As reopening plans began to supersede coronavirus case counts in the public imagination, the week brought plenty of positives across Asia-Pacific. With no cases of community transmission in New Zealand, the director general of health claimed that the virus had been eliminated if not eradicated in the country, meaning control over the spread of COVID-19 as businesses began to reopen and people returned to work. Neighbouring Australia has also managed to limit the toll of coronavirus, and to consolidate their gains both countries rolled out tracing apps. South Korea recorded no new domestic cases for the first time since the middle of February, and further eased distancing measures amid a rare border scuffle with their recalcitrant northern compatriots, while zero cases were recorded across consecutive days in Hong Kong and Vietnam.
It was a different story in other parts of South and Southeast Asia, as cases surged in Afghanistan and India, while in Indonesia they topped 10,000. India extended its lockdown for two weeks while dividing the country into zones for the gradual easing of restrictions, and Thailand extended its emergency decree, retaining a nightly curfew while loosening measures around businesses and recreational activities. Japan prepared to prolong its state of emergency, as cases passed 15,000 and health workers faced equipment shortages, and while the death tally remained low in Singapore, the country’s copybook was blotted by continuing outbreaks in foreign worker dorms. Circuit-breaker mode in Singapore was extended for another week as cases surpassed 18,000, but the country made plans for the resumption of business. In the Middle East, cases in Saudi Arabia topped 20,000 and continued to rise in Iran, which nevertheless opted to reopen schools and mosques in low-risk areas. The Israeli government sought to reopen schools but was rebuffed by the municipalities. Lockdowns were eased in South Africa and Nigeria, while the relatively low figure of 480 cases in Tanzania still made the country the hardest hit in the east of the African subcontinent.
Global cases of coronavirus had passed three million at the start of the week, as Europe witnessed a cavalcade of reopenings. Schools and businesses began to open up in Norway, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic, Austria allowed visits to hairdressers and beauticians, and restrictions were eased in Germany even as face masks became compulsory in public settings. By the end of the week Germans were returning to parks and museums, and even to church, on the strict proviso of no singing. Deaths fell markedly, with a few blips, in Italy and Spain which made tentative steps as they allowed for outdoor activity. The scenario was similar in France, which also saw rapidly declining deaths and hospitalisations as prime minister Édouard Philippe outlined his country’s exit plans.
On the other hand deaths remained high in the United Kingdom, even as prime minister Boris Johnson argued the country had passed the peak of the outbreak. The addition of care home figures saw the death toll jump beyond 26,000 by Wednesday, and as the country approached Italy as the worst hit outside of the United States, controversy beset testing targets. Cases stormed past 100,000 in Russia, so that by Sunday an ailing prime minister and the president’s extended non-working decree could not stop daily infections in excess of 10,000. Bosnia reported a sharp rise in cases after relaxing its lockdown measures. Belgium, high on the list of deaths per capita, ordered more frites. Iceland said that it was gaining control over the pandemic, but Sweden was proving the exception across Scandinavia, as cases stretched beyond the 20,000 mark. During the course of the week, France and Spain elaborated on the reopening of their economies by mandating face masks, while countries remained reluctant to lift limitations on large gatherings and travel.
In the realm of medicine, the mixed messages continued for remdesivir, as a study in The Lancet following trials in Wuhan showed no significant benefits from the antiviral drug, while in the United States Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases suggested that data from a government trial showed a ‘clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery’. Despite some qualms over the metrics, the Food and Drug Administration subsequently issued an emergency use authorisation for the treatment. Meanwhile an Oxford University laboratory raced ahead in the quest for a vaccine. Sport remained up in the air as doubts were cast over the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics, and while the return of the Bundesliga was delayed by the German government, in France Paris Saint-Germain were awarded the Ligue 1 title after the remainder of the season was cancelled. The 2020 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals also fell by the wayside. No worries on the entertainment front however, as Netflix persevered with production in Iceland.
The financial impact of coronavirus continued to be felt, as the United States economy shrank by 4.8 percent in the first quarter, the worst contraction since the global crisis twelve years ago. Meanwhile 3.84 million jobless claims took the tally over the past six weeks beyond 30 million. The eurozone witnessed an overall contraction of 3.8 percent as France and Italy entered recession, and even countries which had fairly weathered the storm faced unprecedented economic downturns. Oil prices continued to sputter. But for all that the stock market reported its best month in decades, proving the adage that Wall Street may not incline towards Main Street’s best interests.
China scheduled the annual meeting of its National People’s Congress for 22 May. The International Energy Agency indicated that global emissions would drop in the region of eight percent this year as COVID-19 stifles commercial activity. There was renewed focus on the spread of coronavirus in meatpacking plants and prisons, from the United States to Latin America, from the Philippines to the United Kingdom and Russia. And on Friday, May Day was celebrated across the globe, as against crackdowns labour protesters paid heed to distancing measures, while the annual worker’s day was given added succour by rent strikes in America. China hit the road as residents embarked on their first national holiday since the end of lockdown. Again studies showed the disparate effects of COVID-19 on the poor, black Americans, and other ethnic minorities. The World Health Organization confirmed coronavirus as an ongoing global health emergency as the body sought to defend itself from critics.
The next wave of states in America reopened this week, particularly in the west and south of the country, as front-runners like Georgia and Tennessee were joined by Colorado, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana, and later in the week Texas. Texas allowed its stay-at-home order to lapse even though malls, restaurants, and cinemas could only reopen at limited capacity, while other states like Alabama and Maine took a middle approach, implementing safer-at-home orders while gradually easing restrictions. Roads were closed into one city in New Mexico, shutdown in Massachusetts was stretched until the middle of May, and shelter-in-place orders were extended across Bay Area counties as beaches became a battleground in California. By the middle of the week cases in the United States had passed one million, while more Americans had died from coronavirus than in the Vietnam War, as fatalities surged past 60,000.
Armed protests in Michigan were met by the extension of the state’s emergency order, but Governor Gretchen Whitmer did allow for the resumption of the construction sector. Deaths in the state of New York steadily declined while reopening remained a distant prospect, but in New Jersey the tally fluctuated, as by the end of the working week the state was recording the most deaths in all of America. On Saturday the United States suffered its worst day yet, with 2,909 deaths in one twenty-four-hour period. Numbers fell a little over the weekend, as more conflicts broke out between state governors and local leaders. Quebec led the reopening efforts in Canada. Meanwhile COVID-19 was taking hold of Central and South America. Mexico appeared to speak prematurely of taming the virus even as deaths doubled, while cases soared in Brazil, as amid mounting deaths and indigenous concerns, infections by Sunday had passed 100,000.
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The acclaimed Indian actor Irrfan Khan died on Wednesday at the age of 53. Making his debut in 1988 with a cameo role in the crime drama Salaam Bombay! – the second Indian film to be nominated for an Academy Award and a winner of the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival – Khan subsequently spent more than a decade plying his trade in bit-part film roles and serialised television. His lead role in The Warrior in 2001, a Hindi film by the British filmmaker Asif Kapadia set in feudal Rajasthan, brought about a change of fortune. Khan became a familiar presence in Hindi arthouse and English-language films, often playing antagonists with a moral centre. In 2004 he won the Filmfare Best Villain Award for Haasil, in 2005 the romantic thriller Rog established him as a Bollywood leading man, and in 2008 the part of the socially awkward Monty in the hit musical Life in a… Metro won him the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Khan had already played alongside Angelina Jolie in Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart, while Wes Anderson sought him out for a role in the railroad comedy The Darjeeling Limited, but it was the part of the police inspector in Slumdog Millionaire which brought him international recognition. His expressive eyes, self-restraint, and an uncanny ability to express internal conflict made Khan equally adept in leading roles and small character parts, and he moved seamlessly between the worlds of arthouse film and blockbusters in Bollywood and Hollywood. Standouts included Paan Singh Tomar, The Lunchbox, Piku, and Hindi Medium, which became Khan’s highest-grossing Hindi release and won him a second Filmfare Award for Best Actor, while internationally Khan starred in Life of Pi, Jurassic World, and Inferno. His final film, Angrezi Medium, a spiritual sequel to Hindi Medium in which Khan plays a widowed sweet-shop owner, was released in March before its cinematic run was cut short by the coronavirus.
In 2011 Khan was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian honour, while the following year for Paan Singh Tomar he received the state-sanctioned National Film Award for Best Actor. In 2018, Khan revealed that he had been diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumor, and he underwent extensive treatment in London. On Tuesday he was admitted to the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Mumbai with a colon infection, which proved his undoing. Khan’s death brought heartfelt tributes across Bollywood, which also mourned this week the passing of Rishi Kapoor, who over the course of a staggering fifty-year career became one of India’s most beloved actors. Emerging in the 1970s as one of Bollywood’s top romantic leads, in later life Kapoor transitioned to the role of character actor, adding flair to a string of successful comedies and thrillers. His first Filmfare acting award came for the lead role in the musical romance Bobby in 1973, while his last arrived in 2017 courtesy of the comic triumph Kapoor & Sons, almost a decade after Kapoor had been honoured for lifetime achievement. Frequently collaborating with his wife Neetu Singh and the Indian screen icon Amitabh Bachchan, in 2018 Kapoor was diagnosed with leukemia. Despite successful treatment in New York, on Thursday Kapoor succumbed to the disease at the age of 67.
