Firefighters captured a 4.5-metre long crocodile found in a drain near a shop along  Jalan Muara, Kampong Salar, Mentiri yesterday.

The firefighters found the crocodile inside a drain near a shop and captured the reptile with a rope and a snake catcher. It was passed to the Wildlife Division. No one was injured.

SO Murni bin Haji Misir led seven firefighters from the Muara Fire station responded following a call about a wild animal disturbance, according to the Fire and Rescue Department (FRD).

More details on Thursday’s Borneo Bulletin

The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports (MCYS) yesterday announced Child Care Centres (CCC) will be able to re-operate in stages during the Endemic Phase of the COVID-19 Recovery Framework from January 17.

Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports Major General (Rtd) Dato Paduka Seri Awang Haji Aminuddin Ihsan bin Pehin Orang Kaya Saiful Mulok Dato Seri Paduka Haji Abidin made the announcement during a press conference yesterday. The minister said the decision was based on the agreement of the COVID-19 Steering Committee as well as the results from an online survey conducted in collaboration with the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Health (MoH) participated by 11,566 parents nationwide.

More details on Thursday’s Borneo Bulletin

Brunei Darussalam detected one new Omicron  case yesterday with the total number of the variant now standing at nine. All Omicron cases detected in the Sultanate are import cases.

Minister of Health Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Md Isham bin Haji Jaafar shared this during a press conference yesterday.

The minister also said the COVID-19 Steering Committee announced the amendment in the rate of the charges for the SARS-CoV-2 tests in Brunei Darussalam from January 1.

More details on Thursday’s Borneo Bulletin

NEW YORK (AFP) – As of Tuesday, many models of the once-indispensable BlackBerry devices will no longer work.

The Canadian company has decided to pull the plug on new updates of its operating system, meaning most BlackBerries that became synonymous with the emerging mobile digital culture of recent decades – and were embraced by politicians and business executives – will not operate correctly after January 4.

“As of this date, devices running these legacy services and software through either carrier or Wi-Fi connections will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 (emergency) functionality,” the company said on its website last month.

More details on Thursday’s Borneo Bulletin

TOKYO (AFP) – The buyer of a USD145,000 tuna at Tokyo’s traditional New Year auction said yesterday he hoped the purchase would “brighten” a COVID-hit 2022.

The top price paid for a tuna at the first auction of the year at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market fell for the third year running, with demand hit by the pandemic.

The JPY16.88 million shelled out jointly by a restaurant operator and a wholesaler for the huge bluefin tuna yesterday was far below the 2019 record of JPY333.6 million.

The first tuna auction of the year at Toyosu market is a closely watched tradition that draws a horde of fish wholesalers every year.

Bidders sometimes shell out an enormous amount to win the top-priced tuna, which is seen as bringing good luck, as well as plenty of publicity for the buyer.

More details on Thursday’s Borneo Bulletin

SINGAPORE (AFP) – Myanmar has “all the ingredients for civil war”, Cambodia, chair of Southeast Asia’s regional bloc, has warned ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Hun Sen to the crisis-wracked country.

Myanmar has been in chaos since a coup last year, with more than 1,400 people killed in a crackdown on dissent by security forces, according to a local monitoring group.

Hun Sen, whose country this year holds the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc, will visit Myanmar tomorrow and on Saturday to defuse the crisis.

More details on Thursday’s Borneo Bulletin

SYDNEY (AP) – Australia yesterday saw another jump in COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations and long queues at testing centres as it continued to battle the rapid spread of the virus in most states.

The country recorded over 64,000 cases, up from 47,000 a day earlier, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison met virtually with the national cabinet – the leaders of Australia’s states and territories – to discuss how to respond to almost daily records in new cases and rising pressure on hospitals.

Morrison faced increasing calls to make rapid antigen tests available free to relieve pressure on PCR testing centres, many of which have been forced to close after reaching capacity. People who have been tested often face long waits for results from overburdened laboratories.

More details on Thursday’s Borneo Bulletin

BEIJING (AP) – China yesterday reported a major drop in local COVID-19 infections in the northern city of Xi’an, which has been under a tight lockdown for the past two weeks that tested the city’s ability to provide supplies for those confined to their homes.

With the Beijing Olympics beginning on February 4, China is doubling down on measures to prevent any new outbreak that could affect proceedings.

People are being told to travel in and out of Beijing only if they absolutely need to and hotels have largely stopped taking new reservations.

More details on Thursday’s Borneo Bulletin

PARIS (AP) – French President Emmanuel Macron  has provoked outcries in Parliament and protests from election rivals by using a vulgarity to describe his strategy for pressuring vaccine refusers to get coronavirus jabs.

Macron used the French word emmerder, meaning to rile or to bug, in an interview published by French newspaper Le Parisien on Tuesday night. The president made the explosive remark as lawmakers are heatedly debating new measures that would allow only the vaccinated to enjoy leisure activities such as eating out.

“The unvaccinated, I really want to bug them. And so we will continue doing so, to the end. That’s the strategy,” Le Parisien quoted the French leader as saying in a sit-down interview at the presidential Elysee Palace with a panel of its readers.

More details on Thursday’s Borneo Bulletin

Los Angeles (AFP) – A set of twins born 15 minutes apart in California have very different birthdays – one in 2021 and the other in 2022.

Alfredo Antonio Trujillo came into the world at 11.45pm on New Year’s Eve in the city of Salinas.

A quarter of an hour later, on New Year’s Day, his sister Aylin Yolanda Trujillo was born.

The Natividad Medical Center, where the babies were delivered, said in a statement last week that some estimates suggest there is a one-in-two-million chance of twins being born in different years.

More details on Thursday’s Borneo Bulletin