asia
UN labor group says 1.6M jobs lost in Myanmar in 2021
The International Labor Organization says about 1.6 million jobs were lost in Myanmar in 2021, with women suffering the worst setbacks as work in factories, tourism and construction dwindled amid the pandemic and a military takeover.
In a report issued Friday, the ILO said the country was facing a “multi-dimensional humanitarian crisis” as political turmoil, violence, insecurity and displacement have been heaped on top of the troubles from the coronavirus pandemic.
The jobs lost, which include both formal employment and informal work, amounted to about 8% of all employment, as many people stopped working after the military seized power on Feb. 1, ousting the country’s elected government.
Myanmar’s economy is estimated to have contracted by about 18% last year. The ILO said that many workers had shifted into poor paying jobs or farm work, while conditions at factories have deteriorated as the military administration has cracked down on labor organizing.
READ: Cases plateauing in parts of India but omicron still surges
About half of all adults in Myanmar work in agricultural related jobs and the sector has been hit by a drop in exports, lower prices, disrupted access to credit given wider troubles in the financial sector due to the coup, and flooding, the report said.
Farmers are also suffering from armed conflict, as security forces fight armed ethnic organizations and members of the political opposition amid widespread public resistance to the military’s takeover.
The report estimates that nearly a third, or about 350,000, construction jobs had vanished as investors suspended or cancelled projects. About 80,000 jobs in tourism and hospitality also were lost as hotels shut down and the country was closed to most travel due to the pandemic.
Most of those jobs were held by women, the ILO said. So were most of the 220,000 jobs estimated to have been lost in garment manufacturing, one of the fastest growing opportunities for female employment before the pandemic and military takeover.
The crisis has “reversed years of progress in the labor market and, if unaddressed, will continue to widen gaps in decent work particularly for the most vulnerable workers and businesses,” it said.
Cases plateauing in parts of India but omicron still surges
Indian health officials said there were signs of COVID-19 infections plateauing in some parts of the country but cautioned that cases were still surging in other states, linked to a new, stealthier version of the omicron variant.
Most of the cases were concentrated in 10 states, where over 90% of patients had mild symptoms and were being treated at home, Lav Agarwal, a federal health official, said at a media briefing.
The rate of infection in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi in the north, Maharashtra on the western coast, and West Bengal, Odisha in the east has begun dipping, he said. However, cases are still rising in the southern states of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu along with Gujarat and Rajasthan in the northwest.
“Early indication of a plateau in cases are being reported in certain geographies,” Agarwal said Thursday.
He said that the number of people who needed oxygen support or had to be hospitalized during the current surge was lower than in the one fueled by the delta variant last year, which capsized India’s public health system.
There are only a few states in India where the delta variant is still circulating. Genetic sequencing indicates that the initial spike in cases in December was powered by an early version of the omicron variant. But most new cases are now linked to a different version called BA.2 — a stealthier version of the omicron, which some scientists worry may also be more transmissible.
Read: Biden says Russian invasion in Feb. ‘distinct possibility’
The dip in cases has prompted some local authorities to relax restrictions. In New Delhi, restaurants, bars, and movie theaters can now run at half capacity.
Health experts cautioned that with restrictions loosening, infections were likely to increase.
“This is a balance that we always have to play with,” said Dr. Jacob John, who studies viruses at the Christian Medical College in southern Vellore city.
Over half of India’s population is fully vaccinated. And around 20% are waiting for a second shot. India started giving a booster shot to some vulnerable groups earlier in January, but health officials said that there has been no discussion about whether booster shots were necessary for the wider population.
The country detected over 250,000 new infections on Friday, but Dr. Vineeta Bal, who studies immune systems at the Indian Institute of Science Education Research in Pune city, warned that these were definitely an undercount.
She said that India’s pandemic efforts were still being marred by chronic issues like under-reporting of infections and patchy data, but minimizing the number of people who needed to be hospitalized was key.
“And fortunately, so far, even in the good, the bad and the ugly ... it hasn’t gone out of hand,” she said.
Veteran Indian playback singer Sandhya Mukherjee hospitalised
Veteran Indian playback singer Sandhya Mukherjee, who sang the iconic song 'Bangabandhu Tumi Phirey Ele' when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was freed from prison, has been hospitalised in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.
The 90-year-old was rushed to Kolkata's premier state-run SSKM hospital on Thursday after she complained of breathlessness.
Hospital doctors told the local media that she was suffering from a lung infection that triggered her breathlessness. "A medical board has been constituted at SSKM Hospital to treat Mukherjee," a doctor said.
