Huge crowds expected for second day of Pope Francis lying in state

Huge crowds expected for second day of Pope Francis lying in state
People queue to pay their respects to late Pope Francis as his body lies in state, on Via della Conciliazione, near the Vatican, in Rome, on April 23, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 24 April 2025
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Huge crowds expected for second day of Pope Francis lying in state

Huge crowds expected for second day of Pope Francis lying in state
  • Close to 20,000 people filtered past the Catholic leader’s coffin in the first eight hours of the lying in state
  • Pope Francis died on Monday after 12 years as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics

VATICAN CITY: Huge crowds were expected on Thursday for a glimpse of Pope Francis’s body on the second day of public tributes, after St. Peter’s Basilica stayed open almost all night to accommodate the crowds.
Close to 20,000 people filtered past the Catholic leader’s red-lined wooden coffin in the first eight hours of the lying in state on Wednesday.
Instead of closing at midnight, it allowed people in until 5:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) on Thursday morning, before reopening at 7:00am, the Vatican said.
Italy is preparing a massive security operation for the funeral in front of St. Peter’s, with world leaders including US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky due to join hundreds of thousands of mourners.
Francis died on Monday after 12 years as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, during which time he made a name for himself as a pope of the marginalized.
Mourners queued for up to four hours on Wednesday to say their goodbyes to Francis, who was dressed in his papal vestments – a red chasuble, white mitre and black shoes – and held a rosary.
Each mourner was ushered past the casket within seconds, many hurriedly catching the moment on their smartphones.
Argentine Federico Rueda, 46, said that despite the rush, he would not have missed the opportunity.
“It is worth missing out on other places to say goodbye to an Argentine: a very worthy pope,” he said as he stood proudly wearing the jersey of Argentina’s national football team, the current world champions.
Mexican Leobardo Guevara, 24, draped in his country’s flag, said he felt “a sense of peace” as he filed past the body of the first pope from the Americas.
Francis, an energetic reformer who became pope in 2013, died on Monday aged 88 after suffering a stroke.
His death at his residence in the Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican came less than a month after he was released from five weeks in hospital with double pneumonia.
Francis’s casket was initially put on display for Vatican officials and clergy in the Santa Marta chapel, before being transferred to St. Peter’s Wednesday in a procession including cardinals, clergy and Swiss Guards.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was among those who paid respects on Wednesday, and scores of world leaders and dignitaries plan to attend the funeral.
They include Argentine President Javier Milei and Britain’s Prince William, although Russia – which has for centuries had icy ties with the Vatican – said it would send its culture minister.
Authorities, who expect up to 170 foreign delegations, have ramped up security for the funeral.
Italy’s civil protection agency estimates that “several hundred thousand” people will descend on Rome on what was already set to be a busy weekend due to a public holiday.
After the funeral, Francis’s coffin will be taken to his favorite church, Rome’s papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
His will requested that he be interred in the ground, his simple tomb marked with just one word: Franciscus.
Following that, all eyes will turn to the process to choose Francis’s successor.
Cardinals from around the world are returning to Rome for the conclave, which will begin no fewer than 15 days and no more than 20 days after a pope’s death.
Only those under the age of 80 – currently some 135 cardinals – are eligible to vote.
Cardinals have agreed that the traditional nine days of mourning for the pope, the so-called “novemdiales,” will begin on Saturday and conclude on May 4.
Another meeting of cardinals of all ages was set for Thursday at 9:00am (0700 GMT).
However, the Vatican brushed aside hopes of an announcement of the conclave date, insisting the focus is on the funeral.
At the time of his death, Francis was under doctors’ orders to rest for two months.
But the headstrong pope continued to make public appearances despite appearing tired and short of breath.
On Easter Sunday, one day before he died, he circled St. Peter’s Square in his popemobile to greet the crowds, stopping to kiss babies along the way.


Cambodia says to file complaint with ICJ over Thai border dispute

Updated 56 sec ago
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Cambodia says to file complaint with ICJ over Thai border dispute

Cambodia says to file complaint with ICJ over Thai border dispute
PHNOM PENH: Cambodia will file a complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over border disputes with Thailand, Prime Minister Hun Manet said Monday, after a Cambodian soldier was killed in a recent frontier clash.
“Cambodia hopes that the Thai side will agree with Cambodia to jointly bring these issues to the International Court of Justice... to prevent armed confrontation again over border uncertainty,” Hun Manet said during a meeting between MPs and senators.
Military clashes between the Southeast Asian neighbors erupted in 2008 and have led to several years of sporadic violence, resulting in at least 28 deaths.
The most recent occurred Wednesday, when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a location known as the Emerald Triangle — a joint border area between Cambodia, Thailand and Laos.
The day after, Cambodia’s foreign ministry sent a letter to the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh demanding “an immediate and thorough investigation” into the “unprovoked attack.”
Describing the incident as “a violation of Cambodian sovereignty,” Phnom Penh said it remained committed to resolving the issue through “peaceful and diplomatic avenues.”
Prime Minister Hun Manet said that even if the Thai side did not agree on bringing the issue to the ICJ, Cambodia would still file the complaint.
He added that the border dispute was being “incited by small extremist groups in both countries,” which could lead to further clashes.
Thailand’s ministry of foreign affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP.
Cambodia’s military had said they were attacked first in Wednesday’s incident, while the Thai side said their soldiers were responding to gunshots.
The Thai and Cambodian militaries met the following day, agreeing to ease tensions.
Thailand says a Joint Boundary Committee will meet in the next two weeks to resolve the issue.
The Emerald Triangle is among the areas that will be named in the ICJ complaint, Hun Manet said.
Another is Ta Moan Thom Temple, the backdrop for a video posted on social media earlier this year showing a woman singing a patriotic Khmer song which led to Bangkok lodging a formal protest to Phnom Penh.
Cambodia and Thailand have long been at odds over their more than 800-kilometer-long (500-mile) border, which was largely drawn during the French occupation of Indochina.
The 2008 military clashes erupted over a patch of land next to Preah Vihear Temple, a 900-year-old structure near their shared border.
This led to several years of sporadic violence before the International Court of Justice ruled the disputed area belonged to Cambodia.

Nations urged to make UN summit a ‘turning point’ for oceans

Nations urged to make UN summit a ‘turning point’ for oceans
Updated 02 June 2025
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Nations urged to make UN summit a ‘turning point’ for oceans

Nations urged to make UN summit a ‘turning point’ for oceans
  • Nations will be under pressure to deliver more than just rhetoric at a UN oceans summit in France next week, including much-needed funds to better protect the world’s overexploited and polluted seas

PARIS: Nations will be under pressure to deliver more than just rhetoric at a UN oceans summit in France next week, including much-needed funds to better protect the world’s overexploited and polluted seas.
The third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) seeks to build global unity and raise money for marine conservation even as nations disagree over deep-sea mining, plastic trash and overfishing.
On Sunday, hosts France are expecting about 70 heads of state and government to arrive in Nice for a pre-conference opening ceremony, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Oceans are “in a state of emergency” and the June 9 to 13 meeting “will not be just another routine gathering,” said UN under-secretary-general Li Junhua.
“There’s still time to change our course if we act collectively,” he told reporters.
Most countries are expected to send ministers or lower-level delegates to the summit, which does not carry the weight of a climate COP or UN treaty negotiation or make legally binding decisions.
The United States under President Donald Trump — whose recent push to fast-track seabed mining in international waters sparked global outrage — is unlikely to send a delegation at all.
France has promised the summit will do for ocean conservation what the Paris Agreement did for global climate action.
Nations present are expected to adopt a “Nice Declaration“: a statement of support for greater ocean protection, coupled with voluntary additional commitments by individual governments.
Greenpeace has slammed the text — which was agreed after months of negotiation — as “weak” and said it risked making Nice “a meaningless talking shop.”
Pacific leaders are expected to turn out in force and demand, in particular, concrete financial commitments from governments.
“The message is clear: voluntary pledges are not enough,” Ralph Regenvanu, environment minister for Vanuatu, told reporters.
The summit will also host business leaders, international donors and ocean activists, while a science convention beforehand is expected to draw 2,000 ocean experts.
France has set a high bar of securing by Nice the 60 ratifications needed to enact a landmark treaty to protect marine habitats outside national jurisdiction.
So far, only 28 countries and the European Union have done so. Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, France’s oceans envoy, says that without the numbers the conference “will be a failure.”
Bringing the high seas treaty into force is seen as crucial to meeting the globally-agreed target of protecting 30 percent of oceans by 2030.
The summit could also prove influential on other higher-level negotiations in the months ahead and provide “a temperature check in terms of ambition,” said Megan Randles, head of Greenpeace’s delegation at the Nice conference.
In July the International Seabed Authority will deliberate over a long-awaited mining code for the deep oceans, one that Trump has skirted despite major ecological concerns.
That comes in the face of growing calls for governments to support an international moratorium on seabed mining, something France and roughly 30 other countries have already backed.
And in August, nations will again seek to finalize a binding global treaty to tackle plastic trash after previous negotiation rounds collapsed.
Countries and civil society groups are likely to use the Nice meeting to try to shore up support ahead of these proceedings, close observers said.
Nations meeting at UN conferences have struggled recently to find consensus and much-needed finance to combat climate change and other environmental threats.
Oceans are the least funded of all the UN’s sustainable development goals but it wasn’t clear if Nice would shift the status quo, said Angelique Pouponneau, a lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States.
“With so many competing crises and distractions on the global agenda, it’s hard to be confident that the level of ambition needed will actually show up,” Pouponneau told AFP.
Costa Rica, which is co-hosting the conference with France, said public and private commitments of $100 billion with “clear timelines, budgets and accountability mechanisms” could be expected.
“This is what is different this time around — zero rhetoric, maximum results,” Maritza Chan Valverde, Costa Rica’s permanent representative to the UN, told reporters.
Pepe Clarke, oceans practice leader from WWF, told AFP there was “an understandable level of skepticism about conferences.”
But he said Nice must be “a turning point... because to date the actions have fallen far short of what’s needed to sustain a healthy ocean into the future.”


Explosions caused 2 bridges in western Russia to collapse, officials say

Explosions caused 2 bridges in western Russia to collapse, officials say
Updated 02 June 2025
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Explosions caused 2 bridges in western Russia to collapse, officials say

Explosions caused 2 bridges in western Russia to collapse, officials say
  • 7 people were killed in the first incident, in which a bridge in Bryansk region collapsed on top of a passenger train
  • Hours later, officials said a second train derailed when the bridge beneath it collapsed in nearby Kursk region

Explosions caused two bridges to collapse and derailed two trains in western Russia overnight, officials said Sunday, without saying what had caused the blasts. In one of the incidents, seven people were killed and dozens were injured.
The first bridge, in the Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine, collapsed on top of a passenger train on Saturday, causing the casualties. The train’s driver was among those killed, state-run Russian Railways said.

In that collapse, a freight train was thrown off its rails onto the road below as the explosion collapsed the bridge, local acting Gov. Alexander Khinshtein said Sunday. The crash sparked a fire, but there were no casualties, he said.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigation agency, said in a statement that explosions had caused the two bridges to collapse, but did not give further details. Several hours later, it edited the statement, which was posted on social media, to remove the words “explosions” but did not provide an explanation.

This handout photograph posted on the Telegram account of Kursk region acting governor Alexander Khinshtein on June 1, 2025 shows a damaged freight train at the site of a railway bridge collapse in the Kursk region. (Telegram/@Hinshtein)

The committee said that it would be investigating the incidents as potential acts of terrorism.
Rescue workers cleared debris from both sites, while some of those injured were transported to Moscow for treatment. Photos posted by government agencies in Bryansk appeared to show train carriages ripped apart and lying amid fallen concrete from the collapsed bridge. Other footage on social media was apparently taken from inside vehicles on the road that had managed to avoid driving onto the bridge before it collapsed.

Specialists of emergency services work at the scene, after a road bridge collapsed onto railway tracks derailing an approaching train in the Bryansk region, Russia, on June 1. (Russian Emergencies Ministry/Handout via REUTERS)

Bryansk regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz announced three days of mourning for the victims, starting Monday.
Damage to railway tracks was also found Sunday by inspectors working on the line elsewhere in the Bryansk region, Moscow Railway said in a statement. It did not say whether the damage was linked to the collapsed bridges.
In the past, some officials have accused pro-Ukrainian saboteurs of attacking Russia’s railway infrastructure. The details surrounding such incidents, however, are limited and cannot be independently verified.
Ukraine’s military intelligence, known by the Ukrainian abbreviation GUR, said Sunday that a Russian military freight train carrying food and fuel had been blown up on its way to Crimea. It did not claim the attack was carried out by GUR or mention the bridge collapses.
The statement said Moscow’s key artery with the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region and Crimea has been destroyed.
Russia forces have been pushing into the region of Zaporizhzhia in eastern Ukraine since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russia took Crimea and annexed it in 2014.
 


FBI says 6 injured in Colorado attack by man with makeshift flamethrower who yelled ‘Free Palestine’

FBI says 6 injured in Colorado attack by man with makeshift flamethrower who yelled ‘Free Palestine’
Updated 02 June 2025
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FBI says 6 injured in Colorado attack by man with makeshift flamethrower who yelled ‘Free Palestine’

FBI says 6 injured in Colorado attack by man with makeshift flamethrower who yelled ‘Free Palestine’
  • The suspect, identified by the FBI as 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was taken into custody
  • Suspect yelled 'Free Palestine' as he attacked protesters with a makeshift flamethrower, say police

BOULDER, Colorado: A man with a makeshift flamethrower yelled “Free Palestine” and threw an incendiary device into a group that had assembled to raise attention for Israeli hostages in Gaza, law enforcement officials said Sunday. Six people were injured, some with burns.
The suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was expected to face charges in connection with the attack the FBI was investigating as a terrorist act.
The burst of violence at the popular Pearl Street pedestrian mall, a four-block area in downtown Boulder, unfolded against the backdrop of a war between Israel and Hamas that continues to inflame global tensions and has contributed to a spike

in antisemitic violence in the United States. It occurred barely a week after a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” was charged with fatally shooting two Israeli embassy staffers outside of a Jewish museum in Washington.

