BUENOS AIRES (AFP) – Argentina’s Senate gave final approval to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that restructures a USD45 billion debt, clearing the country’s short-term financial horizon but leaving a serious inflationary challenge.
The late-night vote greenlights the new credit programme ironed out between Argentine officials and IMF staff as they sought to finalise the debt, the legacy of a record loan contracted in 2018 under former president Mauricio Macri.
Outside the Senate, several hundred people demonstrated, called by unions and leftist movements to oppose the restructuring.
MIAMI (AFP) – Defending champion Sam Burns closed with back-to-back birdies to match Venezuela’s Jhonattan Vegas, Canada’s Adam Hadwin and United States (US) compatriot David Lipsky for the lead after Thursday’s opening round of the US PGA Valspar Championship.
Burns, Vegas, Lipsky and Hadwin each fired seven-under par 64s at Innisbrook resort’s Copperhead course in Palm Harbor, Florida.
Only Lipsky, chasing his first US PGA title, had a bogey-free round, his longest birdie putt from just outside 10 feet.
“My iron play was excellent. I hit it close a lot,” Lipsky said. “I didn’t really leave myself too many stressful par saves. Drove it relatively straight and that’s a formula to go well.”
The only first-round Valspar leader or co-leader to win the title was South Korean KJ Choi
in 2002.
New Zealand’s Danny Lee and Americans Scott Stallings, Davis Riley and Richy Werenski shared fifth on 65.
World number 17 Burns won his only other PGA title last October at the Sanderson Farms Championship but has fond memories of last year’s victory.
“I’ll look back forever on that event, it being my first win,” Burns said. “Wins don’t happen out here often, so I think it’s good to reflect and just be extremely grateful.”
The 25-year-old American birdied three of four par-five holes and all four par-three holes, the last a tap-in at the 17th after putting an eight-iron shot inches from the cup. Burns made a 14-foot birdie putt at the 18th.
“I honestly thought I missed it,” Burns said. “It hit something and kind of shot a little right halfway. But it caught the right side.”
Hadwin, a 34-year-old back-nine starter who won the 2017 Valpsar title, birdied four of his last five holes. He sank a birdie from beyond 36 feet at the 18th, holed another from beyond 26 feet at the sixth and finished with a birdie putt from just inside 24 feet at the ninth.
“A lot of things went right to shoot 64 around this place,” Hadwin said. “Just a lot of good consistent golf. I wouldn’t say that I felt great off the tee, but I was never in any trouble. I hit it really well.”
I would like to applaud the authorities for adding COVID-19 pills to their arsenal of treatments for infected individuals with severe symptoms. The number of new daily cases has been decreasing steadily in the past few days, which is comforting to learn, especially for a community that has endured the rollercoaster ride of a pandemic for two years.
While we have peaked in the third wave, there are still a number of patients in Categories 4 and 5 that need all the medical help they can get. As such, these pills’ arrival couldn’t be timed better.
It is true that more countries have eased their measures. But we are but a small nation with a small population. So it is understandable that the authorities are prudent in their strategies to ensure that there isn’t a fourth wave on the horizon.
Let’s hope the public continues to work together by observing the health protocols. It may seem like we are out of the woods, but for as long as there are people suffering severe symptoms from COVID-19, it is better to be safe than sorry.
Social-Distancing Fan
Oral anti-viral drug Molnupiravir by Merck. PHOTO: AP
HOBBS, NEW MEXICO (AP) – The investigation into a recent fiery head-on crash in West Texas now focusses on the revelation that a 13-year-old was driving the pickup truck that struck a van, killing nine people, including six members of a college golf team and their coach.
The young teen, who is still unidentified, and a man travelling in the truck also died.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg on Thursday revealed the truck was driven by the child. He said the truck’s left front tyre, which was a spare tyre, blew out before impact.
The pickup truck crossed into the opposite lane on the darkened, two-lane highway before colliding head-on with the van. Both vehicles burst into flames.
Although it was unclear how fast the two vehicles were travelling, “this was clearly a high-speed collision”, Landsberg said.
Landsberg said investigators hoped to retrieve enough information from the vehicle’s recorders, if they survived, to understand what happened. He said many in the van were not wearing seatbelts and at least one was ejected from the vehicle. It’s not unusual for young teens to drive in that region and other more rural parts of the United States.
But “that was dumb” for a 13-year-old to be driving on a busy two-lane roadway used by oil traffic, said Gib Stevens, who leads area trucking operations for an oilfield servicing company.
One must be 14 in Texas to start taking classroom courses for a learner’s licence and 15 to receive that provisional licence to drive with an instructor or licenced adult in the vehicle.
Department of Public Safety Sergeant Victor Taylor said a 13-year-old driving would be breaking the law.
The University of the Southwest students, including one from Portugal and one from Mexico, and the coach were returning from a golf tournament when the vehicles collided on Tuesday night.
Two Canadian students were hospitalised in critical condition.
The NTSB sent an investigative team to the crash site in Texas’ Andrews County, about 50 kilometres east of the New Mexico state line.
N’DJAMENA (AFP) – Celestin sweats profusely in the searing heat.
Like dozens of other youngsters in Chad’s capital N’Djamena, the scrawny 13-year-old in rags is up to his knees in mud, making clay bricks.
The teenagers work on a large plot of land in the Waria district near the Chari River in the south of the city.
There are no trees to give shade. Here, in the heart of the Sahel, the Harmattan wind is just a light, dusty breeze.
Celestin, who wishes to go only by his first name, uses his feet to knead clay soil, mixed with water, straw and manure. In exhausting labour, he then fills moulds to fashion the bricks.
“I get back pain,” he said, without looking up from his task.
The lad has been making bricks for a year. For six hours of work a day, he earns around XAF2,500 (USD4.15). “But I have no choice, I have to support myself.”
Celestin works six days a week and lives in a makeshift shack in a nearby district.
A short distance away, Felix, 10, is busy moving the bricks.
Young boys are seen at work at a brick factory in N’Djamena. PHOTO: AFP
He has a puny torso on rickety legs, yet each time he carries up to four bricks – a weight not far from 12 kilogrammes.
“I earn around XAF500 a day (USD0.83). I come here right after school,” he said, out of breath.
Other children, barely older and clad in rags, do the same job.
They are paid by the owner to take the bricks from the place of manufacture to the place of sale.
In recent years, the trade in clay bricks has greatly increased, with the soaring price of cement. Makeshift factories like these have sprouted up throughout the city.
Chad is, according to the United Nations, the third least developed country on the planet. The World Bank estimates that 42 per cent of a population of around 15 million lives below the poverty line.
The central African country has ratified international conventions that ban the labour of children under 14, but “due to economic hardship, many families are forced to let their children work,” said an NGO specialising in the rights of children Humanium.
In a 2018, the group described “very harsh” working conditions for youngsters in Chad, who faced long hours and low wages.
“It’s intolerable to see children working in Chad when they should be in school,” said secretary general of the Chadian Convention on Human Rights Mahamat Nour Ibedou.
“The law is there, but the government does nothing to apply it.”
With dusty clothes and a face spattered in mud, Mahamat, 16, tirelessly repeats the same gestures to mix earth, manure and straw with a shovel as he has done since he was 10 years old.
“I have sore arms all the time,” he said, speaking from a pit. “I earn around XAF500 a day, but I give everything to my mother so that she can feed us, my brothers and me.” Adults too try to survive with earnings from the clay brick business.
“I manage to make 250 (bricks) a day, which brings in a little money, even if it’s not enough to live on,” said Martin Wari, 34, who also works as a primary-school teacher for part of the day.
At 27, Emile Deaonadji is a veteran brickmaker.
He started working at the site in 2010 and today sounds fatalistic.
“Obviously it’s hard, but how do I eat if I don’t do it?”, he asked, near a brick-curing oven that gave off stifling heat and a pungent stench.
The trend on daily number of COVID-19 cases has shown a decline in the effective reproduction number (Rt) value from 0.95 in the past week to 0.66 as of yesterday, according to 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. More details in Saturday’s Borneo Bulletin.
The Labour Department’s enforcement division carried out Operasi Sejahtera 07/2022 to uncover Employment Order 2009 violations in Kampong Mulaut on March 15. Enforcement officials inspected four companies and discovered three had violated the Employment Order by hiring three labourers working not in accordance with their original employment contracts. More details in Saturday’s Borneo Bulletin.
The White House said on Thursday it is discussing new dates for the United States (US) – ASEAN Summit after it had been postponed because not all leaders could attend later this month. More details in Saturday’s Borneo Bulletin.
The Fire and Rescue Department (FRD) through the ‘G’ Operation branch awarded a father and son with an excellence community award for their swift action in extinguishing a fire at a Muallaf assistance house owned by the Islamic Da’wah Centre (PDI), Ministry of Religious Affairs. More details in Saturday’s Borneo Bulletin.
