Japan typhoon leaves thousands stranded at the airport - CNN

Typhoon Faxai, which made landfall early Monday morning in the coastal city of Chiba, brought heavy rain and winds of 120 miles per hour, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

The storm then moved over Tokyo and paralyzed transport. Major subway stations in Tokyo were crammed full of commuters on Monday morning, all stuck waiting for bullet trains and subway services that had shut down.

The train services gradually resumed mid-morning, but all lines are still experiencing delays.

More than 100 flights to and from airports in the Tokyo area were canceled on Monday, including 49 Japan Airlines flights and 41 by All Nippon Airways, according to the airport website. The entire Keikyu rail line, which connects Tokyo and Yokohama to Haneda Airport, is still suspended.

As of Monday afternoon, 6,800 passengers were stranded at Narita International Airport, according to an airport spokesperson. Flights are still arriving, but with highways blocked and two railways to the city center shut down, arriving passengers had no way to leave the airport.

Narita is one of two international airports in the Tokyo area.

Highways were shut down, departing ships were canceled at Tokyo Port, and rail lines closed on Sunday and Monday.

Photos show flooded streets, littered with downed trees and branches. Workers on Monday tended to signposts and lamps that had blown over, and employees at the Higashi Chiba train station inspected the roof, which was twisted and torn apart.

There are also widespread blackouts -- nearly a million households are without power, according to public broadcaster NHK. The entire islands of Shikinejima and Oshima off the country's south coast lost power, according to the Tokyo Disaster Prevention Department.

So far there have been no deaths reported, but at least ten people have been hospitalized, NHK said on Monday.

Ahead of the typhoon, JMA issued storm surge, flood, and landslide warnings, and asked the public to avoid going outdoors.

An evacuation advisory was issued Sunday night for about 150,000 people in the Kanagawa, Shizuoka, and Tokyo prefectures, with evacuation preparation information delivered to about 2.5 million people, according to NHK. Evacuation shelters were set up across Tokyo, including the city wards of Minato, Machida, Meguro and more.

By Monday mid-morning, most of the evacuation orders across Tokyo had been canceled, and storm warnings in the Tokyo area lifted. However, the Tokyo Disaster Prevention Management warned residents to remain alert for strong winds.

The typhoon is now forecast to move northeast away from Japan and into the open Pacific over the next day, with maximum wind speeds expected to weaken to 26 mph by Tuesday, according to JMA.

Junko Ogura and Sol Han contributed reporting.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/09/asia/typhoon-faxai-japan-intl-hnk-scli/index.html

2019-09-09 09:19:00Z
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Typhoon leaves 100 flights canceled and 1 million without power in Japan - CNN

Typhoon Faxai, which made landfall early Monday morning in the coastal city of Chiba, brought heavy rain and winds of 120 miles per hour, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

The storm then moved over Tokyo and paralyzed transport. Major subway stations in Tokyo were crammed full of commuters on Monday morning, all stuck waiting for bullet trains and subway services that had shut down.

The train services gradually resumed mid-morning, but all lines are still experiencing delays.

More than 100 flights to and from airports in the Tokyo area were canceled on Monday, including 49 Japan Airlines flights and 41 by All Nippon Airways, according to the airport website. The entire Keikyu rail line, which connects Tokyo and Yokohama to Haneda Airport, is still suspended.

Highways were shut down, departing ships were canceled at Tokyo Port, and rail lines closed on Sunday and Monday.

Photos show flooded streets, littered with downed trees and branches. Workers on Monday tended to signposts and lamps that had blown over, and employees at the Higashi Chiba train station inspected the roof, which was twisted and torn apart.

There are also widespread blackouts -- nearly a million households are without power, according to public broadcaster NHK. The entire islands of Shikinejima and Oshima off the country's south coast lost power, according to the Tokyo Disaster Prevention Department.

So far there have been no deaths reported, but at least ten people have been hospitalized, NHK said on Monday.

Ahead of the typhoon, JMA issued storm surge, flood, and landslide warnings, and asked the public to avoid going outdoors.

An evacuation advisory was issued Sunday night for about 150,000 people in the Kanagawa, Shizuoka, and Tokyo prefectures, with evacuation preparation information delivered to about 2.5 million people, according to NHK. Evacuation shelters were set up across Tokyo, including the city wards of Minato, Machida, Meguro and more.

