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Europe
Hungary
(17 September 2024 8:53) In Hungary, authorities are bracing for potential flooding along the Danube River, which runs through the capital, Budapest. The river is rising by about a meter every 24 hours, and officials have issued flood warnings along a 500km stretch of the river. Sandbags have been distributed to residents in flood-prone areas, and some roads in Budapest have already been closed in preparation for the rising water levels. (Source: independent)
Finland
September 17, 2024 Sweden said it is ready to lead NATO’s forward presence to be established in Finland. Although it is yet to be decided where the headquarters is to be located, Lapland is believed to host the new structure. It is not aimed at bring permanent NATO troops to northern Finland, but will be staffed with command officers preparing for troop deployment in case of war. In a joint declaration, the two countries underlines the need to secure transport communication in the northern regions between Norway, Sweden and Finland in order to cover the needs for supplies, trade and security. While Norway is not a member, Sweden and Finland will work to promote military mobility within the European Union. The declaration makes clear that interregional EU funding will be used to improve east-west communication. From the port of Narvik on the coast to the Norwegian Sea, Europe’s northernmost cross-border railway connects with Kiruna, Luleå and Happaranda in northern Sweden, from where goods can be shipped further into northern Finland via the reopened railway to Tornio. While the Council of the Baltic Sea States cooperation is highlighted with its own sub-chapter in the joint declaration, the Barents cooperation - a multilateral structure aimed to assist Russia’s northern regions integrate in international contacts - is not mentioned with a single word. (Source: thebarentsobserver *)
* The Barents Observer, a Norwegian online newspaper
Poland
(17 September 2024 8:53) Kolbiarz, the mayor of Nysa issued evacuation order today, urging all 44,000 residents to seek higher ground due to the risk of a nearby embankment breaching. “Please evacuate your belongings, yourselves, your loved ones. It is worth getting to the top floor of the building immediately, because the wave may be several metres high. This means that the whole town will be flooded,' Mr Kolbiarz wrote. The embankment holds back water from a large lake. In addition to the evacuations in Nysa, local authorities have ordered the evacuation of several nearby villages, including Kozielno, after the Topola reservoir in southern Poland overflowed. The water from the reservoir has already inundated parts of the region, and officials fear further breaches could exacerbate the situation. Prime minister Donald Tusk declared a 30-day state of natural disaster on yesterday, which will allow authorities to streamline the response efforts and provide aid to flood-stricken areas in the Lower Silesian, Opole, and Silesian voivodeships. Mr Tusk was announcing that one billion zloty (£197m) would be allocated to flood relief efforts. He also confirmed that Poland would apply for EU relief funds to support recovery in the affected regions. Nysa is not the only area at risk. In Wroclaw, a city of 600,000 people located in southwestern Poland, officials are preparing for peak water levels later this week. (Source: independent)
European Parliament
17-09-2024 - 10:19 EP leaders had an exchange of views with the President-elect of the Commission on the new College of Commissioners. The presentation of today paves the way for the start of the confirmation hearing process, once Parliament receives all the necessary documentation. The Committee on Legal Affairs will scrutinise the declarations of interests of the Commissioners-designate. This is an essential precondition for the holding of the confirmation hearings. Each Commissioner-designate’s responses to the written questions submitted by the Parliament will be published on Parliament’s website in advance of the confirmation hearing. The Conference of Presidents will organise the confirmation hearings based on a recommendation of the Conference of Committee Chairs. Each Commissioner-designate will be invited to appear before the appropriate committee or committees for a single confirmation hearing, lasting three hours. However, in the case of particularly large or complex portfolios involving more than one committee, the confirmation hearing may last for up to four hours. The confirmation hearings will be livestreamed. Parliament will evaluate Commissioners-designate based on their general competence, European commitment and personal independence, as well as assess their knowledge of their prospective portfolio and their communication skills. The committee coordinators will evaluate the individual Commissioners-designate after the confirmation hearing and prepare a single evaluation letter for each Commissioner-designate. 'To be approved, coordinators representing a majority of at least 2/3 of the committee members belonging to a political group', should approve the Commissioner-designate. If this majority cannot be reached, more information can be requested by additional written questions, or by a resumed confirmation hearing, lasting for 1,5 hours. The evaluation letters are conveyed to the Conference of Presidents, which can then declare the confirmation hearings closed and authorise the publication of all letters of evaluation. Following successful confirmation hearings, the President-elect will present the College of Commissioners and their programme at Parliament’s plenary, followed by a debate, and a vote to elect or reject the Commission as a whole, by a majority of the votes cast (by roll call). (Source: europarl)
Norway
16:12 BST, 17 September 2024 Traces of radioactive Cesium-137 appeared between September 9 and 12 and have been measured along Norway's border with Russia, it was revealed today. Norway shares a 121 mile border inside the Arctic Circle with Russia's highly militarised Murmansk region. Filters from Viksjøfjell and Svanhovd in Norway - close to the Russian border - are analysed once a week. 'The levels are clearly higher than normal, but pose no risk to humans or the environment,' said Møller, of the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (DSA)'s Emergency Preparedness unit at Svanhovd. The cause of the mysterious spike is unknown. One fear is that it could relate to Russia's Pankovo test site for the Burevestnik - a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile - on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. The Barents Observer has in the course of the summer seen several cargo-ships and special purpose vessels in the waters outside Pankovo and over the last few weeks, Rosatom's two large Il-76 transport planes have periodically been parked at the airport in Rogachevo at Novaya Zemlya. The blue-coloured aircraft are believed to conduct operations connected to the Burevestnik testings. The missile is 'believed' to be launched by a solid-fuel rocket motor. Then a small nuclear reactor activates in flight, which potentially allows it to stay aloft threatening Western countries almost indefinitely. Yet there are also a few nuclear-powered icebreakers moored around Murmansk, and numerous maritime reactors onboard submarines in the region, home of Russia's Northern Fleet. Small leakages of Cesium-137 are more likely to appear during start-up or maintenance of a reactor or from handling spent nuclear fuel. (Source: dailymail)
Europe
Tue 17 Sep 2024 16.41 CEST Storm Boris has dumped up to five times average September rainfall in four days. Weather in the region is expected to improve steadily from late on Tuesday. In Austria, the state of Lower Austria has been declared a disaster zone. The flooding has broken a dozen dams, with muddy rivers raging through devastated villages and thousands of households without electricity and water. Twenty-six communities were still cut off. The army has been deployed across the region and a €300m emergency fund made available. In St Pölten, more rain has fallen in four days than in the whole of the wettest autumn on record 75 years ago. In the Czech Republic, where more than 60,000 homes were still without electricity, the governor of the north-eastern Moravia-Silesian region, Belica, said 15,000 people had been evacuated and helicopters were delivering aid to towns and villages cut off by flood water. Eight people were unaccounted for. The fire service delivered bottles of drinking water to villages cut off by the floods, with people told not to drink tap water as it would be heavily contaminated. In eastern Germany, authorities were taking precautions, with mobile flood protection walls set up in some areas to protect Dresden’s old city as the Elbe rose steadily. The river was expected to peak by midweek. The Danube River was still rising in Hungary, including by about a metre every 24 hours in Budapest. Mobile dams were in place at the historical towns of Visegrád and Szentendre, north of Budapest. Tram lines and roads alongside the river, as well as the popular Margaret island, have been closed and a million sandbags distributed. In Poland, the mayor of the historical city of Wrocław, Sutryk, said on today buses had been prepared for an evacuation. The Oder is expected to peak on Friday, or perhaps sooner, in the city, which is home to 600,000 people. Wrocław zoo, alongside the river, appealed for volunteers to fill sandbags. Near the border between Poland and the Czech Republic, one of the hardest-hit areas, 2,000 volunteers from the Polish town of Nysa’s population of 44,000 spent yesterday night helping rescue workers build up a burst river embankment. A huge reservoir near the border aimed at reducing water levels and preventing flood waters from the Odra and Nysa from merging – as they did in catastrophic flooding in 1997 – was about 80% full, authorities said. The Danube River had peaked in Slovakia, the environment minister, Taraba, said, leaving parts of Bratislava’s old town flooded. Storm Boris is forecast to move to northern Italy, where the region of Emilia-Romagna is bracing for the impact of 100-150mm of rainfall. (Source: theguardian / „Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Associated Press”)
(17 September 2024 8:53) Heavy rainfall has caused rivers and reservoirs to overflow, prompting evacuations and warnings of further flooding in the coming days. As the storm continues to move south, more rainfall is expected today. But forecasters expected the weather to improve in central Europe from mid-week with much drier conditions prevailing. However, it may still take days for the flood waters to subside. (Source: independent *)
* headquartered United Kingdom
North America
United States
Sep 17, 2024 08:16 IST The US Secret Service said yesterday it was aware of a post by billionaire Musk on the X social media platform musing about an absence of assassination attempts on President Biden and Vice President Harris. A Trump supporter and the CEO of Tesla, Musk, wrote on Sunday, September 15: 'And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,' a post he ended with an emoji of a face with a raised eyebrow. X users 'from the left and right' said they were concerned his words to nearly 200 million followers could incite violence against Biden and Harris. Musk deleted the post. (Source: indiatoday)
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