United News of Bangladesh

  Several international airlines canceled flights to and from Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali on Wednesday as an ongoing volcanic eruption left travelers stranded at airports. Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki volcano on the remote island of Flores in East Nusa Tenggara province spewed towering columns of hot ash high into the air since its initial huge eruption on Nov. 4, killed nine people and injured dozens of others. The 1,584-meter (5,197-foot) volcano shot up ash at least 17 times on Tuesday, with the largest column recorded at 9 kilometers (5½ miles) high, the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation said in a statement. Authorities on Tuesday expanded the danger zone as the volcano erupted again to 9 kilometers (5½ miles) as volcanic materials, including smoldering rocks, lava, and hot, thumb-size fragments of gravel and ash, were thrown up to 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the crater on Friday. The activity at the volcano has disturbed flights at Bali’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai international airport since the eruption started, airport general manager Ahmad Syaugi Shahab said. Over the past three days, 46 flights, including 30 scheduled to depart and 16 due to arrive, were affected. Shahab said that at least 12 domestic flights and 22 overseas one were canceled on Tuesday alone. For these cancellations, the airlines were offering travelers a refund, or to reschedule or reroute, he said. Three Australian airlines have also canceled or delayed a number of flights. Jetstar has paused its flights to Bali until at least Thursday, it said on its website, saying it was “currently not safe” to operate the route. Virgin Australia’s website showed 10 services to and from Bali were canceled on Wednesday. Qantas said it has delayed three flights. Some airlines are offering fare refunds for upcoming Bali flights to passengers who don't want to travel. Air New Zealand canceled a flight to Denpasar scheduled for Wednesday and a return service to Auckland due to depart Bali on Thursday. Passengers would be rebooked and the airline would continue to monitor the movement of ash in the coming days, Chief Operating Officer Alex Marren said. Korean Air said two of its flights headed to Bali were forced to turn back because of volcanic ash caused by the eruption. The airline said Wednesday that the two flights — carrying about 400 passengers combined — that departed South Korea’s Incheon international airport on Tuesday turned back toward the origin departure a few hours later, following forecasts that said Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport could be affected by the volcanic ash. The two planes arrived in Incheon early Wednesday. Media reports said that thousands of people were stranded at airports in Indonesia and Australia. 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 Fransiskus Xaverius Seda Airport. No casualties or major damage were reported, but the airport has remained closed because of seismic activity. Three other airports in neighboring districts of Ende, Larantuka and Bajawa have been closed since Monday after Indonesia’s Air Navigation issued a safety warning because of volcanic ash. 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-and-wife mountains. “Laki laki” means man, while its mate is Lewotobi Perempuan, or woman. It’s 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.  

   Oil and natural gas companies for the first time will have to pay a federal fee if they emit dangerous methane above certain levels under a rule being made final by the Biden administration.   The Environmental Protection Agency rule follows through on a directive from Congress included in the 2022 climate law. The new fee is intended to encourage industry to adopt best practices that reduce emissions of methane — the primary component of natural gas — and thereby avoid paying.   Methane is a climate “super pollutant” that is far more potent in the short term than carbon dioxide and is responsible for about one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. The oil and natural gas sector is the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the United States, and advocates say reduction of methane emissions is a crucial way to slow climate change. The rule, set to be announced Tuesday at an international climate conference in Azerbaijan, comes hours after President-elect Donald Trump named former New York congressman Lee Zeldin to head the agency in Trump's second term. If confirmed by the Senate, Zeldin is expected to move to reverse or loosen dozens of environmental regulations approved under President Joe Biden as Trump seeks to establish U.S. “energy dominance″ worldwide.   Trump is likely to target the methane fee amid a flurry of expected actions he has promised to deregulate the oil and gas industry. As outlined by the EPA, excess methane produced in 2024 could result in a fee of $900 per ton, with fees rising to $1,200 per ton in 2025 and $1,500 per ton by 2026. Industry groups are likely to challenge the rule, including any effort to impose a retroactive fee. The rule will not become final until early next year, following publication in the Federal Register. EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement that the rule will work in tandem with a new EPA rule on methane emissions imposed this year. The rule targets the U.S. oil and natural gas industry for its role in global warming as Biden seeks to secure his legacy on fighting climate change. The fee, formally known as the Waste Emissions Charge, will encourage early deployment of available technologies to reduce methane emissions and other harmful air pollutants, Regan said. The fee "is the latest in a series of actions under President Biden’s methane strategy to improve efficiency in the oil and gas sector, support American jobs, protect clean air and reinforce U.S. leadership on the global stage,” he said. Industry groups and Republican-led states have challenged the earlier methane rule in court, but lost a bid for the Supreme Court to block the rule while the case continues before lower-level judges. Opponents argue that EPA overstepped its authority and set unattainable standards with the new regulations. The EPA, though, said the rules are squarely within its legal responsibilities and would protect the public. Many large oil and gas companies already meet or exceed methane-performance levels set by Congress under the climate law, meaning they are unlikely to be forced to pay the new fee, Regan and other officials said. Even so, EPA estimates that the rule will result in cumulative emissions reductions of 1.2 million metric tons of methane (34 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent) through 2035. That figure is similar to clean-air gains from taking nearly 8 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year, the EPA said. Cumulative climate benefits could total as much $2 billion, the agency said. Like the earlier methane rule, the new fee faces a near-certain legal challenge from industry groups. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s largest lobbying group, called a fee proposed earlier this year a “punitive tax increase” that "undermines America’s energy advantage.'' API said it looks forward to working with Congress to repeal the "misguided new tax on American energy.” Environmental groups, for their part, have hailed the impending methane fee, saying oil and gas companies should be held accountable for pollution that contributes to global warming. Oil and gas companies routinely calculate that it’s cheaper to waste methane through flaring and other techniques than to make necessary upgrades to prevent leaks, they said. The EPA said it expects that over time, fewer oil and gas companies will be charged for excess methane as they reduce emissions in compliance with the rule.  

 For the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, Afghanistan on Monday sent a delegation to the United Nations climate talks in a bid to garner help in dealing with global warming. Matuil Haq Khalis, who's head of the country’s environment protection agency, told The Associated Press that Afghanistan needs international support to deal with extreme weather like erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts and flash floods. “All the countries must join hands and tackle the problem of climate change,” said Khalis, speaking through a translator at the talks, taking place this year in Baku, Azerbaijan. Afghanistan has been hard hit by climate change, with a recent assessment by climate experts ranking it the sixth most climate vulnerable country in the world. In March, northern Afghanistan experienced heavy rains resulting in flash floods, killing over 300 people. Climate scientists have found that extreme rainfall has gotten 25% heavier over the last 40 years in the country. Khalis said Afghanistan has prepared national action plans to deal with climate change and will be updating its climate goals within the next few months. He said the country has great potential for wind and solar power but needs international to develop it. He added that the Afghan delegation was grateful to the Azerbaijani government for inviting them. The delegation will have an observer status at the talks, as the Taliban do not have official recognition as the government of Afghanistan. Joanna Depledge, a climate historian at the University of Cambridge in England, said Afghanistan should be able to attend. “By virtue of being a global forum, there are a whole host of politically unsavoury states with all kinds of appalling records of one sort or another that attend. Where would we draw the line?” she said. Responding to a question about the U.N. assessment that women are more vulnerable than men to climate impacts, Khalis said that “climate change impact doesn't have any boundaries, it can have its impact on women, children, men, plants or animals, so it requires collective work to tackle this issue.” Khalis said he has requested bilateral talks with a range of countries, including the United States and would be happy to sit down with them if the request is accepted. “We were not part of the last three conferences ... but we are happy that this time we are here and we will be able to deliver the message of Afghan people with the international community,” said Khalis.

China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing its first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. China’s navy is already the world’s largest numerically, and it has been rapidly modernizing. Adding nuclear-powered carriers to its fleet would be a major step in realizing its ambitions for a true "blue-water” force capable of operating in seas far from China in a growing global challenge to the United States. “Nuclear-powered carriers would place China in the exclusive ranks of first-class naval powers, a group currently limited to the United States and France,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. “For China’s leadership, such a development would symbolize national prestige, fueling domestic nationalism and elevating the country’s global image as a leading power.” Researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California said they made the finding while investigating a mountain site outside the city of Leshan in the southwest Chinese province of Sichuan, where they suspected China was building a reactor to produce plutonium or tritium for weapons. Instead they concluded that China was building a prototype reactor for a large warship. The project at Leshan is dubbed the Longwei, or Dragon Might, Project and is also referred to as the Nuclear Power Development Project in documents. Neither China’s Defense Ministry nor Foreign Affairs Ministry responded to requests for comment. Satellite images and public documents helped identify likely carrier project There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury team is the first to confirm that China is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. “The reactor prototype at Leshan is the first solid evidence that China is, in fact, developing a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier," said Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at Middlebury and one of the researchers on the project. "Operating a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is an exclusive club, one that China looks set to join.” Drawing on satellite images and public documents including project tenders, personnel files, environmental impact studies — and even a citizen’s complaint about noisy construction and excessive dust — they concluded a prototype reactor for naval propulsion was being built in the mountains of Mucheng township, some 70 miles (112 kilometers) southwest of Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu. The reactor, which procurement documents indicate will soon be operational, is housed in a new facility built at the site known as Base 909, which houses six other reactors that are operational, decommissioned or under construction, according to the analysis. The site is under the control of the Nuclear Power Institute of China, a subsidiary of the China National Nuclear Corporation, which is tasked with reactor engineering research and testing. Documents indicating that China’s 701 Institute, formally known as China Ship Research and Design Center, which is responsible for aircraft carrier development, procured reactor equipment “intended for installation on a large surface warship” under the Nuclear Power Development Project as well as the project’s “national defense designation” helped lead to the conclusion the sizable reactor is a prototype for a next-generation aircraft carrier. Satellite mages from 2020 to 2023 have shown the demolition of homes and the construction of water intake infrastructure connected to the reactor site. Contracts for steam generators and turbine pumps indicate the project involves a pressurized water reactor with a secondary circuit — a profile that is consistent with naval propulsion reactors, the researchers say. An environmental impact report calls the Longwei Project a “national defense-related construction project” that is classified “secret.” “Unless China is developing nuclear-powered cruisers, which were pursued only by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, then the Nuclear Power Development Project most certainly refers to a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier development effort,” researchers wrote in a detailed 19-page report on their findings shared exclusively with the AP. Jamie Withorne, an analyst at the Oslo Nuclear Project who was not involved in the research and reviewed the findings, said Middlebury's team made a “convincing argument.” “From the identifying reports, co-location with other naval reactor facilities, and correlating construction activity, I think it can be said that it is likely the Longwei Project is housed at Base 909, and it could potentially be located at the identified building,” she said. The research does not, however, provide clues as to when a Chinese nuclear-powered carrier could be built and become operational, she said. Sarah Laderman, a senior analyst with Open Nuclear Network, a program of the U.S.-based NGO PAX sapiens foundation, said the findings were “carefully conducted and thoroughly researched.” “Given the evidence presented here, I see a compelling case made that China seems to be working towards building a nuclear propulsion system for its naval surface ships (likely aircraft carriers) at this location,” said Laderman, who is based in Vienna and was not involved in Middlebury’s research. Pursuit of a nuclear-powered carrier China’s first carrier, commissioned in 2012, was a repurposed Soviet ship, and its second was built in China but based upon the Soviet design. Both ships — named the Liaoning and the Shandong — employ a so-called “ski-jump” type launch method, with a ramp at the end of a short runway to help planes take off. The Type 003 Fujian, launched in 2022, was the country's third carrier and its first to be indigenously designed and built. It employs an electromagnetic-type launch system like those developed and used by the U.S. Navy. All three carriers are conventionally powered. Sea trials hadn’t even started for the Fujian in March when Yuan Huazhi, political commissar for China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy, confirmed the construction of a fourth carrier. Asked if it would be nuclear-powered, he said at the time that would “soon be announced,” but so far it has not been. There has been speculation that China may begin producing two new carriers at once — one Type 003 like the Fujian and one nuclear-powered Type 004 — something that it has not attempted before but that its shipyards have the capacity to do. Matthew Funaiole, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ China Power Project, said he doubts China's next carrier will be nuclear-powered. Instead, he said, he would expect the People's Liberation Army Navy's fourth carrier to focus on optimizing the existing design of the Fujian carrier with “incremental improvements.” Nick Childs, senior fellow for naval forces and maritime security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the Chinese “have taken an incremental approach to their carrier development with a number of ambitions that will evolve over time.” “For now, their deployments have been relatively cautious, remaining largely within range of shore support, but projecting influence and to some extent coercion within their near waters.” Eventually, however, “larger carriers more akin to their U.S. counterparts will give them more options to project power,” Childs said. It takes several years to build a carrier and bring it into operation, but developing nuclear propulsion for its next generation of warships would eventually give China more power to run advanced systems, such as electromagnetic launchers, radars and new technology weapons, Childs said. “As well as obviating the need for the ship to refuel regularly and therefore giving it much greater range, nuclear power means that without the need to carry fuel oil for the ship there will be room aboard for fuel and weapons for its aircraft, extending their capabilities,” Childs said. “Much will depend on what overall size the next carrier is, but the addition of nuclear power will represent a significant step further in China’s carrier development with a vessel more comparable to the U.S. Navy’s carriers.” Zhao, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said nuclear-powered carriers would provide the Chinese military “with greater flexibility and endurance to operate around strategic hotspots, especially along the First Island Chain, where most territories disputed by China are located,” said Zhao. The First Island Chain includes the self-governed island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own and vows to annex it by force if necessary. The U.S. is obligated by a domestic law to supply Taiwan with sufficient weapons to deter invasion, and it could provide assistance to the island from its bases in the Pacific in the event of an invasion or blockade. Tensions also have risen in the South China Sea between China and neighboring nations over territorial disputes and maritime claims. “These carriers could also extend Chinese operations deeper into the Western Pacific, further challenging the U.S. military’s ability to ‘intervene’ in regional matters that China views as best resolved by countries from the region only,” Zhao said. U.S.-China rivalry Chinese President Xi Jinping has tasked defense officials with building a “first-class” navy and becoming a maritime power as part of his blueprint for the country’s rejuvenation. The country’s most recent white paper on national defense, dated 2019, said the Chinese navy was adjusting to strategic requirements by “speeding up the transition of its tasks from defense on the near seas to protection missions on the far seas.” The People's Liberation Army Navy is already the world’s largest navy with more than 370 ships and submarines. The country also boasts powerful shipbuilding capabilities: China’s shipyards are building many hundreds of vessels each year, whereas the U.S. is building five or fewer, according to a U.S. congressional report late last year. However, the Chinese navy lags behind the U.S. Navy in many respects. Among other advantages, the U.S. currently has 11 carriers, all nuclear powered, allowing it to keep multiple strike groups deployed around the world at all times, including in the Indo-Pacific. But the Pentagon is growingly increasingly concerned about China’s rapid modernization of its fleet, including the design and construction of new carriers. That aligns with China's “growing emphasis on the maritime domain and increasing demands" for its navy "to operate at greater distances from mainland China,” the Defense Department said in its most recent report to Congress on China's military. And China's “growing force of aircraft carriers extend air defense coverage of deployed task groups beyond the range of land-based defenses, enabling operations farther from China’s shore,” the report said.

Japan's parliament reelected Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Monday after his governing coalition suffered the worst election loss in more than a decade. Ishiba’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner Komeito together lost their majority in the 465-seat Lower House, the more powerful of Japan’s two-house parliament, in the Oct. 27 election due to continued voter outrage over financial misconduct by his party and its lukewarm response. A special parliamentary session convened Monday to pick a new leader in a vote required within 30 days of a general election. In the past, these votes did not attract as much attention because an LDP leader was virtually assured to be prime minister. Ishiba beat top opposition leader Yoshihiko Noda 221-160 in the first runoff in 30 years. Most of his previous Cabinet members will be reappointed, but Ishiba will have to replace three who lost their seats or were affected by the election results. Since the election loss, Ishiba has refused to step down, saying is willing to cooperate with additional coalition partners to boost stability and help him pursue his party’s policies. Noda, head of the centrist opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, has sought to form an opposition coalition — but so far unsuccessfully. Ishiba will struggle in the coming months as he must gain consent from the opposition on policies including the budget and other legislation. He is eyeing a rising smaller, conservative opposition, the Democratic Party for the People, whose seats quadrupled to 28 under its popular leader Yuichiro Tamaki. A Harvard-educated former Finance Ministry bureaucrat, Tamaki has proposed raising the basic tax-free income allowance and increasing take-home wages, ideas that attracted low-income earners and younger voters in the election. He only wants to cooperate with Ishiba’s party on policy — not as part of a coalition — since he wants to use his leverage to increase his party’s standing ahead of the next election. Tamaki was recently stung by a magazine article exposing an extramarital affair, which he admitted to on Monday, adding to political uncertainty. Ishiba’s government is preparing for his trip later this month to Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation and Group of 20 summits, as well as a possible meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on his way home.

Thousands of people were being forcibly evacuated from 2,500 villages in the northern Philippines on Monday as another typhoon threatened the region already devastated by floods and landslides from three storms in less than a month. Typhoon Toraji was forecast to blow over the mountainous Luzon region, where President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — just the day before — inspected the damage from the last storm and led the distribution of food packs to residents. Marcos skipped this week’s Asia-Pacific Cooperation forum in Peru to oversee recovery efforts from back-to-back storms. The fast-moving Toraji was about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Casiguran town in northeastern Aurora province Monday morning with sustained winds of up to 130 kilometers (81 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 180 kph (112 mph). It’s expected to barrel northwestward across Luzon, weaken as it crosses a mountain range and then blow into the South China Sea. Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla on Sunday ordered the forcible evacuation of people in 2,500 villages expected to be lashed by Toraji, locally named Nika, warning that the rain-soaked Luzon mountains, valleys and plains were more susceptible to flash floods and landslides. With the typhoon approaching fast, there was little time to move large numbers of people to safety, he said. "We understand if some would want to stay, but we have to get them out,” Remulla told reporters. The last two typhoons and a tropical storm caused more than 160 deaths, damaged thousands of houses and farmlands and affected more than 9 million people, including hundreds of thousands who fled to emergency shelters, after dumping from one to two months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours in some cities and towns. Overwhelmed, the Philippines received help from Southeast Asian countries led by Singapore, along with longtime treaty ally the United States, to transport food, water and other aid to hard-hit northern provinces. The Philippine archipelago is often battered by typhoons and earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the most natural disaster-prone countries in the world. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages and caused ships to run aground and smash into houses in the central Philippines.

A militant attack near the Pakistani border with Iran left five Iranian forces dead, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Sunday. The report said the dead were ethnic Baluch members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s volunteer Basij force and were killed in Saravan city in Sistan and Baluchistan province. Saravan is some 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Earlier in the day, state TV reported that Revolutionary Guard forces killed three terrorists and arrested nine others in a military operation. The report did not specify which group the suspects belonged to. Last month, unknown gunmen killed four people, including the chief of the Revolutionary Guard in the province. In September, gunmen killed four border guards in Sistan and Baluchistan province in two separate attacks. The militant group Jaish al-Adl, which seeks greater rights for the ethnic Baluch minority, claimed responsibility for one attack in which one officer and two soldiers were killed. The province, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been the site of occasional deadly clashes involving militant groups, armed drug smugglers and Iranian security forces. It is one of the least developed parts of Iran. Relations between the predominantly Sunni Muslim residents of the region and Iran’s Shiite theocracy have long been strained.

The Taliban will attend a U.N. climate conference for the first time since their takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, the country's national environment agency said Sunday.   The conference, known as COP29, begins Monday in Azerbaijan and is one of the most important multilateral talks to include the Taliban, who do not have official recognition as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.   The National Environmental Protection Agency posted on social media platform X that a technical delegation had gone to Baku to participate. Matiul Haq Khalis, the agency’s head, said the delegation would use the conference to strengthen cooperation with the international community on environmental protection and climate change, share Afghanistan’s needs regarding access to existing financial mechanisms related to climate change, and discuss adaptation and mitigation efforts.   Experts told The Associated Press that climate change has led to numerous and negative impacts on Afghanistan, creating serious challenges because of the country’s geographical location and weak climate policies. “ Climate change has resulted in higher temperatures, which reduce water sources and cause droughts, significantly affecting agricultural activities,” said Hayatullah Mashwani, professor of environmental science at Kabul University. “The reduction in water availability and frequent droughts pose severe threats to agriculture, leading to food insecurity and challenges to livelihoods.” In August, the international aid agency Save the Children published a report saying that Afghanistan is the sixth most vulnerable country to the impacts of climate change and that 25 of its 34 provinces face severe or catastrophic drought conditions, affecting more than half the population. Afghanistan also had the highest number of children made homeless by climate disasters of any country as of the end of 2023, according to the report. Professor Abid Arabzai, from Kabul University, said the climate conference would help to secure international assistance and funding to address Afghanistan’s climate challenges. “Afghanistan can clarify its climate actions and commitments to the global community, enhancing its international reputation,” said Arabzai.

Typhoon Yinxing battered the northern Philippines with floods and landslides before blowing away from the country on Friday, leaving two airports damaged and aggravating a calamity caused by back-to-back storms that hit in recent weeks. There were no immediate reports of casualties from Yinxing, the 13th major storm to hit the disaster-prone Southeast Asian archipelago this year. The typhoon, locally called Marce, was last tracked over the South China Sea about 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of the northern Philippine province of Ilocos Norte with sustained winds of up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 205 kph (127 mph), according to government forecasters. It is expected to weaken further before hitting Vietnam. The typhoon flooded villages, toppled trees and electricity poles, and damaged houses and buildings in Cagayan province, where Yinxing made landfall Thursday afternoon, provincial officials said. More than 40,000 villagers were evacuated to safer ground in the province. In the northernmost island province of Batanes, Gov. Marilou Cayco said Yinxing’s fierce winds and rain blew away roofs of houses and damaged seaports and two domestic airport terminals. More details of damage, including in two northern mountain towns hit by landslides, were expected after provinces battered by the typhoon complete an assessment, officials said. The new damage will complicate recovery efforts from two powerful storms that lashed the northern region in recent weeks. Tropical Storm Trami and Typhoon Kong-rey left at least 151 people dead in the Philippines and affected nearly 9 million others, mostly in the northern and central provinces. More than 14 billion pesos ($241 million) in rice, corn and other crops and infrastructure were damaged. Trami dumped one to two months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours in some regions. In the hardest-hit province of Batangas, south of Manila, at least 61 people died in floods and landslides. More than 630,000 people were still displaced due to Trami and Kong-rey as of Thursday, officials said, including 172,000 who remained in emergency shelters as Yinxing blew across the country's mountainous north. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. decided not to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru next week to focus on recovery efforts, Communications Secretary Cesar Chavez said. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages and caused ships to run aground and smash into houses in the central Philippines. The archipelago also lies in a region often hit by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world.

Myanmar’s Rakhine state, home to the Rohingya minority and engulfed in conflict between government forces and a powerful ethnic group, could face an imminent acute famine, the United Nations development agency warned in a new report. The U.N. Development Program said in the report issued Thursday that “a perfect storm is brewing” which has put western Rakhine “on the precipice of an unprecedented disaster.” It pointed to a chain of interlinked developments including restrictions on goods from elsewhere in Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh, the absence of income for residents, hyperinflation, significantly reduced food production, and a lack of essential services and social safety net. As a result, UNDP said, “an already highly vulnerable population may be on the brink of collapse in the coming months.” Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982. In August 2017, attacks by a Rohingya insurgent group on Myanmar security personnel triggered a brutal campaign by the military which drove at least 740,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh. The military is accused of mass rape, killings and burning thousands of homes. Since Myanmar’s military seized power in 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic minority armed forces have been attempting to oust the military from power. Read: Head of Myanmar's military government to visit close ally China Last November, the Arakan Army, which is seeking autonomy from Myanmar’s central government, began an offensive against the military in Rakhine and has gained control of more than half of its townships. The Arakan Army, which is the well-armed wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement, is also a member of the armed ethnic group alliance trying to topple the military. The UNDP report said that based on data the agency collected in 2023 and 2024, “Rakhine’s economy has stopped functioning, with critical sectors such as trade, agriculture, and construction nearly at a standstill.” With domestic and international markets no longer accessible because of blockades, UNDP said people’s incomes are collapsing because they can’t export goods, and that agricultural jobs are disappearing for the same reason. In addition, it said, imports of cement have stopped, leading to “an exorbitant price increase” and shutting down the construction industry, a major employer. The report, titled “Rakhine: A Famine in the Making,” said, “Rakhine could face acute famine imminently.” Read more: New sanctions target Myanmar's military suppliers “Predictions indicate that domestic food production will only cover 20% of its needs by March-April 2025,” UNDP said. “Internal rice production is plummeting due to a lack of seeds, fertilizers, severe weather conditions, a steep rise in the number of internally displaced people who can longer engage in cultivation, and escalating conflict,” the U.N. agency said. “This, along with the near-total cessation of internal and external trade, will leave over 2 million people at risk of starvation.” UNDP called for immediate action to allow goods and humanitarian aid into Rakhine, enable unimpeded access for aid workers and ensure their safety, and urgently provide financial resources to enable the agricultural sector to recover. “Without urgent action, 95% of the population will regress into survival mode, left to fend for themselves amid a drastic reduction in domestic production, skyrocketing prices, widespread unemployment, and heightened insecurity,” UNDP warned. “With trade routes closed and severe restrictions on aid, Rakhine risks becoming a fully isolated zone of deep human suffering,” the U.N. agency said.