About five million people are at risk. “Typhoon Haima has slammed into the northeastern Philippine coast, displacing tens of thousands and threatening millions of residents. The strongest typhoon to hit the country in three years made landfall on Wednesday over the town of Penablanca in the province of Cagayan, where power was cut off hours earlier. Haima has a weather band of 800km that puts more than 10 million people across the northern parts of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon within its reach, according to the government’s disaster risk management agency. Authorities warned coastal communities to expect storm surges of five metres or higher.” (Al Jazeera http://bit.ly/2e2dDfE)
Meanwhile, Their Hurricane of a President is in China…”The tough-talking new president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has heaped effusive praise on China in the opening days of a state visit to Beijing, a marked contrast to his often profane rhetoric about the United States, his country’s historical ally. That startling contrast, which may foreshadow a major shake-up in the East Asian security order, played out Wednesday against a backdrop of violence in Manila, where anti-U.S. protesters gathered outside the American Embassy. Police repeatedly plowed through the crowd with a van, injuring dozens of people.” (LAT http://lat.ms/2e2fnW7
Plus ça change…France appeared on Wednesday to accept that it would need to keep thousands of troops in Africa’s Sahel region for an indefinite period given the ongoing instability and preponderance of Islamist militants. The region, a politically fragile area whose remote desert spaces spanning from Mauritania in the west to Sudan in the east host a medley of jihadist groups, is seen as vulnerable to further attacks after strikes on soft targets in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast earlier this year.(Reuters http://bit.ly/2e1K9yg)
Paris climate deal ratification of the Day…Indonesia’s parliament ratified the Paris climate change agreement on Wednesday, obligating one of the world’s biggest polluters to limit its carbon emissions. (AP http://yhoo.it/2eGD9tP)
Africa
The International Criminal Court on Wednesday convicted a former Congolese vice president and four members of his legal team of interfering with witnesses, saying the case should send a clear message that attempting to corrupt trials will not go unpunished. (AP http://yhoo.it/2eGwqA3)
A row between the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and his wife has brought cracks in the ruling party right into the open, as frustration grows over government inertia in trying to drag the country out of its first recession in 25 years. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2eGphje)
A decision to push back presidential elections in Democratic Republic of Congo to 2018 is not the answer to the crisis there and risks fuelling an escalation in violence, French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2eiPy4O)
Nigeria will double down in its efforts to bring home the rest of the more than 200 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in the northeastern town of Chibok in 2014, President Muhammadu Buhari said on Wednesday. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2e6Opy0)
A woman in northeast Nigeria has made it her mission to help people displaced and impoverished by the Boko Haram conflict. (VOA http://bit.ly/2ekZWXS)
U.N. human rights officials accused the Mauritanian government on Wednesday of stifling anti-slavery campaigners jailed for up to 15 years for their alleged role in protests against forced eviction in the capital. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2e8uz7K)
MENA
A pause in Russian and Syrian strikes on Aleppo held into a second day Wednesday, ahead of a brief ceasefire aimed at allowing civilians and rebels to quit the devastated city. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2dnPqCq)
A U.N. humanitarian aid official says a 72-hour pause in fighting between Yemen’s warring sides is a welcome first step, but is urging longer-term access. (AP http://yhoo.it/2el62rm)
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday at least one million Syrians could flee to Turkey if there is an exodus from the city of Aleppo, the rebel-held east of which is currently under siege from Syrian and Russian forces. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2eGDJIb)
Political stalemate and the conflict rocking Libya are preventing the North African country from taking advantage of its vast oil resources and pushing the economy towards collapse, experts say. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2eGCQ2m)
A modest recovery in oil prices falls short of filling budgetary gaps in crude-exporting Gulf countries, the International Monetary Fund said, stressing the need to cut spending. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2eGmbf8)
The international charity Save the Children says thousands of people have fled the Mosul area in order to escape the unfolding offensive by Iraqi and Kurdish forces to retake the city from Islamic State militants. (VOA http://bit.ly/2e1Olhs)
Asia
A Philippine police van rammed into protesters, leaving several bloodied, as an anti-U.S. rally turned violent Wednesday at the American embassy in Manila. (AP http://yhoo.it/2e8jC69)
Officials say more than 80 schoolchildren in Cambodia have fallen ill after eating contaminated food distributed by a local volunteer group. (AP http://yhoo.it/2dnNfPj)
Severe flooding triggered by heavy rainfall in the central provinces of Vietnam has forced thousands of families to evacuate to safer grounds and left many other residents stranded without food or safe drinking water in their homes. (IFRC http://bit.ly/2ekYvc6)
Myanmar is struggling to establish full democracy after 50 years of military rule, de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Wednesday following a deadly military lockdown in restive Rakhine state. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2el67ex)
China’s economic growth held steady in latest quarter, shored up by a bank lending boom and consumer spending while trade weakened. (AP http://yhoo.it/2e8iwHP)
India’s National Human Rights Commission has accused the western state of Maharashtra of negligence over the “shocking and painful” deaths in the past decade of more than 700 indigenous children in schools run by the authorities. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2e1MYzE)
A group of United Nations experts urged the Indian government on Wednesday to immediately release human rights activist Khurram Parvez, who was arrested last month in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir under a controversial security law. (AP http://yhoo.it/2e8q2SX)
China said on Wednesday that Japan had acted irresponsibly by withholding its 2016 funding for the UN heritage body UNESCO in a row over how the 1937 Nanjing Massacre is remembered. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2dnNR7O)
The United Nations has urged Bangladesh to halt construction of a huge coal-fired power plant near the Sundarbans, warning of a serious threat to the delicate ecosystem of the world’s largest mangrove forest. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2ej3zPE)
The Americas
The recession in Brazil is pushing more people into the ‘gig economy.’ (BBC News http://bbc.in/2e8nnsl)
Colombia’s ex-president Alvaro Uribe, who led the successful campaign to reject a peace accord with Farc rebels, says he may now be open to talks. Mr Uribe, leader of the right-wing Democratic Center party, had previously ruled out such talks. (BBC http://bbc.in/2eiPqlA)
Hundreds of thousands of women in Argentina are expected to join a national protest over violence against women on Wednesday, after a horrifying attack in which a 16-year-old girl was raped and tortured. (Guardian http://bit.ly/2el41v8)
Authorities are trying to detain the embattled former governor of Veracruz state who is under investigation for alleged corruption and whose whereabouts are unknown, a senior Mexican official said Wednesday. (AP http://yhoo.it/2el5RfJ)
The powerful former speaker of Brazil’s lower house who spearheaded the ouster of President Dilma Rousseff was arrested Wednesday as part of a sprawling graft probe involving state oil giant Petrobras. (AP http://yhoo.it/2eGxpAC)
Venezuela’s elections for state governorships have been postponed until next year, a move denounced by the opposition as unconstitutional. (BBC http://bbc.in/2e8u7qb)
…and the rest
Dozens of migrants rioted at a detention centre in Madrid, police said Wednesday, climbing onto the roof of the building where they spent the night and unfurling a banner reading “freedom”. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2eGnf2V)
Police detained more than 300 suspects and seized tons of cocaine during a week-long operation against drugs, people-smuggling and cybercrime networks across Europe and beyond, the EU’s policing agency said on Wednesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2eGpVNZ)
Encouraged by their success in halting a mass influx of refugees by closing Greek borders and cutting a controversial deal with Turkey, EU leaders are getting tough on African migrants too. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2e8sZD8)
Opinion/Blogs
Yemen is on the Brink of Famine (UN Dispatch http://buff.ly/2eiZ9IK)
Why Haiti wasn’t ready for a hurricane: A Q&A with Jonathan Katz (IRIN http://bit.ly/2eiTxOx)
‘We forgot to tell the kids that moving can suck’: the challenges of working abroad (Guardian http://bit.ly/2eiP8ve)
Ghana is rewriting norms on nutrition in Africa. Other countries can too. (Development Horizons http://buff.ly/2elcLBv)
What are ‘new cities’ and why they matter for development (Devex http://buff.ly/2dnYlE8)
Great expectations: incoming UN chief urged to make bold reforms (IRIN http://bit.ly/2e8oBnF)
11 ways to stop periods from disrupting girls’ education (Guardian http://bit.ly/2eiQPJb)
Helen Evans: a decade on the frontiers of global health (DevPolicy http://buff.ly/2e1OLEF)
Broadening financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa: policies should prioritise financial stability (ODI http://buff.ly/2e8Bcag)
3 Things To Do About Corruption Rather Than Gripe (Global Anticorruption Blog http://buff.ly/2e8AGcs)