UKRAINE
Zelenskiy urges air defenses
President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday called on the West to deliver air defense systems to Kyiv after an overnight Russian missile attack injured 17 people. The air force said it shot down 31 Russian missiles targeting Kyiv. “Such terror continues every day and night,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram. “It is possible to put an end to it through global unity... Russian terrorists do not have missiles capable of bypassing Patriot and other leading world systems.” A US$60 billion US military aid package for Ukraine has been held up in the US Congress amid domestic political arguments. Local officials said falling debris from the missiles injured 17 — 13 in Kyiv and four in the surrounding region. The air force said Russia fired two Iskander ballistic missiles and 29 cruise missiles, launched from strategic bombers.
DENMARK
Terrorism threat rising
The threat of terrorism at home and abroad has risen because of the Israel-Hamas war and a series of Koran burnings in the nation last year, the Danish security and intelligence service PET said yesterday. The PET rated the overall threat level at 4 out of 5, but said the risks within that level had increased. “The conflict between Israel and a number of militant groups is of course of concern to many people, including in Denmark,” PET said in a statement. “The conflict also contains a significant potential for radicalization and mobilization, which can potentially activate actors for spontaneous or planned reactions in Denmark, including terrorist attacks.”
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Cyberflasher’ sentenced
A convicted cyberflasher was on Tuesday sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison after sending unsolicited photos of his genitals to a teenage girl and a woman. Nicholas Hawkes, 39, a convicted sex offender, was the first person in England and Wales convicted of contravening the Online Safety Act, which took effect on Jan. 31. The court was told that Hawkes borrowed his father’s phone, saying he needed to call the probation office, went in another room and sent photos by WhatsApp to a woman and by iMessage to a 15-year-old girl, who began crying. Both took screenshots and reported him to police. The cyberflashing law makes it an offense to send unsolicited sexual images by social media, dating apps or technologies such as Bluetooth or Airdrop. “Cyberflashing is a serious crime which leaves a lasting impact on victims, but all too often it can be dismissed as thoughtless ‘banter’ or a harmless joke,” said Hannah von Dadelszen, a deputy chief with the Crown Prosecution Service.
FRANCE
Rushdie dismisses AI threat
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools might pose a threat to writers of thrillers and science fiction, but lack the originality and humor to challenge serious novelists, Salman Rushdie wrote in a French journal published yesterday. In an article translated into French for literary journal La Nouvelle Revue Francaise, Rushdie said he tested ChatGPT by asking it to write 200 words in his style. He describes the results as “a bunch of nonsense.” “No reader who had read a single page of mine could think I was the author. Rather reassuring,” he said. However, generative AI writing tools could be a threat to more formulaic writers, he said. “The trouble is that these creatures learn very quickly,” he said, adding that this could be worrying for writers of genre literature like thrillers and science fiction, where originality is less important.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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