NEW YORK (CNA) – Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong met United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres, when they had “a good and wide-ranging discussion”.
The 40-minute-long meeting took place at the UN headquarters in New York.
Lee visited the UN to “show his support for the leadership and the work of the UN, particularly at a time when multilateralism is being tested”, said a statement from the Prime Minister’s press secretary Chang Li Lin.
“It is at this moment that we need to support the UN, and work together to strengthen the rules-based system so that we can effectively tackle pressing challenges like climate change, oceans, and cyberspace together.” Lee also expressed support for Guterres’ Our Common Agenda report as “a catalyst to strengthen international cooperation and reinvigorate the UN”, the statement said.
The report, launched by the UN chief in September last year, is designed to strengthen and accelerate multilateral agreements.
It contains recommendations across four broad areas: Renewed solidarity between peoples and future generations, a new social contract anchored in human rights, better management of critical global commons, and global public goods that deliver equitably and sustainably for all, according to the UN website.
A vendor displays monitor lizards and wild birds at a market. PHOTO: AP
GENEVA (AFP) – Nearly 4.14 million Ukrainians have fled their country since Russia’s full-scale invasion began on February 24, with tens of thousands continuing to flood into neighbouring countries each day, United Nations (UN) numbers show.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR said yesterday that 4,137,842 Ukrainians had fled in just over five weeks, an increase of 34,966 on the figure given on Friday.
Women and children account for 90 per cent of those who have left Ukraine, with men aged 18 to 60 eligible for military call-up and unable to leave.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that in addition to Ukrainian refugees, nearly 205,500 non-Ukrainians living, studying or working in the country have also left.
Nearly 6.48 million people were meanwhile estimated to be internally displaced within Ukraine as of mid-March, according IOM.
That puts the total number of people displaced by the conflict at well over 10 million, or around a quarter of Ukraine’s total population.
AP – Shares of GameStop surged on Friday after the video game retailer announced that it would attempt its first stock split in 15 years.
The Grapevine, Texas, company said in a regulatory filing late Thursday that it wants to increase its share count to one billion, from 300 million, so it can implement a stock split in the form of a dividend. It plans to seek shareholder approval at its upcoming annual meeting.
A stock split would change the price-per-stock, but not the overall value of those holdings. The manoeuvre can push up a company’s stock price at least temporarily, and it did so on Friday. Shares of GameStop jumped eight per cent at the opening bell.
JPMorgan said on Friday that while stock splits may not be the new buyback, they are “an additional tool to push stock prices higher despite financial theory saying otherwise”.
GameStop’s announcement comes just days after electric vehicle maker Tesla announced its second stock split in less than two years. In addition, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced a 20-for-1 split in February. Amazon said this month that it would do a split of the same ratio.
File photo shows a GameStop store in New York. PHOTO: AP
Big tech companies have pursued stock splits after major run-ups in the price of their shares, which can open the door to retail investors that do not have the financial heft to buy shares that head into quadruple digits.
However, a single share of Google, Tesla, or Alphabet cost between USD1,000 and USD3,300. And shares of Tesla, Alphabet and Apple are up between 30 per cent and 60 per cent over the past 12 months.
Shares of GameStop are down 13 per cent over that same stretch and can be had for less than USD200 each.
Yet GameStop Corp became a meme darling early last year when hundreds of thousands of smaller investors suddenly started buying its shares, driving its price to heights that shocked Wall Street. The shares rocketed from USD39 to USD347 in just a week during its run-up.
Any manoeuvre from the company garner intense interest from retail investors, particularly after Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen took a huge stake in the company and now sits on its board. Investors have pinned their hopes on Cohen to push the traditional retailer in a more online direction.
MILWAUKEE (AP) – On a night when both the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers rested their top guys, Robert Covington made the most of an opportunity for additional playing time.
So did his Clippers teammates.
Covington scored a career-high 43 points and made a franchise-record 11 three-pointers to help the hot-shooting Clippers trounce the Bucks 153-119 on Friday night.
“The basket just kept getting bigger and bigger,” said Covington, who went 11 of 18 from 3-point range. “And my rhythm just stayed the same.”
The Clippers’ 153 points were the most they’ve ever scored in a regular-season game. The Clippers won a first-round playoff game 154-111 over the Dallas Mavericks in 2020. Amir Coffey also had a career high with 32 points for the Clippers, matching a career best with seven assists to go along with six rebounds.
Los Angeles Clippers’ Robert Covington chases down a loose ball. PHOTO: AP
The Clippers shot 60.9 per cent from the floor and 23 of 43 from three-point range.
Both teams had played on Thursday night games that reached overtime, with the Bucks winning 120-119 at Brooklyn and the Clippers falling 135-130 at Chicago.
Among the players sitting out Friday’s game were Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday, and the Clippers’ Paul George, Reggie Jackson and Marcus Morris.
