KLAMATH RIVER, Calif. USA (AP) — A week ago, the scenic Northern California hamlet of Klamath River was home to about 200 people and had a community center, post office and a corner grocery store. Now, after a wildfire raged through the forested region near the Oregon state line, four people are dead and the store is among the few buildings not reduced to ashes.

At an evacuation center Wednesday, Bill Simms said that three of the four victims were his neighbors. Two were a married couple who lived up the road.

“I don’t get emotional about stuff and material things,” Simms said. “But when you hear my next-door neighbors died ... that gets a little emotional.”

The 65-year-old retiree bought his property six years ago as a second home with access to hunting and fishing. He said Klamath River is a place people are attracted to because they can have privacy and enjoy nature.

He went back to check on his property Tuesday and found it was destroyed.

“The house, the guest house and the RV were gone. It’s just wasteland, devastation,” Simms said. He found the body of one of his two cats, which he buried. The other cat is still missing. He was able to take his two dogs with him to the shelter.

The McKinney Fire broke out Friday and was still out of control on Wednesday, despite progress by firefighters who took advantage of rain from thunderstorms and lower temperatures.

But even the welcome precipitation brought problems. On Tuesday, heavy rain swelled rivers and creeks and a private contractor in a pickup truck who was aiding the firefighting effort was hurt when a bridge gave out and washed away the vehicle, said Courtney Kreider, a spokesperson with the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office. The contractor was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, she said.

More than 100 buildings ranging from homes to sheds have burned. Identifying the four people who were killed could take several days, Kreider said.

The fire has charred nearly 90 square miles (233 square kilometers) and is the largest in California so far this year. The cause is unknown.

With the rain and cooler temperatures, the blaze grew very little and fire officials said crews used bulldozers to carve firebreaks along a ridge to protect homes and buildings in and around Yreka, which has about 7,800 residents and is the largest city in Siskiyou County.

On Wednesday, evacuation orders for residents of Yreka and Hawkinsville were downgraded to warnings, allowing people to return home. But they were warned the fire remains a threat and were urged to be ready to flee again if necessary.

Skies were mostly clear on Wednesday and temperatures were in the mid- to high 90s, baking an already parched landscape.

California and much of the rest of the West is in drought and wildfire danger is high, with the historically worst of the fire season still to come. Fires are burning in Montana, Idaho and Nebraska and have destroyed homes and threaten communities.

Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. California has seen its largest, most destructive and deadliest wildfires in the last five years. In 2018, a massive blaze in the Sierra Nevada foothills destroyed much of the city of Paradise and killed 85 people, the most deaths from a U.S. wildfire in a century.

When it began, the McKinney Fire burned just several hundred acres and firefighters thought they would quickly bring it under control. But thunderstorms came in with ferocious wind gusts that within hours had pushed it into an unstoppable conflagration.

Roger Derry, 80, and his son, Rodger, were among the few families from Klamath River whose homes were spared by the inferno. The elder Derry, who has lived in the unincorporated town for more than four decades, said the fire was terrifying.

“When that fire came over that ridgeline, it had 100-foot flames for about 5 miles and the wind was blowing. It was coming down like a solid blowtorch,” he said. “There was nothing to stop it.”

Harlene Schwander, 82, lost the home she had just moved into a month ago to be closer to her son and daughter-in-law. Their home survived but her house was torched.

Schwander, an artist, said she only managed to grab a few family photos and some jewelry before evacuating. Everything else — including her art collection, went up in flames.

“I’m sad. Everybody says it was just stuff, but it was all I had,” she said.

In northwestern Montana, a fire that has destroyed at least four homes and forced the evacuation of about 150 residences west of Flathead Lake continued to be pushed north by winds on Wednesday, fire officials said.

Crews had to be pulled off the lines on Wednesday afternoon due to increased fire activity, Sara Rouse, a public information officer, told NBC Montana.

There were concerns the fire could reach Lake Mary Ronan by Wednesday evening, officials said.

The fire, which started on July 29 in grass on the Flathead Indian Reservation, quickly moved into timber and had charred nearly 29 square miles (76 square km).

The Moose Fire in Idaho has burned more than 85 square miles (220 square kilometers) in the Salmon-Challis National Forest while threatening homes, mining operations and fisheries near the town of Salmon. And a wildfire in northwestern Nebraska led to evacuations and destroyed or damaged several homes near the small city of Gering. The Carter Canyon Fire began Saturday as two separate fires that merged.

Burkina Faso's army said that it had accidentally killed civilians during a counter-terrorist operation in the country's southeast earlier this week, without saying how many. 

Residents of the area told Reuters that as many as 37 people were killed in the strike on Monday near the village of Pognoa, about 10 km (6 miles) from the border with Togo, where some fled afterwards.

The West African country has been battling an insurgency by extremist militant groups, some linked to Al Qaeda and Daesh, which control large swathes of territory and wage frequent attacks. 

"During operations which made it possible to neutralise several dozen terrorists, the strikes unfortunately caused collateral victims within the civilian population," the army said in a statement.

It did not say how many civilians were killed. The victims were hit by projectiles in the zone between Kompienga and Pognoa, it said. 

Drone strikes

One man from Pognoa said he had attended the burial of 37 people following the strike. A woman from the same town said about 30 people were killed, including women and children. Both sources requested anonymity out of fear of repercussions. 

Nine people with injuries were admitted to the regional hospital in Dapaong, Togo, after the incident, a medical source said. 

"According to the victims and those accompanying them, it was drone strikes. Some spoke of two strikes and others three," said the medical source, who also requested anonymity. 

Togo, which has been contending with the spillover of militancy from Burkina Faso, accidentally killed seven civilians in an air strike last month in the same border zone. 

Burkina Faso in June ordered civilians to evacuate two large areas in its northern and southeastern regions ahead of anticipated operations against militants. 

The strikes that hit civilians on Monday were near but outside one of those zones.

Source: Reuters

• YLENIA GOSTOLI

Climate-vulnerable nations, already footing the global bill of a changing climate, face rising borrowing costs and economic challenges that further impair their ability to adapt.

Due to their geographical location and size, the Caribbean islands have long been among the most vulnerable to climate change: rising sea levels, longer dry seasons and stronger hurricanes continue to affect food security and cause mass displacement, just as the world grapples with successive economic crises.

As the Ukraine conflict enters its sixth month, its economic repercussions are felt as far as Haiti or Belize, but also in small island states in the Pacific that are increasingly threatened by uninhabitability. Regardless of their direct dependence on either Ukraine or Russia for food security, low and middle income countries increasingly grapple with a spiralling debt burden that, in turn, is set to further hinder their ability to adapt to a changing climate.

“[These] governments have largely been bankrolling or paying for their adaptation,” Janine Felson, Belize ambassador and co-lead Climate Finance Negotiator at the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), told TRT World.

“They will have to take a bit of a pain killer to swallow the cost,” Felson says, “which means that national budgets will have to be used to either reduce taxes on imports for fuels or to manage social support systems,” she adds.

In Belize, for instance, it is estimated that climate change impacts cost a staggering 7 percent of GDP, far exceeding even the best years of economic growth.

“With climate events all but certain to worsen as global warming continues its upward trajectory, the costs of living with climate will only continue to increase,” Felson adds.

“The inverse relationship of those costs to economic growth, coupled with lack of access to concessional financing for Caribbean islands, means that the Caribbean is essentially bankrolling the dirty habits of a handful of polluters,” Felson says. 

A recent report found that eleven African countries that are among the least historically responsible for climate change have to spend the most to adapt to it - in some cases spending up to five times more on adaptation than they do on healthcare. Eritrea, for instance, is expected to face climate adaptation costs amounting to 22.7 percent of its GDP, compared with 4.46 percent it spends on healthcare.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has sent international prices for energy, food and fertilizer soaring, affecting the world’s poorest countries most. Wheat shortages have affected countries like Sudan, Congo, Somalia, Benin, Laos and Senegal, dependent on Russia and Ukraine for two thirds or more of their imports. A surge in fertilizer costs linked to higher gas prices has added pressure on farmers all over the world, even more so in countries ravaged by multiple crises.

In 2009, rich nations pledged to provide $100BN a year from 2020 to 2025 to low-income countries to help them fund their climate adaptation and mitigation goals. Climate mitigation refers to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as developing renewable energy sources. Adaptation refers to what is being done in order to prevent the worst impact of those effects, including capturing sea water for irrigation or building new flood defenses.

Official OECD figures show that target has gone unmet – the last available figures for 2019 indicate a shortfall of $20bn. Critics also point out that the majority of climate finance is provided in the form of loans rather than grants. Among others, a 2020 Oxfam report shows how climate finance does not reach those most in need, and when it does, it is on ungenerous terms. In other words, the poorest end up shouldering the costs of climate change.

“The African continent only received $18.3BN in climate finance annually between 2006 and 2019,” Professor Kevin Urama, acting chief economist and vice president at the African Development Bank Group told TRT World. 

“And that includes financing from these governments themselves,” he explains, “so if you look at the true climate external finance, that figure is even lower.” Yet, Urama says, the continent needs over $128 billion annually to meet the overall goals of its climate action plan, also known as Nationally Determined Contributions, as set out in the Paris Agreement.

Rising debt

A study by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) looking into the economic costs of the war in Ukraine on low and middle-income countries shows that many countries not directly economically exposed are among the most impacted by the global economic shock.

“One of the indicators that we used was debt distress,” Laetitia Pettinotti, one of the study’s authors, told TRT World, pointing out that small island nations, for instance, appear to be over-represented among the top losers. 

“These are countries that are even more stuck between the inability to borrow, increasing climate risk, and lower capacity to finance adaptation.”

“Climate finance is not what is causing their debt distress, but it adds further inequity,” Pettinotti adds.

In addition, as wealthy countries deal with the increased cost of living for their citizens at home, development aid – of which climate finance is part - is at further risk of being scaled back. The United Kingdom, for one, has announced cuts to its budget.

“Whilst there were lots of solutions being put on the table [at COP26] around indebtedness, emerging from a combination of climate impacts and Covid-19,  the solutions aren't really bearing fruit,” Clare Shakya, climate change director at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) told TRT World.

“It's insufficient to just keep talking about those solutions without making progress. This is massive, and it's exactly the wrong time for the UK to be putting a hold on spending.”

Footing the climate bill 

The UN estimates that the amount required by developing countries each year to sustain the costs of mitigation and adaptation is likely to rise to $300BN by 2030. If mitigation targets are not met that figure could rise to up to $500 billion in 2050.

The war in Ukraine has sent gas prices through the roof, as well as European governments looking for alternative sources of energy as Russia turns off the gas tap to put pressure on western governments over sanctions. New deals that include the development of new gas infrastructure, and the reopening of coal power plants are set to be a massive setback for the bloc’s climate targets. 

Meanwhile, as extreme weather events become more frequent across the world, the biggest brunt is borne by developing countries.

A recent Oxfam report estimates that the amount of funds needed for UN humanitarian appeals involving extreme weather events including floods and droughts is now eight times higher than it was 20 years ago. Donor countries, the report says, have only been footing half of that bill. The countries with the most recurrent appeals include Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Kenya, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe.

“The decline in climate finance can lead the world into a triple crisis,” Professor Urama says.

“When you have that triangle of disaster, poverty, unemployment and climate impacts, you can’t but find terrorism and conflicts and social fragility.”

Source: TRT World

A volcano has erupted in Iceland near the capital Reykjavik, spewing red hot lava and plumes of smoke out of a fissure in an uninhabited valley after several days of intense seismic activity.

Wednesday's eruption was around 40 kilometres from the capital, near the site of the Mount Fagradalsfjall volcano in southwestern Iceland that erupted for six months in March-September 2021, mesmerising tourists and spectators who flocked to the scene.

A strip of glowing red lava could be seen gushing from the ground, spouting 20-30 metres into the air before spreading into a blanket of smouldering black rock.

As it cooled, blueish smoke rose up from the hilly landscape on the Reykjanes peninsula.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO), which monitors seismic activity, estimated the size of the fissure at about 300 metres. It said the eruption started in the Meradalir valley, less than one kilometre from the scene of last year's eruption.

The latest eruption, which was the seventh in 21 years, was believed to be five to 10 times bigger than last year's eruption, with about 20-50 cubic metres of magma spewing out per second, Magnus Tuma Gudmundsson, professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, told Icelandic media.

Gas pollution feared

The eruption came after a period of intense seismic activity, with about 10,000 earthquakes detected since Saturday, including two with a magnitude of at least 5.0.

While there was no ash plume, the IMO said it was "possible that pollution can be detected due to the gas release".

Gases from a volcanic eruption – especially sulphur dioxide – can be elevated in the immediate vicinity, and may pose a danger to health and even be fatal.

Gas pollution can also be carried by the wind.

"Risk to populated areas and critical infrastructure is considered very low and there have been no disruptions to flights", the Icelandic Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.

Rescue teams and police rushed to the scene to assess the danger and possible gas contamination and discouraged people from visiting.

Mount Fagradalsfjall belongs to the Krysuvik volcanic system on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwestern Iceland.

Known as the land of fire and ice, Iceland has 32 volcanic systems currently considered active, the highest number in Europe. The country has had an eruption every five years on average.

Source: AFP

Although US officials have not publicly confirmed which variant of the Hellfire was used, experts and others familiar with counterterrorism operations said a likely option was the highly secretive Hellfire R9X.

Last weekend, a CIA drone strike fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle killed the leader of Al Qaeda, causing little damage beyond the target.

Other high-profile airstrikes in the past had inadvertently killed innocent civilians. In this case, the US chose to use a type of Hellfire missile that greatly minimised the chance of other casualties. 

Although US officials have not publicly confirmed which variant of the Hellfire was used, experts and others familiar with counterterrorism operations said a likely option was the highly secretive Hellfire R9X — know by various nicknames, including the “knife bomb” or the "flying Ginsu."

That potential use of the R9X, said Klon Kitchen, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former intelligence analyst, suggests the US wanted to kill Ayman al Zawahiri with “limited likelihood of collateral death and destruction and for other relevant political reasons.”

What is a Hellfire?

Originally designed as an anti-tank missile in the 1980s, the Hellfire has been used by military and intelligence agencies over the last two decades to strike targets in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere.

The precision-guided missiles can be mounted on helicopters and unmanned drones and are used widely in combat around the world. 

More than 100,000 Hellfire missiles have been sold to the US and other countries, according to Ryan Brobst, an analyst at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, a Washington think tank.

“It can do enough damage to destroy most targets such as vehicles and buildings while not doing enough damage to level city blocks and cause significant civilian casualties,” Brobst said.

The US military has routinely used Hellfire missiles to kill high-value targets, including a senior Al Qaeda leader in Syria last year, and Al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.

Two missiles fired

The US had multiple options for the attack. It could have used a traditional Hellfire, a bomb dropped from a manned aircraft, or a far more risky assault by ground forces. US Navy SEALs, for example, flew into Pakistan on helicopters and took out Osama bin Laden in a raid.

In this case, the CIA opted for a drone strike. And while the CIA generally doesn’t confirm its counterterrorism missions and closely guards information about strikes it conducts, US government officials have said that two Hellfire missiles were fired at the balcony of the building where al Zawahiri was living in Kabul.

Online images of the building show damage to the balcony, where the US says Zawahiri was, but the rest of the house is not badly damaged.

Unlike other models of the Hellfire, the R9X doesn’t carry an explosive payload. Instead, it has a series of six rotating blades that emerge on its final approach to a target, Kitchen said. 

“One of their utilities is in opening up vehicles and other obstructions to get to the target without having to use an explosive warhead,” he said.

Choice of weapon

Less than a year ago, a US drone strike — using a more conventional Hellfire missile — struck a white Toyota Corolla sedan in a Kabul neighbourhood and killed 10 civilians around and near the car, including seven children.

One former US official said the likely choice of an R9X is an example of the administration's effort to find ways to minimise collateral damage and prevent the loss of innocent life. 

That missile is a very accurate weapon that strikes in a very small area, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss counterterrorism operations.

An administration official said on Monday that the US investigated the construction of the house where al Zawahiri was staying in order to ensure that the operation could be done without threatening the structural integrity of the building and also minimising the risks of killing civilians, including members of his family who were in other parts of the house.

Source: agencies

At least three people have been killed and six others wounded in a knife attack at a kindergarten in southeast China's Jiangxi province.

A "gangster wearing a cap and mask" stormed the private kindergarten in Anfu county at about 10:00 am local time (0200 GMT) on Wednesday, police said in a statement published on China's Twitter-like Weibo.

The 48-year-old suspect is still at large, they added.

"Public security organs are making every effort to hunt down the suspect," the police statement said.

In a video of the scene shared by state-run Beijing Daily, a police officer can be seen carrying a tiny child in his arms to an ambulance. The ages of the victims have not been announced.

School stabbings

Violent crime is rare in China, due in part to strict gun controls and tight security, but in recent years there have been several knife and axe attacks, including in schools.

And fatal attacks specifically targeting kindergarten and school students have occurred nationwide, carried out by people reportedly wishing to wreak revenge on society or because of grievances with colleagues.

The attacks have forced authorities to step up security and prompted calls for more research into the root causes of such violent acts.

Last April, two children were killed and 16 others wounded when a knife-wielding man entered a kindergarten in southern China.

In 2020, a knife-wielding attacker wounded 37 students and two adults at a primary school in southern China. Local media identified a security guard as the perpetrator.

And later that year a man was sentenced to death for poisoning dozens of children in an act of revenge against a colleague that left one toddler dead.

Source: agencies

Separatist insurgents in Pakistan's resource-rich Balochistan province have said they shot down a military helicopter that went down during a flood relief operation, killing all six on board including a top army commander.

A senior military official dismissed the insurgents' claim as propaganda and fake news on Wednesday. The military said the helicopter crashed during bad weather.

The Baloch Raaji Aajoi Sangar (BRAS), an umbrella group of Baloch insurgent groups, said in a statement sent to Reuters late on Tuesday that its fighters shot down the "low flying helicopter" with an anti-aircraft weapon.

The group provided no evidence and Reuters could not independently verify the claim.

Ethnic Baloch militants have for decades waged an insurgency against the Pakistani government in the southwestern province, complaining that its rich gas and mineral resource are unfairly exploited to the benefit of other parts of the country.

The province is also home to deep-water Gawadar port, which neighbouring China has been developing as part of a multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to link road and sea routes with Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative.

The insurgents oppose those projects and try to attack them.

The commander of the south Pakistan-based 12 Corps, Lieutenant General Sarfraz Ali, was among those killed on the helicopter.

Source: Reuters

Mexican authorities have been trying to rescue a group of miners trapped in a coal mine in the state of Coahuila after it collapsed, Coahuila State Secretary Fernando Donato de Las Fuentes said in an interview on national television.

Donato said late on Wednesday as many as 11 miners were trapped.

The mine is located in the Sabinas municipality, and local media showed footage of family members asking for information about the miners outside the premises.

The coal mine started operations in January and has not received any complaints, the Labor Ministry said in a statement.

Nearly 100 soldiers at site

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said earlier on Twitter that nine miners were "likely" trapped in the mine.

"I hope we find them safe," Lopez Obrador said, adding that the collapse of the mine had caused a flood inside.

One miner had managed to get out, Coahuila Governor Miguel Riquelme said.

Some 92 soldiers arrived at the scene, as well as specialists and rescue dogs, the president said.

Many of Coahuila's small-scale mines are astonishingly primitive; rough logs are used to shore up tunnels and miners descend atop crude coal buckets on cables pulled by car engines.

Coal mines in the area have been hit by deadly accidents in the past.

An accident on February 19, 2006, in the Pasta de Conchos mine in the area, killed 65 miners, but only two bodies were recovered.

Mexican authorities called off that search and closed the mine five days after the accident, arguing that it was unsafe due to toxic gas.

Source: agencies