World

STEINHATCHEE, United States — Hurricane Idalia barrelled towards the west coast of Florida on Tuesday, triggering mass evacuation orders and flood alerts as authorities warned the storm could strengthen to “extremely dangerous” levels before landfall.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Idalia, a Category 1 storm with winds of 140 kilometres per hour, was churning off Florida’s southwest shore, bringing tropical storm conditions to western Cuba and flooding in Havana.

Warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico are expected to turbocharge Idalia into an “extremely dangerous major hurricane before landfall on Wednesday”, the NHC said, warning of “storm surge inundation of 3-5 metres” in coastal areas.

“Very few people can survive being in the path of a major storm surge, and this storm will be deadly if we don’t get out of harm’s way and take it seriously,” said Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Deanne Criswell.

Major hurricanes are Category 3 or higher on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale the NHC says could cause “devastating damage”.

In the small coastal town of Steinhatchee, Robert Bryant was making final preparations to evacuate inland with his two cats and a dog.

“We are out on the water, so we are going to be the worst ones to get hit,” said the 18-year-old student, whose home built on stilts lies close to the mouth of a river.

“Hopefully, it just blows over and we have a bit of wind... but you prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” he told AFP.

Leave ‘now’ 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis urged those in the evacuation areas along the Gulf coast to go “now”.

“You don’t have to go hundreds of kilometres,” he told a news conference, urging coastal residents in the 23 counties under evacuation orders so far to get to shelters or hotels that were out of the danger zones.

Almost 150 people were killed last year when Hurricane Ian slammed Florida’s west coast as a devastating Category 4 storm, bringing storm surges and heavy winds that downed bridges, swept away buildings, and caused more than $100 billion worth of damage.

Idalia is expected to make landfall farther north along the coast, in the so-called Big Bend area — a vast marshy region which, unlike most other coastal areas around Florida, does not have barrier islands.

“We’ve not really had a hurricane strike this area for a long, long time,” DeSantis told reporters.

“You are going to see a lot of debris — there’s a lot of trees along that track,” added the governor, who has suspended his presidential campaign to handle the crisis.

The NHC said in its latest advisory that forecasts were increasingly confident Idalia would “reach the coast of Florida adjacent to Apalachee Bay Wednesday morning”.

US President Joe Biden spoke with DeSantis on Monday and approved an emergency declaration for the state, which unblocks federal funds and resources. The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has also deployed staff.

Tampa International Airport has closed ahead of Idalia’s arrival, while flights were disrupted along the US East Coast as another hurricane, Franklin, churns in the Atlantic.

‘Marine heat wave’ 

Georgia and South Carolina are also under storm watches as Idalia is expected to cross northeast over Florida before exiting into the Atlantic.

All three states could see flooding on Wednesday or Thursday, the NHC said.

On Monday, thousands of Cubans rushed out of the storm’s way as the provinces of Pinar del Rio and Artemisa as well as Isla de la Juventud, an island, were placed under hurricane warnings.

Streets were flooded in Havana and some of the island nation’s western provinces as Idalia brushed past.

After clipping Cuba, the storm moved out over the Gulf, which scientists say is experiencing a “marine heat wave” — energising Idalia’s winds as it races towards Florida.

Idalia also dumped rain on Mexico’s state of Quintana Roo in the Yucatan, home to Cancun and other coastal tourist resorts.

Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world gets warmer due to climate change.

SEOUL — Kim Jong-un has called for boosting North Korea’s navy, saying the country’s waters brimmed with “the danger of a nuclear war”, state media reported on Tuesday, as Seoul, Washington and Tokyo carried out joint naval drills.

Kim slammed growing trilateral cooperation between the “gang bosses” of the United States, South Korea and Japan, saying they had recently “closeted with each other”, the official Korean Central News Agency reported, in an apparent reference this month’s Camp David summit.

He accused Washington of being “more frantic than ever before” by conducting joint naval exercises and deploying nuclear strategic assets in the waters around the Korean Peninsula on a permanent basis, the report said.

“Owing to the reckless confrontational moves of the US and other hostile forces, the waters off the Korean Peninsula have been reduced into the world’s biggest war hardware concentration spot, the most unstable waters with the danger of a nuclear war,” Kim said, according to KCNA.

“To achieve the successes in rapidly developing the naval force has become a very urgent issue in view of the enemies’ recent aggressive attempts.”

Kim acknowledged that the North’s navy “had not been armed with up-to-date weapons and combat equipment” but said that even so, it had managed “great achievements of more weighty significance” than the country’s better-funded army.

He also promised that the navy would be given new weapons as part of North Korea’s policy for “expanding the tactical nuclear weapons operation”.

The navy will become a “component of the state nuclear deterrence”, he added.

‘Very weak’ navy 

Photos carried by the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed Kim, accompanied by his young daughter, inspecting the navy command and taking photos with scores of naval officers.

“South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed to strengthen military cooperation and decided to conduct joint military exercises on a regular basis at the Camp David summit,” Cheong Seong-chang, researcher at the Sejong Institute, told AFP.

“Therefore, North Korea may feel an urgent need to strengthen its naval power,” he said, adding that some intelligence reports suggested Russia and the North were considering holding joint naval training.

“For that North Korea would need a naval vessel but the country’s navy is very weak, so I think Kim Jong-un is showing off his will to strengthen the naval forces,” Cheong added.

The United States, South Korea and Japan held a joint naval missile defence exercise on Tuesday to counter Pyongyang’s growing nuclear and missile threats.

The exercise in international waters off South Korea’s southern island of Jeju involved destroyers equipped with Aegis radar systems from the three countries, the South Korean navy said in a statement.

Tuesday’s trilateral naval exercises marked the first such drills since the Camp David summit and followed similar ones in July, April, and February this year, according to the Yonhap news agency.

Seoul, Washington and Japan have beefed up their defence cooperation in recent months in response to increasing missile provocations by the North.

The United States and South Korea are also holding their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, which always infuriate Pyongyang.

North Korea has conducted a record number of weapons tests this year, and last week carried out its second attempt to put a spy satellite into orbit, although it ended in failure.

Kim has declared North Korea an “irreversible” nuclear power and has called for ramped-up arms production, including tactical nuclear weapons.

ATHENS — A fire that has raged for over a week at the Dadia Forest in northeast Greece, a major European sanctuary for birds of prey, continues to spread despite efforts to contain it, firefighters said on Monday.

"The fire is still out of control," a spokesman for the fire service told AFP, adding that "nearly 500 firefighters backed by 100 vehicles, seven planes and three helicopters are fighting the flames".

The head of the fire spreads for nearly 10 kilometres, according to firefighters on site.

The blaze, which erupted on August 19, is devastating the region of Evros, near the port town of Alexandroupoli and the border with Turkey, forcing the evacuations of some villages.

On Sunday, the EU’s Copernicus climate observatory said on social media that “The burnt area has reached 77,000 hectares with 120 active hot spots”.

The Dadia forest is part of a UNESCO World Heritage national park, with vegetation so dense that the flames at times are impossible for firefighters to see, with water from hoses often failing to reach flames at ground level, experts say.

Since the fire started 20 people believed to be migrants, including two children, have been found dead in the area, part of the Evros region that is a regular entry point for migrants from neighbouring Turkey.

Another dangerous fire continued to destroy vegetation on Mount Parnitha, near Athens, for the sixth straight day, with 270 firefighters on the scene.

They are among several wildfires across Greece this summer that have so far burned more than 120,000 hectares, according to Greek authorities.

KABUL — Rights monitors condemned on Monday a ban on women visiting one of Afghanistan's most popular national parks, the latest curb shutting women out of public life under Taliban government rule.

The Taliban government's morality ministry closed the Band-e-Amir national park to women at the weekend, claiming female visitors were failing to cover up with proper Islamic dress.

