Aleppo looks close to end
Syrians homeless and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said it would now accept no truce in Aleppo, should any outside parties try to negotiate one. Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a week-long ceasefire. Moscow said rebels used such pauses in the past to reinforce.
Tens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in rebel-held districts of Aleppo, reduced to a few kilometres across. The United Nations, whose staff are restricted to governmentcontrolled areas of the city, described “a very disastrous situation in eastern Aleppo”.
“There has been heavy shelling on us, there are massacres (of civilians), there’s no electricity and little internet access,” said Abu Youssef, a resident of one of the areas still held by the fighters.
Damascus and Moscow have been calling on rebels to withdraw from the city, disarm and accept safe passage out, a procedure that has been carried out in other areas where rebels abandoned besieged territory in recent months. Moscow wants negotiations with Washington to facilitate such an evacuation.
But despite Lavrov’s announcement of a meeting in Geneva, a US official said firm plans for talks had never been set, though Washington was still working to reopen negotiations.
Rebels have told US officials they will not withdraw, and said there had been no more formal contact with Washington on the topic since last week. “The Americans asked if we wanted to leave or to stay . . . we said this is our city, and we will defend it,” Zakaria Malahifji, a Turkey-based official for the Fastaqim rebel group, told Reuters yesterday.
Russia has intervened far more openly and decisively, joining Iran as well as Iraqi and Lebanese Shia groups to back Assad. Some of the groups fighting in eastern Aleppo have received support in a US-backed military aid programme to rebels deemed moderate by the West. However, this has been minimal compared to massive Russian air support to aid Assad’s Government, which has turned the tide of the war in his favour over the past year.
— Reuters into 19 sub-populations, two of which have experienced population declines due to shrinking sea ice. Others have shown signs of “nutritional stress” or are said to be “stable” or “productive”.
The researchers combined polar bear generational length with sea ice projections based on data and simulations. They worked out the probability that reductions in the mean global population size of polar bears will be greater than 30, 50 and 80 per cent in the space of three generations. While the likelihood of a more than 30 per cent loss was high, there was little chance of populations crashing to near-extinction levels.
Scientists say sea ice in the Arctic hit record low levels for November, though this is when it is supposed to be refreezing. In the crucial Barents Sea, the amount of floating ice decreased when it would be expected to grow. Arctic sea ice extended for 9.1 million sq km. That’s 800,000 sq km below the record set in 2006. The National Snow and Ice Data Centre says it was the seventh month this year to set a record low.
Some Arctic air was 10C warmer than normal and seawater was 4C above normal. Data centre scientist Julienne Stroeve blamed natural weather patterns and man-made global warming.