Fadi, a Syrian teenager with curly hair and an acne-covered face, has miraculously survived one of the greatest migrant boat disasters in the modern history of the Mediterranean.

Only 104 people have been rescued from a boat that carried an estimated 750 refugees after it capsized on June 13 in the open sea near the coastal town of Pylos.

Scores of lifeless bodies have been pulled out from the water, and many more have washed ashore. Hundreds are still missing, feared dead, many of whom are women and children, as they huddled on the lower deck of the 30-meter boat.

Fadi survived. A heart-rending photo shows the young Syrian sobbing as he met his older brother, Mohammed, who rushed to the port of Kalamata, Greece, to see him. The two brothers could not embrace, as Fadi was still trapped behind metal gates in a confinement made for the survivors.

The latest boat disaster tells a much bigger story than the sympathetic news headlines attempted to convey. It is a story of war, poverty, inequality and despair.

The identity of those who died at sea gives us clues to the origins of the story. They were Syrians, Palestinians, Afghans and more. These refugees were seeking safety, coveting mere survival.

The sad irony is that the latest episode of this seemingly endless horror took place exactly one week before the United Nations was set to celebrate World Refugee Day, held on June 20 of each year.

Most references to this day by the UN, UN-related organizations and international charities around the world seem to emphasize empowerment and positivity. A statement by the UN Refugees Agency (UNHCR) spoke of honoring the refugees around the globe and referenced Refugee Day as one that celebrates the strength and courage of refugees.

The contradictions of the discourses pertaining to the refugees should be too obvious to miss. But we often do. Too many lavish dinners will be catered in the name of the refugees in many Western capitals and embassies around the world. Diplomats will demand action, and well-paid intellectuals will enunciate the moral and ethical responsibilities of governments and civil societies...

Why the climate crisis and the global rise of fascism are inextricable.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 15^th June 2023

Round the cycle turns. As millions are driven from their homes by climate disasters, the extreme right exploits their misery to extend its reach. As the extreme right gains power, climate programmes are shut down, heating accelerates and more people are driven from their homes. If we dont break this cycle soon, it will become the dominant story of our times.

A recent paper in Nature identifies the human climate niche: the range of temperatures and rainfall within which human societies thrive. We have clustered in the parts of the world with a climate that supports our flourishing, but in many of these places the niche is shrinking. Already, around 600 million people have been stranded in inhospitable conditions by global heating. Current global policies are likely to result in about 2.7C of heating by 2100. On this trajectory, some 2 billion people may be left outside the niche by 2030, and 3.7 billion by 2090. If governments limited heating to their agreed goal of 1.5C, the numbers exposed to extreme heat would be reduced fivefold. But if they abandon their climate policies, this would lead to around 4.4C of heating. In this case, by the end of the century around 5.3 billion people would face conditions that ranged from dangerous to impossible.

These conditions include extreme disruption, morbidity and death through heat-shock, water stress, crop failure and the spread of infectious disease. The figures do not take into account the effect of rising sea levels, which could displace hundreds of millions more.

Already, weather stations in the Persian Gulf have recorded wetbulb measurements a combination of heat and humidity beyond the point (35C at 100% humidity) at which most human beings can survive. At other stations, on the shores of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of California and the western side of south Asia, measurements have come close. In large parts of Africa there is almost no monitoring of extreme heat events. People are likely to have been dying of heat stress in high numbers already, but their cause of death has not been registered.

India, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Sudan, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and central America face extreme risk. Weather events such as massive floods and intensified cyclones and hurricanes will...