World briefing
North America
Mitt Romney, 70, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee who is preparing for a possible Senate campaign in Utah, was treated for prostate cancer last year, a person close to Romney said yesterday. Romney’s prognosis was described as “very good” and he was “treated successfully”.
Asia/Oceania
Thailand’s Prime Minister evaded journalists’ questions by bringing out a life-sized cardboard cutout of himself and telling the reporters to quiz it instead of him. Prayuth Chanocha then walked off, leaving the mock-up behind, to bemused looks and awkward laughter from the press pack.
Europe
Up to 64 migrants died off the coast of Libya at the weekend when their flimsy boat sank, humanitarian groups say. Eighty-six people were plucked from the stricken rubber dinghy and eight bodies — all women — were recovered. But the boat had been carrying 150 migrants, said survivors, and many of the dead vanished beneath the waves.
Italy is warning of extreme avalanche danger in its northwest Piedmont region, while an avalanche already has blocked a road in the neighbouring region of Valle d’Aosta.
Middle East
An Israeli news station aired an audio recording of what it said was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son drunkenly bragging outside a strip club in 2015. In the recording broadcast by Channel 2 News, Yair Netanyahu tells the son of an Israeli gas tycoon that the Prime Minister advanced a controversial gas deal in Parliament that benefited his father. Yair and his friends are also heard talking about strippers and how much money they spent. Netanyahu’s son and his friends were accompanied by a state-funded bodyguard. One of Yair’s entourage jokes that the guard, who was privy to some of the banter, would have to be killed if he left his job. Yair has drawn media criticism for living a life of privilege at the taxpayers’ expense and for crude social media posts. The audio was released amid a police investigation into corruption allegations surrounding the Israeli leader. The station relayed a statement from the Netanyahu family calling the recordings part of a witch hunt against the Prime Minister. Yair Netanyahu later issued an apology saying that the remarks did not represent the values he was raised on and that they were made under the influence of alcohol. Egypt will hold its presidential election over three days in March, with President Abdel-fattah al-Sisi virtually guaranteed to run for and win a second four-year term amid a heavy clampdown on dissent. Al-Sisi has yet to formally announce his candidacy, but with less than three months to go before the vote, no candidate who could pose a serious challenge to him has emerged. Nearly all prominent critics of the Government have been jailed, left the country or gone silent, while authorities have blocked hundreds of websites and banned all unauthorised demonstrations.
Africa
South African President Jacob Zuma will face a fresh bid to force him from office when the ruling African National Congress’s top leadership meets for the first time since he relinquished control of the party to his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa. A proposal to order Zuma to step down before his term ends in 2019 will be discussed at a meeting tomorrow of the party’s National Executive Committee in East London. Euphoria following Ramaphosa’s election as ANC leader helped boost the rand by 11 per cent last month.
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader dropped the biggest hint yet he could step down from his party. Morgan Tsvangirai, who is battling colon cancer, has led the MDC-T party since 1999. He was Prime Minister between 2009 and 2013 in a unity government. Tsvangirai said he is “looking at the imminent prospects of us as the older generation leaving the levers of leadership to allow the younger generation to take forward this huge task”.
Imagine that
Extreme weather took an extreme toll on the US last year. Losses from weather and climate disasters including hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and bushfires in northern California reached a record US$306 billion in 2017, the National Centres for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina, said in a report. That topped the US$215 billion in losses from events including hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita in 2005. There were 16 extreme weather events with losses exceeding US$1 billion, matching the record set in 2011. Western bushfires led to US$18 billion in total costs, triple the previous annual record, while Harvey’s US$125 billion bill was second only to Katrina. Tropical cyclones, severe storms, inland floods and wildfires caused 362 direct fatalities.