21/07/2025

MONDAY | JULY 21, 2025

7 Tearful relatives await news on Vietnam ferry tragedy

Hanoi scooter riders baulk at petrol-bike ban

HANOI: Vietnam’s plan to bar petrol motorcycles from central Hanoi may clear the air of the smog-smothered capital, but riders fear paying a high toll for the capital’s green transition. “Of course, everyone wants a better environment,” said housewife Dang Thuy Hanh, baulking at the 80 million dong (RM12,738) her family would spend replacing their four scooters with electric alternatives. Hanoi’s scooter traffic is a fixture of the city’s urban buzz. The northern hub of nine million people has nearly seven million two-wheelers, hurtling around at rush hour in a morass of congestion. Their exhausts splutter emissions regularly spurring the city to the top of worldwide smog rankings. The government last weekend announced plans to block fossil-fuelled bikes from Hanoi’s 31 sq km centre by next July. It will expand in stages to forbid all petrol-fuelled vehicles in urban areas of the city in the next five years. Hanh – one of the 600,000 people living in the central embargo zone – said the looming cost of e-bikes has left her fretting over the loss of “a huge amount of savings”. While she conceded e-bikes may help relieve pollution, she bemoaned the lack of public charging points near her home down a tiny alley in the heart of the city. “Why force residents to change while the city’s infrastructure is not yet able to adapt to the new situation?” she said. Many families in Vietnam own at least two motorcycles for daily commutes, school runs, work and leisure. Hanoi authorities say they are considering subsidies of at least three million dong (RM484) per switch to an e-bike and increasing public bus services. Food delivery driver Tran Van Tan, who rides his bike 40km daily from Hung Yen province to Hanoi, says he makes his living “on the road”. “The cost of changing to an e-bike is simply too high. Those with a low income like us just cannot suddenly replace our bikes,” said the 45-year-old. SINGAPORE: Units in Singapore’s military have been called in to help combat a cyberattack against critical infrastructure. Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing said the select units will work with the Cyber Security Agency in a united government response to the threat, local media reported. Chan described the cyberattack as “one example of the emerging threats” that the military has to handle, the reports said. There have been no reported breaches so far. Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam first disclosed the attack on Friday, describing it as a type of Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) that poses a serious danger to the city-state. An APT refers to a cyberattack in which an intruder establishes and maintains unauthorised access to a target, remaining undetected for a sustained period of time. “I can say that it is serious and it is ongoing. It has been identified to be

o At least 35 dead

Sri Lanka sacks top cop over 2019 bombings COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s independent regulator has sacked a senior police officer for failing to prevent the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings which killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners. The National Police Commission dismissed Nilantha Jayawardena, then head of the State Intelligence Service, for disregarding warnings of an impending attack. Court records show that Jayawardena had been alerted to a possible strike 17 days before the coordinated suicide attacks on April 21, 2019 which targeted three hotels and three churches. More than 500 people were also wounded in the bombings. Jayawardena was found guilty on all seven counts of negligence and dereliction of duty by a disciplinary inquiry led by a retired judge, the police commission said in a statement on Saturday. “Considering the gravity of the charges, the commission decided to give him the maximum punishment,” the statement said. Following the bombings, Jayawardena was removed as intelligence chief but elevated to deputy head of the police force, overseeing administration. However, he was placed on compulsory leave a year ago, pending a disciplinary hearing, after repeated judicial orders to take action against him. A top-level investigation initiated shortly after the attack found that then-president Maithripala Sirisena and four of his senior officials, including Jayawardena, should face criminal prosecution for their lapses. In accordance with Supreme Court orders issued in January 2023 following a civil case, they have paid just over US$1 million (RM4.24 million) in damages to the victims. The bombings were blamed on a local group that pledged allegiance to an international network. – AFP ended up terrible,” said the uncle of the family. The bodies of the mother and children had been recovered, but he was awaiting news on the father to be able to cremate them together. “The whirlwind came just so suddenly,” said a rescue worker, who asked not to be named. “After the boat turned upside down, several people were stuck inside the cabin. Me and other rescuers pulled up two bodies and rescued one person,” he said. Several hundred rescuers including professional divers, soldiers and firefighters joined the search for survivors through the night and heavy rain. The wreckage had been towed into the wharf by yesterday. – AFP

relatives, anyone would be scared. We didn’t know what to do, except to keep waiting,” he said. “We think that as we are all here, she would show up. We are all so anxious. We just wish and pray for her to come back to us.” At Ha Long city’s main funeral home, journalists saw bodies wrapped in red cloth being carried in on stretchers, as friends and relatives cried in front of more than a dozen coffins. A 68-year-old man, who asked not to be named, rushed to the scene, only to discover that his relatives – a family of four, including two boys – had died in the tragedy. “We were all so shocked. They were just taking the kids out to the bay for summer holidays and it

had been carrying 49 people, including several children, around the Unesco World Heritage Site, according to provincial police. Hanoi resident Hoang Quang said he rushed to Quang Ninh province at 2am yesterday for news of his cousin and her husband, who were on the boat. The couple – a housewife and fruit seller married to a bus driver – had “tried their best” to afford the trip around the world-famous bay. “They found the body of (the husband), not my cousin yet,” Hoang said. He said he was “shocked” when he heard news of the incident and immediately went to the wharf with other worried family members. “Suddenly, the victims were my

HALONG BAY: Relatives anxiously sat beside ambulances on the wharf of one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist sites yesterday, waiting for news of loved ones who were on a tourist boat that capsized in bad weather. Fruits and flowers were laid at the site for the at least 35 killed in the incident on Saturday in what some called the worst disaster in Ha Long Bay. As rescuers worked into yesterday morning to tow the boat to land, a handful of passngers were still missing. The tourist vessel Wonder Sea

Rescuers approaching the capsized boat yesterday. – AFPPIC/ VIETNAM NEWS AGENCY

He also fears the battery life of e-bikes “won’t meet the needs for long-distance travel”. – AFP Singapore military helps battle cyberattack

China, The Straits Times quoted Shanmugam as saying: “As far as the Singapore government is concerned, we can say we are confident that it is this particular organisation. “Who they are linked to, and how they operate, is not something I want to go into.” Information Minister Josephine Teo said in a Facebook post that the alleged attacker was publicly named because it was “important for Singaporeans to know where the attack is coming from and what the potential consequences would be”. The attack on Singapore’s critical infrastructure “highlights the extraordinary challenges posed by APT actors,” said Satnam Narang, senior staff research engineer at US-based cybersecurity firm Tenable. “Combating such stealthy opponents is becoming increasingly demanding as the scale and complexity of IT infrastructure that organisations and nations must defend continue to grow,” he said. – AFP

operate. Our economy could be substantially affected,” Shanmugam added. Between 2021 and 2024, suspected APTs against Singapore increased more than fourfold. A cyber breach of a public healthcare cluster in 2018 accessed the medication records of about 160,000 patients, including then prime minister Lee Hsien Loong. Beijing’s embassy in Singapore on Saturday expressed “strong dissatisfaction” with media reports linking UNC3886 to China. In a statement, the embassy said it “firmly opposes any unwarranted smearing of China” and that “in fact, China is one of the main victims of cyberattacks”. The statement added: “China firmly opposes and cracks down on all forms of cyberattacks in accordance with the law. China does not encourage, support or condone hacking activities.” Asked by reporters on Saturday about the link between UNC3886 and

UNC3886,”

Shanmugam

said,

referring to the alleged attackers. Shanmugam, who is also home affairs minister, did not elaborate in his speech on the group’s sponsors or the origin of the attack. But Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant described UNC3886 as a “highly adept China-nexus cyber espionage group”. APT actors typically steal sensitive information and disrupt essential services, such as healthcare, telecoms, water, transport and power, Shanmugam said. “If it succeeds, it could conduct espionage and it could cause major disruption to Singapore and Singaporeans,” he said. A successful breach of Singapore’s power system, for example, could wreak havoc with the electricity supply, with knock-on effects on essential services, such as healthcare and transport. “There are also economic implications. Our banks, airports and industries would not be able to