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NATO Appoints Outgoing Dutch PM Rutte as Its Next Secretary-General 

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (R) and Netherlands' Prime Minister Mark Rutte hold a press conference at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, on April 17, 2024. (AFP)
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (R) and Netherlands' Prime Minister Mark Rutte hold a press conference at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, on April 17, 2024. (AFP)
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NATO Appoints Outgoing Dutch PM Rutte as Its Next Secretary-General 

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (R) and Netherlands' Prime Minister Mark Rutte hold a press conference at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, on April 17, 2024. (AFP)
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (R) and Netherlands' Prime Minister Mark Rutte hold a press conference at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, on April 17, 2024. (AFP)

NATO allies on Wednesday selected outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as NATO's next boss, as the war in Ukraine rages on its doorstep and uncertainty hangs over the United States' future attitude to the transatlantic alliance. 

Rutte's appointment became a formality after his only rival for the post, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, announced last week that he had quit the race, having failed to gain traction. 

"The North Atlantic Council decided to appoint Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as the next Secretary-General of NATO, succeeding Jens Stoltenberg," NATO said in a statement. 

"Mr. Rutte will assume his functions as Secretary-General from 1 October 2024, when Mr. Stoltenberg’s term expires after ten years at the helm of the Alliance," it added. 

After declaring his interest in the post last year, Rutte gained early support from key members of the alliance including the United States, Britain, France and Germany. 

Others were more reticent, particularly Eastern European countries which argued the post should go to someone from their region for the first time. 

But they ultimately rowed in behind Rutte, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a staunch ally of Ukraine. 

Stoltenberg said he warmly welcomed the selection of Rutte as his successor. 

"Mark is a true transatlanticist, a strong leader, and a consensus-builder," he said. "I know I am leaving NATO in good hands." 

NATO takes decisions by consensus so Rutte, who is bowing out of Dutch politics after nearly 14 years as prime minister, could only be confirmed once all 32 alliance members gave him their backing. 

Rutte will face the challenge of sustaining allies' support for Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion while guarding against NATO's being drawn directly into a war with Moscow. 

He will also have to contend with the possibility that NATO-skeptic Donald Trump may return to the White House after November's US presidential election. 

Trump's possible return has unnerved NATO leaders as the Republican former president called into question US willingness to support other members of the alliance if they were attacked.

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At Least 64 Dead After Helene's Deadly March Across the Southeast

Heavy rains from Hurricane Helene caused record flooding and damage on September 28, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images/AFP
Heavy rains from Hurricane Helene caused record flooding and damage on September 28, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images/AFP
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At Least 64 Dead After Helene's Deadly March Across the Southeast

Heavy rains from Hurricane Helene caused record flooding and damage on September 28, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images/AFP
Heavy rains from Hurricane Helene caused record flooding and damage on September 28, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images/AFP

Massive rains from powerful Hurricane Helene left people stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue, as the cleanup began from a tempest that killed at least 64 people, caused widespread destruction across the US Southeast and knocked out power to millions of people.
“I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now,” said Janalea England of Steinhatchee, Florida, a small river town along the state’s rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbors, many of whom couldn’t get insurance on their homes.
Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140 mph (225 kph), The Associated Press said.
From there, it quickly moved through Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that it “looks like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air. Weakened, Helene then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.
Western North Carolina was isolated because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. All those closures delayed the start of the East Tennessee State University football game against The Citadel because the Buccaneers' drive to Charleston, South Carolina, took 16 hours.
There have been hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop Friday. And the rescues continued into the following day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was under water.
“To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement,” said Quentin Miller, the county sheriff.
Asheville resident Mario Moraga said it was “heartbreaking” to see the damage in the Biltmore Village neighborhood and neighbors have been going house to house to check on each other and offer support.
“There’s no cell service here. There’s no electricity,” he said.
While there have been deaths in the county, Emergency Services Director Van Taylor Jones said he wasn’t ready to report specifics, partially because downed cell towers hindered efforts to contact next of kin. Relatives put out desperate pleas for help on Facebook.
The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said.
It unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina. One community, Spruce Pine, was doused with over 2 feet (0.6 meters) of rain from Tuesday through Saturday.
And in Atlanta, 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain fell over 48 hours, the most the city has seen over two days since record keeping began in 1878.
President Joe Biden said Saturday that Helene’s devastation has been “overwhelming” and pledged to send help. He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina, making federal funding available for affected individuals.
With at least 25 killed in South Carolina, Helene is the deadliest tropical cyclone for the state since Hurricane Hugo killed 35 people when it came ashore just north of Charleston in 1989. Deaths also have been reported in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
Moody’s Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage. AccuWeather’s preliminary estimate of the total damage and economic loss from Helene in the US is between $95 billion and $110 billion.
Evacuations began before the storm hit and continued as lakes overtopped dams, including one in North Carolina that forms a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing.” Helicopters were used to rescue some people from flooded homes.
Among the 11 confirmed deaths in Florida were nine people who drowned in their homes in a mandatory evacuation area on the Gulf Coast in Pinellas County, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.
None of the victims were from Taylor County, which is where the storm made landfall. It came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity.
Taylor County is in Florida’s Big Bend, went years without taking a direct hit from a hurricane. But after Idalia and two other storms in a little over a year, the area is beginning to feel like a hurricane superhighway.
“It’s bringing everybody to reality about what this is now with disasters,” said John Berg, 76, a resident of Steinhatchee, a small fishing town and weekend getaway.
Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes in a matter of hours.
Helene was the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.