U.S. warns a famine in Sudan is on pace to be the deadliest in decades as the world looks elsewhere

By: Ellen Knickmeyer And Fatma Khaled

WASHINGTON (AP) — The newly confirmed famine at one of the sprawling camps for war-displaced people in Sudan’s Darfur region is growing uncontrolled as the country’s combatants block aid, and it threatens to grow bigger and deadlier than the world’s last major famine 13 years ago, U.S. officials warned on Friday.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, the UN World Food Program and other independent and government humanitarian agencies were intensifying calls for a cease-fire and aid access across Sudan. That’s after international experts in the Famine Review Committee formally confirmed Thursday that the starvation in at least one of three giant makeshift camps, holding up to 600,000 people displaced by Sudan’s more than year long war, had grown into a full famine.

Two U.S. officials briefed reporters on their analysis of the crisis on Friday following the famine finding, which is only the third in the 20-year history of the Famine Review Committee. The U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity as the ground rules for their general briefing.

The last major famine, in Somalia, was estimated to have killed a quarter of a million people in 2011, half of them children under 5 years old.

Mourners pay respects to slain Hamas leader Haniyeh as worries of regional war mount

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Mourners gathered in Doha on Friday to hold funeral prayers for slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as Iran and its regional allies vowed to retaliate against Israel.

With the bodies of Haniyeh and his bodyguard in coffins draped with Palestinian flags, men knelt and prayed while senior leaders of Hamas’ Qatar-based political office paid their respects to Haniyeh’s family.

That included two men seen as his possible successors: Khalil al-Hayya, a Hamas senior official, and former Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, a close Haniyeh aide. The head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad also attended.

The funeral came a day after Israel said it had confirmed that the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, was killed in an July 13 airstrike in Gaza, and a few days after Israel said it had killed Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in a strike in Lebanon.

Hamas has yet to comment and had previously claimed Deif survived last month’s targeted airstrike. 

Israel has yet to claim or deny a role in the killing of Haniyeh, but Hamas and its allies say it was responsible. 

International calls for cease-fire grow after assassinations in the Mideast

(AP) – United States President Joe Biden says he’s “very concerned” that the violence in the Middle East could escalate, adding that the killing of a top Hamas leader in Iran has “not helped” efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Biden said he’d had a “very direct” conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. “We have the basis for a cease-fire. He should move on it and they should move on it now.” 

Netanyahu has said his country was determined to win nothing less than “total victory” against Hamas. He also said that Israel hoped for a cease-fire soon and was working for one.

The assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday and senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Beirut on Tuesday risks escalating the fighting into an all-out regional war, with Iran also threatening to respond after the attack on its territory. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was among the growing voices internationally calling for a cease-fire in recent days, saying that it was the only way to begin to break the cycle of violence and suffering.

Gunmen attack police escorting judges in northwest Pakistan, killing 2 policemen. Judges are safe

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Unidentified assailants on Friday opened fire on police officers escorting a vehicle that was carrying three judges in Pakistan’s northwest on Friday, killing two officers, police said. The judges escaped unharmed in the attack which was the second one this week in the region.

Local police chief Salam Khan said the attack happened in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where Pakistan staff working for a UN development agency escaped unharmed Wednesday after unidentified gunmen opened fire on their bulletproof vehicle.

No one has claimed responsibility for the latest and previous attack on the UN vehicle.

The motive behind the attack was not immediately clear.

The judges whose vehicle was the apparent target of the attack have been hearing multiple cases, ranging from robbery to acts of terrorism in the region, police said.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks, mostly in the northwest, in recent years.

New protests in Bangladesh kill 2, keeping pressure on the government after 200 died in violence

By: Julhas Alam

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — New protests erupted in Bangladesh on Friday, leaving two people dead and more than 100 injured — the latest in a wave of unrest that killed more than 200 people last month in violent demonstrations following weeks of rallies over controversial reforms in the job quota system. 

Over 2,000 protesters gathered in parts of the capital, Dhaka, to rally against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government, some shouting “down with the autocrat” and demanding justice for victims. Police and dozens of students clashed in Dhaka’s Uttara neighbourhood. Security officers fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse stone-throwing protesters. 

In the southwestern district of Khulna, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets, injuring 50. A policeman died after the protesters attacked him, the Dhaka-based English-language Daily Star reported. 

In the southeastern city of Chattogram, about 1,000 protesters held a procession after Friday prayers and set a roadside police guard post on fire, the report said. 

The student protests against the government, which show no signs of dying down, started as a peaceful demonstration against a quota system allocating government jobs but morphed into an unprecedented challenge and rebellion against Hasina, whose 15-year-long dominance over the country is now being tested like never before. 

Rain-related disasters have killed more than 250 in a deadly week across Asia

By: Ken Moritsugu

(AP) – In India and China, torrential rains have killed more than 250 people in the past week. Three others died in Pakistan. Widespread flooding has been reported in North Korea near the border with China with no word on whether anyone died.

This time of year is monsoon and typhoon season in Asia, and climate change has intensified such storms. Heavy rains have triggered landslides and flooding, devastating crops, destroying homes and taking lives.

Historical data shows that China is having more extremely hot days and more frequent intense rains, according to a report released last month by the China Meteorological Administration, which forecasts more of both in the coming 30 years.

Governments have launched disaster prevention plans to try to mitigate the damage. Rescue teams scramble to evacuate people ahead of approaching storms and deliver relief goods by helicopter to cut-off areas. China has deployed drones for emergency communication in rain-prone provinces.

A fire sweeps through a building in Manila’s Chinatown, killing at least 11

MANILA, Philippiines (AP) — A fire swept through a part of a small building in Manila’s crowded Chinatown district Friday, leaving at least 11 people dead, police said, adding that an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the blaze.

About 14 firetrucks battled for more than two hours to control the blaze in an old five-story building in one of the world’s oldest Chinatowns, a densely populated riverside section of the capital.

Fire investigator Roderick Andres said the fire started in an eatery on the ground floor, and that several of its staff were among the dead. Most of the dead, he added, were found on the second and third floors, and no one else has been reported missing.

Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna offered condolences to the victims’ families and ordered inspections to ensure old buildings comply with safety regulations and standards.

Lax enforcement of safety regulations has caused deadly fires in the Philippines in the past.

Hurricane Carlotta forms over Pacific Ocean as it moves away from Mexico

MIAMI (AP) — Hurricane Carlotta formed over the Pacific Ocean on Friday and continues to strengthen as it moves away from Mexico, forecasters said. 

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Carlotta’s top sustained winds reached 80 mph (130 kmh) as it moved farther away from any coast.

The centre said ocean swells generated by Carlotta were coming ashore along west-central mainland Mexico and southern Baja California, however, and were likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions through the weekend.

On Friday morning, Carlotta’s hurricane-strength winds extended outward up to 10 miles (20 km) from its centre, which was about 455 miles (730 kilometres) southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, and it was moving west-northwest at about 14 mph (22 kmh), the centre said. With Carlotta so far out to sea, no coastal watches or warnings were in effect.