World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke on the Delta variant of the coronavirus. “Compounded by more transmissible variants, like Delta, which is quickly becoming the dominant strain in many countries, we are in a very dangerous period of this pandemic,” Ghebreyesus said. “But no country is out of the woods yet.
The Delta variant is dangerous and is continuing to evolve and mutate, which requires constant evaluation and careful adjustment of the public health response,” he said. The Delta variant of the virus was first detected in India. Watch the full video for more details.
‘More transmissible delta variant found in 98 countries and continues to evolve’
GENEVA: The World Health Organisation has warned that the world is in “a
very dangerous period” of the coronavirus pandemic with the more
transmissible Delta variant detected in at least 98 countries.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that the
variant, which was first reported in India, is dangerous as it continues
to evolve and mutate.
Therefore, it requires constant evaluation and careful adjustment of the public health response.
The “Delta (variant) has been detected in at least 98 countries and is
spreading quickly in countries with low and high vaccination coverage”,
he said.
“In those countries with low vaccination coverage, terrible scenes of
hospitals overflowing are again becoming the norm. But no country is out
of the woods yet.”
Governments around the world have raised the alarm over the spread of
the Delta variant even as they relax movement curbs and reopen their
borders in an effort to save their battered economies.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said nearly 25% of new
infections in America have been linked to the Delta variant, up from 6%
in early last month.
Public Health England reported that the variant accounts for 99% of
sequenced Covid-19 tests, while the European Centre for Disease
Prevention and Control has warned that the Delta variant is set to
account for 90% of cases in the bloc by the end of next month.
Tedros on Friday urged governments to vaccinate at least 10% of
their population, starting with frontliners and vulnerable groups.
This, he said, would end the acute stage of the pandemic and save a significant number of lives.
He also urged vaccine manufacturers, like Pfizer-BioTech and
Moderna, to share their technology as a way to accelerate new mRNA
vaccine manufacturing hubs.
“The sooner we start building more vaccine hubs and upping global
vaccine capacity, the sooner we can diminish surges,” he added.
Tedros said there are “two ways” to push back against the current surge in infections.
The first is to ensure that public health and social measures,
such as early case detection, surveillance, testing, isolate and
clinical care, are in place.
“This includes masking, physical distance, avoiding crowded places and keeping indoor areas well ventilated,” he said.
Second, the world must be open to sharing protective gear, oxygen, tests, treatments and vaccines.
Few Westerners see the irony of a supposedly closed China celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), when communism was born but essentially rejected in the West. What was it about Marx that resonated with Chinese civilisation that prided itself with its own ancient and enduring philosophy? (PIC: Chinese President Xi Jinping waves as he attends a gala in connection with the anniversary - AP)
"Globalisation is interpreted as universalisation of American or European values and standards. But the fact remains that these standards and rules were imposed historically by conquest, colonisation and force".
WHY is Marxism thriving in China and not in Marx’s place of birth? Why is Buddhism more practiced in East Asia than in India? Why has Islam more followers outside Saudi Arabia?
Ideas and religion spread through globalisation, but it was really their localisation that created more believers and followers.
What succeeded was not globalisation, but glocalisation, the internalisation of universal ideas and beliefs by the many, and not just the few.
Few Westerners see the irony of a supposedly closed China celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), when communism was born but essentially rejected in the West.
What was it about Marx that resonated with Chinese civilisation that prided itself with its own ancient and enduring philosophy?
London School of Economics Emeritus Professor Megnai Desai, writing on “Marx’s Revenge”, made the shrewd observation that the Chinese Revolution in the 20th century was very different from the French and American Revolutions in the 18th century.
The French Revolution was a domestic rebellion against the monarchy and the landed gentry, whilst the American Revolution was rebellion against British foreign domination
Both created republics and preached equality, liberty and freedom, but both went on to create empires, one by conquering lands from the native Indians and Mexico, and the other through Napoleon’s rampage in Europe.
