I’m seeking clarification from the authorities regarding local students going overseas for further studies, and if they need travel medical insurance with COVID-19 coverage.
According to the website, Brunei citizens and permanent residents, who are currently residing in a foreign country for work or studies, are not required to purchase a travel medical insurance before the travel date if they are to return to the foreign country after entering the Sultanate for a short trip.
My question is: Does a local student, who is currently in Brunei and is set to travel overseas for further studies, need to get a travel medical insurance before departing the Sultanate as his/her travel will not be considered a short trip?
I hope the authorities could respond to our query soon, to clear the air regarding the procedures and necessary documents in these pandemic times.
LONDON (AFP) – Scottish Premiership club Celtic yesterday announced the signing of Japanese trio Yosuke Ideguchi, Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate, with manager Ange Postecoglou saying they would “excite” the fans.
International midfielder Ideguchi, 25, will arrive on a long-term deal from Gamba Osaka and the versatile Hatate, 24, joins from Kawasaki Frontale
Forward Maeda, 24, who is also a Japan international, will join from Yokohama F Marinos, initially on loan until the end of the season but with a compulsory purchase clause included.
Postecoglou was in charge for more than three years at Yokohama F Marinos before he took over at Celtic earlier this year, and he is confident the three players will thrive in Glasgow.
“We are really pleased to bring in these guys to Celtic and I think they are players who will excite our fans,” he said.
“Clearly I am well aware of their attributes and I think in bringing all three to the club we are bringing even more quality, personality and energy to the squad to work with the players who have done so well for us already this season.
“They are all really at the peak of their careers, ambitious to achieve more success and I am sure at this particular time we will be getting their best years.”
AFP – The European Union (EU) called on Thursday for an international arms embargo on Myanmar’s junta and for toughening its own sanctions following last week’s massacre of more than 30 people.
The killings took place on December 24 in eastern Kayah state, where pro-democracy rebels have been fighting the military, which took over the government from the democratically elected administration in February.
The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said “the appalling act of violence perpetrated by the military regime” on civilians and humanitarian workers underlined the “urgent need” to hold the junta accountable.
“In view of the escalating violence in Myanmar, increased international preventive action is required, including an arms embargo,” Borrell said in a statement.
“The EU also stands ready to impose further sanctions against the military regime,” he added. His call for an international arms embargo echoed one Tuesday from the United States (US).
People fleeing due to fighting between the Myanmar military and the Karen National Union (KNU) line up to receive food at a temporary lodging, PHOTO: AFP
Western nations have long restricted weapons to Myanmar’s military, which even during the pre-coup democratic transition faced allegations of crimes against humanity for a bloody campaign against the Rohingya minority.
The United Nations General Assembly voted in June to prevent arms shipments into Myanmar, but the measure was symbolic as it was not taken up by the more powerful Security Council.
China and Russia, which hold veto power on the Security Council – as well as neighbouring India – are the major arms providers to Myanmar.
Myanmar has been in chaos since a military coup in February, with more than 1,300 people killed in a crackdown by security forces, according to a local monitoring group.
Since the coup, the EU has imposed targetted sanctions on the Myanmar military, its leaders and entities.
The bloc also halted EU financial assistance to the government and froze assistance that could be seen as legitimising the military regime.
Borrell said “the targeting of civilians and humanitarian actors is unacceptable and a blatant violation of human rights and international law, including humanitarian law”.
He called for “full, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to” Myanmar’s people while demanding full protection for humanitarian workers and medical personnel.
International charity Save the Children said two of its employees were among those killed in the massacre.
The EU said it will continue providing humanitarian aid to the people.
AFP/PR TIMES – A model displays a creation from fashion brand HxCx by Japanese designer Takashi Kido for the 2022 Spring/Summer collection at Tokyo Fashion.
The theme of the collection is ‘POWER POP’, designed with consideration for destruction and construction. Fashion, as typified by second-hand clothing, deteriorates and destroys new things, but it continues to change by repeating the cycle of being reconstructed with the addition of new essences. Kido expressed the process by mixing the culture of the 80’s and 90’s that he had experienced.
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – South Africa, where the Omicron variant was detected last month, said its latest coronavirus wave has peaked without a surge in deaths or hospitalisations, enabling the country to lift a nightly curfew for the first time in 21 months.
The Omicron variant emerged in November to become pandemic’s dominant variant, driving new cases at a record rate around the world.
“According to experts, Omicron has reached the peak, with clinical manifestations that have not caused any alarm in the hospital situation,” Mondli Gungubele, a minister in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office, said yesterday.
“Based on the experts, the conditions do allow that we lift the curfew,” he told a news conference, spelling out a move that the presidency announced the previous evening.
Calls by the hospitality sector for the midnight to 4am curfew to be lifted had been mounting ahead of the New Year’s Eve celebrations, with restaurant owners launching an online petition to lobby Ramaphosa.
Many countries outside Africa are tightening restrictions to battle a surge in infections.
The minister cautioned “we will monitor the situation on a hour-by-hour basis” and if need be, it would be reinstated, adding “I hope it never comes back”.
Gungubele said the government of Africa’s most advanced but battered economy took the action to try “balance between livelihoods and saving lives”.
“Businesses are suffering,” he said.
The highly contagious Omicron variant, which contains a number of mutations, has fuelled an end-of-year global pandemic resurgence. But mounting evidence in South Africa and elsewhere has fuelled hopes that Omicron, while more contagious than other strains, may also be less severe.
Infections in South Africa dropped by almost 30 per cent last week compared to the preceding seven days, according to the president’s office, and while hospital admissions also declined in eight of the nine provinces.
Even so, the risk of increased infections “remains high”, the presidency warned in its Thursday night statement.
Mask-wearing remains compulsory in public spaces and public gatherings are limited to 1,000 people indoors and 2,000 outdoors.
The government has continued to stress the need for caution and vaccination.
Inoculation rates have also improved – more than 15.6 million people in South Africa have been fully vaccinated, out of a population of 59 million.
During the surge in December, only a marginal increase in Covid-19 deaths was noted, while hospitalisation rates were lower than in previous waves, the presidency statement said.
“This means that the country has a spare capacity for admission of patients even for routine health services.”
Omicron was first identified in South Africa and Botswana in late November.
It quickly became the dominant strain in South Africa, causing an explosion of infections with a peak of about 26,000 daily cases recorded by mid-December, according to official statistics.
The variant is currently present in more than 100 countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
As the COVID-19 situation around the world remains volatile, further aggravated by the emergence of the new Omicron variant a few weeks ago, the recent move by the authorities to revoke green lane travel is commendable.
The global travel industry is in a fragile state, and health guidelines across nations seemingly change daily.
Thus, it incurs losses to those who have purchased air tickets and are seeking compensation.
The pandemic is here to stay; the virus will live among us for years to come.
Countries should not be in a hurry to open their borders for non-essential travel.
After all, surging cases in other parts of the world should be lesson for us that it is more challenging to control transmissions once we allow people to move freely across borders.
CNA – Thailand’s overall financial system is stable and the economy is gradually recovering, but rising household debt and an uneven recovery pose risks, the central bank said yesterday.
Household debt continued to rise, while the Omicron variant of the coronavirus casts doubt over the recovery, Bank of Thailand (BOT) senior director Don Nakornthab said.
The economic recovery remained uneven, especially in tourism-related sectors, Don said.
In our news item ‘Mosque’s funeral rites room completed’, published on Page 5 yesterday, the photo caption should have read “Commanding Officer of Combat Engineers Squadron, Support Battalion at the Royal Brunei Land Force and Chairman of Titian Amal Project for Diamond Jubilee Anniversary Major Muhammad Rafie bin Haji Abdul Wahid delivering a speech”, and not as stated.
Meanwhile, in our news item, ‘Nissan Terra 2021 unveiled’, published on Page 8 yesterday, the fourth paragraph should have read as “The new Nissan Terra is powered with a 2.5L turbo-charged diesel engine”, and not as stated.
HAVANA (AFP) – In its 91 years, Havana’s majestic Hotel Nacional has borne witness to some of the biggest events of Cuban history.
It was once bombed as part of a conflict between rival units of Cuba’s military, hosted a summit of mafia dons, was a key site of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a holiday jaunt for Hollywood’s most eccentric figures.
Yet for 20 months ending in mid-November, this building that mixes Art Deco and neoclassical elements along with Moorish tiles was deserted because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Far from a death knell for the hotel, it was an opportunity to restore the facade, and put in new floors and windows in the rooms.
“A lot of work was done so that when the tourists returned they would find the 1930s hotel, although with greater comfort… reliving the past,” said specialist in the hotel’s history Arleen Ortiz.
Now guests will often specifically request to stay in certain rooms, like number 211 where the Italian-born gangster Lucky Luciano sojourned in December 1946 during the mafia bosses summit.
ABOVE & BELOW: Pool view of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, in Havana; and guests lounging in the gardens. PHOTOS: AFP
ABOVE & BELOW: View of the lobby; wall decoration at the hotel; and the entertainment hall
That was an incident immortalised in the 1974 film by Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather II.
As the mobsters meet on a terrace at the hotel, they divide up a cake in the shape of the island nation – a metaphor for their sharing out control of lucrative illicit businesses.
The real summit opened on December 22, 1946, with Luciano seated at the head of a large rectangular table.
“Las Vegas didn’t exist and Cuba was the perfect place for entertaining due to its proximity to the United States (US), the climate, the beaches,” said Ortiz.
The entire hotel had been booked by the dons for their families to spend the holidays in the city, with Frank Sinatra a special guest for the occasion.
Perched on a hill overlooking the Straits of Florida, the Hotel Nacional – with its brand new English china, clocks imported from Germany and chandeliers hanging from the ceilings – was opened on December 30, 1930, allegedly financed partly with mob money.
Just three years later, 400 army officers loyal to the deposed president Gerardo Machado hunkered down in the hotel as government troops bombarded it from land and sea.
Outnumbered and with ammunition running out, they were soon forced to surrender.
The hotel survived, bearing the pockmarked signs of the siege, but would soon be attracting a very different kind of attention.
The halls and rooms are filled with photos, objects and letters of the celebrities that have stayed at the hotel.
Five-time Olympic swimming champion and former Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller was one such guest, impressing staff by jumping from a second floor window into the swimming pool below.
In the 50s, Ava Gardner had a breakfast at the hotel after a night out in Havana’s cabarets alongside the likes of Ernest Hemingway.
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Winston Churchill, Marlon Brando, Errol Flyn, Rita Hayworth and Nat King Cole all stayed at the hotel.
But following Fidel Castro’s communist revolution of 1959, the hotel was converted into a dormitory for 900 peasant women who went to the capital to learn to sew.
“Those young women, who had never before left their homes with no electricity and dirt floors,” suddenly found themselves in the plush hotel’s elegant rooms, said Ortiz.
Tensions would soon mount again with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when soldiers dug trenches and tunnels underneath the hotel grounds as the US and Soviet Union teetered on the brink of nuclear war.
But it is for star-gazing that it is best known.
“The foreigners know this place and what they want is to sit where so many celebrities did before them,” said Cuban doctor from Sancti Espiritus province Tania Fernandez, who brought her children to explore the tunnels.
The hotel underwent another makeover in the 1990s, a time when the hardline communist regime barred locals from staying there.
“It’s beautiful, it’s magical being here. I love the Cuban people and I love the energy. It’s incredible,” Sierra, 39, an American teacher, said while sipping a drink with her boyfriend and looking out to sea.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – United States (US) President Joe Biden’s administration has asked the Supreme Court to end a Trump-era policy under which migrants seeking asylum in the US must wait in Mexico while their cases are being considered.
The Justice Department has asked the conservative-leaning high court to review decisions made by earlier courts that left the migration programme in place, according to legal documents reviewed by AFP on Thursday.
Under then-president Donald Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ programme, tens of thousands of non-Mexican asylum seekers – mostly from Central America – were sent back over the border pending the outcome of their applications.
Biden, a Democrat, has sought to dismantle the programme, officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).
Those efforts have faced setbacks in the US court system, and most recently an appeals court ruled this month that the programme should continue.
In a legal document filed on Wednesday, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to review the case, arguing that the programme “exposes migrants to unacceptable” risks and that previous court decisions were based on “erroneous interpretations” of the law.
