Typhoon Gaemi strengthens as it nears Taiwan, work halted, flights canceled

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that a Russian drone had struck a cover built to contain radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, adding that “radiation levels have not increased.”
The Ukrainian air force said that Russia had launched more than 100 drones across the country overnight — including attack drones — targeting northern regions of the country where the Chernobyl power plant lies.
“Last night, a Russian attack drone with a high-explosive warhead struck the cover protecting the world from radiation at the destroyed 4th power unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant,” Zelensky said in a social media post.
The International Atomic Energy Agency also reported an “explosion” at the site, and said “radiation levels inside and outside remain normal and stable.”
The agency, which has had a team deployed on the site since the early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, published images apparently showing the drone on fire after crashing into the covering.
In 1986, a reactor at Chernobyl exploded during a botched safety test, resulting in the world’s worst nuclear accident that sent clouds of radiation across much of Europe and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate.
Soviet authorities initially tried to cover up and then play down the disaster.
Eventually a massive concrete and steel cover called a sarcophagus was built over the reactor, to contain the radiation.
“The only country in the world that attacks such sites, occupies nuclear power plants, and wages war without any regard for the consequences is today’s Russia,” Zelensky added in his statement.
There was no immediate response from Russia.

BANGKOK: Some 260 people believed to have been trafficked and trapped into working in online scam centers are to be repatriated after they were rescued from Myanmar, Thailand’s army announced Thursday.
In a fresh crackdown on scam centers operating from Southeast Asia, the Thai army said it was coordinating an effort to repatriate some 260 people believed to have been victims of human trafficking after they were rescued and sent from Myanmar to Thailand.
Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, which share borders with Thailand, have become known as havens for criminal syndicates who are estimated to have forced hundreds of thousands of people in Southeast Asia and elsewhere into helping run online scams including false romantic ploys, bogus investment pitches and illegal gambling schemes.
Such scams have extracted tens of billions of dollars from victims around the world, according to UN experts, while the people recruited to carry them out have often been tricked into taking the jobs under false pretenses and trapped in virtual slavery.
An earlier crackdown on scam centers in Myanmar was initiated in late 2023 after China expressed embarrassment and concern over illegal casinos and scam operations in Myanmar’s northern Shan state along its border. Ethnic guerrilla groups with close ties to Beijing shut down many operations, and an estimated 45,000 Chinese nationals suspected of involvement were repatriated.
The army said that those rescued in the most recent operation came from 20 nationalities — with significant numbers from Ethiopia, Kenya, the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan and China. There were also nationals of Indonesia, Nepal, Taiwan, Uganda, Laos, Brazil, Burundi, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Ghana and India. They were sent across the border from Myanmar’s Myawaddy district to Thailand’s Tak province on Wednesday.
Reports in Thai media said a Myanmar ethnic militia that controls the area where they were held, the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, was responsible for freeing the workers and taking them to the border. Myanmar’s military government exercises little control over frontier areas where ethnic minorities predominate.
Several ethnic militias are believed to be involved in criminal activities, including drug trafficking and protecting call-center scam operations.
The Thai army statement said the rescued people will undergo questioning, and if determined to be victims of human trafficking, will enter a process of protection while waiting to be sent back to their countries.
Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai, who is also defense minister, said Wednesday that there might be many more scam workers waiting to be repatriated from Myanmar through Thailand, but that Thailand would only receive those that are ready to be taken back right away by their country of origin.
“I’ve made it clear that Thailand is not going to set up another shelter,” he told reporters during a visit in Sa Kaeo province, which borders Cambodia. Thailand hosts nine refugee camps along the border holding more than 100,000 people, most from Myanmar’s ethnic Karen minority.
Phumtham added that Thailand would also need to question them before sending them back, first is to make sure that they are victims of human trafficking, and also to get information that would help the police investigate the trafficking and scam problems.
On a visit to China in early February, Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra vowed along with China’s leader Xi Jinping to crack down on the scam networks that plague Southeast Asia.
Many dramatic stories of Chinese people being lured to work in Bangkok only to be trafficked into a scam compound in Myanmar have surfaced. Chinese actor Wang Xing was a high-profile case but was quickly rescued after his tale spread on social media.
Underlining Beijing’s concern, Liu Zhongyi, China’s Vice Minister of Public Security and Commissioner of its Criminal Investigation Bureau, made an official visit to Thailand last month and inspected the border area opposite where many of the Myanmar’s scam centers are located.
Just ahead of Paetongtarn’s visit to China, the Thai government issued an order to cut off electricity, Internet and gas supplies to several areas in Myanmar along the border with northern Thailand, citing national security and severe damage that the country has suffered from scam operations.
Her government is considering expanding this measure to Thailand’s northeastern areas bordering Cambodia, said Thai Defense Ministry spokesperson Thanathip Sawangsang, who explained that officials had already removed Internet cables that were installed illegally in the areas.