Australians sent into panic by tsunami warning – it was just a test
Some residents of eastern Australia experienced brief panic on Wednesday morning after the Bureau of Meteorology sent out a test tsunami warning to residents across New South Wales, Queensland, and as far inland as Canberra.
The alert, which was part of a test of new software, referenced an 8.2 magnitude earthquake off New Zealand’s coast and triggered alarm among a number of users, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The alerts that popped up via the bureau’s weather app did not include the word “test” in the title, screenshots shared by concerned users showed, although the full text of the alert was clearly labelled as such.
The bureau sent a message through its app at 11.32am, warning of a tsunami threat to Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland. Users in the Blue Mountains and as far away as Canberra reportedly also received the alert.
Shortly after, it sent another message reading “cancelled tsunami warning” which again clarified that it was a test.
But a combination of misreading the first message, and the interval between the two messages, was enough for some app users to go into panic and confusion. Many users were caught off guard despite the bureau advising that tests would take place between 11am and 12pm on Wednesday and to ignore the alert.
“A tsunami warning for Australia? I hope it’s just that, a warning and not an actual tsunami,” a user posted on X.
“Nothing quite like a casual tsunami warning to get the heart rate up on a Wednesday,” wrote another.
Later, the bureau apologised for the confusion. A spokesperson explained that the test messages were part of the transition to a new tsunami early warning system software.
“There is NO tsunami threat to Australia,” the spokesperson said.
“The Bureau acknowledges and apologises for any confusion that this test may have caused. Testing is important to help the Bureau and partners prepare and plan for real tsunami threats.”
Some social media commentators also criticised app users who were deceived by the test warning, accusing them of failing to pay attention to detail as the alerts clearly indicated that they were part of a test.
President appoints Sri Lanka’s first female prime minister in 24 years
Sri Lanka’s new president Anura Kumara Dissanayake has named Harini Amarasuriya, a member of his National People’s Power (NPP) coalition, as the country’s prime minister.
The leftist president, popularly known as AKD, was sworn into office on Monday after securing a landslide victory in the first presidential election held since the anti-government protests in 2022 that forced then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign and flee.
He called for snap parliamentary elections after dissolving parliament shortly after his weekend election victory.
Ms Amarasuriya, 54, is the first woman in more than two decades and the only third woman in the history of independent Sri Lanka to take charge as the prime minister. She is a sociology lecturer and known for her activism on gender and minority rights.
The last woman to serve as prime minister was Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who became the world’s first female head of government after the post in 1960. Her daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga took office in 1994.
A government notification on Tuesday said that the 225-member parliament was dissolved effective midnight and that the fresh election was set for 14 November, nearly a year ahead of schedule.
The move is seen as the president’s bid to consolidate power in parliament, where Mr Dissanayake’s NPP holds just three seats. “We will have the smallest cabinet in the history of Sri Lanka,” party member Namal Karunaratne told reporters.
Mr Dissanayake’s lack of a majority makes it difficult for him to appoint a fully-fledged cabinet, and he had vowed during the campaign to dissolve parliament and call a snap election. The present parliament’s five-year term ends next August.
Despite being a minority in parliament, the 2022 protests triggered by the economic crisis in the island paved the way for Mr Dissanayake’s rise to power. “Your commitment has brought us this far, and for that, I am deeply grateful. This victory belongs to all of us,” he wrote in a post on X after securing 42 per cent of votes.
“The task facing her is extraordinarily challenging, but she is a woman of extraordinary capacities,” Jonathan Spencer, emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh, told The Hindu.
Mr Dissanayake retained the defence, energy and agricultural portfolios while handing over justice, education, labour, science, health and investment ministries to the prime minister.
A third member of the coalition, Vijitha Herath, was appointed the new foreign minister with an additional charge of public security.
The president will address the nation on Wednesday as he prepares to renegotiate the economically embattled country’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme.
Former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who secured the third-highest votes in the presidential election had warned that any move to alter the basics of the bailout agreement would delay the release of a fourth tranche of nearly $3bn (£2.24bn).
“We will not shred the agreement,” said Bimal Ratnayake, a senior aide to the new president. “It is a binding document, but there is a provision to renegotiate,” he told AFP.
The IMF offered its congratulations to Mr Dissanayake, saying it “looked forward to working together with the president … towards building on the hard-won gains that have helped put Sri Lanka on a path to economic recovery”.
Why a zoo in Finland is returning two giant pandas to China
A zoo in Finland is returning a pair of giant pandas to China as financial hardship and rising inflation are making it difficult to keep them.
Lumi and Pyry are leaving Finland about eight years ahead of schedule. The pandas arrived in the Scandinavian country in January 2018 under an agreement with the Chinese government following a state visit by president Xi Jinping and were supposed to remain for 15 years.
Pyry is a male panda originally named Hua Bao and Lumi is a female called Jin Bao Bao back in China.
The Ahtari Zoo hoped the pandas would attract more visitors to its central location but that has not happened. As a result, the zoo has accumulated significant debt since the Covid pandemic.
Risto Sivonen, chair of the private company operating the zoo, said they invested over €8m (£6m) in the facility to house the animals and run an annual bill of €1.5m (£1.2m) for their upkeep, including a preservation fee paid to China.
The zoo has faced increasing financial hardship in recent years, in large part because of the pandemic, reduced tourist footfall, and soaring inflation and rising interest rates due to the war in Ukraine.
The zoo asked for a €5m (£4.2m) grant from the Finnish government but the application was declined.
The iconic pandas are native to China and are classified as vulnerable.
China has used pandas as part of its efforts to improve relations with foreign countries, a practice known as “panda diplomacy”. The animals are sent abroad to serve as a symbol of friendship between China and those countries.
Singapore minister pleads guilty in high-profile corruption trial
Singapore’s former transport minister Subramaniam Iswaran has been convicted of receiving gifts while in office, after pleading guilty in court on Tuesday.
His case has shocked Singapore, which is one of the least corrupt countries globally, according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2022, the only Asian nation in the top 10.
Iswaran, widely recognised for his key role in bringing the Formula One night race to Singapore, is the first political officeholder in nearly four decades to be subjected to a corruption investigation.
A former senior member of the long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), Iswaran pleaded guilty in January this year to 35 charges of accepting gifts, including concert tickets and golf clubs, totalling 403,000 Singapore dollars (£234,586), as well as graft and obstruction of justice.
At the beginning of the trial, local media reported that prosecutors would only pursue five charges, which included four related to public servants receiving valuable items and one charge of obstruction of justice, according to Channel News Asia.
The remaining 30 charges will be taken into consideration for sentencing, the outlet said.
The 62-year-old former transport minister was arrested in July last year for allegedly accepting kickbacks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from property tycoon Ong Beng Seng, who owns the rights to the Formula One Grand Prix.
In Iswaran’s case, the charges relate to his dealings with two businessmen – Mr Ong and construction company boss Lum Kok Seng. Neither businessmen have been charged with any wrongdoing, according to Al Jazeera.
Iswaran, an advisor to the Grand Prix’s steering committee, previously denied the allegations when he resigned from his cabinet position. In a letter to the then prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, Iswaran wrote: “I reject the charges and am innocent.”
The charge of accepting gifts could result in a prison sentence of up to two years and a fine, while the obstruction of justice charge carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison and a fine. Despite this, the prosecution has requested a lighter sentence of six to seven months, while the defence is seeking just eight weeks.
In January this year, Singapore’s then prime minister said about the Iswaran corruption case: “I am determined to uphold the integrity of the party and the government, and our reputation for honesty and incorruptibility. Singaporeans expect no less.”
On Tuesday, it was revealed in the court that the investigation into Iswaran began when the anti-graft agency discovered a flight manifest from a private jet belonging to property tycoon Mr Ong, which Iswaran took to Doha in December 2022 without paying for the flight or his hotel stay. Following this revelation, Iswaran asked Mr Ong to have the Singapore Grand Prix bill him for the trip.
“Public confidence in the impartiality of the government will be severely undermined and not punishing such acts will send a signal that such acts are to be tolerated,” deputy attorney-general Tai Wei Shyong told the court.
Iswaran’s defence claimed that he had disclosed the gifts during the investigation and that he had known Mr Ong and Mr Lum before their business dealings began. They argued that he did not harm the government’s interests and requested a maximum sentence of only eight weeks.
The former minister had also refunded his salary as minister and his allowances as a member of parliament since the start of the investigations, his lawyer Davinder Singh said.
“These were just gifts that were presented to him,” Mr Singh told the court. “Mr Iswaran’s receipt of the gifts, when viewed in its proper context, gives a different complexion. He accepted the gifts without any ill intention or motive.”
In January this year, there were concerns that this case could deal a blow to PAP. Eugene Tan, an associate professor of law at Singapore Management University told The New York Times at the time: “One can’t deny that this is a body blow to the PAP, to the government and to Singapore. This is a system that has always prided itself in high public life standards and incorruptibility.”
He added: “When you have a series of allegations that a minister had compromised himself, that does raise legitimate concerns.”
Iswaran’s case is the first corruption case involving a minister since 1986, when Singapore’s former minister for national development Teh Cheang Wan was accused of accepting S$1m ($775,000) in bribes. Teh took his own life during the inquiry.
However, public sentiment toward the long-ruling People’s Action Party remains predominantly positive. “I do not foresee that this case will have much of an impact on (prime minister) Lawrence Wong’s premiership,” Felix Tan, an independent political observer told Al Jazeera.
“That said, there might still be some trickle-down effects, such as whether this case is a reflection of the new crop of 4G leadership [Singapore’s terminology for its new generation of political leaders] and the failure of government institutions.”
Iswaran’s sentencing has been adjourned to 3 October at 10am and his bail extended.
Additional reporting by agencies.
Meryl Streep says cats have more rights than women in Afghanistan
A female cat has more freedom in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan today than a woman, Meryl Streep said at the United Nations on Monday, stating that the world has been upended.
“Today in Kabul a female cat has more freedom than a woman. A cat may go sit on her front stoop and feel the sun on her face. She may chase a squirrel into the park. A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan today, because the public parks have been closed to women and girls by the Taliban,” the Hollywood actor said.
She joined several prominent Afghan women activists at the event “The Inclusion of Women in the Future of Afghanistan” on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
“A bird may sing in Kabul, but a girl may not and a woman may not in public. This is extraordinary. This is a suppression of the natural law. This is odd,” she said, referring to the Taliban’s latest edict for Afghan women, banning their voices and presence from public spaces.
Women in Afghanistan, nearly half the population, have been banned by the Taliban from attending high school, colleges and universities. It further restricts women from working in a horrific repeat of its 90s rule on the country.
Afghan women are not allowed to step outside their homes and need to be accompanied by a male guardian, father or husband (mehram) or face punishment by the local Taliban leaders. They are also prohibited from entering public parks, gymnasiums and salons, most of which have been shut down since August 2021 after the Taliban took control of power in Afghanistan.
“The way that … this society has been upended is a cautionary tale for the rest of the world,” Streep said, as she called on the international community to intervene on behalf of women to “stop the slow suffocation of entire half of the population”.
“I feel that the Taliban, since they have issued over 100 edicts in Afghanistan, stripping women and girls of their education and employment, their freedom of expression and movement, they have effectively incarcerated half their population,” she said.
The multi-award winning actor also called on the Sunni community nations to intervene as the Taliban claim to be a Sunni Islamist movement.
Streep also pointed out women comprised most of Afghanistan’s civil servants in the 1970s, before the nation plunged into wars over the next five decades.
The Taliban have outright rejected the foreign criticism of its harsh edicts on Afghan women, calling it an internal matter of Afghanistan. However the group is denied recognition by the international community, which has asked the Taliban leaders to restore the basic human rights of women.
The Taliban say they respect rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
“Without educated women, without women in employment, including in leadership roles, and without recognising the rights and freedoms of one-half of its population, Afghanistan will never take its rightful place on the global stage,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
Pope Francis appeals for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release and says she can stay with him at the Vatican
Pope Francis has appealed for the release of Myanmar’s jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi and even offered to shelter her at the Vatican.
“I asked for Ms Suu Kyi’s release and received her son in Rome,” he reportedly said in a private conversation during his recent 12-day tour of southeast Asia. “I offered the Vatican to receive her in our territory.”
Myanmar’s future, the Pope added, “must be … based on respect for the dignity and rights of all, on respect for a democratic order that allows everyone to contribute to the common good”.
The remarks were reported in an article for Italian daily Corriere della Sera by Father Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit priest who attends the Pope’s meetings and writes about them afterwards with his permission.
Ms Suu Kyi has been sentenced to 27 years in prison after the military removed her and her democratically elected government from power in a 2021 coup.
She was jailed on a string of charges, including the illegal import of walkie-talkies, that are widely viewed as being politically motivated.
Many leaders have called for her unconditional release along with thousands of others who were detained in a bloody crackdown against pro-democracy protests following the coup. While the protests have been quashed, the military is now engaged in a bitter civil conflict with rebel groups along much of the country’s border regions.
Ms Suu Kyi, daughter of modern Myanmar’s founder, was hailed as a human rights icon and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after waging a long fight to restore democracy in her country, during which she spent many years under house arrest.
She was named state councillor in 2016, becoming the de facto leader of the country, after her NLD party won the first democratic elections for more than five decades.
Ms Suu Kyi was heavily criticised for appearing to defend the brutal treatment of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.
She declared that Rohingya refugees had exaggerated the extent of atrocities and that Myanmar was the victim of “unsubstantiated narratives” by human rights groups and UN investigators just before the International Court of Justice ruled that the Muslim minority remained “at serious risk of genocide”.
Ms Suu Kyi met Francis in November 2017. Although the Pope called for peace and respect for human rights in Myanmar, he was heavily criticised for not directly mentioning the plight of the Rohingya.
