MOUSOUNI ISLAND, India: Cyclone Bulbul hit India and southern Bangladesh on Saturday, leaving two dead as authorities in the countries ordered more than two million people to get out of the path of the storm.
The cyclone, packing winds of up to 120 kilometres (75 miles) per hour, has "weakened" and "started crossing" India's West Bengal and Bangladesh's Khulna coast at about 9:00 pm (1500 GMT), Dhaka's Meteorological Department said in a special bulletin.
"It is likely to move in a northeasterly direction" and "weaken gradually, and may complete crossing West Bengal-Khulna coast by midnight tonight," the department said.
Airports and ports were shut down and the deaths were reported before the full force of the cyclone had hit.
One person was killed by an uprooted tree in Kolkata and another by a wall that collapsed under the force of the winds in Odisha state, authorities said.
More than 60,000 people were moved away from the coast on the Indian side of the border.
Bangladesh disaster management secretary Shah Kamal told AFP that "2.028 million" have been evacuated and moved to more than 5,500 cyclone shelters.
He said there was no reports of casualties and rejected reports in local media that dozens of local fishermen were missing on the southern coast.
Bangladeshi troops were sent to some villages, while about 55,000 volunteers went door-to-door and making loudspeaker announcements in the streets to get people away from the danger zone in villages, many of which were below sea level.
A storm surge up to two metres (seven feet) was predicted along the coast, Bangladesh's Meteorological Department said.
About 1,500 tourists were stranded on the southern island of Saint Martin after boat services were suspended due to bad weather.
Bangladesh's two biggest ports, Mongla and Chittagong, were closed because of the storm, and flights into Chittagong airport were halted.
In India, flights in and out of Kolkata airport were suspended for 12 hours because of the storm.
On the West Bengal island of Mousouni, which lies in the path of the storm, frightened residents took shelter in schools and government buildings because they had not been able to escape.
Military planes and ships have been put on standby to help in emergencies, Indian authorities said.
Bulbul hit the coast at the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, which straddles Bangladesh and part of eastern India, and is home to endangered species including the Bengal tiger and the Irrawaddy dolphins.
Bangladesh's low-lying coast, home to 30 million people, is regularly battered by cyclones that leave a trail of destruction.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in cyclones in recent decades.
While the frequency and intensity have increased, partly due to climate change, the death tolls have come down because of faster evacuations and the building of 4,000 cyclone shelters along the coast.
In November 2007, Cyclone Sidr killed more than 3,000 people. In May this year, Fani became the most powerful storm to hit the country in five years, but the death toll was about 12.
Cyclone kills two as Bangladesh, India evacuate two million
Cyclone kills two as Bangladesh, India evacuate two million
- Bulbul, packing a maximum wind speed of 120 kilometers per hour, is on course to make landfall near the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest
- Some 55,000 volunteers have been mobilized to go door to door and alert people about the storm
Anger and resentment rise in Los Angeles over fire response
- For Los Angeles residents, the arrival of National Guard soldiers is too little, too late
- Multiple fires that continue to ravage Los Angeles have killed at least 11 people, authorities say
ALTADENA, United States: After being largely reduced to ashes by wildfire, Altadena was being patrolled by National Guard soldiers on Friday.
For residents of this devastated Los Angeles suburb, the arrival of these men in uniform is too little, too late.
“We didn’t see a single firefighter while we were throwing buckets of water to defend our house against the flames” on Tuesday night, said Nicholas Norman, 40.
“They were too busy over in the Palisades saving the rich and famous’s properties, and they let us common folks burn,” said the teacher.
But the fire did not discriminate.
In the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood, the first to be hit by the flames this week, wealthy residents share the same resentment toward the authorities.
“Our city has completely let us down,” said Nicole Perri, outraged by the fact that hydrants being used by firefighters ran dry or lost pressure.
Her lavish Palisades home was burnt to cinders. In a state of shock, the 32-year-old stylist wants to see accountability.
“Things should have been in place that could have prevented this,” she said.
“We’ve lost everything, and I just feel zero support from our city, our horrible mayor and our governor.”
Multiple fires that continue to ravage Los Angeles have killed at least 11 people, authorities say.
Around 10,000 buildings have been destroyed, and well over 100,000 residents have been forced to evacuate.
So far authorities have largely blamed the intense 160 kilometer per hour winds that raged earlier this week, and recent months of drought, for the disaster.
But this explanation alone falls short for many Californians, thousands of whom have lost everything.
Karen Bass, the city’s mayor, has come in for heavy criticism because she was visiting the African nation of Ghana when the fire started, despite dire weather warnings in the preceding days.
Budget cuts to the fire department, and a series of evacuation warnings erroneously sent to millions of people this week, have only stoked the anger further.
“I don’t think the officials were prepared at all,” said James Brown, a 65-year-old retired lawyer in Altadena.
“There’s going to have to be a real evaluation here, because hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people have just been completely displaced,” he said.
“It’s like you’re in a war zone.”
Mayor Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom, both Democrats, have separately called for investigations.
Republican president-elect Donald Trump has fanned the flames of controversy, blaming California’s liberal leadership and encouraging his followers to do the same.
But the highly politicized attacks by Trump — who made false claims about why fire hydrants ran dry — have also frustrated some survivors in Altadena.
“That’s textbook Trump: he’s trying to start a polemic with false information,” said architect Ross Ramsey, 37.
“It’s too early to point fingers or blame anybody for anything,” he said, while clearing ashes from the remains of his mother’s house.
“We should be focusing on the people who are trying to pick up their lives and how to help them... Then we can point fingers and figure this all out, with real facts and real data.”
Malala Yousafzai ‘overwhelmed and happy’ to be back in Pakistan
- The education activist was shot by the Pakistani Taliban in 2012 when she was a schoolgirl
- Pakistan is facing a severe education crisis with more than 26 million children out of school
ISLAMABAD: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai said Saturday she was “overwhelmed” to be back in her native Pakistan, as she arrived for a global summit on girls’ education in the Islamic world.
The education activist was shot by the Pakistani Taliban in 2012 when she was a schoolgirl and has returned to the country only a handful of times since.
“I’m truly honored, overwhelmed and happy to be back in Pakistan,” she said as she arrived at the conference in the capital Islamabad.
The two-day summit was set to be opened Saturday morning by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and brings together representatives from Muslim-majority countries, where tens of millions of girls are out of school.
Yousafzai is due to address the summit on Sunday.
“I will speak about protecting rights for all girls to go to school, and why leaders must hold the Taliban accountable for their crimes against Afghan women & girls,” she posted on social media platform X on Friday.
The country’s education minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said the Taliban government in Afghanistan had been invited to attend, but Islamabad has not received a response.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls and women are banned from going to school and university.
Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban government there has imposed an austere version of Islamic law that the United Nations has called “gender apartheid.”
Pakistan is facing its own severe education crisis with more than 26 million children out of school, mostly as a result of poverty, according to official government figures — one of the highest figures in the world.
Yousafzai became a household name after she was attacked by Pakistan Taliban militants on a school bus in the remote Swat valley in 2012.
She was evacuated to the United Kingdom and went on to become a global advocate for girls’ education and, at the age of 17, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Jeju Air crash black boxes stopped recording before flight crashed
- South Korean and US investigators are still probing the cause of the crash of Jeju Air flight 2216
- Investigators have pointed to a bird strike, faulty landing gear and the runway barrier as possible issues
The black boxes holding the flight data and cockpit voice recorders for the crashed Jeju Air flight that left 179 people dead stopped recording four minutes before the disaster, South Korea’s transport ministry said Saturday.
The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Thailand to Muan, South Korea, on December 29 carrying 181 passengers and crew when it belly-landed at the Muan airport and exploded in a fireball after slamming into a concrete barrier.
“The analysis revealed that both the CVR and FDR data were not recorded during the four minutes leading up to the aircraft’s collision with the localizer,” the transport ministry said in a statement, referring to the two recording devices.
The localizer is a barrier at the end of the runway that helps with aircraft landings and was blamed for exacerbating the crash’s severity.
“Plans are in place to investigate the cause of the data loss during the ongoing accident investigation,” the statement added.
South Korean and US investigators are still probing the cause of the crash of Jeju Air flight 2216, which prompted a national outpouring of mourning with memorials set up across the country.
Investigators have pointed to a bird strike, faulty landing gear and the runway barrier as possible issues.
The pilot warned of a bird strike before pulling out of a first landing, then crashed on a second attempt when the landing gear did not emerge.
Text messaging scammers stole $2m in cryptocurrency from victims, says NY lawsuit
- Scammers used unsolicited text messages to target people looking for remote work
- Victims were told to review products online in order to help generate “market data”
NEW YORK: Scammers stole millions of dollars in cryptocurrency from people seeking remote work opportunities as part of an elaborate scheme, according to New York’s attorney general.
Attorney General Letitia James said Thursday that she’s filed a lawsuit in order to recover more than $2 million that she said was stolen from New Yorkers and others around the country.
James said the unknown network of scammers used unsolicited text messages to target people looking for remote work.
They told victims that the job involved reviewing products online in order to help generate “market data,” James’ office said. But in order to begin earning money, victims were told they had to open cryptocurrency accounts and had to maintain a balance equal to, or greater than, the price of the products they were reviewing.
The victims were assured they would get their investments back plus commission, but the funds simply went into the scammers’ crypto wallets, James’ office said. The product reviews were also conducted on a website set up as part of the scheme.
The suit cites seven victims, identified by pseudonyms, residing in New York, Virginia and Florida. One New York victim lost over $100,000, according to the suit. A Florida woman lost over $300,000.
“Deceiving New Yorkers looking to take on remote work and earn money to support their families is cruel and unacceptable,” she said in a statement. “Scammers sent text messages to New Yorkers promising them good-paying, flexible jobs only to trick them into purchasing cryptocurrency and then stealing it from them.”
James’ suit seeks to return the stolen funds.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said her office’s cryptocurrency unit traced over $2 million in stolen crypto and identified the digital wallets where the coins were being held. Then, working with James’ office, they were able to have the currency frozen until they could be returned to victims.
“Work scams that prey on those seeking legitimate employment not only rob victims of their hard-earned money but also shatter their trust in the job market,” she added.
UK finance minister seeks ‘pragmatic’ relations with China to boost trade
- Rachel Reeves is seeking to revive high-level economic and financial talks that have been frozen since 2019
- China is Britain’s fourth-largest trading partner, accounting for goods and services trade worth almost $138 billion
BEIJING: British finance minister Rachel Reeves said on Saturday during a visit to Beijing that she intended to have “pragmatic” relations with Chinese leaders to boost exports to the world’s second-largest economy.
Under pressure from market turmoil at home, Reeves is seeking to revive high-level economic and financial talks that have been frozen since 2019.
She joins the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue meeting in Beijing with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Saturday, before traveling to Shanghai, accompanied by Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey and other finance leaders.
She is due to discuss financial services, trading ties and the importance of cooperation on issues like climate change, the Treasury said.
Her appearance offers a chance to persuade investors that she has plans to deal with a sharp increase in British government borrowing costs, due in part to a global bond selloff which threatens to derail her budget plans.
“The fiscal rules that I set out in my budget in October are non-negotiable and growth is the number one mission of this government to make our country better off,” Reeves told reporters after visiting a Brompton bicycles shop in Beijing.
“That’s why I’m in China to unlock tangible benefits for British businesses exporting and trading around the world to ensure that we have greater access to the second-largest economy in the world.”
Reeves’ visit follows a dialogue opened last year between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Xi Jinping, the first between the two countries’ leaders since 2018.
The approach taken by the Labour government, elected in July, contrasts with the previous Conservative administration which took a robust approach to differences with China — particularly over human rights, Hong Kong and allegations of Chinese espionage.
Asked on Thursday if Reeves would raise human-rights issues, Starmer’s spokesperson said her visit would fit with London’s stance that it would take a strategic approach to China and challenge it “robustly” when necessary.
Starmer has long described his desire to build a relationship with China that is “rooted in the UK’s national interests” by boosting trade, a task that may become more difficult if US President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his threat to impose tariffs on all imports.
Asked whether Britain would follow Washington and Brussels in imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, Reeves said: “We keep issues under review but we make decisions in our national interest.”
British car manufacturers “like Jaguar and Land Rover export substantially to Chinese markets, and we want to help them to grow.”
China is Britain’s fourth-largest trading partner, accounting for goods and services trade worth almost 113 billion pounds ($138 billion).
