World

TURIN, Italy — A funeral mass for the head of the House of Savoy drew royals from across Europe on Saturday, who paid their respects to Prince Vittorio Emanuele, son of Italy’s last king.

But despite the royal pedigree of many of the guests, the funeral for the controversial crown prince who died last week at age 86 in Geneva was met with relative indifference in Turin, the historical seat of the Savoy dynasty.

Under rainy skies, Vittorio Emanuele’s widow Marina Doria and son Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy were seen entering the Duomo of Turin for the private ceremony, along with guests including Sofia of Spain, Albert II of Monaco and Jean of Luxembourg.

A small crowd of about 200 onlookers gathered outside the cathedral, adorned with funeral wreaths, as pallbearers carried inside the coffin draped by a flag bearing the House of Savoy’s red and white coat of arms.

Vittorio Emanuele will later be laid to rest in the family’s crypt within the Basilica of Superga overlooking Turin.

A scion of the thousand-year-old House of Savoy that ruled a united Italy from 1861 to 1946, Vittorio Emanuele lived for most of his life in exile in Switzerland, enjoying a jetset lifestyle including ski weekends and beach holidays.

But the claimant to the Italian throne was a controversial figure embroiled in numerous scandals — including a manslaughter charge for which he was ultimately acquitted — who did little to endear himself to his native country.

Born in Naples in 1937, he was the son of Umberto II, who briefly reigned in 1946 before Italy abolished the monarchy, and the grandson of Vittorio Emanuele III, who collaborated with Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime.

Although the House of Savoy put an indelible royal stamp on the northern city of Turin, including a sumptuous 17th century palace that is now a museum, the city’s mayor and other local authorities snubbed Saturday’s funeral. The deceased prince’s grandfather, “handed over Italy to Mussolini. His grandson deserves no public tribute”, the Corriere della Sera newspaper quoted Turin’s former mayor, Valentino Castellani, as saying. On Friday however, the senate speaker, Ignazio La Russa, co-founder of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy Party, paid his respects during a viewing.

Emanuele Filiberto told journalists Friday his father wanted to be buried in “the city he loved”.

“He was a father, a friend, a teacher,” he said, calling his father “an extraordinary person who treated everyone equally, from the most humble to the most important”.

Vittorio Emanuele left Italy with his parents in 1946 at age nine, when Italy voted for a republic in a historic referendum and barred the return of the royal family discredited by its association with Fascism.

He did not return to Italy until 2002, after the Italian parliament ended a constitutional ban on the dynasty’s male heirs, a visit in which he swore loyalty to the republic.

The prince’s reputation was severely damaged in 1978 when he was accused of having accidentally killed a 19-year-old German, Dirk Hamer, after shooting twice at a dinghy anchored in a Corsican port near his family’s summer estate.

Finally put on trial in France over a decade later, he was acquitted in 1991 of manslaughter, but convicted of possession of an unauthorised rifle for which he received a six-months suspended sentence.

Vittorio Emanuele always maintained his innocence in Hamer’s death.

The episode became the subject of a 2023 Netflix documentary, “The King Who Never Was”.

The series revealed a 2006 wiretapped prison conversation while Emanuele Vittorio was in jail over a separate racketeering scandal — for which he was similarly acquitted — in which he is heard telling his cellmate that he had “conned” the French judges in the Hamer case.

In 2007, he and Emanuele Filiberto demanded 260 million euros in damages from the Italian state over the family’s exile and the return of the royal family’s property.

After a public outcry, they renounced the claim.

Vittorio Emmanuele married his wife Marina Doria, a Swiss former waterskiing champion, in 1971. Their son, Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy — who is married to French actress Clotilde Courau — was born in 1972 in Geneva.

WASHINGTON — A majority of justices on the US Supreme Court appeared to be leaning on Thursday towards rejecting a ruling by a state court that would bar Donald Trump from running for president again.

During two hours of high-stakes arguments, both conservative and liberal members of the nation’s highest court expressed concern about having states decide individually which candidates can be on the presidential ballot this November.

The question before the nine justices was whether Trump is ineligible to appear on the Republican presidential primary ballot in the state of Colorado because he engaged in an insurrection — the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol by his supporters.

Colorado’s Supreme Court, citing the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, ruled in December that Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, should be barred from appearing on the ballot because of his role on January 6.

It is most consequential election law case to feature in the nation’s highest court since it halted the Florida vote recount in 2000 with Republican George W. Bush narrowly leading Democrat Al Gore.

Jonathan Mitchell, a former solicitor general of Texas representing Trump, opened the oral arguments and said only Congress can disqualify a candidate.

“The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision is wrong and should be reversed,” Mitchell said, adding that it would “take away the votes of potentially tens of millions of Americans”.

Jason Murry, representing the Colorado voters who brought the case, countered that Trump should be disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars anyone from holding public office if they engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” after once pledging to support and defend the Constitution.

The amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, was aimed at preventing supporters of the slave-holding breakaway Confederacy from being elected to Congress or from holding federal positions.

Trump, speaking to reporters in Florida, said he’d followed the court hearing and that he hoped for a ruling in his favor.

Pointing out his dominance in Republican opinion polls, he said: “Can you take the person that’s leading everywhere and say, ‘Hey, we’re not gonna let you run?’ You know, I think that’s pretty tough to do, but I’m leaving it up to the Supreme Court.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative, expressed concern over what he called the “daunting consequence” of upholding the state court ruling.

“If Colorado’s position is upheld, surely there will be disqualification proceedings on the other side,” Roberts said. “I would expect that a goodly number of states will say ‘Whoever the Democratic candidate is, you’re off the ballot.’

“It will come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election,” he said.

Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, and several other justices, three of whom were nominated by Trump, appeared to be skeptical about leaving ballot questions to individual states.

“I think that the question that you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States?” Kagan told Murray. “Why should a single state have the ability to make this determination not only for their own citizens but for the rest of the nation?”

“Different states can have different procedures,” Murray replied. “Some states may allow insurrectionists to be on the ballot.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative, questioned the impact on democracy of disqualifying the 77-year-old Trump. “Your position has the effect of disenfranchising voters to a significant degree,” he said.

“The reason we’re here is that President Trump tried to disenfranchise 80 million Americans who voted against him and the Constitution doesn’t require that he be given another chance,” Murray replied.

About 20 demonstrators, some carrying signs reading “Trump Is a Traitor” and “Remove Trump”, protested outside the court ahead of the hearing.

The high court has been traditionally loath to get involved in contentious political questions, but it finds itself taking center stage this year in the White House race.

Besides the Colorado case, the Supreme Court may also agree to hear an appeal by Trump of a lower court ruling that he does not enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president and can be tried on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump was impeached by the Democratic-majority House of Representatives for inciting an insurrection but was acquitted by the Senate.

BRUSSELS — There are no current EU talks about imposing sanctions on US talk show host Tucker Carlson, who is poised to air an interview with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, a spokesman said on Thursday in response to rumours amplified by technology billionaire Elon Musk.

“It’s not up to us to try to pre-empt or speculate whether someone will be proposed by a member state or group of member states to be put on the sanctions list,” Peter Stano, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, told reporters.

The established sanctions procedure was “confidential”, he added.

“I can say beyond this that currently there are no discussions in the relevant EU bodies linked to this specific person,” he said, when asked about the suggestion Carlson may be targeted.

European lawmaker Guy Verhofstadt on Monday tweeted that the EU “should explore a travel ban” against Carlson if he “enables disinformation” for the Russian president.

That appears to have led to online speculation that the EU was considering the move — to which Musk responded in a tweet to his 171 million followers, writing: “If true, this would be disturbing indeed.”

Stano recalled that the EU had until now sanctioned some 2,000 people and entities in connection with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago, including Russian media accused of spreading propaganda such as Sputnik and RT.

“We did it because of their continued track record of constantly accompanying the Russian military aggression with the information warfare,” Stano said.

He stressed that any addition to the EU’s sanctions list would need unanimous support from its 27 member states.

“Everything needs to be backed by enough evidence because everyone who is sanctioned by the EU has the right to appeal to the EU court,” Stano said.

