World Briefing: September 16, 2024
US police are investigating the background of a gunman arrested at a Florida golf course where Donald Trump was playing. The FBI has called it an apparent assassination attempt - it happened just two months after Trump survived a shooting in Pennsylvania. US media have named the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58. He tried to recruit foreign fighters to join Ukraine's war effort and had been to Kyiv. An ex-Secret Service agent tells the BBC there should be a review of the level of protection given to presidential candidates - BBC
As I told BBC Television this morning, the fallout from this assassination attempt and they suspect’s connections to the war in Ukraine could help harden opposition to Ukraine aid among the Trump base. The incident comes just as Ukraine’s allies are trying to get agreement on providing Kyiv with longer-range weapons - so in a sense the timing couldn’t be worse.
I’ve also tweeted that this is a challenging time for the U.S. Secret Service as it responds to two assassination attempts on the former president: providing protection to visiting heads of state for UNGA and to candidates for the homestretch of US political campaigns
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was due to meet Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Monday to discuss tackling illegal immigration, a day after another Channel migrant shipwreck claimed eight lives. Starmer, whose centre-left Labour party was elected with a crushing parliamentary majority in July, has vowed to fight illegal immigration, a hot-button topic in British politics for years, AFP reported. Italy and the UK are also poised to reaffirm their pledge to defend Ukraine. Starmer and Meloni will discuss a proposal for Ukraine to use British long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles on Russian territory, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The strongest typhoon to hit Shanghai since at least 1949 flooded roads with water and broken tree branches, knocked out power to some homes and injured at least one person as it swept over the financial hub Monday. More than 414,000 people had been evacuated ahead of the powerful winds and torrential rain. Schools were closed and people were advised to stay indoors. One elderly man was injured by a falling tree on Shanghai’s Chongming Island, according to state media. He was taken to a hospital for treatment. Typhoon Bebinca made landfall around 7:30 a.m. in the sprawling Pudong business district with winds of 151 kph (94 mph) near its center. - AP
More rivers in central Europe spilled their banks on Monday in flooding that has killed at least 10 people from Poland to Romania and left many towns submerged or hit by gushing, debris-filled waters after days of heavy rainfalls. Border areas between the Czech Republic and Poland were hit hard over the weekend. Some bridges collapsed and homes were destroyed, while villages and towns in eastern Romania were submerged. Poland's government was due to meet on Monday morning to call a state of disaster. - France 24
