title: Compassion at home could hold the EU together

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If Brexit united the remaining member states and removed the specter of exit from the eurozone, COVID-19 has put it back on the agenda

The world’s news headlines have been horrifying: Vital equipment is in short supply, forcing doctors to make battlefield decisions about who lives and who dies; long lines of sick people wait in vain for a test or a hospital bed; empty businesses, stores, bars and restaurants are bringing local economies the world over to a grinding halt; and there has been a grim accounting of which countries are hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the US surging ahead of China, home to the original outbreak.

In Europe, the pandemic has hit especially hard in Italy, which has been on national lockdown since March 9 in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

As of yesterday, Italy had reported 115,242 confirmed cases of COVID-19. At least 13,915 Italians, mostly in the northern Lombardy region, had so far died of the coronavirus.

Milan, the regional capital, is more than a mainstay of Italy’s economy. The once bustling city is inextricably linked to the European project and is a crucial driver of the European economy as a whole.

Yet, as the death toll rises and the region sees transmission rates higher than anywhere else on the continent, the EU and its member states have been slow to step up in any meaningful way and show solidarity with their ailing neighbor.

Instead, EU member states have closed borders and turned inward. Italy’s plight was made worse by the border closures, which cut off much-needed supplies and medical equipment.

Governments have engaged in petty squabbles, appearing more concerned about their own economic advantage. Representatives of some northern

European countries have appeared to challenge Italy’s economic decisions, and seem to care more about knowing how Italy plans to pay back debts than they do about the death toll and economic downturn.

At a time when the continent, and indeed the entire world, is facing public health and economic crises of historic proportions, Europe is a house divided, in danger of possible territorial dissolution. If Brexit united the remaining 27 member states and removed the specter of exit from the European arena, the coronavirus has put it back on the agenda.

The EU has a responsibility to its member states and its people to use any and all financial instruments at its disposal, or to create new ones, to ensure that Italy and the eurozone can weather — and ultimately rebound from — the crisis.

This requires abandoning habitual reliance on an outdated governance model predicated on the absence of any common financial resources in a monetary union. If Italy fails, the price for the European economy — indeed, for the European project itself — would be much higher than the price of breaking one fiscal rule or another during a time of grave peril.

Before last week’s European Council virtual summit, a group of nine European countries, including southern countries such as Portugal and Slovenia, called for a Eurobond and the mutualization of common debt.

Europe’s financial institutions were tasked at the summit with making proposals that might possibly ease the pressure on individual heads of government — most of whom are preoccupied with domestic opposition.

At the same time, some of Italy’s most authoritarian and extreme political figures seized the moment to rally against the EU and put an Italian exit from the euro and the eurozone itself on the table.

With US President Donald Trump’s administration retreating from the post-war transatlantic alliance, the EU has been given the chance to make good on its expressed commitment to values, rights and multilateral cooperation, and assert itself as a global leader.

However, it has not risen to the challenge. While Europe’s future looks bleak, it is not too late for European institutions and governments to change course.

The EU cannot afford to lose Italy or to go through the pandemic without a meaningful response. All countries and economies in the eurozone would suffer as a result.

My father, George Soros, lived through some of the most heinous crimes of the past century, and emerged from that experience with a deep and abiding belief in the necessity of the European project. I am proud of his long record of using his philanthropic institutions to promote a better tomorrow for Europe and the world.

That is why it should be no surprise that the organization he founded, the Open Society Foundations, is stepping in to help Italy at this crucial moment by pledging 1 million euros (US$1.08 million) to the city of Milan to support the hard work of aiding its most vulnerable and rebuilding its economy, health and spirit in the months ahead.

To be sure, some EU countries — with some delays — have also sent medical supplies and many Italians have donated to the national effort to counter the crisis. Just days after getting the nod to begin EU membership talks, Albania displayed real European solidarity by dispatching a 30-strong contingent of doctors to northern Italy.

I hope that many others will follow that example and offer a helping hand to the areas hit hardest by COVID-19. Coming on the heels of a similar gift to the city of Budapest, such a helping hand is one of a series of interventions that the Open Society Foundations plan to launch in the coming days in response to the pandemic.

Alexander Soros is deputy chairman of the Open Society Foundations.

Copyright: Project Syndicate

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Avoid high-yield, emerging-market bonds, expert says

An ongoing market correction provides a good opportunity for retail investors, but as the default rate for investment-grade bonds is expected to rise amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they should avoid high-yield and emerging-market bonds, Standard Chartered Bank Taiwan Ltd (渣打台灣銀行) said.

“It is difficult to give an overall piece of investing advice amid the outbreak, as everyone has different risk appetite. Some investors turned conservative from fear of the virus, whereas others improved their appetite with an aim to buy on dips,” director of wealth management Terry Chen (陳太齡) said by telephone on Wednesday.

Those who want to take advantage of the market correction and increase their investment at a lower cost should consider buying US corporate bonds with good ratings and corporate bonds issued by companies in net oil-importing countries, as well as US medical, healthcare and technology stocks, or any stocks with good cash dividends, Chen said.

As the price of crude oil is expected to remain at less than US$40 per barrel for several months due to weak demand worldwide, companies in net oil-importing countries might benefit, he said.

Investors should stay away from high-yield and emerging-market bonds, as well as bonds issued by energy and tourism companies, he added.

The bank expects the 10-year US Treasury yield, a gauge of market interest rates, to slowly climb from about 0.6 percent this week to 0.85 percent in the second quarter, Chen said.

Although the 10-year Treasury’s yield has been falling since February due to a global flight to the safety of government debt, it is likely to rise late next month or in June due to lower demand if the pandemic is contained, he said.

In the meantime, investors should increase their holdings of cash and gold to hedge against market volatility, Chen said, adding that the bank has forecast that the spot price for gold would advance to US$1,750 per ounce this quarter.

The spot price for gold was US$1,607 per ounce on Thursday.

Investors who have seen their assets shrink due to the retreating equity market should remain calm and not sell their assets unless they have an immediate need for cash, as history has shown that markets will bounce back, Chen said.

Amid high volatility on the market, retail investors can concentrate more on longer-term investments and diversifying risk, he said.

The bank maintains its core scenario that the global economy would hit bottom at the end of this quarter and recover in the second half of this year, which would enable global equities to exit a bear market, Chen said.

“However, we cannot fully rule out the possibility that the global economy might continue to decelerate until next year if the spread of COVID-19 does not peak in the US and Europe this or next month, which would slash global investment and consumption,” he said.

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BOXING

Russian coach tests positive

A Russian national boxing team coach has tested positive for COVID-19 after returning home from Olympic qualifiers cut short in London last month. Anton Kadushin, who works with Gleb Bakshi, last year’s world champion in the middleweight class, on Thursday wrote on Instagram that he had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. He said that he experienced symptoms including a high temperature on Wednesday last week, a few days after returning from the qualifiers, and that he was now at home in self-isolation. Russia Boxing secretary-general Umar Kremlev said in a statement on its Web site that the situation was under control and that Kadushin had a mild case of the virus. There were no coronavirus cases among the Russian boxers who had returned from London last month, Kremlev added. The Olympic qualification tournament in London was halted on March 16 because of the rapidly spreading virus. Reuters last week reported that several Russian national team boxers returning from London had posted online pictures or videos that appeared to show them flouting self-isolation rules imposed to slow the spread of the virus.

CYCLING

Vuelta to feature 21 stages

This year’s Vuelta a Espana is still to go ahead as planned with all 21 stages, despite the COVID-19 pandemic’s devastating effects on Spain, the race’s director said on Thursday. “As it stands today, the Vuelta’s dates stay as they are and we not considering a race of less than the scheduled 21 stages,” Javier Guillen told sports daily AS. It had been rumored that the Vuelta, one of cycling’s three Grand Tours which is scheduled to start on Aug. 14 in the Netherlands, could reduce the number of stages if the Tour de France is delayed to make room for the postponed Giro d’Italia, which as yet has no new start date. “All this is mere speculation that has come out of Italy... We know that it’s difficult to combine races with established dates with others that need to be reorganized, so should know that we will have to be flexible should a change of dates materialize,” Guillen said. However, he insisted that the priority was ensuring that the Tour de France, which is still scheduled to start on June 27, is run, as “it’s an indispensable event for our sport.”

? FOOTBALL

Brady rents Jeter’s mansion

Six-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady, who last month joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is reportedly moving into a huge waterfront mansion owned by retired baseball star Derek Jeter. The Tampa Bay Times on Thursday reported that Brady, the 42-year-old NFL icon who departed the New England Patriots for the Florida squad, is to rent a 2,787m2 home owned by former New York Yankees shortstop Jeter, chief executive of Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins, on Davis Islands, about 9.6km from the Buccaneers’ training facility and 112.km from their home stadium. It features seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, an entertainment room, a billiards room and two boat lifts providing watercraft access to Tampa Bay. Jeter, 45, won five World Series titles with the Yankees. He lived in the mansion during the off-season while playing, completing construction in 2011. Jeter retired in 2014 after playing his full 20-year MLB career with the Yankees and since 2017 has been a part-owner of the Marlins.

