UN Security Council to hold emergency Middle East meeting wednesday, UN and EU call for ceasefire

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the escalation of conflict in the Middle East, the Swiss presidency of the Council announced.'We have scheduled a meeting' at 10:00 am New York time (1400 GMT), a spokesperson for the Swiss mission told reporters.Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement 'I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict, with escalation after escalation.''This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire,' he said.Similarly, the European Union called for an immediate ceasefire across the region.'The dangerous cycle of attacks and retaliation risks ... spiralling out of control,' EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell posted on X.'An immediate ceasefire across the region is needed,' he added.On Tuesday evening, Iran's Revolutionary Guard announced that it had launched a missile attack on sites inside the Israeli entity.In a statement, it said the attack was carried out with the support of the army and the Ministry of Defense, and the operation was approved by the Supreme National Security Council, noting that it targeted 'the heart of the occupied territories

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/691783/international/un-security-council-to-hold-emergency-middle-east-meeting-wednesdayun-and-eu-call-for-ceasefire

Mexico’s first woman president takes office

Claudia Sheinbaum (pictured) was sworn in as Mexico’s first woman president yesterday, taking the reins at a time the country is struggling with violence from organised crime and a hefty deficit in Latin America’s No 2 economy.Sheinbaum, the 62-year-old scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, was inaugurated in a ceremony in Mexico’s Congress for a six-year term lasting until 2030.Her supporters chanted “President! President!” and “Long live Mexico!” after Sheinbaum took the oath of office in front of lawmakers.She will later attend a celebration in Mexico City’s main square as leader of the world’s most populous Spanish-speaking country, home to 129mn people, which has had 65 male presidents since independence.Supporters began gathering from dawn on inauguration day, which authorities declared a national holiday.“We arrived at five in the morning,” said Marta Ramirez, a housewife who came by bus from the central city of Leon.A woman president “understands the people better”, she said.Sheinbaum has said on several occasions that “it’s time for women and transformation” in Mexico, a nation with a history of gender-based discrimination and violence, with around 10 women or girls murdered every day.Political watchers and analysts predict Sheinbaum will urgently look to calm investors following the passing of a controversial judicial reform pushed by her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.Markets will be looking to Sheinbaum for “a predictable and investment-friendly policy and regulatory framework”, said Alberto Ramos, head of Goldman Sachs Latin American economic research.“Disciplined management of the budget and of state-owned enterprises, progress on public security, and safe-guarding the integrity of key institutions will be key to preserving market sentiment and sovereign debt ratings,” Ramos said, emphasising the importance of state energy firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex).The November presidential elections in the United States, Mexico’s largest trading partner, could add to market volatility, especially if former president Donald Trump, who has vowed to increase tariffs on Mexican goods, wins.Sheinbaum’s government will present its first budget before November 15, which is expected to be highly scrutinised for clues on whether Sheinbaum will make good on commitments to reduce the fiscal deficit to 3.5% of gross domestic product from 5.9%, where it is predicted to close the year.Lopez Obrador, whose six-year term began in 2018, managed to double Mexico’s minimum wage, reduce poverty and unemployment, broaden the base of social programmes and oversee a previous strengthening of the peso.Touting these successes boosted his popularity and helped usher Sheinbaum, his protégée, to a landslide victory in the June elections.Sheinbaum, however, who has promised “continuity with change”, will inherit the largest budget deficit since the 1980s and lagging economic growth.Experts have said Mexico’s economy will require a tax reform to increase revenues, though Sheinbaum has said publicly she does not plan a sweeping tax overhaul.Instead, she has said she will pursue other options, including improving the efficiency of tax collection at customs.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/691776/international/mexicos-first-woman-president-takes-office

At least 23 killed in Thai bus inferno

A devastating fire on a Thai school bus killed at least 23 people, police said yesterday after rescuers pulled children’s bodies from the charred wreckage of the vehicle.The inferno engulfed the coach on a highway in a northern Bangkok suburb as it carried 38 children – ranging from kindergarten age to young teenagers – and six teachers on a school trip.It is believed to be the deadliest road accident in a decade in Thailand, which has one of the world’s worst traffic safety records with around 20,000 fatalities a year.“We found 23 bodies inside the bus,” Trairong Phiwpan, head of the police forensic science office, told reporters.The victims’ bodies were so badly burned that Trairong said it was not yet possible to confirm how many were adults and how many children.DNA testing would be needed to identify the remains, police said.Rescue workers put up screens around the wreckage to shield firefighters and investigators as they recovered bodies from the blackened shell of the bus.“Some of the bodies we rescued were very, very small. They must have been very young in age,” Piyalak Thinkaew, who led the search, told reporters at the scene, adding that the fire started at the front of the bus.“The kids’ instinct was to escape to the back so the bodies were there,” he said.Police are hunting the coach driver after he fled the scene, acting national police chief Kitrat Phanphet told reporters.“We are investigating all individuals, including the bus company to see if this was a case of negligence,” he said. “The driver is on the run, we will not wait for him to turn himself in – we will send a team to find him.”Some of the children who survived suffered horrific burns to their faces, mouths and eyes, doctors treating them told local media.The bus was one of three carrying children from Wat Khao Phraya Sangkharam school in the northern province of Uthai Thani on a field trip to a science museum in northern Bangkok.A video posted on the school’s Facebook page just hours before the tragedy shows the group of youngsters in orange uniform shirts stopping off at the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya.The disaster is believed to have begun when one of the bus tyres burst on the highway around 12.30pm (0530 GMT), sending it crashing into a barrier and triggering the inferno, officials said.Video footage from the scene showed flames engulfing the bus as it burned under an overpass, huge clouds of dense black smoke billowing into the sky.The bus was a natural gas vehicle (NGV), according to Transport Minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit.Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra visited survivors in hospital and said that the government would pay for medical treatment and compensate the victims’ families.“As a mother, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the families of the injured and deceased,” she wrote on social media platform X.Meechai Sa-ard, a motorbike taxi driver, heard the noise of the incident from a kilometre away.“There was smoke everywhere. Poor children, I heard they were very little,” he told AFP. “I was hoping that god would be kind so that the rain could put the fire out and the kids would survive.”Thailand has one of the worst road safety records in the world, with unsafe vehicles and poor driving contributing to the high annual death toll.Around 20,000 people are killed every year on the kingdom’s roads, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) – more than 50 a day on average.A similar bus fire killed 20 Myanmar migrant workers in March 2018, while at least 30 people died when a bus careered off a mountain road into a ravine four years earlier.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/691774/international/at-least-23-killed-in-thai-bus-inferno

Germany begins evacuating its citizens from Beirut

The German Foreign Ministry has announced the evacuation of its employees working at the German embassy in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, in addition to their family members and members of German organizations operating there.A statement by the German Foreign Ministry said that a German Air Force plane took off from Beirut today with 110 passengers on board, some of whom do not hold German citizenship.The German Foreign and Defense Ministries had previously stated that there were 'German citizens who are particularly at risk due to medical conditions and were also transported on board the armed forces plane.'The German government announced that its crisis cell had decided to raise the level of alert again at the diplomatic representation headquarters in Beirut and Ramallah, provided that these embassies remain able to operate, with the evacuation of non-essential employees.The German Foreign Ministry said earlier Monday that it estimates that there are still 1,800 Germans in Lebanon who have registered themselves on the crisis preparedness list.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/691710/international/germany-begins-evacuating-itscitizens-from-beirut

40 foreign operators may be using faulty Boeing 737s: US Safety Board

The US National Transportation Safety Board on Monday said more than 40 foreign operators of Boeing 737 airplanes may be using planes with rudder components that may pose safety risks.The NTSB last week issued urgent safety recommendations about the potential for a jammed rudder control system on some Boeing 737 airplanes after a February incident involving a United Airlines flight.The NTSB also disclosed Monday that it has learned two foreign operators suffered similar incidents in 2019 involving rollout guidance actuators. 'We are concerned of the possibility that other airlines are unaware of the presence of these actuators on their 737 airplanes,' NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said Monday in a letter to FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/691685/international/uslatin-america/40-foreign-operators-may-be-using-faulty-boeing-737s-us-safety-board