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If even Smile itself remains something of a mythical quest, billowing clouds and overcast skies whose dappled light was outshone by Pet Sounds and the single ‘Good Vibrations’, Orange Crate Art is the lingering afterburn, whose amber smears and flickering embers have remained barely perceived beyond the initiated. More than twenty-five years after the Smile sessions petered out, Van Dyke Parks reconnected with a reclusive Brian Wilson for a record conceived as an ode to California. Featuring typically dense wordplay and orchestration that swells and strains in its composite Americana, Orange Crate Art was released in 1995 to fairly tepid reviews, but has since gained a cult following. Now Omnivore Recordings is reissuing the album in a deluxe twenty-fifth anniversary edition, bringing Orange Crate Art to vinyl for the first time, replete with outtakes and instrumentals. The record has been remastered by the Grammy Award-winning engineer Michael Graves, and will be released on 26 June on CD, LP, and limited-edition coloured vinyl.
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The Afrobeat pioneer and influential drummer Tony Allen died on Thursday at the age of 79, after suffering an abdominal aortic aneurysm in Paris. Born in Lagos and studying the drum patterns of jazz greats from Kofi Ghanaba to Max Roach while working as an engineer at a local radio station, Allen began his music career on the claves under Victor Olaiya and his highlife band the Cool Cats, playing drums with Agu Norris and the Heatwaves, the Nigerian Messengers, and the Melody Makers before teaming up in 1964 with Fela Kuti. Combining the upbeat rhythms of highlife with the virtuosity of American bepob and more traditional forms of African music, for more than a decade Allen served as the musical director of Kuti’s band the Africa 70. With their scabrous blend of funk and jazz, Yoruba patterns and political messaging, Kuti and the Africa 70 recorded a slew of acclaimed albums across the 1970s, including the classics Shakara, Afrodisiac, Confusion, Expensive Shit, and Zombie. Allen also released the solo records Jealousy, Progress, and No Accommodation For Lagos with his bandleader playing support, before internal discord led to an acrimonious dissolution.
Allen embarked on his own career as a bandleader, emigrating from Lagos to London then Paris, and devising a sound which he dubbed Afrofunk, blending his dexterous polyrhythms with the nascent beats of rap and electronica. He recorded with King Sunny Áde, Manu Dibango, Susheela Raman, and Sébastien Tellier and continued to feature across compilations and solo albums, before partnering up in 2006 with Damon Albarn, Paul Simonen, and Simon Tong as the drummer for the supergroup The Good, the Bad & the Queen. The group’s self-titled debut in 2007 was followed by Merrie Land in 2018, both albums acclaimed by the critics. In the meantime Allen collaborated with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Air, Flea, and Zap Mama, recorded tributes to Fela Kuti and Art Blakey, and in 2017 received accolades for the release of The Source on Blue Note. The Source was followed earlier this year by Rejoice alongside the trumpeter Hugh Masekela, which would prove Allen’s final studio album. In 2019 he was the subject of Opiyo Okeyo’s documentary short Birth of Afrobeat, which was screened at the American Black Film Festival, the BlackStar Film Festival, and the African Film Festival in New York before premiering on PBS in January. Described by Brian Eno as ‘perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived’, feted by Fela Kuti who said that ‘without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat’, Allen’s death brought tributes from colleagues across the world of music.
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Fundraising efforts and online sporting events kept artists and charitable funds in pocket while continuing to provide some semblance of culture. A Parks and Recreation reunion special on Thursday night, cast as a virtual catch-up between Leslie Knope and her former colleagues at the Pawnee Parks Department, successfully raised $2.8 million for Feeding America’s COVID-19 response fund. On Friday Bandcamp once again waived its share of the revenue to send more money directly to artists. The same venture last month saw sales of music and merchandise soar to $4.3 million, more than fifteen times Bandcamp’s usual take, and the company has now pledged to repeat the gesture on the first Friday of every month during the pandemic. Sia joined the cast of COVID Is No Joke, performing alongside the likes of Elizabeth Banks, Gal Gadot, Will Ferrell, and Jack Black on a night of comedy in aid of the Americares health effort. And on Sunday Mick Jagger, Will Smith, and Priyanka Chopra were among the big names who appeared as part of the iFor India livestream concert, organised by the Bollywood directors Karan Johar and Zoya Akhtar to raise funds for more than a hundred groups providing food and other essential services across India.
Live football continued to mean FIFA 20 online and another round of the ePremier League Invitational, which recently crowned Wolves forward Diogo Jota as the inaugural champion following a Golden Goal victory over Trent Alexander-Arnold. Meanwhile the Manchester City and Argentina striker Sergio Agüero continues to make a name for himself for his Ultimate Team antics. Andy Murray and Kiki Bertens emerged as the inaugural Mutua Madrid Open Virtual Pro champions, though Murray received a few helping hands, as Rafa Nadal succumbed to injury even in the virtual world while Murray’s semi-final versus Diego Schwartzman was beset by technical difficulties. Murray overcame David Goffin in the men’s final, while Bertens’ victory over Fiona Ferro allowed her to retain the title won on clay last year. Finally the Ultimate Garden Clash saw pole vaulters Renaud Lavillenie, Sam Kendricks, and Armand Duplantis compete over a height of 5 metres in the confines of their back gardens.
