الكاتب: kafej

One of Australia’s largest port operators has resumed its operations after a cyberattack forced it to suspend operations for three days.

The breach crippled operations at DP World Australia, which manages around 40% of goods flowing in and out of the country, and affected its container terminals in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Western Australia’s Fremantle.

“Operations resumed at the company’s ports across Australia at 9am today (2200 GMT, Sunday)… following successful tests of key systems overnight,” the company, part of Dubai’s state-owned DP World, said in a statement.

DP World said it expected to move about 5,000 containers from the four Australian terminals through the day, though ongoing investigations and responses to protect its networks could result in temporary disruptions over the next few days.

“This is a part of an investigation process and resuming normal logistical operations at this scale,” DP World said.

After discovering the breach on Friday, DP World disconnected its ports from the internet, significantly impacting freight movements.

It did not specify whether it had received any ransomware demands.

Australia has seen a rise in cyber intrusions since late last year, which prompted the government in February to reform its rules and set up an agency to help coordinate responses to hacks.

“(The DP World breach) does show how vulnerable we have been in this country to cyber incidents and how much better we need to work together to make sure we keep our citizens safe,” cyber security minister Clare O’Neil told ABC Radio.

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The breach came as the government released new details of its proposed cyber security laws on Monday, which would force companies to report all ransomware incidents, demands or payments.

Ms O’Neil said the rules would also bring telecommunication companies under “strict cyber requirements”, after an outage last week at telco Optus cut off internet and phone connections to nearly half of Australia’s population for around 12 hours.

Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott has announced he is dropping out of the 2024 race, saying voters have been really clear in telling him: “‘Not now’.”

The South Carolina senator’s departure shocked his own campaign staff.

Several told Sky’s US partner NBC News they had no prior warning and only found out he was ending his White House bid while watching his surprise announcement on TV.

Mr Scott entered the race in May with high hopes, with millions spent on his behalf by high-profile donors.

However, he and the rest of the Republican field have struggled in a race dominated by former president Donald Trump.

“I love America more today than I did on 22 May,” Mr Scott told Fox News Channel’s Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy.

“But when I go back to Iowa, it will not be as a presidential candidate. I am suspending my campaign. I think the voters who are the most remarkable people on the planet have been really clear that they’re telling me, ‘Not now, Tim’.”

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He is the second high-profile Republican to depart from the race in the last couple of weeks.

Former US vice president Mike Pence suspended his bid to become the next president after struggling to raise money and support for his campaign.

Mr Scott said he would not be making an endorsement of his remaining Republican rivals.

“The voters are really smart,” Mr Scott said. “The best way for me to be helpful is to not weigh in on who they should endorse.”

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Despite four criminal indictments and other legal challenges, Mr Trump continues to poll far ahead of his rivals.

Many in the party believe the race is effectively over, barring some stunning change of fortune.

Mr Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to news of Mr Scott’s exit.

The former president has been careful not to criticise the senator, leading some to consider Mr Scott a potential vice-presidential pick.

But Mr Scott appeared to rule out serving as vice president, saying the position “has never been on my to-do list for this campaign, and it’s certainly not there now”.

An amber warning for strong wind has been issued for northwest England and Northern Ireland as Storm Debi hits the UK.

The Met Office said gusts of 70-80mph are possible on the coasts and on higher ground, and 55-65mph inland.

The warning stretches from just north of Liverpool and covers most of Lancashire and areas of Cumbria from 10am until 4pm.

Parts of Co Armagh and Co Down are also under an amber wind warning until noon.

The Met Office warns buildings could be damaged and travel disrupted, as well as a potential danger to life on the coast due to large waves.

A less serious yellow warning for wind stretches across much of Wales and northwards across England, as far as Newcastle, until 6pm.

Jonathan Vautrey, from the Met Office, urged people to “take care before you travel” as the morning rush hour is expected to be affected.

A yellow alert for heavy rain is also in force in Aberdeenshire from 10am until 9pm.

Get the Sky News forecast for your area

However, it’s the Republic of Ireland that’s expected to be hit hardest by Storm Debi.

A red alert for a potential danger to life and “severe and damaging gusts” is in force in eastern areas – including around Dublin – until 9am.

The rest of the country is either under an amber or yellow warning, with some schools closing as a precaution.

“The strongest winds are expected to affect parts of the Republic of Ireland early on Monday, possibly coinciding with the morning commute, before affecting parts of north Wales and northern England into the afternoon,” said Met Office chief meteorologist Jason Kelly.

“Whilst the very strongest winds will have eased somewhat before reaching the UK, we are still expecting some significant impacts, and a wind warning has been issued.”

Storm Debi was officially named by Met Eireann on Sunday and is the earliest in the season that a storm in alphabetical sequence beginning with ‘D’ has ever hit the British Isles.

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The storm season begins in September and, until now, the earliest ‘D’ storm named by them was 2015’s Storm Desmond, which arrived on 4 December.

Debi’s arrival comes just weeks after Storm Ciaran brought winds of over 80mph in southern England and 104mph gusts in the Channel Islands.

As the conflict between Israel and Gaza enters its 38th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Monday, November 13, 2023:

Latest on human impact and fighting

• The collapse of medical centres and communication services across Gaza has left the Ministry of Health unable to update casualty figures since 2pm (12:00 GMT) on November 10. On Sunday, however, the government media office in Gaza updated the figures, raising the death toll to 11,100, including more than 8,000 children and women.
• An Israeli air raid near Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Monday killed at least seven people, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.
• The United States carried out two air strikes in Syria against Iran-linked facilities, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Sunday. Six to seven pro-Iran fighters were also killed, Fox News reported quoting a Pentagon source.
• Two Israeli soldiers were killed and one severely injured during clashes with Palestinian fighters in Gaza on Sunday, according to Israel’s military.
• Israel’s military said on Sunday that its jets hit Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to antitank missiles that wounded Israelis near the border.

Situation in Gaza’s hospitals

• Gaza’s second largest hospital, al-Quds, ceased operations because of fuel shortage, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Sunday.
• Three nurses were killed at al-Shifa Hospital, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said on Sunday. Staff at the hospital has been struggling to bury at least 100 decomposing bodies of those killed in Israeli bombardment across the enclave, Gaza’s health minister told the Palestinian Wafa news agency on Monday. The hospital has also shut its doors to new patients.
• The World Health Organization has managed to restore communication with staff at al-Shifa Hospital, the agency’s director-general said on Sunday.
• In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas refused an offer of fuel for al-Shifa Hospital. The Palestinian group denied the claim and any association with al-Shifa management or decision-making in a statement on Sunday.
• The US is having “active consultations” with Israel’s military about its concerns around “firefights in hospitals where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire”, White House NSA Jake Sullivan told CBS News’s Face the Nation programme on Sunday.
• European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has called for “pauses” to evacuate hospital patients in Gaza who need urgent medical care.

Diplomacy

• Six UN offices across East Asia lowered their flags to half-mast on Monday in memory of colleagues killed in Gaza. Other UN headquarters around the world are expected to hold similar memorials on Monday.
• US President Joe Biden held a phone call with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Sunday. The two discussed the protection of civilians and the need for humanitarian aid in Gaza. Biden thanked the emir for Qatar’s efforts to rescue captives in Gaza, according to a White House readout of the call. The emir called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during the call.
• On Sunday, Hamas said it was suspending hostage negotiations because of how Israel handled al-Shifa Hospital, a Palestinian official told Reuters news agency.

Attacks in West Bank

• A man in al-Hawuz neighbourhood of Hebron was fatally shot in the head by Israeli forces while driving his vehicle early on Monday, according to Wafa. At least 186 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported on Sunday.
• Al Jazeera Arabic reported overnight clashes in Nablus and an explosion in Qalqilya on Monday.

Israeli air strikes in Gaza have killed more than a dozen people and destroyed the main hospital’s cardiac ward, Gaza officials say, as fighting continues in the besieged strip for the 37th consecutive day.

At least 13 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a home in Khan Younis, Gaza officials reported on Sunday. Israeli forces also continued their siege around Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, where health officials said thousands of staff, patients and displaced people remain trapped with no electricity and dwindling supplies.

The spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qudra, has told Al Jazeera that al-Shifa Hospital is completely out of service, and cannot provide any treatment even to the patients inside the facility, due to constant Israeli attacks.

Israeli bombing has been targeting the vicinity’s external surroundings as well as anyone walking inside the courtyard and between its various buildings, and those wanting to reach the gate of the complex.

“We have deaths in the nursery after the life support machines stopped working inside the section that includes 37 other children who may be on the verge of death,” al-Qudra said.

He added that there were five deaths among the wounded as the medical teams were unable to perform surgical operations on them due to the power outage and lack of fuel.

More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble.