Hit hardest in aftermath of Covid-19’ – warning
He was not wearing a mask, and neither did most of those he awarded with Hero of Russia medals.
The 67-year-old president was last seen in public in late March.
Since then, Mr Putin has held neardaily video calls but just a few offline meetings with senior officials.
When Russia marked Victory Day on May 9, the nation’s most important holiday marking the Nazi defeat in the Second World War, he stood alone to observe a parade of the Kremlin guard regiment.
Russian media reported that the Kremlin has maintained a tight protocol to protect the president, placing officials and aides on quarantine for two weeks before meeting him.
Last month, Mr Putin ordered an end to the nationwide economic shutdown and set dates for the two main events on his agenda that were postponed due to the coronavirus.
Citing a slowdown in contagion, he ordered the Victory Day parade postponed from May 9 to be held on June 24, and set a vote on constitutional amendments that could
“Women are over-represented in low-paid work and precarious work,” Ms Smethers said.
“They’re people who are very ‘dispensable’ or otherwise easy to get rid of because they are on zero-hours or minimum-hours contracts.”
The Fawcett Society also fears the collapse in childcare infrastructure – with more than 10,000 providers expected to go bust due to Covid-19 – could also force some mothers out extend his rule until 2036 on July 1.
Some experts have argued the moves are premature as the country has continued to register high daily numbers of new infections at around 9,000, and opposition activists have accused the Kremlin of jeopardising public health by rushing the constitutional vote.
Russia has the world’s third-highest caseload of more than 511,000 infections, including 6,715 deaths.
In Somalia, the al Qaida-linked extremist group Al-Shabab has unveiled a Covid-19 isolation and care facility, a sign that the group is taking seriously the pandemic that continues to spread in the fragile country.
Al-Shabab announced the facility, which includes a round-the-clock hotline, has been set up in Jilib, a major stronghold of the extremist group in southern Somalia.
“I am urging people with the disease symptoms to come to the medical facility and avoid infecting other Muslims,” Sheikh Mohamed Bali, a senior al-Shabab official and a member of the workforce.
Campaigners are now calling for the government to ensure experts in gender and health crises are involved in the process of rebooting the economy in the wake of the shutdown.
Dr Sophie Harman, professor of International Politics at Queen Mary’s University, said the pandemic could prove “catastrophic” for women in Britain.
“It is sometimes during emergencies
An aerial view shows Filipinos observing social distancing as they take part in a protest against President Duterte’s Anti-Terror bill in Quezon city. Activists marked Independence Day on Friday by staging protests against a new anti-terrorism law. The controversial new law can be used to quell public dissent and could lead to more human rights abuses, it is claimed of the group’s ad hoc Covid-19 response committee, said in a speech broadcast by its radio arm Andalus.
When the Associated Press called al-Shabab’s Covid-19 hotline, a man who answered said the care facility is “open for all people”.
He declined to say whether it had any virus cases but said the facility – set up in a building that once housed the United Nations children’s agency in Jilib – has all necessary equipment to isolate and treat patients.
For months, Somali health officials have warned that areas controlled by al-Shabab in central and southern Somalia could be at high risk from the virus.
The Horn of Africa nation has more than 2,500 confirmed virus cases and has one of the world’s least-equipped health systems after years of conflict.
In Italy, Italian premier Giuseppe Conte is being questioned by prosecutors investigating the lack of a coronavirus lockdown of two towns in Lombardy’s Bergamo province that that the most egregious discriminatory practices happen because you can’t spot them,” she said.
“They are justified under ‘well, we were just moving quickly’ and so that’s my concern of the wider ripple effect (of the pandemic).”
Dr Harman, who has worked extensively in the field of healthcare, said assumptions made by the UK Government were not dissimilar to those made by African countries turned into some of the hardest-hit areas of the country’s outbreak.
Doctors and virologists have said the two-week delay in quarantining Alzano and Nembro allowed the virus to spread in Bergamo, which saw a 571% increase in excess deaths in March compared with the average of the previous five years.
No one has yet been placed under investigation and it is unclear what, if any, criminal blame will be assigned to public officials for decisions taken or not in the onetime epicentre of Europe’s outbreak.
Among other things, the probe is looking into whether it fell to the national government in Rome, or the Lombardy regional authorities, to create a so-called “red zone” around the two towns.
In a separate investigation, at least 50 families who lost loved ones to the virus have provided Bergamo prosecutors with formal legal complaints to seek clarity if there was wrongdoing in any of the cases. during the HIV and Ebola crises.
“The assumption from the outbreak and the government’s plan was that women would just pick up the load of the care burden,” she said.
“The domestic roles are increased, their livelihoods are at risk and they are also involved in measures to protect people against the spread of the outbreak.”