No casualties were reported and the evacuation notice for residents was lifted after about half an hour, as South Korean fire authorities and U.S. forces carried out decontamination work

International News via Reuters:

South Korean authorities ordered brief neighbourhood evacuations on Tuesday after a leak of white phosphorus inside the U.S. Osan Air Base south of Seoul, the Safety Ministry said.

No casualties were reported and the evacuation notice for residents was lifted after about half an hour, as South Korean fire authorities and U.S. forces carried out decontamination work, Yonhap news agency reported. 

“At 1708 (0808 GMT), due to a ground mishap and out of an abundance of caution, Osan AB (Air Base) established a 1,000-foot safety cordon to protect base and local populace,” the base said in a statement. 

“Our emergency response professionals are currently managing an isolated situation on the installation. We are handling this matter with the utmost care and expediency.”

A spokesperson for the air base said there was a munitions-related accident and it was assessing the situation, in response to a request to confirm the nature of the leak.

White phosphorus is a highly toxic substance that can ignite on contact with air and is used in battlefield smoke screens and incendiary weapons.

Reporting by Jack Kim, Hyeyoon Cho and Jihoon Lee; Editing by Ed Davies, Andrew Heavens, Kevin Liffey and Hugh Lawson

Huge scam centres employing as many as 300,000 workers across Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos have emerged to deploy online schemes to defraud often older individuals in the West

International News via Reuters:

The U.N. migration agency on Tuesday warned of a dramatic increase in the number of people forced into working in Asian scam compounds, saying people from more than 80 countries have been lured in through social media, with some being sexually abused.

Huge scam centres employing as many as 300,000 workers across Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos have emerged to deploy online schemes to defraud often older individuals in the West, the International Organization for Migration said.

But a significant portion of those were themselves tricked into employment, the U.N. agency said, describing fake job advertisements offering lucrative work contracts for those with strong English skills and a college education.

Once duped, they are stripped of their documents and forced to carry out online scam operations amid threats and violence, IOM said. Many suffer stigma and debt as well as trauma after sexual abuse or bouts of solitary confinement, Amy Pope, director general of the IOM, said.

SOCIAL MEDIA EXPANDS REACH 

“People trapped in scam compounds are victims of trafficking, forced to commit crimes through violence, threats and coercion,” said Pope, who formerly worked as a prosecutor of human trafficking cases.

“We must work together to support survivors, stop traffickers and close the gaps these criminal networks exploit,” she said. 

The IOM put the number of those trafficked in the tens of thousands.

Pope told reporters in Geneva that IOM has helped victims from some 30 countries recruited under false pretences.

“The significant networks are based within Asia, but because of social media, because of the ability to now reach people in many, many countries, their reach has expanded quite significantly,” she said, estimating that people from over 80 countries have been trafficked.

Even when they manage to escape or are freed through government raids, they are sometimes then threatened with prosecution, Pope said.

She praised governments such as Thailand for increased engagement in identifying such centres but said more was needed to find those operating in remote parts of Asia where law enforcement is poor. 

“IOM calls for continued support to assist victims of trafficking through protection, safe return and reintegration, while scaling up efforts to raise awareness of traffickers’ tactics so that people can recognise risks and know where to seek help,” the IOM statement said. 

Reporting by Emma Farge;Editing by Alison Williams

Having already absorbed billions of dollars in EU fines since 2017, Alphabet’s search giant is now facing lawsuits from smaller rivals across Europe

International News via Reuters:

A decades-long crackdown on Google’s business practices in Europe is entering a costly new phase, as the loss of the first case brought against it under new EU legislation opens the door to a wave of private lawsuits demanding up to $10 billion in damages.

Having already absorbed billions of dollars in EU fines since 2017, Alphabet’s search giant is now facing lawsuits from smaller rivals across Europe, according to half a dozen lawyers and litigation financiers, and a tally of cases filed in half a dozen countries.

That has been precipitated by a $1 billion fine, the first under the Digital Markets Act, imposed on the company for favouring its own services and preventing app developers from steering users to cheaper options outside its app store Google Play.

That finding of ongoing wrongdoing may embolden more parties to sue, lawyers say. “I think this will trigger a new wave of litigation,” said Thomas Hoppner, a partner at Geradin Partners, which advised German price comparison platform Idealo for market abuse.

A Berlin court in November awarded Idealo €465 million ($528.9 million) in damages, the most ever awarded by a court in Germany for an antitrust infringement.

Specialised search firms “may seek damages, possibly not just for the period of the DMA but also for the years prior to the DMA breaches” under Article 102, Hoppner added, referring to older EU legislation prohibiting companies from abusing a dominant market position.

Google said there is no merit in the claims.

“We strongly disagree with these lawsuits, which are brought by companies looking for a payout instead of investing in their own products,” a Google spokesperson said.

SHOPPING AROUND

The damages claims come as Google’s AI spending spree has left it burning cash, with Alphabet’s free cash flow negative in the second quarter for the first time as a public company. Tech and chip stocks are under pressure as investors question lofty valuations amid concerns over booming AI infrastructure spending.

The cases also come on top of €10.4 billion EU-led fines on Google over the last decade as regulators take a harsh stance on Big Tech. The private cases are at different stages, and more are being prepared and yet to be filed, according to lawyers and litigation financing firms.

When Google started pushing its own comparison shopping service in search results in 2008, traffic to rival price ​comparison sites plunged, triggering complaints and an EU probe that produced a €2.42 billion fine in 2017.

Google fought the ruling before losing at Europe’s top court last year.

Britain’s Foundem pursued one claim from the start, which Google said on Tuesday it has now settled. The terms of the settlement are confidential, a Google spokesperson said. Foundem did not respond to requests for comment.

Google also earlier this year settled with the UK shopping website operator Connexity.

Sweden’s PriceRunner, backed by Klarna, filed a multibillion-dollar suit in 2022 after Google’s appeal was rejected.

UK price comparison site Kelkoo, which is seeking billions of pounds from Google in various damages claims after the EU decision against Google’s shopping service, said the latest EU fines could boost ongoing claims.

“We expect these to be impacted somewhat by the DMA decision because it shows that Google is still self-referencing even to this day,” Kelkoo CEO Richard Stables told Reuters, adding the DMA decision gave others more ground to sue.

Matej Pardo, chief operating officer at litigation financing firm LitFin, which is backing two groups suing Google in Amsterdam for its shopping auctions, seeking over $1 billion combined, echoed the sentiment.

“There are already a lot of these claims being filed, and probably more that are (being) prepared,” he said.

Italy’s Moltiply Group, which operates price comparison website Trovaprezzi.it, is seeking €2.97 billion.

MORE FINES, MORE CLAIMS

Google’s fines last week were the fifth and sixth overall for anti-competitive practices. Last month, Google lost a long-running fight against a record €4.1 billion EU fine for using its Android mobile operating system ‌to block rivals.

Marco Pescarmona, chairman of Moltiply Group, one of the complainants against Google, said the recent DMA decision will bolster damage claims, though he questions Brussels’ willingness to fully use the law to eradicate self-favouring if non-compliance continues.

“The DMA is a very good piece of legislation. The defect maybe is that it’s so effective that they’re afraid to use it,” he said.

Google, meanwhile, is counting on time working in its favour, lawyers said, given cases can drag on for years. It may yet challenge the fine imposed under the DMA.

In the shopping suit, nearly two decades passed between the alleged abuses and Google’s exhausted appeals.

“By that time, they’ve already monopolised many markets,” said LitFin’s Pardo, calling the fines “a cost of doing business”, adding wait times could be up to eight years.

In the PriceRunner case, a Stockholm court in July ordered Google to pay roughly $1.97 billion including interest — a ruling Klarna welcomed, but does not expect to collect on soon.

“We can expect an appeal to take over a year, and likely years,” Klarna’s counsel Pontus Scherp said.

($1 = 0.8784 euros)

Reporting by Foo Yun Chee and Supantha Mukherjee; Editing by Adam Jourdan, Josephine Mason, Jan Harvey and Louise Heavens

Torrential rain, fuelled by the effects of the southern monsoon, is expected through Thursday in Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Henan and Guangxi, according to the National Meteorological Center

International News via Reuters:

The remnants of Typhoon Noul pushed deeper into China on Tuesday, threatening heavy flooding across a broad swathe of the country’s southern and central provinces as forecasters warned the weakened storm could linger inland longer than usual.

Torrential rain, fuelled by the effects of the southern monsoon, is expected through Thursday in Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Henan and Guangxi, according to the National Meteorological Center.

State media warned the storm’s northward-bound path across mountainous terrain raises the risk of floods, landslides and other disasters before it weakens further.

Noul intensified rapidly before making landfall in Guangdong over the weekend, becoming the strongest typhoon to hit China this year, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

The authorities are bracing for overlapping typhoon and flood-season risks, with emergency and housing officials ordering stronger flood-control measures, inspections of critical infrastructure and the pre-deployment of rescue teams and equipment in vulnerable areas. They also called for safety checks on key industries such as mining, hazardous chemicals and fireworks production.

Typhoons typically affect China from July to September, with August being the most active.

In the northwest and southwest, frequent and heavy precipitation has also put Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan on heightened vigilance.

Gansu issued its highest warning for geological disasters late on Monday, flagging landslide and mudslide risks in numerous parts of the province after rocks and boulders rolled off mountain slopes onto roads.

Chinese authorities are continuing to search for people missing after part of a mountain broke off and collapsed onto buildings in a hillside township developed along a river in Chongqing on July 17. At least 38 dead bodies have been found so far.

In a notice issued on Tuesday, the local government in Chongqing’s Pengshui said search efforts had entered the final phase and DNA testing was ongoing.

Reporting by Liz Lee and Beijing newsroom; Editing by Jacqueline Wong