Cambodia dam destroyed livelihoods of tens of thousands: Human Rights Watch - CNA

PHNOM PENH: A massive China-financed dam in Cambodia has "washed away the livelihoods" of tens of thousands of villagers while falling short of promised energy production, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday (Aug 10).

The 400-megawatt Lower Sesan 2 dam in the kingdom's north-east has sparked controversy since long before its December 2018 launch.

Fisheries experts had warned that damming the confluence of the Sesan and Srepok rivers - two major tributaries of the resource-rich Mekong River - would threaten fish stocks crucial to millions living along the Mekong's flood plains.

Tens of thousands of villagers living upstream and downstream have suffered steep losses to their incomes, HRW said in Tuesday's report, citing interviews conducted over two years with some 60 people from various communities.

"The Lower Sesan 2 dam washed away the livelihoods of indigenous and ethnic minority communities who previously lived communally and mostly self-sufficiently from fishing, forest-gathering and agriculture," John Sifton, Human Rights Watch's Asia advocacy director and the report's author, said on Tuesday.

"Cambodian authorities need to urgently revisit this project's compensation, resettlement, and livelihood-restoration methods."

"There's no doubt at all that (the dam) contributed significantly to the larger problems the Mekong is facing right now," said Mekong energy and water expert Brian Eyler, while adding that more research was needed on the exact losses.

Adblock test (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vYXNpYS9jYW1ib2RpYS1kYW0tZGVzdHJveWVkLWxpdmVsaWhvb2RzLXRlbnMtdGhvdXNhbmRzLWh1bWFuLXJpZ2h0cy13YXRjaC0yMTAzMzA20gEA?oc=5

2021-08-10 05:33:35Z
52781789875108

Malaysians in Singapore welcome Covid-19 home quarantine rule for those who are fully vaccinated - The Straits Times

JOHOR BARU (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Fully vaccinated Malaysians in Singapore are elated by the news that starting Tuesday (Aug 10), they can quarantine at home when they return from the Republic instead of spending two weeks at a hotel.

While describing the move as timely, some are hoping for Singapore to reciprocate by reducing its two-week compulsory quarantine period.

Technician Iskandar Mat Jusoh, 37, who has received both vaccination shots, said the announcement by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin would benefit many Malaysians who were hoping to return home from Singapore.

"This will not just save money, but will also allow people to have a longer reunion with their families," he said.

Mr Iskandar, who last met his wife and 10-year-old son in person last year, said he would have to fork out more than $2,000 for quarantine charges when he returned to Singapore.

Ms Nurbayzura Basaruddin, who works as a fast-food outlet manager in Singapore, will not be returning any time soon due to the quarantine cost in Singapore.

Ms Nurbayzuara, 34, said: "I really miss my husband and four young children as I have not been back home since the lockdown started in March last year. I have already gotten both my vaccination shots and may only come back next year. I hope that the Singapore government can also consider some leeway for those who are fully vaccinated."

Project manager Danny Tay, 43, said the latest home quarantine announcement was something many were looking forward to, especially those who had not seen their families since the border closure in March last year.

"This will also help ease the financial burden of those who have lost their jobs in Singapore and want to return home," he said, adding that he would wait a while longer for the cases in Malaysia to dip before returning home.

Mr M. Suresh, 33, who is a permanent resident in Singapore where he works in the food and beverage industry, hoped that his 14-day quarantine period would be shortened.

''I returned on Aug 6 and am serving a 14-day quarantine stay in Johor Baru. This is indeed good news and I hope to spend more time with my son, daughter and wife," he said.

Mr Suresh, who is fully inoculated, said he planned to move his family to Singapore as he missed watching his children grow up.

"I hope that Singapore will also help relax the quarantine period for those fully vaccinated," he added.

Adblock test (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMif2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnN0cmFpdHN0aW1lcy5jb20vYXNpYS9zZS1hc2lhL21hbGF5c2lhbnMtaW4tc2luZ2Fwb3JlLXdlbGNvbWUtY292aWQtMTktaG9tZS1xdWFyYW50aW5lLXJ1bGUtZm9yLXRob3NlLXdoby1hcmUtZnVsbHnSAQA?oc=5

2021-08-10 01:52:21Z
52781790328186

US warned Brazil that Huawei would leave it 'high and dry' on 5G - CNA

WASHINGTON: US national security adviser Jake Sullivan raised concerns about Huawei equipment in Brazil's 5G telecoms network during his visit to the country last week, a White House official said on Monday (Aug 9), but Brazil made no promises about whether it would use products from the Chinese company.

US officials also pressed Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro on his efforts to call Brazilian election integrity into question and said the United States had confidence in Brazil's ability to carry out free elections, the National Security Council's senior director for the Western Hemisphere, Juan Gonzalez, told reporters on a conference call.

Gonzalez denied reports that the United States had offered support for a NATO partnership with Brazil in exchange for cooperation over 5G equipment made by China's Huawei Technologies, saying the two issues were not related and there was no "quid pro quo".

"We do support Brazil's aspirations as a NATO global partner as a way to deepen security cooperation over time between Brazil and the NATO countries," Gonzalez said.

"We continue to have concerns about Huawei's potential role in Brazil's telecom infrastructure," Gonzales said, adding that Huawei was facing "major challenges" to its semiconductor supply chain that would leave international customers "high and dry."

Brazil "made no commitments to us" regarding Huawei, he said, adding that US officials had urged both Brazil and Argentina to build native industries.

The United States has opposed Brazil's use of Huawei on security grounds, though Brazilian telecom companies have already built networks largely with Chinese components.

Huawei was put on a US export blacklist in 2019 and barred from accessing critical technology of US origin, affecting its ability to design its own chips and source components from outside vendors.

The far-right Bolsonaro had followed former President Donald Trump in opposing Huawei over claims that it shares confidential data with China's ruling Communist Party and government. But with China being Brazil's largest trade partner, he has faced resistance from industry and within his own government.

Gonzalez said US officials had been "very direct" in expressing confidence in Brazilian institutions being able to carry out a free and fair election next year with proper safeguards against fraud.

"We stressed the importance of not undermining confidence in that process, especially since there were no signs of fraud in ... prior elections," he said.

Bolsonaro has railed for weeks against the electronic voting machines used in Brazil and pushed for the adoption of printed receipts that can be counted if any election result is disputed.

Critics fear that he, like Trump, is sowing doubts in case he loses next year's election.

Trump and Bolsonaro were close allies and political kindred spirits. Gonzalez said Trump did not come up during the meetings.

With his popularity falling amid the world's second-highest COVID-19 death toll, opinion polls show Bolsonaro trails former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, though neither has officially announced their candidacy.

Adblock test (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vd29ybGQvdXMtd2FybmVkLWJyYXppbC1odWF3ZWktd291bGQtbGVhdmUtaXQtaGlnaC1hbmQtZHJ5LTVnLTIxMDI2MjHSAQA?oc=5

2021-08-09 19:21:32Z
CBMiZGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vd29ybGQvdXMtd2FybmVkLWJyYXppbC1odWF3ZWktd291bGQtbGVhdmUtaXQtaGlnaC1hbmQtZHJ5LTVnLTIxMDI2MjHSAQA

'We are not the virus': Two-tier COVID-19 Delta lockdowns divide Sydney - CNA

"It's like a shock for them as they believed they arrived in a free country and they say, 'we face same what we face in our (home) country'," she said.

"Some of them told me, 'we are not the virus'."

New South Wales Police declined a request for comment, although it has said publicly the 300 defence force personnel helping with "compliance checks" are trained in community engagement and unarmed.

Tim Soutphommasane, a former federal race discrimination commissioner, called western Sydney "the heartland of multicultural Australia".

"If we don't get this right, we will undermine the social fabric of this city for years to come," he said in an email.

BUSINESS BUST

The tougher lockdowns have also dealt an economic blow the federal government - facing its weakest polling in years and with elections due by early 2022 - has said may contribute to a second recession in two years.

The west, where three-quarters of residents in some suburbs are overseas-born, contributes about 7 per cent to the A$1.6 trillion (US$1.2 trillion) national economy, with major logistics and manufacturing hubs there, according to Business Western Sydney (BWS), an industry association.

Before the lockdowns, three-quarters of the area's 1 million workers left their neighbourhoods daily to go to jobs.

"These workers have gone from earning a wage to, for many of them, lining up for welfare for the first time in their lives," said BWS Executive Director David Borger.

The state government has said it would let the 80,000 construction workers from the west return to job sites once fully vaccinated, but with supply shortages and changing advice about vaccines for people under 40, less than a sixth of young Australians have had both shots, government figures show.

Adblock test (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiWmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vd29ybGQvYXVzdHJhbGlhLWNvdmlkLTE5LWxvY2tkb3duLXdlLWFyZS1ub3QtdmlydXMtMjEwMjg1MdIBAA?oc=5

2021-08-10 01:05:03Z
CBMiWmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vd29ybGQvYXVzdHJhbGlhLWNvdmlkLTE5LWxvY2tkb3duLXdlLWFyZS1ub3QtdmlydXMtMjEwMjg1MdIBAA

Hundreds of Philippine hospitals near full capacity as COVID-19 cases surge - CNA

Of the 1,291 hospitals in the Philippines, 236 have reached "critical levels" of more than 85 per cent occupancy because of the rise in cases, she said. Hospitals in the capital region, the epicentre of the current outbreak, were facing a similar situation with 25 of 159 facilities nearing full capacity, she added.

Last Friday, authorities placed the capital region, an urban sprawl of 16 cities home to more than 13 million people, under a two week lockdown as cases nationwide neared a four month high.

Footage recorded by drone on Monday showed noticeably fewer cars on Manila's streets following strict limitations on the movement of people outdoors.

The lockdown would help the government delay a further rise in cases and give it more time to reinforce healthcare systems, Vergeire said. City officials have said they would use the period to vaccinate four million people in the capital region.

The Philippines is aiming to inoculate up to 70 million people this year, and 11 million people have been fully vaccinated so far. The country has recorded 1.65 million COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began, and 29,000 deaths.

Adblock test (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMidmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vYXNpYS9waGlsaXBwaW5lcy1jb3ZpZC0xOS1ob3NwaXRhbHMtZnVsbC1jYXBhY2l0eS1sb2NrZG93bi1kZWx0YS12YXJpYW50LXN1cmdlLTIxMDE1MTbSAQA?oc=5

2021-08-09 07:24:35Z
CBMidmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vYXNpYS9waGlsaXBwaW5lcy1jb3ZpZC0xOS1ob3NwaXRhbHMtZnVsbC1jYXBhY2l0eS1sb2NrZG93bi1kZWx0YS12YXJpYW50LXN1cmdlLTIxMDE1MTbSAQA

Jakarta to ease curbs as Covid-19 cases, hospital admissions fall - The Straits Times

JAKARTA - Indonesia's capital Jakarta is set to ease Covid-19 curbs from Tuesday (Aug 10), allowing shopping malls and restaurants in the city to reopen with limited capacity as the numbers of confirmed cases and hospital admissions continue to fall.

Government sources told The Straits Times that improving indicators and ramped-up vaccinations means Jakarta is well placed to lower its control measures to the next level.

"Jakarta's indicators are improving. Active cases, positivity rate, bed occupancy ratio is all on the downtrend," a government official told ST.

The city of 11 million people has been on level four of containment measures since July 3. Malls and restaurants have been shut, with only takeaways allowed, while non-essential workers have been required to work from home.

Easing restrictions to level three will mean shopping malls and stand-alone restaurants can open at 25 per cent capacity, while 25 per cent of non-essential workers can return to work from the office.

Indonesia will extend level four mobility restrictions in several areas of Java and Bali until Aug 16, but will ease them in other places on those islands where Covid-19 cases have dropped, senior minister Luhut Pandjaitan said on Monday evening. 

Java and Bali collectively make up 60 per cent of Indonesia's population of 271 million. 

Outside of Java and Bali, those restrictions – the strictest in the government’s scale – will be extended until Aug 23, coordinating minister of economic affairs Airlangga Hartarto said. 

As at Sunday, the occupancy rate of Covid-19 isolation wards in Jakarta's hospitals has fallen to 39 per cent, while the occupancy rate for intensive care units (ICUs) has fallen to 65 per cent. Occupancy levels reached above 90 per cent in July, at the peak of the capital's fight against the more transmissible Delta variant of the virus.

Meanwhile, the city's positivity rate, which measures the percentage of people who test positive for Covid-19, was recorded at 10.2 per cent last Saturday. The government had previously said a positivity rate of 10 per cent or lower was one of the requisite conditions for controls to be eased to level three.

About 42 per cent of Jakartans have been fully vaccinated and above 90 per cent of them have received their first vaccine shots.

Adblock test (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnN0cmFpdHN0aW1lcy5jb20vYXNpYS9zZS1hc2lhL2pha2FydGEtdG8tZWFzZS1jdXJicy1hcy1jb3ZpZC0xOS1jYXNlcy1ob3NwaXRhbC1hZG1pc3Npb25zLWZhbGwtc291cmNlc9IBAA?oc=5

2021-08-09 13:44:27Z
52781786815678

World leaders, scientists react to landmark UN climate science report - CNA

SCIENTISTS

Paulo Artaxo, an IPCC lead author and environmental physicist at the University of Sao Paulo:

"This is a strong message that we are changing the climate in an irreversible way. So basically, we are damaging the climate in such a way for the next generations that this will certainly make the socioeconomic difficulties in the future much, much worse than in our generation ...

"My personal opinion is that it will be impossible to limit the increase in temperature to 1.5 degrees."

Friederike Otto, an IPCC lead author and Associate Director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford:

"Already, there are a lot of impacts of anthropogenic climate change in every region around the world ... There are things that we can stop from getting worse by keeping to the targets, but there are a lot of changes which are already here."

Helene Hewitt, a coordinating IPCC lead author and Ocean Modelling group leader at the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre:

"Previous reports may have slightly underestimated the trend of Arctic sea ice (melting) in the past and now we are combining multiple lines of evidence which suggest that we might see a practically sea-ice-free Arctic for the first time by 2050 under all scenarios."

Kristina Dahl, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists:

"While this report underscores the urgent need for climate action, prior IPCC reports and countless other studies, as well as our lived experience, have already given us more than enough evidence to know that we’re in the midst of a crisis brought to us largely by the fossil fuel industry and their political allies."

CAMPAIGN GROUPS

Helen Mountford, Vice President of Climate and Economics, World Resources Institute:

"If this IPCC report doesn’t shock you into action, it should. The report paints a very sobering picture of the unforgiving, unimaginable world we have in store if our addiction to burning fossil fuels and destroying forests continues."

Kaisa Kosonen, Senior Political Advisor on Climate and Energy, Greenpeace:

"We’re not going to let this report be shelved by further inaction. Instead, we’ll be taking it with us to the courts. By strengthening the scientific evidence between human emissions and extreme weather, the IPCC has provided new, powerful means for everyone everywhere to hold the fossil fuel industry and governments directly responsible for the climate emergency."

Nafkote Dabi, Climate Policy Lead at Oxfam:

“Amid a world in parts burning, in parts drowning and in parts starving, the IPCC today tables the most compelling wake-up call yet for global industry to switch from oil, gas and coal to renewables. Governments must use law to compel this urgent change. Citizens must use their own political power and behaviors to push big polluting corporations and governments in the right direction. There is no Plan B."

Teresa Anderson, climate policy coordinator at ActionAid International:

"The IPCC tells us that limiting average global warming to 1.5C is going to be difficult – but not impossible. This new report drills home the message that radical and transformative action is urgently needed to bring emissions down to real zero. Unfortunately, too many ‘net zero’ climate plans are being used to greenwash pollution and business-as-usual, jeopardising the goals of the Paris Agreement."

COMPANIES AND INDUSTRIES

Wai-Shin Chan, Global Head of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) Research at HSBC:

"The science is crystal clear but the response is not. Investors must use their influence to push decision makers to make the bold emission reductions required to limit the most severe consequences of climate change."

Adblock test (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZ2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vYXNpYS91bi1jbGltYXRlLWNoYW5nZS1yZXBvcnQtaXBjYy1yZWFjdGlvbnMtbGVhZGVycy1zY2llbnRpc3RzLTIxMDE3MjHSAQA?oc=5

2021-08-09 09:22:48Z
52781775156501