2024 ‘virtually certain’ to be hottest year on record: EU monitor/node/2578329/world
2024 ‘virtually certain’ to be hottest year on record: EU monitor
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A volunteer pours water to cool a man off during a hot day in Karachi, Pakistan, on May 21, 2024. (AP/File)
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Tourists with an umbrella walk in front of the Parthenon at the ancient Acropolis in central Athens, June 12, 2024. June 2024 was the hottest June on record, according to Europe's Copernicus climate service. (AP/File)
2024 ‘virtually certain’ to be hottest year on record: EU monitor
Copernicus said 2024 would likely be more than 1.55 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 average — the period before the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels
Scientists say the safer 1.5C limit is rapidly slipping out of reach, while stressing that every tenth of a degree of temperature rise heralds progressively more damaging impacts
Updated 07 November 2024
AFP
PARIS: This year is “virtually certain” to be the hottest in recorded history with warming above 1.5C, EU climate monitor Copernicus said Thursday, days before nations are due to gather for crunch UN climate talks.
The European agency said the world was passing a “new milestone” of temperature records that should serve to accelerate action to cut planet-heating emissions at the UN negotiations in Azerbaijan next week.
Last month, marked by deadly flooding in Spain and Hurricane Milton in the United States, was the second hottest October on record, with average global temperatures second only to the same period in 2023.
Copernicus said 2024 would likely be more than 1.55 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 average — the period before the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels.
This does not amount to a breach of the Paris deal, which strives to limit global warming to below 2C and preferably 1.5C, because that is measured over decades and not individual years.
“It is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first year of more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels,” said Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Deputy Director Samantha Burgess.
“This marks a new milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst to raise ambition for the upcoming Climate Change Conference, COP29.”
The UN climate negotiations in Azerbaijan, which will set the stage for a new round of crucial carbon-cutting targets, will take place in the wake of the United States election victory by Donald Trump.
Trump, a climate change denier, pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement during his first presidency — and while his successor Joe Biden took the United States back in, he has threatened to do so again.
Meanwhile, average global temperatures have reached new peaks, as have concentrations of planet-heating gases in the atmosphere.
Scientists say the safer 1.5C limit is rapidly slipping out of reach, while stressing that every tenth of a degree of temperature rise heralds progressively more damaging impacts.
Last month the UN said the current pace of climate action would result in a catastrophic 3.1C of warming this century, while all current climate pledges taken in full would still amount to a devastating 2.6C temperature rise.
Global warming is not just about rising temperatures, but the knock-on effect of all the extra heat in the atmosphere and seas.
Warmer air can hold more water vapor, and warmer oceans mean greater evaporation, resulting in more intense downpours and storms.
In a month of weather extremes, October saw above-average rainfall across swathes of Europe, as well as parts of China, the US, Brazil and Australia, Copernicus said.
The US is also experiencing ongoing drought, which affected record numbers of people, the EU monitor added.
Copernicus said average sea surface temperatures in the area it monitors were the second highest on record for the month of October.
C3S uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its calculations.
Copernicus records go back to 1940 but other sources of climate data such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much deeper in the past.
Climate scientists say the period being lived through right now is likely the warmest the earth has been for the last 100,000 years, back at the start of the last Ice Age.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are still held by Russia with uncertain hope of release
One human rights activist says that while politicians discuss rare-earth minerals, territorial concessions and geopolitical interests, they’re not talking about people
It’s unknown how many Ukrainian civilians are in custody, both in occupied regions and inside Russia. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets estimates it at over 20,000
Updated 7 sec ago
AP
When she heard her front door open almost two years ago, Kostiantyn Zinovkin’s mother thought her son had returned home because he forgot something. Instead, men in balaclavas burst into the apartment in Melitopol, a southern Ukrainian city occupied by Russian forces. They said Zinovkin was detained for a minor infraction and would be released soon. They used his key to enter, said his wife, Liusiena, and searched the flat so thoroughly that they tore it apart “into molecules.” But Zinovkin wasn’t released. Weeks after his May 2023 arrest, the Russians told his mother he was plotting a terrorist attack. He’s now standing trial on charges his family calls absurd. Zinovkin is one of thousands of civilians in Russian captivity. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insists their release, along with prisoners of war, will be an important step toward ending the 3-year-old war. So far, it hasn’t appeared high on the agenda in US talks with Moscow and Kyiv. “While politicians discuss natural resources, possible territorial concessions, geopolitical interests and even Zelensky’s suit in the Oval Office, they’re not talking about people,” said Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. Thousands held In January, the center and other Ukrainian and Russian rights groups launched “People First,” a campaign that says any peace settlement must prioritize the release of everyone they say are captives, including Russians jailed for protesting the war, as well as Ukrainian children who were illegally deported. “You can’t achieve sustainable peace without taking into account the human dimension,” Matviichuk told The Associated Press. It’s unknown how many Ukrainian civilians are in custody, both in occupied regions and in Russia. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets has estimated over 20,000. Matviichuk says her group received over 4,000 requests to help civilian detainees. She notes it’s against international law to detain noncombatants in war. Oleg Orlov, co-founder of the Russian rights group Memorial, says advocates know at least 1,672 Ukrainian civilians are in Moscow’s custody. “There’s a larger number of them that we don’t know about,” added Orlov, whose organization won the Nobel alongside Matviichuk’s group and is involved in People First. Detained without charges Many are detained for months without charges and don’t know why they’re being held, Orlov said. Russian soldiers detained Mykyta Shkriabin, then 19, in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in March 2022. He left the basement where his family was sheltering from fighting to get supplies and never returned. Shkriabin was detained even though he wasn’t charged with a crime, said his lawyer, Leonid Solovyov. In 2023, the authorities began referring to him as a POW, a status Solovyov seeks to contest since the student wasn’t a combatant. Shkriabin’s mother, Tetiana, told AP last month she still doesn’t know where her son is held. In three years, she’s received two letters from him saying he’s doing well and that she shouldn’t worry. She’s hoping for “a prisoner exchange, a repatriation, or something,” Shkriabina said. Without hope, “how does one hang in there?” Terrorism, treason and espionage Others face charges that their relatives say are fabricated. After being seized in Melitopol, Zinovkin was jailed for over two years and charged with seven offenses, including plotting a terrorist attack, assembling weapons and high treason, his wife Liusiena Zinovkina told AP, describing the charges as “absurd.” While vocally pro-Ukrainian and against Russia’s occupation, her husband couldn’t plot to bomb anyone and had no weapons skills, she said. Especially nonsensical is the treason charge, she said, because Russian law stipulates that only its citizens can be charged with that crime, and Zinovkin has never held Russian citizenship, unless it was forced upon him in jail. A conviction could bring life in prison. Ukrainian civilian Serhii Tsyhipa, 63, was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 13 years in a maximum-security prison after he disappeared in March 2022 while walking his dog in Nova Kakhovka, in the partially occupied Kherson region, said his wife, Olena. The dog also vanished. Tsyhipa, a journalist, was wearing a jacket with a large red cross sewn on it. Both he and his wife, Olena, had those jackets, she told AP, because they volunteered to distribute food and other essentials when Russian troops invaded. Serhii Tsyhipa protested the occupation, and Olena believes that led to his arrest. He was held for months in Crimea and finally charged with espionage in December 2022. Almost a year later, in October 2023, Tsyhipa was convicted and sentenced in a trial that lasted only three hearings. He appealed, but his sentence was upheld. “But the Russian authorities must understand that we are fighting — that we are doing everything possible to bring him home,” she said. Mykhailo Savva