By Alexandra Sharp
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at climate disasters around the world, tribal warfare in Papua New Guinea, and a Hong Kong sedition conviction.
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‘A Catastrophe of Epic Proportions’
Properties are damaged as floodwaters rise following heavy rain in Jesenik, the Czech Republic, on Sept. 15.Gabriel Kuchta/Getty Images
Communities around the world are struggling to withstand severe weather. From mass flooding across Europe and Africa to typhoons in Asia, global warming has marred the changing of seasons with harsh weather—and scientists are warning of worse conditions to come.
In Central and Eastern Europe, heavy rainfall from Storm Boris has forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes in what Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala has called a “once-in-a-century flood.” The storm made landfall last Thursday; extensive flooding has cut electricity across the region, destroyed key infrastructure, and killed at least 16 people, with more still unaccounted for.
“This is a catastrophe of epic proportions,” said Emil Dragomir, the mayor of Romania’s Slobozia Conachi village. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk convened an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday to announce a 30-day state of natural disaster across several affected areas. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban canceled all international engagements to focus on the storm. And Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said 2,400 soldiers were ready to offer relief support, including 1,000 troops for Lower Austria province, which has been declared a disaster area.
Authorities expected the rain to ease on Monday, but several European cities are preparing for more flooding as water levels in local rivers continue to rise. The worst “is not behind us yet,” Fiala said.
Mass flooding has also wreaked havoc across West and Central Africa in recent days. Up to 4 million people have been affected so far this year, with more than 1,000 locals killed, nearly 1 million people forced to evacuate, and hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed. Officials report rising waters having swept deadly animals out of zoos and into communities, and flooding reportedly collapsed the walls of a Nigerian jail last week, allowing 281 prisoners to escape.
“The impact of climate change is what we’re witnessing right now,” Olasunkanmi Okunola, a scientist who studies flood risk management and climate adaptation, told the New York Times. The World Health Organization has deployed mobile health units carrying essential drugs and medical supplies to some affected areas, but authorities say more is needed.
Meanwhile, the strongest storm to hit Shanghai in the past 75 years made landfall on Monday. Typhoon Bebinca forced more than 400,000 people to evacuate the financial hub. More than 1,600 flights across the region were canceled, several high-speed train routes were temporarily shut down, and major tourist attractions during China’s three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday were closed.
Authorities issued a red typhoon warning, its most severe alert, on Sunday after winds reached around 94 miles per hour. Similar safety measures were adopted in the neighboring provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu. Bebinca is the second major storm to hit China this month after Typhoon Yagi, which scientists consider one of the world’s most powerful tropical cyclones to hit this year.
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Today’s Most Read
The World This Week
Tuesday, Sept. 17: Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani begins a two-day visit to Canada.
The deadline expires for Hungary to pay a roughly $220 million court-ordered fine for its illegal asylum restrictions.
Wednesday, Sept. 18: Jammu and Kashmir begin holding legislative elections.
Thursday, Sept 19: G-7 culture ministers begin a two-day meeting in Italy.
Friday, Sept. 20: The Czech Republic holds two-day Senate elections.
Saturday, Sept. 21: Sri Lanka holds a presidential election.
U.S. President Joe Biden hosts the leaders of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in Delaware.
Sunday, Sept. 22: Switzerland holds its quarterly referendum.
Brandenburg, Germany, holds state elections.
What We’re Following
Tribal warfare. Violent attacks near Papua New Guinea’s Porgera gold mine have killed between 20 and 50 people, according to a United Nations official on Monday. Tribal warfare erupted last week after illegal settlers squatting near the Barrick Gold-operated mine targeted local landowners. “This situation is dire,” Enga province Gov. Peter Ipatas said, acknowledging how precarious the area already was due to a landslide on May 24 that killed more than 2,000 people there.
National Police Commissioner David Manning declared an emergency on Saturday, and some security forces, including army troops and local police, have already been deployed to the region. Police were authorized to use “lethal force” to restore order.
Porgera halted most of its mining operations until at least Thursday, and a disaster management team—jointly led by Papua New Guinea’s government and the U.N. Development Program—will convene in Port Moresby on Tuesday to coordinate a humanitarian response.
T-shirt sedition. A Hong Kong man on Monday became the first person to be convicted under the semi-autonomous city’s new national security law, which was passed in March. Chu Kai-pong, 27, pleaded guilty to sedition for wearing a T-shirt in June that said, “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” and a yellow mask with “FDNOL” written on it, which stands for “five demands, not one less.” Both are slogans associated with the pro-democracy movement.
Chu told police that he wore the T-shirt to remind people of Hong Kong’s mass pro-democracy protests in 2019. Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020 to address the monthslong demonstrations, and in March 2024, Hong Kong passed a second law known as “Article 23” to plug so-called national security loopholes. Rights activists, however, have accused China of using the legislation to crack down on political dissent in Hong Kong.
Chu has been arrested twice before for wearing T-shirts with the same slogan. He now faces up to seven years in prison—and 10 years if evidence is found of him colluding with foreign forces. The court’s chief magistrate, handpicked by Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, will oversee sentencing on Thursday.
Venezuela assassination plot allegations. The U.S. State Department rejected claims on Sunday that the CIA was involved in an alleged plot to kill Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello accused the U.S. intelligence agency on Saturday of planning the attack and announced the arrests of six foreign nationals—three Americans, two Spaniards, and a Czech citizen—suspected of trying to “destabilize” the country. Local authorities said they have also seized more than 400 U.S. rifles linked to the plot.
These accusations are “categorically false,” the State Department said, adding that Washington “continues to support a democratic solution to the political crisis in Venezuela.” The United States and several Latin American countries have refused to recognize Maduro’s claimed election victory in July. They, along with rights groups and the country’s opposition, believe that opposition candidate Edmundo González won the election. González has since fled to Spain to escape Maduro’s political crackdown.
Odds and Ends
Gotta catch ’em all? Alexander Ivanov, the head of the Belarusian Defense Ministry’s department of ideological work, has accused Pokémon Go of being an instrument of Western intelligence during the height of the mobile game’s popularity nearly a decade ago. The augmented reality game, which relies on GPS tracking to allow players to search for and collect virtual monsters, promises users that “Pokémon can be found in every corner of the earth.” Speaking on a Belarusian talk show last week, Ivanov accused the game of placing most of its Belarus-located Pokémon at military facilities to help gather aviation intelligence. Niantic, the U.S. developer of the app, has previously denied that Pokémon Go is an espionage tool.
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