NEW ZEALAND
Vaccine interval to be cut
The country is to reduce the interval between a second COVID-19 vaccine dose and a booster shot to four months from six as part of its response to the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. People aged 18 or older who have had second shots of a vaccine at least four months ago would be eligible for a booster from Wednesday, the Ministry of Health said in a statement. The shorter interval means that more than 82 percent of vaccinated people in the country would be eligible for a booster by the end of next month, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said in the statement. More than 70 percent of people who were eligible for a booster last year have already had the shot, the statement said. The country had planned to gradually open its border, which has been closed to foreigners since March 2020, from this month, but has delayed the phased reopening until the end of next month due to Omicron.
UNITED STATES
ISS extension in works
The administration of President Joe Biden has committed to extending the International Space Station’s (ISS) operations through 2030, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on Friday. Nelson said that the Biden administration had committed to working with international partners, including Russia, to continue research being conducted in the orbiting laboratory through the rest of this decade. Russia and the US have had close cooperation aboard the ISS for more than two decades. US officials said in November last year that an anti-satellite missile test that Russia conducted generated a debris field in low-Earth orbit that endangered the station and would pose a hazard to space activities for years. The station would operate through 2030 if approved by international partners and funded by the Congress. Currently, Congress has approved funding through 2024.
SUDAN
Protesters block streets
Pro-democracy demonstrators blocked streets in Khartoum on Friday, protesting against violence a day earlier that left five people dead and sparked condemnation. Protesters barricaded roads in the east Khartoum district of Burri, as well as in nearby Khartoum North, using rocks, tree branches and tires, an Agence Frace-Presse journalist reported. The country has been gripped by turmoil since military leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan launched a coup on Oct. 25 and detained Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. Hamdok was reinstated on Nov. 21, but mass protests have continued as demonstrators distrust Burhan’s promises of seeking to guide the country toward full democracy.
IRAQ
Leopard’s leg amputated
An endangered leopard captured in the country’s mountainous north had its hind leg amputated on Friday following a trap-inflicted wound, an Agence France-Presse photographer said. The Persian leopard, taken in a day earlier in the autonomous Kurdistan region near the border with Turkey, had injured two people, said Colonel Jamal Saado, head of the environmental protection police in Dohuk Province. Residents of a village near the town of Zakho lost about 20 sheep before realizing a leopard was attacking their flocks, he said. The big cat sustained a wound to its back leg when it was caught in a shepherd’s trap, but managed to escape before villagers helped police track it down. Saado said the leopard was given anesthetic before it was captured.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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