SYDNEY: A Chinese official's tweet of an image of an Australian soldier that sparked a furious reaction from Canberra was amplified across social media by unusual accounts, of which half were likely fake, an Israeli cybersecurity firm and Australian experts said.
The digitally altered image of an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of an Afghan child was tweeted by China's foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Monday (Nov 30).
The Chinese embassy in Canberra told ABC television on Friday that Prime Minister Scott Morrison's demand for an apology drew more attention to an investigation into war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.
Cyabra, an Israeli cybersecurity firm, said it found evidence of an orchestrated campaign to promote Zhao's tweet.
Cyabra said it had found 57.5 per cent of accounts that engaged with Zhao's tweet were fake, and "evidence of a largely orchestrated disinformation campaign" to amplify its message.
The firm did not give any details about who was behind the campaign.
Cyabra said it analysed 1,344 profiles and found a large number were created in November and used once, to retweet Zhao's tweet.
The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Queensland University of Technology's Tim Graham analysed 10,000 replies to Zhao's tweet.
Accounts originating in China were the most active, he said, and 8 per cent of replies were from accounts created on the day, or in the 24 hours prior. Many contained duplicated text.
"When not tweeting about Afghan children, they were tweeting about Hong Kong," he told Reuters in an interview.
"If there's enough of them, those irregularities suggest they were set up for a particular campaign."
Some of the accounts had already been identified by Graham in a data-set of 37,000 Chinese accounts targeting Australia since June, he said.
Ariel Bogle, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said she had also noticed "unusual behaviour" by Twitter accounts retweeting or liking Zhao's tweet.
"There was a spike in accounts created on Nov 30 and Dec 1," she told Reuters, adding it was too early to determine if it was coordinated inauthentic behaviour or patriotic individuals.
Many of the new accounts only followed Zhao, plus one or two other accounts, she said. A third of accounts liking Zhao's tweet had zero followers, ASPI noted.
Earlier this year, Twitter said it had removed 23,750 accounts spreading geopolitical narratives favourable to the Chinese Communist Party, and another 150,000 accounts designed to amplify these messages.
A Twitter spokeswoman said the company remains vigilant, but the Cyabra findings "don't hold up to scrutiny" because it relied only on publicly available data.
A Cyabra spokeswoman said its founders are information warfare experts with Israeli military backgrounds, and the US State Department was among its clients.
BANGKOK: Up to 1 billion people in Asia could live in areas experiencing lethal heatwaves by 2050 as a result of worsening climate change, according to a new report by consulting firm McKinsey Global Institute (MGI).
The modelling in the report outlines that severe heat is just one of the major risks forecast for the continent under RCP8.5, a worst-case scenario situation that could result without collective action to reduce carbon emissions.
Without vastly improved action to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement, Asia is expected to see temperature rises of more than two degrees from pre-industrial levels.
While much of the risk lies in subcontinental Asian countries such as India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, Southeast Asia would also face more frequent, dangerous heat conditions, especially Vietnam.
Based on MGI’s report released on Nov 24, it means more regular deadly heat events and vastly reduced safe outdoor working hours, a factor compounded in Southeast Asia by fast spreading urbanisation and the prediction of shifting manufacturing operations to the region from China.
The flow-on effects to agriculture is also predicted to place greater strain on populations.
In Southeast Asia - labelled Emerging Asia in the report - yields of essential crops like rice, corn and soy will become more unpredictable, affecting prices for consumers and livelihoods of farmers. Singapore is in a separate category called Advanced Asia.
A small camp fire built by locals in the dried out reservoir that normally provides agricultural water in northeast Thailand. (Photo: Jack Board)
“Climate risk and response is one the imperatives, if not the imperative of our generation,” Oliver Tonby, Asia Chairman of McKinsey & Company, told CNA.
“The stakes of climate change - and the impact it’s having on people, on economies, on countries - we’re already starting to feel it in significant ways and if we continue on the slow pace we’re on right now, the consequences are going to be devastating, especially for Asia,” he said.
The financial impacts on economies could be staggering - between US$2.8 trillion and US$4.7 trillion of collective GDP in Asia would be at risk every year from rising heat and humidity.
Tonby says one of the report’s intentions is to put a dollar figure on the damage that could lie ahead in the hope that it will provoke action from governments and companies.
