Johnson wrote “it is wrong to see the task as maintaining ‘no border'” on the island, and that the government should instead “stop this border becoming significantly harder”, according to the letter obtained by Britain’s Sky News.

The foreign secretary added in the leaked correspondence — entitled “The Northern Ireland/Ireland border – the Facilitated Solution” — that the importance of the EU’s external border checks were “exaggerated”, it reported.

“Even if a hard border is reintroduced, we would expect to see 95%+ of goods pass the border (without) checks,” he wrote.

Ahead of the 2016 referendum on Britain leaving the European Union, Johnson said the border between the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, and British-ruled Northern Ireland, would remain “absolutely unchanged”.

The leading eurosceptic has since repeatedly insisted on no return to a future hard border.

There are fears that reintroducing customs checks could threaten the fragile peace on the island brokered in the 1990s.

Whitehall sources insisted Tuesday that the government remained committed to a “no hard border” policy.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “we don’t comment on reports of leaked documents.”

Former Conservative minister Michael Heseltine called the letter “the most remarkable level of duplicity”.

Earlier Tuesday Johnson had drawn ridicule for suggesting that potential post-Brexit problems with the border could be managed in a similar way to travel across London boroughs.

He highlighted technological innovations used in the capital to calculate a traffic charge to explain why the government’s plans to leave the EU’s customs union and single market need not lead to border checks in Ireland.

“There’s no border between Camden and Westminster,” he told BBC radio, referring to two local authority areas in London.

“But when I was mayor of London we anaesthetically and invisibly took hundreds of millions of pounds (dollars, euros) from the accounts of people travelling between those two boroughs without any need for border checks whatever.”

Questioned about his analogy between travelling across one city and international trade between two countries, he insisted it was “a very relevant comparison”.

Labour MP David Lammy, who represents a constituency in London, said Johnson’s comparison was “not only rank stupidity, it is ignorant and wilfully reckless”.

The controversy comes as the EU prepares to publish Wednesday the draft of the Brexit divorce agreement reached by Brussels and London in December.

It will detail three key topics, including the future of the Irish border and procedures for a fallback option that Northern Ireland would remain in “full alignment” with the EU’s rules and regulations, if no better solution is found.

Closed-circuit television footage shared on Chinese social media platforms shows the boy entering the lift alone last Friday (Feb 23). He lets out a stream of urine at the lift buttons, zips up his pants and prepares to exit the lift.

But when the lift reaches his floor, the doors open slightly, before shutting immediately. In a panic, he jumps in the lift and starts pressing multiple buttons, which began flickering, before the lift plunges into darkness.

According to local media reports, the boy was later rescued by building maintenance staff and he was not hurt. It was after they viewed CCTV footage that they realised it was the boy’s cheeky actions that caused the lift to malfunction.

Several netizens said that the boy’s parents should pay for the repair works, while others said the boy deserved to be stuck inside.

The body of Sridevi, one of the biggest names in Hindi cinema, had been due to be brought back to Mumbai on Monday (Feb 26) by charter flight.  It was not immediately clear, however, when Dubai authorities would release it.

Hundreds of heartbroken fans gathered outside her Mumbai home hoping to catch a final glimpse of the star before her cremation, now likely to take place on Tuesday (Feb 27) at the earliest.

”The death of Indian actress Sridevi occurred due to drowning in her hotel apartment’s bathtub following loss of consciousness,” Dubai police tweeted, citing an autopsy report.

Police have now referred the case to the public prosecutor.

Tributes kept pouring in for the actress and fans gathered outside her home for the second day.

”We want to see her one last time,” 48-year-old Laxmi Subbaramaiah told AFP outside the house in the Andheri area of Mumbai – the heartland of the Bollywood film industry.

”All of my family members are big fans and we cried when we heard the news. We will wait here until her body comes back,” he said.

Vishal More, 23, said he had travelled seven hours from Jalgaon district, around 400km away from Mumbai, to bid farewell to his favourite actress.

”I’ve been waiting all morning to catch a last glimpse of Sridevi. I have watched all of her movies. She is such an inspiration,” he said.

Sridevi’s death has prompted an outpouring of grief in India from fans and fellow actors as well as condolences from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Bollywood shock         

”I have always been a huge fan of her work. Equally I have been an admirer of the grace and dignity with which she conducted herself,” actor Aamir Khan wrote on Twitter.

”I join all the millions of her fans in mourning her demise. Ma’am we will always remember you with love and respect,” he added.

Fellow actor Ranveer Singh tweeted that he was “shocked and saddened to hear about the untimely demise of one of Hindi cinema’s greatest superstars”.

Actress Alia Bhatt posted on Twitter: “Nothing makes sense. I have no words… just completely shocked. RIP Sri Devi. My icon forever. Love you.”

Sridevi, born Shree Amma Yanger Ayappan in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, appeared in around 300 films and was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, for services to the movie industry.

She made her acting debut at the age of four and her career spanned more than four decades.

Sridevi worked in India’s regional Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam-language films before making her Bollywood debut in 1979.

She became a national icon with a string of blockbuster films including “Chandni”, “Mr India”, “Mawali” (“Scoundrel“) and “Tohfa” (“Gift“).

Sridevi famously took a 15-year-break from the silver screen after marrying film producer Boney Kapoor but returned in the 2012 hit comedy-drama “English Vinglish”.

Her most recent film was last year’s “Mom”. She was set to see Jhanvi, the eldest of her two daughters, make her Bollywood debut.//AFP

The global corruption perceptions index (CPI) released by Transparency International last Wednesday ranked Laos 135th out of 180 countries and territories. The implication is that the higher the number in the ranking, the higher the level of corruption perception.

Scoring just 29 points, Laos’ ranking dropped 12 places from last year, according to the 2017 index which ranks countries based on perceived levels of public sector corruption.

This ranking places Laos second from bottom among the 10 Asean member states. In simple words, eight other Asean members have performed better than Laos whose ranking exceeds only Cambodia’s.

The deterioration of Laos’ ranking has seen Myanmar overtake Laos, with Singapore ranked as the best performer in Asia and Asean.

Corruption in Laos has caused huge losses of state assets in recent years.

A report released in December last year by the State Inspection Authority suggested that Laos had lost more than 480 billion kip through corruption over the past five years, which directly affected national development and poverty reduction efforts.

The report also claimed that disciplinary action had taken place to suppress corruption. Over the past five years, more than 100 people, of whom 86 were government officials, have been apprehended as a result of their alleged involvement in fraudulent activities and embezzlement. But this has not improved Laos’ ranking.

Road quality survey

The World Economic Forum recently disclosed the findings of its opinion survey, suggesting that Laos is among eight countries in Asia that have the worst road quality.

The survey stated that road infrastructure is the marker of a country’s development and is significant both for the safety and satisfaction of citizens.

The seven other countries are Bhutan, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Mongolia, Bangladesh and Nepal. Laos was behind Bhutan and Vietnam but ahead of the remaining five.

It will come as no surprise that Laos – one of the world’s least developed countries and bound by financial constraints – features in the group judged to have the worst-quality roads.

However, Laos could do more to improve its roads if the budget allocated for that purpose was fully used for that purpose.

Reports indicate that a number of road construction projects did not go through a bidding process, which led to unreasonably high costs and impeded road development efforts.

A senior inspector from the State Inspection Authority, who wished to remain anonymous, told Vientiane Times that financial fraud mainly occurred in development projects, particularly those that went ahead without evaluation or bidding processes.

Ease-of-doing-business (EDB) survey

Earlier this year, the World Bank published its EDB survey, which ranked Laos 141st out of 190 economies worldwide.

Laos’ ranking in this survey dropped two places compared to 2017 when the country was ranked 139th.

Against this backdrop, the government has announced an ambitious goal to jump from a ranking of three digits to a two-digit ranking (meaning 99 or higher) by 2020.

This means Laos needs to increase its ranking by at least 42 places to 99 in a period of just two years and 10 months.

Without a doubt, this ambitious announcement was widely welcomed by the general public and the business community in particular.

Unfortunately, similarly ambitious targets have not been set with regard to the first two surveys – corruption and road quality. There has been no indication of the extent to which Laos is aiming to improve in these fields, and no specific targets have been set.

Laos’ deterioration in these areas of the global development agenda is disappointing in light of the development roadmap and implementation measures announced by the country’s current leadership, which assumed a five-year tenure in April 2016.

If these measures are fully or largely realised, it is likely that Laos’ rankings will be more impressive.

Rising up the rankings is of vital importance

With Laos making a greater effort in recent years, this should lead to improvements in internal situations with respect to several development agendas. But we need to keep in mind that many other countries are making similar efforts to fulfil their development agendas. This means that if Laos develops at a slower pace, the country will be unable to rise in the rankings.

Therefore, the government needs to double or even triple its efforts to advance the country ahead of others in order to make Laos more attractive to potential foreign investors.

Rising up the global rankings is of vital importance because countries across the world use the findings of these surveys as reliable indicators when assessing their progress. Businesses in particular take these indicators into account when deciding where to invest.

Some people justify the situation by saying that the development roadmap which the government, led by Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, announced almost two years ago, has not yet fully born fruit and needs more time to achieve results.

There are two years and 10 months until the end of 2020. If by then Laos still cannot achieve a two-digit ranking in the ease-of-doing-business survey and cannot graduate from least developed country status as announced, it is no longer justifiable to claim that we need more time.

The 7.5-magnitude tremor struck 90 kilometres (55 miles) south of Porgera in the Pacific nation’s Enga province early Monday, with two strong aftershocks rattling the rugged region.

Phone lines have been largely cut, but the PNG Post Courier newspaper cited Hela provincial administrator William Bando as saying there were casualties.

It reported that at least 13 died in the Southern Highlands capital Mendi while 18 others were believed to have been killed in nearby Kutubu and Bosave.

Some 300 people were injured, it added, and properties destroyed, with reports of landslides and sinkholes.

The Papua New Guinea Today website, quoting Catholic priest Pius Hal, said at least 10 died, including four children, in quake-triggered landslides.

AFP was unable to confirm the death toll.

A government assessment team was due to fly into to the area Tuesday to get a better idea of the impact, with the military mobilised to help restore services and infrastructure, the government’s Chief Secretary Isaac Lupari said in a statement.

“Information will be provided as this is made available from assessment teams in the area,” he added.

The tremor hit at a depth of 35 kilometres around 3:45 am (1745 GMT Sunday), US seismologists said, with aftershocks of 6.0 and 6.3 magnitude recorded.

The region is home to oil and gas production. ExxonMobil PNG said buildings at its Hides Gas Conditioning Plant were damaged but all its staff were “safe and accounted for”, with non-essential employees to be evacuated.

Australian resources company Oil Search on Monday said its operations in the area were being shut down as a precaution and for damage assessment, and there were no injuries reported among its staff so far.

Earthquakes are common in PNG, which sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a hotspot for seismic activity.

The Chinese couple from Beijing who were on a sightseeing trip had already been named among the 17 dead after a 6.4-magnitude quake toppled buildings in the coastal town.

But their bodies remained in a second-floor hotel in the 12-storey Yun Tsui building, which was left leaning at around a 50-degree angle by the quake, complicating rescue efforts due to fears of an imminent collapse.

A handout photo made available by Taiwan Military News Agency shows soldiers searching for people trapped in a damaged building in Hualien, eastern Taiwan, on 09 February 2018. A magnitutde 6.4 quake hit Hualien on 06 February 2018, leaving at least 12 people dead, 278 injured and five missing. EPA-EFE PHOTO

Emergency workers had combed through rubble at the foot of the mainly residential block since the quake struck the eastern city on February 6, retrieving the last two bodies Sunday.

Three other members of the couple’s family were also killed in the quake. Of the 17 people who died, 14 perished in the Yun Tsui building.

Hualien mayor Fu Kun-chi had said the last two victims were pinned under heavy pillars that could not be removed without risking a total collapse of the building, and the rescue was called off with the consent of their relatives five days after the quake hit.

Excavators were digging through the building from the top to recover the bodies.

The Hualien county government said the bodies of the Chinese couple had been sent to a local funeral parlour and their relatives had been informed.

Three other partially collapsed buildings in Hualien have been demolished, including the local landmark Marshal Hotel where one employee was killed.

Hualien, on Taiwan’s rugged east coast, is one of the most popular tourist destinations on the quake-prone island.

Taiwan’s worst quake in recent decades was a 7.6-magnitude tremor in September 1999 that killed around 2,400 people.

The disaster ushered in stricter building codes but many of Taiwan’s older buildings remain perilously vulnerable to even moderate quakes.

Taiwan’s government announced Monday that it will allocate a subsidy of Tw$6 billion ($200 million) over the next four years to screen and reinforce quake-resistance in buildings across the island which were constructed before 1999.

Nearly 2,000 buildings in Hualien were damaged by the recent quake, which also left nearly 300 people injured and caused a loss of around Tw$10 billion to local businesses, mostly in the tourism sector, authorities said.

The “Beast from the East”, as the phenomenon has been dubbed by the British media, is expected to bring cold air from Russia over the next few days that will make it feel even chillier than thermometers indicate.

Rome saw its first snowfall since February 2012, with about three to four centimetres (1.2 to 1.6 inches) settling on the ground Sunday.

Schools were closed in the Italian capital as local authorities opened several train stations as emergency shelters for the homeless.

It was zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) in Rome on Monday morning, with a low of minus six Celsius forecast until Wednesday — but no more snow is forecast.

In the north Italian city of Turin, heavy snow had caused a Serie A football game between Juventus and Atalanta to be postponed on Sunday.

Two people have died of the cold in Poland since Saturday, bringing the winter’s toll to 48 since November, according to the centre for national security.

Temperatures plunged to minus 26.2 C overnight in the northeastern town of Goldap, with daytime forecasts predicting lows of up to minus 11 C on Monday in eastern Poland.

– Fears for homeless –

In France, where temperatures were forecast to drop to minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) and feel as low as minus 18 C over the coming days, emergency shelters were opened for the homeless.

A homeless man in the city of Valence in the country’s southeast was found dead on Sunday, after another man was found dead in his cabin in the suburbs of Paris on Friday. Both deaths were believed to have been linked to the cold.

Britain’s weather service, the Met Office, issued a yellow weather warning no Monday and amber warnings for Tuesday and Wednesday, with more snow expected in eastern England.

“This week looks like being the coldest period we have had in the UK for a number of years,” the Met said on Sunday.

“Parts of England and Wales are likely to see their coldest spell of weather since at least 2013 — perhaps 1991,” said Frank Saunders, the Met Office chief forecaster.

– Surf’s up in Munich –

In Berlin, where at least 3,000 people are estimated to be living on the streets, overnight shelters for the homeless were 95 percent full, and overcrowding was feared in coming nights, as temperatures drop as low as minus 20 C, reported local public radio RBB.

Undeterred by the icy conditions, surfers in thick wetsuits rode Munich’s famous continuous wave of the Isar River’s Eisbach channel on Sunday morning, ZDF television showed.

Russia itself was not spared, with its meteorological service warning of “abnormally cold” temperatures of between minus 14 C during the day and minus 24 C overnight.

In Sweden, where the cold snap coincided with schools’ winter sports break, most were happy to see the snow, with temperatures ranging from minus 5C in Stockholm to minus 20 C in the mountains near Ostersund, where many Swedes were spending ski holidays.

However, the snowfall did cause about 20 flights to be cancelled at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport, primarily to European destinations, according to airport operator Swedavia.

In Slovenia, the motorway connecting capital Ljubljana and the port of Koper had to be closed near the coast due to the infamous “bora” winter wind that has been blowing with speeds of more than 100 kilometres per hour.

Special cross-country skiing courses were set up in parks in Vienna as temperatures dropped to as low as minus 20 C across Austria.

The Danube river had frozen over in some places, but Vienna authorities warned against skating, saying “there is a large probability that the ice will break”. //AFP

State media said on Sunday that the ruling Communist Party had proposed abolishing rules limiting leaders to two five-year terms, a guideline imposed in Mao’s wake to avoid a repeat of the chaos triggered by his radical political campaigns.

The move could allow the 64-year-old Xi to remain in power for life, ruling as a virtual emperor, and is the latest feather in the cap of a Communist “princeling” who is re-making China in his own image.

Xi, who was given a second term as the party’s general secretary at the five-yearly party congress in October, has amassed seemingly unchecked power and a level of officially-stoked adulation unseen since Communist China’s founder Mao.

Even though his father Xi Zhongxun — a renowned revolutionary hero turned vice premier — was purged by Mao, Xi has remained true to the party that rules with an iron fist and over which he reigns supreme.

Xi is the first Chinese leader to have been born after 1949, when Mao’s Communist forces took over following a protracted civil war.

The purging of his father led to years of difficulties for the family, but he nevertheless rose through its ranks.

Beginning as a county-level party secretary in 1969, Xi climbed to the governorship of coastal Fujian province in 1999, then party chief of Zhejiang province in 2002 and eventually Shanghai in 2007.

That same year, he was appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee.

Following Mao’s disastrous economic campaigns and the bloody 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, the Communist leadership sought to prevent further chaos by tempering presidential power through a system in which major personnel and policy decisions were hashed out by the ruling Politburo Standing Committee.

The move helped prevent political power from becoming too concentrated in the hands of a single leader but was also blamed for policy indecision that led to growing ills such as worsening pollution, corruption and social unrest.

– ‘Big Uncle Xi’ –

But “Xi Dada” (“Big Uncle Xi”), as he has been dubbed by Communist propaganda, has broken sharply with that tradition since taking over as president in 2013 and now looms over the country in a deepening cult of personality.

He has used crackdowns on corruption and calls for a revitalised party to become the most powerful Chinese leader in decades.

His face graces the front page of every paper in the country, while his exploits and directives headline each night’s evening news.

Shops sell commemorative plates and memorabilia with his image alongside Mao’s and he has accumulated so many political and military titles — from president, to Central Military Commission chairman and party “core” — that he has earned the nickname “Chairman of Everything”.

“We are witnessing the return of the Mao Zedong era, when one single person made decisions for hundreds of millions. There are no checks and balances,” said Willy Lam, politics professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

“It is very dangerous, because it’s very easy for Xi to make mistakes as nobody will dare oppose him.”

The Communist Party’s power-broking congress in October confirmed Xi’s induction into the leadership pantheon alongside Mao and market reformer Deng Xiaoping by writing his name and political ideology into the party’s constitution.

While calling for China’s “great rejuvenation” as a world power, the laconic Xi has cultivated a personal image as a man of the people who dresses modestly and buys his own steamed buns at an ordinary shop.

Following a divorce from his first wife, Xi married the celebrity soprano Peng Liyuan in 1987, at a time when she was much more famous than him. The couple’s daughter, Xi Mingze, studied at Harvard but stays out of the public eye.

But Xi has presided over a tough crackdown on civil society and freedom of speech that belies the chummy moniker — and he tolerates no ridicule or slander of his person.

Social media users who have dared to compare his round mien to that of the affable Winnie the Pooh have found their posts quickly deleted, and a man who referred to him as “Steamed Bun Xi” — a knock at his breakfast publicity stunt — was jailed for two years.//AFP

The four-party ballot was expected to be a blowout for the CPP, given its commanding hold on the country’s commune councils. Only commune councillors and National Assembly members participate in the indirect election, with the ruling party holding around 95 percent of voters.

The ballot was drastically altered by the dissolution of the Cambodia National Rescue Party in November and a series of amendments to election laws allowing the party’s vacated assembly and commune seats to be redistributed. The vast bulk at the commune level, comprising thousands of seats, went to the CPP.

On top of the 58 elected Senate seats, four others are appointed by the King and the National Assembly. Prior to his departure for China last week, King Norodom Sihamoni appointed former Funcinpec President Princess Norodom Arun Rasmey and Oum Somanin to the Senate.

National Assembly spokesman Leng Peng Long said that the body would vote on its two appointees in April, when it convenes for the next plenary session.

A day before the ballot, the Cambodia National Rescue Party released a statement calling on the United Nations and international community to label today’s ballot “unconstitutional” and “undemocratic”.

“We are alarmed by the prospects for further destabilisation of the country and the region as the people of Cambodia will not accept a full dictatorship and one-party rule,” the statement reads.

Former CNRP Deputy President Mu Sochua called the results a “death knell for democracy”, and Ou Chanrath, a former party lawmaker, said they were an unsurprising cementing of the ruling party’s political grip across the political spectrum.

“If the political situation remains like this, it is headed towards a one-party system. Even if there are many parties [on the ballot], it will be controlled by one party,” Chanrath said.

CPP spokesmen Sok Eysan and Sous Yara, and ruling party Senator Mam Bun Neang, could not be reached for comment on the results. However, earlier in the day, Eysan dismissed the opposition’s statement on the elections as the “bad intentions of illegal rebels”.

“Illegal rebels have the intention of destroying democracy in Cambodia. Illegal rebels have the intention of looking down on Cambodian people’s will,” he said in a message.

Some 44 percent of Cambodians voted for the CNRP in the last national elections in 2013 and in last year’s local elections. However, their more than 3 million votes were invalidated when the CNRP was forcibly dissolved for allegedly fomenting “revolution” and its seats given to the CPP and a few minor parties, who won less than 4 percent of the vote between them.

Despite coming up empty-handed in the ballot, small parties were quick to praise the election.

Polling officials in Phnom Penh empty ballot boxes following the conclusion of voting for yesterday’s Senate elections, which were swept by the Cambodian People’s Party. Sreng Meng Srun

The Cambodian Youth Party released a statement after the results calling the poll “free and fair”, while also praising the NEC for its conduct of the election. Party President Pich Sros was instrumental in the dissolution of the CNRP as one of two parties – the other being the royalist Funcinpec party – to file complaints against the CNRP, leading to is ultimate disbanding.

Funcinpec also released a statement late last night saying the election was nonviolent and quiet, and accepting the outcome of the ballot. “Funcinpec wished to support and accept the primary results of the Senate elections,” it reads.

According to the NEC, less than half of 1 percent of voters failed to show up at the polls, with the few non-voters missing out on account of sickness or travel. NEC official Tep Nytha said the process was “smooth” and followed the principles of a “democratic election”.

“From the creation of the voter list, to party registration, to the election campaign and election day, they went smoothly, as scheduled and according to protocol,” he said.

Early in the day, enthusiastic electors lined up outside polling booths at Phnom Penh’s Bun Rany Hun Sen High School near Wat Phnom to cast their ballot for one of the four parties contesting the elections.

Prime Minister Hun Sen voted in his constituency of Kandal province, with National Assembly President Heng Samrin returning to Kampong Cham to place his vote.

NEC Chairman Sik Bun Hok inspected voting at the Phnom Penh polling centre, saying balloting was smooth across the country, with no reports of irregularities.

He strongly defended the poll and dismissed any concerns raised by foreign governments about the legitimacy of the elections, pointing to continued support from Japan and China.

“I already said the two important things for an election is it needs to be independent and neutral to ensure it will be free, fair and just,” he said. “This election is based on the law created by the National Assembly and not from the United States or the European Union.”

The US and EU withdrew their support for the NEC last year following the CNRP’s dissolution.

After checking for their booth number, councillors lined up outside to cast their ballot, occasionally making way for sick and elderly commune officials – one of whom was brought in an ambulance to vote.

Sok Nary, the ruling party’s first deputy chief of Chroy Changvar commune, said the absence of the CNRP and any strong opponent in the elections has become the new “normal”.

“I want the CNRP to join the election to show democracy in our country. I regret that the CNRP was dissolved,” she said.

CPP councillor Hem Sarady, who defected from the CNRP following its dissolution, said he had no hesitation in voting for the ruling party, given his former party’s alleged attempted revolution.

However, like Nary, he did point out the lack of a legitimate opposition in Sunday’s ballot. “This election has no strong competitor like before. If the CNRP remained, there would have been a strong competition for victory between each side,” he said.

The incident caused a three-hour flight delay on flight CZ3539, which had been scheduled to depart for Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport at around noon.

China Southern Airlines said on Chinese microblogging site Weibo that a passenger’s cabin bag had emitted smoke and fire during the boarding process.

However, the fire was quickly extinguished by airport firefighters and security officers, it said.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the fire was caused by a portable charger, which was not in use at the time.

The owner of the cabin bag is currently assisting in investigations.

In a video that has been making rounds online, a flight attendant and a passenger are seen trying to douse the flames using bottles of water and juice.

Portable chargers and lithium-ion batteries – used in many consumer devices from laptops to toys – typically have to be hand carried on flights and cannot be checked in. There are also restrictions on the watt-hour (Wh) ratings of these items.