"A water buffalo, her stomach bloated and haunches sunken, lies dying on a dry expanse of cracked earth. Her calf nuzzles her but she doesn't respond. A few yards away, another water buffalo, all skin and bone, wallows in the mud at the edge of the drying marsh waters. The people who herd these animals in Iraq's southern marshlands are unable to save them."

"Saudi Arabia says it wants to join the global fight against climate change — by drilling for more oil."

"With the region warming twice as fast as the rest of the world but oil spoils keeping regimes in power, leaders are in a bind".

"The global energy transition is perhaps nowhere more perplexing than in the Arabian Peninsula, where Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies are caught between two daunting climate change scenarios that threaten their livelihoods."

"No nation in the Mediterranean region has been hit harder by climate change than Turkey. But as heat and drought increase, Turkey is doubling down on water-intensive agriculture and development and spurring a water-supply crisis that is expected to get much worse."

"Stranded in Yemen’s war zone, a decaying supertanker has more than a million barrels of oil aboard. If—or when—it explodes or sinks, thousands may die."

"Syrian President Bashar Assad has the power to free Austin Tice, an American journalist who went missing while covering the war there nine years ago, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday."