Three storms raging in Atlantic — with one aiming for Irma’s path

Three storms are spinning in the Atlantic, with one already a hurricane and another one strengthening and forecast to threaten areas battered by Hurricane Irma last week.

Tropical Storm Maria formed Saturday in the western Atlantic Ocean and is expected to be a hurricane by late Monday and a major hurricane by Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center says. By Sunday morning, Maria was about 460 miles southeast of the Lesser Antilles, moving toward the Caribbean at 15 mph.

That means areas devastated by Irma could again be dealing with hurricane conditions by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Hurricane watches have been issued for Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Saba and St. Eustatius, St. Maarten, Dominica and Anguilla. Tropical storm watches are posted for St. Lucia, Martinique, Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Jose, a Category 1 storm, is spinning about 420 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and 435 miles southwest of Bermuda. Jose currently has maximum sustained winds of 80 mph and is expected to remain a hurricane through Monday night, the Hurricane Center said.

There’s also Tropical Storm Lee, which formed earlier Saturday in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.

[CNN]

‘Humanitarian catastrophe’ unfolding as Myanmar takes over aid efforts in Rakhine state

Nearly 400,000 Rohinyga have fled into makeshift camps in Bangladesh since 25 August, when coordinated assaults on security outposts by Rohingya insurgents prompted a massive military crackdown.

Now, the Myanmar government has taken control of aid operations in the country’s crisis-hit Rakhine state, as reports continue of massacres and “ethnic cleansing” by soldiers on the Muslim population there.

The UN has described the humanitarian situation for Rohingya people in northern Rakhine as catastrophic.  Sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Guardian they fear a deliberate attempt to undermine aid operations.Senior officials and Human Rights Watch said they believe the move could become permanent, ending vital food and health programs run by international agencies. Already there is an aid blockade on UN agencies that workers say is having a severe impact on malnourished children.

“We’re slowly getting kicked out,” said one. “This could fundamentally shift the way we operate here. The amount of time it will take to get back, or even if we are allowed, is all up in the air and in the meantime there could be a humanitarian disaster,” they said. “The government clearly don’t want us there. It’s an attempt to keep us out in a way that doesn’t fall on them; they can use security as an excuse. It’s obvious what’s going on,” they added.

Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director, said he believed the moves could be part of a government strategy to hinder the flow of information from the ground. “It’s becoming clear that the Myanmar government may be moving forward with a larger political plan to replace agencies on the ground in Rakhine with the much more malleable and less-inclined-to-speak-publicly Myanmar Red Cross,” he said.

[The Guardian]

Mexico steps up to unique triple disaster threat

There are few countries in the world resilient enough to respond to a hurricane and the strongest earthquake in a century, accompanied by a tsunami threat, all within hours of each other. Such was the challenge that confronted Mexico last week.

Officials at Mexico’s National Civil Protection System, created after the 1985 earthquake that claimed over 10,000 lives, kept a watchful eye on Hurricane Katia, one of three hurricanes newly emerged from the Atlantic, when the country was hit by an 8.1 earthquake which triggered 3-metre waves along parts of the Pacific coastline.

Tragically, some 90 people lost their lives in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Tabasco, and many have been made homeless. But the numbers of affected could have been higher if not for the continuous improvement of Mexico’s early warning systems and disaster risk management for all natural hazards, which has been ongoing for over three decades.

The 8.1 earthquake rippled across Mexico City for a full minute before subsiding, but the “alerta sismica” (seismic alert) gave residents a vital 86 seconds to find safety before it struck. Two years ago this month saw the activation of a new Seismic Warning System operated through 8,200 loudspeakers, to familiarize residents of Mexico City with the sound of alerts that give them up to 50 seconds’ notice of earthquakes. The alerts are also sent to mobile phones and other devices.

Political commitment is key to reducing disaster losses and addressing the underlying drivers of disaster risk, whether that means reducing greenhouse gas emissions, ensuring resilient infrastructure and strong building codes, protecting ecosystems or paying special attention to the needs of impoverished and vulnerable communities.

[Excerpts of PreventionWeb article by Robert Glasser, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction and the head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction]

UK limits spending on Irma disaster relief as overseas territories ‘too wealthy’

The UK’s £13bn aid budget cannot be spent helping its overseas territories recover from Hurricane Irma, the Government has said. Instead, funding must be collected from other reserves across the Government, which have been described as “scanty”.

Anguilla, Turks, Caicos and the British Virgin Islands are all considered too wealthy to receive emergency funding from the budget, according to international aid rules.

The UK has so far pledged £57m to help fund the recovery effort following the deadly storm. Now, the Government is facing claims that five times more aid could have been sent to help the victims of the hurricane had it been allowed to dip into aid budget reserves.

An unnamed minister told the BBC:  “This great pot of ODA, necessary for development, needs to be spent on crises like this and we have to find a way of doing it.”

A Government spokesman said: “This was an unprecedented disaster and it’s absolutely right that the Government responded immediately to the needs of those affected. This was our primary focus and continues to be our priority.

The way Britain and 34 other developed nations spend their aid budget is governed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development based in Paris (OECD). Countries are given a ranking according to need, which is intended to ensure the poorest nations are given priority.

[The Independent]

Nearing 300,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar

The number of Rohingya who have fled fighting in western Myanmar has climbed sharply to 270,000, placing a huge strain on camps in Bangladesh where they are seeking shelter, the United Nations refugee agency said.

Two refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in southeast Bangladesh that were already home to nearly 34,000 Rohingya refugees “are now bursting at the seams,” Duniya Aslam Khan, a spokeswoman for the refugee agency, said in a statement. “The limited shelter capacity is already exhausted,” she said. “Refugees are now squatting in makeshift shelters that have mushroomed along the road.”

The refugees in Bangladesh are mostly women and children who have arrived by foot, the United Nations refugee agency said. The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic group that has faced severe repression in Myanmar, where a Buddhist majority has long ruled. About one million of them live in Rakhine State in the west of the country.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate for her long struggle against military rule, has come under increasing international criticism for the plight of the Rohingya. Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, also a Nobel laureate, wrote in a letter Thursday that it was “incongruous for a symbol of righteousness to lead such a country” that “is not at peace with itself, that fails to acknowledge and protect the dignity and worth of all its people.”

Previously, Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate, had also confronted Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi on Twitter over the violence against the Rohingya.

[New York Times]

US Appeals Court deals blow to Trump’s temporary ban on refugees

A U.S. appeals court on September 7 rejected efforts by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to temporarily bar most refugees from entering the United States.

In the latest legal blow to Trump’s executive order targeting refugees and people from six predominantly Muslim countries, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that refugees who have “bona fide” relationships with U.S. resettlement agencies should be allowed into the country.

The court also ruled that grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins of legal U.S. residents should be exempted from Trump’s 90-day ban on travelers from Iran, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.

The court added that “it is hard to see how a grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, sibling-in-law, or cousin can be considered to have no bona fide relationship with their relative in the United States.”

[AP / Reuters]

Mexico’s strongest earthquake in a century leaves dozens dead

A magnitude-8.1 quake, which was felt as far as Mexico City and Guatemala City, was registered off Mexico’s southern coast just as heavy rains from Hurricane Katia lashed the east.

The epicenter was in the Pacific Ocean, some 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) southeast of the capital and 74 miles (120 kilometers) from the Pacific coast.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said the quake was the strongest earthquake Mexico has experienced in 100 years.

It hit late Thursday, when many people were asleep. The states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, home to about 9 million people, are located closest to the earthquake’s epicenter. They are two of the most impoverished areas in Mexico, and were likely hit the hardest.

So far, twenty-three people have been confirmed killed in Oaxaca state, seven in Chiapas state and two in Tabasco, local and federal officials said.

[CNN]

Angela Merkel’s open-door migration policy a million refugees later

A million refugees have taken refuge in Germany since 2015 under German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door migration policy. Many cities and towns took in more refugees than required.

Altena, an industrial west German town, was facing an economic downturn after its ironworks closed. Jobs were lost, businesses shut down, and families abandoned their homes. The population dropped by more than 10%. The mayor was looking for a way to give the town a boost when Merkel made her appeal in 2015.

“First, we wanted to help. There was a human reason to take them,” Altena’s mayor Andreas Hollstein explained.  “But the second reason was a win-win situation. We thought, ‘Okay, we need new people in Altena. …. This will help us invest in the future.'”

Altena, required to take in 300 refugees, took in in 400, and set up a program to match them with volunteer mentors that would help navigate German culture and its notoriously bureaucratic paperwork.

Bernadette Koopmann is one of the welcoming. “I have such a perfect life. I have healthy children, we live in a country that has not experienced war in a long time.

“Others are not so lucky,” she said. “They experience war, devastation, and poverty. I believe it’s not too much to ask for our help.”

[Read full CNN article]