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US Speaker Pelosi's husband attacked, beaten by intruder
The husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was attacked and severely beaten with a hammer by an assailant who broke into the couple's San Francisco home early Friday, searching for the Democratic leader and shouting, “Where is Nancy, where is Nancy?”
The assault on the 82-year-old Paul Pelosi injected new uneasiness into the nation's already toxic political climate, just 11 days before the midterm elections. It carried chilling echoes of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, when rioters chanted menacingly for the speaker as they rampaged through the halls trying to halt certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.
Speaker Pelosi, who was in Washington at the time of the California attack, arrived in San Francisco late Friday. Her motorcade was seen arriving at the hospital where her husband was being treated for his injuries.
“This was not a random act. This was intentional. And it’s wrong," said San Francisco Police Chief William Scott.
At an evening news conference, Scott hailed a 911 dispatcher's work — after Paul Pelosi called for help — as “lifesaving." The chief appeared to hold back tears, his voice breaking at times, as he strongly rejected violence in politics.
“Our elected officials are here to do the business of their cities and their counties and their states. Their families don’t sign up for this,” Scott said. "Everybody should be disgusted about what happened this morning.”
Forty-two-year-old David DePape was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, elder abuse and burglary, and remained in the hospital late Friday, police said. Paul Pelosi underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands, and his doctors expect a full recovery, the speaker’s office said.
Biden quickly called Speaker Pelosi with support and later delivered a full-throated condemnation of the “despicable” attack that he said had no place in America.
“There’s too much violence, political violence. Too much hatred. Too much vitriol,” Biden said Friday night at a Democratic rally in Pennsylvania.
“What makes us think it's not going to corrode the political climate? Enough is enough is enough.”
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell tweeted he was “horrified and disgusted" by the assault.
The nation's political rhetoric has become increasingly alarming, with ominous threats to lawmakers at an all-time high. The House speaker and other congressional leaders are provided 24-hour security, and increasingly more other members now receive police protection. This, as crime and public safety have emerged as top issues for voters in the election.
In San Francisco on Friday, police were called at about 2.30 a.m. to the Pelosi residence to check on Paul Pelosi, said Scott.
Scott confirmed that the intruder gained entry through the rear door of the home, which is in the upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood. Investigators believe the intruder broke through glass-paneled doors, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Paul Pelosi called 911 himself after telling the intruder he had to use the restroom, where his phone was charging, according to another person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it. The person said the intruder confronted the speaker's husband shouting, “Where is Nancy?”
Scott said the dispatcher figured out there was "something more” than she was being told, resulting in a priority dispatch and faster police response. “I think this was lifesaving,” he noted.
Inside, police discovered the suspect, DePape, and Paul Pelosi struggling over a hammer, and told them to drop it, Scott said. DePape yanked the hammer from Pelosi and began beating him with it, striking at least one blow, before being tackled by officers and arrested, Scott said. The FBI and Capitol Police are also part of the joint investigation.
Police said a motive for Friday’s intrusion was still to be determined, but three people with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that DePape targeted Pelosi’s home. Those people were not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing probe and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The speaker had returned to Washington this week after being abroad and had been scheduled to appear with Vice President Kamala Harris at a fundraising event Saturday night for the LGBTQ group Human Rights Campaign. Pelosi canceled her appearance.
On Friday, Harris said, “I strongly believe that each one of us has to speak out against hate, we have to speak out against violence obviously, and speak to our better selves.”
An address listed for DePape in the Bay Area college town of Berkeley led to a post box at a UPS Store.
He was known locally as a pro-nudity activist who had picketed naked at protests against laws requiring people to be clothed in public
Gene DePape, the suspect’s stepfather, said the suspect lived with him in Canada until he was 14 and was a quiet boy.
“He was reclusive,” said Gene DePape, adding, “He was never violent.”
The stepfather said he hadn’t seen DePape since 2003 and tried to get in touch with him several times over the years without success.
Lawmakers from both parties reacted with shock and expressed their well-wishes to the Pelosi family.
“What happened to Paul Pelosi was a dastardly act,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “I spoke with Speaker Pelosi earlier this morning and conveyed my deepest concern and heartfelt wishes to her husband and their family, and I wish him a speedy recovery.”
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy reached out privately to the speaker "to check in on Paul and said he’s praying for a full recovery," spokesman Mark Bednar said.
But some Republicans declined to pause from politics.
Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin, at a campaign stop for a congressional candidate, said of the Pelosis, "There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re going to send her back to be with him in California.”
In 2021, Capitol Police investigated around 9,600 threats made against members of Congress, and several members have been physically attacked in recent years. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in the head at an event outside a Tucson grocery store in 2011, and Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., was severely injured when a gunman opened fire on a Republican congressional baseball team practice in 2017.
Members of Congress have received additional money for security at their homes, but some have pushed for yet more protection as people have shown up at their residences.
Nancy Pelosi, who is second in line of succession to the president, has been viciously lampooned in campaign ads by Republicans and outside groups this election cycle. Her protective security detail was with her in Washington at the time of Friday's attack in California.
Often at her side during formal events in Washington, Paul Pelosi is a wealthy investor who largely remains on the West Coast. They have been married for 59 years and have five adult children and many grandchildren.
Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor driving under the influence charges related to a May crash in California’s wine country and was sentenced to five days in jail and three years of probation.
The Pelosi home in the wealthy neighborhood has been the scene of several protests in the past few years. After Nancy Pelosi was seen on video getting her hair done at a salon while many were shut down during the coronavirus pandemic, stylists protested outside with curling irons. Members of the Chinese community protested recently before Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.
During debates over the federal stimulus package, protesters scrawled anarchy signs in black paint across the garage door, along with “cancel rent,” and “we want everything.” They left a pig’s head on the driveway.
Yet the dominant feelings Friday were of support and concern.
“We have been to many events with the Pelosis over the last 2 decades and we’ve had lots of occasions to talk about both of our families and the challenges of being part of a political family. Thinking about the Pelosi family today," tweeted Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
At the Capitol, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Senate president pro tempore and third in the presidential line of succession, said he had known Paul Pelosi “forever.” He said, “It’s just horrible.”
G-20 summit could put Biden in the same room with Putin and MBS
President Joe Biden will make a week-long, three country trip next month for a quartet of summits—including one that could potentially put him in the same room as China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced Friday that Biden will first travel to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on Nov. 11 for the COP 27 climate conference before heading to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to participate in the U.S.-ASEAN Summit of Southeast Asian leaders and the East Asia Summit. He'll then head to Bali, Indonesia for the Group of 20 summit, a gathering of leaders from most of the world's largest economies.
The president's overseas travel begins just days after the pivotal midterm elections in the United States, which will determine which party controls the House and Senate.
The G-20 summit could also offer Biden his first opportunity as president to meet face-to-face with his Chinese counterpart, Xi, and potentially puts him in the same room with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. The prince, who often is referred to by his initials MBS, is the de facto leader of the oil rich kingdom.
Putin, Xi and MBS have yet to announce their travel plans.
Biden and Xi travelled together in the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents and have held several calls since Biden became president in January 2021. But the U.S.-China relationship has become increasingly fraught.
The U.S. president has taken China to task for human rights abuses against the Uyghur and other ethnic minorities, squelching democracy activists' voices in Hong Kong, coercive trade practices, its military provocations against democratic, self-ruled Taiwan and differences over Russia's prosecution of its eight-month -old war against Ukraine
Xi's government, meanwhile, has criticized the Biden administration's posture toward Taiwan—which Beijing looks to eventually unify with communist mainland China— as undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said earlier this week that U.S. and Chinese officials were working to arrange a meeting of the leaders but one has not yet been confirmed. Biden on Wednesday at the start of a meeting with Defense Department officials underscored the "responsibility to manage increasingly intense competition with China.”
“We must maintain, as I said, our military advantage, but we’re making it clear that we don’t seek conflict,” Biden said.
It's less likely that Biden would hold one-on-one meetings with Putin or MBS.
The Biden administration organized the international community to hit Moscow with a barrage of sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has pledged more than $40 billion in economic and military assistance to assist Ukraine and its neighbors impacted by the war.
Biden and Putin held a face-to-face meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, in June 2021, months before Russia began massing troops along Ukraine's border. They last spoke by phone in February, with Biden warning Putin that Russia would face “severe costs” if he moved forward with the invasion.
Biden announced earlier this month that there would be “consequences” for Saudi Arabia after the Riyadh-led OPEC+ alliance moves to cut oil production. The White House also said it is reevaluating its relationship with the kingdom in light of the oil production cut that White House officials say will help Russia, another OPEC+ member, pad its coffers as it continues its nearly eight-month war in Ukraine.
Vice President Kamala Harris will travel separately to Bangkok, Thailand, to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ meeting Nov. 18-19, and then visit Manila, the Philippines, the White House said.
47 dead, dozens feared missing as storm lashes Philippines
Flash floods and landslides set off by torrential rains left at least 47 people dead, including in a hard-hit southern Philippine province, where as many as 60 villagers are feared missing and buried in a deluge of rainwater, mud, rocks and trees, officials said Saturday.
At least 42 people were swept away by rampaging floodwaters and drowned or were hit by debris-filled mudslides in three towns in Maguindanao province from Thursday night to early Friday, said Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region run by former separatist guerrillas.
Five other people died elsewhere from the onslaught of Tropical Storm Nalgae, which slammed into the eastern province of Camarines Sur early Saturday, the government’s disaster-response agency said.
But the worst storm impact so far was a mudslide laden with rainwater, rocks and trees that buried dozens of houses with as many as 60 people in the tribal village of Kusiong in Maguindanao’s Datu Odin Sinsuat town, Sinarimbo told The Associated Press by telephone, citing accounts from Kusiong villagers, who survived the flash flood and mudslide.
Eleven bodies, mostly of children, were dug up Friday by rescuers using spades in Kusiong, he said.
“That community will be our ground zero today,” Sinarimbo said, adding that heavy equipment and more rescue workers including army, police and volunteers have been deployed to intensify the search and rescue work.
The coastal village, which lies at the foot of a mountain, is accessible by road, allowing more rescuers to be deployed Saturday to deal with one of the worst weather-related disasters to hit the country’s south in decades, he said.
Citing reports from mayors, governors and disaster-response officials, Sinarimbo said 27 died mostly by drowning and landslides in Datu Odin Sinsuat town, 10 in Datu Blah Sinsuat town and five in Upi town, all in Maguindanao.
A death toll of 67 in Maguindanao on Friday night was recalled by authorities after discovering some double counting of casualties.
Army officials also reported at least 42 storm deaths in Maguindanao and said in a statement Friday night that their forces were “continuing to rescue those trapped in the flood in collaboration with local disaster teams” and take the displaced in army trucks to evacuation camps.
The unusually heavy rains flooded several towns in Maguindanao and outlying provinces in a mountainous region with marshy plains. Floodwaters rapidly rose in many low-lying villages, forcing some residents to climb onto their roofs, where they were rescued by army troops, police and volunteers, Sinarimbo said.
The coast guard issued pictures of its rescuers, wading in chest-high floodwaters to rescue the elderly and children in Maguindanao. Many of the swamped areas had not been flooded for years, including Cotabato city where Sinarimbo said his house was inundated.
The stormy weather in a large swath of the country prompted the coast guard to prohibit sea travel in dangerously rough seas as millions of Filipinos planned to travel over a long weekend to visit the tombs of relatives and for family reunions on All Saints’ Day in the largely Roman Catholic nation. Several domestic flights have also been cancelled, stranding thousands of passengers.
The wide rain bands of Nalgae, the 16th storm to hit the Philippine archipelago this year, enabled it to dump rainfall in the country’s south although the storm was blowing farther north, government forecaster Sam Duran said.
Dozens of provinces and cities were under storm alerts including the capital, Manila, which could be hit directly by the storm later Saturday, Vicente Manalo, who heads the government’s weather agency, told the AP.
More than 7,000 people were protectively evacuated away from the path of the storm, which was not expected to strengthen into a typhoon as it approached land, government forecasters and other officials said.
About 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippine archipelago each year. It is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.
The takeover means Twitter is becoming a private company. Trading of its shares was suspended Friday, and they will be pulled from the New York Stock Exchange next month.
Recession or not? Points to ponder to understand US economy
The U.S. economy grew faster than expected in the July-September quarter, the government reported Thursday, underscoring that the United States is not in a recession despite distressingly high inflation and interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
But the economy is hardly in the clear, and the solid growth reported for the third quarter did little to alter the growing conviction among economists that a recession is very likely next year.
Higher borrowing rates and chronic inflation will almost certainly continue to weaken consumer and business spending. And likely recessions in the United Kingdom and Europe and slower growth in China will erode the revenue and profits of American corporations. Such trends are expected to cause a U.S. recession sometime in 2023.
Still, there are reasons to hope that a recession, if it comes, will prove a relatively mild one. Many employers, having struggled to find workers to hire after huge layoffs during the pandemic, may decide to maintain most of their existing workforces even in a shrinking economy.
In the July-September quarter, the economy accelerated to a 2.6% annual pace, after two quarters of contraction. Consumers spent more and exports jumped, offsetting a sharp slowdown in home sales and construction.
Six months of economic decline is a long-held informal definition of a recession. Yet nothing is simple in a post-pandemic economy in which growth was negative in the first half of the year but the job market remained robust, with ultra-low unemployment and healthy levels of hiring. The economy’s direction has confounded the Fed’s policymakers and many private economists ever since growth screeched to a halt in March 2020, when COVID-19 struck and 22 million Americans were suddenly thrown out of work.
By far the biggest threat to the economy remains inflation, which is still near its highest level in four decades. Even for workers who received sizable raises, their pay has dropped once it’s adjusted for inflation. The pain is being felt disproportionately by lower-income and Black and Hispanic households, many of whom are struggling to pay for essentials like food, clothes, and rent.
High inflation has also become a central issue in Republican attacks on President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, who have been thrown on the defensive as they seek to maintain control of Congress in the midterm elections.
So what is the likelihood of a recession? Here are some questions and answers:
WHY DO MANY ECONOMISTS FORESEE A RECESSION?
They expect the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes and persistently high inflation to overwhelm consumers and businesses, forcing them to slow their spending and investment. Businesses will likely also have to cut jobs, causing spending to fall further.
The Fed is poised to keep raising its benchmark interest rate after having already hiked it five times this year, from near zero to a range of 3% to 3.25%. Fed officials have projected that their short-term rate, which affects borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, will reach about 4.6% next year, which would be the highest level since late 2007.
Read: How do we know when a recession has begun?
Consumers have been remarkably resilient so far this year. Still, there are signs that high inflation and borrowing costs have begun taking a toll. Last quarter, consumer spending grew at just a 1.4% annual rate, according to Thursday’s government report, down from 2% in the second quarter and less than half its pace of a year ago.
Thursday’s figures also showed that businesses are cutting back on investment in buildings and factories, and the housing market has been hammered by rising mortgage costs. Those trends are expected to intensify, leading to a likely recession.
WHAT ARE SOME SIGNS THAT A RECESSION MAY HAVE BEGUN?
The clearest signal, economists say, would be a steady rise in job losses and a surge in unemployment. Claudia Sahm, an economist and former Fed staff member, has noted that since World War II, an increase in the unemployment rate of a half-percentage point over several months has always resulted in a recession.
Many economists monitor the number of people who seek unemployment benefits each week, which indicates whether layoffs are worsening. Weekly applications for jobless aid have increased in recent months, but not by very much. Instead, employers have added a robust average of 370,000 jobs in the past three months.
ANY OTHER SIGNALS TO WATCH FOR?
Many economists monitor changes in the interest payments, or yields, on different bonds for a recession signal known as an “inverted yield curve.” This occurs when the yield on the 10-year Treasury falls below the yield on a short-term Treasury, such as the 3-month T-bill. That is unusual. Normally, longer-term bonds pay investors a richer yield in exchange for tying up their money for a longer period.
Inverted yield curves generally mean that investors foresee a recession that will compel the Fed to slash rates. Inverted curves often predate recessions. Still, it can take 18 to 24 months for a downturn to arrive after the yield curve inverts.
Ever since July, the yield on the two-year Treasury note has exceeded the 10-year yield, suggesting that markets expect a recession soon. And just this week, the three-month yield also temporarily rose above the 10-year, an inversion that has an even better track record at predicting recessions.
WHO DECIDES WHEN A RECESSION HAS STARTED?
Recessions are officially declared by the obscure-sounding National Bureau of Economic Research, a group of economists whose Business Cycle Dating Committee defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.”
The committee considers trends in hiring as a key measure in determining recessions. It also assesses many other data points, including gauges of income, employment, inflation-adjusted spending, retail sales and factory output. It puts heavy weight on jobs and a measure of inflation-adjusted income that excludes government support payments like Social Security.
Read: How to recession-proof your life amid economic uncertainty
Yet the NBER typically doesn’t declare a recession until well after one has begun, sometimes for up to a year.
DON’T A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK WE”RE ALREADY IN A RECESSION?
Yes, because many people now feel much more financially burdened. With wage gains trailing inflation for most people, higher prices have eroded Americans’ spending power.
And the Fed’s rate hikes have helped send the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate surging above 7% this week, the highest level in two decades. It has more than doubled from about 3% a year ago, thereby making homebuying increasingly unaffordable.
DOES HIGH INFLATION TYPICALLY LEAD TO A RECESSION?
Not always. Inflation reached 4.7% in 2006, at that point the highest in 15 years, without causing a downturn. (The 2008-2009 recession that followed was caused by the bursting of the housing bubble).
But when it gets as high as it has this year — it reached a 40-year peak of 9.1% in June — a downturn becomes increasingly likely.
That’s for two reasons: First, the Fed will inevitably sharply raise borrowing costs when inflation gets that high. Higher rates then drag down the economy as consumers are less able to afford homes, cars, and other major purchases.
High inflation also distorts the economy on its own. Consumer spending, adjusted for inflation, weakens. And businesses grow uncertain about the future economic outlook. Many of them pull back on their expansion plans and stop hiring, which can lead to higher unemployment as some people choose to leave jobs and aren’t replaced.
Two NASA spacecraft detect biggest meteor strikes at Mars
Two NASA spacecraft at Mars — one on the surface and the other in orbit — have recorded the biggest meteor strikes and impact craters yet.
The high-speed barrages last year sent seismic waves rippling thousands of miles across Mars, the first ever detected near the surface of another planet, and carved out craters nearly 500 feet (150 meters) across, scientists reported Thursday in the journal Science.
The larger of the two strikes churned out boulder-size slabs of ice, which may help researchers look for ways future astronauts can tap into Mars’ natural resources.
The Insight lander measured the seismic shocks, while the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provided stunning pictures of the resulting craters.
Imaging the craters “would have been huge already,” but matching it to the seismic ripples was a bonus, said co-author Liliya Posiolova of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. “We were so lucky.”
Mars’ atmosphere is thin unlike on Earth, where the thick atmosphere prevents most space rocks from reaching the ground, instead breaking and incinerating them.
A separate study last month linked a recent series of smaller Martian meteoroid impacts with smaller craters closer to InSight, using data from the same lander and orbiter.
Read: NASA says spacecraft succeeded in changing asteroid’s orbit
The impact observations come as InSight nears the end of its mission because of dwindling power, its solar panels blanketed by dust storms. InSight landed on the equatorial plains of Mars in 2018 and has since recorded more than 1,300 marsquakes.
“It’s going to be heartbreaking when we finally lose communication with InSight,” said Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the lander’s chief scientist who took part in the studies. “But the data it has sent us will certainly keep us busy for years to come.”
Banerdt estimated the lander had between four to eight more weeks before power runs out.
The incoming space rocks were between 16 feet and 40 feet (5 meters and 12 meters) in diameter, said Posiolova. The impacts registered about magnitude 4.
The larger of the two struck last December some 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) from InSight, creating a crater roughly 70 feet (21 meters) deep. The orbiter’s cameras showed debris hurled up to 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the impact, as well as white patches of ice around the crater, the most frozen water observed at such low latitudes, Posiolova said.
Posiolova spotted the crater earlier this year after taking extra pictures of the region from orbit. The crater was missing from earlier photos, and after poring through the archives, she pinpointed the impact to late December. She remembered a large seismic event recorded by InSight around that time and with help from that team, matched the fresh hole to what was undoubtedly a meteoroid strike. The blast wave was clearly visible.
Scientists also learned the lander and orbiter teamed up for an earlier meteoroid strike, more than double the distance of the December one and slightly smaller.
“Everybody was just shocked and amazed. Another one? Yep,” she recalled.
Read: NASA’s new telescope shows star death, dancing galaxies
The seismic readings from the two impacts indicate a denser Martian crust beyond InSight’s location.
“We still have a long way to go to understanding the interior structure and dynamics of Mars, which remain largely enigmatic,” said Doyeon Kim of ETH Zurich’s Institute of Geophysics in Switzerland, who was part of the research.
Outside scientists said future landers from Europe and China will carry even more advanced seismometers. Future missions will “paint a clearer picture” of how Mars evolved, Yingjie Yang and Xiaofei Chen from China’s Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen wrote in an accompanying editorial.
At least 31 dead in south Philippines floods, landslides
At least 31 people died and nine others were missing in flash floods and landslides set off by torrential rains that swamped a southern Philippine province overnight and trapped some residents on their roofs, officials said Friday.
Most of the victims were swept away by rampaging floodwaters and drowned or were hit by debris-laden mudslides in three towns in hard-hit Maguindanao province, said Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region run by former guerrillas.
“The amount of rainwater that came down overnight was unusually (heavy) and flowed down mountainsides and swelled rivers,” Sinarimbo told The Associated Press by telephone.
“I hope the casualty numbers won't rise further but there are still a few communities we haven’t reached,” Sinarimbo said, adding the rains have eased since Friday morning, causing floods to start to recede in several towns.
Sinarimbo said based on reports from mayors, governors and disaster-response officials, 26 died mostly by drowning in the neighboring coastal towns of Datu Odin Sinsuat and Datu Blah Sinsuat and five others died in Upi town, all in Maguindanao.
Five people were missing in Datu Blah Sinsuat, according to the town’s mayor, Marshall Sinsuat, and Sinarimbo said four others were reported missing elsewhere.
A rescue team was deployed to a tribal village called Kusiong at the foot of a mountain in Datu Odin Sinsuat to check on reports that floods and landslides also hit houses in the community, Sinarimbo said, adding there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The unusually heavy rains that flooded several towns in Maguindanao and outlying provinces overnight in a mountainous region with marshy plains were caused by Tropical Storm Nalgae, which was expected to blow into the country’s eastern coast from the Pacific Ocean on Saturday morning, according to forecasters.
Floodwaters rapidly rose in many low-lying villages, forcing some villagers to climb onto their roofs, where they were rescued by army troops, police and volunteers, Sinarimbo said. He added that many areas, which have not been flooded for years, like Cotabato city where he lives, were swamped overnight.
“In one area in Upi only the attic of a school can be seen above the floodwater,” said disaster-response officer Nasrullah Imam, referring to a flood-engulfed town in Maguindanao.
The wide rain bands of Nalgae, the 16th storm to hit the Philippine archipelago this year, enabled it to dump rains in the country’s south although the storm was blowing farther north, government forecaster Sam Duran said.
About 5,000 people were protectively evacuated away from the path of the storm, which was not expected to strengthen into a typhoon as it approached land, government forecasters and other officials said.
About 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippine archipelago each year. It’s located in the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the Southeast Asian nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.
India to flex its negotiating muscles at COP27
As countries gathered in Scotland were crystallizing their pledges at last year's United Nations climate conference, India used its might to intervene. Along with China, India took issue with the draft deal's suggestion to “phase out” coal, preferring the wording, “phase down."
After much back and forth and hurried discussions between leaders, Bhupendra Yadav, India’s minister for environment, forests, and climate change, read out the final version. It said that nations should work toward a “phase down” of coal power.
The intervention was, for India's government, a success.
Now the country is expected to exercise its influence yet again to look out for its own interests at the upcoming U.N. climate conference in Egypt, known as COP27.
“India has always played a key role in climate negotiations and I think Egypt will be the same,” said Navroz Dubash, a lead author of various U.N. climate reports and a long-time observer of climate policy and governance.
Indian leaders say the nation requires billions of dollars to enable its clean energy transition and will push for better financing for developing countries at the summit. India has made many of its carbon emission goals conditional on receiving this financial help. Being both a climate vulnerable as well as a high emitting country, experts say India occupies a unique position on the global climate policy negotiating table.
About 80% of India’s population live in regions highly vulnerable to extreme disasters like severe flooding or heat waves, according to a 2021 study by the climate think-tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water based in New Delhi. Meanwhile, the nation is currently the world's third biggest emitter of carbon dioxide behind China and the U.S., according to latest estimates.
A key issue for India at COP27 will be how to finance both adapting to climate change and limiting fossil fuel emissions, according to a senior Indian government official who will be involved in the negotiations. The official, from the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, responded to written questions from The Associated Press. The official was not named, keeping in line with ministry protocols.
India wants the $100 billion-a-year pledge of climate funds for developing countries, a promise made in 2009 that hasn’t yet been fulfilled despite being two years past its deadline, to be assessed, according to the official. Other questions around financing, such as what happens to climate funding in the long term, what contributions rich countries will make to poorer ones and how to make finance flows consistent with global temperature limit goals, also need to be addressed, they added. No other country will see a bigger increase in energy demand than India in the coming years, and it is estimated that the nation will need $223 billion to meet its 2030 clean energy targets.
“India has made it adequately clear that it is the historical responsibility of rich countries to provide the necessary climate funding,” said the senior Indian government official. Historically, it is the U.S. and European nations that have contributed the most carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. Estimates for how much it will cost to move to clean energy and industry practices globally and help vulnerable communities adapt vary, but are in the trillions of dollars.
Leading up to COP27, India had announced its new climate plan saying the country will aim to achieve half of its energy requirements from non-fossil fuel-based energy sources by the year 2030. Currently, 42% of the country’s installed electricity capacity is from non-fossil fuel sources.
“The investments in renewable energy, though on an upward trend, need significant scaling up. There is a funding gap. This gap needs to met by international climate public financing to attract investors in the renewable energy domain,” said the Indian government official. "The raised ambitions and new goals for tackling climate change could all be in vain if adequate financial support is not provided to developing countries.”
