Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has joined Facebook, telling her online followers that she had done so to share messages about coronavirus.
Posting online on what is apparently her first personal Facebook account, Suu Kyi said she was initially reluctant to use the site, but that her profile “was created in order to communicate with people faster and more efficiently related to Covid-19 challenges”.
Almost half of the country’s 51 million people use Facebook, according to the company, and her profile has already gained more than 955,000 followers.
Suu Kyi’s health messages will not, however, be accessible to many people living in conflict-torn areas of the country. The internet has been blocked since June in areas of Rakhine and Chin state, where there is intense fighting between the military and the Arakan Army, a rebel group that demands greater autonomy for the state’s ethnic Rakhine people.
Numerous rights groups and international agencies have urged Myanmar to lift the restrictions, warning that communities must be allowed to access crucial information.
This call was reiterated on Wednesday by 18 ambassadors to Myanmar, including the UK and US, who expressed deep concern “about the high level of fighting, casualties and civilian displacement occurring in Rakhine and Chin states, and the threat of further conflict in other areas.”
They also echoed the UN secretary general’s call for a global ceasefire, so that countries can focus on tackling the pandemic.
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Israel’s health minister and his wife were diagnosed with coronavirus and are in isolation following guidelines, the health ministry said on Thursday.
Yaakov Litzman, 71, an ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has appeared regularly alongside the premier to provide updates on the spread of the pandemic and new measures to combat it.
But Litzman has scaled back public appearances in recent weeks and the ministry’s director-general has held daily briefings instead.
Litzman and his wife feel well, the ministry said in a statement.
Netanyahu tested negative for the virus on Monday after a parliamentary aide was confirmed to have it.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany has risen to 73,522 while 872 people have died of the disease, statistics from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Thursday.
Cases rose by 6,156 compared with the previous day while the death toll climbed by 140, the tally showed.
Germany has the fifth-highest humber of cases worldwide, but a low death rate compared to other badly impacted countries.
My colleague Philip Oltermann wrote about this last week:
“Germany’s relatively low mortality rate continues to intrigue experts as Covid-19 spreads across Europe, with some questioning the methodology behind its data gathering while others argue the country’s high testing rates allow a more accurate approximation of the threat posed by the novel coronavirus.”
Philippines president orders police to shoot dead residents who break quarantine
Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has been widely criticised by labour groups after he ordered police to shoot dead residents who break quarantine rules.
His violent threat follows the arrest of 21 people who had apparently taken to the streets of Metro Manila’s Quezon City to demand help from the government.
Police said the group had protested without a permit, though the website Rapper reported that it is not clear if all residents were demonstrating or if some were simply looking for food.There is growing concern about how the poorest people in the Philippines will survive a month-long lockdown that has been imposed on the country’s main Luzon island.
Many of its 48 million residents live hand-to-mouth and depend on daily work to feed their families.
The government has promised that 18 million low-income households will receive support, but this has not been released due to administrative hurdles.
On Wednesday night, Duterte told people to wait for assistance, adding: “Even if it’s delayed, it will arrive and you will not go hungry. You will not die of hunger.”
Quarantine measures, he said, would be strictly enforced. “I will not hesitate. My orders are to the police and military, also the barangay, that if there is trouble or the situation arises that people fight and your lives are on the line, shoot them dead. Do you understand? Dead. Instead of causing trouble, I’ll send you to the grave,” he said in a televised address.
Still with finance but a really good insight into how the virus is heaping costs on higher risk businesses such as the cruise ship operator Carnival.
The company has clearly been very badly affected by the outbreak on several of its vessels and its shares in the US have fallen 80% this year. It has admitted that demand might never be the same again and has been forced to pay a massive premium to raise money this week to keep afloat.
Lisa Abramowicz
(@lisaabramowicz1)This Carnival bond sale is getting a lot of attention, for the fact that it’s an investment-grade company selling 3-year notes at an 11.5% yield, & for the incredible demand for the bonds by predominantly junk-bond investors. (1/3) https://t.co/XZWGTzWscX
It has raised $6.25bn in the US by issuing new debt and equity. But while the issue was oversubscribed, Carnival priced $4bn in bonds maturing in 2023 with a yield (or interest rate) at par value of 11.5%, it said.
That’s a huge cost. Carnival paid a 1% yield in October, when it borrowed $657.7m in the European debt market. Significantly it also had to use its ships as collateral to secure the funding.
The company also raised $1.75bn in convertible notes with a 5.75% coupon, it added.
For more on the credit crunch facing companies, this is a piece I wrote a week or so agO;
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Financial markets are in a strange position at the moment. They have recovered some losses thanks to massive government and central bank intervention around the world, but the grim reality of what the virus is doing to economies continues to weigh on investor sentiment.
In Australia the ASX200 benchmark index is off nearly 2% today as parts of the nation contemplate another 90 days of lockdown. In Japan, the Nikkei is down 0.4% as cases continue to rise. Shares in China, Hong Kong and Korea are up.
The US dollar held gains against other currencies as people continue to shift their money into the greenback because it’s seen as a safe haven at a time when everything else is turning to custard.
Trump’s warnings about tough days ahead are not helping here.
This comment to Reuters from one expert, Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank in New York, is quite chilling:.
If America’s optimistic president is warning the worst of the pandemic is yet to come, what factory in their right mind would keep the doors open and workers on the payroll? With only a few actual data points so far, the results indicate this is looking more like a depression than a garden-variety recession.
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Indonesia may start a new holiday to replace the Eid exodus amid coronavirus concerns, Reuters reports.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Thursday the government is considering starting a new national holiday to prevent the annual mass exodus usually occurring at the end of the Muslim fasting month amid concerns over the spread of Covid-19.
Widodo said at a cabinet meeting that measures could be put in place during the new holiday such as making tourist attractions free to help “bring some calm to the people”.
Indonesians, nearly 90% of whom are Muslim, celebrate the end of Ramadan or the Eid al-Fitr festival with a feast and new clothes, usually returning to their home villages or towns.
Ramadan this year falls over April and May.
South Korea will allow coronavirus patients to vote by mail or as an absentee in this month’s parliamentary elections, as campaigning started on Thursday, Reuters reports.
Voters will go to the polls on 15 April to elect 300 members of the National Assembly for the next four years, posing challenges over how to prevent a spread of the coronavirus at polling places while ensuring people’s right to vote.
The some 4,000 patients receiving treatment will be able to case their ballot via mail or early absentee voting, Interior Minister Chin Young said.
A two-week campaign period for the election began on Thursday with candidates wearing masks and shunning handshakes and large rallies.
The National Election Commission has said all voters must wear a mask when they go to the polling stations, use sanitisers and gloves available there, and maintain distance with others. Officials will conduct temperature checks at the entrance and regular disinfection work.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 89 new cases on Thursday, taking the national tally to 9,976. A total of 5,828 have recovered from the virus, while 4,148 are still receiving treatment.
