El Niño is back with a vengeance – and fears of ‘Godzilla’ strength may be the least of our worries

UN’s Word Food Programme and agriculture agency issue joint appeal for funds to avert global hunger crisis before it happens Adugna Woyessa was a little boy the first time drought tore his country apart. As harvests failed in rain-starved regions of Ethiopia in the early 1970s, and his school turned a classroom into a grain store for farmers to send aid, he had no idea that scientists were beginning to connect the force parching its fields with cyclical shifts in trade winds that had long sup...

By Ajit Niranjan