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AFP

  • Typhoon death toll rises in Vietnam as downed trees hamper rescuers

    Typhoon death toll rises in Vietnam as downed trees hamper rescuers

    VINH, Vietnam: The death toll from Typhoon Kajiki rose to three in Vietnam on Tuesday, as rescue workers battled uprooted trees and downed power lines and widespread flooding brought chaos to the streets of the capital Hanoi.

    The typhoon hit central Vietnam on Monday with winds of up to 130 km/h (80 mph), tearing roofs off thousands of homes and knocking out power to more than 1.6 million people.

    Authorities on Tuesday said three people had been killed and 13 injured, and warned of possible flash floods and landslides in eight provinces as Kajiki’s torrential rains continue to wreak havoc.

    On the streets of Vinh, in central Vietnam, AFP journalists saw soldiers and rescue workers using cutting equipment to clear dozens of trees and roof panels that had blocked the roads.

    “A huge steel roof was blown down from the eighth floor of a building, landing right in the middle of the street,” Tran Van Hung, 65, told AFP.

    “It was so lucky that no one was hurt. This typhoon was absolutely terrifying.”

    Vietnam has long been affected by seasonal typhoons, but human-caused climate change is driving more intense and unpredictable weather patterns.

    This can make destructive floods and storms more likely, particularly in the tropics.

    “The wind yesterday night was so strong. The sound from trees twisting and the noise of the flying steel panels were all over the place,” Vinh resident Nguyen Thi Hoa, 60, told AFP.

    “We are used to heavy rain and floods but I think I have never experienced that strong wind and its gust like this yesterday.”

    Flooding has cut off 27 villages in mountainous areas inland, authorities said, while more than 44,000 people were evacuated as the storm approached.

    – Chaos in Hanoi –

    Further north in Hanoi, the heavy rains left many streets under water, bringing traffic chaos on Tuesday morning.

    “It was impossible to move around this morning. My front yard is also flooded,” Nguyen Thuy Lan, 44, told AFP.

    Another Hanoi resident, Tran Luu Phuc, said he was stuck in one place for more than an hour, unable to escape the logjam of vehicles trapped by the murky brown waters.

    “The flooding and the traffic this morning are terrible. It’s a big mess everywhere,” he told AFP.

    After hitting Vietnam and weakening to a tropical depression, Kajiki swept westwards over northern Laos, bringing intense rains.

    The high-speed Laos-China railway halted all services on Monday and Tuesday, and some roads have been cut, but there were no immediate reports of deaths.

    In Vietnam, more than 100 people have been killed or left missing from natural disasters in the first seven months of 2025, according to the agriculture ministry.

    In September last year Typhoon Yagi battered northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, triggering floods and landslides that left more than 700 people dead and causing billions of dollars’ worth of economic losses.

  • Tokyo protests to Beijing over gas field in East China Sea

    Tokyo protests to Beijing over gas field in East China Sea

    TOKYO: Japan has lodged a protest with China after discovering what it says were efforts by Beijing to develop gas fields in disputed waters of the East China Sea.

    Tokyo’s foreign ministry said late Monday it had confirmed that Beijing was setting up drilling rigs in the area — where the two countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) claims overlap — and submitted a complaint to the Chinese embassy.

    “It is extremely regrettable that China is advancing unilateral development,” the ministry said, noting it had taken place on the Chinese side of the de facto maritime border.

    The ministry accused China of positioning 21 suspected drilling rigs, with Tokyo fearing gas on the Japanese side could also be extracted.

    Japan “issued a strong protest” to the Chinese embassy, the ministry said.

    It “strongly urged China for an early resumption of talks on the implementation” of a 2008 bilateral agreement regarding the development of resources in the East China Sea, it added.

    That agreement saw Japan and China agree to jointly develop undersea gas reserves in the disputed area, with a ban on independent drilling by either country.

    But negotiations over how to implement the deal were suspended in 2010.

    Japan has long insisted the median line between the two nations should mark the limits of their respective EEZs.

    China, however, insists the border should be drawn closer to Japan, taking into account the continental shelf and other ocean features.

    The two countries are embroiled in a separate row over disputed islands elsewhere in the East China Sea.

    China claims the string of islands — which Japan refers to as the Senkakus and are known as the Diaoyu by Beijing — as its own, and regularly sends ships and aircraft into the area to test Tokyo’s response times.

    China also has disputes with several other nations in the South China Sea, which it claims in its entirety.

  • Australia expels Iran ambassador over antisemitic attacks

    Australia expels Iran ambassador over antisemitic attacks

    SYDNEY: Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador on Tuesday, accusing the country of being behind antisemitic arson attacks in Melbourne and Sydney.

    It marks the first time Australia has expelled an ambassador since World War II.

    Intelligence services reached a “deeply disturbing conclusion” that Iran directed at least two antisemitic attacks, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

    Tehran was behind a fire attack on a kosher cafe, the Lewis Continental Cafe, in Sydney’s Bondi suburb in October 2024, the prime minister told a news conference.

    It also directed an arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December 2024, the prime minister said, citing the intelligence findings.

    No physical injuries were reported in the two attacks.

    “These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil,” Albanese said.

    “They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community. It is totally unacceptable.”

    Australia declared Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi “persona non grata” and ordered him and three other officials to leave the country within seven days.

    Australia also withdrew its own ambassador to Iran and suspended the embassy’s operations in Tehran.

    The Australian diplomats were all “safe in a third country”, the prime minister said.

    Australia will also legislate to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation, he said.

    Foreign Minister Penny Wong said it was the first time in the post war period that Australia had expelled an ambassador.

    Australia would maintain diplomatic lines with Iran to advance the interests of Australians, Wong said.

    ‘Web of proxies’

    Australia has had an embassy in Tehran since 1968.

    Though Australians have been advised not to travel through Iran since 2020, Wong said that Canberra’s ability to provide consular assistance was now “extremely limited”.

    “I do know that many Australians have family connections in Iran, but I urge any Australian who might be considering traveling to Iran, please do not do so,” she said.

    “Our message is, if you are an Australian in Iran, leave now if it is safe to do so.”

    Australia’s spy chief Michael Burgess said a “painstaking” intelligence service investigation had uncovered links between the antisemitic attacks and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

    The probe found that the Guard directed at least two and “likely” more attacks on Jewish interests in Australia, said Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

    The Revolutionary Guard, the ideological arm of Iran’s military, used a complex web of proxies to hide its involvement in the attacks, he said.

    Iran’s embassy in Australia and its diplomats were not involved, however, the spy chief said.

    The Australian intelligence service is still investigating possible Iranian involvement in a number of other attacks, Burgess said.

  • New-look Alcaraz eases past Opelka at US Open

    New-look Alcaraz eases past Opelka at US Open

    Carlos Alcaraz unveiled a striking new hairstyle before giving Reilly Opelka the chop at the US Open on Monday. (more…)

  • Trump says he wants to meet North Korea’s Kim again

    Trump says he wants to meet North Korea’s Kim again

    US President Donald Trump said Monday he hoped to meet again with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, possibly this year, as he held White House talks with South Korea’s dovish new leader that got off awkwardly.

    Hours before President Lee Jae Myung arrived for his long-planned first visit to the White House, Trump took to social media to denounce what he said was a “Purge or Revolution” in South Korea, apparently over raids that involved churches.

    Forty minutes into an Oval Office meeting in which Lee profusely praised Trump, the US leader dismissed his own sharply worded rebuke, saying, “I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding” as “there is a rumor going around.”

    Trump said he believed he was on the same page on North Korea as Lee, a progressive who supports diplomacy over confrontation.

    Trump, who met Kim Jong Un three times in his first term, hailed his relationship with the young totalitarian and said he knew him “better than anybody, almost, other than his sister.”

    “Someday I’ll see him. I look forward to seeing him. He was very good with me,” Trump told reporters, saying he hoped the talks would take place this year.

    Trump contended that North Korea has been firing fewer rockets since he returned to the White House on January 20.

    The president has boasted that he has solved seven wars in as many months back in the job — a claim that is contested — but had been quiet on North Korea despite the unusually personal diplomacy during his 2017-2021 tenure.

    Trump once said that he and Kim “fell in love.” Their meetings reduced tensions but failed to produce a lasting agreement.

    Pyongyang rebuffed overtures from Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, which Trump said showed they did not respect him.

    But Kim has also been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Russia after sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight.

    North Korea has dug in and refused any talk of ending its nuclear weapons program.

    ‘Trump Tower’ in Pyongyang

    Lee, a former labor rights lawyer who has criticized the US military in the past, immediately flattered his host and said Trump has made the United States “not a keeper of peace, but a maker of peace.”

    “I look forward to your meeting with Chairman Kim Jong Un and construction of Trump Tower in North Korea and playing golf” there, Lee told him.

    He even cited propaganda from North Korea that denounced South Korea by noting that Pyongyang said the relationship with Trump was better.

    Kim “will be waiting for you,” Lee told him.

    Lee was elected in June after the impeachment of the more hawkish Yoon Suk Yeol, who briefly imposed martial law.

    The raids denounced by Trump likely referred in part to investigations surrounding Yoon’s conservative allies.

    Seeking to buy base

    Lee spoke through an interpreter, breaking the pace of Trump, who does not hesitate to pick fights with his guests.

    Trump, who frequently accuses European allies of freeloading off the United States, made clear he would press hard for greater compensation by South Korea over the 28,500 US troops in the country.

    He suggested the United States could seek to take over base land, an idea likely to enrage Lee’s brethren on the South Korean left.

    “We spent a lot of money building a fort, and there was a contribution made by South Korea, but I would like to see if we could get rid of the lease and get ownership of the land where we have a massive military base,” Trump said.

    He also spoke bluntly about one of South Korea’s most delicate issues: so-called “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery during Japan’s 1910-1945 rule.

    The South Korean left has historically been outspoken about Japan’s legacy, although Lee visited Tokyo on his way to Washington, a highly symbolic stop praised by Trump.

    Japan had agreed to compensate comfort women but the deal was criticized by survivors who questioned Tokyo’s sincerity.

  • Israeli bulldozers uproot hundreds of trees in West Bank village

    Israeli bulldozers uproot hundreds of trees in West Bank village

    Al Mughayyir: Israeli bulldozers uprooted hundreds of trees in the West Bank village of al-Mughayyir on Sunday in the presence of the Israeli military, according to AFP journalists who witnessed the scene.

    Most of the felled vegetation appeared to be olive trees, essential to the economy and culture of the West Bank, while olive groves have also long been a flashpoint for violent clashes between farmers and encroaching Israeli settlers.

    Abdelatif Mohammed Abu Aliya, a local farmer from the village near Ramallah, said he lost olive trees that were over 70 years old on about one hectare of land.

    “They completely uprooted and levelled them under false pretences,” he said, explaining he and other residents had already begun replanting the pulled-up trees.

    AFP photographers on the ground saw overturned soil, olive trees lying on the ground, and several bulldozers operating on the hills surrounding the village.

    One bulldozer had an Israeli flag, and Israeli military vehicles were parked nearby.

    “The goal is control and forcing people to leave. This is just the beginning — it will expand across the entire West Bank,” said Ghassan Abu Aliya, who leads a local agricultural association.

    Residents said the bulldozing began on Thursday. A Palestinian NGO reported 14 people had been arrested in the village over the past three days.

    When asked about the incident, the Israeli army told AFP late on Sunday it had “launched intensive operational activity in the area” following a “serious shooting attack near the village”.

    – ‘Heavy price’ –

    On August 16, the Palestinian Authority reported that an 18-year-old man had been shot and killed by the Israeli army in the same village.

    The army said its forces responded to stones thrown by “terrorists” but did not directly link the incident to the young man’s death.

  • India cricket ends $43.6 mn sponsorship after online gambling ban: report

    India cricket ends $43.6 mn sponsorship after online gambling ban: report

    NEW DELHI: Indian cricket is looking for a new main sponsor after a fantasy sports gaming platform pulled out of a deal worth $43.6 million following a government ban on online gambling, reports said Monday.

    Dream11, the biggest online gaming platform in the country, became the lead sponsor of the men’s and women’s national teams after signing a three-year deal in July 2023.

    The Dream11 logo is printed on the jerseys of the Indian players.

    It is also the sponsor of several Indian Premier League franchises.

    Last week, the Indian parliament passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, criminalising the offering and financing of such games, with offenders facing up to five years in prison.

    The Indian Express newspaper said Monday that representatives of Dream11 visited the office of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and informed its chief executive, Hemang Amin, that they won’t be able to continue.

    “As a result, they won’t be the team’s sponsors for the Asia Cup. The BCCI will float a new tender soon,” the daily said, quoting a BCCI official.

    The T20 Asia Cup starts on September 9 in the United Arab Emirates.

    “There’s not much time left for the Asia Cup, but we are exploring options,” a board official was quoted as saying by Sportstar website.

    Dream11 is also the official partner of the Caribbean Premier League and sponsors Australia’s Big Bash League.

    The gaming ban impacts platforms for card games, poker and fantasy sports, including India’s wildly popular homegrown fantasy cricket apps.

    The government said the rapid spread of gambling platforms had caused widespread financial distress, addiction and even suicide among the youth.

    It also said it was linked to fraud, money laundering and terrorism financing.

  • Kneecap defy critics with ‘Free Palestine’ chant at Paris gig

    Kneecap defy critics with ‘Free Palestine’ chant at Paris gig

    Paris: Irish rap group Kneecap repeated their criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza during a performance outside Paris on Sunday, despite objections from French Jewish groups and government officials.

    The concert, which began shortly before 6.30 pm (1630 GMT) in front of several thousand people in the Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud, went ahead despite complaints from the Belfast trio’s critics.

    “Free, free Palestine!,” the group shouted at the start of their show, rallying an enthusiastic crowd where keffiyehs and Irish jerseys were visible, before insisting they were not against Israel.

    Ahead of the show, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said the authorities would be vigilant for “any comments of an antisemitic nature, apology for terrorism or incitement to hatred” at the event.

    During their performance, the band displayed a backdrop in French that said: “The French government is complicit”, accusing it of facilitating the sale of weapons to Israel. They posted a photo of the message on social media.

    The performance was briefly interrupted as several individuals whistled in protest, until security removed protesters from the crowd.

    After organisers kept the politically outspoken band on the programme, local authorities withdrew their subsidies for the music festival where the gig took place — the annual Rock en Seine festival.

    The group from Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, have made a habit of using their concerts to canvas for the Palestinian cause and criticise Israel.

    – Politically outspoken –

    Liam O’Hanna, 27, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged in England in May accused of displaying a flag of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah during a London concert in November.

    They played a closely scrutinised concert at the Glastonbury Festival in June, where Chara declared: “Israel are war criminals.”

    The group later missed playing at the Sziget Festival in Budapest after being barred from entering the country by the Hungarian authorities, a close ally of Israel.

    Kneecap, who also support Irish republicanism and criticise British imperialism, have sparked widespread debate in the UK and Ireland, more than two-and-a-half decades after the peace agreement that aimed to end the conflict over the status of Northern Ireland.

    The group takes its name from the deliberate shooting of the limbs, known as “kneecapping”, carried out by Irish republicans as punishment attacks during the decades of unrest.

    – Concern over antisemitism –

    The municipality of Saint-Cloud for the first time withdrew its 40,000-euro ($47,000) subsidy from Rock en Seine.

    The wider Ile-de-France region, which includes Paris, also cancelled its funding for the 2025 edition.

    However, such moves do not jeopardise the viability of the festival, whose budget was between 16 million and 17 million euros this year.

    The group has already played twice in France this summer — at the Eurockeennes festival in Belfort and the Cabaret Vert in Charleville-Mezieres — both times without incident.

    Sunday’s concert came against a background of concerns about alleged high levels of antisemitism in France in the wake of Palestinian group Hamas October 7, 2023 attack, and Israel’s devastating retaliatory assault on Gaza.

    On Sunday Charles Kushner, the US ambassador to Paris, sparked a diplomatic row after a letter he wrote to French President Emmanuel Macron criticised what he said was France’s insufficient action against antisemitism.

  • Four journalists among 20 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza hospital

    Four journalists among 20 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza hospital

    GAZA CITY, Palestine: Gaza’s civil defence agency said four journalists were among at least 20 people killed Monday when Israeli strikes hit Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.

    Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said, “the death toll is 15, including four journalists and one civil defence member”, after strikes hit Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.

    According to media watchdogs, around 200 journalists have been killed in nearly two years of war between Israel and Hamas.

    When asked by AFP about strikes targeting a building at the medical complex, the Israeli military said it was checking the reports.

    The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said a group of reporters had “been martyred in the line of journalistic duty, as a result of the Israeli bombing that targeted them at Nasser Hospital”.

    In a statement, it named the reporters as photojournalists Hossam Al-Masri, Mohammad Salama and Mariam Dagga, and journalist Moaz Abu Taha.

    A spokesperson for Qatar-based TV network Al Jazeera on Monday confirmed its photojournalist and cameraman Mohammad Salama was killed in the attack on the medical complex.

    The three others worked with some Palestinian and international outlets, according to AFP journalists.

    Associated Press said Mariam Dagga was a freelancer for the news agency but was not on an assignment with the media outlet when she was killed.

    Reuters said that one of the journalists killed and one of those injured were contractors for the news agency.

    The civil defence’s Bassal said an Israeli explosive drone targeted a building at Nasser Hospital, followed by an air strike as the wounded were being evacuated.

    Smoke, bloodied bodies

    Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.

    AFP footage from the immediate aftermath of the attack showed smoke filling the air and debris from the blast on the floor outside the hospital.

    Palestinians rushed to help the victims, carrying bloodied bodies and severed body parts into the medical complex. One body could be seen dangling from the top floor of the targeted building as a man screamed below.

    A woman wearing medical scrubs and a white coat was among the injured, carried into the hospital on a stretcher with a heavily bandaged leg and blood all over her clothes.

    Before the latest killings, media advocacy groups the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders said around 200 journalists had been killed in the Gaza war.

    Earlier this month, four Al Jazeera staff and two freelancers were killed in an Israeli air strike outside Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, prompting widespread condemnation.

    The CPJ slammed that strike, saying journalists should never be targeted in war.

    “Journalists are civilians. They must never be targeted in war. And to do so is a war crime,” Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the CPJ, told AFP at the time.

    Israel’s offensive has killed at least 62,686 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.

  • Iran nuclear talks with European powers to be held in Geneva

    Iran nuclear talks with European powers to be held in Geneva

    TEHRAN: Nuclear talks scheduled for Tuesday between Iran and Britain, France and Germany will be held in Geneva, Iranian state media reported.

    “On Tuesday, Iran and the three European parties to the 2015 nuclear deal, along with the European Union, will hold a new round of talks at the level of deputy foreign ministers in Geneva,” state television said on Monday.

    The meeting will be the second since Israel’s 12-day war on Iran in mid-June, during which the United States also carried out strikes against Tehran’s nuclear facilities. The previous round of talks was held in Istanbul on July 25.

    It comes after Iran suspended cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog following the Israel war, as Tehran pointing to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s failure to condemn Israeli and US strikes on its nuclear facilities.

    The unprecedented bombing by Israel and the United States on Iran derailed Tehran’s nuclear negotiations with Washington.

    The European trio have threatened to trigger a “snapback mechanism” under the 2015 nuclear deal which would reimpose UN sanctions that were lifted under the agreement, unless Iran agrees to curb its uranium enrichment and restore cooperation with IAEA inspectors.

    Iran disputes the legality of invoking the clause, accusing the Europeans of not honouring their commitments under the accord.

    Britain, France and Germany, along with China, Russia, and the United States, reached an agreement with Iran in 2015 under a deal formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA.

    The deal provided Iran with sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme to guarantee that Tehran could not develop a nuclear weapon — something it has always denied wanting to do.

    But Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the accord in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term in office, and the reimposition of biting economic sanctions prompted Iran to begin rolling back on its commitments, particularly on uranium enrichment.

    At the time of the US withdrawal, London, Paris and Berlin reaffirmed their commitment to the agreement and said they intended to continue trading with Iran. As a result, UN and European sanctions were not reinstated, though Trump restored US sanctions.

    But the mechanism envisaged by European countries to compensate for the return of US sanctions has struggled to materialise, and many Western companies have been forced to leave Iran, which is facing high inflation and an economic crisis.

    The deadline for activating the snapback mechanism ends in October, but according to the Financial Times, the Europeans have offered to extend the deadline if Iran resumes nuclear talks with Washington and re-engages with the IAEA.

    Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that the Europeans have no right to do so.