From drones to sensors, Malaysian durian grower goes high-tech - CNA

BATU PAHAT: Drones spraying pesticide, sensors taking soil readings, sprinklers that squirt fertiliser at the touch of a button - a Malaysian plantation is using high-tech methods to boost its crop of pungent durians.

Grown across Southeast Asia, fans hail the spiky durian as the "king of fruit" due to its bittersweet flavours and creamy golden flesh, and it is particularly popular in China.

But to its detractors it is the world's smelliest fruit, with an overpowering stench like rotting food that has seen it banned in hotels and on public transport across the region.

In a competitive market, Malaysian grower Top Fruits Plantations has turned to high-tech methods to lift its output.

"It's a much faster way to get more consistent results," managing director Tan Sue Sian told AFP during a recent tour of one of the company's plantations in Batu Pahat, southern Johor state.

Using technology allows farmers to gauge more precisely how much fertiliser and water the trees need, he said.

"When you give what is needed, the fruit will be much more consistent. The shape will be better, and the aroma will be better," added Tan, who has more than 30 years' experience growing durians.

SENSORS ESSENTIAL

Key in the drive are sensors spread across 160 hectares of Top Fruits' 700-acre Batu Pahat plantation, relaying data on soil quality and content to workers' handheld devices.

The sensors are boxes mounted on poles, connected to the soil with a series of cables. By 2024, the entire plantation should be kitted out with them.

Sprinklers attached to a network of pipes are remotely activated to spray fertiliser onto the trees, while drones hover over the plantation squirting pesticide.

Such methods are unheard of on Malaysian durian farms, where growers typically rely on a large labour force, instinct and educated guesses.

The investment has been hefty - Top Fruits has spent about RM4 million (US$900,000) over the past three years on the technology.

But it has led to an increase in yields of 40 per cent, while its workforce has shrunk by 30 per cent.

The company is now able to produce 800 tonnes of durians from its farms every year, with more than 80 per cent of its crop frozen in factories to be exported overseas, much of it to China.

In a bid to further boost their crop, Top Fruits is getting into research by setting up a lab and collaborating with local universities.

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2022-05-25 04:20:00Z
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Indonesia lawmakers call for push to curb spread of foot and mouth disease - CNA

JAKARTA: Indonesia's government reported on Monday (May 23) that more than 20,000 livestock had been infected by foot and mouth disease in 16 provinces, as lawmakers urged authorities to find the source of the virus and ramp up efforts to prevent further spread.

The infections have spread since the Agriculture Ministry reported cases in two provinces less than two weeks ago. Local media reported around 1,600 animals were infected in East Java and 1,200 in Aceh province at the time.

Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo told a parliamentary hearing on Monday that 20,723 head of livestock had been infected in 16 provinces as of last week. He said these provinces had a total livestock population of around 13.8 million.

Lawmakers at the hearing urged the government to investigate where the infection originated from, slamming authorities for being "careless" in letting the virus spread across the country for the first time since around late 1980s.

The infections have spread at a time when Indonesia was already facing rising prices of meat and ahead of Eid al-Adha, one of the most important Islamic holidays, where Muslims traditionally slaughter animals and share the meat with the poor.

Lawmaker Anggia Erma Rini said vaccines were urgently needed to tackle the outbreak.

Limpo said the government was importing vaccines, but preferred to use Indonesian-developed doses that should be ready within a few months.

Authorities in affected areas are also setting up barriers between city borders to prevent the spread into other regions, Limpo said.

"We are being fully supported by the police," he said regarding the border controls.

Another lawmaker Dedi Mulyadi criticised the lack of sanitation control at some local animal markets.

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2022-05-23 11:18:16Z
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Commentary: China is looking less attractive to foreign investment - CNA

HONG KONG: “No matter what you may be selling, your business in China should be enormous, if the Chinese who should buy your goods would only do so.”  Never did an “if only” clause carry more weight.

In the 85 years since Carl Crow, a Shanghai-based American advertising executive, wrote these words in his book Four Hundred Million Customers, China’s population has grown by 1 billion people. Their combined spending power is now second only to that of Americans.

Yet the gulf between promise and reality in China’s fabled market haunts foreign corporations as much today as when Crow was trying to market American lipstick and French brandy to the emerging middle class of the 1930s. A host of political and regulatory issues — exacerbated by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s strict zero-COVID policies and his stance over Russia’s war in Ukraine — are conspiring to eviscerate the dreams of many multinationals.

PESSIMISM IN BEIJING AND SHANGHAI

The result is that direct investment into China by foreign companies is falling off a cliff. Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, says the unpredictability is prompting the European business community to put investments into China “on hold”. 

“Many of our members are now taking a wait-and-see approach to investments in China,” he adds, citing an attitudes survey in May of the chamber’s 1,800 members. “Twenty-three per cent of our members are now considering shifting current or planned investments out of China, the highest level on record. And 77 per cent report that China’s attractiveness as a future investment destination has decreased.”

Pessimism has infected the United States business community, too. Michael Hart, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, warns that the travel hassles encountered by foreign executives seeking to visit their Chinese operations — including flight cancellations, visa complications and lengthy quarantines on arrival — will lead to a “massive decline” in investment “two, three, four years from now”.

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2022-05-22 22:08:59Z
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Explainer: How concerned should we be about monkeypox? - CNA

NEW YORK: Global health officials have sounded the alarm over rising cases in Europe and elsewhere of monkeypox, a type of viral infection more common to west and central Africa.

As of Saturday (May 21), 92 confirmed cases and 28 suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported from 12 member states that are not endemic for the virus, the UN agency said.

The following is what is known about the current outbreak and relative risk of monkeypox:

HOW DANGEROUS IS IT?

The risk to the general public is low at this time, a US public health official told reporters at a briefing on Friday.

Monkeypox is a virus that can cause symptoms including fever, aches and presents with a distinctive bumpy rash.

It is related to smallpox, but is usually milder, particularly the West African strain of the virus that was identified in a US case, which has a fatality rate of around 1 per cent. Most people fully recover in two to four weeks, the official said.

The virus is not as easily transmitted as the SARS-CoV-2 virus that spurred the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Experts believe the current monkeypox outbreak is being spread through close, intimate skin on skin contact with someone who has an active rash. That should make its spread easier to contain once infections are identified, experts said.

"COVID-19 is spread by the respiratory route and is highly infectious. This doesn't appear to be the case with the monkeypox," said Dr Martin Hirsch of Massachusetts General Hospital.

Many - but not all - of the people who have been diagnosed in the current monkeypox outbreak are men who have sex with men, including cases in Spain linked to a sauna in the Madrid region.

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2022-05-22 03:20:00Z
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Vietnam sacks head of the country's main stock exchange over 'wrongdoing' - CNA

HANOI: Vietnam has fired general director of its main Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the government said on Saturday (May 21), as the country intensifies a long-running crackdown on officials it accuses of graft.

Le Hai Tra, 47, was dismissed for "having committed serious violations and wrongdoings", the government said in a statement, without elaborating. He was also expelled from the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Tra, who holds a double master's degree in Finance and Administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Vietnamese authorities in March called for the anti-corruption drive to be stepped up in the Southeast Asian country, with a focus on financial markets.

A series of high-profile corporate arrests on accusations of market manipulation triggered a US$40 billion wipeout for Vietnamese stocks and rattled investor confidence in the fast-growing economy.

Tra will be replaced by Tran Anh Dao, the deputy chief of HoSE, the government said.

Vietnam on Friday fired the chairman of its State Securities Commission, Tran Van Dung, over the same accusations as Tra's.

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2022-05-21 04:41:54Z
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Explainer: Why is monkeypox spreading around the world and should Singapore be concerned? - TODAY

SINGAPORE — Cases of monkeypox have been on the rise across the world, with a handful appearing in the United Kingdom over the last month, and new cases being reported in Australia, France, Italy and Sweden.

The United States also confirmed its first case on Wednesday (May 18) and there are 13 suspected cases in Canada.

This has caused alarm worldwide because the disease, which causes a distinctive bumpy rash among other symptoms, mainly occurs in west and central Africa and does not usually spread elsewhere in the world. 

However, infectious disease experts in Singapore told TODAY that the virus causing monkeypox is not a cause of concern here for now, and that the chances of widespread transmission is far lower than that of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus behind Covid-19. 

News agency BBC reported that since the first case of monkeypox was detected in the UK on May 7 from a patient who had travelled to Nigeria, there have been a total of 20 confirmed cases in the UK this month. 

There was one confirmed case in Sweden and one in Italy on Thursday, and on Friday, Australia reported its first case from a patient who had returned from Europe. 

Just what is this illness, why is it spreading farther now, and with the resumption of international travel during the Covid-19 pandemic, what should Singapore do to prevent an outbreak? TODAY speaks to several experts to find out more. 

WHAT IS MONKEYPOX? 

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that the monkeypox virus is typically transmitted from animals to humans, from animal hosts such as rodents and monkeys.

It was first identified in the late 1950s in monkeys, then found in humans in the 1970s in the Democratic Republic of Congo, WHO’s website stated.

An infected person may have symptoms that include fever, headaches, swellings, back pain, aching muscles and a general fatigue.

Once the fever stops, a bumpy rash may develop, often beginning on the face, then spreading to other parts of the body, most commonly the palms of the hands and soles of the feet.

The rash can be extremely itchy and it goes through different stages before finally forming a scab, which later falls off, but can cause scarring.

