World

PARIS — The world saw its hottest June on record last month, the EU's climate monitoring service said on Thursday, as climate change and the El Nino weather pattern looked likely to drive another scorching northern summer.

The announcement from the EU monitor Copernicus marked the latest in a series of records for a year that has already seen a drought in Spain and fierce heatwaves in China and the United States.

"The month was the warmest June globally at just over 0.5ºC above the 1991-2020 average, exceeding June 2019 — the previous record — by a substantial margin," the EU monitor said in a statement from its C3S climate unit.

Temperatures reached June records across northwest Europe while parts of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Asia and eastern Australia "were significantly warmer than normal", Copernicus noted.

On the other hand it was cooler than normal in western Australia, the western United States and western Russia, it said.

'Hottest day ever' 

It was the latest in a series of heat records over recent years, reflecting the impact of global warming driven by greenhouse gases released from human activity.

Copernicus also confirmed an earlier indicator from US meteorologists that Tuesday was the hottest day ever recorded. Preliminary data showed a global average temperature of 17.03°C that day, beating another record already set on Monday, it said.

For June, Copernicus noted that sea surface temperatures were higher globally than any previous June on record, with "extreme marine heat waves" around Ireland, Britain and the Baltic.

Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest extent for June since satellite observations began, at 17 per cent below average.

C3S scientist Julien Nicolas told AFP the June record was driven largely by "very warm ocean surface temperatures" in the Pacific and Atlantic due to El Nino, a periodic warming phenomenon.

"On top of that is this warming trend of the ocean absorbing 90 per cent of heat released by human activity," he added.

The global temperature was 0.53°C above the 30-year average at an average of 16.51°C he calculated.

"June 2023 is way above the others. This is the kind of anomaly we are not used to," Nicolas said.

Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the UN's World Meteorological Organisation, warned on Monday that El Nino "will greatly increase the likelihood of breaking temperature records and triggering more extreme heat in many parts of the world and in the ocean".

He urged governments "to mobilise preparations to limit the impacts on our health, our ecosystems and our economies".

Deadly heat waves 

El Nino is a naturally occurring pattern that drives increased heat worldwide, as well as drought in some parts of the world and heavy rains elsewhere.

In addition, human activity — mainly the burning of fossil fuels — emits roughly 40 billion tonnes of planet-warming CO2 into the atmosphere every year.

As well as withering crops, melting glaciers and raising the risk of wildfires, higher-than-normal temperatures also cause health problems ranging from heatstroke and dehydration to cardiovascular stress.

In the United States, local officials said last week that at least 13 people died from an extreme heatwave in Texas and Louisiana.

China issued its highest-level heat alert for northern parts of the country as Beijing baked in temperatures around 40ºC.

After a record hot June in Britain, water use restrictions were imposed in parts of south-eastern England, and Scotland put regions on water scarcity alert.

The world has warmed an average of nearly 1.2°C since the mid-1800s, unleashing extreme weather including more intense heatwaves, more severe droughts in some areas and storms made fiercer by rising seas.

THE HAGUE — A record-breaking summer storm hammered The Netherlands and Germany on Wednesday, killing two people and throwing international air and rail travel into chaos.

Storm Poly packed howling winds of up to 146 km/h, toppling trees and forcing the cancellation of 400 flights from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, one of Europe's busiest hubs.

Meteorologists said the storm was the strongest on record to hit the Netherlands in the summer months and issued a rare "code red" warning for millions of people in the low-lying nation to stay indoors.

A 51-year-old woman was killed when a tree fell on her car in the Dutch city of Haarlem, while a 64-year-old woman died after being struck by a falling tree in the German town of Rhede near the Dutch border, police said.

Two men were seriously injured in Amsterdam, one when a tree fell on his car, while a second was believed to have been hit by falling power lines, local media said.

A tree also fell on a houseboat in one of Amsterdam's historic canals, while another toppled onto a tram in The Hague, though no one was hurt.

Howling winds 

Schiphol Airport said the number of flights would "gradually improve" as winds started to drop but would remain disrupted for the rest of the day.

"At the moment, 400 flights have been cancelled," a Schiphol spokesperson told AFP. The airport is a major hub for connecting flights from Asia, the Middle East and the United States to the rest of Europe.

Eurostar trains from Amsterdam to London and high-speed rail services to the German cities of Cologne and Hamburg were also called off, while many domestic trains were cancelled, Dutch train operator NS said.

Most Dutch domestic trains were cancelled, including those to Schiphol airport, causing further misery for travellers.

