UNITED KINGDOM
Global emissions set record
Global energy-related carbon emissions rose to a record high last year as energy demand and coal use increased, mainly in Asia, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said yesterday. Energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions rose by 1.7 percent to 33.1 billion tonnes from the previous year, the highest rate of growth since 2013, with the power sector accounting for almost two-thirds of this growth, according to IEA estimates. The US’ emissions grew by 3.1 percent, reversing a decline a year earlier, while China’s emissions rose by 2.5 percent and India’s by 4.5 percent. Europe’s emissions fell by 1.3 percent and Japan’s fell for the fifth year running.
CANADA
Chinese student kidnapped
A Chinese university student was shocked multiple times by a man with a stun gun in a violent kidnapping in the underground parking garage of his Markham, Ontario, condominium north of Toronto, authorities said on Monday. York regional police said Wanzhen Lu, 22, was walking with a friend toward the elevator of the building at about 6pm on Saturday when a black van pulled up behind them after they got out of a Range Rover. Three men got out and ambushed Lu, dragging him into the van. Abductions like this, especially with this level of violence used are very rare in this country,” Constable Andy Pattenden said, adding that authorities were extremely worried about Lu’s safety.
UNITED STATES
Gerrymandering in court
The Supreme Court is returning to arguments over whether the political task of redistricting can be overly partisan. The cases on the court’s schedule yesterday mark the second time in consecutive terms the justices will see if they can set limits on drawing districts for partisan gain. Democrats and Republicans eagerly await the outcome of cases from Maryland and North Carolina because a new round of redistricting will follow next year’s national census, and the decision could help shape the makeup of Congress and state legislatures over the next decade.
UNITED STATES
Caution over breast implants
The Food and Drug Administration’s medical advisers on Monday said it was too soon to ban a type of breast implant that has recently been linked to a rare form of cancer. The agency panel did not recommend any immediate restrictions on breast implants after a day reviewing the latest research on the risks of the devices. “Do we want to get into the situation where we pull one sweetener and the replacement is even worse?” said Karla Ballman, a biostatistician at New York’s Weill Cornell School of Medicine. Estimates of the frequency of the disease range from 1 in 3,000 women to 1 in 30,000. It grows slowly and can usually be successfully treated by removing the implants.
UNITED STATES
Gun groups turn to court
Gun rights groups are asking the Supreme Court to stop President Donald Trump’s administration from beginning to enforce its ban on bump stock devices, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like machine guns. The groups on Monday asked the court to get involved in the issue and keep the government from beginning to enforce the ban for now. The ban, which was to go into effect yesterday, has put the Trump administration in the unusual position of arguing against gun rights groups. There was no word on when the court might respond.
AUSTRALIA
Attack streaming to alter law
The government is planning to introduce new criminal penalties for social media that undermine public safety, after platforms such as Facebook carried footage of the terrorist attack in New Zealand that were live-streamed by the gunman. Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was to meet with representatives from social media yesterday, said his government was working on new laws in the wake of the attacks on two Christchurch mosques that left 50 people dead. The legislation would “seek to apply criminal penalties to companies that don’t act in the interests of the safety of Australians,” Morrison said.
JAPAN
Leave order lifted 8 years on
The government plans for the first time next month to lift an evacuation order in one of two towns near the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, officials said yesterday. The government would lift the order for part of Okuma town on April 10, Cabinet office official Yohei Ogino said. A town official quoted Okuma Mayor Toshitsuna Watanabe as saying that the decision was a “very welcome move.” “We will be able to take the first step forward eight years later,” Watanabe said. As of the end of February, about 52,000 people remained displaced, the Japanese Reconstruction Agency said.
CHINA
US envoy to North Korea visits
The US special envoy to North Korea is visiting Beijing to coordinate policies with China, the US embassy said yesterday, a month after the failure of a denuclearization summit. US Special Representative to North Korea Stephen Biegun “is here to continue US-China coordination on policies related to North Korea,” an embassy spokesman said. Biegun’s visit overlaps with the arrival of an unidentified high-ranking North Korean, who was greeted by officials and Pyongyang’s envoy to China yesterday, the Yonhap news agency reported. It was unclear whether the visits were related.
SOUTH KOREA
Students made to fake thesis
A Seoul university professor forced students to write her daughter’s thesis to gain entry to an elite dental school, a government report revealed yesterday, the latest scandal to hit the hypercompetitive education system. The Sungkyunkwan University professor made her graduate students conduct a three-month experiment — even asking them to fabricate results — before the daughter published the findings in an academic journal under her own name so that she could gain entrance to Seoul National University’s dental school, the top institution of its kind in the country.
AFGHANISTAN
Women’s rights a ‘red line’
The rights of women constitute an “absolute red line” for the government in peace negotiations between the US and the Taliban, Minister of Foreign Affairs Salahuddin Rabbani said yesterday. “There will be no restrictions on girls’ schooling — we shall not sacrifice what we have been building for 18 years,” Rabbani told Bild daily, voicing strong support for the peace talks in Qatar. “Negotiation is the only way to end this conflict and these problems,” he said, but added: “Let’s be clear — when we talk of peace, that does not mean we are giving in. This is not about re-establishing the Taliban regime in the country. If we have peace, stability and foreign investment in this country, then people will not want to leave Afghanistan for Germany. They will stay put. That is why the peace process is so important.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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