AFP

California firefighters were able to beat back a massive wildfire outside Los Angeles after a tropical storm brought rains and cooler temperatures, US authorities said on Saturday. 

The Fairview Fire was 40 percent contained as of Saturday evening after forcing evacuation orders and leaving two people dead, fire officials said.

The blaze erupted on Monday at the midpoint of a ferocious heat wave in the southwestern United States, scorching 28,000 acres (11,300 hectares) and destroying more than 20 buildings.

The remnants of storm Kay, which made landfall Thursday in Mexico as a hurricane before rolling north up the Pacific Coast, brought rains that helped calm the fire.

“Fire activity has been greatly reduced due to the moisture from Tropical Storm Kay,” a statement from Cal Fire, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said.

Authorities warned, however, that the rains brought a risk of flash flooding and mudflows in areas where burned-out soil cannot absorb the sudden downpour.

“We could go from a fire suppression event into significant rain, water rescues, mudslides, debris (flows),” Jeff Veik of Cal Fire’s Riverside Unit said Friday.

The western United States is more than two decades into a historic drought that scientists say is being worsened by human-made climate change.

Much of the countryside is parched and overgrown, creating the conditions for hot, fast and destructive wildfires.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Saturday that he has “never seen climate carnage” on such a scale as he toured parts of Pakistan hit by floods, blaming wealthier countries for the devastation.

Nearly 1,400 people have died in flooding that covers an area the size of the United Kingdom and has wiped out crops and destroyed homes, businesses, roads and bridges.

Guterres has said he hopes his visit will galvanise support for Pakistan, which has put the provisional cost of the catastrophe at more than $30 billion, according to the government’s flood relief centre.

“I have seen many humanitarian disasters in the world, but I have never seen climate carnage on this scale,” he said at a press conference in the port city of Karachi after witnessing the worst of the damage in southern Pakistan. 

“I have simply no words to describe what I have seen today.”

Pakistan receives heavy — often destructive — rains during its annual monsoon season, which is crucial for agriculture and water supplies.

But downpours as intense as this year’s have not been seen for decades, while rapidly melting glaciers in the north have for months heaped pressure on waterways. 

“Wealthier countries are morally responsible for helping developing countries like Pakistan to recover from disasters like this, and to adapt to build resilience to climate impacts that unfortunately will be repeated in the future,” Guterres said, adding that G20 nations cause 80 percent of today’s emissions. 

Pakistan is responsible for less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but is eighth on a list compiled by the NGO Germanwatch of countries most vulnerable to extreme weather caused by climate change.

– ‘Insanity and suicide’ –

Around 33 million people have been affected by the floods, which have destroyed around two million homes and business premises, washed away 7,000 kilometres (4,300 miles) of roads and collapsed 500 bridges.

Guterres has lamented the lack of attention the world has given to climate change — particularly industrialised nations.

“This is insanity, this is collective suicide,” he said after arriving in Pakistan on Friday.

The effect of the torrential rain has been twofold — destructive flash floods in rivers in the mountainous north, and a slow accumulation of water in the southern plains.

“All the children, men and women are roasting in this scorching heat. We have nothing to eat, there is no roof on our heads,” Rozina Solangi, a 30-year-old housewife living in a displacement camp near Sukkur, told AFP on Friday.

“He must do something for us poor,” she said of the UN chief’s visit. 

The meteorological office said Pakistan has received five times more rain than normal in 2022. Padidan, a small town in Sindh province, has been drenched by more than 1.8 metres (71 inches) since the monsoon began in June.

Water levels have reached far higher in areas where rivers and lakes have burst their banks, creating dramatic inland seas. 

Thousands of temporary campsites have mushroomed on slivers of high ground in the south and west — often roads and railway tracks in a landscape of water.

With people and livestock crammed together, the camps are ripe for outbreaks of disease, with many cases of mosquito-borne dengue reported, as well as scabies.

During his speedy tour, Guterres stopped at some of these makeshift camps and met with desperate flood victims, including a woman who gave birth overnight. 

Wearing an Ajrak shawl with a traditional Sindhi block print, he later inspected the 4,500-year-old UNESCO world heritage site Mohenjo-daro, which has suffered water damage from the relentless monsoon rain.

Albania has suffered a renewed cyberattack, the country’s interior ministry said on Saturday, blaming Iran which Tirana also accused of an earlier assault on its digital systems.

“The national police’s computer systems were hit Friday by a cyberattack which, according to initial information, was committed by the same actors who in July attacked the country’s public and government service systems,” the ministry said in a statement.

“In order to neutralise the criminal act and secure the systems,” the authorities have shut down computer control systems at seaports, airports and border posts, the statement said. 

In a tweet, Prime Minister Edi Rama denounced “another cyberattack (committed by) the same aggressors already condemned by Albania’s friendly countries and allies.”

Albania blamed Iran for the July attack and on Wednesday cut diplomatic ties over the affair.

The two countries have been bitter foes for years, since the Balkan state began hosting members of the opposition People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, or Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), on its soil.

Rama on Wednesday accused Iran of directing a cyberattack against Albanian institutions on July 15 in a bid to “paralyse public services and hack data and electronic communications from the government systems”.

It was the first time Tirana spoke about the alleged attack.

“The Council of Ministers has decided on the severance of diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran with immediate effect,” said Rama.

“The said attack failed its purpose. Damages may be considered minimal compared to the goals of the aggressor. All systems came back fully operational and there was no irreversible wiping of data.”

The prime minister went on to say that Iranian diplomats and embassy staff had 24 hours to leave the country.

– Iranian denials –

Iran rejected the accusation it was behind the cyberattack as “baseless” and called Albania’s decision to sever diplomatic ties “an ill-considered and short-sighted action”.

“Iran as one of the target countries of cyberattacks on its critical infrastructure rejects and condemns any use of cyber space as a tool to attack the critical infrastructure of other countries,” its foreign ministry said.

The US announced sanctions Friday on Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and its minister Esmail Khatib over Tehran’s alleged involvement.

The Islamic republic has also been targeted by cyberattacks, most notably in 2010 when the Stuxnet virus — believed to have been engineered by Israel and the US — infected its nuclear programme.

Albania agreed in 2013 to take in members of the MEK at the request of Washington and the United Nations, with thousands settling in the Balkan country over the years.

Following the collapse of its communist government in the early 1990s, Albania has transformed into a steadfast ally of the United States and the West, officially joining NATO in 2009.

The MEK backed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the 1979 revolution that ousted the shah but rapidly fell out with the new Islamic authorities and embarked on a decades-long campaign to overthrow the regime.

The MEK regularly hosts summits in Albania that have long attracted support from conservative US Republicans, including former vice president Mike Pence, who delivered a keynote address at an event in June.

A month later, the group postponed another summit citing unspecified security threats targeting the event.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Saturday that he has “never seen climate carnage” on such a scale as he toured parts of Pakistan hit by floods, blaming wealthier countries for the devastation.

Nearly 1,400 people have died in flooding that covers an area the size of the United Kingdom and has wiped out crops and destroyed homes, businesses, roads and bridges.

Guterres has said he hopes his visit will galvanise support for Pakistan, which has put the provisional cost of the catastrophe at more than $30 billion, according to the government’s flood relief centre.

“I have seen many humanitarian disasters in the world, but I have never seen climate carnage on this scale,” he said at a press conference in the port city of Karachi after witnessing the worst of the damage in southern Pakistan. 

“I have simply no words to describe what I have seen today.”

Pakistan receives heavy — often destructive — rains during its annual monsoon season, which is crucial for agriculture and water supplies.

But downpours as intense as this year’s have not been seen for decades, while rapidly melting glaciers in the north have for months heaped pressure on waterways. 

“Wealthier countries are morally responsible for helping developing countries like Pakistan to recover from disasters like this, and to adapt to build resilience to climate impacts that unfortunately will be repeated in the future,” Guterres said, adding that G20 nations cause 80 percent of today’s emissions. 

Pakistan is responsible for less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but is eighth on a list compiled by the NGO Germanwatch of countries most vulnerable to extreme weather caused by climate change.

– ‘Insanity and suicide’ –

Around 33 million people have been affected by the floods, which have destroyed around two million homes and business premises, washed away 7,000 kilometres (4,300 miles) of roads and collapsed 500 bridges.

Guterres has lamented the lack of attention the world has given to climate change — particularly industrialised nations.

“This is insanity, this is collective suicide,” he said after arriving in Pakistan on Friday.

The effect of the torrential rain has been twofold — destructive flash floods in rivers in the mountainous north, and a slow accumulation of water in the southern plains.

“All the children, men and women are roasting in this scorching heat. We have nothing to eat, there is no roof on our heads,” Rozina Solangi, a 30-year-old housewife living in a displacement camp near Sukkur, told AFP on Friday.

“He must do something for us poor,” she said of the UN chief’s visit. 

The meteorological office said Pakistan has received five times more rain than normal in 2022. Padidan, a small town in Sindh province, has been drenched by more than 1.8 metres (71 inches) since the monsoon began in June.

Water levels have reached far higher in areas where rivers and lakes have burst their banks, creating dramatic inland seas. 

Thousands of temporary campsites have mushroomed on slivers of high ground in the south and west — often roads and railway tracks in a landscape of water.

With people and livestock crammed together, the camps are ripe for outbreaks of disease, with many cases of mosquito-borne dengue reported, as well as scabies.

During his speedy tour, Guterres stopped at some of these makeshift camps and met with desperate flood victims, including a woman who gave birth overnight. 

Wearing an Ajrak shawl with a traditional Sindhi block print, he later inspected the 4,500-year-old UNESCO world heritage site Mohenjo-daro, which has suffered water damage from the relentless monsoon rain.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Saturday that developing nations were paying a “horrific price” for the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, as he toured parts of Pakistan hit by floods blamed on climate change.

Nearly 1,400 people have died in flooding that covers a third of the country — an area the size of the United Kingdom — and has wiped out crops and destroyed homes, businesses, roads and bridges.

Guterres hopes his visit will galvanise support for Pakistan, which has put the provisional cost of the catastrophe at more than $30 billion, according to the government’s flood relief centre on Friday.

“Pakistan and other developing countries are paying a horrific price for the intransigence of big emitters that continue to bet on fossil fuels,” Guterres said in a tweet, shortly before heading to see some of the most flood-affected areas.

“From Islamabad, I am issuing a global appeal: Stop the madness. Invest in renewable energy now. End the war with nature.”

Pakistan receives heavy — often destructive — rains during its annual monsoon season, which is crucial for agriculture and water supplies.

But downpours as intense as this year’s have not been seen for decades, while rapidly melting glaciers in the north have for months heaped pressure on waterways. 

– ‘Insanity and suicide’ –

Before touring flood-affected areas in southern Sindh and Balochistan provinces, Guterres on Saturday said financial help was “not a matter of generosity, it’s a matter of justice”.

“Humanity has been waging war on nature, and nature strikes back… but it was not Sindh that has made the emissions of greenhouse gases that have accelerated climate change so dramatically.”

Guterres has lamented the lack of attention the world has given to climate change — particularly industrialised nations.

“This is insanity, this is collective suicide,” he said after arriving in Pakistan on Friday.

Pakistan is responsible for less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but is eighth on a list compiled by the NGO Germanwatch of countries most vulnerable to extreme weather caused by climate change.

Around 33 million people have been affected by the floods, which have destroyed around two million homes and business premises, washed away 7,000 kilometres (4,300 miles) of roads and collapsed 500 bridges.

The effect of the torrential rain has been twofold — destructive flash floods in rivers in the mountainous north, and a slow accumulation of water in the southern plains.

“All the children, men and women are roasting in this scorching heat. We have nothing to eat, there is no roof on our heads,”  Rozina Solangi, a 30-year-old housewife living in a displacement camp near Sukkur, told AFP on Friday.

“He must do something for us poor,” she said of the UN chief’s visit. 

The meteorological office said Pakistan has received five times more rain than normal in 2022. Padidan, a small town in Sindh province, has been drenched by more than 1.8 metres (71 inches) since the monsoon began in June.

Water levels have reached far higher in areas where rivers and lakes have burst their banks, creating dramatic inland seas. 

Thousands of temporary campsites have mushroomed on slivers of high ground in the south and west — often roads and railway tracks in a landscape of water.

With people and livestock crammed together, the camps are ripe for outbreaks of disease, with many cases of mosquito-borne dengue reported, as well as scabies.