CORONAVIRUS | EUROPE EMERGES FROM VIRUS LOCKDOWN

Millions of Europeans emerged with relief from coronavirus confinement on Monday, with hard-hit Italy leading the way out of the world's longest lockdown.

The search for a cure received a further boost when the European Union hosted a telethon for world leaders aimed at raising €7.5 billion ($8.2 billion) to discover a COVID-19 vaccine.

Lockdowns imposed on half of the planet have derailed economies, and politicians are now grappling with how to get the wheels turning again without sparking a second wave of infections.

Italy — second only to the U.S. in its death toll and the first to impose a national lockdown — was gingerly emerging into the spring sunshine on Monday, with construction sites and factories resuming work.

Restaurants reopened for takeaway orders, but bars and ice cream parlours will remain shut. The use of public transport is being discouraged and everyone will have to wear masks in indoor public spaces.

Germany’s state premiers will agree on measures to further ease coronavirus restrictions in a teleconference with Chancellor Angela Merkel scheduled for Wednesday, two people familiar with the preparations told Reuters on Monday.

The state premiers are expected to give the green light for large shops to reopen, probably from May 11, the sources said.

German states are also set to allow the Bundesliga soccer league to resume matches, probably from May 15, under strict conditions without fans in stadiums, the sources said.

Spain made face masks mandatory on public transport starting Monday, two days after finally allowing people out to exercise freely after a 48-day lockdown.

Slovenia, Poland and Hungary joined Germany in allowing public spaces and businesses to partially reopen.

PAKISTAN TO LIFT NATIONWIDE LOCKDOWN GRADUALLY: PM IMRAN KHAN

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Monday that the nationwide lockdown will be lifted gradually, asserting that Pakistan cannot afford an indefinite closure, hours after 1,083 new infections were diagnosed, taking the country's total confirmed Covid-19 cases past 20,000.

Khan addressed a ceremony to launch the Corona Relief Tiger Force, a controversial youth organisation he set up to help the government in identifying the poor to provide help to them.

"We are thinking of gradually easing the lockdown in the coming days," he said, adding that Pakistan cannot afford an indefinite closure.

The current lockdown period will end on May 9. The Prime Minister is expected to chair a meeting of the Cabinet on Tuesday to discuss the lockdown.

Khan said that the Corona Relief Tiger Force was not a political group but a volunteer force to help strike a balance between saving people from the virus and saving them from hunger and unemployment.

"Volunteers will have to register. All those who have lost their jobs due to the lockdown at their respective union councils. Not everyone can register themselves, so that is where the force will come in," he said.

He added that the volunteers will also monitor the 'Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme' and give the centre feedback.

US WARNS CHINA OF VERY SIZEABLE PENALTIES FOR NOT HONOURING TRADE DEAL

WASHINGTON: US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday warned China of “very sizeable consequences” for not honouring the trade deal signed among the two nations early this year.

“I have just about every reason to hope that they honour this settlement. And if they really don’t, there would be pretty major penalties in the connection and in the world-wide economic system as to how individuals would do small business with them,” Mnuchin explained to Fox News.

Mnuchin’s warning to China came a working day just after President Donald Trump explained that he will terminate the trade deal with China, if they do not honour the dedication of obtaining an supplemental $200 billion worthy of of agricultural items from the US.

Underneath the US-China trade offer signed in January, Beijing agreed to obtain at minimum $200 billion a lot more in US products and solutions in 2020-2021 two-calendar year period than it did in 2017.

Responding to a concern, Mnuchin said that Trump is examining all difficulties with China incredibly meticulously.

“He’s been pretty clear, he is doing work with the intel companies to have an understanding of what they realized and what they didn’t know. The president’s variety one emphasis proper now is the wellbeing of the American community and the US economy, but he is studying the China challenge pretty carefully,” Mnuchin explained.

WHO SAYS IT HAS NO PROOF FROM U.S. ON ‘SPECULATIVE’ WUHAN LAB CLAIMS

The World Health Organization said Monday that Washington had provided no evidence to support “speculative” claims by the U.S. president that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab.

“We have not received any data or specific evidence from the United States government relating to the purported origin of the virus — so from our perspective, this remains speculative,” WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a virtual briefing.

Scientists believe the killer virus jumped from animals to humans, emerging in China late last year, possibly from a market in Wuhan selling exotic animals for meat.

But U.S. President Donald Trump, increasingly critical of China’s management of the first outbreak, claims to have proof it started in a Wuhan laboratory.

And U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday said “enormous evidence” backed up that claim, which China has vehemently denied.

