KHARTOUM/WASHINGTON — Sudanese women’s rights activists and religious freedom organizations are embracing Sudan’s move to criminalize female genital mutilation (FGM).Late last week, Sudan’s transitional government approved a draft law that criminalizes the act of carrying out FGM on any woman or girl, making it punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine.According to the United Nations, nine out of 10 females in Sudan between the ages of 15 and 49 have undergone some form of FGM, which can lead to a number of physical and psychological problems.The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom welcomed the move.“Female genital mutilation is a dehumanizing form of sexual violence that is deeply rooted in religion, tradition and culture. Outlawing FGM is an important step to protect the health and dignity of Sudanese women and girls,” said USCIRF Commissioner Anurima Bhargava.The commission also urged Sudan’s government to raise public awareness of the law and to educate people about the negative impacts of FGM. The law is expected to be passed next week.Other forms of violenceWafa Adam Mahmood, who works at an NGO in Khartoum called Siha, a women’s rights group, also welcomed the move, but said Sudanese females continue to face other forms of violence at home and in their communities.”It is important to think about forced marriage, which is more serious and also a protection issue for women and girls in Sudan,” Mahmood told South Sudan in Focus.Sudanese activist Mahasin Dahab said the transitional government needs to change 30 years of oppressive laws that do not protect women.“It is extremely sad to know that there is no law on domestic violence, there is only the criminal law. And that is not just,” Dahab told South Sudan in Focus. “For a random stranger to actually stab you and beat you … that is the one I can go and sue with that law, but what about my family that actually abuses me?”Dahab added that many Sudanese women do not know their rights.“We only have the law and we don’t have a conversation going on. We don’t see anything about it on TV, on local news, we don’t [hear] it on radios. It is extremely sad,” Dahab told VOA.The U.N. children’s fund, UNICEF, issued a statement embracing the criminalization of FGM but said passing a law will not solve the problem.Abdullah Fadil, the UNICEF country representative for Sudan, said in the statement, “We need to work very hard with the communities to help enforce this law.”Manal Al Jazuli, who heads a coalition of women’s groups called the Sudanese National Women’s Union, called the draft legislation historic.“This came out as a result of a long-standing struggle by feminist movements, initiatives, by women activists and by women inside their political parties,” Jazuli told South Sudan in Focus.
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Month: May 2020
Experts Split on Impact of Germany’s Hezbollah Ban
Germany’s recent decision to ban the political activities of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has sparked a debate among experts, with some believing the move was necessary while others arguing it would have little impact on Hezbollah’s terrorist activities.German authorities last week declared the Iranian-backed group a “Shiite terrorist organization,” outlawing its activity on German soil. Police also carried out raids on mosques and community centers with suspected links to the extremist group in different parts of Germany.“Germany’s designation is a recognition of Hezbollah’s unitary nature – that it has no separate military or political wings as the EU declared in its 2013 designation,” said Josh Lipowsky, a senior researcher at the Washington-based Counter Extremism Project (CEP).The European Union considers Hezbollah’s military wing a terrorist organization, while allowing its political wing to operate in the bloc’s countries. The Netherlands and Germany are the only EU members that recognize Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization. The U.K. dropped the distinction last year, but it is no longer part of the EU.In 1997, Hezbollah was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.Previous actionsExperts said the decision came after a series of actions taken by German authorities in the past few years against the Shiite group.“The first real action that the German government took was in 2008 when it banned Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV station [from] broadcasting in Germany,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, a terrorism expert based in Berlin.“In 2014, they banned an alleged charity that was actually a front for the Martyrs Organization of Hezbollah in Germany [but it] was an orphan kids project in Lebanon. … It was organization which had a charitable status in Germany but was connected to financing the families of killed Hezbollah fighters rather than supporting actual orphans in Lebanon,” he told VOA.In 2015, Germany’s Supreme Court ruled that Hezbollah was an organization that disrupted global peace.Last December, Germany’s parliament called on the government to declare Hezbollah in its entirety a terrorist organization, but the government rejected the proposal at the time.The new banThe recent German move effectively outlaws public support for Hezbollah on German soil. Supporters of the group are no longer allowed to express support for it.According to German law, an organization that has no formal branch in Germany can’t be outlawed as such. But the new government measure against Hezbollah’s activities has the same legal consequences.“What can be done for organizations that are not German, like Hezbollah or other organizations, is that they can get banned from having any kind of activities directly or indirectly in Germany. That’s the maximum of what can be done against a foreign organization,” analyst Schindler said.But recognizing the entire structure of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization is also significant to cutting off support for its activities around the world, other experts argue.“Hezbollah receives monetary contributions from Lebanese expatriates, from criminal activities such as the drug trade and counterfeiting,” said Lipowsky of CEP.He told VOA that “this sort of legislation will help to crack down on these types of activities, particularly when it comes to fundraising within community organizations such as the Islamic centers in Germany where we saw a Hezbollah presence, targeting Lebanese expatriates.”US pressure?U.S. officials have lauded Germany for the move against Hezbollah.“We commend Germany for banning Hizballah in its entirety as a terrorist organization and for taking strong action against suspected Hizballah supporters,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement last week.“Obstructing this terrorist organization’s ability to plot terrorist attacks and to raise money will further reduce Iran’s malign behavior and influence,” Pompeo added.Some experts argue that the German decision to ban Hezbollah came partially because of pressure from the U.S. government against Iran, Hezbollah’s main benefactor.“I think for the U.S., it’s a declared goal to isolate Iran with their ‘maximum pressure’ campaign,” said René Wildangel, a Berlin-based policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). “They left nuclear agreement. They are increasing their pressure on Iran and they are trying to build a coalition.”Wildangel told VOA that the other side of the story is that there is “genuine concern about activity, not necessarily of Hezbollah, but of organizations or people that might be connected to the military wing. There is genuine concern about the incidents of anti-Semitism that we’ve seen in past terrorist activities.”Israeli involvementIsraeli media reported that the country’s intelligence agencies provided their German counterparts crucial information on Hezbollah’s activities in Germany.“This decision, which is a dramatic departure from Berlin’s previous policy, was made based on intel from [the Israeli intelligence agency] Mossad to Germany’s intelligence service BND that some Hezbollah affiliates were stashing big volumes of ammonium nitrate, a material used to make explosives, in various warehouses in the south of Germany,” said Meir Javedanfar, a Middle East expert at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.Israel considers Hezbollah a major threat to its security. Since the start of Syria’s war in 2011, Israel has frequently carried out attacks against Hezbollah targets in Syria.But analyst Javedanfar believes the labeling of Hezbollah by Germany would have little effect on the group and “wouldn’t change its agenda, its purpose or its functionality.”“The only way this might impact Hezbollah’s activities would be in connection with its functionality within Lebanon’s government and its recent loan request from the IMF,” he said.The Lebanese government, largely controlled by Hezbollah, recently requested assistance from the International Monetary Fund to help fix the country’s crippling economic crisis.“If this designation distresses the IMF rescue deal, then the group would face some dire shortcomings and Tehran’s support for the group would be at much higher stakes. Tehran has to foot a higher bill for its enormous support,” Javedanfar told VOA.The Iranian government has condemned Germany for its recent decision against Hezbollah, accusing Berlin of giving in to the U.S. and Israel.Hadi Borhani, a Tehran-based analyst, said this labeling carries no importance or impact on Iran and its Lebanese ally.“The designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group at this time is just a hollow and baseless move with zero significance or weight,” he said.
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Trump Vetoes Congressional Measure Limiting His Iran War Powers
President Donald Trump on Wednesday vetoed a congressional resolution seeking to limit his war powers in Iran.
In a statement, Trump said he had issued the veto because he found the resolution “very insulting” as well as based on “misunderstandings of facts and law.”
Congress gave final approval for the rare bipartisan rebuke to the president in March. It came in response to fears among both Trump’s Republicans and Democrats that the White House was stumbling into war with Iran.
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Retail Giant Amazon Under Fire on Several Fronts
A worker at Amazon’s Staten Island fulfillment center in New York has died of COVID-19, the company confirmed. The unidentified worker reportedly received a positive test result on April 11 and had been quarantined.The worker’s family notified Amazon of the death on Monday.”We are deeply saddened by the loss of an associate at our site in Staten Island, NY. His family and loved ones are in our thoughts, and we are supporting his fellow colleagues,” Amazon spokesperson Lisa Levandowski said in a statement.The death comes amid protests by the company’s workers concerning workplace safety. At least three employees at different warehouses across the U.S. have been fired since April. One worker, Christian Smalls, who led a protest against Amazon in March, worked at the Staten Island facility. Last week, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during his news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, Sept. 19, 2019.According to the USTR, U.S. businesses have complained that consumers cannot easily distinguish the sellers for products being sold on Amazon’s overseas websites. In addition, it was reported the process to remove platforms selling counterfeit products was “lengthy and burdensome.” Amazon has called its inclusion on USTR’s blacklist a “personal vendetta” and a “purely political act” by the Trump administration. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has asked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to testify before Congress to respond to accusations the company abuses its online retail power, mistreats warehouse workers and hurts small businesses. While other big tech company CEOs have appeared before Congress, Bezos has not. The committee has threatened him with a subpoena if he does not appear.
“Although we expect that you will testify on a voluntary basis, we reserve the right to report compulsory process if necessary,” the committee’s letter to Bezos stated.
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In Russia, Critics say Return to Totalitarianism is an Easy Step
In the battle against COVID-19, Russia – like other nations – adopted new measures to reduce and control the movement of citizens. The measures, unimaginable just a few months ago, pose a challenge for those who defend individual liberties. In a report narrated by Jon Spier, Ricardo Marquina in Moscow looks at how some fear the coronavirus measures could signal an easy regression in a society that for generations was conditioned to live under surveillance and total state control.
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In China, Even Simple Online Campaign for COVID-19 Dead Is Target for Censorship
Wuhan resident Zhang Hai posted an announcement on a Chinese social media platform this week asking for donations to build a monument that would have the names and photos of all the coronavirus victims in China.He chose the day to announce the memorial, May 4, because it is an important historic day for many Chinese people. The May Fourth Movement, widely known as the “new culture movement,” marked the political awakening of China’s youth, and movement towards a pro-democratic China back in 1919. Freedom of speech was among one of the key demands by the protesters then.Zhang, who lost his father to the coronavirus that surfaced in Wuhan, said that 101-year old message has special relevance today. “Because everyone who died, including my father, were victims of misinformation. A monument will remind us of this dark period, to make sure history won’t repeat itself.” He told VOA in an interview.Zhang said he still supports China’s ruling communist party but thinks local officials should be held responsible for initially hiding the fact that the virus could spread among humans.Zhang Hai’s dad, Zhang Lifa, was a veteran of the People’s Liberation Army, who had spent decades working on China’s nuclear weapons program. He died on Feb 1 at a hospital in Wuhan from complications of the coronavirus.Zhang Hai said that in January, his father fell and broke his leg. They traveled from Guangdong, where they lived, to Wuhan, their hometown, for surgery. The virus was spreading in Wuhan at the time, but local officials were playing down the risk of human-to-human transmission. Zhang Hai is certain that his father contracted the virus during his stay at the hospital.“Had I known the risk, I wouldn’t proceed with the trip,” Zhang Hai said. “My father has contributed greatly to this country, and now he passed away because of a huge mistake by the local authorities. Why can’t we ask for accountability?”This push for accountability from Chinese citizens is a theme U.S. officials have also highlighted in recent days, in an effort to reveal how Beijing has thwarted international investigations into the origin of the virus and how it continues to shut down any internal critics, no matter how small.Undated photos show Chinese Dr. Li Wenliang, who was punished for issuing an early warning about the coronavirus, whose death was confirmed, Feb. 7, at the Wuhan Central Hospital, China.Matthew Pottinger, a top national security aide to President Donald Trump who worked as a journalist in China early in his career, praised two whistleblower doctors who were reprimanded by the police for warning their colleagues about the COVID-19 back in December.While China was roundly criticized for silencing the doctors, and has since championed them as patriots, Beijing has not changed its stance on others who are critical of the government’s efforts.“I owe it to my father,” activist saysZhang Hai has not received his father’s ashes so far, and is extremely dissatisfied with the way the authorities have been handling his father’s death.”It has been a long time since my dad passed away on February 1,” Zhang said, “No one is answering my questions about where his ashes are, but instead I am monitored — my WeChat, my phone, my blog.”He said that he was summoned to the police station for the second time on May 4, and the police showed him a list. “It was all my chat history on WeChat,” he said.Zhang Hai said the police told him the reason for the intense monitoring is because he created an online group consisting of family members of COVID-19 victims.“Anti-China elements might have infiltrated the group,” he said, the police told him.Zhang Hai laughed at the excuse. He said that he and others were just mourning together online, and they didn’t break any law. On the contrary, he said, he is determined to hold responsible the local authorities that hid the information about COVID-19.“I do not care the price I have to pay. I owe my diseased father an explanation,” he told VOA.While authorities may succeed in shutting down the memorial, veteran rights activist Yang Zhanqing predicted criticism from Chinese people will intensify as the pandemic continues, and authorities may struggle to contain it if people like Zhang Hai keep speaking out.“We should all admire Zhang Hai’s courage. He has spoken out about what other families wanted but dared not to say,” Yang told VOA. “It’s very rare.”After Zhang posted his fund-raising announcement online, the authorities quickly deleted it. He reissued it one more time, and it was deleted again.This sort of small-scale censorship, which is a fact of daily life in China, can lead to a bigger push for change, said Pottinger, the Deputy National Security Advisor to President Trump.“When small acts of bravery are stamped out by governments, big acts of bravery follow,” Pottinger said in his remarks delivered Monday at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.He said he hoped delivering the speech in Mandarin would “open up a conversation with friends in China and around the world.”China’s foreign ministry Tuesday rejected Pottinger’s critique of the country’s COVID-19 crackdown, suggesting he “may not really understand China” and should instead focus on the U.S. response to the pandemic.
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US Awaits First Sudanese Ambassador in Over 20 Years
The prospects for improved relations between the United States and Sudan took a major step forward with this week’s announcement that the transitional government in Khartoum has named veteran diplomat Noureldin Sati to serve as its ambassador in Washington.The appointment, which reportedly has been approved by the United States, ends more than 20 years of top-level diplomatic estrangement between the two countries, and reflects steadily warming relations since the overthrow of Sudan’s former president, Omar al-Bashir, last year.The Sudanese Embassy remains temporarily closed because of the coronavirus pandemic and offers only a telephone line for consular affairs. However, foreign affairs analysts in the U.S. capital welcomed the announcement and predicted progress on key issues, most notably Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism (SST).“Sudan’s appointment is another marker on the path toward rapprochement between Khartoum and Washington. It is both symbolic and practical, enabling the two countries to address outstanding issues in the bilateral relationship,” said Judd Devermont, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Prior to joining CSIS, he served as the U.S. intelligence officer for Africa from 2015 to 2018.“The ambassador’s marching orders will include the removal of the state sponsor of terror designation, as well as securing U.S. financial and political support for Sudan’s transition,” Devermont said.FILE – Sudanese women display their national flag in Khartoum, June 30, 2019.Key objectiveThe removal of that designation is among Sudan’s “primary — if not THE primary — foreign policy goals,” said Joshua Meservey, senior policy analyst for Africa and the Middle East at the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation.Meservey thinks the SST designation could be lifted within six months, “but of course there is no telling for sure.”Meservey told VOA in a written interview that “Sudan has, apparently, met all the technical requirements for having SST lifted.” What remains to be negotiated, he said, is “hashing out the details of a settlement for the victims of terror attacks in which Sudan played a role.”These include an al-Qaida terror attack on the guided missile destroyer USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 American sailors in 2000, and the twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which killed more than 200 people in 1998.Meservey said the new Sudanese government has agreed to accept some responsibility, and his understanding is that there is a tentative agreement for compensation.“Decades of bad blood between the two countries can’t be undone in a few months, but so far relations have been steadily improving,” he said.’He knows the ropes’Sati is not well-known in Washington, but Meservey described him as “a long-serving diplomat” whose earlier appointments have included an ambassadorship to France and experience at the United Nations. “So he knows the ropes and hopefully will be a skillful, steady hand.”Other analysts, including CSIS’s Devermont, said the appointment will increase pressure on the United States to reciprocate by naming its own envoy to Khartoum.“While it is unclear when Washington will fulfill its pledge to upgrade its representation to Khartoum, the U.S.-Sudanese relationship is a top priority for the Trump administration,” Devermont said in a written interview.He added that U.S. senior officials “are eager to turn the page after three decades of contentious ties, welcoming Sudan back to the international community.”Washington regards Sudan as a key country at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East, he said. “If Sudan restores civilian rule and refrains from sowing discord at home and abroad, it could be a game-changer for the region.”Meservey agrees that the transition underway in Sudan affords “an unprecedented opportunity for the U.S. to encourage the creation of a friendly, viable, non-Islamist government in a country that has been a thorn in the side of U.S. policy in that region for decades.”Sudan, he noted, has rich farmland and sits at a strategic location on the Red Sea.“Its industries are a shambles because of the ruinous economic mismanagement of the former regime, but that also means there are opportunities there for intrepid investors,” he said, “though only the hardiest will jump in while the country remains on SST, and in the midst of the pandemic and the general economic crisis there.”As Sudan undergoes dramatic socioeconomic changes, an important asset it possesses, right now, is that the West, including the United States, “has great goodwill for the civilian component of the government,” he said.
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US Rallies Support to Back Taiwan’s WHO Bid
The United States is rallying support to back Taiwan’s observer status in the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), leading into its annual meeting May 17-21.”Today, I want to call on all nations, including those in Europe, to support Taiwan’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly and other relevant United Nations venues,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday during a press conference.The top U.S. diplomat is calling on WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to “invite Taiwan to observe this month’s WHA, as he has the power to do, and as his predecessors have done on multiple occasions.”The State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs initiated a series of tweets featuring #TweetforTaiwan and #Taiwanmodel on May 1, a rare move seen in recent years.”Join us to #TweetforTaiwan’s inclusion at the upcoming World Health,” said the bureau in a tweet. Join us to #TweetforTaiwan’s inclusion at the upcoming World Health Assembly so #Taiwan can bring its incredible expertise to the fight against #Covid19. The world needs Taiwan in this fight! Tell @WHO that it is time for Taiwan to be heard.— IO Bureau @ State (@State_IO) May 1, 2020″Is it too much to ask that Taiwan be permitted to share their expertise, their commitment, with the rest of the world?” said the bureau in another tweet. Is it too much to ask that Taiwan be permitted to share their expertise, their commitment, with the rest of the world? Will the world succumb to the PRC’s pressure and intimidation? It’s time to be heard, and time to #TweetforTaiwan#TaiwanModel— IO Bureau @ State (@State_IO) May 1, 2020The U.S. move is seen as an open rebuke to China. The Beijing government has been blocking Taiwan’s representation at WHO meetings after the self-ruled democracy elected Tsai Ing-wen, a China skeptic, as Taiwan’s president in 2016 and won re-election in 2020.Delegates from Taiwan had attended the World Health Assembly as nonvoting observers from 2009 to 2016, during a period of relatively warm ties between Beijing and Taipei.The support comes at a time when Washington is sounding the alarm on foreign governments’ disinformation campaigns, calling out China as questions arise about China’s influence over the WHO amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Merkel Announces Germany’s Soccer League Restart
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Wednesday the German soccer league Bundesliga can resume playing later this month, ending a two-month pause prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.Merkel made the announcement as one of a range of containment measures being relaxed, following a meeting with the country’s 16 state governors Wednesday. Pressure to relax the rules had been growing because the rate of daily infections in the country has dropped.The chancellor said the league can proceed but must follow a series of strict hygiene rules, including holding matches without spectators and quarantine time for teams before they play.The Bundesliga has been inactive since mid-March, but clubs returned to some form of training in early April and have gradually increased their intensity levels over recent weeks.
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Spanish Soccer Players Return to Training Camps, Get Tested
Soccer players in Spain returned to their team’s training camps Wednesday for the first time since the country entered a lockdown nearly two months ago because of the coronavirus pandemic.Players for Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid and other clubs started preparing for the return to training this week. They were all expected to be tested for COVID-19 and should be cleared to practice once the results are back. Most clubs are expected to resume practicing by the end of the week.The majority of players did not wear masks or gloves when they arrived, according to Spanish media. Lionel Messi, Gerard Piqué and Luis Suárez were among those without masks when they drove into Barcelona’s training center. Antoine Griezmann, Arturo Vidal and Ivan Rakitic did wear masks. Sergi Roberto arrived without a mask but had one on when he left.Real Madrid players Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and Karim Benzema arrived without masks, as did most of their teammates.Atlético Madrid posted some photos of its players arriving for tests wearing gloves and masks.Our first team players continue to carry out tests before training resumes.➡ https://t.co/3aipyTKfkX🔴⚪ #AúpaAtletipic.twitter.com/GxXgU1tV9Z— Atlético de Madrid (@atletienglish) May 6, 2020In general, players didn’t stay long at the club facilities, usually less than 30 minutes.Coaches also went to training camps and were tested. Barcelona coach Quique Setién was wearing gloves and a mask when he arrived.The training centers of all clubs were disinfected over the last couple of days. In addition to the players, all members of the coaching staff and other employees involved in training have to be tested for COVID-19 before the practice sessions can resume.The league wants the clubs to test all players daily after they start training.Players will initially practice individually. Smaller group sessions and full squad sessions will be allowed in upcoming weeks. The league sent clubs a protocol with safety guidelines on how to return to practice, detailing all measures that the players and the clubs must adopt.The league wants a training period of about a month before it can restart. It hopes to resume sometime in June with games without fans.Spain this week began easing some of the lockdown measures that were put in place in mid-March. Soccer players have been among the few athletes allowed to return to training facilities.However, players and coaches of Spanish club Eibar released a statement on Tuesday saying they were concerned about playing again amid the pandemic.
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Sentencing, Arrest of Activists Are Signs of China’s Unrelenting Crackdown
China’s recent sentencing of a blogger and its arrest of a veteran rights activist indicate that Beijing is determined to continue silencing any critics of the ruling party and government.Liu Yanli, a blogger in China’s Hubei Province, was sentenced April 22 to four years in prison by the local court for crimes of provocation. The court document said she was guilty of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” and that her online speech about current and former party leaders had damaged the government’s image.A week later, police took activist Xie Wenfei into custody for “provoking trouble.” Xie, who has long been part of China’s pro-democracy movement, has criticized the disappearance of several citizen journalists and rights activists who were involved in posting information about the government’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak.Blogger Liu YanliThe verdict by the local court stated that Liu Yanli fabricated false information on messenger apps to attack the Communist Party of China and state leaders, and that her behavior constituted a crime of provocation.Blogger Liu Yanli’s verdict on April 24th. She was sentenced to four years in prison for insulting current and former leaders online. (Screenshot of Rights Protection Network’s Twitter post)Liu had been active on Chinese social media accounts since 2009, commenting on democracy and politics. She circulated articles on WeChat about Chinese President Xi Jinping, former premier Zhou Enlai and Chairman Mao Zedong. She also maintained a blog which was often critical of the government and the police. Police repeatedly harassed her over her postings.Liu’s defense lawyer, who is also a relative, said her treatment resembles detention practices from the Cultural Revolution, because the charges all related to her statements online, which should be protected as free speech by China’s Constitution.Article 35 of the Constitution proclaims, “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration.” However, the Constitution carries little weight in China’s courts, where judges often rule in line with the Communist Party’s preferences.”We were not allowed to visit her since the lockdown in January,” her sister Liu Yuehua told VOA. “I believe in her innocence. As long as she’s not tortured until she’s crazy, we will continue to appeal.”Liu made her last public appearance in court on Jan. 30, 2019. In her final statement, she said that this was not a legal case, but a political one.”I’m just an ordinary citizen, I’m not a party member. I use common sense to express my opinions, but now I’m facing a guilty verdict, I don’t think this is in line with the party’s slogan ‘serve the people,'” she said.She also mentioned the Cultural Revolution, the decade in China when education ground to a halt, and society was overtaken by outbreaks of violence and political persecution.”During the Cultural Revolution, if you want to make someone suffer, you just have to say he/she is anti-Party, and you are all set,” she said.Liu’s defense lawyer Wu Kuiming told VOA that the 29 charges listed in the indictment were all related to online remarks, pointing out that the case was similar to that of Lin Zhao and Zhang Zhixin, who were shot during the Cultural Revolution because of their “counter-revolutionary” remarks.Veteran activist Xie WenfeiMeanwhile, police detained activist Xie Wenfei on April 29 on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”This detention notice dated April 30 shows that Xie Wenfei, a prominent activist, was detained for “provoking trouble.” Xie has been critical of how China is stifling reporting on coronavirus. (Screenshot of Rights Protection Network’s Twitter post)Xie is a veteran rights activist in China’s Hunan province. He recently has criticized the detention of three young volunteers who archived censored information about COVID-19 online, and questioned the disappearance in Wuhan of citizen journalists Chen Qiushi and Fang Bing. He also signed an online petition to honor the COVID-19 whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang.Virus Storytellers Challenge China’s Official NarrativeCitizen journalists with smart phones and social media accounts are telling stories about the virus outbreak in China in their own words”This is not the first arrest,” his brother Xie Qiufeng told VOA. “The police didn’t tell me anything specific. I think it’s about what he had posted on WeChat again.”Born in 1977, Xie Yunfei is a veteran activist who has been detained many times for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly over the years. He previously served a 4.5-year prison sentence for supporting the 2014 Occupy Central protests in Hong Kong.Xie’s friend Ou Biaofeng, who is also an activist, told VOA that he’s not surprised about Xie’s arrest.Ou said that in recent years, the government has severely reduced the space for civil liberties by rounding up rights lawyers, labor activists and citizen journalists. He added that anyone who expresses a slightly different opinion online will have their account blocked immediately.”The pro-democracy movement in China has entered a freezing winter because of the crackdown,” he said. “The pressure is just enormous. Also, for the past year or two, there’s been less and less support of civil movements. It’s quite sad.”The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders ranked China near the bottom of its 2020 press freedom index. The group said President Xi is tightening control over news and information and trying to export the country’s oppressive surveillance systems.
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Dallas Salon Owner Jailed for Defying Virus Shutdown Order
A hair salon owner in Texas was ordered to spend a week in jail after she continued to operate her business despite restrictions put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.Shelley Luther was booked in the Dallas County jail on Tuesday afternoon following a video hearing, during which she was found in contempt of court. The hearing occurred as Gov. Greg Abbott relaxed more restrictions statewide, allowing barbershops and hair salons to reopen Friday.Last month, Luther was issued a citation for keeping open her Dallas salon despite state and local directives that kept nonessential businesses closed.In Tuesday’s hearing, Luther said she kept the salon open because she needed the money.”I couldn’t feed my family, and my stylists couldn’t feed their families,” Luther testified, saying she had applied for a federal loan but didn’t receive it until Sunday.Dallas County Judge Eric Moye said during Tuesday’s hearing that he would consider levying a fine instead of jail time if Luther would apologize and not reopen until she was allowed to do so. Luther refused.”Feeding my kids is not selfish,” she told Moye. “If you think the law is more important than kids getting fed, then please go ahead with your decision, but I am not going to shut the salon.”Moye wrote in his judgment of contempt: “The defiance of the court’s order was open, flagrant and intentional.” He noted that despite being given the opportunity to apologize Luther has “expressed no contrition, remorse or regret” for her actions.
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Animated Coronavirus Monster Sends Kids Running For Soap
Educating children about something as complicated and frightening as the coronavirus is not easy. Nigerian filmmaker Niyi Akinmolayan decided to use the universal symbol of a big, green cartoon monster with sharp teeth. “There was a struggle to try and explain to my five-year-old what it meant for everyone to be on the lockdown,” Akinmolayan told VOA. “But beyond that was also to explain to them what the coronavirus was and how to get them washing their hands.” In a 93-second animated video, a young boy named Habeeb desperately wants to go out to play football. His older sister, Funke, warns him that because of the virus, playing with his friends is unsafe. “Mummy will be sick, no more jollof rice. Daddy will be sick, no more going out to see movies,” Funke says. An uncertain Habeeb peeks out through the door to see a giant, green coronavirus-shaped monster roaring. He slams the door screaming “it’s real, it’s real.” Akinmolayan said he wanted to make the impact the virus is having come alive for children, but also empower them to prevent it. “I kept failing at every logical attempt I made until I came up with the idea of the monster that was outside. And the monster would prevent you from going out to have fun,” Akinmolayan said. “And I was like, ‘the only way we’re all going to beat this monster is by washing our hands.’ So, I think when I had that exchange with him, that was the light bulb moment.” Akinmolayan is a popular director whose film “The Wedding Party 2” is the highest-grossing movie in the history of Nigeria’s film industry, nicknamed “Nollywood.” He is the founder and creative director of Ant Hill studios and his latest film, “The Set Up,” is streaming on Netflix. He said during the lockdown he reached out to his friends and co-workers in the film industry and they collaborated on the animated project. “They were already working from home,” he said. “And I said, ‘hey guys, you know what’s going to happen? I’m going to write a script. I’m going to do the voicing and all that. We’re going to voice it in all the four key languages in Nigeria and then we’re going to do the animation.’ And that’s what we did.” He has been blown away by the response. He uploaded it to Google Drive and made it free to download and reuse on all social media platforms. We transfer link has expired. Here’s google drive https://t.co/KnCzKdx8QC— Niyi Akinmolayan (@niyiakinmolayan) April 23, 2020In addition to the original four languages — English, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo — it has been translated into French, Swahili and Portuguese. It airs regularly on various Nigerian television channels, a pan-African cable network, and has been aired as far away as Brazil.“I don’t even know how far it has gone. Every night they send me bits and pieces and clips,” said Akinmolayan via Skype.But he says he is most excited about the positive effect the video is having on children. “I actually get parents sending me screenshots or videos and they tell me that I have made their kids make them run out of soap,” he said. “So parents are running out of soap because the kids, once they watch the film, even if they have just come out of the shower, they go and pour more soap on their hands.”
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Utah State Trooper Pulls Over 5-Year-Old Driver
A Utah highway patrolman says he pulled over a swerving vehicle on an interstate highway this week to discover a 5-year-old boy behind the wheel.
State Trooper Rick Morgan told reporters Tuesday he was pursuing a speeding car when he noticed another vehicle that was veering badly across lanes. He thought the driver needed medical attention, so he started following. He said the driver did not respond to his lights but pulled over when he hit his siren.
Morgan said when he approached the vehicle, he was expecting to find an adult who needed medical attention, but instead he found “a very underaged driver behind the wheel.” He said the boy, 5 years old, was on the edge of the seat so he could reach the pedals.
The boy told him he was going to his sister’s house in California. He later told another trooper he wanted to buy a Lamborghini sports car when he got there. The boy was carrying three dollars in his wallet at the time of the incident.
His parents were contacted, and upon their arrival, they told Morgan that to their knowledge, their son had never driven before nor done anything like this. They took custody of their son and the vehicle. No charges were filed.
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The Second Virus Wave: How Bad Will It Be As Lockdowns Ease?
From the marbled halls of Italy to the wheat fields of Kansas, health authorities are increasingly warning that the question isn’t whether a second wave of coronavirus infections and deaths will hit, but when — and how badly.
As more countries and U.S. states chaotically reopen for business — including some where infection rates are still rising — managing future cases is as important as preventing them.
In India, which partly eased its virus lockdown this week, health authorities scrambled Wednesday to contain an outbreak at a massive market. Experts in hard-hit Italy, which just began easing some restrictions, warned lawmakers that a new wave of virus infections and deaths is coming. They urged intensified efforts to identify possible new victims, monitor their symptoms and trace their contacts.
Germany warned of a second and even a third wave, and threatened to re-impose virus restrictions if new cases can’t be contained. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was meeting Wednesday with the country’s 16 governors to discuss further loosening restrictions that have crippled Europe’s largest economy.
“There will be a second wave, but the problem is to which extent. Is it a small wave or a big wave? It’s too early to say,” said Olivier Schwartz, head of the virus and immunity unit at France’s Pasteur Institute.
Many areas are still struggling with the first wave of this pandemic. Brazil for the first time locked down a large city, the capital of Maranhão state. Across the ocean, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa has shot up 42% in the past week and infections are expected to surpass 50,000 on Wednesday.
An Associated Press analysis, meanwhile, found that U.S. infection rates outside the New York City area are in fact rising, notably in rural areas. It found New York’s progress against the virus was overshadowing increasing infections elsewhere.
“Make no mistakes: This virus is still circulating in our community, perhaps even more now than in previous weeks,” said Linda Ochs, director of the Health Department in Shawnee County, Kansas.
The virus is known to have infected more than 3.6 million and killed more than 251,000 people, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins that all experts agree is an undercount due to limited testing, uneven victim criteria and deliberate concealment by some governments.
The U.S. has seen over 71,000 deaths amid its 1.2 million infections, and Europe has endured over 144,000 reported coronavirus deaths. Behind each of those vast numbers is a family in pain.
“Burying both parents at the same time? It’s hard,” said Desmond Tolbert, who lost his mother and father in rural southwest Georgia. Because they had the virus, he couldn’t be with them when they died.
U.S. President Donald Trump, with his eye on being reelected in November, is pushing hard to ease state stay-at-home orders and resuscitate the U.S. economy, which has seen over 30 million workers lose their jobs in less than two months. Trump is expected to wind down the country’s coronavirus task force, possibly within weeks, despite concerns that states aren’t being careful enough as they reopen.
A century ago, the Spanish flu epidemic’s second wave was far deadlier than its first, in part because authorities allowed mass gatherings from Philadelphia to San Francisco.
As Italy’s lockdown eased this week, Dr. Silvio Brusaferro, president of the Superior Institute of Health, urged “a huge investment” of resources to train medical personnel to monitor possible new cases. He said tracing apps — which are being built by dozens of countries and companies and touted as a possible technological solution — aren’t enough to manage future waves of infection.
“We are not out of the epidemic. We are still in it. I don’t want people to think there’s no more risk and we go back to normal,” said Dr. Giovanni Rezza, the head of the institute’s infectious disease department.
In Germany, authorities may reimpose restrictions on any county that reports 50 new cases for every 100,000 inhabitants within the past week.
Lothar Wieler, head of Germany’s national disease control center, said scientists “know with great certainty that there will be a second wave” of infections but said Germany is well-prepared to deal with it. The country has been hailed for testing widely and has suffered four times fewer deaths than Italy or Britain, which both have smaller populations.
Britain has begun recruiting 18,000 people to trace contacts of people infected. British officials acknowledge that they should have done more testing and tracing earlier and could learn from South Korea, which brought its outbreak under control by rigorously testing, tracing and isolating infected people.
South Africa, which has years of experience tracking HIV and other infections, is already testing and tracing widely. Turkey has an army of 5,800 teams of contact tracers who have tracked down and tested nearly half a million people linked to infected cases. Israel plans to conduct 100,000 antibody tests to determine how widespread the coronavirus outbreak has been and prevent a second wave.
India was concentrated on the immediate drama around the market in the southern city of Chennai, which is now tied to at least 1,000 virus cases. Another 7,000 people connected to the now-shuttered Koyambedu market are being traced and quarantined. Experts are worried about a health catastrophe in a country of 1.3 billion people with an already stressed medical system.
New confirmed daily infections in the U.S. exceed 20,000, and deaths per day are well over 1,000, according to the Johns Hopkins tally. And public health officials warn that the failure to lower the infection rate could lead to many more deaths — perhaps tens of thousands — as people venture out and businesses reopen.
“The faster we reopen, the lower the economic cost — but the higher the human cost, because the more lives lost,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “That, my friends, is the decision we are really making.”
Trump acknowledged the toll but argued that keeping the U.S. economy closed carries deadly costs of its own, such as drug abuse and suicides.
“I’m not saying anything is perfect, and yes, will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon,” he said during a visit to Arizona in which he did not don a face mask.
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Samsung’s Lee Apologizes Over Management, Union Busting
Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong on Wednesday expressed remorse but did not admit to wrongdoing over his alleged involvement in a 2016 corruption scandal that spurred massive street protests and sent South Korea’s then-president to prison.
The vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest producer of computer chips and smartphones, promised Wednesday to end heredity transfers of control of South Korea’s largest business group, promising not to pass the management rights he inherited from his father to his children.
Lee also said Samsung would stop suppressing employee attempts to organize unions.
Lee’s news conference followed a review by a Samsung committee of external experts, led by former South Korean Supreme Court justice Kim Ji-hyung, of Samsung’s corporate behavior. It concluded he should apologize over the graft allegations and address problems with the company’s labor policies.
“Samsung’s technologies and products are continuously praised as top-rate, but people’s views on Samsung remain critical. All this is because of our shortcomings,” Lee said as cameras flashed at a Samsung Electronics office in Seoul.
Lee said the company “at times” had failed to comply with laws and ethics. After bowing in apology, Lee vowed to ensure “there would no longer be any controversy over the issue of management succession.” He left without taking questions.
Lee stepped into his leadership role after his father, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee, fell ill in May 2014.
He is being tried on charges that he bribed former President Park Geun-hye and her confidant while seeking government support for his control over the Samsung business empire.
The scandal ignited massive street protests that toppled the presidency of Park. She was formally removed from office in March 2017 and is serving a decades-long term in prison.
Samsung’s union-busting practices have been criticized by activists for decades. As Lee spoke, former Samsung employee Kim Yong-hee continued a near yearlong protest atop a 25-meter (82-feet) traffic camera tower nearby, demanding his job back. Kim says he was fired in 1995 for trying to organize a labor union.
“(I) offer a sincere apology to every person who has been hurt by Samsung’s labor union issues,” Lee said, without directly commenting on Kim or his protest.
“From now on, (we) will ensure that there’s no more about a ‘union-less Samsung,”’ he said. Samsung will protect workers’ rights to organize, bargain collectively and strike, he added.
Samsung launched the review of its business practices after a Seoul High Court judge overseeing Lee’s bribery case faulted the company for he saw as a murky management culture. He said the company should set up an oversight system to monitor its management.
Lee was sentenced to five years in prison in 2017 for offering 8.6 billion won ($7 million) in bribes to Park and her longtime confidant Choi Soon-sil while seeking government support for a merger of two Samsung affiliates. It went ahead despite opposition from some shareholders and helped cement Lee’s control over Samsung Electronics, the crown jewel of the family’s corporate empire.
Lee was freed in February 2018 after the Seoul High Court reduced his term to 2 ½ years and suspended his sentence, overturning key convictions.
However, in August the Supreme Court sent the case back to the High Court, saying that the amount of bribes Lee was judged to have offered was undervalued.
Some legal experts say Lee could be sentenced to another term in jail if convicted for a higher amount of bribes. Prosecutors claim the funds were embezzled from Samsung’s corporate coffers.
South Korean corporate leaders often have gotten relatively lenient punishment for corruption, business irregularities and other crimes, with judges often citing concerns for the country’s economy.
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Philippine TV Network Shutdown Amid Pandemic Sparks Uproar
Philippine church and business leaders expressed alarm Wednesday over a government agency’s shutdown of the country’s largest TV and radio network, which has been a major provider of news on the coronavirus pandemic.
International watchdogs condemned the closure of ABS-CBN Corp., which President Rodrigo Duterte has targeted in the past for its critical coverage, as a major blow to press freedom in an Asian bastion of democracy.
The National Telecommunications Commission ordered the media giant to stop operating after its 25-year congressional franchise ended Monday. It reversed a statement to Congress that it would issue a temporary permit while legislators assess a franchise renewal. Only the House of Representatives can grant or revoke such franchise and its hearings have been delayed, in part by a coronavirus lockdown.
In a reflection of the extent of unease over the shutdown of the network, which went off air Tuesday night, both the opposition and key Duterte allies questioned the commission’s action.
Vice President Leni Robredo, who leads the opposition, said the timely dissemination of accurate information saves lives in a crisis and galvanizes national unity.
“Closing down ABS-CBN costs lives, on top of unnecessarily burdening the thousands who will lose their jobs,” she said.
Rep. Franz Alvarez, who belongs to a pro-Duterte coalition and heads the House Committee on Legislative Franchises, said the telecommunications commission’s order “is a clear encroachment on the jurisdiction of the House.”
Alvarez told ABS-CBN’s DZMM radio station that commission officials told lawmakers in a hearing in March that they would issue a temporary operating permit to ABS-CBN while its franchise renewal was pending based on guidance from the Department of Justice.
“We’re really surprised why they backtracked so they have to explain,” Alvarez told DZMM before it too went off air late Tuesday.
The Makati Business Club, a prestigious group of top business executives, said the network’s closure was a setback to national unity amid the unprecedented crisis.
Amnesty International in the Philippines said the closure order was an “outrageous attack” on media freedom and asked the government to immediately to bring the network back on air.
Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines protested the closure “on behalf of journalists and thousands of workers affected by the decision” as they struggled to cope with the contagion.
ABS-CBN has more than 11,000 news and production personnel nationwide. Aside from reporting on the coronavirus, which has infected nearly 10,000 people and killed 637 in the Philippines, it has also provided truckloads of food and medical aid.
Media watchdogs accused Duterte and his government of muzzling independent media like ABS-CBN that have reported critically on issues including the president’s anti-drug crackdown, in which thousands of mostly poor drug suspects have been killed. Government officials denied the closure was a press freedom issue, insisting that everyone must comply with the law.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Tuesday that ABS-CBN was free to seek legal solutions and added that Duterte has left its fate to Congress.
But ahead of the franchise expiration, Solicitor-General Jose Calida asked the Supreme Court in February to revoke the operating franchises of ABS-CBN and a subsidiary in a separate attempt to shut down the company for allegedly abusing its franchises and violating a constitutional prohibition on foreign investment in Philippine media. ABS-CBN denied the allegations.
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South African Doctors, Engineers Design Inexpensive Ventilators to Meet Shortage
South African engineers and doctors are designing makeshift, inexpensive devices to address a major challenge posed by the coronavirus – the lack of ventilators for patients. South Africa is scrambling for thousands more ventilators as confirmed COVID-19 cases have increased to more than 7,200, with at least 138 deaths. Franco Puglisi reports from Johannesburg.
