Italy's Lombardy asks retired health workers to join coronavirus fight - Reuters

ROME (Reuters) - The northern region of Lombardy, on the frontline of Italy’s battle against the coronavirus, appealed to recently retired doctors and nurses on Wednesday to return to work and help colleagues overwhelmed by the crisis.

Italy is the worst affected country in the world outside of China, with 2,503 dead and 31,506 confirmed cases since Feb. 21. Around 65% of all the deaths have been recorded in Lombardy and hospitals there are at breaking point, officials say.

Adding to the problem, doctors, nurses and hospital porters have themselves fallen sick, and some have died.

The Gimbe Foundation research group, using data supplied by the national health authority, said that between March 11-17, some 2,529 health workers had tested positive for coronavirus - 8.3% of the national total.

“I make a heartfelt appeal to all the doctors, nurses and medical personnel who have retired in the last two years ... to help us in this emergency,” Lombardy Governor Attilio Fontana told a news conference.

He also urged staff in private medical facilities and first aid specialists to step forward as the region rushed to convert the Fiera Milano exhibition center into a makeshift hospital to add badly needed intensive care beds.

Underscoring the urgent need for more medical staff, the government announced on Tuesday it was rushing 10,000 student doctors into service nine months ahead of time, scrapping their final exams in an effort to relieve the mounting pressure.

Officials warned on Wednesday that if the incidence of new cases did not slow, they might have to extend an unprecedented lockdown imposed last week to halt infections.

The government ordered restaurants, bars and most shops to shut down until March 25. In addition, it shut schools and universities and told everyone to stay at home unless absolutely essential until April 3.

Since the restrictions were ramped up on March 12, the number of new cases has more than doubled, while deaths have more than tripled.

Slideshow (2 Images)

“I do not know if the measures will be extended beyond April 3. We will make a decision based on the numbers and events. I cannot rule it out. We will see in the coming days,” said Infrastructure Minister Paola De Micheli.

Fontana said even tougher curbs might be needed if the situation did not improve and said too many people were defying the lockdown.

“Unfortunately, the contagion numbers are not falling, they continue to be high,” he said. “Every time you leave your home, you are putting yourself and others at risk. We are asking people to make sacrifices to save lives.”

Elvira Pollina reported for this story in Milan. Additional reporting by Francesca Piscioneri; editing by Larry King and Nick Macfie

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-03-18 14:04:04Z
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China defends expulsion of journalists, warns more possible | TheHill - The Hill

China on Wednesday defended its decision to expel journalists working for three American news organizations and to forbid them from working in Hong Kong, adding that more expulsions could be coming.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said during a daily press briefing that China would take more steps against American media if the U.S. did not “correct its mistakes,” Reuters reported.

“The U.S. has said that all options are on the table. Today, I can also tell the U.S. that all options are on the table for China,” Geng said, according to Reuters.

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China announced Tuesday that journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post would be forced to leave the country at the end of 2020 and would not be permitted to work in Hong Kong as allowed during past expulsions. 

The decision will affect at least 13 journalists, according to the Foreign Correspondents Club of China, which said it “deplores” the choice. The club has requested that Hong Kong ensure that foreign journalists and those applying for work in the semi-autonomous city would still receive employment without the Chinese government getting involved. 

The Chinese government said the expulsions were in reaction to U.S. actions against Chinese media, such as requiring Chinese state media to register as foreign embassies and reducing the number of journalists allowed to work for these outlets in the U.S.

The decision to prohibit the reporters from working in Hong Kong has specifically stirred outrage given the one-country, two-systems relationship put in place after China took control of Hong Kong in 1997. Reporters have previously been allowed to work in Hong Kong after they were expelled from China. 

Chinese officials said they were allowed to forbid the reporters from working in Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s Basic Law, which is its small constitution, says China can manage its foreign affairs and defense. 

China had previously expelled three Wall Street Journal reporters because of an op-ed headline that the foreign ministry labeled as racist. The headline was “China is the Real Sick Man of Asia,” referring to the coronavirus outbreak.

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2020-03-18 12:37:17Z
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China Rebukes the U.S. After Saying It Will Expel American Journalists - The New York Times

HONG KONG — China took a combative stance on Wednesday, accusing the United States of starting a diplomatic war that led it to expel almost all American journalists from three newspapers.

In articles and commentaries from China’s propaganda organs as well as remarks by a top spokeswoman, Beijing indicated it would not back down, accusing the United States of starting the dispute. The state media commentary also focused sharply on reporting by the three outlets, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, which the government has often accused of being unfair.

“We reject ideological bias against China, reject fake news made in the name of press freedom, reject breaches of ethics in journalism,” tweeted Hua Chunying, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman.

An article from The Global Times, a stridently nationalistic tabloid controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, criticized the The New York Times’s coverage of the coronavirus outbreak, the monthslong antigovernment protests in Hong Kong, and the Chinese authorities’ internment of ethnic minority Muslims in far western Xinjiang. The paper’s coverage of the epidemic, the article said, was “aiming to attack China’s political system and smear China’s efforts” to contain the virus.

It said reports by the Times and other outlets about the government’s policies in the Xinjiang region had “smeared and attacked China without basis.”

Under China’s leader, Xi Jinping, the news media has come under an increasingly tighter grip and foreign reporters have been punished with visa denials. In recent weeks as the coronavirus spread through China, the government cracked down on domestic and foreign reporting, muzzling medical professionals and censoring and removing reports and commentary online that has challenged the official narrative.

China said Tuesday that it would require all American journalists for the three newspapers whose credentials expire by the end of the year to turn in their press cards within 10 days. It said they would not be allowed to continue working as journalists in China.

In an unusual move, its announcement said the Americans were also forbidden from working as journalists in Macau or Hong Kong, two semiautonomous Chinese territories that have traditionally had greater protections for press freedom than the mainland. It was not immediately clear how Beijing would enforce this.

China also said it was requiring the three outlets as well as Time magazine and Voice of America to disclose details of their staff, assets and operations in China.

The move would affect at least 13 American journalists but the number could be higher, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said in a statement on Wednesday.

The organization said the expulsion “diminishes us in number and in spirit, though not in our commitment to vigorously cover China. There are no winners in the use of journalists as diplomatic pawns by the world’s two pre-eminent economic powers.”

The news outlets condemned the Chinese government’s decision. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the expulsions “unfortunate” and said he hoped China would reconsider.

Beijing has said that the move was in retaliation for the Trump administration’s decision to limit the number of Chinese citizens from five state-controlled Chinese media outlets who can work in the United States to 100, which forced the expulsion of about 60.

The Global Times echoed this in an editorial on Wednesday that accused Washington of starting the tit-for-tat. “As a Chinese media, we regret that the conflict between China and the United States has escalated due to political differences,” adding that both Chinese and American journalists were “implicated by political frictions between China and the United States.”

The moves against the American outlets follow the expulsion of three Journal reporters over the headline last month, “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia,” on an op-ed column about the country’s coronavirus response efforts.

In recent days, the People’s Daily, a Communist Party mouthpiece, and China Daily, a state-run newspaper, posted messages that circulated widely on China’s Twitter-like forum Weibo targeting the Times for what they called “double standards” in its tweets about the lockdown imposed in China and in Italy to curb the spread of the virus.

The foreign ministry left several questions unanswered in its statement on Tuesday, including how and whether the Hong Kong government would take further steps to enforce Beijing’s expulsion. Hong Kong operates under a political formula known as “one country, two systems,” that promises the Chinese territory a high degree of autonomy, including independent courts, a free news media and extensive protections of civil liberties.

Many global news organizations use Hong Kong as headquarters for the Asia region. Under the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the region has jurisdiction over immigration matters. If Hong Kong refused to allow the journalists to work in the city, it would be seen by some critics as the latest sign of eroding freedoms in the territory.

“Whichever way Beijing decides to proceed, it will be a blow to the ‘one country, two systems’ formula,” said Jason Y. Ng, a prominent writer and lawyer in Hong Kong. “So let’s hope that this hastily put together statement is more political posturing than genuine policy and that the Foreign Ministry has no intention to actually implement it in Hong Kong.”

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2020-03-18 12:18:08Z
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Coronavirus Infections Pass 200,000 Globally - The Wall Street Journal

The number of confirmed coronavirus infections passed 200,000, more than doubling in a span of two weeks, despite an escalation in global travel restrictions and the imposition of home quarantines in many parts of the world.

There were 201,530 confirmed cases of the disease known as Covid-19 early on Wednesday, with infections outside of mainland China—where the epidemic began—now above 120,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Deaths globally also more than doubled over the past two weeks to 8,007.

...

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2020-03-18 12:00:45Z
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China Rebukes the U.S. After Saying It Will Expel American Journalists - The New York Times

HONG KONG — China took a combative stance on Wednesday, accusing the United States of starting a diplomatic war that led it to expel almost all American journalists from three newspapers.

