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 A tsunami warning was issued, but was later withdrawn.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.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
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