07/01/2026

WEDNESDAY | JAN 7, 2026

8

Health hackers seek cash, ‘good reputation’

Keiichi Watanabe told AFP yesterday. Since then, the watchdog has been conducting its own investigation, he said. The NRA suspended its safety review process for the Hamaoka plant late last month, and the issue “will be discussed in meetings open to the public”, the first of which will be held today. The Hamaoka plant is located in Omaezaki, Shizuoka prefecture, near a seismic fault line where a massive Pacific earthquake is expected to occur in the coming years or decades. In 2024, the Japan Meteorological Agency issued its first special advisory for a possible “megaquake” in the area, known as the Nankai Trough, before lifting it a week later. – AFP Australian PM tours outback flood zone SYDNEY: Swollen rivers have cut off towns and swept away thousands of livestock in outback Australia, authorities said as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese flew into the disaster zone yesterday. Heavy downpours in recent days have flooded vast inland tracts of Queensland state, a farming region home to some of the country’s largest cattle ranches. More than 16,000 livestock are missing or dead, state authorities have said, while hundreds of kilometres of fencing has been ruined. Albanese flew into the mining town of Cloncurry to assess the damage, more than 1,500km inland from state capital Brisbane. Some cattle survived by crowding together on small hills cresting above the flood waters, photos posted on social media showed. Queensland authorities used helicopters to drop bales of fodder near the surviving herds. Some towns, such as the small hamlet of Winton, have been entirely cut off by floodwaters. One man slogged through knee-deep mud for almost 40km to find help after his car got stuck, rescue service LifeFlight said. A helicopter crew eventually found him and plucked him to safety after tracing his footprints. More than 100,000 cattle, sheep, goats and horses died in floods that swept outback Queensland in March and April last year. Outback Queensland is one of the nation’s biggest cattle fattening grounds. Most of the time its flat plains are dry and inhospitable. But cattle gorge themselves on the pastures that sprout whenever wet-season rains fill the dry creek beds that snake through the region. – AFP Nestle recalls infant formula batches LONDON: Food producer Nestle said late on Monday it was recalling specific batches of its SMA infant formula and follow-on formula due to the potential presence of a toxin that could lead to nausea, vomiting and abdominal cramps. Nestle and Britain’s Food Standards Agency published a list of batch numbers for products that should not be consumed, warning that the toxin cereulide could be present. “Cereulide is highly heat stable meaning it is unlikely to be deactivated or destroyed by cooking, using boiling water or when making the infant milk,” the FSA said. “If consumed it can lead to rapid onset of symptoms.” In a notice to customers, Nestle said there had been no confirmed reports of illness so far and listed careline numbers for the United Kingdom and Ireland so that customers could be refunded. “Out of an abundance of caution, Nestle has decided to perform this voluntary product recall in line with our strict product quality and safety protocols,” Nestle said. – Reuters

o Ransom deadline extended to Friday

stores patient medical records and personal information such as phone numbers and addresses. The company says medical appointment and prescription information was not impacted by the breach. In a statement released yesterday, the firm said it had identified all patients whose documents may have been accessed, and the first group of people had been notified. It did not provide an update on ransom demands or the deadline. Health Minister Simeon Brown launched a review on Monday into Manage My Health’s response to the data breach. “I know this breach will be very concerning to the many New Zealanders, and we need assurances around the protection and security of people’s health data,” Brown said. “We must learn from this incident to avoid any repeat events in the future.” – AFP

offering samples for download. “Kazu” said it had demanded a ransom of US$60,000 (RM243,221) to be paid by yesterday to prevent release or sale of the files. New Zealand newspaper The Post said the hackers had confirmed directly that the ransom deadline had been postponed to Friday. In an earlier Telegram post, “Kazu” said it was not a “hactivist” group with political motives. “We know exactly how valuable health data is and how sensitive it can be,” it said on Sunday. “We are doing this as a business. Our main goal is money and building a good reputation in the community.” The latest “Kazu” post on Telegram referred to the US capture of Venezuela’s president, saying: “Free Nicolas Maduro.” Manage My Health’s portal in New Zealand

WELLINGTON: Hackers claiming to have accessed more than 100,000 people’s health records in New Zealand have reportedly extended a ransom deadline until Friday, after saying they want to build a “good reputation”. The privately owned Manage My Health platform said cybercriminals had accessed the records of 6-7% of its 1.8 million users. New Zealand authorities have not named the suspects behind the data breach, discovered by Manage My Health on Dec 30 when it was tipped off by a “partner”. But a Telegram user named “Kazu” has claimed to have broken into more than 428,000 files on the Manage My Health platform,

TIP-TOP ... Members of the Edo Firemanship Preservation Association performing acrobatic feats atop ladders at the Tokyo Fire Department’s New Year fire brigades exercise in Tokyo yesterday. – AFPPIC

Nuclear plant operator underestimated quake risks TOKYO: A Japanese nuclear plant operator said it may have presented data underestimating earthquake risks to regulators, as Japan moves to revive nuclear power nearly 15 years after the Fukushima disaster. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, is expected to restart operations later this month, pending final approval from the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA).

(safety) review process and undermine the trust of local communities and other stakeholders in our nuclear business, and potentially shake its very foundation,” he told reporters during an emergency press conference on Monday night. Japan pulled the plug on nuclear power after a colossal earthquake and tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima atomic plant into meltdown in 2011. However, the resource-poor nation now wants to revive atomic energy to reduce its heavy dependence on fossil fuels, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and meet growing energy needs from artificial intelligence. The world’s biggest nuclear plant,

The estimate of maximum seismic ground motion is important for the earthquake-resistant design of nuclear plants. In September 2023 the NRA approved Chubu Electric’s estimate of 1,200 gal, a unit of acceleration used to measure the intensity of quakes. But in February last year the NRA received information from a whistleblower that the utility “may have used data different from what was presented” to the nuclear watchdog, NRA official

Chubu Electric Power’s Hamaoka plant located in an area of central Japan at risk of a potential “megaquake” is undergoing regulatory safety checks, with the aim of restarting two reactors. But the company’s president said the estimated maximum seismic ground motion that the plant could experience during a quake “may have been underestimated”. “This incident could seriously affect the