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AUSTRALIAUKUSA

Flood toll swells as rivers rise

As the death toll from Florence grew and hundreds of people were pulled from flooded homes, North Carolina was bracing for catastrophic, widespread river flooding that could be the next stage of a mounting disaster. The storm’s death toll climbed to 14 when a man drowned after a pickup truck flipped into a drainage ditch along a flooded road. Also two people died from inhaling carbon monoxide from a generator.

Trump holds firm on China tariffs

US President Donald Trump will reportedly proceed with plans for tariffs on about $US200 billion of Chinese imports. The Wall Street Journal said the move comes after the White House invited Beijing to hold new talks on their tariff dispute. Last week the president said such a move could come soon. An announcement was planned for Monday or Tuesday.

Berry sabotage spreads to SA

Strawberry sabotage has spread to South Australia as Health Minister Greg Hunt orders a food safety authority assessment. A needle has been found inside a strawberry in South Australia, making it the fifth Australian state and territory to be implicated in the fruit sabotage saga. A customer made the discovery while eating fruit from a punnet of Mal’s Black Label strawberries on Sunday.

Brexit plan ‘right for now’ – Gove

Theresa May’s Brexit plan is the “right one for now” and could be altered by a future prime minster, Michael Gove has said. The Environment Secretary admitted the Chequers proposals had forced him to compromise on some of his beliefs, but insisted the most important issue now was ensuring Britain leaves the European Union in “good order”. May’s Brexit blueprint sparked has infuriated hardline Brexiteers.

Leadership talk irritates May

British Prime Minister Theresa May concedes that she gets “irritated” by the debate over her leadership during the difficult Brexit negotiations. She says she is concerned for the country’s future, not her own, as talks about Britain’s upcoming exit from the European Union continue. May faces a split in her Conservative Party, with some influential figures preferring a more complete break with the EU than she is advocating.

PM leads poll, but coalition trails

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is ahead of Labor leader Bill Shorten on leadership but Labor still leads the coalition overall, a new poll shows. A new Fairfax-Ipsos poll reveals the new prime minister is rated higher than Shorten in trustworthiness, vision for the country, economic policy and competence, while the Labor leader has a higher rating on social policy and perceived party support.

YoUr DAILY ToP 12 STorIES FroM FRAnK newS

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new ZeALAnDeUROPeCanada

Intrigue as trade talks drag on

Chrystia Freeland was not happy. With trilateral NAFTA talks having been on hiatus for most of the summer, the foreign affairs minister was in Berlin, barely one full day into a week-long diplomatic mission to Europe, when news emerged that the United States and Mexico had forged their own trade alliance in Canada’s absence.

Kurds opt out of local elections

Syria is holding its first municipal elections since 2011 amid tensions with the country’s self-administered Kurdish region, which is refusing to allow polls. Polls opened Sunday, with more than 40,000 candidates competing for 18,478 council seats, according to the Ministry of Local Administration. They are the first municipal elections held since Syria descended into civil war.

ardern lays out plan

The Prime Minister has laid out a blueprint for the coalition government for this term and potentially beyond. It consists of 12 different policy priorities, with three main themes – a strong sustainable economy, ensuring the wellbeing of New Zealanders and providing what Jacinda Ardern describes as “new” government leadership.Cabinet committees will have to make sure budget bids meet those priorities.

Rare look inside Elysee Palace

The behind-the-scenes quirks of the Elysee Palace have been given a rare airing this weekend, as the home of French presidents since 1848 opened its doors to the public. The French presidential wine cellar holds 14,000 bottles regarded as so precious, few people are allowed to enter the room. Flower bouquets are displayed at the presidential palace only for a couple of hours so they always look fresh.

deadly typhoon roars into China

Typhoon Mangkhut has barrelled into southern China after lashing the northern Philippines with strong winds and heavy rain that left at least 64 people dead and dozens more feared buried in a landslide. More than 2.4 million people were evacuated in southern China’s Guangdong province and nearly 50,000 fishing boats were called back to port. The gambling enclave of Macau closed casinos for the first time.

