Skip to contentBloombergSubscribe Politics U.S. Will Block Iran’s $5 Billion IMF Loan Bid to Fight Virus By Nick Wadhams April 8, 2020, 12:15 PM EDT Updated on April 8, 2020, 1:51 PM EDT Trump administration argues officials have cash stashed away Iran has reported about 4,000 deaths from virus so far President Donald Trump President Donald Trump Photographer: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA via Getty Images Sign up here for our daily coronavirus newsletter on what you need to know, and subscribe to our Covid-19 podcast for the latest news and analysis. The U.S. plans to block Iran’s request for a $5 billion emergency International Monetary Fund loan to fight coronavirus, the latest signal that the Trump administration isn’t going to ease up its maximum-pressure campaign despite a growing international outcry. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has billions of dollars stashed away that could be tapped to fight the virus, according to a senior administration official, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. Iran wouldn’t meet IMF financial transparency requirements regardless, the official said. The Trump administration says Iran has rebuffed its offers of help. Officials have also pointed to remarks by President Hassan Rouhani that U.S. sanctions haven’t prevented Iran -- one of the worst-hit nations in the pandemic -- from getting the medicine it needs. The U.S. stance was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Rouhani’s message has been contradictory: In a cabinet meeting shown on state TV, Rouhani accused the U.S. of engaging in “medical terrorism” because of its sanctions on Iran’s economy and urged the international community to support its bid for financial support from the IMF. “We are a member of the IMF and we have paid into the fund like other countries,” Rouhani said. “We have a right to have access to this support.” Blocking the loan reflects the administration’s belief that some Iranian officials, especially Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, have tried to exploit the pandemic as part of a broader campaign to get U.S. sanctions lifted. Backed by supporters including the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, they argue that Khamenei has at least $300 billion he’s refusing to tap to fight the virus and U.S. sanctions have carve-outs for humanitarian sales to Iran. The U.S. insistence comes in the face of increased international demands from Iranian allies China and Russia, partners in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Trump abandoned, along with some European nations, for the U.S. to relax its sanctions. Iran has had about 65,000 reported cases of Covid-19 and approximately 4,000 reported deaths, according to data published by Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Critics of the administration’s approach argue that rules governing the U.S. humanitarian channel are too onerous to be useful, mostly because of stringent bank reporting requirements. They also argue that easing sanctions would send a powerful message to regular Iranians that the U.S. is on their side and wants to help. Regular Iranians are “fed all sorts of propaganda by the Supreme Leader and his allies, but that propaganda is made a whole lot easier because of a U.S. sanctions policy that is coming down like a ton of bricks on the Iranian people,” Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said at a briefing with the nonprofit J Street on Tuesday. Ad At the same time, the U.S. has been forced to hold off from a total sanctions clampdown on Iran. Last week, the administration extended a series of sanctions waivers that allow Russia and China to conduct limited nuclear work with Iran, in part because sanctioning those two countries’ nuclear industries would deny the U.S. materials it needs to fight coronavirus, another senior administration official said. In particular, the U.S. relies on Russia for supplies of Cobalt 60, which is used to sterilize medical equipment, and losing that now would deal a blow to efforts to halt the pandemic, according to the official. — With assistance by Golnar Motevalli, and Arsalan Shahla (Updates throughout with details of Iranian request and U.S. plans) SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email Trending Now Business Coronavirus May ‘Reactivate’ in Cured Patients, Korean CDC Says April 9, 2020, 12:25 AM EDT Markets Global Oil Deal at Risk After Mexico Ditches Saudi-Russia Plan April 10, 2020, 2:03 AM EDT Business N.J. Sees Peak in Three Days; Johnson Out of ICU: Virus Update April 9, 2020, 4:26 PM EDT Do not sell my information (California) Privacy Policy

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COVID-19 positive Israeli health minister did not blame homosexuality for pandemic

Some reports had emerged out of Pakistan and UK claiming the same

 Web DeskApril 08, 2020 12:50 IST

A supporter of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community takes part in a pride parade in Chennai | AFP

Last week, Israel's Health Minister Yaakov Litzman had tested positive for COVID-19, forcing all top leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat, to go into quarantine. However, contrary to some media reports that emerged out of UK and Pakistan, he did not blame homosexuality for the virus. The reports had claimed that he said "the coronavirus pandemic was a punishment against homosexuality". 

However, according to a Times of Israel report, the remarks were made by the ultra-conservative Rabbi Meir Mazuz, drawing condemnation from rights groups. “A pride parade is a parade against nature, and when someone goes against nature, the one who created nature takes revenge on him,” the rabbi had reportedly said.

Prime Minister Netanyahu had earlier gone into seven-day self isolation after a close aide was found to have contracted the deadly virus, but he has so far tested negative. His quarantine had ended Wednesday night.

Litzman and his wife, who also has contracted the virus, are in isolation, feeling well and are being treated, the health ministry said in a statement, adding that it will request all those who came in contact with the minister in the past two weeks to also do the same.

The team of advisers, assistants and secretarial staff in the minister's office will continue to work from home and will maintain constant telephone communication as needed with the minister, who is continuing to fully manage this event from his home, the ministry said.

He has "light coronavirus symptoms after contracting the disease from an as yet unidentified source", a Health Ministry official told Channel 12 news. "His condition at this time is mild. He is not asymptomatic, there are some symptoms, but no more than that, Dr Itamar Grotto, deputy director-general of the ministry, told the Channel.

Litzman will be "able to keep working while sick", Grotto said.

The ministry is investigating from whom Litzman contracted the disease and is informing people who have been in contact with the minister to go into quarantine, including the director-general of the health ministry, Moshe Bar Siman-Tov, the head of Mossad and a number of other senior officials, he stressed.

There's a high rate of the illness in the Haredi (Ultra-orthodox) community, so it's reasonable to think that it happened there, the official told the Channel.

The community leaders had earlier ignored restrictions over assembly as mandated by the government but have started to comply in view of the large number of cases in the community.  

Death toll due to coronavirus in Israel reached 31 on Thursday. The virus has infected 6,211 Israelis. One Israeli tourist died in Italy. 

So far 241 have recovered after having tested positive.