The water quality in the Southern Indawgyi Lake in Mohnyin Township, Kachin State, is changing and some fish species are found to be dying, according to sources from the Fisheries Department.
Since December 8, bubbles have been blowing in the bottom and the water becoming muddy. And some fish species have died from a lack of oxygen, said U Myo Nyunt Maung, regional officer from the Fisheries Department.
“We see such a situation every year. But different fish species die in different years. This year, most of Labi fish species have died. Last year, Chaung fish were found dead. In some other years, catfish, carp and spiny eel were found dead. Actually, it is like they are feeling dizzy rather than dying due to the lack of oxygen. Then they are easily caught by fishermen. According to our study, when outside temperature gets cool, the water volume changes and sulphur comes out from the bottom. The water turns from green to coffee colour. Indigenous people hold the traditional belief that it is a punishment by spiritual beings. Such a situation has been experienced for many years. It will worsen this year because of cooler temperature,” he commented.
Such a situation comes in Indawgyi Lake every year from December to mid-January, said local resident Ko Zaw Pha Hein, adding that some fish usually go dead.
Due to the current situation, a lot of people are catching fish in the lake, and the fish price is just around Ks1,500 per viss.
Indawgyi is the largest landlocked-area lake in Myanmar. Its area is 314.67 square miles.
Indawgyi Lake is within Indawgyi Wildlife Sanctuary established on March 4, 1999 containing a variety of animal species, including rare mammals and birds, herbs and flowers including rare orchids.
UNESCO designated the Indawgyi Wildlife Sanctuary and its surrounding area as a key biodiversity area on June 14, 2017.
Prime Minister Hun Sen reiterated his public calls for the Kingdom not to panic after a second case of the Covid-19 variant Omicron was found on December 17. An Iranian man, aged 25, who travelled to Cambodia from Kenya tested positive on arrival at the airport.
“Last night we found a new Omicron case. Like I said earlier, we must not panic with this variant. So far, Omicron has not killed people other than one case reported in the UK. Now, we have two Omicron cases on a Cambodian woman and an Iranian traveller. They were confirmed by the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge,” Hun Sen said during his speech at the inauguration ceremony of Morodok Techo National Stadium on December 18.
He said that instead of panicking the public must follow the preventive measures against Covid-19 in order for Cambodia to avoid future lockdowns.
As of December 18, Cambodia has recorded a total of 120,410 Covid-19 cases with 116,782 recoveries and 3,003 fatalities.
HÀ NỘI — Typhoon Rai, the ninth typhoon of this year, is forecast to reach the northwest of the Hoàng Sa (Paracel) Archipelago at 10am on Monday with wind speeds of 120-150kph, said the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.
The typhoon will move in a northeasterly direction from 10am on Tuesday at a speed of 15-20kph. The typhoon’s centre will be about 230km south of Hong Kong (China). Wind speeds will be between 60-90kph.
All vessels working in the danger zone are at high risk of being affected by strong winds, high waves and tornadoes.
The typhoon will continue to move in a northeasterly direction on Wednesday before weakening into a tropical depression. The centre of the tropical depression will be about 320km southeast Hong Kong. The strongest wind speeds will be under 40kph.
The western area of the East Sea will be at risk level four and coastal sea from Thừa Thiên-Huế to Phú Yên level three (five is the highest level).
To actively cope with the typhoon, the National Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control asked concerned provinces and cities to implement guidance from Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính and the national steering committee.
Localities will closely monitor ships that are sheltering in islands and at sea, guiding them to safe anchorage, especially those working in the Hoàng Sa (Paracel) Archipelago and the northern area of the East Sea.
Provinces and cities from Thừa Thiên-Huế to Khánh Hòa must inspect, review and be ready to ensure the safety of dams and reservoirs, especially those under construction. They must proactively operate drainage and protect production.
Islands must not leave people on ships at anchorage and in aquaculture cages to ensure safety and proactively implement plans to relocate and evacuate people, especially in houses with a high risk of unsafety.
In Bạc Liêu Province, by Saturday night, the provincial Border Guards communicated with all ships working on the sea and gave them updated information about the typhoon.
As many as 140 people, including 28 foreigners, are working on wind power projects in the province. All of them have been notified and asked to move to a safe location.
Chairman of the Bạc Liêu People’s Committee Phạm Văn Thiều asked the Border Guards to work with other organisations to be ready to rescue and report regularly to the People’s Committee.
The central province of Phú Yên has experienced heavy rains and strong waves since Saturday afternoon due to the typhoon.
The province moved more than 3,800 people working in aquatic product raising cages to safe places.
The central province of Quảng Nam also had heavy rains in the past two days, raising the risks of flash floods and landslides.
The average rainfall will be about 80-150mm, and more than 200mm in some places.
Since Saturday afternoon, border guards in the province helped local residents to consolidate houses and bring boats to safe shelters. — VNS
The number of critically ill patients with COVID-19 in South Korea hit an all-time high Saturday, the government announced the same day. The increasing number of critical COVID-19 cases continues to overwhelm the country’s medical capacity.
The number of critical COVID-19 cases reached 1,025 as of midnight Saturday, surpassing the previous high of 1,000 reported just the previous day, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
The number of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients is nearing capacity, with 79.1 percent of 1,337 spaces set aside now occupied, leaving only 279 beds available for critically ill patients nationwide.
Saturday’s tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 6,236, falling below 7,000 for the first time in five days.
The reduced infection numbers were, however, largely as fewer people were being tested over the weekend. The number of people who were tested on Saturday was 187,930, down from 281,607 on Friday.
The heavy snow advisory in Greater Seoul yesterday also influenced the number of people who visited test centers here.
Cluster infections have continued in and around Seoul as well. Of 6,236 new COVID-19 cases, Seoul and Gyeonggi Province reported 4,523 cases, accounting for 73.3 percent.
South Korea added 78 more deaths from COVID-19 as of midnight Saturday, bringing the total to 4,722 and the fatality rate to 0.84 percent.
Meanwhile, the government’s reintroduction of social distancing rules and dining curfews became effective Saturday, and are to run through Jan. 2.
Under the newly introduced measures, the government now limits private gatherings to four people nationwide. A 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. curfew is currently applied to businesses, including restaurants, cafes and movie theaters.
Starting Monday, schools in Greater Seoul will resume remote learning again, while running at two-thirds capacity.
To date, a total of 42 million people, or 84.7 percent of the country’s population of 52 million, have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Those having received their third shots reached 11.5 million, accounting for 22.5 percent of the total population.
SINGAPORE – Over 500 of Singapores laws will soon have simplified language and be more readable to the public.
These revised Acts of Parliament – including the Penal Code and the Trustees Act – will be included in the upcoming 2020 Revised Edition of Acts.
The 510 Acts will have modernised language and clearer expressions.
For example, the word “despite” has replaced “notwithstanding”, while the phrase “to avoid doubt” is used instead of “for the avoidance of doubt”.
The words in the new edition, which comes into force on Dec 31, are also more precise – one example is the use of “must” instead of “shall”. Additionally, gender-neutral terms have been used, such as “chairperson” instead of “chairman”, to reflect current societal norms.
Lengthy clauses have been broken down into multiple sub-clauses, while some Acts have clauses renumbered.
There are also stylistic changes, such as replacing Roman numbers with Arabic numerals.
Other changes include having a more comprehensive legislative history at the end of each Act, with information on its various amendments, revised editions and predecessor Acts.
Diagrams are used in Acts that have complex legislative histories.
The language revisions do not change the meaning of the Acts.
The revisions were undertaken by the Legislative Division of the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC).
It is part of the Plain Laws Understandable by Singaporeans (Plus) initiative, which seeks to ensure Singapore’s laws are understandable and accessible to the public.
The AGC also aimed to ensure consistency in house styles and expressions, as well as accuracy in cross-references, across all Acts in force as far as possible.
While the revision project was formally started in August 2017, preparatory work began two years earlier, said the AGC’s chief legislative counsel Jeanne Lee.
She said it was timely, as the last universal revision of Singapore’s laws took place in 1985. Since then, many new Acts have been enacted and existing ones extensively amended.
The revision team had to be precise in the use of every single word and punctuation, to avoid inadvertently changing the meaning of the law, she said.
“This is probably the single biggest challenge in any revision, because even a comma or a different placement of a word can change the meaning of a provision.”
The team also developed a deeper appreciation of Singapore’s legal heritage, which includes British, Indian and Malaysian laws, and those from the Straits Settlements government.
“We realised that it would be a pity to lose that by modernising all the laws, so we decided to preserve the language of certain laws so that we keep the ‘voice’ of past legislation,” said Ms Lee.
The sheer volume of the work was formidable, she said, as the 2020 revision had 510 Acts, compared with 387 in 1985.
Another challenge was tracing the legislative history of each Act, especially for older laws and those that had predecessors that had been repealed.
“These resources are not online, and the team needed to make multiple visits to various libraries,” said Ms Lee, adding that the team also had to ensure consistency in the edits across the Acts.
“We had various checklists of standard and non-standard changes, but it is not as straightforward as a direct substitution and every edit needed to be considered in its context,” said Ms Lee.
