Selasa, 22 Juni 2021
Will travellers vaccinated with Sinovac's shot get quarantine-free travel to China? | THE BIG STORY - The Straits Times
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2021-06-22 09:53:42Z
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Crackdown brings resignations at Hong Kong pro-democracy paper Apple Daily - CNA
HONG KONG: Hong Kong's embattled pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily has been hit by a wave of resignations as authorities push to silence the outspoken tabloid and staff mull whether to leave or stay until the bitter end.
On late Monday (Jun 21) afternoon, Apple Daily's 1,000-odd staff got the news they had long expected given Hong Kong's hardening political climate: The 26-year-old paper was on its last legs.
The board had met that day and announced the paper was almost certainly going to close unless they found a way to unfreeze its assets, with a final decision to be made on Friday.
READ: Hong Kong pro-democracy paper Apple Daily to decide closure on Friday
Section heads then gathered staff and told them they could decide whether to resign immediately or stay until the final day - whenever that might be - according to three employees who were present.
"I hastily decided to hand in my resignation letter after my team meeting," a reporter who asked just to use the name Joanne, told AFP.
"I believe the risk of being arrested is real ... I do not want to see anyone else being rounded up anymore," she added.
Apple Daily has long been a thorn in Beijing's side, with unapologetic support for the city's pro-democracy movement and caustic criticism of China's authoritarian leaders.
Those same leaders have made no secret of their desire to see the paper shuttered.
Its owner Jimmy Lai is in jail, among the first to be charged under a new national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong last year to root out dissent after the financial hub was rocked by huge and often violent protests in 2019.
ASSET FREEZE
Then came last week's hammer blow - the charging of two more executives under the powerful security law and the freezing of Apple Daily's assets by the city's security chief.
READ: Hong Kong police raid newspaper Apple Daily, arrest 5 including editor-in-chief
The latter left the paper unable to pay staff, vendors and suppliers. Advertisers and supporters who tried to deposit money into its accounts were unable to do so.
Authorities say the police action was sparked by articles over the last year that allegedly supported the imposition of sanctions on China and Hong Kong.
Lai, the paper's editor Ryan Law, and its CEO Cheung Kim-hung have been charged with colluding with foreign forces to undermine China's national security. They face up to life in prison if convicted.
Authorities reject suggestions that the prosecution is an assault on press freedoms. They have not identified which articles were illegal but say the paper's content pointed to a "conspiracy".
READ: Hong Kong leader says press must not 'subvert' government
It is not clear how many Apple Daily staff have resigned but several were filmed carrying boxes out of the paper's headquarters on Monday evening and the departures have already impacted the paper's coverage.
On Monday night, the anchor of a half-hour daily evening news show broadcast online announced she was hosting her final episode.
"Take care Hong Kongers," Tse Hing-yee said in her swansong broadcast. "We will meet again, should fate allow."
The paper's financial news desk and its English edition have also announced they have ceased publishing.
Another reporter who only gave her first name, Peggy, said colleagues spent Monday afternoon bidding farewell to those who had decided to leave, and taking group photos.
"It felt like a graduation ceremony, but there was the constant sound of someone crying," she told AFP, adding she had quit and lined up a job in another industry.
"NO SHAME"
"I will stay till the last," Kitty, a third reporter, told AFP. "The risk of staying for a few more days is nothing more than the risk of staying here for the past year."
All three spoke of the pride they felt working for the paper.
But Joanne said she felt local reporters were no longer allowed to do their job unimpeded.
"Is it allowed or not in today's Hong Kong for me to say something I truly believe in and I have facts to support?" she asked rhetorically.
Kitty, 40, said she has yet to decide whether to remain in the industry.
"Even when I find a new job in a different newspaper, I suppose the newsroom will be much more cautious," she said, referring to the self-censorship that has crept into the local media scene in recent years.
Peggy said she had no regrets about the three years she spent working for the paper.
"It's my honour to be an Apple Daily reporter when Hong Kong's situation went through such a crazy period," she said.
"Everything I did here brought no shame upon myself or Hong Kong's people."
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2021-06-22 08:06:06Z
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'World's happiest country' seeks migrants - CNA
HELSINKI: Repeatedly dubbed the happiest nation on the planet with world-beating living standards, Finland should be deluged by people wanting to relocate, but in fact it faces an acute workforce shortage.