By Monday mid-morning, most of the evacuation orders across Tokyo had been canceled, and storm warnings in the Tokyo area lifted. However, the Tokyo Disaster Prevention Management warned residents to remain alert for strong winds.

The typhoon is now forecast to move northeast away from Japan and into the open Pacific over the next day, with maximum wind speeds expected to weaken to 26 mph by Tuesday, according to JMA.

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2019-09-09 07:14:00Z
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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson under fire as Brexit reality hits - NBCNews.com

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was last week stripped of his authority over Brexit, denied a new election and abandoned by his little brother.

Now another senior minister has quit his government, and the ruling Conservative Party, in protest at Johnson's efforts to lead the U.K. out of the European Union on Oct. 31 with or without a deal.

Amber Rudd resigned Saturday, piling more pressure on the increasingly embattled prime minister.

Johnson expelled 21 members of his own party Tuesday after they supported an opposition plan to try to block a "no deal" Brexit.

Rudd, a former interior minister who voted to remain in the E.U. in the June 2016 referendum, said the ousting of the rebel lawmakers was an "assault on democracy" and an "act of political vandalism."

"I cannot stand by as good, loyal moderate Conservatives are expelled," she said in a tweet announcing her decision.

British media reports Sunday suggested more members of Johnson's government could follow Amber Rudd and quit.BEN STANSALL / AFP - Getty Images

Johnson swept to power in July, uniting the party around his leadership after Theresa May’s failure to solve the country’s Brexit impasse.

As lawmakers returned from summer recess, he began the week dismissing accusations from protesters in the London streets that he had conducted a coup — such was the seemingly decisive nature of his power grab to suspend Parliament until mid-October in an effort to clear the way for his hardline Brexit plans.

But in a sign of how things have turned, the prime minister was forced to insist he would not himself resign.

“That is not a hypothesis I'm willing to contemplate," he said Friday during a visit to a farm in Scotland.

Rudd's resignation is the latest sign that Johnson's uncompromising approach to Brexit, an issue that has obsessed the country and paralyzed its politics, could break his party and threaten his tenuous hold on power.

Those who were kicked out of the party last week included the longest sitting lawmaker in the House of Commons and the grandson of Winston Churchill.

The prime minister's little brother, Jo Johnson, quit on Thursday.

"In recent weeks I’ve been torn between family loyalty and the national interest," the junior minister said on Twitter.

Jeremy Hunt, the former foreign minister who finished as a runner-up to Johnson in the Conservative Party leadership race earlier this summer, said Sunday that Rudd's resignation was “desperately sad news.”

“When she and other brilliant people like Jo Johnson feel they can’t take the whip on top of the loss of so many other distinguished colleagues this week, we must pause for thought,” he said.

As politicians, commentators and experts alike scramble to assess the prime minister’s dwindling options — bringing down his own government has been raised as a potential last, desperate course of action — Johnson pushed ahead with his election demands.

Sept. 6, 201901:46

The bill forcing him to request a further extension to the U.K.’s divorce date with the E.U — possibly until January 2020 — is expected to become law on Monday.

Johnson says he would rather be "dead in a ditch" than request an extension.

His government says it will therefore again attempt to force an election in order to avoid an embarrassing climbdown or more drastic measures, including breaking the law.

But his efforts — under U.K. law a "snap" election can be called if a two-thirds majority of the House of Commons approve it — continue to be rebuffed.

Opposition parties don't want to agree to a vote unless they can ensure Johnson can't take Britain out of the E.U. without a deal.

In an effort to pressure them into granting an election before Johnson's "do or die" deadline at the end of October, the government has sought to brand opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn a coward.

Johnson's team even distributed pieces of chicken to the Westminster press Friday in boxes bearing Corbyn’s face and the letters “JFC.”

The Conservative Party also shared a mocked-up image of Corbyn dressed in a yellow chicken suit.

The gambit sparked outrage from some lawmakers, who derided it as "playground behavior" amid what many see as a national crisis.

Yuliya Talmazan

Yuliya Talmazan is a London-based journalist.

Max Burman, Reuters and Mo Abbas contributed.

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2019-09-08 13:14:00Z
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Trump tweeted that he had been planning a secret meeting with the Taliban - ABC News

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2019-09-08 13:17:41Z
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Taliban Talks Hit a Wall Over Deeper Disagreements, Officials Say - The New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — Even as President Trump blamed a recent Taliban attack for his decision to call off nearly yearlong negotiations with the insurgents, officials suggested on Sunday it had more to do with the Taliban’s resistance to the American terms for a peace deal.

