The Times - UK (2022-01-13)

34 2GM Thursday January 13 2022 | the times

Wo r l d

‘Historic wrong’ fixed as

birth records opened up

Ireland People could have

automatic access to their birth

records for the first time, as the

government aims to right a

“historic wrong”, in which

thousands were sent off for

adoption in secret by Catholic

institutions. Roderic O’Gorman,

Ireland’s children’s minister, said a

new law would offer the full and

unredacted release of birth, early

life and medical information to

anyone over the age of 16,

regardless of parental consent.

The legislation was published one

year after an inquiry found that

thousands of infants died in

homes for unmarried mothers

run by the Catholic Church from

the 1920s to the 1990s. (Reuters)

EU threatens to cancel

islands’ visa-free travel

Vanuatu Brussels has proposed a

suspension of a visa-free travel

agreement with Vanuatu because

of the South Pacific nation’s offer

of passports to foreign investors.

If backed by EU states, it would

be the bloc’s first imposition of

sanctions on a country over

“golden passport schemes”, which

the European Commission

warned could pose security and

money-laundering risks. (Reuters)

Soldier killed by bomb

in Africa Cup host city

Cameroon A soldier was killed by

an improvised bomb as rebels

exchanged fire with the army in

the western city of Buea, the base

for four football teams competing

in the Africa Cup of Nations,

which kicked off on Sunday amid

security concerns. The rebels,

who want to establish a separatist

state in the west, have carried out

deadly attacks on civilians and

the army since 2017. (Reuters)

Sailing coach on trial

for rape of girl aged 11

Greece A sailing coach accused of

raping an 11-year-old athlete in

2010 has gone on trial in Athens.

Triantafyllos Apostolou, 38, claims

that he intended to marry her

with her mother’s consent. The

victim, now 21, told ANT1 TV she

was nine when the abuse began

and that he had “systematically

raped” her. “It took me ten years

to understand that a child cannot

be at fault,” she said. (AFP)

Praise for helicopter

pilot’s crash landing

United States A pilot who was

flying a baby girl and a nurse to a

children’s hospital in Philadelphia

was praised for his crash landing

after the helicopter engine

faltered. The pilot managed to

avoid power lines and buildings in

the suburb of Upper Darby before

hitting the ground and sliding

into bushes. All four people on

board, including the co-pilot,

escaped serious injury.

Headless torso found

stored in bus freezer

United States Police investigating

the disappearance of a woman

who was last seen in November

found a headless torso inside a

freezer on an old bus parked

outside a house in New Orleans.

Benjamin Beale, 34, was arrested

on multiple charges, including

the obstruction of a death

investigation. Neither the cause of

death nor the victim’s identity

had been determined. (AP)

Japan is spending tens of millions of
pounds on an electromagnetic railgun
that fires supersonic missiles to defend
itself from attack by North Korea,
China and Russia.
The project has been given impetus
by advances in hypersonic weaponry,
such as the short-range missile North
Korea fired on Monday.
Pyongyang’s state media published
photographs of Kim Jong-un, North
Korea’s supreme leader, watching the
launch, the first test that he has attend-
ed since March 2020. Reports hailed
the weapon’s technical sophistication
after its first test in September and a
second last week.
Research into the railgun has been
suspended by the United States, which
concluded that the potential benefits
were not justified by the huge cost.
Tokyo has backed the technology,
however, claiming that the number of
supersonic weapons fired from the rail-
gun would give them a greater chance
of hitting the faster hypersonic missiles
that can manoeuvre in midair and
evade defence systems.
Hypersonic missiles can reach high

speeds and carry nuclear warheads

while being manoeuvred as they ap-

proach their target, making it difficult

for defence shields to intercept them.

The North Korean state news agency

reported on Monday that its glide

vehicle performed a corkscrew man-

oeuvre and struck a target in the sea

1,000km from its point of launch.

This is the defensive hole that the

railgun is intended to fill. Japan’s minis-

try of defence allocated 6.5 billion yen

(£41 million) towards the project over

the next financial year. It said last

month: “In order to counter threats

such as those posed by hypersonic mis-

siles, the research on future railguns

enabling a barrage of gunfire with a

high initial velocity will be conducted.”

The US Federal Aviation Adminis-

tration suspended air traffic for several

minutes at some west coast airports, in-

A tourist resort hotel has threatened to
sue a guest for up to £70,000 in dama-
ges over a bad online review.
The tourist, identified only as Ms
Khing, gave the Ozone Hotel near the
Khao Yai national park a rating of six
out of ten, saying that it was “too expen-
sive” after a holiday in June. “The room

Didn’t enjoy your stay? That will be £70,000, madam

did not look new as the [advertised]

photos suggested,” she wrote in a re-

view, since deleted, on the travel web-

site Agoda.com in December.

“It wasn’t clean. I could not call recep-

tion from my room, so I had to walk

down by myself.

“Nightshift staffers were not so help-

ful but some were welcoming.

“I would like [the hotel] to adjust the

price and improve the quality to match

the price. If the opportunity presents

itself, I will visit again.”

At first the resort thanked her for her

feedback. Her lawyer, however, said

that it had since taken a harder line, de-

manding that she pay compensation

and make a public apology in the Thai

press for seven consecutive days.

“She was told by the resort to delete

the review immediately or else she

must pay the resort 50,000 Thai baht

[£1,100] per day in compensation and

3 million [£65,850] for the damages,”

Sittra Biebangkerd, the lawyer, said. If

she didn’t pay she was threatened with

a criminal lawsuit.

The case is the latest example of com-

panies using Thailand’s strict defama-

tion laws to silence criticism.

The Khao Yai national park is a Un-

esco World Heritage site that was fea-

tured in the film The Beach.

Thailand
George Styllis Bangkok

Japan plans railgun to shoot down

North Korean hypersonic missiles

cluding Seattle, Los Angeles, San Fran-

cisco and San Diego, as a precaution

when the North Korean test was re-

ported. The missile’s range meant that

American territory was not threatened.

The railgun consists of two prongs, or

rails, between which an electroconduc-

tive projectile is loaded. An electric cur-

rent is passed up one rail through the

projectile and back down the other rail,

creating a strong magnetic field that

launches the projectile at high speed.

The goal is a weapon that can fire a

projectile at 2,000 metres per second or

more, about six times the speed of

sound, compared with 1,700m per

second for a tank shell. A speed of

2,297m per second has been achieved in

Japanese tests. In theory, a barrage of

such projectiles could be fired rapidly at

close range from a ship, increasing the

chances of taking out an incoming mis-

sile. China and India have carried out

research into railgun technology.

Doubts remain, however, about its

cost and technical feasibility. These in-

clude difficulties engineering a suitable

barrel, managing the heat generated

and the power needed to maintain the

electromagnetic pulse, which would be

beyond the generating capacity of all

but a few ships.

Projectile

Rail

Launch

ship

Speeds (mph)

Tomahawk cruise missile

Speed of sound

Ballistic missiles*

Hypersonic missiles

Railgun

How the railgun works

*while in Earth’s atmosphere

550

768

1,988

3,800+

5,100+

+

—

Electric current creates

magnetic field in rails which

propels projectile forward

Japan
Richard Lloyd Parry Asia Editor

C

hina’s

Olympic

athletes will

wear kit

made in

Xinjiang, a region in

which the country is

accused of using

forced labour and

carrying out genocide

(Didi Tang writes).

A factory that

delivered 2,000 pieces

of clothing to Beijing

used cotton and

camel hair from

Xinjiang, state media

has reported. It was

produced in a factory

in Kaba county. In

doing so Xinjiang “is

contributing to the

2022 winter Games in

Beijing”, according to

a regional official.

Human rights

advocates, witnesses

and the US

government all say

that more than a

million Uighurs are

imprisoned in camps

in Xinjiang, in an

attempt to root out

their Islamic culture

and thus forcibly

assimilate them into

the majority Han

ethnicity.

Detainees have

been forced to work

on local farms and

factories, including in

the textile industry.

Washington has

described this policy

as genocide. Beijing

denied the allegations

as “nothing but

vicious lies concocted

by anti-China forces”.

China has insisted

that it was fighting

terrorism by sending

Muslim residents to

“re-education and

vocational training

centres”.

Last year President

Biden signed a bill

banning imports from

Xinjiang, in particular

cotton, over concerns

about forced labour.

Olympic kit made

with ‘slave labour’

Kit for the Chinese team

at next month’s Winter

Olympics has been

produced in Xinjiang