World

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday was to host Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for talks in Paris, defying criticism the invitation is deeply inappropriate barely four years after the murder by Saudi agents of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The meeting will be seen as the latest step in the readmission of the de-facto ruler of the kingdom into the international fold, after US President Joe Biden met the man universally known as MBS earlier this month.

The topics set to feature during the meeting include energy supply as concern grows over possible power shortages due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as the nuclear programme of Riyadh’s top regional foe Iran.

The talks are set to get under way at 8:30 pm (1830 GMT), and include a working dinner at the Elysee Palace. 

MBS — who is portrayed at home as a champion of social and economic reform but seen by critics as a murderous tyrant — arrives in France fresh from a trip to Greece to discuss energy ties.

“I feel profoundly troubled by the visit, because of what it means for our world and what it means for Jamal (Khashoggi) and people like him,” Amnesty International secretary general Agnes Callamard told AFP, describing MBS as a man who “does not tolerate any dissent”.

The visits mark MBS’ first trip to the EU since the murder of Khashoggi by Saudi agents at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018, a crime that a UN probe described as an “extrajudicial killing for which Saudi Arabia is responsible”.

MBS’ “reintegration into international relations cannot take place at the expense of truth and justice”, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) secretary general Christophe Deloire said in a statement.

US intelligence agencies determined that MBS had “approved” the operation that led to Khashoggi’s death, although Riyadh denies this, blaming rogue operatives.

MBS stayed overnight at his Louis XIV chateau in Louveciennes west of Paris which MBS acquired in 2015, according to a source who asked not to be named.

Despite its name, it was only built in 2009, by a company headed by Khashoggi’s cousin Emad.

– ‘Open investigation’ –

The killing of the Washington Post journalist drew outrage not just over the elimination of a prominent critic of the Saudi regime, but also for the manner in which it was carried out. 

He was lured into the Saudi consulate on October 2, 2018, strangled and dismembered, reportedly with a bonesaw.

“The visit by MBS to France and Joe Biden to Saudi Arabia do not change the fact that MBS is anything other than a killer,” said Callamard, who at the time was the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings and led the independent probe.

His reception by world leaders is “all the more shocking given many of them at the time expressed disgust (over the killing) and a commitment not to bring MBS back into the international community”, she added.

Three rights groups, including the Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) group created by Khashoggi, on Thursday filed a criminal complaint in Paris accusing MBS of being an accomplice in the crime.

“French authorities should immediately open a criminal investigation against” MBS, said Sarah Leah Whiston, executive director of DAWN.

MBS travelled to Turkey last month to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who after the Istanbul murder had bitterly criticised Saudi Arabia.

RSF meanwhile said at least 27 journalists remain imprisoned in Saudi Arabia.

While prominent blogger Raif Badawi was released in March, he is unable to leave the country and join his family abroad.

– ‘Political leverage’ –

Despite the concern over Saudi Arabia’s rights record, the kingdom is seen by many in the West as an essential partner due to its energy resources, purchases of weaponry and staunch opposition to Iran’s theocratic regime.

There has also been criticism within France, with the Greens presidential candidate Yannick Jadot asking “will Khashoggi’s dismembered body be on the menu? Climate? Human rights? 

“No — it will be oil and weapons. The exact opposite of what should be done.” 

The French president had already travelled to the kingdom in December 2021 for talks with MBS, a visit that raised some eyebrows at the time.

Macron will be meeting MBS fresh from talks last week in Paris with two close allies of the kingdom, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi. 

The red carpet welcome for both leaders dismayed activists. 

“The war in Ukraine has put the energy-producing countries back in the spotlight, and they are taking advantage of it,” said Camille Lons, research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Sea levels are increasing around Britain at a far faster rate than a century ago, while the country is warming slightly more than the global average, leading meteorologists said on Thursday.

Their latest annual State of the UK Climate study — compiled by the country’s meteorological authority, the Met Office — reiterated that recent decades have been “warmer, wetter and sunnier” than those in the 20th century. 

The report covering 2021 comes hot on the heels of a heatwave last week that saw temperatures top 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in England for the first time, setting a record at 40.3C.

The Environment Agency has urged people to use water “wisely” to protect supplies and the environment, after the Met Office said the first half of this year had been among the driest on record.

“The report is very clear that we are seeing a change in our climate, whether that’s temperature, precipitation, sea level rise,” said Liz Bentley, of the Royal Meteorological Society, which publishes the study in its International Journal of Climatology.

The Met Office said in a summary that its latest findings reaffirmed “climate change is not just a problem for the future and that it is already influencing the conditions we experience here at home”. 

