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Mosques were empty and fast parties were canceled when Muslims around the world began marking Ramadan under the coronavirus blockade on Friday, while a pullback in some countries aroused fear of an increase in infections, reports Al Jazeera. .
The Great Mosque of Mecca, the holiest place in Islam, was among those without a faithful when the holy month began amid unprecedented bans on family gatherings and mass prayers.
An impressive void enveloped the sacred Kaaba, a large cube-shaped structure in the Grand Mosque to which Muslims around the world pray, in the most potent sign of how the day-fast month will be a grim affair in the nations of Muslim majority.
Ramadan is typically a period of worship and socialization, but this year the tight locks limit gatherings for iftar meals to dusk when the fast is broken, a centerpiece of Ramadan.
The measures have affected spirits in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, where national religious organizations have asked the faithful to stay at home.
“This Ramadan is very different, it just isn’t a holiday,” said Indonesian housewife Fitria Famela.
“I am disappointed that I cannot go to the mosque, but what can we do? The world is different now.” Similar sentiments echoed in the Middle East and North Africa, where multiple towns and cities are under 24-hour curfew.
Countries like the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria have partially eased the blockade, but Morocco has announced a night curfew for Ramadan as it steps up emergency measures to combat the virus.
The North African nation’s Oulema Council, the official religious body, called for the confinement to be respected during Ramadan, saying that Islamic Sharia law places life saving above all else, including meeting to pray .
However, some religious leaders in Asia, home to nearly a billion Muslims worldwide, have ignored fears about the spread of Covid-19.
In Bangladesh, the fundamentalist group Hefazat-e-Islam criticized government measures to restrict access to more than 300,000 mosques across the country.
“Prayer assistance quotas are against Islam,” Mojibur Rahman Hamidi, a Hefazat official, told AFP.
“A healthy Muslim should join the prayers in a mosque. We hope that, if we pray a lot, Allah will save us from the coronavirus,” he added.
Trump promises US $ 1 trillion relief package USA
United States President Donald Trump signed a nearly half-trillion-dollar aid package to the U.S. economy on Friday in the latest attempt to avoid the crushing effects of the coronavirus shutdown, reports AFP.
The package will inject another $ 483 billion of government funds into the world’s largest economy. Most of the money, which follows a $ 2.2 trillion rescue fund enacted in March, will go to small businesses.
The bill was passed by the lower house of Congress on Thursday when another 4.4 million US workers filed new claims for unemployment benefits, bringing the total to 26.4 million since mid-March.
Unemployment has skyrocketed as much of the nation closed to stop the spread of the virus, which has claimed more than 50,000 lives across the country since February.
The new package provides $ 320 billion for small businesses to keep their doors open and pay their workers, after the initial $ 349 billion was exhausted in a Paycheck Protection Program in just two weeks.
The new funding also provides $ 75 billion for hospitals, $ 25 billion to expand virus testing, and $ 60 billion in disaster recovery loans and grants.
Trump, meanwhile, downplayed his suggestion Friday that people might try to inject disinfectants to fight the new coronavirus, claiming he was being sarcastic.
“I was sarcastically asking journalists like you a question, just to see what would happen,” he told reporters at the White House.
Trump, on Thursday night, addressed government scientists in the room at a press conference and asked about disinfectants.
Italy’s economy falters, with recession on the charts
The coronavirus blockade that economically punishes Italy, combined with large spending stimulus packages to support families and businesses, will push the public debt and deficit to dizzying heights, his government reported on Friday, AFP reports.
The cabinet approved the spring budget document, which predicts the eurozone’s third-largest economy would plunge into a deep recession this year, with a drop in gross domestic product of eight percent.
The government is widening the budget deficit by 55 billion euros, the “shock cure necessary for the country to face this difficult phase,” said deputy cabinet secretary Riccardo Fraccaro, as quoted by the Italian media.
Italy is among the countries most affected by Covid-19, with more than 25,500 registered deaths.
The government predicted that GDP would fall 8%, with the public deficit increasing to 10.4% of GDP. That is a gigantic jump from the 2.2% expected before the pandemic hit, and the 1.6% registered in 2019.
Public debt will increase to 155.7% of GDP, above the forecast of the pre-virus outbreak of 135.2%, and the 134.8% registered in 2019.
The situation is expected to improve next year, although even then prospects are still far from optimistic.
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