Page 2 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
July 6, 2020
South Korea weighs listing churches as “high risk”
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea is considering including religious
facilities on the same list with nightclubs, hostess bars, and karaoke rooms
as “high risk” venues for the spread of COVID-19 following a slew of
transmissions tied to church gatherings. South Korean Prime Minister
Chung Sye-kyun said during a recent virus meeting that more than 40% of the
country’s newly confirmed infections late in June were traced back to places of
worship. He pleaded with people to refrain from religious gatherings and
criticized churches and other facilities for failing to implement proper
preventive measures, such as requiring followers to wear masks and sit apart
during services. “If religious facilities continue to be an environment for
infections by failing to implement anti-virus measures, it will be inevitable for
the government to designate (them) as high-risk facilities and enforce strong
restrictions,” Chung said. High-risk facilities are advised to close or otherwise
must enforce anti-virus measures, including distancing, temperature checks,
keeping customer lists, and requiring employees and visitors to wear masks.
They are also required to register visitors with smartphone QR codes so they
could be easily located when needed.
100s of unpaid soccer players seek help from FIFA fund
ZURICH (AP) — A $16 million Fédération Internationale de Football
Association (FIFA) fund to pay soccer players whose clubs disbanded leaving
wages unpaid has had 441 applications. FIFA said 89% of cases, more than 390
players, involved European clubs and the other 11% were spread worldwide.
The fund was launched in February with the global group of players’
unions, FIFPro, which warned that some clubs closed down to avoid paying
wages then re-started as a new operation. FIFA and FIFPro said the money
could be “an important safety net” though it was unable to cover all
salaries owed. FIFA set aside $5 million for retrospective claims dating from
July 2015 to the end of June. A further $11 million is allocated for the next three
years.
India bans dozens of Chinese apps, citing security reasons
NEW DELHI (AP) — India has banned 59 apps with Chinese links, saying
their activities endanger the country’s sovereignty, defense, and security.
India’s decision came as its troops are involved in a tense standoff with Chinese
soldiers in eastern Ladakh in the Himalayas that started in May. India lost 20
soldiers in a June 15 clash. The banned apps include TikTok, UC Browser
WeChat, and Bigo Live, as well as e-commerce platforms Club Factory and
Shein, that are used in mobile and non-mobile devices connected to the internet,
according to a government statement. It said there have been mounting
concerns about data security and safeguarding the privacy of 1.3 billion Indians.
The government said such concerns also pose a threat to sovereignty and
security of the country. “The Ministry of Information Technology has received
many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of
some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and
surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers
which have locations outside India,” the statement said. The compilation of
these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security, and
the defense of India was “a matter of very deep and immediate concern which
requires emergency measures,” the statement said.
Indonesia cancels hajj pilgrimage due to coronavirus
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s government decided not to
participate in this year’s hajj pilgrimage because of the coronavirus outbreak,
an official confirmed in early June. Indonesia, the world’s most populous
Muslim nation, normally sends the largest contingent to the pilgrimage to
Islam’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. It was expected to
send 221,000 pilgrims this year. Razi said pilgrimages held during past disease
outbreaks resulted in tragedies in which tens of thousands of people became
victims. “In 1814 for example, when the Thaun outbreak occurred, also in 1837
and 1858 there was an epidemic outbreak, cholera outbreak in 1892, and during
the meningitis outbreak in 1987,” he said. Indonesia has more than 63,000
coronavirus cases, including more than 3,100 deaths.
Workers killed in pharmaceutical plant gas leak
HYDERABAD, India (AP) — At least two workers were killed and four others
sickened by a gas that leaked from a pharmaceutical plant in an Indian
industrial city where another fatal gas leak occurred about two months ago.
“The fire brigade immediately reached the scene and plugged the leak,” police
commissioner Rajeev Kumar Meena said of the incident that occurred around
2:00am at the Sainor Life Sciences pharmaceutical plant in Visakhapatnam in
India’s Andhra Pradesh state. The injured workers were hospitalized and in
stable condition, authorities said. Benzimedazole, a chemical compound found
in many antifungal and antiparasitic drugs that contains cancer-causing
benzene, was released in a gas form, Meena said. An investigation was ordered
to establish the cause of the leak. In May, another industrial accident in the
same city killed 12 people, and about 1,000 others were hospitalized due to
exposure from the gas in the community around a plastics factory. Styrene gas
leaked from the LG Polymers’ plant in Visakhapatnam as workers restarted the
plant after a six-week coronavirus lockdown ended. The latest incident is likely
to add more grist to local public demand for closure or shifting of hazardous
industries outside city limits.
COVID CASUALTIES. A Sri Lankan Telugu man, Timmannage Saman, feeds two infant monkeys outside his home in
Nachchikulama, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s Telugu community, whose nomadic lifestyle has increasingly clashed with the mod-
ern world, is facing another threat that could hasten its decline: the COVID-19 pandemic. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)
Sri Lanka Telugu community
fears decline of traditional ways
By Eranga Jayawardena
The Associated Press
UDAGAMA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s
Telugu community, whose nomadic
lifestyle has increasingly clashed with
the modern world, is facing another threat
that could hasten its decline: the COVID-19
pandemic.
Members of the smallest ethnic community
in the country who speak the Telugu language
of South Indian origin did not have permanent
addresses until 1981, when the government
built them villages from where they travelled
to make money by staging snake and monkey
performances and offering palm readings.
Such shows attract foreign tourists, who
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take pictures with pythons and cobras.
“Now we can’t practice our job. Police and
public health inspectors have told us not to get
out of the village,” said Engatennage Podi
Mahattaya, the village headman.
“Even if we get out, people are not attracted
to us as they used to be,” he said. “They fear
contracting the disease from us. Our
movements are completely ceased as people do
not allow us to get into their villages.”
These days, the younger generation spurns
the old ways. Many young men prefer manual
labor to snake charming that typically earns a
person 3,000 rupees (about $16) a day.
The older members of the community say
the pause in the traditional livelihoods due to
COVID-19 will only accelerate their decline.
Father advocates for daughter, others abducted to North Korea dies
By Mari Yamaguchi
The Associated Press
OKYO — Shigeru Yokota, a Japanese
campaigner for the return of his
daughter and more than a dozen others
who were abducted to North Korea in the
1970s, has died. He was 87 years old.
His family said Yokota died of natural
causes in a hospital in Kawasaki, near Tokyo,
before he was able to meet his daughter again.
“My husband and I did our best together, but
he passed before seeing Megumi again. Now
I’m at a loss,” his wife Sakie, 84, said in a
statement.
Megumi disappeared in 1977 on her way
home from her a junior high school in Niigata
on Japan’s northern coast when she was 13. It
was the day after she gave her father a comb as
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a birthday gift, a memento he always carried
with him.
A former Central Bank official, Yokota and
his wife kept looking for Megumi and found out
20 years later that she had been abducted to
North Korea by its agents.
In 1997, Yokota founded a group with other
abduction victims’ families and headed it for a
decade. The smiling and soft-spoken Yokota
became the face of the campaign that
eventually gained government backing.
The Yokotas had travelled around Japan
carrying their daughter’s photos. An image of
an innocent-looking teenager in a school
uniform became a rallying cry for their cause.
After years of denial, North Korea in 2002
acknowledged abducting 13 Japanese. Japan
maintains that the North abducted at least 17
Continued on page 3
Asian Currency
Exchange Rates
Units per U.S. dollar as of 7/03
Bangladesh Taka· ·
Cambodian Riel · ·
China Renminbi · ·
Fijian Dollar · · · ·
Hong Kong Dollar ·
Indian Rupee · · · ·
Indonesian Rupiah ·
Iranian Rial · · · ·
Japanese Yen · · ·
Laos New Kip · · ·
Malaysian Ringgit ·
Nepal Rupee · · · ·
Pakistani Rupee · ·
Papua N.G. Kina · ·
Philippine Peso· · ·
Russian Ruble · · ·
Saudi Riyal· · · · ·
Singapore Dollar · ·
South Korean Won ·
Sri Lankan Rupee ·
Taiwan Dollar · · ·
Thai Baht · · · · ·
Vietnam Dong · · ·
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84.84
4099.5
7.066
2.1263
7.75
74.634
14512
42025
107.52
9017.1
4.285
120.06
166.4
3.472
49.482
71.446
3.7502
1.3941
1199.3
185.94
29.438
31.1
23193