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Grindavik is now a ghost town.

It has all the familiar places – shops, cafes, schools and apartment blocks.

But they are all empty, abandoned in the rush to flee an earthquake swarm over the weekend.

We were taken into the town under police escort, passing through several checkpoints.

Follow live: 800 new earthquakes raise volcanic eruption fears

The authorities are jumpy.

The magma is now thought to be just 500m below the surface right on the edge of town and they fear there could be an eruption at any time.

In the town centre the ground looks like it is being unzipped, with a gash stretching 150m or so.

Where it crosses a main road the rip is a couple of metres wide, with one side a metre lower than the other. There are enormous forces at work, splitting megatonnes of rock.

And the earth is still moving, stones shifting and tumbling down into the crack. In places it was too deep to see the bottom.

Clouds of steam rise from the gash. Hot water pipes that once heated homes and businesses are now pulled apart with the shifting ground.

The ground beneath our feet is supposed to be rock solid. We even call it ‘terra firma’. But it’s not in Grindavik, not now. You feel it could swallow you up at any moment.

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That sounds like a disaster movie, and the town looks like a Hollywood set.

But a few days ago this was a thriving community of almost 4,000 people.

They have been allowed to dash back to their homes in recent days to collect essential belongings.

Now, that seems to have now stopped, and it’s largely emergency workers left in the town.

There isn’t much more they can do.

Grindavik is at the mercy of the molten rock rising from beneath. And at some point it will be left to its fate.

When French President Emmanuel Macron called for a ceasefire last Friday, he said he was hoping the US and UK would follow suit.

So far, they have not.

There has been a marked shift in rhetoric in most Western capitals vis-a-vis how Israel is exercising its manifest right to defend itself, as the horrors of its campaign in Gaza pervade the world’s mobile phone screens.

Israel-Gaza latest: UN issues dire warning

The demands that Israel abides by its obligations under international humanitarian law have grown ever more insistent, with the focus on the desperate situation across Gaza’s hospitals, as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) hones in on what it says are Hamas strongholds located in and beneath hospital compounds.

But despite the clamour both from the street and from across the political spectrum – look no further than the potential rebellion within the UK Labour Party over calls for a ceasefire – government policy in the West remains largely committed, for now, to the shorter-term, holding notion of humanitarian pauses.

“We all want to take the next steps towards a ceasefire but it cannot be one-sided,” said Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong.

“Hamas still holds hostages, Hamas is still attacking Israel.”

For civilians in Gaza, humanitarian pauses are simply a way of prolonging their agony.

Dregs of aid brought in for brief, four-hour stints – a glimmer of relief that cannot possibly satisfy the gaping humanitarian need – before the fighting and the bombardment and the terrible bloodshed resumes.

This is why calls for a ceasefire have resonated globally in the way that they have.

They are an urgent and perfectly understandable human response to the sight of bloodied babies grey with the dust from rubble, of an escalating civilian death toll which claims mostly women and children, to the tears, screams and despair of the people of Gaza.

They also gloss over Israel’s concern that any longer-term ceasefire agreed before the IDF achieves, or at the very least nears, its stated goal of wiping out Hamas will allow their fighters time to regroup and recalibrate.

For now, efforts to secure even a limited hostage release deal have been stymied by both a lack of trust between the parties and domestic political pressure back in Israel.

As recently as last week, CIA director William Burns and David Barnea, his counterpart at Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Mossad, met Hamas officials in Doha to try and thrash out a deal on a limited hostage release in exchange for an extended pause in the fighting.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, so far, has reportedly turned such suggestions down.

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Humanitarian pauses and ceasefires are, under international law, distinct terms representing different phases in a conflict and its resolution.

Until Israel can be sure Hamas even wants the guns to fall silent, it is unlikely to agree to anything even resembling a ceasefire.

That will only confirm the narrative of Israel’s opponents that it is engaged in an unjust war of aggression, with one senior UN human rights official resigning from his post over what he described as Israel’s “genocidal actions” – and the UN’s apparent failure to do anything about it.

In the meantime, Israel’s allies must reassure their own constituencies that they are not simply standing idly by while Israel flouts international humanitarian law in the name of self-defence.

Politicians have elections to fight and different peoples to placate.

Unqualified support for Israel is no longer a given, as Macron’s comments made clear.

In the immediate aftermath of 7 October, US President Joe Biden called on Israel not to let rage consume it.

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Those warnings have continued, his latest being that hospitals must be protected.

So far, they appear to have gone unheeded.

Leader of UN’s meteorological agency says the world is still ‘heading in the wrong direction’ and must cut use of fossil fuels.

The United Nations says the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere surged to new highs last year as climate change fuelled extreme weather across the globe.

In a bulletin released on Wednesday, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said three main greenhouse gases broke records in 2022 and warned that there is “no end in sight”.

“Despite decades of warnings from the scientific community, thousands of pages of reports and dozens of climate conferences, we are still heading in the wrong direction,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said.

This month, the UN’s annual climate summit is scheduled to start in Dubai and could include a push to phase out the use of fossil fuels before 2050. But thus far, countries that account for large shares of the world’s carbon emissions have fallen far short of the cuts needed.

The UN weather agency said global concentrations of carbon dioxide were 50 percent higher than the pre-industrial average, an unsettling new record. Other gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, also reached new highs.

“The current level of greenhouse gas concentrations puts us on the pathway of an increase in temperatures well above the Paris Agreement targets by the end of this century,” said Taalas, referring to the goal of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times.

“This will be accompanied by more extreme weather, including intense heat and rainfall, ice melt, sea level rise and ocean heat and acidification.”

About 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from the G20, a group of the world’s major economies.

While carbon emissions can be cut, Taalas said that once concentrated in the atmosphere, carbon “takes thousands of years” to be removed, contributing to trends such as the rise in sea levels.

“About half of the planet has been facing an increase of flooding events, and one third of the planet has been facing an increase of drought events,” Taalas said.

“We must reduce the consumption of fossil fuels as a matter of urgency,” he added.

The puteketeke, a bird that vomits, grunts, growls and has bizarre mating rituals, won New Zealand’s bird of the century competition after comedian John Oliver intervened in campaigning. 

Oliver launched what he called an “alarmingly aggressive” campaign to crown the puteketeke the winner of the annual contest, run by environmental organisation Forest and Bird.

His efforts included erecting billboards in Paris and Tokyo, asking viewers to vote for the orange-mulleted bird and promoting it on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

He exploited a loophole in the system that allows anyone to vote from anywhere.

It’s not the first time support from abroad has ruffled feathers. In 2019, a flurry of votes from Russia sparked suspicion of election tampering, but Forest and Bird later said the votes were legitimate.

The competition received a record number of verified votes – more than 350,000 from 195 countries – crashing the verification system and delaying the results for two days.

The puteketeke began as an “outside contender”, Forest and Bird chief executive Nicola Toki said, “but was catapulted to the top spot thanks to its unique looks, adorable parenting style, and propensity for puking”.

“We’re not surprised these charming characteristics caught the eye of an influential bird enthusiast with a massive following,” she added.

Thousands of votes had to be discarded as fraudulent, including 40,000 votes cast by a single person for a
penguin, Ms Toki said.

Another person from Pennsylvania cast 3,403 votes for their choice with one arriving every three seconds.

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Campaign managers for other birds called foul on Oliver’s campaign, calling on New Zealanders to vote for other birds including the kakapo parrot and the national bird, the kiwi.

But the puteketeke came out streets ahead with 290,374 votes. In second place, the brown kiwi had 12,904 votes.

The puteketeke eats its own feathers to line its stomach and then vomits to expel parasites.

