United News of Bangladesh

Tropical Storm Rafael formed Monday in the Caribbean and will bring heavy rain to Jamaica and the Cayman Islands before strengthening into a hurricane and likely hitting Cuba, forecasters said. Later in the week it also is expected to bring heavy rainfall to Florida and portions of the U.S. Southeast, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. A tropical storm warning was in effect for Jamaica, and a hurricane watch was in effect for the Cayman Islands and for parts of Cuba including the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, La Habana, Mayabeque, Matanzas, and the Isle of Youth. A tropical storm watch was issued for Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spiritus, Ciego de Avila, Camaguey, and Las Tunas in Cuba. A tropical storm watch also was issued for the lower and middle Florida Keys from Key West to west of the Channel 5 Bridge, and for the Dry Tortugas. The storm was located about 150 miles (245 kilometers) south of Kingston, Jamaica. It had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph) while moving north-northwest at 9 mph (15 kph), the center said. The storm was expected to move near Jamaica late Monday, be near or over the Cayman Islands late Tuesday as a hurricane and approach Cuba on Wednesday. Most forecasts show the storm peaking as a Category 1 hurricane, “but conditions over the next few days will favor strengthening so we’ll need to monitor how quickly it organizes, and a stronger hurricane can’t be ruled out,” wrote Michael Lowry, hurricane specialist and storm surge expert, in an analysis Monday. On Monday morning, the government of the Cayman Islands offered people sandbags and announced schools would close on Tuesday. “Residents are urged to take immediate precautions to protect themselves and their properties,” the government said in a statement. Schools in Jamaica also were scheduled to close on Tuesday, with government offices closing on Monday afternoon. Cuban authorities said Monday night that some 37,000 people remained under evacuation orders in far eastern Cuba, in the province of Guantanamo, due to bad weather. The latest development comes on the heels of Tropical Storm Oscar, which dumped heavy rains in Cuba in October, leaving eight people dead and a widespread blackout across the island due to a collapse of the national energy system. Meanwhile, the Jamaica Observer newspaper reported a large landslide in a rural area north of the Kingston capital on Sunday that officials blamed on persistent rains ahead of the potential storm. No injuries were reported, but a couple of communities were left isolated. Heavy rainfall will affect the western Caribbean with totals of 3 to 6 inches (7 to 15 centimeters) and up to 9 inches (23 cm) expected locally in Jamaica and parts of Cuba. Flooding and mudslides are possible. Rafael is the 17th named storm of the season. On the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean, Tropical Storm Patty dissipated.

The nation’s federal law enforcement and election security agencies are debunking two new examples of Russian election disinformation on the eve of Election Day, highlighting attempts by foreign actors to sow doubt in the U.S. voting process and warning that the efforts run the risk of inciting violence against election officials. In a joint statement late Monday, federal officials pointed to a recent article posted by Russian actors falsely claiming that U.S. officials across presidential swing states were orchestrating a plan to commit fraud, as well as a video that falsely depicted an interview with an individual claiming election fraud in Arizona. Harris and Trump's final push before Election Day brings them to the same patch of U.S. intelligence reveals that Russia-linked influence actors “are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences,” read the statement issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. “These efforts risk inciting violence, including against election officials.” A spokesperson for the Russian Embassy did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Federal officials warned that Russia will likely release additional “manufactured content” on Election Day and poses “the most active threat” when it comes to foreign election influence. The statement also noted that Iran remains a “significant foreign influence threat to U.S. elections." The effort described by federal officials is part of a wide-ranging influence operation by Russia designed to undermine confidence in the electoral process and sow discord among American voters. Intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia, which also interfered on Donald Trump’s behalf in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, again prefers the Republican nominee and is likely to persist in its influence operations well after Election Day. Besides manufactured videos intended to promote disinformation, U.S. officials also have accused Russian state media of a covert, multimillion-dollar operation to spread pro-Russia content to American audiences and have seized dozens of internet domains they said fostered propaganda. In their statement, officials also drew fresh attention to Iran’s attempts to interfere in the election, which include a hack-and-leak operation designed to harm Trump’s candidacy. The Justice Department in September charged three Iranian hackers in that effort. Iranian actors also have created fake news sites and impersonated activists online in attempts to sway voters, according to analysts at Microsoft. The tech giant said last month that Iranian actors who allegedly sent emails aimed at intimidating U.S. voters in 2020 have been surveying election-related websites and major media outlets, raising concerns they could be preparing for another scheme this year. As large tech firms and intelligence officials have called out foreign interference this election cycle, Russia, China and Iran have rejected claims that they are seeking to meddle with the U.S. election. The Arizona video promoted on social media by Russian actors on Monday purported to show an anonymous whistleblower revealing an election fraud scheme. Federal officials said the Arizona Secretary of State’s office had already refuted the content of the video. Earlier this week, U.S. officials confirmed that a video claiming to show voter fraud in two left-leaning counties in Georgia was fake and the product of a Russian troll farm. And last month, they attributed to Russia another fake video of a person tearing up ballots in what appeared to be Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

North Korea on Tuesday fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern sea, the South Korean military said, as the country continued its weapons demonstrations hours before the U.S. presidential election. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles flew about 400 kilometers (250 miles) but didn’t specify how many were fired. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said they landed in waters outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone and there were no immediate reports of damage. The launches came days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a flight test of the country’s newest intercontinental ballistic missile designed to reach the U.S. mainland. In response to that launch, the United States flew a long-range B-1B bomber in a trilateral drill with South Korea and Japan on Sunday in a show of force. That drew condemnation from Kim’s powerful sister, who on Tuesday accused North Korea’s rivals of raising tensions with “aggressive and adventuristic military threats.” North Korea’s diplomat visits Moscow as troop deployment rumours spread South Korean officials have said that North Korea was likely to dial up its military displays around the U.S. presidential election to command the attention of Washington. South Korea’s military intelligence agency said last week that North Korea has also likely completed preparations for its seventh nuclear test. Outside officials and analysts say North Korea eventually hopes to use an expanded nuclear arsenal as leverage to win concessions such as sanctions relief after a new U.S. president is elected. There are widespread views that Kim Jong Un would prefer a win by Republican candidate Donald Trump, with whom he engaged in high-stakes nuclear diplomacy in 2018-19, seeing him as a more likely counterpart to give him what he wants than Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. During campaigning, Harris said she won’t “cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong Un who are rooting for Trump.” North Korea claimed last week that the Hwasong-19 it tested on Oct. 31 was “the world’s strongest” ICBM, but experts say the solid-fuel missile was too big to be useful in war. Experts say North Korea has yet to acquire some critical technologies to build a functioning ICBM, such as ensuring that the warhead survives the harsh conditions of atmospheric re-entry. Tensions between the Koreas are at their highest point in years as Kim has repeatedly flaunted his expanding nuclear weapon and missile programs, while reportedly providing Russia with munitions and troops to support President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. On Monday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that as many as 10,000 North Korean soldiers were in Russia’s Kursk region near Ukraine’s border and were preparing to join Moscow’s fight against Ukraine in the coming days. If they engage in combat, it would be North Korea’s first participation in a large-scale conflict since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. After a meeting in Seoul on Monday, senior South Korean and European Union officials expressed concerns about Russia’s possible transfer of technology to North Korea to enhance its nuclear program in exchange for its troops. Such transfers would “jeopardize the international non-proliferation efforts and threaten peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and across the globe,” they said. In response to North Korea’s growing nuclear threat, South Korea, the United States and Japan have been expanding their combined military exercises and updating their nuclear deterrence plans built around U.S. strategic assets. North Korea has portrayed the joint military drills by its rivals as rehearsals for an invasion and used them to justify its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles. At a U.N. Security Council meeting Monday, North Korea’s ambassador, Kim Song, defended the North's nuclear and ICBM programs as essential for the country’s self-defense and a necessary response to what it perceives as nuclear threats from the United States. He stressed that North Korea would accelerate the build-up of “our nuclear force that can counter any threat presented by hostile nuclear weapon states.” U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood warned that the U.S. cannot stand back from North Korea’s expanding nuclear program and the growing threat to U.S. security “without a response.” Wood also repeated last week’s call for Russia to say whether there are North Korean troops on the ground in Russia. “We’re not in a court here,” Russian Deputy Ambassador Anna Evstigneeva replied, “and the questions of the United States, in the spirit of an interrogation, is not something I intend to answer.”  

