SINGAPORE
Waste reduction urged
Citizens and businesses are being called on to reduce domestic and industrial waste as the nation’s recycling rate has stalled and its sole landfill could run out of space by 2035. The government is to publish a master plan in the second half, with grants to support projects, Minister of the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli said in a speech yesterday. “We need a paradigm shift,” Masagos said. “We need to adopt a circular economy approach” where trash can be reused and recycled endlessly, and resources are consumed in a sustainable manner.” The nation’s population of 5.6 million generated 7.7 million tonnes of waste in 2017, according to government figures. While the amount of waste fell 1.4 percent, the overall recycling rate was unchanged at 61 percent.
DIPLOMACY
Ministerial meeting delayed
Singapore and Malaysia agreed to postpone a ministerial meeting amid a dispute on territorial waters. Singapore proposed delaying the Jan. 14 meeting after what it called an “intrusion” into its waters by Osman Sapian, chief minister of Johor, the Malaysian state closest to Singapore, it said in a statement. Osman said on Facebook that the area he visited was not in Singaporean waters. Malaysia yesterday confirmed the postponement in a statement, saying that the state chief minister’s Jan. 9 port visit was within its own waters. The governments are in communication and agreed that both sides should remain calm and not sensationalize matters, while both parties would continue to meet to discuss “other bilateral issues,” the statement said.
FRANCE
Gas blast kills three
A powerful gas explosion that tore through a building in central Paris on Saturday killed a Spanish woman and two firefighters hailed as heroes by President Emmanuel Macron. Dozens more were injured in the blast, which also badly damaged nearby apartments, officials said. About 200 firefighters were mobilized to battle the fire, which broke out after the explosion, and evacuate people, Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner told reporters at the scene. As well as the three dead, 47 people were injured in the blast, 10 of them seriously, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. A source in the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that a woman who was holidaying with her husband in Paris died in hospital after the blast, while another Spanish national was also injured.
FRANCE
Protest numbers rise
The number of protesters in the latest “yellow vest” rallies surged on Saturday, with hundreds of arrests and clashes with police in Paris and other cities. More than 84,000 people turned out for the ninth round of demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron since November last year, the Ministry of the Interior said, up from 50,000 the previous Saturday.
DR CONGO
Election result challenged
The runner-up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s presidential election, Martin Fayulu, has appealed to the Constitutional Court to annul the provisional result that awarded victory to Felix Tshisekedi, Fayulu’s lawyer said on Saturday. The request was filed on Friday ahead of a 48-hour deadline for any appeals against the result to replace President Joseph Kabila. “The request seeks the annulment of the result declaring Felix Tshisekedi president,” Toussaint Ekombe told reporters outside the court.
AFGHANISTAN
At least 10 dead in attacks
At least five Afghan security forces were killed after their checkpoint came under attack by insurgents in the southern province of Kandahar, said Aziz Ahmad Azizi, the provincial governor’s spokesman. Two other police were wounded in Saturday’s attack, which took place in the Spin Bolduk district, he said, adding that seven Taliban insurgents were killed and six others were wounded in the fighting. Taliban spokesman Qari Yusouf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack. In another report from the western Herat Province, a number of gunmen attacked a city police station on Saturday evening, killing two policemen and three civilians, said Gelani Farhad, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Four others were wounded during the battle, he said. So far, there has been no claim of responsibility for attack in Herat.
GREECE
Macedonia claims probed
A Greek prosecutor on Saturday ordered an investigation into allegations of threats against lawmakers over an upcoming parliamentary vote to end a 27-year dispute with Macedonia, a judicial source said. Macedonian lawmakers voted to rename their country the Republic of North Macedonia on Friday and the agreement now needs backing from the Greek parliament to come into effect. Ahead of the vote in Athens, two news Web sites alleged that a prominent member of Greece’s main opposition New Democracy party — which rejects the name deal — called on its members to phone legislators of the nationalist Independent Greeks party and urge them to vote against the agreement. The investigation, according to judicial sources, is looking into whether personal data was breached.
UNITED STATES
Storm pummels Midwest
A winter storm that dumped heavy snow on the US Midwest, causing at least five deaths, stranding some motorists in Missouri and canceling dozens of flights, marched east toward Washington on Saturday. The weather system, which started as rain from Mexico, but has since turned into snow, is forecast to affect an 2,900km swath of the US from Colorado to the Mid-Atlantic. The storm pummeled Kansas and Missouri on Saturday as it extended into parts of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, said US.Weather Prediction Center meteorologist Andrew Orrison. At least five people died in weather-related crashes on roads in Missouri and Kansas, according to the highway patrolmen in both states. Dozens of flights were canceled at St Louis Lambert International Airport, which described the onslaught of snow on Twitter as one of its biggest single-day winter storms in years.
UNITED STATES
Wall campaign goes private
The organizers of a GoFundMe campaign to fund the construction of a wall along the southern US border have scrapped plans to hand US$20m over to the federal government and plan to build the wall privately instead. “The federal government won’t be able to accept our donations anytime soon,” organizers said in a Friday update for the campaign, which by Saturday afternoon had raised more than US$20.3 million from nearly 340,000 donors. “We are better equipped than our own government to use the donated funds to build an actual wall on the southern border,” the organizers said. Because organizers changed the nature of their campaign, GoFundMe said donors would have to opt-in in order to reroute their contribution to the new venture.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
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