World

JISHISHAN, China — Survivors of China's deadliest earthquake in years huddled in makeshift aid tents despite freezing temperatures on Wednesday, too scared to return to homes made dangerous by the disaster.

State broadcaster CCTV said at least 134 people were killed in northwestern Gansu province and neighbouring Qinghai after a shallow tremor on Monday night damaged thousands of buildings.

Almost 1,000 were injured across the two provinces, according to state news agency Xinhua, while CCTV said 13 were still missing in Qinghai as of 4:00 pm (08:00 GMT) Wednesday.

The quake was China's deadliest since 2014, when more than 600 people were killed in south-western Yunnan province.

AFP reporters saw families sheltering in makeshift tents built from wooden poles and tarpaulins outside the Majiahe mosque near the epicentre in Gansu's Jishishan county, with outdoor stoves and blankets salvaged from homes their only sources of warmth.

A woman taking refuge in one of the tents outside the mosque told AFP her family was afraid to return home.

“We can’t get inside anymore, it’s too dangerous,” she said, declining to give her name. “All the bricks and tiles inside could fall down at any time.”

Residents crowded around stoves in large tents set up on a basketball court by the local government in a nearby township.

One resident told AFP some tents had as many as 35 people huddled inside them.

“We have eight people in our family but [emergency response staff] only gave us three servings of instant noodles last night,” local student Ma told AFP.

“There is nothing we can do. We can’t go back to our house now,” she said.

Children lay under blankets, playing on their phones, while adults attempted to prepare meals from the limited food rations.

AFP saw rescue teams unloading large bundles of supplies, including more tents.

In another nearby town, people were seen queuing up for food and supplies beneath a large mosque, its roof panels almost entirely knocked down by the tremor.

Next to the damaged mosque were more than 150 blue emergency tents, each allocated to one family, an official at the scene told AFP.

Dozens of aftershocks 

Nearly a thousand people who were injured have been sent to hospitals, with 87,000 people moved to “temporary shelters” in Gansu alone, CCTV said.

China’s western hinterland carries the scars of frequent seismic activity. A huge quake in Sichuan province in 2008 left more than 87,000 people dead or missing, including 5,335 schoolchildren.

“Search and rescue work basically ended by 3:00pm yesterday and the main work now is to treat the injured and resettle the affected population,” an unidentified official from Gansu’s Emergency Management Department told a news conference on Wednesday.

The US Geological Survey said Monday night’s magnitude-5.9 quake struck at a shallow depth at 11:59pm local time (1559 GMT) with its epicentre around 100 kilometres from Gansu’s provincial capital, Lanzhou.

Dozens of smaller aftershocks followed and officials warned that tremors with a magnitude of more than 5.0 were possible in the next few days.

Fears are growing that survivors could succumb to the bitter cold, with temperatures in Jishishan expected to dip as low as -17oC on Wednesday.

Thousands of firefighters and rescue personnel have been sent to the disaster zone and state media said 2,500 tents, 20,000 coats and 5,000 rollaway beds had been sent to Gansu.

PARIS — France’s health minister resigned as the government of President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday sought to quell a party revolt over the passing of tough new immigration legislation backed by the far-right.

Following 18 months of wrangling over one of the flagship reforms of Macron’s second-term, both chambers of parliament backed the controversial legislation on Tuesday, with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) endorsing the bill in a move some media dubbed a “kiss of death”.

Around a quarter of the 251 lawmakers in Macron’s camp voted against the bill or abstained and several left-wing ministers have registered their opposition to the bill.

Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau resigned, although there were no immediate signs of other ministers following suit despite fears overnight.

Rousseau did not attend a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning and would be replaced on a temporary basis by junior minister Agnes Firmin Le Bodo, government spokesman Olivier Veran said.

“There is no ministerial revolt,” he added.

Macron was expected to address the reform in a television interview on Wednesday evening, while Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne sought to put on a brave face, saying the adoption of the law had not provoked a “crisis in the majority”.

Speaking on France Inter, Borne admitted that some of the provisions were probably unconstitutional, adding that the text “would have to evolve” once it had been examined by the Constitutional Council after referral by Macron.

“We wanted to pass a law on useful, effective measures that our fellow citizens expect, with two objectives: To remove more quickly and more effectively those who have no right to be in France, and to better integrate those we choose to welcome,” she said.

At Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, Macron declared that there are in the text “things that I don’t like but which are not against our values”, a participant, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

‘Deep scars’  

The text of the bill had to be hardened under pressure from the right, but Borne stressed that in the end the ruling party did not need the support of Le Pen’s far-right RN to push the bill through.

Beating Le Pen to secure five more years in 2022, Macron has vowed to stave off her rise, but he has been accused of pandering to the far-right to push through his reform agenda.

“The immigration law will leave deep scars,” said French right-wing daily Le Figaro, adding that Macron “had lost on all fronts”.

Liberation, the left-wing newspaper, for its part spoke of a “moral defeat” for his party.

France has a long tradition of welcoming refugees and immigrants, but a rise in the number of asylum seekers, a chronic affordable-housing shortage, and a cost-of-living crisis have worsened social tensions in the country.

Dozens of NGOs have slammed what they described as potentially the “most regressive” immigration law in decades. 

A key element of the law is that social security benefits for foreigners will now be conditioned on five years of presence in France, or 30 months for those who have jobs.

Migration quotas can also now be agreed and there are measures for dual-national convicts being stripped of French nationality.

‘Disgusting victory’ 

“It’s a total victory for the ideas defended by Marine Le Pen,” said far-right lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy.

The head of the conservative Republicans (LR) Party, Eric Ciotti, hailed the adoption of the law as a “historic victory for the right”.

The left-wing opposition slammed the measures. 

The head of the Socialist deputies in the Assembly, Boris Vallaud, accused the government of “giving in to the most rancid ideas”.

Radical left-wing leader Jean-Luc Melenchon denounced a “disgusting victory”.

A hot-button issue in France, as elsewhere in Europe, immigration regularly inflames the political class. 

On Wednesday, EU countries and lawmakers reached an agreement on an overhaul of the bloc’s laws on handling asylum-seekers and migrants, officials said.

The issue has taken on a harder political edge in Europe in recent years with the rise of nationalist anti-immigrant parties in several EU countries, including Italy, Sweden and The Netherlands.

REYKJAVIK — A volcano in Iceland was erupting on Tuesday, with geysers of molten lava shooting into the pitch-black night sky after weeks of seismic activity had the region southwest of the capital on high alert. 

The eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula, just north of the fishing town Grindavik, began Monday at around 10:17 pm (22:17 GMT) after an earthquake swarm, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said, referring to a series of small shakes. 

Live-streamed footage of the eruption showed glowing orange jets of lava spewing from a gash in the ground, surrounded by billowing clouds of red smoke.

“We hope for the best but it is clear this is a considerable eruption,” Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir wrote on Facebook. 

For weeks, the Nordic country had been anticipating an eruption on the peninsula southwest of the capital after intense earthquake activity, which prompted authorities to evacuate thousands of people and close the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa famed for its turquoise waters.

The meteorological office estimated that the volcano had opened a fissure about four kilometres long, with the southern end just three kilometres away from Grindavik.

By 3:00 am, the meteorological office said the intensity of the eruption had stabilised, but was unable to estimate how long it would last. 

“We now wait to see what the forces of nature have in store,” President Gudni Thorlacius Johannesson wrote on X, formerly Twitter. He added that protecting lives and infrastructure was the priority. 

Vidir Reynisson, head of the Department of Civil Protection, urged people to stay away from the area, telling a local television station: “This is no tourist eruption.”

Public utility company Landsnet wrote on Facebook that it was very closely monitoring the eruption. 

Despite fears prior to the eruption of the possible havoc it could cause global travel, Reykjavik’s international airport remained open. Operator ISAVIA said: “For the time being, no disruptions to arrivals or departures at Keflavik airport.”

New era 

Since October, thousands of earthquakes had been detected on the Reykjanes peninsula, a possible precursor to an impending volcanic eruption. 

Roughly 4,000 people were evacuated from Grindavik, a fishing port around 40 kilometres from Reykjavik, on November 11 after scientists determined that a tunnel of magma was shifting beneath them.

Residents told AFP the series of small earthquakes — sometimes hundreds per day — had damaged roads and buildings.

Since then, they have only been allowed to visit their homes during certain daylight hours.

Authorities have organised occasional trips into the village, escorting those with homes in the most perilous parts as they rescued everything from cherished pets to photo albums, furniture and clothing.

Volcanic eruptions are not uncommon in Iceland, which is home to 33 active volcano systems, the highest number in Europe. But the Reykjanes Peninsula had not experienced an eruption for eight centuries until 2021.

Since then, three have struck, in 2021, 2022 and earlier this year — all in remote, uninhabited areas. 

Volcanologists say this could be the start of a new era of activity in the region.

In 2010, the eruption of Iceland’s long-dormant Eyjafjallajokull volcano — an ice-capped volcano more than 1,660 metres tall — shot huge amounts of ash into the atmosphere. That explosive eruption was not fatal, but forced the cancellation of around 100,000 flights and left more than 10 million travellers stranded.

Situated in the North Atlantic, Iceland straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a crack in the ocean floor separating the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.

UNITED NATIONS, United States — The UN Security Council is struggling to find a unified voice on the war in Gaza, recently swapping a call for a "lasting cessation of hostilities" with a draft resolution demanding the fighting's "suspension".

Even still, members of the council are grappling to find common ground: Though a vote on the resolution is scheduled on Tuesday, after being postponed Monday, it might be delayed again, diplomatic sources tell AFP.

Israel — backed by its ally Washington, a veto-wielding permanent Security Council member — has opposed the term "cease-fire". This is one of the sticking points for the divided body to navigate as diplomats call for a "pause" or a "truce", or try to qualify any cease-fire as "humanitarian".

"The negotiations are complex but we hope to see the council speak with one voice today," said the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the UN, Lana Zaki Nusseibeh.

The current struggle comes after an impasse earlier this month, when the United States, despite unprecedented pressure from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, blocked the adoption of a Security Council resolution on the war.

It had called for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" in the Gaza Strip, where Israel continues its deadly strikes in retaliation for Hamas' unprecedented October 7 attack.

Last week, the General Assembly adopted the same nonbinding resolution by 153 votes to 10, with 23 abstentions, out of 193 member states.

On the strength of that overwhelming support, Arab countries announced the new attempt at the Security Council.

A draft text prepared by the UAE, obtained by AFP on Sunday, called for "an urgent and lasting cessation of hostilities to allow unimpeded access of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip".

But according to diplomatic sources, a new, modified text is now on the table, in an attempt to inch toward a compromise.

It is less direct, calling for "the urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and for urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities".

Aid 'far short' of need 

As in previous texts, Hamas is not named in the current draft resolution — a move that has in the past drawn ire from the United States.

Instead, it "firmly" condemns "all indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian objects... and all acts of terrorism".

It also demands “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”.

The new draft text also calls on the parties in the conflict to facilitate the entry and distribution of aid across all of the Gaza Strip, as well as for Guterres to put in place a monitoring system for such aid.

Senior United Nations official Tor Wennesland said on Tuesday that Israel’s steps to allow aid into Gaza until now have been “far short of what is needed”.

“The delivery of humanitarian aid in the [Gaza] Strip continues to face nearly insurmountable challenges,” said Wennesland, the organisation’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process.

“Amid displacement at an unimaginable scale and active hostilities, the humanitarian response system is on the brink. Limited steps by Israel... are positive, but fall far short of what is needed to address the human catastrophe on the ground.”

Earlier in the day, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said his country was “ready for another humanitarian pause and additional humanitarian aid in order to enable the release of hostages”.

Growing impatience 

Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, the Security Council has been under fire, having only managed to adopt a single text, in mid-November, calling for humanitarian “pauses” of a few days to allow aid into the Palestinian territory.

Five other draft resolutions were rejected, two of them due to US vetoes.

President Joe Biden meanwhile has exhibited growing impatience with Israel, warning that its ally risks losing the support of the international community for its “indiscriminate” bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says Israel’s military response has killed more than 19,667 people, mostly women and children.

BELGRADE — A team of international observers on Monday slammed Serbian elections over a string of “irregularities”, including “vote buying” and “ballot box stuffing”, after the opposition accused the ruling party of committing voter fraud.

The accusations aired by the monitors, which included representatives from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), came just hours after Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said his party had secured a commanding victory during parliamentary and local elections.

“Election day was smooth but marred by isolated instances of violence, procedural irregularities and frequent allegations of organising and busing of voters to support the ruling party in local elections,” the International Election Observation Mission said in a statement.

“Further instances of serious irregularities, including vote-buying and ballot box stuffing were observed,” it added.

Vucic and his ruling right-wing Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) looked poised to tighten their grip on power after claiming to have captured 127 out of the 250 seats in parliament late Sunday.

However, opposition groups have cast doubts over the validity of the contest following accusations that the government allowed unregistered voters from neighbouring Bosnia to cast ballots illegally in the capital Belgrade.

Thousands demonstrated in front of the Serbia election commission building in downtown Belgrade on Monday night, following calls by the opposition camp to protest the results.

Demonstrators held banners that read: “They stole our future”, as others chanted “Vucic go away”.

The government had earlier dismissed any foul play, with Prime Minister Ana Brnabic saying the allegations were designed to spread chaos.

‘Absolute majority’ 

Even though Vucic was not personally on the ballot during the parliamentary and local elections over the weekend, the contest was largely seen as a referendum on his government.

“My job was to do everything in my power to secure an absolute majority in the parliament,” Vucic told reporters as he celebrated what he said was the SNS’s victory late Sunday.

To his supporters, Vucic’s decade in power has brought stability and billions in investments to the once chaotic country ravaged by a string of wars in the former Yugoslavia and bouts of hyperinflation in the 1990s.

“I want Serbia to continue on the same path. It seems that this path is the most reasonable for the greatest number of people, whether rich or poor,” Svetlana Nikolic, a 70-year-old Vucic supporter in Belgrade, told AFP.

But Vucic’s opponents have long accused the president and the SNS of overseeing a government defined by autocracy and corruption during their decade in power.

Vucic has been particularly deft at balancing ties between east and west, vowing to keep Serbia on a course for European Union membership — while also remaining friendly with Russia, China and the US.

On Monday, Moscow congratulated Vucic and the SNS on their victory, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying he hoped the win would lead to the “further strengthening of friendship” between the countries.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also praised Vucic, calling the win an “overwhelming election victory”.

Anti-government protests 

The SNS also said it secured a win in municipal elections in the capital Belgrade, where the party faced their stiffest challenge from a loose coalition of opposition parties and candidates running under the Serbia Against Violence banner.

That movement was formed in the wake of back-to-back mass shootings earlier this year. They spurred hundreds of thousands to take to the streets in rallies that morphed into anti-government protests over several months.

Following the weekend’s election, the movement vowed to take to the streets again, calling for supporters to rally on Monday against what the group called “electoral theft” during the local elections in the capital.

The coalition has alleged that over 40,000 people voted in Belgrade who were not formally registered as residents, arguing that the government allowed unregistered voters from neighbouring Bosnia to cast ballots illegally in the election.

Sunday’s vote came weeks after Vucic called for snap elections in November, the latest example of how governments under his rule rarely serve out their term — a move critics say is designed to keep the opposition off balance.

The contest comes less than two years after the last round of presidential and parliamentary voting, which saw Vucic and the SNS extend their rule.

BUDAPEST — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that he would seek deeper ties with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, during his second visit to the country within four months.

Hungary and Turkey are the only holdouts in NATO to not have ratified Sweden’s bid to join the defence alliance in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Hungary has still not voted to approve Sweden’s entry into NATO, aligning itself with Turkey which had long blocked Stockholm’s membership and has been stalling the process even after Erdogan lifted his veto in June.

Earlier this month, Erdogan made Turkey’s ratification of Sweden’s NATO bid conditional on the US Congress “simultaneously” approving Ankara’s request for F-16 fighter jets.

But the two leaders did not comment on the issue in an address to reporters after their meeting.

NATO enlargement was discussed during Erdogan’s visit, according to Hungarian President Katalin Novak, who also met the Turkish leader.

Erdogan’s visit coincides with the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

“We wish to further strengthen our ties in areas such as defence and energy, where we already have fruitful cooperation,” Erdogan said, adding that the two countries aimed to increase their trade volume to $6 billion from $4 billion currently.

Horse versus car 

Erdogan was received with military honours in Budapest’s historic Heroes’ Square before heading into a meeting with Novak and then with Orban.

Orban presented Erdogan with the gift of a Nonius horse — though the Turkish leader fell off a horse in 2003.

“The gift from one equestrian nation to another,” Orban wrote on Facebook.

In return, Orban was gifted with an electric car made in Turkey, a photo of which he posted on X.

“The best deal I’ve ever made! For one horse power, I got 435. Welcome to Hungary President Erdogan!” he wrote.

During the press conference, Orban said his country was “looking for allies with whom we can win”.

“The big plan is that Turks and Hungarians will be victorious together in the 21st century,” he said.

The two leaders signed a joint political declaration moving their relations to “advanced strategic partnership level”, which Orban described as “the expression of the closest, friendly, fraternal and political cooperation”.

In recent years, Hungary has pursued a policy of opening up to the east, not only towards Russia but also towards China and central Asian countries.

The central European country of close to 10 million people is the only EU member state that has maintained close ties to the Kremlin since the beginning of the Ukraine war.

On Sweden’s NATO membership, Budapest has chided Stockholm over its “open hostile attitude”, accusing Swedish representatives of being “repeatedly keen to bash Hungary” on rule-of-law issues.

Orban told parliament in September that ratifying Sweden’s NATO bid was not “urgent”. In the past, Orban has repeatedly stated that Hungary supports Sweden’s bid, claiming that the approval was merely a “technicality”.

PARIS — Two more major shipping firms, Mediterranean Shipping Company and CMA CGM, said on Saturday they were suspending passage through a Red Sea strait vital for global trade after Yemeni rebel attacks in the area.

The announcement by Italian-Swiss giant MSC and France's CMA CGM follows a similar decision Friday by two of the world's largest shipping companies, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd.

The announcements were in response to a warning by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who control much of Yemen but are not recognised internationally.

The Houthis said they were targeting vessels near the strategic Bab Al Mandeb strait to pressure Israel over its devastating war with Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Thousands of ships every year transit through the strait, which runs between Yemen, on the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, and the African continent.

The tensions have added to fears that the Gaza conflict could spread.

Ships belonging to Israel or heading to its ports "will remain vulnerable to targeting until the aggression stops, the siege on Gaza is lifted, and humanitarian aid continues to flow" to Gaza, Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdul Salam said on X, formerly Twitter.

Oman was sponsoring discussions “with a number of international parties” regarding operations in the Red and Arabian Seas, he added.

An American destroyer on Saturday shot down more than a dozen drones in the Red Sea launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, the US Central Command said.

The UK government said one of its destroyers had also brought down a suspected attack drone in the area.

‘Situation continues 

to deteriorate’ 

MSC, one of the world’s largest freight shipping lines, said one of its container vessels had been targeted in the Red Sea on Friday and it was halting traffic through the strait until it was safe.

No one on the MSC Palatium III was wounded but the ship suffered fire damage, the company said.

CMA CGM said it had ordered all its vessels to leave the area and stay there until further notice.

“The situation continues to deteriorate and there are increasing concerns about security,” it said.

On Friday, the International Chamber of Shipping condemned the Houthi attacks which “threaten the lives of innocent seafarers and the safety of merchant shipping”.

The incidents breached international law and states in the region should work to de-escalate the situation, it said.

Diverting Asia-bound shipping from the Red Sea to South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope would increase costs and delays, the body noted.

Consultancy S&P Global estimated that the detour would increase the distance between Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Singapore by 40 per cent.