World Briefs

CHINA Wang Quanzhang, a well-known Chinese rights lawyer, was released from prison yesterday after being held for more than four years, his wife said. It was unclear whether he would be allowed to return to Beijing, where he practiced and lived with his wife and young son.

OPEC Saudi Arabia sharply criticized Russia over what it described as Moscow blaming the kingdom for the collapse in global energy prices, showing the tensions ahead of an emergency meeting of OPEC and other oil producers. Oil prices sharply fell after the so-called OPEC+ group of countries including Russia failed to agree to production cuts in early March.

SRI LANKA Nearly 2,900 prisoners have been released from overcrowded prisons in Sri Lanka as the Indian ocean island nation has stepped up it’s efforts to contain the spreading of the new coronavirus.
Sri Lanka has been under a countrywide curfew since March 20.

AFRICA The coronavirus pandemic could narrow one gaping inequality in Africa, where some heads of state and other elite jet off to Europe or Asia for health care unavailable in their nations. As countries across the continent impose dramatic travel restrictions, they might have to take their chances at home.

SOUTH AFRICA says part of a hospital in the city of Durban has been shut down after 11 coronavirus cases were confirmed among patients and staffers. Those include three patients at St. Augustine’s Hospital who died.

UKRAINE A forest fire is burning in the evacuated area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and is causing elevated radiation levels, authorities said yesterday. The emergency services ministry said 130 firefighters and two planes were laboring to put out the fire. It said radiation levels had increased at the fire’s center.

ITALY’s virus-ravaged Lombardy region is now requiring residents to wear a protective mask when they go outside in a bid to further trim infections. The ordinance from Lombardy Gov. Attilio Fontana went into effect yesterday and lasts through April 13.

FRANCE A man wielding a knife attacked residents of a French town while they ventured out to shop amid a nationwide coronavirus lockdown Saturday, killing two people and wounding five others in an act that led authorities to open a terrorism inquiry. France’s counter-terrorism prosecutor’s office said the assailant was arrested near the scene of the attack in the town of Romans-sur-Isere, south of Lyon, as he was kneeling on the sidewalk praying in Arabic.

US Americans braced for what the nation’s top doctor warned yesterday would be “the hardest and saddest week” of their lives. “This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment,’’ U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Fox News Sunday.