INDONESIA
New lockdown imposed
The country yesterday imposed a partial lockdown in the capital, Jakarta, across the main island of Java and on Bali as the Southeast Asian nation grappled with an unprecedented wave of COVID-19 infections. Mosques, restaurants and shopping malls were shuttered in virus hotspots across the Muslim-majority country, which recorded more than 25,000 new cases and 539 deaths on Friday, both new daily records. The country’s daily caseload has more than quadrupled in less than a month.
FIJI
COVID-19 outbreak worsens
Authorities have warned of a rising death toll from COVID-19 as an outbreak of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 threatened to overwhelm the South Pacific nation’s health system. Two more deaths were reported yesterday, along with hundreds of new infections just days after the country recorded its biggest-ever daily increase. “The steady increase in average daily case numbers in combination with other indicators suggest higher daily numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks,” Permanent Health Secretary James Fong said in a statement on Friday. The nation went an entire year without recording any community cases until April, when it was hit by a second wave of the quick-spreading Delta variant.
UNITED STATES
Miami condo evacuated
The city of North Miami Beach on Friday ordered the evacuation of a condominium building after a review found unsafe conditions about 8km from the site of last week’s deadly collapse in South Florida. An audit prompted by the collapse of Champlain Towers South in nearby Surfside found that the 156-unit Crestview Towers had been deemed structurally and electrically unsafe in January, the city said in a news release. The mayor of Miami-Dade County had suggested an audit of buildings 40 and older to make sure they are in compliance with the local recertification process after the condo building collapse last week that killed at least 22 people and left more than 120 still missing.
MEXICO
Rupture sets sea ablaze
The country’s state-owned oil company on Friday said it experienced a rupture in an undersea gas pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico, sending flames boiling to the surface in the Gulf waters. Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said it had dispatched fire control boats to pump more water over the flames. Pemex said nobody was injured in the incident in the offshore Ku-Maloob-Zaap field. The leak near dawn occurred about 150m from a drilling platform.
UKRAINE
Photos spark controversy
Authorities on Friday found themselves buried in controversy after official pictures showed female soldiers practicing for a parade in heels. The country is preparing to stage a military parade next month to mark 30 years of independence following the Soviet Union’s breakup, and the Ministry of Defense released photographs of fatigue-clad female soldiers marching in mid-heel black pumps. Several lawmakers close to former president Petro Poroshenko showed up in parliament with pairs of shoes and encouraged the minister of defense to wear high heels to the parade. “It is hard to imagine a more idiotic, harmful idea,” said Inna Sovsun, a member of the Golos party, pointing to health risks.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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