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Philippines to buy two new South Korean warships for USD556M

MANILA (AFP) – The Philippines has ordered two new warships from South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries, Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Tuesday, modernising Manila’s navy.

The Philippine Navy had become run down in recent decades – even featuring United States (US) craft from World War II – until Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino, began a modest modernisation programme in 2010. Tuesday’s PHP28 billion (USD556 million) deal with the South Korean shipbuilding giant comes five years after the firm also won a contract to build two new frigates for the Philippine Navy.

Corvettes and frigates are small, fast warships mainly used to protect other vessels from attack.

“This project will give the Philippine Navy two modern corvettes that are capable of anti-ship, anti-submarine and anti-air warfare missions,” Lorenzana said in a speech at the signing ceremony in Manila.

The deal “will ensure commonality and interoperability with our existing assets”, he added, as well as “ease of maintenance and repairs”.

Manila has since acquired two former US Coast Guard cutters and three landing craft from Australia, as well as coast guard patrol vessels from Japan, in an effort to bolster its presence in the South China Sea.

Relatives of Philippine Navy sailors waving their national flags as the navy’s newly-acquired vessel, the Pohang-class corvette BRP Conrado Yap (PS39), docks at the international port in Manila. PHOTO: AFP

Severe Brazil flooding spreads in Bahia and beyond

BRASILIA, BRAZIL (AP) – A total of 116 cities in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia were in a state of emergency because of flooding on Tuesday due to heavy rains that have been pounding the region since the end of November.

Cities in at least five other states in Brazil’s north and southeast have also been flooded in recent days.

In Bahia, flooding has affected more than 470,000 people. In at least 50 cities, water surged into homes and businesses, and people were forced to abandon their belongings.

Official data from the state government say 34,163 people have been made homeless and almost 43,000 are displaced.

There have been a total of 21 deaths and 358 people injured since the beginning of the month.

This is the heaviest period of rainfall for Bahia in the last 32 years, according to the website of the National Center for Monitoring and Alerts of Natural Disasters, a government agency. In southern Bahia, it rained more than five times the normal amount for this time of the year.

Residents clean out their flooded homes in Itapetinga, Bahia state in Brazil. PHOTO: AP

In an interview with local radio stations on Tuesday morning, Bahia Governor Rui Costa compared the situation to a “bombardment”. He also said that coronavirus vaccines were lost in the floods of some cities.

“Some municipal health offices and medicine depots were completely under water,” he said.

On Tuesday, the population of at least four municipalities in Bahia received warnings to leave their homes because of the increased flow of the Pardo River due to the opening of the Machado Mineiro dam’s sluice gates in neighboring Minas Gerais state, according to the state government’s advisory office.

Bahia’s Civil Defence superintendent, Colonel Miguel Filho, told The Associated Press that there are still flooded and isolated cities, and rains are still ongoing.

“Our first response is to help, then to shelter, to care for the population in the shelters by giving humanitarian aid, with sheets, blankets, food,” he said.

He added that at least five dams in Bahia are at risk of bursting. Bridges and federal and state roads in the state were destroyed and have been provisionally rebuilt to allow food and other items to be brought to people in need.

“We still don’t have a complete list of all the damage caused, the amount of structures that will need to be replaced,” Governor Costa said.

The federal government has authorised emergency spending totaling BRL80 million (USD14.2 million) for Bahia alone. Additional funds will be directed to other regions also affected by the rains in recent weeks, and which are still suffering the consequences.

Four caught violating movement restrictions

James Kon

Enforcement personnel detected five violations during the movement restriction period from 10pm to 4am on Tuesday night.

This was revealed by Minister of Health Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham bin Haji Jaafar during the daily press conference yesterday.

Four violations were for breaching the stay-at-home directive and one was for not having BruHealth app. The violators were issued fines.

The local offenders were Samsiah Samsudin, Eddy Rody Abdul Karim and Zemsea Yakub Matassim while the only foreign violator was Lakshmanan Marimuthu.

The Royal Brunei Police Force (RBPF) said all five violations were recorded in the Brunei-Muara District.

ABOVE & BELOW: Samsiah Samsudin; and Eddy Rody Abdul Karim. PHOTOS: RBPF

ABOVE & BELOW: Zemsea Yakub Matassim; and Lakshmanan Marimuthu

Indonesia to bring stranded Rohingya refugees to shore

BIREUN, INDONESIA (AFP) – Indonesia yesterday said it will let dozens of Rohingya refugees come ashore after protests from locals and the international community over its plan to push them into Malaysian waters.

At least 100 mostly women and children aboard a stricken wooden vessel off Aceh province were denied refuge in Indonesia, where authorities on Tuesday said they planned to push them into the neighbouring Southeast Asian country after fixing their boat.

After a day-long meeting yesterday between officials in the coastal town of Bireun, Jakarta backtracked and said the refugees’ boat would be towed to shore on humanitarian grounds.
“The decision was taken after considering the emergency condition of the refugees on that boat,” said Head of the national taskforce on refugees Armed Wijaya.

The Rohingya boat is now about 80 kilometres from Bireun and would be pulled ashore, he said without elaborating on the timing.

“As it is now in the middle of the pandemic, all refugees will undergo medical screening,” he said, adding that the taskforce will coordinate with related stakeholders to provide shelter and logistics for the refugees.

Indonesian authorities first spotted the wooden boat two days ago, stranded about 70 nautical miles off the Indonesian coast, according to a local navy commander. Local fishermen had alerted them on December 25, one of them said.

On Tuesday, Amnesty International and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called on the government to let the stranded group of Rohingya refugees land.

The earlier plan by authorities in Aceh to send the refugees into Malaysia also angered locals in Bireun, where a group of fishermen yesterday organised a protest demanding authorities to instead allow the Rohingya to disembark.

“We saw videos of their condition on social media. They need water and food. They must be treated with kindness as human beings,” Bireun resident Wahyudi told AFP by telephone.

“We, Acehnese, used to have the same experience with the Rohingya. We were in a prolonged conflict. We fled crossing the sea and were helped by people from various countries such as Malaysia, Australia.”

A wooden boat transporting Rohingya refugees after it was intercepted in the waters off Bireuen, Aceh province. FILE PHOTO: AFP

Ashes gone, can a 5-0 England series loss be far away?

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA (AP) – England has been beaten 5-0 in an Ashes series only three times. On the evidence of Tuesday’s innings defeat at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, captain Joe Root’s (AP; pic below) side could soon become the fourth.

Former England captain Ian Botham said he was “a little embarrassed”.

“To lose the Ashes in 12 days . . . I just think that England have lost their way,” Botham said on Australia’s Seven Network. “The performance today summed it up.”

Trailing by 82 runs on the first innings of the third test, England resumed on Tuesday’s third day on 31-4 and was bowled out for 68, losing by an innings and 14 runs.

Australia didn’t even need to wait until lunch before regaining the Ashes – less than halfway through the scheduled five-match series. One rather scathing social media user tweeted that Australia won the Ashes in a shorter time frame than the 14 days England spent in coronavirus-forced quarantine when they first arrived Down Under.

Surrounded by under-performing specialist batters, Root top-scored in both innings for England with 50 and 28, to finish the year on 1,708 runs in 15 test matches.

England’s Joe Root and Ben Stokes leave the field at stumps. PHOTO: AP

Only two players, Pakistan’s Mohammad Yousuf (1,788 in 11 matches in 2006) and West Indies’ Viv Richards (1,710 in 11 matches in 1976) have scored more runs in a calendar year.

“I feel like I’m playing nicely at the minute,” Root said of his lone hand in England’s batting lineup.

“I feel like my game is improving and I am evolving still as a player.”

Root said Australia’s bowling attack was outstanding on a helpful MCG pitch.

“You’ve just got to find a way to get through it sometimes,” Root said. “We need to put some pride back into the badge and we need to give people back home something to celebrate.”

Asked about his enthusiasm to continue as captain beyond this series, Root said his focus was on two upcoming tests in Sydney and Hobart in January.

“It would be wrong to look past that,” he said.

Attention has also turned towards coach and selector Chris Silverwood’s role in the dismal tour. Former test captain Michael Atherton believes the coach should be dismissed at the end of the series.