"It's now widely acknowledged that we need a spectacular number of people to come to the country," recruiter Saku Tihverainen from agency Talented Solutions told AFP.
Workers are needed "to help cover the cost of the greying generation", the recruiter explained.
While many Western countries are battling weak population growth, few are feeling the effects as sharply as Finland.
With 39.2 over-65s per 100 working-age people, it is second only to Japan in the extent of its ageing population, according to the UN, which forecasts that by 2030 the "old age dependency ratio" will rise to 47.5.
The government has warned that the nation of 5.5 million needs to practically double immigration levels to 20,000-30,000 a year to maintain public services and plug a looming pensions deficit.
Finland might seem like an attractive destination on paper, scoring high in international comparisons for quality of life, freedom and gender equality, with little corruption, crime and pollution.
But anti-immigrant sentiment and a reluctance to employ outsiders are also widespread in Western Europe's most homogenous society, and the opposition far-right Finns Party regularly draws substantial support during elections.
TIPPING POINT
After years of inertia, businesses and government "are now at the tipping point and are recognising the problem" posed by a greying population, said Charles Mathies, a research fellow at the Academy of Finland.
Mathies is one of the experts consulted by the government's "Talent Boost" programme, now in its fourth year, which aims to make the country more attractive internationally, in part through local recruitment schemes.
Those targeted include health workers from Spain, metalworkers from Slovakia, and IT and maritime experts from Russia, India and Southeast Asia.
But previous such efforts have petered out.
In 2013, five of the eight Spanish nurses recruited to the western town of Vaasa left after a few months, citing Finland's exorbitant prices, cold weather and notoriously complex language.
Finland has nonetheless seen net immigration for much of the last decade, with around 15,000 more people arriving than leaving in 2019.
But many of those quitting the country are higher-educated people, official statistics show.
Faced with the OECD's largest skilled worker shortage, some Finnish startups are creating a joint careers site to better bag overseas talent.
"As you can imagine, this is a slow burner," Shaun Rudden from food delivery firm Wolt said in an email, adding that "We try to make the relocation process as painless as possible."
SYSTEMIC PROBLEM
Startups "have told me that they can get anyone in the world to come and work for them in Helsinki, as long as he or she is single", the capital's mayor, Jan Vapaavuori, said to AFP.
But "their spouses still have huge problems getting a decent job".
Many foreigners complain of a widespread reluctance to recognise overseas experience or qualifications, as well as prejudice against non-Finnish applicants.
Ahmed (who requested his name be changed for professional reasons) is a 42-year-old Brit with many years' experience in building digital products for multinational, household-name companies.
Yet six months of networking and applying for jobs in Helsinki, where he was trying to move for family reasons, proved fruitless.
"One recruiter even refused to shake my hand, that was a standout moment," he told AFP.
"There was never a shortage of jobs going, just a shortage of mindset," said Ahmed, who during his search in Finland received offers from major companies in Norway, Qatar, the UK and Germany, and eventually began commuting weekly from Helsinki to Dusseldorf.
Recruiter Saku Tihverainen said shortages are pushing more companies to loosen their insistence on only employing native Finnish workers.
"And yet, a lot of the Finnish companies and organisations are very adamant about using Finnish, and very fluent Finnish at that," he said.
CHANGING PRIORITIES
For Helsinki mayor Jan Vaaavuori, four years of Finland being voted the world's happiest country in a UN ranking have "not yet helped as much as we could have hoped".
"If you stop someone in the street in Paris or London or Rome or New York, I still don't think most people know about us," he mused.
Mayor Vapaavuori, whose four-year term ends this summer, has turned increasingly to international PR firms to help raise the city's profile.
He is optimistic about Finland's ability to attract talent from Asia in future, and believes people's priorities will have changed once international mobility ramps up again post-coronavirus.
Helsinki's strengths, being "safe, functional, reliable, predictable - those values have gained in importance", he said, adding: "Actually I think our position after the pandemic is better than it was before."
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2021-06-22 07:36:50Z
CBMiXWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vbmV3cy93b3JsZC8td29ybGQtcy1oYXBwaWVzdC1jb3VudHJ5LS1zZWVrcy1taWdyYW50cy0xNTA2NjgxNNIBAA
Elephant breaks into house in Thailand searching for food - CNA
BANGKOK: An elephant broke into a house in the Thai resort town of Hua Hin in the early hours of Sunday (Jun 20), using its trunk to search for food through a hole in the kitchen wall.
