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US and Europe are closing ranks, signaling to Moscow their unity over the war in Ukraine won’t be shattered by what they say is the “sabotage” of dual undersea gas pipelines that could represent a possible new front in energy warfare.
The transatlantic allies have yet to directly blame Russia for what they say are leaks in the pipelines from Russia to Germany that followed underwater explosions. European security officials on Monday and Tuesday observed Russian Navy support ships in the vicinity of the leaks, CNN reported Wednesday, citing two Western intelligence officials and one other source familiar with the matter. But it remains unclear, according to these sources, whether the ships were connected to the explosions, and three US officials said that the US has no thorough explanation yet for what happened, CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand and Kylie Atwood reported.
Still, the leaks have raised suspicions that Russian President Vladimir Putin is moving up to the next notch on his escalatory scale to hike pain on his foes for their support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. If confirmed, Russian attacks on external pipelines would deepen fears that Putin is ready to widen operations outside Ukraine at a time when he is also seeking to scare Western publics with his nuclear rhetoric.
And while Russia has denied involvement in the pipeline leaks, the leaks could emphasize Moscow’s leverage over natural gas markets and raise new fears of shortages and fast rising prices in Europe over the winter as it seeks to fracture Western resolve and support for Ukraine.
The leaks did not immediately cause a crisis since neither pipeline was actually in use. One pipeline, Nord Stream 2, never went online because of sanctions over the war in Ukraine and Nord Stream 1 had been shut down for weeks. Given the conditions at sea, it may take time to assess the damage as gas bubbles to the surface and it could be complicated to ascribe blame.
But if nothing else, the pipeline leaks are a metaphorical severing of an era of post-Cold War US and European energy relations, which left the continent overly reliant on Russian gas exports and prone to geopolitical blackmail. A long estrangement now appears certain at least as long as Putin is in power, which will bring reminders of the Warsaw Pact’s decades-long standoff with the West.
But perhaps to Putin’s disappointment, there was no immediate sign of weakening European resolve. In a fresh sign of solidarity that has surprised some observers, the US and Europe quickly issued similar statements over the pipeline breaches, vowing to investigate and to lessen reliance on Russian energy.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the leaks appeared to be a “deliberate act,” comments that were echoed by the Danish and Swedish prime ministers. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen referred to “sabotage action” in a tweet. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan called the leaks “apparent sabotage” in a tweet on Tuesday night, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was no sign the leaks would weaken Europe’s energy resistance and that sabotage would be “clearly in no one’s interest.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the idea that the Russia might have deliberately sabotaged the pipelines as “predictably stupid,” and Moscow promised its own investigation.
European officials earlier said the leaks were discovered on Monday and that initial investigations showed that powerful underwater explosions occurred before the pipelines burst. CNN reported on Wednesday that the US warned several allies over the summer, including Germany, that the pipelines could be attacked.
The warnings were based on US intelligence assessments, but were vague and did not say who might carry out such action.
Deepening East-West hostility
The drama over the pipelines came as the war of words between the West and Moscow took another hostile lurch, with Western leaders slamming what they regard as sham referendums in captured Ukrainian territory that Moscow reported resulted in majorities voting to join Russia. It also follows strong warnings from Washington over the weekend that any use by Putin of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be “catastrophic” for Russia.
Once a symbol of the jihadist war in northeast Nigeria, the town of Bama today betrays the grinding nature of a 13-year conflict, caught between reconstruction and fighting that still rages beyond its borders.
one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the US, roared ashore in southwest Florida on Wednesday, turning streets into rivers as it knocked out power to 2.25 million people.
Destructive waves slammed into the southwest coast from Englewood to Bonita Beach including Charlotte Harbor, near the town of Punta Gorda, north of Fort Myers. As Ian plods across Florida in the next 24 hours, it is expected to drop 12 -18 inches of rain on top of coastal surges.
A coastal sheriff’s office reported receiving calls from people trapped in flooded homes. Several took to social media, sharing videos of debris-covered water sloshing towards their homes as they pleaded for rescue.
The storm surge flooded a lower-level emergency room in Port Charlotte, while part of the roof on a fourth-floor intensive care unit was torn down by fierce winds, according to a doctor working there.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis urged Floridians to hunker down, noting that it would be a “nasty” couple of days.
In September 2014, Boko Haram fighters succeeded in seizing the commercial town of 300,000 inhabitants, before being driven out seven months later by the army following a heavy offensive.
Mostly destroyed, Bama became a ghost town deserted by its inhabitants.
But four years ago, life slowly resumed. Some 120,000 residents who had taken refuge in the Borno state capital of Maiduguri gradually resettled in Bama.
Today on one side, houses with new roofs welcome back former inhabitants, encouraged by official promises of peace.
On the other side, endless rows of tin shacks serve as a refuge for newcomers. Tens of thousands of displaced Nigerians have come out of the "bush", the countryside where jihadists still battle soldiers beyond Bama's trenches.
Inside the garrison enclave, dozens of destroyed houses, gutted roofs and charred walls are a painful reminder of Bama's recent history.
- Camp closures -
Halima Tarmi Abba returned to Bama in 2018, four years after fleeing.
"The authorities gave us a new house because ours had been completely destroyed," says the 36-year-old mother of three.
In all, the government has built and rehabilitated more than 10,000 houses, around 50 water pumps and 154 school classes, according to the UN.
But for a year, Bama has been unable to absorb the flood of returnees.
"The city is overcrowded, because the authorities have closed the camps in Maiduguri, and a large number are returning to Bama," Abba says.
Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the U.S., swamped southwest Florida on Wednesday, turning streets into rivers, knocking out power to 2 million people and threatening catastrophic damage further inland.
Liz Turnipseed is among the Highland Park survivors alleging that the gun manufacturer, the accused shooter, his father and two gun sellers bear some responsibility for the attack.
British finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng hoped to take down finance ministry groupthink that he and new Prime Minister Liz Truss saw as holding Britain back.
Instead he's seen his first fiscal statement take down the pound, the bond market, his party's reputation for financial credibility and quite possibly his own political career.
Truss was selected by Conservative members earlier this month to run the country on a low-tax agenda which vowed to challenge "Treasury orthodoxy" to get the country moving again.
Charged with delivering this vision, Kwarteng fired the finance ministry's most senior official and unveiled a swathe of unfunded tax cuts with a view of turning "the vicious cycle of stagnation into a virtuous cycle of growth".
What the 47-year-old unleashed was a vicious cycle of falling market confidence, flight from British assets and such damage to the British bond markets that the Bank of England was forced to start buying bonds.
A source at the Treasury said Kwarteng had no plans to resign or reverse any policies. Another person familiar with the situation said Truss was standing by her finance minister, whose official title is Chancellor of the Exchequer.
"The PM and the Chancellor are working on the supply side reforms needed to grow the economy which will be announced in the coming weeks," a spokesman for Truss said.
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Investors, traders, government officials and even some lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party are increasingly of the view that to fix the situation, there will have to be policy reversals or even Kwarteng's resignation.
One government source, who worked closely with Kwarteng in the past, told Reuters it was hard to see how he could survive. "He and Truss are close, and you have to wonder whether she is ruthless enough to axe one of her longest-standing allies this soon in her tenure."
The source noted that Truss had backed the plan throughout.
Support for the governing Conservative Party has sunk, a YouGov poll showed this week, with key planks of the economic plan unpopular with voters.
Keiran Pedley, a research director at pollster Ipsos, said early data showed the opposition Labour Party was increasingly more trusted to manage the economy, spelling danger for the government heading into the next election, expected in 2024.
"If that continues, that's a real problem for the Conservatives because that has typically been one of their key brand assets," he told Reuters.
DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY
Britain's first Black Chancellor, Kwarteng is the son of Ghanaian immigrants. He attended Eton, one of Britain's most prestigious private schools, which has been the alma mater of numerous politicians. Kwarteng scored a "double-first" at Cambridge University in Classics and History, as well as attending Harvard University in the United States.
He was appointed on Sept. 6, and has to last another week in the job if he is to avoid being the shortest tenured Chancellor in British political history.
In Kwarteng, Truss picked a key ideological ally with whom she co-wrote a book that spells out a low tax, small state, deregulated vision of Britain.
A lawmaker since 2010 and economic historian known for his intellect, some said Kwarteng didn't have the experience to run the huge finance ministry. A veteran Conservative source said before his appointment that the Treasury would "approve of his brain (but) disapprove of his independence."
That desire to do things differently was exemplified when he immediately fired Tom Scholar as Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, with Scholar saying "the Chancellor decided it was time for new leadership."
Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the fall-out from Friday's mini-budget showed why economic "orthodoxy" should be welcomed as evidence-based knowledge.
"It needs testing and challenging, but experience tells us that simply dismissing it is dangerous indeed," he said on Twitter.
In an interview with The Associated Press this week, Turnipseed said before the shots rang out she was enjoying the parade with her husband and 3-year-old daughter, pointing out instruments in the high school band. Turnipseed fell to the ground after being shot in the pelvis and remembers seeing her daughter’s stroller on its side and asking her husband to get their daughter to safety.
Turnipseed said she required weeks of intense wound care, expects to need a cane for some time and is in therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. She also was forced to delay an embryo transfer scheduled for July 12; her doctors now fear it’s dangerous for her to become pregnant.
A coastal sheriff’s office reported that it was getting many calls from people trapped in flooded homes. Desperate people posted to Facebook and other social sites, pleading for rescue for themselves or loved ones. Some video showed debris-covered water sloshing toward homes’ eaves.
The storm surge flooded a hospital’s lower level emergency room in Port Charlotte, while fierce winds tore part of its fourth floor roof from its intensive care unit, according to a doctor who works there.
Water gushed down from above onto the ICU, forcing staff to evacuate the hospital’s sickest patients — some of whom were on ventilators — to other floors, said Dr. Birgit Bodine of HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital. Staff members used towels and plastic bins to try to mop up the sodden mess.
The medium-sized hospital spans four floors, but patients were forced into just two because of the damage. Bodine planned to spend the night at the hospital in case people injured from the storm arrive there needing help.
“The ambulances may be coming soon and we don’t know where to put them in the hospital at this point because we’re doubled and tripled up,” she said. “As long as our patients do OK and nobody ends up dying or having a bad outcome, that’s what matters.”
The hurricane’s center made landfall near Cayo Costa, a barrier island just west of heavily populated Fort Myers. As it approached, water drained from Tampa Bay.
Mark Pritchett stepped outside his home in Venice around the time the hurricane churned ashore from the Gulf of Mexico, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) to the south. He called it “terrifying.”
“I literally couldn’t stand against the wind,” Pritchett wrote in a text message. “Rain shooting like needles. My street is a river. Limbs and trees down. And the worst is yet to come.”
The storm previously tore into Cuba, killing two people and bringing down the country’s electrical grid.
About 2.5 million people were ordered to evacuate southwest Florida before Ian hit, but by law no one could be forced to flee.
News anchors at Fort Myers television station WINK had to abandon their usual desk and continue storm coverage from another location in their newsroom because water was pushing into their building near the Caloosahatchee River.
Though expected to weaken to a tropical storm as it marches inland at about 9 mph (14 kph), Ian’s hurricane force winds were likely to be felt well into central Florida. In the hours since landfall, top sustained winds had gradually dropped to 90 mph (150 kph), making it a Category 1 hurricane crossing the peninsula. Still, storm surges as high as 6 feet (2 meters) were expected on the opposite side of the state, in northeast Florida.
Sheriff Bull Prummell of Charlotte County, just north of Fort Myers, announced a curfew between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. “for life-saving purposes,” saying violators may face second-degree misdemeanor charges.
“I am enacting this curfew as a means of protecting the people and property of Charlotte County Prummell said.
Jackson Boone left his home near the Gulf coast and hunkered down at his law office in Venice with employees and their pets. Boone at one point opened a door to howling wind and rain flying sideways.
“We’re seeing tree damage, horizontal rain, very high wind,” Boone said by phone. “We have a 50-plus-year-old oak tree that has toppled over.”
Survivors of the mass shooting at a suburban Chicago Independence Day parade and family members of those killed filed 11 lawsuits Wednesday against the manufacturer of the rifle used in the attack, accusing gun-maker Smith & Wesson of illegally targeting its ads at young men at risk of committing mass violence.
The sweeping effort by dozens of victims of the Highland Park shooting, anti-gun violence advocates and private attorneys announced Wednesday is the latest bid to hold gun manufacturers accountable for a mass killing despite broad protections for the industry in federal law.
The group’s strategy mirrors the approach used by relatives of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school killings, who in February reached a $73 million settlement with the firearm company that produced the rifle used in that attack. That was believed to be the largest payment by a gun-maker related to a mass killing and hinged on the families’ accusation that Remington violated Connecticut consumer protection law by marketing its AR-15-style weapons to young men already at risk of committing violence.
“The shooter did not act on his own,” said Alla Lefkowitz, senior director of affirmative litigation for the gun safety organization Everytown. “What happened in Highland Park on July 4 was the result of deliberate choices made by certain members of the industry.”
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