COLOMBIA
UN envoy urges protection
The new UN envoy to Colombia on Wednesday urged the government to swiftly implement its plan to protect social leaders, saying seven leaders were killed in just the first week of this month. Carlos Ruiz Massieu told the UN Security Council that there have also been 31 attacks since UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ latest report was published earlier this month. According to the attorney general’s investigations, three-quarters of the killings were from attacks by “criminal and armed groups” on leaders of “local action boards”, and indigenous communities and those active in land reclamation and voluntary crop substitution programs, he said.
UNITED STATES
Trump delays speech
President Donald Trump announced late on Wednesday that he would give the State of the Union address when the government shutdown ends, after House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi effectively blocked him from delivering the annual speech in Congress. “As the Shutdown was going on, Nancy Pelosi asked me to give the State of the Union Address. I agreed,” the president tweeted. “She then changed her mind because of the Shutdown, suggesting a later date. This is her prerogative — I will do the Address when the Shutdown is over.” Trump also said he was not looking for an alternative venue, because none “can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber,” adding that he looked forward to giving a “great” address “in the near future.”
? UNITED STATES
Cohen postpones testimony
President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen has postponed his testimony in Congress, citing threats from the president, Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis said on Wednesday. The threats were unspecified, but allegedly came from Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, according to a statement from Davis. Cohen had been scheduled to appear before the House of Representatives’ oversight committee on Feb. 7 to testify about his work for Trump, including contacts with Russia during the 2016 election and hush payments he allegedly made at Trump’s direction to two former lovers of the president. “Due to ongoing threats against his family from President Trump and Mr Giuliani, as recently as this weekend, as well as Mr Cohen’s continued cooperation with ongoing investigations, by advice of counsel, Mr Cohen’s appearance will be postponed to a later date,” Davis said. “This is a time where Mr Cohen had to put his family and their safety first.”
UNITED STATES
About 7m uninsured
About 7 million fewer Americans have health insurance today than did four years ago, a survey showed, the highest uninsured rate since 2014. The figures come from a poll conducted by Gallup, which since 2008 has asked about 28,000 people each quarter: “Do you have health insurance?” Last year, the pollsters found that 13.7 percent of Americans lacked health insurance, the highest levels since 2014. That represented a net increase of 7 million uninsured people. Comparably in 2014, the number of people without insurance was decreasing because Obamacare was going into effect. At its peak, just after Obamacare was passed, but before it went into effect, nearly one in five Americans lacked health insurance. Uninsured rates were at their lowest around the time of President Donald Trump’s election in 2016 (at 10.6 percent), Gallup reported, and began to rise after a series of sustained Republican attacks on the law.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Police battle piracy surge
Police yesterday asked the public for help tracking down a “notorious” pirate, as they tried to end a spate of offshore and onshore robberies. Officers were struggling to apprehend the chief suspect — a prison escapee and alleged pirate named Tommy Baker — because their last patrol boat broke down six years ago, Police Commissioner Gari Baki said. Baker was said to have escaped from Port Moresby General Hospital in October last year while receiving medical treatment. The Post Courier reported that seven police houses were burned down and several officers were wounded in a shoot-out with Baker’s gang. “A lot of police work went into his initial capture, but he simply walked out of prison, so we have to now spend a lot of money to get him back in again,” Baki said in a statement. Sea piracy is on the rise in Alotau “due to the fact the police does not have the ability to deal with it,” he added.
JAPAN
Sterilization law upheld
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a law that effectively requires transgender people to be sterilized before their gender can be changed on official documents. The court acknowledged “doubts” were emerging over whether the rule reflects changing social values, but said the law was constitutional. The decision published yesterday upholds a law that requires any person wishing to change their documents to have “no reproductive glands or reproductive glands that have permanently lost function.” It also requires the person to have “a body which appears to have parts that resemble the genital organs of those of the opposite gender.” The panel of four justices said that the measure was intended to prevent “problems” in parent-child relations that could lead to societal “confusion.” The judges said they recognized the invasive nature of the law, adding that legislation should be regularly reviewed as social and family values change.
RUSSIA
Cruise missile displayed
Moscow on Wednesday showed foreign military attaches a new cruise missile that the US says breaches a landmark arms control pact, billing it as an exercise in transparency it hoped would persuade Washington to stay in the treaty. Washington has threatened to pull out of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, alleging that the Russian missile breaches the pact, which bans either side from stationing short and intermediate-range, land-based missiles in Europe. Russia says the missile’s range puts it outside the treaty and has accused the US of inventing a false pretext to exit the treaty.
CHINA
Monkey with disorder cloned
Scientists yesterday announced that they had cloned five monkeys from a single animal that was genetically engineered to have a sleep disorder, saying it could aid research into human psychological problems. A research team from the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai said it had altered the genes of a macaque to give it circadian rhythm disorder. They then cloned five macaques from that individual, and found that the new monkeys show signs of mental problems associated with sleep disorders. The findings, published yesterday in the journal National Science Review, were hailed as a world first by Chinese media. The report’s authors said the findings could aid research into human psychological illnesses because scientists would be able to create animals with specific disorders.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not