As its president ordered workers to stay away from their jobs until the end of the month, Russia is considering aggressive new surveillance methods to enforce a mandatory lockdown across its 11 time zones, Andrew Roth reports from Moscow.
The details of the new system have not been confirmed, but official statements and leaked plans have indicated they could include mobile apps that track users’ location, CCTV cameras with facial recognition software, QR codes, mobile phone data and credit card records.
The hastily developed patchwork to monitor individuals’ movements could tell authorities whether Russians had broken coronavirus lockdowns for reasons other than those allowed: seeking medical care, shopping for groceries, visiting the pharmacy or traveling to an authorised job. Leaked plans indicate that parts of the system may go online this weekend.
Jack Ma, the founder of Chinese wholesale online market Alibaba, has donated millions of dollars in medical aid around the world to help countries battling the coronavirus, including sending a million masks and 500,000 testing kits to the US.
But this week an attempt by Ma to make a similar donation to Cuba – which has itself been sending doctors around the world to help with coronavirus medical efforts – was blocked by the US government, reports Xinhua, China’s official news agency.
According to Xinhua, the US hauler hired by Alibaba to carry face masks, test kits and ventilators to the Caribbean island pulled out at the last minute, citing backdoor sanctions against Cuba implemented last year by the Trump administration.
Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, enacted by the Trump government last May, gives US nationals and companies the right to sue foreign citizens and enterprises investing in properties nationalised by the Cuban government.
Miguel Diaz-Canel, Cuba’s president, criticised the move on Twitter on Wednesday. He wrote:
Cuba denounces that medical supplies from Alibaba Foundation to help combat Covid-19 have not arrived in the country due to the criminal US blockade against the island nation.
France has called for hundreds of billions of dollars in aid and a debt moratorium for developing countries, particularly in Africa, to help them deal with the coronavirus crisis, AFP reports.
The world’s poorest continent is far behind other regions in terms of confirmed cases and deaths but infections are rapidly increasing and most African countries lack the healthcare infrastructure to deal with a largescale outbreak.
In one particularly extreme example, highlighted on Tuesday by the Norwegian Refugee Council, there are currently three ventilators to help save the lives of coronavirus patients in the Central African Republic - a country of almost five million people.
The French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, on Thursday called for a $500bn war chest to support healthcare efforts in Africa. “We have the responsibility of avoiding a drama in developing nations, especially in Africa,” he said, days after urging the G20 group of rich nations to take steps to help poor countries hit by the pandemic.
“We support a moratorium in the coming months on the debt of the poorest countries,” he told reporters in Paris.
Nearly 6,500 cases of coronavirus have been recorded across all of Africa, 238 of them fatal, according to an AFP toll. South Africa is the worst-hit country on the continent with more than 1,400 cases, including five deaths.
Guardian