BUFFALO, NEW YORK (AP) – Employees of a Starbucks store in upstate New York who voted to unionise last month walked off the job on Wednesday, saying they lacked the staff and resources to work safely amid surging COVID-19 cases.
Six employees who had been scheduled to work formed a picket line outside the Buffalo store, leading Starbucks to close it for the day, the company said. Three other employees had remained inside.
“Pressure to go to work is being put on many of us, when some of us already have other health issues. The company has again shown that they continue to put profits above people,” Starbucks Workers United said in a statement.
All of the Buffalo-area stores have been operating as “grab-and-go” locations since Monday, Starbucks said. More than 15,000 people have tested positive in Erie County over the past week, the highest seven-day total to date.
Starbucks spokesperson Reggie Borges said the company has met and exceeded CDC and expert guidelines and offered vaccine and isolation pay.
“Over and above that, all leaders are empowered to make whatever changes make sense for their neighbourhood, which includes shortening store hours or moving to 100 per cent takeout only, which is the case in Buffalo,” he said.
The employees said they will return to work when they feel the store is fully staffed and safe, possibly next Monday. About a third of the staff is out because of illness or exposure, the union said.
Pro-union pins on a table during a watch party for Starbucks’ employees union election in Buffalo. PHOTO: AP
ROME (AP) – An Italian museum is lending a fragment of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece, in what both sides hope will become a permanent return that might encourage others – the British Museum, in particular – to send their own pieces of the works back, too.
Sicily’s regional archaeological museum said on Wednesday it had signed an agreement with the Acropolis Museum in Athens for a once-renewable, four-year loan of the small white marble piece it has, in exchange for a loan of a statue and vase. But the ultimate aim, Sicily’s A Salinas Archaeological Museum said in a statement, is the “indefinite return” of the fragment to Athens.
About half the surviving 5th Century BC sculptures that decorated the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis are in the British Museum in London, which has long resisted Greek appeals for their return. But small fragments are also held in other European museums.
“The return to Athens of this important artefact of the Parthenon goes in the direction of building a Europe of culture that has its roots in our history and in our identity,” said Sicily’s councilor for cultural heritage and identity, Alberto Samonà.
The piece is the right foot of a draped figure of Artemis, the Greek deity of the hunt, originally located on the eastern side of a 160-metre sculpted frieze that ran around the temple. It came to Palermo by way of a 19th Century English consul in Sicily, Robert Fagan, though it remains unknown how he acquired it. After Fagan died, his widow sold the fragment to the University of Palermo’s Regio museum, which became the A Salinas regional museum, the statement said.
The statement quoted Greek authorities as praising the initiative in the hope that it encourages the British Museum to return its sculptures, which were taken from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, in the early 19th Century.
The sculptures – 17 figures from the building’s pediments and part of the frieze – have been the subject of a long dispute between Britain and Greece, which has renewed its bid to bring the marbles home.
Britain maintains that Elgin acquired the sculptures legally when Greece was ruled by the Ottomans. The Greek government said they were stolen and wants them returned for display in the Acropolis Museum that opened in 2009.
Italy’s fragment has been loaned to Athens in the past, but for short periods of time. Sicily’s regional authorities have initiated talks with the Culture Ministry to make the loan permanent, putting it on the agenda of a ministry committee that handles such returns, the statement said.
Italy has been at the forefront of international efforts to recover antiquities that were looted from its territory and ended up in museums and private collections around the world. It has also been on the returning end of the restitution market when it finds antiquities or artworks that were illegally brought into the country.
In exchange for receiving the foot fragment, the Acropolis museum is loaning the Palermo museum a 5th Century BC, marble statue of Athena and a terracotta amphora in the linear, geometric style that dates from the mid-8th Century BC, according to the statement.
Anthony Abell College (AAC) in Seria held a virtual orientation programme for its new intake of Year 7 students yesterday.
Ninety-nine students were registered under the school’s new intake of Year 7 students for 2022. They were accompanied by their parents and guardians during the orientation programme held via Microsoft Teams.
The programme began with a welcoming remark by Principal Mas Diana binti Abdul Samat, and deputy principals Azah Nor Azah binti Haji Marmin and Elmisuhardi bin Haji Rohani, followed by a talk delivered by Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) Chairman Suhaini bin Haji Othman.
The talk highlighted activities and programmes by PTA for the year.
The event was followed by a question-and-answer session, and concluded with a Doa Selamat.
The orientation session will continue tomorrow, comprising several talks by the school’s deputy principals, senior teachers and staff – covering academic issues, school rules and regulations, and discipline, welfare as well as counselling.
The new school term will see 80 per cent of new students attending physical lessons in the classroom and 20 per cent via online learning alternately.
Online learning will start on January 10, while physical lessons will commence on January 17.
Returning students are also required to take an antigen rapid test (ART) on the first day of physical attendance in the main hall, with standard operating procedures announced from time to time.
Anthony Abell College teachers conduct the orientation programme. PHOTO: AAC
MILWAUKEE (AP) – Pascal Siakam scored 33 points, OG Anunoby and Gary Trent Jr had 22 apiece and the Toronto Raptors beat the short-handed Milwaukee Bucks 117-111 yesterday.
Fred VanVleet added 19 points for the Raptors. They improved to 18-17 and overcame Milwaukee’s hot-shooting first half and late rally.
The defending NBA champion Bucks were without coach Mike Budenholzer after he entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols.
Milwaukee played without NBA Finals MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo because of an illness unrelated to COVID-19. Grayson Allen, George Hill and Pat Connaughton also entered protocols on Wednesday.
Khris Middleton led the Bucks with 25 points. Jordan Nwora had 17 and Jrue Holiday and DeMarcus Cousins each had 15.
Toronto Raptors’ Pascal Siakam drives to the basket against Milwaukee Bucks’ Wesley Matthews. PHOTO: AP
The Bucks were coming off a 115-106 home loss to lowly Detroit.
Milwaukee connected on 61 per cent of its shots to take a 77-68 at the half, tying the most points it has scored in the first half this season. The 77 points marked the most Toronto has surrendered in any half this season. The previous high was 72 in both halves of a 144-99 loss at Cleveland on December 26.
“You learn that it is a long game and sometimes you aren’t always going to be at your best,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said.
“They did a good job of not really overreacting to that first half. We got into the locker room and I told them we were pretty fortunate that it was only a nine-point game. It was just a matter of can we flip it around and start doing some of the things we do defensively, and we did.”
The Toronto coaching staff and bench became very vocal in the second half in an effort to boost the team’s defensive intensity, Nurse said.
“Everybody was energised and tuned in. That was fun,” he said.
Toronto erased a 14-point deficit and tied it at 85 midway through the third. The Raptors built a 15-point lead in the fourth, but the Bucks pulled within four points twice in the final minute.
“I’m not devastated,” Bucks acting coach Darvin Ham said. “I thought our guys played hard.”
Middleton said he was disappointed that the team couldn’t get a win for Ham.
“Overall, the coaching staff did a great job preparing us for tonight, we just let ourselves down in the third quarter,” he said.
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – Brighton midfielder Yves Bissouma has made peace with Mali coach Mohamed Magassouba and is set to be a driving force behind the bid to go far at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon from Sunday.
He fell out of favour in 2018 and a shoulder injury prevented him being considered for the 2019 Cup of Nations in Egypt, where Mali made a disappointing last-16 exit.
While it would be stretching optimism to believe Mali can go all the way, they seem certain to secure a top-two finish in a section including one-time champions Tunisia, minnows Mauritania and debutants the Gambia.
Here, AFP Sport puts the spotlight on the four Group F contenders. The group winners and runners-up are assured of last-16 places while the best four third-placed teams from the six sections also qualify.
MALI
Mali have regularly punched above their weight, finishing second, third twice and fourth three times in 11 appearances at the African football showpiece.
While not among the favourites in Cameroon, a squad including Bissouma and Southampton forward Moussa Djenepo from the Premier League are certainly capable of reaching the quarter-finals.
In most of the six groups finishing first carries a huge advantage as the table toppers then face a third-placed team in the round of 16.
Group F is different. The winners will likely face title-holders Algeria or the Ivory Coast while the runners-up would have a theoretically easier task against the Group B runners-up, possibly Guinea.
TUNISIA
The Carthage Eagles hope a frustrating start to preparations is not a sign of things to come as the floodlights went out just minutes into a training session near Tunis and did not come back on.
Tunisia are an incredibly consistent team as they have now qualified for an unrivalled 15 consecutive Cup of Nations tournaments from 1994.
During that time the north Africans have been champions once, runners-up once, semi-finalists twice and quarter-finalists six times.
Having reached the semi-finals in Egypt three years ago, the expectations of supporters will be that a team captained by Saint-Etienne forward Wahbi Khazri will go at least as far in Cameroon.
MAURITANIA
After reaching the Cup of Nations finals for the first time in 2019 and then qualifying for back-to-back appearances, the fortunes of Mauritania nose-dived.
Expected to be competitive recently in a World Cup group including Tunisia, Equatorial Guinea and Zambia, they fared woefully, collecting just two points from a possible 18 and finishing last.
