The heatwave searing northern Europe was made more than twice as likely by climate change, according to a rapid assessment by scientists. The result is preliminary but they say the signal of climate change is “unambiguous”. Scientists have long predicted that global warming is ramping up the number and intensity of heatwaves, with events even worse than current one set to strike every other year by the 2040s.

“The logic that climate change will do this is inescapable – the world is becoming warmer, and so heatwaves like this are becoming more common,” said Friederike Otto, at the University of Oxford and part of the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium that did the work.

“What was once regarded as unusually warm weather will become commonplace, and in some cases, it already has,” she said. “So this is something that society can and should prepare for. But equally there is no doubt that we can and should constrain the increasing likelihood of all kinds of extreme weather events by restricting greenhouse gas emissions as sharply as possible.”(theguardian)…[+]

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Seven years ago, Islam Dabbas, an engineering student, was thrown in prison for protesting against the Syrian government. His mother visited him twice, paying bribes to do so, but then the permissions stopped. She heard nothing of her son’s fate ever since.

Until last week, when a relative filed for a government registration document and was shocked to see that it gave Mr. Dabbas’s date of death: Jan. 15, 2013. “The news of his death devastated us, and we wish we had known then,” said his sister, Heba, who lives in exile in Egypt. “Since his arrest, we have lived days of hope and days of despair as uncertainty consumed our minds.”

In recent weeks, hundreds of Syrian families have suddenly learned that their missing relatives have been registered as dead by the government. Government officials have not commented publicly on the new information, said how many people it applied to, or explained how they died.(nytimes.com)…[+]

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – The Board of Directors of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has approved a USD9.3 million (mn) loan to the Government of Anguilla, to implement a reform programme that aims to restore fiscal sustainability and enhance resilience against natural disasters.

Anguilla is highly vulnerable to natural disasters, and since 1995, the island has been affected by eight named hurricanes. Following the passage of Hurricane Irma in 2017, Anguilla suffered damage and losses that were estimated at approximately 97 percent of GDP. The country is also heavily reliant on tourism, and the effects from Hurricane Irma have led to the closure of hotels and restaurants, causing significant unemployment and income losses.

The loan from CDB is the first of a series of three proposed policy-based loans, which will support Anguilla’s three-year reform programme to restore fiscal stability and build resilience, in order to promote and sustain economic recovery and growth. This first loan supports initial reforms under the government’s Medium-Term Economic and Fiscal Plan.

“This policy-based loan, which is the first of three, will fill the government’s fiscal gap and provide immediate liquidity needed to help shore-up the island’s finances, mitigate shocks to expenditure such as the fiscal implications of Hurricane Irma and assist with building longer term fiscal resilience” said Dr. Justin Ram, Director of Economics at CDB. Under the area of restoring fiscal stability, the funds provided will be used to help Anguilla strengthen its macroeconomic planning framework post-Hurricane Irma; enhance revenue collection; and improve expenditure and debt management…[+]

The senior Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani has hit back at Donald Trump’s tweeted threats against Tehran in colourful language, likening him to a gambler and a cabaret owner, and saying Iran would be the one to “end” any war between their two countries.

“I’m telling you, Mr Trump the gambler, I am telling you: know that where you are not thinking of, we are near you. Places you cannot imagine, we are next to you,” said Suleimani, who is in charge of the Quds force, the external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, during a speech in the western city of Hamedan on Thursday. “We, the Iranian nation, have gone through tough events. You may begin a war, but it is us who will end it. Go ask your predecessors about it. So stop threatening us. We are ready to stand up against you. “The Red Sea which was secure is no longer secure for the presence of American [military] … The Quds force and I are your match. We don’t go to sleep at night before thinking about you,” added Suleimani, according to the Tasnim news agency.

Suleimani’s intervention was in response to a tweet on Sunday by the US president, who warned Iran of “consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before”. It was prompted by a speech by the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, who had warned that the US shouldn’t “play with lion’s tail” and that “America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars”.(theguardian)…[+]