KARACHI- E paper – March 19, 2020

CMYK

Thursday, 19 March, 2020 I 24 Rajab, 1441 I Rs 20.00 I Vol X No 260 I 16 Pages I Karachi Edition

CORONAVIRUS

two deaths in KP as toll crosses 300 g

g kP HeaLtH MinisteR says MaRDan, HanGu ResiDents HaD aRRiveD in Pakistan FRoM sauDi aRaBia anD DuBai, ResPeCtiveLy

PunJaB CM announCes Rs5Bn FunD, Bans touRist Destinations, RestRiCts sHoPPinG MaLLs, RestauRants anD HoteLs to CLose DoWn By 10PM

Govt okays emergency response programme g

MoP CLeaRs $238M FRoM WoRLD Bank’s FunDinG, enDoRses anotHeR $350M FRoM aDB STORY ON PAGE 12

Top judge slams govt’s inability to contain COVID-19 g

CRitiCises Govt FoR askinG CouRts to stoP WoRkinG oR CuRtaiL aCtivities in vieW oF viRus’s sPReaD WHen it Has not Done anytHinG itseLF ISLAMABAD stAff REpoRt

DERA GHAZI KHAN: Prime Minister Imran Khan visits quarantine center at DG Khan. INP

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE

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stAff REpoRt

akistan on Wednesday reported two deaths due to coronavirus in khyber Pakhtunkhwa (kP), as the total number of positive cases across the country hit 301 after dozens of new cases were reported in all provinces. kP Health Minister taimoor saleem Jhagra announced that 50-year-old coronavirus patient, saadat khan, had passed away in Mardan district nine days after he had arrived in Pakistan from saudi arabia. the patient was being

treated in Mardan Medical Complex. according to MMC’s medical superintendent Dr Javed iqbal, the patient’s test results were received on Wednesday. the announcement was shortly followed by another announcement, wherein the minister announced that a 36-year-old patient named abdul Fateh, who was being treated at Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, passed away during the treatment. the patient, a resident of Hangu, had returned from Dubai and was found coronavirus-positive. a few hours earlier, Gilgit-Baltistan spokesperson Faizullah Firaq had suggested that a 90-year-old patient ad-

more inside

PsX continues to bleed, index sheds 2,200 points STORY ON PAGE 11

mitted in a hospital over suspicion of coronavirus had lost his life battling the deadly virus.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 03

Pilgrims decry poor conditions at Taftan quarantine camp STORY ON BACK PAGE

Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Gulzar ahmed on Wednesday criticised the federal government for its inability to contain the novel coronavirus at the border, leading to an outbreak in the country. the total number of CoviD-19 cases stands at 296 in the country with 208 cases in sindh while Punjab has 28, khyber Pakhtunkhwa reported 19, Balochistan has 23, islamabad two, Gilgit-Baltistan 14 and one in azad Jammu and kashmir. Meanwhile, two patients were confirmed to have died in kP on Wednesday, making them the first cases of death due to the deadly virus in Pakistan. the CJP was referring to the pilgrim influx from iran through the taftan border. almost half of the Zaireen, who are kept at a largely mismanaged tent city at the border, have tested positive for the virus. “the coronavirus came from

abroad through the airports due to Pia and the government’s incompetence,” remarked CJP. He noted that the coronavirus is now being talked about everywhere in the country. “if security remains like this, then i do not know what kind of new diseases will be introduced to the country [in the future],” remarked the CJP. the top judge was also irked by the national security Committee’s (nsC) request to adjourn civil cases and instruct magistrates and sessions judges to conduct hearings at prisons for three weeks.

He observed that the authorities had not made arrangements to minimise the risk instead asked the judges to suspend judicial work. the CJP made the remarks while hearing a plea filed by air Marshal arshad Malik seeking a stay against the sindh High Court’s December 2019, order restraining him from working as the chief executive officer of the Pakistan international airlines (Pia).

CONTINUED ON PAGE 03

Army officer among four soldiers martyred in North Waziristan operation

US leads huge economic fightback against virus, EU shuts borders STORY ON BACK PAGE

are ‘market halts’ effective enough to ease investors’ panic?

STORY ON PAGE 12

ECC approves Rs4.1bn grant to boost FBR’s capacity STORY ON PAGE 11

RAWALPINDI stAff REpoRt

an officer and three soldiers of Pakistan army were martyred during an intelligence-based operation (iBo) near Datta khel in north Waziristan District on Wednesday, a statement issued by the inter-services Public Relations (isPR) said. “as soon as troops cordoned the area, terrorists opened fire to flee from the hideout. seven terrorists were also killed during the operation,” the military’s media wing said.

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“in intense exchange of fire, four security forces personnel embraced shahadat [martyrdom] including an officer, while one soldier got injured. a large cache of arms, ammunition & ieDs recovered from hideout during clearance,” it added. according to the isPR, security forces personnel who embraced martyrdom include, Lieutenant agha Muqadas ali khan, age 26 years resident of Lahore; Lance Havaldar Qamar nadeem, age 36 years, resident of Layyah; sepoy Muhammad Qasim, age 24 years, resi-

dent of Layyah, sepoy tauseef, age 23 years resident of narowal. a day earlier, an army soldier was martyred after indian forces resorted to unprovoked fire in the shahkot sector along the Line of Control (LoC). “indian army troops resorted to unprovoked fire in shahkot sector along LoC with heavy weapons,” according to isPR. “During the exchange of fire, one brave soldier sepoy Wajid ali, age 20 years, resident of District Dadu, valiantly responding to indian ceasefire violation (CFv) embraced shahadat.”

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Thursday, 19 March, 2020

NEWS

Alvi, Xi discuss coronAvirus outbreAk in PAkistAn

BEIJING StAff rePort

President Dr Arif Alvi and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Wednesday discussed in detail the Pakistan government’s fight against the novel coronavirus on the last day of his first official visit to China.

In a series of Twitter posts, the president said his visit was aimed at showing solidarity with China in stressful times.

He lauded China as “Pakistan’s iron brother” for her efforts to control the virus as new cases in the Hubei province have

been in single digits for the past seven days, as compared to several thousand a day in early February. He also appreciated China’s efforts to take care of the 1,300 Pakistani students stranded in China’s Wuhan city, the epicenter of the COVID-19.

Separately, while addressing a press conference, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi seconded President Alvi on the purpose of the visit.

“The world is blaming China [for the outbreak],” Qureshi said. “Pakistan had expressed confidence in China by not repatriating students from Wuhan. These students

did not face any mishap either,” he said.

The foreign minister said that the decision to repatriate pilgrims returning from Iran was a difficult one, but “they had to return as [quarantine] facilities were inadequate at the [Taftan] border.”

“No one can fight the virus alone,” Qureshi stressed. “We have to come together as one nation to curb its spread. Only one case has been reported from Wuhan. We have to make the right decisions as we have to face this situation for some time.”

Qureshi announced that Prime Minister Imran Khan has made a National Coordination Committee to calculate the economic outfall of the situation. “We have to analyze the effect on the economy if there is a complete lockdown,” he said.

He also urged media to play a unified role in this time of crisis as it did against Indian atrocities. Qureshi added that now is not the time to hold rallies.

During the visit, both sides also signed a number of memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and handing-over certificates of donated vaccine refrigeration equipment, emergency humanitarian materials for epidemic response and emergency materials of epidemic control.

The joint statement said that China had made major progress in control of coronavirus and would win this “people’s war” against it, adding that both sides underlined that COVID-19 “was a common challenge for humanity and all countries should unite to overcome this challenge together”.

bAck from chinA, Qureshi goes into self-QuArAntine As PrecAutionAry meAsure ISLAMABAD APP

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday went into self-quarantine as a precautionary measure upon returning from an official visit to China. Qureshi will also be tested for coronavirus, said a statement by his office. “Experts have advised that I go into isolation and take a coronavirus test after five days,” Qureshi said, adding that he is also in isolation from his family. Qureshi, as part of President Arif Alvi’s delegation, visited China for two days on Monday to show solidarity with Chinese leadership after the COVID-19 outbreak. Alvi, the first head of state to visit Beijing after coronavirus hit the world’s most populous nation, met with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, and National People’s Congress Chairman Li Zhanshu.

Minister for Planning Asad Umar and other top Foreign Ministry officials were also part of the delegation, but so far there has been no official statement saying Alvi or other members of his delegation would go under quarantine.

Govt to ensure availability of medicines, says PM ISLAMABAD APP

Prime Minister Imran Khan Wednesday said the government was determined to ensure easy availability of life saving drugs along with other essential medicines at affordable prices because it attached high priority to the life of its people.

The prime minister was chairing a meeting over the availability of necessary drugs in the country, and the role, functions and responsibility of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) to determine suitable prices.

The prime minister was given a detailed briefing over the availability of essential medicines especially of life saving drugs and the price mechanism etc.

The meeting also discussed in detail the steps over performance of DRAP, measures aimed at making it more efficient, eradication of corruption and other malpractices.

The prime minister also underlined the main role of DRAP as the regulator of medicines.

Imran said efforts for making DRAP further efficient should be

expedited while the manpower requirement of the authority at the administrative level be addressed on priority basis.

With regard to enhancing the efficiency of DRAP and elimination of corruption, the prime minister said the government had a very clear stance over the framing of policies and their implementation.

He observed that there was a difference between the concerned sections over policy making process and its implementation and their

merger gave rise to different issues.

The prime minister also directed for taking necessary steps for separation of both sections of the authority.

The meeting also considered issues pertaining to Pakistan Medical and Dental Council. The prime minister directed that under the courts decisions, all the required steps should be completed on priority basis so that the doctors and other people associated with this sector should not face any difficulty.

Nawaz's pro-India policies harmed Pakistan, alleges ex-envoy ISLAMABAD MiAn AbrAr

In line with the accusations made by former Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam, another senior diplomat and former High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit has alleged that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s business interests had led to some actions which were against the national and state interests of Pakistan. Ratifying the allegations made by Aslam, Basit said that Nawaz Sharif wanted to develop a good relationship with India by striking a ‘private equation’ with Indian premier Narendra Modi but this approach, according to him, was flawed.

As far as the issue of Jammu and Kashmir was concerned, Basit said that he had openly expressed his reservations on Nawaz Sharif’s Kash-

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mir policy. He said it was a stated policy of Pakistan to remain in contact with the Hurriyat leadership and as High Commissioner to India, Basit said he had pursued the same policy.

“Though I was conveyed verbal directions many a time, I had always insisted on written directions from the prime minister,” he asserted.

Commenting on the business interests of Nawaz Sharif with India, Abdul Basit said that the Sharif family had sugar mills in Pakistan.

“I remember that Nawaz Sharif’s nephew, Salman Shehbaz, used to call me on phone at least once a month for issuance of visas to certain Indian nationals. I used to ask Salman Shehbaz to follow the SoPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for the issuance of visas to foreigners. But there were occasions that some visas were issued on ver-

bal instructions due to emergency situations,” he said.

Commenting over Sharif’s connections with Indian steel magnet Sajan Jandal, Abdul Basit said that Jandal was very close to Sharif and Nawaz Sharif wanted him to invest in coal mines in Pakistan. He said that Nawaz Sharif did take some measures which were against the interests of the state of Pakistan. Referring to the Pathankot incident occurred on January 2, 2016, Abdul Basit said Nawaz government also got registered FIRs against some Pakistani individuals which were not in the interest of Pakistan. Commenting over the issue of Indian saboteur Kulbhushan Jadhav, Abdul Basit said that the top officers of those times in the ministry of foreign affairs of Pakistan had played the same role as was the case with Nawaz Sharif.

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

FEDErAL gOVT POSTPONES ALL ExAMS TILL JuNE 1 DuE TO VIruS OuTbrEAk ISLAMABAD

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Staff RepoRt

INISTER for Education Shafqat Mahmood on Wednesday announced the postponement of all examinations, including board exams and O/A-level exams, till June 1.

Addressing a press conference, the minister stated that the decision has been taken in order to give children ample time to prepare.

“It is is important to give children a predictable future. That is why we kept the matter of exams separate from the closure of educational institutes,” the minister said.

Mahmood further added that he had spoken to the officials responsible for conducting the Cambridge exams and said: “They have said that they may consider shifting the exams to the November session. However, I have spoken to them and asked them to consider shifting the May session to June and July.”

However, this decision will be taken

by them, he said.

The minister said due to delay in exams, the universities have also been directed to delay their admissions. He said that the schools and the religious seminaries have been closed till April 5 as per the decision of the National Security Committee. The government will decide on March 27 whether the situation is suitable to reopen the institutions.

According to Mahmood, arrangements are being made to hold online classes in case the closure period is extended. In this regard technology support and content committees have also been set up. Mahmood said all cultural events have also been postponed due to the current situation.

The minister said the federal government is working in cohesion with the provinces to take all possible measures to contain the spread of coronavirus.

He said the decision to evacuate students from university hostels has been implemented. However, he explained that international students are exempted from this decision.

SECP links short selling with uptick rule in future market

BuSIneSS DeSK In the wake of COVID-19 and its unprecedented effect on global stock markets, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), in consultation with market stakeholders and market infrastructure institutions, has decided that for the April 2020 contract, short sale in 36 specific shares of future market shall be subject to an uptick rule. This will ensure the provision of required prior notice period to the market and retain liquidity in the rollover week. Further, to support the mutual fund industry, the maximum period of borrowing by mutual funds for redemption purposes will be extended from existing 90 days to 360 days. Moreover, the commission has allowed to relax deposit requirements against base minimum capital of TREC holders. The requirement to perform biometric verification at the time of opening of account is eased and the biometric verification may be performed within 90 days. However, other KYC requirements as per the CKO and NCCPL Regulations including VERISYS shall remain applicable. Earlier, a number of facilitative measures were undertaken by the SECP, which include (i) collection of market-wide concentration margins at specified threshold to rationalize mode of implementation, (ii) near cash instruments collected as acceptable market collateral against exposure by NCCPL, (iii) inclusion of close-out mechanism in DFC market, (iv) release of 50pc MtM profit in deliverable futures market on T+1 basis and (v) amendments to the Listed Companies (Buy-Back of Shares) Regulations, 2019 to remove free-float condition for shares to be held as treasury. Over the last couple of weeks, the SECP has been maintaining close coordination with the stock exchange, clearing and depository companies and has held multiple sessions. “It is comforting that the various risk management measures and market halts instilled in the stock market are working effectively, margins were collected in timely manner and no settlement issues were witnessed,” the commission stated.

“A 90-year-old man from GilgitBaltistan’s Diamer district died from the virus during treatment,” he said.

However, the government later claimed that the patients did not die of coronavirus, but pneumonia and claimed that the spokesperson had misreported the fact.

PM’s aide on health Dr Zafar Mirza also rejected the report from GB and said: “I can confirm that until now there is no corona related death in Pakistan. Geo report about a death in GB is incorrect. The coronavirus test of the patient is -ve. I request media reporters that in rush to break the news first, please don’t misreport.

Check your facts twice.”

The number of total cases in Sindh was 208 by Wednesday evening. With the emergence of five new cases, the total number of cases in Punjab has touched 33; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 19 cases while Balochistan has 23 cases and Islamabad has two cases.

A 45-year-old man was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), marking the region’s first case of the virus while 15 cases have been reported in Gilgit-Baltistan. AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider said that the patient was being kept in isolation and his condition was satisfactory.

The patient had returned from Taftan recently.

‘Rs5bn FUND TO COMBAT CORONA IN PUNJAB’: Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar has announced a special fund to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

The fund, worth Rs5 billion, was aimed at efforts to stop the spread of the virus in the province. This is in addition to a Rs236m sum allocated to the Punjab health department before the National Security Committee (NSC) meeting; the sum was later bumped up to Rs1bn, as per a commitment made by the provincial government.

Speaking to the media, Buzdar said he had visited a quarantine centre, reviewed all necessities there, and

03

Firdous accuses PML-N of politicising 'sensitive' coronavirus issue ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan on Wednesday accused the Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N) of doing politics over an issue as sensitive as coronavirus. In a series of tweets, the SAPM said that PML-N has hurt the sentiments of patriotic overseas Pakistanis who have sent their money to Pakistan [in the form of remmitances].

“Ex-pats have confidence in the leadership of [Prime Minister] Imran Khan,” she said. Maintaining that “unity and harmony is the need of the hour”, she said the “coronavirus outbreak is a national issue and together we have to defeat this virus”. “The world is recognising Prime Minister Imran’s timely steps for the protection and security of his people as the same is evident from the statement issued by the [country representative of] World Health Organization (WHO).” The SAPM further advised the opposition against resorting to political point-scoring at this crucial period of time.

Two deaths in KP as toll crosses 300 ContInueD froM pAge 01

NEWS

was briefed on the latest developments. “There are 189 suspected [cases of coronavirus] in Punjab, 143 were negative, 28 positive, 46 were admitted to hospital, and the results for 38 were awaited,” he said.

The CM said the Punjab government “first took up the corona [virus] issue on January 3 and we immediately set up a control room in our health department, as well as a cabinet committee that monitors [the situation] on a daily basis”. Noting that measures discussed during the highlevel NSC meeting were implemented in the province as is.

HEALTH EMERGENCY, SECTION 144: He said that the Punjab government has banned tourist destinations, including Murree, and limited visits for people at secretariat and other [public] offices. “Only skeleton staff will be present there.”

Shopping malls, restaurants, and hotels will be closed down by 10pm, and only medicine shops, groceries, factories, mills, and markets would remain open with no restrictions, the chief minister added. Further, a public health emergency was declared in Punjab and Section 144 imposed.

With regard to strategic measures, Buzdar said the provincial government had requested its federal counterpart to help make the quarantine facilities better. In that regard, Punjab “will provide support wherever required and even to any other province if they need it”.

“We will negotiate with the Balochistan government on Taftan as to whether we should set up our camp [there] or facilitate them but we will do whatever we can for our people at the border,” he said.

“We are in the process of setting up a temporary 1000-bed field hospital so that we are ready should the need arise. Also, 41 high-dependency units have been set up in all districts and three hospitals have been dedicated for coronavirus — in Muzaffargarh, Lahore, and Rawalpindi.

“In addition to that, we have allocated spaces at other [medical] institutes” just in case, he added.

Shortly after Buzdar’s address,

the government of Punjab said on Twitter that mobility in markets would be controlled by different measures, ‘work from home’ and social safety measures introduced, and that “quarantines for 5,000 patients is ready”.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Imran Khan and Punjab CM Buzdar arrived in Dera Ghazi Khan to oversee the quarantine facilities where pilgrims returning from Taftan border have been kept.

The premier was briefed on the measures taken to prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading, as well as the facilities provided to the people who had been quarantined. The prime minister also visited the central command room established to oversee the situation. He also met the people in quarantine and inquired after their health.

