Drought-stricken parts of the western United States have been warned to be on alert for flash flooding, with up to 15 centimetres of rain expected in some areas.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said on Friday that "a significant heavy rainfall event" could strike Arizona and New Mexico, leading to sudden inundations –– especially in areas previously ravaged by wildfires.

Very heavy rainfall is "forecast for portions of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico today and Saturday," the NWS said.

"Average rainfall totals of 2-3 inches, with locally higher amounts approaching 5-6 inches, may lead to numerous instances of flash flooding.

"Complex terrain, slot canyons, arroyos, and burn scars are especially vulnerable," the agency said.

Painful drought and climate crisis

The western United States is more than 20 years into a painful drought that has left rivers and reservoirs badly depleted, and the countryside tinder-dry.

But sudden, intense downpours like that forecast are not necessarily helpful.

"If the water all comes down over a very quick period of time, it'll run off," Chris Rasmussen, an NWS meteorologist in Tucson, Arizona, told AFP news agency.

"It doesn't get a chance to really soak into the ground, as you would like to see.

"It's always nicer to have a good, moderate amount of rain over a long period of time."

Human activity, specifically the runaway use of fossil fuels over the last century, has caused the Earth's average temperature to rise.

This has altered weather patterns, worsening droughts in some parts of the world, and intensifying storms in other areas.

Source: AFP

Nine people were killed, including at least five children, in a rocket attack on a market in the northern Syrian city of Al-Bab on Friday, according to emergency responders working in rebel-held areas.

The White Helmets, a rescue group working in parts of Syria still held by armed opposition factions, said at least 28 others were wounded.

The warring factions in Syria's 11-year conflict have carved up the north into a patchwork of zones of control.

Al-Bab falls within the areas of Aleppo province held by Turkish-backed rebels, but other parts are held by Syrian government troops backed by Russia.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), spearheaded by Kurdish groups who have opened a dialogue with the Damascus-based government, also control parts of the north and northeast.

The head of the SDF's media center, Farhad Shami, said the group had nothing to do with Friday's attack.

Activists in Al-Bab had been planning a protest after Muslim midday prayers Friday to denounce comments by Turkey calling for reconciliation between the Syrian government and the opposition.

In a statement distributed to media after Friday's attack, the activists canceled the demonstration over fears of further violence.

Reuters

Assailants attacked a hotel in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, on Friday, setting off explosions and firing guns.

Witnesses told VOA's Somali Service that they heard two or three blasts near the Hayat Hotel at the KM4 junction Friday evening. Initial reports said the assailants attacked the hotel with suicide car bombs before gunmen went inside.

A police officer told the Reuters news service that one car bomb hit near the hotel and another hit the hotel's gate.

One witness said a gunbattle was going on inside the hotel fora time, with security forces trying to fend off the attackers.

Somali police spokesman Abdifatah Adan Hassan said the gunmen were "being engaged by the police forces," according to Agence France-Presse.

"We don't have the details so far but there are casualties, and the security forces are now engaging with the enemy who are holed up inside the building," security official Abdukadir Hassan told AFP.

An ambulance service told Reuters that nine wounded people had been taken from the hotel.

Islamist militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the blasts. A statement on the group's website said, "Our fighters seized the hotel and are fighting now inside. We are targeting government officials who are in the hotel."

The group, which has been waging an insurgency in Somalia for about 15 years, often targets cafes and hotels like the Hayat in Mogadishu that are patronized by political and security officials./agencies

Ethiopian Airlines has suspended the crew of a flight on which both pilots reportedly fell asleep and missed their landing window in Addis Ababa.

The plane eventually landed safely, but experts said the incident raised questions about pilot fatigue on the airline, the largest air carrier in Africa.

The Aviation Herald, a news website for the aviation industry, reported Thursday that the two pilots were flying a Boeing 737 from Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, to Addis Ababa, apparently on Monday. “After overflying [the runway] … the autopilot disconnected, the disconnect wailer woke the crew up, who then maneuvered the aircraft for a safe landing,” the report said.

Ethiopian Airlines said Friday that the crew had been "removed from operation pending further investigation. Appropriate corrective action will be taken based on the outcome of the investigation. Safety has always been and will continue to be our first priority.”

The statement did not say whether the pilots had been sleeping.

Experts said the incident could have been a result of the airline overworking the pilots or other external factors.

Hassan Shahidi of the Flight Safety Foundation, an independent nonprofit organization, told VOA that pilot fatigue "would certainly be investigated in terms of exactly how many hours they were flying and potentially whether fatigue or scheduling may have played a role in this, but it is, at the end of the day, the responsibility of the crew if they are fatigued or if they are tired, to report that they’re tired.”

US, EU regulations

Airlines that fly in and out of the U.S. and European Union, as Ethiopian Airlines does, are bound by safety rules set by regulatory bodies in those jurisdictions. Failure to meet those rules means airlines can be banned from flying to U.S. and EU destinations.

The EU aviation regulator, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, told VOA via email that it was aware of the incident.

It said the agency evaluates information from many sources as part of its continuous monitoring of non-EU air carriers “and takes action as appropriate to ensure operations meet our safety expectations.”

The agency said it does not comment on individual cases.

Experts said a single incident like this was unlikely to jeopardize an airline's ability to fly to the U.S. and EU.

Ethiopian Airlines is Africa’s largest carrier and, according to experts, has a good safety record. Sean Mendis, a former regional airline manager in Africa, said, “I would not hesitate to fly on Ethiopian myself. I was on two Ethiopian Airlines flights this week already. I’ve got another one booked for the next few weeks. And, you know, Ethiopian does remain one of the safest airlines in Africa and, indeed, in the world.”

The outcome of the investigation was expected to come quickly, as Ethiopian Airlines attempts to dispel passenger concerns over safety./agencies

The World Health Organization warned on Wednesday that millions of people in East Africa face the threat of starvation. Speaking at a media briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that drought, climate change, rising prices and an ongoing civil war in northern Ethiopia are all contributing to worsening food insecurity.

Over 50 million people in East Africa will face acute food insecurity this year, a study from late July by the World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organization found. Roughly 7 million children are suffering from malnourishment and, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, hundreds of thousands are leaving their homes in search of food or livelihoods. Affected countries include Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.

“The current food security situation across the Horn of Africa is dire after four consecutive rainy seasons have failed, a climatic event not seen in at least 40 years, or since the beginning of the satellite era,” Chimimba David Phiri of the Food and Agriculture Organization said in the report.

The warnings have been gradually building for months, as the situation worsens. In June, David Nash, a physical geographer at the University of Brighton, reported for the Conversation that “large areas of Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya are currently in the grip of a severe drought.”

The Horn of Africa has two rainy seasons per year, but the last four have been unusually dry. In some regions of Somalia, it has not rained in two years, according to Reuters.

“This meteorological drought has resulted in a loss of soil moisture, caused waterways to dry up, and led to the death of millions of livestock,” Brighton reported. “Forecasts suggest that the September to December rainy season could also fail. This would set the stage for an unprecedented five-season drought.”

Climate change increases the risk of drought because warmer air causes more evaporation and throws off the natural water cycle.

“Climate change and La Niña have caused an unprecedented multi-season drought [in East Africa], punctuated by one of the worst March-to-May rainy seasons in 70 years,” the U.N. News Service reported last month.

The drought has had a devastating effect on crop yields and on livestock populations. In Somalia, vegetable and grain production is expected to drop by about 80% this year.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has stalled grain exports for both countries, has also had a cascading effect for countries that relied on the crop. According to the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a U.S-based think tank, “Somalia is entirely dependent on Ukraine (70 percent) and Russia (30 percent) for wheat imports.

Although Ukraine and Russia signed an agreement to ensure grain exports are would resume from ports on the Black Sea, Russia subsequently bombed a port in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa and has placed mines on trade routes.

The Russia-Ukraine war also comes on top of ongoing violent conflicts in East Africa that can impede food production and distribution.

The Islamist terrorist group al-Shabab controls over 20% of Somalia. Attacks by al-Shabab have increased since the Trump administration withdrew U.S. troops from the country in December 2020. The Biden administration redeployed 500 soldiers to Somalia earlier this year.

A Somali soldier stands guard next to the site where al-Shebab militants carried out a suicide attack against a military intelligence base in Mogadishu, June 21, 2015. (Mohamed Abdiwahab/AFP via Getty Images)

And in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, the government military, ethnic militias and soldiers from Eritrea are fighting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a political party that the Ethiopian government considers a terrorist organization.

Droughts and the resulting famines can themselves also create political instability and violent conflict. Various uprisings, including the 2011 Arab Spring protests in Tunisia and the civil war in Syria, have been linked in part to drought and climate-change-related food shortages.

In July, the U.S. Agency for International Development committed to spending $1.2 billion on food aid for Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. The U.N., however, says that more funds are needed. And experts argue that the international community must help countries in the region access longer-term solutions to mitigate the risks of climate change such as drought-resistant technologies and water preservation strategies./YN

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The U.S. oil industry hit a legal roadblock in January when a judge struck down a $192 million oil and natural gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico over future global warming emissions from burning the fuels. It came at a pivotal time for Chevron, Exxon and other industry players: the Biden administration had curtailed opportunities for new offshore drilling, while raising climate change concerns.

The industry’s setback was short-lived, however. The climate measure President Joe Biden signed Tuesday bypasses the administration’s concerns about emissions and guarantees new drilling opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. The legislation was crafted to secure backing from a top recipient of oil and gas donations, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, and was shaped in part by industry lobbyists.

While the Inflation Reduction Act concentrates on clean energy incentives that could drastically reduce overall U.S. emissions, it also buoys oil and gas interests by mandating leasing of vast areas of public lands and off the nation’s coasts. And it locks renewables and fossil fuels together: If the Biden administration wants solar and wind on public lands, it must offer new oil and gas leases first.