GUAM
Rain, wind lash territory
Typhoon Mawar yesterday aimed its fury at the tiny US territory as residents with nowhere to go hunkered down to face the devastating winds and torrential rains from what was expected to be the worst storm to hit the Pacific island in decades. The US military sent ships, residents stockpiled supplies and anyone not living in a concrete house was urged to seek safety elsewhere ahead of the typhoon, which was forecast to arrive as a Category 4 storm with winds of 225kph, but could possibly strengthen to a Category 5, the most powerful. The last time a Category 5 directly hit the territory was in 1962. Forecasters at the local National Weather Service office said they were seeing “almost whiteout conditions” at their office, and hearing low rumblings and shaking shutters and doors, as the storm intensified yesterday afternoon.
HONG KONG
Police to probe organ system
Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) on Tuesday said police would investigate suspicious applications from people seeking to withdraw from the territory’s organ donation system, condemning the alleged attempt to damage the program as shameful. The organ donation registration system received nearly 5,800 withdrawal applications in the five months since December last year, when the government raised the possibility of establishing an organ transplant mutual assistance program with mainland China. More than half of the withdrawal applications were found to be invalid, either as duplicate applications or coming from people who had never opted in. “I severely condemn those who attempt to cause damages to this noble system which saves lives through organ donations,” he told a media briefing. “This is a shameful act.”
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS