Your Monday Briefing: South Africa’s parliament burns

January 3, 2022

By Amelia Nierenberg

Writer, Briefings

Good morning. We're covering a fire in South Africa's Parliament, a breach in the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea, and possible changes to women's rights in China.

Smoke billowed from the National Assembly building in Cape Town.Joao Silva/The New York Times

South Africa's parliament burns

A large fire damaged much of the Houses of Parliament on Sunday. Officials warned that the damage to the historic complex would be extensive.

Officials said the fire spread from an office space on the third floor of a building adjacent to the old National Assembly building. Cape Town's Fire and Rescue Service spokesman warned that the buildings themselves were at risk of collapse, given the intense heat of the fire.

Parliament's spokesman said that a man in his early 50s was arrested in connection to the fire, but he did not give any further details.

Details: No injuries or fatalities have been reported. Parliament was not in session.

Quotable: "The entire parliamentary complex is severely damaged — waterlogged and smoke damaged," said JP Smith, Cape Town's mayoral committee member for safety and security, adding that "the roof above the old assembly hall is completely gone."

Desmond Tutu: The blaze broke out a day after South Africa bid farewell to the archbishop with a simple funeral. Tutu's death has reignited a conversation about the country's reconciliation process and its democracy.

A South Korean soldier walked along a military fence near the Demilitarized Zone in September.Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

A breach in the DMZ

The South Korean military said on Sunday that an unidentified person had crossed the Demilitarized Zone into North Korea.

Footage of the person climbing a tall barbed-wire fence — the southernmost of multiple fences in the 2.5-mile-wide buffer zone separating the Koreas — was captured by South Korean cameras at 6:40 p.m. on Saturday. Sensors on the fence set off an alarm, the military said.

But this latest security lapse at one of the world's most heavily armed borders went unnoticed until 9:20 p.m. There was no immediate response from North Korea.

Details: Defections across the DMZ are rare and dangerous, and crosses from South to North are even rarer. The DMZ is bristling with fences, sensors, minefields, sentry posts and armed patrols, and nearly two million troops are ready for battle on both sides.

Background: The two Koreas have technically been at war for decades — the Korean War halted in 1953 with a truce, not a peace treaty. Some 33,800 North Koreans have defected to the South since famine struck the North in the 1990s.

Separately: Kim Jong-un has begun his second decade as North Korea's leader with a vow to alleviate the country's chronic food shortages, a problem that he inherited from his father 10 years ago.

Zhou Xiaoxuan with supporters outside a court in Beijing, after attending a hearing in her sexual harassment case against a television host.Roman Pilipey/EPA, via Shutterstock

China signals change on women's rights

Beijing has framed proposed revisions to China's law governing women's rights as a major victory.

The revisions would be the first major changes to the law in nearly 20 years and would refine the definition of sexual harassment, affirm prohibitions on workplace discrimination and ban forms of emotional abuse.

On paper, it seems like a triumph for activists. But many women are skeptical that real progress will follow.

The government has sought to control China's fledgling #MeToo movement. It is rare for victims of sexual harassment to go to court. Some women have been fired or fined for lodging accusations. Peng Shuai, a star tennis player, was censored within minutes after she said on social media that a top Chinese leader had pressured her into sex.

Context: Women have been increasingly pushed out of the workplace and into traditional roles since China's leader, Xi Jinping, assumed power. Many of the proposed revisions already exist in other laws or regulations but have been poorly enforced.

Details: The law would also codify women's right to ask for compensation for housework during divorce proceedings — after the first-of-its-kind decision by a court last year to award a woman more than $7,700 for her labor during her marriage.

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A Morning Read

Bae In-kyu, the head of Man on Solidarity, at a rally in Seoul last month.Woohae Cho for The New York Times

South Korea, which has the highest gender wage gap among the wealthy countries, has seen slow gains in women's rights. Now, a growing number of young men are protesting feminism, arguing that they are the victims of gender discrimination in the country's cutthroat job market.

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To the moon — and beyond

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