Despite their ambitious climate plans, India is also investing more in coal, at least in the short-term. In the last two years alone, the Indian government has announced around $50 billion in forthcoming public and private investment in coal.
Compensation for poor countries from rich, high-polluting nations for the destruction caused by climate change, known as “loss and damage” in climate negotiations will be a key agenda item for many developing countries, including India.
According to the World Bank, 750 million people in South Asia have been affected by at least one natural disaster in the past two decades. These disasters are expected to become more frequent and intense, potentially creating immense loss and damage in the region. The NGO Germanwatch has ranked India seventh among countries most affected by extreme weather in 2019, noting that massive floods that year caused damage of around $10 billion, claiming 1,800 lives and displacing around 1.8 million people.
"I think it’s a real challenge for India to position itself” on loss and damage, said Dubash, who's also a professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. “I think it would be an important moment for India to signal its allegiance with vulnerable countries,”
Long term observers of climate diplomacy say India, like many other countries, is straddling climate goals and boosting standards of living.
“There are some groups of countries which tend to think that all the financing for fossil fuels should be stopped and should be restricted. The problem with this, among other things, is that it ignores the efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals that many countries are making," said RR Rashmi, a distinguished fellow at The Energy Research Institute in New Delhi.
He added that moving away from fossil fuels “has to be a country driven process. It is best left to them to decide which sectors to address first rather than addressing it globally.”
Many observers say this year's conference will be "in-between COP," as many of the deadlines set for climate change goals have either passed or are not due until later years. This makes the conference "a good moment to push forward the issues that the developed world typically sideline, like loss and damage, climate finance and adaptation,” said Avantika Goswami, a climate policy researcher at the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi.
For the most part, experts say India is keeping its cards close to its chest.
India will have to balance “what the country is willing to put on the table in terms of pledges, policies, and commitments” and how much they are willing to spend, said Dubash. “So we (India) don’t want to do something that would lock ourselves into something costly unless there’s a promise of finance.”
China greatest security challenge for US: Pentagon
China remains the greatest security challenge for the United States despite Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the threat from Beijing will determine how the U.S. military is equipped and shaped for the future, according to a new Pentagon defense strategy.
While the document released Thursday says that conflict with China “is neither inevitable nor desirable,” it describes an effort to prevent Beijing’s “dominance of key regions” — a clear reference to its aggressive military buildup in the South China Sea and increased pressure on the self-governing island of Taiwan. It warns that China is working to undermine American alliances in the Indo-Pacific and use its growing military to coerce and threaten neighbors.
At the same time, the 80-page, unclassified report notes Russia’s war in Ukraine and says Moscow is a serious threat to the U.S. and its allies, with nuclear weapons, cyber operations and long-range missiles. And it warns that as China and Russia continue to grow as partners, they “now pose more dangerous challenges to safety and security at home, even as terrorist threats persist.”
China “is the only competitor out there with both the intent to reshape the international order, and increasingly the power to do so,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the Pentagon. “Unlike China, Russia can’t systemically challenge the United States over the long term. But Russian aggression does pose an immediatee and sharp threat to our interest and values.”
The report reflects that the U.S. for the first time is facing two major nuclear-armed competitors in Russia and China.
The strategy, along with two other reports released Thursday on missile defense and nuclear weapons, provides a sweeping blueprint for America’s military planning over the next four years. While much of it is consistent with the previous report, the strategy takes into account how the world has changed since 2018, when U.S. troops were still fighting in Afghanistan and a massive Russian invasion of Ukraine seemed almost unthinkable.
Read: Pentagon chief: al-Qaida may seek comeback in Afghanistan
The previous strategy, released in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump, reflected the fundamental shift from a U.S. military focused on countering extremists to one that must prepare for war with a major power.
The 2022 defense strategy increases the focus on allies as a key element of U.S. defense, underscoring the broader Biden administration effort to repair relations with partner nations that were splintered by Trump. At the center of the new document is the concept of “integrated deterrence,” which means the U.S. will use a broad combination of military might, economic and diplomatic pressures, and strong alliances — including America’s nuclear arsenal — to dissuade an enemy from attacking.
It concludes that China remains “the most consequential strategic competitor for the coming decades,” while Russia remains an “acute” threat.
Since the last report, both China and Russia have become more aggressive in using their militaries. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, and China has escalated its longstanding threat to retake Taiwan, by force if necessary. And Russia, North Korea and Iran have all accelerated their nuclear weapons testing and threats.
This is the first strategy since the U.S. ended its 20-year war in Afghanistan and withdrew all troops last year. The U.S. still has a small number of troops in Iraq and nearly 1,000 in Syria, but has largely shifted from the counterterrorism operations that dominated the last two decades to focus on threats from major competitors such as China.
The new review calls for increased research and development on cutting-edge technologies, including hypersonics, cyber, artificial intelligence and directed energy. And in a nod to recent recruiting challenges, it says the Pentagon must change its culture to attract a skilled force.
The Pentagon also released an accompanying nuclear posture review, which underscores the growing risks of nuclear danger, particularly as the relationship between China and Russia grows. It says the U.S. is committed to modernizing its nuclear forces while also looking at current nuclear capabilities that may no longer be needed for deterrence.
The nuclear review confirms the cancellation of the sea-launched cruise missile program, calling it not necessary. The program was included in the 2018 Trump administration’s posture review, but the Biden budget early this year signaled its end by eliminating its funding.
This is the first time the Pentagon’s three strategy documents — the national defense review, and those governing missile defense and nuclear posture — were developed and released at the same time.
Read: The big Pentagon internet mystery now partially solved
The new focus on integrated deterrence comes as the U.S. finds itself at a crossroads where all three legs of its nuclear-triad — submarine-launched nuclear missiles, long-range bomber aircraft and ground-based launching systems — are aging fast and require hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize.
But the country also faces a new environment where its decades-old approach of avoiding nuclear war is changing. Nuclear deterrence focused for decades on preventing war between just two nuclear superpowers, Russia and the United States, and relied on the concept of mutually assured destruction to prevent either side from resorting to a first strike.
Now, however, Russia has repeatedly threatened to use lower-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons in Ukraine, in response to a counteroffensive by Kyiv that has retaken swaths of land previously held by Russian troops. And Russia’s setbacks in Ukraine with its conventional forces could cause it to rely more on its nuclear forces.
“We are certainly concerned about escalation, we have been so from the very beginning of this conflict,” Austin said. “It would be the first time that a nuclear weapon has been used in over 70 years. So that certainly has the potential of changing things in the international community.”
At the same time, in the Pacific, officials say North Korea is preparing for another nuclear test, which would be the first in five years.
The report also notes China’s and Russia’s rapid gains in hypersonic missiles, which are harder for the U.S. to detect. They are also improving their abilities to shoot down satellites, or shove them out of orbit. The U.S. has rushed to counter those threats by building a ring of low-orbiting satellites that aims to hasten the detection of hypersonic launches and also to build in redundancy, so if one U.S. satellite is attacked, the remainder of the ring is still operating.
Iran’s elite technical university emerges as hub of protests
Thousands of Sharif University alumni power Iran’s most sensitive industries, including nuclear energy and aerospace. One of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s closest advisors has taught there for decades.
But as demonstrations erupt across Iran — first sparked by the death in September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police — the scientific powerhouse known as “Iran’s M.I.T.” has emerged as an unexpected hub for protest, fueling Iran’s biggest antigovernment movement in over a decade.
“We’ve become politically active because there is nothing to lose,” said an electrical engineering major and activist in Sharif University’s student association who spoke on condition of anonymity. Like others who insisted their identities be shielded, he feared of reprisals. “The way things are now in Iran, you have to emigrate and leave your family and friends or stay and fight for your rights.”
Across the country and despite a violent crackdown, Iranians have taken to the streets, venting their outrage over social repression, economic despair and global isolation — crises that have clipped the ambitions of Iran’s young and educated generation. Over the last few weeks, university campuses have become a hotbed of opposition after years of dormancy, as students take up the mantle of activism they haven’t held in years.
“Students have come to the realization they will not achieve their rights in this framework,” said Mohammad Ali Kadivar, an Iran scholar at Boston College. “They are demanding the end of the Islamic Republic.”
Protests have flared nearly every day for the past month at Sharif University — and escalated after security forces cracked down violently on Oct. 2, resulting in an hourslong standoff between students and police that prompted an international outcry and shocked the country.
“Whether it’s true or not, people have this feeling that it’s safer to protest on campus,” said Moeen, a Sharif University alum who has observed the protests and spoke on condition that only his first name be used. “It’s easier than orchestrating something at a random square in Tehran. There are student syndicates. There’s leadership.”
University campuses have been pivotal to Iran’s opposition movements before. After the U.S.-backed 1953 coup, University of Tehran students revolted over then-Vice President Richard Nixon’s visit to the capital. The shah’s security forces stormed the campus and shot three students dead.
Sharif University, among other campuses, was wracked by protests two decades later, when Marxist and Islamist student groups lit the fuse of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which ushered in the clerical establishment that still rules Iran.
Once in power, the young theocracy worked to ensure universities would no longer be breeding grounds for opposition: The clerics purged professors, arrested dissident students and set up their own powerful student associations.
Political issues occasionally galvanized students despite the risks. Pro-reformist students protested at the University of Tehran in 1999, prompting a fearsome raid by security forces who fatally shot a student and flung others out of windows.
But broadly over the decades, Tehran’s campuses became subdued, students and experts said, particularly Sharif University — a competitive, high-tech hub considered less liberal and activist than others in the capital. Amid American sanctions and raging inflation, some students joked the university was essentially an airport, as the best and brightest students rushed to leave for Europe and the U.S. after graduation.
A turning point came in 2018, students said. Former President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of Tehran’s landmark nuclear deal that year and reimposed harsh sanctions. Deepening global isolation and frustration over lagging political reforms convinced many students that nothing would come of engaging with the system.
A year later, in the fall of 2019, a fuel price hike set off the deadliest nationwide unrest since the Islamic Revolution. The Sharif Islamic Association, a misnomer for the students’ largely secular representative body, jumped into action, organizing demonstrations on campus.
In 2020, the student group boycotted classes and held a protest vigil after the Iranian military’s downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane killed 176 people, including over a dozen Sharif University graduates. Later that year, authorities arrested two top students on widely disputed security charges, stoking outrage.
“We have no industry, we are in a bad economic situation, the environment is ruined,” said the student association activist, listing the reasons for protest. “But the biggest reason is freedom. We just want basic things that you have all over the world.”
When news spread of Amini’s death after her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s strict rules on women’s dress, students buzzed. Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated in police custody, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained.
“Even my conservative friends said, ‘If we don’t take to the streets now, we never will’,” Moeen said.
Sharif University authorities denied the student association a protest permit, members said. Crowds demonstrated anyway, pumping their fists and chanting “Death to the dictator!” — a slogan that protesters have used around the country.
On Oct. 2, the protests devolved into violent mayhem, according to statements from the association.
As hundreds of students chanted against Khamenei, plainclothes security forces stormed campus. Professors formed a human shield so students could flee. But security forces beat the professors, ripped through their interlocked hands and chased protesters into the parking garage.
They unleashed paintballs, tear gas and metal pellets on shrieking students. Several were wounded and some 40 were arrested, most of whom have now been released.
Tensions were further inflamed when the minister for higher education, Mohammad Ali Zolfigol, visited the campus and, instead of reassuring students, accused them of “lawlessness” and warned they’d be held responsible, according to a computer engineering student who attended the meeting and videos posted online.
In an attempt to defuse the resentment, the university created a forum, billed as a safe space for students to voice their complaints. The university president, the U.S.-sanctioned Rasool Jalili, who served on Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, presided over the program.
Women boldly took the stage without the mandatory hijab, according to videos shared by members of the association. Students lashed out at the university for its failure to protect them.
And there were consequences to speaking out. On Sunday, the university announced it would temporarily ban over two dozen students who contributed to the “unstable environment.”
That prompted more demonstrations, as students raged against both university authorities and the ruling clerics. Most recently this week, female students streamed into the male-only section of the dining hall in protest over campus gender segregation as male students cheered them on. The university closed the cafeteria on Tuesday, hoping to end the demonstrations.
Instead, the students moved their lunch to the campus yard, videos showed. A professor joined in solidarity. Young women and men picnicked side by side on the pavement, chanting: “Woman! Life! Freedom!”
Myanmar says “will not be bound by outcomes” of latest ASEAN meeting
Southeast Asian foreign ministers acknowledged Thursday that their efforts to bring peace to Myanmar haven't succeeded and agreed to increase their determination to end violence in the country, where a military takeover last year set off a crisis that threatens to destabilize the region.
Recent events in Myanmar, including a military air strike on Sunday that reportedly killed as many as 80 members of the Kachin ethnic minority and the execution of political prisoners in July, have heightened worries among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
At a special meeting on Myanmar in Jakarta, Indonesia, ASEAN foreign ministers said their efforts haven't achieved significant progress and called for “concrete, practical and time-bound actions” to strengthen the implementation of a five-point consensus the group reached in April last year on ways to seek peace.
Read more: ‘Without accountability, political transition in Myanmar won’t fix Rohingya issue’
ASEAN, which includes Myanmar, has tried to play a peacemaking role since shortly after the country’s military seized power in February last year, ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
The five-point consensus calls for the immediate cessation of violence, a dialogue among concerned parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties.
Myanmar’s government initially agreed to the consensus but has made little effort to implement it, aside from seeking humanitarian aid and allowing ASEAN's envoy, Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, to visit. But it refused to allow him to meet with Suu Kyi, who was arrested and is being tried on a variety of charges that critics say are contrived to sideline her from politics.
In response, ASEAN has not allowed Myanmar’s leaders to participate in its official meetings, though working-level officials have joined some.
“The meeting agreed that ASEAN should not be discouraged, but even more determined to help Myanmar to bring about a peaceful solution the soonest possible,” Prak Sokhonn, who chaired the meeting, said in a statement.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said the ministers expressed their concern and disappointment, and in some cases frustration, with the lack of significant progress in the implementation of the consensus. “Instead of progressing, the situation was even said to be deteriorating and worsening,” she said.
“The acts of violence once again must stop immediately,” Marsudi said. “Without a cessation of violence, there will be no conducive conditions for the resolution of this political crisis.”
Read more: Locals in dread as firing inside Myanmar rocks Naikhongchhari
A statement issued late Thursday night by Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry said it “will not be bound by the outcomes of the meeting” because it was held by the other nine ASEAN countries without Myanmar’s attendance.
It insisted that Myanmar’s military government has been implementing the five-point roadmap by cooperating with ASEAN’s special envoy, holding peace talks with ethnic rebel groups and providing humanitarian assistance.
Thursday’s meeting came ahead of ASEAN’s annual summit on Nov. 11-13, where a top focus of the leaders will be the Myanmar crisis, which has threatened the group’s unity. ASEAN members traditionally avoid criticizing each other, and the violence unleashed by Myanmar’s military is widely seen as exposing the group’s powerlessness in dealing with a geopolitical and humanitarian emergency that could affect all of them.
Growing numbers of refugees are fleeing Myanmar and seeking asylum throughout the region.
The U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch said an estimated 70,000 have fled to neighboring countries since the military took power and urged Southeast Asian leaders to ensure their governments don’t force people back to Myanmar.
“Rather than protecting asylum seekers from the junta’s violence and persecution, regional actors are forcing Myanmar refugees and other nationals back into harm’s way,” said Shayna Bauchner, a researcher for the group.
Malaysian authorities reportedly have accelerated deportations to Myanmar, returning over 2,000 people since April without allowing the United Nations refugee agency to assess their asylum claims, while Thai authorities have pushed asylum seekers back across the Myanmar border without verifying their protection needs, Human Rights Watch said.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.