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guyanatimesgy.com
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2020
Regional
Brazil: Prosecutors bring Poorer countries to get 120 million US$5 coronavirus graft charges against Bolsonaro’s son – report tests, WHO says
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razilian state in the Rio de Janeiro prosecutors in state legislature. Flavio Bolsonaro Rio de Janeiro did not immediately on Monday brought respond to a request charges against the President’s son, for comment sent to Flavio Bolsonaro, for his cabinet office. O Globo, one of alleged embezzlement, laundering and Brazil’s leading dailies, cited a more running a criminal orthan 300-page indictganisation, domestic newspaper O Globo ment detailing the reported. charges. The Rio prosecuThe indictments tors’ office, however, ratchet up pressure said in a statement in a long-running that no charges had probe into the son of right-wing leader Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro is seen after yet been filed against Jair Bolsonaro. The the inauguration ceremony of the new Brazilian Senator Bolsonaro. “The instituyounger Bolsonaro, National Development Bank (BNDES) President 39, is a federal sena- at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, July 16, tion regrets and repudiates the disclotor who has been un- 2019 sure of news related der investigation for in which employees would accusations that he orches- kick back part of their salary to sealed investigations,” it trated a corruption scheme to him while he was serving said. (Reuters)
PM: Carnival 2021 is NOT on
Masqueraders from Peter Minshall’s presentation of Mas Pieta cross the stage at the Queen’s Park Savannah, on Carnival Tuesday this year
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rinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley says Carnival 2021 has been cancelled. The reason: the COVID-19 pandemic. Speaking at the Hyatt on Monday, the Prime Minister said it would be madness to stage what has been dubbed the greatest show on earth while the coronavirus remained. He said, “Gentlemen in 72 hours, we’ll be in October and if at this time in October we are still in the throes of a pandemic, it will be madness to be talking about Carnival in February. I see no future for Carnival in Trinidad and
Tobago in the months ahead and today, I could put everybody on notice that unless there’s some dramatic wind that will blow across us where by Christmas the pandemic would be a thing of the past, Carnival in T&T in 2021 is not on. “ Dr Rowley added, “Picture Jouvert morning, but with the coronavirus still a major issue not only in T&T but in the world around us, it’s just not on. Let us be thankful that we are still alive to see each other’s face. Let us remember what our country passed through in 1918. Let’s us understand what is happen-
ing in countries abroad that have not been able to control the spread among its population. And in those examinations and review, a carnival which is the perfect environment for the spreading of the virus is not something that we can encounter (accoutrement) at this time.” Prime Minister Rowley said, “This decision will have serious economic knock-on effects, things that we will lose in terms of the economy. But by the same token, we cannot hope to gain on that swing and die on the merry go-round.” (Trinidad Guardian)
T&T military investigating soldier in ‘sou-sou’ raid
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lmost one week after a soldier was implicated in a TT$22 million “sou-sou”, the defence force has issued a media release saying it is cooperating with Police investigators in an ongoing criminal enquiry. The release, issued on Monday, noted that while the defence force was cooperating with the Police in the La Horquetta-based “Drugs
Sou” (DSS), it was also doing its own internal investigation into alleged misconduct of defence force personnel. The investigation also comes two days after the Express posted footage of a man wearing a ski mask and tactical gear stuffing his bulletproof vest with an envelope during a raid at the home of a DSS administrator on Saturday night.
Police Commissioner Gary Griffith later identified the man as a member of the defence force. On Sunday, Police sources said investigators from the Professional Standards Bureau (PSB) were in a meeting with officers from the defence force in relation to the enquiry. (Trinidad Newsday)
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ome 120 million rapid diagnostic tests for coronavirus will be made available to low- and middle-income countries at a maximum of US$5 each, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday. The wider availability of quick, reliable and inexpensive testing will help 133 countries to track infections and contain the spread, closing the gap with wealthy ones, it said. WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the manufacturers Abbott and SD Biosensor had agreed with the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation to “make 120 million of these new, highly portable and easy-to-use rapid COVID-19 diagnostic tests available over a period of six months”. He told a news conference in Geneva the tests were currently priced at a maximum of US$5 each, but were expected to become cheaper. “This will enable the expansion of testing, particularly in hard-to-reach areas that do not have laboratory facilities or enough trained health workers to carry out tests,” Tedros said. “This is a vital addition to the testing capacity and
especially important in areas of high transmission.” Catharina Boehme, Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), a Geneva-based non-profit organisation in the project, said the deal was a “major milestone” as it was urgent to increase testing in poorer countries. “It is our first line of defence, critical for countries to track, trace and isolate to stop the spread of the virus and to ensure that we are not flying blind,” she said. (Excerpt from Reuters)
Mexican women demanding legalisation of abortion clash with Police
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omen charged Police lines and threw Molotov cocktails at officers in Mexico City on Monday during protests demanding the legalisation of abortion in the majority Roman Catholic country. The protesters, clad in the green bandanas that have become the symbol of the prochoice movement in Latin America, gathered in Mexico’s capital to mark International Safe Abortion Day, Police, many of them female officers, sprayed plumes of tear gas at the which is celebrated each women, some of whom wielded hammers, and threw bottles and paint year on September 28. Police, many of them tinguisher, television imagAbortion law has been female officers, responded es showed. receiving renewed attenby spraying plumes of tear Abortion is illegal in tion after the death in the gas at the women, some of Mexico outside the capital United States of Supreme whom wielded hammers, city and the southern state Court Justice Ruth Bader and threw bottles and paint. of Oaxaca, which legalised Ginsburg, a pioneering womAt least one officer was the medical procedure last en’s rights advocate, which briefly engulfed in flames year. In the rest of Mexico, has cast doubt over the fuafter being hit by a Molotov abortion is banned except ture of legal abortion there. cocktail, before colleagues under certain circumstanc- (Excerpt from Reuters) doused the fire with an ex- es, such as rape.
Tufton hurt by COVID-19 negative talk
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amaica’s Health and Wellness Minister, Dr Christopher Tufton has expressed disappointment and hurt regarding comments from critics who believe the Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is politicking. “I’m almost emotional about it, because it is simply not the case. I’ve been hearing the comments on radio and in the media space where persons, in some instances who should know better, assert that somehow, having gone to a general election and... being re-elected, somehow, we have hidden information or
we have dropped the ball and we are no longer sensitive, because we have now been re-elected,” Dr Tufton told the Jamaica Observer in a round-table interview last week. The Health Minister said it was painful to hear at this stage in the COVID-19 response, assertions that the Government was uncaring and insensitive to the plight of people who were at risk of suffering from or exposed to COVID-19, particularly as the country dealt with the community transmission phase of the virus. “This is not true, and it is an insult, in my mind, not
just to us in Government, but to the thousands of public health players who have, over the last many months since January, really sacrificed themselves in many ways to give protection to the country as part of the COVID-19 response,” he told the Sunday Observer. But, regarding the management of the virus, Dr Tufton made an impassioned plea to Jamaicans to understand that they, too, have a responsibility, which they must exercise alongside the Government’s response if the nation is to overcome the pandemic. (Excerpt from Jamaica Observer)
