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.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
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