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Menacing Harvey on verge of reaching Texas coast

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This August 25, 2017, image of Hurricane Harvey taken from NASA's Earth Observatory shows the storm’s eye as it nears landfall in the southeastern coast of Texas. (AFP)
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A power generator tips in in front of Texas' CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Shoreline as Hurricane Harvey hits on Friday. (AP)
Updated 26 August 2017
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Menacing Harvey on verge of reaching Texas coast

Updated 26 August 2017
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas: Hurricane Harvey was on the verge of reaching Texas on Friday, bringing fierce winds and torrential rain to a wide swath of the state’s Gulf Coast and prompting tens of thousands of residents fleeing inland in hopes of escaping its wrath.
The National Hurricane Center said the eyewall of the dangerous Category 4 storm reached the Texas coast Friday evening, suggesting that the eye of the storm would soon make landfall.
With time running out, residents fled Friday from the path of the increasingly menacing-looking hurricane as it took aim at an area of Texas that includes oil refineries, chemical plants and dangerously flood-prone Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned that the monster system would be “a very major disaster,” and the forecasts drew fearful comparisons to Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest ever to strike the US
“We know that we’ve got millions of people who are going to feel the impact of this storm,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman and meteorologist for the National Hurricane Center. “We really pray that people are listening to their emergency managers and get out of harm’s way.”

As night fell, punishing winds had already begun to cause damage in downtown Corpus Christi, the city closest to the center of the storm. A trash can lid skipped across a parking lot behind hotels on the seawall. In the city of 325,000 residents, a traffic light post was toppled but still lit, its wires unearthed.
Fueled by warm Gulf of Mexico waters, Harvey grew rapidly, accelerating from a Category 1 early in the morning to a Category 4 by evening. Its transformation from an unnamed storm to a life-threatening behemoth took only 56 hours, an incredibly fast intensification.
If it does not lose significant strength, the system will come ashore as the fiercest hurricane to hit the US in 13 years and the strongest to strike Texas since 1961’s Hurricane Carla, the most powerful Texas hurricane on record.
Aside from the winds of 130 mph (201 kph) and storm surges up to 12 feet (4 meters), Harvey was expected to drop prodigious amounts of rain — up to 3 feet. The resulting flooding, one expert said, could be “the depths of which we’ve never seen.”
Galveston-based storm surge expert Hal Needham said forecasts indicated that it was “becoming more and more likely that something really bad is going to happen.”
At least one researcher predicted heavy damage that would linger for months or longer.
“In terms of economic impact, Harvey will probably be on par with Hurricane Katrina,” said University of Miami senior hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy. “The Houston area and Corpus Christi are going to be a mess for a long time.”
Before the storm arrived, home and business owners raced to nail plywood over windows and fill sandbags. Steady traffic filled the highways leaving Corpus Christi, but there were no apparent jams. In Houston, where mass evacuations can include changing major highways to a one-way vehicle flow, authorities left traffic patterns unchanged.

Federal health officials called in more than 400 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals from around the nation and planned to move two 250-bed medical units to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Other federal medical units are available in Dallas.
Just hours before the projected landfall, the governor and Houston leaders issued conflicting statements on evacuation.
After Abbott urged more people to flee, Houston authorities told people to remain in their homes and recommended no widespread evacuations.
In a Friday press conference that addressed Houston officials’ decision to not have a voluntary or mandatory evacuation, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said there might be a “greater danger” in having people who don’t need to be evacuated on roads that could flood.
“We are not having a hurricane,” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said. “We are having a rain event.”
At a convenience store in Houston’s Meyerland neighborhood, at least 12 cars lined up for fuel. Brent Borgstedte said this was the fourth gas station he had visited to try to fill up his son’s car. The 55-year-old insurance agent shrugged off Harvey’s risks.
“I don’t think anybody is really that worried about it. I’ve lived here my whole life,” he said. “I’ve been through several hurricanes.”
Scientists warned that Harvey could swamp counties more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) inland and stir up dangerous surf as far away as Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, 700 miles (1,126 kilometers) from the projected landfall.
It may also spawn tornadoes. Even after weakening, the system might spin out into the Gulf and regain strength before hitting Houston a second time Wednesday as a tropical storm, forecasters said.
By late afternoon, the storm was centered about 60 miles (96 kilometers) southeast of Corpus Christi, moving 10 mph (17 kph) to the northwest.
All seven Texas counties on the coast from Corpus Christi to the western end of Galveston Island ordered mandatory evacuations from low-lying areas. Four counties ordered full evacuations and warned there was no guarantee of rescue for people staying behind.
Voluntary evacuations have been urged for Corpus Christi and for the Bolivar Peninsula, a sand spit near Galveston where many homes were washed away by the storm surge of Hurricane Ike in 2008.
People in the town of Port Lavaca, population 12,200, appeared to heed the danger. The community northeast of Corpus Christi was a ghost town Friday, with every business boarded up. But at a bayside RV park that looked vulnerable, John Bellah drove up in his pickup to have a look at an RV he had been told was for sale. He and his wife planned to ride out Harvey.
“This is just going to blow through,” said Bellah, 72, who said he had been through Hurricane Rita in 2005 and Carla in 1961. He described those storms as “much worse.”
State officials said they had no count on how many people actually left their homes.
The storm posed the first major emergency management test of President Donald Trump’s administration.
The White House said Trump was closely monitoring the hurricane and planned to travel to Texas early next week to view recovery efforts. The president was expected to receive briefings during the weekend at Camp David.
Trump’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, Tom Bossert, said the administration was “bringing together the firepower of the federal government to assist the state and local governments, but the state and local governments are in the lead here.”
The last Category 4 storm to hit the US was Hurricane Charley in August 2004 in Florida. Superstorm Sandy, which pummeled New York and New Jersey in 2012, never had the high winds and had lost tropical status by the time it struck. But it was devastating without formally being called a major hurricane.
The heavy rain from Harvey threatened to turn many communities into “essentially islands” and leave them isolated for days, said Melissa Munguia, deputy emergency management coordinator for Nueces County.
The rain and the storm surge could collide like a car and a train, particularly in the Galveston and Houston areas, said Needham, who works for private firm Marine Weather and Climate.
“There’s absolutely nowhere for the water to go,” he said. Galveston Bay, where normal rain runs off to, will already be elevated.
Rain was expected to extend into Louisiana, driven by counter-clockwise winds that could carry water from the Gulf of Mexico far inland. Forecasts called for as much as 15 inches in southwest Louisiana over the next week, and up to 6 inches in the New Orleans area.
Harvey would be the first significant hurricane to hit Texas since Ike in September 2008 brought winds of 110 mph (177 kph) to the Galveston and Houston areas, inflicting $22 billion in damage.
It’s taking aim at the same vicinity as Carla, which had wind gusts estimated at 175 mph and inflicted more than $300 million in damage. The storm killed 34 people and forced about 250,000 people to evacuate.
 

Topics: Hurricane United States of America

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Asian activists call out Western feminists over ‘selective empathy’ on Gaza

Updated 7 sec ago
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Asian activists call out Western feminists over ‘selective empathy’ on Gaza

  • Non-Western feminists say white supremacy, imperialism are inherent to Western feminism
  • Seven months into Israel’s deadly war on Gaza, feminists in the West have been largely silent
Updated 7 sec ago
Natalia Laskowska Sheany Yasuko Lai

JAKARTA: When Western actresses and female politicians cut their hair to protest the death of Mahsa Amini or rallied against the Taliban ban on girls’ education, they stood up to defend women’s rights. However, the zeal went missing when it came to Palestine, non-Western feminists say, denouncing their peers’ silence on Israel’s killing of women in Gaza.

Mass protests and displays of solidarity in Europe and the US broke out in 2022 and carried on into 2023 following the death in Iranian police custody of the 22-year-old Amini, who was charged with breaching hijab rules. In the same years, when the Taliban barred Afghan girls from school, women united in outcry and called for international pressure against them.

But more than seven months into Israel’s indiscriminate killing, wounding, and maiming of Palestinian civilians, the West’s mainstream feminist movement has been largely silent.

At least 35,800 people in Gaza have been killed and 80,000 wounded by Israeli airstrikes and ground offensive that have destroyed most of the enclave’s infrastructure and rendered it uninhabitable.

The majority of the dead are women and children. Many have lost their lives as most of the hospitals have been flattened by Israeli troops and no medical assistance could reach them.

The International Rescue Committee estimated last month that 37 mothers had been killed in Gaza each day and 60,000 pregnant women had no access to midwives or doctors, while tens of thousands struggled with breastfeeding as they were so malnourished due to Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid.

In the face of the widely documented atrocities, Haein Shim, Korean activist and spokesperson of Haeil, a Seoul-based feminist group, told Arab News that Western feminists were exhibiting “selective empathy” and “double standards” with regard to Israel’s onslaught, the criticism of which has regularly been labeled as “antisemitism” — not only by Israeli authorities but by Western leaders as well.