In articles and commentaries from China’s propaganda organs as well as remarks by a top spokeswoman, Beijing indicated it would not back down, accusing the United States of starting the dispute. The state media commentary also focused sharply on reporting by the three outlets, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, which the government has often accused of being unfair.

“We reject ideological bias against China, reject fake news made in the name of press freedom, reject breaches of ethics in journalism,” tweeted Hua Chunying, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman.

An article from The Global Times, a stridently nationalistic tabloid controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, criticized the The New York Times’s coverage of the coronavirus outbreak, the monthslong antigovernment protests in Hong Kong, and the Chinese authorities’ internment of ethnic minority Muslims in far western Xinjiang. The paper’s coverage of the epidemic, the article said, was “aiming to attack China’s political system and smear China’s efforts” to contain the virus.

It said reports by the Times and other outlets about the government’s policies in the Xinjiang region had “smeared and attacked China without basis.”

Under China’s leader, Xi Jinping, the news media has come under an increasingly tighter grip and foreign reporters have been punished with visa denials. In recent weeks as the coronavirus spread through China, the government cracked down on domestic and foreign reporting, muzzling medical professionals and censoring and removing reports and commentary online that has challenged the official narrative.

China said Tuesday that it would require all American journalists for the three newspapers whose credentials expire by the end of the year to turn in their press cards within 10 days. It said they would not be allowed to continue working as journalists in China.

In an unusual move, its announcement said the Americans were also forbidden from working as journalists in Macau or Hong Kong, two semiautonomous Chinese territories that have traditionally had greater protections for press freedom than the mainland. It was not immediately clear how Beijing would enforce this.

China also said it was requiring the three outlets as well as Time magazine and Voice of America to disclose details of their staff, assets and operations in China.

The move would affect at least 13 American journalists but the number could be higher, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said in a statement on Wednesday.

The organization said the expulsion “diminishes us in number and in spirit, though not in our commitment to vigorously cover China. There are no winners in the use of journalists as diplomatic pawns by the world’s two pre-eminent economic powers.”

The news outlets condemned the Chinese government’s decision. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the expulsions “unfortunate” and said he hoped China would reconsider.

Beijing has said that the move was in retaliation for the Trump administration’s decision to limit the number of Chinese citizens from five state-controlled Chinese media outlets who can work in the United States to 100, which forced the expulsion of about 60.

The Global Times echoed this in an editorial on Wednesday that accused Washington of starting the tit-for-tat. “As a Chinese media, we regret that the conflict between China and the United States has escalated due to political differences,” adding that both Chinese and American journalists were “implicated by political frictions between China and the United States.”

The moves against the American outlets follow the expulsion of three Journal reporters over the headline last month, “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia,” on an op-ed column about the country’s coronavirus response efforts.

In recent days, the People’s Daily, a Communist Party mouthpiece, and China Daily, a state-run newspaper, posted messages that circulated widely on China’s Twitter-like forum Weibo targeting the Times for what they called “double standards” in its tweets about the lockdown imposed in China and in Italy to curb the spread of the virus.

The foreign ministry left several questions unanswered in its statement on Tuesday, including how and whether the Hong Kong government would take further steps to enforce Beijing’s expulsion. Hong Kong operates under a political formula known as “one country, two systems,” that promises the Chinese territory a high degree of autonomy, including independent courts, a free news media and extensive protections of civil liberties.

Many global news organizations use Hong Kong as headquarters for the Asia region. Under the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the region has jurisdiction over immigration matters. If Hong Kong refused to allow the journalists to work in the city, it would be seen by some critics as the latest sign of eroding freedoms in the territory.

“Whichever way Beijing decides to proceed, it will be a blow to the ‘one country, two systems’ formula,” said Jason Y. Ng, a prominent writer and lawyer in Hong Kong. “So let’s hope that this hastily put together statement is more political posturing than genuine policy and that the Foreign Ministry has no intention to actually implement it in Hong Kong.”

