S Korea to extend after-school care for elementary school students to 8 p.m.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2023
The government plans to dramatically extend the after-school care and education program for elementary school students in an effort to help relieve the burden of child care for working parents, officials have said.
Under the extension plan announced by the education ministry on Monday, after-school childcare programs provided by elementary schools will be extended to the early morning hours from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m, and to 8 p.m., officials said.
Currently, only about 30 % of elementary school classrooms provide child care after 5 p.m., making it hard for working parents to balance child care and career.
Now, many working parents, especially mothers, drop out of jobs upon their children’s entry into elementary schools where classes for freshmen end at around noon, earlier than kindergartens or nursery schools.
The education ministry plans to launch the extended program at about 200 elementary schools in four regions this month before applying it to all elementary schools across the nation by 2025, according to the officials.
As part of the plan, the ministry will also operate a special education program for elementary school freshmen to provide a variety of after-school activities, including sports, cookery and folk games.
For this year, the government will deploy 120 full-time workers to be in charge of arranging after-school classes and pump in a total of 4.2 trillion won ($3.38 million) by 2026 for the upgraded after-school program.
Drinkers look forward to enjoying Dubai’s 30% tax cut on alcohol
TUESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2023
Manager Richard Cowling expressed a sense of relief as customers flocked to his rooftop bar to enjoy Dubai’s winter sunset over the Gulf and a 30% tax break on alcohol sales that the government announced last week.
The impact of the tax cut on prices will take time to filter through as stocks were purchased prior to Dec. 31, the date the government announced the decision, but the mood at the Madinat Jumeirah, a complex whose architecture was inspired by medieval Gulf towns, is already changing.
“It is not something that we are going to see immediately impacting the industry, but it will happen quickly,” said Cowling, Director of Operations at Gates Hospitality.
“(It’s) fantastic news for us, especially going into the new year within the hospitality industry, we have seen massive increases in the cost to produce, cost of food ingredients, cost of cooking oils, and energy costs over the last 12 months,” he added.
Dubai has suspended a tax of 30% on alcohol and dropped a license that individuals previously needed to buy alcohol in the commercial and tourism hub, a move which is expected to further boost the appeal of the emirate to tourists and expatriates drawn by its more liberal lifestyle compared to other Gulf cities.
The emirate is already one of the most visited cities in the world and the government is working on a plan to attract 25 million tourists a year by 2025. The government has merged the economy and tourism departments in a sign of the economic importance of the sector.
Dubai welcomed 7.1 million visitors in the first half of 2022, an increase of 183% compared to 2021 as the industry recovered swiftly from the Covid-19 crisis. The city’s hotel occupancy rate reached 74% for the same period, the government has said.
But tax breaks and free alcohol licenses will be most welcomed by Dubai’s 3.5 million residents, the majority of whom are expatriates.
“For the tourists, I really don’t know, they are coming already to spend… for the residents… you need to have the license or something else, it is complicated, so it is much easier, I think it is much nicer,” said Anastacia Bondar, a resident from Portugal.
“I think it is great news… I am looking forward to seeing the price drop also in stores as well as in restaurants,” said Filippo Palamara, an Italian resident of Dubai.
The first attempt to launch a satellite from western Europe appeared to have failed early on Tuesday when Virgin Orbit reported an “anomaly” that had prevented its rocket from reaching orbit.
The mission had left from the coastal town of Newquay in southwest England, with Virgin’s LauncherOne rocket carried under the wing of a modified Boeing 747 and later released over the Atlantic Ocean.
A modified Boeing 747 with a rocket under its wing was taken off from Newquay on Monday evening, watched by crowds across the runway, before soaring out over the Atlantic where after an hour it must release a rocket at about 35,000 feet.
The “horizontal” launch will catapult the resort in southwest England, population 20,000 and famous for its reliable waves rolling off the Atlantic, into the limelight as western Europe’s go-to destination for small satellites.
Virgin Orbit, part-owned by billionaire Richard Branson, said nine satellites would be deployed into lower Earth orbit (LEO) from its LauncherOne rocket in its first mission outside its United States base.
“It appears that the launch has suffered an anomaly which will prevent us from making orbit for this mission,” said Virgin Orbit’s director of systems engineering and verification during a live stream of the event.
The apparent failure deals a further blow to European space ambitions after an Italian-built Vega-C rocket mission failed after lift-off from French Guiana in late December.
The rockets have since been grounded.
The carrier aircraft, called “Cosmic Girl“, returned to Newquay spaceport shortly after the rocket suffered the anomaly.
Before the Newquay launch, Tim Peake, Britain’s first official astronaut, said the event “marks a new era” for the UK and Europe, where small satellites can now be manufactured.
“That makes it a very useful orbit for things like earth observation, climate data, weather and also intelligence gathering, communications navigation as well,” said Peake who joined the European Space Agency in 2009 to become the first astronaut representing the British government.
Peake spent half a year on the International Space Station in 2016.
The new spaceport gives Europe options for launching smaller satellites at a critical time after the Ukraine war cut access to its use of Russian Soyuz vehicles. The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Ariane 6 rocket, designed to carry large satellites, has also had delays.
The Ukraine war has highlighted the importance of tactical military purposes of smaller satellites, like those being launched from Newquay, which can get into low orbit at much shorter notice than bigger ones.
Virgin Orbit Chief Executive Dan Hart said the satellites – which are the size of breakfast cereal boxes – would fulfil tasks such as maritime research and detecting illegal fishing and piracy, as well as national security.
“We can all personally connect with one or more of the satellites that are flying on this mission,” he told a press conference on Sunday.
Asked what the biggest difference between launching in Cornwall and California was, he joked: “Pasties versus hamburgers, it’s a significant shift.”
He added that partnerships with the likes of the UK Space Agency, Spaceport Cornwall, the British aviation regulator and the country’s air force, had made the launch possible.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro hospitalized in the US with abdominal pain
TUESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2023
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was reportedly admitted to the Florida hospital with intestinal pains related to a stabbing he suffered during the 2018 election campaign on Monday.
Bolsonaro was admitted to the Adventhealth Celebration Hospital. His doctor reported the former president has an intestinal blockage that was not serious and would likely not need surgery.
The former president had been reportedly staying at a residence in Kissimmee.
On Sunday (January 8), 1,000 of his supporters were rounded up in Brasilia after storming government buildings in the capital over the weekend, drawing international condemnation.
The mobs rampaged through Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential offices, smashing windows, furniture and artwork. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised to bring those responsible for the violence to justice.
Bolsonaro, who flew to Florida two days before his term ended on Jan. 1, faces an uncertain future in the United States as pressure mounts on President Joe Biden to remove the far-right politician from his self-imposed exile in suburban Orlando.
The White House said on Monday it had yet to receive any requests from the Brazilian government regarding Bolsonaro’s status, but the former Brazilian president’s presence on US soil has put Biden in a corner, with few good options.
Democratic Representatives Joaquin Castro and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both expressed support on Twitter for Bolsonaro’s expulsion to Brazil.
The US State Department said on Monday that it was incumbent on an individual who entered the United States on a so-called “A” visa reserved for diplomats and heads of state to depart the country within 30 days or apply for a change of immigration status if they are no longer engaged in official business.
Bolsonaro flew to Florida two days before his term ended on Jan. 1, before his supporters stormed the country’s capital on Sunday, and is believed to have entered on such a visa.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at a press briefing that he could not comment on an individual’s visa status, but spoke in general about visa rules.
According to Price, if an individual has no basis on which to be in the US, “an individual is subject to removal by the Department of Homeland Security.”
After watching supporters of former US leader Donald Trump invade the US Capitol two years ago, Democratic President Joe Biden is now facing mounting pressure to remove Bolsonaro from his self-imposed exile in suburban Orlando.
Saudi Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources updates about Future Minerals Forum 2023
MONDAY, JANUARY 09, 2023
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources (MIM) announced on Friday the final details about the second Future Minerals Forum (FMF), which will take place from January 10-12th at King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in Riyadh.
Organizers have announced that the event comes under the patronage of His Majesty King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
The first FMF attracted more than 7,500 in-person and virtual delegates from more than 50 countries, who heard from 150 industry leaders. Based on current registrations, FMF 2023 promises to deliver even more, with attendance expected to exceed 13,000, and with delegates coming from 130 countries to hear from over 200 world-class speakers.
FMF was designed as a ‘one-stop-shop’ that shines a spotlight on the emerging mining super-region that stretches from Africa through to Central Asia. It brings together global minerals and metals industry leaders, including governments, investors, explorers and operators from around the world.
Highlights of the upcoming three-day event include a Ministerial Roundtable and the conference itself attended by 60 high-level government delegations and non-governmental organizations involved in the mining sector.
The Ministerial Roundtable seeks to build consensus about the future of the mining super-region that includes Africa and West and Central Asia, and the region’s role in the global minerals and metals industry.
FMF 2023 also will feature numerous informal engagement and networking sessions.
New this year, FMF has added a number of features requested by attendees from last year, including an Industry and Technology Exhibition and the Saudi Pavilion, a multi-media, interactive stand designed to help investors and operators navigate the journey from interest through to investment, exploration and operation.
Speaking about the FMF’s new features, His Excellency Al-Mudaifer said: “We are thrilled with the industry response to the Exhibition and expect that it will be a very busy area within the event. We also are grateful to all of the key catalysts in Saudi Arabia’s government, who have partnered to create this Pavilion. It will make it simpler for prospective investors to gather information and insights, and start the process of investing in minerals and metals in the Kingdom.”
No sign of casualties after rocket strikes college in Ukraine
MONDAY, JANUARY 09, 2023
A Russian rocket strike on the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk caused damage but did not destroy buildings and there were no obvious signs of casualties, a Reuters witness said on Sunday, after Moscow claimed the attack killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers.
Reuters reporters visited two college dormitories Russia’s defence ministry said had been temporarily housing Ukrainian personnel and that it had targeted as revenge for a New Year’s attack by Kyiv that killed scores of Russian soldiers.
But neither dormitory in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk appeared to have been directly hit or seriously damaged. There were no obvious signs that soldiers had been living there and no sign of bodies or traces of blood.
“There was an explosion, and then another explosion. The windows shook… Just a normal day,” said Mykhailo, a 41-year-old resident.
Some of the windows were broken at College No.47’s dormitory and there was a big crater in a courtyard. The building of a nearby college was damaged and its windows were smashed.
The other dormitory named in the Russian statement, affiliated with College No.28, was entirely intact. A crater lay about 50 metres away closer to some garages. Some of the college’s windows were smashed.
“It was very loud, it threw people out of their beds. Some people hurt their fingers because of the blast wave,” said Polina, 74, a resident who lives across from one of the dormitories.
Residents said they heard the explosions shortly after 23:00 local time – midnight Moscow time – when a ceasefire declared by Russia for Eastern Orthodox Christmas had been due to end.
Authorities in Kyiv did not immediately comment, but the spokesman for military command East dismissed the Russian claim as untrue in comments on public broadcaster Suspilne.
“This information is as true as the data that they destroyed all our HIMARS,” the military official Serhiy Cherevatyi said, referring to sophisticated Western-supplied multiple-launch rocket systems. Kramatorsk’s mayor earlier said there had been no casualties.
Biden visits US-Mexico border as immigration issue heats up
MONDAY, JANUARY 09, 2023
President Joe Biden visited the US-Mexico border on Sunday for the first time since taking office, tackling one of the most politically charged issues in the country as he prepares for a re-election bid.
His visit was not expected to result in new policies, but rather to demonstrate that he is taking the issue seriously and to strengthen relations with Border Patrol agents, some of whom have bristled at the rollback of hardline enforcement policies by the White House.
His visit to the border comes ahead of a planned North America Summit on Monday and Tuesday (January 9-10) in Mexico with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Biden announced on Thursday (January 5) his administration’s plan to block Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants at the border, expanding the nationalities of those who can be expelled back to Mexico.
The long-term goal of Congress reforming America’s creaky immigration system is unlikely to succeed given Republicans’ newly assumed control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Right-wing lawmakers have repeatedly torpedoed U.S. immigration reform proposals over the past two decades.
Biden sent Congress an immigration reform plan on his first day in office two years ago, but it floundered due to opposition from Republicans, who also blocked his request for $3.5 billion to beef up border enforcement.
Republicans are pushing their own plans for the border following a midterm election in which they seized a narrow majority in the House of Representatives.
Texas’ Republican Governor, Greg Abbott, met Biden in El Paso and handed him a letter outlining five steps to address the border crisis – including detaining the millions of people in the United States illegally.
Biden, joined by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas met in El Paso with congressional lawmakers, local officials and community leaders.
The White House said Biden is assessing border enforcement operations in El Paso, where the Democratic mayor declared a state of emergency last month, citing hundreds of migrants sleeping on the streets in cold temperatures and thousands being apprehended every day.
US border officials apprehended a record 2.2 million migrants at the border with Mexico in the 2022 fiscal year that ended in September, though that number includes individuals who tried to cross multiple times.
At the same time as he expanded his authority to expel migrants, Biden on Thursday opened legal, limited pathways into the country for Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians – allowing up to 30,000 people from those three countries plus Venezuela to enter the country by air each month.
An average of polls gathered by Real Clear Politics shows 37% of the public disapprove of Biden’s handling of immigration, a number lower than his overall approval rating.
Ex-Brazil president rejects accusations after his supporters invade capital
MONDAY, JANUARY 09, 2023
Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday rejected accusations against him by his successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva related to the invasion of government buildings in the capital Brasilia.
Bolsonaro said on Twitter that peaceful demonstrations were a part of democracy but that any invasion of public buildings crossed the line.
Supporters of Brazil’s far-right former president on Sunday invaded the country’s Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court, in a grim echo of the US Capitol invasion two years ago by fans of former President Donald Trump.
Leftist President Lula, who defeated Bolsonaro in the most fraught election in a generation last year, announced a federal security intervention in Brasilia lasting until Jan 31 after capital security forces initially were overwhelmed by the invaders.
In a press conference, he blamed Bolsonaro for the invasion, and complained about a lack of security in the capital, saying it had let “fascists” and “fanatics” wreak havoc.
“These vandals, who we could call fanatical Nazis, fanatical Stalinists … fanatical fascists, did what has never been done in the history of this country,” said Lula, who was on an official trip to Sao Paulo state. “All these people who did this will be found and they will be punished.”
The sight of thousands of yellow-and-green-clad protesters running riot in the capital capped months of tension following the Oct 30 vote. Bolsonaro, an acolyte of Trump’s who has yet to concede defeat, peddled the false claim that Brazil’s electronic voting system was prone to fraud, spawning a violent movement of election deniers.
Around 6.30pm local time, some three hours after the initial reports of the invasion, security forces managed to retake the three buildings, GloboNews reported. TV images showed dozens of rioters being led away in handcuffs.
The invasion poses an immediate problem for Lula, who was only inaugurated on Jan 1 and has pledged to unite a nation torn by Bolsonaro’s nationalist populism. Television images showed protesters breaking into the Supreme Court and Congress, chanting slogans and smashing furniture. Local media estimated about 3,000 people were involved.
Bolsonaro, who has barely spoken in public since losing the election, left Brazil for Florida 48 hours before the end of his mandate and was absent from Lula’s inauguration.
“This genocidist … is encouraging this via social media from Miami,” Lula said, referring to Bolsonaro. “Everybody knows there are various speeches of the ex-president encouraging this.”
The violent scenes in Brasilia could amplify the legal risks to Bolsonaro, who has so far not commented on the invasions. The Bolsonaro family lawyer, Frederick Wassef, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Supreme Court was ransacked by the occupiers, according to social media images that showed protesters shattering the windows of the modernist building.
A policeman on horseback was surrounded by shouting demonstrators armed with sticks who knocked him off his mount.
Brasilia Governor Ibaneis Rocha wrote on Twitter that he had fired his top security official, Anderson Torres, previously Bolsonaro’s justice minister. The solicitor general’s office said it had filed a request for the arrest of Torres.
The US government, which for months has sought to urge Bolsonaro to stop sowing unfounded election doubts, came out firmly in defence of Brazil’s democratic institutions as did a bevvy of other foreign leaders.
US President Joe Biden, whose own presidency was marked by a similar event, said the situation was “outrageous”. His Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered Washington’s full support to Lula and Brazil’s institutions.
“We condemn the attacks on Brazil’s Presidency, Congress, and Supreme Court,” Blinken wrote on Twitter. “Using violence to attack democratic institutions is always unacceptable. We join Lula in urging an immediate end to these actions.”
On Saturday, with rumours of a confrontation brewing, Justice Minister Flávio Dino authorised the deployment of the National Public Security Force. On Sunday, he wrote on Twitter, “this absurd attempt to impose the will by force will not prevail.”
Latin American leaders were quick to condemn the scenes.
“All my solidarity with Lula and the people of Brazil,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro tweeted. “Fascism decides to conduct a coup.”
Chilean President Gabriel Boric said Lula’s government has his full support “in the face of this cowardly and vile attack on democracy.”
In Washington in 2021, Trump supporters attacked police, broke through barricades and stormed the Capitol in a failed effort to prevent congressional certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Trump, who has announced a third bid for the presidency, in 2024, had pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, not to certify the vote, and he continues to claim falsely that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread fraud.
In Brasilia, there have been at least three accounts of protesters assaulting journalists, according to the Brasilia journalists’ union, which cited unconfirmed reports.
Cuba spy Ana Belen Montes released after 20 years behind bars
SUNDAY, JANUARY 08, 2023
Ana Belen Montes, one of the highest-ranking US officials ever proven to have spied for Cuba, has been released from prison early, the US Bureau of Prisons confirmed on Friday, after she spent more than two decades behind bars.
Montes, 65, had in 2002 pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage after she was accused of using her leading position as a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) official to leak information, including identities of some US spies, to Havana.
Aged 45, she was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
A US citizen of Puerto Rican descent, Montes began working for the DIA in 1985 and rapidly climbed its ranks to become the agency’s top Cuba analyst.
Prosecutors said during this time Montes received coded messages from Havana over a short-wave radio as strings of numbers, which she would type onto a decryption-equipped laptop to translate to text.
She was accused of supplying the identity of four US spies to Cuba, as well as other classified information.
Montes was arrested on Sept. 21, 2001, shortly before the United States invaded Afghanistan. Her lawyer, a leading espionage specialist, had argued she had cooperated without reservation.
At her sentencing a year later, Montes argued that she had obeyed her conscience and that US policy to Cuba was cruel and unfair. “I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it,” she said.
Ricardo Urbina, the sentencing judge, ruled she put fellow US citizens and the “nation as a whole” at risk.
On her release from prison, Urbino had ordered Montes should be placed under supervision for five years, with her internet access monitored and a ban from working for governments and contacting foreign agents without permission.
Under President Joe Biden, the United States has eased some sanctions on Cuba but maintained its Cold War-era embargo on the island and stepped up restrictions on illegal migrants, arriving in record levels amid raging inflation and medicine shortages.
SootinClaimon.Com 