 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 globe, our headlines. Donald Trump lays down planned lift lockdown in 29 states before May 1. Singapore's migrant workers are the worst hit by the pandemic, reporting 9 out of 10 new infections. Egypt, to be shut down on major national holiday after single highest day rise in COVID-19 cases. On the International Day of Palestinian Prisoners, detainees in Israeli prisons remain vulnerable amid coronavirus outbreak. Colombians protest state negligence amid pandemic. We begin with our daily COVID-19 update. The number of cases has crossed 2,081,000, with close to 139,500 people dying as of 1130 GMT today. Meanwhile, the Office of U.S. President Donald Trump yesterday released the outline of a plan for the phased reopening of the U.S. economy. The plan laid out guidelines on the easing of restrictions placed on public movement in states that have shown a consistent decline for at least 14 days. Every state in the U.S. has reported at least a few hundreds of cases. Even as the U.S. has increased testing rates and there has been some decline in hospitalization in several badly affected regions, no state government is committed to reopening this month. Trump, on the other hand, was quick to declare that 29 states are already eligible to ease restrictions before May 1, even though no details of the states were given. The guidelines come within days of Democratic Party-run states forming regional blocks on the West Coast and the northeast of the U.S. to coordinate plans to reopen bypassing the president. The U.S. is the worst-affected country in the world in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It has close to 678,000 reported cases so far, with over 34,000 people dead. Singapore witnessed a largest jump in cases reported in a single day. The more troubling fact is that a huge majority of the new cases are being discovered among migrant workers of the country. According to the city-state's health ministry, Thursday saw 728 new cases of COVID-19, 680 of which were from among migrant workers. Of these, 654 cases came from workers who are living in overcrowded dormitories in different parts of Singapore. Many have raised the issue of the vulnerability of the over 200,000 migrant workers, most of whom are forced to live in dormitory accommodations with unhygienic conditions. The dormitories alone have reportedly close to 2,700 of the more than 4,400 cases reported so far. Authorities have taken to isolating entire dormitories, housing thousands of people, calling them suspected clusters after hundreds of cases were identified from them. A total of 12 of the 43 recognized dormitories have been isolated and continue to report an overwhelming majority of the new cases. Meanwhile, Egypt plans a full-fledged lockdown on an upcoming national holiday after it recorded the biggest single daily rise of COVID-19 cases. According to the country's health ministry on Thursday, 168 new infections were detected, taking the total number of positive cases to 2,673 with 196 deaths so far. Egypt has already imposed a partial lockdown, closing down schools and colleges, preventing mass prayers and cancelling sports activities, it has also imposed a nationwide 10-hour curfew at night. Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli announced yesterday that the country would shut down all public transport and public spaces on the coming Monday. This was also imposed to avoid large gatherings on the day of Sham NSM, a major spring festival in Egypt. Today, April 17 is the International Day of Palestinian Prisoners. This is marked every year to remember and express solidarity with the thousands of Palestinian men, women and children who are imprisoned in Israeli jails and detention and interrogation centers. Most of the Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been incarcerated for resisting the brutal Israeli occupation. It is estimated that more than 5,000 Palestinians, including 432 administrative detainees, are currently being held in Israeli custody. Of them, 41 are women, 183 are children and 700 are seriously ill. 200 of them have chronic or life-threatening diseases. Prisoners with underlying medical conditions and pre-existing diseases are at an even greater risk of contracting the novel coronavirus. In our in-focus section, we speak to Charlotte Kates, the International Coordinator of Samidun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, on the situation of the Palestinian prisoners amid the pandemic. To start off, we wanted to kind of talk about an issue that's pressing for incarcerated people across the world, which is the fact that the COVID pandemic has put the incarcerated population not only in the Israeli prisons, but across the world in a very vulnerable situation. A lot of human rights organizations and prisoner support groups have been calling for the humanitarian release of prisoners amid the pandemic to contain the spread of the virus. So we're wondering what is the current state? What are the conditions in these prisons? What has been happening with the spread of the virus in Israeli prisons? And what is the resistance of the Palestinian prisoners amid this outbreak? Well, thank you for asking me. Right now, the situation around COVID-19 in Israeli prisons for Palestinian prisoners is one that is very vulnerable and one that is very worrying because just like incarcerated people elsewhere in the world, Palestinian prisoners are incredibly vulnerable should COVID-19 enter the prisons. And especially because of the systematic policy of Israeli medical neglect and negligence directed towards Palestinian prisoners. This isn't simply a situation related to COVID-19. This didn't start with the beginning of this pandemic. For years, Palestinian lives have been at risk and Palestinian lives have been lost due to Israeli medical neglect. Over 200 Palestinian prisoners have lost their lives inside Israeli jails, including over 67 due to confirmed cases of medical negligence and neglect. So this is not something that's just become a concern due to COVID-19. In fact, access to independent doctors, access to independent health care, being given proper tests and treatment, being given medicine instead of simply painkillers when Palestinian prisoners complain about their injuries and illnesses has been a long-term demands of the Palestinian prisoners movements and various hunger strikes and campaigns that have taken place within the prisons. There are hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who are ill, including over 200 that have chronic conditions or who are very sick with cancer and other diseases. This is a population that is incredibly vulnerable to COVID-19. There are prisoners who are as much as 80 years old inside Israeli jails and the Israeli system has refused to release them again and again and again whether on legal, compassionate, humanitarian, or political grounds. These are 5,000 Palestinians who are essentially being held as hostages by the Israeli state because they represent the Palestinian liberation movement because they represent the Palestinian resistance and because they represent the legitimate leadership of the Palestinian people that has been locked away. And so when we look at the situation of COVID-19, what we do see is once again the perpetuation of Israeli negligence and abuse. So far, there has not yet been a case of COVID-19 detected in the prisons, but if it's there, we wouldn't know because they're not testing the prisoners. And the prisoners are demanding access to test kits. They can't, even 140 different items, including sanitation products were withdrawn from the canteen, the prison store where prisoners are actually forced to purchase these goods to clean their cells and areas themselves were withdrawn after the pandemic began because there was demand for them in the Israeli market. And so once again, we have this systematic colonial neglect and abuse of Palestinian prisoners behind Israeli bars. If COVID-19 is spreading within Israeli prisons, we will know that their voices are being silenced and because they do not have, they're not receiving the medical care. They're not receiving testing. They're not receiving treatment. We do know that one Palestinian prisoner, Nur al-Din Sassour, was diagnosed with COVID-19 after being released. He was held in interrogation for approximately two weeks before being released. During that time, he was held in interrogation and he was held in Ulfer Prison, which is one of the largest prisons, housing Palestinian prisoners, including administrative detainees who are held without charge or trial as well as child prisoners. Despite the fact that he interacted with many other Palestinian prisoners during that time, the Israeli prison service has not provided COVID-19 testing for other prisoners, even in Ulfer Prison. We also know that in almost in all of these cases where there has been some kind of exposure documented that there's been an Israeli study of Palestinian prisoners who was later diagnosed with COVID-19, interrogators who were diagnosed with COVID-19, and these are all people that have been in contact with Palestinian prisoners. Israel is still going on night raids and invading homes. They're not testing soldiers. Soldiers are still going out there and presenting a huge threat to the entire Palestinian population, not even just to individual prisoners, but to the population. What we're seeing here is this systematic medical neglect and negligence against the Palestinian population, especially against Palestinian prisoners. And Palestinians have not been silent in response. They have been organizing. They've shut down the sections in several prisons to protest against the situation. They have demanded the return of cleaning products and other sanitation products. They've returned their meals. They're continuing to organize and they're continuing to resist, even at a time when due to the lockdown, what we're seeing is the kind of support that these prisoners would usually be seeing on the Palestinian street instead has to be mobilized online. And so even that is a further element of difficulty that's added to these prisoner situations. And another thing that I wanted to raise about this issue is the fact that Palestinian prisoners are being denied the opportunity to even tell their stories. So because ostensibly of the threat of COVID-19, family visits have been banned, legal visits have been banned, these visits, family visits, for example, even normally take place behind glass. So at the same time when Israel introduced visits behind glass for Israeli criminal prisoners, they banned family visits for Palestinian prisoners. And so Palestinian prisoners are also having only very limited if any access at all to call their lawyers and only certain prisoners are being allowed to have a legal consultation at all. And even then they're only allowed to have one. So if there is a situation with illness developing inside the prison, how will the prisoners even get their story out? How will they be able to demand treatment and accountability? And this is something that's a huge concern first and foremost to anyone around the world who cares for human rights and social justice and human dignity and who supports the Palestinian people's live free of colonization and oppression. But of course to the families of these prisoners, that even that sense of worry, of fear, of not knowing what's happening to their imprisoned loved ones, to their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and cousins and uncles, what is happening to these people, this is another form of collective punishment and collective torture being directed against the Palestinian people. And I also do want to note that these same policies are being directed to child prisoners. So child prisoners are being denied visits from their, from their parents. Child prisoners are being subjected to the same measures as all of the other Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails right now. And finally, communities and neighborhoods across south of Bogota and Colombia have taken to the streets to denounce state negligence amid the pandemic. Residents say that despite the government announcing that it would distribute financial and food aid, they have yet to see it. In response to the protests, the city government has sent the Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadron or the ESMAD to violently repress the protests. A spokesperson for the city government declared that they would not distribute aid in response to pressure tactics. And the mayor of Bogota, Claudia Lopez, stated that the attack on the population by the ESMAD was in response to theft. Still despite the repression and the risk, the communities of Colombia's cities have continued to use their right to protest to demand that the government take urgent action. According to a report by the National Administrative Department of Statistics, just under 50% of Colombia's workforce is employed in the informal sector. This means that millions of Colombians and their families have been left without a source of income amid the lockdown. Furthermore, the country's public sector has been weakened by decades of neoliberal economic policies which have privatized healthcare and eliminated key social support programs. Colombians, like many others across the global south, are forced to decide if they will die from hunger or COVID-19. That's all we have in this episode of the International Daily Roundup. To know more about these stories, visit our website peoplesdispatch.org or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thanks for watching.