INDONESIA
Volcano erupts again
A volcano in North Maluku Province yesterday erupted, spewing an ash cloud 7km into the sky as authorities warned residents to shelter indoors. It is the latest of about 100 eruptions from the volcano since early this year. Mount Ibu, on Halmahera Island, erupted at 12:45pm, sending thick clouds of ash into the air, Geology Agency head Muhammad Wafid said in a statement. The eruption from the volcano — which has been at the highest alert level of the country’s four-tiered system since the middle of last month — lasted for 6 minutes, 13 seconds, he said.
INDIA
33 polling staff die from heat
At least 33 polling staff died on the last day of voting from heatstroke in just one state, a top election official said yesterday, after scorching temperatures gripped swathes of the country. While there have been reports of multiple deaths from the intense heat wave — with temperatures above 45°C in many places — the dozens of staff dying in one day marks an especially grim toll. The Meteorological Department said that temperatures at Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh reached 46.9°C.
AUSTRALIA
Bill to outlaw ‘deepfake’ porn
The government has announced new legislation making it a criminal offense to share “deepfake” pornographic images of people without their consent. The law, to be introduced to parliament this week, would bring in jail sentences of up to six years for sharing nonconsensual deepfake pornography. The penalty rises to seven years if the offender also created the material. “Digitally created and altered sexually explicit material that is shared without consent is a damaging and deeply distressing form of abuse,” Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said in a statement late on Saturday. “We know it overwhelmingly affects women and girls who are the target of this kind of deeply offensive and harmful behavior. It can inflict deep, long-lasting harm on victims.”
UNITED STATES
Boeing calls off launch
Last-minute computer trouble nixed Saturday’s launch attempt for Boeing’s first astronaut flight, the latest in a string of delays over the years. Two NASA astronauts were strapped in the company’s Starliner capsule when the countdown automatically was halted at 3 minutes, 50 seconds by the computer system that controls the final minutes before liftoff. With only a split second to take off, there was no time to work the latest problem and the launch was called off. Depending on what needs to be fixed, the next launch attempt could be as early as Wednesday. “This is the business that we’re in,” Boeing commercial crew program vice president Mark Nappi said. “Everything’s got to work perfectly.”
THAILAND
Police probe hacker’s assets
Police are probing more than 1 billion baht (US$27.21 million) of properties and assets that an alleged Chinese “super hacker” and his associates channeled into the country from their cybercrime activities. Wang Yunhe (王雲鶴) and other co-conspirators had invested in properties and shares of several companies, the Central Investigation Bureau said in a statement on Saturday. The bureau, in cooperation with US authorities, said it has seized at least 88 million baht of assets such as cash, luxury watches, a car and land deeds of Wang from searches of four locations in Chon Buri Province.
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