title: ECB unveils 750bn euros virus package

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‘A GAME CHANGER’:
 An analyst said that the measures could help shore up falling markets in Europe if it is accompanied by additional fiscal action from governments

The European Central Bank (ECB) on Wednesday unexpectedly said it would spend 750 billion euros (US$811.1 billion) on “emergency” bond purchases, as it joined other central banks in stepping up efforts to contain the economic damage from the coronavirus.

The Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme comes just six days after the ECB unveiled a big-bank stimulus package that failed to calm nervous markets, piling pressure on the bank to open the financial floodgates.

The scheme to buy additional government and corporate bonds would only conclude once the bank “judges that the coronavirus COVID-19 crisis phase is over, but in any case not before the end of the year,” the ECB said in a statement.

The decision came after the bank’s 25-member governing council held emergency talks by telephone late into the evening, following criticism that the bank was not doing enough to shore up the eurozone economy.

“Extraordinary times require extraordinary action. There are no limits to our commitment to the euro,” ECB President Christine Lagarde tweeted.

The remarks echoed the legendary words of her predecessor Mario Draghi, who in 2012 vowed to do “whatever it takes” to preserve the euro at the height of the region’s sovereign debt crisis.

In a tweet, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the ECB’s “exceptional measures,” and urged governments to back it up with fiscal action and “greater financial solidarity” in the 19-nation currency club.

Asian markets initially climbed on the news, but soon tumbled as investors contemplate months of economic hardship with countries around the world in lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Seoul fell more than 8 percent, Singapore dropped 4.5 percent and Hong Kong, Sydney, Wellington and Bangkok lost more than 3 percent. Tokyo ended down 1 percent, while Taipei and Jakarta fell more than 5 percent.

Mumbai and Shanghai were more than 1 percent lower.

Manila lost almost 25 percent after reopening following a two-day suspension prompted by the outbreak, but it later bounced back to sit more than 13 percent down.

By massively buying up government and corporate debt, the ECB aims to keep liquidity flowing in a bid to encourage bank lending and investment.

The practice is known as quantitative easing and is a key crisis-fighting tool in monetary policy.

“The governing council will do everything necessary within its mandate,” ECB said, adding that the size of the asset purchases could be increased if needed.

To further reassure markets, the bank said it would consider relaxing some self-imposed restrictions on bond purchases — which could potentially help countries like debt-laden Italy, whose bond yields have soared over the coronavirus panic.

The ECB also decided to ease some of its collateral standards to make it easier for banks to raise funds.

For the first time, Greek bonds would be included in the bank’s asset purchases.

The immediate reaction from analysts was positive.

The ECB’s latest medicine could be “a game changer for the euro area economy and credit markets,” if it was accompanied by fiscal action from governments, Pictet Wealth Management Ltd strategist Frederik Ducrozet said.

Measures taken by central banks around the world so far have surpassed those of the 2008 global financial crisis, with the US Federal Reserve leading the way.

The Fed has taken interest rates down to virtually zero, and massively increased cash injections into financial markets, including an additional US$1.5 trillion last week and US$1 trillion so far this week.

It also unveiled a new credit facility to help households and businesses stay afloat.

Central banks in Canada, China, Japan and the UK have similarly taken emergency steps to keep money flowing through the financial system.

The Reserve Bank of Australia yesterday cut the cash rate by a quarter of a point to 0.25 percent, making it the latest lender-of-last-resort to announce emergency measures during the fast-moving crisis.

The bank told markets that rates would remain low “until progress is being made towards full employment,” a clear promise that borrowing would remain cheap for the foreseeable future.

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Virus Outbreak: China is major source of misinformation: MJIB

The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) yesterday said it had questioned two women for allegedly circulating fake news about the pandemic, while the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) said that more than 70 percent of the cases of misinformation about COVID-19 originated in China.

After receiving complaints from the public, the two suspects were identified and questioned, CIB Seventh Investigation Corps officer Hsu Chao-pin (徐釗斌) said, adding that their case has been forwarded to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office.

Both are Taipei residents, one surnamed Lin (林), 30, and the other surnamed Huang (黃), 36, Hsu said.

The duo distributed messages on the Line app alleging that three recently confirmed COVID-19 cases were from the same household living on Wujia Road in Kaohsiung’s Fongshan District (鳳山), and that the parent of a student at Taipei American School was infected with the virus after taking a trip to Japan.

Both were found to be false, investigators said.

“We double-checked the information with the Central Epidemic Command Center and the Kaohsiung Department of Health, and found that the messages were false,” Hsu said. “The duo had deliberately spread misinformation, causing public fear and anxiety.”

Judicial officials are to charge the two with breaching Article 14 of the Special Act on COVID-19 Prevention, Relief and Restoration (嚴重特殊傳染性肺炎防治及紓困振興特別條例), which stipulates: “Individuals who spread rumors or disinformation about COVID-19 that risk harming the public interest can face a maximum prison term of three years and a possible fine of NT$3 million [US$98,341]”

MJIB Director-General Leu Wen-jong (呂文忠) said that since the middle of last month, his agency had investigated 271 suspected cases of misinformation about the virus.

“Of the 271, 196 cases were found to have originated in China, accounting for more than 70 percent,” he told a news briefing on Wednesday, adding that 35 people in 25 of these cases have been charged.

There was a spike in the last two weeks of last month, as Chinese netizens stepped up their misinformation campaign, which has continued into this month, MJIB Information Security Department head Chang Yu-jen (張尤仁) said.

“Our assessment indicated that Chinese netizens had carried out three waves of coordinated attacks to spread misinformation and fake news in Taiwan. Some were ‘revenge’ for the [Taiwanese] government banning exports of masks to China and other countries. In other instances, it was due to disputes on online forums with Taiwanese netizens blaming China for letting the Wuhan virus get out of hand,” Chang said.

He cited several particularly vicious rumors, such as former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) or vice president-elect William Lai (賴清德) dying from coronavirus, or that “there were dead bodies all over Taiwan waiting for cremation.”

All the messages had IP addresses in China, he said.

There were also 59 cases of Taiwanese circulating false reports about a shortage of goods in shops and supermarkets, and 36 cases alleging a shortage of medical items and supplies to combat the virus, he said.

The Yilan County Government yesterday said it had asked police to investigate a rumor circulating online that a local bank employee was confirmed to have the virus, which it has found to be false.

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people: 李登輝 賴清德


taiwan-subdivisions: 蘭嶼 後壁

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Virus Outbreak: Taitung not helping Lanyu residents: Tao community

Taitung County has failed to provide Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) with guidance regarding disease- prevention efforts, members of the Tao community in the township said, while also calling for a ban on tourists.

Lanyu Elementary School dean Syamen Womzas on Wednesday said that the township office should refuse visitors for the time being.

The Philippines’ Bataan Province on the island of Luzon has already restricted access, he wrote on Facebook.

“It is not a choice between money or our lives, it is how we address the issue,” Womzas said.

Womzas said the island has always lacked adequate medical resources and would be greatly affected if COVID-19 were to spread on the island.

Only civil servants and Orchid Island residents should be permitted to enter or leave the island, he said.

Lanyu Township Mayor Chiaman Chialamu said that the Tao community was worried and had asked that authorities at ports and airports take visitors’ temperatures.

However, the township office only had two forehead thermometers, which was only enough to satisfy the township office’s needs, Chialamu said.

Taitung County should provide the island with epidemic-prevention equipment, Chialamu said, adding that even though the county had three COVID-19 cases in home quarantine, it had not given the township any instructions or advice.

Taitung County Public Health Bureau Director Huang Ming-en (黃明恩) said that the county was also short on thermometers and Lanyu Township would have to purchase its own.

Huang said that he would provide the township office with a list of vendors for reference.

In related news, three people — from the US, Australia and India — attempted to enter the country by sailing into Houbihu (後壁胡) in Pingtung County’s Kenting (墾丁) area, hours before the ban on foreigners entering the country went into effect yesterday.

After confirming that they did not have symptoms of COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control allowed them to enter the country, but asked them to perform self-health management.

They had been visiting Taiwan for more than two weeks as of Thursday last week, and were attempting to visit the Philippines, but when they were refused entry there, they returned to Taiwan, the Pingtung County Public Health Bureau said yesterday.

The Pingtung County Government said that as of Wednesday, it had two people in home quarantine and 150 in home isolation.

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taiwan-subdivisions: 烏來 新莊 鶯歌

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Virus Outbreak: New Taipei shuts public centers, museums for 14 days

CONTAINMENT:
 Mayor Hou You-yi made the surprise announcement at a planned public sports center opening, highlighting the need to curb the spread of COVID-19

All public sports centers, activity centers and museums in New Taipei City are to close for 14 days, starting today, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said yesterday.

Hou made the remarks at the planned opening of a public sports center in the city’s Sinjhuang District (新莊), stressing the need to curb the further spread of COVID-19 while apologizing to the staff for the unexpected announcement, which temporarily put them out of work.

