NEW ZEALAND
Cyclist legislator gives birth
Lawmaker Julie Anne Genter got on her bicycle early on Sunday and headed to the hospital — where she gave birth an hour later. “Big news! At 3.04am this morning we welcomed the newest member of our family. I genuinely wasn’t planning to cycle in labour, but it did end up happening,” the Greens politician wrote on Facebook a few hours later. The island nation has a reputation for down-to-earth politicians. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern famously brought her then-three-month-old to a UN meeting as she was still breastfeeding. Genter — who is her party’s spokesperson for transport issues — also biked to the hospital in 2018 to give birth to her first-born, local media said.
AUSTRALIA
Online bullying law mulled
The government would introduce legislation to make social media giants provide details of users who post defamatory comments, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday. The government has been looking at the extent of the responsibility of platforms for defamatory material published on their sites, he said. The announcement comes after the country’s highest court ruled that publishers can be held liable for comments on online forums, which led to some news outlets, such as CNN, to deny Australians access to their Facebook pages. “The online world should not be a Wild West where bots and bigots and trolls and others are anonymously going around and can harm people,” Morrison said. The new legislation would introduce a complaints mechanism, so that if somebody thinks they are being defamed on social media, they would be able to require the platform to take the material down. If the content is not withdrawn, a court process could force the platform to provide details of the commenter.
CHINA
N Korean escapee captured
Police have captured a North Korean prisoner who last month staged a daring escape from jail and had been on the run for more than forty days, authorities said yesterday. Officials were offering a US$23,000 bounty for the recapture of the escapee, sparking massive interest on social media. The 39-year-old prisoner escaped the facility in Jilin City by scaling a shed and vaulting the outer wall on Oct. 18. A one-line statement from Jilin police said he had been remanded at about 10am yesterday morning, without giving more details. Videos shared by state-run Beijing News showed an emaciated-looking man being carried by several officers and a photograph of him with his hands behind his back. The man was convicted of illegal entry into China, larceny and robbery, and was due for release and deportation back to North Korea in 2023, prompting online speculation that he broke out to avoid being sent back.
CHINA
WTA reiterates concerns
Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) chairman Steve Simon has said he remains “deeply concerned” about the whereabouts of tennis player Peng Shuai (彭帥) and her ability to “communicate freely, openly and directly” after allegations that a powerful politician forced her to have sex. The three-time Olympian and former doubles champion has dropped out of public view after accusing former vice premier Zhang Gaoli (張高麗) of sexual abuse in a Nov. 2 social media post that was quickly taken down. “Steve Simon has reached out to Peng Shuai via various communication channels,” the WTA said in a statement on Saturday. “He has sent her two e-mails, to which it was clear her responses were influenced by others.”
SECRET AGREEMENT: China is paying for construction at Ream Naval Base, where dredging would be needed if larger military ships were to dock there, AMTI said Dredgers have been spotted off Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base, where China is funding construction work and deeper port facilities would be necessary for the docking of larger military ships, a US think tank said on Friday. The US, which has sought to push back against Beijing’s extensive territorial claims and military expansion in the South China Sea, reiterated its “serious concerns” about China’s construction and military presence at Ream. “These developments threaten US and partner interests, regional security and Cambodia’s sovereignty,” a US Department of State spokesperson said. The report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank said the
France is to relax some COVID-19 restrictions from early next month in a bet that an outbreak of the Omicron variant of SARS-COV-2 would recede thanks to faster inoculations and plans to shut the unvaccinated out of most social activities. The French government is to lift the obligation to work from home at least three days a week from Feb. 2, French Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Thursday. It would also remove a requirement to wear a mask outdoors, and scrap attendance limits for sports arenas and cultural venues, Castex said. Infections with the Delta variant are “clearly receding,” while the
RED LINE: The US and its allies would not accept if ‘any’ Russian troops cross into Ukraine, the state secretary said, clarifying Biden’s remarks about a ‘minor incursion’ The US and its allies on Thursday warned Moscow of grave consequences if “any” of the tens of thousands of troops massed on the border were to cross into Ukraine. Following talks in Berlin with Germany, France and the UK, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Russia “cannot match” Western powers’ resoluteness. Allowing Russia to breach Ukraine’s territorial integrity would “drag us all back to a much more dangerous and unstable time, when this continent, and this city, were divided in two ... with the threat of all-out war hanging over everyone’s heads,” he told reporters. In a show of that
Tania Sibree late last year quit her well-paid job as a financial services lawyer in Hong Kong and returned to Australia rather than live a moment longer with the territory’s strict COVID-19 restrictions. Sibree, who said she had enjoyed the previous five years in Hong Kong, is one of hundreds — possibly thousands — of foreign expatriate professionals who have left or are planning to leave, threatening to dent the territory’s standing as one of the world’s financial hubs. “The hotel quarantine made it just so tough for people to travel and that was the big incentive to being in Hong Kong,
RSS