The Philippines’ main gateway scrambled to resume full services on Monday after a New Year power outage jolted its air traffic control and disrupted 300 flights, prompting calls from business leaders and a top senator for urgent action.

A failure of primary and secondary power supplies caused the outage at Ninoy Aquino airport, and it should take about 72 hours for airlines to normalise their operations, said Cesar Chiong, general manager of the Manila International Airport Authority.

There were 361 flights delayed, cancelled or diverted to other regional airports on Sunday, affecting about 65,000 passengers, while may other flights were rerouted around Philippine airspace.

Chiong said the airport was handling a maximum of 15 flights per hour on Monday morning, down from the usual 20.

Several of the airport’s four terminals were crowded on Monday, with long queues of people trying to re-book flights while other weary passengers slept on chairs or on the floor.

“In the 24 hours that we’ve been waiting, we are now very exhausted from lack of sleep, my body is aching from all the waiting,” said Kirana Mangkabong, 32, an overseas worker.

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

Airports are being built in provinces surrounding Manila to relieve pressure, including in Cavite and in Bulacan, which is due to start operations in 2027.

The transport ministry has ruled out sabotage but vowed to investigate the airport chaos, which has renewed calls for existing gateway to be upgraded and better operated.

“The government should look at this wake up call to improve, either through public or private efforts, or a joint venture,” George Barcelon, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Reuters.

His flight from Dubai was affected, as was that of tycoon Manuel Pangilinan, who on Sunday said his flight from Japan had to turn back halfway through and tweeted: “Only in the PH. Sigh”.

Grace Poe, a former presidential candidate and head of the public services committee, called for a congressional inquiry into the incident, saying it was “a national security concern”.

Airport general manager Chiong said that the facility had introduced its own power system in 2018 but that on Sunday, both the main and backup systems failed.

Once connected directly to the regular commercial electricity, the systems experienced a power surge that forced equipment to shut down, including radar and communications, he said.

Joey Concepcion, a government business adviser, said authorities should revive a proposal for a consortium to modernise the airport.

“Any inefficiencies in the airport translate to big losses in business down the line and are felt throughout the country,” he said in a statement.

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Russia’s buffetted IT sector risks losing more workers in the new year because of planned legislation on remote working, as authorities try to lure back some of the tens of thousands who have gone abroad without prompting them to cut ties completely.

Having relatively portable jobs, IT workers featured prominently among the many Russians who fled after Moscow sent its army into Ukraine on Feb. 24 and the hundreds of thousands who followed when a military call-up began in September.

The government estimates that 100,000 IT specialists currently work for Russian companies overseas.

Now, legislation is being mooted for early next year that could ban remote working for some professions.

Hawkish lawmakers, fearful that more Russian IT professionals could end up working in NATO countries and inadvertently sharing sensitive security information, have proposed banning some IT specialists from leaving Russia.

But the Digital Ministry said in December that a total ban could make Russian IT firms less effective, and so less competitive: “In the end, whoever can attract the most talented staff, including those from abroad, will win.”

While many disillusioned young Russians have gone to countries such as Latvia, Georgia or Armenia where the Russian language is widely spoken, several have made a bigger leap – to Argentina.

IT specialist Roman Tulnov, 36, said he did not plan on returning to Russia under any circumstances.

“I had wanted to leave for some time. On Feb. 24, everything became clear. I understood that there was no more life in Russia,” he said, crediting mobilisation in particular for the opportunity to work six times zones away and still keep his job.

“Before mobilisation, no one thought about giving the go-ahead for people to move to who-knows-where.”

Vyacheslav Volodin, the powerful chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament or State Duma, has said he wants to see higher taxation for workers who have moved abroad.

Product designer Yulia, 26, estimated that a quarter of her team would rather quit than return to Russia under duress.

“Such a non-alternative choice is a bit like negotiating with terrorists: ‘Come back or we’ll make your job impossible, and for your company and employees’,” she said.

Some expatriate Russians might also be put off paying tax altogether. Personal income tax of 13% is deducted automatically from employees who are resident, but those who work for Russian-based companies from abroad are left to their own devices.

Professional online poker player Sasha, 37, also living in Argentina, said he had now stopped paying Russian taxes.

“When you pay taxes you support the state and its military expansion,” he said. “I’m not paying and don’t plan to.”

The Taliban administration will encourage self-sufficiency and wants international trade and investment, the acting commerce minister said, as Afghanistan faces isolation and suspension of some humanitarian operations over restrictions on women.

“We will start a national self-sufficiency programme, we will encourage all government administrations to use domestic products, we will also try to encourage people through mosques to support our domestic products” he told Reuters. “We will support any item which can help us for self-sufficiency.”

Another part of their strategy was to boost trade and foreign investment, he said.

“Those who were importing items to Afghanistan from abroad, they are asking us to provide opportunities for investing in Afghanistan and they want to invest here instead of importing from abroad,” he said.

He said that countries including Iran, Russia and China were interested in trade and investment. He said some of the projects under discussion were Chinese industrial parks and thermal power plants, with involvement from Russia and Iran.

Already facing a lack of formal recognition and sanctions hampering the country’s banking sector, investors are faced with growing security concerns after attacks on foreign targets in Kabul, claimed by the Islamic State.

An attack on a hotel catering to Chinese businessmen this month, which badly hurt several foreigners, could prompt some to re-think investing, a leading member of the Chinese business community has said.

Azizi said authorities were working to ensure security.

“We do our best for our businessmen to not come to harm. The attack hasn’t had any bad impact, (but) if it happened constantly, yes it might have bad impact,” he said, referring to the investment environment.

Azizi laid out a plan to develop industry by creating special economic zones on land previously used for U.S. military bases. He said his ministry was presenting the plan to the administration’s cabinet and economic commission.

He added that foreign investors were showing interest in Afghanistan’s mining sector, which has been valued at more than $1 trillion. He said that an iron mine in western Herat and a lead mine in central Ghor province had seen 40 companies take part in an auction and that the results would be announced soon.

He said that a major contract signed with Russia in September for the supply of gas, oil and wheat would see the delivery of the items to Afghanistan in coming days.

The Taliban-led administration is facing increased isolation over policies in recent days restricting women from access to public life, including attending university.

An order barring female NGO workers has thrown the humanitarian sector, which is providing urgent aid to millions of people, into disarray, with some organisations suspending operations in the middle of the harsh winter.

Azizi did not comment on the new restrictions but said his ministry had allocated 5 acres of land for a permanent exhibition centre and hub for women-led businesses.

“We always support women investors,” he said.

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has sacked Pak Jong Chon, the second most powerful military official after leader Kim Jong Un, state media reported.

Pak, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers’ Party and a secretary of the party’s Central Committee, was replaced by Ri Yong Gil at the committee’s annual meeting last week, the official KCNA news agency said on Sunday.

No reason for the change was given. Pyongyang regularly revamps its leadership and the year-end party gathering has often been used to announce personnel reshuffles and major policy decisions.

State television showed Pak sitting in the front row of the podium with his head down during the meeting while other members raised their hands to vote on personnel issues. His seat was later shown unoccupied.

He was also absent in photos released on Monday by the official KCNA news agency of Kim’s New Year’s Day visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun which houses the bodies of his grandfather and father, unlike in October when Pak accompanied Kim on a trip to the palace to mark a party anniversary.

The party’s Central Military Commission, which is headed by Kim, is considered the country’ most powerful military decision-making body, above the defence ministry.

Pak’s replacement came as Kim called for developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles and a larger nuclear arsenal to counter the United States and South Korea as key to the isolated country’s 2023 defence strategy.

Pak had rapidly moved up the military ladder from a one-star artillery commander in 2015 to a four-star general in 2020, taking credit for contributing to progress in the country’s short-range missile technology.

In late 2020, Pak was promoted to the politburo and earned the title of marshal, the highest military rank under Kim, and became a leading voice last November against joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises.

Like most other top military aides who went through ups and downs repeatedly under Kim, Pak was briefly demoted in mid-2021 after Kim chided some officials for their handling of North Korea’s anti-coronavirus policy, before being promoted again months later.

Pak’s dismissal comes despite Kim mostly lauding the military’s advances in weapons development during the meeting, unlike other areas where he pointed out some faults and called for improvement.

Oh Gyeong-sup, a fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said a recent flare-up in inter-Korea tension over North Korean drones’ intrusion into the South could have played a role.

Officials in Seoul said South Korea sent three drones across the border in response to the intrusion, but there was no response from the North, which Oh said could mean that it failed to detect the aircraft.

“Pak might have taken responsibility for the failure of security operations,” Oh said.

Ri, Pak’s successor, is also a senior military commander who held key positions including chief of the army’s general staff and defence minister.

About the previous 24 hrs, Russia introduced 51 airstrikes on Ukraine, significantly applying 44 Shahed-136 UAVs. All of them have been shot down by units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine.

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he spoke on Sunday with incoming Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, appointed last week to the post following his role as ambassador to the United States.

On Twitter, Blinken said he discussed the U.S.-China relationship and efforts to maintain open lines of communication in a telephone call with Qin.

On Friday China appointed Qin, its ambassador to the United States and a trusted aide of President Xi Jinping, to be its new foreign minister, as Beijing and Washington seek to stabilise rocky relations.

China’s foreign ministry acknowledged that the two spoke by phone.

In a statement on its official website on Monday, the ministry said Qin bid farewell to Blinken during the call, while added that he looked forward to maintaining close working ties with Blinken and promoting Sino-U.S. relations.

Qin, 56, replaces Wang Yi, who had been foreign minister for the past decade. Wang, 69, was promoted to the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party in October and is expected to play a bigger role in foreign policy.

Though Qin sounded optimistic about U.S.-China relations during his brief 17-month stint as ambassador, a post his predecessor occupied for eight years, his tenure nonetheless coincided with deteriorating ties between the two.

Wang’s stint as foreign minister saw a sharp rise in tensions between Beijing and Washington on a range of issues from trade to Taiwan.