World Briefs … Ecuador leader sorry for harassment comments

QUITO — The president of Ecuador has apologised for saying women only report harassment “when it comes from an ugly person”.

His comments at a conference in the city of Guayaquil on Friday sparked uproar online. At the same event Lenin Moreno also said that men faced the constant threat of being falsely accused of harassment by women. As the backlash mounted, he tweeted that he “did not intend to minimise an issue as serious as violence or abuse”. “I apologise if it was understood that way,” he added. “I reject violence against women in all its forms!” Addressing the conference in Guayaquil, president Moreno had said that men are “permanently subjected to the danger of being accused of harassment”. “Women often report harassment, it is true, and it is good that they do so,” he went on, before claiming that women often “get angry with ugly people” in harassment cases.

China accuses US of causing

panic and ‘spreading fear’

BEIJING — The Chinese government has accused the United States of causing “panic” in its response to the coronavirus outbreak. It follows the US decision to declare a public health emergency and deny entry to foreign nationals who had visited China in the past two weeks. There are more than 17 000 confirmed cases of the virus in China. Some 361 people have died in the mainland alone. Outside China, there are more than 150 confirmed cases of the virus – and one death, in the Philippines. In a news briefing yesterday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said the US actions “could only create and spread fear” instead of offering assistance – saying it was the first country to impose a travel ban on Chinese travellers and the first to suggest a partial withdrawal of its embassy staff. A handful of countries like Australia also imposed an entry ban on Chinese travellers.

Yemen’s medical air bridge

offers rare glimpse of hope

SANA’A — Peals of laughter bounce off the bright yellow walls of an inflatable castle, and the click-clack of children playing air hockey pierces the air. Thirteen-year old Raghad pushes the plastic puck with all the strength she can muster from her delicate frame. The hint of a smile peeks from her protective face mask. “She’s always been the smartest girl in her class,” her father Abdullah proudly informs me as we sit in the garden of a Sanaa hotel where their family and dozens of others have waited months for a long-promised UN flight to get medical care abroad. But there is something Raghad’s father does not want her to know: her body is now consumed by cancer. “I keep this secret from her,” he says quietly. “If she knows, it would change everything for her.” Raghad is on the short list of 30 patients set to fly out of Sanaa International Airport as part of this medical air bridge for civilians.

Workers blame ‘painful

jobs’ for pulling sickies

LONDON — Some 8,6 million people threw sick days last year because they found their jobs “too painful”, a survey suggests. Released on what some dub ‘National Sickie Day’, the research claimed concerns about work culture, colleagues and workloads were to blame. However, it also said 12 million workers went to work genuinely sick. The IT company Insight, which did the research, warned of “serious issues within organisations’ culture” and called for more flexible working. It based the findings on a Kantar survey of 1 250 working adults, done over a week in last month. The responses were weighted to draw a picture of the wider working population, which numbers almost 33 million people. “Employers have a duty of care to their employees to look after their safety and well-being, and this includes their physical and mental health,” said Tom Neil, Acas senior adviser.

– Nampa-AFP-Reuters-BBC News