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From loudspeakers on the roof of a Minnesota mosque, the Islamic call to prayer echoed for the first time ever throughout a Minneapolis neighbourhood late on Thursday as the Muslim community there prepared to begin the holy month of Ramadan.

It echoed again on Friday morning and will continue five times a day during the holy month. 

The simple, short call - known as the adhan - marked an historical moment for Minneapolis and major cities across the United States, community members said. While the adhan is commonly broadcast throughout the Middle East, North Africa and other places, for many Muslims in the US, it is only heard inside mosques or community centres.

"There's definitely a lot of excitement," said Imam Abdisalam Adam, who is on the board of the Dar al-Hijrah mosque, from where the adhan will be broadcast.
"Some people see it as historic," Adam told Al Jazeera. "To the point ... that they're not doing it, able to see it in their lifetime." 

Recited by different representatives from mosques around the city, the call to prayer is expected to reach thousands in the Cedar-Riverside neighbourhood in Minneapolis, according to Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of Minnesota's Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

While Hussein says the community had discussed broadcasting the call for years, it became even more pressing this year when the coronavirus pandemic forced mosques to shut their doors and residents to stay inside. The coronavirus has infected more than 870,000 people nationwide and killed at least 50,000.
"We wanted to touch those individuals who frequent this mosque and this community," Hussein said. "If we cannot be physically together, at least this echo, this voice, this call to prayer can be an extension of us being together at this difficult time. To give some people some solace."
Ramadan - Minnesota.

The Dar al-Hijrah mosque in the Cedar-Riverside neighbourhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota [Courtesy of Abdisalem Adam] 
Ramadan is traditionally a time when Muslims worldwide regularly attend mosques for daily prayers and break their fasts together. But this year, most have been told to pray at home and forgo community iftars in favour of staying safe from the COVID-19 crisis.

Adam, the imam, said while the Muslim community is experience loss this Ramadan, they hope the call to prayer broadcast will create a "semblance of normalcy".

"With the loss of Friday prayers and the regular congregational prayers, we are hoping that this will give a sense of solace and connection to the spiritual needs of community members," he added. 

An avenue to greater investment?

The Cedar-Riverside neighbourhood is a densely populated area of Minneapolis that has historically been an entry point for many immigrants and today is home to large Somali and Oromo communities.

Ramla Bile, a Somali American who lives in a neighbourhood adjacent to Cedar-Riverside, has been active in the community for years. She welcomed the broadcast of the call to prayer, saying it will help people "feel the spirit of Ramadan in a way that is meaningful".

But she also hopes the city of Minneapolis, which provided the noise permit for the broadcast, will make bigger strides to invest in the community in even more tangible ways.

"There's been a lot of need and a lot hurt in the community in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. And then there's the ongoing conversation you've been having," she said, pointing to deep-seated Islamophobia, systemic racism and the need for infrastructure projects like sprinkler systems in high-rise buildings. 

"We need to see greater investments to support the most vulnerable members of our community," Bile said referring to the neighbourhood's elders, undocumented individuals, low-income families and others.

"Right now, we're waiting for a bailout for our micro-businesses who comprise our Somali malls, or a rent freeze for neighbourhood residents," she added.

For CAIR's Hussein and Imam Adam, they hope this Ramadan's call to prayer helps encourage other communities around the US to take similar steps.

"This will hopefully inspire others … to think about what could happen in future Ramadans and beyond," Hussein said.

Adam added that while the virus has devastated communities and upended daily life, it has also shown that "we're in this together".

"It just shows the significance of the global village and how interconnected and interdependent we are as a world community," he said. "I think that there will be a lot of change in our way of life for the better. I hope so."

The total number of global COVID-19 cases was nearing 9 million, while the deaths have increased to over 467,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

By Monday morning, the total number of cases stood at 8,927,195, while the fatalities increased to 467,636, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

With 2,279,306 cases and 119,967 deaths, the US continues with the world's highest number of COVID-19 infections and fatalities, according to the CSSE.

Brazil comes in the second place with 1,083,341 infections and 50,591 deaths.

In terms of cases, Russia ranks third (583,879), and was followed by India (410,461), the UK (305,803), Peru (251,338), Spain (246,272), Chile (242,355), Italy (238,499), Iran (204,952), France (197,008), Germany (191,272), Turkey (187,685), Mexico (180,545), Pakistan (176,617), Saudi Arabia (157,612), Bangladesh (112,306) and Canada (103,078), the CSSE figures showed.

The other countries with over 10,000 deaths are the UK (42,717), Italy (34,634), France (29,643), Spain (28,323), Mexico (21,825) and India (13,254).

Washington, May 21: US President Donald Trump China is on a "massive disinformation" campaign and is desperately trying to deflect the "pain and carnage" that it spread throughout the world, US President Donald Trump has said, upping the ante on Beijing over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

Trump, who has expressed disappointment over China's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, claimed that it was the "incompetence" of Beijing that led to the mass killing across the globe. 

"China is on a massive disinformation campaign because they are desperate to have Sleepy Joe Biden win the presidential race so they can continue to rip-off the United States, as they have done for decades, until I came along!" Trump said in a tweet on Wednesday.

"Spokesman speaks stupidly on behalf of China, trying desperately to deflect the pain and carnage that their country spread throughout the world. Its disinformation and propaganda attack on the United States and Europe is a disgrace… It all comes from the top. They could have easily stopped the plague, but they didn't," he said in a series of tweets.

Trump blamed China for spreading the coronavirus globally and accused it of being incompetent.
"Some wacko in China just released a statement blaming everybody other than China for the Virus which has now killed hundreds of thousands of people. Please explain to this dope that it was the 'incompetence of China', and nothing else, that did this mass Worldwide killing!" Trump said.

China has denied covering up the extent of its coronavirus outbreak and accused the US of attempting to divert public attention by insinuating that the virus originated from a virology laboratory in Wuhan.

"China was the first country to report the COVID-19 to the World Health Organisation (WHO), (and) that doesn't mean the virus originated from Wuhan... There has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said last month.

"A discerning person will understand at a glance that the purpose is to create confusion, divert public attention, and shirk their responsibility," he said.

The novel coronavirus which first originated in Wuhan in December last year has claimed 328,120 lives and infected nearly 5 million people globally. The Us is the worst affected country with 93,439 deaths and over 1.5 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Meanwhile, the US Senate passed a bill boosting oversight of companies based in China and other nations that could lead to their removal from American stock exchanges.

The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, proposes to increase oversight of Chinese and other foreign companies listed on American exchanges and delist and ban over-the-counter trading for firms that are out of compliance with US regulators for a period of three years.

In a related development, a group of top Republican Senators led by Marco Rubio sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin following disturbing reports that China's state-owned and-directed enterprises were looking to exploit the economic crisis by buying US and foreign companies.

As companies backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) approach banks to identify the purchase of companies in the US and in Europe affected by the pandemic, the senators urged Mnuchin to protect against the China's and the CCP's predatory economic behaviour during the COVID-19 crisis.

"We write to express our concerns related to the People's Republic of China's (PRC) efforts to exploit the economic crisis wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic to gain control of distressed companies or shirking its international responsibilities amidst a worldwide crisis.

"In both Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and PRC policy documents, Beijing has made no secret of its intentions to dominate strategic industrial and emerging technology sectors as well as influence standards at the expense of liberal, rules-based governance," wrote the senators.

As the crisis reverberates across the globe, the PRC's predatory lending practices — including the use of non-disclosure agreements for bilateral loans — not only damage the fiscal situation of recipient countries but also undermine the international community's ability to respond effectively to the crisis, they said.

"Without US and international pressure for accountability and transparency, those countries that are in debt to the PRC will not have the political cover or protection to open their financial books. Such countries will face the risk of default or a currency crisis, leaving the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and Western countries to clean up the PRC's mess," the senators said.

During a campaign round table Katrina Pierson, Senior Advisor to the Trump 2020 Campaign, said that only the US President will defeat the coronavirus, hold China accountable for their negligence, and defend the American people from socialism.