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title: SPORTS BRIEFS


content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Canadian minister pans state-sponsored virus disinformation

Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois-Philippe Champagne after a NATO meeting on Thursday criticized COVID-19 disinformation campaigns spread by state actors, of which Russia has been accused.

“Disinformation was a big topic amongst NATO allies” at the meeting held by videoconference, Champagne said. “We stand united against a common enemy which is invisible and knows no borders, and we need to also stand ready to respond to the disinformation campaigns that we’re seeing around the world.”

Champagne, although asked about it, did not specifically mention Russia in his remarks, but a researcher earlier identified Russia as the main source of disinformation about COVID-19 aimed at undermining faith in Western governments.

Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois-Philippe Champagne speaks in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Wednesday last week.
 Photo: Reuters

“Unwittingly, Canadian audiences will be exposed to fake news coming from Russia, potentially China and other players,” University of Calgary public policy researcher Sergey Sukhankin told Canadian broadcaster CTV.

“We are concerned about what we’re hearing,” Champagne said. “Certainly, this is not the time for a state actor or non-state actor to spread disinformation, at a time when basically humanity is facing one common challenge, which is the virus.”

“We need to stand together as liberal democracies to make sure that we inform our citizens and equip them to make fact-based decisions, science-based decisions, and that we call out those who would be engaging in disinformation as a tool to exert influence at a time of crisis,” he said.

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title: WHO should not brush Taiwan off

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On Sunday, the WHO secretariat issued a statement saying: “The question of Taiwanese membership in WHO is up to WHO member states, not WHO staff.”

The statement also mentioned that the WHO has been working closely with Taiwan on the COVID-19 pandemic through the establishment of the Taiwanese International Health Regulations Point of Contact, the Taiwanese Field Epidemiology Training Program and the participation of two Taiwanese public healthcare experts in the Global Research and Innovation Forum, organized by the global body in February.

According to the WHO’s constitution, the secretariat indeed has no right to decide the membership of any country, but as the WHO is the leader of global health, it has a responsibility to take a neutral and professional stance toward Tawain to facilitate its full participation in the world body.

The statement is encouraging in that the WHO distinguishes between Taiwan and China, as Taiwanese membership has nothing to do with Chinese membership.

As UN Resolution 2758 and Resolution WHA25.1 state, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the only legal government of China, but they do not claim that Taiwan should be represented by the PRC under the UN system.

Although the WHO secretariat is not entitled to make decisions on Taiwanese membership, it does have a responsibility to provide an opportunity for a fair discussion of this issue.

In the the case of East Germany in 1968, West Germany, who was already a WHO member, used the Hallstein Doctrine to ensure that it had the exclusive right to represent the entire German nation.

Consequently, when then-WHO director-general Marcolino Gomes Candau received a membership application from East Germany, he took two actions: First, he put the application on the World Health Assembly’s (WHA) agenda for discussion with the WHO constitution and related rules of procedure as a reference for all member states.

Second, he wrote an open letter emphasizing that East Germany’s membership should be decided by the WHA, not the WHO secretariat.

Unfortunately, his successors have never treated Taiwan’s case in the same way.

The secretariat’s statement indicated that even though it cannot decide Taiwanese membership, it can still cooperate with Taiwan in other areas.

However, the WHO’s slow actions — the establishment of the point of contact and the training program, and the participation of the Taiwanese public healthcare experts in the forum — cannot meet Taiwan’s urgent demand amid the pandemic and is not helpful in instantly sharing Taiwan’s experiences with other countries.

That is, the information and resources to combat the pandemic — which Taiwan needs and where it can contribute its knowledge and expertise — cannot be facilitated thorough these modes of cooperation.

To tackle the pandemic, the WHO has convened several working groups responsible for epidemiological modeling, vaccinations, reagent development, and assisting low and middle-income countries in their pandemic response strategies among others.

However, Taiwanese healthcare experts have never been invited to any of these group or projects by the secretariat.

Moreover, the WHO director-general has never interfered with Beijing’s efforts to further its “one China” propaganda, choosing instead to ignore Taiwanese existence and rights, and sacrificing professionalism and morality to pander to China.

As the saying goes: “Give them an inch and they will take a mile.” China has been allowed to tell lies for a long time, and it is going further to cover up the real development of the coronavirus — which might be the root cause of why the pandemic has become uncontrollable.

The outbreak highlights a crisis in WHO governance and had forced the global body to issue a quite rare statement regarding Taiwanese membership.

Apart from this, more thought-provoking news came out on the same day. In an interview with the Japan Business Press, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Kong Xuanyou (孔鉉佑) revealed that China is planning to accept Taiwan as a regular WHO observer.

This interview raises some questions.

First, why did the Chinese envoy to Japan reveal this plan to the press and, second, if China is really planning to accept Taiwan as a regular observer, Taiwanese have be wary of whether the nation can only be an observer if China agrees.

If China’s approval is required, then Taiwan would be repeating the mistake made by the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), which was blackmailed by China each year over whether Taiwan would be invited to the WHA.

Given the current situation, Taiwan should strive for WHO membership directly, as the nation’s medical service is ranked No. 3 in the world, and its disease prevention polices have attracted the attention of the world and have been emulated by several countries.

Taiwan should assist other countries as a WHO member state to help defend the health of humankind.

Lin Shih-chia is executive director of the Medical Professionals’ Alliance in Taiwan and a former legislator.

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PERU

New restrictions unveiled

President Martin Vizcarra on Thursday announced a new measure restricting public movement by gender, as the nation tries to curb the spread of COVID-19. Men would only be allowed to leave their homes on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays, while women could step outdoors on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. No one would be allowed out on Sundays. “We have 10 days left, let’s make this extra effort to control this disease,” Vizcarra said. He said the restrictions would apply until April 12, the original end date to a lockdown he imposed on March 16. Panama announced a similar measure on Monday that went into effect two days later and was to last for 15 days. Vizcarra said the new measure aims to reduce by half the number of people circulating in public at any one time. “The [existing] control measures have given good results, but not what was hoped for,” he said. The restrictions do not apply to people employed in essential services, such as grocery stores, banks, pharmacies and hospitals. Security forces tasked with patrolling the streets have been told to be respectful toward the gender identities of homosexual and transgender people, Vizcarra added.

UNITED STATES

NRA sues Andrew Cuomo

The National Rifle Association (NRA) on Thursday sued New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for closing gun shops during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the restriction is unconstitutional and leaves citizens defenseless while prisoners are being released early as a result of the crisis. The March 20 executive order that included firearms retailers as non-essential businesses that must close is a “pointless and arbitrary attack on the constitutional rights of New York citizens and residents,” the complaint said. New York ordered most businesses to close to prevent the spread of the virus, but deemed grocery stores, liquor stores, pharmacies and restaurants that do take-out as essential and allowed them to remain open. The New York lawsuit follows similar action the association took in northern California, where it sued several cities, including San Jose, for ordering gun stores to close.

MEXICO

Corona owner shuts down

The brewer of Corona beer on Thursday said that it was suspending production because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Grupo Modelo — whose brands also include Pacifico and Modelo — said the measure was in line with the government’s order to suspend all non-essential activities until April 30 to slow the spread of the coronavirus. “We are in the process of lowering production at our plants to the bare minimum,” the company said in a statement. The government has said that only key sectors such as agribusiness would be able to continue to function. Grupo Modelo said that it was ready to operate with 75 percent of its employees working remotely to guarantee the supply of beer, if the government agreed. The nation’s other major beer producer, Heineken, could also stop activities, the Reforma reported, although the company did not confirm the report. Nuevo Leon state, where Heineken’s operations are based, on Wednesday said that it would stop the production and distribution of beer, which led to panic-buying. Since the start of the crisis, Corona beer has been the punchline of jokes and memes, and an online rumor said that sales in the US dropped by about 40 percent after the outbreak. However, Constellation Brands, which owns the Corona label, denied the rumor and said sales had stayed strong in the US even as the coronavirus spread.

NEW ZEALAND

Stuck tourists now leaving

About 100,000 tourists stuck since a lockdown began last week yesterday were starting to fly to their home countries. Many tourists had been banned from catching domestic flights during the strict month-long lockdown to prevent more COVID-19 infections, which prevented tourists from reaching the main hub of Auckland Airport to catch international flights home. Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters on Thursday announced that tourists could take internal flights, so long as they were leaving the country. He said charter flights organized by foreign countries would also be allowed alongside regular commercial flights. Officials said 37,000 tourists had signed up with their various embassies seeking to return home, although Peters said in an interview with radio station RNZ that the true number seeking to leave was about 100,000.

SOUTH AFRICA

Police remove migrants

Police wearing riot gear forced their way into the Central Methodist Church in central Cape Town on Thursday to remove hundreds of foreign migrants who had been sheltering there for months. The operation was to end a standoff between city authorities and the group of foreign nationals, who had previously demanded that the government relocate them to other countries, including the US and Canada, because they had been victims of xenophobic threats last year. Local media reported that police officers broke down the front and rear doors of the church in the historic Greenmarket Square to remove the migrants. They were led onto buses and driven away, reportedly to a temporary camp outside the city, where they are to remain for at least two weeks during the country’s lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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title: World News Quick Take


title: Taiwan models battling COVID-19

content_text:
The “Wuhan pneumonia” outbreak has become a pandemic, but many countries have yet to come to grips with the worsening severity of this medical crisis.

Historian Robert Peckham has studied how the ecology of deadly diseases has changed from the late 19th century until today and, in his 2016 book titled Epidemics in Modern Asia highlights the intrinsic link between global connectivity and emerging infections.

The frequency of outbreaks — from SARS in 2003 to swine flu in 2009 and today’s COVID-19 — and their rapid rate of transmission owe much to globalization. Better and cheaper transportation and communications technology have empowered international aviation, shipping and railroad networks, contributing to mobility — both people and commodities — and popularizing tourism.

Yet, the institutional drivers and mechanisms propelling globalization have made the world “flat” — to borrow from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman — and spread the pandemic in a short period.

In reaping the material benefits of globalization, people often overlook the invisible risk of emerging infections, which can spread across continents, affecting people in vulnerable conditions and destabilizing economies worldwide.

Many nations have invoked the vocabulary of war to characterize their struggle against the coronavirus, the archenemy of humankind. As the first epicenter of the pandemic, China mobilized all of its medical and bureaucratic resources to confront what President Xi Jinping (習近平) called a “people’s war” against COVID-19, echoing mass health movements and social programs of the Mao Zedong (毛澤東) era.

The mighty Chinese Communist Party state relied on its longstanding system of urban and rural neighborhood surveillance to restrict mobility. Local party cadres and police officers set up roadblocks on major roads and at public squares, guarding the entrances to government offices, medical facilities, schools and apartment buildings.

These officials continually checked temperatures, disinfected residences and stopped outsiders from entering their territory. This combination of top-down rigorous surveillance and community cooperation is thought by Beijing to have slowed down the spread of the coronavirus outside of Wuhan.

The rhetoric of combatting the coronavirus is not unique to China. Once a localized outbreak, this pandemic has invaded the rest of the world, with consequences that boggle the imagination.

The surge in confirmed infections and deaths has prompted countries in the Global North to implement similar tactics: suspending public gatherings, closing national borders and imposing lockdowns on billions of people.

With global connectivity and viral transmission reinforcing each other, the overlapping social, economic and political risks posed by the pandemic demand radical intervention by government officials, medical personnel and businesspeople at all levels.

Taiwan deserves credit for its bold, decisive and systematic efforts to handle the crisis. Even without being a WHO member, the nation, led by highly educated and competent policymakers who have faith in medical science and reason, has implemented aggressive crisis management. Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) is a respected epidemiologist, while his successor, vice president-elect William Lai (賴清德), specializes in public health and rehabilitative medicine.

The nation has employed communications networks driven by artificial intelligence to identify, isolate and monitor infected people and trace their contacts — a use of technology that serves the common good.

By adopting a case-by-case tracking system to test elderly people and those with chronic medical conditions, officials have carefully identified locals and visitors thought to have come into contact with COVID-19, and contained high-risk groups to slow down the virus’ spread.

The government has canceled public gatherings, implemented mandatory quarantines, and promoted the importance of personal hygiene through the media and public health education. Since early February, it has also enforced effective border controls, keeping travelers from China, Hong Kong, Macau and other hard-hit areas out of Taiwan.

Hong Kong and Macau might not have seen as many cases as Wuhan, but their international ports can serve as major conduits of viral infection. Since January, their borders have been open to countless high-risk travelers, including daily commuters who reside in China’s Shenzhen and Zhuhai, but cross into the territories for work.

Infected travelers who early on passed through the territories’ ports and airports allegedly increased the rate of transmission to the rest of the world.

At a time when many countries are still developing measures to cope with the pandemic, Taiwan has much to offer to the outside world. Its logical, comprehensive and balanced measures not only benefit its own population, but also serve as a model of disease prevention and control.

Joseph Tse-hei Lee is a history professor at Pace University in New York City.

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people: 賴清德 陳建仁 習近平


title: FEATURE: Mexican mayor seeks answers to husband’s killing

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After her husband was shot dead while running for mayor of Apaseo el Alto, Mexico, in 2018, Maria del Carmen Ortiz took over his campaign and, pushing through her grief, won the vote after becoming a symbol of residents’ hunger for justice.

A year and a half after taking office, Ortiz must now be accompanied by three police bodyguards wherever she goes, as her home state of Guanajuato has emerged as the most murderous in Mexico, caught in a battle between rival criminal cartels.

Three town officials have been killed during her tenure — her transit director, tax chief and a city councilor. Like her husband’s killing, none of their murders have been solved.

Apaseo el Alto Mayor Maria del Carmen Ortiz speaks during an interview with Reuters in Apaseo el Alto, Mexico, on Feb. 26.
 Photo: Reuters

Now Ortiz is using her position as mayor to call for thorough investigations by prosecutors of the killings and dozens more in the hilly town.

“They file the cases away,” Ortiz, 34, said in her office at the two-story municipal palace beside photographs of her late husband, Jose Remedios Aguirre, who was 35 when he died, and their three children. “They should do their job, but do it well, so there’s justice — for my husband, for my colleagues, for everyone.”

The streets of Apaseo el Alto, home to about 70,000 people, are narrow, yet bustling, lined with mom-and-pop businesses and foreign-exchange stores serving locals with family members who bring earnings back from the US.

The number of killings in the town jumped to 87 last year from 10 in 2015, Mexican government data showed.

Local records, kept at the fenced-in police station on the outskirts of town, paint an even grislier picture — 120 murders last year and none of them solved.

A security crisis inherited by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has worsened in many parts of the nation since he took office in December 2018, as he eased back on a war against the cartels and pledged instead to tackle what he calls the root causes of violence — corruption, poverty and lack of opportunities for young people.

On his watch, Mexico tallied a record of 34,582 murders last year, but experts say that the justice system is ill-equipped to solve them, feeding a vicious cycle of impunity and crime.

Ortiz backs Lopez Obrador’s policy. She decided to run for office after he endorsed her at a campaign rally in Apaseo el Alto, lifting her hand into the air. Onlookers applauded and broke into chants of “Justice. Justice.”

Yet Guanajuato opened a record 2,775 murder investigations last year, making it the bloodiest state in Mexico. A decade ago, the state — home to nearly 6 million people — had just 437 murders.

Security consultants say the jump in killings is tied to a battle between Guanajuato’s Santa Rosa de Lima gang and its bigger rival, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel from neighboring Jalisco state.

In Guanajuato, just 10.5 percent of homicides under investigation result in time in jail, a 2018 study by the University of the Americas Puebla showed.

For Mexico as a whole, the figure is little better at 17 percent.

Many blame the entrenched impunity on an overwhelmed justice system in which the police, prosecutors and judges lack the training to prosecute crimes successfully, and where corruption and political interests derail investigations.

Experts say that criminal groups target local officials to deter investigations into their activities.

They believe Santa Rosa is likely behind various political assassinations in the area, including in Apaseo el Alto.

However, Apaseo el Alto Minister of Public Security Jose Abraham Dominguez said that he had not identified any organized crime group in the municipality and that violence could be spilling over from gangs in neighboring states.

“Perhaps they come, they pass through, but we don’t have any criminal group here,” Dominguez said.

In the wake of the fragmentation of many criminal groups, the Jalisco cartel has made a push to claim swathes of territory throughout Mexico, driving up murder levels across the nation as other groups band together against it.

“They’re waging all-out war,” International Crisis Group senior analyst Falko Ernst said. “There are resources pouring in on both sides sustaining bloodshed for the foreseeable future.”

Guanajuato Commissioner of Security Sophia Huett said that 85 percent of homicides carried out in the state are tied to organized crime.

Fighting among criminal groups has worsened in the past year since Lopez Obrador’s administration cracked down on fuel theft from pipelines owned by state oil company Pemex, Huett said.

“Because there’s less product, the fight becomes bloodier, more violent,” she said.

Fuel theft was worth up to US$3 billion a year nationwide before government intervention and the revenues boosted Santa Rosa’s rise — and are coveted by the Jalisco, whose own rise built on drug trafficking.

With one-third of Pemex’s pipelines running through Guanajuato, the state has become a battleground for control of the illicit trade.

Jalisco can afford to quickly send in new recruits given its presence not only in its own state, but also other nearby states.

“They work as a franchise,” Huett said. “You have two people from the Jalisco cartel here one day, and the next day they send another two.”

As a newcomer in Guanajuato, the Jalisco cartel has struggled to match Santa Rosa’s homegrown roots, and the help it receives from local criminals and officials.

Instead, it must rely on firepower.

“They are going to fight inch by inch throughout the country, not through community support, but with violence and economic power,” said security consultant Juan Miguel Alcantara, who was deputy attorney general in former Mexican president Felipe Calderon’s administration.

A lack of resolve by the Mexican government has encouraged cartels in Guanajuato to act more brazenly due to a sense of impunity, Alcantara said.

At least twice last month, gunmen in a part of Guanajuato dominated by the Santa Rosa blocked highways with burning vehicles and shot at police, raising questions of whether the gang’s notoriously violent leader, Jose “El Marro” Yepez, was retaliating against authorities closing in on him and his family.

The incidents paralyzed parts of Guanajuato for hours, reminiscent of the Sinaloa cartel’s show of firepower when it sent gunmen to storm the northern city of Culiacan last year, forcing outnumbered security forces to free the son of Sinaloa capo Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who had been captured hours before.

Lopez Obrador said after the incident in Culiacan that it was more important to prevent mass civilian deaths.

“They saw that in Sinaloa it worked ... so they are trying the same thing here,” Alcantara said. “They know the same thing will happen — that the authorities are going to cave in.”

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title: Wimbledon boss worried ‘no more tennis this year’

content_text:
Wimbledon chief Richard Lewis on Thursday admitted that he feared the remainder of this year’s tennis season could be wiped out.

Tennis has been in lockdown since early last month and is not scheduled to return until July 13 at the earliest following the cancelation on Wednesday of Wimbledon for the first time since World War II.

The decision to axe the sport’s oldest and most prestigious Grand Slam due to the COVID-19 pandemic followed the French Open’s unilateral switch from its traditional May-to-June slot to September to October.

A security guard closes a gate at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London on Wednesday.
 Photo: EPA-EFE

The double body blow resulted in the entire clay-court and grass-court seasons being abandoned.

“I don’t think it’s unrealistic to say that there may be no more tennis this year,” All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club chief executive Lewis said. “But I would like to think that things will settle down so that tournaments can be played sooner rather than later. Who knows what will happen?”

Lewis told the Guardian that, despite his fears, he hoped that the season’s next Grand Slam, the US Open in August to September could take place.

“Let’s hope the US Open and Roland Garros [rescheduled to start in Paris a week after the final of the US Open in New York] can take place,” he added.

“The optimist in me — and I am often not optimistic — still hopes the American hard-court season, the big tournaments, the Masters and the Premiers, will take place: Montreal, Toronto and then Cincinnati,” he said. “But we all know that’s probably tenuous at the moment.”

Earlier on Thursday, Royal Spanish Tennis Federation president Miguel Diaz said that he hoped the sport could return to the courts “in the last quarter of the year.”

“I think that in the last quarter of the season we will be able to see tennis again, we don’t know if it will be with fans in attendance or without, but I think our sport will return to the courts,” Diaz said in a statement released by the federation.

In Spain, “we have had to suspend dozens of tournaments that were on the calendar” at all professional levels, he said.

Top-level tournaments such as the Madrid Open, a joint ATP and WTA event, and the Barcelona Open and Mallorca Open, both on the ATP Tour, have been scratched in the aftermath of the rescheduling of the French Open and the cancelation of Wimbledon.

It was “logical” that Wimbledon decided to cancel, Diaz said, but added: “I think that now tennis becomes secondary... What is needed is to heal.”

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title: Penghu residents argue over school plaque’s home

content_text:
By Liu Yu-ching and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer

A plaque from a now-defunct elementary school has sparked a dispute in Penhghu County between residents of Yuanbei Township (員貝) and a junior-high school in Magong City (馬公).

The plaque, originally from Yuanbei Elementary School, is on display at Wenguang Junior High School, but Yuanbei residents want it returned to the township.

Wenguang said the plaque was found in 2006 on a beach on Yuanbei Island by the school’s then-principal Yang Chi-ching (楊啟清), when visiting the island during a beach cleaning event.

A school plaque from the now-closed Yuanbei Elementary School in Penghu County is pictured on Monday in Wenguang Junior High School in the county’s Magong City.
 Photo: Liu Yu-ching, Taipei Times

Yang said at the time that the school hoped to pass on the spirit conveyed by the plaque to all of its attending students.

Its inscription reads: “To know etiquette, to be just, to remain principled and incorruptible, and to know right from wrong.”

However, Yuanbei residents dispute that narrative.

“It had been sitting in a school classroom since 1995, we don’t understand how it turned up on the beach in 2006,” Yuanbei Village Warden Chen Tian-jui (陳天瑞) said on Sunday.

Although Yuanbei Elementary School was decommissioned in 1995, it remains a fond memory for many Yuanbei residents and the village hoped to retain the plaque — something hundreds of Yuanbei school students remembered — as a memento of the school, Chen said.

Wenguang dean Yang Chyong-yi (仰瓊宜) said that the plaque has already become a part of Wenguang’s history and the school would not return it.

Founded in 1998, Wenguang is the youngest of the county’s schools and yet, it has two school plaques, etched with different mottos.

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content_text:
LPGA commissioner Mike Whan said that he is working on three scenarios for a possible return to competition, knowing that any firm timetable depends on global success in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whan, in comments to the No Laying Up podcast posted on the LPGA Web site on Thursday, said that it has been “a busy, stressful time” trying to juggle options for the first LPGA event since Feb. 16 in Australia.

“Just like any other tour you talk to, we’ve got three scenarios — a scenario that says we start playing in the next month, a scenario that says we don’t start playing until mid-July, a scenario that says we don’t start playing until mid-September,” Whan said.

LPGA commissioner Mike Whan speaks at the Rolex LPGA Players Awards at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, Florida, on Nov. 16, 2017.
 Photo: AFP

“Each one of those scenarios has a schedule with it. Each one of those schedules has economic repercussions that we have to deal with. Each one of those schedules have regulation adjustments and changes that we have to think through,” he added.

The next scheduled LPGA event is on May 14 to 17 at Belleair, Florida, with events set for the following weeks in Williamsburg, Virginia, and Galloway, New Jersey, ahead of the US Women’s Open on June 4 to 7 in Houston, Texas.

Mid-July offers the Great Lakes Bay Invitational, a pairs event on July 15 to 18 at Midland, Michigan, and no other events before four European stops in August.

The year’s first scheduled major LPGA event, the ANA Inspiration, was moved to Sept. 10 to 13, with October and early November set for events in Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan.

“I’m usually spending my time working on a season two or three years from now,” Whan said. “Now I’m working on the season two and three months from now.”

“To be spending virtually every minute of every day working with different sponsors and different tournaments — how to get them in a date [this year] that works, and we obviously have more events than dates — it has been a busy, stressful time,” he added.

After two January events in Florida and two February stops in Australia, Whan canceled events in Thailand, Singapore and China. Five more events planned for last year to early May are now listed as postponed.

“We were COVID before most of this side of the world had heard of COVID,” Whan said. “Late January, we started talking to our tournaments in Thailand, China and Singapore.”

“Back then, and it feels like three years ago now, we probably canceled those more out of what we didn’t know. There was this new virus. There were a lot of countries having different reactions to it. We were not sure how widespread it was going to be,” he said.

“If you jump forward to the last cancelations, that was definitely based on what we did know,” he added.

A major issue was going to be the possibility of 14 to 21 days in quarantine if anyone at an event tested positive, Whan said.

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title: Three scenarios for restart: LPGA head


title: Tokyo Games delay adds work, costs

content_text:
WAIT AND SEE:
 The estimated cost of postponement started at US$2 billion and has kept rising, but the IOC has yet to say whether it would help pay for the extra expenses

Postponing the Tokyo Olympics to next year would make the event more costly for all parties, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) acknowledged on Thursday, although it offered few details on what the final bill might be.

Four directors of the Olympic body held a conference call three days after Tokyo’s new dates were finalized, with the Games pushed back to July 23 to Aug. 8 next year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the new dates cleared up any uncertainty about the event’s future, there are still plenty of question marks as the committee begins to work with Tokyo organizers and the governing bodies of 33 sports in a huge task to amend thousands of contracts. They include agreements for 41 venues, an Olympic village of 5,000 apartments, hotels and transport, as well as the supply of goods and services.

A banner featuring the logo of the Tokyo Summer Olympics hangs on a wall in Tokyo on Thursday.
 Photo: EPA-EFE

“All of this now has to be resecured for one year later,” IOC Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi said. “There will be costs for [Tokyo local organizers] and the IOC and Olympic family side.”

The estimations for how much it will cost to postpone the Games have started at US$2 billion and gone much higher. Japanese taxpayers are expected to meet most of it, adding to their share of an official budget of US$12.6 billion.

The IOC was contributing US$1.3 billion to Tokyo’s original operating budget.

Asked if the Switzerland-based Olympic body would meet some of the extra costs from its own insurance policy or US$1 billion reserve fund, the official line on Thursday was that it was too early to say.

It was also unclear how the payments from broadcasters would be structured.

“We’re only just getting into all of this,” IOC managing director of TV and marketing Timo Lumme said.

Broadcasters including the US’ National Broadcasting Corp contributed 73 percent of the IOC’s US$5.7 billion income from the previous four-year cycle up to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Of that, US$540 went to the governing bodies of the 28 core Summer Games sports.

That figure is expected to go up for Tokyo, but it is still unclear when the governing bodies would get IOC payments from their share of those revenues.

The IOC has not committed to paying 25 percent of that money in advance this year to ease the governing bodies’ cash flow. Many face extra costs for Tokyo, while also having to cancel revenue-earning world championships and other international events.

“They’ll get to 2021, but in what condition?” Association of Summer Olympic International Federations president Francesco Ricci Bitti said this week.

