NEW ZEALAND
Work visa rules to change
The government yesterday said it was making immediate changes to its employment visa program after a near record migration last year. which it said was “unsustainable.” The changes include measures such as introducing an English language requirement for low-skilled jobs and setting a minimum skills and work experience threshold for most employer work visas. The maximum continuous stay for most low-skilled roles would also be reduced to three years from five years. “The government is focused on attracting and retaining the highly skilled migrants such as secondary teachers, where there is a skill shortage,” Minister of Immigration Erica Stanford said in a statement. Last year, a near record 173,000 people migrated to the country, the statement said.
RUSSIA
Dam burst floods region
Almost 4,500 people have been evacuated from the Orenburg region in Southern Ural due to flooding after a dam burst, the government said on Saturday. Emergency services worked through the night after a dam burst in the city of Orsk, near the border with Kazakhstan, on Friday. The press service of the Orenburg governor said that “4,402 people, including 1,100 children” had been evacuated and more than 6,000 homes were affected by the flooding after torrential rain. President Vladimir Putin ordered Minister of Emergency Situations Alexander Kurenkov to the region, a Kremlin spokesman said late on Saturday. Authorities also opened a criminal case for “negligence and violation of construction safety rules” over the burst dam, which was built in 2014. Orenburg Mayor Sergei Salmin yesterday said the situation remained “critical” and that water levels would continue to rise in the coming days.
ECUADOR
Countries rally after raid
Latin American governments, including Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Uruguay, rallied around Mexico after its embassy in Quito was raided to arrest a controversial politician who had been granted asylum by Mexican authorities. The late Friday night seizure of former vice president Jorge Glas triggered a suspension of relations with Quito by Mexico City. Brazil’s government condemned the arrest of Glas, who had sought refuge in the embassy since December last year, as a “clear violation” of international norms prohibiting such a raid on a foreign embassy. Ecuador’s move against the embassy “must be subject to strong repudiation, whatever the justification for its implementation,” said the statement from the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which stressed Brasilia’s solidarity with Mexico.
INDONESIA
Rare Javan rhino spotted
A new Javan rhinoceros calf has been spotted at a national park, giving hope for the conservation of one of the world’s most endangered mammals. The calf, estimated to be between three and five months old, was spotted in footage captured last month by one of 126 camera traps installed in Ujung Kulon National Park on Java. The mammal, whose sex remains unknown, was seen walking with its mother inside the park, the last remaining wild habitat for Javan rhinos. “Praise God, this is good news and proves that Javan rhinos, which only exist in Ujung Kulon, can breed properly,” senior Ministry of Environment and Forestry official Satyawan Pudyatmoko said in a statement on Saturday. After years of population decline, authorities believe that 82 rare rhinos are inside the about 120,000-hectare sanctuary of lush rainforest and freshwater streams.
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