Author: CensorBiz

Singapore was hit a month ago with a surge in novel coronavirus cases that originated in China but capped the spread. Malaysia and Thailand watched beach tourists drain away as Chinese were required to avoid travel. Factory slowdowns in China caused by workers staying home to dodge the disease cut demand for Indonesian commodities.Nevertheless, analysts in Southeast Asia expect the region of 654 million to weather this outbreak. The outcome matters because the flow of tourists, capital and raw materials into Southeast Asia is more contingent on China than is the case elsewhere.Vietnam and the Philippines expect more capital from foreign investors fatigued by risks in China, for example. Southeast Asian governments are cutting interest rates and approving economic stimulus for companies shaken by loss of business. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations is working toward a massive trade liberalization deal with China and Japan to stoke commerce.“Obviously there’s going to be impact, but again we have the China-plus-one here,” said Ralf Matthaes, founder of the Infocus Mekong Research consultancy in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, referring to investors with plants in China hoping to diversify into a second country.“There’s lots of people who are moving their factories here, so I think all [the coronavirus] does is emphasize that you’ve got to further decentralize your manufacturing bases,” Matthaes said.Southeast Asian manufacturers may diversify sources of supply, too, said Tham Siew Yean, professor emeritus at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. “But this will impact costs since alternative sources, where available are more expensive,” she said.Several Southeast Asian countries hope interest rate cuts will stimulate corporate lending.Indonesia, a coal, gas and rubber supplier, dropped rates to 4.75% last month against the risk of falling commodity prices. Chinese manufacturers usually buy those raw materials but orders slowed when many workers stayed home last month after the Lunar New Year.Thailand lowered its rate to 1% last month because of its “large exposure” to Chinese tourism and reliance on Chinese auto manufacturing, Moody’s Analytics said in a February 26 research note. Malaysia could cut rates as well as consumer demand falls, the note says.Singapore has reported the region’s biggest single-country outbreak, 98 cases, but media reports credit the city-state for getting its caseload contained. Singapore also raised government spending by 7%, despite a budget deficit, across two relief packages totaling $4 billion.Malaysia and Indonesia came out with their own stimulus packages to combat impacts from the disease officially called  Covid-19.The Philippine economy will probably grow at least 6% this year because of rate cuts and infrastructure spending due to last through 2022, said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank. The Asian Development Bank had forecast last year that the archipelago’s GDP would rise 6.2%.New roads, airports and power generation projects, worth $180 billion, are expected to make the Philippines more attractive to manufacturers. “If we play our cards right by doing more infrastructure spending and hasten the pace, we can still grow at 6%,” Ravelas said.Responses such as these preceded a meeting Monday among senior ASEAN officials. Their economic ministers had been scheduled to meet this month in Las Vegas, but has been postponed.ASEAN said last year that it would sign the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership with Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and possibly India at this year’s session. The deal would cut tariffs, a boon to exporters.“This will widen integration and as one of the largest international grouping it will provide a strong signal for the support of international trade despite the negative impact on trade from the COVID.” Tham said.
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South Korea reported more than 500 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, as health officials said more than 2,000 people in the city hardest hit by the outbreak were waiting for open spaces in hospitals.South Korea has seen the most cases outside of China, and is planning to spend about $10 billion on medical resources and measures to counteract the economic impact of the outbreak.China reported a continued slowdown of new cases of the coronavirus Wednesday with 119 new people infected, far reduced from when it reported several thousand at a time.The focus of containing the outbreak has shifted to places such as Italy and Iran, which have not only seen their own cases steadily increase, but have also had their citizens and others who traveled from those areas test positive while in other countries.Italy reported a sharp increase in deaths on Tuesday, up to 79, the most outside of China. India, which has linked cases to Italian tourists, said Wednesday the number of cases there jumped from five to 28.People wearing masks stand in a line to buy face masks in front of a drug store amid the rise in confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus disease of COVID-19 in Daegu, South Korea, March 3, 2020.Wednesday also brought news of the first death in Iraq, where so far all of its cases are connected to Iran.Worldwide, the coronavirus has infected more than 93,000 people and killed more than 3,100, with the vast majority in both categories in China.The expansion of the outbreak has reached several new countries, including Jordan, Morocco, Senegal, Portugal and Saudi Arabia.World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged people around the world Tuesday to stop hoarding masks and other protective gear, saying health care workers need them.Experts say surgical masks are no guaranteed protection against the virus, but say they are essential equipment for doctors and nurses.Tedros said he is concerned about the “severe and increasing disruption to the global supply of personal protective equipment caused by rising demand.”
