title: Shots fired as Chinese boats ram coast guard ship

content_text:
ATTACKED:
 The patrol cutter, accompanied by two other vessels, was clearing illegal fishing nets when the fishing boats rammed it. Repairs are expected to cost NT$1.2m

Taiwan’s newest Coast Guard Administration (CGA) patrol vessel was damaged after being rammed by Chinese fishing boats near Kinmen County.

It was the second confrontation this month in which shots were fired to repel Chinese fishing boats.

Chen Chien-wen (陳建文), chief of the coast guard’s Offshore Flotilla No. 9 unit for Kinmen County, said that on Monday a dozen Chinese fishing boats entered Taiwan’s territorial waters near Little Kinmen (小金門), also known as Lieyu (烈嶼), close to the coast of China’s Fujian Province.

“We are happy to report that no coast guard personnel were hurt in the incident, but the new CGA patrol cutter, CP-1022, was rammed and had its hull damaged,” Chen said on Thursday.

The coast guard is to request that Chinese authorities launch an investigation to find the perpetrators and demand financial compensation from them, Chen said.

Touted as the newest addition to Taiwan’s coast guard, the offshore patrol cutter had just joined the Kinmen Island unit on Saturday last week.

On its first mission on Monday, the CP-1022 was accompanied by two other vessels — coast guard cutter PP-2006 and a patrol boat belonging to the Kinmen County Government’s Fisheries Research Institute — to patrol the waters around Kinmen to deter Chinese vessels from intruding in Taiwan’s waters, as well as illicit fishing and smuggling activities.

The three vessels were clearing illegal fishing nets off Little Kinmen when about a dozen Chinese fishing boats sped toward them, and their crew began throwing rocks and empty alcohol bottles at Taiwanese coast guard personnel, Chen said.

“Then several Chinese fishing boats concentrated their attack on the CP-1022 cutter, and took turns to ram it,” Chen said. “It became a very dangerous situation, so coast guard personnel decided to fire nonlethal ordnance to repel the Chinese boats.”

The non-lethal ordnance included six stun grenades and five bean-bag rounds, he said.

The CP-1022 cost NT$6.6 million (US$217,807), Chen said, adding that the damage to its hull and two outboard motors is estimated to cost at least NT$1.2 million to repair.

The patrol cutter is 11.86m long and 3.4m wide, and has a maximum speed of 45 knots and a range of 288 nautical miles, the CGA said.

It was the second time this month that a Chinese fishing fleet has intruded into Taiwan’s territorial waters near Kinmen.

On March 1, three coast guard cutters faced about 10 Chinese fishing boats near Little Kinmen, coast guard officials said.

In that incident, coast guard personnel fired pellets from their Benelli semiautomatic shotgun, officials said.

The coast guard vessels involved included a cutter (PP-3552), and two patrol boats (CP-1020 and CP-1018), which were responding to calls to clear up illegal netting, officials said.

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taiwan-subdivisions: 金門 烈嶼


title:
Advertisers stare
into the coronavirus abyss

content_text:
Clients worldwide are canceling ad campaigns and pulling cash from the sector, while billboards rented before the outbreak advertise products at deserted airports

The cancelation of major sporting events and the decimation of the luxury, entertainment and travel industries is delivering a hammer blow to a global advertising industry that was already reeling from years of tech-led turmoil.

What should have been a bumper year with UEFA Euro 2020, the Tokyo Olympics and US elections looks like it could be one of the worst for ad giants WPP PLC, Omnicom Group Inc, Publicis Groupe SA and IPG Inc as the economy shuts down.

Advertising executives told reporters that clients are pulling campaigns, photoshoots for glossy magazines are off and major brands are cutting budgets to conserve cash after the COVID-19 pandemic upended the way people go about their daily lives.

“This is a very sudden, immediate and significant hit to people’s revenue and bottom line. A lot of people will go to the wall as a result of it,” London Advertising founder and chief executive Michael Moszynski said. “All the media agencies globally are being told by their clients to cancel their spend.”

The sudden withdrawal of a chunk of the US$600 billion of pure advertising money that goes via agencies onto media platforms such as Facebook Inc and Google, broadcasters, magazines and billboards would be felt far and wide.

While the industry has faced crises before, including the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial crash, the rapid spread of COVID-19 through every continent and every sector poses an unprecedented threat.

“You don’t advertise for flights that don’t exist,” said Brian Wieser, an executive at WPP’s Group M media buying arm. “If you can avoid it you will stop the spend.”

WPP, the world’s biggest advertising group with more than 130,000 employees, traditionally keeps its staffing levels in line with revenue growth.

It has already been through two years of pain as clients started placing ads directly on major tech platforms and others took some digital advertising in-house. Its shares have fallen 54 percent in the past three months, the worst hit of the four groups.

REVENUES SHRINK

The global fallout can be seen first in China, where the virus emerged. Its biggest search engine, Baidu Inc (百度), has predicted that sales from advertising could fall by up to 18 percent in the first quarter.

In the US, the New York Times has forecast a fall in quarterly total advertising revenue in the mid-teens due to a slowdown in international and domestic advertising bookings.

In Europe, broadcasters, such as Germany’s RTL and the UK’s ITV, have been hit by the departure of big advertisers such as cruise companies and airlines.

The postponement of James Bond: No Time to Die and the Euro 2020 championship would hit sponsorship, pure advertising and the dated 2020 merchandise that had already been made.

Around the world, outdoor advertising is being particularly hit as people stay at home. As luxury fashion sales plunge the companies are still paying for billboards in airports that are largely empty. Some glossy magazines could also fail.

William Eccleshare, the worldwide head of one of the biggest outdoor groups, Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc, said that some advertisers had pulled out of the medium in countries that were shut down, while others delayed bookings.

They would negotiate cancelations with the landlords they rent the space from and the advertisers who pay to use it, he said.

“We show flexibility where appropriate but, it’s judged on a case-by-case basis,” he added.

The pain would also be felt early in the digital market dominated by Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook, where spending is more easily adjustable.

“What’s the first thing that you will turn down? It’s variable marketing spend,” said Johannes Reck, cofounder and chief executive of Softbank-backed Berlin travel start-up GetYourGuide.

“So those companies will really see I think, very, very, very crazy negative growth [in their] Q1 results. And that will be a first for them as well.”

A NEW NORMAL

ID Comms Ltd chief executive officer David Indo has worked with Coca-Cola Co and Nike Inc.

He said the outbreak would force a review of spend and delay media pitches where brands put contracts out to tender, limiting organic growth for ad groups.

Clients are asking how to respond.

“There isn’t a part of the industry that isn’t impacted,” he said.

After years of technological turmoil, the industry is also not in the strongest position to respond.

Martin Sorrell, the world’s most famous advertising owner who founded WPP, said it needed to retrench and accept that some things would change forever.

“Will people change their habits, will I travel as much? There’s nothing better than shaking hands if you can shake hands, but if you can’t?” he said.

However, a time would come when it makes sense to relaunch campaigns.

Already retailers are sending e-mails to customers conveying their concerns, offering discounts and pledging to do everything they can to get society back on its feet.

Moszynski, who was given the brief by the US government to restore confidence in flying after 9/11, said now was the time to take stock.

“It is all about confidence and perception, which is our industry,” he said. “We are actively working on something that will help one of our clients by being an industry leader and leading the way out of it.”

Additional reporting by Douglas Busvine

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title: Teams in Belarus play on amid European shutdown

content_text:
Almost all of Europe has suspended soccer amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but Belarus is just getting started.

The crowd attending Energetik-BGU’s 3-1 win over former Champions League participant BATE Borisov on Thursday was modest — just 730 people — as Jasurbek Yakhshiboyev scored two goals on his league debut.

On an artificial field, the Uzbekistan forward danced through BATE’s defense and scored the opening goal to cheers from spectators spread out along the stadium’s only stand.

Energetik-BGU and BATE Borisov players vie for the ball during their game at the Stadyen RTsOP-BGU in Minsk on Thursday.
 Photo: AP

The game was in pride of place on international gambling Web sites.

On Friday, Rukh Brest defeated Dynamo Minsk 1-0 at the Stadyen Dynama in the capital.

Shortly before Belarus kicked off its season, the only other up and running pro league in Europe was suspended after a meeting between the Turkish government and sports officials. Russia and Ukraine held out longer than most nations, but suspended play on Tuesday as the virus continued to spread.

The sudden rise to soccer prominence of Belarus, a country of 9.5 million between Poland and Russia, is largely down to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. As neighboring countries have closed their borders and shut down public events, he has argued that such measures go too far.

“I am absolutely convinced that we could suffer more from panic than from the virus itself,” he told a meeting of officials on Thursday.

Neighboring Russia’s border-security measures were “complete and utter stupidity,” he said.

As of Friday, Belarus had 69 confirmed cases of the virus.

Belarusian officials insist that they are not starting the season just to suspend it later. Unlike most of Europe, it runs on a calendar-year format, playing from March through December to avoid the snow-bound winter.

“Despite the nervy circumstances around the start of the new season, the Belarusbank Top League is still heading off on its 30-round journey,” the Belarus Football Federation said in a statement. “We are sincerely happy at this news and invite fans to come to the stands.”

The sheer scarcity of soccer around the world could make the Belarus league attractive to broadcasters desperate to fill time amid empty schedules.

Federation spokesman Yuri Primakov told reporters on Thursday that numerous TV companies had expressed interest, but said any further details were a “commercial secret.”

European gamblers had a choice on Thursday of Belarus, a Brazilian state championship game or a friendly between two Swedish fourth-tier clubs. Australian competitions in some sports are still going on in empty stadiums, but the time difference makes them hard for many to follow.

In Turkey, players pressured the league to shut down, saying they felt it was unsafe to play. Former Chelsea player John Obi Mikel left the Trabzonspor club because he was opposed to the league continuing, even in empty stadiums.

Belarus says there is no such unrest from its international contingent, which includes players from Africa, Brazil and France.

“Not a single foreign player has refused to play in the championship,” Primakov said. “Everyone is in place and will play.”

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content_text:
Welcome to the Marble Universe, where the rushing of glass balls down race tracks, around sandy beach corners or getting thumped by fidget spinners has suddenly become as captivating as any dunk contest.

Losing your marbles looking for sports to watch during the COVID-19 pandemic? Get in on Marble Madness! No bracket needed.

Wild and wacky games straight out of the halcyon days of Wide World of Sports are in vogue as boredom seeps in and new forms of entertainment are in demand.

Marbles are placed in starting blocks for a test run for a water race at Jelle’s Marble Amusement Park Marblopolis in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, on April 9 last year.
 Photo: AP

With all real sports on hiatus, fans are finding pinch-hit pastimes to pass the time, like, say, marble racing, whose videos — more viral than virus — have attracted celebrity fans and erupted into a social media sports sensation.

Some loafers sit on adjacent window sills and play catch, kick around the soccer ball and even bust out ping pong paddles.

Broadcaster Josh Lewin has called the play-by-play of his routine chores, such as stacking soup — “a double stack of Minestrone! Double stack! We haven’t seen that one since mid-July!”

Marble fans are stacked in a stadium for the Marble League at Jelle’s Marble Amusement Park Marblopolis in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, on April 9 last year.
 Photo: AP

Golfer Matthias Schwab started a #StayAtHomeChallenge and posted videos of him using his clubs to drive a roll of toilet paper out a window.

Wonder where all the toilet paper went at your local Costco? Odds are, athletes are using them as props in social media stunt videos.

A handful of tennis players swiped right for their love of toilet paper hacky sack and even kept tally of consecutive bounces off one racket.

Strange games, indeed.

The list goes on of the quirky and curious ways athletes and amateurs have passed the time waiting for LeBron James and the rest of sports to get off the bench.

The curious can catch up today when ESPN brings back the sports channel inspired by the movie Dodgeball, ESPN8: The Ocho.

Some of the best of Jelle’s Marble Runs for last year are to be featured. So are the 2007 World Sport Stacking Championships, last year’s Death Diving World Championship and the Stupid Robot Fighting League. Hey, it beats another day of classic games that already fill space on the digital video recorder.

The Tokyo Olympics are in doubt, but the gold medal for creativity during the lull goes to the crew behind the marble racing craze. The videos from the brothers who run Jelle’s Marble Runs have been around for about a decade, but exploded in popularity this week on Twitter.

The secret is out — yes, the marbles are out of the bag — and the Jelle’s Marble Runs YouTube channel added about 26,000 subscribers in one day in the wake of one racing video.

Greg Woods has a degree in neuroscience from Drake University in Iowa and went to medical school for a couple of years before he got a master’s.

He works for the Alzheimer’s Association and hosts a weekly neuroscience local radio show in Iowa.

Woods is less Bill Nye and more Joe Buck when he calls the action for Jelle’s Marble Runs for hundreds of races.

Woods watched on Reddit a marble race — held in the sandhills of the Netherlands, naturally — and wondered what it would be like if someone added commentary. He took out a stick microphone, recorded himself, posted the video on Reddit, and Jelle reached out asking if Woods would like to become the voice of marble racing.

Four years later, and Woods is welcoming viewers to the latest game with a call of: “Let’s roll!”

Jelle, based in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, films the race and sends it to Woods to lay down commentary.

Marble fans have scored soundtracks to races and choirs have recorded team chants.

The most popular videos boast between 1 million and 2.5 million views, some from celebrities that became enveloped in Marble Mania.

Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz tweeted: “Edge of my seat. Need that comet merch” to a marble race video.

New York Giants safety Jabrill Peppers also rooted for Comet, the sensational big blue marble that never runs out of gas.

He tweeted: “dk how but that light blue marble cheating.”

The celebration and commiseration for the nearly 700,000 YouTube subscribers and countless more who watch on Reddit and social media is as passionate as the wildest Cameron Crazies or Cheeseheads.

There are teams during the Marbula One season, but no real human competitors. The electronic starting gate opens to get the ball rolling and marbles cheer from the stands.

“People get attached to these marbles and they build the storylines and they weave this together through all the competition,” Woods said.

Oh, but fans are fans, and malicious marbles have turned sections of their stadium into a scene straight out of Philadelphia’s ol’ Veterans Stadium.

Groups of marbles squared off — or rounded off — during a photo finish at last year’s MarbleLympics qualifiers.

“There’s a fight developing in the fan section now,” Woods said on commentary. “Oh my gosh, Galetic fans are trying to rush out there. Oceanic fans are tied in with it. Let’s try and get things under control.”

And who can forget the time Team Momo had a marble sent to the injured list for damage suffered in an arena that contained four rotating fidget spinners.

“There was a huge collision that actually took a chunk out of one of Team Momo’s marbles,” Woods said. “We had to figure out what was Team Momo going to do after that? Obviously, that’s tough to heal back from and that marble was going to be out of action for a long time. So they drafted a replacement marble and then they had difficulty with that because one of them got sick.”

True story.

Woods can be heard calling every marble twist, turn and tantrum during the Ocho playback today.

“If we can help make the best out of a bad situation, then we are thrilled to be able to do that,” Woods said.

With that it was time for Woods to go and prepare for another thrilling race ahead, this one for all the marbles.

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title: Obscure sports rule during pandemic lull


title: Tokyo Olympics 2020: USA Swimming urges Olympics delay

content_text:
DISAGREEMENT:
 While the US’ main Olympics body said it was too early to make a decision, a swimming official said that disruptions called the Games into question

The head of USA Swimming urged the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) to push for a 12-month postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games, signaling the first fissure between US factions attempting to maneuver the US team through the COVID-19 situation.

USA Swimming chief executive officer Tim Hinchey on Friday sent a letter to USOPC chief executive officer Sarah Hirshland calling for the delay.

“Everyone has experienced unimaginable disruptions, mere months before the Olympic Games, which calls into question the authenticity of a level playing field for all,” Hinchey wrote. “Our athletes are under tremendous pressure, stress and anxiety, and their mental health and wellness should be among the highest priorities.”

A flag bearing the USA Swimming logo hangs over a pool at the TYR Pro Swim Series at the MidAmerican Energy Aquatic Center in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 4.
 Photo: AFP

Only hours earlier, the USOPC leaders essentially repeated the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) line that while athlete safety was a top priority, it was too soon to employ drastic measures.

They showed no appetite for getting out front on the postponement issue, which is gaining more steam among athletes, some Olympic leaders and, now, a high-profile national governing body.

“The decision about the Games doesn’t lie directly with us,” USOPC board chair Susanne Lyons said. “It lies with the World Health Organization, the Japanese government and the IOC. Under no circumstance would the USOPC send athletes into harm’s way if it didn’t think it was safe.”

Left unsaid was the effect the USOPC’s voice could have in moving toward a postponement.

In theory, no national Olympic federation has more power to alter the shape of an Olympics than the one in the US, which brings 550 athletes and its billion-dollar broadcaster, NBC, to the show every two years.

“We urge the USOPC, as a leader within the Olympic movement, to use its voice and speak up for the athletes,” Hinchey wrote.

Hirshland did not have any immediate reaction to the letter.

At their earlier media availability, she and Lyons reiterated much of what has already been said by IOC president Thomas Bach, whose most recent interview in the New York Times stated that plans are going forward for a Tokyo Games, whether they start on July 24 or some other time.

A growing number of athletes want more decisive action from Olympic leaders.

“The most infuriating part of this whole thing is it feels like the IOC is going to do what they want, regardless of what the athletes think,” US Olympic silver-medal pole vaulter Sandi Morris tweeted on Thursday.

However, there is also a contingent of less-vocal athletes who are not speaking up as loudly on social media and “for whom this feels like their opportunity, their only opportunity,” Hirshland said.

“It adds to the complication factor” in making a decision, Hirshland said.

Han Xiao, the chair of the athletes’ advisory council, confirmed that and said it was why his group has not made any definitive statements encouraging a postponement.

“We are specifically asking for more transparency around the decisionmaking process, more information about what measures and conditions are being discussed, and less public emphasis on training and ‘business as usual,’ which is putting athletes in a bad position,” Han said.

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title: EDITORIAL CARTOON


content_text:
How a mass pilgrimage at a Malaysian mosque became a virus hotspot
People are blaming the government after hundreds of coronavirus cases were confirmed among attendees of a four-day Muslim gathering attended by 16,000 people

Worshipers slept in packed tents outside the golden-domed mosque, waking before dawn to kneel on rows of prayer mats laid out in its cavernous central hall. All the while, COVID-19 was passing unnoticed among the guests.

The Muslim gathering held at the end of last month at a sprawling mosque complex on the outskirts of Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur has emerged as a source of hundreds of new coronavirus infections spanning Southeast Asia.

A 34-year-old Malaysian man who attended the event died on Tuesday last week, Malaysian Minister of Health Adham Baba said, the first death linked to the Feb. 27 to March 1 event at the Sri Petaling mosque compound.

It was attended by 16,000 people, including 1,500 foreigners.

Out of Malaysia’s 673 confirmed COVID-19 cases, nearly two-thirds are linked to the four-day meeting, Adham said.

It is not clear who brought the virus there in the first place.

Reuters spoke to six attendees and reviewed pictures and posts on social media, and the accounts and evidence showed several ways in which the outbreak could have spread.

The hosts, the Islamic missionary movement Tablighi Jamaat, which traces its roots back to India a century ago, on Monday suspended missionary activities, but did not comment directly on the Malaysian event.

Tablighi Jamaat did not respond to a request for further comment.

The mosque where the event was held was closed on Tuesday and a guest said he was one of dozens of worshipers still there under quarantine.

Calls to the mosque went unanswered.

Malaysia plans to shut its borders, restrict internal movement and close schools, universities and most businesses, as it seeks to control its coronavirus outbreak. All mosques are to be closed for two weeks.

“I was very surprised actually that it went ahead, but in Malaysia God is very important. The belief is strong,” said Surachet Wae-asae, a former Thai lawmaker who attended the event, but has since tested negative for COVID-19 after returning home.

The Malaysian Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Health declined to comment further about the event.

The packed gathering, where guests had to take shuttle buses to sleep at other venues, was attended by nationals from dozens of countries, including Canada, Nigeria, India and Australia, an attendee list posted on social media showed.

There were also citizens from China and South Korea — two countries with high rates of COVID-19 infections.

Social media posts show hundreds of worshipers praying shoulder-to-shoulder inside the mosque, while some guests posted selfies as they shared food.

It was not clear how many guests were residents of Malaysia, but cases linked to the gathering are popping up daily across Southeast Asia.

“We sat close to each other,” a 30-year-old Cambodian man who attended the event told reporters from a hospital in Cambodia’s Battambang Province, where he was being treated after testing positive for the virus on Monday.

“Holding hands at the religious ceremony was done with people of many countries. When I met people, I held hands, it was normal. I don’t know who I was infected by,” he said, asking not to be named due to fears of discrimination at his mosque.

None of the event leaders talked about washing hands, the coronavirus or health precautions during the event, but most guests washed their hands regularly, two guests said.

Washing hands among other parts of the body is part of Muslim worship.

Another attendee from Cambodia said that guests from different countries shared plates when meals were served.

Only half of the Malaysian participants who attended have come forward for testing, Adham has said, raising fears that the outbreak from the mosque could be more far-reaching.

Tiny neighbor Brunei has confirmed 50 infections linked to it, while Cambodia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam have also said citizens were infected there.

That a large religious pilgrimage should have gone ahead, at a time when the disease had killed 2,700 people and was spreading from Italy to Iran, has drawn criticism.

More than 182,000 people have now been infected by the coronavirus globally and 7,165 have died.

“That Tablighi event in KL [Kuala Lumpur] ... could also cause a regional spike and it was irresponsible for the authorities to have allowed it to be held,” Singapore diplomat Bilahari Kausikan said on Facebook.

It is not the only religious event to spread the virus on a mass scale. Thousands of cases in South Korea are linked to services of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in the city of Daegu.

At the time of the event in Malaysia, the country was in political turmoil. The country had a one-man government in the 94-year-old interim prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who had quit and was temporarily re-appointed the same day.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was sworn in as the new premier on March 1 and banned mass gatherings on March 13.

Prior to that, there was only advice from the health ministry to minimize public exposure.

Some attendees defended the event, saying that at the time the situation in Malaysia — which had announced 25 known cases by Feb. 28 — was not severe.

“We were not worried then as the COVID-19 situation at the time appeared under control,” said Khuzaifah Kamazlan, a 34-year-old religious teacher based in Kuala Lumpur who attended the event but has tested negative for the coronavirus.

Some of the worshipers who attended the event have since refused to be tested for coronavirus, preferring to rely on God to protect them, Khuzaifah said.

Karim, a 44-year-old Malaysian who attended the gathering and later tested positive for coronavirus, said that the government should have canceled the event.

“We are a bit disappointed that this outbreak has been blamed entirely on us. That view is unfair. There was no ban on our gathering,” said Karim, who gave only his first name. “Now I am concerned because I am positive. Please pray for me.”

Additional reporting by Rozanna Latiff, Krishna Das, Liz Lee, Prak Chan Thul, Panu Wongcha-um, Kay Johnson, Agustinus Beo Da Costa, Neil Jerome Morales and Fathin Ungku

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title: Air travel significant to spread of COVID-19

content_text:
The second wave of COVID-19 in Taiwan is cause for increasing concern. For four consecutive days, starting on Monday, the government has announced new confirmed cases, including several members of a tour group who visited Turkey. Among 23 new cases that the Central Epidemic Command Center announced on Wednesday, four were members of that tour group. As of Thursday, only two individuals in the entire tour group have tested negative for the virus.

Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, has expressed concern over this cluster of infections.

As of Thursday, Turkey and Egypt had reported only 191 and 210 confirmed COVID-19 cases respectively — fewer than those being reported throughout Europe and the US, so why is the positive diagnosis rate so high for this group of tourists? What factors should be considered when determining the degree of risk?

Our research team has been running computer simulations of various diseases for many years, and we have conducted numerous evaluative studies of public health policies in response to the potential for emerging epidemic diseases. Based on our experience, we can offer a response and some advice.

When simulating the transmission dynamics of an emerging epidemic disease, these programs execute hundreds or thousands of simulations to cover all possible circumstances and variables. They try to include factors that governments might not anticipate, using variations of common transmission patterns, and making modifications in response to urgent or rare situations.

These models consider many aspects of overseas travel, including flying, processing customs paperwork, checking in and retrieving luggage. The details of the international travel system are the same whether they occur in Turkey, Egypt, Europe, the US or any other country.

Based on these factors and our experience, Chen is correct in asserting that this coronavirus can be found in the cabins of many airplanes, and therefore people should avoid flying. However, not enough emphasis is being placed on the roles of international airports in spreading COVID-19, due to the numerous passengers and many aircraft arriving for maintenance.

From a statistical point of view, the probability of physically encountering the novel coronavirus or of being exposed to infected individuals in large international airports or in the cabins of airplanes is much higher than in homes, workplaces, schools or other public spaces.

These pandemic simulations show that large international airports and airplane cabins are major sources of risk, and are high on the list of reasons COVID-19 has spread so widely and quickly.

To protect the health of all individuals and their families, and to help the government delay the spread of COVID-19 in Taiwan, people must avoid all international air travel and airports during the pandemic.

Huang Chung-yuan is a professor at Chang Gung University’s Graduate Institute of Computer Science and Information Engineering. Chin Wei-chien is a research fellow at Singapore University of Technology and Design.

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content_text:
Since dropping below US$25 a barrel this week, an 18-year low, Brent crude has swung violently, with investors trying to assess the impact of OPEC+ output increases against falling demand due to measures to contain COVID-19.

On four occasions in the past two weeks, the global benchmark posted daily price swings of more than 10 percent.

Taking a snapshot of how much oil consumption is collapsing is impossible, but traders put the drop somewhere between 10 million and 20 million barrels a day, with some saying it might be falling even more.

Commercial jets are parked on the tarmac at Jorge Newbery Airport, which is closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in Buenos Aires on Friday.
 Photo: AFP

California alone, where authorities have mandated a lockdown, accounts for 10 percent of total US oil demand and a 20 percent of jet-fuel consumption.

Even if demand recovers to normal levels by the middle of the year, this year is still on course to suffer the biggest decline in oil consumption since reliable records started in the mid-1960s.

Until now, the biggest annual contraction was recorded in 1980, when it tumbled by 2.6 million barrels a day as the global economy reeled under the impact of the second oil crisis.

West Texas Intermediate crude on Friday fell 11 percent to US$22.43 a barrel, down 29 percent weekly, the biggest since January 1991.

Brent crude fell 4.29 percent to US$29 a barrel for the day, bringing its weekly loss to 18 percent.

The drop in demand is a moving target as countries step up their measures to contain the pandemic.

FGE, an oil consultant that was among the first to recognize the severity of the problem, warned clients in a note that average demand this year could plummet by 12 million to 20 million barrels a day in its worse-case scenario.

Even a smaller contraction would far outstrip any production cuts that the OPEC+ alliance discussed two weeks ago, when Saudi Arabia tried and failed to convince Russia to agree to a fresh 1.5 million barrels a day reduction.

Even if Texas was to cut production, as some regulators are publicly arguing for, it would not make a huge difference.

Output cuts “wouldn’t prevent an unprecedented inventory build over the next months,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc oil analyst Damien Courvalin said, adding that oil prices are still likely to drop toward levels that force some producers to shut down their wells.

Oil traders and analysts see signs of surpluses building everywhere in the oil supply chain: jet-fuel is going unsold at major airports; traffic congestion has vanished from Seattle to Milan, indicating that fewer people are driving, and therefore gasoline demand is down sharply.

Factories are closing as their just-in-time supply chains are disrupted, reducing diesel buying.

In a striking example of the impact on traveling, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe’s biggest airline, is planning to ground 700 out of its 763 aircraft in the near term, shrinking the flight schedule to a level last seen in 1955.

The biggest fuels pipeline connecting the US Gulf Coast oil refining hub with buyers on the US’ east coast — including Atlanta, Philadelphia and New York — is reducing flows by 20 percent due to lack of demand.

“We recognize the impact that COVID-19 is having on product demand,” the company that operates the Colonial pipeline told customers.

“Arguments that prices are already too low and positioning is extremely short are misplaced, because what the market is experiencing now is unprecedented,” said Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultant Energy Aspects Ltd.

The only relative bright spot in global oil demand is China, where consumption is slowly recovering after plunging at least 20 percent last month, when Beijing locked down hundreds of millions of people to slow the spread of the virus.

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title: Oil demand catastrophe makes price war a sideshow


content_text:
STRONG FUNDAMENTALS:
 Foreign institutional investors sold large-cap stocks on the TAIEX to meet their redemption needs in their home markets, the TWSE said

The TAIEX on Friday rallied after a government fund intervened in the market, but it was not enough to prevent a more than 8 percent decline in the main board’s market capitalization this week amid mounting fears over the COVID-19 pandemic.

The index has lost 894.78 points, or 8.83 percent, since Monday due to global volatility caused by a spike in new cases worldwide.

Its market cap fell NT$2.71 trillion (US$89.43 billion), or 8.8 percent, over the week to about NT$30.80 trillion, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed.

A man walks past a monitor at a stock exchange in Taipei on Thursday.
 Photo: EPA-EFE / David Chang

The index on Friday fell 5.38 percent before bouncing back 552.75 points, or 6.37 percent, to close at 9,234.09. It was still down 8.8 percent from last week’s close.

The rally came after the National Financial Stabilization Fund committee on Thursday authorized the fund to intervene in the market to smooth out volatility and shore up investor confidence.

Contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the most heavily weighted stock on the local market, on Friday gained 8.87 percent to close at NT$270 and iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), second to TSMC in terms of market cap, rose 6.79 percent to close at NT$70.80.

Largan Precision Co (大立光), a supplier of smartphone camera lenses to Apple Inc, rose by the 10 percent daily limit to NT$3,575. Largan is the most expensive stock on the local market.

However, for the week, TSMC still fell 6.9 percent, Hon Hai lost 5.09 percent and Largan dropped 11.95 percent.

Foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$128.24 billion of shares over the week, dumping large-cap stocks to meet redemption needs in their home markets, the TWSE said.

Wide swings on the main board largely reflected concerns over the pandemic’s effects on the economy, the exchange said.

Combined sales at the nation’s listed companies last month fell 7.76 percent annually as production at their facilities in China was interrupted by lockdowns aimed at containing the outbreak, it said.

However, many of the firms have sound fundamentals, with strong bottom lines and ample liquidity, the exchange said, adding that they have been gradually resuming production at their Chinese plants.

The local equity market has been offering attractive cash dividend yields, compared with neighboring markets, the TWSE said, citing data showing that the average cash dividend yield in Taiwan over the past few years ranged from 3.08 percent to 4.52 percent, much higher than time-deposit rates offered by banks.

Since 2016, listed companies on the main board have issued more than NT$1.1 trillion in cash dividends each year, which has made the main board an ideal investment tool, it said.

However, despite the exchange’s optimism, an Asian brokerage has cut its target for the TAIEX this year by 7.6 percent, from 12,830 points to 11,860 points, and maintained an “underweight” rating for the main board.

It said in a research note that global demand for tech gadgets is expected to fall, which would hurt the export-oriented electronics sector’s profitability at a time of weakening global economy.

The brokerage has also cut its target for Chinese equities by 7 percent, the smallest cut among the regional markets.

It maintained an “overweight” rating on the Chinese market, as it has relatively low valuation, the brokerage said.

Elsewhere in Asia on Friday, South Korean shares bounced 7.4 percent, although that still left them down more than 11 percent for the week.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 100 on Friday eked out a 0.6 percent gain, but was still down 13 percent for the week.

Japan’s TOPIX rose 1 percent on Friday, up 1.7 percent for the week.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index on Friday soared 5 percent, but it was down by the same percentage for the week.

The Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.6 for the day, paring its weekly loss to 4.9 percent.

India’s SENSEX on Friday rose 5.8 percent, but was still down 12.3 percent for the week.

The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index on Friday rose 6.9 percent, paring its weekly loss to 3 percent.

Additional reporting by Reuters

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title: TAIEX cap down 8.8% despite rebound

companies: Apple 台積電


title: China’s Internet stocks cannot hide from virus

content_text:
As recently as last month, investors in China’s Internet stocks were clutching on to the belief that the companies would sail through the COVID-19 outbreak unscathed. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), for example, was trading near historic highs, despite the e-commerce giant’s chief financial officer admitting days before that its biggest business would decline as a result of the squeeze on consumer spending.

By the time Baidu Inc (百度) reported two weeks later, shares of the search engine provider had fallen 11.7 percent, while those of Alibaba were down 6.4 percent and social media powerhouse Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) had slipped 6.2 percent.

Just as investors should have known in the middle of last month that there was trouble ahead, they would be well-advised to look at the reality that is presented to them now and be just as circumspect. China might have gotten past the worst of COVID-19, but the world is just starting to grapple with it and a major economic shock is looming.

People visit Tencent Holdings Ltd’s booth at the World 5G Exhibition in Beijing on Nov. 22 last year.
 Photo: Reuters

As investors digest Tencent’s fourth-quarter numbers and muddy outlook, those stocks have continued to drop. As have group-buying outfit Pinduoduo Inc (拼多多) and Internet companies Sina Corp (新浪) and Weibo Corp (微博).

Yet despite declines of one-third or more in market value, some of China’s Internet darlings are trading at levels seen as recently as three months ago. Tencent, for example, is back where it was on Dec. 5 last year.

This indicates that investors are not pricing in a big economic jolt, but merely a minor bump on the highway of fast growth and climbing profits.

In its investor conference call late on Wednesday, Tencent did not give explicit details on what to expect this quarter.

It noted that the payments business, now one of its fastest-growing units, would post a drop in revenue, offset by a reduction in marketing costs.

By comparison, Baidu, Weibo, and Sina all gave specific sales guidance — each predicted declines of 15 to 20 percent from a year earlier.

It is clearly going to be a tough first quarter, but executives spent much time on their conference calls talking up their prospects in the belief that this is a minor blip.

Baidu chairman and chief executive Robin Li (李彥宏) defended his optimism by claiming that expenditure would merely be delayed.

“If you plan to get married, you are still going to marry. If you’re trying to buy a car, you are still buying a car,” he said.

I cannot help wondering if these business leaders are looking too closely at China’s COVID-19 case count, and correlating a decline in new patients to an immediate rebound in revenue. Certainly, the mood on the ground has brightened and workers are returning to their posts.

However, they might not sufficiently be taking on board that the disease has gone global. The disparate attempts in Europe and the Americas to bring it under control mean that any resolution would not come quickly.

It might be the case that with their revenue coming almost exclusively from domestic consumers, they believe that a wider meltdown would not cause much pain.

That might be a little naive. Exports account for an important portion of China’s GDP and occupy a significant part of its labor force. Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), for example, is the largest private employer in China and gets more than half its revenue from Apple Inc. If orders at these businesses dry up, Chinese consumers would need to reduce expenditure.

Last year, I noted that what might save Chinese Internet companies was their shift to a post-growth era by trimming costs, such as marketing, which some pragmatic executives have done.

They would need to adapt again, this time to reflect a world that truly is connected and where an external shock could quickly become a local problem.

Chinese tech companies might think they have gotten through the worst of the storm. They would better brace themselves for the fact that there is nowhere to hide.

Tim Culpan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

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content_text:
The Liberty Times Editorial: Reform WHO, put it back on track

On March 4, the US House of Representatives passed the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative (TAIPEI) Act unopposed with 415 votes, and on March 11, the US Senate passed the act unanimously, thus completing the congressional legislative process. The act would take effect as soon as US President Donald Trump signs it into law.

The act says that US executive agencies should take effective action to help Taiwan strengthen its diplomatic relations and participate in international organizations. This development opens a window of opportunity for Taiwan’s foreign relations.

On the same day that the House passed the act, American Institute in Taiwan Chairman James Moriarty, who was visiting Taiwan as a representative of US executive agencies, met President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in the Presidential Office. At the start of their meeting, Moriarty said that the US would redouble its efforts to expand Taiwan’s participation on the global stage.

This statement shows that support for Taiwan’s participation in the international community is now an issue on which there is a high degree of consensus between the US Republican and Democratic parties and between the legislative and executive branches of the US government.

Trump’s administration has over the past few years approved several laws that are favorable to Taiwan, such as the Taiwan Travel Act and the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act. These laws focus on bilateral interaction between Taiwan and the US, including diplomatic and military relations.

The TAIPEI Act takes the US domestic legal framework a step further by actively promoting Taiwan’s foreign relations.

In the past, Taiwan has mainly fought alone to win diplomatic allies. Even if the US supported it, that was only one more country.

The TAIPEI Act encourages US executive agencies to raise Taiwan’s international status within the scope of existing international relations.

This means the US is bringing a crowd of friends to offer their support. The TAIPEI Act is thus a lot stronger than the other laws and has a quite different significance.

No wonder cheers erupted in the House after it unanimously passed the bill, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Twitter that Congress had sent a message to the world that “America stands with Taiwan.”

What “America stands with Taiwan” really means is that “America stands with Taiwan with regard to China.” During the four years so far of Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, China has increased its intimidation of Taiwan and eroded the US’ regional interests by luring Taiwan’s allies away.

When the US calls on its allies to join it in supporting Taiwan, it is also looking out for its own strategic concerns. This is especially true of promoting Taiwan’s participation in international organizations.

In the past few years, China has been gradually working its way into the structures of these organizations. In some cases it has managed to have Chinese citizens appointed to key posts; in others, it has fostered proxies.

As a result, these organizations are becoming less “international” and more “Chinese.” More and more, they are acting as extensions of Beijing’s power.

There could be no clearer example of this than the WHO.

The viral illness that the WHO officially calls COVID-19 — a contraction of “coronavirus disease 2019” — is widely known as “Wuhan pneumonia” in Taiwan, because it started in Wuhan in China’s Hubei Province.

As the virus sweeps across the world, the WHO, which exists to prevent disease and care for people’s health, has instead become an outer “palace guard” for the Chinese government.

The WHO leadership, headed by Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has been in lockstep with China in its announcements about what would become a pandemic.

At the beginning, it underestimated the situation and initially described the then-epidemic’s global risk as “moderate.” When Tedros visited Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing on Jan. 28, he implied that some countries had overreacted and expressed his full confidence in China’s ability to prevent the disease and control the epidemic.

Tedros has turned a blind eye to the way the Chinese government has prioritized concealing the extent of the outbreak. After the virus began to spread through countries that have close relations with China, the WHO continued to paper over the cracks.

At the end of last month, Tedros, despite the number of confirmed cases worldwide having reached 80,000, still refused to declare that the epidemic had become a global pandemic.

However, seeing that this position was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain, he changed his tune on March 11, when he said that because of “the alarming levels of inaction ... COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.”

Having gone from dragging its feet at the beginning to shifting the blame and even adding insult to injury, it would be difficult for the WHO under Tedros’ leadership to regain the confidence of the international community.

This is what Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) was referring to when he said that the WHO’s declaration of a pandemic would “do more harm than good.”

Taiwan, which is excluded from the WHO, takes the global body’s underestimation of the pandemic and its servility to China as a negative example and a warning.

The “five proactive measures” Tsai’s government announced on Thursday last week would allow Taiwan to avoid the kind of major outbreak crises that are happening in some other countries.

Many disease-prevention measures that Taiwan has taken have been widely reported by international media, making its achievements a model for other countries to learn from.

Taiwan is both capable and willing to contribute to global public health. Notably, the sharp contrast between Taiwan’s image in international disease prevention and that of the WHO leadership, along with the passage of the US’ TAIPEI Act, presents a key opportunity for Taiwan to redouble its efforts.

From former WHO director-general Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍) to her successor, Tedros, China’s growing domination of the WHO’s organizational structures has long been worrisome for many countries, but most of them have been willing to go along with it.

However, now that countries around the world are feeling the pain of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO is bound to be blamed for it. Consequently, proposals to re-evaluate and reorganize the WHO could be raised at any time, as could a motion of no confidence in Tedros.

Tsai’s government should seize the opportunity presented by this prevailing mood to redouble its efforts by taking “proactive measures” in its campaign for participation in the WHO.

It should leave no stone unturned in its efforts to gain more allies, including the network of Western countries that the US can mobilize and those with which Taiwan can cooperate through their geopolitical relations with Taiwan’s diplomatic partner countries.

Above all, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and related departments should jump into action. Submitting articles to overseas media or posting messages on Twitter will not be enough.

Taiwan’s participation in the WHO is not just a question of one nation’s participation in international affairs. It could be a key factor for reforming the WHO and getting it back on track.

Translated by Julian Clegg

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people: 陳建仁 蔡英文 習近平


content_text:
No professional cricket will be played in England and Wales before May 28 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, cricket officials announced on Friday.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) approved a seven-week delay to the start of the season following discussions with the counties and the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA).

The County Championship, which comprises four-day first-class matches, was to start on April 12.

England celebrate winning the third Test against India in Mumbai, India, on March 22, 2006.
 Photo: Reuters

The Champion County match, the annual curtain-raiser for the year, was to be played between the Marylebone Cricket Club and Essex this month in Sri Lanka, but had been called off.

The ECB said it had begun modeling a range of options to start the season in June, July or August.

The immediate focus is on options for cricket in June, including the three-Test series against the West Indies, the Twenty20 Blast and England Women’s schedule against India.

The West Indies Test series is due to start at the Oval on June 4.

The ECB said it would discuss starting the season behind closed doors and would consider reduced versions of competitions if necessary.

“With the information available to us at the moment a delay to the start of the professional cricket season until May 28 was unavoidable,” ECB chief executive officer Tom Harrison said. “This also allows us time to keep pace with a fast-moving situation and continue to plan for how a revised season might look. Critically, we can also remain as flexible and adaptable as possible, within the obvious restrictions we face.”

“Securing the future of the game will be a primary focus as we plot a revised schedule with an emphasis on the most financially important forms of the game for the counties across international and domestic cricket,” he said.

“These are unprecedented times which require the right decisions to be made for all, including everyone working, and involved, in cricket,” PCA chief executive Tony Irish said. “The PCA supports this decision to delay the start of the season based on expert advice relating to health and well-being and taking into account the government’s position.”

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title: Pro cricket season in England delayed


title: Formula One drivers to take part in virtual races

content_text:
Formula One is setting up a series of virtual races to replace postponed or canceled Grand Prix events.

The series said that a “number of current F1 drivers” would take part in the races, with the first set for today, when the Bahrain Grand Prix was supposed to take place.

None of the drivers taking part had been named.

Formula One cars take a corner during the Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo on May 26 last year.
 Photo: Reuters

The virtual races are to run in place of every postponed Grand Prix, starting with the Virtual Bahrain Grand Prix today, organizers said on the Formula One’s Web site.

The first race has current F1 drivers on the starting grid alongside a host of stars, with each driver to join races remotely and broadcast live on the Gfinity Esports Arena from 8pm GMT, the organizers said.

The series is to use the Formula One 2019 PC game developed by Codemasters, with a 28-lap race on the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir today.

The broadcast is to be available on Formula One’s YouTube, Twitch and Facebook channels, as well as F1.com.

“The series is strictly for entertainment purposes, to bring racing action to fans in this unprecedented [pandemic] scenario the world has been affected by, with no official World Championship points up for grabs for the drivers,” the organizers said.

In the US, at least 35 NASCAR drivers are to compete in the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series today.

The event drew so many professional drivers that it is to be aired on Fox Sports 1.

The main commentary booth of Mike Joy and Jeff Gordon, along with analyst Larry McReynolds, is to call the event.

The 90-minute, simulation-style e-sports program includes a cross-section of competitors who are to race virtually at the Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The drivers are headlined by Dale Earnhardt Jr, Hall of Famer Bobby Labonte, two-time and defending Cup champion Kyle Busch and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin.

Additional reporting by staff writer

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title: Virus Outbreak: China imported cases rise on returnees

content_text:
EASING RESTRICTIONS:
 After there were no new locally transmitted cases for three consecutive days, officials have started to relax limitations on freedom of movement

China on Friday reported a record rise in imported COVID-19 cases as expatriates returned home from the US and Europe, sparking fears of a second wave of infections just as the country recovers from the initial outbreak.

All 41 of the new confirmed cases in China were imported from abroad, the Chinese National Health Commission said yesterday, bringing the total number of such cases to 269.

Beijing and Shanghai were the main entry points for the returnees, many of whom are students who were studying abroad, official reports said.

A traveler wearing protective clothing and a full-face mask rides an escalator after leaving Beijing Railway Station on Friday.
 Photo: Reuters

They have come back after many campuses in the US and Europe shut down to stem rapidly rising infection rates there.

Also returning in a flight to safety were China-based expatriates, as businesses begin to reopen.

The pivot to stemming imported cases has led to a tightening of quarantine restrictions in the country.

Guangdong Province’s health commission said that travelers who enter the province from abroad would be subject to a 14-day quarantine on arrival either in personal residences or at a centralized quarantine center at the expense of the traveler.

The number of confirmed cases in China totaled 81,008 as of Friday, the National Health Commission said, adding that the death toll was 3,255, up by seven, a much slower rate than at the height of the crisis.

The lack of locally transmitted cases for the third consecutive day underscored a recovery that has prompted officials to relax restrictions, even in the virus epicenter of Wuhan, which was responsible for all seven new deaths.

City officials last week said that residents could walk around their compounds, loosening restrictions that had kept them in their personal living areas.

The official Xinhua news agency yesterday said that commercial outlets in residential communities and villages without existing cases of the coronavirus can resume business, citing the municipal bureau of commerce.

In addition to Beijing and Shanghai, the major transport hub of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, has facilitated infected returnees.

The southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, and the eastern provinces of Shandong and Zhejiang, as well as Shaanxi and Sichuan, have also all reported cases.

In Hong Kong, many overseas arrivals are going unmonitored as they begin two weeks of mandatory self-quarantine, with only one-third of the 6,000 electronic wristbands issued to them being activated, authorities said on Friday.

Hong Kong has witnessed a surge in people returning home this week, as they flee an explosion of disease caused by the coronavirus in Europe, North America and the Middle East, but delays in verifying their accounts have held up the activations.

With 256 infections and four deaths, the Chinese-ruled territory has toughened curbs on travelers, ordering 14 days of quarantine for arrivals from midnight on Thursday and advising against all nonessential travel.

It has seen some success in reining the spread of the virus, but more than 90 percent of infections in a recent spike in cases caught the virus overseas or had close contacts with travelers.

Hong Kong has said that it has more than 20,000 bracelets ready for arrivals and would send anyone with upper respiratory symptoms directly to test centers near the airport.

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Negotiations lag on emergency stimulus package for the US

US lawmakers urgently negotiating a US$1 trillion emergency package to salvage an economy ravaged by COVID-19 missed a Republican-imposed deadline to reach an agreement by the end of Friday.

US Senate Republicans were seeking a rapid deal to hold a final vote tomorrow on a bill aimed at allocating vast sums of federal funds to US households, as well as for industries that help form the backbone of a suddenly teetering economy.

However, Democrats have been pushing for stronger worker protections and more substantial outlays for families devastated by the crisis, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying that the Republican package was “inadequate” for millions of Americans facing dire straits.

US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks to reporters in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on Friday.
 Photo: AFP

The negotiations stalled, despite Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell setting a Friday night deadline.

Senators said that they would work through the weekend, and if a deal was struck yesterday, then a first procedural vote would likely be held today.

Negotiators held talks with US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and other administration officials to thrash out a compromise over the massive intervention.

McConnell’s proposal includes one-time “recovery rebates” of up to US$1,200 for most adults, and hundreds of billions of US dollars in loan guarantees to industries affected by the crisis, including airlines and small businesses.

“That would allow a bipartisan package focused on immediate challenges to pass the Senate Monday” before it goes to the US House of Representatives, McConnell said.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined some of the negotiations by telephone and later said that McConnell’s proposal “puts corporations ahead of working people.”

“As written, it is a nonstarter,” she said in a letter to Democratic colleagues.

Schumer, warning that more dramatic assistance would be necessary, called for a beefed-up worker support plan.

He said that McConnell’s bid insufficiently addresses the chronic shortage of intensive care beds, ventilator machines, masks and other medical equipment.

Republicans have signaled that they could come back with an additional emergency funding bill after this “phase three” legislation passes Congress, but Schumer rejected that approach.

“We’re going to have to work across the aisle … to produce momentous legislation in the span of a few days,” Schumer said. “We will do it, because we must do it.”

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Drive-throughs help people in the US cope with virus

Father Scott Holmer on Friday sat on a chair in his church’s parking lot in Bowie, Maryland, administering confession to worshippers car by car, at times leaning forward as he struggled to hear them from the 1.8m distance imposed by social distancing rules.

After the Catholic church of St Edward the Confessor had to close its doors due to the coronavirus outbreak, Holmer said that he got the idea of offering drive-through confessions after learning about South Korea’s drive-through testing.

“Then I grabbed some cones, the sign and the chair, put them out in the parking lot and just sat there,” he told reporters.

A sign at strip club Little Darlings advertises “coronavirus-free lap dances” in Las Vegas on Thursday.
 Photo: AFP

Few cars stopped by earlier this week, but things changed after a video of the drive-through confessions went viral.

“Last night I just lost count,” Holmer said on Friday. “We went for about an hour, just hearing confessions coming through the line.”

If it rains, confession is canceled, the church’s Web site said.

Drive-throughs, drive-ins and similar initiatives are popping up across the US in an attempt to fill the void left by shuttered businesses, churches and other gathering places as US officials ordered strict restrictions to help contain the spread of coronavirus.

In Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a library has transformed its parking lot into a makeshift drive-in where patrons can pick up books after placing their order online.

Customers still have to get out of their vehicle to collect the books, but gloved staffers sanitize all items before placing them on carts just outside the building, Great Barrington Libraries director Amanda DeGiorgis said.

The response so far has been “amazing,” she said. “People have called already, they’re so happy to have access to the books.”

Massachusetts has not yet told nonessential businesses to limit in-office personnel, but has prohibited gatherings of more than 25 people and on-premises consumption of food or drink at bars and restaurants, among other measures.

In Las Vegas, gentlemen’s club Little Darlings was not only staying open, but was planning to launch drive-through peep shows this weekend that customers can watch from their vehicles.

“As silly as it sounds, the world can’t stop turning for a cold, so we have to come up with something to cater to those guests who are a little more sensitive to the issues,” Little Darlings director of operations Ryan Carlson said by telephone.

Little Darlings was the only adult club still open in Las Vegas, Carlson said, but added that it was not immediately clear if the business would be able to keep operating after Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak on Friday announced on Twitter that he had issued an emergency declaration directing all nonessential businesses to close.

The club was implementing US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, with staffers washing their hands every 30 minutes, placing seats and booths at least 1.8m apart, providing touchless hand sanitizer dispensers for guests and conducting three rounds of deep sanitation every day, Carlson said.

“At the end of the day, the government is not going to provide a bailout to adult entertainment businesses or their workers,” he said. “So our people have to be able to provide for their families.”

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title: World News Quick Take

content_text:
AUSTRALIA

Authorities shut Bondi Beach

Authorities yesterday closed Sydney’s Bondi Beach after huge crowds flocked to the popular sunbathing spot, despite a government ban on large gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The temporary measure came after photographs of mostly young beachgoers packed on the famous sands were widely shared online, drawing howls of protest in the media and from officials. “What we saw this morning here on Bondi Beach was the most irresponsible behavior of individuals that we’ve seen so far,” New South Wales Minister for Police and Emergency Services David Elliott said. “This is not something we are doing because we are the ‘fun police,’” he told a beachside news conference. The ban could be extended to other beaches if social distancing rules are not followed, he added.

BONAIRE

RdK seizes PDVSA facility

State-owned oil refiner Refineria di Korsou (RdK) on Friday seized an oil storage terminal on the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire over a payment dispute with Venezuela’s state-run Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), an RdK official said. The government would seek Dutch court approvals to sell Bonaire Petroleum Corp (BOPEC), which is owned by PDVSA, and its 10-million barrel storage terminal if no payments are received, RdK managing director Marcelino de Lannoy said. In the video statement addressed to BOPEC workers, De Lannoy said that RdK would take their interests into account “as long as this is possible.” “RdK hopes that with this PDVSA will comply with its duties,” De Lannoy said. “If this is not the case, there is no alternative left for RdK to use its right to sell the installations in a public auction.” Last year, RdK ended PDVSA’s contract to operate its 335,000 barrel per day Isla refinery on Curacao.

GREECE

Police seize weapons cache

Police on Friday said that they have seized grenade launchers and other weapons in raids against suspected members of a far-left Turkish armed group. The raids were carried out at two properties in Athens on Thursday against alleged members of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, a group that is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU. Eleven people were arrested in the operation that involved the counterterrorism division of the police and the National Intelligence Service, authorities said. They were on Friday charged with terrorism-linked offenses. Their lawyers said that the suspects denied the charges. The weapons seized include two anti-tank missile launchers, two grenade launchers, four handguns and an automatic rifle.

UNITED STATES

Kenny Rogers dies aged 81

Country music legend Kenny Rogers, whose career spanned six decades, has died at the age of 81, his family said late on Friday. “Rogers passed away peacefully at home from natural causes under the care of hospice and surrounded by his family,” his family said in a statement, adding that they were planning a small private service “out of concern for the national COVID-19 emergency.” A three-time Grammy winner, Rogers was known for a string of hits including The Gambler, Lucille and Islands in the Stream. He had 24 No. 1 hits, was a six-time Country Music Awards winner and a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Rogers also came to prominence through his collaboration with Dolly Parton and appearances on films and TV programs, including The Muppet Show.

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MORE SAY:
 The NFL great wants to be included in decisions about the team roster as well as calling plays at his new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, ESPN reported

While Florida is a retirement destination for some, for Tom Brady it is the site of his career’s next act and a place where he could further cement his legacy as the NFL’s best-ever quarterback.

The 42-year-old on Friday made it official that he would leave the New England Patriots — where he spent 20 seasons and won six Super Bowls — to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on a reported one year, US$30 million contract.

While the decision to go to the Buccaneers, who have not made the playoffs in more than a decade, was initially a head scratcher, the move gives Brady an excellent opportunity to chase more history before retiring.

Then-New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady gestures during a preseason game in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on Aug. 6 , 2018.
 Photo: AP

Last season in New England he was frustrated with the receivers available to him, but he will have plenty of targets with his new squad, chiefly Chris Godwin and Mike Evans, who both topped 1,000 yards receiving last season.

The team also have a solid offensive line, a stout defense and a veteran coach in Bruce Arians.

Brady will also reportedly have an unprecedented level of control over the team.

He wants to be included in decisions about the roster as well as play calling, according to ESPN, which would give him an even greater share of the glory if he can turn the Buccaneers, who went 7-9 last year, into a contender.

The Buccaneers are certainly getting a big upgrade at the quarterback position.

Brady has won more games (249) than Buccaneers’ QBs have in the past 30 seasons (210).

Achieving the ultimate goal of winning a championship with his new team would be historic.

While other greats have tried, only one quarterback, Peyton Manning, has won Super Bowls with two different teams.

Hall of Fame signal callers Joe Montana and Brett Favre both attempted the feat in the twilight of their careers, but fell short.

If Brady leads the Buccaneers to next year’s Super Bowl, the team will have home field advantage.

The Super Bowl is held at a predetermined location each year and next season’s championship game is to be held at Tampa Bay’s Raymond James Stadium.

No team have ever won the Super Bowl at their home stadium, so Brady could achieve another first.

The Buccaneers also make sense on a personal level.

Although originally from Northern California, Brady lives with his wife, Gisele Bundchen, and their children in Connecticut, which is a two hour flight from Tampa Bay.

That is a much less taxing commute then the arduous cross country trips he would have endured as a member of the Los Angeles Chargers or Las Vegas Raiders, two of the teams that were said to have shown interest.

And with his new contract he will make more in a single season than he ever has in his storied career before he retires — perhaps in Florida.

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title: Tom Brady looking to extend legacy


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Two great US pastimes, baseball and fantasy sports, were at the center of a court battle on Friday even as ballparks across the country stood silent and empty amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arguing over a suit that was filed as players were about to report for spring training, lawyers for Major League Baseball (MLB) and two teams urged a federal judge to toss out a claim by fantasy sports participants that they were defrauded by MLB’s sign-stealing scandal.

An attorney for the DraftKings participants said that fantasy baseball is marketed as based entirely on performance statistics and they would not have entered the tournaments had they known of the scam.

A World Series 2019 logo adorns the field outside third base prior to game 3 of the World Series between the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park in Washington on Oct. 25 last year.
 Photo: Brad Mills / USA TODA

“Major League Baseball has shouted to the world that it’s maintaining the honesty and the integrity of the game for decades,” plaintiffs’ lawyer David Golub told US District Court judge Jed Rakoff. “You couldn’t have a fair game of skill if you knew what pitch was coming.”

MLB in January said that during the 2017 and 2018 seasons, the Houston Astros illegally used cameras to steal signs from opponents’ catchers. The Boston Red Sox are under investigation for allegations of similar conduct during the 2018 season. Sign stealing is allowed unless it is aided by technology.

However, the MLB and the teams argue that “disgruntled fans” do not have a legal right to sue over rules violations and that the lawsuit fails to spell out a fraud on fantasy sports participants.

During the hearing by phone, Rakoff — a baseball fan who often peppers his commentary from the bench with analogies and jokes about the game — expressed skepticism over that argument.

“If someone has invested money on the basis of a representation and by hypothetical ‘we absolutely assure you, the person investing money with us, we absolutely assure you we are not engaged in sign stealing,’ when in fact they are, it seems to me it’s common-law fraud,” the judge said.

Lauren Moskowitz, an attorney for the Red Sox, said that teams are allowed to use legitimate methods to decode their opponents’ signs.

“There’s all sorts of rules, and interference, too,” she told Rakoff.

“These are all rules that are routinely part of the game, and where do you draw the line?” she asked

She said the court “is not a place to enforce those rules.”

Rakoff asked if she admitted that the team had broken the rules.

“We do not,” she said.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Rakoff said. “So the commissioner of baseball was just off base, in your view?”

The club acknowledged that an electronic device was used, but that “they’re certainly allowed to disagree there was activity at the club level,” Moskowitz said.

Rakoff said he would decide the case by April 15.

He did slide in a joke after an attorney for the MLB said that Golub was “not the next left fielder for the Yankees” and that the only skill he would employ as a DraftKings player was to pick a lineup.

“He is not the next left fielder for the Yankees and I am so disappointed that I am not either,” Rakoff said.

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title: MLB sign stealing debate moves to the courthouse


title: EVERYDAY ENGLISH

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A: How about the food on Siaoliouciou Island?

B: There is obviously lots of seafood. I ate loads of fat, juicy mussels as well as clams and squid.

A: And fresh fruit?

B: Yes. The island is famous for its “green mangoes” — mangoes that are picked underripe, cut into wafer-thin slices and eaten iced: delicious!

A : 小琉球上的食物如何呢？

B : 當然島上有很多海鮮可以吃。我吃了超多肥美多汁的淡菜、蛤蠣跟烏賊。

A : 有新鮮水果嗎？

B : 有哦。小琉球的「芒果青」很有名──就是還沒成熟時就先摘下來的芒果，切成很薄的片狀，然後冰起來吃：好吃唷！

English 英文:

Chinese 中文:

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Tai Tzu-ying hailed as Taiwan’s world No. 1 quarantines

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) hailed Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying after her win at the All England Open Badminton Championships with a video montage on Facebook as the shuttler began 14 days of self-quarantine on her return to Taiwan.

The BWF Facebook group released the video on Friday, saying: “She is terrific, she is tenacious, she is the queen. All hail Queen Tai,” lauding her third All England title after her 21-19, 21-15 victory over top seed and then-world No. 1 Chen Yufei of China in in Birmingham on Sunday.

Tai on Wednesday posted a photograph of herself onboard an EVA Airways flight to Taiwan wearing a mask and saying how nice it was to return to the place she is familiar with.

Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying holds the All England Open Badminton Championships trophy after her win in the women’s singles in Birmingham last Sunday.
 Photo: Reuters

“Everyone is wearing a mask and treating each other politely,” she wrote.

Tai said that airport personnel were surprised that she was returning from Europe and asked if she knew about the quarantine rules.

Tai wrote that she told the airport staff she was aware of the rules. She had displayed care during the competition, insisting that she and reporters wear masks during interviews, and that microphones be sterilized regularly.

The video detailed Tai’s record at the All England Open of three wins from four attempts.

Netizens also heaped praise on the Taiwanese, who returned to the top of the BWF rankings, leapfrogging Chen with her win on Sunday.

Radha Sridhar wrote: “It is not just your outstanding game, but for your calm and cool behavior Tai Tzu that you deserve to be the queen. Your capacity to bounce back is amazing and keeps us all delighted. You do not have starry airs, which makes you such a simple, wonderful sportsperson.”

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Virus Outbreak: Trump defends response, rails at reporters

UNHEALTHY DIVIDE:
 The US president said he believed that a combination of drugs would help treat the virus, but a top expert said that more testing was needed

Defending his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, US President Donald Trump on Friday angrily attacked reporters and broke with his own health officials on the science of the outbreak.

Trump said that he was tapping the Defense Production Act to order US businesses to manufacture and send supplies, like testing kits, ventilators and masks, to hospitals preparing to be overwhelmed by a wave of coronavirus cases.

However, he gave conflicting accounts as to when he officially invoked the rarely used order — and even if he had ultimately done so — and did not specify which companies he was marshaling for the effort.

US President Donald Trump, right, argues with NBC journalist Peter Alexander, second right, at a daily briefing on COVID-19 at the White House in Washington on Friday.
 Photo: AFP

Trump had earlier in the week said that he would tap the act as needed; he then added on Friday that he has put that “in gear.”

The president also announced an effective closure of the US border with Mexico, prohibiting most travel except for trade. That brings it in line with the restriction on the Canadian border earlier this week.

The US is also suspending interest on student loans to help young people cope with job losses and the financial crunch.

As the US Congress debated a financial relief package that could reach US$1 trillion, officials again urged Americans to maintain “social distancing.”

US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci applauded strict new measures put in place by the governors of California and New York to limit mobility.

However, Trump and Fauci broke openly during the White House briefing on the possible effectiveness of new drugs being explored to treat the virus.

Trump said that he believed that a combination of medications he announced on Thursday would work to treat the virus.

Fauci said that no such declaration could be made without testing, again highlighting the sharp divide between data-driven health officials and a president who admits he follows his gut.

Trump spent much of the Friday briefing in a fury, sparring with reporters he deemed overly critical of the response. He also again painted an unrealistically rosy picture of the outlook, as doctors and nurses have already made desperate appeals for help even as the anticipated wave of new patients has yet to hit.

Trump scoffed at questions about continued testing shortfalls and deficiencies in medical supplies, suggesting that even mentioning the issues was problematic.

When asked to speak directly to those marooned at home and frightened, Trump voiced objection to the question itself.

“I say that you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump said.

“I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people,” he added. “The American people are looking for answers and they’re looking for hope. And you’re doing sensationalism.”

US Vice President Mike Pence, when asked the same question later in the briefing, said: “Don’t be afraid, be vigilant.”

More than 200 people have died from COVID-19 in the US and sickness from the disease is on the rise, with hospitals at risk of being overrun.

US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he implored Trump during a telephone call on Friday morning to invoke the Korean War-era act immediately to order the manufacture of ventilators and other critically needed medical gear.

The president told Schumer he would and then could be heard on the telephone yelling to someone in his office to do it now, Schumer’s spokesman Justin Goodman said.

Later at the briefing, Trump said that he had actually activated the measure on Thursday night.

However, he declined to reveal any companies that he had ordered to step up production and then walked back his claim, saying: “You know, so far, we haven’t had to” because companies are volunteering.

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Activists in Moscow on Friday vowed to persist with their campaign against plans to bulldoze a highway through a radioactive waste site, despite a police crackdown and mass detentions.

The campaign started two months ago as a small grassroots effort, and made national headlines on Thursday night after riot police stormed the protesters’ makeshift command post near the site and detained more than 60 people.

On Friday, several dozen people gathered near the site once again.

“We will continue to fight. Of course, we’re not willing to give up,” activist Larisa Bodrova told reporters before the meeting.

Awareness about environmental issues has been growing in Russia over the past several years.

In a poll released in December last year by independent pollster Levada, 48 percent of Russians named environmental pollution as the No. 1 threat of the 21st century, prioritizing it over terrorism.

Environmental activism has been on the rise too. In 2018 and last year, spontaneous environmental campaigns across the country — mostly against toxic landfills operating at capacity — accounted for the biggest nonpolitical protests.

Bodrova and dozens of other activists live in residential blocks in southeast Moscow, where city authorities plan to build a multilane highway.

Part of it is supposed to go through a plot of land where at least 60,000 tonnes of nuclear waste is buried, the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing said.

Digging into this contaminated land is dangerous, as it would stir up a huge amount of radioactive dust, said Alexei Ozerov, a physicist supporting the activists.

“People will be inhaling it and [the dust] will spread quite far — 10km to 15km [around the site],” Ozerov said.

Radiation levels on the surface of the soil in the area are already several times higher than normal, said activists who regularly take measurements.

Construction work was supposed to start in early January, but the activists blocked the entrance to the contaminated area, not letting workers and trucks in. Since then, they have been camping out there around the clock, keeping warm in an old used minivan they all chipped in to buy.

“I don’t have another home, I don’t have a place I could move to,” activist and local resident Katya Maksimova told reporters last month. “Neither do other residents, so we [continue to] keep the vigil.”

In late January, Moscow officials acknowledged the problem and admitted that the area had “minor traces” of contamination. They promised to start removing the contaminated earth in the spring, but the activists continued their watch, demanding a thorough investigation into the levels of contamination first.

As the starting date for earth removal works loomed, the police turned up the pressure on the activists and tried to clear out the makeshift camp.

Their first attempt on Tuesday night to tow away the minivan and fence off the area was unsuccessful: the activists, supported by dozens of local residents, blocked the tow truck and refused to go away, despite the presence of a riot squad.

The resistance continued on Wednesday, and resulted in mass detentions on Thursday.

By Friday morning, almost all of those detained were let go. The minivan was towed away, and the area where the activists used to gather was fenced off, but the group called for a gathering nonetheless.

“Yes, it is scary,” Maksimova said, recalling clashes with the police on Thursday. “But we’re not prepared to throw in the towel.”

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title: Moscow activists vow to fight on despite crackdown


title: Taiwan in Time: The romantic poet comes of age

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When Yang Mu assumed his pen name in 1970, his works took on the humanitarian quality they would be known for until his death on March 13

March 23 to March 29

Yeh Shan’s (葉珊) prolific writing career came to an abrupt end in 1971 after publishing his poetry collection Legend (傳說). When he reemerged two years later at the age of 32 with the essay Annual Ring (年輪), he had become Yang Mu (楊牧).

Yang foreshadowed Yeh’s demise in the foreword to Legend: “These past five years have been a rare confirmation that not even for a moment have I been able to persist with one style, one perspective and one technique; instead, amidst constant change, I’ve never stopped rejecting, denying and destroying my past … This [has happened several times before] but never as cruel and thorough as the past five years.”

Yeh represented the romanticism, sentimentality and innocence of the poet’s youth. When he became Yang, he “gained a layer of calmness and subtlety, and started to create works that criticized society,” states the introduction to the Public Television Service documentary Towards the Completion of a Poem: Yang Mu (朝向一首詩的完成).

“Change is not easy, but not changing means death. Change is painful, but change is the truth of life,” he says in the documentary. As we all know, the only thing that doesn’t change is death (and taxes).

When Yang died on March 13, he was known as one of Taiwan’s most acclaimed literary figures, leaving behind an impressive body of poems, essays, critiques and translations. Before he died, his wife Hsia Ying-ying (夏盈盈) read him his work Cloud Ship (雲舟):


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‘Wonderchicken’ fossil from Belgium reveals dawn of modern birds
比利時「驚奇雞」化石 揭開現代鳥類序幕

A fossil unearthed in Belgium dubbed the “Wonderchicken” is providing a rare glimpse into the early evolution of modern birds at the twilight of the age of dinosaurs, right before an asteroid impact altered the course of life on Earth.

Researchers on Wednesday described a partridge-sized bird named Asteriornis maastrichtensis that inhabited a seashore environment during the Cretaceous Period 66.7 million years ago. It represents the oldest-known anatomically modern bird, sharing skull traits with today’s landfowl like chickens, turkeys, quail and pheasants as well as waterfowl like ducks, geese and swans.

