Australia experienced its third-driest September on record, with large parts of Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania getting very little rain. The chance of a drier than normal October is 70%, with the probability rising to 80% in Victoria where the government is attempting to find ways to get water to parched areas in the west. While summer is the time associated with the highest bushfire risk in the southern states, bushfire seasons are starting earlier and lasting longer. Many people living in high-risk bushfire areas are still under-prepared and ill-informed on the dangers and the preparations needed. El Niño is a climatic event. In Australia it is associated with reduced rainfall and higher temperatures. The current El Niño, which will last throughout Australia’s summer, is one of the top four on record in terms of strength.
Residents in South Carolina's Lowcountry were warned that water from days of flooding across the state was moving in their direction and was going to have major impacts. Already seventeen people have died since the rain began a few days ago. Eleven dams have failed and thirty-five dams are being monitored. 400,000+ state residents are under a ‘boil water advisory’ affecting sixteen water systems. Now Lowcountry residents are sandbagging homes, businesses and tourist attractions as they prepare for the surge of water heading their way. Though some areas have already dealt with flooding from the initial event, authorities said some areas that didn't see flooding may get swamped before all the water moves out to sea. High waters are still a very dangerous reality. Rescue crews went door-to- door in the capital city of Columbia as officials freed residents trapped by floods that swamped virtually the entire state. See also http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/06/us/south-carolina-flooding/
The country has been in the grips of violence and political problems since the majority-Muslim Séléka group drove out President Francois Bozizé in a coup two years ago. About three-quarters of CAR is Christian. Thousands have been killed and thousands more displaced since 2013 and now extremists have attempted to murder a Christian in CAR who is heavily involved in civil war peace efforts there. The attackers looted and burned down the house of Revd Nicolas Guerekoyame-Gbangou, the chairman of CAR's Evangelical Alliance. The chairman wasn't in at the time and his family managed to escape before they were attacked. The armed gunmen murdered two other people taking refuge in the house. The attack was part of ongoing sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims in the country, after the body of a Muslim man was found in Bangui earlier this year. 100+ people have died in the fighting and around 30,000 are currently displaced as the result of current and previous political and religious fighting.
Nigeria: Abuja hit by more bomb blasts
09 Oct 2015
A series of explosions on the outskirts of the Nigerian capital Abuja killed at least 18 people last Friday. The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) reported a further 41 people were wounded by the blasts. The first two struck Kuje township; one by a suicide bomber near a police station, the other a bomb at a market. Another bomb exploded at a bus stop in Nyanya. More than 40 people were injured in the blasts, which security officials described as co-ordinated. This year, security forces have managed to reclaim most of the territory captured by Boko Haram fighters and have freed a number of people kidnapped, but militant attacks have intensified. The victims would have been normal working-class people who were going about their business in the streets, in the market-place or waiting for a bus.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance. They met on 5 October for consultations on the potential implications of the dangerous military actions of the Russian Federation in and around Syria. On 8 October NATO defence ministers gave further considerations to the implications for NATO's own security of the ‘troubling escalation of Russian military activities’ in Syria. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, said NATO is ready to deploy forces, if needed, to defend alliance member Turkey. ‘NATO is able and ready to defend all allies, including Turkey, against any threat,’ the secretary-general said on Thursday. He said NATO had already increased its capacity, ability and preparedness to deploy forces, including to the south, including in Turkey, if needed.
Warships in the Caspian Sea launched cruise missiles in the first use of the Russian navy since the start of a military build-up in support of al-Assad. Sergei Shoigu, Russia's Defence Minister, said on Thursday that the navy hit 11 targets in Syria with missiles fired from ships in the Caspian Sea. Four ships in Russia's Caspian fleet fired a total of 26 cruise missiles at the targets. They flew 1,500km over Iran and Iraq and struck Raqqa and Aleppo provinces in Syria's north and Idlib province in the northwest. IS has strongholds in Raqqa and Aleppo, while al-Nusra Front has a strong presence in Idlib. Ashton Carter, the Pentagon chief, said the Russian strategy is a ‘fundamental mistake’ and coalition forces operating in the region will not co-operate with Russia. Putin stressed the need for co-operation with the US-led coalition fighting IS, saying that without co-operation from the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia the intervention was unlikely to work.
Israel: Upsurge of attacks against Jews
09 Oct 2015
On Monday, two Palestinian youths were killed during clashes in the West Bank. One of them was thirteen and had been shot by mistake. Two days earlier, a Palestinian stabbed two Israelis to death in Jerusalem. Another stabbed and wounded an Israeli teenager. Police killed both attackers. On Tuesday a Palestinian woman stabbed an Israeli man in the back in Jerusalem’s Old City, he then drew a gun and shot her. On Wednesday an Israeli woman driving to Jerusalem was attacked by a mob of rock-throwing Palestinians. The attack occurred on a route used by thousands of Jewish and Palestinian motorists daily. The mob beat her and tried to drag her out of her car but she escaped and was taken to hospital. These incidents follow a surge in violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank as Palestinians wage a war of terror, targeting Israel Defence Force soldiers and Israeli civilians. See also http://unitedwithisrael.org/
Mary McAleese has refuted claims by Archbishop Charles Chaput that the Catholic Church never said homosexuals were disordered. The Archbishop accused Mrs McAleese, who has a doctorate in canon law, that she had ‘a very narrow point of view that’s trying to control something she shouldn’t try to control, that is the faith of the Catholic Church. They say that the tendency to same-sex attraction is a disorder of our sexual appetite,’ Archbishop Chaput continued. ‘A lot of people have disorders. Wearing glasses, not being able to hear well are all disorders that a person may have but it doesn’t destroy their dignity. It just means they have an issue to deal with. So I think that language is being used by politicians in order to stir up one side against the other and that’s inappropriate for politicians to do.’