World

PARIS — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday urged against "escalatory actions by any party" in the Middle East, following the explosions of devices of Lebanese militant group Hizbollah blamed on Israel.

"France and the Unit-ed States are united in calling for restraint and urging de-escalation when it comes to the Middle East in general and when it comes to Lebanon in particular," Blinken said after talks in Paris with his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne.

Blinken said this was especially important at a time when the international community was continuing work to agree a ceasefire in Gaza to end the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

"We continue to work to get a ceasefire for Gaza over the finish line... We believe that remains both possible and necessary. But meanwhile we don't want to see any escala-tory actions by any party that makes that more dif-ficult," Blinken said.

Sejourne, making one of his final public appearances ahead of a Cabinet reshuffle that will see him sent to Brussels as France's new EU commis-sioner, said both France and the United States were "very worried about the situation" in the Mid-dle East.

He said both the United States and France were coordinating to "send messages of de-escala-tion" to the parties.

"Lebanon would not re-cover from a total war," he said.

Fears of a major war on Israel's northern border have increased after thousands of Hizbollah operatives' communica-tion devices exploded across Lebanon, killing 37 people and wounding nearly 3,000 more across two days.

AYOTZINAPA, Mexico — A decade after their children vanished, the parents of 43 Mexican students presumed to have been massacred hope that a new president will finally reveal the truth about the tragedy.

"We'll keep fighting until we get truth and justice," vowed Maria de Jesus Tlatempa, whose son Jose Eduardo was 19 when he disappeared.

The case of the students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college in the southern state of Guerrero is considered one of the worst human rights atrocities in Mexico, where a spiral of drug-related violence has left more than 100,000 people missing.

After their disappearance shocked the nation, "people started approaching us to tell us that they had also been looking for a missing person, a daughter or a son, for years," Tlatempa told AFP.

She hopes that president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum will take up outgoing leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's pledge to uncover the facts about what happened on the night of September 26-27, 2014 in the city of Iguala.

"If a man couldn't do it, let a woman," said Tlatempa, who along with other relatives was preparing to mobilize on Wednesday for the start of events marking the sombre anniversary.

Their anger is expected to peak on September 26 with an annual protest march in Mexico City, days before Sheinbaum takes oath as Mexico's first woman president on October 1.

The students from the Ayotzinapa college, whose members have a history of political activism, had commandeered buses to travel to a demonstration in Mexico City when they went missing.

Investigators believe they were kidnapped by a drug cartel in collusion with corrupt police, although exactly what happened to them is unclear.

"Alive they took them! Alive we want them!" the families and their supporters regularly chant at protests.

But 10 years later, the focus has turned to finding the remains as well as the truth about who was responsible, in a country where criminal violence has claimed more than 450,000 lives since 2006.

So far, the remains of only three of the victims have been identified through genetic testing of bone fragments.

'The army knew'

In 2022, a truth commission set up by the government branded the Ayotzinapa case a "state crime" and said the military shared responsibility, either directly or through negligence.

One theory it put forward was that cartel members targeted the students because they had unknowingly taken a bus with drugs hidden inside.

Lopez Obrador says progress has been made by his government, while promising relatives that he will continue working on the case until the final day of his presidency.

Last year, the commission found that the army was aware of what was happening and had real-time information about the kidnapping and disappearance.

"We know that the army knew. They know where our children are," said Tlatempa, lamenting the army's failure to hand over all the documents it has on the case.

Arrest warrants have been issued for dozens of suspects, including military personnel and a former attorney general who led a controversial investigation into the mass disappearance.

Since attendance at the Ayotzinapa college is free, the tragedy struck families from modest backgrounds without enough money to put their children through private education.

"My son wanted to study engineering. But since I had cancer at the time, I told him to choose a school where he can finish his studies, because I'm not going to be able to help you with your education," Tlatempa said.

"We are people with low incomes," she added.

Such free teacher training colleges have always been considered by the authorities as a "nest of guerrillas" and "activists," said former student Manuel Vazquez Arellano, now a ruling party lawmaker.

They could not know it when their children were born, but the victims' relatives have also become activists over the years.

"We had never spoken in public. I never imagined that one day I would go to the government palace," said Estanislao Mendoza, who remembers his son Miguel Angel as a fun-loving 33-year-old.

"He wanted to be a teacher after working for years as a hairdresser," he said.

Mendoza recognizes progress has been made under Lopez Obrador, including the detention of soldiers in connection with the case.

"But they don't tell us where our children are," he said.

PARIS – Longer and more frequent heatwaves, soaring demand for air conditioning, and widespread disease: life in cities would become unbearable should the planet keep warming at current rates, researchers warned Thursday.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) looked at what might happen in nearly 1,000 major cities if temperatures remain on track to rise 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

They found that the impact on these cities, and the 2.1 billion people who inhabit them, would be dire compared to a scenario where global warming is restricted to 1.5C.

"At 3 degrees C of warming, many cities could face month-long heatwaves, skyrocketing energy demand for air conditioning, as well as a shifting risk for insect-borne diseases, sometimes simultaneously," the authors wrote.

In 2015, nearly 200 nations agreed in Paris that the world must strive to limit global warming to 1.5C to avoid the most disastrous consequences of climate change.

Taken together, the world's climate pledges and commitments today would only cap warming at 2.9C, according to the latest UN assessments.

"The difference between 1.5 degrees C and 3 degrees C has life or death consequences for billions of people worldwide," said Rogier van den Berg of WRI, a US-based think tank.

Poorest hit hard

Their report, slated for publication in April but delayed for a revision, underscores the particular risk for fast-growing cities in low-income countries.

By 2050, two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities and more than 90 per cent of that urban growth will occur in Africa and Asia.

"People living in low-income cities will be the hardest hit," the authors wrote.

The IPCC, the world's leading scientific authority on climate change, has also been examining the specific threat for cities posed by rising temperatures and is devoting a major upcoming report to the issue.

Robert Vautard, co-chair of an IPCC working group, said cities had "very specific climate problems" and most "were not yet built, so there is real potential for transformation at the root".

Across the world's largest cities, WRI estimates the longest heatwave each year could last 16.3 days on average under a 1.5C scenario, but 24.5 days at 3C.

Their frequency is also likely to rise, from 4.9 heatwaves per year in the average city to 6.4 per year.

This would in turn spur enormous demand for air conditioning and energy.

In Johannesburg, demand for air conditioning at 3C would be 69 percent higher than at 1.5C, placing extra strain on a city that already suffers water and electricity shortages.

'Wake up call'

Hotter cities would also provide optimal conditions for mosquitoes that carry potentially life-threatening arboviruses like dengue, zika and chikungunya.

At 3C of warming, 11 of Brazil's largest cities could see high arbovirus risk for at least six months of the year.

In Rio de Janeiro, this would rise 71 per cent from 69 days of peak transmission to 118 days per year.

Conversely, rising temperatures may reduce the number of peak malaria days around the world, though cities in temperate zones in Europe or North America could witness an increase.

Again, the poorest cities, those with the least means to adapt to climate change, are the most exposed.

Freetown, Dakar, Sierre Leone and other capitals in sub-Saharan Africa "could suffer heatwaves of more than a month" with an average of seven such events each year.

"This data should serve as a wakeup call... now is the time to start preparing cities for a much hotter world while doing everything we can to slash emissions," said van den Berg.

PARIS — The prospect of Donald Trump returning as president is hanging over crucial UN-sponsored climate negotiations, with countries "holding back" their positions until they know who sits in the White House.

Veteran observers of climate diplomacy say uncertainty over the election outcome is stalking this November's COP29 summit, which starts just six days after voters decide between Trump and Kamala Harris.

The election lands awkwardly as governments try to build global consensus in coming months not just around climate but stronger protections for the environment and a treaty to address plastic pollution.

As president, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris agreement on global warming, Joe Biden later rejoined the accord, and there are concerns over what his re-election might mean for climate action.

This year's negotiations hope to increase money for poorer countries to handle climate change, but some governments have not proposed a concrete dollar figure, wary of committing too soon.