The Chinese Revolution was different because it was simultaneously a struggle against foreign invasion (Japanese and earlier Eight Nations Alliance) as well as the Nationalist government that favoured the capitalist and landed classes.
The CCP won because it represented the rural peasantry, rather than adopting the Comintern strategy of starting the revolution from the cities. In short, the CCP localised universal Communism with Chinese characteristics. It was practical rather than ideological.
By the time of the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Chinese thinkers struggled with what would replace the old order.
The country fell into warlordism. The Nationalist Party under Sun Yat-sen struggled to balance the conservative wing that represented the landlords and capitalists, and the left wing influenced by Communism and socialism.
Chinese revolutionaries followed closely the Russian Revolution in 1917, because it was then the most recent model of social transformation. The Chinese elite understood that the rebuilding of China from the collapse of the old order was a monumental task. The country was backward and the uneducated masses were unprepared for modernity, vulnerable to foreign conquest.
Even though they felt the burden of history, they also understood that there was no parallel in history on the scale of Chinese transformation.
The Chinese Left took to Marxian thinking because Marx gave both a historical and political economy perspective on how capitalism would evolve, as well as a philosophical tool in terms of Hegelian dialectics.
Marx used the profound insights of the Prussian philosopher Hegel that transformations come from contradictions of opposites, in which change will not happen in a smooth line, but through revolution or discontinuity.
Marx’s discovery of dialectic materialism – in everything, the contradiction and interaction between opposites lead to the destruction of the old and emergence of the new – was music to the ears of those who sought a path out for the New China.
Furthermore, the fundamental ideas of dialectics were very similar to the Chinese yin-yang philosophy of the I Ching and Dao Dejing. As Lenin put it, “dialectics is the study of the contradiction within the very essence of things. Development is the struggle of opposites.”
Having theory is one thing, but putting these ideas into practice is another. We can only appreciate China’s miraculous transformation from a backward economy to the second largest economy in the world by understanding that this was done through essentially three dictums: “seek truth from facts”, crossing the river by feeling the stones” and “it doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”
In other words, make fact-based decisions, always try or test under uncertainty, and above all, be practical and have an open mind. Change is a process between conflicting contradictions. There is no absolute black and white.
Historian Ray Huang, one of the finest sinologists of his generation and a former Nationalist soldier, wrote in the Preface to his classic “China: A Macro-History”: “Chinese history differs from the history of other peoples and other parts of the world because of an important factor: its vast multitudes.
In the imperial period as well as in the very recent past, practical problems had to be translated into abstract notions in order to be disseminated.
In turn, at the local level the message had once again to be rendered into everyday language.”
It is the reduction of very complicated policies into simple language that the Chinese people had to understand and own that enabled them to buy into the transformation, despite the huge sacrifices at the individual and community levels. The people’s eyes are clearer than those of the elites.
The US-China rivalry has done the world a favour by contrasting very fundamental worldviews. When the West preaches a value and rules-based order, what is meant is that freedom, democracy and individual rights are absolute – essentially a zero-sum “my way or no way.”
Globalisation is interpreted as universalisation of American or European values and standards. But the fact remains that these standards and rules were imposed historically by conquest, colonisation and force.
When China, Russia, India or any other country deviates or disagrees with that, then they must be contained, confronted or sanctioned. Localisation or being different is almost seen as deviant rather than a celebration of diversity.
Civilisations reach their highest levels through tolerance and openness. When they become inward-looking, fundamentalist and mono-thinking, fragility and decay sets in.
The world is simultaneously becoming more global in inter-connectivity, even as regionalisation, fragmentation and localisation speeds up.
Glocalisation, the simultaneous contradiction between global and local, is to be welcomed, rather than feared.
The future will always be open, uncertain and contradictory. Such diversity is the nature of humanity.
Andrew Sheng comments on global affairs from an Asian perspective. The views expressed here are his own
The core of the Kylin computer operating system has been guarded as a national secret and its use in the country’s space programme has only just been officially confirmed.
Its main codes were written by Chinese military researchers, according to developer China Electronics Corporation (CEC), but it also includes elements of Unix-like software FREEBSD, parts from Linux, and a user interface similar to Windows.
It is a hybrid, like the mythical qilin dragon beast it is named after.
Speaking to state media, members of the Kylin development team revealed the role the operating system played in these missions, coordinating communication between artificial intelligence software, human controllers on the ground and all the hardware on board the spacecraft.
Until about a decade ago, China, like most other countries, relied on Linux and Windows to drive its space programmes, according to a paper published in domestic journal Space Industry Management last year.
From 2008, China’s space authorities started to replace Western software and hardware in satellites and spacecraft.
The process sped up after Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 about US hacking activities.
Kylin was one of the results – along with the Zhanxing, or Warring Star, system developed by the Chinese military’s space force, according to the paper.
Dan Jianqun, a lead scientist with CEC’S Kylin project, said China had no other choice but to develop its operating system.
“Using other people’s systems, to quote President Xi (Jinping), is like building a house on other people’s land.
“It can be large and beautiful, but it can also be destroyed overnight,” he said in an interview on state television.
The transition from western to home-made software was full of challenges, according to some of the software engineers involved.
Liu Jun, a software engineer on the Kylin team, said space missions required not only high security, but reliability and performance.
The Kylin OS system is used in China’s space programme. Photo: CCTV
Liu said Kylin was initially developed for computers on the ground.
To go to space, processing times on certain tasks had to be cut to less than a third, he told the state television.
“It was as difficult as compressing a packet of biscuits into a few grams without losing any nutrition,” Liu said.
The space mission sometimes also required the operating system to execute a specific task without being distracted by lower priorities, and many codes were written to meet these needs, said Liu.
Kylin’s first tests were demanding. No one had landed on the far side of the moon. And no country had put a rover on Mars without failure.
Liu Hongyu, another Kylin engineer, said the team was under extreme stress when these missions reached a critical stage. “We were just praying. When the spacecraft landed, the whole building rocked with applause,” he said. Kylin is now the most widely used operating system in the Chinese government and military, according to previous state media reports. When its first version was released in 2006, the system came under a lot of criticism for its poor user experience and its lack of compatible software.
But Kylin worked well with domestically developed computer chips such as the Loongson CPU. As the Chinese government began replacing Intel chips and Windows systems in the military, government, banks and other sensitive sectors, the Kylin user base grew rapidly.
But some challenges remained. One issue was hardware adaptability. China still used a lot of scientific equipment from the West and many devices were not compatible with Kylin. In addition, most software on the Kylin system is displayed in Chinese.
Any foreign astronauts planning to take up China’s offer to visit its space station will need to learn some Chinese or they will be confused by the characters on the screen of every Kylin device, including the tablets. – South China Morning Post
An aid package worth RM150bil has been unveiled to help the people, businesses, as well as those vaccinated under Phase One of the National Recovery Plan (NRP) to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said that in a special address on Monday (June 28) and listed a number of initiatives under the package known as the "Pakej Perlindungan Rakyat dan Pemulihan Ekonomi (Pemulih)", where the government will provide a total amount of RM10bil direct fiscal injection.
COVID-19: Malaysia announces new stimulus package
https://youtu.be/kLKHyvL8P4M
Malaysia has announced a new stimulus package, with some assistance targeting small and medium enterprises. It comes a day after an indefinite extension of a nationwide lockdown. But some SMEs are saying it does not go far enough to address their financial woes.
PETALING JAYA: An aid package worth RM150bil has been unveiled to help the people, businesses, as well as those vaccinated under Phase One of the National Recovery Plan (NRP) to curb the spread of Covid-19.
The government will also provide a total amount of RM10bil direct fiscal injection.
