These are the top stories making the front pages of major newspapers from across Southeast Asia today.
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Coronavirus: Singapore to work with G-20 and global organisations to restart international travel
The Republic will work with the Group of 20 (G-20) countries and international organisations to look into the gradual restart of cross-border travel, said Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Thursday (Sept 3). This resumption of international traffic amid the Covid-19 pandemic will be done safely through comprehensive testing and rigorous contact tracing, he said. His comments come after Singapore's announcement of fast lane arrangements on consecutive days with Brunei and South Korea earlier this week. The lanes will allow for essential business and official travel between Singapore and the two countries. Dr Balakrishnan was speaking at the virtual Extraordinary G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting on Thursday. He attended the meeting in Singapore's capacity as convenor of the Global Governance Group, an informal group of smaller- and medium-sized countries that seeks to promote greater transparency and inclusivity in the G-20 process. During the meeting, Dr Balakrishnan and other foreign ministers talked about the need for international cooperation across borders. They also discussed the need to work towards a recovery which is more resilient to future shocks. – The Straits Times
Klang Valley water disruption enters second day, no end in sight
The unscheduled water disruption which struck many Klang Valley consumers on Thursday looks set to continue today. Sungai Selangor Phase 1, 2 and 3 water treatment plants, as well as the Rantau Panjang Water Treatment plant remain non-operational as of 6.30am today as pollution is still detected at the plants' intakes. Pengurusan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (Air Selangor) corporate communication chief Elina Baseri said the pollution measures 1 tonne as of this morning. She said the plants can only begin operations once the pollution level falls to zero tonnes. A total of 1,292 areas in seven regions in the Klang Valley saw taps going dry beginning 10am on Thursday. The seven areas are Kuala Lumpur, Petaling, Klang/Shah Alam, Kuala Selangor, Hulu Selangor, Gombak and Kuala Langat. The disruption occurred after the four water treatment plants were shut down when pollution – a solvent believed to originate from the Sungai Gong industrial area – reached the plants' intakes. Elina said water supply will be distributed via water tank trucks. Affected consumers are advised to acquire water via available public taps and Local Service Centres which will operate 24 hours daily until supply is fully restored, she said. – New Straits Times
'Boss' case panel makes 5 proposals
The Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) will coordinate the implementation of the five proposals made by a panel looking into the alleged mishandling of the hit-and-run case against Red Bull scion Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya. Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam gave details on Thursday of his meeting the day before with the PACC and the panel, headed by Vicha Mahakun, a former member of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, over its "urgent" proposals. The panel first recommended a re-investigation of those charges arising from the 2012 hit-and-run whose statute of limitations had yet to expire, including a drug charge that police never pressed against Mr Vorayuth. It then recommended legal and disciplinary action against a number of people divided into eight groups. Mr Wissanu said various people, including police officers, public prosecutors, lawyers and civilians, had allegedly been guilty of misconduct in their handling of the case. The PACC would examine how the allegation related to each of those people and would then ask authorities to pursue legal or disciplinary action against them, he said. In some cases, both disciplinary and legal action would be taken, he said. The Royal Thai Police, for instance, would be asked to probe the misconduct said to have been committed by its officers who were involved in the case. – Bangkok Post
Indonesia reports higher COVID-19 death rate among children than United States
Indonesia is reportedly among the countries with the highest COVID-19 death rate among children, surpassing the United States, the world's worst-hit country by the pandemic. KawalCOVID-19, a volunteer group that independently records virus case numbers and deaths in Indonesia, recorded a case fatality rate (CFR) among children, or people aged 17 years and younger, was currently at 0.9 percent, or 45 times higher than in the United States, which was at 0.02 percent. The CFR is defined as the proportion of infections resulting in death. KawalCOVID-19 co-founder Ainun Najib said that, according to national COVID-19 task force data, the CFR among Indonesian children aged 0-17 years was 0.9 percent. “That means that 145 of 16,007 infected children of the age group have died,” Ainun told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. In comparison, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Thursday that 0.02 percent of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death, or 82 children had died from a total of 355,123 COVID-19 cases in children aged 0-17 years in the US. According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the US is still the world's coronavirus epicentre with more than 6.1 million cases and 185,000 deaths, while Indonesia recorded more than 184,000 cases and 7,700 deaths. – The Jakarta Post
PhilHealth OKs P600M denied hospital claims
An administration lawmaker on Thursday deplored another irregularity in Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) involving the grant of amnesty to delinquent hospitals that had been claiming payments for eight years. Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers blasted unscrupulous PhilHealth officials for entering into allegedly questionable deals, which, he said, was done “without much thought and replete with doubtful details.” Barbers, who spoke about the amnesty toward the conclusion of the joint hearings of the House committees on good government and on public accounts on Wednesday, questioned PhilHealth officials on their May 14 board approval allowing the payment of more than P600 million to hospitals with previously rejected claims from 2011 to 2019. “They are authorizing PhilHealth to release P600 million to settle all these claims, supposedly because we are in the middle of a pandemic and the [hospitals] need financial security,” Barbers said. “If most of these were from as early as 2011, and you are saying we are supposed to grant them amnesty, don’t we have a problem here?” he asked. According to Barbers, various hospitals in the country had been claiming payments from PhilHealth since 2011, reportedly totalling about P4 billion, which the state-run health insurer’s Protest Appeals and Review Department (PARD) had rejected. – INQUIRER.net
Students in COVID-19-hit localities take national exam
More than 26,000 students who were either in quarantine or live in areas where social distancing measures are in place due to COVID-19 sat the national high school examination on Thursday. This year, for the first time, the exam has been organised in two phases due to the COVID-19 pandemic. About 867,000 candidates finished the first phase on August 10. Their peers who could not sit the first phase of the exam attended the second phase, taking the literature test on Thursday morning, maths on Thursday afternoon, social or natural sciences on Friday morning and foreign languages on Friday afternoon. Examination councils were set up in Hà Nội, Đà Nẵng, Quảng Nam, Đắk Lắk, Thừa Thiên-Huế, Quảng Ngãi, Lạng Sơn, Quảng Trị, Thái Bình, Hoà Bình and Bắc Giang for the 26,000 students from 27 cities and provinces in this phase. Figures from localities showed more than 26,160 students were expected to attend the second phase, accounting for 2.91 per cent of the total registered for the exam. Of those, nearly 11,000 students are from the central city of Đà Nẵng, the country’s largest outbreak, along with more than 9,200 from the neighbouring Quảng Nam Province, 5,400 from Đắk Lắk and 355 from Quảng Ngãi Province. – Viet Nam News
High school exams set for December 21
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport has set December 21 to convene the Higher Secondary Diploma examinations for the 2019-2020 school year. The ministry also submitted measures to ensure the smooth organisation of the examination and to prevent the spread of Covid-19. The directive, signed by Minister Hang Chuon Naron on Wednesday, said that due to Covid-19, schools across the country were temporarily closed and examination postponed. Since the spread of the disease is under control and the ministry received permission from the government, it decided to set December 21 as the date for the high school diploma examinations. “On the afternoon of December 17th, a meeting will be held to introduce members of the examination committee across the country, the National Block Supervisor and the director of the ministry’s writing centre in Phnom Penh. “On December 18, all these committees will bring the examination papers to local authorities in provinces and towns,” the directive said. The list of candidates, the examination schedule, subjects and regulations, room layouts, and other documents will be posted on December 20. The ministry said the grading process will take place from December 24 to 30 at collection centres in Phnom Penh, and the verification of examinations and results may continue until mid-January. – The Phnom Penh Post