The price of US crude oil plunged almost 20%, to below $15, in early trading on Monday \u2013 its lowest point since 1999 \u2013 as stockpiles continued to build owing to a crash in demand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
Concerns have been heightened by the growing standoff between the US president and state governors over whether the US can begin to lift restrictions on movement and businesses.<\/p>\n
It came as the heads of all the UN\u2019s major agencies issued a graphic warning of the risk of coronavirus to the world\u2019s most vulnerable countries after disclosing that international donors had pledged only around a quarter of the $2bn the UN requested for its emergency Covid-19 response in March.<\/p>\n
At a daily media briefing that grew increasingly tetchy, Trump said on Sunday night that 4.18 million Americans had been tested for the coronavirus and that the widespread operation was paving the way for parts of the country to reopen for business. \u201cThat\u2019s a record anywhere in the world,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n
But governors accused the president of being \u201cdelusional\u201d and said they could not embark on Trump\u2019s recommended three-phrase programme to ease stay-at-home restrictions because the testing regime was still not good enough.<\/p>\n
Virginia\u2019s governor, Ralph Northam, a Democrat, told CNN\u2019s State of the Union he had been \u201cfighting\u201d for testing. \u201cFor the national level to say that we have what we need, and really to have no guidance to the state levels, is just irresponsible, because we\u2019re not there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryland\u2019s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, agreed and said it was \u201cabsolutely false\u201d to say that governors had enough testing capacity.<\/p>\n
Despite the huge fall in the oil price \u2013 seen as a barometer of the prospects for the global economy \u2013 there were signs from other parts of the world that economies could soon begin getting back to normal.<\/p>\n
In Germany, smaller shops were set to reopen on Monday for the first time in a month after politicians declared the coronavirus \u201cunder control\u201d. From florists to fashion stores, the majority of shops smaller than 800 square metres (8,600 square feet) will be allowed to welcome customers again, in a first wave of relaxations to strict curbs on public life introduced last month.<\/p>\n
Chancellor Angela Merkel and regional state premiers announced the decision to reopen last week, though they have been careful to cast it as no more than a cautious first step.<\/p>\n
On the other side of the world, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the country\u2019s stringent lockdown would be eased next Monday barring any major upsets.<\/p>\n
She said the measures had \u201cstopped a wave of devastation\u201d but even under the revised regime, most New Zealanders would still be required to stay at home most of the time. Meal deliveries would be permitted and shops would be allowed to re-open providing they only sell goods online.<\/p>\n
In Australia, some beaches in Sydney were reopened in a sign that the country was moving towards normalising daily life. The government wants at least 40% of the population to download a tracing app on their phones to help track cases of the disease before lockdown curbs are eased.<\/p>\n
In other global developments:<\/p>\n
The price of US crude oil plunged almost 20%, to below $15, in early trading on Monday \u2013 its lowest point since 1999 \u2013 as stockpiles continued to build owing to a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[46,48,57,68,76,77,82,86,87,90,96,99,103,107,109,111,113,137,139,146,148,160,174,183,184,201,202,209,222,230,232,233,244,246,249,256,262,263,267,277,279,280,285,288],"class_list":["post-4988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oil-gas","tag-aramco","tag-athens","tag-baroudi","tag-carbon","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-cyprus","tag-decarbonising","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-eastmed","tag-egypt","tag-embargo","tag-emissions","tag-energy","tag-energy-peace","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-greece","tag-greenenergy","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-boundaries-east-mediterranean","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-pollution","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-solar","tag-solar-power","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-turkey","tag-unclos","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}