Meteorologists noted in the report that sea levels over the last three decades had increased in some places at more than double the rate recorded at the start of the 1900s.

They have risen by around 16.5 centimetres (6.5 inches) since 1990 — approximately three to 5.2 mms each year, compared to 1.5 mms annually in the early part of last century.

This is exposing more areas of coastal land to larger and more frequent storm surges and “wind-driven wave impacts”, the Met Office said.   

– Dramatic change –

Svetlana Jevrejeva of the National Oceanographic Centre said there was evidence that the rises were due to the increased rate of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

Glacier melting around the world and the warming of the ocean were also responsible, she noted, adding that the effect on Britain’s coastline would only grow. 

“The scale, rate and impact will change and it will change dramatically quite soon,” Jevrejeva told the BBC.

The annual study also found that Britain has warmed at a broadly consistent but “slightly higher” rate than global mean temperature rises.

The Met Office’s Mike Kendon, the study’s lead author, said record temperatures, such as last week’s unprecedented heatwave, were “becoming routine rather than the exception”.

“It is telling that whereas we consider 2021 as near-average for temperature in the context of the current climate, had this occurred just over three decades ago it would have been one of the UK’s warmest years on record,” he added.

The UK hosted the UN’s COP26 summit last November, when scores of countries agreed collective measures to try to prevent catastrophic climate change.

But fears are growing that many countries could stall on delivering pledges — including on ending financing fossil fuel projects abroad — as they struggle to replace Russian energy imports.

In Britain, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss — the favourite in a leadership battle to replace outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson — has vowed to axe energy bill levies earmarked for the renewable sector. 

She has insisted that is needed to help people through a worsening cost-of-living crisis.

US climate envoy John Kerry last week warned Britain’s next leader that the commitment to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 cannot be compromised.

“We do not have the luxury of jiggering with the 2050 right now,” he told BBC radio.

China’s minister for industry and information technology is being investigated for alleged corruption, state media reported Thursday, the latest senior cadre to be snared by Beijing’s sweeping crackdown.

Xiao Yaqing is among the biggest names caught up in President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive, and the investigation into him comes ahead of a key leadership summit this autumn where the Chinese leader will seek to cement his grip on power.

Ostensibly a crackdown on corruption, critics say the wide-ranging campaign launched just after Xi took power in 2012 has also served to remove those voicing criticism of the all-powerful leader, or seen as a threat.

Xiao is facing charges of “violating discipline and law,” and is “currently under review and investigation,” state broadcaster CCTV said without giving more details. 

His fall from grace comes amid a widespread crackdown on Chinese tech companies, which Beijing fears wield too much power due to lax regulations.

A businessman-turned-politician, Xiao started his career in the early 1980s on a factory floor in northeast China’s rust belt as an engineer and then worked his way up to head the State Administration for Market Regulation, which determines key market rules in China.

In July 2020, he was appointed to the top job at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which decides key issues including China’s roadmap to dominate the electric vehicle industry and the country’s ambitious 5G communication network plan.

The ministry also played a key role in the now-scrapped “Made in China 2025” policy, which outlined Beijing’s plans to dominate 10 cutting-edge technologies, from artificial intelligence to robotics.

Regulatory chiefs, insurance giants, security officials and financiers are just some of the bigwigs to recently face censure or prosecution under the corruption drive, though it is rare for a minister to face investigation while still holding office.

The vast majority of figures investigated for corruption are eventually convicted.

Former justice minister Fu Zhenghua was tried earlier this month for “suspected bribe-taking and bending the law for personal gains,” state news agency Xinhua reported.

And ex-deputy public security minister Sun Lijun — who oversaw security in Hong Kong during months of unrest in 2019 — was arrested in April 2020. 

He later confessed on state TV that he had received a series of bribes worth $14 million, hidden inside boxes of what appeared to be seafood.

The former chairman of Huarong — one of China’s largest state-controlled asset management firms — Lai Xiaomin was executed in January 2021 for receiving “extremely large” bribes.

Anxious residents slept outside after hundreds of aftershocks rattled the earthquake-hit northern Philippines, locals said Thursday, as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr inspected damage in the region. 

Five people were killed and more than 150 injured when a 7.0-magnitude quake struck the lightly populated province of Abra on Wednesday morning, authorities said.

The death toll rose to six on Thursday when a 59-year-old man was hit by a landslide caused by an aftershock, a local disaster official said.

The powerful quake rippled across the mountainous area, toppling buildings, triggering landslides and shaking high-rise towers hundreds of kilometres away in the capital Manila.

“Aftershocks happen almost every 20 minutes, 15 minutes since yesterday,” said Reggi Tolentino, a restaurant owner in Abra’s provincial capital Bangued.

“Many slept outside last night, almost every family.”

Some families have been given modular tents to stay in. Marcos Jr has urged people to wait for their homes to be inspected before moving back.  

Hundreds of buildings were damaged or destroyed, roads were blocked by landslides, and power was knocked out in affected areas. 

A state of calamity was declared in Abra, which felt the full force of the quake, enabling the government to tap funds for the response effort.

Abra police chief Colonel Maly Cula told AFP the overall damage had been “very minimal”. 

“We don’t have a lot of people in evacuation sites, although many people are staying in the streets because of the aftershocks,” Cula said.

“Abra is back to normal.”

Marcos Jr, who took office last month, arrived in Bangued on Thursday to inspect the damage and discuss the response effort with government, military and disaster officials. 

More than 800 aftershocks have been recorded since the quake hit, including 24 that were strong enough to feel, the local seismological agency said.

Aftershocks were expected to continue for “several weeks”, Renato Solidum, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, told a briefing presided over by Marcos Jr.

There would be “a lot” in the first three days, then “hopefully it will decline afterwards”, he said.

– Tourism operators hit –

In Vigan City, a UNESCO World Heritage site and tourist destination in Ilocos Sur province, centuries-old structures built during the Spanish colonial period were damaged.

Governor Jeremias Singson told TV broadcaster Teleradyo that 460 buildings in the province had been affected, including the Bantay Bell Tower, which partially crumbled.

“Our tourism industry and small business owners were really affected,” Singson said.

After visiting Vigan on Thursday, Senator Imee Marcos, the president’s elder sister, said the damage to old churches in the city was “overwhelming”.  

The Philippines is regularly rocked by quakes due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Wednesday’s quake was one of the strongest recorded in the Philippines in recent years and was felt across swathes of Luzon island, the most populous in the archipelago.

In October 2013, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Bohol Island in the central Philippines, killing more than 200 people and triggering landslides.

Old churches in the birthplace of Catholicism in the Philippines were badly damaged. Nearly 400,000 were displaced and tens of thousands of houses were damaged.

The powerful quake altered the island’s landscape and a “ground rupture” pushed up a stretch of earth by about three metres, creating a wall of rock above the epicentre.

In 1990, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in the northern Philippines created a ground rupture stretching over a hundred kilometres.

Fatalities were estimated at more than 1,200, with major damage to buildings in Manila.

Three foreign climbers are missing and feared dead on Pakistan’s treacherous Karakorum mountain range in the country’s far north, an official said Thursday.

Pakistan is home to five of the world’s 14 “super peaks” — those over 8,000 metres (26,246 feet) high — and the climbing season is currently in full swing.

A senior government official from the Gilgit Baltistan tourism department told AFP that Canadian Richard Cartier and Australian Matthew Eakin were missing on K2, the world’s second-highest mountain, while Briton Gordon Henderson was lost climbing Broad Peak, the twelfth-highest.

“We cannot declare them dead until the bodies are found,” the official said.

“We pray we find them alive, but the chances are very slim.”

Henderson, a wing commander with Britain’s Royal Air Force, went missing on July 19 on the 8,051-metre Broad Peak, the armed force said on its verified Facebook page.

“Our thoughts are with Wing Commander Henderson’s family, friends and colleagues at this dreadful time,” it said.

Eakin and Cartier have been missing since the weekend on K2, which is nicknamed the “Savage Mountain” for its high level of difficulty.

Records have tumbled this season, according to the Pakistan Alpine Club, with over 140 people summiting the 8,611-metre K2 — including 20 women.

Until this year, it had been scaled just 425 times, whereas Everest — the world’s highest — had been conquered by more than 6,000 people since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reached the top in 1953.

A video shared on social media by Nepali climber Mingma Gyalje earlier this week showed a long queue of tethered climbers pushing upwards on K2.

“This is the scariest part,” he said in an accompanying caption on his Facebook and Instagram pages.

K2 earned its nickname because of its punishing conditions — in winter, winds can blow at more than 200 kilometres per hour (125 miles per hour), and temperatures drop to minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 76 Fahrenheit).

Last week, Sanu Sherpa, from Nepal, became the first person to complete the double summit of all 14 super peaks after he reached the top of Gasherbrum II in Pakistan.

Norwegian Kristin Harila, meanwhile, is attempting to break the record for climbing all 14 super peaks in the fastest time, taking on Nepali adventurer Nirmal Purja’s record of six months and six days.

The 36-year-old scaled K2 on Thursday — the eighth peak of the challenge — on day 70 of her pursuit.