Typhoon Phanfone pummeled the central Philippines on Christmas Day, bringing a wet and miserable holiday season to millions in the mainly Catholic nation.

Thousands were stranded at shuttered ports or evacuation centers at the height of the festive season on Wednesday, and residents cowered in rain-soaked homes as Phanfone leapt from one small island to another for the second day.

The typhoon toppled houses and trees and blacked out cities in the Philippines’ most storm-prone region, but no deaths were reported.

Though weaker, Phanfone was tracking a similar path as Super Typhoon Haiyan — the country’s deadliest cyclone on record which left more than 7,300 people dead or missing in 2013.

More than 10,000 people spent the night in schools, gyms and government buildings hastily converted into evacuation centers as the typhoon made landfall Tuesday, civil defense officials said.

“It was frightening. The glass windows shattered and we took cover by the stairs,” Ailyn Metran told AFP after she and her four-year-old child spent the night at the local state weather service office where her husband worked.

A metal window frame flew off and fell onto a car parked outside the building, she said.

With just two hours’ sleep, the family returned to their home in the central city of Tacloban early Wednesday to find their two dogs safe, but the floor was covered in mud and a felled tree rested atop a nearby house.

The weather office said the typhoon strengthened slightly overnight Tuesday and was gusting at 195 kilometers (121 miles) an hour, velocities that can knock down small trees and destroy houses made of light materials.

More islands along its projected path are expected to be hit with destructive winds and intense rainfall before blowing out into the South China Sea early Thursday, it added.

More than 25,000 people trying to get home for the traditional Christmas Eve midnight dinner with their families remained stranded at ports on Christmas Day with ferry services still shut down, the coast guard said.

Scores of flights to the region also remained cancelled, though the populous capital Manila, on the northern edge has so far been spared.

The Philippines is the first major landmass facing the Pacific cyclone belt.

As such, the archipelago gets hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year, killing scores of people and wiping out harvests, homes and other infrastructure and keeping millions perennially poor.

A July 2019 study by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank said the most frequent storms lop one percent off the Philippine economic output, with the stronger ones cutting output by nearly three percent.

(Source: AFP)

President Donald Trump says that the United States will deal with North Korea “very successfully” after Pyongyang’s warning of a “Christmas gift.” 

North Korea has promised a possible “Christmas surprise” missile test if the US does not come to the negotiating table, noting it would not give in to Washington’s pressure since it already has “nothing to lose.”

Pyongyang said the US was dragging out denuclearization negotiations ahead of Trump’s re-election bid next year, noting it was “entirely up to the US what Christmas gift it will select to get.”

While US military commanders believe the North’s response could involve the testing of a long-range missile, Trump brushed off the warning, saying maybe the surprise is a “nice present.”

“We’ll find out what the surprise is and we’ll deal with it very successfully,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday. “We’ll see what happens.”

“Maybe it’s a present where he sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test,” Trump said. “I may get a nice present from him. You don’t know. You never know.”

Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said at a press conference Friday that the United States was ready “to fight tonight.”

General Mark Milley, who was next to Esper, also said, the US alliance with Japan and South Korea was “prepared to defend the interests of the United States, Japan and South Korea at a moment’s notice.”

Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went on to say that “Korea is one of those places in the world where we’ve always maintained high levels of readiness.”

Meanwhile, China called on the United States Tuesday to take immediate action with regard to the implementation of agreements reached with North Korea during last year’s summit in Singapore.

“China calls on US to take concrete steps asap to deliver what has been agreed in Singapore. We encourage DPRK & US to work out a feasible roadmap for establishing a permanent peace regime & realizing complete denuclearization on the Peninsula,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the People’s Daily in comments relayed on Twitter by the foreign ministry.

The negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have been largely stalled since the collapse of a February summit in Hanoi between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Kim and Trump have already held two official meetings on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. However, their first meeting, the Singapore Summit held in June 2018, concluded with a broadly-worded agreement, and the second one, the Hanoi Summit, held in February, collapsed without an agreement.

The North has been under multiple rounds of harsh sanctions by the UN and the US over its nuclear and missile programs.

Last week, China and Russia proposed the UN Security Council lift some sanctions to break the current deadlock.

A US State Department official, however, responded by saying it was not the time to consider such an action when North Korea was “threatening to conduct an escalated provocation, refusing to meet to discuss denuclearization, and continuing to maintain and advance its prohibited weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.”

Despite the sanctions, Pyongyang has taken several unilateral steps to show its goodwill, including demolishing at least one nuclear test site and agreeing to allow international inspectors into a missile engine test facility.

Source: Presstv

France’s armed forces said Monday it had carried out a drone strike for the first time, during operations in Mali at the weekend in which it said 40 “terrorists” were killed.

On Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron had announced that French forces had “neutralised” 33 jihadists in the central Malian region of Mopti, in an operation that had started the previous night.

In a statement, the French military command said the drone strike happened during a follow-up operation Saturday in which another seven jihadist fighters were killed.

As French commandos were searching the combat zone in Ouagadou forest, 150 kilometres (90 miles) from the town of Mopti, “they were attacked by a group of terrorists on motorbikes,” the statement said.

A Reaper drone and a French Mirage 2000 patrol opened fire to support the ground troops, it said.

“This is the first operational strike by an armed drone,” the statement said, confirming an earlier report published in the specialist blog Le Mamouth.

The strike came just two days after the French army announced it had finished testing the remotely-piloted drones for armed operations.

It has three drones, based near Niamey, the capital of Niger.

The operation at the weekend was in an area controlled by the Katiba Macina, a ruthless Islamist group founded by radical Mopti preacher Amadou Koufa.

Two Malian gendarmes who had been held hostage were freed, and French troops seized a number of armed vehicles, motorbikes and weaponry, “delivering a very heavy blow” to the jihadists, according to Monday’s statement.

France previously said it had killed 25 jihadists in two operations in the Sahel this month.

Last month, 13 French soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash as they hunted jihadists in the north of Mali — the biggest single-day loss for the French military in nearly four decades.

France has a 4,500-member force which has been fighting jihadists in the fragile, sprawling Sahel since 2013. Forty-one soldiers have died.

Source: AFP

Queen Elizabeth II described 2019 as “quite bumpy” in a Christmas Day message at the end of a chaotic year which saw Britain bitterly divided over its split from the European Union and her scandal-plagued son Prince Andrew withdraw from public life.

The 93-year-old monarch’s address — to be televised in full Wednesday but partially released in advance — came as her husband Philip was in hospital with an undisclosed illness.

The royal family was swept up in scandals that included a calamitous BBC interview in which the queen’s second son Andrew tried to distance himself from American paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Andrew promised to “step back from public duties” after his denial of having sex with one of Epstein’s alleged victims was ridiculed in the UK media and reportedly criticised in Buckingham Palace.

The queen pointed to the life of Jesus as an example of how reconciliation can be achieved and “how small steps taken in faith and in hope can overcome long-held differences and deep-seated divisions.”

The remarks were interpreted by many as a reference to the Brexit debate that has torn Britain apart since it voted to leave the EU in a referendum in 2016.

“The path, of course, is not always smooth, and may at times this year have felt quite bumpy, but small steps can make a world of difference.”

Royal commentators noted the queen’s use of the word “bumpy”, compared to her headline-grabbing description of 1992 as an “annus horribilis”, when the marriages of three of her children fell apart and her beloved Windsor Castle nearly went up in flames.

– ‘He’s alright’ –

The queen found herself dragged into the tortuous political drama of Brexit when she approved Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s request to suspend parliament in August. Critics claimed it was an attempt to silence opponents to his Brexit proposals.

In fact, the Supreme Court subsequently ruled that Johnson’s request had been unlawful and many people blamed him for making the queen look bad.

The queen was also rumoured to have been disappointed by her grandson Prince Harry and his American former actress wife Meghan Markle.

The young couple made waves by speaking out about their struggle with living in the public eye and then suing three British newspapers for prying into their private lives.

Their picture was notably absent from the collection of family photographs on the queen’s desk in her televised address.

It was a difficult year for Philip, too, beginning with a car accident in which two women were injured. The police found the 98-year-old responsible but brought no charges.

Buckingham Palace has released little information about Philip’s condition since his hospitalisation on Friday for “treatment in relation to a pre-existing condition”.

“He’s alright,” Philip’s son Charles told a reporter during a visit in northern England on Monday.

“Once you get to that age things don’t work as well.”

–‘Spirit of reconciliation’ –

The queen has remained one of Britain’s most popular figures despite the royal family’s travails.

A poll by YouGov in November showed 72 percent of respondents had a positive opinion of the monarch.

The queen’s Christmas Day message also reflected on the heroism of British forces during the D-Day landings in Normandy that turned the course of World War II in 1944.

Her trips abroad are becoming increasingly rare, but she made one in June to attend the 75th anniversary commemorations in France.

“For the 75th anniversary of that decisive battle, in a true spirit of reconciliation, those who had formerly been sworn enemies came together in friendly commemorations either side of the Channel, putting past differences behind them,” the queen said in her message.

“By being willing to put past differences behind us and move forward together, we honour the freedom and democracy once won for us at so great a cost.”

Source:  AFP

A recent decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch a full investigation into war crimes in Palestinian territories has raised alarm among current and former Israeli officials and military personnel, who may face global arrest warrants as a result of the probe.

Israel’s Channel 12 TV reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with ministers of military affairs, army chiefs, low-ranking soldiers and the heads of the Shin Bet security service in the past five years could all be vulnerable to international prosecution.

Israel is not expected to cooperate with the ICC’s pre-trial chamber in the coming 120 days. 

“There will be no cooperation with the court… certainly not if it will eventually be decided to open an official probe,” Channel 12 cited diplomatic sources as saying.

However, an official in the Israeli prime minister’s office said, “A decision will be reached after the legal teams make their recommendations.”

On Friday, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said a preliminary examination into war crimes, opened in 2015, had provided enough information to meet all criteria for opening an inquiry.

There was a “a reasonable basis” to investigate the situation in Palestine, she said. “I am satisfied that … war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem [al-Quds], and the Gaza Strip.”

The probe will apparently cover Israel’s settlement policy in the occupied West Bank, crimes during the 2014 Gaza war, and crackdown on the Great March of Return protests in the besieged Gaza Strip.

On Saturday, transportation minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Netanyahu to give the Palestinian Authority a 48-hour ultimatum to pull its ICC petition or see the Ramallah-based authority “torn down.”

The ICC decision has been widely welcomed by Palestinian officials, with President Mahmoud Abbas calling it a “great” and “historic” day.

“We have achieved what we want, and from this day on, the ICC machine will start accepting the cases that we have previously presented,” he said.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh stressed that the ICC announcement “constitutes a stand for justice and truth.”

“We will make every possible legal effort to try Israel for the war crimes it committed against our people in the Gaza Strip, al-Quds and the West Bank,” he said. 

Source: Presstv

The administration of US President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to freeze $391 million of military aid to Ukraine less than two hours after the controversial phone call in which Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, according to newly released internal emails.

During the July 25 call, Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Biden, his potential opponent for the 2020 presidential election, and his son, Hunter, before Kiev can receive the US military aid.

Although administration officials previously said the president had ordered the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to withhold aid to Ukraine as early as 12 July, a declassified White House memorandum documenting Trump’s call contradicts the officials’ accounts.

The papers show the call began at 09.03 a.m. and ended 30 minutes later and at 11.04 a.m., senior OMB official Michael Duffey sent an email to Defense Department officials ordering the Pentagon to stop making plans to give any security assistance funds to Ukraine.

“Based on guidance I have received and in light of the Administration’s plan to review assistance to Ukraine, including the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, please hold off on any additional DoD obligations of these funds, pending direction from that process,” wrote Duffey, associate director for national security programs.

“Given the sensitive nature of the request, I appreciate your keeping that information closely held to those who need to know to execute direction.”

The move, which legal experts say violated US law forbidding the president from “impounding” congressionally appropriated funds, prompted the House of Representatives to launch an impeach inquiry against the Republican president in late September.

And on Wednesday, in a historic vote, the House impeached Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress. No Republicans voted in favor of the impeachment articles, while two Democrats voted against the first charge and three against the second.

Trump argued that the lack of defectors among the GOP shows that “the Republicans have never been so united” while the lack of consensus among Democrats is yet another indicator that their case “is so bad that they don’t even want to go to trial!”

Meanwhile, the president Saturday criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for holding off on sending the articles of impeachment against him to the Senate.

“It’s so unfair,” Trump said during a speech to conservative student group Turning Point USA, saying that the speaker adopted the strategy because she has “no case.”

“They are violating the Constitution,” Trump said, calling Pelosi “crazy Nancy.”

Source: Presstv

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said on Friday she will launch a full investigation into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian Territories, which could include charges against Israelis or Palestinians.

“I am satisfied that … war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip,” Fatou Bensouda of the ICC said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ICC has no jurisdiction to investigate in the Palestinian Territories.

“The court has no jurisdiction in this case. The ICC only has jurisdiction over petitions submitted by sovereign states. But there has never been a Palestinian state,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

Bensouda said the preliminary examination into alleged war crimes, opened in 2015, had rendered enough information to meet all criteria for opening an investigation.

