We’ve completely wiped out coronavirus – New Zealand Prime Minister

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has disclosed the nation has successfully wiped out coronavirus after the final person known to have been infected recovered.

Ardern said she is confident the country has halted the spread of COVID-19 but said it would “almost certainly” see more cases in the future.

Around 1,500 people contracted coronavirus in New Zealand with just 22 deaths.

It has been 17 days since the last new case was reported with 40,000 tested in that time.

Monday also marked the first time since late February that there have been no active cases.

“We are confident we have eliminated transmission of the virus in New Zealand for now, but elimination is not a point in time, it is a sustained effort,” she told a news conference.

“I do want to say again, we will almost certainly see cases here again, and that is not a sign that we have failed, it is a reality of this virus. But if and when that occurs we have to make sure, and we are, that we are prepared”,Ardern assured.

Following the country’s progress, ministers have approved another phase of reopening from midnight, Ms Ardern pointed out.

According to her,the government’s focus would be on the country’s borders, where isolation and quarantine will continue.

The country’s Director-General of health, Ashley Bloomfield, said having no new cases was a “significant mark in our journey”, but added that “ongoing vigilance against COVID-19 will continue to be essential”.

A number of factors have helped the nation of five million to eradicate the disease swiftly, according to experts.

Its isolated geographical location in the South Pacific provided it time to observe how outbreaks spread in other countries, and Ms Arden acted decisively by imposing a strict lockdown early in the outbreak.

‘U.S. mistaken on AfDB’s Adesina’

The Vice President, Pan African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PACCI), Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, has affirmed that the American Treasury department is mistaken about its call for a fresh probe of the President of African Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adesina. He therefore called for engagement with Washington on the issue.

The chamber leader in a virtual chat on Africàn post-pandemic recovery, said the Treasury department must consider programmes of the US State department to see how helpful to Africa and Washington Adesina has been by his innovative support and stabilisation of Africa through the AfDB.

“It is very sad that one of Africa’s best is being dragged around over what I will call a non-issue. The man was not accused of embezzling or diverting bank’s money.

If anything , he increased the bank’s capitalisation and ensured investment in real sector to take the continent out of under-development. I read through the charges , his defence and the report of the ethics committee.

“I  immediately conclude that somebody is misinforming Washington on the true state of things at the bank. Sincerely, I believe the American Treasury Secreatry was misled to seek fresh probe of Adesina. We actually need to engage the Treasury department on this matter.

“Washington is being misled to attack his own-an American trained scholar, who has protected American interest so far by stabilising Africa in developmental funding.

If not for AfDB and Adesina, China would have fully taken over Africa in the area of infrastructure financing. AfDB provides the developmental funding,giving Africa alternatives,” he narrated.

Wondering why the United States is not looking at the bigger picture, the Chamber chief questioned why America and other Western shareholders are against a President who has protected the integrity of African developmental landscape, adding “we actually need to engage with the White House and the Treasury department”

On ongoing engagement over the matter, Kayode said ” a lot is being done. Several African leaders with foot in Washington have intervened. I read a letter by friends of President Trump in Nigeria, urging him to step into the matter. That is also good.

From the private sector chamber movement, we are also wading into the matter, calling on the US Chamber of Commerce to intervene. We are sending correspondence soon.It is in the interest of Africa and the Western world for Adesina to remain as President,” he stressed.

“So for a sound recovery agenda, government must target real businesses as represented by Chambers of Commerce and Industry all over the country and continent.

Recovery cannot be achieved if we patronize only ‘political businessmen”, leaving genuine SMEs operators without access to Coronavirus support. Secondly,we must create policy targetting expansion of our production capacity across the economic lines.

“To do this again, government should preoccupy itself with setting the policy framework and access to finance, leaving the private sector to run the sectoral busineses.

Areas like industrial parks among others are the turf of organised Private Sector. It is time we ensure proper marking of responsibility. Government don’t run busineses; private sector does.”, he noted.

UK Prime Minister to host Global Vaccine Summit

UNITED Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tomorrow host the Global Vaccine Summit, bringing together leaders from around the world at a virtual event to pledge their support to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

A statement issued by Press & Public Affairs Officer, British Deputy High Commission, Lagos, Ndidiamaka Eze, said the event is aimed at protecting a further 300 million children against infectious diseases like measles, typhoid and polio.

The Global Vaccine Summit aims to raise US$7.4 billion to help Gavi save up to eight million lives.

The statement reads: “As host, the UK is continuing its global leadership on tackling preventable deaths and stopping the spread of coronavirus.

“This builds on our recent role as co-lead for the Global Coronavirus Response Initiative, with Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Norway, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia and the European Commission, which successfully raised 7.4 billion euros toward vaccines, tests and treatment to tackle the virus at the Coronavirus Global Response International Pledging Conference on May 4.

