Irish Daily Mirror

Tribal teens: Save Amazon

PM enforces ‘rigorous controls’ to prevent spread of killer bug Four cruise ship Brits flown to UK test positive

- BY NICK BRAMHILL news@irishmirro­r.ie

TEENAGE members of an Amazon tribe have vowed to fight to the death to save the rainforest.

Members of the Ararakaro indigenous community told of their fears as deforestat­ion advances.

They are one of about 900,000 groups which have lived in the Amazon for thousands of years.

THE Italian government has placed a dozen towns in emergency quarantine as the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country reached 132.

Schools and universiti­es across the northern region were also closed as a result of the outbreak, which is the largest outside Asia.

The move followed the deaths of two coronaviru­s patients in Italy over the weekend.

Retired bricklayer Adriano Trevisan, 78, is believed to have been the first European victim while an unnamed woman passed away just hours later.

More than 90 confirmed cases are located in the Lombardy region where both lived, while a further 25 are in Veneto – including two in Venice.

Suspected but unconfirme­d cases have also been reported in Milan and the region of Umbria.

As a result, four Serie A football games were postponed yesterday and the Venice Carnival was cancelled.

Giorgio Armani’s show on the final day

Brits in masks arrive home of Milan Fashion Week was also placed off-limits to spectators.

People living in the affected towns in the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto have been barred from leaving without special permission.

Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte said he was putting in place “rigorous and meticulous controls”.

Meanwhile, an Irish priest in

Hong Kong has promised his flock he won’t abandon his far-flung parish – despite growing concerns about the spread of coronaviru­s.

Fr Michael Cuddigan, who is originally from Midleton in Co Cork, has spent seven years in the embattled east Asian city, which had already been reeling after more

FOUR passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship have tested positive for coronaviru­s after arriving in Britain.

It brings the total number of Covid-19 cases in the UK to 13.

The latest four were among the 32 British and Irish evacuees who arrived from Japan on Saturday. They were diagnosed at than six months of violent unrest between protesters and authoritie­s. But tensions have escalated once again following the coronaviru­s outbreak, which resulted in at least 62 confirmed cases and two deaths. In response, the Diocese of Hong Kong has temporaril­y suspended public Masses on Sundays and weekdays and cancelled the Ash Wednesday liturgy that signals the start of the Lenten season.

Fr Cuddigan, who is based at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel in the city’s busy Central district, has vowed to remain in Hong Kong however bad the public health crisis gets to ensure his flock don’t “lose hope”. In an interview

Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral, Merseyside, where all were sent to start 14 days’ quarantine.

England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty said: “The virus was passed on in the Diamond Princess cruise ship and the patients are being transferre­d from Arrowe Park to specialist NHS infection centres.” with The Irish Catholic, he said: “Listen, like all missionari­es I’ve been through my dangerous moments in the past, so you just live with what’s what and don’t get too excited. We’ve all got to die sometime.”

The veteran clergyman, who spent more than three decades in the Philiipine­s before relocating to Hong Kong, continued: “Missionari­es don’t tend to leave their post, because if they do then the local people can lose hope.

“I saw that happen many times in the southern Philippine­s in the 70s in the Muslim-christian conflict.

“We don’t know if it’s going to increase or decrease. One moment they say it’s decreasing, another it’s increasing. It’s a wait-and-see game.

“We’re all going around with our masks and washing our hands with alcohol and so on. We just don’t know what the future will be.

“There’s concern for everybody as there has been a number of cases already, but often these are people who have been in China who brought it back.”

The UK’S Department of Health said no one who boarded the repatriati­on flight had displayed any symptoms of the virus. A third passenger from the quarantine­d cruise ship in Japan has now died.

The man in his 80s died of pneumonia after being taken to hospital from the vessel where over 630 people have tested positive.

 ??  ?? RELIEF
RELIEF
 ??  ?? WASTE DISPOSAL Items are removed from school in Padova
WASTE DISPOSAL Items are removed from school in Padova
 ??  ?? DEVOTED Fr Michael Cuddigan
DEVOTED Fr Michael Cuddigan

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