 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you some of the major news developments from across the world. Our headlines. Venezuela resists school attempts, apprehends U.S. mercenaries involved, U.S. health officials, files miscellblowers complained, alleges that the Trump administration ignored pandemic warnings, Houthi health territories in Yemen, report first COVID-19 case and death, South Africa's Com Air opts for business rescue plan without consulting workers, Sanitation workers at London's tube demand safe working conditions and other benefits. We begin with an update on the situation in Venezuela, where the government of the Bolivarian Republic is resisting bids to stage a coup. The attempted armed incursion by mercenaries into Venezuela that began on May 3rd is called Operation Gideon and involves U.S. mercenaries. In addition to this operation, there was also an attack on the national electrical grid of Venezuela. On May 4th, Venezuelan security forces aided by the Bolivarian Militia in the coastal town of Chvao, arrested eight mercenaries on a speedboat who were attempting to enter the country. Two others were captured by Venezuelan security forces the same day in the town of Pertumaya. The mercenaries who were arrested, as well as those killed and arrested early on May 3rd in La Guaira, were part of Operation Gideon. This operation is believed to be organized, planned and financed by the Venezuelan opposition and its foreign allies to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro and other high-level leaders of the Venezuelan government. Antonio Sequea, former Venezuelan National Guard member who was last seen on April 30th 2019 during the failed coup led by Leopoldo López and Juan Guaidó was among those arrested on Monday. Sequea is believed to have led the operation. The arrest of two military officials from Texas, Luke Denman and Aaron Barry who were members of the U.S. mercenary company Silver Corp. was also noteworthy. The arrest of two U.S. mercenaries from Texas, Luke Denman and Aaron Barry who were members of the U.S. mercenary company Silver Corp. was also noteworthy. The U.S. government has denied all participation in the operation and has largely ignored it. But according to one of the detained mercenaries, the pair has a relationship with Trump's head of security. On May 5th, Vice President Dalci Rodriguez announced that they had been attacked on the National Electrical Grid of Venezuela but that the service was being restored at a national level. In 2019, Venezuela's National Grid had suffered a series of attacks and sabotage operations during the first week of March. We move on to our daily update on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The total number of reported infections has come to around 3.74 million with 2.24 million active cases and 1.25 million recoveries. The total number of deaths stands at over 258,000. In the meanwhile, a whistleblower's complaint to the U.S. has stated that the Donald Trump administration ignored the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rick Bright, a former U.S. health official, filed a whistleblower's complaint on May 5th, accusing the federal administration of corrupt practices in the handling of the COVID-19 outbreak. Bright was, until recently, the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, a federal body tasked with containing biomedical crises. He was recently transferred from his post to the National Institutes of Health to head a diagnostics testing program. Bright's complaint also alleged retaliation from the Department of Health and Human Services, or the HHS, headed by Health Secretary Alex Azar. He stated that the HHS downplayed the COVID-19 threat when he warned officials as early as January 2020 and he was met with hostility. The complaint has named senior advisor in the administration and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, of having engaged in nepotistic hiring to favor political benefactors. Bright's complaint has also brought the spotlight back on the federal administration that has been criticized for engaging in blame games and mishandling of the pandemic. It comes at a time when the Trump administration is planning to wrap up its COVID-19 task force, headed by Vice Vice President Mike Pence, despite increasing number of cases. We next go to Yemen, where the region held by the Ansar Allah, known as the Houthis, in the north, recorded its first COVID-19 related death on May 5th in the capital city Sana. According to the Houthi Health Minister Tahal Mutawakil, a Somali national who was staying in one of the hotels in Sana was founded on Sunday. Tests conducted post-mortem confirmed that he was COVID-19 positive. The southern parts of Yemen, which is controlled by a Saudi-led coalition and forces supporting the ousted president, Abdurrahman Surhadi, reported over 20 cases the same day. The region detected its first case on April 10th. With the case of the Somali national in Sana, the total COVID-19 fatalities has come to 3 in Yemen. The World Health Organization suspects that COVID-19 is spreading undetected in the country. Due to nearly a decade of violent conflict and imperialist wars in Yemen, the country does not have adequate health infrastructure to deal with outbreaks and epidemics. The war and the imperialist blockade alone has killed thousands and its fallout may have pushed millions to the verge of starvation. In our infocus section, we speak to Dr Satyajit Rat, a medical expert, on the prospects of the drug Remdesivir. Hello and welcome to Newsclick. Today we have with us Professor Satyajit Rat. And we are going to discuss some of the issues which is relevant to the COVID-19 debate, particularly the role of Remdesivir, how well it's going to be able to be effective against the COVID-19 epidemic, the SARS-CoV-2 virus. And the linking of the Wuhan laboratory and trying to cut funding, talking about how the bad virus was being funded by various agencies, including the National Institute of Health, and why this is a problem. Now Satyajit, let's first discuss the Remdesivir issue. Interestingly, Dr Fauci seems to be related to both the issues at the moment. Now the Remdesivir trials have taken place and we don't really have what will be called the double-blind trial results in a peer-reviewed form, even as a pre-print. What we have is reporting of this using the White House actually to promote a particular trial. Now while it may be that the trial was really useful and so on and therefore this is justified, how do you feel as a scientist about a double-blind trial results being announced in this particular way? Which seems to have influenced a huge number of people in thinking this is a real treatment and that's what everybody should be using. Yes, and it's disturbing in part because Anthony Fauci has so far been correct and evidence-driven despite the precedent that he serves. But for him to announce the Remdesivir results the way he did is disturbing because clinical trials should be formally reported in a full publication with all necessary details that are looked at by people in the field. At most, at the very least as a pre-print, none of this has been done. What has been done is an announcement from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Director from within the NIH. That's formally what Fauci's title has been for many decades now and that's unusual to say the least. Not only is it unusual, it leaves me a little puzzled about why it's a hurry. Because despite the fact that it was presented as though Remdesivir was efficacious, the data that were claimed in support of this efficacy are not startling or spectacular improvements. Medically, we can call it modest improvement rather than really a magic cure, so to say. Oh, it's certainly not a dramatic cure. If I remember the numbers correctly, hospital discharge median periods went down from 15 days to 11 days. In the first place, let us agree that this is not bad. It's useful. But in the second place, let us also agree that this is not a dramatic cure. In the third place also, let us remember that the decline in mortality in this trial did not appear to be statistically reliable. It went down from some 11-0% to some 8-0%. Fauci himself said it was statistically not significant. Which reminded me of the paper that was published in the Lancet just a few days ago from Chinese researchers who did a Remdesivir trial, perhaps a somewhat smaller one, but did a Remdesivir trial and had data that are actually remarkably similar in their conclusion to the mortality data that Fauci has reported, let us say. And that is that there is a trend to reduction that's not as yet statistically reliable. All of this put together makes me think two things. Number one, is Remdesivir making a difference? Probably yes. Is Remdesivir going to change qualitatively how seriously ill patients of COVID-19 are treated? I don't think that that's going to be the case. In other words, it's not a magic bullet cure. And if it's not a magic bullet cure, then this much of enthusiastic republication publicity is a little difficult to understand. So one can think of all sorts of other reasons for doing this. One can think of generous reasons, such as the fact that this is a US presidential administration that is not known for being science and evidence driven and is desperate for good news. And here is one piece of kind of sort of science and evidence driven good news, and therefore it got pushed forward, let us say. One can also think, all said and done, this is Gilead and NIH collaboration driven outcomes. And one can also be a little more cynical and think of this as a means of establishing Gilead's credibility, shall be said. And global push for Gilead, therefore. So one can think of all sorts of practical reasons why this was done. But let us be clear about this. Regardless of the absolute rights and wrongs step by step of how and why this was done, then this is likely to be used in modest fashion. So two follow up questions. One is a lot of the scientific community has said, this is going to distort all other drug trials, because people are going to say, don't use as a guinea pigs already established M. December works, give it to us. So in effect, you are also going to therefore distort all other drug trials. This is one issue that has been raised. And the second issue, which of course did hear Raoult has raised, who is the hydrochloroquine guy, if you will. He has said, why is it the clinical trials, what was originally set out as a criteria, the endpoint. And one of the criteria was reduction in mortality. Why was it taken out of criteria midway through the trials? It's as if you are changing the rules of the game midway when the game has already started. Yeah, so the first question that you raise, I'm not as seriously worried about primarily because I think that everybody concerned even distally professionally with COVID-19. He's going to look at the data, offer him this ability and say, it's useful, but we need more. So I would seriously doubt, I grant the point that you're making, but I seriously doubt that anybody is going to stop looking for drugs. And let me come back to that point about drugs, antiviral drugs for COVID-19 in a while. Let me address your second point of the Raoult's criticism. And to an extent, how shall I put this? It's a little bit a case of, as it's currently called, what about this? Professor Raoult has been accused of fiddling with his inclusion-exclusion criteria in the hydroxychloroquine trial that he reported. And he's understandably, justifiably or not, but understandably upset about it. And therefore, he now has a chance to indulge in what about this. Is he reporting correctly that the primary and secondary readouts were altered in the trial? Yes. Is it that unknown? No. Many clinical trials do this. It all essentially boils down to egos clashing, to people getting upset and to storms in a teacup. We keep coming back to the core point, which is, remdesivir is not more than modestly effective, even if you take everything at baseline. And really, from the public health and from the societal point of view, that's all we are interested in. We don't really care who's quarreling with whom and calling who. The only question is, dressing it up a bit more attractively, of course has an effect on your share price. Exactly. And of course does make a difference. The National Unit of Metalworkers of South Africa has condemned the management of the domestic airline, ComAir, for placing the airline under business rescue without consulting the employees or its union. Expressing its outrage over the lack of consultation, Numsa pointed out that they learned about the development from the media. Under business rescue plans, a financially distressed company is protected from claims by its creditors. In the meanwhile, the business rescue practitioners of BRPs, under whose command it will be placed, work out a turnaround strategy to make the company financially viable. ComAir claims that this move was essential for the company to weather the loss of business under lockdown. But Numsa is concerned that the intention behind this is to pave the way for retrenchments that the company had proposed earlier this year. ComAir is a sole owner of kulula.com, a low-cost domestic airline and has a franchise to operate British airways on domestic routes. Due to travel restrictions that have been imposed in effort to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, the flights have been grounded since March 17th. Numsa's national spokesperson, Pakamele Khlubi Majola, spoke to People's Dispatch on this issue. The National Union of Mental Workers of South Africa is deeply disturbed by a communication which ComAir sent out to the media yesterday, advising the public of its intention to place the company under business rescue. This is deeply distressing. We are shocked, particularly because our members found out about this through the media. They were not officially advised of this situation. Even as a trade union at ComAir, the only recognized trade union at ComAir, Numsa was not officially advised of this set of events we found out through a media communication. We think that it is very unfortunate that the management of ComAir chose not to communicate directly to workers about something which is so serious and which affects them. Be that as it may, it is here now. And as Numsa, we will do everything in our power to save as many jobs as we can. We have communicated with the management and requested a meeting as soon as possible so that we can try and understand how this new set of events is going to affect operations going forward. This is a double whammy for our members who unfortunately just before the lockdown were also advised that the company was serving them with Section 189. So as a trade union, we will be dealing with all of these issues hopefully in the very, very near future once we get that appointment with the management to deal with these issues. This recording was done by Pagamila Shrivi Majola, Numsa National Spokesperson. In the United Kingdom, transport workers and sanitation staff are demanding safe working conditions. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers of the RMT demanded on May 5th that the London Metro or the Tube authorities urgently address the concerns raised by the contractual cleaning staff. RMT's Tube Union also asked London Mayor Sadi Khan for a meeting with the delegation of tube cleaners via video conferencing. The demands were raised in the light of a survey conducted by the Tube's cleaning contractor ABM that highlighted the lax measures in place. According to reports, the contract cleaning staff have been denied staff travel cards that other workers were entitled to. Tube workers were given these travel cards that allowed travel across the transport of London network. Cleaners who have been furloughed are also receiving only 80% of their pay while other staff are entitled to 100%. The UK government has introduced the furlough program in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak and paid the wages of nearly a quarter of all workers put on leave due to the pandemic. That's all we have in this episode of the International Daily Roundup. To know more about these stories visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thanks for watching. Thank you.