“I can’t see a situation where Silverwood will survive this tour, Atherton told Sky Sports. “All the responsibility lies with him as that’s the way (England Cricket Director Ashley) Giles has

A national record-equaling 54 ducks this year, including four in the second innings at the MCG and matching England’s mark of 1998, is a fitting statistic for Root’s side.

Root questioned whether England’s domestic competition was adequately preparing players for test cricket. Some English commentators said members of England’s Lions squad, also currently in Australia and mostly here as coronavirus backup for the main team, should be liberally imported into the team for the final two tests.

“The environment that they’re coming from is not readying them well enough for test cricket.

It’s a very difficult place,” Root said of his domestic competition back home.

“If you’re not ready . . . it makes it very difficult to improve. You need some strong inner belief. It has to come from within.”

Linked to that is the England and Wales Cricket Board’s apparent preoccupation with the shorter formats of the game over test cricket.

The ODI side was the priority ahead of the 2019 Cricket World Cup, which England won on home soil, before the ECB focused much of its work on launching The Hundred, a new domestic competition intended to engage a younger audience, which some say has come at the expense of the test team.

Reach for the stars

Tatum Hunter

THE WASHINGTON POST – On one hand, space is for everyone. On the other hand, no it isn’t.

We saw that starkly this year as we gazed up into the cosmos in humility and awe, wondering what it must be like to found a billion-dollar corporation and acquire Whole Foods.

2021 was declared the year of the space billionaires after Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos launched themselves into the great beyond on rockets owned by their space companies, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa – who rode a rocket into space recently – bought every seat on a SpaceX commercial flight to the moon slated for 2023.

Some people hail the trips as one small step for billionaires, one giant leap for humankind as we weigh our chances as an interplanetary species. Others have called the rides tone-deaf when the rest of us are fretting about finances and struggling to find toilet paper.

Founding an airline empire or an e-commerce behemoth aren’t the only ways to get to space, though.

You could dedicate your life to training as an astronaut, attend a boot camp for space tourists or join hundreds of thousands of others in a raffle, such as the one for a seat on one of Branson’s forthcoming commercial flights to the edge of the thermosphere.

Geoff Clayton, a professor and astronomer at Louisiana State University, took the third route when he entered a drawing for a spot on a space flight commanded by billionaire Jared Isaacman. Clayton didn’t win the ticket.

“I decided when I was eight-years-old that I wanted to be an astronomer,” he said. “I would love to be going up into space; I just don’t have the money yet.”

In his research, Clayton focusses on tiny, dispersed particles of space dust – or as he puts it, “almost nothing”.

But the best way to describe his relationship to space would be “love”, he said. His favourite fact about space? Every atom inside of your body was, at one point, part of a distant star.

Clayton and the rest of us may not have the stuff to become captains of industry.

But, as he tells the 300 students in his introduction to astronomy class, there are plenty of ways to enjoy the cosmos from your own backyard.

I asked him and a few other space experts for some tips to tide us over as we wait for our savings accounts to hit 10 digits.

BOOST YOUR VISION WITH BINOCULARS

There are plenty of affordable telescope options for space enthusiasts, said Diana Hannikainen, observing editor at Sky & Telescope magazine.

But most families don’t need to spend anything at all to get a much better view of the night sky. Just dig out those binoculars from the junk drawer and step outside. You’ll be surprised by the extra things you see, Hannikainen said.

For instance: Most people can count about six or seven stars in the Pleiades cluster with the naked eye. Hold up your binoculars, and you’ll be “blown away” by all the new detail, she said. Then check out the crags on our moon and even the moons of Jupiter on a clear night.

GET YOUR BEARINGS WITH A STARGAZING APP

Scientists estimate there are nearly 10,000 visible stars in the night sky – which, for the uninitiated, is way too many to navigate without some help.

Stargazing apps point you toward constellations, planets and even faraway galaxies, and all you have to do is hold your phone up to the sky. Some, such as Star Walk, offer extra science-y information about whatever you’re looking at. I learned why Neptune is blue (methane) and scrolled through a gallery of photos from large telescopes.

