The Jim Bakker Show

New York lets neighborhood return to nature to guard against storms

By Peter Szekely

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Every now and then, Frank and Mary Lettieri come back to visit what used to be their tightly packed Staten Island neighborhood before Superstorm Sandy prompted New York state to let it go back to nature.

The deadly storm, which swamped the New York metropolitan area five years ago and revealed its vulnerability, convinced state officials to offer to buy out homeowners in flood-prone areas, including the Lettieris’ Oakwood Beach neighborhood.

At first, the Lettieris resisted. They had owned their nearly paid-off home since 1987, raised five children in it and spent $138,000 to rebuild after the storm sent a surge over the nearby beach that filled their first floor with seawater.

But eventually, like nearly 80 percent of their fellow Staten Island residents who were offered the same opportunity, they took the deal, part of a New York state program to convert the most vulnerable neighborhoods into uninhabited buffer zones.

“I wish we could have stayed, but we couldn’t,” said Frank, remembering a 1992 storm that also flooded them out. “The writing was on the wall. We had to go.”

Sandy, a late-season hurricane, killed at least 159 people in New York, New Jersey and other parts of the East Coast on Oct. 29, 2012, including a father and son who drowned in the basement of their home next door to the Lettieris. It damaged or destroyed more than 650,000 homes.

Much of the impetus for the home buyout program was an expectation that storms like Sandy will become more common, according to Lisa Bova-Hiatt, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery.

“To say that extreme weather is not our new normal would just be incredibly short-sighted,” she said.

Rising sea levels will increase the average number of storms that flood New York City with surges of at least 7.4 feet (2.3 m) to once every five years by 2030 from once every 500 years before 1800, according to a Rutgers University study published on Tuesday.

BUFFER ZONE

Using money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, New York has spent $255 million to buy 654 properties, mostly in Staten Island, with 83 more in the pipeline, the Office of Storm Recovery said.

“The program is voluntary,” said Bova-Hiatt. “However, at some point it would be fantastic to have the entire area as a buffer zone.”

Bova-Hiatt, herself a Staten Island resident, said the state will never use its power of eminent domain to force out the Staten Islanders who declined buyout offers for 142 properties and can no longer accept them because the program has ended.

But she declined to predict whether New York City would seize property for a planned seawall to protect 5.5 miles (8.9 km) of Staten Island’s east coast.

New Jersey also has a buyout program, having spent $110 million from the federal government to buy 520 properties in areas that were hit by Sandy-related flooding, according to the State Department of Environmental Protection.

Two residents of Staten Island’s Oakwood Beach section who declined to sell are Gregory and Olga Epshteyn. Their two-story home is among 88 that the state failed to acquire out of the 402 in the neighborhood that were eligible.

“This is the best place on Staten Island to live,” said Gregory, adding that the city still diligently provides services, such as garbage pickup and street lights.

“We love it here, but we miss our neighbors,” Olga added.

The Epshteyns’ home now has plenty of open space around it as Oakwood Beach and two other storm-ravaged sections of Staten Island return to their natural states.

Most of the bungalows, townhouses and other modest homes that lined the neighborhood’s narrow streets have been torn down and covered over with grass that the state maintains.

On a recent visit, the Lettieris, both retired, said they missed Oakwood Beach, but did not regret their decision to take the state’s offer and move to higher ground about a mile (1.6 km) away.

Former residents often come back on the anniversary of Sandy and many are expected to visit on this Sunday’s five-year mark.

Yuriy Domashov recently moved to the edge of Oakwood Beach after taking the state buyout for his oceanfront townhouse in another flood-prone area a few miles up the beach.

“For all my life I was connected to the water,” said Domashov, a veteran of the Soviet navy, as he walked his dog near the beach.

Having survived the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and an ordeal aboard his submarine, Domashov said he does not worry about another storm of the century.

“Once in 100 years, I believe, is good enough for me,” said Domashov, who is 75.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Trump releases some JFK files, blocks others under pressure

By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the unveiling of 2,800 documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy but yielded to pressure from the FBI and CIA to block the release of other records to be reviewed further.

