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But despite the intervention from the US official, analysts believe the proposal may not be able to stop Israel, which has conducted regular attacks on Syria for years, and continues to occupy Syrian territory.

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“It is difficult to have a deconfliction mechanism [when] only one party [is] causing conflict in the first place,” Samy Akil, a senior adviser with The Syria Report, told Al Jazeera.

Analysts and diplomatic sources say that Israel is the party holding back progress on talks and the easing of tensions with Syria, which is under a new government since the overthrow of former President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. At the end of a more than decade-long war, Syria is now seeking better relations with the West.

“Israeli-Syrian talks are stagnating because the ball is in Israel’s court and they don’t see a need to prioritise talks with Damascus currently,” Akil said.

Turkiye and Israel trade verbal shots

Under the former al-Assad regime, Israel often attacked Iranian-aligned targets or interests in Syria – including the Iranian consulate in Damascus in April 2024 – but avoided directly attacking Syrian state targets.

That changed when al-Assad fled in the early hours of December 8, 2024. Israel attacked Syria’s military infrastructure around the country, aiming to cripple the new government’s military forces. It also threatened the post-Assad military with deploying forces south of Damascus.

And since the fall of al-Assad, Israel has also shifted focus from Iranian influence in Syria to Turkish influence in the country. The Turks backed a number of anti-Assad rebel groups, many Syrians in exile spent considerable time in Turkiye, and Ankara has sought to build strong ties with Damascus and Syria’s new President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Analysts told Al Jazeera that Tuesday’s attack was in fact a message from Tel Aviv directed at the halls of power in Ankara.

On Tuesday evening, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement that seemed to confirm that suspicion, while it stopped short of claiming responsibility for the actual attack.

“Israel and Syria agreed to a status quo in security matters, which Syria was on the verge of breaching by permitting Turkish troops to deploy at an airbase near Aleppo,” the statement said.

“Israel repeatedly warned Syria that such a deployment would pose a threat to Israel’s security. Syria chose to ignore these warnings.”

Turkiye has slammed the Israeli account of events.

“The untenable allegations put forward by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office are intended to legitimise Israel’s unlawful airstrikes targeting Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Republic of Turkiye’s Directorate of Communications said.

It also accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of pursuing “expansionist and destabilising policies in the region ahead of the elections in Israel”.

Israeli provocations in Syria

Enter US Ambassador Barrack and the idea of a deconfliction mechanism. This would act as a channel of communication between the concerned actors – Syria, Turkiye and Israel. It would be facilitated by the US, and would aim to prevent military escalations.

The strategy appears to be similar to what the US is trying to build in Lebanon between Beirut and Tel Aviv. That deal is aimed at stopping Israeli attacks on Lebanon, disarming Hezbollah, and convincing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon. However, experts say these processes have yet to show results, largely because of Israel’s military superiority and the Netanyahu government’s willingness to undermine negotiations through unilateral military actions.

For its part, the Syrian government has shown a strong willingness to find a solution with Israel, even if it has emphasised that it is not willing to agree to full normalisation.

That is despite the Israeli landgrab of Syrian territory in the Golan Heights and Jabal al-Sheikh in December 2024, and the continued deployment of checkpoints that harass and at times kidnap Syrian citizens.

Early on Wednesday morning, Israeli troops reportedly conducted a raid on Quneitra in southwestern Syria and abducted two people.

Analysts say that for any deconfliction mechanism to work, all parties must be committed to working towards the goal.

“In other words, at what point does a deconfliction mechanism provide added value when any sort of Syrian military buildup 300 kilometres [186 miles] away from Israeli borders is perceived as a threat?” Akil said, adding that Syria’s small Soviet-era air force would not “seriously pose a threat to Israel”.

Netanyahu’s re-election escalation

Galip Dalay, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, told Al Jazeera that for any mechanism to work, the US would need to apply pressure on Netanyahu’s government.

