Amazon to Hire 100,000 Warehouse and Delivery Employees in US Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

Since it originated in China, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has infected more than 169,000 people in 148 countries and territories and killed more than 6,500, according to the latest data provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Amazon has announced it is hiring an additional 100,000 warehouse and delivery employees in the United States to deal with the growing demand amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

"We are opening 100,000 new full and part-time positions across the US in our fulfillment centers and delivery network to meet the surge in demand from people relying on Amazon’s service during this stressful time, particularly those most vulnerable to being out in public, Amazon posted on its official blog.

The company says it is welcoming people working in hospitality and restaurant services who have been left with no job at the moment to come and join Amazon in the meantime until their employers can take them back.

Amazon also revealed it will be increasing the amount it pays its employees per hour of work in the US, United Kingdom and a number of EU countries.

As the COVID-19 outbreak is raging around the world, governments have advised citizens to stay at home, avoid visiting public places, including eating in cafes and restaurants and rely instead on delivery services.

https://sputniknews.com/world/202003161078587866-amazon-to-hire-100000-warehouse-and-delivery-employees-in-us-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/

A.Gary Shilling: Globalists May Soon Become An Extinct Species

The disruptions caused by the spread of the coronavirus mean supply chains will be moved closer to home rather than in foreign lands…

The coronavirus’s depressing effects on the global economy and disruptions of supply chains is no doubt driving the last nail into the coffin of the globalists.

They believe in the theory first articulated by Englishman David Ricardo (1773-1823) that free trade among nations benefits all of them. He argued for the comparative advantage of free trade and industrial specialization. Even if one country is more competitive in every area than its trading partners, that nation should only concentrate on the areas in which it has the greatest competitive advantage. He used the example of English-produced wool being traded for French wine—and not the reverse.

But Ricardo’s simple trade model requires economies in static equilibrium with full employment and neither trade surpluses nor deficits, and similar living standards. These aren’t true in the real world. Also, Ricardo didn’t consider countries at different stages of economic development and different degrees of economic and political freedom, or exchange rate manipulations and competitive devaluations since gold was universal money in his day.

Ricardo also didn’t factor in trading partners with huge wage differences such as the U.S. and China. As a result, China can produce almost any manufactured good cheaper than America. The result has been the huge and chronic U.S. trade deficit with China.

Trade wars are normal as countries with insufficient domestic demand to create full employment strive to unload their problems on trading partners. They promote weak currencies to make imports more expensive for residents in order to encourage local production and to make exports cheaper for foreign buyers. Subsidies for exporting companies, now widespread in China, are another tried and true technique.

Free trade is rare. Historically, it has been largely confined to periods when a major global power promoted the free exchange of products in its own enlightened self-interest. That was true of Great Britain in the 19th century after it spearheaded the Industrial Revolution and wanted to insure the easy flow of raw materials for its factories from abroad and foreign markets for their output. After World War II, Americans used trade to rebuild Western Europe and Japan to counter the Soviets, and accepted the lack of reciprocity by some of those lands, notably Japan. This was cheaper and more acceptable in the Cold War era than garrisoning more American troops around the world and risking more military confrontations.

Consequently, there were eight global tariff-cutting rounds in the post-World War II era, from the 1947 Geneva Round to the Uruguay Round in 1986-1994. That was it. The 2001 Doha Round has gone nowhere because, by then, Washington no longer needed to support the free world. Also, U.S. trade deficits were chronic and growing, especially as globalization transferred manufacturing jobs to China and other low-cost Asian countries. U.S. factory positions collapsed from 21.7 million in 1979 to 11.5 million in 2010, with only a modest recovery after the Great Recession to 12.9 million in February of this year.

Largely as a result of these developments, real wages for most Americans have been flat for several decades, making voters mad as hell. President Donald Trump played to their plights and was elected by blaming weak incomes on imports and immigrants. Lack of real income growth also convinced voters in Europe that mainstream politicians weren’t effective. The result was Brexit and an attraction to far right and extreme left parties.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/agary-shilling-globalists-may-soon-become-extinct-species

>>8441834

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Donald Trump: No Nationwide Quarantine for Coronavirus

President Donald Trump reassured Americans on Monday at the White House that he was not considering a nationwide quarantine of Americans.

“At this point, not nationwide,” Trump said, noting that some places in the country were not affected by the virus at all.

The president spoke to reporters in the White House press briefing room on Monday afternoon and responded to questions about whether he was even considering a nationwide lockdown or quarantine.

“We may look at certain areas, certain hotspots, as they call them. We’ll be looking at that,” he said. “At this moment, no, we’re not.

The president praised Americans for socially isolating.

“People are self-containing to a large extent,” Trump said. “We look forward to the day when we can get back to normal.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci said that Americans in states with community transmission of the disease should avoid all restaurants, gyms, bars, food courts, theaters, and any groups for at least the next 15 days.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/16/donald-trump-no-nationwide-quarantine-for-coronavirus/

Russia: Terrorists in Idleb rearmed, launched counter-attacks against Syrian Army

Moscow, SANA_ The Russian Foreign Ministry has affirmed that terrorist organizations in the de-escalation zone in Idleb have rearmed themselves and launched counter-attacks against the Syrian Arab Army.

The Ministry, in a statement quoted by RT on Monday, stressed the need to eliminate and hold those organizations accountable.

