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Virus Outbreak: Saudi Arabia beefs up COVID-19 control measures

Saudi Arabia yesterday announced that it would impose a fine of up to 500,000 riyals (US$133,219) on those who do not declare correct health-related information at entry points, according to state TV

The kingdom on Sunday cordoned off an oil-rich Shiite stronghold, suspended air and sea travel to nine countries, and closed schools and universities, in a series of measures to contain COVID-19.

The lockdown on Qatif, an eastern area that is home to about 500,000 people, is the first action of its kind across the Gulf region, which has more than 230 confirmed cases — most of them people returning from religious pilgrimages to Shiite-majority Iran.

Given the kingdom’s 11 recorded cases of COVID-19 are from Qatif, “it has been decided to temporarily suspend entry and exit” from the area, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Interior said in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

Except for essential services such as pharmacies and gas stations, work would stop in all government and private institutions in Qatif, the statement added.

Although the ministry said the lockdown was temporary, it risks fueling resentment in the flashpoint region, the residents of which have long accused the Sunni-dominated government of discrimination, a charge Riyadh denies.

The government also decided to temporarily suspend travel to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, South Korea, Egypt, Italy and Iraq, as well as suspend the entry of those coming from those countries, SPA reported.

“The kingdom also decided to stop air and sea travel between the kingdom and the mentioned countries,” it added.

The decision is expected to leave expat workers from those countries, as well as Saudi travelers, stranded.

Saudi Arabia also announced it was closing all public and private universities and schools across the country until further notice, SPA reported.

Saudi Arabia has blamed arch-rival Iran for its spike in COVID-19 cases, while condemning Tehran for allowing its citizens entry without stamping their passports.

The Riyadh government has reminded its nationals of a standing ban on travel to Iran, as the two countries are locked in a battle for regional supremacy.

Iran yesterday reported 43 new deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the overall death toll to 237.

“In the past 24 hours, 595 new cases infected with coronavirus were identified in the country and the overall number of those infected rose to 7,167,” Alireza Vahabzadeh, an adviser to the Iranian minister of health said in a tweet.

“So far, 2,394 of the confirmed cases have recovered,” he added.

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Virus Outbreak: China signals progress in virus fight; Disney reopens

China yesterday closed several makeshift hospitals for COVID-19 patients, some schools reopened and Disney resort staff went back to work as normality slowly returns to the country after weeks battling the epidemic.

New virus cases in China — which accounts for the vast majority of the more than 100,000 infections worldwide — have declined in the past few weeks in a sign that the nation’s unprecedented lockdown measures are working.

The improving situation stands in stark contrast with the growing global spread of the disease that has affected scores of countries and prompted some governments to impose their own draconian measures and quarantines.

China yesterday reported 40 new infections nationwide — the smallest increase since it began reporting the data in January.

Nearly all the fresh cases and 22 new deaths were in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, which has been under lockdown for weeks.

The latest fatalities bring the country’s death toll to 3,119.

A senior official hinted last week that China could soon lift the travel restrictions on Hubei, which have effectively kept about 56 million people housebound. About 19,000 people are still receiving treatment for the virus, down from a high of 58,000 on Feb. 24.

Shanghai Disney said that it was reopening its shopping and entertainment Disneytown zone — plus a park and hotel in the same complex — in the “first step of a phased reopening.”

However, the Disneyland amusement park remains closed.

In Wuhan, 11 of 16 makeshift hospitals that were converted from public facilities, including stadiums and schools, were shuttered by Sunday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Two of the most recent makeshift hospitals that closed — a converted sports center and a factory — had enough capacity for nearly 2,000 people at a time and discharged their last 61 patients on Sunday, Xinhua said.

Hubei Airport Group ordered all airports in the province to get back to work by Thursday, in a sign that the province is preparing to resume flights.

Wuhan Tianhe International Airport — which suspended flights on Jan. 23 except for airlifts for foreigners — yesterday said that some of its managers had already resumed work.

IKEA has reopened 16 of its stores in China with shorter opening hours, after closing all outlets in the country in late January, the Swedish furniture giant said.

Meanwhile, some regions are gearing up to reopen schools this week, after more than a month of closures across the nation.

Qinghai Province, spread across the Tibetan Plateau, announced late last month that high schools and vocational schools would resume gradually from yesterday.

Middle schools would reopen later in the month, it said.

Mountainous Guizhou Province in southwest China has also said some high-school and middle-school students would resume classes from March 16.

The only new cases outside Hubei were four imported from overseas, the Chinese National Health Commission said, bringing the total number of infections brought into the country to 67.

The rise in imported cases is fueling fears that the country’s progress in bringing infections down could be undone, and several local authorities are imposing quarantines on those arriving from hard-hit areas.


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Amazon nixed ‘green’ shipping proposals to avoid alienating shoppers

A few years ago, Amazon.com Inc’s quick delivery team debated doing something radical for the e-commerce giant: asking shoppers to consider the environment.

The team building Amazon’s Prime Now

same-day delivery service knew that the quickest delivery options tended to be the worst for the planet. A guaranteed one-hour delivery window sometimes meant sending couriers in mostly empty vehicles darting to far-flung neighborhoods, all the while emitting about the same greenhouse gas emissions as a fully loaded truck or van.

Someone on the team proposed showing customers a “Green” shopping delivery option, a slightly slower delivery speed designed to give Amazon more time to cluster orders together and send out densely packed vehicles, saving on fuel, driver salaries and carbon emissions.

The idea was one of at least two instances in recent years when Amazon teams debated telling customers more about the environmental impact of their shipping choices, two people familiar with the episodes said.

Neither was implemented, in part, because of the risk that shoppers would think twice before clicking “Buy Now,” the people said.

“It was all efficiency and bottom line focused,” said one of the people, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal matter. “If you don’t have top-down goals around sustainability, there are always going to be tradeoffs.”

Amazon has in the past year made some big climate commitments, following calls from shareholders, activists and employees to do more to offset the company’s contribution to the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for warming the planet.

In September last year, CEO Jeff Bezos pledged to erase Amazon’s contribution — about 44.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2018 — and make Amazon’s business carbon neutral by 2040. Last month, Bezos raised the stakes, saying he would spend US$10 billion of his personal fortune on projects to combat climate change.

However, Amazon’s push to make its operations more climate friendly is at odds with elements of the company’s core business practices, some current and former employees and outside observers said.

Bezos’ company is, in many ways, designed to promote consumption. From one-click shopping to one-day shipping, many employees are encouraged to focus on a set of goals geared toward removing barriers to shopping and inventing new ways of pleasing customers before they think to ask.

That obsessive focus has helped make Amazon the largest online retailer in the world. It also makes climate activists and sustainability experts — many of whom cheer the company’s bold new goals — skeptical of Amazon’s odds of success.

“What they’re trying to do is create a climate and a culture of consumption,” said Raz Godelnik, a professor at The New School’s Parsons School of Design who focuses on sustainability. “That means more products will be manufactured, more products will be shipped, more products will be returned. If you just look at the numbers, it means overall, a zero carbon contribution is not possible.”

Amazon says its commitments represent “a very aggressive and important goal.”

“Not only are we committed to the Climate Pledge to be net-zero carbon by 2040 ... we are actively working to recruit others to join us,” a spokesman said in an e-mailed statement. “We are making significant investments in renewable energy, carbon-neutral transportation, sustainable materials, closed-loop systems and resource efficiency improvements to achieve our sustainability goals.”

Amazon’s first efforts to address its environmental impact more than a decade ago were designed to cut costs by weeding out waste. Programs to reduce the size of boxes Amazon ships to customers and eliminate hard-to-open plastic packaging, continue today. The company also deputized employees to seek out inefficiencies in their day jobs, removing light bulbs from vending machines and, in the case of a Scottish warehouse, shutting off a hot water heater during the summer months.

At the same time, the company asserted that online shopping was better for the planet than what came before.

“We believe that e-commerce is inherently more environmentally friendly than traditional retailing, and we believe that we will continue to innovate in this area over time,” the company said in a 2011 filing, language Bezos and other top executives have echoed with little change in the following years.

The logic makes some intuitive sense: 100 people driving cars to the store to pick up an item is hugely wasteful compared with a single truck that makes rounds to each person’s doorstep.

The trouble is, the world is messier than the talking point, people who study logistics and shopping habits said. One shopper might grab the week’s groceries on the way home from work, likely a more efficient trip than arranging for a refrigerated truck to stop by the house. Some online deal hunters wipe out any environmental benefit of online shopping by making a trip to a store to try out a product in person. And others, freed from the need to go to the store, might jump in the car for a trip to do something fun.

“The complexity is tremendous,” said Anne Goodchild, who leads the University of Washington’s research on supply chains and logistics.

Five months before Amazon announced plans for a zero-carbon future, the company complicated its task, announcing it would make one-day delivery standard for members of its Prime free shipping program. Since Amazon’s previous two-day unlimited shipping guarantee was introduced in 2005, the company has been at the forefront of raising expectations that not only should shoppers be able to buy basically anything online, but the stuff should arrive quickly.

