Zitat:Andry Rajoelina: French nationals sentenced for Madagascar coup plot

Two French nationals have been sentenced to 10 and 20 years in prison for planning a coup against Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina. Paul Rafanoharana and Philippe François were prosecuted for endangering state security, criminal association and conspiracy to assassinate the president. Twenty other co-accused were also given prison terms. The French citizens' lawyer plans to appeal against the sentence. [...]

The authorities say they uncovered the coup plot, dubbed "Apollo 21", after seizing emails, weapons and money during a raid in July. It said details included plans to "eliminate and neutralise" a number of people, including the president. François, a former colonel of the French army, was handed a 10-year sentence.

Zitat:Study: Climate change not causing Madagascar drought, famine

Don't blame climate change for the devastating Madagascar drought and famine, scientists said in a new analysis Wednesday. [...] World Weather Attribution, which does real time studies of extreme weather throughout the world, examined the drought, which has left Madagascar with 60% of its normal rainfall from July 2019 to June 2021.

The group found no statistically significant fingerprint of human-caused climate change. Instead, the drought was a random weather quirk, one that has a chance of happening once every 135 years or so, the researchers concluded. "It's a rare event but it's within natural variability," said study co-author Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the Imperial College of London. "For this type of low rainfall, climate change is not a main driver." [...]

"The driver of the famine or the food security is very much the high vulnerability of the people of the region," Otto said. "There's shockingly high poverty rates."