Greek authorities fear that Turkey is changing tactics and is preparing to send large tanker ships to the country’s coast that can carry more migrants than the smaller dinghies used so far, according to a report from Greek news portal Ekathimerini.

Last week, a decommissioned tanker ship carrying 193 migrants crashed into a breakwater at the port of Tzia, Cyclades.

The Greek coast guard, as well as National Intelligence Service, are convinced that the incident signals a change in Turkey’s strategy of pushing thousands of migrants into the European Union through Greece.

According to the authorities, at least two similar ships carrying large numbers of migrants will set sail from Turkey in the coming days.

Greece is, therefore, increasing sea patrols.

The tanker has been identified as Dorduncu, a ship flying the Turkish flag that was built in 1968. Migrants aboard were not injured in the crash and later told Greek investigators that they had paid Turkish smugglers €5,000 per person for transport to Italy.

Reportedly, the ship set sail from Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, and crossed the Aegean unnoticed thanks to the ship switching off its Automatic Identification System. The system is designed to let authorities know exactly where each boat is located on the ocean.

Given the current pandemic, Athens is afraid that besides radical Islamists, there could also be coronavirus carriers among the migrants.

In addition to protecting sea routes, Greece is also strengthening inland surveillance.

On the border with Turkey, local Greek authorities use drones to map the situation and track migrants. However, Ankara has also deployed drones to get as much information as possible about the situation on the Greek side of the Evros River.

Greece has accused Turkey of providing migrants with tear gas to fire at Greek police, and video from the Associated Press also showed over a dozen Turkish police firing tear gas directly at Greek forces on the other side of the border.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeatedly told Greece to allow migrants to cross into Europe since he first allowed migrants to begin crossing from Turkey at the end of February.

“Hey Greece! I am calling on you to open the gates as well and be free of this burden. Let them go to other European countries,” said Erdoğan in Istanbul this month. The Turkish leader reiterated that Turkey wants to redistribute a number of the country’s 4 million migrants into Europe.

rmx.news/article/article/greece-fears-turkey-is-using-large-tanker-ships-to-smuggle-migrants-into-eu

Two food delivery trucks were attacked in Bristol last night, sparking fury and concern for vulnerable people relying on the service during the coronavirus crisis. Iceland’s managing director Richard Walker posted an image of one of the supermarket van’s destroyed after an attack in Arnside Road, Southmead in Bristol, on Monday night. The shocking news comes after Boris Johnson urged people to order vital food supplies and household essentials online for home delivery as he placed the UK on lockdown to fight the coronavirus oubtreak. 

Mr Walker hit out at the “sickening” attack, saying vulnerable people were relying on food deliveries as a “lifeline” during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He tweeted: “2 of our vans in Southmead were burnt out last night during disturbances in the town. At a time when home delivery is literally a lifeline for some vulnerable people, this is sickening.”

A spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police said police carried out targeted patrols in Henbury and Southmead today after overnight incidents including arson and criminal damage.

He said: “Two Iceland delivery vans destroyed by fire in Arnside Road

“Patrolling officers came across the Iceland van fire and called it in while officers were flagged down by a member of the public over the car damage in Strathearn Drive.”

Neighbourhood Chief Inspector Mark Runacres hit out at the “reckless” and “thoughtless” attackers in a strongly worded statement to Express.co.uk.

He said: “Just hours after the Prime Minister announced that everyone in the country should stay home to save lives it is beyond belief that anyone would be so reckless and thoughtless.

“Officers were already patrolling the area following recent instances of anti-social behaviour (ASB) and we’ll continue to do so. We put an order in place last night under ASB legislation to give officers extra powers to disperse groups and will continue to use these existing powers to tackle this problem.

“We are working with our communities and partners to identify and take appropriate action against those responsible. If you have any information which could help get in touch through http://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk.contact.”

“We believe that a group of teenagers were involved in these disturbances. I have one message for them, their parents and carers. Stay at home. Save lives.”

Outraged Twitter users reacted to the image, with one saying: “This is just disgusting Richard I’m so shocked disgraceful behaviour.”

Another said: “Shocking Richard when it’s such a lifeline for some, what is wrong with these people.”

One replied: “This is despicable ! What the hell is wrong with these people.”

It comes after reports on Twitter said an ASDA delivery van was also targeted. 

