Susan Rice Criticizes Hungarian PM Using Coronavirus Crisis for Power Grab | Andrea Mitchell | MSNBC

Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice joins Andrea Mitchell to discuss how governments have used emergency powers granted during the coronavirus crisis to impinge on democratic norms and the rule of law. She also discusses the Trump administration seeming to back off the use of the term "Wuhan virus" in an official capacity, and the president's pattern of lashing out at women and women of color.Aired on 3/31/2020.

Democracy Now! Top US & World Headlines — March 30, 2020

US Indictment of Maduro Is Cruel & Inhuman Action – Prof. Salas

In the latest move against an already struggling Venezuela, US Attorney General William Barr has announced the indictment of President Maduro and more than a dozen other Venezuelan officials for a narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking conspiracy. Author and professor of Latin American History at Pomona College Miguel Tinker Salas shares his expertise.

Spain: 'It Is Really, Really Bad...and It Will Only Get Worse'

A medical director speaks about the health workers affected by the virus in Spain and what the UK needs to learn before the virus curve peaks.

Xi Jinping Calls on Trump to Improve US-China Relations amid Covid-19 Crisis

THE GUARDIAN: Phonecall between leaders came as China prepares to seal itself off from the world to stem ‘imported’ coronavirus cases

Chinese president Xi Jinping has called on Donald Trump to take “substantive actions” to improve relations between the two countries, as China prepared to shut its borders to foreign arrivals amid fears of infections coming from abroad.

On Friday, Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping held a phone call about the coronavirus outbreak in an attempt to repair strained relations, following weeks of traded barbs over the virus. According to state media, Xi told Trump in a phone call on Friday that US-China relations had reached an “important juncture”.

“Working together brings both sides benefits, fighting hurts both. Cooperation is the only choice,” he said. Xi said he hoped the US would take “substantive actions” to improve US-China relations to develop a relationship that is “without conflict and confrontation” but based on “mutual respect and mutually beneficial cooperation.”

Trump has continued to call the disease “the Chinese virus,” despite protestations from Beijing. Chinese diplomats have in turn pushed the idea that the virus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, originated in the US.

Xi also said he hoped the US would take “effective measures” to safeguard the lives of Chinese citizens in the US, describing the pandemic as the “common enemy of mankind.” He said: “Only by united can the international community defeat it.” » | Lily Kuo in Shanghai | Friday, March 27, 2020

Coronavirus: Nachrichten zur weltweiten Lage

'Covid Coalition' Government Considered by Senior Conservatives

THE GUARDIAN: George Freeman says Keir Starmer should join ‘unavoidable’ cross-party government if elected

Senior Conservatives are questioning whether Boris Johnson will need a national unity government or emergency cross-party council to share responsibility for the coronavirus crisis if the situation worsens.

George Freeman, a former minister in Johnson’s government, was the first to break cover to say a “Covid coalition” government may be “unavoidable” and some other Tory MPs privately believe the prime minister will need cross-party governing consensus if emergency measures are to continue for months.

Freeman told the Guardian: “The scale of this national emergency – the suspension of usual freedoms and democracy, the economic consequences and the likely loss of tens of thousands of lives – demands a suspension of politics as usual. » | Rowena Mason, Peter Walker and Kate Proctor | Wednesday, March 25, 2020 (?)

Economist Jeffrey Sachs: Trump “Understands Nothing, Listens to Nothing” as Pandemic Surges in US

As #NotDying4WallStreet trends on Twitter, President Trump defies his top scientists and soaring infection rate, saying he will ease restrictions soon to jumpstart the economy. We speak with economist Jeffrey Sachs about the stimulus package that failed to pass again Monday, as Democrats called the measure a slush fund for corporations. Sachs also led the WHO’s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health from 2000 to 2001 and played a key role in conceiving and establishing the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which helped distribute new medicines to fight infectious diseases.

Coronavirus: Update zur weltweiten Lage

Die Welt stemmt sich gegen die Coronavirus Pandemie: besonders schnell kann sich das Virus da ausbreiten, wo viele Menschen auf engstem Raum miteinander in Kontakt sind. In Indien leben fast 1,4 Milliarden Menschen. Die Regierung hat Teilen des bevölkerungsreichen Staates eine Ausgangs-Sperre verordnet. Mehr über die aktuelle Lage in unseren Corona-News.

Coronavirus: Update zur weltweiten Lage

Die Welt in Kampf gegen Corona: China gibt langsam Entwarnung, auch in Südkorea hat sich die Ansteckungsgwschwindigkeit rapide verlangsamt. Dafür ist weiterhin Europa zentral betroffen. Italien schließt Firmen und Fabriken, Spanien will Notstand und Ausgangssperre verlängern. Und in den USA nimmt die Corona-Welle deutlich an Wucht zu: Mit rund 27.000 Infizierten liegen die Staaten jetzt schon auf Platz vier der weltweiten Statistik der US amerikanischen Johns-Hopkins Universität.

Joe Calls for a Government Site to List Mask, Glove Production | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Joe Scarborough calls for a government web site that will list the production of masks, gloves, protective gear, testing and ventilators.

Coronavirus: Italian City’s Warning to the Rest of the World

Bergamo’s streets are empty as it deals with a devastating number of coronavirus-related deaths – and residents have a warning for others. It is the worst-hit city in Italy, the country currently struggling the most with the coronavirus crisis.

'Be Careful': Spain's Last 1918 Flu Survivor Offers Warning on Coronavirus

THE GUARDIAN: José Ameal Peña, 105, is watching on anxiously as a new pandemic sweeps globe

José Ameal Peña was four years old when the 1918 flu tore through his small fishing town in northern Spain, its deadly path narrated by the daily ringing of church bells.

More than a century later, Ameal Peña – believed to be Spain’s only living survivor of a pandemic said to be the deadliest in human history – has a warning as the world faces off against Covid-19. “Be careful,” he said. “I don’t want to see the same thing repeated. It claimed so many lives.”

The 1918 flu, known as the Spanish flu after the country’s press were among the first to report on it, killed between 50 and 100 million people around the world. » | Ashifa Kassam in Madrid | Sunday, March 22, 2020

Italian Doctor on How Virus 'Exploded', Having Coronavirus & How to Fight It

Dr Sylvia Bignamini is the Health Director of San Francesco Clinic in Bergamo, Italy, the city at the epicentre of the country's outbreak

She conducted the first coronavirus test in her nursing home and also caught the virus herself. She is now living and working in isolation at home.

Italien fährt Wirtschaft größtenteils herunter

FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: In Italien sollen Unternehmen, die keine lebenswichtigen Güter oder Dienstleistungen produzieren und anbieten, die Arbeit einstellen. Rapide steigende Sterbezahlen zwingen die drittgrößte Volkswirtschaft der EU zu diesem Schritt.

Italien schließt angesichts immer weiter steigender Totenzahlen durch die Coronavirus-Pandemie die gesamte nicht lebensnotwendige Produktion. Davon seien Supermärkte, Banken, Post und Apotheken ausgenommen, sagte Ministerpräsident Giuseppe Conte am Samstagabend. „Es ist die schwerste Krise für das Land seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg.“ Nun werde jede produktive Tätigkeit eingestellt, „die nicht entscheidend und unerlässlich dafür ist, uns essenzielle Güter und Dienstleistungen zu garantieren“. Diese drastische Maßnahme in der drittgrößten Volkswirtschaft der EU soll zunächst bis 3. April gelten.

Das Land hatte am Samstag an nur einem Tag fast 800 Tote vermeldet und damit so viele wie nie seit dem Ausbruch des Virus im Land. Bisher starben 4825 Menschen, teilte der Zivilschutz in Rom mit. Das waren 793 mehr als am Vortag. Besonders stark betroffen ist die nördliche Region Lombardei, wo das Virus Ende Februar ausgebrochen war und die Krankenhäuser mittlerweile vor dem Kollaps stehen. Die wirtschaftlichen Schäden für das hoch verschuldete Land sind jetzt schon unermesslich. » | Quelle: dpa | Sonntag, 22.März 2020

So reagiert Söder auf den weinenden Bäcker aus Hannover

Ein deutscher Bäcker bringt mit seinem Video zur Corona-Krise, ein ganzes Land zum Weinen.

Brexit geht in die Verlängerung

DIE PRESSE: Längere Übergangsfrist bis 2021/2022 zeichnet sich ab

. London/Brüssel. Die Verhandlungen über das künftige Verhältnis zwischen Großbritannien und der EU stehen momentan unter keinem guten Stern – und das hängt nicht ausschließlich mit der Tatsache zusammen, dass EU-Chefverhandler Michel Barnier am Donnerstag mit dem Coronavirus diagnostiziert und umgehend in die häusliche Quarantäne geschickt wurde. Die Herausforderungen, die Europäer und Briten im Zusammenhang mit der Pandemie bewältigen müssen, sind massiv – und schränken die inhaltliche Bandbreite der Institutionen in Brüssel und London ein.

Am Freitag bot Kommissionspräsidentin Ursula von der Leyen Großbritannien eine Verlängerung der Brexit-Übergangsfrist an. Diese Frist läuft am 31. Dezember ab – bis dahin werden die Briten wie Mitglieder des Binnenmarkts behandelt, an den Grenzen zwischen Großbritannien und der EU finden keine Zollkontrollen statt. London könne jederzeit um Verlängerung ansuchen, „das muss die Regierung von Boris Johnson selber entscheiden“, sagte von der Leyen. » | ag./la | Freitag, 20. März 2020

’Everything Is Uncharted’: New Yorkers Confront Life Amid a Coronavirus Shutdown

With restrictions tightened on businesses and daily activity, residents are grappling with uncertainty about resources, health care and their paychecks.

Opinion: We Should All Be More Like the Nuns of 1918

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The sisters of Philadelphia were lifesavers during the Spanish flu epidemic. They are an inspiration today.

A few years ago, I set out to research my grandmother’s early childhood in Philadelphia, looking for clues about what the world was like in the first precarious years of her life. I knew that she was born in October 1917, that she had lived through the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 as a baby, but I was unprepared for the harrowing details I uncovered in my search.

Reading about the fall of 1918 left me grappling with a series of images of the outbreak as it was experienced locally: hushed streets, shut doors, bodies piled up in basements and on porches because the morgues had run out of coffins. Businesses and public spaces citywide were shuttered, including churches, schools and theaters. In a single day, on Oct. 16, more than 700 people in Philadelphia died from influenza.

But as I read the first alarming headlines about the coronavirus in January, what came to mind from my family research was one particular document, an oral history published in 1919 by the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia to preserve living memories of the Spanish flu. “Facts unrecorded are quickly lost in the new interests of changing time,” its author began; here, he meant to “gather information for the future.” Within these unassuming pages, I found the story of an extraordinary act of generosity and compassion, carried out at the height of a pandemic. Titled “Work of the Sisters During the Epidemic of Influenza, October 1918,” within this document was evidence of the enormous human capacity for personal sacrifice in the name of public good. » | Kiley Bense | Friday, March 20, 2020

1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus) »

Spanish flu »

Coronavirus Death Toll in Italy Officially Surpasses China | MSNBC

Over 3,400 people have died from the coronavirus in Italy, officially surpassing the death toll from the virus in China.