AUSTRALIA
X case dropped
The cybersafety regulator yesterday decided to drop a legal challenge against Elon Musk-owned X over the removal of videos of the stabbing of an Assyrian church bishop in Sydney, after a setback last month in the federal court. Judge Geoffrey Kennett last month rejected a bid by the eSafety commissioner to extend a temporary order for the social media platform to block videos of the knife attack, which authorities had called a terrorist attack. Commissioner Julie Inman Grant in a statement said the regulator had decided to drop its legal action against X. “Most Australians accept this kind of graphic material should not be on broadcast television, which begs an obvious question of why it should be allowed to be distributed freely and accessible online 24/7 to anyone, including children,” Grant said.
LEBANON
US embassy attacked
The army yesterday said a gunman attempted to attack the US embassy near Beirut. The military in a statement said that soldiers shot an assailant, who they only described as a Syrian national. The gunman was wounded and taken to a hospital. Local media reported that there was a gunfight for almost half an hour by the US diplomatic mission in the suburb of Aukar, north of Beirut. The US embassy said the morning attack by the its entrance did not cause any casualties among its staff, and that Lebanese troops and embassy security mobilized quickly. The Lebanese military said it deployed troops around the embassy and surrounding areas.
SOUTH AFRICA
Floods kill at least 22
Flooding caused by torrential rain and fierce winds on the eastern coast have killed at least 22 people, local authorities said on Tuesday. Flooding hit several locations in two eastern provinces, two rare tornadoes were spotted, temperatures plunged and snow fell in some central regions. At least 11 people died in Eastern Cape, said a spokesperson from Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, which was at the heart of the floods. More than 2,000 people have been evacuated from Nelson Mandela Bay, notably from makeshift homes in the municipality’s slums. Local authorities launched an appeal for donations of clothing, food and blankets. The provincial government in neighboring KwaZulu-Natal said at least 11 people had died in and around the port city of Durban. Provincial authorities declared a state of alert in KwaZulu-Natal. Durban and its surrounding area in 2022 was the site of the worst flooding in the nation’s history, which provoked mudslides that killed more than 400 people.
AUSTRALIA
Bird flu found at farms
A highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza has been found on a fourth poultry farm near Melbourne near two other properties where the virus had already been detected, the Victorian government said yesterday. “Avian influenza virus has been confirmed at a fourth Victorian poultry farm,” it said in a statement. The H7N3 strain of the virus has been detected at the farm, it said, which is not the same as the H5N1 strain that has spread globally through birds and mammals, and even into humans. H7N3 has now been found at three farms near the town of Meredith and an H7N9 strain has infected another farm near Terang, hour and half’s drive east. The state government said all the poultry at the farms would be killed and disposed of. That adds up to hundreds of thousands of birds, a small fraction of the nation’s total.
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