PARIS: Non-governmental organisations and persons affected by climate-induced disasters have filed a criminal complaint against French oil giant TotalEnergies and its top shareholders in Paris on Tuesday, seeking a trial for involuntary manslaughter and other consequences of climate change “chaos”. In total, 11 plaintiffs have filed the case, including three NGOs and eight “victims or survivors of climate-related disasters” in …

BRUSSELS: The European Union admitted on Tuesday to a “difficult situation” after a journalism consortium said Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania were dumping migrants in the desert, using the bloc’s funds. The wide-ranging investigation by Lighthouse Reports with outlets including Le Monde and The Washin­gton Post paints the EU as complicit in a “system of mass displacement” and serious rights abuses. “Europe supports, finances and …

PUERTO AYORA: Just as Charles Darwin had done in the year 1831, a group of scientists and environmentalists set sail (last year) from the English port of Plymouth and headed for the Galapagos islands off the coast of Ecuador. However, what they found upon arriving (last month), ‘differed vastly’ from what naturalist Darwin witnessed whilst visiting the archipelago in the …

WASHINGTON: US Secre­tary of State Antony Blinken faced criticism from the right and left over Israel policy in Congress on Tuesday, with Republicans accusing the Biden administration of failing Israel and Democrats saying it’s doing too little to help civilians in Gaza. Furious protesters interrupted Blinken as he began his testimony before the Demo­cratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There were …

BANGKOK: Two statues smuggled out of Thailand, including a 900-year-old sculpture that spent three decades at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, were welcomed back to the kingdom in an official repatriation ceremony in Bangkok on Tuesday. A 129-centimetre statue of Shiva, dubbed “Golden Boy”, was repatriated after being linked to British-Thai art dealer Douglas Latchford, who was …

KARACHI: Palestinian journalists covering the war in Gaza have been awarded the 2024 World Press Freedom Hero award. The award has been given to a group of journalists for the first time, according to a statement released by the awarding body. The list included Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, whose wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed in an …

BANGKOK: One person died and more than 70 were injured on Tuesday when a Singapore Airlines flight from London hit severe turbulence and was forced to make an emergency landing in Bangkok. Flight tracking data suggested the plane dropped more than 1,800 metres (6,000 feet) in just five minutes, causing multiple head injuries to those on board. It is the …

FRANKFURT: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday that the United States and Europe needed to respond to China’s industrial overcapacity in a “strategic and united way” to keep manufacturers viable on both sides of the Atlantic. Yellen told reporters during a visit to Frankfurt that G7 finance ministers shared US concerns about Chinese efforts to dominate clean energy …

GAZA: Israeli forces thrust deeper into the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Tuesday, laying waste to residential districts with tank and air bombardments, residents said, while airstrikes killed at least five people in the southern city of Rafah. The Israeli army used bulldozers to clear shops and property near the local market in Jabalia refugee camp, residents said, in …

Tens of thousands of Iranians flocked to the streets of Tehran Wednesday to join the funeral processions of president Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage, who died in a helicopter crash on Sunday. In the centre of the city, people holding portraits of Raisi gathered in and around the University of Tehran, where Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is due to lead …