Dalay said Netanyahu, who is running for re-election in October, is likely looking for an escalation with either Lebanon or Syria – or in Palestine – after US President Donald Trump pressured Israel to back down in the war on Iran.

But earlier in August, Netanyahu explicitly rejected the Gaza disarmament plan announced by Trump, forcing it to be altered – and did not receive any public pushback from the US.

“If the US puts proper pressure on Israel, they would listen,” Dalay said. “We saw this with Iran. It was the US who made the decision, and even though Netanyahu didn’t like it, they had to go along with the decision.”

Dalay added: “The question is not only about if there is a need for a deconfliction mechanism in Syria; it is to what extent the US is willing to make it credible and functional, and if the US is willing to put pressure on Israel.” %!s()

“We have no tariffs going into Canada,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday, adding that “tariffs will be non-existent for farmers”.

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Late Tuesday, Trump announced that he would put a three-day pause on 50 percent tariffs that were set to take effect on Wednesday following a “good conversation” with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

“I have paused the 50% Tariffs against Canada that were scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three-day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday.

This week’s comments come amid waves of negotiations between Washington and Ottawa. Carney said in a statement on Tuesday that “substantial progress has been made, although there is important work still to be done”.

Neither US nor Canadian officials have confirmed the full details of the agreement. The new tariffs would have covered about $20bn worth of imports. They would have applied to goods regardless of whether they qualify for preferential treatment under the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.

The auto sector has been a sticking point, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two unnamed industry sources.

On Monday, in a meeting that included US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Canada and the US discussed cutting the US’s Section 232 tariffs –  a tariff that is implemented after a US Commerce Department investigation finds that imports threaten US national security – on Canadian vehicles to 15 percent from 25 percent, with further reductions based on the amount of US content in each vehicle.

Nearly 72 percent of Canada’s goods exports last year went to the US, and Trump’s tariffs during his second term have strained the US-Canada trade relationship. The additional 50 percent that was being threatened would have exacerbated that pressure. %!s()

The tunas, which were caught a day apart off the coast of Whitby earlier this week, have mostly been absent along the north-east coast of Britain since the 1960s. While small numbers of the species have been spotted in the waters around Yorkshire in the previous years, the pair were the first to be caught for market from the North Sea since licences to catch the fish were issued in July.

Rodney Forster, a professor at the University of Hull and head of the Hull marine laboratory, called the tuna’s reappearance a “success story about the management of fisheries” in Britain.

“They were fished almost to the point of extinction in their spawning grounds in the Mediterranean through the 70s and 80s,” said Forster. “But now careful protection of the stock means they’ve increased, even to the point that they’re now spreading back out to their old grounds around the UK and even into the Baltic Sea.”

Forster said the tuna were not the only marine life that had returned to the Yorkshire coast, pointing out that minke whales and bottlenose dolphins had seen a noticeable increase in numbers around the North Sea over the past decade.

Bryce Stewart, a senior research fellow at the Marine Biological Association, a marine charity based in Plymouth, called the return of bluefin tuna to the UK “fantastic” and lauded the work done by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) to re-establish populations.

“It seemed like an era that had gone for ever, you know, I mean normally if we lose a large species like this from an area of sea, they don’t come back,” said Stewart. “So, as I said, both from a personal scientific point of view, this is a really wonderful thing to see.”

Despite joy at the tuna population increasing around Yorkshire and beyond, concerns have also been raised that their increased numbers farther north could in part be linked to the effects of climate change.

Both Forster and Stewart mentioned rising temperatures in the North Sea as another factor in the tuna’s return, albeit a less influential one than the management of fisheries. Stewart said the warmer temperatures had a “sort of knock-on effect” as the small fish that tuna eat, such as herring and sprat, do better in warmer temperatures. Both of the fish caught in Whitby were notably well fed, with each weighing about 320kg (700lb), roughly double the size of the average tuna found on the south coast.

