Tue, Aug 08, 2023 page5

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  INDIA

  Gandhi returns to parliament

  Rahul Gandhi yesterday returned to parliament after a Supreme Court ruling, boosting the profile of his Congress Party and its opposition allies ahead of a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’s government. The vote is not expected to affect the popularity of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which enjoys a strong majority. However, Gandhi’s return to parliament is expected to boost the voice of the newly formed, 26-party opposition alliance led by Congress. Lawmakers are expected to debate, and then vote, on the government’s performance from today to Thursday. Lawmakers from Congress and other opposition parties gathered outside the parliament’s entrance to cheer Gandhi and their new alliance called INDIA, or the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.

  JAPAN

  Wastewater release soon

  The government is preparing to start releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster site into the sea as early as late this month, local newspapers including the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is to meet with Cabinet members and decide on a specific timing to discharge the water after returning from a trilateral summit with the US and South Korea on Aug. 18, Yomiuri reported, citing unidentified officials. He is to meet with representatives from the fisheries association ahead of the release, Asahi Shimbun reported. No specific timing for the water release has been decided by the government at this time, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a news conference yesterday.

  UNITED NATIONS

  S Asia children at high risk

  Three-quarters of children in South Asia are already facing dangerously high temperatures, as the impact of climate change grows, UNICEF said yesterday. About 460 million children are exposed to extreme heat in South Asia, or 76 percent of children, compared with one-third of children globally, the UN children’s agency said. “With the world at global boiling, the data clearly show that the lives and well-being of millions of children across South Asia are increasingly threatened by heat waves and high temperatures,” UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia Sanjay Wijesekera said. The UN warned that children in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives and Pakistan are at “extremely high risk” of the impacts of climate change, defining extreme high temperatures as 83 or more days in a year of more than 35oC. Children cannot adapt as quickly to temperature changes, and are not able to remove excess heat from their bodies, he said.

  PANAMA

  Colombia hit over migration

  The nation’s top immigration official on Sunday lashed out at Colombia, saying it is not helping to slow the record flow of migrants through the dangerous jungle of the Darien Gap. National Migration Service Director Samira Gozaine said that in recent days, between 2,600 and 2,800 migrants per day have been moving through the gap, which connects North and South America. Last year, an average of about 700 migrants per day trekked through the roadless region. The nation, the US and Colombia in April agreed to try to crack down on the smuggling rings that bring migrants through the gap. However, Gozaine said there has been a lack of information sharing and joint action on the part of Bogota. Colombia continues to “indiscriminately send us not only people from other countries, but Colombians as well,” she said. There was no reaction from Bogota.
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