Congress had ordered in 1992 that all remaining sealed files pertaining to the investigation into Kennedy’s death should be fully opened to the public through the National Archives in 25 years, by Oct. 26, 2017, except for those the president authorized for further withholding.

Trump had confirmed on Saturday that he would allow for the release of the final batch of once-classified records, amounting to tens of thousands of pages, “subject to the receipt of further information.”

But as the deadline neared, the administration decided at the last minute to stagger the final release over the next 180 days while government agencies studied whether any documents should stay sealed or redacted.

The law allows the president to keep material under wraps if it is determined that harm to intelligence operations, national defense, law enforcement or the conduct of foreign relations would outweigh the public’s interest in full disclosure.

More than 2,800 uncensored documents were posted immediately to the National Archives website on Thursday evening – a staggering, disparate cache that news outlets began poring through seeking new insights into a tragedy that has been endlessly dissected for decades by investigators, scholars and conspiracy theorists.

The rest will be released “on a rolling basis,” with “redactions in only the rarest of circumstances,” by the end of the review on April 26, 2018, the White House said in a statement.

In a memo to government agency heads, Trump said the American people deserved as much access as possible to the records.

“Therefore, I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted,” he wrote, adding that he had no choice but to accept the requested redactions for now.

A Central Intelligence Agency spokesman told Reuters that every single one of approximately 18,000 remaining CIA records in the collection would ultimately be released, with just 1 percent of the material left redacted.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo was a lead advocate in arguing to the White House for keeping some materials secret, one senior administration official said.

While Kennedy was killed over half a century ago, the document file included material from investigations during the 1970s through the 1990s. Intelligence and law enforcement officials argued their release could thus put at risk some more recent “law enforcement equities” and other materials that still have relevance, the official said.

Trump was resistant but “acceded to it with deep insistence that this stuff is going to be reviewed and released in the next six months,” the official added.

QUELLING CONSPIRACY THEORIES?

Academics who have studied Kennedy’s slaying on Nov. 22, 1963, said they expected nothing in the final batch of files would alter the official conclusion of investigators that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin who fired on the president’s open limousine that day in Dallas from an upper window of the Texas Book Depository building overlooking the motorcade route.

They likewise anticipated that the latest releases would do little to quell long-held conspiracy theories that the 46-year-old Democratic president’s killing was organized by the Mafia, by Cuba, or a cabal of rogue agents.

Of the roughly 5 million pages of JFK assassination-related records held by the National Archives, 88 percent have been available to the public without restriction since the late 1990s, and 11 percent more have been released with sensitive portions redacted. Only about 1 percent have remain withheld in full, according to the National Archives.

Thousands of books, articles, TV shows and films have explored the idea that Kennedy’s assassination was the result of an elaborate conspiracy. None have produced conclusive proof that Oswald, who was fatally shot by a nightclub owner two days after killing Kennedy, worked with anyone else, although they retain a powerful cultural currency.

“My students are really skeptical that Oswald was the lone assassin,” said Patrick Maney, a professor of history at Boston College. “It’s hard to get our minds around this, that someone like a loner, a loser, could on his own have murdered Kennedy and changed the course of world history. But that’s where the evidence is.”

Kennedy’s assassination was the first in a string of politically motivated killings, including those of his brother Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., that stunned the United States during the turbulent 1960s. He remains one of the most admired U.S. presidents.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington and Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Peter Cooney and Michael Perry)

Catalonia declares independence from Spain, direct Madrid rule looms

By Sam Edwards and Julien Toyer

BARCELONA/MADRID (Reuters) – Catalonia’s parliament declared independence from Spain on Friday in defiance of the Madrid government, which at the same time was preparing to impose direct rule over the region.

Although the declaration was in effect a symbolic gesture as it will not be accepted by Spain or the international community, the moves by both sides take Spain’s worst political crisis in four decades to a new level.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy immediately called for calm and said the rule of law would be restored.

