Let Taiwan into the World Health Organisation
Mar 26th 2020SPARE A MOMENT and admire Taiwan. Its handling of the new coronavirus pandemic has so far saved many, many lives. The figures tell the story. A country of 24m, it has far fewer infections than its neighbours: just 235 as of March 25th, with only two deaths.Taiwanese officials seem to know what they…
Bangladesh releases a jailed opposition figure
Mar 26th 2020LIKE MANY others, the government of Bangladesh has issued a ban on public gatherings to curb the spread of covid-19. Yet not even the threat of a pandemic could deter supporters of Khaleda Zia, a jailed opposition leader, from turning out en masse to witness her release on bail. The 74-year-old, who leads…
Covid-19 forces Japan to delay the Olympics
WHEN THE annals of the new coronavirus are written, a chapter will surely be devoted to the dogged insistence by Japan’s prime minister, Abe Shinzo, that despite a galloping global pandemic the Tokyo Olympic Games would go ahead as planned in July. Mr Abe—the most assertive prime minister since his beloved grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke, who…
Gaza, already under siege, imposes quarantine
AS BORDERS CLOSE, businesses shut and much of the world adjusts to being locked down, residents of Gaza can only look on with grim amusement. Isolation is nothing new for the territory’s 2m Palestinians. They have been under blockade since 2007, when Hamas, a militant group, seized power after winning a majority in legislative elections.…
As covid-19 spreads, Arab states are clamping down
Mar 26th 2020IF YOU BELIEVE the official numbers, covid-19 has not yet hit the Middle East and north Africa as hard as the rest of the world. Excluding Iran, where an outbreak is raging, the virus has killed around 100 people in the region, compared with thousands in Europe (which has more people). Nevertheless, Arab…
Africa is woefully ill-equipped to cope with covid-19
Mar 26th 2020ADDIS ABABA, GOMA, JOHANNESBURG AND KAMPALA“IN THE TOWNSHIP people are not worried at all,” says Lesedi Kgasago, a student from Soweto, Johannesburg. Among his friends “corona” is seen either as something that afflicts white people or a fiction. When life is a struggle it is hard to worry about a threat you cannot…
Supermarket Tosses Out $35K of Food After Customer Purposely Coughs On It
A supermarket in Pennsylvania says it had to throw away roughly $35,000 worth of food after a woman deliberately coughed on items around the store. Co-owner of Gerrity’s Supermarket, Joe Fasula, depicted how their store had a “very challenging day” after a female coughed on some of their bakery section, meat items, and the fresh…