Belasan pohon tumbang akibat angin kencang dan hujan di Solo
SOLOPOS.COM - Relawan dan petugas gabungan mengevaluasi pohon tumbang di Jl Mayor Sunaryo, Rabu (3/1/2024) siang. Pohon ambruk menutup jalan. (Solopos.com/Wahyu Prakoso)
Belasan pohon tumbang akibat angin kencang dan hujan di Kota Solo, Jawa Tengah, Rabu siang.
Wakil Wali Kota Surakarta Teguh Prakosa di Solo, Jawa Tengah, Rabu, mengatakan tidak ada korban jiwa akibat kejadian tersebut. Meski demikian, ada beberapa unit kendaraan roda empat yang tertimpa pohon tumbang.
"Korban jiwa nggak ada, kalau mobil ada beberapa, di Pasar Depok ada dua di parkiran," katanya.
Sementara itu, memasuki musim penghujan, pihaknya meminta dinas terkait untuk mengurangi dahan pohon-pohon besar sehingga beban dari pohon tersebut dapat berkurang.
"Kalau kita ingin mempertahankan pohon besar di Surakarta, yang tua saya kira belum perlu ditebang. Dirapikan itu disesuaikan dengan besarnya pohon dan beban batang yang melebar dan ketinggiannya. Kalau dikurangi batangnya kekuatannya akan jadi muda lagi," katanya.
Sebagai tindak lanjut, ia juga meminta Dinas Lingkungan Hidup (DLH) untuk mendata keberadaan pohon besar yang ada di Kota Solo.
Ia mengatakan beberapa titik yang banyak terdapat pohon berukuran besar di antaranya di Jalan Rajiman, Slamet Riyadi, Yosodipuro, Jalan Veteran, Juanda, dan Adi Sucipto.
Angin kecang disertai hujan deras melanda Kota Solo, Jawa Tengah (Jateng), sejumlah pohon tumbang dan timpa dua mobil, pada hari Rabu, 03/01/2024.(KOMPAS.COM/Fristin Intan Sulistyowati
"Tadi sebelum hujan, ada petir, angin puting beliung, setelah itu pohon roboh menimpa dua mobil," kata Pengelola Pasar Depok Suyono di sela-sela evakuasi pohon.
Ia menjelaskan, saat kejadian ada dua mobil bernomor polisi AD 1164 KY dan H 1820 QL yang sedang parkir. Mobil itu sedang ditinggal pemiliknya ke dalam pasar burung itu.
"Kejadian cepat, angin mengarah ke pohon berputar-putar. Tidak ada orang di dalam mobil, itu pengunjung pasar parkir di situ," katanya.
"Itu pohon lama semua. Saya kira lebih pada perawatan, dikurangi bebannya. 3-4 bulan sudah kembali rimbun lagi," katanya.
Sementara itu, Manager Humas Daop 6 Yogyakarta Krisbiyantoro mengatakan perjalanan Kereta Api Bhatara Kresna rute Solo-Wonogiri sempat terhambat akibat pohon tumbang.
"KA Bhatara Kresna terhalang pohon tumbang di Purwosari-Solokota KM 1+6/7 atau di daerah Gedung Juang," katanya.
Meski sempat menunggu lama, dikatakannya, pada pukul 14.47 WIB KA 693 Bhatara Kresna tujuan Purwosari diberangkatkan dari Stasiun Solokota dengan keterlambatan 81 menit.
South Korea's opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung falls after being attacked by an unidentified man during his visit to Busan, South Korea, January 2, 2024. Yonhap via REUTERS Acquire Licensing Rights
South Korean opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung was stabbed in the neck on Tuesday by a man who lunged at him with a knife after asking for his autograph, officials said.
Lee, 59, was rushed to hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair a major blood vessel, and was later recovering and conscious in an intensive care unit, party spokesperson Kwon Chil-seung told reporters.
Kwon condemned the attack, weeks before a parliamentary election that is due in April, as "political terror".
Lee, who narrowly lost the 2022 presidential election and is on trial on bribery charges he denies, was attacked in the southern city of Busan while touring the site of a proposed new airport and speaking to journalists and supporters.
The suspect, wearing a paper crown with Lee's name on it, approached Lee, asked for an autograph and then lunged forward and stabbed him in the neck, video footage showed.
Lee grimaced, staggered back into the crowd behind him and collapsed. Photographs showed him on the ground with his eyes closed and bleeding, and a handkerchief being held against his neck.
Lee was airlifted to the capital Seoul after receiving emergency treatment in Busan, and had two hours of surgery at the Seoul National University Hospital.
The assailant was quickly subdued by party officials and police officers, the video footage showed.
A Busan police official, Son Je-han, said the assailant was born in 1957 and used an 18-cm (seven-inch)knife that had been bought online. He did not identify the suspect and said the motive was being investigated.
"This type of violence must never be tolerated under any circumstances," President Yoon Suk Yeol was quoted as saying by his office.
HISTORY OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Lee, a former governor of Gyeonggi province, lost to conservative Yoon, a former chief prosecutor, in the 2022 election. He has led the main opposition party since August 2022.
Lee faces bribery allegations stemming from a development project when he was mayor of Seongnam near Seoul but denies wrongdoing.
South Korea has a history of political violence despite tough restrictions on gun possession. Political leaders are not usually under close security protection.
Lee's predecessor, Song Young-gil, was hurt in 2022 by an assailant who swung a blunt object against his head.
Then conservative opposition party leader Park Geun-hye, who later served as president, was slashed in the face in 2006. Her father, Park Chung-hee, who was president for 16 years, was shot and killed by his spy chief in 1979 at a drunken private dinner.
Arab Saudi pada hari Selasa secara resmi mengumumkan bahwa mereka telah bergabung dengan grup BRICS+, yang disiarkan beritanya oleh Saluran TV pemerintah kerajaan Saudi Al Ekhbariya.
“Keanggotaan penuh kerajaan dalam kelompok BRICS, yang mencakup Rusia, Tiongkok, dan negara-negara lain, telah resmi dimulai, yang memperkuat posisinya di dunia,” kata saluran TV tersebut dalam sebuah pernyataan.
Riyadh telah melakukan negosiasi mengenai bergabungnya mereka ke dalam kelompok tersebut selama berbulan-bulan, dan Menteri Luar Negeri Pangeran Faisal bin Farhan menyatakan pada bulan Agustus lalu bahwa semua rincian mengenai langkah tersebut akan dievaluasi sebelum “keputusan yang tepat” diambil.
Saat itu, menteri luar negeri mengatakan kelompok BRICS adalah “saluran yang bermanfaat dan penting” untuk memperkuat kerja sama ekonomi antar negara anggota.
TV pemerintah Saudi mengatakan pada hari Selasa bahwa kerajaan tersebut telah secara resmi bergabung dengan negara-negara blok Brics. Picture: JAMES OATWAY
Kelompok tersebut, yang hingga 1 Januari beranggotakan Brasil, Rusia, India, Tiongkok, dan Afrika Selatan, menyambut lima anggota baru pada Hari Tahun Baru. Selain Arab Saudi, kini mencakup Mesir, Ethiopia, Iran, dan UEA. Calon anggota lainnya, Argentina, tiba-tiba mengubah rencana keanggotaannya setelah pemilihan presiden di negara tersebut dimenangkan oleh Javier Milei akhir tahun lalu.
Kelompok ini diperkirakan akan tumbuh lebih besar pada akhir tahun ini, dengan Venezuela berupaya menjadi anggota tetap pada pertemuan puncak berikutnya di Rusia pada Oktober 2024.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had officially joined the BRICS bloc of countries. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister had said in August the kingdom would study the details before the proposed Jan. 1 joining date and take "the appropriate decision". pic.twitter.com/HJaieVoAuT
Moskow telah menjabat sebagai presiden bergilir kelompok tersebut selama satu tahun pada tahun ini, dan Presiden Vladimir Putin berjanji untuk “memfasilitasi integrasi yang harmonis” dari mitra-mitra baru. Sekitar 30 negara lain telah menyatakan niat mereka untuk berpartisipasi dalam kegiatan kelompok tersebut dalam berbagai bentuk, kata Putin.
Presiden Venezuela Nicolas Maduro berbicara mengenai masalah ini dengan Le Monde Diplomatique edisi bahasa Spanyol dalam sebuah wawancara yang diterbitkan pada hari Senin, dengan alasan bahwa kelompok tersebut mewakili “masa depan umat manusia”, mengingat kekuatan ekonominya yang besar.
Menurut angka IMF, BRICS yang diperluas kini melampaui G7, kelompok informal negara-negara Barat terkemuka, dalam hal PDB pada paritas daya beli, yang mencakup 36% dari total PDB dunia.
Maduro also slammed the move by his Argentine counterpart, arguing that the decision to scrap the BRICS+ plans was “one of the clumsiest and stupidest things Milei has done” to his country to date. With his decision, Milei has effectively taken the country back to the 19th century, seeking to turn it into a “vassal of the imperial unipolar world,” Maduro suggested.
Saleh Al-Arouri, a senior Hamas leader, was killed after an Israeli drone struck a Hamas office in Beirut's southern suburbs. (AFP)
Senior Hamas official Saleh Al-Arouri was among at least six people killed on Tuesday night in a suspected Israeli drone strike in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.
Arouri, 57, was a member of the militant group’s politburo and one of the founders of its military wing, the Qassam Brigades. Last year the US offered a $5 million reward for information about him.
A Lebanese security source told Arab News the drone strike had targeted a three-storey building in the Haret Hreik neighborhood that had Hamas offices on the second and third floors. “There is no building built above it, so it was easy to target from the air,” the source said.
Leaders of Hamas’ armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades, Samir Findi Abu Amer and Azzam Al-Aqraa Abu Ammar, were also killed in the Israeli strike, Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV channel said on Telegram.
A security cordon was set up around the scene of the attack, while ambulances rushed to transport the injured to hospital.
After the blast firefighters and paramedics gathered around the building, which had a gaping hole in the third floor. Limbs and other pieces of flesh were visible on the roadside.
After the attack, Israel’s army said its forces were “in a high state of readiness for any scenario.”
“The IDF is at a very high level of readiness, in all arenas, in defense and offense. We are in a high state of readiness for any scenario,” Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said at a press conference.
“The most important thing to say tonight is that we are focused and remain focused on fighting Hamas,” Hagari said.
A US defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said the Israel Defense Forces was responsible for the strike targeting Al-Arouri and that an assessment of whether he had been killed was ongoing, the Washington Post reported.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack as a “new Israeli crime” and said it was an attempt to pull Lebanon into the Gaza war.
The Israeli military refused to comment, but Mark Regev, an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “Whoever did it, it must be clear: this was not an attack on the Lebanese state. Whoever did this carried out a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership.”
Dahiyeh, where the attack took place, is a Hezbollah stronghold. Palestinian political analyst Hisham Debsi said Arouri had been “living in Lebanon for some time under the protection of Hezbollah, and launched joint operations against Israel from Beirut.”
His death was “a challenge to Hezbollah and puts the party in a dilemma,” Debsi said. “The party’s security has been violated, despite all the measures taken, it is no longer an impregnable fortress and Israel can attack whoever it wants.”
Who was Hamas’ Saleh Al-Arouri?
One of Hamas’ most senior officials was killed on Tuesday night when an Israeli drone reportedly targeted the militant group’s offices in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut.
Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, was a prominent name on Israel’s hit list and the highest-ranking member of the group to have been killed so far.
As well as being deputy to Ismail Haniyeh since 2017, Al-Arouri was a founding commander of Hamas’ military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
— صالح الجعفراوي salh_aljtarwi (@salhalgtroy2) January 2, 2024
He was also on the US Treasury’s sanctions list for allegedly being a financier for the group and facilitating weapon transfers since 1987 when Hamas was formed during the first Palestinian uprising against Israel.
The US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice program offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
Al-Arouri’s death came a day before Iran commemorates the anniversary of losing its top general, Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport on Jan. 3, 2020.
Al-Arouri had been a member of Hamas’ Politburo since 2010 but rose to prominence in August 2014 when he told a conference in Turkiye that the militant group was responsible for the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers from a West Bank settlement.
Israel and the US also believe he was involved in the funding and training of the Hamas fighters who carried out the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which saw 1,200 people killed and 240 taken hostage.
Israel responded by launching a military campaign against the Gaza Strip, which has so far seen the deaths of at least 22,000 Palestinians.
In October, Al-Arouri’s family home in the West Bank town of Aroura, near Ramallah, was demolished by the Israeli army. The demolition order was signed by Yehuda Fox, head of the Israel Defense Force Central Command.
Explosion sounds and ground-shaking were reported in the early hours of Tuesday (Jan 2) morning in Roosevelt Island in New York City, media reports said.
A minor earthquake caused the reported explosions on Roosevelt Island early Tuesday, city officials said.
City officials thought there was a blast on the island but turns out it was the quake, said Camilie Joseph Varlack, chief of staff for Mayor Eric Adams
Authorities reported the 1.7 magnitude quake hitting under Astoria, Queens, a little before 6 a.m., around the same time calls of explosions came in to local authorities.
“At 0545 hours, a 1.7 Magnitude earthquake occurred in the Astoria Queens Area. It’s location was 0.5 miles ENE of Astoria at a depth of 5 km,” New York City’s Office of Emergency Management tweeted.
At 0545 hours, a 1.7 Magnitude earthquake occurred in the Astoria Queens Area. It's location was 0.5 miles ENE of Astoria at a depth of 5 km. https://t.co/n3s7JLPPA2
— NYC Emergency Management (@nycemergencymgt) January 2, 2024
The US Geological Survey agency also registered the quake.
The FDNY was called to The Landings, an apartment community on Main Street for a report of shaking and explosions around the same time.
The blasts were said to have occurred south of the Roosevelt Island Bridge and Tramway, according to fire officials — and residents of both Manhattan and Queens sounded the alarm, WNBC reported.
The scene was eventually turned over to Con Edison, the FDNY said.
A Con Edison spokesman told The Post that no service disruptions were reported, and no one lost power.
The FDNY was called to The Landings, an apartment community on Main Street, minutes before 6 a.m. for a report of shaking and explosions, the department said.
The blasts were said to have occurred south of the Roosevelt Island Bridge and Tramway, according to fire officials — and residents of both Manhattan and Queens sounded the alarm, WNBC reported.
Russia’s consulate general unaware of any Russians injured in explosion in New York City
Russia is closely watching the situation in the wake of an explosion on Roosevelt Island in New York City, Russian Consul General in New York Alexander Zakharov said in a comment for Rossiya-24 television.
"So far, there has been no [information] about any injuries, moreover among Russians, from among students of a university located on that island. We will watch the situation closely," he said.
Calls were received for reports of "a building shaking and explosion" at 5:54 a.m. local time (10:54 a.m. GMT) on Tuesday.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has predicted that 2024 will be “even more crazy” than the preceding four years. Musk was responding to a follower wishing for “a normal year.”
“Can we just have a normal year in 2024?” an anonymous pundit known as ‘Wall Street Silver’ tweeted on New Year’s Eve. “Don’t we deserve that after four years of crazy?”
“2024 is gonna be even more crazy is my prediction,” Musk responded on Monday.
Musk did not predict any “crazy” events that may happen, but in a series of follow-up tweets, the billionaire drew attention to the pace of AI development, rising mortality among young people after mass vaccination against Covid-19, record-breaking illegal immigration to the US, and anti-white rhetoric from South African presidential hopeful Julius Malema.
During 2023, Musk repeatedly warned that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine could spiral into a nuclear war between Russia and the US. The billionaire had been providing Ukraine with free access to SpaceX’ Starlink internet service, but has refused to enable the service in the vicinity of Crimea, for fear that Kiev would use Starlink to guide drones to Russian warships. This would have made his company “explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” he explained in September.
The year 2024 is slated to be a historic election year, marking a critical test for democracy with elections in approximately 70 countries, including the US, India, Mexico, and South Africa. Over 3.7 billion voters are poised to participate, and their choices may reverberate globally, shaping future implications.
Since being posted, numerous users reacted to Musk's post in the comment section. One user wrote, “Mr. Musk we need President Donald J. Trump back in that Whitehouse."
“With this presidential election, normalcy is the last thing 2024 will offer," another user commented.
In November, Musk expressed his inability to envision himself voting for President Joe Biden in the 2024 election. He had previously criticised Biden for overlooking Tesla while publicly lauding General Motors as the trailblazer in the electric car revolution.
When asked if he would consider voting for Donald Trump, Musk responded, "I'm not affirming I'd cast my vote for Trump. It's unquestionably a challenging decision." The proprietor of X has lauded Vivek Ramaswamy of Indian descent as a "promising candidate" for the 2024 US presidential election. Notably, in 2020, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX had cast his vote for Biden.
