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The virus seems to be working to take over the world. President Trump is telling us what a wonderful job he is doing as the case numbers and deaths start to rise. The next week or so will be critical and it will be interesting to see how things evolve.
A bit of good news is that peace seems to have broken out between the USA and the Taliban. Can’t see that really lasting.
In the UK Boris is marrying his girl friend after impregnating her in Barnaby like fashion. Brexit seems to be getting stormier as best one can tell.
In Australia we have gone full pandemic and we are all waiting to see what happens next. We have the trifecta of fire, floods and pestilence!
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Major Issues.
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Nation’s power grid ‘unreliable’ as risks mount
The reliability of the nation’s power grid has deteriorated to critical status as severe weather and ageing coal plants raise new system risks while investor confidence has been damaged by government intervention, the Energy Security Board has warned.
Australia’s energy market agency upgraded its assessment of the current challenges posed by electricity reliability to critical from moderate a year ago, given the challenges of keeping the power system stable.
The nation’s energy tsar Kerry Schott said soaring temperatures in several states over the peak summer period in 2018-19 had triggered high demand for electricity, stretching parts of the grid as they scrambled to secure sufficient supplies.
The reliability issue emerged again this summer in late January after wild weather triggered the South Australian interconnector to shut down, cutting electricity to Victoria’s giant Portland aluminium smelter and forcing the national power operator to find emergency supplies to keep the lights on in heatwave conditions.
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Free-to-air TV takes a $2bn tumble
As Nine Entertainment this week prepares for its half-yearly results, analysis by The Australian shows the leading free-to-air networks have wiped $2bn off the value of their TV licences since 2015.
The news comes days after Seven downgraded its interim earnings by 13 per cent, struggling with sluggish advertising revenue and a debt pile worth over $500m.
Analysis shows free-to-air networks lost $2.276bn from 2015 to 2020. Of that, Seven wrote off more than $1.84bn, with almost $1bn of it in 2015. Before its collapse in 2017 and sale to US company CBS, Ten lost $383m, while Nine wrote off another $115m.
The writedowns reflect the tough conditions facing broadcasters who are struggling to get advertising share while battling the influx of streaming services such as Netflix and Disney +.
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'We need to acknowledge that threat': Dutton opens door to more powers to counter foreign interference
By Anthony Galloway
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has opened the door to giving security agencies more powers to fight foreign interference after the nation's domestic spy boss revealed a "sleeper" agent secretly operated in the country for years before being caught.
The move to consider revisiting the nation's foreign interference and espionage laws follows warnings from security agencies that more powers may be needed to counter the unprecedented threat posed by foreign agents.
ASIO director-general Mike Burgess on Monday night sounded the alarm on foreign states interfering in Australia's political affairs, saying visiting scientists and academics were ingratiating themselves with Australian universities in a bid to conduct clandestine intelligence collection.
ASIO had apprehended an increasing number of spies trying to enter the country, he said, warning there were more foreign agents operating in Australia now than during the Cold War.
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Sleeper agent operated in Australia for years before ASIO caught him
By Anthony Galloway and Nick McKenzie
February 24, 2020 — 7.21pm
The head of the nation's domestic spy agency has sounded the alarm on foreign states interfering in Australia's political affairs, revealing a "sleeper" agent was secretly operating in the country for years before being caught.
Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation boss Mike Burgess warned foreign spies were intimidating Australians within the country, while there was one case of a group of agents who threatened the physical safety of someone in Australia as part of a foreign interference plot.
In an unprecedented public address about the extent of ASIO's operations, Mr Burgess said visiting scientists and academics were ingratiating themselves into Australian universities with the aim of conducting clandestine intelligence collection, striking "at the very heart of our notions of free and fair academic exchange".
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Bushfire Crisis And Climate Policy
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Newspoll: Cost holds key to climate debate
Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese are faced with two competing and inescapable realities. The mood of the nation would appear to have shifted and voters now believe that business as usual on climate change is no longer an option.
But as has been proved in the past, the strength of the community’s conviction will be tested when it comes down to cost.
The present debate is being held at a time of political pause when neither party has a comprehensive policy on how to even get to a target.
Whether the hardening in community opinion has been a gradual shift over time or a dramatic swing driven by emotion over the bushfire tragedy, or both, is hard to know.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/solar-investors-take-huge-hit-as-grid-struggles-20200211-p53zui
Solar investors take huge hit as grid struggles
Feb 24, 2020 — 12.00am
Frustrated investors that have sunk billions of dollars into solar and wind farms in the West Murray region are facing six months or more of losses from output cutbacks and connection delays as the power market operator urgently works on a fix for the overloaded grid.
"To say this is a significant blow to investors is a major understatement," said David Shapero, managing director of the Australian arm of German renewable energy developer BayWa r.e., which has one solar farm in Victoria forced to operate at half capacity since September and a second that was due to come online in October but is lying idle.
"In the end, we have invested around $300 million in two solar farms and we’re getting returns on half a solar farm."
The region straddling the NSW-Victoria border has become a microcosm of the huge technical problems plaguing an energy system transforming faster than anywhere else in the world.
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The big shift in energy markets
The latest report from the Energy Security Board demonstrates a market in rapid transition even if the political debate is still stuck in its traditional rut.
Feb 24, 2020 — 12.00am
Fortunately the evolution of the energy market does not have to wait on endless political arguments about emissions reductions and climate change policy.
Instead the latest regulatory “report card” on the health of the national energy market finds a surging level of generation from renewable energy thanks to changes in technology and demand as well as support from some government programs.
According to the Energy Security Board, renewable generation from wind and solar represented 16 per cent of generation last financial year. That will climb to 27 per cent by 2022 and over 40 per cent by 2030.
This demonstrates that shifts in the energy market as well as in business circles are overwhelming the political impasse – not least the one raging within the Coalition as the Nationals talk up coal-fired power.
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JPMorgan warns climate change a threat to 'human life as we know it'
Katia Dmitrieva
Feb 24, 2020 — 9.58am
Washington | The most extreme risks of climate change can't be ruled out - including the collapse of human civilisation, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
"The response to climate change should be motivated not only by central estimates of outcomes but also by the likelihood of extreme events," bank economists David Mackie and Jessica Murray wrote in a January 14 report to clients. "We cannot rule out catastrophic outcomes where human life as we know it is threatened."
The analysts, who warned last year of "Black Swan" tipping points that could push the planet and the economy into uncharted territory, also said that the longer that climate change action is delayed, the more costly it'll be to address later.
Governments, central banks and business leaders are beginning to grapple with the impact of climate change, including extreme weather, drought and floods.
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New government data shows slight drop in Australia's emissions, amid new coal fight
By Rob Harris
February 24, 2020 — 12.00am
A booming multibillion-dollar gas export sector is hampering Australia's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with new government data showing the nation's overall emissions fell 0.3 per cent in the 12 months to September last year.
The annual report, to be released on Monday, shows while emissions from within Australia's domestic energy network continue to fall, those generated by natural gas production increased by 16.9 per cent in the same period.
Both the Coalition and Labor are engaged in fierce internal debates over future emissions reductions targets, as the Morrison government wrestles with demands for it to adopt a carbon-neutral 2050 policy to take to the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow in November.
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Finance advisers no longer can afford to be climate change sceptics
Now that awareness of climate risk in the financial services industry has shifted to action, the prudential regulator’s determination to lift its supervisory intensity comes as no surprise.
Climate change, after all, is a risk to financial stability on several fronts: direct damage to assets or property through lower asset values, supply chain disruption and higher insurance claims; transition risk from disruption caused by adjustment to a low-carbon economy, and liability risk through stakeholder litigation and regulatory enforcement.
APRA’s response is not a tsunami of black-letter law but it does want to make sure regulated entities give proper weight to the changing climate in their decision-making processes, and that scenario analysis becomes increasingly sophisticated.
Companies will feel this kind of pressure not just from regulators.
ACSI chief executive Louise Davidson told The Weekend Australian her 39 members, which manage $2.2 trillion in assets, will demand credible climate action plans from a much broader group of ASX200 companies in 2020.
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Antarctic heatwave melted 20 per cent of an island's snow cover in days
By Andrew Freedman
February 25, 2020 — 9.25am
The Antarctic Peninsula, which is the part of the continent closest to South America, experienced a record heatwave of sorts in early February. On February 9, a weather research station on Seymour Island reached a temperature of 20.75 degrees, which if verified would be the ice-covered continent's hottest temperature on record.
This beat out a likely record set just days earlier when, on February 6, Argentina's Esperanza Station on Antarctica's Trinity Peninsula reached 18.3 degrees.
The warmth during early February comes against the background of sharply increasing temperatures linked to human-caused climate change, with melting glaciers and vulnerable floating ice shelves the subject of increasing concern to scientists and policymakers alike. The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest-warming parts of the globe.
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Fires in scientific focus but climate link proves elusive
The severity of the summer bushfires has led to Australia being named “ground zero” for climate change, prompting members of the international science community to demand stronger action.
In an editorial published with a series of commentaries on the bushfires, science journal Nature notes the effects of climate change have been felt already in Australia — citing coral bleaching and reef loss — but have done little to change political discourse.
However, the bushfires have led to increased calls for action, in Australia and overseas.
“This widespread impact challenges the ‘double reality’ in wealthy countries, where the science of climate change is accepted, but the impacts are held at a distance,” the editorial notes.
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Myopic Australia looks at the wrong climate number
It's not our small carbon contribution that matters, it's the disproportionate damage Australia will suffer in a warmer world.
Feb 25, 2020 — 2.20pm
Australia’s government is fond of saying there is no evidence that our domestic greenhouse gas emissions are linked to the fires and floods.
"It's global", and we are "doing our bit as part of the response to climate change".
No, we are not. And, this false narrative misses the point entirely.
It’s true that Australia’s domestic CO2 emissions are only 1.3 per cent of the global total, and this pales in comparison to the rest of the world. Mere annual increases in China’s CO2 emissions account for another Australia about every 13 months.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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No need for face masks, business as usual, says Australia's chief medical officer
By Jennifer Duke and Rachel Wells
February 23, 2020 — 2.41pm
The nation's chief medical officer has told Australians there is no need for face masks and to go about their normal business, despite being "concerned" about the increase in the number of coronavirus cases in Japan and South Korea.
Professor Brendan Murphy said there had been no community transmission of the virus in Australia, despite 22 confirmed cases.
“There is no risk to people walking around the streets, walking in the shopping centres," he said.
"The only risk is being in contact with people who have come from an area where there is high transmission or there’s contact.
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Virus exposes the risks of doing business in China
Beijing’s opacity in handling the epidemic highlights the risks of doing business in China.
Feb 24, 2020 — 10.09am
Coronavirus has put a spotlight on the economic decoupling of China and some developed countries. With factories shuttered and consumption stalled, multinational companies have been forced to shift production elsewhere.
A gradual decoupling of global economies has been under way for a few years. The South Korean electronics group Samsung, for example, has been closing Chinese plants and opening others in Vietnam. Mexico has benefited from some US corporations moving their supply chains closer to home.
But decoupling will undoubtedly speed up as Beijing’s opacity in handling the coronavirus epidemic highlights the risks of doing business in China.
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Clock is ticking: Virus's economic infection may be deadly
By Liam Halligan
February 24, 2020 — 8.27am
Should we panic about coronavirus? Chinese authorities have so far acknowledged far more than 2,000 deaths, with some 77,000 others infected. But daily fatalities, and the increase in reported cases, last week started to slow.
The Covid-19 death toll has already outstripped that of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which broke out in Southern China in 2003. And a handful of victims have perished beyond the People's Republic. Yet, coronavirus mortality rates are way below ebola and H5N1. And, thirty times more people died from influenza in the US last year than in China from this coronavirus outbreak.
Whatever the medical state of play, though, this killer bug is seriously impacting global markets and business. While China represented just 5 per cent of the world economy during SARS, now it accounts for a fifth - and around a third of global growth. And countless factories on China's eastern seaboard, of course, are deeply embedded in global supply chains.
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The economics of COVID 19
Up to Friday, markets have been treating the China coronavirus, COVID 19, as nothing more than a mild deflationary shock and were celebrating the prospect of further monetary policy loosening to offset it.
It’s been the classic bad news is good news thing, with markets focused not on the news itself but on the likely central banks’ reaction to it: these days markets are more concerned about liquidity and interest rates than anything else.
The clue to this has been the reversal of bond yields. The US 10-year yield was rising after the low of 1.46 per cent in September and almost reached 2 per cent on January 1, but since then has to returned to 1.46 per cent as bond prices have rallied strongly.
And in a world where two-thirds of stockmarket buying is done by algorithms, that has been enough to push markets back above the pre-coronavirus peaks … at least until the economic data out of China becomes bad enough to tip the algorithms into selling mode.
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China’s recent air pollution levels may be telling a story about the coronavirus impact on its economy
Published Sun, Feb 23 20207:49 PM EST
Key Points
- Analysts are using pollution levels as a gauge of industrial activity. Major cities in China are well known for being choked by smog, due to the extensive burning of coal by factories.
- On Feb. 20, daily coal consumption of six major power plants was 42.5% less than the same period last year, according to Japanese bank Nomura, which has been tracking such metrics daily.
- “The weak resumption of production is reinforced by a set of high-frequency indicators in the areas of energy consumption, real estate transactions, passenger traffic, and air quality,” J.P. Morgan wrote.
Zhang Peng | Contributor
All eyes are on China’s progress in getting its factories to crank up again, after the country extended this year’s Lunar New Year holiday and shut down major growth regions in a bid to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
Many of its provinces started gradually limping back to some form of production last week, about two weeks later than previous years.
The Chinese government has also been giving regular updates, reporting last Wednesday that work resumption rate has topped 50% for some industrial companies in key economic regions such as Guangdong and Shanghai.
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Xi: Virus is China's biggest health threat
Feb 24, 2020 — 1.07pm
Shanghai | President Xi Jinping called the coronavirus outbreak the biggest health crisis in China's modern history but said the fundamentals of the country's long-term economic growth have not changed because of it.
Urging the country to get back to work after a five-week shutdown, Mr Xi said the government would step up measures to keep employment stable. Thousands of smaller businesses have stopped paying wages as they run out of funds.
"This is both a crisis and a big test for us," Mr Xi told a gathering of China's Communist Party members on Sunday.
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Gold the cure-all for virus fears
Feb 24, 2020 — 3.20pm
The biggest bet on gold futures on record says everything about the state of investor anxiety as the globe-trotting COVID-19 virus shuts down borders, disrupts supply chains and threatens to derail global growth.
The warning from China's president Xi Jinping that the killer virus would have a "considerable impact" on the world's second largest economy stood out among a litany of gloomy headlines over the past 48 hours, which included South Korea raising its alert levels and neighbouring countries shutting borders with Italy and Iran.
