Izah Azahari
The Royal Brunei Police Force (RBPF) detected one violation during the movement control restriction yesterday.
This was shared by Minister of Health Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham bin Haji Jaafar at yesterday’s daily press conference.
Md Gd Erwandie bin Irwan was issued a compound fine for violating the stay-at-home directive from midnight to 4am in Brunei-Muara District.
TOKYO (AP) – Asian shares were higher yesterday as investors eyed the war in Ukraine and inflationary risks including rising energy costs.
Benchmarks rose in Japan, South Korea, Australia and China.
The Russian war on Ukraine and Western sanctions on Russia are adding to worries over disruptions to energy supplies for Europe and surging prices that might hinder progress toward economic recoveries from the pandemic.
“With no progress on peace talks, reports are circulating that the EU is setting the table for a Russian oil embargo. Higher energy prices will hugely harm the EU economy,” said managing partner at SPI Asset Management Stephen Innes.
Benchmark US crude added USD2.89 to USD115.01 a barrel yesterday in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent, the international standard, surged USD3.78 to USD119.40.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 surged 1.4 per cent to 27,202.05. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.9 per cent to 7,341.10. South Korea’s Kospi edged 0.8 per cent higher to 2,708.63.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.8 per cent to 21,606.53, while the Shanghai Composite recouped earlier losses to be up 0.3 per cent at 3,263.83.
Hong Kong-traded shares in e-commerce giant Alibaba Group jumped eight per cent after the company increased a share buyback to USD25 billion from USD15 billion yesterday to prop up a stock price that has fallen by more than half since the ruling Communist Party tightened control over tech industries by launching regulatory crackdowns.
Shares ended modestly lower on Monday on Wall Street after bouncing around for much of the day and bond yields rose sharply after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank was prepared to move more aggressively if need be to contain inflation.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped to 2.30 per cent from 2.14 per cent late Friday.
The S&P 500 fell less than 0.1 per cent to 4,461.18, snapping a four-day winning streak for the benchmark index. The Dow dropped 0.6 per cent to 34,552.99 and the Nasdaq slid 0.4 per cent to 13,838.46.
Smaller company stocks fared worse than the broader market. The Russell 2000 index lost one per cent to 2,065.94.
In remarks at the National Association of Business Economists, Powell said the Fed would raise its benchmark short-term interest rate by a half-point at multiple Fed meetings, if necessary, to slow inflation. The Fed hasn’t raised its benchmark rate by a half-point since May 2000.
Last Wednesday, the central bank announced a quarter-point rate hike, its first interest rate increase since 2018. Stocks rallied after the announcement and went on to have their best week in more than a year. The central bank is expected to raise rates several more times this year.
Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine added a new wave of global economic uncertainty to the mix, some Fed officials had said the central bank would do better to begin raising rates by a half-point in March.
Given rising risks of a recession, chief economist at ACY Securities Clifford Bennett said he believes the Fed should act cautiously.
“Europe will likely enter recession and with the world experiencing ongoing high energy and food prices, the poor will be disproportionately impacted. And raising interest rates will have zero impact on this war-driven inflation wave,” he said.
BANGKOK (AFP) – The crowd roars in the tightly packed room as the broad-shouldered, tattooed men stop pummelling a young recruit and smother him with hugs – completing his initiation into one of Thailand’s ‘Chicano’ gangs.
For the tight-knit group of friends, the ritual embodies a concept of a Mexican-American Chicano culture increasingly embraced in Asia, with sounds, styles and swagger from the United States (US) finding a home first in Japan, and now Thailand.
Dressed in baggy T-shirts and jeans, with bandanas and wraparound sunglasses only partially obscuring their intricate tattoos, Thais can now be seen on Bangkok’s sweaty streets celebrating a fusion of their own and Chicano culture each weekend.
But while the Chicano movement in the US began as a political and social force aimed at battling oppression, its Thai interpretation is focussed more on its aesthetics.
“I just want to combine a Thai touch with the Chicano style to make this lifestyle simple and accessible,” explained gang leader Chalakorn ‘Leng’ Arttanasiri, dismounting from his Harley Davidson.
The 40-year-old – who has images of much of The Godfather cast tattooed across his body – said his “Barbarian Has a Gun 13” group celebrates Chicano clothing and tattoos.
Its members say they are drawing on shared blue-collar values to create a blended ‘Thaino’ culture, leaving their Chicano selves behind during the working week.
“On normal days, we dress like normal people,” Leng said, “but on the day of the gathering like this, we need to have options for our clothing so that we could look sharp and rock the same style as the others.”
A former drug-dealer, he grew up in a slum and served time but turned his life around running a business importing Chicano clothes, which prompted him to create a group to celebrate the culture.
But he has no time for the violence often associated with Chicanos by Hollywood – despite the tough initiation.
“It’s just a way to test their will,” he explained of the 13-second ordeal recruits endure to join his group.
“We can’t go around beating up other gangs to show our superiority,” he said. “We live in peace because we’re in a Buddhist-based city. We’re in Thailand.”
“We’re law-abiding citizens who just love the Chicano subculture,” said a lowrider car aficionado Pongtep Singto.
The 32-year-old was drawn to the scene’s low-slung, streamlined cars, collecting and customising the vehicles, and eventually building his own.
“Everybody has an honest career. Some of them may have tattoos all over their bodies but they’re all good people,” he added.
At a recent gathering, heavily tattooed men happily chatted as their children played in the background.
Among them was new recruit Chaiya Nob, who explained how gang “seniors” – only 13 of whom are permitted to have the group’s name dramatically emblazoned across their bellies – assessed him before he was allowed to join.
“Dressing like this doesn’t mean we have to act all macho, act like gangsters, and do illegal stuff,” the 31-year-old said.
“We have to do good and be respectable citizens. Our clothing choices may not be appropriate but our attitude is approachable,” he added with a grin.
Ultimately, the gang is about celebrating Chicano subculture together.
As Leng puts it: “We’re family”.
DILI, EAST TIMOR (AFP) – Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta has taken a dominant lead in East Timor’s presidential election held over the weekend but failed to secure a majority, officials said, leaving Southeast Asia’s youngest country on course for a second round of voting.
The 72-year-old revolutionary hero won 46.58 per cent of the vote against 22.16 per cent for incumbent president and former guerrilla fighter Francisco ‘Lu-Olo’ Guterres, a preliminary ballot count showed on Monday.
With all votes counted, they must now be verified and validated by the country’s election commission before the final results are announced, top election official Acilino Manuel Branco said in televised remarks.
If confirmed that no candidate secured a majority, a second round will be held on April 19 and the winner will take office on May 20 – East Timor’s 20th anniversary of independence from Indonesia, which occupied the former Portuguese colony for 24 years.
Voters headed to the polls last Saturday to choose from 16 candidates for the five-year term in what is the most competitive election in the country’s history.
Major political events in East Timor have often been marred by violence and conflict, but observers said the vote passed without incident.
“Timor-Leste held credible, transparent, and peaceful elections,” said chief observer of the European Union Election Observation Mission Domenec Ruiz Devesa in a press release.
Ramos-Horta, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his efforts towards a peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor, led the country from 2007 to 2012 but came out of retirement to challenge Guterres.
Political tensions between the country’s two main parties – Guterres’ Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) and Ramos-Horta’s National Congress of the Reconstruction of Timor-Leste (CNRT) – have risen in the past four years.
Danial Norjidi
The world celebrates International Day of Forests not just to recognise the importance of healthy forest ecosystems in daily lives, but also to serve as a reminder of the urgency to protect and conserve this overdrawn natural resource, according to the ASEAN Centre for
Biodiversity (ACB).
In a press statement issued in conjunction with the occasion, marked on March 21, the ACB said, “The tropical forests of the ASEAN are vital to global environmental sustainability and stability.”
“A biodiverse region that boasts high levels of species endemicity, the countries of the ASEAN harbour over 200 million hectares of forest, encompassing at least 60 per cent of the world’s tropical peatlands and over 40 per cent of mangroves. These forests are critical habitats to diverse forms of plant and animal species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world.”
The statement said the ecosystems generously provide food, fresh and clean water, medicine, shelter, and also serve as sources of energy.
“By stabilising climate, regulating the emergence and spread of novel diseases, purifying air and water, and preventing soil erosion, intact forests directly contribute to human health and safety. Spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, and recreation are also among the non-monetary benefits provided by the aesthetic and cultural values of forest ecosystems.”
However, the ACB added that despite the benefits, the ASEAN reported major forest declines during the last four decades, losing almost half of its total forested areas due to persistent anthropogenic drivers.
“While the rate has slowed down, if not abated, the degradation of forests in the region will result in grave challenges, both for people and biodiversity.”
The statement mentioned that a report on the State and Outlook of Agroforestry in ASEAN (2021) concludes that environmental disasters in the region cost over USD 122 trillion from the year 2000 to 2020, affecting over 324 million ASEAN people.
“In a region where half of the population directly or indirectly depend on forest resources, restoring the health and wealth of the ASEAN’s forest ecosystems is a crucial step towards nature-positivity.”
Noting this year’s International Day of Forests theme, ‘Forests and Sustainable Production and Consumption’, the ACB said it joins the ASEAN member states in their commitment to promote the restoration and sustainable use of forest ecosystems.
“With the launch of the ASEAN Green Initiative (AGI), the region recognises the great importance of nature-based solutions to combat desertification, biodiversity loss, and land degradation.”
The ACB explained that the initiative aims to recognise ecosystem restoration efforts in the region, targetting at least 10 million native trees to be planted and nurtured across 10 ASEAN member states over 10 years.
“The numbers 10-10-10 is the region’s collective commitment to support the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration from 2021 to 2030. The AGI emphasises the importance of harmony between people and nature, ensuring that initiatives are ecologically sound, sustainable, compliant with existing national policies and institutional mechanisms, and beneficial to local communities.”
“As the ASEAN gears up for economic recovery, we continue to take guidance from our leaders and various stakeholders as we reconcile how economic growth and biodiversity conservation are to be seen as complementary sides of one coin.”
The statement highlights that nature-based solutions, such as nurturing native tree species and ensuring plant and crop diversity, are poised to provide greater short- and long-term ecological and economic benefits for people and nature.
It said that, based on recent scientific studies, cases in the region that exemplify the use of multipurpose trees on land near forest habitats, have contributed to the offsetting of local dependence on natural forests while maintaining local biodiversity and supporting the conservation of water and soil.
The ACB added, however, that restoring the health and wealth of the region’s forest ecosystems require a whole-of-society approach.
“Hence, the AGI aims to recognise greening initiatives of any scale – be it a large-scale tree planting activity initiated by an organisation or a small-scale tree planting activity organised by the youth in an ASEAN community.”
“In the face of the multiple challenges we are currently facing, we are encouraging everyone to plant and grow a tree and be part of a regional call for collective action to make ASEAN greener and healthier than ever.”
MADRID (AP) – Italian cyclist Sonny Colbrelli (AP pic below) was “feeling okay” a day after collapsing at the end of the first stage of the Catalonia Volta, his team said yesterday.
Team Bahrain Victorious said Colbrelli “has since been in touch with family and friends as he recovers at the hospital”.
The team said he will undergo further medical tests to “discover the cause of yesterday’s incident” in which he collapsed after crossing the line in the final sprint. Colbrelli finished the stage in second place. Spanish media said CPR was performed on the 31-year-old rider after he fell unconscious.
“Cardiac tests carried out last night showed no signs of concern or compromised functions,” the team said.
STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Even though he’s still an active player, a new film premiering on Friday is attempting to tell the story of Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic by focussing on the star’s childhood growing up in a poor part of the city of Malmo.
Ibrahimovic, Sweden’s most successful player, still plays for AC Milan at age 40, and is known for his bravado and swagger, standing in contrast to his typically more humble compatriots.
After starting out with Sweden’s Malmo FF in 1999, he has gone on to play for major teams including Ajax, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United.
Pitched as a “true underdog story,” the movie Jag ar Zlatan (I am Zlatan), which premiered on Friday, is based on the autobiographical book of the same name, but director Jens Sjogren told AFP that he wanted to hone in on the player’s early years.
“When I read the first chapters of the book I thought of my own childhood,” Sjogren said, adding that by focussing on the young Zlatan the movie is likely to appeal to not just those who have followed “Ibra’s” football career.
“Even though Zlatan had a rough childhood at times we have all been children and struggled with different things,” the 45-year-old director said.
For Sjogren it was important for the film to also tell the story from a child’s perspective.
“What he’s experiencing, we get to experience, but when there’s things he doesn’t hear or doesn’t understand then we as spectators shouldn’t understand that either,” he said.
The film starts following Zlatan from about aged 12, when he struggled in school. It also shows him moving away from his mother and in with his father before moving on to his first years as a professional player at Malmo and Ajax.
The perhaps somewhat daunting task of portraying a still living icon on screen was given to first-time actors Dominic Bajraktari Andersson, 15, and Granit Rushiti, 22, who are both playing Zlatan at different ages.
“He’s a great footballer, one of the best in the world. He’s a legend, so it’s of course a big honour for us to play him,” Rushiti told AFP.
As a former promising young footballer himself, though he had to retire after an injury, Rushiti said Zlatan had already been an inspiration to him. “I’ve played football all my life so he’s been a big part of my life and my own football career. So I’ve taken a lot from him,” Rushiti said.
Both Rushiti and his younger co-star are, just like Zlatan himself, from Scania in Sweden’s far south.
“I haven’t always played football, but he’s been a role model in other ways. Like his demeanour and what he’s like as a person. We are roughly from the same area, the same city Malmo. So he’s been a great role model,” Andersson told AFP.
When the shooting of the movie was finished the two young actors also had the opportunity to meet Zlatan in Milan.
“Before we started recording the movie I thought that Zlatan was pretty tough, he almost looked scary. But when I met him he was very kind, he was very charming and joked around.
“He got me to relax and all the nervousness just disappeared,” Andersson said.
“It was like meeting a living legend that you’ve looked up to.”
The premiere of the film to cinemas is reserved for Zlatan’s home country of Sweden.
More countries will follow though in the coming weeks.
While Zlatan’s status as the greatest football player Sweden has ever produced is undisputed in his home country, his star in his hometown of Malmo has faded somewhat. Just months after a statue of the local hero was erected in Malmo, it became the target of multiple acts of vandalism after Ibrahimovic announced that he was buying a stake in Stockholm-based club Hammarby, Malmo’s rivals.
Seen as a betrayal by fans, the statue has been spray-painted, knocked over and parts of it have been sawn off.
BERLIN (AP) – German authorities carried out raids across the country and questioned more than 100 suspects yesterday in an investigation of hate posts against politicians connected to last year’s national election, prosecutors said.
The Frankfurt prosecutor’s office and the Federal Criminal Police Office said that the raids resulted from an analysis of over 600 posts on social media for criminal content.
The investigation was based on legislation that was introduced last year to provide for tough punishment of slander and abuse of people “in political life”, whether at local, regional or federal level.
It provides for a punishment of up to three years in prison for abuse motivated by the person’s position in public life that is liable to “significantly complicate their public work”.
Prosecutors didn’t name the targets of the posts that resulted in the raids, but said that the investigation covered posts against politicians from all the parties currently in Germany’s national Parliament and two-thirds of them are women. It said they included abuse against nationally known politicians as well as fake quotes that appeared designed to discredit their targets.
The Parliament was elected in late September.
Yesterday’s move “makes clear the scale on which office-holders are being insulted, slandered and threatened online”, the top prosecutor in Germany’s central Hesse state, Torsten Kunze, said in a statement.
LVIV, UKRAINE (AFP) – There is war raging in Ukraine but the postmasters in the western city of Lviv promise to keep making deliveries.
Parcels may be rattled on roads pockmarked by shell blasts, delayed at sandbag checkpoints, and held static during overnight curfews pierced by wailing air raid sirens.
But Volodymyr Shved and Anatoliy Goretsky – who manage the Nova Poshta courier company in Lviv – insist parcels will arrive at their destination.
“The only places we aren’t working is where the bombs are falling, at the moment they’re falling,” said 39-year-old Shved.
“When the alarms go off we stop, but when they are silent we go back to work.”
Since Russia invaded Ukraine a few weeks ago the pro-Western country has moved onto a war footing.
Thousands of soldiers have been mobilised and cities have been fortified on the orders of President Volodymyr Zelensky, who addresses the nation in military fatigues.
The “home front” of Ukraine has also been transformed, as civilian life pivots to buttress the war effort and usher aid to refugees fleeing conflict zones.
Lviv, which is located 70 kilometres from the border with Poland, was initially largely spared military strikes from Russian forces.
But the cavernous Nova Poshta warehouse on the northern outskirts has nevertheless been transformed by the demands of war.
The workforce has slimmed by more than half. Just 22 work here with most of the rest called up for combat. The hub once sorted one million parcels a day, mainly for online shoppers.
Now the 100,000 daily parcels are mostly food, medicine and clothing – care packages criss-crossing conflict-riven Ukraine.
A cursory glance at rusted red cargo trolleys reveals pasta noodles and military boots nestled among anonymous cardboard packages.
Ninety mechanised lines hurl them along a conveyor belt through a yawning red scanner, sorting them for onward travel.
Shved said the only day this process paused was February 24 – when Russia invaded – as a grip of panic passed across Ukraine.
“Over the next few days we realised the company is one of the few that can keep people united,” he said. “That’s why we decided to regroup.”
Now the postal trucks are guided by a backroom team mapping “safe routes to pass aside warfare”, he explained.
They account for infrastructure hobbled by Russian airstrikes and Ukrainian checkpoints manned by twitchy recruits.
Nova Poshta once made deliveries anywhere in Ukraine within 24 hours. Now it takes between four and six days.
Nevertheless “we do our best to deliver every package to its final destination”, pledged Shved.
On a wall in the front office a caricature of Russian President Vladimir Putin is daubed on a whiteboard.
Though far from most battles, combat is clearly on employees’ minds.
“Many of our workers are on the frontline and many are still working here,” said 42-year-old Goretsky, wearing a red down jacket.
“It’s also a frontline.”
Shved and Goretsky say parcels are still arriving from the frontline cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv.
But despite their upbeat mood, parts of the nation are now cut off.
The last shipment from Mariupol arrived one week ago. The strategic port city has been hammered by Russian artillery with reports of horrific casualties.
And nationwide, just 25 per cent of the Nova Poshta offices are still open for business.
But a second shed behind the private post facility is where the main focus of their work now lies.
Around 90 per cent of freight passing through the facility is now humanitarian aid – gathered and sorted at the Lviv way station for incoming refugees or eastbound distribution.
There are towering pallets of noodles from the Lithuanian Red Cross, blood-clotting trauma bandages from the French Protection Civile and cans of drinking water stamped with a heart symbol.
Men perched on freight-pushing buggies scoot across the sheened floor, shunting aid crates into piles.
Standing among boxed donations, Andriy Kovalyov, 38, is itemising assorted medication.
After fleeing his home in Kyiv, Kovalyov now volunteers for the Health Ministry using his pharmaceutical expertise.
“I had the choice between going to the army, which I’m not trained to do… or this,” he said, gesturing at his makeshift workplace.
“I hope this helps.”
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States (US) officially declared on Monday that violence against the Rohingya committed by Myanmar’s military amounted to genocide, saying there was clear evidence of an attempt to “destroy” the minority group.
Citing the killings of thousands and forcing close to a million to flee the country in 2016 and 2017, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had “determined that members of the Burmese military committed genocide and crimes against humanity against Rohingya”.
“The military’s intent went beyond ethnic cleansing to the actual destruction of Rohingya,” Blinken said at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“The attack against Rohingya was widespread and systematic, which is crucial for reaching a determination of crimes against humanity.”
The US move did not come with new direct repercussions against the already heavily sanctioned Myanmar regime and dozens of members of its leadership.
But Blinken said it will support international efforts, including in the International Court of Justice, to bring cases of crimes against humanity against the regime.
Blinken noted 2017 remarks by Myanmar military commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, that the government was “solving” an “unfinished job” in its destruction of Rohingya communities.
Blinken added that Min Aung Hlaing led the 2021 coup overthrowing the elected government of Myanmar.
“The brutal violence unleashed by the military since February 2021 has made clear that no one in Burma will be safe from atrocities so long as it is in power,” Blinken said, using the former official name of the country. “Anyone in Burma seen as challenging the military’s grip on power – regardless of ethnicity or religion, age or political party – will be targetted,” he said.
Around 850,000 Rohingya are languishing in camps in neighbouring Bangladesh, recounting mass killings and rape of the campaign that was launched against them five years ago.
Another 600,000 members of the community remain in Myanmar’s Rakhine state where they report widespread oppression.
