Taiwan says needs to be on alert to ‘over the top’ China

October 5, 2021 | 3:00 pm

TAIPEI – Taiwan needs to be on alert for China‘s “over the top” military activities which are violating regional peace, Premier Su Tseng-chang said on Tuesday, after 56 Chinese aircraft flew into Taiwan‘s air defence zone on Monday, the highest ever.

Taiwan has reported 148 Chinese air force planes in the southern and southwestern part of its air defence zone over a four day period beginning on Friday, the same day China marked a key patriotic holiday, National Day.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory, which should be taken by force if necessary. Taiwan says they are an independent country and will defend their freedoms and democracy.

Taiwan calls China‘s repeated nearby military activities “grey zone” warfare, designed to both wear out Taiwan‘s forces by making them repeatedly scramble, and also to test Taiwan‘s responses.

“Taiwan must be on alert. China is more and more over the top,” Su told reporters in Taipei. “The world has also seen China‘s repeated violations of regional peace and pressure on Taiwan.”

Taiwan needs to “strengthen itself” and come together as one, he added.

“Only then will countries that want to annex Taiwan not dare to easily resort to force. Only when we help ourselves can others help us.”

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has made modernising the armed forces a priority, focusing on the use of new, mobile weapons to make any attack by China as costly as possible, turning Taiwan into a “porcupine”.

The United States, Taiwan‘s main military supplier, has described China‘s increasing military activities near the island as destabilising and reiterated its “rock-solid” commitment to Taiwan.

In a sign of the fraught atmosphere, a security source confirmed reports in Taiwanese media that a Chinese pilot responded to a radio warning to fly away on Sunday with a shouted expletive.

China‘s Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Japan also weighed in on Tuesday, saying it was watching the situation closely and hoped Taiwan and China could resolve their differences through talks.

“Japan believes that it is crucial for the situation surrounding Taiwan to be peaceful and stable,” Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said in Tokyo.

“Additionally, instead of simply monitoring the situation, we hope to weigh the various possible scenarios that may arise to consider what options we have, as well as the preparations we must make.”

Taiwan has lived under the threat of invasion since the defeated Republic of China government fled to the island in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists. No peace treaty or armistice has ever been signed.

Taiwanese people are well used to China‘s threats and there has been no sign of panic on the island because of the stepped up military activity, nor undermining of investor confidence on the stock market. – Reuters

Revamped hazard-mapping website identifies risks, safe places

October 5, 2021 | 2:30 pm

The University of the Philippines Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (UP NOAH) Center unveiled on Monday the new website for Project NOAH, the Philippines’ flagship disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation project.

With an interface from Mapbox, an American provider of custom online maps, the revamped website aims to be easily understandable for both civilians who need to know potential hazards and safe locations in an area, and experts and lawmakers who need information for disaster risk-related policymaking.

“The business of hazard mapping is not just identifying the hazards, but really identifying the safe places for placing evacuation centers and citing good places to develop the community,” said Alfredo Mahar Francisco A. Lagmay, Director of the UP NOAH Center. “We’re not in the business of just mapping out the hazards per se.”

The website determines storm surge, flooding, and landslide hazards in an area, based on flood simulations and satellite and historical data, as well as critical facilities needed during disasters, like hospitals, health centers, police stations, and schools.

Improvements made include optimization for easy access via any device that has internet, a 3D terrain map that can be zoomed in and out from any elevation point, and descriptions of what to expect and how to stay safe in a disaster.

“Accurate and timely info on the NOAH website may be openly used by ordinary citizens, local government units, national government agencies, and the private sector. Doing so will help enrich their knowledge for action plans if a disaster occurs,” said Danilo L. Concepcion, UP President, at the website launch.

The UP Resilience Institute (UPRI), the state university’s program for building Filipino resilience against disaster, took on NOAH after government funding of the project halted in 2017. Since then, research and development has been geared towards bettering the website for widespread use covering all of the Philippines, with continuous collaboration in disaster planning with local governments.

With NOAH still on beta release, Dr. Lagmay called for volunteers: “Building footprints come from the UPRI youth mappers. It’s a community effort. Anyone can help with open street mapping to complete the 3D buildings on the map.” — Brontë H. Lacsamana

Malaysia protests presence of Chinese vessels in its waters

October 5, 2021 | 2:00 pm

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Malaysia summoned the Chinese ambassador to Kuala Lumpur on Monday to express its protest against the “encroachment” into its waters by Beijing’s vessels, the foreign ministry said.

The protest was over the “presence and activities” of Chinese vessels, including a survey vessel, in Malaysia‘s Exclusive Economic Zone off the coasts of the eastern states of Sabah and Sarawak, the ministry said in a statement on Monday.

It did not say when the vessels were detected in Malaysian waters.

“Malaysia‘s consistent position and actions are based on international law, in defence of our sovereignty and sovereign rights in our waters,” the foreign ministry said.

The Chinese embassy in Kuala Lumpur did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, media reported that a Chinese survey vessel was in Malaysian waters off the coast of Sabah, near a vessel commissioned by Malaysian state energy firm Petronas.

Last year, another Chinese survey ship held a month-long standoff with an oil exploration vessel contracted by Petronas within Malaysia‘s exclusive economic zone. China had then said the vessel was conducting normal activities.

Malaysia‘s foreign ministry also said that all matters related to the South China Sea must be resolved peacefully and constructively.

“In determining Malaysia‘s position and course of action with regard to the South China Sea issue, which is complex and involves inter-State relations, Malaysia‘s national interests will remain of paramount importance,” it said.

China claims almost all of the energy-rich South China Sea, through which about $3 trillion worth of ship-borne trade passes annually.

Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping claims.

The Philippines and Vietnam have accused China of harassing fishermen and energy activities in South China Sea waters. – Reuters

Facebook blames “faulty configuration change” for nearly six-hour outage

October 5, 2021 | 1:30 pm

Facebook Inc blamed a “faulty configuration change” for a nearly six-hour outage on Monday that prevented the company’s 3.5 billion users from accessing its social media and messaging services such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.

The company in a late Monday blog post did not specify who executed the configuration change and whether it was planned.

Several Facebook employees who declined to be named had told Reuters earlier that they believed that the outage was caused by an internal mistake in how internet traffic is routed to its systems.

The failures of internal communication tools and other resources that depend on that same network in order to work compounded the error, the employees said. Security experts have said an inadvertent mistake or sabotage by an insider were both plausible.

“We want to make clear at this time we believe the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change,” Facebook said in the blog.

The Facebook outage is the largest ever tracked by web monitoring group Downdetector.

The outage was the second blow to the social media giant in as many days after a whistleblower on Sunday accused the company of repeatedly prioritizing profit over clamping down on hate speech and misinformation.

As the world flocked to competing apps such as Twitter and TikTok, shares of Facebook fell 4.9%, their biggest daily drop since last November, amid a broader selloff in technology stocks on Monday. Shares rose about half a percent in after-hours trade following resumption of service.

“To every small and large business, family, and individual who depends on us, I’m sorry,” Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer tweeted, adding that it “may take some time to get to 100%.”

“Facebook basically locked its keys in its car,” tweeted Jonathan Zittrain, director of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.

Twitter on Monday reported higher-than-normal usage, which led to some issues in people accessing posts and direct messages.

In one of the day’s most popular tweets, video streaming company Netflix shared a meme from its new hit show “Squid Game” captioned “When Instagram & Facebook are down,” that showed a person labeled “Twitter” holding up a character on the verge of falling labeled “everyone.”

Inside a Facebook group for ad buyers, one member wisecracked after service returned that “lots of people searched today ‘how to run google ads for clients.'”

Facebook, which is the world’s largest seller of online ads after Google, was losing about $545,000 in U.S. ad revenue per hour during the outage, according to estimates from ad measurement firm Standard Media Index.

Past downtime at internet companies has had little long-term affect on their revenue growth, however.

Facebook‘s services, including consumer apps such as Instagram, workplace tools it sells to businesses and internal programs, went dark noon Eastern time (1600 GMT). Access started to return around 5:45 pm ET.

Soon after the outage started, Facebook acknowledged users were having trouble accessing its apps but did not provide any specifics about the nature of the problem or say how many users were affected.

The error message on Facebook‘s webpage suggested an error in the Domain Name System (DNS), which allows web addresses to take users to their destinations. A similar outage at cloud company Akamai Technologies Inc took down multiple websites in July.

On Sunday, Frances Haugen, who worked as a product manager on the civic misinformation team at Facebook, revealed that she was the whistleblower who provided documents underpinning a recent Wall Street Journal investigation and a U.S. Senate hearing last week on Instagram’s harm to teen girls.

Haugen was due to urge the same Senate subcommittee on Tuesday to regulate the company, which she plans to liken to tobacco companies that for decades denied that smoking damaged health, according to prepared testimony seen by Reuters. – Reuters

Climate change is killing the world’s coral reefs as oceans warm -study

October 5, 2021 | 1:00 pm

coral-reef-692957_1280 — STOCK PHOTO - pixabay.com

The world’s coral reefs are under attack by climate change and more will disappear if oceans keep warming, according to a report released Tuesday.

The study by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), a U.N.-supported global data network, showed that 14% of the world’s coral on reefs was already lost between 2009 and 2018, equal to about 11,700 square kilometers, an area 2.5 times the size of Grand Canyon National Park.

Corals face an “existential crisis,” scientists said, as sea surface temperatures rise. The report spanned data for 40 years, 73 countries and 12,000 sites. Sharp spikes in warming are particularly damaging, a phenomenon scientists say is linked to human-caused climate change.

The study looked at 10 coral reef-bearing regions around the world and found that loss was mainly attributed to coral bleaching, which happens when corals, under stress from warmer water, expel the colorful algae living in their tissues, making them turn white. One severe bleaching event in 1998 alone killed 8% of the world’s corals, the study said.

The hardest hit areas are South Asia, Australia, the Pacific, East Asia, the Western Indian Ocean, the Gulf and Gulf of Oman.

Overfishing, unsustainable coastal development and declining water quality are other factors battering the reefs.

“There are clearly unsettling trends toward coral loss, and we can expect these to continue as warming persists,” said Paul Hardisty, chief executive of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, in a statement shared by the United Nations.

The global ocean has warmed faster over the past century than since the end of the last deglacial transition, around 11,000 years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a landmark report in August.

While coral reefs cover less than 1% of the ocean floor, they support more than 25% of marine biodiversity, including turtles, fish and lobsters, which fuel global fishing industries. The reefs are responsible for an estimated $2.7 trillion annually in goods and services, including tourism, the report said.

Scientists did find, however, there was about a 2% regain among coral reefs 2019, showing they can be resilient when given respite from the siege of factors working against them. If pressure is relieved on the coral reefs, they could flourish again within a decade to pre-1998 levels, the report said.

Recent efforts to support coral reefs include a mitigation project off the coast of Caribbean nation Antigua and Barbuda called Ocean-Shot, which uses technology that mimics the design and shape of natural reefs to provide opportunities for colonization by corals and other marine life. – Reuters

EDC, partners switch on first off-grid e-community in the country

October 5, 2021 | 1:00 pm

The residents of Barangay Puhagan, Valencia, Negros Oriental will no longer have to travel for at least 40 minutes to Dumaguete City to get free wifi, thanks to the wireless internet connection that First Gen-owned Energy Development Corporation (EDC) has provided with its partners Department of Information and Communications Technology, Negros Oriental Chamber of Commerce & Industry, and the local government of Valencia, Negros Oriental.

Yesterday’s combined on-site and Zoom event for the switch-on ceremony for the country’s first off-grid e-community was symbolic of the new normal way of holding meetings, gatherings, and even connecting with family and friends since the COVID-19 pandemic started last year.

“Little did we know that a good internet connection will become essential for people to cope with their daily lives as students, employees, even as priests and other religious people, for companies to actually do business, and most of all, for all of us to emotionally connect with our loved ones both near and far. Having an internet connection has become a must for all of us to live,” said Atty. Allan V. Barcena, head of EDC’s Corporate Social Responsibility and Public Relations Division in his message during the switch on ceremony.

For almost 40 years, renewable energy leader EDC has been providing an uninterrupted source of clean 24/7 energy to Negros Island and other parts of the Luzon and Visayas regions from its 222.5MW geothermal facility in Valencia, Negros Oriental. Located in an off-grid or geographically isolated mountainous area, Barangay Puhagan is one of EDC’s three partner barangays in the municipality that also include Barangays Caidiocan and Malaunay.

Negros Oriental Governor Roel R. Degamo; Norreen G. Bautista, head EDC’s Corporate Social Responsibility team in Negros; former NOCCI president and now Central Visayas regional governor of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce Edward C. Du; DICT regional director Frederick Amores; and other local and barangay officials led the switch-on ceremony.

Brgy Puhagan in Valencia, Negros Oriental is now connected to the digital world. Norreen Bautista, head of EDC’s CSR team in Negros; Negros Oriental Roel Degamo; DICT Regional Director 7 OIC Frederick Amores; PCCI Region 7 Governor Ed Du; Brgy Captain Leonarda Sarita; DICT Provincial Director Aurelio Tinapay; and NTC Provincial Director Engr Felipe Gumalo led the switch on ceremony for EDC’s pilot e-community project in the province.

Through this e-community project of EDC and its partners, Brgy. Puhagan now has a free wifi facility in its barangay hall. DICT provided the procurement of the fixed wireless broadband network with a 40mbps bandwidth, Valencia Mayor Edgar Y. Teves and his LGU provided logistical and regulatory support, while NOCCI generously provided fixed wireless solar technology and a redundant broadband network design to ensure uninterrupted connectivity for the residents of Barangay Puhagan. EDC provided cash donation for the cost of labor and the purchase of necessary materials and equipment.

“This initiative is part of our mission to forge collaborative pathways for a decarbonized and regenerative future–which is essentially about creating exponential positive impact by elevating our environment and our stakeholders,” added Barcena.

Degamon thanked NOCCI, DICT family, and EDC for their continued efforts in bringing this project to Barangay Puhagan. “Having a strong and stable internet connection is very important especially during this pandemic for us to always be aware of the latest information to address COVID-19,” he added.

Barangay Puhagan Chair Leonarda Sarita wholeheartedly accepted this project and said: “It is my pride to accept this free public wifi service for and on behalf of the people of Brgy. Puhagan as we look forward to more fruitful and mutually beneficial engagements with EDC and all our partners who worked behind this project. Thank you very much! We didn’t expect that this free WiFi program would reach our barangay.”

Du likewise lauded this strong synergy that should serve as a model and showcase for all LGUs in the country especially during these trying times. “This is the first in the country and hopefully this will be a model [project] nationwide for isolated areas like Puhagan. In fact, there are students right now at the Barangay Gym who are connecting to the free WiFi for their classes, and there are residents who are working from home.”

This pilot project of EDC, DICT, NOCCI and Valencia LGU will soon be duplicated in EDC’s other partner barangays in the municipality to establish similar e-communities. A virtual platform for their residents to learn and exchange best practices in governance, health and safety especially during this pandemic, and environmental protection will eventually be put up for them.

“This DICT program aims to improve internet access for all Filipinos in order for them to join our digital economy wherever they are in the country,” said DICT Secretary Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan II in his recorded message for the event.

EDC’s over 1,480MW total installed capacity accounts for 20 percent of the country’s total installed renewable energy capacity. Its almost 1,200MW geothermal portfolio comprises 62 percent of the country’s total installed geothermal capacity and has put the Philippines on the map as the 3rd largest geothermal producer in the world.

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Philippines pushes back full COVID vaccination target to 2022

October 5, 2021 | 11:27 am

The Philippines will take longer to reach its goal of fully vaccinating 70% of its population, which officials said will be achieved in February before the 2022 elections, instead of this year.

Half of the population will be fully inoculated by year-end, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez said at a televised meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night. Up to 160 million doses will be delivered within the year, Galvez said.

The Philippines is lagging peers in Southeast Asia in the vaccine rollout, with about 23% of the population fully vaccinated, compared with 63% in Malaysia. The slow progress is hampering the easing of mobility curbs, which is hurting the economic growth outlook for this year.

The Philippine government is in talks with up to 5 vaccine makers for 90 million doses with delivery expected to start in the first quarter of next year. A deal for 6 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID vaccine is expected to be signed this week, Galvez said. — Bloomberg

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp reconnecting after nearly six-hour outage

October 5, 2021 | 11:18 am

Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp lit up again late on Monday afternoon Eastern time after a nearly six-hour outage that prevented the company’s 3.5 billion users from accessing its social media and messaging services.

Facebook apologized but did not immediately explain what caused the failure, the largest ever tracked by web monitoring group Downdetector.

The outage was the second blow to the social media giant in as many days after a whistleblower on Sunday accused the company of repeatedly prioritizing profit over clamping down on hate speech and misinformation.

As the world flocked to competing apps such as Twitter and TikTok, shares of Facebook fell 4.9%, their biggest daily drop since last November, amid a broader selloff in technology stocks on Monday. Shares rose about half a percent in after-hours trade following resumption of service.

“To every small and large business, family, and individual who depends on us, I’m sorry,” Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer tweeted, adding that it “may take some time to get to 100%.”

Several Facebook employees who declined to be named said that they believed that the outage was caused by an internal mistake in how internet traffic is routed to its systems. The failures of internal communication tools and other resources that depend on that same network in order to work compounded the error, the employees said.

Security experts said an inadvertent mistake or sabotage by an insider were both plausible.