“It is important to have a fact base in this debate. For certain people, it is important to talk about what the effect is in monetary terms,” he said.
“We want to paint a realistic picture. The numbers themselves and the messages themselves are startling. It illustrates the importance of climate risk, of sustainability, in a certain context and hopefully it spurs more action. That’s the idea.”
Agricultural yields will become more unpredictable under the RCP8.5 scenario. (Photo: Jack Board)
BECOMING RESILIENT
Regional governments have been urged to “amplify” investments in climate action in order to protect vulnerable populations and empower them to adapt to the rising dangers of drought and extreme heat, in another recent report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Secretariat.
It follows some of the worst drought conditions ever recorded in the region over the past five years, with 70 per cent of Southeast Asia's land area affected and about 60 per cent of the region’s population exposed at the peak of dry conditions, according to the study.
“The ever-present threat of drought, with devastating impacts across the Southeast Asia region, is a hallmark of the climate crisis,” UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana said in a statement on Nov 27.
“The best way to protect people in pandemics, droughts or other disasters, is not just to offer emergency aid but to also help people become more sustainably resilient,” she said.
Extreme heat will exponentially impact the most vulnerable. (Photo: Jack Board)
The authors of the report called on regional governments to be more proactive to foreseeable drought events and implement better early warning systems and drought risk financing.
Despite growing attention to extreme heat from authorities, it remains an overlooked and under-examined issue, according to Albert Salamanca, a Bangkok-based senior research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute.
“Extreme heat is an issue that is yet to receive full attention by national and regional actors and stakeholders,” he said.
“There is now a growing realisation, however, of extreme heat in the context of agricultural drought and its contribution to a country’s annual loss due to disasters.”
Heat is trapped by thermal mass during the day and released at night. (Photo: Jack Board)
The urban heat island phenomenon is also a growing impediment to productivity and health, as increasing thermal mass adds to temperatures in large cities.
Roads, buildings and other concrete urban infrastructure absorb solar radiation during the day and release it slowly at night, causing an increase in temperature. Vehicles add to the issue, as well as the clearing of green spaces to make way for new construction.
While small-scale solutions are being implemented in some major cities, fast urbanisation around secondary cities poses a pressing need for more urgent mitigation strategies.
“Extreme heat in the context of urban areas or urban heating has not yet entered the priorities of national and regional policymakers. To date, discussions on this issue are very limited,” Salamanca said.
It is in the investment in infrastructure where MGI identifies a key opportunity for the Asia region. The report estimates the need for US$1.7 trillion of new investments to maintain economic growth targets.
Much of the factories, networks and other physical urban spaces will need to be future-proofed, especially with regard to the threat posed by extreme precipitation events leading to historic flooding. In some parts of the continent, including Indonesia, the likelihood of these events could increase by three to four-fold, putting hundreds of billions of dollars of assets at danger of damage.
Ho Chi Minh City, Tokyo and Jakarta are highlighted as metropolises where the costs of protection from inundation will continue to rise at steeper magnitudes.
But because much essential infrastructure has yet to be built, decision makers have the chance to make prudent investment choices that prioritise sustainability and build resilience rather than risk.
Homes swept away and apart by the force of landslides in Yanohigashi, Japan. (Photo: Jack Board)
Decarbonising road transportation, buildings and industrial operations - notably steel and cement - as well as forestry and agriculture are all important components in controlling emissions.
As Asia contributes about 45 per cent of global emissions, the speed of its transition from coal to renewable energy sources will be one of the key indicators of success or failure on climate change action.
New capacity in renewables is growing year by year, and several powerhouse nations including China, South Korea and Japan have ambitious emissions targets, which will be driven by the expansion of the solar, wind and geothermal industries.
“That shift is happening naturally. In Southeast Asia we’ve seen a big, big step up in recent years from a lower base and the pace is slightly slower than India and China, but it’s coming,” Tonby said.
The COVID-19 pandemic could prove to be an illuminating lesson on how regional and global cooperation and solutions can help tackle a daunting challenge. Indeed, experts insist that coordinated action is a necessary strategy to help mitigate climate change.
“Working collaboratively on climate change is not only about limiting economic losses; it is about survival,” said Sharon Seah, coordinator of the ASEAN Studies Centre and the Climate Change in Southeast Asia Programme at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
The speed of action and international collaboration has been unprecedented during this crisis, and Tonby expects the pace of climate change initiatives to accelerate too in its wake.
“The surprise - and it’s not a good surprise - is the pace of change that we are facing now and the severity of it. It’s how rapidly it’s coming now,” he said.
“What’s to come in the next ten to 15 years is dramatic and it’s already locked in. What we’re talking about now is moving the needle for 2030 onwards.”
WASHINGTON: IBM and U.S. officials are sounding the alarm over hackers targeting companies critical to the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
IBM said on Thursday (Dec 3) that the campaign was a sign that digital spies are turning their attention to the complex logistical work involved in inoculating the world's population against the novel coronavirus, although some outside experts questioned whether that was the hackers' focus.
In a blog post published on Thursday, IBM said it had uncovered "a global phishing campaign" focused on organizations associated with the COVID-19 vaccine "cold chain" - the process needed to keep vaccine doses at extremely cold temperatures as they travel from manufacturers to people's arms.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency reposted the report, warning members of Operation Warp Speed - the U.S. government's national vaccine mission - to be on the lookout.
Other cybersecurity experts expressed some scepticism, however, of IBM's findings.
Joe Slowik, a researcher at online threat intelligence firm DomainTools, said he believed IBM had stumbled upon "a subset of activity" that was part of a much wider campaign "which may not be focused on vaccines or similar activity."
While "definitely malicious", Slowik said he was not convinced it was specifically focused on vaccine distribution.
Who is behind the espionage is not clear. Messages sent to the email addresses used by the hackers were not returned.
Understanding how to build a secure cold chain is fundamental to distributing vaccines developed by the likes of Pfizer and BioNTech because the shots need to be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius or below to avoid spoiling.
IBM's cybersecurity unit said it had detected an advanced group of hackers working to gather information about different aspects of the cold chain, using meticulously crafted booby-trapped emails sent in the name of an executive with Haier Biomedical, a Chinese cold chain provider that specializes in vaccine transport and biological sample storage.
Haier Medical did not return messages seeking comment.
Targets included companies involved in the manufacture of solar panels, which are used to power vaccine refrigerators in warm countries, and petrochemical products that could be used to derive dry ice.
The hackers went through "an exceptional amount of effort," said IBM analyst Claire Zaboeva, who helped draft the report. Hackers researched the correct make, model, and pricing of various Haier refrigeration units, Zaboeva said.
"Whoever put together this campaign was intimately aware of whatever products were involved in the supply chain to deliver a vaccine for a global pandemic," she said.
The only organisation identified by name in IBM's report - the European Commission's Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union - said in a statement that it was aware that it had been targeted in the hacking campaign.
"We have taken the necessary steps to mitigate the attack and are closely following and analysing the situation," the statement said.
Reuters has previously documented how hackers linked to Iran, Vietnam, North Korea, South Korea, China, and Russia have on separate occasions been accused by cybersecurity experts or government officials of trying to steal information about the virus and its potential treatments. Cybercriminals have also been active against health care providers such as hospitals during the pandemic.
IBM's Zaboeva said there was no shortage of potential suspects. Figuring out how to swiftly distribute an economy-saving vaccine "should be topping the lists of nation states across the world," she said.
SINGAPORE: Singapore will contribute US$5 million (S$6.67 million) to help bring COVID-19 vaccines to people in low- and lower-middle-income countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in a joint statement on Friday (Dec 4).
The contribution will go towards the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) Advance Market Commitment (AMC) mechanism, which will assist 92 countries in securing access to vaccines.
Six members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are among the countries eligible for assistance: Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and Vietnam.
The COVAX initiative is coordinated by global vaccine alliance Gavi, along with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the World Health Organization.
MFA and MOH said that the move is part of Singapore’s “consistent support for vaccine multilateralism, and the fair and equitable access and allocation of vaccines”, and that an effective international response to the pandemic requires global solidarity.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on public health, society and the economy both at home and abroad,” the ministries said.
“The virus does not respect borders, and no one is safe until everyone is safe.
“The successful development of safe and efficacious vaccines is a critical step towards overcoming the pandemic.”
The aim of the COVAX Facility is to obtain and fairly distribute 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of 2021.
Singapore is one of 97 self-financing participants in the COVAX Facility, and co-chairs the Friends of the COVAX Facility initiative with Switzerland.
“Singapore will continue to work closely with our international partners, in particular, the United Nations, the World Health Organization, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to advance vaccine multilateralism and forge a global response to this pandemic,” the ministries said.
