SOUTH KOREA
Population falls for first time
The nation’s population fell for the first time last year, with more people dying than were born, the Ministry of the Interior said, adding that towns in poor regions faced a “crisis of extinction.” As of Dec. 31, the nation had 51,829,023 people, down 20,838 from a year earlier, ministry data showed. Annual births have been falling for years and they had been exceeded by deaths for the first time, 275,815 to 307,764. “In regions with poor economic, medical and educational infrastructure, the crisis of the extinction of such towns is escalating,” the ministry said, calling for “fundamental changes” in government policies, including on welfare and education. According to experts there are multiple causes for the phenomenon, including the expense of child-rearing and soaring property prices, coupled with a notoriously competitive society that makes well-paid jobs difficult to secure.
UNITED STATES
Inauguration to go virtual
President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration is to include a “virtual parade across America” consistent with crowd limits during the COVID-19 era, organizers announced on Sunday. Following the swearing-in ceremony on Inauguration Day on Jan. 20 on the west front of the US Capitol, Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, are to join vice president-elect Kamala Harris and her husband in participating in a socially distanced Pass in Review on the Capitol’s opposite front side. Those are military traditions where Biden is to review the readiness of military troops. Biden is also to receive a traditional presidential escort with representatives from every branch of the military from 15th Street in Washington to the White House. That will be socially distanced too, while “providing the American people and world with historic images of the president-elect proceeding to the White House without attracting large crowds,” the Presidential Inaugural Committee said.
SWEDEN
Activist Thunberg turns 18
Greta Thunberg, who pioneered a global climate change campaign as a 15-year-old, turned 18 on Sunday and promised to celebrate by exposing “dark secrets” at her local pub. “Thank you so much for all the well-wishes on my 18th birthday,” Thunberg wrote on Twitter. “Tonight you will find me down at the local pub exposing all the dark secrets behind the climate- and school strike conspiracy and my evil handlers who can no longer control me! I am free at last!!” Thunberg began a climate change campaign that swelled from a one-person school strike to a worldwide movement, drawing in millions of school children, as well as adults. She criticized world leaders over climate change in a speech to the UN in 2019, has clashed with US President Donald Trump, and last month called for urgent action five years on from the Paris Agreement.
MEXICO
Father ‘killed’ three sons
A man has been arrested for allegedly beating to death his three sons to get back at the children’s mother, prosecutors said on Sunday. The prosecutors’ office in the northern state of Sonora said the boys were aged three, seven and eight. The deaths occurred in the north-central state of Hidalgo on Saturday. The suspect called his own father to tell him what he had done and the grandfather called police. The suspect apparently fled to Sonora, but was quickly detained there and returned to Hidalgo to face charges. Prosecutors said the man had an argument with the boys’ mother and killed the kids “in order to cause her great pain.”
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
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