PAKISTAN
Polio vaccine drive starts
The government yesterday began its first nationwide polio vaccination campaign for the year in an effort to eradicate the crippling disease by the end of the year, health official Rana Safdar said. The nation is one of three in the world where polio is still endemic. The other two are Afghanistan and Nigeria. However, militant threats and deep-rooted superstition have spurred many parents, particularly in areas bordering Afghanistan, to refuse to vaccinate their children. Safdar said the program, which involves 260,000 staffers, aims to vaccinate 39.2 million under-five children across the nation, except for some areas badly hit by winter rains. The campaign will try to include children who move across the Afghan-Pakistan border. Last year, the nation reported only eight new polio cases.
AFGHANISTAN
Car bomb kills 12
The Afghan Taliban yesterday killed at least 12 security force members in a car bomb attack on a military base in the central province of Maidan Wardak, officials said. Two gunmen who tried to enter the compound were shot dead, said Mohebullah Sharifzai, spokesman for the Maidan Wardak provincial governor. “A [second] car, packed with explosives, was also discovered and defused,” he added. Provincial health director Mohammad Salem Asgharkhil said that 28 wounded members of the security forces had been taken to hospital. “Looking at the damage, the number of casualties may rise and our health team is still searching for victims,” he said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said had killed or wounded dozens.
INDIA
Intruder killed by lion
A man was mauled to death by a lion after he scaled the wall of a zoo in northern Punjab state, officials said yesterday. The man climbed the 6m wall of Chhatbir Zoo, home to four lions, on Sunday and entered the restricted area where he was attacked. Hearing his screams, the staff rushed to try and rescue him. “He was an intruder in the zoo. We took him to the hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries,” said Roshan Sunkaria from the state forest department. The animal that attacked the man was an Asiatic lion — a critically endangered species and a major tourist draw. Only about 500 exist in the wild, all in the Gir sanctuary in the western state of Gujarat. The authorities have not yet been able to contact the victim’s family. The zoo has stepped up warnings inside the premises and advised visitors to travel with an escort and keep vehicles locked.
JAPAN
Fake cops sentenced
Thieves who dressed up as police officers to con victims out of nearly 160kg of gold worth US$7 million were yesterday handed lengthy prison sentences. In 2016, the three fake cops stopped a group of men carrying briefcases with gold bars worth ¥750 million in the southern city of Fukuoka and ordered them to hand them over, telling them they knew the gold had been smuggled. Apparently taken in by the disguise, the victims gave the pretend police what they asked for and simply watched as they drove off. The Fukuoka District Court ordered “a seven-year jail term for 36-year-old Tomonori Shiraishi and five-and-a-half years in prison for Takahiro Shirane, 28, and Takumi Uchida, 26,” a court spokesman said.
CHINA
Everest climbs to be cut
The number of climbers attempting to scale Mount Everest from the north this year is to be cut by one-third as part of plans for a major cleanup on the world’s highest peak, state media reported yesterday. The number of climbers seeking to summit the world’s highest peak at 8,850m from the north is to be limited to less than 300 and the climbing season restricted to the spring, the reports said. The cleanup efforts would include the recovery of the bodies of climbers who died at more than 8,000m up the mountain, they said. Each year, about 60,000 climbers and guides visit the Chinese north side of the mountain. The government has set up stations to sort, recycle and break down garbage from the mountain, which includes cans, plastic bags, stove equipment, tents and oxygen tanks.
WEALTH
Growing gap fuels anger
Tax systems that put a high burden on the poor mean that public services are underfunded, stretching the gap between rich and poor and fueling global public anger, Oxfam International executive director Winnie Byanyima said yesterday. A new billionaire was created every two days last year, just as the poorest half of the world’s population saw their wealth decline by 11 percent, the Nairobi-headquartered charity said in a report yesterday. Governments are increasingly underfunding public services and failing to clamp down on tax dodging, said the report, as political and business leaders gather for the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Poor people suffer twice from being deprived of basic services and also paying a higher burden of taxation,” Byanyima said in an interview.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited