International

Fiji faces its biggest threat from "devastating climate change" rather than geopolitical tensions, the country's defence minister warned Sunday at a high-level security summit. This weekend's Shangri-La Dialogue, which brings together defence ministers from Asia and around the world, has been dominated by the United States and China sparring over Taiwan. It also comes as Beijing jostles with Western powers for influence over Pacific island nations. But Fijian Defence Minister Inia Seruiratu sought instead to focus attention on the threat posed by climate change to his Pacific country, which is regularly hit by cyclones. "Machine guns, fighter jets, ships... are not our primary security concern," he told hundreds of delegates at the event in Singapore. "The single greatest threat to our very existence is... human-induced, devastating climate change. It threatens our very hopes and dreams of prosperity. "Waves are crashing at our doorsteps, winds are battering our homes, we are being assaulted by this enemy from many angles." He said security was "broader than many of us have traditionally defined it", urging other countries to support Fiji's efforts to combat climate change. Last September, Fiji passed a sweeping climate change act which declared a climate emergency while setting out the legal framework for the nation's response. Other low-lying Pacific island nations also face threats from climate change. These range from cyclones that are becoming more regular and powerful, to rising seas. Ahead of last year's key climate talks in Glasgow, Pacific states warned they were bearing the brunt of global warming and urged wealthy, industrialised nations to do more. Fiji was among 10 Pacific nations that last month rebuffed China's push for a wide-ranging security pact amid worries the proposal was designed to pull them into Beijing's orbit. The failure of the plan, which would have directly challenged the influence of the United States and its allies in the strategically vital region, amounted to a high-profile political setback for Beijing.

Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber disclosed on Friday that he was diagnosed with a virus that left half of his face paralyzed and forced him to cancel some upcoming performances to focus on recovery. In a video posted on Instagram, Bieber said he had contracted Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which affected nerves in his ear and face. He noted that his right eye was not blinking, adding "I can't smile on this side of my face. This nostril will not move. So there's full paralysis on this side of my face." Bieber, 28, said he was physically unable to perform his upcoming shows but was doing facial exercises and expected to recover. "It will go back to normal," he said. "It's just time, and we don't know how much time that's going to be." Bieber found fame as a 13-year-old and went on to become a global pop phenomenon with songs like "Baby" and "Believe." He has two Grammy wins among 22 nominations, including a record and song of the year nods this year for "Peaches."

Americans were served up an engrossing night of television as a congressional panel laid out in detail Donald Trump’s culpability in last year’s US Capitol insurrection. Yet 17 months after the mayhem, the biggest challenge for the House of Representatives committee investigating the riot could be ensuring the brutal images of violence it played in prime time will pack the intended political punch. Thursday’s presentation was devastating for Trump, who was characterised as an ongoing threat to US democracy as he bids to carry his campaign to steal the last election into the next. The committee’s footage of hand-to-hand combat between police defending Congress and the mob Trump sent marching on the Capitol made for gut-wrenching viewing. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards was shown being knocked unconscious and gave evidence in person about “slipping in people’s blood” as the carnage reached its savage peak. The hearing concluded with video of several members of the mob saying that they marched on the Capitol simply because Trump had asked them to. Liz Cheney – a rising Republican star until she refused to accept Trump’s false claims of a stolen election – carefully filleted every aspect of the former president’s so-called “Big Lie”. She repeatedly referred to the “illegality” of his “sophisticated seven-point plan” to overturn the election. Testimony from Trump’s allies – including his attorney-general Bill Barr and daughter Ivanka – underscored that he had been made aware again and again how dangerous his conspiracy theories were. The night got progressively worse for Trump, who didn’t lift a finger for hours to help quell the insurrection, according to the committee. And there were gasps in the room when Cheney quoted a witness claiming that Trump had said vice-president Mike Pence deserved to be hanged by the mob storming the Capitol. Starting at 10am ET/1400 GMT on Monday, the committee will focus on Trump’s contention that his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden was due to unfounded allegations of election fraud, the so-called “Big Lie”. The third hearing on June 15 will focus on Trump’s efforts to replace the US attorney-general in order to assemble a team at the Department of Justice to promote his false election claims. The fourth hearing, set for June 16, will focus on Pence, while the last two will focus on “how President Trump summoned a violent mob and directed them, illegally, to march on the US Capitol”, Cheney said. The challenge for Democrats – burned by the lukewarm public reaction to Trump’s two impeachments and numerous other revelations of misconduct – will be to ensure that his latest calumny registers with voters. While powerful images of the carnage may have jogged memories, much of the outrage appears to have dissipated since January last year, with voters increasingly focused on pocketbook issues such as soaring inflation. In a YouGov/University of Massachusetts poll in May, just 42% of respondents backed the drive to hold the insurrectionists accountable – a drop of 10 points in a year. “Trump is still doing well with his followers at the grassroots level,” Ahmed Zohny, a political science professor at Coppin State University in Baltimore, told AFP. “So unless the congressional committee on January 6 comes up with criminal evidence that prevents him from running again, it is unlikely that the (Republicans) in both the House and Senate will go against him.” Meanwhile, the refusal by Fox News – the go-to network for America’s cable-viewing conservatives – to air the presentation live and unabridged severely curtailed its reach among right-wing voters.

The United States announced Friday that Covid-19 tests would no longer be required for international travelers arriving by air, a major step in the country's gradual lifting of pandemic restrictions. White House Assistant Press Secretary Kevin Munoz confirmed the news on Twitter, with US media saying the measure would end this weekend after strong lobbying from the travel industry. All passengers had needed to show a negative Covid viral test taken shortly before travel -- or proof of having recovered from the virus in the past 90 days -- before boarding a flight. Munoz said President Joe Biden's work on vaccines and treatments had been "critical" to easing the travel restrictions, and added that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would continue to evaluate Covid data amid a recent rise in cases. Last month, the United States crossed the threshold of one million Covid deaths, with Biden acknowledging the "unrelenting" pain of bereaved families, and urging Americans to remain vigilant. America recorded its first Covid death in early February 2020 on the West Coast. "We believe we have made the progress that we need to make in having protocols in place around Covid that we can lift this requirement," presidential economics advisor Brian Deese told CNBC. "I think that will be good news for business travel, good news for American commerce and companies as well." Many mask mandates across the United States have been lifted, but the country has recently seen an uptick in the number of daily virus cases, largely due to new Omicron subvariants. About 300 people die every day in the country from Covid, down from the latest surge in February, when the daily average jumped to 2,700. Vaccines have been free and widely available, but take-up rates vary widely between states. Nationwide, 66.7 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, rising to 91.2 percent in those aged 65 and over. With the US economy hit by rocketing inflation, the travel sector welcomed the move. "The airline industry appreciates the administration's decision to lift the pre-departure testing requirement in accordance with the current epidemiological environment," the Airlines 4 America industry federation said in a statement. "Lifting this policy will help encourage and restore air travel to the United States... We are eager to welcome the millions of travelers who are ready to come to the US for vacation, business and reunions with loved ones."

The US and China are expected to use Asia’s top security meeting this week to trade blows over everything from Taiwan’s sovereignty to the war in Ukraine, although both sides have indicated a willingness to discuss managing differences. The Shangri-La Dialogue, which attracts top-level military officials, diplomats and weapons makers from around the globe, will take place June 10-12 in Singapore, the first time the event has been held since 2019 after it was postponed twice because of Covid-19. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will address the meeting in a virtual session tomorrow, organisers said. On the sidelines of the summit, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Minister of National Defence General Wei Fenghe are expected to hold their first face-to-face meeting since President Joe Biden took office. “We expect, from our perspective, the substance of that meeting to be focused on managing competition in regional and global issues,” a senior US official said. The official said the focus would be on trying to set guard rails in the tense relationship between the two countries and ensure that issues would not spill over into some sort of military misunderstanding or miscommunication. “We are taking every effort to ensure that it is a professional, substantive meeting and we are going to be talking about some very serious issues, but no desire on the part of the US to make a public spectacle,” the official said. Chinese media have also said Beijing will use the meeting to discuss co-operation with the US. Austin and Wei are likely to then use speeches over the weekend to re-affirm their commitment to the Asia-Pacific region, while delivering some pointed remarks in the direction of the other. Relations between China and the US have been tense in recent months, with the world’s two largest economies clashing over everything from Chinese belligerence towards Taiwan, its military activity in the South China Sea and Beijing’s attempts to expand influence in the Pacific region. “The key issue this year is inevitably going to be the US-China competitive relationship,” said Meia Nouwens, senior fellow for Chinese defence policy and military modernisation at The International Institute for Strategic Studies, the think tank that organises the event. “There’s a new sense of urgency with regards to the People’s Liberation Army’s ongoing modernisation and the assertiveness that we’ve seen from China in the last two years.” Although the summit is focused on Asian security issues, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will remain central to discussions. The conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted millions and reduced cities to rubble, entered its 100th day last week. Ukraine will send a delegation to the meeting but the Russians will not be attending, according to a source familiar with the list of attendees. “American participants will use the occasion to criticise China’s strategic partnership with Russia,” said Li Mingjiang, associate professor at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “We’ll see some inferences of the China-Russia partnership as a coalition of autocracies... China will defend their relationship with Russia, their position and policy in response to Ukraine.”

An 11-year-old survivor of last month’s mass shooting at a Texas elementary school told US lawmakers yesterday how she desperately acted to save her own life after the gunman shot a friend next to her, saying, “I got the blood and put it all over me.” Miah Cerrillo, 11, and the parents of multiple young Americans killed and wounded in a spate of recent mass shootings testified yesterday before a Congressional panel as a bipartisan group of senators worked to see if there was any compromise on gun safety that Democrats and Republicans can agree to. “He told my teacher ‘good night’ and shot her in the head,” Cerrillo said in a pre-taped interview played for the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee. “And then he shot some of my classmates and the white board,” she said, adding: “He shot my friend that was next to me ... and I thought he was going to come back to the room. I got the blood and put it all on me.” The young girl said she fears such violence could happen again at school. Cerrillo spoke about two weeks after the shooting by an 18-year-old at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 of her classmates and two teachers. A spate of mass shootings across the United States in recent weeks has killed dozens and sparked the latest round of bipartisan talks in the US Senate. Her testimony came as the United States has suffered more than 200 mass murders just this year. While the House since last year has been passing a series of sweeping gun-related reforms that likely would be blocked by Senate Republicans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Reuters she had “trust” in the Senate negotiators and noted the urgency for Congress to act. With Democrats and Republicans deeply divided on guns, the Senate talks have focused on modest goals including encouraging states to pass “red flag” laws to deny firearms to people judged a risk to themselves or the public and federal funding to improve school security. A bipartisan group of senators yesterday were haggling over the likely costs of beefing up treatment of mental illnesses that could contribute to gun violence and for funding states’ red flag programs, according to senators. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said that while “we’re close on a number of these issues,” negotiators still have plenty of details to iron out. During the House hearing, Republicans on the panel vowed to defend the right to keep and bear arms as protected by the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. Many of them have objected to proposals such as limiting sales of the assault-style rifles used in the Uvalde massacre and another mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store that killed 10 Black victims. Another witness, Lucretia Hughes of the DC Project Women for Gun Rights, criticised the idea of more gun control laws. “Y’all are delusional if you think it’s going to keep us safe,” she said. She added that her 19-year-old son was shot dead in April 2016 by a person with an illegally obtained gun. “How about letting me defend myself from evil? You don’t think that I’m capable and trustworthy to handle a firearm?” Hughes added. Public opinion polls show a majority of Americans favour steps to expand background checks of prospective gun buyers and other moves to rein in spiking gun violence. But yesterday’s hearings underscored the deep emotions of the debate. The sobbing parents of one of the dead Uvalde students urged Congress to take tough steps to control gun sales. “Somewhere out there, there’s a mom listening to our testimony ... not knowing that our reality will one day be hers unless we act now,” said Kimberly Rubio, mother of murdered daughter Lexi. The mother of a victim of the Buffalo massacre, the alleged work of an avowed white supremacist, asked the committee: “What in the world is wrong with this country?” Zeneta Everhart, mother of Zaire Goodman, who was injured in the shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, added, “Lawmakers who continuously allow these mass shootings to continue by not passing stricter gun laws should be voted out.” Meanwhile, the full House was debating a bill to raise the minimum age to 21 from 18 on purchases of certain firearms and toughen prohibitions on untraceable guns. Rather than pushing for a quick vote on the broader House bills, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has opted to give more time for bipartisan negotiations in his chamber. Democrats have signalled to Republicans that they would be willing to accept a narrow first step with legislation, even as President Joe Biden calls for tougher action, such as banning assault weapons.

From super fan to superhero, 19-year-old Pakistani-Canadian actress Iman Vellani has made the ultimate transformation in the new Disney+ television show Ms. Marvel. Vellani plays Marvel Comics’ Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old high school student and superhero fangirl who discovers she has powers of her own. Like her character, Vellani is also a huge superhero fan, who made her own Ms. Marvel costume when she was 15. “It’s so infectious. Her fascination and excitement about the Avengers are so shared with real life Marvel fans and speaking as one, I just felt like I could slip into Kamala’s shoes very easily,” Vellani told Reuters. “That’s really all we were channelling throughout the filming of the show, just how I would react in real life.” Ms. Marvel is seen as the biggest breakout star in Marvel Comics in the last decade and is also the first Muslim character to have her own comic book series. “I really do hope that the show kind of inspires more Muslim and South Asian creatives to tell their stories because this is just one story about one girl,” Vellani said. “We cannot represent all two billion Muslims and south Asians in the world ... but hopefully this is a start and hopefully people do find some part of Kamala’s story that they relate to.” As well as playing Khan in the television show, Vellani is set to team up with Brie Larson, who plays Captain Marvel, in the 2023 film The Marvels. “Brie was the first person to reach out to me and kind of just share her own experiences of how this role has kind of changed her, her own career,” Vellani said. “Marvel gives actors just an insane amount of, you know, attention and a huge fandom so it can be really overwhelming at times and I’m just so glad that she was there to kind of hold my hand and answer all my questions,” she added.

A homeless man drowned in the US state of Arizona while three police officers watched, according to a video and transcript released to the public on Monday. The officers have been suspended pending the results of multiple investigations into the incident, according to a statement by the city of Tempe. On May 28, police responded to a "reported disturbance" between the man, 34-year-old Sean Bickings, and his partner, who were near an artificial lake, the statement said. Video footage released by the city shows officers speaking to his partner, then Bickings, who after a few minutes climbs over a fence and slowly wades into the lake. The officers tell him swimming in the lake is not allowed, but he continues to swim out and under a pedestrian bridge. The video then stops, with the city claiming the remainder is too "sensitive" and instead offers a transcript of the audio. "So what's your plan right now?" asks one of the officers, according to the transcript. "I'm going to drown. I'm going to drown," said Bickings. "No, you're not... go to the pylon and hold on," another officer responds. "I can't. I can't" said Bickings. "Okay, I'm not jumping in after you," said the second officer. According to the transcript, the officers again tell the homeless man to swim, while trying to control his partner's increasingly frantic behaviour. "Can you hear me?" are the last words attributed to Sean Bickings in the transcript. One of the police officers later notes that Bickings "hasn't surfaced in about 30 seconds." His body was later recovered. The city said it intends to make more videos from the the officers and cameras in the area public in the coming days.

Gunmen killed at least 21 people, including children, in an attack on a Catholic church in southwest Nigeria on Sunday, local officials said, in violence that drew widespread international condemnation. The bloodshed at St Francis Catholic Church in Owo town during a service was a rare assault in Nigeria's usually safer southwest and shocked a country grown used to jihadist assaults and mass kidnappings in the north. Richard Olatunde, spokesman for the Ondo State governor's office, told AFP that dynamite exploded inside the church before gunmen opened fire on worshippers attending the service. "They did not even enter the church, they were shooting through the windows," he said, confirming a death toll of 21 people. National Emergency Management Agency local representative Olanrewaju Kadiri said 22 people were killed, including several children, with another 40 people wounded. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo arrived on Monday to visit some of the wounded, an AFP reporter in Owo said. The state government declared a seven-day mourning period for the victims, and ordered the national flag to be flown at half-mast in Ondo. The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) on Monday also appealed to residents to donate blood for the wounded. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack and the motives were not clear. One witness told AFP he saw at least five gunmen on the church premises. "I was passing through the area when I heard a loud explosion and gunshots inside the church," the witness, who gave his name as Abayomi, told AFP.   - Jihadists, gangs -   Nigeria's military is fighting a 12-year-long jihadist insurgency in the northeast and heavily armed criminal gangs often carry out looting raids and mass kidnappings in the northwest and north-central parts of the country. But large-scale attacks in Nigeria's southwest are relatively rare although kidnappings for ransom have become increasingly common. Boko Haram jihadists in the northeast have targeted churches in the past. Nigeria's jihadist conflict has killed 40,000 and displaced two million more in the northeast. President Muhammadu Buhari condemned Sunday's "heinous killing of worshippers" while Pope Francis offered prays for the victims. The UN Special Representative for West Africa and the Sahel, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, condemned what he called a "barbaric terrorist attack". Sunday's attack comes a day before the ruling APC party starts primaries for its candidate in the 2023 election to replace Buhari, a former army commander who steps down after two terms in office. Security will be a major challenge for whoever wins the race to govern Africa's most populous country and the continent's largest economy. As well as jihadists and criminal gangs known locally as bandits, Nigeria's security forces are also dealing with separatist agitation in the  southeast.

Mass shootings in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, left at least six people dead and more than 25 wounded, police said yesterday in the latest cases of gun violence after recent massacres in Texas, New York and Oklahoma. Multiple shooters opened fire in Philadelphia’s busy South Street, an area filled with bars and restaurants, around midnight on Saturday. Two men and a woman were killed, officials said. A surveillance video from the shooting showed people on a crowded street running in panic in the closing moments of the 22-second clip, presumably after gun shots were fired. The clip had no audio. Reuters was able to verify the video using geolocation. “There were hundreds of individuals just enjoying South Street, as they do every single weekend, when this shooting broke out,” Philadelphia Police Inspector D F Pace said. In a separate incident, three people were dead and 14 suffered gunshot wounds after a shooting near a bar in Chattanooga, authorities said, adding that two people died from gunshot wounds and one person died from injuries after being struck by a vehicle while fleeing the scene. Three victims were injured as they attempted to flee and were struck by vehicles, Tennessee officials said, adding several among the injured remained in critical condition. The incidents followed recent shootings that killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York; 21 victims at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas; and four people at a medical building in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Gun safety advocates are pushing the US government to take stronger measures to curb gun violence. There have been at least 240 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group. It defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter. Philadelphia police officers observed “several active shooters shooting into the crowd,” with one officer “within about 10 to 15 yards” of an individual firing into the crowd, police said. That officer fired at the suspect, they said. The whereabouts of the Philadelphia shooters were not immediately known, the police said. Two handguns were recovered at the scene, including one with an extended magazine, authorities added. There were no immediate arrests. Philadelphia police said yesterday afternoon that the shooting, which started after an altercation between two parties, left 12 people wounded. The police did not specify how many shooters were involved but said five guns were used. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney described the shooting as “horrendous, despicable and senseless.” The deceased were aged 22, 27 and 34 while the ages of the people wounded ranged from 17 to 69. There were multiple shooters in Tennessee too but Chattanooga Police Chief Celeste Murphy said police believe it was an isolated incident and authorities did not think there was an ongoing public safety threat. Further details on that shooting were not immediately available. US President Joe Biden on Thursday called on Congress to ban assault weapons, expand background checks and implement other gun control measures to address the string of mass shootings. Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic US senator working on bipartisan gun safety talks, said yesterday he thinks a package including investments in mental health and school safety and some changes to gun laws can pass Congress. A broad majority of American voters, both Republicans and Democrats, favour stronger gun control laws, but Republicans in Congress and some moderate Democrats have blocked such legislation for years.