“At that conference, the UK pledged £388 million, which is made up of support we have announced for new vaccines, tests and treatments. This includes:

• £250 million to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to research a coronavirus vaccine – the biggest contribution of any country to this fund; and
• £40 million to support the Global Therapeutics Accelerator, a fund for the rapid development of coronavirus treatments.”

*£23 million to support the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics to develop rapid tests for the virus to help identify and slow its spread; and

*£75 million for the World Health Organisation to help them support countries who have weak healthcare systems.”

The UK, the added, is collaborating with our international partners on the global effort to find a vaccine as soon as possible and ensure it’s available across the world, including in Nigeria.

“We are working closely with industry and the Bio-industry Association to accelerate vaccine development and manufacturing in the UK, so that when a vaccine is available, it can be made quickly at scale. We are now calling on other governments to step up, follow our lead and make commitments to fund fully Gavi’s vital mission for the next five years,” it said.

Speaking on the upcoming summit, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing said: “Producing a vaccine for Covid-19 is a priority for the UK government as this will help save lives in Nigeria and globally from the deadly virus.  Gavi is already working hard with partners to ensure any future vaccine that is safe and effective is delivered at scale around the world.

“We welcome Gavi’s partnership with Nigeria over the years, which has helped to fight diseases such as yellow fever, meningitis and measles by improving immunisation rates and strengthening the health systems across the country.”

George Floyd death: Trump threatens to send in army to end unrest

President Donald Trump has threatened to send in the military to quell growing civil unrest in the United States (U.S.) over the death of a black man in police custody.

He said if cities and states failed to control the protests and “defend their residents”, he would deploy the army and “quickly solve the problem for them”.

Protests over the death of George Floyd have escalated over the past week.

But presidential candidate Joe Biden criticised Trump yesterday for “serving the passions of his base”.

“We’re not going to allow any president to quiet our voice,” the Democrat said, referencing the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees protesters’ freedom to assemble.

Yesterday, the Las Vegas sheriff said an officer died in a shooting after police attempted to disperse a crowd.

Dozens of people have been injured as authorities used tear gas and force to disperse protests, which have swept more than 75 cities.

Four officers, meanwhile, were shot and injured on Monday night during unrest in St Louis, Missouri.

In Chicago, two people were reported killed amid unrest, although the circumstances are unclear.

The chief of police in Louisville, Kentucky has been sacked after law enforcement officers fired into a crowd on Sunday night, killing the owner of a nearby business.

Australian PM Scott Morrison has demanded an investigation into the alleged assault by police of two Australian journalists covering protests in Washington DC.

Music channels and celebrities have pledged to mark Blackout Tuesday, pausing for eight minutes – the length of time a police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck.

The protests began after a video showed Floyd, 46, being arrested in Minneapolis on 25 May and a white police officer continuing to kneel on his neck even after he pleaded that he could not breathe.

The officer, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with third-degree murder and will appear in court next week. Three other police officers have been fired.

The Floyd case has reignited deep-seated anger over police killings of black Americans and racism. It follows the high-profile cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Eric Garner in New York; and others that have driven the Black Lives Matter movement.

For many, the outrage also reflects years of frustration over socio-economic inequality and discrimination, not least in Minneapolis itself.

The president delivered a brief address from the White House Rose Garden, amid the sound of a nearby protest being dispersed.

Trump said “all Americans were rightly sickened and revolted by the brutal death of George Floyd” but said his memory must not be “drowned out by an angry mob”.

Trump deepened outrage on Monday by posing at a church across from the White House clutching a Bible after law enforcement officers used teargas and rubber bullets to clear protesters.

The U.S. Secret Service, charged with protecting the president, yesterday closed down until further notice the streets around the White House, media reports said.

Demonstrators set fire to a strip mall in Los Angeles, looted stores in New York City and clashed with police in St Louis, Missouri, where four officers were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

An emotional St. Louis police commissioner, John Hayden, said about 200 protesters were looting and hurling fireworks and rocks at officers.

But US President Donald Trump’s signalling of religious affiliation has not been welcomed by a range of clerics as the nation struggles to manage the twin challenges of a pandemic and widespread political protest.

The Episcopal Bishop of Washington, the Right Reverend Mariann Budde, said: “The president just used a Bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese, without permission, as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.”

James Martin, a Jesuit priest and consultant to the Vatican’s communications department, tweeted: “Let me be clear. This is revolting. The Bible is not a prop. A church is not a photo op. Religion is not a political tool. God is not your plaything.”

Rabbi Jack Moline, President of the Interfaith Alliance, said: “Seeing President Trump standing in front of St John’s Episcopal Church while holding a Bible in response to calls for racial justice – right after using military force to clear peaceful protesters – is one of the most flagrant misuses of religion that I have ever seen.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres yesterday appealed for restraint and social cohesion as violent protests grow across the United States over police brutality.

