MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday extended coronavirus restrictions in the capital Manila until mid-August and said the Southeast Asian country would be given priority by China if supplies of a vaccine became available.
The Philippines this month recorded Southeast Asia’s biggest daily jump in coronavirus deaths and biggest single-day increase in confirmed infections.
The capital region, provinces south of it, and cities in central Philippines were placed under general community quarantine, limiting movement of elderly and children, and the capacity of business establishments.
“My plea is to endure some more. Many have been infected,” Duterte said in a televised address.
Duterte promised free vaccines if they became available by late this year, prioritizing first the poor and then the middle class, police and military personnel. The Philippines will be given precedence by China in vaccine distribution, he said.
Several pharmaceutical companies from China, the United States and the United Kingdom are conducting late-stage trials on vaccines.
The Philippines planned to buy 40 million doses worth $400 million for 20 million people, around a fifth of the country’s 107 million population, said Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez.
“Once the vaccine is available I am sure can fully open,” Dominguez said.
The Philippines has Southeast Asia’s second-highest number of coronavirus infections after Indonesia, with cases jumping nearly five-fold to 89,374 and deaths more than doubling to 1,983 since a tough lockdown was eased in June.
Philippines extends coronavirus restrictions in Manila as cases surge
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Philippines extends coronavirus restrictions in Manila as cases surge
France honors fallen soldiers in Afghanistan after Trump’s false claim about NATO troops
- In an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland, Trump on Thursday claimed that non-US NATO troops stayed “a little off the frontlines” in Afghanistan
PARIS: A senior French government official said Monday the memory of the French soldiers who died in Afghanistan should not be tarnished following US President Donald Trump’s false assertion that troops from non-US NATO countries avoided the front line during that war.
Alice Rufo, the minister delegate at the Defense Ministry, laid a wreath at a monument in downtown Paris dedicated to those who died for France in overseas operations. Speaking to reporters, Rufo said the ceremony had not been planned until the weekend, adding that it was crucial to show that “we do not accept that their memory be insulted.”
In October 2001, nearly a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the US led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy Al-Qaeda, which had used the country as its base, and the group’s Taliban hosts.
Alongside the US were troops from dozens of countries, including from NATO, whose mutual-defense mandate had been triggered for the first time after the attacks on New York and Washington. In an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland, Trump on Thursday claimed that non-US NATO troops stayed “a little off the frontlines” in Afghanistan.
Ninety French soldiers died in the conflict.
“At such a moment, it is symbolically important to be there for their families, for their memory, and to remind everyone of the sacrifice they made on the front line,” Rufo said.
After his comments caused an outcry, Trump appeared to backpedal and heaped praise on the British soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. He had no words for other troops, though.
“I have seen the statements, in particular from veterans’ associations, their outrage, their anger, and their sadness,” Rufo said, adding that trans-Atlantic solidarity should prevail over polemics.
“You know, there is a brotherhood of arms between Americans, Britons, and French soldiers when we go into combat.”
