When the Waters Come
NEED TO KNOW
When the Waters Come
LATIN AMERICA
Climate change allegedly has claimed many victims.
Temperatures as high as 117 degrees Fahrenheit were recently causing fatal heat strokes in Pakistan. The South Asian country is on track to warm by almost nine degrees Fahrenheit by the 2090s compared with the early 1980s. These deaths occurred after devastating floods in 2022 killed more than 1,730 people and wrecked two million homes, causing $30 billion in damage.
Natural disasters stemming from climate change especially harm so-called fragile states, or developing countries with corrupt and/or inefficient governments, like the Central African Republic, Somalia and Sudan, noted the International Monetary Fund. Women and girls are also among the hardest-hit victims, added UNICEF. Females comprise around 80 percent of those displaced in climactic events, too.
Climate change also impacts flora and fauna – affecting people’s lives. Consider how higher water temperatures threaten the Maine lobster industry. Permafrost in Siberia is thawing, challenging locals who are used to hard ground. Wildfires have ravaged Canada and parts of Europe.
Few examples of the toll that climate change is taking on people are more wrenching than the experience of the 1,200 residents of Carti Sugtupu, a tiny, densely populated island in Panama.
Inhabitants of Carti Sugtupu lived in dirt-floor houses nestled on the island that is as large as five football fields, wrote Agence France-Press. They lived off fishing, with “no drinking water, sanitation or reliable electricity.” A visual story in the Atlantic magazine provided stirring images of the fascinating Latin American island community.
However, more recently, the sea has been frequently flooding their homes, which are around three feet above sea level. As a result, authorities informed them that rising sea levels would make living there impossible by 2050, and that they would be provided with new homes in Nuevo Carti, a town on the Panamanian mainland.
The islanders didn’t want to go.
“We are sad because if this island disappears, a part of our heart, of our culture, disappears with it,” said Alberto Lopez, who was born on the island 72 years ago, in an interview with Business Insider. “My grandmother, my grandfather and my aunt died here … it’s not going to be the same, but I have to move on because life goes on.”
While these Panamanian islanders are the first in the country to be relocated because of the changing climate, they aren’t going to be the last in the region.
In southern Brazil, for example, Silvia and Vitor Titton surveyed the ruins of their neighborhood ravaged by flooding in Porto Alegre, and decided they had enough, it was time to move to another city. “No, I can’t do this,” she told the Washington Post of her decision to leave the area. “I can’t live with this fear of water, fear of rain.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
(No) Comment
WORLD
US President Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday not to run in the next presidential election echoed well beyond America, with leaders worldwide offering praise or criticism to the outgoing commander-in-chief, Newsweek reported.
During his term, Biden’s approach to transatlantic allies contrasted with that of former President and current Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump. A NATO-skeptic, Trump said earlier this year that he would allow Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” with allies failing to meet military spending criteria, Axios wrote.
“Thanks to (Biden) transatlantic cooperation is close, NATO is strong and the USA is a good and reliable partner for us,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
World leaders including Poland’s Donald Tusk, the United Kingdom’s Sir Keir Starmer, and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre described Biden’s move as selfless. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the president made his decision “in the interest of the United States of America, as he has done his whole public life.”
But Biden’s announcement sends not only his Democratic Party but also US allies into unchartered waters, struggling with wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the Associated Press wrote.
“Israel has lost perhaps the last Zionist president,” Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York, told the newswire.
As Vice-President Kamala Harris is widely expected to take the lead and run against Trump, her relations with Israel are under closer scrutiny, Israeli left-leaning outlet Haaretz reported, noting that Harris had regularly been dubbed Biden’s “bad cop.”
Nonetheless, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that his country would remain “an irreplaceable ally” of the United States, no matter who won the November election.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged the “bold steps” Biden took in supporting his country after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. “We will always be thankful for President Biden’s leadership,” Zelenskyy added.
Meanwhile, senior Russian politicians welcomed Biden’s withdrawal as good news. “The goals of the special military operation will be achieved,” said Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Russian Security Council and former president of the Federation, using Moscow’s term for the war.
Chinese leaders refused to comment on Biden’s decision, with spokesperson Mao Ning calling it “an internal affair of the United States.”
But the news was heavily debated on Chinese social media platforms, gaining over 400 million views and tens of thousands of comments on Weibo that by and large were sure Trump would win the presidential race, Voice of America reported.
A Little Respite
PHILIPPINES
China and the Philippines reached a deal this week aimed at ending confrontations over the Second Thomas Shoal reef in the contested South China Sea, a month after the navies of both countries clashed in the disputed territory, Sky News reported.
On Sunday, the Philippines foreign ministry announced that the two “reached an understanding on the provisional arrangement” for resupply missions to the outpost. Officials added that both sides acknowledged “the need to de-escalate the situation … and manage differences through dialogue and consultation.”
The Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef around 120 miles off the western Philippine province of Palawan, is claimed by both Manila and Beijing.
In 1999, the Philippines beached the vessel BRP Sierra Madre on the shoal to reinforce its territorial claims. Since then, it has maintained a small contingent of sailors aboard the ship who require resupply missions, which China has been accused of repeatedly trying to stop, Reuters noted.
While confrontations are not uncommon, tensions escalated on June 17 when Chinese forces rammed and boarded two Philippine navy boats transferring supplies, seizing food, some weapons and other supplies. Clashes between navy personnel saw one Philippine soldier losing a thumb.
Both Manila and Beijing accused each other of the confrontation. The United States, Japan, and Australia condemned China’s actions at the shoal and called for the rule of law and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
Following Sunday’s agreement, Chinese officials indicated that Beijing would allow resupply missions on humanitarian grounds as long as the Philippines does not attempt to build permanent facilities on the shoal.
Meanwhile, Philippine officials on Monday rejected any notion that they needed to notify China in advance of resupply missions, affirming their sovereignty over the maritime zones.
While both nations did not concede the other side’s territorial claims, observers hoped that the agreement could raise prospects for similar arrangements between China and other countries with territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, a critical global trade route with rich fishing areas and undersea gas deposits. Beijing’s claims have put it at odds with its neighbors, including Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.
A Hague-based tribunal ruled in 2016 that China’s claims in the South China Sea had no legal basis, a decision that Beijing has rejected.
Whodunnit?
KENYA
Kenyan authorities arrested this month a suspected serial killer who has confessed to murdering 42 women since 2022, including his own wife, in a case that has shocked the country and renewed scrutiny against Kenya’s police force, the BBC reported.
Last week, Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, was apprehended in Nairobi, days after police discovered mutilated bodies at the Mukuru quarry, a disused dumpsite south of the capital.
Authorities said Khalusha confessed to luring, killing, and disposing of 42 female bodies at the Mukuru dumpsite. The victims, aged between 18 and 30, were killed similarly and found in various stages of decomposition.
The suspect led police to his house – about 330 feet from the crime scene – where they found a number of items, including phones, identity cards, personal female clothing, and a machete believed to be used for dismembering the victims, the New York Times added.
Police have also arrested two other people for possessing a victim’s phone and selling multiple phones linked to the suspect, Africanews noted.
The discovery sparked outrage in the African nation with human rights groups highlighting the broader issue of gender-based violence in Kenya.
The case also sparked condemnation of the Kenyan police, which families of missing women have admonished for their inaction and incompetence.
Public suspicion has been fueled by the proximity of the dumpsite to a police station, leading to criticism of their failure to detect or investigate the disappearances.
Questions have also been raised over the speed of the arrests and how police obtained Khalusha’s confession: During last week’s court appearance, the suspect retracted his statements and his lawyer claimed the confession was obtained under torture, according to the Times of India.
Observers noted that the case comes at a difficult time for the police, which has been accused of using excessive force during recent anti-government protests against tax hikes, resulting in at least 50 deaths.
Some pro-democracy groups alleged that the bodies could be linked to the protesters who disappeared during the recent demonstrations. However, government officials denied the allegations, saying the deaths were related to femicides and not political killings.
Meanwhile, the Independent Police Oversight Authority is probing possible police involvement or negligence, and officers at the station nearest to the quarry have been transferred to ensure unbiased investigations.
DISCOVERIES
Spelunking on the Moon
In a new study, scientists found a more than 330-foot-deep cave on the Moon, the first such discovery confirming their presence.
“These caves have been theorized for over 50 years, but it is the first time ever that we have demonstrated their existence,” study author Lorenzo Bruzzone said in a press release.
Bruzzone and his colleagues made the finding after re-analyzing data and images collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2010. The cave is located on the Mare Tranquillitatis, a rocky plain where Apollo 11 landed in 1969, and it is visible to the naked eye from Earth.
The team believes it was formed millions or billions of years ago when lava flowed on the Moon and created a tunnel through the rock.
They are still unsure what lies within the cave and hope that future lunar missions will use ground-penetrating radar or robots to properly map it. Studying the rock inside the cave could unveil extensive geological records about the Moon’s origins and the Solar system.
“There are huge opportunities for discovery,” co-author Francesco Sauro told the BBC.
The study could also help explore similar caverns on Mars’ surface, the researchers added.
But the authors believe these grottos will play an important role in future human-led missions and explorations beyond Earth.
The Moon is a harsh mistress because of its extreme temperatures (both hot and cold), radiation from the cosmos and the Sun, as well as runaway meteorites.
These fissures will allow spacefarers to set up base inside them to avoid the dangerous conditions on the lunar surface, British astronaut Helen Sharman said.
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