Tropical Storm Tembin has lashed the nation’s second-largest island of Mindanao since Friday, triggering flash floods and mudslides.

The Philippines is pummelled by 20 major storms each year on average, many of them deadly. But Mindanao, home to 20 million people, is rarely hit by these cyclones.

Rescuers retrieved 36 bodies from the Salog River in Mindanao on Saturday, as officials reported more fatalities in the impoverished Zamboanga peninsula.

The bodies were swept downriver from a flooded town upstream called Salvador, Rando Salvacion, the Sapad town police chief, told AFP. Authorities in Salvador said they had retrieved 17 other bodies upstream.

Salvador and Sapad are in Lanao del Norte, which is one of the provinces hardest hit by Tembin.

The death toll for the Zamboanga peninsula also rose to 28, and police said 81 people were missing after mud and rocks swept down coastal communities in Sibuco and other fishing towns.

Tembin struck less than a week after Tropical Storm Kai-Tak left 54 dead and 24 missing in the central Philippines.

The deadliest typhoon to hit the country was Haiyan, which killed thousands and destroyed entire towns in heavily populated areas of the central Philippines in November 2013.

Tembin is expected to hit the tip of the western island of Palawan late Saturday, the state weather service said.

“Minimum estimate of civilian dead 10,000,” the then British ambassador Alan Donald said in a telegram to London.

The document, made public more than 28 years after the event, was seen by AFP at Britain’s National Archives.

The estimate, given on June 5, 1989, the day after the crackdown, is almost 10 times higher than estimates commonly accepted at the time, which generally reported a toll ranging from several hundred to more than a thousand dead.

But French sinologist Jean-Pierre Cabestan said the British figure was credible, pointing out that recently declassified US documents gave a similar assessment.

“That’s two pretty independent sources which say the same thing,” said Cabestan, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.

The British ambassador’s report was “not particularly astonishing considering how crowded it was in Beijing, the number of people mobilised” against the Chinese government, said Cabestan, who was in the Chinese capital in the days leading up to the crackdown.

Donald’s account gave horrific details of the violence unleashed on the night of June 3-4 when the army entered Beijing to end seven weeks of protests on Tiananmen Square, the symbolic heart of Communist power.

During their advance, armoured personnel carriers “opened fire on the crowd (both civilians and soldiers) before running over them in their APCs,” wrote the ambassador, who said his source was a person who “was passing on information given him by a close friend who is currently a member of the State Council”, the Chinese cabinet.

Once the soldiers arrived in Tiananmen Square, “students understood they were given one hour to leave square but after five minutes APCs attacked,” Donald wrote.

“Students linked arms but were mown down including soldiers. APCs then ran over bodies time and time again to make ‘pie’ and remains collected by bulldozer. Remains incinerated and then hosed down drains.”

At the end of June 1989, the Chinese government had said suppression of the “counterrevolutionary riots” had killed 200 civilians and several dozen police and military.

Nearly three decades after the crackdown, the communist regime continues to forbid any debate on the subject, mention of which is banned from textbooks and the media, and censored on the Internet.

Tropical Storm Tembin struck Mindanao, the archipelago nation’s second-largest island on Friday, triggering flash floods and mudslides that have since erased a remote village from the map.

The Philippines is pummelled by 20 major storms each year on average, many of them deadly. But Mindanao, home to 20 million people, is rarely hit by these cyclones.

Floodwaters started ebbing over the island on Saturday, authorities said, adding that more than 12,000 of its 20 million residents have now fled their homes.

Police reported 19 deaths in the mountain village of Dalama near Tubod town, and 26 others in surrounding towns and cities of Lanao del Norte province, one of the hardest-hit areas.

“The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no longer there,” Tubod police officer Gerry Parami told AFP by telephone.

Police, soldiers and volunteers used shovels to dig through mud and debris in a bid to recover bodies in the farming village of about 2,000 people, Parami added.

Elsewhere, boulders brought down by flash floods buried around 40 houses in the town of Piagapo, killing at least 10 people, civil defence officer Saripada Pacasum of Lanao del Sur province said.

“We’ve sent rescuers but they’re making little progress due to the rocks,” he said, adding the storm had killed eight other people elsewhere in Lanao del Sur.

Reports of more deaths were slowly trickling in from other parts of the island, which is experiencing power and communication outages due to the storm.

An area of particular concern was the impoverished Zamboanga peninsula, with Mindanao local television saying at least three towns there were hit by floods.

Five people were confirmed killed and 25 missing after flood waters submerged part of Sibuco town, while three others were killed in landslides in a nearby province, officials said.

“It is possible that they disregarded the warning of the local government” about the flooding risks, Sibuco mayor Norbideiri Edding told Manila radio station DZMM.

“We’re hoping that they are still alive,” he said of the missing.

Three people were meanwhile killed by landslides in the mountainous province of Bukidnon, police said.

Tembin struck less than a week after the devastating Tropical Storm Kai-Tak left 54 dead and 24 missing in the central Philippines.

The deadliest typhoon to hit the country was Haiyan, which killed thousands and destroyed entire towns in heavily populated areas of the central Philippines in November 2013.

Tembin was forecast to smash into the tip of the western island of Palawan late Saturday, the state weather service said.

Nineteen deaths were reported near the town of Tubod on Friday on Mindanao, the archipelago nation’s second-largest island, where Tropical Storm Tembin unleashed flash floods and mudslides erased a remote village from the map, police said.

“The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no longer there,” Tubod police officer Gerry Parami told AFP by telephone.

“The houses were toppled by mud and logs and only the stumps of a few concrete homes are left,” Parami said.

Police, soldiers and volunteers were digging through the rubble of Dalama, a farming village of about 2,000 people, using shovels in search of more bodies, he added.

Four others were killed in nearby towns and cities, police said, while seven people perished in Lanao del Sur province according to civil defence officials there.

Four people were listed as missing after being buried in landslides or being swept away by floodwaters, while more than 12,000 have fled their homes.

The Philippines is pummelled by 20 major storms each year on average, many of them deadly. But Mindanao, home to 20 million people, is rarely hit by these cyclones.

After slicing across Mindanao on Friday, Tembin sped west over the Sulu Sea with gusts of 95 kilometres an hour.

It was forecast to smash into the tip of the western island of Palawan late Saturday, the state weather service said.

Tembin struck less than a week after Tropical Storm Kai-Tak devastated the central Philippines, leaving 54 dead and 24 missing.

The deadliest typhoon to hit the country was Haiyan, which left 7,350 people dead and destroyed entire towns in heavily populated areas of the central Philippines in November 2013.

The council unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution that also orders the repatriation of North Korean workers sent abroad to earn revenue for Kim Jong-Un’s regime.

It is the third raft of sanctions imposed on Pyongyang this year and comes as the United States and North Korea show no signs they are willing to open talks on ending the crisis on the Korean peninsula.

US President Donald Trump Friday hailed the move, saying the international community was pushing for peace with the isolated regime.

“The United Nations Security Council just voted 15-0 in favor of additional Sanctions on North Korea. The World wants Peace, not Death!” Trump tweeted.

The resolution bans the supply of nearly 75 percent of refined oil products to North Korea, puts a cap on crude deliveries and orders all North Korean nationals working abroad to be sent back by the end of 2019.

The United States put forward the draft text on Thursday following negotiations with China, Pyongyang’s ally and main supplier of oil.

Describing North Korea as “the most tragic example of evil in the modern world,” US Ambassador Nikki Haley said the new sanctions are “a reflection of the international outrage at the Kim regime’s actions.”

The resolution “sends the unambiguous message to Pyongyang that further defiance will invite further punishment and isolation,” she said.

The measures are in response to North Korea’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on November 28 that marked an advance in Pyongyang’s drive to threaten the US mainland with a nuclear strike.

Trump has threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if it attacks the United States while North Korea insists the world must now accept that it is a nuclear power.

Last month, Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to cut off oil to the North, a move that would cripple its struggling economy.

Crude oil supplies were capped at four million barrels per year and a ceiling of 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum products, including diesel and kerosene, was set for next year, down from two million barrels in a previous resolution.

If North Korea carries out another nuclear or ICBM test, “then the Security Council will take action to restrict further the export to the DPRK of petroleum,” said the resolution.

The United States had initially sought to expel within a year tens of thousands of North Koreans, most of whom are working in Russia and China, but that deadline was extended to two years after Russia objected.

To prevent North Korea from circumventing sanctions, all countries were authorized to seize, inspect and impound ships suspected of carrying illegal cargo to and from North Korea.

– Sanctions only a means –

The measure bans sales of all industrial machinery, trucks, iron, steel and other metals to North Korea and bars exports of food, machinery, electrical equipment, earth, stone, wood and vessels produced in the reclusive state.

Addressing the council, China and Russia condemned North Korea’s behavior but made the case for urgently opening diplomatic channels to ease tensions and move towards settling the crisis.

“Sanctions are only a means,” said Chinese Deputy Ambassador Wu Haitao. “One should not expect to settle the problems through unilateral sanctions or pressure.”

“We all must, we are all duty-bound, to provide opportunities for diplomacy to function,” said Russian Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov.

A total of 15 North Korean officials, most of whom work in banking, were added to the UN sanctions blacklist along with the ministry of the people’s armed forces, which manages army logistics for the country.

An earlier list contained 19 names, later reduced to 16, but a final version listed 15 North Koreans, who will be subjected to a global visa ban and assets freeze.

Since September last year, North Korea has carried out its sixth and largest nuclear test and a series of advanced missile launches which are banned under UN resolutions.

The United States has led the drive at the Security Council to tighten sanctions aimed at piling pressure on Kim’s regime to come to the negotiating table.

French Ambassador Francois Delattre welcomed the new measures, saying “this resolution bites.”

“Maximum firmness today is our best antidote to the risk of war,” he said.

The European Union said in a statement that it too is planning to adopt tougher sanctions against North Korea early next year.

Tow truck driver Everitt Aaron Jameson, 26, was planning to target the city’s busy Pier 39 tourist spot, according to an affidavit submitted by FBI Special Agent Christopher McKinney.

The suspect outlined to undercover agents how he wanted to use explosives to target crowds at the pier between December 18 and 25 because “Christmas was the perfect day to commit the attack.”

Jameson professed not to need an escape plan as he was “ready to die,” according to the document.

The suspect’s home in Modesto, California, was raided by FBI agents on Wednesday, where they allegedly found his last will and testament along with several weapons and ammunition.

Jameson attended basic training with the Marine Corps in 2009 and graduated with a “sharpshooter” rifle qualification, according to the FBI, but was discharged after failing to disclose a history of asthma.

According to McKinney, Jameson selected Pier 39 because “he had been there before and knew it was a heavily crowded area.”

“Jameson explained that he also desired to use explosives and described a plan in which explosives could ‘tunnel’ or ‘funnel’ people into a location where Jameson could inflict casualties,” McKinney stated.

The suspect inadvertently revealed his plans to an undercover FBI agent he believed to be a senior leader of the Islamic State group, according to the court document.

Jameson said the US needed “another attack like New York or San Bernardino,” adding that he wanted to use vehicles and firearms to carry out an attack.

“Today, our incredible law enforcement officers have once again helped thwart an alleged plot to kill Americans,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.

“The threat from radical Islamic terrorism is real — and it is serious — but the American people can be assured that the Department of Justice remains vigilant in protecting our homeland,” he added.

According to the criminal complaint, Jameson “has espoused radical jihadi beliefs, including authoring social media posts that are supportive of terrorism.”

He had voiced support for the October 31 attack in New York in which a jihadist drove a pick-up truck into a crowded bike path, killing eight people, said the FBI, and was active on Facebook, “liking” pro-IS posts.

He “loved” a post on November 29 of a terror propaganda image of Santa Claus standing in New York with a box of dynamite.

He was charged in the Eastern District Court of California with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

“He was under surveillance by law enforcement, and the public was never in imminent danger,” the FBI said in a statement.

Water resources and environmental integrity are priorities for the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC), established as a Chinese initiative in 2015 and also including other riverside nations.

The 4,900-kilometre Mekong – known as the Lancang River in China – runs through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Only the downstream segment, from Laos to Vietnam, is regulated by MRC under the 1995 Mekong Agreement.Yu Xingjun

China and Myanmar have long been urged to become full members of the MRC and to ratify the 1995 accord on regulating water use, but Beijing prefers to remain a mere dialogue partner, said Yu Xingjun, director general of the International Cooperation Department at China’s Ministry of Water Resources.

He said China and Myanmar’s cooperation with the MRC has always been “very good” in terms of technical matters, building capacity and sharing hydrological information.

“In the future, we will continue to strengthen that cooperation and we will take advantage of this extensive experience and long-term information to conduct our cooperation,” he said.

The MRC recently expressed interest in strengthening ties with the LMC Water Resource Cooperation Centre, Yu said.

He said the LMC water-resource mechanism complements the work of both the MRC and the Greater Mekong Sub-region apparatus.

“We welcome all the support of other countries and organisations for the LMC and their contributions to sustainable water-resource management.”

China has built seven hydro-power dams and plans a dozen more on the Mekong mainstream, giving it effective control over the flow along the entire length. The upper Mekong within its territory contributes 45 per cent of the river’s flow in the dry season.

Yu argued that China’s dams and reservoirs are also useful for downstream countries in helping relieve droughts and warning of floods.

In March last year, he said, downstream countries suffered the most extreme drought seen in a century. At Vietnam’s request, the Jinhong reservoir in Yunnan province released water to help ease the situation.

“And this played a very important role in eliminating the drought, from which China also suffered,” Yu said.

China also has an agreement with the MRC to provide it with hydrological information during the rainy season, he said. Through the Lancang-Mekong Joint Working Group established a year ago, it further provides useful information during times of flood.

When Thailand and Myanmar suffered severe flood in recent years, the Chinese government dispatched expert consultants. “In the near future, we will do evaluations of flood and drought disasters for the Mekong countries so we can organise future work plans,” he said.Zhou Guomei

Zhou Guomei, acting director general of the Lancang Mekong Environmental Cooperation Centre, said China was conscious of environmental concerns raised about its development projects, and her agency and the LMC Water Resource Cooperation Centre are pooling efforts to address those concerns.

“Our objective is the same – to protect the environment for the benefit of the people,” she said.

She said her centre would serve as the umbrella for diverse cooperation efforts on projects pertaining to environmental governance, biodiversity conservation, capacity building and environment-sharing platforms.

Zhou said she too preferred building a network with existing regional and sub-regional mechanism to address environmental objectives. “China participates very actively in sharing information to promote activities more comprehensively and efficiently,” she said.