Month: January 2023

Over 35 tornadoes were reported by the National Weather Services (NWS) across the southern US on Thursday, putting more than 30 million people at risk.

A “large and extremely dangerous tornado” caused widespread damage to Selma, Alabama, the NWS said.

The storms have caused blackouts for thousands of people in four states.

More than 147,000 residents in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas were without power by Thursday evening, according to Poweroutages.us.

Foul weather is forecast to continue overnight.

All of the reported tornado deaths in Alabama occurred in Autauga County, located between the cities of Montgomery and Selma in the centre of the state.

“We have multiple deaths and are still searching for bodies,” Autauga County Coroner Buster Barber told CNN.

At 12:53CST (18:53GMT), the NWS office in Birmingham warned that a “tornado emergency” had been issued for Autauga County.

The agency posted on Twitter: “THIS IS A LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY!!”

Radar tracking the storm spotted debris that was picked up and blown 20,000ft (6,100m) into the air, according to the NWS.

The governors of Alabama and Georgia have each signed state of emergency declarations.

High winds have also caused major structural damage to buildings in Georgia and Mississippi, video posted online shows.

In Selma, famous for its role in the US Civil Rights Movement, a curfew would is in affect until dawn.

There were no deaths from the storm reported in Selma, but there were several injuries.

The temperatures in Alabama are forecast to drop to below freezing in the coming days, with a chance of snow possible on Friday afternoon.

Meanwhile on the opposite side of the country, California has been pummelled by a series of severe storms that have caused flooding, mudslides and power outages. At least 18 people have died there due to the severe weather.

After a brief respite on Thursday, officials in California say that more storms are forecast to pick up on Friday night and over the weekend.

Mr Harborne has previously donated more than £15m to the Conservatives, the Brexit Party, and Reform UK.

A source close to Mr Johnson said the money would go towards supporting his activities as a former prime minister.

“It’s not about a comeback plan or anything like that,” the source added.

However, the donation to the Office of Boris Johnson Ltd is likely to fuel speculation about Mr Johnson’s future political ambitions.

The Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP was forced to quit as prime minister last year by his own MPs.

The register of MPs’ interests also show that Mr Johnson has personally received some £300,000 for two speeches made in December.

He was paid £50,000 by property developers the Ballymore Group and £253,880 by tech firm ParallelChain Lab for speaking engagements in London and Singapore.

This comes on top of the £1m Mr Johnson had already earned for giving speeches since leaving Downing Street.

Those around Mr Johnson are keen to draw a distinction between the money he directly receives and donations given to his office – including the £1m from Mr Harborne.

“It is not his money and he doesn’t have access to it,” a source close to Mr Johnson said.

Mr Johnson’s financial interests also show that in December and January he and his family received use of accommodation from Lady Carole Bamford worth an estimated £20,000.

Lady Bamford and her husband, JCB boss Anthony, have repeatedly made donations to Mr Johnson including £23,853 to cover the former prime minister’s wedding costs.

Police said at least five civilians had been killed but another Taliban official put the toll as high as 20.

The local offshoot of the Islamic State group, known as Isis-K, claimed it carried out the attack.

It comes after recent blasts targeting foreign interests. Several countries, including Turkey and China, have embassies in the area.

The attack took place about 16:00 local time (11:30 GMT) when the bomber tried, but failed to enter the ministry building itself, the Taliban said.

“I saw the man blowing himself up,” said Jamshed Karimi, a driver who was waiting outside the ministry.

Mr Karimi told AFP that he saw a man holding a bag and with a rifle slung over his shoulder walk past. “He passed by my car and after a few seconds there was a loud blast.”

The building itself did not appear to be badly damaged. At the nearby interior ministry, window panes were also shattered by the explosion.

But the Italian humanitarian agency, Emergency NGO in Kabul said it had received more than 40 wounded people and the casualty numbers were continuing to rise.

Kabul police described the attack as cowardly, adding in a statement that the perpetrators would be held accountable.

Isis-K said in a post on Telegram that the blast killed at least 20 people. It also said “several ‘diplomatic’ employees” were among the dead, in a claim that could not be independently verified.

Earlier reports had suggested a Chinese delegation was due to hold talks with the Afghan officials inside the foreign ministry building at the time of the attack.

But a senior official in the prime minister’s office told AFP that no foreigners were present.

A string of attacks has targeted foreigners or foreign interests in recent months, at a time when the Taliban is trying to attract investment from neighbouring countries.

Afghanistan has been rocked by dozens of blasts since the Taliban seized power last year, mostly claimed by Isis-K.

Correspondents say that the Taliban tend to underplay casualty figures in such incidents.

The first cache was found at a private office in Washington DC that Mr Biden used after his vice-presidency.

The matter is under review by the US Department of Justice.

Former President Donald Trump is facing a criminal investigation for allegedly mishandling classified files.

It was not yet clear on Wednesday when or where the additional tranche of files was found by Biden aides.

The original batch of about 10 documents was discovered in November at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank near the White House, but only came to light this week.

Those papers reportedly include US intelligence memos and briefing materials related to Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom.

The White House has not yet commented on the newly discovered batch. However, the find has been confirmed by the BBC’s US partner CBS and other US media.

During her daily press briefing on Wednesday, Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to answer questions about the first cache of files.

“This is under review by the Department of Justice,” she said. “I’m not going to go beyond what the president shared yesterday.”

Mr Biden said on Tuesday he was “surprised” by the discovery of the records and was “co-operating” with the justice department’s review.

The controversy comes as the Democratic president faces scrutiny from a new Republican majority in the US House of Representatives.

“Now that Democrats no longer have one-party rule in Washington, oversight and accountability are coming,” James Comer, the new chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on Wednesday.

The committee is launching inquiries into the president and his family, including a request for the White House to turn over documents and communications related to the classified files.

The law requires that all White House records, including classified ones, be turned over to the US National Archives after an administration’s time in office.

The White House has said Mr Biden’s lawyers alerted the archives as soon as they recovered the classified materials at the think tank, and the agency retrieved them the next morning.

Last August, FBI agents searched the Florida home of Mr Biden’s predecessor and seized more than 10,000 files that Mr Trump had not turned over to the National Archives.

The justice department had issued a subpoena for the return of the sensitive files before the FBI showed up at Mar-a-Lago.

More than 300 documents with classified markings, including 18 marked top secret, were recovered by federal agents from the golf club in Palm Beach.

The discussions focused on a free trade deal and “regional security issues”.

British Foreign Office Minister Lord Ahmad said they took bilateral ties and trade partnership “to new heights”.

But a group promoting British-Arab relations accused the UK of “turning a blind eye” to “racist positions”.

It follows growing questions over how countries would manage ties with Israel’s new government, which includes senior ministers from the ultranationalist far right.

The US said this week it would deal principally with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it added that there was “no boycott” of his coalition as a whole.

Last month, a cross-party group of British MPs urged the UK government not to favour bilateral relations over “grave concerns” about the then-incoming Israeli government’s “discriminatory and illegal” policies.

The UK Foreign Office declined to comment on any protocols for trade and defence ties given that a member of the Israeli security cabinet has convictions for racist incitement and supporting a terrorist organisation.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, co-leader of the Religious Zionism alliance and newly appointed national security minister overseeing the police, has previously called for the expulsion of “disloyal” Arabs and the shooting of Palestinians who throw stones.

It is understood that there were no plans for Lord Ahmad to speak to Mr Ben-Gvir or other officials from his ultranationalist party.

On Wednesday, Lord Ahmad met Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Economy Minister Nik Barkat, both of whom belong to Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Israeli officials said they thanked him for Britain’s recent support at the United Nations, where it voted against referring the issue of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

In the coming weeks, further visits to Israel are expected from senior figures including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

After taking office, Israel’s new government faced condemnation from human rights groups for stating that the Jewish people had “an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel”, including the occupied West Bank.

It also pledged to promote annexation of the West Bank, with Mr Netanyahu saying he would choose “the timing and weighing Israel’s general national and international interests”.

Such a move would be seen as violating international law and would end any remaining hopes for a two-state solution, the long-standing international formula for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The UK-based Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) criticised the substance of the ministerial visit.

“This cosying up process [is] continuing whilst the Israeli government… is proposing to push forward with major [Israeli] settlement projects including legalisation of outposts,” said the organisation’s director, Chris Doyle.

“Rather than making new deals we should be seeing a British government… saying that pushing forward with these illegal actions would actually carry consequences,” he added.

Meanwhile, Labour peer Lord Dubs, who signed last month’s letter by British MPs, said he hoped the minister would press their views during his visit.

“We have enormous concerns about the potential for great harm being caused by the new [Israeli] government, great harm to the relations with the Middle East and with the Palestinians,” he told the BBC.

“Putting Ben-Gvir in charge of national security is highly alarming because his record is awful, and I’m not sure Netanyahu is going to be strong enough to stand up to him,” he added.

In a statement released after his meetings with Likud ministers, Lord Ahmad said he discussed “shared security threats, including Iran’s destabilising actions in the region and Russia’s unprovoked, premeditated invasion of Ukraine”.

He also said he “encouraged all efforts to avoid provocative unilateral actions in Jerusalem and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which only serve to undermine prospects for a lasting and peaceful solution.”

Those comments appeared to follow Mr Ben-Gvir’s highly controversial visit last week to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site – known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif and the Temple Mount to Jews – over which the UK had already raised “concern”.

Mr Netanyahu has dismissed opposition claims that his coalition threatens democracy and could spark a violent flare-up, saying he has “two hands firmly on the steering wheel”.

Last month, US officials reportedly discussed how to manage contacts with the new government.

Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for several US presidents, told the BBC he believed Joe Biden’s administration would “go to extreme lengths to avoid a confrontation” with Mr Netanyahu’s coalition.

“If they go qualitatively and quantitatively beyond what any Israeli government has gone, and they really provoke, then the administration may have no choice [but to impose consequences]. But we’re nowhere close to that,” said Mr Miller, who is a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Biden’s priority seems to be in working with the Israelis… on Iran, not on the Palestinian issue,” he added.

On Wednesday afternoon, the UK minister travelled to the West Bank where he was due to meet Palestinian officials.

The Foreign Office said he would visit the city of Hebron “to hear about the impact of Israeli settler violence on Palestinian residents”, and would travel to the area of Masafer Yatta, where he “will reiterate the UK’s opposition to evictions and [home] demolitions”.