It is also known for making grunting and growling sounds, and engaging in mating dances such as the “weed dance” where the birds offer each other water weed and the “ghostly penguin” where they rise chest to chest while walking on water.

Friends stars Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer have paid tribute to Matthew Perry.

Aniston, who played Rachel Green in the show, wrote in an Instagram post: “Oh boy this one has cut deep… Having to say goodbye to our Matty has been an insane wave of emotions that I’ve never experienced before.

“We all experience loss at some point in our lives. Loss of life or loss of love.

“Being able to really SIT in this grief allows you to feel the moments of joy and gratitude for having loved someone that deep. And we loved him deeply. He was such a part of our DNA. We were always the six of us.

“This was a chosen family that forever changed the course of who we were and what our path was going to be.

“For Matty, he KNEW he loved to make people laugh. As he said himself, if he didn’t hear the ‘laugh’ he thought he was going to die. His life literally depended on it. And boy did he succeed in doing just that.

“He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard. In the last couple weeks, I’ve been pouring over our texts to one another. Laughing and crying then laughing again. I’ll keep them forever and ever. I found one text that he sent me out of nowhere one day. It says it all.

“Matty, I love you so much and I know you are now completely at peace and out of any pain. I talk to you every day… sometimes I can almost hear you saying “could you BE any crazier?”

“Rest little brother. You always made my day.”

Aniston also posted a picture of a text exchange with Perry where he said: “Making you laugh just made my day.”

Meanwhile, Schwimmer, who played Ross Geller in the sitcom, said: “Matty, thank you for ten incredible years of laughter and creativity.

“I will never forget your impeccable comic timing and delivery. You could take a straight line of dialogue and bend it to your will, resulting in something so entirely original and unexpectedly funny it still astonishes.

“And you had heart. Which you were generous with, and shared with us, so we could create a family out of six strangers.

“This photo is from one of my favourite moments with you. Now it makes me smile and grieve at the same time.

“I imagine you up there, somewhere, in the same white suit, hands in your pockets, looking around – ‘could there BE any more clouds?’”

Perry, 54, died last month after an apparent drowning at his Los Angeles home. His death is being investigated by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office after a post-mortem examination with toxicology tests.

He played the quick-witted Chandler Bing in the beloved sitcom between 1994 and 2004.

LeBlanc, who played Chandler’s best friend Joey Tribbiani in the show, said in an Instagram post on Tuesday that “the times we had together are honestly among the favourite times of my life”.

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In an emotional tribute, LeBlanc wrote: “I am so grateful for every moment I had with you Matty and I miss you every day.”

“It is with a heavy heart I say goodbye.

“It was an honour to share the stage with you and to call you my friend. I will always smile when I think of you and I’ll never forget you. Never.

“Spread your wings and fly brother you’re finally free. Much love.

“And I guess you’re keeping the 20 bucks you owe me.”

Courteney Cox, who played Chandler’s wife Monica Geller on Friends, said on Tuesday: “I am so grateful for every moment I had with you Matty and I miss you every day.

On Instagram, she shared what she described as one of her favourite moments with her friend “Matty”.

“To give a little backstory, Chandler and Monica were supposed to have a one night fling in London. But because of the audience’s reaction, it became the beginning of their love story.

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“In this scene, before we started rolling, he whispered a funny line for me to say. He often did things like that. He was funny and he was kind.”

Tributes poured in following Perry’s death, including messages from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – who attended the same school as the actor – and Sarah, Duchess of York, who had a cameo appearance in Friends.

In a joint statement released after his death on 28 October, his Friends co-stars – LeBlanc, Cox, Aniston, Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow – said: “We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just cast mates. We are a family.

“There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss.”

They were also among 20 mourners at Perry’s funeral in the Hollywood Hills earlier this month.

Perry was open about his battle with substance abuse and addiction, and set up a sober living facility for men with similar issues.

A foundation has now been set up to help others struggling with the disease.