Today, African leaders visit Ukraine, Finland forms a Conservative government, Japan raises their age of consent, and the US deploys nuclear subs to South Korea. From TLDR News, this is your daily briefing for Friday the 16th of June 2023. This morning, African leaders headed to Ukraine in an attempt to broker peace between Kiev and Moscow. As part of this delegation, the presidents of South Africa, Senegal, Zambia and Comoros are meeting with President Zelensky today before heading to St.
Petersburg to meet President Putin tomorrow. Africa has been in an interesting position since the war in Ukraine began, with some countries publicly backing Ukraine and others Russia. This delegation appears to want to toe a more neutral line, attempting to act simply as a mediator. Analysts appear sceptical about this aim though, as both Kiev and Moscow appear convinced that they can win an outright victory on the battlefield.
The meeting didn't appear to go as planned this morning though, as an air raid alert was issued in Kiev as the leaders arrived. The sirens were sounded because the Ukrainian air force said that several Russian Kalibir missiles had been launched from the Black Sea towards Ukraine. Later this morning, they claimed that they had destroyed 12 Russian missiles and two reconnaissance drones. This came following missile attacks this week in Kiev, Odessa, and Krivy Riah.
About this, Alexander Sherba, a Ukrainian diplomat, tweeted, sirens now, Putin welcoming African leaders in Kiev. Ukraine's foreign minister followed this up, tweeting that, Putin builds confidence by launching the largest missile attacks on Kiev in weeks, exactly amid the visit of African leaders to our capital. Russian missiles are a message to Africa. Russia wants more war, not peace.
There was additional frustration this morning too on the part of the South African delegation, as President Ramaphosa's security got stuck in Poland. According to Ramaphosa's security, the Polish government wouldn't let them leave the airport and continue on to Ukraine. The head of security said that the Polish government was sabotaging the president's security by not allowing them to disembark. He added, because we could have been in Kiev by now, this is all they are doing.
I want you guys to see how racist they are. At the time of writing, the Polish government has not commented on the situation. There's more on the way, but be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to make The Daily Briefing part of your daily routine, or to search for us on your podcast app to listen along. Roughly 11 weeks on from the country's election, Finland's conservatives are set to form a new four-party government, replacing the centre-left government of outgoing Prime Minister Sanna Marin.
Petteri Orpo, who leads the centre-right National Coalition Party, will become Prime Minister and lead a coalition largely made up of his own NCP and the right-wing nationalist Finns Party, who placed second in the election on April the 2nd. The coalition will also include the smaller Swedish People's Party, or RKP, and the Christian Democrats. Together, the coalition holds 108 parliamentary seats out of 200. Incoming Prime Minister Orpo said, all issues have been resolved and the papers are ready, adding that the government's programme and composition would be announced on Friday.
The two and a half months of negotiations were difficult and ended up being the second longest in Finland's history, with the main divisions being between the anti-immigration Finns Party and the RKP over things like immigration, climate policy and public finances. The new government will shift Finnish politics to the right, as Orpo is expected to cut things like unemployment and welfare benefits with a view to curb the public debt, as well as tightening immigration and more. So, that's Finland's new government. Let's move on and discuss what's been happening in Japan.
Japanese lawmakers have passed legislation to raise the age of consent and redefine the definition of rape to bring the country's sex crime laws more in alignment with other countries. In its first change since 1907, the age of consent will raise from 13 years old, one of the world's lowest, to 16, which is the same as the UK, Canada, many US states and Australia. Lawmakers also broadened the definition of rape from forcible sexual intercourse to non-consensual sexual intercourse, as well as passing measures to crack down on photo voyeurism. Protests and calls for overhaul Japan's sex crime laws gained momentum in 2019 after a series of acquittals in high-profile sex crime cases.
The previous law meant prosecutors needed to prove that victims of rape had been incapacitated through violence, intimidation, loss of consciousness or inability to resist. This had been criticised as making it difficult to secure rape convictions and effectively blaming victims for not resisting enough. The new law identifies eight scenarios under which rape prosecutions can be made, including the influence of alcohol and drugs, coercion, abuse of power, times where the victim is frightened or worried of the consequences of refusal and more. Other changes include the extension of the statute of limitations from reporting rape from 10 to 15 years.
The US has deployed a nuclear-powered guided missile submarine to South Korea for the first time in six years in a move certain to anger North Korea. The deployment of the USS Michigan, one of the largest submarines in the world, comes just a day after North Korea carried out missile tests in protest of US-South Korea joint military drills. The deployment is part of an agreement between the US and South Korea for the US to enhance regular visibility of its strategic assets to the Korean peninsula. That agreement followed a meeting between US President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in Washington in April.
At the time, Kim Jong-un's sister Kim Yo-jong condemned the agreement, saying they exposed the country's most hostile and aggressive will of action against North Korea. On Thursday, in response to recent US-South Korea firing drills near the border between the North and the South, North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast. They were the first launches by North Korea since the regime tried and failed to launch its first spy satellite into orbit in May. We'll end the main section of the Daily Briefing with some news from the Isle of Wight in the UK, where a new species of dinosaur has been identified.
The fossilized remains come from a group of plant-eating dinosaurs known as ankylosaurs. The new species date back to around 125 million years ago and has been named Vesipelter beretti after Professor Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum. Despite its small size, the Isle of Wight is known for being one of the best places in Europe to find dinosaur remains, though this is the first new ankylosaur for about 142 years. One last thing, we have some news.
The first episode of our new series, TLDR's Race Across Europe, is now out on YouTube and Nebula. Here's a quick preview. Go, go, go, go, go! He's off.
He's gone. I'm going. I'm going. I hate this.
Oh, no! Oh, sh... It's passing my bike so hard. This is the worst thing that's ever happened.
Jack would definitely laugh. There's no other way. Guys, it's not looking good. What, what, what?
What do you mean? What do you mean? Could come through some of the police barricade. I'm afraid he's dead.
I don't know! It's going to be coming to those gates. They're going so fast. Oh, sh...
We would absolutely love it if you check it out. It's linked below and you can find the first episode on the TLDR EU YouTube channel. If you want even more though, the second episode is available a week early on Nebula and we'll be releasing every subsequent episode a week early on Nebula too. It's not just the race that's on Nebula either.
We also publish an extended version of The Daily Briefing each and every day. With today's extended edition, Rory quizzes me on this week's news. I'm going to rephrase that then. By rephrase, I mean give you a different answer.
If anyone's watching this and thinking I'm basically an idiot. Yeah. We're doing so well at the start. That's only on Nebula.
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