The Ministry of Education (MoE) would like to response to a letter, ‘Parents call for solutions ahead of new school term’, by Bothered By Omicron, published in the Opinion page of the Bulletin on December 29.
The MoE, through the Department of Schools and Department of Private Education, has taken steps in ensuring the safety of students, who have returned to school for face-to-face learning.
The standard operating procedures (SOPs) and guidelines for students have been shared by their schools, either through mobile chat groups or social media. Safety measures and guidelines in every school building are further highlighted in the form of infographics, with instructions and animated videos to raise awareness on the importance of social distancing, safe distance in classroom seating arrangements, mask wearing and hand sanitiser, as well as temperature check upon entering school premises. All students also have to carry out COVID-19 testing using the antigen rapid test (ART) kit every week.
For information on the first school term of 2022, the public is encouraged to contact the schools directly.
Corporate Communications Division, Ministry of Education
LOS ANGELES (AP) – If Mandy Moore (AP, pic below) is bracing for emotional whiplash, it’s understandable. She and her musician-husband, Taylor Goldsmith, welcomed their first child in February, an event she said that turned her world “Technicolour”, and the pair collaborated on an upcoming second album.
The cloud ahead: The end of This Is Us, the NBC drama that she says proved a “dream on every single level”, from her co-stars to the consistently challenging work. The 18-episode final season, which began yesterday on NBC, will include an episode directed by Moore.
“It’s going to be so horrific to say goodbye in a couple of months” when taping wraps, said Moore. “I haven’t really wrapped my brain around it yet.”
She plays matriarch Rebecca Pearson in the decade-shifting family drama created and produced by Dan Fogelman – who she said has steadfastly resisted pleas to keep it going.
Moore won’t have much of a lull after taping concludes.
Next summer, the singer-songwriter and Goldsmith plan to tour in support of their follow-up album to 2020’s Silver Landings, with son August in tow. Moore calls him “the best thing in my life” and a look-a-like for his Dawes band frontman dad, including the dimple they share.
In an interview with The Associated Press (AP), Moore talked about motherhood and what she sees ahead for her career, which already counts teen pop stardom, movies (A Walk to Remember, Saved!) and a lead actress Emmy nomination for This Is Us.
AP: As a new parent, how would you describe your life now?
Moore: It’s all of the clichés, life in Technicolour. It’s a boundless love that you never could have imagined. It’s exhausting and exhilarating and everything in between.
On a professional level, I approach my job with an entirely new heart. I want to go back to the beginning of this show now, because I have some idea of what it’s like to be a mother and what a mother’s love is and what it makes you do, and the crazy choices that you never could have imagined yourself making before becoming a parent.
AP: Your comment about wanting to revisit ‘This Is Us’ with your new perspective brings to mind how protective Rebecca was when her son Randall’s birth father tried to enter his life.
Moore: That’s exactly what I was thinking about. That was a choice that I really was at odds with Rebecca about early on.
It was really challenging to see how she possibly could have made that decision. And now being a mom, that was her baby. The idea that anybody could potentially harm your child emotionally or could potentially physically remove your child, all of that is unfathomable. So I definitely have a lot more compassion and empathy for the choice that she made.
AP: Dan Fogelman’s thrown challenges at you every season, building to Rebecca’s dementia. Can you recall your reaction when you learned what she’d face? Moore: It was initially shocking, but also heartbreaking.
This poor woman, at every juncture of her life, has had challenge after challenge. It really just says so much about who she is and what she brings to the table that with each challenge, she meets it with grace.
I was also terrified, as I was when Dan initially told me, “Hey, we have this idea where you’re playing this character present day as we will be jumping around in time”.
I think I had that same initial, “Whoa, can I do that?” when thinking about (playing) this woman with this very real diagnosis that millions of people across the country and the world deal with with loved ones.
I wanted to make sure that I was doing my due diligence and approaching this chapter of her life thoughtfully, because I know what a platform the show has to really have an important dialogue around Alzheimer’s and dementia and diagnosis.
AP: Early in your acting career, you played several unlikeable, snooty characters, and expressed concern at one point about being typecast. Now you’re playing a beloved mom, so it looks like you weren’t.
Moore: I was not typecast. In fact, I’d love to get back to playing the villain a little bit more, especially after six years of playing arguably television’s best mum.
I think for a while I kept coming up against being typecast in these sort of lovely romantic comedies and whatnot.
And that is definitely a certain side of who I am.
But it took Dan, and it takes for any of us, I guess, as actors or creatives, just one person to see something in you and to give you an opportunity that opens an entirely new world.
And that is what Dan Fogelman did for me with Rebecca.
AP: What’s ahead for you on the music front? Moore: This past July, we went back into the studio, the same group of musicians (on Silver Landings). And the plan is to pick up in June and July of 2022 and go on the road the way that we had intended a week before the world shut down because of COVID.
I feel like we’ll have this fully realised tour of music from Silver Landings and music from my next record.
That’ll be out probably right around the same time as we tour next year, and we’ll be able to bring Gus with us. So we’ll have a bus with mom and dad and Gus and play music every night. It’s the dream. It’s going to be a fun year.
AP – Pedri González and Ferran Torres joined Barcelona’s list of players with COVID-19 on Monday, while German clubs’ preparations for the Bundesliga’s resumption after the winter break are being hampered by infections.
Torres tested positive hours after his official presentation in front of several thousand fans at Camp Nou following his transfer from Manchester City. Barcelona said the forward and Pedri “are in good health” and isolating at home.
Pedri was hoping to return to the field soon after having recovered from a leg injury that has sidelined the Spain midfielder since September.
Torres is recovering from a foot injury in October and hoped to be ready to face Real Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup semifinals next week.
Barcelona is still without Gavi Páez, Ousmane Dembele, Sergiño Dest, Philippe Coutinho, and Abde Ezzalzouli due to infections. Jordi Alba and Dani Alves returned to training on Monday after testing negative following their isolations.
Xavi Hernández called up 10 reserve team players to travel with his squad on Sunday for the 1-0 win at Mallorca.
GERMANY
Of the Bundesliga’s 18 clubs, 13 have reported infections. Defending champion Bayern Munich is among the worst affected.
Monday’s training session was put back until the late afternoon so players and coaching staff could be tested upon their return.
The team’s return was already delayed by a day after the Bavarian club reported five infections: Captain and goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, players Kingsley Coman, Corentin Tolisso and Omar Richards, as well as assistant coach Dino Toppmöller, all tested positive.
It’s unclear if the five have the Omicron variant and whether they will miss Bayern’s game against Borussia Mönchengladbach to resume the league on Friday. Neuer, who said he was suffering from light symptoms, will miss the match.
Gladbach reported four virus cases: Joe Scally, Mamadou Doucouré, Denis Zakaria and Keanan Bennetts, all in quarantine.
Stuttgart has four players in isolation ahead of its visit to last-placed Greuther Fürth on Saturday: Silas Katompa Mvumpa, Naouirou Ahamada, Konstantinos Mavropanos and Mateo Klimowicz.
Borussia Dortmund will likely have to do without the infected Dan-Axel Zagadou for its game at Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday. Frankfurt has two players in quarantine.
Both Berlin clubs were also affected by positive test results. Hertha Berlin new signing Fredrik André Björkan was among its players in quarantine.
ENGLAND
Tottenham has more COVID-19 concerns ahead of the first leg against Chelsea in the English League Cup semifinals.
Spurs had an outbreak that affected nine first-team players in December, and manager Antonio Conte said on Monday there were more issues in the squad.
“We are checking a couple of situations. We’ll see,” said Conte, who didn’t disclose the name of the players affected.
The game was being played today at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge and the club was awaiting the results of PCR tests.
It comes as the Premier League saw its first week-on-week decrease in COVID-19 cases in eight weeks, with 94 players or club staff testing positive from 14,250 checks last week.
Débora Álvares, Mauricio Savarese & Marcelo Silva De Sousa
BRASILIA, BRAZIL (AP) – As world leaders rely on public health specialists to inform their decisions about whether and how to vaccinate children against the coronavirus, Brazil’s government is asking the online public for guidance.
In recent weeks, President Jair Bolsonaro has staked out a position against immunising kids aged between five and 11, and his administration took the unusual step of creating a platform that could validate a stance that is widely opposed by experts. Since his government on December 23 unveiled its online questionnaire on the issue, the president’s supporters have been highly engaged on messaging apps trying to pressure parents to swing the results.
One widely shared post last Wednesday on the Telegram group ‘Bolsonaro Army’, which has about 37,000 members, said the vaccine is experimental and suggested that receiving shots could be more harmful than getting infected, although several studies have shown the opposite is true. It also included a link to the government’s survey, which other people were posting along with instructions to relay to friends and family.
The rally for resistance resembles online behaviour observed earlier this month, which catapulted Bolsonaro to the top of the heap in TIME magazine’s readers poll for Person of the Year, David Nemer, an expert on Brazil’s far-right groups on messaging apps, told The Associated Press (AP). Bolsonaro garnered about one-quarter of the more than nine million votes – nearly triple that of the runner-up, former United States (US) President Donald Trump. The magazine’s editors instead chose Elon Musk as 2021 Person of the Year.
This time, however, online efforts are aimed at something far more significant than bestowing an honorific on the president. The survey, which concluded on January 2, stands to shape vaccination policy in Latin America’s most populous nation, home to 20 million kids aged five to 11. Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga has said they will soon be eligible for vaccination, but survey results will help determine guidelines including whether shots could only be administered with parental consent and a doctor’s prescription.
ABOVE & BELOW: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro poses for photos with the mascot of his nation’s vaccination campaign; and health worker gives a shot of the COVID-19 vaccine inside the Solidary Hands Shelter for the homeless. PHOTOS: AP
Commuters wear protective face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic at a subway station in Sao Paulo, Brazil
“This is a tool of democracy, it widens the discussion on the topic and it will bring more ease for parents so they can take their children to immunise against COVID-19,” Queiroga said last Wednesday.
Health experts, for their part, are aghast. Some Brazilian states’ health secretariats have already pledged to ignore any health ministry guidelines on childhood vaccination if based on the public consultation. Founder and Director of Brazil’s health regulator between 1999 and 2003 Gonzalo Vecina said public consultation on vaccines is “unprecedented”.
“Bolsonaro is against the vaccine and his employee, the health minister, believes that health is a matter of public opinion. It is a spurious and nonsensical approach,” Vecina told the AP. “If only deniers send their opinion in the public consultation, is the government going to say that the vaccine doesn’t have to be used?”
Denialism from the top in Brazil is a bit of deja vu. Even as COVID-19 exploded, driving the nation’s death toll to the second highest in the world, Bolsonaro spent months sowing doubts about vaccines and was obstinate in his refusal to get a shot. He has cited the fact he contracted the coronavirus in 2020 to claim, incorrectly, that he is already immune, and routinely characterises vaccination as an issue of personal choice rather than a means for ensuring the common good.
So when Brazil’s health regulator authorised use of Pfizer’s shot for children on December 16, Bolsonaro was stunned.
“Kids are something very serious,” he said the same night in his weekly live broadcast on social media. “We don’t know about possible adverse future effects. It’s unbelievable – I’m sorry – what the agency did. Unbelievable.”
A study released last Thursday by US health authorities confirmed that serious side effects from the Pfizer vaccine in children ages five to 11 are rare. The findings were based on approximately eight million doses dispensed to youngsters in that age group.
Bolsonaro added that he would name and expose the public servants who issued the approval, prompting a union representing health agency workers to express concern about online abuse or even physical attacks.
Despite fervent support among his base, Bolsonaro’s anti-vaccine stance hasn’t gained as much traction in Brazil – which has a proud history of inoculation campaigns – as in the US. More than two-thirds of Brazilians are fully vaccinated, as compared to 63 per cent in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University’s vaccination tracker, though American children have been eligible for shots since early November.
In neighbouring Argentina, the government has allowed kids 12 years and older to be vaccinated since August, and more recently began giving shots to children as young as three. In the face of subsequent criticism, the nation’s Health Ministry cited the recommendation of the nation’s association of pediatricians.
In Chile, two-thirds of kids aged between three and 17 have already received both their shots, after the nation’s health regulator analysed an immunisation study of 100 million children.
For the time being, Mexico isn’t vaccinating children except those 12 years or older with illnesses that put them at greater risk. Mexico’s point man for the pandemic, Hugo López-Gatell said yesterday the World Health Organization (WHO) hasn’t recommended vaccinating children aged five to 11, and that countries with ample vaccine coverage, like Mexico, shouldn’t vaccinate kids until developing nations with limited coverage can raise their adult vaccination rates.
In Brazil, General Director of prominent pollster Datafolha Mauro Paulino said one problem with the Bolsonaro government’s survey is the way questions are framed, repeatedly asking interviewees, “Do you agree that…?” Such failure to present questions neutrally can induce responses.
“Datafolha always gives the two possible alternatives: whether the interviewee agrees or disagrees with the statement,” he said. “Both sides of the question are necessary.”
THE WASHINGTON POST – “I guess it’s a compliment that imitators of Peru’s famous rotisserie chicken are everywhere,” Chef Ricardo Zarate wrote in his book, The Fire of Peru. “Problem is, unless you happen to have a rotisserie grill, it can be difficult to mimic the slowly rotating spit that gives the chicken that almost black, fantastically charred crust that seals in the natural juices so the chicken doesn’t dry out.”
In fact, I’d say that there’s no way to make true pollo a la brasa – unless you own a rotisserie contraption for your oven or grill – though there are ways to capture the same combinations of flavours.
If you’ve ever been to a restaurant that serves pollo a la brasa, you know the garlicky, salty and specifically savoury flavour of Peruvian-style rotisserie chicken. And you’ve likely seen the way chicken roasting on a spit against a steady flame can turn simultaneously succulent and crisp.
Earlier last year, I was thinking of my first taste of pollo a la brasa. It was at the appropriately named Pollo a la Brasa in Los Angeles, a famous stop where the smoke rises high into the sky every afternoon, and pick-up trucks regularly dump firewood near the shop’s back door. The loud thwack! of cleavers cutting cleanly, hitting wooden boards soaked in meat juices punctuates the usually jovial atmosphere. The menu is simple: Chicken, fries, salad, sauce.
Burnished as a well-baked loaf of bread, the deeply savoury crust on a piece of pollo a la brasa gives way to tender meat. Its drippings soak into the fries that go on every plate – and they even enhance the forgettable green salad next to them.
Pollo a la brasa with aji verde. PHOTO: THE WASHINGTON POST
At every pollo a la brasa spot I’ve been to there is also a sauce, yellow or red or – my favourite – green with herbs and chilli and lime juice. Aji serves as a pungent salve for all the rich meat and potatoes, and a dressing that makes even the tired leaves of romaine and iceberg worth eating.
There’s a recipe for pollo a la brasa in Zarate’s book, which was written with Jenn Garbee.
But it’s a complex affair, involving a sous-vide-like process followed by a sear on a hot grill to give the chicken that signature lick of fire.
Here, I borrowed elements from Zarate’s marinade and seasoning rub – a blend of soy sauce, vinegar, hot sauce, cumin and Peruvian mint – and his method of splitting the chicken fully in half so that it cooks evenly. But then I turned this riff on the Peruvian classic into a sheet-pan meal, with potatoes that sizzle in the juices of the chicken, turning french fry-like in the process.
Dip each forkful in the punchy aji verde, a creamy sauce that takes minutes to make in a blender and pairs well with so many savoury dishes, whether they were roasted on a spit or not.
POLLO A LA BRASA WITH AJI VERDE
True pollo a la brasa, Peru’s famous chicken, requires a rotisserie – but there is a way to capture the flavours of the dish in a home oven. The key is the marinade, which involves aji panca or aji amarillo, two mild chilli commonly used in Peruvian cooking, and huacatay, a type of mint native to the Andes. Rub the chicken with the marinade and let it marinate overnight – or roast it right away, over potatoes cut into fries, to mimic the french fries commonly served with restaurant-style pollo a la brasa. For deeply burnished skin, baste the chicken with leftover marinade as it cooks.
Pollo a la brasa is often served with a green sauce called aji verde that gets its flavour from green chilli, huacatay and cilantro. Mayonnaise or a crumbly cheese like queso fresco is added for richness, though you can use Greek yogurt or feta cheese instead.
NOTE: To cut a chicken in half, using kitchen shears, cut through its backbone, then around through its breast bone until the two halves are separate. You may also ask a store butcher to do this.
Make Ahead: The chicken may be marinated overnight, if desired.
Storage Notes: Leftovers may be refrigerated in covered containers for up to four days.
INGREDIENTS
For the chicken
– Four tablespoons olive or vegetable oil, divided
– Four cloves garlic, minced or finely grated
– Two tablespoons soy sauce, tamari or Liquid Aminos
– Two tablespoons red vinegar
– One tablespoon aji panca paste or aji amarillo paste (may substitute with another chilli or hot sauce, such as sambal oelek, sriracha or Valentina)
– Two teaspoons jarred huacatay paste (may substitute with one tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves)
– One teaspoon ground cumin
– One whole chicken, cut in half through the breastbone and backbone (see NOTE)
– Three large russet potatoes or sweet potatoes, cut into half-inch thick fries
– Quarter teaspoon fine sea salt or table salt
For the aji verde
– One-third cup mayonnaise, Greek yogurt, crumbled queso fresco or feta
– One ounce fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems, roughly chopped
– One tablespoon jarred huacatay paste (may substitute with half ounce fresh mint leaves and tender sprigs)
– Four cloves garlic
– One serrano or jalapeño, stemmed, deseeded and roughly chopped
– One tablespoon aji amarillo paste (optional)
– One teaspoon ground cumin
– Finely grated zest and juice of one lime
– Fine sea salt or table salt
DIRECTIONS
Make the chicken
In a large bowl or resealable bag, mix together two tablespoons of oil, the garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, aji panca or other chilli paste or sauce, huacatay paste or rosemary, and cumin. Add the halved chicken, turning to coat it on all sides and in all crevices with marinade.
Set aside while you prepare the potatoes – or cover the bowl or seal the bag and refrigerate overnight.
Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees.
Pour the remaining two tablespoons of oil on a large, rimmed baking sheet. Add the potatoes and toss until well coated. Lightly season with salt. Shake the excess marinade off the chicken and place it, breast-side up, with the legs facing the rear of the oven, atop the potatoes; reserve the marinade. Roast for 35 minutes, then remove the baking sheet from the oven. Using tongs, turn the exposed potatoes so they brown evenly on all sides. Brush or spoon the remaining marinade evenly over the chicken.
Increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees, and roast chicken for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until well browned and an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh reads 165 degrees. Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before serving.
Make the aji verde
To a blender, add the mayonnaise, yogurt or cheese, cilantro, huacatay paste or mint, garlic, serrano or jalapeño, aji amarillo paste, if using, cumin, lime zest and juice, and puree until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides of the jar as needed. Taste, and season with salt, if desired.
Serve the warm chicken and potatoes, family-style, with the aji verde on the side.
OSLO (AFP) – Nearly two-thirds of all new car registrations in Norway in 2021 were electric vehicles (EVs), an industry body said on Monday, a figure unmatched in the world.
Of new cars sold in the Scandinavian country last year, 64.5 per cent were battery-powered vehicles, compared with 54.3 per cent in 2020, according to Opplysningsradet for Veitrafikken (OFV, ‘Information Council for Road Traffic’).
Thanks in particular to its Model 3, United States (US) electric car manufacturer Tesla took 11.6 per cent of the market share and was the single best-selling brand in 2021 with over 20,000 units sold.
The proportion of electric cars is unparallelled in the world and was reported against a backdrop of record new car registrations in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic, with 176,276 new cars sold in Norway, including 113,715 electric cars.
“Few had envisaged that 2021 would be a record year for new car sales in Norway. And no country in the world has had such a growth in electric car sales as Norway,” OFV Director Oyvind Solberg Thorsen said in a statement.
Cars are seen charging in free parking spaces for electric cars in central Oslo. PHOTO: AFP
“We may already have half a million electric cars in total in the Norwegian fleet as early as March. This starts to approach 20 per cent of 2.8 million passenger cars. This is quite formidable,” he added.
Norway – which is also Western Europe’s largest oil producer- has set a goal to have all new cars be zero-emission, meaning electric and hydrogen-powered, by 2025.
To propel the adoption of EVs, they are virtually tax-free in the country, making their prices much more competitive even if other benefits – such as being exempt from tolls and being able to use lanes reserved for public transport – have been partly cut back.
The Norwegian EV Association hailed a “milestone” and said it expected sales of electric vehicles to account for over 80 per cent of new cars in 2022 as new models were brought to market.
“For the first time a fully electric car brand is topping the list of the new cars sold in Norway,” Secretary General of the Norwegian EV Association Christina Bu was quoted on the organisation’s website in hailing Tesla’s showing.
Older brands, such as Germany’s Volkswagen and Japan’s Toyota were also among the
top sellers.
The Iran Embassy in Brunei Darussalam held a planting of a ‘Resistance Tree’ at its premises on Monday.
Ambassador of Iran to Brunei Darussalam Homeira Rigi Zirouki and Iranians living in the Sultanate attended the event, which began with the recitation of Surah Al-Fatihah and Iran’s national anthem.
The Resistance Tree was planted in memory of martyr Major General Haj Qassem Soleimani, who is known as a hero in the fight against extremism and an ambassador of peace.
His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam paid an unscheduled visit to the Brunei International Airport yesterday.
Accompanying His Majesty at the visit were Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of Finance and Economy II Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Mohd Amin Liew bin Abdullah and Minister of Transport and Infocommunications Dato Seri Setia Awang Abdul Mutalib bin Pehin Orang Kaya Seri Setia Dato Paduka Haji Mohd Yusof.
His Majesty first toured the postal office before heading to the Departure Hall where His Majesty made stops at the Departure Gates and the Movement Control Centre.
Brunei Darussalam recorded 10 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, bringing the national tally of confirmed cases to 15,516.
Of the new cases, five were local and the rest were import cases.
The latest number of COVID-19 infections in the country was shared by the Ministry of Health (MoH) in its daily statement.
The new cases were detected through 2,632 laboratory tests carried out in the last 24 hours. The infection rate of positive cases is currently at 0.4 per cent.
