Day: October 28, 2023

The death toll from a devastating hurricane this week in the Mexican beach resort of Acapulco has risen to 39, the government said on Saturday, as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador accused his opponents of exaggerating the scale of the disaster.

Hurricane Otis pounded Acapulco with winds of 165 miles per hour (266 kmph) on Wednesday, flooding the city, tearing roofs from homes, stores and hotels, submerging vehicles, and severing communications as well as road and air connections.

The government, which previously reported 27 deaths with four others missing, has so far released little information about the dead and injured. Looting has continued and residents in hard-hit neighborhoods, struggling to find food and water, have accused the government of not delivering sufficient aid.

Lopez Obrador on Saturday issued a 24-minute video on social media to update the country on the situation. He devoted much of it to attacking critics he accused of trying to exploit the situation ahead of next year’s presidential election.

“They circle like vultures, they don’t care about people’s pain, they want to hurt us, for there to have been lots of deaths,” he said.

Lopez Obrador, 69, said media outlets seeking to smear his government had exaggerated the toll, but that Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez would provide an update on casualties “without lying.”

“Let her tell us … how many people have really lost their lives so far,” he said, adding his administration was doing more than any government had “ever done” to handle the aftermath.

Rodriguez said the victims were believed to have drowned due to the Category 5 storm and that 10 people were unaccounted for.

On Saturday afternoon, rescue teams aboard two inflatable red boats searched the Acapulco bay for drowning victims. They returned to shore with three bodies wrapped in black bags.

Investigators briefly unzipped the bags to photograph the victims.

Some officials have privately expressed concern that the number of fatalities could rise. The dead were 29 men and 10 women, the government said, citing figures from Guerrero, Acapulco’s home state.

It said more than 220,000 homes and 80% of the hotel sector have been affected, and over 513,000 people lost power.

In the Renacimiento neighborhood, residents padded through streets flooded with murky brown water as high as ankle-level, and lamented the lack of aid.

“The government hasn’t given us any help, not even hope,” said Apolonio Maldonado, lifting his feet from the water to show deep red cuts on his shins. “They haven’t left any food, or even mattresses or cots.”

Also trudging through a flooded street, Martha Villanueva covered her mouth with her hand as she spoke through sobs: “We want help. We lost everything in the water.”

The cost of devastation left by Otis has been estimated at billions of dollars, and over 8,000 armed forces members were sent to help the stricken port recover.

Mexican authorities said Otis was the most powerful storm ever to strike Mexico’s Pacific coast. It caught forecasters by surprise, gathering strength with unexpected speed before it came ashore, and surpassed initial predictions.

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A third round of Ukrainian-backed peace talks opened in Malta on Saturday with representatives from more than 60 countries but without Moscow, which condemned it as a “blatantly anti-Russian event.” 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the first of two days of closed-door talks among national security and policy advisers, which he hopes will drum up support for his 10-point plan to end the war. 

In a statement on social media, he said 66 countries had taken part in the talks, proof that his plan “has gradually become global.” 

It follows similar meetings in Jeddah and Copenhagen this summer, with the Ukrainians hoping to eventually hold a summit at the level of heads of state. 

“The meeting confirmed the broad interest and increasing support for the key elements of Ukraine’s Peace Formula,” an EU official said Saturday. 

Against the backdrop of the Hamas-Israel war, it also showed “that restoration of just peace is important beyond Ukraine, it is about a global plea for respect of international law,” the official said. 

Russian spokesperson calls event ‘anti-Russian’

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, however, has dismissed the Malta talks as a “blatantly anti-Russian event.”  

They had “nothing to do with the search for a peaceful resolution,” she said on Thursday. 

Participants in Malta included the United States, the EU and Britain, staunch supporters of Kyiv following Russia’s February 2022 invasion. 

Turkey, which has offered itself as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia, was also represented, according to a list seen by AFP before the talks opened. 

