Lockdown measures in Italy extended until May 3
On Friday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte issued a new decree that extends the country’s lockdown until May 3 as health officials have confirmed the Covid-19 curve continues to flatten.
Although Italy remains one of the countries with the highest number of infections in Europe, the number of patients hospitalized and those who are in intensive-care has fallen for the fifth straight day.
Officials are urging people not to ease up on the lockdown measures as the restrictions continue to show results. Only a small fraction of businesses that had been shuttered since March 12 will be allowed to re-open on a trial basis from Tuesday.
Also on Friday, Conte reiterated Italy had not given up on its drive for the European Union to issue joint debt to finance a shared response to the economic downturn caused by Covid-19.
But the idea of shared debt is strongly opposed by wealthy countries such as Germany, Austria and Holland.
According to latest polls, the Italian public opinion is increasingly turning against the European Union due to Brussels lack of solidarity.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has warned that the European Union’s existence would be under threat if it could not tackle the coronavirus pandemic and its socio-economic consequences. On April 23, EU leaders are slated to discuss which financial tools shall be adopted to deal with the bruising effects of the Covid-19 crisis.
Source: Presstv
COVID-19: Cameroon has 730 confirmed cases with 10 deaths
The World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, Congo, said the number of coronavirus cases in Africa has increased to over 11,900. The United Nations’ health agency gave the update on its official twitter account @WHOAFRO on Friday. “COVID19 cases in Africa rise to over 11,900 – with 1,586 recoveries and 608 deaths reported,’’ it said.
The breakdown in the WHO African Region COVID-19 dashboard showed that South Africa, Algeria, and Cameroon had continued to top the list of countries with the highest reported cases. South Africa has 1,934 cases and 18 deaths followed by Algeria with 1,666 cases and 235 deaths, while Cameroon has 730 confirmed cases with 10 deaths. It also showed that the countries with the lowest confirmed cases are South Sudan and Burundi, which had reported three cases each with zero death. The second-lowest confirmed cases of COVID-19 countries in Africa are the Gambia and Sao Tome, which have confirmed four cases each while the latter has zero death, the former (Gambia) has recorded one death.
Mauritania is in the third category with the lowest cases as the country has recorded six confirmed cases with no death. Also, the dashboard showed that COVID-19 cases had risen to 288 in the past two days from 254 confirmed cases with seven deaths in Nigeria. However, WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, said COVID-19 had the potential not only to cause thousands of deaths but to also unleash economic and social devastation. In a statement posted on the agency’s website, the regional director said the virus had continued to spread on the continent. “Its spread beyond major cities means the opening of a new front in our fight against this virus. “This requires a decentralised response, which is tailored to the local context. “Communities need to be empowered and provincial and district levels of government need to ensure they have the resources and expertise to respond to outbreaks locally,” Moeti said.
WHO said it has been working with governments across Africa to scale up their capacities in critical response areas. It listed the areas of response as coordination, surveillance, testing, isolation, case management, contact tracing, infection prevention and control, risk communication and community engagement, and laboratory capacity. It said Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Nigeria had expanded national testing to multiple laboratories, allowing for decentralised testing. “These combined measures will ensure the rapid identification of cases, the tracking down and quarantining of contacts and the isolation and treatment of patients,” the agency added. (NAN)
Culled from Vanguardngr.com
Chad army says 52 troops, 1,000 Takfiri militants killed in offensive
The Chadian army said Thursday it had wound up an offensive against Boko Haram Takfiri militants in the Lake Chad border region in which 52 troops and 1,000 militants were killed.
Army spokesman Colonel Azem Bermendoa Agouna told AFP that the operation, launched after nearly 100 soldiers were killed last month, ended Wednesday after the Nigerian militants were forced out of the country.
“A thousand terrorists have been killed, 50 motorized canoes have been destroyed,” he said, referring to a large boat also called a pirogue.
It is the first official snapshot of the outcome of Operation Bohoma Anger, launched after Chad’s armed forces suffered their biggest one-day loss in their history.
Lake Chad is a vast, marshy body of water where the borders of Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon meet.
The western shores of the lake have been hit by the Takfiri militants crossing from northeastern Nigeria, where Boko Haram launched a bloody campaign of violence in 2009.
On March 23, the Takfiri militants mounted a deadly seven-hour assault on a Chadian army base at Bohoma, killing at least 98 troops, according to an official toll.
Chad declared departments near the lake “a war zone” in order to give the military free rein for the offensive.
The four countries bordering the lake on 2015 set up a formation called the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), also including Benin, to fight Boko Haram.
But Chad, whose forces have a relatively high standing in the Sahel, has shown frustration with the MNJTF following the Bohoma losses.
“Chad is alone in shouldering all the burden of the war against Boko Haram,” President Idriss Deby Itno complained last weekend.
“I met the commander of the MNJTF and asked him to take over.”
Boko Haram’s 11-year-old campaign has claimed tens of thousands of lives in northeast Nigeria and driven nearly two million people from their homes.
Separately, in Niger, the defence ministry in Niamey said its armed forces, in a joint operation with Chad, had inflicted “heavy losses” on Boko Haram in the lake region.
“Arms caches, logistical points and several boats were destroyed” and islands used as rear bases in the lake’s marshland were “bombarded from the air,” it said.
Landlocked and poor, Niger is facing Takfiri militant attacks in opposite ends of the country — an insurgency that has spilled over from neighbouring Mali, and raids in the Lake Chad region by Boko Haram fighters.
In Burkina Faso, meanwhile, five soldiers were killed and three were wounded on Thursday when their unit came under attack from Takfiri militants in Solle, in the northern province of Loroum, an army official said.
Around 4,000 people lost their lives last year in militant- or community-related violence in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, according to UN figures.
(Source: AFP)
EU finance ministers reach agreement on coronavirus rescue deal
EU finance ministers agreed a 500-billion-euro ($550-billion) rescue Thursday for European countries hit hard by the coronavirus epidemic, but sidelined a demand by Italy and France for pooled borrowing.
The breakthrough came after the Netherlands softened its position on the crucial question of making countries in need commit to economic reform and outside oversight in return for assistance.
The Hague blocked the talks two days earlier by insisting that Italy, or any other country in need, deliver on governance targets — which Rome saw as a shocking demand during a health crisis.
“Europe has decided and is ready to meet the gravity of the crisis,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire tweeted after the talks.
As a compromise, the final statement clearly states that the rescue would be specifically earmarked for costs related to the COVID-19 crisis, which has killed more than 65,000 people in Europe.
The ministers, however, set to one side a proposal from Italy, Spain, and France for a joint borrowing instrument, sometimes dubbed a “coronabond”, that would have raised money towards a recovery after the outbreak.
Germany, the EU’s most powerful member, has refused the pooled debt proposal and ministers agreed only to “explore” the idea under the direction of EU leaders, who are set to meet later in the month.
The package agreed is worth about 500 billion euros ($546 billion), short of what many observers believe is necessary to restart the European economy when the health crisis recedes.
Data indicate that the economy across the continent is already in a historic meltdown, with everyday life paralysed to fight the spread of the virus.
Despite 19 EU countries sharing a common currency, member states have reacted unilaterally to save their economies, giving richer countries such as Germany a big advantage over those with less spending power.
‘Other ways’
The main component of the rescue plan involves the European Stability Mechanism, the EU’s bailout fund which would make 240 billion euros available to guarantee spending by indebted countries under pressure.
Italy and Spain had the backing of the majority of member states to keep the conditions for tapping the ESM to an absolute minimum, but the Netherlands fought hard for something tougher.
Putting conditions on support is seen as a humiliation in Rome and Madrid, evoking bad memories of the eurozone debt crisis when auditors from Brussels dictated policy to bailed out Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
But the mutualisation of debts was a bridge too far for Berlin and The Hague, which refuse to take on joint loans with highly indebted states such as Italy, France or Spain which they consider too lax in their public spending.
Repeating her well-known position, German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday firmly rejected the notion of pooled debt in Europe.
“But there are so many other ways to show solidarity and I think we can find good solutions here,” she added.
In addition to the eurozone rescue fund, the EU ministers agreed 200 billion euros in guarantees from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and a European Commission project for national short-time working schemes.
Source: AFP
Cameroonians looking for missing president amid coronavirus crisis
Cameroon’s aged president is coming under fire for his absence from the national stage as the central African country faces a burgeoning coronavirus crisis.
A month after the first case of COVID-19 was recorded, 87-year-old Paul Biya has yet to address the nation — a silence that for supporters is a sign of gravitas but for critics one of failure.
According to official figures posted early Monday, Cameroon has 658 cases of the virus, with nine deaths, making it the second most-affected country after South Africa in sub-Saharan Africa.
Cameroon is already waging two violent conflicts, one against Boko Haram terrorists in the north, the other against English-speaking separatists in the west. The fighters in the new front are doctors and nurses who are woefully lacking in masks and breathing equipment.
In his 37 years in power, Cameroonians have become accustomed to Biya’s long absences, mainly because of poor health, but his silence over the pandemic is raising sharp questions. He posed for the cameras after talks with the US ambassador on March 11, but did not speak to the press.
Six days later Biya urged Cameroonians on Facebook to “respect” measures taken to combat the virus, but since then there has not been so much as a whisper from a leader who has overseen many crises since he took power in 1982.
– Biya ‘cannot be pinned down’ –
Biya’s track record suggests he is not a major communicator in the best of times, making just three or four appearances a year. But for researcher Stephane Akoa, “In a context like this, the presidential message is important.”
Last week, speculation mounted on social media that Biya could be dead, prompting a formal public denial by Communications Minister Rene-Emmanuel Sadi, who insisted that Biya was “going about his official business as normal”.
But there was no word from the president himself, provoking a sharp attack from main opposition leader Maurice Kamto, the runner-up to Biya in 2018 elections. On Friday, Kamto demanded that the president address the nation within seven days, otherwise “the people… will inevitably see his failure”.
Biya’s silence “is becoming criminal,” he added. Labour Minister Gregoire Owona snapped back, saying Kamto wished to politicise the crisis, calling it “shameful”.
Oswald Baboke, the president’s deputy chief of staff, commended Biya’s “wisdom… (and) restraint,” writing in the press that “the President’s time cannot be improvised and cannot be pinned down.”
Thus far the youthful health minister, Malachie Manaouda, has been the point man for the coronavirus crisis, tweeting out frequent updates and detailing the government’s response. But criticism has grown louder with the rise in known cases from 142 to 658 in a week.
– ‘Lack of coordination’ –
“Government communication is weak, its response was late and in some respects poorly prepared,” said Stephane M’Bafou, a consultant in public management and governance. “There is an obvious lack of coordination,” said economist Albert Ze.
Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute on March 13 announced measures such as closing borders and a ban on rallies, which have been extended.
The one new step since then, attributed to Biya but announced by Ngute, has been the creation of a solidarity fund worth one billion CFA francs (1.5 million euros / $1.65 million). Others say the response does not go nearly far enough.
“We must quickly declare a curfew, isolate the cities where cases are confirmed and move towards a general containment regardless of the socio-economic cost,” said M’Bafou.
Source: AFP
Southern Cameroons fighters relaunch attacks to reject French Cameroun reconstruction Plan
Cameroonian separatist fighters have relaunched attacks after the government announced a reconstruction plan, claiming that peace was returning to the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions of the central African state. The military said attacks were reported in at least seven villages, with about 13 fighters killed, but the fighters say the military had more casualties.
Public Works Minister Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi says road construction engineers are leaving after persistent attacks in several parts of the Northwest region, where President Paul Biya had instructed them to begin reconstructing the central African state’s English-speaking regions, devastated by three years of separatist conflict. Djoumessi spoke to VOA via a messaging app.
“The work started, unfortunately some criminals came and destroyed the property of the company but we have to continue without showing any signs of weakness. The head of state [Cameroon’s president] himself is extremely committed,” he said.
Biya last week created what he called the Presidential Plan for the Reconstruction and Development of the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions. The reconstruction and development plan envisages construction of roads, schools, hospitals, public edifices, markets, private homes and villages in areas destroyed by three years of fighting.
After the plan was announced, separatists warned on social media that they will not accept such projects from what they said a foreign government in Yaounde, and began attacking military posts and burning more infrastructure. The fighters torched local council offices and schools in Bui, Donga Mantung and Ngoketunjia administrative units in the Northwest and Lebialem and Manyu administrative units in the Southwest.
The military said in a release that there was heavy fighting in the northwestern villages of Vekovi, Tatum and Mbiame and the southwestern town of Kumba, with 13 fighters killed. The fighters on social media said the casualties were more on the side of government troops. The military has denied the allegations.
Benard Okalia Bilai, governor of the English-speaking Southwest region, speaking via a messaging app, said since the attacks were relaunched last week, the population has been collaborating with the military to denounce the attackers.
“The populations have understood that they were misled, so they have realized that their future, their hope is within the institutions, and that what the head of state has put at their disposal is their future and that they should collaborate with those authorities, the forces of law [the military], to denounce those who are disturbing. The damages are enough,” he said.
Christopher Effimba, leader of the NGO Hope Cameroon, said the central African state should make sure peace fully returns to its English-speaking regions before reconstruction projects are launched. He said the separatists are still very active and strong. He also spoke via a messaging app.
“Infrastructural development cannot be implemented in the field if we do not have a peaceful atmosphere. Therefore, calm the atmosphere,” he said. “We need peace to enable the road workers to dig the roads. If the people do not accept peace, it is impossible for any Caterpillar, any bulldozer to go in there and try to do any road.”
Unrest began in Cameroon in 2017 after a government crackdown on peaceful protests led by lawyers and teachers who complained of being marginalized by the French-speaking majority.
In October 2019, Biya organized a national dialogue to solve the crisis but the separatists did not attend. The separatists said they will only be ready to discuss the terms of their independence in a republic they have created called Ambazonia.
The unrest has killed more than 3,000 people and displaced over 500,000 according to the United Nations. Fifty thousand others are asylum seekers in neighboring Nigeria.
Source: VOA
Congo-Kinshasa: Senior aide to President Tshisekedi detained in anti-corruption drive
Vital Kamerhe, a key ally to President Felix Tshisekedi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was placed in custody at Kinshasa’s central prison on Wednesday evening, a judicial source said.
Kamerhe, who became Tshisekedi’s chief of staff after a long spell as speaker of parliament, was taken to Makala prison shortly after 7:30 pm (1830 GMT), under a wide-ranging crackdown on corruption.
A key figure on the political scene in the DRC, the 61-year-old Kamerhe was detained under “a provisional arrest warrant” after being questioned for more than six hours by the public prosecutor in an inquiry into suspected mismanagement of public funds, the judicial source said.
It was the first time a presidential chief of staff — a position that wields great clout in the DRC — has been arrested in the country’s history.
Tshisekedi has vowed to tackle corruption to bring the “renewal” of justice and end the perceived impunity of political and business elites.
Named to head Tshisekedi’s cabinet after the new president was sworn in on January 24, 2019, Kamerhe is being investigated into use of funds earmarked for major construction projects.
Kamerhe initially ran in the 2018 presidential elections but backed out to team up with Tshiseki. The two leaders signed a political agreement that gave birth to a joint platform, Heading for Change.
The December 2018 vote led to the first peaceful transition in the history of the former Belgian Congo, although Tshisekedi also has to juggle power with forces that support former president Joseph Kabila.
Kamerhe’s political party, the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC), has several ministers in a sprawling coalition government of 67 members.
A banker, two corporate bosses and an official from a state-owned firm have already been placed in provisional custody during the inquiry into the financing of Tshisekedi’s “100 days” action plan. Some detainees have been released.
(Source: AFP)
US coronavirus deaths surpass 14,600, world’s second-highest after Italy
U.S. deaths due to coronavirus topped 14,600 on Wednesday, the second-highest reported number in the world behind Italy. New York has accounted for nearly half of them.
New York, the hardest-hit state in America, on Wednesday reported its highest number of coronavirus-related deaths in a single day with even veteran doctors and nurses expressing shock at the speed with which patients were declining and dying.
The number of coronavirus cases in New York state alone approached 150,000 on Wednesday, even as authorities warned the state’s official death tally may understate the true number.
“Every number is a face, ” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ordered flags flown at half-staff across New York in recognition of the toll. “This virus attacked the vulnerable and attacked the weak and it’s our job as a society to protect the vulnerable.”
Doctors and nurses say it isn’t just elderly or patients with underlying health conditions who appear to be fine one minute and at death’s door the next. It can happen for the young and healthy, too.
Patients “look fine, feel fine, then you turn around and they’re unresponsive,” said Diana Torres, a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, where the virus has infected more than 415,000 people. “I’m paranoid, scared to walk out of their room.”
Cuomo said 779 people died in the past day in his state. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said 275 had died there. Both totals exceeded one-day records reported just a day earlier.
Despite the grim tally, Cuomo said overall trends still appeared positive. Cuomo cited a drop in new hospitalizations and other data points as evidence that New York was “bending the curve” and gaining some control over the infection rate.
Cuomo said the death count would continue at the current level or increase in the coming days as critically ill patients, who have been hospitalized for more than a week and on ventilator machines to assist in breathing, die.
Scaling back toll
U.S. deaths due to coronavirus topped 14,600 on Wednesday, the second-highest reported number in the world behind Italy, according to a Reuters tally. New York has accounted for nearly half of them.
Officials have warned Americans to expect alarming numbers of coronavirus deaths this week, even as an influential university model on Wednesday scaled back its projected U.S. pandemic death toll by 26% to 60,000.
Dr. Craig Smith, surgeon-in-chief at Presbyterian Hospital’s Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan, heralded encouraging numbers that suggested a turning tide in Wednesday’s edition of his daily newsletter to staff.
There were more discharges of patients than admissions for two days running, he said, adding: “Hosanna!”
But that comes as cold comfort to some healthcare workers on the front lines of the war against COVID-19, who told Reuters they have treated patients while experiencing symptoms of the novel coronavirus but couldn’t get tested.
In Michigan, one of the few hospital systems conducting widespread staff testing found more than 700 workers were infected with the coronavirus – more than a quarter of those tested.
The continued test shortages – even for the workers most at risk – is “scandalous” and a serious threat to the patients they treat, said Dr. Art Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
U.S. President Donald Trump has boasted that the United States has tested more people for the novel coronavirus than any other country.
‘Big bang’
Trump said on Wednesday he would like to reopen the U.S. economy with a “big bang” but not before the death toll is on the down slope.
Trump did not give a timeframe but his chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said on Tuesday it was possible this could happen in four to eight weeks.
Louisiana is “beginning to see the flattening of the curve” with the number of new coronavirus cases reported in the past 24 hours – 746 – lower than recent days, Governor John Bel Edwards said. Louisiana had been one of the nation’s hot spots for the virus.
California, like New York, had one of its highest single-day death tolls with 68 people dying of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, Governor Gavin Newsom said. The state may not see its cases flattening until the end of May and need to maintain social distancing measures for weeks ahead, California officials say.
New York City officials said a recent surge in the number of people dying at home suggests the most populous U.S. city may be undercounting how many have died of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the pathogen.
“I think that’s a very real possibility,” Cuomo told his daily news briefing.
So far New York City’s announced death toll has reflected only laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses. More than 200 people are dying at home in the city daily during the pandemic, authorities said.
Source: REUTERS
COVID-19 could drive half a billion people into poverty worldwide
The fallout from the coronavirus spread that has killed more than 83,000 people and wreaked havoc on economies around the world could push around half a billion people into poverty, Oxfam said on Thursday.
The report released by the Nairobi-based charity ahead of next week’s International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank annual meeting calculated the impact of the crisis on global poverty due to shrinking household incomes or consumption.
“The economic crisis that is rapidly unfolding is deeper than the 2008 global financial crisis,” the report found.
“The estimates show that, regardless of the scenario, global poverty could increase for the first time since 1990,” it said, adding that this could throw some countries back to poverty levels last seen some three decades ago.
The report authors played through a number of scenarios, taking into account the World Bank’s various poverty lines – from extreme poverty, defined as living on $1.90 a day or less, to higher poverty lines of living on less than $5.50 a day.
Under the most serious scenario – a 20% contraction in income – the number of people living in extreme poverty would rise by 434 million people to 922 million worldwide. The same scenario would see the number of people living below the $5.50 a day threshold rise by 548 million people to nearly 4 billion.
Women are at more risk than men, as they are more likely to work in the informal economy with little or no employment rights.
“Living day to day, the poorest people do not have the ability to take time off work, or to stockpile provisions,” the report warned, adding that more than 2 billion informal sector workers worldwide had no access to sick pay.
The World Bank last week said poverty in East Asia and the Pacific region alone could increase by 11 million people if conditions worsened.
To help mitigate the impact, Oxfam proposed a six point action plan that would deliver cash grants and bailouts to people and businesses in need, and also called for debt cancellation, more IMF support, and increased aid. Taxing wealth, extraordinary profits, and speculative financial products would help raise the funds needed, Oxfam added.
Calls for debt relief have increased in recent weeks as the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has roiled developing nations around the world.
In total, governments around the world would need to mobilise at least $2.5 trillion to support developing nations.
“Rich countries have shown that at this time of crisis they can mobilize trillions of dollars to support their own economies,” the report said.
“Yet unless developing countries are also able to fight the health and economic impacts the crisis will continue and it will inflict even greater harm on all countries, rich and poor.”
Source: REUTERS
Coronavirus Lockdown: Monkeys, elephants and dogs reclaim India’s streets
Hundreds of monkeys have taken over the streets around India’s presidential palace, leading an animal offensive taking advantage of deserted streets as the country remains under a coronavirus lockdown.
With India’s 1.3 billion population and tens of millions of cars conspicuous by their absence, stray domestic animals and wildlife has moved to fill the void, while also suffering from the pandemic fallout.
In the financial capital Mumbai, peacocks have been seen perched on top of parked cars, displaying their spectacular trains.
In Delhi, troops of monkeys now scamper over the walls of the Rashtrapati Bhawan presidential compound, past military guards and into the grounds of ministries and other official buildings.
“They are stealing a lot more, but not yet threatening humans,” said one officer on duty at the palace entrance.
The Rhesus macaque monkeys — who often snatch food from shoppers’ bags — have long been a problem in the capital, but there have been reports of some getting into office buildings during the lockdown.
Other animals have also been emboldened by the coronavirus restrictions on humans, who are only allowed out for food and essential items.
A Himalayan black bear last week wandered into Gangtok, capital of the northeastern state of Sikkim, entering a telecoms office and injuring an engineer, media reported.
– Hungry strays –
Indian Forest Service officers, meanwhile, have shared videos on social media of elephants trundling past shuttered shops along deserted streets.
But the lockdown has also been deadly for some animals.
Four horses normally employed for tourist carriage rides near Kolkata’s landmark Victoria Memorial have died from starvation in recent days, animal rights activists said.
Some 115 horses, which make their living pulling carriages bedecked with flowers and balloons, were left to fend for themselves after the government ordered the shutdown, Sushmita Roy, spokeswoman for the Love and Care for Animals group told AFP.
“They are becoming sick. We fear many more will die in coming days if they do not get food,” she said.
The owners of the carriages say they have no money for the horses after being ordered off the streets.
“We are finding it difficult to feed our family. How can we feed our horses?” said one owner, Sunny.
India’s army of stray cows and dogs have also found new freedom to take over city intersections and forage in waste bins, but even those scraps have disappeared as restaurants and shops have closed.
Aditi Badam of the Posh Foundation in Noida, outside Delhi, said shelters like his were struggling to feed its animals and other strays during the lockdown.
Her foundation has been receiving increasing numbers of calls about abandoned dogs and pets, which he said had become a “major issue”.
“It getting tougher day by day here,” Badam told AFP, adding that strays near the office blocks of multinational companies and outsourcing firms in the city were starving as all had closed down.
Source: AFP