Children of immigrants, who are born in United States, often struggle to understand their own identity. A Cambodian-American actress is using her art to explore her roots through a very personal story. VOA’s Chetra Chap reports.
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 Japan’s health ministry says a woman infected with the new virus has died, becoming the country’s first confirmed fatality.
Health minister Katsunobu Kato announced Thursday that the victim is a woman in her 80s who had been treated at a hospital near Tokyo since early February after developing symptoms. Her infection was confirmed after her death.
Japan has confirmed 247 cases of the virus, including 218 from a cruise ship quarantined at the port of Yokohama, near Tokyo, amid growing fears of the spreading virus.
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A cruise ship turned away by other Asian and Pacific governments because of virus fears anchored Thursday off Cambodia, which is checking the health of its 2,200 passengers and crew.The Westerdam was unwelcome elsewhere even though operator Holland America Line said no cases of the COVID-19 viral illness have been confirmed among the 1,455 passengers and 802 crew members on board.The ship is anchored a kilometer (0.6 miles) from the main Sihanoukville port in the Gulf of Thailand and a team of health officials will conduct checks and determine the disembarkation process, Preah Sihanouk province Gov. Kouch Chamrouen told The Associated Press. About 20 passengers have reported stomachaches or fever, Cambodian health officials said. The ship’s health staff considered them to be normal illnesses, but the ill passengers were being isolated from others, Health Ministry spokeswoman Or Vandine said.A military helicopter is on standby to carry samples from passengers to the Pasteur Institute in Phnom Penh for analysis. She said if tests show any passengers have the disease, they’ll be allowed to get treatment in the country. A speed boat, foreground, transports samples from some passengers who have reported stomachaches or fever, in the Westerdam, seen in the background, off Sihanoukville, Cambodia, Feb. 13, 2020.Health checks firstKuoch Chamrouen said that once the health officials on board are done checking the passengers, the Westerdam will be allowed to dock at the main port. About 500 passengers are scheduled to then disembark Thursday. From the port the passengers will board buses that will transport them to the nearby airport to take a flight to Phnom Penh from where they can proceed to their onward destinations.About 30 buses were waiting at the port to transport the passengers.U.S. Ambassador W. Patrick Murphy said he sent an embassy team to work with the ship’s representatives and Cambodian officials to help Americans disembark and transfer to their onward destinations.“We have also coordinated with foreign embassies of other nationalities,” he wrote on Twitter.Thailand refused to allow the Westerdam to dock this week after it had been turned away by the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and Guam. Cambodia agreed Wednesday to allow the ship in.“All approvals have been received and we are extremely grateful to the Cambodian authorities for their support,” cruise operator Holland America Line said on its website. The ship’s request to remain in Cambodia was approved through next Monday.Virus fearsThe Westerdam began its cruise in Singapore last month and its last stop before it was refused further landings was in Hong Kong, where 50 cases of the viral disease have been confirmed. COVID-19 has sickened tens of thousands of people in China since December, and nearly 220 cases have been confirmed on another cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, which made stops in Hong Kong and other ports before arriving in Japan last week. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier he was pleased Cambodia had agreed to accept the Westerdam and described it as an example of the international solidarity advocated by the U.N. health agency. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is a strong ally of China and has played down any threat from the new disease in his country. He had declined to ban direct flights to China, a step taken by other governments and airlines. Cambodia has confirmed just one case of the virus, in a Chinese visitor.
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From the houses to the noodles, South Korea’s Oscar winning movie “Parasite” tells its story of a suffocating class struggle through the sights and smells of Seoul.”Parasite” made history as the first non-English language movie to win the Oscar for best picture on Sunday, prompting
South Korean social media to erupt in celebration.
It is a tale of two South Korean families – the wealthy Parks and the poor Kims – mirroring the deepening disparities in
Asia’s fourth-largest economy and striking a chord with global audiences.
The visual clues in the film resonated with many South Koreans who identify themselves as “dirt spoons”, those born to
low-income families who have all but given up on owning a decent house and social mobility, as opposed to “gold spoons”, who are from better-off families.
Much of the movie was shot on purpose-built sets, but both the Parks’ mansion and the Kims’ squalid “sub-basement”
apartment were inspired by, and set, amid real neighborhoods in the South Korean capital.
A tour of the film’s locations, props, and backdrops reveals the unique meanings they have for many South Koreans as they engage in their own debates about wealth – and the lack of it.Pig Rice Supermarket featured in South Korea’s Oscar-winning “Parasite” is seen in Ahyeon-dong, one of the last shanty towns near downtown Seoul.Shanty town
Ahyeon-dong is one of the last shanty towns near downtown Seoul and made an appearance in several scenes depicting the Kims’ humble neighborhood. Perched on a hillside near the main train station, Ahyeon-dong is a warren of steep, narrow streets, many of which end in long staircases that residents climb to reach their homes.
“Watching the film made me feel like they put my life right in there,” said Lee Jeong-sik, the 77-year-old co-owner of Pig
Rice Supermarket, which is featured in the film. Kim Kyung-soon, 73, who has operated the shop with her
husband Lee for 45 years, said she opens the supermarket at around 8:30 a.m., while he closes it down after midnight.
She used to open the store even earlier, at 5 a.m., for mothers who would stop by early to buy school lunch fixings for
their children. Now, however, the neighborhood is mostly older people, with few young couples or children, Kim said.
The film’s fictional Kim family live in a “sub-basement”, usually small, dark apartments built partially underground.
Residents said rent for the sub-basement apartments had increased to around 400,000 won ($340) per month, more than
doubling in the past decade.
Ahyeon-dong sits in the shadow of newly built apartment towers, and the city has faced protests from some residents who fear losing their homes to redevelopment.
“It’s definitely a neighborhood that isn’t faring well,” Lee said. When he heard that “Parasite” had won at the Academy
Awards he was so happy he could not sleep. As a throng of media gathered outside his shop, he wondered whether the film’s fame would change plans to eventually build new apartments there.Seoul’s Beverly Hills
In contrast, the scenes around the wealthy Parks’ home – which itself was a movie set built elsewhere – were filmed in
Seongbuk-dong, known as South Korea’s Beverly Hills and home to many business families and diplomatic residences.
Unlike Ahyeon-dong, the streets in Seongbuk-dong are clear of rubbish and almost silent, with most homes hidden behind high walls, spiked fences, and security cameras.
“The houses here are all very fancy residences,” said Chung Han-sool, CEO of Peace Estate Agents. “Most of the houses have basements and they use it for home bars or mini theaters.”
According to real estate brokers, homes there usually cost around 7 billion won ($6 million). Those rented to foreign
diplomats are offered for 10 milllion-15 million won ($8,500 to $12,725) per month.
“There are 48 ambassadors living in the neighborhood, so there is a whole separate squad of police officers in the area,”
Chung said.
Even within Seongbuk-dong the disparity is highlighted by the “gisasikdang” or “drivers’ diners”, similar to one featured
in “Parasite”. Gisasikdang sprung up to serve meals to drivers, including those ferrying the area’s wealthy residents.
“There are taxi, bus drivers and those who drive the CEOs who live around here,” said Bae Sun-young, a manager at a
gisasikdang in Seongbuk-dong. “The wealth is so polarized here. It’s extreme.”FILE -People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on South Korean director Bong Joon-ho who won four Oscars with his film “Parasite”, in Seoul, South Korea, Feb. 10, 2020.Tasty symbolism
As news of the Oscar wins spread, South Korean social media burst with photos and recipes of “jjapaguri”, a combination of two different instant noodles translated in the movie as “ram-dong” (ramen plus udong).
The dish initially became popular as everyday food due to a television show but got a boost from the film, which added a
satirical twist as the Parks top it with expensive Korean beef. U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris even tweeted
with an image of jjapaguri cup noodles, saying the embassy was hosting a party to watch the awards ceremony.
Standing in the cramped aisles of Pig Rice Supermarket in Ahyeon-dong, Lee noted that the residents’ economic status was reflected in what they bought.
“People are not well off here,” he said. “What they buy most is ramen and alcohol.”
The other supermarket that makes an appearance in “Parasite” is ORGA Whole Foods in Bangi-dong, a trendy neighborhood in Seoul that is popular with upper-middle class families who want to send their children to top elementary and middle schools.
“The most popular items in our store aren’t cigarettes, alcohol or instant food like in regular supermarkets,” Ryu
Hee-woong, a manager at the branch, said.  “Our customers usually purchase fresh food that is focused on safety,
sustainability, and eco-friendliness.”
($1 = 1,179.2300 won) 
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While the world mourned the recent death of the young Chinese doctor who was detained by police for exposing the coronavirus, news of another whistle blowing doctor, who exposed the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic 17 years ago, being under house arrest in Beijing has shocked the world.Since April of last year, authorities have restricted the movements of Jiang Yanyong — the 88-year-old Chinese military surgeon who exposed the government’s cover-up of the the SARS epidemic in 2003 — and they have cut off his contact with the outside world. The Chinese government took the steps after Jiang wrote to top leadership asking for a reassessment of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement, according to a close friend who spoke on condition of anonymity.Dr. Li Wenliang, 34, an ophthalmologist who worked at the Wuhan Central Hospital in central China, died last Friday after he was infected during the battle against the coronavirus outbreak. His death prompted anger and grief across the nation because he was detained by police in early January after telling his medical school alumni group on social media that seven patients diagnosed with an illness similar to SARS had been quarantined in his hospital.      The mysterious virus was what would become the coronavirus epidemic that so far has killed at least 1,110 and infected more than 45,000 people around the world, mostly in China.The tragic fate of the two whistleblower doctors, 17 years apart, is a sobering reminder that, despite China’s stellar economic progress, Chinese citizens are still bereft of basic rights, analysts say.  And when they are punished for exposing truths that officials want to conceal, it can have disastrous consequences not only in China, but on a global scale, they say.Kenneth Chan, a political scientist at Baptist University of Hong Kong, noted that in China and former communist regimes, where human rights are routinely suppressed as a result of censorship and self-censorship. “People are rewarded to lie and to cover up, but punished for telling the truth.”“The former communist regimes were all known as crisis-ridden nations and …the rest of the world suffered from the externalization of the crises in terms of environmental, health, and humanitarian disasters,” he said.FILE – a newspaper stall features a photo of Dr. Jiang Yanyong in Beijing, China, June 5, 2003. Dr. Jiang told the media that more than 100 SARS patients were being treated in a few military hospitals alone and that many had died.Johnny Lau, a veteran China watcher and former journalist at Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po, a Hong Kong-based Chinese language newspaper, said the fact that authorities took revenge on both whistleblower doctors for speaking the truth over a span of 17 years shows that China continues using “feudal, dynastic-style governance.”“Autocracies worry that speech freedom would undermine its rule,” he said. “It’s not a matter of 17 years, but 3,000 years. The authoritarian ideology has lived on.”Since Chinese President Xi Jinping took power in late 2012, he has shown resistance to modern, liberal values, said Lau. An internal Communist party document written in 2013 that’s known as Document No. 9 ordered cadres to tackle seven supposedly dangerous influences on society. Those included western notions of rights and freedoms, such as press freedom, “universal values” of human rights, civil rights and civic participation. The Communist Party has warned activists they would be punished for voicing opinions that differed from the leadership.“The consequences of these are showing now,” Lau said.Doriane Lau (no relation to Johnny Lau), a researcher at Amnesty International, said: “The international community should see that limiting information and taking away citizens’ freedom of speech …carry grave risks for not just one country, but the entire global community.”Johnny Lau said it would be hard to sustain China’s soft power in the long run and “it could deteriorate even further.”“Even if it continues to be an economic power, politically, it is a dwarf. It is not going to be a responsible world power,” he said.Lau said political friction in China will intensify as ordinary people’s call for basic freedoms increase amid the recent health crisis, while the authorities continue to govern with its official, stagnant ideology.It remains to be seen whether ordinary Chinese people’s heightened rights awareness would amount to a force powerful enough to bring about political change, he said.Political scientist Chan said Xi’s public response to the coronavirus crisis, such as “declaring war on the virus” and rallying national unity around his leadership, are part of his efforts to promote the cult of personality.“These are typical communist-style responses to crisis. Is China today stronger than the former Soviet Union?” he asked. “Not really. Crises will strike again.” 
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Angry inmates set fire to an overcrowded prison on Indonesia’s Sumatra island during a riot that erupted Wednesday, officials said.
    
Hundreds of police and soldiers were deployed to take control of Kabanjahe prison in North Sumatra province, which is designed to house 193 inmates but now has more than 400, said Sri Puguh Budi Utami, director general of corrections at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry. She said it was guarded by only eight officers.
    
Utami said the cause of the riot is still being investigated. A preliminary investigation showed it began after prisoners protested against the guards’ treatment of four inmates who were placed in isolation after being caught taking drugs into their cell, she said.
    
Other inmates, mostly arrested for drug offensives, joined the protest and it turned violent, but there were no reports of deaths, Utami said.
    
Television video showed prisoners in an open field under heavy guard by soldiers while police removed others from the prison compound. Black smoke billowed from a building, and burned office equipment and documents were scattered around the prison.
    
Local police chief Benny Hutajulu said eight fire trucks were mobilized to extinguish the fire and about 500 police and soldiers were deployed around the prison to prevent inmates from escaping.
    
Jailbreaks and riots are common in Indonesia, where overcrowding has become a problem in prisons that are struggling with poor funding and large numbers of people arrested in a war on illegal drugs.
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U.S. health officials again pressed China to accept U.S. expert help to work on the novel coronavirus outbreak.The World Health Organization sent an advance team of international experts to China on Monday, but it is not yet known if Americans were part of that group. The WHO did not respond to VOA’s question about the make up of the team.Dr. Anne Schuchat, Principal Deputy Director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Feb. 11, 2020. (Eunjung Cho/VOA Mandarin Service)Dr. Anne Schuchat, Principal Deputy Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington that “CDC has provided names for the WHO team and we’re usually part of WHO teams.”Schuchat emphasized American epidemiologists, virologists, infection control experts, quarantine experts “have a lot to offer,” and that it can be very helpful for China to have outside experts in the midst of an epidemic.American experts are expected to learn more about the disease as they fight it.“It is very critical right now for us to understand all the different routes of transmission, the full severity, which can help us with our models of what the impact may be, if this spreads to many countries,” said Schuchat.Since early January, the U.S. has been offering to send experts to China to help with the coronavirus outbreak.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on January 6 first offered to send an American team, and on January 27, the Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar reiterated the offer to his Chinese counterpart Dr. Ma Xiaowei.Medical workers in protective suits attend to novel coronavirus patients at the intensive care unit (ICU) of a designated hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, Feb. 6, 2020. (Credit: China Daily)After WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus secured Chinese President Xi Jinping’s agreement to accept an international team of experts during their meeting on January 28, U.S. officials moved to incorporate the American group of experts to the WHO mission to China.“My understanding is that in the latest discussions there’s been receptivity [on the part of China],” said Schuchat.Dr. Daniel Chertow, head of Emerging Pathogens Section at the National Institute of Health, also stressed the need to send American experts to China at a coronavirus conference at the Hudson Institute Monday.“We certainly would like our experts to be present and to be part of what’s happening on the ground to answer some of the really important fundamental questions,” said Chertow. He mentioned the fatality rate and asymptomatic spread as areas that need further research.Chertow also pointed out the U.S. and China could coordinate developing vaccines and therapeutics “rather than have duplicative efforts.”American health experts also urged China to tap into America’s expertise in controlling epidemics.Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University and Director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, told VOA Mandarin Service that China should invite U.S. CDC experts and give them full access.Gostin noted, “I would call in a significant contingent of WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, U.S. CDC and other very experienced epidemic fighters. I would have them in force on the ground with full access to all information, independently verifying information so that there were true international partners with China working on this outbreak.”Meanwhile, the first group of Americans evacuated from Wuhan, the epicenter of the new coronavirus, are expected to be released Tuesday following quarantine.American evacuees from the coronavirus outbreak in China board a bus after arriving by flight to Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 7, 2020.Schuchat at the NPC briefing said “today is the 14th day of the quarantine of individuals who were on the first charter flight returning from Wuhan province, they’re currently being assessed to make sure they remain symptom-free and then we hope that they’ll be released to travel to their home today.”Schuchat explained the 195 people who arrived in the U.S. on January 29 have been monitored closely during the two weeks and have not come down with the virus. The group, mostly U.S. State Department employees and their families, were evacuated from Wuhan aboard a U.S. government-chartered cargo jet and flown to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County east of Los Angeles.Also on Tuesday, the 13th case of coronavirus in the U.S. was confirmed in California in a person under quarantine after returning from Wuhan.But Schuchat stressed U.S.’s containment strategy has been successful so far. She explained the 13 individuals in the U.S. had very mild symptoms and that there’s not been widespread transmission as 11 of them traveled to the Hubei province and two others had household contact with one of the cases. Calla Yu of VOA’s Mandarin Service contributed to this story. 
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Authorities in Australia say heavy rain could extinguish all of the fires in New South Wales state by the end of the week.  Parts of eastern Australia have seen their heaviest downpours in more than 30 years. Australia is a land of extremes.  Some towns have gone from drought to flood in a day as heavy rain has fallen in New South Wales, and parts of Queensland.FILE – This image from a video, shows flooded fields on Gold Coast, Australia, Jan. 18, 2020.Some drought-hit farmers have had their best rainfall in a decade, while emergency authorities warned of “life-threatening” flash flooding.Since Friday, Australia’s biggest city, Sydney, has been drenched by almost 400mm of rain.  That amount usually falls over four months.  More downpours are predicted later this week.The deluge is helping a marathon firefighting effort.A huge bushfire south of Sydney that burned for more than 70 days and destroyed 300 homes has finally been put out.  Also extinguished is the so-called Gospers Mountain “mega-blaze” north-west of Sydney.FILE – Trees are engulfed in flames as a bushfire spreads in Adaminaby, New South Wales, Australia, Jan. 9, 2020, in this still image from a video obtained from Ingleside Rural Fire Service.On Tuesday, 26 bush and grass fires were still burning across the state of New South Wales with 4 not yet contained.  Some of these blazes have been burning for weeks and even months.David Elliott, the New South Wales emergency services minister, says the heavy rain has caused chaos in some areas, but could put out all of the state’s bushfires within days.”We expect that a number of local government areas will be given natural disaster declarations, which will allow for extra funding, extra support and, of course, make the appropriate response from our emergency services,” he said. “The silver lining, of course, is the fact that we now look like we might see the end of this six month firefighting campaign.”In Western Australia, the clean-up continues after a tropical cyclone  crossed the state’s northwestern coastline at the weekend bringing destructive winds and torrential rainfall.The Australian  bushfire crisis began in September.  At least 33 people have been killed and  thousands of  homes destroyed.  More than 11 million hectares of land — an area the size of England — has been left scorched.  
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It’s still unclear how a Thai soldier managed to steal heavy weapons from an army base which he then used to kill 29 people and hold off security forces for almost 16 hours while he was holed up in a popular shopping mall.That he could is less surprising, say experts in military matters.The question has a special sting because the country’s tough-talking army commander just a few weeks ago gave a high-profile interview in which he said he had ordered all army units to take care of their weaponry.Thai soldiers at Surathampitak Military Camp in Nakhon Ratchasima, Feb. 10, 2020.The Bangkok Post cited Gen. Apirat Kongsompong as saying that “All weapons must be kept under good care and ready for use,” and reported that he stressed “the army will never let ill-minded people steal them.”Apirat clearly meant political opponents of the current government, led by former army commander Prayuth Chan-ocha.This theft was particularly dramatic and bloody, even though it falls into the category of inside jobs. In many past cases, guns have been quietly siphoned off by corrupt officials from police and army stores.The most disastrous weapons theft took place in Thailand’s deep south in 2004, when Muslim separatist militants raided an army base, killed four soldiers and made off with about 400 assault rifles. Some of the weapons are believed to have been sent to Muslim militants in Indonesia’s Aceh province, but most stayed with the Thai rebels, who since then have been carrying out an insurgency that has taken about 7,000 lives.While details have yet to be released in this case, experts in military matters identified serious deficiencies in how the weapons were safeguarded.This is a photo of a wanted poster released by Crime Suppression Division of The Royal Thai Police on Feb. 8, 2020 showing the suspect in a mass shooting in Northeastern Thailand.That the gunman, identified as Sgt. Maj. Jakrapanth Thomma, snatched three assault rifles and two machine guns from his army base and escaped in a stolen military vehicle “shows that the level of control over this base’s armory was woefully insufficient in terms of manpower and access restriction,” said Michael Picard, research director of GunPolicy.org.Access to the main gate to Jakrapanth’s military unit, the 22nd Ammunition Battalion, was restricted on Monday, but much of the rest of the sprawling base in rural Nakhon Ratchasima province was open to through traffic.A junior officer who said he often withdrew ammunition from Jakrapanth’s unit for his own unit’s target practice said the shooter would have had to overpower soldiers guarding each of a number of small armory depots to take the weapons and ammunition he used in his rampage. The officer asked not to be identified because he wasn’t authorized to speak to reporters.Apirat was due to address criticism of the operation at army headquarters in Bangkok on Tuesday.A motorcycle and helmet that belongs to a victim lie in front of the Terminal 21 shopping mall following a gun battle involving a Thai soldier on a shooting rampage, in Nakhon Ratchasima, Feb. 9, 2020.Some people have criticized the many hours it took for Thai security forces to finally end the siege at the mall, among them Khunpol Khanpakwan, who was outside a public hospital morgue Monday waiting to recover his daughter’s body.His daughter, Apiksanapa Khanpakwan, 45, was killed and her 17-year-old daughter was severely injured when special forces fatally shot the gunman.Though Prime Minister Prayuth has said that security forces didn’t kill anyone, Khanpakwan said he was still awaiting his daughter’s autopsy report to determine the source of the many shots that riddled her body.Khanpakwan wondered how a force that boasted of safeguarding its military hardware was unable to stop a lone gunman from inflicting so much bloodshed.”How could the authorities let a culprit run around killing people around the city? Just only one person,” Khanpakwan said, adding that “they are equipped with weapons but couldn’t do anything to him.”Anthony Davis, a security analyst who writes for the Jane’s defense publications, said it was premature to judge the response to the siege.”In the end you have a professional military man with a large supply of ammunition holed up in a very large building with not much clear idea on the part of the security forces how many people are in his reach,” Davis said.”It took a long time but in a big building they couldn’t risk storming in and killing a lot of people,” he said.There remained other concerns about how the worst mass shooting in Thai history was handled, particularly lapses in security.On the night of the siege, a police perimeter kept bystanders only 100 meters from the shooting, within earshot of the automatic gunfire exploding in sudden bursts from a position security forces struggled to pinpoint.Around 8 a.m. the following morning, Thai special forces, still unable to locate the gunman, enlisted the help of a journalist, a drone operator for a local TV news channel. Camouflaged soldiers covered the 28-year-old on all sides as they escorted him into the mall’s basement, where authorities believed the gunman was hiding.From there, the reporter maneuvered his thermal-sensing drone through shattered windows and into a supermarket’s cold storage room, broadcasting images of Jakrapanth and several apparent hostages back to police.The sharpshooters’ rain of fire at the gunman then began, and the rampage ended.On Sunday evening, less than 10 hours later, a foreign reporter was able to walk into the mall through an unlocked door that wasn’t behind police tape.
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Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo had the rare honor Monday of addressing a joint sitting of the Australian federal parliament.  The presidential visit is a chance for Australia and its neighbor to reset relations following spy scandals, tensions over asylum seekers and the executions of two Australian drug traffickers.Relations between Australia and its large Muslim-majority neighbor to the north have improved markedly in recent years.   President Joko Widodo’s address marked 70 years of bilateral ties.  He is only the second Indonesian leader to speak before a joint sitting of the Australian parliament.Economic development and attracting foreign investment are key priorities for Widodo.  Last week the Indonesian parliament ratified a free-trade agreement with Australia.  The president told the federal parliament in Canberra that his country is helping Australia with its recovery from a long and devastating bushfire season.Australia’s two-way trade with Indonesia is worth about $11 billion.The new free-trade deal will wipe out almost all tariffs on exports to both countries.Australian trade minister Simon Birmingham says it’s a good result for many sectors.“Around 500,000 tons of grain — a huge boom, especially for our West Australian grain growers.  Big opportunities in terms of the cattle trade, the horticulture trade but also in the services space,” he said. “[There is] enormous potential in terms of now new opportunities for Australian education providers, our universities and vocational educational providers to operate in Indonesia.”Cooperation on climate change is another area that is expected to benefit from closer ties.  The two countries already work closely on terrorism and the response to natural disasters.Successive Australian leaders have sought to forge better relations with Jakarta.But this enthusiasm appears not to be shared by Australians.  A poll from the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank in 2019, found only 1 per cent of Australians felt Indonesia was “Australia’s best friend in the world.”Canberra is being urged to raise the cases of members of an Australian drug gang caught trying to smuggle heroin out of Bali, Indonesia in April 2005.Five members of the syndicate are serving life sentences in Indonesia.  Two others of the so-called “Bali Nine” were executed.  Convicted drug smuggler Renae Lawrence, another member of the gang, who was released in 2018, has used Widodo’s visit to plead for reduced sentences for those who remain behind bars. 
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Taiwanese people are leading an Asian face mask craze this month to ward off threats from a deadly virus they fear will jump from its nearby source country China into a local population that was already extra cautious about getting sick.Local vendors normally produce 1.9 million masks a day and they’re now pushing out 3.2 million to 40 million, according to government Industrial Development Bureau figures. The island’s 80 mask producers have raised production to meet rising demand despite a rationing of sales to ensure no one hoards the supplies, a bureau official said.Many people in Taiwan, which is 160 kilometers from China, worry that a novel coronavirus discovered in December will eventually infect their own population. All 18 known cases known in Taiwan so far are linked to travel from China, where hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese work and invest.Chinese authorities had reported a cumulative 908 coronavirus deaths among 40,171 cases Sunday.“Taiwan because of its geography is close to mainland China and in addition you have Taiwanese people going back and forth quite frequently, whether tourists or Taiwanese, then add that we’re in winter, the season most suitable for the spread of disease,” said Chiu Cheng-hsun, a professor and doctor with the Linkou Chang Gung hospital children’s respiratory disease department. “As soon as mainland China has no way to control this epidemic, then Taiwan could become the first place to get hit,” Chiu said.People throughout much of East Asia have bought up surgical face masks as a precaution against catching the virus. A mask, the same type found in hospitals throughout the world, stops droplets coughed out by an infected person from landing on other people. Demand for masks has surged particularly in countries such as Malaysia and Thailand that get high numbers of Chinese tourists.Masks jumped in popularity last month so fast that the Taiwan government asked factories to raise production and rationed purchases. Shoppers must swipe their National Health Insurance cards in approved pharmacies to get their maximum of two masks, every two days. The swipe leaves a computerized purchase record.Two vendors wear face masks and wait for customers at a night market in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020.Pharmacists said last week the government was also controlling supplies to their stores, for example 200 masks per day.Lines of 50 people or more have formed outside the pharmacies – only to find in some cases that stock has sold out.  People in Taipei say they support the rationing as a way to ensure no one hoards supplies.“Some people have time to shop for  masks  and others don’t have time, so now there is a computerized record,” said Lee Kuo-bin, 58, a Taipei man who uses masks even when there’s no specific virus threat. He checked a cluster of pharmacies behind a hospital last week but found nothing.Bernie Huang, 31, a Taipei high school teacher, uses two  masks  per week and fears his compatriots are overreacting.“Due to the prevailing fear for the new coronavirus, many Taiwanese people buy  masks  in bulk and hoard the  masks. However, healthy people don’t have to wear  masks  all the time, and the hoarding of  masks  will cut out  people who actually need to wear  masks, such as people with chronic diseases and respiratory infections,” he said. “The face  mask  rationing policy ensures that the  masks  are definitely available for people who actually need the  masks,” Huang said.Mask users are motivated by television images of people wearing the own and news about the rising death count in China, said George Hou, a mass communications lecturer at Taiwan-based I-Shou University. “In almost every televised image you have demonstrations of people using face masks,” he said.  Local scarcity prompts people to worry all the more, he added.Taiwanese were already using masks before the coronavirus outbreak on a perception the gear could block pollution and any germs suspended in the air.  The island with a dense population where multiple generations live under the same roof is prone to influenza and a contagious gastrointestinal illness that has killed small children, all raising fear of disease.  The 10% of people who once wore masks in Taipei now exceeds 50%.Taiwanese also recall the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic of 2003, said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei. SARS originated in China and spread to Taiwan, killing 73 on the island.Some of the government’s rules, such as a two-week delay in starting the new public-school semester, are confusing or excessive, he said. Children clumped together risk spreading disease, but the semester delay has caused childcare headaches for some families.“If there are people who think the Tsai Ing-wen government is a bit over the top about this outbreak, I think as long as it’s not too exaggerated of an overkill, I can accept it,” he said.
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China’s virus death toll rose by 89 on Sunday to 811, passing the number of fatalities in the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic, but fewer new cases were reported in a possible sign its spread may be slowing as other nations stepped up efforts to block the disease.Some 2,656 new virus cases were reported in the 24 hours ending at midnight Saturday, most of them in the central province of Hubei, where the first patients fell sick in December. That was down by about 20% from the 3,399 new cases reported in the previous 24-hour period.”That means the joint control mechanism of different regions and the strict prevention and control measures have worked,” a spokesman for the National Health Commission, Mi Feng, said at a news conference.Also Sunday, new cases were reported in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia and Spain.More than 360 cases have been confirmed outside mainland China.”Dramatic reductions” in the pace of the disease’s spread should begin this month if containment works, said Dr. Ian Lipkin, director of Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity. He assisted the World Health Organization and Chinese authorities during the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.Warmer weather will reduce the virus’s ability