The motion passed in the regional parliament in Barcelona — which was boycotted by opposition parties — said Catalonia constituted an independent, sovereign and social democratic state. It called on other countries and institutions to recognize it.

It also said it wanted to open talks with Madrid to collaborate on setting up the new republic.

“It is not going to be easy, it is not going to be free, it is not going to change in a day. But there is no alternative to a process towards the Catalan Republic,” lawmaker Marta Rovira of the Junts pel Si pro-independence alliance said in a debate leading to the vote.

After the debate, lawmakers from members of three main national parties — the People’s Party, the Socialists and Ciudadanos, walked out.

Members of the pro-independence parties and the far-left Podemos then voted in 70-10 in favour in a secret ballot aimed at hindering any attempt by the central government to lay criminal charges on them.

Spanish shares and bonds were sold off when the result of the vote was announced.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont left the chamber to shouts of “President!”.

Meanwhile in Madrid the upper house of Spain’s parliament, the Senate, was due to approve Article 155, the law that allowing the central government to take over the autonomous region.

“Exceptional measures should only be adopted when no other remedy is possible,” Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in an address to the Senate. “In my opinion there is no alternative. The only thing that can be done and should be done is to accept and comply with the law.”

The Catalan leadership was ignoring the law and making a mockery of democracy, he said.

“We are facing a challenge unprecedented in our recent history,” said Rajoy, who has staked out an uncompromising position against Catalonia’s campaign to break away from Spain.

After the Senate vote, Rajoy was expected to convene his cabinet to adopt the first measures to govern Catalonia directly. This could include sacking the Barcelona government and assuming direct supervision of Catalan police forces.

But how direct rule would work on the ground – including the reaction of civil servants and the police – is uncertain.

Some independence supporters have promised to mount a campaign of civil disobedience, which could lead to direct confrontation with security forces.

The crisis developed after an independence referendum on Oct. 1 was declared illegal by Madrid. Although it endorsed independence, it drew only a 43 percent turnout as Catalans who oppose independence largely boycotted it.

WORRIED, NERVOUS

In Barcelona, crowds of independence supporters were swelling on downtown streets, shouting “Liberty” in the Catalan language and singing traditional Catalan songs.

“I’m worried, I’m nervous like everybody. But freedom is never free,” said Jaume Moline, 50, musician.

Montserrat Rectoret, a 61-year-old historian, said: “I am emotional because Catalonia has struggled for 40 years to be independent and finally I can see it.”

The crisis has split Catalonia and caused deep resentment around Spain – national flags now hang from many balconies in the capital in an expression of unity.

It has also prompted a flight of business from the wealthy northeastern region and alarmed European leaders who fear the crisis could fan separatist sentiment around the continent.

Catalonia is one of Spain’s most prosperous regions and already has a high degree of autonomy. But it has a litany of historic grievances, exacerbated during the 1939-1975 Franco dictatorship, when its culture and politics were suppressed.

(Reporting by Paul Day and Julien Toyer, writing by Angus MacSwan, editing by Mark Heinrich)

U.S sanctions North Koreans for ‘flagrant’ rights abuse

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on seven North Korean individuals and three entities for “flagrant” human rights abuses, including killings, torture, forced labor and the hunting down of asylum seekers abroad.

“Today’s sanctions target the North Korean military and regime officials,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “We also are targeting North Korean financial facilitators who attempt to keep the regime afloat with foreign currency earned through forced labor operations.”

Among those sanctioned were the director and the deputy director of the Military Security Command, the first vice minister of the Ministry of People’s Security and the labor minister. North Korea’s consul general in Shenyang, China, and a diplomat at its embassy in Vietnam were also sanctioned.

“We are especially concerned with the North Korean military, which operates as secret police, punishing all forms of dissent,” the statement said.

“Further, the military operates outside of North Korea to hunt down asylum seekers, and brutally detains and forcibly returns North Korean citizens.”

The Treasury statement charged that Ku Sung Sop, the consul general in Shenyang, and Kim Min Chol, the diplomat in Vietnam, had participated in the forced repatriation of North Korean asylum seekers.

Scott Busby, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, told a news briefing that Ku’s case had been raised with China.

He said it was up to China how to react, but the range of possibilities included expelling him from the country.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China does not approve of countries using their own domestic law to enact unilateral sanctions outside of the United Nations framework.

“We will maintain normal exchanges and cooperation with North Korea on the basis of complying with U.N. resolutions,” he told a daily news briefing, without elaborating.

Busby said North Korean government violations included extrajudicial killings, torture, rape and forced abortions and the aim of the sanctions was to send a message, especially to prison camp managers and mid-level officials, that individuals would be held accountable.

The U.S. administration has sought to restrict the income North Korea receives from its export of labor as part of efforts to choke off funds helping to finance the country’s nuclear and missile programs, which Pyongyang says are aimed at developing weapons capable of hitting the United States.

North Korea routinely denies widespread allegations of rights abuses.

The Treasury statement said the Ch’olhyo’n Overseas Construction Company, which was sanctioned along with the Military Security Command and the External Construction Bureau, had operated in Algeria and was reported to earn foreign currency for North Korea.

“Employees of Ch’olhyo’n are kept in slave-like conditions, including having salaries and passports withheld by (North Korean) security officials assigned as site supervisors, meager food rations, poor living conditions, and severe restrictions on their freedom of movement,” the Treasury statement said.

It said the External Construction Bureau had operated in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Tom Brown)

Iraqi forces, Kurdish Peshmerga agree on ceasefire, U.S.-led coalition says

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters reached an agreement on Friday to stop fighting in northern Iraq, the media office of the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition said.

A spokesman for the coalition in Baghdad told Reuters the ceasefire agreement covered all fronts.

Iraqi government forces and the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilisation launched a surprise offensive on Oct. 16 in retaliation to a Sept. 25 referendum on independence organized by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq.

The offensive aims to capture so-called disputed territories, claimed by both the KRG and the Iraqi central government, as well as border crossings and key oil facilities.

The oil-rich city of Kirkuk fell to Iraqi forces without much resistance on Oct. 16 but the Peshmerga began to fight back forcefully as they withdrew closer to the core KRG territory.

The most violent clashes happened in the northwestern corner where Peshmerga are defending land crossings to Turkey and Syria and an oil hub that controls KRG crude exports.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Peter Graff and Alison Williams)

Exclusive: Death certificate offers clues on Russian casualties in Syria

By Maria Tsvetkova

MOSCOW (Reuters) – An official document seen by Reuters shows that at least 131 Russian citizens died in Syria in the first nine months of this year, a number that relatives, friends and local officials say included private military contractors.

The document, a death certificate issued by the Russian consulate in Damascus dated Oct. 4, 2017, does not say what the deceased was doing in Syria.

But Reuters has established in interviews with the families and friends of some of the deceased and officials in their hometowns that the dead included Russian private military contractors killed while fighting alongside the forces of Moscow’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The presence of the Russian contractors in Syria – and the casualties they are sustaining – is denied by Moscow, which wants to portray its military intervention in Syria as a successful peace mission with minimal losses.

The Russian defense ministry did not immediately respond to detailed questions submitted by Reuters. Requests for comment from the Russian consulate in Damascus did not elicit a response.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a statement provided to Reuters on Friday: “We do not have information about individual citizens who visit Syria. With that, I consider this question dealt with.”

Reuters sent questions to a group of Russian private military contractors active in Syria through a person who knows their commanders, but did not receive a response.

The official death toll of military personnel in Syria this year is 16. A casualty figure significantly higher than that could tarnish President Vladimir Putin’s record five months before a presidential election which he is expected to contest.

A Reuters count of the number of Russian private contractors known to have been killed in Syria this year, based on interviews with relatives and friends of the dead and local officials in their hometowns, stands at 26.

Russian authorities have not publicly released any information this year about casualties among Russian civilians who may have been caught up in the fighting.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, in response to Reuters questions, said the consulate in Syria was fulfilling its duties to register the deaths of Russian citizens. It said that under the law, personal data obtained in the process of registering the deaths was restricted and could not be publicly disclosed.