‘SINDH HOSPITALS NOT CLOSED’: Meanwhile, Sindh government spokesperson Murtaza Wahab has refuted rumors pertaining to a province-wide closure of hospitals, clarifying that hospitals in the province will remain open. “I refute these rumors. We are just trying to regulate [the healthcare] system. We have to ensure that our doctors, nurses and paramedical staff are not fatigued,” he said.

He reiterated that precaution is the only way to prevent the spread of the disease. “The easiest thing is to quarantine ourselves for 14 days,” he asserted.

Murtaza said that, if necessary, strict action will be taken to ensure that all restaurants, shopping malls and public parks in the province will remain closed for the next 15 days to contain the potential spread of the virus.

Appreciating the efforts of all those citizens and businesses that have followed the directives issued by the Sindh government, Wahab said: “We are personally monitoring the situation. But I will admit that there is not 100pc compliance.”

He clarified that the orders were not applicable to grocery stores, corner shops and pharmacies.

CAA directs int'l travellers to provide virus test results upon arrival ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

In an effort to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has made it compulsory for all international passengers arriving in the country to provide a copy of the test result for COVID-19. According to a notification issued by the authority on Mar 17, all passengers will be required to provide a copy of the test results conducted 24 hours prior to boarding the flight. The measure will go into effect from Mar 21. A day earlier, the government also resumed international flight operations at the airports, rescinding its earlier decision to temporarily suspend flight operation on all but three airports – Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad – to restrict the spread of coronavirus in the country. According to the notification, “It shall be the responsibility of the airline operators to ensure that no passengers are allowed to board an aircraft without the test results.

Top judge slams govt’s inability to contain COVID-19 ContInueD froM pAge 01 The SC allowed Malik to continue performing his duties as the head of the national carrier. During the hearing, the CJP asked the government to explain a single good thing that happened in the national airline. “PIA is playing with the lives of the people,” CJP Ahmed complained. However, Attorney General of Pakistan Khalid Jawed defended Malik and described him as a competent person. He added that, God-willing, Malik would take the PIA forward. However, the CJP interjected and told the government lawyer that work cannot be done by merely uttering “By the grace of God”, “God-willing” and “Thanks be to God”. Justice Ijaz ul Ahsan also criticised the government, saying that the court knows that a lot of lobbies were working against the airline. “There are lobbies inside PIA who do not want it to work,” remarked the judge. He also suggested that the air marshal implement those decisions which a political government cannot. “If actions had already been taken, the airline would not have been in its present state,” Justice Ahsan said. To this, the AGP replied that if Arshad Malik is allowed to work as the CEO, he will take all those actions. He added that whenever the court will say that Malik has to go, he will go.

‘PIA ON VENTILATOR’: Later, the Supreme Court, in a written order, stated that the federal government has informed the court that Arshad Malik was appointed legally. The court also stated that the AGP had pleaded to the court to let Air Marshal Malik work as the PIA CEO. In the written order, the court said that the AGP had argued that Malik should be allowed to work as the institution was ‘on a ventilator’.

04 KARACHI

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

WEATHER UPDATES TUESDAY

340C

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PRAyER TImINgS FAJR SUNRISE

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KaraChi SlowS To a SpuTTer aFTer parTial loCKDown

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NEWS DESK

“We are doing it because the government has ordered us to do it,” a shopkeeper in Landa Bazaar said.

“We have no option but to cooperate with the Sindh government, as this is a necessary precaution against the pandemic,” another one said.

Yet another owner concurred.

“These precautions are necessary. Labourers do not have any option — at least businessmen have a safety net,” he said.

As residents hunkered down at home, ride-hailing services in the city also recorded an 80% decline in

HE streets of Pakistan's largest metropolis wore a semi-deserted look on Wednesday after the Sindh government ordered a 15day closure of all shopping malls, restaurants and parks in response to a coronavirus outbreak.

Sindh has reported the highest number of cases — 208 — among the provinces. On Wednesday, most shopkeepers were seen sitting on the roadside outside their closed shops.

their morning bookings. A bus-sharing service notified customers that it was suspending its operations.

Weddings and other ceremonies scheduled at hotels had to be cancelled after a shutdown notification was issued late on Tuesday.

Hotels in the metropolis also faced the fallout of the drastic measures taken to contain the spread of the virus. Occupancy rates are currently very low, as only those individuals whose flights have been cancelled are checking in.

On Tuesday, the Sindh government had announced the closure of inter-city transport, public offices, all Out-Patient Departments (OPDs) at public hospitals, shopping malls, restaurants, food streets and public parks for 15 days in the entire province. Restaurants were, however, allowed to offer take-away and home delivery services. Pharmacies and grocery stores will also remain functioning as usual.

Earlier, the provincial government had said all educational institutes across the province would remain closed till May 31, with large public gatherings, weddings, congregations, conferences and other events banned.

Coronavirus cases in Sindh soars to 181 KARACHI STAFF REPORT

The Spokesperson for the Sindh government and Adviser to Sindh Chief Minister on Law, Environment, Climate Change, and Coastal Development, Barrister Murtaza Wahab said Wednesday that so far, a total of 181 cases of coronavirus had been reported across the Sindh province, and every affected person had been placed in isolation.

Of these 181 cases, 141 were reported from Sukkur alone while others were from the rest of the province including Karachi, the provincial advisor said in. When the first case of the Corona virus was reported on February 26, 2020, the Sindh government had been working actively to control it since that day, he said while addressing a press conference on Wednesday.

Wahab expressed regret that Prime Minister Imran Khan's address to the nation yesterday was not a valuable as everyone knew that what the coronavirus was, and what precautions one should take to keep itself safe from it. He said it was the time to tell the public that what effective measures were being adopted by the government to prevent the spread of the virus.

He said the situation might had been different, if the centre had reacted timely and effectively by leaving Twitter and social media for

few days. Explaining the details of the tests conducted to detect coronavirus, Wahab said that so far, 844 tests had been conducted. He said that there were currently three centers in Karachi where these tests were being conducted. These centres included Aga Khan Hospital, Ojha Campus of Dow University and Indus Hospital.

The advisor further said that at present, 506 tests had been carried out in Aga Khan Hospital, 61 in Ojha Campus of Dow University Hospital and 277 at Indus Hospital.

Wahab said that at present, 200 test kits had been transferred from Centre to Sindh, out of which 100 were given to Aga Khan Hospital and 100 to Ojha Campus of Dow University Hospital.In addition, the advisor said that the Sindh government had imported kits from abroad for conducting ten thousand more tests. Speaking regarding the decisions taken at the meeting of the Task Force yesterday, Wahab said that decisions were being implemented and that if anyone violated the directives, then the police would be ordered to take strict action against the violators.

Referring to further decisions taken at the task force meeting, Wahab said that the Chief Minister Sindh had set up a three billion rupees fund to tackle the spread of the coronavirus, in which not only Chief Minister Sindh and his cabi-

net members would deposit a month's salary, but the bureaucracy was also contributing.

He said that in the present situation, extreme seriousness was needed at the government level.

Wahab said that in the current critical situation, ‘we should work to protect our people while avoiding politics and blame games’. He said that there were probably some mistakes committed, but the Sindh government was working with sincere intention and passion to confront the emergency situation.

Wahab said some people kept on criticizing for no reason, so they could keep on, the Sindh government would do whatever it considered best for the health safety of the people. Responding to a question, the adviser said that the situation at Taftan border had been shown on the media repeatedly. "I will not say anything about this situation except that it is an emergency one for all of us and we must resolve it together," he said. On the question asked about Halim Adil Shaikh, he said that if Imran Khan was asked who Halim Adil was, his reply would be that he did not know.

He said that Halim Adil Shaikh should be ashamed of his statement.

Wahab while replying to a question advised the federal government to cut off train service and check railways stations’ conditions due to coronavirus outbreak.

Four accused involved in Dua, Bisma kidnapping arrested KARACHI INP

An intelligence agency and police have arrested four more accused belonged to Dua Mangi and Bisma abduction cases which included an IT expert. According to police sources an important development has happen in the Dua Mangi and Bisma kidnapping cases as four accused have been arrested in a various raids at Karachi, Rawalpindi and other cities of Sindh while the raids have been conducted on the information provided by the already arrested accused in the case.

The arrested also included an IT expert while accused has expertise in using proxy and vpn numbers and they demanded ransoms by using the vpn numbers. An accused has also been taken into custody who used vehicles in the crime and the accused provided back up support to abductors in the vehicle.

KARACHI: Patients seems upset due to closing of OPDs, as govt of Sindh has issued orders to close the OPD of hospital as a safety measure from Corona virus. ONLINE

KARACHI: A large number of people stand in queue and wait for them turn to buy subsidies over the directions of provincial govt to keep closed all markets and public places area, due to increasing in coronavirus as a preventive measure against the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), at Defence area of Karachi. PPI

Sindh govt to buy 60,000 ration bags in first phase KARACHI STAFF REPORT

The Sindh government on Wednesday decided to buy 60,000 bags of ration in first phase for distribution amid coronavirus outbreak. The ration bags to include, flour, rice, pulses, dry milk and other things.

The bags will be distributed through the Provincial Disasters Management Authority. After the decision of the provincial government the PDMA has started preparations for the purchase of ration bags. The PDMA has sought quotations from the sellers within three days. It may be noted that 181 cases of the novel coronavirus have been reported in Sindh, thus so far. Earlier, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah had issued directives for provision of ration to families of the people put in quarantine in Sukkur on their doorstep. The chief minister had said the provincial government will take care of the families of those kept at the Sukkur isolation centre. He had said he is well aware of the fact that the people being quarantined for the COVID-19 had families to feed. The chief minister asked them to focus on their health and not worry about their families back home.

Crack down on quacks conducting fake virus tests in Sindh KARACHI STAFF REPORT

Police and healthcare authorities have started operations against those violating the ban on public gatherings, imposed amid the coronavirus outbreak, vendors selling items at inflated prices and quack physicians conducting fake coronavirus tests in Sindh. The Sindh Health Care Commission (SHCC) launched a crackdown on quack doctors who carried out fake coronavirus tests across Sindh. Following the spike in coronavirus cases, quacks have been administering fake tests and displaying banners in this regard outside their clinics. Upon receiving several complaints, the provincial government launched an operation against them. Speaking in this regard, SHCC Commission Chief Executive Officer Dr Minhaj Qidwai has urged the public not to fall into the trap of fake doctors and only get tested for the virus from hospital designated by the health department.

Meanwhile, police conducted a raid at Lal Qila restaurant late Monday night and arrested four staff members, including the restaurant’s manager, for violating the ban placed on public gatherings to prevent coronavirus spread. According to police, a wedding reception was held at the restaurant where approximately 200 guests were invited. A case against the arrested has been registered at Bahadurabad Police Station. Separately, three other persons, including a foreigner, were arrested for hoarding face masks, during an operation in Azizabad. Separately, police conducted a raid at a school in Liaquatabad and arrested the school administrator for not suspending classes as per the Sindh government’s orders. A case has been registered against the administrator.

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

SBP’S rate cut will not helP imProve country’S economy: hafeez PaSha

f

NewS DeSk

ORMER Federal Finance Minister Dr Hafeez Pasha has said the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has not cut the policy rate keeping in view the country’s actual economic situation and the coronavirus crisis.

He said it appeared that the central bank’s focus to improve poor economic outlook of the country was even below satisfactory, as its recent projection of 3 per cent annual growth was beyond reality.

ISLAMABAD APP

The self-registration process for the Ehsaas Kafalat program through the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) in 15 districts of Pakistan has been suspended till April 5 as part of prevention measures regarding coronavirus epidemic, media reports emerged on Wednesday.

However, biometrically-enabled payments will be continued. According to the Poverty Alleviation Division, the preventive measures have been taken for beneficiaries to ensure their safety, keeping in view the current situation.

The division has advised concerned banks to ensure that sanitizers are available at all payment points during the provision of services. Before fingerprints verification, the beneficiaries are being guided as how to wash hands with the sanitizers and alcoholic wipes. After the use of the biometric devices, the beneficiaries are guided to rewash their hands

Talking to Pakistan Today’s Arif Nizami in his television show ‘Ho Kya Raha Ha’ on Wednesday, the renowned economist said the reduction of 75bps in the interest rates would not help improve the country’s economic situation.

He, however, feared that the industrial units especially the export industry, which are already in crisis, might jump into the category of non-performing loans before closing down.

“It’s time the central bank bring down the interest rate below 10pc on the pattern of other countries. I hope the bank will think about further reduction in in-

terest rate in future,” Pasha suggested to the government. He said the government still wanted to not allow hot money to go outside Pakistan. Pasha said Prime Minister Imran, during his televised speech, should have announced a stimulus package and relief package to rescue the deteriorating economic cycle of the country and worsening situation in near future.

He informed that the value of stock market shares had fallen up to Rs1,900 billion in the last few days and one per cent of the rich, who usually invest in stocks business, have seen 35pc reduction in their annual income.

He said the share value of Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA), the biggest-ever leading profitable public sector organisation that generates dividends worth 50 billion annually, has plunged 40pc with no hope of further dividends.

The former finance minister said the government could bring down inflation rate from 12.4pc to 11pc in the wake of record reduction in global oil prices.

According to him, the real issue is not inflation but recession and the government should have brought down below 10pc.

Registration for Ehsaas Kafalat program suspended temporarily with soaps and sanitizers.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Dr. Sania Nishtar said, “The precautionary decisions have been taken to avoid any risk of contributing to the potential spread of the epidemic. The government strongly believes that the safety and wellness of our people comes first.

We are monitoring the situation closely and are following the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidance to ensure best practices.” She said, “We had an easy option to temporarily suspend the Kafalat disbursements, but we preferred to cater to the pressing financial needs of the women beneficiaries by ensuring their health and safety in this situation.”

Successful Haj applicants asked to submit refund applications ISLAMABAD APP

The Ministry of Religious Affairs has asked the applicants, who were selected for the government Haj scheme, to submit refund forms if they have changed their plan amid the coronavirus pandemic.

According to an official notification, the refund forms can be obtained from www.hajjinfo.org. The

forms should be sent to the official address of the ministry’s account officer for refund. The ministry, then, will issue a Refund Authority Letter (RFA), allowing the applicant to withdraw his deposited money from the relevant bank.

After getting the refund, another application should be submitted to Section Officer (Hajj Policy) requesting permission to allow their blood relative as a substitute to per-

Sukkur quarantine paramedics refuse to work The paramedic staff at the coronavirus quarantine centre in Sukkur refused to perform their duties on Wednesday, according to a media report. The report stated that following the refusals, the Sindh Health Department issued a show cause notice to 27 members of the staff. Fourteen other people who had been absent from their duties have been asked to submit an application stating the reason behind their absences. On Wednesday, more than 757 pilgrims from the Taftan border reached Sukkur. According to the deputy commissioner, the total number of people at the centre has increased to 1,050. News Desk

form Haj through government Haj scheme.

The ministry will issue a letter, showing its consent to substitute the pilgrim. The substitute will submit their hajj application along with a copy of the passport to the relevant bank branch. The successful applicant, who does not want to perform Haj, should state the reason for his withdrawal including relevant certificates.

NEWS

05

zulfi Bukhari says had no role in allowing pilgrims at taftan ISLAMABAD APP

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari has denied any involvement in allowing the pilgrims, who had recently returned from Iran via the Taftan Border to enter the country. As of Wednesday evening, Pakistan had recorded over 250 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with most of the cases originating among those who had gone to pilgrimages to Iran — one of the countries hardest-hit by the disease. Dismissing news regarding his alleged influence over the Balochistan government, Bukhari said neither he nor any other leader of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had influenced any institution to give permission to anyone to enter Pakistan through the Taftan Border. “To all the ‘so called’ journos that are lying based on their personal agendas: no influence was used by me or any other PTI leader – which isn’t even under federal control,” the special assistant said in a series of tweets. “There’s a time & place for yellow journalism antics & this isn’t one,” he lashed out. “Your divisiveness won’t deter me or the gov in fighting this global crisis.” Bukhari categorically rejected the rumours, claiming that he had had a conversation with Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal in relation to the situation. He urged the media to play leading role in creating awareness against the coronavirus pandemic.

Pta suspends blocking of mobile devices during coronavirus pandemic ISLAMABAD APP

In view of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and to ensure social distancing, all GSMA valid device IMEIs seen on mobile networks but currently not registered with PTA have been granted an additional 30 days for registration of their mobile devices. The blocking of such mobile devices will continue from April,19 as per their due dates and will be communicated via SMS. As per regulations, all mobile devices being connected to local networks using local SIM are subject to registration within 60 days from first use of device on local mobile networks in Pakistan.

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

06 WORLD VIEW

Big pharma prepares to profit from the Coronavirus IN 2019, THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY SPENT $295 MILLION ON LOBBYING, FAR MORE THAN ANY OTHER SECTOR IN THE U.S. THAT’S ALMOST TWICE AS MUCH AS THE NEXT BIGGEST SPENDER — THE ELECTRONICS, MANUFACTURING, AND EQUIPMENT SECTOR — AND WELL MORE THAN DOUBLE WHAT OIL AND GAS COMPANIES SPENT ON LOBBYING

intercept

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sHaroN LerNer

S the new Coronavirus spreads illness, death, and catastrophe around the world, virtually no economic sector has been spared from harm.

Yet amid the mayhem from the global pandemic, one industry is not only surviving, it is profiting handsomely.

“Pharmaceutical companies view Covid-19 as a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity,” said Gerald Posner, author of “Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America.” The world needs pharmaceutical products, of course. For the new coronavirus outbreak, in particular, we need treatments and vaccines and, in the U.S., tests. Dozens of companies are now vying to make them. “They’re all in that race,” said Posner, who described the potential payoffs for winning the race as huge. The global crisis “will potentially be a blockbuster for the industry in terms of sales and profits,” he said, adding that “the worse the pandemic gets, the higher their eventual profit.”

The ability to make money off of pharmaceuticals is already uniquely large in the U.S., which lacks the basic price controls other countries have, giving drug companies more freedom over setting prices for their products than anywhere else in the world. During the current crisis, pharmaceutical makers may have even more leeway than usual because of language industry

lobbyists inserted into an $8.3 billion coronavirus spending package, passed last week, to maximize their profits from the pandemic.

Initially, some lawmakers had tried to ensure that the federal government would limit how much pharmaceutical companies could reap from vaccines and treatments for the new coronavirus that they developed with the use of public funding. In February, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, DIll., and other House members wrote to Trump pleading that he “ensure that any vaccine or treatment developed with U.S. taxpayer dollars be accessible, available and affordable,” a goal they said couldn’t be met “if pharmaceutical corporations are given authority to set prices and determine distribution, putting profit-making interests ahead of health priorities.”

