AUSTRALIA
Children challenge law
A constitutional challenge against a social media ban on children younger than 16 has been filed in the High Court, two weeks before the law is set to take effect. A campaign group called the Digital Freedom Project yesterday said that it launched proceedings in a bid to block the law, with two 15-year-olds, Noah Jones and Macy Neyland, as plaintiffs in the case. More than 1 million accounts held by teenagers under 16 are set to be deactivated in the nation when the ban on platforms including YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat, as well as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, starts on Dec. 10. The Digital Freedom Project said the ban “robs” young people of their freedom of political communication.
Photo: AP
INDONESIA
Floods, slides kill eight
Floods and landslides killed at least eight people and injured dozens after torrential rains struck Sumatra, a disaster official said yesterday. Extreme weather has lashed North Sumatra for several days, flooding parts of the Tapanuli Selatan district since Monday, the national disaster agency said. “In Tapanuli Selatan, the disaster of floods and landslides has resulted in eight people losing their lives, 58 being injured and 2,851 residents had to evacuate,” agency spokesman Abdul Muhari said in a statement.
ETHIOPIA
Volcanic activity subsides
Volcanic activity at Hayli Gubbi volcano subsided on Tuesday, days after an eruption that left a trail of destruction in nearby villages and caused flight cancelations after ash plumes disrupted flight paths. Villages in the district of Afdera in the Afar region were covered in ash, officials said residents were coughing, and livestock found their grass and water covered. Airlines canceled dozens of flights scheduled to fly over affected areas as the meteorological department said the ash clouds were expected to clear later in the day. Atalay Ayele, a geologist at Addis Ababa University, said that it was “the first recorded eruption of Hayli Gubbi in the last 10,000 years.”
ISRAEL
Hostage remains identified
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday said that the latest remains returned from Gaza had been identified as hostage Dror Or. That left the bodies of two hostages in Gaza as the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement nears a conclusion. Palestinian militants released Or’s remains on Tuesday. Dror Or was killed by militants who overran his home in Kibbutz Beeri on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s military said. His wife, Yonat Or, was also killed in the attack.
? BOLIVIA
Government outlines cuts
The new government on Tuesday said that it is targeting 30 percent reductions in spending and tax cuts to stabilize the economy when it proposes its budget in February. President Rodrigo Paz took office earlier this month, ending nearly 20 years of socialist government under former presidents Evo Morales and Luis Arce. “We will reduce fiscal spending by at least 30 percent by 2026. This involves an exhaustive process of reviewing public spending and reorganizing state institutions,” Minister of Economic Affairs Jose Gabriel Espinoza told a news conference alongside Paz. The new government’s proposal to Congress would be a “massive reduction” representing 4 percentage points of the country’s GDP, Espinoza said. The nation is in the grips of an economic crisis, with year-on-year inflation at 23 percent and a chronic shortage of fuel.
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
RSS