content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Macau’s gaming revenues plunged 80% last month

Gambling revenue in Macau last month plunged 79.7 percent annually, the government said yesterday, as casinos reeled from a lack of visitors after the world’s biggest casino hub ratcheted up curbs to battle a coronavirus pandemic.

Operators Wynn Macau Ltd (永利澳門), Sands China Ltd (金沙中國), MGM China Holdings Ltd (美高梅中國控股), Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd (新濠博亞娛樂), SJM Holdings Ltd (澳門博彩控) and Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd (銀河娛樂集團) are all bleeding between US$1.5 million and US$4 million a day to keep their properties running.

However, last month’s figure of 5.3 billion patacas (US$664 million), announced on the Web site of the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, was in line with analyst expectations for a drop of about 80 to 82 percent.

It was the sixth consecutive month of decline.

“Forecasts for 2020 remain largely guesses at this time, with constantly changing conditions altering expectations on an almost daily basis,” said Vitaly Umansky, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in Hong Kong, who had forecast last month’s range.

Macau last week banned entry by visitors from mainland China — the largest source of VIP and mass gamblers — Hong Kong and Taiwan who have traveled overseas, following earlier bans on foreign visitors and non-resident workers.

Visitors from the greater China region account for more than 90 percent of tourists to Macau.

Although casinos were open throughout the month after a 15-day suspension of operations in February, visit and health restrictions hit revenues, analysts said.

The 14-day quarantine rule started by China’s Guangdong Province late last month, which JP Morgan said in a note on Friday last week was “effectively same as casino shut-down” for Macau.

With few flights in, almost every visitor was entering Macau through the land border in Guangdong.

Many analysts expect revenues to keep falling at the same pace, with some even forecasting almost no revenue while the curbs stay.

Macau said it expects a drop of 56 percent in annual gross gaming revenue this year to 130 billion patacas, down from 260 billion forecast last year.

Macau earns more than 80 percent of its revenues from casinos.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg

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countries: 中國 澳門


title: CTBC to cut rates to offer respite

content_text:
PANDEMIC AID:
 The bank has since last month deferred payment on loans totaling NT$2 billion to help people affected by the outbreak and prevent a surge in bad debt

CTBC Bank Co (中國信託銀行) is on April 23 to cut its interest rates on all mortgage loans, personal loans and revolving credit by 28 basis points following the central bank’s rate cut of 25 basis points last month.

The lender also plans to offer higher rate cuts for clients affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, CTBC said yesterday.

“We have decided to trim the rates by 3 more basis points than the central bank’s cut of 25 basis points to satisfy clients’ expectations,” CTBC Financial head of financial management Chiu Ya-ling (邱雅玲) told the Taipei Times by telephone.

She said the bank’s clients — such as people who have been infected with COVID-19 or have taken unpaid leave or lost their jobs due to the outbreak, as well as companies that have seen revenue drop more than 15 percent from a year earlier — could apply for better rates.

In addition, CTBC would reduce rates on mortgages less than NT$10 million (US$329,946) by 50 basis points and revolving credit rates by 75 basis points, Chiu said.

Clients affected by the pandemic could also apply for a grace period of three to six months for their debt payments, she said, adding that during the period, they would not need to pay late fees and would be charged lower interest rates.

Since last month, CTBC has approved more than 600 applications from individual clients and small and medium-sized enterprises to defer payments totaling NT$2 billion, she said.

“Although these measures would curb the growth of our interest income, we still hope to aid the affected people. And frankly speaking, this would help us prevent a rise in bad debt,” Chiu said.

Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀行) on Tuesday said it would cut rates on loans by 27 basis points and trim its revolving credit rates by a full percentage point.

After the cuts, the bank would likely reduce revolving rates to 0.68 percent for clients with a good credit card payment history, it said in a statement.

For clients affected by COVID-19, the lender would offer a reduction of 50 basis points on mortgage loans less than NT$10 million and a cut of 75 basis points on personal loans, it said.

After the reductions, its minimums of mortgage interest rates and the rates on personal loans would be lowered to 1.06 percent and 1.20 percent respectively, it added.

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content_text:
ITALY

PMI lowest since 2009

The country’s manufacturing suffered a record drop in output last month, when the entire country went into lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 40.3, the lowest since 2009, from 48.7 in February. Only 11 percent of survey respondents reported an increase in production on the month, and a measure of output plunged to a record low. The eurozone PMI stood at 44.5, well below the 50 mark that separates expansion from contraction.

VIETNAM

Electricity prices to be cut

The government plans to cut electricity prices by 10 percent for three months to support people hit by the pandemic, state media reported yesterday. The Ministry of Industry and Trade has submitted the price cut plan, scheduled to take place immediately, to the prime minister for approval, the official Vietnam News Agency reported. Hospitals treating virus patients and quarantine camps would be provided with free electricity, it added.

SINGAPORE

Home price decline 1.2%

Home prices fell in the first quarter as the pandemic sent the economy into its steepest contraction in a decade. Property values declined 1.2 percent in the three months that ended on Tuesday, according to a preliminary estimate from the Urban Redevelopment Authority released yesterday. That compares to a 0.5 percent gain in the fourth quarter of last year. With the city-state limiting gatherings to a maximum 10 people, the new social-distancing rules have also affected sales of some new units.

GERMANY

Retail sales up on stocking

Households stocking up on daily essentials ahead of anticipated lockdown and quarantine measures caused retail sales in the country to surge far beyond expectations in February, official data showed yesterday. Retail sales jumped 6.4 percent year-on-year on an adjusted basis and rose by 1.2 percent monthly. Sales rose across the board, the Statistical Office said, but growth was particularly strong in food, drinks and tobacco, where revenues were 7.8 percent higher than a year earlier.

FRANCE

Auto sales plunge 72.2%

New vehicle sales in the country last month plunged more than 72 percent and could be down 20 percent for the full year as the pandemic sinks the market, industry figures showed yesterday. New vehicle sales fell 72.2 percent annually to 62,668 units, said Francois Roudier, spokesman for the auto manufacturers’ committee. For the first half of the year, “we should be down about 30 percent, which would bring us to a decline of 20 percent for 2020,” he said, citing estimates by domestic and foreign companies.

ELECTRONICS

Xiaomi profit beats forecast

Xiaomi Corp (小米) on Tuesday reported profit that beat analysts’ estimates thanks to robust growth in Internet services and overseas business in the quarter before the start of the pandemic. Adjusted net income jumped 27 percent in the three months that ended in December last year to 2.3 billion yuan (US$324 million at the current exchange rate), compared with the 1.98 billion yuan average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales increased 27 percent to 56.47 billion yuan, versus estimates of 54.88 billion yuan.

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title: World Business Quick Take


title: Milder tone in new USSF women’s equal pay filings

content_text:
DECREASED TENSION:
 The US players’ lawyers said that the soccer federation no longer disputes that the jobs of the women’s and men’s national teams require equal skill

Women players suing the US Soccer Federation (USSF) said in in court documents filed on Tuesday that the federation has acknowledged that the jobs of male and female soccer players require equal skill.

The language seemed to signal a decrease in tension between the parties after language in documents filed by the federation’s lawyers earlier last month provoked widespread outrage in saying that playing on the men’s national team required a higher level of skill based on speed and strength and carried greater responsibility.

The fierce backlash — not only from the women players, but also from sponsors such as Coca-Cola — ultimately forced federation president Carlos Cordeiro to resign. He was replaced by vice president Cindy Parlow Cone, a former US international.

The federation brought in new legal counsel, which has focused in court filings on refuting the plaintiffs’ claims that it contravened the US Equal Pay Act and other anti-discrimination legislation.

“The parties have significantly narrowed the issues to be tried by way of discovery and briefing,” Tuesday’s filing from the players’ lawyers said. “The USSF no longer disputes that the jobs of the WNT [US women’s national team] and MNT [US men’s national team] players require equal skill, effort and responsibility — and therefore have necessarily conceded that they perform equal work.”

The documents filed by the federation outlining the case that they plan to make said that the female players had not identified comparable male counterparts under US law — which requires equal payment for men and women working “in the same establishment.”

“The undisputed facts show that the WNT and MNT are both geographically and operationally distinct,” the federation filing said. “The WNT and MNT play in different venues in different cities [and often different countries], and participate in separate competitions against completely different pools of opponents.”

The federation again stated that apparent pay discrepancies are due to a different pay structure negotiated by the women’s union.

The case is set to go to trial on May 5.

Last week, Parlow Cone told reporters that she would like to settle the case sooner.

“I don’t think a trial is good for either party or for soccer, both in this country or internationally,” she said. “Obviously our women’s team is the best team in the world and I am hopeful that we can find a resolution before this goes to trial.”

Tuesday’s filings also included potential witnesses for both sides. The lists included all four class representatives in the lawsuit: Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn.

Former US coach Jill Ellis, Cordeiro and another former federation president, Sunil Gulati, could also appear.

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title: EDITORIAL CARTOON

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title: Olympic champion Puig discovering new ‘normal’

content_text:
With the tennis calendar paused and the Tokyo Olympic Games postponed, Olympic champion Monica Puig finds herself having to navigate a longer runway to her title defense and the long hours of quarantine felt by many communities around the world.

“The stress levels are always going to be much higher, but thankfully I’m just trying to live my normal routine within the fact that it’s not really normal,” Puig said. “I’m trying to find ways to stay active, stay happy and kind of have a positive outlook on things.”

Puig fought her way to the upset of her career at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, claiming Puerto Rico’s first-ever Olympic gold by defeating Germany’s Angelique Kerber, a favorite who had claimed the Australian Open title at the beginning of the year.

Puerto Rico’s Monica Puig returns to Germany’s Angelique Kerber in the Rio Olympic Games women’s singles gold medal match at the Olympic Tennis Center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Aug. 13, 2016. Puig defeated Kerber 6-4, 4-6, 6-1.
 Photo: Reuters

Coming back from elbow surgery late last year, which sidelined her from the Australian Open, the 26-year-old said that she supported the International Olympic Committee’s decision to delay the Tokyo Games amid the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s very hard right now, to be a normal person right now, with everything that’s going on — especially in a lot of these hard-hit places,” Puig said. “There are athletes all over the world in really badly affected places that cannot train.”

She keeps busy with her two Pomskys — a Pomeranian-husky mixed breed — who until now she did not entirely realize “how annoying they are sometimes.”

“I think if I bring a third dog to the house, I’m going to be kicked out myself,” said Puig, who added that she has drawn fitness inspiration from fellow tennis players such as Christina McHale, who she spotted on social media doing deadlifts with paint cans.

“Trying to see what other athletes are up to — I’ve seen some people getting very creative with their home workouts,” she added.

The tennis community has been quick to embrace the #TennisAtHome hashtag on social media, as governments worldwide introduce stay-at-home guidelines.

Swiss great Roger Federer posted a video of himself on Twitter practicing trick shots alone in the snow.

Retired tennis pro Flavia Pennetta, who won the US Open in 2015, hit some balls with her husband, 11th-ranked Fabio Fognini, using a clothes rack as a makeshift net.

“People are being very responsible in light of the situation, when we really just want to flatten the curve,” Puig said.

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title: Publicizing PLA drills helps boost security

people: 吳斯懷 馬英九 蔡英文

content_text:
The COVID-19 pandemic is spreading all over the world, sowing fear and throwing societies into disorder. However, this crisis has not stopped China from dispatching groups of warplanes to fly around the edge of Taiwan’s airspace and carry out “targeted” military exercises.

Despite the aggressive nature of these incidents, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) said the fly-bys should not be considered provocative if the planes only fly around Taiwan’s airspace and do not intrude into it.

Rather than reconsidering these remarks, the retired general has continued to make arguments along the same lines.

He said that the government should consider whether it really needs to tell the public about every incident involving the Chinese military, instead of keeping quiet to avoid causing unnecessary anxiety.

Wu’s comments show that he lacks a sense of crisis about national security and is not well-versed in military strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been investing more and more each year in its military exercises simulating an invasion of Taiwan.

This shows that China’s ambition to launch a military attack on Taiwan has never changed.

In October 2016, Chinese diplomat and former UN deputy secretary-general Sha Zukang (沙祖康) stated that if Taiwanese authorities declared independence, the PLA would land on Taiwan the moment they did so, and that China would finish the job at any cost.

At the 2018 annual conference of China’s daily Global Times, retired PLA lieutenant general Wang Hongguang (王洪光), who until his retirement in December 2012 was deputy commander of the Nanjing Military Region, said that war could break out across the Taiwan Strait around this year, and that if it did, the PLA could take over Taiwan within 100 hours.

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) government has adopted new policies regarding China’s buildup of its navy and air force, its repeated excursions beyond the first island chain to conduct long-distance military exercises and its harassment of Taiwan’s peripheral air space, including flying across the median line of the Strait on several occasions.

Unlike the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), which concealed information about the activities of Chinese warplanes, Tsai’s government goes out of its way to let every member of the public and every social sector know how seriously the PLA is threatening Taiwan’s airspace and territorial waters.

This is the right approach and it helps build a common will among Taiwanese.

Publishing information about exercises by Chinese warplanes also has the strategic effect of indirectly showing other countries that Taiwan makes a significant contribution to maintaining security and stability across the Strait and bears its share of military responsibility.

The airspace over the Strait is covered by the world’s highest concentration of air defense radar arrays and anti-aircraft missile batteries.

Militarily, it is an extremely sensitive region.

By reporting incidents in which groups of PLA aircraft cross the median line, the government can draw the attention of the US, Japan and other countries, and encourage them to seriously question why such incidents occur.

Yao Chung-yuan is an adjunct professor at a university and former deputy director of the Ministry of National Defense’s strategic planning department.

Translated by Julian Clegg

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: HSBC shares decline on call to axe cash payouts

The British banking regulator pressed firms, including HSBC Holdings PLC, to scrap dividends and cash payouts for its top staff as the COVID-19 pandemic upends the industry.

HSBC and Standard Chartered PLC shares tumbled again yesterday after they and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, Barclays PLC and Lloyds Banking Group PLC on Tuesday canceled outstanding dividends and buybacks, and said there would be no payments this year.

The move came after the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority on Tuesday wrote to lenders asking them to cancel payments, adding that it “expects banks not to pay any cash bonuses to senior staff, including all material risk takers.”

A woman takes a selfie as people walk in front of Casino Lisboa in Macau on March 3.
 Photo: Bloomberg

The company statements on Tuesday did not mention bonuses.

The UK push to cut discretionary awards for senior managers follows a similar stance from the European Banking Authority (EBA).

In its strongest warning to date, the EBA also said banks should set pay and especially bonuses at a “conservative level” during the crisis.

Firms should also consider deferring awards for a longer period and paying staff in shares, it said.

Banks are under pressure globally from volatile markets and slumping growth, but have also been at the front end of massive support from central banks and regulators, including relief on some capital buffers and more time to tackle soured loans.

The UK’s five biggest banks had planned to pay out ￡7.5 billion (US$9.3 billion) in dividends over the next two months.

Barclays was due to dole out more than ￡1 billion tomorrow.

“It looks structurally bearish for the sector, namely: higher cost of equity, increased regulatory uncertainty, weaker investment cases in the event of future capital raises,” Jefferies Group LLC analyst Joseph Dickerson wrote in a note, adding that HSBC is likely most at risk.

HSBC’s shares plunged 10 percent in London trading on Tuesday and were down 8.4 percent at noon yesterday, while Standard Chartered tumbled 7 percent.

HSBC said it would cancel an interim dividend slated to be paid this month and also make no payouts or buybacks until at least the end of the year.

In its statement, HSBC said that “we expect reported revenues to be impacted in insurance manufacturing, and credit and funding valuation adjustments in Global Banking & Markets, alongside higher expected credit losses.”


content_text:
UNEXPECTED:
 The increase was tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the outbreak disrupted work in China and delayed shipments, the vice president of CIER said

The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) held surprisingly strong at 53.1 last month, as inventory demand bolstered suppliers of electronics and optical products, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday.

However, firms were downbeat about business in the next six months, as the COVID-19 pandemic is spreading in Europe and the US, hurting demand for exports, the Taipei-based think tank said in a survey.

Last month’s PMI reading rose 0.4 percentage points from a month earlier, as firms in the electronics, transportation and biotechnology sectors reported an improvement in business, while those selling food products, machinery equipment and basic raw materials reported negative cyclical movements, it said.

PMI figures aim to gauge the health of the manufacturing industry with values above 50 suggesting an expansion and below indicating a contraction.

The PMI increase had a lot to do with the sub-index on delivery time, which rose to 65.9, as the coronavirus outbreak disrupted work in China and delayed shipment schedules, CIER vice president Wang Jiann-chyuan (王健全) said.

Supply chain disruptions loom larger as India, Malaysia, Mexico and many other countries are shutting down non-essential businesses to combat the disease, Wang said.

The reading for the six-month outlook plunged to 28.7, the worst since the launch of the PMI index in July 2012, Wang said.

Firms across all sectors shared a gloomy outlook, despite resilient PMI showings in the first quarter, CIER said.

