World

Climate demonstrators on Wednesday triggered a lengthy tailback on Britain’s busiest motorway, warning that a record-breaking heatwave was a dire reminder for urgent action.

Members of the group Just Stop Oil climbed gantries over the M25 encircling London, causing police to intervene and vehicles to back up for several miles (kilometres) in one direction.

Surrey Police later said a 22-year-old woman who had climbed a gantry was arrested on suspicion of causing a danger to road users, causing a public nuisance and for being a pedestrian on the motorway.

Three lanes that were shut as she was brought down were later reopened, the forced added.

Temperatures topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in southern England for the first time on Tuesday, with a new record set at 40.3C.

The extreme heat caused huge transport disruption and sparked the same kind of wildfires seen in Europe in recent years.

Government minister Kit Malthouse told parliament that 34 places saw temperatures in excess of the previous record of 37.8C in 2019.

Firefighters saw “their busiest day since World War II”, dealing with dozens of wildfires as 15 fire and rescue services declared major incidents, he said.

He said at least 41 properties were destroyed in London, 14 in Norfolk, eastern England, five in Lincolnshire, and smaller numbers elsewhere.

Malthouse, who chaired weekend meetings of the government’s emergency contingencies committee, called for the public to heed safety advice, as the risk of more wildfires was still high despite a dip in temperatures.

“Tragically… 13 people are believed to have lost their lives after getting into difficulty in rivers, reservoirs and lakes while swimming in recent days –- seven of them teenage boys,” he added.

London Fire Brigade said 16 firefighters were injured around the capital with two taken to hospital.

The city’s mayor Sadiq Khan said the service received more than 2,600 calls on Tuesday — up from a normal day of about 350.

Khan also accused Conservative leadership candidates vying to succeed Prime Minister Boris Johnson of ignoring “the elephant in the room” of climate change.

Just Stop Oil said it regretted disruption to the public from its latest action on the M25, after activists had previously staged sit-in protests on that road and others.

But declaring the M25 “a site of civil resistance”, it warned of further protests to come this week.

“This is the moment when climate inaction is truly revealed in all its murderous glory for everyone to see: as an elite-driven death project that will extinguish all life if we let it,” the activist group said.

Six-time prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected as crisis-wracked Sri Lanka’s new president in a parliamentary vote Wednesday, with the backing of the disgraced former leader’s party.

Official results gave the veteran politician 134 votes, an absolute majority in the 225-member parliament, after Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and resigned in the wake of protesters overrunning his palace.

“Our divisions are now over,” Wickremesinghe said in a brief acceptance speech in parliament, urging his defeated rivals “to join me and work together to bring the country out of the crisis we are facing”.

Wickremesinghe takes charge of a bankrupt nation that is in bailout talks with the IMF, with its 22 million people enduring severe shortages of food, fuel and medicines.

But he was backed by the Rajapaksas’ SLPP party — still the largest in parliament — and is despised as a proxy for the former leader the protesters forced from his palace after months of demonstrations over the unprecedented economic crisis.

They have also been demanding the departure of Wickremesinghe, who on Wednesday reiterated his vow to crack down on lawbreakers.

Hundreds of heavily armed troops and police stood guard outside the parliament, but there were no signs of demonstrators.

Outside the presidential secretariat, where protesters camped for months, actress Damitha Abeyrathne, 45, said: “We lost. The whole country lost.”

“The politicians are fighting for their power. They are not fighting for the people. They have no feeling for people who are suffering.” 

The struggle would continue, she told AFP. 

But Wickremesinghe vowed to take tough action against anyone resorting to what he called the undemocratic means that led to his predecessor’s ouster.

“If you try to topple the government, occupy the president’s office and the prime minister’s office, that is not democracy and we will deal with them firmly,” he said on an evening visit to a Buddhist temple.

– Law and order –

One by one, the legislators entered ballot booths set up on the floor of the chamber to choose between the three candidates.

Previous elections have been marred by allegations of corruption and vote-buying, and mobile phones were banned to prevent anyone taking photos of the ballots. 

Wickremesinghe was elected for the balance of Rajapaksa’s term, which runs until November 2024, and the speaker’s office said he would be sworn in on Thursday.

According to analysts, Wickremesinghe is likely to appoint his school-mate Dinesh Gunawardena, a strong ally of the once-powerful Rajapaksa clan, as prime minister.

Wickremesinghe insisted: “I’m not a friend of the Rajapaksas, I’m a friend of the people.”

But he appears to be indebted for his victory to the four brothers who have dominated Sri Lankan politics for much of the last two decades.

Gotabaya’s departure wounded the group after two of his brothers also quit their posts as premier and finance minister earlier this year.

But former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, the deposed Gotabaya’s elder brother and the head of the family, remained in the country, and party sources said he had pressed SLPP legislators to support the veteran operator.

As acting president, Wickremesinghe extended a state of emergency that gives police and security forces sweeping powers.

On Wednesday, a court ordered the protesters to vacate their camp near the Presidential Secretariat and confine themselves only to a designated area.

A top police official said anyone damaging state property would be dealt with severely. Protesters occupying a part of president’s office have been ordered to leave or face eviction.

Opposition MP Dharmalingam Sithadthan said ahead of the vote that Wickremesinghe’s hardline stance against demonstrators had gone down well with MPs who had been at the receiving end of mob violence, describing him as the “law-and-order candidate”.

Political analyst Kusal Perera said he had “regained the acceptance of the urban middle classes by restoring some of the supplies like gas”. 

Clearing government buildings of protesters also showed the 73-year-old’s “firmness”, Perera said.

– ‘Petrol and gas’ –

Wickremesinghe’s main opponent in the vote was SLPP dissident and former education minister Dullas Alahapperuma, 63, a former journalist who was supported by the opposition and received 82 votes.

The third candidate, leftist Anura Dissanayake, 53, was embarrassed when the final tally showed that the pile of rejected votes was one more than the three he polled.

But 72-year-old Zarook, a retired seaman who gave only one name and lives in Slave Island, an impoverished area of the capital, was indifferent to the result. 

“If Ranil comes, if another man comes, we have to do our daily jobs. So we don’t care,” he said. 

He hoped for “petrol and gas”, he told AFP, “the daily products we need”.

Returning to his refrigerated white truck with a red cross on its side, Oleksiy Yukov ends another tough day of collecting bodies from the frontline in eastern Ukraine.

Parked in the city of Sloviansk, the vehicle displays the number 200 next to the symbol — a reference to a military code used during Soviet times for the repatriation of soldiers’ remains.

“I have a duty to get these bodies. After all, the soldiers die for us,” said 36-year-old Yukov, who is wearing a T-shirt with a black tulip, an emblem of the eponymous organisation he works for.

The Black Tulip NGO was founded in the early 2010s to find and recover the remains of soldiers killed during the two world wars. 

But now the group is searching for victims of a contemporary war that started with a 2014 pro-Russian insurgency in Ukraine’s east and engulfed the whole country after Moscow invaded on February 24. 

Every day, Yukov and two other volunteers cross the eastern region of Donbas, scouring fields, roads and areas near the frontline for bodies of soldiers and civilians who have fallen victim to the war. 

– ‘Merciless war’ –

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in early June that between 60 and 100 soldiers were dying daily on Ukraine’s eastern front, the scene of the heaviest fighting.

Yukov estimated that he had transported at least 300 dead since the start of the war, most of them handed over to morgues in Dnipro, a city in central Ukraine. 

Among them were the remains of Russian soldiers.

“Death doesn’t make any difference. All bodies should be treated with respect,” Yukov told AFP. 

The bodies of enemy soldiers are handed over to the Ukrainian army, which is in charge of arranging exchanges with Russian forces. 

In 2014, Black Tulip volunteers would sometimes get permission to recover the remains of soldiers from separatist-controlled territories in Ukraine’s east, even if their safety was far from guaranteed. 

But now, they said, the red cross on their truck has made it a target for Russian forces which have taken control of large swathes of Donbas territory.

“In 2014 it was hard. But it’s nothing compared to what is happening today. It has become a merciless war, a crazy war. No one controls anything anymore,” said Yukov, suddenly burying his face in his hands. 

“I have images that come to me,” he whispered, referring to visions of mutilated bodies and dogs devouring the corpses that haunt him after work.

He will also forever remember the tragedy at Kramatorsk train station in April, where a Russian missile strike killed over 50 people who were fleeing to safety. 

Black Tulip volunteers worked for two days collecting body parts, Yukov said. 

– ‘Important mission’ –

“Black Tulip is carrying out a very important mission, which very few could do, mentally or physically,” said Dmytro Kravchenko, a Sloviansk town hall official. 

“In addition to the bodies, the volunteers also collect evidence of the presence of foreign troops. This is important for history,” he added.

Black Tulip depends on donations, including sizeable ones made by a Ukrainian church in the United States.

For Yukov, searching for missing soldiers was an interest from an early age.

“When was 11 years old, we went for a walk in the forest with my brother and we came across a mass grave which I later found out was from World War II,” he said. 

Yukov, a former president of the region’s Thai boxing federation, does not report to the army or Ukraine’s authorities.

He is deeply invested in the mission. He works tirelessly and has not seen his wife and daughter, who are sheltering in Dnipro, for over a month. 

The Taliban have carried out hundreds of human rights violations in Afghanistan since seizing power last year, the United Nations said Wednesday, including extrajudicial killings and torture. 

“There’s no denying that the findings of our report are extremely serious,” Markus Potzel, acting head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told a news conference in Kabul. 

The Taliban have routinely denied accusations of rights abuses since overthrowing the previous Western-backed government, but a UNAMA report released Wednesday listed multiple accounts.

It documented 160 allegations of extrajudicial killings, 56 incidents of torture and ill-treatment, and more than 170 arbitrary arrests and detentions against former government officials and national security force members since August.

The most common methods of torture included kicking, punching and slapping, beatings with cables and pipes, and the use of electric shock devices.

It documented more than 200 instances of cruel, inhumane or degrading punishments — including beating shopkeepers for not attending mosque — and more than 100 cases of excessive use of force.

Since the end of the war, security has vastly improved across the country with a huge drop in civilian casualties. 

But the Taliban — notorious for their brutal reign of terror between 1996 and 2001 — have sharply restricted the freedoms of Afghans, particularly women and girls. 

UNAMA had 87 reports of violence against women and girls including murder, rape, suicide, forced marriages including child marriage, assault and battery, as well as two cases of honour killings — none of which have been registered with the formal justice system.

Among the cases documented were a couple who were publically stoned to death after being accused of having an affair.

Fiona Frazer, head of the UN’s human rights mission in Afghanistan, said “impunity prevails” in Afghanistan, and acknowledged there may be an under-reporting of allegations.

She said UNAMA was “particularly concerned” about the involvement of the Taliban’s religious police and intelligence service in abuses.  

UNAMA said more than 700 civilians have been killed and at least 1,400 wounded in attacks mainly attributed to the local Islamic State branch, as well as unexploded mines.  

Senior government spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid rejected the report. 

“No kind of arbitrary killings and arrests are allowed in the country. If someone kills or arrests arbitrarily, he is considered a criminal and will face the Sharia law,” he tweeted. 

Russia said Monday that its military aims in Ukraine have expanded beyond the industrial Donbas region as its forces launched deadly barrages over the east and the south of the country.

The warning came as the European Commission called on EU countries to slash demand for natural gas to relieve dependence on Russian energy and sidestep Moscow’s energy “blackmail”.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview that Moscow’s military was no long “only” focused on wresting control of the east Ukraine regions of Lugansk and Donetsk, which have been partially controlled by pro-Moscow rebels for years.

“The geography is different now. It is not only about the DNR and LNR, but also the Kherson region, the Zaporizhzhia region and a number of other territories” he explained to state media.

Russian forces, since invading on February 24, have steadily advanced into each of those regions and sewn destruction as they captured key cities and met fierce Ukrainian resistance.

The steady progress in the east came after Moscow’s forces failed early in the invasion to capture the capital Kyiv and were pushed back from Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv.

But Russian artillery outside the eastern urban hub has nonetheless pursued an almost constant shelling campaign, and strikes on Kharkiv Wednesday left three dead, local authorities said.

– Western arms a ‘direct threat’ to Russia –

“There was a 13-year-old boy among them,” the regional governor Oleg Synegubov said in a statement on social media.

AFP journalists on the scene saw a man in shock kneeling over the body, covered by a blue sweatshirt and surrounded by shards of broken glass.

In the southern city of Nikopol, meanwhile, Russian shelling on a residential neighbourhood left two people dead, authorities announced.

While the brunt of fighting in Ukraine in recent months has focused on Donbas, a Ukrainian counter offensive in the south has slowly clawed back some Russian-held territory.

Ukraine and military analysts credit Western-supplied long-range artillery with shifting battle field dynamics there and Russian officials have taken note.

Lavrov said Wednesday that Western arms deliveries to Ukraine had played into Moscow’s decision to focus beyond the east and said its ambitions could expand even more if the shipments continue. 

“We cannot allow the part of Ukraine that (President Volodymyr) Zelensky will control or whoever replaces him to have weapons that will pose a direct threat to our territory and the territory of those republics that have declared their independence,” Lavrov said, referring to Donetsk and Lugansk.

– Emergency energy plans –

Mykolaiv, the largest city under Ukraine control near Russian-occupied Kherson and the southern front has been shelled persistently since the beginning of the invasion.

The regional governor on Wednesday announced the city would be closed “for a day or two” in several weeks to process information on people believed to have been collaborating with Russian troops.

A day earlier, governor Vitaliy Kim promised a $100 reward for anyone who could help to identify people who have been collaborating with Russia by providing it with the locations of Ukrainian troops or coordinates of potential targets.

The announcement comes after Zelensky in Kyiv fired several senior law enforcement officials — including the head of the security services — accusing their departments of failing to crack down on spies and Kremlin-sympathisers.

The West has responded to Russia’s invasion with several packages of damaging sanctions, which in turn has seen Russia cut natural gas supplies to the bloc, spurring a supply and cost crisis.

Announcing an emergency plan Wednesday, the European Commission asked EU countries to reduce demand by 15 percent to secure sufficient storage ahead of winter.

EU commissioners also asked member states to give Brussels special powers to impose compulsory energy rationing if Russia cuts off Europe’s gas lifeline.

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The final two candidates to become UK prime minister will be decided Wednesday, with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt battling it out to make an expected runoff against frontrunner Rishi Sunak. 

Former finance minister Sunak was only two votes short of securing his place in the final two after Tuesday’s voting, but the race behind him tightened as Truss clawed back five votes to finish only six behind Mordaunt.

The final pair will be announced at 4:00 pm (1500 GMT), before the race moves to Conservative party members, who will decide the new leader and prime minister. 

The result will be announced on September 5.

Tuesday’s vote means Britain will get either its first British-Asian prime minister or the third female leader in its history.

Sunak, whose resignation helped to topple outgoing leader Boris Johnson, is all but guaranteed to make the final cut.

But Mordaunt — the one-time bookmakers’ favourite — is now the outsider, with punters betting that the right wing of the party will swing behind Truss after Kemi Badenoch was voted out on Tuesday.

In a bid to woo those MPs, Truss wrote in Wednesday’s Daily Telegraph that her plan to revive the economy would be “based around tax cuts, deregulation and tough reform”.

Former minister David Davis, a backer of Mordaunt, accused Sunak of lending votes to Truss so he could face her in the runoff.

“He wants to fight Liz, because she’s the person who will lose the debate with him,” he told LBC radio.

A YouGov poll published before the vote indicated that, despite his popularity with colleagues, Sunak was the least appealing candidate to the members. 

The BBC plans to host a live televised debate with the final two candidates on Monday, with all remaining candidates agreeing to take part if they get through. 

Sunak won the two previous debates, according to snap polls. 

But his popularity with the Tory grassroots has faded since questions were raised over his family’s tax arrangements, and as he presided over sky-rocketing inflation, which on Wednesday hit a new 40-year high of 9.4 percent in June.

In a new policy announcement, Sunak vowed an “ambitious new plan to make the UK energy independent” by 2045 in order to prevent future energy-driven inflation spikes, after Russia’s war in Ukraine sent gas prices rocketing.

– ‘Fantasy economics’ –

Mordaunt had headed the same YouGov poll of Tory members previously.

But she now trails Truss after a damaging few days in which her former boss, one-time UK Brexit pointman David Frost, slammed her work ethic and questions were raised over her stance on transgender rights.

Johnson announced on July 7 he was quitting as Conservative leader after a government rebellion in protest at his scandal-hit administration.

Under Britain’s parliamentary system, the leader of the biggest party is prime minister and can be changed mid-term without having to call a general election.

Johnson, who is staying on until his successor is found, chaired his last cabinet meeting on Tuesday and faced his final weekly question-and-answer session with MPs in parliament on Wednesday.

He urged whoever takes over to “stay close to the Americans, stick up for the Ukrainians, stick up for freedom and democracy everywhere”, as well as “cut taxes and deregulate where you can”.

“And remember above all it’s not Twitter that counts, it’s the people that sent us here,” he added.

Beforehand, opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer accused Tory candidates of “fantasy economics” before turning his fire on the outgoing Johnson.

“He is a complete bullshitter and I think he’s been found out,” he told Labour prime minister Tony Blair’s former spin chief Alastair Campbell in a podcast.

Starmer attacked Johnson for the Downing Street “Partygate” scandal, which saw him fined for breaking the Covid rules he set for the public.

“It wasn’t just that he did things which broke the rules, it’s that he then took the piss out of the public with his ridiculous defences afterwards,” he added.

It was “good for the country” that he was going, Starmer added, saying it was reflected in public opinion at the last local elections at which the Tories lost hundreds of council seats.

“There was a general realisation that this guy bullshits and if he’s bullshitting about that (Partygate) he’s probably bullshitting about everything.”