Our experts also recommended SkySafari, SkyView and Stellarium as the best apps for stargazing.

BECOME AN ASTROPHOTOGRAPHER

As an observatory manager at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Wallace Astrophysical Observatory, Tim Brothers is an expert at working with the often tricky equipment required to take research-worthy photos of the cosmos. But some of the best shots he’s ever gotten were taken with his cellphone, he said.

If you use the latest iPhone 13 Pro Max or a Google Pixel 3 or later, your phone comes with an astrophotography mode for capturing the night sky.

Get inspired by downloading the official NASA app, selecting the Images tab and tapping on the three-line menu in the upper right corner. Then, choose “top rated overall”.This shows you which space photos other people have ranked highest since the app’s inception, according to the app’s project manager at NASA, Jerry Colen. Most people gravitate toward photos of stars and other heavenly bodies, he said, while he prefers photos of astronauts and spacewalks.

BUT THEN STEP AWAY FROM THE SCREEN

Your smartphone is a helpful stargazing tool. But the blue light from your screen can kill the vibe. Light on that end of the colour spectrum tampers with our eyes and makes it harder to see the light coming from the sky.

“It takes your eye about 30 or 40 minutes to get fully adjusted in the dark, so as soon as you look at the phone, it resets that clock again,” Brothers said.

He recommended using your stargazing app indoors to orient yourself, then going outside phone-free. If you must bring the phone along, switch it to night mode or red mode to avoid blue light’s effects. (On an iPhone, go to Settings – Display & Brightness – Night Shift – Manually Enable Until Tomorrow.) Settle in with a blanket and a hot drink and enjoy some peace and stillness while the stars come into focus.

MOOCH OFF THE SPACE NERDS

Depending where you live, there’s probably an amateur astronomy club nearby. If you’re ready to dedicate some time and money to observing, get yourself an affordable telescope and join. But you can also soak up some space knowledge with no commitment at all.

Track down a local group’s website and visit the “outreach” section, Sky & Telescope’s Hannikainen suggested. Most clubs host amateur astronomy nights, where enthusiasts set up their rigs and point them toward different spots in the night sky. Visitors can walk among the telescopes taking in the views and learning from real people. This is a good activity for families, as well, she noted.

“Amateur astronomers love sharing their passion for the sky with people, so you shouldn’t be shy if there’s a public outreach event organised by amateurs,” Hannikainen said. “They just can’t wait to show you what they love so much about the sky.”

Planetariums and science museums also organise space-themed events for communities.

Check their calendars for viewing parties next time there’s an upcoming eclipse or passing comet.

KEEP TABS ON THE COSMIC CALENDAR

Want to witness a space event but not sure when they happen or where they’re visible? Open the NASA app, tap on the three-line menu symbol in the top right and flip on the notifications. This will alert you when to catch a glimpse of the passing International Space Station – you can also sign up for simple text alerts here.

To see when to expect cool phenomena such as meteors, check out the calendars in stargazing apps including Stellarium and Star Walk.

And while you’re playing with apps, download Spacecraft AR from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. You can flip through augmented-reality models of spacecraft from different parts of the solar system and project them onto any flat surface. Pinch your fingers to move them around and zoom in and out, and tap the question mark to learn what purpose they serve.

CHECK OUT THE SKY ON THE NIGHT YOU WERE BORN

The night sky is always changing. Travel back in time with Stellarium’s Web-based astronomy tool and see what the cosmos looked like from Earth on the night you were born, right before you met your partner or for your ancestors on a different continent.

Just open the online planetarium and click on the date and time in the bottom right corner.

Then punch in which moment in history you’d like to visit. Click the “near” button in the bottom left corner to choose a spot on the globe.

Before you leave, check out the ‘Planets Tonight’ tab in the left-hand menu. It’ll prime your stargazing by telling you which celestial bodies are easiest to spot where you live.

PONDER THE MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Apps and outings make it easier to appreciate the night sky we usually take for granted. But it’s also okay to just step outside, look up at the stars and do some navel-gazing. Maybe your problems will feel smaller.

“Our world is this fragile little ecosystem zipping around this normal star in a normal galaxy that’s one of millions and millions of other galaxies – maybe we should rethink our attitude toward our neighbour,” Hannikainen said.