The park, 175 kilometres west of Kabul, is renowned for its striking blue lakes surrounded by sweeping cliffs.

The Bamyan province park is a hugely popular spot for domestic tourism and is regularly swarmed with Afghans relaxing at the shore or paddling the waters in rented boats.

Human Rights Watch's Associate Women's Rights Director Heather Barr told AFP the decision to ban women was "cruel in a very intentional way".

"Not content with depriving girls and women of education, employment and free movement, the Taliban also want to take from them parks and sport and now even nature," she said in a separate statement.

"Step-by-step the walls are closing in on women as every home becomes a prison," she said.

The Minister for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Mohammad Khalid Hanafi justified the ban on Saturday on the grounds women were failing to wear hijabs properly.

"We must take action from today. We must prevent the non-observance of hijab," he said during a visit to Bamyan province.

Ministry spokesman Akef Muhajir told AFP local religious leaders requested the temporary closure because women from outside the province were not observing the hijab dress code.

Other national parks in Afghanistan remain open to all, he said.

Since returning to power in August 2021, Taliban authorities have imposed a strict interpretation of Islam, with women bearing the brunt of laws the United Nations has labelled "gender apartheid".

UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan Richard Bennett asked on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday "why this restriction... is necessary to comply with Sharia and Afghan culture?"

Women and girls have been banned from attending high school and university as well as barred from visiting parks, fairs and gyms in the years since the Taliban authorities returned to power.

They have also mostly been blocked from working for UN agencies or NGOs, with thousands sacked from government jobs or paid to stay at home.

The announcement of the ban on visiting Band-e-Amir elicited posts from women on social media with pictures of trips to the park and expressing hopes they will return one day.

ANKARA — Turkey said on Monday that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will “soon” visit Russia for talks with Vladimir Putin on reviving a Black Sea grain deal that could be used as a springboard for broader Ukraine peace negotiations.

Erdogan’s ruling party spokesman Omer Celik told reporters that the meeting will take place in Russia’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi and focus on averting a looming “food crisis”.

“As you know, [Erdogan] will pay a visit to Sochi soon,” Celik said in televised remarks.

The Bloomberg news agency had earlier reported that Erdogan could meet the Russian president on September 8.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that a meeting was being prepared “intensively” but provided no time or place for the talks.

Erdogan has used his good relations with Moscow and Kyiv to try to bring the two sides into formal peace talks.

He last personally met Putin in the Kazakh capital Astana last October.

The two also held a teleconference in April that inaugurated a Russian-built nuclear power plant on the eve of Erdogan’s tough re-election to his final term in office.

NATO member Turkey helped negotiate the only major agreement signed by the warring sides since the February 2022 invasion — a deal to ship grain from three Ukrainian ports across the Black Sea.

Russia and Ukraine are major grain exporters and their initial deal helped bring down global food prices that were contributing to starvation in Africa and parts of the Middle East.

Ukraine tests new route 

Moscow scuppered the UN-backed agreement last month citing its non-compliance with provisions aimed at easing Russia’s own exports of agricultural products and fertiliser.

Russia has since launched repeated attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure and warned that it may consider any ships in the Black Sea as military targets.

Ukraine has also stepped up attacks on Russian targets around the Black Sea.

But Erdogan has remained undeterred.

He dispatched Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to Kyiv last Friday in a bid to bring Ukraine on board for the talks.

Fidan used the visit to urge Ukraine to abandon its attempts to set up a new route — reportedly backed by Washington and the European Union — that ships can use without Russia’s involvement in time for the autumn harvest.

“We know alternative routes are being sought [for grain shipments], but we see no alternative to the original initiative because they carry risks,” Fidan said in Kyiv.

Fidan is due to visit Moscow in the coming days.

Ukraine now depends on land routes and a shallow river port that severely limits its grain export volumes.

It has sent two ships along a new route from a port in Odesa that reached Istanbul after hugging the shores of NATO members Romania and Bulgaria.

But Turkish officials argue that it is too dangerous.

Moscow warns that it may consider any ships in the Black Sea as military targets.

The Russian navy fired on and briefly boarded a Turkish-owned vessel that entered the Black Sea earlier this month.

LYON — Train services between France and Italy have been halted until Thursday at the earliest, after a huge rockslide in the Maurienne valley of the French Alps which also blocked some roads, officials said on Monday.

Regional authorities in Savoie said the rockslide occurred at 5:15pm (15:15 GMT) on Sunday, when “boulders with a total volume of 700 cubic metres” slammed into a protective barrier along the RD 1006 road that leads to the Mont-Cenis pass into Italy’s Susa valley.

The landslide forced the suspension of all cross-border trains on the Chambery-Turin line, as well as TER regional trains in the Maurienne Valley, French rail operator SNCF said.

The Frejus tunnel connecting France and Italy under the Alps has also been closed to heavy trucks, whose drivers are being advised to use the Mont Blanc tunnel or the A8 motorway instead.

French Transport Minister Clement Beaune said a return to normal services “will require several days”.

“After this massive landslide yesterday in Maurienne, our services are mobilised to restore road and rail service as quickly as possible,” he said on social media.

Sunday’s landslide followed “heavy rain with sizeable downhill flows, after a heatwave throughout the Alps,” said Denis Roy, weather chief at Meteo France for the mountain region.

“There have always been rock falls, but there are periods more favourable than others, like this somewhat rare heatwave,” said Serge Taboulot, president of the Institute for Major Risks in nearby Grenoble.

Images shared on social media showed a huge cloud of dust detaching from a cliff and plunging onto the local road that runs alongside the railway line and the motorway.

The RD 1006 road had luckily been closed half an hour before when a single block of stone fell, said Jean-Philippe Laplanche, infrastructure chief in the Savoie department.

Authorities are “very vigilant about this kind of incident”, which have “been picking up due to climate change”, he added.

Rail operator SNCF said that “access to the site is still forbidden because there is still a risk of rock falls”.

Only when geologists arrive on the ground will the state-owned firm be able to evalute the damage and further risks, it added.

The ATMB company which runs the toll tunnel through Mont Blanc said queues had mounted to more than two hours on the French side and three on the Italian.

The last major geological event to disrupt rail traffic on the France-Italy line was a mudslide in 2019 that covered the track for 60 metres, halting traffic for three weeks.

NEW DELHI — Days after becoming the first nation to land a craft near the Moon’s largely unexplored south pole, India’s space agency said on Monday it will launch a satellite to survey the Sun.

“The launch of Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun, is scheduled for September 2,” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Aditya, meaning “sun” in Hindi, will be fired into a halo orbit in a region of space about 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, providing the craft with a continuous clear view of the Sun.

“This will provide a greater advantage of observing the solar activities and its effect on space weather in real time,” ISRO said.

The spacecraft will be carrying seven payloads to observe the Sun’s outermost layers — known as the photosphere and chromosphere — including by using electromagnetic and particle field detectors.

Among several objectives, it will study the drivers for space weather, including to better understand the dynamics of solar wind.

While NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have previously placed orbiters to study the Sun, it will be the first such mission for India.

The unmanned Chandrayaan-3 — “Mooncraft” in Sanskrit — touched down on the lunar surface last week, making India only the fourth country behind the United States, Russia and China to land successfully on the Moon.

That marked the latest milestone in India’s ambitious but cut-price space programme, sparking celebrations across the world’s most populous country.

India has a comparatively low-budget space programme but one that has grown considerably in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the Moon in 2008.

Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing technology, and thanks to an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of the wages of their foreign counterparts.

In 2014, India became the first Asian nation to put a craft into orbit around Mars and it is slated to launch a three-day crewed mission into the Earth’s orbit by next year.

It also plans a joint mission with Japan to send another probe to the Moon by 2025 and an orbital mission to Venus within the next two years.