The window for preventing a global pandemic is closing and jittery investors are inoculating their portfolios with the gold standard of safe haven assets: bullion.
The precious metal soared to seven year high of $US1661 an ounce on Monday, justifying the increasingly large licks of capital being bet on gold as showcased by the latest data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
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What we still don't know about the coronavirus
Despite our sophisticated technology, research capability and international collaboration, we don't have the basic facts about the new coronavirus.
Feb 24, 2020 — 3.08pm
Despite the daily tsunami of material hitting the world about the new coronavirus, we still don’t have basic information about it.
We don’t really know how this virus spreads, how many people are being infected or what the real death rate is, according to Peter Collignon, professor of microbiology at the Australian National University.
As of Monday morning, Australia had 22 confirmed cases. There were eight in Queensland, six in Victoria, four in NSW, three in South Australia and one in Western Australia.
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Experts warn of global coronavirus pandemic and local sport cancellations
By Liam Mannix, Rachel Clun and Kate Aubusson
February 24, 2020 — 3.59pm
Leading Australian scientists have warned that major football games and concerts could be cancelled and schools closed as a coronavirus pandemic appears increasingly likely.
Large outbreaks in Italy, Japan, Iran and South Korea were reported in the past few days, suggesting containment measures have not stopped the spread of COVID-19, several scientists told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
“Things have changed over the past 48 hours quite remarkably,” said Professor Nigel McMillan, an infectious diseases expert at Menzies Health Institute in Queensland.
“We are now in a situation where I think everyone is coming to the conclusion the chances of a pandemic are very high.”
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Is the coronavirus the 'Black Swan' event that blows up the US market?
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
February 24, 2020 — 3.30pm
Was that shiver through global sharemarkets on Friday and in Australia on Monday an indication that it might be the coronavirus that finally bursts the global equities bubble?
Perhaps not – we’ll find out in time – but the sell-off on fear that the virus will have a bigger impact on global growth than anticipated underscored how vulnerable the markets, and indeed the economies, are to any kind of shock. The local S&P/ASX 200 index fell more than 2 per cent on Monday, wiping about $50 billion off the market.
More than a decade of ultra-low interest rates and, more recently, Donald Trump’s tax cuts have powered sharemarkets to record levels and encouraged an explosion of debt at every level.
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Why investors are redoing their virus numbers
Investors are becoming increasingly nervous about the ability of central banks to protect them from the economic ravages of the coronavirus.
Feb 25, 2020 — 12.00am
Are central banks powerful enough to offset the economic ravages of the fast-spreading COVID-19 virus?
That's the question that's rattling investors as they contemplate the new pockets of coronavirus infection that have flared up in South Korea, Iran and Italy.
Anxious investors are flocking to the traditional safe havens, such as high-quality bonds and gold, amid fears that authorities are powerless to stop the spread of the virus - which has infected more than 78,000 worldwide and killed more than 2400, nearly all in China.
For a while, investors comforted themselves with the idea that if the coronavirus did dampen global economic activity global, central banks would be forced to cut interest rates even further, and this would mean that interest rates would remain even lower for an even longer period of time.
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Fear factor: Global markets in turmoil as pandemic looms
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
February 25, 2020 — 11.46am
It’s not quite carnage yet but the big falls in overseas stock markets on Monday were a response to investor recognition that the coronavirus is not just a problem for China and perhaps the wider Asia Pacific, nor just a blip in the global growth rate, but is rapidly becoming a global and more lasting threat.
Until it became clear that the virus had gained a beachhead in Europe, with parts of northern Italy in lockdown, financial markets had seen the economic effects of the virus as limited, confined mainly to China and likely to shave a couple of percentage points of China’s March quarter GDP growth rate before business-as-usual was resumed.
Now, with the virus established in China, South Korea, Japan and Italy and cases emerging through the Middle East, it is clear that we are on the verge of a pandemic and that the disruption to global supply chains and business more generally is going to be deeper, more widespread and more persistent than anticipated.
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Virus economic impact will be worse than bushfires: Morrison
Feb 25, 2020 — 1.49pm
Scott Morrison has ruled out a fiscal stimulus package as the government announced that the economic effect of the coronavirus would be worse than that of the bushfires and all but conceded the forecast budget surplus had gone.
At the same time, Mr Morrison hinted that the travel ban in place for China could be lifted earlier than anticipated when he spoke of the resounding success of Australia in keep the disease at bay so far.
Mr Morrison said 30,000 Australian citizens, residents and immediate family members had entered Australia from China since the travel ban was imposed on February 1 and the self-isolation under which they quarantined themselves for 14 days had resulted in no human-to-human transfer of the disease.
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Virus hit to trade will be 'far larger' than Trump
Feb 26, 2020 — 12.00am
The coronavirus will force boards of directors around the world to review their supply chains and reduce their reliance on China, according to Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, the world's largest fund manager.
Mr Fink told The Australian Financial Review that if the impact of the coronavirus was prolonged and this harmed world economic growth, it would be up to governments to provide fiscal stimulus rather than central banks cutting interest rates.
"I was surprised that the markets were so stable in front of the whole uncertainty around the coronavirus," he said in an interview in Sydney.
"What I believe we are witnessing is some real questions related to how should world trade be navigated. World trade has been questioned through [US] President [Donald] Trump's approach in terms of imposing tariffs and that was the first, I would say, blow towards globalisation.
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Americans should brace for a coronavirus outbreak: US health officials
Feb 26, 2020 — 6.42am
Washington | US health officials have warned Americans to begin preparing for a seemingly inevitable outbreak of coronavirus infections across the country, triggering a fresh plunge on stock markets and rush for haven assets.
In a dramatic change of tone, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the country was no longer immune from the disruption and illness caused by the virus.
"Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in the United States," said Nancy Messonnier, an official at the centre said on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT).
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Virus emergency blueprint: Australia pulls trigger on pandemic plan
By Kate Aubusson and Melissa Cunningham
February 26, 2020 — 12.15am
The Australian government has activated its emergency response plan to an impending coronavirus pandemic, foreshadowing fever clinics, fast-tracked vaccines and severe pressure on hospitals, blood banks, medical supplies and mortuaries.
Dubbed "The COVID-19 plan", the blueprint outlines a strategy in the event of a large-scale coronavirus outbreak as world leaders and biosecurity experts warn a pandemic is almost inevitable.
The international fallout of coronavirus is sparking fears of a global economic slow down.
The document flags a "precautionary approach", emergency pandemic legislation, and provisions for the Prime Minister to assume prime responsibility for efforts to contain the disease.
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'In the eye of the storm': Global economy is heading for a sudden halt
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
February 26, 2020 — 9.20am
COVID-19 is self-evidently beyond the point of meaningful containment for the world as a whole. Virologists and infectious disease experts have known for three weeks that this was highly probable, and certainly not a mere tail-risk as suggested by equity market pricing. We are now there.
The global economy may be heading for some sort of "sudden stop" in supply chains, trade flows and tourism, more akin to the outbreak of the First World War than the Lehman or dotcom crises.
What happens or does not happen in Wuhan has been overtaken by events in Iran, Italy, the Pacific rim and no doubt Africa as well if there were surveillance data.
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COVID-19 exposes Australia's drug supply 'house of cards'
Dr Simon Quilty says vital drugs should be made locally as a back-up
26th February 2020
The threat of a COVID-19 pandemic has exposed Australia’s reliance on overseas drug manufacturing as a “house of cards”, doctors say.
Essential medicines, such as insulin, should be produced locally to protect Australians from the impact of crises like COVID-19, says Dr Simon Quilty, a national security researcher and a general physician at Alice Springs Hospital.
“We can’t even make paracetamol here,” says Dr Quilty, a fellow at the Institute for Integrated Economic Research Australia, a national security thinktank.
“A lot of the time, China makes the active pharmaceutical ingredients, then the next stop is India, where they’re turned into actual pills and vials.”
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Virus on path to becoming pandemic: US experts
Bailey Lipschultz
Feb 27, 2020 — 6.16am
New York | The coronavirus outbreak that began in China and has spread through the world and into the US is on track to become a pandemic, a top official at the Food and Drug Administration warned.
"For all intents and purposes, I think it's fair to say we are on the cusp of the pandemic," Peter Marks, head of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in an interview. "Is it definitely going to happen? No, but there is significant concern, as of overnight we have cases on six continents."
While the US has so far seen a smaller number of cases compared to hotbeds for the virus in China, US regulators are ramping up measures to combat the anticipated spread of the outbreak, Marks said ahead of a keynote presentation at the SVB Leerink Global Healthcare Conference in New York.
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Shipping data reveals virus hit to the economy
Feb 27, 2020 — 10.20am
The coronavirus outbreak will slice another 0.2 per cent from Australia's economic growth in the March quarter, warn JP Morgan economists using a new analysis of ship movements.
The volume of shipping leaving Australia dropped by over half in the first week of February, due to the virus and bad weather, and has only just recovered.
JP Morgan's Ben Jarman and Tom Kennedy predict that goods exports, which are around 75 per cent of total exports, will finish the quarter down 2 to 3 per cent.
"We are taking another 0.2 percentage points off the net trade contribution to Australian GDP in the March quarter," the pair said.
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Virus downturn will be longer and deeper than you think
The coronavirus has hurt the growth engine of an already feeble world economy. This may not be just a blip like SARS was.
Feb 26, 2020 — 6.30pm
The world economy has clearly caught a cold. The outbreak of COVID-19 came at a particularly vulnerable point in the global business cycle. World output expanded by just 2.9 per cent in 2019 – the slowest pace since the 2008-09 global financial crisis and just 0.4 percentage points above the 2.5 per cent threshold typically associated with global recession.
Moreover, vulnerability increased in most major economies over the course of last year, making prospects for early 2020 all the more uncertain. In Japan, the world’s fourth-largest economy, growth contracted at a 6.3 per cent annual rate in the fourth quarter – much sharper than expected following another consumption-tax hike.
Industrial output fell sharply in December in both Germany (-3.5 per cent) and France (-2.6 per cent), the world’s fifth- and tenth-largest economies respectively. The United States, the world’s second-largest economy, appeared relatively resilient by comparison, but 2.1 per cent real (inflation-adjusted) GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2019 hardly qualifies as a boom. And in China – now the world’s largest economy in purchasing-power-parity terms – growth slowed to a 27-year low of 6 per cent in the last quarter of 2019.
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World records coronavirus milestone as WHO warns against a 'paralysing' pandemic declaration
By Bevan Shields
February 27, 2020 — 7.26am
Venice: The number of new coronavirus cases reported outside China has exceeded the number of new ones in China for the first time, as a top official warns that prematurely declaring a pandemic could "paralyse" global efforts to contain the outbreak.
World Health Organisation director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed there were 412 new cases in China as of Thursday morning Australian time compared to 459 confirmed infections in other countries, a milestone fuelled by major clusters in Italy, Iran and South Korea.
Professor Kanta Subbarao, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza explains what we do and don't know about the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.
In an update to affected nations, Dr Ghebreyesus repeated his view that the spike in cases in Europe, Asia and the Middle East is "deeply concerning" but pushed back against the option of declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic.
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You and I may get coronavirus - and live with it: here's how to prepare for a pandemic
By Ian Mackay
February 27, 2020 — 12.00am
It’s impossible to avoid news about the impact of the clumsily named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
The illness it causes, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is on every news and social media platform in a hyperlinked world. In China, the spread of SARS-CoV-2 from each infected person to about three new people launched an epidemic across a nation of modern megacities.
From there it hitched a ride in infected travellers to more than 30 other regions. It's spreading quickly because no one has any immunity to this new and distinct virus.
Some nations, such as Singapore, have valiantly limited the spread while others, such as Korea, Italy and Japan, have seen rapidly rising COVID-19 cases. Of concern to the Middle East was the unseen spread in Iran, first identified through deaths. Because death lags illness onset by weeks and represents only a small portion of all SARS-CoV-2 infections, there are likely many cases already there.
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When China sneezes, our economy shivers
Jessica Irvine
Economics writer
February 27, 2020 — 12.00am
I was a cub economics reporter in 2007 when the news broke that China had overtaken Japan as Australia’s biggest two-way trading partner. It didn’t seem like much at the time. Turns out it was a pretty big deal.
Indeed, the rise of China has turned out to be the single biggest driver of the Australian economy and Australian living standards in the 13 years since.
As a nation, we’ve surfed the rising tide of China’s voracious appetite for progress, and grown rich supplying the iron ore and coal needed to fuel its furnaces. China has been our biggest opportunity. Now it poses our biggest risk.
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For COVID-19, heed the expert view
Grant Wilson
Feb 27, 2020 — 10.40am
We are writing this column reluctantly. There is a deluge of media coverage on COVID-19 at the moment, and we are hesitant to add to the noise. The gap between what we are seeing and what we are reading is the main reason to cross the line.
Exante Data is based in New York. We provide macro advisory and data analytics to the top tier of global finance: hedge funds, pension funds, central banks, corporates and private banks. The past month has been frenetic, as awareness of the profound risks and uncertainties associated with COVID-19 have started to filter through.
The demand for real-time intelligence became so overwhelming that we launched a daily publishing protocol in January, to ensure our clients had the best-in-class data at hand. We recently augmented this with open-sourced statistics tracking China’s return to work.
If COVID-19 is not contained by May, the empirical premises upon which risk management systems have been designed ... will necessarily fail.
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ASIC warns on coronavirus market 'shocks'
Feb 28, 2020 — 9.57am
The corporate regulator has instigated a coronavirus "pandemic plan" and warned that long running hidden problems in financial markets could be exposed by the volatility "shocks".
Australian Securities and Investments Commission chairman James Shipton said ASIC was monitoring corporate contingency plans in case the virus spread and checking that listed companies were disclosing to investors any material impact on their profits.
Mr Shipton said the regulator was monitoring the spike in the "VIX" volatility index and he noted the 4.4 per cent plunge in the US S&P500 overnight that tipped Wall Street into official correction territory.
Mr Shipton was infected with swine flu in Asia in 2009. He is drawing on his previous experience working as a Goldman Sachs financier, regulator and finance academic in Hong Kong and the United States during times of health pandemics and the 2008 finanical crisis.
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https://www.afr.com/world/europe/an-epidemic-is-coming-europe-prepares-for-the-worst-20200228-p5457e
'An epidemic is coming': Europe prepares for the worst
Feb 28, 2020 — 9.23am
London | French President Emmanuel Macron has raised fears of a major coronavirus crisis on the Continent, as Europe ramped up contingency plans, sharemarkets plunged and increasing numbers of public events were threatened with cancellation.
"We are facing a crisis, an epidemic is coming," Mr Macron said on Thursday (Friday AEDT) during a hospital visit. "We know that we're only at the beginning. We're going to try and make the right decisions."
The number of French cases doubled in a day to almost 40, as the French authorities began mapping the network of infection. But some cases remain unexplained, with no evidence of either Italian or Chinese origins.
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Economic carnage could top $6b by July
The virus hit is not huge for a $2 trillion Australian economy. But it's the sapping of confidence than matters.
Feb 27, 2020 — 2.01pm
The world is holding its collective breath as the coronavirus appears to be breaking free from existing containment efforts. While news from China has been improving, the significant outbreaks in South Korea, Japan, Italy and Iran have sent global stock markets into freefall.
In times like these it’s useful to take stock and consider the evidence to inform the decisions of tomorrow.
Brazil is just as dependent as Australia is on selling minerals to China. Chinese travellers make up an even greater proportion of Vietnam’s tourism industry than is the case here. And everywhere from Britain to Thailand laps up the dollars on offer from teaching Chinese students.
But Australia is a standout on all three fronts.
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Trump faces a 'Chernobyl moment' after slashing pandemic defences
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
February 27, 2020 — 4.58pm
London: Three weeks ago there was much talk of a "Chernobyl moment" for China's Communist Party, discredited by totalitarian attempts to suppress news of the spreading coronavirus in Wuhan. But fast-moving events can play wicked tricks, especially on a White House allergic to scientific facts.
The new coronavirus, or COVID-19, is more likely to be the Chernobyl moment for US President Donald Trump. His systematic destruction of the US pandemic defences - policy vandalism of the first order - and his surreal efforts to conjure away the virus with denialist spin suddenly brings an unthinkable prospect into play.
The coming backlash may sweep presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders into power on a socialist manifesto of Piketty wealth taxes, the partial closure of the US oil and gas industry, and vast increases in the size and role of the US government, all with an implicit budget deficit of $US3 trillion. Try feeding that into your models for GDP growth, equity prices, or bond yields.
The Trump administration has cut funding for the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) by 9 per cent. This month he proposed slashing it a further 16 per cent. The worst hit area has been pandemic preparation. The CDC's global health security initiative has been chopped by 80 per cent.
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When doing nothing might just be the best option
By Scott Phillips
February 26, 2020 — 12.00am
The coronavirus radiating globally is a humanitarian crisis. Yet the world’s stock markets are open. Shares are being bought and sold, with many are selling for much less than before the outbreak.
We cannot know how far or fast this virus will spread and can only guess at what governments and regulators will do as a result.
In the face of this uncertainty, should we just sell and wait it out?
Not so fast. Investing is full of these sorts of uncertainties. If we didn’t invest when things were uncertain, we might as well close the stock – and property – markets now.
There will be another recession. We just don’t know when. There will be another technology slump like the dot.com crash and another form of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).
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Everyone will get coronavirus, virologist warns as Scott Morrison activates pandemic plan
Federal and State health ministers will hold talks in Melbourne today after the government's decision to enact stage one of its coronavirus pandemic plan. The emergency respo...
Scott Morrison has moved ahead of international health authorities to activate a pandemic plan, as one of Australia’s leading virologists declared everyone will eventually contract coronavirus, but for most it will be no worse than a bad cold.
The Prime Minister warned on Thursday that the threat of the virus was “very much upon us”, saying the government was triggering preparations for fever clinics, aged-care home lockdowns and increased medical stockpiles.
University of Queensland professor Ian Mackay said it was unrealistic to expect that the COVID-19 virus could be contained. All countries should prepare for how they would manage an influx of cases, he said.
“It doesn’t look like this virus is ever going to go back in its box,” Professor Mackay said.
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Regulators work to ensure market stay open in any virus crisis
Corporate watchdog chairman James Shipton said “one never knows” the impact of pandemic events on financial markets, but warned the regulator stood “prepared for any eventuality” and was teaming up with global watchdogs to guard against the crisis.
Appearing before the parliamentary oversight committee on Friday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said it was working with large institutions and the Australian Financial Markets Association to ensure financial markets remain open during the coronavirus outbreak, which is threatening to explode into a pandemic.
ASIC executive director of markets group Greg Yanco said the regulator was making sure the market could operate, although he said the economic impact of the COVID-19 virus was uncertain.
Mr Yanco said a number of AFMA institutions had tested financial market infrastructure if their organisation needed to move to another site or have staff working from home.
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Events sector braces for coronavirus cancellations
Feb 28, 2020 — 6.23pm
The boss of Australia's biggest convention centre says mass cancellations of conferences are almost inevitable as more multinationals issue blanket travel bans in light of the worsening coronavirus outbreak.
The Sydney International Convention Centre (ICC) has had only a "single digit" number of customers postpone or downgrade events since coronavirus hit the headlines in January, according to chief executive Geoff Donaghy.
One of those is Salesforce, the provider of customer relationship management software, which this month cancelled a regional user conference and converted it to a virtual event, but will still use the ICC's videoconferencing and webinar facilities.
However, even if the virus remained out of Australia, Mr Donaghy said the rising number of multinationals issuing no-travel advice to their workforce would have a "compounding and increasing effect" and that outright cancellations were probably inevitable.
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Coronavirus is a classic case of market failure
Central banks and treasuries will need to provide a liquidity bridge to keep markets alive until the crisis is resolved.
Feb 28, 2020 — 2.00pm
The inherently unknowable nature of the coronavirus (COVID-19) is creating widespread global market failure, as demonstrated by the highly disorderly 5 per cent drop in US equities overnight Friday (including an extra hour of trading via the US equities futures market).
This has brought the total equities correction to date to more than 12 per cent, with much more downside lying in wait as the newsflow is bound to remain negative.
At the same time, we have seen the primary new-issue bond market starting to shutter, which will make it increasingly difficult for global businesses (ie, corporates) to refinance their debts. The only safe havens are arguably the large global banks, which can tap both government-guaranteed deposits and unlimited central bank liquidity.
This is a classic case of "market failure" flowing from extreme information asymmetries. Economist Ken Arrow won the Nobel Prize in economics for showing, among other things, how imperfect information can give rise to market closures or severe illiquidity as participants are forced to make the worst possible assumptions about pay-offs given their inability to properly judge them.
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Coronavirus now poses 'very high' risk at global level: WHO
Stephanie Nebehay
Feb 29, 2020 — 6.29am
Geneva | The risk of a global spread and impact of the coronavirus is now "very high", the highest level of alarm, but containment is still possible, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it would be a "big mistake" to switch from a public health strategy of containment to mitigation, where authorities accept the virus is spreading.
In recent days, 24 cases had been exported from Italy to 14 countries and 97 cases from Iran to 11 countries, Tedros said.
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The coronavirus test for Trumpism
Pandemics have to be managed through trust and competence. Trump's White House is not known for generating much of either.
Feb 29, 2020 — 12.00am
In 2001, George W. Bush urged Americans to go shopping. That was after the September 11 attacks. Donald Trump wants Americans to buy stocks on the bet that something bad will not happen: the spread of the coronavirus infections at home. His gamble could pay off.
But the President is staking his credibility on something mostly beyond his control. Short of severing all links to the world, which would trigger a recession, the virus will almost certainly spread in the US, say the experts, including those who work for Trump. At which point, who will he blame?
So far Trump has avoided blaming anyone, including China. His priority is to keep the economy growing in the build-up to the November presidential election. Officials have been told to talk down the threat of the coronavirus.
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How Australia defied global health authority on coronavirus
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
February 28, 2020 — 7.23pm
Was Australia about to put the cash flow of its universities ahead of the peoples' health in the middle of a pandemic? Was the Morrison government about to bungle the coronavirus response as badly as it did the bushfires?
As MPs and senators returned to Canberra this week for a parliamentary sitting, it was a topic of lively concern. Government members knew that the universities had been agitating behind the scenes for the China travel ban to be relaxed as soon as possible. Some 100,000 of their Chinese students are caught by the ban and the unis want them back in Australia. Paying fees.
The Chinese government had been complaining about the ban for weeks, too. Australia had been "discriminatory", according to the Chinese embassy in Canberra. In multiple meetings across the government, every week with the politicians who have let them in, China's officials have been pressing their case hard.
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Australia can't 'lock itself off' from world as $200b wiped from market
By Eryk Bagshaw and Shane Wright
February 28, 2020 — 6.13pm
Australia is considering further restrictions and quarantine measures on travellers from countries outside China, as the US weighs a South Korean travel ban and the coronavirus smashed $210 billion from the value of the nation's biggest companies.
Australian shares had their largest weekly fall since the global financial crisis after panic selling gripped local and international markets, losing $210 billion in value while new figures showed the federal budget is now $3.7 billion behind the Morrison government's target to produce a surplus.
Travel restrictions or quarantine measures could be extended if the virus remains contained to pockets in Italy, South Korea and Iran, but will not be effective if it moves to a true global pandemic.
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Keep calm and save on: super funds urge members not to panic
By John Collett
February 29, 2020 — 11.15am
Wipeouts on world sharemarkets as coronavirus fears grow are having a big impact on super funds but industry experts say fund members should resist the temptation to switch to more conservative investment options that risk leaving them worse off in the long run.
Most super funds have about half of their invested retirement savings exposed to Australian and overseas shares, which have both taken a beating over the past week.
In the US, the benchmark S&P 500 index fell 4.4 per cent on Thursday night (Australian time) – its largest single-day decline since 2011.
Wall Street fell again on Friday night - along with steep dips in the European and Asian markets - to lock in the worst week since the global financial crisis.
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Virus causing global economic ripples
· Associated Press
The coronavirus outbreak has begun looking more like a worldwide economic crisis as anxiety about infection emptied shops, cancelled events, cut trade and travel and dragged already slumping financial markets even lower.
In the US, more employers told their workers to stay home, and officials locked down neighbourhoods and closed schools. The wide-ranging efforts to halt the spread of the illness threatened jobs, salaries and profits.
"This is a case where in economic terms the cure is almost worse than the disease," said Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "When you quarantine cities ... you lose economic activity that you're not going to get back.'
The list of countries touched by the illness climbed to nearly 60 as Mexico, Belarus, Lithuania, New Zealand, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Iceland and the Netherlands reported their first cases. More than 83,000 people worldwide have contracted the illness, with deaths topping 2,800.
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After the plague, cashflow starvation strikes economy
Whether or not the pandemic turns into a recession, it is already spreading cashflow starvation, if anything faster than the disease itself.
This epidemic represents simultaneous demand and supply shocks for global businesses that can’t be remedied by any financial mechanism. It means that as a market correction trigger it is unique.
The cancellation of Mobile World Congress 2020, for which 120,000 telco and technology people from 200 countries had booked their tickets to arrive in Barcelona this week, probably did more to make the coronavirus look like a global pandemic and make the markets sit up and take notice than any WHO declaration could.
So on the day the congress was due to kick off this week, the process of adjusting financial market prices for a pandemic and recession began in earnest — downwards in the case of equities, upwards in the case of bonds and gold. By the end of the week it was looking more like a panic than an adjustment.
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China factory activity shrank at its fastest rate on record in February
Published Fri, Feb 28 20209:45 PM EST
Key Points
- China’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to a record low of 35.7 in February from 50.0 in January.
- The data highlight the damage from the coronavirus outbreak on the world’s second-largest economy.
- The results suggest deepening cracks in an economy already hit by the trade war.
What does the coronavirus mean for China’s economy?
Factory activity in China contracted at the fastest pace on record in February, highlighting the damage from the coronavirus outbreak on the world’s second-largest economy.
China’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to a record low of 35.7 in February from 50.0 in January, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Saturday, well below the 50-point mark that separates monthly growth from contraction. Analysts polled by Reuters expected the February PMI to come in at 46.0.
The somber readings provide the first official snapshot of the state of the Chinese economy since the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic which has killed almost 3,000 people in mainland China and infected about 80,000.
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China Purchasing Indexes Drop to Record Lows as Epidemic Stalls Output
Factory and nonfactory figures tumble to levels below readings during financial crisis
The official manufacturing purchasing managers index dropped to 35.7 in February from 50 in the prior month.
Feb. 28, 2020 10:02 pm ET
BEIJING—Official gauges of China’s factory and nonfactory activity plunged to record lows in February as the nation’s economy struggled to resume normal production as it faced the coronavirus epidemic.
The official manufacturing purchasing managers index tumbled to 35.7 in February from 50 in January, indicating a deep contraction. February’s reading from the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday was the first official data for a full month of economic activity in China since the coronavirus began affecting the economy in late January.
The index dropped to 38.8 in November 2008, when the financial crisis prompted steep losses on Wall Street and sent shockwaves through the global economy. The 50 mark separates expansion from contraction.
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In a pandemic, you will likely be treated at home
Feb 28, 2020 — 5.17pm
Specialised quarantine and hospital care may give way to home treatment for most Australians infected with a milder case of the novel coronavirus, as the health system braces for pandemic conditions.
Infectious disease experts said the growing number of viral patients outside China, which led the Prime Minister to declare an effective pandemic on Thursday, meant that public health strategy would have to move beyond preventing an outbreak to slowing and managing it.
That involved at least two key priorities: ensuring proper diagnosis and treatment by managing the strain on the healthcare system, and reducing person-to-person transmission in the community.
Dominic Dwyer, a pathology network director at NSW Health and a professor at Sydney University, said the former objective would be achieved during a pandemic, in part by hospitals becoming tougher in their triage decisions.
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Stock plunge unravels $17bn margin loans
12:00AM February 29, 2020
A $17bn punt on margin loans, which last year took speculative finance for share buying to its highest level since the end of the global financial crisis, has unravelled in dramatic fashion as investors were hit to cover losses triggered by a 10 per cent stockmarket plunge over the past week.
The nation’s biggest retail brokerage CommSec, a division of Commonwealth Bank, was on Friday inundated with “high volumes” of customer inquiries “due to recent market movements”.
Margin loans involve a revolving line of credit which allow an investor to borrow money to invest, and uses shares or managed funds as security. But due to their risky nature, investors can face huge losses if the market fails and can owe more than an original investment may have been worth. This prompts a margin call to top up the equity in the loan.
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Global stocks fall on virus fears after Wall Street plunge
By Avantika Chilkoti and Gunjan Banerji
AP
10:30AM February 29, 2020
US stocks extended a punishing sell-off Friday, dragged toward their worst week since the financial crisis by mounting investor unease about the economic fallout from the coronavirus epidemic.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 357 points — or 1.4 per cent — after being down more than 1,000 points before paring declines. The blue-chip index avoided falling by more than 1,000 points for the second consecutive day by staging a roughly 640-point rally in the last 15 minutes of trading.
The S&P 500 fell 0.8 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite recovered after being down more than 3 per cent to close roughly flat in a volatile session.
Stock losses have been broad, with all 11 of the S&P 500’s sectors falling into negative territory for the year this week. Additionally, more than 95 per cent of S&P 50 stocks are down more than 10 per cent from highs, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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'Zonked out': fears over too many prescription drugs in aged care
By Dana McCauley
February 26, 2020 — 12.03am
The peak bodies for aged care providers and older Australians have united to call for urgent action to address the overuse of psychotropic drugs, with residents' families continuing to raise concerns about their loved ones three months after the royal commission's interim report.
National Seniors chief advocate Ian Henschke said he was still fielding calls from family members concerned about the impact of drugs on their loved ones in aged care, with the long-term use of benzodiazepines like Valium and dementia drugs that cause confusion raising alarm bells.
"They're worried about the fact that their relative looks zonked out," Mr Henschke said.
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National Budget Issues.
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Morrison government is softening the ground for its much-vaunted surplus to disappear
By Shane Wright
February 25, 2020 — 4.28pm
The great fiscal rhetoric softening has begun.
A year ago it was so black and white - Scott Morrison trumpeted how the government was putting the "budget back in black".
Even though the Reserve Bank was about to start on a fresh round of interest rate cuts, the Treasury and government made clear the battle to return to budget surplus had been won.
It was a victory claimed too early.
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Nation facing per capita recession from coronavirus outbreak
It’s almost certain the coronavirus will tip the economy back into a recession — six months of economic shrinkage — in per capita terms.
That’s the definition of a recession that relates to living standards, not the definition the government prefers, which implies India — with a larger overall GDP — is a better place to live than Australia.
We don’t have the figures for the final quarter of last year yet, let alone the current one, but in September — long before bushfires and coronavirus emerged — the economy was struggling to outpace population growth.
By sapping confidence, this week’s sharp falls in equity markets, if sustained, will only add to the challenge of eking GDP growth in excess of 0.4 per cent — roughly, quarterly population growth — in the December, March and June quarters.
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https://www.afr.com/property/residential/home-building-contraction-poses-risk-to-gdp-20200226-p544f3
Home building rate worst in 19 years
Feb 26, 2020 — 1.48pm
Housing construction slumped at its fastest rate in 19 years in the final three months of last year, as the east coast-led housing recovery failed to stimulate new building and cast a further cloud on quarterly growth figures.
Total home-building fell 4.6 per cent in the December quarter to $17.5 billion, a much larger decline than economists expected and the biggest quarter-on-quarter decline since December 2000. It was the sixth straight quarter that housing construction has shrunk.
The residential decline, combined with a 3.4 per cent decline in the value of commercial work and a 1.5 per cent decline in infrastructure-driven engineering construction, pulled the quarterly total down 3 per cent to $49.8 billion in the last quarter, more than the median forecast of a 1 per cent decline, from September's seasonally adjusted total of $51.3 billion.
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Growth looks soft even before virus impact
Economic growth data next week are expected to show a sluggish expansion, putting more pressure on a federal budget that looks like falling short of a surplus.
Colin Brinsden
Australian Associated Press February 29, 202011:15am
The Morrison government's repeated claims of being superior economic managers will be put to the test next week when the latest growth figures are released.
Economists expect the national accounts for the December quarter will show another sluggish expansion and a weak starting point for what could be a negative result in the March quarter as the impact of the coronavirus takes hold.
Already Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's bragging last year of the budget being "back in the black" looks increasingly premature.
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Health Issues.
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Rethinking rare diseases
Natalie Tan
Lyndon Gallacher
Susan White
Lyndon Gallacher
Susan White
THE care of individuals with rare diseases has traditionally been challenging, owing to the large numbers of complex, undiagnosed patients with no treatment available. Rare diseases are undergoing a genomics-driven revolution, with opportunities for early diagnosis, clinical trials and, in some instances, treatment now changing the landscape.
We examine some of the changing concepts in the field of rare diseases, illustrating the importance of general practitioners and specialists gaining awareness of the impact of genomics on rare disease care.
Not so rare
Rare Voices Australia, the peak body representing Australians with rare diseases, defines a rare disease as any condition that is life-threatening or chronically debilitating, is statistically rare (with an estimated prevalence of one in 2000), or whose complexity demands special combined efforts to manage the disorder.
There are approximately 6000–8000 different rare diseases, with most having a genetic origin. Some examples of rare disease include cystic fibrosis, spinal muscular atrophy, and fragile X syndrome. While each disease is individually rare, collectively they are common, affecting one in 12 Australians. A small number of rare diseases are identifiable on newborn heel-prick testing, however, the majority have remained undiagnosed prior to the advent of genomic testing.
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Private health complaints dropping
Australians have fewer gripes with private health insurance but the 'bang for their buck' on benefits remains their biggest complaint, new data shows.
Finbar O'Mallon
Australian Associated Press February 25, 20204:05pm
Australians are making fewer complaints about their private health funds, new figures from the Commonwealth Ombudsman show.
Its latest State of the Health Funds report released Tuesday showed an 11 per cent drop in complaints in 2018/19 from the year before.
Benefits continue to remain consumers' biggest problem, with many surprised by the lack of routine treatments or standard items included in their plan.
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New plan for grappling with rare diseases
· Australian Associated Press
Doctors are set to become more familiar with rare diseases under a new national plan aimed at improving life for about two million people living with such conditions.
Health Minister Greg Hunt is launching the nation's first strategic action plan for rare diseases on Wednesday, to help speed up diagnosis and improve treatment of the illnesses.
The plan was created by Rare Voices Australia, which will also be given up to $3.3 million by the government over three years to make it happen.
This will include activities to improve knowledge and awareness of rare diseases among medical professionals.
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Australia's first euthanasia doctor tells his story of ending the lives of patients
Dr Cam McLaren has been involved in the deaths of 39 terminally ill patients, administering a lethal injection in three cases
26th February 2020
Melbourne oncologist Dr Cam McLaren has played a leading role in Victoria's voluntary assisted dying scheme.
In this extended interview, he explains his motivations, the ethical importance of his work and why he's prepared to endure the 'Dr Death' headlines.
Australian Doctor: The first time you administered the lethal drugs — given the ethical debate that has raged over the years, the belief by some doctors that it is not what medicine should ever be about — it must have been a huge moment for you?
Dr McLaren: My very first case was my own patient. She had lung cancer which had progressed very quickly through first-line treatment and was no longer suitable for more. And she chose to go at her home.
I attended at every stage of that to get acquainted with the whole process.
At the time that she took the drug, I felt myself in two frames. On one hand, I was trying to be comforting and confident to the family.
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Doctors want more aged care funding
The government wants to give home-based aged care service providers more flexibility as Australia's peak medical lobby demands more aged care funding.
Finbar O'Mallon
Australian Associated Press February 27, 202010:28am
The nation's peak medical body has renewed calls for the federal government to pump more money into nursing homes in the aged care sector.
Australian Medical Association president Dr Tony Bartone says the issue can't wait in light of the aged care royal commission's interim findings.
The call comes as the Morrison government introduced legislation in parliament on Thursday to free up money for home care service users in the aged sector.
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Private hospital sector ‘ready to share coronavirus load’
Private hospitals are offering to take over elective surgery cases from overstretched public hospitals in the event that there is widespread transmission of the coronavirus in Australia.
The federal government’s pandemic plan for COVID-19 warns that public hospitals may struggle to cope with any large influx of coronavirus patients, and would be forced to either cancel elective surgery or work in partnership with private hospitals to manage urgent cases.
Australian Private Hospitals Association chief executive Michael Roff met on Wednesday with federal Health Minister Greg Hunt and offered support from the private system in the event of a pandemic.
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One in 10 people not filling prescriptions because of cost
By Pallavi Singhal
February 26, 2020 — 2.42pm
More than one in 10 people in parts of Sydney say they have avoided or delayed filling a prescription because of cost and one in five people across Australia put off visiting the dentist.
The proportion of people who said their decision to fill a prescription was affected by cost rose by up to 50 per cent over the past three years in some parts of Sydney, the latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report has found.
Stephen Duckett, director of the Grattan Institute's health program, said people delaying treatment could have significant implications for their health and the healthcare system.
"It's a real issue, a doctor has decided that a prescription is necessary and then the person can't afford it," Dr Duckett said.
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International Issues.
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The 'Sanders surge' a wake-up call for Democrats
The next week and a half are crucial as the left-wing contender closes in on his goal – a takeover of the Democratic Party in the same way that Trump swallowed the Republican Party in 2016.
Feb 23, 2020 — 3.02pm
Washington | Democrat presidential nominee Bernie Sanders. Say it. Weird isn’t it? Now keep saying it. Marinade yourself in the idea.
The cantankerous 78-year-old “democratic socialist” senator from Vermont who isn’t even a member of the party is generating so much heat and momentum his prospects of stitching up this nomination are starting to get the whiff of inevitability.
His chances are already perhaps well north of 50 per cent.
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India is facing twin economic and political crises
India has now come to a watershed. Its powerful government can either focus its efforts on reinvigorating the economy or it can proceed with a transformation of an imperfect liberal democracy into something very different.
Feb 27, 2020 — 10.04am
India is undergoing another transformation. The India I first visited, in the 1970s, was impressively democratic — with the exception of the period known as the Emergency imposed by then prime minister Indira Gandhi between 1975 and 1977.
But its economy grew too slowly. After the balance of payments crisis of 1991, India introduced radical reforms. Over the next two decades its economy became faster-growing, while the political system remained robustly democratic.
After the global financial crisis, however, growth slowed. India’s politics is also now moving towards an aggressively illiberal form of majoritarianism. These twin changes are not for the better.
Arvind Subramanian, a former chief economic adviser, has co-authored a paper on the post-crisis slowdown. It notes that every important indicator — investment, credit, profits, tax revenue, industrial output, exports and imports — has weakened sharply since the financial crisis.
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The coronavirus might succeed where Trump failed
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
February 27, 2020 — 1.08pm
Is it possible that the coronavirus could produce the outcome that Donald Trump and the hawks in his administration have sought, but so far failed to achieve?
Trump’s "Make America Great" ambition has been largely about "de-Americanising" the world economy and the multilateral approaches and institutions that have underpinned globalisation.
It is an "America First" campaign that, to succeed, had to diminish China’s increasingly powerful and assertive role in the global economy and geopolitics while repatriating the offshore activity of America’s multinationals.
The trade war with China was in pursuit of both those goals, as has been America’s withdrawal from multilateral trade pacts like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and its assault on the World Trade Organisation and other multilateral institutions.
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Why China won't map the future
The term Indo-Pacific is a message to a rising China that it cannot expect others to accept its self-image as the centre of the region and the world.
Rory Medcalf
Feb 28, 2020 — 10.18am
The term "Indo-Pacific" may seem nothing more than a made-up new name for a map of maritime Asia that privileges India and dilutes China. But it has a rich history. Maritime Asia has never been a China-centric region.
An integrated two-ocean perspective has an ancient pedigree, with coastal India and archipelagic south-east Asia the true connective zone. This is a more enduring way of understanding Asia than short-lived 20th-century notions such as the Asia-Pacific.
The Indo-Pacific story is a history of connection, contestation and empires rising and falling across the seas. It illuminates the risks intrinsic to China’s hasty regional expansion, the promise of multipolarity as middle powers partner up, the staying power of the US despite Donald Trump and beyond him, and the value of many nations standing firm to help Beijing find a settling point based on mutual respect. The Indo-Pacific is thus a mental map, useful for many nations in drawing strength and solidarity from vast space.
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Syria air strike kills 29 Turkish soldiers
· Reuters
An air strike by Syrian government forces has killed 29 Turkish soldiers in northeast Syria, a Turkish official says, marking the largest death toll for Turkey in a single day since it first intervened in Syria in 2016.
The deaths were a serious escalation in the direct conflict between Turkish and Russia-backed Syrian forces that has been waged since early February.
Rahmi Dogan, the governor of Turkey's Hatay province bordering Syria's Idlib region, says 29 troops were killed and others were seriously wounded in the attack late on Thursday.
He says 39 injured were being treated in Turkish hospitals.
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Fed will 'act as appropriate to support the economy': Powell
Feb 29, 2020 — 6.55am
US stocks ended the week with yet another chaotic day of trading. Both the Dow Jones and S&P 500 benchmarks pared losses significantly on a late buying spree. The Nasdaq ended ever so slightly higher.
Ninety minutes before the closing bell, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell signalled in a four-sentence statement that he was open to an interest rate cut, though noncommittal about when. That came hours after another US policymaker said there was no rush to cut.
Investors initially appeared unimpressed with Mr Powell. With about half an hour of trading left in the session, the Dow was more than 900 points lower; losses topped 1000 points in morning trade and then swung back and forth at a furious pace through the day.
Then, suddenly, there was a turn. The Dow pared its losses by more than 600 points in the final 18 minutes to end down 1.4 per cent or 357 points at 25,409. It ended the week almost 3600 points lower. A run to 30,000 over for now.
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https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/us-taliban-sign-historic-troop-withdrawal-deal-20200301-p545on
US-Taliban sign historic troop withdrawal deal
Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Alexander Cornwell
Mar 1, 2020 — 2.52am
Doha | The United States signed a deal with Taliban insurgents on Saturday that could pave the way toward a full withdrawal of foreign soldiers from Afghanistan over the next 14 months and represent a step toward ending the 18-year-war in the nation.
While the agreement creates a path for the United States to gradually pull out of its longest war, many expect the talks to come between the Afghan sides may be much more complicated.
The deal was signed in the Qatari capital Doha by US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was on hand to witness the ceremony.
US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said that while the accord would be a good step, the road ahead would not be easy.
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'Somewhere between Game of Thrones and The Crown': Malaysia's political soap opera
By James Massola
February 28, 2020 — 6.47pm
Kuala Lumpur: "Reformasi! Reformasi! Reformasi!"
As the sun set over the Malaysian capital on Wednesday afternoon and light rain fell, if you closed your eyes and listened it was possible - just for a moment - to travel back in time to late 1998 when Malaysians were clamouring for reform.
Anwar Ibrahim, the charismatic leader of the People's Justice Party (PKR), had just thrown down the gauntlet to veteran prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.
Then, as now, Anwar offered the promise of a new Malaysia with a multi-racial, religion-tolerant, corruption-fighting and reforming government led by him.
Now, less than two years after Anwar and Mahathir joined forces to claim election victory and force through a change of government for the first time since independence 61 years ago, everything has gone off the rails.
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Earth's new 'mini-moon' is a 'big deal'
By Hannah Knowles
February 29, 2020 — 10.18am
Washington: Images of the night sky capture little more than a white dot zipping across gray static. Without the helpful green circle, it's easy to miss.
But two astronomers soon recognised the speck on their screens as something special: a likely "mini-moon" caught orbiting the Earth, only the second ever recorded.
With close to a million known asteroids - rubble from the birth of our solar system - but hardly any spotted circling our planet, this roughly compact-car-sized object is "a big deal," tweeted Kacper Wierzchos, one of the people who made the discovery.
Astronomers expect mini-moon sightings to grow far more common as a new, giant telescope going up in Chile starts scanning the sky. It's an exciting prospect for scientists interested in some day sending a spacecraft to study one of the rocks and maybe even bring it back to Earth.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