Warning on cancer risk for men

Men are most at risk of the 35,897 new cases of cancer expected in New Zealand in 2018, says the World Health organisation. Close to half the men in New Zealand and Australia are at risk of getting cancer, giving Australasia the highest regional rate in the world, latest estimates from the World Health organisation show.

ASIAReST OF The wORLD

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USA

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet in Beijing. – AP

Trump going ahead with China tariffsUS President donald Trump will reportedly proceed with plans for tariffs on about $US200 billion of Chinese imports.

The Wall Street Journal says the move comes after the White House invited Beijing to hold new talks on their tariff dispute. Last week the president said such a move could come soon.

An announcement was planned for Monday or Tuesday.The report cites unnamed people familiar with the matter

who say the tariff level will likely be set at about 10 per cent. That’s below the 25 per cent announced earlier this year.

The two governments have imposed 25 per cent tariffs on $US50 billion of each other’s goods. Beijing has issued a list of $US60 billion of American products for retaliation if Trump’s next tariff hike goes ahead. ■

A pickup truck drives past a farmhouse that is surrounded by flooded fields. – AP

USA

Florence toll swells to 14 as rivers riseas the death toll from Florence grew and hundreds of people were pulled from flooded homes, north Carolina was bracing for catastrophic, widespread river flooding that could be the next stage of a mounting disaster.

Weakened to a tropical depression early Sunday after blowing ashore as a hurricane with 90mph winds on Friday, Florence was still spinning slowly over the Carolinas as it pulled warm water from the ocean and hurled it onshore.

The storm’s death toll climbed to 14 when a man drowned after a pickup truck flipped into a drainage ditch along a flooded road in South Carolina. Earlier, authorities said two people died from inhaling carbon monoxide from a generator in their home.

About 740,000 homes and businesses were without power in the Carolinas, and utilities said some could be out for weeks.

radar showed storm sprawling over six states, but North and South Carolina were in the bull’s-eye.

The head of Federal Emergency Management Agency Brock Long said officials were still focused on finding and rescuing people.

“We’ll get through this. It’ll be ugly, but we’ll get through it,” Long said.

rivers swelled toward record levels, forecasters said, and thousands of people were ordered to evacuate for fear that the next few days could bring the most destructive round of flooding in North Carolina history.

Stream gauges across the region showed water levels rising steadily, with rivers expected to crest on Sunday and Monday at or near record levels: The Little river, the Cape Fear, the Lumber, the Neuse, the Waccamaw and the Pee Dee were all projected to burst their banks, possibly flooding nearby communities.

Authorities ordered the immediate evacuation of up to 7500 people living within a mile of a stretch of the Cape Fear river and the Little river, about 100 miles from the North Carolina coast. ■

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UK

British Prime Minister Theresa May. -–PA

May finds leadership talk distractingBritish Prime Minister Theresa May concedes that she gets “irritated” by the debate over her leadership during the difficult Brexit negotiations.

She says she is concerned for the country’s future, not her own, as talks about Britain’s upcoming exit from the European Union continue.

May faces a split in her Conservative Party, with some influential figures preferring a more complete break with the EU than she is advocating. roughly 50 hard-liners met on Tuesday night to discuss her possible ouster.

In an interview, May said the leadership talk can be distracting.

“I get a little bit irritated, but this debate is not about my future. This debate is about the future of the people of the UK and the future of the United Kingdom,” she said.

“That’s what I’m focused on, and that’s what we should all be focused on.”

May criticised former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who resigned in July to protest her plan to keep some close ties to the EU after Brexit.

Johnson faced a Tory backlash after comparing May’s Brexit plan to a “suicide vest” and his former communications director, Guto Harri, said that his ex-boss was “digging his political grave”.

May said the former foreign secretary’s comments were “not right”.

“I have to say that that choice of language is completely inappropriate,” she said.

“I was home secretary for six years, and as Prime Minister for two years now I think using language like that was not right and it’s not language I would have used.” ■

British Environment Secretary Michael Gove. – PA

UK

Brexit plan is right for now – GoveTheresa May’s Brexit plan is the “right one for now” and could be altered by a future prime minster, Michael Gove has said.

The Environment Secretary admitted the Chequers proposals had forced him to compromise on some of his beliefs, but insisted the most important issue now was ensuring Britain leaves the European Union in “good order”.

May’s Brexit blueprint sparked the resignations of Boris Johnson and David Davis, and has infuriated hardline Brexiteers.

Asked if the plan would be permanent, Gove said: “Yes, but there’s one critical thing, a future prime minister could always choose to alter the relationship between Britain and the European Union.

“But the Chequers approach is the right one for now because we have got to make sure that we respect that vote and take advantage of the opportunities of being outside the European Union.”

Gove said the responsibility was now on the European Union to compromise “because we’ve shown flexibility”.

“I’ve compromised,” he added. “I’ve been quite clear that some of the things that I argued for in the referendum passionately, as a result of Chequers I have to qualify one or two of my views.

“I have to acknowledge the parliamentary arithmetic.“I believe the critical thing is making sure we leave in good

order with a deal which safeguards the referendum mandate.”Labour’s London mayor Sadiq Khan has called for voters to

have the final say on what happens next.“This means a public vote on any Brexit deal obtained by

the Government, or a vote on a no-deal Brexit if one is not secured, alongside the option of staying in the EU,” he said.

But shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner said a fresh referendum would give May a lifeline, “Because then she can say ‘oh, if I can’t get it through Parliament I’ll go back to the people’.” ■

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AUSTRALIA

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morison. – AAP

PM leads poll, but coalition trailsPrime Minister Scott Morrison is ahead of Labor leader Bill Shorten on leadership but Labor still leads the coalition overall, a new poll shows.

A new Fairfax-Ipsos poll reveals the new prime minister is rated higher than Shorten in trustworthiness, vision for the country, economic policy and competence, while the Labor leader has a higher rating on social policy and perceived party support.

Despite the apparent voter honeymoon with Morrison, Labor is still the preferred of the two parties, leading 53 per cent to 47 per cent.

The lack of faith in coalition unity comes after a tumultuous three weeks in Canberra which saw the Liberal Party consumed by infighting before it ousted Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister and installed Morrison.

But despite the apparent voter honeymoon with the new prime minister, Labor is still the preferred of the two parties leading 53 per cent to 47 per cent.

Some of Morrison’s first interviews in the top job, in which he accused his rival of being “union bred, union fed and union led”, has taken some sheen from his rival for voters with 50 per cent believing Shorten is easily influenced by minority groups.

Just 38 per cent believe the same about Morrison.The poll of 1200 voters was taken from Wednesday to

Saturday. ■

– AAP

AUSTRALIA

Strawberry sabotage spreads to SAStrawberry sabotage has spread to South Australia as Health Minister Greg Hunt orders a food safety authority assessment.

A needle has been found inside a strawberry in South Australia, making it the fifth Australian state and territory to be implicated in the fruit sabotage saga.

A customer made the discovery while eating fruit from a punnet of Mal’s Black Label strawberries on Sunday.

The punnet was bought from Klose’s Foodland Supermarket in Littlehampton on Saturday, with the independent grocery retailer later pulling the strawberries from all its shelves.

It comes after Hunt ordered the national food safety watchdog to assess the states’ handling of strawberry contamination.

Police are investigating claims that needle sabotage has now spread to six brands of strawberries across five states.

Coles and Aldi supermarkets have pulled all strawberries from their shelves across the country, except Western Australia, as a precaution over needle contamination fears.

Berry obsession, Berry Licious and Donnybrook Berries branded fruit have recalled their strawberries nationwide.

Police are also investigating contamination of fruit sold by Delightful Strawberries, Love Berries and oasis in stores in NSW, Queensland, Victoria, and the ACT.

“This is a very vicious crime and it’s a general attack on the public, and it’s also an attack on a specific industry,” Hunt said.

He had asked his department to request Food Standards Australia New Zealand make an “immediate appraisal” of the situation. ■

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ReST of The woRLd

An anti-government demonstration in Idlib, Syria. – AP

Kurds opt out of local electionsSyria is holding its first municipal elections since 2011 amid tensions with the country’s self-administered Kurdish region, which is refusing to allow polls.

Polls opened Sunday, with more than 40,000 candidates competing for 18,478 council seats, according to the Ministry of Local Administration.

They are the first municipal elections held since Syria descended into civil war. They are also the broadest elections to be held since 2011 as the government continues to recover territory from the opposition in the ongoing war.

Presidential elections were held in 2014 in limited areas of government control.

The Kurdish-led self-administration is refusing to include north Syria in the elections. Its officials say they want a federalised Syria that respects their autonomy from Damascus. ■

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. – AP

CAnAdA

Intrigue as trade talks drag onChrystia Freeland was not happy. With trilateral naFTa talks having been on hiatus for most of the summer, the foreign affairs minister was in Berlin, barely one full day into a week-long diplomatic mission to Europe, when news emerged that the United States and Mexico had forged their own trade alliance in Canada’s absence.

By August 28, Freeland was back in Washington, hosting a meeting at the Canadian embassy, where sources say she gave members of the Mexican negotiating team a piece of her mind.

“She brought them in for that purpose,” said one source familiar with the encounter.

By all indications, things haven’t improved much.Three-way talks with US Trade representative robert

Lighthizer and Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo have not taken place since, and none are imminent. Freeland is spending Monday in ottawa for the return of Parliament.

Last week, in Washington for a full day of meetings with Lighthizer, Freeland insisted the bilateral negotiations have been “constructive,” “productive” and brimming with “goodwill.”

But multiple sources familiar with the tenor of those talks, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the mood has been decidedly less cordial than the minister lets on in public.

Kenneth Smith ramos, Mexico’s chief negotiator, seems to be hedging his bets.

“Mexico stated from the beginning of the negotiation that the ideal scenario is for NAFTA to remain trilateral,” he tweeted Wednesday from Washington, where he was taking part in a legal review of the agreement in principle with the US.

“We hope the US and Canada will conclude their bilateral negotiation shortly. If that is not possible we are ready to advance bilaterally with the US.”

There’s confidence in ottawa that Congress won’t approve a deal without Canada. But with a good Mexico-US deal on the table and the clock ticking toward game-changing US midterms in November, that’s not a given. ■

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ASIA

A police officer rescues a child from a flooded street in Hong Kong. – EPA

Deadly typhoon roars into ChinaTyphoon Mangkhut has barrelled into southern China after lashing the northern Philippines with strong winds and heavy rain that left at least 64 people dead and dozens more feared buried in a landslide.

More than 2.4 million people were evacuated in southern China’s Guangdong province and nearly 50,000 fishing boats were called back to port, state media reported.

The gambling enclave of Macau closed casinos for the first time and the Hong Kong observatory warned people to stay away from the Victoria Harbour landmark, where storm surges battered the sandbag-reinforced waterfront.

Experts said Mangkhut was expected to be the strongest typhoon to hit the city in decades.

The Hong Kong observatory issued its strongest storm warning for 10 hours on Sunday, just slightly shorter than the record time of 11 hours set by Typhoon York in 1999.

The storm made landfall in the Guangdong city of Taishan at 5pm, with wind speeds of 162km/h. State television broadcaster CGTN reported that surging waves flooded a seaside hotel in the city of Shenzhen.

In the provincial capital of Guangzhou as residents stocked up on groceries in anticipation of being confined at home by the typhoon, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said.

Authorities in southern China issued a red alert, the most severe warning, as the national meteorological centre said the densely populated region would face a “severe test caused by wind and rain” and urged officials to prepare for possible disasters.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled. All high-speed and some normal rail services in Guangdong and Hainan provinces were also halted.

overall, at least 64 people have died in typhoon incidents in the northern Philippines, mostly from landslides and collapsed houses, according to the national police. Forty-five other people were missing and 33 were injured in the storm. ■

French President Emmanuel Macron greets visitors to the Elysee Palace in Paris. – AP

eURoPe

A rare look inside Elysee PalaceThe behind-the-scenes quirks of the Elysee Palace have been given a rare airing this weekend, as the home of French presidents since 1848 opened its doors to the public.

The French presidential wine cellar holds 14,000 bottles regarded as so precious, few people are allowed to enter the room. Flower bouquets are displayed at the presidential palace only for a couple of hours so they always look fresh. And the president’s chefs use 150-year-old copper pans.