Former Fox News host Carlson, a key ally of Donald Trump and vocal opponent of US military aid for Ukraine, travelled to Moscow for Putin’s first interview with a Western journalist since Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

Carlson has said the sit-down, which has already been recorded, would be broadcast at 2300 GMT Thursday on his website, and posted to X, formerly Twitter.

“We can all assume what Putin might be saying,” said Stano. “This is a chronic liar who is just spreading lies about his illegal operation against the Ukrainian people.”

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia fired dozens of missiles and drones at Ukraine on Wednesday in a “massive” early morning attack that killed at least four and injured more than a dozen, officials in Kyiv said.

Russian strikes on the capital Kyiv killed three people, local authorities said, as images showed a large fire billowing in the top floors of a high-rise residential building.

“Another massive attack against our country. Six regions were under enemy attack,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on social media.

Attacks were also recorded in the northeast and south of the country as well as in the western Lviv region, hundreds of kilometres from the frontlines.

Three people were killed in Kyiv, while one person was killed in the southern Mykolaiv region, officials said.

“The enemy carried out several strikes on the territory of Ukraine, using various means of air attack — strike UAVs, cruise, ballistic and anti-aircraft guided missiles,” commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny said.

He said Russia fired a total 20 drones and 44 missiles in the morning attack.

Ukraine’s air force shot down 15 of the drones and 29 of the missiles, he added.

At least 16 were injured in Kyiv, the city administration said, with other officials warning the toll could rise.

A hit to an 18-storey residential building in Kyiv’s southern Golosiivskyi district triggered a fire on the top floors, with dark smoke seen billowing from its blown-out windows.

Some 52 people were evacuated from the building, the Kyiv city administration said.

An AFP journalist saw 13 ambulances and nine fire engines at the site, and firefighters inside the building attempting to put out the blaze.

“There are probably dead people under the rubble,” Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said.

‘Ukraine needs help 

As rescuers were working in Kyiv, Zelensky’s top aide branded Russian President Vladimir Putin a “criminal” in a post on social media.

“Russian missiles. Kyiv. Again a residential building. This is what they spend their money on. Attacks on civilians. Ukraine needs help,” Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said.

The attack started at around 06:00am local time (04:00 GMT), Ukraine’s air force said, with the all-clear sounding just before 09:00am.

Energy outages were also recorded in parts of the Ukrainian capital, with almost 20,000 left without power, the energy ministry said.

In the southern Mykolaiv region, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said the attack stripped roofs off 20 houses and damaged gas and water pipes in the port city, where one was killed.

The attack came as EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell was making a visit to the capital.

He went to an air-raid shelter in his hotel during the attack, an AFP journalist saw.

QUETTA, Pakistan — At least 22 people were killed on Wednesday in two separate bomb blasts outside the offices of election candidates in south-western Pakistan.

More than half-a-million security officers were deploying ahead of Thursday’s election, with authorities distributing ballot papers to more than 90,000 polling stations. 

There have been multiple security incidents in the run-in to the vote, with at least two candidates shot dead and dozens more targeted in attacks across the country.

On Wednesday, a first improvised explosive device (IED) blast killed 12 people near the office of an independent candidate in Pishin district, around 50 kilometres  from the city of Quetta and 100 kilometres from the Afghan border.

Caretaker information minister for Balochistan province Jan Achakzai and Quetta police said 25 people were also wounded. 

A second IED detonated near the election office of a candidate for the Islamist Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) Party in the city of Killa Saifullah — about 120 kilometres east — according to Achakzai.

“At least 10 people were killed and 12 others injured,” he told AFP.

“The incident took place in the main bazaar of the city area, where the election office of the JUI-F was targeted,” a senior police official told AFP.

In July last year, 44 people were killed by a suicide bomber at a political gathering of the party in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Rise in attacks 

The election has been marred by allegations of pre-poll rigging following a crackdown on the party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, winner of the 2018 poll, but booted out of power by a national assembly vote of no-confidence four years later.

Campaigning officially ended on Tuesday night and voting is due to begin at 8:00am local time (03:00 GMT) Thursday, closing at 5:00pm.

The figures are staggering in a country of 240 million people — the world’s fifth most populous — with around 128 million eligible to vote.

Nearly 18,000 candidates are standing for seats in the national and four provincial assemblies, with 266 seats directly contested in the former — an additional 70 reserved for women and minorities — and 749 places in the regional parliaments.

“We must ensure security measures at every level,” Sindh provincial police chief Rafat Mukhtar told a news briefing on Wednesday in the port city of Karachi.

The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank, said there had been a “staggering” rise in militant attacks in the past year with an average of 54 per month — the most since 2015, when the army launched a massive crackdown on militant groups.

Whoever wins takes over a deeply divided country, observers say, with the economy in tatters.

Inflation is galloping at nearly 30 per cent, the rupee has been in free fall for three years and a balance of payments deficit has frozen imports, severely hampering industrial growth.

Pollsters have said the election has left the population at its most “discouraged” in years.

“The political atmosphere ahead of Pakistan’s first general election since 2018 is equally as glum as the economic one,” the polling agency Gallup said.

“Seven in 10 Pakistanis lack confidence in the honesty of their elections. While this ties previous highs, it nevertheless represents a significant regression in recent years.”

LOS ANGELES — A powerful storm lashing California on Monday has left at least three people dead and caused devastating mudslides and flooding, after dumping months’ worth of rain in a single day.

More than 25 centimetres of rain was recorded in one part of Los Angeles County in 24 hours of downpour, with no letup forecast in the coming days.

Mountainsides collapsed in the tony Hollywood Hills area, burying cars and damaging houses, while in nearby Beverly Glen, a mudslide knocked one home off its foundation.

The house’s contents — including a piano — were swept onto the road in the swanky neighbourhood, where homes routinely change hands for millions of dollars.

“It sounded like lightning,” resident Dave Christensen told broadcaster KTLA.

“When I went out to... see what was there, I thought I saw a water heater where the house used to be and sure enough it was because the house had slid off the hill and into the road.”

The Los Angeles Fire Department said it had recorded 130 floods and 39 debris flows, with the risk of more to come as Monday’s rain ramps back up. 

The precipitation comes from a line of moisture rolling in from the Pacific Ocean, a so-called atmospheric river dumping billions of litres of water.

Forecasters at the National Weather Service (NWS) said much more rain was expected, and warned of “life-threatening flash flooding”.

“An ongoing atmospheric river event will continue to produce multiple rounds of heavy rainfall to parts of southern California including the Los Angeles Basin through Tuesday,” the agency said.

“Dangerous small streams, urban and river flooding, mudslides, strong winds and high surf will all be possible.”

Up to eight more inches of rain could fall, the agency said, taking the running total in some areas to 35.56 centimetres.

The extreme weather led California Governor Gavin Newsom to declare a state of emergency for a large part of Southern California.

“This is a serious storm with dangerous and potentially life-threatening impacts,” he said.

Downtown Los Angeles saw one of its wettest days ever on Sunday, with more than four inches of rain, according to the local NWS office.

“It is vital now more than ever, stay safe and off the roads,” Mayor Karen Bass said.

“Only leave your house if it is absolutely necessary.”

Travel was tricky throughout the region, with highways jammed and city streets flooded.

Problems with drainage regularly leave intersections flooded in Los Angeles, where infrastructure struggles to cope with even moderate amounts of rain.

The weather was causing difficulty for air travel, with flights cancelled and delayed out of Los Angeles Airport, according to Flightaware.com.

Over the mountains, the rain was falling as snow, with parts of the Sierra Nevada range in line for another blanketing, bringing the weekly total to around more than a metre.

‘Pineapple express’ 

The atmospheric river is part of a phenomenon known as a “pineapple express”, a weather system that brings tropical moisture from the ocean near Hawaii.

The NWS described it as “the largest storm of the season”.

The disruption was widespread, with San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area registering wind gusts as high as 164 kilometres per hour Sunday, the local NWS said. 

Three people were killed in separate incidents after trees were felled by the storm, with one dead in Santa Cruz county, one in Yuba county and one in Sacramento, officials said.

