World news in brief
New Malaysian PM vows to heal divided nation
The reformist leader Anwar Ibrahim was sworn in as Malaysia’s prime minister yesterday as he vowed to heal a racially divided nation, fight corruption and revive a struggling economy.
A general election on Saturday produced a hung parliament. Mr Anwar, 75, said he would form a unity government comprising his Alliance of Hope that won 82 seats, the National Front with 30 seats and a bloc from eastern Sarawak state with 23 seats. He
said that would give him a majority of 135 seats, with other smaller blocs expected to join in. “There is no question about my legitimacy,” Mr Anwar said after his rival, former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, disputed that he has majority support. Mr Anwar said his government will propose a vote of confidence when parliament reconvenes 19 December. AP
Taliban flogs people for ‘moral crimes’
At least a dozen people have been flogged by the Taliban in Afghanistan this week in a football stadium for committing “moral crimes”. The punished civilians included three women who were also flogged in front of hundreds of onlookers inside the stadium in the eastern Logar region. A Taliban official said the people were held guilty for adultery, robbery and homosexual sex, which has been deemed punishable under Sharia.The ultra-conservative Taliban administration has seen a U-turn in its commitments to civil rights, after initially promising a more moderate rule when it seized power last year.
Parents force 8-year-old to watch TV all night
A couple in China forced their eight-year-old to watch television all night as punishment for watching too much TV. The parents in central China’s Hunan province had left their son at home, instructing him to finish his homework and sleep by 8.30pm, South China Morning Post reported by citing footage the outlet obtained from inside the home.
But they returned to find their son watching TV and neglected to finish his homework. The parents resorted to punishing the boy by telling him to watch TV the entire night and took turns to keep a watch on the child so they could force him to stay awake. The boy dozed off at one point during the night, but his mother forced him to stay awake. He was not allowed to sleep until 5am, according to the report. News of the incident has triggered a debate with several calling it severe parenting, while others termed it a technique to discipline the child.
US police want to give robots the power to kill people
New rules will allow robots to kill people under the direction of the police. A new San Francisco policy proposal includes guidance that lets police use robots as a “deadly force option” if they have no other choice. Local lawmakers had initially attempted to include guidance that would have included restrictions against killing people with robots. “Robots shall not be used as a Use of Force against any person,” the original guidance read.
But police then struck out that language and instead swapped it for guidance that allowed for the use of killer robots. “Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers are imminent and outweigh any other force option available to SFPD,” it now reads. The new policy has been approved by the local rules committee and will be voted on by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors next week.
Other forces have used robots to kill people. The first example of such an event in the US came in 2016, when Dallas police attached explosives to a robot and used them to kill a sniper who had killed five officers.
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