The death toll in an explosion in a coal mine in northeastern Colombia has risen to nine, while six workers remain unaccounted for, the National Mining Agency (ANM) said Saturday. The toll was up from the three dead reported earlier in the accident Monday. The number of missing workers is down from eight earlier Saturday. Some 70 rescuers were continuing a desperate search for victims, while anguished families waited nearby for news. Officials said a buildup of gasses apparently led to a fire, explosion and then the collapse of nearly 90 percent of the mine in the town of El Zulia, near the border with Venezuela. The gasses initially prevented rescuers from approaching the area. The mine, unlike many in the region that work outside the law, operated with state permits. Last year, Colombia recorded 148 deaths in mining accidents. Mined raw materials are one of the country's main exports, alongside oil.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a "super bad feeling" about the economy and needs to cut about 10% of staff at the electric carmaker, he said in an email to executives seen by Reuters. The message, sent on Thursday and titled "pause all hiring worldwide", came two days after the billionaire told staff to return to the workplace or leave, and adds to a growing chorus of warnings from business leaders about the risks of recession. Tesla shares fell 9% in U.S. trade on Friday after the Reuters report. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was down about 2%. In another email to employees on Friday, Musk said Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10%, as it has become "overstaffed in many areas." But "hourly headcount will increase," he said. "Note, this does not apply to anyone actually building cars, battery packs or installing solar," Musk wrote in the email seen by Reuters. Almost 100,000 people were employed at Tesla and its subsidiaries at the end of 2021, its annual SEC filing showed. It did not break down numbers of salaried and hourly workers. The Texas-based company was not immediately available for comment. Musk has warned in recent weeks about the risks of recession, but his email ordering a hiring freeze and staff cuts was the most direct and high-profile message of its kind from the head of an automaker. "Elon Musk has a uniquely informed insight into the global economy. We believe that a message from him would carry high credibility," Adam Jonas, an analyst Morgan Stanley, said in a report. U.S. President Joe Biden, asked about Musk's comments on the economy, quipped that he wished Musk "lots of luck" on his "trip to the moon." Musk, who criticized the Biden administration for "sidelining Tesla & SpaceX," replied on Twitter: "Thanks Mr President!" He included a link referencing NASA's April 2021 award of a $2.9-billion contract to Musk's space company SpaceX to build a spacecraft to bring astronauts to the moon. SHANGHAI LOCKDOWN So far, demand for Tesla cars and other electric vehicles (EV) has remained strong and many traditional indicators of a downturn - including increasing dealer inventories and incentives in the United States - have not materialized. But Tesla has struggled to restart production at its Shanghai factory after COVID-19 lockdowns forced costly outages. "It is always better to introduce austerity measures in good times than in bad times. I see the statements as a forewarning and a precautionary measure," said Hanover-based NordLB analyst Frank Schwope. Many carmakers achieved record profits in 2021, but the economic situation is now more uncertain, he noted. Musk's gloomy outlook echoes recent comments from executives including JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs President John Waldron. A "hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way," Dimon said this week. Inflation in the United States is hovering at 40-year highs and has caused a jump in the cost of living for Americans, while the Federal Reserve faces the difficult task of dampening demand enough to curb inflation while not causing a recession. Musk, the world's richest man according to Forbes, did not elaborate on the reasons for his "super bad feeling" about the economic outlook in the brief email seen by Reuters. It was also not immediately clear what implication, if any, Musk's view would have for his $44-billion bid for Twitter . U.S. antitrust regulators cleared the way for the deal on Friday, sending Twitter shares up 2%. Several analysts have cut price targets for Tesla recently, forecasting lost output at its Shanghai plant, a hub supplying EVs to China and for export. China accounted for just over a third of Tesla's global deliveries in 2021, according to company disclosures and data released on sales there. On Thursday, Daiwa Capital Markets estimated Tesla had about 32,000 orders awaiting delivery in China, compared to 600,000 vehicles for BYD, its larger EV rival in that market. 'PAUSE ALL HIRING' Before Musk's warning, Tesla had about 5,000 job postings on LinkedIn from sales in Tokyo and engineers at its new Berlin gigafactory to deep learning scientists in Palo Alto. It had scheduled an online hiring event for Shanghai on June 9 on its WeChat channel. Musk's demand that staff return to the office has already faced pushback in Germany. And his plan to cut jobs would face resistance in the Netherlands, where Tesla has its European headquarters, a union leader said. "You can't just fire Dutch workers," said FNV union spokesperson Hans Walthie, adding Tesla would have to negotiate with a labor union on terms for any departures. In a Tuesday email, Musk had said Tesla employees were required to be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week, closing the door on any remote work. "If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned," he said. Musk has referred to the risk of a recession repeatedly in recent comments. Remotely addressing a conference in mid-May in Miami Beach, he said: "I think we are probably in a recession and that recession will get worse." Other companies have cut jobs or are slowing or pausing hiring amid weakening demand. Last month, Netflix said it had laid off about 150 people, mostly in the United States, and Peloton said in February it would cut 2,800 jobs. Meta Platforms, Uber and other technology companies have slowed hiring. In June 2018, Musk said Tesla would cut 9% of its workforce as the then-loss-making company struggled to ramp up output of Model 3 electric sedans, although its SEC filings showed reductions were more than offset by hiring by year-end.

British police said on Saturday they had briefly evacuated London's Trafalgar Square, close to where celebrations are to be held later to mark Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, but said the security alert had concluded shortly afterwards. "The incident has now been concluded and the square will reopen in due course," police said on Twitter. A police spokesman said earlier lots of checks were being carried out in the area, which is a short distance from where a concert is to be staged outside Buckingham Palace later in the day. He said the incident was believed to have involved a suspicious package.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday it was aware of more than 700 global cases of monkeypox, including 21 in the United States, with investigations now suggesting it is spreading inside the country. Sixteen of the first 17 cases were among people who identify as men who have sex with men, according to a new CDC report, and 14 were thought to be travel associated. All patients are in recovery or have recovered, and no cases have been fatal. "There have also been some cases in the United States that we know are linked to known cases," Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the CDC's Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, told reporters on a call.  "We also have at least one case in the United States that does not have a travel link or know how they acquired their infection." Monkeypox is a rare disease that is related to but less severe than smallpox, causing a rash that spreads, fever, chills, and aches, among other symptoms. Generally confined to western and central Africa, cases have been reported in Europe since May and the number of countries affected has grown since. Canada also released new figures Friday, counting 77 confirmed cases -- almost all of them detected in Quebec province, where vaccines have been delivered. Though its new spread may be linked to particular gay festivals in Europe, monkeypox is not thought to be a sexually transmitted disease, with the main risk factor being close skin-to-skin contact with someone who has monkey pox sores.  A person is contagious until all the sores have scabbed and new skin is formed.    - 'More than enough vaccine' -   Raj Panjabi, senior director for the White House's global health security and biodefense division, added that 1,200 vaccines and 100 treatment courses had been delivered to US states, where they were offered to close contacts of those infected. There are currently two authorized vaccines: ACAM2000 and JYNNEOS, which were originally developed against smallpox.  Though smallpox has been eliminated, the United States retains the vaccines in a strategic national reserve in case it is deployed as a biological weapon.  JYNNEOS is the more modern of the two vaccines, with fewer side effects. "We continue to have more than enough vaccine available," Dawn O'Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response in the Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters.  In late May, the CDC said it had 100 million doses of ACAM200 and 1,000 doses of JYNNEOS available, but O'Connell said Friday the figures had shifted, though she could not divulge precise numbers for strategic reasons. The CDC has also authorized two antivirals used to treat smallpox, TPOXX and Cidofovir, to be repurposed to treat monkeypox. "Anyone can get monkeypox and we are carefully monitoring for monkeypox that may be spreading in any population, including those who are not identifying as men who have sex with men," said McQuiston.  That being said, the CDC is undertaking special outreach in the LGBT community, she added. A suspected case "should be anyone with a new characteristic rash," or anyone who meets the criteria for high suspicion such as relevant travel, close contact, or being a man who has sex with men. 

Harini Logan, 14, of San Antonio won the 2022 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday after a first-ever “spell-off” was required for a champion to emerge in the extremely close competition. Logan takes home $50,000 from Scripps, plus further money prizes and reference works from Merriam-Webster and Encyclopedia Britannica. She beat Vikram Raju, 12, of Denver after their neck-and-neck competition required a “spell-off” to decide the winner, a first in the history of the Bee. The second-place prize is $25,000. They claimed the top spots in the competition that pitted spellers ages 7-15 from across the United States and as far away as Guam for the 94th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. This year’s competition was held at National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC. In the spell-off, each competitor had 90 seconds to spell as many words correctly as possible. Raju went first and spelled 15 words correctly of the 19 he attempted. Logan, who waited for her turn in a sound-proof area, emerged to spell 21 words correctly of the 26 she attempted. Both had the same list of words read to them, ringing a bell to signal they were ready to advance to the next word. Most Bee contestants were middle-school age and all were required to test negative for coronavirus (Covid-19) to participate and were masked onstage except when actively competing. Logan is an eighth-grade student at The Montessori School of San Antonio. She loves creative writing and plans to publish a book in high school. When she’s not spelling, she plays piano, recorder and is learning the ukulele. This was her fourth and final year as a Bee contender. Last year, when Zaila Avant-garde, 14, from New Orleans correctly spelled “Murraya”, a genus of plants, she became the first African American to win the prestigious competition that began in 1925. Competitors this year included 105 girls, 128 boys, and one speller who identifies as non-binary. The Bee was televised live. Play-by-play commentary heightens the excitement as contestants rack their brains to come up with the correct spellings for often obscure words. After 27 years of being broadcast live on the cable sports channel ESPN, this year’s live show was moved to ION and Bounce, networks owned by a Scripps subsidiary. The show’s host was actor LeVar Burton.

US President Joe Biden has made a fervent appeal for lawmakers to pass tougher gun control laws, including a ban on assault weapons, to curb a scourge of mass shootings turning American communities into “killing fields”. Biden made the 17-minute address – his latest call for tougher firearms measures – with 56 lighted candles arrayed along a long corridor behind him, representing US states and territories suffering from gun violence. “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” the president asked in the speech, which he delivered with anger in his voice, and at times dipping close to a whisper. “We can’t fail the American people again,” he said, condemning the refusal of many Republican senators to support tougher laws as “unconscionable”. At a minimum, Biden said, lawmakers should raise the age at which assault weapons can be purchased from 18 to 21. He also urged them to take steps including strengthening background checks, banning high-capacity magazines, mandating safe storage of firearms, and allowing gun manufacturers to be held liable for crimes committed with their products. “Over the last two decades, more school-age children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active duty military combined. Think about that,” Biden said. He highlighted the story of a young student who smeared a dead classmate’s blood on herself to hide from a gunman at a Texas elementary school, saying: “Imagine what it would be like for her to walk down the hallway of any school again.” “There are too many other schools, too many other everyday places that have become killing fields, battlefields here in America,” Biden said. The US Constitution’s second amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms. Biden said that amendment was not “absolute” while adding that new measures he supported were not aimed at taking away people’s guns. “After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after Orlando, after Las Vegas, after Parkland, nothing has been done,” Biden said, ticking off a list of mass shootings over more than two decades. “This time that can’t be true.” The National Rifle Association (NRA) gun lobby said in a statement that Biden’s proposals would infringe on the rights of law-abiding gun owners. “This isn’t a real solution, it isn’t true leadership, and it isn’t what America needs,” it said. As lawmakers mulled a response to the murder of 10 black supermarket shoppers in Buffalo and the school shooting in Texas that killed 19 children and two teachers, another attack took place in Oklahoma on Wednesday. A man with a pistol and a rifle murdered two doctors, a receptionist and a patient in a Tulsa hospital complex before killing himself as police arrived. Lawmakers are aware that they risk wasting momentum as the urgency for reforms sparked by the killings dissipates, and another smaller group of senators is holding parallel discussions on expanding background checks on gun sales. The political challenge of legislating in a 50-50 Senate, where most bills require 60 votes to pass, means that more wide-ranging reforms are unrealistic. Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate Republicans, told reporters that senators were trying to “target the problem” – which he said was “mental illness and school safety” rather than the availability of firearms. House Democrats are nevertheless set to pass a much broader but largely symbolic “Protecting Our Kids Act”, which calls for raising the purchasing age for semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21 and a ban on high-capacity magazines. The package will likely pass the Democratic-led House before dying amid Republican opposition in the Senate. A broad majority of American voters, both Republicans and Democrats, favour stronger gun control laws, but Republicans in Congress and some moderate Democrats have blocked such legislation for years.

Texas law enforcement officers have shot dead a convicted murderer who escaped prison and was suspected of killing a family close to his last known location, authorities said Thursday. The bodies of five people -- one adult and four children -- were found in a house near the town of Centerville, Leon County on Thursday, the local sheriff's office said. Gonzalo Lopez was shot in the city of Jourdanton after gunfire ensued when law enforcement officers located the family's stolen vehicle and disabled it with spike strips, Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) spokesman Jason Clark said in a statement. Police had been searching the east Texas area for Lopez since he escaped on May 12 while being transported to another prison by bus. Clark said 46-year-old Lopez, who was serving a life sentence for capital murder, escaped his restraints and sawed through the metal cage in which he was being held on the bus before assaulting the driver and fleeing. Police were called Thursday by a relative of the deceased family who was worried after not hearing from them, Clark told a press conference before Lopez was shot. "Lopez is obviously a killer, he has a disregard for human life," Clark said. He said the family lived in the Houston area, and that the residence was a weekend home.

US President Joe Biden pleaded with lawmakers Thursday to take action on gun violence plaguing the country, calling for a ban on assault weapons such as those used in recent massacres in Texas and New York state. Biden made the 17-minute address -- his latest appeal for tougher firearms laws -- with 56 lighted candles arrayed along a long corridor behind him, representing US states and territories suffering from gun violence. "How much more carnage are we willing to accept?" the president asked in the speech, which he delivered with anger in his voice, and at times dipping close to a whisper. "We can't fail the American people again," he said, condemning the refusal of a majority of Republican senators to support tougher laws as "unconscionable." At a minimum, Biden said, lawmakers should raise the age at which assault weapons can be purchased from 18 to 21, one measure to help curb rampant violence that has turned schools and hospitals into "killing fields." He also urged them to take steps including strengthening background checks, banning high-capacity magazines, mandating safe storage of firearms, and allowing gun manufacturers to be held liable for crimes committed with their products. "Over the last two decades, more school-age children have died from guns than on duty police officers and active duty military combined. Think about that," Biden said. He highlighted the story of a young student who smeared a dead classmate's blood on herself to hide from a gunman at a Texas elementary school, saying: "Imagine what it would be like for her to walk down the hallway of any school again." While Republican lawmakers have largely resisted tougher gun laws, a cross-party group of US senators held talks Thursday on a package of firearms controls. Nine senators have been meeting this week to discuss a response to the mass shootings that have appalled the nation, projecting optimism over the prospects for modest reforms. The group has focused on school security, bolstering mental health services and incentives for states to grant courts "red flag" authority to temporarily remove guns from owners considered a threat -- a measure Biden also called for in his remarks. Even as lawmakers were mulling response to the racist murder of 10 Black supermarket shoppers in Buffalo and the school shooting in Texas that killed 19 children and two teachers, another attack took place in Oklahoma on Wednesday. A man with a pistol and a rifle murdered two doctors, a receptionist and a patient in a Tulsa hospital complex before killing himself as police arrived. Lawmakers are aware that they risk wasting momentum as the urgency for reforms sparked by the killings dissipates, and another smaller group of senators is holding parallel discussions on expanding background checks on gun sales. The political challenge of legislating in a 50-50 Senate, where most bills require 60 votes to pass, means that more wide-ranging reforms are unrealistic. Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate Republicans, told reporters that senators were trying to "target the problem" -- which he said was "mental illness and school safety" rather than the availability of firearms. House Democrats are nevertheless set to pass a much broader but largely symbolic "Protecting Our Kids Act," which calls for raising the purchasing age for semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21 and a ban on high-capacity magazines. The package will likely pass the Democratic-led House next week before dying amid Republican opposition in the Senate. With regulation being so difficult at the federal level, an effort is also underway among state legislatures to push for tighter gun laws. California lawmakers advanced a gun control package in the aftermath of the Uvalde shooting that included proposals to open up gunmakers to civil legal liability in certain cases. The proposals echo action by lawmakers in New York state, while a permit-to-buy bill is moving through the Delaware legislature and pro-gun rights Texas is looking to "make legislative recommendations" in response to the Uvalde shooting. Activists for greater restrictions fear a setback at the federal level however as the Supreme Court is set to issue its first major Second Amendment opinion in more than a decade. Justices are expected to rule in the coming weeks in a dispute over New York state's stringent limits on the concealed carry of handguns outside the home. A narrow opinion could affect just a few states with similar laws, but campaigners fear the conservative majority will make a broader ruling clearing the way for constitutional challenges to gun safety laws across the country.

The famous snow-capped peaks of the Alps are fading fast and being replaced by vegetation cover – a process called “greening” that is expected to accelerate climate change, a study said yesterday. The research, published in Science, was based on 38 years of satellite imagery across the entirety of the iconic European mountain range. “We were very surprised, honestly, to find such a huge trend in greening,” first author Sabine Rumpf, an ecologist at the University of Basel, told AFP. Greening is a well-recognised phenomenon in the Arctic, but until now hadn’t been well established over a large scale in mountainous areas. However, since both the poles and mountains are warming faster than the rest of the planet, researchers suspected comparable effects. For their analysis, the team examined regions at 1,700m above sea level, to exclude areas used for agriculture. They also excluded forested areas and glaciers. According to the findings, which covered 1984-2021, snow cover was no longer present in summer on nearly 10% of the area studied. Rumpf pointed out that satellite images can only verify the presence or absence of snow – but the first effect of warming is to reduce the depth of the snowpack, which can’t be seen from space. Secondly, the researchers compared the amount of vegetation using wavelength analysis to detect the amount of chlorophyll present, and found plant growth increased across 77% of the zone studied. Greening happens in three different ways: plants begin growing in areas they previously weren’t present, they grow taller and more densely due to favourable conditions, and finally particular species growing normally at lower altitudes move into higher areas. “It is climate change that is driving these changes,” said Rumpf. “Warming means that we have longer vegetation periods, we have more benign conditions that foster plant growth, so plants can just grow more and faster,” she added. The effect is additive: “The warmer it gets, the more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow.” And there are several harmful consequences. First, a large part of drinking water comes from melting snow. If water is not stored as snow, it disappears faster via rivers. Next, the habitat species adapted specifically to the alpine environment is disrupted. The snow’s disappearance also harms the tourism industry, a key economic driver for the region. “What we kind of tend to forget is the emotional aspects of these processes that the Alps are like a very iconic symbol and when people think about Switzerland, it’s usually the Alps that they think about,” stressed Rumpf. While alpine greening could increase carbon sequestration, feedback loops are more likely to cause a net result of amplified warming, and thawing of permafrost, the researchers argue. Snow reflects about 90% of solar radiation, vegetation absorbs much more, and radiates the energy back in the form of heat – which in turn further accelerates warming, snow melt, and more vegetation: a vicious cycle. The future of the Alps cannot be predicted with certainty. “In terms of snow, it’s pretty straightforward,” said Rumpf, adding: “I would expect the snow cover to disappear more and more, especially at lower elevations.” For the time being, another phenomenon known as “browning” – in which the ground is no longer covered with either snow or vegetation – has only been detected in less than 1% of the area studied. This is much less than what has been observed in the Arctic, or in the mountains of Central Asia. It is fuelled by two factors: the increase in episodes of extreme rain followed by droughts, and a reduction in water available to plants that was produced by annual snowmelt. “We do not know for the future whether browning is going to occur more and more,” concluded Rumpf, who hopes to repeat the observations in a few years’ time.

US tech giant Amazon said Thursday that it will stop operating its Kindle e-bookstore in China from next year, closing the chapter on a massive consumer market. The e-commerce pioneer has in recent years appeared to admit defeat to local Chinese rivals such as Alibaba and JD.com, ending its online retail operations for Chinese consumers in 2019. Amazon's decision to pull the Kindle service comes about eight years after it first set up an official store for the e-book reader on Alibaba's Tmall platform. "Amazon will stop operating its Kindle e-bookstore in China a year from now on June 30, 2023," the company said Thursday in a statement on Chinese social media platform Weibo. This means that customers can no longer buy new e-books, although those that have been purchased can still be downloaded until June 2024 and will remain readable afterwards, it said. It did not give a reason for ending the service, but said its remaining China businesses would "continue to innovate and invest". "As a global business, we periodically evaluate our offerings and make adjustments, wherever we operate," it added. Customers can still buy Kindle devices from other Tmall retailers, but not from its official online store. Amazon said in a separate notice that although it announced "the adjustment of Kindle-related business in China", this does not change its long-term commitment to the market. "Millions of Kindle reading devices" were sold in China between 2013 and 2018, according to state media outlet China Daily. The report added that by end-2016, China became the biggest market for these devices. Kindle's exit is the latest among global brands, after US internet services giant Yahoo! pulled out of mainland China last year and Microsoft said it would close its career-oriented social network LinkedIn in the country. Microsoft cited a "challenging operating environment" as Beijing tightened control over tech firms. While e-commerce is very popular with Chinese consumers, Amazon has struggled to make headway in the country. Local competitors such as Alibaba and JD.com have capitalised on their supplier networks and understanding of Chinese consumers to gain market share, before Amazon could acquire a foothold. Asked about Kindle's exit, Chinese commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng said was "normal... to adjust products and services according to market development". Amazon has more than 10,000 staff and offices in 12 cities across China including Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Shenzhen, the company said.