Climate change is one of many factors alongside pollution and illegal fishing that could prevent the tuna from properly re-establishing themselves along the Yorkshire coast, but there are hopes that if properly managed they can thrive there and even move into Scottish waters.

Calum Duncan, the principal policy specialist at the Marine Conservation Society, lauded the regeneration of the tuna populations, but warned that their continued survival hinged on consistent care and for British fishing policies to place a greater onus on protecting marine ecology.

“We’ve got a long, long way to go, but it’s really encouraging to have achieved this,” said Duncan. “Stories like the return of bluefin tuna send a clear signal that human beings can manage our way out of environmental decline by making good decisions and working together, making good plans and – most importantly – implementing them. But we just need to do a lot more of it and need to ramp it up.” %!s()

A new study by researchers at Stanford University in the United States factored in the way that age affects the body’s tolerance for heat, shining light on a new level of risk from heatwaves on the global population.

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As the number of people aged 60 years and older is projected to more than double from one billion in 2020 to 2.1 billion in 2050, representing 21 percent of the world’s population, the Stanford study warns that rising temperatures could become far more deadly than expected.

“Previous assessments often assumed that everyone could tolerate heat as well as a healthy young adult, which substantially underestimated the risk to older people,” Chris Mullington, honorary clinical senior lecturer at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom, told Al Jazeera. The new study “reinforces that dangerous heat cannot be defined by one universal temperature threshold. It depends partly on who is being exposed”.

Why are elderly people so vulnerable to extreme heat?

As we age, our bodies lose the natural ability to cool themselves – we sweat less and our hearts have to work harder as blood vessels do not expand as much. As temperatures rise, the body eventually reaches a point at which it cannot cool quickly enough to compensate. This point – known as “uncompensable heat stress” – is reached much sooner and at lower temperatures by elderly people than younger adults.

People aged 65 and older face more exposure to uncompensable heat at 1.5C of global warming above preindustrial levels than younger adults would at 4C of warming, the researchers found.

Long-term global warming is currently estimated at about 1.4C above preindustrial levels. The annual global average exceeded 1.5C for the first time in 2024, according to the European Union’s Copernicus agency, but long-term, multidecade warming has not yet crossed this threshold.

However, the Stanford researchers estimate that the number of people who experience at least 180 hours a year beyond their age group’s tolerable heat limit is already more than double what it was previously thought to be. This is a key threshold identified by the report.

“Those 180 hours are accumulated across the year and are not necessarily continuous,” Mullington said. “Importantly, this describes exposure to potentially uncompensable conditions; it does not mean that everyone exposed will inevitably become ill.”

It does mean, however, that older adults are at risk of heat-related death and illness at much lower temperatures than previously thought.

“Conditions that a healthy young adult might still tolerate could already cause an older person to store heat, experience a rising core temperature and suffer serious illness including heatstroke,” Mullington said.

What effect does extreme heat have on the human body?

Extreme “ambient” heat is unusually severe heat, or heat at a level that crosses a climatic or health-related threshold. This can lead to severe illness, such as heatstroke or heart attack, or even death.

It is tricky to predict health consequences from global averages as air temperature alone is not a reliable marker of potential physical danger. “Humidity, sunlight, air movement, physical activity, clothing and an individual’s capacity to lose heat all matter,” Mullington said.

“A relatively small rise in the global average shifts the entire temperature distribution, producing a much larger increase in the frequency, severity and duration of conditions at the dangerous extreme.”

This means that conditions which a healthy young adult might be able to tolerate could cause an older person to store heat, experience a rising core temperature and suffer serious illness such as heatstroke, Mullington said.

Furthermore, only a proportion of deaths during heatwaves are directly caused by hyperthermia – overheating – according to the study, which attributed most cases to comorbidities, particularly cardiovascular, renal and respiratory conditions that are exacerbated by elevated body temperature.

Where will elderly people be worst affected?

