SYDNEY: The drought sweeping through large tracts of Australia is set to intensify over the next three months and is fueling unseasonal winter bushfires, the leading meteorological agency and a fire official said on Thursday.
The Bureau of Meteorology forecast of more warm, dry weather suggests hopes for a reprieve from what farmers describe as the worst drought they have ever seen are unlikely to be realized before the Australian summer.
An unusually warm winter followed by what is expected to be a warmer-than-average spring “would mean intensification of the existing drought conditions across parts of eastern Australia,” the bureau’s outlook report said.
The report forecast below-average rainfall for large parts of Australia until November, the early part of the southern hemisphere summer.
Record-low rainfall in some regions and successive seasons of above-average temperatures have blighted vast tracts of Australia’s grazing and crop land.
All of New South Wales, the country’s most populous state that accounts for a quarter of Australia’s agricultural output by value, is officially in drought.
Firefighters there were battling 81 grass and bushfires on Thursday, 38 of which remained uncontained, authorities said. While none of the fires posed threats to people or property, it was still an unusual event for the Australian winter.
Almost 650 firefighters were working on the blazes, helped by more than 40 aircraft.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service Inspector Ben Shepherd said the drought had had a “significant effect” on the bushfires and was set to continue.
“There is no real positive outlook at the moment, especially when you do look at the three-month temperature and rainfall outlook,” Shepherd told Reuters.
“We need a significant amount of rain across New South Wales, not from just the drought aspect but also from the fire aspect,” he said.
Australia sent about 100 firefighters to California on Aug. 3 to help American authorities battle deadly wildfires sweeping the northwest of the United States, suggesting that authorities did not expect bushfires at home in the southern winter.
Shepherd said the size and number of fires in Australia were typical of late summer.
“We’re seeing fires on the far south coast (of New South Wales) that we wouldn’t typically see until sometimes as late as January or February, so what we’re seeing is very unusual,” he said.
Australia recorded its fifth-driest July on record last month. It was the driest January-to-July period in New South Wales since 1965 and marked seven consecutive months of below-average rainfall for the state.
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No relief in sight as Australian drought fuels bushfires
No relief in sight as Australian drought fuels bushfires
- Record-low rainfall in some regions and successive seasons of above-average temperatures have blighted vast tracts of Australia’s grazing and crop land
- Australia recorded its fifth-driest July on record last month
China executes 11 linked to Myanmar scam compounds
- Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users have flourished across Southeast Asia
- The 11 people executed Thursday were sentenced to death in September by a court in Wenzhou
BEIJING: China executed 11 people linked telecom scam operations, on Thursday, state media reported, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry.
Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in the lawless borderlands of Myanmar.
Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world.
Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work.
In recent years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation with regional governments to crack down on the compounds, and thousands of people have been repatriated to face trial in China’s opaque justice system.
The 11 people executed Thursday were sentenced to death in September by a court in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, state news agency Xinhua said, adding that the court also carried out the executions.
Crimes of those executed included “intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment,” Xinhua said.
The death sentences were approved by the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, which found that the evidence produced of crimes committed since 2015 was “conclusive and sufficient,” the report said.
Among the executed were “key members” of the notorious “Ming family criminal group,” whose activities had contributed to the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens and injuries to “many others,” Xinhua added.
Fighting fraud ‘cancer’
Fraud operations centered in Myanmar’s border regions have extracted billions of dollars from around the world through phone and Internet scams.
Experts say most of the centers are run by Chinese-led crime syndicates working with Myanmar militias.
The fraud activities — and crackdowns by Beijing — are closely followed in China.
Asked about the latest executions, a spokesman for Beijing’s foreign ministry said that “for a while, China has worked with Myanmar and other countries to combat cross-border telecom and Internet fraud.”
“China will continue to deepen international law enforcement cooperation” against “the cancer of gambling and fraud,” spokesman Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference.
The September rulings that resulted in Thursday’s executions also included death sentences with two-year reprieves to five other individuals.
Another 23 suspects were given prison sentences ranging from five years to life.
In November, Chinese authorities sentenced five people to death for their involvement in scam operations in Myanmar’s Kokang region.
Their crimes had led to the deaths of six Chinese nationals, according to state media reports.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime warned in April that the cyberscam industry was spreading across the world, including to South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific Islands.
The UN has estimated that hundreds of thousands of people are working in scam centers globally.
Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in the lawless borderlands of Myanmar.
Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world.
Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work.
In recent years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation with regional governments to crack down on the compounds, and thousands of people have been repatriated to face trial in China’s opaque justice system.
The 11 people executed Thursday were sentenced to death in September by a court in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, state news agency Xinhua said, adding that the court also carried out the executions.
Crimes of those executed included “intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment,” Xinhua said.
The death sentences were approved by the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, which found that the evidence produced of crimes committed since 2015 was “conclusive and sufficient,” the report said.
Among the executed were “key members” of the notorious “Ming family criminal group,” whose activities had contributed to the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens and injuries to “many others,” Xinhua added.
Fighting fraud ‘cancer’
Fraud operations centered in Myanmar’s border regions have extracted billions of dollars from around the world through phone and Internet scams.
Experts say most of the centers are run by Chinese-led crime syndicates working with Myanmar militias.
The fraud activities — and crackdowns by Beijing — are closely followed in China.
Asked about the latest executions, a spokesman for Beijing’s foreign ministry said that “for a while, China has worked with Myanmar and other countries to combat cross-border telecom and Internet fraud.”
“China will continue to deepen international law enforcement cooperation” against “the cancer of gambling and fraud,” spokesman Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference.
The September rulings that resulted in Thursday’s executions also included death sentences with two-year reprieves to five other individuals.
Another 23 suspects were given prison sentences ranging from five years to life.
In November, Chinese authorities sentenced five people to death for their involvement in scam operations in Myanmar’s Kokang region.
Their crimes had led to the deaths of six Chinese nationals, according to state media reports.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime warned in April that the cyberscam industry was spreading across the world, including to South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific Islands.
The UN has estimated that hundreds of thousands of people are working in scam centers globally.
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