04/05/2026

MONDAY | MAY 4, 2026

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11-day battle to contain wildfire TOKYO: Wildfires that scorched forests in northern Japan, reportedly the second biggest in over 30 years, have been brought under control after 11 days, officials have said. Hundreds of firefighters and more than 1,000 military personnel had battled the blazes since late April, as they burned around 1,600ha across the mountainous Iwate region. The affected area is almost five times the size of New York City’s Central Park. At least eight buildings were damaged and two people suffered minor injuries, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Thousands of people were evacuated, as fires picked up. Otsuchi town mayor Kozo Hirano told reporters on Saturday that he had been “informed that ... the fire had been brought under control” after visiting the area with fire officials. He credited aerial and ground firefighting operations as well as heavy rainfall, for containing the flames. But Hirano said authorities would remain vigilant as there was a possibility that smouldering embers remain. Kyodo News described the blaze as Japan’s second-largest wildfire in over 30 years. Last year, Iwate suffered a separate wildfire that burned 2,600ha, the largest in Japan since 1975, when 2,700ha were scorched by fire in Kushiro, on the northern island of Hokkaido. – AFP North Korea denies cyber crime accusations SEOUL: North Korea dismissed yesterday US accusations that it has engaged in cyber crimes to generate illicit revenues, calling the criticism “absurd slander”. Washington has accused Pyongyang of ramping up a cyber-warfare programme responsible for the theft of billions of dollars in virtual assets in recent years, turning hacking into a key source of foreign currency in the face of biting sanctions over its nuclear and weapons programmes. In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the US government had been “trying to spread incorrect understanding” about North Korea, “talking about the non existent cyber threat”. “This is nothing but an absurd slander to tarnish the image of our country by spreading false information in pursuit of political purposes,” it said. The US Justice Department sentenced two Americans last month for helping North Koreans obtain remote IT work with US companies and raising more millions of dollars in illicit revenue for its weapons programmes. More than 100 US companies were targeted, including a number of Fortune 500 firms and a defence contractor in the multi-year scheme, the Justice Department said. The ruse “placed North Korean IT workers on the payrolls of unwitting US companies and in US computer systems, thereby potentially harming our national security”, said John Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security. Google analysts and other cybersecurity experts said in April that hackers linked to North Korea were suspected of an ambitious attack on an inconspicuous but widely used software package. – AFP

Defiant Taiwan president begins Eswatini trip Lai walking with Prime Minister Russell Mmiso Dlamini on arrival in Eswatini on Saturday. – TAIWAN PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE HANDOUT/ REUTERSPIC

potential interference from external forces”, a senior Taiwan security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. Late Saturday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said Lai had “skulked” his way to Eswatini. “Lai Ching-te’s despicable conduct ... will inevitably be met with ridicule by the international community,” a spokesperson said in a statement. Taiwan’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council said Lai did not need Beijing’s permission to go anywhere. “The Taiwan Affairs Office’s gutter talk is boring in the extreme,” it said. Lai’s cancelled plans last month due to the overflight problem had prompted criticism of China from the US, and concern from the European Union, Britain, France and Germany. – Reuters it was working closely with local authorities to prevent Chinese nationals from carrying out scam operations in Sri Lanka. The embassy said Sri Lanka’s developed telecommunications infrastructure, favourable geographical location and relatively lenient visa policies encouraged fraud gangs to move to the South Asian nation. In 2024, Sri Lankan authorities detained 230 Chinese nationals and 200 Indian nationals accused of operating cybercrime centres in various parts of the island. – AFP

40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession. It is one of only 12 countries with formal ties with Taipei. “The Republic of China, Taiwan, is a sovereign nation and a Taiwan that belongs to the world,” Lai told the king, referring to Taiwan’s official name, in comments provided by the presidential office yesterday. “The 23 million people of Taiwan have the right to engage with the world, and no country has the right nor should any country attempt to prevent Taiwan from contributing to the world.” Lai arrived in the former Swaziland, home to around 1.3 million people, on Saturday, on a trip neither government had announced beforehand, having taken an Eswatini government aircraft. The “arrive then announce” model is commonly used in high-level international diplomacy, minimising the “uncertain risks of

o Taipei has right to engage with world, says Lai TAIPEI: Taiwan has a right to engage with the world and no country can stop that, President Lai Ching-te told Eswatini’s king after he arrived for a surprise trip that Taipei says Beijing tried to stop, as China condemned him. China views Taiwan as part of its territory with no right to state-to-state ties, a position Taiwan’s government strongly disputes, and Beijing has demanded countries stop any engagements with the island. Last month, Taiwan said China had forced three Indian Ocean countries to pull overflight permission for Lai’s aircraft to travel to the small southern African kingdom of Eswatini for the

Sri Lanka arrests 37 foreigners at scam centre COLOMBO: Sri Lankan police have arrested 37 Chinese nationals suspected of running a cyberscam centre in the capital Colombo, a spokesman said yesterday, in the latest crackdown on foreign-run online fraud. mobile phones and 100 SIM cards were seized at the suspected scam centre in the Colombo suburb of Talangama.

The arrests came a month after 152 foreign nationals, mostly Chinese, were detained for allegedly running a cyberscam operation out of a hotel in the island’s northwest. Immigration authorities arrested 135 Chinese men and women in March for allegedly running a similar scam operation. They have since been deported. Beijing’s embassy in Colombo said at the time

The suspects, aged between 23 and 44 and including one woman, were arrested after a tip off, the police spokesman said. “They had entered the country on tourist visas and were illegally employed, while two of them had overstayed their visas,” he said. A police source said 35 tablet computers, 147