In August, Igor Konashenkov, a Russian defense ministry spokesman, said in response to a previous Reuters report that information about Russian military contractors in Syria was “a myth”, and that Reuters was attempting to discredit Moscow’s operation to restore peace in Syria.

UNUSUAL

A Russian diplomat who has worked in a consulate in another part of the world, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said the figure of 131 registered deaths in nine months was unusually high given the estimated number of Russian expatriates in Syria.

Although there is no official data for the size of the community, data from Russian national elections shows there were only around 5,000 registered Russian voters in the country in 2012 and 2016.

“It is as if the diaspora is dying out,” he said.

High numbers of deaths are usually recorded by Russian consulates only in tourist destinations such as Thailand or Turkey, he said.

Russian consulates do not register the deaths of military personnel, according to an official at the consulate in Damascus who did not give his name.

The consular document seen by Reuters was a “certificate of death” issued to record the death of Sergei Poddubny, 36. It was one of three death certificates seen by Reuters.

Poddubny’s certificate, which bears the consulate’s stamp, lists the cause of death as “carbonization of the body” – in other words, he was burned.

It said he was killed on Sept. 28 in the town of Tiyas, Homs province, the scene of heavy fighting between Islamist rebels and pro-Assad forces. Several Russian contractors were killed in the area earlier this year, friends and relatives told Reuters.

Poddubny’s body was repatriated and buried in his home village in southern Russia about three weeks later. He had been in Syria as a private military contractor, one of his relatives and one of his friends told Reuters.

Poddubny’s death certificate had a serial number in the top right corner, 131.

Under a Justice Ministry procedure, all death certificates are numbered, starting from zero at the start of the year and going up by one digit for each new death recorded.

The Russian diplomat confirmed that is the procedure.

Reuters saw two other certificates, both issued on Feb. 3. The numbers – 9 and 13 – indicate certificates for at least five deaths were issued on that day. They were both private military contractors, according to people who know them.

The death of a Russian citizen would have to be registered at the consulate in order to repatriate the body back to Russia via civilian channels, according to the Russian diplomat.

A death certificate from the consulate would also help with bureaucracy back home relating to the dead person’s assets, the diplomat said.

The bodies of Russians fighting on the rebel side are not repatriated, according to a former Russian official who dealt with at least six cases of Russians killed in Syria and the relatives of four Russian Islamists killed there.

A few thousand Russian citizens with Islamist sympathies have traveled to rebel-held areas since the conflict began in 2011, according to Russian officials.

(Additional reporting by Andrey Kuzmin; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

NotPetya hackers likely behind BadRabbit attack: researchers

By Jack Stubbs

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Technical indicators suggest a cyber attack which hit Russia and other countries this week was carried out by hackers behind a similar but bigger assault on Ukraine in June, security researchers who analyzed the two campaigns said on Wednesday.

Russia-based cyber firm Group-IB said the BadRabbit virus used in this week’s attack shared a key piece of code with the NotPetya malware that crippled businesses in Ukraine and worldwide earlier this year, suggesting the same group was responsible.

The BadRabbit attack hit Russia, Ukraine and other countries on Tuesday, taking down Russia’s Interfax news agency and delaying flights at Ukraine’s Odessa airport.

Multiple cyber security investigators have linked the two attacks, citing similarities in the malware coding and hacking methods, but stopped short of direct attribution.

Still, experts caution that attributing cyber attacks is notoriously difficult, as hackers regularly use techniques to cover their tracks and sometimes deliberately mislead investigators about their identity.

Security researchers at Cisco’s Talos unit said BadRabbit bore some similarities with NotPetya as they were both based on the same malware, but large parts of code had been rewritten and the new virus distribution method was less sophisticated.

They confirmed BadRabbit used a hacking tool called Eternal Romance, believed to have been developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) before being stolen and leaked online in April.

NotPetya also employed Eternal Romance, as well as another NSA tool called Eternal Blue. But Talos said they were used in a different way and there was no evidence Bad Rabbit contained Eternal Blue.

“It is highly likely that the same group of hackers was behind (the) BadRabbit ransomware attack on Oct. 25, 2017 and the epidemic of the NotPetya virus, which attacked the energy, telecommunications and financial sectors in Ukraine in June 2017,” Group-IB said in a technical report.

Matthieu Suiche, a French hacker and founder of the United Arab Emirates-based cyber security firm Comae Technologies, said he agreed with the Group-IB assessment that there was “serious reason to consider” that BadRabbit and NotPetya were created by the same people.

But some experts have said the conclusion is surprising as the NotPetya attack is widely thought to have been carried out by Russia, an allegation Moscow denies.

Ukrainian officials have said the NotPetya attack directly targeted Ukraine and was carried about by a hacking group widely known as Black Energy, which some cyber experts say works in favor of Russian government interests. Moscow has repeatedly denied carrying out cyber attacks against Ukraine.

The majority of BadRabbit’s victims were in Russia, with only a few in other countries such Ukraine, Bulgaria, Turkey and Japan.

Group-IB said some parts of the BadRabbit virus dated from mid-2014, however, suggesting the hackers used old tools from previous attacks. “This corresponds with BlackEnergy timeframes, as the group started its notable activity in 2014,” it said.

(Additional reporting by Eric Auchard; Editing by Jim Finkle/Mark Heinrich)

House panels seek documents on Puerto Rico utility deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. congressional committee on Thursday set a Nov. 2 deadline for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) to provide information related to its $300 million contract with a small Montana firm to repair damage to the utility’s infrastructure caused by Hurricane Maria.

“Specifically, the size and terms of the contract, as well as the circumstances surrounding the contract’s formation, raise questions regarding PREPA’s standard contract awarding procedures,” the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Rob Bishop, said in a letter to PREPA’s executive director, Ricardo Ramos.

Media reports that Whitefish Energy Holdings entered the contract with PREPA to fix the utility’s power grid raised questions among Democrats in Congress and others when it was disclosed that the Montana firm won the contract without a competitive bidding process.

The two-year-old company had only two full-time employees and was rapidly hiring workers to tackle the job of patching up the destroyed power grid that has left most of the U.S. territory without electricity for weeks following the destructive hurricane.

While Bishop’s letter said emergency circumstances could “necessitate” emergency relief contracts, “Transparency and accountability in government contracting, however, is not to be compromised.”

Separately, U.S. Representatives including Greg Walden, a Republican, and Frank Pallone, a Democrat, asked Whitefish in a letter to provide documents related to the contract to the Energy and Commerce committee before Nov. 9.

Whitefish founding partner Ken Luce said his company appreciated the efforts to gather information so lawmakers have “confidence in the overall process to support the people of Puerto Rico” and Whitefish’s capabilities.

And two Democratic U.S. senators urged the head of a congressional watchdog office to probe the PREPA contract, saying they were concerned about the bidding process and potential high costs.

Senators Maria Cantwell and Ron Wyden wrote a letter to Eugene Dodaro, the U.S. comptroller general at the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

The senators said they were also concerned about reports of “contemporaneous communications between Whitefish and senior members of the federal executive branch, including Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke,” as the contract was being discussed.

A Washington Post report this week said the chief executive of Whitefish, Andy Techmanski, and Zinke acknowledged that they know each other and that one of the secretary’s sons worked at one of Techmanski’s construction sites. Both Zinke’s office and Techmanski said the secretary had no role in Whitefish securing the contract.

The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the senators’ letter.

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello has defended the contract saying it was necessary to put workers in place quickly. Whitefish, which has hired workers mostly through subcontracts, has called criticism “unfounded.”

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Timothy Gardner and Nick Brown in New York; Editing by Richard Chang and Tom Brown)

Insured losses from deadly California wildfires could hit $3 billion

By Keith Coffman

(Reuters) – Insured property losses from wildfires that raged through Northern California wine country this month, killing at least 42 people and destroying thousands of businesses and homes, could total $2 billion to $3 billion, a risk-modeling firm said on Thursday.

The analysis by Boston-based AOR Worldwide, encompassing anticipated claims for destroyed residences, automobiles, commercial properties and other economic losses, is at least double a preliminary tally estimated last week by the California Department of Insurance.

The AOR report said losses would be dominated by devastation in residential areas, especially in Sonoma County, where entire neighborhood blocks were reduced to ashes.

Since erupting on Oct. 8, the wind-driven wildfires have consumed some 245,000 acres across several California counties north of the San Francisco Bay area, leaving at least 8,700 structures destroyed.

Most of the property loss was concentrated in California’s celebrated wine country, including Sonoma County, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said this week.

Authorities have confirmed 42 fatalities in Sonoma and three other Northern California counties, among them a volunteer firefighter who was killed when his water-tender truck crashed. The death toll marked the greatest loss of life from a single wildfire event in the state’s history.

The $1 billion gap between the low- and high-end estimates was due to uncertainty surrounding how many claims will be filed for living expenses from residents forced to flee their homes, as well as for smoke damage and business disruptions caused by power outages, AOR Worldwide said.

Another unknown factor is the scope of damage that may have occurred during fire suppression efforts, it added.

A preliminary estimate from the California Department of Insurance a week ago put insured losses at just over $1 billion, although it said that figure would likely rise.

A spokeswoman with the department said on Thursday that the agency has not updated its figures.

The October wildfire outbreak was fueled by unseasonably high temperatures, tinder-dry conditions, and gusty winds. As of Thursday, most of the fires were near, or at, full containment, Cal Fire said.

Cooler weather forecast for the region in coming days should ease the wildfire risk, AOR said in its report, although Cal Fire urged the public exercise caution to avoid igniting further blazes as warm, dry weather lingers across parts of the state.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Steve Gorman and Michael Perry)

Myanmar gives green light to resume food aid to Rakhine, says U.N.

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Myanmar authorities have agreed to allow the United Nations to resume distribution of food in northern Rakhine state which was suspended for two months, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.

The agreement, whose details are still being worked out, came as UNICEF reported that Rohingya refugee children fleeing into Bangladesh were arriving “close to death” from malnutrition.

The WFP was previously distributing food rations to 110,000 people in northern Rakhine state – to both Buddhist and the minority Muslim Rohingya communities.

Rohingya insurgent attacks on police stations triggered an army crackdown, that the United Nations has called “ethnic cleansing”, and U.N. humanitarian agencies have not been able to access northern Rakhine to deliver aid since then. WFP deliveries have continued to 140,000 people in central Rakhine.

“WFP has been given the green light to resume food assistance operations in northern part of Rakhine. We are working with the government to coordinate the details,” WFP spokeswoman Bettina Luescher told journalists in Geneva.

She had no timeline or details on the proposed distribution of rations to northern Rakhine, and said it was still being discussed with the authorities in Myanmar.

“We just have to see what the situation on the ground is. It’s very hard to say these things if you can’t get in,” Luescher said.

Some 604,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh in the past two months, bringing the total to 817,000, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

Malnutrition rates in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships in Rakhine, where the vast majority of the Rohingya refugees originate, were already above emergency threshold rates before the crisis, the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said.

“Since August 25, we have had to stop treating 4,000 children with severe acute malnutrition in northern Rakhine because we have had no access,” UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado told the briefing.

UNICEF has screened nearly 60,000 Rohingya refugee children arriving in Bangladesh, nearly 2,000 of whom have been identified as having severe acute malnutrition, with another 7,000 moderately acutely malnourished, she said.

The agency screened 340 children among recent arrivals, a “rough and rapid exercise” that found 10 percent to be severely acutely malnourished, she said.

“This is an extremely small number of children so these numbers are not representative,” Mercado said.

“But what they do tell us is that some of the children are close to death by the time they make it across the border.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay,; editing by Tom Miles and Richard Balmforth)

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