Taipei: The United States has appointed a new representative to the island nation amid growing threats from China after the country elected a new president. China claims Taiwan as its territory and this week conducted naval and air force exercises near the island nation during which it laid siege to Taiwan.

The US institution, which serves as the de facto embassy in Taipei, said Wednesday that the veteran diplomat will replace Sandra Oudkirk. The United States cut formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 and established official relations with the People's Republic of China, at that time a Cold War ally against the Soviet Union.

Warships and fighter planes carried out joint patrol

Despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, the US is a strong ally of the island and is obliged to defend Taiwan from invasion under a 1979 law. Meanwhile, Taiwan said that Chinese troops were seen active near the island nation on Wednesday, less than a week after the end of two days of military exercises. During this, warships and fighter planes conducted joint patrols.

General elections in South Africa, results will be declared by Sunday

General elections were held in South Africa on Wednesday and voting was still going on till the time of writing this news. The Chief Executive of the Election Commission S. Mamabolo assured the people that those standing in the queue till 9 pm will be allowed to vote. He said that no citizen of the country will be deprived of the right to vote.

He also assured to look into the issues raised by the media. He also said that the final election results will not be declared before Sunday. Earlier, the commission's deputy CEO M. Sheburi said that the counting of votes will start immediately after the voting ends.

US imposes sanctions on three Chinese citizens

Chinese nationals Yunhe Wang, Jingping Liu and Yanyi Zheng have been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for operating a residential proxy service 911S5. 911S5 is a botnet that misused more than 19 million residential IP addresses. These were used for malicious activities such as corona relief scams by various cybercrime groups.

This caused the US government to lose billions of dollars. Botnet refers to a group of computers that have been infected with malware and are controlled by hackers.

Spicy Code Company Limited was also banned

The department said it will continue to coordinate with US law enforcement allies and international partners to take action to stop cyber criminals and others who commit crimes. Treasury Department officials have also imposed sanctions on Thailand-based Tulip Biz Pattaya Group Company Limited, Lily Suites Company Limited and Spicy Code Company Limited.