24/06/2026

WEDNESDAY | JUNE 24, 2026

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Australia withholds Pacific climate fund reports

Top Indian tech supplier reports leak MUMBAI: A top Indian maker of iPhone parts has confirmed it was hit by a “cybersecurity incident”, with media reports alleging that Apple supplier specifications had been leaked. Industrial giant Tata Group is a lynchpin of Apple’s growing supply chain within the world’s most populous country. On Monday, reports said over 600 gigabytes of data, allegedly stolen from the conglomerate’s subsidiary Tata Electronics, were made available on the dark web. Specialist news site TechCrunch said it had found what appeared to be “Apple supplier specifications and Tesla manufacturing documents”. AFP could not independently verify the claims. Apple and Tesla did not immediately reply to a request for comment. A Tata Electronics spokesperson told AFP the company had identified an incident but that it had no impact on operations. “A few weeks ago, Tata Electronics identified a cybersecurity incident on some of our systems,” the spokesperson said. “Our response protocols were deployed immediately, and the incident has had no impact on our operations across businesses, which remain unaffected.” India has been a major beneficiary of Apple’s decision to broaden its production outside of China. The breach however is the latest incident to affect Tata Group, as it seeks to secure a larger share of supply chains. Last week, Tata Electronics said it had received a notice from local environmental authorities in Tamil Nadu, over claims of water contamination from its factory. But it said the concerns were “satisfactorily addressed” and that officials had “dropped any further course of action on this issue”. – AFP Cybersecurity norms outpaced in months SYDNEY: The most advanced artificial intelligence models are improving quickly enough to outsmart prevailing cybersecurity know-how within months, the Five Eyes spy agency alliance has warned. The risk posed by AI-enhanced hacking is in the spotlight, after US startup Anthropic said in April that its cutting-edge Mythos models had unprecedented abilities to find software vulnerabilities. The security agencies of Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand urged governments and businesses to act swiftly to prepare themselves as AI evolves. “The rapid pace of frontier AI development means cyber risk assumptions can become outdated in months, not years,” said a joint statement dated Monday. AI “lowers barriers for malicious actors and increases the speed and complexity of attacks”, the Five Eyes advisory said. “Breaches will occur. Preparedness helps you contain them quickly and prevent escalation into major operational and financial crises.” To improve cyber defences, organisations should integrate AI tools into their security operations, update old systems and limit access to critical systems among other steps, they said. Anthropic this month suspended access to Mythos 5 and a restricted version called Fable 5 to comply with a US national security order. Just days after publicly launching Fable 5, the company said it had received a government directive banning all foreign nationals from accessing the two models. The intervention is striking for a White House that has otherwise pushed to loosen AI oversight, even moving to block states from writing their own rules. – AFP

o Canberra cites risk of diplomatic damage

to the international relations” of Australia. Climate finance expert Ivan Diaz-Rainey criticised the lack of transparency surrounding the Tuvalu Trust Fund. “My greatest concern is that, unlike countries such as Australia, the Pacific islands are unlikely to have strong regulators or robust legal protections to guard against potential greenwashing,” he told AFP. Few countries are more exposed to climate change than Tuvalu, a chain of coral atolls reckoning with acidifying oceans, tropical disease and rising seas. Climate policy expert Wes Morgan said the trust fund’s fossil fuel investments were out of sync with Tuvalu’s dire predicament. “It is utterly incongruous that the Tuvalu Trust Fund, which counts Australia as a board member, would be investing in the means of Tuvalu’s destruction,” he said. One of the world’s largest exporters of coal and gas, Australia has an awkward relationship with Tuvalu on matters of climate policy. Australia is eager to show its Pacific island neighbours it is serious about the threat they face. It helped to secure an upcoming leaders summit in Tuvalu ahead of this year’s top UN COP climate conference. But Tuvalu remains highly critical of Australia’s reliance on fossil fuels. Tuvalu Climate Minister Maina Talia in 2024

condemned Australia’s “immoral” decision to approve coal mining expansions. The Tuvalu Trust Fund was established in 1987 with help from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, providing crucial revenue to a nation reliant on foreign aid. In 2013, the UN Development Programme highlighted the Tuvalu Trust Fund as a leading example of a “national climate fund”. Investment advisory firm Mercer took over management of the fund in 2022. Mercer has since invested in funds that included Indian energy giant Reliance Industries, which owns the largest oil refinery in the world, and The Southern Company, the second-biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the United States. Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo told AFP he was personally disappointed to learn of these investments. But he said Tuvalu would need Australia and New Zealand’s support to change the fund’s investment strategy. “It’s not solely under Tuvalu’s control,” Teo said. “Tuvalu can’t take a unilateral decision on where funds are invested.” Australia said it would use its position on the Tuvalu Trust Fund to minimise its “exposure to fossil fuel investments”. Mercer said it managed the Tuvalu Trust Fund in “accordance with its established investment guidelines”. – AFP

SYDNEY: Australia has refused to release internal papers about a trust fund for Tuvalu, telling AFP the documents could inflict diplomatic “damage”. Gravely threatened by rising seas, low-lying Tuvalu relies on a US$200 million (RM827.9 million) trust fund to help foot the ballooning costs of climate change. The trust has been invested on Tuvalu’s behalf in funds exposed to coal mining, gas exploration and the world’s largest crude oil refinery, an AFP investigation revealed. Australia is the largest contributor to the Tuvalu Trust Fund and plays a key role overseeing how it is spent, filling one of three seats on its board of directors. Using freedom of information laws, AFP asked the Australian government to release internal reports shedding light on trust fund investment decisions. Australia’s Foreign Affairs Department delivered some publicly available documents but declined to release the internal papers, citing exemptions to protect diplomacy. The department said the documents should be withheld because they could “cause damage

Come clean on environmental costs, AI firms told LONDON: The United Nations called on major artificial intelligence companies yesterday to publicly disclose the full environmental cost of their data centres and use renewable power, as he launched a transparency initiative for the sector. Guterres (centre), sitting alongside former New York mayor Micheal Bloomberg, before his speech at the Climate Innovation Forum yesterday. – AFPPIC disclose their water, carbon and land use impacts and commit to powering all data centres with renewable energy by 2030 as he launched the UN’s AI Environmental Transparency Initiative. “If AI is to help build a better future, it must be honest about what it costs us now,” he said. buildings and industry is among the fastest ways to cut emissions and break reliance on imported fossil fuels. Guterres also launched a call to action on methane emissions, which included asking fossil fuel companies to fix leaks, stop routine flaring and adopt a science-based global standard.

The rapid development of data centres to fuel the AI revolution has drawn scrutiny from environmental groups for their high energy and water use and lack of transparency. “By 2030, they could use more power than all but five countries – and enough water to meet the basic needs of all 1.3 billion residents of sub Saharan Africa for an entire year,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said at an address during London Climate Action Week. He called on AI firms to measure and publicly

“I am urging the fossil fuel industry to step up and do what is long overdue,” he said, adding that methane is a potent greenhouse gas and is responsible for around one-third of current global warming. Guterres also announced he would convene world leaders in September ahead of the UN Climate Conference, COP31, in Turkiye, to help drive forward a “just transition” away from fossil fuels. – Reuters

AI firms are relying on voluntary net-zero commitments and renewable electricity targets to decarbonise their operations while many are also turning to gas or touting nuclear as a power source for new projects. Guterres said the world remains off track to meet global climate goals and criticised voices calling for more fossil use. He said deploying more renewable power projects and using those to electrify transport,