Philippines
Manila responds to Duterte
Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro yesterday vowed to “strictly enforce” the country’s sovereignty, joining the chorus of security officials pledging to defend the nation following secessionist threats made by former president Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte on Tuesday last week called for the independence of his hometown island Mindanao as his alliance with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr disintegrated last week over disagreements around efforts to amend the constitution. “The mandate of the Department of National Defense is to secure the sovereignty of the state and integrity of the national territory as enshrined in the constitution,” Teodoro said in a statement. “We will strictly enforce this mandate whether externally or internally,” he added. Teodoro’s remarks echoed similar statements made by the national security adviser, who on Sunday said the government would not hesitate to “use its authority and forces to quell and stop any and all attempts to dismember the Republic.”
PHILIPPINES
China hackers target sites
Hackers operating in China attempted to break into Web sites and e-mail systems of the president and government agencies, one promoting maritime security, but failed, a Department of Information and Communications Technology official said yesterday. The mailboxes of the department, the Web site of National Coast Watch and the personal Web site of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr were among the targets of the unsuccessful hacking operations this month, department spokesperson Renato Paraiso told DWPM radio. “We are not attributing this to any state, but using the Internet protocol addresses, we pinpointed it to China,” Paraiso said, adding that the hackers were traced to be using the services of Chinese state-owned Unicom.
CHILE
Fire death toll rises
The death toll from wildfires climbed to at least 112 people on Sunday, after President Gabriel Boric warned that the number would rise “significantly” as teams search gutted neighborhoods. Responders continued to battle fires in the coastal tourist region of Valparaiso amid an intense summer heat wave, with temperatures soaring to 40°C over the weekend. The Ministry of the Interior late on Sunday said that the medical examiner’s office had received 112 dead victims, 32 of whom have been identified, and that there are 40 fires still active in the country.
HONG KONG
Firm scammed for US$26m
Scammers tricked a multinational firm out of about HK$200 million (US$26 million) via 15 transactions by impersonating senior executives using “deepfake” technology, police said on Sunday. An employee in the finance department of a company received “videoconference calls from someone posing as senior officers of the company requesting to transfer money to designated bank accounts,” police said. Police received a report of the incident on Monday last week. The scammers pretended to be the firm’s UK-based chief financial officer, media reports said. “Scammers found publicly available video and audio of the impersonation targets via YouTube, then used deepfake technology to emulate their voices ... to lure the victim to follow their instructions,” Acting Police Senior Superintendent Baron Chan (陳純青) told reporters. The videos were prerecorded and did not involve dialogue or interaction with the victim, he added.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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