JAPAN
Spy satellite launched
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd yesterday launched a rocket carrying a government intelligence-gathering satellite on a mission to watch movements at military sites in North Korea and improve responses to natural disasters. The H2A rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center carrying the optical satellite as part of Tokyo’s reconnaissance effort to rapidly buildup its military capability. The satellite can capture images even in severe weather. Japan began the intelligence-gathering satellite program after a North Korean missile flew over Japan in 1988 and it aims to set up a network of 10 satellites to spot and provide early warning for possible missile launches. Yesterday’s liftoff was closely watched ahead of a planned launch of a new flagship H3 rocket developed by Mitsubishi Heavy and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency as the successor to the H2A. The first test flight of the new rocket failed last year. The Mitsubishi Heavy-operated, liquid-fuel H2A rocket with two solid-fuel sub-rockets has 41 consecutive successes since a failure in 2003, or a 98 percent success rate.
Photo: Kyodo / Reuters
CHINA
New climate envoy named
Beijing has named former minister of foreign affairs Liu Zhenmin (劉振民) as its new special envoy for climate change, after his predecessor, Xie Zhenhua (解振華) stepped down due to health reasons, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said in a statement yesterday. Xie, 74, served as China’s top climate representative at 16 rounds of climate talks. His resignation was announced following a video meeting with US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and comes only weeks after he helped secure an agreement to tackle emissions from fossil fuels at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Liu, 68, acted as Xie’s special adviser in Dubai and has experience in climate diplomacy, participating in negotiations to draw up the 1997 Kyoto Protocol as well as the 2015 Paris Agreement. Unlike Xie, Liu is a fluent English speaker. He served as under-secretary-general at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs from 2017 to 2022, with a broad brief that included climate issues.
UNITED STATES
Mississippi water tainted
Mississippi health officials on Thursday told residents in Jackson to boil their tap water after traces of Escherichia coli were found in the state’s capital’s supply — a result the manager of Jackson’s long-troubled water system disputed while calling it a devastating setback for rebuilding public trust. The boil-water notice, which officials also imposed in the Jackson suburb of Flowood, was issued just days before the expected arrival of a blast of cold weather that could further disrupt the local water infrastructure. The bacteria’s presence indicates that the water might be contaminated with human or animal waste, the Mississippi Department of Health said. Residents of the two Mississippi cities were advised to boil their water for one minute before using it. The precaution was to last for at least two days as officials collected new samples for testing. Ted Henifin, Jackson’s interim water manager, told a news conference that state officials refused to validate the lab results before issuing the boil-water notice and suggested there might have been false positive tests. He also said it was unlikely that samples from Jackson and Flowood would be contaminated at the same time, as the cities’ water systems are not connected.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
STILL IN POWER: US intelligence reports showed that the Iranian regime is not in danger of collapse and retains control of the public, casting doubt on Trump’s exit Nearly every US Senate Democrat on Wednesday signed a letter sent to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requesting a “swift investigation” of airstrikes on a girls’ school in Iran that killed scores of children and any other potential US military actions causing civilian harm. Reuters reported on Thursday last week that US military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for the Feb. 28 strike on the school, as US and Israeli forces launched attacks on Iran. “The results of this school attack are horrific. The majority of those killed in the strikes were girls between the ages
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