Some more renowned venues in the city that are to close for 14 days due to the new measure include the Yingge Ceramics Museum (鶯歌陶瓷博物館), the Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology (十 三行博物館), the Gold Museum (黃金博物館), the Hakka Museum (客家文化園區演藝廳) and the Wulai Atayal Museum (烏來泰雅民族博物館), the New Taipei City Government said.

Hou reiterated the central government’s orders that Taiwanese returning from countries under a level 3 “warning” travel advisory be tested for the novel coronavirus and placed in home quarantine.

The Central Epidemic Command Center on Wednesday said that people who traveled to 27 European countries, Egypt, Turkey or Dubai, United Arab Emirates, between March 5 and Saturday last week must undergo mandatory 14-day home quarantine upon their return to Taiwan.

As of 8pm on Wednesday, about 1,300 people affected by the policy registered for home quarantine, city government data showed.

The New Taipei City Education Department said that there would be no public entry or space rental at the city’s primary and secondary schools until the end of the semester as part of efforts to increase disease-prevention standards on campuses.


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Human rights groups and lawmakers yesterday demanded China immediately release imprisoned rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲), as they marked the third anniversary of his detention in Guangdong Province.

Lee, a staff member at Wenshan Community College in Taipei, went missing on March 19, 2017, after entering Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, from Macau. On Nov. 28 that year, the Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court in Hunan Province sentenced him to five years in Chishan Prison for subversion of state power by using online discussion groups to disseminate information attacking the Chinese government and for supporting the families of Chinese dissidents.

Taiwan has not forgotten Lee, members of the Rescue Lee Ming-che Team told a news conference in Taipei, which included a display about “365 Letters Written to Lee Ming-che” exhibition of letters written by Taiwanese to Lee.

Members of the Rescue Lee Ming-che Team and others hold up ribbons a news conference in Taipei yesterday calling on the public not to forget about Lee and urging the Chinese authorities to release him.
 Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times

Exhibition curator Wu Ting-chen (吳亭臻) urged the public to write more letters to Lee and urged the Chinese government to release Lee.

Several lectures are to be given in Taiwan over the next two weeks to raise awareness of Lee’s case and human rights, and the letters exhibition is to go on display, Wu said, adding: “The possibility of another Lee Ming-che is always there.”

Taiwan Association for Human Rights secretary-general Chiu Ee-ling (邱伊翎) said Lee has not been able to write letters or make telephone calls since his detention, in contravention of the Prison Law of the People’s Republic of China and the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

Covenants Watch chief executive officer Huang Yi-bee (黃怡碧) said her group issued a statement with the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, the International Federation for Human Rights, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights demanding China immediately release Lee and stop retaliating against human rights advocates through forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests.

Independent Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) said Lee did not have a fair trial, but given the COVID-19 pandemic, the hygiene and human rights conditions in Chinese prisons are cause for concern.

“Our core belief is that Lee is innocent and should be released. However, given the current circumstances, it is at the very least that his situation in prison should be transparent to his family,” Lim said.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Hung Shen-han (洪申翰) said Taiwanese efforts to support Lee would not stop until he is released and China’s change in its human rights policies.

DPP Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) said “everybody is Lee Ming-che” if they supported the pro-democratic movement in Hong Kong last year or have criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the Internet.

After three years, it is time for Lee’s ordeal to end, Fan added.

New Power Party Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said Lee’s case was an obvious miscarriage of justice, and that he was concerned about Lee’s well-being, given that Chinese lawyers he worked with say conditions in Chinese prisons are “worrying.”

At a news conference at the Legislative Yuan on Wednesday, Lee’s wife, Lee Ching-yu (李凈瑜), pleaded with the Chinese government to allow her husband to call her.

Her scheduled visit to the prison last month was canceled because of the COVID-19 outbreak and she has not received any information about her husband’s condition since then, she said.

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people: 林昶佐 李明哲 邱顯智 李凈瑜 洪申翰 習近平 范雲

title: China urged to free Lee Ming-che


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GERMANY

Virus to hit next two quarters

The COVID-19 pandemic is to massively affect the economy in the next two quarters at least, the DIW institute said yesterday, adding that it expected Europe’s largest economy to shrink by 0.1 percent this year. The DIW institute said that its forecast was based on an optimistic V-shaped scenario. However, the recession could turn out to be much more severe if the uncertainty among companies and consumers sparked by the new virus should persist, the institute added.

JAPAN

Foreign visitors down 58%

The number of foreign visitors to Japan fell 58 percent last month from a year earlier, government data showed yesterday, as the coronavirus pandemic takes a heavy toll on the tourism industry. Total foreign arrivals, which include tourism and business arrivals, declined to 1.09 million from 2.6 million in the same month last year, the Japan National Tourism Organization said. It was the fifth straight month of declines. Arrivals from China fell 88 percent last month, while arrivals from South Korea dropped 80 percent, the data showed.

INDIA

Ministry to ease loan terms

The Ministry of Finance is considering easing loan repayment terms and tax breaks for small and medium-sized companies to help Asia’s third-largest economy weather the onslaught of the coronavirus, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The ministry is considering extending loan tenors and relaxing bad-debt norms for small firms, the person said, asking not to be identified as the discussions were private. A spokesman at the ministry was not immediately available for a comment.

AUTOMAKERS

Virus shakes auto industry

COVID-19 is having a big impact on the automotive manufacturing industry, Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association chairman Akio Toyoda said yesterday, adding that its members would need to keep adjusting production, amid a projected slump in demand. “At this point, we can’t foresee what’s ahead for automakers,” Toyoda, who also leads Toyota Motor Corp, told a news conference in Tokyo. Toyota, Nissan Motor Co and Honda Motor Co said they would temporarily halt North American factories to protect worker health.

INTERNET

Tencent’s profits jump

Chinese Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) recorded a jump in profit last year and said it could be a rare beneficiary of the global coronavirus pandemic as people stay home and businesses ramp up remote working. The Shenzhen-based firm on Wednesday said that net profit last year rose 19 percent to 93.3 billion yuan (US$13.14 billion). Total revenues for last year were up 21 percent at 377.3 billion yuan, primarily driven by its international gaming and lucrative cloud services.

AIRLINES

Delta cuts capacity 70%

Delta Air Lines Inc is to park more than 600 planes, or about half its fleet, as it cuts flying capacity 70 percent amid collapsing travel demand due to the coronavirus pandemic. Revenue this month is expected to fall by almost US$2 billion from a year earlier, with next month projected to be even worse, chief executive officer Ed Bastian told employees on Wednesday. About 10,000 Delta workers have applied for voluntary leave since the carrier made it available and 5,000 flight attendants have agreed to take voluntary early retirement.

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title: World Business Quick Take


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Malaysia yesterday unexpectedly eased its reserve ratio as part of moves to release 30 billion ringgit (US$6.8 billion) of liquidity into the banking system as the economy struggles through a lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bank Negara Malaysia cut the statutory reserve requirement ratio by 100 basis points to 2 percent, effective today. It would allow principal dealers to use government bonds and Islamic notes of up to 1 billion ringgit as part of reserve requirement compliance for the next year.

The announcement came weeks after the central bank lowered the overnight policy rate by a quarter-point to 2.5 percent to counter risks from the virus to an already slowing economy.

“We have said before that the central bank is the only game in town, and that cannot ring more true now,” Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (華僑銀行) economist Wellian Wiranto said in Singapore.

In the wake of the statutory reserve move, a rate cut before the bank’s next scheduled meeting on May 5 cannot be ruled out, he said.

Malaysia has been struggling with the virus, which led the government to impose nationwide restrictions on movement.

The country yesterday reported 110 new cases, bringing the total to 900, the most in Southeast Asia.

The central bank has said that first-quarter growth would be affected, especially in the tourism and manufacturing industries, prompting the government to introduce a 20 billion ringgit fiscal stimulus package to cushion the blow.

The government expects the pandemic to cause as much as 17.3 billion ringgit of losses to GDP, which suggests growth of 3.6 to 4 percent this year, Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said on Friday last week.

That compares with 4.8 percent growth estimated in the state budget, after last year’s 4.3 percent expansion, the weakest in a decade.

Securities Commission Malaysia and the local stock exchange yesterday said that the exchange would stay open despite a countrywide lockdown, after stockbrokers called on the authorities to shut it down to prevent a coronavirus market collapse.

In a joint statement, the capital market regulators said that they would maintain continuous trading and market operations so investors can manage their risks and opportunities.

“Closing the markets would neither mitigate nor address the underlying causes of market volatility. Instead, it will create greater uncertainty and adverse market sentiment by denying investors’ access to their investments,” the statement said.

The regulators said they would monitor developments to “proactively manage risks in the marketplace, and will introduce additional precautionary measures as appropriate.”

The government has widened the fiscal deficit target to 3.4 percent of GDP, from an earlier 3.2 percent, to accommodate the stimulus package.

Additional reporting by Reuters

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title: Malaysia cuts reserve rate to boost banking liquidity


content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Ministry preparing ‘Bailout Plan 2.0’ for transport sector

The Ministry of Transportation and Communication yesterday said that it is formulating a “Bailout Plan 2.0” for the nation’s transportation industry, which is facing a “life-and-death situation” because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The COVID-19 outbreak has severely affected the nation’s air, sea and land transport services, as well as the tourism industry. As the regulator of the nation’s transportation and tourism industries, which are facing a life-and-death situation, we have to be lenient and fast in enforcing bailout measures and streamlining procedures,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said in a video posted on Facebook.

“I have asked ministry officials to help transport business operators that are applying for government assistance,” Lin said, adding that the ministry is keeping track of the number of bailout cases it handles.

Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung speaks at a meeting of the Transportation Committee at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on disease-prevention efforts during the long Tomb Sweeping Festival weekend.
 Photo: CNA

The “Bailout Plan 2.0” would provide instant funding to businesses, he said.

“It is our responsibility to help all transport business operators through this difficult time. We thank them for fully complying with the government’s disease-prevention policy when the coronavirus began to spread during the Lunar New Year holiday this year,” he said.

So far, the ministry has budgeted NT$4.2 billion (US$137.68 million) to help the tourism industry, NT$4.863 billion for the airline industry and airport service providers, NT$1.44 billion for sea transport operators and NT$4.09 billion for land transport operators.

On Wednesday, Lin said that the ministry would also help secure special loans totaling at least NT$30 billion to assist the nation’s six airlines.

Funding is to be provided by Chunghwa Post and state-run and private banks, and banks would help the airlines secure loan repayment extensions, the ministry said.

The International Air Transport Association has estimated that airlines around the world would lose about US$113 billion due to the COVID-19 outbreak and that government funding to help airlines could top US$200 billion, the ministry said.

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ELECTRONICS

Hon Hai tightens measures

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that it is imposing stricter measures at its local facilities to protect employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The firm said that it had halted all transport between local plants and would hold all conferences and briefings via video or telephone. Temperatures are taken upon entry to company buildings and employees are required to wear masks indoors at all times, Hon Hai said. The company has also separated employees to work at different sites, while all outings are registered.

MEMORY

Adata to buy back 6m shares

Memory module supplier Adata Technology Co (威剛科技) yesterday said that its board of directors has decided to buy back 6 million shares from the open market during a two-month period through May 18. The repurchased shares would account for 2.68 percent of the company’s capital, Adata said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The firm plans to buy back the shares at between NT$27.5 and NT$101.3 each, with the total outlay capped at NT$5.9 billion (US$193.4 million), it said. The company plans to reward employees with the repurchased shares.

TRANSPORTATION

Hotai to acquire iRent stake

Hotai Finance Co (和潤企業) on Tuesday said that it plans to acquire a 50.82 percent stake in iRent, an electric vehicle sharing services provider operated by Hoing Mobility Service Co Ltd (和雲行動服務), for NT$310 million to expand its service portfolio. Hotai Finance, a vehicle loan and insurance service unit of Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), expects the investment to increase its growth momentum, considering iRent’s more than 330,000 members in Taiwan. Hotai Finance reported record-high revenue of NT$12.11 billion for last year, up 9.32 percent annually. Net income grew 27.07 percent to NT$2.24 billion, while earnings per share rose from NT$4.7 to NT$5.81, also a record high, company data showed.

CHIPMAKERS

GMT income hits record high

Global Mixed-mode Technology Inc (GMT, 致新科技), an analogue and mixed-signal IC developer, on Tuesday reported that its earnings for last year were its highest on record thanks to greater order transfers amid US-China trade tensions. Net income grew 58.2 percent from a year earlier to NT$750 million, or earnings per share of NT$8.74, it said. Revenue increased 27.03 percent to NT$5.67 billion, while gross margin increased 4.39 percentage points to 36.06 percent, it added. The company said that its board of directors has proposed distributing a cash dividend of NT$7.5 per share, suggesting a dividend yield of 8.72 percent based on its closing price of NT$86 yesterday.

MEDICAL

TaiDoc shipments skyrocket

Benefiting from a surge in demand for thermometers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, TaiDoc Technology Corp (泰博科技) reported that revenue in the first two months of this year totaled NT$741.75 million, up 15.26 percent from NT$643.54 million a year earlier. The company last month shipped 60,000 units, doubling shipments from January, and expects to ship 150,000 units this month, with at least 350,000 units shipped monthly starting next month. With robust shipments of forehead thermometers, along with a steady sales outlook for its blood glucose monitoring products, TaiDoc’s revenue and profit are expected to increase quarterly this year, analysts said.

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title: Taiwan Business Quick Take


title: Seoul prepares US$39bn to help boost economy

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in yesterday pledged 50 trillion won (US$39 billion) in emergency financing for small businesses and other stimulus measures to prop up the country’s coronavirus-hit economy.

The package is the latest in a string of steps Seoul has taken in recent days to curb pressure on Asia’s fourth-largest economy, including an interest rate cut, an extra 11.7 trillion won budget and more US dollar supplies.

The government is to issue loan guarantees for struggling small businesses with less than 100 million won in annual revenue to ensure companies can easily and cheaply access credit, Moon said.

A Chinese woman, wearing full protective gear to prevent contracting COVID-19, waits for her flight at Incheon International Airport in Incheon, South Korea, yesterday.
 Photo: Reuters

Local commercial banks and savings banks would also allow loans to roll over for small businesses if they cannot afford to pay off the loan when it is due, he said.

“We’ve decided to take the measures to prevent small and medium-sized firms, and merchants and the self-employed, from going bankrupt and ease anxiety in the financial sector,” Moon told an emergency economic policy meeting.

“As the situation unfolds, we will scale them up if necessary,” he said.

The crisis has jolted South Korea’s financial market, soured business and consumer confidence, and disrupted manufacturing.

A trading halt was triggered in Seoul and the country’s benchmark KOSPI fell as much as 9.5 percent yesterday.

South Korea’s central bank said it would conduct outright purchases of 1.5 trillion won of treasury bonds to stabilize the bond market.

The bank also said it would target three different maturities — the 3, 5 and 10-year — in a series of purchases today.

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title: EDITORIAL: Taiwan must prepare for the worst

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Taiwan has seen its number of confirmed COVID-19 cases nearly double in the past five days from 59 on Sunday to 108 yesterday. The nation might be unable to prevent an epidemic within its borders, despite the diligent efforts of the government and the public.

There are indications that community transmission might already have begun.

The Centers for Disease Control has said it is particularly concerned over the case of a woman in her 20s living in southern Taiwan who has not traveled abroad recently and leads a relatively secluded life.

The government should not be complacent: According to data from the World Bank, Taiwan has a population density of 652 people per square kilometer, compared to 275 in the UK, 205 in Italy and 36 in the US. Due to this, the virus could spread more quickly here than it has in Europe. Taiwan is also an “aged society,” with elderly people particularly at risk from the virus.

In an epidemic scenario, the nation’s healthcare system could be overwhelmed quickly.

While health officials are rightly focused on ramping up prevention measures, the government must also ensure that planning is done in parallel to fully prepare the nation for the containment phase, should an epidemic arise.

Events worldwide in the past few days have at times seemed surreal, with the rapid introduction of draconian containment measures not seen since World War II.

Italy is a front line of the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. Rome has restricted travel and shut schools. The entire nation is in a virtual lockdown.

In the UK, the situation is rapidly deteriorating. The majority of its schools are to shut today and nobody knows when they will reopen. People aged 70 or older have been asked to prepare to self-isolate in their homes for up to four months. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reportedly considering placing London under lockdown.

It might be that Taiwan will have to implement similar measures to protect elderly and other vulnerable people.

Most countries lack sufficient ventilators. The UK has only 5,000 of these vital pieces of equipment, which will be needed to keep people breathing, as the virus affects the lungs. Manufacturers have been asked by the British government to switch production to ventilators. It is uncertain whether this plan will work and London has been criticized for not acting sooner.

Health officials in Taiwan should be exploring all options to increase ventilator supply.

A critical shortage of ventilators in Italy forced hospitals to triage, reserving treatment for those judged to have a better chance of survival. Officials here should also plan for this possibility.

The UK has plans to bring doctors and nurses out of retirement to assist with a projected surge in patients, while some US states are considering similar measures. There are also plans in the UK for hotels — many now half-empty — to be overflow hospital wards.

Additionally, the British military has 20,000 troops ready to be deployed to help tackle pandemic issues.

Some or all of these measures should be considered here.

If mass home quarantine becomes a reality, food delivery will become a problem. Taiwan has a sophisticated food delivery network and online shipping sector. The government should start consulting with food delivery companies, online retailers — even taxi drivers, restaurants and convenience stores — to develop a delivery system for quarantined families.

The government must hope for the best and plan for the worst. The world has been turned on its head by the virus and this administration will now be judged solely through the prism of its response to it.

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The climate crisis just became more personal for US President Donald Trump, after authorities in Ireland rejected an attempt by his Doonbeg golf resort to build a wall to combat rising sea levels.

Planning agency An Bord Pleanala on Wednesday said that the proposed 38,000-tonne rock barrier at Doughmore Bay could damage dunes that straddle the golf course in County Clare, on the Atlantic coast.

Trump International Golf Links Ireland Enterprises, which is owned by the US president’s family, wanted to build the barriers to protect fairways from exceptionally heavy storms and rising sea levels — evidence of a changing climate.

US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump depart Trump International Golf Links and Hotel Ireland in Doonbeg aboard Marine One on June 7 least year.
 Photo: Reuters

In 2017, the Clare County Council approved a plan for two barriers — 630m and 260m long — after rejecting plans for a much larger 28km wall.

However, An Bord Pleanala has overruled the scaled-down proposal, putting a question mark over the resort’s long-term future.

“The board is not satisfied that the proposed development would not result in adverse effects on the physical structure, functionality and sediment supply of dune habitat within the Carrowmore Dunes special area of conservation,” it said.

The decision was a victory for veteran litigant Peter Sweetman, Friends of the Irish Environment and other environmental groups that have campaigned against sea barriers in Doonbeg, citing the effects on the landscape, flora and fauna in a conservation area.

Many residents and politicians favored the barriers, saying that flood defenses would protect not just the golf course, but also farms and jobs.

The resort employs 300 people.

“I’m very disappointed, and more than a little angry,” Fianna Fail councilor Cillian Murphy said on Twitter. “I know there are environmental concerns, but there must be a solution that protects the development and the dunes.”

The decision raises doubts over whether the resort would go ahead with a planned 40 million euros (US$43.5 million) expansion, including a new ballroom, leisure facilities and more vacation homes.

Trump has often spoken of his love of the resort — and has not hidden his frustration at planning constraints.

When environmental objections blocked a previous attempt to build new facilities, he called it “a very unpleasant experience.”

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title: Irish agency rejects Trump golf resort’s plan to build walls


content_text:
CONSISTENT CURSE?
 One minister alluded to an Olympic jinx, saying that it occurs ‘every 40 years,’ apparently referring to a cancelation in 1940 and a boycott in 1980

As COVID-19 cases and deaths mount worldwide, the head of the Tokyo Games organizing committee said that it has not yet planned ways to ensure the safety of athletes, fans and staff.

“It will be on agenda,” Tokyo Games organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto told a news conference on Wednesday evening. “The situation changes every minute. Until we know in what circumstances the Games will be held, I can’t address measures accurately.”

That cannot have been reassuring to the stars of the Olympics — the athletes — who have begun to express concern over their safety and preparedness to compete on the biggest stage in sports.

Tokyo Games organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.
 Photo: AFP

Even so, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Tokyo committee have made clear that they are moving ahead with the international event, scheduled to begin on July 24.

IOC leaders late on Wednesday held a call with more than 200 athlete representatives from around the world in an effort to assuage their concerns.

“It was very constructive and gave us a lot of insight,” IOC president Thomas Bach was quoted as saying by Sky Sports. “We said we will continue to be very realistic in our analysis.”

Japanese Minister of Finance Taro Aso on Wednesday told the Japanese National Diet that these Games are cursed: “It’s a problem that happens every 40 years.”

He appeared to be referring to the cancelation of the 1940 Games because of World War II and the 1980 Moscow boycott.

Asked about the risk of the Games spreading the coronavirus, he said that it is “a pretty difficult decision.”

As of now, the planned torch relay across the archipelago has been scaled back. Tokyo organizers have asked people who feel ill not to watch from roadsides, and the event’s launch in Fukushima is to take place without fans. Local governments are canceling their torch welcoming ceremonies.

Almost two-thirds of Japanese voters think that the Olympics should be postponed due to the pandemic, one poll found.

Separately, officials said that Tokyo Games organizing committee chairman Yoshiro Mori attended a meeting on Tuesday last week that included Japanese Olympic Committee vice president Kozo Tashima, who tested positive for COVID-19 this week.

Mori, 82, has lung cancer, but has not been tested because he has no symptoms of the virus and does not meet testing requirements, an official from his office said.

Mori and Tashima attended a board meeting regarding the Rugby World Cup. Tashima tested positive for the virus on Tuesday.

At the meeting, about 60 people were in the room and Mori was seated about 10m from Tashima on the opposite side of the table, Rugby World Cup organizing committee spokesman Jun Kusumoto said.

Local health authorities have contacted those believed to be at risk of contracting the virus from Tashima, but that does not include Mori, the Tokyo Games organizing committee told reporters.

“He goes to hospital three times a week for dialysis, so if he develops fever or has other symptoms, a doctor will be able to test for it,” the official from Mori’s office said.

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title: Tokyo Games health plan ‘on agenda’


title: [ LETTER ]

content_text:
Virus brings opportunities

Taiwan needs to be taken seriously as a global entity. Now is the time to make that happen. From Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 dashboard recognizing Taiwan as a distinct entity from China to the pages of the Journal of the American Medical Association and news outlets like the Guardian, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, Taiwan is experiencing an incredible surge in its international image.

I speak as a Taiwanese living in North America. People still confuse Taiwan and Thailand. Others are surprised to hear that Taiwanese is a distinct language. For many, Taiwan’s claim to fame is its exportation of bubble tea, although even then few know its true origins. And I am speaking of university graduates. This is sad and it needs to be rectified.

The potential for a new conversation is emerging. As headlines continue to spotlight Taiwan, there is an opportunity for Taiwanese to highlight their country’s tremendous response to the pandemic in their respective places globally.

This is sensible because it helps people to learn from what has been effective in a scary time, but it is also important because it creates awareness around Taiwan’s strengths.

Even from within Taiwan, in a time of global turmoil and uncertainty, it is a time to celebrate a country uniting to fight the pandemic.

Taiwan’s containment of the virus is nothing short of incredible. The international community has clearly noticed. That this has been accomplished while the WHO continues to reject Taiwan’s sovereign status is even more compelling. Add to this military intimidation and the fact that there was an infected individual on the first evacuation plane from China to Taiwan and you have something worth writing about in the history books.

This is the momentum behind Taiwan’s work. Taiwanese need to realize this and carry it beyond this COVID-19 pandemic.

The next few months will provide an opportunity for the international community to continue studying Taiwan’s response to the pandemic and what made it so efficacious. Taiwan should be ready to embrace this, but it must facilitate this process while advocating for the nation’s sovereignty.

Governmental collaboration should encourage each country to formally recognize and even bolster Taiwan’s independent status. Businesses and medical enterprises should similarly develop bonds with Taiwan as a distinct country. Pressure should continue to be applied to international organizations like the WHO.

As the world’s doubts grow regarding China’s handling of the novel coronavirus, its atrocious treatment of its own people through “re-education” camps, and the overall wisdom of ties with China, Taiwan must continue to pave a separate path. This must begin with Taiwanese recognizing their own identity in Taiwan and elsewhere, and wearing it as a badge of honor.

Liao Li De

Toronto, Canada

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With commercial airlines engulfed by the maelstrom of the COVID-19 pandemic, one sector of the industry favored by wealthy people is thriving: private jets.

Fears of massive bankruptcies and calls for emergency bailouts have swept global carriers, with one top US official warning that the outbreak threatens the industry even more than the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

However, for Paramount Business Jets chief executive officer Richard Zaher, the e-mails and telephone calls just keep coming.

A man walks toward a private jet at Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai on April 10, 2017.
 Photo: AFP

“Inquiries have gone through the roof,” he told reporters, adding that his US-based private jet charter had seen a 400 percent increase in queries, with bookings up 20 to 25 percent.

“It is completely coronavirus,” Zaher said. “We are seeing our regular private jet clients flying as they normally do. However, we have this surge of clients coming our way and the majority of them have never flown private.”

Across the world airlines have been slashing capacity and passengers canceling travel plans as countries block arrivals to stem the spread of COVID-19.

ForwardKeys, a travel analytics company, estimates that as many as 3.3 million seats on transatlantic flights alone are disappearing.

Zaher said many new bookings were from clients who had emergencies, and either could not find seats on commercial routes or did not want to risk them.

One booking involved a woman who flew her elderly mother across the US.

“Her mom was on oxygen and needed to be flown coast to coast,” Zaher said. “They felt it was necessary to pay a premium in order to avoid flying commercial and to be together during this uncertain time.”

Costs vary hugely depending on the aircraft, region, number of passengers and duration of the flight. A round-trip charter on a 12-seater plane from London to New York can be about US$150,000. Hong Kong to Japan costs about US$71,000 one-way, and booking a private flight from the UK to the south of France can set you back just over US$10,000.

In Asia, charter firms said that the past two months had seen a sustained increase in new customers, as people who fled the virus, which originated in China’s Hubei Province in December last year, returned this month from places now experiencing their own epidemics.

Commercial flights to and from China have dropped by about 90 percent in the past two months.

A spokeswoman for Air Charter Service in Hong Kong told reporters that it had seen a 70 percent increase in fixed bookings from Shanghai and Beijing in January and last month, and had recorded a 170 percent jump in new customers during the same period.

“It is the kind of people who are wealthy enough, but who would not necessarily charter, who are maybe chartering as a one-off,” said James Royds-Jones, Air Charter Service’s director of executive jets for Asia-Pacific.

Daniel Tang, from Hong Kong-based charter company MayJets, said that he was receiving five times the number of inquiries than normal, with three times more bookings since the outbreak began.

Clients were choosing to charter because they did not want to be confined with hundreds of people with “unknown” travel histories, Tang said, adding that private passengers usually cleared customs and immigration separate from the crowded main airport terminals.

“Both of these are usually just the perks of flying on a private jet, but have become an invaluable advantage to chartering a private jet during these uncertain times,” he said.

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title: Virus Outbreak: People flock to private jets amid pandemic


title: EDITORIAL CARTOON

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content_text:
PERMANENTLY FREE:
 The unprecedented part is that the pardon includes security-related prisoners with less than five-year jail sentences, a government official said

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is to pardon 10,000 prisoners, including political ones, in honor of the Iranian New Year holiday today, state TV reported.

“Those who will be pardoned will not return to jail... Almost half of those security-related prisoners will be pardoned as well,” Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told state TV on Wednesday.

Iran had temporarily freed about 85,000 people from jail, including political prisoners, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Esmaili said on Tuesday.

Iranian Cabinet members attend the last Cabinet meeting of the Persian calendar in Tehran on Wednesday.
 Photo: AFP / Ho / Iranian Presidency

“A large number of prisoners who have been temporarily freed do not need to return to jail after the leader’s pardon,” Esmaili said. “The unprecedented part is that the pardon also includes the security-related prisoners with less than five-year jail sentences.”

Esmaili did not say whether the pardon would include British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was released on Tuesday for two weeks.

Iran says that it had 189,500 people in prison, a report that UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran Javaid Rehman submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in January said.

The prisoners are believed to include hundreds arrested during or after anti-government protests in November last year.

The pandemic has prompted calls from the UN and the US for political prisoners, including dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, to be released from Iran’s overcrowded and disease-ridden jails.

Washington has told Iran that it would hold the Tehran government directly responsible for any American deaths in jail.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners over the past few years, including citizens of Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the US.

Tehran denies that it holds people on political grounds, and has mainly accused foreign prisoners of espionage.

In June last year, Iran released Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese businessman with US permanent residency, after four years in prison. Last year, Iran also released Wang Xiyue (王希悅), a US citizen who had been held for three years on spying charges.

Rights advocates have accused Iran of arresting a number of dual nationals to try to win concessions from other countries — a charge the Iranian government has regularly dismissed.

Tehran has called for the release of about several dozen Iranians held in US prisons, mostly for breaching sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program.

Tensions have risen between longtime foes Iran and the US since 2018, when Washington quit Iran’s nuclear deal with six world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Tehran’s economy.

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title: Iran’s supreme leader to pardon 10,000 prisoners


title: Flags head hoists standard for perfection amid crisis

content_text:
At 79, Tadamasa Fukiura has never lost his boyhood love of flags, but now the man in charge of supplying more than 10,000 of them for the Tokyo Olympics has a flag obsession of a different stripe — whether the Games will go ahead.

Doubts are mounting worldwide over whether the Olympics can proceed as planned amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with countries in all continents implementing drastic social and travel lockdowns.

Still, Tokyo Games and Japanese government officials have insisted that the event will go ahead as scheduled.

Tadamusa Fukiura holds a Japanese national flag after a special lecture for students about national flags at a junior high school in Tokyo on Feb. 10.
 Photo: Reuters

For Fukiura, whose life-long fascination saw him asked to supervise displays at the 1964 Tokyo Games, a call needs to be made, and soon, on whether to proceed with meticulous preparations for more than 10,000 flags representing nations at this year’s event.

“I think by the end of March, we have to decide whether to stop or continue preparations for the Olympics,” Fukiura told reporters.

Despite the coronavirus outbreak, flag manufacturing plants in Japan are up and running to meet their own May deadline, he said.

An adviser for the organizers of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralymic Games, Fukiura describes his passion as an “addiction” and literally wrote the book on flags of the world when he was a 22-year-old college student at Waseda University supervising displays at the 1964 Olympics.

At the time, there was no official policy on what shade of red Japan’s flag should have. After reviewing 2,000 lipstick colors from cosmetics maker Shiseido, he selected the shade that would become standard for the national flag.

Fukiura said that the 1964 Games was a defining moment of national unity for Japan, then rising from the ashes of World War II less than 20 years earlier on its way to become a major economic power.

“It was really exciting — 19 years after losing the war, Japanese people concentrated on the Olympics,” he said.

However, Fukiura said that organizing the flags for this year’s Games has been as nerve-wrecking as in 1964, involving twice as many participating nations and sports events, as well as major corporate sponsors.

A fear of mistakes, like flags being hoisted upside down, never leaves him, he said.

He also knows what it feels like to be haunted by the prospect of a cancelation, recalling the eve of the opening of ceremony when sudden heavy rains threatened the historic moment.

“I was preparing for the opening ceremony for two-and-a-half years. I thought to myself: ‘This rain would cancel the event,’” Fukiura said.

However, that rain melted away, giving way to glorious sunshine and the spectacle of flags saluting the world, just as he had planned.

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title: Prudential signs US$751 million FWD partnership

content_text:
Prudential PLC, the UK insurer besieged by activist investor Third Point, has agreed to acquire a bancassurance partnership in Thailand from FWD Group Ltd in a 24.5 billion baht (US$751 million) deal.

Prudential’s Thai unit would buy the exclusive rights from FWD to sell life insurance products through TMB Bank PCL, the Thai lender said in an exchange filing yesterday.

The initial term for the partnership is 15 years and Prudential would pay in two installments, with 12 billion baht due next month, Prudential said in a statement.

TMB, backed by ING Groep NV, had been exploring options for its existing bancassurance partnerships following a planned merger with Thanachart Bank PCL that would create the country’s sixth-largest lender. Alternatives included renewing the partnership with FWD or finding a new partner.

For FWD, a sale of its partnership with TMB would ease potential antitrust concerns after the Hong Kong-based company last year agreed to pay about US$3 billion for the life insurance operations of Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank PCL in its biggest acquisition.

FWD would receive 20 billion baht for the TMB contract, its statement said. Concurrently with the SCB Life acquisition, FWD agreed to its own 15-year bancassurance partnership with SCB, Thailand’s second-largest bank by market capitalization.

Third Point, run by Dan Loeb, last month announced that it had built a stake of just less than 5 percent in Prudential, and wanted it to separate its Asia business from Jackson National Life Insurance.

The activist investor said such a move would eliminate nearly ￡200 million (US$230 million) of duplicate costs. The insurer this month said it was preparing to list a minority stake in the US business.

There would be a nine-month transition period in which TMB would continue to sell FWD products, while it would onboard products by Prudential, the filing said. Prudential would fund the deal with a mixture of its existing resources in Asia and potentially through new debt.

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Perfect storm of peril in Manila’s huge slums

Mary Grace Aves is terrified of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the best weapons to protect her family — isolation and sanitation — are unreachable luxuries in the Manila shantytown they call home.

The same particularly dangerous set of threats loom over hundreds of millions packed into Asia’s massive slums, where staying clean is nearly impossible and people have to leave their homes daily to survive.

“It may be possible [to isolate] in other areas because they are rich. They have big spaces,” said Aves, a mother of four. “Here we are crammed.”

“If you run into somebody on the way out of the house you will touch,” the 23-year-old said from her closet-sized home in Manila’s Tondo district.

Asian nations have imposed increasingly heavy measures to fight the contagion, with the Philippines ordering about half of its 110 million people to stay home.

That quarantine includes Manila, but there was no sign of authorities enforcing it in slum areas on Wednesday or in many other parts of the sprawling metropolis.

The virus spreads through droplets that can be picked up with one touch or inhaled from a sick person’s sneeze, so global health authorities say the best protection is staying home and keeping hands clean.

“But what if you cannot do either of those things,” said Annie Wilkinson, a fellow at research group Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in England, in an opinion piece.

“There is a real risk that the impacts on the urban poor will be considerably higher than elsewhere,” she wrote.

East Asia and the Pacific are home to 250 million slum dwellers, many of them in China, Indonesia and the Philippines, a 2017 World Bank study said.

Slum homes are tightly packed spaces that are only big enough for sleeping and lack running water.

Cooking, laundry, personal hygiene and leisure are done in common spaces filled with people, which means residents have to be in public to survive.

In Aves’ settlement, there are no masks, hand sanitizer or sinks, and toilets are buckets emptied directly into the black water of the Estero de Vita River.

The narrow, muddy passages between the homes are only wide enough for one person, so locals touch frequently as they slide past one another.

An infection there would have everything it needs to spread.

Asia’s poorest have been largely left to protect themselves as the outbreak accelerates. Neither Indonesia nor India have imposed lockdowns, and have not taken significant steps specifically directed at preventing outbreaks in shantytowns.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said the government would not impose a large-scale urban lockdown, because it would extract too great an economic toll.

“If we shut down the cities — people are already facing difficult circumstances — we will save them from corona at one end, but they will die from hunger on other side,” Khan said.

Tondo residents said they had been out of work since the Philippines’ quarantine kicked in, but would be forced to go out to find other employment once their money ran out in a matter of days.

“There’s a possibility we’ll get infected because we can’t control who comes here,” said 48-year-old Fely Tumbaga, who runs a small store in Tondo.

“We don’t know if outsiders have the virus,” she said, noting that locals were increasingly wary of anyone they do not know.

Physician Gideon Lasco said the ability to pay, but also to reach the hospital as lockdowns tighten, would be decisive.

“Immediate access to quality care can mean the difference between life and death,” he said.

The Philippine Department of Health yesterday reported 15 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the country’s total to 217. Eight patients have recovered so far, while there have been 17 deaths.

Additional reporting by Reuters


content_text:
PERSONHOOD ARGUMENT:
 Simeon Brown, a member of the opposition, said that fetuses have a heartbeat and feel pain, and deserve to be treated with dignity

New Zealand has passed legislation to have abortions treated as a health issue rather than in crime legislation, with the change passing on Wednesday by a vote of 68 to 51.

The legislation replaces abortion laws in place since 1977 and proposes that a woman should have access to abortion until 20 weeks of pregnancy, with advice from a doctor.

After 20 weeks, a pregnant woman would require a test and two doctors would have to agree that an abortion is the right decision.

New Zealand Minister of Justice Andrew Little speaks at parliament in Wellington on Wednesday.
 Photo: AP

Under the old law, a woman could only legally get an abortion if two doctors certified that continuing the pregnancy would result in danger to her mental or physical health.

Statistics New Zealand data show that in 2018, 13,282 induced abortion were performed in the nation of about 4.7 million people.

New Zealand Minister of Justice Andrew Little said that the previous law meant that most women who received abortions lied about their mental health.

National Party lawmaker Simeon Brown, who opposed the change, said that fetuses have a heartbeat and feel pain, and should be considered a person who is treated with dignity and respect.

Jackie Edmond, chief executive of Family Planning, New Zealand’s largest referrer of women to abortion services, said she was thrilled with the vote.

“It’s fantastic that parliament has addressed something that they should have addressed 40 years ago,” Edmond said.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in 2017 promised on the campaign trail that the issue would be brought to a vote.

Margaret Sparrow was 21 years old when she drank a concoction to induce an abortion, now aged 84, she said she was delighted with the law change.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Sparrow, a doctor who is an abortion advocate.

Sparrow said it was not so much her own experience of having an abortion that motivated her work over the decades, but more recognizing that there was an unfilled need for women.

She began her career helping students get access to contraception and for several years helped send people to Australia to get abortions before the first New Zealand clinic opened.

She said that Roe v Wade the 1973 US Supreme Court decision gave people hope for change in New Zealand.

Sparrow said that the new law was a step forward, but her work is not done yet.

“It will be safer for women and better for access,” she said. “The next stage is making sure it’s implemented.”

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title: NZ passes change to its abortion law


content_text:
When the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) elects a new chairperson, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) customarily sends a congratulatory telegram to the newly elected leader. They sent messages to other former chairs, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Eric Chu (朱立倫), Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and even the relatively controversial Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), but newly elected Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) has not received one.

The Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of China’s State Council did relay, via Xinhua news agency, an “imperial edict” from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in his role as CCP general secretary. Although it was just a list of platitudes, the point was that even if Xi had sent a telegram, it would not have said much more than the TAO did to cheer up the KMT.

The reason is simple: Just as pro-unification media have been reporting, relations between the KMT and CCP have gone downhill. That same media blame Chiang for having said that the “1992 consensus” was “a little bit outdated” and not necessarily acceptable to young people.

If the KMT feels that Beijing has been giving it the cold shoulder for the past three years, that is because the CCP, after years of effort, is already capable of managing its Taiwan concerns directly, and while it was experimenting with this direct management, it realized that the KMT was useless.

This mindset was laid out two years ago in the pro-unification Want Daily, which reported comments made to Taiwanese academics visiting Beijing by “an important person involved with Taiwan affairs.”

This unnamed person expressed the CCP’s disappointment in the KMT and listed adjustments that the CCP was making to its “united front” strategy in Taiwan.

The article listed three main points:

First, Wu’s lack of clarity about the “1992 consensus” and “one China with different interpretations” had soured relations between the KMT and the CCP, which led to no KMT-CCP forum taking place in 2017.

The person said that “it would be difficult for the KMT to serve as a reliable political prop for Beijing in its policies regarding Taiwan,” or indeed to “serve any major purpose.”

Second, the CCP would no longer invest resources “through a particular political party in Taiwan,” but would instead take a hands-on approach and make “precision investments” to directly benefit ordinary Taiwanese and encourage them to study or do business in China, thus achieving a “spiritual consensus” and “integrated development.”

Third, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) centrist and rational approach to cross-strait relations could encourage Taiwanese to reach an objective and comprehensive understanding of China, and this was especially true of the younger generation, which is the most important demographic for the CCP’s Taiwan policy orientation, but also the group with which the KMT most lacks support.

Beijing would adopt a “multifulcrum” approach toward Taiwan, and Ko could become a “new key strategic fulcrum” distinct from the KMT and other pan-blue camp forces.

In light of these objectives, Ko’s actions over the past few years should be reconsidered. Notably, for the legislative elections in January, his Taiwan People’s Party deployed candidates in a way designed to stop Democratic Progressive Party candidates from gaining seats.

Ko’s actions go more than halfway to answering the question of whether he is “red.”

In view of these realities, Chiang should not be too disappointed.

Christian Fan Jiang is a media commentator.

Translated by Julian Clegg

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title: CCP resets its ties with KMT, sets eyes on Ko

people: 江啟臣 朱立倫 馬英九 習近平 洪秀柱 吳敦義 柯文哲


content_text:
Brady could make Bucs relevant, spurs ticket demand

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers enter free agency with expectations of signing Tom Brady and bolstering a defense that will be one of the keys to helping the six-time Super Bowl champion quarterback be successful with his new team.

There has been no official announcement on Brady joining the Bucs after 20 seasons with the New England Patriots, but there is already an increased demand for tickets.

Tampa Bay ranked 30th among 32 teams in home attendance, averaging 51,898 spectators per game last season.

The New England Patriots’ Tom Brady lifts the Vince Lombardi Trophy after defeating the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI in Houston, Texas, on Feb. 5, 2017.
 Photo: AP

Within hours of reports of the team closing in on a deal with Brady, the Web site selling season passes for next season showed more than 2,400 people waiting for an opportunity to make purchases.

Brady ended his historic run in New England on Tuesday, announcing on social media that he would become a free agent for the first time in his career.

Armed with plenty of salary cap space, a roster featuring a pair of 1,000-yard receivers and a coach with a proven track record of working with high-profile quarterbacks, the Bucs took a shot at making themselves relevant for the first time in more than a decade.

The Bucs last season went 7-9 and missed the playoffs for the 12th straight year, the second-longest drought in the league behind the Cleveland Browns. They have not won a post-season game since their 2002 Super Bowl championship run.

Landing Brady not only figures to fill empty seats at Raymond James Stadium and make the Bucs a playoff contender right away, but also raises the prospect of Tampa Bay becoming the first team to win a Super Bowl in the host city’s stadium.

Next season’s NFL title game is in Tampa.

Brady won 17 division titles and appeared in nine Super Bowls — winning six — with the Patriots. He is a four-time Super Bowl Most Valuable Player (MVP), 14-time Pro Bowl selection and three-time regular-season MVP who has made 41 post-season starts.

The Bucs have played 15 playoff games in their 44-season history, none since 2007.

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content_text:
EXUDING CONFIDENCE:
 Leading medical experts say China should be able to eliminate COVID-19 the same way it did SARS, unless it spirals out of control elsewhere

Chinese scientists and health experts involved in the country’s fight against the coronavirus believe the worst is now over, downplaying warnings that the disease could become seasonal or that a deadlier “second wave” could hit later in the year.

As the pandemic continues to spread overseas, a growing number of countries are bracing themselves for a worst-case scenario in which COVID-19 remains in circulation until next year at the earliest.

However, medical advisers in China have expressed confidence that the country’s strict containment measures have done enough to ensure that the outbreak can be brought under complete control, domestically at least, within weeks.

Members of a medical assistance team from Jiangsu Province yesterday sign a protective suit at a ceremony marking their departure after helping with the efforts to combat COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. Medical teams from across the nation began leaving Wuhan this week after the number of new infections dropped.
 Photo: AFP

Though they remain wary of the risks of “importing” cases from overseas, they say China should be capable of eliminating COVID-19 in the same way it eliminated SARS in 2003. SARS was eventually contained after the government imposed stringent screening and quarantine measures.

“For me, a second outbreak, a domestic outbreak in China, wouldn’t be a great concern,” said Cao Wei (曹瑋), deputy director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Peking Union Medical College Hospital.

She told a briefing on Monday that while China needed another month to make a final judgement, existing measures should be enough to bring the epidemic to an end domestically.

The WHO has said the coronavirus reached a peak in China late last month.

Chinese epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan (鍾南山), a senior government adviser who helped detect and defeat SARS in 2003, said it “could be over by June” if other countries take the required action.

“Imported” cases on Wednesday reached a record 34, and have outnumbered domestic transmissions for five consecutive days.

Ian Henderson, director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland, said China’s actions to contain the virus have been “extraordinary,” but there could be a second outbreak, this time imported.

“[What] remains possible is that as controls around isolation are relaxed in China, with a population that is still susceptible, then the virus may resurge if it has not been eradicated elsewhere,” he said.

China Cell Biology Institute Vice Director Gao Zhengliang (高正良) told the Youth Daily newspaper that the country had now completed “99 out of 100 steps” required to defeat the coronavirus, although he said that if global infections spiraled out of control, “the costs and sacrifices China has made will be downgraded.”

Some experts have referred to the infection patterns of the devastating 1918-1919 influenza epidemic that killed more than 50 million people during three different waves, with the second the deadliest.

However, Henderson said it was important to recognize the current virus was different from influenza.

The world’s inter-connectedness means that instead of coming in waves, new viruses are now more likely to spread and circulate until they mutate or until a certain level of immunity is reached.

One crucial issue is how long a previously infected patient remains immune.

“The number one point to get across is that in terms of the behavior of this virus we are still very much in the dark,” Henderson said. “The issue around protective immunity is difficult to answer because we simply do not have sufficient information.”

Some experts have raised the possibility that COVID-19 could become an entrenched seasonal illness along with ordinary influenza.

Preliminary studies have shown a possible correlation between the epidemic and climate patterns.

A paper produced by researchers in Europe this week said the coronavirus preferred cool and dry conditions, which could lead to seasonal global outbreaks “much like other respiratory diseases.”

However, there have still been cases in warmer and more humid climates in Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore and Thailand.

Marc Lipsitch, a communicable disease expert at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said while warmer and wetter weather could reduce the contagiousness of the coronavirus, “it is not reasonable to expect those declines alone to slow transmission enough to make a big dent.”

Gao said given the higher fatality rate for the coronavirus, relaxing curbs was not an option.

“The resolute curbs on the coronavirus must be continued, it absolutely cannot be allowed to co-exist with humans in the same way as the influenza virus,” Gao said.

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title: Virus Outbreak: China downplays ‘second wave’ idea


title: Spray made by US firm part of the battle to keep food fresh

references: Facebook Twitter

content_text:
To extend the shelf life of fruit and vegetables, Apeel has developed an organic coating,
which is envisioned to help ease global warming as well as supermarket prices

Ten years ago, James Rogers was driving through some of the most productive farmland on the planet thinking about food. He had recently read an article detailing the challenges of feeding the world’s growing population and as he gazed out over the fertile fields of the Salinas Valley outside Monterey, California, he thought: How is it possible that people go hungry, that people starve, when growing food seems so simple?

“You just take these magic beans and,” says Rogers, recalling the thought, as he cast his hand as if tossing seed on the ground. “I realize it’s a bit more complicated than that, but, still?”

Back then, Rogers was a doctoral student in material sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was not working in anything food-related at all. His research involved creating a kind of paint that, when dried, turned into a solar panel.

There was a lab at the University of California, Berkeley that had the equipment necessary for his studies, but between the lab and his home in Santa Barbara, he passed the farmland, and the food problem gnawed at him. He wondered if it was not as simple as he supposed.

He began taking classes in environmental economics and natural resources. He learned that, globally, we are indeed producing more than enough food. The problem is not production, it is what happens next.

We waste an extraordinary amount of food. In the US, it is about 40 percent; in the UK, nearly the same. Around the world, almost one-third of all the food produced — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — is lost one way or another each year. Much of the time it is not merely lost, but brought into our homes only to be thrown in the trash and then transported to a landfill, where it slowly releases methane back into the atmosphere, warming the Earth.

Worldwide, a staggering 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are linked to food waste.

The question for Rogers was: What exactly was driving so much waste?

One day, while researching, he came across another article.

He can still recall its first line: “All fresh produce is seasonal as well as perishable.”

That insight — so simple, so true — struck him like a lightning bolt.

“The problem is you’re either in season and have more than you know what to do with or you have nothing,” he says.

Plenty of animals have adapted to these natural cycles of boom and bust, fat times and lean: birds migrate, bears hibernate.

Humans trade, converting this surplus into a non-perishable asset we call money. Some of the earliest forms of currency were, in fact, grains stored in clay pots.

Clay pottery was one of material science’s very first breakthroughs, Rogers says.

Clay pottery allowed us to continue eating long after the harvest, but clay pottery only got us so far. It was what material science might offer food today that interested him.

He decided, then, to switch tracks. No longer would he work on paint that dried into solar panels. He would instead begin to work on increasing the shelf life of fruit and vegetables. Eventually, he developed a substance that was not entirely dissimilar from the solar paint.

However, this substance was made entirely out of plant lipids, or fatty acids. Spray it on to an avocado, say, and the substance dries into a sort of second skin, which increases the avocado’s shelf life by two to three times.

The company Rogers founded, Apeel Sciences, is growing by hundreds of employees a year, backed by tens of millions of US dollars in venture capital, and is revolutionizing entire food systems and economies.

However, back then, in 2010, driving past those fertile fields, it was still early days.

Rogers remembers calling his mother and telling her the news about his insight — the big switch in his interests and research.

“Sweetie,” she said to him. “That sounds really nice, but you don’t know anything about fruit and vegetables.”

MOLECULAR STUDIES

Apeel Sciences is headquartered in Goleta, California, just north of the University of California, Santa Barbara and south of farmland that quickly gives way to the rural, rolling central California coast. The company’s building was formerly home to a medical-device maker, and the labs and clean rooms easily swapped from their previous purpose — building prototypes for entry into the human body — to their current one — the study of the molecular structures of fruit’s skin.

“This room is part of our food-manufacturing practice,” says Molly Greathouse, who is giving me a tour.

We peer in, but the lab is dark and empty, and appears abandoned.

“It’s still being set up,” Greathouse says. “We’re still putting wires into things.”

Her colleague, Daniel Costanza, is my other guide. Both are recent hires, but recent is relative: Apeel’s employee count rose in the past six months from 130 to more than 200, so Greathouse, who has been here for nearly a year and a half, counts as a seasoned veteran.

We pass another lab, a clean room that houses, among other bacteria, Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes. The lights are on and along one wall is another big door topped by a glowing red light.

Here is where Apeel’s scientists put fruit and vegetables through a battery of tests mimicking conditions they might face while in transit, Greathouse says.

What happens when refrigeration shuts down? What happens when a contaminated batch of food is nearby, hence the reason for the dangerous bacteria. There are cascading effects to prolonging the shelf life of produce.

Costanza describes how one of the suppliers they work with no longer uses plastic wrap on cucumbers now that Apeel’s spray is in the mix.

It is a seemingly small change that quickly adds up. In a single year, that one move will save enough plastic wrap to enfold the Empire State Building 11 times over.

“Imagine adding that to each food category throughout the globe,” Costanza says. “That’s a huge paradigm shift away from single-use plastics. It’s pretty crazy.”

Costanza drops his voice, getting serious.

“This is the type of technology you look back on as revolutionary. I hold it up there with electricity or the Internet,” he says. “There are so many lives we can affect in a positive way. And we have such tight intellectual property no one’s really able to replicate it — we don’t really have competition.”

They do, really. There is Hazel Technologies, which is based in Chicago and makes little packets that get stashed in produce boxes. The packets alter the atmosphere within the box, slowing the food’s response to ethylene, a chemical that fruit and vegetables emit as they age that causes a breakdown in color and texture.

A similar company in the UK called It’s Fresh makes ethylene filters, too, and recently received a US$10 million investment from AgroFresh, a company that sells a dozen or so products including fungicides and wax coatings, all of which aim to prolong produce shelf life and enhance their look.

There is also Cambridge Crops, from Massachusetts, which makes a similar edible protective coating to Apeel, using silk proteins rather than plant lipids. Cambridge Crops received US$4 million in seed funding from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology venture fund last year, whereas Apeel recently landed US$70 million from Silicon Valley fund Andreessen Horowitz, which has famously backed Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb and Soylent, a meal-replacement drink company.

All of these companies and investors are making a play for a market worth at least US$218 billion in the US and several times that worldwide.

COST OF WASTE

That number — US$218 billion — is about how much grocery stores, restaurants and people at home spend on food that simply gets thrown away per year, according to ReFed, a food waste-reduction nonprofit based in Berkeley, California.

ReFed estimates that last year venture capitalists invested about US$185 million in technologies to combat food waste.

People have been trying to preserve fruit and vegetables for at least as long as they have been putting grains in clay pots. We dry it in the sun, jam it or cure it, cool it or can it, pasteurise it or vacuum seal it. The practice of coating a fruit in wax to seal its freshness and enhance its appearance is at least several centuries old and today you would be hard pressed to find a supermarket apple without it.

Today, wax seals also contain antifungal properties, which are perfectly safe, and are applied in so thin a layer as to be pretty much insignificant.

What sets Apeel apart is its specific coating technology — the fact that it works more effectively than a wax and is an organic additive made from plant parts. That, and the company’s comparatively huge cash influx from Silicon Valley, and its truly global reach.

Apeel is already well on its way to spanning the globe. It has satellite offices in Mexico, Peru, the Netherlands and New Jersey, and it works with five different suppliers of avocadoes, including Del Monte and Del Rey, which are two of the largest. It also works with Sage Fruit, one of Washington State’s largest organic apple growers.

Greathouse and Costanza shepherd me past the analytical sciences lab, where the fruit is run through a series of taste and smell tests to make sure that the Apeel spray essentially disappears as soon as it is applied. This is a complex task. The spray can be made of the lipids from any plant — much of the source crop for their ingredients changes throughout the year, and is simply the excess or discarded produce from farms and vineyards — but it has to be reconstituted to act more or less exactly like the specific fruit on which it is sprayed.

We arrive at yet another lab, this one home to the material sciences team — the beating heart of the Apeel operation. Here, they separate specific molecules from the lipid slurry then reconfigure those molecules into a variety of combinations, essentially highly educated hunches as to what a specific fruit or vegetable’s skin might be like.

If this seems like a lot of tedious guesswork, it is. The research and development for Apeel’s first product, a coating for avocadoes, took eight years.

Now we are in a bright room lined with racks of mouldering strawberries and bananas. Well, some are mouldering, some are not. Each rack has a camera mounted and set to a timer, to scan the fruit and track its breakdown. Some of the fruit has been sprayed with the Apeel spray, some has not.

Tim, an engineer and overseer of the rotting fruit, apologizes for the fruit fly situation in the room.

Finally, our tour ends in a warehouse at the back of the building. The space is dominated by huge produce sorting and cleaning machines, rigged with a custom-made Apeel spray device that treats the fruit or vegetables at the very last step of the process.

“It feels like moisturizer,” Greathouse says, describing the spray.

It is odorless and tasteless, too.

Once, when Greathouse tried some of it on her hand, she thought: “Maybe I can shave with this.”

“The reason we wrinkle is oxidation and moisture loss — same as fruit,” she says. “I want to do an experiment with one half of my face on Apeel, one half not, and then see what happens.”

Rogers has an office filled with avocadoes. Some are pillows, some figurines, some are squishy stress balls shaped like avocadoes, some are the genuine article. Rogers loves avocadoes.

“The joke with the av is: not now, not now, not now. Now? Too late,” he says.

However, “when you get an Apeel avocado the joke no longer makes sense,” because the fruit stays ripe for so long, he says.

The window to enjoy it, previously so fleeting, has been stretched by weeks.

The one fruit he loves even more, though, is the strawberry.

“I know it’s not sexy, but it’s just my favorite,” he says. “And they go bad so quickly.”

The company is a few years into research and development on that one.

“When I can go pick up local Apeel strawberries in the summer and have them last until winter in my fridge, that’s when I know we’ll have made it,” Rogers says.

These days, Rogers spends less time in material science and more on distribution chains. It turns out, when you create a new technology that extends the shelf life of produce, it creates another problem central to the whole business: Who, exactly, does this create value for?

The perishability of a fruit or vegetable dictates everything about its supply chain. Everything from when you pick it, right down to the season and the time of the day, to where it is packed, in the field or a packing shed. Is it then force air-cooled, or hydro-cooled? Does it travel down a flume or a conveyor belt? Does it go in a bag? Or does it get boxed?

SUPPLY-CHAIN ISSUES

Does it go in a box with big holes or small holes? Does it go into a shipping container? Does it go into an airplane? Does it go into a display in the grocery store? When it goes home with you, does it go in the fridge? Or does it go on your counter?

Within every supply chain for every different fruit or vegetable lies economic opportunity.

The goal for each of Apeel’s produce lines, Rogers says, is that the savings accrued by the growers or grocers are so great that you and I are actually paying less for their fruit and vegetables in the market.

This is crucial, because while it is good for the environment and will cut down on waste, feeling good about what you buy can only rope in so many consumers. The rest, the real revolution, lies in sheer economic price cutting. A cheaper piece of fruit that will last four times as long? No one will pass that bargain up.

Where things start to get truly interesting, from a market perspective, is how this opens up whole new avenues of produce to put in front of people. Just as perishability dictates everything about its supply chain, how well a fruit or vegetable travels is the most important characteristic of any mass-produced produce.

The best example of this is the banana. Nearly every banana sold in supermarkets is a variety called the Cavendish. The Cavendish is not particularly tasty, as banana varieties go. Nor is it especially packed with nutrients. There are far better bananas out there, but none travel — stay firm and unripe quite as long — like the Cavendish.

However, the Cavendish is falling victim to its own success and a fungus is rampaging through this particular variety. So diversity in our produce is not just a nice thing for us as eaters, it is essential for our future food security.

Just up the road from Apeel’s headquarters is a farm growing a strange kind of finger-shaped lime. When cut open, the flesh appears pearled, like caviar, which is why it is known as a caviar lime. The farm’s caviar limes are a speciality item, trucked to high-end restaurants in Los Angeles and flown to New York for the same purpose. The limes last for seven to 10 days after they have been picked, but Apeel started working with the farm a few years ago and developed a spray that worked.

A fruit with a shorter window of ripeness actually speeds up the development process, because you are able to quickly see what is working and what is not. Now this fruit that was so highly specialized, appearing for just one weekend in a farmer’s market, and in a few dishes in fancy restaurants, can be sold in supermarkets.

The caviar limes were not Rogers’ idea. Some of his scientists became infatuated with the problem and went to work on it.

However, now, he sees how this might be the future — new fruit and heirloom vegetables and the weirder, more specialized, small-batch stuff, brought to the masses.

The weird limes were actually the first product Apeel brought to the market.

“Thank God no one listened to me on that one,” he says, smiling, thinking back on it.

It taught him another important lesson, one he carries forward now.

“The shorter the shelf life, the bigger the opportunity,” he says.

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content_text:
‘STAY AT HOME’:
 Over the past week, police conducted checks on more than 1 million people and cited almost 50,000 for failing to stay confined to their homes

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that he would extend a nationwide lockdown that is weighing on the economy, as cases of COVID-19 continue to climb in Europe’s worst outbreak, with the number of deaths reaching almost 3,000.

The government would maintain its closure of virtually all retailers except for grocery stores, pharmacies and gas stations beyond the original deadline of Wednesday next week, Conte said in an interview with Corriere della Sera.

Schools, which had been scheduled to reopen on April 3, would stay closed longer than originally planned.

“We managed to avoid the collapse of the system and the measures are working,” so the lockdown is to be extended, Conte said.

The government is working on a new decree to allow for billions of euros of public investments.

Italy has the world’s second-highest number of diagnosed cases, with more than 35,000 known infections.

The Italian government has approved a 25 billion euros package (US$27 billion) to support its strained healthcare system, while helping businesses and families counter the economic effects of the lockdown.

The government is considering tightening the existing restrictions amid concern that many Italians are not respecting rules that confine them to their homes, except for reasons related to work, health or emergencies.

“I want to appeal to the sense of responsibility of all citizens,” Italian Minister of the Interior Luciana Lamorgese told La Repubblica newspaper.

“Stay at home, go out only if there is a strict necessity to do so,” she said.

Police ran checks on more than 1 million people between Wednesday last week and Tuesday, Lamorgese said, citing almost 50,000 for failing to respect the rules.

Possible new regulations that could be enacted by Wednesday next week include banning all outdoor sports activities, limiting citizens’ right to go out for walks, and closing grocery stores for all or part of the day on Sundays, La Repubblica reported.

Italy’s electricity consumption dropped in the past week, a first sign of the deep economic effects of the lockdown.

Calculations show a 5 percent drop in electricity on the Terna SpA network in the week through Sunday, but the grid operator estimates final figures would show that the slump is actually about 10 percent.

Conte might also extend so-called Golden Power protections, which enable the government to block foreign takeovers of Italian companies, to include all companies listed on the Italian Stock Exchange.

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title: Italy to extend lockdown, protect business: Conte


content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Australia, New Zealand move to seal their borders

Australia and New Zealand yesterday moved to seal off their borders, announcing unprecedented bans on entry for non-residents in the hope of stemming the rise of COVID-19 infections.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the ban on anyone who is not a citizen or permanent resident coming to Australia “will be in place from 9pm tomorrow evening.”

A similar measure was announced by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who said: “I recognize how extraordinary this is. In no time in New Zealand’s history has a power like this been used.”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks at a news conference at Parliament House in Canberra yesterday.
 Photo: EPA-EFE

Australia and New Zealand have announced a slew of restrictions to tackle the pandemic, but have so far stopped short of closing schools or instituting wider-ranging lockdowns.

Policymakers hope the bans will slow the rate of infection enough to avoid more draconian measures.

Australia had 642 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with the total doubling roughly every three days.

New Zealand had 28 cases.

Morrison said that about 80 percent of Australia’s COVID-19 cases came from “someone who has contracted the virus overseas or someone who has had direct contact with someone who has returned from overseas.”

An opinion poll showed 69 percent of Australians backed closing the border.

Ardern said the measures would also ban visa holders.

“Today’s decision stops any tourist, or temporary visa holder such as students or temporary workers, from coming to and entering into New Zealand,” she said.

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