JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Pemerintah di dalam Perppu No 1 tahun 2020 akan memungut pajak digital kepada perusahaan-perusahaan yang melakukan transaksi elektronik seperti Netflix dan Zoom.
Menteri Keuangan Sri Mulyani Indrawati pun memaparkan keputusan untuk memungut pajak transaksi elektronik dilakukan lantaran virus corona meningkatkan pergerakan transaksi elektronik. Sebab, banyak orang yang melakukan kegiatan di rumah dan tidak melakukan mobilitas fisik.
"Ini untuk menjaga basis pajak pemerintah. Untuk menjaga basis pajak pemerintah, terutama seperti hari ini menggunakan Zoom, atau Netflix. Perusahaan-perusahaan tersebut tidak ada di Indonesia, sehingga tidak mungkin dikenai pajak. Namun demikian pergerakan ekonomi (karena perusahaan-perusahaan tersebut) sangat besar," ujar Bendahara Negara di Jakarta, Rabu (1/4/2020).
Memberi Dampak Ekonomi
Adapun aturan mengenai pemungutan pajak untuk kegiatan elektronik diatur di dalam pasal (6) yang menyatakan pemerintah akan memungut pajak dari kegiatan perdagangan melalui sistem elektronik (PMSE) dari subjek pajak luar negeri yang memenuhi ketentuan kehadiran ekonomi signifikan.
Ketentuan kehadiran ekonomi signifikan sebagaimana dimaksud pada ayat (6) berupa peredaran bruto konsolidasi grup usaha sampai dengan jumlah tertentu, penjualan di Indonesia sampai dengan jumlah tertentu, dan/atau pengguna aktif media digital di Indonesia sampai dengan jumlah tertentu.
Sebelumnya, aturan mengenai pajak digital masuk ke dalam Omnibus Law Perpajakan yang di awal tahun telah diserahkan pemerintah kepada DPR.
"Ini memberikan basis kepada pajak untuk mampu melakukan pemungutan dan juga penyetoran PPN atas barang impor tidak berwujud dan juga untuk jasa platform luar negeri. Juga untuk subjek pajak luar negeri yang didefisinisikan memiliki significant economic presence di Indonesia," jelas Sri Mulyani.
Jakarta, CNN Indonesia -- Pemerintah menyisihkan anggaran untuk memberikan listrik gratis kepada masyarakat di tengah dampak sosial dan ekonomi dari pandemi virus corona. Setruman listrik dari PLN secara cuma-cuma ini tidak dapat dinikmati seluruh masyarakat.
Berikut CNNIndonesia.com rangkuman syarat dan ketentuan bagi penerima manfaat listrik gratis.
Pertama, listrik gratis hanya dapat dinikmati oleh golongan pelanggan dengan kapasitas daya listrik 450 Volt Ampere (VA). Data PT PLN (Persero) mencatat terdapat 24 juta pelanggan listrik 450 VA yang merupakan masyarakat golongan menengah ke bawah.
Presiden Joko Widodo (Jokowi) berharap listrik gratis dapat membantu masyarakat ekonomi bawah untuk berjuang melawan dampak ekonomi virus corona. Kedua, untuk pelanggan listrik dengan daya 900 VA bersubsidi akan diberikan diskon sebesar 50 persen. Pelanggan golongan ini berjumlah kurang lebih 7 juta pelanggan.
"Artinya hanya bayar separuh untuk April,Mei, dan Juni 2020" ujarnya Jokowi, Selasa (31/1).
Ketiga, fasilitas listrik gratis bagi pelanggan 450 VA dan diskon separuh harga bagi golongan 900 VA bersubsidi hanya berlaku selama 3 bulan terhitung mulai April, Mei, hingga Juni 2020.
PLN menyatakan siap mendukung kebijakan pemerintah menggratiskan tarif listrik bagi 24 juta pelanggan dengan daya 450 VA. Mereka juga menyatakan siap memberikan diskon harga 50 persen bagi 7 Juta pelanggan dengan daya 900 VA bersubsidi.
Direktur Utama PLN Zulkifli Zaini mengatakan tarif gratis dan keringanan tarif tersebut akan berlaku selama tiga bulan, yakni April, Mei, dan Juni 2020.
"Kebijakan pembebasan tagihan untuk pelanggan 450 VA dan keringanan tarif listrik 50 persen tersebut sudah dibicarakan dan dikoordinasikan dengan PLN," tandasnya.
Seiring dengan merebaknya penyebaran Covid-19 di Indonesia, tentunya semua pihak perlu melakukan berbagai tindakan guna mencegah meluasnya penyebaran Covid-19.Dalam rangka menindaklanjuti Surat Edaran Direktur Jenderal Perhubungan Laut Kementerian Perhubungan Nomor SE 13 Tahun 2020 tentang Pembatasan Penumpang di Kapal, Angkutan Logistik dan Pelayanan Pelabuhan Selama Masa Darurat Penanggulangan Bencana Covid-19, Kantor Kesyahbandaran dan Otoritas Pelabuhan (KSOP) Kelas I Panjang mengeluarkan Surat Edaran tentang Penanggulangan Bencana Covid-19.
"Bagi kapal yang sandar, seluruh kru baik Kapal Asing maupun Kapal Domestik selama berada di Wilayah Kerja Pelabuhan Panjang tidak diizinkan turun dari kapal, seluruh kebutuhan awak kapal diakomodir oleh agen pelayaran yang diizinkan masuk kapal setelah mendapatkan pernyataan (declare) sehat oleh petugas Kantor Kesehatan dan Karantina Pelabuhan dan bagi petugas di lapangan agar selalu menjaga jarak aman (physical distancing)," ujar Kepala KSOP Kelas I Panjang, Andi Hartono dalam keterangan tertulis, Rabu (01/4/2020).
Andi mengatakan hal tersebut saat menerima kunjungan kerja Anggota Komisi IV DPRD Provinsi Lampung di Pelabuhan Pelindo II Cabang Panjang, Selasa (31/3). Andi juga menjelaskan dalam Surat Edaran diatur berbagai protokol yang wajib dipatuhi oleh seluruh stakeholder bidang maritim, baik sisi pelayaran maupun penyelenggaraan pelabuhan.
"Saya minta agar seluruh pimpinan dan pengelola Badan Usaha Pelabuhan (BUP), Terminal Untuk Kepentingan Sendiri (TUKS), Terminal Khusus (Tersus), pelaku usaha serta asosiasi bidang maritim untuk membentuk Satuan Tugas Penanganan Covid-19 secara mandiri dan menyiapkan sarana maupun prasarana penanggulangan bencana Covid-19 sesuai protokol yang telah ditetapkan," jelasnya.
Adapun berbagai protokol yang diatur dalam Surat Edaran tersebut adalah kewajiban pemenuhan penggunaan Alat Pelindung Diri (APD) kesehatan minimal berupa masker dan sarung tangan, serta penyediaan alat pendeteksi suhu tubuh (termometer).
Selanjutnya, Andi mengatakan bahwa protokol lainnya yang diatur yaitu dengan menjamin penyediaan tempat mencuci tangan dengan air yang mengalir lengkap dengan sabun pencuci tangan serta cairan pembersih (Alcohol based rub/hand sanitizer), penyemprotan cairan disinfektan secara berkala di lingkungan kerja masing-masing, serta melaporkan kepada Kepala KSOP Kelas I Panjang apabila ada yang terjangkit Covid-19.
Hal yang sama juga diungkapkan oleh General Manager PT. Pelindo II Cabang Panjang, Drajat Sulistio yang juga hadir saat menerima kunjungan kerja Anggota Komisi IV DPRD Provinsi Lampung.
"Ini merupakan komitmen kami bersama selaku insan maritim, untuk itu sebagai operator pelabuhan tentunya kami siap menjalankan Surat Edaran ini," katanya.
Drajat mengatakan bahwa pihaknya telah menyiapkan ruang isolasi jika ada kasus yang terkena Covid-19. "Kami telah siapkan di dua lokasi baik di sisi pelabuhan maupun di lingkungan Kantor IPC Panjang," katanya.
Selain itu, Drajat juga menjelaskan seluruh pelayanannya telah menggunakan sistem digital dalam jaringan (online). Sehingga kantornya pun menutup dari kunjungan para pengguna jasa demi menjaga physical distancing.
Andi berharap dengan diberlakukannya Surat Edaran Kepala KSOP Kelas I Panjang ini, maka kesiapan Pelabuhan Panjang dalam mencegah dan menekan penyebaran Covid-19 akan semakin baik lagi. Sehingga operasional Pelabuhan Panjang tetap berjalan optimal guna menjaga stabilitas arus logistik nasional.
Virus corona atau Covid-19 telah merusak sebagian kehidupan normal manusia. Sebab wabah itu kini telah menampakkan malapetaka pada ekonomi, pemerintahan dan masyarakat di abad ke-21, melansir The Washington Examiner, Rabu (1/4/2020).
Hal itu berbeda dengan Korea Utara karena negara yang dipimpin diktator Kim Jong-un akan mendapatkan ide. Pada gilirannya, Pyongyang sekarang memandang bioweapons (senjata biologi) sebagai alat yang mengesankan untuk memeras pihak lain.
Alasan strategis Kim Jong-un terletak pada kepastian kelangsungan hidup rezim jangka panjang dalam kondisi peningkatan kenyamanan ekonomi domestik. Hasilnya, Amerika Serikat enggan menggunakan kekuatannya untuk melawan Korea Utara, dan kelanjutan pemberian bantuan ekonomi dari komunitas internasional.
Covid-19 telah menunjukkan kepada rezim itu bahwa ia dapat mencapai tujuannya tanpa mengandalkan senjata nuklir sebagai alat pemerasan satu-satunya.
Bioweapons bisa digunakan secara signifikan untuk uang investasi. Dengan cara itu nuklir tidak bisa.
Sementara keadaan saat ini dari program senjata biologi Korea Utara sedang diperdebatkan, kita tahu bahwa Pyongyang mempertahankan kompetensi ilmuwan dan laboratorium penelitian dan pengembangan, dan stok dari agen-agen penyampaian senjata. Timbunan ini kemungkinan termasuk cacar, antraks, dan wabah hitam.
Menambah kekhawatiran di sini adalah kemajuan penelitian genetika dan peluang terkait untuk pemurnian bioagen.
Evolusi ilmiah ini memungkinkan para ilmuwan untuk memanipulasi kode genetik virus dan penyakit agar lebih menular atau mematikan dan lebih tahan terhadap antivirus dan antibiotik.
Yang membuat keadaan menjadi lebih buruk, infrastruktur kamp konsentrasi besar-besaran rezim Korea Utara dan penghinaan terhadap hak asasi manusia berarti bahwa ia memiliki banyak kesempatan untuk menguji bioagen baru pada subyek manusia.
Tentu saja, itu tidak cukup bagi rezim diktator muda itu untuk melakukan penelitian dan pengembangan. Dia harus menerjemahkan pekerjaan itu menjadi ancaman yang menghasilkan konsesi baru dari komunitas internasional. Tapi bagaimana caranya?
Jakarta, CNN Indonesia -- Presenter Andy Cohen membagikan kabar dirinya telah pulih dari Covid-19 dan langsung berkumpul kembali bersama putranya, Benjamin, yang masih berusia satu tahun.
"Saya menyelenggarakan reunian selama bertahun-tahun, namun kemarin adalah yang terbaik," kata Cohen dalam unggahan foto di akun media sosialnya.
Foto itu menunjukkan Benjamin menatap dan memegang pundak Cohen, setelah 12 hari mengisolasi diri juga menjaga jarak dengan orang lain karena terinfeksi virus corona Covid-19.
Cohen mengisahkan lebih lanjut soal reuni dirinya dengan putranya tersebut melalui sesi siaran Radio Andy di SiriusXM. Menurut Cohen, pertemuan dirinya dengan anaknya itu amat emosional.
"Itu amatlah manis," kata Cohen. "Mulutnya terbuka lebar dengan gembira. Dia jelas benar-benar senang,"
Pekan lalu, dalam wawancara dengan Jeff Lewis dari SiriusXM, Cohen menyebut bahwa terpisah dari putranya adalah perjuangan terberat melawan virus corona Covid-19.
"Saya akan memberi tahu apa yang saya tahu dari kamera pengasuh dan dari video, karena saya tidak dapat menemuinya, yang mana menjadi bagian terburuk dari semua ini," kata Cohen.
"Namun dia sehat dan pengasuhnya negatif," lanjutnya.
Pada Senin (30/3), Andy Cohen juga mulai kembali beraktivitas lewat Radio Andy dan mengakui kondisi kala itu sudah merasa membaik.
Dia mengisahkan dua dokter telah memberikan persetujuan kepadanya untuk menemui Benjamin pada Minggu (29/3). Namun ia sengaja menambah satu hari demi keamanan putra sematawayangnya itu.
Cohen mengatakan dia butuh 10-11 hari untuk pulih dari virus corona Covid-19, dan dia mengaku banyak mengonsumsi Tylenol dan vitamin C, banyak minum air, dan menyaksikan Game of Thrones berkali-kali.
Tylenol merupakan merk obat pengurang rasa sakit dan demam, meringankan gejala alergi, salesma, sakit kepala, dan influenza. Bahan aktif obat ini adalah parasetamol atau yang dikenal sebagai asetaminofen di Amerika Serikat.
Andy Cohen juga merekomendasikan pendengarnya untuk memeriksakan kandungan oksigen dalam darah melalui oximeter. "Jadi, itulah tips dari saya, pastikan kalian punya Tylenol dan oximeter jikalau mengalami penyakit ini." katanya, dikutip dari ET. (end)
According to a popular view, creativity is a product of the brain's right hemisphere -- innovative people are considered "right-brain thinkers" while "left-brain thinkers" are thought to be analytical and logical. Neuroscientists who are skeptical of this idea have argued that there is not enough evidence to support this idea and an ability as complex as human creativity must draw on vast swaths of both hemispheres. A new brain-imaging study out of Drexel University's Creativity Research Lab sheds light on this controversy by studying the brain activity of jazz guitarists during improvisation.
