MANILA, Philippines — A new typhoon barreled across an agricultural region in the northeastern Philippines on Monday after thousands were evacuated to safety while still struggling to recover from the devastation caused by three successive storms in the last three weeks. Typhoon Toraji slammed into northeastern Aurora province and was forecast to blow over the mountainous Luzon region, where President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — just the day before — inspected the damage from the last storm and led the distribution of food packs to residents in Cagayan and Ilocos provinces. Marcos skipped this week's Asia-Pacific Cooperation forum in Peru to oversee recovery efforts from back-to-back storms. After making landfall in Aurora on Monday morning with sustained winds of up to 130 kilometers (81 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 180 kph (112 mph), the typhoon was expected to barrel northwestward across Luzon, weaken as it crosses a mountain range and then blow into the South China Sea. Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla on Sunday ordered the forcible evacuation of people in 2,500 villages expected to be lashed by Toraji, locally named Nika, warning that the rain-soaked Luzon mountains, valleys and plains were more susceptible to flash floods and landslides. With the typhoon approaching fast, there was little time to move large numbers of people to safety, he said. "We understand if some would want to stay, but we have to get them out," Remulla told reporters. The military said its disaster-response forces have been deployed near high-risk areas and were standing by for new contingencies. It added that it suspended combat drills in the north due to the weather. "Our commitment remains steadfast in safeguarding and assisting our countrymen specially in times of disaster," Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said. Schools were shut down, inter-island ferry services and domestic flights were suspended in provinces in or near the path of the typhoon, the 14th weather disturbance to batter the Philippine archipelago this year. Forecasters said they were monitoring another brewing storm in the Pacific that could affect the country if it strengthens. The last two typhoons and a tropical storm caused more than 160 deaths, damaged thousands of houses and farmlands and affected more than 9 million people, including hundreds of thousands who fled to emergency shelters, after dumping from one to two months' worth of rain in just 24 hours in some cities and towns. Overwhelmed, the Philippines received help from Southeast Asian countries led by Singapore, along with longtime treaty ally the United States, to transport food, water and other aid to hard-hit northern provinces. The Philippine archipelago is often battered by typhoons and earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the most natural disaster-prone countries in the world. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages and caused ships to run aground and smash into houses in the central Philippines.

BEIJING — Police in central China imposed traffic curbs at the weekend to halt a viral craze in which thousands of university students borrowed shared bikes to ride overnight to the city of Kaifeng in search of breakfast. The "Night Riding Army," as some participants described it, clogged a highway on Friday, pictures posted on social media showed, a surge in turnout for a rolling flash mob that had been gathering riders for months. "Last night's 'Night Riding Army' was spectacular!" one rider posted. "Two lanes were opened, but that simply was not enough: The cycling army accounted for four!" The event was part of a trend of young Chinese traveling on the cheap - "like special forces" - and spending as little as possible at a time of scarce job prospects, when wages are under pressure. The riders traveled on a straight road more than 60 km (37 miles) long beside the Yellow River that links Zhengzhou, the largest city in Henan province, with Kaifeng, an ancient capital famed for its soup dumplings. The trend was set off in June, Chinese media said, after four women college students chronicled their ride on social media to eat dumplings in the morning. "The Night Ride to Kaifeng: Youth is priceless, enjoy it in time," was the hashtag on social media for the ride, which state broadcaster CMG said tens of thousands of students had completed by the weekend. Key to its success was a glut of shared bikes, which can be rented for as little as $1.95 a month. Pictures posted by riders showed thousands of the bikes had overrun downtown Kaifeng by Saturday. In addition to the traffic controls, the largest bike-sharing platforms, Hellobike, DiDi Bike, and Mobile, said their vehicles would lock down if ridden out of a designated zone, while media told the students to grow up. "Youthful freedom does not mean following the trend and indulging oneself," one news outlet admonished in a comment. "Kaifeng is worth arriving slowly and savoring carefully," read the headline of another. Chinese authorities have cracked down on other spontaneous gatherings. Last month, police turned out in force in the commercial hub of Shanghai to deter a repeat of 2023 Halloween celebrations in which some revelers wore costumes poking fun at issues such as the stock market, youth unemployment and tough COVID-19 curbs.

