Hurricane Isaias came ashore near Destin, Florida; a magnitude 7.7 earthquake shook Panama; and President Donald Trump struck a diesel deal with Vladimir Putin that Ukraine’s president called a gift to the Kremlin. Ten stories as of Friday evening, October 9.
1. Destin, Florida / United States. Isaias made landfall near Destin on the western Florida Panhandle at 8:30 p.m. CDT with maximum winds near 105 mph, a high-end Category 2 after peaking as a Category 3 earlier in the day, the National Hurricane Center said. By 9 p.m. CDT it was about 50 miles east of Pensacola with 100 mph winds, moving north at 19 mph toward Alabama and the Tennessee Valley. Forecasters warned of life-threatening storm surge of 6–9 feet between the Alabama-Florida line and Grayton Beach, and 4–8 inches of rain, locally up to 15. A gust of 102 mph was recorded at Pensacola City Hall, The Guardian reported, and Gov. Ron DeSantis told residents: “The storm is here. Buckle down at this point.” Even before landfall more than 350,000 customers in Florida and 170,000 in Alabama had lost power, BBC News reported. Isaias is the Atlantic’s first hurricane of the season, and two Pacific storms, Hurricane Simon and Tropical Storm Rachel, are also heading for Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border this weekend.
2. Herrera province / Panama. A shallow magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck south-central Panama just before 3 p.m. local time, centred about 10 km from the remote community of Pitaloza Arriba, and about 4.6 million people felt moderate to severe shaking, BBC News reported, citing the U.S. Geological Survey. A second quake of magnitude 6.6 followed. “We are facing a major disaster,” President José Raúl Mulino said, adding that some roads had “completely collapsed.” Part of the cathedral in Penonomé collapsed, and civil protection officials reported several injuries and damage concentrated in Veraguas, Herrera and Los Santos provinces, DW reported. No deaths had been reported by Friday evening. Tsunami warnings went out across Central and South America, from Guatemala to Chile, Al Jazeera reported, before being lifted later Friday. The Panama Canal kept operating and Tocumen airport reopened after a brief halt, according to The Guardian.
3. Washington and Moscow / United States and Russia. After a 90-minute call with Putin, Trump announced that Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel “to the American and Global Marketplace,” followed by 500,000 tons in November and a million tons after that, and the U.S. Treasury issued a temporary licence letting Russian diesel into the market, BBC News reported. U.S. diesel averages about $6.28 a gallon. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the deal “an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged,” said it “looks like a happy birthday present for Putin,” and said Ukraine’s negotiators, meeting Trump’s envoys in Miami, had been “used as a smokescreen,” The Guardian reported. Senate Democrats and Republican Rep. Don Bacon criticised the move. On the same call, Putin said trilateral peace talks were unlikely to resume right away, citing Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow during last month’s elections, the Kremlin said, according to Al Jazeera.
4. The Hague / Netherlands. Washington’s allies pushed back on this morning’s U.S. sanctions against the International Criminal Court. Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands said they “regret and strongly disagree with” the measures and reaffirmed their “continued and unwavering support” for the court, BBC News reported. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called it “a serious blow to our collective pursuit of international criminal justice,” and UN rights chief Volker Türk called the sanctions “unacceptable,” Al Jazeera reported. A six-month grace period lets member states keep paying for the court’s work in the meantime. At a rally in Syracuse, New York, Trump said the U.S. should have won the Nobel Peace Prize that went to Navi Pillay and warned, “We will not forget, Norway,” according to The Guardian.
5. Abu Dhabi / United Arab Emirates. The flydubai co-pilot who tried to seize a Dubai–Tel Aviv flight on September 30 planned a suicide attack on the passenger terminal at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, inspired by the 9/11 attacks, UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi said, Al Jazeera reported. Prosecutors said the 29-year-old used two earlier flights to Tel Aviv to learn the route and the airport, admitted acting alone, and showed the first signs of drifting toward extremism in 2017 while studying in Australia. Reuters and the AP have identified him as Omani national Hammam al-Hammami. He attacked the Indian captain, who still managed to open the cockpit door so passengers could overpower him, and an off-duty pilot landed the plane safely in Saudi Arabia, The Guardian reported. Australia and New Zealand are investigating his time in their countries.
6. Gaza / Palestinian territories. A year after the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, more than 100 aid and rights groups, including Amnesty International, Save the Children, Oxfam and the Norwegian Refugee Council, said it “exists in name only,” with Israeli forces still killing Palestinians daily and restrictions on aid and building materials blocking recovery, Al Jazeera reported. The groups said Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including at least 327 children, since the truce took effect. “It is utterly shameful that a full year after the ceasefire was signed, so little has improved,” NRC chief Jan Egeland said. Gaza’s health ministry says more than 18,500 patients need medical evacuation. The ceasefire anniversary falls on Saturday.
7. Rumbek / South Sudan. About 71 people, including four soldiers, were killed in intercommunal clashes in Rumbek, the capital of Lakes State, South Sudan’s caretaker government said, adding that the toll has not been verified, Al Jazeera reported. Witnesses told AFP that a group from outside the town briefly took control before police and army reinforcements arrived. The government says the town is back under its control and urged communities to avoid retaliation. It comes weeks after President Salva Kiir dissolved the transitional government ahead of the country’s first national elections since independence in 2011.
8. Nairobi / Kenya. Africa CDC has pieced together how Kenya’s first Ebola patient, a 40-year-old businessman, travelled for weeks while ill through DR Congo, including hard-hit North Kivu, then through Uganda and on to Nairobi without being flagged, BBC News reported. He was first treated for a skin infection, passed temperature screening at Entebbe airport, and was only diagnosed with the Bundibugyo strain after arriving gravely ill at Nairobi Hospital. He died on October 5. Kenya has identified 66 possible contacts, and the WHO expects that number to rise. More than 4,000 people have died of Ebola in DR Congo this year, the second deadliest outbreak on record.
9. Brasília / Brazil. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government scrapped federal taxes on gasoline imports and sales for 30 days and added a new 1.40-real-per-litre subsidy for diesel importers on top of the existing one, just over two weeks before the October 25 runoff against Flávio Bolsonaro, the Associated Press reported via Yahoo Finance. The government said refining margins have more than doubled since the Iran war began and that oil revenues will cover the cost. Bolsonaro finished about 2 million votes ahead of Lula in Sunday’s first round, and diesel prices matter to Brazil’s truckers, whose 2018 strike emptied shelves and filling stations.
10. Nuku’alofa / Tonga. The Tonga Meteorological Service declared drought across the kingdom’s major islands, including Tongatapu, Ha’apai, ’Eua and Niuatoputapu, with remote Niuafo’ou on a drought warning and Vava’u on alert, RNZ Pacific reported. Chief climate officer Seluvaia Ilolahia said El Niño is “still very strong” and likely to peak around November to December, and the impacts may outlast it. Warnings will stay in place for the next three months as the National Disaster Office works with the Red Cross and other groups to get water to communities.
Coming Up
Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 12 — the Nobel economics prize, the last of this year’s Nobels. October 12–18 — IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16 — European Council in Brussels.
Sources: U.S. National Hurricane Center; BBC News; The Guardian; Al Jazeera; DW; Associated Press; RNZ Pacific.