He told reporters that “15 to 20 are very dependent on Olympics funding.”

One Tokyo Olympics decision could come within two weeks, IOC sports director Kit McConnell said.

The IOC would have talks with FIFA about raising the age limit in men’s soccer from 23 to 24 to account for the one-year delay.

Hundreds of potential Olympic athletes who get IOC funding for their training are getting one-year extensions to their scholarships.

The IOC has yet to reschedule its annual meeting that was set for Tokyo in July — or a presidential election that is scheduled for June next year in Athens, Greece. That is now just one month before the start of the Tokyo Games.

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people: 葉毓蘭 蔡英文

content_text:
Virus Outbreak: US agency thanks Taiwan for its provision of masks

The US National Security Council yesterday thanked Taiwan for its support amid the COVID-19 pandemic following President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) announcement that Taiwan would donate 10 million masks to hard-hit countries.

The donation includes 2 million masks to the US on top of the weekly 100,000 announced previously; 7 million to Europe; and 1 million to diplomatic allies, on top of 1 million Taiwan procured for allies from their neighboring countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday.

After European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed appreciation for the donations, the US body yesterday wrote its thanks on Twitter.

“We thank the people of Taiwan for their generous support and collaboration as we continue our fight against the coronavirus pandemic,” it said in a retweet of a Reuters report on the donations, adding the hashtag “FreeAndOpenIndoPacific.”

Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said that the Vatican, one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, was among the recipients.

Taiwan’s embassy in the Holy See would help distribute the masks to members of the clergy, including the Camillian order, with which Catholic Father Giuseppe Didone, who is based in Yilan County, is affiliated, Ou said.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yeh Yu-lan (葉毓蘭) on Thursday accused the government of using the masks for lavish diplomacy instead of helping people in urgent need.

Didone had previously asked Taiwan for help.

The nation thanks the Catholic Church and its clergy for their dedication and service in Taiwan, and the ministry will help deliver the medical supplies collected by domestic Catholic groups, Ou said, adding that lawmakers should understand the facts before commenting.

Separately, Palauan Representative to the UN Ngedikes Olai Uludong thanked Taiwan, saying that it is the only country that has helped Palau amid the pandemic.

“Palau has been asking the global community for help and NO one responded except Taiwan! Thank you so much. Friends indeed!” Uludong wrote on Twitter.

Palau, one of four countries in the South Pacific that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, has not recorded any COVID-19 cases to date, although an American who visited Palau early last month displayed symptoms when she arrived.

Physicians from Shin Kong Memorial Wu Ho-Su Hospital in Taipei used online video conferencing to instruct local doctors on how to take samples from the visitor, a 73-year-old health worker.

Her samples were sent to Taiwan to be tested, with the results coming back negative for COVID-19.

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content_text:
STARBUCKS’ RIVAL:
 The Chinese coffee chain is investigating reports that its chief operating officer and employees had fabricated about US$310 million in transactions

Luckin Coffee Inc (瑞幸咖啡), the fast-growing Chinese coffee chain, on Thursday plunged as much as 81 percent after the company said its board is investigating reports that senior executives and employees fabricated transactions.

The company’s announcement that chief operating officer Liu Jian (劉劍) and employees reporting to him engaged in misconduct casts doubt on the foundations of the Chinese coffee chain’s meteoric rise and its emergence as a key competitor to Starbucks Corp.

The chain is aiming to reach 10,000 locations by the end of next year — a goal that might now be unattainable.

People wearing masks wait at a Luckin Coffee Inc outlet in Shanghai, China, yesterday.
 Photo: Bloomberg

Thursday’s share decline erased what had been a 54 percent gain since the company went public last year.

Liu and others have been suspended and investors should not rely on previous financial statements for the nine months ended Sept. 30, the company said.

The transactions in question occurred last year and totaled about 2.2 billion yuan (US$310 million), according to the filing.

Keybanc Capital Markets analyst Eric Gonzalez said that earnings visibility might be limited “for the foreseeable future.”

“It will take several years for management to repair its credibility,” he said in a note to clients.

If true, the fabricated sales figure could represent a significant portion of the company’s total revenue. Luckin, which has only reported financial data for the second and third quarter of last year after its May public offering, was seen reporting 5.15 billion yuan of revenue for the full year, according to an average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

“Certain costs and expenses were also substantially inflated by fabricated transactions during this period,” Luckin said, adding that the special board committee investigating the matter has not independently verified the fabricated sales figure.

The coffee chain, founded in 2017, operated about 4,500 stores by the end of last year in China.

Chairman Lu Zhengyao (陸正耀) and CEO Qian Zhiya (錢治亞) have employed a strategy they used with CAR Inc — a vehicle rental business — more than a decade ago: burning money from investors to quickly grab market share from rivals. That strategy has been successful in winning over investors.

However, trouble emerged earlier this year. The shares plunged after Muddy Waters tweeted on Jan. 31 that it had a short on the stock after receiving what it called a “credible” unattributed 89-page report that alleged accounting issues with the chain and a broken business model. Luckin Coffee denied the allegations.

The Xiamen, China-based company raised US$778 million from a share sale and a convertible bond offering in early January, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The company also raised US$645 million in its US initial public offering.

Despite the allegations and mandatory closures related to the outbreak of coronavirus, analysts have largely remained optimistic about Luckin. Prior to Thursday’s disclosure, six had a buy recommendation on the stock, compared with one hold and zero sell recommendations.

In November last year, Luckin reported revenue that was six times the year-earlier total. The company, which has reported losses as it engages in a strategy that prioritizes rapid growth, said it was on track to start breaking even at the corporate level in the third quarter of this year.

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title: Luckin Coffee shares plummet on accounting probe


content_text:
POVERTY CONCERN:
 As nations on the continent impose lockdowns, officials said they were concerned about the millions of low-income people who may lose work

Some African countries will have more than 10,000 COVID-19 cases by the end of this month, health officials said on Thursday, as the continent least equipped to treat serious infections has an “enormous gap” in the number of ventilators and other critical items.

While cases across Africa rose above 6,000 at what has been called the dawn of the outbreak, the continent is “very, very close” to where Europe was after a 40-day period, Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director John Nkengasong told reporters.

The virus “is an existential threat to our continent,” Nkengasong said.

South African soldiers speak with a man during a search of an apartment block in Johannesburg on Thursday.
 Photo: AFP

All but four of Africa’s 54 countries have cases after Malawi on Thursday reported its first and local transmission has begun in many places.

Nkengasong said that authorities are “aggressively” looking into procuring equipment such as ventilators that most African countries desperately need, and local manufacturing and repurposing are being explored.

“We’ve seen a lot of goodwill expressed to supporting Africa from bilateral and multilateral partners,” but “we still have to see that translate into concrete action,” he said.

The WHO does not know how many ventilators are available across Africa to help those in respiratory distress, regional WHO director Matshidiso Moeti told reporters.

“We are trying to find out this information from country-based colleagues... What we can say without a doubt is there is an enormous gap,” Moeti said.

Some countries have only a few ventilators. Central African Republic has just three.

A small percentage of people who are infected will need ventilators and about 15 percent need intensive care, WHO official Zabulon Yoti said.

The health officials pleaded for global solidarity at a time when even some of the world’s richest countries are scrambling for basic medical needs, including masks.

“Countries like Cameroon just reached out yesterday, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, asking: ‘Look, we need tents because we’re running out of hospital beds already,’” Nkengasong said.

Even if equipment is obtained, getting them to countries is a growing challenge with Africa’s widespread travel restrictions, although countries have made exceptions for cargo or emergency humanitarian flights.

Simply gauging the number of cases in Africa is a challenge, even in South Africa, the most developed country on the continent, where authorities have acknowledged a testing backlog.

Other countries are affected by the widespread shortage of testing kits or swabs, although 43 countries in the WHO Africa sub-Saharan region now have testing capability, up from two in early February.

As more African countries impose lockdowns, the WHO and the African CDC expressed concern for the millions of low-income people who need to go out daily to earn their living.

That’s a “huge challenge,” Moeti said, adding that hundreds of thousands of children are now out of school as well.

It is too soon to tell how the lockdown in places like South Africa has affected the number of cases, she said.

The lockdowns are causing unease.

The first sub-Saharan African nation to impose a lockdown, Rwanda, has now extended it by two weeks, a sign of what might be to come for other nations. Botswana imposed its own, effective yesterday.

“Don’t lock down the whole country,” Nkengasong said. “Lock down cities or communities where there’s extensive community transmission so ... social harm is minimized, but if infection is spreading across the entire country, you have no choice.”

Health experts in Africa are rushing to understand whether factors such as Africa’s youthful population — about 70 percent of the continent’s people are under age 30 — will be a benefit in fighting off the virus and how the widespread problems of malnutrition, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria might affect people’s ability to fight off infection.

“Our greatest fear” is that programs tackling those perennial issues will be sapped by the current crisis, Nkengasong said. “The time to advocate for those programs is not when COVID is over. The time is now.”

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title: Virus Outbreak: Africa facing ‘existential’ virus threat


title: Driving age limits under review

content_text:
ADAPTING TO TRENDS:
 As the populace ages and as there is a shortage of drivers of large vehicles, the ministry said it would raise the age limit before the end of this year

Planned amendments to traffic and transportation laws would relax regulations on older drivers and push back age restrictions on tour bus drivers, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday.

An aging population and policies that raise the retirement age, along with driver shortage issues, all point to the need for raising the age limit for large vehicle drivers, the ministry said.

Amendments to Transportation Management Regulations (汽車運輸業管理規則) and the Road Traffic Security Rules (道路交通安全規則) would likely take place in the second half of this year, it said.

The age of large vehicle drivers cannot exceed 65, but there are 3,369 large vehicle drivers nationwide who are 64 years old, meaning that without changes, the driver shortage that bus companies and tour agencies are already experiencing would worsen, the ministry said.

The ministry said that due to the inherent risks associated with driving large vehicles there must be stringent physical exams, as well as other measures to protect passengers.

In its planned rule revision, qualified drivers older than 65 cannot have hypertension, and drivers who have been diagnosed with diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, coronary artery disease, epilepsy, stroke, vertigo or myasthenia gravis must provide proof that they can control those conditions, the ministry said.

Older drivers must be physically and mentally capable of handling day-to-day affairs and cannot be chronically intoxicated or addicted to substances, the ministry said, adding that all older drivers must undergo annual physicals and would not receive their license until they pass.

In addition, these drivers would be restricted to operating vehicles between 6am and 6pm, and can only drive a maximum of eight hours per day, stopping for 30 minutes every three hours, the ministry said.

If the rest periods must be broken up, every rest period should be at least 15 minutes, it added.

The drivers must have 10 hours of consecutive rest across two workdays and tour bus drivers can only drive locally and cannot drive cross-country routes.

Older drivers cannot drive further than one city or county in distance from their point of origin, the ministry said, citing as an example that drivers starting in Taipei can only drive to Keelung, Taoyuan or Yilan County, as they are technically crossing New Taipei City in the interim.

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: ADB warns global cost of virus could top US$4tn

The COVID-19 pandemic could cost the global economy US$4.1 trillion as it ravages the US, Europe and other major economies, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said yesterday.

The estimated impact is equivalent to nearly 5 percent of worldwide output based on a range of scenarios, but the lender said losses from “the worst pandemic in a century” could be higher.

“The estimated impact could be an underestimate, as additional channels such as ... possible social and financial crises, and long-term effects on health care and education are excluded from the analysis,” the ADB said.

The Manila-based bank said a shorter containment period could pare the losses to US$2 trillion.

The crisis has sent equity markets spinning as traders fret over the long-term impact on the world economy, though governments and central banks have stepped in to ease the pain, pledging more than US$5 trillion in stimulus and easing monetary policy.

Officially reported COVID-19 cases worldwide topped the 1 million mark on Thursday, with tens of thousands dead, while there are warnings the numbers would continue to balloon as the disease rapidly spreads.

With billions of people in lockdown and economies at a standstill, the ADB said Asia is forecast to grow 2.2 percent this year, its slowest pace since a 1.7 percent expansion during the Asian financial crisis in 1998.

“No one can say how widely the COVID-19 pandemic may spread, and containment may take longer than currently projected,” ADB chief economist Yasuyuki Sawada said.

“The possibility of severe financial turmoil and financial crises cannot be discounted,” he added.

The forecasts assume the coronavirus outbreak would be contained this year and a return to normality next year.

However, there is still the potential for additional outbreaks and the severity of the pandemic remains uncertain.

“Outcomes can be worse than forecast and growth may not recover as quickly,” the bank said.

Growth in China, the region’s largest economy, could slow to 2.3 percent this year from 6.1 percent last year, before bouncing back next year.

“The outbreak became a demand shock as people stayed home. It became a supply shock as companies suffered shortages of labor ... and of materials as supply chains faltered,” ADB said.

Close to 5 percent, or US$628 billion, of China’s GDP could be lost.

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Hong Kong criticizes RTHK over Taiwan question to WHO

The Hong Kong government on Thursday said that public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) breached its charter by asking the WHO about Taiwan’s membership, a move democracy advocates criticized as a new government effort to muzzle the press.

The Hong Kong Commerce and Economic Development Bureau said that RTHK’s interview with WHO official Bruce Aylward violated the principle that Taiwan belongs to “one China.”

A now-viral video of Aylward’s awkward exchange with the RTHK presenter put renewed focus on China’s efforts to prevent Taiwan from cooperating with the global health agency during the COVID-19 pandemic.

WHO official Bruce Aylward speaks at a news conference at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Feb. 25.
 Photo: AFP

“The secretary holds the view that the presentation in that episode of the aforesaid program has breached the one China principle and the purposes and mission of RTHK as a public service broadcaster as specified in the charter,” the bureau said, referring to Hong Kong Secretary of Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau (邱騰華). “It is common knowledge that the WHO membership is based on sovereign states. RTHK, as a government department and a public service broadcaster, should have proper understanding of the above without any deviation.”

An RTHK spokesperson said that the station had reviewed the program and found no violation of its charter.

Taiwan was referred to as “a place” in the episode and no stance was taken, the spokesperson said.

RTHK, which is government-funded, has come under scrutiny for its critical coverage and commentary about the administration of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥).

Hong Kong Police Commissioner Chris Tang (鄧炳強) last month said that he was filing a complaint against the station to the Hong Kong Communications Authority, saying that RTHK’s satirical show Headliner was misleading people about the work of his officers.

The latest commerce bureau statement prompted criticism from pro-democracy advocates, such as Hong Kong Legislator Claudia Mo (毛孟靜), who called it “political censorship.”

The bureau said that RTHK director of broadcasting Leung Ka-wing (梁家榮) “should be held responsible” for the broadcaster’s actions, without elaborating.

“The secretary has once again urged the director of broadcasting and RTHK to fully abide by the charter, and that they must handle all programs in a professional and vigilant manner as required of them,” the bureau said.

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people: 郝龍斌 林洋港 連戰 李登輝

content_text:
Former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) — who died on Monday at the age of 100 — always gave people the impression of being a “military strongman.” When his son Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) was elected Taipei mayor at the end of 2006, he excitedly told his father, who had served as the chief of the general staff: “Chief, I just took the hill.”

Apart from his public image as a military leader, it seems that he was also chief of staff at home.

Born in 1919, Hau spent most of his life in the military. Upon graduating from the Republic of China Military Academy, better known as the Whampoa Military Academy, he began his military career as an artillery officer in 1937 and retired as a four-star general.

After a military career spanning 53 years, he hung up his uniform and put on his suit, turning from an officer into a civilian. In 1990, he was appointed premier.

He had held a commander’s role for many years, and had served as a top military and political aide to then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), which is perhaps why he always acted sternly and resolutely.

Hau served as commander-in-chief of the army for three-and-a-half years before serving as chief of the general staff for eight years. Serving as a military leader for nearly 12 years gave him great decisionmaking power in the armed forces during the latter part of Chiang’s presidency.

Due to differences in their viewpoints on military and political issues, Hau and Chiang’s successor, Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), turned from close friends to mortal enemies, with their factions haunting the internal workings of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

In 1993, Hau tendered his resignation as premier under internal pressure from Lee and external pressure from the opposition camp.

With his connections inside the party, he was elected one of the KMT’s vice chairmen at the national party congress in the same year, alongside then-vice president Lee Yuan-tsu (李元簇), Judicial Yuan president Lin Yang-kang (林洋港) and Lien Chan (連戰), Hau’s replacement as premier.

Taiwan’s first direct presidential election in 1996 was a turning point, as Hau drew a clear line between the KMT and himself. Serving as Lin’s running mate, he ran against the Lee-Lien ticket nominated by the party. However, Hau only received 1.6 million votes, the second-lowest of all four tickets in the race.

When the KMT lost power in the 2000 presidential election, many inside the party called for the return of the expelled political heavyweights.

In February 2005, the party reinstated Hau’s membership and appointed him chairman of the presidium of the KMT Central Review Committee.

During his prime, Hau made his name on the battlefield and enjoyed great military power. In his later years, he joined the battles of the political world.

A prominent figure in Taiwan during all those years, he faded out of the spotlight to live in deep seclusion. Looking back at his military career and political life, it is just as his son once recounted: Hau lived a splendid life without any regrets.

Lo Tien-pin is a journalist for the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times).

Translated by Eddy Chang

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title: ‘Chief’ Hau Pei-tsun takes his final hill


title: Shadows at Yangmingshan

content_text:
On the 45th anniversary of his death, Chiang Kai-shek’s footprints can be found all over Taipei’s national park

Nowhere are the effects of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) postwar Sinification campaign more visible than in the toponymic revisions that the regime undertook after assuming power.

Taipei’s streets were renamed after Chinese cities or quintessentially Chinese values, and with the kind of self-aggrandizing flourish to which the party was partial, the process even referenced itself, Guangfu (光復) — which translates as “retrocession” — becoming a mainstay of urban nomenclature. Above all, the KMT’s top brass was memorialized: the given names of Sun Yat-sen (孫中山) and Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正) — Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) — were conferred on locations islandwide.