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Wednesday, the nonprofit group, Freedom House, releases its annual report on freedom and the state of democracy around the world.  Continuing a 14-year trend, some of the findings are discouraging.  As VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, the group says individual freedoms and democratic systems are under attack.
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Governments around the world are stepping up efforts to combat the coronavirus that so far has infected at least 90,000 people and killed more than 3,100. In Japan, the prime minister has ordered schools to close until spring break, as South Korea, Italy, Iran and other nations are mobilizing forces and equipment to begin disinfection operations. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has emerged from Monday’s elections — the third in a year — in a stronger position than after the last poll, but he still does not  have enough seats to form a governing coalition. As Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem, the latest poll took place amid fears about the spread of the coronavirus.
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Chinese social media platforms began censoring references to coronavirus and keywords critical of the government’s handling of the infection as early as December, Toronto-based cyber research group Citizen Lab said in a report Tuesday. Chinese messenger app WeChat, owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd., and JOYY Inc.’s video streaming app YY blocked keyword combinations that included criticisms of President Xi Jinping, local officials and policies linked to the virus, the report found. Citizen Lab said the findings, gathered between December and February, suggest that companies “received official guidance” on how to manage virus content in the early stages of the outbreak, which expanded throughout the testing period. Blocked terms also included noncritical phrases related to public health and local rules, including “travel ban” and “people-to-people transmission.” Tencent and YY did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday. Chinese social media companies are subject to strict laws requiring them to censor content that “undermines social stability” or is critical of the central government, controls that have tightened under Xi. The Cyberspace Administration of China, which oversees online content laws, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Policies under fireChina’s censorship policies have come under scrutiny since the virus outbreak amid allegations from netizens and local media that they potentially obscured the seriousness of the outbreak in its early stages. The report said YY added 45 key phrases to an internal blacklist, including “Wuhan Unknown Pneumonia” and “Wuhan Seafood Market” on December 31, a day after eight people, including Dr. Li Wenliang, raised an alarm about the virus in a WeChat group and were subsequently punished by police for “spreading rumors.” Li died of the virus in early February, sparking a wave of public mourning and fierce criticism of local officials online. The Citizen Lab report said keywords relating to Li were censored after his death in February, including combinations of the words “virus,” “Li Wenliang,” “central government” and “epidemic.” It said the group was able to collect a full list of newly added blacklisted words from YY during the period, and a sample from WeChat based on attempted keywords and combinations. Censorship rules are strictly enforced in China, and internet companies have faced service suspensions and fines in the past for failure to fully comply with them. 
