Trump signals de-escalation on Iran

Washington, Mar 28: The world is in the face of a devastating impact due to the coronavirus pandemic and has clearly entered a recession, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday, but projected a recovery next year.

"We have reassessed the prospects for growth for 2020 and 2021. It is now clear that we have entered a recession as bad or worse than in 2009. We do project recovery in 2021," IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters at a news conference.

Georgieva was addressing the press after a meeting of governing body of the IMF, the International Monetary and Financial Committee. Representing 189 members, the body met virtually to discuss the unprecedented challenge posed to the world by COVID-19.

The key to recovery in 2021, she said, is only if the international community succeeds in containing the virus everywhere and prevent liquidity problems from becoming a solvency issue.

"The US is in recession, as is the rest of the advanced economies of the world. And in a big chunk of developed and emerging markets in developing economies. How severe? We are working now on our projections for 2020, Georgieva said in response to a question.

The new projections are expected in the next few weeks.

Stressing that while containment is the main reason for the economy to stand still and get into a recession, she said containment is very necessary to come out of this period and step in to recovery. "Until the virus is not contained, it would be very difficult to go to the lives we love."

"A key concern about a long-lasting impact of the sudden stop of the world economy is the risk of a wave of bankruptcies and layoffs that not only can undermine the recovery. But can erode the fabric of our societies," the IMF chief said.

To avoid this from happening, many countries have taken far-reaching measures to address the health crisis and to cushion its impact on the economy, both on the monetary and on the fiscal side, she said.

The IMF chief said 81 emergency financing requests, including 50 from lower-income countries, have been received. She said current estimate for the overall financial needs of emerging markets is 2.5 trillion dollars.

"We believe this is on the lower end. We do know that their own reserves and domestic resources will not be sufficient," she added.

The G-20, a day earlier, reported fiscal measures totalling some 5 trillion dollars or over 6 per cent of the global GDP.

Responding to another question, Georgieva said the IMF is projecting recession for 2020.

"We do expect it to be quite deep and we are very much urging countries to step up containment measures aggressively so we can shorten the duration of this period of time when the economy is in standstill," she said.

"And also to apply well-targeted measures, primarily focusing on the health system to absorb that enormous stress that comes from coronavirus. And on people, businesses and the financial system, I am very pleased to say that when we went through countries' responses, that sense of targeted fiscal measures is there and are also very impressive to see the size of these measures," she added.

"Countries are doing all they can on the fiscal and on the monetary front. We have heard from our members' very impressive decisions taken over the last days," the IMF chief said.

"We also want to caution that as we are responding now, we want to make the recession as possibly short and not too deep. We also want to think about what is going to follow the recovery and make sure that we are putting forward measures that can be supportive in this regard," she said.

Canberra, May 21: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, are looking forward to deepening the countries' strategic relationship, with both sides expected to sign a range of pacts from defence to trade in strategic sectors amid heightened tensions with China over Beijing's response to coronavirus pandemic.

During a virtual summit, scheduled to take place on June 4, both leaders are expected to ramp up efforts to diversify Australia's export markets and find trusted suppliers of vital products and components, a local newspaper, The Australian reported on Tuesday.

The new agreements will focus on reliable supply chains in key strategic sectors, including medical goods, technology and critical minerals, amid heightened tensions with China over Beijing's response to coronavirus pandemic.

The leaders will seal a new defence agreement allowing reciprocal access to bases and co-operation on military technology projects, while a new education partnership will be on the table to help overcome Australian university reliance on Chinese students.

The talks in terms of strategic convergence, now have greater significance as COVID-19 exacerbates the strategic contest between the US and China, and forces like-minded countries to seek out reliable partners.

Australian farmers could also benefit, with talks underway on expanding agricultural exports to India, including barley, as China throws up new trade barriers, media reports stated.

The virtual summit follows the cancellation of Morrison's planned state visit to India in January due to the bushfires.

Morrison said last year, ahead of his planned visit, that India was "a natural partner for Australia", referring to the countries' "shared values" -- a point of differentiation with China.

Former Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Peter Varghese, who wrote a landmark report on the bilateral relationship in 2018, was quoted by the newspaper as saying that India would be even more important to Australia in the post-COVID world. "If one of the lessons from COVID is that countries need to spread their risk, then finding new markets or building up existing markets is a crucial part of that," he added.

Varghese noted that India, a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue along with Australia, Japan and the US, was a vital strategic partner to Australia in helping "constrain China's ambitions to be the predominant power".

"That shared objective between Australia and India of not wanting to see the region dominated by China is a key component of building up our geopolitical relationship," he told The Australian.

The summit also follows recent talks between Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on the pandemic response and Australia's call for an independent inquiry, which was overwhelmingly backed at the World Health Assembly on Tuesday.

Australia wants to support India to develop a domestic critical minerals processing industry, which would provide Western nations with an alternative to sourcing the materials from China.

Meanwhile, India has strong expertise as a manufacturer of drugs and medical equipment, while Australia is a centre of biomedical research, opening the possibility for closer co-operation in the key sector, the media reported further.

Sao Paulo, June 20: Brazil’s government confirmed on Friday that the country has risen above 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, second only to the United States.

The country’s health ministry said that the total now stood at 10,32,913, up more than 50,000 from Thursday. The ministry said the sharp increase was due to corrections of previous days’ underreported numbers.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro still downplays the risks of the virus after nearly 50,000 deaths from COVID-19 in three months, saying the impact of social isolation measures on the economy could be worse than the disease itself.

Specialists believe the actual number of cases in Brazil could be up to seven times higher than the official statistic. Johns Hopkins University says Brazil is performing an average of 14 tests per 1,00,000 people each day, and health experts say that number is up to 20 times less than needed to track the virus.

Official data show a downward trend of the virus in Brazil’s north, including the hard-hit region of the Amazon, a plateau in cases and deaths in the countries’ biggest cities near the Atlantic coast, but a rising curve in the south.

In the Brazilian countryside, which is much less prepared to handle a crisis, the pandemic is clearly growing. Many smaller cities have weaker health care systems and basic sanitation that’s insufficient to prevent contagion.

“There is a lot of regional inequality in our public health system and a shortage of professionals in the interior,” said Miguel Lago, executive director of Brazil’s Institute for Health Policy Studies, which advises public health officials.

That creates many health care deserts, with people going long distances to get attention. When they leave the hospital, the virus can go with them.

The cattle-producing state of Mato Grosso was barely touched by the virus when it hit the nation’s biggest cities in March. Sitting far from the coast, between the Bolivian border and Brazil’s capital of Brasilia, its 33 lakh residents led a mostly normal life until May. But now its people live under lockdown and meat producers have dozens of infected workers.

In Tangará da Serra, a city of 1,03,000 people in Mato Grosso, the mayor decided Friday to forbid the sale of alcoholic drinks for two weeks as an incentive for people to stay home.

Fᢩo Junqueira said the measure was needed after a spike in COVID-19 cases that filled 80% of the city’s 54 intensive care beds. The city has had nearly 300 cases of the disease, plus three fatalities.

In Rondonópolis, only 300 miles away from Tangará da Serra and home to a thriving economy, health authorities closed the local meatpacking industry after 92 cases were confirmed there. The city of 1,44,000 inhabitants counted 21 deaths from the virus and more than 600 cases. The mayor has also decided to limit sales of alcoholic beverages.

Even regions once considered examples of successful efforts against the virus are now struggling.

Porto Alegre, home to about 14 lakh people, had success in slowing the virus’ spread over the last three months. But now its mayor is considering increasing social isolation measures after ICU occupancy in the city jumped to 80% this month.

We were already making projections for schools to come back, Mayor Nelson Marchezan Jr. told The Associated Press. Now the trend is to impose more restrictions. Outside Sao Paulo city, five regions of the state’s countryside will have to close shops starting Monday due to a rise in coronavirus cases. Governor João Doria announced the decision Friday.

Dr. Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s executive director, said at a news conference that Brazil needs to increase its efforts to stop the spread of infections.

“The epidemic is still quite severe in Brazil. I believe health workers are working extremely hard and under pressure to be able to deal with the number of cases that they see on a daily basis,” Dr. Ryan said.

“Certainly the rise is not as exponential as it was previously, so there are some signs that the situation is stabilising. But we’ve seen this before in other epidemics in other countries.”

Margareth Dalcolmo, a clinical researcher and professor of respiratory medicine at the state-funded Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, believes the reopening in major cities and the virus traveling by road into Brazil’s heartland will keep the pressure on the country’s health system.

“The risk in the interior now is very big,” she said. “Our health system just can’t solve the most serious cases of COVID in many places of the countryside.”