While it may not yet be planting season outside, inside some New Jersey shipping containers, it’s always spring. Vladimir Lenski has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Producer: Marcus Harton.Cameras: Max Avloshenko, Dmitrii Vershinin.
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Day: April 3, 2021
A grand parade will convey 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies in specially designed capsules across the capital Cairo on Saturday to a new museum home where they can be displayed in greater splendor.The convoy will transport 18 kings and four queens, mostly from the New Kingdom, from the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, about 5 kilometers to the southeast.Authorities are shutting down roads along the Nile for the elaborate ceremony, designed to drum up interest in Egypt’s rich collections of antiquities when tourism has almost entirely stalled because of COVID-19 related restrictions.Each mummy will be placed in a special capsule filled with nitrogen to ensure protection, and the capsules will be carried on carts designed to cradle them and provide stability, Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass said.“We chose the Civilization Museum because we want, for the first time, to display the mummies in a civilized manner, an educated manner, and not for amusement as they were in the Egyptian Museum,” he said.Workers prepare for the transfer of 22 mummies from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, in Cairo, Egypt, April 1, 2021.Archaeologists discovered the mummies in two batches at the complex of mortuary temples of Deir Al Bahari in Luxor and at the nearby Valley of the Kings from 1871.The oldest is that of Seqenenre Tao, the last king of the 17th Dynasty, who reigned in the 16th century BC and is thought to have met a violent death.The parade will also include the mummies of Ramses II, Seti I, and Ahmose-Nefertari.Fustat was the site of Egypt’s capital under the Umayyad dynasty after the Arab conquest.“By doing it like this, with great pomp and circumstance, the mummies are getting their due,” said Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo.“These are the kings of Egypt; these are the pharaohs. And so, it is a way of showing respect.”
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A retired Iraqi judge who presided over the trial of Iraq’s late dictator Saddam Hussein has died after battling COVID-19, the country’s top judicial body said Friday.According to Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa, 52, died in a hospital in Baghdad where he was being treated for complications from the coronavirus.Oreibi graduated from the Faculty of Law at Baghdad university in 1992 and was appointed a judge in 2000 by a presidential decree.He shot to fame after he was named an investigative judge in the trial of Saddam and his regime in August 2004. He later took over as the lead judge in Saddam’s trial for genocide, which also included Saddam’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, and five other defendants on charges related to their roles in the bloody 1987-88 crackdown against Kurdish rebels, known as the Anfal campaign.The prosecution alleged that around 180,000 people died, many of them civilians killed by poison gas. Saddam was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death; he was executed on Dec. 30, 2006.Oreibi, a Shiite, replaced Judge Abdullah al-Amiri, who was removed amid accusations he was too soft on Saddam during the trial. Oreibi tolerated very few disruptions from Saddam and his co-defendants during the trial — even throwing the deposed Iraqi leader out of the courtroom several times amid fiery exchanges between them.In one session, after a shouting match between them, he ordered Saddam held in solitary confinement for several days.The statement from the judicial council lauded Oreibi for his what it said was courage in handling the trial of Saddam and the former regime.”He remains immortal in the hearts of Iraqis in general and the judges in particular,” it said.
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The Biden administration, which had set a goal of 100 million shots in President Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office, hit another milestone Friday. The U.S. became the first nation to vaccinate 100 million people.However, cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, remain on the rise in some regions of the United States.”I plead with you, don’t give back the progress we’ve all fought so hard to achieve,” Biden said Friday. “We need every American to buckle down and keep their guard up in this homestretch.”Earlier this week, Biden also said with the increased push to roll out the vaccine “at least 90% of all adults in this country will be eligible to be vaccinated by April the 19th, just three weeks from now, because we have the vaccines. For the vast, vast majority of adults, you won’t have to wait until May 1.”However, during a White House health briefing earlier this week, both Biden and the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, voiced dire warnings that too many Americans were easing COVID-19 protocols.Biden said if that continued, the U.S. could see a “fourth surge” of COVID-19. Walensky said she had a feeling of “impending doom” at the rising cases of COVID-19.Worldwide, there have been 130 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 2.8 million deaths. The U.S. leads all nations with 30.6 million cases of the virus, and 554,069 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center on Friday.Compared with the U.S., European nations are struggling to get vaccination programs up to speed.The World Health Organization said only 10% of Europe’s total population has received one vaccine dose, and just 4% have received two doses.One reason for the lag among European nations is their reliance on the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine. There have been reports of blood clotting in some people given the shot. The Netherlands on Friday followed Germany, which halted use of the vaccine for people younger than 60.Incidents of people developing blood clots are rare. The European Medicines Agency has said the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe.”We must err on the side of caution, which is why it is wise to press the pause button now as a precaution,” Dutch Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said, according to Reuters.France announced on Thursday plans for a third national lockdown to counter rising COVID-19 cases.Also Friday, the CDC updated guidance to say that fully vaccinated people can travel without observing quarantines, although they should still wear masks, practice social distancing and wash their hands frequently.It also issued guidance to the cruise ship industry, saying COVID-19 vaccinations were necessary before they could resume passenger voyages.”COVID-19 vaccination efforts will be critical in the safe resumption of passenger operations,” the CDC said.The CDC said it would issue additional guidance before it would allow cruises to resume, according to Reuters.The Cruise Lines International Association, which represents Carnival Corp., Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean Cruises and others had pushed the CDC to issue new guidance. In a March 24 statement, the industry said the “lack of any action by the CDC has effectively banned all sailings in the largest cruise market in the world.” It did not immediately comment on Friday, according to Reuters.
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Professional social network LinkedIn is giving nearly all of its 15,900 full-time workers next week off as it seeks to avoid burnout and allow its employees to recharge, the company told AFP Friday.The Microsoft-owned firm said that the “RestUp!” week starting Monday is meant to give employees time for their own well-being.”There is something magical about the entire company taking a break at the same time,” LinkedIn said in reply to an AFP inquiry. “And the best part? Not coming back to an avalanche of unanswered internal emails.”During the week, LinkedIn will provide employees who may feel isolated the option of taking part in daily activities such as volunteering for worthy causes through “random acts of kindness,” according to the company.”A core team of employees will continue to work for the week, but they will be able to schedule time off later,” LinkedIn said.Major technology companies were among the first in the U.S. to adopt working from home last year to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, and most have yet to fully reopen their offices. Twitter has extended remote working indefinitely.LinkedIn does not expect employees to begin returning to its offices until September, and it plans to make it standard practice to let them work from home as much as half of the time.Microsoft in mid-2016 bought LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in cash, stepping into the world of social networking and adding a new tool for its efforts to boost services for business.
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