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• Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki volcano has been spewing towering columns of hot ash into the air since its initial huge eruption on Nov. 4 killed nine people and injured dozens of others.
• As a result, media reports said that thousands of people were stranded at airports in Indonesia and Australia, but an exact number wasn’t given.
• The 5,197-foot volcano shot up ash at least 17 times on Tuesday, with the largest column recorded at five and a half miles high, the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation said.

Several international airlines canceled flights to and from Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali on Wednesday as an ongoing volcanic eruption left travelers stranded at airports.

Tourists told The Associated Press that they have been stuck at Bali’s airport since Tuesday after their flights were suddenly canceled.

“The airline did not provide accommodation, leaving us stranded at this airport,” said Charlie Austin from Perth, Australia, who was on vacation in Bali with his family.

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Another Australian tourist, Issabella Butler, opted to find another airline that could fly her home.

“The important thing is that we have to be able to get out of here,” she said.

Media reports said that thousands of people were stranded at airports in Indonesia and Australia, but an exact number wasn’t given.

Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki volcano on the remote island of Flores in East Nusa Tenggara province spewed towering columns of hot ash high into the air since its initial huge eruption on Nov. 4 killed nine people and injured dozens of others.

The 5,197-foot volcano shot up ash at least 17 times on Tuesday, with the largest column recorded at five and a half miles high, the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation said in a statement.

Authorities on Tuesday expanded the danger zone as the volcano erupted again to five and a half miles as volcanic materials, including smoldering rocks, lava, and hot, thumb-size fragments of gravel and ash, were thrown up to five miles from the crater since Friday.

The activity at the volcano has disturbed flights at Bali’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai international airport since the eruption started, airport general manager Ahmad Syaugi Shahab said. Over the past four days, 84 flights, including 36 scheduled to depart and 48 due to arrive, were affected.

Shahab said that at least 26 domestic flights and 64 overseas ones were canceled on Wednesday alone, including airlines from Singapore, Hong Kong, Qatar, India and Malaysia. For these cancelations, the airlines were offering travelers a refund, or to reschedule or reroute, he said.

Three Australian airlines have also canceled or delayed a number of flights. Jetstar has paused its flights to Bali until at least Thursday, it said on its website, saying it was “currently not safe” to operate the route.

Virgin Australia’s website showed 10 services to and from Bali were canceled on Wednesday. Qantas said it has delayed three flights. Some airlines are offering fare refunds for upcoming Bali flights to passengers who don’t want to travel.

Air New Zealand canceled a flight to Denpasar scheduled for Wednesday and a return service to Auckland due to depart Bali on Thursday. Passengers would be rebooked and the airline would continue to monitor the movement of ash in the coming days, Chief Operating Officer Alex Marren said.

Korean Air said two of its flights headed to Bali were forced to turn back because of volcanic ash caused by the eruption.

The airline said Wednesday that the two flights — carrying about 400 passengers combined — that departed South Korea’s Incheon international airport on Tuesday turned back toward the origin departure a few hours later, following forecasts that said Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport could be affected by the volcanic ash. The two planes arrived in Incheon early Wednesday.

About 6,500 people were evacuated in January after Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki began erupting, spewing thick clouds and forcing the government to close the island’s Fransiskus Xaverius Seda Airport. No casualties or major damage were reported, but the airport has remained closed because of seismic activity.

Three other airports in neighboring districts of Ende, Larantuka and Bajawa have been closed since Monday after Indonesia’s Air Navigation issued a safety warning because of volcanic ash.

Lewotobi Laki Laki is one of a pair of stratovolcanoes in the East Flores district of East Nusa Tenggara province, known locally as the husband-and-wife mountains. “Laki laki” means man, while its mate is Lewotobi Perempuan, or woman. It’s one of the 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of 280 million people.

The country is prone to earthquakes, landslides and volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.

French Ecology Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher says she will not take part in the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan after its leader’s ‘unacceptable’ attacks on France.

French Ecology Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher has pulled out of the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan after its President Ilham Aliyev accused France of carrying out colonialist “crimes” in New Caledonia, in the latest diplomatic spat between the two countries.

Aliyev, who is hosting the COP29 United Nations climate talks in Baku, drew loud applause from delegates of some Pacific island nations after a combative speech in which he lambasted Paris over the response to protests that in May rocked the Pacific archipelago ruled by France.

“The crimes of France in its so-called overseas territories would not be complete without mentioning the recent human rights violations,” said Aliyev.

“The regime of President [Emmanuel] Macron killed 13 people and wounded 169… during legitimate protests by the Kanak people in New Caledonia,” he added.

Pannier-Runacher quickly hit back, telling lawmakers in Paris that she was cancelling her trip to the talks in protest at Aliyev’s “deplorable” speech. She called his attack “unacceptable… and beneath the dignity of the presidency of the COP”.

It was also a “flagrant violation of the code of conduct” for running United Nations climate talks, she added.

The minister also criticised Aliyev for his “equally unacceptable comments on fossil fuels” after he described his country’s vast oil and gas reserves as a “gift of God”.

Despite her pullout, Pannier-Runacher said the team of French negotiators in Baku would not relent in their efforts to do a deal “to protect the planet and its populations” from climate change.

Relations between Paris and Baku are frosty over France’s longtime support for its archrival Armenia, which Azerbaijan defeated in a lightning military offensive last year when it retook the breakaway Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh – leading to the displacement of more than 100,000 Armenians.

Paris this year accused Azerbaijan of interfering in its domestic politics by stoking tensions in its overseas territories and dependencies, including New Caledonia.

Macron has also stayed away from COP29.

Azerbaijan denies interference, but Aliyev on Wednesday rounded on France for holding Corsica and its far-flung overseas island territories “under the colonial yoke”.

Aliyev has ruled his gas-rich country for more than two decades since the death of his father, Azerbaijan’s Soviet-era Communist leader and former KGB general Heydar Aliyev.

In the run-up to the climate summit, Azerbaijan was widely denounced for its human rights record and repression of political opposition.

Aliyev in his speech attacked the European Union and the Council of Europe human rights body, calling them “symbols of political corruption that share responsibility with the government of President Macron for the killings of innocent people”.

He also said that “all political prisoners of France must be liberated”.

Aliyev accused EU foreign policy chief Josep Borell of having compared the rest of the world to a jungle while Europe was a garden. “If we are the jungles,” he declared, “then stay away from us and don’t interfere in our affairs.”