WORLD
7
Monday September 2, 2019Overcrowded camp
A migrant stands outside tents at a refugee camp at Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos, on Saturday. The camp is again
overcrowded, four years after the migration crisis was at its peak in 2015. On Thursday evening, 13 boats were docked at Lesbos
with about 540 people on board, said authorities. Photo: VCG5 dead, 21 hurt in Texas mass shooting
Pope calls
for ‘drastic
measures’ on
climate change
Pope Francis challenged gov-
ernments on Sunday to take
“drastic measures” to combat
global warming and reduce the
use of fossil fuels, saying the
world was experiencing a cli-
mate emergency.
Francis issued his appeal, a
written message for Sunday’s
World Day of Prayer for the
Care of Creation, ahead of the
United Nations Climate Action
Summit this month in New
York, a follow up to the 2016
Paris Agreement to curb global
warming.
Calling the UN summit
“of particular importance,” he
added:
“There, governments will
have the responsibility of show-
ing the political will to take
drastic measures to achieve
as quickly as possible zero net
greenhouse gas emissions and
to limit the average increase
in global temperature to 1.
degrees Celsius with respect
to pre-industrial levels, in ac-
cordance with the Paris Agree-
ment goals.”
Francis has made many calls
for environmental protection
and has clashed over climate
change with sceptics leaders
such as US President Donald
Trump, who has taken the US
out of the Paris accord.
“We have caused a climate
emergency that gravely threat-
ens nature and life itself, in-
cluding our own,” the leader
of the world’s 1.3 billon Roman
Catholics said in the message
for the prayer day, which is
marked by various Christian
Churches.ReutersIranian President Hassan Rou-
hani spoke with French coun-
terpart Emmanuel Macron on
Saturday, warning him Iran
would take the next step in
reducing its nuclear commit-
ments unless Europe lives up
to its own undertakings.
Tensions have spiked in the
Gulf since May last year when
President Donald Trump uni-
laterally withdrew the US from
a nuclear deal between Iran and
world powers – known formally
as the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The escalation has seen
ships attacked, drones downedand tankers seized in the Strait
of Hormuz, a chokepoint for
around a third of the world’s
sea-borne oil.
At the height of the crisis,
Trump ordered strikes against
Iran on June 21 before cancel-
ling them at the last minute.
Macron has been leading
efforts to de-escalate the situa-
tion, and expressed hopes at a
G7 meeting last week of bring-
ing Rouhani and Trump to-
gether for a meeting.
But Rouhani has played
down the likelihood of that
happening unless the US
first lifts crippling sanc-tions that it has slapped on
Iran since pulling out of the
deal.
“If Europe cannot operation-
alize its commitments, Iran will
take its third step to reduce its
JCPOA commitments,” Rou-
hani told Macron in a phone
call, quoted by the government
website.
However, “this step, just like
the other ones, will be revers-
ible,” he added.
“Unfortunately after this
unilateral move by the US, Eu-
ropean countries did not take
concrete measures to imple-
ment their commitments.“The contents of JCPOA are
unchangeable and all parties
must be committed to its con-
tents,” he said.
Rouhani said Iran had two
priorities: for all parties to the
JCPOA to fully implement
their obligations and “securing
the safety of all free maritime
transportation in all waterways
including the Persian Gulf and
Strait of Hormuz.”AFPA gunman hijacked a US postal truck
and opened fire at random in the US
state of Texas on Saturday, shooting dead
at least five people and wounding many
others before dying in a shootout with
officers.
Police identified the suspect as a
white man in his mid-30s, but could
not yet name him or say why he carried
out the attack in the West Texas cities of
Midland and Odessa.
Coming less than a month after a
gunman killed 22 people in the Texas
city of El Paso, the latest bloodshed
immediately ignited fresh calls for
gun control to stem the US scourge of
mass shootings.“We have at least 21 victims, 21 shoot-
ing victims and at least five deceased at
this point in time,” Odessa city Police
Chief Michael Gerke told reporters.
Three police officers were injured, he
said.
The Odessa Police Department had
earlier reported that a suspect was “driv-
ing around Odessa shooting at random
people” and “just hijacked a US mail car-
rier truck.”
Troopers had initially tried to pull over
a passenger vehicle on the Interstate 20
highway but before it stopped, “the male
driver [and only occupant in the vehicle]
pointed a rifle toward the rear window of
his car and fired several shots toward theDPS patrol unit,” the Texas Department
of Public Safety said in a statement.
One trooper was wounded, the sus-
pect fled the scene, “and continued
shooting innocent people,” the depart-
ment said.
Some of the shots were fired on the
highway linking the cities of Odessa and
Midland, where cars were left with bullet
holes. “I just found out a friend of mine
passed away,” David Turner, the mayor
of Odessa where the incident ended, told
Fox News.
“This coward pulls up beside” and
opens fire on the car where the man and
his family were waiting at a stop light,
Turner said.During his rampage, the suspect had
switched vehicles by hijacking the postal
van, and Gerke said he “would assume”
the postal worker was among the vic-
tims.
Police said the suspect died during an
exchange of fire with law enforcement at
a movie theater in Odessa.
Alex Woods, a witness, told CNN that
near the movie theater “I could see a
bunch of gunfire going off. And I could
see the officer walking up to the mail van
and discharging his weapon into it.
“And I believe that was when the
shooter was killed.”AFPIran’s Rouhani warns Macron of looming nuclear step
Random attacks on locals ignite fresh calls for gun control
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