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump made their final pitches to voters Monday in the same parts of Pennsylvania at roughly the same time, focusing on the state that could make or break their chances during the last full day of the presidential campaign. In Pittsburgh, Trump delivered what his campaign aides described as his closing argument after his previous attempt — a mass rally at Madison Square Garden in New York -- was derailed by crude and racist jokes. He has also veered off message with falsehoods about voter fraud and invocations of violence. “Over the past four years, Americans have suffered one catastrophic failure, betrayal and humiliation after another,” said the Republican nominee, sounding raspy yet energetic after speaking for hours each day. Harris and Trump will both make a furious last-day push before Election Day “We do not have to settle for weakness, incompetence, decline and decay,” he went on. “With your vote tomorrow, we can fix every single problem our country faces and lead America, and indeed the while world, to new heights of glory.” The crowd exploded in cheers when the Republican nominee said the country should tell Harris, “You’re fired,” his catchphrase from “The Apprentice,” the reality television show that made him a nationally recognized star. Trump started Monday in North Carolina and he's scheduled to hold his last rally of the election in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he concluded his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Harris, the Democratic nominee, is spending all of Monday in Pennsylvania, and she was en route to Pittsburgh while Trump was speaking there. She's holding her final rally in Philadelphia later in the evening. “We need everyone in Pennsylvania to vote,” she said during one of her campaign stops. “You are going to make the difference in this election.” With 19 Electoral College votes, the state is the biggest prize of any battleground. A Trump victory there would puncture the Democrats' “blue wall” and make it harder for Harris to win the necessary 270 votes. “If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole ball of wax,” Trump said during an event in Reading, in the state's southeast corner. Both candidates visited the area, which is home to thousands of Latinos, including a sizable Puerto Rican population. Harris and her allies have repeatedly hit Trump for a comedian's dig at Puerto Rico during the former president's marquee Madison Square Garden event. The comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” “It was absurd,” said German Vega, a Dominican American who lives in Reading and became a U.S. citizen in 2015. “It bothered so many people — even many Republicans. It wasn’t right, and I feel that Trump should have apologized to Latinos.” But Emilio Feliciano, 43, waited outside Reading’s Santander Arena for a chance to take a photo of Trump’s motorcade. He dismissed the comments about Puerto Rico despite his family being Puerto Rican, saying he cares about the economy and that’s why he will vote for Trump. “Is the border going to be safe? Are you going to keep crime down? That’s what I care about,” he said. Harris told the crowd, “I stand here proud of my long-standing commitment to Puerto Rico and her people." “And I will be a president for all Americans," she said, adding that “momentum is on our side. Can you feel it?” Trump, meanwhile, stuck to talking about his proposed crackdown on immigration. He called to the stage Patty Morin, the mother of 37-year-old Rachel Morin, who was found dead a day after she went missing during a trip to go hiking. Officials say the suspect in her death, Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, entered the U.S. illegally after allegedly killing a woman in his home country of El Salvador. About 77 million Americans have voted early. A victory by either side would be unprecedented. Trump winning would make him the first incoming president to have been indicted and convicted of a felony, after his hush-money trial in New York. He will gain the power to end other federal investigations pending against him. Trump would also become only the second president in history to win nonconsecutive White House terms, after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century. Harris is vying to become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office — four years after she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming President Joe Biden’s second in command. Heading into Monday, Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Trump by name, calling him instead “the other guy.” She is promising to solve problems and seek consensus. Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said on a call with reporters that not saying Trump’s name was deliberate because voters “want to see in their leader an optimistic, hopeful, patriotic vision for the future.” Harris also offered some insights into her personal formation as a politician that she doesn't often divulge. In Scranton, she talked about once being a longshot while running for San Francisco district attorney in 2002 and how she “used to campaign with my ironing board.” “I’d walk to the front of the grocery store, outside, and I would stand up my ironing board because, you see, an ironing board makes a really great standing desk,” the vice president said, recalling how she would tape her posters to the outside of the board, fill the top with flyers and “require people to talk to me as they walked in and out.” In Allentown, Harris rallied with rapper Fat Joe. She then made her own visit to Reading after Trump's rally had concluded, visiting Old San Juan Cafe, a Puerto Rican restaurant, with Ocasio-Cortez. Both Fat Joe, whose real name is Joseph Cartagena, and Ocasio-Cortez are of Puerto Rican heritage. Supporters chanted “Sí se puede” and “Kamala” as the vice president’s motorcade pulled up. Once inside, Harris chatted with some diners, even mixing in “Gracias” and a few Spanish words. The vice president later ordered cassava, yellow rice and pork, saying, “I'm very hungry" as she noted that she's been too busy campaigning to find time for many meals. Harris did some of her own canvassing afterward, stopping at two homes in Reading while flanked by campaign volunteers. “It’s the day before the election and I just wanted to come by and say I hope to earn your vote," she said at one house. The woman replied, “You already got my vote" and said her husband would be casting his ballot the next day. Standing in line for Harris’ Allentown rally, 54-year-old Ron Kessler, an Air Force veteran and Republican-turned-Democrat, said he planned to vote for just the second time in his life. Kessler said that, for a long time, he didn’t vote, thinking the country “would vote for the correct candidate.” But “now that I’m older and much more wiser, I believe it’s important, it’s my civic duty. And it’s important that I vote for myself and I vote for the democracy and the country.”    

The head of Myanmar's military government will pay an official visit this week to China, the embattled Southeast Asian nation’s most important international ally, for several regional meetings, state-run media reported on Monday, amid concern by the opposition. It will be the first time Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has traveled to the neighboring country since his army seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The visit comes as Myanmar’s army has suffered unprecedented battlefield defeats over the past year, especially in areas near the Chinese border. Both Myanmar’s ruling generals and China’s government have shown concern as pro-democracy guerrillas and armed ethnic minority groups, sometimes working hand in hand, have taken the initiative in their fight against military rule. But Beijing is now concerned about instability that threatens its strategic and business interests in Myanmar. China’s government has maintained good working relations with Myanmar’s ruling military, which is shunned and sanctioned by many Western nations for the army takeover and for major human rights violations. State-run MRTV television said that Min Aung Hlaing will visit the Chinese city of Kunming on Wednesday and Thursday to attend three summits: The Greater Mekong Subregion, the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy and the Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam Cooperation. Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan province, is about 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the border with Myanmar. The report said he will also have “meetings with Chinese government officials to discuss ways to enhance goodwill, economic and various sectors between the two governments and the people.” China, along with Russia, is a major arms supplier to Myanmar’s military in its war against resistance forces. Beijing is also Myanmar’s biggest trading partner and has invested billions of dollars in its mines, oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure. Russia is the only other foreign destination to which Min Aung Hlaing is known to have traveled since taking power, aside from his attendance at an April 2021 summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. His government’s unwillingness to cooperate in efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution of his country's conflict led to him and other top Myanmar government officials being disinvited from ASEAN summits since then. Myanmar’s pro-democracy opposition has expressed concern about China welcoming a visit by Min Aung Hlaing. Kyaw Zaw, a spokesperson for the opposition National Unity Government, said in a recorded video posted on Facebook last week, before the official announcement of the trip, that he was deeply concerned about China’s invitation to Min Aung Hlaing and urged the Chinese government to review its action. “Myanmar’s people want stability, peace and economic growth. It is Min Aung Hlaing and his group who are destroying these things,” Kyaw Zaw said. “I am concerned that it will unintentionally incite a misunderstanding of the Chinese government among Myanmar’s public." The shadow National Unity Government was established by elected lawmakers barred from taking their seats in 2021 and is closely linked to Suu Kyi’s former ruling National League for Democracy party, which had friendly relations with Beijing. Although China is scorned by many for backing the army, the shadow government tries to avoid antagonizing Beijing too much, recognizing the influence it has in the region. Myanmar’s army has been on the defensive since late last year when ethnic armed organizations dealt it major defeats in the country’s northeast. The offensive by the “Three Brotherhood Alliance," comprising the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Arakan Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, was able to quickly capture towns and overrun military bases and command centers and strategic cities along the Chinese border in northeastern Shan state. It was widely seen at the time as having Beijing’s tacit support to help stamp out rampant organized crime activities in the area controlled by ethnic Chinese. Beijing helped broker a cease-fire in January, but that fell apart in June when the ethnic rebel forces launched new attacks. China was displeased with the continuing warfare, shutting down border crossings, cutting electricity to Myanmar towns and taking other measures to discourage the fighting.

Fourteen people were killed in a lightning strike in a refugee camp in northern Uganda, police said Sunday. The incident happened Saturday in the remote district of Lamwo. Police spokesman Kituuma Rusoke said 34 other people were injured. The victims have not yet been identified, he said. The residents of the Palabek settlement camp, which primarily houses refugees from South Sudan, had been attending a prayer service in the makeshift metallic structure when the lighting struck. Deadly lightning is commonly reported in this East African country during the wet seasons. Rusoke said there was no report of fire breaking out following the strike.

A poorly maintained and overcrowded bus veered off the road and plunged into a deep gorge in northern India on Monday, killing at least 36 people and injuring several others, officials said. The accident occurred in Almora district in the mountainous state of Uttarakhand. The bus was carrying around 60 people, and more than 20 have been injured, said Deepak Rawat, a senior state government official. Authorities said earlier they believed there were 42 passengers, which was how many people the bus could accommodate. Teams of rescue and relief workers were deployed to the site and officials feared the death toll may rise further, especially as seven passengers in hospital were in critical condition. Television footage showed parts of the bus mangled and destroyed as it lay overturned on a rocky slope, close to a stream. Rescuers were seen working to pull out passengers and carrying bodies on stretchers. Indian troops kill 3 suspected rebels in disputed Kashmir The state’s chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami earlier said rescue teams were working to quickly evacuate the injured passengers to nearby hospitals and that authorities have been instructed to airlift those seriously hurt. The state government has opened an investigation into the accident, said Vineet Pal, another official in the state. He added that preliminary information suggested that the dilapidated bus skidded before tumbling down a 60 meter- (200-foot-) -deep gorge. A number of passengers managed to escape or were thrown out by the impact, and then alerted authorities about the accident. Two transport officials have been suspended for approving a bus that was in poor condition, Pal said. India has some of the highest road death rates in the world, with hundreds of thousands of people killed and injured annually. Most crashes are blamed on reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and aging vehicles. In July, at least 18 people died after a double-decker passenger bus collided with a milk truck in Uttar Pradesh state. In May, a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims skidded and rolled into a deep gorge on a mountainous highway in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing at least 21 people.  

Britain's Prince William will meet with young environmentalists and local fishermen during a visit to South Africa that starts on Monday and will focus on climate change and conservation. He will also see his annual Earthshot Prize award $1.2 million in grants to five organizations for innovative environmental ideas. The 42-year-old heir to the throne will also attend a global wildlife summit and spend time at a sea rescue institute during four days of events in Cape Town, with the centerpiece of his trip the Earthshot awards ceremony on Wednesday night. He will use the visit to highlight other issues close to his heart, such as the work of rangers on the front line of conservation efforts, officials said. The visit comes as the finances of William and his father, King Charles III, come under scrutiny following an investigation by The Sunday Times newspaper and Britain’s Channel 4 television. The probe found their private estates made millions of pounds by renting properties to government entities, including the armed forces, the National Health Service and public schools. The two estates, the king’s Duchy of Lancaster and the prince’s Duchy of Cornwall, hold portfolios of commercial, residential and agricultural properties that provide personal income to the royals. The Duchy of Lancaster responded by saying that while the king takes an interest in the estate, day-to-day operations are overseen by an independent council and executives. The Duchy of Cornwall said the estate operates with a commercial imperative “alongside our commitment to restoring the natural environment and generating positive social impact for our communities.’’ Spain and England to meet in European Championship final in front of Prince William and King Felipe William, the Prince of Wales, last visited Africa in 2018, but he has a strong connection to the continent. William traveled to Africa as a boy after the death of his mother, Princess Diana, in a Paris car crash in 1997. He and his wife, Kate, got engaged at a wildlife conservancy in Kenya in 2010. And he said he came up with the idea for the Earthshot awards while in Namibia in 2018. "Africa has always held a special place in my heart as somewhere I found comfort as a teenager, where I proposed to my wife, and most recently, as the founding inspiration behind the Earthshot Prize," William said in a statement ahead of his visit. Kate, Princess of Wales, and their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis are not traveling to South Africa. Kate, 42, only recently returned to some public duties after completing treatment for an undisclosed type of cancer. William's visit comes soon after his brother Harry, the Duke of Sussex, visited South Africa and neighboring Lesotho last month for a youth charity he set up in southern Africa with a member of Lesotho's royal family. William formed the Earthshot Prize through his Royal Foundation in 2020 to encourage new ideas to solve environmental problems; it launched in 2021. The first three awards ceremonies were held in Britain, the United States and Singapore. William said he wanted this year's awards to inspire young people involved in climate action across Africa, a continent of some 1.5 billion people that contributes the least to global warming but is especially vulnerable to climatic shocks. The wider southern African region is currently experiencing its worst drought and hunger crisis in decades, with 27 million people severely affected, according to the United Nations. The Earthshot prizes are awarded in five categories: protecting and restoring nature, clean air, reviving oceans, building a waste-free world, and fixing the climate. This year's finalists include a company in Kenya that develops solar-powered systems for homes, a group in Ecuador that brings Indigenous communities together to protect forests, and a conservation project in Kazakhstan that is saving the critically endangered Saiga antelope from extinction. The awards ceremony will be held in a temporary, reusable dome that has been erected on a field next to a sports stadium in Cape Town. The 470-foot-long dome has hosted other events in South Africa and will be dismantled to be used again after the Earthshot prizes, organizers said. While climate change and threats to the environment are at the center of William's visit, he will briefly break away from those topics to go to a high school in an underprivileged Cape Town neighborhood, where he's expected to join kids at a rugby practice. Rugby is one of South Africa's most popular sports and the country's national team, the Springboks, are the reigning world champions. William is also a rugby follower. “I can promise that you will see the Prince of Wales playing some rugby,” a Kensington Palace spokesperson said of the planned school visit.

The recurrent storms in eastern Spain that led to massive flooding last week and killed at least 217 people, mostly near Valencia, dumped rain on Barcelona on Monday, prompting authorities to suspend commuter rail service. Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente said he was suspending all commuter trains in northeast Catalonia, a region with 8 million people, on request from civil protection officials. Mobile phones in Barcelona screeched with an alert for “extreme and continued rainfall” on the southern outskirts of the city. The alert urged people to avoid any normally dry gorges or canals. Mud-caked volunteers clean flood debris in a Spanish town as authorities struggle to respond Puente said that the rains had forced air traffic controllers to change the course of 15 flights operating at Barcelona’s airport, located on the southern flank of the city. Several highways have been closed due to flooding. Classes were cancelled in Tarragona, a city in southern Catalonia about halfway between Barcelona and Valencia, after a red alert for rains was issued. Meanwhile, in Valencia, the search continued for bodies inside houses and thousands of wrecked cars strewn in the streets, on highways, and in canals that channeled last week's floods into populated areas. Spain's Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that authorities can still not give a reliable estimate of the missing. Spanish national television RTVE, however, has broadcast pleas for help by several desperate people whose loved ones are unaccounted for. In the Aldaia municipality, some 50 soldiers, police and firefighters, some wearing wetsuits, searched in a huge shopping center's underground parking lot for possible victims. They used a small boat and spotlights to move around in the huge structure with vehicles submerged in at least a meter of murky water. Police spokesman Ricardo Gutiérrez told reporters that so far some 50 vehicles had been found and no bodies had been discovered there. The Bonaire shopping mall's 1,800 underground parking spaces quickly filled with water and mud on Tuesday and Wednesday when the southern outskirts of Valencia were hit by a tsunami-like flooding. The team is using four pumps to remove the water. Citizens, volunteers and thousands of soldiers and police officers pressed on with their gargantuan clean-up effort to clear out mud and debris. Many people feel abandoned by authorities, their anger erupting on Sunday when a crowd tossed mud at Spain's royal couple, the prime minister and regional leaders as they made their first visit to Paiporta, where over 60 people died and the survivors have lost their homes and still don't have drinking water. Spain is used to autumn storms that can lead to flooding, but the latest ones have produced the deadliest flooding in living memory for Spaniards. Climate scientists and meteorologists say the immediate cause of the flooding was a cut-off lower-pressure storm system that migrated from an unusually wavy and stalled jet stream. It was likely fueled by a record-hot Mediterranean Sea. That system simply parked itself over the region and unleashed a deluge. The Spanish navy’s “Galicia” transport vessel arrived in Valencia’s port on Monday with marines, helicopters and trucks loaded with food and water to help with the relief effort, which included 7,500 soldiers and thousands of police reinforcements.

Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency said Monday that at least 10 people have died as a series of volcanic eruptions widens on the remote island of Flores. The eruption at Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki around midnight spewed thick brownish ash as high as 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) into the air and hot ashes hit several villages, burning down houses including a convent of Catholic nuns, said Firman Yosef, an official at the Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki monitoring post. He said volcanic material was thrown up to 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from its crater, blanketing nearby villages and towns with tons of volcanic debris and forcing residents to flee. Rescuers were still searching for more bodies buried under collapsed houses, said Abdul Muhari, the National Disaster Management Agency’s spokesperson. Muhari said all the bodies, including a child, were found with a 4-kilometer (2.4 mile) radius of the crater. He said at least 10,000 people have been affected by the eruption in six villages of Wulanggitang District, and four villages in Ile Bura district. Some have fled to relatives’ houses while the local government is readying schools to use as temporary shelters. The country’s volcano monitoring agency increased the volcano’s alert status to the highest level and more than doubled the exclusion zone to a 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) radius after midnight on Monday as eruptions became more frequent. Indians celebrate Diwali by illuminating a record number of clay lamps A nun in Hokeng village died and another was missing, said Agusta Palma, the head of the Saint Gabriel Foundation that oversees convents on the majority-Catholic island. “Our nuns ran out in panic under a rain of volcanic ash in the darkness,” Palma said. Photos and videos circulated on social media showed tons of volcanic debris covering houses up to their rooftops in villages like Hokeng, where hot volcanic material set fire to houses. Lewotobi Laki-laki is one of a pair of stratovolcanoes in the East Flores district of East Nusa Tenggara province known locally as the husband — “Laki-laki” means man — and wife mountains. Its mate is Lewotobi Perempuan, or woman. About 6,500 people were evacuated in January after Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki began erupting, spewing thick clouds and forcing the government to close the island's Frans Seda Airport. No casualties or major damage were reported, but the airport has remained closed since then due to seismic activity. In a video conference on Monday, Muhammad Wafid, the head of Geology Agency at the Energy and Mineral Resources ministry said there was a different character between January’s eruption and Monday’s eruption due to a blockage of magma in the crater, which reduced detectible seismic activity while building up pressure. “The eruptions that occurred since Friday were due to the accumulation of hidden energy,” Wafid said. New sanctions target Myanmar's military suppliers It’s Indonesia’s second volcanic eruption in as many weeks. West Sumatra province’s Mount Marapi, one of the country’s most active volcanos, erupted on Oct. 27, spewing thick columns of ash at least three times and blanketing nearby villages with debris, but no casualties were reported. Lewotobi Laki-laki is one of the 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of 280 million people. The country is prone to earthquakes, landslides and volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.