Over 300,000 customers across the state were without power on Monday afternoon, according to electricity supply tracker PowerOutage.us.

The US West Coast endured a difficult winter last year when a series of atmospheric rivers dumped billions of gallons of rain and snow.

That brought widespread flooding and travel disruption, as well as problems with the power grid.

But it also replenished severely depleted reservoirs, which had sunk to record lows after years of intense drought.

While wet weather is not unusual during California’s winters, scientists say human-caused climate change is altering the planet’s weather patterns.

This makes storms wetter, more violent and unpredictable, while causing dry periods to be hotter and longer.

BRUSSELS — The European Union on Tuesday unveils its climate targets for 2040 and a roadmap for the next stage of its energy transition, with the bloc reeling from a farmer revolt against green reforms just months before European elections.

In a sign of how politically fraught the issue has become, European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen gave key ground to the farmer movement on Tuesday by deciding to bury a plan to halve chemical pesticide use by the end of this decade.

The commission’s original proposal “has become a symbol of polarisation”, she acknowledged to the European Parliament, noting that the legislation had stalled due to divisions between EU lawmakers and member countries.

The concession, made hours before the 2040 climate announcement, came as farmers converged outside the parliament building in another protest over shrinking incomes and rising production costs.

The 27-nation European Union has already committed to a 55 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, as it seeks to become carbon neutral by 2050.

For the next milestone, 2040, working documents suggest the European Commission will aim for a drop of 90 per cent, compared to 1990 levels.

But this time Brussels has to factor in growing discontent — illustrated by the snowballing farmer protests of recent weeks — over the social and economic impact of its much-vaunted Green Deal.

Far-right and anti-establishment parties have latched onto the farmers’ movement and are predicted to make big gains in June elections to choose the members of the next EU assembly.

That vote will also lead to a new commission late this year. Von der Leyen has not yet said whether she intends to seek a new mandate at its helm.

There is a vocal backlash from some industries to the bloc’s climate policies and several national leaders are now calling for a “pause” in new environmental rules.

The EU’s climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, last month warned the bloc needed to stand by its climate ambition while “making sure our businesses stay competitive”.

‘Leave no one behind’

Striking that balance is at the heart of a joint letter to Brussels, sent by 11 states including France, Germany and Spain, and seen by AFP.

Together they urge the commission to set an “ambitious EU climate target” for 2040.

But the states also call for a “fair and just transition” that should “leave no-one behind, especially the most vulnerable citizens”.

The targets laid out on Tuesday will be a simple recommendation.

They will be accompanied by new post-2030 climate projections the commission was required to produce within six months of December’s UN climate negotiations (COP28).

The next European Commission will be tasked with turning the outline into proposed legislation ahead of next year’s international climate summit.

The bloc’s 2040 targets are expected to rely in part on the capture and storage of ambitious volumes of carbon dioxide — incensing climate campaigners who criticise the technologies as untested and want to see gross emissions-cut pledges instead.

Even so, the plan would require a sizeable effort from every sector of the economy — from power generation to farming, which accounts for 11 per cent of EU greenhouse gas emissions.

‘Very ambitious’ 

Some of the strongest resistance to tougher environmental action comes from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), from which von der Leyen hails.

The EPP’s Peter Liese says a more cautious stance is justified.

“It’s easy to fix a figure,” he said, but as the bloc has been implementing its existing 2030 target, “we see more and more how ambitious it is”. 

Liese considers a 90 per cent emissions cut to be a “very ambitious” target for 2040 and stresses the need for “the right conditions, the right policy framework”.

Elisa Giannelli, of the E3G climate advocacy group, urged the EU to keep the social impact of its climate policies front of mind.

“Getting this wrong”, she said, “would allow conservative and populist voices to set the direction of the next steps”.

The United Nations climate change organisation said in November the world was not acting with sufficient urgency to curb greenhouse gas emissions and thus limit global heating to 1.5oC above pre-industrial emissions.

With temperatures soaring and 2023 expected to be recorded as the warmest year so far in human history, scientists say the pressure on world leaders to curb planet-heating greenhouse gas pollution has never been more urgent.