The sub-indices on new business orders and export orders remained in positive territory, with readings of 50.1 and 51.2 respectively, it said.

The industrial production and employment sub-indices contracted to 49.5 and 49.2 respectively, as companies became concerned about raising headcounts, the survey said.

The non-manufacturing purchasing managers’ index rose from 40.4 a month earlier to 42.3, but remained in contraction territory, CIER said.

Restaurants and hotels have especially felt the pinch, as well as companies in the retail sales, logistics, warehouse and financial service sectors, the survey said.

Companies in the wholesale, education and construction sectors managed to post a modest increase, it said.

Although the government has introduced relief measures, recovery remains elusive for tourism-related industries, Wang said, adding that the gauge on service-oriented firms’ six-month business outlook tanked to a record low of 13.7.

Consumer spending might rebound once the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases plateaus, the economist said.

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title: Manufacturing PMI increases to 53.1


title: Solskjaer stays in touch with stars

content_text:
Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is keeping in touch with his players as he deals with the uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

The English Premier League has been postponed until at least April 30, with fears growing that a meeting of league stakeholders tomorrow might decide to delay the season further.

During Britain’s lockdown, Solskjaer has been unable to train his squad in person, but he has been in constant contact with players and staff members online in an effort to ensure that they are ready if and when matches resume.

“Of course, I’m used to seeing them every day for hours and hours, so it’s different,” Solskjaer told United’s Web site on Tuesday. “I just keep in touch with them on WhatsApp groups and messages, and we plan for whenever we get back and what kind of sessions for when we do start — but it’s such an unknown, and we don’t really have an idea and are not 100 percent about when we’ll start.”

“We can keep in touch and see each other,” Solskjaer said. “We can send messages and get a reply quickly, and we can do the old-fashioned phone call sometimes and speak just on the phone — so we keep in touch regularly.”

Solskjaer said that he is enjoying spending time with his family until United are able to play again.

“I’m good, the family is good,” he said. “One of the downsides of football is you don’t get too much time with family and the flip side now is you get loads of time with them.”

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title: Virus stresses gap between nations

content_text:
Chinese government data obtained by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post show that the first known case of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, can be traced back to Nov. 17 last year, and that at least 381 people had caught the disease by Jan. 1, which does not match officially released figures.

These revelations prove that accusations that Chinese authorities concealed the outbreak are not baseless.

After the outbreak in Wuhan, COVID-19 quickly spread across China. When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) realized that it could no longer conceal the disease, it decided to seal off Wuhan and the whole of Hubei Province. About 5 million residents reportedly left the city when they heard about the outbreak, and this is the main factor that caused the virus to spread within China.

Unfortunately, the leaders of the WHO, who seem to have been bought off and co-opted by China, repeatedly lauded the measures Beijing took to contain the outbreak, saying that it was not serious and that people should not worry.

Taking the WHO at its word, numerous countries did not take necessary preventive measures. This allowed the disease to spread and become a global pandemic.

The world has been thrown into panic, with factories, shops and markets closed down. Work and school have been suspended in many parts of the world.

Towns and cities have been closed off, and many countries have sealed their borders. The COVID-19 outbreak has grown into one of the worst disasters the world has ever seen.

Shockingly, the CCP, for unspoken political motives, concealed the truth about the outbreak, while the WHO prioritized keeping the world in the dark.

Now that the outbreak has evolved into such a huge disaster, they are trying to push the blame onto others. China has gone so far as to use spurious arguments to falsely claim that the virus originated from the US.

“It might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) tweeted, referring to a US military team’s participation at the Military World Games in Wuhan in October last year.

It is extraordinary that a government official could spread rumors based on such a far-fetched idea.

Even more ridiculously, China has brazenly boasted that it delayed the virus’ spread to Europe and the US by keeping it in check for three months. It expects everyone to be grateful for this so-called contribution.

If the CCP is good at anything, it is reversing cause and effect, and turning the truth on its head.

Anyone who is right in the head, including CCP leaders, knows that such lies are taken as jokes outside of China. However, within China, where information is strictly controlled, it is excellent propaganda material for brainwashing the masses.

Ever since the CCP took power in 1949, it has habitually used such means to fool the people and “preserve stability.” Shame on the CCP.

The CCP has targeted Taiwan with lies and deceit for the past seven decades. Bearing in mind the effects of the SARS epidemic 17 years ago, as soon as President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) government heard about the outbreak in Wuhan, it jumped to attention and took pre-emptive action.

Thanks in part to cooperation between the ruling and opposition parties, Taiwan has successfully held off the coronavirus’ first assault. This achievement has won it praise as a model for the whole world to follow.

Taiwanese authorities have been open and transparent about everything. Under its democratic system, the public has been working together under adversity, standing hand in hand against the epidemic. It is in stark contrast with the CCP’s concealment and trickery, followed by clumsy lockdowns, which can lead to scenes of resentment and anger.

As they suffer the onslaught of COVID-19, nations cannot fail to have seen how much better Taiwan’s democracy is than the CCP’s dictatorship. The CCP’s habitual practice of trying to foist its deceitful ideas on everyone else has been thoroughly revealed to the international community during this crisis.

The gap between the national images of Taiwan and China is now wider than ever.

Hopefully the Democratic Progressive Party government can make good use of this situation to put Taiwan’s foreign relations on a firmer footing.

Jhang Shih-hsien is former head of the National Palace Museum’s conservation department.

Translated by Julian Clegg

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content_text:
Ko Jin-young guesses that she will be plenty rested whenever the LPGA Tour resumes.

Ko left the CME Group Tour Championship, the season-ending event of the Tour, in Naples, Florida, on Nov. 24 last year as the No. 1 player in women’s golf, capping off her four-win, two-major season as the association’s Player of the Year and winner of the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average.

The plan was to return for the Asia swing in the middle of February and work her way into the season — she is still waiting.

South Korea’s Ko Jin-young hits a tee shot in the first round of the Taiwan Swinging Skirts in New Taipei City on Oct. 31 last year.
 Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP

The next event on the LPGA schedule is May 14 at the Pelican Women’s Championship in Florida, and that is looking more doubtful with each rapid development of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In the 17 years that I’ve been playing golf, this is the first time I’ve had such a long break from competition,” Ko said in an e-mail.

She is not alone. Park Sung-hyun withdrew from the final round in Naples with a sore left shoulder, but she was No. 2 in the world at the time.

Park, like Ko, skipped the two events in Florida and two in Australia, targeting her return in Asia.

Ko was in the US at the start of the year, while Park decided to go over when the coronavirus led to the Asia swing of the Tour being postponed, but they are now both back home.

Ko returned to South Korea when the Founders Cup, Kia Classic and ANA Inspiration were postponed, but she is still working just as hard.

“I go to bed and wake up early,” Ko said. “At least four times a week, I have a two-hour workout after breakfast. I practice golf every day and take my dog for walks when I return home. I also take naps occasionally.”

Park could not remember another time when she was away from competition so long.

“I can’t wait for the day that we get back on the golf course,” Park said. “I’ve accepted the fact that we won’t be playing for a while.”

The biggest competition for South Koreans is earning one of the four spots in the Olympic Games, which are no longer urgent with the Games having been postponed.

In the meantime, the wait — and the work — continues, along with perks that the 24-year-old Ko never imagined.

“Although the ‘offseason’ has been long, I am also enjoying the downtime,” Ko said. “I can’t remember the last time I was in Korea in the spring with my family. It’s been wonderful to see the cherry blossoms bloom.”

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title: South Korea’s top LPGA players on longest break ever


content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Loss of taste, smell key signs: study

Losing your sense of smell and taste might be the best way to tell if you have COVID-19, according to a study of data collected via a symptom tracker app developed by British scientists to help monitor the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus.

Almost 60 percent of people who subsequently tested positive for the novel coronavirus had reported losing their sense of smell and taste, the data analyzed by the researchers showed.

That compared with 18 percent of those who tested negative.

These results, which were posted online, but not peer-reviewed, were much stronger in predicting a positive COVID-19 diagnosis than self-reported fever, the researchers at King’s College London said.

Of 1.5 million app users between Tuesday last week and Sunday, 26 percent reported one or more symptoms through the app. Of these, 1,702 also reported having been tested for COVID-19, with 579 positive results and 1,123 negative results.

Using all of the data collected, the research team developed a mathematical model to identify which combination of symptoms — ranging from loss of smell and taste to fever, persistent cough, fatigue, diarrhea, abdominal pain and loss of appetite — was most accurate in predicting COVID-19 infection.

“When combined with other symptoms, people with loss of smell and taste appear to be three times more likely to have contracted COVID-19 according to our data, and should therefore self-isolate for seven days to reduce the spread of the disease,” said Tim Spector, a professor at the university who led the study.

Spector’s team applied their findings to the more than 400,000 people reporting symptoms via the app who had not yet had a COVID-19 test, and found that almost 13 percent of them were likely to be infected.

This would suggest that about 50,000 people in Britain might have as-yet-unconfirmed COVID-19 infections, Spector said.

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Virus Outbreak: Threats of jail time for April Fools’ Day jokes about virus

PERILOUS ‘INFODEMIC’:
 With people relying on the Web for information on the virus, there were fears jokes could fan the spread of misinformation

From Thailand to India, governments have told people not to make April Fools’ Day pranks related to the COVID-19 pandemic, with some threatening jail time as they seek to prevent the spread of rumors which could put lives at risk.

Technology giant Google, which is famous for its annual spoofs, has canceled the tradition because of the pandemic, while Thailand on Tuesday said that jokes about the coronavirus could be punished under a law carrying a sentence of up to five years in prison.

“It’s against the law to fake having COVID-19 this April Fools’ Day,” the government wrote on Twitter.

In India, Maharashtra state’s cybersecurity unit said it would take legal action against anyone spreading fake news on April Fools’ Day.

“The state govt won’t allow anyone to spread rumours/panic on #Corona,” Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh wrote on Twitter, adding that he had instructed the authorities to “act swiftly & strongly [against] such miscreants.”

Under the heading “Corona is no joke,” the German Ministry of Health also urged the public not to make up stories related to the coronavirus.

With people relying on the Internet and media for vital information about the pandemic, there were fears that jokes could fan the spread of misinformation.

From drinking cow urine to sleeping by chopped onions, myths about how people could catch and cure COVID-19 were already widely circulating on the Internet.

The WHO has described it as an “infodemic,” which could increase the spread of the coronavirus among vulnerable people.

Google said it had suspended its annual April Fools’ tradition “out of respect for all those fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“Our highest goal right now is to be helpful to people, so let’s save the jokes for next April, which will undoubtedly be a whole lot brighter than this one,” Google said in an internal e-mail to staff.

In previous years, Google has advertised fictitious jobs at a new research center on the moon, turned Google Maps into a game of “Where’s Waldo” — or “Where’s Wally” — and claimed its search technology uses trained pigeons to rank pages.

Taylor Herring, a British public relations agency whose clients include TV channels and international brands, advised all companies to ditch the jokes this year.

“Tip for any brands planning an April Fool’s Day stunt. Just. Don’t,” it wrote on social media.

Others commented on Twitter that April Fools’ Day had been canceled because no one could make up anything more unbelievable than what is currently happening in the world.

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Virus Outbreak: Alleged violence tarnishes Africa’s response to virus

Soldiers towered over youngsters in South Africa’s Soweto township, forcing them to do push-ups and roll on the floor as punishment for not adhering to a lockdown meant to halt the spread of COVID-19.

Caught on camera and circulated on social media, they added to a string of videos purporting to show violence by security forces deployed to enforce curfew and confinement across Africa.

Rubber bullets, tear gas and whips have been used to maintain “social distancing” and to discipline citizens caught outside their homes without valid reason.

South African National Defense Force members escort a homeless women to a staging area amid a lockdown in Johannesburg on Friday last week.
 Photo: EPA-EFE

“It seems to be the only way in which authorities know how to deal with the populace, through violence and humiliation,” Amnesty International executive director for South Africa Shenilla Mohamed said, adding that abuse had also been reported in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria.

South African police are investigating the deaths of three citizens allegedly killed by patrols for defying the lockdown, which went into force on Friday last week.

“That’s almost the same amount of people that have died from coronavirus,” Mohamed said, referring to the nation’s latest death toll of five.

One person was allegedly shot by police on his way home from a bar — a direct breach of regulations prohibiting the sale of alcohol during the 21-day shutdown.

South African Minister of Defense and Military Veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has condemned the alleged heavy-handedness and vowed to withdraw soldiers caught abusing their powers.

The novel coronavirus has infected more than 5,690 people in Africa and killed at least 195, an Agence France-Presse tally showed.

The pandemic has been slow to reach the continent, despite an acceleration in the past few weeks, and numbers of infections remain relatively low compared with other parts of the world.

Dozens of African governments have made use of the extra time to roll out curfews and shutdowns earlier than their worse-hit counterparts in the West.

However, such measures are difficult to enact in countries where most people live in poverty and work informally, often in packed urban slums with little access to sanitation.

“If we take measures which starve everybody, they will quickly end up being defied,” Beninese President Patrice Talon said on Sunday, adding that his country lacked the means to enforce public confinement.

As governments have struggled to keep citizens indoors, their security forces have been quick to fall back on intimidation tactics, raising widespread concern.

“It is unacceptable to see such inhuman and degrading treatment against the population,” Canadian Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo Nicolas Simard said on Twitter, in response to a video of masked policemen beating a young man to the ground in the capital, Kinshasa, which went into lockdown last week.

“This is uncalled for and inappropriate,” Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho said on Twitter after police charged hundreds of commuters waiting for a ferry in the Kenyan port city.

Clad in riot gear, they fired tear gas at the crowd before the start of a dusk-to-dawn curfew, forcing people to the ground and whipping them.

The Mombasa Law Society denounced the police intervention as “excessive” and “detestable.”

Meanwhile, the Uganda People’s Defence Force apologized for a “high-handed” response after security forces violently cleared the streets in the capital, Kampala, causing an outcry.

In a separate incident, two men were hospitalized after being shot by police for breaching a restriction on public transport.

Footage from Senegal last week surfaced showing policemen beating people found outside after a night curfew.

In one video, officials force three young men to do squats after they were caught exercising at night.

“No torture, no inhuman degrading treatment and no excessive use of force,” former Amnesty International west and central Africa director Alioune Tine said.

Police eventually assured that all “excessive interventions” had been punished.

Yet, the risk of a beating has done little to stop citizens across the continent from pursuing their daily activities.

The need to make a living trumps both fears of catching the virus and encountering the police, prompting law enforcement officers to step up their show of force.

More than 1,100 people have been arrested for lockdown breaches in South Africa, while Ivory Coast has detained 450 for failing to respect curfew.

Ivorian Human Rights Movement head Doumbia Yacouba said that many of the detainees had been beaten and mistreated.

“It is unacceptable and it adds to the psychosis created by coronavirus,” he said.

Further cause for concern emerged when Kenyan police called for an inquiry into the death of a 13-year-old boy felled by a bullet allegedly fired by police as they cleared a slum area last week.

In South Africa, three young children were wounded when security officials allegedly opened fire against a man.

Human Rights Watch has called for urgent investigations into all abuse allegations and “disproportionate” use of force.

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STRAINED RELATIONS:
 A union representative for South Korean employees said Washington was putting US and South Korean lives in danger amid the pandemic

About 4,000 South Koreans working for the US military in their country were yesterday put on unpaid leave as Seoul and Washington bicker over funding for US forces.

Washington has stationed 28,500 troops in South Korea to defend it against North Korea, but the security allies’ relationship has been strained by Washington’s demands that Seoul pay billions of dollars more toward their costs.

The administration of US President Donald Trump initially insisted on US$5 billion per year — a more than fivefold increase.

A US soldier walks in a shopping zone outside Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, on Feb. 21 last year.
 Photo: AFP

US officials have said that they have since “compromised” on the figures, but seven rounds of negotiations, the most recent in the middle of last month, have failed to reach a deal.

The previous Special Measures Agreement, as the funding pact is known, expired at the end of December last year and US Forces Korea (USFK) last month said that it would be forced to start putting South Korean employees on leave from yesterday, when funds to pay their salaries ran out.

“This is an unfortunate day for us... It’s unthinkable... It’s heartbreaking,” USFK commander General Robert Abrams said in a statement.

“These are our employees, our coworkers, our teammates, and we consider them family,” he added. “They are vital to our mission.”

The furloughs so far apply to almost half of USFK’s nearly 9,000 South Korean staff.

They come as Seoul and the US military battle the COVID-19 pandemic — 13 cases related to USFK have been confirmed — and with North Korea carrying out a series of weapons launches.

“The US has put citizens of its security ally and their livelihood in jeopardy,” USFK Korean Employees Union secretary-general Son Gio told reporters.

“President Trump is also putting lives of US soldiers stationed in South Korea in danger, as the furlough will make things worse for those who have already been affected by the coronavirus outbreak within the bases,” Son said.

Ahead of yesterday’s furlough, South Korean negotiator Jeong Eun-bo said that Seoul and Washington had “substantially narrowed” their differences and were “at the final stage of coordination to settle a deal.”

