title: IMF sees virus causing recession

content_text:
NEGATIVE OUTLOOK:
 The IMF managing director welcomed extraordinary fiscal actions taken by many countries to boost healthcare and protect workers

The COVID-19 pandemic would cause a global recession in 2020 that could be worse than the one triggered by the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, but world economic output should recover in 2021, the IMF said on Monday.

IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva welcomed extraordinary fiscal actions already taken by many countries to boost health systems, and protect affected companies and workers, and steps taken by central banks to ease monetary policy.

“Even more will be needed, especially on the fiscal front,” she said.

Georgieva issued the new outlook after a conference call of G20 finance ministers and central bankers, who she said agreed on the need for solidarity across the globe.

“The human costs of the coronavirus pandemic are already immeasurable, and all countries need to work together to protect people and limit the economic damage,” Georgieva said.

More countries are imposing lockdown measures to contain the rapidly spreading coronavirus.

The outlook for global growth is negative and the IMF expects “a recession at least as bad as during the global financial crisis, or worse,” Georgieva said.

Earlier this month, Georgieva had warned that 2020 world growth would be below last year’s 2.9 percent rate, but stopped short of predicting a recession.

Georgieva on Monday said that a recovery is expected in 2021, but to reach it, countries would need to prioritize containment and strengthen health systems.

“The economic impact is and will be severe, but the faster the virus stops, the quicker and stronger the recovery will be,” she said.

The IMF plans to step up emergency finance, Georgieva said, adding that 80 countries have already requested help and that the IMF stands ready to deploy all of its US$1 trillion lending capacity.

Advanced economies are generally in better shape to deal with the crisis, but many emerging markets and low-income countries face significant challenges, including outward capital flows, Georgieva said, adding that investors have already removed US$83 billion from emerging markets since the start of the crisis, the largest capital outflow ever recorded.

The IMF is particularly concerned about low-income countries in debt distress and is working closely with them to address those concerns, she added.

The IMF called again on members to contribute funds to replenish its Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust, established in February 2015, to help the poorest countries.

The IMF is exploring other options with its members, Georgieva said.

Several low and middle-income countries have asked for an allocation from the Special Drawing Right, an international reserve asset created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement its member countries’ official reserves, as was done during the global financial crisis, she said.

IMF members also need to provide additional swap lines with emerging market countries to address a global liquidity crunch, she said, adding that the IMF is exploring a proposal that would facilitate a broader network of swap lines, including through an IMF-swap-type facility.

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title: Germany eyeing debt payback

content_text:
The German government is to return to its savings policy once the COVID-19 crisis is over, German Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier told ZDF television yesterday, adding that Europe’s largest economy has committed to paying debt back from 2023.

Germany on Monday agreed on a package of up to 750 billion euros (US$812.16 billion) to mitigate the damage of the pandemic on Europe’s largest economy, with Berlin aiming to take on new debt for the first time since 2013.

“Once the crisis is over — and we hope this will be the case in several months — we will return to an austerity policy and, as soon as possible, to a balanced budget policy,” he said.

The government expects the pandemic to plunge the economy into a recession.

German Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz has said that his latest budget plans were based on the assumption that GDP would shrink by about 5 percent this year.

The government has announced a range of measures to cushion the blow for companies during the crisis, and Altmaier said that the state is prepared to buy stakes in companies that are struggling.

On Monday, EU finance ministers agreed to suspend stringent rules on running public deficits in the bloc in a historic first that allows member states to spend freely to tackle the effects of the pandemic.

The measure effectively halts strict oversight by Brussels of national spending.

The holiday from the EU’s most emblematic fiscal rule is the biggest effort yet by member states to collectively face the pandemic.

The European Central Bank has announced 750 billion euros of monetary stimulus to reassure markets, and freed up banks to lend an extra 1.8 trillion euros.

Additional reporting by AFP

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Delhi’s rebel gym-goers risk virus to pump iron

While top gym chains in India are shuttered over the COVID-19 pandemic, many workout dens are defying government orders of a lockdown by staying open for their muscle-bound customers.

Exercise fanatics have said their need to pump iron is worth the risk, and the gyms’ owners keep opening up, despite facing police action, meaning the dumbbells carry on being lifted and the treadmills stay turning.

In one cramped gym in a crowded New Delhi backstreet, about 20 people were waiting for a turn on one of the 10 machines.

“There is fear, because every action or government circular comes down to how good the police are,” said the owner, who gave only his first name, Rajeev. “It is also a matter of our livelihood.”

Rajeev said that shortly after he opened his gym in 2016, the government canceled more than 80 percent of banknotes to counter the black economy.

That badly hit businesses, as did a new national sales tax introduced in 2018.

“So we have been under the hammer and now cannot afford to shut down,” he said.

Authorities have been cracking down on the gyms, with police in New Delhi arresting two owners on Sunday for illegally operating.

Four criminal cases were also filed against gyms elsewhere in the capital, police said.

India, which has reported 10 deaths from about 500 virus cases, staged a one day curfew on Sunday to test its pandemic defenses. Authorities then ordered drastic new restrictions on movement.

In between barking out orders to his sweat-soaked members and staff, Rajeev said he believes bodybuilders can fight the virus with strong immunity and that India’s climate would help.

“India is a very hot country, so when the temperature rises and I have learned that temperatures between 25 to 26 degrees centigrade can destroy this virus,” Singh said, highlighting a widely held belief in the nation of 1.3 billion people.

The WHO has said there is no proof that heat kills the coronavirus.

“I have taken action, there is sanitizer. If your immunity level is very strong, then you can fight this virus,” Rajeev said.

While schools, colleges, swimming pools are closed, and top sporting events, such as the Indian Premier League cricket, are suspended, dozens of gyms are operating across New Delhi.

India has a booming bodybuilding culture and for many, extra hours are needed to burn off unwanted fat, no matter the risks.

“I am 13 kilos overweight and I’m doing a 50-day challenge,” one 27-year-old university researcher told reporters as he wiped off sweat after a 20-minute run on a treadmill.

“Everyday I go to my room, I ignore the fact that there is coronavirus and keep on motivating myself that I have to go to the gym,” he said.

“This virus is secondary — if I am healthy then I can kill the virus,” he said.

He added that he would keep going to the gym, despite the threat of police action if caught.

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content_text:
GLITCH:
 A flaw in an app to track quarantined people’s movements means authorities have no information on their whereabouts during their 14-day self-isolation period

A glitch in Hong Kong’s electronic tracking system, designed to ensure people under compulsory quarantine orders stay at home, could potentially allow many to go outside undetected.

Some Hong Kong residents returning from overseas have found they cannot register with the app that is meant to track their movements via their cellphone, meaning authorities have no information on their whereabouts during the mandatory 14-day self-quarantine period.

T.L. Wong, a 19-year-old undergraduate student in Edinburgh, Scotland, came back to Hong Kong on Thursday last week, the day the compulsory isolation measure for all inbound travelers from foreign countries took effect.

Travelers in full protective gear walk in the arrival terminal of Hong Kong International Airport yesterday.
 Photo: EPA-EFE

He received a wristband with a QR code upon arrival at the airport.

According to the instructions, he should have received a text message with a unique pin for activation of the tracking app once home.

However, Wong, who has not left his home, only received a text message after 24 hours had passed.

When he tried to activate the app by scanning the QR code and inputting the pin, he got an error message.

Wong tried calling the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, which created the system, but the line was either busy or the person who answered could not provide assistance.

Wong’s friend who flew back with him encountered the same problem.

The office said in an e-mailed statement that a small number of people had been unable to receive text messages because of incomplete or incorrect phone numbers on quarantine-order forms.

The Hong Kong Department of Health plans to follow up on any cases of activation failure, the statement said.

Wong’s wristband is one of about 24,000 tracker bracelets the government has distributed to monitor new arrivals.

The band is meant to connect to an app that sends out alerts asking the person to take pictures of themselves wearing the wristband, and issues warnings if it senses the person had left their place of residence.

The device detects and analyzes radio signals, including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, as well as geographical location signals when it is activated.

Charmaine Man, a 24-year-old working in film production, is another person affected by the wristband issue.

She has not received any text message since returning to Hong Kong from Malaysia on Saturday last week.

Even though she plans to stay at home for the entire isolation period, she is worried about potential legal risks due to the system’s failure.

“This is a mandatory quarantine, but when I can’t activate the app, will they consider I’m breaking the law?” she said.

Scores of people in Facebook groups have also reported the same problem, while there have been photographs and videos of people taking their quarantine wristbands on public transport.

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title: Virus Outbreak: HK grapples with faulty wristbands


content_text:
C: Good morning, you’ve reached the Apricot Airways customer service helpline. How may I help you?

A: Oh, hello. I’d like to apply for a refund of a round-trip ticket from Taipei to Paris, due to the COVID-19 travel warning.

C: Sure, I can look into that for you. I need your reservation number and the passenger’s name.