“Sadly, attacks like this are becoming too common across the country,” said Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office, which encompasses Boulder. “This is an example of how perpetrators of violence continue to threaten communities across the nation.”
The six victims who were wounded range in age from 67 to 88 and the injuries spanned from serious to minor, officials said.
The attack occurred as people with a volunteer group called Run For Their Lives was concluding their weekly demonstration to raise visibility for the hostages who remain in Gaza. Video from the scene shows a witness shouting, “He’s right there. He’s throwing Molotov cocktails,” as a police officer with his gun drawn advances on a bare-chested suspect who is holding containers in each hand.
Lynn Segal, 72, was among about 20 people who gathered Sunday. They had finished their march in front of the courthouse when a “rope of fire” shot in front of her and then “two big flares.”
She said the scene quickly turned chaotic as people worked to find water to put out flames and find help.
Segal, who said she is Jewish on her father’s side and has supported Palestine for more than 40 years, was concerned that she might be accused of helping the suspect because she was wearing a pro-Palestine shirt.
“There were people who were burning, I wanted to help,” she said. “But I didn’t want to be associated with the perpetrator.”
Authorities did not disclose details about Soliman but said they believe that he acted alone and that no other suspect was being sought. No criminal charges were immediately announced but officials said they would move to hold Soliman accountable. He was also injured and was taken to the hospital to be treated, but authorities didn’t elaborate on the nature of his injuries.
FBI leaders immediately declared the attack an act of terrorism and the Justice Department denounced it as a “needless act of violence, which follows recent attacks against Jewish Americans.”
“This act of terror is being investigated as an act of ideologically motivated violence based on the early information, the evidence, and witness accounts. We will speak clearly on these incidents when the facts warrant it,” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a post on X.
Israel’s war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 others. They are still holding 58 hostages, around a third believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 54,000 people in Hamas-run Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. The offensive has destroyed vast areas, displaced around 90 percent of the population and left people almost completely reliant on international aid.
The violence comes four years after a shooting rampage at a grocery store in Boulder, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Denver, that killed four people. The gunman was sentenced to life in prison for murder after a jury rejected his attempt to avoid prison time by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.
Multiple blocks of the pedestrian mall area were evacuated by police. The scene shortly after the attack was tense, as law enforcement agents with a police dog walked through the streets looking for threats and instructed the public to stay clear of the mall.


High energy costs threaten UK manufacturing’s future, industry warns

High energy costs threaten UK manufacturing’s future, industry warns
Updated 02 June 2025
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High energy costs threaten UK manufacturing’s future, industry warns

High energy costs threaten UK manufacturing’s future, industry warns
  • Manufacturing association Make UK said it should cancel climate levies imposed on industrial energy costs and adopt a fixed industrial energy price

MANCHESTER, England: Britain needs to cut industrial energy bills that are the highest among major advanced economies if its aspirations for a healthy manufacturing sector are to succeed, industry body Make UK said on Monday.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government is working on an industrial strategy to put British manufacturing — hit hard by Brexit, soaring energy costs and global trade wars — on a solid footing for the years ahead.
Manufacturing association Make UK said it should cancel climate levies imposed on industrial energy costs and adopt a fixed industrial energy price.
Britain had the highest industrial energy prices out of any International Energy Agency member country in 2023, reflecting its dependence on gas and its role in setting electricity prices.
“If we do not address the issue of high industrial energy costs in the UK as a priority, we risk the security of our country,” Make UK chief executive officer Stephen Phipson said.
“We will fail to attract investment in the manufacturing sector and will rapidly enter a phase of renewed de-industrialization.”
Britain has de-industrialized — defined as the share of manufacturing in overall economic output — faster than in any other major European country over the last 30 years, according to a Reuters analysis of national accounts data.
Manufacturing hit a record low 9 percent of economic output last year, crowded out by the dominant services sector which now drives the majority of the country’s exports — a first among Group of Seven advanced economies.
Alan Johnson, a senior executive for manufacturing, supply chain and purchasing at Nissan Motor, said its Sunderland plant in the north east of England had the highest energy costs out of any of its facilities in the world.
“The proposals being put forward by Make UK ... would send a strong message to investors that the UK remains committed to creating a more competitive environment for electric vehicle manufacturing,” Johnson said.