Day: May 28, 2022

According to North Korea, its fight against COVID-19 has been impressive: About 3.3 million people have been reported sick with fevers, but only 69 have died.

If all are coronavirus cases, that’s a fatality rate of 0.002%, something no other country, including the world’s richest, has achieved against a disease that has killed more than 6 million people.

The North’s claims, however, are being met with widespread doubt about two weeks after it acknowledged its first domestic COVID-19 outbreak. Experts say the impoverished North should have suffered far greater deaths than reported because there are very few vaccines, a sizable number of undernourished people and a lack of critical care facilities and test kits to detect virus cases in large numbers.

North Korea’s secretiveness makes it unlikely outsiders can confirm the true scale of the outbreak. Some observers say North Korea is underreporting fatalities to protect leader Kim Jong Un at all costs. There’s also a possibility it might have exaggerated the outbreak in a bid to bolster control of its 26 million people.

“Scientifically, their figures can’t be accepted,” said Lee Yo Han, a professor at Ajou University Graduate School of Public Health in South Korea, adding that the public data “were likely all controlled [by the authorities] and embedded with their political intentions.”

The most likely course is that North Korea soon proclaims victory over COVID-19, maybe during a June political meeting, with all credit given to Kim’s leadership. The 38-year-old ruler is desperate, observers say, to win bigger public support as he deals with severe economic difficulties caused by border shutdowns, U.N. sanctions and his own mismanagement.

“Diverse public complaints have accumulated, so it’s time to [strengthen] internal control,” said Choi Kang, president of Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “Kim Jong Un has been taking the lead in the anti-epidemic efforts to show that his campaign is very successful and to reinforce his grip on power.”

Before North Korea on May 12 admitted to an omicron outbreak, it had maintained a widely disputed claim that it had zero domestic infections for more than two years. When the North at last publicized the outbreak, many wondered why now.

It was initially seen as an attempt to exploit the outbreak to get foreign humanitarian assistance. There were hopes that possible aid by Seoul and Washington could help resume long-stalled diplomacy on Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Kim has called the outbreak a “great upheaval” and launched what his propaganda teams call an all-out effort to suppress it.

He’s held several Politburo meetings to criticize officials, inspected pharmacies at dawn and mobilized troops to support medicine delivery. A health official explained pandemic responses on state TV, while state newspapers have churned out articles on how to deal with fever, including gargling with saltwater and drinking honey or willow leaf tea.

“Honey is a rarity for ordinary North Koreans. They likely felt bad when their government asked them to drink honey tea,” said Seo Jae-pyong, a North Korean defector-turned-activist in Seoul. “I have an elder brother left in North Korea and have big worries about him.”

Every morning, North Korea releases details about the number of new patients with fever symptoms, but not with COVID-19. Experts believe most cases should be counted as COVID-19 because while North Korean health authorities lack diagnostic kits, they still know how to distinguish the symptoms from fevers caused by the other prevalent infectious diseases.

North Korea’s daily fever tally peaked at nearly 400,000 early last week; it has nosedived to around 100,000 in the past few days. On Friday, it added one more death after claiming no fatalities for three consecutive days.

“Our country set a world record for having no single [COVID-19] infection for the longest period … and we’ve now made an achievement of reversing the tide of the abrupt outbreak in a short period,” the main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said Thursday. “This evidently proves the scientific nature of our country’s emergency anti-epidemic steps.”

Medical experts question the validity of North Korea’s stated fatality rate of 0.002%. Given that South Korea’s mortality rate of unvaccinated people for the omicron variant was 0.6%, North Korea must have similar or higher death rates because of its low capacity to treat patients and its people’s poor nutrition, said Shin Young-jeon, a professor of preventive medicine at Seoul’s Hanyang University.

In a study published by the Johns Hopkins University last year, North Korean ranked 193 out of 195 countries for its ability to deal with an epidemic. U.N. reports in recent years said about 40% of its people were undernourished. North Korea’s free socialist public health care system has been in shambles for decades, and defectors testify that while in the North, they bought medicines at markets or somewhere else.

“North Korea wouldn’t really care about fatalities at all,” said Choi Jung Hun, a defector who worked as a doctor in North Korea in the 2000s. “Many North Koreans have already died of malaria, measles, chickenpox and typhoid. There are all kind of infectious diseases there.”

Choi, now a researcher at a Korea University-affiliated institute in South Korea, said North Korea likely decided to admit to the omicron outbreak because it sees it as less lethal and more manageable. He suspected North Korea set up a scenario to raise up and then bring down fever cases so as to boost Kim’s leadership.

Lee, the Ajou professor, said North Korea may have overstated its earlier fever cases to give “a powerful shock” to the public to rally support for the government, but avoided releasing details of too many deaths to stave off public unrest.

The outbreak could eventually kill more than 100,000, if people remain unvaccinated and die at the same death rate as in South Korea, Shin, the Hanyang professor, warned.

The North Korean outbreak will likely last several months, Moon Jin Soo, director of the Institute for Health and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, said. It’s urgent to ship anti-viral pills and other essential medications to North Korea, rather than vaccines whose roll out would take at least a couple of months, he said.

“North Korea could spend a couple more months massaging the statistics, but they could also abruptly announce their victory this weekend,” said Ahn Kyung-su, head of DPRKHEALTH.ORG, a Seoul-based website focusing on health issues in North Korea. “North Korea always operates beyond your imagination. It’s hard to predict what they’ll do, but they do have a plan.”

Source: Voice of America

India’s Adani Wilmar Ltd. is an outlier among Asia’s newly listed stocks. The food company has almost tripled since its debut while most newcomers are trading under water, Trend reports citing The Print.

Shares in the firm, a joint venture between the group controlled by Asia’s richest person Gautam Adani and Singapore’s Wilmar International Ltd., have outperformed 121 Asian initial public offerings worth over $100 million this year. Almost two-thirds of the region’s new listings are in the red as rising interest rates and the war in Ukraine take a toll.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore and Nippon Life India were among investors in Adani Wilmar’s IPO, which makes Fortune brand cooking oils, wheat flour, rice, pulses, sugar and other food products. The firm said it would use part of the funds in the $486 million offering to expand facilities, repay loans and make strategic acquisitions.

The company is expected to “continue to gain market share on account of strong distribution network, diversified product portfolio, market leadership in key categories, focus on rural market, new product launches and strong parentage,” said Vikrant Kashyap, an analyst at KR Choksey.

The strong performance bodes well for Adani, one of Asia’s busiest dealmakers, who’s expanding his reach after years of focusing on coal and infrastructure-related plays. The tycoon’s move to diversify into new areas like data centers and digital services has paid off, after he capped a run of some 32 acquisitions in the past year.

The JV, which paid off debt with funds from the IPO, gets “significant benefit” from its parents, Kashyap wrote in a note this month, which recommended the stock as accumulate. Expected acquisitions will lead to a gain in market share, he added. The firm recently announced the purchase of several brands, including the Kohinoor cooking brand for the India region.

Other stocks linked to Adani have also done well. Adani Power Ltd., up more than 200% this year, is the top performer among members of the S&P BSE 500 index. Adani Green Energy Ltd., up 65% year-to-date, is the fifth-best performer even as the firm has no analyst coverage.

Source: TREND News Agency

The Chinese city of Shanghai inched further toward a gradual reopening after two months of a grinding COVID-19 lockdown, while officials in Beijing prepared to ease curbs in parts of the capital, saying on Saturday the outbreak was under control.

Shanghai aims to essentially end its lockdown Wednesday after relaxing restrictions over the last week.

More people have been allowed out of their homes, and more businesses permitted to reopen, though most residents remain largely confined to their housing compounds, with shops mainly limited to deliveries.

Shanghai officials urged continued vigilance, even though the vast majority of its 25 million residents live in areas that are in the lowest-risk “prevention” category.

“Wear masks in public, no gathering and keep social distance,” Zhao Dandan, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, told a daily news conference.

Videos on social media showed Friday night revelers, including many foreigners, drinking and dancing in the street in a central area of the city before police interrupted and told them to go home.

Another video showed a group in the street singing an emotional 1985 pop anthem called Tomorrow Will Be Better, accompanied by a keyboard player. Police can be seen arriving and allowing the song to finish before asking the people to go home, prompting online praise for the officers’ restraint.

The two-month lockdown of China’s largest and most cosmopolitan city has frustrated and infuriated residents, hundreds of thousands of whom have been quarantined in often crowded central facilities.

Many of them struggled to access sufficient food or medical care during the lockdown’s early weeks.

‘UNDER CONTROL’

In Beijing, new cases have trended lower for six days, with no fresh infections outside quarantine areas reported on Friday.

The outbreak that began on April 22 is “effectively under control,” a city government spokesman told a news conference.

Starting on Sunday, shopping malls, libraries, museums, theaters and gyms will be allowed to reopen, with limits on numbers of people, in eight of Beijing’s 16 districts that have seen no community cases for seven consecutive days.

Two of the districts will end work-from-home rules, while public transportation will largely resume in three districts, including Chaoyang, the city’s largest. Still, restaurant dining remains banned citywide.

While nationwide case numbers are improving, China’s strict adherence to its “zero-COVID” strategy has devastated the world’s second-largest economy and rattled global supply chains.

Investors have been worried about the lack of a roadmap for exiting what has been a signature policy of President Xi Jinping.

The economic impact was evident in data on Friday showing April profits at industrial firms fell an annual 8.5%, the biggest drop in two years.

China’s approach, which the government says is needed to save lives and prevent the health system from being overwhelmed, has been challenged by the hard-to-contain omicron variant.

The conflict between vanquishing the spread of COVID-19 and supporting the economy comes in a politically sensitive year, with Xi expected to secure an unprecedented third leadership term at a congress of the ruling Communist Party in autumn.

During an emergency meeting Wednesday, Premier Li Keqiang acknowledged weak growth and said economic difficulties had been worse in some aspects than in 2020 when China was initially hit by COVID-19. His remarks prompted market expectations of further economic support measures.

SMALL STEPS

On Friday, Shanghai’s suburban Fengxian district canceled a requirement for residents to have a pass to go out.

The state-run Shanghai Securities News reported modest steps toward a return to normality for the financial sector, with more than 10,000 bankers and traders who have been living and working in their offices since the start of lockdown gradually returning home.

The country on Saturday reported 362 daily coronavirus cases, down from 444 a day earlier. In Beijing, new Friday infections fell to 24 from 29.

While Shanghai officials reported one community-level case in the Songjiang district, they expressed confidence in the steps they were taking to trace and control the infection chain.

“If these measures are implemented effectively, we can prevent a rebound of the epidemic even if there are sporadic cases, so don’t worry,” said Sun Xiaodong, deputy director of the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Source: Voice of America

BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) announced the official rate of foreign currencies on May 28, Trend reports referring to CBI.

According to the currency exchange rate of the Central Bank of Iran, 25 currencies have grown and 9 have decreased in price, compared to May 26.

According to CBI, $1 equals 42,000 Iranian rials and 1 euro equals 44,964 rials.

Currency Iranian rial on May 28 Iranian rial on May 26

1 US dollar USD 42,000 42,000

1 British pound GBP 52,962 52,671

1 Swiss franc CHF 43,851 43,593

1 Swedish krona SEK 4,270 4,249

1 Norwegian krone NOK 4,425 4,364

1 Danish krone DKK 6,045 6,019

1 Indian rupee INR 542 542

1 UAE dirham AED 11,437 11,437

1 Kuwaiti dinar KWD 137,270 137,261

100 Pakistani rupees PKR 20,990 20,940

100 Japanese yens JPY 33,034 32,986

1 Hong Kong dollar HKD 5,351 5,351

1 Omani rial OMR 109,232 109,232

1 Canadian dollar CAD 32,965 32,717

1 New Zealand dollar NZD 27,438 27,132

1 South African rand ZAR 2,693 2,670

1 Turkish lira TRY 2,593 2,563

1 Russian ruble RUB 628 698

1 Qatari riyal QAR 11,539 11,539

100 Iraq dinars IQD 2,881 2,878

1 Syrian pound SYP 17 17

1 Australian dollar AUD 30,041 29,682

1 Saudi riyal SAR 11,200 11,200

1 Bahraini dinar BHD 111,701 111,701

1 Singapore dollar SGD 30,672 30,505

100 Bangladeshi takas BDT 48,048 47,850

10 Sri Lankan rupees LKR 1,162 1,161

1 Myanmar kyat MMK 23 23

100 Nepalese rupees NPR 33,811 33,817

1 Libyan dinar LYD 8,791 8,809

1 Chinese yuan CNY 6,270 6,276

100 Thai baths THB 123,126 122,317

1 Malaysian ringgit MYR 9,591 9,558

1,000 South Korean wons KRW 33,594 33,090

1 Jordanian dinar JOD 59,238 59,238

1 euro EUR 44,964 44,773

100 Kazakh tenge KZT 9,656 10,101

1 Georgian lari GEL 14,686 14,762

1,000 Indonesian rupiahs IDR 2,887 2,873

1 Afghan afghani AFN 473 474

1 Belarus ruble BYN 12,433 12,432

1 Azerbaijani manat AZN 24,720 24,721

100 Philippine pesos PHP 80,457 80,203

1 Tajik somoni TJS 3,408 3,360

1 Turkmen manat TMT 11,985 11,987

In Iran, the official exchange rate is used for the import of some essential products.

SANA system is a system introduced by the Central Bank of Iran to the currency exchange offices, where the price of 1 euro is 272,296 rials, and the price of $1 is 254,344 rials.

NIMA is a system intended for the sale of a certain percentage of the foreign currency gained from export.

The price of 1 euro in this system is 261,436 rials, and the price of $1 is 244,200 rials.

On the black market, $1 is worth about 305,000-308,000 rials, while 1 euro is worth about 328,000-331,000 rials.

Source: TREND News Agency