Tag Archives: planes

Wildfires blaze on in drought-hit Turkey as criticism grows

By Mehmet Emin Caliskan and Daren Butler

MARMARIS, Turkey (Reuters) – Firefighters using planes and helicopters, and locals with buckets of water, battled wildfires raging for a sixth day near southern resorts in drought-hit Turkey and the government faced fresh criticism of its handling of the disaster.

Seven fires were still burning on Monday, fanned by temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104°F), strong winds and low humidity, Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said.

Huge flames engulfed trees on a hillside near the coastal resort of Marmaris, images filmed by Reuters showed, while drone footage revealed a grey landscape nearby where fires had left smoldering buildings and blackened tree trunks.

While 16 planes and 51 helicopters tackled the blazes across a swathe of southwest Turkey, villagers carrying water containers up a hill to fight a fire near Marmaris said the government was not doing enough to help them.

“We are here as the entire village, from the locals to others. We didn’t run or anything, so the government must see this and also not run away. It must send some of its planes here,” a woman called Gulhan told Reuters.

The heatwave exacerbating the fires comes after months of exceptionally dry weather in Turkey’s southwest, according to maps issued by meteorological authorities.

Data from the European Forest Fire Information Service showed there have been three times as many fires as usual this year, while the 136,000 hectares burnt were almost three times the area burnt on average in an entire year.

Engin Ozkoc, a senior figure in the main opposition CHP, called on Pakdemirli to resign for failing to adequately prepare.

“OUR TURKEY IS STRONG”

“You don’t deserve that ministry. You didn’t foresee this and buy firefighting planes,” he said, criticizing the amount of aerial resources available.

The European Union said it had helped mobilize three fire-fighting planes on Sunday. One from Croatia and two from Spain joined teams from Russia, Iran, Ukraine and Azerbaijan.

President Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, rejected criticism of the government’s handling of the fires and condemned a social media campaign calling for foreign help.

“Our Turkey is strong. Our state is standing tall,” Altun said on Twitter, describing most information about the fires on social media as “fake news”. “All our losses will be compensated for.”

Eight people have been killed in the wildfires, but there were no reports of further casualties on Monday.

Since Wednesday, thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes and some tourists have left their hotels, although Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy said holidaymakers had returned within hours.

The wildfires are another blow to Turkey’s tourism industry following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bulent Bulbuloglu, head of the South Aegean Hoteliers Association, said 10% of reservations had been cancelled in Bodrum and Marmaris. Others had cut their visits short.

(Reporting by Mehmet Emin Caliskan, Mert Ozkan and Ceyda Caglayan; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans and Andrew Heavens)

Fully vaccinated people can shed masks in most places and travel -U.S. CDC

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday advised that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks outdoors and can avoid wearing them indoors in most places, updated guidance the agency said will allow life to begin to return to normal.

The CDC also said fully vaccinated people will not need to physically distance in most places. The agency also hopes the guidance will prod more Americans to get vaccinated.

President Joe Biden emerged at the White House for remarks without a mask. “I think it’s a great milestone, a great day,” he said.

“If you’re fully vaccinated and can take your mask off, you’ve earned the right to do something that Americans are known for all around the world: greeting others with a smile,” he said, flashing a brief smile himself.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the new guidance just two weeks after its most recent update, was based on a sharp reduction in cases, expansion of vaccines to younger people and vaccine efficacy against coronavirus variants.

“We followed the science here,” Walensky said adding, “a coalescence of more science that has emerged just in the last week.”

Biden earlier shed his mask during a meeting with lawmakers, Republican Senator Shelly Moore Capito told reporters. “We heard all about it. The president took his off too,” she said.

Some journalists at the White House also shed their masks.

The CDC had faced criticism, even from public health officials, that it has been too cautious in its guidance. Critics have said people need to see more benefit of getting vaccinated in terms of returning to normal activities.

“In the past couple of weeks, we have seen additional data to show these vaccines work in the real world, they stand up to the variants, and vaccinated people are less likely to transmit the virus,” the agency said in a news release.

It added, “We needed to take the time to review the full body of evidence to get this right, and that’s how we came to this decision.”

‘NEED A REWARD’

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease doctor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said he supports the new guidance that many had been calling for.

“People in state health departments and infectious disease doctors have been saying this for some time because they’re so impressed with the effectiveness of the vaccine, and also, they have the feeling that people who are vaccinated need a reward,” he said.

Republican Senator Susan Collins had been critical of the CDC’s delay in revising the guidance.

“Today’s announcement on masks, while overdue, is certainly a step in the right direction,” she said in a statement. “If people find they cannot do anything differently after a vaccine, they will not see the benefit in getting vaccinated.”

The revised guidance is a major step toward returning to pre-pandemic life, but the agency still recommends vaccinated people wear masks on planes and trains, and at airports, transit hubs, mass transit and in places like hospitals and doctor’s offices.

The U.S. government last month extended mask requirements across transportation networks through Sept. 13. Walensky said the CDC plans to soon issued updated guidance for transit.

The new guidance says vaccinated Americans can resume all travel, do not need to quarantine after international trips and do not need to be tested for COVID-19 if exposed to someone who is COVID-19 positive but asymptomatic.

However, Americans still face some international travel restrictions, including non-essential trips to Canada.

Masks became a political issues in the United States with then-President Donald Trump resisting mandating masks while President Joe Biden embraced masks and mandated them for transit hubs. Some U.S. states issued aggressive mask mandates while others declined or dropped them months ago.

The CDC said fully vaccinated people should still wear masks where required by federal, state, local, tribal or territorial laws, and abide by such rules and regulations, including from local businesses and workplace guidance.

In late April, the CDC said fully vaccinated people can safely engage in outdoor activities like walking and hiking without wearing masks, but recommended continuing to use face-coverings in public spaces where they are required.

Walensky said on Thursday immune-compromised individuals should consult doctors before shedding masks and emphasized people who have not been vaccinated should continue to wear them. She added vaccinated people who have COVID-19 symptoms should put masks back on.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Franklin Paul and Bill Berkrot)

EU set to impose tariffs on $4 billion U.S. goods next week

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union is likely to impose tariffs on $4 billion of U.S. imports including planes and plane parts next week in retaliation over U.S. subsidies for aircraft maker Boeing, EU diplomats said on Friday.

A majority of EU governments have already backed the tariffs, which are expected to be put in place after a meeting of EU trade ministers on Monday.

“I would expect the tariffs to be imposed next Tuesday or Wednesday,” an EU diplomat said.

The move will echo U.S. tariffs on European goods over subsidies for Boeing’s rival Airbus. Combined, the two cases represent the world’s largest ever corporate trade dispute.

The World Trade Organization gave the European Union the right to impose counter-measures, but the United States said that there was no legal basis this and that, if the bloc chose to impose measures, it “will force a U.S. response”.

The move puts the long-running transatlantic trade dispute on the radar of the next U.S. administration, whoever wins the closely fought election.

The European Union could have acted at the end of October, just days before the U.S. election, but chose to delay in order to avoid potentially impacting the outcome. EU governments formally cleared the move on Tuesday, election day.

Tariffs are due to be placed on U.S. planes and parts, fruits, nuts and other farm produce, processed products such as orange juice, certain spirits and a range of other goods, from construction equipment to casino tables, diplomats said.

The European Commission said it was finalizing the process to exercise its retaliation rights in case no agreed solution could be found with Washington, including the immediate suspension of U.S. measures.

The United States Trade Representative had no immediate comment.

The United States already has tariffs on $7.5 billion of EU and British goods in relation to a parallel case over subsidies for European plane maker Airbus.

Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., said any tariffs on spirits would further devastate an industry that has already seen a 41% drop in U.S. whisky exports to Europe due to previous EU tariffs.

The tariffs also hand Britain, which left the EU this year, a delicate decision about whether to join its neighbors in imposing tariffs at a time when it is in the midst of trade negotiations with both the United States and European Union.

Britain’s trade minister said last week it would “keep all options open” to ensure it can respond to U.S. tariffs on Scotch whisky and other industries. Britain is one of four Airbus partner nations alongside France, Germany and Spain.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop, additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington, Editing by Tim Hepher)

U.S. pushes NATO to ready more forces to deter Russian threat

FILE PHOTO: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and U.S. Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis attend a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, February 15, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo

By Robin Emmott and Idrees Ali

BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is pressing its European allies to get more NATO battalions, ships and planes ready for combat, officials say, in a fresh move to shore up NATO’s deterrence against any Russian attack.

U.S. Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis will seek broad agreement for the plan in Brussels on Thursday when alliance defence ministers meet, laying the ground for endorsement by NATO leaders at a summit in July, four U.S. and NATO officials and diplomats told Reuters.

Known as 30-30-30-30, the plan would require NATO to have 30 land battalions, 30 air fighter squadrons and 30 ships ready to deploy within 30 days of being put on alert.

It does not discuss specific troop numbers or a deadline for setting up the strategy. The size of battalions vary across NATO, from 600 to 1,000 soldiers.

That lays down a challenge for European governments, pilloried by U.S. President Donald Trump for slashing military spending after the Cold War, to remedy long-running problems with helicopters and jets that are grounded for lack of parts.

“We have an adversary (Russia) that can move quickly into the Baltics and Poland in a ground attack,” said one senior NATO diplomat who was briefed on the U.S. plans. “We don’t have the luxury of taking months to mobilise.”

One U.S. official said the initiative was primarily aimed at countering Russia and fit with the Pentagon’s 2018 National Defence Strategy, which accuses Moscow of seeking to “shatter the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.”

Russia’s war games last year, involving what Western officials said were 100,000 troops, also prompted concerns about accidental conflicts that could be triggered by such exercises, or any incursions into Russian-speaking regions in the Baltics.

The Kremlin firmly rejects any such aims and says NATO is the security threat in eastern Europe.

“This idea, even if it flies, which I hope it won’t, would only increase tensions in an increasingly sensitive part of Europe,” Russia’s envoy to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, told reporters when asked about the proposal.

Wrong-footed by Moscow with Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014 and its intervention in Syria’s war in 2015, the United States is distrustful of the Kremlin’s public message and wants to be ready for any eventuality.

FILE PHOTO: Italian troops of the NATO enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) battle group attend a joint exercise with the Latvian National Guard unit near Daugavpils, Latvia April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Italian troops of the NATO enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) battle group attend a joint exercise with the Latvian National Guard unit near Daugavpils, Latvia April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo

WHOSE TROOPS?

With more than 2 million troops, NATO forces outnumber Russia’s, whose active duty members are around 830,000, according to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a British-based military think-tank.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea prompted NATO to set up a small, rapid-reaction “spearhead” force and put four battalions in the Baltics and Poland, backed up by U.S. troops and equipment on rotation.

But is unclear how fast the alliance could move large troop numbers to its eastern flank and how long it could sustain them. France is already stretched thin in Africa and British cutbacks are reducing the size of deployable forces, officials said.

According to a 2016 study by the Rand Corporation, Britain, France, and Germany could each muster a brigade of three or more battalions along with battle tanks and other armour in around a month. But their resources would be badly strained, leaving little capacity for any other conflicts.

Another unknown is how the 30-30-30-30 proposal would fit in with other initiatives aimed at improving European combat readiness and addressing shortfalls in weaponry and other military assets.

The EU last December formed a defence pact to develop crisis-response forces and work together to develop new helicopters and ships. French President Emmanuel Macron aims to set up a new French-led European “intervention force”.

“We only have a certain amount of forces in Europe, and they cannot be committed to every military proposal,” a second senior NATO diplomat said.

(Writing by Robin Emmott, additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Richard Balmforth, Larry King)