UNITED KINGDOM
Silicon Valley to step up
Home Secretary Amber Rudd is to use a visit to Silicon Valley on Tuesday to ask the world’s biggest social media and Internet service providers to step up efforts to counter or remove content that incites militants. After four militant attacks which killed 36 people this year, senior ministers have repeatedly demanded that Internet companies do more to suppress extremist content and allow access to encrypted communications. The forum was set up by Internet companies themselves to combine their efforts on removing militant content from their platforms.
FRANCE
Calais ruled ‘inhumane’
The government is to provide water and sanitation to refugees in Calais and open two reception centers away from the city, it said hours after a court ordered it to end what it called inhuman treatment of foreigners trying to get to the UK. Minister of the Interior Gerard Collomb said there were about 400 refugees around Calais, compared with the estimated 10,000 who used to live in the Jungle. The two new centers to house them will be in Bailleul and Troisvaux, about an hour’s drive inland. Access to water, showers and toilets is to be provided in the Calais area via mobile facilities, Collomb said.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Crime of aggression’ bid
The High Court on Monday blocked a bid by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s chief-of-staff to prosecute former Prime Minister Tony Blair for invading Iraq in 2003. General Abdulwaheed Shannan al-Rabbat also sought to prosecute then-foreign secretary Jack Straw and then-attorney general Peter Goldsmith because of their involvement in the decision. The case centered on the concept that a “crime of aggression” would be recognized under English law, as it is under international law. Al-Rabbat’s lawyers argued that this would have made it possible for the British leaders to be held personally accountable — and subject to criminal trials and even prison — if convicted for their actions.
UNITED STATES
Clooney to open schools
George Clooney’s foundation is planning to open seven public schools for Syrian refugee children. The Clooney Foundation for Justice announced a new partnership on Monday with Google, HP and UNICEF to provide education for more than 3,000 refugee children in Lebanon. George and Amal Clooney said in a statement on Monday that the foundation’s commitment of more than US$2 million toward education for Syrian refugees aims to prevent thousands of young people from becoming “a lost generation.”
NETHERLANDS
iPhone thieves nabbed
Police on Monday said they had rounded up a gang of alleged Romanian iPhone thieves, who gained notoriety by clambering from their cars into moving trucks to pull off heists. Five Romanian men were arrested over the weekend in a holiday park not far from the German border after 500,000 euros (US$591,132) worth of iPhones were stolen from the back of a truck as it drove along the A73 motorway from the town of Horst. During Monday and Tuesday night last week, a group of men approached the truck in a car and were spotted climbing through the sunroof as it was tailgating the truck carrying iPhones. One of them managed to force open the back of the truck.
NORTH KOREA
ICBM viability questioned
Analysts yesterday said that Pyongyang’s ICBM might be able to reach the continental US, but it has yet to show the missile can inflict serious damage once it gets there. US and South Korean experts said Japanese video footage capturing the Hwasong-14’s re-entry vehicle shortly before it crashed into the sea on Friday last week suggests it failed to survive the extreme heat and pressure after re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere following its launch. Analysis of the flight data suggests that more of the US mainland is now in range of Pyongyang’s weapons, but whether it can arm the missile with a nuclear warhead and protect it throughout the flight are different questions entirely. Mastering warhead re-entries would be one of the most critical military milestones the North has left, along with developing a submarine-launched ballistic missile system and solid-fuel ICBMs, Kim said.
NEW ZEALAND
Labour elects new leader
The opposition Labour Party yesterday appointed Jacinda Ardern as its new leader, less than two months before a general election, in a last-minute gamble to challenge the National Party’s decade-long hold on power. Ardern took over after Labour leader Andrew Little resigned over “disturbing” opinion poll results showed the lowest support levels in more than two decades. She became her struggling party’s youngest leader five days after her 37th birthday. Analysts described the move as a potential game-changer in a Sept. 23 election that had been seen as a slam-dunk for the National Party, which has been buoyed by some of the strongest recent economic growth among advanced countries. Ardern said she would focus on inequality and discuss a “few different ideas” with her team after taking stock over the next 72 hours.
PHILIPPINES
Warning over HIV growth
The nation has registered the fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Asia-Pacific in the past six years with a 140 percent increase in the number of new infections, the Department of Health and the UN said yesterday. At the end of last year, there were 10,500 people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) up from 4,300 in 2010, Minister of Health Paulyn Ubial told a news conference, citing data from UNAIDS. Ubial encouraged voluntary HIV-testing and use of condoms to help fight the problem, which in May alone saw 1,098 new cases of HIV infections in the nation, the highest recorded number of cases since 1984 when infections were first reported. UNAIDS regional support team director for Asia-Pacific Eamonn Murphy said the country can still end the public health threat by 2030 if the government can redirect its focus on the people and locations most at risk. He said 83 percent of new HIV cases occurred among males who have sex with males and transgender women who have sex with males.
JORDAN
‘Marry the rapist’ repealed
Parliament yesterday repealed a provision in the penal code that allowed a rapist to escape punishment if he married his victim. Cheers erupted from the spectators’ gallery as legislators narrowly voted to scrap controversial Article 308. The vote came after an emotional debate in which some lawmakers argued that an amended version of the clause was needed to protect rape victims against social stigma by giving them the marriage option. The government had backed repeal.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was