SOUTH KOREA
Arrivals to be quarantined
Every person arriving from overseas would be required to undergo two weeks of quarantine to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said yesterday. The country confirmed 105 new cases as of Saturday, bringing the total to 9,583, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. Of the new cases, 41 were travelers arriving from overseas, including 40 South Korean citizens and one foreigner, the agency said. The new mandatory isolation for all arrivals would go into effect on Wednesday, Chung said at a government meeting. The policy would also apply to South Korean citizens.
SINGAPORE
Man’s passport canceled
The city-state canceled the passport of one of its citizens who was found to have breached a requirement to quarantine himself after returning from overseas. The man arrived by ferry from Batam, Indonesia, on March 19, and left again for Indonesia the same day, despite being issued a notice to stay home for 14 days, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority said in an e-mail. He returned on Tuesday last week and was issued a second notice.
CAMBODIA
Entry rules tightened
The country yesterday reported one new case of COVID-19, bringing the total to 103 as it prepares to tighten entry requirements for foreign nationals to try to curb the spread of the virus. The new case is a 30-year-old woman who worked in a karaoke club in the northwestern Banteay Meanchey Province, the Ministry of Health said in a statement. A total of 21 patients have recovered since January, it said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday said that it would cancel visas on arrival for foreign nationals for one month, effective midnight today, to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
VIETNAM
Hospital locked down
Officials ordered one of the nation’s largest medical centers to be locked down and demanded that thousands of employees and people who recently visited Hanoi’s Bach Mai Hospital be tested for COVID-19 after nurses and food workers contracted the disease. The country, which has 179 confirmed cases and no reported deaths from the virus, has tied most recent infections to people arriving from Europe and other countries. The government, which is isolating foreigners and Vietnamese citizens entering the country from abroad, has quarantined or placed under monitoring 75,085 people. It has also suspended most international flights, restricted domestic travel and closed the majority of businesses across the country.
THAILAND
Virus cases reach 143
The country has 143 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 1,388, the spokesman of the government’s Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration said yesterday. The country also recorded one new fatality, bringing the total deaths to seven. The latest victim was a 68-year-old man from Nonthaburi Province who had attended a crowded boxing match in Bangkok, where there had been a cluster of infections, the spokesman said. Authorities have imposed a lockdown in the southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, while authorities on the resort island of Phuket have asked people to stay home between 8pm to 3am in a new restriction on movement to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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