WORLD BRIEFING: January 15, 2024
The South Pacific nation of Nauru has announced it is severing diplomatic ties with Taiwan and would instead recognise China, according to a government post on social media. President David Adeang announced the decision on Monday in a national address posted to an official Facebook page, explaining “the Nauru government’s decision to recognise the People’s Republic of China”. The Nauru government said “in the best interests” of the country and its people it was seeking full resumption of diplomatic relations with China. It added that it would “sever diplomatic relations” with Taiwan immediately, and “no longer develop any official relations or official exchanges” with it - Al Jazeera
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party are in big trouble: The Daily Telegraph, which is broadly supportive of the Conservative Party, carries a new poll (see below) which forecasts a Tory wipeout on a level similar to 1997, when Labour's Tony Blair won in a landslide. If the YouGov poll bears out at the election, the Tories would retain just 169 seats, the paper says.
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago, only 517 children of some 20,000 who were illegally taken and held in Russia have been returned, Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said. According to official data issued by the Ukrainian authorities, at least 19,546 children had been taken from Ukraine to Russia as of the end of last year. The number refers only to those cases that were officially recorded, and the real figure is believed to be considerably higher - RFE/RL
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asks his country’s officials to skip this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos over the organizers’ stance on Israel’s war against Hamas, sources say. Many say the annual forum is an elitist, has-been event with the same familiar faces.
AI will affect almost 40% of global jobs, with advanced economies facing greater exposure than emerging markets and low-income countries, according to an IMF analysis - Bloomberg
Hong Kong’s flag carrier was once again thrust into the spotlight this week when Cathay Pacific announced it would cut an average of 12 flights a day until the end of February in a bid to avoid cancellations during the Lunar New Year holiday – one of the busiest travel periods of the year in China - SCMP
