In a statement to “Tabadul”, Muhamed Zarrouk Al-Zaydi, member of Libyan Medical Students and Young Doctors Association in Misurata, confirmed that, recently, the Association launched a campaign to detect Coronavirus in the air and sea outlets in Misrata and Al Khums, explaining that the campaign covered all flights coming from and to Misrata Airport.
Al-Zaydi added that the Association launched an awareness-raising campaign to teaching citizens the ways of preventing the virus via distributing brochures and alcohol to avoid the infection.
In a statement to “Tabadul”, the spokesman of the Ministry of Health Amin Al-Hashemi stated that, today, Grad missiles targeting residential districts in Abu Salim led to the injury of a child and a woman.
Al-Hashemi added that the shelling caused material damages on the level of houses along with huge material damages in Mitiga International Airport.
He also indicated that a number of houses were completely destroyed.
World share markets were headed for their worst week since the depths of the 2008 financial crisis as investors ditched risky assets on fears the coronavirus would become a pandemic and trigger a global recession.
MSCI all country world index fell 0.6% after 3.3% drop on Thursday. So far this week, it has lost 9.4%, on course for its biggest weekly decline since a 9.8% plunge in November 2008.
Wall Street shares led the rout as the S&P 500 fell 4.42%, its largest percentage drop since August 2011, on Thursday. It has lost 12% since hitting a record close on February 19, marking its fastest correction ever in just six trading days.
The index, which measures expected swings in U.S. shares in the next 30 days, typically shoots up to around 50 when bear market selling hits its heaviest and approached almost 90 during the 2008-09 financial crisis.
Coronavirus threatens global economy as experts warn no country will be spared.
In this context, World Health Organization stated that all countries need to prepare to combat the coronavirus as authorities raced to contain the epidemic’s rapid global spread and Wall Street looked set for its biggest weekly fall since the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
With new infections reported around the world now surpassing those in mainland China, World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said even rich nations should prepare.
“No country should assume it won’t get cases, that would be a fatal mistake, quite literally,” Tedros said, pointing to Italy, where 17 people have died in Europe’s worst outbreak.
In addition to stockpiling medical supplies, governments ordered schools shut and canceled big gatherings, including sports events, to try to halt spread of the flu-like disease known as COVID-19 that emerged in central China more than two months ago from an illegal wildlife market.
Yesterday, the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) strongly condemned the continuing Tripoli truce violations.
The truce had been declared on 12 January, UNSMIL stated in a tweet, adding that it was annoyed by the most recent repeated bombings of Mitiga airport, which is considered as a vital and important outlet for thousands of Libyans in the greater Tripoli area. It is also a vital entry and exit point for all the international diplomats, NGO’s and UN agencies.
The International Monetary Fund issued a report, in which it expected the Libyan economy to achieve a growth gains of 3.9% in 2023 on condition that the regional trade integration process should be launched.
On the other side, Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the The International Monetary Fund, stressed that the issue of instability in Libya threatens the economic growth in all the Maghreb region.
The International Monetary Fund also confirmed that the real challenge facing the Maghreb region, that is rich in oil, gas, agricultural products as well as tourism, is its full and rapid integration into international trade flows, While full economic integration will allow for a significant increase in Gross Domestic Products (GDP) and growth rates in the Maghreb’s major countries.
In a recent report on the occasion of the founding anniversary of the Arab Maghreb Union in February 1989, the International Monetary Fund explained that the growth gain resulting from trade integration until 2023 could rise to 1.6% in Algeria, 3.9% in Libya, 3.4% in Tunisia, 4.1% in Morocco, and 5.5% in Mauritania.
Gold prices gained today as rising cases of coronavirus beyond China exacerbated fears of a pandemic and its broader economic impact, boosting hopes for interest rate cuts by major central banks and demand for safe haven assets.
Spot gold rose 0.6% to $1,650.12 per ounce by 12:37 GMT, jumping as much as 1% in the previous session.
Today, Tripoli-based Audit Bureau chief Khaled Shakshak held a meeting with the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya Sadik Elkabir along with competent departments of both institutions.
During the meeting, the financial arrangements for 2020 were discussed, and the fears raised regarding them in light of the crisis of shutting oil production and exports.
Moreover, the consequences of the current crisis were reviewed, and the most important precautionary measures and steps that could be taken to face those consequences were negotiated too.
It should be noted that, during the meeting, the general framework within which financial arrangements should be made under the current circumstances, and the decisions as well as actions to be taken by the Government were agreed upon too.
