 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. Trump announces shutting down of immigration in the name of combating the pandemic, Chile's teachers and school staffers protest for weeks to reopen schools during outbreak, Indian leftist organizations protest government move to extend working hours, Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz in Israel form a unity government with the Root and US oil prices take the freefall go to minus levels for the first time ever. We begin with our daily update on the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of cases around the world has crossed, reached close to 2.5 million as of today afternoon GMT. More than 655,000 of them have recovered and around 171,000 people have died so far. US President Donald Trump stated earlier today that his administration is planning a temporary ban on all immigration in response to the coronavirus outbreak in the country. The move was announced over his Twitter handle where he said that his decision to pass a presidential order is taken to prevent further outbreak and supposedly save US jobs. The US is the worst affected nation with the pandemic with close to 800,000 reported infections so far. Many in the opposition Democratic Party and movements across the country have condemned such a move as an attempted shifting attention away from the supposed inefficiency of the government. They said that Trump is completing his longstanding policy measure of an immigration ban under the guise of a public health and fiscal crisis. The Chilean school teachers union, CPC, has rejected the government's decision to resume schools in May despite the pandemic. On Sunday, President Sebastian Pinera on a national television network announced measures to resume social and economic activities in the country. This is despite the growing number of COVID-19 cases in Chile with more than 10,000 infections reported so far. The president ordered the return of public sector workers to their workplaces starting this week. He also announced a resumption of schools from next week. Mario Aguilar, the president of the CPC rejected a decision and said that it threatens the health of millions of students, teachers and school staffers. He pointed out that the president's decision is because of the pressure put on him by corporate lobbies. According to the CPC, this decision jeopardizes 3.6 million students and more than 400,000 workers in the public education sector. Aguilar called on the parents and student representatives to not send the students to school until the state guarantees that there is no risk of the coronavirus cases increasing. Leftist groups in India have taken out a nationwide protest while practicing physical distancing measures as the countrywide lockdown completes one month. India has reported more than 18,000 cases so far with close to 600 deaths. A countrywide lockdown has been in place since March 21st and was extended to May 3rd recently. The call for the protest was made by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions or CITU, a major trade union confederation in India, along with allied groups such as the Democratic Youth Federation of India, the Students' Federation of India and the All India Democratic Women's Association. The protest was triggered by the recent move of the right-wing Narendra Modi government to increase working hours from 8 per day to 12 as the country's under lockdown. The demands of the protest included urgent distribution of protective gear to medical and healthcare professionals working on the front lines and the immediate halting of retrenchments in the country. The protest also called for the government to take immediate action to mitigate the rise of sudden increase in domestic abuse, direct cash transfers of 7,500 rupees or approximately 100 dollars for the poor, arranging food and shelter for migrant casual workers stranded in different parts of the country and measures to ensure agricultural production without any loss to farmers. Protesters were seen participating by holding placards and signs raising these demands from inside their homes and posting it on social media. In our in-focus section today, we spoke to Manuel Fonseca, a member of the Frantepathia Grante and a medical practitioner about the COVID-19 outbreak in Argentina. Hi, and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today, we are joined by Manuel Fonseca, who is a general internist from Argentina. He is a militant of the health movement Irma Carica, and he is also a militant of the Frente Patria Grande. He will be joining us today to discuss the COVID crisis in Argentina. How is this playing out? What measures the government is taking? And without further ado, thank you. Muchas gracias, Manuel. Primero, ¿Cómo es la situación general en Argentina? Con la crisis de COVID, número de casos, todo eso, se puede juntarnos. Bueno, al día de la fecha, en el total del territorio del país, presentamos poco más de 2,500 casos confirmados de coronavirus, 2,571, para ser específicos. Son 115 las muertes y del total de casos confirmados, la mayoría sigue siendo de casos importados o de casos de contactos estrechos de esos primeros casos importados. Está creciendo el contagio comunitario, pero todavía es minoritario en comparación con estos que han venido de afuera. La tasa de reproducción o la velocidad de contagio todavía está dentro de los escenarios más optimistas que ha planteado el gobierno desde el momento de las medidas más fuertes. Ya llevamos casi un mes de el aislamiento social preventivo y obligatorio, que fue la primera medida más dura, la llamada cuarentena social, que desde el 20 de marzo nos tiene a todos un poco en nuestros solares. Bueno, a mí me toca hacer médico y trabajar en el sistema de salud de la provincia de Buenos Aires, que es la provincia más grande de nuestro país. El balance que hacemos como trabajadores de estas primeras semanas de esta situación tan complicada en el país es que evidentemente las medidas del gobierno nacional han sido muy efectivas, en un primer parámetro que es la velocidad de los contagios y de haber podido hasta ahora cumplir con el objetivo que están mencionados de aplanar la curva, y también en un segundo aspecto muy importante que es el de preparar al sistema de salud de la mejor manera para las semanas que se nos vienen, que seguramente van a ser las más difíciles por distintas razones que tienen que ver con la circulación local, con los climáticos y la superposición con otras enfermedades y con el hecho de que todavía como todos sabemos no hay tratamiento efectivo para este virus, bueno, que la situación nos agarre de la mejor manera. Nosotros también valoramos muy positivamente el hecho de que estas medidas de cuarentena hayan sido acompañadas con otro tipo de medidas del orden de lo social. Saben que no es lo mismo hacer un aislamiento social en los casos como por ejemplo me toca a mí o a muchas personas que trabajamos en el ámbito público que es teniendo un salario fijo y todos los meses cobrando nuestro suelo que más del 40% de la población de la Argentina que no percibe un salario fijo y que vive de lo que produce todos los días. El Gobierno ha tomado medidas para reforzar las jubilaciones mínimas, que son los jubilados que menos dinero perciben por mes y también ha tomado medidas para reforzar las generaciones universales por hijo, que es una medida justamente como lo dice su palabra universal en nuestro país que abarca a todas las familias que tienen niños pequeños y también ha tomado una segunda medida que es la de otorgar un beneficio económico extraordinario a todas las personas que no se encuentran registradas o en un empleo formal o en otro beneficio del Estado como los que recién mencioné que son más o menos unas 8 millones de personas. Es decir que con política y con una incección económica se está intentando contener lo que sería de otra manera un agravamiento de la situación económica y social de la Argentina que ya era grave antes de que arranque la pandemia y que un poco hemos tenido el suerte de heredar de los últimos años de gobierno neoliberal del presidente y de la alianza gobernante anterior. In our next story Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former political rival Benny Gantz reached an agreement to form a unity government in Israel in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country. The deal for a coalition government was agreed upon yesterday after intense negotiations in the days following March 2 where the third general election in less than a year threw up a split toward it yet again. As per the agreement, Netanyahu will serve as the prime minister for the first 18 months followed by Gantz for the same period of time. The new government will serve an emergency role in the first 6 months. Plans for a long-term unity government are also being discussed. Gantz will serve as Israel's defense minister during Netanyahu's tenure as prime minister. His Blue and White Alliance party will also get key cabinet portfolios including the important foreign affairs ministry. Both Gantz's party and Netanyahu's liquid will be allotted an equal number of portfolios. Netanyahu will chair key judicial appointments despite his upcoming trial in the three corruption cases. The agreement also stipulates that the unity government will not introduce any new laws related to the pandemic in the first 6 months of emergency rule. However, plans to continue and extend the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands will continue. Netanyahu intends to go ahead beginning from July 1 with the annexation of the occupied Jordan Valley. The news of the unity government formation was met with grave concern by Palestinian leaders. Hana Nasravi, a senior Palestinian Liberation Organization official said that Palestinians can expect very serious challenging days ahead. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Chattay wanted that the formation of what he called an annexation government in Israel is the end to the two-state solution. Crude oil prices for the month of May in the US fell to minus $37 per barrel on Monday, the lowest ever in history before recovering to US$1.10 today which is also the last day for trading for the month of May. The fall is attributed to growing fear among the producers that existing demands will vanish once global strategic reserves are filled to their capacity. The prices for June fell to almost $21 US. The prices of Brent Crude used for global pricing were still hovering around US$26 yesterday. This may cause a complete shutdown of oil production in the US which is currently the world's largest producer. According to reports, the rigged production in the US has already come down by 35% in the last few weeks owing to the crashing oil prices which makes production in the US unsustainable. The average cost of production per barrel crude shale in the US is around $23. The companies need double this amount to break even. President Donald Trump stated earlier today that he may consider blocking the import of oil from Saudi Arabia to save the domestic producers after some Republican congressmen made this demand. That's all we have in 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. Let's get started.