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US Vice-President Mike Pence has received the coronavirus vaccine live on TV, telling the audience and doctors: "I didn't feel a thing." Vice-President Mike Pence receives the coronavirus vaccine on live TV. Photo: Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images/AFP The White House said the aim of the move was to "promote the safety and efficacy of the vaccine and build confidence among the American people". Pence's wife, Karen, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams also received the jab at the televised White House event. This week, the US began rolling out the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The first vaccine to be approved in the US, it offers up to 95 percent protection against Covid-19. The first three million doses are being distributed to locations across the 50 US states. Meanwhile, a second vaccine, developed by Moderna, has come a step closer to receiving emergency approval, after it was endorsed by a panel of experts. As Pence was receiving his jab, US president Donald Trump incorrectly said on Twitter that the Moderna vaccine was "overwhelmingly approved" with "distribution to start immediately". It is still awaiting final approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). More than 310,000 people have died with coronavirus in the US, which has recorded more infections and fatalities than any other country. More than 17 million cases have been recorded in the country since the start of the pandemic. Pence, 61, is the most senior US official to be vaccinated so far. "We gather here today at the end of a historic week to affirm to the American people that hope is on the way," he told the crowd, after the number of newly-recorded US coronavirus deaths surpassed 3000 for the third day in a row. "Karen and I were more than happy to step forward before this week was out to take this safe and effective coronavirus vaccine that we have secured and produced for the American people," he continued, calling it "a truly inspiring day". Top infectious diseases expert Dr Anthony Fauci, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield were in the audience to observe the doctors from Walter Reed hospital perform the injections. Both men elbow-bumped Pence and his wife after their jabs. Trump did not attend the event. A healthcare worker holds a Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine at a research centre in Florida. Photo: 2020 Anadolu Agency/ AFP "We want virtually everyone eligible to get this vaccine ultimately," Fauci said. "By the time we get to several months into this [coming] year we will have enough people protected that we can start thinking seriously about the return to normality." Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the most senior Democrat in Congress, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also received the vaccine yesterday. "As the vaccine is being distributed, we must all continue mask wearing, social distancing & other science-based steps to save lives & crush the virus," tweeted Pelosi, alongside pictures of herself getting the jab. "Just received the safe, effective Covid vaccine following continuity-of-government protocols," tweeted McConnell, sharing a photo of his vaccination card. "Vaccines are how we beat this virus." Earlier this week, Trump reversed a plan for senior members of his administration to be among the first to receive the vaccine "unless specifically necessary". The president, who contracted the coronavirus in October and recovered after hospital treatment, said he was not scheduled to take the jab but looked forward to doing so "at the appropriate time". Many of his supporters have doubts about the efficacy and safety of vaccines. President-elect Joe Biden, who at 78 is in a high-risk group from Covid-19, is expected to be vaccinated next week. He has set a goal of administering 100 million vaccination shots in the first 100 days after he takes office on 20 January. - BBC

New South Wales residents are being urged to be on high alert, following a day where the coronavirus outbreak at Sydney's northern beaches grew to 28. People line up for a Covid-19 testing at Mona Vale Hospital in Sydney yesterday. Photo: AFP The state has recorded 10 new cases linked to the northern beach cluster. Some venues on Sydney's Northern Beaches are so concerned about a growing local coronavirus cluster they have voluntarily closed this weekend to help contain the outbreak. NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard last night took to Twitter to thank the venues, which he said included churches, cafes, bars and all but three pubs in the region. 14 of 17 pubs on Northern Beaches are closed or will close 4 the weekend VOLUNTARILY. Most churches/ houses of Worship have advised ⁦@NSWHealth⁩ they will close this weekend. Thank u 2 Northern Beaches community 4 response to the Avalon Cluster outbreak! Amazing pic.twitter.com/Zpj7p6eBPm — Brad Hazzard (@BradHazzard) December 18, 2020 The development follows a rise in the number of cases linked to the Avalon cluster, after 10 new cases were reported yesterday. It brings the total number of known cases within the cluster to 28. The entire state is now on high alert with all NSW residents advised to get tested with even the most minor symptoms after a series of venues across Greater Sydney were visited by confirmed cases. One case, linked to the Northern Beaches cluster, is in self-isolation at home on the Central Coast, sparking further concerns cases could spread. In a social media post, hospitality company Merivale said it had "made the difficult decision" to temporarily close its Northern Beaches venues, The Newport and Bert's Bar and Brasserie, The Collaroy and Queen Chow Manly. "The safety of our staff and guests is our first priority always … stay safe Sydney," the post said. The closures come after the Northern Beaches Council and NSW Police stepped in yesterday to shut down a large market at Warriewood. The Beaches Market is a popular event with people crowding and shopping. Organisers were criticised by the council for going ahead with the event as cases continued to rise. Beaches from Manly to North Palm Beach were also closed to encourage people to remain at home. There were large queues at Covid-19 testing clinics across the Northern Beaches, with some people being turned away. Kerry told ABC local radio she waited nearly six hours at the drive-through clinic in Manly, only to be turned away. "I just got in the gate and someone came up and started saying they're not testing anymore and we might as well go home," she said. A woman waits for a Covid test in Sydney. Photo: AFP Doctors call for mandatory masks NSW Health yesterday issued a "strong advisory" for all Northern Beaches residents to wear masks when attending indoor public venues, such as shopping centres, workplaces and on public transport. But more than two dozen doctors from across Australia called on the NSW Government to act faster and do more to contain the outbreak. In a letter to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Hazzard and 28 doctors from across the country called for a series of health measures to be put in place in the next 24 hours, including mandatory mask-wearing. "We have learnt from the experience of our colleagues in Victoria," the letter read. It also called for mandatory masks for patients and visitors in healthcare settings and compulsory N95 masks for healthcare workers treating suspected and confirmed cases. One of the letter's signatories, paediatric cardiologist Kate Jardine, said aerosol transmission of the virus needed to also be acknowledged by health authorities, with increased ventilation in hospital and aged care facilities to prevent the spread. - ABC

Red Cross volunteers are helping assess damage in Fiji from Cyclone Yasa and distributing emergency supplies. Damage in the aftermath of Cyclone Yasa. Photo: Supplied/Save the Children The category five storm brought gales gusting to speeds of 345km/h on the island of Vanua Levu and two people have died - a three-month-old baby and a 45-year-old man - and left thousands more homeless. Nearly $140,000 worth of supplies will be handed out over the next month. Fiji Red Cross operations manager Maciu Nokelvu said six teams of volunteers are in the worst affected areas, helping people in need. "Providing them with non-food relief items which include tarpaulins for temporary shelters, dry foods and cooking utensils." They are also assessing the full extent of the damage, which so far includes flattened homes, downed power lines and land stripped of vegetation. Fiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said his country is looking at hundred of millions of dollars in damages from Cyclone Yasa. He said authorities were scrambling to help affected communities. Fiji's National Disaster Management Office yesterday said in a statement that Cyclone Yasa affected more than 93,000 Fijians and the number of casualties may rise when communications are restored to some areas. There are 23,430 Fijians in evacuation centres across the country, it said. A curfew was in place overnight in Fiji. The United Nations is ready to deploy staff on the ground, and airlift supplies from Brisbane, while New Zealand is sending aid along with an Air Force Orion to Fiji to asses the damage. As always, @UN_Pasifika is here to support the @FijianGovt #CycloneYasa Response from Day 1. The Resident Coordinator joined a team of Govt. Ministers & 1st responders for a rapid aerial assessment of Vanua Levu,followed by on the ground briefings to take stock of immediate needs pic.twitter.com/P7CiWeuoII — United Nations in the Pacific (@UN_Pasifika) December 18, 2020 The director of Fiji Social Services, Vani Catanagasiga, last night told Lately that the damage was extensive particularly in the northern division of Vanua Levu and it has been a tough year for Fiji. "After three cyclones earlier this year, one was Tropical Cyclone Harold which was a category 4 cyclone and of course Covid-19, you know we're really just looking at how else we can work together as a country to recover from one of the toughest years that we've had here in Fiji. "It's not going to be a bright Christmas for us, but we've been through worse." RNZ / Reuters

Britain and European Union have just hours left to navigate the very narrow path to a Brexit trade deal that would prevent the most turbulent finale to the Brexit crisis in less than two weeks' time, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said on Friday. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier. Photo: AFP As talks go down to the wire, both sides are demanding the other compromise amid a flurry of often conflicting messages that, variously, a deal is possible, a deal is in serious trouble or that a deal is imminent. An accord would ensure that the goods trade which makes up half of annual EU-UK trade, worth nearly a trillion dollars in all, would remain free of tariffs and quotas beyond Dec. 31. "It's the moment of truth," EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier told the European Parliament in Brussels. "There is a chance of getting an agreement but the path to such an agreement is very narrow." "We have very little time remaining, just a few hours to work through these negotiations in a useful fashion if we want this agreement to enter into force on the first of January." Sterling, which has oscillated to the beat of Brexit news for five years, fell 0.5 percent against the US dollar to $1.3513, retracing most of Thursday's gain. 'Serious situation' British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a call on Thursday that talks were in a "serious situation" and that it now looked very likely that an agreement would not be reached unless the EU position changed substantially. Von der Leyen said progress had been made but bridging the divide on some areas, especially fisheries, would be "very challenging". Johnson, the face of the 2016 Brexit campaign, will ultimately have to decide whether to accept the narrow deal on offer from the EU or risk the economic chaos and domestic political applause that walking away would trigger. Britain joined the EU in 1973, and formally left on 31 January. Since then, it has been in a transition period under which rules on trade, travel and business remain unchanged. Failure to agree a deal on goods trade would send shockwaves through financial markets, hurt the economies of Europe, snarl borders and sow chaos along delicate supply chains that stretch across Europe and beyond. Senior British minister Michael Gove on Thursday put the chances of getting a deal at less than 50 percent. He also said talks could potentially continue until after Christmas. Johnson portrays Brexit as a chance to build Britain into a fully independent economy that would be much more agile than its competitors, and so does not want to be tied into the EU's orbit and its rules for years to come. EU powers fear London wants the best of both worlds - preferential access to EU markets, with the advantage of setting its own rules. They say this would undermine a project that has sought to bind the nations of Europe, ruined by World War Two, into a global trading power. - Reuters

China has dismissed Australian concerns about a planned new industrial fish facility on Papua New Guinea's Daru Island, while locals are seeking some answers. China's Fujian Zhonghong Fishery Company has signed a memorandum of understanding with PNG's government to build a US$154 million fishery industrial park off Daru. Photo: Map: Google Earth The proposed industrial fishing development, only a few kilometres off PNG's southern border, has garnered the keen attention of Australian media. With Daru merely 200 kilometres from Australia's mainland, and even closer to the Torres Strait islands, Canberra is nervous about the possibility of China establishing a port there. An Australian former adviser to various PNG governments, Jeffrey Wall, has warned about the potential for conflict created by a Chinese presence in the Torres Strait. A north Queensland parliamentarian, Warren Entsch, has also raised concern about what he suspects are hidden motives by the Chinese, noting that industrial fishing could devastate local reef-based fisheries. China's Ambassador in PNG, Xue Bing, rejected the notion that ulterior motives are at play. "The relevant reports by certain Australian media and institutions lack basic facts, are full of lies and authors' conjecture, and intend to disrupt and undermine practical cooperation between China and PNG," he said. Bing noted that commercial cooperation between the two sovereign states of PNG and China did not require prior consent from a third party. "We urge the Australian side to take an objective and fair view of the normal business cooperation between Chinese companies and PNG and other Pacific island countries, and focus on really helping the development and prosperity of the island countries, instead of wearing coloured glasses and unreasonably interfering with relevant cooperation." The ambassador is touching on something that often gets lost in media reports about growing Chinese influence in the Pacific region - the views of local people. Papua New Guinea's prime minister James Marape (right) meeting with China's Ambassador, Xue Bing, in Port Moresby. 6 August, 2019 Photo: PNG PM Media Daru views So what do people in Daru make of it all? For a start, they've been furnished with very few details about the potential development. A social worker from Daru, Ume Wainetti, said it was unfortunate that the government hadn't discussed the plan with local people. "People need to understand what this thing is all about, how they're going to benefit from it, or what's it about. Are they going to be selling fish to this thing that's going to be sitting offshore or what exactly is it, we don't really know," she said. Wainetti said she worried that a major industrial facility could overwhelm the local fishery, leaving coastal fishing people unable to compete. Under the Torres Strait Treaty, people from a dozen PNG villages already have access across the border to fish in Australian waters. "To place such a thing in the Torres Strait is going to affect the fishing industry, especially the local people who are relying on the fishing industry for their survival, especially the villagers that are in the treaty agreement with Australia," Wainetti said. She anticipated that the people who would be most impacted were coastal villagers and the local fishing industry. "Because [fisher] people are going to be selling directly to the vessel that's going to be parked in the Torres Strait - people will not bother to come back to Daru to sell to the businesses which are running the fishing industry." Large-scale and small-scale fishing in the waters off Madang in Papua New Guinea. Photo: RNZI / Johnny Blades Opportunities But local people are also looking for opportunities because poverty levels are high in Daru, and there are few local jobs available for young people coming out of the ailing local education system. A teacher's college lecturer from Daru, Baiyu Olewale, said serious effort was needed to boost fisheries in the area. He said the Chinese industrial plant proposal could create many jobs for locals and get people involved in Small to Medium Enterprises in order to earn an income. Contrary to Jeffrey Wall's assertions about a lack of commercial fishing potential around Daru, Olewale said it was a region abundant in fish species. "I would really love to have a fisheries set-up in Daru. I've been to all the provinces in PNG, the coastal provinces... they only fish tuna. But we have a varety of fish, coral fish, it's plentiful, lobster and barramundi and jewfish." Olewale also saw the Daru proposal as a potential fix to the nagging issue of illegal fishing by small fleets coming from across PNG's nearby border with Indonesia. "We have these Indonesians coming in here through illegal travel, they fish in our territories. Because we don't have markets, people just do the things illegally, sell [fish] to the people of Indonesia." PNG's border security has long been weak at the line which seperates the country from Indonesian-ruled West Papua, and local indigenous communities remain vulnerable to external forces. Down at the south western junction of the international divide, extra personnel from the PNG Defence Force were deployed to the border area earlier this year to counter the spread of Covid-19. However the lure of opportunity, services and cheaper goods means many PNG people still regularly cross the Indonesian border as part of their livelihoods. Torres Strait Islands such as Thursday Island are within a few dozen kilometres of Australia's mainland. Photo: Feral Arts Development All around South Fly district, communities are crying out for economic development, including villagers whose fishing-based livelihoods were destroyed by the pollution of the Fly River due to mine tailings from the Ok Tedit gold and copper mine. Australia's aid programme has contributed significantly in the area of health in a province (Western Province) with myriad health crises that PNG's government has largely neglected for many years. Despite its local efforts, Canberra may have missed a golden opportunity to play a greater role in fostering economic development here. While Australia may be nervous about China getting a foothold in the area, a Daru resident, Lindsay Inabi, said Chinese businesses were already well established. "Right now all the big shops in Daru town are Chinese shops, seven or eight of them. And there's still more Chinese coing and building more things." Inabi said Chinese were also already involved in the local fishery too, especially with the beche-de-mer trade. "Our people here just go out and harvest the beche de mer on our reef, bring it here and they locally process it, then the Chinese buy them and take them away from Daru." According to Inabi, if the Chinese proposal proceeds, it could at least create much-needed livelihoods for local people. Still at this point, there is little guarantee the project will get off the ground. PNG has entered many previous Memorandum of Understandings for projects. Coastal towns like Madang, Wewak and Rabaul are among the PNG ports were all once earmarked for major industrial fishing zones or parks which never got off the ground. But if Ambassador Xue Bing's projection comes to pass, the Fujian Zhonghong Fishery Company's investment will be decisive in enhancing PNG's ability to comprehensively develop and utilise its own fishery resources.

Australian states and territories have begun imposing border restrictions after 28 Covid-19 cases were detected from a cluster on Sydney's northern beaches, with fears the number of infections will rise. A woman waits for a Covid test in Sydney where the source of the latest cluster is unclear. Photo: AFP "Everyone in greater Sydney needs to be on high alert," New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told a news conference today in announcing 10 new cases. Health authorities fear the cluster may have spread to other areas of Sydney, as they have yet to determine the source of the infections. NSW has urged about a quarter of a million residents in the affected suburbs to stay home for three days. "My anxiety is we have not found the direct transmission route and we cannot be sure we have blocked the transmission line," NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said. Health authorities have issued a "strong advisory" for people on the northern beaches to wear a mask at indoor public places, such as shopping centres and public transport. The NSW Health advisory is effective immediately and will be in place for 72 hours. Authorities believe the initial transmission sites were two clubs at Avalon Beach, but have named more than 30 subsequent potential transmission sites, from banks and post offices to supermarkets and pharmacies, and advised people who have visited the sites to be tested. Hospitals in the affected suburbs and pop-up testing sites have been inundated with many people waiting hours to be tested. People line up for a Covid-19 test at Mona Vale Hospital in Sydney. Photo: AFP Major public facilities in the northern beaches area, such as swimming pools and playgrounds, have been closed and visitors have been banned from aged care facilities. All beaches along the 29km stretch of the coast have been closed until Monday. Restaurants in the area, which were gearing up for a big Christmas trade, said they were having mass cancellations. Christmas travel disrupted The new border restrictions threw Christmas travel plans for thousands of people into chaos today. Many people flocked to Sydney airport to try and fly out of the state, fearing hard border closures. Some travellers who left NSW were placed in immediate hotel quarantine for 14 days when they landed in another state. Queensland state and the Northern Territory demand people who have been on the northern beaches to quarantine for 14 days. Western Australia state imposed this on anyone from NSW. Australia's second most populous state said people from NSW would now require a permit to enter Victoria. Tasmania has reintroduced mandatory quarantine for people returning from areas deemed high-risk. At a media conference, Premier Peter Gutwein said the situation in NSW was "causing some concern". Tasmania will keep its border open to travellers from NSW for now, with the exception of the Sydney Northern Beaches council area and several other high risk "hot spots" in Kirribilli, Peakhurst and Penrith. "If you're a Tasmanian returning home from any of these high-risk areas you will be required to quarantine," Gutwein said. Uncertainty surrounds Sydney to Hobart yacht race Asked whether the Sydney to Hobart yacht race would go ahead in light of the developments, he said: "obviously it's up to the race organisers to determine if the race can take place depending on where the sailors come from in New South Wales". "You come on a yacht or plane or boat, you come into Tasmania under the rules that apply at that time," Gutwein said. With the race due to start on Boxing Day, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia has been liaising with Tasmanian Public Health about restrictions on travel from the designated high-risk areas. The Sydney to Hobart yacht race which begins on Boxing Day each year is one of the summer highlights for Australian sports fans. (file pic) Photo: Photosport The cluster and subsequent travel chaos dents Australia's run of success in containing Covid-19. Until this week, Australia had gone more than two weeks without any local transmission, allowing most states and territories to remove nearly all social distancing curbs. Such was the optimism that Australia yesterday projected its economy would recover from its first recession in three decades faster than previously anticipated after containing the spread of Covid-19. Australia's hopes for an unchecked economic recovery, led by domestic tourism operators such as Virgin Australia and Qantas Airways, now seem unlikely. "We have dealt with this before, we'll deal with it again, it's important that people remain calm about these issues," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. "There is no magic formula that makes the pandemic just go away." Australia has reported just over 28,000 coronavirus cases and 908 deaths since the pandemic began and estimates most active cases in the country are returned overseas travellers in hotel quarantine. NSW also announced that it had fined 13 crew from a LATAM Chile flight to Sydney $A1000 ($NZ1006) each for allegedly failing to follow orders and self-isolate. As a result of the breach, the state will now require international flight crews to undertake mandatory quarantine in a handful of government-designated hotels. - Reuters / ABC

Hundreds of schoolboys kidnapped last week from a boarding school in north-western Nigeria have been released, local authorities say. A parent waits outside the Government Science Secondary school in Kankara, in northwestern Katsina State, Nigeria on 16 December. Photo: AFP A spokesperson for the governor of Katsina state, Abdul Labaran, said 344 had been freed and were all in a good condition. However, other reports suggested some remain in the hands of their captors. The attack was claimed by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which hours earlier released a video apparently showing some of the boys. In his statement, Labaran said the boys were being taken to the regional capital Katsina City, and would soon be reunited with their families. He said the clip released by Boko Haram was authentic, but a message seemingly from the group's leader Abubakar Shekau was, instead, by an impersonator. The authorities have previously given a lower figure than locals for the number abducted and it is unclear if all are now safe. State governor Aminu Bello Masari was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying, "we have recovered most of the boys. It's not all of them," while a security source told the AFP news agency some remained with their captors. Labaran said none of the kidnapped boys had been killed, contradicting a boy shown in the video who said some had been killed by Nigerian fighter jets. It is unclear how the boys' release came about but the news was confirmed to BBC Hausa by another state government official. Boarding school children return home after government closed down schools in northwestern Nigeria due to the abduction of students. Photo: AFP What happened during the attack? Witnesses said armed men came to the school in Kankara town on Friday evening last week, and many students jumped the school fence and fled when they heard gunshots. Others were tracked by the gunmen, who tricked them into believing that they were security personnel, students who escaped said. Once the students were rounded up, they were marched into the nearby forest by the armed men. On Thursday, video was released bearing Boko Haram's emblem, showing dozens of boys, some of whom appeared to be very young. One of the boys said they were kidnapped by Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau's gang and that all the government troops who had been sent to help them should be turned back. What's the wider picture? Boko Haram has become notorious over the last decade for school kidnappings, including one in Chibok in 2014, when nearly 300 schoolgirls were seized. The group's name loosely translates as "Western education is forbidden". However, these abductions have until now taken place in north-eastern Nigeria, where Boko Haram is based. Despite Boko Haram's claim, the Nigerian government said the Katsina abduction was carried out by local gangs connected to the Islamist group. Armed attacks and kidnappings are rife in north-western Nigeria and are often blamed on bandits, a loose term for gangs operating in the area. Amnesty International says more than 1100 people were killed by bandits in the first six months of this year, with the government failing to bring the attackers to justice. - BBC

Microsoft says it found malicious software in its systems related to a massive hacking campaign disclosed by US officials this week, adding a top technology target to a growing list of attacked government agencies. Photo: AFP / Gerard Julien The Redmond, Washington company is a user of Orion, the widely deployed networking management software from SolarWinds Corp, which was used in the suspected Russian attacks on vital US agencies and others. Microsoft also had its own products leveraged to attack victims, said people familiar with the matter. "Like other SolarWinds customers, we have been actively looking for indicators of this actor and can confirm that we detected malicious Solar Winds binaries in our environment, which we isolated and removed," a Microsoft spokesperson said, adding that the company had found "no indications that our systems were used to attack others." One of the people familiar with the hacking spree said the hackers made use of Microsoft cloud offerings while avoiding Microsoft's corporate infrastructure. Microsoft did not immediately respond to questions about the technique. Still, another person familiar with the matter said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not believe Microsoft was a key avenue of fresh infection. Microsoft and the DHS, which earlier said the hackers used multiple methods of entry, are continuing to investigate. The FBI and other agencies have scheduled a classified briefing for members of Congress Friday. The US Energy Department also said it had evidence hackers gained access to its networks as part of the campaign. Politico reported the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which manages the country's nuclear weapons stockpile, was targeted. An Energy Department spokeswoman said malware "has been isolated to business networks only" and has not impacted US national security, including the NNSA. The DHS said in a bulletin on Thursday the hackers had used other techniques besides corrupting updates of network management software by SolarWinds which is used by hundreds of thousands of companies and government agencies. CISA urged investigators not to assume their organisations were safe if they did not use recent versions of the SolarWinds software, while also pointing out that the hackers did not exploit every network they gained access too. CISA said it was continuing to analyse the other avenues used by the attackers. So far, the hackers are known to have at least monitored email or other data within the US departments of Defense, State, Treasury, Homeland Security and Commerce. As many as 18,000 Orion customers downloaded the updates that contained a back door, SolarWinds has said. Since the campaign was discovered, software companies have cut off communication from those back doors to the computers maintained by the hackers. But the attackers might have installed additional ways of maintaining access, CISA said, in what some have called the biggest hack in a decade. The Department of Justice, FBI and Defense Department, among others, have moved routine communication onto classified networks that are believed not to have been breached, according to two people briefed on the measures. They are assuming that the non-classified networks have been accessed, the people said. CISA and private companies including FireEye Inc, which was the first to discover and reveal it had been hacked, have released a series of clues for organisations to look for to see if they have been hit. The attackers are very careful and have deleted logs, or electronic footprints or which files they have accessed, security experts said. That makes it hard to know what has been taken. Some major companies have said they have "no evidence" that they were penetrated, but in some cases that may only be because the evidence was removed. In most networks, the attackers would also have been able to create false data, but so far it appears they were interested only in obtaining real data, people tracking the probes said. Meanwhile, members of Congress are demanding more information about what may have been taken and how, along with who was behind it. The House Homeland Security Committee and Oversight Committee announced an investigation Thursday, while senators pressed to learn whether individual tax information was obtained. In a statement, President-elect Joe Biden said he would "elevate cybersecurity as an imperative across the government" and "disrupt and deter our adversaries" from undertaking such major hacks. - Reuters

Jean-Luc Brunel, a longtime French modelling agent who knew the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, has been taken into custody by French authorities, the Paris prosecutor's office said on Thursday. Jeffrey Epstein founded a model agency in the US with Frenchman Jean-Luc Brunel. Photo: AFP Brunel, 74, was detained on Wednesday as part of a probe opened last year into allegations of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment, the office said. He was arrested at Charles de Gaulle Airport before boarding a plane to the Ivory Coast, according to several French media reports. Brunel has previously denied wrongdoing related to his association with Epstein. A lawyer for Brunel and her law firm did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours. Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail at age 66 in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Brunel co-founded the Karin Models agency in the 1990s, and founded MC2 Model Management in the United States with Epstein. In August 2019, Paris' chief prosecutor opened a preliminary inquiry into whether Epstein committed sex crimes on French territory or against French girls. Investigators searched Karin's premises in Paris the next month, and French media quoted Brunel's lawyer in October 2019 as saying her client would be ready to cooperate with police. Brunel was taken into custody five months after US authorities arrested Ghislaine Maxwell, a former Epstein associate. Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and groom underage girls for sex in the mid-1990s. She has been held in a Brooklyn jail since July, and this week proposed a $US28.5 million ($NZ38.4m) bail package, which US prosecutors are expected to oppose. Ghislaine Maxwell attending an event in New York in September 2013. Photo: Getty Images In a court filing, Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's and Maxwell's accusers, claimed Brunel would offer modelling work to young girls, and take girls as young as 12 to the US so he could "farm them out to his friends, especially Epstein". Giuffre also claimed that Brunel was among several prominent men Maxwell directed her to have sex with, court papers show. Brunel had sued Epstein in 2015, claiming that the financier's earlier legal troubles had unfairly embroiled him and damaged his modelling agency's reputation. - Reuters

Two people have died so far due to Cyclone Yasa, according to Fijian authorities. Photo: Fiji Govt The then-category five storm hit Vanua Levu and its surrounding islands overnight, flattening homes, bringing down power lines and stripping the land of its vegetation. The National Disaster Management Office Director, Vasiti Soko, said more than 93,000 Fijians had been impacted by the storm as it swept across Bua Province and the rest of Vanua Levu before tracking through the central Lau islands. Assessment teams are yet to get to all the areas that were impacted but this afternoon the National Disaster Management Office Director, Vasiti Soko, said there had been two fatalities so far. "I could confirm that one is in the Western Division and one is from the Northern Division. The issues surrounding how they died, that is still something we are still waiting for the Ministry of Health to confirm to us." Soko said the dust had still not settled from the storm but the country was likely looking at hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage in the aftermath. A coastal road damaged due to Cyclone Yasa Photo: Fiji Govt She said there were currently nearly 24,000 people sheltering in 456 evacuation centres around the country. The director also announced that a curfew would be in place tonight with Vanua Levu's beginning at 5pm through until 6am tomorrow while other parts of Fiji would have a curfew from 8pm until 5am tomorrow. #TCYasa CURFEW HOURS UpdateVanua levu curfew will be from 5⃣pm – 6⃣am for today.The rest of Fiji will be from 8⃣pm to 5⃣am for today.#FijiNews — Fiji NDMO (@FijiNDMO) December 18, 2020 Earlier Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama had said Yasa was "jockeying for the southern hemisphere's strongest-ever storm in history". Bainimarama warned this should be an indication that something was not right, adding it was a climate emergency.