Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games may have to be postponed if the event cannot take place “in a complete way” due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Prime Minister Abe made the admission during a parliamentary session Monday, but ruled out the possibility the Games, which are scheduled for July 24 until August 9, will be cancelled outright.  Abe’s remarks came a day after the International Olympic Committee announced it would examine the situation over the next few weeks and discuss what next steps to take, including postponing the Olympics by a few weeks or even a year. But the IOC is also refusing to consider the possibility of outright cancelling the Games.   The IOC has come under intense criticism from some prominent Olympic athletes for holding fast to its commitment to stage the Tokyo Olympics as planned.  The pressure mounted Sunday when the Canadian Olympic Committee announced Sunday that it would not send its athletes to Tokyo.   As of Sunday, Japan had more than 1,700 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including over 700 from a cruise ship that was quarantined last month near Tokyo, and more than 30 deaths. The rapid spread of COVID-19 has forced Olympic associations around the world to either postpone or cancel their qualifying events for the Tokyo Games, and has affected athlete’s training and preparation schedules.   
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As the coronavirus pandemic grows worse, Chinese international students in the U.S. are facing a dilemma: as more and more schools close, more and more Chinese students are finding themselves with nowhere to go. If they return to China, the travel ban will stop them from returning to the U.S. Calla Yu reports for VOA from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
 
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President Donald Trump has sent a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, offering U.S. help amid the coronavirus pandemic, the first known contact between the two leaders in months.The letter shows the continued “special and firm” relationship between Kim and Trump, according to the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, which revealed the existence of the letter in a statement Sunday.In the letter, Trump offered Kim “anti-epidemic” help and said he “was impressed by the efforts made by the Chairman to defend his people” from the epidemic, the North Korean statement said.North Korea insists it does not have any coronavirus infections, though many suspect it is hiding an outbreak. The coronavirus could be especially deadly in North Korea, which lacks adequate medical supplies and infrastructure.’Consistent’ with past effortsA senior White House official acknowledged Trump’s letter, which he said was “consistent with his efforts to engage global leaders during the ongoing pandemic.”“The president looks forward to continued communications with Chairman Kim,” the U.S. official said.  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said Washington had offered Pyongyang coronavirus assistance, despite “deep differences” between the two countries.FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un sign documents that acknowledge progress in talks and pledge to keep momentum going, after their summit at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore, June 12, 2018.U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks had already been stalled since the middle of last year, but the negotiations have gone completely dormant as both countries deal with the coronavirus.In January, Trump sent Kim wishes for a happy birthday in a letter, briefly raising hopes of renewed dialogue. But North Korea has repeatedly stressed that overall relations remain poor, despite the Trump-Kim friendship.“We try to hope for the day when the relations between the two countries would be as good as the ones between the two top leaders, but it has to be left to time and be watched whether it can actually happen,” said Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, who wrote the North Korean statement Sunday.’Proper action’Kim, who has recently taken on a wider diplomatic role in support of her brother, welcomed Trump’s letter as a “good judgment and proper action.”“We view such a personal letter of President Trump as a good example showing the special and firm personal relations with Chairman Kim Jong Un,” she said, adding her brother also has mentioned his “special personal relations” with Trump.However, she said North Korea would not “waste time” but would make itself “more powerful,” just as it had “for the past two years.”“Even at this moment we are working hard to develop and defend ourselves on our own under the cruel environment which the U.S. is keen to ‘provide,’ ” Kim said, apparently referencing international sanctions.FILE – Missiles are seen in this undated picture released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency, March 9, 2020.North Korea on Saturday tested two short-range ballistic missiles, its third round of ballistic missile tests this month. KCNA on Sunday said Kim Jong Un had overseen the test, which involved a newly developed “tactical guided weapon.”Analysts said the missile tests might be designed to keep up pressure on the U.S. or might serve as a show of strength for a domestic audience. Another reason: North Korea is simply trying to produce more advanced weapons.
 
North Korea is banned from any ballistic missile activity under U.N. Security Council resolutions. But Trump has said he is not concerned about North Korea’s short-range tests.Three meetingsTrump and Kim have met three times, but talks broke down last year after the U.S. refused to relax sanctions and provide other concessions.During their talks, Trump said Kim promised he would not conduct any long-range missile or nuclear tests, though that alleged agreement was never formalized.At a New Year’s speech, Kim said he no longer felt bound by his self-imposed suspension of nuclear or intercontinental ballistic missile tests and warned the world would soon see a “new strategic weapon.”
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Singapore has reported its first coronavirus-related fatalities, a 75-year-old woman and a 64-year-old man. Singapore’s health minister, Gan Kim Yong, made the announcement at a news briefing Saturday.”While we all know that there will be fatalities in COVID-19 patients, we are deeply saddened by their passing. I know Singaporeans will worried and anxious. We must take courage, and not give into our fears,” Gan said.Both patients had prior health conditions.”The first patient has an underlying history of heart diseases, as well as hypertension. She developed serious complications and eventually succumbed to the disease after 26 days in the ICU. The second patient was admitted to ICU in critical condition after arriving from Indonesia. He had underlying history of heart disease, and also eventually succumbed to his disease after nine days in the ICU,” Gan said.Singapore has confirmed 385 cases of the infection, and the two deaths reported Saturday were the first in the country since the COVID-19 outbreak began in the city-state in late January.
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Not everyone who wanted to buy the bank cards stolen from Southeast Asian owners would pay the same price: The higher the amount of money left on the card, the higher the price. That’s according to Technisanct, a cybersecurity company based in India, which said it found the data for hundreds of thousands of cards for sale online, taken from citizens in the six largest nations in Southeast Asia.The card theft comes as statistics show cybercrime is on the rise across all the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, prompting local calls for more stringent regulations and protocols to fight the trend. “The results are alarming as it seems no one is aware that such a huge volume of payment card details, including the CVV (card verification value) and PIN, are available,” said Nandakishore Harikumar, chief executive officer of Technisanct.The company said its researchers found that more than 300,000 stolen card accounts were being sold on the internet last month. It said the accounts belonged to customers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. FILE – An interior view of the Interpol Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) Cyber Fusion Centre, which brings together cybersecurity experts, is seen in Singapore, April 13, 2015.The leaked information is just the latest instance of a region-wide trend, and ASEAN is paying the price. IBM Security commissioned research, released in the 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Report, which assessed impacts for the global economy.Between 2018 and 2019, the ASEAN region saw a cost increase in all of the key indicators measured by the researchers, namely the average size of data breaches, the average total cost, and the average cost per piece of data that is breached. Exploiting COVID-19The leak also coincides with what security researchers say is an increase in global cyberfraud by criminals exploiting the COVID-19 virus emergency. Hackers this month went after the website of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, as well as targeting the increasing number of people now working from home with unsecured wireless internet. Southeast Asians’ increasing awareness of cyberthreats in recent years has led to increasing regulation aimed at increasing data protection. This year, Singapore criminalized “doxxing,” which refers to posting other people’s personal information online, usually to threaten or embarrass them. Indonesia has proposed its first-ever data privacy law, which includes punishment of up to seven years in jail and $5 million in fines for sharing private data without consent.Vietnam already had a cybersecurity law but has released new subsidiary regulations under that law with further guidelines. They include specifics about when websites must take down information considered to be violating the law, and which organizations must store data domestically.”Vietnam witnessed an increase in the number of cyberattacks and data leakages in 2019, and the country has been among the top targets for cyberattacks in recent years,” Pho Duc Giang, director at PwC Vietnam Cybersecurity Services Company, said. “To leverage on growing business opportunities in the digital economy’s booming period, Vietnam enterprises need to actively prepare for new challenges by adapting and complying with up-to-date” standards, he said. Security recommendationsSuch standards go beyond what is required by the law. Security researchers recommend companies and individuals think more carefully about their behavior on the internet.They can use software to manage their passwords —so they don’t have to memorize ones that are easy for hackers to crack—as well as change the passwords for devices like their wireless routers and smart plugs, rather than use the default settings set by the manufacturer.And as employees are working from home to combat the coronavirus, there are reports that hackers have been sending phishing emails posing as managers seeking employee log-in credentials, or as officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offering information. During this emergency and beyond, the recommendations for better online behavior could be useful both inside and outside Southeast Asia. 
 
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Vietnamese officials are preparing for a limited economic revival as their coronavirus caseload stays low.Despite its land border and close trade relationship with China, Vietnam reports only 85 widely dispersed coronavirus cases, and it sometimes goes for days with no new cases.The government is rolling out incentives now to revive companies including export manufacturers, a backbone of the economy that has grown around 6% per year since 2012, although the borders are largely sealed to inbound travelers.“Materials are starting to come in and [factories] picked up a little bit, but the real concern they have is tourism and foreign flow, so they’re really tightening that up,” said Mike Lynch, managing director with SSI Institutional Brokerage in Ho Chi Minh City.As with countries elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Vietnam is offering tax breaks, extending tax due dates and allowing delayed land-use fee payments to companies affected by the outbreak, business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates said in an online briefing Tuesday.The central bank cut its benchmark refinance 1 percentage point Tuesday to stimulate business activity.“This is all they can do in response to the virus outbreak of trying to mitigate the impact of the outbreak on their economy,” said Song Seng Wun, a Southeast Asia regional economist in the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore. “It’s about helping to minimize disruption and saving jobs.”A health worker sprays disinfectants to protect against the coronavirus on a beach in Hoi An, Vietnam, March 10, 2020.Epidemic controlVietnamese officials reacted to the virus early on by banning arrivals from China. People ordered into quarantine normally comply, at the risk of being scorned otherwise on social media, two authors from the Ho Chi Minh City-based University of Economics School of Government wrote in a March 17 article in The Diplomat online.The country discloses its caseload openly and doesn’t silence public discussion, the scholars said, suggesting it had tried to avoid repeating China’s response.Vietnam quit issuing visas to almost all foreign nationals for 30 days, starting March 18.  Ho Chi Minh City authorities plan to curb meetings geared for more than 1,000 people. Bars and cinemas are closed through March 31.The halt to visas will hurt hotels, airlines and travel agencies, analysts in Vietnam said. Inbound tourism had grown from 5 million to 15 million between 2010 and 2018. China and South Korea are the top two sources.People in Vietnam are staying home more often than usual, in some cases working there instead of in offices. Restaurants still operate, though sometimes for fewer hours per week than before, residents of the two biggest cities said this week.When the government declares an end to local coronavirus spread, the domestic economy is likely to bounce back as far as it can without foreign visitors including tourists, said Adam McCarty, chief economist with Mekong Economics in Hanoi.“When that point happens, the government will say OK, it’s clear, restaurants are on and everyone can go out,” McCarty said “The domestic economy could revive and all the masks could come off, so that would be a big stimulus and that could happen in less than a month from now.”FILE – Laborers work at a garment assembly line of Thanh Cong textile, garment, investment and trading company in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, July 9, 2019.Factories are operating – for nowThe country’s economy is doing relatively well, for the moment.Factories are still operating on local labor, and export growth from January 1 through March 15 grew 6.8% over the same period of 2019.“Even with the first quarter quickly drawing to a close, the data [are] way better than what the doom and gloom crowd would have had you believe,” SSI Research said in market update note Thursday. “The Vietnamese economy actually performed to a degree that other national economies nowadays would give an arm and a leg to have.”However, demand for factory goods is expected to slump in Western countries as consumers stay home. The disease outbreak appears to be a “potent direct hit on confidence,” the Harvard Business Review said March 3.About 55% of Vietnam’s economy, more than the global average, has relied on export manufacturing from 1986 through 2018.
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Even though South Korea has drastically reduced its number of new coronavirus infections, public health officials and analysts are warning it is too soon to declare victory against what is likely to be a long-term pandemic.For five out of six days this week, South Korea has reported fewer than 100 new infections. That is down significantly from a peak of 909 new cases February 29.South Korea has fought the virus without resorting to widespread restrictions on movement or forced closure of businesses, as seen in other countries. Instead, it made coronavirus tests widely available, conducted data-driven investigations of infection paths and quickly isolated those exposed.But the success is fragile, authorities warn, especially since dangerous cluster infections continue to emerge in settings like churches, offices and nursing homes.“We cannot let our guards down yet,” said Yoon Tae-ho, a senior health ministry official, at a regular briefing Friday. “We believe that we will still see a continued and prolonged coronavirus outbreak.”People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on a news conference by Lee Man-hee, founder of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, in Seoul, South Korea, March 2, 2020.Group infections South Korea appears particularly susceptible to group infections, in part because nearly half the country lives in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area.Authorities say nearly 90 percent of South Korea’s confirmed coronavirus cases have been related to cluster infections. The majority have been linked to a single “super cluster” that began at a gathering of a fringe religious group in the southeastern city of Daegu. Authorities have tested nearly 210,000 members of the group, known as the Shincheonji Church of Jesus.But even though the Shincheonji-related infection appears to have been largely contained, that doesn’t mean the wider threat is over, warned Ki Moran, who heads the Korean Society of Preventive Medicine’s committee for emergency response.“It is still very dangerous right now,” said Ki, especially in enclosed public spaces like offices, churches, hospitals, coin karaoke rooms, or computer gaming centers. She said the situation will have stabilized only when cluster infections have been eliminated and the main source of infection is individual transfer.A woman wearing a mask to prevent contracting the coronavirus waits for her flight at Incheon International Airport in Incheon, South Korea, March 19, 2020.Social distancing fatigue“The longer it lasts, the more social fatigue there will be,” she said. “And as a result, the participation rate will fall.”Most of the South Korean outbreak has been contained to the southeastern part of the country. In Seoul, the situation has never felt out of control, even as the number of cases continues to slowly but steadily grow. In many ways, life in the capital continues as normal, though schools, sporting events, and most other group gatherings have been canceled.Though many South Korean religious groups have moved their services online, the Seoul city government estimates that about one-third of Protestant churches in the capital held in-person services on Sunday, according to the Yonhap news agency.Authorities have so far asked, but not required, churches to close their doors temporarily. On Friday, Yoon, the public health official, encouraged all religious gatherings to be canceled.“The weather is getting nice and many people are having a tough time having to stay at home,” Yoon said. “But just as you have been participating in social distancing measures up until now, we hope these measures could be prolonged moving forward.”Red Cross workers fill emergency relief kits with basic necessities like instant food for delivery to impoverished people amid the spread of the new coronavirus at a facility of the Korean National Red Cross in Seoul, South Korea, March 20, 2020.Worldwide cases spikeIn total, South Korea has reported 8,652 infections. Ninety-four people have died, mostly elderly patients with underlying conditions.South Korea has now been surpassed by several other countries, including the United States, in the number of overall infections, raising the risk of imported cases from overseas.South Korean authorities, who have so far detected 17 imported virus cases, have tightened immigration procedures.Beginning Sunday, all arrivals from Europe will be required to get a coronavirus test. Those who test positive will go to a hospital or residential treatment center. Even those who test negative must go into self-isolation for two weeks.South Korean authorities say such measures could also soon apply to those coming from the United States and other Asian countries.In the coming weeks, tens of thousands of college students from mainland China, where the virus originated, had been expected to return to South Korea, though some may delay those plans since most classes remain postponed.“As the virus spreads globally, that could lead to more deaths here,” said Kang Da-yean, a nurse working at a makeshift quarantine facility on a college campus in the worst-hit city of Daegu.Though Daegu officials have stated they hope to defeat the virus by the end of March, Kang is skeptical that it can happen. And she cautioned against anyone tempted to let their guard down.“This will speed up the spread of the virus,” she said. “It is deadly serious for elders and those with underlying conditions. And there is no cure yet. It is just too soon to say the situation has been controlled.”Lee Juhyun contributed to this report. 
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Phones have been ringing off the hook lately for Brian Edwards, a sales manager of a small medical supply company in California.  And he has to say “No” to all the people who called.Edwards used to buy tens of thousands of facemasks from China. But not in the past three months.His company, the First Choice Industrial Supply Company, has not been able to get any masks from China since the outbreak of coronavirus in late December while the demand is soaring in the U.S.”You can’t get a product. You are not going to get a product for months. ” said Edwards, whose company advertises itself as “If it’s something you use, it’s something we stock”.Edwards said in the interview with Voice of America last Friday that he gets about 50 calls and 50 emails every day from all over the country trying to find masks.  But now in the U.S. “no body can get anything”.   “The worst you could possibly have.” said Edwards.ShortagesEdwards is at the center of a major problem that the nation faces now:  There aren’t enough critical medical supplies, such as facemasks, because China has stopped shipping them to the world.In the fight against the coronavirus, facemasks have become the most visible symbol of the deadly pandemic, worn by millions of people around the globe every day.   Various N95 respiration masks at a laboratory of 3M, that has been contracted by the U.S. government to produce extra marks in response to the country’s novel coronavirus outbreak, in Maplewood, Minnesota, U.S., March 4, 2020.In the U.S., officials project the country has just one percent of the 3.5 billion surgical masks and respirators needed to fight the outbreak for a year.Hospitals across the country are now “conserving supplies and allocating with oversight”, said Arika Trim, Associate Director of Media Relation at the American Hospital Association.She said in an email to VOA that hospitals are “grouping patients accordingly as means of preserving personal protective equipment.”Doctors, nurses and other medical staff caring for the growing number of novel coronavirus cases are reportedly making DIY (do-it-yourself) face shields to help deal with the shortage.  U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will be invoking a federal law called “Defense Production Act” to marshal the private sector for the supply shortage.  In addition, the White House has asked construction companies to donate their stocks of N95 respirator masks to their local hospitals.  The shortage has also prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to loosen its recommendations on the face protection that healthcare workers should use. Instead of recommending using specialized masks known as N95 respirators, which filter out about 95 percent of airborne particles, the CDC now says that looser fitting surgical facemasks “are an acceptable alternative.”“The supply chain of respirators cannot meet demand.” the CDC said Tuesday.A Broken Supply ChainThousands of miles away, among millions of manufacturers on the other end of the supply chain, Cai Mingxian, the owner of a mask factory based in China’s virus epicenter in Hubei province, is trying to get his business restarted.Like many small businesses in China, his factory was devastated during the lockdown and not able to produce anything.Cai’s 150 employees are now back at work making 200,000 masks per day. But he said all of them are being sold to China’s government and none for export.  “We previously exported to the U.S., Spain and other parts of Asia,” Cai said. “But at the moment we can’t export anything.”Chinese officials deny they are banning exports. Li Xingqian, director of the foreign trade department at the Ministry of Commerce, said at a press conference last week that it would abide by free trade and market principles. “Masks are freely traded products …companies can trade them in line with market principles.”   However, another Chinese official, Chen Hongyan, secretary-general of the Medical Devices Branch of the China Pharmaceutical Materials Association, admitted “key medical supplies such as masks are uniformly managed and allocated by the government”, according to a report published last Wednesday by the official Xinhua news agency.As the virus’s spread escalates all over the world, the government is under growing pressure to share and meet the world’s needs. There are signs recently that China may now be willing to share some of what it has.   “China pledges continuous support for its export enterprises in providing face masks and medical supplies to foreign countries, said foreign trade director Li last Thursday.Li’s claim was confirmed by mask factory owner Cai who said he has heard that the regulation prohibiting mask exports is lifted. “Mask export was authorized yesterday” Cai said in the telephone interview last Saturday. “I am following the situation every day.”   As part of goodwill packages, the Chinese government has begun some shipments to Iran, South Korea, Japan and Italy.  Last week, it said it would send five million masks to South Korea and export two million surgical masks to Italy.   FILE – An Indian laborer works at a surgical mask production unit in Ahmadabad, India, Feb. 1, 2020.Production Ramp-UpChina made half the world’s masks before the coronavirus emerged there.  The government has been undertaking a massive mobilization of wartime proportions to expand its output since then.  Daily production soared from about 10 million before the crisis to 116 million now, according to the latest number released late last month by China’s National Development and Reform Commission.More than 2,500 companies in China have reportedly started making facemasks, among them are some of the country’s powerful state-owned enterprises and technology companies, including iPhone assembler Foxconn.The maker of China’s new J-20 stealth fighter jet, Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, repurposed part of its factory to design a mask production line, according to local media, The Sichuan Daily’s recent report.BYD Co., a leading Chinese electric-carmaker backed by American investor Warren Buffett is now the world’s biggest facemask maker with the capacity of making 5 million masks a day.The Limits China facesEven with the daily output of masks in China now 116 million, given the sheer size of its population, the country is likely to continue facing shortages.In many parts of China, facemasks are required by local governments to protect against infection in public spaces.   A recent report by a leading Chinese financial services firm, Huachuang Securities, says China has 38 million people working in healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing industries. If one person uses one mask per day, China would need 238 million masks every day.Yuan Fajun, the secretary general of the medical materials committee at the China Medical Pharmaceutical Material Association, estimates manufacturers still needed to produce about 230 million surgical masks for its domestic market.In addition, there are some technical limits. The production of sophisticated facemasks like the N95 model requires nonwoven polypropylene, a special fabric that is in short supply. As a result, N95 respirator masks, which help keep health workers safe from contracting the virus through particles released by mucus and cough sputum when they are around infected individuals, has barely increased.The investment in a new production line for such material will cost millions of dollars, and will take two to three months to complete, local media reported.The other bottleneck the country faces is with its mask-making machines. Demand for such machines skyrocketed as hundreds of companies altered their business and have started making masks. For the big companies that are unable to obtain the equipment rapidly enough, they are making their own. A General Motors joint venture in southwestern China and BYD have already built dozens of the machines and are beginning bulk production.But the majority of mask makers, which are small and mid-sized businesses, can only wait. Mask maker Cai said he has placed a back order and machines would come in a month. “I will be making 400,000 masks per day after the machines arrive” Cai said.As for the U.S., the Trump administration is invoking special powers to quickly expand domestic manufacturing of protective masks.  But in order to ramp up the production, “They have to build the machine, and that is going to take 6 months.” said Edwards. 
