Deadly weekend storms have left at least 14 dead in the Midwestern and Southern United States, according to officials, as eastern regions faced potential damaging winds and isolated tornadoes into Monday. Severe weather devastated homes, overturned cars and felled trees, with the National Weather Service confirming at least four tornadoes in Texas.

The mayor of Canton, Texas — a city some 60 miles (95 kilometers) east of Dallas — said the death toll there stood at four. It is heartbreaking and upsetting to say the least,” Mayor Lou Ann Everett told journalists Sunday.

A spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management told AFP severe weather had caused at least five fatalities in that state. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency had confirmed two deaths, one of them a child who was killed by electric shock in floodwater.

Heavy rains also lashed the Midwestern state of Missouri, with at least two reported casualties. According to CNN one of those killed was a 72-year-old woman who was stranded in her car as it was swept away by floodwaters.

In Tennessee, a two-year-old girl was pronounced dead at a hospital in Nashville after she was struck by a heavy metal soccer goal blown over by heavy winds, according to the city’s police department. As of late Sunday the NWS was projecting major flooding to continue in parts of eastern Oklahoma, northern Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

Authorities warned that severe storms potentially packing heavy winds, large hail and tornadoes could hit parts of the mid-Atlantic and northeastern US by Monday afternoon.

Source: AFP

Syria says it is negotiating with Russia to buy state-of-the-art Russian missile defense systems to help defend the Arab country against Israeli and American aggression. President Bashar al-Assad made the remarks to Venezuelan channel Telesur. A transcript of the interview appeared on the official Syrian Arab News Agency on Thursday.

“It’s natural that we should have such systems,” said the Syrian leader. “Israel has been committing aggression on the Arab states surrounding it since its creation in 1948,”he said. He made the comments Israel struck an area near the International Airport in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Tel Aviv has conducted many such attacks in the past. The forays, however, have increased in number since the outbreak of the foreign-backed militancy in the Arab country in 2011. On March 18, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surprisingly admitted to a series of the attacks by the regime, which had hit several targets near the ancient city of Palmyra in the central part of the Arab country the previous day.

He said the attacks had been aimed at targets belonging to the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah, and said Israel would continue hitting the group. Hezbollah has been efficiently assisting Damascus in its anti-terror struggle.

Assad also said, “It is natural for us to negotiate with the Russians now with a view to strengthening (our) systems, whether to face any Israeli threats from the air or the threats of American missiles.” “That has become a real possibility after the recent American aggression on al-Shayrat airbase in Syria,” he added.

The US attack southeast of the western Syria city of Homs in early April saw a barrage of 59 Tomahawk missiles launched against the Shayrat Airfield in the western Syrian province of Homs, causing some 15 fatalities, including civilians. Russia’s military said a day after the attack that Syria’s air defenses would be boosted.

“To protect Syria’s most sensitive infrastructure, a complex of measures will be implemented in the near future to strengthen and improve the effectiveness of the Syrian armed forces’ air defense system,”  said spokesman Igor Konashenkov.

Last Saturday too, Viktor Ozerov, the chairman of the defense committee in the Federation Council, said Moscow would not hesitate to supply Damascus with the air defense missile systems it needs to protect war-ravaged Syria against any future foreign military aggression once a bilateral agreement is reached.

Culled from Presstv

The military court in Yaoundé has sentenced to ten (10) years in prison, the Radio France International Hausa language correspondent in Cameroon. Ahmed Abba, a correspondent for the Africa section of the French State’s international radio media was also ordered to pay the sum of 55 million FCFA by the Yaoundé military court.

The Biya Francophone regime claimed to have arrested him at the end of July 2015 in possession of several identity cards, Ahmed Abba was prosecuted for “complicity in terrorist acts and not for terrorist acts” in a trial, which opened in February 2016, lasted more than a year.

The state prosecutor introduced Ahmed Abba as an accomplice of the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram in Cameroonian territory. These accusations have always been rejected by our colleague whose employer RFI, via a communiqué sent its dismayed over the court decision.

By Eyong Johnson

The commander of the US Africa Command cites fight with Somalia’s piracy during a visit by the Pentagon chief. US Marine General Thomas Waldhauser made the remarks alongside Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during a press conference in Djibouti, a tiny African country at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, which makes it ideal for US military operations in Somalia as well as Yemen.

Waldhauser made the comments amid reports of an increase in piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia, considered an international threat since the early 2000s. “The bottom line is there have been a half dozen or so (incidents),” Waldhauser.”We’re not ready to say there is a trend there yet but we’ll continue to watch.”

Two ships have been captured this month and a third rescued by Indian and Chinese forces. The attacks peaked to 237 in 2011 but decreased afterwards. Famine and drought in the region is behind the alleged new rise in the attacks, according to the US Africa Command chief.

Over 20 million people from Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen are at risk of death from starvation, according to UN World Food Program. The Pentagon chief said, however, that he did not expect the US forces to respond to piracy rise off the coast of Somalia.

Source: Presstv

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General has reacted to the Biya decision to order the restoration of internet in Southern Cameroons. A statement from the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA) said Mr. François Louncény Fall, has learnt of the decision by the 84 year old dictator instructing that internet services be fully restored in West Cameroon.

The Special Representative welcomed the measure and hope that the decision will go a long way to help reduce tension and to create conditions conducive for the resolution of the Anglophone crisis.

The Head of UNOCA called on the Biya Francophone government to continue to promote appeasement and dialogue, and to take all other appropriate measures for a speedy and lasting resolution of the crisis in order to strengthen unity, stability and prosperity in the region.

By Fru James

Cameroon Concord News Group

Former US President George H.W. Bush has been re-admitted to a hospital in Houston, Texas, for a recurrence of a case of pneumonia. Bush, 92, has been at the Methodist Hospital since Friday, his spokesman Jim McGrath said in a statement on Tuesday.

A source close to Bush said he will probably be kept at the hospital for several more days for medical observation. Bush has suffered from poor health in recent years. In January, he spent 16 days at the same hospital in Houston being treated for pneumonia. During that time, he was on a ventilator and was in ICU.

He was also hospitalized in 2015 after falling at his summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, and breaking a bone in his neck. In 2014, he was hospitalized in Houston for about a week for shortness of breath. He also spent Christmas 2012 in intensive care for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues. Bush has a form of Parkinson’s disease and uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility.

The 41st president is also referred to as “Bush 41”, “Bush the Elder” and “George Bush Senior” to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who became the 43rd US president. Bush served as US president from 1989 to 1993, and was vice president from 1981 to 1989 during the 8-year administration of former President Ronald Reagan.

Presstv

The United States has deployed several of its F-35 aircraft to the UK on their first operational mission to Europe, as part of an initiative to protect the NATO military pact against what Washington and its allies call “Russian aggression.”

The advanced aircraft flew from Hill Air Force Base in Utah to Royal Air Force’s Lakenheath airfield over the weekend, British media reported Monday.

The Pentagon had announced earlier that the aircraft would partake in joint exercises with NATO forces and further demonstrate their “operational capabilities.”

“As we and our joint F-35 partners bring this aircraft into our inventories, it’s important that we train together to integrate into a seamless team capable of defending the sovereignty of allied nations,” said USAF General Tod Wolters, Commander of US Air Forces in Europe.

Culled from Presstv

Some 3,000 refugees and asylum seekers have reportedly been rescued from unseaworthy boats off the Libyan coast during a second day of operations in the Mediterranean Sea. The Italian coastguard made the announcement on Saturday, saying that the refugees had been pulled to safety during 35 rescue operations launched in the day. It said another 15 operations would be underway before nightfall.

An official with the German NGO Jugend Rettet, which participated in the operations, said a further 1,000 people remained to be rescued from inflatable dinghies as rescue ships had reached capacity. She added that the number of incoming refugees was expected to rise owing to the fine spring weather. Reports said most of the refugees were from sub-Saharan Africa, fleeing poverty and starvation there.

A day earlier, the Italian coastguard had carried out 19 rescue operations aided by NGOs, including the medical charity Doctors without Borders. A total of 2,074 refugees aboard 16 rubber rafts and three small wooden boats were taken to safety in those operations. Libya remains a major gateway for asylum seekers attempting to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea, with more than 450,000 people having made the crossing over the past three years.

Culled from Presstv

Pyongyang has showcased its submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) for the first time during a massive military parade, with a senior North Korean official vowing due response to any attack against the East Asian nation. On Saturday, state TV showed images of the Pukkuksong-2 SLBMs and several KN-08 and KN-14 missiles on trucks along with tanks and other heavy military hardware being paraded on Kim Il Sung Square in the capital, Pyongyang.

Leader Kim Jong-un oversaw the parade which was celebrating the 105th birthday of state founder Kim Il Sung, his grandfather. He also addressed thousands of soldiers and people taking part in the celebrations. The event also paraded what appeared to be a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

It is the first time North Korea publicly displays the ballistic missiles, which have a range of over 1,000 km (600 miles), at a military parade. The parade comes as tensions have been simmering between North Korea and the US in recent weeks, raising fears of a potential military confrontation between the two sides. Washington has voiced concerns over  Pyongyang’s nuclear tests, but the North says such launches are an act as deterrence against a potential invasion by the US or South Korea.

Prior to the parade, Kim’s close aide Choe Ryong-hae also addressed the participants, voicing the country’s readiness to respond in kind to any attack by enemies. “We’re prepared to respond to an all-out war with an all-out war and we are ready to hit back with nuclear attacks of our own style against any nuclear attacks,” Choe said.

Choe, who is believed to be the second-most powerful official in North Korea, further stated that the new US government under Donald Trump was “creating a war situation” on the Korean Peninsula by dispatching strategic military assets to the region.

Pyongyang also warned Washington on Saturday to end its “military hysteria” or face retaliation as a US aircraft carrier strike group headed towards the region. “All the brigandish provocative moves of the US in the political, economic and military fields pursuant to its hostile policy toward the DPRK will thoroughly be foiled through the toughest counteraction of the army and people of the DPRK,” the KCNA state news agency said, citing a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army.

DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of the East Asian state. “Our toughest counteraction against the US and its vassal forces will be taken in such a merciless manner as not to allow the aggressors to survive,” it added. The development comes days after the US dispatched what Trump referred to as an “armada” of warships in a show of force into waters off the Korean peninsula amid concerns that Pyongyang was preparing another round of nuclear or missile tests.

Fears have grown since the US Navy fired Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in a unilateral decision claiming ‘retaliation’ for an alleged chemical attack in the Arab country. The move triggered questions about Trump’s plans for North Korea, which has conducted several missile and nuclear tests. Moreover, Washington has warned that a policy of “strategic patience” with North Korea is over as US Vice President Mike Pence travels to South Korea on Sunday on a 10-day tour of Asia. This is while political analysts have played down Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric on different topics, including North Korea, saying he makes tough statements on an issue before understanding its complexity.

Source: Presstv

As US President Donald Trump is mulling a tougher border action, reports say that his new “extreme vetting” policy could make agents ask Britons, Germans and the French entering the country to hand in passwords for their digital devices and social media pages or risk being denied entry. The policy under consideration in the White House can require the tourists to reveal personal data, disclose financial information or even face lengthy and detailed ideological questioning ahead of entering.

“All international travellers arriving to the US are subject to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspection. This inspection may include electronic devices such as computers, disks, drives, tapes, mobile phones and other communication devices, cameras, music and other media players and any other electronic or digital devices,” the US Border Patrol and Protection told The Guardian on Sunday.

“Keeping America safe and enforcing our nation’s laws in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully examine all materials entering the US,” it added. The UK Foreign Office, meanwhile, declined to comment or provide advice for the tourists. The soc-called “extreme vetting” of foreign nationals is part of the new president’s measures to fight terrorism.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an American NGO campaigning for digital civil rights, also acknowledged that the tourists could truly be deported by an agent if they refuse to cooperate in this regard.

“Border agents cannot deny a US citizen admission to the country. However, if a foreign visitor declines, an agent may deny them entry,” it said. “If a foreign visitor refuses a border agent’s demand to unlock their digital device, provide the device password, or provide social media information, and the agent responds by denying entry, the foreign visitor may have little legal recourse.” Trump’s executive order to ban travelers from some Muslim-majority countries has so far been blocked in courts twice.

Presstv