MAY 16, 2020 @ 1800 GMT | FILE – In this March 8, 2019, file photo, A logo of Huawei retail shop is seen through a handrail inside a commercial office building in Beijing. The U.S. government is imposing new restrictions on Chinese tech giant Huawei by limiting its ability to use American technology to build its semiconductors. The Commerce Department said Friday, May 15, 2020 the move aims to cut off Huawei’s undermining of existing U.S. sanctions. (AP File Photo)
BOSTON (AP) — The U.S. government has imposed new restrictions on Chinese tech giant Huawei’s ability to use American technology, stepping up a conflict with Beijing over industry development and security.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Friday that Washington wants to prevent Huawei from evading sanctions imposed earlier on its use of American technology to design and produce semiconductors abroad.
“There has been a very highly technical loophole through which Huawei has been able to in effect use U.S. technology,” Ross told Fox Business. “We never intended that loophole to be there.”
MAY 13, 2020 @ 1430 GMT | FILE – In this Wednesday, April 1, 2020 filer, medical staff of a mobile unit take samples from a woman to test for Covid-19, at the Santa Maria della Pieta’ hospital complex, in Rome. Italy’s virus reopening phase was supposed to have been accompanied by a series of measures to limit infections in the onetime European epicenter of the pandemic: the distribution of millions of cheap surgical masks to pharmacies and tobacco shops nationwide, a pilot project of 150,000 antibody tests and, eventually, the roll-out of a contact-tracing app. (AP File Photo) (LaPresse via AP File)
ROME (AP) — Italy’s virus reopening was supposed to be accompanied by a series of measures to limit infections in the one-time epicenter of Europe’s pandemic: the distribution of millions of inexpensive surgical masks to pharmacies nationwide, a pilot project of 150,000 antibody tests and, eventually, the roll-out of a contact-tracing app.
None of these is in place as Italy experiments with its second week of loosening restrictions and looks ahead to Monday’s reopening of shops and, in some regions, bars and restaurants.
Italy’s commissioner for the emergency, Domenico Arcuri, went on the defensive Tuesday to respond to mounting criticism of his Phase II roll-out.
MAY 12, 2020 @ 1400 GMT | FILE – In this Jan. 31, 2020 photo, Pakistani children take part in rally against child abuse, in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Associated Press collected dozens of police reports from police stations across Pakistan that allege sexual harassment, rape and physical abuse by Islamic clerics teaching in madrassas or religious schools in Pakistan, where many of the country’s poorest study. (AP Photo)
PAKPATTAN, Pakistan (AP) — Muhimman proudly writes his name slowly, carefully, one letter at a time, grinning broadly as he finishes. He’s just 11 years old and was a good student who had dreams of being a doctor.
School frightens him now. Earlier this year, a cleric at the religious school he faithfully attended in the southern Punjab town of Pakpattan took him into a washroom and tried to rape him. Muhimman’s aunt, Shazia, who wanted only her first name used, said she believes the abuse of young children is endemic in Pakistan’s religious schools. She said she has known the cleric, Moeed Shah, since she was a little girl and describes him as an habitual abuser who used to ask little girls to pull up their shirts.
“He has done wrong with boys and also with two or three girls,” Shazia said, recalling one girl the cleric brutalized so badly he broke her back.
MAY 10, 2020 @ 1900 GMT | Mark Frerichs, a US Contractor from Illinois, poses in Iraq in this undated photo obtained from Twitter that he would include with his resume when job hunting. Frerichs was abducted in Afghanistan in January 2020. Early efforts to locate him have been shrouded in mystery and his disappearance has been the subject of minimal public discussion by the U.S. government. The Associated Press has learned that in the days following Frerichs’ capture, Navy commandos raided a village and detained suspected members of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network while the U.S. intelligence community tried to track the cellphones of Frerich and his captors.(Twitter Via AP)
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Taliban leaders searched their ranks, including in the much-feared Haqqani network, and on Sunday told The Associated Press they are not holding Mark R. Frerichs, a Navy veteran turned contractor who disappeared in Afghanistan in late January.
“We don’t have any information about the missing American,” Sohail Shaheen, the Taliban’s political spokesman, told the AP.