Trump launches into ‘dark speech’ on illegal immigration

Donald Trump has called Democrat Kamala Harris “mentally impaired” and said illegal immigrants are out to cut the throats of ordinary Americans in their own homes as he doubled down on the racially charged rhetoric fuelling his unprecedented bid to regain the US presidency.Trump was seeking to strike back at Harris after she visited the US-Mexico border on Friday and vowed to do more to control asylum claims and undocumented migrant crossings.The issue is one of the Democratic vice president’s weakest in polling, as she runs neck-and-neck against Trump in the November 5 election.Trump dismissed Harris’s speech at the border, swearing and telling supporters in the small town of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, that President Joe Biden and Harris are responsible for an “invasion” of violent criminals.Anti-immigrant sentiment has been at the core of Trump’s appeal in economically depressed, majority-white parts of the country ever since his 2016 presidential victory, but the rhetoric is turning ever more extreme as election day nears.The 78-year-old businessman — the first major presidential candidate in US history to be a convicted felon and subject of multiple ongoing court cases — said former California prosecutor Harris, 59, is “dumb.”“Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country,” he said.Harris, meanwhile, spent Saturday at a fundraiser in San Francisco, California, where she said Trump was using “the same tired playbook we’ve heard for years.”“This election is about two very different visions for our nation and we see that contrast on the campaign trail,” she said.Trump spoke in Wisconsin while flanked on stage by large mugshots of migrants accused of crimes, painting a hellish picture of an America under violent assault — despite a plunge this year in illegal border crossings and what the FBI says is a steep decline in crime overall, particularly murder.“They will walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat,” Trump said of illegal immigrants.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/691620/international/trump-launches-into-dark-speech-on-illegal-immigration

Nepal floods, landslides kill at least 38 people

At least 38 people have been killed in Nepal since early Friday as persistent downpours triggered more flooding and landslides, closing major roads and disrupting domestic air travel, officials said yesterday.The death toll could rise, they added, with another 29 people reported missing over the last 30 hours. Most of the deaths took place in the Kathmandu valley, which is home to four million people and the country’s capital, where the flooding brought traffic and normal activity to a standstill. Rescue workers used helicopters and rubber boats to help people stranded on rooftops or elevated ground as some parts of Kathmandu reported up to 322.2mm of rain over the last day.Most rivers in the Himalayan nation have swollen, spilling over roads and bridges, authorities said, after nearly a week’s delay in the retreat of South Asia’s annual monsoon rains brought torrential downpours across the region. Police were working to clear debris and reopen roads after landslides blocked highways in 28 places, said police spokesperson Dan Bahadur Karki. The earliest let-up in the rains might not come until Sunday, said Binu Maharjan, a weather forecasting official in Kathmandu, who said a low-pressure system over parts of neighbouring India had caused this year’s extended rains. “Heavy rains are likely to continue until Sunday morning and weather is likely to clear after that,” Maharjan told Reuters.Most central and eastern areas had received moderate to extremely heavy rainfall, ranging from 50mm to more than 200mm, she added, with moderate levels recorded elsewhere. International flights are operating, but many domestic flights have been disrupted, said Rinji Sherpa, a spokesperson for Kathmandu airport.The Koshi River in the southeast, which causes deadly floods in India’s eastern neighbouring state of Bihar almost every year, was running above the danger level at 450,000 cusecs, versus the normal figure of 150,000 cusecs, one official said. A cusec is a measurement of water flow equivalent to one cubic foot a second. The river level is still rising, added Ram Chandra Tiwari, the area’s top bureaucrat. — Reuters

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/691523/international/nepal-floods-landslides-kill-at-least-38-people

Hurricane triggers ‘catastrophic’ US floods, with more than 30 dead

Tropical Storm Helene brought life-threatening flooding to the Carolinas yesterday after leaving widespread destruction as a major hurricane in Florida and Georgia overnight that killed at least 33 people, swamped neighbourhoods and left more than 4mn homes and businesses without power.Helene hit Florida’s Big Bend region as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on Thursday at 11.10pm ET (0310 GMT yesterday) and left a chaotic landscape of overturned boats in harbours, felled trees, submerged cars and flooded streets.Police and firefighters carried out thousands of water rescues throughout the affected states, including in Atlanta, where an apartment complex had to be evacuated due to flooding.Helene came ashore in Florida with 140mph (225kph) winds, weakening to a tropical storm as it moved into Georgia early yesterday.By early afternoon, the storm had been downgraded to a tropical depression and was packing maximum sustained winds of 35mph (55kph) as it slowed over Tennessee and Kentucky, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.Helene’s heavy rains were still producing catastrophic flooding in the southern Appalachians, the NHC said.More than 50 people were trapped on the roof of a hospital at midday yesterday in Unicoi County, Tennessee, about 120 miles northeast of Knoxville, local media reported, as floodwaters swamped the rural community.Rising waters from the Nolichucky River were preventing ambulances and emergency vehicles from evacuating patients and others there, the Unicoi County Emergency Management Agency said on social media, but emergency crews in boats were conducting rescues.In western North Carolina, Rutherford County emergency officials warned residents near the Lake Lure Dam just before noon to immediately evacuate to higher ground, saying” “Dam failure imminent.”In nearby Buncombe County, landslides forced interstates 40 and 26 to close, the county said on X.The extent of the damage in Florida began emerging after daybreak.In coastal Steinhatchee, a storm surge – the wall of seawater pushed ashore by winds – of 8-10’ (2.4-3m) moved mobile homes.In Treasure Island, a barrier island community in Pinellas County, boats were grounded in front yards.The city of Tampa posted on X that emergency personnel had completed 78 water rescues of residents and that many roads were impassable because of flooding. The Pasco County sheriff’s office rescued more than 65 people overnight.The US Coast Guard said it had saved nine people from storm waters.Video posted online showed a coastguard crew pulling a man and his dog wearing life vests from the ocean on Thursday after his sailboat became disabled off Sanibel Island.Kevin Guthrie, Florida’s emergency management director, urged residents in the affected areas to stay off the roads.“I beg you, do not go out,” he said at a morning press briefing. “We have 1,500 search and rescue personnel in the impacted areas. Please get out of the way so we can do our jobs.”Officials had pleaded with residents in Helene’s path to heed evacuation orders, describing the storm surge as “unsurvivable”, as NHC Director Michael Brennan warned.In Perry, near where Helene slammed into the coast as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, houses lost power and the gas station was flattened.“Once the eye (of the storm) got to us, that’s when everything started to intensify,” Larry Bailey, 32, who sheltered in his small wooden home all night with his two nephews and sister, told AFP. “I am Floridian, so I’m kind of used to it, but it was real scary at one point. It’s like, was my house gonna get blown away or not?”In Taylor County, the Sheriff’s Department wrote on social media that residents who decided not to evacuate should write their names and dates of birth on their arms in permanent ink “so that you can be identified and family notified”.Some residents had stubbornly stayed put.Ken Wood, 58, a state ferry boat operator in Pinellas County, said he should have heeded evacuation orders rather than riding out the storm at home with his 16-year-old cat, Andy.“I’ll never do that again, I swear,” he said. “It was a harrowing experience. It roared all night like a train. It was unnerving. The house shook.”Down the hill from his house, the storm flooded some homes with chest-deep salt water. One house caught fire and burned down, shooting 30-foot flames in the stormy sky, he said.“Old Andy seemed like he didn’t care,” Wood said. “He did fine. But next time we leave.”Some of Wood’s neighbours were not as fortunate.Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said first responders were unable to answer several emergency calls from residents overnight due to the conditions.Yesterday county authorities found at least five people dead.Two other people in Florida died, Governor Ron DeSantis confirmed.Georgia Governor Brian Kemp cited 11 storm-related fatalities in his state so far, while North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said there had been two deaths in his state.At least 13 people had died during the storm across South Carolina, the Charleston-based Post and Courier newspaper reported, citing local officials.Helene was unusually large for a Gulf hurricane, forecasters said, though a storm’s size is not the same as its strength, which is based on maximum sustained wind speeds.A few hours before landfall, Helene’s tropical-storm winds extended outward 310 miles (500km), according to the NHC.By comparison, Idalia, another major hurricane that struck Florida’s Big Bend region last year, had tropical-storm winds extending 160 miles (260km) about eight hours before it made landfall.Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and St Petersburg suspended operations on Thursday but reopened yesterday, though extensive delays were expected.More than 4.6mn homes and businesses were without power midday yesterday in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and other states, according to the tracking website Poweroutage.usWith typhoon Yagi battering Asia, storm Boris drenching Europe, extreme flooding in the Sahel, September so far has been an unusually wet month around the world.Scientists link some extreme weather events to human-caused global warming.“Helene traveled over exceptionally warm ocean waters in the Gulf of Mexico,” Andra Garner, a climate scientist at Rowan University in New Jersey, told AFP. “It’s likely that those extra-warm ocean waters played a role in Helene’s rapid intensification.”“We also know that storm surges from hurricanes are getting worse because our sea levels are rising as we warm the planet,” she added.Curtis Drafton, a search and rescue volunteer, 48, in Steinhatchee, Florida raised similar concerns on the ground as he tackled the storm’s aftermath.“We have got to start wondering: is this the new normal? Is it going to happen every year?” he told AFP. “We have a lot of talk about once-in-a-lifetime storm, but we had one similar last year.”

