30/08/2026

theSun on Sunday AUG 30, 2026

WORLD 7

Nepal needs technical help KATHMANDU: Nepal suspended search and rescue yesterday due to bad weather and said it needs foreign technical help to cope with the flood that tore through an area bordering Tibet. US$5b rebuilding cost estimated

PHNOM PENH: Cambodia said it had closed more than 700 online scam centres in a crackdown over the past year, detaining nearly 30,000 suspects. A government statement said authorities had cleared more than 700 compounds and deported 58,266 foreign nationals. It said nearly 30,000 suspects had been arrested, including 15 high-ranking officials and law enforcement officers. More than 3,400 suspects from 29 nationalities were in custody awaiting trial. It said criminal groups have altered tactics and moved to guesthouses, apartments, rental houses, vehicles and coffee shops. Amnesty International’s co regional director Montse Ferrer said it was sceptical the scamming compound industry has been effectively eliminated because of its entrenched links in the country. “The true test is not how many compounds have closed, but whether the actors responsible have been investigated, prosecuted and prevented from resuming operations,” she said. Transnational crime analyst Jacob Sims said: “Claims with no independent verification must be viewed with scepticism. “The bigger risk for the international community is confusing visible disruption with dismantling the underlying networks and political protection that made the industry possible.” – AFP/Reuters Circuit board maker raided in false labels case TAIPEI: Taiwan prosecutors said yesterday they had searched the offices of Taiwanese printed circuit board maker Unimicron Technology on suspicion the company falsely labelled some of its China-made products as being from Taiwan. Prosecutors in the northern city of Taoyuan said they had searched two company locations and questioned 18 defendants and witnesses. The suspected false labelling of the made-in-China printed circuit boards could constitute a breach of the law and involve the forgery of documents, the prosecutors said in a statement. Unimicron did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Friday night, it said in a statement to the Taiwan stock exchange that its offices had been searched and it would fully cooperate with the prosecutors. Taiwan’s government has been cracking down on “origin washing”, whereby companies claim goods are made in Taiwan in an attempt to get preferential tariff treatment when the goods are actually made in China or elsewhere, which could be subject to higher export tariffs. – Reuters Cambodia shuts 700 cyberscam centres

A resident praying in front of her house in Trishuli, Nuwakot district yesterday. – REUTERSPIC

PALANGKARAYA: Indonesia has intensified efforts to fight wildfires with cloud seeding and water bombing as thousands of people battle to breathe in the smoke and haze. More than five million people in Borneo and Sumatra were directly exposed to the risks of a putrid haze coming off dozens of fires across the vast archipelago. Deputy Health Minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono said some 13,500 people were treated for respiratory infections. The impoverished Himalayan nation of 30 million people will also need about US$5 billion (RM20.1 billion) to rebuild after the destruction caused by Wednesday’s flood, the finance minister said. Triggered by a glacier ߑ collapse, the huge torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris hurtled through mountain river systems on Wednesday, killing at least 626 people in Nepal and seven in China’s Tibet as it swallowed buildings, bridges and power stations in its path. Nearly 3,000 people are still missing – about 2,426 in Nepal and at least 558 in Tibet’s Gyirong County – including at least 540 foreigners, many of them Hindu pilgrims from India. “Search and rescue operations have been temporarily halted because it is raining and the weather is foggy,” said Narendra Pariyar, the top bureaucrat for the badly hit ߑ Rasuwa district. The focus is on arranging land transport to move rescued pilgrims to the capital city, Kathmandu, he said. Authorities briefly suspended rescue operations on Friday as well when a lake, formed across the Nepal-China border after the flood, began overflowing into Nepal’s Lhende Khola and Trishuli rivers.

“We have already made requests for such specialised services and technical assistance in areas where we don’t have enough expertise and technical know-how,” he said late on Friday. New Delhi has sent three flights carrying about 60 tonnes ߑ of relief material to Nepal, including blankets, medicines, food and water purification tablets, and plans to also dispatch a tunnel rescue team and a medical team. India has also offered its disaster response force and prefabricated bridges along with technical teams to help restore connectivity, the Foreign Ministry said. Beijing has called for emergency aid to disaster-hit areas of Nepal and international rescue cooperation, without elaborating on what China is sending to Nepal. Disaster agency BNPB said the government has intensified efforts to battle wildfires, with some success. “Cloud seeding remains one of the measures to support efforts to tackle forest and land fires. Its implementation depends heavily on atmospheric conditions and the presence of rain-bearing clouds in the target areas,” said BNPB spokesman China has occupied the Paracel Islands since 1974, when it seized them from the navy of the former South Vietnam. Vietnam, which claims the entire grouping as its own, has moved in recent years to expand its own network of bases in the Spratlys, which lie further south. Hang said Vietnam has sufficient historical evidence and legal grounds to affirm its

That lake is one of two upstream of the flood zone that Nepal is monitoring. Flood risks will persist until both fully drain, an official warned. One lake is shrinking, Xinhua news agency said on Friday, citing analysis by the Water Resources Ministry. But a Chinese government geohazards expert warned it may be unstable, adding over 100 glacial lakes scattered in the area could also pose a threat. Nepal’s Foreign Minister ߑ Shisir Khanal said the country did not need help with search and rescue operations but required assistance in rescuing people stuck in tunnels, opening transport and communication lines in places where bridges were destroyed, identification of dead bodies, DNA testing and storing bodies for longer durations.

Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle told Reuters that Kathmandu’s initial estimate was that it will need US$5 billion to rebuild. “This is just an estimate. Loss and damage is being assessed,” he ߑ said. Authorities in China have also been racing to trace more than 500 missing people after the flood. Rescuers on Friday reached the worst-hit Gyirong border crossing complex, traversing mountains and valleys, and using ropes to navigate forests and cliffs after roads to the complex, hemmed in by steep Himalayan slopes, were destroyed. Surveillance camera footage from the crossing showed huge torrents of water and debris engulfing buildings there when the flood hit, as people tried to flee. – Reuters Berton Suar Pelita Panjaitan. The agency said it has poured more than four million litres of water on burning areas in the recent weeks, and on Wednesday it scattered more than 8,000kg of salt onto clouds. Cloud seeding involves sprinkling silver iodide, salts or other particles into clouds to trigger precipitation. Such operations this week succeeded in prompting light to moderate rains over east and south Sumatra and west Kalimantan, Berton said. – AFP sovereignty over the Paracels in accordance with international law. “Vietnam reiterates that all foreign activities in the Paracel Islands, including at Ba Ba Island and at Hai Sam Reef, conducted without Vietnam’s permission are completely illegal and null and void,” she said, using Vietnam’s name for Antelope Reef. – Reuters

Indonesia escalates battle against wildfires NGOs have set up two shelters in Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan on Borneo island, for babies and children affected by the haze, with more planned. “My children often have coughs and colds, maybe because there is a lot of smoke,” she said.

The shelters, which can accommodate only five children at a time, were equipped with baby formula and oxygen tanks, medicines, and a playground. Katharina Abi, 30, brought her two small children, aged one and five, to one of the shelters on Friday as thick smoke blanketed their home.

Vietnam opposes Chinese construction works on islet HANOI: Vietnam said it strongly opposed all foreign activities in the Paracels archipelago, following a report earlier this week of new Chinese construction on an islet. Reuters reported on saying it could be the start of a radar station. “Vietnam resolutely opposes this, has made serious

representations and affirmed its position on the matter, and demands an immediate end to such activities and that they not be repeated,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang told Reuters in an emailed statement.

Tuesday that new installations had been sighted on Yagong Island, called Ba Ba Island by Vietnam, citing satellite imagery, with security analysts