These are the top stories making the front pages of major newspapers from across Southeast Asia today.
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Bundle deals part of $2-million tie-up between STB and Klook to boost local tourism
A seven-month tie-up between the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and travel booking platform Klook will offer bundle deals for dining, tours, leisure attractions and accommodation to help boost businesses in precincts like the Civic District and Katong-Joo Chiat. They will cater to interest groups such as foodies and outdoor enthusiasts, and include, for example, a stay at Hotel Mono in Chinatown paired with a trishaw tour of the area. The $2-million partnership is part of the $45-million SingapoRediscovers marketing campaign, which aims to get locals to holiday at home amid travel restrictions and a tourist drought. Other promotions listed on Klook's website include discounts on dining and attractions. Aside from marketing initiatives, the partnership will also encourage businesses to develop new products and experiences, Klook and STB said in a statement on Monday (Sept 14). Mr Marcus Yong, Klook's vice-president for marketing for the Asia-Pacific, said the platform lists more than 600 local activities. – The Straits Times
KL can't handle more than 70mm, says hydrologist
Thursday's flood was a testimony to the fact that Kuala Lumpur is not equipped to handle more than 70mm of rainfall in a widespread area, including along river banks and beyond. Hydrologist Dr Zulkifli Yusop said the stations around the city that he surveyed had an average of between 150mm and 200mm of rainfall during the five-hour storm. "KL can handle 10 per cent of that without flooding, but anything above 50mm to 70mm would cause flooding. "Even forests and plantations would have been flooded with Thursday's average of 150mm to 200mm, what more urban areas," he said, adding the higher readings were captured from rain stations located in the upstream areas of Sungai Gombak. He said that even with all systems in place, such as vegetation and retention ponds, it could only support about 20mm or 10 per cent of the entire rainfall. The Universiti Teknologi Malaysia professor said that though the peak of rainfall in the middle of Kuala Lumpur was captured at 44.5mm at 4pm, the reading was only reflective of stations in the middle of the city, instead of rainfall for all the five hours across multiple stations around the Klang and Gombak rivers. "The reason why it flooded on such a scale was because it was raining across a wide area around and throughout the rivers' expanse." This is also typical of the big floods in KL in the past. – New Straits Times
Natural border areas under close watch
The Public Health Ministry is gearing up efforts to prevent foreign migrants from neighbouring countries entering Thailand through natural border channels after Covid-19 infections in those countries started increasing. Suwannachai Wattanayingcharoenchai, director-general of the Department of Disease Control, said on Sunday that as cases across the border keep increasing –2,595 in Myanmar, 1,060 in Vietnam, 274 in Cambodia and 23 in Laos – Thailand must impose stricter protection especially where illegal migrants looking for work in Thailand are concerned. Dr Suwannachai said the department is conducting more inspections in border checkpoints and working with police, soldiers and village health volunteers to increase surveillance along natural border areas where illegal migrants enter the country. He said the department has trained volunteers about screening tests, self-protection, searching infected people, passing on health knowledge and arranging local quarantine places. – Bangkok Post
IDI urges better protection for medical workers as five more doctors die of COVID-19
The Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) has confirmed the deaths of five more doctors due to COVID-19, bringing the total count to 114 while also urging the government to provide better protection to medical workers fighting in the frontline of the ongoing pandemic. “Two days ago, 109 doctors [had died from COVID-19). Two more doctors died yesterday [Friday] and another three died today,” IDI mitigation team head Adib Khumaidi said on Saturday during a virtual discussion as reported by tribunnews.com. He said that East Java recorded the highest doctor fatalities with 29, followed by North Sumatra with 21. As many as 55 doctors, or around 50 percent of the tally, were general practitioners and the remainder specialists, he added. Adib explained that based on IDI’s investigation, not all the doctors had been infected in treatment or isolation rooms. He gave an example of an orthopaedic doctor who was exposed to the respiratory disease while operating on a patient who was only later found to be COVID-19 positive. IDI has coordinated with the National COVID-19 task force to raise protection issues for medical workers. “Safety is really important because we don’t know when COVID-19 is going to end,” he said. “I hope that we can build a commitment with the government because we [medical workers] want to be protected.” –The Jakarta Post
After two weeks under MGCQ, 35 barangays in Cebu City remain COVID-free
Thirty-five barangays here remain free from any coronavirus transmission even if the city has already been placed under the most relaxed form of community quarantine. City Councillor Joel Garganera, who heads the city’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC), said these villages reported no new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases for the past 14 days. “These are barangays with no new cases for the last 14 days,” said Garganera. Even before the city shifted to the most relaxed form of community quarantine, which is the modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) last September 1, 2020, these 35 barangays have not recorded new COVID-19 infections. The councillor and the deputy chief implementer of the Cebu City counterpart of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF-MEID), however, did not disclose the name of the 31 of the 35 barangays. “Naming a barangay COVID-free could only lead complacency to its residents, and we don’t want that to happen,” said Garganera in Cebuano. He did name the four others which have been COVID-free since the outbreak struck Cebu City. These are barangays Sudlon I, Buot-Taop, Paril, and Taptap. – INQUIRER.net
Three imported cases of COVID-19 reported on Sunday
Three more people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Viet Nam, all of them imported cases who arrived back to the country on the same flight from Russia on September 10. The total number of cases now stands at 1,063, but on Sunday eight more people were given the all-clear after beating coronavirus. Two of the new cases are men aged 24 and 26. The third is a 23-year-old woman. The two men are from HCM City and northern Tuyen Quang Province and the woman from northern Nam Dinh Province. Meanwhile, eight COVID-19 patients recovered on Sunday in central Danang City and Quang Nam Province. All of them tested negative for SARS-CV-2 for at least three times. Five recovered patients at Danang’s Lung Hospital and the three other recoveries from Quang Nam Province’s General Hospital included a five-year-old boy. The patients will continue home quarantine following protocols of the Ministry of Health after being discharged from hospital. Viet Nam has so far had 918 COVID-19 recoveries and 35 fatalities related to the coronavirus. – Viet Nam News
Siem Reap major road project to be completed by 2022
Blueprints for a Siem Reap construction project to build or fix 38 roads totalling 98.34km are due to be unveiled on September 23. The project is scheduled to be completed in late 2021. The deadline was set on Wednesday by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MPWT) and led by Tea Banh, the chairman of the inter-ministerial committee in charge of the project. The meeting was attended by Minister of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction Chea Sophara, MPWT Minister Sun Chanthol and senior officials from the Ministry of National Defence. Banh advised the task force in charge of designing the roads to reach a technical consensus to ensure that the construction is high quality and sustainable. A Facebook post of Prime Minister Hun Sen on September 4 announced that the government will spend $150 million to rebuild the 38 roads in Siem Reap. “Although our nation is facing Covid-19, it doesn’t affect development. The big and small roads planned to be built in this town will help raise the living standards of residents. The roads will also help stimulate economic growth,” Hun Sen said. He said he would preside over the opening ceremony of the construction and said late next year, people will see clean roads on the land of Angkor. Hun Sen also thanked the contributions of all institutions. He said they didn’t waste their money because the government saved more than $600 million to develop the country. – The Phnom Penh Post