Or, even better, maybe you’ll be struck with a billion-dollar business idea.

James, Westbrook have triple-doubles, Lakers’ skid ends at five games

HOUSTON (AP) – LeBron James (AP; pic below) and Russell Westbrook both had triple-doubles and the Los Angeles Lakers snapped a season-high, five-game skid with a 132-123 victory over the Houston Rockets on Tuesday night.

“The hardest thing to do in this league is win,” James said.

“So when you win you never take it for granted.”

James had 32 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists for his third triple-double this season, and it was his fifth consecutive 30-point game. Westbrook scored 24 points with 12 rebounds and 10 assists for his seventh of the season.

Houston stuck around for most of the night, but James took over late to allow the Lakers to pull away and hand the Rockets their fifth consecutive loss.

“For us to battle through this together and to finish the way we did with LeBron and Russ doing it together, bringing it home, I think that’s a big step forward in this,” said assistant coach David Fizdale, who was filling in for a fifth straight game for coach Frank Vogel because of COVID-19 protocols.

The Rockets trailed by one when James was called for goaltending on a layup by Jalen Green that would have put Houston on top with minutes left. But the Lakers challenged the call, and it was overturned. Carmelo Anthony made a three-pointer a few seconds later to extend the lead to 120-116.

Turkish crisis turns books into vanishing luxuries

ISTANBUL (AFP) – Turkish doctoral student Gulfer Ulas saw the first edition of her favourite Thomas Mann collection published for 33 liras.

She found the second print of the same two-volume set selling months later at her Istanbul book shop for TRY70 (about USD6 at the latest exchange rate).

The jump exemplifies the debilitating unpredictability of Turkey’s raging economic crisis on almost all facets of daily life – from shopping to education and culture.

“I am a PhD student in international relations so I have to read a lot. I spend almost TRY1,000 a month on books on my reading list even though I also download from the internet,” Ulas said.

“Book prices are skyrocketing.”

The Turkish book industry – almost entirely dependent on paper imports – pinpoints one of the flaws in the economic experiment Erdogan has unleashed on his nation of 84 million people in the past few months.

Erdogan has ripped up the economic rule book by orchestrating sharp interest rate cuts in a bid to bring down chronically rising consumer prices.

Books are displayed inside a bookstore at Karakoy port in Istanbul on December 2. PHOTO: AFP

Economists struggle to remember the last time a big country has done something similar because cheap lending is widely presumed to cause inflation – not cure it.

Turks’ fears about further erosion of their purchasing power prompted a surge in gold and dollar purchases that erased nearly half the lira’s value in a matter of weeks.

The accelerating losses forced Erdogan last week to announce new currency support measures – backed by reportedly heavy exchange rate interventions – that have managed to erase a good chunk of the slide.

Few economists see this as a long-term solution. The lira now routinely gains or loses five per cent of its value a day.

Kirmizi Kedi publishing house owner Haluk Hepkon said he fears all this uncertainty “will compel people to prioritise buying essentials and put aside buying books”.

“You publish a book, and let’s say it becomes a hit and it costs TRY30. And you go to a second edition in a week and the price climbs to TRY35,” Hepkon told AFP.

“Then for the third or fourth printing, only God knows how much it will cost.”

Turkey’s last official yearly inflation reading in early December stood at 21 per cent – a figure opposition parties claim is being underreported by the state.

The next report on January 3 is almost certain to show a big bump because the lira’s implosion has ballooned the price of imported energy and raw materials such as those needed to make paper.

Applied economics professor Steve Hanke of Johns Hopkins University calculates Turkey’s current annual inflation rate at more than 80 per cent.

Turkish Publishers Association president Kenan Kocaturk said global supply chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic have contributed to his industry’s problems by raising the price of unbleached pulp.

Turkey imports the raw material because its own paper mills have been privatised and then largely shut down.

“Only two of them continue production while the others’ machines were sold for scrap and their lands were sold,” Kocaturk said.

“Turkey is paying the price for not seeing paper as a strategic asset.”