A Twitter user wrote: “ASDA home shopping van, stolen lastnight and burnt, how selfish! Thats maybe 60/70 people/ families in need who will not get the shopping they despratley needed today.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1259467/coronavirus-latest-news-uk-food-delivery-iceland-bristol-southmead

Prominent former Italian foreign minister Giulio Terzi sharply criticized the authorities in Italy on Monday for allowing Iran Air flights to land in Italian airports.“Instead of keeping away from an increasing risk of contagion from Iran, as well as from China, the Italian authorities authorize the stopover of flights of Iran Air from Tehran in our airports,” wrote the veteran diplomat in an opinion article titled: ”A Message to the Italian authorities: is it fine to allow Iran Air flights?”

The translated article was posted on the website “Global Committee for the Rule of Law” and Terzi tweeted it on Monday. He wrote that, “In addition, Iran Air, under Executive Order 13599, is subject to sanctions from the US Treasury Department because of its involvement in financial and logistical activities supporting international terrorism. Several proxies of the Iranian regime in the Middle East and Latin America use this air company as a regular carrier for their militias, armaments and illicit trades.”He added that “The application of US sanctions on Iran Air should actually worry companies and executives who provide services at airports, because the legislation in question also relates to them. Substantially, this case is identical to that of another Iranian company, namely Mahan Air, which was suspended by the Italian Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC) last October.”The US State Department said on Monday that, “instead of taking appropriate precautions against the spread of COVID-19, Iran’s terrorist airline, Mahan Air, operated at least 55 flights between Tehran and China in February, according to public reports.”The Jerusalem Post reported last week that German airports and authorities defied the announcement from Transportation Minister Andreas Scheuer to bar flights from the coronavirus-infected hotspots of the Islamic Republic of Iran and China. Germany and Italy are two of Iran’s most important European trade partners.

https://www.jpost.com/International/Former-Italian-FM-slams-govt-for-permitting-Iran-Air-flights-to-land-622132

The go-ahead of the Avigan trial was given by the Italian Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza.

After the meeting of the Technical-scientific Committee on March 24, and after an initial analysis of the available data relating to Avigan, Italy will be “developing an experimentation and research program to evaluate the impact of the drug in the early stages of the disease”.

Speranza said expectations for fighting the new Coronavirus are now pinned on the Japanese drug.

Councilor for the Budget Davide Caparini added: “It has been an over-the-counter drug that since 2014, in Japan, has been used to fight the flu and has given positive results, but it is still necessary to understand how much this drug can to be effective. We thank Minister Speranza who accepted our heartfelt appeal. The trial will start immediately in Lombardy.”

Produced by Toyama Chemical, a Fujifilm controlled company, favipiravir – a generic drug – has been administered to Covid-19 patients in China.

freewestmedia.com/2020/03/24/italy-green-lights-japanese-avigan-drug-trial-to-fight-pandemic/

A man in Munich, Germany who claimed to have tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus, has been arrested after filming himself licking ticket machines and handrails on the city’s subway.

The 33-year-old posted a video of himself licking objects on social media as part of a so-called “Corona Challenge” on Instagram and the video was also reposted on Twitter.

The man was seen licking the touchscreen of a ticket machine in the now-deleted video and then goes on to lick the handrail of a subway car, the handrail of an escalator, and then proceeds to eat a five euro note.

The man was briefly arrested by Munich police, according to a report from German tabloid Bild, and is now under investigation on charges of dangerous bodily harm.

A police spokesman said the man had been tested for coronavirus but did not elaborate as to whether he tested positive or negative.

Between Sunday and Monday, Munich police checked 400 people under the current coronavirus restrictions and found 200 violations, 61 of which were reported for further action.

The German man is not the only one to engage in the “Coronavirus Challenge”. American Instagram model and Tik Tok personality Ava Louise also recorded a video of herself licking a toilet on an aeroplane bound for Miami.

Coronavirus cases have surged in Germany over the last week and caused Chancellor Angela Merkel to make her first-ever unscheduled speech to the German people, where she labelled the virus the biggest challenge the country had faced since World War II.

“The situation is serious. Take it seriously. Since German unification, no, since the Second World War, there has been no challenge to our nation that has demanded such a degree of common and united action,” she said.

Just days after the address, the German leader was forced to undergo quarantine after it emerged she had been in contact with a doctor who tested positive for the virus.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/24/alleged-coronavirus-man-arrested-licking-handrail-munich-subway/

by Giulio Meotti

There was once an Italian boy, “raised in a highly esteemed family, where respect for values​​ prevailed, the way of life of the older generations. His life on a farm passed in the usual manner of all sharecroppers.” 

