COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lanka unveiled a USD1.1-billion targetted relief package yesterday to help consumers pay soaring food costs as an economic crisis bites.
The island’s tourism-dependent economy was hammered by the pandemic and rampant shortages have left its people struggling to buy essential goods.
Supermarkets have been rationing milk powder, sugar, lentils and other essentials, with food prices rising by a record 22 per cent last month.
More than two million state employees and pensioners will be given a living allowance of LKR60,000 (USD300) this year to deal with the rising cost of living.
Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa also announced subsidies for home gardens, with crop yields expected to fall further after a disastrous campaign to make Sri Lanka the world’s first 100 per cent organic farming nation.
A customer buying vegetables at a market near Colombo, Sri Lanka. PHOTO: AFP
“We want to encourage a big homegrown agriculture drive this year by encouraging people to grow their own food,” he said.
Rajapaksa did not say how the government would finance the package of LKR229 billion (USD1.14 billion), which comes two months after the unveiling of a drastic austerity budget designed to rein in a runaway deficit.
Last year’s ban on agrochemical imports worsened food shortages by causing crop failures and prompting farmers to leave nearly a third of the island’s agricultural fields dormant.
The policy was lifted after protests by farmers but its consequences have sparked discord in Sri Lanka’s ruling coalition.
Yesterday, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa sacked a minister who had criticised the organic farming drive and called for the removal of the agriculture minister, a close ally of the leader.
TOKYO (AP) – Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida vowed yesterday to speed up coronavirus vaccine booster shots, secure imported supplies of drugs to treat COVID-19 and re-organise medical facilities to respond to the fast-spreading Omicron variant.
Kishida, who took office in October, said he had ordered strict border controls from November to buy time for such preparations. Japan has basically shut out incoming travel except for returning residents and Japanese nationals.
The response to the contagious Omicron variant will now shift to domestic measures, such as making free coronavirus tests more readily available, while border controls will continue, he said.
“I just offered prayers so that we may overcome the coronavirus pandemic and this year will be a fantastic year for all of you,” he told reporters in Mie Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo.
Japanese leaders visit the picturesque shrine complex at the start of every year, although Kishida’s predecessor Yoshihide Suga cancelled it last year because of the pandemic.
Kishida said the oral drug from Merck has been distributed to thousands of hospitals, and efforts were underway to procure the Pfizer oral drug as well, for use starting next month in treating symptomatic coronavirus cases.
“I want to make this year one of dramatic challenges to forge ahead with a new era. But in areas where we need to exercise caution, we must not forget the humility to proceed with caution,” Kishida added, noting care was needed for a proper pandemic response.
He said everyone who tests positive for COVID-19 and needs hospitalisation will be speedily admitted for treatment, while those who can recover at home should do so, monitored by medical professionals. Other facilities will also be readied for those who don’t need to be hospitalised but need to quarantine, depending on symptoms, he said.
The High Commission of India in Brunei Darussalam marked 57 years of the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Day with a function yesterday.
Some 40 guests representing the ITEC Alumni, members of Brunei Youth Association and trade chambers, faculty and students of Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) and Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) attended the event.
Participants of ASEAN-India Youth Summit, ASEAN-India Online Hackathon as well as prominent members of the Indian associations in the Sultanate also attended. Video presentations were displayed during the event which primarily focussed on the recent capacity building capsules conducted under the ITEC Programme.
The high commission also received a request from some participants to facilitate special programmes, including those related to start-ups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector, for the benefit of the business community in Brunei.
ITEC, India’s most successful partnership cooperation programme, provides technical assistance, training/capacity building opportunities to partner countries in a range of fields including IT, banking, administration, audit, scientific to both civil and defence personnel.
Normally, the ITEC Day is celebrated in September each year, and it was decided to delay the commemoration last year due to the COVID-19 induced restrictions.
Some 51 Bruneians have availed of the various programmes offered under ITEC. Of these, 37 attended their programme in physical format in India and 14 Ministry of Development officials attended an online programme in October 2020. Bruneian nationals have also attended courses on cybersecurity and Unispace Nanosatellite Assembly and Training on nano-satellite building.
Guests at the event. PHOTO: INDIAN HIGH COMMISSION IN BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
Since the re-emergence of local COVID-19 transmissions in August 2020, the authorities had done everything to curb the spread, including keeping the workforce and students at home and discouraging unnecessary excursions. The efforts have paid off; we are now in Early Endemic Phase, and slowly, we are moving towards normalcy, albeit a different kind.
It’s good to see students between the ages of 12 and 17 being back on school grounds.
As adolescents, it is a crucial part of development to be able to socialise with their peers.
While technological advancement has afforded us a way to communicate with others in the comfort of our own home, it simply cannot replace in-person interaction.
When the school re-opening was first announced, quite a number of parents were up in arms about it being too soon, while others were relieved that their children could finally reunite with their friends.
I believe the authorities have done a fantastic job reassuring concerned parents that their children will be in safe hands. Judging from the news reports regarding the first day of school, students were provided pandemic-relevant lessons, such as self-administration of COVID-19 test and hygiene management. These are important as the pandemic is not yet over.
While Omicron has shown to be milder than Delta, there is always a chance that a more deadly variant is just around the corner. Thus, I applaud the authorities for having the foresight to prepare the younger generation for future health crises.
MILAN (AFP) – More than 1,300 staff at Italian carrier Air Italy, which went bust in 2020, on Monday began receiving letters terminating their employment, trade unions said.
Pilots and cabin crew had been protected by a furlough scheme since the February 2020 bankruptcy of the airline, which had been held 51 per cent by the Aga Khan and 49 per cent by Qatar Airways.
However, this has not been extended.
The transport divisions of the Cgil and Cisl unions, in a joint statement with Uiltrasporti and Ugl Trasporto Aereo, called for “urgent government action to stop the process and avert this real social tragedy”.
By contrast, around 8,000 employees of Alitalia, which ceased operating in October, have seen their furlough scheme extended into 2022.
The successor of Alitalia, ITA Airways, had in December taken on 2,141 staff, less than the 2,800 initially announced for 2021, but has promised to hire at least 1,000 more this year.
Launched with great fanfare in February 2018, Air Italy – formerly called Meridiana – had hoped to benefit from ongoing problems at Alitalia, but ended up losing hundreds of millions of euros.
Based in Sardinia, but with a hub in Milan, it operated mainly domestic flights in Italy but also routes to the United States (US) , Canada and Africa.
Air Italy in 2018 recorded loses of EUR164 million, which rose to around EUR200 million the following year.
An ITA Airways’ Airbus A320 passenger airplane, bearing the Alitalia livery, taking off from Rome’s Fiumicimo airport. PHOTO: AFP
MEXICO CITY (AP) – There once was a small fish called ‘tequila splitfin’ or ‘zoogoneticus tequila’ that swam in a river in western Mexico, but disappeared in the 1990s. Scientists and residents, however, have achieved the return of a species extinct in nature – but conserved in captivity – to its native habitat.
Its success is now intertwined with the community’s identity and being touted internationally.
It began more than two decades ago in Teuchitlán, a town near the Tequila volcano. A half-dozen students, among them Omar Domínguez, began to worry about the little fish that fit in the palm of a hand and had only ever been seen in the Teuchitlán river. It had vanished from local waters, apparently due to pollution, human activities and the introduction of non-native species.
Domínguez, now a 47-year-old researcher at the University of Michoacán, said that then only the elderly remembered the fish called ‘gallito’ or ‘little rooster’ because of its orange tail.
In 1998, conservationists from the Chester Zoo in England and other European institutions arrived to help set up a laboratory for conserving Mexican fish. They brought several pairs of tequila splitfin fish from the aquariums of collectors, Domínguez said.
The fish began reproducing in aquariums and within a few years Domínguez and his colleagues gambled on reintroducing them to the Teuchitlán river. “They told us it was impossible, (that) when we returned them they were going to die.”
Two ‘tequila splitfin’ fish in an aquarium at the Chester Zoo in Chester, England. PHOTO: AP
So they looked for options. They built an artificial pond for a semi-captivity stage and in 2012 they put 40 pairs there.
Two years later, there were some 10,000 fish. The result guaranteed funding, not only from the Chester Zoo but also a dozen organisations from Europe, the United States (US) and the United Arab Emirates, to move the experiment to the river.
There they studied parasites, micro-organisms in the water, the interaction with predators, competition with other fish, and then introduced the fish in floating cages.
The goal was to re-establish the fragile equilibrium. For that part, the key was not so much the scientists as the local residents.
“When I started the environmental education programme I thought they were going to turn a deaf ear to us… and at first that happened,” Domínguez said.
But the conservationists succeeded with patience and years of puppet shows, games and explanations about the ecological and health value of “zoogoneticus tequila” – the fish help control mosquitos that spread dengue.
Some residents made up a nickname for the little fish: “Zoogy.” They made caricatures and formed the ‘River Guardians’, a group mostly of children. They collect garbage, clean the river and remove invasive plants.
Domínguez said it is difficult to say if water quality is better because there is no previous data to compare, but the entire ecosystem has improved. The river is cleaner, there are fewer non-native species and cattle are no longer permitted to drink in some areas.
The fish rapidly multiplied inside their floating cages. Then they were marked so they could be followed and set free. It was late 2017 and in six months the population increased 55 per cent. Last month, the fish had expanded to another part of the river.
The reintroduction into nature of species that were extinct in the wild is complex and time-consuming. Przewalski’s horse and the Arabian oryx are among successful examples. The Chester Zoo said on December 29 that the tequila splitfin had joined that small group.
ANN/THE DAILY STAR – It’s a cold morning, your toes are freezing. You’ve stayed up late to finish an assignment. There’s an entire construction site inside your skull. Tiny construction workers are drilling, banging, hammering away like their paycheque depends on it. What do you do?
Most people would reach out for a paracetamol tablet, maybe two, and wash it down with water. Sometimes the pain goes away for a while, sometimes it doesn’t.
Like salt on our tables, paracetamol is a staple in everyone’s medicine stash. It’s affordable, does the job and it’s always stocked up in your local pharmacy. From sinus infections to migraines, from fevers to back pain, paracetamols are the ultimate salvation. The panacea of the 21st Century.
This is why it’s not surprising that people often swallow paracetamols like candy. Even though paracetamol is considered harmless enough to be used as an over-the-counter painkiller, it was not invented to be used every day, especially at dosages we often consume.
As a child, I’d get sick at the turn of every season. My fevers would often soar high. Yet, I was only allowed one tablet in 24 hours and only if I truly needed it. Back then, I’d wonder why I needed to suffer through so much when most of my other friends would take two or even three pills to ward away minor headaches.
Consuming large amounts of paracetamol chips away at your tolerance to pain. For someone who experiences chronic pain, it can be a very slippery slope. Once you are down there it’s hard to find your way back up.
Why should you tolerate the pain, especially when you have an important meeting or exams right around the corner? Why should you give up on relief when it’s one pill away?
I am not saying that you should give up on paracetamol entirely. Even though it was not as revolutionary as antibiotics, paracetamols have made trips to the doctor’s office less frequent. Sometimes paracetamol is all you need to weather through a really bad migraine or a seasonal cold.
However, all drugs need to be used in moderation. Paracetamol is harmless if it is used occasionally. Taking more than two tablets daily for an extended period puts excess pressure on other organs.
Taking paracetamol as a reflex and not out of necessity reinforces a habit. This habit renders the drug less effective over time. Which leads to the consumption of higher dosages. It is an endless loop that is difficult to get out of.
Paracetamol can temporarily provide pain relief, but it is just a band-aid over a deep cut. To deal with chronic pains you need to get to the bottom of it. Consult your doctor. Keep yourself warm if your sinuses get inflamed often. Know what triggers your migraine. Get to the heart of your problems. Paracetamol is not a cure. Don’t treat it like one.
Unless you are a skilled driver, a car enthusiast or a heavy vehicle operator, manual transmission is limited to learners. And once these learners pass the test and get their driving licence, most will switch to automatic transmission right away.
So why has it remained important to learn to drive a stick in the country? Quite a number of countries allow learners to choose between learning manual or automatic. As a matter of fact, a recent news article reported how automatic car is increasingly used during driving tests, and manual transmission is slowly phasing out due to the plan to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles in favour of automatic electric cars by 2035 to reduce carbon emissions.
The authorities ought to take into account the change in preferences and innovations in the car industry, and respond to these changes accordingly.
Given how many people immediately forgo the use of manual transmission upon passing their driving test goes to show the persistence in teaching the “old way” of driving is counterintuitive.
FRANKFURT (AFP) – Germany’s joblessness rate fell slightly in December despite the return of health restrictions to tackle a new wave of coronavirus cases, official figures published yesterday showed.
The seasonally adjusted rate dropped to 5.2 per cent from 5.3 per cent the previous month, the BA Federal Labour Agency said, the equivalent of 23,000 fewer unemployed people.
“The recovery seen in recent months continued in December,” Agency Head Detlef Scheele said in a statement.
In raw figures, the number of unemployed sat just under 2,330,000, down around 378,000 since December 2020.
Unemployment in Europe’s top economy climbed as high as six per cent in the months following the rapid spread of the coronavirus through Europe in the first half of 2020.
People walking through a pedestrian area in Cologne, western Germany. PHOTO: AFP
Germany has relied heavily on subsidised short-term work schemes to help businesses and workers whether the pandemic storm, with nearly six million Germans placed on reduced hours at the peak of the crisis in April 2020.
The scheme was still supporting some 710,000 people according to the latest available figures from October, the BA said.
An uptick in applications made for the short-term work scheme at the end of the year showed the “uncertainty” caused by rising numbers of coronavirus cases and the emergence of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, the BA said.
Around 286,000 people were signed up to the programme in December, up from 104,000 the month before.
The overall improvement in the job market over 12 months was “encouraging” but “the new virus variant will be a difficult test for the German economy”, said Chief Economist at public lender KfW Fritzi Koehler-Geib.
NEW DELHI (AP) – Police in India have arrested a man alleged to be behind the offering for sale of prominent Muslim women through a fake online auction, according to government officials, in a case that has sparked anger and outrage across the country.
Technology Minister for the Maharashtra state Satej Patil, said late on Monday that the cyber unit of the Mumbai Police has detained a 21-year-old engineering student from the southern city of Bengaluru in the neighbouring Karnataka state and registered a case against him. Police did not reveal the identity of the suspect, and it wasn’t clear whether the man had made the auction website.
Photographs of more than 100 prominent Indian Muslim women, including journalists, activists, film stars and artists, were displayed last weekend without their permission on a website and put up for fake auction.
The women listed on the website also included a 65-year-old mother of a disappeared Indian student and Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.
Though there was no real sale involved, the Muslim women listed on the website said the auction was intended to humiliate them, many of whom have been vocal about rising Hindu nationalism in India and some of the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