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Two aid workers were killed, another wounded and three others went missing after unknown gunmen ambushed a vehicle belonging to an international NGO in South Sudan’s Unity state Monday night, according to local officials.Workers from the British charity Tearfund were leaving the village of Yuai when they were attacked, said Mabil Peter Kot, acting secretary general of the former Bieh state, which is now part of Unity state.“The Tearfund went to Yuai to do their activities. When they were coming back from Yuai in the evening, they were coming to Piri. Then they fell into an ambush. The attackers fired at the car of the Tearfund. A lady was shot and died on the spot and another man was shot and died near the vehicle,” Kot told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.Kot said the whereabouts of the other three aid workers in the vehicle, including the driver, is not known.  He said two other unarmed people were killed in a separate attack in the same area.Tearfund is a Christian relief and development organization formerly known as The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund.A Tearfund worker in Jonglei state, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she is not authorized to speak to the media, said the staff was delivering humanitarian assistance to locals in Yuai when they were attacked.Emmi Antinoja, head of communications at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in South Sudan, said the agency is still gathering all the details about the attack.“I am not able to comment anything on that until we find the full story,” Antinoja told South Sudan in Focus.Last month one aid worker was killed when a humanitarian vehicle belonging to an international NGO was ambushed along the Pibor-Gumuruk road.Prior to Monday’s attack, at least 116 aid workers had been killed in South Sudan since the start of the country’s conflict in December 2013, according to United Nations report released last week.  The vast majority of victims have been South Sudanese nationals.South Sudan’s leaders formed a new transitional unity government on Feb. 22 in hopes of ending the conflict for good and stabilizing the country.As part of the deal, President Salva Kiir agreed to reduce the number of states from 32 to the country’s original 10, plus three administrative areas.
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Tensions over how to contain the fast-spreading coronavirus escalated Tuesday in the United States as the death toll climbed to nine and lawmakers expressed doubts about the government’s ability to ramp up testing fast enough to deal with the crisis.All of the deaths have occurred in Washington state, and most were residents of a nursing home in suburban Seattle. The number of cases in the U.S. overall climbed past 100 scattered across at least 14 states, with 27 in Washington.“What is happening now in the United States may be the beginning of what is happening abroad,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noting that in China older and sicker people are about twice as likely to become seriously ill as those who are younger and healthier.In the nation’s capital, officials moved on a number of fronts.The Federal Reserve announced the biggest interest-rate cut in over a decade to try to fend off damage to the U.S. economy from the factory shutdowns, travel restrictions and other disruptions caused around the globe by the outbreak. On Wall Street, stocks briefly rallied on the news, then slumped badly.“We have seen a broader spread of the virus. So, we saw a risk to the economy and we chose to act,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said.Also, the Food and Drug and Administration moved to ease a shortage of face masks by giving health care workers the OK to use an industrial type of respirator mask designed to protect construction workers from dust and debris.On Capitol Hill, lawmakers expressed skepticism about U.S. health officials’ claims that testing for the new virus should be widely available by the end of the week. Authorities have said labs across the country should have the capacity to run as many as 1 million tests by then.But testing so far has faced delays and missteps, and “I’m hearing from health professionals that’s unrealistic,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state said at a Senate hearing.The chief of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Stephen Hahn, said the FDA has been working with a private company to get as many as 2,500 test kits out to labs by the end of the week. Each kit should be able to allow a lab to run about 500 tests, he said. But health officials were careful about making hard promises.“I am optimistic, but I want to remain humble,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC.In Washington state, researchers believe the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks. That has raised fears that there could be hundreds of undiagnosed cases in the area.But some people who want to be tested for the virus in the state are encountering confusion, a lack of testing options and other problems as health authorities scramble to deal with the crisis.“The people across my state are really scared. I’m hearing from people who are sick, who want to get tested and don’t know where to go,” Murray said. “It’s unacceptable that people in my state can’t even get an answer as to whether or not they are infected.”One lab was already testing for coronavirus in Washington state and a second was scheduled to begin doing so Tuesday.Amid the rising fears, a school district north of Seattle closed for training on conducting remote lessons via computer in case schools have to be closed for an extended period, while a private school said it would conduct online-only classes through the end of March.“We do not feel it is prudent to wait until there is a known case to take action,” the school, Eastside Prep in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, said on its website.A Department of Homeland Security facility just south of Seattle instructed all its employees to work from home after a worker became ill after visiting the nursing home at the center of the outbreak.Elsewhere around the world, the crisis continued to ebb in China, where hundreds of patients were released from hospitals and new infections dropped to just 125 on Tuesday, the lowest in several weeks. But the crisis seemed to shift westward, with alarmingly fast-growing clusters of infections and deaths in South Korea, Iran and Italy.Worldwide, more than 92,000 people have been sickened and 3,100 have died, the vast majority of them in China.“What China shows is that early containment and identification of cases can work, but we now need to implement that in other countries,” said Dr. Nathalie MacDermott, an infectious-diseases expert at King’s College London.
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An upcoming memoir by Woody Allen is being blasted by daughter Dylan Farrow, who called it “deeply upsetting” and criticized the publishing house for putting it out.
Farrow has alleged that Allen molested her as a child in the early 1990s. Allen has denied any wrongdoing, and he was never charged after two separate investigations.
Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, announced Monday that the book is called “Apropos of Nothing” and will be released April 7.
Allen’s agreement with Hachette means that he shares a publisher with one of his biggest detractors, his son Ronan Farrow, whose “Catch and Kill” was released last year by the Hachette division Little, Brown and Company.
 
“Hachette’s publishing of Woody Allen’s memoir is deeply upsetting to me personally and an utter betrayal of my brother whose brave reporting, capitalized on by Hachette, gave voice to numerous survivors of sexual assault by powerful men,” Dylan Farrow said in a statement late Monday.
Dylan Farrow added that she was never contacted by fact-checkers for the memoir: “This provides yet another example of the profound privilege that power, money and notoriety affords. Hachette’s complicity in this should be called out for what it is and they should have to answer for it.”  
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The Supreme Court made it easier Tuesday for states to prosecute immigrants who use fake Social Security numbers to get a job.The issue for the court was whether states could pursue the immigrants in court or had to leave those choices to the federal government, which typically has authority over immigration.The court ruled 5-4, with conservatives in the majority, that nothing in federal immigration law prevents states from going after immigrants who use phony documents and numbers.The Kansas Supreme Court had ruled that the federal government has exclusive authority to determine whether an immigrant may work in the United States. It threw out state convictions for three immigrants, but the high court reversed the state ruling, in an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito. “The mere fact that state laws like the Kansas provisions at issue overlap to some degree with federal criminal provisions does not even begin to make a case for” the state having to forgo prosecution, Alito wrote.Kansas prosecuted the cases at issue by relying on information that is on a required federal work authorization form, the I-9. Kansas was backed by the Trump administration and 12 states in arguing that it can prosecute because the same information also appears on state work forms.In 2012, the court ruled that portions of an Arizona law targeting immigrants without proper legal documents could not be enforced because federal law trumps state measures in the area of immigration. The three immigrants in the Kansas case contended that the high court’s Arizona decision should have determined the outcome in their situation.In a dissent for the four liberal members of the court, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that federal law “makes clear that only the federal government may prosecute people for misrepresenting their federal work-authorization status.”The case is Kansas v. Garcia, 17-834.
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Philippine officials said Tuesday they allowed an armed man who took dozens of people hostage in a mall to hold a news conference to encourage him to free his captives and give police a chance to grab him as he talked with a throng of journalists.
Reporters said they were unaware that the hostage taker, a recently dismissed security guard at the mall who was identified by police as Alchie Paray, had a pistol with him when he faced the media as the crisis came to an end Monday night. But Manila’s police chief, Maj. Gen. Debold Sinas, said snipers were under orders to shoot Paray in the head if he drew his gun or made any hostile act while speaking to journalists.
The 10-hour hostage crisis ended peacefully when Paray walked out of the V-Mall in Manila’s upscale Greenhills district and freed his captives. Afterward, he faced TV cameras and journalists for several minutes and angrily voiced his grievances against his former superiors before police swarmed in and subdued him.
Criminal complaints will be filed against Paray, including illegal detention and attempted murder for shooting and wounding a mall security officer at the start of the crisis, officials said. The victim was recovering in a hospital.
During a news conference Tuesday, journalists said they were unaware that Paray still had a pistol concealed on his waist when police allowed him to talk to the media the night before. Sinas suggested it was deliberate.
“That’s why your questioning was spontaneous,” he said. “If I had told you, nobody would have stayed in front. Then it defeats the purpose.”