The ICC prosecutor said she had filed a request with judges for a jurisdictional ruling, because of the contested legal and factual status of the Palestine territories.

The ICC has the authority to hear cases of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of the 123 countries that have signed up to it.

Israel has not joined the court but the Palestinian Authority – a limited self-rule body in the Israeli-occupied West Bank – has done so.

(REUTERS)

Israeli warplanes attacked an arms plant in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip early Thursday, after Palestinian militants in the enclave fired a rocket at Israel,the army said.

“Overnight, a rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip at Israeli territory,” an English-language army statement said.

“In response… fighter jets struck a Hamas weapons manufacturing site in the northern Gaza Strip.”

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the overnight rocket attack or the air strike that followed.

Later on Thursday, Israeli authorities announced a punitive reduction in the fishing zone off Gaza.

COGAT, a unit of Israel’s defence ministry, said that in response to the latest rocket fire, “the Gaza Strip fishing zone has been reduced to 10 nautical miles until further notice.”

Israel constantly adjusts the fishing zone according to the level of tension around Gaza, sometimes allowing boats to fish up to 15 nautical miles offshore and at others restricting them to six or banning fishing altogether.

Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007, and Israel generally holds the Islamist movement responsible for all rocket fire coming from the territory, although it has targeted other militant groups too.

On Tuesday, an Israeli aircraft hit what the military said was an armed Palestinian seen approaching the Israeli border fence in Gaza.

His death has so far not been officially confirmed as no body has been retrieved from the no-go area adjacent to the frontier.

Last month, Israeli forces assassinated a senior Islamic Jihad leader in the Gaza Strip, sparking a two-day flare-up which killed 36 Palestinians.

Islamic Jihad fired around 450 rockets at Israel, many of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system.

Israel has fought three wars with Hamas and allied armed groups in Gaza since 2008.

Source: AFP

Claudia Lopez, the first woman elected mayor of Colombia’s capital Bogota, married her girlfriend of three years on Monday.

Although the country is deeply religious and conservative, same-sex marriage is legal and gay couples have the right to adopt children — whether or not they are the biological children of one of the partners.

“I promise to honor you and love you for life!” Lopez wrote on Instagram to her wife, opposition senator Angelica Lopez.

“Thanks to life for this wonderful year: I earned my doctorate, won the Mayor’s office and married the love of my life.”

The message was accompanied by four pictures of the couple dressed in white and carrying bouquets of flowers.

The ceremony was private and not open to the press.

Lopez — who won the October mayoral poll in a narrow victory — seen as a significant step forward in a country used to being led by male elites.

The centre-left former senator, who will take office on January 1, is the first woman to win the post of mayor of Bogota.

Lopez defeated liberal Carlos Fernando Galan with just over 35 percent of the vote in the capital city of 7.2 million people.

Source: AFP

Lebanese troops lobbed tear gas on Tuesday to disperse supporters of Shi’ite groups Hezbollah and Amal who tried to storm a square in Beirut in response to a video that purportedly offended Shi’ite figures, witnesses and media reports said.

Hundreds of youths on motorcycles waving their party and religious flags gathered in downtown Beirut chanting “Shi’ites, Shi’ites” and setting fire to tyres. They hurled stones and fireworks at security forces standing nearby, witnesses said.

Ignoring calls for restraint by politicians, the youths tried to break a security cordon to storm the square where demonstrators have set up tents as part of an anti-government protest that has been going on for weeks.

In the vicinity of the area close to a main road that links the capital’s eastern and western sections, scores of youths had burnt tyres, smashed office buildings and torched several cars, live coverage by local television stations showed.

The protesters camped in the square have been targeted by Shi’ite groups in the past angered by chants against their political leaders, although Tuesday’s violence was of an overtly sectarian nature.

The video, which inflamed passions in a country where sectarian divisions run deep, was purportedly made by an expatriate Lebanese Sunni from the northern city of Tripoli and released on social media.

In the predominately Sunni populated city of Saida in southern Lebanon, groups of masked youths stormed into a main square where they set ablaze several tents set up by demonstrators who have camped for weeks, local television stations said.

Lebanon has been gripped by a historic wave of protests since Oct. 17 leading to the resignation of Saad al-Hariri as prime minister, amid anger at the government’s failure to address the country’s worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

More than seven weeks since Hariri quit, politicians have been unable to agree on a new administration despite the deepening financial crisis.

The impasse took a violent turn at the weekend when Beirut was clouded in tear gas as security forces clashed with protesters who blame the ruling elite for corruption and bad governance. Dozens were wounded. 

(REUTERS)