Talks that once seemed on the verge of a breakthrough had hit a wall over how the deal should be finalized and announced, they said.

With the president himself showing more engagement in the talks in recent weeks, the Trump administration had set in motion a daring gambit: Fly the insurgents’ leaders and the Afghan leader, Ashraf Ghani, to American soil.

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Afghan security forces in Herat, Afghanistan, on Sunday.CreditJalil Rezayee/EPA, via Shutterstock

At Camp David, the traditional retreat of many presidents, separate meetings with each side would then lead to a grand announcement by Mr. Trump, according to Afghan, Western and Taliban officials with knowledge of the peace talks.

The Taliban leaders, however, having refused to negotiate directly with the Afghan government until after the group had an agreement with the United States, had compared the proposal to the Americans’ tricking them into political suicide. The Americans were also rushing to finalize outstanding issues, including disagreements over prisoner release, before the meeting at Camp David.

“We promised there would be intra-Afghan talks once we finalized our agreement with the Americans,” a senior Taliban leader said. “If Trump and his administration think they would solve the confrontation between the government and the Taliban somewhere in Washington in a meeting, that’s not possible because we do not recognize the stooge government.”

For his part, Mr. Ghani, a skeptic of the American negotiations that left out his government, had agreed to the risky Camp David visit in the hopes of finding a way to end a period of great uncertainty for his country.

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President Ashraf Ghani, center, had agreed to the risky Camp David visit in the hopes of finding a way out of a period of great uncertainty.CreditOmar Sobhani/Reuters

The Afghan president was signing up for nothing less than a gamble, with the details of what might transpire at Camp David vague even to his closest circle of advisers. But stuck in a difficult position, he didn’t have much to lose, a senior official said.

After the talks were called off, the Afghan government blamed the Taliban, saying that the violence was making the peace process difficult. Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for Mr. Ghani, lashed out at the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, saying that the group had shown no commitment to peace despite having protection in the Gulf country and freedom of movement.

“The Taliban’s honeymoon in Qatar needs to be ended,” Mr. Sediqqi said.

It recent weeks, it had been increasingly clear that the United States and the Taliban, after nine rounds of painstaking negotiations over nearly a year, had ironed out most of the issues between them. The chief American envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, declared that the agreement document had been finalized “in principle.”

That deal, criticized by Afghan officials for lacking measures that would ensure stability, would include a timeline of about 16 months for a gradual withdrawal of the remaining 14,000 American troops, with about 5,000 of them leaving in 135 days after its signing. In return, the Taliban would provide counterterrorism assurances to ease American fears of repeat of attacks on home soil — such as the attacks by Al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001, that precipitated the war in Afghanistan.

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Members of the Afghan delegations in Doha, Qatar, in July during the peace talks.CreditKarim Jaafar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The final rounds of negotiations — and even Mr. Trump’s invitation for a summit meeting at Camp David — had occurred during a period of intensifying violence, including the killing of American soldiers. In response to the Taliban attacks, the American negotiators had made clear that they were prioritizing the finalization of the agreement, not a boycott of the talks. Their negotiations were also undergirded by increasing battlefield pressure by the American military on the Taliban.

But just how the deal would be announced remained unclear, and competing demands made it even more complicated. Those demands included Mr. Trump’s election promise of ending the Afghan war, the Taliban’s sensitivity about not fracturing their forces, the Afghan government’s need to be seen as having the support of its main ally and sponsor, and Qatar’s wish to get credit for hosting the long-running talks at a time when neighboring countries have ganged up on it in by a blockade.

At the end of August, just as the ninth round of talks was winding down in Doha, the American ambassador arrived at the Afghan presidential palace with the proposal of a Camp David meeting, Afghan officials said. The visit would take place soon after a national security meeting led by Mr. Trump.

Details of the trip to the United States were sorted out between the Afghan president and the American side, when Mr. Khalilzad arrived from Doha and held four rounds of talks with Mr. Ghani. A plane would arrive to take Mr. Ghani and his delegation of about a half-dozen senior officials to the United States.

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Zalmay Khalilzad, left, the special representative for Afghan peace and reconciliation, had declared the agreement document was finalized “in principle.”CreditWakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Ghani’s ministers knew they would be meeting with their American counterparts and that a Taliban delegation would most likely be arriving, too. But they were unclear on the details of how it would all come together. They had to be prepared on all three issues that were their government’s priority: the presidential elections scheduled for Sept. 28, how the peace talks would move forward to include them and how they would continue to bolster their security forces in a way that would reduce the cost for the United States.

As a sign of how important the event was for the United States, Mr. Ghani got the Americans to agree to include on the trip his national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, who had essentially been kept out of the American meetings for months after lashing out at the peace process.

For months, the Americans had essentially held Mr. Ghani’s re-election campaign hostage to a deal that they projected was imminent. Mr. Ghani was reduced to pretending that the September elections were still on by holding a couple of daily “virtual rallies” at which he addressed small gatherings around the country via video chat. If the American-Taliban deal were finalized, it would most likely push the elections back.

If Mr. Ghani had refused the Camp David meeting, he would have been called a spoiler of peace. So he took his chances; it was to be hosted by an ally on friendly turf, and it could help clarify whether there would be a peace deal, and whether the elections would proceed.

One senior Afghan official said the government had been in a difficult place for months: fighting a war while trying to find a way into peace talks and preparing for an election both as a government that holds it and as a candidate that contests it.

Now, the official said, two things were clear: The violence would intensify, and the elections would go ahead.

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2019-09-08 12:32:00Z
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Hong Kong protesters sing Star Spangled Banner, call on Trump to ‘liberate’ the city - The Washington Post

Vincent Yu AP Protesters wave U.S. flags and shout slogans as they march from Chater Garden to the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019.

HONG KONG — Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to Hong Kong streets on Sunday and marched to the U.S. Consulate, urging American lawmakers to pass legislation in support of the territory’s democratic aspirations.

The police-sanctioned rally and march through the city center had some of the trappings of a 4th of July parade, as protesters waved American flags and played the Star Spangled Banner. Demonstrators carried red, white and blue signs calling for President Trump to “Liberate Hong Kong” and chanted: “Free Hong Kong, pass the act!” 

As has happened in the past with the generally peaceful demonstrations, violence broke out at the end of the day. By early evening, groups of protesters had vandalized a main subway station in central Hong Kong that was closed by police earlier in the day and set a fire around one of its entrances. Demonstrators wearing face masks and helmets smashed station windows leaving glass piled on the sidewalk. They tossed street signs and emptied trash cans down the subway stairwells and began building barricades in the streets. 

Later in the night, police fired repeatedly tear gas to disperse protesters in the popular shopping district of Causeway Bay.

The pockets of violence continued two consecutive nights of clashes, despite Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam’s decision to withdraw the widely unpopular extradition bill that had originally sparked the months-long political crisis — a clear sign that her concession has been roundly rejected by the majority of pro-democracy protesters. 

As dissent in Hong Kong — and the accompanying police crackdown — continues, Lam and her government will have to face the possibility of growing international criticism particularly from the United States where lawmakers have now returned from their summer recess. 

Authorities have even targeted prominent activists who have not been at the forefront of the recent protests. Former student leader Joshua Wong, who is due to visit the United States soon to testify at a congressional hearing in support of the Hong Kong bill, was arrested at the city’s airport while returning from a trip in Taiwan, he said through a legal representative on Sunday evening.

Wong was detained for “breaching bail conditions” following his arrest last month, but said this was due to mistakes on his bail certificate. He said he expected to be released Monday but called his overnight detention “utterly unreasonable.”

Organizers handed a petition to a consulate official calling for the swift passage in Congress of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, a bill that has bipartisan backing. This latest protest will likely draw the ire of Beijing, which has already accused the United States of meddling in the months-long political crisis and warned that Hong Kong is an internal Chinese matter. 

Members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China reintroduced the bill in June, days after a million people marched calling for the extradition legislation to be scrapped. 

The bill would require an annual review of the special treatment afforded by Washington to Hong Kong under the U.S. Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992. This would include the trade and business privileges Hong Kong enjoys, separate from China. The legislation also calls for asset freezes and denial of entry into the United States for people found to be “suppressing basic freedoms” in Hong Kong. 

“The Chinese government is breaking their promises to give freedom and human rights to Hong Kong. We want to use the U.S. to push China to do what they promised over 20 years ago,” said a 24-year-old protester who declined to be named. He wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat. “The U.S. government can make China think; do they really want to lose Hong Kong?” 

Carl Court

Getty Images

Protesters hold U.S. flags as they march from the U.S. Consulate during a demonstration on Sept. 8, 2019 in Hong Kong, China.

Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, suspended the extradition bill in mid-June, but did not fully withdraw it until Wednesday. In the weeks between those actions, the protests expanded in intensity and scope to more broadly focus on Beijing’s erosion of the “one country, two systems,” framework under which Hong Kong has existed since it was handed back to China in 1997. 

In an indication of the growing anti-China flavor of protests, demonstrators on Sunday carried posters and stickers depicting the Chinese flag with its yellow stars rearranged into a swastika.

Swastikas with the term “Chinazi” were also spray painted in the Central district.

Lam’s concessions, which also included beefing up the independent police oversight committee, were met with hostility among protesters, who want her to meet the four other demands they have laid out.

Her move to fully withdraw the bill “was a public relations exercise vis-a-vis Beijing and Washington,” said Andreas Fulda, the author of a book on efforts at democratization in China and a senior fellow at the University of Nottingham’s Asia Research Institute. “Carrie Lam has every reason to be worried about a strong U.S. response” when Congress sits again, he said. 

The growing distrust and public animosity toward police was again evident on Sunday after dozens of police stopped and searched protesters on a glitzy stretch of road in the Central district lined with luxury shops. Bystanders jeered at the police, yelling “shame” and cheered when a group of tactical officers left the area.

“They think that this is perhaps a tactical retreat and a way to pacify the movement, but it is so evident that it doesn’t address the elephant in the room, which is the militarization of the Hong Kong Police Force,” he added. 

Earlier Saturday, a second “stress test” was scheduled by demonstrators to disrupt transportation to Hong Kong International Airport but it was thwarted by police. Last weekend protesters caused massive traffic jams and rail delays on lines heading toward the airport. Police stymied Saturday’s effort with officers in riot gear stationed at subway stops and ferry terminals as well as boarding buses to check for demonstrators. 

[Hong Kong leader fully withdraws extradition bill, but protesters say it’s not enough]

“We are in a very urgent situation. We need all the support we can get,” said Cody a 30-year-old IT worker attending the march. 

Those who are pushing for a stronger U.S. government response on the situation in Hong Kong say Washington has several options, including tweaking language in the Hong Kong Policy Act in a way that would effectively limit government to government interaction and alter the U.S. economic relationship with Hong Kong. 

Conversations have been ongoing between lawmakers and members of foreign relations committees over the summer, as Congress has been in recess, and lawmakers have been watching further developments before deciding on how actively to push the bill when back in session. 

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat said earlier this week that lawmakers should move to quickly advance the bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said in an interview Tuesday that he would support legislation to “enhance” the Hong Kong Policy Act he helped to pass in 1992.

Carl Court

Getty Images

A barricade burns at an entrance to a train station on Sept. 8, 2019 in Hong Kong, China.

The push to pass the law has frustrated pro-establishment lawmakers in Hong Kong.

“Traditionally, these bills targeting specific countries, they are developing countries, with dictators in those countries,” said Felix Chung, a pro-Beijing lawmaker who traveled as part of a delegation of Hong Kong lawmakers last month to Montana to meet with congressmen and senators. 

“But Hong Kong has been so close to the U.S., economically and socially, it has never been a target of the U.S. government, so why should they use such a particular bill to punish Hong Kong?” he added. 

While leaders from both parties have been vocal in their support of Hong Kong’s protesters, Trump has taken a largely hands-off response to the upheaval. Last month, he said Chinese President Xi Jinping could “quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem.” Previously, he described protesters as “riots,” a term used by Hong Kong authorities and a characterization protesters are fighting to have withdrawn as one of their demands. 

Kurt Tong, who served as U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong until this summer, said during a speech in Washington in late July that Hong Kong was treated as a “second-tier” issue by the administration, which put more focus on Iran, North Korea and the trade war with China. 

Shibani Mahtani contributed to this report.

Read more:

With Hong Kong in turmoil, questions grow over leader’s refusal to offer concessions to protesters

With threats and propaganda, China tries to silence support for Hong Kong protests

First day of school in Hong Kong brings class boycotts and more rallies

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2019-09-08 12:15:55Z
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Trump cancels peace talks with Taliban over attack - Al Jazeera English

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2019-09-08 10:26:38Z
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