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People wearing protective face masks wait for the metro amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Taipei on May 11, 2021. (File photo: Reuters/Ann Wang) - 

Taiwan raised its COVID-19 alert level on Saturday (May 15) in its capital, Taipei, and the city around it, bringing curbs for a period of two weeks that will shut many venues and restrict gatherings in the wake of 180 new domestic infections.

The new rules will not mean that offices, schools or restaurants have to close, but will cause the shutdown of cinemas and other entertainment spots, while limiting family get-togethers to five people indoors and 10 outdoors.

Since the pandemic began, Taiwan has reported fewer than 1,500 cases among a population of about 24 million, most of them imported from abroad, but a recent rise in community transmissions has spooked residents.

The island has never gone into a full lockdown, and its people are used to life carrying on near normal, despite the pandemic ranging in many other parts of the world.

Late on Friday, several universities, including the elite National Taiwan University, said they would immediately switch to remote learning, telling students to stay away from campuses.

"As COVID-19 is still wreaking havoc, please be reminded to wear a mask at all times when you go out, wash hands frequently and keep appropriate social distancing," National Taiwan University said in a statement.

The Taipei Fine Arts Museum, outside which people have queued for a hugely popular exhibition by Japanese artist Shiota Chiharu that opened this month, said it would close from Saturday to comply with the city's COVID-19 prevention rules.

Taipei's National Palace Museum, home to one of the world's best and most extensive collections of Chinese art, said it too would close from Saturday//CNA

Funding for new coal projects drying up fast in Southeast Asia as climate pressures mount - 

An exodus of financing for new coal projects in Southeast Asia is heaping pressure on new regional coal power projects and the companies and governments hoping to persist with burning fossil fuels for energy. 

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) delivered yet another blow to regional coal financing when it announced last Friday (May 7) that it would conditionally cease funding new coal-fired power stations as well as coal mining and oil and natural gas production and exploration.

It follows a raft of Southeast Asian banks and development banks and export credit agencies (ECAs) from China, Japan and South Korea pulling their support for dirty energy generation, as ambitious climate change targets filter through the sector.

“If these banks all stop financing, coal is dead because coal is not bankable without government subsidised finance,” he said.

ADB announced a major - but expected - shift in policy following mounting demands for it to cease supporting projects not aligned with tackling climate change. 

"Coal and other fossil fuels have played a large part in ensuring access to energy for the region's economic development, but they have not solved the energy access challenge, and their use harms the environment and accelerates climate change," the bank said in its new draft energy policy, while not ruling out supporting natural gas projects in the future, under certain conditions.

The development bank said that it has invested US$42.5 billion in the energy sector across the region between 2009 and 2019, but last invested in a new coal plant eight years ago in Pakistan. Last month, it pledged to target US$80 billion in climate financing by 2030.

It follows pledges from the Japanese and South Korean governments to end or tighten the financing of overseas fossil fuel plants, which includes projects in the ASEAN region, as both countries upped their climate change target commitments last month.

Globally, coal funding is on life support - funding for new projects dropped in 2019 to the lowest levels seen in a decade. Yet Southeast Asia remains a holdout on the trend, contributing to the growth of a commodity fast reaching its expiry date.
It means that some countries will continue to persist with coal as long as they can. And despite all the financial headwinds, Fitch Solutions analysis does not predict coal demand to peak until 2028, and new coal projects still account for more than an estimated 40 per cent of total power capacity in Asia’s power project pipeline.

“Coal will remain the dominant generation source in the regional power mix, despite its share falling slightly over the coming decade,” said Sabrin Chowdhury, a senior commodities analyst at Fitch Solutions.

“This is largely due to several governments across the region retaining an ongoing commitment to coal, as it remains the most practical means to stimulate affordable electricity generation growth at the pace and scale needed by many emerging markets in the region at present,” she said//CNA

Maoula Jan, 52, who is British and originally from Afghanistan receives his second dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine from volunteer vaccinator Steve Kriss, at a vaccine centre in the Swaminarayan School in Neasden, north London, Saturday, May 1, 2021. (Photo: AP/Matt Dunham) - 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday (May 14) Britain would accelerate its COVID-19 vaccination programme, to try to contain a fast-spreading variant first identified in India that could knock a re-opening of the economy off track.

The United Kingdom has delivered one of the world's fastest inoculation campaigns, giving a first shot to almost 70 per cent of the adult population and a second to 36 per cent, helping to reduce infection rates and deaths.

But the emergence of the B16172 variant in parts of northern England and London has prompted some scientists to call for the reopening to be delayed, and a rethink on the speed of the vaccine rollout.

"I believe we should trust in our vaccines to protect the public whilst monitoring the situation very closely because the race between our vaccination programme and the virus may be about to become a great deal tighter," Johnson told a news conference.

He said the government would accelerate remaining second doses to the over 50s and those clinically vulnerable to just eight weeks after the first dose, and would prioritise first doses for those eligible who had not yet come forward.

Even so, the spread of the variant could disrupt Britain's progress out of lockdown, making it more difficult to move to the final stage of a staggered reopening of the economy in June, he said.

Johnson had aimed to lift all restrictions on Jun 21, after allowing people in England from Monday to hug again, meet in small groups indoors and travel abroad.

Chris Whitty, England chief medical officer, said there was now confidence that B16172 was more transmissible than the "Kent" variant that fuelled England's second wave of infections. He said B16172 could come to dominate in Britain.

Whitty said so far there had not been a significant increase in hospitalisations from the variant, which may be because more people had been vaccinated.

But both Johnson and Whitty said it was still early days, and scientists would need to scrutinise data over the next two or three weeks to truly see the impact of the variant.

Britain put India on a travel "red list" in April, meaning all arrivals from India - now suffering the world's worst wave of COVID-19 - would have to pay to quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.

Media reports at the time suggested that, because the quarantine requirement was announced four days in advance, many people had sought to fly beforehand. Britain has a large South Asian community.

Even with new variants, the government is likely to want to avoid repeating the regional curbs used last year, which ultimately failed to prevent two further national lockdowns.

At the national level, infections are still low, and fell for a fifth consecutive week in England, Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed on Friday//CNA

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG). ANTARA/BMKG - 

An earthquake of magnitude 5.1 struck North Sulawesi on Friday at 15:17:43 Western Indonesian Standard Time (WIB), though it did not have the potential to trigger a subsequent tsunami.

The quake's epicenter was located at 4.27 degrees northern latitude and 127.83 degrees eastern longitude, some 131 kilometers (km) northeast of Melonguane, North Sulawesi, and at a depth of 23 km, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) stated here on Friday.

The agency had earlier recorded an aftershock of magnitude 5.2 from the7.2-magnitude earthquake that was later updated to 6.7, off the west coast of West Nias District, North Sumatra Province, on Friday.

The epicenter of the aftershock was located at the coordinates of 0.21 degrees northern latitude and 96.58 degrees eastern longitude, and at a depth of 10 km.

The shallow earthquake had a normal fault mechanism.

Until Friday at 14:30 WIB, the BMKG had detected three aftershocks after the West Nias earthquake.

The Nias earthquake was felt at modified Mercalli intensity scale (MMI) III- IV in Gunung Sitoli, Nias, West Nias, and South Nias; MMI III in Banda Aceh; and MMI II in Central Aceh//ANT