“When you have 30 drafters working on the Acts, there are bound to be differences in style and expression.”
The new revised edition can be accessed for free at the AGC’s Singapore Statutes Online website.
Hard copies can be purchased from publisher Toppan Leefung.
Hong Kongs leader Carrie Lam touted plans to revive a controversial security law that ignited a political firestorm two decades ago, after completing an election to install a new legislature filled with Beijing loyalists.
The pro-establishment council elected in a muted vote Sunday should present “new proposals” by June on how to enact security legislation, Lam told a news briefing Monday, after the results were announced. While the former British colony recorded its lowest-ever voter turnout — 30.2% — as swathes of the public boycotted the electoral system recently revamped by Beijing, the result empowers Lam to pass once-difficult legislation unopposed.
A provision of Hong Kong’s charter drafted before its return to Chinese rule in 1997 requires a law banning “foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities,” as well as, “treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government, or theft of state secrets.” Such legislation has been shelved since huge street protests in 2003.
Chinese authorities cited the failure to pass the “Article 23” legislation as justification for their decision to impose a national security law on the city in June 2020. While that measure prohibited subversion, secession, colluding with foreign forces and terrorist activities, it lacked language on treason, sedition and theft of state secrets.
“It’s the constitutional responsibility of the SAR government,” Lam said Monday, referring to Hong Kong’s status as a special administrative region. “For a long time, we haven’t done that.”
Updated proposals were needed, Lam said, since the internet had brought new security threats and the “overall situation” of Hong Kong had changed since the last effort to pass Article 23. Lam, who hasn’t said yet whether she’ll seek a second term when her current five-year stint expires in June, was slated Monday to leave for Beijing to brief state leaders on Hong Kong’s situation.
Lam stopped short of detailing a timetable for passing the legislation, saying it was “not realistic” to expect lawmakers to approve such a measure before their upcoming session ends six months from now. That said, the body has moved quickly on several major proposals in recent months with opposition members out of the chamber.
“Article 23 will likely be an extension of China’s national security standards and ways of doing things to Hong Kong,” said Kenneth Chan, associate professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University. “Having purged the democracy movement and civil society, it will be very hard for citizens to get organized to voice their opinions or oppose Article 23.”
On Monday, Lam said was she was “happy” with the election result, despite a government campaign to boost voting rates falling short. Free public transport on Sunday saw the city’s network flooded as citizens inundated leisure attractions such as Ocean Park and Disneyland, rather than ballot boxes.
Authorities arrested 10 people for inciting others to cast blank votes before the election, and issued arrest warrants for at least five others on the same grounds, as they tried to protect voter turnout.
Just 1.35 million people out of almost 4.5 million registered eligible voters cast their ballot. In the professional groups that picked 30 candidates, turnout wasn’t much higher, at 32.2%. The 1,448-member pro-Beijing committee that chooses 40 lawmakers saw a 98.5% turnout.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the lower turnout rate had “many reasons,” at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Monday. Those factors included “anti-China Hong Kong disruptors,” he said without specifying names, and Covid-19 despite the city having virtually eliminated local transmission and its public spaces being packed over the weekend.
“I’m satisfied with this election,” Lam said at a regular press briefing Monday, also dismissing the low turnout. “Particularly to ensure patriots governing the city.”
The government’s earlier postponement of Sunday’s vote due to Covid-19 restrictions prevented the opposition riding a growing wave of momentum at the ballot box. The democracy camp won its greatest-ever share of seats in the previous legislative vote, and scored a landslide in the 2019 District Council elections.
During that delay, the central government shrunk the number of directly elected lawmakers to 20 and introduced the 40 seats picked by Beijing loyalists. In May, the city’s legislature approved a China-drafted plan to vet all candidates for respect for the Communist Party.
Both moves came in the wake of widespread government protests in 2019, and wiped the pro-democracy opposition politicians who had supported that unrest from the legislature. Only one of the 90 lawmakers elected Sunday wasn’t a pro-establishment figure, with Tik Chi-yuen in the social welfare constituency representing the moderate Third Side party.
“All LegCo members are now patriots who are devoted to the Basic Law and the Hong Kong government despite their backgrounds,” Starry Lee, head of the pro-Beijing party Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said Monday.
“Even between patriots, there’ll be different views on policies, ways to solve problems and how to advocate change in the government. I believe there’ll be various opinions during policy debate,” she added.
Dongshu Liu, assistant professor specializing in Chinese politics at City University of Hong Kong, said if the opposition movement wanted to participate in future elections it would be severely clipped.
“So that’s very much like the opposition in Singapore, where you do have opposition to government polices, but not challenging the fundamental political institution,” he added, noting that the legislature would get “further away from what society actually wants.”
“That’s a bigger danger,” he added. “The political divide will sooner or later be a problem. You can’t suppress the unhappy people forever.”
Quebec is closing schools, gyms and bars and making work-from-home arrangements mandatory to stem a wave of coronavirus infections that has reached record levels.
The province recorded 4,571 new infections in 24 hours, far above the levels of last winter, when the provincial government imposed a curfew and closed all restaurants. Nearly 400 people are in the hospital with Covid-19, an increase of 76% in two weeks.
“The outburst of cases is unbelievable,” Health Minister Christian Dube said during a news conference Monday. “I ask everyone to be part of the effort.” Office workers and others who can perform their jobs from home must do so, the government said.
The province of 8.5 million people found itself at the epicenter of the crisis in the early weeks of the pandemic but fared better in the waves that followed, implementing some of the strictest measures in North America. Now it’s the hardest-hit province in Canada again and behind some peers in giving out vaccine boosters.
Dube urged people to minimize holidays gatherings as the government distributes millions of rapid tests. Schools will remain closed to in-person classes until Jan. 10, though some teaching will be done online. Restaurant hours will be reduced, and theaters will be forced to close.
Novavaxs vaccine was cleared by European regulators and is set to become the first Covid-19 shot of its kind in the region, giving countries another tool as they race to protect their populations in the face of the omicron variant.
The protein-based shot, known as Nuvaxovid, was recommended by the European Medicines Agency, according to a statement Monday, and a European Commission decision authorizing the vaccine is expected imminently.
The move follows a decision last week by the World Health Organization granting the vaccine emergency-use status. It’s a boost for Novavax, which has suffered months of delays after manufacturing problems despite securing some of the largest funding from the Trump administration in the early stages of the pandemic. The lag in the development of the shot compared to rivals such as Pfizer and Moderna hit its stock hard in recent months.
Results from two main clinical trials found the shot was effective at preventing Covid and involved more than 45,000 people in total. The first study in Mexico and the U.S. found a 90.4% reduction in the number of symptomatic Covid-19 cases from seven days after the second dose, compared with people given a placebo. The second study in the U.K. showed efficacy was similar at 89.7%.
There’s limited data on the effectiveness of Nuvaxovid against omicron, according to the European regulator.
The Maryland-based company’s vaccine mimics the coronavirus’s spike protein, sparking an immune response that prepares the body for a real infection. The vaccine can be stored at refrigerator temperatures, making it easier to transport than some messenger RNA shots. The vaccine also shows strong potential in mix-and-match booster campaigns, relying on an approach that has been used for many years in vaccines against hepatitis, meningitis and other diseases, according to the vaccine alliance, Gavi.
It also broadens Europe’s arsenal as the virus continues to spread. Novavax and the European Commission announced a supply agreement for as many as 200 million doses of the vaccine in August.
“An authorization from the commission would deliver the first protein-based vaccine to the EU during a critical time when we believe having choice among vaccines will lead to increased immunization,” Stanley Erck, Novavax’s CEO, wrote in the statement.
Vaccine manufacturer Moderna said Monday that a booster dose of its coronavirus vaccine significantly raised antibody levels against the omicron variant, amid growing concerns about its rapid spread in the United States.
Abooster dose of Moderna’s vaccine – half the dose used in the original shots for adults – increased antibody levels against omicron by 37 times, the company said in a statement, citing preliminary data.
Those antibodies “should provide some good level of protection as we go into the holiday season,” Paul Burton, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said in an interview.
Federal health officials warned this weekend, ahead of Christmas and New Year’s gatherings, that the United States could face record levels of coronavirus cases in the coming days. New York state has for three straight days reported record case numbers, and officials said the country could soon face the same fate.
About half of coronavirus cases nationally are of the omicron variant, Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious-disease expert, said Sunday on CNN. Because of omicron, the United States could soon reach 1 million new cases each day, Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told CBS on Sunday.
“The big question is, are those million cases going to be sick enough to need health care and especially hospitalization?” Collins said. “We’re just holding our breath to see how severe this will be.”
Burton said that while Moderna did not yet have clinical data to speak to its vaccine’s protection against hospitalization and death, Monday’s data was “very reassuring because we’ve seen time and time again . . . that the vaccine is highly effective at preventing infection, hospitalization and death due to covid.”
Moderna is still pursuing an omicron-targeted vaccine, though its statement said that given the variant’s rapid spread, the company’s “first line of defense against omicron” would be a booster of its existing vaccine. Its omicron-specific vaccine candidate will advance to clinical trials early next year, the company said.
The current vaccine, Burton said, is “what we have right now, as we’re heading into the eye of the storm of omicron.”
Moderna also announced that a dose double the size of a normal booster, equivalent to that used in the main shots and in the third dose given primarily to immunocompromised people, raised antibody levels by 83 times.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends this third, “primary shot” of the vaccine for people who are moderately or severely immunocompromised, such as those undergoing cancer treatment, taking immunosuppressing medication, or living with advanced or untreated HIV. Other vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and people who work in high-risk settings, were instead among the first to be eligible for booster shots.
The “exceptional” response from the larger dose, Burton said, could signal to officials that a higher dose may be useful in “certain high-risk individuals.”
Many Americans have yet to get a booster shot: About 18 percent of the U.S. population has had one, according to CDC data. About 61 percent of Americans have been fully vaccinated.
The U.K. government kept open the prospect of a Christmas lockdown to arrest a surge in the number Covid cases as Boris Johnson faces opposition from within his own cabinet to further restrictions.
Johnson is due to update his ministers on the latest virus situation Monday afternoon alongside Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance, Downing Street spokesman Max Blain told reporters on Monday. Blain declined to comment on whether specific new measures would be introduced.
The government will take “any necessary steps to protect lives and livelihoods,” he said. “We are still monitoring the data and keeping a very close eye on it.”
The prime minister’s scientific advisers have recommended bringing in tougher rules “very soon” to keep hospitalizations from escalating to thousands a day. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies said last week limits on household mixing and the closing of hospitality venues could “substantially reduce” the peak in cases.
But Johnson is being squeezed by government scientists on one side and mutinous members of his party on the other, who have already been angered by restrictions they view as unreasonable interference in the lives of ordinary Britons.
Divisions in Johnson’s cabinet over Covid policy came to a head over the weekend when David Frost, the minister in charge of post-Brexit negotiations quit, citing the government’s pandemic restrictions among his reasons. The Times on Monday said at least 10 cabinet ministers oppose pre-Christmas curbs.
“I left the government because, as I think is well known, I couldn’t support certain policies, most recently on Covid restrictions,” Frost told Sky News. “If you’re a minister, you have to support collective responsibility, you have to support decisions of the government, and I couldn’t, so that’s why I had to leave.”
The scale of Conservative opposition to more curbs was put into stark focus last week, when more than 100 of Johnson’s Members of Parliament opposed the introduction of Covid passes to gain entry to venues and large events — the biggest rebellion of his tenure. The measure was approved only because of support from the opposition Labour Party.
The “crisis of confidence” in Johnson’s leadership from the Tories “is impacting on the government’s public health response,” Labour Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting told Sky on Sunday.
The Times reported that Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Truss are among the 10 cabinet ministers resisting calls to toughen the Covid rules before Christmas. Other opponents include Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, and Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg, the paper said.
Sunak isn’t opposed to new measures, but rather wants to see more evidence backing the need to bring them in, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The chancellor also faces a clamor from hospitality businesses calling for more government support because Christmas bookings have been hit by mass cancellations as Britons dial down their social interactions in the face of the surging pandemic.
“Trading levels are so poor that the need for proportionate government support is already acute, and urgently necessary,” Kate Nicholls, chief executive officer of lobby group UKHospitality said. “Speedily delivered grants will be vital to short-term business survival.”
The Treasury is examining where support is most needed and how best to deploy it, according to the person, who said any aid would be tied to the nature of any new restrictions — if there are any.
Johnson’s ability to persuade his party to support any fresh measures has been hobbled by a series of missteps that have weakened his standing. Last week’s rebellion over Covid rules in the House of Commons was followed by a resounding defeat in a special election that saw the Tories lose a seat they had held for 200 years.
All of that followed weeks of turmoil that began with Johnson’s botched attempt to prevent Parliament’s suspension of his friend, Conservative MP Owen Paterson over violations of lobbying rules. In between that and the loss of Paterson’s seat last week, the Tories have been hit by a string of negative news stories about second jobs held by MPs and about parties and other social gatherings apparently held in breach of Covid rules last year.
The latest controversy comes as the Guardian newspaper published a picture on Monday of Johnson, his wife, and Downing Street staff drinking wine and eating cheese in the garden of No. 10 during lockdown last year. A spokesman for Johnson denied it was a party.
“This was not a social gathering: it is palpably not a social gathering, because you had people in work suits, following meetings that they were having at work,” Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told Times Radio. “Let’s also remember, Number 10 was a place, the hub, where they were running the crisis response.”
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