Day: September 17, 2023

A federal jury in Mississippi has rejected a civil lawsuit seeking money damages from two police officers who fatally shot a man while serving a warrant at the wrong house.

Four members of a Greek rescue team en route to the flood-ravaged city of Derna and three members of a Libyan family were killed in a road accident on Sunday, the health minister for the Libyan eastern government said.

Fifteen of the Greek rescue team were injured, including seven in a critical condition, Othman Abduljaleel told a televised news conference. Two of the Libyan family were also critical, he said.

The Greek Armed Forces said a bus carrying medical personnel collided with a vehicle moving in the opposite direction, but it did not confirm the deaths.

“The causes and circumstances of the incident are being investigated in cooperation with the Libyan authorities, while an operation is underway to gather the personnel in Benghazi and repatriate them,” it said in a statement.

The Greek foreign ministry was not immediately available to comment on Abduljaleel’s statement regarding the killing of four Greeks. According to a diplomatic source, the Greek rescue team had 16 members plus three interpreters.

Thousands of people were killed after two dams above Libya’s eastern city of Derna broke on Sept. 10 during a powerful storm, bringing down residential blocks lining a usually dry riverbed as people slept. Many bodies have been washed out to sea.

Thousands of protesters kicked off “Climate Week” and filled the streets of Midtown, Manhattan, on Sunday ahead of the U.N. General Assembly this week, calling for President Joe Biden and world leaders to end fossil fuel use.

With parades, concerts, and banging drums, some of the 15,000 expected waved signs that read “End Fossil Fuel Use” and “Fossil Fuels Kill” and “Declare a Climate Emergency.”

One man was dressed as a melting snowman warning of rising sea levels. The message was for world leaders to save the planet from the use of oil and gas believed to be driving a warming globe.

Sunday’s protests were part of a week-long international effort by Climate Group, a non-profit whose purpose is to drive climate change action and stop global warming, with more than 500 protests planned in the U.S, Germany, England, South Korea, India and elsewhere, totaling 54 countries.

Organizers of the protests expect a global turnout of more than a million people.

“Climate Week NYC is all about getting it done,” organizers wrote online. “Through celebrating climate action, challenging ourselves to do more, and exploring ways to increase ambition, Climate Week NYC inspires, amplifies and scrutinizes the commitments, policies and actions of those with the power to make change happen.”

Many scientists believe that so-called greenhouse gases caused by burning fossil fuels are warming the world and causing severe weather such as more intense hurricanes, heat waves, floods, wildfires and droughts.

Reductions in CO2 or carbon dioxide emissions are seen as a key element in abating climate change.

The demonstrations take place two months before this year’s U.N. COP28 climate summit, where more than 80 countries plan to push for a global agreement to gradually phase out coal, oil and gas.

A recent U.N. report warned that the world was on a dangerous track toward severe global warming, and said more action was needed on all fronts, including drastic drop in coal-fueled power use by 2030, Reuters reported.

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Massachusetts authorities say a World War I-era plane crashed and flipped over onto its roof as the pilot tried to land outside of a military history museum.

After a gap of 18 years veteran defender Sergio Ramos has played again for the club where he started his career as Sevilla defeated Las Palmas 1-0 in the Spanish league for its first win of the season.

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Only prop Finlay Bealham’s availability in the Ireland squad is doubtful for the blockbuster pool match with South Africa at the Rugby World Cup next weekend.

Climate activists have sprayed orange paint onto Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to urge the German government to take more urgent action against climate change.

People whose homes were swept away by flooding in Libya’s eastern city of Derna a week ago faced the dilemma on Sunday of whether to stay despite a lack of fresh water or flee through areas where landmines have been displaced by the torrents.

Thousands of people are feared to have died after two dams above Derna broke on Sept. 10, bringing down residential blocks lining a usually dry river bed as people slept. Many bodies were washed out to sea and more than 1,000 have already been buried in mass graves, according to the United Nations.

Sunrise on Sunday revealed a scene of quiet devastation, with piles of rubble cleared to the sides of empty roads along with tangled metal including pieces of wrecked cars.

Hamad Awad sat on a blanket on an empty street with a bottle of water and bedding alongside him.

“I am staying in our area trying to clean it and trying to verify who is missing,” he said. “Thank God for giving us patience.”

Entire districts of Derna, with an estimated population of at least 120,000, were swept away or buried in brown mud. State media said at least 891 buildings had been destroyed in the city, whose mayor has said 20,000 people may have died.

Another resident said people were at a loss over what to do next.

“We still do not know anything, we are hearing rumours, some are trying to reassure us, others are saying you need to leave the city or stay here. We have no water and no resources,” said the resident, who gave just one name, Wasfi.

A report by the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Libyan authorities had detected at least 55 children poisoned from drinking polluted water in Derna, where the homeless were surviving in makeshift shelters, schools or packed into the houses of relatives or friends.

Floodwaters had shifted landmines and other ordnance left over from years of conflict, posing an extra risk to the thousands of displaced people on the move, it said.

The OCHA report said at least 11,300 people had died and more than 10,000 people were missing in Derna after Storm Daniel swept over the Mediterranean and into the city and other coastal settlements.

It cited the Libyan Red Crescent for the figure but a Libyan Red Crescent spokesman said it had not published a toll and referred Reuters to government spokespeople, saying “figures are changing and the Red Crescent is not responsible for this.”

An official from the administration that runs eastern Libya, Dr. Osama Al-Fakhry, said: “The number of dead so far is 3,252, and they are those who were buried”.

He said 86 people had been pulled from the rubble and operations were continuing.

“There is no specific number regarding the missing, because there are entire families who have died and no one came to report them, in addition to the fact that there is duplication of registration in various hospitals,” said Al-Fakhry, office manager for the health minister in the east.

Other Libyan officials have previously citied a death toll of more than 5,000.

OCHA said more than 40,000 people had been displaced, cautioning that the figure was likely much higher since access had been restricted to the worst-affected areas such as Derna, where at least 30,000 were displaced.

International aid organizations have flown in emergency aid and countries have sent in supplies and other help, but OCHA said much more was needed.

Civil protection workers from Algeria combed through the rubble of multistorey buildings with a dog to help detect any survivors.

In al Badya, a coastal settlement west of Derna, volunteers handed out clothing and food.

“People left their houses with nothing, they didn’t even have their underwear,” said one of the initiative’s supervisors, Mohammad Shaheen.

Volunteer Abdulnabi said the team came from Ajaylat, around 800 miles (1,200 km) away in western Libya, divided from the east by more than a decade of on and off conflict.

“People are coming together to help those impacted,” he said.

The country of 7 million people has lacked a strong central government since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Libya’s internationally-recognised Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, based in Tripoli in the west, called the floods an unprecedented catastrophe. Libya’s Presidential Council head Mohammed al-Menfi has called for national unity.

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