NORTH KOREA
Defense to be boosted
Kim Jong-un ordered a strengthening of the country’s defense capabilities as the leader wrapped up a meeting with top military officials, state media said yesterday, raising concerns about its possible addition of tactical nuclear weapons. Kim presided over the three-day Enlarged Meeting of the 8th Central Military Commission, at which top officials “approved an important issue of providing a military guarantee for further strengthening the country’s war deterrent,” the Korean Central News Agency reported. During the meeting, the nation mentioned revising its war plans and said it had decided to bolster the operational duties of its frontline units with “an important military action plan,” it reported, without elaborating.
AUSTRALIA
Albanese to visit France
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is to visit France next week as his new Labor government looks to repair relations strained last year when Canberra scrapped a French submarine deal. The previous government canceled the multibillion-dollar order with France’s Naval Group and chose an alternative deal with the US and Britain to buy nuclear submarines. “We do need to reset, we’ve already had very constructive discussions,” Albanese told ABC television in an interview late on Thursday, confirming that he had accepted an invitation from French President Emmanuel Macron to visit Paris. Albanese, in power for just over a month, has already reached a 555 million euro (US$584 million) settlement over the submarine deal — valued at US$40 billion in 2016 and reckoned to cost much more now — in his efforts to repair the rift. Albanese is to depart for Europe tomorrow for a NATO summit in Madrid.
SINGAPORE
Migrant worker rules eased
Migrant workers from yesterday no longer need special permission to leave their dormitories after two years of COVID-19 curbs, but campaigners criticized the decision to maintain some “discriminatory” restrictions. About 300,000 migrant workers, many of them from South Asia, live in dorms in the city-state, where they are typically packed into shared rooms and sleep on bunk beds. The vast complexes were hit by COVID-19 and locked down at the start of the pandemic. Authorities have gradually eased restrictions, allowing them to visit specially built “recreation centers” and rolled out a scheme allowing them to apply for special “exit passes” to visit specific areas. Starting yesterday, the workers no longer need passes to leave their dorms. However, authorities still require them to apply for permission to visit four popular locations on Sundays and public holidays, with up to 80,000 passes available per day.
THAILAND
Mask mandate dropped
The nation yesterday dropped rules requiring people to wear masks as COVID-19 cases fall and the tourism-dependent kingdom seeks to lure back foreign visitors. Masks had been compulsory in public since the middle of last year. However, the nation is keen to kickstart its stuttering economy and is relaxing restrictions, including discarding most entry requirements from next month. “Wearing a surgical mask or cloth mask is a voluntary practice,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said in a royal gazette announcement issued on Thursday. The Ministry of Health recommends people continue to wear masks in crowded or poorly ventilated areas, the statement said.
GUATEMALA
Turtles, dolphins found dead
Dozens of turtles, dolphins and other marine species have been found dead on the country’s Pacific coast, prompting an official investigation, authorities said on Thursday. As many as 65 turtles, most of them of the Olive Ridley variety, and 14 dolphins were discovered dead earlier this week, the National Council of Protected Areas said, without identifying where exactly the animals were found. Agency officials believe the deaths could have been caused by heavy rains, which could have carried toxic materials from the mainland into the sea. Investigators are also looking into whether industrial fishing could have played a role.
BRAZIL
Bodies from killings returned
The bodies of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were on Thursday handed over to their families, nearly two-and-a-half weeks after they were killed in the Amazon. Phillips, 57, and Pereira, 41, were shot while returning from an expedition in the Javari Valley. Also on Thursday, a fourth suspect, 26-year-old Gabriel Dantas, turned himself in at a police station in Sao Paulo, telling officers he drove the boat that chased the two men, local media reported. When they reached the boat carrying Phillips and Pereira, Amarildo Oliveira “shot them with a 16-gauge rifle,” Dantas said.
UNITED STATES
Shooter makes video game
A teen cleared in court after killing people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid unrest over police mistreatment of African Americans on Thursday unveiled a video game centered on shooting targets representing journalists. Kyle Rittenhouse wrote online that money raised from sales of the game would be used to sue “leftwing media organizations” for defamation over their coverage of his 2020 case. “It’s time to fight back against the fake news machine,” Rittenhouse said in a video posted on Twitter. A trailer for the game, priced at US$10, shows a cartoon version of Rittenhouse blasting away, arcade-style, at turkey characters labeled “fake news” from behind cover. Rittenhouse was acquitted late last year by a jury for the August 2020 shootings.
UNITED KINGDOM
Couple held over organ plot
A Nigerian senator and his wife were on Thursday remanded in custody in London, charged with plotting to have a 15-year-old boy brought to the UK to harvest his organs, the BBC and police said. Ike Ekweremadu, 60, and Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55, were both charged with conspiracy to arrange travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting, police said. Ekweremadu is an opposition senator in the southern state of Enugu, and also a former deputy senate president. Police said they had been alerted to the alleged plan following reports of possible offenses under modern slavery legislation. The child involved has been taken to safety, police said.
UNITED STATES
NASA demands return of dust
NASA has asked Boston-based RR Auction to halt the sale of moon dust collected during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, which had been fed to cockroaches during an experiment to determine if the rocks contained any pathogens. The material still belongs to the government, a NASA lawyer said in a letter to the auctioneer. The material from the experiment, including a vial with about 40 milligrams of moon dust and three cockroach carcasses, was expected to sell for at least US$400,000, but has been pulled from the auction block, RR said on Thursday.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese