Natural disaster costs exceed $170B

Ten of this year’s most destructive weather events cost a combined $170 billion in damages, according to a new study.

Hurricane Ida, a tropical storm that pummeled much of the eastern U.S. with lashing rain in August, killed at least 95 people and cost the economy $65 billion.

A month earlier, floods in Europe caused 240 deaths and an economic loss of $43 billion, according to research published by U.K. charity Christian Aid.

This year is expected to be the sixth time global natural disasters have cost more than $100 billion, the report stated, citing insurer Aon. All six have happened since 2011.

Trudeau rips China’s meddling

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said China has been “playing” Western states against each other and that democracies should present a “united front” in response.

“We’ve been competing, and China has been from time to time very cleverly playing us off each other in an open-market, competitive way,” Trudeau said in an interview on Saturday. “We need to do a better job of working together and standing strong so that China can’t play the angles and divide us one against the other.”

Trudeau’s comments come at a fraught time between the two governments.

For nearly three years, China held two Canadians in jail as accused spies – a move Canada saw as retaliation for the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and eldest daughter of its billionaire founder.

From wire reports