Philippines declares state of emergency after typhoon left at least 241 people dead, missing
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Manila (AP): Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr declared a state of emergency on Thursday after Typhoon Kalmaegi left at least 241 people dead and missing in central provinces in the deadliest natural disaster to hit the country this year.
Kalmaegi left at least 114 people dead, mostly from drowning in flash floods, and 127 missing, many in the hard-hit central province of Cebu, before the tropical cyclone blew out of the archipelago on Wednesday into the South China Sea.
The typhoon's onslaught, which affected nearly 2 million people, displaced more than 560,000 villagers, including nearly 450,000 who were evacuated to emergency shelters.
Marcos's emergency declaration, made during a meeting with disaster-response officials to assess the typhoon's aftermath, would allow the government to disburse emergency funds faster and prevent food hoarding and overpricing.
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US VP JD Vance says Lebanon not part of ceasefire, calls it ‘misunderstanding’
Budapest/Washington: US Vice President J D Vance has said that Lebanon was never included in the ceasefire understanding with Iran, describing the confusion as a “legitimate misunderstanding”.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Hungary, Vance said, “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
He stressed that the United States had not included Lebanon in the scope of the ceasefire at any stage.
His remarks come amid continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where more than 200 people were reported killed, even as ceasefire talks between Iran and the US move forward.
Vance said Israel had “offered … to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful”.
He warned that if Iran allows the situation in Lebanon to affect the negotiations, it could derail the talks.
“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,” he said.
