Saturday, March 21, 2020

FORMER REAL MADRID PRESIDENT LORENZO SANZ HAS DIED AT THE AGE OF 76 DUE TO CORONAVIRUS

Photo Credit: Lorenzo Sanz



Former Real Madrid president Lorenzo Sanz has died at the age of 76 after contracting coronavirus.

Sanz was a director at Real from 1985 to 1995 before taking over as President, a position which he held until 2000.

He masterminded their European Cup victory in 1998, where they beat Juventus in the final, ending a 32-year drought in the competition they had once dominated.

After lifting La Septima they added another two years later in 2000. He also brought Davor Suker, Roberto Carlos and Nicholas Anelka to the Bernabeu. 

Sanz's son Lorenzo San Duran wrote on Twitter: 'My father has just died.

'He did not deserve this end in this manner. One of the best, most courageous and hard-working people I have seen in my life. His family and Real Madrid were his passion.' 

The triumph in 1998 was Real's first in Europe's elite club competition since 1966. He was succeeded as president of Real by Florentino Perez, who ushered in the Galactico era and returned again in 2009.

Sanz purchased Malaga in 2006 before selling the club in 2010.

He was the father-in-law of former Real Madrid defender Michel Salgado, who married Sanz's daughter Malula.

Sanz's son Fernando played for Real between 1996 and 1999.



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Credit: Europa Press Via Getty Images

NORTH IRELAND: Same-sex marriage: N.I set for a first gay wedding

Credit: Robyn and Sharni Edwards




Robyn Peoples, from Belfast, and Sharni Edwards, from Brighton, are set to become the first same-sex couple to be married in Northern Ireland.

The couple is due to celebrate their nuptials on Tuesday in Carrickfergus, County Antrim.

Next week is the first week that same-sex couples in Northern Ireland can legally get married.

Robyn, 26, and Sharni, 27, met five years ago at a gay bar in Belfast.

Photos from their Wedding

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NORTH KOREA FIRES TWO PROJECTILES INTO SEA

According to South Korea, two projectiles were fired towards the sea by North Korea




North Korea has fired two projectiles into the sea, according to South Korea's military.

It said the projectiles appeared to be short-range ballistic missiles.

They were launched early on Saturday from Pyongan province towards the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan.

North Korea launched multiple missiles as part of firing drills earlier this month. The US and China have called on Pyongyang to return to talks on ending its nuclear and missile programs.

On Saturday, South Korea's Joint Chief of Staff said it was monitoring the situation in case there are additional launches.

It described the actions as "extremely inappropriate" at a time when the world was dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The projectiles flew for 410km (255 miles) with a maximum altitude of around 50km, the South Korean military said.

Japan's coast guard confirmed a missile had landed outside the waters of its exclusive economic zone.

It comes as North Korea announced it would be holding a session of the Supreme People's Assembly, the country's parliament, on 10 April. Analysts say the meeting will involve almost 700 of the country's leaders in one spot.

Rachel Minyoung Lee, from the North Korea monitoring website NK News, said on Twitter that the meeting would "be the ultimate show of (North Korea's) confidence in managing the coronavirus situation".

There have been no reported cases of coronavirus in North Korea, though some experts have cast doubt on this.

North Korea borders China, where the virus emerged, and South Korea, where there has been a major outbreak.

A top US military official said last week he was "fairly certain" there were infections in North Korea.

North Korea quarantined around 380 foreigners - mostly diplomats and staff in Pyongyang - in their compounds for at least 30 days. The restrictions were lifted at the beginning of March. Around 80 foreigners, mainly diplomats, were flown out of the capital on 9 March.

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CHINA SEES ZERO LOCAL CORONAVIRUS CASES FOR THIRD DAY, IMPORTED INFECTION RISE

Photo Credit: Ted S. Warren-AP



SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Mainland China reported zero locally transmitted cases of the coronavirus for a third day running, while the daily log of infections involving travelers arriving from other countries continued to rise.

Mainland China had 41 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections on Friday, the country's National Health Commission said, all imported from abroad. That brought the total number of imported cases to 269.

High in the charts was Beijing, with 14 new imported cases. Shanghai and six provinces also identified such cases. 

That brought the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China to 81,008, the health authority said in a statement on Saturday.



The death toll from the outbreak in mainland China reached 3,255 as of the end of Friday, up by seven from the previous day and all from the central province of Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak in China. 

(Reporting by Engen Tham in Shanghai and Yilei Sun in Beijing; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Leslie Adler)

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SALMAN AND HASHEM ABEDI: THE BROTHERS WHO BOMBED MANCHESTER

Salman and Hashem Abedi



Like so many children growing up in Manchester, the Abedi brothers spent the long summer evenings out on their street kicking a football around.

There was not much that marked them out as they played with the other kids on Elsmore Road in Fallowfield - a red-brick residential suburb of south Manchester.

There were other Libyans in the neighborhood, many more had settled across Manchester - building their lives, contributing to the community and enjoying life as Mancunians...

Hashem Abedi conspired with his brother to carry out the attack

So how did Salman and Hashem Abedi come to attack the city they'd grown up in by bombing an Ariana Grande concert in 2017? The trial of Hashem Abedi has given us many of the details but still not the whole picture.



He has now been convicted but he wasn't even in the UK when his brother Salman detonated the suicide bomb that killed 22 others in the foyer of the Manchester Arena.


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Despite his denials to the police, the jury was told that the younger surviving brother was "just as guilty" as his older brother who detonated the bomb. It was an elaborate, calculated and drawn out plot that started in their backyard shed behind the family home on Elsmore Road.


Their parents had chosen to move back to Libya in 2016 and the brothers were left to get on with their lives in Manchester.

Hashem Abedi's DNA was found at the flat where the bomb was made

They weren't particularly academic and had started hanging around with mates drifting into petty crime. We do not know precisely who inspired or persuaded them to make the bomb in the name of Islamic State terrorism but friends had noticed a change in them, particularly Salman.

Hashem worked in a takeaway restaurant and started asking the owner if he could take the metal vegetable oil cans away for scrap.

The cans weren't really worth much more than a few pence but Hashem and Salman started using them to test homemade explosives they were experimenting with at their property on Elsmore Road.

A piece from one of the cans was later found at the scene of the bombing at the arena.

The cans had been cut and modified and turned into prototype containers for an explosive device - the brothers spent months refining their method and right up until a few days before the bombing Salman was still searching hardware stores in Manchester for the right container for their bomb.

Prosecutors said Hashem Abedi was 'just as guilty' as his brother

Between January 2017 and April that year, they also set about gathering together the chemicals needed for the bomb.

They persuaded a series of friends, relatives, and associates to use online accounts to order collectively over 70 liters of either sulphuric acid or hydrogen peroxide.

Their story was that it was for a generator back in Libya and the chemicals couldn't be sourced over there.

The brothers had many of the deliveries sent to an empty terraced house in Rusholme that had been lent to them...

The brothers sub-let a flat where they prepared the bomb

They then sub-let a 12th floor flat in north Manchester where they stored and prepared the bomb. It was an obscure address on the other side of the city - somewhere they were unlikely to see anyone they knew.

Hashem's fingerprints and DNA were found there along with traces of the explosives they were making from the chemicals.

On 13 April they bought a cheap Nissan Micra on Gumtree and told the person selling it they were going to use it for Uber deliveries. Instead, the brothers emptied the contents of the 12th floor flat into the Micra and also hired a taxi to get themselves and their equipment back to south Manchester.

Traces of the explosives were found in the flat

The taxi driver thought it was unusual but simply thought they were moving something "fragile" in the boxes they'd loaded up.

The ingredients for their bomb would remain stored in the Nissan Micra while the Abedi brothers left the country a day or so later. They flew to Libya to see their parents.

Whoever else Salman met or talked to in Libya before his return to the UK, nothing persuaded him to change the path that he and his brother had laid out for themselves in Manchester over the previous three months.

Before he flew back Salman contacted the owner of a flat that was available to rent near Piccadilly station in Manchester. This is the property where he would finally assemble the bomb.

While his younger brother Hashem remained in Libya, Salman landed at Manchester airport on 18 May - he took a taxi straight to the area where the Nissan Micra - the makeshift storage facility - had been parked up for weeks.

He checked on it and then headed into the city to meet the owner of the flat. This is where Salman Abedi finalized his bomb and the plan of where and when to detonate it...

Salman Abedi used a suitcase to move items from the car to a flat

That evening he visited the arena and went shopping for batteries, a large suitcase, bulbs, tape and flexible cable. The next day he used the suitcase to move items from the Nissan Micra to the flat so he could assemble the device.

He then spent the rest of the day buying more items - large money in that would be the container for the bomb, a rucksack for the bomb, parcel tape and 50x100 packs of metal nuts. In total, he bought 5,000 metal nuts that cost him £296.50.

Salman Abedi visited the arena before shopping for materials for his device

Over the following days, he made more shopping trips around Manchester buying a five-liter paint tin and yet more screws and nuts. It would be the shrapnel that would kill and maim so indiscriminately during the explosion at the upcoming concert.

During this time there was a series of calls to unidentified numbers from Salman. If he was taking final instructions from somebody the police and security services have not been able to say who it was. If the security services were watching him, and we had been told that he was on their radar, these repeated shopping trips would surely have triggered alerts.

Salman Abedi bought a five-liter paint tin and more screws and nuts

The night of the attack was 22 May 2017 - a date seared into the memory of the city of Manchester.

The explosive device that he put together in the flat near Piccadilly weighed 36kg. It meant that he stooped under the weight of the backpack that he carried out of the flats and onto the tram that would take him to Manchester Victoria station right next to the arena.

At 8.51pm he entered the foyer but then wandered back towards the metro where he sat down. It appeared he was waiting for the concert to end to maximize the number of people in the foyer.

It was 10.31pm as Ariana Grande was concluding the show when Salman detonated the bomb. His brother was in Libya - but this terrorist attack was a joint enterprise. Hashem's fingerprints and DNA were all over the bomb.

The trial has established that fact, but not the individuals in the shadows who really motivated them to kill.