So too were South Africa, Brazil and India, all members of the influential BRICS bloc, which also includes Russia. 

South Africa and India have not condemned Russia’s invasion, while Brazil has refused to join Western nations in sending arms to Ukraine or imposing sanctions on Moscow. 

China, which insists it is neutral and refuses to criticize the invasion, did not attend, despite being present in Jeddah in August, according to the EU official. 

Organizers were hoping for a joint statement from the Malta summit, after both previous meetings ended without a final declaration. 

Talks address territorial integrity

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said on Telegram that the discussions on Saturday were lively and focused on five key areas, notably the issue of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. 

Zelensky’s peace plan calls for Russia to withdraw all its troops from Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders, including from the territory of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. 

Russia, which claimed last year to have annexed the four Ukrainian regions of Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, has rejected any settlement that would involve giving up land. 

The Malta talks are also looking at nuclear security, notably the need to ensure the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and how to protect Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as winter approaches. 

The issue of food security was also on the agenda, as Russia blocks grain exports from Ukraine, as well as humanitarian issues, including the release of prisoners and the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia. 

Donald Trump is now at a point where he can’t make a public appearance without having a senile moment. Over the past few weeks alone he’s gone on benders about getting electrocuted and eaten by sharks, he’s gotten thrown off by the spelling of a two letter word, and he no longer appears to know who his current or previous opponents are.

Trump still has his teleprompter, of course. The trouble is, he’s so far gone cognitively, he can’t even understand what he’s trying to read off the teleprompter. You’d think that a guy who’s spent the past several years in national politics would have heard of “Hamas” by now – especially given the events of this month – but alas, no:

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This guy’s brain is simply gone. Donald Trump is a senile man who’s being propped up in front of a teleprompter to regurgitate speeches that he can’t even figure out how to read properly. And then he gets frustrated and goes off script and starts comparing himself to Nelson Mandela.

It’s well past time for the mainstream media to start acknowledging that Donald Trump is senile. It’s the truth, it’s obvious, and it needs to be reported.

The post Donald Trump is confused appeared first on Palmer Report.

Mexican officials on Saturday raised the death toll to 39 from Hurricane Otis, which struck the country’s southern Pacific Coast, including the resort city of Acapulco, on Wednesday as a powerful Category 5 storm. 

The probable cause of death for the 39 was “suffocation by submersion,” Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez said in a recorded video message with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and posted to the platform X. She said the victims had not yet been identified and that investigations continue. 

The new death toll was an increase of 12 from the initial tally of 27 announced Thursday. But the storm’s human toll was becoming a point of contention as local media reported the recovery of more bodies and Lopez Obrador criticized opponents for trying to make it a political issue. 

Rodriguez also said the number of missing rose to 10. Hundreds of families have been awaiting word from loved ones. 

In Acapulco on Saturday, government workers and volunteers cleared streets, gas station lines wrapped around the block for what fuel was to be had, and some lucky families discovered a warehouse full of food as a more organized relief operation took shape four days after the storm hit. 

Military personnel and volunteers worked along Acapulco’s main tourist strip. They sliced through fallen palm trees and metal signs. Cellphone signals were partially recovered near some of the city’s most luxurious hotels, and authorities brought in a charging station for people to charge their phones. 

Outside tourist areas: Chaos

But on the periphery of the city, neighborhoods remained in chaos. The government presence found in the tourist center was not visible in other neighborhoods. With no cellphone signal, no water and no food, families and the elderly trudged through foot-deep mud and flooded streets to get to large warehouses full of food and began carrying away bags of food and liquids. 

Aid has been slow to arrive. The Category 5 storm’s destruction cut off the city of nearly 1 million people. The storm intensified so quickly on Tuesday that little to nothing had been staged in advance. 

Authorities continue to search for the dead and missing. Many remained incredulous that the government’s initial death toll of 27 and four missing had not risen in the past two days. 

