36 Wednesday April 13 2022 | the times
Wo r l d
Floods after heavy
rains leave 45 dead
South Africa At least 45 people
have died and hundreds more left
homeless as floodwater surged
through the city of Durban and
surrounding areas of KwaZulu-
Natal province after days of
heavy rain. Rescue efforts by the
military and the emergency
services have been hampered by
power cuts and the destruction of
roads. Containers at the city’s
port, the largest shipping
terminal in sub-Saharan Africa,
were swept away. Mxolisi
Kaunda, the mayor of the area,
said teams were on the ground
trying to “return the situation to
normalcy”, adding: “We cannot
be sure of the extent of the
damage at the moment.” (AP)Strict abortion law
approved in Oklahoma
United States The governor of
Oklahoma has signed a bill
making it illegal to perform an
abortion except in medical
emergencies. The penalty is a
fine of up to $100,000 and ten
years in prison. Kevin Stitt’s
approval means the law will take
effect this summer unless it is
blocked in court, extending the
area of the US with little to no
legal access to abortion. (Reuters)Officer’s death sparks
clashes in West Bank
Israel More clashes between
soldiers and Palestinian militants
broke out in Jenin in the West
Bank after a police officer was
killed. Troops began a fourth day
of operations in the city after an
assailant from the area killed
three people in a bar in Tel Aviv
last week. The policeman was
stabbed and shot dead in the port
city of Ashkelon by a Palestinian
from Hebron, officials said. (AFP)Minister pledges $15m
to ease bread shortage
Lebanon The government has
agreed to pay out $15.3 million to
importers to ease growing bread
shortages. Amin Salam, the
economy minister, said the funds
would last only a few weeks but
the government would seek a
$150 million food security deal
with the World Bank. The crisis
has been intensified by the war in
Ukraine, which supplies most of
Lebanon’s wheat. (Reuters)One’s demise is greatly
exaggerated by paper
Brazil A newspaper made a royal
mistake when it announced the
death of the Queen “at the age of
XX”. The Folha de Sao Paulo
published a 1,300-word tribute on
its website, saying she had died
“as a result of XXXXXXXX”. The
newspaper apologised and
blamed a “technical error”. The
premature eulogy was widely
mocked on social media. “God
save the Folha,” tweeted one user.Women sent back to
notorious Iranian jail
Iran Narges Mohammadi, a rights
activist, and Alieh Motalebzadeh,
a photojournalist, who were freed
from jail for medical reasons have
been imprisoned again, supporters
said. They are in Qarchak
women’s prison, where conditions
have been decried. Mohammadi
was sentenced to eight years and
70 lashes on national security
charges in January. Motalebzadeh
has been held since 2020. (AFP)Taiwanese citizens were issued with the
island’s first civil defence handbook
yesterday, which aims to prepare them
for an invasion by China amid rising
tensions in the region.
The defence ministry’s 28-page man-
ual details how to use an app to find the
nearest bomb shelter and supplies of
water and food, as well as preparing a
first-aid kit.
Liu Tai-yi, of the ministry’s All-Out
Defence Mobilisation unit, said the
handbook tells citizens what to do in a
military crisis or disaster.
The booklet, which draws from simi-
lar guides issued by Sweden and Japan,
also has a chapter that explains where
reservists should report if they are mo-
bilised in the event of an invasion, as
well as information on how to respond
to and survive emergencies such as air
attacks, building collapses, power cuts
and supply shortages.
The Chinese government considers
Ta i w a n
Didi Tang Beijing
Richard Lloyd Parry Asia Editor
Taiwan releases war survival
guide in case China attacks
the island a breakaway province and
has vowed to seize it to achieve national
unity. President Xi has pledged to make
all efforts to unify peaceful but Beijing
has never excluded the use of force. It
has ratcheted up pressure on the island
by sending warplanes and warships to
the Strait of Taiwan during the past two
years. The displays of power have been
matched by diplomatic rhetoric from
Beijing promising to defend its “sover-
eignty over Taiwan” and China’s “terri-
torial integrity”.
The United States maintains an
official policy of “strategic ambiguity”
over its response to a Chinese attack on
Taiwan. However, President Biden said
in October that the US was committed
to coming to the island’s defence if there
were an invasion.
A White House official said in clarifi-
cation that there had been no change in
policy.
There is intensifying speculation in
Taiwan that Beijing could use Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine as cover to carry
out its longstanding objective to retake
Taiwan, by force if necessary.Lawyers have criticised as “unconsti-
tutional” a move by courts in two states
in Malaysia to use artificial intelligence
to help judges to sentence convicted
drug dealers and rapists.
In a pilot scheme in Sabah and
Sarawak on the island of Borneo, judges
are advised by AI-powered software
created by Sarawak Information Sys-
tems, a state-owned company.
The practice is unpopular with some
lawyers. “Our criminal procedure code
does not provide for use of AI in the
courts... I think it’s unconstitutional,”
Hamid Ismail, a lawyer, told Reuters. “In
sentencing, judges don’t just look at the
facts of the case, they also consider miti-
gating factors and use their discretion.
AI cannot use discretion.”
The algorithm has identified patterns
in data from rape and drug cases in the
two states between 2014 and 2019 and
makes a sentencing recommendation
that judges can accept or ignore.
The two offences were chosenSentencing rapists using
AI is wrong, warn lawyers
because they have the most comprehen-
sive data.
The designers of the program said
they had made efforts to avoid bias — for
example, convicted defendants’ race is
not recorded. However, other variables
are open to question. For a query on
whether a victim in a rape case has
“suffered psychological distress”, only
yes or no answers are allowed.
Malaysia is not alone in introducing
AI to the courtroom. In Estonia robot
judges adjudicate small claims. The app
DoNotPay, created by the British-
American entrepreneur Joshua Brow-
der, has helped 160,000 people to chal-
lenge parking tickets successfully.
In China AI judges rule on disputes
relating to online sales, copyright and
trademarks, as well as business wran-
gles. The Internet Court in the city of
Hangzhou operates around the clock,
and the average time from filing to ver-
dict is 38 days.
According to Chinese state media,
between March and October 2019
more than 3.1 million such cases were
settled in this way.Malaysia
Richard Lloyd ParryForget flowers,
nothing says
I love you like a
fish sent by drone
When a lovesick resident decided to
woo his sweetheart, who was stuck at
home under lockdown in Shanghai, he
knew flowers and chocolates wouldn’t
cut it.
Instead he used a drone to fly a fish
head through her window, which land-
ed on her bed, followed by half a head of
cabbage, a portion of sticky rice and a
love note.
“He said he spent a whole night try-
ing to buy food but only got a fish,” the
unnamed object of his affection said in
a video on the social media platform
Weibo. “Yet he insisted on sharing half
the fish with me.”
Residents have struggled to buy food
since officials imposed a strict lock-
down in response to the largest corona-
virus outbreak in China since it was
identified.
However, restrictions were tenta-
tively eased on Tuesday, allowing
people to step outside their homes for
the first time in more than two weeks.
Local officials said more than 7,000
areas, home to about 4.8 million of
Shanghai’s 25 million residents, had
been classified as being at lower risk
after no new infections were recorded
for 14 days.
Supermarkets and pharmacies were
allowed to reopen and each household
was permitted to make one trip per
person per day. However, shoppers
have to present their temporary travel
pass, a green health code, recent travel
records and a negative PCR test result
before they are admitted to premises.
It remained unclear how freely
people could move around, with many
residents awaiting permission from
local committees.
One resident, who did not wish to be
named, said she briefly left home for a
scooter ride yesterday after getting per-
mission from her compound, only to be
told later that she could no longer go.
She told Reuters: “You know how it
all changes very fast... if you can go out,
you better do so quickly because you
won’t know if it could change in the
next hour.”
China has stuck to a policy of “zero
Covid”, aiming to eliminate infections
through rigid lockdowns, mass testing
and travel restrictions. Concerns have
been mounting, however, over the eco-
nomic toll this has inflicted on cities
such as Shanghai, with transport
restrictions eroding supplies and fac-
tories announcing production curbs
amid supply chain bottlenecks.
The city recorded 23,342 new infec-
tions yesterday — the fifth consecutive
day that cases have exceeded 20,000.
Lei Zhenglong, of the National
Health Commission, said at a briefing
in Beijing: “The epidemic is in a rapid
increase phase, with social transmis-
sion still not under effective control.
The forecast for the next few days is
that the number of infected people will
remain at a high level.”
The United States has ordered all
non-essential employees at its Shang-
hai consulate to leave amid growing
concerns about their safety, an embassy
spokesperson said yesterday.
The US embassy said last week it
would permit non-essential employees
to leave Shanghai due to the surge in
cases, warning American citizens in
China that they may face “arbitrary
enforcement” of virus curbs.
The State Department said: “It is best
for our employees and their families to
be reduced in number and our
operations to be scaled down as we deal
with the changing circumstances on
the ground.”China
Didi Tang Beijing
New year’s dazzle Decoration to celebrate Pohela Boishakh — the first day of
the Bengali calendar — is taken seriously in the Indian state of West BengalSAURABH SIROHIYA/ZUMA PRESS/ALAMY