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Harris, Trump go toe to toe in frenzied final campaign weekend

By - Nov 02,2024 - Last updated at Nov 02,2024

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris reacts to the crowd during a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 2, 2024 (AFP photo)

WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris and Donald Trump enter the final weekend of the most tense US presidential campaign of modern times with a flurry of swing-state rallies that will test their stamina — and ability to persuade the country's last undecided voters.
 
Harris, bidding to become the country's first woman president, will use rallies in Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan to drive home her message that Trump is a threat to US democracy.
 
Trump — seeking a sensational return to the White House after losing in 2020 and then becoming the first presidential nominee to have been convicted of crimes — promises a radical right-wing makeover of the government and aggressive trade wars to promote his policy of "America first."
 
The 78-year-old, who rallied in Milwaukee, Wisconsin late Friday just miles from Harris's event there, will all but cross paths with her again as Trump makes whistle-stops in North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
 
Their frenetic schedule will run right into Monday, culminating with late-night rallies — in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for Trump and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for Harris.
 
Election Day is Tuesday but Americans have been voting early for weeks, with more than 70 million ballots already cast — including a record four million in Georgia, where Democrats seek to pull out all the stops to keep the state in their column.
 
Opinion polls continue to show a tied race, particularly in the seven battleground states likely to determine the result in the US electoral college system, leaving the Republican businessman and his 60-year-old Democratic rival fighting hard to peel off even slivers of support from one another's camps.
 
Harris, currently President Joe Biden's vice president, is doing that by appealing to centrist voters and propelling her base to the polls with a robust ground game and get-out-the-vote effort.
 
And by painting Trump as a toxic authoritarian, she is also encouraging voters to "finally turn the page" on the former president.
 
"He is someone who is increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance -- and the man is out for unchecked power," she told supporters in Little Chute, Wisconsin.
 
'Thrill of a lifetime' 
 
Trump, meanwhile, has doubled down on his already extreme rhetoric in hopes of firing up his loyal base to turn out in massive numbers.
 
"Kamala's closing message to America is that she hates you," Trump fumed on Friday night in Warren, Michigan, where he trashed the economy under Biden and Harris as a disaster — which economists say it clearly is not -- and warned that "a 1929-style economic depression" would ensue if Harris were elected.
 
Citing her hawkish foreign policy views, Trump earlier had conjured the image of former Republican representative turned Harris supporter Liz Cheney being shot.
 
"She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face," Trump said.
 
Despite the rhetoric, Trump waxed nostalgic on Friday about how his experience campaigning over the past nine years has been "the thrill of a lifetime."
 
"And now we want to take that thrill and turn it into 'let's do business,' right?" 
 
Harris, the nation's first Black and first Asian-American vice president, meanwhile has sought to harness celebrity star power like Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen in the campaign's waning days.
 
Jennifer Lopez, a pop icon of Puerto Rican heritage, joined Harris onstage Thursday, amid a firestorm triggered by a Trump rally warm-up speaker branding the US territory a "floating island of garbage." 
 
Grammy-winning rapper Cardi B appeared with the candidate Friday night, asking the crowd in Milwaukee, "Are we ready to make history?"
 
With the election just days away -- and Trump refusing to say whether he would accept its results if he loses -- businesses in the capital Washington have begun boarding up shop fronts as city authorities warn of a "fluid, unpredictable security environment" in the days after the polls close.
 
Trump is already alleging fraud and cheating in swing states such as Pennsylvania, laying the groundwork for what many fear will be more unrest, following the violence that erupted at the US Capitol in the wake of the 2020 vote.
 

Kyiv comes under heavy Russian drone attack

By - Nov 02,2024 - Last updated at Nov 02,2024

A US-made M1 Abrams battle tank is carried to be dispalyed in an exhibition of Ukraine's military equipment captured by Russian forces in Kharkiv and Sumy regions of Ukraine, at the Museum and Exhibition Center in the historical park of "Russia - My History" in Saint Petersburg on November, 2, 2024 (AFP photo)

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine said on Saturday Kyiv had come under heavy drone attack overnight, as fresh explosions were heard in the capital and other regions were struck.

 

"Unfortunately, the attack by Russian drones caused damage and casualties in various districts of Kyiv," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

 

He said that the "constant terrorist attacks on Ukrainian cities prove that the pressure on Russia and its accomplices is not enough".

 

AFP reporters heard new explosions in Kyiv on Saturday afternoon amid an air raid alert.

 

In the morning Ukraine's air force said it had shot down 39 out of 71 drones launched from Russia overnight.

 

The drones targeted the Kyiv region surrounding the capital, the Sumy border region as well as the central Kirovograd and Poltava regions.

 

Twenty-one drones were lost and five returned to Russia, the air force said, adding that the drone attack was continuing.

 

The air force said debris from downed drones had damaged houses and blocks of flats in four regions including Kyiv, Sumy and the Black Sea Odesa region.

 

Kyiv's military administration said that debris from air defences shooting down drones fell in six districts of the capital, damaging blocks of flats and cars and sparking several fires in buildings that were extinguished.

 

A policeman was injured, the administration said. 

 

In the Kyiv region outside the capital, an 82-year-old woman suffered head wounds from shrapnel, officials said.

 

In a village near the southern city of Kherson, a 40-year-old woman was pulled dead from rubble after Russian troops fired artillery and four were injured including three children, the governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

 

The health ministry said that a hospital in Kherson was struck, damaging two wards and a laboratory. 

 

The medics and patients were uninjured as they had taken shelter.

 

Ukraine's military commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky warned on Saturday that his troops on the ground were "holding back one of the most powerful Russian offensives since the beginning of the full-scale invasion".

 

North Korea fires ICBM as US, Seoul slam Russia deployment

By - Oct 31,2024 - Last updated at Oct 31,2024

This picture taken and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on October 31, 2024 shows the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) during a test-fire conducted by the Missile Administration at an undisclosed location in North Korea (AFP photo)

SEOUL — North Korea said Thursday it had test-fired one of its newest and most powerful missiles to boost its nuclear deterrent, Kim Jong Un's first weapons test since being accused of sending soldiers to Russia.
 
Seoul had warned a day earlier that the nuclear-armed North was preparing to test-fire another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or even conduct a nuclear test ahead of next week's US elections.
 
The launch came just hours after US and South Korean defence chiefs called on Pyongyang to withdraw its troops from Russia, warning that North Korean soldiers in Russian uniforms were being deployed for possible action against Ukraine.
 
"The initial judgment so far is that [Pyongyang]may have test-fired a new solid-propelled long-range ballistic missile," Seoul's military said, adding the missile had flown around 1,000 kilometres after being fired on a lofted trajectory -- meaning up, not out.
 
Developing advanced solid-fuel missiles -- which are quicker to launch and harder to detect and destroy in advance -- has long been a goal for Kim.
 
North Korea defended the sanctions-busting launch, calling it "an appropriate military action that fully meets the purpose of informing the rivals... of our counteraction will," the official Korean Central News Agency reported Kim as saying.
 
The test "updated the recent records of the strategic missile capability," of North Korea, it said, with Kim vowing his country "will never change its line of bolstering up its nuclear forces".
 
Tokyo said that the "ICBM-class" missile had flown for longer than any other previously tested by the North, being airborne for about 86 minutes and hitting altitudes of 7,000 kilometres.
 
"We estimate that its flying altitude was the highest we have seen," Japanese defence minister Gen Nakatani told reporters.
 
Washington slammed the launch as "a flagrant violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions", National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement.
 
Seoul, Washington and Tokyo -- key regional security allies -- will respond with joint military drills involving US strategic assets, Seoul said.
 
South Korean President Yook Suk Yeol also said the country would "designate new independent sanctions" on the North and work with partners and the UN to penalise Pyongyang's "habitual violations of Security Council resolutions."
 
Diverting attention? 
 
North Korea's missile launch "seems to have been carried out to divert attention from international criticism of its troop deployment," Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.
 
Seoul has long accused the nuclear-armed North of sending weapons to help Moscow fight Kyiv and alleged that Pyongyang has moved to deploy soldiers en mass in the wake of Kim Jong Un's signing of a mutual defence deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June.
 
The troop deployment poses a "significant security threat", Seoul has said, with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday calling on the North to pull their troops out.
 
The duration and altitude of Thursday's missile launch indicate the North "tried to evaluate whether a heavy multiple-warhead ICBM can indeed reach the US mainland," Yang added.
 
South Korea's military had warned lawmakers the day before that preparations were "nearly complete for an ICBM-class long-range missile" and that a launch could be aimed at testing the North's atmospheric reentry technology.
 
Seoul has warned that Russia may be providing new technology or expertise to Pyongyang in return for weapons and troops to help them fight Ukraine.
 
It is possible "Russia actually provided new technology for re-entering the atmosphere," Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies, told AFP. 
 
But it is more likely that Thursday's test was a bid to distract from the troop deployment and get "the world's attention ahead of the US presidential election" Ahn added.
 
Seoul, a major weapons exporter, has said it is reviewing whether to send weapons directly to Ukraine in response, something it has previously resisted due to longstanding domestic policy that prevents it from sending weaponry into active conflicts.
 
North Korea has denied sending troops to Russia, but in the first comment in state media last week, its vice foreign minister said that if such a deployment were to happen, it would be in line with international law.
 
Pyongyang is banned from tests using ballistic technology by multiple rounds of UN sanctions, but leader Kim has ramped up launches this year, with experts warning he could be testing weaponry before providing it to Russia.
 

Spain flood death toll soars to 158 - rescuers

By - Oct 31,2024 - Last updated at Oct 31,2024

Wreckage of cars pile up on the on the railway on October 31, 2024 after flash floods ravaged the town of Alfafar, in the region of Valencia, eastern Spain (AFP photo)

MADRID/ SEDAVÍ  — The death toll from Spain's worst floods in decades soared to 158 on Thursday, emergency services and officials said, as rescue services worked frantically to find survivors.
 
The body coordinating rescue work in the eastern Valencia region announced 155 bodies had been recovered there. Officials in Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia had announced a combined three deaths in their regions.
 
Rescuers raced Thursday to find survivors and victims of once-in-a-generation floods in Spain that killed at least 95 people and left towns submerged in a muddy deluge with overturned cars scattered in the streets.
 
About 1,000 troops joined police and firefighters in the grim search for bodies in the Valencia region as Spain started three days of mourning. The toll will rise because "there are many missing people", territorial policy minister Angel Victor Torres predicted late Wednesday.
 
Up to a year's rain fell in a few hours on the eastern city of Valencia and surrounding region on Tuesday sending torrents of water and mud through towns and cities.
 
Authorities said Paiporta, in the Valencia suburbs, had been devastated with about 40 people dead, including a mother and baby swept away by a torrent.
 
Rescuers have scrambled to get survivors off roofs with helicopters while others have searched houses some with water up to their necks. 
 
As dawn rose Thursday, tens of thousands of homes were still without electricity and drinking water and many roads were blocked by the carcasses of hundreds of cars and trucks swept away in sudden torrents. 
 
Emergency services carried out 200 rescues on the ground and 70 aerial evacuations on Wednesday, said Valencia regional government chief Carlos Mazon.
 
Valencia's emergency services announced a provisional death toll of 92, adding that bodies were still being recovered. Two people died in neighbouring Castilla-La Mancha and another victim was reported in Andalusia in the south, officials said.
 
A sea of piled-up cars and mud swamped streets in Sedavi, a suburb of the Mediterranean city of Valencia, AFP journalists saw.
 
