SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt: Standing on a boat bobbing gently in the Red Sea, Egyptian diving instructor Mohamed Abdelaziz looks on as tourists snorkel amid the brilliantly colored corals, a natural wonder now under threat from climate change.
“If they disappear, we’ll disappear with them,” he says of the vibrant corals on the reef, a species-rich ecosystem just below the turquoise waters that is beloved by diving enthusiasts worldwide.
Coral reefs — often dubbed the “rainforests of the oceans” for their rich biodiversity — are under threat everywhere as rising sea temperatures and acidification cause catastrophic “bleaching” events.
Along with pollution and dynamite fishing, global warming wiped out 14 percent of the world’s coral reefs between 2009 and 2018, says a new survey by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, the biggest ever carried out.
Some studies have suggested that many species of coral in the Red Sea — which is also bordered by the Saudi peninsula, Sudan and Eritrea — are unusually heat-resistant, but local professionals say they have already witnessed the damage.
“We can see the effects of global warming before our eyes,” said Islam Mohsen, 37, another local diving instructor at the resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh.
“We can see the coral discoloring and turning white.”
Coral reefs cover only a tiny fraction — 0.2 percent — of the ocean floor, but they are home to at least a quarter of all marine animals and plants.
The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden boast the most biologically diverse coral reef communities outside of Southeast Asia.
The Red Sea — with just over five percent of the world’s coral reefs — is home to 209 types of coral, according to Egypt’s environment ministry.
The new global survey said that live hard coral cover in the region fluctuated over recent decades but declined overall, from 36.1 percent in 1997 to 34.3 percent in 2019.
Causes for the degraded reefs varied by location but included tourism activities, coastal development, land runoff and overfishing, the report said.
Steps have been taken in Egypt to protect reefs and marine life that are crucial to the local tourism sector.
Egypt’s Chamber of Diving and Water Sports — which oversees 269 diving centers and over 2,900 professional divers — has protected fragile areas with buoys to keep boats from mooring.
It has also suspended beginners’ diving classes in some areas to allow damaged reefs to recover.
But the largest looming threat, far harder to fix, is global warming.
Oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions, shielding land surfaces but generating huge, long-lasting marine heatwaves.
These are pushing many species of corals past their limits of tolerance.
“When the temperature of the ocean goes up, it absorbs more carbon dioxide, which creates carbonic acid,” said Cairo-based climate change consultant Katherine Jones.
“So not only will the temperature increase, but the PH level will change too,” affecting all animals with shells, she said. “We will lose a lot of wildlife, and the ecosystem will be changing in a way that affects us as humans in terms of resources.
“The coral reefs are nurseries to baby fish and a feeding ground to bigger fish ... it’s an essential part of the ecosystem.”
Sharm El-Sheikh hosted a United Nations agencies conference in 2018 that called for the protection of coral reefs “before it’s too late.”
Egypt also plans to host the Climate Conference of the Parties (COP27) in November next year.
A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that up to 90 percent of coral reefs “may be gone by mid-century” even if the rise in temperatures stabilizes below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Jones warned that, as things stand now, climate change and its impacts can no longer be reversed — only slowed — to prevent the worst consequences.
“Even if humans completely disappear from Earth tomorrow or we stopped producing any kind of emissions,” she said, “the temperature will continue to rise by itself.”
In Egypt’s Red Sea, corals fade as oceans warm
In Egypt’s Red Sea, corals fade as oceans warm
UN peacekeepers in Lebanon urge immediate de-escalation
- Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire for almost a year
The UNIFIL force had witnessed “a heavy intensification of the hostilities across the Blue Line” and throughout its area of operations, spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told Reuters.
“We are concerned at the increased escalation across the Blue Line and urge all actors to immediately de-escalate,” he said.
The Blue Line refers to the frontier between Lebanon and Israel.
Late on Thursday, Israeli warplanes carried out their most intense strikes on southern Lebanon of the conflict.
It followed attacks this week which blew up thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, killing at least 37 people and wounding thousands more.
Israel pounds Lebanon’s Hezbollah sites
- Israeli fighter jets roared over Beirut, their sonic booms shaking buildings and sending residents scrambling for cover
- Israel’s military said its jets hit “approximately 100 launchers and additional terrorist infrastructure sites
Beirut: Israel said it pounded Lebanon’s Hezbollah, just hours after the group’s leader vowed retribution for deadly explosions that targeted its communication devices, killing 37 people and wounding thousands.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah blamed Israel for the explosion of thousands of its operatives’ pagers and radios in attacks that spanned two days this week. Israel has yet to comment on the attacks.
Speaking for the first time since the deadly device sabotage, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Thursday that Israel would face retribution.
Describing the attacks as a “massacre” and a possible “act of war,” Nasrallah said Israel would face “just punishment, where it expects it and where it does not.”
As he delivered his address, Israeli fighter jets roared over Beirut, their sonic booms shaking buildings and sending residents scrambling for cover.
Hours later, Israel’s military said its jets hit “approximately 100 launchers and additional terrorist infrastructure sites, consisting of approximately 1,000 barrels” set to be fired immediately.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Israel struck the south at least 52 times. It was one of the heaviest Israeli bombardments of south Lebanon since the border exchanges erupted last October.
Hezbollah meanwhile said it launched at least 17 attacks on military sites in northern Israel.
The device blasts and Thursday’s barrage of air strikes came after Israel announced it was shifting its war objectives to its northern border with Lebanon where it has been trading fire with Hezbollah.
For nearly a year, Israel’s firepower has been focused on Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, but its troops have also been engaged in near-daily exchanges with Hezbollah militants.
International mediators have repeatedly tried to avert a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah and staunch the regional fallout of the war in Gaza, started by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
Hezbollah maintains its fight is in support of Hamas, and Nasrallah vowed the attacks on Israel will continue as long as the war in Gaza lasts.
The cross-border exchanges of fire have killed hundreds in Lebanon, most of them fighters, and dozens in Israel, including soldiers. Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border have been forced to flee their homes.
Speaking to Israeli troops on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “Hezbollah will pay an increasing price” as Israel tries to “ensure the safe return” of its citizens to areas near the border.
“We are at the start of a new phase in the war,” he said.
Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said the “blatant assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty and security” was a dangerous development that could “signal a wider war.”
Speaking ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on the attacks set for Friday, he said Lebanon had filed a complaint against “Israel’s cyber-terrorist aggression that amounts to a war crime.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Israel faces “a crushing response from the resistance front” after the blasts, which wounded Tehran’s ambassador in Beirut.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has been scrambling to salvage efforts for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, called for restraint by all sides.
“We don’t want to see any escalatory actions by any party” that would endanger the goal of a ceasefire in Gaza, he said as he joined European foreign ministers in Paris to discuss the widening crisis.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden still believes a diplomatic solution between Israel and Hezbollah is “achievable.”
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, in Madrid, called for a new peace conference aimed at ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hamas’s October 7 attacks that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Out of 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,272 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged the figures as reliable.
In the latest Gaza violence, the territory’s civil defense agency said an air strike on a house in Nuseirat refugee camp killed eight people. Another six people, including children, were killed in a separate strike on an apartment in Gaza city, it added.
In Lebanon, the influx of so many casualties following the blasts overwhelmed medics and triggered panic.
“What happened in the last two days is so frightening. It’s terrifying,” Lina Ismail told AFP by phone from the eastern city of Baalbek.
“I took away my daughter’s power bank and we even sleep with our mobile phones in a separate room,” she added in a trembling voice.
The preliminary findings of a Lebanese investigation found the pagers had been booby-trapped, a security official said.
The country’s mission to the United Nations concurred, saying in a letter that the probe showed “the targeted devices were professionally booby-trapped... before arriving in Lebanon, and were detonated by sending emails to the devices.”
A source close to Hezbollah, asking not to be identified, said the pagers were recently imported and appeared to have been “sabotaged at source.”
The New York Times reported Wednesday that the pagers that exploded were produced by the Hungary-based BAC Consulting on behalf of Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo. It cited intelligence officers as saying BAC was part of an Israeli front.
A government spokesman in Budapest said the company was “a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary.”
Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term — report
- The United States and mediators Qatar and Egypt have for months attempted to secure a ceasefire in Gaza
- The US has said a ceasefire deal could lower tensions across the Middle East amid fears of a wider conflict
WASHINGTON: US officials now believe that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza is unlikely before President Joe Biden leaves office in January, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The newspaper cited top-level officials in the White House, State Department and Pentagon without naming them. Those bodies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“I can tell you that we do not believe that deal is falling apart,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday before the report was published.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said two weeks ago that 90 percent of a ceasefire deal had been agreed upon.
The United States and mediators Qatar and Egypt have for months attempted to secure a ceasefire but have failed to bring Israel and Hamas to a final agreement.
Two obstacles have been especially difficult: Israel’s demand to keep forces in the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt and the specifics of an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The United States has said a Gaza ceasefire deal could lower tensions across the Middle East amid fears the conflict could widen.
Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal on May 31 that he said at the time Israel agreed to. As the talks hit obstacles, officials have for weeks said a new proposal would soon be presented.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
Trump says Fed’s rate cut was ‘political move’
WASHINGTON: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday the US Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by half of a percentage point was “a political move.”
“It really is a political move. Most people thought it was going to be half of that number, which probably would have been the right thing to do,” Trump said in an interview with Newsmax.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday kicked off what is expected to be a series of interest rate cuts with an unusually large half-percentage-point reduction.
Trump said last month that US presidents should have a say over decisions made by the Federal Reserve.
The Fed chair and the other six members of its board of governors are nominated by the president, subject to confirmation by the Senate. The Fed enjoys substantial operational independence to make policy decisions that wield tremendous influence over the direction of the world’s largest economy and global asset markets.
Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term, WSJ reports
WASHINGTON: US officials now believe that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza is unlikely before President Joe Biden leaves office in January, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The newspaper cited top-level officials in the White House, State Department and Pentagon without naming them. Those bodies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“I can tell you that we do not believe that deal is falling apart,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday before the report was published.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said two weeks ago that 90 percent of a ceasefire deal had been agreed upon.
The United States and mediators Qatar and Egypt have for months attempted to secure a ceasefire but have failed to bring Israel and Hamas to a final agreement.
Two obstacles have been especially difficult: Israel’s demand to keep forces in the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt and the specifics of an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The United States has said a Gaza ceasefire deal could lower tensions across the Middle East amid fears the conflict could widen.
Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal on May 31 that he said at the time Israel agreed to. As the talks hit obstacles, officials have for weeks said a new proposal would soon be presented.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
