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ECB’s Lagarde slams ‘coercive trade policies’ in Beijing visit

European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde warned Wednesday that “coercive trade policies” risked harming supply chains and the global economy, and called for a de-escalation of a tariff standoff that has wiped billions off markets.Lagarde, one of the world’s most influential central bankers, is visiting Beijing this week for talks with local counterparts on the …

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Monsoon-loving Indian expats chase rain in UAE desert

After Muhammed Sajjad moved from India to the United Arab Emirates a decade ago, he missed his native Kerala’s monsoon season, so he embarked on an unlikely quest: finding rain in the desert.Using satellite imagery, weather data and other high-tech tools, the amateur meteorologist tracks potential rainfall spots across the desert country and, along with other Indians nostalgic for the monsoon season, chases the clouds in search of rain.”When I came to UAE in 2015, in August, it… was peak monsoon time” in Kerala, the 35-year-old estate agent told AFP, adding that he had struggled to adjust to the change of climate.”So I started to search about the rainy condition in UAE and I came to know that there is rain happening in UAE during peak summer,” he said, adding: “I started to explore the possibility to chase the rain, enjoy the rain.”Each week, he forecasts when and where rain might fall and posts a suggested rendezvous to the 130,000 followers of his “UAE Weatherman” page on Instagram.He regularly posts footage of his rain expeditions out into the desert, hoping to bring together “all rain lovers who miss rain”.Last weekend, he headed out into the desert from Sharjah at the head of a convoy of about 100 vehicles.But nothing is certain. The rain “may happen, it may not happen,” Sajjad said. But when it does, “it is an amazing moment”.- ‘Nostalgic’ -After driving in the desert for hours, the group arrived at the designated spot just as a downpour started.The rain lovers leapt out of their vehicles, their faces beaming as the rain droplets streamed down their cheeks in a rare reminder of home.”They feel nostalgic,” Sajjad said proudly.Most UAE residents are foreigners, among them some 3.5 million Indians who make up the Gulf country’s largest expatriate community.Despite the use of advanced cloud-seeding technology, the UAE has an average yearly rainfall of just 50 to 100 millilitres.Most of it falls during short but intense winter storms.”While long-term averages remain low, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events has been increasing and is due to global warming,” said Diana Francis, a climate scientist who teaches at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi.In the summer, the country often gets less than five millilitres of rain, she said, usually falling away from the coastal areas where most of the population lives.So rain-seekers must drive deep into the desert interior to have a chance of success.An Indian expatriate, who gave her name only as Anagha and was on her first expedition into the desert last weekend, said she was “excited to see the rain”.”All of my family and friends are enjoying good rain and good climate and we are living here in the hot sun,” she said.The UAE endured its hottest April on record this year.By contrast, April last year saw the UAE’s heaviest rains in 75 years, which saw 259.5 mm of rainfall in a single day. Four people died and the commercial hub of Dubai was paralysed for several days. Scientists of the World Weather Attribution network said the intense rains were “most likely” exacerbated by global warming.”We couldn’t enjoy it because it was flooded all over UAE,” Anagha said. “This time we are going to see… rain coming to us in the desert.”

Israel deports Greta Thunberg after intercepting Gaza-bound aid boat

Campaigner Greta Thunberg arrived home in Sweden late Tuesday, after Israel detained herand other activists aboard a Gaza-bound aid boat and deported some.Of the 12 activists on board the Madleen, which was carrying food and supplies for Gaza, four including Thunberg agreed to be deported immediately, while all of them have been banned from Israel for 100 years, the rights group that legally represents some of them said in a statement.The remaining eight were taken into custody after they refused to leave Israel voluntarily, and brought before a detention review tribunal on Tuesday, rights group Adalah said.”The state asked the tribunal to keep the activists in custody until their deportation,” Adalah said, adding that under Israeli law, individuals under deportation orders can be held for 72 hours before forcible removal.Israeli forces intercepted the boat, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, in international waters on Monday and towed it to the port of Ashdod.They then transferred them to Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, the foreign ministry said, from where Thunberg flew first to France then Sweden.Thunberg, 22, accused Israel of “kidnapping us in international waters and taking us against our will to Israel”.”This is yet another intentional violation of rights that is added to the list of countless other violations that Israel is committing,” she said at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.Asked on arrival in Stockholm if she was scared when Israeli security forces boarded the sailboat, Thunberg replied: “What I’m afraid of is that people are silent during an ongoing genocide”.Four French activists who were also aboard the Madleen were set to face an Israeli judge, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.He had earlier posted on X that five would face court action and only one would depart voluntarily.Barrot told reporters that French diplomats had met with the six French nationals in Israel, and that French-Palestinian European MP Rima Hassan was among those who refused to leave voluntarily.The activists, from France, Germany, Brazil, Turkey, Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands, aimed to deliver humanitarian aid and break the Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory.In what organisers called a “symbolic act”, hundreds of participants in a land convoy crossed the border into Libya from Tunisia with the aim of reaching Gaza, whose entire population the UN has warned is at risk of famine.- Dire humanitarian conditions -Israel’s interception of the Madleen, about 185 kilometres (115 miles) west of Gaza, was condemned by Turkey as a “heinous attack”, while Iran denounced it as “a form of piracy” in international waters.In May, another Freedom Flotilla ship, the Conscience, was damaged in international waters off Malta as it headed to Gaza, with the activists blaming an Israeli drone attack.A 2010 Israeli commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar attempt to breach the naval blockade of Gaza, left 10 civilians dead.On Sunday, Defence Minister Israel Katz said the blockade, in place since well before the Israel-Hamas war, was needed to prevent Palestinian militants from importing weapons.Israel is facing mounting pressure to allow more aid into Gaza to alleviate widespread shortages of food and basic supplies.Israel recently allowed some deliveries to resume after barring them for more than two months and began working with the newly formed, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.But humanitarian agencies have criticised the GHF and the United Nations refuses to work with it, citing concerns over its practices and neutrality.Dozens of people have been killed near GHF distribution points since late May, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said on Tuesday that in Gaza’s north, “Israeli military operations have intensified in recent days, with mass casualties reported”.An independent United Nations commission said on Tuesday that Israeli attacks on schools, religious and cultural sites in Gaza amount to war crimes and the crime against humanity of seeking to exterminate Palestinians.”In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination,” the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a report.AFP has contacted Israeli authorities for comment on the report but has yet to receive a response.The Israeli military said it intercepted a projectile on Tuesday that had entered Israeli airspace from Gaza.It later called for residents to evacuate several neighbourhoods in the north of the Palestinian territory.The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says at least 54,981 people, the majority civilians, have been killed in the territory since the start of the war. The UN considers these figures reliable.Out of 251 taken hostage during the Hamas attack, 54 are still held in Gaza including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.