HONG KONG – Hong Kong‘s Disneyland will close for a day on Wednesday for staff to take compulsory COVID–19 tests after authorities found one person who visited the theme park over the weekend was infected with the coronavirus.

Disneyland, majority-owned by the city government with Walt Disney holding a minority stake, said in a statement the closure was out of “an abundance of caution” and advised visitors to reschedule.

Any person who visited the park, which had to close multiple times for prolonged periods since the start of the pandemic, on Nov. 14 between 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. would also have to get tested by Thursday, the government said separately.

Despite barely recording any local coronavirus cases in recent months, authorities in the global financial hub have tightened up quarantine and patient discharge rules.

Hong Kong is following Beijing’s lead in retaining strict travel curbs, in contrast to a global trend of opening up and living with the coronavirus. The city government hopes the tighter rules would convince China, its main source of economic growth, to gradually open its border with Hong Kong.

At Shanghai Disneyland last month, guests who were already inside were told to undergo tests at the exit related to COVID–19 investigations linked to other Chinese provinces and cities.

International business lobby groups have warned Hong Kong could lose talent and investment, as well as competitive ground to rival finance hubs such as Singapore, unless it relaxes its restrictions on travel.

The president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong said on Tuesday she is resigning as she cannot appeal to authorities to ease COVID–19 restrictions at the same time as having to undergo quarantine herself.

JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, who was in Hong Kong on Monday and was exempt from quarantine under current rules for some executives, said the city’s COVID–19 policy was making it tougher to retain staff. – Reuters

OTTAWA – Canada’s vaccine mandate for parliament is helping Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau exploit divisions in the opposition Conservative Party, some of whose lawmakers will be shut out when the House of Commons reconvenes next week.

Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole, whose party came in second in the Sept. 20 vote, has been unable to persuade a portion of his caucus to get inoculated, which means they will not be let into the House of Commons when it reopens on Nov. 22.

The party declines to say how many of its parliamentary members are unvaccinated. O’Toole encourages the use of vaccines and says his MPs will follow House of Commons’ rules, but some leading figures in his party want accommodations.

The party split is undermining O’Toole as he fights to ward off a leadership review. A Conservative senator on Monday launched a petition aimed at ousting O’Toole within six months, saying he was a poor and untrustworthy leader.

To appease the right wing of his party, O’Toole opposed vaccine mandates during the campaign and allowed his candidates not to be inoculated even though most Conservative voters embraced vaccines.

“The vaccination issue is sort of coming back and repeating on the (Conservative) party as its absolute worst liability,” said Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute, a research foundation.

O’Toole is “a leader who clearly does not feel he can push back in a strong way against that libertarian-minded, freedom-minded segment of the Conservative caucus,” she added.

The 49-year-old Trudeau narrowly won the September vote and ended up with a minority, enhancing the power of opposition parties and forcing him to depend on them to pass legislation.

But the two other main opposition parties side with the Liberals on vaccines, isolating the Conservatives in what a senior government source called a “dangerous and risky” position on COVID-19 as cases spike again across the country.

Speaking for the first time to his MPs since the election last week, Trudeau chided the Conservatives for “stepping up to stand against vaccination, to stand against science, to stand against being there for each other.”

Trudeau‘s tough stance on vaccine mandates is putting some 13,000 civil servants on unpaid leave because of their refusal to get inoculated, a move supported by 70% of Canadians, according to a recent EKOS Research poll.

Some 85% of eligible Canadians have been vaccinated.

In the U.S. Congress, CNN has reported that all Democrats are vaccinated, while some Republican members openly say they are not. There is a mask requirement in Congress, but no vaccine requirement. Canada also has a mask requirement while in parliament.

Conservative lawmaker Marilyn Gladu, who challenged O’Toole in a party leadership race last year, is forming a “civil liberties” working group of 15 to 30 members to stand up for privacy and for a “reasonable accommodation” for unvaccinated workers.

Leslyn Lewis, who also ran for party leadership last year, has tweeted her opposition to vaccine mandates, as have a handful of others.

Garry Keller, a former senior conservative staffer who is now vice president at public affairs consultancy Strategy Corp, said it is fine to quietly discuss the differences within the caucus.

“But generally speaking, this is a loser of an issue amongst the vast majority of Canadian voters, so why do you want to go down this road?” – Reuters

CILACAP, Indonesia – In a quiet mangrove forest in central Indonesia, a man moves gingerly across vegetation distinguished by its big, wooden stilt roots, searching for fallen mangrove fruits that rest on leaves or float on the water.

Gathering a handful of what looks like string beans, the man, a batik craftsman, heads home to make natural dye from them.

For the past four years, Sodikin, 48, and his group of batik makers have shifted from using chemical materials for colouring to mangrove-based products, cutting costs and helping the environment.

“We use natural materials so as to preserve the mangrove forest at the same time,” Sodikin, who uses only one name, told Reuters as he processed dried fruits before boiling them to extract colour. “We do not cut down the trees and we only take fruits or leaves that have fallen.”

Batik is a traditional Indonesian dying used in patterns and drawings, typically on fabric and finished textiles.

Mangroves play an important role for Indonesia’s natural environment, serving as barriers against tsunamis and providing important ecosystems for fish and crabs. They are also a more effective absorber of carbon dioxide emissions compared with rainforests or peatlands.

Despite being duller than synthetic dyes, natural dyes are more environmentally sustainable and have a greater market value because of their quality and durability, according to Erwin Ardli, a mangrove ecologist at Jenderal Soedirman University in Indonesia.

“We’ve seen the interest for natural dyes increasing, and especially for middle- to upper-class people, they seem to be proud to wear clothes using these natural dyes rather than synthetic dyes,” he said.

Batik gallery owner Iiting Budiarti agreed, saying items with natural dyes can fetch double or triple the synthetic ones. – Reuters

BALTIMORE, Md. – An advisory group to U.S. bishops urged the Catholic leaders on Tuesday to avoid making communion “a tool for division” amid debate over whether President Joe Biden’s support for abortion rights should disqualify him from receiving the sacrament.

Gathered in a Baltimore hotel ballroom, the bishops’ conference on Tuesday was presented with a draft of a document about the meaning of Holy Communion, a sacrament central to the faith.

The bishops have been divided over how explicitly the document should define the eligibility of prominent Catholics like Biden to receive communion due to political stances that contradict church interpretation.

Biden, the first Catholic U.S. president since John F. Kennedy, has said he personally opposes abortion but supports a woman’s right to choose. He has vowed to protect abortion rights in the face of increasingly restrictive laws enacted by states. Last month, his administration called on the Supreme Court to block a Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks.

The bishops are expected to debate the communion document and take a vote on Wednesday. The document needs a “yes” vote from two-thirds of the conference to pass.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Advisory Council, a body made up of laypeople and clergy, reviewed the document draft. The council holds the position that the Eucharist should not be politicized, council chair Mark Sadd told the bishops on Tuesday.

“We are united in our conviction that the Eucharist cannot be a tool for division, the Eucharist cannot be ideological, the Eucharist cannot be partisan,” Sadd said.

The conference has not made the draft document public. A version of the draft published by the Catholic newsletter The Pillar does not mention Biden or any politician by name, but states that “people who exercise some form of public authority have a special responsibility to embody the church.” It says Catholics who live in a state of “mortal sin” without repentance should not receive communion, but does not say who should sit in judgment.

“It was never the intention to target any individual or group of individuals,” Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia told reporters on Tuesday. “This is a document that is reaching out to all Catholics.”

Archbishop Jose Gomez, the conference president, said he felt the document was “absolutely necessary” and intended “to educate Catholics about the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.”

Some conservative bishops have argued the conference must rebuke politicians such as Biden who support abortion rights, given the church teaches that abortion is immoral. That contingent has called for the document to set explicit standards of eligibility for receiving the sacrament.

Others have cautioned against weaponizing the Eucharist and withholding it as a means of punishing specific political stances.

Some 55% of U.S. Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared to 59% of the general population, according to a Pew Research survey conducted in April.

Sadd told bishops that some members of the advisory council expressed doubt that the document would serve to heal existing rifts in the church.

Nearly 20% of U.S. Catholics have left the church in the past two decades, according to a Gallup poll in March, as sexual abuse scandals involving predatory priests have emerged and members disagreed on social issues. – Reuters