More than 1.5 million without power as Hurricane Milton slams Florida

More than 1.5 million without power as Hurricane Milton slams Florida
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A man pulls a boat out of the water as Hurricane Milton approaches Sarasota, in Florida, on October 9, 2024. (REUTERS)
More than 1.5 million without power as Hurricane Milton slams Florida
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Members of the Polk County Sheriff's Office pray outside a shelter in Lakeland, Florida, as Hurricane Milton approaches on October 9, 2024. (REUTERS)
More than 1.5 million without power as Hurricane Milton slams Florida
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A woman holds an umbrella while arriving at a shelter in Lakeland, Florida, as Hurricane Milton approaches on October 9, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 10 October 2024
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More than 1.5 million without power as Hurricane Milton slams Florida

More than 1.5 million without power as Hurricane Milton slams Florida
  • About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane even made landfall, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens,
  • The cyclone had maximum sustained winds of 205 kph as it roared ashore 8:30 p.m. near Siesta Key, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said

TAMPA, Florida: Hurricane Milton crashed into Florida as a Category 3 storm Wednesday, pounding the coast with ferocious winds of over 100 mph (160 kph), heavy rain and producing a series of tornadoes around the state. Tampa avoided a direct hit.
The cyclone had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (205 kph) as it roared ashore 8:30 p.m. near Siesta Key, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. Siesta Key is a prosperous strip of white-sand beaches that’s home to 5,500 people about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Tampa. The Tampa Bay area has not taken a direct hit from a major hurricane in more than a century, but the storm was still bringing a potentially deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf Coast, including densely populated areas such as Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers.
The National Weather Service said flash flooding was occurring in the Tampa Bay area, including St. Petersburg, where over 16 inches (41 centimeters) of rain has fallen so far.
Heavy rains were also likely to cause flooding inland along rivers and lakes as Milton traverses the Florida peninsula as a hurricane, eventually to emerge in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.
More than 1.5 million homes and businesses were without power Wednesday night in Florida, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. The highest number of outages were in Hardee County, as well as neighboring Sarasota and Manatee counties.
About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane even made landfall, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said.
About 90 minutes after making landfall Wednesday night, Milton was centered about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northeast of Sarasota and had weakened slightly with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph (175 kph), becoming a Category 2 storm, the hurricane center reported. It was moving east-northeast at 16 mph (26 kph).

The National Weather Service Hurricane Center in Miami says the sustained wind speeds of Hurricane Milton have slowed to around 110 miles per hour (175 km/h), dropping the tropical storm to a Category 2 hurricane.
Milton slammed into a Florida region still reeling from Hurricane Helene, which caused heavy damage to beach communities with storm surge and killed a dozen people in seaside Pinellas County alone.
Earlier, officials issued dire warnings to flee or face grim odds of survival.
“This is it, folks,” said Cathie Perkins, emergency management director in Pinellas County, which sits on the peninsula that forms Tampa Bay. “Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out, and you need to get out now.”
By late afternoon, some officials said the time had passed for such efforts, suggesting that people who stayed behind hunker down instead. By the evening, some counties announced they had suspended emergency services.
Multiple tornadoes spawned by the hurricane tore across Florida, the twisters acting as a dangerous harbingers of Milton’s approach. Videos posted to social media sites showed large funnel clouds over neighborhoods in Palm Beach County and elsewhere in the state.
Milton was expected to remain a hurricane as it plowed across the state, including the heavily populated Orlando area, through Thursday.
The storm threatened communities still reeling two weeks after Hurricane Helene flooded streets and homes in western Florida and left at least 230 people dead across the South. In many places along the coast, municipalities raced to collect and dispose of debris before Milton’s winds and storm surge could toss it around and compound any damage. Surge was projected to reach as high as 9 feet (2.7 meters) in Tampa Bay.

Jackie Curnick said she wrestled with her decision to stay and hunker down at home in Sarasota, just north of where the storm made landfall. But with a 2-year-old son and a baby girl due Oct. 29, Curnick and her husband thought it was for the best.
Curnick said they started packing Monday to evacuate, but they couldn’t find any available hotel rooms, and the few they came by were too expensive.
She said there were too many unanswered questions if they got in the car and left: Where to sleep, if they’d be able to fill up their gas tank, and if they could even find a safe route out of the state.
“The thing is it’s so difficult to evacuate in a peninsula,” she said. “In most other states, you can go in any direction to get out. In Florida there are only so many roads that take you north or south.”
The famous Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which spans the mouth of Tampa Bay, closed around midday. Other major bridges also closed.
At a news conference in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis described deployment of a wide range of resources, including 9,000 National Guard members from Florida and other states; over 50,000 utility workers from as far as California; and highway patrol cars with sirens to escort gasoline tankers to replenish supplies so people could fill up their tanks before evacuating.
“Unfortunately, there will be fatalities. I don’t think there’s any way around that,” DeSantis said.
Heavy rain and tornadoes lashed parts of southern Florida starting Wednesday morning, with conditions deteriorating throughout the day. Six to 12 inches (15 to 31 centimeters) of rain, with up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) in some places, was expected well inland, bringing the risk of catastrophic flooding.
One twister touched down Wednesday morning in the lightly populated Everglades and crossed Interstate 75. Another apparent tornado touched down in Fort Myers, snapping tree limbs and tearing a gas station’s canopy to shreds.
Authorities have issued mandatory evacuation orders across 15 Florida counties with a total population of about 7.2 million people. Officials warned that anyone staying behind must fend for themselves, because first responders were not expected to risk their lives attempting rescues at the height of the storm.
St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch told residents to expect long power outages and the possible shutdown of the sewer system.
In Charlotte Harbor, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Tampa, clouds swirled and winds gusted as Josh Parks packed his Kia sedan with clothes and other belongings. Two weeks ago, Helene’s surge brought about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water to the neighborhood, and its streets remain filled with waterlogged furniture, torn-out drywall and other debris.
Parks, an auto technician, planned to flee to his daughter’s home inland and said his roommate already left.
“I told her to pack like you aren’t coming back,” he said.
By early afternoon, airlines had canceled about 1,900 flights. SeaWorld was closed all day Wednesday, and Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando shut down in the afternoon.
More than 60 percent of gas stations in Tampa and St. Petersburg were out of gas Wednesday afternoon, according to GasBuddy. DeSantis said the state’s overall supply was fine, and highway patrol officers were escorting tanker trucks to replenish the supply.
In the Tampa Bay area’s Gulfport, Christian Burke and his mother stayed put in their three-story concrete home overlooking the bay. Burke said his father designed this home with a Category 5 in mind — and now they’re going to test it.
As a passing police vehicle blared encouragement to evacuate, Burke acknowledged staying isn’t a good idea and said he’s “not laughing at this storm one bit.”


 


Trump says newly created US sovereign wealth fund could buy TikTok

Trump says newly created US sovereign wealth fund could buy TikTok
Updated 03 February 2025
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Trump says newly created US sovereign wealth fund could buy TikTok

Trump says newly created US sovereign wealth fund could buy TikTok
  • Trump signed executive order to create sovereign wealth fund
  • TikTok, which has about 170 million American users, was briefly taken offline

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order directing the US to take steps to start developing a government-owned investment fund that he said could be used to profit off of TikTok if he’s successful at finding it an American buyer.
Trump signed an order on his first day office to grant the Chinese-owned TikTok until early April to find a domestic partner or buyer, but he’s said he’s looking for the US to take a 50 percent stake in the massive social media platform. He said Monday in the Oval Office that TikTok was an example of what he could put in a new US sovereign wealth fund.
“We might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever we make or we do a partnership with very wealthy people, a lot of options,” he said of TikTok. “But we could put that as an example in the fund. We have a lot of other things that we could put in the fund.”
Trump noted many other nations have such investment funds and predicted that the US could eventually top Saudi Arabia’s fund size. “Eventually we’ll catch it,” he promised.
Trump put Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in charge of laying the groundwork for creating a the fund, which would likely require congressional approval.
Former President Joe Biden’s administration had studied the possibility of creating a sovereign wealth fund for national security investments, but the idea did not yield any concrete action before he left office last month.
Bessent said the administration’s goal was to have the fund open within the next 12 months, and Lutnick said another use of the fund could have been for the government to take an profit-earning stake in vaccine manufacturers.
“The extraordinary size and scale of the USgovernment and the business it does with companies should create value for American citizens,” Lutnick told reporters.


What is USAID? Why President Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to end it?

What is USAID? Why President Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to end it?
Updated 03 February 2025
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What is USAID? Why President Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to end it?

What is USAID? Why President Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to end it?
  • Since its establishment in 1961, Republicans and Democrats have fought over the USAID and its funding.
  • Its first mission was to counter Soviet influence abroad through foreign assistance

WASHINGTON: Dozens of senior officials put on leave. Thousands of contractors laid off. A freeze put on billions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to other countries.
Over the last two weeks, President Donald Trump’s administration has made significant changes to the US agency charged with delivering humanitarian assistance overseas that has left aid organizations agonizing over whether they can continue with programs such as nutritional assistance for malnourished infants and children.
Then-President John F. Kennedy established the US Agency for International Development, known as USAID, during the Cold War. In the decades since, Republicans and Democrats have fought over the agency and its funding.
Here’s a look at USAID, its history and the changes made since Trump took office.
What is USAID?
Kennedy created USAID at the height of the United States’ Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union. He wanted a more efficient way to counter Soviet influence abroad through foreign assistance and saw the State Department as frustratingly bureaucratic at doing that.
Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act and Kennedy set up USAID as an independent agency in 1961.
USAID has outlived the Soviet Union, which fell in 1991. Today, supporters of USAID argue that US assistance in countries counters Russian and Chinese influence. China has its own “belt and road” foreign aid program worldwide operating in many countries that the US also wants as partners.
Critics say the programs are wasteful and promote a liberal agenda.
What’s going on with USAID?
On his first day in office Jan. 20, Trump implemented a 90-day freeze on foreign assistance. Four days later, Peter Marocco — a returning political appointee from Trump’s first term — drafted a tougher than expected interpretation of that order, a move that shut down thousands of programs around the world and forced furloughs and layoffs.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since moved to keep more kinds of strictly life-saving emergency programs going during the freeze. But confusion over what programs are exempted from the Trump administration’s stop-work orders — and fear of losing US aid permanently — is still freezing aid and development work globally.
Dozens of senior officials have been put on leave, thousands of contractors laid off, and employees were told Monday not to enter its Washington headquarters. And USAID’s website and its account on the X platform have been taken down.
It’s part of a Trump administration crackdown hitting the federal government and its programs. But USAID and foreign aid are among those hit the hardest.
Rubio said the administration’s aim was a program-by-program review of which projects make “America safer, stronger or more prosperous.”
The decision to shut down US-funded programs during the 90-day review meant the US was “getting a lot more cooperation” from recipients of humanitarian, development and security assistance, Rubio said.

US billionaire Elon Musk arrives for the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th US President, Jan. 20 (AFP)

What do critics of USAID say?
Republicans typically push to give the State Department — which provides overall foreign policy guidance to USAID — more control of its policy and funds. Democrats typically promote USAID autonomy and authority.
Funding for United Nations agencies, including peacekeeping, human rights and refugee agencies, have been traditional targets for Republican administrations to cut. The first Trump administration moved to reduce foreign aid spending, suspending payments to various UN agencies, including the UN Population Fund and funding to the Palestinian Authority.
In Trump’s first term, the US withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council and its financial obligations to that body. The US is also barred from funding the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, under a bill signed by then-President Joe Biden last March.
Why is Elon Musk going after USAID?
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, has launched a sweeping effort empowered by Trump to fire government workers and cut trillions in government spending. USAID is one of his prime targets. Musk alleges USAID funding has been used to launch deadly programs and called it a “criminal organization.”
What is being affected by the USAID freeze?
Sub-Saharan Africa could suffer more than any other region during the aid pause. The US gave the region more than $6.5 billion in humanitarian assistance last year. HIV patients in Africa arriving at clinics funded by an acclaimed US program that helped rein in the global AIDS epidemic of the 1980s found locked doors.
There are also already ramifications in Latin America. In southern Mexico, a busy shelter for migrants has been left without a doctor. A program to provide mental health support for LGBTQ+ youth fleeing Venezuela was disbanded.
In Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Guatemala, so-called “Safe Mobility Offices” where migrants can legally apply to enter the US have been shuttered.
The aid community is struggling to get the full picture— how many thousands of programs have shut down, and how many thousands of workers were furloughed and laid off under the freeze?
How much does the US spend on foreign aid?
In all, the US spent about roughly $40 billion in foreign aid in the 2023 fiscal year, according to a report published last month by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
The US is the largest provider of humanitarian assistance globally, although some other countries spend a bigger share of their budget on it. Foreign assistance overall amounts to less than 1 percent of the US budget.
Could Trump dissolve USAID on his own?
Democrats say presidents lack the constitutional authority to eliminate USAID. But it’s not clear what would stop him from trying.
A mini-version of that legal battle played out in Trump’s first term when he tried to cut the budget for foreign operations by a third.
When Congress refused, the Trump administration used freezes and other tactics to cut the flow of funds already appropriated by Congress for foreign programs. The General Accounting Office later ruled that it violated a law known as the Impoundment Control Act.
It’s a law we may be hearing more of.
“Live by executive order, die by executive order,” Musk said on X Saturday in reference to USAID.