This marked the first time the Clippers had reached the 150-point mark since a 150-125 triumph over the Washington Wizards on December 1. Covington hadn’t had more than 21 points or five 3-point baskets in a game all season before Friday.
He had 33 points and went 9 of 13 from beyond the arc in the second half alone, scoring 17 in the third quarter and 16 in the fourth quarter.
Luke Kennard had 23 points, Terance Mann 18 and Isaiah Hartenstein 14 for the Clippers. Jordan Nwora scored 28, Portis had 25 and Jevon Carter 18 for the Bucks.
With so many notable players missing, neither team played much defence early on as both the Bucks and Clippers were shooting over 60 per cent from the floor midway through the second quarter.
The Bucks couldn’t keep up that pace, though they still shot 53.2 per cent. But the Clippers never cooled off at all.
WINSTON-SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA (AP) – Former United States (US) women’s national team star goalkeeper Hope Solo was arrested being found passed out behind the wheel of a vehicle in North Carolina with her two-year-old twins inside, police said.
A police report said Solo was arrested on Thursday in a shopping centre parking lot in Winston-Salem and charged with driving while impaired, resisting a public officer and misdemeanour child abuse. She has been released from jail and has a court date of June 28.
Rich Nichols, a Texas-based attorney who represents Solo, didn’t respond to specific questions on the charges.
The frequency of antigen rapid testing (ART) screening for students, teachers and school staff has been increased from two times a week to three, said Minister of Education Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Hamzah bin Haji Sulaiman at a press conference yesterday.
The minister said the increased testing requirements was to “ensure the health and safety of students, teachers and staff”.
The minister said the supply of ART will be distributed by the MoE to all schools under the ministry and through the relevant ministries for religious schools and Arabic schools as well as special centres.
Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Hamzah called for support and cooperation of relevant parties, so school sessions could be conducted safely and smoothly for the students’ benefit.
“The MoE will continue to work closely with the relevant parties, ensuring the well-being and safety of the people and education will always be maintained,” said the minister.
The minister advised parents and guardians of students to monitor their children’s health and ensure that they do not experience any symptoms such as coughs, colds and the like before going to school.
BANGKOK (AP) – A report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) shows illegal purchases of wildlife online are growing in Myanmar in a threat both to public health and to endangered species.
The report issued on Friday found that enforcement of bans on such transactions has weakened amid political turmoil following a 2021 military takeover.
The number of such dealings rose 74 per cent over a year earlier to 11,046, nearly all of them involving sales of live animals. For the 173 species traded, 54 are threatened with global extinction, the report said.
Researchers identified 639 Facebook accounts belonging to wildlife traders. The largest online trading group had more than 19,000 members and dozens of posts per week, it said.
The animals and animal parts bought and sold involved elephants, bears and gibbons, Tibetan antelope, critically endangered pangolins and an Asian giant tortoise. The most popular mammals were various species of langurs and monkeys, often bought as pets.
A vendor displays monitor lizards and wild birds at a market. PHOTO: AP
Most of the animals advertised for sale were taken from the wild. They also included civets, which along with pangolins have been identified as potential vectors in the spread of diseases such as SARS and COVID-19.
Shaun Martin, who heads the WWF’s Asia-Pacific regional cybercrime project, said monitoring of the online wildlife trade shows different species being kept close together, sometimes in the same cage.
“With Asia’s track record as a breeding ground for many recent zoonotic diseases, this sharp uptick in online trade of wildlife in Myanmar is extremely concerning,” he said.
The unregulated trade in wild species and resulting interactions between wild species and humans raise the risks of new and possibly vaccine-resistant mutations of illnesses such as the COVID-19 that could evolve undetected in non-human hosts into more dangerous variants of disease, experts said.
COVID-19 is one of many diseases traced back to animals. The killing and sale of what is known as bushmeat in Africa was thought to be a source for Ebola. Bird flu likely came from chickens at a market in Hong Kong in 1997. Measles is believed to have evolved from a virus that infected cattle.
DES MOINES, IOWA (AP) – Bird flu has infected two more farms in Iowa, forcing the killing of 5.3 million hens and 88,000 turkeys, officials said on Friday.
The new cases mean that across the nation, farmers have had to kill about 22 million egg-laying chickens, 1.8 million broiler chickens, 1.9 million pullet and other commercial chickens, and 1.9 million turkeys. Iowa accounts for many of those cases, with operations having to kill more than 18 million chickens and 305,000 turkeys since the outbreaks began a month ago.
Iowa is the nation’s leading egg producer and had 46 million chickens on farms in February, according to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data. Iowa raises about 11.7 million turkeys annually.
The latest cases were at an egg farm in Osceola County and a turkey farm in Cherokee County, both in northwest Iowa. Earlier this week, state officials also confirmed the virus on a turkey farm with 35,500 birds in Buena Vista County.
Because the virus is so infectious and deadly for commercial poultry, entire flocks are destroyed and composted on the farms when they are infected.
USDA data shows 23 states have confirmed cases in commercial or backyard flocks.
Spread of the disease is largely blamed on the droppings or nasal discharge of infected wild birds, such as ducks and geese, which can contaminate dust and soil.
Infected wild birds have been found in at least 26 states, and the virus has been circulating in migrating waterfowl in Europe and Asia for nearly a year.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the cases in birds do not present an immediate public health concern.
No human cases of the avian influenza virus have been detected in the US. It remains safe to eat poultry products. Cooking of poultry and eggs to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit kills bacteria and viruses.
CAIRO (AP) – Ramadhan began at sunrise yesterday in much of the Middle East, where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent energy and food prices soaring.
Muslims follow a lunar calendar and a moon-sighting methodology can lead to different countries declaring the start of Ramadhan a day or two apart.
Muslim-majority nations including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had declared the month began yesterday.
A Saudi statement on Friday was broadcast on the kingdom’s state-run Saudi TV and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and de facto leader of the UAE, congratulated Muslims on Ramadhan’s arrival.
Many had hoped for a more cheerful Ramadhan after the coronavirus pandemic cut off the world’s two billion Muslims from practices the past two years.
A Palestinian man hangs decorative lights in preparation for Ramadhan at the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City. PHOTO: AP
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, millions of people in the Middle East are now wondering where their next meals will come from. The skyrocketing prices are affecting people whose lives were already upended by conflict, displacement and poverty from Lebanon, Iraq and Syria to Sudan and Yemen.
Ukraine and Russia account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, which Middle East countries rely on to feed millions of people who subsist on subsidised bread and bargain noodles.
They are also top exporters of other grains and sunflower seed oil used for cooking. Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, has received most of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine in recent years.
Shoppers in the capital Cairo turned out earlier this week to stock up on groceries and festive decorations, but many had to buy less than last year because of the soaring prices.
Ramadhan tradition calls for colourful lanterns and lights strung throughout Cairo’s narrow alleys and mosques. Some people with the means to do so set up tables on the streets to dish up free post-fast Iftar meals for the poor.
“This could help in this situation,” said the muezzin of a mosque in Giza Rabei Hassan as he bought vegetables and other food from a nearby market. “People are tired of the prices.”
Worshippers attended mosque for hours of Tarawih. On Friday evening, thousands of people packed the al-Azhar Mosque after attendance was banned for the past two years to stem the pandemic. “They were difficult (times)… Ramadhan without Tarawih at the mosque is not the same,” said a 64-year-old retired teacher Saeed Abdel-Rahman as he entered al-Azhar for prayers.
In Istanbul, Muslims held the first Ramadhan prayers in 88 years in Hagia Sophia, nearly two years after the iconic former cathedral was converted into a mosque.
Worshippers filled the 6th-Century building and the square outside on Friday night for Tarawih prayers led by the government head of religious affairs Ali Erbas.
Although converted for Islamic use and renamed the Grand Hagia Sophia Mosque in July 2020, COVID-19 restrictions had limited worship at the site.
“After 88 years of separation, the Hagia Sophia Mosque has regained the Tarawih prayer,” Erbas said, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.
CNA – A growing number of people think that racism remains an important problem even while the overwhelming majority believe everyone in Singapore can become rich or successful regardless of their race, according to a survey on race relations conducted by CNA and the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS).
More than half of the survey’s respondents (56.2 per cent) felt that racism is an important problem, which was an increase from the previous CNA-IPS survey conducted in 2016 (46.3 per cent).
Despite this, a large majority of people believe that meritocracy is not contingent on race, with more than 80 per cent of respondents agreeing that everyone can become rich or successful irrespective of what race they are, which was consistent with the findings from the 2016 survey.
Conducted last year, the second CNA-IPS survey on race relations polled more than 2,000 Singapore residents aged 21 and above. Their racial composition and the type of homes they live in are reflective of the Singapore population, but an additional 350 or so Malay and Indian respondents were polled so that their views were properly represented.
In the 255-page report, researchers noted that those who feel racism is an important problem tended to be below the age of 50 and had education beyond the secondary level.
While most respondents (88.8 per cent) said it is important for political leaders to talk openly about racism, more than half (58.6 per cent) also felt that such public discourse could cause unnecessary tension.
They may feel that political leaders taking the lead in such discussions could avert some of the potential tension, said the report.
It noted that Chinese respondents (54.9 per cent) were slightly more likely to feel that ethnic minorities are getting overly sensitive in discussions on race, compared to Indian (42.7 per cent) and Malay respondents (47.8 per cent).
The survey also found that respondents were evenly divided on whether there is majority privilege in Singapore, with 53.9 per cent feeling that being of the majority race is an advantage.
This was comparable with findings from the 2016 survey, where 52.7 per cent felt this way.
Those between the age of 12 and 35, especially Malay and Indian respondents, were generally more likely to feel that majority privilege exists.