"Everybody is holding back until they know who gets elected," said Mohamed Adow, a campaigner and head of research group Power Shift Africa.

This apparent wait-and-see approach has frustrated those seeking a new long-term commitment at COP29 from rich nations to pay the trillions of dollars needed for clean energy and climate adaptation in developing countries.

Ali Mohamed, chair of the African Group of Negotiators, accused developed countries of navel gazing and displaying "a lack of seriousness" at the bargaining table.

"The climate change situation really doesn't care about who is at the helm of the US, whether it is a Republican or a Democrat," he told AFP.

"Elections will come and go, but the problem is still there."

Hedging bets

The months of lead-up sessions to COP29, which is being hosted this year in Azerbaijan, have been painfully slow even by the plodding standards of global climate diplomacy, participants say.

With just two months to go, there still isn't an agreed definition of "climate finance" let alone how much should be paid, which countries should receive it and how, and who should be on the hook for it.

Wealthy donors historically obligated to pay, like the United States, European Union and Canada, have not put forward a figure, instead pushing for China and other big emerging economies to also chip in.

"Governments are holding back, and they're trying to hedge their bets. Many of them don't have a strong enough motive to move," said Tom Evans, policy advisor at E3G, a think tank.

The US election was "hanging over everyone, and it's hard to look past that sometimes".

Mohamed, who is Kenya's special climate envoy, described the latest round of discussions in Baku this month as "very disappointing".

"From the developed world, there's too much 'in-looking' and passing the buck," he said.

Shaky ground

Divisions between rich and poor countries over who should pay for the damaging costs of climate change have always been fraught.

But the EU's reluctance to talk numbers could be partly explained by anxiety over the US election, said Linda Kalcher, executive director of Strategic Perspectives, a European think tank.

Some developing countries are demanding north of $1 trillion annually, a 10-fold increase on existing pledges.

If elected, Trump could slash funding for the climate and Ukraine, leaving the EU, which saw swings to the right in elections this year, footing the bill.

"It's really a very shaky, and not necessarily fertile, political setting to talk about higher climate finance numbers, and I think especially the anticipation of the US election brings even bigger uncertainty," Kalcher told AFP.

"The moment they put a number in there, they will have higher pressure to actually stick to that number."

The United States has historically underpaid on climate finance and observers said a Trump victory would not stop a deal being reached.

But donors would nonetheless feel "pretty exposed" committing more cash if they couldn't count on Washington's support to pay its share and push China to do the same, Evans said.

"They (China) will not be under that pressure in a Trump scenario and similarly, other major emitters I think will feel a slight easing off of attention," he said.

Political leaders would be more pressed than usual at COP29 to make up for lost time, said Li Shuo, a Washington-based expert on climate diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

He told AFP any progress until then would be incremental, at best.

"The real decisions... will only start to emerge after the US election."

BEIJING — China imposed sanctions on nine US defence firms on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said, describing the measures as retaliation for Washington’s approval of military equipment sales to Taiwan this week.

“Weapons sales by the United States to China’s Taiwan region have seriously violated the one-China principle,... seriously infringed upon China’s sovereignty and security interests, [and] damaged China-US relations,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a news conference.

“China strongly condemns and firmly opposes this and has lodged solemn representations with the United States,” Lin said.

He said Beijing was “taking resolute countermeasures” by imposing sanctions on nine US defence firms, which were announced in an earlier foreign ministry statement.

The companies, which include aerospace firm Sierra Nevada Corporation, will have their assets in China frozen and all transactions with China-based people and entities will be prohibited, the statement said.

The United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979 but has remained Taiwan’s most important partner and its biggest arms supplier, sparking repeated condemnations from China.

Beijing and Washington have repeatedly butted heads in recent years on a range of other issues related to trade, access to advanced technology and China’s increasingly assertive actions in the disputed South China Sea.

Top White House aide Jake Sullivan met high-ranking Chinese military official Zhang Youxia last month during the first visit to China by a US national security adviser since 2016.

Zhang warned during that meeting that the status of the self-ruled island was “the first red line that cannot be crossed in China-US relations”, demanding that the United States “halts military collusion with Taiwan”.