Group items tagged

said 724,839 residents of three eastern provinces were evacuated Sunday and early Monday before the storm's arrival.

About 20 storms and typhoons hit the Philippines each year. In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest typhoon on record to make landfall, left more than 7,300 people dead and missing as it leveled entire villages and swept walls of seawater into parts of the central Philippines.

Residents were warned of possible landslides, massive flooding, storm surges of up to 5 meters (16 feet) and powerful winds that can blow away shanties. But after hitting a mountain range and repeatedly slamming into coastal provinces, the typhoon gradually weakened, although it remained potentially deadly as it blew out into the South China Sea, forecasters said.

One of the most powerful typhoons in the world this year, Goni evoked memories of Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages, swept ships inland and displaced more than 5 million in the central Philippines in November 2013.

In a Manila gymnasium that was turned into an emergency shelter, COVID-19 outbreaks were an added worry of displaced residents. The Philippines has had more than 383,000 cases of the virus, the second-most in Southeast Asia behind Indonesia.

The Philippines is lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms each year. It’s also located on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

Unlike previous tropical cyclones, the threat from typhoon Koppu is not so much from the wind but from the massive amount of rain. More than a metre of rainfall is forecast in just a few days in Luzon province. That is double what London gets in an entire year. In the south of Luzon, it has brought severe flooding with whole villages under water. But perhaps more dangerous are massive landslides. The fear is that with the ground heavy and saturated with water, whole hillsides could collapse.

Typhoon Koppu made landfall near the town of Casiguran on the main island of Luzon on Sunday morning, bringing winds of close to 200km/h (124mph) and cutting power to vast areas.

A teenager was killed by a fallen tree in Manila which also injured four others. A concrete wall also collapsed in the town of Subic, northwest of Manila, killing a 62-year-old woman, officials said.

dawn on Monday, wind speeds were down to 150 km/h (93 mph) in the northern town of Santiago, according to the state weather service.But floodwaters are preventing even military vehicles reaching many of the worst-hit villages, and rescuers report a shortage of boats."We haven't reached many areas. About 60% to 70% of our town is flooded, some as deep as three metres," said Henry Velarde, vice mayor of Jaen, a town in Nueva Ecija province."There are about 20,000 residents in isolated areas that need food and water."

Goni was the 18th tropical cyclone to hit the country this year, which faces an average of 20 typhoons annually. And number 19 could come later this week: Tropical Storm Atsan, officials said, entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility early Sunday.

Citing local officials, Reuters reported that the 10 recorded fatalities and three people reported missing were all in the region of Bicol, which encompasses the southern part of Luzon. Nine of those deaths were in the province of Albay.

The AP reports that in one Albay community, the typhoon triggered volcanic mudflows that "engulfed" about 150 houses.

Philadelphia officials issued a citywide curfew on Wednesday after consecutive nights of protests — which at times turned violent — following the fatal police shooting of a 27-year-old Black man, Walter Wallace Jr. He was holding a knife when police shot him.

"By looting, people are not only hurting retail businesses that have struggled in the midst of the pandemic, but they're doing a great disservice to the many others who want to exercise their First Amendment rights by protesting,"

City officials said Wednesday afternoon that 81 people had been arrested during the previous night's demonstrations, including 53 for burglary, seven for disorderly conduct and eight accused of assaulting police.

Police will soon release 911 tapes, body camera footage

City officials urged residents in certain districts to remain indoors Tuesday night due to "widespread demonstrations that have turned violent with looting."

A racially diverse crowd came together Tuesday evening at Malcolm X Park, not far from the West Philadelphia neighborhood where Wallace was killed.

The gathering featured speeches and preceded a march, Philadelphia member station WHYY reported, adding that one speaker noted there were "far too many comfortable white people here tonight."

"Stop this looting and stop and stop burning our city down," the elder Wallace told CNN. "It's not going to solve anything," he said. "I don't want to leave a bad scar on my son and my family with this looting and chaos stuff." Wallace's killing was captured on cellphone video and posted to social media, where it went viral.

Family reportedly called for an ambulance, not police

A police spokesperson said Monday that officers were responding to a report of a man with a knife. They ordered Wallace to drop the weapon, saying that he "advanced towards officers." Both officers fired their guns at Wallace. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

“There are still many places that are not accessible yet,”

The $301 million appeal is to meet projected needs over six months, but disaster relief experts estimate the damage to the Philippine economy at between $12 billion and $15 billion, equivalent to about 5 percent of its gross domestic product.

“This is the worst typhoon in the modern history of the Philippines,” said German Velasquez at the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva.

Ms. Amos, the United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and the emergency relief coordinator, released $25 million from a special fund to help pay for immediate assistance and was beginning what aides called a flash fund-raising drive. At least $35 million in additional aid was pledged by other governments on Monday.

The George Washington, which carries 5,000 sailors and more than 80 aircraft, was ordered to depart from a port visit in Hong Kong, and the crew was recalled from shore leave immediately. Mr. Hagel also reiterated the American intent to help the Philippine government determine “what, if any, additional assets may be required.”

The high-profile occasion comes as Japan reels from Typhoon Hagibis -- one of the strongest storms to hit the country in years. The typhoon left dozens dead and caused extensive damage after it smashed into the country earlier this month.The devastation prompted the palace to postpone a 4.6-kilometer (2.9-mile) public parade from the Imperial Palace to Akasaka Palace until November.

On Friday, the government announced that about 550,000 petty criminals will be pardoned to mark the emperor's enthronement.

Unlike other monarchs, Naruhito is a symbol of the state rather than the head of state, and the Japanese emperor wields no political power. .m-infographic--1556606459996 { background: url(//cdn.cnn.com/cnn/.e/interactive/html5-video-media/2019/04/30/Japan_Imperial_family_2019_new_smallx2.png) no-repeat 0 0 transparent; margin-bottom: 30px; padding-top: 233.33333333333334%; width: 100%; -moz-background-size: cover; -o-background-size: cover; -webkit-background-size: cover; background-size: cover; } @media (min-width: 640px) { .m-infographic--1556606459996{ background-image: url(//cdn.cnn.com/cnn/.e/interactive/html5-video-media/2019/04/30/Japan_Imperial_family_2019_new_medium.png); padding-top: 59.13978494623656%; } } @media (min-width: 1120px) { .m-infographic--1556606459996{ background-image: url(//cdn.cnn.com/cnn/.e/interactive/html5-video-media/2019/04/30/Japan_Imperial_family_2019_new_medium.png); padding-top: 59.13978494623656%; } }

“Our home was destroyed, there is no food in this town, so we have to flee,” she said, standing with her teenage granddaughter who held their only drinking water, a nearly empty plastic bottle that even when full would only hold perhaps two cups.

Rosemary Balais, 39, said that a very large proportion, possibly more than half, of the 5,000 people in her hometown Tanauan, near Tacloban, seemed to be missing. “My sister and their children were there and we have not heard from them since last Thursday,

In a country cursed with a succession of natural disasters, from earthquakes to violent storms to volcanic eruptions, the typhoon has emerged as especially deadly and destructive. “It’s going to be classified as one of the worst, if not the worst, in decades,”

“Photographs of a captured country shot through the lens of the captor possess layers of ambiguity too confusing to grasp,” she writes. Her characters marvel at photography’s mechanisms and denounce its propagandistic effects

The novel’s title may be read as describing the Filipinos who rose up against their colonizers; the translator bent on destabilizing the narratives imposed on her country; or Apostol herself, whose explosion of formal novelistic conventions is its own kind of uprising

Though ambiguity and the unknowable drive and derange this novel’s characters, I don’t believe Apostol is arguing against the existence of demonstrable fact. “Insurrecto” underscores how excruciatingly difficult it can be to interpret, to verify. But it never underrates the obligation to try. It heaps disdain and punishment on characters who would go at the task lightly, oblivious of their own biases, assumptions and mistranslations

Apostol does draw one straight line: from the Philippine-American War to the “latter-day outbreaks of imperial hysteria in Southeast Asian wars, which are a blip in the infinite human spiral of human aggression,” appearing now in the kind of environmental destruction wrought by super-typhoons like the one that pulverized Eastern Samar in 2013.

