Nearly a year after Israel and Hamas agreed to a US-brokered cease-fire, some 94% of Gaza’s 2.1 million Palestinian residents lack adequate shelters with 84% facing severe constraints in heating, cooling, cooking, lighting and hygiene and nearly 60% facing “critical” or “catastrophic” shelter needs.  This according to a new analysis by the Global Shelter Cluster, […] Continue reading ->
Twice in three years – at its 75th anniversary and again this July at the Constitution’s 80th – the World Health Oganization (WHO) has told the official story of what it has achieved. Twice, water, sanitation, air, chemicals and climate have been left out. The former head of WHO’s environmental health programme argues this is […] Continue reading ->
As wildfires rage across continents, heatwaves claim thousands of lives and ocean temperatures shatter records, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Friday that the climate crisis has entered “overdrive.” “This is only a warm-up act,” he said. “El Niño is strengthening, adding fuel to a planet already on fire with scorching heat domes, apocalyptic wildfires […] Continue reading ->
Nine miles south of the picturesque French city of Bordeaux, firefighters are at war with a phenomenon straight out of an apocalyptic epic. Scientists call them pyrocumulonimbus, or PyroCbs. NASA calls them the “fire-breathing dragon of clouds”. The port capital of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, normally bustling with tourists at peak season, is instead drowned in smog, so […] Continue reading ->