Pope denounces ‘shortsighted’ human activity for global warming
KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – Bahrain said an explosion which caused a fire at its main oil pipeline on Friday was caused by “terrorist” sabotage, linking the unprecedented attack to its arch-foe Iran, which denies any role in the Gulf island kingdom’s unrest.
A key Western ally and host to the US Fifth Fleet, Sunni Muslim-ruled Bahrain has for years grappled with protests and sporadic violence coming from its Shi‘ite majority.
“The incident was an act of sabotage and a dangerous act of terrorism aimed at harming the higher interests of the nation and the safety of the people,” the interior ministry said on its website.
“Terrorist acts witnessed by the
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday blasted “shortsighted human activity” for global warming and rising sea levels and urged leaders at climate talks in Germany to take a global outlook as they negotiate ways to curb heat-trapping emissions.
Francis met with a delegation of Pacific leaders and told them he shares their concerns about rising sea levels and increasingly intense weather systems that are threatening their small islands.
He decried in particular the state of oceans, where overfishing and pollution by plastics and micro-plastics are killing fish stocks and sea life that are critical to Pacific island livelihoods.
While several causes are to blame, “sadly, many of them are due to shortsighted human activity connected with certain ways of exploiting natural and human resources, the impact of which ultimately reaches the ocean bed itself,” the pope warned.
History’s first Latin American pope has frequently spoken out against global warming and the impact it has in particular on poor and indigenous
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The head of the UN food agency is telling world leaders that the only way to end global hunger is to end conflicts, which would also free up billions of dollars to build roads and infrastructure and promote economic growth in all developing countries.
David Beasley said in an interview with The Associated Press this week that 19 countries are now in “protracted conflict” — which is “more conflict than we’ve ever had” — and 80 percent of the World Food country in the recent period are carried out through direct contacts and instructions from Iran,” the statement quoted Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah al-Khalifa as saying.
In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi rejected the allegations as “false talk and childish accusations,” the ministry said on its website.
Bahraini authorities said they had brought under control the fire at the oil pipeline.
State-run Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) closed the flow of oil to the stricken pipeline, the civil defense said in a statement earlier on Saturday.
Residents close to the incident near Buri village, some 15 kilometers (10 peoples. His landmark 2015 encyclical “Praise Be” denounced how wealthy countries exploit the poor, risking turning God’s creation into an “immense pile of filth.” Program’s funds are now going into conflict regions.
For many years, he said, the number of people facing extreme hunger fell despite the increase in global population, but in the last few years the number of people facing extreme hunger has increased from 777 million to 815 million in 2016 — “all because of man-made conflict.”
In 2015, world leaders adopted new UN goals, first and foremost to eradicate extreme poverty — people living on less than $1.25 a day — in all miles) from the capital Manama, were being evacuated to a safe shelter, the statement added.
Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry said pumping to Bahrain had been suspended and the kingdom was stepping up security precautions at its own facilities.
“The attack on the pipeline... was followed by the suspension of the pumping of oil to the State of Bahrain,” the Saudi Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources said.
“The Ministry of Energy also confirmed that it has increased its security precautions at all its facilities, and that all these facilities enjoy the highest levels of protection and safety,” it added in a statement.
The Pacific leaders praised the encyclical for drawing attention to those most vulnerable to climate change, including residents of small Pacific islands for whom rising sea levels pose an existential threat.
The president of Nauru, Baron Waqa, told Francis that Pacific island leaders would urge negotiators at Bonn to uphold the Paris climate accord, where governments made commitments to keep global temperature rise this century below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Waqa warned that the 1.5-degree rise was a crucial threshold: “There only remains a few years before we exceed carbon dioxide levels that will make temperature rise to levels that will see many parts of the Pacific disappear,” he said.
Francis told the Pacific leaders that he hoped the Bonn talks would take their plight into consideration, and look for a shared strategy to confront the “grave problems” facing the environment and oceans. countries by 2030.
“Zero hunger by 2030? It’s a joke without ending the conflicts,” Beasley said. “If we end the conflicts, with the expertise and the food sector of the world, we can end world hunger.”
Beasley said he has recently visited many countries in conflict — Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Somalia.
“It’s a disgrace on humanity, the number of innocent victims of conflict, children, that are starving to death because of nothing but man-made conflict,” he said.
He urged powerful nations around the world to work with the United Nations to end conflicts.
“Why don’t we put our heads together and have a comprehensive strategy and end just one? And then we’ll go to the next one, and then within a year we’ve ended two or three wars, saved us hundreds of billions of dollars,” Beasley said. “Let’s end Yemen or Syria or South Sudan. Let’s end something.”
In the meantime, Beasley said, WFP needs between $6.5 billion and $6.8 billion this year to feed over 80 million people.