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.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home