Tag Archives: Singapore

U.S. divers find remains of missing sailors in hull of damaged destroyer

The damaged USS John McCain is docked next to USS America at Changi Naval Base in Singapore August 22, 2017. REUTERS/Calvin Wong

By Karishma Singh and Fathin Ungku

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – U.S. Navy and Marine Corps divers on Tuesday found some remains of missing sailors inside sections of a U.S. guided-missile destroyer that collided with a merchant vessel near Singapore, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said.

The USS John S. McCain and the tanker Alnic MC collided on Monday while the U.S. ship was approaching Singapore on a routine port call. The impact tore a hole in the warship’s port side at the waterline, flooding compartments that included a crew sleeping area.

U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Scott Swift said an international search-and-rescue operation had found some remains and that the wider search for 10 sailors missing from the accident would continue until all hope was exhausted.

“The divers were able to locate some remains in those sealed compartments during their search,” Swift told reporters at Singapore’s Changi Naval Base where the USS John S McCain is docked for damage assessment.

“Additionally, the Malaysian authorities have reported that they have located potential remains. They are working to confirm and identify those remains.”

He did not specify how many remains had been found.

The Malaysian navy said in a statement it had found a body eight nautical miles northwest of the collision site and it would transfer it to the U.S. Navy on Wednesday.

Swift also said Monday’s collision – the fourth major accident in the U.S. Pacific fleet this year – could not be viewed in isolation from other incidents and that investigations were seeking to find a “common cause at the root of these events”.

The John S. McCain’s sister ship, the Fitzgerald, almost sank off the coast of Japan after colliding with a Philippine container ship on June 17. The bodies of seven U.S. sailors were found in a flooded berthing area after that collision.

The latest accident has already prompted a fleet-wide investigation and plans for temporary halts in operations.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said to have sailors killed in two collisions this year was disconcerting.

“It’s just unacceptable and we’ll get to the bottom of it,” Pence told Fox News. “But right now our hearts are with the families of those that are lost and we honor them.”

Ships, aircraft and divers from an international search-and-rescue operation have been looking for the missing U.S. sailors to the east of Singapore and peninsula Malaysia, near where the accident happened.

Aircraft from the amphibious assault ship the USS America, which was in port at Changi Naval Base, joined the search.

Earlier on Tuesday, divers equipped with surface-supplied air rigs got into compartments in damaged parts of the USS John S McCain.

Immediate efforts by the ship’s crew after the collision on Monday were able to halt flooding into other parts of the hull, the Seventh Fleet said in a statement on its website.

CNN, citing unidentified U.S. Navy officials, said early indications suggested the collision was caused by a steering malfunction as the warship approached the Strait of Malacca. Swift said it was too early to draw conclusions about the cause and whether it was the result of human error.

Aircraft and vessels from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have been helping with the search.

HOLE IN HULL

Swift said the U.S. Navy was sending a team to assess the damage before making a decision whether to move the ship or place it in drydock.

Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority said it had deployed 250 personnel for the search-and-rescue effort over an expanded area of 2,620 square kilometers. The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency said it had deployed more than 500.

Five U.S. sailors were injured in the accident, although the U.S. Navy said none of those injuries was life-threatening.

On Monday, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said there were no indications so far the collision was intentional or the result of cyber intrusion or sabotage.

“But review will consider all possibilities,” he said on Twitter.

Richardson said he was asking his fleet commanders worldwide for a one-to-two-day, staggered “operational pause” to discuss action to ensure safe and effective operations.

He also said a comprehensive review would examine the training of U.S. forces deployed to Japan. The U.S. Seventh Fleet is headquartered in Japan.

The accident comes at a tense time for the U.S. Navy in Asia. This month, the John S. McCain sailed within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built by China in the disputed South China Sea, the latest “freedom of navigation” operation to counter what the United States sees as China’s efforts to control the waters.

The state-run China Daily said in an editorial that increased activities by U.S. warships in Asia-Pacific were a growing risk to commercial shipping.

Also this month, North Korea threatened to fire ballistic missiles towards the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam in a standoff over its nuclear and missile programs.

(Writing by Sam Holmes; Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein in SINGAPORE and David Brunnstrom, David Alexander and Idrees Ali in WASHINGTON; Editing by Paul Tait and Michael Perry)

Ten sailors missing after U.S. warship, tanker collide near Singapore

Damage is seen on the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain after a collision, in Singapore waters in this still frame taken from video August 21, 2017.

By Fathin Ungku and Masayuki Kitano

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Ten sailors are missing after a U.S. warship collided with an oil tanker east of Singapore before dawn on Monday, tearing a hole beneath the waterline and flooding compartments that include a crew sleeping area, the U.S. Navy said.

The collision between the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain and the tanker Alnic MC was the second involving a U.S. Navy destroyer and a merchant vessels in Asian waters in little more than two months.

The ships collided while the U.S. warship was heading to Singapore for a routine port call, the Navy said in a statement.

“Initial reports indicate John S. McCain sustained damage to her port side aft,” the Navy said. “There are currently 10 sailors missing and five injured.”

The destroyer had made its way to Singapore’s Changi Naval Base by Monday afternoon under its own power.

Significant damage to the hull had resulted in flooding to compartments, including crew berthing, machinery, and communications rooms, the Navy said, but crew members were able to stop the flooding.

A map shows the location where the Alnic MC merchant vessel came to a halt after a collision with the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain east of Singapore August 21, 2017. REUTERS

A map shows the location where the Alnic MC merchant vessel came to a halt after a collision with the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain east of Singapore August 21, 2017. REUTERS

Four of the injured were taken by helicopter to hospital in Singapore with non-life threatening injuries. The fifth needed no further treatment.

The USS John S. McCain’s sister ship, the USS Fitzgerald, almost sank off the coast of Japan after it was struck by a Philippine container ship on June 17. The bodies of seven USS Fitzgerald sailors were found in a flooded berthing area.

Collisions between warships and other large vessels are extremely rare, with naval historians going back more than 50 years to find a similar incident.

A search-and-rescue mission was under way for the sailors missing from the USS John S. McCain involving Singaporean ships, helicopters and tugs, as well as U.S. Navy aircraft.

Reuters video footage from the Singapore Strait showed an area of impact about 6 meters (20 ft) wide in the John S. McCain’s port side.

The U.S. Navy later said amphibious assault ship USS America had arrived to provide messing and berthing for crew of the USS John S. McCain. It would also provide support for the search of the missing and divers to assess the damage.

 

TERRITORIAL DISPUTE

A crew member on the Alnic MC told Reuters by telephone there was no oil spill from the Liberian-flagged, 183 meter-long (600 ft) tanker, which was carrying almost 12,000 tonnes of fuel oil from Taiwan to discharge in Singapore.

“We have not discharged the tanker yet,” said the crew member, who asked not to be identified.

“We are proceeding to Raffles Reserved Anchorage, where the owners will investigate the matter. There was some damage to the valve but no oil spill.”

Stealth Maritime Corporation, the Greece-based owner of the tanker, said the vessel was moving to safe anchorage for assessment. Reuters later saw the Alnic MC anchored off Singapore.

Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said no injuries were reported on the Alnic, which suffered some damage above the waterline.

“There is no report of oil pollution and traffic in the Singapore Strait is unaffected,” the MPA said, adding that the collision happened in Singaporean territorial waters.

However, the Malaysian navy said the collision happened in Malaysian waters and it had sent vessels to assist.

The Pedra Branca area near where the collision happened has long been contested by both countries, with an international court ruling in Singapore’s favor in 2008. Malaysia filed an application to review that ruling this year.

“The Malaysian agencies are not involved in the search and rescue operations that is led by Singapore,” the MPA said.

The U.S. Navy said Malaysian navy vessels and a helicopter joined the search in the afternoon. Indonesia said it had sent two aircraft and two warships to help.

The waterways around Singapore are some of the busiest and most important in the world, carrying about a third of global shipping trade.

Ben Stewart, commercial manager of Maritime Asset Security and Training in Singapore, said early indications suggested the warship may have turned across the front of the tanker.

“Instances like this should be rare and they are rare,” Stewart said.

The U.S. Navy said last week it had removed the two senior officers and the senior enlisted sailor on the USS Fitzgerald following an investigation into that collision.

 

SISTER SHIPS

The USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain, built in the same shipyard, are both ballistic missile defense (BMD) capable ships and part of the same Japan-based destroyer squadron. The Seventh Fleet has six ships assigned to BMD patrols, with half on patrol at any time.

The accidents come at a tense time.

The USS John S. McCain carried out a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea this month, coming within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built by China.

The operation was the latest to counter what the United States sees as China’s efforts to control the waters. China denounced it.

North Korea threatened last week to fire ballistic missiles towards the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would unleash “fire and fury” if North Korea threatened the United States.

“Thoughts &; prayers are w/ our US Navy sailors aboard the #USSJohnSMcCain where search & rescue efforts are underway,” Trump said on Twitter.

The U.S. vessel involved in the latest collision is named for the father and grandfather of U.S. Republican Senator John McCain, who were both admirals.

Senator McCain, a Vietnam War naval pilot who was shot down and held prisoner for five-and-a-half years, is undergoing treatment for brain cancer.

“Cindy  and I are keeping America’s sailors aboard the USS John S McCain in our prayers tonight – appreciate the work of search and rescue crews,” he said on Twitter, referring to his wife.

 

 

 

(Reporting by Fathin Ungku and Masayuki Kitano; Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein and Jessica Jaganathan, Aradhana Aravindan, Karishma Singh and Sam Holmes in SINGAPORE, Tim Kelly in TOKYO, Joseph Sipalan and Rozanna Latiff in KUALA LUMPUR, Kanupriya Kapoor in JAKARTA, and Lesley Wroughton in WASHINGTON; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

 

Singapore offers cargo plane, drones to help Philippines fight militancy

FILE PHOTO: A view of the Maute group stronghold with an ISIS flag in Marawi City in southern Philippines May 29, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Fathin Ungku

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore has offered a military transport airplane, drone surveillance aircraft and use of combat training facilities to support the Philippines’ fight against the rising threat of Islamist militancy, the defence ministry said on Wednesday.

The offer stemmed from talks in Manila earlier this week between Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen and his Philippines counterpart Delfin Lorenzana.

Surrounded by Muslim majority countries and with a Muslim minority of its own, Singapore is worried by the small but dangerous number of people in the region who have been radicalised by Islamic State.

Ministers describe the terror threat against the wealthy city-state as the highest in recent years and alarm was heightened in May when a militant group linked to Islamic State seized Marawi City on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao.

Security forces are still battling to regain control of the town and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte this week asked Congress to extend martial law until the end of the year on Mindanao, the only Muslim majority island in the largely Catholic Philippines.

During the past two months Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines launched joint maritime and air patrols over their shared boundaries in the Sulu Sea, to guard against the movement of militants between Borneo Island and Mindanao.

Supporting the regional effort, Singapore’s Defence Ministry said that it had offered a C-130 transport plane to deliver humanitarian supplies, drone surveillance aircraft, and use of training facilities for the Philippines military.

“While the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) is confident that Marawi will be secured from terrorists soon, further concerted efforts are required to ensure that other terrorist cells do not entrench themselves in the southern Philippines, as this would cause instability to the rest of ASEAN,” the ministry said in a statement.

Fearful that Islamic State could build a base in Southeast Asia, governments in the region announced last month that they plan share intelligence, using spy planes and drones to stem the movement of militants across their porous borders.

(Editing by Simon Cameroon-Moore and Michael Perry)

U.N. survey finds cybersecurity gaps everywhere except Singapore

FILE PHOTO - A hooded man holds a laptop computer as blue screen with an exclamation mark is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – Singapore has a near-perfect approach to cybersecurity, but many other rich countries have holes in their defenses and some poorer countries are showing them how it should be done, a U.N. survey showed on Wednesday.

Wealth breeds cybercrime, but it does not automatically generate cybersecurity, so governments need to make sure they are prepared, the survey by the U.N. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said.

“There is still an evident gap between countries in terms of awareness, understanding, knowledge and finally capacity to deploy the proper strategies, capabilities and programmes,” the survey said.

The United States came second in the ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Index, but many of the other highly rated countries were small or developing economies.

The rest of the top 10 were Malaysia, Oman, Estonia, Mauritius, Australia, Georgia, France and Canada. Russia ranked 11th. India was 25th, one place ahead of Germany, and China was 34th.

The ranking was based on countries’ legal, technical and organizational institutions, their educational and research capabilities, and their cooperation in information-sharing networks.

“Cybersecurity is an ecosystem where laws, organizations, skills, cooperation and technical implementation need to be in harmony to be most effective,” the survey said.

“The degree of interconnectivity of networks implies that anything and everything can be exposed, and everything from national critical infrastructure to our basic human rights can be compromised.”

The crucial first step was to adopt a national security strategy, but 50 percent of countries have none, the survey said.