C: 早安，這裡是杏桃航空的客服專線，請問我可以如何協助您呢？

A: 哦，哈囉。因為武漢肺炎的旅遊警告，我想要申請台北到巴黎的來回航班退款。

C: 沒問題，我可以幫您查詢。請您提供訂位代碼及乘客姓名。

English 英文:

Chinese 中文:

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title: EVERYDAY ENGLISH


content_text:
Australian soccer’s A-League yesterday suspended its season indefinitely, bringing an end to all professional soccer competitions in Australia and New Zealand until the COVID-19 pandemic passes.

Football Federation Australia chief executive James Johnson announced the decision, saying the latest measures imposed by the federal government made it impossible for the A-League to continue.

The league had only a few regular-season rounds of matches remaining before the playoffs. Johnson said the postponement would be reviewed on April 22.

“As a national competition played in all parts of Australia, as well as New Zealand, mission complicated became mission impossible,” Johnson said.

Newcastle Jets’ 2-1 win over Melbourne City at an empty stadium on Monday was the last game completed.

Sydney led the standings with 48 points after 20 games, eight points ahead of Melbourne City, who have played 23 games. Wellington Phoenix were in third with 36 points from 20 games.

Johnson remained optimistic the season could resume, but said the postponement likely was “heartbreaking” for players, clubs and fans.

All soccer in Australia from community to professional level has now been halted.

“We will feel this,” Johnson said. “We will feel the financial pressure on the game at all levels. The game will survive. Will we need to make changes, be different? I say yes.”

The decision allowed the Wellington Phoenix players and coaching staff to return home before New Zealand went into lockdown.

Players and staff from the New Zealand-based club have spent more than a week in quarantine at a Sydney hotel in a bid to complete the season after each nation imposed a mandatory 14-day isolation period for all arrivals.

Johnson said that he had “no regrets” about the decision to bring the Phoenix to Australia.

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title: ‘Mission impossible’ sees the A-League suspended


content_text:
Who gets the ventilator? British doctors contemplate harrowing coronavirus care choices
The UK is facing a shortage of critical care beds and other equipment, which might, in the worst-case scenario, force doctors to choose who to save

The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing senior doctors in the British National Health Service (NHS) to contemplate the unthinkable: How to ration access to critical care beds and ventilators should resources fall short.

The country’s public health system is ill-equipped to cope with an outbreak that is unprecedented in modern times.

Hospitals are now striving to at least quadruple the number of intensive care beds to meet an expected surge in serious virus cases, senior physicians told reporters, but expressed dismay that preparations had not begun weeks earlier.

With serious shortages of ventilators, protective equipment and trained workers, the physicians said senior staff at hospitals were beginning to confront an excruciating debate on intensive care rationing, although the UK might be a long way from potentially having to make such decisions.

Rahuldeb Sarkar, a consultant physician in respiratory medicine and critical care in the English county of Kent, said that local NHS trusts across the country were reviewing decisionmaking procedures drawn up, but never needed, during the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic. They cover how to choose who, in the event of a shortage, would be put on a ventilator and for how long.

Decisions would always be based on an individual basis if it got to that point, taking into account the chance of survival, he said.

However, nevertheless, there would be difficult choices.

“It will be tough and that’s why it’s important that you know that two or more consultants will make the decisions,” he said.

Sarkar said that the choices extended not only to who was given access to a ventilator, but how long to continue if there was no sign of recovery.

“In normal days, that patient would be given some more days to see which way it goes,” he added.

However, if the worst predictions about the spread of the virus proved correct, he suspected “it will happen quicker than before.”

The UK is by no means the only country that faces having its health system overwhelmed by COVID-19, but the data on critical care beds — a crucial bulwark against the disease — are concerning for UK authorities.

Italy, where the coronavirus has driven hospitals to the point of collapse in some areas and thousands have died, had about 12.5 critical care beds per 100,000 of its population before the outbreak.

That is above the European average of 11.5, while the figure in Germany is 29.2, according to a widely quoted academic study dating back to 2012, which doctors said was still valid. The UK has 6.6.

Estimates of the potential death toll in the UK range from a government estimate of about 20,000 to an upper end of more than 250,000 predicted by researchers at Imperial College.

As of Thursday last week, 64,621 people had been tested, with 3,269 positive.

The NHS is preparing for the biggest challenge it has faced since it was founded after the ravages of World War II, promising cradle-to-grave healthcare for all.

It was stretched long before COVID-19, struggling to adapt to the vast increase in healthcare demand in the past few years. Some doctors complain that it is underfunded and poorly managed. About one-10th of more than 1 million staff roles in the health service are vacant, while almost nine out of 10 beds are occupied.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was asked at a media conference on Friday, after Reuters reported the concerns of physicians, whether the UK could get to a stage where NHS workers had to choose who to save because there were not enough ventilators.

He urged people to follow public safety measures.

“The objective of this whole campaign is to ensure we flatten the curve, as we have been saying repeatedly over the last couple of weeks, but also that we lift up the line of NHS resilience and capabilities,” he said.

“That means there is a massive effort going on right now to make sure we do have enough ventilators and ICUs to cope,” he added.

So how many life-saving ventilators are needed?

British Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock on Sunday said that hospitals had about 5,000, but that they needed “many times more than that.”

The physicians interviewed by reporters said that, if ventilators were secured, the aim was to increase intensive care beds from about 4,200 to more than 16,000, partly by using beds in other parts of hospitals.

Rob Harwood, a consultant anesthetist in Norfolk who has worked in the health service for almost four decades, said that access to critical care could ultimately have to be determined by patient scoring systems for survivability.

Systems developed for SARS, another coronavirus, which broke out in 2003, could for example be refined, he added.

“Once you have exhausted your capacity and exhausted your ability to expand your capacity you probably have to make other decisions about admission into intensive care,” he said.

However, for now, admission criteria would stay unaltered.

“We are a country mile from that at the moment,” Harwood said.

While shortages of critical care equipment might be most alarming, the coronavirus has exposed how generally ill-equipped the health system is for a pandemic.

The British Medical Association said that doctors have been asked to go to hardware stores and building sites to source protective masks.

Some doctors are worried about Public Health England’s (PHE) advice last week that reduces the level of the protective equipment they need to wear.

Previously, staff on ward visits were told to wear full protective equipment, comprising high-quality FFP3 face masks, visors, surgical gowns and two pairs of gloves.

However, the new advice recommends only a lower-quality standard paper surgical mask, short gloves and a plastic apron.

PHE referred queries about doctors’ worries to the health department, which did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.

A senior NHS epidemiologist, who was not permitted to be named, told reporters that this advice was based on a sensible assessment of the biohazard risk of the virus.

“It’s not Ebola,” the doctor said, pointing out the risk to medical staff without underlying medical conditions was low.

Matt Mayer, head of the local medical committee covering an area in south of England, said general physicians had been sent masks in boxes that said “best before 2016” and that have been relabeled with new stickers reading “2021.”

“If you are going to lead people into a hazardous situation, then you need to give them the confidence that they have the kit to do a decent job and they are not just going to become cannon fodder,” Harwood said.

The department of health said that it had tested certain products to see if it is possible to extend their use.

“The products that pass these stringent tests are subject to relabeling with a new shelf life as appropriate and can continue to be used,” a spokesman said.

Alison Pittard, dean of the Faculty of Intensive Medicine and a consultant in Leeds, England, said that there had been chronic underinvestment in critical care in the UK.

However, she said the country was not yet at the stage where it had to make calls about rationing patient resources.

If rationing became necessary, medical ethics should still prevail and guidelines needed to be issued on a national level so that no patient was worse off based on where they lived, she said.

The NHS might also need the advice of military leaders, she said, on how to effectively triage.

“If we got to a difficult position where we had to exhaust every bit of resource in the country then, yes, we may have to change the way we approach the decisionmaking,” Pittard said.

Stephen Powis, the national medical director of NHS England, said that there were plans to issue new guidance to give doctors advice on how to make difficult decisions if there was a surge in coronavirus cases, like in Italy.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on Friday said that it would shortly announce a “series of rapid guidelines” on the management of people with suspected and confirmed COVID-19, including in critical care.

However, the guidelines are not expected to be prescriptive, but to suggest leaving key decisions to individual doctors.

Pittard said that patients with pre-existing conditions who already had life-threatening health difficulties should be having conversations with their family about how they wished to spend their last days, in the event of them being infected.

“If I get coronavirus now I’ve got a very high chance of dying of it,” she said, putting herself into the shoes of such a patient. “So do I want to die in hospital and when my relatives can’t come in to visit me because it’s too risky, or would I like to die at home?

“And if I do want to go into hospital, do I then want to go to intensive care where my chances of surviving are minimal?” she said.

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content_text:
The novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 — or the Wuhan virus, after the Chinese city from which it emerged — could not have come at a more advantageous time for China’s communist government. Not for the Chinese people, of course, thousands of whom have perished because of Beijing’s lack of transparency, disinformation and cruel refusal to cooperate with international public health organizations.

No, the advantage goes exclusively to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), whose deceptive practices unleashed the deadly virus to the world.

To understand how Beijing benefits from the pandemic, it is necessary to review the geostrategic environment in the months just before the outbreak started.

China and the US had just completed “phase one” of a long, intense trade negotiation conducted under the mounting pressure of US President Trump’s relentless campaign of tariffs and economic restrictions. It was accompanied by a skillful deployment of strategic communications that highlighted the long history of communist China’s cheating and violations of international trade norms.

Never intended by the US president to be accomplished in phases, his goals were so sweeping and impactful that Beijing could swallow the bitter medicine only in smaller doses to avoid self-destruction. It had to tolerate the reality that the Chinese economy was slumping under US tariffs, while the US economy and stock market were booming. Other bones in Beijing’s throat were the US administration’s crackdown on ZTE and Huawei, two telecom giants that made inroads into US and European markets and posed major security concerns.

Trump recognized that he might have pushed China as far as it could go on the economic front at this time. In the interest of achieving significant, if imperfect, progress during the lead-up to the US presidential elections in November, and to keep the US stock market soaring, he overcame objections from a few economic hawks and accepted a protracted Chinese submission in the trade negotiation and some limited restraint on telecoms. For his part, Xi also faced some internal party dissent over his concessions to the US, though it did not immediately threaten his hold on power.

Meanwhile, things were also happening on a range of other contentious issues in the US-China relationship.

On Taiwan, the most prickly and potentially dangerous of these, both the US Congress and the Trump administration demonstrated a renewed, even expanded, US commitment to the security and enhanced status of democratic Taiwan. Trump, perhaps inadvertently, had presaged the new US pro-Taiwan impulse by accepting a congratulatory telephone call from President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) after his election, shocking Beijing and the US foreign policy establishment. Rejecting their concerns, the then-president-elect tossed off a dismissive remark about the sacrosanct “one China” policy. Though it was soon modulated, the signal had been sent to Beijing that it was about to confront a very different US president with a more confrontational agenda.

Once in office, the Trump administration showed its friendly attitude toward Taiwan by releasing a major arms package that the team of former US president Barack Obama had held up for years, conducted higher-level “unofficial” contacts with Taiwan, and began sending US ships and airplanes through the Taiwan Strait and encouraging US allies to do the same.

Congress took its own initiatives that equally angered Beijing, passing the Taiwan Travel Act, the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act, and other resolutions strongly emphasizing the US’ commitment to Taiwan. Beijing’s strenuous diplomatic and public relations efforts to block congressional passage and presidential approval fell on deaf ears.

Another important front in the new multidimensional US-China cold war is the South China Sea, where Beijing has asserted an outlandish claim to the entire body of international waters. It has ignored a UN tribunal ruling on the illegality of the claim and the artificial islands it built to advance it.

The US has played its traditional role since World War II, ensuring freedom of the seas by conducting freedom of navigation operations through international waters adjoining islands Beijing claims as its own. The US Navy has ignored China’s protests and defied its warnings and harassment of ships, consistent with the Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy that labels China and Russia as “revisionist powers” intent on upending the international order and its governing rules and norms.

Washington has lent diplomatic and moral support to the citizens of Hong Kong, who have risen up against Beijing’s blatant reneging on its promise of greater autonomy under the “one country, two systems” formula. It has publicly condemned China’s expanding human rights violations against Uighurs, Christians, Falun Gong, and other minority or dissident groups. Trump has also called out Beijing for undermining US and UN sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear and missile programs, while temporarily excusing the violations in the context of the broader agenda.

All in all, the Trump administration has opposed China’s aggressive global overreach more directly and openly than any US administration since then US-president Richard Nixon’s 1972 opening to China, notwithstanding Trump’s lavish praise for Xi’s leadership skills and their supposed friendship.

More ominously, from Beijing’s perspective, is that Washington’s more confrontational policy toward China has been succeeding in large part. No longer does most of the world see the 21st century as destined to be led by a wealthy, powerful and authoritarian China.

US policy under the Trump administration has begun to bend the arc of history in Asia in a more rules-based and less dangerous direction. The Trump team refuses to accept Beijing’s restrictions on US press and diplomatic freedoms, and now demands reciprocity in both, depriving China of a distorted advantage it has enjoyed under prior administrations.

Xi and his colleagues see what is happening and most certainly do not approve. It will be perfectly natural for them to conclude that China’s future would be better assured by a different US administration. Beijing wants regime change in Washington.

Enter, serendipitously or otherwise, the Wuhan virus. It has rampaged into Europe and the US, and been awarded an anodyne clinical name by the China-supportive WHO. The way has been opened for Beijing to change the narrative and posture as a responsible international stakeholder, rather than an irresponsible global power-seeker.

Beijing offers ambiguous “aid” to Italy, a tragic victim of China’s incompetence and callous disregard. It denies the disease came from China, or claims if it did, it was the result of a US military plot. It watches with communist Chinese schadenfreude as the virus spreads through the US, the stock market crashes calamitously and the US economy teeters toward recession. As they are shouting from windows of quarantined apartments in Italy — supposedly without bitter irony — “Grazie, Cina.”

Xi might well have asked his colleagues: Who will rid me of this troublesome president? Suddenly, thanks to the export of China’s virus, Trump’s re-election prospects seem considerably less favorable than they did just a few months ago. A return to a more accommodating US China policy with a new president seems disturbingly more likely.

Joseph Bosco served as China country director in the office of the US secretary of defense. He is a fellow at the Institute for Taiwan-American Studies.

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people: 蔡英文 習近平

title: The virus and US regime change


content_text:
Virus Outbreak: S Africa orders lockdown, as others declare emergencies

Numerous sub-Saharan countries acted to stem the spread of coronavirus on Monday, with South Africa announcing a soldier-patrolled lockdown and Senegal and Ivory Coast each declaring a state of emergency.

The pandemic had been slow to spread in Africa compared with the Middle East and Europe, but in recent days the number of deaths and infections have increased, sparking concerns about the continent’s vulnerability to contagious diseases.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the government had “decided to enforce a nationwide lockdown for 21 days” from midnight tomorrow to “avoid a human catastrophe.”

Two men in Cape Town watch as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday night makes a televised address to announce lockdown measures to restrict the spread of COVID-19.
 Photo: Reuters

There have been more than 400 coronavirus cases in Africa’s most developed economy — the highest in sub-Saharan Africa — with the number multiplying six-fold in just eight days.

Ramaphosa said the numbers could spiral given that South Africa has “a large number of people with suppressed immunity because of high HIV and TB and high levels of poverty and malnutrition.”

“This is a decisive measure to save millions of South Africans from infection,” he said. “Without decisive action, the number of people infected will rapidly increase ... to hundreds of thousands.”

Ramaphosa said the army would patrol the streets along with the police to ensure the ban is respected.

South African mines would be closed for the 21 days.

“Companies whose operations require continuous processes such as furnaces, underground mine operations will be required to make arrangements for care and maintenance to avoid damage to their continuous operations,” Ramaphosa said.

South Africa accounts for 75 percent of the world’s platinum and 38 percent of palladium supply, and also produces minerals from bullion and manganese to chrome and iron ore.

“This would be unprecedented in the history of mining in South Africa,” said Roger Baxter, the chief executive of the Minerals Council South Africa, the main industry group. “There were certain times when components of the industry were closed, for example during the Second World War, but this is unprecedented.”

More African countries are expected to announce tough confinement measures after sealing their borders and closing public places.

Senegal declared a state of emergency as well as a dusk-to-dawn curfew, starting yesterday.

“I say this to you with solemnity — the situation is critical. The speed of the progress of the disease requires us to raise the level of the response,” Senegalese President Macky Sall said late on Monday, calling the pandemic a “true world war.”

Ivory Coast ordered a similar curfew, as well as progressive confinements measures based on the geographic spread of the virus.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo on Monday locked down its second city, Lubumbashi, for 48 hours and deployed security forces after two people with COVID-19 arrived on Sunday on a flight from the capital, Kinshasa.

The nation has recorded 30 cases since March 10, with two deaths.

Ghana on Monday closed schools and universities and suspended public events, while in Burkina Faso, a security source said the authorities “were thinking more and more about total confinement of the population for two or three weeks.”

Rwanda late on Saturday barred all “non-essential” movement, while Gabon imposed a night curfew.

According to a toll compiled by Agence France-Presse, the number of known cases across the continent — including North Africa — stood at more than 1,600 on Monday, of which 50 have been fatal.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg

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content_text:
As expected, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator-at-large Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) has already provoked several controversies in less than two months on the job.

The retired lieutenant general’s nomination was highly questionable from the beginning, as he had sparked controversy when he attended an event in China commemorating the 150th birthday of Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) in 2016, when he sat through a speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and stood for a rendition of the Chinese national anthem.

On Tuesday last week, the Ministry of National Development reported that Chinese fighter jets were spotted near Taiwan’s air defense identification zone the previous night before being driven away by Taiwanese F-16 jets. This followed a similar mission by Chinese warplanes on Feb. 28.

While most politicians would have condemned such an incident, Wu accused the ministry of misleading the public, saying there is a “huge” difference between Chinese warplanes flying around Taiwan and aircraft intruding in the nation’s airspace, adding that the former should not be deemed provocative. He further compared the situation to US aircraft flying by Taiwan, which is just ludicrous and needs no further discussion.

While Wu might be right that there is no need to panic — which simply echoed what the ministry said — it is difficult to believe that these military training missions have nothing to do with China’s territorial ambitions toward Taiwan. There is a reason countries have their own air space, and if Chinese warplanes actually cross into Taiwanese air space, it would be a direct contravention, not a “provocation.”

Wu has said before that he simply wants China and Taiwan to interact peacefully, and that each side should refrain from provoking the other, but Beijing’s actions over the past five years — especially its continued blocking of Taiwan from participating in the WHO after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — have been far from friendly.

There is no need to speculate about the purpose of these military exercises, but keeping Taiwanese informed about the actions of an often hostile neighbor does not count as fear-mongering. Similarly, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announces the nation’s number of new COVID-19 cases on a daily basis — it is scary, but nobody is calling that fear-mongering.

Even the KMT immediately distanced itself from Wu. It said that Wu’s words do not represent the party — but who does Wu represent? Who nominated him for the position? KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) on Monday said that he would have a talk with Wu, but with the party’s image at an all-time low after its crushing defeat in January’s presidential and legislative elections, how it deals with this issue is critical to its plans to reform and reinvent the party so that it can regain its competitive edge.

As last week’s Taipei Times feature on young KMT supporters indicates, the real blow to the party’s image is its conservative, out-of-touch elements — such as Wu — who pander to an authoritarian government that constantly threatens Taiwan and its democracy.

Not everyone favors Taiwanese independence, and many still believe in and identify with the Republic of China, but almost all young voters can agree on safeguarding the nation’s democracy and freedom. That is what Beijing is out to destroy, which is why Wu’s stance is so damaging to the KMT’s image.

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people: 江啟臣 吳斯懷 習近平

title: EDITORIAL: What will KMT do with Wu Sz-huai?


content_text:
China, others aim to make the best of coronavirus geopolitics
Beijing aims to build influence by helping Europe contain the outbreak, while US President Donald Trump continues to call the pathogen a ‘Chinese virus’

As Serbia’s EU neighbors closed their borders and halted many medical exports, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic made an appeal.

“Serbia now turns its eyes to China,” he said. “All my personal hopes are focused and directed toward China and its president.”

As the world heads into uncharted territory amid the COVID-19 outbreak, it is undergoing stark and dramatic geopolitical shifts.

Assumptions over globalization and free movement have been torn up overnight. In their haste to address the outbreak, the vast majority of nations have been focused heavily within their borders. Structures such as the EU and UN that had been expected to be at the center of response to crises have been largely ignored.

Having managed to get much of its domestic outbreak under control, Beijing is now unambiguously positioning itself to build new friends and influence. That has included the shipment of medical supplies and small numbers of experts to affected European states, including Italy, France and Spain.

Russia, meanwhile, is also clearly watching closely, its media outlets vigorously broadcasting details of what it claims is a flawed and sometimes chaotic Western response.

Some international cooperation is clearly taking place — for example, to keep limited goods flowing across the EU, despite the lockdown.

However, even the battle for a vaccine is increasingly portrayed in terms of national competition rather than cooperation.

If headlines from major English-language outlets in both countries are any guide, the crisis has further damaged already difficult relations between China and the US. US President Donald Trump has clearly infuriated Beijing with his repeated references to the disease as a “Chinese virus,” comments he has said were a response to suggestions from a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman earlier this month that the disease had in fact originated in the US.

Beijing has largely avoided repeating that comment since, but if anything Trump has continued to double down on his rhetoric.

These multiple geopolitical battlefronts have many strands, few receiving much attention against the backdrop to the wider crisis.

Iran, among the most-affected countries, finds itself in a particularly complex position. It is lobbying furiously — albeit unsuccessfully — for the US to soften its sanctions to help it tackle the outbreak, even as its proxy forces gain influence against the US’ allies in Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere.

Relations with China and Russia remain extremely hard to predict. Last week, China’s Global Times reported that Chinese fighter jets had made a show of force near Taiwan, while threatening potential electronic warfare or other unconventional attacks against US ships if they continued to probe waters the Chinese have claimed in the South China Sea.

Such rhetoric seems to have been scaled back, for now at least — but aggressive nationalism in multiple locations is at least one potential outcome of the crisis.

What is clear across the board is that almost every nation has looked to seal its borders against population moves from the outside world — and that in many cases, the virus has also exacerbated pre-existing racism and xenophobia.

Simultaneously, and paradoxically, nations such as Serbia have also become more aware of their dependence on the outside world, for economic and basic human needs.

That points to a much larger paradox from this crisis. In some respects, the global system has proved much more vulnerable than many anticipated.

However, in other ways, it is demonstrating impressive levels of resilience. For all the economic shock of hundreds of millions of people ceasing travel and working from home, food supplies and particularly communications are broadly holding up.

Huge swathes of the planet are locked down, but people are still talking to each other with relative ease.

What is happening is a challenge for globalization on a scale not previously seen — as well as an experience being simultaneously shared across the planet in ways that are at least equally unusual.

Who wins and loses from that is a very open question, but what is clear is that those contests are already under way.

Peter Apps, a former Reuters reporter who is now a columnist for the agency, writes on international affairs, globalization, conflict and other issues. He is founder and executive director of the Project for Study of the 21st Century, a non-national, non-partisan, non-ideological think tank. The opinions expressed here are those of the author.

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content_text:
Taiwan’s ‘queen of ballroom dancing’ dies suddenly, aged 44
劉真病逝…生前舞出最美人生 銀行OL追夢變身國標女王

Taiwan’s “queen of dancing,” Serena Liu, unexpectedly passed away on Sunday after a surgical procedure to treat a heart condition encountered complications. Liu was put on life support for 18 days, and was then fitted with a ventricular assist device to keep her alive until a new heart could be found. Liu valiantly struggled on for another 45 days before finally succumbing on Sunday, aged 44.

Taiwan’s “queen of ballroom dancing“ left home to forge a path in the entertainment industry and went on to enjoy a glittering career. Liu began studying ballet at elementary school and studied Russian at National Chengchi University, joining the school’s ballroom dancing club. Liu’s delicate appearance and doll-like features, combined with her technical mastery of dancing, meant that she became one of the “top four beauties” within the club and was a prominent personality on campus.

After graduating from university, Liu worked in a bank for two years before quitting to become a full-time dance teacher. By this time she had begun to make a name for herself and appeared as a dance coach on TV variety shows, giving her her first break into the world of showbiz. In 2004, Liu performed an intimate dance together with Hong Kong actor-singer Andy Lau and became famous virtually overnight.

Serena Liu performs in a television show in an undated photograph.
劉真在電視節目中表演，拍攝日期不詳。
 Photo: Sung Chih-hsiung, Liberty Times
照片：自由時報記者宋志雄

Liu developed a life-long passion for dance from an early age, and would often say “I dance, therefore I am.” At university, Liu watched Strictly Ballroom and Dirty Dancing, two movies that opened her eyes to the beauty of dancing with a partner. She immediately became hooked on the world of ballroom dancing and, together with her dance partner, began competing in competitions up and down the country.

Liu’s mother objected to her daughter becoming a professional dancer. After graduation, Liu was forced to enter into the career her parents wanted her to follow, and began working in an American bank. The two years working at the bank were the hardest period of her life. Liu once said that during this time she was happiest when she went to dance class after work and stayed there late into the evening, only returning home after her parents had already gone to bed. Although always obedient as a child, Liu entered into a three-year war of attrition with her parents. Her health began to suffer as she burned the candle at both ends, working during the day and dancing at night. Once, Liu had a fever and took a sick day from work, but still insisted on going to her dance class in the evening. Powerless to stop her leaving the house, Liu’s mother got down on her knees and begged her daughter to stay at home.

Eventually, Liu insisted on quitting her job at the bank and her parents finally relented to allow Liu to pursue her dream. They gave their daughter two years to prove herself. At first, Liu relied on teaching dance to support herself. A virtual unkown in the world of dance, and with only a small number of students, Liu was unable to maintain a steady income, so much so that she could not bring herself to attend a university class reunion. All this changed when Liu started to attend dance competitions and appeared on television. After breaking into the entertainment industry, her career went from strength to strength, and she also found love and a lifelong companion. Liu leaves behind a husband and four-year-old daughter.

(Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times)

「國標女王」劉真二月七日因心臟主動脈瓣膜問題，前往台北榮總進行相關手術，不料卻在過程中心臟停止跳動，靠葉克膜搶救十八天後移除，改裝心室輔助器維繫生命等待換心，最後仍不敵死神召喚，與病魔奮鬥四十五天後，於週日病逝，享年四十四歲。

劉真以「國標舞女王」封號闖蕩演藝圈，她人生一路順遂，從小學芭蕾，大學考上政大俄語系並加入國標社，精緻有如洋娃娃的外型加上精湛舞技，早在政大時期就是國標社四大美女之一，也是學校的風雲人物。畢業後她先進銀行工作兩年，然後辭去工作專心教舞，因小有名氣，被節目相中教藝人跳舞，踏入演藝圈，二○○四年她在《綜藝大哥大》與劉德華親密共舞，一舉打響知名度。

外表柔弱的她，從小就對舞蹈展現無比的執著與熱情，她的名言就是「我跳舞，故我在」。她大學時看了兩部電影《舞國英雄》跟《熱舞十七》，讚嘆雙人舞原來也能跳得這麼美，一口氣沉醉在國標舞的世界裡，並隨著舞伴四處比賽征戰。

熱愛跳舞的她，大學畢業後因媽媽不贊成她當職業舞者，不得已在父母安排下進入美國銀行工作，但銀行工作這兩年，卻是她最痛苦的時期，她曾說每天最快樂的時候，就是下班後去舞蹈教室待到半夜，等家人睡了才回家。從小就是乖寶寶的她，為了跳舞更不惜跟家人冷戰長達三年，身體也因上班、練舞蠟燭兩頭燒，而越變越差。有次她發燒跟公司請假在家，卻堅持要外出練舞，媽媽看不下去又無法阻止，不惜下跪要女兒別出門。

她最後仍堅持辭去銀行工作，父母經過一番掙扎後，決心放手讓劉真追夢，並給劉真兩年時間證明自己。起初劉真靠教舞維生，沒知名度、學生不多，收入也不穩，甚至連大學同學會都不敢參加，直到後來她四處比賽，並上節目教舞打響知名度，一舉踏進演藝圈，一路發光發亮，並找到愛妻如命的辛龍為人生伴侶，生下現已四歲的女兒霓霓。

(自由時報記者粘湘婉)

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title: Australia’s central bank pumps liquidity

content_text:
The Australian central bank yesterday injected A$6.9 billion (US$4.11 billion) into the country’s financial system, saying that it would buy A$4 billion in government bonds as it looks to blunt the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has flooded the system with nearly A$65 billion of cash since March 12 when a liquidity crunch sent global markets into a tailspin.

It also purchased A$9 billion in government bonds since launching its “unlimited” quantitative easing program on Friday last week.

The central bank has so far been successful in flattening the yield curve, as it aims to keep short-term yields at a cash rate of about 0.25 percent.

Even with the measures, a recession — the country’s first in nearly three decades — seems inevitable.

Westpac Banking Corp economist Bill Evans has revised his unemployment rate forecast, saying that the June quarter would experience a surge to 11.1 percent, up from his previous estimate of 7 percent, with the economy expected to contract 3.5 percent in the period.

“Economic disruptions are set to be larger, as the government moves to address the enormous health challenge that the nation now faces,” Evans said. “That challenge is probably best summarized by a potential shortage of ICU [intensive care unit] beds in coming weeks if we do not significantly slow the rate of infection immediately.”

Secondary data yesterday showed a sharp deterioration in services sector activity this month, underlining the hit from the coronavirus.

The CBA Services purchasing managers’ index fell to a record low of 39.8 points, as restaurants, cafes and tourism have been hit hard by travel bans, and cancelations of events and concerts.

A separate analysis of card spending data by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia showed that shopping outside of grocery items, alcohol and healthcare has been bleak.

A weekly gauge of consumer confidence by ANZ-Roy Morgan plunged to 72.2 points, 30-year low.

The government has responded swiftly, with a stimulus of A$66.1 billion on top of A$17.6 billion announced earlier this month, although economists have said that a third package might be needed.

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title: Worm-like being ancestor to most animals: research

content_text:
‘NATURAL INSTINCT’:
 One researcher said that the origin and evolution of such creatures is a major focus for evolutionary biologists, because ‘we are bilaterians’

A worm-like creature smaller than a grain of rice that burrowed on the seafloor in search of meals like dead organic matter about 555 million years ago might be the evolutionary forerunner of most animals living today — including humans.

Scientists on Monday announced the discovery in the Australian Outback of fossils of this creature, named Ikaria wariootia, which represents one of the most important primordial animals ever found.

It appears to be the earliest-known member of the vast animal group called bilaterians — organisms with two symmetrical sides, a front and back, with a mouth and an anus and a gut connecting them to process food, said Scott Evans, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington and lead author of the study.

The advent of such a body plan during the Ediacaran Period was a pivotal moment in life’s evolution on Earth, paving the way for more advanced bilaterians such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, starfish, mollusks, insects and more. The few non-bilaterian animals include sponges, corals, sea anemones and jellyfish.

Up to 6mm long, Ikaria had a worm-like appearance, although one end was larger than the other. Its discovery underscores the humble evolutionary beginnings of this large segment of the animal kingdom, humanity included, the researchers said.

“The origin and early evolution of bilaterians is a huge question for evolutionary biologists and paleobiologists because, of course, we are bilaterians. It is a natural instinct to want to know — when did our ancestors first appear and what did they look like,” said Mary Droser, a University of California, Riverside geology professor and coauthor of the study.

The researchers identified the fossils showing the outside of the body of 118 Ikaria using sophisticated scanning technology under a grant from NASA. The fossils were associated with thousands of burrows previously found in South Australia.

“It had been predicted that something like this should exist based on the burrows it left and from genetic studies of modern animals,” Evans said.

Ikaria — meaning “meeting place” in a local Australian indigenous language — lived alongside another scientifically important primitive animal called Dickinsonia, which was much bigger and shaped vaguely like a lily pad, but was not a bilaterian and is considered an evolutionary dead end.

Although none of its organs are known, a previous study of its burrows, led by coauthor Jim Gehling of the South Australian Museum, indicated that Ikaria used muscles to push through the sediment in a shallow marine environment to scavenge for nourishment in the form of dead organic matter, including and Dickinsonia corpses.

The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

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title: Robust civil society key to success

content_text:
Recent global media coverage of Taiwan has at times reduced the nation’s success in containing the spread of COVID-19 to some East Asian values such as cooperation with social control or Confucianism. An article in Wired magazine debunks this myth, crediting the nation’s success to democracy and transparency.

It is appalling to learn that this misconception still exists. Here is one thing that world citizens should keep in mind: Taiwan is the first and only country in Asia that has legalized same-sex marriage. There is nothing Confucian about that. If anything, the Confucian legacy is a major obstacle that Taiwanese have worked hard to overcome.

There are also at least two reasons behind Taiwan’s success that have little to do with Confucianism. First, the nation has arguably the best and most affordable healthcare system in the world, along with epidemiologists and scientists who are the decisionmakers at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Second, Taiwan has a robust civil society made up of thousands of lawyers, health workers, biologists and social scientists, who endlessly debate the cost and benefit of each and every step that the government has taken so far. Literally every single day, sometimes even every single hour. The public supervises the government to make sure it does not erode people’s rights in the name of epidemic control. They closely watch the government to hold it accountable. Confucianism has no role in a democracy, except as an obstacle.

The persistent threat of the Beijing government taking away Taiwanese’s democratic rights plays a vital role in epidemic control. Millions of Taiwanese are already immune to the countless fake news and distorted realities that Beijing wishes the world to believe. Taiwanese have seen the anti-Beijing memes on Weibo for the past two months and know that even Chinese citizens distrust their own government. At the same time, people are alert to the rise of anti-Chinese populism in Taiwan and oppose any anti-liberal measure.

So how can I not be appalled when the nation’s practice of democracy and transparency is reduced to merely some East Asian value like Confucianism? The world should respect non-Western people. The myth was an arrogant assumption, humiliating to Taiwanese and simply wrong.

Like everybody else, Taiwanese are not perfect. Taiwan might cease to be a model example of fighting the disease that the world envies. The nation is anticipating the worst in the next two weeks. If its disease-prevention efforts prove to be as successful as before, it is because Taiwanese value democratic discussions of transparent information.

Taiwan has a reliable and scientific healthcare system with a great CDC team, and Taiwanese deeply distrust everything said by the powerful regime across the Taiwan Strait that threatens its sovereignty.

Chao En-chieh is a cultural anthropologist and associate professor of sociology at National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung.

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content_text:
A young married music teacher works at a high school in Taitung County, while her husband works at the Taiwan Power Co’s branch office in Nantou County’s Shueili Township (水里). The teacher wants to transfer to a school in Nantou so that the couple would no longer live apart, but she has requested a transfer for three consecutive years without a response.

Every city and county has experienced a surplus of teachers as classes have been cut due to the falling national birthrate. Education bureaus go to great lengths just to distribute local teachers fairly.

Concerned over the teacher surplus, primary and secondary schools are not hiring even if they have vacancies, which makes it difficult for teachers whose quality of life would benefit from obtaining a transfer.

The recruitment of teachers is mostly in the hands of the teachers on schools’ evaluation committees. To protect themselves and other teachers at their schools, most committee members are unwilling to fill vacancies unless there is a surplus of local teachers. In that case, they would reluctantly hire a teacher following negotiations between the local education bureau and all school principals.

Committee members should be charitable, as they might someday need a transfer. If all schools close their doors, transfers become impossible.

Why are evaluation committees unwilling to authorize school principals to fill vacancies? In the past, surplus teachers transferred from other schools often performed poorly and many parents complained about them.

Some primary and secondary schools with a surplus of teachers might have intentionally transferred incompetent teachers to other schools. This practice of passing along incompetent teachers highlights the failure of primary and secondary schools to rehabilitate local teachers. The teacher evaluation and hiring systems is seriously flawed, and education authorities should not simply sit back and watch it happen.

Compared with civil servants who can transfer to other agencies that have vacancies, schools are unwilling to take a chance on recruiting transferred teachers because they worry about classes being cut and a surplus of teachers. They tend to only hire substitute teachers on temporary contracts.

As a result, teachers can no longer get a straightforward transfer. Some are even separated from their loved ones, which keeps them from concentrating on their teaching. The education sector is supposed to be a model industry, leading society by example, but systemic flaws have turned it into something selfish and uncharitable.

As more classes are cut each year, many hardworking substitute teachers are forced to leave, and other teachers remain separated from their families. This is regrettable, but nothing is as disappointing as seeing selfishness spread across the education sector.

Chen Chi-nung is the principal of Shueili Junior High School in Nantou County.

Translated by Eddy Chang

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title: Selfishness has eroded education system


title: Colombian groups exploit crisis to kill

content_text:
Death squads in Colombia are taking advantage of coronavirus lockdowns to murder rural activists, local non-governmental organizations have warned.

When cities across the country introduced local quarantine measures last week, three social leaders were killed, and as the country prepares to impose a national lockdown today, activists have warned that more murders would follow.

High-profile activist Marco Rivadeneira was murdered in southern Putumayo Department, Alexis Vergara was shot dead in western Cauca Department and Ivo Humberto Bracamonte was killed on the eastern border with Venezuela.

Police officers wearing masks patrol the streets of Cali, Colombia, on Sunday.
 Photo: AFP

Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for activists and community leaders, who often fall foul of armed groups fighting for territory.

Since a historic peace deal was implemented in early 2017 with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) leftist rebel group, 271 activists have been killed.

Now, with the government focused on the pandemic, activists have said that they are even more at risk.

“I’ve been getting more death threats since everyone started talking about the coronavirus,” said Carlos Paez, a land rights activist in a cattle-ranching region near the northern border with Panama. “One message said that they know who I am — and that now is the time to take me out.”

Some of the armed groups are dissident FARC fighters who refused to hand in their guns; others belong to smaller rebel armies and rightwing paramilitary militias.

Whatever their purported ideology, all make their money in drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion rackets, and all view social leaders as an obstacle to those lucrative economies.

As the government focuses its resources on stemming the coronavirus outbreak — which has claimed three lives in Colombia amid 277 confirmed cases — normal security protocols have been thrown into disarray.

“They are playing with our lives because they know that our bodyguards, the police and the justice system are going to be even less effective than they usually are,” Paez said. “It’s horrible. I’m scared for my life.”

Colombia’s war with FRC and other armed groups has claimed at least 260,000 lives and forced 7 million people from their homes. Now, with much of the country confined indoors ahead of a 19-day nationwide quarantine that begins today, non-state actors are operating more brazenly.

Activists fear that the nationwide quarantine has put them in a bind. Staying in one place makes them sitting targets, but moving around puts them at risk of infection.

“We are being killed, like always,” said Hector Marino Carabali, a rights activist in Cauca, who usually travels in an armored car with a security detail provided by the government. “The government has taken drastic measures to fight the virus, but done nothing to protect us now or to tell us about how we can do our work. Curfews and lockdowns always affect the most vulnerable.”

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights last week reported that armed groups were continuing to commit brutal human rights abuses in Choco Department, where Paez leads a community.

Three people were beheaded, with one executed in front of their village, and a pregnant woman was murdered.

A coalition of local groups and more than 100 rural communities called for a ceasefire among armed groups during the outbreak, saying that “the emergency situation deserves our focus as a country and as a society to take on this challenge.”

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content_text:
The central bank yesterday set interest rates at 1 percent to 1.5 percent for funds to aid small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, in an attempt to ward off a credit crunch.

The aid program, tentatively set at NT$200 billion (US$6.6 billion), as the monetary policymaker promised last week, would be available from April 1 and continue through the next 12 months to prevent cash-strapped firms from shutting operations and laying off workers, Department of Banking Director-General Chen E-dawn (陳一端) told a media briefing last night.

Central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) said on Thursday last week that the bank would meet with local financial institutions to work out lending terms in a timely manner.

A staff member stands behind the central bank’s logo in Taipei on Feb. 26, 2018.
 Photo: Reuters

The liquidity injection and a rate cut of 25 basis points are the bank’s response measures to help local firms and households withstand the virus outbreak, which has wreaked havoc on airlines, travel agencies, hotels, retail stores and recreational facilities.

The bank caps borrowing costs at 1 percent for special loans of up to NT$2 million and no more than 1.5 percent for loans of up to NT$6 million, Chen said, adding that the program might go in conjunction with other government-backed relief and stimulus measures.

“Companies with cash needs may take out loans and lenders should be supportive to meet their social responsibility” at a difficult time, Chen said.

While the market remains awash with liquidity, the pace of growth has slowed, as money supply data released yesterday showed, the bank said.

The narrow money supply gauge of M1B, which refers to cash and cash equivalents, last month increased 7 percent from a year earlier, slowing from growth of 7.61 percent in January, the bank said.

The broad measure of M2, which includes savings deposits, time savings deposits, foreign-currency deposits and M1B, showed a similar trend, with a 4.35 percent pickup, compared with 4.6 percent in January, the data showed.

Capital flight from the local bourse and the New Taiwan dollar accounted for the slowdown, the bank said.

Savings deposits by foreign funds stood at NT$170.1 billion last month, the lowest since July 2017 following capital outflows of US$3.89 billion, it said.

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title: Central bank expedites SME credit


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title: EDITORIAL CARTOON


taiwan-subdivisions: 太平 信義

title: Land transactions might hit record this quarter

content_text:
PRIME LOCATION:
 Life insurers will likely take part in an auction for a redevelopment project, as they have ample cash and the project promises generous returns

The nation’s land market remains strong and could see record trading this quarter if an auction for superfices rights to regenerate the Taipei World Trade Center’s Exhibition Hall 3 secures a buyer next week, analysts said.

The Ministry of Finance is to go ahead with the auction on Monday for a 70-year superfices rights lease to redevelop the 17-year-old hall next to Taipei 101 in the city’s Xinyi District (信義).

The ministry has set a floor price of NT$26.64 billion (US$878.74 million) for the 4,856 ping (16,053m2) plot, which can be developed into a mixed-use complex featuring upscale office space.

The auction could raise land transactions above NT$70 billion this quarter after major deals have so far totaled NT$47.8 billion, international property consultancy Savills Taiwan Ltd (第一太平戴維斯) research manager Erin Ting (丁玟甄) said.

Domestic life insurers would be among prospective buyers given their deeper pockets, Ting said.

Regular rental income that would be created by the project would also attract bidders, she said, adding that monthly rent for new grade-A office space would be NT$4,000 per ping.

“The amount would be acceptable in light of low vacancy rates and a lack of new supply on the horizon,” Ting said.

The auction is drawing attention, as it comes at a time when the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan and abroad is dampening confidence in all business sectors.

Knight Frank Taiwan researcher Andy Huang (黃舒衛) said that domestic insurers are unlikely to sit out auctions for investment targets in Taipei’s central business districts.

Superfices rights auctions for properties in popular locations have over the past few years witnessed intense competition, as they proved profitable investments thanks to robust demand for Grade-A offices, Huang said.

However, similar investment opportunities in Kaohsiung failed to attract any bidders last month, driving Taichung authorities to put off auctions for plots of land intended for a financial complex in central Taiwan.

Huang said that the size of the vast plots in Taichung and Kaohsiung raised uncertainty about their profitability outlook, which he said is not the case in Xinyi District.

The exhibition hall is close to MRT stations, department stores, restaurants, and the headquarters of Taiwan’s top financial and technology companies.

Nevertheless, the high asking price would limit the number of participants and the outbreak could dim the chance of generous premiums, Huang said.

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Virus Outbreak: US newspapers call on China not to expel reporters

Publishers of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have pleaded with the Chinese government not to expel their reporters, in an open letter published yesterday.

Earlier this month at least 13 journalists from the three major US news houses were ordered to leave China in an unprecedented retaliation against foreign media working in the country.

Yesterday’s letter said that the media had become “collateral damage in a diplomatic dispute” between the Chinese and US governments, and the expulsion of their journalists came at a critical time as the world responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We strongly urge the Chinese government to reverse its decision to force the Americans working for our news organizations to leave the country and, more broadly, to ease the growing crackdown on independent news organizations that preceded this action,” the letter said.

“The media is collateral damage in a diplomatic dispute between the Chinese and US governments, threatening to deprive the world of critical information at a perilous moment,” it said.

Beijing has maintained the expulsion was a response to “politically motivated oppression” in the US government decision to classify Chinese state media organizations as “foreign missions” and apply tighter controls on them.

Three Wall Street Journal reporters had already been expelled, with Chinese authorities saying that it was over a “malicious” column printed in the paper, widely seen as racist, but which had no involvement from the three reporters.

The news organization said it would have protested the expulsions under any circumstances, “but it is uniquely damaging and reckless as the world continues the struggle to control this disease, a struggle that will require the free flow of reliable news and information.”

“The coronavirus pandemic sweeping across borders, sickening and killing people in nearly every country, and sending the world economy into a downward spiral, is a global challenge unlike any other in our lifetimes,” it said. “Perhaps more than any major news event in modern history, this moment underscores the urgent importance of both probing, accurate, on-the-ground reporting from the centers of the pandemic and of sharing the information, insights and lessons that reporting reveals as widely as possible.”

The expulsions prompted fear and condemnation for its implications on press freedom.

“By expelling journalists and keeping others in a state of visa uncertainty, China is overtly using its powers in an attempt to influence overseas news coverage, by punishing those who publish information authorities see as unfavorable and wish to keep quiet,” the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said.

Diplomatic ties between China and the US, which were already damaged by a long-running trade dispute, have disintegrated further in the past few weeks as the two governments sought to blame each other for the virus.

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title: Inventec bullish as China rebounds

content_text:
SECOND QUARTER:
 Company president Maurice Wu told investors that Inventect is up to about 95 percent production at its Chongqing and Shanghai production facilities

Contract electronics manufacturer Inventec Corp (英業達) yesterday provided a positive outlook for its business next quarter as it resumes production in China.

“We have restarted about 95 percent of production in China,” Inventec president Maurice Wu (巫永財) told investors at a quarterly earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the company’s plants in Chongqing and Shanghai, which focus on the production of PCs and servers respectively.

With the company increasing shipments, sales next quarter are expected to improve from this quarter, as well as on an annual basis, Wu said.

“We have our hands full with orders right now, with clients hot on our heels,” he added.

However, first-quarter revenue is expected to fall as sales in the first two months of the year declined 34.56 percent year-on-year.

While the company has little order visibility in the second half of the year, PC sales, which contribute more than 80 percent of Inventec’s revenue, are expected to remain stable due to the company’s advantage in the segment, Wu said.

“We specialize in commercial laptops, which will mostly be spared” negative effects from the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, adding that demand could decline if US and European markets continue to be affected.

A long-term pandemic in North America and Europe would disrupt its server production in Juarez, Mexico, and Brno, Czech Republic, Wu said, adding that the firm would relocate production back to Taiwan if overseas operations are disrupted.

“Nevertheless, demand for data centers continues to grow,” he added, forecasting a high single-digit percentage annual increase in server shipments this year.

The company’s smart devices manufacturing arm, Inventec Appliance Corp (英華達), which makes Apple Inc’s Airpods, has relocated its production lines in Malaysia back to Shanghai, as the leased facility was shut down due to disease prevention measures there, Wu said.

With rising production costs in Shanghai, the company has set its sights on moving production to Vietnam, Inventec Appliance president David Ho (何代水) said, dismissing rumors about declining orders from Apple.

Inventec posted a net profit of NT$5.51 billion (US$181.75 million) for last year, a 15.26 percent year-on-year decrease, due to foreign-exchange losses and trade tensions, the firm said.

Earnings per share fell to NT$1.54 last year from NT$1.81 in 2018, it said.

The company’s board of directors yesterday proposed distributing a cash dividend of NT$1.3 per common share, representing a payout ratio of 84.42 percent.

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title: Kane eyes Premier League return

content_text:
Harry Kane yesterday said that he is on track to be fit when the English Premier League returns as the Tottenham Hotspur striker urged people to “stay safe” from COVID-19.

Kane has been sidelined since suffering a torn hamstring in a New Year’s Day defeat at Southampton.

The England captain needed surgery on the injury in January and Spurs manager Jose Mourinho did not expect him back until the final games of the season, but the enforced break due to the coronavirus has given Kane an opportunity to play more matches if the Premier League is able to conclude the campaign.

Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane, left, heads the ball against Southampton in their Premier League match at St Mary’s Stadium in Southampton, England, on Jan. 1.
 Photo: AP

The 26-year-old has stepped up his rehabilitation and should be fit by the time the season can restart, with the top-flight schedule postponed until at least April 30.

“I’m not too far away, I’d normally hope to be back with the team in two or three weeks’ time,” Kane told Tottenham’s Web site. “I’m at a good stage, pretty much doing everything, now it’s about building up my fitness. So from my personal point of view, I’m in a good place.”

Like everyone around the world, Kane has been following the pandemic and he admitted working his way back to fitness during such an alarming global health situation has been strange.

Kane has a home gym and is doing his rehabilitation there, while Tottenham have given individual training plans to each player during the lockdown.

“My family is well, and obviously everyone is thinking about coronavirus at the moment and it’s a time to be together, to stay safe, and hopefully everything will be alright,” he said. “It’s such a strange situation, no one has been in this situation before. Like anything, you have to take the positives out of it and do what you can.”

“So far, me and the family are well, and I’ll continue to work hard, work in the gym, work from home and do what I can,” he added. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

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Virus Outbreak: Local doctor’s invention adopted in Philippines

An improvised protective device for use when intubating patients designed by Taiwanese doctor Lai Hsien-yung (賴賢勇) is being adopted in the Philippines to help doctors there stay safe amid the worsening COVID-19 pandemic.

“We made this acrylic aerosol box for my sister Dra. Frances Legaspi for Antipolo Doctors Hospital. Credits to Dr Lai Hsien-yung for the concept and design,” Anton Legaspi, whose family owns a business that makes customized designs, said on Facebook on Monday.

The hospital is in Antipolo, about 25km east of Manila.

Anesthesiologist Lai Hsien-yung, right, demonstrates the use of an acrylic protective cover at Mennonite Christian Hospital in Hualien County on Sunday.
 Photo: Wang Chun-chi, Taipei Times

Legaspi’s post was accompanied by several photographs of the box and a short demonstration video that was shot in the hospital. As of yesterday morning, his post was shared more than 60 times.

The “aerosol box” designed by Lai, an anesthesiologist at Mennonite Christian Hospital in Hualien, is a transparent cube made of acrylic that covers a patient’s head during endotracheal intubation, a necessary procedure for patients with the coronavirus who experience respiratory failure.

It has two holes on one side through which physicians can insert their hands to perform the procedure while shielded from the patient’s respiratory droplets.

Lai on Saturday shared his design on Facebook and gave permission for its noncommercial use. His invention was reported by the Central News Agency (CNA) and several other local media outlets.

Legaspi yesterday told CNA in an interview that he and his sister, an emergency room doctor, learned of the device on Sunday night through posts shared on social media and created the prototype the next morning, overcoming challenges caused by a lockdown of Metro Manila.

“We were lucky enough to get a supplier who had available stocks of raw materials. The workers at the shop live at the factory, so we were able to make it,” Legaspi said.

He said that his sister asked him if he could make such a box, because it was needed at the hospital as supplies of personal protective equipment in the Philippines are running low.

As of Monday afternoon, there were 462 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Philippines, with 33 deaths and 18 patients who have recovered.

Legaspi’s version features larger holes to accommodate bigger arms.

Other suggestions he received from people in the medical field include making a small flap on the open side for additional maneuverability and protection, Legaspi said.

Donors and acrylic suppliers have pledged support for the production of the device, which would be donated to public and private hospitals nationwide, he said.

He estimated the cost of each aerosol box at 1,500 pesos (US$29.40), less than Lai’s estimate of about NT$2,000.

“It would be nice to have it mass-produced to cater to many more patients. It may still be used even after the COVID-19 pandemic,” Legaspi said.

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title: Fears grow in New York City over virus

content_text:
OPEN FOR BUSINESS?
 Donald Trump said he wants to relax restrictions on movement to aid the economy, but admitted that medical experts would ‘keep it shut down’

Anxiety on Monday ratcheted up across an eerily deserted New York City, the US’ coronavirus epicenter, but US President Donald Trump said that he would soon call for lifting the lockdown in some parts of the country.

Trump — who faces re-election in November and is keen to avoid extended economic damage — told reporters that he would be “opening up our country to business, because our country was meant to be open.”

The relaxation could be announced early next week when a 15-day period recommending tight restrictions on “social distancing” expires, he said, adding that governors would make final decisions in their own states.

Health officials and state governors dealing with the worst outbreaks have said that they expect restrictions would have to continue for some time — and New York’s mayor called for a nationwide lockdown.

As the number of deaths in the US from COVID-19 soared to 560, with almost 44,000 declared cases, the Big Apple found itself the US bullseye of the global pandemic.

With millions of residents ordered to stay home and nonessential businesses and schools closed, the city that never sleeps is bedding down for an uncertain slumber.

New York City has now seen more than 12,000 confirmed cases and almost 100 deaths in the outbreak, which first appeared in the US in Washington state.

