Indonesia’s volcanic eruption grounds international flights on tourist island of Bali

Indonesia’s volcanic eruption grounds international flights on tourist island of Bali
Several international airlines have canceled flights to and from Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali because of an ongoing volcanic eruption. (AP)
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Updated 13 November 2024
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Indonesia’s volcanic eruption grounds international flights on tourist island of Bali

Indonesia’s volcanic eruption grounds international flights on tourist island of Bali
  • Several international airlines have canceled flights to and from Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali because of an ongoing volcanic eruption

DENPASAR: 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.
Tourists told The Associated Press that they have been stuck at Bali’s airport since Tuesday after their flights were suddenly canceled.
“The airline did not provide accommodation, leaving us stranded at this airport,” said Charlie Austin from Perth, Australia, who was on vacation in Bali with his family.
Another Australian tourist, Issabella Butler, opted to find another airline that could fly her home.
“The important thing is that we have to be able to get out of here,” she said.
Media reports said that thousands of people were stranded at airports in Indonesia and Australia, but an exact number wasn’t given.

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 cancelations, 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.
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.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.arabnews.com/%3Ca%20href%3D"https://www.youtube.com/embed/ixBFHleI2V4?si=oIA0DOifjfCHDwy5">https://www.youtube.com/embed/ixBFHleI2V4?si=oIA0DOifjfCHDwy5" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>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.


Trump says he will speak with Russia’s Putin

Trump says he will speak with Russia’s Putin
Updated 3 sec ago
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Trump says he will speak with Russia’s Putin

Trump says he will speak with Russia’s Putin
Reuters

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin and said he thinks they will perhaps do something he described as significant.
Trump did not elaborate. He made the comments to reports in the White House’s Oval Office. He also said that Washington was having serious discussions with Moscow.

Russian missile attack hits Odesa, wounding three

Russian missile attack hits Odesa, wounding three
Updated 9 min 11 sec ago
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Russian missile attack hits Odesa, wounding three

Russian missile attack hits Odesa, wounding three
KYIV: A Russian missile attack struck the center of the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa on Friday evening, wounding two women and a teenage boy and damaging historic buildings, officials said.
The Black Sea city known for its picturesque streets of 19th-century buildings is regularly targeted by Russian strikes, often on its port area.
“We already know about three victims of an enemy rocket attack on the center of Odesa,” the regional governor Oleg Kiper wrote on social media.
“Two women were injured” and “hospitalized in a moderate condition,” Kiper said after the attack, adding that three ballistic missiles were fired at intervals of a few minutes.
The governor later posted that a teenage boy born in 2006 “sustained a head wound” and was also hospitalized.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned what he called an “absolutely deliberate attack by Russian terrorists,” saying it was fortunate that it caused no deaths.
Kiper posted photos showing rescuers wheeling a woman on a stretcher outside the city’s historic Hotel Bristol. The photos also show damage to the 19th-century hotel’s ornate facade and interior, including a grand staircase.
Ukraine’s emergency service posted video showing debris littering the street outside the Bristol and a woman with dust on her clothes being helped by rescuers.
It said firefighters had rescued a woman trapped in her room on the second floor and extinguished a fire on the roof.
“Among the people who were at the epicenter of the attack were Norwegian diplomatic representatives,” Zelensky said.
“There is a lot of damage and destruction in the UNESCO-protected area,” Odesa’s mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said.
Odesa’s historic center is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
Its Transfiguration Cathedral — destroyed by the Soviets and rebuilt in the 2000s — was badly damaged by a Russian strike in July 2023.
“As a result of the explosions, a number of historical monuments, including the Literary, Historical and Local Lore, Archaeological Museums, Museum of Western and Eastern Art, and the Philharmonic, have had their windows smashed and their facades damaged,” Kiper said.
Ukrainian media posted photos showing what appeared to be a large crater near the hotel, and fallen masonry, blown-out windows and debris littering the floor inside.
Russian military bloggers alleged that foreign military specialists were staying in the hotel.

The Taliban take over Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel, more than a decade after attacking it

The Taliban take over Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel, more than a decade after attacking it
Updated 13 min 8 sec ago
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The Taliban take over Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel, more than a decade after attacking it

The Taliban take over Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel, more than a decade after attacking it
The Taliban are taking over the operations of Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel in Kabul, more than a decade after they launched a deadly attack there that killed nine people.
The Serena Hotel said Friday it was closing its operations in the Afghan capital on Feb. 1, with the Hotel State Owned Corporation taking over. The corporation is overseen by the finance ministry.
The finance ministry wasn’t immediately available for comment. Neither the Serena nor the government clarified the terms under which the hotel was changing hands.
The Taliban first targeted the Serena in 2008 and again in 2014. Acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani acknowledged planning the 2008 attack, which killed eight, including US citizen Thor David Hesla.
A statement from the Serena, a brand owned by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, said it had trained thousands of Afghan nationals, hosted large numbers of foreign guests and delegations, and set high international benchmarks in hospitality standards.
It asked people to direct their queries to the Hotel State Owned Corporation. Kabul no longer appears as a destination on the Serena website.
According to information on the finance ministry website, the corporation’s mission is to revive and develop Afghanistan’s hotel industry. It operates three other hotels in Afghanistan, two in Kabul and one in the eastern city of Nangarhar.
Tourism official Mohammad Saeed told The Associated Press last year that he wanted Afghanistan to become a tourism powerhouse.
At that time, in a sign the country was preparing for more overseas visitors, the Serena reopened its women’s spa and salon for foreign females after a monthslong closure, only to shut them again under pressure from authorities.
The Taliban have barred women from gyms, public spaces including parks, and education. Last year, they ordered the closure of beauty salons, allegedly because they offered services forbidden by Islam.

White House says Trump tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China will come Saturday

White House says Trump tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China will come Saturday
Updated 01 February 2025
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White House says Trump tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China will come Saturday

White House says Trump tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China will come Saturday
  • “Starting tomorrow, those tariffs will be in place,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Friday
  • The tariffs carry both political and economic risks for Trump

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will put in place 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10 percent tariffs on goods from China effective on Saturday, the White House said, but it provided no word on whether there would be any exemptions to the measures that could result in swift price increases to US consumers.
Trump had been threatening the tariffs to ensure greater cooperation from the countries on stopping illegal immigration and the smuggling of chemicals used for fentanyl, but he has also pledged to use tariffs to boost domestic manufacturing and raise revenues for the federal government.
“Starting tomorrow, those tariffs will be in place,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Friday. “These are promises made and promises kept by the president.”
The tariffs carry both political and economic risks for Trump, who is just two weeks into his second term. Many voters backed the Republican on the promise that he could tamp down inflation, but the possibility of tariffs could trigger higher prices and potentially disrupt the energy, auto, lumber and agricultural sectors.
Trump had said he was weighing issuing an exemption for Canadian and Mexican oil imports, but Leavitt said she had no information to share on the president’s decision on any potential carveouts.
The United States imported almost 4.6 million barrels of oil daily from Canada in October and 563,000 barrels from Mexico, according to the Energy Information Administration. US daily production during that month averaged nearly 13.5 million barrels a day.
Trump has previously stated a 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports would be on top of other import taxes charged on products from the country.
Shortly after Leavitt spoke, the S&P 500 stock index sold off and largely erased its gains on the day.
“We should expect all three countries to retaliate,’’ said Wendy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator. China responded aggressively to tariffs Trump imposed on Chinese goods during his first term, targeting the president’s supporters in rural America with retaliatory taxes on US farm exports.
Both Canada and Mexico have said they’ve prepared the option of retaliatory tariffs to be used if necessary, which in turn could trigger a wider trade conflict that economic analyzes say could hurt growth and further accelerate inflation.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that Canada is ready is a respond if Trump goes ahead with the tariffs, but he did not give details.
“We’re ready with a response, a purposeful, forceful but reasonable, immediate response,” he said. “It’s not what we want, but if he moves forward, we will also act.”
Trudeau said tariffs would have “disastrous consequences” for the U.S, putting American jobs at risk and causing prices to rise. Trudeau reiterated that less than 1 percent of the fentanyl and illegal crossings into the US come from Canada.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday that Mexico has maintained a dialogue with Trump’s team since before he returned to the White House, but she emphasized that Mexico has a “Plan A, Plan B, Plan C for what the United States government decides.”
“Now it is very important that the Mexican people know that we are always going to defend the dignity of our people, we are always going to defend the respect of our sovereignty and a dialogue between equals, as we have always said, without subordination,” Sheinbaum said.
Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said the two countries should resolve their differences through dialogue and consultation. “There is no winner in a trade war or tariff war, which serves the interests of neither side nor the world,” Liu said in a statement. “Despite the differences, our two countries share huge common interests and space for cooperation.”
A study this month by Warwick McKibbin and Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics concluded that the 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 10 percent tariffs on China “would damage all the economies involved, including the US’’
“For Mexico,’’ the study said, “a 25 percent tariff would be catastrophic. Moreover, the economic decline caused by the tariff could increase the incentives for Mexican immigrants to cross the border illegally into the US — directly contradicting another Trump administration priority.’’
Cutler, now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the extent of the economic damage will depend on how long the tariffs are in effect.
If it’s just a few days, “that’s one thing. If they are in place for weeks onto months, we’re going to see supply chain disruptions, higher costs for US manufacturers, leading to higher prices for US consumers,’’ she said. “It could have macroeconomic impacts. It could affect the stock market. Then internationally it could lead to more tension with our trading partners and make it harder for us to work with them.”


Chad president welcomes ‘complete’ departure of French forces

Chad president welcomes ‘complete’ departure of French forces
Updated 31 January 2025
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Chad president welcomes ‘complete’ departure of French forces

Chad president welcomes ‘complete’ departure of French forces
  • Soldiers and fighter aircraft from France have been stationed in Chad almost continuously since the country’s independence in 1960, helping to train the Chadian military

N’DJAMENA: President Mahamat Idriss Deby on Friday welcomed the “definitive and complete departure” of French forces from Chad, which marks the end of France’s last foothold in the wider terrorist-hit Sahel region.
After a closed-door military ceremony a day earlier, Deby addressed Chadian forces and diplomats at an event in the capital, N’Djamena.
The handover of the Kossei base, the French army’s last such facility in the central African country, follows Chad’s surprise breaking off military cooperation with its former colonial ruler in late November.
“We are not breaking off our relationship with France, but we are ending the military dimension of this cooperation,” Deby said at the base where only the Chadian flag was flying.
Chad must build an “even stronger, better-equipped army” and “forge new alliances based on mutual respect and without losing sight of the demands of independence and sovereignty,” he added.
Soldiers and fighter aircraft from France have been stationed in Chad almost continuously since the country’s independence in 1960, helping to train the Chadian military.
The country had been a key link in France’s military presence in Africa.