my colleagues and i are acutely aware that high inflation poses significant hardship, especially on those least able to meet the higher cost of essentials, like food, housing and transportation. we are highly attentive to the risk the higher inflation poses to both sides of our mandate and we are strongly committed to restoring price stability. the rise in us interest rates hasn t done much to change the value of the dollar on the international markets it s slipped down a little. but us stock markets rose the dow was up nearly 3% and it s also worth noting that while this was happening, the european commission s proposal to ban imports of oil from russia saw the price of a barrel of brent crude go up by almost 4%. we ll have much more on all of this in asia business report coming up after newsday for some of our viewers around the world. for years hong kong managed to control the spread of covid i9. but the omicron variant overwhelmed the healthcare system. the city recorded the