International
Bashar al-Assad, still in Syria but increasingly surrounded by the insurgent offensive
Syrian President, Bashar al Asad, is increasingly surrounded after the insurgent coalition led by Islamists and with the support of Turkey that launched an offensive against his government last week has advanced this Saturday from different fronts towards Damascus.
The Syrian Presidency confirmed today that Al Asad “continues with his work, and his national and constitutional tasks from the capital, Damascus,” and denied that he had made any lightning trip or left the country, in response to the persistent rumors that he had fled the city after almost five days without news of the president.
Meanwhile, Abu Mohamed al Jolani, Islamist leader of the Levant Liberation Agency – heir to the former Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda and who leads the offensive – sent a message this Saturday to Syrian citizens and told them that Damascus awaits them as the final destination of the contest.
“I ask you not to waste a single bullet except in the chest of your enemies, because Damascus is waiting for you,” he said.
From northern Syria to Damascus
Lieutenant Colonel Hasan Abdelghani, who acts as military spokesman for the insurgent alliance, said in a statement that his units have entered the city of Al Mashrafah, in addition to 13 villages and towns on the outskirts of the city of Homs.
He also indicated that the defensive lines of the Syrian Army are “collapsing,” both in the city and on the periphery.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an NGO headquartered in the United Kingdom but which has a wide network of collaborators on the ground both in official areas and taken by the rebels, indicated that the advance of Islamist factions towards the city of Homs has stalled due to the counterattacks of the Syrian Army and its ally Russia.
The Syrian Army reported that its units operating on the outskirts of Hama (city occupied this week) and Homs are carrying out “intense artillery and missile fire against positions and supply lines of the terrorists, achieving direct impacts between them,” according to the official Syrian news agency, SANA.
“The Syrian-Russian joint war aviation also carried out attacks against terrorist concentrations in northeastern Homs, eliminating dozens of them, and destroying their vehicles and equipment,” he added.
The conquest of Homs would leave Damascus without a land connection with the Mediterranean cities of Tartús, a fief of the Al Asad family, and Latakia, the main base of the Russian troops that support the president.
Three key capitals in southern Syria
While the great offensive is being fought in northern Damascus, the greatest advances of the day came from the south, after the Military Operations Command of the rebels announced that they had control of three capitals in southern Syria.
The capitals are: Deraa, cradle of the popular revolts that began in 2011 within the framework of the so-called “Arab Spring”; Al Sueida, whose population is Drusa and has demonstrated in recent years against the Syrian Government for the living conditions in the country; and, Quneitra, which borders the Golan Heights occupied by Israel.
These cities have been taken by local factions opposed to the government, within the framework of a broad insurgent coalition that, in addition to the Levant Liberation Agency (HTS in Arabic), the groups supported by Turkey, and, in the case of Al Sueida, the Druse population, participate.
The Syrian Army confirmed today that it was retaching its units from Deraa and Al Sueida to reposition themselves in other areas due to the “terrorist attacks” against its troops.
About 50 kilometers south of the Syrian capital
In the north of the province of Deraa, the insurgents indicated that they took control of the city of Al Sanamayn.
That means they would be about 50 kilometers south of the Syrian capital.
In the province of Rif Damascus, which borders Damascus, protests against the Government took place in the city of Jaramana, where they knocked down a statue of Hafez al Asad, former president and father of the current leader, reported the Observatory, which published a video of the moment, a recording that could not be verified independently.
The city of Jaramana is already located on the outskirts of Damascus and is an area inhabited by the Druse population, the NGO said.
However, a Syrian Army source denounced that “some sleeping cells linked to terrorist organizations are publishing videos on their media channels from squares and streets in areas of Rif Damascus and other provinces, stating that terrorist elements have taken control of them, all with the aim of sowing chaos among citizens and terrorizing them,” the official Syrian agency reported.
Iran, Russia and Turkey, steps to start a dialogue
The two main allies of the Syrian government, Iran and Russia, and the greatest support of the armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey, brought positions closer on Saturday to call for a cessation of hostilities in the midst of the offensive of the Islamist rebels and to start a dialogue that ends the war in Syria.
The Doha Forum was the scene of the first contact between the foreign ministers of these three powers that guarantee the ceasefire in Syria and that are part of the so-called Astana Format, a mechanism established in 2017 to find a solution to the war in the Arab country.
Official silence in the US over a possible fall of Al Asad in Syria
Joe Biden’s government considers that there is a growing possibility that the Executive of Syrian President Bashar al Asad will collapse “in days” due to the rapid advance of the insurgent coalition led by Islamists and backed by Turkey, according to five US officials revealed to CNN.
For its part, the CBS network, which cites three US officials, reported this Saturday that “Damaskus is destined to fall,” although, unlike CNN, its sources did not offer a specific deadline.
According to officials quoted by CBS, the Iranian forces defending the Syrian president have evacuated “practically in its entirety” from the country.
Despite these media leaks, the US government has not yet made public a formal assessment of the future of Al Asad, who until just a week ago seemed to be in a stable position after having managed to crush the opposition in fourteen years of civil war.
International
At least ten dead in Iran in a bus accident in the west of the country
At least ten people lost their lives this Saturday when a passenger bus fell down a ravine on a highway in the province of Lorestan, in western Iran.
“The bus that left Andimeshk (Juzestan province) to Poldokhtar (Lorestan), went off the road and fell into a ravine so unfortunately at least 10 people have died,” announced the executive director of the Red Crescent of the province of Lorestan, Mohammad Ghadami, reported the Tasnim agency.
The official did not give details about the number of injured in the accident and their state of health.
Ghadami said that four rescue teams were sent to the scene of the incident immediately after it was reported at 12:39 local time (9:10 GMT) this Saturday.
Mortality on roads, one of the highest in the world
Traffic accidents are very common in Iran, where the road mortality rate is one of the highest in the world, with an average of 20,000 deaths per year.
Many of the accidents are due to the poor condition of the vehicles and the poor compliance with traffic rules by drivers.
Last August, at least 28 Pakistani pilgrims died when the bus in which they were traveling overturned in central Iran, in an accident that occurred due to a brake failure.
International
Helene, the violent hurricane that destroyed the southeastern United States
Hurricane Helene is one of the extreme climatic events that have starred this 2024 after leaving more than 150 direct deaths and billions of dollars in losses in six states of the southeastern United States, according to preliminary figures.
The deadly Helene, which in the continental United States has only been surpassed by Katrina (2005), ended with more than 150 deaths, at least a hundred in North Carolina, in addition to leaving a path of destruction that reached the mountainous area of that state with special virulence.
After impacting Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula, Helene made landfall on September 26 with winds of 225 kilometers per hour in the Big Bend region of Florida, in the northwest of that state, as the most powerful cyclone in that region since records have been available.
From Florida, where it arrived as a major hurricane, and while it weakened progressively to become a tropical depression, Helene continued on land through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
North Carolina was the one that took the worst part, not only for the number of deaths but for the economic losses, which amount to more than 59.6 billion dollars, according to an update from the state government released this month.
The historic rainfall of up to 76 centimeters caused floods and landslides in this state, which caused serious damage, and long-term, both in homes and in public infrastructure and the agricultural industry.
Million-dollar economic losses
Quantifying at this time the economic losses in all the states impacted by Helene, which generated strong winds and tornadoes, is difficult because there are discrepancies in the damage assessment since it produced “a large-scale disaster,” as Mónica Escaleras, professor of the Department of Economics at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), told EFE.
“The widespread nature of the damage, the diversity of affected sectors and ongoing recovery efforts” are factors that prevent an accurate estimate at present, he added.
Escaleras believes, however, that Helene is a reflection of how in recent years “extreme weather events have become increasingly frequent and intense, altering infrastructure and supply chains.”
A preliminary report from the Institute of Agricultural and Food Sciences of the University of Florida (UF/IFAS) estimates that agricultural losses in this southern state due to Helene can range between 40.3 and 162.2 million dollars, after destroying 6.1 million acres (2.4 million hectares) of arable land.
More hurricanes like Helene in the future
A key factor in Helene’s intensity were the high temperatures in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, whose surfaces were at about 29.4 degrees Celsius when the system began to form.
A preliminary study by the World Weather Attribution network of scientists reflected that this temperature is the result of climate change, which made Helene’s effects worse, responsible for example for 10% more rain.
“It is expected that the growing occurrence of these events will generate higher insurance premiums and may lead to the withdrawal of coverage in high-risk areas, which will affect both the real estate and business sectors,” Escaleras said.
This possible future scenario can, on the other hand, affect unprotected communities more, such as the Hispanic one in the United States. The Climate Power organization revealed last week a report that shows that Latino communities have been the great victims of the extreme weather events that occurred in 2024.
The report in question found that many Latino families in western North Carolina live in trailers flooded or destroyed by the storm, and that not mastering English they had obstacles when it came to receiving information about recovery tasks.
Antonieta Cádiz, executive director of the Climate Power In Action campaign, reminded EFE of the case of the workers of a plastics factory in Erwin (Tennessee) who died after a negligence in their evacuation, which was not carried out due to the imminent effects of Helene, employees who were mostly Hispanic.
The above, he said, is a sample of the disproportionate and “deep inequalities” that affect the Hispanic community when it comes to extreme weather events.
International
The piangua, the mangrove mollusk that empowers women in the Colombian Pacific
When the low tide in the Colombian Pacific, a group of women put on rubber boots, take a raft and enter a mangrove forest to collect the piangua, a mollusk that, in addition to providing food to their families, empowers them and gives them a voice in their territory.
They are in the community of La Plata, in the heart of the Uramba-Bahía Málaga National Natural Park, and they have just six hours to work before the sea rises again. Stuck in the mud they sing to liven up their days and regardless of the sun or rain they fill their containers with this mollusk similar to the mussel with which they prepare delicious recipes.
“It is a very important ancestral activity because it allows us to have economic sustainability as women, to be a symbol of resistance to cultural traditions and to take care of our gastronomic traditions,” Matilde Mosquera Murillo, legal representative of the Raíces Piangüeras Association.
Mosquera, 27 years old and a sociologist by profession, took on the challenge of leading that organization created in 2019 and has managed to bring together more than 70 women who are dedicated to this profession in the Community Council of La Plata-Bahía Málaga, where they play a fundamental role in conservation.
“We monitor mangroves, because we know the importance they have in the ecosystem, they are the cradle of thousands of species. We also make every process sustainable so that all the initiatives we lead allow us to take care of nature,” Mosquera insists.
International recognition
Their work already has international recognition and since 2023 they have held the ‘Meeting of Women of the Colombian Pacific’. In the first edition they asked the National Government to advocate before UNESCO to declare the piangüeo as Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
“We believe in the need for a political strengthening of women, that our voice is heard and that we are part of the decisions that are made in the country so that we have votes in public policies and that they recognize our ancestral work in the world,” she adds.
The environmental richness of the La Plata archipelago is enormous and its 32 islands and islets are the habitat of 1,396 species of birds, reptiles, mammals and felines, as well as 60 classes of frogs, 25 of lizards and 52 of snakes.
There are also eight species of sharks, 22 rays and 348 of fish that have six types of mangroves as their home: red mangrove, born mangrove, ped mangrove, button or button mangrove, bobo mangle and feeder mangle.
Unity and awareness
According to Santiago Valencia, leader of the Community Council of La Plata-Bahía Málaga, women use a ‘piangüímetro’, a tool that works as a rule that allows them to measure the mollusk when it has already passed its reproductive stage.
“Their organization is as strong as the roots of the mangrove and they even come together to reforest when they see it necessary. This unity has made them look for other alternatives because they see that everything is possible and today they see themselves as what they are: powerful women, businesswomen and nature lovers,” says Valencia.
Currently, women piangüeras work in the search for resources that allow them to access studies to improve and strengthen their processes.
Some of them have already created other ventures for the manufacture of ointments based on medicinal plants from the jungle, ancestral drinks and even think about packing the piangua in a vacuum to export it to other countries.
“When we go to the mangrove we sing as a symbol of power, to express our feelings, it also serves to harmonize our activity and understand that we are important; we will leave this inheritance to our children and it will continue for generations,” concludes Mosquera.
At least ten dead in Iran in a bus accident in the west of the country
Helene, the violent hurricane that destroyed the southeastern United States
The piangua, the mangrove mollusk that empowers women in the Colombian Pacific
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