Tropical Storm Sara Kills Four in Honduras and Nicaragua

FILE - This GeoColor satellite image taken, Nov. 3, 2020, and provided by NOAA, shows Hurricane Eta in the Caribbean Sea, arriving at Nicaragua's northern shore. (NOAA via AP, File)
FILE - This GeoColor satellite image taken, Nov. 3, 2020, and provided by NOAA, shows Hurricane Eta in the Caribbean Sea, arriving at Nicaragua's northern shore. (NOAA via AP, File)
TT

Tropical Storm Sara Kills Four in Honduras and Nicaragua

FILE - This GeoColor satellite image taken, Nov. 3, 2020, and provided by NOAA, shows Hurricane Eta in the Caribbean Sea, arriving at Nicaragua's northern shore. (NOAA via AP, File)
FILE - This GeoColor satellite image taken, Nov. 3, 2020, and provided by NOAA, shows Hurricane Eta in the Caribbean Sea, arriving at Nicaragua's northern shore. (NOAA via AP, File)

Tropical storm Sara left at least four people dead in Honduras and Nicaragua over the weekend, while more than 120,000 were left homeless or suffered damages in floods across Central America, officials said Monday.
Sara weakened to a tropical depression as it passed through Belize on Sunday and was dissipating while moving over the western Yucatan Peninsula, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
One of the dead in hardest-hit Honduras was a three-year-old boy, washed away by a soaring river on Sunday, authorities said.
More than 200 houses in the Central American country were destroyed and some 3,200 damaged, while nearly 1,800 communities were left isolated by flooding, collapsed bridges and destroyed roads.
Farming crops were also severely damaged.
Two deaths were also reported in Nicaragua, with some 1,800 homes flooded and about 5,000 people affected, authorities said.
In Costa Rica, where at least six people died in flooding two weeks earlier, officials reported more than 50 landslides, and some 5,000 people needing emergency assistance.
Storm damage from Sara in Guatemala and El Salvador was not as severe.



Russia, Chinese FMs Discuss Ties, Ukraine, Korean Peninsula on G20 Sidelines

In this handout picture released by the Russian Foreign Ministry on November 19, 2024, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Russian Foreign Ministry/AFP)
In this handout picture released by the Russian Foreign Ministry on November 19, 2024, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Russian Foreign Ministry/AFP)
TT

Russia, Chinese FMs Discuss Ties, Ukraine, Korean Peninsula on G20 Sidelines

In this handout picture released by the Russian Foreign Ministry on November 19, 2024, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Russian Foreign Ministry/AFP)
In this handout picture released by the Russian Foreign Ministry on November 19, 2024, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Russian Foreign Ministry/AFP)

Chinese and Russian foreign ministers discussed bilateral ties, the conflict in Ukraine and the situation on the Korean Peninsula on the sidelines of the Group of 20 meeting in Brazil, the foreign ministries of both countries said on Tuesday.

"We are truly at an unprecedented stage in the development of our strategic relations of a comprehensive partnership," Russia's Sergei Lavrov told his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, according to a post on the Russian foreign ministry Telegram channel.

Wang said that Beijing is willing to work with Russia to further strengthen bilateral "comprehensive strategic coordination," the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement.

The "two sides also exchanged views on the Ukraine crisis and the situation on the Korean Peninsula," it added without providing further detail.

The meeting is part of a frenzy of bilateral talks between China and Russia that followed Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine 1,000 days ago. The war ostracized Moscow from Kyiv's Western allies, bringing waves of sanctions on Russian politicians and businesses.

China and Russia declared a "no limits" partnership when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing less than three weeks before his troops marched into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the deadliest land war in Europe since World War Two.

In May this year, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged a "new era" of partnership between the two most powerful rivals of the United States, which they cast as an aggressive Cold War hegemon sowing chaos across the world.