Survivors recall terror of landslides from North Sumatra cyclone

At 2: 30 a.m. (09: 30 GMT), Sri Yuni Pardede, 20, was with her family at home when a thunderous crash woke them up. It was just thunder, according to my mother-in-law. No, the house is shaking, I said. She recalled that boulders suddenly came down.

“My younger sibling was staying over,” my sister said. I kicked him to avenge the landslide, which had occurred. We would have all perished in that house if we had all slept. Sri fled to the nearby church after grabbing her daughter Eleanor. They watched horrified as another landslide completely destroyed their home from the top of the hill.

The family has been residing at the church for a week along with hundreds of other displaced victims. At least 770 people have died as a result of the cyclone-caused floods and landslides, with 463 still missing, according to government data.

We were all saved, please. What matters is that the children and everyone else survived, she said, not that our possessions can be replaced. However, the trauma persists. I become frightened whenever I hear a door opening or closing, as in the case of a door. I’m a shocker if there is any loud noise. I overheard a helicopter making noise on our first day at the church. We’re going to die! screamed I. I nearly passed out because I believed there had been another landslide.

Armed clashes reported between Yemeni army and southern separatists

In an effort to advance towards the strategically located al-Ghuraf area in the oil-rich Hadramout governorate, local sources reported armed clashes between the Yemeni army loyal to the internationally recognized government and STC (Second).

Following clashes with the army, STC forces stormed the presidential palace building in Seiyun, southern Yemen, on Wednesday, according to videos posted by local activists.

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The sources added that the STC forces were stationed in the Seiyun plateau’s Jathma neighborhood before they bombed the city center’s Yemeni army headquarters.

Since Wednesday morning, Wadi Hadramout has been the site of significant military operations, which have included intense artillery fire, according to local media.

The STC has previously requested that Yemen’s southern region be separated. Its southern province, including Aden, is under its control.

A “Promising Future” operation, according to the group on Wednesday, “follows the exhaustion of all options proposed in recent years to restore stability to the valley, end the state of security breakdown, and stop the region’s exploitation by forces alien to the valley]of Hadramout] and the governorate.”

A Saudi delegation has reportedly reached a settlement with the opposing parties while negotiating a resolution to the conflict in Hadramout.

For decades, Yemen has experienced internal conflict and external interference.

The Houthis, an Iran-aligned group, own the majority of Yemen’s largely populated northwest and Sanaa, its capital. Since Israel started its genocidal war against Gaza in October 2023 in support of Palestinians who were being shot down by Israeli forces, Yemen’s government and other groups have largely frozen war. However, it has gained international notoriety for its attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea.

In Sanaa, dozens of civilians and political figures have been killed in deadly attacks by the US and Israel.

Most Germans, French see ‘high risk’ of war with Russia, survey shows

According to a survey, the majority of people in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and several other EU member states believe that there is a high likelihood that Russia will start a war against their nation.

Just over half of respondents in nine of the nine surveyed European nations reported that the risk of war was “high” or “very high” in their surveys, according to a poll conducted by Cluster17 in France on Thursday.

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Poland, which was once a part of the Soviet Union and borders Russia, had by far the highest level of war anxiety, with 77 percent of respondents citing a high risk of conflict, according to the survey.

Respondents in Belgium and the Netherlands reported that 59% of respondents saw a high risk of war, with roughly 50% of Germans, French, and Spanish respondents all agreeing.

34 percent of respondents, followed by Portuguese and Croatians, had the lowest risk of war.

Just under half of Europeans surveyed said they viewed Donald Trump as an “enemy of Europe,” up four points from September.

Le Grand Continent, a French-based journal for foreign affairs, published the poll.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Europe’s leaders have been preoccupious about the security situation there.

Following similar actions by Belgium and the Netherlands, France announced last week that it would reintroduce military service, which was discontinued in 1996, starting from January 1 on a voluntary basis.

Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, blatantly cited the action as a response to Russian aggression, warning that Moscow would try to take advantage of any “signal of weakness.”

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, retaliated on Tuesday over proposed changes to a Trump-backed plan to end the Ukrainian war by saying that Russia was “ready” for war.

US will expand social media, work history vetting for H-1B visas

More social media checks are being conducted as the US expands its vetting process for applicants seeking highly skilled H-1B visas, as well as those who work in fields like misinformation and disinformation.

On Thursday, the US Department of State mandated that all H-1B applicants and their dependents make all of their social media profiles public so that they “don’t intend to harm Americans and our national interests.” Following a similar requirement in July that all student visa applicants must publicly update their social media profiles, this is made.

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H-1B visas allow US businesses to employ foreigners with “speciality” knowledge, typically in academic or technical fields like medicine, technology, finance, and engineering. The H-1B offers a path to immigrating to the US, despite being categorized as temporary visas.

According to an internal cable obtained by the Reuters news agency, the State Department will also examine H-1B applications for work in fields that promote “free speech” censorship.

For any work in “misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance, and online safety,” or “social media or financial services companies involved in the suppression of protected expression,” consular staff are required to review applicants’ LinkedIn and employment histories.

Any accompanying family members and H-1B visa renewal applicants are subject to the new regulations.

You should pursue a finding that the applicant is ineligible, the cable said, “if you find evidence that an applicant was responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the United States.”

The US State Department, which previously supported international projects aimed at verifying facts and combating misinformation and disinformation, is departing from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Since his January return to the White House, US President Donald Trump has taken action to ease what he perceives as restrictions on “free speech,” which are typically those of conservative voices. Following the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, Trump himself was previously removed from X, formerly known as Twitter. Elon Musk, a free speech skeptic and tech billionaire, purchased the platform in 2022, and he was reinstated.

Signing an executive order that outlaws “federal censorship” of free speech was one of his first as president. The US State Department threatened in May that it would impose a ban on foreigners who had worked to impose restrictions on free speech on US citizens, including by pressuring US tech companies to impose rules on social media content.

Honduras’s Nasralla holds narrow lead over Asfura in presidential vote

As the counting of votes lasted for a fourth day, Honduran presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla’s narrow lead over his conservative rival Nasry Asfura, who is supported by Donald Trump.

The centrist Liberal Party’s Nasralla received 40.23 percent of the votes cast on Wednesday, while Asfura’s Asfura received 39.69 percent, according to the nation’s National Electoral Council (CNE).

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Less than 14 000 votes lessen Nasrallah’s advantage over Asfura.

With 19.01 percent, Rixi Moncada of the ruling leftist LIBRE Party was significantly ahead.

The CNE believed that the outcome was still too early.

Even if the candidate has the fewest votes or does not have an absolute majority, the candidate with the most votes wins.

The counting of votes on Sunday was a contentious affair due to technical difficulties.

Voting was resumed by the CNE on Wednesday, with members of the electoral council blaming the organization behind the tabulating platform for the inconveniences.

Cossette Lopez-Osorio, a CNE official, claimed the most recent  counting halt was the result of system maintenance that was performed without proper notice and that she found it “inexcusable.”

Despite the issues, 72-year-old television presenter Nasralla remained confident despite the difficulties.

On X, he wrote, “We’re going to win, either way.”

As the final votes are counted, election observers from the Organization of American States, the Organization of the European Union, and Honduras’ electoral authority have urged calm and patience.

The CNE predicts that a winner’s announcement may still be days away because ballots are still coming from far-off places, some of which are only accessible by donkey or riverboat.

Initial estimates for Asfura’s lead of about 500 votes were based on the early preliminary results released on Monday. Voters would have to be manually tallied, according to election organizers, who declared a “technical tie.”

Nasralla had a slight lead when the count was updated on Tuesday.

Trump claimed election fraud on Monday, claiming on his Truth Social account that Honduras was “trying to change the results of their Presidential Election.”

“There will be hell to pay!” declares the statement. On November 30th, Hondurans’ electorate cast an overwhelming majority of ballots, he claimed. If Asfura loses, Trump has threatened to halt US aid to Honduras. The US gave the Central American nation $ 193.5 million in aid in 2024.

A winner’s announcement is legally given within one month.

The ruling party candidate, Moncada, criticized the vote-transmission system for lacking transparency and disclosed it to the Telesur television news network on Wednesday.

In response to Trump’s accusations of fraud, which she claimed violated international laws, Moncada said it was “a direct intervention that adversely affected the Honduran people’s interests.”

Additionally, Trump pardoned former Asfura National Party leader Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been serving a 45-year drug trafficking sentence in the US.

In what was widely believed to be more interference, the 57-year-old lawyer was freed on Monday.

Hernandez thanked Trump on Wednesday in his first social media post since his release, claiming that he had “changed my life.”

Hernandez stated earlier that he had experienced political persecution in a four-page letter to the US president that was released by the media on Wednesday.