The Pope’s latest remarks came in the wake of a UN report stating that Myanmar’s ruling military junta had ramped up killings and arrests in an apparent bid to silence critics. The junta is also recruiting soldiers for its escalating conflict with ethnic tribes.
The junta this month declared three of the most powerful armed ethnic groups fighting against the country’s army as terrorist organisations, state broadcaster MRTV reported. Myanmar is engulfed in a civil war which has lately seen the army forced onto the back foot by militias seeking autonomy for their regions.
Jimmy Lai’s lawyers appeal to UN over media mogul’s health
The Hong Kong government has condemned a team of international lawyers for raising the issue of media mogul Jimmy Lai’s deteriorating health in a maximum security prison with the United Nations, calling it “unreasonable smears”.
Lai’s international legal team and his son Sebastien Lai in an appeal to the UN Special Rapporteur said the circumstances under which the 76-year-old British citizen was kept in prolonged solitary confinement posed “a grave risk” to his physical and mental health and to his life.
Lai has been in detention since December 2020 as he is being tried in a delayed and gruelling national security trial on charges of sedition and collusion with foreign powers. Lai was first detained at Hong Kong’s maximum-security Stanley Prison but was transferred to the Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre at the beginning of the year.
The concerns were exacerbated after observers noted that the pro-democracy newspaper tycoon appeared “clearly trembling and feeling unwell” during a 3 June hearing on the delayed trial, the appeal said.
Detailing his health issues, his legal team said Lai appeared in court showing “significant loss of weight and increasing frailty” and he was seen shivering.
The lawyers alleged that Lai had been denied access to specialised medical care for his long-standing health concern of diabetes.
The legal team said a “lack of specialised medical care increases the risk of long-term complications linked to his diabetes due to the failure to properly manage his condition”.
“International law is clear: it is always unlawful for a prisoner to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and States must protect prisoners from such treatment,” King’s Counsel Caoilfhionn Gallagher said.
His son urged the UN and the UK government to take immediate action to ensure his release “before it is too late”.
“My father has endured so much for standing up for his beliefs and for the people of Hong Kong. He has been imprisoned for over three and a half years and faces the risk of dying behind bars,” he said.
“Today, for the first time, we are filing an Urgent Appeal with the United Nations over my father’s appalling and inhumane prison conditions. His treatment by the authorities poses a very serious risk to his health and even to his life.”
The Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported that the Hong Kong government did not directly address whether Lai was given specialist care while in detention.
In a statement, the government said it “strongly rejects unreasonable smears by external forces regarding treatment received by Lai”.
It said any accusation concerning Lai not receiving appropriate treatment in prison “cannot be further from the truth and is only spreading rumours to create trouble”.
A government spokesperson told HKFP that each jail cell was “of adequate size and designed to ensure proper lighting, ventilation, and fittings essential for maintaining health”.
On 12 August, a British judge upheld the conviction against Lai and six fellow accused for their role in the 2019 anti-government protests.
Lai, the founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, is facing the prospect of life in prison if found guilty of sedition and collusion with foreign powers under the city’s national security law.
He has pleaded not guilty on two charges of collusion with foreign forces and one count of conspiring to publish seditious material.
Lai is expected to testify when his trial resumes in November.
Parents say troop of monkeys saved their child from being raped
The parents of a six-year-old child in India say an attack by a troop of monkeys saved their daughter from being raped.
The girl escaped unharmed after an unknown stranger lured her into an abandoned house in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, the family said.
Police have registered a case under child protection laws, though the assailant has not been identified. No arrests have yet been made.
The girl’s father told the Times of India that the man was captured on a surveillance camera leading the child into an abandoned house through the narrow lanes of the village. The man attempted to sexually assault her when a troop of monkeys aggressively charged towards him, forcing him to leave, the family say.
The girl escaped from the house and later described to her family how the “monkeys saved her”, the newspaper reported.
“My daughter was playing outside when the accused took her away,” the father said. “The man can be seen in nearby CCTV footage, walking in a narrow lane with my daughter.”
The girl told her parents that the man threatened to kill her father if she spoke to anyone about the incident.
“My daughter would have been dead by now if monkeys had not intervened,” the girl’s father said.
Harish Bhadioria, a local police officer, said they are investigating the incident “involving monkeys”.
A complaint has been registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, he said.
Police say they are still working to identify and track down the perpetrator.
Monkeys live alongside people in many parts of India due to the loss of their natural habitat, and some species – particularly rhesus macaques – are infamous for their occasionally aggressive behaviour towards humans when they feel threatened.
Many in the Hindu-majority country also revere and feed the animals they consider to be connected to the demigod Hanuman, who takes the form of a monkey. They are often found in large numbers outside temples where devotees offer them food.