Helicopters and rubber boats have been deployed as floods hit central-northern areas along the Bei River, a southern tributary of the Pearl River, which flows from Shaoguan to the Pearl River Delta.
The Bei River’s water levels were confirmed to have exceeded 50-year highs at Feilaixia reservoir in Qingyuan on Monday, according to Xinhua. Water flow to the Feilaixia hydropower plant approached 100-year highs.
Provincial authorities earlier warned that the river’s water levels were expected to hit “once in a century” levels, but they later lowered their predictions.
Rescuers were sent to relocate trapped residents in Shaoguan and transport food and other materials, according to Guangzhou-based news site dayoo.com, owned by Guangzhou Daily.
Shaoguan, located in the north of the province, on Monday downgraded the city’s flood emergency response warning to level three in a four-tier alert system in which level one is the most severe.
More than 300 emergency personnel were deployed on Saturday to rescue trapped residents in six villages in the town of Jiangwan, where roads were cut off by landslides. At least six people in the villages were injured, according to online news site The Paper.
Mobile phone and internet services were restored in the town on Sunday after the landslide disrupted telecoms cables.
In central Guangdong’s Qingyuan city, water levels in some areas reached the first floor of buildings on Sunday morning and flooded homes and shops. As of 4pm on Sunday, more than 60,000 residents had been transferred from affected areas, according to Xinhua.
Some schools in heavily affected areas of Qingyuan were suspended on Monday.
Average rainfall across Guangdong totalled 121.8mm (4.8 inches) from Friday 10am to Sunday 11am, according to the provincial department of water resources.
China Meteorological Administration predicted heavy downpours to continue until Tuesday, with 100mm to 170mm of rainfall in 24 hours in some areas of southeastern Guangdong from Monday afternoon.
Cumulative rainfall has broken records for April in the cities of Guangzhou, Shaoguan and Lechang as well as the counties of Lechang and Shixing, according to regional newspapers Guangzhou Daily and Nanfang Daily.
The rain also affected rail services, with more than 300 trains returning or being suspended between Friday and Sunday, according to the China Railway Guangzhou Group. All trains were operating again as of Monday.
Provincial party secretary Huang Kunming and governor Wang Weizhong on Sunday visited Shaoguan city and held meetings with regional emergency management offices, Nanfang Daily reported.
They also visited the city’s Mengzhou dam along the Bei River and a primary school in Longgui town where residents have been staying since flooding hit their homes.
A cyclist scolded a driver with a vulgarity after a child following him crashed into a car on Cuppage Road between The Centrepoint and Orchard Point buildings on April 21 at 4.14pm.
Dash cam video of the incident was posted online by SG Road Vigilante on April 21.
The video shows two cyclists riding across Cuppage Road as the car was about to turn into the road from Orchard Road and sounded its horn.
Just as the car turned into Cuppage Road, the child on a bicycle appeared and crashes into the side of the car with a loud thud.
Fortunately, all three cyclists were wearing helmets.
A female passer-by went to help the crying child up and off the road as another car was about to turn into the road.
The cyclists returned on foot and the older cyclist rushed to the car, which had stopped, and confronted the driver.
It should be noted the cyclist did not check on the well-being of the child first.
The cyclist asked the driver in a foreign accent: "Hey, what the f*** is your problem? This is a crosswalk. You don't honk and speed through here."
The driver replied: "I didn't speed."
Actually, there was no designated pedestrian crossing or "crosswalk" at that location.
The person who submitted the video was quoted as saying: "Parent lets kid ride across the road without due care, claims it's a crosswalk and blames driver for it.
"Traffic Police came down and advised to file a report, nothing much can be done. Rider gets away free of responsibilities and driver is left to fix his own car."
In response to a Stomp query, the police said they were alerted at about 4.15pm to an accident involving a car and a bicycle at the junction of Orchard Road and Cuppage Road.
No injuries were reported, added the police.
Many netizens blamed the cyclist for what happened, with one commenting: "The kids' parents should be charged for endangering the life of their children."
But one commenter also faulted the driver, saying: "Yes, the cyclists should slow down and look out for cars when crossing such road, but it’s not like the driver is practising defensive driving knowing that he is turning left. In fact, the driver sped up a bit."
To which someone else replied: "The driver had given a tap on the horn to warn the cyclists. The taxi blocked the view of the driver and therefore, the driver was not able to get a clear view. The little cyclist carried on to ride across and knocked onto the car. Don't think the blame should be on the driver at all."
President Vladimir Putin's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine has triggered the worst crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, according to Russian and US diplomats.
The US House of Representatives on Saturday with broad bipartisan support passed a US$95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from some Republicans.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that it was clear that the United States wanted Ukraine "to fight to the last Ukrainian" including with attacks on Russian sovereign territory and civilians.
"Washington's deeper and deeper immersion in the hybrid war against Russia will turn into such a loud and humiliating fiasco for United States as Vietnam and Afghanistan," Zakharova said.
She said that ordinary Ukrainians were being "forcibly driven to slaughter as 'cannon fodder'" but that the United States was now no longer betting on a Ukrainian victory against Russia.
The leaders of the West and Ukraine have cast the war in Ukraine as an imperial-style land-grab which shows that post-Soviet Russia is one of the top two biggest nation-state threats to global stability, alongside China.
Putin, though, presents the war as part of a much bigger struggle with the United States, which he says ignored Moscow's interests after the 1991 Soviet collapse and then plotted to cleave Russia apart and grab its natural resources.
Malaysia Airports, the airport management company which manages Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), hasextended its appreciation to a policeman for his courage during the shooting incident at the airport on April 14.
Taking to its official Facebook page, Malaysia Airports expressed its appreciation to the policeman, Corporal Mohammad Shafiq Safi’ai, an Aviation Security (AVSEC) member for performing his duties with responsibility and dedication to ensure visitors’ safety at KLIA.
Honoured by Malaysia Airports for his bravery
According to the post, Shafiq acted immediately by giving out a stern warning to the suspect by aiming his firearm at him after the suspect had released 2 gunshots at the airport.
After Shafiq’s courageous actions, the suspect immediately fled the scene, which prompted a manhunt nationwide searching for him.
Malaysia Airports attached 2 photos to the post, one of Shafiq and the other of him receiving a certificate of appreciation as well as a mock cheque for RM1,000 contributed by Malaysia Airports.
The infamous shooting incident took place at around 1:30 am at the KLIA Terminal 1 arrival hall, in which the suspect fired 2 gunshots aimed at his wife.
While the House took separate votes on the four bills they are expected to be bundled together as one package to send to the Senate.
The catch-all foreign policy bill containing the TikTok proposal also tackles China’s role in fentanyl and sanctions evasion and restricts data brokers from sending sensitive American data to foreign adversaries.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Saturday that the chamber will take up the package next week, with the first vote on Tuesday. The Senate was initially scheduled to be in recess next week.
US President Joe Biden has said he would sign the package, a move that would end months of stalemate over whether the US would fund Ukraine and Israel.
“I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so that I can sign it into law and we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs,” Biden said in a statement Saturday.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said last year that it would oppose a forced sale of TikTok. Photo: AFP
This latest legislative effort to force ByteDance to divest TikTok comes only a month after a similar bill, which provided a shorter divestment period of about six months, passed the Republican-controlled House in a bipartisan 352-65 vote. It has since stalled in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Maria Cantwell, Washington Democrat and chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, has voiced support for the new House proposal, noting that she was pleased to see the divestment period extended to a year.
Critics had called the March effort unrealistic, arguing that six months would not provide enough time for a divestment. Cantwell, whose committee has jurisdiction over the proposal in the Senate, did not express support for that effort.
On Saturday, Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat of Virginia and chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he was “very glad to see progress towards compelling a divestiture of TikTok”.
“This is a strong step forward to shore up our national security against malign influence, and it couldn’t come at a more important time.”
But experts say that the tweaks to the March version of the TikTok bill do not address a critical obstacle to ByteDance divesting the app.
“The time frame does not affect the core barrier to divestiture, which is China’s export control law that could allow the government to prevent the sale of TikTok’s algorithm,” said Caitlin Chin-Rothmann of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
“One year is still a relatively short period of time to find an eligible buyer and coordinate the technological and logistical processes of divesting a massive platform,” she added.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said last year that it would oppose a forced sale. In 2020, Beijing updated its rules governing exports to include technology similar to the algorithm that TikTok uses to recommend content to its users.
Sarah Bauerle Danzman, a resident senior fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, said that the main achievement of an extended divestment window is to push divestment until after the US national elections in November.
“This may be more palatable to lawmakers,” she said.
Lawmakers, citing China’s national security laws, have expressed concern about TikTok’s potential to surveil and manipulate Americans through collection of their personal data and algorithm modifications.
Still, TikTok, which boasts 170 million users in the US, hosts over a dozen Democratic lawmakers on the app, as well as Biden’s re-election campaign.
The company has said that it intends to fight the potential ban in court if it comes to it.
“It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the US economy, annually,” it said ahead of Saturday’s vote.
Clarify Capital, a business loan provider, said in a survey of 200 business owners released last month that 13 per cent of small businesses believe their business will struggle if the app is banned.
US Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, has consistently opposed restricting TikTok. Photo: TNS
In response to a potential ban, TikTok had encouraged its users to call their representatives to express their opposition, an effort that has backfired in some congressional offices.
But despite the change of heart for key lawmakers like Cantwell, the bills may not face smooth-sailing in the Senate.
Senator Rand Paul, a Republican of Kentucky, said he plans to drag out the vote if the Senate is called back to session next week.
Paul has consistently opposed restricting TikTok, citing government overreach and arguing that the app’s demonstrated threats so far do not warrant violation of constitutional rights enshrined in the First Amendment. He also opposes the foreign aid package that the TikTok proposal is attached to.
Previous efforts to curb TikTok’s influence in the US, which began in 2020 with then US president Donald Trump, have failed challenges in courts.
TikTok, for its part, has attempted to address lawmaker concerns by working with an inter-agency group to implement a US$1.5 billion plan, called Project Texas, to restrict foreign access to American user data on the app. But lawmakers are unconvinced that it will lead to a meaningful separation between TikTok and ByteDance, and have largely ignored it in public discussion.
“Project Texas did not address the [Chinese Communist Party]’s ability to control TikTok through its parent ByteDance,” Mike Gallagher, outgoing chair of the House select committee on China and sponsor of the March effort to force ByteDance to divest, told the South China Morning Post last month.
“And as long as the CCP is able to exercise control over the algorithm and over TikTok via ByteDance, the national security threat remains.”
Of the four bills, the Indo-Pacific security package, including aid to Taiwan, received the most support, 385-34. The Ukraine vote was 311-112 and the Israel aid was passed 366-58.
Saturday’s package includes US$2 billion in foreign military financing for Indo-Pacific partners like Taiwan and $1.9 billion to replenish US defence articles and services provided to Taiwan. It also includes $3.3 billion to develop US submarine infrastructure.
Allies including the US had pressed all week to ensure any further retaliation would be calibrated not to provoke more escalation, and Western countries tightened sanctions on Iran to mollify Israel.
There was no word from Israel on Friday as to whether further action might be planned. Apart from direct strikes on Iranian territory, it has other ways of attacking, including cyber-attacks and strikes on Iranian proxies elsewhere.
In a sign of pressure within Israel's hard-right government for a stronger response, Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right national security minister posted a single word on X after Friday's strikes: "Feeble".
At the end of a meeting in Italy, foreign ministers of the Group of Seven industrialised democracies urged "all parties to work to prevent further escalation".
They also called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the release of hostages held there by Hamas, an influx of aid for civilians in Gaza and for Israel to hold off from attacking Rafah, the last refuge for more than a million Gazans.
Beijing, Moscow and Arab states also called for restraint in the region.
In financial markets, oil prices initially surged but later slipped back, a move market analysts said pointed to a belief that an escalation of hostilities in the region might be avoided.
By morning, Iran had reopened airports and airspace that were shut during the strikes. But travel disruption is set to continue in the region, with some flights rerouted by international airlines and others suspended.
The main opposition political group, the Congress Party, won 52 seats in 2019, up just slightly from the 44 in 2014 when they were voted out of office after governing India for decades.
It has formed an alliance with other opposition parties - the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance - for a real shot at toppling the BJP.
Dr Nachiappan said the opposition remains resilient in some states, especially in southern and eastern India, where the BJP is in a competitive fight for most seats.
The opposition has vowed to boost social spending and reverse what it views as India’s slide into autocracy.
But the bloc of more than 25 parties seems to be in crisis, as it faces defections, infighting and a crackdown by India's law enforcement agencies.
These parties have claimed that the Modi government is targeting only opposition politicians in its crackdown on alleged corruption, a charge that the BJP denied.
A spate of recent defections to the BJP is also a problem for the opposition.
Out of the candidates listed by the BJP so far for the upcoming elections, 28 per cent are defectors, and most of them were with the Congress before joining the ruling party.
Former Union minister Milind Deora, for instance, announced in January he was quitting the Congress Party and defected to the faction of a regional party in Mumbai – the Shiv Sena, backed by the BJP.
He criticised Congress’s leadership for being inaccessible and not allowing talented youngsters to participate in decision-making processes.
“When anyone in any organisation, whether you are in a political or a private organisation, if your merit is not rewarded, your capability and capacity is used against you, and mediocrity is encouraged, it is natural that people will move on,” he said.
Observers said the opposition coalition is fragile. For months, the alliance struggled to put up a united front and iron out differences over seat sharing.
“Opposition parties have failed on two counts,” said political analyst Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
“One is to stitch an all-India opposition which actually unites parties, where in every state, there is one opposition candidate against the BJP candidate. That has not worked. The second thing is in terms of an idea. What is the alternative to Mr Modi’s India that you are going to present? That has not been communicated to the people of India.”
There is also no clear prime ministerial candidate for the opposition, said Dr Nachiappan.
“So that's a weakness, and that's a weakness that the BJP is now exploiting in its own campaign.”
While Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi - whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather were all prime ministers - remains the most recognisable face of the opposition bloc, there are disagreements on whether he should be the one to front the alliance.