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Whistleblower Says US Officials Ignored Coronavirus Drug, Equipment Warnings
A senior U.S. government scientist is set to testify in a congressional hearing next week after filing a whistleblower complaint alleging officials retaliated against him for insisting on “scientifically vetted proposals” and “a more aggressive agency response to COVID-19.”Congresswoman Anna Eshoo said Rick Bright’s complaint raises serious concerns about the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, and that she also wants to hear testimony from Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Robert Kadlec.“This complaint alleges that the Administration has put cronyism and internal bickering ahead of protecting the health of Americans during a pandemic. Dr. Bright’s complaint deserves examination,” Eshoo said.Bright said Kadlec put pressure on his unit, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, to invest in drugs and vaccines that lacked scientific merit, including the drug hydroxychloroquine.“Dr. Bright felt powerless to protect the public from this potentially toxic chemical that HHS, at President Trump’s insistence, was touting as a safe treatment,” the complaint says. “Yet he felt an urgent and compelling need to inform the American public that this drug with insufficient scientific data to support its use for COVID-19 patients, with known safety concerns, and with no FDA oversight over its quality was now being pushed or ‘flooded’ onto the streets of America.”Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, told VOA the focus of the coronavirus response needs to be on science and that there is a reason drugs have to go through clinical trials.“If we ignore the science, we will pay the price,” she said. “Decisions, policies should be made based on evidence and based on data, and it would be extremely concerning if our top scientists and doctors in the federal government are not able to do their part and make recommendations based on the best available science and evidence.”This Monday, April 6, 2020 file photo shows an arrangement of hydroxychloroquine pills in Las Vegas.The whistleblower complaint also says HHS leaders criticized Bright for pushing early on in the outbreak to invest resources in vaccine development and ensuring adequate supplies of masks, ventilators and testing swabs. It says officials repeatedly ignored outreach from a mask manufacturer who offered to start up dormant production lines with government backing.The Trump administration has faced criticism from state governors who say they were left to scramble and compete against each other to try to source equipment needed in their hospitals to treat patients and keep medical workers safe.Wen said the United States “lost valuable time in preparing for COVID-19” that in retrospect could have been used to bolster the health care system.“We still, even to this day, have not marshaled all the necessary resources that we need in order to combat this outbreak, and I’m very concerned that we still do not have any national coordinated effort in this time of a public health emergency,” she said.President Donald Trump traveled Tuesday to an aerospace factory in Arizona that has shifted operations to make masks, part of a series of visits planned to highlight the administration’s response efforts.“Through FEMA, HHS, and our private sector partners, we’re equipping our frontline medical workers with more than 70 million N95 respirators, 112 million surgical masks, 7 million face shields, 18 million gowns, and nearly 1 billion gloves,” Trump said.Bright alleges he was transferred to another position out of retaliation and his complaint asks that he be reinstated along with a full investigation.An HHS statement Tuesday said Bright was transferred to the National Institutes of Health “to work on diagnostics testing” that is key to the coronavirus fight.“We are deeply disappointed that he has not shown up to work on behalf of the American people and lead on this critical endeavor,” HHS spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said.
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Vietnam, Despite Low Coronavirus Caseload, Will Take Months to Recover Economically
Vietnam has reported few new coronavirus cases every day since mid-April. Now schools are reopening, smaller restaurants are back in business and traffic jams are forming again in the financial center, Ho Chi Minh City, as commuters head to work. The Southeast Asian country has People walk by a poster reading in Vietnamese “Fighting COVID-19” in Hanoi, Vietnam on Thursday, Apr. 23, 2020. Business activities resume in Vietnam as the country lifts the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19.Vietnam’s economy will grow 4.8% this year, down from earlier expectations near 7%, the Asian Development Bank forecasts. On Monday Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said 2020 GDP growth should be more than 5%. Private analysts estimate just 2-3%. “Plus side, there is enough mouths and feet within Vietnam to keep things going, but that’s just within Vietnam itself, so it’s really the linkages to the rest of the world – to what extent that starts to normalize,” said Song Seng Wun, economist in the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore. Vietnam in this respect follows a trend among other Southeast Asian countries with controlled virus caseloads and gradual economic reopening, Song said. But tourism has been “dead” since January, Matthaes said. In the first 11 months of 2019, by contrast, Vietnam received 16.3 million international travelers for a 15.4% increase over the same period of the previous year. Tourism made up about 8% of the economy. Phuong Hong, 40, a travel sector worker in Ho Chi Minh City, still has her job and reports to work in an office that’s quiet because of staffing rotations. On off days, she spends time at home with her eighth-grade son who will return to school next week for half days. She expects airlines and hotels eventually to offer deals for domestic travelers but worries that Vietnamese people will face health monitoring if they travel abroad and possibly higher airfares to offset any pre-flight disease screening. “We cannot go back to normal before the end of 2019 anymore, because you can see the restrictions on traveling,” Phuong said.Demand for Vietnam’s signature exports, such as car parts, smartphones and furniture, is expected to fall because consumers aren’t shopping. Raw materials from China have been hard to get and air cargo prices are higher than normal, business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates says. Exports grew just 0.5% in the first quarter of 2020 and “results will continue to be gloomy” in the current quarter, the General Department of Vietnam Customs said in an online statement.
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ASEAN Intervenes to Fight Death Spiral of Food Export Restrictions
Few images conjure the 1930s Depression like people standing in soup lines while farmers dump food they can’t sell. That is a tragedy Southeast Asia is fighting to avoid, though it is starting to happen in pockets around the world in the midst of COVID-19. Supply chain disruptions, driven by the pandemic, meant that melons were being discarded in Malaysia and rice was left idling at the ports in Vietnam last month. Fears of protectionism prompted governments in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to step in, calling a meeting where they vowed not to restrict food exports. The intervention is important for the rest of the world, too, which relies on ASEAN as a top supplier of certain rice, seafood, and produce. “We note that the COVID-19 outbreak has drawn our attention on the immediate danger of food shortage and its adverse effect on nutrition, given a sudden spike in demand and disruption in supply chains,” the agriculture ministers of the 10 ASEAN members said in a statement. They pledged to “refrain from imposing new export control, restrictions and prohibitions, tariffs and non-tariff barriers.” Now they plan to conduct a joint study on how to ensure food security, with periodic reviews of the status of each member and a focus on securing rice, corn, and sugar. Self-fulfilling prophecy The challenge presents ASEAN with a classic economic quandary, whereby fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if states don’t agree on collective action. Fears of food shortage can drive people to hoard, which in turn creates a food shortage. Panic buying is only one of multiple factors behind COVID-19’s stress on the supply chain. First, consumers worldwide rushed to buy staples, as the virus forced many to stay home for weeks or months. Second, states became concerned this could decrease their domestic supply, so they issued export controls. That includes the suspension of egg exports from Thailand starting in March and rice exports from Vietnam and Myanmar. Third, these controls prompted concerns that states would retaliate with more controls. “The beggar-thy-neighbor approach to closing your exports means that others will close off their exports to you,” said Ashok Kumar Mirpuri, Singapore’s Ambassador to the United States, in a forum hosted by the Asia Society in April. However, after the ASEAN meeting, food fears have eased. Vietnam and Myanmar lifted rice restrictions in May, while Malaysia and Singapore struck a deal to fix the bottleneck at their border, which is what had caused the unsold melons to spoil. A fourth factor in the supply chain disruption is an accident: To curb COVID-19, governments banned people from traveling across borders, but that also made it harder for people to transport food. This was the case for Malaysia, which did not ban melon exports but restricted people’s movements, which had a knock-on effect for food shipments. The restrictions also make it hard for farms to get the workers and feed supply they need. And finally, a fifth factor is simply that the pandemic exposed a disconnect between supply and demand. For instance U.S. farmers have dumped their supply of potatoes and milk because COVID-19 dried up demand from usual customers like restaurants. There is still demand from supermarkets, but that requires different packaging, so farms not set up to meet those requirements had to let their food spoil. Zero-cost grocer ASEAN leaders think they have avoided that last risk for now, but remain concerned that some will go hungry. Some states have gotten involved in food distribution, such as at quarantine centers in Vietnam and at workers’ dorms in Singapore. Companies donating food include Dole, which gave out fruit, food packs, and juice in Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. “Recovery is possible only when everyone in the community is healthy,” Aashim Malhotra, Asia Pacific vice president at Dole Packaged Foods, said. Vietnam has experimented with other ideas, such as a “rice ATM,” a machine that dispenses free rice, and a “zero cost” grocery store, which lets the needy take five free items per person, such as noodles or bananas. Former Vietnamese diplomat Ton Nu Thi Ninh said she hopes these ideas will continue after the crisis. “The COVID-19 global pandemic is laying bare much of what is wrong with our societies,” Ninh, now president of the Ho Chi Minh City Peace and Development Foundation, said. “At the same time it is activating inherent goodness in many of us, stimulating relief and philanthropic initiatives.”
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Whistleblower Complaint Overshadows Trump’s AZ Visit
U.S. President Donald Trump visited an aerospace facility in Arizona that is now making masks for health care workers after largely staying in at the White House during the pandemic. The visit to this key battleground state is the first in a series of trips designed to highlight Trump’s efforts to combat COVID-19 as his administration is dismissing a report predicting a surge in coronavirus deaths. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this story.
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White House to Wind Down Coronavirus Task Force
The White House is planning to terminate its coronavirus task force despite the continued spread of the COVID-19 infection in the United States and a growing death toll from the disease. U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed Tuesday the task force headed by Vice President Mike Pence will be winding down. During a visit to a factory in Phoenix, Arizona, that produces face masks, Trump told reporters, “Mike Pence and the task force have done a great job, but we’re now looking at a little bit of a different form, and that form is safety and opening.” The United States currently has 1.2 million confirmed coronavirus infections, more than any other country in the world, and more than 70,000 COVID-19 deaths. Trump acknowledged that the health crisis is far from over but said, “we can’t keep our country closed for the next five years.” President Donald Trump participates in a tour of a Honeywell International plant that manufactures personal protective equipment, in Phoenix, May 5, 2020.The U.S. economy has been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. More than 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Tuesday that he expects the unemployment rate for April to be above 16%, “maybe as high as 20%.” He told CNN network that “we are looking at probably the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression.” Easing restrictions worldwideThe coronavirus pandemic has brought the global economy to its knees and countries worldwide are eager to reopen. European leaders have generally waited for the number of new infections to go down before relaxing tough lockdowns.Most European Union countries are reopening this week, with new rules of behavior in place. Face masks and social distancing are required in most public places. Sweden is the only European country that has eschewed shutdown orders, but the number of its new COVID cases also is flattening. China, South Korea and Vietnam are reporting very few or no new cases, mostly as a result of tough lockdown measures. New Zealand and Australia also have had success in containing the virus. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Tuesday they were working on a plan to reopen travel between the two countries, but emphasized it would take some time to put it in practice. A woman with a face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walks past a wall with arrows in Tokyo, May 5, 2020.Japan is not out of the woods yet and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday extended until the end of month the state of emergency which was due to expire May 6. Sports leagues all over the world have put their seasons on hold amid stay-at-home orders and limits on public gatherings, but some are now allowing clubs to start training. The Korea Baseball Organization is one of the first to resume play, and in a sign of the appetite for watching sports at this time, the league struck a deal to have some of its games broadcast on the U.S. cable sports giant ESPN in the middle of the night, U.S. time. The U.S. National Football League is set to announce its schedule Thursday, but has decided to abandon plans to hold games this season in London and Mexico City. South Korea Resumes Baseball With New Coronavirus Cases Near ZeroEfforts to restart suspended activities come as world raises $8 billion for treatment and vaccine research Second wave feared The world’s top health authorities, including the director of the U.S.’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, have warned of the second wave of the pandemic later this year and called for prudence. Scientists have determined that the latest strain of coronavirus is different from the one that started the pandemic in Wuhan, China, because it has had several mutations. It is spreading faster and could therefore be more dangerous. The information is of particular importance to researchers worldwide who are trying to develop a vaccine to protect from coronavirus infections. A European-Union-led initiative raised more than $8 billion Monday to fund efforts to develop the vaccine and other remedies for the coronavirus. The United States and China did not pledge contributions, but a senior State Department official said that the United States is in the process of providing $2.4 billion in global health, humanitarian, and economic assistance toward the COVID-19 response. European Leaders Raise $8 Billion to Combat Coronavirus The battle against coronavirus continues, as countries see ups and downs The Trump administration has suspended U.S. contribution to the World Health Organization accusing it of inadequate response to the crisis. Trump has also called for a probe into allegations that the coronavirus was produced in a Wuhan lab and did not originate in a food market as generally believed. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that “enormous evidence” showed the virus was lab-produced. A top U.S. military officer said Tuesday that there is no such evidence. “The weight of evidence is that it was natural and not manmade,” Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in a briefing. He called on the Chinese government to “open up and allow inspectors and investigators to go there.” China has reacted angrily to any suggestions that it might be responsible for the global pandemic of the deadly virus. Close to 3.7 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 worldwide, and about 270,000 have died, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally for Tuesday evening. Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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Obamas to Speak at Nationwide TV High School Graduation Ceremony
Former President Barack Obama will be the commencement speaker this month at what may be the world’s largest high school graduation ceremony. With millions of high school students missing their traditional graduation ceremonies because of the coronavirus, Obama’s address will be the highlight of Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020. The four major commercial television networks will broadcast the special show on May 16, along with 20 other broadcasting and digital outlets. Basketball superstar LeBron James, Pakistani women’s rights activist Malala Yousafzai, and popular actor Ben Platt will also appear in the program. As many as 3 million high school seniors will be graduating this year but are being deprived of the cap and gown ceremony, where they march down an aisle, onto the stage, and accept a diploma in front of proud parents. “I’ve always loved joining commencements — the culmination of years of hard work and sacrifice,” Obama said on Twitter. “Even if we can’t get together in person this year, Michelle and I are excited to celebrate the nationwide Class of 2020 and recognize this milestone with you and your loved ones.” The former First Lady Michelle Obama tweeted “Whether you’re graduating from high school, college, or any other kind of school — we want you, your family, and all of your loved ones to be a part of this celebration.” There is no word on who the Obamas will be taking to a virtual senior prom.
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