Resident Ratchadawan Puengprasopporn said her family was asleep when she heard noises coming from the kitchen.
When she and her husband went to investigate, they saw the elephant poking its head into the kitchen, rummaging through the shelves and eating a plastic bag containing food.
This was not the first time Boonmee, a wild male elephant known among residents and park officials as a frequent visitor to the village, has intruded the house.
Local authorities and national parks officials visited Ratchadawan’s family the following day and advised them to remove food, especially salty items.
Pattarapol Maneeon, a veterinarian from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, said it is possible that there is not enough salty food in the wild during the rainy season, forcing elephants to look for salt in local villages.
"Inside the house, we still have bags of salt, sauces, fermented fish,” he said, adding that these could attract elephants into returning.
“For now, we need to clear out these items that could draw them back."
Authorities have promised to repair Ratchadawan's house following the incident, while artificial salt licks will be provided in the forest for elephants.
According to the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, there are an estimated 3,000 wild elephants in the country.
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2021-06-22 04:05:22Z
CBMibGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vbmV3cy9hc2lhL2VsZXBoYW50LWJyZWFrcy1pbnRvLWhvdXNlLWluLXRoYWlsYW5kLWluLXNlYXJjaC1mb3ItZm9vZC0xNTA2NTc3MNIBAA
Senin, 21 Juni 2021
Russia and Myanmar military leader commit to boosting ties at Moscow meeting - CNA
MOSCOW: Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, and Myanmar's military leader committed to further strengthening security and other ties between the two countries at a Moscow meeting on Monday (Jun 21).
Myanmar's military leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, flew to the Russian capital on Sunday to attend a security conference this week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier on Monday said President Vladimir Putin would not be meeting Min Aung Hlaing, Interfax reported.
Rights activists have accused Moscow of legitimising Myanmar’s military government, which came to power in a Feb 1 coup by continuing bilateral visits and arms deals.
Russia says it has a long-standing relationship with Myanmar and said in March it was deeply concerned by the rising number of civilian deaths in Myanmar.
Defence ties between the two nations have grown in recent years with Moscow providing army training and university scholarships to thousands of soldiers, as well as selling arms to a military blacklisted by several Western countries for alleged atrocities against civilians.
READ: EU slaps fresh sanctions on Myanmar government
READ: Myanmar rejects UN resolution urging arms embargo
Myanmar's state-run MRTV devoted the first 10 minutes of its nightly newscast to a report of Min Aung Hlaing's Russia trip, from him being met by officials at the airport to his meeting with the Security Council.
It showed a smiling Min Aung Hlaing in a business suit, posing for pictures, shaking hands and exchanging gifts with members of the council before attending a ceremony at a Buddhist temple in Moscow.
The MRTV report said Min Aung Hlaing and Patrushev discussed cooperation between the two countries on security measures, Myanmar’s current affairs and agreed to maintain a good relationship between their two militaries.
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2021-06-21 16:44:49Z
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After 14 days of zero local Covid-19 cases, Hong Kong to ease rules to get back on track - The Straits Times
HONG KONG - Officials will further adjust social distancing measures as the city achieved zero local coronavirus cases for 14 days in a row on Monday (June 21), with quarantine rules to be shortened to seven days soon.
From June 30, vaccinated Hong Kong residents who test positive for antibodies against Covid-19 will have their mandatory hotel quarantine cut to seven days instead of the current range of 14 to 21 days, when they return to the city.
This rule can also apply to non-residents coming to Hong Kong after officials firm up the details of the scheme.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Monday said that residents can undergo the antibody test before flying out of Hong Kong so that when they return and test negative for the virus, their quarantine can be shortened to seven days.
These were announced at a 90-minute briefing, where Mrs Lam promised that the government will continue to adopt a "vigorous yet precise approach" to keep imported cases at bay.
Currently, non-Hong Kong residents can enter Hong Kong only if they are from low-risk countries like Australia and New Zealand.
Flights from places deemed extremely high risk will continue to be banned, while flight suspensions could kick in if mutated strains are found.