These and other behind-the-scenes quirks of the Elysee Palace are on show this weekend, when the home of French presidents since 1848 opens its heavy and usually tightly closed doors to a small, but lucky group of ordinary citizens.

A few hundred people visited the underground kitchen, cellar and florist rooms.

They were able to buy souvenirs from a new boutique to help finance palace renovations expected to cost 100 million euros over the next seven years.

Across France, other usually closed sites are also opening their doors for the weekend as part of European Heritage Days.

Under President Emmanuel Macron’s office and the Elysee’s 18th-century golden reception rooms is an underground world where a small battalion of workers makes the whole place tick. They labour out of sight in a maze of austere corridors and narrow rooms with artificial light and grey and beige walls.

Every morning, the basement comes to life when fresh produce, fish and meats are delivered to the kitchen and checked for quality. Most of the food – except items like coffee and chocolate – is sourced in France.

The kitchen staff of 28 people, plus apprentices, serves 92,000-95,000 meals per year. They cook daily for Macron and his wife Brigitte and for some Elysee employees, and handle official dinners.

European Heritage Days are held every September. ■

8

Warning on cancer risk for menMen are most at risk of the 35,897 new cases of cancer expected in new Zealand in 2018, says the World Health Organisation.

Close to half the men in New Zealand and Australia are at risk of getting cancer, giving Australasia the highest regional rate in the world, latest estimates from the World Health organisation (WHo) show.

WHo’s International Agency for research on Cancer (IArC) estimates the risk of New Zealand men developing cancer before the age of 75 years is 46.27 per cent. The agency estimates the risk for women in New Zealand at a third.

“The increasing cancer burden is due to several factors including population growth and ageing, as well as the changing prevalence of certain causes of cancer linked to social and economic development,” the agency’s report said.

“This is particularly true in rapidly growing economies, where a shift is observed from cancers related to poverty and infections to cancers associated with lifestyles more typical of industrialised countries.”

Cancer Society of New Zealand chief executive Mike Kernaghan said an ageing population and lifestyle factors including diet and exercise were contributing to the rising risk of getting the disease.

“All of those factors contribute, as we get older, to an increased risk of cancer and the concern is that we don’t appear to be paying enough attention here in New Zealand to those issues,” Kernaghan said.

He said cancer caused 30 per cent of deaths in New Zealand with lung cancer and prostate cancer the most prevalent.

Kernaghan said access to new and proven medicines in New Zealand lagged behind other countries around the world, particularly Australia.

The IArC report also highlighted a worrying rise in lung cancer in women, with highest incidence rates in Hungary, North America, China, Australia and New Zealand. ■

new ZeALAnd

– rNZ

Ardern lays out government’s planThe Prime Minister has laid out a blueprint for the coalition government for this term and potentially beyond.

It consists of 12 different policy priorities, with three main themes – a strong sustainable economy, ensuring the wellbeing of New Zealanders and providing what Jacinda Ardern describes as “new” government leadership.

Cabinet committees – groups of Cabinet ministers in particular portfolio areas – will have to make sure budget bids meet those priorities.

Ardern unveiled the plan in a speech in Auckland, alluding to recent coverage of tensions and disagreements over some policy positions within the coalition government.

“And perhaps it’s because we have never had a government quite like ours that we cause a little bit of chat”, she said.

“It should come as no surprise though, that as three distinct parties, we will have different opinions and ideas. Those didn’t begin and nor did they end at the negotiating table.

“But ultimately, we make those differences work as much as we make our consensus drive us forward.”

Ardern said the coalition was elected not to oversee a “modified status quo”, but to be a “government of change”.

Within each theme are a number of priorities, ranging from expanding trade, facing the challenges of changing technology in the workplace, and having warm, dry housing.

There were no new policy announcements, but Ardern said the plan was to give New Zealanders a clear idea where the government was heading.

“It looks beyond the three year electoral cycle and plans for the next 30 years and longer.

“It will, I hope, prove to be the kind of agenda that outlasts any of us as individual parties and politicians.”

A set of measurements would be established “to monitor progress toward achieving each outcome”, said Ardern. ■

NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. – rNZ / richard Tindiller

new ZeALAnd