World

BANGKOK: Thailand and Malaysia agreed to expedite quarantine-free travels across the borders for travellers who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Thai Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha said on Friday (Feb 25) after meeting his Malaysian counterpart Ismail Sabri Yaakob in Bangkok. “We share the hope that fully vaccinated people will soon be able to travel between Thailand and Malaysia without quarantine, while following public health measures of both sides,” stated Gen Prayut during a joint press conference at the Government House in Bangkok. “Malaysia has called such channel ‘Vaccinated Travel Lane’ (VTL),” he added. According to the Thai prime minister, a joint working group will be set up to discuss guidelines for cross-border travels in order to expedite the reopening of bord...

"It is imperative to ensure that lifesaving medical supplies – including oxygen – reach those who need them," Tedros and Kluge said. Ukraine needs a 25% surge of oxygen supplies compared to the country's needs before Russia invaded last week, according to the WHO. The global health agency called for the establishment to create a safe transit corridor to increase oxygen supplies to Ukraine via a logistics route through neighboring Poland. "The oxygen supply situation is nearing a very dangerous point in Ukraine," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Europe Regional Director Hans Kluge said in a joint statement. "The majority of hospitals could exhaust their oxygen reserves within the next 24 hours. Some have already run out. This puts thousands of lives at risk," they said....

COLOMBO : In late November 2019, after winning Sri Lanka's presidential election and months ahead of a parliamentary ballot that would again test his popularity, Gotabaya Rajapaksa gathered his cabinet and made good on a campaign promise to slash taxes. The move, which included a near-halving of value added tax, blindsided some top central bank executives. "The tax cuts just after the elections came as a surprise," P. Nandalal Weerasinghe, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka's (CBSL) Senior Deputy Governor until September 2020, recalled. "There was not any kind of a consultative process," added Weerasinghe, who spent 29 years at the CBSL before retiring. The economic argument for the cuts was simple - to free up spending and boost Sri Lanka's ailing finances. A similar move by an administra...

The CIA has a secret, undisclosed data repository that includes information collected about Americans, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee said. While neither the agency nor lawmakers would disclose specifics about the data, the senators alleged the CIA had long hidden details about the program from the public and Congress. Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico sent a letter to top intelligence officials calling for more details about the program to be declassified. Large parts of the letter, which was sent in April 2021 and declassified Thursday, and documents released by the CIA were blacked out. Wyden and Heinrich said the program operated “outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection.” There have long...

BEIJING: China's factory activity expanded slightly in February as new orders improved, pointing to some resilience in the world's second-largest economy even as downward pressure builds and Russia's invasion of Ukraine heightens global uncertainty. The official manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) registered 50.2 in February, remaining above the 50-point mark, which separates growth from contraction, and picking up a touch from 50.1 in January, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Tuesday (Mar 1). Analysts had expected the PMI to ease to 49.9. China's economy rebounded strongly from a pandemic-induced slump in 2020, though momentum started to flag in the summer of last year, as a debt crisis in the property market and strict anti-virus measures hit cons...

HELP DURING PANDEMIC Dr Balakrishnan also spoke about how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) supported Singaporeans and other countries during COVID-19, noting that the ministry has helped bring home more than 4,600 Singaporeans from overseas since the pandemic broke out in 2020. He also commended the dedication of MFA employees during the pandemic. "Over 300 MFA officers have served Singapore and our overseas mission during this period, and I am very proud that not a single officer has asked to leave post because of the risk of the pandemic,” he said. About 40 MFA officers who were overseas as well as more than 150 foreigners employed at overseas missions contracted COVID-19 “despite our best efforts and health precautions”, said Dr Balakrishnan. COVID-19 will not be the last or w...

SINGAPORE: Singapore on Wednesday (Feb 16) announced the launch of vaccinated travel lanes (VTLs) with Hong Kong and other regions. VTL quotas will also be restored and progressively increased. In addition, authorities said they are streamlining border measures as part of a “pivot” in the country's travel policies. Speaking at a multi-ministry task force press conference, Transport Minister S Iswaran said the VTLs, which allow quarantine-free travel for those who are fully vaccinated, were set up “as a pathfinder to establish, test and build confidence in reopening safely”. “We made steady progress but had to take a pause due to Omicron,” he said, noting how Singapore deferred the launch of some VTLs late last year amid a rise in Omicron cases overseas. The country also temporarily cut...

YANQING, China : Germany not only lead the pack halfway through the two-man bobsleigh in the Olympics on Monday - they also held second and fourth places, underlining the dominance of the country that is home to a quarter of world's the bobsleigh tracks. Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis clocked 1:58.38 on two laps, 0.15 seconds ahead of team mates Johannes Lochner and Florian Bauer and 0.94 seconds ahead of a Russian Olympic Committee team. Friedrich lifted his fourth overall World Cup title in a row last month and along with Margis, boast golds from the 2018 Pyeongchang Games in the two-man competition, where they tied with Canada's Justin Kripps and Cam Stones for first place, and the four man-event. Germany have won six out of seven available golds so far in Beijing. But along...

WASHINGTON : DNA testing on seized ivory shipments that reveals family ties among African elephants killed for their tusks is helping to identify poaching areas and trafficking networks at the center of an illegal trade that continues to devastate the population of Earth's largest land animal. Researchers said on Monday they conducted DNA tests on 4,320 elephant tusks from 49 ivory seizures, totaling 111 tons in 12 African nations from 2002 to 2019. The results could help crack the transnational criminal organizations behind the trafficking and strengthen prosecutions. "Combining these results with evidence collected from our law enforcement collaborators enables us to collaboratively connect the dots across a massive criminal network," said University of Washington biologist Samuel Wass...

WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE IN THEM? Spiritual groups with cult-like tendencies have existed throughout Indonesia for hundreds of years, said anthropologist Kamaruzzaman Bustamam-Ahmad from Banda Aceh’s Ar-Raniry University. “This issue has been around for a long time in the archipelago, even before the arrival of the Dutch (in the 16th century). “Nowadays, people want to define what it is, and the problem is that it is common although it is against our rationality,” Mr Bustamam-Ahmad told CNA. The situation is especially complex given that Indonesia has hundreds of ethnicities, and most of them have their own indigenous beliefs, Mr Bustamam-Ahmad said. In addition, Indonesia also recognises major religions that originally came from abroad, such as Islam and Christianity. These religions we...