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A soldier checks a checkpoint in the Chilean capital Santiago as the country imposes a Covid-19 lockdown -- despite encouraging vaccination rates AFP/MARTIN BERNETTI

Chile is a world leader in its coronavirus vaccination programme and has already given at least one dose to almost a third of its population.

By Thursday the narrow South American nation, hemmed in by the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean, had given more than six million people a single dose and 3.1 million both doses, including most over-70s.

And yet that same day, the government put more than 80 per cent of the country's 19 million people in lockdown.

With new virus variants, believed to be more contagious, spreading across the continent, cases have been soaring in Chile despite its vaccination drive.

On Thursday it passed 7,000 new cases in the previous 24 hours: The second highest daily figure recorded.

"They are phenomena that run on totally different tracks," Darwin Acuna, the president of Chile's society of intensive medicine, told AFP about the seeming disconnect between high vaccination and contagion rates.

President Sebastian Pinera has urged the country to make "a last effort" and authorities expect the vaccination push to start bearing fruit next month.

Health Minister Enrique Paris said the lockdown "is tough but necessary", particularly in the Santiago metropolitan area - the most populous in Chile.

The country has recorded more than 950,000 infections and over 22,500 deaths from COVID-19.

Chile began vaccinating health care workers on Dec 24 and from Feb 3 it started with the general population, initially the over 90s.

But a general relaxation of attitudes in the country due to the vaccination campaign and summer holidays, as well as the arrival of new virus variants, pushed a new wave of infection.

"You cannot yet see the effect of the vaccine on the most at-risk people, because for the most at-risk people they have only just had the second dose," said Acuna.

He expects to see "a real effect on the requirement of ICU beds for the most at-risk people" in mid April.

Health care authorities say they have noticed a difference in the identity of those occupying ICU beds since the first wave of the pandemic: patients are younger and sicker.

The government's goal is to immunize 15 million people by Jun 30, achieving coveted "herd immunity," when a sufficiently large proportion of the population is resistant to a pathogen that it has nowhere to spread.

By Thursday, authorities had given almost 6.1 million people a first dose of either the Chinese CoronaVac or Pfizer shots//CNA

US President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, Mar 25, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden on Friday (Mar 26) invited 40 world leaders, including Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, to attend the Leaders Summit on Climate next month, the White House announced. 

It will be held virtually Apr 22 and 23.

"The Leaders Summit on Climate will underscore the urgency – and the economic benefits – of stronger climate action.  It will be a key milestone on the road to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) this November in Glasgow," the White House said in a press release. 

President Joe Biden is including rivals Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China among the invitees to the first big climate talks of his administration, an event the US hopes will help shape, speed up and deepen global efforts to cut climate-wrecking fossil fuel pollution, administration officials told The Associated Press.

Other world leaders include Indonesia's President Joko Widodo, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand. 

Biden is seeking to revive a US-convened forum of the world’s major economies on climate that George W Bush and Barack Obama both used and Donald Trump let languish. Leaders of some of the world’s top climate-change sufferers, do-gooders and backsliders round out some of the rest of the 40 invitations being delivered Friday.

Hosting the summit will fulfil a campaign pledge and executive order by Biden, and the administration is timing the event with its own upcoming announcement of what’s a much tougher US target for revamping the US economy to sharply cut emissions from coal, natural gas and oil.The session will test Biden’s pledge to make climate change a priority among competing political, economic, policy and pandemic problems. It also will pose a very public - and potentially embarrassing or empowering - test of whether US leaders, and Biden in particular, can still drive global decision-making after the Trump administration withdrew globally and shook up longstanding alliances.

The Biden administration intentionally looked beyond its international partners for the talks, an administration official said.

“It’s a list of the key players and it’s about having some of the tough conversations and the important conversations,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss US plans for the event. “Given how important … this issue is to the entire world, we have to be willing to talk about it and we have to be willing to talk about it at the high levels.”The Biden administration hopes the stage provided by next month’s Earth Day climate summit - planned to be all virtual because of COVID-19 and all publicly viewable on livestream, including breakout conversations - will encourage other international leaders to use it as a platform to announce their own countries’ tougher emission targets or other commitments, ahead of November’s UN global climate talks in Glasgow//CNA

The index of the Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) added 72.69 points, or rose 1.19 percent, to reach 6,195.56 on Friday (March 26, 2021). (ANTARA FOTO/ Reno Esnir/foc) (ANTARA/RENO ESNIR)

The Jakarta Composite Index (IHSG) ended in the positive territory this weekend as foreign investors continued to buy shares.

The index of the Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) added 72.69 points, or rose 1.19 percent, to reach 6,195.56. Meanwhile, the index of the 45 most liquid stocks (LQ45) rose 14.16 points, or 1.53 percent, to 938.83.

“Today, the IHSG closed positive, following the global stock movement. Furthermore, the IHSG’s strengthening was led by the mining sector that significantly rose through the metal trio — ANTM, INCI, and TINS — as well as the Indonesia Battery Holding as its catalyst,” MNC Security analyst Herditya Wicaksana said here on Friday.In addition, the IHSG was supported by a technical rebound, he said. In the upcoming week, the IHSG will still remain positive and move in a range of 6,120-6,240, he projected.

The IHSG tends to be in comfortable and positive territory in the first and second sessions of stock trades, Wicaksana added.

Based on the IDX-IC sectoral index, shares in all sectors showed an increase, particularly the technology sector, which rose by a significant 5.64 percent, followed by the transportation and logistics sector, which was up 1.87 percent, and the raw goods sector, which climbed 1.64 percent.

Friday’s trade posted net foreign buys of Rp294.99 billion.

A total of 1,044,167 transactions involving 14.18 billion shares worth Rp11.03 trillion were recorded during the day. In addition, 348 shares rose, while 143 shares fell, and 137 shares remained unchanged.In the Asian regional markets, the Nikkei index rose 446.82 points, or 1.56 percent, to 29,176.7, the Hang Seng index added 436.82 points, or 1.57 percent, to reach 28,336.43, while the Straits Times index climbed by 19.45 points, or 0.62 percents, to 3,162.16//ANT

President Joko Widodo has assured that the National Logistics Agency will absorb farmer's rice. He has also instructed Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati to help provide budget funds for the purchase of rice from farmers. (ANTARA News (Agus Salim))

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has assured farmers that Indonesia will not import rice, at least until June, 2021.

"I assure that until June, 2021, no imported rice will enter our country," the President said in a video uploaded through the Youtube channel of the Presidential Secretariat on Friday.

Several parties including secretary general of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), Hasto Kristiyanto, had objected to the government's plan to import 1 million tons of rice.

Hasto had argued that the rice import would only benefit foreign farmers."We know that almost in the past three years we have not imported rice,” the President said.

He admitted that there have been agreements with Thailand and Vietnam for the import of rice.

“It will merely serve as standby stock on account of the pandemic, which is full of uncertainty. I stress once again the rice has not entered (Indonesia),” he said.

He also assured that the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) will absorb farmer's rice. He said he has instructed Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati to help provide budget funds for the purchase of rice from farmers.“I know that we are entering the harvest time and the price of farmer's rice is lower than expected. Therefore, I call for (an immediate halt to) the debate on the import of rice, which can cause the price of farmer's rice to fall or plummet,” he said.

Earlier, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto had hinted that the import of 1 million tons of rice in 2021 was under discussion. Of the total, 500 thousand tons were to be earmarked for the government's rice reserves and 500 thousand tons to meet Bulog's needs.

Rice stocks need to be maintained since the government requires large quantities of rice for social assistance during public activity restrictions (PPKM), he said//ANT