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Thursday, March 19, 2020

BREAKING NEWS: ITALIAN Coronavirus Death Toll Rose to 3,405 In One Month Surpassing China's Record Of 3,245 Reported Deaths




The number of deaths now stands at 3,405, which is more than in China where the virus originated last year.

There have been 3,245 reported deaths in China, but there have been questions over the reliability of its data.

A lockdown imposed on 12 March in Italy has been extended beyond the original 25 March end date. Nearly all Italians have been told to stay at home.

Despite these measures, the number of new cases and deaths has continued to spiral.

There have been 220,000 cases of the virus worldwide with more than 9,000 deaths.



China confirmed it had no new domestic cases on Wednesday for the first time since the outbreak began, a major milestone.

But it reported 34 new cases among people who had recently returned to the country.

The number of cases in China - more than 81,000 - is still far higher than in Italy, which has 41,035.

Italy shut down most businesses and banned public gatherings nationwide on 12 March as it tried to halt the spread of the virus.

Bars, restaurants and most shops have closed, as have schools and universities.

The lockdown has been extended, and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said it had helped prevent "the collapse of the system".

But he told the Corriere Della Sera newspaper that "we will not be able to return immediately to life as it was before" even when the measures were ended.

A report by the Istituto Superiore di Sanita into the deaths in Italy of 2,003 people confirmed to be positive for coronavirus found that three regions, all in the north, were by far the worst hit.

Some studies point to a large number of elderly in the affected regions, and that a large proportion of 18-34s live at home with them. Different demographics in other nations may have helped to keep the death toll lower.



The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched an emergency €750bn ($820bn; £700bn) package to ease the impact of the pandemic, with boss Christine Lagarde tweeting "there are no limits" to its commitment to the euro.

France began its lockdown on Tuesday morning. It requires citizens who are in public places to carry official paperwork stating why they are not at home or face a fine.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told Europe 1 radio on Thursday that the lockdown might be extended beyond the originally stated 15 days.

He said 4,095 fines had been handed out to transgressors and 70,000 control checks made since Wednesday morning. The fine is €135 ($150; £123).

"Some people think they're some kind of modern-day hero when they break the rules - but they're imbeciles, and a danger to themselves," Mr. Castaner said.

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BREAKING: DEAD BODIES OF CORONAVIRUS VICTIMS IN THE CITY OF BEGERMO ITALY NOW TRANSPORTED OUT OF THE CITY BY THE ITALIAN ARMY TRUCKS FOR CREMATION





At least 93 people have died after testing positive for coronavirus in the north Italian city.
The Italian city of Bergamo, one of the worst-hit by the coronavirus outbreak, is having to transport its dead out of the city as its crematorium is struggling to cope. 

Army vehicles have been brought in to move dozens of coffins from Bergamo to other regions, according to Ansa news agency.

The wealthy city, northeast of Milan in Italy's Lombardy region, has recorded at least 93 coronavirus-related deaths as cases continue to grow relentlessly each day.


Workers transport a coffin into a cemetery

The mayor of Bergamo, Giorgio Gori, said the true number of related deaths could be higher as many people with COVID-19 symptoms had died before being tested.

"The crematorium of Bergamo, working at full capacity, 24 hours a day, can cremate 25 dead", said a spokesperson for the local authority.


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"It is clear that it could not stand up to the numbers of the past few days."


Coffins are now being taken to crematoriums in Modena, Acqui Terme, Domodossola, Parma, Piacenza and several other cities.

Once the bodies have been cremated, the ashes will be brought back to Bergamo.

Reuters journalists witnessed two funerals per hour, over a period of six hours, on Monday.


Italy experienced its largest daily increase in coronavirus deaths on Wednesday

Many of the deceased were unable to have funerals as the demand is too high, and instead, they were taken to a chapel inside a church within the cemetery.

Coffins have already filled up two hospital mortuaries and a cemetery morgue.

Relatives have been allowed to enter the cemetery to pay their respects, but only in limited numbers and with the recommended amount of distance between each other to prevent the spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, the local newspaper's daily obituary section has increased from two or three pages to 10.

Earlier this month, a doctor working in a Bergamo hospital issued a stark warning that the "message of the danger of what is happening" was not reaching people.

In a Facebook post, Dr. Daniele Macchini said: "The situation is now nothing short of dramatic. No other words come to mind.

"The war has literally exploded and the battles are uninterrupted day and night."

Italy is the hardest-hit nation outside China, with Lombardy its worst-affected region.

The country has been on total lockdown since 9 March, yet experts say the peak of the spread in Italy may not arrive until mid-April in the north.

There has been a glimmer of hope in the small town of Vo, where there has been a trial of blanket testing and imposing strict quarantines on those infected and their contacts.

The mayor of Vo, near Venice, said the town of 3,300 residents had not registered any new cases since Friday.

"Testing was vital, it has saved many lives," mayor Giuliano Martini was quoted by the country's media.


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Credit: EmilyMeeSky

GREECE CONFIRMS MIGRANT RESCUE ON STORMY MEDITERRANEAN SEA

O fficials in Greece have confirmed an ongoing search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean Sea east of Crete, following reports of a mi...