Among the countries that ranked higher than their economic development was 57th-placed North Korea, which was let down by its “cooperation” score but still ranked three spots ahead of much-richer Spain.

The smallest rich countries also scored badly – Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino were all well down the second half of the table. The Vatican ranked 186th out of 195 countries in the survey.

But no country did worse than Equatorial Guinea, which scored zero.

(Reporting by Tom Miles)

The Maute brothers: Southeast Asia’s Islamist ‘time bomb’

A policeman stands on guard behind a window full of bullet holes as government soldiers assault the Maute group in Marawi City, Philippines

By Neil Jerome Morales and Tom Allard

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – On his Facebook profile page Omarkhayam Romato Maute describes himself as a “Walking Time-Bomb”.

When a band of militants led by Omarkhayam and one of his brothers over-ran a town in the southern Philippines on May 23, festooning its alleyways with the black banners of Islamic State, the Facebook description seemed appropriate.

Governments across Southeast Asia had been bracing for the time when Islamic State, on a back foot in Iraq and Syria, would look to establish a ‘caliphate’ in Southeast Asia and become a terrifying threat to the region.

“The Middle East seems a long way away but it is not. This is a problem which is amidst us,” Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told Australian radio on Saturday as the battle to re-take Marawi neared the end of the third week, with a death toll of nearly 200. “It is a clear and present danger.”

Omarkhayam and Abdullah Maute grew up with several other brothers and sisters in Marawi, a Muslim-majority town in a country where over 90 percent of the population is Christian.

Marawi is, historically, the center of Islam on Mindanao, a sprawling island where violent resistance to authority has been a tradition since the era of Spanish colonialism, spurred in recent decades by poverty and the neglect of successive governments.

As teenagers in the 1990s, the brothers seemed like ordinary young men, said a neighbor of the Maute family: they studied English and the Koran, and played basketball in the streets.

“We still wonder why they fell to the Islamic State,” said the neighbor, who was once an Islamist militant himself and surrendered to the government. “They are good people, religious. When someone gets to memorize the Koran, it’s unlikely for them to do wrong. But this is what happened to the brothers.”

In the early 2000s, Omarkhayam and Abdullah studied in Egypt and Jordan, respectively, where they became fluent in Arabic.

Omarkhayam went to Al-Azhar University in Cairo, where he met the daughter of a conservative Indonesian Islamic cleric. After they married, the couple returned to Indonesia. There, Omarkhayam taught at his father-in-law’s school, and in 2011 he settled back in Mindanao.

It may have been then, and not when he was in the Middle East, that Omarkhayam was radicalized.

In Cairo “none of his fellow students saw him as having any radical tendencies at all, and photographs show a young man enchanted by his baby daughters and playing with the growing family by the Red Sea,” Jakarta-based anti-terrorism expert Sidney Jones wrote in a 2016 report.

Little is known about Abdullah’s life after he went to Jordan, and it is not clear when he returned to Lanao del Sur, the Mindanao province that includes Marawi.

Intelligence sources said there are seven brothers and one half-brother in the family, all but one of whom joined the battle for Marawi.

Men identified by Philippines Intelligence officers as Isnilon Hapilon (2nd L, yellow headscarf) and Abdullah Maute (2nd R, standing, long hair) are seen in this still image taken from video released by the Armed Forces of the Philippines on June 7, 2017.

Men identified by Philippines Intelligence officers as Isnilon Hapilon (2nd L, yellow headscarf) and Abdullah Maute (2nd R, standing, long hair) are seen in this still image taken from video released by the Armed Forces of the Philippines on June 7, 2017. Armed Forces of the Philippines/Handout via REUTERS TV

SMART, ARTICULATE

The Mautes were a monied family in a close-knit tribal society where respect, honor and the Koran are paramount.

Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jo-Ar Herrera said the ‘Maranao’ clan, to which the Mautes belong, has a matriarchal tradition, and so their mother played a central role.

He said Farhana Maute, who according to the neighbor had furniture and used-car businesses, helped finance the group, and she drove recruitment and radicalization of local youths.

On Friday, she was stopped outside Marawi in a vehicle loaded with firearms and explosives and taken into custody. It was a major blow for the militants, according to Herrera, as she had been the “heart of the Maute organization”.

A day previously, the brothers’ father, an engineer, was arrested in Davao City, 250 km (155 miles) away.

When the Marawi siege began, several hundred militants were involved, including men from nations as far away as Morocco and Yemen. But most of the marauders, who took civilians as human shields and torched the town cathedral, were from four local groups allied to Islamic State, and in the lead were the Maute, military officials said.

According to Jones, the Maute group has “the smartest, best-educated and most sophisticated members” of all the pro-Islamic State outfits in the Philippines.

Samira Gutoc-Tomawis, a local civic leader who knows some of the Maute’s extended family, said the brothers rely heavily on social media to recruit young followers and spread their “rigid and authoritarian” ideology.

“The Mautes are very active online. On YouTube, they upload their ideas” she said. “They are articulate, they are educated, they are idealistic.”

The Maute family’s neighbor, who requested anonymity for his own safety, said the group’s fighters are fearless too.

He was trapped for five days in his three-storey house last month watching the battle between the militants and the Philippines armed forces unfold, with sniper fire pinging around him and OV-10 aircraft bombing from above.

“During the bombing runs of the OV-10, they just carried on eating biscuits, not running for cover,” he said.

On May 28, a group of seven fighters – he recognized Omarkhayam among them – came to his house and asked why he had not left. When he told them that he feared being caught in the crossfire, they guided him and several others to a bridge leading out of town and gave them a white cloth to wave.

“I WANT TO KILL THEM NOW”

The Maute group first surfaced in 2013 with a bombing of a nightclub in nearby Cagayan de Oro. Its stature has grown since then, most notably with the bombing last year of a street market in President Rodrigo Duterte’s hometown, Davao City.

Maute members who were captured said the Davao attack was ordered by Isnilon Hapilon of Abu Sayyaf, a group that has fought since the 1990s for an independent Islamic province but is as well known as a vicious gang of criminals and kidnappers.

Hapilon, who was last year declared by Islamic State as its ’emir’ of Southeast Asia, was seen in a video that emerged last week showing the militants – including two Maute brothers – plotting to seal Marawi off as a separate enclave.

Herrera said the Mautes enjoy strong support in Marawi.

“This is their place, this is where their family is, this is where their culture is, this is where the heritage is. There is a huge sympathetic perspective towards the … Maute,” he said.

But Khana-Anuar Marabur Jr., a Marawi town councillor, said the Mautes had made enemies in the area with their radicalism.

He said he went to the brothers on the day the attack on Marawi was launched and they told him to the leave the town.

“They told me to leave because the caliphate … had ordered it,” Marabur told Reuters. “They treated me like an enemy.

I want to kill them now.”

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in MANILA and by Simon Lewis in MARAWI CITY; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Japan defense minister backs all U.S. options on North Korea, seeks deeper alliance

Japan's Defence Minister Tomomi Inada speaks at the 16th IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore June 3, 2017. REUTERS/Edgar Su

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Japan’s defense minister on Saturday backed the United States using any option to deal with North Korea, including military strikes, and said Tokyo wanted to build a deeper alliance with Washington that could play a regional security role.

“The United States is making clear through both words and deeds that all options are on the table. I strongly support the U.S. position,” Japanese Minister of Defense Tomomi Inada said during a speech at a regional security conference in Singapore.

Pyongyang’s accelerating nuclear and missile programs are stoking fear in nearby Japan and prompting a harder line on North Korea from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

A Japanese helicopter carrier and destroyer are concluding three days of drills with two U.S. aircraft carriers in the Sea of Japan that also included simulated combat sorties between U.S. Navy F-18s and Japanese air force F-15s.

The exercise followed three ballistic missile tests by Pyongyang in as many weeks. The latest on Monday reached an altitude of 120 km (75 miles) before falling into international waters in the Sea of Japan, but inside an exclusive economic zone where Japan has jurisdiction over the exploration and exploitation of maritime resources.

Apart from using the U.S. alliance to tackle its belligerent neighbor, Japan also wants the military partnership to exert influence on other parts of Asia, including the highly contested South China Sea, Inada said.

China claims almost all the disputed waters, which is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and its growing military presence has fueled concern in Japan and the West.

“The robust, long-standing Japan-U.S. alliance now functions as a public good that contributes to the peace and stability of the region,” she said.

Beijing often rails against the United States, Japan and other countries for what it sees as interference in the South China Sea, insisting it is for claimant countries involved in disputes to work them out.

Inada also called on European navies to provide “a regular and visible presence” in the region.

A French amphibious assault carrier visited Japan in April after sailing through the South China Sea. Japan’s military later trained with the French force alongside U.S. and British contingents in what sources earlier told Reuters was meant as a show of force aimed at China.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly and Masayuki Kitano; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Lincoln Feast)

Singapore says Zika infections spread to nearly 190 cases

Nurses set up a mosquito tent over a hospital bed, as part of a precautionary protocol for patients who are infected by Zika, to show the media at Farrer Park

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore said on Friday it had found 38 more people who had contracted Zika, raising to 189 the number infected with the mosquito-borne virus since authorities reported the first locally transmitted case six days ago.

Some of the new cases had been detected in areas where infections had not previously been reported, the health ministry said in a statement.

The ministry did not specify the locations, but the virus has been spreading daily beyond an initial cluster.

Singapore, a regional financial center and transit hub, is the only Asian country with active transmission of the virus.

On Thursday, it said the caseload had jumped to 151 infections, including two pregnant women.

Zika infections in pregnant women have been shown to cause microcephaly – a severe birth defect in which the head and brain are undersized – as well as other brain abnormalities.

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has since confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly.

In adults, Zika infections have also been linked to a rare neurological syndrome known as Guillain-Barre, as well as other neurological disorders.

People shop for remaining stocks of insect repellent products at a pharmacy in Singapore

People shop for remaining stocks of insect repellent products at a pharmacy in Singapore September 2, 2016. REUTERS/Edgar Su

The United States, Australia and other countries have added Singapore to the growing list of places that pregnant women or those trying to conceive have been warned to avoid.

The first locally transmitted Zika infection in Singapore was reported on Saturday, with the initial tally including many foreigners believed to be among the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in the island’s construction industry.

As the outbreak spreads, many of Singapore’s five million people are covering up and staying indoors to avoid mosquitoes as health experts warn that virus in the tropical city-state would be difficult to contain.

The Zika outbreak comes as Singapore prepares to host the floodlit Formula One Singapore Grand Prix motor-race on Sept. 18. Race promoters have said preparations were going according to plan.

There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes.

An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected.

The virus was first identified in Uganda in 1947 and was unknown in the Americas until 2014.

(Reporting by Saeed Azhar and Lee Chyen Yee; Writing by Miral Fahmy; Editing by Robert Birsel)

China steps up arrival checks from Singapore amid ZIKA outreach

By Aradhana Aravindan and Ben Blanchard

SINGAPORE/BEIJING (Reuters) – China intensified its checks on people and goods arriving from Singapore on Thursday, as an outbreak of the Zika virus in the small city-state was confirmed to have spread to at least one person in neighboring Malaysia.

Singapore is the only Asian country with an active transmission of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which is a particular risk to pregnant women, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Authorities in Singapore, a leading regional financial center and busy transit hub for people and cargo, reported the first locally-transmitted Zika infection on Saturday, with the number of cases rising to 115 by Thursday – half of whom were foreigners, mainly from China, India and Bangladesh.

Malaysia confirmed its first case of Zika infection, in a woman who had recently visited Singapore.

“We have been tracking Zika for a while now, and knew it was only a matter of time before it reached Singapore,” Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong posted on his Facebook page. “Our best defense is to eradicate mosquitoes and destroy breeding habitats, all over Singapore.”

The United States, Australia and other countries have warned pregnant women or those trying to conceive not to travel to Singapore.

The outbreak and travel warnings come just two weeks before the Singapore F1 motor-racing Grand Prix, a major sporting and tourist draw. Race promoter Singapore GP has said planning for the event is going ahead “as per normal”.

Singapore’s Tourism Board has said it is premature to consider any impact on the tourism industry, stressing the tropical city-state remains a “safe travel destination”.

More than 55 million people pass through Singapore’s Changi airport each year. Tourism arrivals topped 8 million in the first half of this year, around 1 million more than a year ago.

“NEGATIVE IMPACT”

China is trade-dependent Singapore’s top overseas market, and the Zika outbreak coincides with a dip in overall exports and slowing economic growth in both countries.

“If this continues, certainly it will have a negative impact, but it’s hard to quantify in percentage terms or dollar value,” said Francis Tan, an economist at United Overseas Bank in Singapore.

The Zika virus, which has spread through the Americas and the Caribbean since late last year, is generally a mild disease but has been linked to microcephaly – a severe birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains.

The World Health Organization, which has declared Zika an international public health emergency, is holding a regular meeting of its Zika emergency committee on Thursday to review the spread of the disease.

Singapore authorities said late on Wednesday they found some new Zika cases beyond the cluster area where it had initially been detected. They also confirmed a first Zika case in a pregnant woman in the country.

On Thursday, Singapore said half of the cases found so far involved foreigners – including 23 Chinese nationals, 15 Indians and 10 Bangladeshis – adding that most patients had recovered. Many of the foreigners are believed to be among the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who work in Singapore’s construction and marine industries.

Malaysia, which has two land border crossings with Singapore, asked those going to the city-state to use mosquito repellent and to cover up to avoid bites. Tens of thousands of people travel between the two countries daily.

Indonesia has also stepped up protective measures following the Singapore outbreak, intensifying checks on arrivals from Singapore, introducing thermal scanners and posting paramedics at airports and border checkpoints.

Zika is carried by mosquitoes, which transmit the virus to humans, though a small number of cases of sexual transmission of the virus have been reported in the Americas. A case of suspected transmission through a blood transfusion in Brazil has raised questions about other ways in which Zika may spread.

There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, however. The WHO has also linked Zika to Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Sipalan and Rozanne Latiff in Kuala Lumpur; Writing by Miral Fahmy; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

Thirteen Indians among Zika infected people in Singapore

A man cycles past a construction site where locally transmitted Zika cases were first discovered in Singapore

By Raju Gopalakrishnan and Marius Zaharia

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Thirteen Indian citizens are among those infected in an outbreak of the Zika virus in Singapore, according to a person at the Indian High Commission in the city-state.    Foreign construction workers have been hit hardest in the first days of the mosquito-borne disease’s outbreak. Singapore announced the first locally contracted case of Zika late on Saturday.

Of the first 56 cases of Zika identified by late Monday, three dozen were foreign workers on a property development site where they worked and lived with more than 450 others.    Total Zika infections had increased to 82 by late Tuesday, but the Singapore government has not disclosed whether any of the more recent cases involved foreign workers. It did not respond to Reuters questions about the nationality of those infected.    The person at the Indian High Commission did not know if the Indian citizens affected were in the construction industry.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs said it had asked the Singapore government if any of its nationals were among those diagnosed with the Zika virus, but had yet to hear back.    Many of the 360,000 or so foreign workers in Singapore’s building industry are from the Indian sub-continent, including India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. While many are paid as little as S$2 an hour ($1.47), work 12-14 hour days and rarely take days off, they can still potentially earn significantly more in Singapore than at home.

“MOST SUSCEPTIBLE”

Some dormitory rooms where workers live can house more than a dozen people and have no working fans, increasing their potential exposure to mosquitoes as windows are often left open, rights groups and some foreign workers told Reuters.    Government regulations already require employers and dormitory operators to take efforts to avoid mosquito breeding habitats as part of a long-standing battle with dengue, another mosquito-borne virus, but rights groups say they are concerned that these rules are not always followed.    Heena Kanwar, executive director of the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics, says foreign workers are “the most susceptible group” for infections “because of their living conditions.”

Reuters was unable to gain access to workers at the construction site which was the focal point of the initial Zika infections. A spokesperson for Woh Hup, the main contractor at the site – which is under a “stop work” order – directed queries to the authorities “as the case is still under investigation.”

A spokeswoman for the site’s owner, Guocoland, said the company was unable to comment “beyond what has been released by the authorities.”

Only local media were invited to a site visit by Minister of State for Manpower Teo Ser Luck on Tuesday, reporting that those diagnosed with the Zika virus were still living on site, but were separated from other workers, in rooms with internet access and delivered meals.

Debbie Fordyce, member of the executive committee of the group Transient Workers Count Too, noted that Singapore doesn’t release a nationality breakdown of foreign workers in its construction industry, so it’s not surprising it has not disclosed where workers with the Zika virus are from.

“It could either be for the protection of the foreign workers, so that certain groups are not ostracized and identified as carriers of the virus, or to avoid drawing further attention to the poor living conditions,” she said.

Dormitory operators, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said government agencies carry out regular site inspections, and this week sprayed insecticide and looked for potential mosquito breeding habitats.

They say the government acts quickly if conditions are sub-standard, and operators are required to have at least one sick bay available or contingency plans for infectious diseases.

One dorm operator said it was hard to monitor the spread of infectious diseases, noting there were as many as 240 workers on just one level of his premises.

Manpower Minister Teo told local media on Tuesday that action would be taken against operators who don’t take preventive measures “because this is a very serious issue.”

