BHUTAN
Nation goes into lockdown
The Himalayan kingdom has imposed its first nationwide lockdown due to a COVID-19 infection in a returning traveler who had been released from quarantine. The government issued a stay-at-home order for its approximately 750,000 people, and all schools, offices and commercial establishments were closed. The lockdown would be enforced from five to 21 days “to identify and isolate all positive cases, immediately breaking the chain of transmission,” a government statement said.
CHINA
Flood damage at US$25bn
Summer floods have left 219 people dead or missing, destroyed 54,000 homes and caused US$25 billion in direct damage, Vice Minister of Emergency Management Zhou Xuewen (週學文) said yesterday. The floods struck major river systems across the central and southern parts of the country. Major cities have been largely spared by the flooding, but the impact compounds losses to the economy from the pandemic that began in Wuhan late last year. Zhou said economic losses of 178.9 billion yuan (US$25.8 billion) were 15.9 percent higher than the average from flood damage over the past five years.
CHINA
Two test positive again
Two patients who recovered from COVID-19 months ago have tested positive again, raising concern over the virus’ ability to linger and reactivate in people whom it previously infected. A 68-year-old woman in Hubei Province, where the novel coronavirus first surfaced in December last year, tested positive on Sunday, six months after she was diagnosed with COVID-19 and recovered. Another man found to have contracted the disease in April after returning from abroad tested positive in Shanghai on Monday, but has not shown any symptoms. None of the patients’ close contacts has tested positive for the virus, but they have been placed under quarantine, local authorities said.
CHINA
Frozen wings test positive
Consumers in Shenzhen have been urged to exercise caution when buying imported frozen food after a surface sample of chicken wings from Brazil tested positive for COVID-19, a statement from the local government said. The positive sample appears to have been taken from the surface of the meat, while previously reported positive cases from other Chinese cities have been from the surface of packaging on imported frozen seafood. The chicken came from an Aurora Alimentos plant in the southern state of Santa Catarina, according to a registration number given in the statement. Virus tests of people who have possibly come into contact with the product, and tests of related products, all came back negative, it said.
INDONESIA
Mt Sinabung erupts again
Mount Sinabung erupted again yesterday with a string of blasts that sent plumes of ash 2km into the sky, triggering a flight warning and fears of lava flows. The activity marked at least the eighth time that the rumbling volcano on Sumatra has erupted in less than a week, although no injuries or major damage were reported. Authorities issued a warning to planes flying near the volcano, which last saw a deadly eruption in 2016. The crater’s alert status remained at the second-highest level, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Raditya Jati said Authorities had marked a 5km no-go-zone around Sinabung and warned of possible lava flows, he said.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
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