Pope Francis is visiting the French port city of Marseille, for centuries a multiethnic and multifaith melting pot, to amplify his call for the Mediterranean to be a place of welcome for migrants. It's an increasingly lonely voice in Europe, where some countries are turning more and more to border fences, repatriations and talk of a naval blockade to keep a new influx of would-be refugees out. Francis is presiding over the closing session of a gathering of Mediterranean Catholic bishops, but his two-day visit that begins Friday is aimed at sending a message well beyond the Catholic faithful to Europe, North Africa and beyond.
Storm Daniel, which wrought devastation across the Mediterranean in the past week, killed 15 people in central Greece where it dumped more rain than previously recorded before sweeping across to Libya where over 2,500 died in a huge flood. As the storm moved along the North African coast, Egypt's authorities sought to calm its worried citizens by telling them Daniel had finally lost its strength. But global warming means the region may have to brace in future for increasingly powerful storms of this kind, the Mediterranean's equivalent of a hurricane known as a "medicane".
Destructive fires, temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and tourists dodging possible catastrophe by staying home Will climate change end up transforming tourism, not least in the Mediterranean