Name changes extended beyond the cityscape, as the KMT sought to exert nominal mastery by replacing age-old designations with signifiers designed to invoke a glorious, supposedly shared, past.

Rechristened to commemorate Master Yangming, the soubriquet of Chiang’s favorite Ming Dynasty scholar Wang Shou-ren (王守仁), Taiwan’s northernmost national park is one example. Yangmingshan (陽明山) was known as Grass Mountain (草山) during the Qing Dynasty in reference to the silvergrass on its higher reaches. Toward the end of the Japanese era, it attained national park status as Daitonshan, a Nipponizaton of Datun (大屯), a volcanic mountain range within the reserve. Adding his name to one of the park’s peak’s (Zhongzhengshan, 中正山) for good measure, Chiang also left his mark in more tangible ways: Yangmingshan is dotted with monuments to the KMT’s efforts to transpose its muddled history to Taiwan.

Repetition is among the most basic but effective propaganda techniques. Having transformed the Taihoku City Public Auditorium into Zhongshan Hall in Zhongzheng District (中正), Chiang commissioned a Zhongshan building at Yangmingshan in 1965 for the centenary of Sun Yat-sen’s birth. It is touted as unique for its location atop a sulfurous fumarole. Part of the structure comprised scrap metal from rust-resistant warships.

LEGITIMIZING THE REGIME

When she caught Chiang’s attention in the early 1960s, architect Hsiu Tse-lan (修澤蘭) already had 150 (mainly school) buildings to her name. Prominent examples include Xindian’s dilapidated New Garden City and Sun Moon Lake Teacher’s Hostel, but it was Hsiu’s melding of classical Chinese motifs with Western modernism that impressed.

There is scant evidence of the latter in the Zhongshan Building’s palatial style. In fine weather, the glazed green tiles of the multi-tiered tower shimmer, the crowning layer resembling the varnished sedge hat of a paddy farmer toiling in the afternoon sun. With their upturned corners, the elongated eaves evoke an eagle’s outstretched wings. Inside, intricately chiseled palace lanterns dangle between ornate ceiling beams, marble balustrades topped with peach-shaped finials — symbolizing immortality — line the stairways.

Amid this ostentation, lurks staid utility. In interviews, Hsiu professed herself an adherent of Frank Lloyd-Wright’s principle that “form and function are one,” and this is evident in the building’s most important space, the Chinese Culture Hall. Bunched into tightly packed blocks, row-upon-row of plain brown seating extends the length of this capacious room. The lines, which taper with the incline of the mountain against which the building stands, provided an identical view of the stage at the front for their occupants — members of a singularly strange legislature.

Under the new Constitution of the Republic of China, elections for the first National Assembly had taken place in 1947, the body meeting in Nanjing the following year. Unable to abandon a vestige of its rule seen as legitimizing the claim to represent China, the KMT reconvened the assembly from 1954. Declaring that new elections could not be held until the “Mainland” was recaptured, the party handed lifelong positions to the 1,000-odd delegates who had made it to Taiwan. They drew handsome annual salaries (US$43,000 by the time of their disbandment), despite meeting only once every six years, and per diem bonuses while the assembly was sitting.

As they essentially propped up the system that enabled their existence, it took protests over their “re-election” to a second “term” in 1991 to force these relics into retirement. By 2000, the assembly had been stripped of functions, before being officially scrapped in 2005. The Zhongshan Building was opened to the public that year. Visitors from across the Strait are intrigued to learn of the parallel government in absentia that once held forth at the venue; despite the building’s familiar appearance — thanks to its prominence on the reverse of the NT$100-bill — younger Taiwanese generally know neither its name nor the details of the political absurdity it once hosted.

HEROES AND CRONIES

Fifteen minutes’ walk west, Grass Mountain Chateau (蔣公草山行館) is one of two retreats that Chiang maintained at Yangmingshan. Built by the Japanese as a guest house for employees of the Taiwan Sugar Company in 1920, it was restored after a fire in 2007. Contrasting with the rough-hewn granite of its portico and facades, the delicate wooden interior comprises a series of rooms divided by a Zen-type courtyard garden.

Chiang’s wife Soong Mei-ling (宋美齡) was a dilettante watercolorist who took classes from legendary painter Chang Dai-chien (張大千), and it’s easy to see why she was taken with this location: the front yard and restaurant balcony afford a magnificent panoramic of the Guandu Plains, Shezi Island and beyond. Copies of Madam Chiang’s efforts can be seen in a studio toward the rear of the building.

The main rooms all have allegorical names. Chiang’s bedroom is Cuiying Tang (萃英堂), literally the “hall of gathered heroes,” though the English translation “cronies” found on one placard is unwittingly perhaps more appropriate. This sign is outside Jieshou (介壽) Hall, a living room at the far end of the residence. The name of this room combines the first character from Chiang’s given name with the logogram for longevity — an auspicious motif in Chinese art and architecture, found throughout the Yangmingshan buildings.

Among the items displayed here is Chiang’s wedding suit, provided by Tom Tailor, a century-old outfitter that started in Shanghai and still maintains a store on Taipei’s Boai Street. A photo of a doddery-looking dictator playing Chinese chess (象棋) with this grandsons appears alongside another of him jovially glass-clinking with US Ambassador Alan G. Kirk. This conviviality was contrived: the relationship was icy, and Chiang snubbed Kirk for much of his 7-month tenure.

PIETY AND ARROGANCE / TRUE COLORS

A nameless compartment next to Jieshou is perhaps most revealing. Here, on a rickety lectern under a window, a Bible is open at Psalm 94. A vengeful God is beseeched to punish arrogant evildoers and “repay the proud what they deserve.” Inches from the left-hand corner of the good book is a postcard of Chiang’s June 1942 appearance on the cover of Time, one of 10 he made (two with different wives) courtesy of a decades-long hagiographic campaign by his most dedicated champion and benefactor, the magazine’s owner Henry Luce. In this portrait, a half-smile parts Chiang’s lips, as he angles his bright-eyed gaze into the unknown with an exemplary faraway look.

It is all a sham. This room was originally Mei-ling’s bathroom; its current state is little more than a contradictory attempt to cast Chiang as an austere man of God.

Similar efforts to literally paint a different picture are evident at Yangming Shuwu (陽明書屋), formerly known as Zhongxing Guesthouse (中興賓館). The current name refers to the building’s conversion after Chiang’s death to a repository for the KMT’s archives. While Chiang’s personal correspondence from the Northern Expedition period (1926-1928) was moved to Academia Sinica, and is available online, other material was of the type that Taiwan’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is still struggling to make public.

As for Zhongxing, which means “restoration” and alludes to the legendary Xia (夏) Dynasty — this again referred to “reunification” with Taiwan. It is also the name of the village in Nantou County that, until 2018, was the official seat of government of Taiwan Province — another KMT device to maintain the illusion of representing China. (One of Hsiu Tse-lan’s most aesthetically compelling designs can be found there — the former Shing Sheng News building, which is now a cafe, located at the children’s park.) Despite these grand pretensions, the atmosphere at this, the largest of the presidential residences in Taiwan, is anything but triumphal.

DEFENSIVE CAPABILITIES

With its stark central watchtower, hidey-hole pillboxes and network of tunnels, the complex resembles a fortress. A pack of German shepherds once prowled the perimeter, occasionally slipping out to swipe chickens from nearby smallholdings. Tour guides say the farmers weren’t fussed, supposedly making a mark-up on the ill-fated poultry. It’s more likely they just cut their losses.

Even the garden seems peculiarly symbolic: a cluster of five azalea bushes planted to symbolize the Generalissimo’s five stars has long since wilted away, and an endemic species of myrtle tree, known locally as “monkey can’t climb (猴不爬),” because of its slippery bark adds to the air of impregnability.

Meanwhile, the location of the guesthouse at the bend of a steep stretch of road reinforces the notion that this was as much a last-ditch redoubt as the “resort” described in the information pamphlet. Architect Huang Bao-yu (黃寶瑜), who realized the project between 1969 and 1970, also designed the National Palace Museum. Poles apart in appearance, the landmarks served comparable functions: protecting Chinese antiques.

Most rooms are fitted with multiple exits and, as at Zhongshan, the desks in the studies and reception rooms are positioned kitty-corner from the entrance, providing the optimal view of visitors or potential intruders. In the case of the former, a subordinate’s comportment on entrance could make or break his career. As for would-be assassins: the great leader had been paranoid since the Xian Incident of 1937, when he had been kidnapped by one of his generals, Chang Hsueh-liang (張學良), the ruler of Manchuria. (The villa where Chang was held under house arrest for decades is a 20-minute ride back down the mountain in the foothills of Yangmingshan.)

DISTORTED HISTORY

By the time he occupied Yangming Shuwu, Chiang was frail, incontinent and afflicted with dementia. He bore scant resemblance to the steel-willed Generalissimo who had ruthlessly cut down all opposition. Following a heart attack months before his death, a helipad near the plum garden became redundant when Chiang was no longer able to fly.

Yet, a series of oil paintings attempts to recapture the image of an omniscient ruler. Greeting visitors in the main hall is a huge portrait of Chiang dressed in black, wraparound cape. There is a whiff of the Gothic here, Chiang’s eyes following the viewer around the room.

In the East Parlor, where foreign dignitaries were received, is a painting of Chiang flanking Sun Yat-sen on the deck of the SS Yongfeng (永豐) gunboat. This scene depicts a famous incident from June 1922 when Chiang rushed to his mentor’s side, following a rebellion by Sun’s one-time ally Chen Chiung-ming (陳炯明).

Here, Chiang is portrayed as China’s savior — a player in the pivotal moments of the country’s early revolutionary period. (In another example of twisted history, Chen, a federalist who criticized the KMT’s one-party rule, was branded a traitor in textbooks in Taiwan.) Finally, in an adjoining study, a softer side is displayed, as Chiang stands behind his seated mother, a model of filial piety.

On a cabinet, in the corner of this room, Chiang’s genealogical record resides in a small wooden chest. It bears the name Zhoutai (周泰), his officially registered given name — one of five he used during his life.

Like so much about him, these were facades: Kai-shek, the Cantonese version of his pen name Chieh-shih (介石), and the aforementioned Zhongcheng, chosen for its similarity to Sun’s (also acquired) name Zhongshan were the best known. With its suggestion of “upstanding” virtue, this latter remains ubiquitous in Taiwan.

It is a reminder of the hypocrisy of a man who was determined to project a legacy of moral rectitude on a people who were never allowed to question it. In keeping with the views of Confucius, who Chiang revered, it also emphasizes how names can be wielded as tools for distorting reality.

taiwan-subdivisions: 光復 中山 中正


title: Himax posts better margins, profit

content_text:
Himax Technologies Inc (奇景光電), a fabless supplier of driver ICs for displays and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors, yesterday reported stronger-than-expected gross margins and net profit for last quarter.

The NASDAQ-listed company reported earnings per American depositary share of US$0.019, beating its February forecast of a loss of US$0.005 to US$0.018, it said in a statement.

That is the second straight quarter that Himax posted a profit.

Gross margin climbed 2.1 percentage points — better than its forecast of 1 to 2 percentage points — to 22.7 percent last quarter, from 20.6 percent in the fourth quarter last year, the statement showed.

“The company has decided to publish financial results for the January-to-March quarter immediately after it concluded due to the current volatility across global markets as COVID-19 continues to spread,” Himax chief executive Jordan Wu (吳炳昌) said in the statement.

“Himax will continue to work closely with clients and suppliers to lower the pressure that the pandemic might exert on the company’s performance,” Wu said, adding that it has taken strict precautionary measures to ensure the health and safety of employees and business partners.

The company is to publish its complete financial statements and business outlook next month.

First-quarter revenue increased 5.5 percent sequentially to US$184.6 million, in line with its forecast of an increase of 1 to 10 percent.

That was also a better-than-expected seasonal performance, as revenue usually declines by 10 percent during the off-season, it said.

Himax in February said that first-quarter revenue from small-sized display driver ICs for mobile phones and vehicles would grow between 10 and 20 percent sequentially due to market share gains.

That was despite some downward adjustments from customers, mainly from certain China-based clients making small-sized display drivers and CMOS image sensors as they were still scrambling to restore operations, the company said.

Small-sized display driver ICs for smartphones and automobile displays accounted for 45 percent of the company’s total revenue last year.

Additional reporting by Lisa Wang

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content_text:
A: I’m getting bored of eating instant noodles.

B: Me too. Let’s order a food delivery to ring the changes. I could murder a steak and fries with bearnaise sauce.

A: I was just dreaming about a big bowl of braised pork belly rice with a stewed egg and pickles.

B: Wait a minute, isn’t there a danger that we could infect the delivery person?

A: 我開始厭倦吃泡麵了。

B: 我也是。我們來點外送，換換花樣吧。我現在可以嗑掉一整塊淋上伯那西醬的牛排跟薯條。

A: 我剛剛才在幻想面前有一大碗滷肉飯，配滷蛋跟醃醬菜。

B: 等一下，我們會不會有感染送貨員的危險啊？

English 英文:

Chinese 中文:

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title: EVERYDAY ENGLISH


title: Algeria using COVID-19 to ‘settle scores’: watchdog

content_text:
Reporters Without Borders has accused the Algerian government of taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to “settle scores” with independent journalists, including those covering long-running anti-government protests.

In a statement signed with Algerian non-governmental organizations, the watchdog on Thursday called for the immediate release of its correspondent, Khaled Drareni, who has been in pretrial detention since Sunday after being charged with inciting an unarmed gathering and endangering national unity.

Drareni has been arrested several times for covering the “Hirak” anti-government protests held in the capital, Algiers, every Friday since February last year.

Imprisoning people during a pandemic is “an act of physical endangerment,” Reporters Without Borders said, adding that the government was “taking advantage of the coronavirus epidemic to settle scores with independent journalism.”

The statement also called for the immediate release of journalists Belkacem Djir and Sofiane Merakchi.

Merakchi, a correspondent for Lebanese TV channel al-Mayadeen, has been in jail since Sept. 26 last year and is accused of “concealing equipment,” and providing images of the protests to al-Jazeera and other foreign media.

The reasons for Djir’s imprisonment are unknown.

Last month, Algerian Minister of Justice Belkacem Zeghmati said that Djir and Merakchi were both being prosecuted for “common law acts,” without giving details.

On Wednesday, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune pardoned 5,037 prisoners, but the amnesty was not extended to the dozens of supporters of the anti-government protest movement.

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content_text: Comments will be moderated. Keep comments relevant to the article. Remarks containing abusive and obscene language, personal attacks of any kind or promotion will be removed and the user banned. Final decision will be at the discretion of the Taipei Times.

title: EDITORIAL CARTOON


content_text:
EARLY DETECTION KEY:
 A doctor said that a common lung cancer often shows no symptoms in the early stages and recommends that smokers be checked for it

A woman in her 50s who does not smoke was diagnosed with lung cancer after inhaling secondhand smoke from her husband and son, a doctor said on Thursday, urging people to be mindful of the dangers of secondhand smoke.

Asia University Hospital doctor Liu Po-yi (劉柏毅) said a woman, surnamed Lee (李), was diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma after she sought treatment following two weeks of excessive coughing.

For more than 30 years, cancer has been the leading cause of death in Taiwan, with lung cancer claiming the most lives over the past decade, Liu said, citing data from the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

A man lights a cigarette on in Pingtung County on Feb. 29.
Warning: Smoking can damage your health.
 Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times

Clinical statistics show that people with lung adenocarcinoma are predominantly non-smokers, and the average age of patients is decreasing, Liu added.

Early stages of lung adenocarcinoma show no obvious signs and symptoms, and when they exhibit symptoms — such as continuous coughing, coughing up blood, chest tightness or pain, difficulty breathing or swallowing, weight loss, and extreme fatigue — it is usually at the third or fourth stage and might already be untreatable by surgery, Liu said.

However, thanks to medical advances, low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) has become an effective tool in identifying early lung adenocarcinoma, as it can detect slight pulmonary abnormities, which if found early can be cured through minimally invasive surgery, he said.

Compared with conventional computed tomography scans, LDCT scans for lung cancer use six, or even 10 times less radiation, depending on the size of the patient, and no contrast medium is required, making it an ideal option for patients with kidney problems, he said.

People aged 55 or older, with a smoking history of 10 years, and who smoke a packet of cigarettes per day must be on high alert for lung cancer, he said, adding that Lee’s husband and son, who used to smoke heavily, have since quit.

People who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, frequent exposure to secondhand smoke or poor air quality, or are exposed to occupational hazards, such as working in a mine, are advised to have an LDCT scan every one or two years to detect lung cancer, he added.

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title: Doctor warns of smoking dangers


title: Police investigate body found near Kaohsiung MRT

content_text:
Police in Kaohsiung are investigating a possible murder after a woman’s body was found in a plastic container on Thursday.

The bucket was found by a person operating an excavator on a construction site at a private lot next to the Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station (橋頭糖廠站) on the Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit system.

Police investigator Chen Jen-cheng (陳仁正) yesterday said police had reviewed missing person reports and have narrowed the identity of the victim down to about 20 possible people.

Physical evidence suggested she might have been a Fongshan District (鳳山) woman surnamed Lin (林), who was about 60 years old when she went missing in 2014, Chen said.

An autopsy of the partially decomposed body showed broken bones in the neck area, which police believe to be the cause of death and has led them to suspect she was murdered, Chen said.

As the body was stuffed into the container and presumably carried to the site, police said that they suspect at least two people were involved.

In a separate matter, a man was found dead in a rural area of Miaoli County’s Houlong District (後龍) yesterday, police said, adding that he was apparently electrocuted by a power line.

The man, identified as a 44-year-old surnamed Lu (呂), was killed the day before when he allegedly tried to steal the metal wire to sell, Miaoli police said.

They said they found tools he might have used to remove the wire nearby, including a ladder latched on a power pole, as well as wire cutters, a hammer and metal chains for scaling the pole.

Lu’s hands had electrocution marks and his skull was broken, likely from landing on his head after falling, police said.

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taiwan-subdivisions: 橋頭 鳳山 後龍