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Virus Outbreak: China virus death toll tops 1,100 as new cases fall

The death toll from the coronavirus epidemic in China yesterday climbed to 1,113, but the number of new cases fell for a second straight day, raising hope that the outbreak could peak later this month.

Ninety-seven more deaths were reported, bringing the total number of people infected by COVID-19 in mainland China to 44,653.

Two people have died elsewhere, one in Hong Kong and one in the Philippines.

Most of the deaths and a majority of cases have been in central Hubei Province, whose capital, Wuhan, is the epicenter of the outbreak. About 56 million have been placed under lockdown in the province.

The epidemic has threatened to harm the world’s second-largest economy, with ANZ bank warning that China’s first-quarter GDP growth would slow to between 3.2 and 4 percent, down from a previous projection of 5 percent.

Yet in a positive development, the number of new cases has fallen in Hubei for two straight days, according to figures from the Chinese National Health Commission.

Outside the province, the number of new patients has declined for the past week.

“In general, the number of new cases is now slowly decreasing,” Zhong Nanshan (鍾南山), a scientist at the commission, said in a video conference with medical staff in Wuhan on Tuesday.

“When does the turning point occur? I can’t say, but I think it’s at its peak in mid to late-February,” he said.

However, Australian Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy was more circumspect.

“I think we’ve just got to watch the data very closely over the coming weeks before we make any predictions,” Murphy told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

In Geneva, Switzerland, the WHO is hosting a two-day international conference on combating the virus, during which it decided to name it COVID-19.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “We are not defenseless. If we invest now ... we have a realistic chance of stopping this outbreak.”

In addition to locking down Hubei, Chinese authorities have restricted movements in several other cities far from the epicenter.

Authorities have found a cluster in the northern port city of Tianjin, just southeast of Beijing, which has been traced to a department store in Baodi District.

One-third of Tianjin’s 104 confirmed cases are in Baodi, Xinhua news agency reported.

A salesperson working in the store’s small home appliance section became the first person in the cluster to be diagnosed with COVID-19 on Jan. 31, Xinhua said.

The store was already closed at that point, then disinfected on Feb. 1, but several more diagnoses soon followed, it reported.

Additional reporting by AP

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National Taipei University held a competition to name a new student dormitory on campus, with students and staff members enthusiastically putting forward a variety of creative names, such as the winner Shizaihalou (是在哈樓, It’s at Halou) and Fenggoudong (瘋狗棟, Rabid Dog Building), the third-placed entry.

The competition ended last week and organizers selected the second-placed entry, Chenxilou (辰曦樓, Dawn Sunlight Building), to be the dormitory’s official name.

Online commenters immediately began to grumble, questioning why the second-placed entry was selected ahead of “It’s at Halou,” which garnered the most votes.

What was likely the rationale behind the organizers’ decision?

First, the competition rules clearly stated that management at the university would select one of the top three entries.

Second, the university’s three previously built dormitories were named Xiaori (曉日, Early Morning Sun), Haoyue, (皓月, Bright Moon) and Fanxing (繁星, Starry Sky).

Calling the new dormitory “Dawn Sunlight Building” created a harmonious quartet of celestial-named dormitory buildings.

Piecing together the second character of each of the existing dormitory names with the first character of the new dormitory name — ri (日, sun), yue (月, moon), xing (星, star) and chen (辰, fifth earthly branch) — creates the elegant phrase: ri yue xing chen (日月星辰), which can be translated into English as “the sun, the moon and the stars,” or “heavenly bodies.”

It is understandable why the university’s board selected this name over the other two.

Dormitory names at most Taiwanese universities are chosen by members of the administration. The buildings are typically given nondescript names such as “No. 1 Male Dormitory” or “No. 2 Female Dormitory.”

Taking this into consideration, Dawn Sunlight Building is not such a bad name. Moreover, the decision to choose the second-placed name did not keep those who created the winning entry from pocketing their prize money.

Instead, the controversy centers on the decisionmaking process. That the decision was unilaterally made by the university’s board has left many of the school’s students feeling somewhat angry.

There is a simple solution to this problem: Every university has a dormitory committee comprised of students, members of the administration and faculty representatives. The final decision regarding a new dormitory’s name should be rendered by this committee that includes all of the stakeholders.

This would allow the school to accommodate a broader range of perspectives and dispel any accusations of an autocratic decisionmaking process.

At universities where students enjoy a high degree of autonomy, the whole process could be organized by a self-governing student union.

Many people worry that such a system would result in the selection of joke names, but the opposite is true. It is precisely because of the extra oversight that students support funny names.

In a democratic society, it is vital that people take responsibility for their decisions and universities are the ideal forum for cultivating this self-discipline.

In the future, may every school in Taiwan include a higher degree of student input in their decisionmaking.

Chiu Cheng-liang is president of the student union at National Taiwan Ocean University.

Translated by Edward Jones

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title: Include students in university decisions


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The COVID-19 outbreak is in its third month. At the end of last month, the WHO declared the crisis a global health emergency, and ever since the topic has taken over the international media and caused uncertainty around the world.

The WHO announcement and the coronavirus itself has caused considerable commotion in Taiwan, which is understandable given how little is known about how it operates and how to effectively fight it, but such times require people to use logic and facts, rather than giving in to panic.

Regardless of how much the media exaggerate the outbreak or the extent of people’s fear, the coronavirus does not have a high mortality rate. People need to consider this, because letting panic cloud their reasoning puts themselves more at risk.

Chinese authorities and the international media have reported that the death rate of the coronavirus is about 2 percent. This figure in and of itself is relatively low and, according to the reports, most of the people in that 2 percent were elderly people or people whose immune systems were compromised prior to becoming infected.

The low death rate has done little to prevent panic from spreading even faster than the coronavirus. There is even a conspiracy theory circulating that says that the reported numbers are not accurate, but that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is hiding the real numbers to “save face.”

Believing unfounded rumors only leads to more uncertainty and fear. They have intensified following the death of Li Wenliang (李文亮), a doctor who posted on social media about the coronavirus when it began to spread, but was censored by police.

There are reasons for believing the CCP is not being completely transparent — and no one could blame anyone who chooses to believe this — but the coronavirus has spread to about 28 countries and there are only two confirmed deaths outside of China (one in Hong Kong and one in the Philippines).

This should be enough for people to calm down and understand how low the death rate really is. With the coronavirus reaching so many countries, it would be impossible to hide a higher death rate and, more importantly, the rest of the world has no need to hide the real figure.

It is normal to fear the unknown. A lack of information about how the coronavirus operates led many people to swarm pharmacies and convenience stores to buy large quantities of masks, creating a shortage at the end of the Lunar New Year holiday.

This prompted the Centers for Disease Control to announce that healthy people do not need to wear a mask unless visiting a hospital, but this did little to prevent people from stocking up on masks and the government implemented a rationing system, which allows a person to only buy two masks per week.

This mask hysteria, shared by Taiwanese and foreigners alike, has not had the effect of protecting everyone. Instead, if someone with a cough and fever needs to get checked out at a hospital, but cannot obtain a mask, more people would become infected, because the coronavirus is transmitted from human to human when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

More than wearing a mask, people are recommended to wash their hands to keep from getting infected. It is also recommended that people avoid touching their nose, eyes or face with unwashed hands.

If a person feels that wearing a mask is beneficial, no one can keep them from doing so, but if a mask is worn, certain guidelines should be followed to ensure their effectiveness.

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title: Panic worsens coronavirus crisis


title: Volkswagen, Daimler push for ‘sustainable’ lithium

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German automakers Volkswagen AG and Daimler AG have launched a study to push for more “sustainable” lithium mining in Chile, lobbyist filings showed, a sign of growing supply chain concerns ahead of an expected electric vehicle boom.

Chile’s Atacama salt flat is by far the biggest source of supply of the ultralight battery metal in South America’s “lithium triangle.” The region, whose fragile ecosystem relies on a limited water supply, is home to the globe’s top two producers, US-based Albemarle Corp and Chile’s SQM.

However, concerns over sustainability have long plagued Atacama’s miners, which extract the metal from pools of brine beneath the world’s driest desert. Residents and environmental groups worry about potential damage to a regional ecosystem, home to an ancient indigenous culture, lagoons inhabited with rare flamingos and a booming tourism industry.

Lobbying records show a team from German development agency GIZ and the public-private Fundacion Chile met with Cristobal de La Maza, chief of top Chilean environmental regulator SMA, early this year to formally present plans for the “feasibility study.”

“This project is driven by the Volkswagen and Daimler companies,” the filings showed. “The growing importance of batteries has made the sustainability of lithium a key priority for these companies.”

Volkswagen confirmed in an e-mail that it had contracted the study. Daimler declined to comment.

Pressure is mounting on German automakers to fast-track production of electric vehicles to meet increasingly stringent EU anti-pollution rules. Volkswagen alone has staked its future on a US$91 billion plan to profitably mass-produce zero-emission vehicles.

That push has prompted beefed-up scrutiny of mining practices around key metals, such as cobalt, copper and lithium, all of which are predicted to see a spike in demand in the coming years.

The filings suggest work has already begun on the “feasibility study,” including talks with local communities, regulators and miners.

The goal of the meetings, the filings showed, is to develop a “joint action plan” and in time, “implement prioritized actions” to address the growing concerns about lithium mining in the region.

Concerns about sustainability have emerged as a key vulnerability for Chile as a lithium mining hot spot.

A Chilean environmental court in December last year called the Atacama ecosystem particularly fragile. It warned of a “high level of scientific uncertainty” around the behavior of its water table.

The water usage issue has also become a sticking point for the plans of both SQM and Albemarle to boost output from Chile to meet the anticipated spike in demand.

Australia, the world’s No. 1 producer of the white metal, mines its lithium from hard rock, not brine.

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title: World Business Quick Take

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AUTOMAKERS

Nissan sues Ghosn

Japanese giant Nissan Motor Co yesterday filed a civil lawsuit to reclaim ￥10 billion (US$91 million) from former chairman Carlos Ghosn for what it called “years of his misconduct and fraudulent activity.” Nissan said the damages had been calculated on the basis of the cost to the firm of his “corrupt practices.” It accused him of “the use of overseas residential property without paying rent, private use of corporate jets, payments to his sister, payments to his personal lawyer in Lebanon.”

TECHNOLOGY

Softbank profits fall

Major Japanese technology investor Softbank Group Corp yesterday said its net profit plunged nearly 70 percent for the nine months to December last year as investments in companies such as WeWork Cos and Uber Technologies Inc took a hit. Its bottom-line profit lost 69 percent to ￥476.6 billion for the period as the firm suffered an operating loss of ￥13.0 billion. The company did not publish its outlook for the year to March.

MINING

Vale hit hard last year

Brazilian giant Vale SA on Tuesday said its iron-ore production plunged last year, calling it “the most challenging year of its history” after a dam collapse at one of its mines killed 270 people. Vale, the world’s largest iron ore producer, said its output of the metal fell to 302 million tonnes last year, down 21.5 percent from 2018. The company said in a statement it was hit hard in January last year by the dam collapse at its mine in Brumadinho, southeastern Brazil.

APPAREL

Under Armour shares down

Under Armour Inc’s shares on Tuesday plummeted 16.7 percent after the company said it anticipates a big financial hit from the coronavirus outbreak in China. It also said it might need to book hundreds of millions of US dollars in charges as it restructures its business. The athletic gear maker expects the outbreak to drag its first-quarter sales down by US$50 million to US$60 million. It is also looking at pre-tax charges this year of between US$325 million and US$425 million related to restructuring.

UNITED KINGDOM

Brexit stifles growth

Uncertainty related to Brexit seems to have weighed heavily on the economy during the final quarter of last year as output flatlined. The Office for National Statistics on Tuesday said that increases in the services and construction sectors were offset by another poor showing from manufacturing, particularly the auto industry. As a result, the economy stagnated following upwardly revised 0.5 percent growth in the third quarter. Overall, the economy grew by 1.4 percent last year.

TELECOMS

Court OKs Sprint takeover

T-Mobile US Inc has won court approval for its US$26.5 billion takeover of Sprint Corp, defeating a state-led lawsuit that sought to block the industry-altering wireless deal. The decision by a district judge in Manhattan is a huge win for T-Mobile and its owner, Deutsche Telekom AG, as well as Softbank Group Corp, Sprint’s parent. The combined company, which would operate under the T-Mobile name, would have a regular monthly subscriber base of about 80 million — in the same league as AT&T Inc, which has 75 million subscribers, and Verizon Communications Inc, which has 114 million.

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Win Semiconductors posts record-high income for Q4

EXPLOSIVE GROWTH:The company’s president said that it is expanding capacity for making chips for 5G products to capitalize on that expanding market this year
Win Semiconductors Corp (穩懋半導體), the world’s largest gallium arsenide wafer foundry, yesterday posted record-high net income for last quarter, driven by strong demand for power amplifiers used in 5G mobile phones and compound semiconductors used in 3D sensors.

The company expects the growth momentum of 5G-related and 3D sensing devices to carry into this year, fueling revenue to grow beyond last year’s record-high NT$21.38 billion (US$711.91 million), up 23 percent annually.

It is premature to predict how an outbreak of COVID-19 would affect its businesses, given uncertainty over containment of the coronavirus and the firm’s diverse customer base, Win Semiconductors said.

The company said that it would stick to its capacity expansion of 5,000 wafers per month to cope with increasing demand for vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser chips that are primarily used in 3D sensors.

Win Semiconductors is a major supplier to Lumentum Holdings Inc, which supplies 3D sensors for Apple Inc’s iPhone.

“We believe 5G-related [applications] is a major growth driver this year,” Win Semiconductors president Kyle Chen (陳國樺) told investors in a teleconference.

“The penetration rate of 5G mobile phones is forecast to climb to between 15 percent and 20 percent this year, from just 1 percent last year,” he said.

Win Semiconductors would benefit from such explosive growth in 5G mobile phone shipments, as each smartphone is equipped at least two more power amplifiers than a 4G cellphone, Chen said.

Power amplifiers for 5G smartphones are expected to make up a bigger portion of the company’s total shipments this year, from 10 percent last year, he said.

Last year was a banner year for the company in expanding to gallium nitride chips for 5G-enabled base stations, Win Semiconductors said, adding that it would expand capacity for such chips after securing orders from a key client.

A seasonal down cycle would reduce revenue this quarter, it said, forecasting that would revenue dip by a low double-digit percentage from NT$4.21 billion last quarter.

“The first quarter is a slow season, as mobile phone demand usually dwindles,” Chen said, adding that fewer working days would also trim revenue.

Gross margin would fall to the low 40 percent range this quarter, from 44.2 percent last quarter, the company said.

Win Semiconductors reported that net income last quarter grew 12.2 percent to NT$1.84 billion, from NT$1.64 billion in the previous quarter and compared with NT$733 million in the same quarter a year earlier.

For last year as a whole, net income totaled NT$4.4 billion, soaring 43.32 percent from NT$3.07 billion in 2018, with earnings per share rising from NT$7.39 to NT$10.59, the company said.

The company plans to spend NT$6 billion on new facilities and equipment, slightly up from NT$5.3 billion last year, it said.

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Rennes end plucky Belfort’s Coupe run

‘NO REGRETS’:The fourth-division side piled pressure on the Ligue 1 team, whose players gave their amateur opponents an honor guard at the end of the match
Stade Rennais’ Raphinha, left, scores a goal past ASM Belfort’s Yannick Konki in their Coupe de France quarter-final in Montbeliard, France, on Tuesday.Photo: AFP
The magical run by minnows ASM Belfort in the Coupe de France on Tuesday came to an end at the quarter-final stage after a 3-0 home defeat to holders Stade Rennais.

The fourth-division side were applauded off the pitch at a packed Stade Auguste Bonal, the home of Ligue 2 side Sochaux-Montbeliard, after a thrilling cup run that saw them knock out UEFA Champions League-chasing Montpellier Herault in the previous round.

Rennes are third in Ligue 1 and hoping to qualify for Europe’s top competition next season, but that did not stop Belfort from pushing them all the way — so much so that Rennes players gave their amateur opponents an honor guard at the end of the match.

“We have no regrets,” Belfort coach Anthony Hacquard said. “We’re truly amateur, so we’re just proud to have been there. To see all these people coming to the stadium makes us proud.”

A first-half strike by Raphinha, an M’Baye Niang spot-kick 16 minutes from the end and Jordan Siebatcheu’s counterattack finish in stoppage-time did for Belfort.

However, the deficit would have been bigger had Belfort goalkeeper Eddy Ehlinger not pulled off some magnificent saves in the second half.

Just 18 years old and already a penalty shoot-out hero against Montpellier, Ehlinger kept the deficit at one goal midway through the second half with two magnificent one-on-one saves from Adrien Hunou and Niang, but could do nothing to stop Rennes making it two from the subsequent corner.

Yannick Konki got his hand to a shot, allowing Senegal international Niang to make amends from the spot for his miss seconds earlier and ensure that Rennes move on to the semis.

Belfort continued to push for a goal as the enthusiastic home crowd cheered them on, but Rennes threatened on the break and Ehlinger denied Hunou again with 10 minutes left with a superb stop.

Siebatcheu made the scoreline more flattering for Rennes a minute into added time, meeting Raphinha’s low pass with a calm finish.

SAS Epinal, another fourth-tier side who saw off Lille OSC in the last 16, have a chance to take amateur soccer to the semis when they host AS Saint-Etienne today.

There were two all-Ligue 1 encounters scheduled for yesterday, with Dijon FCO awaiting the visit of Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique Lyonnais coach Rudi Garcia facing his old team Olympique de Marseille in the other last-eight tie.

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title: Rennes end plucky Belfort’s Coupe run


title: GSMA debates canceling MWC as telecoms pull out

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Telecoms lobby GSMA is to hold a board meeting tomorrow to discuss the possible cancelation of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, after several big-name withdrawals because of the COVID-19 outbreak, an industry source said on Tuesday.

MWC, scheduled to take place from Feb. 24 to 27, is the telecom industry’s biggest annual gathering, with companies spending millions on stands and hospitality to fill their order books.

The world event was put in jeopardy after the coronavirus outbreak prompted US technology and telecom heavyweights, such as Cisco Systems Inc, Sprint Corp and Facebook Inc, to pull out.

“Out of an abundance of caution, Facebook employees won’t be attending this year’s Mobile World Congress due to the evolving public health risks related to coronavirus,” Facebook said in a statement.

A number of companies — including AT&T Inc, Ericsson AB, Amazon.com Inc, Sony Corp, NTT Docomo Inc, LG Electronics Co, Intel Corp, Nvidia Corp and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) — had already dropped out of the four-day international conference that draws more than 100,000 visitors.

Adding to the concerns over the impact of the epidemic, the WHO on Tuesday warned of a global threat potentially worse than terrorism.

A cancelation of the event would be a big blow for Catalonia’s capital city.

The congress usually gives a US$500 million lift to the local economy as delegates throng to the trade fairgrounds, wine and dine contacts, and crisscross Barcelona by taxi.

In the event of a full cancelation of the conference, the financial liability for the organizers might depend on whether the Spanish government changes its health advice on COVID-19.

Spanish Minister of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare Salvador Illa on Tuesday told reporters that there is no public health reason for the event not to go ahead.

Illa added that additional health measures related to the MWC could be announced yesterday. GSMA did not respond to requests seeking comment.

Additional reporting by AP

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The Ferrari Formula One SF1000 is displayed at its unveiling ceremony in Reggio Emilia, Italy, on Tuesday.Photo: AFP / Ferrari Press Office
Ferrari on Tuesday showed off their Formula One car for this year with a theatrical show of pride and passion, assuring success-starved fans that it was also very different under the skin to last year’s model.

The SF1000, marking the Italian team’s 1,000th race that comes up this year, is the car Ferrari hope can end six years of Mercedes domination and dash Lewis Hamilton’s bid to equal Michael Schumacher’s record seven titles.

If the red machine looked superficially similar under the stage lights to last year’s version, team principal Mattia Binotto said appearances were deceptive.

“We have been as extreme in all the concepts as we could,” he told a global audience watching as the car made its appearance on stage at Reggio Emilia’s opulent Romolo Valli opera house.

“The entire car, power unit, has been packaged to have a very narrow and slim body shape,” Binotto said.

“It may look very similar to last year, but, believe me, it’s completely different and a lot of the concepts are very extreme,” said the Swiss-born Italian, who is starting his second year at the helm.

Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, on stage with 22-year-old Monegasque teammate Charles Leclerc, gave it his immediate seal of approval.

“I like it a lot,” said the German, who also showed off his Italian in addressing the audience. “And it’s a little bit more red than last year.”

Ferrari won three races last year, two for Leclerc and the other for Vettel, and finished runners-up to Mercedes, who won both titles for an unprecedented sixth successive season.

Last season proved a particularly cold shower for the only team to have competed in every championship since the start in 1950, with the car raising hopes by being quickest in pre-season testing, only to then fail to deliver as expected.

Both the team and drivers made errors, while a lack of reliability also led to likely wins slipping through their fingers.

Presenting the new car away from Maranello, Italy, for the first time, in a nearby city famed as the birthplace of the Italian flag and with fans thronging the square outside, Ferrari’s presentation put emotion center stage.

A violin soloist played, cymbals clashed and a youth orchestra performed stirring Formula One-themed music as the team put on a show before the serious work of testing starts in Barcelona, Spain, on Wednesday next week.

About 350 men and women from the racing department took their seats in the auditorium and were recognized as Ferrari’s “unsung heroes” by president Louis Camilleri.

“We all share a passion for the prancing horse,” Camilleri said. “We are all very conscious of the huge responsibilities that lie on our shoulders.”

Ferrari last won a drivers’ title with Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 and a constructors’ title in 2008.

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title: Ferrari show off ‘extreme’ SF1000 car


title: Samsung touts new foldable phones

companies: Apple Google

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Attendees on Tuesday take photographs of the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip foldable smartphone at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2020 in San Francisco.Photo: Reuters
Samsung Electronics Co on Tuesday unveiled a new foldable phone, the Galaxy Z Flip, its second attempt to sell consumers on phones with bendable screens and clamshell designs.

The new phone, announced at a product event in San Francisco, can unfold from a small square upward into a traditional smartphone form, and goes on sale tomorrow starting at US$1,380.

Samsung’s first foldable phone, the Galaxy Fold, finally went on sale in September last year after delays and reports of screens breaking. The Fold, which carries a price tag of nearly US$2,000, folds at a vertical crease rather than horizontally as a flip-phone design would. Motorola has also taken the flip-phone approach with its new US$1,500 Razr phone.

The Z Flip can stay open at different angles for use watching videos or taking photos. When the phone is closed, it takes selfies and displays notifications in a small window on the cover. Unfolded, its screen measures 17cm diagonally.

Samsung says it added fibers to the gap between the hinge and the phone to keep out dust and improve hinge function, likely to address the shortcomings of the Galaxy Fold.

On the more traditional front, Samsung offers its S series. In a nod to the start of the 2020s, the South Korean company showed off the Galaxy S20, S20 Plus and S20 Ultra, skipping directly to the S20 from its previous S10 series.

The S20 phones are designed to take high-quality pictures in dark settings, Samsung product manager Mark Holloway said. The phones can take both video and photos at the same time, using artificial intelligence to zero in on the best moments to capture the still images.

Samsung’s renewed focus on the camera follows other smartphone makers. Apple Inc last fall announced the iPhone 11, which offers an additional lens for wider-angle shots and combined multiple shots with software to improve low-light images. Google’s Pixel phones also offer a similar low-light feature.

Samsung’s S phones already offer the wider angle and some features for low-lighting. However, the company says the new phones would focus on high-resolution photos and the ability to zoom in 30 to 100 times, depending on the model.

The camera on the S20 series is “a giant leap,” Moor Insights & Strategy’s Patrick Moorhead said, adding that people might gravitate toward the more expensive models even as the sales of smartphones slow.

Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen called the S20 “astounding,” but worried that the crowd at the event had a muted response.

“I think we’ve reached the point in the technology timeline that all of us have technology that’s so good, better than we can even grasp or take advantage of, that anything new that’s introduced is not greeted with the same enthusiasm,” he said.

The S20 phones go on sale in the US on March 6, and range in price from US$1,000 to US$1,400.

All S20 models are compatible with 5G networks. The Z Flip does not work with 5G networks.

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title: Banks help virus-affected customers

content_text:
Several state-run banks are offering debt relief programs to help customers weather the effects of an outbreak of COVID-19.

Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行), the nation’s largest lender by number of branches, yesterday said that it had set aside NT$10 billion (US$333 million) for a special program to help corporate and retail customers affected by the epidemic.

The virus has played havoc on the nation’s tourism, transportation, retail and hospitality sectors as global authorities put in place travel restrictions to prevent its spread.

Taiwan Cooperative said that it would also push back payments by up to three months for customers who are quarantined in their homes or stranded abroad and unable to honor their debt obligations.

There would be no fines or additional interest charges in those cases, the bank said.

Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) said that it would allow small and medium-sized enterprises to take out loans of up to NT$1 million each to alleviate cash strains due to the outbreak.

Land Bank, the nation’s largest mortgage operator, said that it would grant favorable interest rates and forgo application fees for transactions under the relief program.

Payments on existing loans could be extended by three months as long as firms and individuals can document the link between their financial difficulty and the epidemic, it said.

Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐銀行), another state-run lender focused on international financing, said that it would provide corporate customers low-interest rate loans for up to three years.

Customers can apply for loans over the Internet, the lender said.

It said it would not fine customers for delayed credit card payments caused by the outbreak.

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title: Taiwan Business Quick Take

content_text:
AIRLINES

Cebu launch delayed

StarLux Airlines Co (星宇航空) yesterday announced that it is postponing the launch of its Taoyuan-Cebu route until July 1 due to Manila’s announcement on Monday that it was temporarily banning Taiwanese visitors to the Philippines amid efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It had been set to launch flights on April 6. Those who have booked tickets to Cebu from April 6 to June 30 would receive a refund or be able to change their tickets to other destinations, StarLux said.

COMPUTERS

Advantech restarts Kunshan

Industrial PC supplier Advantech Co Ltd (研華) yesterday said that it plans to restart its Kunshan manufacturing center on Monday next week, which is estimated to initially recover about 15 percent of production capacity. While authorities in Beijing, Shanghai and Guanzhou have given Advantech permission to reopen its regional offices, it has asked its nearly 3,400 direct and sub-contracted employees across China to work from home this week. Approval to reopen its offices in Shenzhen, Chengdu and Xian is still pending, Advantech said.

COMPUTERS

Asustek revenue off 11.32%

Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday posted an 11.32 percent year-on-year decline in revenue to NT$23.2 billion (US$772.5 million) for last month. The decrease was mainly due to the Lunar New Year holiday, which led to fewer working days, the company said. It also expressed uncertainty over first-quarter business operations due to COVID-19. It is working closely with its supply chain and sales partners to handle any potential changes in the industry, Asustek said.

LIGHTING

Longer leave dims Radiant

Radiant Opto-Electronics Corp (瑞儀光電), a leading supplier of LCD backlight modules, yesterday said that a decreased number of working days due to an extended Lunar New Year holiday amid the virus outbreak in China would affect its revenue. The company did not elaborate and has yet to release sales data for last month. Its Suzhou and Guangzhou subsidiaries restarted operations on Monday, while its Nanjing unit resumed work on Tuesday, Radiant Opto-Electronics said in a regulatory filing.

PANEL MAKERS

HannStar revenue slides 6%

LCD panel maker HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) yesterday reported that revenue last month decreased 6.04 percent from a year earlier and 29.34 percent from the previous month to NT$1.1 billion. The company’s subsidiary in Nanjing, China, remains shut and is still waiting for the local government’s permission to restart operations. The delayed resumption of work at Hannstar Display (Nanjing) Corp (南京瀚宇彩欣) would affect its revenue, HannStar said.

ELECTRONICS

Ichia revenue plunges

Handset keypad maker Ichia Technologies Inc (毅嘉科技) yesterday reported revenue of NT$392.48 million for last month, down 27.36 percent from a year earlier and 20.78 percent from the previous month, due to fewer working days because of the Lunar New Year holiday. Last month’s revenue included about NT$277 million in sales from flexible printed circuit integrated components and about NT$117 million from mechanical integrated components, it said. Revenue for this month would depend on the COVID-19 outbreak and the resumption of business operations in China, it added.

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title: Boeing warns of virus impact on aviation industry

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Visitors with protective masks yesterday look at a Boeing 777 model at the Singapore Airshow.Photo: AFP
Boeing Co yesterday issued a stark warning about the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, saying there was “no question” it would hammer the aviation industry and the broader economy.

Major airlines have halted flights in and out of China, where a lockdown has been imposed in the worst-affected areas, while several countries have banned arrivals from China.

“You have several global airlines that have limited their traffic in and out of China, that’s revenue,” Boeing senior vice president of commercial global sales and marketing Ihssane Mounir said.

“You have business trips not happening, you have cargo not going in and out,” Mounir said. “It will have an impact on the economy, it will have an impact on revenues, it will have an impact on these carriers... there’s no question about it.”

Mounir was speaking in Singapore to reporters at Asia’s biggest air show, which has seen more than 70 exhibitors withdraw and a fall in visitor numbers due to virus fears.

Singapore has reported 47 cases of COVID-19 so far and has raised its health alert level to the same as during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak.

The vast exhibition center hosting the four-day show has been unusually empty, pockmarked by empty booths of companies who have pulled out.

Boeing gets some aircraft components from China, but Mounir said he was not yet seeing any impact on those operations from the coronavirus.

Boeing on Tuesday reported no new plane orders last month and a drop in jet deliveries as the protracted grounding of the 737 MAX continued to weigh on the company.

The aerospace giant booked orders for 45 jets in January last year, but none during that period this year, according to its Web site, the latest bit of negative news since the MAX was grounded in March last year following two deadly crashes.

Deliveries also fell to 13 last month, compared with 46 in the period a year earlier.

The company is targeting the middle of this year to win regulatory approval to resume flights of the MAX.

On Tuesday, US Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Steve Dickson said in Singapore that a MAX certification flight had still not been scheduled, a key step in the process.

“We are approaching a milestone, the certification flight is the next major milestone,” Dickson said.

However, he added that the flight was not scheduled yet, “because we still have a few issues to resolve... We are waiting for proposals from Boeing on a few items.”

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title: US regulators probing tech acquisitions

companies: Google Apple

content_text:
US regulators probing tech acquisitions

LOOKING BACK:The FTC and the US Justice Department said that five major tech firms have been aggressively purchasing potential rivals to suppress competition
US federal regulators are ramping up their investigation of the market dominance of giant technology companies, demanding detailed information on five companies’ acquisitions of smaller firms back to 2010.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Tuesday announced the move, issuing orders to Facebook Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp and Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. Hundreds of takeovers of smaller companies are involved.

FTC Chairman Joseph Simons said that as a result of the review, the government might require tech giants to unwind earlier acquisitions and divest their assets if it found breaches of antitrust law.

“All of our options are on the table,” Simons said in a conference call with reporters. “If there are some transactions that are problematic, then we have that opportunity and that ability to go back and challenge” them.

Short of requiring divesting pieces of companies, other options could include putting assets into a separate company unit or mandating changes in how the companies conduct business, Simons said.

The review is focused on acquisitions with a smaller value, about US$100 million or less, that did not trigger government reporting requirements for the companies.

However, Simons said that the regulators are interested in tech industry mergers of all sizes. The FTC staff also would look into whether companies might have manipulated the value of some acquisitions to evade the reporting requirements, he said.

The FTC, the US Department of Justice and a US House committee have been investigating the conduct of Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple, and whether they aggressively bought smaller potential rivals to suppress competition and hurt consumers. Some critics have pointed to Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp, for example, as deals that should be questioned.

The popular messaging services are among about 70 companies that Facebook has acquired over the past 15 years or so, giving it what critics say is massive market power that has enabled it to snuff out competition.

The five FTC commissioners voted unanimously to issue the so-called special orders to the tech companies. The agency is asking the companies for information and documents on the terms, scope, structure and purpose of acquisitions made between Jan. 1, 2010, and Dec. 31 last year.

A Republican commissioner, Christine Wilson, and a Democrat, Rohit Chopra, said in a separate statement that they supported the demand for information on the companies’ previous acquisitions.

However, they said the agency also should study how tech companies’ targeted advertising practices affect the collection, use and sharing of consumers’ personal data.

Apart from the government and congressional investigations, state attorneys general from both political parties are conducting antitrust probes of Google and Facebook.

Microsoft on Tuesday said it looks forward to working with the FTC to answer its questions. A spokesperson for Facebook declined comment on the FTC action. Spokespeople for Google and Amazon said the companies had no immediate comment; an Apple spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

David Cicilline, a Democratic representative and chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, who is leading the panel’s probe, called the FTC’s new action “an important step in correcting the decades of inaction by antitrust enforcement agencies that have led to consolidation in the digital marketplace and across almost all sectors of our economy.”

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title: Abbas warns UN about US’ ‘Swiss cheese’ peace deal

content_text:
A Palestinian demonstrator hits a poster depicting US President Donald Trump with a shoe at a rally in support of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and against Trump’s Middle East peace plan, in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank ,on Tuesday.Photo: Reuters
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday urged the UN Security Council to reject US President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan, saying it would splinter Palestinian lands and never bring lasting peace.

Brandishing a large map of a future Palestine as laid out by Trump, Abbas denounced it as a “Swiss cheese” deal that would give the Palestinians only a “fragmented state” without control of their air space, territorial waters or East Jerusalem.

“Who among you would accept such a state?” Abbas asked, as he warned that Israel would create an “apartheid” situation if it moves ahead with annexation.

“I would like to say to Mr Donald Trump that his plan cannot achieve peace and security, as it cancels international legitimacy,” Abbas said.

“If you impose peace, it will not last, it cannot last,” he said.

“This deal is not an international partnership. This proposal was from one state, supported by another state to be imposed,” he added.

The Palestinians have sought to rally international support against the plan, which Trump unveiled alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Jan. 28.

However, in a setback, the Palestinians dropped plans for a vote on a resolution that would denounce the proposal.

Diplomats said that the US has put heavy pressure, including threats of financial repercussions, on Security Council members and that even some European nations were hesitant.

A senior US official hailed the development, saying: “By not putting forward a polarizing resolution, the United Nations Security Council demonstrated that the old way of doing things is over.”

The veteran 84-year-old leader, long considered a moderate among the Palestinians, rejected the use of violence, but said that street protests showed the deep opposition to Israeli occupation.

“Our entire people is saying: ‘No, no, no’ to this deal,” Abbas said.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon replied that Abbas stood in the way of a solution.

“Only when he steps down can Israel and the Palestinians move forward,” Danon said.

“He is trying to blame the lack of progress on Israel. Complaining instead of leading is not leadership,” Danon said, calling on the Palestinians to find a “realistic solution.”

However, Abbas won a show of support as he met in New York with Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who said that any negotiations needed to involve the Palestinian leader.

“He is a man of peace, he is opposed to terror, and therefore he is the only partner that we can deal with,” Olmert, a centrist who served as prime minister from 2006 to 2009, told reporters with Abbas at his side.

Whenever negotiations start, “the partner of Israel to these negotiations will be Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority,” Olmert said.

Danon lashed out at Olmert for going ahead with the meeting.

“He is endorsing diplomatic terrorism against Israel. It is shameful,” Danon said.

The Palestinians previously won support from the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the African Union, which have all rejected Trump’s plan.

On Tuesday, the four EU members of the Security Council — France, Germany, Belgium and Estonia — as well as Poland, which left the council at the end of last year, jointly said that any Middle East solution needs to be based on lines before 1967, when Israel seized the West Bank in the Six-Day War.

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Australian government will replace ‘failing’ Aboriginal policies: Morrison

Australia is on track to meet just two of its targets aimed at improving the lives of Aborigines, including increasing life expectancy and improving literacy, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday.

In 2007, Australia introduced seven targets designed to address inequalities that see the country’s 700,000 Aborigines track near the bottom of its 25 million citizens in almost every economic and social indicator.

However, Morrison said that the government’s policy is failing and would be replaced.

“We perpetuated an ingrained way of thinking passed down over two centuries and more, and it was the belief that we knew better than our indigenous peoples. We don’t,” Morrison told parliament.

“We also thought we understood their problems better than they did. We don’t. They live them. We must see the gap we wish to close, not from our viewpoints, but from the viewpoint of indigenous Australians,” he said.

Morrison said new Aboriginal polices would be designed following consultation with the country’s Aborigines, with whom Australia has struggled to reconcile following hundreds of years of brutal segregation.

Aborigines arrived on the continent at least 50,000 years before British colonists, but are not recognized in the country’s constitution.

According to the annual report, literacy rates for Aboriginal students are 20 percent behind the national benchmark and child mortality is more than double that for non-Aboriginal children, while unemployment in the Aboriginal population is more than 25 percent higher than the rest of the country.

“There is more than just a gap, it is a chasm, a gaping wound on the soul of our nation,” said Pat Turner, chief executive officer at the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation.

“Collectively, we need to call this out, be truthful about the failure of governments and how we got here, so that we can chart a new and honest way forward,” Turner said.

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NEW ZEALAND

Rescuers seek British hiker

Search operations were yesterday underway for a British backpacker who went missing on South Island after an intense flood. Stephanie Simpson, 32, has not been seen since she went for a hike last weekend at Mount Aspiring National Park. “Search teams remained out in the area overnight,” police said in a statement. Last week, flash floods and incessant torrential rains hit the area, leaving several hundred tourists stranded and forcing many residents to evacuate their homes.

INDONESIA

Officials pan US virus study

The government has criticised a US study questioning why the world’s fourth most-populous nation has not yet recorded a case of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, calling the findings an insult and insisting that it is on high alert. A study by Harvard University public health researchers this week found that Indonesia should have reported a coronavirus outbreak and could have undetected cases given its extensive air links to China. “They can be baffled, but it’s a fact” that there are no cases, Minister of Health Terawan Agus Putranto told reporters on Tuesday. “I am just telling you like it is. We’re not hiding anything.”

AFGHANISTAN

US-Taliban talks ‘progress’

President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday said he was told by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that “notable progress” has been made in talks between the US and the Taliban on an agreement for a US troop withdrawal from the country. Ghani wrote on Twitter that Pompeo had informed him by telephone that the Taliban had made a proposal “with regards to bringing a significant and enduring reduction in violence.”

SOUTH AFRICA

Mandela release celebrated

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday marked the 30th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from jail with an address from the spot where the anti-apartheid icon made his first speech as an awestruck Ramaphosa held the microphone for him. “The day Mandela was released was a day we all knew that apartheid was dead and finished. It was a moment where the world literally stood still,” Ramaphosa told a thousand people gathered in front of Cape Town city hall. “He stood here to speak and I held the microphone,” said Ramaphosa, speaking in front of a giant statue of Mandela. “Nothing could describe that brief second when that microphone crackled,” he said. “That was the moment everyone was waiting for — Nelson Mandela’s first words.”

UNITED KINGDOM

‘The Splash’ sells for ￡23m

Seminal pop art painting The Splash by David Hockey sold for ￡23.1 million (US$30 million) at a London auction on Tuesday, the third-highest price paid for a work by the British artist. The Splash, which was painted in 1966, depicts the moment just after a diver has broken the surface of a swimming pool, capturing the fantasy Californian lifestyle. The price, bid by an unknown buyer, is nearly eight times that achieved when the work last sold at auction for ￡2.9 million in 2006.

UNITED STATES

Virus evacuees released

Nearly 200 people evacuated from Wuhan, China, over the COVID-19 outbreak were on Tuesday released from quarantine in California with officials urging people not to shun them, or workers who helped them, after both groups faced discrimination. The 195 evacuees, mostly Department of State employees, were flown to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, where they were quarantined for 14 days — the outer limit of the virus’ possible incubation period. None tested positive for the virus, but their arrival stoked unfounded fears in the local community that they or base personnel would spread the disease, Riverside County public health officer Cameron Kaiser told a news conference. “They don’t need additional tests, they don’t need to be shunned, they don’t have novel coronavirus,” Kaiser told reporters after his department published a photograph of the former patients throwing away their masks in a quarantine graduation ceremony.

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title: World News Quick Take


title: Action needed now to prevent the death of the world’s rivers

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From the Tigris to the Indus and the Yangtze to the Nile, rivers were essential to the emergence of human civilization. Millennia later, hundreds of millions of people still depend on rivers to quench their thirst, grow food and make a living.

Yet we are rapidly destroying the planet’s river systems, with serious implications for our economies, societies and even our survival.

China is a case in point. Its dam-building frenzy and over-exploitation of rivers is wreaking environmental havoc on Asia, destroying forests, depleting biodiversity and straining water resources.

China’s first water census, released in 2013, showed that the number of rivers — not including small streams — had plummeted by more than half over the previous six decades, with more than 27,000 rivers lost.

The situation has only deteriorated since then. The Mekong River is running at a historically low level, owing largely to a series of Chinese-built mega-dams near the border of the Tibetan Plateau, just before the river crosses into Southeast Asia.

The Tibetan Plateau is the starting point of most of Asia’s major rivers, and China has taken advantage of that, not least to gain leverage over downstream countries.

China might be the world’s largest dam builder, but it is not alone; other countries, from Asia to Latin America, have also been tapping long rivers for electricity generation.

The diversion of water for irrigation is also a major source of strain on rivers. Crop and livestock production absorbs almost three-quarters of the world’s freshwater resources, while creating runoff that, together with industrial waste and sewage discharge, pollutes those very resources.

In total, almost two-thirds of the world’s long rivers have been modified, and some of the world’s longest — including the Nile and the Rio Grande — now qualify as endangered.

Of the 21 rivers longer than 1,000km that still flow freely from their mountain sources to the sea, most are in remote regions of the Arctic, and in the Amazon and Congo basins, where hydropower development is not yet economically viable.

These trends strain water resources, destroy ecosystems and threaten human health.

For example, heavy upstream diversions have turned the deltas of the Colorado River and the Indus River into saline marshes.

Moreover, lower river-water levels impede the annual flooding cycle, which in tropical regions helps to r-fertilize farmland naturally with nutrient-rich sediment.

In periods of below-average rainfall, a number of rivers increasingly run dry before reaching the ocean, and even when they do make it, they are depositing less of the nutrients and minerals that are vital to marine life.

Globally, aquatic ecosystems have lost half of their biodiversity since the mid-1970s, and about half of all wetlands have been destroyed over the past century.

A recent UN study said that up to 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades.

Humans are hardly exempt from the health consequences of river destruction.

In Central Asia, the Aral Sea has all but dried up in less than 40 years, owing to the Soviet Union’s introduction of cotton cultivation, for which water was siphoned from the sea’s principal sources, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers.

Today, particles blown from its exposed seabed — thick with salts and agricultural chemical residue — not only kill crops; they are sickening local people with everything from kidney disease to cancer.

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content_text:
Fighting breaks out as Guaido returns home

DEMOCRACY:Venezuela’s opposition leader called for unity and confidence to continue the fight to oust Nicolas Maduro, with the help of the ‘free world’
Workers from state-run airline Conviasa and government supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, left, follow supporters of National Assembly President Juan Guaido, right, who are waiting for his arrival at Simon Bolivar International Airport in La Guaira, Venezuela, on Tuesday.Photo : AFP
Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaido on Tuesday returned to his country after an international support-building tour and called on the people in the crisis-wracked nation to keep pushing back against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

The Venezuelan opposition leader — who had defied a travel ban to visit Colombia, the US, Canada and several European nations — was greeted by a throng of cheering supporters at Simon Bolivar International Airport in La Guaira, Venezuela.

“We’re in Caracas now. I bring back with me the commitment of the free world, ready to help us regain democracy and freedom,” Guaido wrote on Twitter, before tweeting a picture of himself at passport control that was captioned “HOME.”

Shortly before Guaido’s arrival, fighting broke out between his followers — including several lawmakers — and Maduro’s supporters.

“Guaido, fascist,” shouted employees of the state-run airline Conviasa, which was subjected to US sanctions last week, who had entered the area where the 36-year-old’s backers were waiting for him. Several diplomats were present.

Videos circulating on social media appeared to show Guaido sprayed with soda by an airline worker. The opposition leader seemed to laugh it off. Security escorts flanked Guaido — wearing a white shirt and a wooden cross around his neck — as he got into a white vehicle to head to Caracas.

After his trip abroad — including a meeting with US President Donald Trump, who threatened to “smash” Maduro’s regime — Guaido promised new sanctions “against the dictatorship” would be coming soon and called for renewed protests.

“We came to work and leave the rest, to do what is necessary to accomplish the goal” of pushing Maduro from office, Guaido told a rally attended by about 500 people.

His office late on Tuesday said that a relative traveling with Guaido had vanished after being held by airport officials.

In a veiled reference to Guaido’s return, Maduro called on his supporters to focus on “defending Venezuela.”

“Let’s not get distracted by stupidities, by dummies, by traitors to the homeland,” he said at a ceremony broadcast on state television.

Guaido rose to prominence in January last year, when he declared himself the country’s acting president in a direct challenge to Maduro.

He derived such authority from his position as the speaker of the National Assembly, after the legislature declared Maduro’s 2018 re-election invalid following a poll widely denounced as rigged.

Lawmakers called Maduro a “usurper,” while more than 50 countries recognized Guaido as interim president.

However, Maduro retains the support of Venezuela’s powerful military and has resisted Guaido’s challenge.

The international trip was the second time Guaido, who called for a legislative session to be held yesterday, had flouted the travel ban.