That boy arrived at military service and was sent to the Don, the terrible campaign against Russia. In Bolzano he made his last Italian meal: “Pasta, meat with potatoes, a loaf of bread and a glass of wine.” And then by train through Poland, Ukraine, 17 days and 17 nights to Russia.

“The absence of  family made itself felt even more. On seeing those cultivated fields, I thought of the small fields of my house. I thought of mine which would need my arms, my hands”.

The Russian cold decimated those hands, soon becoming “the swollen and purple hands.” The men protected themselves with boxes of ointment to spread in the evening and in the morning. “I prayed to God that he would give me the strength to resist.” He managed to resist with 22 other young men in a hole, with the Russian soldiers who had surrounded them outside.

“We don’t want to die in this rat hole, we want to go back to our homes and to our parents, we don’t want to die!” they said. They collected flyers thrown by Russian planes: “Italians! Return to your beautiful Italy, where you have the sun that warms you, return to your beautiful families, or you will die without even fighting.” 

Instead they stayed to fight. That boy earned the silver medal. They returned to Italy on foot, isba after isba (cottage by cottage, ed.) via Vienna. “One hundred days in a sea of ​​snow. I don’t know how many died, but they were an enormous number.” He almost lost a lung.

“I got married and had the joy of having children whom I love and loved more than my life.”

I was lucky enough to get to know and to frequent that so humble man, with uncertain writing, but with generosity and contagious values. The above was from his autobiography. He is the grandfather of my wife. I thought of him today, today when another 793 of our Italian elderly have lost their lives in the coronavirus pandemia.

The epidemic taking place in recent weeks in Italy (5.000 victims in three weeks) has highlighted the demographic decay of some nations of the world, including mine. The new coronavirus is hitting the foundations of our society, questions the sacredness of life, brings out the selfishness of those who think they are immune or belong to a low-risk population, but it can also finally give impetus to a renewed spirit of service and community, the rediscovery of solidarity in favor of the weakest, the beauty of an evening with loved ones, closeness to the children in the name of duties that ultimately prevail on human and family relationships.

Today a disease highlights, not only in Italy, the mistakes of those who believed that a lone man is an option in this world, that families are a relic of a past to forget and that children are a burden on the career and to a person’s happiness.

The health tsunami is related to the policies and decades of oblivion relating to our culture of life that has its roots in the Biblical tradition which, not surprisingly, has not found a place in the founding documents of our European Union. This epidemic awakens us from our collective sleep.

We must return to the values of that boy. Our founding fathers.  

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/25424

‘To fight the coronavirus, President Donald Trump is adopting the audacity of false hope,” an article from CNN declared on Friday, after Trump announced he’s pushed the FDA to fast-track the approval of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with the coronavirus. Small studies have shown promising results so far, but more trials are needed.  Rather than acknowledge this promising development, CNN, and other media outlets rushed to attack Trump.

The president “peddles snake oil and false hope,” wrote the USA Today editorial board. “Trump was at the White House podium peddling a fake cure for a virus that could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans in a way that would have gotten him kicked off the Home Shopping Network and potentially invited federal prosecution for false claims and fraud,” claimed Salon.

But a Florida man who was diagnosed with the coronavirus says that the very drug Trump said showed promise in treating it saved him from certain death.

For five days after catching the disease, Rio Giardinieri, 52, experienced horrendous back pain, headaches, cough and fatigue. Once diagnosed with the coronavirus and pneumonia, he was put on oxygen in the ICU, but after more than a week, he was told by doctors there was nothing more they could do.  “I was at the point where I was barely able to speak and breathing was very challenging,” Giardinieri said. “I really thought my end was there.” Giardinieri even said goodbye to his wife and three children.

But, after receiving an article on hydroxychloroquine from a friend, he contacted an infectious disease doctor about it.

“He gave me all the reasons why I would probably not want to try it because there are no trials, there’s no testing, it was not something that was approved,” Giardinieri told Fox 11 in Los Angeles. “And I said, ‘Look, I don’t know if I’m going to make it until the morning,’ because at that point I really thought I was coming to the end because I couldn’t breathe anymore.”

“He agreed and authorized the use of it and 30 minutes later the nurse gave it to me,” Giardinieri continued.

He received an IV with the medicine, and despite some episodes he experienced during the treatment, by morning it was “like nothing ever happened.” He’s had no fever and has no trouble breathing anymore. He expects to be discharged from the hospital this week. “To me, there was no doubt in mind that I wouldn’t make it until morning,” said Giardinieri. “So to me, the drug saved my life.”

Giardinieri is not the only one who says the drug Trump said showed promise helped them.

Actor Daniel Dae Kim, 51, who was on the hit show Lost, also says the anti-malaria drug helped him after he was diagnosed with coronavirus. He took several drugs and treatments: the antiviral medicine Tamiflu, the antibiotic Azithromycin, and a Glycopyrrolate inhaler alongside hydroxychloroquine. He believes they all contributed to his recovery. “I won’t say this is a cure and I won’t say definitively that you should go out and use it, but what I will say is that I believe it was crucial to my recovery,” Kim said.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/false-hope-coronavirus-patient-in-florida-says-drug-touted-by-trump-saved-his-life/

The British government has ordered people to stay in their homes and only to leave in a very limited number of circumstances, as well as banning public gatherings of more than two people in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Addressing the nation on Monday evening after a three-hour meeting of the government COBRA emergency planning group, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that measures announced so far — which included ordering pubs, bars, and restaurants to close and advising the public to stay at home — were no longer enough to prevent coronavirus spreading through the country too quickly.

Explaining that slowing the development of the virus was the government’s key priority, as preventing too many new cases emerging on any given day would prevent the national health infrastructure from being overwhelmed, the Prime Minister told the United Kingdom: “The time has now come for us all to do more. From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction: you must stay at home.”

In a far-reaching lockdown that brings Britain in line with the harshest regimes imposed on European nations in the depth of the coronavirus, the Prime Minister announced a national emergency that was to last for at least three weeks. British residents won’t be allowed to leave their homes except in a very limited set of circumstances, and the right of assembly is being severely curtailed, with no more than two people who don’t live together being permitted to meet together in public.

The acceptable reasons to leave the home were to shop for food — and even then as infrequently as possible — to exercise once a day, to go to hospital, or to travel to and from essential work.

Underlining that these points were no longer suggestions, the Prime Minister told the nation: “If you don’t follow the rules, the police will have the powers to enforce them, including fines and dispersing gatherings.”

Making clear that members of the public should stop seeing their friends, the Prime Minister went on: “You should not be meeting friends. If your friends ask you to meet, you should say no. You should not be meeting family members who don’t live in your home.”

How the police are expected to know when members of the public are outside without a good reason is unclear, but in Italy and other countries residents have had to fill out government forms to get permission to leave their homes and those found without paperwork in public can face harsh punishments. In the United Kingdom, The Daily Telegraph, a pro-Conservative paper with links to the government reports the fines are likely to be of £30 for congregating in groups of more than two people.

In addition to the restrictions on individuals, the government was also closing all non-essential businesses, being most except food and medicine retailers, and for all religious services to be cancelled except funerals.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/23/uk-coronavirus-lockdown/

An Israeli doctor working in the northern Italian city of Parma, told Israeli TV that the number of patients is continuing to grow and that authorities are not allowing those over 60 who are ill access to respiratory machines.

Israeli doctor Gai Peleg told Channel 12 that families of the terminally ill are being allowed close contact with the infected loved one, breaking quarantine.

Jerusalem Post:

As his department receives  coronavirus patients who are terminally ill the focus is to allow patients to meet loved ones and communicate with them during their last moments despite the quarantine regulations. Other reports claim that, as the numbers of dead increases, some families find themselves unable to secure a proper burial for their loved ones.

Peleg said that, from what he sees and hears in the hospital, the instructions are not to offer access to artificial respiratory machines to patients over 60 as such machines are limited in number.

And it appears that the Italian government is still behind the curve when it comes to supplying doctors and hospitals with enough critical equipment.

Stressed out: Italian doctors and staff are saying how under-resourced and overstressed they are. “I would say that we are at the end of our strength,” Romano Paolucci, a doctor in Cremona, told Reuters this week.

“This is a small hospital and we are taking in a lot of people, I would say the capacity is finished.”

GoFundMe: Stefano Fagiuoli, a medical official in badly affected Bergamo, Lombardy, has posted a GoFundMe page that has so far raised over $1 million.

“We are in desperate need of both nurses and physicians, together with ventilators,” he tells ABC News.

Doctors from Russia, Israel, China, the U.S., and several other nations are traveling to northern Italy to help deal with the crush of critically ill patients. It’s a wonderful example of what can be done when people work together.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/israeli-doctor-in-italy-says-they-no-longer-allow-those-over-60-access-to-respiratory-machines/