The health ministry in Afghanistan has recorded 281 new coronavirus cases and five deaths over past 24 hours, as attacks on a funeral and maternity hospital killed dozens of civilians including two newborn babies, Akhtar Mohammad Makoii reports from Herat.
Most of the new infections were reported in Kabul, the Afghan capital, with eighty-four out of 212 tests in the city coming back positive. The total number of infections in Kabul is now 1,341, making it the country’s worst affected area.
Overall, the number of infections in Afghanistan now stands at 4,963 and death toll is 127.
Officials in western province of Herat confirmed 12 new infections overnight. Herat borders Iran and Afghanistan’s first cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the province as thousands of Afghan migrants poured back from Iran in February and March, fanning out across the country without being tested or quarantined. The total number of infections in Herat is 913.
Elsewhere, five new cases were reported in the remote province of Zabul, where the only hospital was destroyed in a Taliban attack last year.
Meanwhile 38 people, including newborn babies, were killed and dozens more wounded as a result of two attacks in Kabul and the eastern province of Nangarhar.
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Athens is the latest city to announce that it will undergo a radical facelift – taking advantage of lessons learned during lockdown, writes Helena Smith, the Guardian’s Athens correspondent.
Echoing similar plans in Milan where public space is to be reclaimed for cyclists and pedestrians, the Greek capital will also see urban space opened up in response to the coronavirus crisis.
The scheme, which foresees the creation of a 6.8km-long pedestrian walkway connecting Athens’ archaeological sites, will also see cars being banned from the historic city centre around the Acropolis. The creation of extended pavements along major boulevards will facilitate social distancing.
It will be the biggest intervention in the life of the city in more than a decade. Although it will begin to be enforced in pilot form at the end of the month, the ambitious project is not expected to be completed until the end of 2022.
Athens’ mayor Kostas Bakoyannis says the corona-induced lockdown has enabled municipal authorities to accelerate works that might previously have taken years to achieve. He told the Guardian:
We have this once in a lifetime opportunity and are fast forwarding all our public works.
Milan, Paris, Berlin Bergota, New York Mexico city are all giving priority to walking and cycling and creating public spaces by regulating traffic and that’s what we want to do here as well.
In a rare piece of good news, the pandemic had enabled local authorities to “liberate public space from cars and give it to people who want to walk and enjoy the city.”
Greece has handled the coronavirus pandemic unexpectedly well, recording 2,744 confirmed cases to date and a death toll of 152 following enforcement of strict lockdown measures early on.
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There were 172 new coronavirus fatalities in Italy on Tuesday, bringing the death toll to 30,911, while the number of new infections rose by 1,402, almost double that of Monday, reports Angela Giuffrida, the Guardian’s Rome correspondent.
The majority of the new infections – 1,033 – were registered in the northern Lombardy region, although authorities there said that 419 of the cases referred to those detected over the last week and not within the past 24 hours.
The number of people in hospital and intensive care continues to fall, while the number of those recovered has risen by 2,452 to 109,039. Italy has 221,216 confirmed coronavirus cases to date.
The government has given the green light to regional authorities to allow bars, restaurants, hairdressers and beauty salons to reopen on 18 May, earlier than originally planned.
Restrictions on friends seeing each other might also be lifted from Monday, Italian media reported, although the ban on inter-regional travel will probably be maintained until 1 June. People have been able to see relatives and partners within their regions since 4 May.
Italian police on Tuesday arrested 91 suspected members of the Sicilian mafia that were trying to exploit economic woes triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, reports Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo.
Charges range from mafia association to extortion, fraudulent assets possession, receiving stolen goods, money laundering, drug trafficking, sporting fraud and fraud and arrests were made in Palermo and Milan.
According to Sicilian investigators, who launched the operation, mobsters were laundering extortion and drug trafficking revenue. The magistrates said bosses were preparing to use ill-gained cash to buy struggling businesses that shut down during the lockdown.
Police uncovered evidence that Cosa Nostra bosses were also rigging horse races across the country.
Authorities have also seized €15m ($16.5m) in suspected ill-gained assets, including 13 racehorses.
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