Foreign News
At least 43 dead as Helene pummels southeast US
At least 43 people have died and millions left without power on Friday as Hurricane Helene roared through the south-eastern US.
It was the most powerful storm on record to hit Florida’s Big Bend and moved north into Georgia and the Carolinas after making landfall overnight on Thursday.
Although Helene has weakened significantly, forecasters warn that high winds, flooding and the threat of tornadoes would continue.
Roads and houses were submerged on Friday, with one family describing to the BBC News how they had to swim out of their home to safety. Insurers and financial institutions say damage caused by the storm could run into the billions of dollars.
The eye of Helene, which had been a Category Four storm, came ashore on Thursday night. Helene remained a hurricane for six hours after it made landfall, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said a storm surge – heightened water levels mostly caused by high winds blowing water towards shore – reached more than 15ft (4.5m) above ground level across parts of the Florida coast.
The NHC said the surge should subside on Friday but that the threat from high winds and flooding would persist, including possible landslides.
Up to 20in (50cm) of rain is still possible in places.
The hurricane is the 14th most powerful to hit the US since records began. At approximately 420 miles (675 km) wide, it is behind only two other hurricanes – Ida in 2017 and Opal in 1996, both of which were 460 miles wide.
Because of its sheer size, the impact of strong winds and heavy rain have been widespread across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas.
At least eight people have died in Florida since Friday, including at least five people in Pinellas County, the county’s sheriff, Bob Gualtieri said.
Pinellas County includes the city of St Petersburg on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said one person died after a road sign fell on their car and another when a tree fell on a home.
Two people in Wheeler County in Georgia also died, authorities said, when a suspected tornado picked up and overturned a mobile home.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said at least 15 people died in his state, including one first responder. Kemp ordered 1,000 National Guard troops to help rescue efforts.
The Georgia governor said more than 150 roads have been closed, 1,300 traffic signals are out across the state and people are still trapped in buildings.
In South Carolina, at least 17 people were killed, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. Neighbouring North Carolina saw at least two fatalities in the storm, one due to a vehicle collision and another when a tree fell on a home in Charlotte, Governor Roy Cooper said.
And one person was killed in Virginia, the state’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, said at a news conference Friday.
Across the southeast, first responders have been tackling daring rescues, using helicopters, boats and large vehicles to help people stranded in flooded homes. In North Carolina along, more than 100 rescues have taken place, Cooper said.
Two tornadoes were confirmed in North Carolina by the National Weather Service. One damaged approximately 11 buildings, and left 15 injured. Four people were taken to hospital in “serious” condition, the weather service said.
In Tennessee, 58 patients and staff were left stranded on the roof of a hospital in the city of Erwin on Friday. Swift-moving water from the Nolichucky River prevented boats from being able to conduct rescue operations, and high winds prevented helicopter rescue.
The group was later taken to safety after helicopters from the Tennessee National Guard and the Virginia State Police intervened.
Across the region some four million homes and businesses were without power late Friday, according to tracking site poweroutage.us.
In Pasco County, north of Tampa on Florida’s Gulf coast, 65 people have been rescued, and in Lee County, to the south, many roads are impassable.
Also along the Florida coast, hotel guests were evacuated from a Ramada Inn in Manatee County as the hotel was flooded with water.
And in Suwannee County to the north, authorities reported “extreme destruction”, with trees falling onto homes.
Michael Brennan, the director of the NHC, said damaging winds are forecast to continue hitting Georgia and the Carolinas throughout Friday, especially over the higher terrain of the Southern Appalachians.
Speaking from the White House on Thursday evening, President Joe Biden urged residents to “listen to local officials and follow evacuation warnings”.
In Taylor County, the Sheriff’s department said that people who refused 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”.
Briana Gagnier told the BBC how she and her family saw water creeping into their home on Holmes Beach, Florida, and started moving their belongings onto tables and beds before hearing a loud bang. “My family and I all looked at one another,” she said. “Then water just started pouring in.”
Ms Gagnier said she grabbed her pets, her wallet and some portable chargers and swam out of their home with her family. The water was up to their shoulders.
“We also encourage all communities to please continue to listen to your local officials,” FEMA Deputy Administrator Erik Hooks said Friday. “Just because the storm has passed where you are doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re safe to leave your home.”
Officials also reminded residents the effects of the storm are “not over yet” and urged residents to remain vigilant.
Hurricanes need sea surface temperatures of more than 27C (80F) to fuel them.
With exceptionally warm waters of the Gulf at 30-32C, the sea surface is about two degrees Celsius above normal for the time of year.
Florida’s 220-mile Big Bend coast is where Hurricane Idalia made landfall in 2023. The area was also battered by Hurricane Debby last month.
There could be as many as 25 named storms in 2024, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned earlier this year.
Between eight and 13 of those storms could develop into hurricanes and a handful already have including Helene.
More storms could be on the horizon as the official end of hurricane season will not arrive until 30 November, officials warned.
[BBC]
More than 80 people have been killed in renewed sectarian violence in north-west Pakistan, officials say.
Another156 are said to have been wounded in three days of fighting in the tribal district of Kurram, near the Afghan border.
The violence began on Thursday, when gunmen attacked convoys of Shia Muslims travelling through the area under police escort. More than 40 died in that incident, which triggered revenge attacks.
Shia and Sunni Muslims have engaged in tribal and sectarian rivalries over land disputes for decades.
On Sunday a local administration official told AFP news agency: “The clashes and convoy attacks on November 21, 22, and 23 have resulted in 82 fatalities and 156 injuries.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said that 16 of the dead were Sunni and 66 belonged to the Shia community.
Those killed in Thursday’s attacks on convoys included women and children. Passenger Saeeda Bano described to BBC Urdu how she feared she would be killed as she hid under the car seats with her children.
Hundreds of residents fled amid escalating violence Friday and on Saturday.
It comes after dozens of people died in attacks over the past few months, prompting calls for a ceasefire from a tribal council.
On Saturday provincial officials began talks with both Shia and Sunni community leaders, AFP reported.
A security official in the provincial capital Peshawar told AFP that the negotiators’ helicopter had come under fire as it arrived in the region.
Singapore has carried out its third hanging of a convicted drug trafficker in a week despite appeals for clemency from the United Nations.
Rosman Abdullah, 55, was executed for trafficking 57.43 grams of heroin into the Southeast Asian city-state, Singapore’s drug enforcement agency said on Friday.
Rosman, a Singaporean, was “accorded full due process under the law, and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process,” the Central Narcotics Bureau said in a statement.
“Capital punishment is imposed only for the most serious crimes, such as the trafficking of significant quantities of drugs which cause very serious harm, not just to individual drug abusers, but also to their families and the wider society,” the CNB added.
UN experts had called on Singaporean authorities to spare Rosman, arguing that the death penalty does little to deter crime and that authorities had not made proper accommodations for his intellectual disabilities.
“We are gravely concerned that Mr. Rosman bin Abdullah does not appear to have had access to procedural accommodations, including individualised assistance, for his disability during his interrogation or trial,” the experts said in a statement released by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Wednesday.
Amnesty International had condemned Rosman’s scheduled execution as “chilling” and “extremely alarming”.
Rosman’s hanging at Singapore’s Changi Prison comes exactly a week after the execution of a 39-year-old Malaysian and a 53-year-old Singaporean for drug trafficking.
Despite its reputation as a modern city-state and international business hub, Singapore ranks among only a handful of countries, including China and North Korea, that impose the death penalty for drug offences.
Under the country’s laws, anyone trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis or 15 grams (0.5 ounces) of heroin faces mandatory capital punishment.
Since resuming executions in March 2022 following a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Singaporean authorities have carried out 24 executions, including eight so far this year.
Singapore’s government, which keeps a tight rein on public protest and the media, has defended the death penalty as a deterrent against drug abuse, citing surveys that show most citizens support the law.
[Aljazeera]
A video of a fashion shoot in India has gone viral and unexpectedly turned a group of underprivileged school children into local celebrities.
The footage shows the children, most of them girls between the ages of 12 and 17, dressed in red and gold outfits fashioned from discarded clothes.
The teenagers designed and tailored the outfits and also doubled up as models to showcase their creations, with the grubby walls and terraces of the slum providing the backdrop for their ramp walk.
The video was filmed and edited by a 15-year-old boy.
The video first appeared earlier this month on the Instagram page of Innovation for Change, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in the city of Lucknow.
The charity works with about 400 children from the city’s slums, providing them free food, education and job skills. The children featured in the shoot are students of this NGO.
Mehak Kannojia, one of the models in the video, told the BBC that she and her fellow students closely followed the sartorial choices of Bollywood actresses on Instagram and often duplicated some of their outfits for themselves.
“This time, we decided to pool our resources and worked as a group,” the 16-year-old said.
For their project, they chose wisely – a campaign by Sabyasachi Mukherjee, one of India’s top fashion designers who has dressed Bollywood celebrities, Hollywood actresses and billionaires. In 2018, Kim Kardashian wore his sequinned red sari for a Vogue shoot.
Mukherjee is also known as the “king of weddings” in India. He has dressed thousands of brides, including Bollywood celebrities such as Anushka Sharma and Deepika Padukone. Priyanka Chopra married Nick Jonas in a stunning red Sabyasachi outfit.
IMehak said their project, called Yeh laal rang (the colour red), was inspired by the designer’s heritage bridal collection.
“We sifted through the clothes that had come to us in donation and picked out all the red items. Then we zeroed in on the outfits we wanted to make and began putting them together.”
It was intense work – the girls stitched about a dozen outfits in three-four days but, Mehak says, they had “great fun doing it”.
For the ramp walk, Mehak says they studied the models carefully in Sabyasachi videos and copied their moves.
“Just like his models, some of us wore sunglasses, one drank from a sipper with a straw, while another walked carrying a cloth bundle under her arm.”
Some of it, Mehak says, came together organically. “At one point in the shoot, I was supposed to laugh. At that moment, someone said something funny and I just burst out laughing.”
It was an ambitious project, but the result has won hearts in India. Put together on a shoestring budget with donated clothes, the video went viral after Mukherjee reposted it on his Instagram feed with a heart emoji.
The campaign won widespread praise, with many on social media comparing their work to that of professionals.
The viral video has brought enormous attention to the charity and its school has been visited by several TV channels, some of the children were invited to participate in shows on popular FM radio stations and Bollywood actress Tamannah Bhatia visited them to accept a scarf from the children.
The response, Mehak says, has been “totally unexpected”.
“It feels like a dream come true. All my friends are sharing the video and saying ‘you’ve become famous’. My parents were full of joy when they heard about all the attention we are getting.
“We are feeling wonderful. Now we have only one dream left – to meet Sabyasachi.”
The shoot, however, also received criticism, with some wondering if showing young girls dressed as brides could encourage child marriage in a country where millions of girls are still married off by their families before they turn 18 – the legal age.
The Innovation for Change addressed the concern in a post on Instagram, saying they had no intention to encourage child marriage.
“Our aim is not to promote child marriage in any way. Today, these girls are able to do something like this by fighting against such ideas and restrictions. Please appreciate them, otherwise the morale of these children will fall.”
[BBC]
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