TYB
Russian Plane With Medical Equipment Takes Off for the US
to Help Amidst the Outbreak: State TV
BY REUTERS April 1, 2020 Updated: April 1, 2020
MOSCOW—A Russian military transport plane took off from an airfield outside Moscow early on Wednesday and headed for the United States with a load of medical equipment and masks to help Washington fight the CCP virus, Russian state TV reported.
President Vladimir Putin offered Russian help in a phone conversation with President Donald Trump on Monday, when the two leaders discussed how best to respond to the virus.
“Trump gratefully accepted this humanitarian aid,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited as saying by the Interfax news agency on Tuesday night. Trump himself spoke enthusiastically about the Russian help after his call with Putin.
CCP VIRUS SPECIAL COVERAGE
Russia’s Rossiya 24 channel on Wednesday morning showed the plane taking off from a military air base outside Moscow in darkness. Its cargo hold was filled with cardboard boxes and other packages."
moar:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/russian-plane-with-medical-equipment-takes-off-for-the-us-to-help-amidst-the-outbreak-state-tv_3293711.html
Coronavirus: Top South African HIV scientist
Gita Ramjee dies
48 minutes ago
"Tributes are being paid to world-renowned South African scientist Gita Ramjee, who has died from Covid-19-related complications.
"She dedicated many years of her life to finding HIV prevention solutions for women," her colleague and friend Gavin Churchyard told the BBC.
Head of UNAids Winnie Byanyima said Prof Ramjee's death was a huge loss at a time when the world needed her most.
South Africa has the largest number of people living with HIV in the world.
The country has begun a three-week lockdown as part of efforts to stop the spread of coronavirus.
BBC Africa Live: Updates from around the continent
No alcohol, no dog walks: Lockdown in South Africa
Bracing for coronavirus in a South African township
"The passing of Prof Ramjee comes as a huge blow to the entirety of the healthcare sector and the global fight against HIV/Aids," the country's Deputy President David Mabuza said in a statement.
"In her, we have indeed lost a champion in the fight against the HIV epidemic, ironically at the hands of this global pandemic. In her honour, we should heed the call to flatten the curve by strengthening our responses to this global pandemic as well as continue the fight to achieve zero new HIV infections."
'I now stand among female giants'
Prof Ramjee, who died in hospital near the coastal city of Durban on Tuesday, had been working as the chief scientific officer at the Aurum Institute, a leading authority in the fight against HIV and TB.
"Gita was a vibrant person, a real fighter. If she sets her mind on something, nobody better stand in her way," Aurum head Prof Churchyard, who knew her for many years, told the BBC's Pumza Fihlani.
"That will be my lasting memory of her - how she fought with everything to advance access to healthcare for women in disadvantaged communities.""
moar:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52120265
US stocks dive amid dire government warnings about spread
of deadly pandemic
1 Apr, 2020 13:35 / Updated 1 minute ago
"Wall Street opened lower on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump prepared Americans for a surge in coronavirus infections in the country with a death toll that could reach 240,000.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 800 points after the opening bell. The S&P was trading over three percent lower, while the Nasdaq Composite is down over two percent.
The markets are digesting dire warnings from the White House that deaths from Covid-19 over the next two weeks are projected to reach between 100,000 and 240,000, with coronavirus fatalities peaking over this period.
“This could be a hell of a bad two weeks. This is going to be a very bad two, and maybe three weeks. This is going to be three weeks like we’ve never seen before,” Trump said on Tuesday.
Global stocks fell on Wednesday amid warnings that the world's largest economy, the United States, is quickly becoming the epicenter of the pandemic.
In Asia the losses were led by Japan’s Nikkei 225 which nosedived 4.5 percent as statistics showed a widespread slowdown in manufacturing across the region.
European markets followed suit with German and French indices diving more than three percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 dipped around four percent.
Stock markets are reacting to “a likely increase in the duration and breadth of coronavirus lockdowns in the US and elsewhere, which is pointing to a potentially deeper and longer-term hit to economic activity than was anticipated even a week ago,” Stephen Innes, a strategist at AxiCorp, wrote in a research note seen by CNN.
This week, Goldman Sachs significantly downgraded its outlook for the US economy between April and June. The investment bank now expects an annualized rate of contraction of 34 percent compared to the previous quarter. Its last estimate was an already-shocking 24 percent.
Goldman has also revised the US unemployment rate, projecting it to rise to 15 percent by the middle of the year, compared to nine percent earlier."
https://www.rt.com/business/484684-us-markets-down-coronavirus/
Tucker Carlson: The WHO Helped China Cover-Up COVID-19
Wed, 04/01/2020 - 08:30
"Tucker Carlson exposed during a powerful monologue last night how the World Health Organization helped China cover-up the severity of coronavirus and how the U.S. media turned a blind eye.
The Fox News host noted how World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom “got his job with Chinese support after he covered up cholera outbreaks in his home country” of Egypt.
Tedros has denied the allegation, which centered around claims he had downplayed cholera epidemics in Ethiopia in 2006, 2009 and 2011 by passing them off as “acute watery diarrhea,” a symptom of cholera.
The United Nations later said that more lives could have been saved if the epidemic had been accurately labeled as cholera.
Carlson then accused Adhanom of setting the standard for corruption within the WHO by congratulating China for its “speedy” response to coronavirus in late January despite widespread evidence that China covered up the outbreak for over a month, lied about its severity and then silenced whistleblowers who tried to warn the world.
“Everything you just heard him say there was a lie,” said Carlson, highlighting an Australian 60 Minutes piece which features an expert explaining how China knew human to human transmission of COVID-19 had happened back in December.
Indeed, as we previously highlighted, on January 14th, the WHO was amplifying Chinese fake news that no human to human transmission of coronavirus had occurred."
MOAR:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/tucker-carlson-who-helped-china-cover-covid-19
Tornadoes hit South as new storm moves through West
with heavy snow
Eight states from Washington to Minnesota under Winter
Storm Watches & Warnings.
April 1, 2020, 7:41 AM
"There were 10 reported tornadoes yesterday across four states, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Some of the worst damage was in southern Alabama and in northern Georgia where several homes were destroyed.
Overall, there were 88 damaging storm reports in five states from Mississippi to South Carolina as the southern storm moved through.
The Southern storm is now moving off the North Carolina coast with lingering rain along the East Coast this morning.
Our attention now turns to the West where a storm system and a cold front will be moving from the Pacific Northwest into the Upper Midwest with heavy April snow."
MOAR:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/tornadoes-hit-south-storm-moves-west-heavy-snow/story?id=69913064&cid=clicksource_4380645_4_heads_hero_live_headlines_hed
Hungry black hole may be cosmic 'missing link'
4 hours ago
"The presumed black hole revealed itself by tearing apart a star that ventured too close
A team of astronomers has found what it says is the best evidence yet for an elusive class of black hole.
They say the presumed "intermediate-mass" black hole betrayed its existence by tearing apart a wayward star that ventured too close.
These medium-sized objects are a long-sought "missing link" in the evolution of the cosmos.
Researchers used two X-ray observatories, along with the Hubble telescope, to identify the object.
"Intermediate-mass black holes are very elusive objects, and so it is critical to carefully consider and rule out alternative explanations for each candidate, said Dr Dacheng Lin, from the University of New Hampshire in Durham, US, who led the study.
"That is what Hubble has allowed us to do for our candidate."
In 2006, Nasa's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite spotted a powerful X-ray flare named 3XMM J215022.4−055108.
The nature of the X-ray flare meant that it could be explained by just two scenarios, according to Dr Lin. It was "either a distant (outside our galaxy) intermediate-mass black hole disrupting and swallowing a star or a cooling neutron star in our own galaxy", he told BBC News.
Neutron stars are the crushed remnants of an exploded star."
MOAR:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52113946
not muh corona
Ford Is Delaying North American Production "Indefinitely"
Wed, 04/01/2020 - 09:35
"With what are sure to be ugly March sales numbers looming, Ford has now decided it is cancelling plans to re-start production in the U.S. and Mexico over the next two weeks.
Citing risks associated with the coronavirus, the automaker has said the the suspension is "indefinite" and has not set a timeline to bring its facilities back online, according to Bloomberg. The company is currently working with the UAW to establish new guidelines for safety procedures before re-opening.
The union announced the death of two Ford plant workers on March 28 as a result of the coronavirus.
UAW President Rory Gamble said on Tuesday: “Today’s decision by Ford is the right decision for our members, their families and our nation. Would I send my family member – my own son or daughter – into that plant and be 100% certain they are safe?”
The shutdowns continue to cost Ford billions of dollars. Despite this, there is no rush to re-open as demand will likely be "depressed for months". Meanwhile, Ford's plans to produce ventilators during the week of April 20, in conjunction with GE, remains on schedule. "
moar:
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/ford-delaying-north-american-production-indefinitely