Sinas said police had no intention of putting any journalists at risk during the crisis and even tried to push them away from the scene but some insisted on getting close. Still, he apologized to reporters who he said may have felt “violated.”
Some of the gunman’s demands, including being allowed to speak before the media after releasing his hostages, were granted because authorities believed it would calm him down and bring the crisis to a peaceful end, said Mayor Francis Zamora of San Juan city, the section of the Philippine capital where the crisis occurred.
“It was all part of the strategy and in the end, it worked,” Zamora said. “Nobody died and all the hostages were freed.”
“He wanted his grievances heard. It was very simple so we gave it to him,” Zamora added.
Paray’s former security agency offered 1 million pesos ($20,000) for him to end the hostage taking but the gunman declined the offer, underscoring his desire to bring his grievances to the public, Zamora said.
Nearly 10 hours into the standoff, even with the mall surrounded by SWAT commandos and police, Zamora said he and other officials were concerned that fatigue and the gunman’s unstable disposition may drive him to detonate a grenade that he had with him in the second-floor office of the mall where he held his captives.
 Police take hostage taker Archie Paray into custody as he speaks to media shortly after releasing all his hostages at the V-Mall in Manila, Philippines, March 2, 2020.Unaware of the police plan, many people, including journalists, wondered why Paray was given a microphone after freeing his captives and allowed to deliver a rambling speech with the police watching nearby.
At least 55 hostages were taken, including about 40 mall employees who walked out of the mall with Paray and were secured by policemen after he decided to end the standoff. Some of the hostages managed to sneak out while the hostage taking was in progress and told police that Paray had a gun and a grenade, police said.
Paray was dismissed as a mall guard after abandoning his job without notifying management but complained that he was maltreated, Zamora said.
At one point during the crisis, Paray was allowed to use his cellphone to deliver a message to mall guards and the media, expressing his anger over a change in his work schedule when he was still a guard and accusing some of his superiors of corruption.
Granting another demand by Paray, six officers in charge of overseeing the mall’s security were asked to apologize to the suspect at a news conference and tendered their resignations.
The shopping complex, popular for its restaurants, shops, bars and a bazaar, lies near an upscale residential enclave, a golf club and the police and military headquarters in the bustling metropolis of more than 12 million people, where law and order have long been a concern. 
 
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Turkey shot down a Syrian fighter jet in Syria’s Idlib province Tuesday, marking the third such incident in as many days, as steady clashes between the two national armies appeared to signal a new stage in the nine-year old war.
The Turkish Defense Ministry announced on Twitter that the Turkish military downed a L-39 warplane belonging to Syrian government forces. Syrian state-run television reported that Turkish forces targeted a warplane as it was carrying out operations against “terrorist groups” in the rebel-held Idlib region. It was not immediately clear what happened to the plane’s crew.
Turkey has sent thousands of troops into Idlib to support the opposition fighters holed up there, but hasn’t been able to roll back the government’s advance.
Erdogan has said he hopes to broker a cease-fire in Syria later this week when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
But the Russian-backed offensive into the country’s last rebel-held area has led to more and more frequent clashes between the Syrian and Turkish armies that have killed dozens on both sides. It has also threatened a collapse in Turkish cooperation with Moscow, a key backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
A Turkish soldier was killed and another wounded Monday night, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said, raising to 55 the number of Turkish losses this month in clashes with Russian-backed Syrian forces. The death toll includes 33 Turkish soldiers killed Thursday in a single airstrike.
 Migrants arrive with a dinghy accompanied by a Frontex vessel at the village of Skala Sikaminias, on the Greek island of Lesbos, after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey, Feb. 28, 2020.The government’s offensive has also sparked one of the Syrian war’s worst humanitarian crises. Almost one million Syrian civilians have fled north toward the sealed Turkish border, overwhelming camps already crowded above capacity.
Tensions in Idlib rose following the Syrian strike that killed the 33 Turkish soldiers in Idlib. Turkey responded with drone attacks and shelling that killed more than 90 Syrian troops and allied gunmen. The Turkish air force also shot down two Syrian warplanes after Syria’s air defenses shot down one of its drones. The Syrian pilots ejected safely.
Outraged by the assault against its forces in Syria, Turkey has opened its western borders for thousands of migrants and refugees wanting to cross into Europe. It is Ankara’s latest bid to pressure the European Union to help handle the fallout from the disastrous Syrian war.
Thousands of migrants have since tried to cross into Greece by land and sea. Greek authorities have made clear their side of the border is shut and have turned to arresting dozens of those who managed to find a way through the frontier.  
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The obvious question about students on study abroad and the coronavirus lurked in the background of many parent chat groups before it was finally dropped.Will students returning from Italy be coming back and living on campus? Will they be tested and quarantined till the results are obtained?American parents — mostly on Facebook — whose college and university children have been studying abroad, have been watching and waiting as the virus made its way around the globe, popping up and multiplying in the second-most favorite destination of study abroad Americans: Italy.”We understand, and we’re not naïve to the fact that parents are anxious,” said Fanta Aw, vice president of campus life and inclusive excellence at American University, which suspended its Italy program late last week. “And we understand where that anxiety may be coming from, especially as we see things unfold.”Aw said the university is driven by safety and science.”There are two important factors as an institution making a decision about which programs to suspend and why,” Aw said, who came as an undergrad to American University from Mali to study in the U.S. “Health and safety of our students, and in that process we create the least possible disruption of their studies.””And to follow the science and guidance of our experts,” which includes health experts from the university,  the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.American is among several universities with programs in countries where COVID-19 has spread and have begun to bring their students back to the U.S.Numerous other schools post frequent updates on their websites and social media about how they are handling virus-related issues, echoing the advice of CDC, WHO and the U.S. State Department. That includes receiving international students back to the U.S. after winter break in January and February. The U.S. hosts nearly 370,000 Chinese students of the more than 1 million international students, according to the Institute for International Education.Fewer Foreign Students Apply to US Universities

        The U.S. still attracts record numbers of international students, but the sticker shock of college tuition and negative political rhetoric are slowing down the robust rate of application seen over the past decade.The U.S. remains the top destination in the world for more than 1 million visiting students — hosting more than double the next country, the United Kingdom. But while 1.5 percent more students studied in the U.S. 

U.S. students are also in China (No. 7 most popular), Japan (No. 10) and South Korea (No. 20) where the virus has spread. In China, some international students left for winter break for destinations around the globe before the virus outbreak was widely acknowledged. Some students remain in Wuhan and other parts of China in lockdown for the past month.But Italy hosts nearly 37,000 American students, the most of any non-English speaking destination. Only the U.K. bests that amount with more than 39,000 American students.”For students who are coming back, we are not proceeding with quarantine at this time,” Aw said.”All students returning will be subject to airport screenings and are directed to adhere to CDC guidance. That guidance may change. We continue to monitor,” stated an email American University sent to parents Monday.Health experts have advised that the student population is not a favored target of the virus. Most deaths have been in people 60 and older who have underlying health issues, like heart and respiratory diseases. Four deaths in the U.S. state of Washington occurred in a nursing care facility, according to the Washington State Department of Health.The virus can be spread through sneezing and coughing, by feces and phlegm, say health experts. Carriers may be asymptomatic for two weeks or more before the virus is apparent. The first case was reported on December 31, 2019, in Wuhan, China, home to a cluster of universities where international students study.  “We understand that it is a difficult time, and information is coming fast,” Aw said. “We are asking folks to remain calm. … We all know this is developing, we’re keeping our ears to the ground, we have our key resources. At the end of the day, it is about the students.”
