Breaking Waves: Ocean News

California, Nevada and Arizona face record highs, with heat alerts and closures as temperatures could reach up to 105F States across the US south-west recorded blistering temperatures at the tail end of winter, with forecasts indicating hotter days are still to come. California, Nevada and Arizona were all under heat warnings on Thursday amid record-breaking temperatures. Continue reading...

Lovehoney sponsors Aphrodite-themed ‘pleasure garden’ full of flowers associated with love and sex It is one of the most prestigious events of the UK social calendar, but the great and good attending Chelsea flower show may be in for a shock this year as the Royal Horticultural Society unveils a sex-themed garden sponsored by a company that sells vibrators. Lovehoney, a sex toy company, is sponsoring an Aphrodite-themed “pleasure garden” full of flowers and plants associated with love and sex. Chelsea flower show will be held at the Royal Hospital Gardens from 19 to 23 May. Continue reading...

Move will put national security and lives overseas at risk, critics say, as overall UK aid budget is slashed to 0.3% of gross national income Climate aid to developing countries from the UK will be cut by about 14% to roughly £2bn a year under government plans, in a move critics said would put national security and lives overseas at risk. The move follows bitter rows with the Treasury, which wanted deeper cuts owing to pressure on spending resulting from the war in Iran. Continue reading...

Oil has empowered capitalism, and some of the world’s most exploitative regimes. Move away from it and we can solve some of the key issues we face I realise this is a serious breach of etiquette. But could we perhaps abandon good manners and contextualise Donald Trump’s attack on Iran? The intense western interest in the Middle East and west and central Asia, sustained for more than a century, and the endless attempts by foreign governments to shape and control these regions, are not random political tics. They are somewhat connected to certain fuel sources situated beneath the ground. Trump’s war aims are typically incoherent: apparently incomprehensible even to himself. But Iran would not be treated as an “enemy of the west” were it not for what happened in 1953, when Winston Churchill’s government persuaded the CIA to launch a coup against the popular democratic government of Mohammad Mossadegh. The UK did so because Mossadegh sought to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company: to stop a foreign power from stealing the nation’s wealth. The US, with UK support, tried twice to overthrow him, and succeeded on the second attempt, with the help of some opportunistic ayatollahs. It reinstated the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1954, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company became British Petroleum, later BP. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...