GUAM
Rain, wind lash territory
Typhoon Mawar yesterday aimed its fury at the tiny US territory as residents with nowhere to go hunkered down to face the devastating winds and torrential rains from what was expected to be the worst storm to hit the Pacific island in decades. The US military sent ships, residents stockpiled supplies and anyone not living in a concrete house was urged to seek safety elsewhere ahead of the typhoon, which was forecast to arrive as a Category 4 storm with winds of 225kph, but could possibly strengthen to a Category 5, the most powerful. The last time a Category 5 directly hit the territory was in 1962. Forecasters at the local National Weather Service office said they were seeing “almost whiteout conditions” at their office, and hearing low rumblings and shaking shutters and doors, as the storm intensified yesterday afternoon.
HONG KONG
Police to probe organ system
Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) on Tuesday said police would investigate suspicious applications from people seeking to withdraw from the territory’s organ donation system, condemning the alleged attempt to damage the program as shameful. The organ donation registration system received nearly 5,800 withdrawal applications in the five months since December last year, when the government raised the possibility of establishing an organ transplant mutual assistance program with mainland China. More than half of the withdrawal applications were found to be invalid, either as duplicate applications or coming from people who had never opted in. “I severely condemn those who attempt to cause damages to this noble system which saves lives through organ donations,” he told a media briefing. “This is a shameful act.”
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant