Israel confirms return of Israeli officer’s remains from Gaza

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November 9, 2025

Russia hits Ukraine energy facilities, kills three people — Ukrainian firefighters extinguish a fire at the site of a Russian drone strike in the city of Chuguiv, Ukraine yesterday

Nightfall and the humming silence: Ukraine’s energy grid under siege

When the blackout came to Dnipro last night, it arrived like a held breath released. Streetlights winked out mid-conversation, kettles cooled on stoves, and somewhere in a nine-storey block a building groaned as a drone tore through concrete and glass. By morning, two people were dead, six wounded, and a jagged scar of rubble marked an otherwise ordinary apartment block.

“We woke to the smell of smoke and the sound of people shouting in the dark,” said Maria, 42, who has lived in Dnipro for two decades. “My neighbour’s door was smashed. We huddled under blankets and traded battery torches like treasures. It’s not just a building — it’s our lives laid bare.”

Numbers that won’t leave you alone

Ukrainian air force reports said Russian forces launched 458 drones and 45 missiles overnight; defenders say they shot down 406 drones and nine missiles. Those figures—while staggering—do not capture the human toll: interrupted water in Kharkiv, rolling power cuts in Kremenchuk, and the fear of homes growing cold as winter approaches.

Energy analysts in Kyiv warn the strikes are not random. Over months, Moscow has turned its fire toward the arteries of civilian life—power plants, gas facilities, railway depots—pieces of infrastructure that make ordinary routines possible. The consequence: a country one year into a long winter season, bracing for the prospect of heating outages.

Frontline facts that ripple across every home

The Kyiv School of Economics estimated that attacks have shuttered roughly half of Ukraine’s natural gas production capacity. Ukraine’s chief energy specialist, Oleksandr Kharchenko, has been blunt: if Kyiv’s two major heat-and-power plants were to go off-line for more than three days during a cold snap—when mercury plunges below -10°C—the result would be a “technological disaster.”

“We are not talking about inconvenience,” said Dr. Iryna Kovalenko, an energy policy scholar based in Kharkiv. “This is systems failure. Hospitals, schools, and apartment blocks rely on centralized heating and water pumps that run off electricity. Take out the energy, and the city stops being livable.”

On the ground: water buckets, bakeries, and the hum of restoration crews

In Kharkiv, the mayor reported a “noticeable shortage of electricity” as pumps faltered and taps ran dry. In Kremenchuk, local officials said electricity, water and partial heating were cut. In Odesa, authorities reported damage to an energy facility late on Friday, though initial statements suggested there were no fatalities.

At the edges of these cities, life goes on in stubborn, textured ways. A baker by the river in Kharkiv kept kneading dough by candlelight so she could sell hot bread in the morning. Municipal crews in Dnipro shifted from sweeping leaves to sifting through rubble; men and women in fluorescent vests and heavy boots became impromptu grief counsellors as much as rescue workers.

“We fix what we can,” said Oleksiy Kuleba, Ukraine’s restoration minister, in a short briefing. “The focus is on rapid restoration of heat, light and water.” It was a practical vow, the sort that must be kept by installing generators, re-routing power, and coaxing battered systems back to life.

Why the energy grid is a target — and what that means globally

Targeting civilian infrastructure has become a grim tactic of modern warfare. By striking energy hubs, attackers can achieve outsized disruption: emboldening front-line advances while also sowing chaos in rear areas. Those strikes affect not just Ukrainians but global markets and geopolitics. Europe watches anxiously as winter demand threatens to collide with diminished supply, and as countries weigh emergency stockpiles and contingency plans.

At home, Kyiv has responded in kind—stepping up attacks on Russian oil depots and refineries to constrict Moscow’s energy revenues. The tit-for-tat escalates an energy war within the larger conflict, demonstrating the strategic centrality of fuels and kilowatts on a battlefield that no longer fits the neat categories of soldier and civilian.

The reciprocal strikes

Last night’s exchanges included counterstrikes that reached deep into Russian territory. Regional governors in Volgograd and Saratov reported power disruptions and damage after Ukrainian drones reportedly hit energy infrastructure. In the northern Vologda region, three drones struck a substation; authorities said they were assessing damage but reported that supplies continued uninterrupted.

“There are no borders to this technology,” a local analyst in Moscow told a friend in Kyiv over the phone, as the two spoke of a conflict that now extends into regions hundreds of kilometres from the front line. “Wherever there is a node of energy, there is a target.”

Fighting for towns, fighting for hope: Pokrovsk, Kupiansk, and the human geography of war

Beyond infrastructure, the grinding, house-by-house battles continue. Russian forces said they advanced around Pokrovsk and Kupiansk; Kyiv acknowledged the fighting as fierce but insists Ukrainian units remain engaged across all contested towns. Open-source front-line maps show incremental Russian gains near Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, but not the encirclement Moscow’s Defense Ministry has claimed.

In Pokrovsk, a town where the battle has raged for more than a year, residents speak of daily life in fragments—school sessions by rotation, markets open in bursts, and the constant calculation of whether it’s safe to walk a child to kindergarten.

“You learn to parse the sounds,” a mother of two told me, her voice low. “A far-off boom means the children stay in the basement. A close one means goodbye to plans. You make tea in a thermos just in case the lights go.” Her eyes were pragmatic, tired, full of something like endurance.

Small villages, big consequences

Russia reported seizing Vovche, a tiny village listed as having just 13 residents in Ukraine’s 2001 census. Whether symbolic or strategic, such captures point to the micro-geographies of war: tiny settlements that matter because of roads, railways, or the moral map of occupation and resistance.

For families in these places the math is simple and brutal: lose the power and you lose the water pump; lose the water pump and you lose sanitation; lose sanitation and health crises follow. Then winter makes everything sharper and far less forgiving.

Questions to sit with

So where does a country find the buffers to withstand attacks on its lifelines? How do cities redesign systems that are both efficient and resilient to sustained assault? And perhaps most important: what are the human costs we are willing to accept in geopolitics that prize energy as leverage?

These are not questions for engineers alone. They are for policymakers, neighbors, and the international community that watches from afar, sometimes with sympathy, sometimes with strategy. The coming months will test not just infrastructure but a society’s capacity for care—how quickly it can regroup, repair, and rewarm homes and hearts.

What can be done right now

Accelerate repairs to critical pipelines and plants with international technical aid.
Prioritise power to hospitals, water stations and heating plants during outages.
Establish community warming centres stocked with supplies in cities at risk.
Expand diplomatic pressure and sanctions aimed at protecting civilian infrastructure under international law.

Final image

As night fell again across Ukrainian towns, municipal crews worked under portable lights. People passed on blankets and boiled chia seeds over camping stoves. Children drew by torchlight. In a country that has faced bombs, blackouts and bitter cold, there remains a stubborn warmth: the human impulse to share what little you have. That, perhaps, will be as vital as any generator when the temperature dives and the power lines are down. What would you do if the lights went out in your town tonight?

Dhimasho iyo dhaawac ka dhashay qarax ka dhacay Baraawe oo uu maanta tagay Jen. Odowaa

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November 9, 2025

Nov 09(Jowhar)-Wararka ka imaanaya degmada Baraawe ayaa sheegaya in Qarax uu ka dhacay goob Maqaayad ah oo ku taalla degmada.

Philippines Reports First Fatalities as Super Typhoon Bears Down

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November 9, 2025

Philippines records first deaths as super typhoon nears — A motorist wades through a flooded highway due to heavy rain brought by Typhoon Fung-wong in Remedios T Romualdez, Philippines

When the Sea Roared: Inside the Storm That Washed Over the Philippines

Before dawn, the sky over Catanduanes looked like it had been painted with a frantic hand—heavy, bruised clouds pressed low to the earth, and the palm trees along the coast had already begun their slow, unwilling bow. By mid-morning the wind had risen to a howl that made the corrugated roofs vibrate. In town squares and temporary evacuation centers, people bundled children and blankets, their faces lit by the weak glow of battery-powered lamps and the brighter, harsher light of worry.

By official count, nearly 1.2 million people were moved out of harm’s way as Super Typhoon Fung-wong swept across central and eastern Philippines, bearing winds measured at some 185 kilometres per hour with gusts reaching up to 230 kph. The storm’s outer bands reached nearly the breadth of the archipelago, promising days of rain and wind that meteorologists warned could dump 200 millimetres—or more—of rain in many places.

A sudden, heartbreaking turn

For the Tagarino family in Catbalogan City, Samar, the evacuation was meant to be routine—yesterday’s instructions, today’s obedience. Juniel Tagarino, a local rescue worker, remembers watching the family flee their low-lying home only to return minutes later. “She went back inside,” he said softly, speaking as if rehearsing the memory. “We thought she’d come right back out. We found her hours later, under debris and an uprooted tree.” The 64-year-old woman was one of at least two confirmed dead as the typhoon lashed the islands.

Her story is not an anomaly but an echo of the chaos storms make in their wake—imperfect information, fraught decisions, the human impulse to protect what feels permanent even as the world liquefies around it.

Scenes from the frontline: surf, roofs, and prayer

In Virac town, Catanduanes, Edson Casarino, 33, described the sea as if it had turned into a living thing. “The waves started roaring around 7am,” he said. “When they hit the seawall, it felt like the ground was shaking.” Video from the road shows floodwaters climbing halfway up the entrance of a local church—congregants now transformed into evacuees, pews laden with blankets, and the church bell silenced by the wind.

There is a rural, hands-on ingenuity that surfaces in moments like these. In towns across Bicol, families followed an old, practical ritual: tying down roofs with heavy ropes and anchoring them to the ground. “We do the tradition of strapping down the roofs with big ropes so they won’t be blown away,” said Roberto Monterola, a provincial rescue official. The ropes—a simple, communal technology—often stand between a house and the sky’s appetite.

Evacuation realities

Authorities urged residents in vulnerable coastal and riverine zones to heed evacuation orders—especially in Aurora province, where officials warned Fung-wong could make landfall as early as tonight. Schools and government offices were shuttered across Luzon, including in the capital, Manila, where nearly 300 flights were cancelled. In many towns, churches and school gyms have become improvised shelters, the thin line between vulnerability and safety.

But evacuations themselves are a perilous choreography. With the country already reeling from Typhoon Kalmaegi just days earlier—a storm that, according to government figures, cost at least 224 lives and left 109 people missing—search and rescue teams were stretched thin. “We cannot risk the safety of our rescuers,” said Myrra Daven, a rescue official in Cebu, where Kalmaegi’s devastation was concentrated. “We don’t want them to be the next casualties.”

Flooded streets and a widening crisis

Guinobatan, in Albay province, a town of roughly 80,000, saw streets turn into churning rivers. The Bicol River Basin—low-lying and historically flood-prone—began to fill, as officials had anticipated. Across the southern part of Luzon, residents waded through waist-deep water, clutching children and pets, dragging mattresses and plastic containers that might keep possessions afloat for a few more hours.

Bagamanoc and other coastal villages were filmed trudging through murky water, faces streaked with rain and the salt of sea foam. “I live near the shore, and the winds there are now very strong,” said Maxine Dugan, who sought refuge in a Sorsogon church. “The waves near my house are huge. I’m scared, but I know there’s no shame in coming here.”

Numbers that mean real people

Statistics only tell part of the story, but they matter. The country typically faces around 20 tropical cyclones each year; a handful will make landfall, and a few will leave irreversible scars. Fung-wong’s vast radius means this is not a problem for one province alone but for the whole nation—a mosaic of islands, each with different vulnerabilities.

Evacuated: nearly 1,200,000 people across the archipelago
Winds: sustained speeds around 185 kph; gusts up to 230 kph
Rainfall: expected 200 mm or more in many areas
Recent toll from Typhoon Kalmaegi: at least 224 dead and 109 missing

These are more than numbers. Each figure hides a neighbor’s name, a child’s fever, a family waiting under tarps to know if a house will be there when the water retreats.

On a warming planet, storms grow meaner

Scientists have cautioned for years that the physics of a warming planet make storms more dangerous. Warmer oceans provide extra energy; warmer air holds more moisture; the result can be rapid intensification and heavier rainfall. That’s not an abstract climate model—it’s what we see in the swollen rivers and uprooted trees lining Philippine streets.

“The trend is clear: tropical cyclones can pack a harder punch in a warming world,” said a Manila-based climate scientist who asked not to be named. “Communities that once withstood seasonal storms may now find their thresholds exceeded. We need infrastructure, forecasting, and social safety nets to adapt faster than the climate is changing.”

What happens next—and what it asks of us

There will be rescue crews, satellite images, relief goods, and the patchwork of corrupted roads and disrupted power lines. There will also be quieter reckonings: farmers surveying ruined rice paddies, fisherfolk counting net losses, children who won’t go to school for weeks. Recovery in the Philippines is a long, layered process—one that requires not just immediate aid but sustained investment in resilient housing, early warning systems, and better land use planning.

So what do we owe each other as the storms become more frequent and more vicious? How do we balance the urgency of the present with the planning for a safer future? And what does it mean, in practical terms, to make a nation resilient—especially when the sea seems to be reclaiming old boundaries?

For the families huddled in school gyms and church halls tonight, these questions are not theoretical. They are a matter of when—and whether—they can return home. For the rest of the world, Fung-wong offers another moment to pay attention: to send aid, yes, but also to listen to local knowledge, invest in adaptation, and halve the risk now to reduce the loss later.

As the typhoon moves inland and the roar begins to fade, the real work will begin—measuring damage, reopening roads, and stitching lives back together. In this country of islands, the rituals of resilience are already being rehearsed—ropes pulled tight, mattresses stacked, voices lifted in prayer and song. They are small acts of defiance against a storm that wants to erase certainty.

Will policymakers, donors, and citizens act with the same urgency? Will we learn from each storm enough to blunt the next? For the people of the Philippines, answers are needed now—not tomorrow. For the rest of us, watching and waiting, the question is the same: how will we respond when the sea comes knocking at our own doors?

Lafta-gareen iyo Mursal oo caawa kulan qarsoodi ah ku leh magaalada Nairobi

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November 9, 2025

Nov 09(Jowhar)-Wada hadalo hordhac ah oo maalmihii lasoo dhaafay ka Socday Magaalooyinka Muqdisho iyo Nairobi ayaa Keenay in ay Caawa magaalada Nairobi ee Dalka kenya ku kulmaan Gudoomiyihii Hore ee Baarlamanka Soomaaliya Mohamed Mursal iyo Madaxweynaha Koonfur Galbeed Cabdi casiis Laftagareen.

Somaliland oo war kasoo saartay qorshaha maxaabiis is-dhaafsiga ee Waqooyi Bari

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November 9, 2025

Nov 09(Jowhar)-Xukuumadda Somaliland ayaa maanta sheegtey in uu meel wanaagsan marayo qorshaha siideynta maxaabiista ku kala xidhan Laascaanood & Hargeysa, tan oo imanaysa xilli xalay uu maamulka Woqooyi-bari Soomaaliya magacaabay Guddiga Nabadda & Wadaxaajoodyada oo kuwo la mid ah ay hore u samaysay SL.

Xisbiga RPP oo madaxweyne Geelle u doortay inuu noqdo musharraxa doorashada soo aocota

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November 9, 2025

Nov 09(Jowhar)-Xisbiga talada dalka Djibouti haya ee RPP ayaa si rasmi ah madaxweyne Ismaaciil Cumar Geelle ugu doortay in uu noqdo musharraxa xisbiga ku metelaya doorashada la filaya in ay dalkaas ka dhacdo bisha April ee sannadka 2026-ka.

Dowladda oo sheegtay in sarkaal Shabaab ah ay ku dishay gobolka Bakool

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November 9, 2025

Nov 09(Jowhar)-Dowladda Somalia ayaa sheegtay in Hawlgal qorsheysan oo xalay ka dhacay tuulada Abal oo qiyaastii 21KM uga beegan koofurta magaalada Xuddur ee xarunta gobolka Bakool lagu khaarijiyay hoggaamiye sare oo ka tirsanaa Shabaab oo lagu magacaabi jiray Maxamed Cabdi Maxamed Nuur (Goofoow).

Tornado Rips Through Southern Brazil, Killing Six and Injuring Hundreds

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November 9, 2025

Six killed, hundreds injured as tornado hits south Brazil — Destruction seen overnight following a tornado in Rio Bonito Do Iguacu in Paraná state in southern Brazil

Dawn After the Rage: A Southern Brazilian Town Picks Up the Pieces

When the storm passed, it left a hush that felt louder than the thunder. In Rio Bonito do Iguaçu — a town where the rhythm of daily life is set by cattle calls, chimarrão breaks and the slow turning of seasons — whole roofs lay like discarded hats on the street. Trees were sheared in half, power lines snapped and cars sat twisted beneath the weight of fallen corrugated iron. The sky was a bruised, indifferent blue. People moved through the wreckage as if in slow motion, cataloging losses and calling out names to see who had come through the night.

Officials in Paraná have confirmed that six people died and 437 were treated for injuries after a tornado, accompanied by fierce winds and heavy rain, tore through the state late yesterday. Nearly 1,000 residents have been displaced, forced into makeshift shelters in schools and community centers. The nearby city of Guarapuava also reported damage.

Winds that Moved Like a Living Thing

“It sounded like a freight train that didn’t stop,” said Maria dos Santos, a grandmother who watched the roof of her house lift and peel away. “I grabbed the children and we hid under a mattress. When we came out, there was nothing where we had left everything.”

The Paraná Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring System measured the winds at between 180 and 250 km/h — roughly 110 to 155 miles per hour. Those kinds of gusts obliterate roofs, shatter windows, and snap the steel bones of buildings. Civil defence reports say more than half of Rio Bonito do Iguaçu’s urban area suffered roof collapses and multiple structural failures.

Roads are blocked by fallen trees and debris; power and telecommunications lines are down in several neighborhoods. Rescue workers have been forced to move slowly and cautiously, cutting through twisted metal to reach people trapped in their homes.

On the Ground: Rescue, Relief, and the Human Thread

By morning, the town’s small gym was overflowing with blankets, water bottles, and the smell of hot coffee. Volunteers from neighboring municipalities arrived with pickup trucks, bringing food and chainsaws. “There is a rhythm to the rescue,” said João Pereira, a volunteer firefighter from Guarapuava, wiping sweat and sawdust off his brow. “You work in pulses: search, stabilize, comfort. Then you start again.”

Federal officials have promised support. Institutional Relations Minister Gleisi Hoffmann said she and acting Health Minister Adriano Massuda would travel to the area to coordinate relief and reconstruction efforts. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, writing on X, expressed condolences and pledged ongoing assistance: “We will continue to assist the people of Paraná and provide all the help needed,” he wrote.

Yet federal pledges are only part of the story. In towns like Rio Bonito do Iguaçu, community solidarity is the first line of defense. Neighbors who lost roofs set up tarps side by side. The parish priest opened the rectory to families who had nowhere else to go. An elderly man who survived the storm but lost his home refused to go to a shelter until younger neighbors packed “what little remains” into a truck to keep watch on his property.

Voices from the Ruins

“I have lived here forty years,” said Marcelo Alvarez, a schoolteacher, his boots sunk in mud outside the half-collapsed primary school. “We know storms. But not like this. Houses here are meant to shelter a family for generations. When the roof goes, the memory goes with it.”

“We need blankets, baby supplies, medical attention,” added nurse Camila Ribeiro, who has been working 18-hour shifts in the temporary clinic. “People have cuts, broken bones, shock. The physical injuries are visible. The shock is deeper.”

Where This Fits Into a Larger Weather Picture

South Brazil is no stranger to violent storms. The plains and plateaus of Paraná and neighboring Rio Grande do Sul can become a perfect stage for tornadoes when cold fronts from the south collide with warm, humid air moving up from the tropics. Locals have long told stories of sudden, fearsome winds — but scientists say the conditions that produce these events appear to be shifting.

“We are seeing not only more intense storms but also a broader season for severe weather,” said Dr. Larissa Moreira, a climatologist at a federal university in Curitiba. “That is consistent with the warming and increased moisture in the atmosphere. It doesn’t mean every storm is caused by climate change, but it is a backdrop that amplifies the risk.”

For policymakers, the challenges are immediate and structural. How do you rebuild homes that can withstand stronger winds? How do you reinforce critical infrastructure, like power lines and water systems, in places where municipal budgets are already stretched thin? How do you ensure that early-warning systems reach the elderly and isolated?

Immediate Needs — and Hard Questions

Emergency shelter and medical care for nearly 1,000 people displaced
Restoration of power and communications lines to reopen the town’s lifelines
Clearing of roads to allow aid and reconstruction crews to move freely
Psychological support and long-term housing plans for those who lost their homes

“This is not just bricks and tiles,” said social worker Ana Fonseca as she distributed thermoses of hot mate to shivering families. “Homes hold relationships, recipes, a grandmother’s sewing box. Rebuilding must respect that.”

What This Asks of Us

When disasters like this land far from the world’s busiest news cycles, they ask something quiet and persistent: will we remember the lives disrupted and the promises made when the cameras leave? The answers are not simple. They require political will, civic investment, and the patience to rebuild in ways that are resilient and humane.

As Rio Bonito do Iguaçu moves from rescue to recovery, the town’s story will become a test case. Will rebuilding prioritize speed or strength? Will federal and state money be coupled with community voices? Will small towns receive the kind of planning and infrastructure investment the age of extreme weather demands?

Look at the faces in that gym — a grandmother holding a thermos, a young firefighter with splinters in his palms, a schoolteacher staring at the ruins of a playground — and ask: how do we build a future that keeps these people safe? How do we honor not just the dead and injured, but the lived-in places that gave people belonging?

In the end, recovery will be slow. It will be dotted with victories: a roof replaced, a child returning to school, a power line reconnected. It will also require a longer conversation about climate, community and the kinds of investments that let small towns stand up to storms that are changing in size and temper. For Rio Bonito do Iguaçu, and for places like it across the world, that conversation begins now.

Syrian president lands in United States, state-run media confirms

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