HANOI, VIETNAM — Vietnam said Chinese online retailers Shein and Temu need to register with the government before the end of November or it will block their internet domains and apps from being used in the country. Vietnam's government and local businesses have expressed concern about the impact of Chinese online platforms on local markets due to deep discounting. The trade ministry has also said it is worried about the potential for the sale of counterfeit items. Nguyen Hoang Long, Vietnam's deputy trade minister, told a government meeting at the weekend that the ministry had worked with both Shein and Temu on the licensing matter. "After the ministry's notification, if these platforms do not comply, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will coordinate with relevant agencies to implement technical measures such as blocking applications and domains," Long said in a government statement. Shein and Temu did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Fast-fashion retailer Shein has been selling into Vietnam for at least two years, while Temu, owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings, started allowing users in Vietnam to shop last month. Vietnam allows imported goods of up to $40 to be exempt from a value-added tax. The finance ministry said most items benefiting from this tax break are imported via e-commerce platforms and it is considering terminating the tax break. Both Temu and Shein are also facing increased scrutiny and legal challenges elsewhere. Last month, Indonesia requested Apple and Google block Temu from their app stores to protect small merchants from competing with ultra-cheap items. Vietnam's e-commerce market has grown 18% this year to be worth $22 billion, the third-largest in Southeast Asia behind Indonesia and Thailand, according to a report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company released last week. Other e-commerce platforms that operate in Vietnam include Singapore-based Shoppe, Alibaba-backed Lazada and domestic companies Tiki and Sendo.

MELBOURNE, Australia — An emperor penguin found malnourished far from its Antarctic home on the Australian south coast is being cared for by a wildlife expert, a government department said Monday.  The adult male was found on November 1 on a popular tourist beach in the town of Denmark in temperate southwest Australia — about 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) north of the icy waters off the Antarctic coast, according to a statement from the Western Australia state’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.  The largest penguin species has never been reported in Australia before, University of Western Australia research fellow Belinda Cannell said, though some had reached New Zealand, nearly all of which is farther south than Western Australia.  Cannell said she had no idea why the penguin traveled to Denmark.  Cannell is advising seabird rehabilitator Carol Biddulph, who is caring for the penguin, spraying him with a chilled water mist to help him cope with his alien climate. The penguin is 1 meter (39 inches) tall and initially weighed 23 kilograms (51 pounds).  A healthy male can weigh more than 45 kilograms (100 pounds).  The department said its efforts were focused on rehabilitating the penguin. Asked if the penguin could potentially be returned to Antarctica, the department replied that “options are still being worked through.”

wellington, new zealand — New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon made a “formal and unreserved” apology in Parliament on Tuesday for the widespread abuse, torture and neglect of hundreds of thousands of children and vulnerable adults in care. “It was horrific. It was heartbreaking. It was wrong. And it should never have happened,” Luxon said, as he spoke to lawmakers and a public gallery packed with survivors of the abuse. An estimated 200,000 people in state, foster and faith-based care suffered “unimaginable” abuse over a period of seven decades, a blistering report released in July said at the end of the largest inquiry ever undertaken in New Zealand. They were disproportionately Māori, New Zealand’s Indigenous people. “For many of you it changed the course of your life, and for that, the government must take responsibility,” Luxon said. He said he was apologizing for previous governments too. In foster and church care — as well as in state-run institutions, including hospitals and residential schools — vulnerable people “should have been safe and treated with respect, dignity and compassion," he added. “But instead, you were subjected to horrific abuse and neglect and, in some cases, torture.” The findings of the six-year investigation believed to be the widest-ranging of comparable probes worldwide were a “national disgrace,” the inquiry's report said. New Zealand's investigation followed two decades of such inquiries around the globe as nations struggle to reckon with authorities’ transgressions against children removed from their families and placed in care. Of 650,000 children and vulnerable adults in New Zealand's state, foster, and church care between 1950 and 2019 — in a country that today has a population of 5 million — nearly a third endured physical, sexual, verbal or psychological abuse. Many more were exploited or neglected. “We will never know that true number,” Chris Hipkins, the leader of the opposition, told Parliament. “Many people entering into state and faith-based institutions were undocumented. Records were incomplete, they've gone missing, and in some cases, yes, they were deliberately destroyed.” In response to the findings, New Zealand’s government agreed for the first time that historical treatment of some children in a notorious state-run hospital amounted to torture — a claim successive administrations had rejected. “I am deeply sorry that New Zealand did not do better by you. I am sorry you were not believed when you came forward to report your abuse,” Luxon said. “I am sorry that many abusers were not made to face justice which meant that other people experienced abuse that could have been prevented.” His government was working on 28 of the inquiry's 138 recommendations, Luxon said, although he did not yet have concrete details on financial redress, which the inquiry had exhorted since 2021 and said could run to billions of dollars. Luxon was decried by some survivors and advocates earlier Tuesday for not divulging compensation plans alongside the apology. He told Parliament a single redress system would be established in 2025. He did not, however, suggest a figure for the amount the government expected to pay. “There will be a big bill, but it's nothing compared to the debt we owe those survivors and it must not be the reason for any further delay,” said Hipkins, the opposition leader. Survivors began to arrive at Parliament hours before the apology, having won spots in the public gallery — which only seats about 200 people — by ballot. Some were reluctant to accept the state's words, because they said the scale of the horror was not yet fully understood by lawmakers and public servants. Jeering was so loud during an apology from the country's solicitor-general that her speech was inaudible. Others called out or left the room in tears while senior public servants from relevant health and welfare agencies spoke before Luxon's remarks. Survivors invited to give speeches were required to do so before Luxon's apology — rather than in response to it, said Tu Chapman, one of those asked to speak. “Right now I feel alone and in utter despair at the way in which this government has undertaken the task of acknowledging all survivors,” she told a crowd at Parliament. The abuse "ripped families and communities apart, trapping many into a life of prison, incarceration, leaving many uneducated,” said Keith Wiffin — a survivor of abuse in a notorious state-run boys' home. “It has tarred our international reputation as an upholder of human rights, something this nation likes to dine out on.” The inquiry's recommendations included seeking apologies from state and church leaders, among them Pope Francis. It also endorsed creating offices to prosecute abusers and enact redress, renaming streets and monuments dedicated to abusers, reforming civil and criminal law, rewriting the child welfare system and searching for unmarked graves at psychiatric facilities. Its writers were scathing about how widely the abuse — and the identities of many abusers — were known about for years, with nothing done to stop it. “This has meant you have had to re-live your trauma over and over again,” said Luxon. “Agencies should have done better and must commit to doing so in the future.” He did not concede that public servants or ministers in his government who had denied state abuse was widespread when they served in previous administrations should lose their jobs. Luxon has also rejected suggestions by survivors that policies he has enacted which disproportionately target Māori — such as crackdowns on gangs and the establishment of military-style boot camps for young offenders — undermine his government's regret about the abuse. Māori are over-represented in prisons and gangs. In 2023, 68% of children in state care were Māori, although they are less than 20% of New Zealand's population. “It's not enough to say sorry,” said Fa’afete Taito, a survivor of violent abuse at another state-run home, and a former gang member. “It's what you do to heal the wounds of your actions and make sure it never happens again that really counts.”

Guddiga Doorashooyinka iyo xuduudaha dowlad goboleedka Jubaland ayaa doortay Guddoomiye, Guddoomiye kuxigeen iyo xoghaye. Guddiga doorashada…

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