SUDAN – The area of land surface affected by extreme drought has trebled since the 1980s, a new report into the effects of climate change has revealed. Forty-eight per cent of the Earth’s land surface had at least one month of extreme drought last year, according to analysis by the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change – up from an average of 15% during the 1980s.
Almost a third of the world – 30% – experienced extreme drought for three months or longer in 2023. In the 1980s, the average was 5%. The new study offers some of the most up-to-date global data on drought, marking just how fast it is accelerating.
The threshold for extreme drought is reached after six months of very low rainfall or very high levels of evaporation from plants and soil – or both. It poses an immediate risk to water and sanitation, food security and public health, and can affect energy supplies, transportation networks and the economy. The causes of individual droughts are complicated, because there are lots of different factors that affect the availability of water, from natural weather events to the way humans use land.
But climate change is shifting global rainfall patterns, making some regions more prone to drought. The increase in drought has been particularly severe in South America, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. In South America’s Amazon, drought is threatening to change weather patterns. It kills trees that have a role to play in stimulating rainclouds to form, which disrupts delicately balanced rainfall cycles – creating a feedback loop leading to further drought. (BBC)…[+]

LONDON – The United Kingdom is raising taxes by an eye-watering £40 billion ($52 billion), as the government seeks to plug a hole in its finances by targeting higher earners, wealthy foreigners and businesses.
UK finance minister Rachel Reeves, the first woman to ever hold the position, unveiled the tax hikes Wednesday in the ruling Labour Party’s first budget since it won a landslide victory in a general election in July. The measures — which will increase annual government revenue by £41.5 billion ($54 billion) by the end of the decade — push the tax take to a record 38% of gross domestic product, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK government’s fiscal watchdog.
“Today, I am restoring stability to our public finances and rebuilding our public services,” Reeves said, arguing that the now-opposition Conservative Party had “failed” Britain, including by inadequately budgeting for required government spending. “The British people have inherited their failure. A black hole in the public finances. Public services on their knees. A decade of low (economic) growth. And the worst parliament for living standards in modern history,” she added. Reeves described her budget as charting a “responsible” course while making tough but necessary trade-offs.
“I have had to take some very difficult decisions on tax,” she said. Reeves had few easy options. Britain has suffered years of lackluster economic growth, low levels of business investment and only tepid improvements in living standards. A mounting public debt burden — virtually the same size as the economy — means that ever more of the government’s budget is hoovered up by borrowing costs, leaving less for crumbling public services, including the stricken National Health Service.
Before its election victory, Reeves’ Labour Party had pledged to keep taxes on working people “as low as possible,” promising to not raise income tax, sales taxes or payroll taxes. On Wednesday, the government targeted higher earners instead, announcing plans to tax inherited pensions and unveiling increases to capital gains tax, which is paid on the profits made when selling investment properties and financial assets such as shares.
“The change is a blow for investors… it also makes investment less attractive for newcomers,” said Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at UK financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown. “Already, far fewer people in the UK invest than elsewhere in the world, and this could compound the problem.”
Reeves also said the government would move ahead with plans, first announced by her predecessor, to abolish the non-domiciled tax regime that applies to people who live in the UK without paying tax in the country because they claim to have permanent residence abroad. The government will instead introduce a new tax system for such individuals, raising £12.7 billion ($16.5 billion) over the next five years. In another salvo targeting the jet-setting super-rich, Reeves increased duties on private jet travel by 50%, which she said amounted to an additional £450 ($585) per passenger for a flight to California. (CNN)…[+]

WASHINGTON DC – Kamala Harris on Tuesday night warned Americans that Donald Trump would open up a floodgate of vengeance against his political rivals, including ordinary citizens, while promising that she’d work she’d work tirelessly for every American. “In less than 90 days, either Donald Trump or I will be in the Oval Office,” Harris said from the Ellipse in Washington, DC, pivoting to the visage of the White House behind her as she delivered what her campaign had billed as a “closing argument” speech.

“On day one, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list. When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list full of priorities on what I will get done for the American people.” Standing where Trump told his supporters on January 6, 2021, to “fight like hell,” shortly before they ransacked the US Capitol, Harris described the election as an existential choice between the liberties she promised to protect and the “chaos and division” that she said would follow Trump back into the White House.

“Donald Trump intends to use the United States military against American citizens who simply disagree with him. People he calls ‘the enemy from within.’ This is not a candidate for president who is thinking about how to make your life better,” Harris said. “This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power.”

Speaking for about a half-hour from the Ellipse, Harris measured her policy plans against Trump’s, casting herself as the former president’s foil – a president who would expand Medicare to cover home health care, where Trump would try to cut the program; a president who would back women’s reproductive rights, where Trump would further restrict them; a president who would prize compromise, where Trump feasts on conflict.

“Our democracy doesn’t require us to agree on everything. That’s not the American way,” Harris said. “We like a good debate. And the fact that someone disagrees with us, does not make them ‘the enemy from within.’ They are family, neighbors, classmates, coworkers.” “It can be easy to forget a simple truth,” she added. “It doesn’t have to be this way.” One hundred days after President Joe Biden announced he would not run for reelection, Harris in her remarks continued to keep him at arm’s length. Serving as Biden’s vice president, Harris said, has been an “honor.” But it would not define her administration or her objectives in office.

“My presidency will be different because the challenges we face are different,” Harris said. “Our top priority as a nation four years ago was to end the pandemic and rescue the economy. Now our biggest challenge is to lower costs, costs that were rising even before the pandemic, and that are still too high.” (CNN) …[+]

LONDON – A teenager accused of murdering three young girls in a knife attack in northern England in July has been charged with production of the deadly poison ricin and a “terrorism” offence. Axel Rudakubana, who is accused of killing girls aged between six and nine at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event in Southport, has also been has also been charged with production of the lethal biological toxin ricin and possession of an al-Qaeda training manual.

The 18-year-old appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court by videolink from Belmarsh Prison on Wednesday, wearing a grey prison-issue tracksuit, with his sweatshirt held over his face. He did not answer when asked to confirm his name and has yet to enter any pleas to charges of murder and attempted murder. Rudakubana is expected to next appear at Liverpool Crown Court on November 13, when he may be asked to enter his pleas.

Police said after the new charges were made public that the stabbings were still not being treated as “terrorist related”. Merseyside Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said no ricin was found at the scene. Riots broke out in Southport and across the United Kingdom in the weeks following the incident, after false reports spread on social media that the suspected killer was a Muslim migrant. The disturbances included attacks on mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers, as police denied a terrorism link and sought to quash rumours that the suspect was a migrant by saying he had been born in Britain. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s political rivals questioned whether a “cover-up” took place after the fresh charges included terrorism.

Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick said he was concerned that facts may have been withheld from the public. “Any suggestion of a cover-up will permanently damage public trust in whether we’re being told the truth about crime in our country,” he said. Starmer’s office said it was important that the police and Crown Prosecution Service were allowed to do their jobs and establish the facts. (Aljazeera) …[+]