Coronavirus crisis: Nationwide lockdown cripples Assam’s tourism industry

Tourism in Assam has been crippled and scores of people working for this sector are now facing the brunt as there is a nationwide lockdown to halt the spread of the deadly virus

The Covid-19 pandemic has been terrible for several businesses, but tourism is among the most affected sectors. Tourism in Assam has been crippled and scores of people working for this sector are now facing the brunt as there is a nationwide lockdown to halt the spread of the deadly virus. Speaking to ANI on the same, Sailendra Pandey, Public Relations Officer of Assam Forest Minister, on Friday said that his government will take requisite measures to boost the sector after the conclusion of the lockdown.

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“Tourism has halted at the time when it usually peaks. After the lockdown ends, we’ll focus on reviving this sector,” he said. A couple of weeks back, the Centre had decided to extend lockdown till May 3. Addressing the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, stakeholders including states and people have favoured extension of lockdown. The Prime Minister had stated that integrated and holistic approach has helped India to handle the situation properly. He further had said, tight vigil will be kept on all hotspots and containment zones and strict implementation of the lockdown will be ensured so that the virus does not spread to new areas.

Coronavirus: UK, France urge citizens to leave China, Belgium has 1st case

More than 20,400 people have been infected with the virus in China and 425 have died

Britain on Tuesday urged all of its citizens in China to leave the country because of the outbreak of a respiratory illness from a new virus, while Belgium became the latest nation to announce a confirmed case.

An updated advisory issued by the U.K. Foreign Office said that while commercial flights remained available from most of mainland China, travel restrictions introduced by the Chinese government to contain the epidemic meant “it may become harder to access departure options over the coming weeks.

If you’re in China and able to leave, you should do so, the advisory said. France also issued an advisory, warning against any non-essential travel to China and suggesting that French citizens who were already there return home. More than 20,400 people have been infected with the virus in China and 425 have died. Two other people have died in the Philippines and Hong Kong and 20 other nations have reported cases.

Belgium, meanwhile, reported its first case of the coronavirus, found in one of the nine citizens who were repatriated from Wuhan over the weekend. The Belgian Health Ministry said the infected individual was in good health and didn’t show any symptoms of the disease. The person was taken to a special hospital for further care while the others remained under observation. Germany confirmed two more cases of the virus: one an employee of an auto parts company that a Chinese colleague visited two weeks ago and the other in a child of an infected company employee who previously had another child test positive.

Russia hacked Ukrainian gas firm at center of Trump’s impeachment

Russia’s GRU spy agency launched a “phishing” attack in November to access the email of Burisma Holdings employees, California cyber firm Area 1 Security said in a report

Russian spies hacked a Ukrainian energy company at the center of the impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump, a cybersecurity firm said Monday. Russia’s GRU spy agency launched a “phishing” attack in November to access the email of Burisma Holdings employees, California cyber firm Area 1 Security said in a report.

“The timing of the GRU’s campaign in relation to the 2020 US elections raises the specter that this is an early warning of what we have anticipated since the successful cyberattacks undertaken during the 2016 US elections,” Area 1 co-founders Oren J. Falkowitz and Blake Darche said in the eight-page document. Donald Trump was impeached in December over allegations that he improperly pressured Ukraine to announce an investigation into Burisma and its links to former board member Hunter Biden, the son of the president’s election rival Joe Biden.

The GRU figured heavily in the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, which concluded that Russia hacked the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to help Trump. The president triggered wide alarm in Washington in July 2018 after he met President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and appeared to take at face value Putin’s denials of Russian meddling. In a July 2019 phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump pushed for Kiev to investigate a debunked Kremlin conspiracy theory that Biden, one of the Democrats most likely to challenge Trump for the White House in November, had tried to quash a graft probe of Burisma to protect his son…