Typhoon Gaemi sinks freighter off Taiwan, heads to China coast

The water level rises due to heavy rains in Meinong District, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 25 July 2024
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Typhoon Gaemi sinks freighter off Taiwan, heads to China coast

  • The storm cut power to around half a million households in Taiwan, though most are now back online

TAIPEI: Typhoon Gaemi swept through northern Taiwan on Thursday, killing two people, triggering flooding and sinking a freighter offshore before heading across the sea and into China where it is expected to dump more torrential rain.
Gaemi made landfall around midnight (1600 GMT Wednesday) on the northeastern coast of Taiwan in Yilan county. It is the strongest typhoon to hit the island in eight years and was packing gusts of up to 227 kph (141 mph) before weakening, according to the Central Weather Administration.
As of 12:15 p.m. (0415 GMT), Gaemi was in the Taiwan Strait and heading toward Fuzhou in China’s Fujian province.
The storm cut power to around half a million households in Taiwan, though most are now back online, utility Taipower said.

Taiwan’s fire department said a Tanzania-flagged freighter with nine Myanmar nationals on board had sunk off the coast of the southern port city of Kaohsiung and there had been no response from the crew. Search efforts were ongoing, it added.
The typhoon is expected to bring more rain across Taiwan, with offices and schools as well as the financial markets closed for a second day on Thursday.
Trains will be stopped until 3 p.m. (0700 GMT), with all domestic flights and 195 international flights canceled for the day. The high speed train linking north and south Taiwan will re-open at 2 p.m. (0600GMT), the transport ministry said.
Two people have died and 266 injured due to the typhoon, the government said. Taiwanese television stations showed pictures of flooded streets in cities and counties across the island.
Chinese weather forecasters said Gaemi will pass through Fujian province later on Thursday and head inland, gradually moving northward with less intensity. But weather forecasters are expecting heavy rain in many areas as it tracks north.
Government officials have already prepared for heavy rain and flooding, raising adviseries and warnings in the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang.
In Fujian, government officials have relocated about 150,000 people, mainly from coastal fishing communities, state media reported. As gale force winds picked up, officials in Zhoushan in Zhejiang province suspended passenger waterway routes for up to three days.
Most flights were canceled at airports in Fuzhou and Quanzhou in Fujian, and Wenzhou in Zhejiang, according to the VariFlight app.
Guangzhou rail officials suspended some trains that pass through typhoon-affected areas, according to CCTV.
Meanwhile, north China is experiencing heavy rain from summer storms around a separate weather system. Officials in capital Beijing upgraded and issued a red warning late Wednesday night for torrential rain expected through most of Thursday, according to Chinese state media.
Some areas have already experienced heavy rain and emergency plans were activated, with more than 25,000 people evacuated, according to Beijing Daily. Some train services were also suspended at the Beijing West Railway Station, state media said.
The Beijing Fangshan District Meteorological Observatory expects that by 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) many parts of the city will have more than 150 mm (6 inches) of rainfall in six hours, and in some other areas more than 200 mm (8 inches) in 24 hours, state television reported.


Singapore PM urges voters to re-elect his cabinet to deal with US, China

Updated 2 sec ago
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Singapore PM urges voters to re-elect his cabinet to deal with US, China

  • PM Wong urges voters to stick with his team in face of US tariffs, US-China tensions
  • Last day of campaigning ahead of May 3 election
SINGAPORE: Singaporeans need to vote for candidates who have built up trust and close relationships with counterparts in the US and China, said Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Thursday, urging voters to re-elect his cabinet at a May 3 poll.
Addressing a 1.4 million-strong labor union on the last day of campaigning, Wong warned of economic turbulence and job losses if US tariffs slow global growth. His government has warned the trade-reliant economy may face a possible recession.
“We must expect more pressure on us and to navigate these pressures, it will take experience and skill. It will take people in government who have built up trust and close relationships with their counterparts in both America and China,” Wong said.
He said voters needed to re-elect his whole team to effectively deal with these economic headwinds.
“I have backups, I have reserves, sure. But everyone knows that the team cannot function at the same level. It’s the same in any organization, and it will be so in our next cabinet if we end up with such a loss,” he said, referring to the possible loss of his deputy prime minister.
Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party, in power since 1959, is widely expected to be easily re-elected, but there is growing unhappiness with its governance in the face of rising costs of living.
Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong was nominated at the 11th hour in a hotbed contest in a ward in northeast Singapore in an effort to stop the main opposition Workers’ Party, which won 10 seats in the last parliament.
Campaigning in recent days has zeroed in on Gan being new to the area, after an incumbent ruling party candidate called the opposition team strangers. The opposition fired back, asking if Gan was the real stranger to the constituency.
Wong has thrown his weight behind Gan, calling him his “taskforce man” because Gan co-headed the COVID-19 taskforce and is now chairing the “economic resilience” taskforce dealing with the impact of US tariffs.
“The key person in charge of this work is no stranger to you. He is no stranger to the whole of Singapore,” Wong said on Thursday.
This is the first electoral test for Wong, who took over from long-time premier Lee Hsien Loong last year as leader of the People’s Action Party.
Six political parties and an independent candidate have rallies scheduled for Thursday night.
Parties get to fire their last salvos on Thursday before 2.76 million voters go to a compulsory poll on Saturday after a short nine-day campaign season. Friday is designated as a “cooling off” day, meant for voters to decide on their ballot, and parties are not allowed to campaign.

Former VP Harris says Trump’s America is ‘self-serving’

Updated 1 min 9 sec ago
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Former VP Harris says Trump’s America is ‘self-serving’

  • Critics have been appalled at what they say is a vengeful administration carelessly overstepping democratic and constitutional norms
  • Recent polls have shown a majority of the country is becoming disenchanted with the political and economic tumult
SAN FRANCISCO: Former US vice president Kamala Harris hit out at Donald Trump and his backers on Wednesday, in her first major speech since losing November’s election.
The defeated Democrat told supporters the apparent “chaos” of the last three months was actually the realization of a long-cherished plan by conservatives who are using Trump to twist the United States to their own advantage.
“What we are, in fact, witnessing is a high velocity event, where a vessel is being used for the swift implementation of an agenda that has been decades in the making,” she told an audience in San Francisco.
“An agenda to slash public education. An agenda to shrink government and then privatize its services. All while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest.
“A narrow, self-serving vision of America where they punish truth-tellers, favor loyalists, cash in on their power, and leave everyone to fend for themselves.”
Trump’s first 100 days in power have been marked by a dizzying array of executive orders tackling everything from immigration to foreign aid to showerhead pressure.
Critics have been appalled at what they say is a vengeful administration carelessly overstepping democratic and constitutional norms, including clashing with the courts.
While Trump’s supporters have cheered some of the rapid-fire changes, recent polls have shown a majority of the country is becoming disenchanted with the political and economic tumult, particularly from his oft-changing tariffs.
Harris, who is thought to be mulling a run for the governorship of her home state of California in 2026 or a possible White House run in 2028, has largely stayed out of the limelight since leaving Washington in January.
On Wednesday she was a guest speaker at an event run by Emerge, a political organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for public office.
She told the crowd that Trump was targeting universities and courts because he wanted to cow the opposition.
“President Trump, his administration, and their allies are counting on the notion that fear can be contagious,” she said.
“They are counting on the notion that, if they can make some people afraid, it will have a chilling effect on others.”
But, she said, there were judges, academics, politicians and regular people who were standing up to the government.
“Fear isn’t the only thing that’s contagious. Courage is contagious,” she said.
“The courage of all these Americans inspires me.”

South Korean prosecutors indict ex-President Yoon for abuse of authority

Updated 12 min 34 sec ago
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South Korean prosecutors indict ex-President Yoon for abuse of authority

  • The indictment is in addition to an ongoing trial on insurrection charges
  • The latest indictment is without arrest, Yonhap said, citing the prosecutor’s office

SEOUL: South Korean prosecutors have indicted former President Yoon Suk Yeol for abuse of authority, Yonhap said on Thursday.
The indictment is in addition to an ongoing trial on insurrection charges, brought against Yoon over his brief imposition of martial law in December.
The latest indictment is without arrest, Yonhap said, citing the prosecutor’s office. An official at the prosecutor’s office could not be immediately reached for comment.


Indian FM says Kashmir attackers ‘must face justice’

Updated 59 min 58 sec ago
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Indian FM says Kashmir attackers ‘must face justice’

NEW DELHI: India’s foreign minister said Thursday that those who planned and carried out an attack in Kashmir last week that left 26 men dead “must be brought to justice.”
New Delhi blames Pakistan for the gun attack on civilians at the tourist site of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22.
Islamabad has rejected the charge and both countries have since exchanged gunfire in Kashmir and issued a raft of tit-for-tat punitive diplomatic measures.
“Its perpetrators, backers and planners must be brought to justice,” India’s top diplomat Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in a statement following a conversation with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday evening in which they discussed the attack.
Rubio also spoke to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and in a US readout of the call, told Sharif of the “need to condemn the terror attack” in Kashmir.
Indian and Pakistani soldiers fired at each other overnight along the Line of Control, the de facto border in contested Kashmir, the Indian army said.
It was a seventh straight night gunfire was reported by India.
“During the night... Pakistan Army posts initiated unprovoked small-arms fire across the Line of Control opposite Kupwara, Uri and Akhnoor,” the army said in a statement.
“These were responded proportionately by the Indian Army.”
There were no reported casualties and there was no immediate confirmation from Pakistan.
Indian police have issued wanted posters for three men accused of carrying out the Kashmir attack — two Pakistanis and an Indian — who they say are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, a UN-designated terrorist organization.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the military “complete operational freedom” to respond to the attack during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, a senior government source told AFP.
Pakistan’s government has denied any involvement in the shooting and vowed that “any act of aggression will be met with a decisive response.”
 


Stay as long as you want, Trump says as chief disruptor Elon Musk eyes exit

Updated 01 May 2025
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Stay as long as you want, Trump says as chief disruptor Elon Musk eyes exit

  • At a Cabinet meeting, Trump hinted at Musk giving up his DOGE role “to get back home to his cars”
  • Musk's Tesla car company had been hit by boycott calls over his role in gutting the US bureaucracy

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Tesla boss Elon Musk could stay working for the White House as long as he wanted but understood the tycoon wanted to get back to his businesses.
Musk last month said he will step back from his role as the unofficial head of the administration’s cost-cutting “Department of Government Efficiency” to focus more on his troubled Tesla car company.
“The vast majority of the people in this country really respect and appreciate you,” Trump told Musk during a White House cabinet meeting, which could be his last before giving up his DOGE role.
“And you know you’re invited to stay as long as you want,” Trump said, though added that Musk may want “to get back home to his cars.”
Musk, the world’s richest person, has seen his Tesla car company, which is the major source of his wealth, suffer significant brand damage from his political work.
Tesla showrooms have been hit by vandalism and boycott calls in Europe and the United States in a backlash against public service cuts introduced by Musk in his role as a close adviser to Trump.
“You really have sacrificed a lot. They treated you very unfairly,” Trump said of opponents to Musk.
“They did like to burn my cars, which is not great,” Musk responded.
The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday reported that Tesla’s board had begun procedures several weeks ago to find a successor to Musk as CEO.
The outlet reported — citing people familiar with the matter — that the board had met with Musk and told him that he needed to spend more time with the company, rather than in Washington.
David Sacks, a close Musk ally who is also a member of the Trump administration, last week said that Musk would not be leaving DOGE but reducing his role.
This was the same plan he carried out during his takeover of Twitter in 2022, he said.
“Once he felt like he had a mental model and he had the people in place that he trusted, he can move to more of a maintenance mode,” Sacks told the All-In podcast.