Indonesia’s Bali moves to ban plastic bottles

Indonesia’s Bali moves to ban plastic bottles
Updated 03 February 2025
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Indonesia’s Bali moves to ban plastic bottles

Indonesia’s Bali moves to ban plastic bottles
  • Bali produces around 300,000 tons of plastic waste every year  
  • It was the first Indonesian province to ban single-use plastics in 2019 

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Bali began banning plastic bottles on Monday, in a move aimed at tackling plastic pollution in one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations.

The island produces around 300,000 tons of plastic waste annually, more than half of which goes uncollected, including 33,000 tons that gets into Bali’s waterways. 

Under the new policy, plastic bottles will be banned across all government offices and schools in Bali. 

“We hope this policy will be implemented in full responsibility by all relevant parties for a green and sustainable Bali,” Dewa Made Indra, the province’s regional secretary, said in a statement. 

The policy also requires “school principals and teachers to serve as role models for students by using tumblers to reduce or eliminate plastic waste from food and beverage packaging.” 

In recent years, Bali’s plastic waste problem has made international headlines as iconic beaches were littered with trash during the peak of the monsoon season, when heavy winds and rain wash up pollution also from neighboring Java island.

Last month, clips of massive “trash waves” on the shoreline of Jimbaran beach went viral on social media, marking one of the year’s first instances of what has become an annual occurrence around the island. 

The issue is also a concern for the central government, with Indonesia’s Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq taking part in Bali’s beach clean-up events twice last month. 

“It is urgent for the sake of environmental sustainability, and also considering that Bali is a barometer for tourism in Indonesia, so we must show that our country is dedicated to find solutions to the plastic waste management problem,” Ratna Hendratmoko, who heads the Natural Resources Conservation Center in Bali, told Arab News. 

Bali, an island known for its scenic natural beauty and rich traditional culture, draws millions of foreign tourists annually. In 2024, it welcomed more than 6.3 million international visitors — which is around half of the total number of such arrivals in Indonesia. 

In 2019, the Bali provincial government banned single-use plastics in an effort to tackle marine pollution, becoming the first Indonesian province to do so.

The latest policy, which mandates government officials to bring their own reusable water bottles, may be the first step to implementing an islandwide ban.  

“Our staff are committed to comply with this new policy,” I Made Rentin, head of the forestry and environment agency in Bali, told Arab News. 

“For now, we will strengthen implementation internally at the government level.”


Cautious optimism in Bangladesh as post-Hasina relations with Pakistan grow

Cautious optimism in Bangladesh as post-Hasina relations with Pakistan grow
Updated 03 February 2025
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Cautious optimism in Bangladesh as post-Hasina relations with Pakistan grow

Cautious optimism in Bangladesh as post-Hasina relations with Pakistan grow
  • Head of Bangladesh interim government has met Pakistani PM twice since taking office on Aug. 8
  • In 2024, Pakistani cargo ships began to arrive at Bangladesh’s main port for the first time in over 50 years

Dhaka: The ouster of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last August has opened a “new horizon of opportunities” for diplomacy with Pakistan, analysts, political parties and members of the public said, as Dhaka and Islamabad move to befriend each other after decades of acrimonious ties.

The head of Bangladesh’s interim government, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif twice since taking office on Aug. 8 after Hasina fled the country following a student-led popular uprising against her government.

Hasina’s government was hostile toward Pakistan but closely allied with India, where she remains exiled. While her removal from office was followed by the cooling of relations between Dhaka and New Delhi, exchanges with Islamabad started to grow.

“The recent developments, in terms of bilateral exchanges with Pakistan, are a process to normalize the relationship. For various reasons, it was below the normal level in the last 15 years. Now, an opportunity has been created to normalize the relationship, which is natural between two states,” Humayun Kabir, former Bangladeshi ambassador to the US, told Arab News.

“I believe India can approach this bilateral relationship normally if they choose to. From India’s perspective, there is no reason to view it negatively. We want the relationship between India and Bangladesh to be considered bilaterally, without being influenced by issues with Pakistan. Similarly, our bilateral relationship with Pakistan will continue independently of any issues with India. I think this approach will create a dynamic in the relationship within the broader context of South Asia.”

Political parties that were in opposition to Hasina’s Awami League party’s government — its archrival the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the largest Islamist party Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, which was banned during her rule — were both optimistic about growing Pakistan ties.

“During the previous regime, Sheikh Hasina maintained close ties with only one country. In her own words, she said: ‘What Bangladesh has given to India, India will remember forever.’ This foreign policy was not the right approach,” said Matiur Rahman Akand, spokesperson of Jamaat-e-Islami.

Nawshad Zamir, the international affairs secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist party, also welcomed the fact that the two nations had “resumed normal relationship, like before.”

But the memory of the 1971 war for independence remains alive.

Jamaat-e-Islami was at the time an active political party and during the war was aligned with Pakistan, opposing the independence movement.

On the other hand, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party was founded by Ziaur Rahman, a prominent Bangladesh Forces commander and one of the leading figures of the independence war.

While for both parties the normalization of ties with Islamabad is a welcome development, ordinary Bangladeshis see it with a dose of caution.

“We can establish regional cooperation. And I think this is a chance to become a regional leader … (but) personally, I believe that Pakistan first needs to deal with the 1971 issue,” said Mustafa Musfiq Talukdar, student at Dhaka University.

“In 1974, (Pakistan’s then Prime Minister) Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto came to Bangladesh and he kind of apologized personally, but it wasn’t something formal. So, we demand a formal apology from Pakistan for everything they did in 1971.”

For Tamim Muntaseer, a Dhaka-based researcher, an official apology was also essential for the relationship to move forward.

“We have seen that a new horizon of opportunities with Pakistan has been created. And I think this should be supported in terms of justice,” he said.

“Bangladesh and Pakistan are aligned in terms of their regional economy, trade … We should also consider people-to-people relationships.”

Such exchanges have already been underway over the past few months. Since December, Pakistani artists have been performing in Dhaka, while Bangladeshi films have been screened at cinemas in Pakistan.

Pakistani cargo ships also began to arrive at Bangladesh’s main Chittagong port for the first time since the 1971 war.

“I am quite positive about the current developments between Bangladesh and Pakistan,” Tahmid Al-Mudassir Choudhury, another Dhaka University student, told Arab News.

“I am not saying that we must forgive everything. Still, we can keep a good relationship with Pakistan … We have seen that in cricket: Bangladeshi people supporting the Pakistani cricket team, and the people of Pakistan also supporting the Bangladeshi cricket team. We can celebrate those similarities, and this can bring the people of Bangladesh and Pakistan together.”


UN says shooting incident at Kabul compound killed one

UN says shooting incident at Kabul compound killed one
Updated 03 February 2025
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UN says shooting incident at Kabul compound killed one

UN says shooting incident at Kabul compound killed one
  • UN says gunshots were fired by member of Taliban’s security forces at multilateral agency’s largest compound 
  • Person killed was member of Taliban-run security forces who was outside the compound, unclear what provoked firing

ISLAMABAD: Gunshots fired by a member of the Taliban’s security forces at the United Nations’ largest compound killed one person and injured another in Kabul, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a statement on Monday.

The incident took place on Sunday, it said.

The person killed was a member of the Taliban-run security forces who was outside the compound, the statement said without adding any details. The person injured was an international security guard contracted by the UN, it said.

“UN-contracted security guards did not return fire during the incident,” it said.

It was unclear what provoked the firing. Both the Taliban and the UN were investigating the incident.

Kabul’s interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qaniee confirmed that a Taliban guard was killed and one UN contractor suffered injuries.

Taliban authorities halted all movement in and out of the compound following the incident, UNAMA said, but those restrictions have now been lifted.

The compound houses the offices of multiple UN agencies, funds and programs, and accommodation for UN international staff members.