When the coronavirus funding was being negotiated, Schakowsky tried again, writing to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on March 2 that it would be “unacceptable if the rights to produce and market that vaccine were subsequently handed over to a pharmaceutical manufacturer through an exclusive license with no conditions on pricing or access, allowing the company to charge whatever it would like and essentially selling the vaccine back to the public who paid for its development.”

But many Republicans opposed adding language to the bill that would restrict the industry’s ability to profit, arguing that it would stifle research and innovation. And although Azar, who served as the top lobbyist and head of U.S. operations for the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly before joining the Trump administration, assured Schakowsky that he shared her concerns, the bill went on to enshrine drug companies’ ability to set potentially exorbitant prices for vaccines and drugs they develop with taxpayer dollars.

The final aid package not only omitted language that would have limited drug makers’ intellectual property rights, it specifically prohibited the federal government from taking any action if it has concerns that the treatments or vaccines developed with public funds are priced too high.

“Those lobbyists deserve a medal from their pharma clients because they killed that intellectual property provision,” said Posner, who added that the language pro-

How Bangladesh is developing without riches

national JoHaNN CHaCKo

On March 26, Bangladesh will celebrate its independence, marking the day in 1971 when the government of President Yahya Khan in Islamabad launched a murderous total war against his citizens in what was then East Pakistan.

That war ended almost exactly nine months later, with a new country emerging with the help of Indian and the newly created Bangladeshi forces. Unfortunately, the new country was so utterly ravaged by man-made and natural disasters that it was regarded for decades as the textbook case of chronic poverty and underdevelopment in the global south.

Yet, Bangladesh today is one of South Asia’s development success stories, with sustained growth of more than eight per cent and social indicators that are beginning to outstrip the rest of the region. It is also a country where more so than anywhere else in the region the independent press and opposition parties have withered away into near irrelevance.

So the question is, has Bangladesh left the “South Asian model” of intensely competitive politics and religious passions, and embraced a “Chinese model” of one-party rule and performance-based legitimacy?

The short answer is no. Bangladesh continues to wrestle with the question of whether it wants to be a secular or religious nation-state, and does not have an outstanding record on minority relations.

The various periods of de jure or de facto single-party rule have all eventually collapsed. Meanwhile, the idea of democracy remains deeply rooted even when individual governments have their mandate revoked. But what Bangladesh also has is a tradition of unapologetic and unpredictable rebellion from any quarter of society that feels let down by its rulers.

It is worth remembering the legacy that Bangladeshis have overcome. Bengal was where the British East India Company first got into the business of empire in the 1750s, creating one of the most cruelly extractive corporate regimes the world has ever witnessed. The lives of Bengal’s small and landless peasantry, often Muslim, mattered little to successive ruling classes, whether British or South Asian. They died by the nameless millions in famines brought on by drought, flooding and war but most of all by over-taxation and contemptuous neglect.

Unsurprisingly, Bengal is also where modern republican ideas first arrived in South Asia more than a century ago – the belief that the power belonged to the people, and that all people deserve equal rights. Close on their heels came revolutionary militancy – a belief in the legitimacy of any action by the people to seize those rights from the rulers.

These ideas might have started out circulating mostly among bomb-throwing upper-caste university students in the early 1900s. But by 1968, even the poorest members of society were ready to stand up en masse against the government of Field Marshal Ayub Khan. Massmobilisation was achieved on a scale that made the province ungovernable, ending technocratic rule in Pakistan and forcing its first ever general elections. And when Pakistan’s government refused to honour the results of those polls, the Bengalis of East Pakistan revolted.

So it has gone ever since. Bangladesh has lurched between civilian- and military-led autocracies since 1971, with periods of genuine competitive multi-party democracy in between.

Unlike Iran, for instance, no single group in Bangladesh has ever truly been

hibiting the government from responding to price gouging was even worse. “To allow them to have this power during a pandemic is outrageous.”

The truth is that profiting off public investment is also business as usual for the pharmaceutical industry.

Since the 1930s, the National Institutes of Health has put some $900 billion into research that drug companies then used to patent brand-name medications, according to Posner’s calculations. Every single drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration between 2010 and 2016 involved science funded with tax dollars through the NIH, according to the advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs. Taxpayers spent more than $100 billion on that research.

Among the drugs that were developed with some public funding and went on to be huge earners for private companies are the HIV drug AZT and the cancer treatment Kymriah, which Novartis now sells for $475,000.

In his book “Pharma,” Posner points to another example of private companies making exorbitant profits from drugs produced with public funding. The antiviral drug sofosbuvir, which is used to treat hepatitis C, stemmed from key research funded by the National Institutes of Health. That drug is now owned by Gilead Sciences, which charges $1,000 per pill — more than many people with hepatitis C can afford; Gilead earned $44 billion from the drug during its first three years on the market.

“Wouldn’t it be great to have some of the profits from those drugs go back into public research at the NIH?” asked Posner.

Instead, the profits have funded huge bonuses for drug company executives and aggressive marketing of drugs to consumers. They have also been used to further boost the profitability of the pharmaceutical sector.

According to calculations by Axios, drug companies make 63 percent of total health care profits in the U.S. That’s in part because of the success of their lobbying efforts. In 2019, the pharmaceutical industry spent $295 million on lobbying, far more than any other sector in the U.S. That’s almost twice as much as the next biggest spender — the electronics, manufacturing, and equipment sector — and well more than double what oil and gas companies spent on lobbying. The industry

able to appropriate the authority of the revolution. As a result, while rulers have been often able to suppress their political rivals for long stretches, they have had far less luck with the people. Whether from the street or the lower ranks of the state, Bangladesh has faced uprisings and disorder when governments have failed to govern effectively or equitably. Some convulsions, such as the February 2009 mutiny by the Border Guards’ enlisted men in the heart of Dhaka, have been both extraordinarily violent and opaque in its exact causes – even to Bangladeshis.

During this same turbulent period, Bangladesh achieved truly outstanding improvements in quality of life indicators such as female literacy, child and maternal mortality despite only modest increases in wealth. In fact, the results have been so good that social scientists have struggled to account for it. The best explanation available is that whether out of self-preservation or popular solidarity, Bangladesh’s governments since independence have been sensible enough to get out of the way of the international community’s efforts to help the Bangladeshi people help themselves.

Perhaps it has also helped that Bangladesh lost much of its rural landlord class during Partition in 1947, unlike Pakistan and India; perhaps it also helped that it had a smaller, less entrenched business caste. This is of course changing with the success of the textile and garment industries in the global marketplace.

Under such circumstances, the emergence of the country’s very first billionaires is as much of a cause for caution as it is celebration.

As inequality and expectations grow, the state will increasingly be expected to do more. Simply facilitating international donors will not be enough. And of course for the state to do more, especially if it is to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, it will have to develop the political will to tax its newly wealthy and spend on health, education and general welfare. If it does not, the notion will take hold that the government has failed its people. If that were to become the case, it is more than likely that Bangladesh’s history of people power, celebrated so passionately every March 26, will repeat itself.

Johann Chacko is a writer and South Asia analyst.

also spends lavishly on campaign contributions to both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Throughout the Democratic primary, Joe Biden has led the pack among recipients of contributions from the health care and pharmaceutical industries.

Big Pharma’s spending has positioned the industry well for the current pandemic. While stock markets have plummeted in reaction to the Trump administration’s bungling of the crisis, more than 20 companies working on a vaccine and other products related to the new SARS-CoV-2 virus have largely been spared. Stock prices for the biotech company Moderna, which began recruiting participants for a clinical trial of its new candidate for a coronavirus vaccine two weeks ago, have shot up during that time.

On Thursday, a day of general carnage in the stock markets, Eli Lilly’s stock also enjoyed a boost after the company announced that it, too, is joining the effort to come up with a therapy for the new coronavirus. And Gilead Sciences, which is at work on a potential treatment as well, is also thriving. Gilead’s stock price was already up since news that its antiviral drug remdesivir, which was created to treat Ebola, was being given to Covid-19 patients. Today, after Wall Street Journal reported that the drug had a positive effect on a small number of infected cruise ship passengers, the price went up further.

Several companies, including Johnson & Johnson, DiaSorin Molecular, and QIAGEN have made it clear that they are receiving funding from the Department of Health and Human Services for efforts related to the pandemic, but it is unclear whether Eli Lilly and Gilead Sciences are using government money for their work on the virus. To date, HHS has not issued a list of grant recipients. And according to Reuters, the Trump administration has told top health officials to treat their coronavirus discussions as classified and excluded staffers without security clearances from discussions about the virus.

Former top lobbyists of both Eli Lilly and Gilead now serve on the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

Azar served as director of U.S. operations for Eli Lilly and lobbied for the company, while Joe Grogan, now serving as director of the Domestic Policy Council, was the top lobbyist for Gilead Sciences.

How to maintain your mental health in the time of COVID-19 HAVE A HEALTHY DIET, KEEP EXERCISING, GET ENOUGH SLEEP, CONNECT WITH LOVED ONES AND FRIENDS (THROUGH NON FACE-TO-FACE MEANS IF NECESSARY) AND CONTINUE TO DO THINGS YOU ENJOY Sydney Morning Herald DaviD Forbes

Australians woke up this weekend with the prospect of not being able to attend sports events, theatre, even the movies. It may seem trite to say that being banned from attending such popular social recreational events on top of already existing self-isolation and quarantine instructions is catastrophic but these, necessary, restrictions will have short and potentially long-term mental health impacts. I will leave the containment strategies to the scientists, but critical is how we as individuals and we as a society manage and deal with the emotional, psychological and social impacts of this uncertainty and crisis – from the issues surrounding self-isolation and also how we manage the panic that manifests as fights over toilet paper and outbursts of racism.

It has already been a difficult and tense summer for Australia with the devastating bushfires.

Before we could recover from the physical and psychological impact of the bushfires, as a country our attention has shifted to anxiety and fear around the COVID-19 pandemic. We know that social support and social connectedness are one of our strongest predictors of resilience and recovery for individuals and communities following trauma and disaster. The nature of an infectious disease outbreak is that people distance themselves from group settings and isolate themselves to reduce the risk of infection.

A review of studies investigating the psychological impacts of quarantine that has just been published in The Lancet found that symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, confusion and anger were common. This highlights the importance of ensuring that those who are quarantined have the information and provisions that they

need, that they try and establish some sort of routine, and stay in social contact with others. If you do need to self-isolate, try re-framing the situation and see it as an opportunity to use the time effectively. Maintain connections via social media and maintain a daily routine at home.

If you know people who are self-isolating and quarantined, help them remain connected. Social media can be helpful, but ensure the contacts are personal and not only group-based. It is vital that people feel personally connected, included and supported. Part of the anxiety stems from feeling you don’t have control, so focus on what you can control, like good hygiene, washing your hands properly, and teaching your children to do the same.

Have a healthy diet, keep exercising, get enough sleep, connect with loved ones and friends (through non face-to-face means if necessary) and continue to do things you enjoy.

At the moment most schools are still open, and you can imagine the kinds of things being said in schoolyards. Support children by asking them what they have heard about coronavirus and what concerns they have, by correcting any misinformation, and limiting how much children see on the news and social media about the unfolding situation. Keep your conversations calm and stick to the facts.

It is also up to us as a community to manage the potential mental health and wellbeing fallout from this pandemic, how we support ourselves and reach out and engage with others and, who knows, it may even have unforeseen positive consequences of promoting social cohesion.

Professor David Forbes is Director of Phoenix Australia Centre for Post-traumatic Mental Health, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne.

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

As woRld coweRs, chInA glIMPses coRonAvIRUs AfteRMAth Beijing

R

Agencies

eSTAUrAnTS are reopening, traffic and factories are stirring, and in one of the clearest signs yet that China is awakening from its coronavirus coma, the country’s “dancing aunties” are once again gathering in parks and squares.

As the rest of the world runs for cover, China — where the virus first emerged — is moving, guardedly, in the opposite direction as domestic infections fall to nil following unprecedented lockdowns and travel restrictions.

But ordinary life is far from normal.

Masks and temperature checks are essential to enter most places and many eateries are banning diners from facing each other in a mass “social distancing” campaign — no easy task in the world’s most populous nation.

Beijing retiree Wang Huixian was among a dozen women practising the national pastime of dancing in unison to music from portable speakers in a public park — but now with a gap of three metres (10 feet) between them.

“During the epidemic, everyone was very tense and afraid. So we want to relax now,” said Wang, 57.

But she added: “everyone is cautious and keeping a distance from each other to avoid getting infected.” Alongside more than 3,200 deaths and over 81,000 total infections, the coronavirus outbreak has left further scars. China, the world’s secondlargest economy, was shut down for weeks, with factories silent and massive cities locked down. The pain from that is expected to persist, with a surge in joblessness and many businesses gone bust.

SenSe of relief: Most of the country

is now slowly lifting restrictions and people are returning to work, unlike many Western countries where governments have ordered sweeping restrictions not seen during peacetime.

Many european countries are in neartotal internal lockdown, and popular tourist spots are deserted.

But after weeks of empty streets and citizens sheltering at home for safety, Shanghai has transformed in recent days.

Cafes and some tourist sites have re-

foreIgn newS 07

opened, and residents of China’s biggest city are re-emerging for tai chi in the park, or to take selfies along the riverfront under bright spring sunshine.

“I was very scared. A sense of fear persisted,” said 50-year-old Zhang Min, the owner of an office-supply company, while strolling in a Shanghai park.

“But now all is good… not like the people overseas who are engaged in panicbuying.”

The flow of daily commuters into Shanghai’s financial district is picking up and some inter-provincial travel restrictions have eased.

However, many provinces and cities like Shanghai now require citizens to show a downloaded Qr code on their mobile phone that rates them as “green”, “yellow” or “red” — based on tracking of whether they visited a high-risk zone — before entering many businesses.

“My feeling is that people with (virus) issues can’t come out, but people who can are safe, so we’re reassured,” child-care worker Lai Jinfeng, 41, said while strolling the Shanghai’s famous Bund.

People shrink from an offered handshake, many restaurants have removed half their chairs to disperse customers, and other restrictions on large gatherings remain in place.

Social media giants warn of AI moderation errors as coronavirus empties offices

Indian soldier tests positive for coronavirus An Indian Army soldier, posted in the mountainous region of Ladakh, has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, The economic Times reported on Wednesday. reportedly, the soldier’s father had returned from Iran on Feb 27. At the time, the soldier was on leave. He rejoined his post on March 2. After returning to Ladakh, his father was quarantined at a local hospital where he tested positive for COVID-19 on March 6. A day later, the soldier was quarantined. On Monday, he also tested positive for the pandemic. During his quarantine period, the soldier was staying in his native village and helping his family. His sister, wife and two children have also been placed in quarantine. The soldier and all his colleagues were placed in isolation after the former tested positive. news Desk

In a blog post, Google said that to reduce the need for people to come into offices, YouTube and other business divisions are temporarily relying more on artificial intelligence and automated tools to find problematic content.

Such software is not always as accurate as humans, which leads to errors, it added, however. And “turnaround times for appeals against these decisions may be slower,” it said.

Facebook followed suit, saying it would work with contract vendors this week to send home all content reviewers home indefinitely, with pay.

The social media company drew public criticism last week for asking policy enforcers to continue coming to work, as it lacks secure technology to conduct moderation remotely.

Facebook also said the decision to rely more on automated tools, which learn to identify offensive material by analyzing digital clues for aspects common to previous takedowns, has limitations.

“We may see some longer response times and make more mistakes as a result,” it said.

Twitter said it too would step up use of similar automation, but would not ban users based solely on automated enforcement, because of accuracy concerns.

The three Silicon Valley internet services giants, like many companies worldwide, have asked employees and contractors to work from home if possible, to slow the fast-spreading respiratory disease. Mass gatherings for sports, cultural and religious events have been canceled globally.

Google said human review of automated policy decisions also would be slower for other products and phone support would be limited.

Its content rules cover submissions such as campaigns on its ad network,

apps uploaded to the Google Play store and business reviews posted to Google Maps.

“Some users, advertisers, developers and publishers may experience delays in some support response times for non-critical services, which will now be supported primarily through our chat, email, and self-service channels,” Google said.

The content review operations of Google and Facebook span several countries, such as India, Ireland, Singapore and the United States.

UK parliament's usually rowdy 'PMQs' muted by coronavirus risk LOnDOn Agencies

It’s normally the rowdy highlight of the British parliamentary week, a time when lawmakers pack the chamber to put questions to the Prime Minister of the day. But on Wednesday it was a distinctly muted affair with Members of Parliament (MPs) advised to stay away because of the coronavirus outbreak. “In order to ensure that we follow the advice being given to the public, it has been decided that only people on the order paper should be in the chamber ..,” the government’s deputy chief enforcer in parliament Stuart Andrew said. There were just 15 listed for prime minister’s questions, or PMQs, which takes place every Wednesday at midday. The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, also gets to ask several questions to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Although not all heeded the advice, with dozens of lawmakers still coming to the chamber, most sat apart from each other and the usual jeering and cheering was absent.“Those watching our proceedings will have noticed that our attendance today is significantly below the normal levels,” House of Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle said just before the questions to Johnson started. Discussions had taken place to “limit the numbers of people crowded together to ensure maximum safety,” he added. “We are all doing our best to keep parliament sitting and to follow Public Health england guidance.” earlier this week, the government asked the public to avoid unnecessary social contact and work from home where possible as it ramped up its response to the spread of the virus. Lawmakers have expressed concern that the ageing parliamentary estate is ill-equipped to deal with the outbreak and that MPs pose a higher risk because they travel a lot and meet people.There have been at least two confirmed cases of MPs with coronavirus and many are self isolating due to either having symptoms themselves or coming into contact with someone who does.

New coronavirus can persist in air for hours, on surfaces for days: study neW YORK Agencies

The highly contagious novel coronavirus that has exploded into a global pandemic can remain viable and infectious in droplets in the air for hours and on surfaces up to days, according to a new study that should offer guidance to help people avoid contracting the respiratory illness called COVID-19.

Scientists from the national Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (nIAID), part of the US national Institutes of Health, attempted to mimic the virus deposited from an infected person onto everyday surfaces in a household or hospital setting, such as through coughing or touching objects.

They used a device to dispense an aerosol that duplicated the microscopic droplets created in a cough or a sneeze.

The scientists then investigated how long the virus remained infectious on these surfaces, according to the study that appeared online in the new england Journal of Medicine on Tuesday — a day in which US COVID-19 cases surged past 5,200 and deaths approached 100.

