 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. US continues its aggression over medical supplies, threatens India over export limits on anti-malarial drug. Japan announces state of emergency in close to a trillion dollars in stimulus package. Polish opposition criticizes government's decision to hold presidential elections despite the coronavirus outbreak and Lithuanian socialist leader Aljur Das Palekis released after nearly six months in prison. We begin with an update about the COVID-19 pandemic. The total number of cases has come to over 1.36 million cases worldwide. The United States continues to have a lion's share of new cases with over 30,000 to 73,000 new cases coming from the country. The US has further boosted its testing with close to 2 million people tested in absolute numbers in the country. But the rate of testing is still far behind most developed countries, standing at only around 0.6% of the population. The number of deaths around the world is across 75,000 and in the US it is across 10,000. Despite its vulnerable status as the epicenter of the pandemic, the US continues its strong arming tactics with other nations over essential medical supplies, while it has blocked all export of medical supplies produced by its companies including N95 masks. Yesterday, we talked about how countries like Barbados, France, Germany and Canada among others have complained to the US blocking or intercepting the shipments of medical supplies and protective gear. Today, India has become the latest victim. Two weeks ago, the Indian government had halted all commercial export of several drugs that were deemed essential in the treatment of COVID-19 infections, including the anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine. The policy was to prioritize domestic needs within India and global humanitarian considerations. Yesterday, however, while speaking to the press, US President Donald Trump casually threatened India with retaliation if he decided to stop exports of the drug to the US. The Indian government gave a pacifying response, assuring that the restrictions did not apply to the US or any country affected by the coronavirus outbreak and are dependent on India's production capabilities for essential drugs. In today's infocus, we speak to NewsClick's Purbier Purkhaisa about Trump's threat and India's response. Thank you, Purbier, for joining us. So as we've seen, Donald Trump has issued a warning, there's no other word for it, and a threat to the Indian government and specifically to Prime Minister Modi regarding the drug hydroxychloroquine. And there's a lot of confusion going about because on the one hand, there is the argument that India should be supplying drugs and which is what it already has. On the other hand, there is the argument that we should be keeping these drugs for ourselves at what could be a critical point. So before we get into that, we see that this is in some senses a very unfriendly move and also completely inappropriate at this point of time. You know, the United States has dealt in this particular way, right across the board, across countries, and it didn't matter whether allies, never friends, or never enemies. Against countries which consider enemies, even under conditions of a pandemic, it is not only worsening the sanction regime on them, but making no exception for any other issue. So that remains. But when it comes to health equipment needs or medicines needs, it has been, as you know, acting almost as a hybrid of a policy, whatever you want to call it, snatching equipment away, even to the tarmac of different countries and trying to slide it to the United States. We all accept that countries at the moment are desperately short of what is called purchasing protective equipment and medical data. So the response has to be to a global leadership and countries come together. This is something that G20 met as you go through a video conference. None of these things were discussed. These are not being discussed in the United Nations level or at the level of WSU where every country is a political. Instead of that, you are at the moment, really looking at bigger by name of policy on one hand. And if you have anything that you've manufactured, you hold on to. This is the problem that we see and the United States is being very clear that it will continue to act only in its own interest. It does not really care for a global pandemic or a global response. And this is the failure of global leadership. The United States is clearly showing. Coming back to India, I think there is a much bigger issue involved, not only hydro, hydroxy, and chloroquine, but how does India and this moment respond to a global crisis of this kind? And I would say that India also needs to be conscious about what it owes to the people of the country and the measures it is taking to stop the export of essential drugs of different kinds, as well as hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine. But on the other side also, it is the global pharmacy of particularly the poorer countries. And they desperately need, for instance, AIDS drugs and a whole bunch of cancer that India now produces. And without that, they need to have a risk. So how do we address the global need? What's the national need? Is something we have to work on. And I would say the issue is not on the export bank alone. The issue is really how do we ramp up production? If you have the pharmaceutical companies in the country, and the movement can be really repurposed a lot of this production to produce hydroxychloroquine, because this way you won't run. And it is something that we can do much more easily. And if you require to import bulk drugs, as we used to say, that is pharmaceutical ingredient, which is what the Chinese today manufacture really large numbers. So that is something we should also be able to work out with China. So India and China can work together on how to become a global pharmacy. Chinese produce a huge amount of ATIs. India really produces a huge amount of formulations and medicines. So both of us can act together in the global interest, instead of making it transactional or basically bilateral, as Mr. Trump is trying to do. And that is the test we have. And of course, that also extends to person-connected equipment, which we are able to ramp up for ourselves. These are the initiatives, unfortunately, we made here, with the size of Trump to act in their national interest. But this is something we need to do in our national interest. How do you today ramp up by the person-connected equipment? You have a work-art case involved it, where the entire doctors, nurses, health staff, everybody in the hospital is now under the quarantine, and there's far as we can be effective with COVID-19. Now, this is a very serious issue, because if the hospital is on sick, or it comes second to second to second infection, there will be trouble. And I think that's where we are now seeing the government-led media really ratchet up its act, both in terms of transactional analysis and in terms of person-connected equipment. And to a slightly more technical question, how effective is this drug at this point of time? Because again, there's a lot of speculation about it, whether there has been any actual proof. Is it being even used in India? Well, I think it is now being used as a part of the protocol. In fact, as you know, the anti-AIDS drugs are much more expensive. We had a lot of discussions with Dr. Rath, Professor Rath of this particular issue. And what you were saying is, if you look at antiretroviral, anti-viral equivalency, then you have to give it barriers. And to give it very early, then you might be able to control the disease, but that really requires you being able to do it at this stage, which is almost the first thing in this case of the disease itself. When the secondary stage takes place and it attacks your lung, then you get a lot of information. And information of the lung is the key element which then causes the problem. And for all the patients, people have to take these cases. We also get a secondary infection, which is a vacuuming infection. So you need a combination of anti-inflammatory and anti-biotics at the point which I just realized as you know, it is one of the drugs that you want to test in the French example, which is not widely correct. But both hydroxychloroquine, as well as chloroquine phosphate produced in tanazole, and they have an anti-inflammatory property, which is why they're used in rheumatoid arthritis, because it's an inflammatory disease. So there is a basis of why such a drug can be used to control the inflammation of the lung. And people are hoping that real drugs today will be much faster than trying to find a new drug in the stable way for COVID-19 on the SARS-CoV-2. Thank you so much for being with us. Japan and Singapore have joined the countries that have taken to mass shutdowns to deal with the rising number of COVID cases. Japan declared a state of emergency in Tokyo, Osaka, and six other prefectures for all provinces for a month. The emergency declaration comes at a time when Japan has been reporting over 100 new cases of infection daily for nearly a week. Japan has over 4,800 cases. The rise in infections has been alarming, especially for the national capital, which is over 1,100 cases. The densely populated Tokyo Metropolis houses closer 30% of the population, hence a containment was deemed absolutely necessary. This declaration of emergency is the first of its kind in the country since the Second World War. But because of the constitutional limits of the powers of the government, even in the case of an emergency, the lockdown measures will not be on the same scale as the rest of the world. The declaration is followed by a massive stimulus fund that will cost up to 108 trillion yen, or 990 billion US dollars, or 20% of the national GDP. The stimulus package will include direct cash transfers to household, aid to small enterprises, and deferments of tax and other payments. The drastic measures also come at a time when the government's approval ratings have been falling very sharply over the past month over what is seen as inaction in containing the spread. A fall of over 5% came in as alarming to the government of Shinzo Abe, which will be dealing with the general election area. The Polish government's move to conduct presidential elections has come under severe criticism from opposition groups. The election is scheduled for May 10th. It has been sanctioned despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The ruling right-wing law and justice party of the PIS is looking to capitalize on the relatively high ratings of the candidate incumbent president Andrzej Duda. Major opposition groups in progressive sections have already asked the government to postpone the elections until the COVID-19 crisis is under control. A proposal by the government to conduct a postal vote fell through for the second time on Monday. Many have accused the government of being late in announcing crucial measures to contain the outbreak. The opposition had pointed out that even recently announced containment measures will be effective, only when a state of emergency is declared in the country. This is something the government wants to avoid as it will lead to the postponement of presidential elections and hence be a lost opportunity for the PIS. And finally, Lithuanian socialist leader and former diplomat Algidas Palaikis was released from a jail following a court order on Monday. The order allowed for a conditional release with the directions for more lenient detention. Following the verdict, Palaikis was released from the Vermont Center, but it will be confined at home for more than six months. He has been incarcerated since October 2018 by the Lithuanian authorities on charges of intending to kidnap prosecutors and of being a Russian spy, both of which have not been proved. Palaikis has been hounded for years for challenging the official historical narrative about the 1991 January killings. His writings that exposed the role of right-wing mercenaries in the death of 14 Lithuanians during the anti-Soviet protests of 1991. Since his detention, Palaikis has reportedly not been allowed to meet anyone except his wife on one occasion. The founder of the Socialist Party Frontage, which later merged with the Socialist People's Front, he has been witch-hunted by the Lithuanian government and right-wing elements in the country. Before the verdict, Socialist groups had conducted an online signature campaign to ensure basic legal rights of Palaikis and to denounce the state-sponsored witch-hunt of Socialists in the country. 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.