Balangiga, no matter how you count the bodies, was “a crime of history that no single vision can redeem.” In confronting that crime, Apostol has written a novel of multitudinous vision, one that dares to ask: In the face of so much tragedy, what can one do after the crying … but laugh?

A successful peace initiative will need to involve them all, as complex as that will be; a simple deal bearing no relation to realities cannot hold. It will also require persuading Riyadh to be clearer and more realistic about its aims. Britain’s shameful role in Yemen gives it an extra duty to press that case. But for now it seems more focused on security and promoting Typhoon sales.

“Our approach is akin to ‘painting’ different bits of the ocean surface with dyes of different colours and monitoring how they spread into the interior over time. If we know what the sea surface temperature anomaly was in 1871 in the North Atlantic Ocean we can figure out how much it contributes to the warming in, say, the deep Indian Ocean in 2018.”

Rising sea level has been among the most dangerous long-term impacts of climate change, threatening billions of people living in coastal cities, and estimating future rises is vital in preparing defences. Some of the rise comes from the melting of land-bound ice in Greenland and elsewhere, but another major factor has been the physical expansion of water as it gets warmer.

cultural strife and political divides eventually led to the shogunate rulership's downfall and a new imperial rule took over in 1333.

This system would endure under the leadership of different clans for almost 700 years until the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

The revolution in politics during the Kamakura Period was matched by changes in Japanese society and culture. One important change was the increasing popularity of Buddhism, which had previously been limited primarily to the elites in the emperors' court.

During the Kamakura, ordinary Japanese people began to practice new types of Buddhism, including Zen (Chan), which was imported from China in 1191, and the Nichiren Sect, founded in 1253, which emphasized the Lotus Sutra and could almost be described as "fundamentalist Buddhism."

The greatest crisis of the Kamakura Era came with a threat from overseas. In 1271, the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan  — grandson of Genghis Khan — established the Yuan Dynasty in China. After consolidating power over all of China, Kublai sent emissaries to Japan demanding tribute; the shikken's government flatly refused on behalf of the shogun and emperor.  

Kublai Khan responded by sending two massive armadas to invade Japan in 1274 and 1281. Almost unbelievably, both armadas were destroyed by typhoons, known as the "kamikaze" or "divine winds" in Japan.

They also ordered two different lines of the Japanese imperial family to alternate rulers, in an attempt to keep either branch from becoming too powerful. 

The S-400 purchase drove a rift between the two countries that has resisted repair. Mr. Cevik said the country hasn’t yet deployed the missile batteries, though Mr. Erdogan has said he wants to buy more.

“The United States and Turkey have longstanding and deep bilateral defense ties, and Turkey’s continued NATO interoperability remains a priority,” a State Department spokesman said. Several NATO member states fly F-16s, including Turkey.

The proposed deal illustrates the complex national-security issues in the U.S. relationship with Turkey, a NATO ally and regional power that hosts thousands of American soldiers.

The deal faces significant skepticism among key senators who object to Turkey’s purchase of the Russian missile system, according to congressional aides. The leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sens. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) and James Risch (R., Idaho), have yet to take public positions on the deal.

“Our concern is, if we’re giving them military equipment, if they are going to be continuing to act in this aggressive manner towards Cyprus, toward the Greek islands,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R., N.Y.). “We’re concerned about our intellectual property being shared with Russia. [Turkey] is acting in many ways like an adversary.”

British sanctions over Turkey’s incursion into Syria would hinder Ankara’s purchase of the Eurofighter Typhoon, and France is unlikely to approve a sale of its Dassault Rafale fighters, in part because it sold planes to Turkey’s rival Greece last year, said Mr. Forrester.

“They may go to the Russians,” Mr. Jeffrey, the former ambassador, said. “And then you’ll have a descending spiral of accusations and bad feelings, and it will just reinforce going in the wrong direction. That’s why the F-16 is so important.”