National Weather Service issues weather watch for critical fire conditions in Sequoia national park
Crews continue to battle California wildfires that have burned into some groves of ancient giant sequoias, the world’s largest tree.
The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a weather watch for critical fire conditions in the Sequoia national park in the Sierra Nevada, where the Colony fire was burning about a mile from Giant Forest, a grove of 2,000 sequoias.
Continue reading...Analysis: ties between Paris and Washington in worse state than at time of Iraq war after Australia’s cancellation of submarine deal
The recall of the French ambassadors to Australia and the US – without precedent in two centuries of diplomacy between Paris and Washington – has plunged relations to depths unknown for decades.
Rifts over the Iraq war or Nato pale into insignificance. True, the French recalled their ambassador to Rome a couple of years ago, irked by the insults sent their way by the upstart Five Star leader Luigi di Maio, but that was a little warning to populists to stop encouraging the disruption of the yellow vest protests.
Continue reading...Gang violence, bloody protests, food and fuel shortages plus natural disasters have spurred many to leave the west’s poorest nation
Every night Guy would fall asleep to the sound of gunfire: warring gangs in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, were fighting pitched battles in the city centre.
By day, the country was roiled by bloody protests against food and fuel shortages. Roadblocks with burning tyres were commonplace, and the police responded with tear gas and billy clubs.
Continue reading...Thomas Cook chief executive predicts this weekend will be biggest of the year so far; about 1,000 protesters gather in Melbourne as state records 535 cases
Prof Adam Finn, a member of the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, has said while it is not “essential” for 12-15 years to get the Covid-19 vaccination, it is also “perfectly sensible” for them to have it.
He told Times Radio:
It’s a finely balanced decision. It’s not a black and white decision. It’s not essential that these children receive the vaccine, but equally it’s a perfectly sensible thing to do. It’s being offered because the benefits do outweigh the risks, and it’s available for people who want it. And I’m afraid that’s the truth of the situation.
Because the risks on either side are not that high. It’s not like these children are at great risk from Covid, or indeed that they’re at great risk from the vaccination.
Ronapreve, the Covid antibody drug, is to be given to vulnerable NHS patients.
Covid antibody drug Ronapreve to be given to vulnerable NHS patients https://t.co/lU6CTVlE3g
Continue reading...Jean-Pierre Thebault, the French ambassador to Australia, said France was kept in the dark over the surprise cancellation of a submarine contract in favour of a US deal. France recalled its ambassadors to Australia and the US on Friday in an unprecedented show of anger over a deal between the US, Australia and the UK to provide Australia with a fleet of at least eight nuclear-powered submarines
Continue reading...The country’s greatest living writer feels ‘surprised, bewildered and assaulted’ after the president issued a warrant for his arrest and seized copies of his new novel about the 2018 uprising
Sergio Ramírez, Nicaragua’s best-known living writer, hero of the Sandinista revolution, and former vice-president of the volcanic Central American nation, has lived through both tougher times and duller publicity tours.
Even so, the past few days have been – as he puts it, with a degree of understatement – “an odd experience”.
Continue reading...Campaigners fear ban emboldens anti-choice governments as more aggressive opposition, better organised and funded, spreads from US
The new anti-abortion law in Texas is a “terrifying” reminder of the fragility of hard-won rights, pro-choice activists have said, as they warn of a “more aggressive, much better organised [and] better funded” global opposition movement.
Pro-choice campaigners have seen several victories in recent years, including in Ireland, Argentina and, most recently, Mexico, where the supreme court ruled last week that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. Another is hoped for later this month when the tiny enclave of San Marino, landlocked within Italy, holds a highly charged referendum.
Continue reading...Police prepared for trouble at event near Capitol but only a few hundred attended as politicians and pro-Trump groups did not
Any passing American might have been forgiven for thinking they had stumbled on one of the great human rights struggles of our time.
Related: Peril review: Bob Woodward Trump trilogy ends on note of dire warning
Continue reading...Everyone here has tales of lost loved ones, but many want foreigners back – with aid not weapons
A parade of white Taliban flags lines Musa Qala bazaar right up to the central monument where two kidnappers were hanged in a public execution earlier this year. The flags flutter from almost every shop in celebration, some rough and handmade, others printed and lined with tinsel.
The dusty town, an opium trading centre reached most of the year by driving up the gravel bed of a seasonal river, was the Taliban’s southern capital from 2015 until the militant group took over the national capital. Before that it was the site of intense fighting by British and US forces for more than a decade, including a bitter 2006 British siege in which 88 men were holed up for two months, leading to the first – albeit hyperlocal – international ceasefire negotiations with the Taliban.
Continue reading...First time France has recalled a US ambassador in alliance dating back to American revolution
France has recalled its ambassadors to the US and Australia for consultations sparked by the “exceptional seriousness” of Canberra’s surprise decision to cancel an order for French-built submarines and its security pact with Washington and London.
The French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said the order to bring the ambassadors back to Paris “immediately” was made at the request of the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Continue reading...Scientific advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have voted not to recommend a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine for most Americans, a potentially significant blow to the Biden administration after it announced a plan to “boost” adults before advisory committees had a chance to review scientific evidence in public.
Related: ‘Fascist and tyrannical’: US vaccine mandates induce rightwing hysteria
Continue reading...French president says close to 90% of people in country of 67 million have had at least one vaccine dose; UK reports 178 Covid-linked deaths
The US administered 383,994,877 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Friday morning and distributed 464,315,725 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Those figures are up from the 383,038,403 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Sept. 16 out of 462,384,885 doses delivered, Reuters reports.
A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport criticised the Scottish government’s “decision to diverge yet again and further curtail Scotland’s aviation and travel industries in their recovery”.
He said: “We are now the most restrictive country in Europe yet there is no justification or health benefit to retaining testing measures, something clinical professionals and experts have themselves said.
Continue reading...Government announces re-opening of high schools for boys but makes no mention of girls
The Taliban have effectively banned girls from secondary education in Afghanistan, by ordering high schools to re-open only for boys.
Girls were not mentioned in Friday’s announcement, which means boys will be back at their desks next week after a one-month hiatus, while their sisters will still be stuck at home.
Continue reading...Traffic-light system replaced, with foreign countries now listed as either ‘red’ or OK for travel
Half-term holiday bookings are expected to surge after ministers unveiled a simplification of Covid foreign travel rules, replacing the traffic-light system with a single red list and bringing in a laxer regime for tests.
But while MPs and some travel groups welcomed the new system, airlines voiced anger that fully vaccinated travellers returning to England will still have to take a test after they return, even if this will be changed to a cheaper lateral flow version.
Continue reading...Canada already shares intelligence with Australia, the UK, the US and New Zealand but was not included in Aukus pact
Justin Trudeau is facing harsh criticism from political rivals after Canada was excluded from a new international defence pact, days before the country votes in a federal election.
Australia, the United Kingdom and the United State on Wednesday announced a new intelligence sharing agreement meant to counter Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Continue reading...Major commitment with deadline of 2030 is big advance towards reaching 1.5C goal set out in Paris agreement
The US and the EU made a joint pledge on Friday to cut global methane emissions by almost a third in the next decade, in what climate experts hailed as one of the most significant steps yet towards fulfilling the Paris climate agreement.
The pledge came as the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned of a “high risk of failure” at the vital UN climate talks, Cop26, set for Glasgow this November.
Continue reading...PM will hope signing of this week’s Aukus deal will help the allies move on from the chaos of Kabul
Boris Johnson will fly to New York this weekend for his first foreign trip since the Covid pandemic, hoping to cement his relationship with the US president, Joe Biden, after a rocky summer marred by the chaotic Kabul airlift.
Two years ago, when Johnson made his first foreign trip as prime minister to the Biarritz G7 summit, the hope was that Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for the man he called “Britain Trump” would help smooth the way for a rapid post-Brexit trade deal with the US.
Continue reading...Dutch people born in 2001 are not as tall as previous generation – is it genetics, migration or nutrition?
From brutal conflicts to periods of prosperity, pandemics to triumphs for equality, human history is full of highs and lows. But such fluctuations don’t just affect society: the human body can also be a sign of the times.
Studies have shown that our height is not just a matter of genetics but is also influenced by the environment we live in, with key factors including our nutrition and experience of sickness, such as diarrhoea.
Continue reading...The deal has upset China, but it also binds the US into European security, in a world where Nato may be less relevant
France is furious. Theresa May is worried. The announcement of the new Australia-UK-US alliance (Aukus) and the ditching of a previous French-Australian submarine deal has led France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, to term the pact “a stab in the back”, while the former British prime minister is concerned about Britain being dragged into a war over the future of Taiwan.
Oddly enough, Beijing’s reaction has been rather muted. Yes, it has accused the west of a “cold war mentality”, and Xi Jinping has warned foreigners not to interfere in the region, but its warning that China would “closely monitor the situation” was close to a “cut and paste” outrage.
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