Researchers said that faster delivery speed tends to mean more emissions, either from the waste of a partially empty truck rushing to meet a delivery deadline, or a trip in the belly of a cargo plane from a distant warehouse.

“Buying online or not doesn’t account for the main variable,” Goodchild said. “The main variable is how far away did something come from, and then how quickly did you demand that it get to you.”

Amazon said that for its own operations, faster shipping does not necessarily mean more emissions. By staging inventory in depots closer to shoppers and leveraging the massive order volume of the largest online retailer, the company is able to deliver packages more efficiently than outside research would suggest, a spokesperson said.

Embedded in that assurance is expectations for ever more growth at Amazon: A bigger slice of retail sales means more deliveries to more neighborhoods, which in turn leads to more optimized routes and, theoretically, fewer emissions.

“What they’re saying is if we reach a high enough level of demand for essentially any delivery window, then we can likely do it in a more environmentally friendly manner than anybody else could do on their own,” said Teddy Forscher, who is studying the relationship between online shopping and transportation at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Amazon has not released numbers to back up its claims about delivery efficiency, but outside data do support some elements of the company’s premise. Last year, Amazon packages started their journey to customer doorsteps 25 percent closer than shipments by other e-commerce companies, according to data from Rakuten Intelligence, which tracks e-mailed customer receipts. Amazon packages also spend a day less in transit, on average.

That effortless shipping makes it possible for people to click “Buy Now” without thinking too hard about the cost, shoppers said.

“Amazon makes it really easy to click through things,” said Katie Ferrara, a songwriter in Los Angeles, who gets about two or three Amazon deliveries a week.

Most of her orders, from guitar cables to clothing she cannot find in local stores, tend to be single purchases, including the occasional impulse buy.

“I know it’s probably not the best for the environment,” she said.

When shoppers do try to buy items in bulk, Amazon most often sends them packaged individually, which is partly the result of third-party sellers on Amazon’s site who often mail their own inventory. Among orders containing multiple items, more than 60 percent come in separate packages, according to Rakuten data covering the first half of last year. For other retailers, orders containing multiple items come in separate packages just 27 percent of the time.

Amazon, which said its deliveries generally emit less carbon than physical shopping trips for the same set of items, is working behind the scenes to make its operations more efficient without customers knowing or having to change their behavior.

The company said it expects to receive its first electric delivery truck from Rivian Inc next year and to have 100,000 of them on the road by 2030. It cited the purchase of electric vehicles, typically more expensive than conventional diesel or gasoline-powered models, as a sign of its commitment to meet its zero-carbon goal, even if it adds costs.

The order may help jumpstart production of fossil-fuel-free delivery vehicles, which has so far failed to keep up with demand. FedEx Corp and United Parcel Service Inc, which each have thousands of electric or alternative-fuel vehicles on the road, both saw their emissions rise in 2018, the most recently reported year, as surging e-commerce orders outpaced their ability to acquire new vehicles.

“The e-commerce boom has changed buyer behavior — consumers have become accustomed to getting nearly anything they want, when and where they want it,” UPS said in its sustainability report.

UPS, which gives customers the option to offset the emissions associated with their shipments, is among the companies that have decided to enlist customers in making operations greener. In Britain, grocers Ocado and Sainsbury’s both show customers during checkout which delivery slots are better for the environment.

Amazon, which left that option on the table with the abandoned “Green” Prime Now window, has experimented with similar concepts that emphasize efficiency, but shy away from some of the environmentally friendly branding.

The company last year unveiled “Amazon Day,” an option for shoppers to cluster their deliveries on a single day of the week. The marketing of the new service touts convenience and simplifying shoppers’ busy lives, before noting that the program is “one of many sustainability initiatives” under way.

A separate program aimed at efficiency offers customers store credit or discounts if they opt for slower shipping on an in-demand product. The company declined to say how many shoppers use those options.

Godelnik said such behind-the-scenes nudges might not be enough. Amazon may have to involve its own customers, or use its influence to change their shopping behavior, before it will zero out its environmental impact.

“Amazon for me is a reflection of business as usual,” Godelnik said. “You can talk all day about the climate crisis, but if you see packages come and go, and everything looks normal. Production, consumption. What’s the crisis?”

Still, Godelnik, who lives in Princeton, New Jersey, and does most of his shopping on Amazon, does not typically use the company’s no-rush shipping options himself.

“I’m very bad at it, I have to admit,” he said. “Prime, it’s just addictive.”

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content_text:
BRUSSELS TALKS:
 Turkey’s president on Sunday called on Greece to open its gates to migrants. Germany yesterday said it would be willing to take a share of child migrants

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen yesterday said ahead of migration crisis talks with Turkish President Tayyip Recap Erdogan that Ankara must move refugees and migrants away from the Greek border.

“Finding a solution to this situation will require relieving the pressure that is put on the border,” Von der Leyen told a news conference.

She said ensuring the right to asylum, support for both Turkey and Greece, as well as moving people — especially minors — stranded on the Greek islands to mainland Europe were immediately needed too.

Refugees in Edirne, Turkey, yesterday walk toward the Pazarkule gate on the Turkey- Greece border.
 Photo: EPA-EFE

Erdogan was scheduled to meet with Von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel in Brussels.

They would “discuss EU-Turkey matters, including migration, security, stability in the region and the crisis in Syria,” Michel’s spokesman said on Twitter.

Tens of thousands of asylum seekers have been trying to break through the land border from Turkey for a week after Ankara announced it would no longer prevent people from trying to cross into the EU.

Turkey, which hosts about 4 million mostly Syrian refugees, has repeatedly railed against what it describes as unfair burden-sharing.

Erdogan on Sunday called on Greece to “open the gates” to the migrants after Greek police used tear gas and water cannons in skirmishes with crowds at the border.

“I hope I will return from Belgium with different outcomes,” he said in a speech in Istanbul as he announced the meeting.

“Hey Greece! I appeal to you ... open the gates as well and be free of this burden,” he said. “Let them go to other European countries.”

Early yesterday, Germany said the EU was considering taking in up to 1,500 migrant children who are currently housed in Greek camps.

“A humanitarian solution is being negotiated at the European level for a ‘coalition of the willing’ to take in these children,” the government said in a statement.

Berlin was ready to take in an “appropriate” share, it added, saying the country wanted to support Greece in the “difficult” situation it is facing.

Concern over the plight of the minors have grown as they either require urgent medical treatment or are unaccompanied by adults.

Erdogan on Friday ordered the Turkish coastguard to prevent risky Aegean sea crossings after more than 1,700 migrants landed on Lesbos and four other Aegean islands from Turkey over the past week.

However, the coastguard said Turkey’s policy of allowing migrants and refugees to leave by land was untouched, and the instruction only affected sea crossings.

In 2016, Turkey and the EU agreed a deal whereby Brussels would provide billions of euros in aid in exchange for Turkish authorities curbing the flow of migrants.

Ankara has repeatedly accused the bloc of not fulfilling promises that were made while Europe suffered its worst refugee crisis since World War II, but the EU says it is disbursing the funds.

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title: EU says Turkey must move refugees


title: United claim Manchester derby double

content_text:
ON THE BRINK:
 A seventh league defeat of the season for Manchester City means Liverpool are now just two wins away from claiming a first league title in 30 years

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer believes the bond between Manchester United players and fans is returning after completing a first English Premier League derby double over Manchester City in 10 years with a 2-0 victory at Old Trafford.

Anthony Martial and Scott McTominay on Sunday took advantage of errors by City goalkeeper Ederson to keep United hot on the heels of Chelsea for a top-four finish, just three points behind the Blues, who earlier thrashed Everton 4-0 at Stamford Bridge.

United have been living in City’s shadow, but have beaten their local rivals three times this season and are now unbeaten in 10 games in all competitions.

Manchester United’s Anthony Martial scores against Manchester City in their Premier League match at Old Trafford in Manchester, England, on Sunday.
 Photo: Reuters

“The desire, attitude, commitment, the connection between fans and players,” Solskjaer said about what had pleased him most. “What a day they’ve had today. It’s a derby. The fans love it, the players love it. You can say it’s only three points, but to beat a team like Manchester City with the problems we’ve had is fantastic.”

United move up to fifth in the table, which could be good enough to qualify for the UEFA Champions League next season if City’s appeal against a two-year ban is not successful at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and on this display, City seem to already be concentrating on completing a treble of cup competitions this season.

A seventh league defeat of the campaign for Pep Guardiola’s men means Liverpool are now just two wins away from claiming a first league title in 30 years.

Guardiola said that his side had played well, but midfielder Bernardo Silva described the performance and result as unacceptable.

“Not a good performance and not acceptable from us. A team like ours cannot lose this many games in the Premier League as we have lost this season,” Silva said. “The reality is that the pressure is not on the Premier League. We know our position is not changing a lot because we won’t get to the title. I think we will be second to qualify for the Champions League, but it’s a derby. It’s important for our fans and it’s not acceptable to lose 2-0.”

City dominated possession early on, but badly missed the presence of the injured Kevin de Bruyne.

The visitors’ defensive deficiencies that have allowed Liverpool to streak 25 points clear were also obvious as Daniel James and Martial went close on the counterattack.

However, it was an uncharacteristic error by Ederson that gifted United the lead.

Bruno Fernandes was the creator with a scooped free-kick to pick out Martial and his shot squeezed under Ederson’s right hand at the near post.

Fred was then controversially booked for diving when he appeared to have been taken down inside the penalty area by Nicolas Otamendi.

United fans were frustrated the video assistant referee did not intervene on that occasion and when it did early in the second half, City were nearly the beneficiaries.

Sergio Aguero was flagged offside long before he fired past David de Gea, but the Argentine was only fractionally off when the move was reviewed.

Moments later, Ederson escaped gifting another goal as a routine back-pass rolled under his foot and he needed to produce a last-ditch tackle on Martial to deny United breathing space.

However, where Manchester United might have buckled earlier in the season, Solskjaer’s men held firm, as De Gea denied Phil Foden and Gabriel Jesus.

McTominay then sealed the three points deep in stoppage-time when he strode onto a wayward throw by Ederson to steer the ball into an unguarded net.

“It’s part of the game. He will recover and is an exceptional goalkeeper,” Guardiola said of an error-strewn afternoon for Ederson.

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title: HK police say raids found  bomb-making materials

content_text:
PROTESTS, ARRESTS:
 The Sunday morning searches were reportedly linked to a campaign calling for border closures over the virus outbreak

Hong Kong authorities say they have seized “significant quantities of homemade explosives” and arrested more than a dozen people in raids across the territory.

Separately, police were accused of overzealous responses at two protests on Sunday, arresting multiple people and pepper-spraying journalists.

The pre-dawn raids on Sunday were in connection with an alleged campaign to get the government to close its borders with China to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Hong Kong police said.

A Hong Kong riot police officer holds pepper spray on Sunday night as he tries to disperse anti-government protesters during a vigil at a parking lot to mourn last year’s death of student Alex Chow.
 Photo: Reuters

The force said the raids across 22 locations found electrical equipment, 1.5kg of explosives and 2.6 tonnes of chemicals. Twelve men and five women aged from 21 to 53 were arrested.

A senior bomb disposal officer, Alick McWhirter, said officers retrieved three homemade bombs that were “close to completion.”

“Significant quantities of homemade explosives ready to be used were seized [along with] and an enormous quantity of precursor chemicals ready to be manufactured into yet more homemade explosives — over 2,500kg of chemicals,” McWhirter said.

Hong Kong had faced “an ongoing bombing campaign … that has been both violent and indiscriminate,” he said, adding that the campaign was designed “to intimidate in order to achieve political ends.”

Some in Hong Kong questioned the timing of the raids and accused police of being heavy-handed.

Also on Sunday, police were accused of a heavy-handed response to a protest in Tai Po, where people objected to the establishment of a clinic for suspected COVID-19 cases in a high-density residential area.

Several people were taken away by police, and attendees including journalists were pepper-sprayed.

Prior to the protest police said the gathering was unlawful and warned against violence and “illegal acts of roadblocking.”

Tai Po District Councilor Man Nim-chi (文念志) told the South China Morning Post that she was pepper-sprayed despite standing near journalists to act as an observer.

“But one officer rushed in my direction and pepper-sprayed me in the face. It is sheer abuse of power,” she said.

On Sunday evening large numbers of police and riot squad officers gathered in Tseung Kwan O ahead of a planned vigil for 22-year-old student Alex Chow (周梓樂), who died after falling from a building during last year’s protests.

Hundreds of black-clad people, holding candles, showed up at the parking lot for the vigil.

Reports and social media footage showed arrests, mass stop-and-searches, and kettling of crowds in an effort to disperse the crowd.

Police said they seized Molotov cocktails, glass bottles, lighters, a batch of bricks, umbrellas and helmets in a car park near the vigil.

Additional reporting by Reuters


title: US makes gains over Russia in weapons sales

content_text:
Worldwide major arms exports have increased on growing demand from countries in conflict, researchers in Sweden said yesterday, with top exporter the US widening its lead over Russia.

Over the five years from 2015 to last year, international arms exports grew by 5.5 percent from the 2010-2014 period, a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said.

“Overall, arms transfers have increased... Amongst the arms importing countries, the demand is high and seems to even have increased a bit,” SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Program senior researcher Pieter Wezeman said.

Shipments from the US grew by 23 percent, raising its share of total global arms exports to 36 percent.

Between 2015 and last year, the US delivered major arms to 96 countries.

MIDDLE EAST

Half of US arms exports went to the Middle East, and half of that to Saudi Arabia, the world’s No. 1 importer of major arms.

The kingdom’s arms imports jumped by 130 percent from the 2010-2014 period, and it was on the receiving end of 12 percent of global major arms transfers in 2015 to last year.

The fact that so much heavy weaponry is exported to the Middle East is particularly “of concern,” Wezeman said, as the region is experiencing “conflicts and tensions and potential further conflict escalation.”

The researchers also noted that despite “wide-ranging concerns” in the UK and the US about Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen, both countries continued to export arms to Saudi Arabia.

RUSSIAN SALES DROP

Meanwhile, arms transfers from the second-largest exporter, Russia, decreased by 18 percent, largely due to a drop in sales to India.

“It’s not necessarily very dramatic in the case of Russia. But still it’s very clear and it also creates a bigger gap between the biggest one, the US, and Russia, the second,” Wezeman said.

Arms imports to India, which used to be the world’s largest importer, decreased by 32 percent and imports by Pakistan fell 39 percent.

Both nuclear powers “have long-standing aims to produce their own major arms,” but “remain largely dependent on imports,” SIPRI researchers said.

FRENCH SALES SOAR

Exports of French arms saw one of the most dramatic increases — up 72 percent from the five previous years — putting France ahead of Germany as the third-largest exporter in the world, with 7.9 percent of global exports.

More than half of France’s arms exports were to Egypt, Qatar and India, with deliveries of the Rafale combat aircraft to these countries accounting for nearly a quarter of total French exports.

The increase in arms exports follows a trend since the early 2000s, when arms transfers bottomed out after continually falling for a decade after the end of the Cold War.

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content_text:
France still in title mix despite defeat, lock Willemse says

Lock Paul Willemse on Sunday said that France are “still in the mix” for the Six Nations title, despite a 28-17 loss in Scotland ending their hopes of a first Grand Slam since 2010.

South African-born Willemse’s side were unbeaten before the defeat at Murrayfield and host Ireland at the weekend.

Ireland have an extra game to play after their match against Italy, which should have been played on Saturday, was postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Table-topping England’s trip to Rome at the weekend is also to rescheduled, with the fixtures yet to be given a date.

France’s Paul Willemse claims the ball in a lineout against Scotland in their Six Nations match at Murrayfield in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Sunday.
 Photo: AFP

“Nothing changes for us. We’ll put in the same intensity, not only because we are still in the mix, but because we want to finish well, too,” Willemse said. “It’s our last game [against Ireland] and we have been really enjoying our time together in the team.”

Willemse’s teammate, Mohamed Haouas was shown a red card in the Scottish capital for punching flanker Jamie Ritchie.

“That didn’t help us at all. It is really hard at this level to win a game with 14 players. That is one of the things that went against us, but it is not the only thing,” Willemse said. “We will take it on the chin and just prepare as we have done over the last few weeks.”

Winger Gael Fickou echoed Willemse’s thoughts ahead of hosting Andy Farrell’s Ireland, but he could be without a host of teammates. Scrumhalf Antoine Dupont suffered a collar-bone injury, flyhalf Romain Ntamack left the field with concussion, replacement hooker Camille Chat hurt his ankle during the warm-up, while Haouas is suspended.

“It’s up to us to learn from this. Lift up our heads. We still have the title to play for, so we’ll fight until the end,” Fickou said.

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title: Tesco to exit Thailand, Malaysia

content_text:
The UK’s biggest retailer, Tesco PLC, yesterday said that it has agreed to sell its businesses in Thailand and Malaysia to Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group for ￡8 billion (US$10.4 billion).

“Following inbound interest and a detailed strategic review of all options, we are announcing today the proposed sale of Tesco Thailand and Tesco Malaysia,” outgoing chief executive Dave Lewis said in a statement, adding that the supermarket chain would return ￡5 billion of the proceeds to investors.

“This sale releases material value and allows us to further simplify and focus the business, as well as to return significant value to shareholders,” he said.

A man walks into a Tesco-Lotus supermarket in Bangkok on Dec. 11 last year.
 Photo: AFP

Tesco said that the divestment would also slash debt and streamline the group, enabling a “stronger focus” on British, Irish and central European activities.

“The disposal will further de-risk the Tesco business by reducing indebtedness through a ￡2.5 billion pension contribution that, along with other measures, is expected to eliminate the current funding deficit and significantly reduce the prospect of having to make further pension deficit contributions in the future,” the retailer said.

The move was unanimously agreed by the Tesco board, but remains conditional on shareholder and regulatory approvals. The deal is set to complete in the second half of this year.

The announcement came as Lewis prepares to step down this year, having overseen a major overhaul at Tesco during his five years at the helm.

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title: China’s Belt and Road plan is getting lashed by coronavirus

content_text:
By Iain Marlow, Karlis Salna, Anusha Ondaatjie and Dandan Li / Bloomberg

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has long been seen as a way to project China’s influence around the world. Now, the COVID-19 outbreak is showing how the trade and infrastructure program can help export the nation’s troubles.

The outbreak is prompting delays and disruptions to China’s construction and investment plans overseas, risking years of planning and hundreds of billions of US dollars in economic diplomacy.

Quarantine measures are preventing Chinese workers from making it to foreign building sites, domestic firms supplying overseas projects face acute labor shortages and fears are mounting that workers will inadvertently spread the virus to new locales.

Projects that have been affected since the virus emerged in December include a US$5.5 billion high-speed rail line in Indonesia. There is also a separate railway initiative in neighboring Malaysia, construction projects in Sri Lanka and corporate expansion plans in Pakistan.

The disruption has exposed another pitfall of the region’s growing dependence on China’s backing for major infrastructure projects. Even as the pace of cases slows in China, host countries remain wary of avoiding outbreaks, with deadly infection surges in places such as Iran, Italy and South Korea serving as a warning about how quickly a small cluster can spin out of control.

“While there are risks of delays and cancelation of projects, there are also risks in early resumption,” said Bonnie Glaser, who has advised the US government and directs the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

BACK TO NORMAL?

Xi “seems determined to demonstrate that life is returning to normal and he wants to get the economy churning again,” Glaser said. “Resuming BRI projects is probably among his goals, not only for economic reasons, but also because BRI activities are a lever to enhance Chinese political influence.”

Even before the outbreak, Xi had been seeking to rebrand and scale back his Belt and Road ambitions amid an economic slowdown at home and backlash from some partner nations concerned about the costs.

The US has led a global campaign against the program, arguing that China’s reliance on loans locked poorer countries in “debt traps” while advancing its own strategic aims.

The virus has thrown up another hurdle, as countries bar or quarantine Chinese visitors. One official involved in BRI planning said in Beijing last week that a failure to stop the virus spreading outside of China would inevitably take a toll on projects.

Still, another Chinese official in Beijing said that the impact to key projects remained limited and that significant disruptions were likely to remain an issue only in the short term.

That optimistic assessment was echoed on Thursday by Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Zhaoxu (馬朝旭) at a briefing on international support for coronavirus actions.

“The impact of the outbreak on the construction of BRI is only temporary,” Ma told reporters in Beijing. “We are willing to work with all parties to continue to promote the high-quality construction of BRI. We have full confidence in this.”

However, the same day, Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Pandjaitan acknowledged that the multibillion-dollar Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway — a flagship BRI project — was likely to face delays.

More than 300 workers remain stuck in China.

In Malaysia, a dozen of the about 200 Chinese workers building the US$10.4 billion East Coast Rail Link hail from Wuhan, China, the city at the center of the outbreak. They are not allowed back to the Southeast Asian nation, while other workers can return after a 14-day quarantine process.

In Pakistan, which hosts numerous BRI projects spanning power and construction, two companies — Engro Polymer & Chemicals Ltd and Pakistan Oxygen Ltd — have said their projects face slowdowns, because their Chinese contractors alerted them to delays stemming from hampered Chinese facilities.

There has been widespread disruption to efforts in Sri Lanka, where Chinese investment is building the massive Port City Colombo, an expansion of the capital city via land reclamation.

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce has reported that about half of 100 firms surveyed said that business was affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

Government road and apartment construction projects involving Chinese contractors have slowed down, Chamber of Construction Industry of Sri Lanka secretary-general Nissanka Wijeratne said.

Chinese workers returning to Port City Colombo have self-quarantined and there have so far been no major delays at the country’s biggest construction site, said Thulci Aluvihare, head of strategy and business development for the project, which is being built by state-owned China Communications Construction Co.

The virus might prompt a shift in focus by Chinese firms, according to Arv Sreedhar, Singapore-based executive director at investment firm Atlantic Partners Asia.

“China is under incredible stress from the current situation and has other priorities for its money, such as coming to an acceptable agreement with the US on the trade war, and fighting both the health and financial aspects of the coronavirus,” he said.

POLITICAL PRESSURE

That puts political pressures on BRI partners, as well. Developing nations, such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Pakistan, might be afraid to aggressively tackle the virus for fear of alienating China, research firm Fitch Solutions said in a note on Thursday.

“That these countries, which are heavily dependent on China’s patronage, have so far reported zero or just a few confirmed cases, and we believe that this could be attributed to both low access to healthcare, which is likely to inhibit infection detection, and a desire to avoid antagonizing China by ‘overreacting’ to the outbreak,” Fitch Solutions said.

China’s overseas investments were already beginning to tail off and consolidate before the virus brought the country’s industry to a standstill.

The American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, which have tracked 3,600 major Chinese overseas transactions since 2005, found that outbound investment last year totaled just US$68.4 billion. That is a 41 percent plunge from 2018 and the lowest in a decade. The figure is far less than the Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s official tally of US$124.3 billion in total overseas investment last year.

Going forward, China could concentrate its BRI programs in fewer countries, working to avoid criticism by making its outbound investment less aggressive and one-sided, said Derek Scissors, a resident academic at the American Enterprise Institute.

Xi could “retrench and advertise more loudly that the BRI is a group effort,” he added. “It’s going to be harder for host governments over the next year to tout their supposedly close relationship with China as contributing to development.”

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content_text:
Since its discovery in December in the Chinese city of Wuhan, COVID-19 has spread like wildfire around the world, and its impact on the global economy appears to be more serious than many have thought.

However, there is an important fact that has escaped the attention of most observers: The route of the virus’ spread corresponds with China’s geopolitical interests around the globe.

Taiwan is an exception. Despite its geographical proximity, large volume of trade and other dealings with China, Taiwan has, to date, been able to effectively slow down the virus’ advance due to a combination of good fortune and prudent decisionmaking.

South Korea and Japan in East Asia, Italy in Europe and Iran in the Middle East: Outside of China, it is in these countries that the virus has strongly taken hold. Similar to Taiwan, Japan and South Korea possess advanced healthcare systems capable of providing a high standard of medical care. Online database Numbeo’s “Health Care Index by Country 2020” ranked Taiwan first, followed by South Korea and Japan.

An unintended but happy consequence of the Japanese colonial era is that a large number of Taiwanese elite opted to study medicine, as during that time Taiwanese were banned from reading law or politics. Health insurance is another key inheritance of this era.

However, in the global battle to combat the virus, the Japanese government’s response sticks out like a sore thumb. Setting aside its calamitous quarantine of the Diamond Princess cruise ship and the cases related to it, Japan had, as of yesterday, 479 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and instances of community transmission.

The primary reason behind the surge is Japanese politicians and officials have been constrained by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policy of improving relations between Tokyo and Beijing, causing officials to misjudge the situation.

Japanese officials have long been planning a series of major events for the next few years, including an official visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) next month, the Tokyo Summer Olympics in July and the anniversary of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and China in September.

The meeting between Abe and Xi would be the first of its kind in 12 years. The groundwork for the meeting started long ago and Japanese officials want to ensure that nothing gets in the way. When news of the virus first broke, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), under orders from Xi, asked the Japanese government not to overreact to the epidemic.

From the get-go, the Abe administration responded to the unfolding epidemic as if it were nothing more than a winter flu virus. Abe even offered to donate supplies to China. All of his administration’s actions were motivated by one overriding concern: keeping Beijing onside.

Unfortunately for Abe, coronaviruses do not respect diplomatic niceties and the COVID-19 epidemic rapidly spread throughout Japan. Japanese are panicking and the Tokyo Summer Olympics has been thrown into doubt.

A national survey conducted last month by Asahi Shimbun found that 85 percent of Japanese were concerned about the outbreak in their country.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in — whose administration has proved to be staunchly pro-China — is facing the wrath of the South Korean public due to his mishandling of the outbreak, and his decision to donate masks to China has been strongly criticized when there was a domestic shortage of masks.

Moreover, as South Korea’s borders remain open to Chinese tourists, epidemic-prevention measures are ineffective and, as of yesterday, the number of confirmed cases had reached 7,382, making it the highest concentration of confirmed cases outside of China.

A petition calling for Moon to be impeached has, at the time of writing, garnered 1.4 million signatures. With the petition mocking him as “Chinese Chairman Moon,” he is facing the greatest crisis of his presidency.

However, the most dramatic of all outbreaks is taking place in Italy. Why Italy?

One reason is the relatively high number of Chinese who have immigrated to the country, in particular from Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province. Another reason is Italy is the first G7 nation to sign up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which Beijing is using as a strategic bridgehead to gain access to the rest of Europe.

In March last year, Xi traveled to Rome to sign a series of cooperation agreements with the Italian government. Italy agreed to open up four of its ports to Chinese investment and trade to facilitate its infrastructure upgrade. The combined deals are reportedly worth up to 7 billion euros (US$7.97 billion).

By breaking ranks as the first G7 nation to embrace the Belt and Road Initiative, the Italian government hoped it would be able to drink its fill from the fountain of Chinese “easy money.” Instead, Rome’s love affair with Beijing has exposed the country to the virus and forced its people to drink from a poisoned well.

In Iran, Beijing has been pushing its Belt and Road Initiative since the beginning of 2013. This is because Tehran occupies a pivotal position as a bridge between three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa. China is now Iran’s biggest trading partner.

Boxed in by Western sanctions, Iran has for many years been exporting crude oil to China, and vast Chinese investments in the country have brought new railways, roads and other large-scale infrastructure projects.

One of the largest projects, a new railway that would connect Tehran to Urumqi, the administrative capital of China’s Xinjiang region, is expected to be completed next year.

All these investments necessitate a large number of Chinese workers shuttling back and forth between the two countries and they have brought the virus with them. The number of Iranian fatalities from the virus is second only to China, and it has now spread from Iran to neighboring countries in the Middle East.

Like Italy, Iran has become a regional super vector, transmitting the virus to neighboring countries.

As for Taiwan, the government is still fighting for time. The nation’s advanced and extensive healthcare system is the main reason for its largely successful prevention efforts — but there is also another factor: Since assuming office in 2016, the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been out of favor with the court of Beijing. At the end of July last year, China sought to inflict additional economic punishment by banning individual Chinese tourists from visiting Taiwan, having previously placed an embargo on Chinese tour groups. It was a blessing in disguise.

From the get-go, the Tsai administration made a conscious decision to maintain a healthy distance from China and sought to extricate the nation from the pro-China polices of the previous administration under former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

If Ma were still running the show, it is highly likely that his administration would have made serious missteps in its epidemic-prevention efforts, due to a misplaced feeling of camaraderie and solidarity with their Chinese “brethren.”

That Taiwan has so far been able to avoid calamity is not simply down to good fortune. The government cannot afford to let its guard down.

Tzou Jiing-wen is editor-in-chief of the Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times).

Translated by Edward Jones

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title: Virus follows China’s expansionism

people: 習近平 蔡英文 馬英九


content_text:
LeBron James closed out a weekend to remember. First, he outdueled Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks in a matchup of NBA conference leaders. Then he kept the Los Angeles Lakers rolling with a victory over the streaking Clippers.

James on Sunday had 28 points, seven rebounds and nine assists in a 112-103 victory that ended the Clippers’ six-game winning streak.

He put up 37 points, eight rebounds and seven assists on Friday against the Bucks.

LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers celebrates making a basket against the Los Angeles Clippers in their NBA game in Los Angeles, California, on Sunday.
 Photo: AFP

“His best weekend in a Lakers uniform I’m assuming,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. “I wasn’t here last year, but, in my mind, this was the best two-game stretch. Really just dominated both games and helped close them out.”

The Lakers won their fourth in a row and 11th in 12 games.

Anthony Davis scored 30 points and Avery Bradley added 24.

“It’s a really good weekend for us, playing against two of the best teams, the top two teams in the league with us as far as record-wise,” James said. “I just think we kept our composure throughout the whole game.”

The Lakers have sealed a playoff berth for the first time since 2013 and it is possible they could meet the Clippers in the post-season.

Paul George scored 31 points, Kawhi Leonard added 27 and Montrezl Harrell had 20 for the Clippers.

They lost to the Lakers for the first time this season.

“The first time we played Milwaukee and the previous two times we played the Clippers we beat ourselves,” Davis said. “When we don’t do that — get a shot on goal every time and don’t turn the ball over — then we’re a tough team to beat.”

Elsewhere, the Suns eclipsed the Bucks 140-131, the Pacers mastered the Mavericks 112-109, the Nets beat the Bulls 110-107, the Pelicans trounced the Timberwolves 120-107 and the Thunder pipped the Celtics 105-104.

The Cavaliers outlasted the Spurs 132-129 in overtime, the Magic routed the Rockets 126-106, the Heat hammered the Wizards 100-89, the Raptors dethroned the Kings 118-113 and the Knicks pummeled the Pistons 96-84.

Additional reporting by staff writer

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title: LeBron James, Lakers end Clippers’ win streak


content_text:
Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane on Sunday was fiercely critical of his side after they were beaten 2-1 away by Real Betis Balompie in La Liga, describing the performance as the worst of the campaign.

“Today, we lacked everything, it was our worst game of the season,” Zidane told a news conference after the loss left Real Madrid trailing leaders Barcelona by two points with 11 games remaining. “We lacked energy, creativity, possession and aggression. We didn’t do anything well in the first or second half. We made lots of errors, gave the ball away a lot and when you are not at your very best things can get very complicated.”

Real Madrid had the chance to underline their title credentials after the previous Sunday beating Barca 2-0 in El Clasico to top the table, but were outplayed by Betis from the start.

Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr, left, vies for tha ball with Real Betis Balompie’s Emerson in their La Liga match at the Estadio Benito Villamarin in Seville, Spain, on Sunday.

Photo: Reuters

They were fortunate to head into halftime with the game level after Karim Benzema’s penalty canceled out Brazilian defender Sidnei’s thumping opener, but Betis continued to dominate the play and snatched a deserved late winner through Cristian Tello.

“We didn’t deserve to win. It’s a real blow and we have to analyze everything,” Zidane said. “We had a very bad day, but that can always happen. We should not be driven crazy by this defeat, but we cannot be happy. We’re going to move on from this and we know we’ll find solutions, as until now we have had a good season. We have strengths and weaknesses, but we can turn things around.”

Real Madrid midfielder Casemiro said that the defeat could mean the difference between his side winning a first league championship since 2016-2017, or losing out again to Barcelona, who are bidding to claim the trophy for the third consecutive season.

“This defeat could cost us the title, although we need to think game by game,” Casemiro said. “If you want to win the league you have to play well in every game and today we did not play well. They played much better than us, and all we can do is congratulate Betis and keep working because we did not play how we needed to.”

Elsewhere, Athletic Bilbao won 4-1 at Real Valladolid, CD Leganes claimed a 2-1 victory at Villarreal, CA Osasuna edged RCD Espanyol 1-0 and Levante UD were held to a 1-1 draw by Granada.

Additional reporting by staff writer

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title: Real ‘lacked everything’ in miserable loss: Zidane


content_text:
Aaron Ramsey on Sunday starred as Juventus beat title rivals Inter 2-0 to reclaim top spot in Serie A in a game played behind closed doors due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Earlier in the day, Italian Minister for Sport Vincenzo Spadafora had called for the league season to be put on hold and his statement caused chaos at the early game between SPAL and Parma, with confused players sent back to the dressing rooms from the tunnel before eventually taking to the pitch 75 minutes after the scheduled kickoff. SPAL won the match 1-0.

Juventus’ game against Inter in Turin did go ahead, although in an empty Allianz Stadium, with the defending champions taking a one-point lead over SS Lazio at the top of the table.

Aaron Ramsey of Juventus, left, scores against Inter in their Serie A match at the Allianz Stadium in Turin, Italy, on Sunday.
 Photo: Reuters

“It’s all a little strange and sad to play football in these conditions, sad for the fans and the players,” Juventus director Fabio Paratici told Sky Sport Italia. “We trained in the empty stadium yesterday to get accustomed to the situation, but to be honest, I don’t think we can ever really get used to it.”

Reports in Italy late on Sunday suggested that the Serie A season could be suspended today once government officials have met with the league and player representatives.

“Our position is that Juventus will respect what the authorities indicate,” Paratici said. “We all understand that this is the situation and we must behave responsibly to help ensure it passes as quickly as possible.”

Juve coach Maurizio Sarri told Sky Sport Italia that he “doesn’t know what is the right thing to do” when it comes to the thorny question of canceling matches.

“What have to I ask is whether it’s right to take away two hours of enjoyment from those who are stuck indoors, or if there really is a serious risk for the players and staff, I just don’t know the answer to those questions,” the 61-year-old said.

On the game itself, he added: “This is an important victory, but there are still 12 games to go, so it’s a long road ahead.”

Antonio Conte’s third-placed Inter are now nine points adrift, but with a game in hand on Juve and Lazio.

Douglas Costa went closest in a tight first half, but was denied by an excellent save from Inter goalkeeper Samir Handanovic.

The hosts broke the deadlock 10 minutes after halftime when Cristiano Ronaldo got to a low ball first inside the penalty area, with it then falling kindly for Ramsey to sweep a low shot into the net from close range.

The 29-year-old Wales midfielder created his side’s second goal 12 minutes later, playing a neat one-two with Paulo Dybala, who wriggled clear of two defenders and fired home.

Inter substitute Christian Eriksen went close to pulling one back when he drilled a shot narrowly over the crossbar.

Things went from bad to worse for the away side when Daniele Padelli, sitting on the substitutes’ bench, was shown a red card for dissent.

The climax of the season remains uncertain, though, with Italian Footballers’ Association president Damiano Tommasi tweeted that “stopping football is the most useful thing for our country right now.”

“The teams to cheer are playing in our hospitals, in emergency rooms,” he wrote.

Elsewhere, Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s fourth goal since returning to AC Milan could not prevent the seven-time European champions from slipping to a 2-1 loss at home to struggling Genoa. UC Sampdoria defeated Hellas Verona 2-1, while Udinese were held to a goalless draw by ACF Fiorentina.

Additional reporting by staff writer

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title: Juventus down Inter to reclaim top spot


title: EDITORIAL: Quick action to fend off deflation

content_text:
The consumer price index (CPI) dipped 0.21 percent last month, its first year-on-year contraction in 14 months, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) announced last week.

The decline has raised concerns that it might be the prelude to a deflation, if consumers continue to avoid public places, such as restaurants, and cancel travel plans to avoid catching COVID-19, which would lead to further dips in entertainment and travel spending.

Apart from seasonal effects, the drop in consumer prices last month was primarily caused by a 3.4 percent slump in the recreation category, as hotels and travel agencies offered deep discounts to attract business following a slew of cancelations. Falling global crude oil prices also drove down fuel costs by 4.18 percent annually, DGBAS data showed.

Core CPI, which excludes food and energy costs, also fell into negative territory, shrinking 0.38 percent annually, the data showed.

To the ordinary consumer, deflation might seem to be better news than inflation, as lower prices would increase shoppers’ purchasing power. However, a downward spiral in prices would ultimately cause more severe problems, such as operating losses, job relocations to places with lower labor costs, or closures of hotels, restaurants and factories. Businesses might resort to cutting wages and laying off people to stay afloat. Ultimately, the economic outlook would dim and no one would be spared from the macroeconomic slowdown.

One of the biggest victims of the outbreak is the hospitality industry. The 48-year-old Leofoo Hotel in downtown Taipei yesterday announced that it was moving up the date of its closure to May instead of the end of the year. Leofoo’s announcement came on the heels of an announcement by Landis Hospitality Group last week that it was closing the unprofitable Landis Taichung today, saying that the outbreak was the last straw.

The SARS outbreak of 2003 can serve as a reference to how the current outbreak might affect the economy. That year, consumer prices shrank 0.28 percent, while economic growth contracted by 0.57 percentage points to 4.12 percent.

The DGBAS last month trimmed its economic growth forecast by 0.35 percentage points to 2.37 percent for this year, citing weak tourism and sagging private consumption due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The risk of further cuts is high, as the DGBAS projection is based on the assumption that the epidemic would be contained within three months and that its impact should be less severe than that of SARS.

However, there is no sign yet that the outbreak would subside any time soon, with the number of confirmed cases and deaths outside of China soaring. A majority of economists and industry experts expect the impact from COVID-19 on the economy to be greater than that of SARS — rather than milder, as the government agency predicted.

The government has to come up with solutions to stimulate the economy. The Cabinet has prepared a special fund of NT$60 billion (US$1.99 billion) to provide short-term credit lines to small and medium-sized enterprises, mostly in the tourism sector. Only NT$2 billion of the amount is earmarked for the issuance of stimulus coupons for use in night markets, commercial circles, restaurants and cultural events.

It is doubtful that such a small amount would be enough to spur domestic consumption, and boost consumer prices and the economy as a whole. The government needs to take quick action to tame the rising risk of deflation through fiscal or monetary policies.

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title: EDITORIAL CARTOON

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content_text:
Facebook Inc is being sued in Australia by the nation’s privacy regulator, which claims the social media giant exposed the personal data of more than 300,000 users to the risk of being used for political profiling.

In proceedings lodged in the Australian Federal Court, Australian Information Commissioner Angelene Falk alleged that Facebook repeatedly breached privacy laws by disclosing user information to the “This is Your Digital Life” app, a statement issued by the commissioner’s office said yesterday.

The personal data of 311,127 Australian Facebook users was “exposed to the risk of being disclosed” to consulting firm Cambridge Analytica and used for profiling purposes, the statement said.

Facebook has weathered controversy over privacy almost since its inception and has come under particular scrutiny in recent years in the US and Europe.

It reached a US$5 billion deal in July with the US Federal Trade Commission to settle an investigation into its privacy practices stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal that came to light in early 2018.

“All entities operating in Australia must be transparent and accountable in the way they handle personal information,” Falk said in the statement.

“We consider the design of the Facebook platform meant that users were unable to exercise reasonable choice and control about how their personal information was disclosed,” she said.

Facebook has fully cooperated with the commissioner over the past two years of her investigation, the company said in an e-mailed statement.

“We’ve made major changes to our platforms, in consultation with international regulators, to restrict the information available to app developers, implement new governance protocols and build industry-leading controls to help people protect and manage their data,” the company said.

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title: Australian regulator sues Facebook for exposing user data


title: Seven out of 10 health leaders are men

content_text:
‘STAGNANT’:
 The global health system undervalues women and is rooted in colonial principles that do not focus enough on migration or food security, a study found

A small group of privileged men based in Europe and the US preside over a global health system that is 70 percent male, new research has found.

The Global Health 50/50 report, published yesterday by University College London’s (UCL) Institute of Global Health, said that it could take 54 years until the world’s major health organizations have equality in their leadership.

Researchers said that although women make up 70 percent of workers in the global health sector, only 5 percent of leadership positions are occupied by women from low and middle-income countries.

Power is concentrated in rich countries, where 85 percent of global health organizations have their headquarters, the report said, adding that most of the leaders are nationals of these countries or had studied in their universities.

“It’s a stagnant and stagnating system,” said professor Sarah Hawkes, a professor of global public health at UCL and cofounder of the initiative, which reviewed the performance of 200 organizations working in health.

“It’s not kept pace with the changing nature of disease and it’s also essentially failing to take gender into account,” she said.

The current global health system has its roots in colonial-era structures that were often focused on specific diseases and preventing their spread to Europe, the report said.

Anuj Kapilashrami, a senior lecturer in global health at Queen Mary University of London, said that these structures mean much of the health sector focuses on select diseases rather than the structural issues that lead to disease.

“We need radical change in the ways aid gets dispersed, and structural changes,” she said.

There needs to be a greater focus on poverty, migration and food security, rather than measuring aid responses for communicable diseases, Kapilashrami said.

“Instead of just looking for silver bullets, it would be looking at causes of causes, the issues that push people into disease,” she said.

Hakwes said the lack of evolution in leadership is reflected in global health policy agendas, which have often failed to keep pace with changes around the world.

Policy in the 20th century was often focused on population control, and while it developed a specific focus on women’s health, the general understanding of gender was limited, she said.

“A lot of the programs we’ve looked at, they’re not looking at women’s health in general, they’re looking at women’s reproduction,” Hawkes said.

Programs have failed to take account of other health issues women face, especially as more women worldwide have moved into urban environments and workplaces, experiencing major changes in their lifestyles as a result, she said.

There was an increase in organizations announcing plans to address their shortcomings, with two-thirds now having gender policies in place, but only 44 percent actually have measures to encourage diversity and inclusion, the report said.

“I’m quite frustrated by statements and by initiatives made for marketing purposes and political statements that don’t make a big difference,” said Devi Sridhar, director of the global health governance program based at the University of Edinburgh.

She said that, with young women from around the world increasingly receiving support from her own and other institutes, she is optimistic that the sector would change and that the next generation would secure leadership positions in the next decade.

“Don’t say to me there’s not good women, there are plenty, but what happens when I go to big meets with big organizations and big pharma heads is, I don’t see that reflected,” she said. “There is a lot of talk and not much evidence that at the highest levels things have shifted, but I see a lot of hope in young women.”

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title: SPORTS BRIEFS

content_text:
BOXING

Chen grabs Olympics spot

Taiwan’s Chen Nien-chin on Sunday advanced to the Asia/Oceania Olympic qualifying semi-finals in Jordan, earning a place at the Summer Games in Tokyo. The 22-year-old from Hualien, competing in the women’s welterweight category, demolished Shinetsetseg Uranbileg of Mongolia 5-0 at Prince Hamzah Sport Hall in Amman. Chen, ranked world No. 1 in her division by the International Boxing Association, is the first Taiwanese fighter to secure a berth in Tokyo.

CYCLING

Schachmann wins sprint

Maximilian Schachmann on Sunday won the opening stage of the Paris-Nice, winning a frantic four-man sprint at the end of a dank day’s racing through northern France. Schachmann, a German who rides for Bora-Hansgrohe, edged Belgians Dylan Teuns and Tiesj Benoot. Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe was three seconds back in fourth place at the finish of a 154km loop that began and ended in Plaisir on the outskirts of Paris. Schachmann collected a 10-second bonus for the victory and the lead in the general classification. The opening day went ahead while competitions in Italy were canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. “I planned to go to Italy, but France has turned out pretty well,” said Schachmann, who had been entered in the Tirreno-Adriatico.

SOCCER

Bayern go four points clear

Thomas Mueller scored on Sunday as Bayern Munich opened up a four-point lead at the top of the Bundesliga with a 2-0 victory over Augsburg at the Allianz Arena. Bayern lacked fluency in the opening stages, despite scoring 13 goals in their previous three Bundesliga games, but did enough to edge closer to an eighth straight title. German Minister of Health Jens Spahn earlier on Sunday had called for the cancelation of all gatherings of more than 1,000 people over fears surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, but the league immediately reacted, insisting that it was “out of the question” that the season would be delayed. Elsewhere, FSV Mainz 05 were held to a 1-1 draw at home by Fortuna Duesseldorf.

TENNIS

Svitolina wins thriller

Top seed Elina Svitolina on Sunday prevailed in a three-hour thriller against Marie Bouzkova 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 to seize her first title of the season at the Monterrey Open in Mexico. In a battle of perseverance, Bouzkova had seven breaks in the marathon opening game, finally converting on the seventh, which set the tone for the long battle ahead. Svitolina would have to win five breaks of her own over the duration of the match to end a title drought of more than a year. “It was an amazing battle,” the Ukrainian said at the trophy presentation. “Marie was fighting great and I think it was a very high-level match. We’ve both been playing good, we were fighting, and there were no easy games.”

TENNIS

US tournament canceled

The BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, has been canceled over fears surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak. Officials said that they opted to cancel because Californian health officials had declared a public health emergency for Coachella Valley — in the desert east of Los Angeles — after a confirmed COVID-19 case.

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title: Virus Outbreak: Japan to alter law on emergency declaration

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UNDER FIRE:
 A poll found that 50 percent of respondents disapproved of Shinzo Abe’s handling of the outbreak, while doubts are growing regarding the Tokyo Olympics

Japan is set this week to revise a law that would allow Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to declare a formal state of emergency over COVID-19, if needed, as Abe faces persistent criticism for his handling of the outbreak ahead of the Tokyo Olympic Games.

In perhaps his biggest test since returning to office in 2012, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister has come under fire for what critics have called an initial lack of leadership, followed by abrupt steps, such as school closures that left parents and employers scrambling.

Japan has more than 1,000 cases of the virus, including about 700 from a cruise ship quarantined near Tokyo last month. Fourteen people have died, including seven from the liner.

Passengers from Incheon, South Korea, enter quarantine at Narita International Airport in Japan yesterday. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday announced that beginning yesterday, Tokyo would impose a 14-day quarantine on people coming from China and South Korea as a safeguard against the COVID-19 outbreak.
 Photo: EPA-EFE

Among criticisms is that Abe’s government was too slow to put curbs on visitors from China — a key source of economic growth — after the outbreak originated there late last year.

In a recent opinion poll, 50 percent of respondents said they did not approve of Abe’s handling of the outbreak, versus 37 percent who said they did.

Commentators have also said that Japan lacked sufficient capacity to test for the virus, while failing to mobilize what capacity it has, leading to suspicions that the virus is spreading faster than data show.

Vigorous testing programs in countries such as South Korea have detected high numbers of infections.

Speculation — denied by organizers — is swirling that the global outbreak would scupper Japan’s dream of hosting the Tokyo Olympics, an outcome that could become more likely if a state of emergency is declared.

“I want the Olympics to succeed more than anyone, but the negative factors are increasing,” said Yoichi Masuzoe, a former Tokyo governor who was minister of health during a 2009 influenza epidemic.

In its latest move, the government plans to submit to parliament today a bill to revise a 2012 law, enacted after the 2009 epidemic, so that it can be applied to the coronavirus if necessary.

Parliament is expected to sign off on Friday.

The 2012 law was enacted while Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party was the opposition party.

Officials have said that it could not be applied to COVID-19 without changes, although opposition parties and other critics say reinterpreting it is enough.

The law would let the prime minister declare an official state of emergency if the disease poses a “grave danger” to lives and if its rapid spread could have a huge impact on the economy.

The impact of the outbreak is already increasing Japan’s risk of recession.

Governors in hard-hit regions could then ask residents to stay inside, close public facilities, expropriate land and buildings for medical facilities and request or order emergency transport of goods.

The state of emergency could last up to two years with a possible one year-extension.

“Abe could apply the law by re-interpreting it. He’s good at that,” said Masahiro Kami, head of the Medical Governance Research Institute and a critic of the government’s response.

“He wants to appeal [to the public] because things are not going well,” Kami said.

The most urgent issue was not further limits on public activities, but beefing up virus testing and early treatment of elderly and other high-risk patients, he added.

Abe has not made clear what exactly would trigger a state of emergency, yesterday repeating that the revision was to prepare for a “worst-case scenario.”

“I suspect Abe doesn’t want to declare a state of emergency, because it would be killing the Olympics himself,” said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University.

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title: TAIEX slumps as investors flee

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Foreign institutional investors yesterday sold a net NT$54.56 billion (US$1.81 billion) of local shares, the highest value in more than 12 years and also the third-biggest sell-off in a single day, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.

After domestic proprietary traders sold a net NT$6.399 billion of shares and investment trust companies bought a net NT$841 million, the TAIEX closed down 344.17 points, or 3.04 percent, at the day’s low of 10,977.64.

Turnover was NT$230.972 billion, compared with NT$149.055 billion on Friday last week, exchange data showed.

The market took a beating after investors were shocked by global volatility due to the COVID-19 outbreak worldwide and a plunge in international crude oil prices, dealers said.

The bellwether electronics sector led the downturn throughout the trading session amid worries over global demand, while selling of petrochemical shares caused by a weakening energy market added downward pressure, dragging the TAIEX to its lowest level at the close, they said.

The expanded turnover was caused by panic selling throughout the session, which pushed the TAIEX to below its 240-day moving average, making it technically fragile, they added.

Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) fell victim to the panic selling, closing down 3.02 percent at the day’s low of NT$305.50.

TSMC’s losses contributed to a more than 80-point decline on the benchmark index, causing the electronics and semiconductor sub-indices to slump 3.14 percent and 3.25 percent respectively.

Investors were also concerned about the global energy market after Saudi Arabia reportedly said that it is planning to raise oil production, which saw international crude oil prices slump, dealers said.

Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) shares shed 4.82 percent to close at NT$82.90, while Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠) shares lost 3.23 percent to close at NT$66.10.

Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang said that there have been no signs about when the COVID-19 outbreak could be contained as its spread in the US and Europe continues, which is expected to hurt global demand and the world’s economy.

Funds taken out of equities were reinvested in the bond market, causing the benchmark 10-year treasury yield to fall sharply, Huang said.

“Not only foreign institutional investors, but also major local investors cut their holdings today, so it is unlikely that the local equity market will undergo an immediate turnaround,” Huang said.

A 3.60 percent plunge on the TPEX of the over-the-counter market was an indication of the attitude of domestic investors, Huang added.

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title: Xi Jinping, pestilence and plague of locusts

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During the Sino-Japanese war, China’s Henan Province experienced a series of human-made disasters due to mismanagement and lax military discipline in the Nationalist Army in the region. One of these disasters was said to be the regional military commander, Tang En-po (湯恩伯), the others being drought, floods and locusts.

Seventy years after the communists took over, it seems the Chinese Communist Party is experiencing its own series of disasters: the African swine fever, COVID-19, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and an incoming plague of locusts.

African swine fever has killed half of all pigs in China, causing the price of pork to double in a year, driving up inflation and affecting the lives of Chinese.

The COVID-19 outbreak that has followed on the African swine fever disaster has brought death to many families, chaos to society at large and a stagnating economy. All this is closely related to Xi’s dictatorship and ineptitude.

Because technocrats have had to step back in favor of people who only know how to brag and flatter, their only way of dealing with African swine fever and the COVID-19 epidemic has been to conceal what is happening, as they lack the ability to nip the situation in the bud. They control the epidemic by controlling public opinion: If they say there is an epidemic, there is, and if they say there is not, there is not. Xi is the main culprit behind this human-made disaster.

The desert locust plague that is about to hit China came to Pakistan and India from east Africa. Experts said that the locusts can enter China along three pathways: from Kazakhstan in Central Asia to Xinjiang, from India to Tibet, or from Myanmar to Yunnan.

To reach Xinjiang and Tibet, the locusts must move across the cold Pamir plateau. This means that they have to overcome high altitudes and acclimatize to the cold, in addition to the lack of farmland among the area’s nomads.

For the locusts, entering China through Yunnan is ideal: There is spring year round and a lot of farmland. They could trace the path Xi followed in January, from Myanmar to Beijing, making this the most dangerous route.

Still, whichever route they take, it will match Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative.

China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration has issued a statement saying that if the locusts enter China, no one knows what would happen or which patterns they would follow, adding that a lack of monitoring technology would make prevention and control difficult. China’s high-tech monitoring of its own people might be the world’s best, but it cannot monitor the locusts.

Is there any difference between this kind of leader and a pest?

Interestingly, COVID-19 and Xi are both made in China, while African swine fever and the locust plague come from Africa. This is the result of the hundreds of billions of yuan China, from Mao Zedong (毛澤東) to Xi, has spent on building a “strong, unbreakable” friendship between the African continent and China.

Mao was well read in classical Chinese literature and believed in the interaction between heaven and people. Xi lacks such erudite depths, but is instead obstinate and determined. Disaster is looming, but he refuses to stop and think, and instead emulates the emperors of old and issues an imperial edict saying he personally will handle the situation. In addition, he brags and boasts, and even has a book published extolling his “war” on the epidemic.

He really is the embodiment of shamelessness. People should of course feel sorry for Chinese for having to suffer such a leader, but in the end it is an evil of their own creation.

Paul Lin is a political commentator.

Translated by Perry Svensson

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Amazon.com Inc was yesterday to announce a new business line selling the technology behind its cashier-less convenience stores to other retailers, the company told reporters.

The world’s biggest Web retailer said it has “several” signed deals with customers it would not name.

A new Web site yesterday would invite others to inquire about the service, dubbed Just Walk Out technology by Amazon.

An employee checks inventory at an Amazon Go store in Seattle, Washington, on Dec. 10, 2018.
 Photo: Reuters

The highly anticipated business reflects Amazon’s strategy of building out internal capabilities — such as warehouses to help with package delivery and cloud technology to support its Web site — and then turning those into lucrative services it offers others.

Its chain Amazon Go has brought shopping without checkout lines into the mainstream, and the market for retail without cashiers — one of the most common vocations in the US — could grow to US$50 billion, US venture firm Loup Ventures LLC has estimated.

Dilip Kumar, Amazon’s vice president of physical retail and technology, had no market forecast to share, but said that shoppers’ preferences would determine how big the business becomes.

“Do customers like standing in lines?” he asked. “This has pretty broad applicability across store sizes, across industries, because it fundamentally tackles a problem of how do you get convenience in physical locations, especially when people are hard-pressed for time.”

Unlike Amazon Go stores, shoppers would insert a credit card into a gated turnstile to enter, rather than scan an app. The turnstiles would display the logo “Just Walk Out technology by Amazon,” but all other branding and store aspects would be controlled by the retailer using the service.

Items picked up by a customer and any guests who enter with them would be added to the shopper’s virtual cart. The store would then bill the credit card once the person or group leaves the store — no bar code scans or checkout lines necessary.

Kumar said Amazon would install the technology, including ceiling cameras and shelf weight sensors, at retailers’ stores, whether they are new locations or retrofits, and it would have a 24-7 support line.

A by-product of demand for the offering would be increased usage of Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud that underpins its checkout-free systems.

Still, high demand is by no means certain. Other vendors, including Grabango Co and AiFi Inc are offering automated checkout to retailers, which in the past have been loath to hand deals to their rival Amazon, which has been the biggest disruptor of their brick-and-mortar businesses.

Media reports have said that Amazon was in talks to bring its technology to airport stores, for instance, rather than to Walmart Inc or Target Corp.

Kumar said Amazon “potentially” could sell the service to big-box rivals, but would not speculate.

He declined to comment on the service’s business model or pricing, saying: “A lot of those are bespoke deals.”

One issue that might arise is who owns the shopper data, something that businesses typically want to tailor marketing offers and build their customer base.

Shoppers who want a receipt would be able to type their e-mail into a kiosk at any store. Amazon would send receipts to that address each subsequent time the credit card is used at a Just Walk Out location, no matter the retailer.

Kumar said Amazon saves the e-mail address and ties that to the credit card information, solely for the purpose of charging the customer.

Kumar would not discuss whether or how Amazon would integrate this into retailers’ loyalty programs, but said: “These are the retailers’ customers.”

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title: Amazon to sell automated checkout to other retailers


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Germany yesterday announced measures to boost its sputtering economy in the face of the fast-spreading COVID-19, while also calling for the cancelation of large events.

As the number of cases in Germany pushed beyond 900, German Minister of Health Jens Spahn said that gatherings of more than 1,000 people should be scrapped.

Acknowledging the financial hit to organizers of such events, Spahn said the government would help cushion the blow.

A nurse demonstrates the use of a COVID-19 test kit at a media event in Essen, Germany, on Thursday.
 Photo: Reuters

With measures taken to halt the virus hitting the economy hard, leaders of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s right-left coalition agreed on new aid measures after late-night talks on Sunday.

The coalition “is taking action in the corona-crisis. Besides medical protection measures, we have agreed on a big aid package for the German economy,” tweeted Markus Soeder, leader of Merkel’s Bavarian allies Christian Social Union, calling the package “comprehensive.”

Rules governing compensation for workers forced to cut working hours because of the crisis would be eased, the government said in a statement after late-night talks.

The relaxed criteria would apply from next month and would be valid up to the end of the year.

Berlin also pledged to draw up proposals on offering liquidity support for companies hardest hit by the outbreak.

Talks with key representatives of the German economy, as well as trade unions, would be held shortly on the proposals.

Separately, the government said it would also boost investments by 3.1 billion euros (US$3.54 billion) per year between next year and 2024.

The total hike in investments totaling 12.4 billion euros would be entirely funded by last year’s budget surplus, it said.

Meanwhile, German industrial production nudged upward in January, official data showed yesterday, although the fillip for the struggling manufacturing sector predated the effects of the outbreak.

Industrial output expanded 3 percent month-on-month in January, the German statistics authority Destatis said.

There were boosts for makers of producer and capital goods, while consumer goods firms held steady.

However, the overall barometer remained slightly below its level from a year earlier, as manufacturers were only beginning to recover from the US-China trade dispute, Brexit uncertainty and other factors that braked industry throughout last year.

In a separate release, Destatis reported that exports were flat month-on-month in January, while imports grew slightly.

Exports to the UK remained down 16.3 percent year-on-year after last year brought repeated episodes of Brexit brinkmanship.

“At face value, this morning’s data is encouraging, adding to evidence of a bottoming-out of the German manufacturing sector. However, COVID-19 has changed everything,” ING Bank NV analyst Carsten Brzeski said.

With its globally interconnected industry and economy, “Germany will feel the impact of the unprecedented combination of supply-side and demand-side shocks” due to the virus, Brzeski said.

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title: Germany launches measures to stall ‘corona crisis’


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ITALY

State guarantees mulled

Rome is studying a state guarantee scheme to support banks offering debt moratoriums to households and companies, a member of the government said yesterday as the COVID-19 outbreak hits the economy. Deputy Minister of Economy Antonio Misiani told in an interview to Radio 24 that the measure was under discussion with the Bank of Italy, which is the national lenders’ supervisor. The nation’s banking lobby has asked European authorities to ease rules on problem loans for at least six months.

FRANCE

Economic outlook sours

The economy would barely grow this quarter as the COVID-19 outbreak slams the brakes on activity in services and industry, a Bank of France survey found. Based on a monthly measure of business activity, the bank said the economy would only narrowly escape another contraction this quarter with 0.1 percent growth. Only a month earlier, it forecast 0.3 percent growth. According to the survey, 19 percent of local companies across all sectors expect an effect on their business from the outbreak. Industrial companies and services providers expect activity to take a hit this month.

AVIATION

Lufthansa seeks state backing

Deutsche Lufthansa AG is looking into government support amid the fallout from the COVID-19 outbreak. The airline, which slashed capacity by as much as 50 percent to cope with plunging demand, is examining the implementation of short-time work programs, it said in an e-mailed statement on Sunday. So-called short-time work — Kurzarbeit in German — involves the government offsetting wages lost when companies are forced to temporarily reduce staffing.

CHINA

Exports down 17.2 percent

Exports fell by double digits in January and last month as anti-virus controls closed factories, while imports sank by a smaller margin. Exports tumbled 17.2 percent from a year earlier to US$292.4 billion, a sharp reverse from December last year’s 7.8 percent rise, customs data showed on Saturday. Imports declined 4 percent to US$299.5 billion, down from the previous month’s 16.3 percent gain. The nation’s global trade balance fell to a US$7.1 billion deficit for the first two months of the year.

INDIA

Yes Bank founder arrested

The founder of Yes Bank Ltd was on Sunday arrested in Mumbai on allegations of money laundering amid efforts to formulate a rescue plan for the country’s fourth-largest private lender. In a late-night move on Friday, the central bank seized control and imposed withdrawal limits on Yes Bank. Rana Kapoor was arrested at about 3am after being questioned for more than 20 hours by officials from the Enforcement Directorate, the country’s financial intelligence agency.

INVESTMENTS

Outbreak to hit FDIs: UN

The rapid spread of COVID-19 is expected to take a serious toll on foreign direct investments (FDIs) worldwide, the UN Conference on Trade, Investment and Development said in a report. The report estimated that growth in the global economy would slow 0.5 to 1.5 percent this year, depending on whether the outbreak is reined in during the first half of this year or if it rages through the end of next year. The corresponding “downward pressure on FDI will be 5-15 percent,” the report said.

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title: World Business Quick Take