A second Taliban official familiar with the talks with the United States said “formally and informally” the Taliban have notified U.S. officials they are not holding Frerichs. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
MAY 9, 2020 @ 1700 GMT | Washington, United States | US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Republican lawmakers, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Friday, May 8, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he’s in “no rush” to negotiate another financial rescue bill, even as the government reported that more than 20 million Americans lost their jobs last month due to economic upheaval caused by the coronavirus.
The president’s low-key approach came Friday as the Labor Department reported the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression and as Democrats prepared to unveil what Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer calls a “Rooseveltian-style” aid package to shore up the economy and address the health crisis.
MAY 7, 2020 @ 1230 GMT | Smoke rises from LG Polymers plant, the site of a chemical gas leakage, in Vishakhapatnam, India, Thursday, May 7, 2020. Synthetic chemical styrene leaked from the industrial plant in southern India early Thursday, leaving people struggling to breathe and collapsing in the streets as they tried to flee. Administrator Vinay Chand said several people fainted on the road and were rushed to a hospital. (AP Photo)
HYDERABAD, India (AP) — A gas leak at a chemical factory owned by a South Korean company in southern India early Thursday left at least 11 people dead and about 1,000 struggling to breathe.
The chemical styrene, used to make plastic and rubber, leaked from the LG Polymers plant in the city of Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh state while workers were preparing to restart the facility after a coronavirus lockdown was eased, officials said.
MAY 6. 2020 @ 1500 GMT | European Commissioner for the Economy Paolo Gentiloni speaks during a media conference on the economy at EU headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, May 6, 2020. The European Union predicted Wednesday “a recession of historic proportions this year” due to the impact of the coronavirus with a drop in output of more than 7 percent, as it released its first official forecast of the damage the pandemic is inflicting on the bloc’s economy. (AP Photo)
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union predicted Wednesday “a recession of historic proportions this year” due to the impact of the coronavirus as it released its first official estimates of the damage the pandemic is inflicting on the bloc’s economy.
The 27-nation EU economy is predicted to contract by 7.5% this year, before growing about 6% in 2021, assuming countries steadily ease their lockdowns.
The group of 19 nations using the euro as their currency will see a record decline of 7.75% this year, and grow by 6.25% in 2021, the European Commission said in its Spring economic forecast.
MAY 4, 2020 @ 1100 GMT | Teachers and students stand up for Vietnamese national anthem as they start a new week in Dinh Cong secondary school in Hanoi, Vietnam Monday, May 4, 2020. Students across Vietnam return to school after three months of studying online due to school closure to contain the spread of COVID-19. (AP Photo)
BANGKOK (AP) — Students across Vietnam started returning to their classrooms Monday that had been closed to curb the coronavirus.
“I am so excited to go back to school, to be with my teachers and my classmates after three months,” said Chu Quang Anh, a sixth-grade student at Dinh Cong secondary school in Hanoi.
Students are required to wear masks, among other measures to minimize the spread of the virus.
MAY 2, 2020 @ 1240 GMT | The family of Carmen Valeria watch her remains as they are placed into a niche by cemetery workers at the Iraja cemetery in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, April 30, 2020. The family suspects the 76-year-old died from COVID-19. (AP Photo)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — In Brazil’s bustling Amazon city of Manaus, so many people have died within days in the coronavirus pandemic that coffins had to be stacked on top of each other in long, hastily dug trenches in a city cemetery. Some despairing relatives reluctantly chose cremation for loved ones to avoid burying them in those common graves.
Now, with Brazil emerging as Latin America’s coronavirus epicenter with more than 6,000 deaths, even the coffins are running out in Manaus. The national funeral home association has pleaded for an urgent airlift of coffins from Sao Paulo, 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles) away, because Manaus has no paved roads connecting it to the rest of the country.
MAY 1, 2020 @ 1400 GMT | Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Friday, May 1, 2020. Morrison stands firm on his call for an independent inquiry into the coronavirus and denied any motivation other than to prevent such a pandemic happening again. (AP Photo)
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — China’s warning of trade repercussions from Australia’s campaign for an independent inquiry into the coronavirus has rattled Australian business leaders as President Donald Trump’s administration urges other governments to back such a probe.
China has accused Australia of parroting the United States in its call for an inquiry independent of the World Health Organization to determine the origins of COVID-19 and how the world responded to the emerging pandemic.