to spread and bring people out of enclosed spaces where it is transmitted more easily, Lipkin said in an online news conference. However, he said, if new cases spike as people return to work after the Lunar New Year holiday, which was extended to reduce the risk of spreading the virus, then “we’ll know we’re in trouble.”The fatality toll passed the 774 people believed to have died of SARS, another viral outbreak that originated in China. The total of 37,198 confirmed cases of the new virus vastly exceeds the 8,098 sickened by SARS.The latest developments:Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Spain report new casesMembers of Japan Self Defense Forces walk into the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess in the Yokohama Port, Feb. 9, 2020, in Yokohama, Japan.Japan reported six more cases among 3,700 passengers and crew aboard the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess, bringing the number of infections on the vessel to 70. The new cases are an American passenger in her 70s and five crew members — four Filipinos and a Ukrainian.South Korea reported a new case in a 73-year-old woman whose relatives visited Guangdong province in southern China, raising its total to 27. The family members, a 51-year-old South Korean man and a 37-year-old Chinese woman, were confirmed infected later Sunday.Vietnam reported its 14th case. The Health Ministry said she is a 55-year-old woman in Vinh Phuc province, northwest of Hanoi, where six earlier patients were found to be infected.Malaysia reported its 17th case. The 65-year-old woman’s son-in-law was diagnosed earlier with the virus.Spain confirmed its second case in Mallorca, a popular vacation island in the Mediterranean. The first case was a German tourist diagnosed a week ago in the Canary Islands off northwest Africa.Hong Kong releases quarantined cruise shipThe 1,800 passengers and 1,800 crew members of the cruise ship Dream World were released from quarantine after Hong Kong authorities said tests of the crew found no infections.The ship was isolated after eight mainland Chinese passengers were diagnosed with the disease last month.Port official Leung Yiu-hon said some passengers with symptoms tested negative but there was no need to test all of them because they had no contact with the infected Chinese passengers.Meanwhile, Hong Kong began enforcing a 14-day quarantine for arrivals from mainland China. The territory’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, has refused demands by some hospital workers and others to seal the border completely.Doctor’s mother wants explanationThe mother of a physician who died last week in Wuhan said in a video released Sunday she wants an explanation from authorities who reprimanded him for warning about the virus in December.People wearing masks attend a vigil for late Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist who died of coronavirus at a hospital in Wuhan, in Hong Kong, Feb. 7, 2020.The death of Li Wenliang, 34, prompted an outpouring of public anger at Wuhan officials. Some postings left on his microblog account said officials should face consequences for mistreating Li.”My child was summoned by the Wuhan Police Bureau at midnight. He was asked to sign an admonishment notice,” Lu Shuyun said in the video distributed by Pear Video, an online broadcast platform. “We won’t give up if they don’t give us an explanation.”The video shows flowers in her home with a note that says, “Hero is immortal. Thank you.”Wuhan opens new hospital, farmers promised supportA 1,500-bed hospital built in two weeks in Wuhan, the city of 11 million people at the center of the outbreak, accepted its first patients on Saturday, the government announced. Another 1,000-bed hospital built in 10 days opened last week.The government of the surrounding province of Hubei it will pay subsidies to farmers, other food producers and supermarkets and give tax breaks to companies that donate to anti-virus work, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It said overtime for employees of companies making medical supplies will be subsidized.China’s leaders are trying to keep food flowing to crowded cities despite anti-disease controls and to quell fears of possible shortages and price spikes following panic buying after most access to Wuhan and nearby cities was cut off.Two more flights from Wuhan carrying American citizens, permanent residents and close relatives landed in the United States, the State Department said. A spokesman said more than 800 Americans have been evacuated from Wuhan.A plane landed Sunday in Britain carrying 200 people from Wuhan. Officials said Britain’s second evacuation flight carried 105 British nationals and 95 citizens of other European countries and family members. The passengers will be quarantined at a hotel for 14 days.Brazilians hold a Brazilian flag after arriving from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus at the Annapolis Air Force Base, in Anapolis city, Goias state, Brazil, Feb. 9, 2020.Dozens of repatriated Brazilians, some waving small Brazilian flags, landed Sunday morning at an airbase in the state of Goias, where they will spend the next 18 days in quarantine.A charter flight carrying Filipinos from Wuhan arrived in the Philippines. The 29 adults and one infant will be quarantined for 14 days.Elsewhere in China, the industrial metropolis of Chongqing in the southwest told residential communities to close their gates and check visitors for fever. The government said the spread of the virus through “family gatherings” had been reported in Chongqing but gave no details.France closes schools, Italian students returning from China told to stay homeFrance closed two schools and tried to reassure vacationers in the Alps after five Britons contracted the virus at a ski resort.France stepped up a travel alert, recommending against all visits to China except for “imperative reasons.”Italy recommended students returning from China stay home from school for two weeks after the government reported three cases.World Health Organization sending expertsThe WHO director-general said it will send experts to China starting Monday or Tuesday.Asked whether that will include members of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus replied, “We hope so.” 
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