Putin warns the West a Russia-NATO conflict is just one step from World War Three

MOSCOW, March 18 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Monday that a direct conflict between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three but said hardly anyone wanted such a scenario.

The Ukraine war has triggered the deepest crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Putin has often warned of the risks of nuclear war but says he has never felt the need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron last month said he could not rule out the deployment of ground troops in Ukraine in the future, with many Western countries distancing themselves from that while others, especially in eastern Europe, expressed support.

Asked by Reuters about the Macron remarks and the risks and possibility of a conflict between Russia and NATO, Putin quipped: “everything is possible in the modern world.”

“It is clear to everyone, that this will be one step away from a full-scale World War Three. I think hardly anyone is interested in this,” Putin told reporters after winning the biggest ever landslide in post-Soviet Russian history.|Read more https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-warns-west-russia-nato-conflict-is-just-one-step-ww3-2024-03-17/| reuters.com/world/europe/putin…

#war #WorldWar #Putin #Macron #allies #Ukraine #NATO #russia #cdnpoli

In B.C.’s forests, a debate over watershed science with lives and billions at stake

The environmental advocate was storm watching during the atmospheric river disaster that swamped southwestern British Columbia in November 2021.

Muirhead says that without a healthy forest to help absorb the excess water, it was gushing toward a creek near the Sunshine Coast community of Halfmoon Bay.

“It was just complete surface run-off,” he says.

Muirhead went to see what was happening near the outlet of the creek and found highway crews already working – water and debris had caused a “complete engineering failure” of a culvert and the road on top of it, he says.

It was one of at least six washouts along a 40-kilometre stretch between Halfmoon Bay and Gibsons, says Muirhead, who lives in neighbouring Roberts Creek. He’s the founder of the group Elphinstone Logging Focus, named after the local mountain.

“These culverts are undersized for climate-change conditions, with atmospheric river events,” he says. “All across the Sunshine Coast, the majority of them were designed and put in place in the 1950s, when the highway was engineered.”

Now, Muirhead says he’s worried about plans for additional logging on the slopes of Mount Elphinstone, about half an hour’s drive north of his home.

He’s not alone. |Read more https://lethbridgeherald.com/news/national-news/2024/03/17/in-bcs-forests-a-debate-over-watershed-science-with-lives-and-billions-at-stake/| lethbridgeherald.com/news/nati…

#bcpoli #environment #forestry #watershed #atmosphericRiver #logging #floods #disaster