NORTH KOREA
Citizens allowed to return
Pyongyang yesterday said it would allow citizens staying abroad to return home in line with easing COVID-19 pandemic situations worldwide, as the country slowly eases restrictions. In a brief statement carried by state media, the State Emergency Epidemic Prevention Headquarters said those returning would be put in quarantine for a week for “proper medical observation.” The statement did not elaborate, but analysts said the announcement would lead to the return of students, workers and other people who have had to stay abroad, mostly in China and Russia, because of the pandemic. The workers are a key source of foreign income for the country.
UNITED KINGDOM
Police supplier hacked
London’s Metropolitan Police force yesterday said it was taking security measures after “unauthorized access to the IT system of one of its suppliers,” following data breaches at other forces. The company in question had access to the names, ranks, photographs, vetting levels and pay numbers for officers and staff, but not addresses, phone numbers or financial details, it said. The Sun on Sunday reported that “cyber crooks penetrated the IT systems” of the firm, which reportedly prints identity cards and staff passes for police. The incident follows an admission this month by the Police Service of Northern Ireland that personal data on all serving members was mistakenly published in response to a Freedom of Information request.
ZIMBABWE
President re-elected
President Emmerson Mnangagwa was re-elected for a second and final five-year term late on Saturday in results announced much earlier than expected following another troubled vote in the country with a history of violent and disputed elections. An opposition party spokesperson said within minutes of Mnangagwa being declared the winner that they would reject the results as “hastily assembled without proper verification.” The 80-year-old Mnangagwa, who has the nickname “The Crocodile” from his days as a guerrilla fighter, won 52.6 percent of the votes in the midweek election, the Electoral Commission said in a late-night announcement in the capital, Harare. The 45-year-old main opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa, received 44 percent, it said. International election observers raised questions over the environment in the buildup to the vote and pointed to an atmosphere of intimidation against Chamisa’s supporters. “It’s done. It never changes,” said Gerald Chosawa, a security guard at a grocery store. “I had some hope. Now it’s better to prepare to join the others who have left the country. That’s the best option.”
UKRAINE
Pilots die in collision
Three military pilots, including a “mega talent” who yearned to fly F-16s, were killed on Friday when two L-39 combat training aircraft collided over a region west of Kyiv, the air force said on Saturday. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address that the three men included Andriy Pilshchykov, call sign Juice, “a Ukrainian officer, one of those who greatly helped our state.” Air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat described Pilshchykov, who was 29, as a “mega talent” and leader of reforms. “You can’t even imagine how much he wanted to fly an F-16,” Ihnat wrote on Facebook. “But now that American planes are actually on the horizon, he will not fly them.”
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS