World Briefing: November 1, 2024
At least 158 people have died in Spain's worst flooding disaster in generations as rescuers battle odds to find survivors. On Thursday more than 1,200 workers, aided by drones, were deployed to the rescue mission as rains continued to threaten parts of the country. "Right now the most important thing is to save as many lives as possible," Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told victims in a visit to affected communities. But in some of the towns worst- hit in Tuesday night's floods, people were left to the task of recovering bodies from the mud and wreckage. A least 155 deaths were recorded in Valencia. In the town of Paiporta, Valencia where a river burst its banks, at least 40 deaths have been recorded so far. “We all know someone who has died," said pharmacist Miguel Guerrilla, standing outside his chemist shop which has been covered in thick mud. “It's a nightmare." On Thursday, the BBC saw undertakers and funeral vans retrieving bodies from the street, while on nearby roads, cars swept away by the storm surge were piled on top of each other. Motorists have recounted the horror of being trapped by the surging tides on Tuesday which turned highways and streets into rivers - many who survived climbed trees or bridges to escape - BBC
Some 8,000 North Korean soldiers are now in Russia near Ukraine’s border and are preparing to help the Kremlin fight against Ukrainian troops in the coming days, the Biden administration said Thursday. The new figure is a dramatic increase from a day earlier, when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would only say “some” of the troops had moved toward Ukraine’s border in the Kursk region, where Moscow’s forces have struggled to push back a Ukrainian incursion. That also would mean most of the North Korean troops that the U.S. and its allies say have been sent to Russia are now on the Russia-Ukraine border. The U.S. has estimated a total of about 10,000 North Korean troops are in Russia. Seoul and its allies assessed that the number has increased to 11,000, while Ukraine has put the figure higher, at up to 12,000. Of the 8,000 in Kursk, “we’ve not yet seen these troops deploy into combat against Ukrainian forces but we would expect that to happen in the coming days,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference with Austin and their South Korean counterparts. - AP
Israel pounded Beirut's southern suburbs with a series of powerful airstrikes early on Friday morning after issuing evacuation orders to residents, in the first such strikes in days targeting the dense urban area, Reuters witnesses said. The Israeli military said it was targetting Hezbollah facilities and assets, an assertion that it has repeated over the course of dozens of strikes over more than a month in the neighborhood where the Iran-backed group holds sway. The strikes followed a renewed but as yet of fruitless bout of U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at getting a ceasfire in Gaza and Lebanon to stop over a year of fighting between Israel and Iran-backed groups Hamas and Hezbollah - AP
Neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump has established a clear advantage in the race for the White House in two key Southern battleground states, according to new CNN polls conducted by SSRS. Likely voters in Georgia divide 48% for Trump to 47% for Harris, and in North Carolina, Harris stands at 48% to Trump’s 47%. Results are within the margin of error in both states, suggesting no clear leader in either contest. The results suggest little movement since CNN’s late-August poll of Georgia and late-September poll of North Carolina, both of which also found no clear leader in the race - CNN
A partial ballot recount in Georgia's contested parliamentary election confirmed the ruling party won, electoral officials said Thursday, after opposition parties alleged violations and Washington and Brussels demanded an investigation. Georgia plunged into political uncertainty following Saturday's election as the pro-Western opposition said the vote was "stolen" by the ruling Georgian Dream party and refused to recognise its results. Pro-European President Salome Zurabishvili -- at loggerheads with the governing party -- has declared the election results "illegitimate", alleging election interference by a "Russian special operation". The central election commission told AFP that the recount at some 12 percent of polling stations, involving 14 percent of the vote, "didn't lead to a significant change to previously announced official results". - AFP
Russia is enforcing across the Ukrainian territory it controls a system comprising a gulag of more than 100 prisons, detention facilities, informal camps and basements that is reminiscent of the worst Soviet excesses. Research by a team of reporters involving dozens of interviews with former detainees, human rights organizations and Ukrainian officials from the Office of the General Prosecutor, the intelligence service and ombudsmen, reveals a highly institutionalized, bureaucratic and frequently brutal system of repression run by Moscow to pacify an area of 40,000 square miles in Ukraine, roughly the size of Ohio. The ultimate aim of Moscow’s efforts, rights advocates said, is to extinguish Ukrainian identity through such tactics as propaganda, re-education, torture, forced Russian citizenship and sending children to live in Russia. In addition, the Russian forces are holding about 22,000 Ukrainians, roughly 8,000 of them prisoners of war and the rest civilians, many of them on dubious charges, according to human rights organizations and Ukrainian officials - NYT
Ahead of the second round of presidential elections in Moldova Sunday, all three land crossing with Ukraine temporarily ceased operations Thursday afternoon due to a computer failure on the Moldovan side. At the jointly-operated Moldova-Ukraine border point at Palanca, long queues of cars, lorries and buses formed over the course of about two hours. The computer problem was eventually solved and traffic began moving again as dusk began to fall. Some experts predict a very tight race between the western-leaning incumbent, Maia Sandu, and opponents aligned with Russia. As with the referendum vote in EU membership, the sizeable diaspora vote could help push Sandu over the finish line. Security here in Chișinău is tight ahead of the poll.
Botswana’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, has conceded defeat after preliminary results showed his party had lost its parliamentary majority by a landslide in this week’s election, ending nearly six decades in power. With more than half of constituencies reporting, the opposition coalition Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) had a significant lead, putting its leader, the lawyer Duma Boko, on track to win the presidency. Analysts said that mounting socioeconomic grievances, particularly among young people, were the downfall of the ruling Botswana Democratic party (BDP), which has governed the small southern African state since independence from Britain in 1966. Botswana has largely depended on its diamonds for income, but a downturn in the global diamond market caused economic growth to plummet this year, while unemployment rose to 28%. State television showed that based on results from 41 of the 61 constituencies up for grabs, the UDC had won 26 seats in parliament while the BDP had only three. Members of parliament elect the president. - Reuters