It’s still not known where the other foreign workers with Zika are from.

The High Commission of Bangladesh and the Thai embassy said they did not have any workers among those who tested positive. A Sri Lankan foreign ministry official said it had not been informed of any infections, and the Chinese foreign ministry said in Beijing it had no information about any of its nationals in Singapore having Zika.

(Reporting by Marius Zaharia, Fathin Ungku, Nicole Nee, Imogen Braddick, Masayuki Kitano and Aradhana Aravindan in SINGAPORE, Douglas Busvine in NEW DELHI and Ryan Woo in Beijing; Editing by Martin Howell and Ian Geoghegan)

Singapore confirms 41 cases locally transmitted ZIKA virus

Contractor fogs a condominium garden in Singapore in an effort to kill mosquitoes

By Marius Zaharia

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore has confirmed 41 cases of locally transmitted ZIKA virus, mostly among foreign construction workers, and said it expected more cases to be identified.

All but seven of those infected had fully recovered, the Health Ministry and the National Environment Agency said in a statement on Sunday. The seven remain in hospital.

On Saturday, authorities confirmed a 47-year-old Malaysian woman living in southeastern Singapore as the city-state’s first case of a local transmission of the virus.

Zika, carried by some mosquitoes, was detected in Brazil last year and has since spread across the Americas. The virus poses a risk to pregnant women because it can cause severe birth defects. It has been linked in Brazil to more than 1,600 cases of microcephaly, where babies are born with small heads.

Singaporean authorities said they tested 124 people, primarily foreign construction workers employed on a site in the same part of Singapore. That site has been ordered to halt work, and workers’ dormitories are being inspected. Seventy-eight people tested negative and five cases were pending. Thirty-four patients had fully recovered.

Four Singaporean men had developed symptoms of the virus in the past week and were hospitalized on Saturday. It was not clear where the foreign workers were from or when their cases were detected. Singapore hosts a large contingent of workers from the Asian subcontinent.

None of those infected had traveled recently to Zika-affected areas. “This confirms that local transmission of Zika virus infection has taken place,” the statement said.

The ministry “cannot rule out further community transmission since some of those tested positive also live or work in other parts of Singapore,” the statement said. “We expect to identify more positive cases.”

The World Health Organization said in a statement on Sunday that it did not know “which lineage of Zika is circulating” or “what the level of population immunity is to this lineage of Zika in Asia.”

“It is important for countries to remain vigilant through surveillance for cases, to continue vector control, to inform people about Zika and how they can protect themselves, and to have the health system ready to supply the services needed to prevent and manage Zika and its consequences,” the group told Reuters.

Singapore, a major regional financial center and busy transit hub, which maintains a constant vigil against the mosquito-borne dengue virus, reported its first case of the Zika virus in May, brought in by a middle-aged man who had been to Brazil.

CLEANUP

Singapore deployed about 200 NEA officers to clean drains and spray insecticide in the mainly residential area early on Sunday to counter mosquito breeding grounds, and volunteers and contractors handed out leaflets and insect repellent.

All medical services in Singapore had been alerted “to be extra vigilant” and immediately report any Zika-associated symptoms to the health ministry.

Singapore said there were “ongoing local transmission” cases in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Other countries in the region to have detected the Zika virus since 2013 include Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives and the Philippines, according to the WHO.

Malaysia said on Sunday it stepped up surveillance at main transit points with Singapore – handing out leaflets on Zika prevention and having paramedics ready to handle visitors with potential symptoms of the virus.

In Thailand, where close to 100 cases of Zika have been recorded across 10 provinces this year, the Department of Disease Control was screening athletes returning from the Olympic Games in Brazil, but was not otherwise changing its prevention measures.

“Every country in this region has Zika transmission cases,” said Prasert Thongcharoen, an adviser to the DDC. “Thailand has, however, managed to contain the problem through early detection.”

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Indonesia was “following developments”. Oskar Pribadi, a Health Ministry official, said there had been no recent Zika cases in the country.

Vietnam has to date reported three cases of locally transmitted Zika infection.

The current strain of Zika sweeping through Latin America and the Caribbean originated in Asia, where people may have built up greater immunity.

(Reporting by Marius Zaharia; Additional reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore, A. Ananthalakshmi in Kuala Lumpur, Amy Lefevre in Bangkok, Agustinus Beo Da Costa in Jakarta, My Pham in Hanoi, Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; Editing by Ian Geoghegan and Peter Cooney)