A10 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2 , 2022
The WorldLIBYA
Lawmakers approve
cabinet amid tensions
Libyan lawmakers confirmed
a new transitional government
Tuesday, a move that is likely to
lead to parallel administrations
and fuel mounting tensions in a
country that has been mired in
conflict for the past decade.
Prime Minister-designate
Fathi Bashagha submitted his
cabinet to the east-based House
of Representatives, where 92 of
101 lawmakers in attendance
approved it in a vote broadcast
live from the city of Tobruk.
The new government includes
three deputy prime ministers,
29 ministers and six ministers of
state. There are two women in
the cabinet, overseeing the
Ministry of Culture and Arts and
holding the position of state
minister for women’s affairs.
Bashagha appointed Ahmeid
Houma, the second deputy
speaker of the parliament, as
defense minister, and Brig.
Essam Abu Zreiba, from the
western city of Zawiyah, as
interior minister. Former envoy
to the European Union Hafez
Qadour is foreign minister.
The appointment last month
of Bashagha, a former interior
minister from the western city of
Misurata, is part of a road map
that also involves constitutional
amendments and sets a date for
elections within 14 months.
The move has deepened
divisions among Libyan factions
and raised fears that fighting
could return after more than a
year and a half of relative calm.
Embattled Prime Minister
Abdulhamid Dbeibah remained
defiant Tuesday, after saying
repeatedly that his governmentwill hand over power only to an
elected government.
Dbeibah was appointed
through a U.N.-led process in
February 2021 to shepherd the
country until elections. However,
disputes delayed a Dec. 24 vote,
and lawmakers argue that
Dbeibah’s tenure ended then.
— Associated PressISRAELSupreme Court halts
Palestinian evictionsIsrael’s Supreme Court on
Tuesday ruled that a group of
Palestinian families slated for
eviction from an East Jerusalem
neighborhood can remain in
their homes for the time being.
The ruling could work to ease
tensions in Jerusalem’s Sheikh
Jarrah district that helped ignite
an 11-day war between Israel andHamas in Gaza last year.
The court ruled that the
families can stay in their homes
until Israel carries out a land
arrangement, a process that
could take years or may not be
carried out at all, according to
Ir Amim, an advocacy group.
Dozens of Palestinian families
in East Jerusalem are at risk of
eviction by Jewish settler groups.
The properties in question
were built on land owned by a
Jewish community trust before
the 1948 war surrounding
Israel’s creation, court papers
say. After the war, when East
Jerusalem was controlled by
Jordan, Palestinian refugee
families were settled there. Israel
took control of East Jerusalem in
the 1967 Middle East war, and
since 1972, settler groups have
tried to claim the property and
evict the Palestinian residents.
— Associated PressPope alters Vatican’s family
leave policy: Pope Francis has
decided to grant three days of
paid paternity leave to new
fathers who work at the Vatican.
In a law published Tuesday,
Francis amended the Vatican’s
family leave policy, which sets
out the benefits for workers who
have children or must care for
family members. Mothers
already were entitled to six
months’ maternity leave at full
pay. Parents who adopt a child
receive a similar benefit. The
new policy for fathers contrasts
with that of Italy, which offers
10 days of paid leave.British monarch holds virtual
audiences: Queen Elizabeth II
felt well enough to undertake
two virtual audiences just over a
week after testing positive for
the coronavirus and following
the cancellation of other similarevents last week. The British
monarch, 95, has been fully
vaccinated against the
coronavirus and was said to have
been suffering mild cold-like
symptoms. Despite canceling
some events, she continued with
light duties after testing positive.Migrant deaths reported by
Tunisia, Greece: At least nine
migrants died after their boat
capsized off Tunisia, the
country’s Defense Ministry said.
The Tunisian navy rescued nine
other migrants, who it said were
from various African nations.
The boat sank Monday near the
port of Mahdia. Meanwhile,
Greece’s coast guard said six
bodies were recovered from the
shore of the island of Lesbos, and
authorities suspect they
belonged to migrants trying to
reach Greece from Turkey.
— From news servicesDIGESTBY FRANCES VINALL
AND JASON SAMENOWmelbourne, australia — Ten
people have died and thousands
have been forced to evacuate
their homes in eastern Australia
as almost a week of torrential
rain and record flooding have
submerged houses, washed
a way construction cranes and
smashed boats like toys.
Flash floods had swept
through 185 miles of Australia’s
coast across two states by Tues-
day, with warnings in place for
the most populous city, Sydney,
as the country endures the final
months of a La Niña weather
pattern.
Storms began at the Queen-
sland town of Gympie on Feb. 22.
They drenched coastal towns on
the way to the city of Brisbane,
which received 80 percent of its
typical annual rainfall in three
days.
Brisbane registered 26.6 inch-
es of rain from Friday to Sunday,
breaking its three-day rainfall
record of 23.6 inches from 1974.
In the past week, it has received
31.2 inches — six times the
amount it typically sees during
all of February.
Queensland state Premier An-
nastacia Palaszczuk described
the event as a “rain bomb.”
The nation has been living
under the La Niña weather pat-
tern since November. It is pre-
dicted to ease over the coming
months. La Niña ushered in a
wetter, cooler summer in north-
ern and eastern Australia. It has
contributed to dry conditions in
southwest Australia; Perth is see-
ing its driest summer in eight
years.
T he pattern, which originates
with cyclical changes in the Pa-
cific Ocean, causes a cool, wet
winter in the northern United
States and a warmer, drier one in
the southern part of the country.
In a climate outlook released
Tuesday, Australia’s Bureau of
Meteorology said climate change
continues to affect the country,
including with increased rainfall
during the wet season from Octo-
ber to April and a “greater pro-
portion of rainfall from high-
intensity short-duration rainfall
events.”
Kelley Sheenan, the editor in
chief of Peppermint magazine,
watched social media helplessly
at home with her coronavirus-
positive son as water encroached
on the publication’s Brisbane of-
fice. She rushed there alone in the
middle of the night to carry
computers one by one through
ankle-deep water to her car.
“I could feel the water getting
higher on my legs each time, so I
knew I had to stop as it was
getting too scary,” she said.
“From what I can see, the
water is almost at the roof, so I
don’t think anything will be sal-
vageable,” she said. “It doesn’t
seem real.”
As the flooding moved to her
home, she said, she was told she
shouldn’t go to an evacuation
center because her son had covid-
- She was told instead to call
hospitals. She decided to move
everything to the second story
and wait it out, hoping for the
best, until water levels recede.
In typical Aussie fashion, some
residents took advantage of the
conditions for unusual sports. A
Sunshine Coast bicyclist was
seen tearing through the flood-
waters towing a child on a surf-
board, and a swimmer was filmed
completing a freestyle lap in a
submerged football field. Else-
where, world champion surfer
Mick Fanning gave a pharmacist
a lift on a Jet Ski between two
towns so she could distribute
medication.
On Monday, the severe weath-
er hit the city of Lismore in New
South Wales, where it turned
downtown blocks into swimming
pools.
Harrison Eyre, 20, a student,
was one of many residents who
took to flooded streets in “tin-
nies” — small aluminum boats —
to assist. He said he helped with
about 20 rescues Monday, includ-
ing navigating the boat between
cabins at a holiday park to reach
an older woman waiting on top of
a permanent trailer. He climbed
onto a roof to save a dachshund
and watched helicopters usewinches to pull people from roof-
tops.
“At some places, the water was
over the top of roofs of double-
story houses,” he said. “The State
Emergency Service put a call out
to all people with boats in the
area to do what they could — get
in the water and try and find
people.”
New South Wales Premier
Dominic Perrottet on Tuesday
called the disaster an “unprec-
edented event” beyond the scale
of previous floods.
Dan Clark, 36, a Little League
coach, was reeling knowing that
the Lismore baseball field was
under several feet of water after
expensive renovations had just
been completed. He said he spentMonday “holding my breath and
waiting by the phone” for news of
friends and family waiting on
their roofs.
He has lived in the region,
which is prone to flooding, all his
life. He said previous events were
“not even close” to the record-
breaking water levels he saw
Monday.
The meteorology bureau
warned Tuesday that the same
region of Queensland was likely
to be hit by severe thunderstorms
with large hailstones, damaging
winds and more heavy rainfall in
the second half of the week. In
New South Wales, the bureau
predicted, the rainstorm would
continue south with flash flood-
ing possible in Sydney, coastalregions and as far as Victoria —
the southernmost state on the
east coast.
In addition to the La Niña
pattern, which has boosted rain-
fall, WeatherZone, an Australia-
based weather company, blamed
the torrents on a pool of cold air
at high altitudes that transited
the eastern part of the country,
destabilizing the atmosphere.
Moisture flow into the region was
further enhanced by a zone of low
pressure near the coast, Weather-
Zone wrote.
The storm system lingered un-
usually long over the region be-
cause of a zone of high pressure
near New Zealand, which
blocked it from progressing. This
high-pressure zone remains inplace, according to WeatherZone,
which will prolong the unsettled
conditions in eastern Australia.
The excessive and, in some
cases, record-setting rainfall is
the type of event that is expected
to become more frequent in a
warming climate. The United
N ations Intergovernmental Pan-
el on Climate Change projects
that heavy precipitation events
will increase 7 percent for every
1.8 degrees (1 Celsius) of warming
over the coming decades.
The event follows deadly
flooding that has occurred in
recent weeks in Brazil and Mada-
gascar.Samenow reported from Wash -
ington.‘Rain bomb’ leaves 10 dead, cities inundated i n Australia
Record flooding hits east coast as country endures final months of a La Niña weather pattern; warnings issued for Sydney as heavy weather heads south
PHOTOS BY PATRICK HAMILTON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGESTOP: An abandoned car sits amid floodwaters Tuesday in the
Brisbane suburb of Newmarket, in Queensland state. Brisbane
registered 26.6 inches of rain from Friday to Sunday, breaking its
three-day rainfall record of 23.6 inches in 1974. In the past week, it
has received 31.2 inches — six times the amount it typically sees in
all of February. LEFT: A couple steer their boat Monday on a
flooded street in the suburb of Paddington. ABOVE: Ethan Gration
throws out a damaged toy in the cleanup in Newmarket.