The Zahara Charity Foundation yesterday concluded its ‘Save A Household Donation’ campaign with the delivery of the last batch of donations to those in need in the Sultanate.
The campaign, which first began in September 2020, aims to ease the burden of underprivileged individuals and families, including those who have lost their livelihood due to the COVID-19 outbreak, families with special needs children, orphans and families in quarantine.
Among the donated items were household relief care packages including household items and essential needs such as milk formula and diapers.
Educational tools such as tablets were also distributed to support needy students through a campaign organised by the Ministry of Education (MoE).
The donations were distributed nationwide through collaborations with non-profit organisations (NGOs) such as the Impian Project, Kumpulan Ikhawanul Mahabbah and the Women’s Business Council. The Zahara Charity Foundation is a non-profit and voluntary foundation based in Brunei established in February 2021.
Photos show Zahara Charity Foundation volunteers delivering donations. PHOTOS: THE ZAHARA CHARITY FOUNDATIONVolunteers posing with the Household Relief Care Packages
LONDON (AFP) – Tottenham boss Antonio Conte said Harry Kane is “totally involved in this project” at the club after the England captain attempted to engineer a move to Manchester City during the summer transfer window.
Chairman Daniel Levy stood firm and the 28-year-old forward, who is under contract until 2024, was forced to stay at Spurs.
Kane had a slow start to the season but has recovered his scoring touch under Conte, who replaced Nuno Espirito Santo as manager in early November.
Conte said Kane was a key part of his plans.
“I knew the situation in the summer and, when Harry decided to stay in Tottenham, I found a player totally involved in this project now,” he said.
“I am happy to have him in my team because for sure we are talking about the top player, a top striker in the world, and if we want to win or if we want to think to build something to win, Harry must be a point of start.”
Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane. PHOTO: AP
Conte praised Levy for refusing to let his star man go, despite the lure of a huge transfer fee.
“He wants to give 100 per cent in every game and I am totally satisfied with his commitment and the relationship that we have created within the team,” he said.
“He is a point of reference in the dressing room and an experienced player. I am totally enthusiastic about his involvement in the team and the Tottenham project.”
Spurs are desperate to end their trophy drought, which stretches back to 2008.
“I think that when Tottenham brought me here they wanted to send a signal outside,” Conte said. “And maybe also to our players. We see what happens because the coach that is used to winning, has to do.
“I think this is important. And we have to try to build a situation where we are all involved and to try to create a situation that we can be competitive to try to win.”
PARIS (AP) – French President Emmanuel Macron (AP; pic below) 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.
His use of earthy language more commonly heard at the counters of French cafés further complicated the already difficult passage in Parliament of the government’s planned new vaccine pass.
Lawmakers debated into early yesterday morning before their discussions were again suspended, disrupted by the furore over Macron’s remarks. The vaccine pass will exclude unvaccinated individuals from places such as restaurants, cinemas, theatres, museums and sports arenas. The pass will also be required on inter-regional trains and buses, and on domestic flights.
Opposition lawmakers protested vociferously in the National Assembly chamber as Macron’s Health Minister, Olivier Veran, sought to defend the president’s choice of words.
Veran said Macron’s interview demonstrated his “intention, above all, to protect the population”.
Critics accused Macron of behaviour unbecoming a president and of targetting the unvaccinated to win support from the 90 per cent of French adults who are fully vaccinated.
Opposition lawmaker Sébastien Jumel said Macron “deliberately chose to add hysteria to the debate”.
Macron is facing re-election in April. He hasn’t yet declared his candidacy, but his intentions of doing so are becoming ever clearer. In the Le Parisien interview, he said, “There is no false suspense. I want to.”
But Macron’s frustration with the non-vaccinated and critics’ complaints about his salty language dominated French news bulletins yesterday. Macron came down particularly hard on people who are anti-vaccination, as opposed to simply unvaccinated, saying “An irresponsible person is no longer a citizen.”
Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who opposes the vaccine pass proposal, said the president wants “to wage war against a portion of the French.”
Another far-right candidate, Eric Zemmour, accused Macron of “cruelty”. On the far left, presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon asked: “Is the president in control of what he says?”
Macron’s supporters suggested the president simply expressed out loud what some vaccinated people already think about the non-vaccinated, in a country with bitter divides over the issue.
France reported a record-smashing 271,686 daily virus cases on Tuesday as Omicron infections race across the country, burdening hospital staff and threatening to disrupt transportation, schools and other services.
Macron’s government is straining to avoid a new economically damaging lockdown that could hurt his reelection prospects.
Ministers are instead trying to rush the vaccine pass bill through Parliament in hopes that it will be enough to keep hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.
More than 20,000 people are hospitalised with COVID-19 in France, a number that has been rising steadily for weeks but not as sharply as the country’s infection rates.
KALVENE, LATVIA (AFP) – Once a rarity, cows with light blue or dark ultramarine hides may again be glimpsed grazing on the Latvian countryside among the regular brown, black or white spotted cattle.
The unique and hardy breed, driven to near extinction during the Soviet era, has made a comeback over the last few decades as an unlikely symbol of Latvian national identity.
“Their worst days are over,” said Arnis Bergmanis, head of the Ciruli animal park in the village of Kalvene, which serves as a breeding facility for the cattle.
“Blue cows are unique and wonderful. I’m glad we can help them thrive,” he told AFP while examining a baby calf.
In 2000 there were only 18 blue cows in Latvia, but today they number around 1,500 – thoroughbreds as well as hybrids.
Originally found only on the Baltic coast in the Kurzeme region, they are increasingly popular in central areas too.
Latvian blue cows graze on a pasture at Riga Zoo’s affiliate Ciruli in Kalvene. PHOTO: AFP
We are happy to help every new farmer or guesthouse owner get their own special blue cow,” Bergmanis said.
Rural innkeepers acquire the cattle as a tourist attraction, while farmers include a token blue cow in their herd for its strong maternal instinct.
“If a calf of any colour loses its mother or gets separated, the blue cow will take the calf and raise it as its own,” Bergmanis said.
Blue cows evolved on the coast, where they led a spartan lifestyle, able to subsist on bush branches and dune grass – fodder considered inedible by other cattle.
Legend has it that they get their colour from the sea, though in fact they are born almost beige. Their coat soon turns blue however and gets darker with the years.
The pigment also influences the muscular tissue, producing beef that is exceptionally dark, though their numbers have always been too low for meat sales on a mass scale.
When the communists came to power under the Soviet occupation, they put an emphasis on mass production of beef and dairy. They favoured more generic cattle, causing the blue cow to almost go extinct.
But theatre, of all things, saved the day.
Following the highly popular 1970s play The Blue One by Latvian playwright Gunars Priede, the special cattle returned to public consciousness, becoming a symbol of vanishing national identity.
In 2006, farmers, scientists and enthusiasts founded the Blue Cow Association to safeguard the breed.
The government meanwhile offers special subsidies for owners of blue cows.
Blue cows provide less milk than your average cattle – around 5,000 litres per cow per year compared to 8,000 for the Holstein breed – but the milk is healthier and more nutritious.
They also stand out for their ability to thrive in harsh conditions, according to Daiga Simkevica, head of the Blue Cow Association.
“The strong, independent and robust blue cow can live all year round outdoors, even during the winter frosts, which many other cattle breeds can’t endure,” she told AFP.
The Blue Cow Association organises seminars for farmers, keeps meticulous records to avoid inbreeding, works to keep the population growing and also does research on the cattle.
“In the future we hope to carry out full DNA analysis to identify those genes that are unique to the blue cow,” Simkevica said.
“We’ve never had a blue cow catch the bovine leukosis virus, therefore we hope to identify genes that might benefit all other cows too.”
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.
Yesterday’s top-priced 211-kilogramme fish was caught off the northern Aomori region of Japan, famous for its quality tuna, and went to Michelin-starred sushi restaurant operator Onodera Group and Japanese wholesaler Yamayuki.
Chef Akifumi Sakagami holds a part of a tuna bought jointly by Michelin-starred sushi restaurant operator Onodera Group and wholesaler Yamayuki for JPY16.9 million. PHOTO: AFP
Hours after the early-morning auction, the prize fish was delivered to a restaurant operated by Onodera in Tokyo’s upscale Omotesando neighbourhood to be publicly sliced and filleted.
“I participated in the auction hoping to get the top-priced tuna, which is considered auspicious, and serve it to our customers to brighten their year ahead a little, even as our world remains marred by the pandemic,” head chef Akifumi Sakagami told AFP.
The tuna will be offered to customers both in Japan and at the firm’s restaurants abroad, including in Hawaii, New York and Los Angeles, he added.
Sushi enthusiasts gathered outside the upscale Tokyo restaurant to await the tuna, eager for a morsel.
Junko Kawabata, 78, said she had jumped on the expressway from her home in eastern Tokyo for the chance to taste the top-priced catch.
“I just love tuna,” she said, proudly displaying a numbered ticket indicating she would be the first customer to be served.
“I can’t wait to eat a piece of it.”
Another sushi lover, 59-year-old company employee Mitsuaki Tsubota, also arrived early to get a ticket.
Tsubota, whose workplace is across the street from the Onodera restaurant, said he would pop out of the office during his lunch break to enjoy the tuna.
“That would be a very luxurious lunch,” he said with a grin.
LONDON (AFP) – Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders has become the latest member of the club staff to test positive for coronavirus, throwing today’s League Cup semi-final at Arsenal into further doubt.
With manager Jurgen Klopp and three players – Alisson Becker, Joel Matip and Roberto Firmino – already isolating, Lijnders, who took charge of the team for Sunday’s 2-2 draw at Chelsea, recorded a positive test late on Tuesday.
That was after Liverpool had made a submission to the English Football League to postpone the first-leg clash at the Emirates following further positive cases among the squad and other player availability issues linked to illness and injury.
The club have cancelled yesterday’s pre-match press conference, at which Lijnders was due to speak.
Liverpool are also missing Thiago Alcantara, Takumi Minamino, Nat Phillips and Harvey Elliott through injury, while Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Naby Keita are now on Africa Cup of Nations duty.
A Liverpool statement yesterday said: “Lijnders’ test result comes in addition to a number of suspected positive cases among players and football staff recorded earlier on Tuesday, which forced the cancellation of the day’s scheduled training session.
“As a result of the outbreak and the suspension of preparations, as well as other illnesses and injuries recorded within the squad, the club submitted an application to the EFL for the postponement of Thursday’s tie with Arsenal, with the news of Lijnders’ positive result coming after the request was lodged.”
LA PAZ, MEXICO (AP) – COVID-19 infections are rising across Mexico, especially in two states home to major tourism destinations on the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean that were busy during the holiday season.
According to data from the federal government, Quintana Roo, where tourists flock to Cancun, Tulum and other spots along the Mayan Riviera, and Baja California Sur, which draws beachgoers to the twin Pacific resorts that make up Los Cabos, are both experiencing some of their highest infection totals since the start of the pandemic.
During the holidays, the waterfront and beaches in La Paz, the capital of Baja California Sur perched on the Sea of Cortez, were packed with tourists. Early in the pandemic they had been closed.
Farther south in Los Cabos, hotels were at 75 per cent of their capacity at the end of December, according to the federal Tourism ministry.
“In December, January, tourism took off,” said hotel-restaurant Manager Isrrael Coto in La Ventana. “People are tired of the confinement.”
Infections shot up too. Baja California Sur saw 700 new infections December 29, compared to a previous high in July of fewer than 600.
A couple holding a frame with a message that reads in Spanish, ‘Third dose, get vaccinated, reinforcement’, after receiving an AstraZeneca booster. PHOTO: AP
On the opposite coast, Quintana Roo, went from 27 cases December 20 to 484 eight days later, though that remained below its single-day high of 574 in August.
“This new variant (Omicron) is very contagious, but fortunately it is not requiring hospitalisation, nor do we have cases of rising deaths,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Tuesday.
Mexico experienced its worst moments of the pandemic a year earlier when hospitals were overwhelmed and test-confirmed COVID-19 deaths were above 1,400 daily. The real numbers were surely even higher because of limited testing.
However, the summer wave that peaked in August with more than 25,000 new infections in a single day was even higher.
At no time did Mexico close its borders or require negative test results for arriving tourists.
Airports did require travellers to fill out a health form and many for a time were checking temperatures.
Only at the shared border with the United States was cross-border traffic limited to the essential until November.
Coto considered the return of tourists to the beaches positive, but recognised there was concern over the rise in infections.
“There’s a little nervousness,” he said. “The vaccine helped a little to give some certainty, but even so.”
Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer said, recent studies appear to indicate that even though there are new variants, the prevalence of vaccines could begin to mitigate the most serious effects of the virus.
He emphasised that that was still just a hypothesis.
Mexico has vaccinated 88 per cent of adults and has started giving a third dose to the elderly, health workers.
Teachers will begin receiving the booster in the coming days.
“We are not as worried as before because most people are vaccinated,” said Arturo González Ledesma a doctor at Ajusco Medio Hospital in Mexico City, which has specialised in COVID-19 patients since the start of the pandemic.
“Only in the unvaccinated do you see the face of terror.”
Individuals who wish to get their booster dose can book slots on the BruHealth App starting from today at noon.
The bookings will be for slots from January 8 to February 16, said Minister of Health Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham bin Haji Jaafar during the daily press conference yesterday.
The BruHealth App should be updated via GooglePlay Store or App Store to enable for reservations.
The minister said walk-ins for the third dose of the vaccine is only open for the elderly, pregnant mothers and differently-abled persons.
Meanwhile Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham said no COVID-19 cases were detected during the first phase of re-opening of the schools on January 3, which involved Year 10 to Year 13 students.
He said 9,790 students underwent ART tests in schools nationwide. Two ART tests gave ‘false positive’ results and 15 had ‘invalid results’. The follow-up RT-PCR tests for those tests confirmed a negative result for COVID-19, said the minister.
Minister of Health Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham bin Haji Jaafar and Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports Major General (Rtd) Dato Paduka Seri Haji Aminuddin Ihsan bin Pehin Orang Kaya Saiful Mulok Dato Seri Paduka Haji Abidin at the daily press conference. PHOTO: JAMES KON
Music has been a major part of my life, up to a point that I can honestly say that it has shaped me into the person who I am today. However, the irony is that I can never seem to pick up an instrument, which is disappointing.
After meeting Abdullah Wafi bin Haji Rusli, better known simply as Wafi, my perception changed as he showed me all you need is a voice, a microphone and a community to make it worthwhile.
“Beatbox or beatboxing is an expressive art form that involves the use of the mouth and voice to create music,” explained Wafi.
The first time I saw and heard him beatbox, I could not believe my eyes, nor my ears. How he is able to make complex audio loops and melodies spontaneously with just his voice and a microphone still boggles my mind.
Sharing his initial steps into beatboxing, Wafi said, “I used to sing in a choir back in 2007. It was there that I learned how amazing the human voice could be; it’s amazing how voices can create such beautiful harmonies and rhythms. Then, in 2014 in my second year of university, that’s when I first saw someone beatboxing with my own eyes.”
Abdullah Wafi bin Haji Rusli performs during an event. PHOTO: WAFI
The passionate beatboxer shared that beatboxing is fairly new in Brunei compared to other countries, and that people are slowly understanding and have been showing interest in it since lately.
“Since it’s new, there are still things that people are getting used to. I admit there are a lot of weird sounds that most are not familiar with,” added Wafi.
With his passion growing, the beatboxer shared he wanted to reach out to more local beatboxers and establish a scene in the Sultanate.
“At this day and age it’s amazing how you can connect with people with similar interests. I first started posting videos of me beatboxing and since then I’ve seen and even met with many young and talented individuals who picked up beatboxing in their spare time.”
After seeing there are aspiring beatboxers surfacing in Brunei, Wafi set up Brunei Beatbox Unity, a local beatboxing community in 2018.
“I literally went around and asked any beatboxer who would be willing to hang out and have jamming sessions. Initially there were 10 of us polishing our skills and even holding beatbox battles competing with one another,” he recalled.
Wafi explained that he believes it is important to have a community where everyone can share their knowledge by helping and pushing everyone to be better at their skills.
“The thing about beatboxing is that it helped shape my mindset to be more open to learning and to believe that the time and effort put into practicing or performing would only make me better at it,” he said.
Asked what his vision is for the local beatbox scene, Wafi shared that he aims to helm and organise more competitions to further expose beatboxing in the country.
“Beatboxing originated in the United States, and is one of the elements of hip-hop. With that in mind, it’s easily accepted as part of their culture. After joining beatbox competitions like the ones in Indonesia, I realised we need to organise our own competitions and events to further expose the art of beatboxing to a wider audience,” said Wafi.
With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the country, Wafi shared that the scene has moved online with competitions hosted via Discord.
The local beatboxer is passionate and sees potential in the growth of the scene, stating that more young individuals are picking up the art of beatboxing and are fairly good at it.
“With beatboxing, I hope to make an impact on the community to inspire people to not be afraid to be creative when it comes to expressing themselves. No one else can be you but you,” highlighted the passionate beatboxer.
Wafi also added that one of his unforgettable beatboxing memories is performing an acapella before His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam and the royal family at Bandarku Ceria in 2020.
RIEL, NETHERLANDS (AFP) – In the flat expanse of the Dutch countryside, Corne de Rooij nostalgically strokes the muzzles of his calves, wondering how long he will be able to keep them.
Livestock farming is one of the main emitters of greenhouse gases in the Netherlands, where climate change threatens to swallow up the low-lying fields.
“It’s my passion and my life,” the reserved 53-year-old said in a small voice in his stable in the southern Netherlands, where he raises calves and chickens.
“If we have to stop raising them, it will hurt.”
Dutch farmers have found themselves pushed to the wall by the government, which is offering them a final choice to make their farms more climate-friendly, or change jobs.
The new coalition government wants to release EUR25 billion (USD28 billion) by 2035 to help reduce herd sizes and reduce emissions of nitrogen, a greenhouse gas emitted particularly by fertilisers and manure.
Livestock farming is one of the main emitters of greenhouse gases in the Netherlands, where climate change threatens to swallow up the low-lying fields. PHOTO: PYS.ORG
The small, densely populated country of 17.5 million people is also densely populated with animals: nearly four million cattle, 12 million hogs and 100 million chickens.
The Netherlands is the world’s second biggest agricultural exporter after the United States, but agriculture is responsible for 16 per cent of the Netherlands’ greenhouse gas emissions.
Cows are also major emitters of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from their digestive systems.
The government aims to help farmers diversify their business, to retrain, to innovate or even to relocate if their farm is near a protected natural area.
But if they fail to comply, the government has warned it could even take the very sensitive step of expropriating land from recalcitrant farmers.
The government insists it has no choice. Huge construction projects aimed at tackling a housing shortage have already been suspended by the supreme court in a case brought by environmental groups over greenhouse gas emissions.
By pushing the agricultural sector to accelerate the climate transition, the government hopes to be able to resume some of these building projects, while reducing nitrogen emissions by 50 per cent by 2030.
Overall, the Dutch have realised that their country is too small to do everything at once: farming, a huge flower producing industry, one of Europe’s biggest airports at Schiphol in Amsterdam, a dense road network, housing for everyone plus, in the middle of it all, nature zones.