The study, which was recently published in the journal NeuroImage, showed that creativity is, in fact, driven primarily by the right hemisphere in musicians who are comparatively inexperienced at improvisation. However, musicians who are highly experienced at improvisation rely primarily on their left hemisphere. This suggests that creativity is a "right-brain ability" when a person deals with an unfamiliar situation but that creativity draws on well-learned, left-hemisphere routines when a person is experienced at the task.
By taking into consideration how brain activity changes with experience, this research may contribute to the development of new methods for training people to be creative in their field. For instance, when a person is an expert, his or her performing is produced primarily by relatively unconscious, automatic processes that are difficult for a person to consciously alter, but easy to disrupt in the attempt, as when self-consciousness causes a person to "choke" or falter.
In contrast, novices' performances tend to be under deliberate, conscious control. Thus, they are better able to make adjustments according to instructions given by a teacher or coach. Recordings of brain activity could reveal the point at which a performer is ready to release some conscious control and rely on unconscious, well-learned routines. Releasing conscious control prematurely may cause the performer to lock-in bad habits or nonoptimal technique.
The study was led by David Rosen, PhD, a recent Drexel doctoral graduate and current co-founder and chief operations officer of Secret Chord Laboratories, a music-technology startup company; and John Kounios, PhD, professor of psychology and director of the doctoral program in applied and cognitive brain sciences in Drexel's College of Arts and Sciences.
The team recorded high-density electroencephalograms (EEGs) from 32 jazz guitar players, some of whom were highly experienced and others less experienced. Each musician improvised to six jazz lead sheets (songs) with programmed drums, bass and piano accompaniment. The 192 recorded jazz improvisations (six jazz songs by 32 participants) were subsequently played for four expert jazz musicians and teachers individually so they could rate each for creativity and other qualities.
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The researchers compared the EEGs recorded during highly rated performances with EEGs recorded during performances that were rated to be less creative. For highly rated performances compared with less-creative performances, there was greater activity in posterior left-hemisphere areas of the brain; for performances with lower ratings compared with those with higher ratings, there was greater activity in right-hemisphere, mostly frontal, areas.
By themselves, these results might suggest that highly creative performances are associated with posterior left-hemisphere areas and that less-creative performances are associated with right-hemisphere areas. This pattern is misleading, however, according to the researchers, because it does not take experience of the musician into consideration.
Some of these musicians were highly experienced, having given many public performances over decades. Other musicians were much less experienced, having given only a very small number of public performances. When the researchers reanalyzed the EEGs to statistically control for the level of experience of the performers, a very different pattern of results emerged. Virtually all of the brain-activity differences between highly creative and less-creative performances were found in the right hemisphere, mostly in the frontal region.
This finding is in line with the team's other research that used electrical stimulation to study how creative expression is generated in musicians' brains and its study of how experienced and inexperienced jazz musicians reacted to being exhorted to play "even more creatively."
The new study reveals the brain areas that support creative musical improvisation for highly experienced musicians and their less-experienced counterparts and addresses the controversial question of the roles of the left and right hemispheres in creativity. Furthermore, it raises an important issue that goes to the heart of the definition and understanding of creativity.
"If creativity is defined in terms of the quality of a product, such as a song, invention, poem or painting, then the left hemisphere plays a key role," said Kounios. "However, if creativity is understood as a person's ability to deal with novel, unfamiliar situations, as is the case for novice improvisers, then the right hemisphere plays the leading role."
The study, "Dual-Process Contributions to Creativity in Jazz Improvisations: An SPM-EEG Study" was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. It was published in the journal NeuroImage. Co-authors included Yongtaek Oh, doctoral student; Brian Erickson, post-doctoral researcher; Fengqing (Zoe) Zhang, PhD; and Youngmoo Kim, PhD, of Drexel.
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Kinerja Indeks Harga Saham Gabungan ditutup menguat pada perdagangan Selasa kemarin (31/3/2020) ke level 4.538,93 poin atau naik 2,82%. Kinerja bursa saham domestik hari ini akan memperhitungkan dampak stimulus yang disampaikan Presiden Joko Widodo.
Kemarin Presiden Joko Widodo (Jokowi) mengumumkan adanya tambahan belanja dan pembiayaan APBN 2020 untuk penanganan covid-19 sebesar Rp 405,1 triliun.
Anggaran sebesar Rp 405,1 truliun tersebut akan digunakan untuk Rp 75 triliun dana kesehatan, Rp 110 triliun untuk jaring pengaman sosial atau sosial safety net (SSN), Rp 70,1 triliun untuk insentif perpajakan, dan stimulus kredit usaha rakyat.
Pada perdagangan kemarin transaksi mencapai Rp 7,55 triliun dengan investor asing melakukan aksi jual bersih Rp 286,94 miliar di pasar reguler dan non-reguler.
Sebelum memulai perdagangan hari ini, Rabu (1/4/2020) ada baiknya mencermati saham-saham pilihan broker yang dirangkum CNBC Indonesia:
1. MNC Sekuritas - IHSG Potensi Terkoreksi
Selama IHSG tidak terkoreksi ke bawah 3.911, maka koreksi IHSG hanya untuk membentuk wave 2 dengan level koreksi diperkirakan berada pada area 4.080-4.200.
Namun, tetap waspadai area 3.911, bila IHSG terkoreksi menembus area tersebut maka IHSG akan membentuk wave (5) dari wave [C] menuju area koreksi minimal 3.800-3.850 dan ideal 3.450-3.500.
Saham pilihan:
ICBP
INCO
EXCL
BRPT
2. Panin Sekuritas - Kabar Baik dari China
Kabar baik dari China membuat IHSG terangkat kembali. Panin memperkirakan, hari ini IHSG akan bergerak cenderung menguat pada rentang 4.400 hingga 4.760. Posisi IHSG yang menguat pada akhir Maret menjadi indikasi bagus technical rebound di bulan April, hal ini terlihat dari indikator MACD sudah golden cross namun IHSG masih di bawah resistance MA20.
Saham pilihan:
ADRO
INDY
PTBA
UNVR
3. Valbury Sekuritas - Bank Dunia Pangkas PDB RI
Prediksi dari Bank Dunia terhadap perkiraan pertumbuhan ekonomi Indonesia yang dapat turun tajam tahun ini serta dana stimulus dalam menangani covid-19 Indonesia relatif kecil, menjadi pandangan negatif bagi pasar, dan dapat menjadi sinyalemen kurang bagus bagi investor ke pasar saham Indonesia, yang akan terdampak bagi IHSG.
Saham pilihan:
ASII
TLKM
GGRM
SMGR
4. Indosurya Sekuritas - Momentum Koreksi Wajar
IHSG terlihat sedang melewati fase kenaikannya yang masih bersifat teknikal rebound, fluktuasi harga komoditas serta nilai tukar Rupiah masih akan turut mewarnai pergerakan IHSG.
Momentum koreksi wajar masih dapat dimanfaatkan oleh investor untuk melakukan akumulasi pembelian dengan target jangka menengah hingga panjang, hari ini IHSG berpotensi melemah pada kisaran 4.220 - 4.628
SEMARANG, KOMPAS.com - Muyin adalah salah satu dari empat pasien di Semarang, Jawa Tengah yang dinyatakan sembuh setelah sebelumnya dinyatakan positif virus corona.
Muyin pemuda asal Rembang ini mengaku terinfeksi corona setelah ia pulang bekerja sebagai buruh proyek di Bali.
Sebelumnya, ia mengeluhkan gejala yang terindikasi corona seperti demam, batuk dan sesak napas.
“Pulang dari Bali, sampai rumah badan saya terasa panas dingin, batuk, dan napas terasa sesak. Dibawa ke RS di Rembang tidak bisa menangani terus dirujuk ke RSUD KRMT Wongsonegoro Semarang,” katanya saat konferensi pers di RSUD KRMT Wongsonegoro Semarang, Selasa (31/3/2020).
Berbeda dengan pasien sembuh bernama Sutan Baiti asal Kaliwungu Kendal.
Perempuan yang berprofesi sebagai perawat ini awal terinfeksi corona setelah melakukan kontak dengan pasien positif corona saat di RS Colombia Semarang.
"Awalnya memang enggak terasa apa-apa cuman pilek saja dan tenggorokan enggak enak. Karena lagi musim corona jadi saya agak parno gitu daripada nanti kalau positif membahayakan keluarga, saya inisiatif saja periksa di rumah sakit tempat saya kerja. Ternyata pas diperiksa hasil lab infeksi virus tapi belum tau itu virus apa. Lalu saya dirujuk ke RSUD KRMT Wongsonegoro," ceritanya.
Selain itu, pasien sembuh lainnya bernama Lastri warga Susukan Kabupaten Semarang juga turut bercerita tentang pengalamannya bagaimana ia bisa terjangkit corona.
Lastri mengaku, usai pulang dari Bali tubuhnya terasa lemas dan tulang terasa begitu sakit.
Ia sempat dirawat di UGD RS Ken Saras Kabupaten Semarang namun akhirnya dirujuk ke RSUD KRMT Wongsonegoro.
Jakarta, CNN Indonesia -- Mantan Menteri Perindustrian dan Perdagangan era Soeharto sekaligus pengusaha Mohammad (Bob Hasan) meninggal dunia pada usia 89 tahun pada Selasa (31/3). Bob diketahui mengidap penyakit kanker dan telah menjalani perawatan secara intensif sejak tiga bulan terakhir.
Bob Hasan, pria kelahiran Semarang, Jawa Tengah 1931 silam memang memiliki darah pengusaha. Ia dilahirkan dari keluarga pedagang tembakau asal Negeri Tirai Bambu China.
Pria yang memiliki nama asli The Kian Seng sendiri dikenal sebagai pengusaha kayu tersohor saat rezim orde baru berkuasa. Kiprah Bob dalam usaha perkayuan Indonesia sendiri dimulai sejak masa orde baru berkuasa.
Bob, yang dikenal sebagai anak angkat Wakil Kepala Staf TNI Angkatan Darat ke-2, Jendral (Purn) Gatot Subroto itu diketahui dekat dengan penguasa Orde Baru, Soeharto. Bahkan, Bob disebut-sebut sebagai salah satu kroni Soeharto paling berpengaruh saat rezim orde baru berkuasa di Indonesia 32 tahun lamanya. Hubungan itu nampak pada awal Soeharto menjabat sebagai presiden. Kala itu Bob dipercaya untuk mengelola konsesi kayu di Indonesia. Ia bahkan menjadi agen tunggal bagi perusahaan-perusahaan asing yang ingin menanamkan modalnya di sektor kehutanan di luar Pulau Jawa.
Kiprahnya sebagai pengusaha kayu makin moncer. Ia mendirikan Kayumanis Group pada tahun 1970-an dengan nilai bisnis 3 Miliar US$ pada kurs rupiah kala itu. Melalui perusahaan itu, Bob pernah memegang hak pengusahaan hutan (HPH) seluas 2 juta hektare kala itu.
Ia pun lantas dijuluki sebagai 'Raja Kayu' Indonesia. Tak berhenti sampai di situ, Bob turut mendirikan Asosiasi Panel Kayu Lapis Indonesia (Apkindo) yang beranggotakan 108 perusahaan di bidang perkayuan.
Apkindo diberikan kebebasan oleh Soeharto untuk mengekspor, menebang, memasarkan, dan menetapkan harga kayu Indonesia. Menurut Laporan Majalah Tempo 19 April 1999, Apkindo berhasil mencaplok 70 persen pangsa ekspor Plywood dunia.
Melalui wadah itu pula, Bob menjadikan Apkindo sebagai wadah pencetak uang bagi dirinya sendiri, keluarga Cendana dan militer kala itu. Sukses di sektor perkayuan, Bob juga memiliki berbagai bisnis yang moncer.
[Gambas:Video CNN]
Ia diketahui memiliki bisnis di industri pertambangan, perbankan, asuransi, hingga otomotif yang membuat menjadi orang terkaya di Indonesia. Bahkan, Majalah Forbes Juli 1997 menobatkannya sebagai orang terkaya di dunia disamping Soeharto dan Liem Sio Liong.
Tak hanya moncer di dunia bisnis, karier Bob di dunia politik pun terbilang pesat. Bob permah ditunjuk menduduki posisi Menteri Perindustrian dan Perdagangan Kabinet Pembangunan VII (Maret-Mei 1998) oleh Soeharto kala itu. Bob sendiri menjadi orang pertama keturunan Tionghoa yang pernah menduduki kursi menteri di era Soeharto.
Penunjukan Bob sebagai menteri kala itu mengundang kritik banyak pihak. Hal itu tak lepas dari langkah Soeharto yang memberikan kroni-kroninya jabatan publik dengan praktek nepotisme atau koncoisme.
Tokoh Bob sendiri tak lepas dari kontroversi jeratan kasus hukum. Setelah Soeharto lengser, Bob sempat didenda sebanyak Rp50 Miliar usai terbukti melakukan praktik pembakaran hutan di Sumatera.
Kontroversi tak berhenti sampai di situ. Bob pernah meringkuk di penjara dari 2001-2004 usai didakwa dalam perkara korupsi yang merugikan negara Rp2,4 triliun akibat memalsukan peta pengusahaan hutan.
KOMPAS.com - Demi memutus mata rantai menyebarnya virus corona, bekerja dari rumah atau work from home (WFH) adalah pilihan tak terelakkan.
Ikhwal WFH memang ditegaskan Presiden Joko Widodo pada konferensi pers di Istana Bogor, Senin (16/3/2020) lalu.
"Kebijakan belajar dari rumah, bekerja dari rumah, dan ibadah dari rumah perlu terus digencarkan untuk mengurangi penyebaran Covid-19," ujar Presiden Jokowi sebagaimana diwartakan Kompas.com.
Wakil Wali Kota Bogor Dedie Rachim berkomunikasi melalui teleconference. (Ayobogor.com/Husnul Khatimah)
BOGOR TENGAH, AYOBOGOR.COM -- Pemerintah Kota Bogor akan segera menerapkan pembatasan sosial skala besar guna memutus mata rantai penyebaran wabah Covid-19 di wilayah Kota Bogor.
Wakil Wali Kota Bogor Dedie A. Rachim mengatakan untuk menjalankan hal itu, pihaknya menginstruksikan para camat dan lurah se-Kota Bogor agar segera membentuk Rukun Warga (RW) Siaga Corona.
"Sesuai arahan Gubernur Jawa Barat, Kota Bogor akan melaksanakan Pembatasan Sosial Skala Besar (PSSB), adapun implementasinya berupa pengelolaan area pencegahan penyebaran Covid-19 dan memberdayakan potensi masyarakat dengan membentuk RW Siaga Corona," ujar Dedie, Selasa (31/3/2020).
Dedie melanjutkan, para lurah dengan didampingi camat di masing-masing wilayah agar menyiapkan sejumlah langkah teknis, antara lain melaksanakan sosialisasi pencegahan penyebaran Covid-19 bersama pengurus RW, tokoh agama, tokoh masyarakat, tokoh pemuda, kader PKK, pengurus LPM dan seluruh potensi masyarakat yang ada di wilayahnya.
"Para lurah dan camat diharapkan bisa membatasi pergerakan keluar masuk warga, termasuk memonitor tamu dan orang-orang yang tidak berkepentingan berada di wilayahnya masing-masing. Wilayah masing-masing agar menggiatkan kembali Siskamling dan membentuk RW Peduli Corona yang ditandai dengan spanduk," katanya.
Kemudian, para lurah agar melakukan pemetaan dan pendataan masyarakat terdampak serta membuat daftar di luar Database Kemiskinan Kota Bogor atau di luar penerima Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH).
Langkah selanjutnya, unsur pimpinan di wilayah perlu segera menyiapkan ketersediaan bahan pokok, bahan bakar, dan air minum bagi warga dengan mengkalkulasi seluruh risiko dan solusi apabila diterapkan pembatasan dalam jangka waktu tertentu.
"Para Lurah dan Camat juga diminta untuk memberdayakan seluruh potensi masyarakat dengan menerapkan prinsip gotong royong, solidaritas antar warga, peduli sesama, peduli tetangga dan tolong menolong. Selanjutnya wilayah perlu tegas dengan memberikan sosialisasi dan pemahaman kepada warga agar kegiatan sosial dan keagamaan yang menimbulkan kerumunan massa yang sehingga berdampak terhadap penularan Covid-19 di Kota Bogor," ungkapnya.
Selain itu, Dedie melanjutkan, masyarakat perlu diberikan informasi yang utuh terkait instruksi Presiden agar melakukan aktivitas belajar, bekerja, dan beribadah dari rumah masing-masing.
Sedangkan arahan yang terakhir, agar para Lurah dan Camat bisa memberikan contoh warganya untuk lebih peka terhadap kebersihan lingkungan, serta masyarakat diharapkan menjalankan social distancing, mengenakan masker, dan rajin mencuci tangan.
Sementara pembatasan sosial skala besar ini, diprediksi akan berlangsung hingga 23 Mei 2020 mendatang. Dengan demikian, dia memohon bantuan dan kerja sama dari para aparatur di wilayah beserta seluruh masyarakat untuk dapat proaktif serta disiplin dalam melaksanakan langkah-langkah tersebut.
"Kita semua harus kompak, jika ingin sama-sama merayakan lebaran. Hari ini, sampai menjelang puasa kita berjuang dari rumah masing-masing untuk menahan diri, sabar, ikhlas dan tawakal secara berjamaah. Jika semua kompak, Insya Allah puasa dan lebaran bisa kita laksanakan seperti tahun-tahun sebelumnya," harapnya.
A man walks by the Wall Street subway sign on March 23, 2020 in New York City.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images
Some traders are looking for a surge in stock buying on Tuesday as fund managers rebuild their stock holdings in the final hours of the worst quarter for the Dow since 1987.
That's because as stocks lost ground, pension funds' allocation to equities shrank, and as bonds rallied, those assets in their portfolios increased. In addition to pensions, other funds and investors may also see the need to conduct a rebalancing to shift the mix back by Tuesday's closing bell, the end of the month and the first quarter.
That simply means they could sell bonds and buy stocks.
"The rebalancing story is something everybody is watching very closely. It might help temporarily prop up some asset prices, either directly or via the expectations it might happen," said Jon Hill, senior BMO rate strategist. "The question is what happens April 1? I think this is a second order factor, but everybody is trying to rebalance everything they're doing. I'm not sure that leads to a huge flood into equities just because of the state of market uncertainty."
The Dow is down 21.8% this quarter, the worst since the 25% decline in the fourth quarter of 1987 and the worst Q1 ever. The S&P 500 is on pace for an 18% decline, its worst quarter since the fourth quarter of 2008 and its worst first quarter since 1938.
"We think there's an element of people positioning themselves for a big buy," said Julian Emanuel, chief equities and derivatives strategist at BTIG. Emanuel said the forecasts for how much funds might buy range wildly from $20 billion to over $200 billion, and he blames those expectations for some of the market volatility.
"The best, ideal scenario ... would be for nothing to happen in markets," Emanuel said, adding the market needs some less volatile sessions. "Everybody's on a hamster's wheel in light of the rally last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. What you really need is a couple of days for both buyers and sellers to catch their breath. ... What you need is several days of calm so people can reassess instead of this utterly frantic feeling to the downside and the upside. Coming out of the pension rebalancing is a very good time."
Emanuel said the buying may in fact have already been happening. "In theory, they say that kind of thing is supposed to happen at the close tomorrow but in practice it very rarely turns out that way," he said Monday. "Our mantra has been to buy weakness. Do not chase strength. Could you get a retest of the lows in the next few weeks? You absolutely could."
Michael Schumacher, director of rates at Wells Fargo, said his team initially forecast $40 billion in outflows from stocks, but with the rally over the past week, the rebalancing looks to be more like $20 billion out of stocks and into bonds. The S&P 500 is up 7% in the last five days.
"We look at the total gap between where we think pensions are today, and what their target is," he said. "We calculate that's at $80 billion, and we assume at quarter-end the rebalance is about a quarter of it — that gives us $20 billion. In rough numbers, call it 50 to 55% in equities and 35 to 40% in high quality bonds."
Schumacher said the weakness in Treasurys signaled some selling Monday, but it was not clear if it was due to rebalancing.
TIJUANA/CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - The world’s busiest land border has fallen quiet as restrictions to contain the coronavirus prevent millions of Mexicans from making daily trips north, including many who work in U.S. businesses.
At least 4 million Mexicans residing in cities along the 1,954-mile (3,144-km) border have been hit hard by the restrictions on non-essential travel. The measures effectively invalidate visas allowing short crossings into U.S. cities to visit family, get medical care or shop.
While such B1/B2 “border crossing cards” are officially recreational, Reuters spoke to nearly two dozen residents of Tijuana, Nogales and Ciudad Juarez who use their cards to reach jobs or to care for relatives on the U.S. side of the frontier.
All said they could no longer make the crossing, dealing another blow to businesses already suffering from shutdowns on the U.S. side of the border, including vital industries like agriculture.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without money. I’m just waiting for a miracle,” said 28-year-old Rosario Cruz, a mother of two young children who works for a cleaning company that subcontracts with major retailers in California.
The coronavirus restrictions prohibit all non-essential travel across the border. However, the restrictions have not been widely imposed on U.S. citizens traveling to Mexico.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said it did not have an estimate of how many Mexican tourism-related visa holders work without permission in the United States. But U.S. and Mexican immigration experts say the practice is common.
According to the U.S. State Department Report of the Visa Office more than 4 million border cards have been issued since 2015. The cards are valid for 10 years.
Before the coronavirus restrictions, over 950,000 people entered the United States from Mexico on foot or in cars on a typical day, according to 2019 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency data.
Andrew Selee, president of the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, said limiting transport to contain the epidemic was understandable, but in cities such as San Diego or El Paso “businesses that really should be open in the middle of a crisis might find that they don’t have employees.”
“We’re talking about farm work, we’re talking about caregiving, and probably food production like canning and warehousing operations,” he said.
A general view of the Paso del Norte International Border Bridge, where the flow of people has decreased as new travel restrictions aimed at containing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have stopped millions of Mexicans living close to the U.S. border from crossing back and forth, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico March 30, 2020. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
RIPPLE EFFECT?
Once teaming border crossings used by pedestrians and cars have emptied because of the measures, and people’s fear of catching the virus. In U.S. border cities like El Paso and San Diego, the impact is already being felt.
Cindy Ramos-Davidson, chief executive of the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said the lack of Mexican shoppers was “devastating” for retail businesses downtown. She was also concerned about day labor for nearby farms that grow chiles, tomatoes, hay, and alfalfa.
“They depend on farm workers, the day workers,” she said, adding that some of these employees use tourism-related visas to enter the United States.
Farm workers are designated “essential” travelers under the new DHS rules, but only those with the right paperwork. Workers usually able to cross using border cards are now stuck on the Mexican side.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the measures would not “disrupt critical supply chains.” CBP said in a statement cargo trucking continued and was not seen as a threat.
So far, Paola Avila, vice president of international business affairs at the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, said so-called retail tourism, the second biggest contributor to the city’s economy, had taken the biggest hit from the border closure there.
A manager at a San Diego hotel, who refused to share his name because the company employs Mexicans without legal U.S. work permits, said the measures decimated the establishment’s workforce.
“The impact was so great that we decided to close; the legal workers wouldn’t have been able to cope,” on their own, he said.
Avila is also worried about the effect on U.S. residents cared for by relatives who cross from Mexico, and vice-versa — especially in the midst of a public health crisis.
“If the hospitals overflow, as we predict, and they start sending people to be cared for at home, who will care for them?” she asked.
That’s the fear that has already consumed 45-year-old Joel Sosa Moreno, whose elderly parents live in El Paso. He usually visits three times a week to clean house and bring food and medicine for diabetes and his mother’s cancer.
Slideshow (8 Images)
Under the new restrictions, he has been prohibited from crossing at the port of entry.
Asked about such humanitarian cases, a Customs and Border Protection official told Reuters officers had discretion to handle such situations on a case-by-case basis.
“It’s essential that I go there,” Sosa Moreno said, fearful for his parents. “They can’t go out into the street at all because they are more sensitive” to coronavirus.
Jakarta, CNN Indonesia -- Pemerintah melalui Kementerian Keuangan meraup Rp22,22 triliun dari hasil lelang penerbitan Surat Utang Negara (SUN) yang dilangsungkan pada hari ini, Selasa (31/3) di tengah penyebaran pandemi virus corona atau covid-19. Penerbitan dilakukan melalui tujuh seri surat utang.
Direktur Jenderal Pengelolaan Pembiayaan dan Risiko Kementerian Keuangan Luky Alfirman mengatakan penerbitan surat utang dari hasil lelang akan dilakukan pada 2 April 2020. Tujuh seri surat utang itu memiliki masa jatuh tempo yang berbeda-beda.
"Total penawaran yang masuk sebesar Rp35,51 triliun, namun total nominal yang dimenangkan dari tujuh seri yang ditawarkan adalah Rp22,22 triliun," ungkap Luky dalam keterangan resmi, Selasa (31/3).
Kementerian Keuangan hanya memenangkan Rp22,22 triliun sesuai instruksi dari Menteri Keuangan Sri Mulyani Indrawati. Hal ini tertuang dalam ketentuan Undang-Undang (UU) Nomor 24 Tahun 2002 tentang Surat Utang Negara, di mana Menteri Keuangan yang menetapkan hasil lelang surat utang. Di sisi lain, pemerintah tengah memerlukan sumber penerimaan negara yang cukup besar. Pasalnya, penerimaan negara yang bersumber dari perpajakan diperkirakan akan lebih rendah dari tahun lalu.
Hal ini terjadi karena lesunya aktivitas ekonomi sejak pandemi virus corona menyerang berbagai negara di dunia, termasuk Indonesia. Di sisi lain, pemerintah butuh sumber pemasukan untuk melakukan belanja pemerintah.
Khususnya, belanja untuk penanganan dampak kesehatan dan ekonomi akibat pandemi corona. Saat ini, pemerintah setidaknya sudah mengeluarkan berbagai paket stimulus fiskal untuk meredam dampak tersebut.
Teranyar, Presiden Joko Widodo (Jokowi) baru saja menerbitkan peraturan pemerintah pengganti undang-undang (perppu) yang menginstruksikan tambahan anggaran mencapai Rp405,1 triliun untuk penanganan corona.
Berikut rincian hasil lelang masing-masing seri surat utang:
1. SPN12200703
Nominal penawaran: Rp2,59 triliun
Nominal yang dimenangkan: Rp320 miliar
Yield rata-rata: 2,5 persen
Yield tertinggi: 2,55 persen
Tingkat kupon: Diskonto
Jatuh tempo: 3 Juli 2020
2. SPN12210401
Nominal penawaran: Rp7,6 triliun
Nominal yang dimenangkan: Rp4,3 triliun
Yield rata-rata: 3,44 persen
Yield tertinggi: 3,51 persen
Tingkat kupon: Diskonto
Jatuh tempo: 1 April 2021
3. FR0081
Nominal penawaran: Rp9,46 triliun
Nominal yang dimenangkan: Rp8 triliun
Yield rata-rata: 7,15 persen
Yield tertinggi: 7,23 persen
Tingkat kupon: 6,5 persen
Jatuh tempo: 15 Juni 2025
4. FR0082
Nominal penawaran: Rp8,51 triliun
Nominal yang dimenangkan: Rp6,35 triliun
Yield rata-rata: 7,82 persen
Yield tertinggi: 7,9 persen
Tingkat kupon: 7 persen
Jatuh tempo: 15 September 2030
5. FR0080
Nominal penawaran: Rp3,59 triliun
Nominal yang dimenangkan: Rp2,4 triliun
Yield rata-rata: 8,22 persen
Yield tertinggi: 8,26 persen
Tingkat kupon: 7,5 persen
Jatuh tempo: 15 Juni 2035
6. FR0083
Nominal penawaran: Rp2,59 triliun
Nominal yang dimenangkan: Rp850 miliar
Yield rata-rata: 8,33 persen
Yield tertinggi: 8,35 persen
Tingkat kupon: 7,5 persen
Jatuh tempo: 15 April 2040
7. FR0076
Nominal penawaran: Rp264 miliar
Nominal yang dimenangkan: -
Yield rata-rata: -
Yield tertinggi: -
Tingkat kupon: 7,35 persen
Jatuh tempo: 15 Mei 2048
LONDON — Now that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has become the first head of government to test positive for coronavirus, he will have to change the way he operates as he seeks to lead his country through the crisis. Other leaders — it is inevitable he will not be the last to have to self-isolate and “work from home” — will be interested to see how he adapts to what will be a very strange working environment for someone used to a steady flow of meetings, able to summon advisers into his presence at will.
However, it is also a good opportunity to take stock of his crisis management style, including the way he communicates to the public. Mr. Johnson has shown in his rise that he can be a very effective communicator. But the style — deliberately bumbling and disheveled; fond of jokes; disregarding facts and details in favor of bluster — does not lend itself to a crisis as grave as this.
As someone who has known Mr. Johnson for several decades, and never hidden my view that he is not fit to be prime minister, I do not imagine he will listen to any advice I give.
But I am nonetheless offering it, that he should use his isolation to develop a new way of communicating: more fact, more detail; less rhetoric, less bluster; cut the homilies and rambles; fewer snappy one-liners; more empathy for the dead and dying, and those caring for them; more explanation of decision making; more linking of new policy announcements to previous ones, and to data; use of graphics and film to explain; and, please, comb your hair! This is not a trivial point. In times of crisis, people look to leaders for confidence and strength. If you look disorganized, people fear that you are disorganized.
The role of a leader in a crisis is to devise and execute but also narrate the strategy. It is to take the public into your confidence about why you are making the decisions you are making. Mr. Johnson has long wished to be seen as a modern-day version of Winston Churchill. But at the moment, I suggest the prime minister should look for inspiration on the other side of the Atlantic, not to the American president, but to Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York.
Mr. Cuomo’s father and predecessor, Mario, is credited with one of the most famous quotations about politics ever made: “We campaign in poetry, but we govern in prose.” His son’s briefings are a master class in prose.
First, tone and mood. Mr. Cuomo does not hide how serious things are — far from it — but he is calm, composed, polite and authoritative throughout.
Second, hard fact, and detail. The TV screen is split, on one side his face, on the other a presentation that he is clicking through, setting out with simple clear graphics the many facts of the crisis: Deaths. Cases. Testing. Capacity of the health system. Masks. Ventilators. Mr. Cuomo gives detailed area-by-area breakdowns of figures, points out trends, tries to explain them.
Third, empathy. He intersperses the factual presentation with regular sincere thanks to groups and individuals, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the immunologist who serves on the White House coronavirus task force who has become known the world over for his pained facial expressions as he stands behind President Trump at briefings.
Fourth, thinking ahead. Mr. Cuomo was the first leader I saw openly to put concerns about mental health at the heart of his strategy, and he announced the plan for a network of online psychologists and psychiatrists to help New Yorkers. He showed empathy and humor, spelling out how lonely many people were already, even before mandated self-isolation. It was hard, he said, for families forced to spend day and night together, and noted that as for himself, “I’m even getting annoyed with the dog.”
Fifth, inspiration. This is vital in a leader — it is inspiring to watch Mr. Cuomo. You feel part of his narrative. You feel the hurdles are enormous, but confident they can be overcome, as with his reminders that society will continue to function, the world will still be here once the crisis is done. I have felt none of that sense of a shared voyage when watching Mr. Trump or Mr. Johnson.
Sixth, just the right amount of poetry amid the prose. Twenty-five minutes or so of hard fact and prosaic explanation, then a little bit of poetry for the end — about the acts of kindness and compassion by which we will be judged; about how life will go on, but things will be different; about how the crisis, as well as being a challenge to all of us, leaders and citizens alike, is also an opportunity to show what kind of people we were.
Mr. Johnson still has time to improve his communications. I know he is busy. I know he is facing enormous responsibility and making huge decisions that affect all of our lives, and now doing so in new and difficult circumstances of self-isolation. But I really do recommend that he take half an hour to watch a Cuomo briefing, and five minutes to watch a Trump one, with the president’s racism, petulance and narcissism on naked display. Then, when planning his own, and when he is out there in front of the country, all alone down the line from 10 Downing Street, Mr. Johnson should try to operate by this mantra: “More like Cuomo, less like Trump.”
Alastair Campbell, an author and consultant strategist, was chief spokesman for and strategist to Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1994 to 2003.
The Times is committed to publishinga diversity of lettersto the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are sometips. And here’s our email:letters@nytimes.com.
Office workers in central Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday.Credit...Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
new item here.
Just when Asia thought things were under control, it faces a second wave of infections from the West.
Across Asia, countries that thought they had the coronavirus pandemic under control are now worried that people from outside their borders will import cases and cause a new wave of outbreaks.
In a flurry of recent moves, China, Hong Kong and Singapore barred foreigners from entering altogether. Japan has banned visitors from most of Europe, and is considering further bans of travelers from countries including the United States. Last Sunday, South Korea imposed stricter entry controls, requiring incoming travelers from all foreign countries to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. Taiwan has also banned foreigners.
In China, international flights to the country have been cut back so severely that students abroad wonder when they will ever be able to get home. In Singapore, citizens who have returned to the city-state from overseas receive daily text messages from public health authorities, signaling them to check in from their phones to prove they are sticking to government-ordered quarantines.
With large swathes of the globe now grappling to control a pandemic that started in China, countries in Asia are now moving to insulate themselves from outsiders they fear could reintroduce the virus into stabilized environments. They are even treating some of their own citizens almost like criminals — simply for the sin of having traveled abroad in the age of the coronavirus.
“It seems like leaders will sometimes lurch from complacency to an almost panicked lockdown approach,” said Karen Eggleston, director of the Asia health policy program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University.
“It’s not entirely clear which one in the end is going to lead to the greater costs but at this point in the pandemic, when we have exponential growth,” closing borders, she said, “can be the prudent approach.”
Trump suggests coronavirus testing is no longer a problem. Governors disagree.
Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana discussed the difficulty of getting access to coronavirus tests on a conference call with President Trump and other governors.
President Trump on Monday expressed optimism about the federal government’s ability to provide adequate testing for the coronavirus and suggested it would soon be producing so many ventilators, masks and other personal protective equipment that it would be able to send stocks of supplies to other countries.
America’s governors painted a different picture on the ground.
In a conference call with governors on Monday, President Trump said that he “hasn’t heard about testing in weeks,” suggesting that a chronic lack of kits to test people for the coronavirus is no longer a problem. Yet one governor said his state was “one day away” from not being able to test anyone at all.
Hours later, Mr. Trump’s comments at a White House Rose Garden news conference suggested he thought the scarcity of ventilators and other supplies, which has become an emergency in some states, will soon be ending.
But in New York, where the state’s deaths from the coronavirus jumped above 1,200 and a hospital ship arrived to ease the pressure on overwhelmed hospitals, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo warned that the worst of the coronavirus outbreak was yet to come.
“You have to prepare before the storm hits. And in this case the storm is when you hit that high point, when you hit that apex,” the governor said. “How do you know when you’re going to get there? You don’t.”
In Virginia, Maryland and Arizona, governors from both parties issued new stay-home orders for their citizens.
In Washington, the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency approval permitting the use of two long-used malaria drugs to treat coronavirus patients, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said in an interview that it was only a matter of time before Congress would act on a fourth relief measure to try to contain the economic fallout of an outbreak that now sees three of four Americans under orders to stay home.
“This isn’t about how fast we can do it,” she said. “It’s how fast we must do it.”
And in the nation’s jails, prisoners worried about their health as they wiped down communal phones with prized alcohol wipes and washed down cell bars and table tops with diluted shampoo.
As the videoconferencing platform’s popularity has surged, Zoom has scrambled to address a series of data privacy and security problems.
The videoconferencing app is under scrutiny by the office of New York’s attorney general, Letitia James.
On Monday, the office sent Zoom a letter asking what, if any, new security measures the company has put in place to handle increased traffic on its network and to detect hackers, according to a copy reviewed by The New York Times.
While the letter referred to Zoom as “an essential and valuable communications platform,” it outlined several concerns, noting that the company had been slow to address security flaws such as vulnerabilities “that could enable malicious third parties to, among other things, gain surreptitious access to consumer webcams.”
Over the last few weeks, internet trolls have exploited a Zoom screen-sharing feature to hijack meetings and do things like interrupt educational sessions or post white supremacist messages to a webinar on anti-Semitism — a phenomenon called “Zoombombing.”
Leaders worldwide are invoking sweeping executive powers with little resistance.
To fight the pandemic, leaders worldwide are invoking executive powers and seizing virtually dictatorial authority with scant resistance.
In some parts of the world, new emergency laws have revived old fears of martial law. The Philippine Congress passed legislation last week that gave President Rodrigo Duterte emergency powers and $5.4 billion to deal with the pandemic.
Even in robust democracies like Britain, ministers have what a critic called “eye-watering” power to detain people and close borders. Invasive surveillance systems in South Korea and Singapore, which would have invited censure under normal circumstances, have been praised for slowing infections.
Governments and rights groups agree that these extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and many of these actions are protected under international rules, constitutional lawyers say.
But critics say there are few safeguards to ensure that their new authority will not be abused.
“We could have a parallel epidemic of authoritarian and repressive measures following close if not on the heels of a health epidemic,” said Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights.
Tips for getting through the coronavirus marathon
The experts keep telling us to plan for this to last for a long time. And with many communities a week or more into being homebound, the novelty is beginning to wear off. Here are some tips to help you fight the burnout you are likely beginning to feel, manage your antsy teenagers, and even freshen up your home to make it better suit your new needs.
North Korea claims no coronavirus cases. Can it be trusted?
How could North Korea claim to not have a single coronavirus case while countries around the world stagger under the exploding epidemic?
North Korea has taken some of the most drastic actions against the virus and did so sooner than most other nations. It sealed its borders in late January, shutting off business with neighboring China, which accounts for nine-tenths of its external trade. It clamped down on the smugglers who keep its thriving unofficial markets functioning. It quarantined all diplomats in Pyongyang for a month. The totalitarian state’s singular ability to control the movement of people also bolsters its disease-control efforts.
But decades of isolation and international sanctions have ravaged North Korea’s public health system, raising fears that it lacks the medical supplies to fight an outbreak, which many fear has already occurred.
“You can see immediately what’s going to happen if you get a surge of Covid-19 patients streaming in,” said Dr. Kee B. Park, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School who has worked alongside North Korean doctors to help improve the country’s health system. “It will overwhelm the system very quickly.”
Amid debate over face masks, Austria says that it will require them in grocery stores.
Austria will require all residents to wear face masks when they shop for groceries starting this week, as a growing number of experts have questioned the prevailing guidance that healthy people don’t need to wear masks.
The World Health Organization asserts that masks should only be worn by people who are sick and those who are caring for them, and that there is little data showing that they protect the general public in everyday life. But some experts and government officials say they could offer some protection.
The debate over protective masks for healthy citizens has created tensions as protective gear, including N-95 masks, has been in woefully short supply for front-line medical workers, leading officials to try to discourage hoarding and panic-buying by people all over the world.
At the same time, some places that adopted nearly universal mask-wearing and intensive social distancing early on, like Hong Kong, were able to contain their outbreaks. George Gao, the director-general of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has called not wearing face masks “the big mistake in the U.S. and Europe.”
A ‘wartime factory’ in Brooklyn is joining a new fight.
So many New Yorkers flocked to the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II to build warships that it was nicknamed the Can-Do Shipyard.
In recent years, it has become a hub of independently owned and innovative manufacturers that include artisanal distillers and industrial metal fabricators.
But with the coronavirus ravaging New York City, the old Navy Yard — one of few large manufacturing centers remaining in the city — is again pitching in during a national crisis as a hub for fighting the pandemic, producing desperately needed medical supplies, such as face shields, hand sanitizer and hospital gowns.
It has returned to “a wartime factory,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio as he toured a former shipbuilding hangar there on Thursday.
That hangar had become an events space called the Duggal Greenhouse, part of Duggal Visual Solutions, a graphic display and printing company that typically makes printed glossy graphics for such brands as Estee Lauder and Coach.
But with the greenhouse’s scheduled events canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak, the space has been repurposed as a factory for making disposable face shields. The operation includes more than 300 workers, many recently laid off from restaurant jobs or nonessential businesses that the state ordered to temporarily close.
Kings County Distillery, a small-batch whiskey and bourbon company, has begun distilling alcohol for hand sanitizer in partnership with EcoLogic Solutions, which makes green cleaning products.
Reporting and research was contributed by Donald G. McNeil Jr., Selam Gebrekidan, Maria Abi-Habib, Sameer Yasir, Raymond Zhong, Knvul Sheikh Melissa Eddy, Choe Sang-Hun.
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