Tigers, lions and a panther die of suspected bird flu in Vietnam zoos
Forty-seven tigers, three lions, and a panther died in two zoos in southern Vietnam from suspected H5N1bird flu virus between August and September, the state media reported.
The deaths have been reported at the My Quynh Safari Park in Duc Hoa District, Long An Province and the Vuon Xoai Tourist Park in Biên Hoà City, Dong Nai, Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported on Wednesday.
My Quynh Safari Park said at least 27 tigers and tree lions have died during the period while Vuon Xoai zoo reported 20 tiger deaths.
The animals exhibited symptoms of illness and fatigue prior to their deaths. The tests conducted by the National Centre for Animal Health Diagnosis returned positive for the “H5N1 type A virus” among the animals, VNA reported.
At the safari park in Long An Province, at least three animal caregivers were identified as having close contact with the infected animals while some 30 employees at Dong Nai were in close contact with the animals, reported Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.
However, none of the staff members have reported respiratory symptoms, VNA said.
The H5N1 is a type of influenza A virus that is commonly known as avian influenza or “bird flu” and has been detected in birds and some mammals.
The World Health Organisation has said a variant of the virus has caused “unprecedented numbers of deaths in wild birds and poultry in many countries in Africa, Asia and Europe” since 2020. It says while the cases of transmission in humans are rare but can cause severe disease with a high mortality rate.
In March 2024, Vietnam reported its first human case of the virus to WHO. The 21-year-old patient, a student who had gone for wild bird trapping, died from contracting the virus.
In June, India also confirmed the first human case of avian influenza H9N2 in five years. It was the second case of a human infected with bird flu that India has notified WHO about. The first was in 2019.
The Independent has contacted My Quynh Safari Park and the Vuon Xoai Tourist Park for comments.
Singapore jails ex-minister in rare corruption case
A court in Singapore sentenced a former transport minister to 12 months in prison on charges of receiving more than £228,600 worth of gifts in a rare criminal case involving a cabinet member.
Subramaniam Iswaran, who has been a cabinet member for 13 years, pleaded guilty last week to one count of obstructing justice and four counts of improperly receiving gifts from people with whom he conducted official business.
Iswaran, 62, is the first political officeholder in nearly four decades to be subjected to a corruption investigation in a case that shocked the country known for its clean governance. Singapore is one of the top five least corrupt governments, according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2022.
The sentence handed down by presiding judge Vincent Hoong was more severe than the six to seven months sought by the prosecution. Mr Hoong said the sentence was “manifestly inadequate” given the gravity of Iswaran’s offences and their impact on public trust.
“Trust and confidence in public institutions were the bedrock of effective governance, which could all too easily be undermined by the appearance that an individual public servant had fallen below the standards of integrity and accountability,” he said.
Iswaran was initially charged with 35 counts, but prosecutors proceeded with only five, while reducing two counts of corruption to receiving illegal gifts. Prosecutors said they will apply for the remaining 30 charges to be taken into consideration for sentencing.
He was arrested in July last year and was accused of taking kickbacks from businessmen including Malaysian property tycoon Ong Beng Seng. Iswaran, credited for his key role in bringing the Formula One night race to Singapore, was an adviser to the sport’s steering committee, while Mr Ong owns the rights to the race.
Iswaran received gifts worth over £43,290 from Mr Ong, which included tickets to Grand Prix, wine and whisky and a luxury Brompton bike. Mr Ong, 78, is yet to be charged with any wrongdoing. However, The Straits Times reported the property tycoon is expected to be charged on Friday, according to court records.
“If public servants could accept substantial gifts in such a situation, over the long term, public confidence in the impartiality and integrity of government would be severely undermined,” deputy attorney-general Tai Wei Shyong was quoted by BBC as saying.
The attorney-general’s chambers said it would decide whether to charge Mr Ong and Mr Lum after the case against Iswaran has been resolved.
Iswaran had 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.”
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.”
The last cabinet minister charged was Wee Toon Boon, who was found guilty in 1975 and jailed for accepting gifts in exchange for helping a businessperson. Another cabinet minister was investigated for graft in 1986, but died before charges were filed.
Study finds origin of Australia’s 100,000 year-old ‘warrior pillars’
The strange limestone formations standing in the middle of Western Australia’s Pinnacles Desert were formed 100,000 years ago, according to a new study that sheds more light on climate change in the continent.
Australia’s Aboriginal Yued people believe the spikes represents the hands of warriors swallowed by the sandy place “Kwong-kan” stretching 1000km across.
Now, researchers from Curtin University have found that the limestone pillars measuring about 5m high and 2m wide were formed 100,000 years ago during what was the wettest period in the area’s past half-million years.
“We found this period was locally the wettest in the past half-million years, distinct from other regions in Australia and far removed from Western Australia’s current Mediterranean climate,” study co-author Matej Lipar said.
Scientists found that an abundance of water during this time caused the limestone to dissolve, forming the distinctive iron-rich pillars.
Researchers say such landscapes are found globally along shorelines, including in the Mediterranean, Middle East, southern and southeastern coastal Africa, as well as the Indian subcontinent, Caribbean, Bermuda, and some Pacific islands.
They say the terrain can serve as sensitive indicators of environmental change but only now a method to study the changes of these formations in depth has been developed.
“Studying them within an accurate timeline helps us understand how Earth’s geological systems respond to climate shifts,” Dr Lipar explained.
The iron-rich nodules in the limestone formations act as geological clocks as they trap helium from the decay of small amounts of radioactive uranium and thorium in the soil.
“Measuring this helium provides a precise record of when the nodules formed,” Martin Danišík, another author of the study, said.
“The innovative dating techniques developed in this study reveal the nodules date back about one hundred thousand years, highlighting an exceptionally wet climate period,” Dr Danisik said.
Scientists hope the new method will allow accurate dating of the climate shifts in such landscapes and help provide a more refined timeline of past environmental changes.
“This research not only advances scientific knowledge but also offers practical insights into climate history and environmental change, relevant to anyone concerned about our planet’s present and future,” Milo Barham, another of the study’s authors said.
How CIA is using videos to reach spies in China, North Korea and Iran
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) launched a new drive to hire potential spies in China, Iran, and North Korea after a similar successful campaign to recruit Russians.
The CIA posted instructions in Mandarin, Korean, and Farsi on Wednesday for individuals in these countries to be able to “securely” contact the agency.
Encouraged by the success of similar campaigns in Russia, CIA officials are attempting to reach out to dissatisfied individuals amid China’s broadening cooperation with Russia and Iran.
The organisation said it posted instructions across social media channels such as Telegram, Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube to allow people to contact the CIA via public or Dark Web sites.
“We want to make sure individuals in other authoritarian regimes know that we’re open for business,” a CIA spokesman said in a statement.
The CIA shared similar Russian-language messages after Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are known as the “hard targets” countries where governments have made it difficult for other nations to penetrate to gain insights into their workings or access other intelligence.
These nations block access to US social media platforms such as Facebook, deeming them unfavourable to the government. However, VPNs and other tools serve as a way to get around this censorship and surveillance. It has led to individuals becoming targets of authorities in some cases in the past.
The CIA shared instructions in their viral videos about how informants can contact US intelligence officials without putting themselves in danger.
It asked people to use the darknet, a part of the internet that can only be accessed using special tools designed to hide the user’s identity.
The tips, presented in text-only videos and infographics, include using a Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to circumvent internet restrictions and surveillance, and the use of a device that can’t easily be traced back to the user.
The CIA also urged any potential informants to use private web browsers and to delete their internet history to cover their tracks.
A Mandarin-language video posted to YouTube featuring only written instructions advised individuals to contact the CIA via its official website using trusted encrypted VPNs or the TOR network.
“Your safety and wellbeing is our foremost consideration,” it said. It asked for individuals’ names, locations, and contact details not associated with their real identities, along with information that could be of interest to the CIA, cautioning that responses were not guaranteed and could take time.
“People are trying to reach out to us from around the world and we are offering them instructions for how to do that safely,” the agency said in a statement.
“There are plenty of people who have access to information and who are disaffected from the Xi regime in China,” CIA deputy director David Cohen told Bloomberg.
“You’ve got people inside who see what’s happening, and for lots of different motivations fundamentally do not like the direction that Xi is taking the country and understand that there’s a path to helping their own country by working with us,” he added.
China has objected to the move, calling it “an organised and systematic” disinformation campaign against China by Washington.
Liu Pengyu, a Chinese embassy spokesperson, said: “Any attempts to drive a wedge between the Chinese people and the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) or to weaken their close bond will inevitably fail.”
Naval officers seek to become first Indian duo to sail around world
Two female officers from the Indian Navy have embarked on a mission to circumnavigate the world, setting sail from a port in Goa on Wednesday.
During the eight-month journey, Lt Cdr Roopa A and Lt Cdr Dilna K will cover approximately 21,600 nautical miles (about 40,000km) on board their Indian Naval Sailing Vessel, which was flagged off at 11am with a small ceremony.
If successful, they will become the first Indians to circumnavigate the world in a double-handed sailing vessel.
Chosen from a pool of 17 candidates, both officers have dedicated the past three years to rigorous preparation. “There are a lot of fleeting thoughts and mixed emotions,” Lt Cdr Roopa told The Indian Express. “We wouldn’t say there is no fear. We are excited and aware of the challenges that lie ahead. We have been waiting for this moment for three years. The sea is calling.”
Lt Cdr Roopa and Lt Cdr Dilna both come from military families and have accumulated thousands of nautical miles between them under the mentorship of retired Commander Abhilash Tomy, a renowned circumnavigator who finished second in the Golden Globe Race in 2022.
“They will be sailing from Goa, around the world south of the great capes of the southern hemisphere and finishing at Goa,” Cdr Tomy tells The Independent. “There will be four stops,” he says. The stops will be Fremantle in Australia, Lyttleton in New Zealand, Port Stanley in the Falklands and Cape Town in South Africa.
“This is a route which is rarely sailed,” he explains. “The challenges could come from extremes of weather, battling isolation, gear failure [or] running out of supplies.”
“When we cast off, no ship will be escorting us. We will be on our own. For instance, if we run out of water, there will be no ship, say, at a distance of 10 miles who can come for assistance. On the boat, we are the engineers, electricians, carpenters,” Lt Cdr Dilna told the Express.
“It is a whole set of skills one must learn – from cooking to weather prediction, from navigation to medicine. It takes many years to prepare,” says Cdr Tomy.
The pair’s preparations have included a journey last year with a six-member crew from Goa to Rio de Janeiro and back, as well as a successful voyage from Goa to Sri Vijaya Puram and another to Mauritius earlier this year.
“But there are no tricks,” warns Cdr Tomy, adding: “It is a real and hard battle to survive the sea in this manner and return to where you started, having gone around the world.”
The reward for this journey “is a kind of freedom that one cannot experience on land”, he says. “The solitude is beautiful and freeing.”
The Indian Navy has been actively revitalising its sailing traditions, showcasing its commitment to maritime heritage and seamanship through initiatives like the training ships INS Tarangini and INS Sudarshini, along with circumnavigation missions on INSVs Mhadei and Tarini.
While India is not aiming for any world record through this journey, Vice Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, the Vice Chief of Naval Staff, described the expedition as a journey of empowerment and a commitment to India’s maritime heritage, saying it will significantly advance India’s ocean sailing enterprise and showcase the growing prominence of gender equality on the high seas.
Speaking about how the two officers came to be selected for the expedition, Lt Cdr Dilna told O Heraldo, a local daily in Goa, that she “always loved adventure since my childhood.
“That’s how I got interested and started sailing. I always wanted to do something different and challenging. So when I got an opportunity, I just grabbed it.”
Japan rows back on new prime minister’s plan for ‘Asian Nato’
Japan is not considering setting up an “Asian Nato” in the near future, its foreign minister says, despite it being one of the most talked-about campaign pitches from new prime minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Mr Ishiba, who entered office on Tuesday, has called for the creation of a Pacific alliance based an obligation to defend other members if they are invaded, saying this would be the most effective deterrent against Japan’s nuclear-armed neighbours China, Russia and North Korea.
But Japan’s closest allies, including within the existing Quad grouping, have expressed scepticism over the idea and it was described as “premature” by the Biden administration last week.
Mr Ishiba’s new foreign minister Takeshi Iwaya appeared to downplay the proposal, telling a press conference on Wednesday that “it’s one idea for the future” among a range of efforts designed to foster better relations with like-minded countries and improve regional security.
“It’s difficult to immediately set up a mechanism that would impose mutual defence obligations in Asia, so it’s more of a vision for the future,” he said.
It came after Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar – another Quad nation – said South Asian nations did not share this vision.
“We don’t have that kind of strategic architecture in mind,” Mr Jaishankar said at an event at Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, adding that India had never been a treaty ally of any other country.
“We have … a different history and different way of approaching” said Mr Jaishankar, who met meet US secretary of state Antony Blinken on Tuesday and spoke at the at the UN General Assembly in New York last week.
The United States has also quietly brushed off the idea. It was too early for such talk, Daniel Kritenbrink, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, said last month.
Asked if an Asian Nato would be designed as a defence against China, Mr Iwaya said such a framework would not be aimed at any specific country.
“The best way would be for a defence and security co-operation relationship that spans the Indo-Pacific without excluding any specific nation,” Mr Iwaya said.
The new defence minister, Gen Nakatani, told a separate press conference that Mr Ishiba had not asked his ministry to pursue a proposal to set up an Asian equivalent of Nato.
Nato was set up in 1949 by 12 founding nations, including the US, UK, Canada, France and Portugal, and the bloc now has 32 member countries across Europe and North America. Its primary aim has been to ensure collective defence and security among member states in response to threats, perhaps most notably from the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The bloc’s members are obliged to come to the support of any one member in case it comes under attack – no obligation exists to support another member’s aggression, however. Despite the inherently defensive nature of the bloc, Russia has objected to Nato’s eastward expansion, calling it an existential threat to Moscow.
Writing in a paper to the Hudson Institute think tank in September, Mr Ishiba argued for locking Washington into an “Asian Nato” as a way to deter China from using military force in Asia.
After taking office on Tuesday, he said he would seek deeper ties with allies to counter the gravest security threat that the country is facing since the Second World War.
Mr Ishiba succeeded in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) presidential election at his fifth and final attempt in a party vote on Friday. The former defence minister, who is known to have a taste for curry and anime, succeeded outgoing leader Fumio Kishida.
Apart from his support for a so-called Asian Nato, Mr Ishiba is a supporter of Taiwan’s democracy and has pushed for more diversity and gender equality domestically.
North Korean defector steals bus to drive back after struggle in South
A North Korean defector was arrested in South Korea after attempting to cross the heavily fortified border back into his country using a stolen bus.
The man, in his 30s, stole the vehicle from a garage in Paju, a city near the border, and made a desperate attempt to cross across the Unification Bridge that separates the two Koreas, before crashing into a barricade, authorities said.
The defector, who escaped from North Korea around a decade ago, reportedly told police he was struggling to adapt to life in South Korea and wanted to return to his homeland.
Surveillance footage from the garage shows the man, wearing a hat, trying to enter several vehicles in a Paju garage before he finally managed to get into a bus.
He drove off with the bus at approximately 1am local time on Tuesday (4pm GMT on Monday). When he reached the border he ignored soldiers who asked him to stop, and instead swerved into the opposite lane on the bridge.
Military border guards apprehended him after he crashed into a barricade about 30 minutes later.
The man was not found to have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the incident, local media reports say.
The defector, who left North Korea about a decade ago, had been working as a labourer. He was reportedly struggling financially having accumulated unpaid fines, and told police officers he wanted to reunite with his family in the North.
South Korea’s laws strictly prohibit crossing into North Korea without government authorisation, and violators face severe penalties, including up to 10 years in prison. North Korean defectors in the South are automatically granted citizenship.
Despite these deterrents, some defectors who have found it hard to assimilate in South Korea have tried to re-cross the border in the past.
While around 1,000 defectors flee North Korea for South Korea each year, a much smaller number – just 31 between 2012 and 2022 – have attempted to return to the North, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry.