Jadianto Nainggolan has barely touched food or got a decent night’s sleep since he got word that the ferry was carrying 12 relatives — including a nephew who was just three years old — headed home after a party on Monday.

“As soon as I heard I was in shock — I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep,” he told AFP.

The overloaded boat capsized on Sumatra’s Lake Toba in what could be one of the country’s deadliest maritime disasters.

Days later, Nainggolan, a power plant worker, cannot believe that four of his siblings and their children could be at the bottom of one of the world’s deepest lakes.

The 40-year-old Nainggolan made an arduous 24-hour journey from his home in Jambi province to the picturesque tourist destination after he got a panicked call from his sister.

Now, he is one of hundreds of heartbroken relatives who turn out at search posts or on the lakeshore every morning, praying for news about missing loved ones.

“As soon as we wake up we are thinking about our family,” he said.

Just three passengers have been confirmed dead, but official estimates listed 193 others — including children — as missing.

The vessel is believed to have been operating illegally with no manifest or passenger tickets and authorities have struggled to pinpoint the exact number onboard when it went down in bad weather.

Many bodies could be trapped inside the sunken ferry, with officials saying that the traditional wooden vessel may have been carrying five times the number of passengers it was built to hold, along with dozens of motorcycles.

Despite a massive search operation involving some 400 personnel, the vessel has still not been located. Toba is some 500 metres (1,600 feet) deep in parts, hampering search efforts. Anxiety — and anger — is growing among those desperate for news.

Marasi Gultom said 13 of her family members, including seven brothers, were on the ferry. “It’s not normal that there could have 200 people on board and the motorcycles are not allowed,” she said.

“That’s the fault of the officers — it was a fatal mistake. Why did they let them board?”

On Friday, authorities turned to sonar technology in a bid to pinpoint the boat’s location.  Survivor Juwita Sumbayak, who was on the ferry when it went down, said he was reeling from the accident. “My two children are still missing,” he told AFP at an area hospital.

Another survivor, Hernando Lingga, 24, recalled the terrifying final moments before the boat disappeared. “Suddenly, water started rushing into the boat,” he said.

“Passengers began to panic (and) some screamed hysterically, then the ship began to shake and sunk.”

He was however quoted by Bernama as saying that all operators would be given up to the end of the year to ensure only local cooks work in their restaurants.

He said a new regulation would only permit locals as cooks in all restaurants effective Jan 1, 2019.

“So we want locals to be employed as cooks. There will be no compromise … we are giving you notice to do it by Dec 31. If you don’t do it we can’t help it,” he told Bernama News Channel here on Thursday.

Earlier, Kulasegaran held a meeting with the Indian Restaurant Operators Association (Prisma) in Petaling Jaya.

He said the ministry would be holding more meetings with Prisma as well as the Indian Muslim Restaurant Operators Association (Presma) soon on the implementation of local cooks in restaurants.

Kulasegaran said the move would be able to reduce dependence of local restaurants on foreign labour and ensure the quality of local food.

He said the ministry would follow the footstep of the Penang state government in banning foreigners as cooks in food shops, restaurants as well as stalls around the island.

Since 2014, the Penang state government prohibited foreigners from working as cooks at hawker stalls in an effort to protect the national food heritage.

Commenting on the statement, Prisma president P. Muthusamy said the decision was quite shocking and would have major implications to operators.

“In the past few years, we have been facing problems of manpower. In fact more than 500 restaurants had closed during the period due to the shortage of workers,” he said.

Muthusamy said he hopes the ministry would hold further discussions with food shop operators nationwide before implementing the decision.

Presma president Ayub Khan said the problem of workers in restaurants was getting more serious as no locals want to work in restaurants.

“We advertised, offering a salary of up to RM2,500, but no one came. It is not easy to find local workers for restaurants,” he said.

Whereas in past tournaments teams went to extraordinary lengths to keep the paparazzi at bay, the stars of Russia 2018 have a more high-tech approach to guarding their privacy.

The Australian football federation is one of several to use its own mobile internet connection while in Russia, in theory to make it harder to access information contained on the devices of players and staff.

The Socceroos are forbidden from joining unprotected Wifi networks and must instead connect via one of the team’s own VPN-fitted 4G mobile routers.

Team official Adam Mark told AFP the players had been told “just to be smart about while they’re here, i.e. not logging on to public Wifis.”

“Cybersecurity is something that we are concerned about,” said Croatia team official Tomislav Pacak. “Concerning security in general, we don’t share anything with any media or the public other than what is said during press conferences.”

The anxiety to avoid hacks at this World Cup is so great in some camps that several teams sought advice from their national security services before leaving for Russia.

England were briefed by Britain’s GCHQ intelligence service and players’ smartphones and other connected devices have been fitted with special encryption software for the tournament.

Guillaume Poupard, the head of France’s information security agency Anssi, told AFP his organisation had advised the national team on online safety while in Russia.

“It was rather general advice, a bit like what we tell people travelling for business… pay attention to where you connect, don’t take all your personal data with you,” Poupard said.

– Public at risk? –

While this sounds like good advice no matter where high-profile millionaires such as footballers ply their trade, it is not just the players that may be at risk in Russia, known for the practice of kompromat — gathering compromising personal material for nefarious means.

Russian hacking group Fancy Bear, for example, published emails of the International Olympic Committee in 2014 after Russia was banned from competing in this year’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics for its doping programme.

Such an attack on tournament organisers FIFA, for example, “would have a significant impact on its image”, according to Chris Hodson, of cybersecurity firm Zscaler.

Yet the most common targets of online hacks and scams remain members of the general public, and Anssi has launched an awareness campaign to coincide with sport’s biggest event.

Cybersecurity firm Checkpoint last week uncovered a phishing campaign, whereby users are tricked into handing over their personal details via fraudulent emails, camouflaged as a World Cup matches wall chart.

“With so much anticipation and hype around the World Cup, cybercriminals are banking on employees being less vigilant in opening unsolicited emails and attachments,” said Checkpoint’s Maya Horowitz.

“As such, it is critical that organisations take steps to remind their employees of security best practices to help prevent these attacks being successful.”

Internet users have been advised to be wary of streaming matches on pirate feeds that may contain malware, and to avoid unofficial ticketing sites.

For Nicola Caproni, consultant at web security firm Sekoia, internet users need to be vigilant but not obsessive over their data during the tournament in Russia.

“Don’t take business data with you, don’t leave your telephone or computer at the hotel, be careful with your devices, don’t just connect to any Wifi hotspot, and use a VPN.”//AFP

“I suppose it won’t [cause a retaliation] and [such attacks] can be anticipated,” Teddy told journalists in Jakarta on Friday. “[However] staying vigilant is a must for everyone,” he went on.

(Read also: Pro IS cleric gets death for inspiring terror attacks in Indonesia)

Aman, the de facto leader of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a local affiliate of the IS terror group, was found guilty of inciting several terror attacks in Indonesia and was given a death sentence by the South Jakarta District Court in a hearing on Friday.

The judges found him responsible for inciting others to carry out at least five terror attacks in Indonesia, including the Thamrin attacks in Central Jakarta in 2016 and the Kampung Melayu bombings in East Jakarta last year. Aman’s teachings were behind the terror attacks, the judges said.

Aman denied that he was involved in the attack, despite admitting that he had urged his followers to go to Syria to join the IS in its quest to establish a global caliphate.

The annual Yulin dog meat celebration opened without a hitch on Thursday, a day after a South Korean court announced it had ruled that the slaughtering of dogs for meat was illegal.

Activists say the ruling could pave the way for the outlawing of dog meat consumption in South Korea, but there is less progress in China where advocates fear their tactics have been counterproductive.

Eating dog to mark the summer solstice is a tradition in China’s Guangxi region, where the festival has been held since 2009 to mark the occasion in the town of Yulin.

Despite rumours last year that Yulin authorities would ban dog meat sales altogether, many restaurants advertised the controversial offering this week with the veiled moniker of “fragrant meat”.

Carcasses were on display for purchase in the city’s open-air markets — though there were fewer of them than in previous years, locals said.

The Dongkou wet market downtown bustled with shoppers meandering past piles of dogs laid out atop butcher stalls for them to inspect. Others hung from hooks, their faces locked in a rigid grimace.

Market workers pulled in cartfuls of dead dogs while sweaty men blow-torched the fresher carcasses to remove any remaining fur. On the street, a man transported two live mutts in a cage on the back of his scooter.

As police patrolled outside the market premises, one woman bought a full dog for 662 yuan ($102), saying she would eat it with her family to celebrate the summer solstice.

“It’s very tasty,” another local surnamed Chen told AFP, insisting “they’re all strays — strays and pets are different”.

Chen did not consider it cruel to consume the meat during what the Chinese zodiac system deems the Year of the Dog, quipping: “don’t you eat chicken in the year of the rooster, and pork in the year of the pig?”

But vendors were more discreet than usual.

They cooked in narrow alleys or inside their restaurants instead of preparing dog dishes in front of patrons, ushering diners inside and not serving outdoors.

Mao dog ban 

Thousands of dogs are butchered during the event, the animal protection organisation Humane Society International estimates — a fraction of the more than 10 million consumed each year in China.

Animal rights activists have typically attended the festival to purchase ill-fated dogs and save them from slaughter, said Qiao Wei, an activist from the Si Chuna Qiming Animal Protection Centre.

But now they feel that working to establish a general ban on the dog meat trade would be much more effective.

“We have no hope that we can bring change just by going to Yulin,” he said. Simply buying dogs “doesn’t help”.

International animal rights groups concur, saying that focusing so intensively on dog meat consumption in just one city at an annual event risks becoming counterproductive.

“It would be far better to have a holistic campaign that works collaboratively across the country, engaging the government and public to acknowledge animals as our friends, not food,” said Jill Robinson, founder of the Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation.

Chinese leader Mao Zedong had banned dog ownership for being bourgeois, but the ranks of China’s rising middle-class are now full of proud and loving dog owners.

This year, the foundation set up an online portal where Chinese citizens can report restaurants that operate illegally.

Tipsters have already flagged some 1,300 restaurants in 153 cities, with over 200 of them shut down, forced to stop selling the meat, or issued warnings, said Robinson.

Before the festival, animal protection groups from around the world submitted a letter with 235,000 signatures to Beijing, calling for the event’s abolishment.

Changing ways 

The tide appears to be turning against dog meat consumption elsewhere in Asia, and Chinese animal lovers like Zhang Huahua, a 62-year-old retired lecturer-turned-activist, sense change is in the air.

Zhang came to Yulin all the way from her home in the southern province of Guangdong to submit a letter with recommendations to the local government.

Her hope is to save dog lives by changing the system itself.

In South Korea, where one million dogs are believed to be eaten annually, a court ruled that meat consumption was not legitimate grounds for killing canines, after an animal rights group accused a dog farm operator of slaughtering dogs “without proper reasons” and violating building and hygiene regulations.

Last April, Taiwan banned the consumption, purchase and possession of both dog and cat meat, with offenders facing a fine of up to Tw$250,000 ($8,170).

But many in Yulin viewed the news with a shrug.

“They can do what they want,” said a resident surnamed Huang, who nonetheless wasn’t fond of the taste of dog himself.//AFP