SOLOMON ISLANDS
Quake sways buildings
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the Solomon Islands yesterday, swaying buildings, hurling items off shelves and briefly knocking out power in parts of the capital, Honiara. There were no reports of serious injuries or major structural damage. “This was a big one,” said Joy Nisha, a receptionist with the Heritage Park Hotel in the capital. “Some of the things in the hotel fell. Everyone seems OK, but panicky.” At one recently built mall, chunks of cladding were shaken loose, crushing the front of a car and breaking the windshield. The roof of an annex at the Australian High Commission also collapsed, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told parliament in Canberra, adding: “There are no known injuries.” Across Honiara, people fled their homes and workplaces for higher ground, fearing a tsunami. A tsunami warning was issued, but was later withdrawn.
UNITED STATES
Marijuana pardons unveiled
Oregon Governor Kate Brown on Monday said that she is pardoning an estimated 45,000 people convicted of simple possession of marijuana. “No one deserves to be forever saddled with the impacts of a conviction for simple possession of marijuana — a crime that is no longer on the books in Oregon,” said Brown, who is also forgiving more than US$14 million in unpaid fines and fees. President Joe Biden has been calling on governors to issue pardons for those convicted of state marijuana offenses. Biden’s pardon applies to those convicted under federal law and thousands convicted in the District of Columbia. In Oregon, the pardon will remove 47,144 convictions for possession of a small amount of marijuana from individual records. Brown said that removing these criminal records eliminates barriers for employment, housing and educational opportunities.
UNITED STATES
SpaceX postpones launch
SpaceX on Monday said that it postponed the launch of the Eutelsat mission due to additional pre-flight checks. The company is now targeting the liftoff for about noon today Taiwan time. The weather was 20 percent favorable, SpaceX wrote on Twitter. The company was to launch the Eutelsat 10B mission to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
FRANCE
Cyberattack hits Guadeloupe
The Caribbean island of Guadeloupe has shut down all its computer networks to protect data after a “large-scale cyberattack,” local authorities said on Monday. “As a security measure, all computer networks have been shut down to protect data and a diagnosis is under way,” the region said in a statement. “A continuity of services plan has been put in place to ensure public services,” the regional authorities said, adding that they had filed a complaint and sent a notification to data protection authority CNIL. The region said it was also collaborating with the national police and the gendarmerie.
JAPAN
Church to be investigated
The government yesterday said that it would begin a probe of the Unification Church, starting a process that could strip the religious group of its legal status. The government would give the church until Dec. 9 to answer questions about its finances and organization, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Keiko Nagaoka told a regular news conference.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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