In a special address, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin on Monday (June 28) listed a number of initiatives under the package known as the "Pakej Perlindungan Rakyat dan Pemulihan Ekonomi (Pemulih)".
Here are the highlights:
– The government will add up to RM500 for Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat (BPR) for the month of July with payments to be made from June 29.
The third phase of the BPR between RM100 and RM1,400 will be paid in September as well as payments for those with successful appeals. Altogether, a total of RM4.9bil will be paid out under BPR.
– Government to expand job seekers' allowance to Social Security Organisation (Socso) non-contributors, especially new graduates and informal sectors. They can register at MYFutureJobs and will receive an allowance of at least RM300.
– Bantuan Khas Covid-19 (BKC) initiative for several categories. They are:
i) Households of hardcore poor will receive RM500 in August, RM500 in November, and RM300 in December. Singles from this category will receive RM200 in August and RM300 in November.
ii) B40 households will receive RM500 in August and RM300 in December. Singles from this category will receive RM200 in August.
iii) M40 households will receive RM250 while singles in this category will receive RM100 in August.
The BKC is expected to benefit more than 11 million households and the elderly as well as singles with an allocation of RM4.6bil.
https://dai.ly/x82asz4
– The government will allocate a total amount of RM10mil to implement the food basket initiative, especially for the Orang Asli
– Government to allocate another RM1bil to ensure that the price of 1kg polybags of cooking oil remains at RM2.50,
– RM15mil will be allocated to non-governmental organisations to help social issues such as mental health, homelessness, and others.
– To address the cost of living issue, the government will maintain the retail price for RON95 petrol, diesel and LPG, which is expected to involve subsidies of RM6bil this year.
– The government will also implement a price control programme based on the threshold value of crude palm oil to control the price of 1kg to 5kg of cooking oil bottles.
https://dai.ly/x82at8f
– A discount on electricity bills of between 5% and 40% up to a maximum usage of 900 kilowatt-hours (kWH) a month will be given. This includes a 40% discount for usage that is below 200kWH, and 15% discount for usage that is between 201kWH and 300kWH. All in, the rakyat is expected to save up to RM346mil in electricity bills over three months from July.
– Economic sectors that have been badly hit – particularly hotel operators, theme park operators, convention centres, shopping malls and tour operators – will get a three-month extension of electricity bill discounts of 10% from October to December.
– Telecommunications companies have agreed to extend the 1GB of daily free data until the end of the year. This initiative is estimated to be worth RM500mil and will benefit 44 million registered users in the country.
– Additional RM500 to eligible recipients under the Prihatin Special Grant (GKP) 3.0 initiative, with payment expected to be made by mid-July this year. In total, the government has allocated a total of RM5.1bil via the GKP initiative.
https://dai.ly/x82at1w
– Understanding the struggle of the SMEs, the government announced an additional payment of RM500 under GKP 4.0 to eligible recipients which will be paid in September and another RM500 in November this year.
– The government will allocate RM18mil for local banks to provide about 30 units of mobile banks in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak, which are expected to cover 250 rural localities.
Through this initiative, various banking services including opening of accounts; savings, withdrawal and transfer of money; bill payments as well as digital banking can be accessed.
– Government will continue the Wage Subsidy Scheme for the fourth time with an allocation of RM3.8bil, expected to benefit more than 2.5 million workers. Through this scheme, the government will support up to 500 workers per employer with assistance of RM600 per worker for four months. This will be two months for every sector in the second phase of the National Recovery Plan, and another two months for the sectors categorised as negative in the third phase of the NRP.
There are no salary limit conditions, and this means that employers can apply for the scheme even if their employees earn more than RM4,000 a month.
– Government will automatically exempt payments for the HRD levy for two months to employers who are not able to operate during phase one of the recovery plan.
– Employers from new sectors as a result of the expansion of the Human Resources Development Fund Act 2001 will be given a levy extension under Dec 2021. This initiative is estimated to be worth RM425mil.
– The Government will extend the PenjanaKerjaya programme that is due to end in June with several improvements. This includes reducing the salary eligibility limit from RM1,500 to RM1,200 ringgit for the “Malaysianisation” programme to give more incentives to employers to replace foreign workers with local workers. The employment contract period will also be reduced from 12 months to six months for employees aged 50 and above, the disabled and former prisoners.
https://dai.ly/x82assb
– EPF will introduce a new withdrawal facility called i-Citra where a total of 12.6 million EPF members can make withdrawals of up to RM5,000 with a fixed payment rate of RM1,000 per month for five months, subject to the member's total EPF savings.
This is expected to channel RM30bil to the people for their daily needs. Members can start applying for the facility on the i-Citra online portal at icitra.kwsp.gov.my from July 15, with the first payment expected to be credited to the member's account in August.
– An six-month automatic moratorium for all borrowers, regardless if they are from the B40, M40 or T20 groups. Borrowers will only need to apply and approval will be given automatically by the banks. It will be open from July 7, 2021. They are also required to apply and sign an agreement on the related loan terms.
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Govt launches PEMULIH Package worth RM150 bln, including fiscal injection of RM10 bln
KUALA LUMPUR, June 28 — The government has today launched the National People’s Well-Being and Economic Recovery Package (Pemulih) worth RM150 billion, comprising the government’s direct fiscal injection of RM10 billion, aimed at providing comprehensive assistance to the people and focusing on three main focuses, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said.
According to him, the three focuses are Continuing the People’s Welfare Agenda, Supporting Businesses and Increasing Vaccinations.
“Since the Covid-19 pandemic hit our country, the government has implemented seven assistance programmes and stimulus packages with a total value of RM380 billion.
“So far, more than RM200 billion has been channelled and benefited more than 20 million people and 2.4 million businesses. Budget 2021 is worth RM322.5 billion and there is still RM100 billion to be spent until the end of this year,” he said during the announcement of the Pemulih package which was broadcast live on television today.
Muhyiddin said to focus on continuing the people’s welfare agenda, the government announced that until the end of this year, it would channel direct cash assistance to the people amounting to RM10 billion. This direct cash assistance includes Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat or BPR.
During the recent Pemerkasa Plus announcement, the government agreed to provide additional BPR payment of up to RM500 in July and the payment will be made in stages starting tomorrow, June 29.
Meanwhile, the third phase of BPR with aid of RM100 to RM1,400 will be paid in September.
September will also involve payments of approved BPR appeal cases.
In total, the BPR value until the end of the year was RM4.9 billion.
Meanwhile, to ensure that the people receive assistance in the coming months until the end of 2021, he also announced the provision of Special COVID-19 Assistance or BKC with the following rates and categories:
Hardcore poor households will receive assistance of RM500 in August, RM500 in November and RM300 in December.
Single individuals in the hardcore poor category will receive assistance of RM200 in August and RM300 in November.
B40 households will receive assistance of RM500 in August and RM300 in December and single B40 individuals will receive assistance of RM200 in August.
M40 households will enjoy assistance of RM250, while M40 singles will receive RM100 in August.
“Overall, this BKC grant is expected to benefit more than 11 million households, senior citizens and singles with an allocation of RM4.6 billion,” he said.
He said the government will also provide electricity discounts to domestic and non-domestic consumers where the government will bear an additional cost of RM1 billion.
To focus on supporting business, the government will channel several forms of assistance to ensure business continuity in these two phases.
Through this second focus, several approaches will be improved such as reducing employers’ costs, supporting digitalisation efforts, providing financial assistance and tax incentives, providing financing facilities and continuing employment incentives.
“The implementation of the Prihatin Special Grant or GKP has successfully supported business survival among small traders, especially those who are still not allowed to operate.
“Overall, the government has allocated a total of RM5.1 billion through the GKP initiative. Recently, under Pemerkasa Plus, eligible recipients had already received their GKP 3.0 payment of RM1,000 about two weeks ago and will receive a further RM500 in mid-July,” he said.
The government also understands the difficulties faced by micro, small and medium entrepreneurs at present and announces the provision of additional payments under GKP 4.0 to eligible recipients of RM500 to be paid in September and another RM500 in November 2021.
“The government hopes that with this GKP 4.0 payment, about one million micro, small and medium entrepreneurs, such as barbershop operators, workshop owners, bakery and cake shops, healthcare centres, etc can reduce their monthly liabilities and help their cash flow.
“What is important, for micro-entrepreneurs who have not yet received this assistance, registration will open in mid-July,” he said.
PM announces Pemulih package, new cash aid BKC worth RM4.6 billion
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is unveiling the government's latest aid package for the rakyat called Pakej Perlindungan Rakyat dan Pemulihan Ekonomi or Pemulih..
In a special address being broadcast live to the nation this evening, Muhyiddin said the package is worth RM150 billion, including the government's direct fiscal injection of RM10 billion..
Pemulih is aimed at giving a comprehensive aid to the rakyat based on three main focuses; continuing with the Prihatin Rakyat agenda, supporting businesses and increasing vaccination rate..
To ensure that the people continue to receive aid in the months to come until year end, Muhyiddin announced the Bantuan Khas Covid-19 or BKC worth RM4.6 billion which will benefit over 11 million households, senior citizens and singles in the Bottom40 (B40) and Medium40 (M40) categories..
.
"In the hardcore poor category, households will receive RM500 in Aug and Nov as well as RM300 in Dec while single people will get RM200 in Aug and RM300 in Nov..
"Households in the B40 category will get RM500 in Aug and RM300 in Dec while single people will receive RM200 in Aug..
"The M40 households and singles, he said, will get RM250 and RM100 respectively in Aug," he said..
https://youtu.be/P3_hgMNUQqk
Muhyiddin said this was in addition to the Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat or BPR which was announced in Pemerkasa Plus previously where the government agreed to give aid of up to RM500 in July and in stages starting tomorrow (June 29)..
Phase 3 of the BPR, he said, where the assistance ranges between RM100 and RM1,400 will be paid out in September, along with payments for BPR appeal cases which have been approved..
Overall, the value of BPR stands at RM4.9 billion..
Muhyiddin said there will also be Bantuan Kehilangan Pendapatan where in Oct, Rm500 will be channeled to workers who had lost their income based on the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and the Social Security Organisation's (Socso) data this year..
The aid, he said, will benefit up to 1 million members with a financial implication of RM500 million..
"These three financial assistance from June to Dec this year are catered to those who are in need. I hope it will help the beneficiaries for their survival in the coming months, insyaAllah..
"I am aware that many have been badly affected for over a year since the pandemic started. Although millions of Malaysians have benefited from cash assistance since March last year and many had received government aid of sorts, I understand that assistance must continue to be stepped up for as long as this crisis lasts..
"The government will try its best to ease the burden shouldered by the people and we will not stop to do our best," he said..
Muhyiddin added that the government will expand the Elaun Mencari Pekerjaan (Job-Seeking Allowance) to Sosco non-contributors, especially new graduates, school-leavers and informal sector workers where those who are registered under MyFutureJobs are set to receive at least a RM300 allowance..
The government, he added, will allocate RM125 million through the Human Resource Development Corporation to implement the Place and Train initiative under the Janapreneur programme especially for school-leavers and graduates..
"This initiative is expected to offer opportunities to 30,000 people to undergo skill training programmes with the assurance of job employment once it concludes..
"The Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation will enhance its existing programmes which are eRezeki and Glow to assist over 20,000 job seekers in the gig economy sector," he said..
Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin also announces discounts on ... on electricity bills, to cash and food aid to be allocated through MPs from both sides of the divide. ... part of Pemulih, the government's RM150 billion financial aid package to ... RM4.6 billion for Covid-19 Special Assistance (BKC) involving 11