HONG KONG: Living in one of the most expensive cities, Lam Ka Yuen keeps asking himself if can survive the COVID-19 pandemic.
With no promise of a decent job, his worries are growing with each passing day. “I have a lot of expenses, like rent, bills and tuition fees for my daughter … I had to use my savings,” said the 54-year-old single father.
“Every day, I worry about paying rent … about what the landlord would think if I can’t afford the rent. And if it’s late, then it might be increased next year. It’s the most stressful part for me.”
For the poor in Hong Kong like him, the fourth wave of infections that began recently — with new restrictions taking effect from yesterday — could possibly be calamitous. At the least, the coming weeks will be crucial.
Mr Lam Ka Yuen.
If the latest surge lasts “quite a while — not just one month or half a month”, it would create “quite a problem”, said Associate Professor Wong Hung from the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Department of Social Work.
“Many … of the poor people already just have one month or half a month (of savings). If they don’t have an income, what can they do? They’ll become homeless.”
Before COVID-19, there were 1.4 million people, or 20.4 per cent of the population, living below the poverty line (before taking government aid into account) — the highest level in a decade.
Now in the economic aftermath of the pandemic, the programme Insight finds out how much the poor have become more afraid and unsure about their future, in one of the most unequal places in terms of income levels.
An elderly street scavenger.
STRUGGLING TO MAKE A LIVING
The city’s unemployment rate has risen to 6.4 per cent, a 15-year high, while the rate for those living in poverty “is even higher”, noted Terence Chong, executive director of the Lau Chor Tak Institute of Global Economics and Finance.
“They’re the ones who are more likely to be fired. So the situation is quite serious,” said the professor. For example, in the construction, catering and accommodation sectors, the unemployment rate is “double digits”, he cited.
One person who has felt the brunt of this is Lam, who has worked in catering and restaurants for 30 years. He was asked to leave his job in a restaurant after social gatherings and dine-in services were first banned.
“Two years ago, I’d have said catering was my lifetime career. But now the COVID-19 pandemic has totally changed my mind,” he said. “Catering is going downhill until the pandemic is gone. I haven’t worked in catering since February.”
Mr Lam outside a restaurant.
He then worked in a billiard parlour as a service assistant, but the place closed after two months. With little hope of returning to the food industry anytime soon, he took up a lower-paid job at a mask-making factory.
Again, he could not stay long in the job. Stiff competition in the industry, stringent quality checks and an oversupply of workers soon forced factories to lay off people.
The Hong Kong government has tried to help employers retain their workers by providing wage subsidies.
But nearly a quarter of employers who benefited from this still laid off workers, especially after the pandemic started to eat into their bottom lines. Or they did not pay full wages.
The wage subsidies are capped at HK$9,000 (S$1,550) per month for each employee.
“Some (workers) can earn only half of their salary, as they’re only working half their shifts. People are having a difficult time,” noted Anthony Chiu, executive director of the Federation of Public Housing Estates.
FEELING THE SQUEEZE
The possibility of a jobless future is adding to the pressure on poor Hongkongers to secure their basic necessities during this pandemic.
“It’s a double difficulty … Inflation is high, food is expensive (and) even at the beginning, masks were so expensive,” said Sze Lai-shan, a community organiser with the Society for Community Organisations (SoCo), a charity dedicated to serving the underprivileged.
“(If) they have children, they’d need to attend online classes. So they need to pay (for) the computer or more internet (access), and maybe they don’t have this kind of equipment … Also, they have more family conflicts.”
Ms Sze Lai-shan helping a poor Hongkonger.
The majority of those she serves have lost their jobs, and “over 80 per cent” of them are now underemployed.
Social workers and volunteers from SoCo visit Hong Kong’s poorer neighbourhoods regularly to help in dealing with such pressures, and also to distribute masks and sanitisers in the hope of warding off a COVID-19 outbreak in these crowded living spaces.
Lam is one of those getting help. He lives with his teenage daughter in a 150-square-foot unit in a cramped apartment building. They are among more than 200,000 people living in subdivided flats in the city.
For some of them, all they can afford is a “coffin home” — smaller than a standard parking space. Take, for example, Ah Kwok (not his real name), who lives in a 450-sq-ft flat partitioned for 20 people.
