Six In The Morning Sunday 4 July 2021

 

Unprecedented heat, hundreds dead and a town destroyed. Climate change is frying the Northern Hemisphere

By Angela Dewan, CNN

Updated 0758 GMT (1558 HKT) July 4, 2021

The tiny town of Lytton has come to hold a grim record. On Tuesday, it experienced Canada's highest-ever temperature, in an unprecedented heat wave that has over a week killed hundreds of people and triggered more than 240 wildfires across British Columbia, most of which are still burning.

Lytton hit 49.6 degrees Celsius (121.3 degrees Fahrenheit), astounding for the town of just 250 people nestled in the mountains, where June maximum temperatures are usually around 25 degrees. This past week, however, its nights have been hotter than its days usually are, in a region where air conditioning is rare and homes are designed to retain heat.

Ethiopia: Tigray rebels accept ceasefire but set out conditions

Call for withdrawal of Eritrean forces from war-torn region and restoration of rebel government

Agence France-Presse

Sun 4 Jul 2021 15.51 BST

Rebels in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region have accepted a ceasefire “in principle” but posed strict conditions for it to be formalised.

Notable among those conditions was the withdrawal from the region of Eritrean forces as well as fighters from the neighbouring Ethiopian region of Amhara, who have been supporting the Ethiopian army during the eight-month long conflict.

Tigray has been the scene of fighting since the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, sent the army in early November to topple the dissident regional authorities, which emerged from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

The Delta DilemmaCoronavirus Variant Has Some Worried about a New Autumn Wave

Germany’s political leaders want to avoid further lockdowns and school closures this fall. But they are also warning that there may be fresh outbreaks with the spread of the delta variant. It seems almost inevitable that some measures will need to be taken.

By Matthias Bartsch, Markus Becker, Jörg Blech, Jan Friedmann, Annette Großbongardt, Claus Hecking, Martin Knobbe, Timo Lehmann, Veit Medick, Gabriel Rinaldi, Cornelia Schmergal und Christoph Schult

It’s Wednesday morning in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s offices. It’s already summer recess for parliament, but Merkel’s cabinet continues to hold meetings. The country has to be governed, after all. The issue at hand is the new delta variant of the coronavirus and a growing dispute among the German states. Some state governors are calling on the chancellor to make sure there are stricter controls on travelers returning to Germany and the debate is triggering irritation in the cabinet. 

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) noted in the meeting that airlines are already required to check the paperwork to make sure passengers have been tested. Besides, the states also need to do their jobs, he said, complaining that they and municipalities aren't doing enough to monitor adherence to the two-week mandatory quarantine for travelers returning from countries like Britain and Portugal, where the virus variant has become widespread.

Oxygen shortages hit Bangladesh as hospitals unable to cope with Covid-19 surge

Empty oxygen cylinders are piling up almost as fast as bodies in the city of Khulna, which has become Bangladesh's coronavirus hotspot in a dire new surge.

The government has ordered a strict week-long nationwide lockdown in a bid to halt the spread of Covid-19, but Khulna's hospitals cannot cope.

Neither can relatives of the dead.

Mohammad Siddik leaned against empty cylinders under a hospital emergency porch, tearfully telling relatives in phone calls that his 50-year-old brother had died.

Rescuers search for survivors in landslide-hit Shizuoka town

By Quentin Tyberghien and with Shingo Ito

Rescuers in a town hit by a deadly landslide searched for survivors Sunday, climbing across cracked roofs and checking cars thrown onto engulfed buildings as more rain lashed the area.

Two people have been confirmed dead after the disaster at the hot-spring resort of Atami in Shizuoka Prefecture, with 19 others rescued and around 20 still missing, a local government official said.

Torrents of mud crashed through part of the town on Saturday morning following days of heavy rain, sweeping away hillside homes and turning residential areas into a quagmire that stretched down to the nearby coast.

Chile to begin ‘beautiful challenge’ of drafting new constitution

New constitutional assembly in the deeply polarised nation must learn to work together and build trust, experts say.

By Odette Magnet

4 Jul 2021

A feeling of widespread anticipation hangs over Chile, as the country’s newly elected constitutional assembly will be inaugurated on Sunday.

The assembly – made up of a broad swath of the country’s diverse population – is tasked with drafting a new constitution that will carry the nation into the coming decades. Many are calling this a historic moment; it is the first time in history that Chile has elected individuals and tasked them with drafting a constitution.

But the assembly reflects a deeply polarised country and experts say many challenges lay ahead, including most notably a need to build trust among the ideologically diverse constituents.