A14 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, AUGUST 3 , 2020
The World
VENEZUELAAnti-Maduro coalition
rejects upcoming voteA coalition of political parties
in Venezuela led by U.S.-backed
Juan Guaidó said Sunday that it
will not participate in upcoming
congressional elections called by
officials loyal to President Nicolás
Maduro.
The 27 opposition parties
rejected the Dec. 6 vote as “fraud.”
The election would determine
control of the National Assembly,
which is led by Guaidó and is the
only branch of government that
Maduro does not control.
Maduro has said it is important
for his allies to win back control of
the assembly. He has accused
opposition leaders who control
the assembly of being
manipulated by the United States.
Venezuela is in a political and
economic crisis, and about
5 million people have fled the
nation in recent years.
In rejecting the election, the
opposition coalition cited unfair
conditions orchestrated by
Maduro. They said 30 opposition
lawmakers have been stripped of
immunity guaranteed by law,
while dozens have been driveninto exile and five are in jail. The
Supreme Court — loyal to Maduro
— recently appointed a new
election c ommission without the
participation of congress, as the
law requires.
Guaidó launched a campaign to
oust Maduro early last year, but
the socialist president still has
control over the military and other
major institutions.
— Associated PressCAMEROON16 killed in suspected
Boko Haram attackSuspected militants from the
Islamist militant group Boko
Haram killed at least 16 people
and wounded seven early Sunday
in a grenade attack on a camp for
displaced people in northern
Cameroon, a local official said.
The assailants threw a grenade
at people sleeping inside the camp
in the village of Nguetchewe,
district mayor Medjeweh Boukar
said. The camp is home to about
800 people, he said. The village is
close to the Nigerian border.
Over the past month, there have
been 20 incursions and attacks by
suspected Islamist militants,
Boukar said.Boko Haram has been fighting
for a decade to carve out an
Islamic caliphate based in Nigeria.
The violence, which has killed an
estimated 30,000 people, has
frequently spilled over into
Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
— ReutersBRITAINLawmaker arrested on
rape claim, reports sayB ritish media reported Sunday
that a Conservative Party
lawmaker has been arrested aftera former parliamentary aide
accused him of rape and sexual
assault while they were in a
relationship.
The Sunday Times and Mail on
Sunday did not name the
lawmaker, who they reported was
a former government minister.
The complainant alleged that the
man assaulted her and forced her
to have sex, according to the
Times.
The Metropolitan Police said it
is investigating allegations
relating to four incidents between
July 2019 and January.
The force said officers arrested
a man in his 50s on Saturday on
suspicion of rape and took him
into custody. The man has been
released on bail. The force did not
name the man, in accordance with
its usual rule of not naming
suspects until they are charged.
The governing Conservative
Party said in a statement that it
takes “all allegations of this nature
extremely seriously” but that it
could not comment because the
matter was being investigated.
The par ty said it wasn’t
suspending the lawmaker but may
review that decision once the
investigation has concluded.
The investigation came days
after former Conservativelawmaker Charlie Elphicke was
convicted of sexually assaulting
two women.
— Associated Press6 dead as rain hammers South
Korea: Torrential rain pounded
most of South Korea over the
weekend, leaving six people dead
and seven missing, officials said.
The Ministry of the Interior and
Safety said the rainfall triggered
landslides in dozens of places,
flooded residential areas and
roads, and damaged some
riverside structures. Much of the
damage occurred in the Seoul
metropolitan area and the central
region. The rain also injured six
people and left 360 homeless, the
ministry said.Israel downs rocket launched
from Gaza: The Israeli military
said it intercepted a rocket fired by
Palestinian militants from the
Gaza Strip. Air raid sirens
sounded in the southern Israeli
city of Sderot. There were no
reports of casualties, but Israeli
media reported damage to a
vehicle. The attack was the first
case of rocket fire from the
Palestinian enclave in nearly a
month.
— From news s ervicesDIGESTODED BALILTY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Israeli Arabs enjoy the Mediterranean Sea during the Eid al-Adha
holiday in Tel Aviv. Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, is
observed by sacrificing animals to commemorate the prophet
Ibrahim's f aith in being willing to sacrifice his son.BY EVA DOUT
his spring, Dave Wat-
son flew from his Brit-
ish factory to Dallas to
present the restaurant
chain Chuck E. Cheese
with his new coin-operated chil-
dren’s ride.
The machine, which Watson
said cost his company about
$64,000 to develop, featured a
miniature train chugging
around a grinning likeness of
Chuck E. Cheese’s mouse mas-
cot.
Then the pandemic shut-
do wns hit, forcing many busi-
nesses to close or rethink every-
thing from how to serve custom-
ers to how to get supplies.
Bankruptcies were not far be-
hind. A wave of major U.S.
corporate brands have sought
Chapter 11 protections.
The parent company of Chuck
E. Cheese did so in late June.
“This machine has been there
since March and still has not
had a child ride on it,” said
Watson, general manager of Jol-
ly Roger (Amusement Rides)
Ltd. “Sums the whole problem
up I guess.”
Fallout from the bankruptcies
of dozens of American compa-
nies is rippling across the globe,
as suppliers find themselves
with orders abruptly canceled
and customers saying they can’t
pay their debts.
One major problem for sup-
pliers: they are at a l ower priori-
ty level for debt repayment un-
der Chapter 11 bankruptcy rules
compared with secured credi-
tors such as banks. That means
for many factories, their new
orders have not only stopped,
but they face grim chances of
recouping payment for products
already shipped.
In southern China, Jay
Chiang, chief executive of Pier 1
Imports supplier Live Oak
(Yiwu) Co., said he had given up
hope of the U.S. retailer paying
him the $240,300 that it owes
for bulk orders of wind chimes
he shipped months ago.
“I feel a bit cheated,” he said.
“We didn’t understand the se-
verity of their situation until it
was too late.”
Pier 1 Imports did not imme-
diately respond to a request for
comment.
Some Asia-based clothing
suppliers of J.C. Penney are even
worse off. Several have filed
claims for more than $1 million
in owed payments after the
department store chain de-
clared bankruptcy in May.
Razat Gaurav, chief executive
of Michigan-based supply chain
consultancy Llamasoft, said that
many factories across Asia are
small and midsized enterprises
with limited balance sheets,
which makes them vulnerable in
this downturn.
The hit to industries like
textiles in particular threatens
livelihoods in the developing
world. Countries such as Ban-
gladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam
and Ethiopia rely heavily on
making shirts, socks and otherapparel to provide jobs and
support their economies.
Gaurav said that emerging
economies such as Vietnam
have made significant factory
investments in recent years, an-
ticipating a shift in production
out of China, where costs were
rising. But the small scale of
many of these factories leaves
them few safety nets against a
major downturn.
Even when demand recovers,
they will face a challenge of
rebuilding their workforce,
which has dispersed amid the
pandemic.
Worker protests have erupted
in India and Bangladesh, follow-
ing abrupt layoffs. Hundreds of
garment factories in Cambodia
have suspended operations as
their orders plunged, according
to the Garment Manufacturers
Association in Cambodia.‘There won’t be any hope’
Watson’s grim view up and
down his supply chain is similar
to that in many consumer indus-
tries right now. Downstream,
his main customer has filed for
bankruptcy. Upstream, many of
his suppliers in China and South
Korea have gone quiet, no lon-
ger returning messages.
One of his former suppliers
started trying to sell him disin-
fection chambers instead of
children’s rides, he said.
In Zhongshan, China’s capital
for amusement ride manufac-
turing, many of Watson’s suppli-
ers are struggling for survival.
In April, Zhongshan amusement
ride manufacturers reported to
provincial officials that overseas
orders had ground to a halt,
making it difficult for them to
meet factory rents and worker
salaries, according to an ac-
count published by an industry
group.
The local government ar-
ranged bank loans and other
subsidies to help tide them
through, but several companies
have filed for bankruptcy in
recent months.
Sun Junhao, the general man-
ager of Zhongshan-based indus-
try magazine Amuse China, said
that among the hundreds of
children’s ride makers there,
many are suffering, especially
those that had relied on foreign
exports.
“Exports have almost
stopped,” he said of the U.S. and
European markets. “We believe
there won’t be any hope before
the end of the year.”
Watson said one of his Zhong-
shan suppliers, M-Sky, had
dropped off the map, no longer
returning messages. A sales-
woman at M-Sky who gave only
her surname, Huang, said the
company was still operating but
had been hit hard by the global
economic slump.
“Procurement from Europe
usually starts in March,” she
said. “This year, their procure-
ment has not even started yet.”
In a normal year, Watson
would be selling dozens of rides
each week, mainly to U.S. buy-
ers. In a r ecent week, Watsonsaid he got only one order: from
an Iraq-based buyer for a small
carousel. Jolly Roger laid off
some employees last month.Adapting amid a pandemic
Gaurav said that many of the
companies that suffered the
most this year had been slow to
develop e-commerce channels
and had to scramble to adopt
new technology when the pan-
demic hit.
This was the case with depart-
ment store chains such as J.C.
Penney and Neiman Marcus,
and also with Chuck E. Cheese.
As the coronavirus shutdown
wore on, Chuck E. Cheese
sought to sell its pizzas through
a new delivery brand,
Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings —
which caused a kerfuffle when
diners discovered they were ac-
tually ordering Chuck E. Cheese
pizza.
Watson said that his team at
Jolly Roger is racing to develop
self-cleaning rides that are em-
bedded with an antimicrobial
coating developed by Connecti-
cut-based SD Labs.
“Realistically, you can’t wipe a
ride every time a child has been
on it,” he said.
Chuck E. Cheese chief execu-
tive David McKillips declined to
be interviewed for this article. A
spokesman said he was focusing
on guiding the company
through the Chapter 11 process.
This is the second time the
children’s game center chain has
gone through Chapter 11. Chuck
E. Cheese was launched as Pizza
Time Theater in 1977 by video
game pioneer Nolan Bushnell,
and its singing shows by over-
sized animatronic animals were
cutting-edge at the time.
Its first bankruptcy was in
1984, prompted by an intense
rivalry with copycat chain
ShowBiz Pizza Place. In the
ensuing merger, ShowBiz’s ani-
matronic mascots had to be
transformed into the Chuck E.
Cheese gang, a grisly mascot
plastic surgery process that ex-
ecutives called “concept unifica-
tion.”
Watson said that Jolly Roger
mainly specializes in classic ride
designs, such as carousels and
trains. His 3-year-old daughter
prefers the Dora the Explorer
ride made by a competitor, he
said, to his chagrin.
One of his selling points to
clients used to be his rides’
lasting quality, with some Jolly
Roger coin-operated rides in-
stalled 25 years ago still operat-
ing. Now, he says, they must
rethink many aspects of their
ride designs, and probably move
from coins to contactless pay-
ments.
Until then, there is one bright
note: The U.S. Mint announced
July 24 that coronavirus preven-
tion methods had resulted in a
nationwide coin shortage, and
encouraged citizens to spend
their change.
[email protected]Liu Yang in Beijing contributed to
this report.When Chuck E. Cheese cuts back on entertainment
Effects of the U.S. commercial bankruptcy wave are rippling across the globe, bringing pain for suppliers in Europe and Asia
JOLLY ROGER AMUSEMENT RIDESCHRIS DELMAS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
TOP: This new ride has been in a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Texas since March and still has not had
a child ride on it. The chain’s parent company filed for Chapter 11 protections. ABOVE: A closed Pier 1
Imports store in Culver City, Calif., is seen after the company filed for bankruptcy protection. The
stores’ inventory will be liquidated, leaving suppliers without payment for their products.