The Corona crisis has exposed our political and media establishments as dysfunctional and possibly dangerous. If the West was, until recently, associated with scientific, analytical, rational and methodical thinking, then not much is left of that Athenian reasoning. Like houses of cards, most of our Western democracies have succumbed to populist decision making that is, by its nature, deeply unscientific.

When I enrolled in university 35 years ago, scepticism and critical thinking were regarded as precious Western values. This approach has been discarded: skeptics are reduced into public enemies. They are scorned by the media and often smeared by their professional colleagues.

No one, I guess, doubts that the world is facing a hazardous health crisis, yet so many questions regarding the nature of this crisis, its origin, the virus at its centre and possible solutions are brushed aside in a manner reminiscent of historical clerical witch hunts rather than treated with the kind of reasoning that should be ingrained in us by Western Liberal traditions.

Until a couple of weeks ago, the idea of waiting in an Ocado queue of 73,735 shoppers, or of supermarkets rationing milk and baked beans, would have sounded like satire. For too many people in the UK, food scarcity is the norm, with mothers and fathers going hungry to ensure their children are fed. But others have grown used to an absurd abundance: strawberries and peaches in midwinter, or 20 types of mustard alongside three score of pasta. When such bounty overflows, it seems self-evident that supplies are both plentiful and reliable - until suddenly they aren't.


In fact, warns Tim Lang in his new book, Feeding Britain, our food system is "stretched, open to disruption and far from resilient". It is easy to castigate panic buyers for empty shelves. But while shopping responsibly will help others to get the food they need, only a few people are squirrelling away vast stocks. Research firm Kantar says the average spend per supermarket trip has risen by 16% to £22.13 month on month - not surprising when households realised they were likely to need lunches at home, including for children no longer in school, and could have to self-isolate for a fortnight.

Employees of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation prevented the attack in Krasnodar.

As a result of the measures taken, a citizen of Russia born in 1993, involved in the preparation of this crime, was arrested.

An improvised explosive device was found in the detainee's car, and correspondence with members of the international terrorist group ISIS , exposing his criminal intentions, was found in the means of communication used.

Investigative actions are ongoing.

Two rockets struck inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and foreign missions, early on March 26, but there were no casualties, the Iraqi military said.

"Two Katyusha rockets fell near Baghdad operation command. Details to follow," the military statement said.

An Iraqi security source said the intended target appeared to be the U.S. Embassy, located several hundred meters south of where the rockets hit.

It is the 26th such attack targeting installations where foreign troops and diplomats are based across Iraq since late October. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP

The global death toll from the coronavirus has exceeded 24,000 with more than 550,000 infections confirmed, causing mass disruptions as governments continue to try to slow the spread of the new respiratory illness.

Here's a roundup of developments in RFE/RL's broadcast countries.

Russia

The Kremlin says a member of President Vladimir Putin's administration has been infected with the coronavirus, but the person had not been in direct contact with Russia's leader.

The announcement came as the government widened restrictions aimed at fighting the disease, ordering all restaurants and cafes to close, beginning March 28.

As of March 27, the country's total number of confirmed cases was 1,036, up 196 from a day earlier. Three deaths have also been reported.


Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that a man working in the presidential administration had been infected with the coronavirus.

"Indeed, a coronavirus case has been identified in the presidential administration," Peskov was quoted as saying.

"All necessary sanitary and epidemiological measures are being taken to prevent the virus from spreading further. The sick man did not come into contact with the president," he added, saying this was the only known case at the Kremlin.

He gave no further details.

Greek authorities have arrested several members of an extreme-left Turkish terrorist organization following a series of raids which led to the discovery of a tunnel in Athens filled with military-grade weapons.

A total of eleven members of the Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party (DHKP-C) - all of whom are Turkish citizens - were rounded up during sweeps carried out by Greece's National Intelligence Service and Anti-Terrorism service, Greek newspaper Kathimerini reports.

During the sweeps, which were conducted at various properties in the Sepolia and Exarchia districts in Athens, security forces found a 47-meter tunnel filled with a cache of military-grade weapons which included an anti-tank rocket launcher, grenade launchers, AK-47 rifles, and other firearms and firearm parts.

Professors are now worried that the political bias they bring to the classroom will be easily recorded and exposed to the public now that their courses have been moved online due to the Wuhan coronavirus.

"The coronavirus-prompted shift to remote teaching was stressful enough for faculty members before Charlie Kirk weaponized online learning," reported the Chronicle of Higher Education on Tuesday, noting a recent tweet by the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder calling on students to share videos of their professors' "blatant indoctrination."

Last night, immediately after our first DiEM25 TV event, my phone rang. It was Julian. From prison. It was not that first time that he honoured me deeply by using the few phone calls prison allows him to make to call me. Like every other such occasion, when I unexpectedly recognise his voice a torrent of emotions comes flooding in. Guilt, primarily, at the thought that, the moment the line is disconnected, he will remain there - in the exceedingly dark place to which he has been confined because of a decision he made long ago to help the rest of us grasp what the powers-that-be have been doing on our behalf without our knowledge or consent.

Julian wanted to talk about the effects of Covid-19 on the world we live in and, of course, on his case. He remarked that Jeremy Corbyn's election manifesto, that the establishment had lambasted for being too radical, now seems unreasonable moderate. We laughed at the audacity of those who were telling the people of Britain that it was irresponsible to spend a few tens billions on providing proper funding to the NHS and social care for all, on turning broadband into a public utility, and on taking the railways into public ownership to make them work properly - the very same people who, now that big business and capitalism more generally, are in serious trouble seem to have discovered the money tree, announcing trillions to be pumped into the economy. Julian did not know (how could he, when the prison authorities deny him access to newspapers, the internet, even to BBC Radio 4?) that Boris Johnson had, earlier yesterday, announced the temporary nationalisation of the railways - seeing that privateers can never provide a decent service in the midst of a national emergency.

After a few minutes during which we allowed ourselves to bask in the neoliberals' Waterloo, in the hands of some RNA that the system could simply not cope with without abandoning all its certainties, we discussed what this means for the future. Julian said, quite correctly, that this new phase of the crisis is, at the very least, making it clear to us that anything goes - that everything is now possible. To which I added that anything ranges from the best to the worst possible developments. Whether the epidemic helps deliver the good or the most evil society will depend, of course, on us - on whether progressives manage to band together. For if we do not, just like in 2008 we did not, the bankers, the spivs, the oligarchs and the neofascists will prove, again, that they are the ones who know how not to let a good crisis go to waste.

Will we succeed? Julian had a hopeful comment on this: At the very least, transnational organisations like Wikileaks and DiEM25 had honed the digital tools for online debates and campaigns well before Covid-19 came on the scene. In some measure, we are better prepared than others.

After bailing out businesses and paying everyone's wages, governments should now commandeer the vacant houses of the wealthy and turn them into emergency hospitals, or accommodation for key workers and the homeless.

Residents in large cities across the globe over the last decade have watched and suffered the consequences of huge glass-and-chrome blocks of ultra-luxury apartments rising as almost a violent act onto their skylines. While the poor and the homeless have faced benefit cuts and been subject to social engineering, the international wealthy have poured their money into these giant safety deposit boxes that now blight all major cities.

Most are what's euphemistically termed 'buy-to-leave' investments, where the owner, often from abroad, is so wealthy that they don't need to let the property out, and it stands empty rather than being used to house people.

A 2018 study showed that there were more than 22,000 homes in London that had been lying vacant for at least six months, many of them for years. Unsurprisingly, the worst place was the City of London, the tiny central area that is home to the investment banks and their rich fund managers, and where the average price for a house runs into the millions. Here, 38 homes in every 1,000 sit empty.

Mexican protesters have shut a US southern border crossing amid fears that untested American travellers will spread coronavirus.

Residents in Sonora, south of the US state of Arizona, have promised to block traffic into Mexico for a second day after closing a checkpoint for hours on Wednesday.

They wore face masks and held signs telling Americans to "stay at home".