Waves of Russian drones targeted critical infrastructure in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv and surrounding areas on Monday, officials said, as Russia extended its constant bombardment into the second day of 2023.

Ukrainians cheered from balconies as their air defences blasted Russian missiles and drones out of the sky in the first hours of the New Year, which Russia ushered in by attacking civilian targets across Ukraine.

“Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!” some shouted as air raid sirens wailed.

Ukrainian forces shot down 45 Iranian-made Shahed drones fired by Russia on the first night of the year, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday, praising Ukrainians for showing gratitude to the troops and one another.

“Drones, missiles, everything else will not help them,” he said of the Russians. “Because we stand united. They are united only by fear.”

In a stern New Year’s speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin signalled no let-up in his assault on Ukraine, however.

By 3 a.m. (0100 GMT), Ukraine’s air defence systems destroyed 20 air objects above Kyiv, its military administration said.

“It is loud in the region and in the capital: night drone attacks,” Kyiv Governor Oleksiy Kuleba said.

“Russians launched several waves of Shahed drones. Targeting critical infrastructure facilities. Air defence is at work,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.

Earlier, one person was wounded by debris from a drone destroyed over Kyiv that hit a road and damaged a building in a northeastern district of the capital, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

A 19-year-old man was taken to hospital in the mainly residential Desnianskiy district, on the left bank of the Dnipro River, Klitschko said on the Telegram app.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the information.

The regional military command in Ukraine’s east said air defence systems destroyed nine of the Iranian-made drones over the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions by the early hours of Monday.

On Twitter, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, said, “Russia coldly and cowardly attacked Ukraine in the early hours of the New Year. But Putin still does not seem to understand that Ukrainians are made of iron.”

Troops toasted the New Year on the front line in Ukraine’s eastern province of Donetsk. One soldier, Pavlo Pryzhehodskiy, 27, played a song he had written on a guitar after 12 of his comrades were killed in a single night.

“It is sad that instead of meeting friends, celebrating and giving gifts to one another, people were forced to seek shelter, some were killed,” he told Reuters.

“It is a huge tragedy that cannot ever be forgiven. That is why the New Year is sad.”

In a nearby trench, soldier Oleh Zahrodskiy, 49, said he had volunteered after his son was called up as a reservist. Now, his son is in hospital, fighting for his life with a brain injury, while his father mans the front.

“It is very tough now,” he said, holding back tears.

Kyiv’s police chief, Andrii Nebytov, posted a photo on the Telegram app, showing what was described as a piece of a drone used in an attack on the capital, with a handwritten sign on it in Russian reading “Happy New Year”.

“This wreckage is not at the front, where fierce battles are taking place, this is here, on a sports grounds, where children play,” Nebytov said.

Russia has flattened Ukrainian cities and killed thousands of civilians since Putin ordered his invasion in February, saying Ukraine was an artificial state whose pro-Western outlook threatened Russia’s security.

Russia, which denies targeting civilians, has since claimed to have annexed about a fifth of Ukraine.

Ukraine has fought back with Western military support, driving Russian forces from more than half the territory they seized. In recent weeks, the front lines have been largely static, with thousands of soldiers dying in intense warfare.

Russia says its aerial strikes aim to reduce Ukraine’s ability to fight; Kyiv says they have no military purpose and are intended to hurt civilians, a war crime.

“The main thing is the fate of Russia,” Putin said in a New Year’s Eve speech to a group dressed in military uniform, instead of the event’s normal backdrop of the Kremlin walls.

“Defence of the fatherland is our sacred duty to our ancestors and descendants. Moral, historical righteousness is on our side.”

A Ukrainian drone attack damaged a power facility in Russia’s Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, its governor said on Monday, adding that there were no casualties.

Russia said last week that it shot down a Ukrainian drone close to one of long-range bomber bases deep inside its territory and that three air force personnel had been killed.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.

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Japan’s Emperor Naruhito on Monday gave a New Year’s address and greeted members of the public for the first time in three years as the country eases COVID-19 pandemic restrictions amid a year-end surge in infections.

“The spread of the coronavirus has been difficult for everyone, but I am very pleased to be able to greet you again,” Naruhito told the flag-waving crowd at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

“We face many difficulties, but I hope for a peaceful and good New Year for all, and as the year begins, I pray for the happiness of people in Japan and around the world,” he added.

Naruhito, 62, was joined by other royals, including his wife, Empress Masako, 59, and his father, Emperor Emeritus Akihito, 89, who abdicated in 2019. The emperor’s daughter, Princess Aiko, 21, participated for the first time, according to the Imperial Household Agency.

About 9,600 people, split into six groups over the course of the day, were chosen by lottery to attend the New Year’s event, a much smaller number than the tens of thousands that usually gather for the traditional royal greeting.

Japan entered its eighth wave of COVID-19 infections in November when daily cases began exceeding 100,000. Since the start of the pandemic, the country has registered about 30 million infections and almost 60,000 deaths.

Japan lifted most restrictions on overseas travelers in October in a bid revive tourism, but last month said it would require people coming from China to be tested on arrival after the recent surge in cases there.

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Andrew Harnik/AFP via Getty Images

• Chief Justice John Roberts dedicated his 2022 year-end report to calling out threats against judges. 
• He said that the courts cannot do their job if they do not feel safe. 
• This comes after a tumultuous year for the court after it overturned Roe v. Wade this summer. 

In his annual year-end report, Chief Justice John Roberts said that the threats of violence that judges faced in the aftermath of Brown vs. Board of Education should be a lesson in the “importance of rule by law instead of by mob.” 

This comes amid threats of violence to Supreme Court justices throughout the year, including a threat to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and public dismay over several decisions made by the courts.

It also comes as many Americans are reeling from the aftermath of one of those decisions, Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade, a 1973 ruling that protected the right to abortion for half a century. The ripple effects included a 10-year-old girl having to go out of state for an abortion after she was denied one in her home state, and for women seeking life-saving medical care in the case of ectopic pregnancies. 

Most of Robert’s written statement in the report this year recounted the 1957 case in which the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson — a case enshrining states’ rights to implement segregation based on race — and desegregated schools.

Robert Davies — an Arkansas Judge who ruled against the Governor of Arkansas’s decision to order the Arkansas National Guard to block the entry of nine Black children into a Little Rock school — faced threats of physical violence, according to Roberts, but there were many people that stood by him. 

“The law requires every judge to swear an oath to perform his or her work without fear or favor, but we must support judges by ensuring their safety,” he said in the report. “A judicial system cannot and should not live in fear.” 

Some people in China’s key cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan braved the cold and a spike in COVID-19 infections to return to regular activity on Monday, confident of a boost to the economy as more recover from infections.

Among those who gathered to sled or ice skate on a frozen lake in the capital’s Shichahai Lake Park were some upbeat about the opening-up, after China dropped stringent “zero-COVID” measures on Dec. 7 to adopt a strategy of living with the virus.

However, a wave of infections has since erupted nationwide, after borders had been kept all but shut for three years amid a strict regime of lockdowns and relentless testing.

“The epidemic … has given us no opportunity to come and play,” said Yang, one of those in the park, who gave only one name.

“After the end of this lockdown we don’t have to scan the health code any more nor do we have to check the travel code. So we are free now.”

Zhong, a 22-year-old college student, who was also at the lake, said he did not leave home for two or three weeks after he had been infected.

“Now I can go out and it’s good timing for the New Year’s Day holiday. I want to go around in Beijing, have a look and feel the festive mood.”

Traffic is building again on the capital’s roads as people quickly return to outdoor sites, such as lakes, rivers and shopping malls. But business is still slow at some smaller, confined places such as restaurants, owners said.

“Work production, life and entertainment are all getting back to normal levels,” a man surnamed Wu told Reuters by the riverside in the central city of Wuhan, where the pandemic began three years ago.

People who had been infected were not as anxious anymore, added Wu, a tutor at a private education training centre. read more

China’s biggest holiday, Lunar New Year, begins on Jan 21 this year, when the railway network is expected to carry 5.5 million passengers, state broadcaster CCTV has said.

Amid the expected surge of holiday travel, authorities at Tibet’s spectacular Potala Palace said it would open again for visitors from Jan 3, after shutting in August last year due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

Some hotels in the tourist attraction of Sanya on the southern island of Hainan are already fully booked for Lunar New Year, media have said.

In recent days state media have sought to reassure the public that the COVID-19 outbreak was under control and nearing its peak.

More than 80% of those living in the southwestern province of Sichuan have been infected, its Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday.

But Monday’s one new COVID death – flat with the previous day – among China’s population of 1.4 billion does not match the experience of other countries after they re-opened.

China’s official death toll of 5,250 since the pandemic began compares with more than 1 million in the United States. Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, a city of 7.4 million, has reported more than 11,000 deaths.

Around 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID, health data firm Airfinity, which is based in Britain, said last week.

Cumulative deaths in China since Dec. 1 have probably reached 100,000, with infections at 18.6 million, it said.

Airfinity expects China’s COVID infections to reach their first peak on Jan. 13, with 3.7 million daily infections.

China has said it only counts deaths of COVID patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as COVID-related.

The relatively low death count is also inconsistent with surging demand reported by funeral parlours in several cities.

The lifting of curbs after November’s widespread protests, has overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes, with public concern fuelled by scenes of people on intravenous drips by the roadside and queues of hearses outside crematoria.

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Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

• Jair Bolsonaro was missing from the inauguration of Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
• Bolsonaro rented an MMA fighter’s house in Florida to flee multiple investigations, according to The New York Times.
• In Bolsonaro’s place, a 33-year-old garbage collector gave Lula da Silva the presidential sash.

Brazil recognized its new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with an elaborate inauguration ceremony on Sunday. 

The leftist incumbent snagged the office from the country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, in a tight runoff election in October. Bolsonaro refused to formally concede the election, and on Sunday he ditched the inauguration for a trip to Orlando, Florida, The New York Times reported.

According to the NYT, Bolsonaro flew there on Friday and plans to stay for at least a month while he faces investigations from his term as president. The Times reported that he is staying in a rented home owned by an unnamed professional mixed-martial-arts fighter, just miles from Disney World.

As per tradition, Bolsonaro was supposed to pass Lula da Silva a presidential sash during Sunday’s ceremony, symbolizing a peaceful transition of power. Instead, according to The Times, a voice announced that Lula da Silva would accept the sash from “the people of Brazil,” and a 33-year-old garbage collector placed the sash over his shoulder.

Brazil’s President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (left) waves to supporters on the day of his swearing-in ceremony, in Brasilia, Brazil, January 1, 2023.

Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

Bolsonaro is facing five inquiries, according to The Times, including an investigation into his misinformation-laden attacks on Brazil’s voting machines and another into his possible links to “digital militias” that spread misinformation. He no longer has the prosecutorial immunity that comes with the office of Brazil’s President.

The Times also reported that an anonymous source, who is a close friend of the Bolsonaro family, said the former president is waiting in Florida to see if the Lula da Silva administration will push any of those investigations.

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

• An atmospheric river dumped record rainfall across Nothern California on New Year’s Eve.
• Photos show flooding, landslides, boat, and helicopter rescues, breached levees, and a sinkhole.
• Another atmospheric river is approaching, possibly bringing worse flooding Wednesday and Thursday.

Northern California was inundated with floodwaters when an atmospheric river dumped record rain across the area on New Year’s Eve.

Californians have just a few days of respite before another atmospheric river — a channel of water vapor that can carry as much water as a river — is expected to inundate the area on Wednesday and Thursday. It will be “similar in strength or stronger than the New Years Eve storm,” according to the National Weather Service.

Since soil is already saturated from the recent storm, it may not be able to absorb as much water when the new atmospheric river rains down. That could mean even worse flooding.

A car is partially submerged on a flooded road after heavy rains in San Francisco, California, December 31, 2022, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video.

Dav Yaginuma/Reuters

The recent storm left people stranded, vehicles submerged and abandoned, highways closed, and triggered mudslides and landslides. At least two people have died in the floods. Rescue efforts are ongoing, and the floodwaters are still surging in some areas.

A landslide blocks Highway 92 West in San Mateo County, California, on December 31, 2022.

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Oakland saw its wettest day on record on Saturday, and San Francisco was just shy of its record. Footage from John Shrable, a meteorologist with local news station KRON4, shows significant flooding in the city: 

—John Shrable (@JohnShrable) January 1, 2023

The Oakland Zoo closed on Sunday, after a culvert overwhelmed with rainfall collapsed underground and opened a sinkhole.

—Oakland Zoo (@oakzoo) January 1, 2023

Floodwaters continued to cause trouble after the rain stopped, stranding people and incapacitating businesses.

Atmospheric rivers can dump more and more rain as global temperatures rise because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. That increases the risk of severe flooding events like this (or worse) in the future, scientists have warned.

Levee breaches, boat, and helicopter rescues, and two deaths in Sacramento County

An aerial view of the damage after rainstorms caused a levee to break, flooding Sacramento County roads near Wilton, California, January 1, 2023.

Fred Greaves/Reuters

Floodwaters breached levees in the Sacramento Valley on Sunday, leading to evacuation orders — followed by shelter-in-place orders — and flooding Highway 99, the main thoroughfare cutting through the Central Valley.

Rescue efforts throughout the region are ongoing. One person was found dead in a submerged vehicle on Sunday morning, FOX40 News reported. Another person died after being pulled from the waters, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

In Elk Grove, the fire department used a boat to rescue people from a temporary island created by the flooding, sharing the photo below on Saturday.

—Cosumnes Fire Dept. (@CosumnesFire) December 31, 2022

Elsewhere, a person was rescued by helicopter after floodwaters trapped them against a tree.

—Metro Fire of Sacramento (@metrofirepio) January 1, 2023

San Francisco is flooded and Tahoe is snowed in

The Instagram page for Rintaro, a San Francisco restaurant, shared video of its facilities overwhelmed with standing water.

A post shared by Sylvan Mishima Brackett (@mr_rintaro)

One San Francisco resident shared footage of a forceful mudslide on Twitter, saying it was running through the Bernal Heights neighborhood on Saturday.

—Zach Klein (@zachklein) December 31, 2022

Further footage shows muddy floodwaters rushing downhill on a residential street.

—Zach Klein (@zachklein) December 31, 2022

In Tahoe, the atmospheric river dumped snow onto roadways that left some drivers stranded and prompted authorities to close major roadways.

Nearby, huge boulders rolled onto Highway 50 during the storm. The California Department of Transportation said it would need to explode them.

—Caltrans District 3 (@CaltransDist3) January 1, 2023

Several waves of Russian drones targeted critical infrastructure in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv and surrounding areas on Monday, officials said, as Moscow extended its constant bombardment into a second day in 2023.

Ukrainians cheered from balconies as their air defences blasted Russian missiles and drones out of the sky in the first hours of the New Year, which Moscow ushered in by attacking civilian targets across Ukraine.

“Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!” some shouted as air raid sirens blared during the late night attack.

Ukrainian forces shot down 45 Iranian-made Sahed drones fired by Russia on the first night of the year, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday, praising Ukrainians for showing gratitude to the troops and one another.

“Drones, missiles, everything else will not help them,” he said of the Russians. “Because we stand united. They are united only by fear.”

In a stern New Year’s speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin signalled no let-up in his assault on Ukraine, however.

“It is loud in the region and in the capital: night drone attacks,” Kyiv Governor Oleksiy Kuleba said of Monday’s aerial attack.

“Russians launched several waves of Shahed drones. Targeting critical infrastructure facilities. Air defence is at work,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.

By 3 a.m. (0100 GMT), Ukraine’s air defence systems destroyed 20 air objects above Kyiv, its military administration said. By then, air raid sirens had been wailing for more than four hours.

Earlier, one person had been wounded by debris from a drone destroyed over Kyiv that hit a road and damaged a building in a northeastern district of the capital, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

A 19-year-old man was taken to a hospital in the Desnianskiy district, Klitschko said on the Telegram app. The mainly residential district on the left bank of the Dnipro River is Kyiv’s most populous.

Ukrainian presidential aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko also said the debris hit a road in the district, damaging a building beside it.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the information.

The regional military command in Ukraine’s east said air defence systems destroyed nine Iranian-made Shahed drones over the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions by the early hours of Monday.

On Twitter, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, said, “Russia coldly and cowardly attacked Ukraine in the early hours of the new year. But Putin still does not seem to understand that Ukrainians are made of iron.”

Troops toasted the new year on the front line in Ukraine’s eastern province of Donetsk. One soldier, Pavlo Pryzhehodskiy, 27, played on the guitar a song he had written after 12 of his comrades were killed in a single night.

“It is sad that instead of meeting friends, celebrating and giving gifts to one another, people were forced to seek shelter, some were killed,” he told Reuters.

“It is a huge tragedy. It is a huge tragedy that cannot ever be forgiven. That is why the New Year is sad.”

In a nearby trench, soldier Oleh Zahrodskiy, 49, said he had volunteered after his son was called up to fight as a reservist. Now, his son is in a hospital in the southern city of Dnipro, fighting for his life with a brain injury, while his father mans the front.

“It is very tough now,” he said, holding back tears.

Kyiv’s police chief, Andrii Nebytov, posted a photo on the Telegram app, showing what was described as a piece of a drone used in an attack on the capital, with a handwritten sign on it in Russian reading “Happy New Year”.

“This wreckage is not at the front, where fierce battles are taking place, this is here, on a sports grounds, where children play,” Nebytov said.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had targeted production, storage and launch sites of Ukrainian drones with long-range missiles on New Year’s Eve.

Russia has flattened Ukrainian cities and killed thousands of civilians since Putin ordered his invasion in February, claiming Ukraine was an artificial state whose pro-Western outlook threatened Russia’s security.

Moscow has since claimed to have annexed about a fifth of Ukraine.

Ukraine has fought back with Western military support, driving Russian forces from more than half the territory they seized. In recent weeks, the front lines have been largely static, with thousands of soldiers dying in intense trench warfare.

Since October, Russia has launched mass missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, casting cities into darkness and cold as winter sets in.

Moscow says the strikes aim to reduce Ukraine’s ability to fight; Kyiv says they have no military purpose and are intended to hurt civilians, a war crime.

“The main thing is the fate of Russia,” Putin said in a New Year’s Eve speech to a group dressed in military uniform, instead of the event’s normal backdrop of the Kremlin walls.

“Defence of the fatherland is our sacred duty to our ancestors and descendants. Moral, historical righteousness is on our side.”

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Ukraine’s military said Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south..

* Spain has stepped up security at public and diplomatic buildings after a spate of letter bombs, including one sent to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and another to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, where an official suffered minor injuries.

* Air raid alerts were issued across all of Ukraine following warnings by Ukrainian officials that Russia was preparing a new wave of missile and drone strikes. “An overall air raid alert is in place in Ukraine. Go to shelters,” country’s border service wrote on Telegram messaging app.

* Ukraine’s military said it had found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, and that their apparent purpose was to distract air defences.

* The recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson has lost its power supply after heavy shelling by Russian forces, the regional governor said.

* European Union governments tentatively agreed on a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil, with an adjustment mechanism to keep the cap at 5% below the market price, an EU diplomat said.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on that big problems had accumulated in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), accusing the West of spurning the chance to make it a real bridge with Russia after the Cold War.

* Lavrov said that discussions with Washington about potential prisoner exchanges were being conducted by the two countries’ intelligence services, and that he hoped they would be successful.

* The European Union needs patience as it sanctions Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as most measures will only have an impact in the medium and long term, Lithuania’s prime minister said in an interview at  the  Reuters NEXT conference.

* Switzerland has frozen financial assets worth 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.94 billion) as of Nov. 25 under sanctions against Russians to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said.

* Russia said the German parliament’s move to recognise the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine as a Soviet-imposed genocide was an anti-Russian provocation and an attempt by Germany to whitewash its Nazi past.

* Ukraine sacked a top engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, accusing him of collaborating with Russian forces, and urged other Ukrainian staff at the plant to remain loyal to Kyiv.

* Russia must withdraw its heavy weapons and military personnel from the Zaporizhzhia plant if the U.N. atomic watchdog’s efforts to create a protection zone are to succeed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

* In a grim sign of the energy crisis caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid, nine people have been killed in fires over the past 24 hours as Ukrainians resorted to emergency generators, candles and gas cylinders in violation of safety rules to try to heat their homes after power outages.

* “Remember one thing – the Russians are afraid. And they are very cold and no one will help them, because they do not have popular support,” – Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukrainian presidential staff.

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Happy new year, Palmer Report readers. And what would the end of the year be without one more news story about the insanity of Ted Cruz? Ted is currently being laughed at on Twitter, which is typical for him.

But perhaps you will laugh too. After so much edge-of-the-seat drama, here comes Ted to brighten up our days with a bit of predictable humor.Only we’re laughing at him, not with him — as usual.

It all began when President Biden decided to spend a peaceful few days in the US. Virgin Islands. And that makes sense. After much hard work, the President should enjoy tranquility with his family.

But of course, Ted got his knickers in a twist. So he tweeted this short tweet: “Enjoy ST. Croix.” Many on social media were offended. And they were not just offended because of the criticism. They were also pissed because it came from Cancun Cruise.

You know, the guy who essentially abandoned everyone in his state when a deep freeze descended on Texas because the power grid collapsed. Cruz was not the only republican to criticize Biden. It seems many in the GOP suddenly developed amnesia.

After years of not speaking up while trump took time off regularly and Cruz happily swept off to Cancun during a terrible storm, this Biden trip suddenly became an issue of grave republican concern.

However, it was Cruz who received the lion’s share of disdain. And it isn’t much of a surprise since hypocrisy, and Mr. Cruz do seem to go hand in hand. So happy new year again, and since I’m feeling magnanimous, happy new year to Cruz as well. 2023 may well be the year he heads off to Cancun and never returns.

The post Ted Cruz steps in it appeared first on Palmer Report.

The Philippines’ main gateway remained on reduced operations on Monday after a New Year power outage that jolted its air traffic control, with authorities scrambling to resume full service after more than 300 flights were disrupted.

The ageing Ninoy Aquino international airport was early on Monday handling a maximum 15 arrivals per hour compared to 20 during normal operations, said Cesar Chiong, general manager of the Manila International Airport Authority.

The outage was the result of the unprecedented failure of both primary and secondary power supplies, he said.

“It will take around 72 hours or thereabout for the airlines to normalise their operations,” Chiong told ANC news channel.

There were 361 flights either delayed, cancelled or diverted to other regional airports on Sunday, affecting about 65,000 passengers, while numerous other flights were forced to re-route to avoid Philippine airspace.

Flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PHL.UL) (PAL.PS) said it was arranging recovery flights out of the United States, Singapore and Malaysia and diverting some flights to domestic airports. Budget carrier Cebu Pacific (CEB.PS) cancelled 54 domestic flights on Monday.

Chiong said the airport had introduced its own power system in 2018 but on Sunday, both the main and backup systems failed.

When they connected directly to the regular commercial electricity, they experienced over-voltage and power surge, he added, forcing equipment to fail including radar, communications, radio and internet.

The Ninoy Aquino International Airport has previously been ranked among the world’s worst international gateways, with flight delays a regular occurrence, and a history of upgrades being delayed or abandoned due to disputes between the airport and contractors.

The Philippines hopes to take pressure off by building multi-billion dollar airports in Manila’s surrounding provinces, including Cavite and also in Bulacan, which is due to start operations in 2027.

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