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The Waikato Chiefs’ Damian McKenzie, right, runs the ball during their Super Rugby match against the Sunwolves at the Chichibunomiya Stadium in Tokyo yesterday.Photo: AFP

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Damian McKenzie yesterday put the All Blacks on notice by sparking the Chiefs to a 43-17 Super Rugby thrashing of the Sunwolves in only his second game back from serious injury.

The twinkle-toed utility back, who missed out on last year’s Rugby World Cup in Japan after rupturing an anterior cruciate ligament, capped a superb performance with 11 points in Tokyo for Warren Gatland’s unbeaten side.

The Sunwolves, who began their farewell season with a 36-27 upset of the Melbourne Rebels two weeks ago, caught the visitors napping after just six minutes when flyhalf Garth April wriggled over to open the scoring.

However, the Chiefs, champions in 2012 and 2013, struck back with a quickfire double, McKenzie releasing Solomon Alaimalo to touch down in the corner before Shaun Stevenson capped a great move to score on the opposite wing.

After a lineout set-play allowed Chiefs captain Brad Weber to smash his way through on 24 minutes, McKenzie pinballed off two tackles to tee up Alaimalo, who crossed the try line, but handed the ball back to McKenzie to ground as a reward for his industry.

Sunwolves hooker Jaba Bregvadze bowled over on the halftime buzzer to reduce the deficit at the break to 24-12, but flanker Lachlan Boshier raced through to add a fifth try for the Chiefs soon after the restart.

Shogo Nakano pulled one back with seven minutes left, only for the New Zealand-based side to hit back with two late scores from Quinn Tupaea and Kaleb Trask.

“If you don’t turn up with the right attitude any team can beat you,” Weber said, referring to last season’s humiliating home defeat by the Sunwolves. “We found that out the hard way, that [result] was a massive driver for us today.”

McKenzie slotted three of five conversions in blustery conditions.

Elsewhere, the Otago Highlanders converted a last-gasp try to stun the ACT Brumbies.

A Folau Fainga’a hat-trick was not enough for the Brumbies, with Teariki Ben-Nicholas scoring a try after the full-time buzzer and Josh Ioane converting to ensure the Highlanders won 23-22, ending a 10-match winning streak at home for the Canberra club.

The Dunedin-based Highlanders were desperate for victory after crashing 42-20 to the Sharks in their season opener and they delivered for skipper James Lentjes.

“Absolutely proud of the boys. It came down to the wire and we showed composure to get over the line. It’s an awesome feeling,” Lentjes said.

“They had won 10 in a row here, so to get points, we’re bloody happy,” he said.

The Highlanders exerted early pressure and Ioane put them ahead with a penalty, but it was Fainga’a who crossed for the opening try after a rolling maul.

The Highlanders soaked up pressure, but the Brumbies’ maul did more damage and Fainga’a bagged his second before the New Zealand-based side bounced back with Jona Nareki charging down a clearance kick from the restart for their first five-pointer.

A penalty put them 13-12 ahead at the halftime break.

Fainga’a struck again with 12 minutes left and Ryan Lonergan’s conversion looked enough for victory, but as they attempted to run down the clock, the home side gave away a penalty and paid a heavy price with Ben-Nicholas’ winning try.

In Wellington, the Hurricanes brought the Coastal Sharks’ winning run to a halt.

The two sides were locked 17-all at halftime before a Ben Lam double put the momentum firmly with the Hurricanes, who won 38-22.

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title: McKenzie magic helps Waikato in Tokyo


title: Guarding speech vital in light of outbreak

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Chinese doctor Li Wenliang (李文亮) is generally seen as the first to warn about COVID-19. His death on Friday last week after being infected by the virus sparked demands for freedom of speech among Chinese Internet users aimed at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime.

While this has triggered demands that the CCP reform its system of governance, it would be a mistake to think that disclosures made in the public interest or exposing corruption amount to freedom of expression and will help bring about effective reform.

Not long ago, physician-turned-Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) revealed a location in Taipei where a group of Taiwanese who had been evacuated from Wuhan were to be kept under quarantine.

The health authorities responded by saying that people who release such information without permission would be punished under the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法) or other related laws.

Why did anyone not consider whether Ko’s freedom of expression needed protection?

In addition to the act, Taiwanese law states that civil servants shall not disclose information acquired in their official capacity without permission, and protection of freedom of expression is not a concern.

China also has its Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases of the People’s Republic of China (中華人民共和國傳染病防治法) and Li is a Chinese civil servant, so how could we expect him to enjoy freedom of expression with regard to epidemic information?

The Li case highlights that both sides of the Taiwan Strait should build a system to protect and even reward whistleblowers disclosing matters of public interest. Protecting freedom of expression is a matter of reform on another level.

Over the past decade, Taiwan has focused on establishing a system to protect whistleblowers, and the legislature has proposed several draft bills, such as the public interest disclosure protection act and the whistleblower protection act. This shows that there is growing recognition of this new work ethic, in particular in the public sector.

For countries with similar laws, public health-related affairs or information qualify as disclosures in the public interest. As the Cabinet’s draft whistleblower protection act states, the disclosure of behavior that could pose a concrete threat to public health are protected too.

Generally speaking, the purpose of establishing a whistleblower protection system is to strengthen internal control within the public sector.

However, the UK’s Public Interest Disclosure Act states that disclosure to a member of parliament or a media outlet is protected under certain conditions and in the case of a “disclosure of exceptionally serious failure.”

A qualified whistleblower must also be an employee of the accused agency, and the person must “reasonably believe that the information disclosed, and any allegation contained in it, are substantially true” and make the disclosure in good faith based on concrete evidence.

During the SARS outbreak 17 years ago, Chinese military doctor Jiang Yanyong (蔣彥永) discovered that the data reported by the health authorities were falsified.

After reporting the issue to the local media and receiving no response, he admirably shared it with the international community through US media.

After seeing how Wuhan officials’ cover-up of the epidemic led to a major disaster, Taiwan should quickly establish a whistleblower protection system. If it does not, brave civil servants who disclose information in the public interest will still face the risk of retaliation or having their loyalty questioned.

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title: NT dollar slides against greenback, euro rebounds

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The New Taiwan dollar on Friday fell against the US dollar, shedding NT$0.014 to close at the day’s low of NT$30.051, but was up 0.2 percent from NT$30.126 a week earlier.

Turnover totaled US$966 million during the trading session.

The greenback opened at NT$30.050 and hit NT$29.965 before rebounding.

Elsewhere on Friday, the euro bounced against the greenback as US stocks declined from record highs, although concerns about growth in the eurozone were expected to keep weighing on the single currency.

Anxiety about the effects of an outbreak of COVID-19 in China on the European economy this week helped send the euro to its lowest levels against the US dollar in two-and-a-half years.

A report on Friday that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV plans to close a plant in Serbia due to a lack of parts added to fears that ties to China leave Europe’s economy vulnerable.

“We had some first indications that this might be starting to impinge on the global supply chain this morning with Chrysler shutting one of their factories in eastern Europe because of shortage of supplies from China,” Scotiabank chief foreign exchange strategist Shaun Osborne said in Toronto.

The euro fell to US$1.0826, the lowest since May 2017, before rebounding to US$1.0842. It has fallen from US$1.1095 on Monday last week.

The euro came off its lows as US stocks declined from record highs reached on Thursday. A stronger US economic outlook has supported the greenback, while it has also benefited from a popular trade in which investors borrow in the euro to invest in higher-yielding US assets.

Data on Friday hinted at a soft European economy.

Eurozone GDP grew 0.1 percent quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of last year, in line with forecasts, while year-on-year growth was weaker than expected at 0.9 percent.

The German economy stagnated in the fourth quarter due to weaker private consumption and state spending, renewing fears of a recession just as German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives are preoccupied with a search for a new leader.

US data showed clothing store sales last month declining the most since 2009, which could raise concerns about the staying power of the moderate economic expansion.

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Virus Outbreak: France reports first death as China toll passes 1,500

The death toll from the COVID-19 outbreak yesterday surpassed 1,500 in China as France reported the first fatality outside Asia.

More than 66,000 people have been infected in China and more than 67,000 globally.

In France, an 80-year-old Chinese tourist died from the disease, French Minister of Solidarity and Health Agnes Buzyn said.

Only three other deaths have been recorded outside mainland China — in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Japan.

The death toll in China yesterday rose to 1,523 after 143 more people died in the country, mostly in Hubei Province.

The biggest cluster outside China is on a quarantined cruise ship off Japan, with 285 infections now as dozens more cases were confirmed.

The US is to evacuate its citizens from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, the US embassy in Japan said on its Web site.

The US Department of State is to provide chartered aircraft to take US passengers and crew back to the country.

The aircraft is to arrive this evening and transport the passengers first to Travis Air Force Base in California, and some might be moved to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. They are to undergo a two-week quarantine.

Beijing’s municipal government on Friday enacted a rule requiring all people entering the capital to quarantine themselves for 14 days, adding that offenders would be punished, official media reported.

Chinese authorities have placed about 56 million people in Hubei and its capital, Wuhan, under quarantine, virtually sealing off the province from the rest of the country in an effort to contain the virus.

A number of cities far from the epicenter have also imposed tough measures limiting the number of people who can leave their homes.

Amid criticism over the handling of the crisis, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) called for tighter policing to protect social stability.

Battling the outbreak is a “big test for the country’s governance system and governance ability,” Xi said in a Chinese Communist Party Central Committee meeting.

The government must “increase use of police force and strengthen the visible use of police” to ensure stability during the crisis, Xi said in a Feb. 3 speech published by state media yesterday.

In another preventive measure, the People’s Bank of China yesterday said that used banknotes were being disinfected with ultraviolet light or high temperatures, and stored for up to 14 days before they are put back into circulation.

The scale of the outbreak ballooned this week after authorities in Hubei changed their criteria for counting cases, retroactively adding thousands of new patients to their tally.

The province on Thursday added more than 14,000 cases in a single day after officials there started counting people clinically diagnosed through lung imaging, in addition to those with a positive lab test result.

The Chinese National Health Commission yesterday reported 2,641 new cases of the COVID-19 strain, with the vast majority in Hubei.

However, the number was almost half those reported the previous day.

“We’re seeking further clarity on how clinical diagnosis is being made to ensure other respiratory illnesses including influenza are not getting mixed into the COVID-19 data,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

The number of new confirmed cases has been steadily falling outside Hubei, with 221 infections reported yesterday.

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An independence advocate was found guilty on Feb. 7 of inciting others to burn the national flag, in a ruling that overturned a previous acquittal.

The first ruling determined that Lee Chia-yu’s (李嘉宇) actions were constitutionally protected, while the second found him guilty of destroying the flag “for the purpose of insulting the nation,” and argued that his method of expression was “unnecessary and irrational.” Given the divergent perspectives of the two judges, it is worth considering whether desecrating national symbols is constitutionally protected free speech.

National University of Malaysia researcher Helen Ting wrote in a 2008 paper, “Social Construction of Nation,” that the idea of a “nation” is “a mental construct,” and national identity is “a dynamic, contentious historical process of social construction.” National identity means different things to different people at different times, even within the same borders.

Ting wrote that social actors generally only engage with the “figured world of nationhood” when they are interacting with agents of state institutions or reading about national politics, and these actors internalize and reproduce meaning in this world when they carry out socially constructed activities. This is only one of many figured worlds that constitute the self, and is not the most conspicuous aspect of an individual’s life, except in the case of those in professions that closely follow national affairs, she wrote.

While the nation is an imagined and dynamic concept, the flag is a symbol that is understood to represent “the nation’s core values, condensing the history and memories associated” with it, and “embodying what the nation stands for,” researchers from Queen’s University Belfast wrote in a 2017 paper, “What Do National Flags Stand For?”

Flags represent “group memberships and strong emotional attachments,” and subjectively represent “the soul of a society in terms of symbolic representation of national consciousness,” the researchers wrote. Therefore, it is understandable that people who identify strongly with those symbols would seek to protect them from desecration, while others consider their destruction in protest to be a constitutionally protected form of expression.

The issue of an individual’s right to “insult” national symbols has drawn attention in the sports world. Since August 2016, some NFL players have knelt during the US national anthem out of protest against police violence toward African-Americans. These actions caused an immediate uproar, with some critics arguing that it was insulting to members of the US armed forces, or presenting similar allegations.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy in 2016 said that “players are encouraged, but not required to stand during the playing of the national anthem.” Legally there are also no repercussions for not standing during the anthem, even though it is mentioned in the US Code, but the statute is worded as “should” stand, which stops short of “shall” or “must,” a Sept. 26, 2017, Birmingham News article said, citing law experts.

Neither the US nor Canada have laws prohibiting flag desecration — amendments have been proposed in the US, but never passed — and in both countries, flags have been frequently burned, often during anti-war or anti-government protests.

There is no definitive answer as to whether people should be allowed to desecrate national symbols, but not everyone adheres to the same imagined communities or same values espoused by those communities. If citizens are prohibited from protesting a nation through destroying its symbols, it risks opening the floodgates for further suppression of free expression.

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title: EDITORIAL: Beware closing doors to free speech


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Europe lives on after Brexit by cherishing Britons’ liberalism

Brexit is a disaster for the UK. Given the risk that it will now lose Scotland and Northern Ireland to secession, the country seems to have accepted the idea of Great Britain turning back into “Little England.” Britain is that rare lion that chooses to become as small as a mouse.

To be sure, saving the English realm is all the Brexiteers ever cared about, but what sort of realm has a prime minister who lies to its queen, as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson did when he suspended the British Parliament last year?

Through it all, the Brexiteers have exalted the British Empire and former British prime minister Winston Churchill, but they have forgotten 19th-century German philosopher Karl Marx, an earlier wanderer of the London streets who warned that history eventually repeats itself as farce.

With Johnson in power, the UK is governed by a pantomime Churchill. Rather than an exponent of courage, it has the Prince of Cynicism — a scruffy knock-off who adapts his opinions to whatever is politically expedient.

The Brexiteers are fixated on the “sovereignty” they have supposedly regained, but it is well known that they owe their success in the referendum to Russian interference and US social-media algorithms.

The “Leave” campaign was a saturnalia of cynicism and fake news, led by charlatans who were only too happy to be mistaken for the country’s staunchest democrats. It was less a moment of truth than a bad novel come to life.

To be sure, Churchill is said to have told former French president Charles de Gaulle (another transient through London’s foggy streets) that England would always prefer the open sea to Europe.

However, if he were around today, De Gaulle would point out that Johnson’s Britain has neither Europe nor the open sea. Instead, it has trade disputes, a pseudo-friendship with US President Donald Trump, and mediocre economic prospects in a world increasingly dominated by powers such as the US, China and the EU itself.

Still, it is painfully clear that Brexit is a defeat for the idea of Europe — that metaphysical chimera, that geopolitical Harlequin’s coat of many colors. To channel Marx once more, Europe is a unique amalgam of German thought (and its demons), French politics (and its spinoffs) and English commerce (and its excesses).

Within the EU, the UK was the modern version of 19th-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill and 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume standing against French grandiloquence, and of former British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli checking continental impulses toward Wagnerian chauvinism.

Insofar as the UK represented the sea, it could wash away the provincialism of Paris, Rome and Vienna. Britain brought the irony of Edwardian British writer G.K. Chesterton to international negotiations — and it offered a touch of Byronic cosmopolitanism to instill compassion for Greece during its crisis and solidarity for the wretched of the Earth more generally.

There is a reason why Britain became a refuge for the likes of French author Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand and Austrian psychoanalysis founder Sigmund Freud, and for governments in exile and resistance movements.

Without the UK, Europe will become more stifling. The continent will still have its Don Quixotes and their splendid dreams, as well as its Sancho Panzas, restraining others’ flights of fancy. It will have the ruins of Rome, the splendor of Athens and the ghost of Bohemian novelist Franz Kafka.

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title: Indian hotel apps offer young couples privacy — for a price

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A man uses the StayUncle app in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday.Photo: AFP
A new raft of Indian apps that offer rooms to unmarried couples is helping overturn traditional norms in a country where premarital sex remains taboo.

From StayUncle and BreviStay, which offer hourly packages, to Softbank-funded Oyo, which allows users to search for couple-friendly hotels via its “Relationship Mode,” young entrepreneurs are tapping into a previously neglected market to lucrative effect.

The development is good news for Pooja, a Mumbai-based public relations executive who tried to check in to a hotel with her then-boyfriend in 2016 and found that the romantic experience quickly turned ugly as staff enquired about her marital status.

“I could feel them judging me,” Pooja, whose name has been changed on her request, told reporters.

Stung by their questions, she said that she decided to lie.

“We were both above 18 — they had no reason to deny us a room, but it was all just so awkward,” she added.

Her experience is not unusual in a country where many people live with their parents until they marry — either because of high housing costs or conservative cultural norms — leaving courting couples desperate for a shred of privacy.

On any given evening in Mumbai, dozens of canoodling lovebirds can be spotted along the city’s famous seafront, their backs to the slow-moving traffic as they seek out personal space in the world’s second-most populous nation.

Sometimes the consequences can be dangerous: police raid hotels and demand bribes from unmarried guests, while Hindu hardliners attack couples celebrating “Western” holidays like Valentine’s Day.

“People have a hard time accepting the idea that being in a relationship is a natural thing,” said Rahul Taneja, cofounder of LuvStay, one of several apps seeking to shake up the hospitality industry with services aimed at unmarried couples.

“It is a simple case of supply and demand. The rooms are there, the customers are there: the challenge is to bring them together,” LuvStay’s 29-year-old Taneja told reporters.

StayUncle founder Sanchit Sethi initially planned to target business travelers with his app focusing on hourly rentals, but when he began fielding inquiries from couples he realized that he was targeting the wrong customer.

Soon the former engineer found himself handing out business cards to young people hanging out in coffee shops — advertising his new venture with the tagline: “Couples need a room, not judgement.”

When the app went live in 2016, hardline groups threatened to beat up Sethi and his colleagues, but “no one ever went beyond a phone call,” the 30-year-old told reporters.

Getting hoteliers on board proved a tougher sell, with many worried about police raids and offending the sensibilities of traditional clients.

In one case, a hotelier signed up only to get cold feet and refuse guests at check-in, prompting Sethi to decide that he would not spend any more time trying to “convince reluctant hotels.”

He need not have worried, given the soaring demand.

The app has 800 hotels in 45 towns and cities, and plans to add another 1,500 by the end of this year. It is not shy about pursuing new customers, with a YouTube channel offering dating advice to anxious singles.

At nearly 700 hotels, LuvStay is not far behind, with ambitions to raise that number to 2,000 within three years.

So-called “love hotels” are also popular in Japan and South Korea, with couples either seeking extramarital liaisons or private time away from demanding families.

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Wall Street on Friday closed out a wobbly day of trading with the major stock indices notching their second straight weekly gain.

The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ Composite eked out tiny gains, good enough to nudge each to an all-time high for the fourth time this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended with a slight loss.

Gains in the technology, real-estate and utilities sectors outweighed losses in energy and industrial stocks, as well as in consumer-centric companies.

Trading was mostly subdued and cautious following China’s report on Thursday of a surge in COVID-19 cases that raised fresh concerns about global economic growth.

“We were flat for most of the day,” Prudential Financial Inc chief market strategist Quincy Krosby said. “But you’re also seeing that there is concern. Gold is up, money has come into the bond market and the yields have come down.”

The mixed finish for the indices likely indicates that some traders elected to sell and pocket some profits ahead of the long holiday weekend to get ahead of potential negative headlines about the virus, analysts said.

US markets are to be closed tomorrow for the President’s Day holiday.

The S&P 500 on Friday rose 6.22 points, or 0.2 percent, to 3,380.16, jumping 1.6 percent from a close of 3,327.71 on Feb. 7.

The NASDAQ Composite on Friday gained 19.21 points, or 0.2 percent, to 9,731.18, a surge of 2.2 percent from 9,520.51 a week earlier.

Both indices had been down most of the afternoon.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday dropped 25.23 points, or 0.1 percent, to 29,398.08, but still gained 1 percent from a close of 29,102.51 a week earlier.

Smaller company stocks finished lower, with the Russell 2000 on Friday sliding 6.15 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,687.58, but jumping 1.9 percent from 1,656.78 on Feb. 7.

Investors had over the past two weeks largely set aside uncertainty about the potential economic fallout from the virus outbreak that originated in China. Stocks ended lower on Thursday for only the second time this month.

Businesses have been hurting due to the outbreak and more of them warned that the effects would linger through this year.

Still, uncertainty over the economic effects of the outbreak has been tempered by signals out of China’s government, which has taken steps to shore up businesses from the fallout.

The US Federal Reserve has also helped reassure investors.

This week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that it was too early to assess the threat the virus poses to the US economy, but added that the economy “is in a very good place” with strong job creation and moderate growth.

Technology companies led the gainers on Friday. Chipmaker Nvidia Corp was a standout, jumping 7 percent after it handily beat analysts’ profit forecasts for the fourth quarter of last year.

The real-estate and utilities sectors also held up well as government bond yields fell, making companies that pay higher dividends more attractive. Digital Realty Trust Inc climbed 3.9 percent and American Water Works Co Inc rose 1.7 percent.

Automakers, retailers and other companies that rely on consumer spending were among the decliners. Ford Motor Co dropped 1.8 percent and General Motors Co fell 1.5 percent, while Target Corp slid 1.4 percent.

Energy, industrial and financial sector stocks also declined. Marathon Oil Corp slid 4.42 percent, J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc fell 3.6 percent and American International Group Inc dropped 4.8 percent.

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title: S&P 500, NASDAQ reach all-time highs


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TAIEX rises, but gains capped

BELLWETHER:One analyst said that it remained a liquidity-driven upturn, with investors parking money in the electronics sector, which lifted the broader market
Local shares on Friday extended their momentum from the previous session to close higher, but the upturn was capped ahead of the nearest technical resistance at about 11,900 points amid lingering concerns over an outbreak of COVID-19 in China, dealers said.

The bellwether electronics sector continued to lead the broader market higher, with a focus on select electronics component stocks such as multilayer ceramic capacitors manufacturers and printed circuit board (PCB) makers, while large tech stocks came off an early high by the end of the session, they said.

The TAIEX on Friday closed up 23.92 points, or 0.2 percent, at 11,815.70, after moving between 11,788.87 and 11,840.79. Turnover totaled NT$111.67 billion (US$3.72 billion) during the session.

That left the weighted index up 1.7 percent from a close of 11,612.81 on Feb. 7.

The market opened up 0.13 percent, as investors ignored losses on US markets, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.43 percent and the S&P 500 lost 0.16 percent overnight, dealers said.

As buying on the local main board accelerated, the TAIEX edged past 11,800 points, reaching close to 11,900 at one point, they said.

Driven by ample liquidity, the uptrend continued until profit-taking emerged, which offset the gains to some extent by the end of the session, they added.

“It remained a liquidity-driven upturn in the local equity market, so investors continued to park their money in the mainstream electronics sector,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang said.

While market sentiment remained bothered by the spread of the coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, investors in the region are hoping that China will come up with stimulus measures to keep its economy on track, he said, adding that there were gains in other major regional markets, such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Seoul.

Although the gains of some tech heavyweights such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) petered out, interest in certain electronic component stocks remained solid, helping the tech sector steam ahead, Huang said.

Among the gaining stocks in the passive electronic components sector, Yageo Corp (國巨) rose 4.1 percent to close at NT$457 and Walsin Technology Corp (華新科技) added 2.76 percent to end at NT$242.

Other gaining PCB stocks included Flexium Interconnect Inc (台郡), which rose 1.23 percent to close at NT$123.50, and Apex International Co (泰鼎), which climbed by the maximum daily 10 percent to end at NT$60.30.

Among the the large tech stocks that failed to sustain their earlier gains, TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock on the local market, closed unchanged at NT$335 after hitting a high of NT$337.

Largan Precision Co (大立光), a supplier of smartphone camera lenses to Apple Inc, also ended unchanged at NT$4,820 off a high of NT$4,875.

However, in line with the broader market, iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), second only to TSMC in terms of market capitalization, rose 0.24 percent to close at NT$84.90.

Old economy and financial stocks appeared mixed as the local main board faced stiff technical resistance ahead of 11,900 points, Huang said.

“There were some high technical hurdles ahead of 11,933 points — an intraday high on Jan. 30 — so many investors were reluctant to chase prices for the moment, which limited turnover,” he said.

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title: TAIEX rises, but gains capped


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By Marko Phiri / Thomson Reuters Foundation, NTABAZINDUNA, Zimbabwe
Deep in rural western Zimbabwe, where paved roads are nonexistent, Japhet Ngwenya used to spend every season worrying that the people who advise him on how to protect his crops from dry spells and pest invasions would not be able to reach him.

Ngwenya’s farm — in Ntabazinduna, 40km north of Bulawayo — is so remote that he can go a year or more without seeing the agriculture extension officers who are sent by local charities to assist small-scale farmers like him.

“It has always been difficult to get expert advice. There are no proper access roads here and you drive this far at your car’s peril,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as he readied his fields for a crop of corn, tomatoes and cabbages.

Then, last year, two extension officers from the Turning Matabeleland Green (TMG) consortium managed to make their way to Ngwenya’s farm to show him their solution: climate and crop information collected by satellite and sent to farmers’ cellphones.

Zimbabwe has been slow to embrace satellite-based systems for its agricultural sector, but now the country is seeing the benefits of using the technology to help farmers adapt to the impact of climate change, agricultural experts have said.

More than 7 million people work as communal or small-scale farmers, UN Food and Agriculture Organization data showed.

Many still rely on traditional weather-predicting systems and occasional visits by on-the-ground extension officers to get crucial information and advice.

However, using satellite data, groups like TMG can access weather information that is more accurate than the general forecasts supplied by the meteorological department, said Lwazi Mlilo, an agronomist working with TMG.

With mobile phone technology, they can get that information to farmers faster than they would by sending people out to hard-to-reach farms, he added.

Mlilo showed Ngwenya how extension officers can look at the farmer’s 27 hectare holding on Google Maps and combine that with satellite data available online to track everything from weather patterns to the health of crops.

“I can monitor the activity on your farm from my office. We do not need to come here to check the progress of your crops,” he told the visibly awed farmer.

Experts might then advise farmers in the low-rainfall Matabeleland region on what seeds to plant and which techniques to use to keep their crops thriving, Mlilo said.

As most rural farmers in Zimbabwe have no Internet connection — many have no electricity at all — TMG communicates with them via short message service, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The organization can quickly tell farmers if a plot in their area has suffered a pest invasion or send out warnings about sudden changes in climate conditions to all the farmers in a particular area at once, he said.

“Farming is not as tough as some imagine — as long as one has access to relevant, up-to-date knowledge, especially now with new technologies,” Mlilo said.

About 2,000 small-scale farmers have joined the project since it launched last year, he said.

Approximately 80 percent of Zimbabwe’s rural people depend on rain-fed agriculture for a living, making them highly vulnerable to more extreme weather associated with climate change, agricultural experts have said.

Last year, the UN agency said that satellite data had the potential to help Africa’s farmers “be better prepared for drought and increase agricultural production with less water use.”

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title: Satellite data help remote Zimbabwe farms survive


content_text:
Oil on Friday clinched the best weekly gain for this year on signs that the worst economic effects of a lethal viral outbreak have been accounted for, easing concern about free-falling demand for crude.

Futures advanced 1.2 percent in New York, settling at more than US$52 for the first time this month.

Investor confidence was lifted after China reassured the international community that a huge spike in new cases of COVID-19 was a one-off event.

The optimism outweighed Goldman Sachs Group Inc slashing its crude demand growth forecast for this year almost in half and lowering its first-quarter oil price estimate by 16 percent.

“There’s no doubt this rally will inspire more confidence for oil markets,” KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc analyst Leo Mariani said.

OPEC and its allies have signaled a desire to stabilize the oil market, which has tumbled almost 15 percent this year as the coronavirus wreaked havoc on the world’s second-largest economy and beyond.

The past two weeks have been rife with uncertainty for oil markets as Riyadh’s push for an early meeting this month and fresh production cuts face an impasse with Russia.

OPEC and its allies were close to abandoning any plans for an emergency meeting, although Saudi Arabia had not given up on the proposal outright, several delegates from the group said on Friday.

The outbreak has intensified concerns about crude demand, prompting technical experts from the coalition to propose deepening supply cuts by 600,000 barrels per day to relieve excess inventories.

“Expectations are low, but markets still expect some incremental action from OPEC,” Mariani said.

Chinese independent refiners have seized on the slump in oil prices to bulk up on cheap cargoes in a sign that they might be positioning for an eventual rebound in demand.

West Texas Intermediate crude for delivery next month gained US$0.63 to settle at US$52.05 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent for April settlement rose 1.7 percent to settle at US$57.32 on the ICE Futures Europe exchange.

The structure of the Brent futures market also flipped into a backwardation, signaling that some of the oversupply might have eased.

In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline was unchanged at US$1.58 per gallon and heating oil climbed US$0.02 to US$1.70 per gallon, while natural gas rose US$0.01 to US$1.84 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Gold rose US$7.60 to US$1,582.70 per ounce and silver rose US$0.12 to US$17.72 per ounce, while copper fell US$0.01 to US$2.61 per pound.

Additional reporting by staff writer

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title: Oil climbs despite Goldman’s gloomy outlook on demand


content_text:
European equities edge down from record highs

NO CHOICE:One analyst said that while investors have become cautious, another week without downsides has left them ‘nothing to do but keep buying into the rally’
A handful of negative company updates from Britain and France on Friday knocked European shares off record highs hit earlier in the session, while investors grappled with the effects of an outbreak of COVID-19 in China on global growth.

The pan-European STOXX 600 on Friday closed down 0.38 points, or 0.1 percent, to 430.70 — but still rose 1.5 percent from a close of 424.36 on Feb. 7 — after notching a new high of 432.26 in early afternoon trading.

London’s FTSE 100 on Friday underperformed its European peers with a drop of 42.90 points, or 0.6 percent, to 7,409.13, falling 0.8 percent from 7,466.70 a week earlier, as drugmaker AstraZeneca PLC forecast a possible slowdown in revenue growth this year, assuming a hit from China’s coronavirus epidemic.

France’s CAC 40 on Friday fell 23.78 points, or 0.4 percent, to 6,069.35, but gained 0.7 percent from a close of 6,029.75 a week earlier, as Barclays PLC downgraded several consumer stocks, saying that the outbreak would have major effects on Chinese consumption.

Cosmetics group L’Oreal SA and spirits makers Remy Cointreau SA and Pernod Ricard SA fell between 0.5 percent and 1.2 percent after the rating cut.

Renault SA dropped more than 4 percent on its first loss in 10 years as the automaker set a lower operating margin goal for this year, when it is to carry out its planned reboot alongside partner Nissan Motor Co Ltd after a scandal surrounding former boss Carlos Ghosn.

“The weekend provides plenty of scope for unpleasant surprises, hence the cautious attitude displayed by risk assets on most Fridays in the year so far,” IG Group PLC chief market analyst Chris Beauchamp wrote in a client note.

“But it has been yet another week where downside has failed to materialize in any real fashion, leaving investors with nothing to do but keep buying into the rally,” Beauchamp added.

Investors said that they thought the economic effects of the outbreak would not be as deep as feared, with some also finding succor in a spread beyond China that is not as rapid as feared.

Others have latched on to the possibility of further central bank stimulus measures in response to any slowdown. For example, the People’s Bank of China has already pumped liquidity into its economy.

“Our base case is that the virus can be largely controlled by end-March,” UBS Global Wealth Management chief investment officer Mark Haefele wrote to clients.

“The negative impact on the economy will be mostly confined to 1Q,” he wrote, predicting that growth would rebound from next month on the release of suppressed demand, as well as monetary and fiscal policy support.

Figures showed that eurozone economic growth slowed as expected in the fourth quarter, but employment growth picked up more than expected.

Other data showed that the German economy stagnated in the same period due to weaker private consumption and state spending, raising the risk of a recession in an economy hit by weak manufacturing activity.

Germany’s DAX on Friday ended flat, sliding 1.22 points to 13,744.21, but recorded a gain of 1.7 percent from 13,513.81 a week earlier.

Real estate and utilities were the best-performing European sectors for the day, rising about 1.5 percent each.

Utilities were boosted by France’s Electricite de France SA, which topped the STOXX 600 after its annual core earnings beat expectations.

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title: Virus Outbreak: Theater shows suffer from COVID-19

content_text:
Taiwanese playwright-director Fan Chung-chi’s musical Bando, which was to open this year’s Taiwan International Festival of Arts on Friday, has been postponed due to COVID-19 concerns.Photo courtesy of the National Theater Concert Hall
The annual Taiwan International Festival of the Arts (TIFA), which was scheduled to open on Friday, has suffered its first hit from the COVID-19 outbreak, with two international companies canceling their trips to Taiwan and a local food-centric production being postponed until later this year.

The National Theater Concert Hall (NTCH) yesterday morning announced that two dance troupes, Michael Keegan-Dolan’s Teac Damsa from Ireland and the London-based Candoco Dance Company, had been unable to obtain the necessary overseas performance insurance to cover their trips to Taipei.

They had also been concerned that their future tour itineraries might be affected by other nations’ disease prevention or quarantine restrictions, and so, after talks with the NTCH, they decided to cancel their Taiwan debuts.

Teac Damsa had been scheduled to give three performances of Keegan-Dolan’s Swan Lake and Loch na hEala at the National Theater starting on Friday night, while Candoco was to perform Yasmeen Godder’s Face In and Hetain Patel’s Let’s Talk About Dis from March 20 to March 22 in the National Experimental Theater.

The outdoor launch party for this year’s TIFA was to be three free performances on Friday of Taiwanese playwright-director Fan Chung-chi’s (樊宗錡) Bando (十二碗菜歌), a musical incorporating traditional banquet catering, with snacks provided to audience members, in the main plaza between the National Theater and the Concert Hall.

Given concerns that sharing food has a high risk of viral transmission, organizers decided to postponed the production until the fall.

The National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying) announced that next weekend’s two shows of American choreographer William Forsythe’s A Quiet Evening of Dance have also been canceled due to COVID-19 concerns.

The production had been scheduled for two stops in Asia on its current world tour — Hong Kong for a show on Thursday and then Kaohsiung.

It lost the Hong Kong show when the entire month-long Hong International Art Festival was scrapped on Feb. 10 due to the COVID-19 outbreak in China, with the territory’s government postponing most of its large performance venues.

The NTCH and Weiwuying said that tickets for the canceled shows are refundable.

The National Performing Arts Center, the umbrella organization for the NTCH, Weiwuying and the National Taichung Theater, previously said that it is taking disease-prevention precautions at all of its venues, with employees required to have their temperatures taken daily and frontline staff to wear masks while on duty, while disinfection measures are being increased.

Audience members are required to have their temperatures taken before entering a venue, so they are encouraged to factor this into their arrival plans. They are also encouraged to wear masks.

Earlier this month the TaipeiEYE, a small Taipei theater that produces traditional Beijing opera, puppet and acrobatic shows for tourists, announced that it was canceling all of its shows through Feb. 25 and offering full refunds to ticket holders.

Information on the resumption of shows will be posted on its Web site and Facebook page, it said.

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title: Human factor, weather blamed for chopper crash

taiwan-subdivisions: 坪林 烏來

content_text:
Major General Huang Chih-wei speaks at a news conference at the Ministry of National Defense in Taipei yesterday.Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The human factor and the weather might be to blame for a military helicopter crash that last month killed eight military personnel, including chief of the general staff general Shen Yi-ming (沈一鳴), the air force said yesterday.

The UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter was on its way to a base in Yilan County’s Dongao (東澳) for a pre-Lunar New Year inspection on Jan. 2 when it went down in the mountains of New Taipei City’s Wulai District (烏來) with 13 people on board.

Citing a preliminary investigation, the air force said that it has ruled out mechanical failure as the main cause of the crash, after Sikorsky Aircraft Corp, the helicopter’s manufacturer, last week provided a comprehensive analysis of the two data recorders retrieved from the wreckage.

It said that preliminary findings have shown that the cause of the crash was most likely related to human error and the weather.

The pilot tried to pull up to gain visibility after encountering a thick layer of cloud that suddenly formed in the area between Pinglin District (坪林) and Yilan, the air force said.

The helicopter’s cockpit voice recorder last picked up a loud thud followed by what sounded like rotors clipping a tree a few seconds after 8:07am, before the recording stopped, it said.

At the time of the crash, the helicopter was 3,551m above sea level and 87m from the ground, it added.

Twelve seconds before impact, the copilot twice told the pilot to watch out for altitude, according to the recorder, the air force said.

The helicopter was flown by lieutenant colonel Yeh Chien-yi (葉建儀) and copilot captain Liu Chen-fu (劉鎮富), who were both killed in the accident.

The other five killed were Political Warfare Bureau deputy director major general Yu Chin-wen (于親文), Intelligence Staff Office deputy assistant major general Hung Hung-chun (洪鴻鈞), major Huang Sheng-hang (黃聖航) of the Office of the Chief of the General Staff, chief master sergeant Han Cheng-hung (韓正宏) and crew chief master sergeant Hsu Hung-pin (許鴻彬).

A final report on the crash would be released later, the air force said.

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: DPP lawmakers propose legislation for relief funds

From left, Democratic Progressive Party legislators Chuang Ching-cheng, Ho Hsin-chun and Rosalia Wu speak at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday.Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday proposed special legislation to provide a legal basis for the government to provide NT$60 billion (US$2 billion) in emergency relief to the nation’s industries affected by an outbreak of COVID-19 in China.

The special funding would be available for 18 months, allowing for the cut-off to coincide with the conclusion of fiscal year 2021, DPP Legislator Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純) said.

The funding could be extended with the approval of the Legislative Yuan, Ho said, adding that she hoped all parties would put aside their differences to ensure the speedy passage of the legislation.

The proposed relief plan aims to improve disease prevention efforts and social welfare; provide subsidies to small and medium-sized enterprises; and stimulate the economy.

DPP Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said that the arts and humanities sector should also be supported by the plan, as fears over COVID-19 have greatly affected museums and theaters.

The service industry and other related areas have also been hit hard, Wu said, adding that the government should consider prioritizing the purchase of artwork from those who have been greatly affected.

The legislation stipulates that, if needed, the government could issue small-sum vouchers to help stimulate the economy.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus last week proposed its version of the legislation to approve NT$50 billion in funding to subsidize industries affected by the outbreak.

In the Executive Yuan’s version, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) called for NT$60 billion in funding and a duration of up to one year.

The Cabinet said that it hoped its version would be passed during an Executive Yuan meeting scheduled for Thursday and that it would forward it to the legislature for approval as soon as possible.

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people: 吳思瑤 蘇貞昌 何欣純


content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Taipei fines HK travelers for breaking quarantine

ENHANCED MEASURES:The CECC is imposing a 14-day compulsory home quarantine on people who visited China, Hong Kong or Macau in the 14 days prior to their arrival
Three travelers who arrived from Hong Kong and breached quarantine regulations aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19 in Taiwan were each fined NT$70,000, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday.

To enhance disease-prevention measures at the nation’s borders, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has imposed a 14-day compulsory home quarantine on all visitors who visited China, Hong Kong or Macau in the 14 days prior to their arrival in Taiwan.

A married couple and their son on Saturday last week traveled from Hong Kong to Taiwan and were placed under home quarantine, but monitoring officers lost contact with them, prompting the city government on Friday to publicize their names and ask the public to locate them.

They were found by police in a daily rental studio apartment in Taipei on Friday afternoon.

A fine of NT$70,000 has been imposed on each the three people and they have been moved to a centralized quarantine location in the city, the department said yesterday.

Separately yesterday, the police tracked down another three people who broke quarantine — a Taiwanese woman who on Feb. 5 returned to Kinmen through the “small three links” from China, a Taiwanese woman who on Saturday last week returned from China and a man of unknown nationality who arrived from Hong Kong on Sunday last week.

As of Friday, the city government has imposed fines on 22 people who broke their home quarantine.

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday morning said it is important that everyone who is under home quarantine cooperate with the policy, otherwise the government would have to go to the trouble of using various other preventive measures.

“Electric bracelets” might have to be used if all other measures fail, he added.

Asked about Ko’s electric bracelets remark, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that heavier punishments have been levied on those who have gone missing while under compulsory home quarantine.

An electronic health declaration certificate system was launched on Thursday, enhancing control on visitors under home quarantine after their arrival in Taiwan, he said.

The center would send those who breach the compulsory home quarantine order more than once to a centralized quarantine location, but it has not considered using monitoring bracelets yet, he added.

Additional reporting by CNA

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people: 陳時中 柯文哲


title: Virus Outbreak: Group letter urges WHO to abolish wildlife markets

content_text:
The logo of the WHO is pictured at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, ahead of a meeting of an emergency committee on COVID-19 on Jan 30.Photo: Reuters
A joint letter by the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan and foreign groups is calling on the WHO and other global bodies to close wildlife markets to reduce human and animal health risks, citing the COVID-19 outbreak in China as an example.

The letter, signed by 208 organizations and individuals around the world, was sent on Tuesday to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Organisation for Animal Health director-general Monique Eloit and UN Environment Programme Executive Director Inger Andersen.

The call was initiated by the UK-based Born Free Foundation, Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan office director Lin Tai-ching (林岱瑾) said yesterday, adding that the animal society also started a petition to gather domestic support for the initiative.

“The current coronavirus epidemic sweeping across parts of China is believed to have originated in wildlife, and might have been transmitted to people via wildlife markets in the city of Wuhan, although the precise source of the human infection has yet to be definitively established,” the letter read.

Wildlife markets have also been associated with other epidemics, such as the global outbreaks of SARS in 2002 and 2003, and Ebola epidemics in Africa in recent years, it said.

While China has announced a temporary ban on wildlife trade and wildlife markets across the country, the measures should be made permanent, it added.

The EU has banned the import of captive live birds to reduce the transmission of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, the letter said, citing the example as a precedent.

Stopping wildlife trade also safeguards biodiversity, as 1 million animal and plant species are on the verge of extinction, the letter said.

Direct exploitation has been identified as the second-most important driver of biodiversity loss, following changes in land use and sea use, it said, citing a report published last year by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Wildlife sales in Taiwan have declined significantly since a 1994 amendment to the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法) banned the trade of protected wildlife, but some eateries still sell wildlife, such as the Formosan Reeves’ muntjac and civets, Lin said.

Although Reeves’ muntjacs and civets have been removed from the government’s list of protected species, consuming wild animals is unnecessary, as people can eat poultry and other farm animals, she said.

While not every person can switch to veganism, society has been promoting farming and slaughter methods that reduce the pain caused to animals, such as cage-free eggs, she said.

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content_text:
Executive Yuan spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka speaks at the Executive Yuan in Taipei on Feb. 6.Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The government’s New Southbound Policy has brought Taiwanese and Filipinos closer, and played a role in prompting Manila to remove Taiwan from its temporary travel ban, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka said yesterday.

Manila on Feb. 2 imposed a temporary travel ban on visitors from China, Hong Kong and Macau, before adding Taiwan to the ban on Monday, citing its “one China” policy.

The Philippine government, after a Cabinet meeting on Friday, decided to lift the ban on Taiwanese, citing Taiwan’s “strict measures” to contain COVID-19.

Unlike some people’s claims that Manila’s ban indicated a crack in the New Southbound Policy, the policy proved effective at a critical juncture, when Taiwan faced harsh political pressure, Kolas wrote on Facebook yesterday.

Taiwan attempted to offer a win-win situation to the Philippines during their negotiations, she said, citing examples showing the benefits of maintaining bilateral rapport.

In the first 11 months of last year, more than 450,000 Philippine tourists visited Taiwan, up from nearly 420,000 in 2018, while revenue from bilateral trade totaled US$8.24 billion last year, she said.

More than 157,000 Filipinos were working in Taiwan as of December last year, meaning that the same number can continue to earn stable incomes here — another win-win, she said.

Taiwanese investment in the Philippines last year reached NT$78 billion, making Taiwan its seventh-largest foreign investor, while Taiwanese businesses there employ 11,414 workers and boost development in electronics, electrical engineering, trade, food and chemical engineering, she said.

Taiwan’s economic achievements in the Southeast Asia nation over the past years should not be nullified because of pressure from the Chinese governement, she said.

While many countries have lifted travel bans on Taiwanese, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still negotiating with Italy, which banned Taiwanese flights, and Mongolia, which banned Taiwanese travelers, about removing their bans, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said.

Bangladesh last week suspended the issuance of visas on arrival to Taiwanese and Chinese, requiring them to submit medical certificates with visa applications, Ou said.

In related news, Ou said that the ministry is closely monitoring the interaction of China and the Vatican, after Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) met with Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Holy See’s secretary for relations with states, on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference, which began on Friday.

The Vatican is one of Taiwan’s 15 remaining diplomatic allies and its only ally in Europe.

The importance of a provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops in China, which Beijing and the Vatican signed on Sept. 22 last year, was highlighted in their meeting, the Vatican News reported.

The agreement is a groundbreaking practice and China is willing to advance mutual understanding with Vatican, Wang said in a news release.

Based on the mutual trust that it has with Taiwan, the Vatican informed Taipei of the meeting, saying that it would not broach political issues, but only express concern over the COVID-19 outbreak, Ou said.

Meanwhile, 105 members of the European Parliament from 10 countries — Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Spain — have written to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urging the WHO to invite Taiwan to join this year’s World Health Assembly and to no longer list Taiwan as part of China, the ministry said.

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title: Virus Outbreak: Policy helped get Manila ban dropped


content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Public health centers to sell masks

ADDED DISTRIBUTION:The health centers are to get as many masks per day as the pharmacies, Health Promotion Administration Director-General Wang Ying-wei said
Signs explaining the government’s face mask policy and the hours when masks will be on sale are posted outside a public health center in Nantou County yesterday.Photo copied by Liu Pin-chuan, Taipei Times
From today, people can purchase masks at 303 public health centers with their National Health Insurance (NHI) card under the same rules as when buying them at pharmacies, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.

After an increase in COVID-19 infections — with more than 66,000 cases reported in China and some cases showing up in other countries — triggered panic buying of masks, the CECC implemented a policy of selling masks at pharmacies and limiting people to buying two masks every seven days with their NHI card or Alien Resident Certificate (ARC).

People whose national ID or ARC card number ends with an odd number can buy masks on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while those whose ID number ends with an even number are limited to Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, while Sunday is open to both.

However, many people have complained about being unable to purchase masks due to the limited number distributed to each pharmacy.

“Last Sunday, as all people could buy masks, the lines in front of pharmacies were long, and some pharmacies are closed on Sunday, so we had asked public health centers to help sell masks,” said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who also heads the CECC.

Starting today, people can buy masks at 303 public health centers across the nation, Chen said, adding that the rules for buying masks at pharmacies would also cover purchases at public health centers.

The same numbers of masks are to be distributed to health centers as to pharmacies: 200 adult masks and 50 child masks per day, Health Promotion Administration Director-General Wang Ying-wei (王英偉) said.

Chen said that there were no new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Taiwan on Friday.

The total number of confirmed cases remains at 18, while two treated for the infection have been discharged from hospital.

The remaining 16 cases are in stable condition and continue to receive treatment in isolation wards, he said.

At present, 355 people who had direct contact with those confirmed to be infected are under compulsory home quarantine, Chen said, adding that 20 of those reported having symptoms, with 15 testing negative for COVID-19 and five still undergoing testing.

Among the 247 people evacuated from Wuhan, China, last week, only one was confirmed to have been infected with COVID-19, the 11th case in Taiwan, he said.

Chen urged the public to continue to avoid air travel to minimize their risk of contracting COVID-19.

Additional reporting by CNA

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title:
Asian plane makers
struggle in crowded market

content_text:
People look at an airplane cabin behind a SpaceJet model at the Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp booth at the Singapore Airshow on Wednesday.Photo: AFP
Asian plane makers have thrown huge sums at building jets, but flagship projects have suffered repeated setbacks and they face a tough time breaking into a market dominated by established players.

As the Asia-Pacific region is the world’s biggest aviation market for commercial aircraft, Japanese and Chinese firms have embarked on programs to build their own airplanes.

Asia’s two biggest economies are home to a myriad of companies making high-tech goods, from cars to smartphones, which in many cases have succeeded in rivaling Western firms.

However, when it comes to building airplanes — which requires mammoth investment, years of painstaking development and rigorous safety standards — progress has been slow.

The companies at the forefront of the Asian drive, Japan’s Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp and Chinese state-owned manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corp of China Ltd (COMAC, 中國商用飛機), have both seen their flagship projects delayed for years.

China “could be successful in 10-15 years, but at this time, the odds are not really in their favor,” said Shukor Yusof, founder of Malaysia-based aviation consultancy Endau Analytics.

“The international market is just too saturated with aircraft from the established manufacturers, so there’s very little space for new players,” Shukor said.

The Singapore Airshow, which is Asia’s biggest and ends today, has this week been — as ever — dominated by European plane maker Airbus SE, US manufacturer Boeing Co and a handful of smaller, mostly Western manufacturers.

Chinese manufacturers had a good reason for not making much of an impression — they were forced to pull out because of a ban on travelers from China due to an outbreak of COVID-19.

Mitsubishi was showing off a mock-up of the interior of its SpaceJet, the first version of which was originally due for commercial rollout in 2013.

After repeated delays, Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways Co Ltd had finally been scheduled to receive its first SpaceJet M90 in the middle of this year.

However, the model this month suffered its sixth delay, with the first delivery now expected next year at the earliest. The setbacks, due mainly to technical glitches, have raised the development cost for the plane to an estimated ￥800 billion (US$7.3 billion).

Steve Haro, vice president and head of global marketing and strategy at Mitsubishi, said that more than 900 changes have been made to the aircraft’s original design.

However, he added that a milestone had been reached, as the latest version was ready to be certified by regulators.

“We’re really at the place where we’re crossing the finish line of a very long race,” he said.

The plane is for short, regional flights — such as between a major hub and smaller airports inside the same country — and its main rivals are aircraft made by Brazil’s Embraer SA, he said.

“We’re not interested in competing with Boeing on the large airplanes, or Airbus. We see ourselves meeting a vital market segment that has really been ignored too long,” Haro said.

More than 400 orders have already been received for the M90 from around the world, he said.

Meanwhile, state-owned COMAC’s flagship jet has been delayed at least five years and analysts believe that it is likely to miss next year’s scheduled first delivery to a customer.

The single-aisle C919 is designed to compete with the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320, the favored workhorse of budget carriers.


content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Taiwan mask output to triple by month’s end: Motex

By Yan Hung-chun and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer
Workers oversee a mask production line at at Changhua County-based medical products manufacturer Motex Healthcare Corp on Feb. 8.Photo: Chen Kuan-pei, Taipei Times
Mask production in Taiwan is expected to nearly triple by the end of this month to meet demand generated by COVID-19, a manufacturer said on Friday.

Government recruitment has increased the number of mask manufacturers, with daily production expected to increase from 3.2 million masks per day when COVID-19 was revealed at the end of last year to 10 million masks per day by the end of this month, Changhua County-based medical products manufacturer Motex Healthcare Corp said.

“Manufacturers are working with the government to contain COVID-19, but once its spread slows, the demand for masks will slow, too, and there will be cut-throat competition,” Motex spokesperson Hsu Chih-yuan (徐誌遠) said.

Motex, like other companies, is raising production at the government’s request, he said, adding that it has 11 machines producing 300,000 masks per day and plans to add three more machines.

It would not normally raise production to meet short-term demand, but the masks are easy to produce and only NT$3 apiece, he said.

People have the misconception that companies are cashing in on the outbreak, but there is little money to be made, as the government is controlling everything in the manufacturing process, he said.

People only have a few options when buying a mask — such as surgical masks, dust masks, industrial masks and respirators — but masks are likely to become more comfortable, closer fitting and more effective, Hsu added.

Companies such as Motex keep production local, because they recognize the importance of having a local source for something as important as masks, he said.

Taiwan is a nation of innovators, but lacks resources, he said, adding that once the COVID-19 outbreak passes, manufacturers can produce quality masks for China, where the market is bigger and the resources greater.

Hsu praised the government’s vigorous response to COVID-19, saying that NT$200 million (US$6.7 million) was invested into mask production, administrative procedures were expedited and military personnel were offered as additional labor for mask production.

“The government is also working with manufacturers to ensure an uninterrupted supply of non-woven fabric,” he said.

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title: Taiwanese-British gay couple legalize marriage

content_text:
A Taiwanese-British gay couple have become legal partners, one year after holding a wedding ceremony in Taiwan that received blessings from across the country.

Chao Shou-chuan (趙守泉), 25, and his partner, identified only as Andy, 76, from Leicester, England, registered their union at the Miaoli City Household Registration Office on Wednesday.

“It is really wonderful to see your spouse’s name written on the back of your identity card,” Chao said on Facebook that day. “Taiwan is a good country.”

Chao and Andy tied the knot at the Miaoli Railway Museum on Feb. 16 last year, drawing more than 500 well-wishers from across Taiwan who wanted to show their support for same-sex unions, which had not yet been legalized in the country at the time.

They originally planned to register their union on May 17 last year, the day that the legislation allowing gay marriages cleared the Legislative Yuan, and Andy returned to England in February of that year to apply for a certificate of non-impediment to prove that he was not already married, Chao said.

However, they postponed registering their marriage until after Taiwan had actually promulgated the legislation, he said.

Chao and Andy met when Chao was traveling in the UK four years ago as a sophomore college student. Andy is a retired engineer.

The couple decided to get married after dating for about two-and-a-half years, with the full support of Chao’s father.

The pair said that they plan to fly to England to register their union there later this year.

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content_text:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday issued a product warning for weight-loss drug Belviq, after US medical authorities on Thursday reported that clinical trials on the drug’s active ingredient, lorcaserin, showed an increased risk of several types of cancer.

Clinical tests on people taking lorcaserin found a higher frequency of pancreatic, colorectal and lung cancers, the US Food and Drug Administration said in a statement.

After being notified of the trial data, the drug’s manufacturer, Ensai Inc, submitted a request to voluntarily withdraw it from the market, the statement said.

On Friday, Hung Kuo-teng (洪國登), section head of the Medicinal Products Division of Taiwan’s FDA, said that only one product containing lorcaserin — 10 milligram doses of the weight-loss drug Belviq — was approved for sale in Taiwan.

Since the drug is not covered by the National Health Insurance program, there are no exact statistics on how widely it is used, Hung said.

Based on responses from retailers, average annual sales of Belviq are about 5 million doses, with Taiwan’s FDA estimating that 10,000 to 20,000 people use the drug, he said.

People who are taking Belviq should immediately discontinue use of the drug and discuss other weight-loss strategies with their physician, Hung said.

Chuang Yi Biotech, the holder of the product’s permit in Taiwan, on Friday said that it would instruct domestic medical institutions to stop writing prescriptions for Belviq.

Chuang Yi Biotech said that the drug accounts for about 60 percent of its annual earnings.

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title: FDA issues warning for weight-loss drug


taiwan-subdivisions: 新店 永和 中正

content_text:
Court sentences four found guilty of killing Canadian

OPTION TO APPEAL:Oren Shlomo Mayer was handed life in prison for allegedly arranging the murder of Sanjay Ryan Ramgahan at a riverside park in Yonghe
Three Americans and a Taiwanese-Canadian were yesterday convicted and sentenced for the murder of a Canadian citizen in Taiwan in 2018, the New Taipei District Court said.

The main suspect, Oren Shlomo Mayer, who has dual US and Israeli citizenship, received life in prison, while Ewart Odane Bent was given 12 years and six months after they were found guilty of killing Sanjay Ryan Ramgahan and of dismembering and abandoning his body, the court said in its ruling.

Jason Hobbie was sentenced to 18 months in prison for aiding and abetting the murder, while Taiwanese-Canadian Wu Hsuan (吳宣) received six months in jail, also for aiding and abetting, the court said.

The defendants can appeal the verdict.

The four were arrested after Ramgahan’s dismembered body was found on a riverbank under Zhongzheng Bridge (中正橋) in New Taipei City’s Yonghe District (永和) on Aug. 22, 2018.

Mayer fled after the murder, but was tracked down in the Philippines two weeks later, after police notified Philippine authorities.

The four defendants were involved in the illegal drug trade, and suspecting that Ramgahan had informed the police of their illicit dealings, Mayer decided to kill him, the court said.

On Aug. 21, 2018, Mayer contacted Ramgahan using a messaging app and arranged to meet him at a riverside park in Yonghe later that evening, court documents showed.

They were joined by Bent, Wu and Hobbie, who Mayer asked to tag along, the documents said.

Mayer and Bent took turns to strangle Ramgahan with a chainsaw chain before Mayer cut his throat with a machete. Mayer and Bent dismembered his body together, the court said.

The victim’s body parts were then thrown into the nearby Sindian River (新店溪), along with the tools used to murder him, the documents said.

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title: Global defense spending spikes as rivalries heat up

content_text:
US Air Force F-35A jets are pictured at Hill Air Force Base in Utah on Jan. 6.Photo: Reuters
Global defense spending saw its biggest jump in a decade last year, driven by the US and China, a study said on Friday, as rivalries and conflicts stoke military investment.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said the 4 percent annual rise was fueled by competition between major powers, new military technologies and rumbling warfare from Ukraine to Libya.

Beijing’s military modernization program — which includes developing new hard-to-detect hypersonic missiles — is alarming Washington and helping drive US defense spending, the IISS said.

Its annual Military Balance report said the increase alone in US spending from 2018 to last year — US$53.4 billion — was almost as big as the UK’s entire defense budget.

“Spending rose as economies recovered from the effects of the financial crisis, but increases have also been driven by sharpening threat perceptions,” IISS chief John Chipman said, releasing the report at the Munich Security Conference.

Both the US and China increased spending by 6.6 percent, the report said, to US$684.6 billion and US$181.1 billion respectively.

Europe — driven by concerns about Russia — stepped up by 4.2 percent, but this only brought the continent’s defense spending back to 2008 levels, before the global financial crisis saw budgets slashed.

European NATO members have been seeking to increase spending to placate US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly accused them of freeloading on the US.

Trump has railed at European allies, particularly Germany, for not living up to a 2014 NATO pledge to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense.

Giving the opening address at the annual security gathering, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that Trump’s “America first” strategy had shaken up the international order and fueled insecurity.

“We are witnessing today an increasingly destructive momentum in global politics,” Steinmeier said. “Every year we are getting further and further away from our goal of creating a more peaceful world through international cooperation.”

The collapse last year of the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty and the doubts surrounding the renewal of the New START arms reduction treaty, which expires next year, have contributed to the mood of instability, the report said.

Speaking in Munich, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned of a “disturbing erosion” of arms control limits that had “kept the world safe for decades.”

“Irresponsible governments are accelerating their pursuit of nuclear power and missile capability. The world can ill afford an arms race,” she said.

China’s program of military modernization — described by the IISS as “striking for its scale, speed and ambition” — has also unsettled Washington as well as its allies in the Pacific, it said.

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content_text:
Vatican, Chinese foreign ministers hold first meeting between two sides

Archbishop Paul Gallagher, left, and Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi shake hands on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday.Photo: AFP / Vatican Media
The foreign ministers of China and the Vatican have met in the first such high-level encounter between the sides, which do not have diplomatic ties, Beijing’s state media reported yesterday.

The talks on Friday between Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) and Archbishop Paul Gallagher in Munich, Germany, came as relations between the two sides have steadily improved following a landmark agreement on the appointment of bishops in 2018.

“Today is the first meeting between the Chinese and Vatican foreign ministers,” Wang was quoted as saying by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mouthpiece the People’s Daily.

“This is a continuation of the exchanges between China and the Vatican for a period of time. It will open up more space for the future exchanges between the two sides,” he added.

Wang called the 2018 agreement “groundbreaking,” saying that it “has achieved positive results.”

Wang and Gallagher, who met during the Munich Security Conference, also discussed Beijing’s efforts to contain an outbreak of COVID-19, which has killed more than 1,500 people and infected tens of thousands in China.

In a statement, the Vatican said that the talks were “cordial” and that contacts between the two sides had seen “positive developments.”

Wang and Gallagher “highlighted the importance” of the 2018 deal and reiterated their willingness to continue “the institutional dialogue at the bilateral level to promote the life of the Catholic Church and the good of the Chinese people,” it said.

The Vatican is Taiwan’s only European diplomatic ally. The People’s Republic of China broke relations with the Vatican in 1951.

China’s roughly 12 million Catholics have for decades been split between a government-run association, whose clergy were chosen by the CCP, and an unofficial “underground” church loyal to the Vatican.

However, under the terms of the deal agreed in September 2018, both Beijing and the Vatican now have a say in appointing Catholic bishops in China.

The first bishop to be ordained under the deal was Antonio Yao Shun (姚順) of the diocese of Ulanqab in the northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in August last year.

Chinese law requires priests and bishops to register and align with the country’s official church.

However, the Vatican said at the time that Yao had also “received the Papal Mandate” at the ordination.

Pope Francis has recognized seven clergy appointed by China as part of the deal, despite fears that the accord would be used by Beijing to further crack down on worshipers outside the official church.

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title: All-Stars’ Zion marvels at fan Obama

content_text:
Team USA forward Zion Williamson goes to the basket during their NBA Rising Stars game against Team World at the United Center in Chicago on Friday.Photo: EPA-EFE
Zion Williamson found it crazy to learn that former US president Barack Obama was among his most devoted and dedicated supporters at an NBA All-Star Game event in Chicago on Friday.

Obama chatted with the 19-year-old rookie star forward of the New Orleans Pelicans ahead of today’s 69th showdown of elite NBA talent, impressing the prodigy with his knowledge.

“He said I was playing great. I kind of zoned out after that. That’s all I needed to hear, to be honest,” Williamson said. “He was even talking about my recent games. I was like: ‘You’re keeping up with me? I’m 19, man. You’ve got superstars you can go and keep up with.’ It was crazy.”

Obama told Slovenian guard Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks: “You are doing fantastic,” and impressed Atlanta’s Trae Young, another All-Star Game starter.

“He just loves watching me. He watches me all the time,” Young said Obama told him. “Telling me how it’s going to turn for the Hawks in the future — it’s crazy that he knew all those different things about me.”

