PAKISTAN
Bombings kill at least 24
A pair of bombings at the election offices of a political party and an independent candidate in the southwest killed at least 24 people and wounded more than two dozen others, officials said yesterday, the day before parliamentary elections are to be held. The first attack happened in Baluchistan Province’s Pashin District, provincial spokesperson Jan Achakzai said. Officials said at least 14 people were killed in the attack and the wounded are being transported to a nearby hospital. Police said some of them were listed in critical condition. Later yesterday, another bombing at the elections office of politician Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema Islam party in Baluchistan’s Qilla Saifullah Town killed at least 10 people, Acahkzai and local authorities said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. Caretaker Minister of the Interior Gohar Ejaz denounced the bombings.
NETHERLANDS
China denies hacking
Beijing would never allow any Chinese entities or individuals to conduct illegal activities such as cyberattacks or use Chinese facilities for such attacks, the Chinese embassy in the Netherlands said in a statement yesterday. The embassy was responding to a report by Dutch intelligence agencies that said Chinese state-backed cyberspies gained access to a Dutch military network last year. It was the first time the Netherlands has publicly attributed cyberespionage to China. “China opposes any malicious speculation and groundless accusations, and advocates joint efforts to safeguard cybersecurity through dialogue and cooperation,” an embassy spokesperson was quoted as saying in the statement. The allegations are the latest by a country claiming that China has tried to hack sensitive information, with the Philippines on Monday saying it had thwarted an attack by Chinese hackers.
CHINA
Antarctic station opens
The nation yesterday inaugurated its Ross Sea scientific research station, Xinhua news agency reported, starting operations in an outpost in a part of the antarctic south of Australia and New Zealand for the first time. Resembling a crucifix, like the Crux constellation, the Qinling station is to be staffed year-round with quarters sufficient to house as many as 80 people in the summer months, official media have said. Perched on the rocky coast of Inexpressible Island, Qinling is also situated near the permanently inhabited US McMurdo station. China has four other research stations in other parts of Antarctica, two of which also operate year-round.
SINGAPORE
Ex-PM’s son found liable
The High Court has found Goh Jin Hian (吳振賢) liable for US$146 million in losses under his watch as director of a now-insolvent marine fuel supplying company, adding to the legal problems facing the son of former prime minister Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟). Doing his duties “would have led him to realize that the company was being defrauded,” Justice Aedit Abdullah said in published remarks dated Jan. 24 on a petition involving Inter-Pacific Petroleum Pte. The defense argued there was no such breach or causation of loss, and regardless, the company qualifies for relief from liability under the companies act. “The financial position of the company was suspect, and should have primed the defendant to look further and obtain a picture of the true state of the affairs of the company and monitor what was happening within it,” the judge said. “That was his duty as a director.”
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
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
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
RSS