NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 _ Severe storm: Tropical Storm Zeta formed Sunday southeast of Cuba, becoming the 27th Atlantic storm recorded in an already historic hurricane season. Zeta is expected to intensify into a hurricane by Tuesday. Forecasters with the U. S. National Hurricane Center said the system is expected to skirt past Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula by early Tuesday before entering the Gulf of Mexico. The government of Mexico issued a hurricane watch from Tulum to Rio Lagartos, including Cozumel. Zeta could bring up to 8 inches of rain to parts of Mexico and southern Florida before drenching the central Gulf Coast by Wednesday.
2 _ Blackmail scheme: Finnish Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo summoned key Cabinet members Sunday after patient records at a psychotherapy center were accessed by hackers who are seeking ransom from clients. Ohisalo tweeted that authorities would “provide speedy crisis help to victims” of the security breach at the Vastaamo psychotherapy center. Vastaamo said its client register with intimate patient information was likely stolen during attacks that started almost two years ago. The center said the unknown perpetrators had published at least 300 patient records containing names and contact information using anonymous communication software. “The blackmailer has started to approach victims of the security breach directly with extortion letters,” it said.
3 _ Ship stowaways: The British military seized control of an oil tanker in the English channel after reporting it had seven stowaways on board who had become violent. Tobias Ellwood, chair of the House of Commons’ Defense Committee, said no one was hurt and the stowaways were in custody. The coast guard dispatched two helicopters to the tanker Nave Andromeda, and authorities imposed a 3mile exclusion zone around the vessel. The ship had left Lagos, Nigeria, on Oct. 6 and had been expected to dock in Southampton, England. Chris Parry, a retired Royal Navy rear admiral, said such stowaway incidents are not infrequent and are likely to increase as migrants look for new ways to enter Britain.
4 Militant killed: Afghanistan said Sunday that it killed a top al Qaeda propagandist on an FBI mostwanted list during an operation in eastern Ghazni province, showing the militant group’s continued presence there as U. S. forces work to withdraw from America’s longestrunning war amid continued bloodshed. The reported death of Husam Abd al Rauf, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Muhsin al Masri, follows weeks of violence, including a suicide bombing by the Islamic State group Saturday at an education center near Kabul that killed 24 people. Meanwhile, the Afghan government continues to fight Taliban militants even as peace talks in Qatar between the two sides take place for the first time. The violence and alRauf’s reported killing risk plunging a nation beset by decades of war into further instability.
5 _ Belarus protests: A throng of protesters swarmed the streets of the capital of Minsk on Sunday, pressing for the resignation of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in what human rights activists described as the largest antigovernment rally since late August. More than 200,000 people took part in the demonstration, the Viasna human rights center said. Rallies also took place in other cities, and police detained scores of people across the country. Mass protests have rocked Belarus since the official results of the Aug. 9 election gave Lukashenko a landslide victory with 80% of the vote. His main challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, refused to recognize the outcome as valid, saying it was manipulated. She called for a national strike Monday unless Lukashenko steps down.