December 8, 2023

  At least 10 people have died and thousands remain cut off from the power grid in Ukraine, in three days of stormy weather that has blanketed parts of the country in heavy snow, a senior official said Tuesday. More than 400 settlements across 11 regions were without electricity, and more than 1,500 responders were trying to reach thousands of people in need of rescue, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote on Telegram, as fresh bouts of snow are expected to continue this week. Another 23 were injured, including two children, Klymenko said Tuesday, adding the deaths were in Odesa, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Kyiv regions. The storm also hit occupied Crimea, prompting Russian-appointed officials to announce a state of emergency in parts of the peninsula. The worst of the storm that hit Ukraine on Sunday appears to have passed, but another powerful low-pressure system will hit the country late Tuesday through Wednesday, unleashing rounds of additional heavy snow, wind and rain. Snow totals — which measure how much snow has fallen — from the current storm will be highest across the mountainous southwestern regions of Ivano-Frankivsk and Zakapattia, where the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center has warned of “considerable danger” of avalanches. Odesa meteoroligists say the current snowfall is the heaviest in the last five years. Viacheslav Onyshchenko/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images Interior Ministry spokesperson Maryana Reva said that snow drifts in some places had reached 2 meters high. She told Ukrainian television that the south was worst affected, with five deaths recorded in Odesa region. The storm hit as Ukrainians continue to live through challenging conditions that have come from Russia’s war on the country. Infrastructure and basic services have been compromised already in many places, and the extreme weather is compounding those problems. Officials gave grim accounts of where the dead were found. “All the deceased were discovered on the streets,” Reeva said Tuesday. “According to preliminary information, they died of hypothermia.” Enter your email to sign up for CNN’s “Meanwhile in China” Newsletter. close dialog She said a total of 6,000 Interior Ministry personnel had been involved in responding to the storm since Sunday. Rescue teams evacuated nearly 2,500 people from Odesa, including 162 children, according to Governor Oleh Kiper. “849 vehicles were towed, including 24 buses and 17 ambulances,” he wrote on Telegram. The extreme weather was caused by a low-pressure system over eastern Europe over the weekend. Wind speeds of up to 65 miles (105 kilometers) per hour on Sunday were reported. Thousands without power In occupied Crimea, the Russian-appointed head of the peninsula Sergey Aksenov announced a state of emergency in 10 municipalities on Tuesday. “Yesterday I reported the situation to our President [Vladimir Putin], who gave instructions to the federal government to allocate funds for the restoration of the destroyed infrastructure,” Aksenov wrote on Telegram. The storm had left some 93,000 people in Crimea without electricity, and disrupted the water supply to 245 villages, Aksenov said. “Work at the sites is being carried out around the clock. Teams of resource specialists have been formed,” he said. The Russian Emergency Ministry also warned the situation could deteriorate across the country, Russian state news agency TASS reported. Climate change, caused primarily by humans burning fossil fuels, is making severe storms in many parts of the world more frequent. In Ukraine, the overall snow cover each year is expected to decline as the planet warms further. But climate change is also making heavy snowfall events in winter more frequent there. The country is also grappling with drought that has impacted agriculture, also made more likely by the climate crisis, as well as an uptick in flooding events. Source:https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/28/europe/ukraine-odesa-black-sea-snow-storm-intl/index.html

MANSEHRA: The internal and external security of the Dasu Hydropower Project had been beefed up after the attack on a passenger bus on Karakoram Highway (KKH) near Chilas in which 10 people were killed earlier this month, an official said on Thursday. “We have enhanced security of the Chinese nationals working on this mega energy project, and also established more posts in and outside of the project’s premises,” Dasu Hydropower Project General Manager Anwarul Haq told reporters. He said though the security of Chinese engineers and workers executing the 4300-megawatts project was already up to the mark, it was further enhanced following an attack on the neighbouring Diamer district in Gilgit-Baltistan on December 2. He said the security personnel were more vigilant to deal with any situation.The official said that the execution of the dam was well underway and a delegation from the World Bank also visited the dam sites recently and reviewed ongoing work. “We could complete the first phase of this mega energy project at its stipulated period,” Anwarul Haq said. The Upper Kohistan police have also increased patrolling at Karakoram Highway and of development projects being executed by foreigners in the district. District Police Officer Mohammad Khalid Khan visited the Shatial area of the district and reviewed the security arrangements made by police at Karakoram Highway and police posts.The Lower Kohistan police also enhanced its patrolling in KKH in the limits of Dubair and Jijal police stations. “We have been allowing local and foreign passengers and workers following a complete security and bio-data check at Chakai police post at KKH,” said District Police Officer, Lower Kohistan, Jamil Akhtar. Source:https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1136153-security-of-dasu-power-project-upped-after-kkh-attack

Health ministry says at least six Palestinians killed and many wounded in Israeli raids across occupied West Bank overnight and this morning. Israel continues intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip, as health facilities and humanitarian aid efforts are crumbling due to intense fighting. White House aide says US has “not given a firm deadline to Israel” to end military operations in the besieged enclave. UN Security Council expected to discuss situation in Gaza on Friday as countries press for a ceasefire amid continued opposition from veto-holding US. At least 17,177 Palestinians killed in Gaza since October 7. In Israel, the revised official death toll stands at about 1,147. Israeli military claim to have hit targets in Syria The Israeli military announced that they had, overnight, struck what they described as an “armed terrorist cell” in the vicinity of the occupied Golan Heights. They said they had also hit several targets in Syria in response to attacks on the occupied Golan Heights yesterday. The Golan Heights is a 1,200 square kilometre (463 square miles) plateau in Syrian territory that was occupied by Israel in 1967 after capturing the area in the Six-Day War. It was annexed by Israel in 1981. At least five Palestinians killed in Far’a refugee camp At least five Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli forces in a raid on the Far’a refugee camp in occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Overnight and early this morning, raids have been reported in several areas across the occupied Palestinian territory: Ramallah, where Israeli soldiers fired sound grenades and tear gas Al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron Villages of Kafr Qaddum and Jinsafut, east of Qalqilya Occupied East Jerusalem, where Israeli forces have also arrested two Palestinian men, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa Click Palestinian Authority working with US for post-war Gaza: Report Bloomberg News is reporting that the Palestinian Authority is working with US officials on a plan to run Gaza once the war is over. The preferred outcome of the conflict would be for Hamas to become a junior partner under the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), helping to build a new independent state that includes the occupied West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, the report said, citing Palestinian PM Shtayyeh. “If they [Hamas] are ready to come to an agreement and accept the political platform of the PLO, then there will be room for talk. Palestinians should not be divided,” he said, adding that Israel’s aim to fully defeat Hamas is unrealistic. Smoke rises over Gaza [Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters] Click here to share on social media US officials voice concern over Israel’s military ambitions: Report The HuffPost has reported that US officials are concerned that Israel is looking to secure US weapons for a war in Lebanon. “This is a pivotal moment in history, and we should feel angry about how Netanyahu has literally put our reputation on fire to advance his personal political agenda. The collateral effects to American security are extremely consequential,” the news website quoted a State Department official as saying, Click here to share on social media Men kidnapped from schools under heavy gunfire Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah in the Gaza Strip, said that dozens of men taken from UN-affiliated schools in northern Gaza on Thursday were rounded up under “heavy gunfire” with snipers also positioned around the school. “Those men were ordered to leave the school and then they were blindfolded. They were stripped of their clothes, and there were signs of beatings and torture as we’ve seen in one of the videos and the pictures circulating,” he said. Footage aired by Israeli media showed at least 100 Palestinian men sitting in their underwear on the street in Jabalia before being taken to an unknown location. Among the men were doctors, academics, journalists and the elderly, according to the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. We are getting reports of casualties in Far’a refugee camp near Tubas, northeast of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, following an Israeli raid. At least three people have been killed and three others were wounded, medical sources told Al Jazeera. Videos from earlier this morning show Israeli forces entering the site with tanks while sounds of explosions could be heard across the camp. We will add more information as we get it. Click here to share on social media Will Netanyahu risk a tunnel conflict to ‘eradicate Hamas’, stay in power? Nils Adler Al Jazeera spoke to experts on the challenges the Israeli army would face if they entered the sophisticated, sprawling network of tunnels under the Gaza Strip. Fighting in the narrow tunnels would be a risky move for the Israelis, who would be without the aerial support they rely on overground. However, some believe that a politically embattled Netanyahu may still choose to engage Hamas in the tunnels to fulfil his ambitions of eradicating the group. Read the full article here. An Israeli soldier secures a tunnel underneath Gaza City, on November 22, 2023 [Ronen Zvulun/Reuters] Click here to share on social media Renewed Israeli air strikes across Gaza Israeli forces struck a number of areas across the Gaza Strip earlier today, including in the Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza. Additionally, an Israeli air attack on a house in Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza, killed five people. Click here to share on social media Ben-Gvir requests Hamas prisoners be moved to underground prison wing Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has ordered the country’s prison service commissioner to reopen an underground prison wing to hold jailed members of Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades. The Times of Israel, citing Hebrew media, reported that the wing was part of the Nitzan prison in central Israel and is reported to have been unused for years. Ben-Gvir also wrote to Israel’s police commissioner describing the conditions in the underground wing as “not among the best”, but that the conditions “comply with the provisions of the law and the relevant regulations, and it has housed prisoners in the past”. Click here to share on social