Publishers are already trying to minimise risks by planning to put fewer books in print in the coming year.

The Heretik publishing house says it will not print some books “due to the rise in the exchange rate and the extraordinary increase in paper costs”.

Aras publishing house editor Rober Koptas said he was worried because printers represented a voice of ideological “resistance” in Turkey.

“Almost the entire press speaks in the same voice and the universities are being silenced,” said Koptas.

“But culture is just as important as food, and maybe more so given there is a need for educated people to address economic woes,” Hepkon of Kirmizi Kedi added.

Avid readers such as Ibrahim Ozcay said the crisis is already keeping them from buying their favourite books for friends.

“I was told that the book I want now costs TRY38 liras. I had bought it for TRY24,” said Ozcay.

“They say this is due to the lack of paper on the market, which does not surprise me.

Everything in Turkey is imported now,” he fumed.

Ukraine hospital candle fire kills three

KIEV (AFP) – Three people have died in Ukraine after a candle lit in memory of a patient who died of COVID-19 set fire to an intensive care unit, officials said yesterday.

On Tuesday, a hospital employee in Kosiv, a western town on the edge of the Carpathian mountains, lit a candle in memory of a recently deceased coronavirus patient according to local tradition, the emergencies services said.

The candle was lit in the hospital’s intensive care unit where five oxygen concentrators had been operating, with equipment instantly catching fire.

“Ignorance of the elementary laws of physics and disregard for safety rules have led to irreparable losses,” the emergencies services said, describing the incident as a “terrible mistake”.

Three people – including two patients – were killed. Four other people were treated for severe burns. Deadly fires are common in the ex-Soviet nation due to poor compliance with safety regulations and ageing infrastructure.

In February, an oxygen explosion killed one coronavirus patient and injured another at a hospital in Chernivtsi.

The same month, four people died in the southwestern city of Zaporizhzhya after a fire ripped through the intensive care unit of a hospital.

Recapping Brunei’s year in sports

Fadhil Yunus

As the year 2021 looms to a close, it is safe to say that the sporting scene in Brunei Darussalam has been unsurprisingly quiet and inactive for the most part, largely due to the adverse effects and complications brought by the COVID-19 outbreak.

The closure of indoor and outdoor sports facilities and complexes, prohibition of mass gatherings and continued travel restrictions have all contributed to the absence of sporting activities including competitions, workshops and seminars both locally and abroad.

It also hasn’t been plain sailing for the local governing sporting bodies, which saw their plans heavily disrupted amid the cancellation of tournaments.

Nevertheless, there were promising signs at the start of the year, as selected sports were allowed to organise competitions following revised guidelines of de-escalation measures.

As sports facilities were open for training since the second half of last year, organising competitions for both team and individual sports received the green light in March amid an improved COVID-19 situation and reduction of social distancing measures in the country.

As part of the guidelines and with standard operating procedures in place, only a certain number of people were allowed to enter the competition venues.

The 37th National Day Celebration Squash Championship held at the National Squash Centre of the Hassanal Bolkiah National Sports Complex represented one of the first tournaments this year.

During the competition, Kyran Young claimed the top gong after a straight-set victory over Pengiran Hasnan bin Pengiran Anak Haji Rozanan in the men’s open final.

The former Wycliff College pupil became the second foreign player to win a local tournament after Malaysian junior star Harith Daniel Jefri in the BSRA 1st Suci Challenge Trophy Squash Tournament in 2019.

A week later, the Brunei Darussalam Golf Association (BDGA) – the country’s governing body for golf – organised the maiden Sonax Cup.

Golf produced memorable sporting moments inspired by the rivalry between talents Awangku Md Syakir bin Pengiran Haji Alli and Mohd Aritz Maldini bin Haji Abdul Majid.

The two have constantly battled for the top prizes in the country and it was no surprise that they were billed as genuine title contenders.

However, it was veteran Suhaimi Ibrahim who grabbed the limelight when he navigated his way to win the Sonax Cup at the Pantai Mentiri Golf Club (PMGC) yet again.

Looking at how the year panned out overall, few might argue that the most in-form player in golf is none other than Awangku Md Syakir. The national athlete won the 31st Pantai Mentiri Amateur Open Golf Championship title by eight shots in June, marking his second triumph in three appearances at the Mentiri-based venue.