“I strongly believe these issues are interconnected with racism, imperialism, and colonialism,” Shim said.

“We need to urge each other to break the silence and unite against occupation and subjugation, Israel’s human rights abuses and ongoing genocide. One thing to be clear: Our solidarity does not mean antisemitism but only to end the vicious genocide and violence against women and children.”

While Shim believes it is not too late for “global feminist solidarity” with women in Gaza, Fadiah Nadwa Fikri, Malaysian human rights lawyer and scholar focused on decolonization, sees an intrinsic flaw in Western feminism, which might prevent it.

“The function of Western feminism, which is inherently imperialist, is to reduce and dehumanize not only Palestinian women and children but also Palestinian men, who have been subjected to decades of Israeli settler colonialism, with the full support of US imperialism and its allies in Europe,” she said.

“It is, therefore, not surprising to witness the deafening silence of most Western feminists, who are staunch advocates of this strand of feminism, in the face of relentless imperialist violence in Gaza and all of historical Palestine. Their silence is an endorsement of the status quo.”

For Fikri, Western feminism has been shaped by “the racist narrative of the clash of civilizations,” and its silence on Gaza was merely consequential.

“We see women like Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hilary Clinton, Kamala Harris — both white and non-white — who depict themselves as champions of women’s rights become members of the ruling classes of imperialist states that are responsible for the mass death, destruction, and suffering around the world,” she said.

“Therefore, there are no double standards of Western feminism; there is only one political standard meant to protect the interests of the imperialist ruling classes, which has been applied consistently.”

In the context of Israel and accusations of antisemitism fired against its critics, Asian feminists also cited the problem of white supremacy, which they closely linked with Zionism.

“Zionist ideologies are not just harming and discriminating against Palestinians, and the destruction of Palestine is not merely about Palestine. Zionism is about white supremacy and colonization, and the destruction of Palestine is just another example of imperialist violence inflicted by Western colonizers, aka white people,” said V., member of Chinese Feminism in Toronto, a Canada-based grassroots collective, who requested to remain anonymous.

“If we consider the sociopolitical context of North America, we know most Jews are also white people, yet we do not have the space to discuss the complexity of antisemitism and white supremacy simultaneously. I guess that speaks a lot (as to) why white feminists tend to be hypocritical here.”

Her colleague, G., also a member of the group, said that hypocrisy was also present among non-white women leaders who were “internalizing whiteness” and embracing Zionism.

“We need to understand this should not be done in our names. We need to have firm voices and expose these leaders as Zionist agents and complicit in genocide, instead of accepting the fact that our elected leaders turn complicit and no longer represent us. We need to hold them accountable,” she said.

“Decolonization is not just theory. We all need to move beyond the bystander observer position and let Palestine radicalize us. We need to continue to educate ourselves and our communities on colonial feminism/pinkwashing and purplewashing.”

Part of the struggle is debunking pro-Israel propaganda and fighting “against the utilization of antisemitism to shut down any criticism against Israeli or Zionist policies,” according to Okky Madasari, Indonesian novelist and academic, whose research focuses on knowledge production and censorship.

“There must be a unified campaign to stop believing anything coming out from the Israeli authorities. They are liars unless they are proven otherwise,” she told Arab News.

For those activists who for the past seven months have been silent over Gaza, Okky suggested that they stop using the feminism label altogether.

“You should be ashamed of yourself if you don’t speak up against Israel when you are so fussy about many other more trivial things,” she said.

“Condemning Israel and taking sides with the Palestinians is what any decent human being must do, let alone if you are a feminist.”

Topics: War on Gaza Israel Palestine Gaza Feminism

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Parts of northern India scorched by extreme heat with New Delhi on high alert

Updated 18 May 2024
AP
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Parts of northern India scorched by extreme heat with New Delhi on high alert

  • India’s weather department expects heat wave conditions to persist across north for next few days
  • On Friday, parts of New Delhi reported up to 47.1°C, with temperatures also soaring in nearby states
Updated 18 May 2024
AP

NEW DELHI: Parts of northwest India sweltered under scorching temperatures on Saturday, with the capital New Delhi under a severe weather alert as extreme temperatures strike parts of the country.
India’s weather department expects heat wave conditions to persist across the north for the next few days, and has put several states on high alert.
On Friday, parts of New Delhi reported up to 47.1 degrees Celsius (116 degrees Fahrenheit). The nearby states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan also saw temperatures soar and are likely to stay high over the next few days, said Soma Sen Roy, a scientist at the India Meteorological Department.
Roy cautioned people against going outdoors under the afternoon sun, drink lots of water and wear loose-fitting clothes while those who are especially vulnerable like the elderly should stay indoors.
The extreme temperatures in northern India coincide with a 6-week-long general election, with experts worried that the heat wave could increase health risks as people wait in long lines to cast their vote or candidates campaign aggressively in the outdoors. One minister fainted due to heat last month while addressing an election rally in Maharashtra state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as his main challenger, Rahul Gandhi of the opposition Congress Party, are expected to hold rallies in New Delhi later on Saturday, as the city heads to the polls on May 25.
Satish Kumar, a 57-year-old rickshaw driver in the capital, said his work was suffering because of the heat. “People are not coming outside, (markets) are nearly empty,” he said.
Pravin Kamath, a 28-year-old who runs a cart selling cold drinks, complained that it was so hot he could hardly stand being outdoors. “But I must work. What can I do? I am poor so I have to do it.”
The main summer months — April, May and June — are always hot in most parts of India before monsoon rains bring cooler temperatures. But the heat has become more intense in the past decade and is usually accompanied by severe water shortages, with tens of millions of India’s 1.4 billion people lacking running water.
A study by World Weather Attribution, an academic group that examines the source of extreme heat, found that a searing heat wave in April that struck parts of Asia was made at least 45 times more likely in some parts of the continent by climate change.
Climate experts say extreme heat in South Asia during the pre-monsoon season is becoming more frequent and the study found that extreme temperatures are now about 0.85 C (1.5 F) hotter in the region because of climate change.
At least 28 heat-related deaths were reported in Bangladesh, as well as five in India in April. Surges in heat deaths have also been reported in Thailand and the Philippines this year, according to the study.
Extreme heat is fast becoming a public health crisis in India, with more than 150 people dying last year during heat waves. The government estimates nearly 11,000 people have died during heat waves this century, yet experts say such figures are likely a vast undercount.

Slovak PM Fico stable but in serious condition

Updated 18 May 2024
Reuters
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Slovak PM Fico stable but in serious condition

  • Robert Fico underwent a two-hour operation on Friday that increased hopes for his recovery
  • Slovak police have charged a man identified by prosecutors as Juraj C. with attempted murder
Updated 18 May 2024
Reuters

BANSKA BYSTRICA, Slovakia: The condition of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has stabilized but remains serious, the country’s health minister said on Saturday, following Wednesday’s assassination attempt against the central European leader.

Slovakia’s deputy prime minister also said the transfer of Fico to the capital Bratislava from the small-town hospital near the area where he was shot five times at point blank range would not take place in the coming days.

There was no need to formally take over Fico’s official duties and some communication with the premier was taking place, Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak told reporters in front of the hospital where Fico was being treated.

Fico underwent a two-hour operation on Friday that increased hopes for his recovery. The attack sent shockwaves throughout Europe and raised concerns over the polarized and febrile political situation in the nation of 5.4 million people.

Slovak police have charged a man identified by prosecutors as Juraj C. with attempted murder. Local news media say he is a 71-year-old former security guard at a shopping mall and the author of three collections of poetry.

Topics: Slovakia Robert Fico assassination Bratislava

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Arab-American leaders meet with Blinken over Gaza

Updated 18 May 2024
RAY HANANIA
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Arab-American leaders meet with Blinken over Gaza

  • Demands include immediate ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal, unimpeded humanitarian aid, halt to arms deliveries
  • Arab American Institute president: US efforts to restrain Israel ‘feeble,’ image across Arab world ‘tattered’
Updated 18 May 2024
RAY HANANIA

CHICAGO: A group of Arab-American leaders met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington D.C. on Friday night, demanding that the US “stop the genocide” in Gaza and define a clear path to “Palestinian liberation.”

The group was led by Arab American Institute President James Zogby and included several key organizations such as the American Federation of Ramallah, the Arab American Chamber of Commerce, Arab America, and the US Palestinian Council.

In a statement sent to Arab News, organizers said they demanded that the Biden administration endorse an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza; call for the “return of all hostages,” including Israelis taken on Oct. 7 and Palestinians being held without judicial process; support the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza; ensure “unimpeded” humanitarian assistance to its civilian population; and cease weapons deliveries to Israel.

Israel has received more than $40 billion in aid from the Biden administration.  

“When we met with Secretary Blinken in October of 2023, I noted that Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza had killed 5,000 Palestinians. I urged an immediate ceasefire to save lives. I also noted that Israel and the US were operating under the mistaken belief that the war could be won, with the likely outcome being the emergence of Hamas 2.0,” Zogby said.

“We come back seven months later with over 36,000 dead, most of Gaza’s homes and infrastructure destroyed, millions of Palestinian lives shattered, and Gaza on the verge of starvation.”

After the meeting, Zogby called US efforts to urge Israeli restraint “feeble,” adding: “Once again, we are calling on the Biden administration to demand an immediate ceasefire to end the unfolding genocide, to save Palestinian lives, and salvage whatever remains of the United States’ tattered image across the Arab world.”

Arab and Muslim leaders who met with US President Joe Biden last month in Washington D.C. left disappointed by his failure to enforce a ceasefire.

Several attendees walked out in disgust, including Dr. Thaer Ahmad, who told reporters after the April 2 meeting that he was leaving “out of respect for my community.”

After Friday’s meeting, USPC President John Dabeet said attendees “asked Secretary Blinken and the administration to subject any military assistance to Israel to strict oversight to ensure that it is fully compliant with US law, international law and human rights conventions.”

Bilal Hammoud, director of the AACC, said the Biden administration “has failed to act urgently and within its values to take meaningful measures that ensure the freedom, equality and prosperity of the Palestinian people, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of innocent lives.

“There must be a full stop of US military funding that is threatening the security and stability of the whole region, including the cessation of attacks on sovereign Arab nations.”

Topics: War on Gaza US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken Anthony Blinken Arab American community

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Three Spanish, three Afghans killed in shooting in Afghanistan

Updated 18 May 2024
AFP
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Three Spanish, three Afghans killed in shooting in Afghanistan

  • The group were fired on while walking through a market in the mountainous city of Bamiyan
  • Among eight others wounded, four were foreigners from Norway, Australia, Lithuania and Spain
Updated 18 May 2024
AFP

KABUL: The bodies of three Spanish tourists and three Afghans shot dead while on a tour in Afghanistan were transported to the capital along with multiple wounded, the Taliban government said Saturday.
The group were fired on while walking through a market in the mountainous city of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, around 180 kilometers (100 miles) from the capital Kabul, on Friday evening.
“All dead bodies have been shifted to Kabul and are in the forensic department and the wounded are also in Kabul. Both dead and wounded include women,” the government’s interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani told AFP.
“Among the eight wounded, of whom four are foreigners, only one elderly foreign woman is not in a very stable situation.”
Qani said the death toll had risen to six, including two Afghan civilians and one Taliban member.
Spain’s foreign ministry on Friday announced that three of the dead were Spanish tourists, adding that at least one other Spanish national was wounded.
According to preliminary information provided by hospital sources, the wounded were from Norway, Australia, Lithuania and Spain.
“They were roaming in the bazaar when they were attacked,” Qani added.
“Seven suspects have been arrested of which one is wounded, the investigation is still going on and the Islamic Emirate is seriously looking into the matter.”
He did not say if there had been multiple shooters.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Overwhelmed by the news of the murder of Spanish tourists in Afghanistan.”
The European Union condemned the attack “in the strongest terms.”
“Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the victims who lost their lives and those injured in the attack,” the bloc said in a statement.
The Taliban government, which took power in 2021 after a decade-long insurgency against foreign forces, has yet to be officially recognized by any government.
It has, however, supported a fledgling tourism sector, with more than 5,000 foreign tourists visiting Afghanistan in 2023, according to official figures.
Tourists holiday without consular support, after most embassies were evacuated, and many Western nations advise against all travel to the country, warning of kidnap and attack risks.
Alongside security concerns, the country has limited road infrastructure and a dilapidated health service.
Bamiyan is Afghanistan’s top tourist destination, known for turquoise lakes and striking mountains, and once home to the giant Buddha statues that were blown up by the Taliban in 2001 during their previous rule.
The number of bombings and suicide attacks in Afghanistan has reduced dramatically since the Taliban authorities took power and deadly attacks on foreigners are rare.
However, a number of armed groups, including the Daesh group, remain a threat.
The jihadist group has waged a campaign of attacks on foreign interests in a bid to weaken the Taliban government, targeting Pakistan and Russian embassies as well as Chinese businessmen.

Topics: Afghan security forces

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