VIETNAM
Flash flooding kills five
Flash flooding killed five people, damaged hundreds of homes and destroyed crops, disaster authorities said yesterday, after Tropical Storm Trami dumped heavy rain across the country. Trami made landfall on Sunday after tearing through the Philippines, where it killed more than 100 people. Five people died in Quang Binh Province and five others were injured, the Ministry of Agriculture said in an online report. More than 300 houses and nearly 1,300 hectares of crops were damaged, the ministry added.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
COP29 boycott announced
Port Moresby yesterday said that it would boycott this month’s UN climate summit, branding the negotiations a “waste of time,” full of empty promises from big polluters. While many have criticized the annual COP summit, it is rare for any government to so totally dismiss the UN’s premier climate talks. “There’s no point going if we are falling asleep because of jet lag because we’re not getting anything done,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Justin Tkatchenko told reporters ahead of this month’s COP29 summit in Azerbaijan. “All the big polluters of the world promise and commit millions to assist in climate relief and support. And I can tell you now it’s all going to consultants. COP is a total waste of time,” Tkatchenko said. “We are sick of the rhetoric as well as the merry-go-round of getting absolutely nothing done over the last three years. We are the third-biggest rainforest nation in the world. We are sucking up the pollutants of these major countries. And they are getting away with it scot-free.”
UNITED STATES
Snow falls in Hawaii
Snow fell on Hawaii’s tallest peak this week. The summit area of Mauna Kea, which is 4,207m above sea level, on Big Island got about 5cm of white powder. Temperatures there can drop below freezing year-round, creating the potential for snow during any month.
UNITED STATES
Police seek ballot arsonist
A man suspected of setting fires in election ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington state is an experienced metalworker and might be planning additional attacks, authorities said on Wednesday. Investigators believe the man who set the incendiary devices at ballot boxes in Portland, Oregon, and nearby Vancouver, Washington, had a “wealth of experience” in metal fabrication and welding, Portland Police Bureau spokesman Mike Benner said. The way the devices were constructed and the way they were attached to the metal drop boxes showed that expertise, Benner said. Authorities described the suspect as a white man, aged 30 to 40, who was driving a black or dark-colored Volvo S-60. The incendiary devices were marked with the message “Free Gaza,” a law enforcement official said on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.
MEXICO
Top judges to resign
Eight of the 11 Supreme Court judges have submitted their resignations following judicial reforms, the top court said on Wednesday. In a move that has sparked diplomatic tensions and opposition street protests, the nation is set to become the only one in the world to allow voters to choose all judges, at every level, starting next year. The eight justices declined to stand for election in June next year, the court said in a statement.
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
RSS