WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2017
Violent protest
in Paris; Chinese
man shot dead
‘Incitement’ or history? Israeli-Palestinian debate rages
Page 8
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‘Monster’ cyclone batters northeast Australia
AYR: A “monster” cyclone smashed into northeast Australia
yesterday, cutting power, damaging buildings and uprooting trees, with coastal residents battling lashing rain and
howling winds. Great Barrier Reef islands popular with foreign tourists were battered by the category four storm
which slammed into the coast of Queensland state with
destructive wind gusts of up to 270 kph near its broad
core. There were fears its arrival would coincide with early
morning high tides and cause severe flooding, but it
slowed before making landfall between the towns of
Bowen and Airlie Beach in the early afternoon.
By late evening it had been downgraded to category
two and was expected to weaken further. At least one person was seriously injured, but the extent of damage was
not expected to be known until daybreak with conditions
too dangerous for emergency crews to venture outside
despite hundreds of calls for help.
“At first light tomorrow, we’ll be sending people in to do
a rapid assessment of the damage,” said Queensland
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, with flash flooding and still
power ful winds making it hard to do this at night.
“Everyone is going to be in shock tomorrow, just to see the
full impact of this cyclone. I’m bracing myself for it.”
The federal government said it was on standby to help
with the clean-up, with soldiers, helicopters and planes
ready to mobilize. The effects of the storm were felt across
a huge swathe of coast that would span the distance
between London and Berlin, although not all areas were
badly hit. “It felt like we were underneath a freight train for
most of the night, strong bass rumbles as the... wind rattled
past and made the buildings shake,” Cameron Berkman,
who is holidaying on Hayman Island, told the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation. Queensland politician Mark
Ryan said it was also chaotic at Airlie Beach, the mainland
holiday gateway to the Whitsunday islands.
“Trees down in Airlie Beach and reports of windows
shattering and some roofs starting to cave in,” he tweeted.
Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said there
was “certainly structural damage”, and at least one person
had been badly hurt by a collapsing wall. “I think the public
and the community of Queensland need to understand
that we are going to get lots of reports of damage and sadly I think we will also receive more reports of injuries, if not
deaths,” he said. The Bureau of Meteorology, which forecast
up to 50 centimeters of rain, urged people to stay calm but
not be complacent.
Homes without power
Palaszczuk, who called the storm a “monster”, said at
least 45,000 homes were without power with communications down in many areas and hundreds of schools and
childcare centers closed. People sandbagged and boarded
German accuses Turkey
of ‘intolerable’ spying
BERLIN: Germany will not tolerate foreign espionage on
its territory, the interior minister said yesterday, in a
robust response to media reports that Turkish secret
services were spying on supporters of the Gulen movement in Germany. Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Muslim
cleric with a large following in Turkey, is accused by
Ankara of orchestrating a failed military coup last July.
Ankara has purged state institutions, schools and universities and the media of tens of thousands of suspected
supporters of the cleric.
The media reports of Turkish espionage in Germany
have deepened a rift between the NATO allies in the runup to a referendum next month in Turkey that proposes
to significantly expand the powers of President Tayyip
Erdogan. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and two
broadcasters reported that Turkey’s National Intelligence
Agency had given Germany’s foreign intelligence service
a list of names of hundreds of supposed Gulen supporters
living in Germany.
Interior Minster Thomas de Maiziere, speaking in
Passau in southern Germany, said he was not surprised by
the report and added that the lists would be looked at
individually. “We have told Turkey several times that such
(activity) is not acceptable,” he said. “Regardless of what
you think of the Gulen movement, German law applies
here and citizens who live here won’t be spied on by foreign states,” he said. The reports said the list included the
names of more than 300 people and more than 200 associations, schools and other institutions and a German
investigation indicated some of the photos may have
been taken secretly.
Warning
The northern state of Lower Saxony even said it was
warning suspected Gulen movement supporters about
possible reprisals if they travelled to their homeland. “I
think that is a justified and necessary measure to be able
to warn people,” said state interior minister Boris Pistorius.
“The intensity and ruthlessness being (used) on people
living on foreign soil is remarkable.” Concerns about
Turkish spying are not confined to Germany. Swedish public service radio broadcaster SR reported that Turkey’s ruling AK Party was putting pressure, via the Union of
European Turkish Democrats, on Swedish Gulen supporters to supply information about fellow Gulen supporters
in the country.
Germany is already investigating possible spying by
Turkish imams in Germany.. A spokesman for the chief
federal prosecutor’s office said that probe continued.
German politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel,
are angry about Erdogan’s repeated comparisons of their
country to Nazi Germany in response to cancellations of
planned campaign events targeting the Turkish diaspora
in Germany. Germany says the cancellations were
prompted by security concerns.
The speaker of the Bundestag lower house of parliament said in a speech late on Monday that Turkey was
turning into an authoritarian system and that its president was effectively staging a coup against his own country. Norbert Lammert, a member of Merkel’s conservatives, said the referendum was about “transforming an
undoubtedly fragile but democratic system into an
authoritarian system - and this second coup attempt may
well be successful”. — Reuters
AYR: Palm trees blow in the wind in the town of Ayr in far north Queensland as Cyclone Debbie approaches yesterday. Lashing rain and howling winds battered northeast Australia as towns went into lockdown ahead of a ‘monster’ cyclone making landfall, with thousands evacuated amid fears of damage and tidal surges. — AFP
up homes after warnings to prepare for the worst weather
to pummel the state since Cyclone Yasi in 2011, which
ripped houses from their foundations and devastated
crops. Yasi, which struck less populated areas, caused damage estimated at Aus$1.4 billion. Debbie has officially been
declared a catastrophe by the Insurance Council of
Australia, allowing them to prioritize claims from the disaster. Some 3,500 people were evacuated between the towns
of Home Hill and Proserpine, around 100 kilometers south
of Townsville, a tourist hotspot and access point to the
Great Barrier Reef.
Another 2,000 people in Bowen also moved, officials
said, with many camped in cyclone shelters. Up to 25,000
more in low-lying parts of Mackay headed to higher
ground. In the small town of Ayr, the main shopping street
was deserted with buildings boarded up. Farmer Anthony
Quirk’s main concern was for his 150 hectares of mung
beans. “If it comes through here it will be over. It will lay
flat on the ground, we won’t be harvesting, we will have no
crops left,” he said. “It means we start from scratch again. All
the money down the drain. That is not good.” — AFP