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]
Foreign News
Zambia ex-president’s family wins latest legal battle over what should happen to his body
More than a year after the death of Zambia’s former President Edgar Lungu, his family have won their appeal to have his body buried in South Africa where he died – overturning a high court ruling that allowed the Zambian government to repatriate the corpse.
Tuesday’s Supreme Court of Appeal judgement finally puts to rest the legal battle over what should happen to his remains following a long-standing feud between Lungu and his successor, President Hakainde Hichilema.
The Zambian government has said while it disagrees with the ruling it will “not be taking the matter any further”.
It had long argued that, as a former head of state, Lungu should be honoured in the country.
The Zambian government wished to see him laid to rest alongside his predecessors in the special presidential burial ground in the capital, Lusaka.
But Lungu’s family wanted a private burial after negotiations with the government over the funeral arrangements broke down.
“The very ritual intended to bring closure has, instead, pitted family against the state in a hard-fought legal dispute far from the protagonists’ home,” said Justice Raylene May Keightley in Tuesday’s judgement.
Last August, the South African high court in Pretoria ruled that Zambia’s govrnment could repatrite the body and give him a state funeral – an outcome that left Lungu’s relatives visibly distraught in the courtroom.
The family appealed against the decision but, in a surprise announcement in April Zambia’s government said Lungu’s remains had been “formally transferred” to the state by the South African court.
But just a few hours later, the same South African court ordered the Zambian government to return the body until the matter went to court again.
The former president died of an undisclosed illness aged 68 at a clinic in Pretoria. Chaos ensued following his death, with mourners receiving conflicting information from the government and Lungu’s political party, the Patriotic Front (PF).
Two separate mourning periods were announced and at one point there were competing condolence books.
Lungu, who led Zambia from 2015 until 2021, had numerous rows with Hichilema, who was the opposition leader for many years before finally unseating his bitter rival.
After Lungu’s death, his family said the ex-president did not want Hichilema to be at his funeral or “anywhere near” his body.
In this latest ruling at the Supreme Court of Appeal, the judges said it was clear that the former president “viewed himself to be persona non grata in his own country” of Zambia and “felt that he would not be afforded a dignified send-off” if his successor was present.
[BBC]
More than 5,300 people remain trapped in online scam centres in Myanmar near the Thai border, despite a multinational crackdown in the region last year, a human rights group says.
The Thai-based Civil Society Network for Human Trafficking Victim Assistance (CSNHTV) sent a letter to Thai police urging them to take action. It said many of those trapped were foreign nationals held at four locations inside areas controlled by the Myanmar Democratic Karen Buddhist Army militia.
According to the CSNHTV, an estimated 1,600 people trapped are Chinese nationals, and about 200 are people of Myanmar, along with people from the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brazil, Russia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe.
“Many of these compounds have yet to be dismantled or subjected to rescue operations to free all remaining victims,” it said.
“As a result, these syndicates continue to engage in online fraud and human trafficking, causing harm to victims around the world, particularly in the United States and Europe.”
Scam centres in Southeast Asia, including those in Myanmar and Cambodia, run illegal online schemes that are designed to defraud people worldwide.
The centres grew significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic in the region, and were initially tied to poorly run casinos and online gambling. They have now become a multibillion-dollar industry, according to the United Nations.
A UN report in February said the facilities are mostly staffed by foreign nationals who have been trafficked by criminal gangs and subjected to abuse.
It found instances of “torture and other ill-treatment, sexual abuse and exploitation, forced abortions, food deprivation, solitary confinement, among other grave human rights abuses”.
“The litany of abuse is staggering and at the same time heart-breaking,” UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk said.
“Yet, rather than receiving protection, care and rehabilitation as well as the pathways to justice and redress to which they are entitled, victims too often face disbelief, stigmatisation and even further punishment.”
[Aljazeera]
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has landed in Pakistan for a state visit – his first overseas trip since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28.
His Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar received the Iranian leader at a military base near capital Islamabad on Tuesday.
During his day long visit, Pezeshkian, who is accompanied by a high-level delegation that includes ministers and senior officials, will hold talks with Sharif, and is also expected to meet with Zardari.
Pezeshkian arrived aboard a special aircraft named Minab 168, a tribute to the 168 people killed in an attack on an Iranian girls’ school by US and Israeli forces in the Iranian city of Minab on the first day of the war in February.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who had arrived separately earlier in the day from Oman, was also part of the delegation.
The Iranians are due to hold bilateral talks with premier Sharif, followed by a delegation-level meeting between the two sides.
According to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Senate Chairman Yousaf Raza Gilani, National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will also call on the Iranian leader.
“During the visit, the two sides will review the full spectrum of bilateral relations and explore new avenues to further deepen cooperation across diverse sectors, including trade, energy, border security, people-to-people exchanges, and regional connectivity,” the ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Pezeshkian’s visit follows the crucial first round of talks between the United States and Iran, mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, in the Swiss city of Bürgenstock to end the war on Iran.
As part of the agreement, the US will release $12bn in frozen Iranian funds. The US has also announced a temporary easing of international sanctions on Iran, allowing it to sell its oil and petrochemicals until August 21. The talks concluded with a 60-day roadmap towards a final deal.
[Aljazeera]
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