 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. New York, the epicenter of the outbreak has begun to flatten the curve. The United States is set to block Iran's emergency loan appeal at the International Monetary Fund. British transport unions demand enhanced safety measures for workers in London and Australian parliamentarians call for Julian Assange's release amid COVID-19 spread in UK prisons. We begin with an update on the global coronavirus pandemic. With over 1.6 million cases and nearly 97,000 deaths, the number of newly reported cases was as high as 85,000 yesterday. The United States alone added 33,500 cases in a single day. The state of New York has hit a new high with over 10,000 cases at the end of the day and 779 deaths. But as a silver lining, New York may also be seeing the flattening of the curve. And Rukomo, Governor of New York reported a decreasing hospitalization rate for the first time. The state is the worst hit by the pandemic in the world right now with over 161,000 cases reported so far, which is higher than Spain, that is the second most affected country in the world. The governor added that as the decline continues, the capacity of the state's healthcare system will stabilize in order to deal with the crisis. This intern can bring down the need for temporary hospitals that were set up in public parks and open spaces across the state to deal with the outbreak. He spoke to Eugene Poudrier of Breakthrough News on the situation in New York. Here is what he had to say. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today, we are joined by Eugene Poudrier of the US-based media organization Breakthrough News, and we're going to talk about the COVID-19 situation in the United States. Thank you so much, Eugene, for joining us. Hello, Krishna. Thank you so much for having me. It's really a pleasure. So could you first talk about your basic New York right now, which is right now the global epicenter of the pandemic, so to speak? So could you first give us a description of what the situation on the ground is right now? What is the nature of the lockdown, for instance? Absolutely. So here in New York, as people are saying around the world, we're under a complete lockdown to some degree. You can still leave your home for crucial things, so grocery stores, banks, pharmacies, restaurants for delivery only. So there's still some economic activity going on, but by and large, most people are hunkered down. Many places have very drunken hours, for instance, and in different parts of the city, it's very different. There's parts that basically no one is going outside in parts of Queens and other things like that because the death rates are so high. I even have one contact where his zip code or mailing area is actually got a higher percentage of people with coronavirus than Wuhan at the height. So we're seeing some very serious numbers, some very serious concentrations, but I think a lot of sacrifices from working class people, both in terms of people staying home, doing their own child care, but also the fact that quite frankly, there's a lot of essential workers, public transportation is still running. Obviously, everyone working in healthcare, everyone working in food service, and because of the role of the federal government, basically none of these workers have significant personal protective gear. So there's a lot also of consternation, fear among a lot of the working class population here that's still being forced to go out. So it's apocalyptic movie seeming in some ways. There's field hospitals going up in Central Park and other large parks and things like that. So it's starting to take on that kind of feel, but it does feel as if the way numbers are trending is perhaps we're getting ready to reach the peak here, and I think there's a lot of hope psychologically among people here in New York that maybe we're reaching some inflection point. But certainly a serious lockdown and deeply exacerbated by challenges from the government. So could you talk a bit about this aspect, the challenges from the government? We've seen the federal responses over the weeks where, for instance, Trump has turned every press conference into an election campaign rally, so to speak. And there's been a lot of the WHO attacks, for instance, were the most blatant recent example. And there's been this whole attempt to blame China, blame the WHO, blame everybody else except the government. But in terms of the federal machinery working itself, how has it been? I think it's been very, very uneven and deeply inadequate. I mean, almost a little bit beyond the comprehension, I think, of many of us. I think that's actually becoming a major factor in the crisis is the government is less competent than I think many people thought it would be in a crisis situation. The challenge, too, in America is you have the federal level, the state level and the local level, and there's a lot of autonomy between all three. The federal government has the most power to streamline it, but if they don't use that power, then everything becomes a free-for-all. And that's sort of, I think, the basic way to understand what's happening in America is the federal government is essentially playing, you know, leading from behind. They're not coordinating production. They're not coordinating distribution. They're doing limited levels of coordination with private companies around personal protective materials and things like that, ventilators, hospitals, supplies. But then every state and sometimes every city isn't actually going into the private market to compete. There's a huge competition that's meeting the right medical supplies, aren't getting to the places that really need it, and a lot of speculators are getting very rich. And then that sort of ripples its way down because, you know, beyond sort of those issues, from a policy level, a lot of the issues around people's economic security are tied up in the local and state level. And states are refusing to cancel people's rents, utilities. They place moratoriums on a lot of things. But, you know, if you've lost your job, it actually compounds the problem, because in three months when your landlord can evict you, how are you going to find three months rent if you couldn't find one month's rent? So a lot of these problems that we're seeing that politicians are unwilling at the state and the local level to really challenge big money interests, especially landlords who seem to be getting the best treatment of sort of any subset of people in this crisis. But it really starts at the top. The fact that the federal government isn't putting the resources in place with the powers it has, using sort of World War II style productive powers. They can control the production and the distribution and sale of all critical goods and are just choosing not to. And so it's creating this strange competition between states, between localities, which means at the end of the day, the things that need to get where they need to be in terms of hospitals, frontline workers aren't getting there. And it's basically not because there are huge shortages, although there are some, but because the government's failing to coordinate. Meanwhile, the US is prepared to block the International Monetary Fund from providing emergency loans to Iran. Yesterday, Iran urged the IMF to expedite the grant of the loan to help it fight the coronavirus pandemic. Iran is one of the worst affected countries in the world and has more than 66,000 confirmed cases with over 4,000 deaths. Iran had applied for a $5 billion loan last month under the IMF's Rapid Financing Initiative, which gives member states a right to ask for emergency loans in order to tackle any sudden disruption of their economies. The US has claimed that Iran does not need any financial support and the loan money will be used for financing terrorism across the region. Last month, the US refused the United Nations calls for lifting its sanctions against Iran. The US has instead imposed fresh sanctions prompting Foreign Minister of Iran, Jawad Zarif, to call it an act of economic terrorism. Iran is a member of the IMF and has the right to borrow. However, given the fact that the US has the highest shares in the organization with over 17% weightage in wards, it can effectively veto any proposal made by the group with the help of its allies. Usually, such loan decisions are not voted upon, but the open hostility expressed by the US can play a major role in the final decision. Last month, the IMF had similarly denied a loan application filed by Venezuela. Major trade unions in the UK have demanded enhanced security measures for transport workers in the country, especially in London, where at least 14 transport workers have died because of COVID-19. Trade unions, including UNITE, the union, and the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, or the RMT, have raised concerns over workers' safety in the sector. UNITE's regional secretary, Peter Kavanaugh, said that it has been working with the Transport for London, which is the authority that governs much of the transport sector in the metropolitan region, to push for increased sanitation of buses and other transport facilities. The RMT, on the other hand, has said that they are pushing for labour negotiations with the TFL for full support and protection for the London transport staff in the wake of the health emergency. Meanwhile, the Mayor of London has been accused by left-wing groups of denying enough personal protection equipment to all transport workers to protect them while working. Continuing with news from the UK, two Australian MPs, Andrew Wilkie and George Christensen, sent letters to the British Parliament and the government, calling for the urgent release of Julian Assange. Wilkie and Christensen are co-chairs of the Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group in Australia, and have been advocating for the release of the WikiLeaks founder, who is an Australian national. The letter was sent to the UK House of Commons, the Justice Committee chair Bob Neal, and the Justice Secretary of the Boris Johnson Cabinet, Robert Buckland. It called for the compassionate release of the publisher and stated that Assange fits all the grounds for an early release as a prisoner, as advised by the WHO. The letter pointed out that Assange is in prison under judicial demand, has no history of violence, is not a threat of any kind to the community, and has several health issues that could make a coronavirus infection fatal. These are grounds enough for an early release on humanitarian grounds according to the MPs. The United Kingdom with nearly 65,000 confirmed coronavirus infections and nearly 9,000 deaths is one of the hotspots of the disease. But the government is yet to come up with a policy to prevent outbreaks in prisons, repeatedly denying even considering early release for certain inmates. The UK has over 80,000 prison inmates, and outbreak in prisons could be the cause for as many as 800 avoidable deaths, according to independent studies. The Justice Department itself has identified over 2,000 prisoners who are highly susceptible to the infection. Nine incarcerated people have died because of COVID-19 in the UK, including one in Belmarsh, where Assange said, Prison authorities are also reportedly keeping testing low and violating social distancing principles, by letting those with symptoms or even those tested positive remain in cells with other inmates. 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. BANDERA, FLORE, CERDA, RUZE