PUTIN ORDERS TIGHTENING OF UKRAINE BORDER AS DRONES HIT RUSSIA

Regional officials in southern and western Russia reported a string of drone attacks near the border with Ukraine and deep inside the country that resulted in no casualties, as the war with Kyiv trudged on Tuesday.

At the same time, the hacking of Russian TV channels and radio stations as well as the temporary closure of St. Petersburg’s airport fed suspicion that Kyiv could be behind the disruption.

A flurry of drone attacks on Monday night and Tuesday morning targeted regions inside Russia along the border with Ukraine and deeper into the country, with one drone crashing just 100 kilometres (60 miles) away from Moscow, according to local Russian authorities.

A drone fell near the village of Gubastovo, roughly 100 kilometres southeast of Moscow, Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the region surrounding the Russian capital, said in an online statement.

Ukrainian authorities offered no immediate acknowledgement or comment on the reported strikes.Hours earlier, unconfirmed reports on Russia’s Telegram social network referred to the air space over St. Petersburg being shut down and to Russian warplane overflights. It was not immediately clear whether this was connected to the alleged uptick in drone attacks in Russia’s south.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the situation in St. Petersburg, urging reporters to wait for details from the country’s aviation authorities or the military.

He noted, however, that President Vladimir Putin had “full information” on the situation.

Speaking at Russia’s main security agency, the FSB, Putin urged the service to tighten security on the border with Ukraine.

Russian media reported on Tuesday morning that in several Russian regions an air raid alarm interrupted the programming of several TV channels and radio stations.

US, CANADA ELIMINATING TIKTOK ON GOVERNMENT DEVICES

Canada and the United States moved forward Monday with bans of TikTok on government devices.

The White House gave federal agencies 30 days to halt the use of the popular social media app, implementing a ban approved by Congress in December.

The U.S. measure has limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and research purposes.

“This guidance is part of the Administration’s ongoing commitment to securing our digital infrastructure and protecting the American people’s security and privacy,” said Chris DeRusha, the federal chief information security officer.

TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has drawn scrutiny from Western governments concerned about the security of user data and the potential the app could be used to promote pro-China views.

The company has dismissed the concerns and called the bans “political theater.”

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said during a briefing Tuesday that the United States “has been overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to suppress other countries’ companies.”

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are expected to proceed Tuesday with a bill that would give President Joe Biden the ability to ban TikTok nationwide.

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the TikTok ban for government devices could serve as a signal to the wider population.

“I suspect that as government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees that they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices,” Trudeau said.

The European Commission and the EU Council banned TikTok on staff phones last week.

IRAN INVESTIGATES POISONING OF HUNDREDS OF SCHOOLGIRLS WITH TOXIC GAS

Almost 700 girls have been poisoned by toxic gas in Iran since November, in what many believe is a deliberate attempt to force their schools to shut.

No girls have died, but dozens have suffered respiratory problems, nausea, dizziness and fatigue.

"It became evident that some people wanted all schools, especially girls' schools, to be closed down," the deputy health minister said on Sunday.

However, he later said that his remarks had been misunderstood.

The prosecutor general announced last week that he was opening a criminal investigation. However, he said that the available information only indicated "the possibility of criminal and premeditated acts".

Meanwhile, public frustration is continuing to grow.

The first poisoning took place on 30 November, when 18 students from the Nour Technical School in the religious city of Qom were taken to hospital.

Since then, more than 10 girls' schools have been targeted in the surrounding province.

At least 194 girls are reported to have been poisoned in the past week at four schools in the city of Borujerd, in the western province of Lorestan.

And on Tuesday another 37 students were poisoned at the Khayyam Girls' School in Pardis, near the capital Tehran.

The poisoned girls have reported the smell of tangerine or rotten fish before falling ill.

Earlier this month, at least 100 people protested outside the governor's office in Qom.

"You are obliged to ensure my children's safety! I have two daughters," one father shouted in a video widely shared on social media. "Two daughters... and all I can do is not let them go to school."

CARNAGE AFTER TRAINS COLLIDE NEAR GREEK CITY OF LARISSA

At least 32 people have died and dozens more injured after two trains collided in northern Greece, emergency services say.

A train said to be carrying around 350 passengers hit a freight train travelling in the opposite direction near the city of Larissa late on Tuesday night.

Rescuers have been working through the night to find survivors, the fire service said.

The cause of the crash is not known.

The passenger train had been travelling from Athens to the northern city of Thessaloniki when it crashed head-on with the other train, leading to a fire in at least one of the carriages.

One survivor described how the carriage he was in was engulfed in flames as it rolled over following the crash.

"We heard a big bang," passenger Stergios Minenis was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

Footage of the collision's aftermath showed thick plumes of smoke rising from derailed carriages. At least one of them was completely crushed.

Around 150 firefighters and 40 ambulances were at the scene, the fire service said.

HK SCRAPS ONE OF WORLD’S LAST COVID MASK MANDATES

Hong Kong : Hongkongers will finally be able to leave home without a face mask from Wednesday, nearly 1,000 days after the pandemic mandate was imposed. Face coverings will no longer be required indoors, outdoors or on public transportation, the government announced, ending a measure that has become a relic globally as the world adjusts to living alongside the coronavirus.

Hong Kong was one of the last places on Earth to enforce mask-wearing outside, with violators facing hefty fines. The mask move comes as the government tries to woo tourists and overseas talent back to revive the recession-hit economy. “With the masking requirement removed, we are starting (to resume) normalcy comprehensively. And that will be very beneficial to economic development,” Chief Executive John Lee said at a press conference. He added that hospitals and homes for the elderly can impose their own requirements if they decide masks are needed.

CHINA ADOPTS PLAN TO ‘REFORM’ PARTY AND STATE INSTITUTIONS

China’s ruling Communist Party on Tuesday concluded a key annual meeting and adopted a plan “for the reform of party and state institutions” that is set to further tighten the party’s — and leader Xi Jinping’s — direct oversight of government bodies.

A communique released in Beijing after the three-day, behind closed doors meeting, or plenum, of 373 members of the Central Committee, said the reforms would cement “the overall leadership of the party”. The draft plan — yet to be made public — will first be presented next week to the annual meeting of Parliament, or the National People’s Congress (NPC), which convenes in Beijing for one week, starting March 5. The plenum “adopted a plan for the reform of party and state institutions”, it said, and “agreed to put part of the reform plan to the…NPC for deliberation”.

Since taking over in 2012, Mr. Xi, who began a third term as CPC General Secretary in October 2022 and will begin his third term as President after the NPC concludes, has already overhauled the party-state machinery, bringing tighter control and oversight over the functioning of bureaucrat-led government departments.

Decision-making has been moved out of government Ministries to newly set up party-led commissions, such as the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, which replaced earlier smaller “party leading groups”. The commissions have brought greater centralisation,

“Efforts are needed to deepen institutional reform in key areas and ensure the party’s leadership over socialist modernisation becomes more refined in an institutional setup, more optimised in the division of functions, more improved in institutions and mechanisms, and more efficient in operation and management,” the communique said, adding that the reform would “follow the principles of adhering to the overall leadership of the party.”

SRI LANKA BANS STRIKES AHEAD OF MASS PROTEST

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has declared public transport services “essential”, in a move that outlaws strike action by those working in the sector. The announcement came days ahead of a mass protest announced by worker unions against the steep rise in taxes and living costs.

The President used his executive powers to invoke an “essential services” order declaring “public transports, delivery of food or drink, or coal, oil, fuel, the maintenance of facilities for transport by road, rail or air... airports, ports and railway lines, as essential services with immediate effect,” his office said in a statement.

Dozens of worker unions from Sri Lanka’s transport, public health and banking sectors were preparing to go on a strike on Wednesday, after the government doubled income taxes and increased electricity tariff by three times, as part of measures to qualify for a $2.9 million support package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Following its default last year, Sri Lanka has been counting on the IMF to rescue its battered economy.

