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.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while