PHILIPPINES
First mpox report this year
The Department of Health yesterday reported the nation’s first case of mpox this year, but said it was still determining whether it was the new and dangerous variant, clade 1b, sparking global alarm. The WHO last week declared the mpox surge a public health emergency of international concern, its highest alert level. The 33-year-old Filipino man who contracted the virus had not traveled outside the country, the department said in a statement. His case was reported by a government hospital on Sunday. Health authorities are awaiting sequencing results to check whether the case is clade 1b. “Symptoms started more than a week ago with fever, which was followed four days later by findings of a distinct rash on the face, back, nape, trunk, groin, as well as palms and soles,” the department said. Test results of specimens collected from the man’s skin lesions “are positive for Monkeypox viral DNA,” the statement said.
SRI LANKA
Colombo defends diplomat
Colombo has defended a top diplomat ordered by an Australian court to pay more than A$540,000 (US$361,000) in back wages and interest to her former housekeeper, Priyanka Danaratna, held in Canberra under “slavery-type conditions.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Permanent Representative to the UN Himalee Arunatilaka had followed government-approved rates in paying low wages. Arunatilaka had previously been the deputy high commissioner in Canberra for three years, up until 2018. The Federal Court of Australia on Thursday found Arunatilaka had breached the Fair Work Act and was not entitled to diplomatic immunity. Danaratna “worked seven days a week for three years, and she had two days off in that entire time — and she did that because she burned her hand while preparing some food,” her lawyer, David Hillard, was quoted as saying. The court was told that Danaratna was paid a total of A$11,212 for three years of work, while the national minimum wage for a 38-hour week was A$656.90. After running away from the diplomatic compound, Danaratna had sought refuge with the Salvation Army. However, the Sri Lankan foreign ministry said it “is satisfied that the said salary was paid to the domestic assistant by the employer as mutually agreed.”
NEW ZEALAND
Population growth stalls
Population growth has come to a near halt, Statistics New Zealand said yesterday, as tens of thousands of people exit a spluttering economy for greener pastures. It grew a modest 0.1 percent in the second quarter, with the population of 5.3 million growing by a meager 7,000, figures showed. Although the nation ranks highly in lists of the most desirable places in the world to live and work, the record numbers of arrivals in the past few years have been matched by departures. Commentators have blamed slow economic growth, high living costs and a housing crisis that has made it difficult for young New Zealanders to get on the property ladder. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has gone from worrying about immigration stoking inflation to an emigration brain drain. At its meeting earlier this month it said that “slowing net immigration” — along with tight monetary policy and government austerity — could be “dampening demand.” Fewer people were arriving and more were leaving “partly in response to weakening economic and labour market conditions,” it said, adding that the trend was likely to intensify in the coming year, “before recovering as labour market conditions” eventually improve.
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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