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The Chinese city at the center of the coronavirus pandemic has for the first time reported no new daily cases, saying Thursday that there were no new cases Wednesday.Wuhan has spent about two months on lockdown as authorities tried to stop the spread of the virus, and in recent weeks the number of new infections there dwindled.Elsewhere in China, though, with health officials reporting 34 total cases Thursday among people who came from elsewhere, there is continued concern about such imported cases threatening the substantial progress the country has made.China has been the hardest hit by the novel coronavirus since it emerged in late December, with about 81,000 total cases and 3,200 deaths. Most people who became sick have recovered.Volunteers make face masks to protect against the coronavirus to donate to their neighbors in Seoul, South Korea, March 18, 2020.South Korea reported 152 new cases Thursday, a step back from its recent progress of fewer than 100 new daily cases for four days in a row.The virus has reached 166 countries, with more than 208,000 confirmed cases and 8,600 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.Nicaragua and neighboring El Salvador announced late Wednesday that they had confirmed their first cases.Mexico, which has confirmed 118 cases, reported its first death early Thursday.Italy has the second highest number of cases, and on Wednesday reported an alarming development – 475 new deaths from the virus, the highest daily toll in any nation so far.In total, nearly 3,000 people have died among about 36,000 cases in Italy.The Italian government is one of many across the world that have sought to restrict public life to keep people from spreading the virus among members of their communities or in other parts of the country.FILE – An elderly man with a protective mask walks in Venice, on the fourth day of a lockdown across Italy, imposed to slow the outbreak of coronavirus, March 13, 2020.Panama announced Wednesday a new nationwide curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., with only police, firefighters, health care workers and sanitation employees allowed out during that time. The country has reported 109 cases to date.New Zealand announced Thursday it is banning entry to foreigners, shortly after the government advised citizens not to travel overseas because of the risk of contracting the coronavirus.“We will not tolerate risk at our borders,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a news conference. The government said it had identified eight new cases involving people who traveled overseas. Its total case number stood at 28.Nearby Australia said it would also ban entry to noncitizens and nonresidents starting Friday.  Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the “overwhelming proportion” of Australia’s 500 confirmed cases have been imported.While the U.S. and Canada announced a temporary closure of their border to “nonessential traffic,” travelers created logjams at European border crossings.FILE – Trucks wait before the German-Polish border checkpoint Forst, as the two countries try to contain the spread of coronavirus disease, in Frauendorf, Germany, March 18, 2020.European countries have also shut their borders to nonessential traffic, but many crossings remain open to cross-border employees and trucks transporting medicine and other critical goods.Germany, with nearly 9,900 confirmed cases, is bracing for a sharp spike in infections, after a top government health official warned Wednesday that as many as 10 million people could be infected.But Germany’s Robert Koch Institute head Lothar Weiler said the number of infections could be significantly reduced if social interactions were curtailed.Weiler also warned that the outbreak could continue to affect Germany for up to two years.
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Vietnam has introduced legislation to advance its greenhouse gas reduction goals as per the Paris climate accord, decreasing worries the fast-growing nation’s reliance on coal would stymie those efforts.  
 
The legislation includes a draft Law on Environmental Protection and a lower-level decree from the Environment Ministry. Together, they prepare Vietnam to decrease its emissions of greenhouse gases. 
 
The combined laws use four main strategies: cap and trade; a ban on chemicals that destroy the ozone; corporate emission reporting rules; and a database of both emissions and the measures to decrease them. 
 
The proposals are a good start, but Vietnam will need to get more specific to turn itself into a “low carbon economy,” according to law firm Baker McKenzie Vietnam, which issued a report analyzing the legislation.“Although the need for urgent action on climate change through economic transition and sustainable development has been recognized, Vietnam needs specific policies, incentives and legal guidelines,” the report reads. The legislation includes measures to decrease emissions by focusing on forests, namely reforestation, and using trees to lock in carbon dioxide. One of the nonprofit groups working with Vietnam to promote community forest management is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Swiss Partnership on Social Forestry and Climate Change.Social forestry gives more control of woodlands to people living around them, decreasing deforestation and corporate control of resources. Demonstrators protest during a climate change strike in front of the St. Joseph Cathedral in Hanoi, Vietnam Sept. 27, 2019.The ASEAN-Swiss partnership praised Vietnam for shifting toward greater community control. 
 
“This work brought together people in governments, civil society organizations, the private sector and communities, often for the first time,” said Doris Capistrano, a senior adviser to the partnership. 
 
“This in turn has led to widespread improvements in policies and practices across the region,” she noted. 
 
Vietnam’s emissions strategies in the draft legislation are part of a regional trend. For instance, Singapore also is introducing more corporate environmental reporting rules, as well as a cap and trade program. Under such programs, companies have a cap on how much greenhouse gas they can emit, but if they don’t reach the cap, they can trade the excess amount with other companies.  This means Vietnam will create a “domestic carbon credit market,” according to the Baker McKenzie Vietnam report. To initiate such a market, Vietnam will need data from companies. The draft legislation requires the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to come up with a list of companies emitting the most greenhouse gases in the nation and require them to regularly report their emissions. The ministry is supposed to introduce guidelines for the database by the end of 2020.  
 
Besides this database, the legislation also proposes to phase in a ban on companies using substances that destroy the ozone layer in the Earth’s atmosphere. These include such chemicals as those used to produce air conditioners, fire extinguishers, and aerosol cans, for instance. Ho Chi Minh City, shown in 2009, is the business hub of Vietnam, which aims to cut emissions by requiring businesses to submit pollution data to the government. The legislation is intended to push Vietnam away from carbon, though environmentalists say it needs to do more, particularly to decrease the use of coal. The nation of nearly 100 million people uses coal for almost one-third of its electricity needs —a figure projected to increase by five times by 2030.  
 
The Green ID environmental organization is urging the state to phase out coal. It already succeeded in getting an official commitment to remove 20,000 megawatts’ worth of coal-based power from national plans. But the group is pushing for more reductions and a shift to renewable energy. Vietnam still has eight new coal-fired power plants in the pipeline, which would account for an additional 9,940 megawatts of power. 
 
Another Vietnamese environmental organization, CHANGE, agrees that shifting from coal to alternative energy must be part of the collective national effort to reduce emissions. Such pollution is particularly bad for the air quality and for citizens’ health, Hoang Thi Minh Hong, director of CHANGE, said.   
 
“I find it really scary when I see that the air quality in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City has been getting worse and worse in the last few years,” she said. “I am really against the argument that this is the price that has to be paid for economic growth.”  
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Myanmar’s army said on Wednesday it had withdrawn a criminal complaint it filed against Reuters news agency after being requested to do so by the Myanmar Press Council and in the interest of good relations with the media. Police said last week the military had filed a lawsuit against Reuters and a local lawmaker for criminal defamation weeks after objecting to a news story about two Rohingya Muslim women, who died as a result of shelling in Rakhine state. “We have withdrawn the case because of the mediation and request of the Myanmar Press Council,” military spokesman Zaw Min Tun said by phone. “We acknowledge and value the role of the media in the multi-party democracy system.” Police in Rakhine state, where the case was filed, were not available to confirm the case had been withdrawn. The press council, which adjudicates disputes between authorities and news media, said the army had withdrawn the case against Reuters and a lawsuit filed last year against an editor for local news website The Irrawaddy. “In the future, if there is something unsatisfactory… we request organizations to send a complaint to the press council first instead of opening a case or suing,” it said in a statement that welcomed the army’s decision. A Reuters spokesman said: “We welcome the resolution of this matter via the Press Council. Reuters will continue to report on Myanmar in a fair, independent and responsible way, as we do all around the world.” Both Reuters and The Irrawaddy had been facing lawsuits filed under section 66D of the Telecommunications Act, which carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison and has been used to jail government critics. The case against Reuters followed an army complaint about a story published on Jan. 25 in which the lawmaker was quoted as saying that the military’s artillery fire had caused the deaths of the two Rohingya women. After publication, the army said its artillery fire had not killed the women or caused other civilian injuries and blamed insurgents of the Arakan Army (AA), who are fighting for greater autonomy in Rakhine state. The AA blamed the army. The army held a news conference on Feb. 4 to complain about the story, after which Reuters updated the story to reflect the army’s position. The army subsequently filed a complaint to the press council objecting to the article. It later brought the criminal defamation case against Reuters and the lawmaker, Maung Kyaw Zan. The army did not comment on whether the case against him had also been withdrawn. Maung Kyaw Zan told Reuters he had heard nothing about his case so far. The army filed a complaint against Ye Ni, an editor for The Irrawaddy, in April 2019 also over coverage of conflict in Rakhine state. Ye Ni said he was “very pleased” with the withdrawal of the lawsuit and the reasons given by the military. Rakhine is the western region from which more than 750,000 Rohingya Muslims fled in 2017 following a military crackdown. More recently, it has been engulfed by a new conflict between government troops and the insurgent Arakan Army, which recruits from the mostly Buddhist Rakhine majority population, and is fighting for greater autonomy. Myanmar is facing charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice in the Hague over the crackdown against the Rohingya. The army denies genocide, saying it was fighting a legitimate battle against Rohingya militants who attacked first. Two Reuters reporters were released from a Myanmar jail last May after spending more than 18 months behind bars, accused of breaking the official secrets act in a case that sparked an outcry from diplomats and human rights advocates. Before their arrest in December 2017, they had been working on an investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys by security forces and Buddhist civilians in Rakhine state.   
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China and Cambodia bucked the global trend of event cancellations this week by starting joint military exercises as a way to show the world they’re over the coronavirus outbreak and getting friendlier despite apprehension in other countries.   The two old friends that often chafe against neighboring Vietnam and the United States began their fourth annual joint military drill on Sunday. The activities in Cambodia’s Kampot province will focus on humanitarian rescue work and counterterrorism work before ending April 1, the Chinese official Xinhua News agency reported.   China and its military weaker counterpart are holding their “Dragon Gold 2020” drills amid a global wave of event cancellations to stop the spread of COVID-19, the deadly diseases caused by the coronavirus. China reports more cases than any other country, about 80,000, since the virus was discovered there in December. But new cases have slowed to near none this month.   Officials in Beijing hope to show the world they are reemerging now politically and economically after the outbreak, which is still spreading in Western countries, while Cambodia wants to show solidarity so it can get more Chinese aid, analysts say.   “This is a way of China saying that things are getting back to normal,” said Alan Chong, associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “I think China wanted to put the COVID-19 virus behind it. There’s every reason to shore up regime legitimacy as soon as possible.”   FILE – China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, center back, attends the Special ASEAN-China Foreign Ministers’ meeting on the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia in Vientiane, Laos, Feb. 20, 2020.China had helped Pol Pot’s deadly Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s as a counterweight to Vietnamese influence in Indochina. Cambodia now gives China a voice in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a negotiating bloc where some members have sparred with Beijing over maritime sovereignty issues. Cambodia is one of 10 association members.   China in turn had contributed $2 billion to Cambodian infrastructure as of 2018. The impoverished benefactor has expanded a seaport, opened a road network and made plans for two new airports. Cambodia stands now to get health assistance from China, said Termsak Chalermpalanupap, a fellow with the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.   Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen traveled to Beijing in February, near the height of the country’s virus outbreak, in what experts call an unusually strong show of moral support.   FILE – Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi welcomes Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen as he arrives at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, Feb. 5, 2020. (China Daily via Reuters)“Hun Sen last month went all the way to Beijing to meet the Chinese president just to show that Cambodia has big friends who can help Cambodia,” Chalermpalanupap said. The Southeast Asian country hopes to keep getting infrastructure help from China, Chong said.   The exercises’ location in Cambodia happens to be near Ream Naval Base in the host country’s city of Sihanoukville, where China “has a massive presence”, said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.   Military exercises this month, though not explicitly a war game, are expected to give China stronger presence over time as needed in the southern parts of Indochina, scholars say.    Vietnam will be particularly worried, Chong said. Vietnam borders both and resents Chinese maritime expansion in the South China Sea. Vietnam, also an ASEAN member, and China contest sovereignty over parts of the resource-rich sea.   The China-Cambodia exercises show China’s “commitment” to fracturing ASEAN as in institution, said Stephen Nagy, a senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo.    “By inculcating itself into Cambodia through joint missions or joint tests or the establishment of a base, this is a very, very effective way to prevent ASEAN from working together as it’s supposed to,” he said.   The Sino-Cambodia drills come after the U.S.-led, multi-country “Cobra Gold” military exercise hosted by Cambodia’s border nation Thailand for 12 days ending March 6. China resents U.S. naval movement in the South China Sea. Washington calls the waterway public, while China claims about 90% of it as its own.   
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