5: Iran vice-president hails new era after removal of sanctions

The lifting of sanctions on Iran on Saturday marks a new era in bilateral relations between Tehran and Washington, one of the country’s vice-presidents has said, adding that further rapprochement is contingent on how the US goes about fulfilling its commitments under last summer’s nuclear accord.

In an interview with the Guardian, Masoumeh Ebtekar warned against what she said were new attempts in the region to create a sense of “Iranophobia”, though she did not single out by name Tehran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia.

The Guardian 

4: 

Here’s the Most Detailed Picture Yet of How Much the World’s Oceans Are Warming

When talk turns to global warming, most of the attention is on rising temperatures on land and the impacts already being seen like historic droughts and melting ice sheets.

But to truly understand the remarkable ways in which human emissions are altering Earth’s climate system, scientists need to find out what is going in the world’s oceans. That was difficult until the past decade, when better technology like that of Argo, a network of 3,200 robotic floats, allowed them to get temperature and salinity data across the globe at depths of 6,500 feet below the sea surface.

The results have been a revelation.

Now, researchers have published one of the most detailed pictures yet of how much heat is going into the oceans.

Scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Princeton University, and Penn State University found that half the global ocean heat content since 1865 has occurred in the past two decades. And contrary to an early study that found the deep oceans were barely being touched by global warming, the researchers found as much as 35 percent of that was being taken up below 2,300 feet.

Vice News

3: 

Leaked Recording Upends Case of ‘Rogue Trader’ Convicted of Losing Bank Billions

New evidence has surfaced in the case of Jérôme Kerviel, a French trader accused of having cost the French banking giant Société Générale nearly 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in one of history’s biggest trading scandals, and convicted of fraud in 2010.

The massive loss resulted in 2008 from trades made by Kerviel that the bank described as “rogue” and unauthorized. Kerviel insists that his bosses were aware of his trades, and that they share responsibility.

French news outlets 20 Minutes and Médiapart have now leaked a secret recording of a lead prosecutor on the case that appears to discredit the bank’s assertions that Kerviel was acting alone.

The timing of the leak is ideal for Kerviel, who appeared Monday before the Court of Revision in a bid to overturn his conviction. In France, you can only ask for a case to be reviewed if new evidence casts doubts on the guilt of a convict.

Leaving the hearing today, Kerviel told reporters who had gathered outside the court that he was “disgusted with the content of the recording,” and that he was “ashamed for the justice system.”

Vice News

2: 

Southern Africa’s drought leaves millions hungry

About 14 million people in Southern Africa are facing hunger because of last year’s poor harvest, caused by the El Nino weather pattern, the World Food Programme says.

In a statement released on Monday, the WFP, which is the UN’s food-assistance branch, gave warning that the number of people without enough food is likely to rise further in 2016, as the drought worsens throughout the region.

“Worst affected in the region by last year’s poor rains are Malawi (2.8 million people facing hunger), Madagascar (nearly 1.9 million people) and Zimbabwe (1.5 million) where last year’s harvest was reduced by half compared to the previous year because of massive crop failure,” the WFP statement said.

Aljazeera

1: 

Grandparents call in lawyers to get terminally ill child medical cannabis
The grandparents of a five-year-old with terminal brain cancer have called in a lawyer after doctors refused to consider medical cannabis to treat the child.In August last year the child was given nine to 12 months to live after being diagnosed with an inoperable tumour on her spinal cord.

RNZ