QATAR
‘Kafala’ system dismantled
New labor regulations in the energy-rich nation “effectively dismantles” its long-criticized “kafala” employment system, the International Labour (ILO) said on Sunday. Migrant workers can now change jobs before the end of their contracts without obtaining the permission of their current employers, it said. The nation has also adopted a minimum monthly wage of 1,000 Qatari riyals (US$275) for workers, which is to take effect about six months after the law is published in the official gazette, the ILO said. The minimum wage rule requires employers to pay allowances for housing and food as well if they do not provide those for their workers. Amnesty International praised the move as “an encouraging sign that Qatar may finally be heading in the right direction,” although employers still can file criminal charges against “absconding” employees, meaning those who left their jobs without permission.
RUSSIA
Blogger says he was beaten
A well-known opposition blogger and radio host was beaten outside his home in Moscow, his spokesman said, as Kremlin critics say they are subject to a growing number of attacks. Yegor Zhukov, 22, was handed a suspended sentence last summer on extremism charges for making videos criticizing President Vladimir Putin amid huge protests calling for fair elections. Zhukov’s team posted a picture on Telegram of his bloodied and swollen face, saying he was attacked and beaten near his home on Sunday evening. “According to eyewitnesses, he was attacked by two thugs who disappeared on scooters,” said his spokesman, Stas Toporkov. Zhukov filed a complaint with police and underwent medical checks afterwards, the Interfax news agency said.
North MACEDONIA
Zaev returns to power
Zoran Zaev, the pro-Western leader who changed the nation’s name last year to secure its membership in NATO and the EU, returned to power late on Sunday, seven months after resigning over the slow pace of EU membership talks. Zaev, who won a narrow election victory over nationalist rivals in July, was approved as prime minister with 62 votes in the 120-seat parliament. The nation joined NATO in March after adding the word “North” to its name, under an agreement with Greece, which has a province called Macedonia and had blocked its membership in Western organizations. “Having joined NATO, we will show that we can join the EU. It is a national, decades-long strategic interest,” Zaev told parliament, pledging to close the negotiating chapters in six years.
GERMANY
Spitting ‘unconstitutional’
Opponents of COVID-19 curbs who insulted and spat at Minister of Health Jens Spahn had infringed the constitution, Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier said yesterday. A video posted on Twitter by a journalist at the Bild showed a crowd of several dozen jeering and shouting Disgrace,” as Spahn left a building in Bergisch-Gladbach on Saturday after a campaign appearance for Christian Democrats. Spahn approached the crowd and gestured to indicate that he wanted to speak, but then turned and went to his car when the jeering did not subside. “Anyone who spits at & molests democratically elected politicians infringes the German constitution and makes an outsider of themselves,” Altmaier tweeted. Spahn told the Rheinische Post daily that society would only remain united if there was a dialogue with those who opposed the curbs.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
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