One military official, who did not want to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to media, said officials in his area had found at least six bodies and that his own unit had found one. The bodies were hard to find because they were often covered in trees and other debris, he said. 

Families search for water

In another part of the city, Orlando Mendoza, 46, walked down a highway carrying two bags containing tuna, sardines, water, pasta and soup. He was bringing food to his wife and three young children. 

“Even though it isn’t much, it’s something,” he said as he walked down the winding mountain highway toward the city center. 

A group of volunteers from the central state of Puebla who scraped together some money to help people in the city were handing out bags of food to families like Mendoza’s gathered on the side of the highway. 

Abel Montoya, 67, had been waiting in line for gasoline with hundreds of other people for an hour and a half Saturday holding an empty jug. Soldiers were overseeing the distribution of gasoline, presumably to avoid the uncontrolled ransacking of stores that happened across the city in recent days. 

“I need to be able to move to search for water and ice,” he said. “Now there’s this shortage of food and I might even have to leave Acapulco, go to (the state capital) Chilpancingo.” 

Gasoline had been unavailable, not because there wasn’t any, but because there was no electricity to operate the pumps. 

Most families anxiously hunted for water, with some saying they were rationing their supplies. The municipal water system was out because its pumps had no power. 

Officials said the military presence would grow to 15,000 in the area, and Lopez Obrador called on his armed forces to set up checkpoints in the city to avoid robberies. 

Lopez Obrador said the national electric company had told him that service had resumed to 55% of the customers in the affected area, but that more than 200,000 homes and businesses remained without power. 

The federal civil defense agency had tallied 220,000 homes that were damaged by the storm, he said. 

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the “road to the San Francisco summit will not be a smooth one”, the foreign ministry said on Sunday, in a reference to an expected meeting between President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden.

Wang met Biden and his top aides in Washington in recent days, agreeing to work together toward the expected bilateral meeting on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit.

A flurry of bilateral diplomatic engagements in recent months, largely at U.S. request, has aimed at salvaging what were rapidly deteriorating ties early in the year following the U.S. downing of an alleged Chinese spy balloon.

But in remarks on Saturday, Wang cautioned the road to the summit would not be a smooth one and travelling there would not be on “autopilot”, the ministry said in a statement.

He was speaking after a discussion with members of the U.S. strategic community in Washington, the ministry said.

Last month, China’s top security agency suggested any Xi-Biden meeting in San Francisco hinged on the U.S. “showing sufficient sincerity”.

Wang said China and the U.S. needed to “return to Bali”, referring to the last meeting between Biden and Xi, on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit on the Indonesian resort island last November, where they discussed Taiwan, competition and communication.

Washington and Beijing must put into practice the consensus achieved then, “remove interference, overcome obstacles, enhance consensus and gather outcomes”, Wang said.

He said both sides have jointly sent out positive signals to stabilise and improve relations, believing it is useful and necessary to maintain dialogue even as there are still various differences and contradictions, and issues to be resolved.

Saturday’s discussions also included in-depth exchanges on the interaction between China and U.S. militaries, finance, science and technology, China’s investment environment and market access, as well as the Middle East and Ukraine crises.

Yesterday the news broke that Fulton County DA Fani Willis has offered plea deals to several additional unnamed defendants, but Rudy Giuliani is not one of them. That’s not surprising. Rudy might or might not be sitting on valuable evidence or documentation against Donald Trump. But Rudy comes off as half dead and three quarters senile, and would be useless as a witness if he had to take the stand.

So how is Rudy taking the news that Fani Willis has basically decided to just ship him off to prison for the rest of his life? He’s projecting. He announced on Twitter that President Joe Biden is “breaking down physically and mentally.” Well okay then. Rudy just described himself of course.

In reality Joe Biden is savvily holding the world together at the seams, even as he moves forward with his domestic agenda and looks and sounds incredibly spry. Meanwhile Rudy Giuliani is basically a walking corpse. And now Rudy knows he’s going to spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars.

The post “Breaking down physically and mentally” – Rudy Giuliani is a lost cause appeared first on Palmer Report.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the country is entering the next phase of its operation to counter Hamas. 
Israel expands air, ground operations on Gaza, striking dozens of underground tunnels, bunkers, and telecommunications equipment.  
Israel is “advancing in the stages of war” and “troops still remain in the field,” its military spokesman said.    
Israeli Defense official: Tel Aviv will allow trucks carrying food, water and medicine to enter Gaza on Saturday 

    

The war will be “long and hard,” warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he announced the launch of Israel’s second phase in its war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.  

“This is the second stage of the war whose goals are clear — to destroy Hamas’ governing and military capabilities and to bring the hostages home,” Netanyahu told reporters Saturday night in Tel Aviv. He vowed that every effort would be made to rescue the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas.  

“We are only at the start,” he said. “We will destroy the enemy above ground and below ground.” 

Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s appeal to Palestinian civilians to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip as Israel intensifies its ground operation in the area.  

Gaza has been under constant bombardment since shortly after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, massacring more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.     

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, told reporters early Saturday that fighter jets had struck 150 underground targets in the northern Gaza Strip, including Hamas tunnels, underground combat spaces and other underground infrastructure, while killing key members of the group.    

“Their killing, their elimination is a good progress in the stages of war and gives the forces on the ground a fight against a weaker enemy,” Hagari said.  

“Overnight, IDF fighter jets struck Asem Abu Rakaba, the leader of Hamas’ Aerial Array,” IDF officials posted on social media platform X, indicating it may have killed the militant group’s air chief.   

“Abu Rakaba was responsible for Hamas’ UAVs, drones, paragliders, aerial detection and defense,” the post continued. “He took part in planning the October 7 massacre and commanded the terrorists who infiltrated Israel on paragliders and was responsible for the drone attacks on IDF posts.”   

Hamas on Saturday pledged to confront the Israeli attacks with “full force.” The al-Qassam brigades, an armed wing of Hamas, said its fighters were clashing with Israeli troops in Gaza’s northeastern town of Beit Hanoun and in the central area of al-Bureij.        

Pleas for help   

Israeli strikes knocked out Gaza’s communications infrastructure, causing a near-blackout of information and severing Gaza’s estimated 2.3 million residents from contact with the outside world.    

The United Nations human rights chief warned Saturday of “possibly catastrophic consequences” of large-scale ground operations in the Gaza Strip, where thousands have already died in Israeli air strikes.    

“Given the manner in which military operations have been conducted until now, in the context of the 56-year-old occupation, I am raising alarm about the possibly catastrophic consequences of large-scale ground operations in Gaza and the potential for thousands more civilians to die,” Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.  

“Continued violence is not the answer,” he said.  

Hagari said Israel would allow trucks carrying food, water and medicine to enter Gaza on Saturday, indicating a possible pause in bombing, at least along its border with Egypt, where small amounts of aid have been arriving.   

The delivery of the aid is being delayed, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday, by what it called Israeli obstacles, including extensive truck inspection procedures, through the Rafah Border Crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip  

Before the conflict, about 500 trucks a day were crossing into Gaza, but in recent days, an average of 12 trucks a day have entered, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday. 

The World Health Organization has appealed to “the humanity in all those who have the power to do so to end the fighting now” in Gaza.   

 ”There are more wounded every hour. But ambulances cannot reach them in the communications blackout. Morgues are full. More than half of the dead are women and children,” it said.  

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted Saturday that his organization has no communication with its staff and health facilities in Gaza, adding: “I’m worried about their safety.”

Health authorities in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip of 2.3 million people say that since the war began, the death toll among Gazans, mostly women and children, has passed 7,700 in Israel’s campaign to obliterate the militants. The figures could not be independently verified. 

Many buildings are reduced to rubble, and Gazans are struggling to find shelter, food, water, fuel and medicine. Their plight worsened Friday night when phone and internet services were cut, followed by heavy bombing through the night. 

 

World reaction  

Western countries have generally backed what they say is Israel’s right to self-defense, but there has been mounting international concern over the toll from the bombing and growing calls for a pause to allow aid to reach Gaza civilians.  

Demonstrations took place Saturday in Paris, London, Indonesia, Pakistan, Italy, Norway and Switzerland, and a crowd of protesters filled New York City’s Grand Central Station Friday night. Many were wearing black T-shirts saying, “Jews say cease-fire now” and “Not in our name.” 

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Friday to discuss Israel’s operations in Gaza.  Austin underscored the importance of protecting civilians during the Israel Defense Forces’ operations and focusing on the urgency of humanitarian aid delivery for civilians in Gaza.  He also reiterated the need for Hamas to release all of the hostages, according to a Pentagon statement.  

The United Arab Emirates, the first Gulf country to normalize relations with Israel in 2020, on Saturday expressed “its deep concern over the Israeli military escalation and exacerbation of the humanitarian crisis that threatens more loss of civilian lives.” 

President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority governs parts of the occupied West Bank, while Hamas rules Gaza, said, “Our people in the Gaza Strip are facing a war of genocide and massacres committed by the Israeli occupation forces in full view of the entire world.” 

The United States and other Western countries had urged Israel to delay a ground offensive for fear of greater Palestinian casualties and a widening conflict in the region. 

Hamas is backed by Iran, which also supports militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. U.S. troops have come under fire from Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria. Washington has been moving more military assets to the region. 

Oman’s Foreign Ministry said Israel’s siege and bombardment of Gaza amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a mass pro-Palestinian rally in Istanbul on Saturday that his country was making preparations to proclaim Israel a “war criminal” for its actions in Gaza. 

 

Hostages held 

Hundreds of family members demonstrated in Tel Aviv earlier Saturday, carrying pictures of the captives, chanting “return them now.”  

“The families feel like they’re left behind and no one is really caring about them,” said Miki Haimovitz, a former lawmaker.  

Hamas said on Saturday that it was nearing an agreement with Israel over the more than 200 hostages it has in Gaza, but Israel “stalled” on that. 

Israel’s military spokesman dismissed the reports, saying Hamas was “cynically” attempting to sway public opinion. Netanyahu said contacts to secure the hostages’ release would continue even during a ground offensive in Gaza. 

Gallant said Hamas had to be forced to the negotiating table. 

“The more military pressure, the more firepower and the more we strike Hamas,” he said, “the greater our chances are to bring it to a place where it will agree to a solution that will allow the return of your loved ones.” 

Israel said Wednesday that more than half the hostages held by Hamas have foreign passports from 25 different countries. Many are believed to have dual Israeli nationality. 

The hostages are believed to be hidden in the Gaza Strip, possibly in a warren of tunnels Hamas has built there. 

 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.  

The United Auto Workers on Saturday expanded its strike at General Motors (GM.N) to include an additional plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee as the union reached a tentative agreement with the second of the Detroit Three automakers.

”We are disappointed by GM’s unnecessary and irresponsible refusal to come to a fair agreement,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. GM did not immediately comment.

Spring Hill Manufacturing, an assembly and propulsion plant, is the largest GM facility in North America with nearly 4,000 total employees. It builds the Cadillac XT5 and XT6 as well as electric LYRIQ and GMC Acadia

Moments before employees walked out in Tennessee, the UAW said it reached a tentative labor agreement with Chrysler parent Stellantis (STLAM.MI). It reached a similar deal with Ford Motor (F.N) on Wednesday.

A strike at Spring Hill could cripple output at all of GM’s large pickup operations, greatly increasing the financial pain for the company.

The UAW’s walkout at the Arlington, Texas factory that builds Cadillac Escalades and Chevrolet Suburbans is costing $200 million a week, GM said.

The UAW previously struck GM assembly plants in Missouri and Michigan as well as 18 parts distribution warehouses.

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The United Auto Workers on Saturday expanded its strike against General Motors (GM.N) to include its Spring Hill, Tennessee, engine plant, a move that could stall GM’s large pickup production and increase its financial pain.

“We are disappointed by GM’s unnecessary and irresponsible refusal to come to a fair agreement,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement to Reuters.

The expansion of the seven-week strike at GM came on the same day the union reached a tentative labor deal with Chrysler-owner Stellantis (STLAM.MI). “We look forward to welcoming our 43,000 employees back to work and resuming operations,” the company said.

Ford (F.N) has also reached a tentative contract accord with the union that provides record wage increases.

At GM, people familiar with the bargaining said sticking points in the UAW negotiations include retirement benefits and issues related to temporary workers. GM has more retirees than either Ford or Stellantis.

The UAW is already striking at GM’s Arlington, Texas, assembly plant, which makes the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban and Cadillac Escalade. GM said earlier this week that this walkout was costing it $200 million a week.

With GM’s workers at Spring Hill joining the strike, about a third of the 150,000-member UAW will have walked off the job at some point during the union’s campaign.

The deal with Stellantis secures record wages and benefits for workers and follows a template set just days ago by UAW and Ford, including a 25% wage hike over the 4-1/2-year contract.

U.S. President Joe Biden praised the tentative Stellantis agreement, saying in a statement the “contract is a testament to the power of unions and collective bargaining to build strong middle-class jobs.”

The deal includes an agreement to reopen the car maker’s assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois, which will now build midsize trucks, Fain said in a video post on social media. The trucks could compete against Ford’s Ranger and GM’s Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon models.

Stellantis’ Belvidere factory was shuttered earlier this year leaving 1,300 workers without jobs. The factory, which became a rallying point for the union’s bargaining campaign, will reopen contingent on expected state and local tax incentives, sources familiar with the situation said.

In addition, Stellantis agreed to build a battery plant next to the existing Belvidere plant, UAW Vice President Rich Boyer said in the video address.

Stellantis will also keep open an engine manufacturing complex in Trenton, Michigan, and a machining operation in Toledo, Ohio, Boyer said.

In all, the automaker has committed to $19 billion in new investments in U.S. operations and the creation of 5,000 additional jobs where previously it planned to cut 5,000 jobs, Fain and Boyer said.

“We turned it all the way around,” Fain said.

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(The Hill) — Former President Trump gave a stark warning to enemies of the U.S. at the Republican Jewish Coalition Conference Saturday.

“If you spill a drop of American blood, we will spill a gallon of yours,” the former president said during remarks. 

Trump spoke at length about the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, which is escalating as Israel expanded its ground operation into the Gaza Strip Saturday. Concerns about civilians in Gaza, who have already been struggling with Israeli airstrikes and blackouts, among other difficulties, and what could happen to them amidst the Israeli incursion into Gaza, have been heightened.

“We have set two goals for this war: To eliminate Hamas by destroying its military and governing abilities and to do everything possible to bring our captives home. All Hamas terrorists are dead men walking — above ground, below ground, outside Gaza,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech earlier this week. 

Trump also turned his verbal fire towards international college students and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), the only two Muslim women in Congress, for their pro-Palestinian views. He pledged to cancel the student visas of “Hamas sympathizers” on college campuses if reelected as president.

“I will cancel the student visas of Hamas sympathizers on college campuses,
Trump said. “The college campuses are being taken over.”

The United Nations (U.N.) Secretary-General called for a cease-fire in the conflict Saturday over the humanitarian concerns in Gaza.

“This situation must be reversed. I reiterate my strong appeal for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, together with the unconditional release of hostages and a delivery of humanitarian relief at the level that corresponds to the dramatic needs of the people in Gaza, where a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in front of our eyes,” António Guterres said.