WARSAW: Soldiers and firefighters used sandbags to reinforce river embankments and delivered food and drinking water to cut-off communities as the worst flooding in years moved Tuesday across a broad swath of Central Europe, taking lives and destroying homes.
Heavy flooding has affected a large part of the region in recent days, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria. Around 20 deaths were reported in the flooding, which followed heavy rainfall but the full human cost was still not clear. Casualties have been reported in Romania, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland.
In some areas, the waters were receding, leaving behind mounds of debris. As reports of looting came in, government and military authorities vowed to crack down on perpetrators. Gen. Wiesław Kukuła, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army, said the military was deploying soldiers equipped with night vision and thermal imaging devices to support the police in areas where people had to leave for higher ground.
“Looters, night and lack of electricity will no longer be your ally,” he tweeted late Monday.
Other places braced for the worst yet to come, including two Central European gems: Budapest, the Hungarian capital on the Danube River, and Wroclaw, a city in southwestern Poland on the Oder River which boasts a Gothic cathedral and other historic landmarks.
Hungary deployed soldiers to reinforce barriers along the Danube as thousands of volunteers filled sandbags in dozens of riverside settlements.
In Budapest, authorities closed the lower quays, which were expected to be breached by rising waters. The lower half of the city’s iconic Margaret Island was also closed.
In Wroclaw, firefighters and soldiers worked through the night to reinforce river embankments with sandbags. The city zoo, located on the Oder, appealed for volunteers to fill sandbags on Tuesday morning.
“We and our animals will be extremely grateful for your help,” the zoo said.
The city said it expected the flood wave to peak there around Friday, though some had predicted that would happen sooner. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk met with a crisis team early Tuesday and said there are contradictory forecasts from meteorologists.
Tusk’s government has declared a state of natural disaster across southern Poland.
To the south of Wroclaw, residents spent the night fighting to save Nysa, a town of 44,000 people, after the Nysa Klodzka River broke its banks the day before. Mayor Kordian Kolbiarz said 2,000 “women, men, children, the elderly” came out to try to save their town from the rising waters, forming a human chain that passed sandbags to the river bank.
“We simply … did everything we could,” Kolbiarz wrote on Facebook. “This chain of people fighting for our Nysa was incredible. Thank you. We fought for Nysa. Our home. Our families. Our future.”
Later on Tuesday, authorities in Nysa said the city center had been saved from the flooding.
In Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, the deputy mayor for the environment, Jakub Mrva, said the level of the Danube had peaked and would slowly decrease. He said that mobile barriers had saved the historic center, but that there was still damage, including to tram lines.
“We also observed major damage at the zoo, which is flooded, and there is relatively high damage in the city forests of Bratislava, where many trees have perished,” Mrva told The Associated Press in an interview, speaking next to the flooded banks of the Danube.
In the Czech Republic, waters have been receding in the two hardest-hit northeast regions. The government approved the deployment of 2,000 troops to help with clean-up efforts. The damage is expected to reach billions of euros.
The Czech government also scrambled to help local authorities organize regional elections on Friday and Saturday as several schools and other buildings serving as polling stations were badly damaged. However, a planned evacuation of some 1,000 in the town of Veseli nad Luznici could be postponed as the waters had not reached critical levels so far.
Budapest and Poland’s Wroclaw reinforce river banks ahead of more flooding in Central Europe
https://arab.news/9r8z5
Budapest and Poland’s Wroclaw reinforce river banks ahead of more flooding in Central Europe
- Heavy flooding has affected a large part of the region in recent days, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria
- Around 20 deaths were reported in the flooding, which followed heavy rainfall but the full human cost was still not clear
France’s Barrot: Europeans expressed red lines over Ukraine to US
He also said in an interview with francinfo radio that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s truce in Ukraine over Easter was a marketing operating operation aimed at preventing that US President Donald Trump gets impatient with him.
Australians start voting in general elections as pope’s death overshadows campaigning
- Polling stations opened to voters who, for a variety of reasons, will be unable to vote on May 3
- Around half the votes are expected to be cast before the election date
MELBOURNE: Australians began voting Tuesday at general elections as the death of Pope Francis overshadowed campaigning.
Polling stations opened to voters who, for a variety of reasons, will be unable to vote on May 3. Around half the votes are expected to be cast before the election date.
Both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton canceled campaign events planned for Tuesday out of respect for the late pontiff.
Flags were flown at half staff from government buildings across the country, where a 2021 census found 20 percent of the population were Catholics.
Albanese was raised as a Catholic but chose to be sworn in as prime minister when elected in 2022 by making a secular affirmation rather than by taking an oath on a Bible.
Albanese, who has described himself as a “flawed Catholic,” attended a Mass in honor of the pope in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Tuesday morning.
“I try not to talk about my faith in public,” Albanese said.
“At times like this, I think what people do is they draw on who they are and certainly my Catholicism is just a part of me,” he added.
Albanese and Dutton, who leads the conservative Liberal Party, will meet in Sydney later Tuesday for the third televised leaders’ debate of the campaign.
A fourth debate is planned Sunday.
Dutton, who was raised by a Catholic father and Protestant mother and attended an Anglican school, attended a Mass on Tuesday afternoon at Sydney’s St. Mary’s Cathedral.
“I don’t think it’s a day for overt politicking at all. I think that the day is best spent reflecting,” Dutton said.
“I don’t think there’s a place for the body blows of politics today. I think it’s a very different day from that,” Dutton added.
Albanese’s center-left Labour Party is seeking a second three-year term.
The government held a narrow majority of 78 seats out of 151 in the House of Representatives, where parties form administrations during their first term.
The lower chamber will shrink to 150 seats after the election due to redistributions.
The major parties are both predicting a close election result.
Taiwan cabinet to ask parliament to unfreeze $4bn amid budget standoff
- Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee says the government will ask parliament to unfreeze T$138.1 billion ($4.25 billion) in funds
- Cabinet will also seek a legal interpretation from the constitutional court on both the constitutionality of the budget as passed by lawmakers
TAIPEI: Taiwan’s cabinet said on Tuesday it will ask the opposition controlled legislature to release more than $4 billion in funds frozen as part of a stand-off over this year’s budget, which the government says could seriously affect their operations.
While the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Lai Ching-te won the presidency in last year’s elections, the party lost its majority in parliament.
Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), along with the small Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), control the most seats, and earlier this year voted through sweeping cuts to 2025’s budget, saying they were targeting waste, and froze other funds saying they wanted greater oversight on spending plans.
In a statement, cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee said the government will ask parliament to unfreeze T$138.1 billion ($4.25 billion) in funds.
The cabinet “hopes the Legislative Yuan can unfreeze it all in a short period of time to reduce the difficulties and inconveniences people have in their dealings with the administration,” Lee said, using parliament’s formal name.
The cabinet will also seek a legal interpretation from the constitutional court on both the constitutionality of the budget as passed by lawmakers, and a separate legal amendment granting more money to local governments at the expense of the central government, Lee added.
The defense ministry has warned of a “serious impact” to security from the amended budget, saying it will require a cut in defense spending of some T$80 billion at a time when the island is facing an elevated Chinese military threat.
Taiwan’s opposition has shown little appetite to seek compromise with the government on the budget issue, given they are angered at a campaign led by civic groups and backed by senior DPP officials to recall a swathe of opposition lawmakers.
The KMT and TPP chairmen met earlier on Tuesday vowing to redouble efforts to work together against the “green communists,” referring to the DPP’s party colors, and will hold a joint protest in front of the presidential office on Saturday.
“We don’t just want to take down Lai Ching-te, but the entire corrupt, arrogant and abusive system,” KMT Chairman Eric Chu wrote on his Facebook page after meeting TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang.
Lai and the DPP’s public approval ratings have remained relatively high.
A poll last week by Taiwan television station Mirror TV put the DPP’s approval rating at 45 percent, relatively steady over the past year, with both the KMT and TPP on around 28 percent, both down compared with the year ago period.
Fleeing Pakistan, Afghans rebuild from nothing
- Pushed out of Pakistan where she was born, Nazmine Khan’s first experience of her country, Afghanistan, was in a sweltering tent at a border camp
TORKHAM: Pushed out of Pakistan where she was born, Nazmine Khan’s first experience of her country, Afghanistan, was in a sweltering tent at a border camp.
“We never thought we would return to Afghanistan,” said the 15-year-old girl, who has little idea of what will become of her or her family, only that she is likely to have fewer freedoms.
“When our parents told us we had to leave, we cried,” added Khan.
Having nowhere to go in Afghanistan, she and six other family members shared a stifling tent in the Omari camp near the Torkham border point.
Islamabad, accusing Afghans of links to narcotics and “supporting terrorism,” announced a new campaign in March to expel hundreds of thousands of Afghans, with or without documents.
Many had lived in Pakistan for decades after fleeing successive wars and crises but did not wait to be arrested by Pakistani forces before leaving, seeing their removal as inevitable.
Since April 1, more than 92,000 Afghans have been sent back to their country of origin, according to Islamabad, out of the some three million the United Nations says are living in Pakistan.
Khan’s family fled Afghanistan in the 1960s. Her four brothers and sister were also born in Pakistan.
“In a few days we’ll look for a place to rent” in the border province of Nangarhar where the family has roots, she told AFP, speaking in Pakistan’s commonly spoken tongue of Urdu, not knowing any Afghan languages.
In the family’s tent there is little more than a cloth to lie on and a few cushions, but no mattress or blanket. Flies buzz under the tarpaulin as countless children in ragged clothes come and go.
When it comes to her own future, Khan feels “completely lost,” she said.
Having dropped out of school in Pakistan, the Taliban authorities’ ban on girls studying beyond primary school will hardly change the course of her life.
But from what little she heard about her country while living in eastern Pakistan’s Punjab, she knows that “here there are not the same freedoms.”
Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban authorities have imposed restrictions on women characterised by the UN as “gender apartheid.”
Women have been banned from universities, parks, gyms and beauty salons and squeezed from many jobs.
“It is now a new life... for them, and they are starting this with very little utilities, belongings, cash, support,” said Ibrahim Humadi, program lead for non-governmental group Islamic Relief, which has set up about 200 tents for returnees in the Omari camp.
Some stay longer than the three days offered on arrival, not knowing where to go with their meager savings, he said.
“They also know that even in their area of return, the community will be welcoming them, will be supporting them... but they know also the community are already suffering from the situation in Afghanistan,” he added.
Around 85 percent of the Afghan population lives on less than one dollar a day, according to the United Nations Development Programme.
“We had never seen (Afghanistan) in our lives. We do not know if we can find work, so we are worried,” said Jalil Khan Mohamedin, 28, as he piled belongings — quilts, bed frames and fans — into a truck that will take the 16 members of his family to the capital Kabul, though nothing awaits them there.
The Taliban authorities have said they are preparing towns specifically for returnees.
But at one site near Torkham, there is nothing more than cleared roads on a rocky plain.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) believes “greater clarity” is needed to ensure that the sites intended for returnees are “viable” in terms of basic infrastructure and services such as health and education.
It’s important that “returnees are making informed decisions and that their relocation to the townships is voluntary,” communications officer Avand Azeez Agha told AFP.
Looking dazed, Khan’s brother Dilawar still struggles to accept leaving Pakistan, where he was born 25 years ago.
His Pakistani wife did not want to follow him and asked for a divorce.
“When we crossed the border, we felt like going back, then after a day it felt fine,” said the former truck driver.
“We still don’t understand. We were only working.”
‘A true father to us’ – Filipinos mourn Pope Francis
- Grief palpable in one of the world’s largest Catholic strongholds
- Francis known affectionately in the Philippines as ‘Lolo Kiko’
MANILA: Hundreds of Filipinos gathered at a solemn Mass held for Pope Francis on Tuesday, following his passing that has stirred deep sorrow among Catholics around the world, many of whom saw him as a humble and compassionate leader.
In one of the world’s largest Catholic strongholds, the grief was palpable as worshippers filled churches to honor the pontiff, known affectionately in the Philippines as “Lolo Kiko,” or Grandpa Kiko.
One of the chapels inside the Manila Cathedral displayed a framed photo of the Argentine pope surrounded by flowers and candles, as prayers for his eternal repose and solemn hymns sung by the choir echoed through the church.
“Lolo Kiko was a true father to us,” said Cardinal Jose Advincula, the archbishop of Manila, during the morning Mass he led at the cathedral. Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, died on Monday after suffering a stroke and cardiac arrest, the Vatican said, ending an often turbulent reign in which he sought to overhaul an ancient and divided institution. The Philippines, home to more than 80 million Catholics, has long had a special connection with Francis, who visited the country in 2015, drawing a record crowd of up to seven million people at a historic Mass in the capital.
In his homily, the pope urged Filipinos to shun “social structures which perpetuate poverty, ignorance and corruption.”
Francis’ journey included a visit to Tacloban, where he met with survivors of Typhoon Haiyan, the deadliest storm in Philippine history.
Powerful force
Cardinal Advincula described the 2015 visit of Francis as “a moment of grace forever etched in our memory.” Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, a Catholic, described Francis as the “best pope in my lifetime” as he expressed deep sorrow over his passing.
As the Church prepares for a new conclave, attention has turned to what could be a historic shift – one the possible candidates to succeed Pope Francis is Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle. Tagle, 67 is often called the “Asian Francis” because of his similar commitment to social justice and if elected he would be the first pontiff from Asia, where only the Philippines and East Timor have majority Catholic populations.
On paper, Tagle, who generally prefers to be called by his nickname “Chito,” seems to have all the boxes ticked to qualify him to be a pope.
He has had decades of pastoral experience since his ordination to the priesthood in 1982. He then gained administrative experience, first as bishop of Imus and then as archbishop of Manila.