Also read: Legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar hospitalised with Covid
A recipient of Banga Bibhushan, the highest civilian honour of the eastern state of West Bengal, Mukherjee began her music career as a classical vocalist. Apart from several Bengali songs, she sang, as a playback singer, in 17 Bollywood films.
During the Bangladesh Liberation War, she raised money for the millions of Bengali refugees who came to Bengal to escape the fighting.
Also read: Film director Kazi Hayat hospitalised
Mukherjee subsequently became one of the first foreign artists to perform at an open-air concert in Paltan Maidan in Dhaka to celebrate the first Ekushey February after Bangladesh became independent in 1971.
Tata Group formally takes over ailing Air India
India's salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group on Thursday formally took over the country's ailing national carrier Air India for a whopping 2.4 billion US dollars, three months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government announced the deal.
"We are totally delighted to have Air India back at the Tata Group and are committed to making this a world-class airline," Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran told the media in the national capital, where he also had a one-to-one meeting with Modi.
Indian Investment Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said that the carrier would now be run by a new board of directors.
Read: India's 1st woman Rafale pilot participates in R-Day
"The strategic disinvestment transaction of Air India successfully concluded today (Thursday) with the transfer of 100% shares of Air India to M/s Talace Pvt Ltd (a subsidiary of the Tata Group) along with management control," he said.
In October last year, the Indian government announced the name of the Tata Group as the successful bidder for the airline.
Moments later, its Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata had tweeted a photograph of the company's founder JRD Tata posing with an Air India aircraft. "Welcome back, Air India,” the 83-year-old industrialist wrote.
The Indian government had long tried to offload a controlling stake in the airline. But after its initial bid failed to attract buyers, Prime Minister Modi's government had announced that it would sell its entire stake in the national carrier, reeling under a debt of US dollar 3.2 billion.
Founded by industrialist JRD Tata as Tata Airlines in 1932, the carrier was nationalised by the Indian government in 1953, nearly six years after the country gained independence from colonial Britain.
Read: Looking forward to working together with India for 50 years and beyond: Hasina to Modi
The airline is the largest international carrier out of India, with an 18.6% market share. Air India serves over 57 domestic destinations and 45 international destinations in 31 countries across five continents.
The flagship carrier has many assets, including prized slots at London's Heathrow airport and a fleet of 130 aircraft. On the other hand, the Tata Group currently operates Vistara, the country's only other full-service private carrier, in collaboration with Singapore Airlines.
UK PM highlights launch of free trade deal talks, Covid vaccine bond in R-Day message to India
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has extended greetings to the people of India on the Republic Day as he focussed his message on the launch of free trade agreement (FTA) talks and the India-UK vaccine partnership, reports The Print.
Johnson said he is proud of the friendship shared by the two “diverse democracies” and looked forward to fortifying the strong bond over the next 75 years and beyond.
Read: India's 1st woman Rafale pilot participates in R-Day
He said, "The UK and India are tied by deep bonds that span through the generations and across some of the greatest modern day challenges we have faced. That is why I want to send my best wishes on behalf of the United Kingdom to the people of India, and to all the British Indians in the UK, on India’s Republic Day."
“As two diverse democracies, I am proud of our strong friendship, demonstrated by the launch of free trade negotiations this month and our partnership manufacturing the Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine. I look forward to fortifying those bonds as we bring our ambitions, people and economies together to prosper for the next 75 years and beyond.”
Anglo-Swedish biopharma major AstraZeneca is in a manufacturing tie-up with Serum Institute India (SII) for the production of Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine, known in India as Covishield.
Earlier this month, the UK’s Department of Trade (DIT) confirmed the first round of FTA talks are being held virtually and expected to last into this week.
An India-UK FTA is billed in the UK as creating huge benefits for both countries, with the potential to boost bilateral trade by up to GBP 28 billion a year by 2035 and increase wages by up to GBP 3 billion across the UK.
Read: India reports 286,384 new COVID-19 cases
A deal with India is also pegged as a “big step forward” in the UK’s post-Brexit strategy to refocus trade on the Indo-Pacific, home to half of the world’s population and 50 per cent of global economic growth.
The DIT has said the UK wants an agreement that slashes barriers to doing business and trading with India’s GBP 2 trillion economy and market of 1.4 billion consumers, including cutting tariffs on exports of British-made cars and Scotch whisky.
India's 1st woman Rafale pilot participates in R-Day
The country's first woman Rafale fighter jet pilot Shivangi Singh was part of the Indian Air Force tableau at the Republic Day parade on Wednesday. She is only the second woman fighter jet pilot to be part of the IAF tableau.
Last year, Flight Lieutenant Bhawna Kanth became the first female fighter jet pilot to be part of the IAF tableau, reports Rediff.com.
Singh, who is from Varanasi, joined the IAF in 2017 and was commissioned in the IAF's second batch of women fighter pilots. She had been flying MiG-21 Bison aircraft before flying the Rafale.
Read: India reports 286,384 new COVID-19 cases
She is part of the IAF's Golden Arrows squadron based out of Ambala in Punjab.
The IAF tableau was based on the theme -- 'Indian Air Force transforming for the future'. Scaled down models of Rafale fighter jet, indigenously developed light combat helicopter (LCH) and 3D surveillance radar Aslesha MK-1 were part of the float.
It also featured a scaled down model of MiG-21 aircraft that played a major role in the 1971 war in which India defeated Pakistan, leading to the creation of Bangladesh, as well as a model of India's first indigenously developed aircraft Gnat.
Read: India marks 73rd Republic Day with pompous parade
The first batch of Rafale fighter jets arrived on July 29, 2020, nearly four years after India signed an inter-governmental agreement with France to procure 36 aircraft at a cost of Rs 59,000 crore.
So far, 32 Rafale jets have been delivered to the IAF and four are expected by April this year.
India reports 286,384 new COVID-19 cases
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 40,371,500 on Thursday, as 286,384 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the Health Ministry's latest data.
Besides, as many as 573 deaths due to the pandemic since Wednesday morning took the total death toll to 491,700.
There are still 2,202,472 active COVID-19 cases in India despite a fall of 20,546 active cases during the past 24 hours.
Read: India reports 258,089 new COVID-19 cases
A total of 37,677,328 people have been successfully cured and discharged from hospitals so far, out of which 306,357 were discharged during the past 24 hours.
North Korea fires 2 suspected missiles in 6th launch in 2022
North Korea on Thursday fired two suspected ballistic missiles into the sea in its sixth round of weapons launches this month, South Korea’s military said.
Experts say North Korea’s unusually fast pace in testing activity underscores an intent to pressure the Biden administration over long-stalled negotiations aimed at exchanging a release of crippling U.S.-led sanctions against the North and the North’s denuclearization steps.
The renewed pressure comes as the pandemic further shakes the North’s economy, which was already battered by crippling U.S.-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons program and decades of mismanagement by its own government.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the weapons, which were likely short-range, were launched five minutes apart from the eastern coastal town of Hamhung and flew 190 kilometers (118 miles) on an apogee of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) before landing at sea.
Read: US hits NKorean officials with sanctions after missile test
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who described North Korea’s repeated missile firings as “extremely regrettable,” but said there has so far been no reports of damage to vessel and aircraft around the Japanese coast.
Senior South Korean security and military officials gathered for an emergency National Security Council meeting where they expressed strong regret over the North’s continuing launches and urged Pyongyang to recommit to dialogue, Seoul’s presidential office said.
The North also last week issued a veiled threat to resume the testing of nuclear explosives and long-range missiles targeting the American homeland, which leader Kim Jong Un suspended in 2018 while initiating diplomacy with the United States.
Kim’s high-stakes summitry with then-President Donald Trump derailed in 2019 after the Americans rejected North Korea’s demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.
Some experts say North Korea could dramatically escalate weapons demonstrations after the Winter Olympics, which begin Feb. 4 in China, the North’s main ally and economic lifeline.
They say Pyongyang’s leadership likely feels it could use a dramatic provocation to move the needle with the Biden administration, which has been preoccupied with bigger adversaries including China and Russia.
The Biden administration has offered open-ended talks but showed no willingness to ease sanctions unless Kim takes real steps to abandon the nuclear weapons and missiles he sees as his strongest guarantee of survival.
The North has been ramping up its testing activity since last fall, demonstrating various missiles and delivery systems apparently designed to overwhelm missile defense systems in the region.
Experts say Kim is trying to apply more pressure on rivals Washington and Seoul to accept it as a nuclear power in hopes of winning relief from economic sanctions and convert the diplomacy with Washington into mutual arms-reduction negotiations.
Thursday’s launch came two days after South Korea’s military detected the North flight-testing two suspected cruise missile at an unspecified inland area.
Read: N. Korea fires 2 suspected missiles in 4th launch this year
North Korea opened 2022 with a pair of test-firings of a purported hypersonic missile, which Kim described as an asset that would remarkably bolster his nuclear “war deterrent.”
The North also this month test-fired two different types of short-range ballistic missiles it has developed since 2019 that are designed to be maneuverable and fly at low altitudes, which experts say potentially improve their chances of evading and defeating missile defense systems.
In a ruling party meeting attended by Kim last week, the North accused the Biden administration of hostility and threats and said it will consider “all temporally-suspended activities” it had paused during its diplomacy with the Trump administration, in an apparent threat to resume testing of nuclear explosives and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry had earlier warned of “stronger and certain reaction” after the Biden administration imposed fresh sanctions following the North’s second hypersonic test on Jan. 11.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on five North Koreans over their roles in obtaining equipment and technology for the country’s missile programs, while the State Department ordered sanctions against another North Korean, a Russian man and a Russian company for their broader support of North Korea’s weapons activities.
However, Washington’s efforts to seek new U.N. Security Council sanctions against the five North Koreans sanctioned by the Treasury Department were blocked last week by China and Russia, which have called for the U.N. to end key sanctions against the North, citing its economic difficulties.
“Despite efforts to strengthen sanctions, Washington’s responses to North Korean launches this month are nowhere near its reaction to Pyongyang’s provocations in 2017,” when the North staged an unusually provocative run in nuclear and ICBM tests, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
“U.S. policy has become more measured and coordinated but is still inadequate for changing North Korean behavior. The Biden administration has other priorities, ranging from pandemic recovery at home to confronting Russia over Ukraine, Iran regarding its nuclear program, and China across the board,” he said.
Despite international concerns over its weapons activity, North Korea will still get to chair a U.N. disarmament forum during a one-month presidency between May 30 to June 24, according to a U.N. statement.
The U.N. Conference on Disarmament, which has 65 member states and focuses on nuclear disarmament issues, says the conference’s presidency rotates among member states.
U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based activist group, called for the U.S. and European ambassadors to walk out of the conference during North Korea’s presidency, saying that the country threatens to attack other U.N. member states with missiles and commits atrocities against its own people.
Police: Fire, clash at nightclub kill 19 people in Indonesia
A nightclub in Indonesia’s West Papua province burned after two community groups clashed inside the building and 19 people were killed, officials said Tuesday.
Members of the two groups attacked each other with machetes, arrows and Molotov cocktails, National Police spokesperson Ahmad Ramadhan said at a news conference.
One of the dead was a member of the groups that clashed, and 18 bodies were found after the fire Monday night at the club in Sorong city.
The clash Monday at the nightclub followed a clash Saturday night between the same groups because of a misunderstanding, city police Chief Ary Nyoto Setiawan said.
“We called them and mediated them but they continued the clash until late night,” Setiawan said.
He said police evacuated visitors of the nightclub during the clash, but firefighters later found 18 bodies in one of the rooms inside the building.
Police are still investigating what caused the clash and whether the fire was set or was accidental.
First woman judge sworn into Pakistan’s Supreme Court
Pakistan has a woman on its highest court for the first time.
Ayesha Malik’s swearing-in on Monday as a justice on Pakistan’s Supreme Court was a landmark moment for the Islamic nation where women often struggle to get justice — especially in cases involving sexual assault.
Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmad administered Malik’s oath-taking in Islamabad. The event had been a controversial development for Pakistan’s male-dominated judicial system. Malik’s appointment, confirmed last week by Pakistani President Arif Alvi, silenced some of her critics who opposed her promotion on technical grounds.
Congratulations flowed from the top, with Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeting of Malik, 55, “I wish her all the best.”
Pakistani Sen. Sherry Rehman shared a photo of Malik’s the oath-taking on Twitter. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi also tweeted, saying Malik’s swearing in was “a great day for Pakistan.”
The process to elevate Malik from the Punjab provincial high court, which she joined in 2012, had been unusually contentious. A nine-member judicial commission recommends judges for promotion. Five members of the commission supported Malik’s appointment, while the other four opposed it.
Malik’s allies hope her appointment clears the way for more promotions of women in Pakistan’s courts.
Women in Pakistan struggle to get justice - especially in cases involving sexual assault. Authorities and society cast doubt on the victims in many cases.
Malik previously worked at the Lahore High Court, the second highest court in judicial system.
According to the Supreme Court’s web site, Malik received her early education from schools in Paris and New York, and later earned her law degree from Harvard Law School, where she was named a London H. Gammon Fellow for outstanding merit.