens stranded abroad face an anxious wait for details of rescue flights to be announced. | The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has set aside £75 million to charter flights from destinations where commercial routes have been severed due to the coronavirus pandemic. | Repatriation flights operated from Peru and Tunisia on Tuesday, but details of further flights have not been revealed. | On March 23, the FCO advised all UK residents who were travelling abroad to return home. | We are aware that not everyone who wanted to leave Peru was able to. We understand this is a worr…
thecanary.co/uk/news/2020/04/01/stranded-uk-tourists-wait-for-news-on-charter-flights/

Coronavirus poses latest threat to battered health system in DR Congo
news.un.org | 2020-03-31
The looming threat of the new coronavirus disease COVID-19 is just the latest challenge to the beleaguered health care system in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which is struggling with deadly measles and cholera epidemics that have killed thousands of children over the past year, the UN children's fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.
news.un.org/feed/view/en/story/2020/03/1060692

UN appeals to all Somalis to 'come together' in fight against COVID-19 pandemic
news.un.org | 2020-03-31
Like most countries in the world, Somalia is facing the unparalleled challenge of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the United Nations system in the country noted on Tuesday, calling on its citizens to "unite" in stemming the spread.
news.un.org/feed/view/en/story/2020/03/1060722

On the Need for Dissent and Debate in These Urgent Times
John Nichols | thenation.com | 2020-03-31
On the Need for Dissent and Debate in These Urgent Times…
thenation.com/article/politics/dissent-debate-massie-aoc/

World Suffering Less from Coronavirus Crisis & More from an America Crisis
John Wight | iranian.com | 2020-03-31
In his 1948 classic novel "The Plague," which tells the story of the fictional outbreak of a rat-borne plague in the Algerian port city of Oran under French colonialism, French writer and thinker Albert Camus explores the way the plague and ensuing crisis taps into the very best and worst of the human condition. The current …
iranian.com/2020/03/30/world-suffering-less-from-coronavirus-crisis-more-from-an-america-crisis/

[Obituary] Aron Goldhirsch
Andrew Green | thelancet.com | 2020-03-28
Medical oncologist specialising in breast cancer. Born on April 25, 1946, in Landsberg am Lech, Germany, he died on Feb 26, 2020, in Lugano, Switzerland, aged 73 years.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30642-5/fulltext?rss=yes

U.S. Is #1 in Pandemic: Rep. Omar Blasts Trump for "Wrong Kind of American Exceptionalism"
Staff | democracynow.org | 2020-03-27
As much of the United States is under lockdown, the House votes today on a $2 trillion emergency relief package to address the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. It will generate payments to most Americans and includes protections for workers, but it is also a massive bailout for a number of industries and corporations, and the vote comes as a record 3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits. We speak with Congressmember Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, the first Somali American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and one of the first Muslim women in Congress, about the bill, Trump's response t…
www.democracynow.org/2020/3/27/rep_ilhan_omar_coronavirus_relief_bill

[Research Paper] A phase 1b randomized study of the safety and immunological responses to vaccination with H4:IC31, H56:IC31, and BCG revaccination in Mycobacterium tuberculosis-uninfected adolescents in Cape Town, South Africa
Linda-Gail Bekker, One Dintwe, Andrew Fiore-Gartland, Keren Middelkoop, Julia Hutter, Anthony Williams, April K. Randhawa, Morten Ruhwald, Ingrid Kromann, Peter L. Andersen, Carlos A. DiazGranados, Kathryn T. Rutkowski, Dereck Tait, Maurine D. Miner, Erica Andersen-Nissen, Stephen C. De Rosa, Kelly E. Seaton, Georgia D. Tomaras, M. Juliana McElrath, Ann Ginsberg, James G. Kublin, HVTN 602 | thelancet.com | 2020-03-18
BCG revaccination administered as a single dose ID and both H4: IC31 and H56: IC31 administered as 2 doses IM had acceptable safety profiles in healthy, QFT-negative, previously BCG-vaccinated adolescents. Characterization of the assays and the immunogenicity of these vaccines may help to identify valuable markers of protection for upcoming immune correlates analyses of C-040-404 and future TB vaccine efficacy trials.
thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30057-2/fulltext?rss=yes

[Comment] COVID-19: towards controlling of a pandemic
Juliet Bedford, Delia Enria, Johan Giesecke, David L Heymann, Chikwe Ihekweazu, Gary Kobinger, H Clifford Lane, Ziad Memish, Myoung-don Oh, Amadou Alpha Sall, Anne Schuchat, Kumnuan Ungchusak, Lothar H Wieler, WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards | thelancet.com | 2020-03-17
During the past 3 weeks, new major epidemic foci of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), some without traceable origin, have been identified and are rapidly expanding in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East, with the first confirmed cases being identified in African and Latin American countries. By March 16, 2020, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China had increased drastically and the number of affected countries, states, or territories reporting infections to WHO was 143.1 On the basis of "alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction", on March 11, 2020, the…
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30673-5/fulltext?rss=yes

[Comment] Preparedness is essential for malaria-endemic regions during the COVID-19 pandemic
Jigang Wang, Chengchao Xu, Yin Kwan Wong, Yingke He, Ayà¥la A Adegnika, Peter G Kremsner, Selidji T Agnandji, Amadou A Sall, Zhen Liang, Chen Qiu, Fu Long Liao, Tingliang Jiang, Sanjeev Krishna, Youyou Tu | thelancet.com | 2020-03-16
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that first emerged in Wuhan in China's Hubei province1 has quickly spread to the rest of China and many other countries. Within 3 months, more than 125‚Äà000 people have been infected and the death toll had reached over 4600 worldwide on March 12, 2020.2 In an attempt to contain the virus, the Chinese Government has made unprecedented efforts and invested enormous resources and these containment efforts have stemmed the spread of the disease.3 As of March 12, 2020, malaria-endemic regions in Africa have reported a few imported COVID-19 cases inclu…
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30561-4/fulltext?rss=yes

[Correspondence] Adoption of COVID-19 triage strategies for low-income settings
Rodgers R Ayebare, Robert Flick, Solome Okware, Bongomin Bodo, Mohammed Lamorde | thelancet.com | 2020-03-11
Despite major advances in epidemic preparedness, Africa remains uniquely susceptible to novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). According to the Infectious Disease Vulnerability Index,1 22 of the 25 countries most susceptible to an infectious disease outbreak are in Africa. The high prevalence of HIV, tuberculosis, and other pathogens might potentiate the severity of COVID-19 and contribute to diagnostic uncertainty. Health-care systems and human resources are already spread thin. And although the young age of the population (with more than half aged younger than 20 years) might prove protective, it also means…
thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30114-4/fulltext?rss=yes

[Commentary] We all progress through progress towards gender equality
Pavel V. Ovseiko, Anand Ahankari | thelancet.com | 2020-03-04
Ubuntu

[Research Paper] Violence-related knife injuries in a UK city; epidemiology and impact on secondary care resources
Nabeela S. Malik, Beau Munoz, Cynthia de Courcey, Rizwana Imran, Kwang C. Lee, Saisakul Chernbumroong, Jonathan Bishop, Janet M. Lord, George Gkoutos, Douglas M. Bowley, Mark A. Foster | thelancet.com | 2020-03-03
Knife injuries constitute 12 ∑9% of trauma team workload. Violence recidivism and intoxication are common, and females are predominantly injured in a domestic setting, presenting opportunities for targeted violence reduction interventions. 13 ∑9% of injuries involved machetes, with implications for law enforcement strategies.
thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30040-7/fulltext?rss=yes