A new global temperature forecast from the UK’s Met Office says that 2016 is likely to be even warmer than 2015.
This year has already been provisionally declared the warmest on record all due to a combination of global warming and a particularly strong El Nino.
El Nino is a naturally occurring weather pattern causes extremes such as scorching weather, droughts and flooding around the world. The weather episode sees the warm waters of the central Pacific expand eastwards towards North and South America – pulling colder water from the deep ocean and into the eastern Pacific.
Usually the wind blows strongly from east to west due to rotation of the Earth. This causes water to pile up in the western part of the Pacific.
In an El Nino, the winds that push the water get weaker, causing the warmer water to shift back towards the east. This then causes the east Pacific to get warmer.
Ocean temperature is linked to wind currents, so this change is temperature causes winds to grow weaker, and therefore the oceans grow warmer and warmer, meaning the El Nino grows too.
The phenomenon happens every two to seven years, usually peaking late in the calendar year, although the effects can persist well into the following spring – and it definitely will be in 2016.
El Nino usually just causes global temperatures to increase more than normal, however this year has seen active hurricanes in the eastern Pacific and in South East Asia, El Nino has been associated with a drought which helped increase wildfires in Indonesia and caused a dense haze in parts of the country. El Niño is also believed to have played a role in reducing the impact of this year’s monsoon in India.
Enhanced rainfall is expected between October and December in East Africa too.
The Met Office think that 2016 could see temperatures to rise 1.1C above pre-industrial levels, however last week in Paris, countries agreed that the world should pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5C.
When a war or natural disaster causes disaster around the world and tons of people are displaced or forced to become homeless, communications and power infrastructures are quite often too badly damaged or non-existent.
Dispensing food, finding shelter and administering medical aid is made even harder for aid agencies and non-governmental organisations without proper communications, and people are frantic to let their loved ones know they’re safe and to find out what’s going on.
In order to help solve the communication problem, telecoms companies have been helpfully engaging in larger-scale communications projects in disaster areas around the world.
Mobile Phones
For example, Vodafone Foundation, have created “instant network mini”, an 11kg backpack containing a 2G mobile network that can offer a coverage radius of up to 1km, a six-hour battery and a small solar panel. The instant network mini kit was deployed in the Kathmandu valley, Nepal, with the hope it would help restore communications following the earthquake there earlier this year. Larger versions of its instant network kits have been used in South Sudan and the Philippines.
Crisis Apps
A number of organisations, such as Google and Medecins du Monde, are currently working on mobile phone apps that have the power to act as single information points, connecting doctors in developed countries with health workers in the field, or with other aid agencies, so each can know what the other is providing.
Flowminder, a Swedish company, use data from mobile operators to track the movements of populations – or their mobile phones – in disaster situations, which can help governments and aid agencies understand people’s behaviour and give them a better idea of where to dispense and channel resources.
Unfortunately technology alone cannot prevent the suffering following natural and man-made disasters, however its better use can at least improve the response of governments and aid agencies.
Since the Paris Attacks, Islamophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric has been prevalent among many political and journalistic figures. An example from the press is the anti-Islam Sun newspaper headline claiming that “1 in 5 British Muslims support Jihadists”. Politically, The right-wing French party National Front is set to make political gains in local elections in the country. But no other political figure has been more of a talking point than Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who,this week, called for the “complete shutdown of Muslim immigration into America”.
One SNP MP, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (who is Scotland’s first female muslim MP) has called on Home Secretary Teresa May to ban Trump from Britain under laws prohibiting hate preaching.
Citing examples where extremist hate preachers have been banned from the UK in the past, the MP implored the Home Secretary to consider doing the same thing for Mr Trump.
But could the presidential candidate be banned under hate speech laws?
The law:
Whether Trump could be banned or not would come under the Public Order Act 1986 which defines hate speech as:
“A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—
(a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.
A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.”
However another section of the law does state that freedom of expression is protected.
So technically the UK could decide to ban Donald Trump from the UK if they believed that he was in breach of the Racial and Religious Act 2006.
Whether he is is contentious, although of course his comments are undoubtedly Islamaphobic. However the treatment of hate preachers from Islam and other religions could make a case for a serious case to keep Trump on his side of the Atlantic.
“An act of terrorism” were the exact words used yesterday by Mr Obama to describe San Bernardino rampage. In this mournful event, which took place last Wednesday 2/12/2015, fourteen people were killed and twenty-one wounded last Wednesday: “An act of terrorism”is not a trivial diagnose of the facts. If true, it might mean several things. Firstly, San Bernardino attack would be the worst terrorist episode that has taken place on American soil since 9/11. In addition , it would be the first time that an ISIL terrorist cell achieves its objective in The United States. And last but not least, it would open a new horizon wherein Obama could be forced to overhaul his fighting fundamentalist terrorism strategy. Down below, we explain known facts and some clues in which president’s speech seems to be was based on.
Facts
On Wednesday 2, at 10:59 am, two masked gunmen broke in San Bernardino’s Inland Regional Center, while a holiday party was being held. They dressed in tactical clothes and carried “assault-style” weapons, and hand-guns. Between 65 and 75 bullets were shot. The entire firing took less than four minutes. After killing 14 and wounding 21, the couple tried to escape from the police in a black Ford Expedition SUV, and a car chase started. The suspects were located at 3 pm, hardly four hours later , on East San Bernardino East Avenue. They were rapidly surrounded by special forces and an exchange of fire started. Extending for a minute, more than 380 bullets were shot by 23 officers and finally the murderers were gunned down.
At this moment, according to the official investigation, Malik would have been the thinking mind after the attack. Born in Pakistan 25 years ago, it is believed that she spent most part of her life in Saudi Arabia, where, allegedly, she would have radicalised. She returned to Pakistan to study pharmacy at Bahauddin Zakariya University and graduated in 2012. Malik and Farook first met on the internet and they got married in 2014 when Farook travelled to Saudi Arabia. Malik entered the United States on a K-1 (fiancée) visa with a Pakistani passport.
Even though they didn’t mention it at first, from the beginning the police considered it was about a terrorist attack, since everything looked too well planned. When officer registered their house, they found more than 7.000 rounds of ammunition, twelve pipe bombs an tools that could have been used to make homemade explosives. The two hand guns were legally purchased by Farook in 2012, whereas the rifles were allegedly acquired by Enrique Marquez, a Farook ´s childhood friend, whose home has already been raided. These guns were voluntary altered by the couple who try to modify fire from semi-automatic to automatic mode, and also increase the capacity of their magazines.
Moreover, FBI has also found several clues, which have not been released yet, that would indicate Malik’s support and allegiance to ISIL. Although she tried to hide it, at least one post supporting ISIL’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been found on her Facebook profile. As for a recent interview to Farook’s father, published by the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Farook was “fascinated” by ISIL as well, and “hated” Israel.
Volkswagen recently hit global headlines as it was uncovered that they had been cheating in emission tests by making its cars appear far less polluting than they are.
The Guardian reported that the US Environmental Protection Agency discovered that 482,000 VW diesel cars on American roads were emitting up to 40 times more toxic fumes than permitted – and VW has since admitted the cheat affects 11m cars worldwide.
Volkswagen’s “defeat device” wasn’t a physical device, but instead a programme in the engine software that effectively sensed when the car was being tested and as a result activated equipment that reduced emissions. However, this was not the case in regular driving as the software turned off and increased emissions far above legal limits – up to 40 times of what is legal in the US.
It has also meant that far more harmful NOx emissions, including nitrogen dioxide, have been pumped into the air than was thought – on one analysis, between 250,000 to 1m extra tonnes every year. The hidden damage from these VW vehicles could equate to all of the UK’s NOx emissions from all power stations, vehicles, industry and agriculture, says the Guardian.
It is not yet known exactly which systems Volkswagen modified, but experts are said to be focusing on parts of the exhaust system that are designed to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide, a pollutant that can cause emphysema, bronchitis and other respiratory diseases.
The Environmental Protection Agency said in September that it would order Volkswagen to recall seven of its American car models with affected engines, which amount to total of about 500,000 vehicles.
Volkswagen will be getting in touch with anyone who has a car that has been affected as they now face $18bn (£12bn) in penalties under the US Clean Air Act, which allows fines of up to $37,500 per car.
In addition, the European Parliament has now also voted to set up a committee to investigate the scandal in more depth.
