While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Sept 22

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Pekanbaru, the capital of haze-shrouded Riau province, has been blanketed in thick haze originating from neighbouring provinces Jambi and South Sumatra.

ST PHOTO: KHALID BABA

'How can we breathe if the oxygen has been taken away?

His house overlooks the wide and magnificent Siak river that runs from west to east of Pekanbaru and on a regular day, Mr Bakri Hamid would be on the front terrace enjoying the breeze while watching the trees sway in the wind.
But it is the haze season now, and nothing is normal.
Every year between July and October, farmers slash-and-burn vegetation to start another growing season.
"Every day, I wake up feeling like I just swallowed a 'kedondong' seed," said the 66-year-old retiree, whose home does not have an air-conditioner. Kedondong is a tropical fruit that tastes sweet and sour, with a fibrous and spiky pit.

Strong earthquake hits Albania, damage reported

A strong earthquake hit Albania on Saturday afternoon, forcing residents into the street in several cities, triggering power cuts in the capital and the collapse of some buildings in a nearby village.
"There are no deaths," Albania's defence ministry spokeswoman Albana Qajaj said.
She added that houses and buildings in Tirana had been damaged but were still standing and that the ministry was accessing damage in other towns and villages.

Youth leaders at UN demand bold climate change action

Fresh off the climate strike that took hundreds of thousands of young people out of classrooms and into the streets globally, youth leaders gathered at the United Nations Saturday to demand radical moves to fight climate change.
"We showed that we are united and that we, young people, are unstoppable," Swedish 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg, who started the climate strike movement with her lone protest in front of her country's parliament about a year and a half ago.
More than 700 mostly young activists attended the first of its kind Youth Climate Summit, according to Luis Alfonso de Alba, the UN special climate summit envoy.

Bernardo Silva gets hat-trick as Manchester City thrash Watford 8-0

A Bernardo Silva hat-trick helped Manchester City to secure the joint second-biggest Premier League victory in history with an 8-0 thrashing of a bewildered Watford on Saturday.
The champions, responding to their first league defeat since January at Norwich City last weekend, blew Watford away by becoming the first side to score five goals in the first 18 minutes of a Premier League game.
David Silva got City up and running after finishing off a delightful pass from Kevin De Bruyne in the first minute, before Sergio Aguero's 100th Premier League goal at the Etihad Stadium doubled the hosts' advantage from the penalty spot.

F1 Singapore: Campy Muse bring cinematic drama to Padang stage

British rock trio Muse have a reputation for spectacular live shows, and their cinematic space opera made landfall at the Padang stage - complete with campy outfits, dancers and visuals.
Frontman and guitarist Matt Bellamy, bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard, opened with plenty of their newer numbers - Pressure and Break It To Me - all off their 2018 album titled Simulation Theory.
Bellamy lead the charge, donning an ensemble of LED glasses, a light up LED bomber jacket and a robotic "power glove" - like Bellamy's very own Thanos-style Infinity Gauntlet, which he used to command the crowd from atop his stage perch.