Stunned residents battled to clear sludge and water from their homes. 
 
'Spain weeps' 
 
In Ribarroja del Turia on the outskirts of Valencia city, town councillor Esther Gomez said workers were stuck overnight in an industrial estate "without a chance of rescuing them" as streams overflowed.
 
"It had been a long time since this happened and we're scared," she told AFP.
 
According to Spain's weather service AEMET, Chiva, west of Valencia, recorded 491 mm of rain in just eight hours on Tuesday -- almost equalling a year's worth.
 
"All of Spain weeps with all of you... We won't abandon you," Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told victims and their families in a televised address.
 
Sanchez was to head for Valencia on Thursday.
 
The disaster could not be considered over and "we will deploy all the necessary resources for as long as necessary so that we can recover from this tragedy," he added.
 
King Felipe VI said he was "devastated" by the disaster and offered "heartfelt condolences" to families of the victims.
 
Damage to telephone networks and flooded roads hampered efforts to reach stricken communities but rescuers' access to all urban hubs was restored by Wednesday evening, Mazon said.
 
Some 155,000 homes were without electricity in Valencia region due to the storm, energy company Iberdrola said.
 
The European Union activated its Copernicus satellite system to help coordinate Spanish rescue teams, EU commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in Brussels.
 
The bloc has also offered to use its civil protection mechanism to send further reinforcements, she said.
 
Warning system scrutinised 
 
Officials in the Valencia region announced survivors were being sheltered in temporary accommodation such as fire stations.
 
Rail and air transport remained severely disrupted. The high-speed line between Valencia and Madrid will be suspended for at least four days, the Adif rail infrastructure authority announced.
 
The flood toll is Spain's deadliest since 1973 when at least 150 people were estimated to have died in the southeastern provinces of Granada, Murcia and Almeria.
 
Scientists have warned that extreme weather events such as the storm that hit Valencia are becoming more intense, last longer and occur more frequently as a result of human-induced climate change.
 
Such extremes "can overwhelm the ability of existing defences and contingency plans to cope, even in a relatively wealthy country like Spain", said Leslie Mabon, senior lecturer in environmental systems at Britain's Open University.
 
The heavy death toll came after warnings for extreme rainfall, suggesting Valencia's flood alert system failed, said Hannah Cloke, hydrology professor at the University of Reading.
 

Harris urges US to turn page on Trump 'chaos' in mass White House rally

By - Oct 30,2024 - Last updated at Oct 30,2024

US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris talks to reporters before boarding Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Wednesday (AFP photo)

WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris urged Americans to write the "next chapter" for their country and reject Donald Trump's chaos and division as she delivered a powerful closing argument to voters Tuesday against the glowing backdrop of the White House.
 
The Democratic vice president warned against Trump's lust for "unchecked power" as she addressed a mass rally at the site where her Republican rival riled up a mob before the deadly January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol.
 
"This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power," she said in the speech, exactly a week before Americans go to the polls in the most dramatic and divisive election of modern times.
 
But Harris then pivoted to an optimistic vision of the United States' future, using the setting of the White House lit up against the night behind her as a symbolic pitch to show that she is ready for the presidency.
 
"America, I am here tonight to say: that's not who we are," Harris told the huge crowd of flag-waving supporters.
 
"Each of you has the power to turn the page, and start writing the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told."
 
Harris's campaign claimed 75,000 people attended the rally. The number could not be immediately verified, but the crowd was unusually large in an election that has seen heavy enthusiasm on both sides.
 
 'Chaos and division' 
 
Crowds stretched from the Ellipse, a park bordering the White House grounds where Harris spoke, all the way back to the Washington Monument, the obelisk towering over the National Mall.
 
Speaking from behind bulletproof screens next to blue signs saying "Freedom," Harris warned that the election was a choice between a "country rooted in freedom for every American, or ruled by chaos and division."
 
Harris reminded the crowd that Trump stood at the same spot nearly four years ago and "sent an armed mob" to the Capitol.
 
After Trump urged supporters in a speech there to "fight like hell," many then marched on the iconic domed seat of government to disrupt the certification of President Joe Biden's victory, in an assault that left 140 police officers wounded and shocked the world.
 
But while her speech began with the dramatic attack on Trump, she soon switched to a recap of her detailed plans to help financially struggling middle-class Americans.
 
She got one of the biggest cheers when she referred to Republicans seeking to curtail abortion, saying the government should not be "telling women what to do with their bodies."
 
Harris also addressed one of her main weaknesses  he fact that some voters still see her as a continuation of Biden, who dropped out of the White House race in July.
 
"My presidency will be different, because the challenges we face are different," she vowed.
 
 'Cleansing' 
 
Although there is still a week to go, the Harris campaign cast her speech as a "closing argument" , a nod to her career as a prosecutor.
 
"I think of this as a cleansing for what happened on January 6," said Mitzi Maxwell, 69, who came from Florida with her mother to see "all the love and passion and excitement that she (Harris) has become known for."
 
Some Harris supporters queued for more than seven hours before the speech, whose sheer scale and energy was a direct challenge to Trump, a politician who has always boasted about his ability to draw crowds.
 
Harris and Trump remain in a dead heat in the polls, with both desperately trying to convince undecided voters in seven key swing states.
 
Trump has spent the last two days trying to tamp down a firestorm over his weekend rally in New York's famed Madison Square Garden, at which a warm-up comedian jibed that Puerto Rico was a "floating island of garbage."
 
Biden on Tuesday came under fire for responding to the comments by appearing to call Trump's supporters "garbage," although he later said he was referring to the Republican's rhetoric.
 
"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters," Biden said on a campaign call for Harris.
 
Trump called the comments "terrible," and his running mate J.D. Vance said they were "disgusting." 
 
In a TV appearance, Trump said the comedian who made the comments about Puerto Rico "probably... shouldn't have been there."
 
Earlier, addressing supporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, however, Trump called the New York event a "love fest," the same phrase he has used to describe the Capitol riot.
 
The Republican later rallied in blue-collar Allentown, in Pennsylvania, perhaps the most crucial of the seven battleground states that are expected to decide the election -- and a city that is home to a large Puerto Rican community.
 
Fears of a repeat of the chaos from four years ago hang heavy over this year's election, with Trump repeatedly indicating that he might again refuse to accept the result if he loses.
 

Tuberculosis cases hit record high: WHO

By - Oct 30,2024 - Last updated at Oct 30,2024

GENEVA — A record 8.2 million new tuberculosis cases were diagnosed worldwide last year, the World Health Organisation said, the highest number since it began global TB monitoring in 1995.
 
The WHO said its Global Tuberculosis Report 2024, released Tuesday, highlights "mixed progress in the global fight against TB, with persistent challenges such as significant underfunding".
 
While the number of TB-related deaths declined from 1.32 million in 2022 to 1.25 million last year, the total number of people contracting the infectious disease increased from 7.5 million to 8.2 million.
 
However, not all new cases are diagnosed, and WHO estimates that around 10.8 million people actually contracted the disease last year.
 
"The fact that TB still kills and sickens so many people is an outrage, when we have the tools to prevent it, detect it and treat it," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
 
"WHO urges all countries to make good on the concrete commitments they have made to expand the use of those tools, and to end TB."
 
The increase in cases between 2022 and 2023 largely reflects global population growth, the report said.
 
Last year the TB incidence rate was 134 new cases per 100,000 people, a 0.2-per cent increase compared with 2022.
 
 Global targets 'off-track' 
 
The disease disproportionately affects people in 30 high-burden countries.
 
And five countries,  India, Indonesia, China, Philippines and Pakistan,  account for more than half of the global TB burden, with more than a quarter of the cases found in India alone.
 
According to the report, 55 per cent of people who developed TB were men, 33 per cent were women and 12 per cent were children and young adolescents.
 
A preventable and curable disease, TB is caused by bacteria and most often affects the lungs. It is spread through the air when people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit.
 
The WHO said a significant number of new TB cases were driven by five major risk factors: undernutrition, HIV infection, alcohol use disorders, diabetes, and, especially among men, smoking.
 
"Global milestones and targets for reducing the TB disease burden are off-track," the WHO said.
 
Only $5.7 billion of the $22 billion global annual funding target for TB prevention and care was available last year.
 
"In 2023, TB probably returned to being the world's leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, following three years in which it was replaced by coronavirus disease (Covid-19)," the WHO added.
 

China, Russia discuss Ukraine as West slams North Korean troops

By - Oct 30,2024 - Last updated at Oct 30,2024

top diplomat Wang Yi discussed the Ukraine crisis with Russia's deputy foreign minister in Beijing on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said, as Western leaders have condemned Moscow's deepening ties with North Korea (AFP photo)

BEIJING — China's top diplomat Wang Yi discussed the Ukraine crisis with Russia's deputy foreign minister in Beijing on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said, as Western leaders have condemned Moscow's deepening ties with North Korea.
 
Wang told Andrey Rudenko that China's relationship with Russia was "inevitable" and "strong", adding it was "not affected by the changing international situation, and is not directed at or affected by third parties", according to a statement.
 
Tensions have escalated in recent weeks as the United States and South Korea have slammed the apparent presence of North Korean troops in Russia.
 
And Wednesday's meeting between Wang and Rudenko came as North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui was due to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.
 
South Korea, NATO and the United States claim thousands of North Korean troops are training in Russia, which Moscow and Pyongyang deny.
 
The first batch of elite forces left for eastern Russia's Vladivostok in early October, according to Seoul's spy agency.
 
The roughly 10,000 North Korean soldiers sent to train "will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks," Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told journalists this week.
 
While Pyongyang denies its troops are training in Russia, North Korea's vice foreign minister Kim Jong Gyu said that were such a deployment to happen, it would be in line with international law.
 
China considers both Russia and North Korea its close partners.
 
The US government has expressed with China its concerns over Pyongyang's deepening military engagement.
 
When asked about talks with Washington during a regular news conference Wednesday, China's foreign ministry declined to comment.
 
The foreign ministry also declined to confirm whether Wang raised the issue of North Korean troops in Russia with Rudenko when they met.
 

'Scared' locals count cost in flood-hit Spain region

By - Oct 30,2024 - Last updated at Oct 30,2024

Pedestrians stand next to piled up cars following deadly floods in Sedavi, south of Valencia, eastern Spain, on October 30, 2024 (AFP photo)

RIBARROJA DEL TURIA, Spain  — A despondent Jose Manuel Rellan could only watch helplessly as relentless rains drenched his town in eastern Spain on Wednesday during the country's deadliest floods in decades.
 
"It has been raining non-stop for 10 hours...And the result is what you see," the 49-year-old warehouser worker told AFP in Ribarroja del Turia, pointing to flooded streets caked in mud.
 
"We are cut off, you can't reach parts of the town. The roads are all cut, bridges are cut."
 
Rellan lives in a town on the outskirts of the Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia, whose region bore the brunt of the damage and more than 70 deaths announced nationwide following the torrential rains.
 
The local Turia river was a roaring torrent of swollen, brownish water that was flowing close to the top of a main bridge when AFP visited on Wednesday.
 
Stranded motorists loitered outside their vehicles as a huge tailback snaked along the motorway leading out of the town during severe disruption to road transport.
 
"It had been a long time since this happened and we're scared," said Esther Gomez, a Socialist town councillor in Ribarroja del Turia.
 
We went from "being in a place where nothing is happening to there being such a huge flood" in a matter of minutes, the 57-year-old told AFP.
 
The inaccessibility of flooded roads and damage to communications and power infrastructure have complicated an already herculean task for the rescue services.
 
"The emergency and security services were also overwhelmed, because so many places were affected that they couldn't get to all the places," Gomez said as she remembered a chaotic night.
 
The sudden surge of the waters in nearby streams flooded the town's industrial estate and left workers stuck there overnight "with no chance of rescuing them", she said.
 
The same fate befell other areas of the Valencia region, including the village of L'Alcudia which resident Eva Sanz said was "destroyed" in the floods.
 
The river overflowed "in three or four minutes. In a very short time the whole panorama changed completely", she told Spanish public broadcaster TVE.
 
"The fright from last night is worse than the clean-up now... we were very scared."
 
The storm dumped 230 mm of rain on the Valencia region town of Utiel on Tuesday -- three times the previous daily record, according to national weather agency AEMET.
 
That represented a quantity of water almost six times greater than what the area receives on average for the whole month of October.
 

UN Council expresses 'grave concern' over Israel's UNRWA ban

By - Oct 30,2024 - Last updated at Oct 30,2024

People walk past the damaged Gaza City headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on February 15, 2024 (AFP photo)

UNITED NATIONS, United States — The UN Security Council on Wednesday expressed "grave concern" over the Israeli parliament's adoption of a bill banning UNRWA, the main United Nations aid agency working with Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The Council also called on Israel to "abide by its international obligations" and "respect the privileges and immunities" of the agency, a target of vehement Israeli criticism, which intensified after the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.

In a statement, the Council called on "all parties to enable UNRWA to carry out its mandate, as adopted by the General Assembly, in all areas of operation," saying the agency was the "backbone" of humanitarian relief in war-ravaged Gaza.

"No organisation can replace or substitute UNRWA's capacity and mandate to serve Palestinian refugees and civilians in urgent need of life-saving humanitarian assistance," the Council said.

The Security Council has struggled since the start of the Gaza war, triggered by the Hamas attacks, to speak with one voice due to Washington's power to veto in support of its ally Israel.

But on Wednesday, all Council members including the United States "strongly warned against any attempts to dismantle or diminish UNRWA's operations and mandate."

"Any interruption or suspension of its work would have severe humanitarian consequences for millions of Palestinian refugees who depend on the Agency's services and also implications for the region," it said.

The Council noted the firing of nine UNRWA employees in the wake of the October 2023 Hamas attacks, and emphasized the importance of ensuring "accountability for any violations of the Agency's policies related to the principle of neutrality."

Ukrainian president expects 12,000 North Korean soldiers in Russia 'soon'

By - Oct 29,2024 - Last updated at Oct 29,2024

Zelenskyy did not say where on the frontline the North Korean soldiers were expected to be deployed (AFP photo)

REYKJAVIK — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said that he expects 12,000 North Korean soldiers on Russian territory "soon", as he met with Nordic leaders in Iceland.


As Zelensky made his first visit to Iceland amid a diplomatic push to rally allies around his "victory plan", he warned that some 3,000 North Korean soldiers and officers were "already on Russian territory".

Russia "will use" them in its war on Ukraine, he added.

"We think that they will have 12,000 soon" on Russian territory, Zelensky said at a press conference on Monday evening held together with leaders from the Nordic countries.

Earlier on Monday, the United States said that North Korea has sent some 10,000 troops to train in Russia, more than tripling the previous estimate as NATO warned of a dangerous expansion of the Ukraine war.

Zelensky arrived in Iceland on Monday to attend the fourth Ukraine-Nordic Summit and hold talks with leaders from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

Asked about the risks of declining military and financial support from the US if the Republican candidate Donald Trump would win the upcoming presidential election, Zelensky said he "hadn't heard" Trump say he would withdraw support.

"Not supporting Ukraine would be a great victory for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and a great loss for the West, for unity, democracy and freedom", he added.

 

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