14/07/2026

TUESDAY | JULY 14, 2026

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Roads, vehicles under water in northern China

o 46 rivers nationwide above warning levels

tops of the vehicles visible above the water. Another clip on RedNote showed someone standing on a paddleboard to navigate the flooded streets. Many trains in Shenyang have been suspended, China Railway said yesterday, with more than 30 railway sections affected. Schools have also been closed across many areas including the northeastern province of Jilin. Some areas in northeastern China will experience thunderstorms or hailstorms of Force 8 or above, CCTV reported, citing the country’s Central Meteorological Observatory. “In some areas of central and northern Jiangsu, thunderstorm winds of level 10 or above will occur, with maximum winds reaching force 11 or above, and tornadoes may occur locally,” it said. Force 11 winds can reach speeds of up to 117 kph. Forty-six rivers nationwide are experiencing flooding above warning levels, CCTV reported. – Reuters

this year, brought heavy rain to the eastern coast and violent winds to the area’s densely populated cities. Authorities warned the storm would dump torrential rain across the provinces of Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Anhui, exacerbating flood risks in areas that had already been soaked by earlier downpours. Around 1,800 villagers in Kuancheng were stranded, state broadcaster CCTV reported, while authorities said that relocating and resettling residents was their top priority. In Liaoning, authorities raised the red alert for flash floods, warning of very high risks. “During a red alert for heavy rain, all work stoppages, business closures, and gatherings must be fully implemented,” Hebei authorities said in a statement on WeChat. Videos on RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, showed a person swimming backstroke down a road in Shenyang, Liaoning, which had rows of parked cars with only the

Jurassic Park star Sam Neill dies aged 78 Neill ... also ran vineyards. – REUTERSPIC SYDNEY: Jurassic Park star Sam Neill died in Australia yesterday aged 78, his family said in a statement that described the beloved actor’s death as “sudden and unexpected”. The New Zealander had in recent years undergone treatment for lymphoma but declared this year that he was cancer free. “It is with immense sadness that the whanau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13 July, in Sydney,” the statement read, using the New Zealand Maori word for family. “The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.” The statement did not elaborate on the cause of Neill’s death, but said he had been undergoing treatment at St Vincent’s Private Hospital in Sydney. “Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life,” the statement said. Neill was born in Northern Ireland in 1947 but moved to the rugged South Island of New Zealand as a child. He was christened “Nigel John Dermot” but ditched the name in favour of “Sam” because he feared it was too “effete” for New Zealand. “I encouraged the nickname because I thought I’d be slightly less likely to be victimised,” he told New Zealand’s Otago Daily Times . “I clung on to‘Sam’with great enthusiasm.” Neill started acting in New Zealand films in the early 1970s before moving into larger roles in Australia. His breakthrough as a leading man came in 1993 when he played Dr Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood blockbuster Jurassic Park . In a career spanning dozens of roles across TV and film, he also starred in Peaky Blinders , The Hunt for Red October and two more instalments of the Jurassic Park franchise. Neill greatly endeared himself to New Zealanders by lending his star power to local productions as well. His performance in Jane Campion’s The Piano drew wide acclaim, as did his role in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople . Neill revealed in a 2023 memoir he was “possibly dying” with stage-three non Hodgkin lymphoma. In the opening chapter, written while undergoing chemotherapy, Neill said: “The thing is, I’m crook. Possibly dying. I may have to speed this up.” But he revealed this year that he was cancer-free, thanks to a genetic therapy that modified his immune system. “I was at a loss and it looked like I was on the way out, which wasn’t ideal, obviously,”he told Australia’s Channel Seven News. “I’ve just had a scan just now, and there is no cancer in my body – that’s an extraordinary thing,” Neill said. When he was not acting, Neill also ran vineyards in the picturesque Central Otago region of New Zealand’s South Island. – AFP

HONG KONG: Severe flooding in China’s northern Hebei province and northeastern Liaoning province submerged roads and swept away cars. Water levels rose to more than 2m on roads in Kuancheng, a county in Hebei, according to a resident’s account that was broadcast by local official media. Kuancheng is home to around 240,000 people and is on the banks of the Luan River. Several cars were filmed crashing into each other in Kuancheng as they bobbed up and down a waterlogged road before being carried away by the strength of the current. The floods came after Typhoon Bavi , the most powerful storm to strike mainland China

Water bombers tackle French wildfire NOISY-SUR-ECOLE: More than 400 French firefighters worked through the night to contain a wildfire in the historic Fontainebleau forest south of Paris, and authorities sent two waterbombing planes yesterday to tackle the blaze as a heatwave gripped western Europe. The fire broke out alongside a highway near Fontainebleau, home to one of France’s best known royal palaces, which once served as a hunting lodge and autumn residence for monarchs. By midnight, the flames had scorched more than 800ha, fanned by hot winds.

Just 70km from Paris, the blaze forced the closure of the A6 highway linking Paris with Lyon and the south. Smaller fires in the area also disrupted high-speed train services. “The fight continues today,” the French fire service said. Local residents have been warned that the Canadair planes will have to scoop water from the river Seine, which flows through central Paris. European countries are worried about increasingly frequent heatwaves and record breaking temperatures. Most scientists say the fires are driven by extreme weather, with large swathes of continental Europe parched. Wildfires have already ripped through regions of France, Spain, Portugal and Greece, charring thousands of hectares of land. The death toll from a blaze that swept through Spain’s southeastern Almeria province rose to 13 over the weekend, when a 93-year-old British woman died of burns. Western Europe is gripped by its third prolonged spell of baking temperatures this summer. A heatwave in late June likely killed thousands of people, with countries reporting more than 10,000 excess deaths. Power supplies were disrupted, schools shut and temperature records broken in France, Spain and Britain.

Flames rising in the Fontainebleau Forest near Paris on Monday. – AFPPIC

a Europe-wide mortality surveillance system. “It is difficult to explain this high excess mortality by anything but the extreme heat,” Vestergaard told Reuters.

“To have this kind of excess at this time of year is unusual. It’s really high,” said Lasse Vestergaard, chief physician at Denmark’s Statens Serum Institut, which hosts EuroMOMO,

Japan relooks weak espionage laws TOKYO: Japan said yesterday that it recognised the need to counter foreign intelligence better after the New York Times reported that Russia had turned the country into a “den of spies” and key source of weapons components.

Declining to comment directly on the news report, Kihara told reporters that Tokyo “must address this issue with even greater rigour”. The report cited Ukrainian government estimates that 90% of Russian missiles and drones contain Japanese components. It said that Russia’s operations in Japan were being run by Maksim Vladimirovich Filchenkov, a Russian intelligence operative. – AFP

procurement of dual-use technology needed for its war in Ukraine. “We recognise that in a rapidly changing security environment there is a growing need to counter foreign intelligence activities, such as the acquisition of critical information, that threaten Japan’s national security,” chief government spokesman Minoru Kihara said yesterday.

The NYT, in an investigation published on Sunday, reported that thanks to “weak espionage laws”, Moscow was using Japan as a key hub for intelligence gathering and