UNITED KINGDOM
Rwanda deportations touted
Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday revealed a controversial plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, acknowledging that the move is likely to face significant legal hurdles. Migrants who cross the English Channel on small boats risk being sent to the African state, Johnson said. The measure, which is a major shift in approach, is designed to deter people from making the dangerous crossing, he said. About 28,000 did so last year. “This problem has bedeviled our country for too long and caused far too much human suffering and tragedy,” Johnson said. “This is the government that refuses to duck the difficult decisions.” The plan is likely to spark a huge political row, given the criticism faced by other countries with similar policies. There has already been a major backlash from opposition parties in parliament and human rights groups.
SOUTH KOREA
Most virus curbs lifted
The country is to lift almost all social distancing measures, the government said yesterday, citing a dramatic fall in reported cases of COVID-19 cases after a surge fueled by the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. However, a mask mandate would remain, it said. People would be required to wear masks indoors “for a considerable time ahead,” the government said, adding that it might lift the requirement to wear masks outdoors in two weeks, if cases continue to fall. “The midnight business curfew and a 10-person cap on the size of gatherings will be lifted starting Monday,” Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said. The decision marks the end of two years of strict distancing requirements, which have put huge strain on small businesses, and indicates South Korea is returning to normality. However, requiring people to wear masks indoors was “inevitable for a considerable time ahead,” Kim said.
UNITED STATES
Wildfire kills two people
A wildfire that has burned more than 200 homes on the edge of a mountain community in New Mexico and killed two people was caused when a power line was toppled by strong winds, state authorities said. Crews on Thursday worked to restore power to parts of areas affected. Firefighters used a break in what had been a steady stream of relentless gusts to make headway against the deadly blaze. The remains of the couple were found on Wednesday afternoon near their home after family members notified police that the two had tried to evacuate, but were unaccounted for. Authorities were working to confirm their identities.
DENMARK
Pig emotions decoded
Researchers have developed a way of decoding the feelings of pigs through their grunts, oinks and squeals in a project aimed at improving animal welfare. Biologists studied more than 7,000 recordings from 411 pigs, from the brief squeaks of satisfaction at feeding time to the desperate cries at slaughter, before classifying them into 19 categories. “We show that it’s possible basically to figure out the emotions of the pigs according to their vocalizations,” said project leader Elodie Briefer, a lecturer at the University of Copenhagen. The project offers a new way of improving animal welfare by laying the groundwork for a tool that can categorize an emotion based on the noise produced, she said. “We also run a machine learning algorithm ... which produces a spectrogram, then it is trained to recognize negative and positive contexts.” The new tool would help farmers monitor their pigs’ mental health in addition to their physical wellbeing.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
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