CHARLESTON, United States: More than a million people were ordered Monday to evacuate the path of Hurricane Florence as the Category 4 storm packing winds of 130 miles per hour (195 kilometers per hour) bore down on the East Coast of the United States.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster told up to one million residents of the state’s eastern coast to leave their homes ahead of the powerful storm’s arrival on Thursday.
The governor of neighboring North Carolina also ordered an evacuation of the Outer Banks and parts of coastal Dare County while a state of emergency was declared in Virginia.
“This is a very dangerous hurricane,” McMaster said, adding that the evacuation order for coastal counties was “mandatory, not voluntary.”
“We do not want to risk one South Carolina life in this hurricane,” the governor told a press conference. “We’re liable to have a whole lot of flooding.”
Hurricane Florence has the potential to bring catastrophic flooding to areas of the eastern United States already soaked by heavy rain and may be the strongest storm to hit the region in decades.
A Category 4 on the five-level Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, Florence was 575 miles (925 kilometers) south-southeast of Bermuda and the center of the hurricane was forecast to pass between Bermuda and the Bahamas on Tuesday and Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its latest advisory.
“Florence has continued to rapidly strengthen,” the NHC said at 1500 GMT. “Florence is expected to be an extremely dangerous major hurricane through Thursday.”
President Donald Trump tweeted out a message to residents in the storm’s path, urging them to heed the warnings of state and local officials.
“To the incredible citizens of North Carolina, South Carolina and the entire East Coast — the storm looks very bad!” wrote the president, who canceled a planned rally Friday in Jackson, Mississippi in light of the approaching storm.
“Please take all necessary precautions. We have already began mobilizing our assets to respond accordingly, and we are here for you!“
At a hardware store in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, store manager John Johnson said the rush on batteries, flashlights, plastic tarps and sandbags began Friday.
“From eight o’clock ‘til two we were slammed,” said Johnson, who sold scores of bags of sand over the weekend, saving just a few to barricade the store’s own doors.
“We were nonstop.”
On Monday afternoon, nurse Barbara Mack was using a small shovel to fill sandbags at a public works facility in Charleston — but she saw a silver lining in the hurricane preparations.
“This is good exercise,” she quipped. “This is probably the only exercise I get this week.”
Storm surge and hurricane watches may be issued Tuesday morning for portions of southeastern US states, the NHC said.
On its current track, Florence is expected to slam the Carolinas and Virginia the hardest.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s office warned of “catastrophic inland flooding, high winds and possible widespread power outages,” cautioning that the deadliest risk would come from flooding.
The US Navy said it was preparing to send about 30 ships stationed in Virginia out to sea.
The vessels will get underway from Naval Station Norfolk and Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek to avoid potential damage from winds and tidal surges, Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning said.
Heavy rain in the Washington area over the weekend has already led to flooding in historic Alexandria, Virginia, and the National Weather Service issued a flood watch for part of the Potomac River.
Florence is currently moving west at around 13 mph (20 kph).
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper’s office said Florence is already being felt along the state’s coast, with large sea swells resulting in life-threatening rip currents and surf.
“This is a huge storm,” said Robert Woodward, chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners, predicting 15 to 20 inches of rain.
“Never have we seen quite this type of a storm approach us.”
At this height of the Atlantic hurricane season, Florence was being trailed on east-to-west paths by two other hurricanes, Helene and Isaac.
Helene — 375 miles (600 kms) west of the Cape Verde islands off the African coast — had winds up to 105 mph (165 kph), and was expected to continue moving west-northwest for another couple of days, the NHC said in its 1500 GMT bulletin.
Hurricane Isaac — which late Sunday became the fifth hurricane of the season — is heading west toward the Caribbean.
At 1500 GMT, Isaac, which the NHC called a small hurricane, was about 1,150 miles (1,855 kms) east of the Windward Islands — a region still recovering from last year’s powerful Hurricane Maria — with maximum sustained winds near 75 mph (120 kph).
Maria — which killed at least 3,057 people, most in Puerto Rico — is believed to be the third-costliest tropical cyclone on record.
The costliest hurricane in US history, Katrina was a Category 3 storm when it made landfall on the Gulf Coast in August 2005 — claiming an estimated 1,833 lives.
