SOUTH KOREA
First lunar orbiter launched
The country’s first lunar orbiter has launched on a year-long mission to observe the moon, Seoul said yesterday. Danuri — a portmanteau of the Korean words for “noon” and “enjoy” — was launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida by SpaceX. It aims to reach the moon by the middle of December. “South Korea’s first lunar orbiter ‘Danuri’ left for space at 8:08am on August 5, 2022,” the Ministry of Science and ICT wrote on Twitter, sharing a video of the rocket blasting off. Danuri “successfully entered orbit toward the moon,” Vice Minister of Science and ICT Oh Tae-seok told reporters, adding that researchers were communicating with Danuri through NASA’s deep-space antenna in Canberra. Danuri is equipped with six instruments to conduct research, including investigating the lunar surface to identify potential landing sites.
NORTH KOREA
All ‘fever cases’ recovered
Pyongyang yesterday reported zero “fever cases” for a seventh straight day, state media said, adding that everyone who had fallen sick since the country confirmed its first COVID-19 cases had recovered. After maintaining a rigid COVID-19 blockade since the start of the pandemic, Pyongyang in May said it detected an outbreak of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 and activated a “maximum emergency epidemic prevention system,” with leader Kim Jong-un putting himself front and center of the government’s response. Authorities refer to “fever patients” rather than “COVID-19 patients” in case reports, apparently due to a lack of testing capacity. Yesterday, state media said “the overall anti-epidemic situation of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] has entered a definite phase of stability.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Face scans mandated
Migrants who have been convicted of a criminal offense would be required to scan their faces up to five times a day using smartwatches with facial recognition technology under plans from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. In May, the government awarded a contract to technology firm Buddi Limited to deliver “non-fitted devices” to monitor “specific cohorts” as part of the Home Office Satellite Tracking Service. The scheme is due to be introduced from the autumn across the kingdom. Locations would be tracked “24/7, allowing trail monitoring data to be recorded,” the Home Office said. Campaigners say 24-hour surveillance of asylum seekers breaches human rights. “Facial recognition is known to be an imperfect and dangerous technology that tends to discriminate against people of color and marginalized communities. These innovations in policing and surveillance are often driven by private companies who profit from governments’ race toward total surveillance and control of populations,” said Lucie Audibert, a lawyer for Privacy International.
UNITED STATES
Four struck near White House
Four people have been critically injured after a lightning strike outside the White House in Washington, fire officials said late on Thursday. The four victims — two men and two women — were injured in Lafayette Park, directly outside the White House complex, they said. Secret Service and Park Police officers witnessed the lightning strike and ran over to render first aid, they said. Emergency medical crews were called to the scene just before 7pm and transported the victims to hospital with “critical, life-threatening injures,” Washington Fire Department spokesman Vito Maggiolo said.
RE-EDUCATION: The ambassador to Australia told reporters that he understood there ‘might be a process for the people in Taiwan to have a correct understanding of China’ China’s ambassador to Australia yesterday said that Beijing is prepared to use “all necessary means” to prevent Taiwan from being independent, saying there can be “no compromise” on its “one China” principle. Chinese Ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian (肖千) repeatedly told the National Press Club in Canberra that the US was to blame for the recent escalation in tensions, adding that China’s decision to launch ballistic missiles in live-fire exercises in response to US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was “legitimate and justified.” Xiao said that after a “good start” with the new government of Australian Prime Minister
PROPAGANDA LEAFLETS: Seoul voiced ‘strong regret’ as Kim’s sister threatened to eradicate South Korean authorities for sending the virus across the border North Korean leader Kim Jong-un suffered from a “high fever” during a recent COVID-19 outbreak, his sister Kim Yo-jong said yesterday, as she vowed to “eradicate” South Korean authorities if they continued to tolerate propaganda leaflets the regime blames for spreading the virus. Kim Yo-jong blamed “South Korean puppets” for sending “dirty objects” across the border in leaflets carried by balloons, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. The revelation of her brother’s illness marked an unusual admission for a regime that rarely comments on the leader’s health — and then only to show that he shares the struggles of
Screams from soldiers being tortured, overflowing cells, inhuman conditions, a regime of intimidation and murder. Inedible gruel, no communication with the outside world and days marked off with a home-made calendar written on a box of tea. This is what conditions are like inside Olenivka, a notorious detention center where dozens of Ukrainian soldiers burned to death late last month, said a former prisoner of the camp outside Donetsk in the Russian-occupied east of Ukraine. Anna Vorosheva — a 45-year-old Ukrainian entrepreneur — gave a harrowing account to the Observer of her time inside the jail. She spent 100 days in Olenivka
A landmark sexual harassment case in China yesterday returned to court after an earlier ruling dealt a blow to the country’s fledgling #MeToo movement. Zhou Xiaoxuan (周曉璇) stepped forward in 2018 to accuse state TV host Zhu Jun (朱軍) of forcibly kissing and groping her during her 2014 internship at the broadcaster. While the case of Zhou, now 29, inspired many others to share their experiences of sexual assault publicly and sparked a social media storm, a court ruled last year there was insufficient evidence to back her allegation. Zhou appealed, and returned to court for another hearing yesterday in Beijing. “I still feel
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