A powerful typhoon battered southern South Korea, injuring 26 people and knocking out power to about 27,790 houses, officials said Monday.
Typhoon Tapah earlier lashed parts of Japan’s southern islands with heavy rains and winds that caused flooding and some minor injuries.
South Korea’s interior ministry said Monday the typhoon also caused strong winds and heavy rainfall in southern South Korean cities and towns on Sunday and Monday. The storm did not make landfall on the peninsula as it moved northeast and weakened Monday.
The ministry said one person was hurt seriously and the 25 others had minor injuries. Some South Korean media had reported three deaths, but the ministry said none of those deaths was caused by the typhoon.
It flooded streets, damaged houses, and led to about 250 flight cancellations in 11 airports in South Korea, according to the ministry report.
South Korean weather officials said the typhoon likely caused light rain in eastern coastal towns in North Korea but won’t likely cause damage there.
Typhoon Tapah hit the southern Japanese island of Okinawa on Friday and Saturday and left 18 people with minor injuries. The storm disrupted air and train travel in the region during what is a three-day holiday weekend.
“Game of Thrones” resurrected the Iron Throne at Sunday’s Emmy ceremony, ruling as top drama on a night of surprises in which “Pose” star Billy Porter made history and the comedy series “Fleabag” led a British invasion that overturned expectations.
“This all started in the demented mind of George R.R. Martin,” said “Game of Thrones” producer David Benioff, thanking the author whose novels were the basis of HBO’s fantasy saga.
Porter, who stars in the FX drama set in the LGBTQ ball scene of the late 20th century, became the first openly gay man to win a best drama series acting Emmy.
“God bless you all. The category is love, you all, love. I’m so overjoyed and so overwhelmed to have lived to see this day,” said an exuberant Porter, resplendent in a sparkling suit and swooping hat.
Amazon’s “Fleabag,” a dark comedy about a dysfunctional woman, was honored as best comedy and earned top acting honors for its British creator and star, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and a best director trophy.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge, winner of the awards for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series, outstanding comedy series and outstanding writing for a comedy series for “Fleabag.”
“This is getting ridiculous,” Waller-Bridge said in her third trip to the stage to collect the top trophy.
Her acting win blocked “Veep” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus from setting a record as the most-honored performer in Emmy history.
“Nooooo!” a shocked-looking Waller-Bridge said as Louis-Dreyfus smiled for the cameras. “Oh, my God, no. Thank you. I find acting really hard and really painful. But it’s all about this,” she said, her acting trophy firmly in hand.
In accepting the writing award earlier, she called the Emmy recognition proof that “a dirty, pervy, messed-up woman can make it to the Emmys.”
Porter, a Tony and Grammy Award winning actor, relished his groundbreaking moment, quoting the late writer James Baldwin, Porter said it took him many years to believe he has the right to exist.
“I have the right, you have the right, we all have the right,” he said.
English actress Jodie Comer was honored as best drama actress for “Killing Eve.” She competed with co-star Sandra Oh, who received a Golden Globe for her role and would have been the first actress of Asian descent to win an Emmy in the category.
“My mum and dad are in Liverpool (England) and I didn’t invite them because I didn’t think this was going to be my time. One, I’m sorry, two I love you,” Comer said after saluting Oh.
Bill Hader won his second consecutive best comedy actor award for the hitman comedy “Barry.”
Peter Dinklage, named best supporting actor for “Game of Thrones,” set a record for most wins for the same role, four, breaking a tie with Aaron Paul of “Breaking Bad.”
“I count myself so fortunate to be a member of a community that is about nothing but tolerance and diversity, because in no other place I could be standing on a stage like this,” said Dinklage, a little person.
“Ozark” star Julia Garner won the best supporting drama actress trophy.
The auditorium erupted in cheers when Jharrel Jerome of “When They See Us,” about the Central Park Five case, won the best actor award for a limited series movie.
“Most important, this is for the men that we know as the Exonerated Five,” said Jerome, naming the five wrongly convicted men who were in the audience. They stood and saluted the actor as the crowd applauded them.
It was the only honor for the acclaimed Netflix series of the evening; “Chernobyl” won the best limited series honor.
HBO retained its durable front-runner status, with a total of 34 awards from Sunday and last weekend’s creative arts ceremony.
Alex Borstein accepts the award for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
But streaming hit new Emmy heights, powered by Amazon Prime winners “Fleabag,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and a “Very English Scandal,” and Netflix’s “Bandersnatch (Black Mirror),” honored as best movie. Netflix collected 27 awards and Amazon nabbed 15.
Michelle Williams, honored as best actress for her portrayal of dancer Gwen Verdon in FX’s limited series “Fosse/Verdon,” issued a call to arms for gender and ethnic equality.
She thanked the network and studio behind the project for “supporting me completely and paying me equally because they understood … when you put value into a person, it empowers that person to get in touch with their own inherent value. And where do they put that value, they put it into their work.”
“And so the next time a woman and, especially a woman of color, because she stands to make 52 cents on the dollar compared to her white male counterpart, tells you what she needs in order to do her job, listen to her,” Williams said.
Patricia Arquette won the trophy best supporting limited-series or movie actress for “The Act.” She paid emotional tribute to her late trans sister, Alexis Arquette, and called for an end to prejudice against trans people, including in the workplace.
Ben Whishaw took the category’s supporting actor trophy for “A Very English Scandal,” admitting in charming British fashion to a hangover.
Alex Borstein and Tony Shalhoub of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” won best supporting acting awards at the ceremony, which included early and varied messages of female empowerment after the hostless ceremony.
“I want to dedicate this to the strength of a woman, to (series creator) Amy Sherman-Palladino, to every woman on the ‘Maisel’ cast and crew,” Borstein said, and to her mother and grandmother. Her grandmother survived because she was courageous enough to step out of a line that, Borstein intimated, would have led to her death at the hands of Nazi Germany.
“She stepped out of line. And for that, I am here and my children are here, so step out of line, ladies. Step out of line,” said Borstein, who won the award last year.
Shalhoub added to his three Emmys which he earned for his signature role in “Monk.”
The awards opened without a host as promised, with an early exchange pitting Ben Stiller against Bob Newhart.
“I’m still alive,” Newhart told Stiller, who introduced him as part of a wax museum comedy hall of fame that included Lucille Ball and George Burns.
Kim Kardashian West and Kendall Jenner drew some mocking laughter in the audience when they presented their award after Kardashian West said their family “knows firsthand how truly compelling television comes from real people just being themselves.”
An animated Homer made a brief appearance on stage until he was abruptly crushed, with Anderson of “black-ish” rushing in to, as he vowed, rescue the evening. He called “Breaking Bad” star Cranston on stage to tout the power of television from its beginning to the current golden age.
“Television has never been bigger. Television has never mattered more. And television has never been this damn good,” Cranston said.
British tour operator Thomas Cook collapsed after failing to secure rescue funding, and travel bookings for its more than 600,000 global vacationers were canceled early Monday.
The British government said the return of the firm’s 150,000 British customers now abroad would be its largest repatriation in peacetime history.
The Civil Aviation Authority said Thomas Cook has ceased trading, its four airlines will be grounded, and its 21,000 employees in 16 countries, including 9,000 in the UK, will be left unemployed.
The debt-laden company had said Friday it was seeking 200 million pounds ($250 million) to avoid going bust, was in talks with shareholders and creditors to stave off failure. The 178-year-old firm also operated around 600 UK stores.
CAA said it had arranged an aircraft fleet for the British repatriation effort lasting two weeks beginning Monday.
“Due to the significant scale of the situation, some disruption is inevitable, but the Civil Aviation Authority will endeavor to get people home as close as possible to their planned dates,” it said in a statement.
Most of Thomas Cook’s British customers are protected by the government-run travel insurance program, which makes sure vacationers can get home if a British-based tour operator goes under while they are abroad.
Thomas Cook, which began in 1841 with a one-day train excursion in England and now operates in 16 countries, has been struggling over the past few years. It only recently raised 900 million pounds ($1.12 billion), including from leading Chinese shareholder Fosun.
In May, the company reported a debt burden of 1.25 billion pounds and cautioned that political uncertainty related to Britain’s departure from the European Union had hurt demand for summer holiday travel. Heat waves over the past couple of summers in Europe have also led many people to stay at home, while higher fuel and hotel costs have weighed on the travel business.
The company’s troubles were already affecting those traveling under the Thomas Cook banner.
A British vacationer told BBC radio on Sunday that the Les Orangers beach resort in the Tunisian town of Hammamet, near Tunis, demanded that guests who were about to leave pay extra money for fear it wouldn’t be paid what it is owed by Thomas Cook.
Ryan Farmer, of Leicestershire, said many tourists refused the demand, since they had already paid Thomas Cook, so security guards shut the hotel’s gates and “were not allowing anyone to leave.”
It was like “being held hostage,” said Farmer, who is due to leave Tuesday. He said he would also refuse to pay if the hotel asked him.
The Associated Press called the hotel, as well as the British Embassy in Tunis, but no officials or managers were available for comment.
Egypt’s media authority warned journalists Sunday that it was monitoring coverage to ensure they abide by “professional codes” amid a rare burst of protests against President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. The warning came hours after the latest small protest was dispersed by police in clouds of tear gas.
Dozens of people including children marched Saturday evening in the port city of Suez, calling for el-Sissi to step down, three witnesses told The Associated Press. Police “pursued the people in the streets … there was lots of gas,” one resident said. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals.
The protest came after rare anti-government demonstrations in several Egyptian cities late Friday. Those too were quickly broken up by police. But they marked a startling eruption of street unrest, which has been almost completely silenced the past years by draconian measures imposed under el-Sissi.
The government effectively banned all public protests in 2013 shortly after el-Sissi led the military’s overthrow of the country’s first freely elected civilian president in modern history. Since then, anyone who dared take to the streets was quickly arrested and received years-long prison sentences.
In its statement issued Sunday, the State Information Service, which accredits foreign media representatives, said it has “carefully monitored” the coverage of the protest.
It called for reporters to “strictly abide by professional codes of conduct” and for media to provide a space for “viewpoints to be presented in an equal manner and that includes the viewpoint of the State or who represents it.” The SIS has issued similar statements in the past surrounding sensitive events.
It also warned that “social media outlets should not be considered as sources of news,” because of the numerous “fake accounts and fabrications.”
False information about protests has appeared on social media, including videos of protests from years past presented as if they were happening live.
But social media have also been vital for getting out authentic videos of protests, since they are the only venue not dominated by the government. Nearly all newspapers and television channels in Egypt are under the sway of the government or military and have given almost no coverage to the protests. In recent years, Egypt has imprisoned dozens of reporters and occasionally expelled some foreign journalists.
In the wake of Friday’s protests, security forces have reportedly arrested dozens of people in Cairo and other parts of the country, according to the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, a non-governmental organization.
The new protests emerge from an online campaign, led by an Egyptian businessman living in self-imposed exile who has presented himself as a whistleblower against corruption. His calls for demonstrations come at a time when Egypt’s lower and middle classes have been badly squeezed by years of economic reforms and austerity measures.
The businessman, Mohammed Ali, has put out a series of viral videos claiming corruption by the military and government. His videos inspired others — often wearing masks to hide their identity — to post their own videos relating experiences with alleged corruption or mismanagement.
Ali has alleged his contracting business witnessed the largescale misuse of public funds in military-run projects building luxury hotels, presidential palaces and a tomb for el-Sissi’s mother, who died in 2014.
El-Sissi has dismissed the corruption allegations as “sheer lies.” However, he said he would continue building new presidential residences for the good of Egypt. “I am building a new country,” he said.
El-Sissi and government officials have argued that the military is the only institution that can efficiently lead mega-projects aimed at stoking the economy. The president has repeatedly warned that protests and demonstrations risk causing chaos that would disrupt efforts at repairing the country.
Also Sunday, Egyptian prosecutors ordered the brother of a prominent Egyptian activist to remain in custody for 15 days, a rights lawyer told AP.
Wael Ghonim is in self-exile in the U.S. and led a Facebook page that helped ignite the 2011 pro-democracy uprising. He has recently been criticizing el-Sissi on social media, and says his brother’s arrest from their parents’ home in Cairo was retaliation for that criticism.
FILE – Mahinour el-Masry, an Egyptian activist, takes notes during a trial session of activists facing charges on organizing unauthorized protests, at a courtroom in Cairo, Egypt, Dec. 4, 2014..
Mahinour el-Masry, a rights lawyer and notable activist from the 2011 uprising, was arrested Sunday as well.
Egyptian authorities have imposed heavy security in the capital, Cairo, particularly around near Tahrir Square. That was the epicenter of the so-called Arab Spring uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
El-Sissi is a former army general who has overseen an unprecedented political crackdown, silencing critics and jailing thousands. Shortly after the military took power in 2013, a sit-in by Islamists was broken up by security forces in an operation that left hundreds dead.
Egypt remains among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, along with Turkey and China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S. based non-profit.
A visiting Afghan Taliban delegation held talks with senior officials in China Sunday to discuss the Islamist insurgent group’s now defunct peace negotiations with the United States.
The insurgent visit comes two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump had abruptly called off his administration’s months-long peace talks, citing ongoing Taliban deadly attacks in Afghanistan.
The two adversaries were believed to be on the verge of signing an agreement to end the 18-year-old Afghan war before Trump declared the peace process as “dead.”
Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said the nine-member delegation has traveled to Beijing under the leadership of Mullah Baradar, the head of the group’s political office in Qatar, which hosted the U.S.-Taliban talks.
The visitors’ opened their tour with a meeting Sunday with Chinese special envoy for Afghanistan, Deng Xijun, the Taliban spokesman said.
“The Chinese special representative said the U.S.-Taliban deal is a good framework for the peaceful solution of the Afghan issue and they support it,” Shaheen noted.
He quoted Baradar as telling the Chinese host the Taliban had initiated the talks with the U.S. and a “comprehensive deal” was also concluded.
“Now, if the American president cannot uphold his words and promises, then the responsibility for further destruction and bloodshed in Afghanistan rests on his shoulders,” Baradar said.
There were was no immediate comments available from Chinese officials about their meetings with the Taliban delegation.
On Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman while addressing his regular news conference in Beijing had called for restarting the stalled U.S.-Taliban peace process.
“We stand ready to enhance coordination and cooperation with all parties concerned to contribute to the national reconciliation, peace and stability in Afghanistan at an early date,” said Geng Shuang.
Prior to their visit to China, the Taliban had sent its political representatives to Russia and Iran to discuss developments that had stemmed from President Trump’s cancellation of the talks with insurgents.
Shaheen, who is part of the delegation visiting Beijing, said that Moscow and Tehran both have also supported the Taliban’s efforts for promoting peace and security in Afghanistan.
The insurgent group’s diplomatic efforts come as Afghanistan is set to hold its fourth presidential election later this week, amid allegations incumbent President Ashraf Ghani, who is seeking reelection, is using state resources to run his campaign. Ghani’s campaign team has rejected the charges.
The Taliban has threatened to launch violent attacks on election-related activities to disrupt the September 28 vote. An insurgent suicide bomber targeted an election rally Ghani was addressing last week in the northern Parwan province that killed around 30 people and injured many more.
More than 600,000 vacationers who booked through tour operator Thomas Cook were on edge Sunday, wondering if they will be able to get home, as one of the world’s oldest and biggest travel companies teetered on the edge of collapse.
The debt-laden company, which confirmed Friday it was seeking 200 million pounds ($250 million) in funding to avoid going bust, was in talks with shareholders and creditors to stave off failure.
A collapse could leave around 150,000 travelers from Britain stranded, along with hundreds of thousands from other countries. The company has sought to reassure customers that flights were continuing to operate as normal.
Most of Thomas Cook’s British customers are protected by the government-run travel insurance program, which makes sure vacationers can get home if a British-based tour operator goes under while they are abroad.
Thomas Cook’s financial difficulties also raised questions about the jobs of the 22,000 people employed by the company around the world, including 9,000 in Britain.
Unions and Britain’s opposition Labour Party urged the government to intervene financially to save jobs if the company fails to raise the necessary financing from the private sector.
If the company collapsed, Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority would probably be ordered by the government to launch a major operation to fly stranded vacationers home, much as it did when Monarch Airlines went bust nearly two years ago.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab gave assurances that British vacationers will not be left stranded.
“I don’t want to give all the details of it because it depends on the nature of how people are out there,” he told the BBC. “But I can reassure people that, in the worst-case scenario, the contingency planning is there to avoid people being stranded.”
Rebecca Long Bailey, Labour’s business spokesperson, said the government “faces a simple choice between a 200 million-pound government cash injection to save the company now versus a 600 million-pound bill to repatriate U.K. holidaymakers.”
Thomas Cook, which began in 1841 with a one-day train excursion in England and now operates in 16 countries, has been struggling over the past few years. It only recently raised 900 million pounds ($1.12 billion), including from leading Chinese shareholder Fosun.
In May, the company reported a debt burden of 1.25 billion pounds and cautioned that political uncertainty related to Britain’s departure from the European Union had hurt demand for summer holiday travel. Heat waves over the past couple of summers in Europe have also led many people to stay at home, while higher fuel and hotel costs have weighed on the travel business.
The company’s troubles appear to be already affecting those traveling under the Thomas Cook banner.
A British vacationer told BBC radio on Sunday that the Les Orangers beach resort in the Tunisian town of Hammamet, near Tunis, demanded that guests who were about to leave pay extra money for fear it wouldn’t be paid what it is owed by Thomas Cook.
Ryan Farmer, of Leicestershire, said many tourists refused the demand, since they had already paid Thomas Cook, so security guards shut the hotel’s gates and “were not allowing anyone to leave.”
It was like “being held hostage,” said Farmer, who is due to leave Tuesday. He said he would also refuse to pay if the hotel asked him.
The Associated Press called the hotel, as well as the British Embassy in Tunis, but no officials or managers were available for comment.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino says soccer’s world governing body “cannot wait any more” and has been “assured” by Tehran that the authorities will allow women spectators into the arena when Iran hosts its next international match.
Infantino’s comments follow a FIFA delegation visit to Iran over the conservative Shi’ite leadership’s longtime ban on women at major men’s sporting events — a policy that turned more tragic with the recent death of a young woman who was being punished for trying to sneak into a stadium disguised as a man.
Iran is scheduled to play Cambodia in a 2022 World Cup qualifier on October 10 at Azadi Stadium in Tehran.
“In these productive discussions, FIFA reiterated its firm and clear position that women need to be allowed to enter football matches freely and that the number of women who attend the stadiums be determined by the demand, resulting in ticket sales,” FIFA said in a September 21 statement summarizing the delegation’s visit to Tehran and Azadi Stadium.
FIFA further said it would work with Iran’s national soccer federation, the FFIRI, to ensure that women spectators could get into the Iranian soccer league’s matches in future.
The delegation “discussed the need to open stadiums for women to attend national matches. In that respect, FIFA announced that it will, based on the operational plans and results of the [October 10] game, collaborate with the FFIRI in developing an operational protocol and related requirements for matches in the Iranian football league to be opened for women as well.”
There was a social outcry upon news that 29-year-old Iranian Sahar Khodayari had died earlier this month after dousing herself with gasoline and setting herself alight on September 2 following charges over her bid to see a match in March.
FILE – Iranian women cheer as they wave their country’s flag after authorities in a rare move allowed a select group of women into Azadi stadium to watch a friendly soccer match between Iran and Bolivia, in Tehran, Oct. 16, 2018.
Iranian officials have sometimes allowed select groups of women into specific areas to watch soccer matches or other men’s sporting events in the past, but have resolutely held the line for nearly four decades at general admission for women.
Khodayari, nicknamed “The Blue Girl” after the colors of her favorite team, Esteghlal, had reportedly suffered burns over 90 percent of her body in the self-immolation.
A sister had told RFE/RL that the girl suffered from bipolar disorder and that her mental state had deteriorated after her arrest and hearing that she could spend six months in prison.
Iranian President Hassan Rohani has mostly failed to deliver on pledges to open up some aspects of Iranian society, including reforms that could help lift Iranian women from distant second-class status under the law.
Iranian women exercise at a football school in Tehran, Sept. 14, 2019.
FIFA has received frequent criticism for its perceived failure to confront Iran’s and others’ gender-based discrimination.
On August 25, Iranian Deputy Sports Minister Jamshid Tahizade announced that women would be allowed to attend the Cambodia match.
But Tehran has dithered on the issue in the past, apparently prompting the FIFA visit this month.
“FIFA’s position is firm and clear,” the group said in its recent statement. “Women have to be allowed into football stadiums in Iran. For all football matches.”
Protesters on Hong Kong vandalized a subway station and defaced a Chinese flag Sunday during another weekend of pro-democracy demonstrations.
Thousands also rallied inside a shopping mall in Sha Tin. Protesters later built a barricade across the street and set it on fire.
Riot police fired tear gas to disperse some of the protesters.
Riot police patrol inside Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong, Sept. 22, 2019.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong has cut back rail and bus access to its airport in a move designed to avoid an anti-government protests at one of the busiest airport hubs in the world.
“There are calls online for using fake boarding passes, fake air tickets or fake flight booking information to enter the terminal buildings…the Airport Authority reminds that such behavior could amount to forgery or using false instrument,” the authority said in a statement warning demonstrators to stay away.
Damaged ticket machines are seen inside Sha Tin MTR station after an anti-government rally at New Town Plaza at Sha Tin, Hong Kong, Sept. 22, 2019
On Saturday, police fired tear gas at demonstrators who vandalized a light rail station.
A proposed bill that would have allowed some Hong Kong criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial sparked the months-long, anti-government demonstrations.
The extradition legislation has been withdrawn, but the demonstrations continue.
Dissenters have since broadened their demands for the direct election of their leaders and police accountability.
More than 1,300 people have been arrested since the demonstrations began in early June.
The Islamic State group on Saturday claimed a bomb blast that killed 12 people near the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Karbala the previous day.
The blast aboard a bus at a checkpoint north of Karbala also wounded five people, according to the city’s health authorities.
Security forces said Saturday that they had arrested a man suspected of placing the explosives on the bus before it disembarked.
Iraq declared victory against IS in late 2017 after three years of a brutal fight against the extremist Sunni group, which had specifically targeted Shiite gatherings.
Jihadist sleeper cells have continued to carry out hit-and-run attacks against government positions across the country, particularly at checkpoints, but attacks targeting Shiite religious gatherings had been rare in recent years.
The deadliest incident this year was a stampede earlier this month in Karbala that left more than 30 pilgrims dead and dozens injured.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from Iraq, Iran and as far away as India had been gathering in the southern city this month to mark the Shiite holy day of Ashura.
Iraq is expecting millions more Shiite pilgrims to arrive at the end of October for the annual Arbaeen commemoration, which marks the end of the 40-day mourning period for the seventh-century killing of Imam Hussein by the forces of the Caliph Yazid.
Greek police said Saturday they have arrested a suspect in the 1985 hijacking of a flight from Athens that became a multiday ordeal and included the slaying of an American.
Police said a 65-year-old suspect in the hijacking was arrested Thursday on the island of Mykonos in response to a warrant from Germany.
Lt. Col. Theodoros Chronopoulos, a police spokesman, told The Associated Press that the hijacking case involved TWA Flight 847. The flight was commandeered by hijackers shortly after taking off from Athens on June 14, 1985. It originated in Cairo and had San Diego as a final destination, with stops scheduled in Athens, Rome, Boston and Los Angeles.
FILE – While holding carnations he carried off the plane, former hostage Victor Amburgy hugs an unidentified girl upon arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, July 2, 1985. Thirty former hostages from TWA flight 847 were greeted by President Reagan.
The hijackers shot and killed U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, 23, after beating him unconscious. They released the other 146 passengers and crew members on the plane during an ordeal that included stops in Beirut and Algiers. The last hostage was freed after 17 days.
Suspect from Lebanon
The suspect was in custody Saturday on the Greek island of Syros but was set to be transferred to the Korydallos high security prison in Athens for extradition proceedings, a police spokeswoman told The Associated Press. She said the suspect was a Lebanese citizen. The spokeswoman spoke on condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing.
Police refused to release the suspect’s name.
In Beirut, the Foreign Ministry said the man detained in Greece is a Lebanese journalist called Mohammed Saleh, and that a Lebanese embassy official planned to try to visit him Sunday.
However, several Greek media outlets identified the detainee as Mohammed Ali Hammadi, who was arrested in Frankfurt in 1987 and convicted in Germany for the plane hijacking and Stethem’s slaying. Hammadi, an alleged Hezbollah member, was sentenced to life in prison but was paroled in 2005 and returned to Lebanon.
Germany had resisted pressure to extradite him to the United States after Hezbollah abducted two German citizens in Beirut and threatened to kill them.
Hammadi, along with fellow hijacker Hasan Izz-Al-Din and accomplice Ali Atwa, remains on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists. The FBI offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to each man’s capture.
News agency dpa reported Saturday that Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office declined to comment on news reports about the case.
The widespread damage brought to the Houston area by one of the wettest tropical cyclones in U.S. history came into broader view Saturday, as floodwaters receded to reveal the exhausting cleanup effort that lies ahead for many communities and homeowners.
Hundreds of homes and other buildings in the region, extending eastward from Houston and across the Louisiana border, were damaged by Imelda, as the one-time tropical storm slowly churned across the region, dumping more than 40 inches (102 centimeters) of rain in some spots and being blamed for at least five deaths.
Officials in Harris County, which is home to Houston, were trying to determine if millions of dollars in uninsured losses were enough to trigger a federal disaster declaration, Francisco Sanchez, a spokesman for the county’s Office of Emergency Management, said Saturday.
FILE – In this photo provided by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, a family is rescued via fan boat by a member of the department from the floodwaters of Tropical Depression Imelda near Beaumont, Texas, Sept. 19, 2019.
Authorities raised the storm’s death toll to five, saying it was believed to have killed a 52-year-old Florida man who was found dead Thursday in his stranded pickup truck along Interstate 10 near Beaumont, which is near Texas’ border with Louisiana. Jefferson County spokeswoman Allison Getz said that although floodwaters seeped into Mark Dukaj’s truck, investigators didn’t think he drowned, though they did think his death was storm-related. An autopsy will determine the cause.
A section of the highway just east of Houston remained closed Saturday after at least two runaway barges struck two bridges carrying eastbound and westbound traffic. Nearly 123,000 vehicles normally cross the bridges each day, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. The Coast Guard has said that witnesses reported early Friday that nine barges had broken away from their moorings at a shipyard along the fast-moving San Jacinto River.
Two barges stuck
Two barges remained lodged against the bridges, said Emily Black, a spokeswoman for the state Transportation Department.
“The current is really very strong right now, so it’s kind of pushed them up against the columns,” she said.
Inspectors hope that the water will recede and the current will slow down enough for the barges to be removed this weekend so that a better assessment of the damage to the bridges can be made.
Several schools in the Beaumont area were damaged by floodwaters and two are closed indefinitely as officials evaluate the extent of the damage, the Beaumont Enterprise reported. The closure of schools in two separate school districts could affect more than 3,000 students.
Counties in the region, meanwhile, imposed curfews to ensure motorists stayed off roadways that still have standing water.
Elsewhere, in Galveston County, officials said people along a Gulf Coast peninsula could be without fresh water service for a month because a water treatment plant was knocked out of operation by flooding, The Galveston County Daily News reported.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is facing his first major crisis on how to respond to the attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which he blamed on Iran. In response to the attacks, President Donald Trump has approved the deployment of U.S. troops — defensive in nature — and military equipment to Saudi Arabia. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine looks at Pompeo’s close relationship with the president and his leadership skills on display at this critical moment.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is facing his first major crisis on how to respond to the attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which he blamed on Iran. In response to the attacks, President Donald Trump has approved the deployment of U.S. troops — defensive in nature — and military equipment to Saudi Arabia. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine looks at Pompeo’s close relationship with the president and his leadership skills on display at this critical moment.
U.S. President Donald Trump is denying he said anything “wrong” in a telephone conversation with the new president of Ukraine during which Trump allegedly urged him to investigate the son of former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.
Democrats meanwhile stepped up their criticism of the president for what they characterized as an attempt to engage a foreign leader in a scheme to damage the candidacy of Trump’s leading rival in the 2020 campaign.
Trump tweeted Saturday morning he had a “perfectly fine and routine conversation” on July 25 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and that, “Nothing was said that was in any way wrong.”
Trump accused Democrats and the news media of ignoring allegations against the Bidens and creating a false story about him.
“The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat (sic) Party, want to stay as far away as possible from the Joe Biden demand that the Ukrainian Government fire a prosecutor who was investigating his son, or they won’t get a very large amount of U.S. money, so they fabricate … a story about me …”
The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, want to stay as far away as possible from the Joe Biden demand that the Ukrainian Government fire a prosecutor who was investigating his son, or they won’t get a very large amount of U.S. money, so they fabricate a…..
Trump urged Zelenskiy about eight times during their conversation to investigate Biden’s son, according to news reports citing people familiar with the matter. The sources were quoted saying Trump’s intent was to get Zelenskiy to collaborate with Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani on an investigation that could undermine Biden.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko on Saturday denied Trump had pressured Zelenskiy during the call, telling the media outlet Hromadski that Ukraine would not take sides in U.S. politics even if the country was in a position to do so.
FILE – Rudy Giuliani speaks at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington, Nov. 14, 2016.
Trump and Giuliani have pushed for an investigation of the Bidens for weeks, following news reports this year that explored whether a Ukrainian energy company tried to secure influence in the U.S. by employing Biden’s younger son, Hunter.
Democrats are condemning what they perceive as a concerted effort to damage Biden, who has been thrust into the middle of an unidentified whistleblower’s complaint against Trump. Biden is currently the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The Trump administration has blocked procedures under which the whistleblower complaint would have normally been forwarded by the U.S. intelligence community to members of the Democrat-controlled Congress, keeping its contents secret.
FILE – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, left, gestures next to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, during a bilateral meeting in Warsaw, Poland, Sept. 1, 2019.
However a series of leaks have indicated the complaint is based on multiple events, including the July telephone conversation between Trump and Zelenskiy, two people familiar with the matter said. The sources were granted anonymity in order to discuss the issue.
One person briefed on the call said said Trump urged Zelenskiy to investigate Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. The controversy unfolded amid a White House-ordered delay in the delivery of lethal military assistance to Ukraine, but the unnamed source was quoted saying Trump did not mention U.S. aid in his conversation with Zelenskiiy.
Biden said late Friday that if the reports are accurate, “then there is truly no bottom to President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country.” Biden also called on Trump to disclose the transcript of his conversation with Zelenskiy so “the American people can judge for themselves.”
The intelligence community inspector general has described the whistleblower’s August 12 complaint as “serious” and “urgent,” conditions that would normally require him to forward the complaint to Congress. Trump has characterized the complaint as “just another political hack job.”
The standoff raises new questions about the extent to which Trump’s appointees, including the acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire, are protecting the Republican president from congressional oversight.
Democrats maintain the administration is legally required to give Congress access to the complaint. House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff said any attempt by Trump to urge a foreign country to “dig up dirt” on a political foe while withholding aid is inappropriate.
“No explicit quid pro quo is necessary to betray your country,” Schiff tweeted Friday.
House Democrats are also battling the administration for access to witnesses and documents in ongoing impeachment investigations.
The whistleblower case has lawmakers investigating whether Giuliani traveled to Ukraine to pressure the government to help Trump’s reelection chances by investigating Hunter Biden and whether his father intervened in the country’s politics to help his son’s business.
Late in the administration of then-President Barack Obama in 2016, Joe Biden was sent to Kiev armed with a threat to withhold billions of dollars in government loan guarantees unless the country cracked down on corruption. Biden’s primary demand was to fire the chief prosecutor at the time, Viktor Shokin, for ineffectiveness. Shokin was fired shortly thereafter.
But before the vice president arrived in Kiev, Shokin had already opened an investigation into Burisma Holdings, a natural gas company on which Hunter was a board member receiving $50,000 per month. Burisma is owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, a Ukrainian businessman and politician.
While Republicans are suggesting the senior Biden used the loan money as leverage force an end to the Bursima investigation, Bloomberg News, citing a former Ukrainian official and Ukranian documents, reported that the probe had been dormant since 2015, long before Biden’s trip to Kyiv.
Giuliani had meetings this year in New York with Shokin’s successor, Yuriy Lutsenko. Around the same time, Ukraine revived the case against Burisma. The New York Times reported Lutsenko relaunched the probe to “curry favor from the Trump administration for his boss and ally.”
The reported timeline appears to be more consistent with Biden’s contention that he was pushing for the ouster of a prosecutor who was failing to rein in rampant corruption, instead of seeking the firing of a prosecutor threatening a company linked to his son.
During a CNN interview Thursday, Giuliani initially said “No” when asked if he had asked Ukraine to investigate Biden, but said seconds later, “of course I did.”
U.S. President Donald Trump announced new sanctions Friday on Iran’s central bank, calling them the most severe sanctions ever imposed on a country. But it appears that he wants to avoid military action against Tehran, in response to recent cruise missile and drone strikes against Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this story.
Francis Rooney is a Republican congressman from a conservative Florida district who opposes federal funding for abortions and supports President Donald Trump’s plans for construction of a wall along the Mexican border.
But he also recently co-sponsored a carbon pricing bill and is one of a handful of lawmakers from his side of the aisle who have bucked orthodoxy and acknowledged human beings are responsible for global warming.
The modern Republican Party is one of the few political forces in the world whose leadership denies manmade climate change, but there are now small yet perceptible signs of changes within its ranks, driven by an increase in extreme weather events and shifting public opinion.
FILE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., second from left, poses during a ceremonial swearing-in with Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., right, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 3, 2019.
“Seventy-one percent of the people in my district say that climate change is real. We’re scared of sea-level rise and we want the government to do something about it,” Rooney, citing recent polling, said at a talk this week organized by the World Resources Institute.
In late July, he along with Democrat Dan Lipinksi of Illinois introduced a new bill aimed at setting a price on carbon emissions, one of several similar proposed laws currently before the House of Representatives.
Extreme weather
For now, the legislation has no hope of passing: fellow Republicans are highly unlikely to take it up in the Senate, and even if it did clear the upper house, Trump would almost certainly exercise his veto.
But the bills “indicate that Republicans and Democrats are beginning to agree that a price on carbon is the most efficient way to reduce America’s emissions,” the Citizens’ Climate Lobby wrote in a blog post on the subject.
FILE – A man hangs his clothes after washing them at the Mudd neighborhood, devastated after Hurricane Dorian hit the Abaco Islands in Marsh Harbor, Bahamas, Sept. 6, 2019.
“Republicans are getting very nervous about their lack of any serious policy on climate change, because climate change is beginning to have huge costs to average everyday Americans,” Paul Bledsoe, a former staffer for ex-president Bill Clinton and lecturer at American University, told AFP.
There is a broad scientific consensus that warmer oceans are supercharging hurricanes, making Category 4 and 5 storms more common.
New research suggests that warming may also be affecting global atmospheric currents, thus increasing the frequency of ultra slow-crawling hurricanes like last month’s Dorian and 2017’s Harvey.
Rooney and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who also supports a carbon tax, are the two most outspoken Republican lawmakers on climate change, but in recent months others have begun talking about the need to reduce emissions.
These include Senator John Barasso from deep red Wyoming, who earlier this year introduced a bill to expand nuclear power, in part citing the need to address climate change, and a handful of others including Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and John Cornyn of Texas who have made similar calls to expand renewables.
But if the majority of the party of Lincoln remains ostensibly skeptical of the science surrounding climate change, it was not ever thus.
FILE – The coal-fired Plant Scherer in Juliette, Ga., June 3, 2017. The Trump administration is doing away with a decades-old air emissions policy opposed by fossil fuel companies, a move that environmental groups say will result in more pollution.
Rightward lurch
Karolyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute told AFP that when Americans first became conscious of it in the late 1960s, environmentalism was a non-partisan cause — indeed, it was under President Richard Nixon that the Environmental Protection Agency was created.
The practice of imposing taxes to reduce emissions was later used to great effect by former president George H.W. Bush, who in 1990 signed an amendment to the Clean Air Act that placed a price on sulfur dioxide to address the then-serious problem of acid rain, a wildly successful policy.
But Republicans then assumed a harder tack driven by lobbying from special interest groups funded by the likes of the Koch brothers, along with the emergence of an anti-taxation wing under the Republican Congress of the 1990s and the Tea Party movement of the late 2000s.
The question of what happens next is up for debate.
A Trump victory in 2020 would put to rest any chance of a serious climate policy becoming law in the U.S., according to Bledsoe, even if younger Republicans are starting to care more about the issue.
But David Karol, the author of “Red, Green and Blue: The Partisan Divide on Environmental Issues,” said the emergence in Congress of the bipartisan “Climate Solutions Caucus” in 2016 was an interesting development, even if some environmentalists have deemed it a way for Republican legislators to “check a box and claim to care.”
“Even if that’s true, the fact that the GOP politicians felt a need to do this says something about where they think public opinion is,” Karol said.
The United States said it is deeply disappointed in Kiribati’s decision to abandon its diplomatic ties with Taiwan, in favor of China.
Several Republican and Democratic lawmakers voiced grave concerns. A Senate panel plans to move forward with a congressional proposal that could “impose consequences on nations downgrading ties with Taiwan.”
In a stern statement on Friday, a State Department spokesperson said “countries that establish closer ties to China primarily out of the hope or expectation that such a step will stimulate economic growth and infrastructure development often find themselves worse off in the long run.”
The spokesperson said the U.S. supports the status quo in cross-Strait relations, which includes Taiwan’s diplomatic ties and international space, as important to maintaining peace and stability in the region.
“China’s active campaign to alter the cross-Strait status quo, including by enticing countries to discontinue diplomatic ties with Taiwan, are harmful and undermine regional stability. They undermine the framework that has enabled peace, stability, and development for decades,” the spokesperson told VOA.
Kiribati
The Pacific island nation of Kiribati severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan on Friday, becoming the second country to do so this week and bolstering China’s hand.
This comes as another blow to Taiwan, as its three decades’ diplomatic relations with the Solomon Islands ended on Monday after the Pacific island state’s cabinet voted in favor of switching ties to China.
“In the last couple weeks, the Solomon Islands and now Kiribati have cut formal ties with Taiwan under pressure from Beijing. Unless this behavior is confronted, Beijing will stop at nothing to isolate Taiwan internationally,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said.
In the last couple weeks, the Solomon Islands and now Kiribati have cut formal ties with Taiwan under pressure from Beijing. Unless this behavior is confronted, Beijing will stop at nothing to isolate Taiwan internationally. https://t.co/dVS8h1uLgm
The U.S. sees Taiwan as part of a network of Asian democracies, calling Taiwan “a democratic success story and a force for good in the world.” Informal Taiwan-U.S. ties have improved under U.S. President Donald Trump.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, who is also ranking member of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, also weighed in on Twitter.
China’s predatory campaign to isolate #Taiwan from the rest of the international community is seriously alarming & unacceptable. Taiwan is, and always will be, one of our most important partners in the region. We must continue to stand for democracy. https://t.co/B0XUjcMve3
Next week, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations will consider the so-called TAIPEI Act, the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act, said Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner in a tweet.
“Kiribati ending diplomatic ties with Taiwan demonstrates a need for urgent action,” said Gardner, who is the chairman of Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and international cybersecurity policy.
The proposed bill will allow the secretary of state to consider “the expansion, termination, or reduction” of U.S. foreign assistance to countries that downgrade ties with Taiwan.
China’s ‘problematic behavior’
As China’s influence in the region has grown, American officials frequently point out what they see as “a range of increasingly problematic behavior” that includes China’s ongoing militarization of disputed features in the South China Sea, and “predatory” economic activities and investments seen to undermine good governance and promote corruption and human rights abuses.
“This should concern all countries,” a State Department official told VOA.
Funds were promised by China in return for Kiribati’s recognition, Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said.
“According to information obtained by Taiwan, the Chinese government has already promised to provide full funds for the procurement of several airplanes and commercial ferries, thus luring Kiribati into switching diplomatic relations,” Wu said.
One China principle
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Kiribati’s decision “fully testifies to the fact that the One China principle meets the shared aspiration of the people.”
Geng added, “There is but one China in the world and the government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China.”
The two sides split after the 1949 civil war when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces were driven off the mainland by Mao Zedong’s Communists and sought refuge on Taiwan. But Beijing considers the self-ruled island part of its territory and has vowed to take control of it, by force if necessary.
The U.S. switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, but U.S. presidents are bound by law to supply it with arms and come to its defense.
The nuance between Washington’s “One China policy” and China’s “One China principle” is that the U.S. stance leaves open the possibility that a future resolution could be determined peacefully by both China and Taiwan.
Hundreds protested in central Cairo and several other Egyptian cities late on Friday against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, responding to an online call for a demonstration against government corruption, witnesses said.
Protests have become very rare in Egypt following a broad crackdown on dissent under Sisi, who took power after the overthrow of the former Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in 2013 following mass protests against his rule.
Security forces moved to disperse the small and scattered crowds in Cairo using tear gas but many young people stayed on the streets in the center of the capital, shouting “Leave Sisi,” Reuters reporters at the scene said.
Police arrested some of the demonstrators, witnesses said.
Small protests were also held in Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, Suez on the Red Sea as well as the Nile Delta textile town of Mahalla el-Kubra, about 110 km (68 miles) north of Cairo, according to residents and videos posted online.
There was a heavy security presence in downtown Cairo and on Tahrir Square where mass protests started in 2011 which toppled veteran ruler Hosni Mubarak.
Authorities could not be immediately reached to comment.
State TV did not cover the incidents.
A pro-government TV anchor said only a small group of protesters had gathered in central Cairo to take videos and selfies before leaving the scene. Another pro-government channel said the situation around the Tahrir Square was quiet.
Mohamed Ali, a building contractor and actor turned political activist who lives in Spain, called in a series of videos for the protest after accusing Sisi and the military of corruption.
Last Saturday, Sisi dismissed the claims as “lies and slander.”
Sisi was first elected in 2014 with 97% of the vote, and re-elected four years later with the same percentage, in a vote in which the only other candidate was an ardent Sisi supporter.
His popularity has been dented by economic austerity measures.
Sisi’s supporters say dissent must be quashed to stabilize Egypt, after a 2011 uprising and the unrest that followed, including an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of police, soldiers and civilians.
They also credit him with economic reforms agreed with the International Monetary Fund.
A New York judge has ordered President Donald Trump to give a videotaped deposition in a lawsuit filed by protesters who claim they were roughed up outside Trump Tower.
State Supreme Court Judge Doris Gonzalez of the Bronx on Friday denied Trump’s effort to quash a subpoena seeking the president’s testimony.
She ordered Trump to videotape a deposition before the trial, which is scheduled to begin Sept. 26.
The lawsuit was filed by six activists who say they were assaulted by Trump security staff during a Sept. 3, 2015, protest by people upset over comments Trump made about Mexican immigrants.
The judge says Trump’s testimony is “indispensable” as someone in charge of the business and his campaign.
A lawyer for Trump did not immediately return a phone message.