of the Expert Council of the Center for Civil Liberties said rights advocates know of 307 Ukrainian civilians convicted in Russia on criminal charges — usually espionage or treason, if the person held a Russian passport, but also terrorism and extremism. He said that in Ukraine’s occupied territories, Russians see activists, community leaders and journalists as “the greatest threat.” Winning release for those already serving sentences would be an uphill battle, advocates say. Held in harsh conditions Relatives must piece together scraps of information about prison conditions. Zinovkina said she has received letters from her husband who told her of problems with his sight, teeth and back. Former prisoners also told her of cramped, cold basement cells in a jail in Rostov, where he’s being held. She believes her husband was pressured to sign a confession. A man who met him in jail told her Kostiantyn “confessed to everything they wanted him to, so the worst is over” for him. Orlov said Ukrainian POWs and civilians are known to be held in harsh conditions, where allegations of abuse and torture are common. The Kremlin tested those methods during the two wars it waged in Chechnya in the 1990s and 2000s, well before invading Ukraine, said Orlov, who recently went to Ukraine to document Russia’s human rights violations and saw the pattern repeated from the North Caucasus conflicts. “Essentially, a misanthropic system has been created, and everyone who falls into it ends up in hell,” added Matviichuk, the Ukrainian human rights worker. A recent report by the UN Human Rights Council said Russia “committed enforced disappearances and torture as crimes against humanity,” part of a “systematic attack against the civilian population and pursuant to a coordinated state policy.” It said Russia “detained large numbers of civilians,” jailed them in occupied Ukraine or deported them to Russia, and “systematically used torture against certain categories of detainees to extract information, coerce, and intimidate.” Russia’s Defense Ministry, the Federal Penitentiary Service and the Federal Security Service did not respond to requests for comment. Tempering hope with patience As the US talks about a ceasefire, relatives continue to press for the captives’ release. Liusiena Zinovkina says she hasn’t abandoned hope as her husband, now 35, stands trial but is tempering her expectations. “I see that it’s not as simple as the American president thought. It’s not that easy to come to an agreement with Russia,” she said, reminding herself “to be patient. It will happen, but not tomorrow.” Olena Tsyhipa said every minute counts for her husband, whose health has deteriorated. “My belief in his return is unwavering,” she said. “We just have to wait.”
Rain complicates recovery in quake-hit Myanmar as death toll rises
Rain is compounding misery and presenting new hurdles for relief efforts on Sunday in Myanmar, where state media reported the death toll from a devastating earthquake has risen to nearly 3,500 people
Updated 06 April 2025
AFP
YANGON: Rain is compounding misery and presenting new hurdles for relief efforts on Sunday in Myanmar, where state media reported the death toll from a devastating earthquake has risen to nearly 3,500 people.
The 7.7-magnitude quake struck on March 28, razing buildings, cutting off power and destroying bridges and roads across the country.
Damage has been particularly severe in the city of Sagaing near the epicenter, as well as in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second city with more than 1.7 million residents.
State media in the military junta-led country now say that the earthquake has caused 3,471 confirmed deaths and injured 4,671 people, while 214 remain missing.
With people either having lost their homes entirely or reluctant to spend time in cracked and unstable structures, many residents have been sleeping outside in tents.
Around 45 minutes of heavy rain and winds lashed tent cities Saturday evening in Mandalay, according to the UN Development Programme.
People and their belongings were soaked because of a shortage of tarpaulins, Tun Tun, a program specialist at the UN agency, told AFP.
There are also fears destroyed buildings will subside and complicate body recovery efforts.
Following less intense showers Sunday morning, the temperature is due to climb to 37 degrees Celsius (98 degrees Farenheit).
“The weather is very extreme,” Tun Tun told AFP, with further rain forecast.
Aid experts warn that rainy conditions and scorching heat increase the risk of disease outbreaks at outdoor camps where victims were in temporary shelter.
United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher said that food, water, and power repairs were needed urgently, in a video filmed in Mandalay and posted to X on Sunday.
Many people in the area are still without shelter, he said, describing the scale of damage in the area as “epic.”
“We need to get tents and hope to survivors as they rebuild their shattered lives,” Fletcher wrote in another post.
Myanmar has been ruled by junta leader Min Aung Hlaing since 2021, when his military seized power in a coup that overthrew the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
International efforts to provide quake relief in the Southeast Asian country of more than 50 million people have been complicated by unreliable communication networks and infrastructure heavily damaged by four years of civil war.
Even before the recent quake, the humanitarian crisis in the country was severe, with the persistent, multi-sided conflict displacing 3.5 million people, according to the UN.
The UN said Friday that since the earthquake, the junta continued to conduct dozens of attacks against rebel groups, including at least 16 since Wednesday when the military government announced a temporary ceasefire.
Fletcher held discussions with the foreign ministers of Thailand and Malaysia on Saturday for what he called a “practical meeting” centered on “strong, coordinated, collective action” to save lives in Myanmar.
Aftershocks have also continued as long as a week after the initial tremors, with a 4.7-magnitude quake striking just south of Mandalay late Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Min Aung Hlaing was in Bangkok on Thursday and Friday, on a rare foreign trip to attend a regional summit that saw him meet with leaders including the prime ministers of Thailand and India.
The general’s attendance at the summit prompted protest, with demonstrators at the venue displaying a banner calling him a “murderer” and anti-junta groups condemning his inclusion.
Explosions as Kyiv under missile attack, says mayor
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 3 people were injured so far, and said there was reported wreckage falling in two non-residential sites
Last week, a Russian missile struck a residential area in President Zelensky's home city of Kryvyi Rig, killing 18, including 9 children
Updated 06 April 2025
AFP
KYIV, Ukraine: Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the city was under missile attack on Sunday with explosions in the Ukrainian capital, two days after a Russian missile killed 18 people in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown.
Klitschko said paramedics had been sent to two districts in Kyiv, while the Ukrainian air force said missiles had entered the northern Chernihiv region.
“Explosions in the capital. Air defense is in operation,” Klitschko said on Telegram.
“The missile attack on Kyiv continues. Stay in shelters!“
He added that three people were injured so far, and said there was reported wreckage falling in two non-residential sites.
Across Ukraine, air raid alerts were also issued for the Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions.
The attacks come at a time when US President Donald Trump is pushing for a partial ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, more than three years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion, while seeking a thaw in ties with the Kremlin.
On Saturday, Zelensky slammed the US embassy for what he called a “weak” statement that did not blame Russia for the deadly missile strike on his home city Kryvyi Rig. Nine children were among the 18 fatalities.
In one of the deadliest strikes in recent weeks, a Russian missile struck a residential area near a children’s playground in the central Ukrainian city.
Seventy-two people were wounded, 12 of them children, Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Sergiy Lysak said after emergency operations ended overnight.
In an emotional statement on social media, Zelensky named each of the children killed in the attack, accusing the US embassy of avoiding referring to Russia as the aggressor.
“Unfortunately, the reaction of the American embassy is unpleasantly surprising: such a strong country, such a strong people — and such a weak reaction,” Zelensky wrote.
“They are even afraid to say the word ‘Russian’ when talking about the missile that killed the children.”
The Ukrainian president took aim at the US Ambassador Bridget Brink after she posted a message on X on Friday evening that said: “Horrified that tonight a ballistic missile struck near a playground and restaurant.”
Brink, who was appointed by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden and has been ambassador since May 2022, added that “this is why the war must end.”
Zelensky wrote on Saturday: “Yes, the war must end. But in order to end it, we must not be afraid to call a spade a spade.”
“It is wrong and dangerous to keep silent about the fact that it is Russia that is killing children with ballistic missiles,” Zelensky reiterated in his evening address.
“It only incites the scum in Moscow to continue the war and further ignore diplomacy.”
The Ukrainian leader was born in the industrial city of Kryvyi Rig, which had a pre-war population of around 600,000 people.
Zelensky said the children killed by the latest attack ranged in age from a three-year-old boy, Tymofiy, to a 17-year-old teenage boy, Nikita.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of Kryvyi Rig’s military administration, said three days of mourning had been declared on April 7, 8 and 9.
“This is nothing less than a mass murder of civilians,” he said.
Pictures circulated by rescue services showed several bodies, one stretched out near a playground swing.
Russia’s defense ministry said it “delivered a precision strike” in the city “where commanders of formations and Western instructors were meeting.”
The General Staff of the Ukrainian army retorted that Moscow was “trying to cover up its cynical crime” and “spreading false information.” It accused Russia of “war crimes.”
Trump, who said during his re-election campaign he could end the three-year conflict within days, is pushing the two sides to agree to a ceasefire but his administration has failed to broker an accord acceptable to both.
Zelensky said the missile attack showed Russia had no interest in stopping its full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022.
The president hailed “tangible progress” after meeting British and French military chiefs in Kyiv on Friday to discuss a plan by London and Paris to send a “reassurance” force to Ukraine if and when a deal on ending the conflict is reached.
Zelensky wrote on social media that the meeting with British Chief of the Defense Staff Tony Radakin and French counterpart Thierry Burkhard agreed “the first details on how the security contingent of partners can be deployed.”
This is one of the latest efforts by European leaders to agree on a coordinated policy after Trump sidelined them and opened direct talks with the Kremlin.
US to revoke all South Sudan visas over failure to accept repatriation of citizens: Rubio
South Sudan had failed to respect the principle that every country must accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said
Washington “will be prepared to review these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation,” he added
Updated 06 April 2025
AFP
WASHINGTON: The US said on Saturday it would revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders over South Sudan’s failure to accept the return of its repatriated citizens, at a time when many in Africa fear that country could return to civil war.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has taken aggressive measures to ramp up immigration enforcement, including the repatriation of people deemed to be in the US illegally.
The administration has warned that countries that do not swiftly take back their citizens will face consequences, including visa sanctions or tariffs.
South Sudan had failed to respect the principle that every country must accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner when another country, including the US, seeks to remove them, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
“Effective immediately, the United States Department of State is taking actions to revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and prevent further issuance to prevent entry into the United States by South Sudanese passport holders,” Rubio said.
“We will be prepared to review these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation,” Rubio said.
It is time for South Sudan’s transitional government to “stop taking advantage of the United States,” he said.
South Sudan’s embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
African Union mediators arrived in South Sudan’s capital Juba this week for talks aimed at averting a new civil war in the country after its First Vice President Riek Machar was placed under house arrest last week.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s government has accused Machar, a longtime rival who led rebel forces during a 2013-18 war that killed hundreds of thousands, of trying to stir up a new rebellion.
Machar’s detention followed weeks of fighting in the northern Upper Nile state between the military and the White Army militia. Machar’s forces were allied with the White Army during the civil war but deny any current links.
The 2013-18 war was contested largely along ethnic lines, with fighters from the Dinka, the country’s largest group, lining up behind Kiir, and those from the Nuer, the second-largest group, supporting Machar.
Panama wants ‘respectful’ ties with US amid canal threats
The United States and China are the two biggest users of the Panama Canal, which handles five percent of global maritime trade, giving it vital economic and geostrategic importance
Updated 06 April 2025
AFP
PANAMA CITY: Panama hopes to maintain a “respectful” relationship with the United States, even as President Donald Trump has repeated threats to retake the Panama Canal, Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha said Saturday.
His comments came ahead of a visit next week by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a trip made more urgent against the backdrop of Trump’s threats and his allegations of Chinese interference in the canal.
“We discussed illegal migration, organized crime, drug trafficking and (other issues),” Martinez-Acha wrote on X of a call Friday with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau. “It was a cordial and constructive exchange.”
“I reiterated that all cooperation from Panama will take place under the framework of our constitution, our laws, and the Canal Neutrality Treaty,” he wrote. “Relations with the US must remain respectful, transparent and mutually beneficial.”
The US State Department said Landau had “expressed gratitude for Panama’s cooperation in halting illegal immigration and working with the United States to secure a nearly 98 percent decrease in illegal immigration through the Darien jungle,” an arduous path northward followed by many migrants.
The two officials also discussed the sale last month by the Hong Kong company CK Hutchison to giant US asset manager BlackRock of its concession in ports at either end of the Panama Canal, Martinez-Acha added.
Panama’s comptroller has been conducting an audit of Hutchison since January.
Landau “recognized Panama’s actions in curbing malign Chinese Communist Party influence,” the State Department said.
The deal was set to close on April 2 but has been held up as Chinese regulators pursue an investigation.
The United States and China are the two biggest users of the Panama Canal, which handles five percent of global maritime trade, giving it vital economic and geostrategic importance. It was inaugurated by the United States in 1914 and has been in Panamanian hands since 1999.