Guterres’ spokesman, Mr. Stéphane Dujarric, conveyed his message while addressing UN correspondents on Monday.

“The situation we are seeing today we have seen in different parts of the world before.

“Grievances must be heard, but they must be expressed in peaceful ways, and authorities must show restraint in responding to demonstrators,” he said.

Trump ‘terminates relationship’ with WHO, withdraws all US funding

Donald Trump has severed ties with the World Health Organisation and confirmed he will fully withdraw all US funding.

The President has been openly critical of the international body for weeks over what he believes was an inadequate response to the outbreak of coronavirus in the Chinese province of Wuhan last year.

Speaking during a White House address on Friday, he claimed that Chinese officials had “ignored” reporting obligations to WHO and pressured the organisation to to mislead the public about COVID-19.

The virus has caused the deaths of more than 100,000 people in the US.

“We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engaged with them directly, but they have refused to act,” President Trump said.

“Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating the relationship.”

The US is the largest source of financial support for WHO, which is expected to be severely damaged by the withdrawal of funding.

Instead, Trump says the money will be redirected towards “other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs”.

He noted America contributes about $450 million (£360 million) to the WHO, while China provides about $40 million (£32 million).

The President first proposed withdrawing funding from WHO in April – a move the Democrats deemed illegal without the approval of Congress. Others said that it would severely affect vaccine development efforts led by the organisation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the announcement “an act of extraordinary senselessness”.

Dr Stephen Griffin, associate professor in the School of Medicine, University of Leeds, said there was “no logic” in severing links during the middle of a global pandemic.

He added: “There is no logic to the move by President Trump to sever links with the WHO.

“Pandemics are, by definition, a global crisis. To not face Covid-19 with a united front seems futile.

“Given the scale of the outbreak in the US, this action appears nothing short of an attempt to refocus attention away from how this has been handled.”

Dr Gail Carson, director of network development at the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium, said that during a pandemic was not the time to make health political.

Dr Carson, a consultant in infectious diseases at the University of Oxford, added: “If there was a time not to make health political it is now, when the world is in the throes of a pandemic.

“Now is the time for solidarity and to stand together to end the pandemic as soon as we can and to save lives.

“Is this US government decision going to do good to all?

“WHO stands for the health of all of us and should not be ‘punished’ by any country in the middle of a pandemic because of an opinion, certainly not before any action review process has taken place.

“Now is not the time to weaken the world’s leading health agency, who has shown strong leadership with strong technical messages throughout this pandemic.”

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

China and the U.S. are better off cooperating to end the pandemic for the sake of reviving economy and rebooting industrial production, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Friday.

Zhao said this at a media briefing while commenting on U.S. President Donald Trump’s warning that bilateral ties might be halted over Beijing’s alleged responsibility for unleashing the coronavirus.

On Thursday, Trump said in an interview with Fox News that the U.S. might cut all ties with China in light of Beijing’s coronavirus-related policies.

“The stable development of U.S.-Chinese relations is in fundamental interest of people from both countries and is also favourable for global peace and stability.

“China and the United States should now strengthen cooperation in combating the COVID-19 epidemic in order to defeat the coronavirus as soon as possible, cure patients, resume production, and develop the economy,” the spokesman said.

Trump has repeatedly claimed, although with no evidence provided, that the virus that caused deaths, lockdowns, and economic standstill all around the world had in fact been developed in a lab in Wuhan, a Chinese city in the Hubei province from where the first reports of an abnormal respiratory disease came last December.

The U.S. president has threatened China with consequences if its responsibility for unleashing the virus gets proven.

Asked by the host on Thursday to comment on a statement by one of the U.S. senators that the U.S. could stop issuing visas to Chinese students in retaliation, Trump said that his country could possibly go as far as cutting all bilateral ties altogether.

China has so far consistently denied the accusations, stressing that its policies were transparent throughout the outbreak.

COVID-19 pushes Germany into recession

German output shrank by 2.2 percent in the first quarter of 2020, official data showed Friday, as the coronavirus pandemic tipped Europe’s top economy into a recession.

The quarter-on-quarter contraction is “the worst since the financial crisis” in 2009, federal statistics office Destatis said.

The agency also revised its gross domestic product (GDP) figure for the final quarter of 2019 from zero growth to a contraction of 0.1 percent, meaning Germany has now experienced two consecutive quarters of contraction — the technical definition of a recession.

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier last month warned that the country was facing “the worst recession” in its post-war history as the pandemic batters the global economy.

Like other European countries, Germany closed factories, shops and restaurants forced many workers to stay at home to curb the outbreak from mid-March.

Export-reliant Germany is also hard hit as international trade and travel are curtailed.

“Private consumption, exports and investments in equipment shrank considerably as a result,” the German economy ministry said in a statement.

The second quarter is likely to show an even bigger slump before a recovery gets under way, it added.

State consumption and the construction industry were the only growth drivers in the first three months of the year.

“Two weeks of lockdown as well as supply chain disruptions on the back of lockdown measures elsewhere brought the German economy to its knees,” said ING-Diba economist Carsten Brzeski.

Some experts have predicted that the German economy could contract by around 10 percent between April and June.

Trump pushes for schools to reopen against expert’s caution

UNITED States (U.S.) President Donald Trump has deepened his rift with top medical advisor Anthony Fauci over loosening coronavirus restrictions, saying they “totally” disagree on whether to keep schools closed.

The issue of whether students should return to schools and universities in September is emerging as a flashpoint in the standoff between the White House and medical experts over how quickly to reopen the country.

Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, said he found Fauci’s latest call for a highly cautious reopening “not acceptable”.

“We’re opening our country, people want it open, the schools are going to be open,” Trump said.

Fauci, an internationally respected expert on infectious diseases and a key advisor to Trump throughout the pandemic, testified in Congress on Tuesday that ending the lockdown too quickly could bring “really serious” consequences.

“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” Fauci said.

This was starkly at odds with Trump’s push to put the health emergency behind him and focus on getting the US economy back open. That view is gaining momentum as businesses struggle to stay solvent and millions of Americans register for unemployment relief.

Fauci warned that opening too early could allow the highly contagious and deadly virus to resume spreading and this “could even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery”.

Adding to the high stakes is the November election, in which Trump is arguing he will steer the country back to healthy economic times, while his Democratic opponent Joe Biden accuses the Republican of mishandling the pandemic and worsening the fallout.

So far, Trump has stuck with Fauci, but the doctor is increasingly in the background as the president pushes his reopening message.

A whistleblower, who said he was removed from his government post for raising concerns about coronavirus preparedness, Rick Bright, told a congressional hearing yesterday that the United States (U.S.) could face “the darkest winter” of recent times, if it does not improve its response to the pandemic.

Hours after President Donald Trump railed against him on Twitter, the whistleblower testified to a U.S. House of Representatives panel about readiness for the outbreak.

Bright was removed last month as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, which is responsible for developing drugs to fight the coronavirus.

Qatar to order 60 new LNG carriers

South Korea’s presidential office said on Monday that Qatar’s energy minister outlined plans during a bilateral summit for Doha to order 60 new liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers.

The energy minister, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, who also serves as deputy chairman of Qatar Petroleum, said he expects cooperation with experienced Korean shipbuilders on constructing the LNG carriers, according to a statement issued by South Korea’s presidential office.

Financial details of the plan weren’t disclosed.

Speaking during a luncheon after the summit, the chief executive of South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co, said most of the LNG carriers owned by Qatar were built by Korea’s top three shipbuilders.

He said he hoped South Korean would be considered a primary option for building new LNG carriers for Qatar.

Hitachi freezes UK nuclear project as Brexit crisis deepens

apan’s Hitachi Ltd., on Thursday decided to freeze a three trillion yen (28 billion dollars) nuclear power project in Wales as Britain scrabbles for a way to exit the EU.

It has however dealt a blow to UK plans for the replacement of ageing plants.

The suspension came as Hitachi’s Horizon Nuclear Power failed to find private investors for its plans to build a plant in Anglesey, which was expected to provide about six per cent of Britain’s electricity.

“We’ve made the decision to freeze the project from the economic standpoint as a private company,” Hitachi said, adding that it had booked a write-down of 300 billion yen.

Hitachi had called on the British government to boost financial support for the project to appease investor anxiety.

“However turmoil over the country’s impending EU exit limited the government’s capacity to compile plans.

“Hitachi had banked on a group of Japanese investors and the British government each taking a one-third stake in the equity portion of the project,’’ the people said.

The project would have been financed one-third by equity and rest by debt.

“It is now clear that further time is needed to develop a financial structure for the horizon project and the conditions for building and operating the nuclear power stations,” Hitachi said.

With the clock ticking down to March 29, the date set in law for Brexit, the UK is now in the deepest political crisis in half a century as it grapples with how, or even whether, to exit the European project it joined in 1973.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s two-year attempt to forge an amicable divorce was crushed by parliament this week in the biggest defeat for a British leader in modern history, deepening uncertainty for potential investors.

The withdrawal of the Japanese conglomerate could leave the nuclear new build industry open to Russian and Chinese state-owned companies as Western private firms struggle to compete.

China’s General Nuclear Services, an industrial partnership between China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN) and French utility EDF (EDF.PA), planned to make a number of investments in Britain’s nuclear power sector.