“Large armed groups belonging to various terrorist organizations, are gathering in Idleb, including “Haya’at Tahrir al-Sham and Hurras ad-Din”, which continue to use ideological principles and terrorist methods of al-Qaeda,” the statement said, adding that these two terrorist organizations refused to recognize the recent cessation of hostilities agreement in Idleb.

https://www.sana.sy/en/?p=188339

Foreign Disinformation Campaign Stoking Virus Fears: Report

A foreign disinformation campaign aimed at sowing fear in the United States over the novel coronavirus is currently underway, according to a new report.

Three unnamed U.S. officials told The Associated Press that they began confronting on March 15 what they called a “deliberate effort by a foreign entity” to ignite fears of a nationwide quarantine. Federal agencies, such as the National Security Council, addressed such claims on March 15, saying that they were false.

“Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE,” the council said on its official Twitter account on March. 15. “There is no national lockdown. @CDCgovhas and will continue to post the latest guidance on #COVID19.”

CORONAVIRUS SPECIAL COVERAGE

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times. The U.S. officials did not name the foreign entity they believe to be responsible, according to AP.

At a March 16 coronavirus task force press briefing, President Donald Trump acknowledged that there could be some “foreign groups that are playing games” but he said it didn’t matter as he was not implementing a nationwide lockdown.

The State Department recently summoned China’s ambassador to the United States after a top Beijing official suggested that the U.S. military was responsible for introducing the deadly coronavirus to the Chinese city of Wuhan, ground zero of the pandemic.

A State Department spokesperson told The Epoch Times in a previous email that they have seen “how Beijing’s storyline on what has become a global pandemic has been shifting away from the Wuhan Huanan market since mid-January, indicating that Beijing is trying to avoid responsibility for the outbreak.”

The spokesperson was referring to the seafood and animal market in coronavirus epicenter Wuhan that Chinese officials initially cited as the potential source of the devastating outbreak. The spokesperson also added: “The US is not interested in assigning blame, but asks the Chinese government to offer full access and transparency in order to prevent further loss of lives inside and outside the PRC [People’s Republic of China].”

Alyssa Farah, the press secretary for the Department of Defense, said China’s propaganda push on the origin of the virus was a ridiculous claim.

“As a global crisis, COVID-19 shd be an area of cooperation between nations,” she wrote in a March 13 Twitter post. “Instead, the Communist Party of China has chosen to promulgate false & absurd conspiracy theories about the origin of COVID-19 blaming U.S. service members.”

States and municipalities have banned large public gatherings, closed schools, bars, and restaurants and advised people to exercise social distancing to slow the spread of the virus.

The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on March 14 that Americans should aim to severely curtail leaving their homes, but he did not indicate the government would order a nationwide quarantine. He was specifically questioned on whether he’d like to see a “national lockdown.”

“I think Americans should be prepared that they are going to have to hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing,” said Fauci, a member of the White House task force on combating the spread of coronavirus. He heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

Meanwhile, on March 16, national security officials said there had been a “cyber incident” involving the computer networks of the Department of Health and Human Services, but the networks were operating normally. They didn’t detail the scope of the incident.

“HHS and federal government cybersecurity professionals are continuously monitoring and taking appropriate actions to secure our federal networks,” according to NSC spokesman John Ullyot.

Although the officials did not name a specific entity responsible for the disinformation campaign, U.S. intelligence officials have repeatedly cautioned that Russia, China, Iran, and other countries are engaged in ongoing efforts to influence U.S. policy and voters in elections.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/foreign-disinformation-campaign-stoking-virus-fears-report_3274374.html

European solidarity doesn’t exist, only China can help us: Serbia goes full emergency over coronavirus

Caught off guard by the EU’s ban on medical exports, Serbia found help in China as it struggled to prepare for the Covid-19 outbreak, the Serbian president said, adding that it has become clear that European solidarity is a myth.

Serbia is the latest country to impose severe restrictions on travel and public gatherings in response to the global epidemic. As President Aleksandar Vucic declared a national emergency on Sunday, he had some scalding remarks for the EU.

The crisis has proven that European solidarity, only exists “on paper,” Vucic said, citing the ban on the export of medical equipment and supplies imposed by EU members to non-EU countries in response to the outbreak.

“Only China can help us in this situation,” the Serbian leader added, saying he recently wrote a letter to China’s Xi Jinping “asking him for help and calling him a brother.”

Serbia received five million masks from China that it couldn’t get in Europe and an offer to send doctors to help tackle the disease, the president said. The country had to shop for respirators on a “semi gray market.”

Starting Monday, Serbia has shut down all teaching facilities, mobilized the military to guard sensitive sites such as hospitals, and closed the borders to everyone apart from citizens. Serbs will have to remain in quarantine after coming back or face prison terms of up to three years.

“I say to foreigners: don’t come to Serbia, except for the Chinese who are called upon to come, their doctors, the people who help us,” Vucic said.

As of Monday, there are 55 confirmed coronavirus cases in Serbia, which has a population of seven million. Two of the patients are in serious condition. The virus has also reached other Balkan nations with the exception of Montenegro.

The health crisis has put EU cohesion to the test, as bureaucrats in Brussels and some leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron pushed against border controls even as the epidemic spread like wildfire in Italy and Spain. On Monday, Germany reluctantly imposed checks and suspended visa-free travel on its land borders with five of its neighbors, drawing criticism from Paris.

China, where the Covid-19 epidemic broke out last year, has reported a slowdown of the spread and is rolling back the severe restrictions it imposed earlier. It is now offering its assistance and experience to countries that have trouble dealing with the disease.

https://www.rt.com/news/483239-serbia-eu-china-coronavirus/