Warming around the world is happening at a speed not seen in the past 10,000 years, according to NASA data cited in the Stanford study. At the same time, the world’s population is rapidly ageing due to longer life expectancies and falling fertility rates, meaning a greater proportion of people are vulnerable to severe heat.

Elderly people in low-income countries such as China, India and Pakistan are likely to be at highest risk, even at global warming just 1.5C above preindustrial levels. As that temperature rises, the geographical areas affected will expand.

According to the study, each additional degree of global warming above preindustrial levels will bring about one billion more people into the bracket of experiencing 180 hours of uncompensable heat per year. Most of these people are likely to be elderly, as they reach this threshold much sooner than younger adults.

Predictions vary according to the projected temperature rise above preindustrial levels.

At 3C of warming above preindustrial levels, the study’s authors predicted, India, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh will account for 1.5 billion people facing uncompensable heat exposure, nearly three-quarters of the total population affected worldwide.

What can be done to mitigate the effects of extreme heat?

Stanford researchers concluded that understanding where, when, and to what extent human heat tolerance limits will be breached is increasingly important for the development of mitigating strategies.

Suggested adaptations included revising the urban landscape to expand green infrastructure, enhance ventilation, reduce anthropogenic heat emissions, establish cooling centres and improve heat warning and response systems.

These efforts could prioritise clinically vulnerable communities, especially older adults who might be socially isolated, economically disadvantaged or have chronic health conditions.

Since most heat-related deaths among older adults occur indoors, ensuring broader access to air-conditioning or other cooling facilities supported by a resilient energy infrastructure was also among the recommendations put forward by the study.

In the long term, however, reducing emissions remains the key to global warming control. %!s()

SOME GUY: I'm kind of curious about Stalker 2, but I'm wary. I've heard that game is really buggy.
JOSH: It's gotten a lot better since the review period! GSC has put out a lot of patches and ironed out loads of the kinks. And even back when it was ultra-buggy, I still really liked it.
SG: Hm, but it's a little janky, right? Isn't there some big update that's in the pipe?
JOSH: Well, it's Stalker. Jank is part of its beautiful, simulation-y package. But yes, GSC is working on literally overhauling the game's entire Unreal Engine 5 implementation in its 2.0 update.
SG: So I should wait for that?
JOSH: You don't have to! The game is good!
SG: I'm going to wait for that.

And so, I remain the only person in human history who has ever actually played Stalker 2.

But good news: the Stalker 2 2.0 update that everyone I know has been waiting for—including at least one person I know who paid full price for the game at launch—is out tomorrow, alongside the new Cost of Hope expansion, and I'm forced to admit that, damn, maybe you were right to wait.

I should note that, though I've dipped in a few times, I've not seriously played Stalker 2 since a few months after it first released. Many of the changes I'm noticing could well be a product of previous patches rather than the 2.0 update.

But one thing is indisputable: Stalker 2, as of 2.0, runs better and smoother than it has done throughout its entire history. Compared to the thing I first played during its ramshackle, chaotic review period, it might as well be an entirely different game.

I booted into a pre-2.0 version of the game to check and, roaming around Garbage, I still ran into little performance stutters and hitches. It wasn't unbearable, but it was noticeable. In 2.0 it's silky smooth. There are still times, running around out in the open world on Epic graphics settings, that I will encounter just a hint of slowdown, but it really is a stark difference compared to, well, the various forms of Stalker 2 we've gotten before.

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It looks rather nice, too. The Zone's never been ugly in Stalker 2—even when it was peopled with those distended flesh sculptures—but it's prettier than ever now. In particular, interior areas with contrast between light and shadow (of which there are many in the Zone) pop more than they did before.

It's good, is what I'm saying, and I get the impression it's the version of Stalker 2 that GSC would have liked to put out two years ago, if it had its druthers. You can officially stop waiting. Go play Stalker 2.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War. %!s()