Birds evolved from small feathered dinosaurs roughly 150 million years ago. Many birds retained primitive features like teeth until the asteroid struck about 66 million years ago, triggering a mass extinction that erased three-quarters of Earth’s plant and animal species.

An artist’s reconstruction of the world’s oldest-known anatomically modern bird, Asteriornis maastrichtensis.
這張重建圖呈現世界目前所知最古老、在解剖學上屬於現代鳥類的「Asteriornis maastrichtensis」。
 Photo: Reuters
照片：路透

A current estimate for the appearance of the common ancestor of all 11,000 living species of birds is somewhere between 100 million and 70 million years ago, based on DNA mutation rates. Until now the oldest fossil of an anatomically modern bird was one called Vegavis that lived 66.5 million years ago in Antarctica, though there is a debate about its placement on the bird family tree.

At first glance, the fossil looked unimpressively like a few broken limb bones poking out of a small rock. “When we CT scanned the rocks to get a better look at the limb bones we were shocked to discover an incredible, nearly complete skull peering out at us from the computer screen,” said University of Cambridge paleontologist Daniel Field, lead author of the research published in the journal Nature. “This skull is one of the best preserved fossil bird skulls of any age, so the fact that it is from such an important point in Earth history is amazing,” Field added.

Field coined the “Wonderchicken” nickname, owing to its chicken-like beak and its scientific importance. Its scientific name “Asteriornis” honors Asteria, an ancient Greek goddess of falling stars, a nod to the imminent asteroid. In Greek mythology, Asteria was pursued by Zeus, who transformed into an eagle. In order to escape the amorous advances of Zeus, Asteria transformed herself into a quail and flung herself into the Aegean Sea, where she metamorphosed into an island like a star falling from heaven.

Asteriornis provides clues as to which factors may have helped some birds survive the asteroid impact while others perished, said paleontologist and study co-author Daniel Ksepka of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, US. Its relatively small size — a 30cm-long body — may have helped it survive as the global environmental calamity caused by the asteroid strike made it hard for larger animals to find enough to eat, Ksepka said.

Its adaptation to a shoreline environment, Ksepka added, meant it would have been spared from the wildfires believed to have destroyed most of the world’s forests after the asteroid impact, which may have incinerated tree-dwelling birds.

(Reuters, with staff writer)

日前在比利時出土的一份化石，被科學家冠上「驚奇雞」的封號，因為它罕見地透露出恐龍時代尾聲──也就是小行星撞擊事件改變地球上的生命歷程前不久──現代鳥類的早期演化樣貌。

研究人員於週三描述這種體型接近鷓鴣、名為「Asteriornis maastrichtensis」的鳥類。它們棲息於濱海環境，生活在六千六百七十萬年前的白堊紀時期。在解剖學上，這種鳥類是目前所知最古老的現代鳥類，和今日的陸禽，像是雞、火雞、鵪鶉和雉，以及包括鴨子、鵝、天鵝在內的水禽擁有共同的頭骨特徵。

鳥類大約在一億五千萬年前從小型披羽恐龍演化而來。當小行星在六千六百萬年前左右撞擊地球、引發一場生物大滅絕、消滅地球上四分之三的動植物物種之前，許多鳥類仍然保有牙齒等原始特徵。

根據DNA突變率推算的結果顯示，現存一萬一千多種鳥類的共同祖先大約出現在一億年前到七千萬年前之間。在這份化石之前，解剖學上現代鳥類最古老的化石是「維加鳥」，該物種生活在六千六百五十萬年前的南極洲。不過，目前科學界對於維加鳥在鳥類親緣關係樹上的位置仍有爭論。

乍看之下，這份化石並不起眼，像是幾根斷掉的四肢骨骼從一顆小石頭向外伸出。劍橋大學古生物學家丹尼爾‧費爾德表示：「當我們用電腦斷層掃瞄石頭，想要把這些骨頭看得更清楚時，我們震驚地發現一個令人難以置信、幾近完整的頭骨，從電腦螢幕上直直盯著我們。」這份研究日前發表於期刊《自然》，費爾德為主要作者。他補充說：「這塊頭骨是史上保存狀態最好的一塊鳥頭骨化石，而它源自地球歷史上如此重要的一個時間點，這又更讓人驚嘆。」

費爾德創造新詞「驚奇雞」作為這種鳥的暱稱，是因為它的喙與雞相似，並肯定其科學重要性。學名中的「Asteriornis」是為了向古希臘女神阿斯特里亞致敬，也是隱喻當時即將撞擊地球的小行星。在古希臘神話中，宙斯化為老鷹追求阿斯特里亞。為了逃離宙斯多情的步步進逼，她把自己變成鵪鶉，直直衝進愛琴海裡，在那邊變成一座小島，就像是從天上墜落的星辰。

這篇研究的共同作者、目前任職於美國康乃狄克州格林威治市布魯斯博物館的古生物學家丹尼爾‧賽普卡指出，Asteriornis提供許多研究線索，讓科學家得以探討哪些因素可能幫助某些鳥類從當時的小行星撞擊中存活下來，而其他物種卻就此滅亡。他說，可能是因為「驚奇雞」相對小的體型──身長三十公分──幫助它們存活，因為小行星撞擊造成的全球性環境災難，讓大型動物很難找到足夠的食物。

賽普卡補充表示，這種鳥類適應海岸線的生活環境，意味著它們可能倖免於野火之災。小行星撞擊地球時，很可能將樹棲鳥類燒成灰燼，隨後各地燒起的野火恐怕也摧毀了世界絕大部分的森林。

（譯註：鷓鴣讀作「zhe4 gu1」[ㄓㄜˋㄍㄨ]，在台灣同屬的鳥類為台灣山鷓鴣，俗稱深山竹雞，為台灣特有種）

（台北時報章厚明編譯）

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countries: 比利時 美國 南極洲 希臘 台灣


countries: 日本 美國 中國 義大利 台灣

events: 死亡 新冠肺炎

content_text:
國內：

16日：新冠肺炎疫情升溫，政府決議禁止高中以下師生出國，直到7月14日本學期結束為止。

19日：北部某高中同一班出現兩位確診個案，該校即日起停課，直到27日，成為全校停課的全國首例。

20日：新冠疫情釀全球股災，台股年後至今市值蒸發逾10兆，中央銀行、金管會、國安基金各出利多，降息、禁空、護盤三箭齊發奏效，台股指數大漲552.75點、漲幅6.37%。

21日：台灣因境外返台人數驟增，導致新冠肺炎確診人數暴增，至21日累計153人確診，其中2人死亡，全球旅遊疫情建議升級至第三級警告。

國外：

15日：美國聯準會（Fed）宣布降息4碼（1個百分點），將基準利率降為接近零，至少增加債券持有規模7千億美元，卻仍無法化解市場對疫情疑慮，美股期指重挫引發熔斷機制，一度停止交易。

21日：新冠肺炎疫情全球持續升溫，至21日下午全球已27萬多人確診、1.1萬多人死亡，義大利是僅次中國大陸第二嚴重的國家，4.7萬多人確診、逾4千人死亡，死亡人數已超過大陸；美國也已近兩萬人確診，紐約、加州、伊利諾、康州等多州宣布居家避疫。

title: 聯合報一周大事3/15~ 3/21


countries: 荷蘭 印度 俄羅斯 加拿大 美國

events: 冠狀病毒 武漢肺炎

title: 印度防疫規定不一 荷蘭皇家航空班機半途折返

content_text:
一名官員及乘客今天告訴法新社，一架荷蘭皇家航空（KLM）從阿姆斯特丹飛往新德里的班機在空中折返，顯然是對印度的武漢肺炎防疫規定感到困惑。

印度因為 2019 冠狀病毒疾病（COVID- 19 ，武漢肺炎）疫情，已經禁止來自歐洲的班機入境，並將完全禁止所有國際商業航班入境，禁令為期一週，明日起生效。

這架荷蘭皇家航空班機原定今早抵達印度首都新德里，機上包括一名因需要醫療的懷孕女性。

匿名官員告訴法新社，這架班機昨晚在飛行時獲得告知，因為操作原因必須回到啟程點。

這名官員表示：「德里沒有給予（飛機）降落許可，因此儘管印度政府已有明確公告，我們不知道為何荷蘭皇家航空決定讓班機從阿姆斯特丹起飛。」

這架班機約有 120 名乘客，其中 1 位乘客匿名指出，他們要回返的消息是在飛行大約 4 小時後宣布，當時正行經俄羅斯上空。

印度人報（The Hindu）報導，這架班機上有大約 100 名印度人，他們從美國及加拿大啟程。報導指出，儘管印度禁止來自歐洲的航班，但印度外交部還是批准這架班機入境，因為機上乘客只是在阿姆斯特丹過境。

然而，報導表示，印度民航部對此不以為然，要求該架航班飛回荷蘭。

（新聞資料來源 : 中央社）


content_text:
英國倫敦市長沙迪克汗（Sadiq Khan）今天宣布，現正將當地上千名街友送往飯店自主隔離，以使他們獲得避免感染武漢肺炎的「重要保護」。

倫敦市長辦公室發表聲明說，有兩家飯店在未來 12 週將提供 300 個房間供街友隔離。沙迪克汗說：「疫情影響倫敦所有人，我們必須盡力保護每個人的健康，尤其是那些每晚在首都露宿街頭的倫敦人。」

他說：「露宿街頭的朋友本就過著艱難而朝不保夕的生活，所以我決心盡一切努力，來確使他們及所有倫敦人都能獲得最好的保護。」

據信，這個計畫從昨天晚上開始，街友將被安置在洲際酒店集團（Intercontinental）旗下兩家飯店中，並由黑頭計程車的志工駕駛送往投宿的飯店。

倫敦市長辦公室去年的數據顯示，倫敦夜間約有 1100 人露宿街頭。

英國到目前為止，共有 177 人死於武漢肺炎。

（新聞資料來源 : 中央社）

title: 將街友送進飯店隔離 倫敦市長維護全體市民健康