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/691486/international/hurricane-triggers-catastrophic-us-floods-with-more-than-30-dead

SA woman turns 118, among the oldest in the world

A South African woman celebrated her 118th birthday on Friday as one of the oldest people in the world with a small party at her care home.Margaret Maritz was born on September 27, 1906, according to a copy of her identity card shown to journalists by a charity that helped to organise the party in Touws River, 180 kilometres northeast of Cape Town. The document has not been independently verified but if confirmed would make Maritz older than Japanese national Tomiko Itooka who was born on May 23, 1908 and is listed by the US-based Gerontology Research Group as currently the world’s oldest living person.Flanked by two of her 14 children, Maritz blew out a candle on a large pink birthday cake at the party in the small town of Touws River.“She talks about her life as a young woman, (saying) you must respect your mother and your father. She didn’t drink, she didn’t smoke,” said a senior nurse at the home, Gregory Elroy Adams.“We must be grateful,” said one of her daughters, Liza Daniels, 67. “I don’t know if I will reach that age one day. But for me it’s a very, very big privilege to have a mother that reaches this age.”According to the Guinness World Records website, the oldest verified person is French national Jeanne Calment, who died in August 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days.“Several people have been claimed to be older than Jeanne, but there has never been enough evidence to authenticate them,” it says.The oldest known South African died in March 2023 just two months before turning 129. Johanna Mazibuko was born on May 11, 1894 according to her identity papers, although these were not confirmed as authentic by authorities.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/691485/international/sa-woman-turns-118-among-the-oldest-in-the-world

46 people drown during festival celebrations in India

At least 46 people, including 37 children, have drowned while celebrating a Hindu festival in eastern India, a local government official said yesterday.The victims drowned in separate incidents in Bihar state while bathing in rivers and ponds swollen by recent flooding, an official from the Bihar Disaster Management Department said.“People ignored dangerous water levels in rivers as well as ponds while bathing to celebrate the Jitiya Parv festival,” said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.The drownings occurred from Tuesday across 15 districts of Bihar state. Authorities were still working to recover three other bodies, the official said. The Bihar state government has announced compensation for each of the victims’ families, the government official said.Last year local media reported 22 people drowned during a 24-hour period in Bihar, most while marking the same festival.At least 116 people were crushed to death in July at an overcrowded religious gathering in Uttar Pradesh state, the worst such tragedy in more than a decade.India is hit by torrential rains and flash floods each year during the June-September monsoon season.The monsoon is vital for agriculture, and therefore for the livelihoods of millions of farmers.But it is also responsible for widespread destruction each year in the form of landslides and floods that kill hundreds of people across South Asia.More than 200 people were killed in the southern Indian state of Kerala in July when torrential monsoon downpours caused landslides that buried tea plantations under tonnes of rock and soil.Experts say climate change is increasing the number of extreme weather events around the world, with damming, deforestation and development projects in India exacerbating the human toll.A 2021 study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research tracking monsoon shifts from the mid-20th century suggested that it was becoming stronger and more erratic.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/691450/international/46-people-drown-during-festival-celebrations-in-india

Kremlin says new nuclear doctrine is a ‘warning’ to the West

The Kremlin said on Thursday that an updated nuclear doctrine that will allow Moscow to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states should be seen as a warning to the West.Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced plans to broaden Russia’s rules on the use of its nuclear weaponry, allowing it to unleash a nuclear response in the event of a “massive” air attack.The proposals would also permit Moscow to respond with nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states if they are supported by nuclear powers – a clear reference to Ukraine and its Western backers.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the planned changes “must be considered a specific signal”.“A signal that warns these countries of the consequences if they participate in an attack on our country by various means, not necessarily nuclear,” he told reporters.Without mentioning Ukraine by name, Peskov said Russia’s “nuclear deterrence is being adjusted on account of elements of tension that are developing along the perimeter of our borders”.He also said there was “no question” of Russia boosting its nuclear arsenal.The proposed changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which Putin himself has the power to approve, come as Ukraine is seeking permission from Western allies to use long-range precision weaponry to strike targets deep inside Russia – thus far without success.Kyiv says it is necessary to target Russia’s airfields and military infrastructure that it uses to launch attacks on Ukraine, though the White House is cautious about enabling further escalation.The West has accused Putin of irresponsible nuclear sabre-rattling throughout the Ukraine conflict, with the Kremlin leader having issued multiple apparent threats about Moscow’s willingness to deploy its nuclear weapons.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/691440/international/kremlin-says-new-nuclear-doctrine-is-a-warning-to-the-west