World News

A 70-year-old man has been pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building in the Turkish city of Izmir, after being buried for 33 hours following a powerful earthquake which struck Turkey's Aegean coast and Greek islands. Search and rescue works continue in the rubble of a collapsed building in Izmir. Photo: AFP Turkish authorities reported more deaths today, bringing the toll to 62, all in Izmir, while two teenagers died on the Greek island of Samos. The man, identified as Ahmet Citim, was rescued from one of 20 residential buildings destroyed in Izmir's Bayrakli district, a former shantytown where older buildings vulnerable to earthquakes were being replaced by newer construction projects. Television images showed that the collapsed buildings were older ones. Search and rescue work continues at a collapsed building in Izmir. Photo: AFP Rescue and emergency teams have been working through the wrecked buildings for two days and President Tayyip Erdogan said his government was "determined to heal the wounds of our brothers and sisters in Izmir before the cold and rains begin". More than 3000 tents and 13,000 beds have been supplied to provide temporary shelter, according to Turkey's disasters and emergency agency AFAD, which said 940 people had been injured in the earthquake on Saturday (NZ time). A man pets his dog in one of the tents being used as temporary shelter. Photo: AFP More than 700 victims have so far been discharged from hospitals, while eight remain in intensive care, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said. Turkey is crossed by fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. In 1999, two powerful quakes killed 18,000 people in northwestern Turkey. The latest earthquake, which the Istanbul-based Kandilli Institute said had a magnitude of 6.9, was centred in the Aegean Sea, northeast of Samos. Photo: AFP 'I will play the violin for you' Sixteen-year-old Inci Okan was trapped under the rubble of the same eight-storey building as the elderly man before being rescued 17 hours after the strong quake, along with her dog Fistik (Pistachio). Inci Okan's grandmother watches as the teenager is rescued. Photo: AFP Koca and a National Medical Rescue Team (UMKE) member Edanur Dogan visited Okan at hospital. Emergency worker Dogan had held the girl's hand while rescue teams removed the debris above her. "I am very happy. Thankfully my father was not at home. My father couldn't fit there. He would hurt his head. I am tiny. I am short so I squeezed in and that's how I was rescued. We stayed home with my dog. Both of us are well," Okan said from her hospital bed. Okan promised to play the violin for Dogan after being discharged from hospital. "I will play the violin for you, I promise." - Reuters

At least 10 people died and three others were missing after Typhoon Goni, the world's strongest typhoon this year, barrelled through the south of the Philippines' main island of Luzon, . Residents stand next to cars damaged when a gymnasium collapsed at the height of Typhoon Goni after it hit Tabaco, Albay province, south of Manila. Photo: AFP More than 300 houses were buried under volcanic rocks and mud flows from Mayon Volcano in severely hit Albay province in the Bicol region, a lawmaker said. Storm surges hit some coastal towns, while rivers overflowed and dikes were destroyed, submerging several villages in Bicol. The dead and missing were all in Bicol, including nine in Albay, the Office of Civil Defence said. Earlier in the day, Albay Governor Al Francis Bichara reported that a five-year-old had been washed away in flash floods in his province. The disaster management agency was still validating the reports. In Guinobatan municipality, Representative Zaldy Co of the Ako Bicol party list said more than 300 houses were buried under volcanic debris. "Several people believed to be buried alive," the party list said in a statement accompanying photos of the destruction. Residents stand on the roof of their house after a river overflowed in heavy rains brought by Typhoon Goni. Photo: AFP / Alejandro Miraflor Goni weakened further after making landfall for a third time in Quezon province and a fourth time in Batangas before heading towards the South China Sea. The world's strongest storm this year, which had reached a super typhoon category and brought violent winds and intense rainfall, further weakened with 125km/h sustained winds and gusts of up to 170km/h, the weather bureau said. In Quezon province, Governor Danilo Suarez said power supplies were cut in 10 towns as Goni toppled trees. President Rodrigo Duterte was monitoring the government's disaster response from his southern hometown of Davao city, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said. Over 390,000 people had fled to safer ground, including more than 345,000 to evacuation centres, raising concerns about compliance with coronavirus-related health protocols. Dozens of flights were cancelled as Manila's main gateway, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, was ordered shut for one day. The agriculture ministry expected minimal crop damage saying 1.07 million tonnes of unmilled rice and 45,703 tonnes of corn had been saved from the typhoon's onslaught as farmers were advised to take action ahead of its arrival. Goni is one of the strongest storms to hit the Philippines since 2013's Haiyan, which killed more than 6,300 people. The weather bureau said another cyclone, tropical storm Atsani, had entered the country and could gain strength. - Reuters

At least two people have been stabbed to death in the Canadian city of Quebec by a man armed with a sword and dressed in medieval clothing, police say. Photo: AFP Five others were wounded in the Halloween night attack. A man in his mid-20s was arrested shortly before 1am local time on Sunday. Police said an initial probe found the suspect was not affiliated with any extremist groups. The attack took place in the historic Old Quebec neighbourhood. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter: "My heart breaks for the loved ones of the two killed in last night's horrific attack in Quebec City. "I'm also wishing a full recovery to the injured. We're keeping you in our thoughts and will be there for all of you." He also thanked first responders for their critical work. The identity of the suspect has not been made public. At a news conference on Sunday, Quebec City Police Chief Robert Pigeon said it was believed that the attack was premeditated, adding that the suspect, from the Montreal suburbs, came to Quebec City with "the intention of doing the most damage possible". "Dressed in medieval costume and armed with a Japanese sword, everything leads us to believe he chose his victims at random," Mr Pigeon added. The suspect had spoken of conducting an attack "in a medical context" five years ago but was not known to police and did not have a criminal record, police said. ​First reports of the incident near the French-speaking city's national assembly came through shortly before 22:30 local time on Saturday. The suspect was arrested near the Espace 400e business park. Quebec's Le Soleil newspaper reported that he was lying on the ground, barefoot and hypothermic, when he was arrested. He surrendered to police without any resistance, it said. Following his arrest, the suspect was taken to hospital for "evaluation". The five wounded are also being treated in hospital, with varying levels of injury, according to police. Police have not released details of the victims' identities or ages. At a news conference on Sunday, Quebec City police spokesman Étienne Doyon offered "sincerest condolences to the loved ones and families of the people who died". - BBC At a news conference on Sunday, Quebec City police spokesman Étienne Doyon offered "sincerest condolences to the loved ones and families of the people who died".

Typhoon Goni is barrelling across the Philippines, bringing with it "catastrophic" 225km/h winds and torrential rainfall. A rescue worker escorts a child to a waiting vehicle during an evacuation of informal settlers living along coastal areas in Manila Photo: AFP At least four people are reported to have died. Homes have been damaged and roads inundated with flash flooding. Goni made landfall as a super typhoon at Catanduanes island on Sunday at 04:50 local time. It has since weakened as it crosses the main island of Luzon, where the capital Manila is located. But forecasters, in a severe weather bulletin, still warned of "catastrophic violent winds and intense to torrential rainfall" as well as flash-flooding, landslides and "sediment-laden streamflows". Goni - known as Rolly in the Philippines - is the most powerful storm to hit the country since Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 6000 people in 2013. What do we know of the damage so far? The BBC's Howard Johnson in Manila says there is concern for the small town of Virac on Catanduanes island, home to some 70,000, where contact has been lost since Goni made landfall. Images from social media show tin roofs ripped from homes along Goni's path, and local governors have spoken of power supply outages, roofs torn off evacuation centres, damage to infrastructure, flash flooding and blocked roads. Four people, including a five-year-old child in Albay province, are reported to have died; two drowned, another was swept away by volcanic mud and another by a falling tree. "The winds are fierce. We can hear the trees being pummelled. It's very strong," Francia Mae Borras, 21, told AFP from her home in Albay's coastal city of Legazpi. How did the Philippines prepare? The Philippines is used to powerful storms - it is hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons a year and lost 22 people when Typhoon Molave barrelled through the same region last week. But this year preparations have been complicated by the Covid-19 virus, which has already caused 380,739 infections and led to 7221 deaths in the Philippines. Some 347,000 people were evacuated, civil defence chief Ricardo Jalad said - revising down the one million figure he mentioned ahead of the storm. Coronavirus patients being treated in isolation tents had been evacuated, officials said. Ports and airports were shut, and schools, gyms and government-run evacuation centres were being used for covid-secure emergency shelters. "Evacuating people is more difficult at this time because of Covid-19," Bicol regional civil defence spokesman Alexis Naz told AFP on Saturday. Relief goods, heavy machinery and personal protective equipment were being moved into areas of need, but a local mayor in Quezon province said the pandemic had depleted their funds for disaster emergencies. - BBC

NXIVM head Keith Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison this week for turning some female followers into sex slaves. Ex-follower and whistleblower Sarah Edmondson spoke to RNZ and said "the world is now a better place" with Raniere behind bars. Keith Raniere. Photo: Keith Raniere Conversations / Youtube Raniere was last year convicted of racketeering, sex trafficking, child pornography possession and other crimes. The punishment was handed down on Tuesday by a District Judge in Brooklyn after a sentence hearing where former members of the cult spoke out against him. As leader of the group, Raniere recruited women as slaves and forced them to have sex with him - and even branded some of his inner circle with his own initials. Edmondson, a former follower, has has since written a book about her experiences - Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult That Bound My Life. "It's closure after over three years of incredibly painful, traumatic, challenging, arduous time spent trying to shine light on this guy and his atrocities and it feels like all of that work has paid off," she said. Edmondson publicly denounced NXIVM in 2017, revealing that she had been invited to join "DOS" - or Dominus Obsequious Sororium - a secret smaller group operated by Raniere and Smallville actor Allison Mack. DOS was operated out of Mack's home in Albany, New York, and Edmondson said it was here that she was branded with Raniere's and Mack's initials. Actress Allison Mack, who was involved with the NXIVM cult, arrives at court with her lawyer. Photo: Johannes Eisele/ AFP Describing Raniere as "sociopathic, narcissitic and sex-addicted", Edmondson believes the outcome of NXIVM was what the leader had in store all along. "Knowing what we know now, I believe that when he started this company, I say that loosely, in 1998 this was always his goal. "His intentions were always bad, he was just really smart at creating a really good personal development program that was an excellent shroud for his desires." She said the main reason Raniere was eventually caught was because he got "greedy and sloppy" - and others had tried and failed to bring him down in the past. "I think that if he hadn't started DOS and putting his initials on women's bodies he'd still be operating and his abuses would be harder to pinpoint," she said. "Many people before me have gone to the FBI and to the local law enforcements to say there's something shady going on here, and unfortunately the people who came forward then had law enforcement go after them." Former members of NXIVM speak outside the court after Keith Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison. Photo: AFP After Edmondson made her initial allegations, hundreds of loyal members and thousands who were loosely affliated with NXIVM left the group. "I ran the Vancouver centre and what we had there was a very special community of likeminded people wanting to work on their goals and be the best versions of themselves and supporting each other in their goals and dreams. "And when we found out, it was a huge shock. In fact, we're still finding out the atrocities he committed because he kept it so hidden and so secret." But with Raniere now facing a lifetime in prison, Edmondson said he might now be able to use some of the techniques he taught group members. "One of the tools he taught us was to look at any particular area of your life that you were unhappy with and you could always ask yourself, how did I cause this, how did I participate, or his words were 'how did I author this'", she said. "So the irony is, he's got 120 years to sit there and figure out how he authored himself being in prison."

A record 90 million Americans have voted early in the US presidential election, data showed, as President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden campaigned across the country to try to sway the few remaining undecided voters. Barack Obama greets Joe Biden at a rally in Flint, Michigan. Photo: AFP The high number of early voters, about 65 percent of the total turnout in 2016, reflects intense interest in the contest, with three days of campaigning left. Concerns about exposure to the coronavirus at busy Election Day voting places on Wednesday have also pushed up the numbers of people voting by mail or at early in-person polling sites. The Republican president is spending the closing days of his re-election campaign criticising public officials and medical professionals who are trying to combat the coronavirus pandemic even as it surges back across the United States. The US has set a new record for coronavirus cases confirmed in a single 24-hour period. It has reported just over 100,000 new infections to surpass the record total of 91,000 posted a day earlier. Opinion polls show Trump trailing former vice president Biden nationally, but with a closer contest in the most competitive states that will decide the election. Voters say the coronavirus is their top concern. Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in ballots are susceptible to fraud and has more recently argued that only the results available on election night should count. In a flurry of legal motions, his campaign has sought to restrict absentee balloting. "I don't care how hard Donald Trump tries. There's nothing - let me say that again - there's nothing that he can do to stop the people of this nation from voting in overwhelming numbers and taking back this democracy," Biden said at a rally in Flint, Michigan, where he was joined by former president Barack Obama for their first 2020 campaign event together. [h[ Obama praises Biden's character Obama compared Biden's character favourably with Trump's. "It used to be that being a man meant taking care of other people... not looking for credit but trying to live right," he said. "When you elect Joe, that's what you'll see reflected from the White House." Photo: AFP Taking the stage, Biden tore into his opponent, saying it was time for him to "pack his bags and go home". "We're done with the chaos, the tweets, the anger, the failure, the refusal to take any responsibility," he added. Trump held four rallies on Saturday in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where the campaigns are seeking to win over undecided voters in areas like the suburbs of Philadelphia and the "Rust Belt" west of the state. "If we win Pennsylvania, it's over," Trump told a large rally in Reading before moving to another big gathering in Butler. Officials in several states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, say it could take several days to count all of the mail ballots, possibly leading to days of uncertainty if the outcome hinges on those states. A federal judge in Texas has scheduled an emergency hearing tomorrow on whether Houston officials unlawfully allowed drive-through voting and should toss more than 100,000 votes in Democratic-leaning Harris County. At a small, in-person rally in Newtown, Pennsylvania, Trump mocked his opponent for his criticism of the administration's record of fighting Covid-19, which has killed more people in the United States than in any other country. "I watched Joe Biden speak yesterday. All he talks about is Covid, Covid. He's got nothing else to say. Covid, Covid," Trump told the crowd, some of whom did not wear masks. Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Pennsylvania. Photo: AFP He said the United States was "just weeks away" from mass distribution of a safe vaccine against Covid-19, which is pushing hospitals to capacity and killing up to 1000 people in the US each day. Trump gave no details to back up his remarks about an imminent vaccine. Jobs and fracking In his closing arguments, Biden has accused Trump of being a bully, criticised his lack of a strategy to control the pandemic, which has killed nearly 229,000 Americans; his efforts to repeal the Obamacare healthcare law; and his disregard for science on climate change. He has offered his own made-in-America economic platform, a contrast with Trump's "America First" approach, saying he will get the wealthy to pay their fair share and make sure earnings are distributed more equitably. In an effort to highlight what he says is Biden's plan to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to extract fossil fuels, Trump signed an executive order yesterday that calls on the US Department of Energy to commission a study about the potential harm caused by banning or restricting the practice. The order also reinforces a prior law, directing federal agencies to produce reports about decisions that are detrimental to the fracking industry. Fracking for natural gas is a major source of jobs in western Pennsylvania. Biden denies intending to ban fracking if he wins the White House. Study points finger at Trump's rallies Stanford University economists released an estimate that Trump rallies held from June to September led to more than 30,000 additional Covid-19 infections and possibly as many as 700 deaths. The study was based on a statistical model and not actual investigations of coronavirus cases. The paper, which did not cite disease experts among its authors, has not been peer-reviewed. Public health officials have repeatedly warned that Trump campaign events could hasten the spread of the virus, particularly those held in places where infection rates were already on the rise. Determining the actual impact of those rallies on infection rates has been difficult due to the lack of robust contact tracing in many US states. Donald Trump gives out caps at a rally in Pennsylvania. Photo: AFP Amesh Adalja, an infectious diseases expert at the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security, described the report as "suggestive." "I would just say it's suggestive but hard to completely isolate the specific impact of one event without robust contact trace data from the cases," Adalja said. Biden's campaign, which has sharply limited crowd sizes at events or restricted supporters to their cars, quickly seized on the Stanford findings. "Trump doesn't even care about the very lives of his strongest supporters," Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. At one Biden rally in Detroit today, social distancing broke down as supporters crowded toward the stage to hear Obama speak. - Reuters / BBC

Prime minister Boris Johnson has ordered England back into a national lockdown as the United Kingdom passed the milestone of one million Covid-19 cases and scientists warned the virus was spreading faster than their worst predictions. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson addresses a press conference in London to announce a new lockdown. Photo: AFP The United Kingdom, which has the biggest official death toll in Europe from Covid-19, is grappling with more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases a day and scientists have warned the "worst case" scenario of 80,000 dead could be exceeded. Over the past seven days, the UK has averaged almost 23,000 new cases a day, and 237 deaths. Johnson told a media briefing at 10 Downing Street that "no responsible prime minister can ignore the message of those figures". He said: "No one wants to be imposing these kind of measures anywhere." He had hoped that with "strong local action" the government could get the rate of infection down in targeted areas. But the virus was spreading "even faster than the reasonable worst case scenario" of scientific advisers. The prime minister said the overrunning of the NHS would be a "moral disaster". Doctors and nurses would be "forced to choose which patients to treat... who would live and who would die," he said. The lockdown will start on Thursday and end on 2 December, Johnson said. Takeaway outlets will be allowed to stay open but pubs, bars and restaurants will have to close, the prime minister said. People will be allowed to leave home for: education, work, if they cannot work from home, exercise and recreation outdoors, medical reasons, to shop for food and essentials and to care for others. Unlike the first national lockdown, schools, colleges and universities will be allowed to stay open. "We cannot let this virus damage our children's futures even more than it has already," Johnson said. He said the government will extend its emergency coronavirus wage subsidy scheme. Parliament will debate and vote on the measures on Wednesday. Christmas will be "perhaps very different" this year, Johnson said. "But it's my sincere hope and belief that by taking tough action now, we can allow families across the country to be together," he added. The prime minister also promised a massive expansion in the deployment of rapid turnaround coronavirus tests. Cases rising rapidly England's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said there was a "significant rate of increase" in virus cases across the entire country. He said the prevalence of Covid has been going up "extremely rapidly" over the last few weeks" - having been "very flat" due to social distancing measures in the spring and summer. Prof Whitty said England has "very little headroom" when it comes to the spread of the virus. The virus was not being constrained to one age group, and was spreading into older age groups - people over the age of 60. He added there was a rise in the number of hospital admissions in England in "virtually every age group in older adults". "If we do nothing, the inevitable result will be that these numbers will go up and they will eventually exceed the peak we saw in spring of this year." England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty Photo: AFP / UK government Chief science adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told the media briefing that experts created scenarios on the assumption the R rate stays at one over the course of the winter. "What is clear from all the scenarios is the potential for this to be twice as bad or more compared to the first wave." Before the news conference, the government said total confirmed Covid-19 cases had risen 21,915 in the past day to 1,011,660. Johnson held a cabinet meeting yesterday after government scientists warned the outbreak was going in the wrong direction and that action was needed to halt the spread of the virus if families were to have any hope of gathering at Christmas. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own pandemic policies. Johnson was criticised by political opponents for moving too slowly into the first national lockdown, which stretched from 23 March to 4 July. He fell ill with Covid in late March and was hospitalised in early April. A warning sign for pedestrians in Bradford. Covid cases in England are rising at a faster pace than experts' worst predictions. Photo: AFP Europe locked down The measures will bring England into alignment with France and Germany by imposing nationwide restrictions almost as severe as the ones that drove the global economy earlier this year into its deepest recession in generations. A national lockdown would represent a dramatic change of policy for the prime minister, who has been saying for months that it will not be necessary. Two weeks ago he defended his strategy of a patchwork of local restrictions by saying he wanted to avoid the "misery of a national lockdown". Currently, areas of England are subject to one of three tiers of coronavirus restrictions. The prime minister was hugely critical of labour for suggesting one. Several Conservative backbenchers are opposed to national measures. Calum Semple, professor of outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool and member of the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said the second wave of Covid-19 was a reality. "And, unlike the first wave, where we had a national lockdown which protected huge swathes of society, this outbreak is now running riot across all age groups," he told the BBC. A new lockdown would heap more pressure on finance minister Rishi Sunak and the Bank of England to increase their already huge support for the UK economy, the world's sixth-biggest. The economy slumped a record 20 percent in the spring and has been struggling to maintain its recovery. So far the United Kingdom has reported 46,555 Covid-19 deaths - defined as those dying within 28 days of a positive test. A broader measure of those with Covid-19 on their death certificates puts the toll at 58,925. - Reuters / BBC