The changes will result in 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) less in savings than initially anticipated, but will not affect plans to adopt the budget at the start of February, a government spokesperson said.

The revisions follow weeks of haggling over how to fill a 17 billion euro gap in the budget after a November court ruling threw the government’s financing framework into turmoil.

The gradual phase-out of agricultural diesel subsidies, the postponement of a plastic levy and additional funds for the national railway were among the changes the government announced on Thursday following an agreement between Scholz, Economy Minister Robert Habeck and Finance Minister Christian Lindner.

“We have been talking to each other intensively again in the last few days because we can see the burden on farmers,” Mr. Habeck said.

“Counter-financing has been found” for the amended plan, he added.

Rather than abruptly ending the farmers’ tax break on agricultural diesel, the subsidy will be reduced by 40% this year, by 30% in 2025, and will end from 2026.

The abolition of preferential treatment in vehicle tax for forestry and agriculture is also no longer planned, the government spokesperson said.

“Together we have found a solution that avoids a disproportionate burden being put on the agricultural and forestry industry,” Agriculture Minister Cem Oezdemir said.

Hundreds of farmers protested in central Berlin last month at the prospect of losing the tax break and the president of the German Farmers’ Association (DBV) said the changes were not enough.

“This can only be a first step. Our position remains unchanged: both proposals for cuts must be taken off the table,” said Joachim Rukwied. “This is clearly also about the future viability of our industry and the question of whether domestic food production is still desirable at all.”

Nearly a third of the remaining spending gap from Thursday’s proposed changes is to be compensated for by making proceeds from 2023 off-shore wind projects available for the 2024 budget.

Additional cuts at the agriculture ministry and the “leeway resulting from updated economic and budgetary data in the federal budget” will cover the rest, the statement said. – Reuters

With the report from the Labor Department on Thursday also showing the number of people on unemployment rolls remained elevated towards the end of December, financial markets continued to anticipate that the Federal Reserve would start cutting interest rates in March.

The government reported on Wednesday that job openings fell to a near three-year low in November. Labor market resilience is expected to again shield the economy from recession this year.

“The labor market is not too hot and not too cold at the moment,” said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS in New York. “The total number of Americans on the jobless rolls receiving benefits remains elevated relative to prior year levels, but at the moment there is not enough unemployment to say the economy is on the downward slope to recession.”

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 202,000 for the week ended Dec. 30, the lowest level since mid-October. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 216,000 claims for the latest week.

Claims data tend to be volatile around this time of year because of holidays. They have largely bounced around in the lower end of their 194,000-265,000 range for 2023.

Unadjusted claims fell 6,820 to 268,020 last week. Claims plunged by an estimated 7,572 in California and tumbled 6,080 in Texas. That helped to more than offset notable increases in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The labor market is steadily cooling following 525 basis points worth of interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve since March 2022. The unemployment rate, however, has remained below 4% as companies hoard workers following difficulties finding labor in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The labor market is nowhere near a tipping point lower. That’s excellent news for consumption and the economy at large,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group in Richmond, Virginia. “Recession calls get trampled by a strong, employed consumer and that’s currently where things stand.”

Stocks on Wall Street were trading higher. The dollar fell against a basket of currencies. US Treasury yields rose.

LAYOFFS LOW IN DECEMBER

Low layoffs were underscored by a separate report from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas on Thursday that showed job cuts announced by U.S.-based employers dropped 24% to 34,817 in December.

Planned layoffs, however, jumped 98% to 721,677 in 2023, the highest annual count since 2020. That largely reflected cuts earlier in the year, with most of them in the technology, retail, healthcare and media sectors. Excluding the pandemic, it was the highest tally since 2009.

Financial markets are betting the Fed will begin cutting interest rates as early as March. Minutes of the U.S. central bank’s Dec. 12–13 policy meeting published on Wednesday showed officials viewed the labor market as remaining tight, but also continuing to “come into better balance.”

They also showed that “several participants noted the risk that, if labor demand were to weaken substantially further, the labor market could transition quickly from a gradual easing to a more abrupt downshift in conditions.”

The US central bank held its policy rate steady in the current 5.25%-5.50% range at last month’s meeting and policymakers signaled in new economic projections that the historic monetary policy tightening engineered over the last two years is at an end and lower borrowing costs are coming in 2024.

The number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, decreased 31,000 to 1.855 million during the week ending Dec. 23, the claims report showed. The so-called continuing claims have mostly increased since mid-September, a trend blamed largely on difficulties adjusting the data for seasonal fluctuations after an unprecedented surge in filings early in the pandemic.

Economists expect the distortion will be smoothed out when the government revises the data this year.

The claims data have no bearing on the Labor Department’s employment report for December, which is scheduled to be released on Friday, as they fall outside the survey period. Nonfarm payrolls likely increased by 170,000 jobs in December, according to a Reuters survey of economists, after rising by 199,000 jobs in November.

The unemployment rate is forecast to rise to 3.8% from 3.7% in November.

Another report on Thursday showed private payrolls increased by 164,000 jobs in December, the biggest gain in four months, after a rise of 101,000 in November.

The ADP National Employment Report, however, has been unreliable in predicting the private payrolls count in the Labor Department’s monthly employment report. It showed wage growth continuing to slow, with salaries for workers staying at their current jobs rising 5.4% year-on-year in December after increasing 5.6% in November.

“The labor market is becoming less tight but not collapsing,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead US economist at Oxford Economics in New York. – Reuters

All 379 people on board the JAL Airbus A350 widebody jet escaped before the plane was completely engulfed in flames that took more than six hours to extinguish.

But five of the six crew of the other aircraft — a smaller Coast Guard plane that had been on its way to deliver aid to quake-hit regions on Japan’s west coast — were killed, with the surviving pilot badly injured.

As investigators combed the charred wreckage on Thursday, transport authorities are probing the circumstances that led to the Coast Guard plane entering the runway where the passenger jet was landing. Police are also looking into possible professional negligence in the case, according to media reports.

Transcripts released by authorities show air traffic control ordering the Coast Guard plane to proceed to a holding point near the runway minutes before the crash, instructions the pilot appeared to have read back in acknowledgement.

Japanese authorities said on Wednesday the passenger jet had been given permission to land, but the smaller plane had not been cleared for take-off, based on the transcripts.

The Coast Guard pilot said after the crash that he had been given permission to enter the runway, Coast Guard officials have said.

Authorities have only just begun their investigations and aviation experts say it usually takes the failure of multiple safety guardrails for an airplane accident to happen.

A notice to pilots in force before the accident suggested that a strip of stop lights embedded in the tarmac as an extra safety measure to prevent wrong turns, was out of service, according to a copy of the bulletin posted by US regulators.

BIG LOSSES
Japan Airlines estimated on Thursday the disaster would result in an operating loss of about 15 billion yen ($105 million).

The loss of the aircraft will be covered by insurance, the company said, adding it was assessing the impact on its earnings forecast for the financial year ending March 31.

Insurance industry sources have said US insurer AIG was the lead insurer on a $130-million “all-risks” policy for the two-year-old plane that was destroyed by the fire. AIG declined to comment.

It was the first-ever hull loss globally for the A350 model, according to Aviation Safety Network. The type, made largely from carbon composite, entered commercial service in 2015.

Shares of JAL fell as much as 2.4% before recovering to be up 0.6% as trading resumed after the New Year’s holiday.

From the moment of the collision, it took crew 18 minutes to get everyone off the plane and safely accounted for.

Japan’s second-biggest airline has detailed how the crew in the smoke-filled cabin followed emergency procedures in textbook fashion, even as passengers panicked, intercom systems failed and several evacuation chutes were out of use due to the fire.

Most of the passengers on the flight from Hokkaido were Japanese with at least 43 foreigners confirmed among them including Australians, Swedish, Hong Kong, Chinese and South Korean nationals, a JAL spokesperson said.

Wreckage from the planes remained scattered around the runway on Thursday as several officials, some wearing masks, gloves and hard hats, surveyed the debris, footage on public broadcaster NHK showed. A Coast Guard official on Wednesday said they had recovered a voice recorder from the Coast Guard plane.

Hundreds of flights in and out of Haneda have faced cancelation or delays since the crash on Tuesday, leaving many frustrated passengers at the airport.

Michio Kusunoki, a 67-year-old teacher, said she had faced two canceled flights as she tried to return to her home of Fukouka in Japan’s south from Haneda.

“I was meant to get on a plane yesterday evening at 7.30 p.m….Then I changed to this morning 8:30 a.m. and that flight was canceled too,” she said.

“I couldn’t get anything after that till 4:30 p.m. so I am going to roam around as I can’t get home.”

Nearly 200 passengers were also stranded overnight at New Chitose airport in Hokkaido where the flight originated from. — Reuters

HOSPITALS in at least four US states have reinstated mask mandates amid a rise in cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), seasonal flu and other respiratory illness.

Healthcare facilities in New York, California, Illinois and Massachusetts have made masks mandatory among patients and providers.

New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan told WABC TV on Wednesday that mask mandates had resumed at all 11 of the city’s public hospitals, 30 health centers and five long-term care facilities.

“What we don’t want is staffing shortages, right? When we saw the Omicron wave in 2022, the biggest issues were not only people getting sick, but that we had a lot of frontline health workers, they were out with COVID,” Mr. Vasan told WABC.

The most recent weekly data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed there were over 29,000 hospitalizations from COVID across the US from Dec. 17-23, up more than 16% from the previous week. The CDC also reported over 14,700 flu hospitalizations in that same period.

Mask mandates were political and cultural flashpoints during the COVID pandemic, sparking anger among those who bucked medical advice and felt masks did little to suppress the spread of the illness.

A conservative-dominated Supreme Court struck down President Joseph R. Biden’s federal vaccine-or-test mandate for companies, and a judge appointed by his Republican predecessor struck down his public transportation mask mandate.

There was also deep resentment among those who did wear masks and felt their health was put in jeopardy by those who did not.

More than 1.1 million Americans have died from COVID, CDC figures show, a greater rate than most other wealthy countries.

Rush University medical system in Chicago said on Tuesday that it was requiring “patients, visitors and staff to wear hospital-approved masks in some areas of the campus. They include clinical waiting areas and patient registration.”

Cook County Health, which encompasses Chicago, and Endeavor Health in the Chicago suburbs, last month started requiring masks again, after the Illinois Department of Public Health asked hospitals to step up mitigation efforts in several areas, including facility-wide masking.

In Massachusetts, Berkshire Health Systems began mandatory masking on Wednesday, according to a statement.

In California, Los Angeles County on Saturday reinstated masking at all licensed health care facilities, according to a county statement provided to the City News Service. The county’s health department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. — Reuters

WAJIMA, Japan — Hotel chef Makoto Wakabayashi was among those in Wajima hoping for a banner year as visitors returned to the scenic, seaside town that weathered more than two years of pandemic gloom.

Those dreams came apart in minutes of violent shaking on New Year’s Day, when the strongest earthquake to strike Japan in 13 years and multiple aftershocks devastated the city and claimed dozens of lives.

Days later, buckled roads continue to hamper the influx of aid, while rescuers search for survivors among the flattened structures. Among the badly damaged buildings is Mr. Wakabayashi’s employer, the seaside Hotel Koshuen.

The total toll on lives and industry in the region from the 7.6 magnitude quake is far from known. But it is already clear that Wajima -— renowned for its fisheries, lacquerware, and markets — faces a long road to recovery from not just the quake but a massive fire in a major tourist center.

Tourism was just making a comeback from the COVID-19 crisis, Mr. Wakabayashi said, but he worries this quake may be a knockout blow.

“It’s absolutely bad,” Mr. Wakabayashi, 62, told Reuters at a community center now serving as an evacuation center.

He was among some 600 people of all ages packed into the building’s three floors, where many slept on tatami mats and plastic sheets.

Nearby was the nine-story Hotel Koshuen, one of the biggest accommodation centers in the city and boasting hot spring baths with views of the ocean. The upper floors were the most damaged as the force of the quake moved up the building, he said.

“Parts of walls came off and ceilings came down,” Mr. Wakabayashi said. “I believe it will take half a year to a year to fully refurbish all the guest rooms.” 

Tourism was a bright spot for Japan’s economy last year as infection controls were lifted and the weak yen lured international travelers. Inbound arrivals in October exceeded levels in 2019 for the first time since the pandemic clamped down international travel.

Wajima, about 450 km (280 miles) northwest of Tokyo, has always been more of a draw for domestic visitors.

Just 15 minutes by foot from the Hotel Koshuen and near the evacuation center lays Wajima’s famed Asaichi morning market, a 1,000-year old shopping district with some 200 stalls selling seafood, snacks and crafts.

Now much of it lays in ruin after a conflagration set off during the earthquake.

“Wajima’s morning market is one of Japan’s top three,” Mr. Wakabayashi said. “The fire practically destroyed it, as well as the houses of many who work there, just when the crab season is about to arrive.”

The veteran chef counts himself luckier than many Wajima residents who lost their homes, as he lives in an apartment provided by the hotel. He endured a substantial cut in wages during the pandemic, as both he and his employer held out for a recovery in tourism.

“Customers were bound to come back following the end of the pandemic,” Mr. Wakabayashi said. “But now, hotels need to do costly repairs. I’m not sure if they’ll be able to keep their employees.” — Reuters

SEOUL — South Korea’s government will put its focus on supporting people’s livelihoods and managing risk factors, as it cut the country’s 2024 gross domestic product forecast and raised its inflation projection.

In its biannual economic policy plan released on Thursday, the finance ministry expected the economy to grow 2.2% in 2024, down from 2.4% seen in July, after expanding 1.4% in 2023 which was a three-year low.

The ministry expected consumer prices to rise 2.6% this year, up from its previous forecast of 2.3%. In 2023, prices rose 3.6%. “The economic recovery will be stronger (than last year) amid improvements in global trade and demand for semiconductors, but there will be difficulties in domestic demand and people’s livelihoods due to persistently high inflation and interest rates,” the ministry said.

The government will primarily focus on economic recovery for the common people, while managing potential risk factors, it said.

South Korea’s exports rose for a third straight month in December as demand for chips started to pick up, raising hopes for an economic recovery driven by semiconductor exports.

The country’s central bank has maintained its policy interest rate at 3.5%, the highest since late 2008, since the last hike in January 2023, in its continued fight against slowly easing, but still high inflation.

The finance ministry said it aims to bring down inflation, which stood at 3.2% in December, to the 2% level within the first half of 2024, with more policy measures, such as tax and tariff cuts, and freezing public utility costs.

To boost consumption, the government plans to raise tax exemptions on credit card spending and continue efforts to attract more foreign tourists, including the exemption of visa issuance fees for group tourists from China and other Asian countries.

For companies, the ministry said it will introduce new temporary tax cuts on investments in research and development and extend existing tax breaks on facility investments until end-2024.

The ministry said it will expand liquidity support measures if needed to prevent a credit crunch in builders and real estate projects. Last month, a mid-sized builder applied for a debt restructuring, raising concerns over the construction sector. — Reuters

The incident, which has been previously reported by other media outlets and Andrew has denied, was among the details described in an initial trove of previously redacted documents that otherwise revealed few new details about the extent of Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking activities.

More documents are expected to be unsealed or unredacted in the coming days.

Prince Andrew could not immediately be reached for comment.

Epstein socialized with Wall Street titans, royalty and celebrities before pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008. He took his own life in 2019 at age 66 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

Dozens of women have accused Epstein of forcing them to provide sexual services to him and his guests at his private Caribbean island and homes he owned in New York, Florida and New Mexico.

The names of more than 150 people mentioned in a lawsuit by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, were kept under seal for years until a federal judge ruled last month that there was no legal justification to keep them private.

In a deposition, Ms. Giuffre said she had sex with several politicians and financial leaders.

Ms. Giuffre’s deposition named several prominent figures who have previously denied her allegations, including hedge-fund owner Glenn Dubin, billionaire US businessman Tom Pritzker and the late New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.

She said she also had sex with other political leaders whose names she could not remember.

Mr. Dubin could not immediately reached for comment. A spokesperson for Mr. Pritzker said the businessman “continues to vehemently deny” the allegation.

Sigrid McCawley, Ms. Giuffre’s lawyer, said some questions about who enabled Epstein have still not been answered.

“The unsealing of these documents gets us closer to that goal,” she said in a statement on Wednesday.

In a separate deposition, Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg said Prince Andrew put his hand on her breast to pose for a photo with Epstein, Ms. Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend.

Ms. Sjoberg said the photo also included a puppet that said “Prince Andrew” on it.

This allegation was previously reported by the Mirror in 2020.

Prince Andrew has been stripped of most of his royal titles due to his association with Epstein.

He settled a civil lawsuit with Giuffre in 2022 for an undisclosed sum, and has denied wrongdoing.

The list stems from a long-settled defamation lawsuit that Giuffre filed against Maxwell.

Ms. Maxwell, the daughter of British media mogul Robert Maxwell, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls for Epstein. She is appealing her conviction.

Ms. Giuffre accused Maxwell of recruiting her when she was underage for Epstein to abuse.

US District Judge Loretta Preska, who is overseeing the case, ruled that some names would remain confidential, including those of people who were underage when Epstein abused them. — Reuters

In a speech in Beirut on Wednesday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed that his powerful Iran-backed Shi’ite militia “cannot be silent” following the killing of Hamas deputy Saleh al-Arouri on Tuesday.

Mr. Nasrallah said his heavily armed forces would fight to the finish if Israel chose to extend the war to Lebanon, but he made no concrete threats to act against Israel in support of Hamas, Hezbollah’s ally also backed by Iran.

Israel neither confirmed nor denied assassinating Mr. Arouri but has promised to annihilate Hamas, which rules Gaza, following the group’s Oct. 7 cross-border assault in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and some 240 abducted.

Israel launched a ground and aerial blitz of Gaza in response, and the total recorded Palestinian death toll had reached 22,313 by Wednesday — almost 1% of its 2.3 million population, the Gaza health ministry said.

Israeli military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, when asked what Israel was doing to prepare for a potential Hezbollah response, told a reporter: “I won’t respond to what you just mentioned. We are focused on the fight against Hamas.”

White House spokesperson John Kirby, asked about Mr. Nasrallah’s speech, told reporters: “We haven’t seen Hezbollah jump in with both feet to come to Hamas’ aid and assistance.”

Another US official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, suggested neither Hezbollah nor Israel wanted a war.

“From everything that we can tell, there is no clear desire for Hezbollah to go to war with Israel and vice versa,” said the official.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will depart on Thursday for the Middle East, including a stop in Israel, as the United States continues diplomatic consultations on the Israel-Gaza conflict, a senior US official said on Wednesday.

The official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said US diplomatic envoy Amos Hochstein will also travel to Israel to work to soothe tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

Arouri’s killing was a further sign of the potential the nearly three-month-old war might spread well beyond Gaza, drawing in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hezbollah forces on the Lebanon-Israel border and Red Sea shipping lanes.

Mr. Arouri, 57, who lived in Beirut, was the first senior Hamas political leader to be assassinated outside Palestinian territories since Israel began its offensive against the Palestinian Islamist group following the Oct. 7 assault.

Hezbollah has been embroiled in nearly daily exchanges of shelling with Israel across Lebanon’s southern border since the Gaza war began. On Wednesday, a local Hezbollah official and three other members were killed in an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon, two security sources told Reuters.

More than 120 Hezbollah fighters and two dozen civilians have been killed on Lebanese territory, as well as at least nine Israeli soldiers in Israel.

Mr. Nasrallah said there would be “no ceilings” and “no rules” to Hezbollah’s fighting if Israel launched a full war on Lebanon.

Mr. Arouri’s death removes a big name from Israel’s most-wanted list of top Islamist foes, and could drive Hamas’ exiled leaders deeper into hiding, hampering efforts to negotiate further Gaza ceasefires and hostage releases.

Israel had long accused him of orchestrating attacks on its citizens. But a Hamas official said he was also “at the heart of negotiations” conducted by Qatar and Egypt over the outcome of the Gaza war and the release of Hamas-held Israeli hostages.

Mr. Nasrallah spoke to commemorate four years since the killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guards top commander Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Iraq.

Two explosions on Wednesday during a memorial ceremony at a cemetery in southeastern Iran where Soleimani is buried killed nearly 100 people, at a time of high tension between arch-enemies Iran and Israel.

AERIAL, GROUND BLITZ
Israeli forces meanwhile kept up their aerial and ground blitz against Hamas militants, targeting the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis and Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

Israeli bombardments have flattened much of the densely populated enclave, wreaking a humanitarian disaster. Most Gazans have been left homeless, crammed into shrinking areas in hope of rudimentary shelter, with food shortages threatening famine.

The Israeli military says it tries to avoid harm to civilians and blames Hamas for embedding fighters within residential areas, a charge the group denies.

The Israeli military said the number of its soldiers killed since its first ground incursion on Oct. 20 had reached 177. — Reuters

The hack, one of the most dramatic since Russia’s full-scale invasion nearly two years ago, knocked out services provided by Ukraine’s biggest telecoms operator for some 24 million users for days from Dec. 12.

In an interview, Illia Vitiuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) cybersecurity department, disclosed exclusive details about the hack, which he said caused “disastrous” destruction and aimed to land a psychological blow and gather intelligence.

“This attack is a big message, a big warning, not only to Ukraine, but for the whole Western world to understand that no one is actually untouchable,” he said. He noted Kyivstar was a wealthy, private company that invested a lot in cybersecurity.

The attack wiped “almost everything”, including thousands of virtual servers and PCs, he said, describing it as probably the first example of a destructive cyberattack that “completely destroyed the core of a telecoms operator.”

During its investigation, the SBU found the hackers probably attempted to penetrate Kyivstar in March or earlier, he said in a Zoom interview on Dec. 27.

“For now, we can say securely, that they were in the system at least since May 2023,” he said. “I cannot say right now, since what time they had … full access: probably at least since November.”

The SBU assessed the hackers would have been able to steal personal information, understand the locations of phones, intercept SMS-messages and perhaps steal Telegram accounts with the level of access they gained, he said.

A Kyivstar spokesperson said the company was working closely with the SBU to investigate the attack and would take all necessary steps to eliminate future risks, adding: “No facts of leakage of personal and subscriber data have been revealed.”

Mr. Vitiuk said the SBU helped Kyivstar restore its systems within days and to repel new cyber attacks.

“After the major break there were a number of new attempts aimed at dealing more damage to the operator,” he said.

Kyivstar is the biggest of Ukraine’s three main telecoms operators and there are some 1.1 million Ukrainians who live in small towns and villages where there are no other providers, Mr. Vitiuk said.

People rushed to buy other SIM cards because of the attack, creating large queues. ATMs using Kyivstar SIM cards for the internet ceased to work and the air-raid siren – used during missile and drone attacks – did not function properly in some regions, he said.

He said the attack had no big impact on Ukraine’s military, which did not rely on telecoms operators and made use of what he described as “different algorithms and protocols”.

“Speaking about drone detection, speaking about missile detection, luckily, no, this situation didn’t affect us strongly,” he said.

RUSSIAN SANDWORM
Investigating the attack is harder because of the wiping of Kyivstar’s infrastructure.

Mr. Vitiuk said he was “pretty sure” it was carried out by Sandworm, a Russian military intelligence cyberwarfare unit that has been linked to cyberattacks in Ukraine and elsewhere.

A year ago, Sandworm penetrated a Ukrainian telecoms operator, but was detected by Kyiv because the SBU had itself been inside Russian systems, Mr.. Vitiuk said, declining to identify the company. The earlier hack has not been previously reported.

Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to a written request for comment on Vitiuk’s remarks.

Mr. Vitiuk said the pattern of behavior suggested telecoms operators could remain a target of Russian hackers. The SBU thwarted over 4,500 major cyberattacks on Ukrainian governmental bodies and critical infrastructure last year, he said.

A group called Solntsepyok, believed by the SBU to be affiliated with Sandworm, said it was responsible for the attack.

Nr. Vitiuk said SBU investigators were still working to establish how Kyivstar was penetrated or what type of trojan horse malware could have been used to break in, adding that it could have been phishing, someone helping on the inside or something else.

If it was an inside job, the insider who helped the hackers did not have a high level of clearance in the company, as the hackers made use of malware used to steal hashes of passwords, he said.

Samples of that malware have been recovered and are being analyzed, he added.

Kyivstar’s CEO, Oleksandr Komarov, said on Dec. 20 that all the company’s services had been fully restored throughout the country. Mr. Vitiuk praised the SBU’s incident response effort to safely restore the systems.

The attack on Kyivstar may have been made easier because of similarities between it and Russian mobile operator Beeline, which was built with similar infrastructure, Mr. Vitiuk said.

The sheer size of Kyivstar’s infrastructure would have been easier to navigate with expert guidance, he added.

The destruction at Kyivstar began at around 5:00 a.m. local time while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was in Washington, pressing the West to continue supplying aid.

Mr. Vitiuk said the attack was not accompanied by a major missile and drone strike at a time when people were having communication difficulties, limiting its impact while also relinquishing a powerful intelligence-gathering tool.

Why the hackers chose Dec. 12 was unclear, he said, adding: “Maybe some colonel wanted to become a general.” — Reuters

Battery-electric vehicles were 7.2% of all vehicles sold last year, more than double the 3.1% recorded in 2022, according to data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) on Thursday.

The sales share for 2023 rises to 16.2% of all new vehicle sales once hybrids and plug-in hybrids are included, almost one in every five vehicles.

After a decade under conservative governments that opposed EV adoption, the current center-left Labor government, which won power in 2022, has launched a national EV strategy and provided hundreds of millions for clean transport.

Transport is one of Australia’s largest sources of emissions and the growing adoption of electric vehicles bolsters the government’s pledge to cut emissions by 43% by 2030.

However, Australian’s continue to prefer SUVs or light commercial vehicles, models which usually come with higher emissions when fossil fueled. The two categories accounted for 78.4% of all new vehicle sales last year.

The Ford Ranger and Toyota Hi-Lux, the two most popular vehicles and a tenth of all those sold in 2023, tend to emit more carbon dioxide than average.

Efforts to increase the take-up of electric vehicles have long been plagued by shortages, a limited number of models and sparse and sometimes faulty charging equipment.

As a result adoption for many years lagged countries like the US or Britain, where sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids hit 7.7% and 23%, respectively in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen said in November the government would soon release details of its long-awaited fuel efficiency standards, a policy that advocates say will spur manufacturers to send more EVs to Australia and further boost adoption. — Reuters

China’s military did not say where exactly the patrols would be held but they were announced as the Philippines and the United States were carrying out a two-day joint patrol in the highly strategic waterway, a move that likely irked Beijing.

The maritime exercises between Manila and Washington which began on Wednesday are the second in less than two months, and follow Beijing’s warning to the Philippines that any miscalculation in their escalating dispute in the South China Sea would bring a resolute response.

“What we are witnessing is the U.S. and China engaging each other in a dangerous game of shadowboxing in the South China Sea,” international studies professor Renato de Castro said.

China’s military said troops in the area will be on high alert at all times, and will defend national sovereignty, security and maritime rights.

The patrols also aim to deter activities that disrupt the South China Sea and create “hot spots,” the military said on its Southern Theater Command’s Wechat account.

Beijing and Manila have traded sharp accusations in recent months over several run-ins in the South China Sea, including charges that China rammed a ship earlier this month carrying the Philippine armed forces chief of staff.

“Chinese actions are pushing (the Philippines) further to U.S. arms. China has no one to blame for closer U.S.-Philippine security relations but itself,” De Castro added.

The Philippine military said on Wednesday their second joint patrol this week involves four vessels from the Philippine navy and four ships from the U.S. Indo-Pacific command that include an aircraft carrier, a cruiser and two destroyers.

Last week, the Philippines said it was not provoking conflict in the South China Sea, responding to China’s accusation that Manila was encroaching on Beijing’s territory.

China has repeatedly warned the Philippines of breaching areas of the South China Sea it considers its territory. China claims almost the entire South China Sea, while the Philippines refers to the part of South China Sea within its exclusive economic zone as the West Philippines Sea.

China said the Philippines has relied on U.S. support to continually provoke China.

The Philippines and the U.S. first launched joint patrols in November, and security engagements between the treaty allies soared last year amid growing tensions in the South China Sea. — Reuters

All 379 people miraculously escaped the Japan Airlines (JAL) Airbus A350 which erupted into flames after colliding with a De Havilland Dash-8 Coast Guard turboprop shortly after landing at Haneda on Tuesday evening.

Five of the six Coast Guard crew, responding to a major earthquake that struck the country’s west coast, died.

Once a recurring safety problem, aviation experts say the number of such runway collisions or incursions have become far less frequent with modern ground tracking technology and procedures.

Japanese authorities say the cause of the crash remains unclear.

Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department are investigating whether possible professional negligence led to deaths and injuries, several news outlets including Kyodo news agency and Nikkei Asia reported.

A police spokesperson said a special unit had set up at the airport and was investigating the runway and planning to interview people involved, but declined to comment on whether they were looking into possible professional negligence.

“There’s a strong possibility there was a human error,” said Hiroyuki Kobayashi, a former JAL pilot and aviation analyst.

“Only one plane is generally allowed to enter the runway but even though landing clearance had been given, the Japan Coast Guard aircraft was on the runway.”

The JAL plane was told to continue its approach to runway 34R at 1743 local time (0843GMT), and was given clearance to land at 1745, two minutes before authorities say the collision occurred on the same runway at 1747, according to air traffic control recordings available at liveATC.net.

“Clear to land 34R Japan Airlines 516,” a controller can be heard saying in a recording.

Haneda airport did not immediately have comment on the recordings.

JAL said in a statement on Tuesday the aircraft recognized and repeated the landing permission from air traffic control before approaching and touching down.

The Coast Guard has declined to comment on the circumstances surrounding the crash, including why the plane was on the runway and whether it was stationary or moving when disaster struck.

The plane, one of six Coast Guard aircraft based at the airport, had been due to deliver aid to regions hit by a deadly earthquake on Monday.

TWO INVESTIGATIONS
As well as the police probe, the Japan Safety Transport Board (JTSB) is also investigating the crash, with participation from agencies in France, where the Airbus airplane was built, and Britain where its two Rolls-Royce engines were manufactured, people familiar with the matter said.

Airbus said it was also sending technical advisers to assist in the investigation.

JTSB has recovered flight and voice recorders from the coast guard aircraft, Kyodo news agency reported, citing the agency.

While all passengers and crew were evacuated around 20 minutes after the crash, the aircraft was completely engulfed in flames and burned for more than six hours, the airline said.

Authorities were set to begin work to remove the charred remains of the JAL aircraft in the afternoon, Kyodo reported, while TV footage showed police and fire department personnel inspecting the site of the accident on Wednesday. — Reuters

China has cast the Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections as a choice between war and peace, warning an attempt to push for Taiwan’s formal independence means conflict.

China has focused its anger on the run-up to the vote on Lai Ching-te, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, rebuffing his calls for talks as it views him as a separatist.

Both the DPP and Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), say only they can preserve the peace, and both have also committed to bolstering Taiwan’s defenses and say only the island’s people can decide their future.

The KMT traditionally favors close ties with China although it denies being pro-Beijing.

Wang Zaixi, a deputy head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office between 2000 and 2006 and a retired Chinese army major general, was quoted last month in China’s Global Times newspaper as saying the DPP’s Mr. Lai was an “extremist” independence supporter.

“If he is elected, you cannot rule out the possibility of a military clash across the Taiwan Strait. We need to be fully aware of this,” Mr. Wang said.

Such an outcome could have grave geopolitical and economic outcomes, pitting China against the United States — the world’s two leading military powers — while blocking key shipping lanes and disrupting semiconductor and commodity supply chains.

“I believe they will take more hawkish actions to try to warn the new president over his future policies towards China,” Admiral Lee Hsi-ming, a former Taiwan military chief, told Reuters, referring to Beijing.

Western security officials are trying to gauge how serious China could be about a military response to the election outcome.

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, said Beijing may wait and see, with any strong reaction coming after May 20 when the next president takes office and gives an inauguration speech.

If the DPP wins the presidency but loses its majority in parliament, that could also temper China’s response given it would weaken the DPP’s ability to pass legislation, the Western official added.

China’s defense ministry, which has decried Taiwan’s government for deliberately “hyping up” a military threat from China for electoral gain, did not respond to a request for comment.

Taiwan defense ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang told reporters its assessment of China’s moves would not be based on whether there is an election or not.

“We’ll look at the signs and what the enemy is up to as a basis for our judgement,” he said.

NEW STATUS QUO
After Chinese and US leaders met in San Francisco in November, President Xi Jinping reportedly stressed to President Joseph R. Biden that while Taiwan is the most “dangerous” bilateral issue, he indicated China is not preparing for an invasion of Taiwan.

However, since the last Taiwan presidential poll in 2020, China has engaged in an unprecedented level of military activity in the Taiwan Strait, including holding two rounds of major war games near the island in the past year-and-a-half.

Chinese jets now regularly cross an unofficial median line in the strait, seeking to wear down Taiwan’s far smaller air force by making them repeatedly scramble.

Some analysts see Taiwan’s contiguous zone that is 24 nautical miles (44 km) off its coast, being increasingly challenged by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the coming years.

Taiwan is strengthening its armor.

A second Western security official said China was well aware that every year they wait to “resolve the Taiwan problem,” it gives Taipei a further opportunity to beef up its defenses.

“That is not good for the PLA,” the official said.

Defense has featured prominently on the campaign trail.-

The DPP has repeatedly brought up Taiwan’s indigenous submarine, while other arms programs including drones are being developed.

The KMT champions the “3Ds” — deterrence, dialogue and de-escalation.

Jaw Shaw-kong, the KMT’s vice president candidate, said last month Taiwan should ramp up missile production to show it can strike into China in the event of war, although he also said China should allow in Taiwanese military observers as a sign of goodwill and to lessen tensions.

Whoever wins, Taiwan has a big weapons order backlog from the United States.

In the next few years, Taiwan is due to get advanced US weapons including F-16V fighter jets, M-1A tanks, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS.

OTHER OPTIONS
While clearly a superior military power, recent purges in the PLA that have felled generals in the Rocket Force, navy and air force and a former defense minister could lower the risk of conflict.

“The more problems they have, the more corruption they have, the better it is for us,” said Lee, the former Taiwan military head. “I don’t think there will be a full-scale invasion in the next few years because they have their own difficulties.”

Over the past week or so, Mr. Xi has given two speeches where he reiterated the need for “reunification” with Taiwan. On both occasions he made no mention of using force, though Beijing has never renounced that possibility.

China could also wield economic pressure post-election, targeting a trade deal signed in 2010 which Beijing says Taipei has breached with unfair trade barriers. Beijing could also ramp up operations to influence people in Taiwan through its “United Front” department.

“China needs to be able to lead and control the situation in Taiwan, and we do that via a variety of means, not just by one means,” said Wu Xinbo, a professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University. — Reuters

Mr. Arouri, 57, was the first senior Hamas political leader to be assassinated since Israel launched a shattering air and ground offensive against the group almost three months ago after its shock assault and rampage into Israeli towns.

Lebanon’s heavily armed Hezbollah group, a Hamas ally, has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israel across Lebanon’s southern border since the war in Gaza began in October.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has warned Israel against carrying out any assassinations on Lebanese soil, vowing a “severe reaction.”

Hezbollah said on Tuesday it had targeted a group of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of Marj with missiles, following Mr. Arouri’s killing.

Israel has long accused Mr. Arouri of lethal attacks on its citizens, but a Hamas official said he was also “at the heart of negotiations” conducted by Qatar and Egypt over the outcome of the Gaza war and the release of Hamas-held Israeli hostages.

Israel neither confirmed nor denied carrying out the killing, but its military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces were in a high state of readiness and prepared for any scenario.

“The most important thing to say tonight is that we are focused and remain focused on fighting Hamas,” he said when asked by a reporter about the reports of Mr. Arouri’s killing.

‘WAITING FOR MARTYRDOM’
Israel had accused Mr. Arouri, a co-founder of the Hamas’ military wing, the Izz-el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, of ordering and supervising Hamas attacks in the Israeli-occupied West Bank for years.

“I am waiting for martyrdom (death) and I think I have lived too long,” Mr. Arouri said in August 2023, alluding to Israeli threats to eliminate Hamas leaders whether in Gaza or abroad.

Nasser Kanaani, spokesperson for the foreign ministry of Iran, a major supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, said Mr. Arouri’s killing would “undoubtedly ignite another surge in the veins of resistance and the motivation to fight against the Zionist occupiers, not only in Palestine but also in the region and among all freedom-seekers worldwide.”

Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of Ramallah and other towns in the West Bank to condemn Arouri’s killing, chanting, “Revenge, revenge, Qassam!”

Iranian-backed Houthis rebels in Yeman have vowed to continue their attacks on shipping in the Rea Sea until Israel halts the conflict in Gaza, and warned that it would attack US warships if the militia group itself was targeted.

Houthi militants fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles into the southern Red Sea, though no damage was reported, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said late on Tuesday.

Britain’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Authority reported up to three explosions near a merchant vessel in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, east of Eritrea’s Assab, with no reports of damage.

The US has announced an international maritime task force to protect shipping through the Red Sea, which leads to the Suez Canal, a shipping route which carries roughly one third of global container cargo.

AL SHIFA HOSPITAL
The Gaza war was triggered by a shock cross-border Hamas assault on Israeli towns on Oct. 7 in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and some 240 hostages spirited back to Gaza.