Over a million told to flee as Hurricane Florence stalks US East Coast
Over a million told to flee as Hurricane Florence stalks US East Coast
’Uncommitted’ organizers will join campus protesters in Michigan over Gaza
Democrats have become increasingly uneasy over the US support for Israel as the death toll and destruction climb in Gaza
WASHINGTON: Organizers behind the “uncommitted” political movement against President Joe Biden’s staunch support for Israel’s war against Hamas will travel to the University of Michigan’s campus on Thursday to join students protesting the war.
Student protests in the US over the war in Gaza have intensified and expanded over the past week after police first arrested students at Columbia, with so-called Gaza solidarity encampments established at colleges, including Yale, and New York University. Police have been called in to several campuses to arrest hundreds of student demonstrators.
Uncommitted organizers will travel to the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus, they told Reuters, bringing together a political movement that’s disrupted Biden events and amassed hundreds of thousands of votes in Democratic primaries and a student movement that’s drawn students and faculty of various backgrounds.
Biden won Michigan by less than a 3 percent margin in 2020.
Democrats have become increasingly uneasy over the US support for Israel as the death toll and destruction climb in Gaza. A growing revolt inside the Democratic base signifies the challenge Biden faces in bringing together the coalition he needs to defeat Republican frontrunner and former President Donald Trump.
“President Biden is choosing to put his hands over his ears and ignore the hundreds of thousands of people who have already come out against the war at the ballot box,” said Abbas Alawieh, a prominent “Uncommitted” organizer, who is going to Ann Arbor with Layla Elabed, another Michigan organizer.
“Signing into law more money for Israel is sending a clear message to uncommitted voters, young voters that he doesn’t care to engage seriously with our demands to end this war,” he said, referring to the $26 billion in new aid Biden recently approved.
Alawieh said the uncommitted movement has not been coordinating with student groups so far. “We have an electoral focus, but we certainly see the demands of student protesters, who are calling for peace,” he said.
On campuses where protests have broken out, students have issued calls for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to US military assistance for Israel, university divestment from arms suppliers and other companies profiting from the war, and amnesty for students and faculty members who have been disciplined or fired for protesting.
Biden told reporters on Monday that he condemned both “antisemitic protests” and “those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” Biden campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt has said the president “shares the goal for an end to the violence and a just, lasting peace in the Middle East. He’s working tirelessly to that end.”
Trump called the campus protest situation “a mess” as he walked into his criminal trial in New York.
The uncommitted movement amassed sizable vote totals in Michigan, Minnesota and Hawaii primaries and had won 25 delegates as of the beginning of April. They are preparing to target the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, where Biden is expected to be nominated.
Polls show Biden and Trump running neck-and-neck ahead of their Nov. 5 election rematch nationally. Biden’s 2020 victory was due to narrow wins in key swing states like Michigan.
US nudges Germany on long-range missiles for Ukraine
- Washington confirmed the day before that it had sent Ukraine a variant of the ATACMS missile with a range of 300 kilometers
- “In terms of Taurus... this is a decision for Germany,” a senior US defense official told journalists
WASHINGTON: The United States hopes decisions by it and allied countries to send long-range missiles to Ukraine may encourage similar action by Germany, which has so far refused to provide its Taurus missiles, a US official said Thursday.
Washington confirmed the day before that it had sent Ukraine a variant of the ATACMS missile with a range of 300 kilometers (190 miles), while France and Britain have respectively supplied SCALP and Storm Shadow missiles, both of which have a range of about 250 kilometers.
“In terms of Taurus... this is a decision for Germany,” a senior US defense official told journalists when asked if the provision of long-range ATACMS could clear the way for Taurus missiles to be sent to Kyiv.
“But certainly the US provision of ATACMS as well as prior decisions by the UK and France to provide long-range cruise missiles, we would certainly hope that this would be a factor,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Kyiv has long pushed for Germany to provide it with Taurus missiles — which can reach targets up to 500 kilometers away — to help its fight against invading Russian forces.
But Berlin has declined to send the missiles, fearing that it would lead to an escalation of the more-than-two-year-old conflict.
Moroccan man guilty of murdering man in UK in revenge for Gaza
- Ahmed Alid killed his 70-year-old victim after approaching him from behind
- After his arrest, he told detectives he had committed the acts because of the conflict in Gaza, and in revenge for Israel killing innocent children
LONDON: A Moroccan man who stabbed to death a passer-by in the street in northeast England in what he later told police was revenge for Israeli action in Gaza was found guilty of murder on Thursday.
Ahmed Alid, 45, who had sought asylum in Britain, killed his 70-year-old victim after approaching him from behind on a road in Hartlepool the early hours of Oct. 15 last year, having previously attacked his housemate with two knives, prosecutors said.
After his arrest, he told detectives he had committed the acts because of the conflict in Gaza, and in revenge for Israel killing innocent children, blaming Britain for creating Israel, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.
Alid said if he had had a machine gun, and more weapons, he would have killed more people.
“By his own admission, Ahmed Alid would have killed more people on that day if he had been able to,” Nick Price, Head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said in a statement.
“Whatever his views were on the conflict in Gaza, this was a man who chose to attack two innocent people with a knife, and the consequences were devastating.”
Alid had first used two knives to attack his sleeping housemate, to whom he had become aggressive after learning of his conversion to Christianity, stabbing him six times while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” or “god is greatest,” the CPS said.
The 32-year-old housemate, one of five asylum seekers who shared the property, managed to fight him off and another occupant came to his aid. Alid left the house with one of the knives and walked toward the center of Hartlepool.
He passed Terence Carney on the opposite side of the road before circling back and attacking him from behind, stabbing him six times in the chest, abdomen and back. Carney died shortly after police arrived.
Following his interview with police, he attacked the two female detectives, with one suffering injuries to her shoulder and wrist.
He was found guilty at Teeside Crown Court of murder, attempted murder and two counts of assaulting an emergency worker. He will be sentenced on May 17, when the judge will decide if his actions were related to terrorism.
India dismisses US human rights report as ‘deeply biased’
- Report found “significant” abuses in India’s Manipur state and attacks on minorities, dissenters
- India’s foreign ministry spokesperson says New Delhi does not attach any “value” to the report
NEW DELHI: New Delhi said on Thursday it does not attach any value to a US State Department report critical of human rights in India, and called it deeply biased.
The annual human rights assessment released earlier this week found “significant” abuses in India’s northeastern Manipur state last year and attacks on minorities, journalists and dissenting voices in the rest of the country.
Asked about it, Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jasiwal told journalists on Thursday that the report “as per our understanding, is deeply biased and reflects a very poor understanding of India.”
“We attach no value to it and urge you to also do the same,” Jaiswal said.
Responding to a question about the growing protests on US university campuses against Israel’s offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 33,000 people, Jaiswal said that “there has to be the right balance between freedom of expression, sense of responsibility and public safety and order.”
He added that “democracies in particular should display this understanding in regard to other fellow democracies, after all we are all judged by what we do at home and not what we say abroad.”
While India and the US have a tight partnership, and Washington wants New Delhi to be a strategic counterweight to China, the relationship has encountered some minor bumps recently.
In March New Delhi dismissed US concerns over the implementation of a contentious Indian citizenship law, calling them “misplaced” and “unwarranted,” and objected to a US State Department official’s remarks over the arrest of a key opposition leader.
Last year Washington accused Indian agents of being involved in a failed assassination plot against a Sikh separatist leader in the US, and warned New Delhi about it.
India has said it has launched an investigation into Washington’s accusations but there has not been any update about the investigation’s status or findings.
Sweden to send NATO troops to Latvia next year: PM
- The Swedish troop contribution was the first to be announced since the Scandinavian country joined NATO in March
- The battalion would be comprised of around 400 to 500 troops
STOCKHOLM: Sweden will next year contribute a reduced battalion to NATO forces in Latvia to help support the Baltic state following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Thursday.
The Swedish troop contribution was the first to be announced since the Scandinavian country joined NATO in March.
Kristersson had in January announced that Sweden would likely send a battalion to take part in NATO’s permanent multinational mission in Latvia, dubbed the Enhanced Forward Presence, aimed at boosting defense capacity in the region.
“The government this morning gave Sweden’s armed forces the formal task of planning and preparing for the Swedish contribution of a reduced mechanized battalion to NATO’s forward land forces in Latvia,” Kristersson told reporters during a press conference with his Latvian counterpart Evika Silina.
He said the battalion, which will be in Latvia for six months, would be comprised of around 400 to 500 troops.
“Our aim is a force contribution, including CV 90s armored vehicles and Leopard 2 main battle tanks.”
“We’re planning for the deployment early next year after a parliament decision,” he said.