"Ah Kwok" in in the partitioned flat he shares with 19 others in Yau Ma Tei area.
He had planned to stay there for only two to three months. But it has been half a year now. “When I can’t sleep, I think of the past and wonder how I ended up in this situation,” he said.
The 52-year-old former waiter used to commute from Shenzhen daily for work, as he could not afford to buy or rent a decent place in Hong Kong.
But when the borders closed after the pandemic struck, he had to stay in the Special Administrative Region. For the tiny space he occupies, he has to pay nearly HK$1,800 (S$310) a month.
Now unemployed, he is looking for work. But jobs are scarce. The cleaning jobs he gets from time to time do not pay enough to cover his daily expenses. So he often just stays in his bunk.
"Ah Kwok" would like to move out of his coffin home if he can.
THE ELDERLY POOR
To define poverty in Hong Kong, the government uses the concept of relative poverty: Households with less than half of the median income of that household size are classified as poor.
For a family of four, the poverty line is HK$21,000. But for a one-person household, the poverty line is HK$4,000. “So it’s quite low for those one-person and two-person families because many of them are elderly people,” said Wong.
Before the pandemic, there were 360,000 Hongkongers over the age of 65 living in poverty, constituting about 25 per cent of the elderly population.
With little education and no savings, the elderly poor such as 95-year-old Shui Lai, known affectionately as Po Po, face an even tougher struggle now.
Shui Lai has collected disused cardboards and other scrap since she was in her 40s.
She used to earn close to HK$50 daily from scavenging for cardboard. But the lower level of economic activity amid the pandemic means fewer cardboard boxes. Sometimes she earns as little as HK$25 daily.
“I still have to work. I haven’t applied for any allowance from the government, as I don’t qualify. But I’ve got a place to live and have enough,” she said.
I should’ve retired at my age. But I’d have no income, and I’ve got monthly expenses. My children also have to take care of their own families and can’t really look after me.
Many seniors like her, nicknamed “cardboard grannies”, are fiercely independent, noted Law Chi-kwong, the Secretary for Labour and Welfare.
“We have NGOs trying to approach them and help them and say, ‘Why don’t you apply for welfare?’ And they say … ‘No matter how hard my life is, I still want to live on my own hands,’” he said.
“So there are indeed people in the community who refuse to be helped, or they don’t want to seek help from the government … We’ve been offering some of our assistance, but they’re not always welcoming such assistance.”
WATCH: Hong Kong’s cardboard granny — the elderly poor struggle amid COVID-19 (5:02)
Shui plods on instead, unworried by the fact that the elderly are also more vulnerable to the coronavirus. “Many people gave me medical masks,” she said.
“I’m more worried about my legs as I get older. My legs feel tired … easily.”
STAYING THE COURSE FOR NOW
As Hong Kong now strives to mitigate its fourth coronavirus wave, the poor can only do their best to keep going.
For Lam, falling ill is not an option; it would be too expensive for him, so he buys disinfectants and makes sure to “come home with (his) shoes sanitised”.
“I try to be as healthy as I can, as I always caught flu in the past. It costs HK$290 to visit a private doctor. And at the public hospital, the wait is too long,” he said.
“I searched online and found that making garlic vinegar helps my body recover. My daughter wasn’t willing to have it, but now she thinks it works too.”
Buying fruits.
For those who are younger, time is on their side.
When the pandemic struck, 31-year-old Sai Lo (not his real name) was put out of a job in the catering industry too. But he feels that he still has a future in catering eventually.
The ex-convict also lives in a coffin home, but dreams of owning a better home one day. He said: “One may be poor but never ceases to be ambitious.”
To occupy his time in between temporary jobs, he has started volunteering with SoCo — which he has been getting help from — in the hope of helping others in a similar situation.
WATCH: The full episode — the plight of the poor in one of world’s richest cities (48:55)
“I know what they need, and I know how they feel. That’s why I decided to keep going,” he said.
Ah Kwok, on the other hand, is hoping only “to be able to eat enough and have accommodation” — and for the pandemic to end soon so that his suffering will ease.
“I hope the government can create more jobs for us, otherwise people in low income groups, like me, will suffer the most. I feel as if only one wrong step and I’d fall off a cliff,” he said.
“I have no hope of getting out of poverty. My only hope is to live a simple life. If I were rich, I’d rather spend the money to help poor people … because I’ve experienced life in poverty.”