“We urge the US to take measures to make sure the employees subject to the furlough scheme can swiftly go back to work,” he said, adding that the move could undermine military readiness on the Korean Peninsula.

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title: US military furloughs 4,000 in SK


title: SPORTS BRIEFS

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CHINA

Big crowds at events banned

The nation’s sports bodies have been banned until further notice from organizing events that would draw large crowds amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the General Administration of Sport said on Tuesday. “From now until further notice, major sporting events that gather crowds, such as marathons, will not resume,” it said. The directive, which singled out the nation’s soccer and basketball associations — both suspended — did not give a time frame when the situation might change.

RUGBY

Pair axed over schoolgirls

Australia’s National Rugby League has expelled two players on the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs for a “serious” breach of its code of conduct after the pair took what the club described as “young females of a consensual age” to the team’s hotel during a pre-season tour. Jayden Okunbor and Corey Harawira-Naera were investigated by the league’s integrity unit following the promotional tour in New South Wales. “This decision should send a very clear message to all players of our stance on such behavior,” league CEO Todd Greenberg said yesterday.

BASEBALL

Empty parks viable: Heaney

Los Angeles Angels pitcher Andrew Heaney on Tuesday said that he would be willing to open the Major League Baseball season playing in empty ballparks — something the MLB players’ union has discussed. Playing with no fans in attendance is an option being considered, even though “no player wants to play in an empty stadium,” said Heaney, the Angels’ union representative. “Baseball shows why it’s the national pastime,” he said. “It can be helpful for people in tough times ... to flip on a game and see their team play.”

SOCCER

Clubs fined for fan banners

Bayern Munich and Eintracht Frankfurt have been fined for fans displaying offensive banners at matches in February, UEFA said on Tuesday. Bayern was ordered to pay 20,000 euros (US$22,000) for “transmitting a provocative message of an offensive nature” during a UEFA Champions League match at Chelsea. Fans unfurled banners in English protesting the “pricing insanity” of clubs charging away fans for tickets. Eintracht fans displayed profane slogans aimed at UEFA and opponent Salzburg at a UEFA Europa League game. UEFA fined Eintracht 15,000 euros for “transmitting a provocative message” and 10,000 euros for “bringing UEFA into disrepute.”

OLYMPIC GAMES

Doubt cast on new date

The lawmaker leading polls to be Japan’s next prime minister cast doubt on plans to hold the delayed Tokyo Olympic Games next year, citing uncertainty over the pandemic that he said would also affect his own future. Former Japanese defense minister Shigeru Ishiba, the public’s favorite to replace Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said that whether he runs for leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party next year depends on the coronavirus and whether the Olympics can be held. “It depends on the virus being under control, and not just in Japan,” Ishiba said on Tuesday. “If no one comes from Europe or America, it’s not the Olympics. It’s an Asian athletics event.”

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Virus Outbreak: Hungary’s emergency law incompatible with being in EU, liberal lawmakers say

Hungary’s emergency law that enables Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to rule by decree without time limits is incompatible with being in the EU, the European Parliament’s liberal group said on Tuesday.

Passing measures ostensibly to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hungarian parliament on Monday voted to give Orban the power to rule by decree with no clear end-date.

The law also introduces jail terms for spreading disinformation about the virus, raising fears it could be used to neuter critics of the government’s approach.

“Viktor Orban has completed his project of killing democracy and the rule of law in Hungary,” said Sophie in’t Veld, a Dutch member of the European Parliament (MEP), who chairs the body’s rule of law group. “Clearly, the actions of the Hungarian government are incompatible with EU membership.”

Dacian Ciolos, a former Romanian prime minister and EU commissioner who now leads the liberal group, said it was “shameful this dreadful corona is abused in such a manner.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a statement on Tuesday calling for all emergency measures to be “limited to what is necessary and strictly proportionate” and not lasting indefinitely.

“It is of utmost importance that emergency measures are not at the expense of our fundamental principles and values as set out in the treaties,” Von der Leyen said in a statement that did not mention Hungary directly.

The message from Washington was more direct.

US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel said that Orban was making “a blatant power grab in the face of the worst global health crisis in recent history.”

“This legislation marginalizes the Hungarian parliament and allows prime minister Orban to rule by decree like a dictator,” he said.

Hungarian MEP Katalin Cseh last week urged the commission to engage with Budapest over the law last week once it was clear Orban was on course to secure the law with his two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament.

“In a democracy, we should never give anyone unlimited powers or unlimited time. It’s not a matter of whether I trust Orban. It’s really about our basic perception of democracy... There should always be checks and balances. Such a law is against my perception of parliamentary democracy,” she said.

Responding to Von der Leyen’s statement, Orban’s spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said the Hungarian state of emergency and extraordinary measures were “congruent with the treaties and the Hungarian constitution, and targeted exclusively at fighting the coronavirus.”

He said the law upheld EU values, rule of law and, press freedom, while accusing critics of being misinformed.

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title: US kids stuck at home embrace online exercise classes

content_text:
A local kids’ gym in Houston is offering online classes to kids to help them burn up some of their pent-up energy — and to learn crucial motor and social skills

Every afternoon since they started staying in their Texas home due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Canonico sisters — ages two, four and 10 — spend some time banging on the floor with kitchen utensils.

It’s not just idle play: they are taking online classes from a local kids’ gym in Houston to burn up some of their pent-up energy — and to learn crucial motor and social skills at the same time.

Kinley, Caylee and Riley had already attended baby fitness programs over the years at their local branch of The Little Gym, a chain focused on movement-based learning.

This family handout photo taken and released by Lauren Soliz shows, from right, Caylee, Kinley and Riley Canonico following an online Little Gym class on March 24 from their living room in Houston, Texas.
 Photo: AFP

When authorities in Houston — like many other jurisdictions around the US — issued a stay-at-home order last week, their mother Lauren Soliz said she was all-in for them to pick up some classes online.

“We definitely want their mental health to equal their physical health,” Soliz said.

“Yes, they can watch their iPads for a certain amount of time every day. But we’re also getting in our physical health too.”

‘FEELING THE STRESS’

Soliz, 37, works as a tax consultant. With three girls to take care of at home and random meetings by phone throughout the day, she says it’s virtually impossible to maintain a schedule.

Nevertheless, she has figured out how to set up regular exercise breaks — bike rides around their neighborhood after breakfast, YouTube yoga classes.

And now, several times a week, Soliz’s daughters — dressed in tank tops and shorts or their pastel-colored pajamas — follow along with a video class from The Little Gym.

“The girls love it, and they think it’s playing,” she said. Riley, the 10-year-old, is just as enthusiastic about the classes as her little sisters, hopping in place or turning in circles.

“I think it’s fun and it’s time-consuming so it helps because we’re just stuck inside,” she said.

Soliz said the classes are a good way to blow off some steam.

“We’re all feeling the stress and the anxiety and the unknown and uncertainty of, you know, how long is this going to be?” she said.

The US government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published guidelines for parents about how to help children throughout the crisis.

“Encourage your child to play outdoors — it’s great for physical and mental health. Take a walk with your child or go on a bike ride,” the CDC says.

But if outdoor play is impossible, it recommends “indoor activity breaks” for stretching and dancing.

The CDC suggests that children from the ages of six to 17 get at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day — not easy when three out of four Americans have been ordered to stay home.

Alex Tellez, who runs one of the Houston-area Little Gyms, says parents pleaded with him for online content to use with their kids as the health crisis ramped up.

“Whether or not you have a specific outlet for children’s energy, it will escape. They are going to run, they are going to play and that’s because they need stimulation,” he said.

Tellez was forced to shut down his gym to comply with the strict stay-at-home order, and isn’t sure when it will reopen.

His team pre-recorded a number of classes at their facility, and has been putting them up several times a week on Facebook and YouTube.

Teachers in athletic gear on red mats guide the children through exercises as they would in the actual gym.

“It makes it a little bit easier for a lot of families to just put it on their TV, rather than having to put it on their phone or on their computer,” said Tellez.

Usually, a class at The Little Gym costs about US$25 — a significant amount for some families. But Tellez has posted the classes for free. “It was a bit of a transition for us because so much of the material is proprietary,” he explained. “But in these times, we feel that it’s important not only for the business to be able to stay in touch with our customers on a regular basis, but for them to continue experiencing the value of our program.”

Of course, the hope is that once the stay-at-home period is over, families like Soliz’s will head back to the gym.

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Virus Outbreak: Mass disinfections another health hazard: experts

A drone dispersed clouds of disinfectant in the sky above Indonesia’s second-largest city, Surabaya, on Tuesday, a response to the COVID-19 pandemic which is catching on around the world, despite warnings from health experts.

