The Week in Short World

Stopping Illegal Immigration Is Priority for British People, Sunak Says

PREVENTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS from reaching the UK’s shores in small boats is a priority for the British people, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said, as he defended the government’s plan to crack down on illegal crossings in the English Channel.

The government has announced the Illegal Migration Bill, which will ban anyone who arrives in the UK illegally from claiming asylum.

New WHO Chief Scientist Made Crucial Change to Paper on COVID-19 Origin

THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION ’s new chief scientist made a crucial change to an influential 2020 paper that claimed it was “improbable” that COVID-19 came from a laboratory, a newly disclosed email shows.

Jeremy Farrar, the chief scientist, was credited in one message with helping guide the paper about the origin of COVID-19, according to an email released by the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

In the early 2020 paper, Dr. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University professor, and four co-authors claimed that “it is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.”

SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.

A draft of the manuscript, published by Nature, included a different word, the House panel found.

“Sorry to micro-manage/microedit! But would you be willing to change one sentence?” Farrar wrote to Kristian Andersen, who co-authored the paper, in an email just one day before publication.

Farrar asked to insert “improbable” in place of “unlikely,” the email showed.

“Sure,” Andersen responded.

Defense Secretary Makes Unannounced Visit to Iraq

TWENTY YEARS AFTER THE START of the U.S.-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made an unannounced visit to Baghdad on March 7 to meet with the nation’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia alSudani.

Austin is on a week-long tour of the Middle East, during which he will meet with the leaders of nations that are allied with the United States.

The focus of Austin’s meeting with al-Sudani was to discuss the future of the U.S. troop presence in Iraq.

There are 2,500 U.S. troops in the country.

Under the new law, illegal entrants will be swiftly removed from the UK to their home country or a safe third country such as Rwanda. They also will be banned from reentry.

According to government figures, a record 45,755 illegal immigrants arrived in the UK after crossing the channel in 2022. More than 3,000 have already made the journey this year.

White House Dismisses

China’s Threat of ‘Catastrophic Conflict’

THE WHITE HOUSE is responding to threats from a senior Chinese communist official who demanded that the United States stop considering China a geopolitical threat or face consequences.

The Biden administration doesn’t seek conflict with China’s communist regime, according to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.

“We seek a strategic competition with China,” Kirby said during a press call. “We do not seek conflict.”

The Chinese Communist Party has increasingly taken a more belligerent stance toward the United States since leader Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.