SAN JUAN: Puerto Rico was on Friday battling dangerous flooding after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island, as the death toll there jumped to 13 and authorities rescued nearly 700 people from high waters.
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello called Maria the most devastating storm in a century after it destroyed the US territory’s electricity and telecommunications infrastructure.
“Part of the island is lacking communications so what we have are some preliminary assessments about 13 deaths at this juncture,” he told CNN early Friday.
“We’re 24 hours post-hurricane warning and right now our efforts are to make sure we have everybody safe, that we can rescue people. Our efforts have already produced almost 700 rescues so we’re clearly focused on that.”
The National Hurricane Center said some areas in Puerto Rico could see 40 inches (more than a meter) of rain from Maria, and Rossello warned of dangerous mudslides brought on by the deluge.
“We have a lot of flooding, we have reports of complete devastation of vulnerable housing. Of course it’s still raining over here.”
Maria was blamed for at least 33 deaths, including 15 in Dominica, three in Haiti and two in Guadeloupe.
“Puerto Rico is absolutely obliterated,” US President Donald Trump told reporters on Thursday after declaring the territory of 3.4 million people a disaster area, a move that will free up emergency relief funding.
“Puerto Rico is in a very, very, very tough shape,” he said.
The torrential rain had turned some roads into muddy brown rivers, impassable to all but the largest of vehicles.
Toppled trees, street signs and power cables were strewn across roads that were also littered with debris.
“We all lived through the worst night of our lives, but Puerto Ricans have great inner strength,” said Iris Rivera, 53, in San Juan.
“Everyone is helping by cleaning up, directing traffic and supporting their neighbors.”
As of early Friday, Maria was a Category Three hurricane with winds of 205 km, churning in the sea some 35 miles east of Grand Turk Island in the Turks and Caicos.
Heavy rains and high winds began hitting the archipelago, a British territory, on Thursday afternoon.
The government opened new shelters after several buildings which had been used during Hurricane Irma earlier this month were damaged and authorities feared they might not hold up under another fierce storm.
In the Dominican Republic, the heavy rains triggered flooding as rivers overflowed their banks.
High winds downed trees and electrical pylons, and 140,000 people were left without power, the government said. Some 17,000 have been evacuated from their homes.
Ricardo Ramos, who heads Puerto Rico’s electricity board, said it could take months before power is fully restored on the island.
“The system... has been totally destroyed,” he said of the electricity grid.
While the island had suffered major blackouts in previous hurricanes, Ramos said the impact would be felt much more keenly this time.
“I guess it’s a good time for dads to buy a glove and ball and change the way you entertain your children and the way you are going to go to school and the way you are going to cook,” Ramos told CNN.
Following reports of looting, Rossello imposed an overnight curfew, from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 am, which will stay in place until Saturday.
Maria has already torn through several Caribbean islands, claiming the highest toll on Dominica, which has a population of around 72,000 and has been largely cut off from the outside world.
“So far, we would have buried in excess of 15 people,” Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said.
“If there (are) no other fatalities, it is a miracle,” he said.
“We have no water, no electricity, very limited communications.”
AFP aerial footage showed debris from damaged buildings scattered across the island and many structures with their roofs ripped off. Trees were snapped in half or ripped out of the ground.
Residents on Thursday were busy shoveling mud from their homes and businesses, while laundry was hung out to dry on the frames of half-destroyed homes and along downed utility cables.
Skerrit appealed for desperately needed supplies and helicopters to ferry them to cut-off communities.
“These hurricanes are becoming stronger than ever and more powerful than ever... And we really need, all of us, to understand that these issues are of greater concern to small islands like ours.
“We are very very vulnerable,” said Skerrit, who himself had to be rescued during the hurricane which blew off the roof off his home.
13 dead, hundreds rescued after Hurricane Maria pummels Puerto Rico
13 dead, hundreds rescued after Hurricane Maria pummels Puerto Rico
Bride, groom, spy: India’s wedding detectives
- As more Indian marry for love, families engage sleuths with high-tech spy tools to investigate prospective partners
- Some families want background checks while partners after marriage use spies to confirm a suspected affair
NEW DELHI: From an anonymous office in a New Delhi mall, matrimonial detective Bhavna Paliwal runs the rule over prospective husbands and wives — a booming industry in India, where younger generations are increasingly choosing love matches over arranged marriage.
The tradition of partners being carefully selected by the two families remains hugely popular, but in a country where social customs are changing rapidly, more and more couples are making their own matches.
So for some families, the first step when young lovers want to get married is not to call a priest or party planner but a sleuth like Paliwal with high-tech spy tools to investigate the prospective partner.
Sheela, an office worker in New Delhi, said that when her daughter announced she wanted to marry her boyfriend, she immediately hired Paliwal.
“I had a bad marriage,” said Sheela, whose name has been changed as her daughter remains unaware her fiance was spied on.
“When my daughter said she’s in love, I wanted to support her — but not without proper checks.”
Paliwal, 48, who founded her Tejas Detective Agency more than two decades ago, says business is better than ever.
Her team handles around eight cases monthly.
In one recent case — a client checking her prospective husband — Paliwal discovered a decimal point salary discrepancy.
“The man said he earns around $70,700 annually,” Paliwal said. “We found out he was actually making $7,070.”
It is discreet work. Paliwal’s office is tucked away in a city mall, with an innocuous sign board saying it houses an astrologer — a service families often use to predict an auspicious wedding date.
“Sometimes my clients also don’t want people to know they are meeting a detective,” she laughed.
Hiring a detective can cost from $100 to $2,000, depending on the extent of surveillance needed.
That is a small investment for families who splash out many times more on the wedding itself.
It is not just worried parents trying to vet their prospective sons or daughters-in-law.
Some want background checks on their future spouse — or, after marriage, to confirm a suspected affair.
“It is a service to society,” said Sanjay Singh, a 51-year-old sleuth, who says his agency has handled “hundreds” of pre-matrimonial investigations this year alone.
Private eye Akriti Khatri said around a quarter of cases at her Venus Detective Agency were pre-marriage checks.
“There are people who want to know if the groom is actually gay,” she said, citing one example.
Arranged marriages binding two entire families together require a chain of checks before the couple even talk.
That includes financial probes and, crucially, their status in India’s millennia-old caste hierarchy.
Marriages breaking rigid caste or religious divisions can have deadly repercussions, sometimes resulting in so-called “honor” killings.
In the past, such premarital checks were often done by family members, priests or professional matchmakers.
But breakneck urbanization in sprawling megacities has shaken social networks, challenging conventional ways of verifying marriage proposals.
Arranged marriages now also happen online through matchmaking websites, or even dating apps.
“Marriage proposals come on Tinder too,” added Singh.
The job is not without its challenges.
Layers of security in guarded modern apartment blocks mean it is often far harder for an agent to gain access to a property than older standalone homes.
Singh said detectives had to rely on their charm to tell a “cock and bull story” to enter, saying his teams tread the grey zone between “legal and illegal.”
But he stressed his agents operate on the right side of the law, ordering his teams to do “nothing unethical” while noting investigations often mean “somebody’s life is getting ruined.”
Technology is on the side of the sleuths.
Khatri has used tech developers to create an app for her agents to upload records directly online — leaving nothing on agents’ phones, in case they are caught.
“This is safer for our team,” she said, adding it also helped them “get sharp results in less time and cost.”
Surveillance tools starting at only a few dollars are readily available.
Those include audio and video recording devices hidden in everyday items such as mosquito repellent socket devices, to more sophisticated magnetic GPS car trackers or tiny wearable cameras.
The technology boom, Paliwal said, has put relationships under pressure.
“The more hi-tech we become, the more problems we have in our lives,” she said.
But she insisted that neither the technology nor the detectives should take the blame for exposing a cheat.
“Such relationships would not have lasted anyway,” she said. “No relationship can work on the basis of lies.”
Ousted Bangladesh PM Hasina’s son denies graft in $12.65 billion nuclear deal
- Bangladesh’s Anti Corruption Commission has launched corruption inquiry into Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project, backed by Russia’s state-owned Rosatom
- Rosatom, world’s largest supplier of enriched uranium, refuted the allegations, adding that it was committed to combat corruption in all its projects
NEW DELHI: Ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son and adviser on Tuesday described allegations of corruption involving the family in the 2015 awarding of a $12.65 billion nuclear power contract as “completely bogus” and a “smear campaign.”
Bangladesh’s Anti Corruption Commission said on Monday it had launched an enquiry into allegations of corruption, embezzlement and money laundering in the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project, backed by Russia’s state-owned Rosatom.
A deal for two power plants, each with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts, was signed in 2015.
The commission has alleged that there were financial irregularities worth about $5 billion involving Hasina, her son Sajeeb Wazed and her niece and British treasury minister Tulip Siddiq, through offshore accounts.
Rosatom, the world’s largest supplier of enriched uranium, refuted the allegations, adding that it was committed to combat corruption in all its projects and that it maintains a transparent procurement system.
“Rosatom State Corporation is ready to defend its interests and reputation in court,” it said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
“We consider false statements in the media as an attempt to discredit the Rooppur NPP project, which is being implemented to solve the country’s energy supply problems and is aimed at improving the well-being of the people of Bangladesh.”
Siddiq did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Siddiq had denied any involvement in the claims and that he had confidence in her. Siddiq would continue in her role, the spokesperson added.
Wazed, speaking on behalf of the family, said they were the targets of a political witch hunt in Bangladesh.
“These are completely bogus allegations and a smear campaign. My family nor I have ever been involved or taken any money from any government projects,” he told Reuters from Washington, where he lives.
“It is not possible to siphon off billions from a $10 billion project. We also don’t have any offshore accounts. I have been living in the US for 30 years, my aunt and cousins in the UK for a similar amount of time. We obviously have accounts here, but none of us have ever seen that kind of money.”
Reuters could not contact Hasina, who has not been seen in public since fleeing to New Delhi in early August following a deadly uprising against her in Bangladesh. Since then, an interim government has been running the country.
The government in Dhaka said on Monday it had asked India to send Hasina back. New Delhi has confirmed the request but declined further comment.
Wazeb said the family had not made a decision on Hasina’s return to Bangladesh and that New Delhi had not asked her to seek asylum elsewhere.
Cancer-hit UK king hails doctors in Christmas speech
- “We cannot help but think of those for whom the devastating effects of conflict in the Middle East … pose a daily threat to so many people’s lives,” king said
LONDON: King Charles III thanked “selfless doctors and nurses” for supporting the royal family in his Christmas address, marking the end of a year during which he and Princess Catherine have battled cancer.
Speaking in a pre-recorded message from a former hospital chapel, the king paid tribute to medical staff, veterans and humanitarian workers, and touched upon topics ranging from global conflicts to the far-right riots in the UK this summer.
The monarch’s traditional Christmas message, the first in nearly two decades made outside a royal residence, was symbolically filmed in the ornate Fitzrovia Chapel in central London.
“I offer special heartfelt thanks to the selfless doctors and nurses who this year have supported me and other members of my family through the uncertainties and anxieties of illness, and have helped provide the strength, care and comfort we have needed,” Charles, 76, said.
“I am deeply grateful too to all those who have offered us their own kind words of sympathy and encouragement,” the king added.
His daughter-in-law Princess Catherine was also diagnosed with cancer just weeks after him, temporarily removing the two senior royals from frontline duties.
They have gradually resumed engagements, with Kate, as she is widely known, announcing she had completed chemotherapy in September. Charles is still undergoing regular treatment for cancer, expected to continue into 2025.
Charles, who became monarch in 2022 after the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II, also hailed the country’s response to divisive far-right riots that took place across England in August and September following the fatal stabbing of three young girls.
“I felt a deep sense of pride here in the United Kingdom when in response to anger and lawlessness in several towns this summer, communities came together not to repeat these behaviors, but to repair,” Charles said.
Calling for peace, the king reflected on conflicts across the world in a year which also marked the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
“During previous (D-Day) commemorations, we were able to console ourselves with the thoughts that these tragic events seldom happen in the modern era,” said Charles.
“But on this Christmas Day, we cannot help but think of those for whom the devastating effects of conflict in the Middle East, in Central Europe, in Africa and elsewhere, pose a daily threat to so many people’s lives and livelihoods.”
Charles praised the “diversity of culture, ethnicity and faith” in Commonwealth countries, after attending a summit in Samoa in October.
“Across the Commonwealth, we are held together by a willingness to listen to each other,” Charles added, as the bloc increasingly confronts the legacy of slavery and colonialism under the former empire.
The eco-conscious king notably did not address climate change or environmental concerns this time around, in a shift from last year’s address.
However, in the backdrop of the broadcast was a live Christmas tree that was later donated and replanted, a tradition begun by Charles in 2023.
The king ended the speech with a call for “peace on earth.”
“And so it is with this in mind that I wish you and all those you love a most joyful and peaceful Christmas,” he concluded.
In keeping with tradition, Charles and his wife Queen Camilla, 77, were joined by other senior royals for their annual festive gathering at the family’s Sandringham estate in eastern England.
Heir-to-the-throne Prince William and Kate along with their three children were part of the royal entourage attending a morning church service followed by Christmas lunch.
Disgraced Prince Andrew, however, was missing from the festivities after revelations of his dealings with a suspected Chinese spy emerged just weeks earlier.
The king’s younger brother was present at last year’s gathering despite being shunned from royal life over his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Also missing were Prince Harry and his wife Meghan — who quit royal life in 2020 and moved to California — making it the sixth royal Christmas they have missed in a row.
Kashmir’s ‘bee queen’ sets out to empower women, inspire youth
- Sania Zehra manages about 600 bee colonies, sells products across India
- She created an empowerment group to help aspiring women entrepreneurs
NEW DELHI: For the past four years, beekeeping has become central to Sania Zehra’s life. Every morning, she wakes at about 6 a.m. to tend to her colonies, before spending the rest of the day building the enterprise that turned her into the “bee queen” of Kashmir.
Her beekeeping journey began as a 16-year-old, watching her father hard at work at the family farm in Balhama in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
“I first saw my grandfather working with the bees, and then I saw my father doing the same business. When I saw my father working hard, I decided to also contribute and support him,” Zehra told Arab News.
She overcame her initial fear of bee stings and got to work immediately, applying for a government scheme that allowed her to expand the business.
It was not always smooth sailing — she struggled to make a profit in the first couple of years and had to juggle maintaining the hectic routine of beekeeping and selling her products.
But as her hard work of managing hundreds of colonies garnered her the “bee queen” title, today her products are being sold across the country.
“I am selling my product across India (and) I am getting orders from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Dubai, South Africa, Qatar and all,” Zehra said.
Beekeeping is a multi-pronged passion for the 20-year-old, who sees it as a way to protect the environment and preserve her family legacy.
She joins an increasing number of women in Kashmir who are running their own businesses, many of whom access government programs aimed at training and supporting women entrepreneurs.
Despite the social barriers that persist to this day, Zehra found support from her family, especially her mother.
“My mother supports me wholeheartedly. She says ‘I have sons but you have gone ahead of the boys and there is nothing that can stop a woman if she wants to,’” she said.
“For me, it’s a passion as well as a desire to carry the family legacy … I have been fascinated by bees’ social structure and the importance of bees in our ecosystem. I want to contribute to their conversation and produce natural honey and connect with nature. They are an inspiration for me.”
As time went by, she found that beekeeping was not only therapeutic for her mental health but also a way to support the entrepreneurial landscape in Kashmir.
To fuel that mission, Zehra created an empowerment group whose members comprise talented women who lack access to resources.
“My main focus is that I should act as a catalyst for many and help others to grow too,” she said.
With 40 members so far, Zehra is aiming to take it to 100 and help them gain access to the government initiatives that once helped her.
“I want to give employment to all,” Zehra said. “I have a future plan to address the unemployment issue in Kashmir and make Kashmir a wonderful place. I want to inspire young people.”
Pope calls for ‘arms to be silenced’ across world
- “I think of the Christian communities in Israel and Palestine, particularly in Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave,” Pope Francis said
VATICAN: Pope Francis called Wednesday for “arms to be silenced” around the world in his Christmas address, appealing for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan as he denounced the “extremely grave” humanitarian situation in Gaza.
He used his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (“to the city and the world“) message to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics to call for talks for a just peace in Ukraine as the country was pummelled by 170 Russian missiles and drones on Christmas morning.
“May the sound of arms be silenced in war-torn Ukraine,” the 88-year-old pontiff said, his voice strained and breathless. “May there be the boldness needed to open the door to negotiation and to gestures of dialogue and encounter, in order to achieve a just and lasting peace.”
In front of thousands of the faithful gathered in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, also appealed for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the freeing of Israeli hostages held there by Hamas.
“I think of the Christian communities in Israel and Palestine, particularly in Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave. May there be a ceasefire, may the hostages be released and aid be given to the people worn out by hunger and by war,” he added.
Francis extended his call for a silencing of arms to the whole Middle East and to Sudan, which has been ravaged by a ravaged by 20 months of brutal civil war where millions are under the threat of famine.
“May the Son of the Most High sustain the efforts of the international community to facilitate access to humanitarian aid for the civilian population of Sudan and to initiate new negotiations for a ceasefire,” he said.
