Politics
Hurricane Melissa’s death toll climbs to 44, storm churns north
- At least 25 confirmed dead in Haiti, 19 in Jamaica.
- Forecaster estimates up to $52 billion in damages.
- Melissa among strongest-ever storms at landfall.
PORT-AU-PRINCE/KINGSTON/HAVANA: Hurricane Melissa’s confirmed death toll climbed to 44 on Thursday, according to official reports, after wreaking destruction across much of the northern Caribbean and picking up speed as it headed toward Bermuda.
Jamaica’s information minister told Reuters at least 19 deaths had been confirmed, but authorities were continuing search and rescue efforts. The storm left hundreds of thousands without power, ripped roofs of buildings and scattered fields with rubble.
Jamaica’s military has called on reserve personnel to report for duty to help with relief and rescue operations.
Melissa made landfall in southwestern Jamaica on Tuesday as a powerful Category 5 hurricane, the Caribbean nation’s strongest-ever storm to directly hit its shores, and the first major hurricane to do so since 1988.
Windspeeds were well above the minimum level for the strongest hurricane classification. Forecasters at AccuWeather said it tied in second place for strongest-ever Atlantic hurricane on record in terms of windspeed when in struck land.
The forecaster estimated $48 billion to $52 billion in damage and economic loss across the western Caribbean.
Authorities in Haiti, which was not directly hit but nevertheless suffered days of torrential rains from the slow-moving storm, reported at least 25 deaths, mostly in the southern town of Petit-Goave when a river burst its banks.
A river also caved in and carried off part of a national highway, local newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported. The road, which had been weakened by last year’s Hurricane Beryl, connected to the nearby city of Jacmel.
Melissa also hit eastern Cuba, where some 735,000 evacuated, but as of Thursday, no deaths were reported there, despite extensive damage to homes and crops.
At 8pm (0000 GMT), Melissa was a Category 1 storm 409 km (254 miles) south-west of the North Atlantic British island territory, where hurricane conditions were expected by nightfall even as Melissa’s eye skirts north-west.
Melissa was packing maximum sustained winds of 105 mph (169 kph).
Residents in Bermuda however remained calm as the storm was expected to give the island a relatively wide berth. Authorities said they would close its causeway Thursday night and shut schools and ferries on Friday “out of an abundance of caution.”
In the Bahamas, which Melissa cut through Wednesday night, authorities lifted storm warnings but did not give the “all clear”. An official said authorities expected to decide by Saturday whether it was safe for the hundreds of people who evacuated off affected islands to return to their homes.
Wading barefoot through mud
The front page of Thursday’s Jamaica Observer newspaper read: “DEVASTATION.”
Densely populated Kingston was spared the worst damage. Its main airport was set to reopen on Thursday, as was the capital’s port. Relief flights and aid had begun to flow into Jamaica’s airports, authorities said.
But across the country, more than 130 roads remained blocked by trees, debris and electric lines, authorities said, forcing the military to clear roadways on foot into isolated areas, with ambulances following close behind.
Satellite imagery showed swaths of trees and homes devastated in the hardest-hit areas of Jamaica, sparse remaining greenery defoliated and most structures destroyed.
In a neighbourhood of the island’s Montego Bay, 77-year-old Alfred Hines waded barefoot through thick mud and debris as he described his narrow escape from the rising floodwaters.
“At one stage, I see the water at my waist and (after) about 10 minutes time, I see it around my neck here and I make my escape,” he told Reuters on Wednesday.
“I just want to forget it and things come back to normal.”
In western parts of the island, people crowded by supermarkets and gas stations to fill up on supplies.
“Montego Bay hasn’t got any petrol. Most of the petrol stations are down,” British tourist Chevelle Fitzgerald told Reuters, adding it took her at least six hours to cross the 174 km (108 miles) to Jamaica’s capital.
“The highway was closed. You had some blockage on the road and trees falling down,” she said.
Over 70% of electrical customers in Jamaica remained without power as of Thursday morning, said Energy Minister Daryl Vaz, with power lines felled across the island’s roadways.
Many schools remained without power or water, officials in the capital Kingston said.
Immediate humanitarian aid
Scientists say hurricanes are intensifying faster with greater frequency as a result of warming ocean waters caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Many Caribbean leaders have called on wealthy, heavy-polluting nations to provide reparations in the form of aid or debt relief.
Despite the U.N. setting up a fund for developing nations to quickly access reliable financing for more extreme weather events in 2023, donations have not met targets.
U.S. forecaster AccuWeather said Melissa was the third most-intense hurricane observed in the Caribbean, as well as its slowest-moving, compounding damages for affected areas.
U.S. search and rescue teams were headed for Jamaica on Thursday to assist in recovery efforts, Jamaican authorities said. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. was prepared to offer “immediate humanitarian aid” to the people of Cuba, a long-time U.S. foe.
Authorities in Cuba – which Melissa struck in the night as a Category 3 storm – said they were “awaiting clarification on how and in what way they are willing to assist.”
At least 241 Cuban communities remained isolated and without communications on Wednesday following the storm’s passage across Santiago province, according to preliminary media reports, affecting as many as 140,000 residents.
Residents of Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city, began returning to repair their homes. Authorities had evacuated 735,000 people to shelters outside the hurricane’s cone and relocated tourists in northern cays to inland hotels.
- Trump has said Khamenei ‘should be very worried.’
- US wants missiles, proxies, rights issues included.
- Fears grow that failed talks could spark wider war.
The White House said on Thursday that diplomacy is President Donald Trump’s first choice for dealing with Iran and he will wait to see whether a deal can be struck at high-stakes talks, but also warned that he has military options at his disposal.
Final preparations were underway for Friday’s meeting in Oman amid heightened tensions as the US builds up forces in the Middle East, which Trump has called a massive “armada,” and regional players seek to avert what many fear could escalate into a wider war.
The talks were set to go ahead even though the two sides have had differences over the agenda, and that has increased doubts about the prospects for a deal. Trump has threatened to carry out strikes on Iran if an agreement cannot be reached.
The US previously said it wanted the discussions to include Iran’s missile arsenal and other issues, while Tehran has insisted on focusing exclusively on its disputed nuclear program. It was unclear whether that disagreement had been resolved.
“The president’s diplomacy is always his first option when it comes to dealing with countries all around the world, whether it’s our allies or our adversaries,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters when asked about the coming talks.
She reiterated Trump’s position that “zero nuclear capability is something he’s been very explicit about” in his demands for Iran.
“He wants to see if a deal can be struck,” Leavitt said. “And while these negotiations are taking place, I would remind the Iranian regime that the president has many options at his disposal, aside from diplomacy, as the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the history of the world.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi departed for Oman on Thursday. His spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Tehran would engage “with authority and to reach a fair, mutually acceptable and dignified understanding on the nuclear issue.”
“We hope the American side will also participate in this process with responsibility, realism and seriousness,” Baghaei added.
Araqchi is expected to meet in Muscat with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser.
On the eve of the talks, Iran’s state-run Press TV said “one of the country’s most advanced long-range ballistic missile(s),” the Khorramshahr 4, has been deployed at one of the Revolutionary Guards’ underground missile sites. The missile has a range of 2,000 km (1,240 miles) and is capable of carrying a 1,500-kg (3,300-pound) warhead, it added.
The US has pressed Iran to accept a much more limited range for its missiles.
Mutual threats
Trump’s blunt warnings and Iran’s vows of counter-strikes have spurred regional governments’ efforts to calm the situation.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said his government was working hard to prevent US-Iran tensions from tipping the Middle East into a new conflict. He has spent years cultivating a close relationship with Trump while expanding Ankara’s diplomatic influence across the region.
Speaking to reporters on a return flight from a visit to Egypt, Erdogan added that talks at the level of the US and Iranian leadership would be helpful after lower-level nuclear negotiations due in Oman on Friday, according to a transcript of his comments shared by his office on Thursday.
Tensions ratcheted up this week amid uncertainty over the location and format for the talks, which will follow Tehran’s bloody crackdown on street protests last month.
Asked on Wednesday whether Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should be worried, Trump told NBC News: “I would say he should be very worried. Yeah, he should be.”
After Trump spoke, US and Iranian officials said the two sides had agreed to shift the talks’ location to Muscat after initially accepting Istanbul.
At a press conference in Doha, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Thursday that “great concern” had been expressed about potential escalation in the conflict with Iran during his meetings with officials in a visit to the Gulf region. He urged Iran to end what he called aggression and help bring stability to the region.
Gulf Arab states fear that Iran will carry out its threat to target US bases on their territory if the United States attacks the Islamic Republic.
China, meanwhile, said it supported Iran’s legitimate right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy and opposed the “threat of force and sanction pressure.”
‘Bad things will happen’
Iran has said the talks must be confined to its long-running nuclear dispute with Western powers.
But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that talks would have to include the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles, its support for armed proxy groups around the Middle East and its treatment of its own people, besides nuclear issues. Iranian sources say the US is demanding Tehran limit the range of Iran’s missiles to 500 km (310 miles).
Tehran’s regional sway has been weakened by Israel’s attacks on its proxies – from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq – and by the ousting of Iran’s close ally, former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Iran says its nuclear activities are meant for peaceful, not military purposes, while the US and Israel have accused it of past efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
The US has sent thousands of troops to the Middle East, as well as an aircraft carrier, other warships, fighter jets, spy planes and air-refuelling tankers.
Trump has warned that “bad things” would probably happen if a deal could not be reached.
DUBAI: Dubai has taken another step towards smart mobility as Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum arrived at the World Governments Summit 2026 in a fully autonomous taxi, formally signalling the launch of the emirate’s driverless transport service.
Officials said 100 driverless taxis will begin operating next month, marking the first phase of the programme aimed at transforming public transport through advanced technology.
The autonomous vehicles are powered by artificial intelligence and advanced sensor systems, enabling them to analyse data within seconds and make independent driving decisions without human intervention.
Speaking on social media, Sheikh Hamdan said the future of mobility in Dubai would be smarter, safer and more efficient, adding that the project would improve quality of life and make transport more inclusive for residents and visitors.
The initiative is being implemented by Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) in partnership with global technology firms as part of the emirate’s broader strategy to adopt sustainable and intelligent transport solutions.
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia will start issuing Hajj visas to intending pilgrims worldwide from February 8, the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah confirmed on Thursday.
According to Saudi Gazette, the early launch is part of an accelerated timeline designed to enhance service readiness and ensure the comfort of pilgrims approximately four months ahead of the rituals, in alignment with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.
“Contracts covering 100% of services at the holy sites for pilgrims arriving from abroad have been finalised, along with all accommodation contracts in Makkah through the Nusk platform,” confirmed the ministry.
750,000 pilgrims have registered so far, with packages booked for 30,000 pilgrims directly from their home countries, it added.
The ministry further said that approximately 485 camps have been allocated for international pilgrims at the holy sites, and 73 Hajj affairs offices have completed their basic contractual arrangements.
In Pakistan, registration completed for 119,000 government pilgrims and 60,000 private pilgrims, confirmed Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Muhammad Yousaf last month.
He had said that Hajj preparations were underway according to the Saudi timeline. The minister had said that arrangements for food, transportation and other services were finalised through a competitive process.
During Hajj 2025, the minister had said refunds amounting to Rs3.5 billion were returned to 75% of Pakistani pilgrims, with individual refunds ranging from Rs12,000 to Rs110,000.
He had added that training sessions with audio-visual facilities were conducted at 147 locations nationwide, and well-trained pilgrims displayed discipline during Hajj.
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