WORLD BRIEFING: May 28, 2024
More than 2,000 people were buried alive by a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea last week, the national disaster centre said on Monday, as treacherous terrain and the difficulty of getting aid to the site raises the risk few survivors will be found. The National Disaster Centre raised the number suspected buried to 2,000 in a letter to the UN released on Monday but dated Sunday. A separate UN agency put the possible death toll much lower, at more than 670 people. The variance reflects the remote site and the difficulty getting an accurate population estimate. PNG’s last credible census was in 2000 and many people live in isolated mountainous villages. The landslide crashed through Yambali village in the country’s north at around 3am on Friday while most of the community slept. More than 150 houses were buried beneath debris almost two stories high. Rescuers told local media they heard screams from beneath the earth. - SCMP
The Kremlin scolded NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday for suggesting alliance members should let Ukraine strike deep into Russia with Western weapons, and said it was clear that NATO was in a direct confrontation with Russia. Stoltenberg told The Economist that NATO members supplying weapons to Ukraine should end their prohibition on using them to strike military targets in Russia. "NATO is increasing the degree of escalation," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian daily Izvestia when asked about Stoltenberg's remarks. "NATO is flirting with military rhetoric and falling into military ecstasy," Peskov said, adding that the Russian military knew what to do. When asked if NATO was approaching a direct confrontation with Russia, Peskov said: "They are not getting close; they are in it." Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned the West that it is risking a global war over Ukraine and that a direct conflict between Russia and NATO would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three. - Reuters
Some of the much-needed food supplies waiting to enter the Gaza Strip from Egypt have begun to rot as the Rafah Crossing remains closed for aid deliveries for the third week after Egypt refused to reopen the crossing for as long as the IDF controls the Palestinian side. The Rafah crossing — which borders Egypt and has been the main gateway for goods and people entering and leaving Gaza — has been closed since Israel on May 7 said it had seized it from Hamas. After the IDF took control of the crossing, Egypt ended coordination for aid trucks to pass from its territory into Gaza, insisting that the other side of the crossing be under Palestinian control before it reopens. - Times of Israel
North Korea said its attempt to launch a new military reconnaissance satellite ended in failure on Monday (May 27) when a newly developed rocket engine exploded in flight. The attempt came just hours after Pyongyang issued a warning that it would try to launch a satellite by Jun 4, in what would have been its second spy satellite in orbit. Instead, the launch became the nuclear-armed North's latest failure, following two other fiery crashes last year. It successfully placed its first spy satellite in orbit in November. "The launch of the new satellite carrier rocket failed when it exploded in mid-air during the flight of the first stage," the deputy director general of North Korea's National Aerospace Technology Administration said in a report carried by state media. An initial analysis suggested that the cause was a newly developed liquid fuel rocket motor, but other possible causes were being investigated, the report said. - CNA
Hong Kong national-security police recently threatened a man from the city, who is seeking refuge in Canada, after he reneged on a deal to spy for China on prodemocracy activists living in Vancouver, according to an audio recording obtained by The Globe and Mail. This is one of the rare instances where a recording has surfaced of someone being intimidated in Canada by a Chinese state-security official. Dissidents, however, have been warning for years that Beijing has been bullying Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters as well as Uyghurs, Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners abroad. In a February, 2024 recording of the telephone conversation provided to The Globe, an unnamed national-security department officer complains that the man is not “co-operating with us” and issues veiled threats: “How is your life? … You will have consequences.” The Globe is not identifying the individual whose family is at grave risk in Hong Kong. The national-security department is part of Hong Kong’s police force, with a mandate to enforce the 2020 national-security law that has seen authorities jail political opponents and force civil-society groups and outspoken media outlets to disband. When the man, now residing in Vancouver, said “I’ve never co-operated with you. I won’t co-operate with dogs,” the national-security officer replies, “We’ll definitely find you. We can find you by phone. Why wouldn’t we find you? Where could you hide?…You don’t appreciate the chance you have been given, right,” the national-security officer asks. “Don’t you remember what you told us before?” - Globe and Mail
Half of Hong Kong workers will consider quitting if employers ask them to spend more time in office, according to a new survey. Fifty-one per cent of 751 employees and jobseekers in city – part of 27,000 respondents across 30 countries – expressed ‘strong desire’ to work outside the office. The former British colony’s figures are 14 per cent higher than global average, with more older workers wanting work-from-home arrangements than younger counterparts - SCMP