The Gaza health ministry said 207 people had been killed in the past 24 hours, bringing the total recorded Palestinian death toll to 22,185 in nearly three months of war in Gaza.

Israel says it tries to avoid harm to civilians and blames Hamas for embedding fighters among them, an accusation Hamas denies.

The Israeli targeting of Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital last November stoked global alarm over the fate of civilians and patients who were inside.

Israel said Hamas used tunnels beneath the hospital as a headquarters and was using its patients as shields.

A US official said on Tuesday, citing declassified US intelligence, that US spy agencies assessed that Hamas and Islamic Jihad had used Al Shifa to command forces and hold some hostages but largely evacuated it before Israeli troops entered.

Israeli bombardments have engulfed Gaza’s 2.3 million residents in a humanitarian disaster in which thousands have been left destitute and threatened by famine due to a lack of food supplies.

HAMAS RESPONDS TO CEASEFIRE PROPOSAL
Shortly before Mr. Arouri’s killing, Hamas’ paramount leader Ismail Haniyeh, who is also based outside Gaza, said the movement had delivered its response to an Egyptian-Qatari ceasefire proposal.

He reiterated that Hamas’ conditions entailed “a complete cessation” of Israel’s offensive in exchange for further releases of hostages.

Israel believes 129 hostages remain in Gaza after some were released during a brief truce in late November and others were killed during air strikes and rescue or escape attempts.

Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it has wiped out Hamas but it is unclear what it plans to do with the enclave should it succeed, and where that leaves the prospect of an independent Palestinian state.

In Washington, the State Department denounced as “inflammatory and irresponsible” statements by Israeli cabinet ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir advocating for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza.

Such statements underscore fears among some in the Arab world that Israel wants to drive Palestinians out of land where they envision a future state, repeating the mass dispossession of Palestinians when Israel was created in 1948. — Reuters

The Daily Treasury Statement for Friday showed that the total public debt outstanding rose to $34.001 trillion from $33.911 on Thursday.

The debt that counts toward the federal debt ceiling rose to $33.89 trillion on Friday from $33.794 trillion on Thursday. This “debt subject to limit” category excludes the unamortized discount on Treasury bills and zero coupon bonds, debt issued by the Federal Financing Bank and guaranteed debt of certain other agencies.

The milestone comes shortly after the federal debt topped $33 trillion in September amid rising federal deficits fueled by falling tax revenues and rising federal expenditures.

Congress returns to Washington next week to tackle Jan. 19 and Feb. 2 deadlines for settling government spending through September, amid Republican demands to reduce fiscal 2024 discretionary spending below caps agreed in June. Lawmakers also hope to pass emergency aid for Ukraine and Israel, possibly with unrelated US border security provisions attached.

Failure to approve the one-dozen fiscal 2024 spending bills would plunge Washington agencies into shutdown mode. But reaching a compromise could become more difficult with November presidential and congressional elections coming quickly into focus.

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog group, called the $34 trillion federal debt figure “a truly depressing achievement,” attributing it to political leaders’ unwillingness to make difficult fiscal choices.

“We remain hopeful that policymakers will take further measures to reduce our borrowing either by raising taxes, reducing spending, or creating a fiscal commission – or ideally by doing all of the above,” Ms. MacGuineas said in a statement.

White House spokesperson Michael Kikukawa said the debt increases were “trickle-down debt” driven by Republican-passed tax cuts in 2017 that benefited corporations and wealthy Americans.

“Congressional Republicans want to double down on MAGAnomics with more than $3 trillion in giveaways skewed to the wealthy while forcing hardworking Americans to pay the price by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,” Kikukawa said in a statement.

He added that Mr. Biden plans to reduce US deficits by $2.5 trillion over 10 years by increasing taxes on large corporations and wealthy Americans and cutting spending on pharmaceuticals and tax breaks for oil companies. – Reuters

Surgeons operated on Mr. Lee for more than two hours late on Wednesday to repair a major blood vessel in his neck that was sliced when an assailant lunged and stabbed him with a knife.

“The act of terror against Chairman Lee Jae-myung was clearly a challenge against democracy and a threat against democracy,” Democratic Party floor leader Hong Ik-pyo said at a party leadership council meeting.

He urged a speedy investigation and tougher security for high-profile political figures, echoing renewed questions about the safety on campaign trails in a country with a history of political violence despite tight restrictions on gun ownership.

Jin Jeong-hwa, a party supporter who was a witness at the scene of the stabbing, said the incident clearly showed the need for stronger and professional security protection for political leaders, not simply police who are deployed to monitor.

“People like opposition leaders really need a dedicated security detail,” Mr. Jin said in an interview with Reuters. He added it was clear from his experience at political events that Lee was very much exposed to personal safety threats.

Mr. Lee, a tough talking progressive who narrowly lost the 2022 presidential election, had been rallying the party to retain the parliamentary majority it holds against President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservatives.

South Korea holds a pivotal election on April 10 where the conservatives will try to win back a majority for the first time since 2016 and help President Yoon Suk Yeol’s pro-business policies including tax cuts, deregulation and social reforms.

The attack against Mr. Lee, which unfolded quickly but was widely captured in footage of the outdoors public event, shocked his party and his rivals alike, who condemned all violence against political figures.

Mr. Lee was airlifted from Busan, where the attack occurred, to Seoul on Tuesday where he received surgery to reconstruct the jugular vein that pumps blood from the head back to the heart and insert a tube to support the damaged vessel.

He was conscious and recovering in the intensive care unit, party officials said.

The leader of the conservative People Power Party scaled back scheduled public events, and both parties urged members to refrain from comments that could inflame voters as Lee recuperates.

Mr. Lee lost to Yoon by less than 1% point of votes, the narrowest margin, in a bitterly fought presidential election and has since faced bribery allegations stemming from a development project when he was mayor of a city near Seoul. He denies wrongdoing. – Reuters

All 379 people aboard a Japan Airlines Airbus A350 escaped after a collision with a De Havilland Dash-8 Coast Guard turboprop that killed five of six crew on the smaller aircraft.

People familiar with the investigation said the Japan Safety Transport Board (JTSB) would lead the probe with participation from agencies in France, where the airplane was built, and Britain where its two Rolls-Royce engines were manufactured.

Experts have cautioned it is too early to pinpoint a cause and stress most accidents are caused by a cocktail of factors.

But investigators are widely expected to explore what instructions were given by controllers to the two aircraft, alongside a detailed examination of plane and airport systems.

A ministry official told reporters in Japan on Tuesday that the A350 was attempting to land normally when it collided with the Coast Guard plane, also known as a Bombardier Dash-8.

One of the first tasks will be to recover black box recorders with flight data and cockpit voice recordings.

Experts said the location of the accident means physical evidence, radar data and witness accounts or camera footage are likely to be readily available, easing the huge forensic task.

“One obvious question is whether the coastguard plane was on the runway and if so why,” said Paul Hayes, director of aviation safety at UK-based consultancy Ascend by Cirium.

The crash is the first significant accident involving the Airbus A350, Europe’s premier twin-engined long-haul jet, in service since 2015.

And according to preliminary 2023 data, the collision of the Coast Guard plane with a two-year-old jetliner three times its length follows one of the safest years in aviation.

But it also comes after a US-based safety group warned last month about the risk of runway collisions or “incursions”.

The Flight Safety Foundation called for global action to prevent a new uptick in runway incursions as skies become more congested.

“Despite efforts over the years to prevent incursions, they still happen,” CEO Hassan Shahidi said in a statement.

“The risk of runway incursions is a global concern, and the potential consequences of an incursion are severe.”

Although ground collisions involving injury or damage have become rare, their potential for loss of life is among the highest of any category and near-misses are more common.

A collision between two Boeing 747s in Tenerife in 1977, killing 583 people, remains aviation’s most deadly accident.

‘TECHNOLOGY GAP’

The Washington-based foundation has found that breakdowns in communication and coordination can play a role in runway crashes or near misses.

But a shortage of electronics to avoid collisions on the ground, rather than in the air where software to trigger avoidance has been available since the 1980s, is also a concern.

“Many of the serious incidents could have been avoided through better situational awareness technologies that can help air traffic controllers and pilots detect potential runway conflicts,” Shahidi said.

The Federal Aviation Administration says some three dozen U.S. airports are fitted with a system called ASDE-X that uses radar, satellites and a navigation tool called multilateration to track ground movements.

But National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy said in November the U.S. aviation network – a bellwether for airports worldwide – lacks sufficient technology to prevent runway incursions.

In 2018, Airbus said it was working with Honeywell HON.N on a system called SURF-A or Surface-Alert designed to help prevent runway collisions by giving pilots visual and audio warnings about approaching hazards on the runway.

Honeywell Aerospace Technologies expects SURF-A, which is operational on its experimental test aircraft, to be certified and available to airlines gradually over the next few years, division CEO Jim Currier said by email.

Far-reaching reforms of European and US air traffic networks that could accelerate the use of such computerized systems have faced chronic delays.

Airbus did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Steve Creamer, a former senior director at the International Civil Aviation Organization, said preventing a landing aircraft striking a plane is among the top five global safety priorities.

Although automated landings are increasing, experts say much still depends on visual checks by pilots who may be distracted by a high workload or the blur of a night-time runway.

“I think the investigation will focus a lot on the clearances … and then also what the (JAL) crew could see. Could they physically see that airplane on the runway,” said former U.S. air accident investigator John Cox.

Lighting was an issue in a 1991 collision between a USAir plane and SkyWest Airlines aircraft at Los Angeles International Airport in California, for example.

“One of the things that came out of that was that the USAir crew physically could not see the SkyWest Metroliner there. Although it was on the runway, the lighting was such that you … physically couldn’t see it,” he said. – Reuters

The fluffy ragdoll lives with Sunny in defiance of a 34-year-old law banning cats in the government-built apartments that house the vast majority of Singaporeans. Luckily for Mooncake, Singapore plans to scrap the ban later this year, freeing Sunny from the threat of a S$4,000 ($3,007) fine or her pet’s potential eviction.

“Cats are so much quieter than dogs. If they allow dogs, I don’t understand why not cats,” said 30-year-old Sunny, who works in marketing and asked to be identified only by her first name because she didn’t want to risk her cat being taken away.

Authorities rarely enforce the ban, which only applies to the high-rise Housing and Development Board (HDB) apartment blocks where 80% of 3.6 million Singaporeans live, and it has long been flouted by countless cat lovers.

The ban does, however, make things difficult: because they technically shouldn’t exist, HDB pet cats like Mooncake are not eligible for pet insurance. Lawmaker Louis Ng, who has campaigned to revoke the ban, said the regulation sometimes becomes leverage for warring neighbors.

“A lot of times, the cats are collateral when there’s neighborly disputes,” he said. “The neighbor will just say: ‘Oh you’re keeping cats, I’ll go and alert (the authorities)’.”

“CATERWAULING”

Singapore’s ban on cats in HDB housing is yet another example of the city-state’s infamously exacting rules-based culture, in which, for example, the sale and import of chewing gum remains banned.

Established in 1960, the HDB scheme sells government-built units directly to qualified citizens on 99-year leases. It has led to one of the world’s highest home-ownership rates, but residents are subject to many restrictions and regulations.

Cats were allowed in HDB flats until parliament amended the housing law in 1989. On its website, the HDB justifies the ban by saying that cats are “difficult to contain within the flat … they tend to shed fur and defecate or urinate in public areas, and also make caterwauling sounds, which can inconvenience your neighbors”.

It’s not clear what made the Singapore government change its mind, but the tipping point appears to be an official survey in 2022 that showed 9 out of 10 respondents agreed that cats were suitable pets to keep, including in HDB flats.

The authorities are now surveying members of the public on the “proposed cat management framework” which should come into place later in 2024.

Dogs have not been subject to a similar ban, but they are limited to one per household and only certain breeds and sizes can be kept as pets: ‘yes’ to miniature poodles, ‘no’ to golden retrievers, for example.

Market research firm Euromonitor International has predicted a surge in cat ownership. In a report on prospects for cat food companies, it estimated Singapore’s current pet population at around 94,000 cats and 113,000 dogs.

Lawmaker Ng, who ran an animal welfare group before joining parliament in 2015, also hopes the change will lead more people to adopt rescued cats.

Under the new framework, HDB residents would be limited to two cats. It also mandates licensing and microchipping cats, as well as installing mesh screens on windows so cats don’t fall out.

Some cat lovers say the new regulations don’t go far enough.

Thenuga Vijakumar from the Cat Welfare Society wants the law to mandate sterilization. Cat rescuer Chan Chow Wah, 50, also wants penalties for irresponsible owners. He said he had to take care of a cat that fell from the third-story and whose owners refused to pay its medical bills, as well as another cat that was abandoned after being diagnosed with heart disease.

“I end up taking over these cases. Basically, I look after them until they pass away,” said Chan, estimating he spent S$60,000 ($45,100) on vet bills in 2022.

But for many cat owners like Mooncake’s “mama” Sunny, the law is a blessing that will bring her peace of mind.

“I think it’s a good thing and it’s a step forward after 30 years,” she said. – Reuters

Like in other key sectors over the past year, junior doctors represented by the British Medical Association (BMA) have staged a series of walkouts in demand of better pay in the face of soaring inflation.

Cumulatively, the NHS, which has provided healthcare free at the point of use since it was founded in 1948, cancelled 1.2 million appointments in 2023 due to strikes.

The BMA abandoned talks with the government after being offered a pay rise of 8-10%, and held strikes on Dec. 20-23. The union is seeking a 35% improvement which it says is needed to cover the impact of inflation over several years.

The government, which has agreed new pay deals with other healthcare workers, including nurses and senior doctors in recent months, has resisted hikes it says would worsen inflation.

The strikes threaten to increase the pressure on the health service where over 7.7 million patients are on waiting lists for procedures and appointments.

“This January could be one of the most difficult starts to the year the NHS has ever faced,” NHS National Medical Director Stephen Powis said in a statement.

“The action will not only have an enormous impact on planned care, but comes on top of a host of seasonal pressures such as covid, flu, and staff absences due to sickness.”

Junior doctors are qualified physicians, often with several years of experience, who work under the guidance of senior doctors and represent a large part of the country’s medical community.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said deals with other healthcare workers’ unions showed that the striking junior doctors were “outliers”.

“We have sought to come to a fair resolution – fair for the taxpayer, fair for hardworking doctors and health workers. We have achieved that in the majority of cases … we are willing to have further discussions. But obviously the first thing to do is to stop striking,” he told reporters.

The BMA said a record waiting list and underinvestment over the past decade had undermined the NHS.

“As a profession we are exhausted, disenchanted, and questioning whether we want to stay in the health service at all. Add to this years of pay erosion, and it’s no wonder that morale on the frontline has never been lower,” the union said. – Reuters

The ruling by a unanimous panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals comes amid a wave of lawsuits focusing on when abortions can be provided in states whose abortion bans have exceptions for medical emergencies.

The US Department of Justice declined to comment. The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and two anti-abortion medical associations that challenged the guidance – the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations – did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Biden administration in July 2022 issued guidance stating that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal law governing emergency rooms, can require abortion when necessary to stabilize a patient with a medical emergency, even in states where it is banned. The guidance came soon after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which since 1973 had guaranteed a right to abortion nationwide.

Texas and the associations immediately sued the administration, saying the guidance interfered with the state’s right to restrict abortion. A lower court judge in August 2022 agreed, finding that EMTALA was silent as to what a doctor should do when there is a conflict between the health of the mother and the unborn child and that the Texas abortion ban “fills that void” by including narrow exceptions to save the mother’s life or prevent serious bodily injury in some cases.

Circuit Judge Kurt Engelhardt, writing for the 5th Circuit panel, agreed, writing that EMTALA also includes a requirement to deliver an unborn child and it was up to doctors to balance the medical needs of the mother and fetus, while complying with any state abortion laws.

The law “does not provide an unqualified right for the pregnant mother to abort her child,” he wrote.

The ruling upheld a lower court order that blocked enforcement of the guidance in Texas and also blocked the administration from enforcing it against members of two anti-abortion medical associations anywhere in the country.

The federal court’s decision comes a month after Texas’s highest state court ruled against a woman seeking an emergency abortion of her non-viable pregnancy. That court is currently considering a separate lawsuit by 22 women about the scope of the emergency medical exception to Texas’s abortion ban.

A federal judge last year reached the opposite conclusion in a similar lawsuit in Idaho, blocking that state’s abortion ban after finding it conflicted with EMTALA. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to hear the state’s appeal of that ruling later this month. – Reuters

Ms. Georgieva told CNN in an interview that aired on Tuesday that the US economy is “definitely” headed for a “soft landing” with fairly strong growth prospects.

“People should be feeling good about the economy because they finally would see relief in terms of prices,” Georgieva said, praising the Federal Reserve’s “decisiveness” in raising interest rates to fight inflation.

“While that has been painful, especially for small businesses, it has brought the desired impact without pushing the economy into recession,” Georgieva added.

Asked why many polls show Americans pessimistic about the economy, the IMF chief said that consumers had become accustomed to low inflation and very low interest rates for many years, and when both jumped in recent years, it was a shock.

“My message to everyone is, you have a job and interest rates are going to moderate this year because inflation is going down. Cheer up. It is a new year, people,” Ms. Georgieva said.

Ms. Georgieva repeated her warnings against fragmentation of the global economy along geopolitical lines due to increasing national security restrictions, with countries gravitating towards separate blocs led by the United States and China.

Allowed to continue, she said this could ultimately reduce Global GDP by 7% – roughly equal to the annual out put of France and Germany,” and urged Washington and Beijing to compete on a rational basis, while cooperate on globally important issues.

“So we are all better off to find ways to reduce frictions, to concentrate on security concerns that are real and meaningful, and not go willy-nilly in fragmenting the world economy. We would end up with a smaller pie,” Ms. Georgieva said. – Reuters

Odogwu Banye Mmobuosi, the former co-chief executive officer of Tingo Group, was charged with securities fraud, making false US Securities and Exchange Commission filings, and conspiracy in an indictment made public on Tuesday.

Prosecutors said the defendant, known as Dozy, falsely represented that his Tingo Mobile and Tingo Foods were profitable businesses generating hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue.

Mmobuosi sold the businesses to Tingo Group and Agri-Fintech Holdings, caused them to falsely portray his businesses as “cash-rich, revenue-generating companies,” and looted millions of dollars by misappropriating cash and selling stock at inflated prices, the indictment said.

A lawyer for Mr. Mmobuosi could not immediately be identified. Tingo Group, based in Montvale, New Jersey, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The alleged scheme occurred from 2019 to 2023, prosecutors said.

Mr. Mmobuosi temporarily stepped down as Tingo Group’s co-CEO last month, after the SEC filed civil charges accusing him of orchestrating a “staggering” fraud.

The SEC said Mr. Mmobuosi siphoned at least $16 million from Tingo Group and used it to buy luxury cars and travel on private jets, and try to buy the Sheffield United soccer team.

According to the SEC complaint, Tingo Mobile purportedly supplies mobile handsets and related services to farmers in Nigeria, while Tingo Foods is a purported food processor.

Tingo Group is a defendant in the SEC case, and has said it intended to vigorously defend itself.

The indictment was made public nearly seven months after the short-seller Hindenburg Research accused Tingo Group of having “fabricated” its financials, and challenged Mr. Mmobuosi’s claim to have developed Nigeria’s first mobile payment app.

The case is US v. Mmobuosi, US District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 23-cr-00601. – Reuters

FDA nods for innovative therapies containing an active ingredient or molecule not previously approved, rose to 55 in 2023, up from 37 in 2022 and 51 in 2021. Historical data shows the FDA typically green lights about 45-50 new drugs a year and hit a peak of 59 in 2018.

The agency approved several high-profile therapies such as Eli Lilly’s obesity drug Zepbound and Eisai 4523.T and Biogen’s Alzheimer’s treatment Leqembi. It also approved five gene therapies in addition to the 55 novel drugs, including a sickle cell disease treatment from Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics using the latter’s innovative gene editing technology.

“It is good to see the FDA approvals go up,” said John Stanford, executive director of Incubate, a Washington-based group of life sciences investors. He called the advance of gene editing technology particularly encouraging.

“Our scientists can do a lot more, and from that perspective we are excited about what’s coming down the pipeline, not just in 2024, but beyond that,” he said.

The FDA in a statement said, “the number of novel drugs approved varies from year to year, and may be due to a variety of factors.” Those include the complexity of new drugs in development as well as advances in scientific understanding of diseases and disease targets, it said.

The agency did not provide a specific reason for the big drop in approvals in 2022.

TD Cowen analyst Ritu Baral said the COVID-19 pandemic was likely a factor. When the pandemic hit, the agency moved from approving drugs at record pace to operating with a remote workforce, which caused disruption and issues such as delayed inspections that affected drug reviews.

“We’re back at those peak levels, which hopefully means that the workflow disruptions, staffing and bandwidth issues and, most importantly, communications with developers, have hopefully been improving, Baral said, adding that she expects a similar level of FDA approvals in 2024.

INVESTMENT DECLINES

Investment in biotech companies over the past two years has been a fraction of historical levels.

After 108 initial public offerings (IPOs) in 2021, there were only 18 each in 2022 and in 2023 as of mid-December. A basket of biotech-focused funds tracked by Piper Sandler saw $15.8 billion in capital outflow in 2023, the largest ever going back to 1992, according to the brokerage.

“2023 has been a year where the market was selective in the companies able to access capital,” William Blair analysts said in a December note.

They noted that companies developing GLP-1 weight-loss treatments, the same class as Novo Nordisk’s NOVOb.DE wildly popular Wegovy and Lilly’s Zepbound, have had better access to the IPO market.

Industry analysts also said lingering investor concern about high interest rates and government scrutiny of drugmakers could hamper a full funding recovery.

“While we don’t expect capital markets to return to peak 2020-21, we do think that conditions will improve and that the window will open up,” Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said.

Incubate’s Stanford said some investors may remain on the sidelines due to increased oversight of deals in the sector, the government’s drug price negotiation plans and the threat that the Biden administration is looking to seize patents of medicines developed with government funding if the prices are deemed to be too high. – Reuters

Airlines for America, a group representing American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and others, urged Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief Michael Whitaker to “take all possible actions to find the appropriate balance between commercial and private aviation traffic with the goal of minimizing delays and cancellations for the traveling public.”

The group in a letter also urged “all possible steps be taken to avert additional staffing triggers, particularly in high volume centers” for air traffic control.

The FAA said airlines, general aviation and others “have a seat at the Command Center, where the FAA monitors the airspace 24/7 and gives updates every two hours.”

The FAA said “as air travel continues to rebound, the agency is taking immediate action to recruit, train and hire more air traffic controllers” but has acknowledged it is still about 3,000 controllers below optimal levels.

Preliminary data from December 20—27 show 77% of delays have been due to volume, 19.1% to weather, and 0.9% due to FAA staffing, the agency said.

The National Business Aviation Association said independent studies previously have shown flights by mostly small, non-airline general aviation planes “are not a significant causal factor in aviation-system delays” and added “delays are most often caused by weather and the practices of the airlines themselves.”

Buttigieg said this month the U.S. is on pace to have the lowest number of flight cancellations in five years. He and Whitaker have prioritized boosting air traffic control staffing.

The FAA in September extended cuts to minimum flight requirements at congested New York City-area airports through October 2024, citing staffing shortages. New York Terminal Radar Approach Control staffing is just at 54% of recommended levels.

In June, a government watchdog report said critical air traffic facilities face significant staffing challenges, posing risks to air traffic operations. At many facilities, controllers are working mandatory overtime and six-day work weeks to cover the shortage.

Whitaker last week said he was naming a panel led by a former safety board official to address air traffic controller fatigue after a series of near-miss incidents. – Reuters

Live footage on public broadcaster NHK showed the JAL Airbus A350 airliner burst into flames as it skidded down the tarmac shortly before 6 p.m. (0900 GMT).

Video and images shared on social media showed passengers shouting inside the plane’s smoke-filled cabin and running across the tarmac after escaping via an evacuation slide.

At one point a child’s voice can be heard shouting: “Let us get out quickly! Let us get out quickly!”

All 367 passengers and 12 crew were evacuated from the blazing airliner, but the fire was not extinguished until shortly after midnight, after burning for more than six hours, broadcaster TBS reported citing the fire department.

“I was wondering what happened and then I felt the airplane tilted to the side at the runway and felt a big bump,” said Satoshi Yamake, 59, a telecommunications company worker who was on board. “The flight attendants told us to stay calm and instructed us to get off the plane.”

At least 17 people on the passenger plane were injured, according to Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency, of whom four were taken to hospital. None of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening.

Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito confirmed that five of the Coast Guard aircraft’s crew had died, while the 39-year-old captain of the plane escaped but was injured.

A ministry official told a press briefing the JAL plane was attempting to land normally when it collided with the Coast Guard’s Bombardier-built Dash-8 maritime patrol plane on the runway.

There had been no reports of engine or other problems on the airliner before the landing, the official said.

The Coast Guard said its plane was headed to Niigata on Japan’s west coast to deliver aid to those caught up in a powerful earthquake that struck on New Year’s Day, killing at least 55 people.

A JAL official told a press briefing it was the airline’s understanding that the flight had received permission to land, although he added that exchanges with flight control were still under investigation.

‘IT WAS A MIRACLE’

Passengers and aviation experts praised the speed of the evacuation.

“I heard an explosion about 10 minutes after everyone and I got off the plane,” said 28-year-old passenger Tsubasa Sawada. “I can only say it was a miracle, we could have died if we were late.”

Paul Hayes, director of air safety at UK-based aviation consultancy Ascend by Cirium, noted that no-one leaving the plane appeared to be carrying hand luggage – safety agencies have warned for years that pausing to collect carry-on bags during an evacuation risks lives.

“The cabin crew must have done an excellent job… It was a miracle that all the passengers got off,” he said.

Kaoru Ishii, who was waiting outside the arrival gate for her 29-year-old daughter and boyfriend, said she initially thought the flight was delayed until her daughter called to explain.

“She said the plane had caught fire and she exited via a slide,” Ishii said. “I was really relieved that she was alright.”

A JAL spokesperson said its aircraft had departed from New Chitose airport on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.

CAUSE UNDER INVESTIGATION

Haneda, one of the two main airports serving the Japanese capital Tokyo, was closed for several hours following the accident, but the transport ministry official said three runways had since resumed operations.

JAL’s Japanese rival ANA had earlier said it had cancelled 110 domestic flights departing and landing at Haneda for the rest of Tuesday.

Transport Minister Saito said the cause of the accident was unclear and the Japan Transport Safety Board, police and other departments would continue to investigate.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said authorities were working to ensure the accident did not affect deliveries of earthquake relief supplies, and expressed sorrow over the deaths of the Coast Guard crew.

“This is a great regret as the crew members performed their duties with a strong sense of mission and responsibility for the victims of the disaster area,” he said. – Reuters

The quake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 struck on Monday afternoon, prompting residents in some coastal areas to flee to higher ground as tsunami waves hit Japan’s west coast, sweeping some cars and houses into the sea.

A 3,000-strong rescue crew of army personnel, firefighters and police officers from across the country have been dispatched to the quake sites on the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture.

“The search and rescue of those impacted by the quake is a battle against time,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said during an emergency meeting on Tuesday, donning a blue outfit commonly worn by officials during disaster relief operations.

Mr. Kishida said rescuers were finding it very difficult to access the northern tip of the Noto peninsula where helicopter surveys had discovered many fires and widespread damage to buildings and infrastructure. There are around 120 cases of people awaiting rescue, his government spokesperson later said.

Many rail services and flights into the area have been suspended. Noto’s airport closed due to damage to its runway, terminal and access roads, with 500 people stranded inside vehicles in its parking lot, public broadcaster NHK reported.

In Suzu, a coastal town of just over 5,000 households near the quake’s epicenter, there may have been up to 1,000 houses destroyed, according to its mayor Masuhiro Izumiya.

“The situation is catastrophic,” he said.

Authorities have confirmed 48 fatalities, all in Ishikawa prefecture, making it Japan’s deadliest earthquake since at least 2016 when a 7.3 magnitude one struck in Kumamoto on the southern island of Japan, killing more than 220 people.

Many of those killed are in Wajima, a city on the remote northern tip of the Noto peninsula.

Scores more have been injured and authorities were battling blazes in several cities on Tuesday and hauling people from collapsed buildings.

“I’ve never experienced a quake that powerful,” said Wajima resident Shoichi Kobayashi, 71, who was at home having a celebratory New Year’s meal with his wife and son when the quake struck,sending furniture flying across the dining room.

“Even the aftershocks made it difficult to stand up straight,” he said, adding his family were sleeping in their car because they could not return to theirbadly damaged home.

Around 200 tremors have been detected since the quake first hit on Monday, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, which warned more strong shocks could hit in the coming days.

WRECKED HOMES
Fujiko Ueno, 73, said nearly 20 people were in her house for a New Year celebration when the quake struck but miraculously all emerged uninjured.

“It all happened in the blink of an eye” she said, standing in the street among debris from the wreckage and mud that oozed out of the road’s cracked surface.

Several world leaders sent condolence messages with President Joseph R. Biden saying in a statement the United States was ready to provide any necessary help to Japan.

The Japanese government ordered around 100,000 people to evacuate their homes on Monday night, sending them to sports halls and school gymnasiums, commonly used as evacuation centers in emergencies.

Almost half of those evacuated had returned to their homes on Tuesday after authorities lifted tsunami warnings.

But around 33,000 households remained without power in Ishikawa prefecture on Tuesday after a night where temperatures dropped below freezing, according to Hokuriku Electric Power’s website. Nearly 20,000 homes have no water supply.

The Imperial Household Agency said it would cancel Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako’s slated New Year appearance on Tuesday following the disaster. Mr. Kishida postponed his New Year visit to Ise Shrine scheduled for Thursday.

Japan’s defense minister told reporters on Tuesday that 1,000 army personnel are currently involved in rescue efforts and that 10,000 could eventually be deployed.

NUCLEAR PLANTS
The quake also comes at a sensitive time for Japan’s nuclear industry, which has faced fierce opposition from some locals since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that triggered nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima. Whole towns were devastated in that disaster and nearly 20,000 people perished.

Japan last week lifted an operational ban imposed on the world’s biggest nuclear plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, which has been offline since the 2011 tsunami.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority said no irregularities were found at nuclear plants along the Sea of Japan, including five active reactors at Kansai Electric Power’s Ohi and Takahama plants in Fukui Prefecture.

Hokuriku Electric’s Shika plant, the closest to the epicenter, has also been idled since 2011. The company said there had been some power outages and oil leaks following Monday’s jolt but no radiation leakage.

The company had previously said it hoped to restart the reactor in 2026.

Chip equipment maker Kokusai Electric said it is investigating further after finding some damage at its factory in Toyama ahead of the planned resumption of operations on Thursday.

Companies including Sharp, Komatsu and Toshiba have been checking whether their factories in the area have been damaged. — Reuters

Mr. Lee, who narrowly lost the 2022 presidential election, was conscious and being flown to Seoul National University in the capital after receiving emergency treatment at the Pusan National University Hospital, party spokesman Kwon Chil-seung said.

The transfer to Seoul was possible after medical staff determined his condition was not life-threatening based on emergency treatment and a CT scan, a Pusan National University Hospital official told Reuters.

Mr. Kwon, speaking outside the hospital soon after Mr. Lee was airlifted by helicopter, said Pusan National University Hospital medical staff suspected damage to a jugular vein that carries blood from the head to the heart.

“There is concern that there could be large hemorrhage or additional hemorrhage, according to medical staff,” Mr. Kwon said.

The attack by the assailant, seen in video footage and photographs, unfolded quickly while Mr. Lee was touring the site of a proposed airport in Busan.

The man — who appeared to be in his 50s or 60s and wearing a paper crown with Mr. Lee’s name on it — approached and asked for an autograph as Mr. Lee spoke among a throng of supporters and reporters, then lunged forward and attacked him, video footage showed.

Television footage and a video clip on the social media platform X showed the man lunging with his arm stretched out and stabbing Mr. Lee in the neck, the force of the attack pushing Mr. Lee back into the crowd behind him. Mr. Lee grimaced and collapsed to the ground.

News photographs showed Mr. Lee lying on the ground with his eyes closed and bleeding, and people pressing a handkerchief against his neck.

Jin Jeong-hwa, a Lee supporter who was at the scene livestreaming the event, told Reuters there were more than two dozen police officers present.

The assailant was quickly subdued by men including police officers, the footage showed.

He was refusing to answer police questions about his motives, daily Busan Ilbo reported.

PRESIDENT CONDEMNS ATTACK
President Yoon Suk Yeol condemned the attack and instructed best care be given, his office said.

“This type of violence must never be tolerated under any circumstances,” his office quoted Mr. Yoon as saying.

A former governor of Gyeonggi province, Mr. Lee narrowly lost to conservative Mr. Yoon, a former chief prosecutor, in the 2022 presidential election. He has led the main opposition party since August 2022.

Mr. Lee is currently on trial for alleged bribery stemming from a development project when he was mayor of Seongnam near Seoul. He has denied any wrongdoing.

South Korea’s next parliamentary elections are slated for April.

South Korea has a history of political violence although it has strict restrictions on gun possession. There is police presence at major events but political leaders are not normally under close security protection.

Mr. Lee’s predecessor, Song Young-gil, was attacked in 2022 at a public event by an assailant who swung a blunt object against his head, causing a laceration.

Then conservative opposition party leader Park Geun-hye, who later served as president, was stabbed at an event in 2006 and suffered a gash on her face that required surgery.

Her father, Park Chung-hee, who was president for 16 years after taking power in a military coup, was shot and killed by his disgruntled spy chief in 1979 at a drunken private dinner.

In 2015, then US ambassador to South Korea, Mark Lippert, was attacked by an assailant while attending a public event, suffering a large gash on his face. — Reuters

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Monday denounced violence against women, speaking as Italy is in the midst of national soul-searching about how to shed an entrenched culture of male chauvinism that often has led to femicide.

Francis has made numerous appeals for an end to violence against women in the past. But his words on Monday were the first in a speech since Italy was angered by the brutal killing of 22-year-old university student Giulia Cecchettin in November.

The killing sparked protests around the country and led to calls that teaching respect for girls become part of school programmes beginning at kindergarten level.

“Every society needs to accept the gift that is woman, every woman: to respect, defend and esteem women, in the knowledge that whosoever harms a single woman profanes God, who was born of a woman,” he said.

Italian lawmakers unanimously backed a raft of measures to clamp down on violence against women after the killing reopened a national debate on the subject.

Her ex-boyfriend has confessed to the killing, his lawyer has told reporters.

According to Italy’s interior ministry, more than 100 women were killed in 2023, about half of them by their partner or former partner. Femicide has become a common word in newspaper headlines.

The outrage over Ms. Cecchettin’s killing coincided with the box office success of a film titled C’e Ancora Domani (There’s Still Tomorrow), which tells the story of a woman beaten by her husband.

Set in Rome just after World War II, when women won the right to vote, the film is now being used as a teaching tool in schools throughout the country.

The pope made his comments in a homily of a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the day the Roman Catholic Church marks the Solemnity of Mary Most Holy Mother of God, which is also the Church’s World Day of Peace.

Pope Francis said women had a crucial role in being models for peace.

“The world, too, needs to look to mothers and to women in order to find peace, to emerge from the spiral of violence and hatred, and once more see things with genuinely human eyes and hearts,” he said. — Reuters

BANGKOK — Thailand and China will permanently waive visa requirements for each other’s citizens from March, Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on Tuesday.

Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, which relies heavily on tourism, in September waived entry requirements for Chinese tourists until February this year.

“This will upgrade the relationship between the two countries,” Mr. Srettha told reporters.

In 2023, Thailand welcomed 28 million foreign tourists, slightly above its target, generating 1.2 trillion baht ($34.93 billion) of revenue, government data showed.

Of that, the top source market was Malaysia with 4.5 million visitors, followed by 3.5 million arrivals from China.

That compared with a pre-COVID record of 39 million arrivals with 11 million from China.  — Reuters

Mr. Yunus, 83, and his Grameen Bank won the 2006 peace prize for their work to lift millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans of under $100 to the rural poor of Bangladesh, pioneering a global movement now known as microcredit.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, however, accused him of “sucking blood from the poor.” His supporters say the government is attempting to discredit him because he once considered setting up a political party to rival Ms. Hasina’s Awami League.

Mr. Yunus, an economist, and three employees from Grameen Telecom, a company he founded, were convicted on Monday of failing to create a welfare fund for its employees.

“This verdict against me is contrary to all legal precedent and logic. I call for the Bangladeshi people to speak in one voice against injustice and in favor of democracy and human rights for each and every one of our citizens,” he said in a statement after the verdict.

Responding to petitions submitted by the accused, the court granted them bail pending a possible appeal.

“The court granted their bail, giving them one month to file an appeal against the verdict of the court,” prosecutor Khurshid Alam Khan said.

Abdullah Al Mamun, a lawyer for Mr. Yunus, said the accused would appeal against the verdict, describing the case as politically motivated and aimed at harassing Mr. Yunus.

Mr. Yunus is facing more than 100 other charges over labor law violations and alleged corruption.

Human rights groups have accused the government of Ms. Hasina of targeting political dissent.

Ms. Hasina is seeking a fifth term — and her fourth consecutive one — in an election on Jan. 7 which the main opposition party has boycotted. — Reuters