China has published new data on more than 44,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, which show the disease is not as deadly as previous coronaviruses including SARS and MERS. The World Health Organization reports more than 70,000 cases, including 1,772 deaths, mostly from China’s Hubei province, where the outbreak first surfaced. Cases in 25 countries outside China have increased slightly to 694, including three deaths, one each in the Philippines, Japan and France.The data appear to show a decline in the number of new cases of coronavirus. But WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this should be interpreted with great caution because trends can change as new populations are affected.More than 94 percent of all reported cases in China come from Hubei province. The new cases reported are both clinically and lab-confirmed cases. Tedros said it is too early to tell if the disease is slowing down.Medical workers in protective suits attend to a patient inside an isolated ward of Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, in Hubei province, China, Feb. 16, 2020. (Credit: China Daily)Tedros, however, said the Chinese data appear to indicate that most people who become infected with Covid-19 disease will not die.“More than 80 percent of patients have mild disease and will recover. In about 14 percent of cases, the virus causes severe disease, including pneumonia and shortness of breath. And, about five percent of patients have critical disease including respiratory failure, septic shock and multi-organ failure,” he said.Tedros said the fatality rate is at about 2 percent. Those most at risk are elderly people with underlying health conditions. He notes relatively few children have become infected, a mystery that requires more research.The WHO chief said a team of 12 international experts is on the ground in China and working with Chinese counterparts to get to the bottom of this illness. He says they are trying to better understand the origin of the outbreak and its evolution. 
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Doctors in Shanghai are using infusions of blood plasma from people who have recovered from the coronavirus to treat those still battling the infection, reporting some encouraging preliminary results, a Chinese professor said on Monday.The coronavirus epidemic is believed to have originated in a seafood market in the central city of Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, and has so far killed 1,770 people and infected more than 70,000 in mainland China.China’s financial hub of Shanghai on Monday had 332 infected cases, one of whom died in recent weeks. Lu Hongzhou, professor and co-director of the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, said that 184 cases were still hospitalized, including 166 mild cases, while 18 were in serious and critical conditions.He said the hospital had set up a special clinic to administer plasma therapy and was selecting patients who were willing to donate. The blood would be screened to check if he or she had other diseases like hepatitis B or C, he added.”We are positive that this method can be very effective in our patients,” he said.There are no fully licensed treatments or vaccines against the new coronavirus, and the process of developing and testing drugs can take many months and even years.As well as using plasma therapies, which harness antibodies in the blood of someone who has fought off the viral infection, doctors are also trying antiviral drugs licensed for use against other infections to see if they might help.Chinese scientists are testing two antiviral drugs and preliminary results are due in weeks, while the head of a Wuhan hospital had said plasma infusions from recovered patients had shown some encouraging preliminary results.A senior Chinese health official said on Friday 1,716 health workers have been infected by the coronavirus and six of them had died. More than 87% of infected medical workers were in Hubei. 
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Japanese officials have confirmed 99 more people infected by the new virus aboard the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess, bringing the total to 454, the Health Ministry said Monday.
    
The ministry has been carrying out tests on passengers and crew on the ship, docked in Yokohama, a port city near Tokyo.
    
The 14-day quarantine for those on the ship was due to end Wednesday.
    
Outside China, the ship has had the largest number of cases of the COVID-19 illness caused by the virus that emerged in China late last year.
    
The ministry said it now has tested 1,723 people on the Diamond Princess. The ship had about 3,700 passengers and crew.
    
Two chartered planes flew 340 Americans who were aboard the vessel out of Japan late Sunday. About 380 Americans had been on the ship. The State Department announced later that 14 of the evacuees were confirmed to have the virus in tests given before they boarded the planes.
    
They were taken to the U.S. because they did not have symptoms and were being isolated from other passengers on the planes, it said.
    
Japan’s Health Ministry said the 14 evacuees were among the 99 new cases, which included two other Americans and 43 Japanese.
    
Those who were earlier found to be sick with the virus have been hospitalized in Japan.Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Italy were planning similar flights for their citizens.
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 The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China surpassed 70,000 Monday while two planeloads of quarantined Americans took off from Tokyo for home.Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, reported 100 more deaths, bringing the death toll in China to nearly 1,800. Five deaths outside the mainland have also been confirmed in France, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan.The number of new cases in Hubei is only slightly higher than the number reported Sunday but down from those reported Friday and Saturday. Chinese officials say this is a sign that China has the outbreak under control.But World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted Sunday that “it is impossible to predict which direction this epidemic will take.”While China has recently been complimented for the way it has handled the outbreak and its efforts to contain it, the WHO is still asking for more information on how China is making its diagnoses.Chinese state media Saturday published a speech President Xi Jinping made Feb. 3 that shows Chinese authorities knew more about the seriousness of the coronavirus at least two weeks before it made the dangers known to the public. It wasn’t until late January that officials said the virus could spread between humans.In his Jan. 7 speech, Xi ordered the shutdown of the cities most affected by the virus. Those lockdowns began Jan. 23.  Meanwhile, two U.S. State Department chartered fights took off from Tokyo early Monday, carrying Americans who had been quarantined for two weeks aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess.More than 355 infected people were diagnosed with coronavirus on board the cruise ship and all of the evacuated passengers will be quarantined for another 14 days in the U.S.Also Sunday, the State Department said it is looking into the case of a U.S. citizen who was diagnosed with the coronavirus after departing the cruise ship Westerdam, whose passengers tested negative for the virus before disembarking in Cambodia.Malaysian medical authorities said the passenger, and 83-year-old woman, twice tested positive for the virus upon arriving in Malaysia after showing signs of a viral infection, a State Department spokesperson said Sunday. She is the first person from the Westerdam to test positive. Her husband tested negative.A group of ambulances from the Solano EMS Cooperative stage at the visitor center at Travis Air Force Base, adjacent to Fairfield, California, Feb. 16, 2020.The spokesperson said U.S. authorities to not have “sufficient evidence to determine when the passenger may have been exposed and where.”  The spokesperson said no more information could be shared because of privacy considerations, but said the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lampur is in close contact with local authorities and the patient.
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Thailand’s military is facing a barrage of public scorn over the alleged security lapses and corruption being blamed for a disgruntled soldier’s deadly rampage earlier this month, shredding its slogan as the country’s keeper of peace and order.Analysts say the drubbing will bolster the campaign of those already critical of the military for its outsized political powers but doubt that the reforms army chief Apirat Kongsompong has promised in the wake of the massacre will amount to much.Sgt. Maj. Jakrapanth Thomma’s shooting spree started February 8 near an army base in northern Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima province and ended in a shopping mall the following morning, leaving 30 people dead including the shooter and 58 wounded. It was Thailand’s deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in memory.Just hours before, Sgt. Maj. Jakrapanth had railed online about being swindled by a senior officer and the officer’s mother-in-law in a real estate deal. After shooting the pair, he allegedly snatched three assault rifles and two machine guns from the base’s armory and stole an army truck, which he drove to a Buddhist temple and then on to the mall. After an hours-long search and standoff, police finally shot and killed the soldier, who had barricaded himself in the basement with hostages.Defense Ministry spokesman Khongcheap Tantravanich said the shooting may dent the trust some Thais have in the military but added that most would not hold the institution as a whole to blame.”I think they can separate about this event because it was an individual, one soldier,” he told VOA.Thailand’s military has long prided itself as a paragon of duty and discipline and used that claim to justify a history of toppling elected governments. After its last putsch in 2014, it duly named the military junta that would go on to run the country for the next five years the National Council for Peace and Order.Since last weekend’s massacre, however, that claim has taken a public beating, with mounting criticism of the military’s own competence and opaque business interests.”Because the army has sought to really build its reputation as the preserver of order for the kingdom, especially since 2014, this incident almost completely destroys that image,” said Paul Chambers, a lecturer at Thailand’s Naresuan University who studies the country’s civil-military relations.”In fact the military has now lost support from traditional backers,” he added.Chambers said the groundswell of disaffection also puts wind in the sails of the opposition Future Forward party, which has been leading the charge to curb the army’s ballooning budget and political sway since a tainted general election last year made the military man who led the 2014 coup, Prayut Chan-ocha, prime minister.The army chief has already walked back one pledge to push retired officers out of their public housing.Public pressure to follow through or go further will be tempered by the popular support the military still enjoys among many Thais, said Titipol Phakdeewanich, dean of the political science faculty at Ubon Ratchathani University.He said some Thais neither staunchly for nor against the military before the massacre may start to lean toward its critics but believes die-hard supporters will stay loyal.”Some of the people who have been supporting the military might [have] started to criticize,” he said. “But it doesn’t mean that they stop supporting the military, because there are many other factors [why] they actually support the military to remain in place.”He expects any reforms that do follow from the fallout over the mass shooting to be mostly cosmetic, avoiding what many say ails the country most — a military that refuses to subordinate itself to a truly civilian government.”The problem is that the Thai military doesn’t perceive itself as a kind of unit under the government or the Thai administration. They tend to see themself as a kind of separate unit,” Titipol said.”[In] the end, I don’t think they would change anything that would actually make it better for the country.”
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Last year companies like Coca Cola and Tetra Pak, an international food packaging and processing company, collaborated with Vietnam’s biggest city to lower garbage levels. Their work included putting recycling bins around Ho Chi Minh City and investing in the waste management system.Garbage collection is still a local government responsibility.The collaboration, though, shows how Vietnam is increasingly looking at private companies to fulfill its national development needs.Vietnam is at a turning point. The country used to rely on aid from nations such as Sweden and Canada, and that foreign funding helped Vietnam improve education, health care, and other public goods, and transform into a lower middle-income nation.Foreign governments are cutting aid budgets globally, though, and Vietnam no longer qualifies for as much aid, so it is trying a new approach to development, making it a business.It matches marketing strategy to a need for investment dollars.That means getting more companies involved in activities traditionally performed by government, with the intention of reaching Vietnam’s development goals.“A series of ongoing market reforms is giving Vietnam a market-leading status in Southeast Asia, making it an increasingly attractive place for investors,” Nirukt Sapru, who is the chief executive officer for Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and South Asia at Standard Chartered Bank, said.He added that in Vietnam, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals present “opportunities for private sector investors looking to invest with impact and improve the lives of millions over the next decade.”Water is one example. The change in approach means officials are discussing the provision of clean water not just as a right or a development goal, but also as a potentially profitable investment. This hybrid approach is visible across Vietnam, with companies selling wind power as part of a national energy security agenda, building toll roads whose fees are collected by both government and companies, and laying internet cables as part of efforts toward universal connectivity.Standard Chartered estimates these and other goals in Vietnam provide companies with a $45.8 billion investment opportunity.The country is looking at public-private partnerships, which allow companies to participate in what are usually public services, sometimes for a limited time. For instance a city government could let a company build it a hospital, and run facilities until it recoups its investment. Vietnam must strike a balance, making the partnership profitable for companies, without the government getting in too much debt, according to Asian Development Bank consultants Sanjay Grover and Donald Lambert.“If it is too generous, governments can be saddled with millions of dollars in contingent liabilities,” they wrote in an ADB analysis. “If it is too conservative, investment stalls.”However, partial privatization is not without its drawbacks. Last year Vietnamese drivers protested against paying road tolls that went in part to private investors and that they felt had become unfairly high.Elsewhere in the region, Malaysia struggled to introduce a fee to clean septic tanks when privatization occurred because residents had gotten used to that being a public service, already covered by tax dollars. Citizens globally have resisted when governments move to sell assets they think should be kept for public benefit, from airports in France to the oil business in Mexico.One major donor, the U.S. Agency for International Development, though, thinks it’s a good idea for Vietnam to move toward more private sector involvement. In recent years it has promoted U.S. companies to work on Vietnamese development projects, such as energy and smart cities.“USAID provides development assistance for market-oriented reform and trade facilitation, including implementing a program to reinvigorate the public-private-partnership business model here in Vietnam,” said U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink last year.
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The cruise ship that was allowed to dock in Cambodia after being turned away at five other ports by authorities fearful of the spread of the deadly new virus from China disembarked passengers for a second day on Saturday so they can fly home.After being stranded at sea for two weeks, the MS Westerdam was allowed by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to dock for what he said were humanitarian reasons.The Cambodian leader’s decision won praise from President Donald Trump, who tweeted: “Thank you to the beautiful country of Cambodia for accepting the @CarnivalCruise ship Westerdam into your port. The United States will remember your courtesy!”The first batch of hundreds of passengers who disembarked Friday saw Hun Sen arrive by helicopter and then personally hand them flowers as they made their way to land.Many were taken to the airport in the port of Sihanoukville from which they were flown to the capital, Phnom Penh, to make onward connections to home.The ship’s earlier appeals to land in Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Guam had been rejected.“The one thing I can say is we’re very, very grateful that Cambodia has opened literally its ports and its doors to people in need,” U.S. Ambassador W. Patrick Murphy said Saturday at a dockside news conference.“We think this sends a strong message,” said the envoy. “We all have to help each other. And the passengers here are just average citizens from many different countries trying to make their way home. And this model is good and we hope that other countries can be equally as helpful to people in need.”According to Murphy, of the 1,455 passengers, more than 600 are American citizens.British passenger John Stanley said that in addition to the Americans, there had been about 150 people aboard from the U.K., along with other travelers from Australia, Canada, France the Netherlands and Germany. The European Union Delegation to Cambodia said there were 260 EU citizens from 20 different EU members states aboard.“They’re from all over the world. It’s a logistical nightmare to get us out of out of your country,” Stanley told said, referring to arrangements to get all of them home.All the passengers were expected to have been sent on their way by Sunday.Those passengers who had not already left Sihanoukville were looking for ways to occupy themselves. Hun Sen had said the passengers were free to go to the beach, go sightseeing in the coastal city, or even visit the famous centuries-old Angkor Wat temple complex in the country’s northwest.“We’re stuck on this ship for now,” Lydia Miller from Washington State said in a text message. “Hoping to go to town for coconut water and a massage before we leave.”Some other cruise ships in the Asia Pacific region remain in limbo, barred from some ports and allowed into others. Two cruise ships that were set to disembark passengers in Vietnam on Friday were not allowed to do so.
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North Korea is able to conduct tests for the new coronavirus, but still has not reported any infections, the World Health Organization told VOA Friday, amid international concerns that Pyongyang is not properly equipped to handle a possible outbreak.North Korea has cut off virtually all links to the outside world in response to the highly contagious virus, which has killed nearly 1,400 people and infected more than 60,000 —almost all in next-door China. Calling the efforts a matter of “national survival,” North Korea has banned foreign tourists, halted flights and train services with its neighbors, and implemented a 30-day quarantine for all arriving foreigners.Citing figures from North Korea’s Ministry of Public Health, the WHO told VOA that 141 travelers entering North Korea have tested negative for the virus, after showing signs of fever. That is out of a group of “as many as 7,281 travelers” that entered the country between Dec. 30, 2019, and Feb. 9, 2020, according to the North Korean figures.FILE – State Commission of Quality Management staff in protective gear and with disinfectant prepare to check the health of travelers arriving from abroad at the Pyongyang Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, Feb., 1, 2020.”The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has the capacity to carry out these tests as they have PCR machines, and their laboratory technicians and experts were trained by WHO in influenza testing in a Hong Kong laboratory last year,” said Dr. Edwin Ceniza Salvador, the WHO Representative to North Korea.The WHO says it is providing North Korea with laboratory testing agents and personal protective equipment including goggles, gloves, masks and gowns, at the request of North Korea.The statement did not specify if those already residing in North Korea had been tested. Several South Korea-based media have published unconfirmed reports the virus already has reached the North.There are concerns North Korea is uniquely unprepared for an outbreak of the virus, which causes a pneumonia-like illness that was recently named COVID-19.The U.S. State Department said Thursday it is “deeply concerned” about North Koreans’ vulnerability to the virus and is prepared to “expeditiously facilitate” efforts by international aid groups to provide help.North Korea is under international sanctions because of its nuclear weapons program. The sanctions prohibit a wide range of cooperation with the North, meaning aid groups wanting to help must first obtain exemptions.FILE – A State Commission of Quality Management staff member carries a disinfectant spray can as checks are done on the health of travelers at the Pyongyang Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, Feb. 1, 2020.The U.N. committee that handles those exemptions told VOA’s Korean Service earlier this week it will consider those requests “as expeditiously as possible.”The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said this week they are seeking an urgent sanctions exemption to provide “life-saving intervention,” including more coronavirus testing kits and personal protective gear.Delay possibleBut the aid may not begin flowing right away, since the U.N. exemptions process is cumbersome, says Kee Park, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School.  Instead, Park says the U.N. should proactively offer a special waiver that would allow aid groups to procure and send emergency supplies to North Korea as soon as possible.”When facing a potential public health emergency, asking for permission to deliver medical supplies is absurd,” says Park, who frequently participates in medical exchange trips to North Korea.Daniel Wertz, a program manager at the Washington-based National Committee on North Korea, agrees the exemptions process can be “complex” and “time-consuming.”But Wertz says it is sensible that Washington seems to be treating the issue separately from the issue of stalled nuclear negotiations.”Supporting the lives and health of the North Korean people is a worthwhile objective in itself,” Wertz says.Not transparent?But the extent to which North Korea has invited outside aid groups to help combat the virus is not clear.Choi Jung-hoon, a former North Korean medical doctor who defected to the South in 2012, told VOA’s Korean Service that he thinks Pyongyang may try to conceal any possible infections rather than seek help from international aid groups.”Because North Korea tries to put up an image of having the best ‘self-sufficient’ medical science to treat and prevent infectious diseases through propaganda, the regime is reluctant to announce any outbreak publicly,” he said.Choi, now a research professor at Korea University’s Public Policy Research Institute in Seoul, says North Korea is unequipped to handle a serious outbreak.”When there is an outbreak of an infectious disease in North Korea, only Pyongyang is completely protected [quarantined],” said Choi.”North Korea’s medical system is poor, as the world probably knows,” he added. “It does not have proper medical equipment, let alone reliable electricity or water supply facilities in hospitals and health centers.”
 
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China’s National Health Commission said Friday that 121 more people have died from the new coronavirus, bringing the death toll to nearly 1,400.The commission has also recorded 5,090 more confirmed cases of infections.Speaking to reporters, commission Vice Minister Zeng Tixin said 1,716 health workers have also been infected by the coronavirus and six of them have died.With the most recent update, the total number of infected people stands at 63,851 as of Thursday night. World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told Reuters Thursday the increase in the number of new cases reflects a “broader definition” of a coronavirus diagnosis and that his organization wants China to provide “further clarity” about the new methodology.WHO health emergencies program director Michael Ryan told reporters in Geneva Thursday the new, higher numbers do “not represent a significant change in the trajectory of the outbreak,” but rather “a change in how the cases are being reported.” The outbreak has led to the firing of Jiang Chaoliang as the ruling Communist Party chief in Hubei, just days after the province’s top two health officials were removed from their posts. The official Xinhua news agency says former Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong will replace Jiang, who had been criticized by the public for his handling of the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus.The virus is believed to have emerged late last year at a seafood market in the city of Wuhan that was illegally selling wildlife. Wuhan is the capital of Hubei.Workers produce protective suits at a factory in Binzhou in China’s eastern Shandong province, Feb.y 13, 2020.The Vietnamese government ordered the lockdown of a village of 10,000 people Thursday, official media reported, making it the first country except China to impose a mass quarantine. Checkpoints were established in Son Loi, located northwest of the capital of Hanoi. An increase in cases has been reported in Son Loi.In Japan, officials say an 80-year-old woman who died in a hospital on the outskirts of Tokyo has become the nation’s first coronavirus fatality. She was the third person to die of the virus outside of China, with the other fatalities occurring in the Philippines and Hong Kong.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that a 15th case of the coronavirus has been confirmed in the United States. The person, along with other evacuated U.S. citizens, arrived at an Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas, Feb. 7 aboard a State Department-chartered flight from China. The person is being treated at an area hospital. “There will likely be additional cases in the coming days and weeks, including among other people recently returned from Wuhan,” the CDC said in a statement.The outbreak is also wreaking havoc on regional sporting events. World Rugby says the Singapore and Hong Kong rounds of the popular Sevens Series have been moved from April until October. The two events are among the many sporting events that are either being postponed or canceled, including the World Track and Field Championships scheduled for next month in the Chinese city of Nanjing.But Yoshiro Mori, president of the organizing committee of this year’s Tokyo Olympics, told reporters Thursday the committee is not considering postponing or canceling the Games, which begin in July.  The death toll from the coronavirus is higher than the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2002-03, which is believed to have killed 774 people and sickened nearly 8,100 in China and Hong Kong.
 
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U.S. President Donald Trump is shifting his priorities away from North Korea in his run up to the presidential election this year, experts said, after fruitless efforts at denuclearization talks that remain deadlocked.“I suspect the administration sees little opportunity for renewed nuclear diplomacy before the 2020 election,” said Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.Trump has been reassigning U.S. officials involved in negotiations with North Korea to other posts, a move that experts think signals that his administration is putting less emphasis on denuclearization talks that failed to make a breakthrough last year.The White House announced Tuesday that Trump has nominated FILE – U.S. special representative to North Korea Steve Biegun speaks after being named by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department in Washington, Aug. 23, 2018.In December, FILE U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un sign documents that acknowledge the progress of the talks and pledge to keep momentum going, after their summit at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore, June 12, 2018.Trump met with Kim for the first time at the Singapore summit in June 2018. Their second summit was in February 2019 in Hanoi. It ended quickly because Washington’s call for full denuclearization and Pyongyang’s demand for sanctions relief did not mesh.An attempt to bridge that difference at working-level talks in Stockholm in October broke down, and the talks remain stalled since then.Manning said Trump is turning away from North Korea because the lack of progress made on denuclearization does little to benefit him during an election year.“Trump has made North Korea a signature issue of his foreign policy, so the failure to achieve any serious steps toward denuclearization, while North Korea continues to improve its missile and nuclear capabilities is a stain on his record on a key issue in which he is heavily invested,” Manning said.According to a confidential U.N. report to be released next month and seen by Reuters, North Korea has been FILE – National security adviser Robert O’Brien listens as President Donald Trump addresses the nation from the White House on the ballistic missile strike that Iran launched against Iraqi air bases housing U.S. troops in Washington, Jan. 8, 2020.Speaking at the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think tank in Washington, on Tuesday, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said the president would meet with Kim if there is a prospect of making a deal.“If there is an opportunity to move the ball forward for the American people, he’s always willing to do that,” O’Brien said. “We will have to see as to whether another summit between the leaders is appropriate.”Douglas Paal, vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that attempting a summit with Kim could be risky for Trump, who is running for re-election. But O’Brien’s remarks suggest that the Trump administration is leaving a door open for diplomacy.“Doing deals with dictators in election years tends to benefit the opposition,” Paal said. “Trump sees no need for a summit now, but his national security adviser is covering for the possible downside.”Scott Snyder, director of the U.S.-Korea policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations, said neither Trump nor Kim has much to gain if there is no progress made through another summit.“It stands to reason that Trump would seek political benefit from another meeting [with] Kim, but would not be interested in another meeting if it will not benefit him politically or advance the U.S. national security interest,” Snyder said.“It is in the interest of both Trump and Kim Jong Un to ensure that any future meetings are accompanied by meaningful achievements,” he added.Experts think there is little chance that another summit will take place between Washington and Pyongyang this year in the current stalemate.“There is little reason to think that the two leaders will meet this year or that any new agreements will be reached,” Pollack said. “The sides simply aren’t talking to each other.”Manning thinks “for now, denuclearization diplomacy is dead.”FILE – A man watches a TV screen showing a file image of North Korea’s missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Jan. 1, 2020.However, North Korea could become a priority if it changes its position or tests more missiles, according to experts.“It’s pretty [clear] North Korea is not a priority in an election year, unless North Korea decides to make it a priority through its actions,” Paal said.Ken Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at CNA, thinks North Korea could either escalate threats by testing its weapons again in an attempt to gain the U.S. attention or stay conservative, hoping that Trump will win the election.“That comes down to North Korean calculus,” Gause said. “What does Kim think? Does Kim think that it’s better to be conservative, not cause a lot of problems and hopes that Trump wins? Or does he think, ‘Hey I need to force this issue before the election?’ And, we’ll find out in the next few months.” Lee Joen and Ahn So-young contributed to this report, which originated on VOA Korean.
