Wildfires are burning out of control in southeastern Australia.Thousands of people have already fled their homes but some have waited too long.The New South Wales Rural Fire Service has advised those who have not evacuated areas at risk that, “It is too late to leave.  Seek shelter as the fire approaches.”Late Saturday evening, Victoria had 14 fires rated at emergency or evacuation warning levels, while New South Wales, home to more than 100  fires, had 11 emergency fires.CNN reported that fire officials said Saturday three fires combined overnight in Victoria and are now larger than Manhattan in New York City.Army reservists have been called in to assist the firefighters. Defense Minister Linda Reynolds said this is the first time the reservists have been called up to help combat fires “in living memory and, in fact, I believe for the first time in our nation’s history.”Andy Gillham, the incident controller in the Victorian town of Bairnsdale, told Reuters that this has been an exceptional fire season.  “In a normal year, we would start to see the fire season kick off in a big way around early January and we’re already up towards a million hectares of burnt country. This is a marathon event and we expect to be busy managing these fires for at least the next eight weeks,” he said.
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Hong Kong authorities activated a newly created “serious response” level Saturday as fears spread about a mysterious infectious disease that may have been brought back by visitors to a mainland Chinese city.Five possible cases have been reported of a viral pneumonia that has also infected at least 44 people in Wuhan, an inland city west of Shanghai and about 900 kilometers (570 miles) north of Hong Kong.The outbreak, which emerged last month, has revived memories of the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic that started in southern China and killed more than 700 people in the mainland, Hong Kong and elsewhere.Serious response levelThe serious response level indicates a moderate impact on Hong Kong’s population of 7.5 million people. It is the second highest in a three-tier system that is part of a new government plan launched Saturday to respond to infectious diseases of unknown cause.A health surveillance officer with temperature scanner waits for passengers at the Hong Kong International Airport, Jan. 4, 2020. Hong Kong authorities activated a new response protocol Saturday as fears spread about a mysterious infectious disease.The city’s health department added an additional thermal imaging system at Hong Kong’s airport Friday to check the body temperature of arriving passengers. More staff have been assigned for temperature checks at the West Kowloon high-speed rail station that connects Hong Kong to the mainland.City leader Carrie Lam, on a visit to the train station Friday to review the health surveillance measures, urged any travelers who develop respiratory symptoms to wear surgical masks, seek medical attention and let doctors know where they have been. The Wuhan health commission said 11 of the 44 people diagnosed with the pneumonia were in critical condition as of Friday. All were being treated in isolation and 121 others who had been in close contact with them were under observation. Seafood marketMost of the cases have been traced to the South China Seafood City food market in the suburbs of sprawling Wuhan, where offerings reportedly include wild animals that can carry viruses dangerous to humans. The commission said the market has been disinfected.The most common symptom has been fever, with shortness of breath and lung infections in a small number of cases, the commission said. There have been no clear indications of human-to-human transmission of the disease.The latest cases in Hong Kong are two women, ages 12 and 41, who had been to Wuhan in the past 14 days but did not appear to have visited the food market, the Hospital Authority said. They were in stable condition and being treated in isolation at Princess Margaret Hospital. Besides SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, Hong Kong has also been hit by bird flu in 1997 and swine flu in 2009. 
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SYDNEY/MELBOURNE — Australian firefighters were set for a dangerous day Saturday as fires in the states of New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria were expected to burn out of control in temperatures above 40C (104F) and shifting, strong winds that will fan and spread the flames.Authorities have said conditions could be worse than New Year’s Eve, when out-of-control fires forced thousands of residents and summer holidaymakers to seek refuge on beaches as the flames burned massive tracts of bushland.“It’s going to be a long and difficult day for everybody,” NSW Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reporters.More than 100 fires were burning in NSW Saturday and more than half were not contained, Fitzsimmons said, adding that winds that will shift throughout the day will spread the blazes.Fire Spread Prediction for Sat 4 Jan 2020Dangerous fires in Shoalhaven, South Coast, Snowy Mountains & areas surrounding Greater Sydney. You should not be in potential spread areas or potential ember attack areas on Saturday. #nswrfs#nswfirespic.twitter.com/Ry14FXgPR2— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) January 3, 2020“We know the fires we’ve got already … but what we need to be vigilant about today as well is the prospect of any new fires that might start under these hot, dry, windy conditions,” he said.In Victoria, where a state of disaster has been declared, there were evacuation recommendations for six fires, emergency warnings for six others and dozens still burning.“We still have those dynamic and dangerous conditions, the low humidity, the strong winds, and what underpins that, the state is tinder dry. It is really, really dry at the moment,” Andrew Crisp, Victoria’s Emergency Management Commissioner, told reporters.Authorities had urged people in areas covered by the state of disaster to evacuate, and said Saturday that tens of thousands of an estimated 100,000 people had left.“But there are still significant populations in those areas,” said Graham Ashton, chief commissioner of Victoria Police. Those who stayed needed to monitor emergency announcements and fire tracking apps, he said.A view of a property burned by the Currowan Fire in Conjola Park, NSW, Australia, Jan. 2, 2020.Loss of lifeThere have been 10 deaths from the fires in NSW and Victoria so far this week, about half the total toll for the current fire season. Twenty-one people remain unaccounted for in Victoria, down from 28 reported Friday.The focus Saturday is preventing more loss of life, authorities said.To that end, national parks were closed and people were strongly urged earlier this week to evacuate large parts of NSW’s south coast and Victoria’s north eastern regions, magnets for holidaymakers at the peak of Australia’s summer school holidays.NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian speaks to the media at Rural Fire Service Headquarters in Sydney, Australia, Jan. 4, 2020.State of emergencyNSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has declared a weeklong state of emergency.“All of the major road networks in NSW are still open, but we can’t guarantee that beyond the next few hours. So, there are still windows for people to get out if they wish to do so,” she said.The Australian Navy ship HMAS Sycamore delivered the first load of evacuees from the isolated town of Mallacoota on Victoria’s east coast to near Melbourne, with a second vessel carrying around 900 people to dock late Saturday.The town was cut off on New Year’s Eve by fires, and about 4,000 people were stranded on the beach. Road access is still blocked and heavy smoke has limited air access, leaving sea transport as the only reliable route out.
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The worst flooding in six years in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, has killed more than 40 people this week and focused attention on improving flood controls before the planned relocation of the capital.Nonstop rainfall Tuesday and Wednesday flooded 268 tracts in Indonesia, 158 in low-lying Jakarta, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on its website. Drainage and levees in the capital are considered inadequate for storms of that scale, Southeast Asian economists say.Tuesday’s rainfall reached 377 millimeters (14.8 inches), a record since 2007, The Jakarta Post online said. The rains touched off landslides, trapped people in houses and prompted more than 19,000 to evacuate, local media reports say. The Red Cross federation put the number of displaced people at 31,232.Men swim as they collect items from their houses, flooded after heavy rains in Jakarta, Indonesia, Jan. 2, 2020.Trapped at home“We even couldn’t get out of our house, we even felt like we were in the middle of a big pond,’’ said Paramita Supamijoto, an international relations lecturer at Bina Nusantara University in Jakarta.Water levels inside her house topped out around 40 centimeters (15.7 inches) above the floor, she told VOA by phone. “The water outside our house was higher, I think about 50 or 60 centimeters (19.6-23.6 inches), almost half the height of the average adult,” she said. It left a stench and trail of dirt after receding.The Red Cross federation said flooding had injured 100 people. It called for donations of food, sleeping mats, baby kits, clean water and medicine. Some houses flooded up to their second stories.People look at a dam that collapsed after heavy rains in Bogor, West Java province, Indonesia, Jan. 2, 2020. (Antara Foto/Yulius Satria Wijaya/via Reuters)More flood controlCitizens of the city of 11 million want the government to improve flood control work, although much has been done already, said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at market research firm IHS Markit. President Joko Widodo in July suggested building a seawall around Jakarta, much of which is below sea level.Officials may come out with a new “range of commitments” after the floods, Biswas said.The biggest step would be relocation of the giant archipelago’s capital to a site in East Kalimantan on Borneo Island. The president announced that move in August following three years of studies. The sparsely populated new site has a seaport, airport, low poverty levels and an educated population.“I don’t expect that this [flooding] in itself would be a cause of political unrest,” Biswas said. “If anything, it would probably support the case that President Jokowi [Joko Widodo] has been pushing to build a new capital city, which will be in a very different location in another island, and one of the reasons for building that new city is to create a site that’s less vulnerable to these risks of flooding and also other natural disasters.”A man collects a water to clean his flooded house in Tanggerang on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, Jan. 3, 2020.Analysts caution, though, that relocation would take years. In the meantime, Jakarta would remain heavily populated and packed with visitors as the hub of government.Jakarta is also known for air pollution and a dense population including families who live in lean-tos along riverbanks.Housing shouldn’t be built in flood zones and people should quit throwing trash in the rivers, Supamijoto said. She suggested that river channels be “normalized.”The urban drainage system struggles during major floods, Biswas said.“Moving the capital is also a good idea but it cannot be done within a few minutes because Jakarta has been our capital for a long time and socially people already get used to it,” Supamijoto said.“And then if you would like to move us to [the new capital], that might be a lot of process, a lot of issues and we cannot guarantee that the new capital will be safe from flooding and other natural disasters,” she said.Jakarta is used to floods and should recover economically within a few weeks, said Marie Diron, managing director with Moody’s Investors Service in Singapore. Flooding in January 2013 killed dozens and swamped Jakarta’s central business district.“We’ll observe the speed of recovery, what measures are taken to remedy the impact of the flood,” Diron said. She assumes Indonesia will return to “some sort of normal economic activity” within a few weeks and will take a second look at the country if not.Rainfall is forecast to pick up over the next four to seven days, meaning “water levels will further increase,” the Red Cross federation said.
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Navy ships plucked hundreds of people from beaches and tens of thousands were urged to flee Friday before hot weather and strong winds in the forecast worsen Australia’s already-devastating wildfires.More than 200 fires were burning, and warnings of extreme danger to come Saturday set in motion one of the largest evacuations in Australian history. Thousands have already fled at-risk coastal areas, creating traffic gridlock in places, and firefighters escorted convoys of evacuees as fires threatened to close roads.Victoria Premier Daniel Andrew declared a disaster across much of the eastern part of the state, allowing the government to order evacuations in an area with as many as 140,000 permanent residents and tens of thousands more vacationers.”If you can leave, you must leave,” Andrews said.A contingent of 39 firefighters from the United States and Canada arrive at Melbourne Airport in Melbourne, Jan. 2, 2020.South Australia state’s Country Fire Service chief officer Mark Jones said the weather conditions were cause for concern because some fires were still burning or smoldering.
 
“The ignition sources are already there,” he said. “There are millions of sparks out there ready to go if they break containment lines.”The early and devastating start to Australia’s summer wildfires has made this season the worst on record. About 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres) of land have burned, at least 19 people have been killed, and more than 1,400 homes have been destroyed.This week, at least 448 homes have been destroyed on the New South Wales southern coast and dozens were burned in Victoria. Ten deaths have been confirmed in the two states this week, and Victoria authorities also say 28 people are missing. Fires are also burning in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.The navy was evacuating hundreds from the Victorian coastal town of Mallacoota, which has been cut off for days by wildfires, forcing as many as 4,000 residents and tourists to shelter on beaches. Landing craft ferried people to the HMAS Choules offshore.Choules Commander Scott Houlihan said 963 people had signed up for evacuation by sea and more had been airlifted to safety.A state of emergency was in place in New South Wales and a total fire ban.Smoke and wildfire rage behind Lake Conjola, Australia, Jan. 2, 2020.State Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner Rob Rogers said strong winds and high temperatures Saturday will make the fire danger worse in many areas and urged those who can flee to do so.”We know people have got a little bit of fire fatigue. They’ve been dealing with this now for months,” Rogers said. “But we need people to stay focused. Tomorrow is not the day to drop your guard. Take it seriously. If you’re in those areas where we put those maps out, do not be there.”Morrison: ‘People are angry’Prime Minister Scott Morrison visited the township of Bairnsdale in Victoria and received a warmer welcome than a day earlier in New South Wales.Morrison cut short a visit to the town of Cobargo when locals yelled at him, made obscene gestures and called him an “idiot” and worse, criticizing him for the lack of equipment to deal with the fires in town.In a radio interview Friday, Morrison said he understood the anger of people affected by the fires.”People are angry and people are raw and people are upset,” he said. “Whether they are angry with me or they are angry about the situation, all I know is they are hurting and it’s my job to be there to try and offer some comfort and support.”Smoke from the wildfires has choked air quality and turned daytime skies to near-nighttime darkness in the worst-hit areas.It’s also blown across the Tasman Sea into New Zealand, where skies are hazy and glaciers have turned a deep caramel brown. The color change may cause more melting since the glaciers will reflect less sunlight.
 
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Australia’s unprecedented wildfires are supercharged thanks to climate change, the type of trees catching fire and weather, experts say.And these fires are so extreme that they are triggering their own thunderstorms.Here are a few questions and answers about the science behind the Australian wildfires that so far have burned about 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres), killing at least 17 people and destroying more than 1,400 homes.”They are basically just in a horrific convergence of events,” said Stanford University environmental studies director Chris Field, who chaired an international scientific report on climate change and extreme events. He said this is one of the worst, if not the worst, climate change extreme events he’s seen.”There is something just intrinsically terrifying about these big wildfires. They go on for so long, the sense of hopelessness that they instill,” Field said. “The wildfires are kind of the iconic representation of climate change impacts.”Q: Is climate change really a factor?A: Scientists, both those who study fire and those who study climate, say there’s no doubt man-made global warming has been a big part, but not the only part, of the fires.Last year in Australia was the hottest and driest on record, with the average annual temperature 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) above the 1960 to 1990, average, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. Temperatures in Australia last month hit 121.8 degrees (49.9 degrees Celsius).”What would have been a bad fire season was made worse by the background drying/warming trend,” Andrew Watkins, head of long-range forecasts at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, said in an email.Mike Flannigan, a fire scientist at the University of Alberta in Canada, said Australia’s fires are “an example of climate change.”A 2019 Australian government brief report on wildfires and climate change said, “Human-caused climate change has resulted in more dangerous weather conditions for bushfires in recent decades for many regions of Australia.”Q: How does climate change make these fires worse?A: The drier the fuel — trees and plants — the easier it is for fires to start and the hotter and nastier they get, Flannigan said.”It means more fuel is available to burn, which means higher intensity fires, which makes it more difficult — or impossible — to put out,” Flannigan said.The heat makes the fuel drier, so they combine for something called fire weather. And that determines “fuel moisture,” which is crucial for fire spread. The lower the moisture, the more likely Australian fires start and spread from lightning and human-caused ignition, a 2016 study found.There’s been a 10% long-term drying trend in Australia’s southeast and 15% long-term drying trend in the country’s southwest, Watkins said. When added to a degree of warming and a generally southward shift of weather systems, that means a generally drier landscape.Australia’s drought since late 2017 “has been at least the equal of our worst drought in 1902,” Australia’s Watkins said. “It has probably been driven by ocean temperature patterns in the Indian Ocean and the long term drying trend.”Q: Has Australia’s fire season changed?A: Yes. It’s about two to four months longer, starting earlier especially in the south and east, Watkins said.”The fires over the last three months are unprecedented in their timing and severity, started earlier in spring and covered a wider area across many parts of Australia,” said David Karoly, leader of climate change hub at Australia’s National Environmental science Program. “The normal peak fire season is later in summer and we are yet to have that.”Q: Is weather, not just long-term climate, a factor?A: Yes. In September, Antarctica’s sudden stratospheric warming — sort of the southern equivalent of the polar vortex — changed weather conditions so that Australia’s normal weather systems are farther north than usual, Watkins said.That means since mid-October there were persistent strong westerly winds bringing hot dry air from the interior to the coast, making the fire weather even riskier for the coasts.”With such a dry environment, many fires were started by dry lightning events (storms that brought lightning but limited rainfall),” Watkins said.Q: Are people starting these fires? Is it arson?A: It’s too early to tell the precise cause of ignition because the fires are so recent and officials are spending time fighting them, Flannigan said.While people are a big factor in causing fires in Australia, it’s usually accidental, from cars and trucks and power lines, Flannigan said. Usually discarded cigarettes don’t trigger big fires, but when conditions are so dry, they can, he said.Q: Are these fires triggering thunderstorms?A: Yes. It’s an explosive storm called pyrocumulonimbus and it can inject particles as high as 10 miles into the air.During a fire, heat and moisture from the plants are released, even when the fuel is relatively dry. Warm air is less dense than cold air so it rises, releasing the moisture and forming a cloud that lifts and ends up a thunderstorm started by fire. It happens from time to time in Australia and other parts of the world, including Canada, Flannigan said.”These can be deadly, dangerous, erratic and unpredictable,” he said.Q: Are the Australian trees prone to burning?A: Eucalyptus trees are especially flammable, “like gasoline on a tree,” Flannigan said. Chemicals in them make them catch fire easier, spread to the tops of trees and get more intense. Eucalyptus trees were a big factor in 2017 fires in Portugal that killed 66 people, he said.Q: How can you fight these huge Australia fires?A: You don’t. They’re just going to burn in many places until they hit the beach, Flannigan said.
 “This level of intensity, direct attack is useless,” Flannigan said. “You just have to get out of the way. … It really is spitting on a campfire. It’s not doing any good.”Q: What’s the long-term fire future look like for Australia?
 
A: With climate change, not every year will be catastrophic like this year, but “we’re going to see more bad fire years per decade in the future than we have in the past. And the bad fire years can be exceedingly bad,” Flannigan said.
 
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Taiwan’s top military officer was among eight people killed Thursday when their helicopter crashed in a mountainous area outside the capital, Taipei.The defense ministry says the Blackhawk helicopter carrying Air Force General Shen Yi-ming, the chief of Taipei’s general staff, and 12 others took off from an air base in Taipei early Thursday on a flight to visit soldiers at a base in northeast Yilan county.  The helicopter disappeared from radar screens just minutes later. Three major generals were also among those killed in the crash, while five others survived.  Wednesday’s  crash happened just nine days before Taiwan’s presidential and parliamentary elections.  A spokesperson for President Tsi Ing-wen said she will suspend her re-election campaign until Saturday. Taiwan has purchased Blackhawk military helicopters from the United States for decades, including a 60 Blackhawks in 2010.  Six people were killed in 2018 when a Blackhawk helicopter crashed off Taiwan’s east coast.  
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Tens of thousands of holidaymakers raced to evacuate popular seaside towns on Australia’s east coast Thursday, fleeing ahead of advancing bushfires, as military ships and helicopters began rescuing thousands more trapped by the blazes.Fueled by searing temperatures and high winds, more than 200 fires are now burning across the southeastern states of New South Wales and Victoria, threatening several towns.Long lines formed outside supermarkets and gas stations near high-danger areas, and shelves were emptied of staples like bread and milk, as residents and tourists sought supplies to either bunker down or escape.More than 50,000 people were without power and some towns had no access to drinking water, after catastrophic fires ripped through the region over the past few days, sending the sky blood red and destroying towns.Cars line up to leave the town of Batemans Bay in New South Wales to head north, Jan. 2, 2020. A major operation to move people stranded in fire-ravaged seaside towns was under way in Australia after deadly bushfires ripped through tourist spots.Mass exodus urgedAuthorities urged a mass exodus from several towns on Australia’s southeast coast, an area hugely popular in the current summer peak holiday season, warning that extreme heat forecast for the weekend will further stoke raging fires.“The priority today is fighting fires and evacuating, getting people to safety,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Sydney. “There are parts of both Victoria and New South Wales which have been completely devastated, with a loss of power and communications.”Death toll rises, Navy arrivesEight people have been killed by wildfires in the eastern states of New South Wales and Victoria since Monday, and 18 are still missing, officials said Thursday.A naval ship arrived Thursday at the southeastern coastal town of Mallacoota, where 4,000 residents and visitors have been stranded on the beach since Monday night. Naval officials said they would open registration for evacuation Thursday afternoon, with the HMAS Choules able to carry up to 1,000 people on the first trip. The ship is expected to make two or three voyages over coming days, state authorities said.“It’s 16-17 hours to the closest boat port, then we’ve got to come back,” HMAS Choules Commander Scott Houlihan said at an information session Thursday afternoon. He said that leaving by boat was the only way out of the town.Thousands of people had already been evacuated from the greater adjoining region of East Gippsland in Victoria, one of the largest evacuations in the country since the northern city of Darwin evacuated more than 35,000 people in the aftermath of cyclone Tracy in 1974.The HMAS Choules appears as a ghostly figure through smoke haze off the coast of Mallacoota, Australia, Jan. 2, 2020. The Australian Defense Force is moving naval assets to Mallacoota on a supply mission. (Australian Defense Force/Reuters)‘It is hell on earth’“It is hell on earth. It is the worst anybody’s ever seen,” Michelle Roberts told Reuters by telephone from the Croajingolong Cafe she owns in Mallacoota. Roberts hoped to get her 18-year-old daughter out on the ship to get away from the spotfires and thick smoke that continue to engulf the town.Five military helicopters were en route to the south coast to back up firefighters and bring in supplies like water and diesel, the Australian Defense Force said Thursday. The aircraft will also be used to evacuate injured, elderly and young people.A contingent of 39 firefighters from North America landed in Melbourne on Friday, bringing the number of U.S. and Canadian experts who have flown in to help deal with the crisis to almost 100.Traffic on the main highway out of Batemans Bay on the NSW coast was bumper to bumper after authorities called for the town to be evacuated. Residents of the town reported was no fuel, power or phone service, while supermarket shelves were stripped bare of staples. “Everyone’s just on edge,” local resident Shane Flanagan told Reuters.State of emergencyThe New South Wales state government declared a state of emergency, beginning Friday, giving authorities the power to forcibly evacuate people and take control of services. The state’s Kosciuszko National Park, home to the Snowy Mountains, was closed with visitors ordered to leave because of extreme fire danger.Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged those waiting for help and those stuck in traffic jams “to be patient … help will arrive.”Dairies in New South Wales that had lost power were being forced to dump milk. “That is the tragedy of what is occurring as a result of these disasters,” Morrison said.Temperatures are forecast to soar above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) along the south coast Saturday, bringing the prospect of renewed firefronts to add to the around 200 current blazes. “It is going to be a very dangerous day. It’s going to be a very difficult day,” NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.Morrison visited volunteer firefighters in the NSW town on Bega as they prepared to head out to the firefront Friday. The leader plans to tour stricken regions in Victoria next week.Morrison said the fires will burn for “many, many months … unlike a flood, where the water will recede, in a fire like this, it goes on and it will continue to go on … until we can get some decent rain.”Morrison, forced to defend his government’s limited action on climate change, blamed a three-year drought and lack of hazard reduction for the unprecedented extent and duration of this year’s bushfires.Bushfires so far this season have razed more than 4 million hectares (10 million acres) of bushland and destroyed more than 1,000 homes, including 381 homes destroyed on the south coast just this week.
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Tens of thousands of holidaymakers raced to evacuate popular seaside towns on Australia’s east coast Wednesday, fleeing ahead of advancing bushfires, as military ships and helicopters planned missions to rescue thousands more trapped by the blazes.Long queues formed outside supermarkets and gas stations near high-danger areas as residents and tourists sought supplies to either hunker down or escape, but many shops and fuel stations had run out of supplies.Major roads were closed because of fire risks, leaving motorists only a handful of escape routes causing lengthy traffic jams.More than 50,000 people were without power and some towns had no access to drinking water, after catastrophic fires ripped through the region Dec. 31 sending the sky blood red and destroying towns.Cars line up to leave the town of Batemans Bay in New South Wales to head north, Jan. 2, 2020. A major operation to move people stranded in fire-ravaged seaside towns was under way in Australia after deadly bushfires ripped through tourist spots.Mass exodus urgedAuthorities have urged a mass exodus from several towns on Australia’s southeast coast, an area that is hugely popular in the current summer peak holiday season, warning that extreme heat forecast for the weekend will further stoke raging fires.“It is vital, critical,” NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance said on Australian Broadcasting Corp television. “We need everybody to leave. We are going to face a worse day on Saturday than what we have been through.”Huge bushfires have been burning for weeks across Australia, with new blazes sparked into life almost daily by extremely hot and windy conditions in bushland left tinder dry after a three-year drought.Fueled by searing temperatures and high winds, more than 200 fires are now burning across the southeastern states of New South Wales and Victoria, threatening several towns.Death toll risesSeven people have been killed in New South Wales state alone since Monday, including a volunteer firefighter, officials said, with one person still missing.The death toll for this year’s fire season is 15 in New South Wales alone.One person has died in Victoria state this week.The HMAS Choules appears as a ghostly figure through smoke haze off the coast of Mallacoota, Australia, Jan. 2, 2020. The Australian Defense Force is moving naval assets to Mallacoota on a supply mission. (Australian Defense Force/Reuters)Military en routeFive military helicopters and two naval ships were en route to the south coast to back up firefighters, bring in supplies like water and diesel and to evacuate people, the Australian Defense Force said.One ship was headed for the coastal town of Mallacoota in Victoria, where about 4,000 people have been stranded on the beach front since New Year’s Eve when they watched much of the town burn down.The navy rescue team will include 1.6 metric tons of water and paramedics, officials said.The only road in and out of Mallacoota was expected to remain blocked for several weeks.The state’s Country Fire Authority said smoke was hampering efforts to identify how many homes have been destroyed across the eastern region of the state.“We can’t even get firetrucks into some of these communities,” CFA Chief Officer Steve Warrington said. “This is not over by a long way.”Soaring temperatures forecastTemperatures are forecast to soar above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) along the south coast Saturday, bringing the prospect of renewed fires to add to the 200 estimated current blazes.Fires this season have destroyed nearly 1,300 homes in the state, including 381 homes on the south coast just this week, the NSW Rural Fire Service said.Bushfires are normal for Australia in the summer, but this fire season has been one of the worst on record, putting pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative climate change policies.
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Expressing deep frustration over stalled nuclear talks, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned of unspecified “shocking” action and that his country will soon reveal a new “strategic weapon” to the world as it bolsters its nuclear deterrent in face of “gangster-like” U.S. pressure.Kim also said North Korea was no longer obligated to maintain a self-imposed suspension on the testing of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, which President Donald Trump has touted as a major diplomatic accomplishment. But Kim gave no clear indication that a resumption of such tests was impending and appeared to leave the door open for eventual negotiations.Kim has used the diplomatic stalemate to expand his military capabilities by intensifying tests of shorter-range weapons. His arsenal is now estimated to include 40-50 nuclear bombs and various delivery systems, including solid-fuel missiles designed to beat missile-defense systems and developmental ICBMs potentially capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.A man watches a TV screen showing a file image of North Korea’s missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Jan. 1, 2020.Kim has also strengthened his negotiating position, moving the diplomacy closer to an arms reduction negotiation between nuclear states rather than talks that would culminate in a unilateral surrender of the weapons he sees as his strongest guarantee of survival.Lee Sang-min, spokesman for South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said North Korea carrying out its threat to showcase a new strategic weapon would be unhelpful for diplomacy.Strategic weapons usually refer to nuclear-capable delivery systems such as ICBMs, but North Korea otherwise has been vague about what new arms it would display. It announced in December that it performed two “crucial” tests at its long-range rocket launch site that would further strengthen its nuclear deterrent.Serious negotiationsKim’s comments published in state media Wednesday were made at a key, four-day meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee as talks between Washington and Pyongyang have faltered over disagreements on disarmament steps and the removal of sanctions.Some experts say North Korea, which has always been sensitive about electoral changes in U.S. government, will avoid serious negotiations in the coming months as it watches how Trump’s impending impeachment trial over his dealings with Ukraine affects U.S. presidential elections in November.Kim may instead seek to strengthen his leverage by promoting a united front with Beijing and Moscow, Pyongyang’s traditional supporters, which seek to establish themselves as major stakeholders in North Korean diplomacy. Both have called for the U.N. Security Council to consider easing sanctions on the North to spur progress in nuclear negotiations.U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “very much hopes that the tests will not resume,” citing existing Security Council resolutions. “Non-proliferation remains a fundamental pillar of global nuclear security and must be preserved,” the spokesman said.Dujarric said the secretary general repeated his support for “the resumption of a dialogue that will lead to complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Diplomatic engagement is the only pathway to sustainable peace.”FILE – North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, right, walks with U.S. President Donald Trump at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore, in this picture taken June 12, 2018, and released from North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency.’New way’ for North KoreaKim last year had said the North would pursue a “new way” if the Trump administration doesn’t make concessions to salvage the negotiations by the end of December. Kim’s defiant words entering 2020 indicate his “new way” could look very much like the old one — a patient determination to wait out sanctions and pressure, which will possibly weaken over time, while cementing the country’s status as a nuclear state.Kim at the party meeting declared the North will never give up its security for economic benefits in the face of what he described as increasing U.S. hostility and nuclear threats, the Korean Central News Agency said.“(Kim) said that we will never allow the impudent U.S. to abuse the DPRK-U.S. dialogue for meeting its sordid aim but will shift to a shocking actual action to make it pay for the pains sustained by our people so far and for the development so far restrained,” the agency said, referring to the North by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.Kim added that “if the U.S. persists in its hostile policy toward the DPRK, there will never be the denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and the DPRK will steadily develop necessary and prerequisite strategic weapons for the security of the state until the U.S. rolls back its hostile policy,” KCNA said.“(Kim) confirmed that the world will witness a new strategic weapon to be possessed by the DPRK in the near future, declaring that we cannot give up the security of our future just for the visible economic results … now that hostile acts and nuclear threat against us are increasing,” it said.’A man of his word’Trump late Tuesday urged Kim to stick to his alleged commitment to denuclearize. The leaders after their first summit in Singapore in June 2018 issued a vague statement on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without when and how it would occur.President Donald Trump stands in front of the media while talking about the situation at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, from his Mar-a-Lago property, Dec. 31, 2019, in Palm Beach, Fla. “Look, he likes me, I like him, we get along,” Trump said as he walked into a New Year’s party at Mar-a-Lago. “But he did sign a contract, he did sign an agreement talking about denuclearization … I think he’s a man of his word so we’re going to find out, but I think he’s a man of his word.”North Korea has held to its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and ICBM testing since 2018, though last year it ended a 17-month pause in ballistic activity by testing a slew of solid-fuel weapons that potentially expanded its capabilities to strike targets in South Korea and Japan, including U.S. military bases there.While Kim gave no clear indication he was abandoning negotiations entirely or restarting the suspended tests, he said North Korea’s efforts to bolster its deterrent will be “properly coordinated” depending on future U.S. attitudes.Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korean expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said it would be irrational for Pyongyang to risk shattering its negotiations with Washington by resuming ICBM tests when Beijing and Moscow are campaigning for eased sanctions.“When you are developing an unfinished nuclear program, you conduct test after test in efforts to manufacture a crisis that would force your rival into negotiating, which was North Korea’s previous pattern of behavior,” said Koh, an adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in.“But once you reached a strategic (nuclear) status and need to consolidate it, you do it quietly while holding back provocative tests, like the way India and Pakistan did it,” Koh said.Kim did warn there were no longer grounds for the North to be “unilaterally bound” to its moratorium, criticizing the United States for expanding sanctions, continuing military exercises with South Korea and providing the South with advanced weaponry.F-35 fighter jetsThe allies have scaled down their major military exercises since 2018 to create space for diplomacy, but North Korea considers such drills to be rehearsals for an invasion and insists even the smaller drills violate agreements between the leaders. The North has also criticized the allies over South Korea’s recent acquisition of advanced U.S. F-35 fighter jets.The extensive KCNA report from the party meeting may have replaced a New Year’s speech like Kim has given in past years announcing major changes in security and economic policies. No speech was broadcast as of Wednesday afternoon, though Koh said a broadcast or statement could come later.Kim touched on economic issues in his remarks to the party meeting, saying his nation was prepared for a “long confrontation” with the United States and vowing to build “internal strength” to withstand sanctions.Kim called for his people to stay resilient in a struggle for “self-reliance” and lamented unmet goals in economic objectives laid out in 2019, calling for significant improvements in agricultural production and removal of unspecified “evil practices and stagnation” across industries including coal mining, electricity production, machinery and railway transport.
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Fugitive former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn met with Lebanon’s president after his escape from Japan, where he was smuggled out of house arrest by a private security company, two sources close to Ghosn said on Wednesday.One of the sources said Ghosn was greeted warmly by President Michel Aoun on Monday after flying into Beirut via Istanbul and was now in a buoyant and combative mood and felt secure.In his meeting at the presidency, Ghosn thanked Aoun for the support he had given him and his wife Carole while he was in detention, the sources said. He now needs the protection and security of his government after fleeing Japan, they added.A media advisor to the president’s office denied the two men had met.Lebanese officials have said there would be no need to take legal measures against Ghosn because he entered the country legally on a French passport, although Ghosn’s French, Lebanese, and Brazilian passports are with lawyers in Japan.FILE – Former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn leaves the Tokyo Detention Center, in Tokyo, Japan, April 25, 2019.The French and Lebanese foreign ministries have said they were unaware of the circumstances of his journey.Lebanon has no extradition agreement with Japan, where he faced trial on charges of financial misconduct, which he denied.Under the terms of his bail, he had been confined to his house in Tokyo and had to have cameras installed at the entrance. He was prevented from communicating with his wife, Carole, and had his use of the internet and other communications curtailed.The sources said the Lebanese ambassador to Japan had visited him daily while he was in detention.’Pure fiction’
While some Lebanese media have floated a Houdini-like account of Ghosn being packed in a wooden container for musical instruments after a private concert in his home, his wife called the account pure fiction when contacted by Reuters.She declined to provide details of the exit of one of the most recognize titans of industry. The accounts of the two sources suggest a carefully planned escape few were aware of.They said a private security firm oversaw the plan, which was three months in the making and involved shuttling Ghosn out via a private jet to Istanbul before pushing onward to Beirut, with even the pilot unaware of Ghosn’s presence on board.”It was a very professional operation from start to finish” said one of the sources. The other source said Ghosn was in good health.In a written statement, Ghosn said after his arrival that he had “escaped injustice and political persecution” and would begin communicating with media next week. Sources close to him said he was unwilling to share details of his escape so as not to jeopardize those who aided him in Japan.He is staying at the home of a relative of his wife, but plans to return soon to a gated villa in the upscale Beirut neighborhood of Achrafieh, one of the sources said.He was first arrested in Tokyo in November 2018 and faces four charges – which he denies – including hiding income and enriching himself through payments to dealerships in the Middle East.Nissan sacked him as chairman saying internal investigations revealed misconduct including understating his salary while he was its chief executive, and transferring $5 million of Nissan funds to an account in which he had an interest.Ghosn has enjoyed an outpouring of support from Lebanese since his 2018 arrest, with billboards proclaiming “We are all Carlos Ghosn” erected in solidarity with his case.Locally he is considered a poster boy for success in a country where rampant unemployment pushes young Lebanese abroad to find work and the economy relies heavily on remittances amid a deep financial crisis that has sparked a wave of protests.Ghosn was born in Brazil but is of Lebanese descent and lived in Lebanon as a child. He oversaw a turnaround at French carmaker Renault that won him the nickname “Le Cost Killer” and used similar methods to revive Nissan. 
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Taiwan parliament’s passage of a bill Tuesday banning infiltration by political rival China dealt a new blow to relations that have already sparked military threats and diplomatic tug-of-wars in the past four years.Legislators gave final approval to a bill that allows sentences of five years in prison or a fine equal to $330,600 for lobbying, election influence, fake news dissemination and political contributions originating outside Taiwan.The law — an unusual tool for a democracy — doesn’t name China specifically but the government’s Mainland Affairs Council says it applies to Chinese nationals as well as Taiwanese with connections in China. Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office accused the ruling party Tuesday of using the bill to win elections.  The ruling Democratic Progressive Party camp says the bill will advance Taiwan’s security. Its government has previously accused China of meddling in campaigns for the January 11 legislative and presidential elections.“Every country in the whole world is considering how to handle China’s infiltration or infiltration by autocratic rule, because this isn’t old school, not the same — they use technology, use the economy, use social media, Facebook and YouTube, all sorts of ways to infiltrate,” independent lawmaker Freddy Lim said ahead of the vote.“So how do we use an administrative mechanism or legislative mechanism taken together so the new generation can stop this infiltration?” he asked. 
China-Taiwan ties
 
China and Taiwan have been separately ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when the Nationalists lost to the Communists and rebased their government in Taipei. China claims sovereignty over democratically ruled Taiwan and insists that the two sides eventually unite, by use of force if needed.
 
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, a 63-year-old law scholar up for re-election this month, has angered China since taking office in 2016 by rejecting its condition for dialogue – that each side come to the table as part of China.
 
Tsai enjoys support among Taiwanese who oppose China’s goal of one day ruling their democratically run island. About 80% of Taiwan citizens are in opposition, government surveys found in early 2019.China has flown military planes and passed aircraft carriers near Taiwan during Tsai’s term, the defense ministry in Taipei says. It also has persuaded seven countries to switch their recognition from Taiwan to Beijing, Taiwanese officials believe.
 New chill in relations
 
Taiwanese officials began accusing China last year of using money and mass media to influence the upcoming elections. Chinese authorities had influenced Taiwan’s “grassroots” by enticing tourists, buying advertisements and using the “mafia,” the Mainland Affairs Council told VOA in July.
 
Tsai’s chief election opponent Han Kuo-yu of the Nationalist Party favors restarting talks with Beijing on its condition that both parties belong to a single China.China’s Taiwan Affairs Office accused the Democratic Progressive Party of “major activity in ‘green terror’,” according to the semiofficial People.cn news website.  The party is known informally in Taiwan as the “green” side. The bill “destroys cross-strait exchanges, creates cross-strait hostility, hurts feelings between people on the two sides and severely impacts Taiwanese people’s welfare,” People.cn said.
A “psychological impact” is certain even if details of the bill go unenforced, said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.“It does have implications, it does have impacts and it does have at least as a minimum a psychological impact over businessmen, students and also scholars and also politicians in terms of their communications or their relationship with the mainland,” Sun said.China, however, will probably keep quiet before the election to avoid being seen in Taiwan as an infiltrator, she added.
Opposition in Taiwan Nationalist Party lawmakers protested the vote Tuesday with a sit-in.  They fear the bill will lead to unwarranted surveillance of an estimated 2 million Taiwanese who work or study in China. Some invest there; others have taken jobs because wages in China are higher than the equivalent in Taiwan.“It is a very strange law that is overreaching the power of the executive branch that can indict anyone suspicious of any activities related to China,” Nationalist Party legislator Jason Hsu said in an interview.About 60% of new college graduates want to work outside Taiwan, Hsu estimated, and more than two-thirds are looking at China. “Would they be profiled as infiltrators or spies?” he asked.
 
  
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