Mass disinfections, often by workers in protective clothing resembling characters from the movie Ghostbusters, have become a common sight worldwide.

However, the visually impressive measures taken to contain the coronavirus have been criticized by disease specialists as a health hazard, as well as a waste of time.

“It’s a ridiculous image seen in many countries,” said Dale Fisher, an infectious diseases expert in Singapore who chairs the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network coordinated by the WHO. “I don’t believe it adds anything to the response and could be toxic on people. The virus does not survive for long in the environment and people do not generally touch the ground.”

Spokesman for Surabaya’s major Febriadhitya Prajatara said that the use of drones for disinfection was necessary in areas with confirmed cases, because the coronavirus “can be anywhere.”

He compared the benzalkonium chloride disinfectant, which can cause skin irritations in high concentrations, to “soap” and said it would help “weaken the virus so it won’t enter our body.”

Coronavirus is a contagious respiratory disease that spreads through droplets from the nose or mouth via coughing or sneezing. People can also become infected by contacting something contaminated before touching their own nose, mouth or eyes.

Paul Tambyah of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection said handwashing and targeted cleaning of surfaces such as elevator buttons offered better protection than mass disinfection.

“It [spraying] is probably a cheap and visible way of doing it, but careful attention to personal and environmental hygiene is probably more effective,” Tambyah said.

Indian health workers on Monday caused outrage when they used hose pipes to douse migrant workers in northern Utter Pradesh state, amid fears the movement of people from cities to the countryside risked spreading the coronavirus.

In Malaysia, under nationwide lockdown, authorities have gone on a disinfection spree in areas with high case numbers to reduce the risk of further transmission, but images of plumes of disinfectant spray fired from trucks into the air or from spray guns on to roads have riled health experts.

“Disinfecting roads is clearly not going to be impactful,” said Christopher Lee, a former Malasian deputy director-general of health and an infectious disease specialist. “Waste of resources and man hours.”

Malaysian Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah on Tuesday said that the government would be issuing guidelines to local authorities to make sure disinfections are carried out properly.

In Indonesia, telephone box-shaped disinfection chambers are being set up across the capital, Jakarta, offering passersby a quick blast to rid their clothes and skin of potential germs.

“I think it’s good... I feel sanitized after touching a lot of things from the bus... I feel well-protected,” Jakarta resident Fany Anisa said after exiting one of the chambers next to a bus stop.

The private initiative being rolled out with the support of local authorities has been criticized by one expert, who is advising the government’s coronavirus task force.

“It is not good for skin, mouth and eyes, it will cause irritation,” said Wiku Adisasmito, a professor of public health at University of Indonesia.

Leong Hoe Nam (梁浩南), an infectious diseases specialist at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital in Singapore, said mass disinfections are eye-catching and might boost morale, but are not effective controls.

“It would have better effect using a water cannon to disperse people and make them go home,” he said.

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Virus Outbreak: French doctor gets two-year term for coughing at police

A French doctor who claimed to have COVID-19 and coughed at police responding to a domestic violence call has received an effective two-year jail sentence, officials said on Tuesday.

The 66-year-old doctor from a hospital in the northern city of Lille was taken into custody at his home on Saturday last week, a police source said.

His wife told police that the doctor was on medical leave on suspicion that he might have contracted COVID-19.

Arresting officers provided the doctor with a mask and gloves for the ride to the station, but “he took off his mask and coughed in the car ... declaring that he had COVID-19 and that they will now catch it,” the Lille prosecutor’s office said.

“He coughed in an exaggerated manner while telling the officers he knew it scared them,” it added.

On top of initial charges of domestic violence were added charges of “violence against persons discharging public authority,” police sources said.

The doctor was on Monday taken before a court in Lille and given a three-year prison sentence — one year of which was suspended.

He was placed in detention after the sentence was passed. The doctor has also been prohibited from contacting his wife.

The officers who were inside the car with the doctor are under medical surveillance.

Last week, a Northern Irish man was charged with attempting to commit grievous bodily harm after he coughed on police officers and claiming to carry the virus while being arrested for domestic assault.

In Belgium, spitting or coughing on a police officer now carries punishment of up to two years in prison, an updated offenses list showed.

The deed is considered an “attack with dangerous substances,” officials said.

The penalty has already been applied seven times in the city of Antwerp alone.

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title: Virus Outbreak: Indian workers make long journeys home

content_text:
They were hungry. Some had not eaten for days, others survived on water and biscuits, but they walked anyway for hundreds of kilometers, in groups that included men and women, young and old — all trudging along deserted highways.

Some had nothing but flip-flops on their feet, while others lugged bags on their heads. Young parents balanced children on their shoulders.

In the past week, India’s migrant workers — the mainstay of the nation’s labor force — spilled out of big cities that have been shuttered due to the COVID-19 pandemic and returned to their villages, sparking fears that the coronavirus could spread to the countryside.

Volunteers prepare food for migrant workers in Bhopal, India, on Tuesday.
 Photo: EPA-EFE

It was an exodus unlike anything seen in India since the 1947 Partition, when British colonial rule ended and the subcontinent was split between Hindu-majority India and mostly-Muslim Pakistan.

India’s 21-day lockdown has effectively kept 1.3 billion people at home for all but essential trips to markets or pharmacies, but the world’s largest lockdown has turned into a humanitarian crisis for India’s improvised workforce.

They mostly live in squalid housing in congested urban ghettos, but with no daily earnings, no savings, and thus no way to buy food, they must head to their home villages to survive.

Railway services are suspended, taxis are unaffordable and the hundreds of buses brought to the outskirts of New Delhi to ferry people home lacked enough seats.

That left walking.

The Indian government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that 500,000 to 600,000 migrants have walked to their villages from cities.

As the crisis worsened, authorities scrambled to arrange transport, shelter and food for them, but it was too late.

Some people died under the physical strain of the relentless walking, while others were killed in traffic accidents. Some were beaten at state borders by police, who said they were just trying to manage the crowds of people.

Shiv Kumari, 50, said she was thrown out of her rented accommodation in the northern state of Haryana by her landlord.

She and her 28-year-old son packed their bags and set off on a 900km journey to their home.

On Monday afternoon, the mother-son duo, visibly exhausted, crossed a bridge over the Yamuna River, which is considered sacred by Hindus, but they were still 110km short of their destination.

“We have been walking for the last five days,” Kumari said.

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Virus Outbreak: US Navy aircraft carrier faces dire threat: captain

The captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt nuclear-powered aircraft carrier told the Pentagon that COVID-19 is spreading uncontrollably through his ship and called for immediate help to quarantine its crew.

However, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on Tuesday ruled out evacuating the ship, whose plight bears similarities to that on civilian cruise ships where the illness spread.

US Navy Captain Brett Crozier wrote in a four-page letter that his staff had not been able to stem the spread of COVID-19 through the vessel’s 4,000 crew members, describing a dire situation aboard the vessel now docked at Guam.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt participates in a training exercise off the coast of southern California on April 30, 2017.
 Photo: AFP / US Navy / Paul L. Archer

“We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,” Crozier wrote, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which published a copy of the letter on Tuesday.

“The spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating,” Crozier wrote, referring to the ship’s “inherent limitations of space.”

He asked to be able to quarantine nearly the entire crew onshore at Guam, saying that keeping them all on board the ship was an “unnecessary risk.”

There is little opportunity for “social distancing,” which US civilians have been told to practice, among the cramped passageways and sleeping quarters of an aircraft carrier.

“Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed US nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may seem like an extraordinary measure,” Crozier said. “This is a necessary risk.”

Asked on CBS Evening News whether it was time for an evacuation, Esper said: “I don’t think we’re at that point.”

He added that supplies and medical assistance were being moved out to the Roosevelt.

“We’re providing additional medical personnel as they need it,” he said.

“None of them are seriously ill” and the navy is “trying to make sure that we contain the virus, that we deploy testing kits. We get a good assessment of how much of the crew is infected,” he added.

The newspaper said that more than 100 aboard the warship had been confirmed infected with the novel coronavirus, about four times the figures given on Friday last week.

The navy did not confirm the contents of the letter, which was also reported by the New York Times.

A navy official said on condition of anonymity that Crozier had alerted his Pacific fleet leaders on Sunday of the problems aboard the carrier.

“The ship’s commanding officer advocated for housing more members of the crew in facilities that allow for better isolation,” the official said.

“Navy leadership is moving quickly to take all necessary measures to ensure the health and safety of the crew of USS Theodore Roosevelt, and is pursuing options to address the concerns raised by the commanding officer,” they added.

Some speculated that the infection could have begun with a stop in Vietnam by the Roosevelt.

The carrier put in to Da Nang for five days early last month, when the virus was raging in China and more than a dozen cases had been detected in Vietnam.

Acting US Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly on Tuesday told CNN that he agreed with Crozier on the seriousness of the situation, and that they had been working over the past few days to move people off of the Roosevelt.

However, facilities to sequester the afflicted sailors in Guam, which hosts a major US naval base, are limited, he said.

“We are having to talk to the government there to see if we can get some hotel space, create some tent-type facilities there,” Modly said.

In his letter, Crozier referred to a study about the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined off Japan earlier this year.

The study concluded that early evacuation of passengers and crew would have prevented many more infections.

Ten passengers died and more than 700 people who were on board contracted the virus.

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Virus Outbreak: Xerox ends hostile bid to buy HP, citing pandemic

Xerox Holdings Corp on Tuesday dropped its unwelcomed bid to buy computer and printer maker HP Inc for about US$36 billion, blaming market turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The end of the hostile takeover campaign came less than two months after the imaging and copying giant upped by about 10 percent a bid rejected by the HP board of directors last year.

“The current global health crisis and resulting macroeconomic and market turmoil caused by COVID-19 have created an environment that is not conducive to Xerox continuing to pursue an acquisition of HP,” Xerox said in a statement.

“While it is disappointing to take this step, we are prioritizing the health, safety and well-being of our employees, customers, partners and other stakeholders, and our broader response to the pandemic,” it said.

HP had rejected the last Xerox bid as too low and contended that the takeover campaign was being driven by corporate raider Carl Icahn, who has a stake in Xerox.

“His large ownership position in Xerox means that his interests are not aligned with those of other HP shareholders,” an HP statement said in January.

“Due to Mr Icahn’s ownership position, he would disproportionately benefit from an acquisition of HP by Xerox at a price that undervalues HP,” it said.

Xerox on Tuesday said it was also dropping its effort to elect a new slate of HP board members who had been expected to support the takeover deal.

The current HP was created by the 2016 breakup of Hewlett-Packard, leaving the HP consumer division making printers and PCs, spinning off HP Enterprise for cloud computing and servers.

“There remain compelling long-term financial and strategic benefits from combining Xerox and HP,” Connecticut-based Xerox said.

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‘ALIPAY HEALTH CODE’:
 Chinese social media users have complained about a lack of transparency over how the smartphone app works and what data it is storing

As millions of people in China emerge from weeks of lockdown, their freedom of movement is largely dependent on smartphone apps.

The “health code” service — run on the ubiquitous platforms Alipay and WeChat, and developed for the Chinese government — gives users color-coded designations based on their health status and travel history, and a quick response (QR) code that can be scanned by authorities.

The apps are specific to each city or province, but generally people given a “green” code are allowed to travel relatively freely.

A “yellow” code indicates that the holder should be in home isolation, while a “red” code means the user is a confirmed COVID-19 patient and should be in quarantine.

The apps have become an integral part of the Chinese government’s management of people, and their movements in and out of affected areas.

When lockdown restrictions in Hubei Province were lifted last week, the government allowed residents with a green code to travel within and out of the province.

Some restaurants, shops, hotels and other establishments ask patrons to show their QR codes before entering.

In Wuhan, only those with a green code are allowed to take public transport.

However, the technology has raised concerns about its reach into people’s private lives and data.

There have been complaints by Chinese social media users about a lack of transparency over how the app works and what data it is storing. Some have reported being unable to change erroneous red designations, and questioned the reliance on Internet connection and surveillance.

“Why should you let companies such as Alipay and WeChat monitor and trace you with the health code?” one netizen wrote. “Can’t it be integrated into the chip of our ID card? And some people’s mobile phones are not connected to the Internet. I don’t know what leaders are thinking?”

The apps rely on a combination of self-reporting by the user and government data, including a person’s medical records, their travel history and if they have been in contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19.

Screen shots taken of an English-language version of the Alipay app showed that applicants are asked for contact and passport details, recent travel details and medical certification.

Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba that operates Alipay, said that it does not provide or operate the service and has no access to the data entered into it.

The company said it provided technical support to the Hangzhou City Government when it was developing its version of the software.

Official guidelines for the WeChat app say it takes basic identity and address details, as well as “the history of close contact with suspected patients, history of travel and residence.”

It draws on medical information, including “symptoms [such as fever, cough], medical treatment, isolated observation, contact information, travel history of the epidemic area,” and the user’s travel history, including the mode of travel and what seat they sat in, and details of the vehicle and its driver.

The health code app, launched in Hangzhou in early February and described by state media as “Alipay health code,” spread to more than 100 cities within a week before it was rolled out nationally.

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title: Virus Outbreak: Concerns raised about Chinese app


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New research has finally demonstrated what many marine biologists suspected, but had never before seen: fish migrating through the deep sea.

The study, published last month in the Journal of Animal Ecology, used analysis of deep-sea photographs to show a regular increase in the number of fish in particular months, suggesting seasonal migrations.

Tracking fish in the deep sea is challenging. They are sparsely distributed, the water is nearly devoid of sunlight and the monitoring equipment has to withstand enormous pressure.

The study used photographs taken by the Deep-ocean Environmental Long-term Observatory System (DELOS), two observatories on the sea bed, 1,400m below the surface, off the coast of Angola.

The researchers analyzed 12,703 photographs — only 502 of which had actually managed to capture a fish — taken over seven-and-a-half years, and found that each year, in late November and June, there was a spike in the number of fish.

“It is certainly not unprecedented, but it has never really been demonstrated,” said Rosanna Milligan, an assistant professor at Nova Southeastern University in Florida and the lead author on the paper. “That is what we were able to do with this study.”

“Even after all these years, one of my favorite parts of being a scientist is when you do those first graphs of your results and start to see something emerging from the data,” said David Bailey, a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow and a coauthor on the paper.

“That’s one of the greatest thrills of the whole scientific endeavor. It was really, really amazing,” he said.

Even with this new discovery, Milligan and Bailey still say there is a lot they do not know.

“The natural thing to do is to find out where the fish are coming from and going to when they move around,” Bailey said. “What is going on? What does it mean and what are the fish doing?”

Little is known about the behavior of any of the fish photographed.

Grenadiers, a family of fish seen in more than 100 of the DELOS photos, have long tails that might allow them to move great distances at low speed — but despite being a relatively common deep-sea fish, little information exists on how far they can swim.

A 1992 paper, for instance, put acoustic tracking devices in bait and fed them to grenadiers, but the devices only tracked the fish up to 1km away.

Milligan said the fish might be migrating to follow dying organisms on the surface.

Plankton blooms off the coast of West Africa every year four months before the deep-sea fish migrate into the area.

Given that the deep sea is dependent on life at the surface that dies and sinks to the bottom, it is possible that other animals could be gathering to take advantage of the dying plankton, and the deep-sea fish migrate to eat those.

“We just have no idea how these things act,” said Tim O’Hara, a researcher and senior curator of marine zoology at Museums Victoria in Australia, who was not involved in the research. “We are literally groping in the dark. It’s kilometers down in the ocean and we get these tiny bits of information from one or two locations and we’re trying to put together a big picture.”

Milligan and Bailey said they hope this discovery encourages other researchers to look for similar patterns in the deep oceans.

“Maybe if we had more of this level of surveillance in other places, we would find fish migrations in all kinds of places,” Bailey said. “It’s just that [Angola] is where we happened to be observing in this level of detail for this amount of time? This could be happening all over the place.”

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title: Scientists show that fish travel through deep oceans


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Underfed and chained up for endless hours, many elephants working in Thailand’s tourism sector could starve, be sold to zoos or be shifted into the illegal logging trade, campaigners warned, as the COVID-19 pandemic leads to a slump in the number of visitors.

Before the coronavirus, life for the kingdom’s estimated 2,000 elephants working in tourism was already stressful, with abusive methods often used to “break them” into giving rides and performing tricks at money-spinning animal shows.

With global travel paralyzed the animals are unable to pay their way, including the 300kg of food a day a captive elephant needs to survive.

Tourists ride elephants at Chang Siam Park in Pattaya, Thailand, on Feb. 12.
 Photo: AFP

Elephant camps and conservationists warned that hunger and the threat of renewed exploitation lie ahead, without an urgent bailout.

“My boss is doing what he can, but we have no money,” Kosin, a mahout — or elephant handler — said of the Chiang Mai camp where his elephant, Ekkasit, is living on a restricted diet.

Chiang Mai is Thailand’s northern tourist hub, an area of rolling hills dotted by elephant camps and sanctuaries ranging from the exploitative to the humane.

Footage from another camp in the area showed lines of elephants tethered by a foot to wooden poles, some visibly distressed, rocking their heads back and forth.

About 2,000 elephants are “unemployed” as the coronavirus eviscerates the tourist industry, Thai Elephant Alliance Association president Theerapat Trungprakan said.

A lack of cash is limiting the fibrous food available to the elephants, “which will have a physical effect,” he said.

Wages for the mahouts who look after them have dropped by 70 percent.

Theerapat fears the elephants could soon be used in illegal logging activities along the Thailand-Myanmar border — in breach of a 30-year-old law banning the use of elephants to transport wood.

Others “could be forced [to beg] on the streets,” he said.

It is yet another twist in the saga of the exploitation of elephants, which animal rights campaigners have long been fighting to protect from the abusive tourism industry.

Chinese visitors, who make up the majority of Thailand’s 40 million tourists per year, plunged by more than 80 percent in February.

By last month, the travel restrictions had extended to Western nations.

With elephants increasingly malnourished due to the loss of income, the situation is “at a crisis point,” Elephant Nature Park owner Saengduean Chailert said.

Her sanctuary for about 80 rescued elephants only allows visitors to observe the creatures, a philosophy at odds with venues that have them performing tricks and offering rides.

She has organized a fund to feed elephants and help mahouts in almost 50 camps nationwide, fearing the only options would soon be limited to zoos, starvation or logging work.

For those restrained by short chains all day, the stress could lead to fights breaking out, said Saengduean, of camps that can no longer afford medical treatment for their elephants.

Calls are mounting for the Thai government to fund stricken camps to ensure the welfare of elephants.

“We need 1,000 baht [US$30] a day for each elephant,” Elephant Rescue Park manager Apichet Duangdee said.

Freeing his eight mammals rescued from circuses and loggers into the forests is out of the question, as they would likely be killed in territorial fights with wild elephants.

He is planning to take out a 2 million baht loan to keep his elephants fed.

“I will not abandon them,” he said.

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title: Virus Outbreak: Thailand’s elephants face ‘crisis point’


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Virus Outbreak: Chinese community in Italy paragon of prevention

‘LIKE A CASSANDRA’:
 Chinese residents of Prato went into self-imposed lockdown and warned their Italian neighbors about what was coming, but were ignored

In the storm of infection and death sweeping Italy, one big community stands out to health officials as remarkably unscathed — the 50,000 ethnic Chinese who live in the town of Prato.

Two months ago, the country’s Chinese residents were the target of what Amnesty International described as shameful discrimination, the butt of insults and violent attacks by people who feared that they would spread the coronavirus through Italy.

However, in the Tuscan town of Prato, home to Italy’s single biggest Chinese community, the opposite has been true. Once scapegoats, they are now held up by authorities as a model for early, strict adoption of disease-control measures.

“We Italians feared that the Chinese of Prato were to be the problem. Instead, they did much better than us,” said Renzo Berti, the top state health official for the area, which includes Florence.

“Among Chinese residents in Prato there isn’t even one case of COVID contagion,” he said.

Ethnic Chinese make up about one-fourth of Prato’s population, but Berti credits them with bringing down the entire town’s infection rate to almost half the Italian average — 62 cases per 100,000 inhabitants versus 115 for the rest of the country.

Prato’s Chinese community, originally built around the textile industry, went into lockdown from the end of January, three weeks before Italy’s first recorded infection.

Many were returning from the Lunar New Year holiday in China, then the epicenter of the epidemic. They knew what was coming and spread the word: stay home.

So as Italians headed to the ski slopes and crowded into cafes and bars as normal, the Chinese inhabitants of Prato had seemingly disappeared.

Its streets, still festooned with Lunar New Year decorations, were semi-deserted, shops shuttered.

There is some anecdotal evidence that Chinese people elsewhere in Italy took similar precautions, although national data on infection rates among the community is unavailable.

The Italian Ministry of Health did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Milan-based restaurateur Francesco Wu, a representative of Italian business lobby Confcommercio, said that he in February urged Italian counterparts to shut down their businesses, as he had done.

“Most of them looked at me like a Cassandra,” he said. “No one could believe it was happening here... Now Troy is burning and we are all locked inside.”

When Chinese-born businessman Luca Zhou on Feb. 4 flew home from China to rejoin his wife and 28-year-old son in Prato, he put himself into quarantine in his bedroom for 14 days, separated from his family.

“We had seen what was happening in China and we were afraid for ourselves, our families and our friends,” said the 56-year-old, who has a business exporting Italian wine to China.

After emerging from his self-quarantine, he ventured outside in mask and gloves, he said, adding that the few other Chinese on the streets also wore them, anxious not to spread the virus to others.

“My Italian friends looked at me oddly. I tried many times to explain to them that they should wear them ... but they didn’t understand,” Zhou said.

“When I came back to Prato, no Italian authority told me anything. We did it all by ourselves. If we had not done it, we would all be infected, Chinese and Italians,” he added.

Italy was one of the first nations to cut air links with China, on Jan. 31, although many of its Chinese residents found their way home via third countries. On Feb. 8, almost a month before closing all schools, it offered students returning from vacations in China the right to stop attending classes.

“In Prato, there was a boom in take-up,” Berti said, adding that families had been obliged to contact his agency if they wanted to pursue this option.

It was then that he began to realize how differently the Chinese were behaving.

More than 360 families, or about 1,300 people, registered as having put themselves into self-isolation and also signed up to his agency’s health surveillance scheme, which monitored symptoms remotely and communicated with them in Chinese.

As infections began to take off in late February and early last month, some families, many of whom retain Chinese citizenship, even began sending children to relatives in China, alarmed at the attitude and behavior of Italians around them.

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Colts looking for ways to get most out of Rivers, Brissett

Indianapolis Colts coach Frank Reich understands Jacoby Brissett’s predicament.

Brissett has twice emerged as the Colts’ starting quarterback and twice lost the position to an older player with a more accomplished resume — but neither of whom owned a Super Bowl ring as he does.

Reich, the longtime backup to Hall of Famer Jim Kelly, plans to help Brissett cope with the frustration and disappointment of making yet another major transition: this time backing up eight-time Pro Bowler Philip Rivers.

“When the time was right, I called Jacoby and told him: ‘Hey, this looks like it may happen,’” Reich said on Tuesday, describing his initial conversation with Brissett. “We talked it through. Obviously, Jacoby wasn’t happy about it. He wasn’t happy about it, but he’s a great teammate — he’s a great leader. We all know that and I’m sure he’ll be good.”

All along, Reich and Colts general manager Chris Ballard have insisted they believe that Brissett possesses the skills to be a full-time NFL starting quarterback — and he has shown these skills during an almost unfathomable rollercoaster ride.

Brissett made his first significant appearance as Tom Brady’s replacement in 2016, going 1-1 in two starts.

The following September, with Andrew Luck still recovering from shoulder surgery, Brissett was traded to Indianapolis to back up Scott Tolzien.

Two weeks later, Brissett — still learning the Colts’ playbook — replaced Tolzien and wound up 4-11 as the starter, while enduring a league-high 52 sacks.

Luck reclaimed the starting job in 2018, leading the Colts to the playoffs and earning the league’s Comeback Player of the Year award.

However, when it looked as if Luck would be with the Colts for years, he suddenly retired last August, and Brissett once again inherited the starting job and led the Colts to a 5-2 start before injuring his knee and winning only two more games.

Now, less than seven months after signing a two-year US$30 million deal, Brissett heads into his contract season as Rivers’ backup. Rivers signed a one-year US$25 million contract.

Athough Reich knew that the conversation with Brissett would not be an easy call, he says that the decision was.

“Having been there on the inside [with the Los Angeles Chargers] for three years and knowing the quarterback position like I do, I was so confident that physically he [Rivers] was the right player and that he had not lost anything,” Reich said. “All of the throws I saw on film — and as I went back and studied him compared to previous throws — I really didn’t notice any physical gifts diminishing at all... You know how we talk about the juice in this place? This guy brings juice.”

The Colts’ coaches are talking about how to get Brissett on the field in special packages or certain circumstances, perhaps giving him as many as seven snaps per game.

It is Brissett’s turn once again to show that he can be ready at a moment’s notice and Reich expects nothing less.

“It’s a hard time when something like this happens,” Reich said. “When you look at a lot of championship teams, to me you better have a winning backup quarterback. You better have a guy that can step in there and win two or three, or however many games it takes if the starter gets dinged up. We have that in Jacoby.”

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