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U.S. security and intelligence officials are warning voters to expect foreign actors to try to sway their views as they prepare to go to the polls in a series of key presidential primaries.The warning, issued on the eve of Super Tuesday votes in 14 states and one territory, comes as a series of intelligence leaks in recent weeks suggested Russia, in particular, has been trying to put its mark on the upcoming U.S. presidential election.While the latest statement did not single out Russia, it urged voters to beware.“Foreign actors continue to try to influence public sentiment and shape voter perceptions,” it said. “They spread false information and propaganda about political processes and candidates on social media in hopes to cause confusion and create doubt in our system.”The warning from leaders of the departments of State, Defense, Homeland Security and Justice – with the FBI, the National Security Agency and other federal entities – added, “We remain alert and ready to respond to any efforts to disrupt the 2020 elections.”There has been growing concern in recent weeks following reports indicating Russia is seeking to bolster the reelection campaign of both President Donald Trump and a Democratic candidate, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.U.S. intelligence officials have since denied some of the allegations – based on leaks from a classified briefing to lawmakers – that there is any evidence Moscow is backing Trump’s reelection efforts.  But Sanders told reporters he was, in fact, warned about Russian meddling. And since then there has been an increasing number of calls from lawmakers and former U.S. intelligence officials for the government to clarify what is and is not transpiring.“The level of coordination and communication between the federal government and state, local and private sector partners is stronger than it’s ever been,” Tuesday’s statement said. “Our Departments and Agencies are working together in an unprecedented level of commitment and effort to protect our elections and to counter malign foreign influence.”The U.S. intelligence community concluded, following the 2018 elections, that Russia, Iran and China all sought to interfere.  Since then, numerous officials have warned those countries and others, even non-state actors, may try to meddle with the upcoming presidential elections.A good deal of concern has focused on influence campaigns, like those implemented by Russia on social media four years ago in the run-up to the last U.S. presidential election.“We believe that as they did in 2016 that they will try to influence the election in 2020,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told lawmakers last week.“They continue to sow discord with our elections,” he said, cautioning, “We don’t have any specific intelligence.”A report earlier this year from Estonia’s foreign intelligence service also warned meddling by the Kremlin was likely.“Russia wants to show that the West is failing to hold fair elections,” it said.But there are also concerns that Russia and others might target some of the U.S. voting infrastructure, such as each state’s voter registration database.”The areas where information is centralized and its highly networked, that’s where a lot of the risk is,” Chris Krebs, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) said at a security conference last week.”The American people need to understand that we are taking this seriously, we’re engaged on it, but 100% security is not going to be the outcome,” he added.In the meantime, there has also been growing political acrimony over the Trump administration’s response to election security.Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday slammed the administration for missing a deadline to report on election security and accused the president of “refusing to protect the integrity of our elections.”NEW: @SpeakerPelosi blasts @POTUS for missed deadline on #Election2020 security reportTrump, @senatemajldr “need to explain to the American ppl why they are refusing to protect the integrity of our elections…As I continue to say, with this President, all roads lead to #Putin” pic.twitter.com/m1MMpDY1wl— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) February 28, 2020Tuesday’s statement by U.S. security and intelligence officials, though, said systems are being secured and that any meddling will not go unpunished.“We continue to make it clear to foreign actors that any effort to undermine our democratic processes will be met with sharp consequences,” it warned.
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Two Chinese nationals have been charged by U.S. prosecutors with laundering more than $100 million worth of cryptocurrency that had been stolen by North Korean hackers in 2018.Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong face charges of money laundering, conspiracy and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, according to an indictment unsealed Monday.U.S. authorities say North Korean hackers stole nearly $250 million from a virtual currency exchange in 2018 before laundering the money through hundreds of transactions in order to make the theft difficult to trace. The hackers are allegedly behind the theft of about $50 million from a South Korean virtual currency exchange in 2019.  In addition to bringing criminal charges against Yinyin and Jiadong, prosecutors filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington to seize control of 113 virtual currency accounts and addresses that had been used by the duo and other co-conspirators.”Today’s actions underscore that the [Justice] Department will pierce the veil of anonymity provided by cryptocurrencies to hold criminals accountable, no matter where they are located,” assistant attorney general Brian A. Benczkowski said in a statement.  Yinyin and Jiadong operated virtual currency transmission services but conducted business in the United States without a permit from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.  
 
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As the reported number of coronavirus cases and fatalities on Monday increased in the United States, President Donald Trump said there is no immediate need to declare a national emergency.”I don’t think you’ll need that, because I really think we’re in extremely good shape,” the president said. “We’re prepared for anything. And we can always do that at a later date if we need it.”There have been media reports that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing for such a presidential declaration that would allow FEMA to get more funding and personnel to respond to the anticipated impact from the virus.The president attempted to put the coronavirus outbreak in perspective, noting that there are between 25,000 and 70,000 influenza diagnoses in the United States every year.”Here we’re talking about a much smaller range,” Trump said. “Hopefully, it stays that way.”There are about 100 known cases of the coronavirus in the United States.All six U.S. fatalities from the COVID-19 virus are in the northwestern state of Washington, where officials say the disease had been spreading undetected for about six weeks.Vaccine companiesTrump and members of his coronavirus task force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, met on Monday with top executives from 10 of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.The executives discussed production of what would be hundreds of millions of vaccine doses annually.President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, accompanied by members of the coronavirus task force, meet with pharmaceutical executives in the Cabinet Room of the White House, March 2, 2020.It is a “great challenge,” said the president, “but everyone’s responded very well.”The companies will combat the disease as a consortium, according to Pence.GlaxoSmithKline Chief Executive Emma Walmsley said her company is prepared to cooperate with others on a response to the virus.Pfizer’s president and chief scientific officer, Mikael Dolsten, says compounds have been identified by his company that have a high probability to be effective against COVID-19.   Inovio Pharmaceuticals CEO Joseph Kim said that “by end of this year” his company “could deliver one million doses” of a coronavirus vaccine.While Trump said that he is hearing a vaccine could be ready in several months, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, cautioned that it would not be ready to “deploy” for at least a year.”Vaccines have to be tested. There’s the potential for vaccines to make diseases worse,” cautioned Leonard Schleifer, chief executive officer of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.”Perhaps the government has to commit to purchasing a certain number of doses in advance before it becomes financially reasonable for a company to proceed and set up a manufacturing process,” William Scheffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told VOA.Trump said the pharmaceutical companies do not need federal money for vaccine development, but what they need is time.”Some of them are so rich they can actually loan money to the federal government,” he joked.’Uncharted territory’At a White House briefing for reporters led by Pence later in the day, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar cautioned that “the degree of risk has the potential to change quickly.”Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar talks with reporters about the coronavirus, at the White House, Feb. 28, 2020.Azar added that Americans should “prepare for the worst, hope for the best.”Earlier Monday, the director-general of the World Health Organization warned of the planet being in “uncharted territory” because it had never seen a “respiratory pathogen capable of community transmission.”Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus did express a note of optimism, saying, “We can still push this virus back” with the right measures.Global COVID-19 deaths have surpassed 3,000. Most of the fatalities are in China, but there are now far more new infections outside China than on the Chinese mainland.World stock markets Monday recovered some of their losses from deep drops last week that sent key indexes to their lowest levels since the 2008 financial crisis.VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
 
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Defense Secretary Mark Esper says he has given the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan the go-ahead to begin the initial withdrawal of U.S. troops.
    
Speaking at a Pentagon news conference Monday, Esper said he was not sure whether the drawdown had begun, but said it is required to start within 10 days of the signing on Saturday of a peace deal with the Taliban. Esper said Gen. Scott Miller, the U.S. commander in Kabul, has the authority to begin withdrawal of forces to about 8,600 from the current total of nearly 13,000.
    
“We are going to show good faith and begin withdrawing our troops,” Esper said.
    
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there is no expectation that violence in Afghanistan will “go to zero” quickly, following the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement announced on Saturday.
    
Esper said the U.S. expects violence will “taper off,” leading to a start by March 10 of peace negotiations among Afghan groups, including the Taliban.
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