Factory fire incident sparks concerns among Bintulu residents

Southeast Asia

August 16, 2024

ANN/THE STAR – People in Bintulu are taking precautions due to concerns about potential chemical pollution following a fire at a foreign-owned factory at Samalaju Industrial Park.

“Based on the photos and videos, the incident looked pretty scary. Now everyone is wearing face masks,” said a local resident, who requested anonymity.

Ten people were injured in the incident on Wednesday evening when a fire broke out at the factory’s bottom reactor.

Tanjong Batu assemblyman Johnny Pang said four of the victims were in the intensive care unit at Hospital Bintulu, three in the burn unit and three in the surgical ward.

He urged people to remain calm and avoid spreading misinformation, adding that the relevant departments should also implement safety measures.

“There are already reports circulating online that the gases released from the explosion could affect health, potentially causing severe irritation or burns to the eyes, respiratory tract and skin, coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath.

“Such information has undeniably caused public panic. Therefore, I will be in contact with hospitals and the state Health Department to better understand the situation,” he said when contacted on Thursday.

Pang also said this was not the first incident to occur at the Samalaju plant, adding that he had previously raised concerns about its safety issues at the last Sarawak legislative assembly sitting.

“I will bring up the issue again in the next state legislative assembly meeting and demand a reasonable explanation from the relevant departments after a thorough investigation.

“For high-risk factories like this, both the company and the relevant departments must exercise extreme caution to prevent accidents from happening,” he added.

Photos and videos shared on social media showed explosions and thick smoke billowing from the factory during Wednesday’s incident.

A spokesman for the Sarawak Fire and Rescue Department’s operations centre said the fire was controlled and extinguished by the factory’s emergency response team before the firemen arrived.

“The factory management indicated that they only required the fire department to be on standby at the location,” the spokesman said.

The team from the Samalaju Fire and Rescue Station arrived at the scene at 6.28pm after receiving an emergency call at 6.24pm.

The spokesman added that the fire was brought under control by 6.50pm.

Bintulu Environment Depart-ment chief Abdul Mazli Hafiz Abdul Malik said air quality in the area was within safe limits.

He was reported as saying that by 9pm on Wednesday, the factory’s representative had informed the department that the smoke had ceased and the situation was under control.

Meanwhile, Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing said he had instructed the Bintulu health office to assess the situation and promptly release the standard operating procedures for dealing with the situation to the public.

He said the district disaster management committee would be reactivated as an emergency measure if necessary.

“Although I am currently on an official visit abroad, I have contacted the staff at the Bintulu Parliamentary Service Centre to help coordinate the efforts, hoping to expedite the post-disaster response process,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

Tiong, who is also Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister, called on the factory to review and enhance its risk management mechanisms to ensure such incidents do not happen again.

“It is understood that this is not the first explosion at the factory. A similar incident occurred earlier this year, indicating that the factory’s disaster prevention measures are inadequate,” he said.

Tiong also urged the public not to spread rumours about the incident that could cause unnecessary panic but to get information from the relevant authorities

WHO warns more mpox to come in Europe after case in Sweden

World

August 16, 2024

Swedish state epidemiologist Magnus Gisslén, Olivia Wigzell, acting director general of the Public Health Agency and Swedish Minister for Social Affairs and Public Health Jakob Forssmed attend a press conference on the situation regarding viral infection mpox, in Stockholm. PHOTO: AFP

COPENHAGEN (AFP) – The WHO on Thursday warned further imported cases of the new, more dangerous mpox strain in Europe were likely, after Sweden announced the first such infection outside Africa in an outbreak that has killed hundreds in the DR Congo.

The case recorded in a traveller in Sweden was announced the day after the World Health Organization declared the mpox surge in Africa a public health emergency of international concern – the highest alarm it can sound.

The UN health agency was concerned by the rise in cases and fatalities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the spread to Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.

Sweden’s Public Health Agency told AFP on Thursday that it had registered a case of the Clade 1b subclade – the same new strain of the virus that has surged in the DRC since September 2023.

“A person who sought care” in Stockholm “has been diagnosed with mpox caused by the clade 1 variant. It is the first case caused by clade I to be diagnosed outside the African continent,” the agency said in a separate statement.

The person was infected during a visit to “the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of mpox Clade 1”, state epidemiologist Magnus Gisslen said in the statement.

The agency added: “The fact that a patient with mpox is treated in the country does not affect the risk to the general population, a risk that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) currently considers very low.”

The WHO’s European regional office in Copenhagen said it was discussing with Sweden how best to manage the newly detected case.

“The confirmation of mpox Clade 1 in Sweden is a clear reflection of the interconnectedness of our world,” it said in a statement.

“There are likely to be further imported cases of Clade 1 in the European region over the coming days and weeks, and it is imperative that we don’t stigmatise travellers or countries/regions.”

“Travel restrictions and border closures don’t work and should be avoided,” it added.

548 deaths in DRC
The outbreak has centred on the DR Congo.

Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said in a video message that the country “has recorded 15,664 potential cases and 548 deaths since the beginning of the year”, with all 26 provinces affected.

The DRC’s population is around 100 million.

He said the government had put in place a “national strategic plan for vaccination against mpox”, as well as improving surveillance of the disease at borders and checkpoints.

The minister said government-level working groups have been set up to boost contact tracing and help mobilise resources to “maintain control of this epidemic”.

Formerly called monkeypox, the virus was discovered in 1958 in Denmark, in monkeys kept for research.

It was first discovered in humans in 1970 in what is now the DRC.

Mpox is an infectious disease caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals but can also be passed from human to human through close physical contact.

The disease causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.

Vaccine drive
The US Department of Health said on Wednesday it would be “donating 50,000 doses of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved JYNNEOS vaccine to DRC”.

“Vaccination will be a critical element of the response to this outbreak,” it said in a statement.

And Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic said it was ready to produce up to 10 million doses of its vaccine targeting mpox by 2025.

There are two subtypes of the virus: the more virulent and deadlier Clade 1, endemic in the Congo Basin in central Africa; and Clade 2, endemic in West Africa.

In May 2022, mpox infections surged worldwide, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men, due to the Clade 2b subclade.

The WHO declared a public health emergency which lasted from July 2022 to May 2023.

That outbreak, which has now largely subsided, caused some 140 deaths out of around 90,000 cases.

The Clade 1b subclade causes more severe disease than Clade 2b, with a higher fatality rate.

Prince Harry, Meghan in Colombia on anti-discrimination tour

World

August 16, 2024

Colombia’s vice-President Francia Marquez and her partner Yerney Pinillo stand next to Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and his wife Meghan Markle during a visit to the centre in Bogota, Colombia. PHOTO: AFP

BOGOTÁ (AFP) – Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan arrived in Colombia on Thursday to participate in a series of events against discrimination and cyber-harassment at the invitation of Vice President Francia Marquez.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will meet women and young people as part of a program seeking to “make visible and address a problem that today concerns all of humanity: cyber-bullying, violence in digital environments and discrimination,” Marquez said at a press conference.

American actress Meghan Markle speaks during the ‘Responsible Digital Future’ forum as her husband, Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Colombia’s vice-President Francia Marquez listen in Bogota. PHOTO: AFP

They will then travel to the Caribbean city of Cartagena, where press reports said they would visit the village of San Basilio de Palenque founded by escaped slaves in the 18th century.

The last stop on their tour, which ends Sunday, will be the western city of Cali, whose mayor has said the couple would attend an Afro-music festival there.

In all three cities, the royals will have “meetings with young women (and) social leaders” added Marquez, the first Black woman to serve as vice president of the South American country.

Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, gestures next to the director of the National Centre for the Arts, Xiomara Suescun, during a visit to the centre in Bogota. PHOTO: AFP

Meghan, who is mixed-race, has in the past complained of being the target of discrimination.

The visit will serve as a prelude to the Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children to be held in Bogota on November 7 and 8.

Britain’s Prince Harry (R), Duke of Sussex, his wife Meghan Markle (C), and Colombia’s vice-President Francia Marquez applaud while attending a show. PHOTO: AFP

Mini drones to the rescue

Features

August 16, 2024

DELFT (AFP) – Dutch scientists have unveiled the country’s first laboratory to research how autonomous miniature drones can mimic insects to accomplish tasks ranging from finding gas leaks in factories to search-and-rescue missions.

Called the Swarming Lab, researchers at the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) said they aim to put a “self-flying” swarm of 100 tiny drones in the air, able to perform around the clock tasks.

This included the drones landing by themselves on recharging pods and taking off again to continue flying – without humans ever having to get involved.

“We are working not only to get these robots to be aware of one another, but also work together to complete complex tasks,” said director Guido de Croon at TU Delft’s Swarming Lab.

Tasks include the tiny drones – with the same weight as a golf ball or an egg – “sniffing out” a gas leak in a factory.

A swarm of autonomous drones, fitted with sensors to detect the gas, will be able to fly autonomously around the factory until one drone detects traces of the gas.

It will then follow the “scent” of the gas while “calling” the other drones to help in the search using on-board sensors.

“In the same way, drone swarms can also be used to detect forest fires or continuously help in search and rescue operations over large areas,” De Croon said.

The scientists use studies on bee and ant swarms or how flocks of birds behave to try and programme their drone swarms to do the same.

“Drone swarm technology is the idea that when we look at nature and you see many of these animals like ants, that individually are perhaps not so smart, but together they do… things that they could definitely not do by themselves,” De Croon said.

“We want to instil the same capabilities also in robots,” De Croon said.

Doing this, the scientists look at how birds or insects swarm “using very simple behaviours”.

For instance, birds “look at their closest neighbours in the flock and they do things like ‘oh, I don’t want to be too close’ because they don’t want to collide”, De Croon said.

But “I also don’t want to be the only one to be away from the flock.

“They align with each other. And by following such simple rules you get these beautiful patterns that are very useful for the birds, also against predators”, he told AFP.

“So at that level, we draw inspiration and we try to make such simple rules also for robots but then for the applications we want to tackle.”

But the scientists admit there are some challenges.

“Swarms are complex systems,” De Croon said at a demonstration of the technology at the Swarming Lab, situated inside TU Delft’s Science Centre.

“A single robot can do simple things within a swarm.

“It is actually quite difficult to predict, however, with these simple rules how a whole swarm will behave,” De Croon said.

The small size of the robots also hampers the amount of technology like sensors and on-board computing capacity the tiny drones can carry.

Currently, the drones at the Swarming Lab still rely on an externally mounted camera to relay information to the buzzing beasts on their positions within the swarm.

But the researchers have already developed the technology for robots to sense each other without external help.

And they would not be the first: scientists from Zhejiang University in China in 2022 successfully flew 10 autonomous drones through a thick bamboo forest.

Currently, the Swarming Lab, working together with a start-up company of former TU Delft students called Emergent, has some 40 small drones involved in its research.

Extreme heat exposure on the rise for millions of kids: UN

Features

August 16, 2024

AFP – Nearly half a billion children are facing twice as many days of extreme heat each year – or more – than their grandparents did, the United Nations (UN) said on Tuesday, warning of deadly consequences.

As climate change continues to push up temperatures globally, one in five children – some 466 million kids – live in areas that are registering “at least double the number of extremely hot days every year” compared to 60 years ago, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said.

“The bodies of young children are not like little adults, they have much more vulnerability to extreme heat,” UNICEF advocacy chief Lily Caprani told AFP, also warning of dangers for pregnant women.

Additionally, children lose out from education when schools are forced to close due to high temperatures – which has affected at least 80 million children in 2024 so far.

UNICEF used days reaching 35 degrees Celsius (oC) as its benchmark, comparing average temperatures in the 2020-2024 period to the 1960s.

Such hot days – as well as the means to cope with high temperatures, such as air conditioning – affect the entire world, it noted.

Children in West and Central Africa are the most exposed, with 123 million children – 39 per cent of the kids in the region – facing a third of each year with 95-degree days or higher.

At the higher end, in Mali, for example – where air conditioning is out of reach for millions and blackouts can leave fans idled – more than 200 days a year can reach 95 degrees or higher.

In Latin America, meanwhile, 48 million children are facing double the number of 95-degree or higher days than 60 years ago.

Worldwide, the “trajectory is getting worse and worse for these children”, Caprani said.

“Children are fragile and they breathe very quickly. They can’t even sweat like an adult does. They are much more vulnerable to heat stress and it can be literally deadly,” she added.

High temperatures can contribute to child malnutrition and leave kids more vulnerable to disease, especially malaria and dengue, which spread in warm climates, UNICEF warned.

Excessive heat can also negatively impact neurodevelopment and mental health.

UNICEF is calling for increased education for parents to know the signs of heat stroke and better training for medical personnel.

Thailand’s Pheu Thai nominates Paetongtarn Shinawatra for PM

Southeast Asia

August 16, 2024

Pheu Thai party leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra joins hands with coalition party leaders at a press conference in Bangkok, Thailand. PHOTO: AFP

BANGKOK (AFP) – Thailand’s Pheu Thai party has chosen 37-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as its candidate for prime minister, it announced yesterday, a day after a court dismissed the premier in an ethics case.

“We decide to nominate Paetongtarn Shinawatra,” party Secretary General Sorawong Thienthong told a press conference in Bangkok.

Lawmakers will vote today in Parliament – where Pheu Thai heads a governing coalition – on whether to approve Paetongtarn as prime minister.

“We are confident that the party and coalition parties will lead our country in helping with Thailand’s economic crisis,” Paetongtarn said after the announcement.

On Wednesday, Thailand’s Constitutional Court sacked premier Srettha Thavisin after ruling he had breached regulations by appointing a Cabinet minister with a criminal conviction, plunging the kingdom into fresh political uncertainty.

Pheu Thai – the electoral vehicle of one-time Manchester City owner Thaksin – is the largest member of a governing coalition of 11 parties that includes royalist and pro-military outfits who were once its bitter rivals.

Srettha is the party’s third prime minister to be kicked out by the Constitutional Court, and is leaving office after less than a year.

Thai politics has endured two decades of chronic instability marked by coups, street protests and court orders – much of it fuelled by the long-running battle by the military and pro-royalist establishment against progressive parties linked to their bete noire Thaksin.

The ex-premier returned to Thailand last August from 15 years in self-exile on the same day Srettha took power in an alliance with pro-military parties previously staunchly opposed to Thaksin and his followers.

The timing seemed to suggest a truce in the long-standing feud as both sides sought to see off the threat posed by the newer Move Forward Party (MFP), which won the popular vote in last year’s election.

Reef in peril

Features

August 16, 2024

Marine biologist Anne Hoggett snorkels to inspect and record bleached and dead coral around Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. PHOTO: AFP

SYDNEY (AFP) – For the past decade, water temperatures along Australia’s famed Great Barrier Reef have been the warmest in 400 years, a major study said recently.

Ocean temperatures around the spectacular coral system have increased yearly since 1960 but were particularly hotter during recent mass coral bleaching events, according to a study in the science journal Nature.

The warmer waters are most likely down to human-induced climate change, the report said.

Co-author Helen McGregor said she was “extremely concerned” about the reef, describing the temperature increases as “unprecedented”.

