At least 21 dead, hundreds missing as winds fan California wildfires

A rooster walks by one of several burned out vehicles after a wildfire destroyed a home and farm on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2017, in Calistoga, Calif. . (Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee via AP)
Updated 12 October 2017
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At least 21 dead, hundreds missing as winds fan California wildfires

SONOMA, California: Firefighters facing a resurgence of high winds on Wednesday struggled to halt wildfires that have killed at least 21 people, destroyed 3,500 structures and left hundreds missing in chaotic evacuations across northern California’s wine country.
Nearly two dozen blazes spanning eight counties have charred around 170,000 acres (68,797 hectares). Flames erupted on Sunday night when gale force winds toppled power lines across the region, possibly igniting one of the deadliest wildfire outbreaks in California history.
Flames were spread rapidly by hot, dry “Diablo” winds — similar to Southern California’s Santa Ana winds — that blew into northern California toward the Pacific on Sunday night.
The official cause of ignition has not been determined. But electric wires knocked down by those same winds may have sparked the conflagration, according to Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
“That is definitely a possibility, he told Reuters. “Power lines are a common cause of fires during wind events.”
Berlant said some of the victims in northern California were asleep when the fast-moving fires broke out, igniting their homes before they could escape. At least 20,000 people remained under evacuation as the fires raged largely unchecked for a third day, belching palls of smoke that engulfed the region and drifted south over the San Francisco Bay area, where some residents donned face masks.
The entire town of Calistoga, a Napa Valley community of some 5,000 residents spared from advancing flames the first night of the fire, was ordered evacuated on Wednesday evening, as the county sheriff’s office warned that conditions had worsened.
More than 550 people were still reported unaccounted for in Sonoma County on Wednesday morning, said Jennifer Laroque, a county emergency operations center spokeswoman.
It was unclear how many of the missing might be actual fire victims rather than evacuees who merely failed to check in with authorities after fleeing their homes. Officials urged displaced residents to let their family members know they were safe.

OBLITERATED NEIGHBORHOODS
The Sonoma County town of Santa Rosa, the largest city in the wine country region, was particularly hard hit by one of the fiercest blazes, the so-called Tubbs fire. Block after block of some neighborhoods were virtually obliterated with nothing left but charred debris, broken walls, chimneys and the steel frames of burned-out cars.
“It’s like driving through a war zone,” J.J. Murphy, 22, one of thousands of evacuees, said of the area around his home in the Sonoma Valley community of Glen Ellen.
Murphy, five relatives, a bird, a dog and two cats piled into their camper van to flee on Monday, he said.
“It’s crazy how in just a few hours a place I’ve recognized all my life I can’t recognize,” he said at a roadside food stop in the town of Sonoma.
In the town of Napa on the first night of a blaze dubbed the Atlas fire, nearly 50 people who were in danger of being overrun by flames were rescued by the crews of two California Highway Patrol helicopters working in tandem during a seven-hour aerial evacuation operation.
The weather gave firefighters a bit of a respite on Tuesday as cooler temperatures, lower winds and coastal fog enabled them to make headway against the flames. Fire crews labored on Wednesday to strengthen containment lines as winds picked up again.
“We’re not out of the woods and we’re not going to be out of the woods for a great number of days to come,” Ken Pimlott, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), said at a news conference.
In addition to high winds, fires were stoked by an abundance of thick brush and other vegetation left tinder dry by a summer of hot, dry weather and months with little or no rainfall. The cause of the fires remained under investigation.
Matt Nauman, a spokesman for the region’s main utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, acknowledged that fallen power lines were widespread during the “historic wind event,” which he said packed some hurricane-strength gusts in excess of 75 miles per hour.

FIRES ENTER RECORD BOOKS
At least 11 people were killed by the Tubbs fire in Sonoma County alone, officials said. It is the deadliest single California wildfire since 2003, when the so-called Cedar fire killed 15 people in San Diego, according to state data.
The latest overall death toll of 21, including six fatalities in Mendocino County and two more each in Napa and Yuba counties, marks the greatest loss of life from a California wildfire event in 26 years, since 25 people perished in a firestorm that swept the Oakland Hills in October 1991.
The deadliest wildfire on record in California dates back to October 1933, when 29 lives were lost in the Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles.
Officials identified the dead in Napa County as 100-year-old Charles Rippey and his 98-year-old wife, Sarah. His body was found outside where his wife’s bedroom once stood, their son, Mike Rippey, told local television.
“He was trying to get from his room to her room,” he said. “He never made it.”
Wildfires have damaged or demolished at least 13 Napa Valley wineries, a trade group for vintners there said on Tuesday. But experts say smoke rather than flames may pose a greater risk to the delicate grapes still waiting to be picked.
California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in several northern counties, as well as in Orange County in Southern California, where a fire in Anaheim destroyed 15 structures and damaged 12.


Surge in conflicts fuels extreme poverty: World Bank

Updated 5 sec ago
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Surge in conflicts fuels extreme poverty: World Bank

WASHINGTON: Conflicts and related fatalities have more than tripled since the early 2000s, fueling extreme poverty, the World Bank said Friday.
Economies in fragile and conflict-affected regions have become “the epicenter of global poverty and food insecurity, a situation increasingly shaped by the frequency and intensity of conflict,” the bank added in a new study.
This year, 421 million people get by on less than $3 a day in places hit by conflict or instability — a situation of extreme poverty — and the number is poised to hit 435 million by 2030.
Global attention has been focused on conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East for the past three years, said World Bank Group chief economist Indermit Gill.
But “half of the countries facing conflict or instability today have been in such conditions for 15 years or more,” he added.
Currently, 39 economies are classified as facing such conditions, and 21 of them are in active conflict, the Washington-based development lender said.
The list includes Ukraine, Somalia, South Sudan and the West Bank and Gaza.
It also includes Iraq although not Iran.
The report flagged that moves to prevent conflict can bring high returns, with timely interventions being “far more cost-effective than responding after violence erupts.”
It also said that some of these economies have advantages that could be used to reignite growth, noting that places like Zimbabwe, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo are rich in minerals key to clean tech like electric vehicles and solar panels.
“Economic stagnation — rather than growth — has been the norm in economies hit by conflict and instability over the past decade and a half,” said Ayhan Kose, World Bank Group deputy chief economist.
The bank’s report noted that high-intensity conflicts, which kill more than 150 per million people, are typically followed by a cumulative fall of around 20 percent in GDP per capita after five years.

Community schools offer hope for Rohingya refugee children as US aid cuts hit education

Updated 27 June 2025
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Community schools offer hope for Rohingya refugee children as US aid cuts hit education

  • Aid cuts are worsening education crisis for 437,000 school-age Rohingya children, HRW said
  • Community schools operate by charging small tuition fees, as they lack donor funding

DHAKA: As US aid cuts have forced the UN’s children agency UNICEF to suspend thousands of learning centers for Rohingya refugee children sheltering in camps in Bangladesh, a small number of community-led schools have now become their only source of education.

The Rohingya, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority, have fled from Myanmar’s Rakhine State to neighboring Bangladesh for decades to escape persecution, with more than 700,000 arriving in 2017 following a military crackdown that the UN said was a textbook case of ethnic cleansing by Myanmar.

Today, more than 1.3 million Rohingya on Bangladesh’s southeast coast are cramped inside 33 camps in Cox’s Bazar — the world’s largest refugee settlement.

The refugees, who are almost completely reliant on humanitarian aid, recently faced another blow, after the US suspended aid funding worldwide in January. Washington has been the largest donor, having contributed $300 million in 2024, or 55 percent of all foreign aid for the Rohingya.

Those and other foreign aid cuts “have worsened the already existing education crisis for 437,000 school-age children in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh,” Human Rights Watch said in a report published this week.

It is only in schools established by the Rohingya community that some children are able to get their education now, the group said, after UNICEF-run learning centers were forced to shut due to a lack of funding.

These schools offer a small glimmer of hope for many young children in the refugee camps.

“School is important for me because it gives me knowledge, enhances my life skills, makes me think for my community, makes me a better person and makes me hopeful for a better future. As a refugee, I don’t have many opportunities, but education can open doors for me and help me build a better life,” Mohammed Shofik, a 15-year-old Rohingya boy enrolled at a community school in Cox’s Bazar, told Arab News on Friday.

His dream is to become a scientist or doctor. At school, he is learning how to experiment and use tools, as well as how to listen and observe carefully, which he thinks are helpful to achieve his goals.

“Education is the only way to reach my dream and help my community,” he said.

But only a small number of Rohingya children are able to enroll in the community-led schools, as they do not receive any charitable support, Arif Salam, a teacher in one such school in the camps, told Arab News.

“Community schools are not funded by any donors and NGOs. Our only funding source is the tuition fees received from the parents of our students. But we can’t provide services to all the children,” he said.

“Only a few students in the camps can afford the learning in the community schools. Most of the students are enrolled with the UNICEF-run learning centers. The children who are enrolled with UNICEF learning centers are now sitting idle as they have nothing to do. It will create an irreparable loss for their education.”

There are about 150 community schools across the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar. Each of the schools have about 10 to 15 teachers, who provide education for 150 to 400 students.

Without government support or private donor funding, the schools charge parents monthly tuition fees ranging from around $0.50 for class one up to $6.50 for class 12, a fee that many cannot afford, as the Rohingya are not allowed to work.

“The closure of learning centers brought huge educational losses,” Salam said. “For our Rohingya children, it’s a hopeless situation.”

While the Bangladeshi government has not encouraged any informal system of education, such initiatives should be considered to address the education crisis, said Asif Munir, a renowned Bangladeshi expert on migration and refugees.

“Some kind of education is required for them because otherwise there is a possibility that the younger children, as they grow up, not just uneducated, they might be getting involved in informal work or even sort of risky work as well,” Munir warned.

“With education they can still hope for some kind of proper work where they can use their education in their life. So, in that sense, at least, the government can consider this as a good sort of coping strategy.”

HRW had also urged the Bangladeshi government to “recognize and fund community-led schools to increase their capacity,” and highlighted that recognition could help encourage donor support.

For the young Rohingya whose lives have been plagued with increasing uncertainties, going to school helps them chart a path for the future.

“My dream is to become a motivational speaker. In school, our teachers teach us good listening, delivering strong messages, storytelling, using body language, confidence-building techniques and leadership skills,” 10th-grader Rohul Amin told Arab News. “I think with all these knowledge and skills, I can achieve my dream one day.”

For Amin, school also helps him learn about his identity as a Rohingya.

“I especially focus on the history subject because history makes me understand our identity. As a Rohingya, I have no identity. I mostly try to remember our land and our identity.”


German lawmakers vote to suspend family reunions for many migrants

Updated 27 June 2025
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German lawmakers vote to suspend family reunions for many migrants

  • The bill approved Friday is the first legislation on migration since Merz took office
  • It will suspend rules dating to 2018 that allowed up to 1,000 close relatives per month to join the migrants granted limited protection

BERLIN: German lawmakers voted Friday to suspend family reunions for many migrants, part of a drive by the new conservative-led government for a tougher approach to migration.

Parliament’s lower house voted 444-135 to suspend the possibility of family reunions for two years for migrants who have “subsidiary protection,” a status that falls short of asylum.

At the end of March, more than 388,000 people living in Germany had the status, which was granted to many people fleeing Syria’s civil war.

New Chancellor Friedrich Merz made tougher migration policy a central plank of his campaign for Germany’s election in February. Just after he took office in early May, the government stationed more police at the border and said some asylum-seekers trying to enter Europe’s biggest economy would be turned away.

The bill approved Friday is the first legislation on migration since Merz took office. It will suspend rules dating to 2018 that allowed up to 1,000 close relatives per month to join the migrants granted limited protection, with authorities making case-by-case decisions on humanitarian grounds rather than granting an automatic right for reunions.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told lawmakers that the change would result in 12,000 fewer people being able to come to Germany each year and “break a business model” for smugglers.

People often know they won’t get full recognition as refugees, “but they set off for Germany because it is known that, even without asylum recognition ... you can have your family follow,” Dobrindt said. “That is a significant pull effect and we are removing this pull effect today.”

Dobrindt said “our country’s capacity for integration simply has a limit.”

Liberal opposition lawmakers decried the government’s approach. Marcel Emmerich, of the Greens, described the legislation as “an attack on the core of every society, on a truly central value — the family.”

“Anyone who wants integration must bring families together,” he said.

The far-right, anti-migration Alternative for Germany described the move as a very small step in the right direction.

German governments have for years faced pressure to curb migration as shelters across the country filled up. The administration of Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz, already had taken some measures including the introduction of checks on all Germany’s borders.

Asylum applications declined from 329,120 in 2023 to 229,751 last year and have continued to fall this year.


Mamdani’s NYC primary win sparks surge in anti-Muslim posts, advocates say

Updated 27 June 2025
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Mamdani’s NYC primary win sparks surge in anti-Muslim posts, advocates say

  • There were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closed
  • Overall, it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slur

WASHINGTON: Anti-Muslim online posts targeting New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani have surged since his Democratic primary upset this week, including death threats and comments comparing his candidacy to the September 11, 2001 attacks, advocates said on Friday.

There were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closed, said CAIR Action, an arm of the Council on American Islamic Relations advocacy group, which logs such incidents.

That marks a five-fold increase over a daily average of such reports tracked earlier this month, CAIR Action said in a statement.

Overall, it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slur or hostility in that day long time-frame.

Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist and a 33-year-old state lawmaker, declared victory in Tuesday’s primary after former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded defeat.

Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor if he wins the November general election.

“We call on public officials of every party — including those whose allies are amplifying these smears — to unequivocally condemn Islamophobia,” said Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR Action.

The advocacy group said its hate monitoring system includes its own scraping and analysis of posts, online submissions by the public and notifications from law enforcement. About 62 percent of the anti-Muslim posts against Mamdani originated on X, CAIR Action said.

People close to Republican President Donald Trump, including one of his sons, are among those spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric, advocates said.

Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son, wrote on X on Wednesday that “New York City has fallen” while sharing a post that said New Yorkers had “voted for” 9/11. Also on Wednesday, Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted an AI-generated picture of the Statue of Liberty draped in a burqa.

President Trump has pursued domestic policies that rights advocates have described as anti-Muslim, including banning travel from some predominantly Muslim or Arab countries in his first term and attempting to deport pro-Palestinian students in his current term.

The White House, which did not respond to a request for comment, has denied claims of discrimination against Muslims. Trump and his allies have said they oppose Mamdani and others due to what they call the Democrats’ “radical left” ideology.


THREATS
The New York City Police Department said earlier this month its hate crime unit was probing anti-Muslim threats against Mamdani.

Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, which documents hate against Asian Americans, and CAIR said attacks against Mamdani mirrored those endured by other South Asian and Muslim political figures, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Republicans have called Mamdani antisemitic, citing his pro-Palestinian advocacy and his criticism of Israel’s military assault on Gaza after an attack by Hamas militants in October 2023.

Mamdani has condemned antisemitism and has the backing of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is Jewish. Lander also ran in the Democratic primary.

Rights advocates have noted rising antisemitism and Islamophobia since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, with fatal US incidents including the shooting of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington and the stabbing of a Muslim child in Illinois.

Mamdani and other Pro-Palestinian advocates, including some Jewish groups, said their criticism of Israel is wrongly conflated with antisemitism.


Kremlin says Estonia's readiness to host nuclear-capable NATO jets threatens Russia

Updated 27 June 2025
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Kremlin says Estonia's readiness to host nuclear-capable NATO jets threatens Russia

  • Pevkur said Estonia was ready to host nuclear-capable jets if necessary
  • Peskov said such a move would be an obvious threat to Russia

MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Friday that Estonia's stated readiness to host NATO allies' U.S.-made F-35A stealth jets, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, posed a direct threat to Moscow.

Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur told the Postimees news outlet on Thursday that Estonia - which borders Russia and is a rotating base for NATO jets tasked with protecting Baltic airspace - was ready to host nuclear-capable jets if necessary.

"If some of them, regardless of their country of origin, have a dual-use capability to carry nuclear weapons it doesn't affect our position on hosting F-35s in any way," the outlet cited him as saying.

"Of course we are ready to host our allies."

Pevkur was speaking after Britain, a NATO member, announced it would buy at least 12 F-35A jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads and that they would join NATO's airborne nuclear mission.

Asked about Pevkur's comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such a move would be an obvious threat to Russia.

"Of course it would be an immediate danger," Peskov told a journalist from Russia's Life news outlet. He said the statement was one of many "absurd thoughts" voiced by politicians in the Baltic region, which comprises Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

"We have practically no relations with the Baltic republics because it is very difficult to make them worse," he said.