France – Page 4 – Desdemona Despair

The area of forest fires recorded in 2022 for 11 European countries and the Mediterranean basin, compared with the average from 2006 to 2021. Data are current to 21 July 2022. Data: European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). Graphic: Le Monde

July 21, 2022

Wildfires in Europe have never been as large as in the summer of 2022 – In France and Spain, summer fires are nearly six times larger than average

By Pierre Breteau 21 July 2022 (Le Monde) – From Gironde to Brittany, France is burning as drought and exceptional heat rage. The entire European Union (EU) is also suffering from extreme weather conditions. And most of the EU 27 Member States have already suffered from fires that have destroyed areas of forest that are far greater […]

A wildfire burns near a wind turbine at night outside Tabara, Zamora, during the second heatwave of the year in Spain, 18 July 2022. Photo: Isabel Infantes / REUTERS

July 19, 2022

UK shatters record for highest temperature as Europe sizzles – Major incident declared in London as fires burn – Dozens of temperature records fall in France as fires rage in southwest

By Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless 19 July 2022 LONDON (AP) – Britain shattered its record for highest temperature ever registered Tuesday amid a heat wave that has seared swaths of Europe — and the national weather forecaster predicted it would get hotter still in a country ill prepared for such extremes. The typically temperate nation […]

Prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents aged 5–19 years in the WHO European Region, by sex, 1975–2016. Graphic: WHO

May 5, 2022

World Health Organization warns of obesity epidemic in Europe – “Overweight and obesity rates have reached epidemic proportions across the region and are still escalating”

3 May 2022 (AFP) – The WHO said Tuesday that “epidemic” overweight and obesity rates are linked to over 1.2 million deaths annually across Europe, calling for swift policy changes to reverse the dangerous trend. Obesity rates in the region have ballooned by 138 percent in the past five decades, the World Health Organization said […]

German language posts (top) and French language posts (bottom) containing antisemitic content, 1 January 2020 - 8 March 2021. German language posts are shown only for Telegram, because the numbers of antisemitic posts on Facebook and Twitter and were low and constant. In France, the huge increase in antisemitic posts during the pandemic occurred almost entirely on Twitter. Graphic: EU

January 27, 2022

World remembers Holocaust as antisemitism rises in pandemic – “The pandemic has acted like an accelerant”

By Vanessa Gera and Samuel Petrequin 27 January 2022 WARSAW, Poland (AP) – Survivors recalled their agony to a world they fear is forgetting, Israel’s parliamentary speaker wept in the German parliament and politicians warned of a resurgence of antisemitism on Thursday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day falls on the anniversary of the liberation […]

Police use water cannons against anti-vaccination protesters during a demonstration against COVID-19 measures in Brussels, Belgium, 23 January 2022. Photo: AP Photo

January 26, 2022

“I’ll Kill You!”: Anti-vaxxer attacks doctor in Bulgaria – Brussels police clash with anti-vaccination protesters – Rioters attack Guadeloupe hospital staff – Cornwall judge jails anti-vaxxer who called in bomb threats to school and vaccine health centers

23 January 2022 (VOA News) – Police in Brussels fired water cannon and clouds of tear gas at 50,000 protesters demonstrating Sunday against COVID-19 vaccinations and restrictions European authorities are imposing to try to contain the fast-spreading omicron variant of the coronavirus. Some of the protesters came from France, Germany, and other countries, shouting “Liberty!” […]

Distribution of major tax cuts for the rich across OECD nations, 1965-2015. This figure visualizes the resulting binary variable that picks out years in which taxes on the rich were reduced substantially. In total, we identify 30 country-year observations where taxes on the rich were significantly reduced. Governments enacted major tax reforms in all countries in our sample and across the whole observation period. Many countries implemented major tax cuts for the rich in the late 1980s. Furthermore, the identification of tax cuts is also in line with previous studies that have focused on income tax progressivity (Rubolino and Waldenström, 2020) or on overall tax progressivity single specific countries (Saez and Zucman, 2019). For instance, echoing these authors’ findings, we find two major reforms that reduced taxes on the rich in the US: 1982 (First Reagan Tax Cut) and 1986/1987 (Second Reagan Tax Cut). Graphic: Hope and Limberg, 2020 / LSE

December 25, 2020

Tax breaks for the rich don’t boost the economy – “Our research shows that the economic case for keeping taxes on the rich low is weak”

16 December 2020 (LSE) – Major reforms reducing taxes on the rich lead to higher income inequality but do not have any significant effect on economic growth or unemployment, according to new research by LSE and King’s College London. Researchers say governments seeking to restore public finances following the COVID-19 crisis should therefore not be […]

Coastal erosion encroaches on a house in Happisburgh, Norfolk, UK. Photo: Philip Bird, LRPS CPAGB / Shutterstock

March 21, 2020

15 towns being slowly swallowed by the sea – Coastal communities fighting a losing battle with the ocean

4 March 2020 (Love Property) – Positioned on the frontline of climate change, the world’s most vulnerable shoreline communities face an uncertain future. Plagued by ever-worsening coastal erosion and rising sea levels, their existence hangs precariously in the balance. As the tide continues to draw in, take a look at 15 towns being gradually reclaimed […]

Chairlifts are pictured over ski slopes closed due to lack of snow, at the ski resort of The Mourtis in Boutx, France, 10 February 2020. Photo: Regis Duvignau / REUTERS

February 22, 2020

The ski resort with no snow contemplates a warmer future – “If the snow is not there, we have to sell something else”

By Regis Duvignau and Antony Paone 12 February 2020 LE MOURTIS, France (Reuters) – This year’s winter in France has, so far, been the mildest in more than a century, and that has had a direct impact on the ski resort of Le Mourtis, in the Pyrenees mountains. “There’s no snow,” said French holidaymaker Frederic […]

Flood water surrounds tomb stones at a graveyard in Tenbury Wells, after the River Teme burst its banks in western England, 16 February 2020. Photo: Oli Scarff

February 17, 2020

Storm Dennis, 2nd-strongest bomb cyclone on record in North Atlantic, wreaks havoc across UK, parts of France – Record 594 flood warnings and alerts issued in UK

17 February 2020 (AFP) – Britain on Monday began to clear up after Storm Dennis battered the country over the weekend, leading the government’s weather agency to issue a rare “danger to life” warning amid widespread flooding and high winds. Hundreds of flood warnings remained in place, including five “severe” warnings around the River Teme […]

Aerial views of glaciers in Iceland taken in 1989 and 2019 showing how much ice has been lost over this 30-year period. Photo: National Land Survey of Iceland / Kieran Baxter

October 25, 2019

Images reveal Iceland’s glacier melt – “We saw a staggering difference in a very short amount of time”

By Rebecca Morelle 25 October 2019 (BBC News) – A photography project has highlighted the extent of ice loss from Iceland’s glaciers. A team from Scotland and Iceland compared photographs taken in the 1980s with present-day drone images. They focused on the south side of the Vatnajökull ice cap, which covers about 7,700sq km of […]