“These are corals that have lived for 400 years and this is the warmest temperatures they’re experiencing. These are the Redwood trees of the reef,” she told AFP.

Often dubbed the world’s largest living structure, the Great Barrier Reef is a 2,300-kilometre long expanse, home to a stunning array of biodiversity that includes more than 600 types of coral and 1,625 fish species.

But repeated mass bleaching events – when extreme heat saps the coral of nutrients and colour – threaten the reef’s fragile ecosystem.

Coral bleaching occurs when water temperatures rise more than one degree Celsius.

The Australian researchers examined sea surface temperatures in the Coral Sea – a 2,000-kilometre stretch of ocean that extends down the northeast coast and includes the Great Barrier Reef.

ABOVE & BELOW: Photos show bleached and dead coral around Lizard Island. PHOTO: AFP

Scientists used coral skeleton samples to reconstruct sea surface temperatures from 1618 to 1995, as well as more recent data.

They found temperatures before 1900 had been relatively stable but the sea had warmed 0.12 degrees Celsius (oC) on average since 1960 until the present.

Those temperatures were even higher during the past five mass bleaching events in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024, the report found.

McGregor said that although corals could recover, increasing high temperatures and repeated bleaching events were straining that ability.

“These changes – from what we’re seeing so far – appear to be happening too rapidly for the corals to adapt to so it really threatens the reef as we know it,” said McGregor, a climate researcher at the University of Wollongong.

This year’s bleaching event has left 81 per cent of the reef with extreme or high levels of damage – one of the most severe and widespread on record, the latest government data shows.

It will take scientists a few more months to determine how much of the reef is beyond recovery.

Richard Leck, World Wide Fund Australia’s head of oceans, said the future of the reef was “increasingly vulnerable”.

“At the moment, we can see the reef is resilient. It’s bounced back from previous coral bleaching events but at some point that elastic band will snap,” he told AFP.

“Coral reefs, as an ecosystem, are the first ecosystem on the planet to be existentially threatened by climate change.”

“I think we have to be hopeful that the world is not going to stand by and let that happen. But it is a fraction of a second to midnight,” he said.

Governments around the globe are ramping up efforts to help curb greenhouse gases or invest in reef adaptation and mitigation efforts.

Australia has invested about AUD5 billion (USD3.2 billion) in improving water quality, reducing the effects of climate change, and protecting threatened species.

Six charged for MYR4.4M cryptocurrency ransom kidnapping in Malaysia

Southeast Asia

August 16, 2024

Authorities apprehend the suspects. PHOTO: BERNAMA

SEPANG (BERNAMA) – A married couple and four other individuals were charged in the Sessions Court in Malaysia yesterday with the kidnapping of a Chinese national for a ransom of USD1 million (MYR4.44 million) in cryptocurrency last month.

The accused, Chen Jun Hiong, 28; Law Han Wei, 28; Dhinnesh Tan Kin Yuan, 29; Jong Li Jiat, 25; and husband and wife Loh Wei Jian and Wong Xiao Yen, both 29, pleaded not guilty to the charges before Judge Amir Affendy Hamzah.

According to the charge sheet, the six, along with four other individuals still at large, are accused of wrongfully detaining the Chinese man for a ransom amounting to USD1,007,696. The offence was allegedly committed at the Cyberjaya exit of the Maju Expressway (MEX) on July 11 at about 11am.

The charges framed under Section 3 (1) of the Kidnapping Act 1961 and read together with Section 34 of the Penal Code provide for a minimum prison sentence of 30 years or a maximum of 40 years and caning, if convicted.

The prosecution was handled by deputy public prosecutor Mohamed Wafi Husain while the accused were represented by their counsels G Freda Sabapathy (Chen), Mohd Zali Shaari (Law), Nur Aminahtul Mardiah Md Nor (Tan), P Haresh (Jong) and Bernard Francis representing Loh and Wong.

During the proceedings, Mohamed Wafi did not propose any bail as the offence is non-bailable.

However, each defence counsel requested bail for their client, but Judge Amir Effendy denied the applications.

“After considering all arguments and the nature of the charges, the court has decided that bail will not be granted,” the judge said, setting October 8 for the submission of documents.

Earlier this week, the media reported that police are still tracking down four additional suspects believed to be involved in the kidnapping near the MEX Toll Plaza, Cyberjaya, on July 11.

A stowaway groundhog is elevated to local icon

World

August 16, 2024

A groundhog dubbed Colonel Custard, July 30, 2024, in Pennsylvania, United States. PHOTO: AP

HOLLIDAYSBURG (AP) – A Pennsylvania groundhog is making a name for himself for something other than predicting an early or late spring.

An intrepid varmint dubbed Colonel Custard – so named for the frozen custard shop and mini-golf outlet where he was discovered – was found stowed away with a passel of stuffed animals prizes in an arcade game two weeks ago. Players were manoeuvering a mechanical claw to pluck toys from the glass game case when they suddenly realised a real live groundhog was blinking back at them.

The newly named colonel was found in Hollidaysburg, a good hour’s drive from Pennsylvania’s far more famous groundhog town, Punxsutawney, home to the weather-predicting groundhog Phil.

The owners and staff at The Meadows frozen custard shop aren’t being shy about promoting their own furry friend.

Staff and owners made T-shirts that read ‘Respect the Groundhog’, held the online naming campaign that drew an avalanche of responses and are working on more promotional ideas, such as naming one of their frozen treat flavours for Colonel Custard.

Meadows manager Lynn Castle said no one is sure how the groundhog got in the building, but he must have clambered up the game chute into the machine.

Bangladesh mob beats ex-PM’s supporters

World

August 16, 2024

Protesters surround a suspected sympathiser of ousted ex-premier Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka, Bangladesh. PHOTO: AFP

AFP – Mobs vowing to guard Bangladesh’s student-led revolution roamed the site of a planned rally for ousted premier Sheikh Hasina yesterday, beating up some of her suspected supporters with bamboo rods and pipes.

Hasina, 76, fled to neighbouring India by helicopter last week as student-led protests flooded Dhaka’s streets in a dramatic end to her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.

The interim government replacing her, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has invited United Nations investigators to probe the violent “atrocities” that accompanied her ouster, which saw hundreds killed by security forces.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the 1975 assassination during a military coup of Hasina’s father, independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a date her government had declared a national holiday.

Huge rallies around Bangladesh marked the occasion in previous years but those glad to see Hasina toppled were eager to ensure supporters of her Awami League party did not have a chance to regroup.

“Fugitive and dictator Sheikh Hasina has ordered her goons and militia forces to come to the site so they can produce a counter-revolution,” Imraul Hasan Kayes, 26, told AFP.

“We are here to guard our revolution so that it doesn’t slip out of our hands.” With no police in sight, hundreds of men – most of them not students – formed a human barricade across the street leading to Hasina’s old family home, where her father and many of her relatives were gunned down 49 years ago.

The landmark was a museum to her father until it was torched and vandalised by a mob hours after Hasina’s fall.

Several people that the crowd suspected of being Awami League supporters were thrashed with sticks, while others were forcibly escorted away.

Hasina, in her first public statement since her abrupt departure, asked supporters this week to “pray for the salvation of all souls by offering floral garlands and praying” outside the landmark.

She was accused while in office of establishing a cult of personality around her father, who appears on every banknote.

Hasina changed the constitution to require a portrait of him appeared in every school, government office and diplomatic mission.

“Her government even made it an offence to criticise him online, punishable with up to 10 years in prison,” Tom Kean of the International Crisis Group told AFP.

Borneo Bulletin OnlineThe Independent Newspaper in Brunei Darussalam, Sabah and Sarawak

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