Beijing slams ‘groundless accusations’ after Ukraine summons Chinese envoy
Updated 23 April 2025
AFP
CHINA: Beijing on Wednesday dismissed as “groundless” Ukraine’s allegation that Chinese fighters and companies were directly assisting Russia’s military.
“China firmly opposes groundless accusations and political manipulation,” foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a press conference in response to a question about China’s ambassador being summoned by Kyiv.
UN says strong chance average warming will top 1.5C in next 4 years
Updated 10 sec ago
The planet is therefore expected to remain at historic levels of warming after the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024 “We have just experienced the 10 warmest years on record,” said the WMO’s deputy secretary-general Ko Barrett
GENEVA: The United Nations warned on Wednesday that there is a 70 percent chance that average warming from 2025 to 2029 would exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius international benchmark.
The planet is therefore expected to remain at historic levels of warming after the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024, according to an annual climate report published by the World Meteorological Organization, the UN’s weather and climate agency.
“We have just experienced the 10 warmest years on record,” said the WMO’s deputy secretary-general Ko Barrett.
“Unfortunately, this WMO report provides no sign of respite over the coming years, and this means that there will be a growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet.”
The 2015 Paris climate accords aimed to limit global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels — and to pursue efforts to peg it at 1.5C.
The targets are calculated relative to the 1850-1900 average, before humanity began industrially burning coal, oil and gas, which emit carbon dioxide (CO2) — the greenhouse gas largely responsible for climate change.
The more optimistic 1.5C target is one that growing numbers of climate scientists now consider impossible to achieve, as CO2 emissions are still increasing.
The WMO’s latest projections are compiled by Britain’s Met Office national weather service, based on forecasts from multiple global centers.
The agency forecasts that the global mean near-surface temperature for each year between 2025 and 2029 will be between 1.2C and 1.9C above the pre-industrial average.
It says there is a 70 percent chance that average warming across the 2025-2029 period will exceed 1.5C.
“This is entirely consistent with our proximity to passing 1.5C on a long-term basis in the late 2020s or early 2030s,” said Peter Thorne, director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units group at the University of Maynooth.
“I would expect in two to three years this probability to be 100 percent” in the five-year outlook, he added.
The WMO says there is an 80 percent chance that at least one year between 2025 and 2029 will be warmer than the current warmest year on record: 2024.
To smooth out natural climate variations, several methods assess long-term warming, the WMO’s climate services director Christopher Hewitt told a press conference.
One approach combines observations from the past 10 years with projections for the next decade (2015-2034). With this method, the estimated current warming is 1.44C.
There is no consensus yet on how best to assess long-term warming.
The EU’s climate monitor Copernicus believes that warming currently stands at 1.39C, and projects 1.5C could be reached in mid-2029 or sooner.
Although “exceptionally unlikely” at one percent, there is now an above-zero chance of at least one year in the next five exceeding 2C of warming.
“It’s the first time we’ve ever seen such an event in our computer predictions,” said the Met Office’s Adam Scaife.
“It is shocking” and “that probability is going to rise.”
He recalled that a decade ago, forecasts first showed the very low probability of a calendar year exceeding the 1.5C benchmark. But that came to pass in 2024.
Every fraction of a degree of additional warming can intensify heatwaves, extreme precipitation, droughts, and the melting of ice caps, sea ice and glaciers.
This year’s climate is offering no respite.
Last week, China recorded temperatures exceeding 40C (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas, the United Arab Emirates hit nearly 52C (126F), and Pakistan was buffeted by deadly winds following an intense heatwave.
“We’ve already hit a dangerous level of warming,” with recent “deadly floods in Australia, France, Algeria, India, China and Ghana, wildfires in Canada,” said climatologist Friederike Otto of Imperial College London.
“Relying on oil, gas and coal in 2025 is total lunacy.”
Davide Faranda, from France’s CNRS National Center for Scientific Research, added: “The science is unequivocal: to have any hope of staying within a safe climate window, we must urgently cut fossil fuel emissions and accelerate the transition to clean energy.”
Arctic warming is predicted to continue to outstrip the global average over the next five years, said the WMO.
Sea ice predictions for 2025-2029 suggest further reductions in the Barents Sea, the Bering Sea, and the Sea of Okhotsk.
Forecasts suggest South Asia will be wetter than average across the next five years.
And precipitation patterns suggest wetter than average conditions in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia, and drier than average conditions over the Amazon.
Turkiye’s foreign minister to visit Kyiv after talks in Moscow on peace efforts
In Kyiv, Fidan is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
Fidan will repeat an offer to host further peace talks between Russia and Ukraine
Updated 28 May 2025
Reuters
ANKARA: Türkiye’s foreign minister will travel to Kyiv on Thursday for a two-day visit after discussing peace efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine in Moscow earlier this week, a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said on Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held talks in Moscow on Monday and Tuesday, meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials, including Moscow’s top negotiator at talks in Istanbul earlier this month aimed at ending the three-year war.
In Kyiv, Fidan is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha, and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who is also Kyiv’s top negotiator with Russia, the source said.
During the talks, Fidan will repeat an offer to host further peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, the source added.
He will “point to the increasingly heavier negative effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, emphasising the need for the war to end through diplomacy, and for a fair and lasting peace to be achieved,” the source said.
Fidan will also discuss bilateral ties, in relation to trade, energy, defense and security, while conveying Turkiye’s readiness to take part in Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.
Russia is under increasing pressure to agree a ceasefire, and Ankara has repeatedly said the sides need to continue talks after the first direct contact between the sides since March 2022 — also in Istanbul — took place earlier this month.
Delegates from Moscow and Kyiv did not agree on a ceasefire in Istanbul this month, but agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war and deliver, in writing, their conditions for a possible ceasefire.
Russian sources have said that NATO member Türkiye, which has maintained good ties with both sides since the start of the war, could be a venue for future talks.
The move comes as European officials warn about a continued threat from Russia
The hub will use contributions from Black Sea and EU countries
Updated 28 May 2025
Reuters
BRUSSELS: The European Union on Wednesday proposed creating a hub to boost security in the Black Sea by gathering information from multiple countries to monitor the strategically important region more closely.
The move comes as European officials warn about a continued threat from Russia and as concerns deepen across the EU about risks to undersea infrastructure.
The hub would be set up in the short-term and “with a sense of priority due to the Russian war of aggression,” an EU document said.
The hub will use contributions from Black Sea and EU countries and “enhance maritime situational awareness and information sharing on the Black Sea, real-time monitoring from space to seabed, and early warning,” the document said.
The proposal from the European Commission and the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas notes that the hub would include monitoring of submarine cables, offshore installations and gas and wind energy operations.
It would use underwater sensors, remotely piloted vessels and surveillance drones, it added.
Kallas told reporters that the hub could also help monitor the maritime element of a future peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
French court sentences former surgeon to 20 years for raping 299 children
Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, abused his victims while they were unconscious or sedated hospital patients
Updated 28 May 2025
AP
A 74-year-old pedophile and former surgeon who raped hundreds of victims over a period spanning more than two decades was given a maximum 20-year prison sentence on Friday by a French court.
Joël Le Scouarnec was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting 299 children.
Judges followed the public prosecutor’s recommendations regarding the length of the sentence and the criminal court of Morbihan ordered that Le Scouarnec should serve at least two-thirds of the sentence before he can be eligible for release.
Le Scouarnec is already serving a 15-year prison sentence, for a conviction in 2020 for the rape and sexual assault of four children, including two nieces.
The new trial in Brittany, western France, began in February and laid bare a pattern of abuse between 1989 and 2014. Most of the victims were unconscious or sedated hospital patients at the time of the assaults. The average age was 11. Among the victims were 158 boys and 141 girls.
Accusations of inaction
During the trial, advocacy groups have accused health authorities of inaction after they were notified as soon as 2005 of Le Scouarnec’s conviction for possessing child pornography pictures.
At the time, no measures were taken to suspend his medical license or limit his contact with children and Le Scouarnec continued his abuse in hospitals until his arrest in 2017.
“Should Joël Le Scouarnec have been the only one in the defendant’s box?” prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger asked during his closing arguments.
“More could have been done,” Kellenberger said. “Things could have been done differently, even within the notorious layers of French bureaucracy, where responsibilities are so often passed from one authority to another until, eventually, that responsibility is lost, and hits innocent lives.”
A court sketch shows lawyer Maxime Tessier (L) and retired French surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec during his trial at the Criminal Court in Vannes. (AFP)
Le Scouarnec has confessed to all the sexual abuse alleged by the 299 civil parties, as well as to other assaults that are now beyond the statute of limitations. In a shocking admission during the trial, he also acknowledged sexually abusing his granddaughter — a statement made in front of her visibly distraught parents.
Le Scouarnec had been convicted in 2005 for possessing and importing child sexual abuse material and sentenced to four months of suspended prison time. Despite that conviction, he was appointed as a hospital practitioner the following year. Child protection groups that have joined the proceedings as civil parties hope that the case will help strengthen the legal framework to prevent such abuse.
Dismantling taboos
Le Scouarnec’s trial came as activists continue to push to dismantle taboos that have long surrounded sexual abuse in France. The most prominent case was that of Gisèle Pélicot, who was drugged and raped by her now ex-husband and dozens of other men who were convicted and sentenced in December to three to 20 years in prison.
In a separate case focusing on alleged abuse at a Catholic school, an inquiry commission of the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, is investigating allegations of physical and sexual abuse over five decades.
Victims of Le Scouarnec have, however, complained of a perceived lack of attention.
“This trial, which could have served as an open-air laboratory to expose the serious failings of our institutions, seems to leave no mark on the government, the medical community, or society at large,” a group of victims said in a statement.
Horrific notebooks
Not all victims were initially aware they had been abused. Some were contacted by investigators after their names appeared in journals kept by Le Scouarnec, in which he meticulously documented his crimes. Others only realized they had been hospitalized at the time after checking medical records. Two of his victims took their own lives some years before the trial.
Using the cover of medical procedures, the former abdominal and digestive surgeon took advantage of moments when children were alone in their hospital rooms. His method was to disguise sexual abuse as clinical care, targeting young patients who were unlikely to remember the encounters.
The notebooks, which detail the abuse in graphic language, have become central to the prosecution’s case.
Despite the scope of the allegations, Le Scouarnec has remained calm and composed throughout the trial.
“I didn’t see them as people,” he told the court. “They were the destination of my fantasies. As the trial went on, I began to see them as individuals, with emotions, anger, suffering and distress.”
He said his first act of abuse occurred in 1985, when he raped his 5-year-old niece.
Detached and emotionless
While he offered apologies to some victims, his demeanor struck many as detached and emotionless.
“I don’t show emotion, that’s just how I am,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it, but I don’t express it.”
The case first came to light in April 2017, when a 6-year-old neighbor told her mother that the man next door had exposed himself and touched her through the fence separating their properties.
A search of his home uncovered more than 300,000 photos, 650 pedophilic, zoophilic and scatological video files, as well as notebooks where he described himself as a pedophile and detailed his actions.
“Joël Le Scouarnec says he no longer feels any sexual attraction to children, but there’s no way to verify that,” Kellenberger, the prosecutor, told the court. “Experts concluded that we cannot rely on his word alone and that his potential for future danger remains significant.”
A third trial is expected in the coming years, following the emergence of new allegations during this trial, including further abuse involving his granddaughter.
Labor members pressure Australian govt to impose Israel sanctions
Campaigner: ‘There is a deep frustration that Australia has failed to move beyond words’
PM Albanese: Gaza blockade ‘an outrage’ and ‘completely untenable’
Updated 28 May 2025
Arab News
LONDON: Australia’s Labor government is under pressure from its own party activists to impose sanctions on Israel.
A motion will be put to members of the party drafted by the Labor Friends of Palestine group to call on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to impose measures on people and groups involved in war crimes in Gaza and the displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank. It also calls on the government to “redouble” efforts to secure a ceasefire.
LFP’s Peter Moss told The Guardian: “There is a deep frustration that Australia has failed to move beyond words and take effective action under international law to protect the Palestinian people and hold Israel accountable.”
He added: “We are seeing a surge in anger and frustration among Labor members and the broader community. Labor Friends of Palestine is signing up a stream of new members horrified by the genocide.
“There are many Labor voters and supporters who cannot accept Australia’s failure to act effectively under international law to stop the starvation.”
Last week, Australia condemned Israel’s months-long blockade of the Gaza Strip, signing a statement alongside 22 other nations including the UK, Canada and New Zealand.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Israel “cannot allow the suffering” in Gaza to continue, and statements by several Israeli ministers about the situation in the Palestinian enclave are “abhorrent and outrageous.”
Wong made the remarks after holding talks with her Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar on Friday.
But the Australian government did not go as far as to say it was considering targeted sanctions, unlike fellow signatories the UK, Canada and France, which is co-chairing a UN meeting in June on Palestinian statehood with Saudi Arabia. Australia is set to participate in the conference.
Moss told The Guardian: “At a minimum, Australia should immediately support the statement from the UK, France and Canada and prepare sanctions targeted at Israeli officials responsible for using starvation as a weapon of war.”
On Monday, Albanese called Israel’s blockade — preventing vital aid reaching millions of Palestinian civilians — “completely untenable” and “an outrage,” adding that he had conveyed his feelings personally to Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
Labor MP Ed Husic praised Albanese’s comments on ABC radio station on Tuesday, but said Australia needs to do more to pressure Israel and alleviate the suffering of Palestinians.
He added that sanctions of individuals and organizations are “probably under consideration” by the government to “exert maximum international pressure to stop this blockade.”
At an event for Gaza at Parliament House on Tuesday night, Sen. David Pocock, an independent, said: “If the horror unfolding in Gaza is not our country’s red line for stronger action, then I don’t know what is.”
Mohammed Mustafa, a British doctor who has been working in Gaza, also spoke at the event, calling on the Australian government to do more.
“You don’t have to be a major player to feed children. You don’t have to be a major player to heal children,” he said. “We need healers in the Middle East, and Australia can be the healer. It can lead the world.”
