 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. The World Health Organization appeals to not politicise the COVID-19 pandemic. India has the latest country to record high levels of unemployment following the crisis. Senator Bernie Sanders withdraws from the democratic primaries. And the Saudi-led coalition announces a ceasefire in Yemen. The total number of COVID-19 cases worldwide is crossed 1.49 million with close to 89,000 deaths as of 11.30 am GMT today. The US has reported over 432,000 of these cases. And Tuesday saw the single highest number of deaths being recorded in the country, a horrifying 1,858. Over 800 deaths were in New York alone. The chief of the World Health Organization, WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesius, appealed to states to not politicise the COVID-19 emergency and maintain national and international unity. The statement was made by him while addressing a press meet. It is seen as a response to US President Donald Trump's recent comments about the WHO and his threats of withdrawing financial support to the UN agency. Trump claimed that the WHO gave bad advice by recommending against travel bans to China in the initial phase of the epidemic and was apparently slow in notifying the US. He also made veiled allegations of the WHO covering up for China and even threatened to withdraw financial support in a press conference on April 7th. In a later tweet, he toned down the threat but repeated the allegations. Ghebreyesius warned countries to not let the differences be exploited by the virus at a time when global infections surpassed a million. In the same press meet, he also addressed a very similar claim from Taiwan. According to reports, Taiwanese social media has been teeming with virtually the same kind of allegations raised by Trump. The Taiwanese government has previously alleged that the WHO did not cooperate very well with them. The government had even alleged that the WHO was denying attention to Taiwan because of pressure from China. This is apparently followed by racist attacks on Ghebreyesius in different social media platforms. The WHO chief criticized the Taiwanese government for not taking action against such comments and conspiracy theories being circulated widely. He also indicated that the government had encouraged such tendencies with its own attacks on the organization. Meanwhile, the city state of Singapore is sitting on an impending crisis according to experts. With the lockdown in place for over a week due to the rising cases of COVID-19, the government has imposed a special quarantine on thousands of migrant workers packed into overcrowded dormitories. Among recent cases of infections reported, a large chunk came from clusters where low-wage migrant workers live, usually from South Asian countries like India or Bangladesh. Of the 142 new cases reported on Wednesday, 40 alone were from the dorms. Close to 29% of Singapore's 5.7 million residents are migrant workers. A large number of them work in Singapore on short-term visas with an hourly wage in the construction and infrastructure sector. Most of these workers lived in overcrowded accommodation arranged by sponsor companies. There are over 43 such dorms registered with the government across Singapore housing 200,000 workers. On Wednesday, the government formulated a separate strategy for low-income migrant workers to isolate clusters in the dormitories, which could affect all of them. 20,000 workers of a single registered dorm have been put under stringent isolation within their dorms. But the risk could be much greater according to the experts as dorms are nowhere close to being feasible isolation units. They have also pointed out that such fencing measures implemented in other countries have led to a bigger explosion of the outbreak. Meanwhile, India is witnessing a dramatic spike in unemployment as it nears the end of the nationwide lockdown period. According to an independent study conducted by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy or CMIE, India's unemployment rate has jumped to 23%. It is a jump of over 14.3 percentage points up from the 8.7 recorded at the end of the fiscal year 2019-20 on March 31st. In March alone, there was a dramatic increase of 1.5% compared to the figure recorded in January 2020 of 7.2. The countrywide lockdown imposed by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which to contain the coronavirus outbreak has disproportionately affected informal sector workers who constitute over 90% of the country's workforce. The CMIE report coincides with the report by the International Labour Organization that predicted that estimated 400 million informal sector workers in India are said to fall into deeper poverty due to the pandemic. The ILO report also predicted the vanishing of over 191 million full-time jobs across the world immediately. In today's infocus segment, we take a look at the situation in Ecuador and the politics behind the sentencing of former President Rafael Correa. On April 7th, Ecuador's National Court of Justice sentenced former President Rafael Correa to 8 years in prison on bribery and corruption charges. Correa has also been barred from electoral politics for 25 years. The court convicted Correa, former Vice President Jorge Glass, and 18 other former ministers and government officials on charges of accepting approximately $8 billion in bribe from private companies in exchange for public contracts between 2012 and 2016. President Correa rejected the charges and denounced the sentence as a form of political persecution intended to prevent him and his allies from running in the presidential elections scheduled for next year. He said in a tweet, This was what they were looking for, manipulating justice to achieve what they could never get at the polls. So what is this case? The bribes 2012 to 2016 case, formerly known as the Arroz Verde or Green Rice case, originated in April 2019 after two digital news portals published a report on corruption cases in Ecuador. The news reports alleged that Pamela Martinez, Correa's former advisor, had received an email with a document that supposedly had information on illegal contributions from various national and international companies. These include the Brazilian Audubrecht, an engineering giant, and were received by Correa's party, the Alliance Space Movement, AP. In August 2019, Attorney General Diana Salazar accused Correa of leading the corruption scheme and using the funds to finance the electoral campaigns and other political events of the AP. In a tweet, the former president said that justice was taken by political power and described the case as absolutely grotesque, because the existence of the bribes has not been verified, much less his participation. He also mentioned the piling up of dead bodies of the victims of COVID-19 in the city of Guayaquil and criticized the government's priorities in the time of this health emergency. We have dead bodies on the streets, but they hold a hearing to disqualify me for the next election he tweeted. Who is Rafael Correa? Correa, who was Ecuador's president from 2007 to 2017, has strong popular support in the country. His rule was characterized by large-scale social welfare programs and public infrastructure projects. During his term, Ecuador experienced an economic boom, and poverty and inequality declined significantly across the country. Correa, in his decade of government, reduced poverty in Ecuador by 21%. He completely restructured the country's taxation system. The collected money was distributed to impoverished families through social policies. Rafael Correa, along with other progressive Latin American leaders, played a pivotal role in the creation of CELAC, ALBA, UNASUR and other organizations. The current Ecuadorian president, Lenin Moreno, who was Correa's vice president from 2007 to 2013, promised to continue his legacy in the 2017 presidential election. However, after winning, Moreno drastically shifted his political stance, distancing himself from Correa's left-wing policies, and pushing forward neoliberal policies domestically and aligning Ecuador's foreign policy with US interests. In December 2018, a fresh wave of protests began in Ecuador. Thousands mobilized across the country, against Moreno's package of neoliberal and austerity measures, and the $4.2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. Social movements and organizations have condemned Moreno for his subservient attitude to the United States and for serving its imperialist interests in the region. Former president Correa has been a constant victim of political persecution under Moreno's presidency. In July 2018, the court ordered a preventative retention of Correa, accusing him of being complicit in the failed kidnapping of right-wing opposition leader Fernando Balda. In August 2019, preventative retention was once again ordered against him in his corruption case. Several political leaders from across Latin America have condemned the judicial decision motivated by the right-wing and imperialist politics of Moreno, and have expressed his solidarity with the progressive leader. Former Bolivian president Evo Morales expressed his solidarity. My complete solidarity with Comrade Rafael Correa, who is the victim of incessant political persecution. The Ecuadorian people know how much you have done for them and the great homeland. Until victory always. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez also extended his support. Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, Colombian opposition leader Gustavo Petro, former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, former secretary general of Unasur Ernesto Sampere, former former Paraguayan president Fernando Nugo, and former Argentine foreign minister Jorge Tariana, among others, also denounced the court's verdict. Correa, who is currently residing in Brussels with his family, has two opportunities to appeal the conviction. Progressive presidential candidate for the United States Democratic Party Bernie Sanders announced that he would suspend his bid for a party nomination. In a live address over different social media platforms yesterday, Sanders told his supporters that as his campaign had trailed behind that of Joe Biden so far, victory seemed impossible. Sanders dropping out would leave the former vice president as the only remaining candidate in the Democratic race for the nomination. Sanders pointed to the necessity of suspending his campaign in view of the COVID-19 outbreak in the US. He raised concerns about the high likelihood of interference in efforts to contain the virus if he were to continue his campaign. While Sanders congratulated Joe Biden for his impending victory, he has insisted that he will remain in the ballot for the nomination and will continue to retain the delegates he has received so far. He has also stated that he would continue to gather delegates for the Democratic National Convention, which has been rescheduled to August this year. As a senator in the US Congress, Sanders is currently working to push for policy measures to mitigate the coronavirus crisis in the country. He earlier led a campaign for a US dollar 2 trillion stimulus, which is partly successful as many of his suggestions were passed by both houses of Congress. The Saudi-led military coalition that has ravaged Yemen for over five years has unilaterally announced a ceasefire on Wednesday. The ceasefire was called considering the COVID-19 pandemic and will last for two weeks. According to reports, the ceasefire went into effect at 12 noon today. The coalition is also open to the extension of the ceasefire on conditions of UN-brokered talks between the Ansar-Allah-the-Houthis and the coalition, along with the Western-backed forces of former President Abdullah Mansur Hadi. The coalition's decision was in line with the UN's attempts to restart negotiations and stop hostilities during the pandemic with the aim of achieving a permanent ceasefire. Last week, the UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths, who has welcomed a ceasefire had sent a proposal to all the parties in Yemen to reach a resolution. There were widespread concerns that if the conflict continued, Yemen, whose public healthcare system is already ravaged by years of blockade and attacks on infrastructure, would witness a disastrous outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. There was no immediate response to the news by the Houthis. Nevertheless, Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdul-Salam said that they have sent a comprehensive vision to the UN that includes an end to the war and to the blockade. That's all we have for 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. Avan saña, banderas de unidad y tu vendrás, machando junto a mi ya si verás tu canto y tu bandera flores