His national teammate, Mohd Aritz Maldini, had a similar impact after lifting the 21st Pusat Ehsan Charity Golf Tournament in July, subsequently collecting the second of three coveted trophies in the country.

It was a sense of familiarity in local basketball as Easyway Basketball returned to the summit following victories in the 5.11 National Basketball League and the You-C1000 Basketball Cup in May and July.

Having fielded a number of experienced players in the team who have tasted success, TK Tea House romped to glory in the 5.11 Veteran Basketball League in June.

In June, the highly-anticipated Brunei Netball National League 2021 organised by the Brunei Netball Association (BNA) was finally launched following a lengthy wait.

The tournament saw national players separated into the six teams while local coaches put the knowledge they grasped during a workshop late last year to the test.

The Brunei Amateur Swimming Association (BASA) also made efforts to revive the swimming scene with the 28th Brunei Age Group Swimming Championships (Long Course) in April and the 5th Brunei Sprints and Masters (Short Course) Swimming Championships.

A number of new national records were also registered in both tournaments with rising junior star Hayley Wong breaking a longstanding record of 31 years.

The teenage swimming sensation recorded a time of 2:55.10s in the women’s 200-metre breaststroke, thus lowering the time of 2:55.62s previously set by Nuralia binti Abdul Rahim in 1990.

For the Brunei Super League (BSL), the country’s top football league division, a season was also briefly held though it has since been cancelled, and saw the return of football powerhouse DPMM FC for the first time since the early 2000s.

Futsal also returned from a four-year long absence with teams divided into two groups in the newly-revamped Brunei Futsal League (BFL).

Meanwhile, in running, the Brunei Run in conjunction with the United Nations (UN) International Day of Sport for Development and Peace turned out to be a success despite a maximum cap of 250 participants in compliance with national COVID-19 guidelines.

With the country in search of long distance runners to represent the country in the international scene, Khairul Anuar bin Ramli’s reputation exceeds others as one of the leading runners after winning the men’s 10-kilometre category.

Despite being primarily absent in international competitions, the Sultanate was represented in the Tokyo Olympics by national sprinter Mohd Firdaus Ar-Rasyid bin Haji Mohd Idris and swimmer Muhammad Isa bin Ahmad.

For all the promise in the first half of this year, the sporting scene was hit with another setback following the second wave of infections in early August. Despite being familiar with the measures and restrictions having had the same experience in March last year, the suspension of sports activities and events and postponement of upcoming events led to another period of uncertainty as the country battled with the virus.

While the country’s sporting scene remained at a standstill, Bruneians who were based overseas excelled in their disciplines this year.

In October, Brunei swimmer Nur Haziq Ismail swam his way to three national open records in the men’s 400-metre, 800-metre and 1500-metre freestyle events at the TSA-AIMG swim meet at the Assumption University Suvarnabhumi Campus in Bangkok, Thailand.

The national swimmer is currently on a FINA scholarship based in Thanyapura, Phuket.

Elsewhere in Ireland, national fencer Wardatul Izzah binti Haji Ahmad Ramzuna claimed the silver medal in the women’s sabre event at the Irish Open. The country eased restrictions with the re-opening of indoor and outdoor sport facilities in November, though physical competitions are still put on hold.

Earlier this month, national swimmers Muhammad Isa bin Ahmad and Christian Nikles represented the country in the 15th FINA World Swimming Championships (25-metre) at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The pair, accompanied by national coach Wu Na, also finalised their preparations in their training base in Dubai in the build-up to the prestigious world meet.

Muhammad Isa made back-to-back history after setting two new national short course records with times of 1:04.09s in the men’s 100-metre breaststroke and 29.32s in the men’s 50-metre breaststroke.

 

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Borneo Bulletin is the leading English daily in the country. It was first published by Brunei Press. Today, Borneo Bulletin has become the foremost source of information on local and foreign affairs, and the region’s business news.

© 2013 Borneo Bulletin Online - The Independent Newspaper in Brunei Darussalam, Sabah and Sarawak

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