Briefly

JAPAN

Confidence sours at big manufacturers

Business confidence at Japan's large manufacturers turned negative in March for the first time in seven years, as sentiment was severely hurt by fears of the global economic impact from the coronavirus pandemic, the Bank of Japan said in its Tankan survey report on Wednesday. The sentiment index plummeted to minus eight from zero in the recording period, marking its lowest level since the same reading was logged in March 2013. On March 16, the central bank decided to introduce additional monetary easing measures in a bid to stabilize financial markets amid recent turmoil owing to the impact of the global spread of the virus.

IRAN

Washington missed chance to lift penalties

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday the United States had missed a historic opportunity to lift sanctions on his country during the coronavirus outbreak, though he said the penalties had not hampered Teheran's fight against the virus. "It was a great opportunity for Americans to apologize... and to lift the unjust and unfair sanctions on Iran," he said at a televised Cabinet meeting. "The sanctions have failed to hamper our efforts to fight against the coronavirus outbreak." Friction between the two countries has increased since 2018 when US President Donald Trump pulled the US out of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and reimposed sanctions.

AUSTRALIA

NSW state calls end to brutal bushfire season

New South Wales, the Australian state most severely affected by last summer's wildfires, has marked the official close to its worst bushfire season, which burned more than 6 percent of the state's land area and killed 25 people. The country's devastating fire season, which lasted from September until torrential rains hit in February, killed 33 people and a billion native animals nationally. It destroyed some 2,500 homes and a wilderness area the size of the Republic of Korea. Australian summers are now effectively twice as long as its winters as climate change has increased temperatures since the middle of the last century, according to researchers.

UNITED STATES

Video app Zoom quizzed over porn

Video conferencing app Zoom, which has seen its popularity skyrocket in the coronavirus pandemic, is in hot water after users complained to the FBI of being startled by porn during meetings. New York Attorney General Letitia James sent a letter to the enterprise "with a number of questions to ensure the company is taking appropriate steps to ensure users' privacy and security", a spokesman said. The investigation comes after the FBI's Boston office warned on Monday that it had "received multiple reports of conferences being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language".

Xinhua - Agencies