While President Wickremesinghe recently said his government has completed 15 tasks set out by the Fund, the loan is contingent on financing assurances from Sri Lanka’s top bilateral creditors. China, Japan, and India are the island nation’s top three bilateral lenders. India and the Paris Club, of which Japan is a member, have already sent their written assurances to the IMF.

Meanwhile, Mr. Wickremesinghe is also facing increasing public anger over the recent postponement of local body elections. Scheduled for March 9 originally, the polls have now been postponed, owing to the “lack of funds”, and authorities are expected to announce a new date later this week.

Opposition parties have condemned the move, accusing the President of stifling democracy. The Opposition’s attack on the government further escalated after a member of the JVP-led Opposition alliance, the Jathika Jana Balawegaya (National People's Power, or NPP), died from injuries sustained in a protest held in Colombo on Sunday, demanding elections.

U.K. PM RISHI SUNAK TRIES TO WIN OVER SCEPTICS TO HIS BREXIT DEAL

LONDON: U.K. PM Rishi Sunak travelled to Belfast on Tuesday to sell his landmark agreement with the EU to Unionist politicians who fear post-Brexit trade rules are weakening Northern Ireland’s place in the U.K. The U.K. and the EU had announced that they had struck a deal to resolve a dispute over Northern Ireland trade.

CHINA ORDERS SCHOOLS TO ‘RESIST WESTERN ERRONEOUS VIEWS’ IN LEGAL EDUCATION

Beijing : China has ordered closer adherence to the dictates of the ruling Communist Party and leader Xi Jinping in legal education, demanding that schools “oppose and resist Western erroneous views” such as constitutional government, separation of powers, and judicial independence.

The order was dated Sunday, a week before China’s ceremonial parliament begins its annual session and reinforces the leading role on ideology assumed by Xi, who is named no less than 25 times in the document. Similar directives have been issued in past, with students encouraged to report on professors who speak positively about Western concepts of governance.

Despite the intertwiningof the Chinese and global economies, Xi has sought to purge liberal Western concepts from the education system, ordered that foreign religions be “sinicized” in order to operate in China. He has also attempted, with limited success, to reorganise popular culture along more conservative lines, going so far as to ban “effeminate” men from the state broadcaster.

The legal profession hasbeen a particular target, and in the early hours of July 9, 2015, three years into Xi’s first term as party general secretary, a series of raids nationwide resulted in the detention of some 300 human rights lawyers and associated activists.

Such approaches are in line with Xi’s more muscular foreign policy that seeks to challenge and possibly supplant the American-led international order that advocates for multiparty democracy, civil society and human rights.

The directive from the party’s general office said teachers and students of law and legal theory workers must be guided to have a “clear-cut position and take a firm stance in the face of issues of principle and right and wrong”.

BOLA TINUBU WINS NIGERIA'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AGAINST ATIKU ABUBAKAR AND PETER OBI

Ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu has been declared the winner of Nigeria's disputed presidential election.

The 70-year-old veteran politician got 36% of the vote, official results show.

His main rival Atiku Abubakar polled 29%, and Labour's Peter Obi 25%. Their parties had earlier dismissed the poll as a sham, and demanded a rerun.

Mr Tinubu is one of Nigeria's richest politicians, and based his campaign on his record of rebuilding the biggest city, Lagos, when he was governor.

He was nevertheless defeated in the city by Mr Obi, a relative newcomer who mobilised the support of many young people, especially in urban areas, shaking up the country's two-party system.

Mr Tinubu won most other states in his home region of the south-west, where he is known as a "political godfather".

He campaigned for the presidency under the slogan: "It's my turn".

President Muhammadu Buhari is stepping down after two terms in office, marked by economic stagnation and growing insecurity around the country - from an Islamist insurgency in the north-east to a nationwide crisis of kidnapping for ransom and separatist attacks in the south-east.

Mr Tinubu now has the task of solving these problems, among others, in Africa's most populous nation and biggest oil exporter.