With only essential workers, such as pharmacists, grocery store workers, nurses and doctors, headed to work on Monday, rush hour in the city was more like a trickle of traffic.

New York’s yellow cabs were out, but passengers appeared few and far between, with sidewalks virtually deserted. Underground, normally packed subway cars trundled along close to empty.

On the New York Stock Exchange, the opening bell, usually greeted by cheering and clapping, was met with silence as the first day with no floor trading took place.

Only electronic trading occurred as stocks plunged deep into the red before recovering somewhat, with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 closing down about 3 percent.

Trump said that he wanted to get restrictions on movement lifted where possible so that people can get back to work.

He acknowledged that medical advisers focused more on public health than the economy might not agree with his decision.

“The doctors, if it were up to them, they may say: ‘Let’s keep it shut down, let’s shut down the entire world,’” Trump said. “We can’t do that and you can’t do that with the country, especially the No. 1 economy anywhere in the world by far.”

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the city was just at “the beginning” of dealing with the pandemic as soldiers from the US National Guard began converting a convention center into a facility with hospital beds.

“It’s going to be bad this week, it’s going to be worse the following week,” he said.

De Blasio added that the city’s overwhelmed public hospitals only have enough medical supplies to last the week and pleaded with the federal government to speed up production.

“I literally want to see hundreds of ventilators, I want to see first hundreds of thousands and millions of masks,” De Blasio said. “If that doesn’t come in starting this week, we will get to a point where people can’t be saved who could have been saved.”

De Blasio said that Trump should be calling a nationwide lockdown similar to those introduced locally in New York, California and Illinois.

Trump has ruled that out.

About one-third of Americans are living under various phases of lockdown.

On Monday, Washington state, Michigan and New Mexico became the latest to sign a “shelter in place” order, as Ohio’s and Louisiana’s took effect.

California Governor Gavin Newsom tightened a lockdown to shut parking lots at beaches and parks after tens of thousands flouted social distancing rules.

US Surgeon General Jerome Adams said that case numbers across the US were going to get worse before they get better.

“We really need everyone to understand this is serious, to lean into what they can do to flatten the curve,” he said.

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Established last September, Luma Association Amis-language immersion preschool in Hualien teaches Aboriginal children traditional skills in their mother tongue in a bid to preserve their culture

With most of his village preferring to converse in Mandarin, opportunities are scant for 81-year-old Kacaw to use his mother language of Amis. But things are changing in his household — one day the family was having an animated discussion when his plucky four-year-old granddaughter Nikal bursts into the room: “You should talk in the mother tongue,” she tells them loudly in Amis.

Another time, Nikal’s uncle Yosifu, a well-known artist, overheard her arguing with her grandmother over rights to the television remote — “in our mother tongue,” he tells me excitedly.

“With such visible change, I can see hope now,” Yosifu says. “My dad is the happiest one. Out of his grandchildren, only Nikal can speak any Amis. This is so important. When a language is no longer spoken, the lifeline of an entire culture is cut off.”

Three-year-old Akay has been attending the Luma Association Amis language immersion preschool since January.
 Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times

Nikal has come this far after just six months of attending the Luma Association Amis language immersion pinanaman (“learning space”) at the village of Ceroh (Chunrih Township, 春日) in Hualien County. The Aboriginal tongue has been steadily eroding under centuries of Han Chinese migration and past government policies to promote Mandarin, to the point that even the preschool’s teachers cannot speak it fluently. The 52-year-old Yosifu, for example, can understand it but says he’s only semifluent.

With elders like Kacaw still around to provide their expertise, noted documentary filmmaker and Aboriginal rights activist Mayaw Biho felt compelled to launch the school in his home village of Ceroh as soon as he could. Relying on private funding, Mayaw started the pinanaman in a one-room building last September. There is no curriculum. The children play games, sing and participate in traditional activities such as foraging and planting.

The crucial objective, Mayaw says, is to let the children feel proud of who they are and where they’re from by learning their own culture in their own language.

“At this stage, because the children understand Amis, their grandparents and village elders go out of their way to speak to them [in Amis], even if they can only reply in simple phrases,” Mayaw says. “The extra attention makes them feel special, and that is the first step to confidence.”

NO MANDARIN

“Mama,” three-year-old Akay says to her mother who is helping out at the pinanaman. “Ina,” head instructor Panay Arik corrects her with the Amis term. Mayaw believes that community involvement is key to sustaining the school, so while he travels around Taiwan raising funds, day-to-day operations are mostly left to Panay and the parents.

title: Reviving a language by living it


title: Computex Taipei delayed until September over virus

content_text:
The nation’s annual computer and technology trade show, Computex Taipei, has been postponed to September, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) said yesterday.

This year’s Computex, Asia’s largest exhibition of its kind, was originally scheduled for June 2 to June 5 at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall and the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Hall.

To preserve the health and safety of participating members and exhibiting companies, TAITRA, one of the trade show’s organizers, said that it has rescheduled the event to be held on Sept. 28 to 30 at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Hall.

People visit Computex at the Nangang Exhibition Hall in Taipei on May 28 last year.
 Photo: AFP

“For companies launching their products earlier, we will still hold procurement conferences online,” a TAITRA official surnamed Tseng (曾) told the Taipei Times by telephone, adding that exhibiting firms are encouraged to share their latest products in September’s show.

Computex is to highlight themes such as 5G technology, 5G networks and communications, smart solutions and e-gaming, TAITRA said.

A special exhibition called InnoVEX, which is to focus on innovation and start-ups, would run at the same time as Computex, TAITRA said.

Last year’s exhibition attracted 42,495 international buyers from 171 countries, while InnoVEX attracted 18,251 visitors, TAITRA data showed.

In 2003, Computex was also delayed from June to September due to the SARS outbreak.

A McKinsey & Co report has forecast that the pandemic should be contained by the second quarter in China and Southeast Asia, while the pandemic could ravage Europe and the US into June.

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Italy sees second successive daily drop in virus deaths

Italy reported a second successive drop in daily deaths and infections from a coronavirus that has nevertheless claimed more than 6,000 lives in a month.

The Mediterranean country has now seen its daily fatalities come down from a world record 793 on Saturday to 651 on Sunday and 601 on Monday.

The number of new declared infections fell from 6,557 on Saturday to 4,789 on Monday.

Giulio Gallera, the health and welfare regional minister for Milan’s devastated Lombardy region appeared on television smiling for the first time in many weeks.

“We cannot declare victory just yet, but there is light at the end of the tunnel,” Gallera said.

Italian National Institute of Health President Silvio Brusaferro was more guarded.

“These are positive numbers, but I do not have the courage to firmly state that there is a downward trend,” Brusaferro told reporters.

Germany on Monday announced that it had accepted the Italian government’s request to care for some of the sick, with six patients to be transferred to hospitals in Dresden and Leipzig, in the eastern state of Saxony.

Italians would desperately hope that weeks of living under a lockdown in which even a jog in the park was eventually banned was the price worth paying for beating back the new disease.

Saturday’s record toll was followed by a late-night address to the nation in which Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced the additional closure of “non-essential” factories.

His government also banned travel to help a country that turned into the new epicenter of the pandemic last week get through a critical stretch in which restrictions are supposed to finally show results.

“Now more than ever, everyone’s commitment is needed,” Italian Minister of Health Roberto Speranza said after Monday’s figures came out.

Italy’s toll now stands at 6,077 — more than that of China and third-placed Spain combined.

Italy has sacrificed its economy and liberties by closing and banning almost everything to halt the spread of a virus the government views as an existential threat.

The nation has rallied around its exhausted doctors and tried to deal with life under a state of emergency with humor and grace.

Entire city blocks have organized balcony parties with nightly DJs. There have been singalongs and synchronized rounds of applause.

However, Italians’ nerves were clearly starting to fray and the pushback on social media against ever-changing rules and tightening regulations was getting strong.

Twitter posts went viral ridiculing mayors and regional chiefs who threatened to jail joggers and fine people for walking their dogs too far from their homes.

The government’s new partial ban of seemingly random industries added to an air of confusion in the face of a disease Conte has called Italy’s biggest disaster since World War II.

Auto part makers were allowed to stay open, but steel mills were shut. News stands could still operate, but book stores could not.

The reality is that Conte’s team is running out of things to close or ban.

Other nations are also watching the Italian numbers to see if Conte’s ban-everything tactics work.

Italy is on the frontline of a war against a disease being fought by means that restrict freedoms and devastate economies.

Some are starting to openly ask if this price is too high — even as the global death toll soars.

Officials pleaded with the nation of 60 million — people accustomed to celebrating life outdoors deep into the night — to sacrifice individual liberties for the common good for two weeks.

The initial restrictions placed on the northern epicenter of the pandemic around Milan expired on Sunday and the national measures are set to end today.

Conte said last week that he might need to extend the restrictions indefinitely.

His decision is expected within days.

“If everyone — and I stress everyone — respects our bans, we will emerge from this very difficult test first,” Conte said on Monday.

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