World roundup: November 8 2023

Stories from Syria, Sudan, Haiti, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

November 8, 960: The Battle of Andrassos

November 8, 2002: The United Nations Security Council unanimously passes Resolution 1441, calling on Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to disarm under the terms of previous UN resolutions or face “serious consequences.” Funny story: Hussein had already disarmed, but we got to see what the serious consequences were anyway! It all really worked out just swell.

INTERNATIONAL

• To perhaps no great surprise, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service says that data from January through October shows that 2023 is “virtually certain” to be the hottest year it has ever recorded. The agency’s deputy director, Samantha Burgess, noted on Wednesday that incorporating data from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change leads to the conclusion that 2023 is hotter than any of at least the last 125,000 years. Global temperature increases have been particularly stark for the past two months, as El Niño ratchets up and its effects are enhanced by human carbon emissions. Speaking of which, it seems that carbon emissions from US liquefied natural gas exports, driven largely by European countries looking for alternatives to Russian gas supplies, have skyrocketed over the past four years. Just putting that out there.