Los Angeles Lakers coach Frank Vogel said it is par for the course for an ex-president who is a noted basketball fan to have supporters among NBA players.

“There’s really nothing like it,” Vogel said. “He’s a young president who is really beloved by all of America, but in particular the NBA family. He’s so in-tune with our game and it was a great honor to meet him.”

No one was more thrilled than Williamson, who made his NBA debut on Jan. 22 after missing three months with a knee injury.

He scored 32 points in a 123-118 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday. With 221 points in 10 games, he joins Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson as the only players with more than 200 points in their first 10 league appearances.

“He said: ‘Career-high 32.’ Crazy,” Williamson said of Obama. “For him to keep up with all of us, hats off to him. I’ve got a lot of respect for him, just knowing us, knowing our stats.”

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content_text:
A : Well, that was awkward.

B : What happened?

A : I was the only person not wearing a face mask at the office meeting today. Everyone seemed really uncomfortable. Then I sneezed...

B : Hmm, looks like someone’s going to have to line up outside the drugstore again.

A : 我剛才遇到一個超尷尬的狀況。

B : 發生什麼事了？

A : 今天在公司的會議上，我是唯一一個沒戴口罩的人。每個人好像都對我投以奇怪的眼神。結果我打了一個噴嚏……。

B : 嗯，看起來有人又要去藥局外面排隊買口罩啦。

English 英文:

Chinese 中文:

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title: EVERYDAY ENGLISH


content_text:
Cricket S Africa boss urges respect for Smith, Warner

Australia’s David Warner reacts during their one-day international against India at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, India, on Jan. 14.Photo: AFP
Cricket South Africa (CSA) interim chief executive Jacques Faul has pleaded with fans to treat Steve Smith and David Warner with respect and not “embarrass” the governing body with poor behavior when the Australia batsmen tour the country for the first time since a ball-tampering scandal.

Smith and Warner, who incurred 12-month bans for their parts in the tampering plot during a Cape Town Test two years ago, were jeered relentlessly by English crowds during the Cricket World Cup and the Ashes series last year.

Fans who misbehaved would be ejected from venues during the limited-overs series, which starts with a Twenty20 match in Johannesburg on Friday, Faul said.

“I would plead with South African fans to respect our opponents and don’t go overboard with these things,” Faul told Fairfax media. “It’s competitive on the field and we don’t need it. Sport in general doesn’t need that behavior.”

“We have a very strict policy in terms of fan behavior and we will evacuate people, but the damage will have been done,” he said.

Australia’s 2018 tour of South Africa was tense on and off the field, and well before the tampering incident at Newlands.

Animosity between opener Warner and South Africa wicketkeeper-batsman Quinton de Kock spilled over into a heated stairwell confrontation during the first Test in Durban, with teammates stepping in to separate the players.

Warner and his wife, Candice, were subsequently targeted by the crowds, and CSA apologized to the Australia team after two of the board’s officials were photographed wearing Sonny Bill Williams masks with fans at the ground.

Candice Warner had a tryst with New Zealand rugby union international Williams more than 10 years before the incident.

“What happened last time [in South Africa], the behavior was unfortunate,” said Faul, who stepped in as CEO in December last year following Thabang Moroe’s suspension for alleged misconduct. “It’s embarrassing, when it happens, for the stadium and the national federations.”

“If there are best practices that we can learn from to prevent it, we’re happy to look at it,” he said.

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title: Kobe Bryant among eight finalists to enter Hall of Fame

content_text:
Five-time NBA champion Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers legend who was killed last month in a helicopter crash, was among eight finalists named on Friday for induction this year into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Bryant, an 18-time NBA All-Star who is in his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame, is considered a certainty to join the ranks of the sport’s immortals by being enshrined at the honor shrine in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The announcement of Hall of Fame inductees is scheduled for April 4 in Atlanta, Georgia, at the US college “Final Four” with 18 of 24 votes from the Honors Committee needed to join the select list.

Enshrinement is to take place at ceremonies in Springfield from Aug. 28 to 30.

Other first-time finalists include 15-time NBA All-Star and three-time NBA Finals most valuable player Tim Duncan, 15-time NBA All-Star and nine-time NBA All-Defensive First Team selection Kevin Garnett and 10-time Women’s NBA All-Star and four-time Olympic champion Tamika Catchings.

Prior finalists with another chance include US college coaches Kim Mulkey, Barbara Stevens, Eddie Sutton and two-time NBA champion coach Rudy Tomjanovich.

Bryant’s death at age 41, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, has had an impact on the Hall of Fame selections.

“We knew this class had the potential of being one of the most historic of all time,” Hall of Fame chairman Jerry Colangelo said. “The untimely passing of Kobe Bryant has left us in a state of reflective mourning and we’re proud to honor his legacy while also recognizing seven other individuals who have meant so much to our game.”

“We congratulate our finalists and those who have supported them on their journeys and we look forward to revealing the Class of 2020 at the Final Four in Atlanta,” Colangelo said.

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title: Tourism crucial to nation’s future

content_text:
Despite China’s aggressive attempts to isolate it internationally and poach its diplomatic allies by offering them economic sops, Taiwan is already conspicuous on the world map — not only as a key economic player with vast global trading interests, but also as an interesting tourist destination that offers “something for everyone,” as one US tour operator said at the recent New York Times Travel Show.

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) Jan. 11 election victory has generated considerable interest in the nation, not only in the West, but also in the Indo-Pacific region. This widespread engagement needs to be converted into an opportunity to attract tourists from around the world.

Although Taiwan’s participation at the travel show was well received, with crowds turning to watch the colorful aboriginal dances at the Taiwan pavilion, the China pavilion was marked by low visitor attendance. This might have been due to the fear generated by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis in China, which has alarmed countries far and near.

The number of Chinese tourists, once a welcome sight for many iconic stores, has also dropped sharply. Some of the landmark designer stores on New York City’s Fifth Avenue, which had placed huge signboards extending Lunar New Year’s greetings to welcome shoppers from China, looked almost deserted.

Taiwan’s diplomacy, which is geared to raise the nation’s profile, also made a strong presence at the travel show. Taiwan’s highly respected New York-based representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York Director-General Lily Hsu (徐儷文), made a strong pitch for the nation’s tourism sector.

Hsu, who has been reaching out to the Taiwanese community and Americans, said that the relationship between Taiwan and the US, which has been greatly strengthened in recent years, was further bolstered by the introduction of reciprocal visa-waiver systems. This, she added, would boost tourism in both directions.

She listed a number of impressive achievements for Taiwan:

“Taiwan has also received a lot of international recognition from the media: InterNations’ Expat City Ranking 2019 identified Taipei as the No. 1 city for expats to live in; Travel + Leisure also listed Taiwan as one of its Best Places to Travel to in 2020.”

Tourism plays a vital role in a country’s relationship with other nations, and complements political, economic and sociocultural ties. By attracting US tourists to Taiwan, for example, the two sides would forge mutual understanding.

Tourism also helps correct misconceptions and knowledge deficits among US tourists — or, for that matter, any other visitors. Besides being an important source of revenue, tourism can generate goodwill and also serve as a cultural bridge builder for Taiwan. Tourism strategists’ argument that each satisfied foreign visitor becomes the receiving nation’s ambassador upon their return is not without merit.

Taiwan Tourism Bureau in New York Director Claire Wen (溫佳思) said that direct travel to Taiwan was available from China Airlines and EVA Air, in addition to a “number of easy flight connections available on non-Taiwanese airlines with a brief layover in their home countries.”

In an interview at the New York Times Travel Show, Wen said: “Taiwan has a unique natural environment, with 268 mountains that exceed 3,000m in height. With vast changes in altitude within short distances, Taiwan makes it easy to witness different flora and fauna, making it an island of natural wonder. Taiwan’s mountains are highly accessible by public transport, and hiking routes are well planned, with each route offering opportunities to experience different local cultures and cuisine. We welcome all international tourists to come and enjoy the beauty of Taiwan.”

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title: Year’s first case of whooping cough is middle-aged man

content_text:
A man in his 40s from northern Taiwan has been confirmed to be this year’s first case of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Friday.

The man visited Shenzhen, China, at the end of last year, returned to Taiwan on Jan. 10 and began coughing on Jan. 30, the centers said in a statement.

After being tested on Wednesday last week, the man’s diagnosis was confirmed on Feb. 11, the centers said.

He has since made a complete recovery, and his three immediate family members have not shown any signs of having been infected, it said.

Whooping cough is highly contagious, the agency said, adding that its symptoms include a runny nose, fever and severe coughing fits.

In rare cases, specifically among infants, the disease can lead to pneumonia, brain lesions and even death, the centers said.

The number of cases so far this year is comparable to the one to five confirmed cases during the first seven weeks of each year from 2016 to last year, centers statistics showed.

The number of annual cases ranged from 17 to 34 during that period, and 56 percent of cases during that period were infants who had not yet reached the vaccination age or had received only one dose of the vaccine, the centers said.

The National Health Insurance program offers the multi-dose vaccine to children at the ages of two, four, six and eighteen months and five years, the agency said.

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