Your Wednesday Briefing
The UK and Rwanda have signed an agreement to relaunch the UK asylum seeker policy, stating that this new one would address the issues raised by the UK Supreme Court last month when it struck it down.
Albanian opposition MPs - that is, those in the anti-socialist party - could be sentenced to five years in prison if they keep starting fires in parliament. Previously, conservative MPs have set off flares and set fire to piles of paper, and almost set fire to a stack of chairs piled in the center of the room.
The largest amount of snowfall in 145 years dropped in Moscow on December 3rd, with 10.7 mm in 12 hours - one third of the usual monthly precipitation in 24 hours. Also, a draft law has been submitted in Russia to ban the ability of parents to give names of the opposite sex to their babies.
The world’s first fourth-generation nuclear power plant has gone into operation in east China’s Shandong Province, with a 200 MW capacity and 93% of its equipment being sourced from within China. On a related note, the IAEA predicts that about a dozen new countries are expected to start producing electricity from nuclear power within the next few years - including Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Namibia, the Philippines, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. And John Kerry has announced a nuclear fusion engagement plan with 35 nations, focussing on supply chains and regulation.
New Mexico is investing $500 million into purchasing water from treated oilfield wastewater, and brackish saltwater from aquifers, as desperation for water in the region increases.
Canada is preparing to give $15.3 billion in new subsidies to fossil fuel corporations in the form of tax credits for carbon capture and storage, of which the captured carbon is mainly used to pressurize oil fields to produce even more oil.
Ex-President of Peru, 85-year-old Fujimori, is being released from prison on health grounds. He was in prison for human rights violations, forced sterilizations of hundreds of thousands of people, and several massacres against left-wing forces like the Shining Path.
Maduro has announced that he is granting oil-drilling licenses in the Esequibo despite not actually controlling it, as well as assigning mining, forestry, and electric projects.