The infection usually clears up on its own with symptoms lasting between two and four weeks. 

Animal-to-human transmission of the virus can occur from direct contact such as through blood, bodily fluids or lesions of infected animals. 

Human-to-human transmission can happen from close contact with respiratory secretions such as mucus, skin lesions of an infected person or recently contaminated objects, WHO said. 

For transmissions via droplets from respiratory particles, there usually has to be prolonged face-to-face contact, and this puts health workers, household members and other close contacts of active cases at greater risk.

Outbreaks of human cases of monkeypox have been reported in 11 African countries since 1970. However, outbreaks have also occurred in various other countries, be they among animals or humans.

In 2003, there was a monkeypox outbreak in the US involving infected pet dogs.

In the late 2010s, the virus has also been detected in travellers who went from Nigeria to other countries — including Singapore in May 2019. 

The death rate for infected persons used to be 0 to 11 per cent, but in recent times, it has been around 3 to 6 per cent. 

Associate Professor Alex Cook said that this is higher than the death rate of Covid-19, but more developed countries such as Singapore should not be too concerned. 

The vice-dean of research at Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health added: "We would hope it should be lower in high-income countries with more healthcare resources."

WHY IS MONKEYPOX SPREADING TO MORE PLACES NOW?

Experts told TODAY that the spread of the virus has caught the world by surprise because it is not commonly spread among people.

However, new evidence does suggest that the virus is transmitted sexually between men who have consensual sex and this may explain why cases are spreading. 

Professor Dale Fisher, senior consultant at National University Hospital's division of infectious diseases, said that transmission of the virus is traditionally through animal-to-human contact, and that "human-to-human transmission is known to occur but is not common".

However, Dr Paul Tambyah, president of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, said there is evidence that the disease is "no longer confined to animal-to-human transmission or to travellers", although the sample size has been small in these studies.

Based on the evidence so far, "there is a significant amount of human-to-human transmission in Europe also apparently among men who have sex with men", Dr Tambyah added.

This is the first time that the monkeypox virus has been associated with possible sexual transmission. 

Prof Fisher said that even though several monkeypox cases are being identified in this "male demographic", there could be a bias since sexual health clinics may be on higher alert than other settings based on the initial real-life counts.

"You are more likely to get diagnosed because doctors are really on the lookout for it," he said. "It’s a bias to consider when analysing figures." 

WHO stated on its website that close physical contact is a well-known risk factor for disease spread, but it is unclear at this time if the monkeypox virus can be passed specifically through sexual contact and that more studies are needed to better understand this risk.

Prof Fisher pointed out that there is also another aspect of the disease spread that is not understood yet: Infected persons who may not have severe symptoms and are still able to go about their lives, interacting with others and potentially spreading the virus further. 

Assoc Prof Cook said that measures to prevent disease spread will hinge closely on what is understood about how the virus is transmitted. 

"It is as yet unclear what the implications of that will be for infection control, though as more information is gathered, we get a better idea of what measures to take to prevent spread," he added. 

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2022-05-20 15:44:00Z
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WHO calls emergency meeting as monkeypox cases cross 100 in Europe - CNA

LONDON: The World Health Organization was due to hold an emergency meeting on Friday (May 20) to discuss the recent outbreak of monkeypox, a viral infection more common to west and central Africa, after more than 100 cases were confirmed or suspected in Europe.

In what Germany described as the largest-ever outbreak in Europe, cases have now been confirmed in at least five countries - the United Kingdom, Spain Portugal, Germany and Italy - as well as the United States, Canada and Australia.

First identified in monkeys, the disease typically spreads through close contact and has rarely spread outside Africa, so this series of cases has triggered concern.

However, scientists do not expect the outbreak to evolve into a pandemic like COVID-19, given the virus does not spread as easily as SARS-COV-2.

Monkeypox is usually a mild viral illness, characterised by symptoms of fever as well as a distinctive bumpy rash.

"With several confirmed cases in the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal, this is the largest and most widespread outbreak of monkeypox ever seen in Europe," said Germany's armed forces' medical service, which detected its first case in the country on Friday.

Fabian Leendertz, from the Robert Koch Institute, described the outbreak as an epidemic.

"However it is very unlikely that this epidemic will last long. The cases can be well isolated via contact tracing and there are also drugs and effective vaccines that can be used if necessary," he said.

There isn't a specific vaccine for monkeypox, but data shows that vaccines that were used to eradicate smallpox are up to 85 per cent effective against monkeypox, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

British authorities on Thursday said they had offered a smallpox vaccine to some healthcare workers and others who may have been exposed to monkeypox.

The WHO committee due to meet is the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Infectious Hazards with Pandemic and Epidemic Potential (STAG-IH), which advises WHO on infection risks that could pose a threat to global health.

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2022-05-20 13:15:00Z
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