Hong Kong has recorded between one and seven daily imported cases in the past month.
So far, there have been more than 11,800 infections and 210 deaths since the pandemic hit.
From Thursday, for two weeks, restaurants can run at full capacity, up from 75 per cent, if all their staff are fully vaccinated and two-thirds of their customers have had at least the first dose of a vaccine. Dine-in services can still last till 2am, but each table will be able to sit up to 12 patrons, up from eight.
Eateries where all staff have at least the first shot of a vaccine and customers use the contact tracing LeaveHomeSafe app will be allowed to run at 75 per cent capacity, up from 50 per cent. Dine-in services currently end at midnight with patrons per table capped at six. In this instance, customers do not need to be vaccinated but have to use the LeaveHomeSafe app.
Banquets will be capped at 180 guests, but the four-person cap on public gatherings stays.
Tables at bars and clubs can have up to four patrons, up from two, only if all staff and customers have had at least one jab.
In karaoke lounge and mahjong parlours, the number is raised to eight per table if they meet vaccination requirements.
Those in a gym class need not wear masks if they are fully vaccinated.
Religious gatherings, weddings and business meetings will be allowed at a venue's full capacity so long as two-thirds of the participants are inoculated.
"Some people will still think that they are on the stringent side, but we do need to rely on an enhanced vaccination rate in order to have further relaxation," said Mrs Lam.
She noted that Hong Kong's vaccination rate is "not satisfactory" and is lower than the mainland, Singapore, European countries and Israel.
Since the inoculation drive began on Feb 26, about 28.5 per cent of Hong Kong's 7.5 million population have received their first jab, while more than 3.2 million doses have been administered.
Still, Mrs Lam said life is slowly returning to normal since mid-April, with more businesses resuming operations, large-scale events like Art Basel held and the resumption of face-to-face classes in all schools - all of which are "good signs" for Hong Kong's economic recovery.
The Asian financial hub's economy grew 7.9 per cent in the first three months of the year, while the jobless rate stood at 6 per cent for the three months from March, down from 6.4 per cent for the months of February to April.
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2021-06-21 13:24:50Z
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Taiwan denounces Hong Kong after officials expelled in 'one China' row - CNA
TAIPEI: Taiwan criticised Hong Kong on Monday (Jun 21) in an escalating row over China's sovereignty claims over Taiwan, prompting the island to pull out officials from its representative office in the Chinese-run city.
Taiwanese staff working at the island's representative office in Hong Kong started leaving the city on Sunday, after Hong Kong's government demanded that the Taiwan officials sign a document supporting Beijing's "one China" claim to Taiwan.
"Their purpose obviously was to diminish our national dignity and to force our staff to bow to the Beijing authorities," Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council head Chiu Tai-san told reporters.
READ: Taiwanese staff to leave Hong Kong office in 'one China' row
He said following the "unreasonable" request from Hong Kong's government, Taiwan could no longer send officials to the financial hub and had to withdraw staff whose work visas were about to expire.
"Our government stands firm in guarding national dignity and lodges stern condemnation and a warning to the Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong government," he said.
Hong Kong's government has not commented on the issue.
A senior Taiwan official familiar with the matter told Reuters Hong Kong's government had demanded Taiwan officials who refused to sign the document leave the city by Jun 21.
READ: Hong Kong seeking closer integration with mainland China: Chief Executive Lam
Former colonial power Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula aimed at preserving the city's freedoms and role as an international financial hub.
China considers Taiwan its own territory and has offered the island the same "one country two systems" model, under Chinese sovereignty.
No major Taiwanese political parties support the idea.
Hong Kong has become another source of tension between Taipei and Beijing, especially after Taiwan lambasted a new security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong and began welcoming Hong Kong people to settle on the democratic island.
COMMENTARY: Did Hong Kong just sever ties with Taiwan?
Chiu said the office in Hong Kong would maintain operations but Taiwan will take "necessary measures" if its presence there is further jeopardised. He did not elaborate.
Last month, Hong Kong suspended operations at its representative office in Taiwan, accusing authorities there of "gross" interference in Hong Kong's internal affairs, including with its offer to assist "violent" protesters, accusations Taiwan rejected.
Macau's government suspended operations at its office in Taiwan on Wednesday.
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2021-06-21 10:29:56Z
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