French coach Corentin Martins, who had been in charge since 2014, was fired and compatriot Gerard Buscher, elevated from his technical director role, did not last long after a poor Arab Cup showing.
Another Frenchman, Didier Gomes Da Rosa, has taken over and will do well to plot a victory over the Gambia and secure possible qualification as one of the best four third-placed finishers.
GAMBIA
Gambia, who began the 2021 Cup of Nations qualifying competition as the only west African country never to reach the finals, have finally made it with Belgian coach Tom Saintfiet getting much of the credit.
They needed a penalty shootout to oust minnows Djibouti in a preliminary tie, then topped a group including fellow qualifiers Gabon, surprise flops the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola.
“Tom brought discipline and structure to our game,” said captain Pa Modou Jagne, a veteran defender who plays in the Swiss lower leagues.
SINGAPORE (CNA) – Singapore must brace for a “much bigger” COVID-19 infection wave from Omicron compared to that from the Delta variant, Singapore Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said on Wednesday.
At its peak, the number of Omicron cases could be “a few times” more than the approximately 3,000 daily cases that the Delta variant was registering in October and November last year, Ong said at a COVID-19 multi-ministry task force press conference.
Putting a number to the possible manifold increase, Ministry of Health director of medical services Associate Professor Kenneth Mak said that the Omicron wave could reach 15,000 cases a day in a “worse-case scenario”.
At the highest during the Delta variant peak last year, the number of cases surpassed 5,000 cases.
Ong said that while Delta infections were doubling in six to eight days, Omicron infections may double in two to three days.
Office workers walk out for lunch break at Raffles Place financial business district in Singapore. PHOTO: AFP
However, the “silver lining” is that studies coming out of countries like South Africa, the United States and Canada is that infections from Omicron are less severe than that from the Delta variant, he said.
Ong noted a similar situation in Singapore. He said of the 2,252 Omicron cases in Singapore so far, three required oxygen supplementation, but were taken off the support within three days and are recovering. None of the cases required intensive care.
Over the past week, Singapore’s daily COVID-19 case numbers have been around 200 on average, with 16 cases currently in intensive care. These figures are significantly lower than the numbers at their peak a few months ago, “indicating that the recent wave of Delta infections has subsided”, the Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) said in a separate statement.
However, Singapore has seen a rise in the total number of confirmed Omicron cases over the past week, even as the Delta wave subsides, MOH said.
Over the past week, Singapore detected 1,281 confirmed Omicron cases, comprising 1,048 imported cases and 233 local cases. This makes up around 18 per cent of local cases in the last week, MOH said.
”With higher transmissibility of the Omicron variant, we are likely to experience another wave of community infections soon.
MADRID (AFP) – A woman accused by her ex-husband of kidnapping their two boys to prevent them from being vaccinated against COVID-19 turned herself into the authorities on Wednesday, officials said.
The 46-year-old woman was wanted for “kidnapping minors” after her ex-husband, who lives near the southern city of Seville, filed a complaint with police in mid-December accusing her of taking the boys aged 14 and 12 without authorisation, a judicial source told AFP.
The man said he had not seen the boys since November 4 when he received a letter from his former wife saying she planned to remove them from their school just days after a court ruled he had the right to decide whether the children should be vaccinated.
The woman turned herself into the authorities on Wednesday morning in Seville with the two boys and a judge ordered her to be remanded in custody pending charges, the source said.
The two minors were handed over to their father on Wednesday afternoon, a spokesman for Spain´s Guardia Civil police force said.
NAIROBI (AFP) – A United States (US) fast-food chain has triggered an online furore in Kenya after it ran out of fries, with local Twitter users threatening a boycott because it does not use locally sourced potatoes.
“You love our chips a little too much, and we’ve run out. Sorry!” the fast-food chain admitted on Twitter this week, offering its customers various alternatives.
The franchise’s Regional Boss Jacques Theunissen said it had become the latest casualty of global shipping disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“It has to do with delays in shipping lines due to the Covid situation,” he told local news outlet Business Daily.
He said the fast-food chain was hoping to resolve the shortage with the expected arrival of a container-load of potatoes this week.
KFC Kenya blamed the potato shortage on shipping disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic. PHOTO: AFP
But it was his admission that the company does not source potatoes from local farmers that ignited a Twitter storm among Kenyans.
“All suppliers need to go through the global quality assurance approval process and we cannot bypass that even if we run out to ensure that our food is safe for consumption by our customers,” Theunissen said.
With the news coming during Kenya’s potato harvesting season, many took to social media to call for people to snub the fast-food giant.
“If you are a true Kenyan, you should not eat chips prepared by the fast-food chain! Eat chips elsewhere,” one user tweeted.
The fried chicken franchise entered the Kenyan market in 2011 and has 35 outlets across the East African region.
Kenya grows more than 60 different varieties of potatoes, with farmers currently struggling with a glut.
In an apparent U-turn, the fast-food chain said on Tuesday it had initiated plans to source potatoes from Kenyan farmers, adding it was already doing so for other goods such as poultry, vegetables, flour and ice cream.
Competitors were quick to take advantage of the gaffe to promote their own chips, with Burger King tweeting: “We have enough fries for everyone.”
PARIS (AFP) – The most basic everyday activities, from working to shopping and going to school, have completely transformed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and may never be the same again.
As the world marks nearly two years since China announced the first death from COVID-19 – a 61-year-old man in Wuhan – on January 11, 2020, here’s a look at how our lives have been fundamentally altered by the virus.
WFH
As the virus marched across the globe, governments ordered citizens to stay inside – forcing billions of people to hastily set up home offices.
Remote working, working from home (WFH) all quickly became staples in our new pandemic vernacular.
Even as lockdowns eased, working from home at least some of the time has remained the norm for many.
In 2021, the percentage of people working remotely hit 32 per cent, up from just 17 per cent in 2019, according to consulting firm Gartner.
For others, the pandemic prompted a change of jobs or demands for better conditions.
In the United States (US), tens of thousands of workers from hospitals to Hollywood walked off the job last year in a movement dubbed “Striketober” to protest long hours and poor pay.
Visitors passing by signs reminding them of sanitary precautions they must take as they enter Saint-Louis hospital of the AP-HP in Paris on May 28, as France eases lockdown measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19. PHOTO: AFP
E-COMMERCE BOOM
With billions bunkered down at home, businesses of all kinds had to quickly pivot, and online sales for everything from groceries to meals, clothes and furniture rapidly boomed.
Online sales rose 38 per cent in the first third of 2021 compared to the same period a year before, according to the Adobe Digital Economy Index.
It even brought some shoppers online for the first time who aren’t likely to leave soon, Gaelle Le Floch of consulting firm Kantar told AFP.
“We saw new customers, more senior citizens, who became regular shoppers,” she said.
PLANES, TRAINS AND… BICYCLES
Between border closures and travel restrictions, the tourism sector was pummelled by the pandemic.
Experts warn the air and rail industries may not return to normal before 2024.
Air travel was worst affected, with worldwide traffic dropping by two-thirds in 2020.
By the end of 2021, it had only reached half of 2019 levels as travel restrictions remained in place in many countries.
Even as travel picked up following initial lockdowns, chaos remains the norm in airports as passengers line up to show vaccine passes or negative COVID tests.
Cities around the world also saw a drop in public transportation such as trains over fears of the virus spreading and as more people stayed home.
Cycling grew in popularity – but so did commuting by car.
ZOOM LEARNING
As adults stayed home to work, so too did students, with hundreds of millions of children and teens suddenly logging onto Zoom and other platforms for online classes.
UNESCO, the UN’s culture and education authority, has called the pandemic the worst-ever education crisis.
School systems in most countries saw at least some period of complete closure.
The worst impacts have been in low- and middle-income countries where 53 per cent of children already suffered from a lack of access to schooling.
That proportion could increase to 70 per cent, according to the World Bank.
In some parts of the world – including Brazil, Pakistan, India, South Africa and Mexico – a significant drop in math and reading skills has been reported.
HUNGER AND HEALTHCARE
The pandemic has led to the greatest rise in hunger worldwide in 15 years, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The number of people who do not have enough to eat increased 18 per cent over the last year, the agency said.
The problem extended beyond food access, as an additional 20 million people fell into extreme poverty in 2021, according to UN agency OCHA.
The pandemic also plunged health systems into chaos and slowed progress on campaigns to eradicate other diseases ravaging the world’s poorest populations, such as HIV and tuberculosis.
The three-day orientation programme for the new batch of Year 7 students at Menglait Secondary School concluded with an ice-breaking session between teachers and the new students yesterday.
Students engaged in introduction sessions and were briefed on the preparation of attending physical classes.
A sharing session was also held by representative of the school library Haji Sulaiman bin Haji Aman, followed by a session on Growth Mind Set led by Afrizah binti Haji Ahmad and Hajah Yusmawati binti Haji Alim.
Students also participated in an activity with the school Counsellor Hajah Mal Hafiza binti Haji Malek.
Principal Huzaimi bin Moksin congratulated the students and reminded them to obey the school’s rules and regulations.
Students and teachers during the ice-breaking session. PHOTO: LYNA MOHAMAD