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The Justice Department has added new criminal charges against Chinese tech giant Huawei and two of its U.S. subsidiaries, accusing the company in a plot to steal trade secrets from competitors in America, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.The company is also accused of installing surveillance equipment that enabled Iran to spy on protesters during 2009 anti-government demonstrations in Iran, and of doing business in North Korea despite U.S. sanctions there.The case comes as the Trump administration is raising national security concerns about Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, and is lobbying Western allies against including the company in wireless, high-speed networks.The new indictment brought by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn adds to the legal woes in the U.S. for Huawei, which already faced charges in that district of lying to banks about deals that violated economic sanctions against Iran as well as separate trade secrets theft case in federal court in Seattle.The latest allegations accuse Huawei of plotting to steal the trade secrets and intellectual property of rival companies in the U.S. In some cases, prosecutors said, Huawei directed and provided incentives its own employees to steal from competitors by offering bonuses to those who brought in the most valuable stolen information.The company also used proxies, including professors at research institutions, to steal intellectual property, prosecutors said.The new indictment in Brooklyn includes charges of racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to steal trade secrets.A lawyer for Huawei did not immediately return an email and phone message seeking comment.National security allegationsTrump administration officials, including Cabinet secretaries, have recently leveled national security allegations against Huawei in an effort to encourage European nations to ban the gear from next-generation cellular networks.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper made the pitch to Western allies during a trip to Munich this week. Attorney General William Barr, in a speech last week, lamented what he said was China’s aspiration for economic dominance and proposed that the U.S. invest in Western competitors of Huawei.The administration’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, asserted this week that Huawei can secretly tap into communications through the networking equipment it sells globally. The company disputes that, saying it “has never and will never covertly access telecom networks, nor do we have the capability to do so.”
 
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A bevy of new laws across Southeast Asia barring dissemination of fake news are being put to the test by the spreading coronavirus, with bloggers in at least two countries facing possible prison time for postings as short as one sentence.Authorities say they are merely trying to prevent public panic about the coronavirus, but critics say that arresting people for social media posts is excessive and stifles free speech.Many nations in Southeast Asia have passed laws against fake news in recent years. That, combined with the growing trend of single-party rule in the region, has increased the odds that authorities would crack down on questionable internet content.Members of anti-coronavirus team spray chemical into vehicles on a road in Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam, Feb. 7, 2020.At least two people in Thailand and two in Indonesia each face up to five years in prison for allegedly spreading false information about the coronavirus. Wan Noor Hayati Wan Alias, a journalist in Malaysia, faces up to six years for her posts about the virus on social media. Vietnam has threatened large fines for related false information, while Singapore has ordered websites to correct such information.“Keep this up, and people will be too scared to share their opinion about anything,” Teddy Baguilat, a former congressman in the Philippines, said.People like Baguilat are concerned about the risk of scaring off commenters, in part, because of the deadly case of Li Wenliang in China, where the media operate under tight Communist Party control.Li was among the first Chinese doctors to warn about the coronavirus, on December 30. However, a few days later, authorities forced him to retract his warning. Not only has Li himself now died from the virus, but critics see his case as a cautionary tale of authorities cracking down on information they claim is false, possibly allowing the virus to spread even further.  If authorities go too far, they could threaten free speech, including press freedom, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.“The wrongheaded and misplaced charges against Malaysian journalist Wan Noor Hayati Wan Alias should be dropped immediately,” Shawn Crispin, the senior Southeast Asia representative at CPJ, said.“Reporters everywhere must be allowed to freely report and comment on the coronavirus, and to keep the public well-informed on the evolving health emergency,” he added.In the internet age many nations are struggling to deal with false information, which people fear has affected political elections from the United States to Brazil. The particular issue in Southeast Asia is that laws against fake news are more common, and nations in the region have some of the highest rates of internet growth in the world, meaning more and more Southeast Asians are new to the internet, with all its potential for misinformation.Singapore enacted the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act last year.  Also last year, Vietnam’s cybersecurity law took effect, letting authorities demand that social media sites remove false information.Nurses check the temperatures of visitors as part of the coronavirus screening procedure at a hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Feb. 5, 2020.Malaysia reversed its plans to enact a similar law last year, but is still arresting citizens for their online posts about the coronavirus. Indonesia’s Information and Electronic Transactions Act is becoming its de facto anti-fake news law, too, according to Ross Tapsell, senior lecturer and researcher at the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific.As these are fairly recent laws, the coronavirus is the first instance of regional news that has really affected all of Southeast Asia and forced its governments to decide how to apply their information laws to this rapidly changing epidemic. Critics fear, however, that the governments are using the messy news of the virus as an excuse to suppress unfavorable content. They say that, regardless of whether an online post is true or false, it is an overreach for the government to use such posts as a reason to lock up citizens.“While it is important for authorities to prevent the spread of disinformation, and ensure accurate information about the coronavirus, across the region we are seeing a worrying trend of ambiguously worded laws being used to prosecute citizens,” said Baguilat, who is also a board member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Parliamentarians for Human Rights group. 
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