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The Maastricht Diplomat

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Head Editor

Disaster Struck

Corona virus:

The severity of the coronavirus has reached a new level: with 811 deaths and about 37,200 people being affected only in China, the virus has claimed more victims than SARS between 2002 and 2003. The hospitals in Wuhan are overcrowded, and for this reason, a new hospital was built within only eight days to give patients the best medical treatment possible. After the US and many Asian countries being concerned with the incident last week, by now, the virus has also been reported in India, Canada, Australia as well as in Europe, namely in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Finland, Sweden and Great Britain. Officials are increasing the emergency provisions and are doing their utmost to stem the pandemic with safety measures on all levels, yet, the number of affected people is increasing. According to the WHO, there is only little information about the virus and so far, an effective therapy has not been found yet.

A lot of Chinese expressed their condolences after the death of the Chinese doctor Li Wenliang. He gave early warnings about the outbreak of the virus but was restricted by the police to spread further information. Later it had been discovered that he was infected as well. For many Chinese, this fortune symbolises, not only the consequences of the cover-up of the virus, but also the reluctant reactions on behalf of the authorities.

Trump’s acquittal:

What would be a week without news about the President of the US? This week, Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate in the impeachment trial. But was that a surprise? Thanks to a majority of Republicans in the Senate, Trump can breathe a sigh of relief since Mitt Romney was the only Republican who had voted against him. This was a historic moment for Americans. For the first time in US history, a Senator had voted in favour for convicting the President from his own party in an impeachment trial. Romney declared it to be one of his hardest decisions, yet, he was convinced of Trump’s abuse of power and of obstruction of justice. Now Romney has to live with Trump’s attacks and has to face his accusation of being a secret agent and of working undercover for the Democrats.

Flooding in Australia:

On the other side of the world, people have to deal with evermore natural disasters. After being heavily affected by bush fires in the last couple of weeks and months, Australia now has to cope with severe flooding, which is almost ironic if it was not that serious. The devastation caused by the bushfires, the death of at least 25 people and of more than one billion animals are hard to believe. For a short moment, many Australians found hope again this week. Even though streets and houses were flooded, they were relieved to experience heavy rains since they helped to fight against the fires. Yet, the relief did not last long since the Australian authorities already gave warnings for an approaching cyclone and strongly advised to get out of harm’s way. Brave firemen are now fighting not only the fires which are still not fully extinguished but also mass of water.

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