The body of a man was found late on Tuesday in a beach in the town of Caldes d’Estrac some 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Barcelona
Last year 13 people died on Spain’s holiday island of Mallorca as intense rain caused rivers to overflow with raging waters
Updated 23 October 2019
AFP
Barcelona: One man has died and two people are missing following torrential rains that caused flash floods in northeastern Spain, local officials said Wednesday.
The body of a man was found late on Tuesday in a beach in the town of Caldes d’Estrac some 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Barcelona, regional police said on Twitter.
Firefighters said they were looking for two people — reportedly a mother and her son — whose prefab home was swept away by flood waters in Vilaverd, a village some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the port of Tarragona.
Authorities said heavy overnight rainfall in the northeastern region of Catalonia caused power cuts that affected nearly 25,000 people and forced the closure of over 40 roads due to flooding and landslides.
Last month record rainfall in southeastern Spain claimed seven lives.
Last year 13 people died on Spain’s holiday island of Mallorca as intense rain caused rivers to overflow with raging waters that tore through streets and swept away cars.
Zelensky tells European summit ‘peace through strength’ is needed now
Updated 4 sec ago
Zelensky said that concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin were unacceptable
KYIV: An approach of “peace through strength” is needed urgently as Europe confronts the danger posed by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told leaders at the European Political Community summit in Budapest on Thursday. Zelensky said that concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin were unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for Europe.
US military judge reinstates 9/11 mastermind plea deal: official
Updated 12 sec ago
AFP
WASHINGTON: A US military judge has reinstated plea agreements for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants, an official said Thursday, three months after the deals were scrapped by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The agreements — which are understood to take the death penalty off the table — had triggered anger among some relatives of victims of the 2001 attacks, and Austin said that both they and the American public deserved to see the defendants stand trial. “I can confirm that the military judge has ruled that the pretrial agreements for the three accused are valid and enforceable,” the US official told AFP on condition of anonymity. The prosecution has the opportunity to appeal the decision, but it was not immediately clear if they would do so. The plea deals with Mohammed and two alleged accomplices were announced in late July in a step that appeared to have moved their long-running cases toward resolution after years of being bogged down in pre-trial maneuverings while the defendants remained held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba. But Austin withdrew the agreements two days after they were announced, saying the decision should rest with him given its significance. He subsequently told journalists that “the families of the victims, our service members and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out in this case.” Much of the legal jousting surrounding the men’s cases has focused on whether they could be tried fairly after having undergone methodical torture at the hands of the CIA in the years after 9/11 — a thorny issue that the plea agreements would have avoided.
India’s Hindus bathe in holy river defiled by pollution
Thousands celebrated the festival of Chhath Puja for the Hindu sun god Surya, entering the stinking Yamuna waters to pray
A parliamentary report in February called the Yamuna ‘more of a toxic waterway than a river’
Updated 9 min 33 sec ago
AFP
NEW DELHI: Sweeping aside thick toxic scum, thousands of Hindu devotees ignored court warnings Thursday against bathing in the sacred but sewage-filled Yamuna river, a grim display of environmental degradation in India’s capital.
Thousands celebrated the festival of Chhath Puja for the Hindu sun god Surya, entering the stinking waters to pray as the evening rays set in the sky.
A parliamentary report in February called the Yamuna “more of a toxic waterway than a river,” saying the foam clouds were formed from a potent chemical soup including laundry detergent and phosphates from fertilizers.
“Please understand you will fall sick,” a high court order said Wednesday, Indian media reported, restricting ritual bathing on health grounds. “We can’t allow you to go into the water.”
But housewife Krishnawati Devi, 45, said she was not worried.
“I believe the waters of the river are pure and blessed by the sun god himself,” she said. “Nothing will happen to me — god will take care of everything.”
Hindu faithful ignored the order, with women wrapped in fine saris and heavy jewelry wading into the grey waters.
White foam swirled around their feet. In places, it was so thick it looked like the river had frozen.
“Chhath is a festival of unflinching faith,” said Avinash Kumar, 58, a government office worker. “We can also offer prayers at home but it doesn’t feel the same as praying in the river.”
Others thumped drums and sang.
New Delhi’s authorities have poured in anti-foaming agents to disperse the froth, and used nets to sweep the scum away — but it has done nothing to clean the fetid water itself.
“It stinks, but it’s ok,” said 14-year-old schoolgirl Deepa Kumari. “What is important is that we get to celebrate in the river with our people.”
Rituals in the days-long festival culminate at dawn on Friday.
“I don’t bother about the pollution,” said Pooja Prasad, 20, a student. “The mother goddess will take care of all our troubles,” she added.
The sprawling megacity of some 30 million people is also smothered in poisonous smog — fueled by burning crop fields and vehicle exhaust fumes.
Levels of fine particulate matter — dangerous microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants that enter the bloodstream through the lungs — have this week surged beyond 50 times the World Health Organization recommended daily maximum.
“Toxi-city,” broadcasters dubbed the capital.
City authorities have declared repeated efforts to clean the river.
From an icy source of a Himalayan glacier, the Yamuna feeds into the mighty Ganges, flowing more than 3,100 kilometers (1,925 miles) to the sea in the Bay of Bengal.
But barely 400 kilometers into that journey, the water passing New Delhi is already effectively dead.
The parliamentary report warned of an “excessive presence of heavy metals” and cancer-causing pollutants ranging from arsenic to zinc, from everything from batteries to pesticides.
“Contamination... transform it into a carrier of untreated industrial waste, garbage, agricultural run-off and municipal waste,” the report read.
“This has a profound effect on the well-being of the people.”
Government statistics say 80 percent of the pollution load is raw sewage, far exceeding permissible levels for bathing.
Some of the faithful have traditionally drunk the water.
Levels fluctuate, but in one spot in 2021 in south Delhi, fecal bacteria levels exceeded maximum health regulations by 8,800 times.
But many say they are frustrated at the situation.
“The river is sacred to us, but all the filth from the industrial belt nearby is being pumped into it,” added Kumar.
“Every year they say they are going to clean it, but nothing ever happens.”
Saudi doctors provide free eye surgery to hundreds of Sri Lankan patients
Doctors conduct 500 cataract removal procedures in Walasmulla on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka
Campaign will then move to the eastern city of Kattankudy, where another 500 patients will be treated
Updated 35 min 32 sec ago
MOHAMMED RASOLDEEN
COLOMBO: Hundreds of Sri Lankan patients are set to receive eye surgery and specialist care this week under a blindness prevention program launched by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center.
The Saudi Noor Volunteer Program, running between Nov. 4 and 9, is organized by KSrelief in the town of Walasmulla on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka, hundreds of kilometers away from the capital Colombo. On Nov. 10-17, the campaign will move to the city of Kattakundy, further east.
Cataracts are the most common cause of blindness in Sri Lanka. Patients often have to wait for years to have them removed under government programs. At private clinics, the cheapest lens replacement procedure is too expensive for many patients in poorer parts of the country.
“There is big demand since poor people can’t afford surgery privately, which costs 100,000 rupees ($340) per person. There are many cataract patients in Sri Lanka but the facilities are few. There are long waiting lists for surgery,” M.S.M. Thassim, chairman of the Association of Muslim Youths — KSrelief’s local partner — told Arab News.
Patients wait for KSrelief-funded eye surgery in Kattankudy, Sri Lanka, on Nov. 5, 2024. (Association of Muslim Youths)
“We are doing it in two places; the first part is Walasmulla, which is finishing on Nov. 9, and we have already completed 400 surgeries and 100 more to go. Then at Kattankudy, which begins on Nov. 10, where another 500 will be performed.”
Some of the patients were already blind before the intervention of the KSrelief medical team, whose members have been praised for being “people friendly” and “committed” to their mission.
“The patients are full of gratitude to the Saudi government and the King Salman center for the noble intervention that restored their eyesight,” Thassim said.
The two-week eye care campaign in Walasmulla and Kattakundy is part of the Saudi government’s long-standing efforts to combat blindness in developing countries.
In Sri Lanka alone, 31,000 patients have undergone Saudi-sponsored surgery since 2001.
World must better adapt to ‘climate calamity’: UN chief Guterres
Global efforts to adapt to climate change have not kept pace as global warming accelerates the frequency and intensity of disasters
Antonio Guterres: ‘Climate calamity is the new reality. And we’re not keeping up’
Updated 07 November 2024
AFP
PARIS: The world is nowhere near ready for the “calamity” being caused by climate change and must urgently prepare for even worse in the future, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday.
Global efforts to adapt to climate change – from building defensive sea walls to planting drought-resistant crops – have not kept pace as global warming accelerates the frequency and intensity of disasters.
Floods, fires and other climate shocks have affected nearly every continent in a year the EU climate monitor says is almost certain to be the hottest ever recorded.
The amount of money going to poorer countries for adaptation measures was barely one-tenth of what they needed to disaster-proof their vulnerable economies, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a new assessment looking at 2022, the latest year for which data is available.
“Climate calamity is the new reality. And we’re not keeping up,” said Guterres at the launch of UNEP’s annual Adaptation Gap Report.
Rich nations are under pressure at this month’s UN COP29 summit to substantially increase the $100 billion they pledged for climate action in developing countries, including for adaptation.
But some donor governments are under fiscal and political pressure, and major new commitments of public money are not expected at the conference in Azerbaijan.
A UN biodiversity meeting this month failed to reach a funding agreement and the election of Donald Trump – who opposes global climate cooperation – hangs over COP29.
Most of the public money committed to climate change goes to reducing planet-warming emissions, not adapting to its long-term consequences.
Some $28 billion in public finance was paid to developing countries for climate adaptation in 2022.
This was an increase on the year prior, but still a drop in the ocean: UNEP estimates between $215 billion and $387 billion is needed annually for adaptation in developing countries.
Rich countries had pledged to double the amount by 2025 to roughly $40 billion a year but even this would leave an “extremely large” adaptation funding gap, UNEP said.
Climate disasters hit poorest communities hardest but the cost of inaction was no longer borne by them alone, said Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation.
“From rising seas and extreme heat waves to relentless droughts and floods, the impacts of climate change now reach every corner of the globe. No nation, no community is immune,” he said in a statement.
Spanish authorities were accused of being inadequately prepared when a major storm brought flooding that killed over 200 people last month.
Climate scientists say that global warming is fueling more frequent and severe extreme weather.
“We can’t postpone protection. We must adapt – now,” Guterres said.