Several hundred people were stranded at Amsterdam's central station, including students touring Europe for their summer holidays, an AFP journalist said.

"They told me all the trains were cancelled. We're going on a bus now to Brussels that's going to get there at 2 am," said British student Abby Scott, 18.

"I'm supposed to go to a party tonight — I think I might just walk to The Hague," joked Ariane Gentile, 64, a school teacher.

Raging winds caused destruction across the country, with an entire row of trees falling on houses in a street in Haarlem, and beach houses and even a school damaged in northern provinces.

'Code red' 

The government sent out a mobile phone alert urging people to stay indoors in North Holland province, which includes Amsterdam, and to call overstretched emergency services only in "life-threatening" situations.

The Dutch meteorological service KNMI said winds of force 11, the second highest on the scale, were measured along with a gust of 146 km/h measured in the northern port of IJmuiden.

It was the "first very severe summer storm ever measured" in the country, Dutch weather service Weerplaza said, adding that the gusts were also the strongest ever recorded in the summer in The Netherlands.

The last storm of similar strength to hit The Netherlands at any time was in January 2018, it said.

Storm Poly came a day after a small tornado hit the central city of Apeldoorn, causing damage but no injuries, local media said.

With around a third of the country lying below sea level, The Netherlands is vulnerable to extreme weather and the effects of climate change, and has a huge system of water defences.

A violent North Sea storm on the night of January 31 to February 1, 1953, killed more than 1,836 Dutch people.

PARIS — One of the most senior figures in France's mainstream right-wing party was accused of "crass racism" on Wednesday after claiming that immigrant-origin people who took part in riots over the past week had undergone "a regression to their ethnic roots".

Bruno Retailleau, who heads the Republicans Party in the senate, was responding to a question about the identities of the people who have burned cars and clashed with police during the country's worst riots since 2005.

Although many of them were black or of north African origin, sparking calls for tighter curbs on immigration, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told parliament on Tuesday that 90 percent of the people arrested since last Tuesday were French citizens.

"OK, they're French, but these are French people in their official identity, and unfortunately for the second and third generations [of immigrants], there is a sort of regression towards their ethnic roots," Retailleau told Franceinfo radio.

He also criticised plans by President Emmanuel Macron to accelerate the payment of money to local authorities to help rebuild public buildings that he said were burned down by "savage people" — a racially loaded term.

"It's a double blow for French people: they have paid already and now we're going to need to rebuild because these savage people have set fire to them," he said.

The parliamentary head of the hard-left France Unbowed party, Mathilde Panot, denounced a "crass racism", while fellow MP Clementine Autain said that "these people, oozing racism, dare give lessons about good republican behaviour".

The comments from Retailleau, a conservative who has sought his party's presidential nomination in the past, underscore the increasingly shrill debate about immigration and identity in France.

The Republicans Party, which traces its roots to postwar hero Charles de Gaulle and has provided presidents from Jacques Chirac to Nicolas Sarkozy, has veered sharply rightwards under its new tough-talking leader Eric Ciotti.

It has been eclipsed by France’s far-right for much of the last decade, with veteran anti-immigration leader Marine Le Pen attaining her highest score ever in presidential elections last year.

The virulently anti-Islam media commentator Eric Zemmour, who has likened the riots to an “ethnic war”, has also emerged as a political competitor.

The riots began last Tuesday after the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old of Algerian origin during a traffic stop by police, reviving longstanding complaints about police brutality and racism in deprived areas of the country.

Darmanin, a right-winger in Macron’s centrist Cabinet, told parliament on Tuesday that “we don’t want hatred of the police or hatred of foreigners.

“In this terrible moment for our country, we need to remember that the republic is a balance: Yes, order and firmness. Yes, order that is just, but not order alone.”

KABUL — Afghanistan's Taliban authorities have ordered beauty parlours across the country to shut within a month, the vice ministry confirmed on Tuesday, the latest curb to squeeze women out of public life.

The order will force the closure of thousands of businesses run by women — often the only source of income for households — and outlaw one of the few remaining opportunities for them to socialise away from home.

"I think it would have been good if women did not exist at all in this society," said the manager of a Kabul parlour who asked not to be identified.

"I am saying this now: I wish I did not exist. I wish we were not born in Afghanistan, or were not from Afghanistan."

Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban government has barred girls and women from high schools and universities, banned them from parks, funfairs and gyms, and ordered them to cover up in public.

Women have also mostly been barred from working for the United Nations or NGOs, and thousands have been sacked from government jobs or are being paid to stay at home.

Mohammad Sadeq Akif Muhajir, spokesman for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, would not say why the order had been given.

"Once they are closed then we will share the reason with the media," he told AFP.

He said the businesses had been given time to close their affairs so they could use up their stock without incurring losses.

A copy of the order seen by AFP said it was "based on verbal instruction from the supreme leader" Hibatullah Akhundzada.

'Chat and gossip' 

Beauty parlours mushroomed across Kabul and other Afghan cities in the 20 years that US-led forces occupied the country.

They were seen as a safe place to gather and socialise away from men and provided vital business opportunities for women.

"Women used to chat, gossip. There was no fighting here, no noise," said a salon worker who asked to be identified only as Neelab.

"When we see some happy and active faces here, we are also refreshed. The salon has a very important role; this place makes us feel comfortable."

Another salon manager said she employed 25 women who were all breadwinners for their families.

"All of them are heartbroken... what should they do?" she said.

A report to the UN's Human Rights Council last week by Richard Bennett, the special rapporteur for Afghanistan, said the plight of women and girls in the country "was among the worst in the world".

"Grave, systematic and institutionalised discrimination against women and girls is at the heart of Taliban ideology and rule, which also gives rise to concerns that they may be responsible for gender apartheid," Bennett said.

'For what reason?' 

On Tuesday the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan appealed to authorities to revoke the salon order.

"This new restriction on women's rights will impact negatively on the economy & contradicts stated support for women entrepreneurship," it said in a tweet.

Akhundzada, who rarely appears in public and rules by decree from the Taliban's birthplace in Kandahar, said last month Afghan women were being saved from "traditional oppressions" by the adoption of Islamic governance and their status as "free and dignified human beings" restored.

He said in a statement marking the Eid Al Adha holiday that steps had been taken to provide women with a "comfortable and prosperous life according to Sharia".

Raha, a 24-year-old student until she was barred from university last year, was visiting a salon on Tuesday for a makeover before an engagement party.

"This place was the only place left for women to earn for themselves and they want to take it, too," she said.

"It's a question for all of us — why are they doing so? For what reason?"

MADRID, Spain — Twenty five years after one of Spain's worst ecological disasters, a court case against the Swedish mining company involved opened on Tuesday in the southern city of Seville.

The case, being brought by the regional government in Andalusia, holds mining company Boliden responsible for a 1998 toxic spill that contaminated a vast stretch of rivers and wetlands with heavy metals including arsenic, cadmium and mercury.

The Donana National Park wetlands, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are home to the endangered Iberian lynx and are a vital stopover point for millions of birds migrating between Europe and Africa.

The catastrophe occurred when a wastewater reserve pool burst at Boliden's Los Frailes lead and zinc mine in the city of Aznalcollar, spewing more than 5 million cubic metres of highly acid sludge into the river and groundwater.

The toxic spill on April 25, 1998, killed tens of tonnes of fish and polluted nearly 5,000 hectares of fragile wetland.

The Andalusian government spent millions on the clean-up.

The case got underway on Tuesday after years of legal wrangling, which ground to a halt in 2002 when the supreme court ruled that Boliden was not criminally responsible.

Boliden has always denied responsibility for the disaster and blamed a subsidiary of Spanish construction company Dragados that built the wastewater pool.

"Our position is that we took a huge responsibility with regards to the clean-up of the accident and therefore the claim should be written off," a Boliden spokesman told AFP.

The ecological disaster at the mine was one of the worst Spain has ever endured.

The government in Andalusia, where Aznalcollar is located, launched a civil suit against Boliden in 2002 after the dismissal of criminal cases brought by Andalusia, the Spanish state and environmental federations including Ecologists in Action.

The procedure was bogged down for years while Boliden launched repeated appeals, but in 2012 the supreme court ruled that the case against the company should go ahead.

The Andalus government said it now hoped "justice would be served".

It is seeking 89 million euros ($97 million) in compensation from the Swedish multinational — equivalent to the sums spent to try and clean up the 4,643 hectares that were contaminated.

Boliden was fined more than 45 million euros by the government in Madrid in August 2002 but it refused to pay on the grounds it had not been found guilty in court.

"A quarter of a century on, the case is still a legal maze without a decisive verdict," Ecologists in Action complained in a report in April.

"This case... is indicative of the way the mining industry operates worldwide," it said.

"This socially and environmentally irresponsible approach has turned the mining industry into one of the main threats to life on this planet."

The Aznalcollar mine, dropped by Boliden in 2001, is schedulled to reopen shortly, once new operator Mexican mining conglomerate Grupo Mexico obtains the outstanding authorisations from the regional authorities.