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2020-03-18 09:36:22Z
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Europe closes borders to curb coronavirus spread - Al Jazeera English

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1. Europe closes borders to curb coronavirus spread  Al Jazeera English
2. European Union will close external borders for 30 days to slow coronavirus pandemic  CNBC
3. Coronavirus: Europe shuts down its borders - BBC News  BBC News
4. Coronavirus: E.U. announces sweeping ban on most nonessential incoming travel  NBC News
5. The EU shuts its borders to slow the coronavirus crisis  CNN
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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2020-03-18 06:24:01Z
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Outrage as Trump calls coronavirus 'Chinese Virus' - Al Jazeera English

US President Donald Trump has been criticised for repeatedly referring to the coronavirus as the "Chinese Virus", with critics saying he is "fueling bigotry" and putting Asian-American communities at risk. 

The president's new labelling of the virus came as China and the US traded blame over the origins of the virus, ignoring World Health Organization (WHO) warnings not to link the pathogen, which was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of December, to a particular area or community to avoid discrimination or stigmatisation.

The virus, and the disease it causes, COVID-19, has infected more than 173,000 worldwide and killed over 7,000, according to the WHO. 

More:

Early Tuesday, Trump tweeted: "The United States will be powerfully supporting those industries, like Airlines and others, that are particularly affected by the Chinese Virus. We will be stronger than ever before!"

He doubled down in a later tweet about how US states were being affected, saying: "Some are being hit hard by the Chinese Virus, some are being hit practically not at all."

Previously, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has referred to coronavirus as the "Wuhan Virus". 

Trump's most recent comments drew quick rebuke from Beijing, with foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, speaking to reporters, urging the US "to correct its mistake and stop its groundless accusations against China".

The official Xinhua news agency also responded to Trump's words, writing in a commentary that using "racist and xenophobic names to cast blame for the outbreak on other countries can only reveal politicians' irresponsibility and incompetence which will intensify virus fears".

Meanwhile, Beijing, who has been accused of covering up the initial outbreak, has allowed disinformation surrounding the virus to spread in recent days, with foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian perpetuating one conspiracy theory in tweeting last week that "it might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan".

Spoke today with Director Yang Jiechi about disinformation and outlandish rumors that are being spread through official PRC channels.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) March 16, 2020

The US State Department on Monday said that Pompeo, in a call with the director of China's Office of Foreign Affairs, Yang Jiechi, had urged Beijing to stop the spread of "disinformation" and "outlandish rumours".

Meanwhile, Yang issued a "stern warning to the United States that any scheme to smear China will be doomed to fail", Xinhua reported in its summary of the call.

'Fueling more bigotry'

After weeks of trying to play down the risk posed by the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump struck a new, more urgent tone Monday as he delivered a sobering message to Americans grappling with a new reality that will dramatically alter their lives for months to come.

The shift was informed in part by a growing realisation within the West Wing that the coronavirus crisis is an existential threat to Trump's presidency, endangering his reelection and his legacy. Trump has told advisers that he now believes the virus will be a significant general-election issue and he took note of the clear-eyed, sombre tone used by his likely opponent, Joe Biden, in Sunday's Democratic debate, The Associated Press reported. 

While his tone shifted in front of the camera, he continued to go after critics on Twitter. Following his "Chinese virus" tweets, he was rebuked by many within the US, with some concerned that the words could harm Asian Americans. 

New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio responded to Trump, tweeting: "Our Asian-American communities - people YOU serve - are already suffering. They don't need you fueling more bigotry."

If you're looking for someone to pin this crisis on, try the guy who made up a phony Google website or promised testing kits that he STILL hasn't delivered.

Our Asian-American communities — people YOU serve — are already suffering. They don't need you fueling more bigotry. https://t.co/jjcO7treC2

— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) March 17, 2020

Meanwhile, Seattle-based pastor and author Eugene Cho said that "calling it the 'Chinese virus' only instigates blame, racism, and hatred against Asians - here and abroad."

"We need leadership that speaks clearly against racism; Leadership that brings the nation and world together. Not further divides," he wrote. 

Others accused Trump of using China to deflect criticism over his slow response to accepting the urgency of the outbreak and the lagging rate of testing in the US, for which Trump has categorically said he is not responsible.

To my Chinese-American friends, I'm so sorry that as our country reals under #COVID19, ppl responsible are trying to scapegoat the place your family came from by calling this a #ChineseVirus.

I have a small sense of what its like. Nobody should face that. #WithYouToday ✊🏽

— Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) March 17, 2020

Abdul El-Sayed, a public health doctor and author, wrote: "To my Chinese-American friends, I'm so sorry that as our country reals under #COVID19 , ppl responsible are trying to scapegoat the place your family came from by calling this a #ChineseVirus."

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2020-03-17 16:31:18Z
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