The tests show that when the virus is carried by the droplets released when someone coughs or

sneezes, it remains viable, or able to still infect people, in aerosols for at least three hours.

On plastic and stainless steel, viable virus could be detected after three days. On cardboard, the virus was not viable after 24 hours. On copper, it took 4 hours for the virus to become inactivated.

In terms of half-life, the research team found that it takes about 66 minutes for half the virus particles to lose function if they are in an aerosol droplet.

That means that after another hour and six minutes, three-quarters of the virus particles will be essentially inactivated but 25 percent will still be viable.

The amount of viable virus at the end of the third hour will be down to 12.5pc, according to the research led by neeltje van Doremalen of the nIAID’s Montana facility at rocky Mountain Laboratories.

On stainless steel, it takes 5 hours 38 minutes for half of the virus particles to become inactive. On plastic, the half-life is 6 hours 49 minutes, researchers found.

On cardboard, the half-life was about three-anda half-hours, but the researchers said there was a lot of variability in those results “so we advise caution” interpreting that number.

The shortest survival time was on copper, where half the virus became inactivated within 46 minutes.

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

08 COMMENT

MTI Act in Punjab

Dodging unpopular decisions

committee will consist of several directors such as the sector. For instance, in KPK, the majority of the hospital director, medical director, finance direc- senior doctors resigned from their posts because of tor, law director, and nursing director and the main their replacement by juniors. arsiM Tariq Nevertheless, another primary purpose of givtask of this force will be to implement what BoG will ing autonomy to the advise; they will be anBoGs was monitoring swerable to the BoG, and the performances of the t’S happening all over again: the doctors 5) Employees: the civil staff in accordance with might loiter on the streets of Punjab; the un- servants (government emthe MtI rules and regurest in the province might prevail, and the ployees) will no longer reThe GHA meeting was organized to lations. Undoubtedly, disarray in public hospitals might again be- main civil servants after there is continuous graftcome rife. On March 10, doctors in Lahore accepting the terms and pursue further action and it decided ing in the field, and senheld a strike, once again and not surprisingly, in conditions of MtI act ior doctors take the aftermath of Medical teaching Institutions Re- 2019. those rejecting the to knock the judicial door, in the advantage of the unlawform act 2019 (MtI) being presented to the as- act will get transferred to shape of the Lahore High Court. On ful privileges; the BoG the non-teaching medical sembly by the Punjab Government. put an end to this On the eve of March 10, at the time the meet- institutes.

March 12, Mr Justice Jawad Hassan ifwould it gets depoliticized the act has created a ing of Grand health alliance (Gha) was being and remains free of poheld at the Services hospital Lahore, the Punjab lot of noise in the KPK heard the case and said that the litical interference. assembly approved the bill. the Gha meeting over the years. In 2018, Furthermore, any was organized to pursue further action and it de- the KPK MtI Reforms Government cannot pass the bill person from private cided to knock the judicial door, in the shape of act 2015 was taken to without proper consultation, it’s sectors could be apthe Lahore high Court. On March 12, Mr Justice the Supreme Court due to pointed in BoG, under Jawad hassan heard the case and said that “the the unlawful decisions unconstitutional the act, such as a Government cannot pass the bill without proper and poor administration lawyer or a finance proconsultation, it’s unconstitutional.” the court by the BoGs; hence, the fessional. the Gha deSupreme Court dissolved then adjouned. mands that the board the MtI act 2019, basically, intends to re- all BoGs of KPK. Moreshould only comprise vamp the administrative structure of the public over, the Peshawar high health sector. the act was promulgated earlier in Court also termed this act as a “strange law.” there members from its own medical community, KPK, and presently, the Government has aimed to are several primary and consequential complica- which is fair given the standards of other instituimplement this act across the country, Punjab is tions in the act that could lead to further inconven- tions in Pakistan. additionally, the doctors can continue private practice within the hospital the second stop before it reaches the final destina- ience in the system.

First of all, the political interference and politi- premises for additional bonuses and an increase tion. Mainly, the act gives complete autonomy to the Board of Governors (BoGs) and public hospi- cization of the BoGs could stimulate the personal in salary, and there will be checks and balances agenda in the system and on them, which is crucial given the inclination tals over budgets and adcause deterioration of towards money more than health. ministrative measures. however, the doctors are most likely to break the administration – by to summarize, the act appointments made as out into a new wave of protests if their demands comprises of five major favours, and other forms are not met. 2019 has been the year of protests components, 1) Search History never repeats itself the same of nepotism. for the doctors over the MtI act, and that is what and Nomination CommitSecondly, in KPK, incited them to make Grand health alliance of tee: the Chief Minister way, hence, it is immature to think when a department did doctors, nurses, and paramedics in the first place. will constitute the comnot achieve the target the state requires a conciliatory approach to mittee, and the health that this new, expected, wave of revenue as recommended tackle this matter before it gets out of hand. acMinister will be the chairprotests will, more or less, result in by the BoG, the depart- cording to the official reports, only one doctor is man along with other was forced to shut available for every 6,325 people in Pakistan; Government and non-govthe same manners and intensities it ment down, leaving the pa- hence, the empty public hospitals amid the ernment members; and the task of the committee will did the last time. It could get worse or tients deprived of the protests would deprive people of necessary treatment; and the pa- health facilities. be to recommend the the need for healthy debate and negotiations members for the Provinbetter; on that account, it would lead tients had to seek some other hospital for the to achieve the central goal is required. thus, it cial Policy Board, 2) to probabilities that might create treatment. this falls is essential for both parties, Gha and the govProvincial Policy Board: under the total institu- ernment, to discuss this matter in a conscientious the Government-apmore chaos tional autonomy. the way under law rather than taking it to the streets. pointed members will prices will also increase history never repeats itself the same way, hence, structure and make polifollowing the autonomy it is immature to think that this new, expected, cies and supervise the factor if it fails to achieve wave of protests will, more or less, result in the functionality of medical same manners and intensities it did the last time. the required revenue. teaching institutes, 3) thirdly, the fundamental proposition of any It could get worse or better; on that account, it Board of Governors: the members of this board will also be appointed by the Search and Nomination government institution, promotions based on sen- would lead to probabilities that might create Committee of Government. It will be responsible for iority, would deteriorate. Under this law, a junior more chaos. budget, employees, making rules and structuring of officer can be appointed to a higher position than The writer is a freelance columnist. the management, 4) Management Committee: the his senior, which will result in disturbance within

A new wave of protests coming?

And failing to act on time

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hERE were demands that the Prime Minister play a leading role in the campaign against the coronavirus by announcing effective policy measures that, beside improving the situation, would also revive hope and provide confidence to the anxious man in the street. Mr Imran Khan’s address however turned out to be dispiriting for many. the apocalyptic remark “I want to tell you, this virus will spread” is not supposed to lift people’s spirits. It was futile to justify the mess that turned the socalled quarantine facility at taftan into an incubator that continues to spread the virus all over the country. One expects a leader to provide innovative solutions to challenges, making his country succeed where others have failed. One does not want a PM to merely recite the routine do’s and don’ts that are regularly being instilled into one’s ears through the media. the Sindh government has decided to enforce a lockdown beginning from Karachi, and extended a few days later to interior Sindh. the provincial government suspects that hundreds of runaways from taftan have fanned out into the country undetected by those responsible for looking after security. the incubation period of the disease being 14 days, those affected are likely to be discovered during the 15-day lockdown and taken for treatment. this was no doubt an unpopular decision. but this was the only way to detect those who have dodged the virus tests. Mr Khan opposed imposing the lockdown for its impact on the lives of the poor wage earners. avoiding a timely lockdown could prove to be devastating for Punjab. another commendable measure announced by the Sindh government is to raise a coronavirus relief fund with seed money of Rs3 billion, collected by making provincial cabinet members and PPP MPs each donate a month’s salary. What is more, the provincial government approached the World Bank earlier and has already secured a sum of $25 million to contain the coronavirus. the federal government on the other hand is still in the process of negotiations.

By failing to take timely decisions the PtI government is likely to aggravate the common man’s suffering in the provinces ruled by it. Punjab, where its position is already risky, could turn out to be its Waterloo.

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Policy rate cut Too little too late?

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hE Monetary Policy Committee of the State Bank in its monthly ‘fix’ on tuesday merely dropped the policy rate by 75 basis points, disappointing virtually everyone by the caution shown, even though recent events warranted a much larger cut, which was expected by all other stakeholders, particularly textile exporters, who had found the previous rate of 13.25 percent particularly onerous. Exporters said that it was choking exports, but the new rate of 12.5 percent may well still prove too high to boost exports. One reason for keeping the rate high is to keep attracting ‘hot money’ (in an effort to bolster foreign exchange reserves), but an expectation of a higher rate cut saw close to $1 billion of that money flow out in a matter of weeks. though other central banks have also cut rates, the rate cut will probably not be enough to stem the bleeding away of money attracted by interest rates. the MPC does not seem to have realised that textile exporters are faced both with order cancellations, as well as intimations that payments will be delayed for goods that have already been shipped. With central banks round the world cutting rates, and government putting together stimulus packages to meet the coronavirus’ economic effects, the State Bank has chosen to be cautious, as if it still fears an inflation that it has not been able to control anyway. the greater fear is of a recession, and there is already talk of a depression. Countries that have been worse hit than Pakistan are not just positioning themselves medically, but also economically. there is natural stress on saving lives, but there is also attention being paid to saving businesses from going under. the epidemic will be over in the foreseeable future, and governments and central banks are taking steps to ensure that economies will re-emerge afterwards in a position to go on. the undue caution of the State Bank may indicate that there is a desire to keep the IMF sweet. If that is so, this is the wrong time. If need be, the IMF can be told that the country cannot further to satisfy its whims.

The ultimate fate of US friends and enemies The fate of friends is to become subjects MuhaMMad Jahangir KaKar

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hat does having good fiends do especially when you are very powerful?

You can share your issues with them, feel not being alone due to them and they reduce the intensity of your gloom and enhance the force of your boom. Being so heavily powerful, good friends help you maintain psychic normalcy and keep stupidity at bay. But what happens when you do not have permanent friends? What happens when your fiends do not trust you? What happens when you forcibly make friends? Well, you become the USa! If there is any cat that has ever come out of the US bag without any premeditated US machinations, it was henry Kissinger’s saying that america has no permanent friends, and no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. the USa is powerful and power itself is the best and most forceful attractor and deflector. Man and Power have been in this romantic game of thrones from the times of Paradise Lost and the human greed for power is just a little short of infatuation. If any country befriends the USa, or let’s put it more correctly, if the USa befriends any country, this is out of the uneven and imbalanced power equation. It is the kind of friendship which you cannot help not being inclined towards.

You are forced into a hobson’s choice when you get a proposal from the USa. You are forced into this love affair and you ‘fall in love’ and it lasts till the sweet will of the USa lasts, and may be followed by consequential lethal US wrath.

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Arif Nizami Editor Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

Umar Aziz

Asher John

Joint Editor

Executive Editor

Deputy Editor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965

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Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9

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In short, the country which is a friend to the USa today is all ready to be the immediate enemy tomorrow. this creates a very interesting scenario as the USa demands zero-error trust from the befriended state without having to commit any trust in transaction back to it. Further, the satellite state has to be vigilant not to play smart with the USa, as the USa is omnipotent and omniscient. Who remains being the USa’s friend or enemy at the end of the day is time itself and confusingly time itself is a composition of illusions.

So, if you are the USa’s friend, you are in illusion and if you are USa’s enemy, you are in illusion. the world before the USa’s rise was a different world. Once you were a friend, you were a friend by life and death. If you happened to be an enemy, you were an honorable enemy and met out honorably. trust prevailed in both the streams of relationship, be it being friends or be it being enemies. the USa has been in the habit of switching between friends and foes in random fashion with close attention to its political and economic interests. Its message to the world is clear that each state interacting with the USa, must never assume it will escape safely from american fury if the situation somehow changes as far as american interests are concerned. the friendly state loses the choice of making any choices in the realm of diplomacy and economics. the state turns into a protectorate under the mighty US friendship. In this patent of friendship or enmity, the proprietor has the ultimate say in rescinding the given patent or extending it to some more length of time.

One just feels sorry for Dr Faustus, not how he lived but how he ended, though having touched the oceanic bottom of power and having resurrected

Islamabad – Ph: 051-2204545

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Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

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There is nature moving in parallel with human beings. The laws of nature are immutable.

Man could alter anything but could never alter nature. Nature has this supreme law of rise and fall. What would the USA be like, if for the sake of argument it witnessed the fall of the rise that it is experiencing today? How would the USA behave tomorrow when it would lose the attractors and deflectors of Power? Who would be the true American friends then, let alone enemies?

helen of troy. Sadly, there is nature moving in parallel with human beings. the laws of nature are immutable. Man could alter anything but could never alter nature. Nature has this supreme law of rise and fall. What would the USa be like, if for the sake of argument it witnessed the fall of the rise that it is experiencing today? how would the USa behave tomorrow when it would lose the attractors and deflectors of Power? Who would be the true american friends then, let alone enemies?

The writer is a civil servant based in Quetta

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

COMMENT 09 Editor’s mail Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan.

E-mail: letters@pakistantoday.com.pk Letters should be addressed to Pakistan today exclusively

Sanitizer in the time of Corona AS we all know that coronavirus is spreading rapidly throughout the world. there are 260 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Pakistan. the health agency says, Do wash your hands frequently and thoroughly. this is the smartest thing you can do to prevent the spread of viruses.

Fear of the coronavirus has led people to stock up on the germ-killing gel, leaving store shelves empty and online retailers with sky-high prices set by those trying to profit on the rush. More is on the way, although it’s not clear how long it will take retailers to restock.

Do make sure that if you are able to buy a lesser-known brand of hand sanitizer, it’s made of at least 60% alcohol, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (C.D.C.) Do make sure that if you decide to try and make your own hand sanitizer, it also contains at least 60% alcohol.

RazI RahMan KaRachI

Fake news on social media

COVID-19 hammers Pakistan While bringing the world to a standstill Michelle Tanwir

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tter confusion and chaos linger in the hearts of world leaders, policymakers, health organizations and the rest of the world. As of 11th March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) has characterized COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease) as a “pandemic”. Scientists are in a race to find a vaccine for this ungodly pathogen that first took China by storm and has spread to 162 countries since. reportedly, the vaccine is at least 6-9 months away. And even that will not be fully accessible to all countries immediately.

Currently, Pakistan has 236 confirmed cases nationwide - 172 in Sindh, while the rest have appeared in Balochistan, KP, Gilgit-Baltistan and Punjab. Confirmed cases in Pakistan are now doubling every 2 days and it is important to remember that these are just reported cases and only represent a fraction of the total. With our borders hitting China, Iran and Afghanistan, we are not safe, to say the least. Multiple cases, with travel history from UK, Syria and Iran, are being reported on a daily basis. It is not my intension to create panic, but instead to instill caution and to make my fellow comrades exercise preventive measures against this mysterious pathogen. ring the alarm bells, it’s time to take cover and be cautious.

It could be said that the COVID-19 is a beta Coronavirus, like the MerS-CoV or SArSCoV. MerS – Middle east respiratory Syndrome reportedly took 858 lives globally and was transferred by dromedary camels to humans. SArS – Severe Acute respiratory Syndrome (2003) caused 8,098 human infections and 774 deaths across 32 countries. the animal suspected to be responsible for SArS was the palm civet which was widely available in the wet market of Foshan, Guangolong in Southern China. these wet markets have been on the rise since late 1980s. the Law of the People’s republic of China on the Protection of Wildlife was originally enacted to strengthen breeding, domestication and utilization of wildlife resources, due to which an industry was born.

Small local farms turned into industrialized units – bigger population of animals meant that sick animals could spread diseases more widely, and a vast variety of these species meant that they brought in their own set of genetic codes and viruses with them. Illegal trading of endangered species also began in these wet markets and by 2003 – when the industry was booming – we witnessed the SArS-CoV outbreak. these markets were temporarily banned after the outbreak.

However, once the virus was contained, the same practices were legalized again. this lack of foresight caused similar emerging patterns to arise yet once again in Wuhan, Hubei (China).

COVID-19 stems from a similar practice. It has been speculated that a bat virus and a pangolin virus have traded genetics before spreading to humans, however, this data is inconclusive. At time of writing, COVID-19 had so far infected more than 189,631 individuals and taken more than 7 513 lives and these stats will inevitably continue to rise. the SArS episode warned us about the importance of changing animal husbandry processes or ‘more viruses would be born from the animal world’.

Italy is under complete lock-down with 28,000 confirmed cases and 2,158 deaths while Iran has over 14,000 confirmed cases and 853 deaths and is declared as a ‘crisis zone’ asking

for global medical support. BBC reported, sev- down suspected cases and quickly quarantining eral individuals lost their lives while waiting to any individual who has potentially been exbe tested. the UK, with its advanced National posed. In Feb 2020 – 12,000 people were quarHealthcare System (NHS) is recalling its retired antined in various forms. Daily announcements medical staff, increasing the number of ICU of addresses and occupations of newly diagbeds and encouraging online doctor appoint- nosed individuals were made and residents who ments. On 14th March alone, the UK reported may have ‘come into contact’ with infected peo248 new infections, while Germany expects ple were requested to come forward. South 70% of its population to be affected in the near Korea is conducting the most amount of active future. the US has declared a state of national testing, suggesting that their number of conemergency amidst travel bans and has released firmed cases is closer to the total number of in$50bn in federal funds. Most countries are re- fected cases. Pakistan needs to enhance its stricting freedom of movement and suspending testing capabilities by a large margin to have a basic human rights – however – it is imperative clearer picture of the outbreak which will allow the infected persons to avoid spreading the virus to understand that this is for the greater good.

In the short-term, we have learnt that con- and quickly receive the care they need.

It is now our civic duty to do our part and edtainment is, in fact, our best defense. the WHO rightly states that early counter measures are es- ucate the public about all forms of preventive sential to lower the rate of infection growth, so measures. Crowded places should be avoided at the pandemic is spread out over time and ex- all costs. Public transportation facilities should be treme pressure on the healthcare system of any disinfected on an hourly basis, if not completely particular country is kept at a minimum. While halted. Prayers should be said in the comfort of one’s home. employers the total number who should monitor employget infected might not ees, their travel history, change, the containrestrict non-essential ment measures are inWe are living in simply travel, encourage work tended to avoid an from home policies, and outbreak trajectory in incredulous times. It is a crisis recommend self-isolawhich many people tion if symptoms are get sick at the same situation, and we don’t need to visible. everyone needs time. this is the reareinvent the wheel to prevent the to be wary of COVIDson that limiting the symptoms, which magnitude of peak incrisis. We need to merely ensure 19 could be as simple as cidents of an outbreak is important. that the stringent measures and fever, a dry cough and fatigue. Other sympWhat is worribest practices that are adopted by toms also include some is that Pakistan’s shortness of breath healthcare system is other countries, with no regard to (Dyspnea) and mild already compromised.

Pneumonia. However, We need to partake in the economic consequences, in critical cases, it can social distancing, acshould be immediately lead to severe pneumotive testing, self-isolania, respiratory failure, tion, and take institutionalized in Pakistan septic-shock, multiple containment measures organ dysfunction and seriously. While priorgan failure. While a vate labs are providing majority of the populaPCr testing facilities, it costs rs 7,900/ test kit and only a fraction of tion will recover, it is pertinent to inculcate in our society that people who have a reduced the population can afford this price.

After a recent investigation, it has come to chance of surviving severe pneumonia are those light that Services Hospital in Lahore has been who are above the age of 65, children under the given the responsibility to treat the majority of age of 2 and people with pre-existing health conpotential COVID-19 patients. Currently Serv- ditions. therefore, those who feel that they have ices hospital does not have any testing kits and been exposed to the virus and /or are experiencthe medical staff has not been given sufficient ing mild symptoms and cannot get tested should training if the situation deteriorates further. they self-isolate themselves for at least a period of 14 have established an isolation ward albeit in the days in order to protect the more vulnerable.

On a daily basis, everyone needs to have center of the hospital premises, rendering the concept of isolation null and void and putting a good hand hygiene, disinfect surfaces and exergreater population at risk. Additionally, our cise social distancing. We are living in simply inhealthcare officials have not been supplied with credulous times. It is a crisis situation, and we proper protective gear and only a limited amount don’t need to reinvent the wheel to prevent the crisis. We need to merely ensure that the stringent of N95 masks are available.

When it comes to responding to this pan- measures and best practices that are adopted by demic, it is important to learn from Singapore, other countries, with no regard to the economic Hong Kong and South Korea. these countries consequences, should be immediately institutionhave managed to contain and delay the outbreak. alized in Pakistan. Closing of schools and canthey have introduced strong surveillance sys- celling of PSL matches is indeed a step in the tems that give early warnings of infections to right direction, however, not sufficient. While the achieve rapid-contact-tracing, testing and isola- government has closed its borders, limited air tion mechanisms. tracing people-contacted by travel, we should internally call for a halt down infected-individuals and testing them lies at the of activity till a full cognizance of the virus and a strategy for its containment is adopted. heart of this fight.

Singapore has been applauded for its transThe writer has a Masters degree in adparency and straightforward communication to its citizens, and has successfully ingrained the vanced Public International Law from the Uniconcept of ‘social distancing’. In Hong Kong, versity of Leiden. She can be reached at the containment strategy is aggressively tracking michelletanwir@gmail.com.

I would like to draw your attention towards the fake news on social media.

As you can see, it has become a trend nowadays that people on social media tell other fake news on anything to fool others. For example, somebody will say that there were a lot of people at the market or will say that the stores were closed or will say that nobody came to that meeting or the teacher has got sick and cannot conduct a class. then the next day the other finds out that what was told on social media, it didn’t actually happen at all or somebody tells you that nothing like that happened. the fact is that some people spread fake news for fun to fool others without any reason, this also misguides people. this is nothing more than playing with someone’s life who has no business with you. Social media did help bring people together but also gave rise to many evils that also includes spreading fake news to the people. this trend will derail the young ones from spending their precious time doing something meaningful. zUhaIb Shah KaRachI

War of water A recent foreign media report has revealed that the Modi-led government of India is planning to stop Pakistan’s share of river water from flowing into Pakistan by the end of this year. Indian authorities are working on a plan to stop 2 tMC of water from the Ujh river, a branch of ravi, flowing through the Kathua district of Indian Occupied Kashmir.

Last year, after creating Pulwama drama to frame Pakistan, Modi and his ministers began to threaten Pakistan with water terrorism. Modi has previously claimed that India will block Pakistan’s water supply in the near future.

For how long India will threaten us on the bases of water, tomatoes why we are not solving these serious problems and pretend like a beggar who always depends on others. zaIYan ahMED Khan.

KaRachI.

Ehd-e-Wafa’s cultural impact ON Sunday night, Pakistan’s most favourite drama serial named “ehd-eWafa” had come to an end. It was the project of ISPr, produced by Momina and telecasted on “Hum television”. the drama was based on four Friends and their lives. All four studied in Lawrence College. After completing their education one became an Army officer, one became a politician. Another one became a famous news anchor and the last one became a Bureaucrat.

As we all know these four professions are the four pillars of any state, so why am I writing about this drama because yesterday's episode was full of emotions and messages. these four friends gave us some small guidance and those guidance were hit on my heart. the Army officer said “Our brave soldiers always protect their citizens and his homeland no matter what circumstances they are facing. But the one thing they want from their citizens is “trust” because that trust gives them the strength to fight enemies. the Politician said“ citizens elected a person who they think will solve their problems and that person should never be racist based on religion and conflict of class or any other means. His goal is always to provide facilities for those who believe or trust him. the reporter said,” the responsibility of any media person is that He either shows White or Black never believe in Grey”. the Bureaucrat told” Civil servants are the essence of any country so believe in hard work and never ever try to make short cut.

I really appreciate Our Army or Hum t.v who produced this kind of drama serial which makes our nation strong and united especially our youth.

I hope we will see this kind of work in future.

ShahzaIb ShaIKh, KaRachI

An earnest appeal to media COrONAVirus is fast spreading in more and more countries of the world.

Pakistan also became a victim though some belatedly. Prime Minister Imran Khan and other concerned authorities at the federal and provincial while keeping the people updated about virus figures are also insistently and repeatedly asking the people not to panic and adopt preventive measures being told by the authorities concerned.

It is also a fact that while about two lakhs people have been hit by this virus, a large number of its victims have also recovered after proper treatment and preventive measures.this is to request the electronic and print media people to ensure that while giving the latest CoronaVirus victims and casualties at the national and internationals,they should give the figures about those who have recovered from virus attack in different countries around the world.It is good to keep the people updated about CoronaVirus. But merely giving casualties figures creates a negative impact on the viewers and readers whereas the figures those who have recovered from this menace virus will have a positive impact on the people. May Allah Almighty be merciful and keep the people of Pakistan as well as of other countries safe from this virus and keep on showing His blessings on all of us here and everywhere else, please. thanks M.z.RIFaT LahORE

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

10 FOREIGN NEWS

BIden clean sweep In 3 states puts hIM on track For deM noMInatIon

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Washington Agencies

oE Biden scored decisive victories in all three major Democratic primaries Tuesday, earning him a nearly insurmountable lead over rival Bernie Sanders in their race for the party’s presidential nomination. As the United States grappled with combating the spreading coronavirus pandemic, voters handed the former vice president victory in delegaterich Florida, as well as Illinois and Arizona.

The command performance speaks to the eagerness of many Democrats to coalesce around a moderate flag bearer, to challenge Republican President Donald Trump after several other candidates dropped out of the contest in recent weeks and endorsed Biden.

In Florida, the 77-year-old won 62 percent to 23 percent against Sanders, a 78year-old self-described “democratic socialist” senator from Vermont.

Biden was ahead by 23 percentage points in Illinois, with 89 percent of precincts reporting.

And in Arizona, where polls closed last, Biden was coasting to a third definitive win — and his 19th victory in the last 24 contests. “our campaign has had a very good night,” Biden said in televised remarks from his home in Delaware.

“We’ve moved closer to securing the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, and we’re doing it by building a broad coalition that we need to win in November.”

By all accounts, it is an astonishing reversal of fortune for Biden, whose campaign was left for dead just one month ago after poor showings in early voting states.

But following a string of victories in high-profile contests starting with South Carolina in late February, and continuing

into his show of strength Tuesday, Biden now has a commanding lead in the all-important race for the delegates needed to become the nominee.

Political analyst David Axelrod concluded that Sanders was a mortally wounded candidate.

“No Dem has ever come back from anything like this deficit,” tweeted Axelrod, chief strategist for Barack obama’s two successful presidential campaigns.

“The race for the nomination is over.

That is the reality @BernieSanders faces.” on Tuesday Biden’s delegate count stood at 1,147 compared to Sanders’s 861, according to a New York Times rolling tally.

A candidate needs 1,991 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination and face Trump in the November election.

Biden has long said that Americans want pragmatic results, not the political “revolution” advocated by Sanders.

But he reached out on Tuesday by appealing to Sanders supporters.

“To young voters who have been inspired by Senator Sanders, I hear you,” Biden said. Biden said he and Sanders “share a common vision” to expand health insurance, address economic inequality and fight climate change.

Sanders delivered a 20-minute speech online Tuesday. But he did not mention the primaries, focusing instead on his recommendations for addressing the coronavirus pandemic, including injecting $2 trillion in funding to prevent deaths and “avoid an eco-

Australia tells citizens to come home, and stop travelling abroad

IMF rejects crisis-hit Venezuela's request for $5bn virus aid Washington Agencies

Canberra Agencies

Australia’s government told its citizens Wednesday not to travel abroad and warned those already overseas to rush home as it took unprecedented steps to choke off the spread of the coronavirus epidemic Down Under.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison also ordered a halt to “non-essential” indoor gatherings of more than 100 people, on top of an existing ban on outdoor events of more than 500 that has stunned the sports-mad nation.

Although Morrison called the extraordinary travel crackdown an “indefinite ban” on foreign trips, the advice released by the government was couched as a recommendation. “Regardless of your destination, age or health, our advice is do not travel at this time,” the foreign ministry’s Smart Traveller alert said.

A spokesman for national carrier Qantas said it would continue issuing tickets to Australians wanting to leave the country on the few flights it continues to operate. “It’s advice, it’s not a ban,” he told AFP. Morrison called the coronavirus pandemic “a once-in-100-year-type event”.

“We haven’t seen this sort of thing in Australia since the end of the First World War,” he said.

“We are going to keep Australia running, we are going to keep Australia functioning, (but) it won’t look like it normally does,” he added, girding the country for measures that will last at least six months. Australia has more than 500 confirmed cases of coronavirus and six fatalities.

But the number of infections have been escalating daily, with the majority of these new cases being returning travellers or people infected by them.

Australia on Wednesday joined neighbouring New Zealand in urging citizens overseas to return home promptly or risk being stranded in an ominous sign

nomic catastrophe.”

A fourth state, ohio, was scheduled to vote Tuesday, but it postponed its elections until June on orders of Republican Governor Mike DeWine, who told voters to stay home during the escalating public health emergency.

Hurdles The United States officially has more than 6,300 coronavirus cases, although that is believed to be a fraction of the real number, which has been depressed by delays in testing.

Election authorities had braced for disruptions and the Trump administration urged Americans to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people.

Despite hurdles, the states managed to successfully host their primaries.

In Florida, Gabriela Carrilho, a 51-yearold who works in marketing, donned gloves before casting her ballot at a nearly deserted elementary school in Miami Beach.

“I think if you don’t participate, then things never change,” she said.

She and others said they felt safe voting.

“There was hand sanitizer at every single station,” said 29-year-old Matt Don. “They kept a safe distance from me. Everybody in there is keeping safe.”

In Illinois, Chicago election commissioners scrambled to find substitute voting judges after hundreds informed the county clerk’s office they wouldn’t show up.

Americans are staying home from work or school by the millions as the country implements emergency measures against a worsening health crisis.

Maryland on Tuesday became the latest state to delay voting, pushing its primary from April 28 to June 2.

Kentucky and Louisiana have postponed their elections to June, while Georgia is delaying from next week until May.

they expect flights to the remote South Pacific nations may shut down entirely.

Both countries had already ordered all travellers arriving from overseas to self-quarantine for two weeks.

In announcing the ban on indoor gatherings of more than 100 people, Morrison excluded public transportation, shopping sites, health facilities and schools from the measure.

He rejected growing calls for the government to close all schools, as has been done in other countries, saying the impact on society and the economy from such a closure would be “severe”, costing “tens of thousands of jobs”.

“Whatever we do we have to do for at least six months,” he said, adding that among other consequences a long school

closure would remove 30 percent of workers from the healthcare industry as parents remained home with their kids.

‘Un-aUstralian’: Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, also ruled out the kind of blanket shutdown that has been imposed in parts of Europe.

“A short-term, two-to-four-week shutdown of society is not recommended by any of our experts,” he said, speaking alongside Morrison. “It does not achieve anything, we have to be in this for the long haul.”

The latest moves to restrict foreign travel came as Australia’s two main airlines slashed overseas services, with Qantas axing 90 percent of flights and Virgin Australia grounding its entire international fleet. Sydney airport was quiet

Wednesday, with a nearly empty arrivals hall and a limited number of departing flights, though check-in lanes for those were crowded.

Shea de Lorenzo, who said she made it onto a rare international flight out of Sapporo, Japan, expressed relief to have made it home. “We’re so lucky, (it was) touch and go. Really lucky,” she said.

New Zealand’s foreign affairs ministry warned more routes were set to shut down because of widespread travel restrictions. “The options for New Zealanders to get home are reducing dramatically.” New Zealand police meanwhile said they started checking up on recently arrived travellers to confirm they were following self-quarantine orders, visiting some 50 people.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday rejected economically devastated Venezuela’s request for a $5 billion loan to help it cope with the onslaught of coronavirus on the country that an aid agency warned is as prepared as war-torn Syria. President Nicolas Maduro made the request earlier Tuesday but, in a statement hours later, the Washington-based institution indirectly cited a dispute over Maduro’s leadership in denying his petition. In a letter to IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, Maduro said a $5 billion loan from the IMF’s Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) “will contribute significantly to strengthening our detection and response systems.” It was the country’s first loan request to the IMF since 2001. “Unfortunately, the Fund is not in a position to consider this request,” because there is “no clarity” on international recognition of the country’s government, the Washington-based institution said in a statement. “As we have mentioned before, IMF engagement with member countries is predicated on official government recognition by the international community, as reflected in the IMF’s membership. There is no clarity on recognition at this time,” the statement said.

More than 50 countries including the United States have not recognized Maduro for more than a year, after switching allegiance to opposition leader Juan Guaido who declared himself acting president.

Guaido branded Maduro a usurper over the president’s 2018 re-election in polls widely seen as fraudulent. But US sanctions and other international pressures have failed to dislodge Maduro, who is backed by Venezuela’s creditors China and Russia and retains the support of the powerful military.

Five years oF crisis: The RFI from which Maduro sought the assistance is a mechanism by which all IMF member countries can get financial assistance without the need to have a full-fledged economic program in place. Venezuela’s health system is in tatters after five years of economic and political crisis that has sent millions of people fleeing for lack of basic staples. “We hardly have five percent of the medicine stocks we need,” Douglas Leon Natera, head of the Venezuelan Medical Federation, told AFP earlier. Jan Egeland, general secretary of the Norwegian Refugee Council, placed Venezuela in the same category as war-torn Syria and Yemen in its preparedness. Like those countries, “there will be carnage” when the virus reaches parts of Venezuela given that “health systems have collapsed,” warned Egeland.

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

BUSINESS 11

PSX continuES to blEED, inDEX ShEDS 2,200 PointS

CORPORATE CORNER

KARACHI LAHORE: Endorsed by various celebrities, reviewed & tested by tech reviewers and loved by various blogs, ‘realme 5i’ has been breaking record in sales volume. PRESS RELEASE

ISLAMABAD: The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) has recognised Deloitte Executive Director (Financial Advisory) Maaz Masood Ansari with its ‘Regional Advocate of the Year Award’ for Middle East and South Asia (MESA) region. PRESS RELEASE

Public debt to remain 83pc of GDP in FY20 ISLAMABAD: The country’s public debt will remain 83 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during the current fiscal year (2019-20), much higher than the 60 per cent limit set under the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Act, 2005. Sources said the Ministry of Finance (MoF) has acknowledged in the medium-term macroeconomic framework that the country’s public debt to GDP will remain 83pc during FY20. The public debt in FY20 is lower than that of FY19 (85pc of the GDP). The ministry has projected that the public debt will decrease in coming years, as it would likely remain 81pc of GDP in 2020-21, 79pc in 2021-22 and 77pc in 2022-23. Sources said the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR)’s tax collection had been projected at 10.8pc of GDP or Rs5,179 billion in the current fiscal year; 12.5pc of GDP or Rs6,191 billion in 2020-21; 13.1pc in 2021-22; and 13.6pc in fiscal year 2022-23. The ministry wanted to reduce the budget deficit to 3 percent (Rs1,819 billion) by 2022-23 from projected 7.1pc (Rs3,146 billion) for the current fiscal year, they added. In addition, the ministry also projected to bring down the inflation from 11.7pc in the ongoing year to 5.3pc in 2022-23, sources maintained. They said the economic growth would surge from 2.6pc in FY20 to 5.1pc till FY23, as per the projections of the PTI government’s economic team. Sources said the federal cabinet was also informed on Tuesday that the sectoral spending priorities are food security, agriculture (locust control), health security (the coronavirus), higher education, sustainable development goals, tourism development, harmonisation of pay and allowances, defence and public security, ‘Ehsaas’ and social safety net, and public sector development programme. SHAHZAD PARACHA

Exports decline 4.1pc to $2.4bn in Feb KARACHI: The total exports of goods and services in the month of February stood at $2.449 billion, a decrease of 4.1 per cent from January's $2.554 billion, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan on Wednesday. On the other hand, the total import of goods and services in February stood at $4.432 billion, showing a decrease of 3.3 per cent from $4.585 billion recorded in January 2020. This means that the deficit in the total balance of goods and services stands at $1.983 billion, a marginal improvement over the deficit recorded in January ($2.031 billion). During the first eight months (July-Feb) of the current fiscal (FY20), the total deficit in goods and services balance stood at $15.580 billion, an improvement from the deficit of $22.567 billion recorded in the corresponding period of last year. STAFF REPORT

b

STAFF REPORT

EARS extended their control on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Wednesday, with the indices nosediving right from word go, triggering a 45-minute market halt for the fifth time in the last eight sessions. A market halt is triggered when the KSE-30 Index trades at 5pc for consecutive five minutes.

On the economic front, the State Bank of Pakistan’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has slashed the in-

terest rate by 75bps to 12.50pc. On the other hand, global oil prices have hit four-year low after falling to $26.20.

Growing tensions regarding slowdown in economic activities due to rising number of coronavirus cases also dented investors’ confidence.

As the PSX lost 18pc of its value in the last eight sessions, and investors witnessing regular market halts, two largest sectors by market capitalization, oil & gas exploration and banking, took a cumulative hit of over 20pc.

Shedding 2,238.25 points, the KSE-100 Index fell to its intraday low

at 30,378.68 soon after the commencement of the session. Failing to find any positive triggers, the index closed lower by 2,200.88 points at 30,416.05.

Among other indices, the KMI-30 Index plunged 3,822.96 points to settle at 46,930.72, while the KSE All Share Index declined 1,279.91 points, closing at 21,968.43. The advancers to decliners ratio stood at 20 to 306.

The overall volumes fell from 240.38 million in the last session to 186.65 million, with traded value standing at Rs5.31 billion. K-Electric Limited (KEL 10.84pc), The Bank of Punjab (BOP -

5.41pc) and HBL Investment Fund (HIFA -3.57pc) led the volume chart, exchanging 25.47 million, 19.57 million and 9.10 million shares, respectively.

Sectors that painted the index red painting the benchmark KSE 100 index red included banking (-582.19 points), fertilizer (-320.11 points) and oil & gas exploration (-292.33 points). Among the companies, Habib Bank Limited (HBL -144.90 points), Engro Corporation Limited (ENGRO -142.51 points) and Hub Power Company Limited (HUBC -120.61 points) dented the index the most.

ECC approves Rs4.1bn grant to boost FBR’s capacity ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet on Wednesday approved a technical supplementary grant of Rs4,152 million for the Federal Board of Revenue's (FBR) Pakistan Raises Revenue (PRP) Programme.

According to a statement issued by the finance ministry, "The grant will help meet the PRP's mandatory and inevitable expenditures for the achievement of Disbursement Linked Indicators (DLIs), and supplement its budgetary resources for expenditures in this regard."

The ECC, which met under the chairmanship of Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, also directed the FBR chairperson to give a detailed briefing on the initiative in the next meeting.

Meanwhile, the committee approved a technical supplementary grant of Rs44.447 million for Islamabad Capital Territory to execute the "National Programme for Improvement of Watercourses (phase-II) in ICT; Productivity Enhancement of Wheat, Prime Minister's 'Save the Calf' Initiative, Calf Feedlot Fattening in Pakistan and Development of backyard poultry in ICT".

The Ministry of National Food security and research had surrendered the amount in favour of the ICT Administration.

On a request made by the Ministry of Maritime Affairs for the recovery of outstanding wharfage of

Rs1.696 billion on the import of LNG by Pakistan State Oil (PSO), the ECC directed for paying the outstanding amount in 10 equal instalments, without interest, over a period of ten years.

However, it added, in Jan 2023, a committee will review the circumstances and suggest any possibility for early repayment of the remaining sum.

The decision was taken on the recommendations of a committee constituted under the chairmanship of the Economic Affairs Minister Hammad Azhar.

The Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis & Human Resource Development on the occasion presented before the ECC a report of the Task Force on Overseas Employment and Welfare of Overseas Pakistanis.

The ECC, in its decision taken on 19th February 2019, had constituted an inter-ministerial task force under the chairmanship of Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Zulfi Bukhari to look into the issues of overseas employment for Pakistani manpower and make recommendations in consultation with relevant stakeholders.

The SAPM gave a presentation on various important issues and measures taken regarding the identification of trades and skillsets in demand in order to meet the requirements of the international job market.

He informed the committee about the development of a centralized TVET certification and verification system and improving regulatory mechanism to curb sub-standard certifications and helping provincial TEVTAs in developing their skill development capacities.

He also informed about the developing mechanism for sharing data among National Vocational & Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC) and Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment (BE&OE) on employment opportunities and available skills; efficient provision of e-passport, NICOP, POC to overseas Pakistanis; issues of overseas Pakistani schools and developing a National Emigration and Welfare Policy for overseas Pakistanis.

The chair appreciated different measures taken by the committee and further directed it to come to the ECC forum a month after the budget, and brief about the overall progress made on the measures taken by the committee for the welfare of overseas Pakistanis.

COVID-19: Airlift suspends operations, SWVL pauses intercity service LAHORE TAIMOOR HASSAN

Ride-sharing services Airlift and SWVL have decided to cut down their operations in Pakistan amid coronavirus (COVID-19) fears.

Airlift on Wednesday announced that it was suspending all operations in Karachi and Lahore until April 6, 2020. In a statement issued to its users, Airlift said the decision to halt bus service operations is taken as an attempt to flatten the curve and prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

"This decision comes from Airlift’s commitment to putting the safety of its customers, pilots and teammates ahead of other considerations. Our team would like to take this opportunity to advise our passenger community to avoid crowded places, including buses.

Crowded places in closed settings create a high-risk environment for contracting the COVID-19 virus. As

CAREEM, UBER TO CONTINUE OPERATIONS a responsible organization, Airlift encourages passengers to adopt alternative modes of transport," the statement reads. The company said that the prebooked rides will be refunded automatically.

On the other hand, SWVL has announced the suspension of intercity bus service from today due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The company’s intra-city bus service will continue as per routine.

"In line with the official announcement made by the government, SWVL is suspending their intercity services from today," a statement from SWVL said. Meanwhile, Uber and Careem have confirmed that they will continue their operations across Pakistan for now.

"Safety and well-being of all those who use Ca-

reem is our topmost top priority. As of now, we would like to reassure that our services are operational. We are constantly educating customers and captains on ensuring hygiene while using our services. Our COVID-19 Response Team is closely monitoring and following the guidelines of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and are in touch with local government and public health authorities for any latest developments," the company said in a to this scribe.

"We are always working to help ensure the safety of everyone on the Uber platform, and we continue to be concerned by the ongoing spread of coronavirus.

We have a dedicated global team of Uber operations, security and safety executives, guided by the advice of a consulting public health expert, working to respond as needed in each market where we operate around the world. We remain in close contact with local authorities and will continue to follow their recommendations,” Uber stated.

Big industry contracts 3.4pc in seven months FY20 ISLAMABAD GHULAM ABBAS

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday reported that growth in the largescale industries has contracted by 3.37pc in the first seven months (July-Jan) of the current fiscal year (FY20), as compared to the corresponding period of last year.

Sources attribute this drop to low demand, which was adversely affected by the rising cost of production and working capital.

According to the provisional quantum index numbers, LSMI output on a year-onyear basis decreased by 5.96pc during the month of January 2020, when compared with the same of last year.

However, on a month-on-month basis,

the industrial sector output in the country witnessed about 7.09pc growth in January 2020 when compared with December 2019.

The provisional quantum indices of LSMI for Jan 2020, with base year 2005-06, have been developed on the basis of latest data supplied by the source agencies.

According to the data, out of 15 major industries, 10 recorded some growth while the output in five industries contracted in the July-January FY20 period.

Data collected by the Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC) showed that except for jute batching oil, which recorded a slight growth, 10 industries registered 0.46pc to 70pc negative growth in the JulyJanuary period.

The production of 11 items under the

OCAC went down by 10.59pc, 36 items under the Ministry of Industries and Production dipped by 3.12pc while 65 items reported by the Provincial Bureaus of Statistics fell 2.36pc.

Seven industries in the manufacturing sector, including coke & petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, automobiles, iron & steel products, electronics and engineering products, registered negative growth during the period under review.

However, manufacturing industries that showed a nominal increase included textile, food & beverages, non-metallic mineral products, fertilizers, leather products, paper & board, rubber products and wood products.

Meanwhile, the production of LPG dipped by 0.46pc, furnace oil by 4.07pc, jet fuel -27.14pc and kerosene -23.84pc during

the month under review. The drop in furnace oil production was due to its declining share in power generation.

The auto sector, which has witnessed a massive decline in sales over the last few quarters, saw multiple upward price revisions due to currency depreciation, which kept potential buyers at bay. On a yearly basis, the sector’s sales decreased in almost all variants in February 2020. The production of tractors dipped by 59.22pc, trucks by 36.31pc, buses -37.7pc, jeeps and cars -43.7pc, LCVs 74.4pc and motorcycles -2.33pc.

The production of sugar declined by 1.88pc and cement 5.03pc, respectively.

Pharmaceutical also suffered due to a considerable lag in regulatory adjustments in prices, which in addition to the weakening

of rupee added to the distress of the importdependent sector. As a result, the production of syrups declined by 3.41pc, capsules 26.67pc and injections 6.25pc. However, the production of tablets increased by 0.84pc.

Moreover, production of cooking oil and vegetable ghee went up by 4.91pc and 5.18pc, respectively.

It may be noted that despite economic slowdown, growing poverty and unemployment, the SBP only slashed the key policy rate by 75 basis points in its last monetary policy announcement.

LSM constitutes 80pc of the country’s total manufacturing and accounts for nearly 10.7pc of the national output. In comparison, smallscale manufacturing accounts for just 1.8pc of GDP and 13.7pc of the secondary sector.

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

12 business Gold price falls Rs800 per tola NEWS DESK Gold prices fell further by Rs800 per tola on Wednesday, with the price 24k gold closing at Rs90,300 per tola. The rates of 10-gram gold stands at Rs77,000. Gold prices have been on a downward trajectory following the liquidity crunch in global markets. On 16 March, gold was traded at Rs91,100 per tola.

As per analysts, gold prices in Pakistan were slow to rise when global markets were rallying, owing to the lack of purchasing power locally. However, as gold sheds its value in international markets, Pakistan follows.

Govt urged to allow freight transportation to Afghanistan PESHAWAR STAFF REPORT

Traders of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on Wednesday demanded the government to keep the Torkham border open for the transportation of goods-laden trucks in order to avoid huge financial losses and protect Pak-Afghan trade. The demand was put up by Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) President Engr Maqsood Anwar Pervaiz on behalf of the business community during an oath-taking ceremony of Anjuman-e-Tajaran Saddar area, Peshawar.

Pervaiz said the chamber had welcomed the closure of Torkham border for general public to counter the coronavirus pandemic. However, he added, prolonged restrictions on the movement of containers enroute to Afghanistan via the Torkham border would not only adversely impact the country’s economy and bilateral trade between two countries, but would also cause huge financial losses to traders across the province. Pervaiz urged the government to allow freight trucks to cross the Torkham border through a proper monitoring mechanism. Meanwhile, the SCCI president took oath from the newly-elected members of the cabinet of Anjuman-e-Tajran. He assured the traders’ community of Saddar area that the chamber would establish immediate contact with the Customs, WAPDA, and the KP’s Excise and Taxation Department along with other government subordinate institutions to amicably resolve their issues in the cantonment board area.

SMEDA aims to activate fruit dehydration unit in Swat this year BUSINESS DESK The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) will make the Fruits Dehydration Unit in Swat operational by mid of this year. This was stated by the SMEDA spokesperson while commenting on a news item published about the said project in Pakistan Today on Thursday last. “The subject project has been funded through the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) and allocation of funds has been made in FY20 to complete the project by June 2020.

Hence the deadline for activation of this project has yet not been expired,” he said. The spokesman clarified that the project is being completed within the given timeframe and will be operational by mid of this year to facilitate the stakeholders. He further informed that the fruit dehydration facility is being established for the processing (washing, slicing, packing, and storing) of fruits and vegetables as a common facility centre for local growers, processors and exporters to provide dehydrated fruit, supported by packaging as per international standards.

SMEDA aims to implement this project to replace existing hazardous and obsolete sun drying methods with modern machinery and minimize post-harvest losses, which are estimated 35pc in fresh fruits. The project is meant to improve the livelihood of the local communities by increasing employment opportunities offering 15 direct and 1,000 indirect jobs. According to official details, almost 90 per cent of building and civil works have been completed and the machinery has also been procured.

Govt AppRovES EMERGEncy RESponSE pRoGRAMME to tAcklE coRonAviRUS ISLAMABAD GHULAM ABBAS

A

special meeting of the Concept Clearance Committee of the Central Development Working Party on Wednesday approved “Pakistan National Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID-19” project, which is aimed at taking measures against the spread of virus in the country.

Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan chaired the meeting that was participated by Member Social Sector Dr Shabnum Sarfraz, Member Private Sector Asim Saeed, DG Health Dr Safi, World Bank Country Director Illango Patchamuthu and Asian Development Bank Country Director Xiaohong Yang.

According to officials, the approved emergency project is focused on taking measures through addi-

MOP CLEARS $238M FROM WORLD BANK’S FUNDING, ENDORSES ANOTHER $350M FROM ADB tional resources for strengthening the integrated disease surveillance and response system across the country through establishing isolation rooms, ensuring availability of Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) equipment and protective clothing for health teams, timely diagnostics and procurement of equipment and ventilators for critical care/case management across the country. It also included the establishment of a real time surveillance mechanism for early detection and embedding of prevention and control measures to halt/minimise local transmission.

During the meeting, the Ministry of Planning,

Development and Special Initiatives cleared an amount of $238 million from the World Bank (WB)’s funding, and endorsed another $350 million funding offered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in support for the COVID-19 emergency response in Pakistan and to address the socio-economic disruption associated with it.

Jehanzeb Khan thanked both ADB and WB for the all-out support to Pakistan during testing times.

“We need to enhance our cooperation to jointly fight challenges and demonstrate firm commitment for a multifaceted cooperation in different fields,” he added. The country directors of WB and ADB elaborated various financial instruments that would be made available to support the Pakistan government for responding to the COVID-19, both for the emergency response as well as for catering to the socio economic impact of the epidemic on the vulnerable and marginalised population.

Cotton arrivals fall 20.3pc to 8.57m bales

MULTAN APP

Seed cotton equivalent to 8.57 million bales reached ginneries across Pakistan till Mar 15, 2020, registering a 20.36pc shortfall compared to the corresponding period of last year.

Out of the total arrivals, over 8.56 million bales underwent the ginning process, according to a fortnightly report released to media by Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) on Wednesday.

Arrivals in Punjab were recorded at 5.09 million bales, while in Sindh, the same was recorded at 3.47 million bales.

Total sold out bales were recorded at over 8.06 million bales, including 8 million bales

bought by textile mills and 58,666 bales purchased by exporters.

As many as 503,458 bales were still lying with the ginneries as unsold stock.

Sanghar district of Sindh continued to remain on top with cotton arrival figures at over 1.13 million bales while Rahimyar Khan and Bahawalnagar districts of Punjab stood second and third with cotton arrival figures at 1.1 million bales and 1.04 million bales, respectively.

The report does not include cotton arrival figures from the districts of Kasur and Sargodha.

A total of 16 ginning factories were operational in the country, including four in Sindh and 12 in Punjab.

The fortnightly flow of cotton bales for second fortnight of Mar 2020 was recorded at 5,885 bales.

Foreign outflows cross $1bn mark KARACHI MEIRYUM ALI

Total gross divestment during March 2020 crossed $1.122 billion, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), in an expected trend of foreign outflows leaving the country due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Foriegn investors divested $47 million of treasury bills (Tbills) on March 17, as per the Special Convertible Rupee Account (SCRA), which tracks inflows and outflows from foreign countries.

This amount was enough to tip over total gross divestment over the $1 billion mark, which on March 13 stood at $995 million.

The net investment in T-bills

from July 2019 to date now amounts to $1.98 billion, falling below the $2 billion mark it had comfortably been above this January 2020.

Last week had seen a significant amount of money leave the country. Foreign investors had divested $222 million net worth of T-bills on March 13.

On March 12, foreign investors divested $166 million of T-bills; on March 11, foreign investors divested $251 million net worth of T-bills, while on March 10, foreign investors divested $136 million of T-bills.

This is part of a general pattern of divestment that started in late February. Previously, foreign investors divested $67 million of

T-bills on February 28 and divested $103 million net worth of T-Bills on March 3. The divestment on March 3 was particularly significant because it represented the first time there had been net selling in eight months.

In yesterday’s monetary policy announcement at the State Bank, Dr Reza Baqir said globally, because of coronavirus, there has been a general ‘flight to safety’. The SBP also said that they had enough reserves of $10.6 billion to cover the magnitude of risks.

The MPC statement also said that the buffers would be more than enough to cope with any portfolio outflows in an orderly manner.

US crude hits 18-year low as lockdowns spread LONDON AGENCIES

Oil prices fell for a third session on Wednesday, with US crude futures tumbling to an 18-year low and Brent hitting a more than 16-year low as travel and social lockdowns to counter the coronavirus raised prospect of the steepest ever annual fall in oil demand. US crude was down $2.82, or 10.5pc, at $24.13 a barrel by 1400 GMT, having earlier touched its lowest since April 2002 at $23.60. The last time oil traded that low was when China had only just begun its rise as a global economic superpower that propelled the world’s oil consumption to record highs in subsequent years. Brent crude was trading down $1.91, or 6.7pc, at $26.82 a barrel after dropping as low as $26.65, its weakest since late 2003. Both contracts were on track for a quarterly decline of about 60pc, the sharpest since at least the 1980s. Investment banks and consultancies have been making heavy cuts to their demand forecasts as a growing number of the world’s largest cities and economies restrict movement. “The oil demand collapse from the spreading coronavirus looks increasingly sharp,” Goldman Sachs said in a note, forecasting a fall in Brent prices to as low as $20 in the second quarter, a level not seen since early 2002. The bank expects a demand contraction of 8 million barrels per day (bpd) by late March and an annual decline in 2020 of 1.1 million bpd, which it said would be the biggest on record. Rystad Energy has gone even further, projecting a yearon-year decline in demand of 2.8 million bpd, or 2.8pc, this year. “To put the number into context, last week we projected a decrease of just 600,000 barrels,” Rystad said. In addition to imposing social restrictions not seen since World War Two, the world’s richest nations prepared to unleash trillions of dollars of spending to reduce the fallout from the coronavirus.

Are ‘market halts’ effective enough to ease investors’ panic?

KARACHI ARIBA SHAHID

Heightened market volatility witnessed during the past week and a half has triggered five market halts at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). These automatic halts are triggered in order to calm panic-stricken market conditions and present an opportunity for the markets to cool down.

The central idea behind the implementation of market halts is to give investors the time to think about the market conditions without chaos crowding their judgment. This also gives them time to review and reassess the situation, gather information and make informed decisions.

Market halts act as speed bumps and prevent the markets from heading full speed to-

ward a crash.

Saad Rafi, head of Sales at Al Habib Capital Markets, commented, "Circuit breakers help PSX from a free fall in panic situation -- like 2008 and 2020. These circuit breakers not only limit the daily losses, they also give people time to rethink their investment strategy for the next day or any positive development comes after market hours will have limited losses on their portfolio."

'MAGNET EFFECT': According to market participants, while the automatic halts are an attempt to inject stability in the market, they may not be as effective at calming panic-induced selling. As levels that induce market halts approach, some investors increase their panic-induced selling due to the fear of not being able to sell. This may push them to dump their stocks at any price they can get.

This is known as the magnet effect. The magnet effect theory claims, "As the market approaches levels near the circuit breaker threshold, investors will increase the volume by which they are unloading their shares. This is driven off the fear of being stuck with their positions given the market halt is put in place."

However, while speaking on the magnet effect, Misha Zahid, equity analyst at Arif Habib Limited, said, "If you look at the past four halts, the market usually recovers after a cool-off period of 45 minutes. So, if an individual wants to sell, they will likely get a better opportunity once the market reopens."

She further commented, "It has been observed that sale orders at lower circuits are mostly made by large investors, like funds, that have been given redemption calls, or

maybe foreign investors. They will sell at whatever rate they find regardless of the lower lock in order to reduce their exposure immediately."

Talking about the positives of circuit breakers, Saad Rafi opined, "This can be a case of the positive market as well, people might buy early as the circuit breaker is near."

IMPACT ON LIQUIDITY: A disadvantage of the market halts is the impact they have on liquidity. They reduce liquidity and have a strong impact on price discovery.

Price discovery is the quantification of the willingness and investor has to sell or buy a number of shares. This may result in a larger bid-ask spread, which will further slow down the price discovery.

Sami Tariq, Head of Research and Business Development at Arif Habib limited said,

“The circuit breakers in the market should be placed at a reasonable level. 5pc is too less.”

He feels 10pc is a reasonable level given the market conditions.

Naushad Chamdia, CEO of Standard Capital Securities commented, “Circuit breakers limit could be lowered to stop the nerve-wracking decline.”

It is pertinent to mention that the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE) widened the circuit breakers and introduced a market halt from January 20, 2020.

As per the announcement, the exchange applies index-based market halts when the KSE-30 index moves 4pc either way from its opening index value. However, once the circuit breakers reach the level of 7.5pc, market halts are only applicable in case the KSE-30 index moves 5pc either way.

‘Anoushay Abbasi dazzles in her new photoshoot’

Kashmir’s Latest tracK “Dhoop” is a heartwarming new meLoDy

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By Rohama Riaz

HOLLYWOOD BOLLYWOOD

ASHMiR – The Band won our hearts in 2017 when they claimed a triumphed win in Pepsi Battle of the Bands Season 2.

The band consists of Bilal Ali on the vocals, Vais Khan as the lead guitarist, Usman Siddiqui as the bass guitarist, Shane J. Anthoney on the drums, Zair Zaki as the rhythm guitarist, and Ali Raza on the piano.

With their new album named Khwaab, Kashmir has been winning our hearts once again, giving a variety of different and soul touching songs that all have unique essence to it. The first song they recorded after winning Pepsi Battle of the Bands Season 2 was “Dhoop” but having been a very soul searching song; the band did not find the right time to release it, until now.

Kashmir has released its last song and final song “Dhoop” in their Album Khwaab, and we have been listening to it on the loop.

Most songs begin with an appreciation for the lyrics, but here we are forced to talk about the video of the music first because we are captivated by the strong screen appearance this song holds. The cinematic representation is way too good, and it characterizes the song perfectly.

Directed by Umar Anwar, Dhoop’s video goes well with the lyrics of the song, which adds the much-needed effect in the whole music video.

The smoke effect is going through various scenes kind of shows the journey of a man through highs and lows. The video does not have too much going on, so it’s undoubtedly much appealing to be able to focus on the concept that is being shown in the video.

Each word in the lyrics holds depth, and it sums up the entire song as a very soul searching song, perfect for your long road journeys.

“Dhoop mein khara bikhar raha tha main, Baadlon ne bhi saaya na dia.”

These words will echo in your ears and revolve in your mind because these simple words hold a lot of weight with context to the meaning. Aren’t we all standing in the sun, unable to find any shade to help us cope through the hardships of life? Such outstanding work on the lyrics of this song.

While the lyrics of the song are way too heavenly, Bilal Ali’s heavenly voice creates such a dramatic environment for the whole song that it immediately takes you to a different world where there you can find your lost self.

Produced by Shahi Hassan, Dhoop has hit all the chords in the right places. if we were to describe this song in three words, it would be surreal, heavenly, and mesmerizing. One of the significant elements of this song is the association of the lyrics to the video, making it work like a charm and turning it into yet another masterpiece by Kashmir.

Dhoop tends to make you feel, absorb, and ponder as it takes you to another dimension of the world.

Renowned actress and model Anoushay Abbasi is a sight to see in her latest photoshoot for the recently launched Bohemian pret brand, Nuqsh. The actress brings out the unique and bespoke essence of the brand with perfection in all the different looks.

Dressed in minimalistic designs and solid colors, she looks ethereal in the trendy desi outfits. With the dark lilac makeup look

by Waqar Hussain and Mahwish Rizvi from Monochrome studios behind the lens, Anoushay Abbasi looks alluring and pulls off all the looks with perfection. Known for her charisma and innate ability to perform any character flawlessly, Abbasi has made her place in the entertainment industry. Her massive transformation throughout the years is both impressive and genuine. She is also currently garnering appreciation for her performance in ‘Ghalti’ that airs every Thursday on ARY Digital.

The Woolsey Hall auditorium at Yale contains an extra-wide seat built to fit alumnus and former professor William Howard Taft.

Aries: A strong sense of attachment or possession takes hold of you right now.

Taurus: With your attention firmly on relationships right now, you're more likely to seek new dynamics in every partnership. by something unexpected, or it's possible b Gemini: Daily rituals are disrupted b a secret is unveiled that throws you off course.

Cancer: Relaxation and pleasure call to you at this moment, b but watch out for emotional surprises involving your friends or social groups; someone might leave your midst.

The wood frog can hold its pee for up to eight months.

Leo: Your career and home are thrown out of b balance today, b but you can seize this chance to establish b a new regimen that stabilizes b your work-life balance.

Virgo: Your worldview is b being stretched thin and tested today, and it helps to keep a malleable b perspective.

Libra: You may b be feeling rebellious b toward former agreements and structures that have existed for a long time.

Scorpio: You might experience disruptions and wildcards in your relationships today, especially if you are not really satisfied with these unions.

Sagittarius: You’re b being driven b by unconscious forces to revolt against all expectations and routines today.

Capricorn: Today is full of friendly company, opening up possibilities b for fun and creative expression.

Aquarius: Your domestic life can b be subject b to sudden changes or unannounced developments today, which may put your private life out in the open.

Pisces: It’s a good day to go with the flow, as there will b be a quick pace to events, and you’ll have lots of activities to stimulate your intellect.

When your "inner voice" speaks in your head, it triggers small muscle movements in your larynx.

Coronavirus: Actors Toni Collette, Joel Akshay keeps daughter Nitara busy as Twinkle Johnny Lever’s daughter Jamie is just as Edgerton to self-isolate for 14 days after Khanna tries to write during coronavirus lockdown good as dad at comedy returning to Australia Akshay Kumar is at home these days as his upcoming film Soorya- Veteran comedian of Hindi film, Johnny Lever shared a video with Actors Joel Edgerton and Toni Collette will be forced to self-isolate for 14 days after returning to Sydney, Australia this week.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the Australian government's new rules around self-isolation on Sunday, in a bid to prevent the spread of COViD-19, which has seen more than 183,000 cases registered worldwide since it began in December (19), resulting in over 7,100 deaths globally, reports aceshowbiz.com.

Edgerton and his girlfriend, Vogue Australia fashion director Christine Centenera, will now have to spend two weeks in isolation after returning home from Turks and Caicos island on Tuesday, as part of the quarantine period.

Actor Toni Collette, who arrived back on Monday, wore a surgical mask and carried a coronavirus information pamphlet with the government's insignia as she walked through the airport. Her return to Australia comes after filming for Guillermo del Toro's latest horror Nightmare Alley was suspended indefinitely on Friday.

vanshi has been delayed indefinitely due to coronavirus outbreak.

Wife and writer Twinkle Khanna has now shared a picture of her time at home as she struggles to focus on writing while Akshay keeps daughter Nitara busy.

Sharing a picture on instagram, Twinkle wrote, “Thought i would work on my book while he keeps her busy but the people that live inside my head don’t talk to me when the people i live with are chattering away as well. #nextwriting spotisthebathroom.” Twinkle’s laptop can be seen partially as she tries to write her book while she continues to watch Akshay and Nitara, who are sitting in the garden area, from a distance.

A few Bollywood moms reacted to the post on instagram. While Tahira Kashyap shared a laughing emoji, Namrata Shirodkar dropped heart emojis in their reaction to the picture.

A day before, Twinkle took to Twitter to share her woes of keeping Nitara involved in studies at home. She wrote, “3 hours into day i of virtual learning with my first grader and i want to stab my eye with a fork.

daughter Jamie which shows how she has inherited his comic timing.

He also noted that it is his first TikTok video with his daughter.

Sharing it, he wrote: “iam_johnylever My 1st ever #Tiktok video with my daughter! @its_jamielever #awarapagaldeewana #chotachatri #pareshrawal #spreadingjoy #comedy.” The clip featured was a dialogue between Johnny and actor Paresh Rawal from the film Awara Pagal Deewana, with Johnny doing Paresh’s dialogues while Jamie does her dad’s part. What’s unmistakable is the uncanny similarity between her flair for comedy with that of her celebrated father’s. The video was loved by fans with many dropping laugh and red heart emojis.

Jamie too shared the video and many people responded to it on her instagram page too. One said: “Legend and legend in making in one frame”, while another said “Hahaha outstanding”. While the world knows of her father’s work, Jamie is quite multi-faceted herself -- her instagram acoount is proof of it -- she is a singer and dancer, apart from being a dancer.

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

14 NEWS CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

UEFA proposEs postponIng EUro

U

EFA has decided to postpone the Euro 2020 by a year, sources said on Tuesday, as Europe becomes the epicentre of the novel coronavirus and various cities across the continent remain under lockdown due to the virus.

The source”s confirmation of the proposal came after the Norwegian FA tweeted that the new plan is for the tournament to take place from June 11 to July 11 next year, turning Euro 2020 into Euro 2021. The proposal was made as UEFA held crisis talks with its national associations as well as clubs and players bodies via videoconference on Tuesday.

The proposal is likely to be ratified at a UEFA Executive Committee meeting in the afternoon. The move comes with most of Europe”s domestic leagues having ground to a halt over the last week as football confronts its biggest issue in modern times. The UEFA Champions League and Europa League competitions for clubs have also been suspended, with both still in the last-16 stage, but postponing the European Championship for national sides means they, along with national leagues, will have the chance to be completed, assuming travel restrictions are lifted in time.

Europe has become the epicentre of the

coronavirus pandemic, with France on Tuesday having joined Italy and Spain in applying strict lockdown measures and European leaders also planning to ban all non-essential travel into the continent.

More than 2,100 people have died in Italy, which was supposed to host the opening game of Euro 2020 in Rome.

The head of the Italian football federation, Gabriele Gravina, had already led calls for the Euros to be postponed.

Euro 2020 was due to be held in 12 different cities across the continent, from as

far apart as Dublin and Bilbao, to Saint Petersburg and Baku.

The semi-finals and final were due to be played in London and there would considerable knock-on effects to postponing the competition — the women”s European Championship is scheduled to run from July 7 to August 1 next year in England, with the final at Wembley.

UEFA have also planned to stage an Under-21 Euros in Hungary and Slovenia in June next year.

Twenty of the 24 teams set to take part

in the Euro have already qualified, but play-offs to determine the final four participants, due to be played later this month, will have to take place at a later date.

– Collision course with FIFA? – Moving the Euro by a year also puts UEFA on a collision course with football”s world governing body FIFA, whose president Gianni Infantino has planned to stage the inaugural edition of his highly lucrative Club World Cup in June and July next year in China. Some of Europe’s top club sides are expected to be involved.

“FIFA will keep in regular contact with all relevant stakeholders during this difficult period and look to find in due course solutions in a spirit of cooperation, taking into account the interests of football at all levels,” Infantino wrote in an open letter on Monday. “Health first and sporting solidarity should be the key principles guiding decision-making at this important moment in time and I am sure that the whole football community will live up to the great values of our sport. “Final Four” proposal – As for its flagship club competitions, UEFA may come to a decision to try to complete the Champions League and Europa League by curtailing the competitions, meaning ties up to the semi-finals could be decided in one-off matches. Agencies

Coronavirus scare delays French Open to September The coronavirus pandemic has pushed the French Open to September 20, according to organisers, who added that it would then conclude on October 4.

The Grand Slam event was to have taken place from May 24 to June 7, but organisers said Tuesday: “The current confinement measures have made it impossible for us to continue with our preparations and, as a result, we are unable to hold the tournament on the dates originally planned.”

The new dates would mean the tournament would start just one week after the US Open, if that event remains in its scheduled slot.

“The whole world is affected by the public health crisis connected with COVID-19. In order to ensure the health and safety of everyone involved in organising the tournament, the French Tennis Federation has made the decision to hold the 2020 edition of Roland-Garros from 20th September to 4th October 2020,” read

a statement.

“In order to act responsibly and protect the health of its employees, service providers and suppliers during the organisation period, the FFT has chosen the only option that will allow them to maintain the 2020 edition of the tournament while joining the fight against COVID-19.”

FFT president Bernard Giudicelli said: “We have made a difficult yet brave decision in this unprecedented situation, which has evolved greatly since last weekend. We are acting responsibly, and must work together in the fight to ensure everybody’s health and safety.”

Last week, the ATP announced it was suspending the men’s tennis tour for six weeks “due to escalating health and safety issues” arising from spread of the virus.

All events on the ATP Tour and second-tier ATP Challenger Tour are cancelled until April 27.

The International Tennis Federation, which runs the lower tiers of the profes-

sional game as well as the junior and senior circuits, followed the ATP by announcing there would be no tournaments on any of its tours until April 20 at the earliest.

The WTA Tour said Monday it was suspending the women’s season until May 2, having already called off events in Bo-

South African cricketers in self-isolation Members of the South African cricket team have been told to undergo a 14-day period of self-isolation and social distancing to prevent the spread of coronavirus following their return from an aborted tour of India.

The players arrived back in South Africa on Wednesday ten days after departing on a tour during which they played no cricket. The first of three scheduled oneday internationals was abandoned without a ball bowled because of rain and the remaining two were cancelled.

Dr Shuaib Manjra, Cricket South Africa’s medical officer, who accompanied the team on the tour, during which they stayed in or travelled through Dubai, Delhi, Dharamsala, Lucknow and Kolkata, said the cancellation had been decided because of the rapid change in the global

coronavirus situation.

“CSA had engaged in a risk assessment before the tour,” said Dr Manjra. “We

deemed the risk to be very low. While on tour the world became a different place and we had to take cognisance of the fact

gota, Guadalajara, and Charleston.

Next month’s Fed Cup finals in Budapest have also been postponed indefinitely. The revamped 12-team women’s competition scheduled for April 14-19 as well as a series of play-off ties were both put on hold. Agencies that there was a change in the global environment.” He said the risks were re-assessed, especially the possibility of borders being closed. “Ultimately the players’ frame of mind was the determining factor,” he said, adding the players had been concerned about their families and what was happening in South Africa.

Dr Manjra said the team had effectively been in isolation in India and had travelled on chartered flights and coaches in a sanitised environment. But he said it had been decided to follow expert guidance on prevention of the spread of the virus. “We’ve educated the players about the disease,” he said. “We’ve recommended that all players self-isolate and social-distance themselves for a minimum of 14 days to protect people around them and their communities.” England’s tour of Sri Lanka has also been postponed as the coronavirus pandemic has virtually wiped out the global sporting calendar for the next few months. Agencies

Coronavirus: USTA has not ruled out US Open date switch The United States Tennis Association (USTA) says it has not ruled out the possibility of switching the US Open to a later date, after the French Open was moved back to September.

USTA says it is assessing all options but is not currently implementing any changes to its schedule.

The US Open, which is played in New York, is due to begin on 31 August.

USTA also criticised the French Tennis Federation’s unilateral decision to move the dates of Roland Garros.

The event in Paris was due to be played from 24 May to 7 June, but instead will take place from 20 September to 4 October.

That means it will begin just one week

after the completion of the US Open.

“At a time when the world is coming together, we recognise that such a decision should not be made unilaterally,” the statement said.

“Therefore the USTA would only [act] in full consultation with the other Grand Slam tournaments, the WTA and ATP, the ITF and our partners, including the Laver Cup.” The new dates for the French Open mean it will clash with a string of ATP and WTA events, including the start of the traditional Asian leg of the season.

It is also scheduled at the same time as the Laver Cup – the annual men’s team event between Europe and the Rest of the World.

The competition was the brainchild of

Ex-champion Mayweather dies LOS ANGELES Agencies

Roger Mayweather, a two-time world champion turned trainer and uncle of unbeaten boxing great Floyd Mayweather, has died at the age of 58. “My uncle was one of the most important people in my life inside and outside of the ring,” said Floyd Mayweather, who was trained by his uncle for much of his illustrious career. Roger Mayweather, who had struggled with diabetes, won world titles at super featherweight and super lightweight, earning 59 wins in a near-20-year ring career that included notable fights against Julio Cesar Chavez and Pernell Whitaker. “Roger was a great champion and one of the best trainers in boxing,” Floyd Mayweather said.

“Unfortunately, his health was failing him for several years and now he can finally rest in peace. Roger meant the world to me, my father Floyd Sr., my uncle Jeff, our whole family, everyone in and around the Mayweather Boxing Gym and the entire boxing world.”

Ibrahimovic launches fundraisers to help fight coronavirus pandemic Zlatan Ibrahimovic has launched a fundraiser to help fight coronavirus and has called on fellow footballers to help “kick this virus away”. The AC Milan striker plays in Italy, the country so far worst affected by the pandemic other than China. It appears Ibrahimovic has made two 50,000 euro (£46,054) donations. “Italy has always given me so much and, in this dramatic moment, I want to give back even more to this country that I love,” Ibrahimovic said on Instagram. “I count on the generosity of my colleagues, of all professional athletes and of those who want to make a small or large donation according to their possibilities, to kick this virus away. “Together we can really help hospitals and doctors and nurses who selflessly work every day to save our lives. Because today we are the ones cheering for them! “Let’s together kick the coronavirus away and win this match!” An hour after Ibrahimovic’s post, the fund had raised 109,652 euros (£100,999). And with Zlatan being Zlatan, there was a classic line from the veteran striker. He finished his post by saying: “And remember: if the virus don’t go to Zlatan, Zlatan goes to the virus!” Agencies Roger Federer’s Team8 agency, and is supported by the US Open, the Australian Open and the ATP Tour. This year’s event is already sold out, and the response from the Laver Cup to the French Federation’s decision was curt.

“This announcement came as a surprise to us and our partners,” it said in a statement.

“It raises many questions and we are assessing the situation. “At this time, we want our fans, sponsors, broadcasters, staff, volunteers, players and the great city of Boston to know that we intend to hold Laver Cup 2020 as currently scheduled.”

The French Federation said on Thursday that the “current confinement measures have made it impossible for us to continue with our preparations”. In a conference call with reporters, it said it would be unthinkable for the season’s only clay-court Grand Slam not to go ahead. Agencies

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

Home News 'PuttiNg us iN daNger' - atHlete CoNCerNs grow aHead of olymPiCs

o

LyMPIC pole vault champion Katerina Stefanidi said athletes were being forced to take health risks as competitors started to speak out about holding the Tokyo Games during the coronavirus crisis.

Stefanidi and British heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson both voiced concerns after the International Olympic Committee said it was “fully committed” to running the Games as scheduled from July 24.

An IOC member called the body’s stance “insensitive and irresponsible”, saying athletes were facing “anxiety and heartbreak” as they try to train during the virus emergency.

Stefanidi, one of Greece’s most prominent athletes, was scheduled to hand the ceremonial flame to Japanese officials before the Greek leg of the torch relay was scrapped over COVID-19. “The IOC wants us to keep risking our health, our family’s health and public health to train every day?” she tweeted. “you are putting us in danger right now, today, not in 4 months.”

On Tuesday, minutes before the

IOC statement, the Euro 2020 football tournament was delayed for a year, bowing to the crisis that has paralysed Europe and drastically curtailed international travel.

Olympic qualifying tournaments are among the swathe of sports events that have been cancelled or postponed, with only 57 percent of athletes booking their places so far. “It’s unbelievable,”

said Stefanidi. “What about team sports that have to train together? What about swimming? What about gymnastics that they touch the same objects?

“There is zero consideration of the risk they are putting us in right now.”

Johnson-Thompson, the world heptathlon champion, criticised the IOC for telling athletes to train “as best they can”, saying it was at odds with strin-

gent government health measures.

“I feel under pressure to train and keep the same routine which is impossible,” she wrote on Twitter.

“It’s difficult (to) approach the season when everything has changed in the lead-up apart from the ultimate deadline,” added the Briton.

– ‘Bigger than the Olympics’ – Doubts are increasingly being expressed about holding the Olympics on time, after the outbreak that first exploded in China spread to Asia and then worldwide, infecting almost 200,000 people and killing 7,900.

On Wednesday an Olympic gymnastics qualifier in Tokyo, doubling as a test event, became the latest competition to be cancelled.

A day earlier, the deputy head of Japan’s Olympic committee said he had tested positive for coronavirus.

But the IOC insisted “there is no need for any drastic decisions at this stage” adding that “any speculation at this moment would be counter-productive”.

Hayley Wickenheiser, a Canadian IOC member with four ice hockey gold medals, warned “this crisis is bigger than even the Olympics”.

India's Chand says pre-Olympics training fraught with virus fears Agencies

After battling in court to be able to run and fighting discrimination when she came out as gay, Indian sprinter Dutee Chand now has to overcome the fear of training in a pandemic to maintain her Olympic hopes.

Chand, who was banned from competing internationally because of the hyperandrogenism gene condition, wants the Tokyo Games to go ahead even if she has not yet made the women’s 100 metre qualifying time of 11.15sec.

But running close to other Indian athletes is fraught as the deadly coronavirus spreads across the country of 1.3 billion people.

“There is fear of catching the coronavirus because we train together and if somebody catches it then it is going to spread,” the 24-year-old told AFP over phone from a camp in the eastern city of Bhubaneswar.

“I am not going out other than to train. Homecooked food is the order of the day, I don’t eat out at all. “Washing hands has become a 24-hour activity.

So hopefully we will overcome the crisis.”

But the global sporting lockdown caused by the mounting death toll means there are no races for Chand to run and reach the qualifying time.

– ‘Training is affected’ – Despite mounting doubts about the event, the Games are still scheduled to start on July 24 and time is running out.

“Of course with all the meetings cancelled it has become tough for me to qualify,” said Chand, whose personal best is currently 11.22sec.

“I have to clock 11.15 seconds to make the cut and I am worried how I am going to make it if international events don’t happen.”

With just three reported deaths, India has so far been spared a pandemic that has killed almost 8,000 around the world. But virus fears are widespread and travel is increasingly difficult in the country.

“Training is affected because the state government has shut down all facilities though we have got special permission to train because of the Olympics.

“But it affects us mentally as schools, colleges, offices are closed. We don’t know whether the Olympics will happen or when the next meeting will be.”

One of six children born to a poor family, Chand is not new to beating the odds. Her battle against gender testing when she was a teenager after showing elevated levels of testosterone made international headlines.

On top of her four-year battle with the world athletics body over hyperandrogenism — the same condition that affects South Africa’s two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya — Chand last year became the first top Indian athlete to reveal she is in a samesex relationship.

The revelation prompted a backlash in her home village in conservative rural India, and Chand said she had been finding it hard to overcome the prejudice.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Chand became only the fifth Indian to participate in the women’s 100m, though she did not get past the heats.

After the Court of Arbitration for Sport definitively ruled in her favour, Chand went to the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, where she won silver medals

SPORTS 15

Chelsea open up hotel to healthcare staff LONDON Agencies

Chelsea will provide free accommodation to staff of Britain’s National Health Service in a hotel at the club’s Stamford Bridge stadium during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Premier League club’s owner, Roman Abramovich, will fund the service that will allow medical professionals in London a chance to rest if they are unable to travel home or face long commutes. The scheme will be put in place for two months, but could be extended if needed. There have been 1,950 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 71 deaths in Britain. “It was decided the best way Chelsea can assist the NHS is to provide accommodation for NHS staff. Mr Abramovich will be covering the costs of providing the accommodation,” Chelsea said in a statement. “Many of the medical staff will be working long shifts and may not be able to travel home or would otherwise have to make long commutes. Local accommodation helps maintain the health and well-being of this crucial personnel at this critical time.”

Chelsea do not know when they will next return to the pitch, with the Premier League suspended until at least April 4, although that date is set to be pushed back at a meeting of Premier League clubs on Thursday.

liverpool's milner goes viral, snaps coronavirus gloom LIVERPOOL Agencies

in the 100m and 200m.

Chand said Indian runners want to test themselves against the best at the Olympics.

“But it is tough to qualify for the 100m in India,” she said.

“We face tough competition from the best athletes from other countries.

“But fingers crossed, we have two months left and if there is a competition, hopefully I can make it.”

Liverpool star James Milner has become a social media star in playing up to his no frills image by filming himself doing domestic chores whilst the Premier League is suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak. The 34-year-old former England midfielder first posted images of himself sorting his tea bags one by one as a response to team-mate Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain posting a glamorous video of himself and his pop star girlfriend Perrie Edwards dancing on their stairs. The players have been left to their own devices after team training was halted due to the coronavirus pandemic. After rationing his tea bags, the 61-times capped Milner took to his garden and filmed himself nose down to the lawn clipping the grass with a pair of scissors and a ruler to ensure each blade was the same height. “Now the tea bags are sorted I’ve got time to level out this lawn,'” he tweeted. “‘Wonder if I can borrow Anfield’s ‘Keep off the Grass sign’.” The Premier League is in abeyance since last Friday after both Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and Chelsea winger Callum Hudson-Odoi tested positive for coronavirus. Liverpool have been left tantalisingly close to their first ever Premier League title — they are 25 points clear of two-time defending champions Manchester City with nine matches remaining.

Footballers could face mass layoffs over coronavirus, warns FIFPRO LONDON Agencies

Football is facing its first economic crisis for decades with the prospect of mass layoffs of players if nothing is done to bail out clubs left without matches by the coronavirus pandemic, the global players’ union FIFPRO said on Tuesday.

Professional football has been wiped off the map for weeks, maybe months, after all the major leagues, cups and international competitions were suspended, culminating in the postponement of Euro 2020 and Copa America on Tuesday. “There is no doubt that the health of everybody is the primary concern but the concerns of players are shifting very quickly towards their livelihoods,” FIFPRO general secretary Jonas Baer-Hoffmann told reporters in a conference call.

“For the vast majority, a loss of income for two or three months is as threatening as for any other worker. “The consequences for our industry will potentially turn ugly very quickly, so any co-ordinated action is very, very important.”

Baer-Hoffmann said that football had continued to grow during the 2008 financial crisis but the omens were not so favourable this time.

“For the first time in decades, we are facing a real economic crisis in football,” he added.

“There are simply not a lot of reserves that we can bank on. We know how club budgets are managed, they are always on the line of liquidity.

“If we don’t respond very quickly to stabilise the cash flow we could see mass layoffs of players and staff members within weeks.”

He added that while clubs in the big leagues should make it through the crisis, it was a different story in smaller markets.

However, Baer-Hoffmann welcomed the decision to postpone Euro 2020 to give the chance for the current domestic seasons to be played out during the summer — if the health situation permitted them to re-start by then.

He also welcomed a statement from FIFA president Gianni Infantino to propose a global assistance fund to help “members of the community” affected by the crisis.

UEFA, meanwhile, has set up a working group to propose measures to mitigate the financial effects of the pandemic.

“This is what we were hoping they would be doing,” he said. He added that players would need time to get into shape once football was able to re-start again.

“The players will not be able to just walk out of their apartments and back on the pitch,” he said. “If they are in home quarantine for two months, they will need time to get back on their feet.”

CMYK

Thursday, 19 March, 2020

NEWS

US leadS hUge economIc fIghTbacK agaInST vIrUS, eU ShUTS borderS

T

HE United States and Britain led a multi-billion-dollar global fightback against economic havoc wreaked by the coronavirus as the European Union shut its borders to travellers from outside for 30 days to stem the pandemic’s ferocious spread.

The sweeping measures, never before seen in peacetime, have upended society worldwide and roiled financial markets on fears of a global recession.

The coronavirus outbreak, which first emerged in China late last year, has quickly marched across the globe, infecting nearly 200,000 people and killing 7,900 as governments scramble to contain it.

Following criticism that they were mismanaging their crisis response, London and Washington on Tuesday announced massive economic stimulus packages.

President Donald Trump said the White House was discussing a “substantial” spending bill with Congress that would include immediate cash payments to Americans.

Officials did not give hard numbers but The Washington Post reported the amount could reach $850 billion, with a chunk destined for airlines fearing ruin.

“We’re going big,” Trump told reporters.

British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak also unveiled an “unprecedented package” of government-backed loans worth 330 billion pounds ($400 billion) for businesses struggling in the sudden economic paralysis caused by mass self-quarantine.

France has pledged a 45 billion euro ($50 billion) aid package.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel meanwhile confirmed the 30-day “entry ban” into the EU. European countries were already in neartotal internal lockdown, with Belgium starting from Wednesday until at least April 5.

The World Health Organization urged

the “boldest actions” on the continent, the pandemic’s latest epicentre.

In the United States, restrictions continued to build, with Maryland becoming the latest state to delay presidential election primaries and New York City considering curfews.

Cases in Australia rose to 565, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government urged citizens to not travel abroad and banned gatherings of more than 100 people.

Asian hotspots China and South Korea have seen new infections and deaths level out in recent weeks — China reported just one new domestic case for the second consecutive day on Wednesday — but numbers are ballooning across Europe.

Africa, with its fragile healthcare systems, has also recorded more than 400 cases, and Latin America has more than 1,100, with the continent’s most populated country Brazil confirming its first death on Tuesday.

– ‘Invisible enemy’ – Trump, who for weeks has been accused of playing down the crisis, appeared determined to take control of his messaging, declaring he would do everything to fight an

“invisible enemy”. “We have to win this war,” he said at the White House, where staff and journalists now have to undergo regular temperature checks.

Battered US stocks — which Trump considers a key metric of his success ahead of the November presidential election — closed higher after the stimulus announcement.

Citizens were told to avoid all non-essential overseas travel and large social gatherings, with more stringent restrictions expected in the coming days.

Germany has banned gatherings in churches, mosques and synagogues and said playgrounds and non-essential shops would close, too.

In Ireland, Anthony Whyte, 49, looked out onto the cobbled streets of Dublin from a bar and likened the scene to “a ghost town”.

“It’s like armageddon,” he said.

Usually joyful — and alcohol-fuelled — Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations were cancelled in Dublin, New York and Boston.

UK schools to close until further notice Schools across the UK will close from Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced Wednesday.

They are expected to shut at the end of the school day on Friday, and remain closed until further notice.

The closures will affect students of all ages, except for the children of key workers -- including NHS staff, police and delivery drivers – and vulnerable children.

“We therefore need schools to make provisions for the children of these key workers … and they also need to look after the most vulnerable children,” Johnson said during his daily coronavirus press conference.

“For many parents these steps will be frustrating," Johnson conceded. "That’s why we are now working on further measures… to keep our economy going."

147 DEAD IN IRAN: Iran reported its single biggest jump in deaths from the new coronavirus, saying on Wednesday another 147 had died in a nearly 15 per cent spike that raises the death toll to 1,135 people nationwide.

The rise in deaths comes as the number of infections continues to grow each day, with some 17,361 people infected, according to Iran’s deputy health minister, Alireza Raisi.

Meanwhile, Friday will mark the Persian New Year, Nowruz, raising fears of people traveling and further spreading the virus.

That is the biggest 24-hour rise in deaths

IRAN REPORTS 147 DEATHS, FEARS CASES WILL RISE ON NOWRUZ yet recorded by Iran’s Health Ministry since the virus first appeared in Iran in mid-February. Raisi announced the new tolls at a televised press conference on Wednesday.

In Iraq, a week-long curfew went into effect in Baghdad where streets were largely empty of both people and cars, and most shops were closed. Only pedestrians were allowed on the streets to buy necessary foodstuffs and medicine. Armed Iraqi police were seen patrolling the city and setting up roadblocks.

Still, some pilgrims in Iraq defied the curfew order to observe the annual Shiite Muslim commemoration of the death of Imam Mousa al-Kazim. Thousands typically make the journey on foot to the revered imam’s shrine in the Khadimiya area outside of Baghdad. Several men, women and children walked solemnly down Baghdad’s Saadoun Street on Wednesday, determined to complete the journey to the shrine. Police stationed nearby did not intervene to stop them.

In Egypt, authorities started to close shops to encourage people to stay at home.

Coffee shops and restaurants were shuttered on Wednesday in Cairo, a city of over 20 million, while plain-clothed security forces urged people to go home. “I am financially ruined, how can I earn my living now,” said Mohammed Gamal, a worker in a coffee shop that was shut down. Agencies

Italy reports 475 new virus deaths, highest one-day toll of any nation ROME: The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has surged in the last 24 hours by 475 to 2,978, an increase of 19%, the biggest jump in numerical terms since the contagion came to light last month, officials said on Wednesday. The total number of cases in Italy, the European country hardest hit by the virus, rose to 35,713 from a previous 31,506, up 13.35%, the Civil Protection Agency said. Of those originally infected, 4,025 had fully recovered compared to 2,941 the day before. Some 2,257 people were in intensive care against a previous 2,060. Agencies

Kabul, Taliban should begin prisoner releases as soon as possible: US envoy Shoppers enter a grocery store near a sign requesting social distancing in Seattle, Washington

Pilgrims decry poor conditions at Taftan quarantine camp QUETTA Agencies

Hundreds of pilgrims from Iran stuck in coronavirus quarantine camps at Taftan near the border with limited medical care, fear poor conditions is helping the spread of the disease.

Speaking to AFP, current and former residents of Taftan camp said the facility lacks running water or flushable toilets, with detainees only able to wash every few days.

Government figures show half of the 241 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in Pakistan are in people who went on pilgrimages to Iran — one of the countries hardest-hit by the disease.

Pakistan shares a 960-kilometre border with Iran, with the main crossing point at Taftan in Balochistan province.

“I have been using the same mask for

over seven days now,” one quarantined pilgrim at Taftan, who asked not to be named, said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

“If I didn’t have the virus when I first got here, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that I have it now.”

Iran has been scrambling to contain COVID-19 since authorities announced the first two deaths last month.

Nearly 1,000 people have since died, making Iran the third-hardest-hit country after China and Italy.

The Taftan border has been closed since March 16, but thousands of Pakistan pilgrims who were visiting religious sites in Iran have been allowed to return subject to two weeks’ quarantine.

They are then also expected to undergo a further two weeks quarantine in their home towns.

Taftan was built years ago specifically as a resting station for returning pil-

grims, but has been overwhelmed by the crush caused by the virus.

Videos circulating on social media show people sleeping on floors and in corridors of permanent structures, and packed into tents erected in a dirty courtyard.

No attempt has been made to separate sick pilgrims from the healthy.

‘WORSE THAN ANIMALS’: Officials say about 4,600 people are currently being held in Taftan. About 1,800 others have been transferred to their home districts for a further two-week quarantine.

In Sukkur in southern Sindh province, some 172 people have tested positive for coronavirus since spending time in Taftan.

Witnesses said people confined there staged protests this week to demand better conditions, while others just fled.

Security forces had to fire warning shots to bring things under control.

Ishtiaq Hussain, a university student

from Tehran, was one of those who walked out of Taftan. He was never tested for coronavirus.

Also read: Over 300 Pakistani pilgrims arrive in Taftan from Iran He said people were treated “worse than animals”, often being given “spoilt food” and left in “freezing camps with very few blankets”.

Najeeb Qambrani, assistant commissioner in Taftan, said the camp´s remote location made it difficult to provide amenities.

“We are providing all the possible facilities,” he said.

But former Taftan confinee Naimat Ali Khaki said conditions were unacceptable.

“There was no cleanliness and it was so overcrowded that we were literally walking over each other,” Khaki said.

He is still waiting for results of a coronavirus test.

WASHINGTON: US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said on Wednesday the coronavirus pandemic adds urgency to prisoner releases agreed

by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government and the Taliban and that they should begin “as soon as possible.” “No prisoners have been released to date despite the commitment to do so expressed by both sides,” U.S. Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said on Twitter. Khalilzad’s comments illustrated how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s top foreign policy priorities. The prisoner releases were slated to have started last week as part of a U.S.-led effort to end America’s longest war and bring peace to Afghanistan after decades of strife. But the releases were stalled by disagreements over the numbers of detainees to be freed and guarantees they would not return to fighting. “The United States would like to see prisoner releases begin as soon as possible in line with the U.S.-Taliban agreement,” Khalilzad wrote in a Twitter thread, referring to a Feb. 29 deal he signed with the insurgents for a U.S. troop withdrawal. “Coronavirus makes prisoner releases urgent; time is of the essence,” he continued, adding that the United States understood from consultations with both sides that they could “work together and focus on technical steps” for freeing detainees.

While face-to-face are meetings are preferable, “Coronavirus and the resulting travel restrictions likely requires virtual engagement now,” he said, and urged both sides “to avoid provocative media statements.” Agencies

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