“Like any evidence-based organisation, we would be very willing to receive any information that purports to the origin of the virus,” Mr. Ryan said, stressing that this was “a very important piece of public health information for future control.

“If that data and evidence is available, then it will be for the United States government to decide whether and when it can be shared, but it is difficult for the WHO to operate in an information vacuum in that regard,” he added.

CORONAVIRUS: US TO BORROW RECORD $3TN AS SPENDING SOARS

The US has said it wants to borrow a record $3tn (£2.4tn) in the second quarter, as coronavirus-related rescue packages blow up the budget.

The sum is more than five times the previous quarterly record, set at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

In all of 2019, the country borrowed $1.28tn.

The US has approved about $3tn in virus-related relief, including health funding and direct payouts. Total US government debt is now near $25tn.

The packages are estimated to be worth about 14% of the country's economy. The government also extended the annual 15 April deadline for tax payments, adding to the cash crunch.

The new borrowing estimate is more than $3tn above the government's previous estimate, a sign of the impact of the new programmes.

Discussions are under way over further assistance, though some Republicans have expressed concerns about the impact of more spending on the country's skyrocketing national debt.

COVID-19 PUSHING TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO RIP GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAINS FROM CHINA: OFFICIALS

The Trump administration is “turbocharging” an initiative to remove global industrial supply chains from China as it weighs new tariffs to punish Beijing for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, according to officials familiar with U.S. planning.

President Donald Trump, who has stepped up recent attacks on China ahead of the Nov. 3 U.S. presidential election, has long pledged to bring manufacturing back from overseas.

Now, economic destruction and the U.S. coronavirus death toll are driving a government-wide push to move U.S. production and supply chain dependency away from China, even if it goes to other more friendly nations instead, current and former senior U.S. administration officials said.

“We’ve been working on (reducing the reliance of our supply chains in China) over the last few years but we are now turbo-charging that initiative,” Keith Krach, undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment at the State Department told Reuters.

“I think it is essential to understand where the critical areas are and where critical bottlenecks exist,” Krach said, adding that the matter was key to U.S. security and one the government could announce new action on soon.

The U.S. Commerce Department, State and other agencies are looking for ways to push companies to move both sourcing and manufacturing out of China. Tax incentives and potential re-shoring subsidies are among measures being considered to spur changes, the current and former officials told Reuters.

INTERNATIONAL FACT-CHECKING NETWORK LAUNCHES WHATSAPP BOT TO FIGHT COVID-19 MISINFORMATION

Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), on Monday, launched a WhatsApp chatbot that has been built to address the challenge of misinformation, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By using the IFCN’s bot on WhatsApp, citizens from all over the world would be able to easily check whether a piece of content about COVID-19 had already been rated as false by professional fact-checkers, a statement said.

Initially, the IFCN’s bot, which is free to use, would be available only in English, but other languages, including Hindi, Spanish and Portuguese, would follow soon, it added.

“Billions of users rely on WhatsApp to stay in touch with their friends and families every month. Since bad actors use every single platform to disseminate falsehoods, to mislead others during such troubling times, fact-checkers’ work is more important than ever,” IFCN director Baybars Orsek said.

The IFCN’s bot had been built to address the challenge of misinformation, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, by connecting people with independent fact-checkers in more than 70 countries and also with the largest database of debunked falsehoods related to COVID-19, the statement said.

BIDEN ANNOUNCES NEW POLICY EFFORTS AIMED AT BLACK VOTERS

Presumptive Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden's campaign on Monday unveiled a broad policy targeted toward helping reduce racial wealth and health gaps among new policies aimed at reaching black voters.

As part of the wide-ranging plans, the former vice president pledged to open a new Public Credit Reporting Agency that could compete with Equifax Inc, Experian Plc and TransUnion and, according to the campaign, minimize racial disparities in lending.

The former vice president also promised a new tax credit for first-time home owners, $900 million over eight years to finance efforts to save 12,000 lives in high-crime cities as well as to expand the Small Business Administration's efforts to lend money to African American-owned enterprises. Advocates say that few of those businesses have been able to tap federal relief programs during the coronavirus outbreak due to discriminatory lending practices.

Mr. Biden is looking to unseat Republican President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 election. Black voters were critical in helping Mr. Biden overcome early losses in his party's primary to become Democrats' presumptive nominee. The heavily Democratic ethnic group is also considered indispensable in Mr. Biden's effort to win against Mr. Trump.

A Biden campaign official said the candidate would be working to introduce more relevant policies on environmental issues and other areas of concern to black voters in coming weeks.