Maduro’s No. 2, Diosdado Cabello, on Monday said that he did not expect much of anything to change after Guaido’s travels, which he called a “tourism trip.”

“He is nothing,” Cabello said.

However, Guaido on Tuesday tweeted: “A new moment has begun that won’t accept setbacks and in which we need everyone to do what they have to do. The time has arrived.”

“Now more than ever, we need unity, confidence and political discipline. Look out for new announcements,” he said.

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title: Cases on cruise ship climb by 39

content_text:
Relatives of passengers wave toward the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan, on Tuesday.Photo: AFP
Another 39 people aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan have tested positive for the new coronavirus, COVID-19, authorities said yesterday, as thousands more steel themselves for a second week in quarantine.

With 174 confirmed cases, the ship that arrived with more than 3,700 passengers and crew has become the largest single cluster of infected cases outside the virus’ origin in China.

Japanese Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Katsunobu Kato told reporters early yesterday that the 39 new positive cases came from 53 additional test results.

He said that a quarantine officer was among those diagnosed, with the Yomiuri Shimbu reporting that the man had not been wearing a full protective suit while carrying out tests before the quarantine period began on Wednesday last week.

Kyodo news agency, citing the health ministry, said that of the 39 cases, 10 were crew and 29 were passengers.

Ten were Japanese and the others were from 11 countries including the US and China, and four were in serious condition, either on a ventilator or in intensive care, Kato said.

“We have the capacity to conduct up to 300 tests per day, but we are working ... so that by the last day of the incubation period, Feb. 18, we will be able to test up to 1,000,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s biggest bank DBS yesterday evacuated 300 staff from its head office as a precautionary measure following a confirmed COVID-19 case at the lender, an internal memo seen by reporters showed.

Singapore has reported 47 cases, one of the highest tallies outside China.

“DBS confirms today that one employee has been infected with the novel coronavirus,” the bank said in a statement.

It said an employee was tested on Tuesday and the bank was informed of the confirmation yesterday morning.

As of noon, the bank asked all employees on the affected floor to vacate the premises and work from home, it added.

The statement did not say how many staff members were affected.

Additional reporting by Reuters

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references: 臉書 Facebook

countries: 中國 台灣 捷克 澳洲 中華民國

content_text:
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei reclaims World No. 1 doubles ranking

球后謝淑薇 重登網球女雙世界第一

Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei, right, and the Czech Republic’s Barbora Strycova pose with their runners-up trophies at the Australian Open in Melbourne on Jan. 31.
台灣的謝淑薇（右）和捷克的史崔可娃，在墨爾本澳洲網球公開賽和亞軍獎牌合影，攝於一月三十一日。Photo: Reuters
照片：路透
The Women’s Tennis Association rankings received a shake up at this year’s Australian Open, with Hsieh Su-wei from Taiwan reclaiming her place as World No. 1 in women’s doubles on Feb. 3 after reaching the tournament’s doubles final with Barbora Strycova from the Czech Republic.

Hsieh once held the throne for five non-consecutive weeks in May and June 2014 with her former doubles partner Peng Shuai from China. “Keep marching forward on solid ground step by step,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “Even if I fail, it is still my great journey. Welcome back to World No. 1.”

During an interview with the “All Tennis” app last month, the 34-year-old veteran player revealed that her coach is communicating with the Chinese Taipei Tennis Association (CTTA) about whether she will represent Taiwan in the Tokyo Olympic Games. Hsieh caused an uproar in 2016 by withdrawing from Taiwan’s team on the eve of the Rio Olympic Games due to a dispute with the CTTA.

(Eddy Chang, Taipei Times)

在澳洲網球公開賽後，國際女子網球協會(WTA)排名大洗牌，台灣的謝淑薇和捷克的史崔可娃搭檔，勇奪澳網女雙亞軍後，二月三日再度重獲女雙世界第一。

謝淑薇在二○一四年五、六月間，和中國的彭帥搭檔時曾非連續五週登上女雙球后寶座。她這次在臉書上寫道︰「一步步腳踏實地前行，即使失敗，也是自己的偉大旅程。歡迎回來世界第一！」

上個月接受「全網球」App的訪問時，這位三十四歲的網壇老將透露，關於今年是否代表台灣參加東京奧運，目前正由教練和中華民國網球協會進行溝通。在二○一六年里約奧運的前夕，她和網協發生爭執並退出台灣隊而引起騷動。

(台北時報張聖恩)


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A participant with a dog in November last year takes part in a bikejoring and canicross competition in Stavropol, Russia.Photo: REUTERS
Once it was exercise enough to walk the dog. Now increasing numbers of owners are being taken by their pets for a vigorous run instead.

Although canicross — where a human is strapped with a bungee cord to a dog in a harness as it races across fields and woodland trails — has been slowly growing in popularity, there has been a huge jump in participation in the last 12 months.

Demand across the UK for equipment has quadrupled, while for training classes it has nearly tripled. Record numbers are also signing up to running events that allow dogs.

In response, a plethora of canicross training companies have sprung up, offering to teach joggers how to direct their dogs while running and ensure the pet’s pace is appropriate for its age and fitness level.

At DogFit, around 4,000 people have taken part in training classes over the past year alone, which is 2,500 more than last year.

“Participation is at record levels,” says co-founder Gail Walker.

She estimates that over the same period sales of her canicross equipment kits have quadrupled. “At Christmas we were inundated,” she said. “It’s definitely been the busiest year for canicross equipment that we’ve seen,” says Adrian Ward, owner of Innerwolf.co.uk, a Web site that sells canicross harnesses for dogs, waist belts for humans and leads made from bungee cords, to protect dog and owner from sudden changes in speed or direction.

He has seen demand “at least double” over the past year, he says.

“It’s exposure, I suppose. More people are hearing about it and, because most trail running events now incorporate a canicross category, there is more availability at races now as well.”

Canix, which organizes canicross racing events all over the UK, is putting on 15 percent more races this year and signing up 10 percent more runners for each one.

“The sport is definitely becoming more popular. We’re seeing more interest from beginners all the time,” says spokeswoman Dawn Crook-Richards. “I think people are more aware of the need to keep themselves and their dog fit. Compared with a lot of other sports it’s cheap — and people really love it.”

Mark Tasker, a dog trainer at the Dog Academy in Hertfordshire, decided to start offering canicross taster classes last month after requests from his clients.

“The first session was sold out and the next one is sold out too. Customers are looking for extra things to do with their dog,” he says.

Canicross appeals because dog owners like the idea of getting fit while strengthening their bond with their pet, he adds. “Plus, if you run with your dog, you are learning a new skill, and actually, it’s easier than running on your own because you’re working as a team.”

At Cani-Fit, another canicross training company, founder Lindsay Johnson says her clients and their dogs particularly enjoy the social aspect of the weekly hour-long training runs.

“We get a lot of people who wouldn’t attend a gym or a running club. They use the dog as a crutch — they tell themselves they are doing it for the dog. As for the dogs, they love running with other dogs.”

It’s a great way, she says, for nervous dogs in particular to safely socialise with other dogs.

“When they all face the same direction, there doesn’t tend to be any intimidation.”

Since it is best for dogs to run long distances on surfaces which are naturally bouncy and kind to their paws, canicross runs typically take place on trails, rather than pavements.

title: Taking the lead: why a jog with a dog is the latest fitness craze


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CIA secretly owned top encryption firm

SPIES LIKE US:As owners of Crypto AG, US and German spies rigged the company’s equipment to break codes and read messages of foreign governments, reports said
US and German intelligence services raked in the top secret communications of governments around the world for decades through their hidden control of a top encryption company, Crypto AG, US, German and Swiss media reported on Tuesday.

The Swiss company was a top supplier of devices for encoding communications to about 120 countries from after World War II to the beginning of this century, including Iran, South American governments, and India and Pakistan.

Unknown to those governments, Crypto was secretly owned by the CIA and Germany’s BND Federal Intelligence Service.

Together, they rigged Crypto’s equipment to be able to easily break codes and read governments’ messages, according to reports by the Washington Post, German television ZTE and Swiss state media SRF.

Citing a classified internal CIA history of what was originally called operation “Thesaurus” and later “Rubicon,” the reports said that in the 1980s the harvest from the Crypto machines supplied about 40 percent of all the foreign communications US codebreakers processed for intelligence.

Meanwhile, the company took in millions of dollars in profits that went to the CIA and BND.

“It was the intelligence coup of the century,” the history says, according to the Washington Post.

“Foreign governments were paying good money to the US and West Germany for the privilege of having their most secret communications read by at least two (and possibly as many as five or six) foreign countries,” it says.

The BND had no immediate reaction to the story.

CIA spokesman Timothy Barrett declined to comment on it.

Crypto was founded by Russian-born entrepreneur Boris Hagelin who fled Scandinavia to the US in 1940, when the Nazis occupied Norway. He had created a portable mechanical encryption machine that could be used in the field.

About 140,000 were produced for US troops during the war by the Smith Corona typewriter company in New York.

After the war Hagelin moved to Switzerland and began producing more advanced encryption machines US spies worried would allow governments everywhere to shield their communications.

However, the premier US cryptologist, the National Security Agency’s (NSA) William Friedman, persuaded Hagelin to restrict sales of his most advanced machines to countries approved by Washington, while older machines — with penetrable encryption — were sold to others.

When integrated circuits replaced mechanical encryption in the 1960s, the NSA helped Hagelin design new machines, which included coding that US cryptologists knew how to crack.

When Hagelin sought to retire, the US headed off a French government effort to buy his company and arranged its own takeover. In 1970, the US and Germany reached a deal to take it over for US$5.75 million — with the stipulation that the French be excluded.

They then controlled virtually all Crypto operations, hiring the staff, designing the technology and directing sales.

The intelligence operation underlying Zug-based Crypto had long been suspected and was alluded to, but never proven, in documents that surfaced decades ago.

The company’s true ownership was masked by front companies in Liechtenstein registries.

While scores of countries bought Crypto’s coding machines, the top Western adversaries, Russia and China, never trusted them.

Apparently nervous about being exposed and uncomfortable with the CIA’s aggressive targetting of both friends and rivals with Crypto machine sales, BND pulled out of the relationship and the CIA bought its shares in the 1990s.

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title: CIA secretly owned top encryption firm


content_text:
Fear in Mexico as twin deaths expose threat to monarch butterflies and their defenders

The apparent murders of two men known for promoting conservation of famed monarch butterfly reserves have drawn attention to a troubling tangle of disputes, resentments, illegal logging and violence roiling Michoacan state
The annual migration of monarch butterflies from the US and Canada is one of the most resplendent sights in the natural world — a rippling orange-and-black wave containing millions of butterflies fluttering instinctively southward to escape the winter cold.

The spectacle when they reach their destination in central Mexico is perhaps even more astonishing.

Patches of alpine forest turn from green to orange as the monarchs roost in the fir trees, the sheer weight of butterflies causing branches to sag to the point of snapping.

Tens of thousands of the insects bounce haphazardly overhead, searching replenishment from nearby plants.

To witness this sight is as if to enter a waking dream.

“People have a spiritual and emotional connection to monarchs,” said Sonia Altizer, a monarch butterfly researcher at the University of Georgia. “Many people tell me that seeing them was a highlight of their life.”

However, the recent deaths of two butterfly conservationists in the region has drawn attention to a troubling tangle of disputes, resentments and occasional bouts of harrowing violence that has lingered over the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a sprawling World Heritage Site nearly 100km northwest of Mexico City.

Mustachioed and gregarious, Homero Gomez Gonzalez tirelessly promoted the El Rosario sanctuary, a section of the butterfly reserve that receives the bulk of tourists who come from around the world to see the monarchs.

He featured in mesmerizing social media videos — posing with butterflies fluttering around him — and called the creatures “a marvel of nature.”

THE DEATHS

Gomez, who was 50, disappeared on Jan. 13 after attending a patron saint festival in the municipality of Ocampo; his body was found two weeks later at the bottom of a watering hole.

His death has yet to be ruled a murder, although police say he suffered a blunt trauma to the head.

The incident raised fears that gangs, possibly tied to the illegal logging of the butterfly reserve, had targeted Gomez for his advocacy of ecotourism over the felling of trees in this rugged swath of Mexico, where communities, often beset by poverty, have traditionally relied upon the harvesting of timber, potatoes and wheat.

Those concerns were further heightened after the death of a part-time tour guide from another nearby butterfly sanctuary, Raul Hernandez Romero.

His body was found on Feb. 1 with injuries possibly inflicted by a sharp object.

“The panorama for the community, the forest and the monarch butterflies is now very complicated and uncertain,” said Amado Gomez Gonzalez, one of Homero Gomez Gonzalez’s nine siblings. “There are now these two crimes and it has spread fear. You find yourself thinking: ‘What if this is a group that is coming to try and take the sanctuary away from us?’”

Investigations into the two deaths are ongoing, but some conservationists fret they are a byproduct of the violence that has long troubled the state of Michoacan, which stretches from the mountains of central Mexico to the west coast.

ILLEGAL LOGGING

As they have done across the nation, organized crime groups linked to the drug trade have diversified into many other activities, including kidnapping, avocado cultivation, land theft and the lucrative market in pine, fir and cedar wood.

Logging is supposedly under tight controls, but high prices mean that lumber mafias often stray into protected areas — and are prepared to use violence.

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content_text:
Trump accused of pressuring justice department to help his political aide

Roger Stone, former adviser to US President Donald Trump, leaves for the day from his trial at DC Federal District Court in Washington on Nov. 6.Photo: EPA-EFE
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday faced fresh accusations of abuse of power after appearing to pressure the US Department of Justice to seek a lighter prison sentence for his longtime political aide Roger Stone.

Stone was convicted in November last year of lying to the US Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the US House of Representatives’ investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to cheat in the 2016 election.

Four government attorneys who prosecuted Stone resigned from the case after their original sentence proposal for seven to nine years was reversed by the department following a critical late-night tweet from Trump.

Trump late on Tuesday turned his ire on the judge in Stone’s case, Amy Berman Jackson, suggesting she had shown bias against the president’s 2016 campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who has been imprisoned on multiple counts of fraud and other charges.

“Is this the Judge that put Paul Manafort in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, something that not even mobster Al Capone had to endure? How did she treat Crooked Hillary [Rodham] Clinton? Just asking!” Trump tweeted, referring to the former US secretary of state.

Manafort was held in a self-contained suite in prison, Jackson said during his prosecution, dismissing the defense team’s claim that he was in solitary confinement as “disingenuous.”

Trump’s extraordinary intervention threw the justice department into turmoil amid allegations that US Attorney General Bill Barr was doing Trump’s bidding rather than defending an independent justice system.

US Representative Adam Schiff said Trump’s apparent interference threatened the rule of law.

“It would be a blatant abuse of power if President Trump has in fact intervened to reverse the recommendations of career prosecutors at the Department of Justice,” Schiff, who led the impeachment investigation of Trump, said in a statement.

“Doing so would send an unmistakable message that President Trump will protect those who lie to Congress to cover up his own misconduct, and that the attorney general will join him in that effort,” he said.

The turmoil erupted after federal prosecutors on Monday submitted their sentencing request to Jackson for Stone, the veteran Republican activist and campaign dirty trickster who advised Trump in his 2016 presidential race.

Stone lied in 2017 testimony to lawmakers on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — which Schiff leads — about acting as an intermediary between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, which released hacked documents that embarrassed Clinton during the campaign.

He was found guilty on all seven counts, the sixth person closely tied to Trump convicted on charges brought by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The prosecutors recommended a heavy sentence of 87 to 108 months, saying Stone threatened a witness in the case as well as Jackson, by posting a picture of her on Instagram with what appeared to be the crosshairs of a gun sight.

He also repeatedly lied to the court and disobeyed a gag order, prosecutors said.

Trump criticized the sentence proposal in an overnight tweet.

“This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” he tweeted.

Early on Tuesday morning, an unnamed senior justice department official criticized the sentence to reporters.

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title: Actor indicted for a second time  for lying to police

content_text:
Actor Jussie Smollett was on Tuesday indicted for a second time on charges of lying to police about a racist and anti-gay attack he allegedly staged on himself in downtown Chicago, renewing a divisive criminal case that drew worldwide attention last year.

The indictment came from a special prosecutor who was appointed after Cook County prosecutors dropped the same charges in March last year.

The new charges were sure to reignite many of the tensions that surrounded Smollett a year ago. When his claims first emerged, he drew a groundswell of support from fans and celebrities, and gave an emotional television interview about the attack.

The case came to reflect the polarized state of political discourse in the US. Many Democrats initially called it a shocking instance of racism and hate under US President Donald Trump’s administration, while Republicans depicted it as yet another example of liberals rushing to judgement and disparaging the president’s supporters as bigots.

Special prosecutor Dan Webb said in a statement that Smollett faces six felony counts of disorderly conduct, charges that stem from four separate false reports that he gave to police in which he contended he was a victim of a hate crime “knowing that he was not the victim of a crime.”

The statement immediately raised questions about county prosecutors’ decision to drop the charges and made it clear that those prosecutors had not adequately explained to special prosecutors why they did so.

However, Webb said that he had reached no conclusions about whether anyone involved in the case had engaged in any wrongdoing.

Smollett, who is black and gay, was originally charged with disorderly conduct in February last year for allegedly staging the attack and lying about it to investigators.

The allegations were dropped the following month with little explanation, angering police officials and then-Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Tina Glandian, Smollett’s attorney, questioned Webb’s decision to file new charges.

The indictment “raises serious questions about the integrity of the investigation that led to the renewed charges,” Glandian said, citing the use of the same detectives who were part of the original investigation into the attack to conduct the latest probe, despite Smollett’s pending civil claims against the city and police officers for malicious prosecution.

He is scheduled to appear in court for arraignment on Feb. 24.

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content_text:
Book review: True storybook of horror

Containing 15 personal testimonials of migrant worker abuse and exploitation, and the role Taiwan’s private broker system plays in the practice, this book provides an intimate look at this long-standing issue
The 15 horror stories in Migrant Workers’ Storybook of Employment Agents are somewhat repetitive — but that’s the point. The abuse and exploitation that migrant workers face in Taiwan at the hands of unscrupulous brokers and inhumane employers are not isolated incidents, and only rarely make the news.

The book’s introduction sums up its purpose: “If these stories have become common memories of migrant workers in Taiwan across generations, then the ‘management of the private broker system’ that the Taiwan government has been ‘developing,’ is not only a thoroughly failed policy, but also a conniving structural design that facilitates the brokers and agencies in their continued exploitation of international migrant workers.”

‘BLOOD-SUCKING ANIMALS’

Although the circumstances of the migrant workers vary and each deals with the problem differently, they go through almost the same issues with no resolution because of the enormous fees they owe and the loved ones they support back home.

Some end up in worse situations than others, and some do meet good people. But as a whole, this is a problem that has subsisted for decades and is undoubtedly a blight on Taiwan’s human rights record and its claim to be among the world’s “friendliest countries.”

Like most people in the book, Wenlong from Vietnam was shocked to see how meager his first paycheck was after all sorts of deductions he wasn’t informed of. Things only got worse when he suffered severe burns in an accident and his broker didn’t bother translating the doctor’s instructions for rehab and treating the wounds.

“I looked at all the different-sized scars and my crooked hand, and I deeply resented the broker … He did not do anything besides take my money,” Wenlong writes.

South Korea has gone without private brokers since 2004, while one migrant worker who spent time in Japan comments: “the environment and working conditions [in Taiwan] were far worse than what I had expected. I can only say, whatever ease I enjoyed while working in Japan, I encountered just as much difficulty while working in Taiwan.”

Another writes that his living quarters were far worse than his countryside village and called the brokers “blood-sucking animals.” It is shameful that Taiwan has left such an impression on so many foreigners who only desire a better life.

According to the introduction, all the narratives in the book are first hand accounts by the migrant workers — many discussing their harrowing experiences for the first time. It makes the accounts much more personal than, for example, reading a news report, as they include the sights, sounds and smells of the conditions they were subjected to as well as the physical descriptions of the brokers and other people they encounter.

The intimate tone gives life to these stories, which makes the book enjoyable despite the similarity of what is depicted. By the end of the 15 testimonials, it’s chilling how these situations are happening in the same safe and progressive society we purportedly live in.

The Migrants Empowerment Network in Taiwan (MENT), a coalition of a dozen related organizations, published the book in December last year. During a protest to abolish the private broker system that month, the network handed the book to government representatives, who have avoided directly addressing the problem by stating that the employers get to decide how they hire in a free market.

title: Book review: True storybook of horror


title: Syria regime forces push rebels from key highway

content_text:
Internally displaced Syrians from Aleppo Province ride on a tractor with belongings past Turkish military vehicles in Hazano, Syria, on Tuesday.Photo: Reuters
Syrian regime forces yesterday pushed on with their offensive in the country’s northwest, securing areas along a key national highway they seized, as tensions spiraled with Turkey, which supports rebel groups.

After a series of tit-for-tat attacks, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to strike Syrian regime forces “everywhere” if his soldiers were harmed and accused Damascus ally Russia of committing “massacres.”

The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which is also backed by Iranian forces, has made major inroads in the last opposition-held area in the northwest, sending hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing their homes in harsh winter conditions.

Heightening tensions, a regime helicopter was downed by rocket fire in Idlib Province on Tuesday.

Turkish media blamed the attack on rebels, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was carried out by Turkey.

Ankara has not claimed responsibility.

The pro-government Al-Watan newspaper yesterday said that three air crew were killed in the attack.

An earlier toll by the Britain-based observatory had said two pilots had died.

In their latest push, regime forces have seized a string of towns and villages from rebels and militants in the west of Aleppo Province since Tuesday night, the observatory and Al-Watan reported.

Hours after completely retaking the economically vital M5 highway linking the country’s four largest cities, they cleared all areas directly west of the road in Aleppo of rebels and militants.

“Areas adjacent to the M5 from the west in Aleppo Province are now under regime control,” observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman said.

Regime forces were also poised yesterday to push their rivals out of the road’s eastern environs, in a move that would completely secure the motorway from rebel attacks, the monitor and Al-Watan said.

The M5 links the capital Damascus to the second city of Aleppo through the major hubs of Homs and Hama, and has been a key target for the government as it seeks to restore territorial control and rekindle a moribund economy.

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content_text:
Controversial Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Tuesday announced that he was dissolving the “blue caps,” an organized unit of his supporters accused of deadly attacks on anti-government protests.

Al-Sadr, who has a cult-like following of several million Iraqis, initially backed the rallies demanding a government overhaul when they erupted in October last year, but has switched course multiple times in the past few weeks, finally breaking with the movement by endorsing Iraqi prime minister-designate Mohammad Allawi.

A two-time former communications minister, Allawi is seen by protesters as too close to the elite they have railed against for months.

Since then, al-Sadr supporters wearing blue caps have raided protest sites in Baghdad and the Shiite-majority south, leaving eight protesters dead.

Facing growing criticism, al-Sadr took to Twitter on Tuesday.

“I announce the dissolution of the ‘blue caps,’ and I do not accept the [Sadrist] movement’s presence in and of itself at the protests, unless it is absorbed into them,” he tweeted.

Initially, al-Sadr supporters were seen as the most organized and well-provisioned of the demonstrators, but his tweets have confused followers and foes.

After backing Allawi, he ordered the “blue caps” to help security forces reopen schools, roads and public offices closed for months by protests.

They stormed anti-Allawi protests camps, leaving one protester stabbed to death in Hilla and seven gunned down in the shrine city of Najaf.

Feeling betrayed and outraged, activists began openly criticizing al-Sadr in their chants.

The country’s top Shiite religious authority Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani condemned the violence and insisted state security forces take the lead in restoring order.

Already, protest-related violence has killed nearly 550 people, the vast majority of them demonstrators, the Iraqi Human Rights Commission has said.

Yet demonstrators have maintained their campaign, now focused on Allawi, who was nominated on Feb. 1.

Allawi has until March 2 to form his Cabinet, which would need a vote of confidence from parliament.

That government would be expected to rule only until early parliamentary elections are held under a new electoral law — a major demand of demonstrators.

Al-Sadr had first welcomed Allawi’s nomination as a “good step,” but appeared to walk back his support on Tuesday.

“We hear that there are pressures from political parties and from sects over the forming of the temporary government,” al-Sadr tweeted. “This could lead us to completely wash our hands of all of it.”

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title: Iraqi cleric dissolves units accused of protest attacks


content_text:
Eight days in Wuhan, cut off from the world

A reporter on the ground recounts what it’s like at the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, witnessing how life in the Chinese city of Wuhan was turned upside down as it was cut off from the world
Police officers and security guards on Jan. 24 stand outside the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where the new coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan.Photo: AFP

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For eight days, an AFP team lived and worked at the centre of a global health emergency, witnessing how life in the Chinese city of Wuhan was turned upside down as it was cut off from the world.

The city of 11 million was placed under an unprecedented quarantine to try and stop the spread of a deadly new coronavirus.

The virus, which has since gone on to kill more than 1,000 people across China, is believed to have crossed into humans from an animal market in Wuhan.

We arrived in Wuhan the day the city was place under lockdown, and over the next week captured remarkable images of shock and resignation, despair and bravery.

AFP re-publishes some of the team’s most compelling images, along with this new account of the harrowing events.

DAY ONE: THE LOCKDOWN

In the early hours of Jan. 23, China announces that all air, road and train links out of Wuhan will be suspended.

The virus has killed 17 people and infected more than 500, authorities say, just as millions of people are criss-crossing the country to reunite with friends and family for the Lunar New Year holiday.

The news comes as a shock, and most don’t even try to flee Wuhan before the order comes into force at 10am. But the few locals out on the streets do seem to be obeying the new rules that masks must be worn in public.

The railway station prepares to close later that day, with police chasing the last travelers out of the building. The usually bustling airport is deserted. Even the officials tasked a few hours ago with testing passengers for signs of fever have gone.

A handful of travelers are stuck, and an airport employee says she does not know when her shift will finish in the confusion.

The expressway into town is empty, as are the rest of the roads in the metropolis. Wuhan has just been cut off from the world and its people, terrified of being infected, are confining themselves to their homes.

DAY 2: NEW YEAR’S EVE

Hours before the Lunar New Year, shops are closed and there is a ghostly silence hanging over the city. The police and security services — usually so prominent on Chinese city streets — are conspicuous by their absence.

The Qiaokou district and its famous Jinghan avenue look like they had been abandoned. All of the boutique shops inside an imposing business complex are shuttered by metal gates.

In a small apartment in a 20-storey building in the south of the city, Wang Yanhong, 53, welcomes a team of foreign journalists for the eve of the Lunar New Year.

Her husband Pen Lixin prepares a variety of dishes and a bottle of local red wine sits on the table. But the atmosphere is not one of celebration: the quarantining of Wuhan has meant that their son Andy, 25, was unable to make it home.

“This is the first time he hasn’t come home to celebrate New Year with us,” says Wang sadly.

DAY 3: NEW YEAR’S DAY ... AT THE PHARMACY

The Guiyan temple, normally packed with hundreds of thousands of people welcoming in the New Year, is closed.

“No-one is allowed inside in order to prevent the virus spreading,” a uniformed man — who is not wearing the compulsory mask — says.

About town, the usual New Year visits are limited to a worried dash to the pharmacy, where customers are greeted by staff wearing full-body protective suits and double masks.

Anti-fever tablets are limited to two boxes per person.

The radio broadcasts on this first day of the Year of the Rat are hardly any more festive.