ORSK, Russia — Russia and Kazakhstan ordered more than 100,000 people to evacuate after swiftly melting snow swelled rivers beyond bursting point in the worst flooding in the area for at least 70 years. 

The deluge of melt water overwhelmed scores of settlements in the Ural Mountains, Siberia and areas of Kazakhstan close to rivers such as the Ural and Tobol, which local officials said had risen by meters in a matter of hours to the highest levels ever recorded. 

Late on Tuesday, levels of the Ural River in Orenburg, a city of around 550,000, reached 9.31 meters (30.54 feet) exceeding the critical level of 9.30 meters (30.51 feet), the regional governor said. He urged residents in areas at risk to evacuate. 

“I am calling for caution and for those in flooded districts to evacuate promptly,” Denis Pasler said on Telegram. 

City residents paddled along roads as though they were rivers. Dams and embankments were being strengthened.  

Upstream on the Ural, floodwaters burst through an embankment dam in the city of Orsk last Friday. 

Regional officials said water levels in Orsk had subsided by 21 centimeters (.68 feet) and now stood at 9.07 meters 29.75 feet), still well over the official danger level of about 7 meters (22.96 feet). Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said water levels had declined in a number of areas but described the situation as “still difficult.” 

The Ural is Europe’s third-longest river, which flows through Russia and Kazakhstan into the Caspian. 

Evacuation order 

Sirens in Kurgan, a city on the Tobol River, a tributary of the Irtysh, warned people to evacuate immediately. Regional officials said floodwaters would continue to rise for three days and predicted a “difficult situation” until the end of April. 

A state of emergency was also declared in Tyumen, a major oil-producing region of Western Siberia, the largest hydrocarbon basin in the world. Russian news agencies said Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov had arrived in the city as part of a regional tour assessing flood danger. 

“The difficult days are still ahead for the Kurgan and Tyumen regions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “There is a lot of water coming.” 

Tyumen is about 200 kilometers (124.27 miles) north of Kurgan. 

President Vladimir Putin spoke to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan, where more than 86,000 people have been evacuated because of the flooding. Tokayev said the flooding was probably the worst in 80 years. 

The most severely hit areas are Atyrau, Aktobe, Akmola, Kostanai, Eastern Kazakhstan, Northern Kazakhstan and Pavlodar regions, most of which border Russia and are crossed by rivers originating in Russia such as the Ural and the Tobol. 

Russians beg for help

In Russia, anger boiled over in Orsk when at least 100 Russians begged the Kremlin chief for help and chanted “shame on you” at local officials who they said had done too little. 

The Kremlin said Putin was being updated on the situation but had no immediate plans to visit the flood zone as local and emergency officials were doing their best to tackle the deluge.  

In Kurgan, a region with 800,000 residents, drone footage showed traditional Russian wooden houses and the golden kupolas of Orthodox Churches stranded alongside an expanse of water.  

Russian officials have said some people ignored calls to evacuate. Kurgan Governor Vadim Shumkov urged residents to take the warnings seriously. 

“We understand you very well: It is hard to leave your possessions and move somewhere at the call of the local authorities,” Shumkov said. “It’s better that we laugh at the hydrologists together later and praise God for the miracle of our common salvation. But let’s do it alive.” 

In Kurgan, water levels were rising in the Tobol. Russia said 19,000 people were at risk in the region.  

Rising waters were also forecast in Siberia’s Ishim River, also a tributary of the Irtysh, which along with its parent, the Ob, forms the world’s seventh-longest river system. 

It was not immediately clear why this year’s floods were so severe as the snow melt is an annual event in Russia. Scientists say climate change has made flooding more frequent worldwide. 
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WASHINGTON — The United States is welcoming South Korean sanctions imposed on Russian vessels suspected of transporting weapons from North Korea, despite Russian protests. 

“We applaud the recent actions taken by the ROK to disrupt and expose arms transfers between the DPRK and Russia – including the sanctions … on two Russian vessels involved in arms transfers to Russia,” a State Department spokesperson said.

“It is important for the international community to send a strong, unified message that the DPRK must halt its irresponsible behavior, abide by its obligations under U.N. Security Council resolutions, and engage in serious and sustained diplomacy,” the spokesperson said Friday via email to the VOA Korean Service.

South Korea on April 2 unilaterally sanctioned two Russian vessels involved in delivering military supplies from North Korea to Russia.  

The next day at a press briefing, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called Seoul’s move “an unfriendly step” that “leads only to escalation of tensions” and “will affect South Korea-Russia relations in a negative way.” 

She said Moscow would respond to the sanctions but did not specify how. 

On Friday, Russia said it had summoned South Korea’s ambassador.  

The South Korean sanctions followed Russia’s veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for the annual extension of the U.N. experts panel that monitors sanctions on North Korea. The panel’s mandate ends at the end of April.

The ties between Pyongyang and Moscow have been growing since a summit in September. Since then, North Korea has been providing munitions that Russia needs to fight its war in Ukraine.

“The ROK government getting involved in applying sanctions, seizures, and other active counterproliferation authorities and capabilities against the North is a huge step forward in joint cooperation to counter, protect and contain the DPRK regime’s weapons exports,” said David Asher, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.   

Asher worked on disrupting North Korea’s illicit financial, trading and weapons of mass destruction networks under the George W. Bush administration.

In an email to VOA on Monday, Asher added, “I fully expect ROK-U.S.-Japan cooperation to expand in counterproliferation, including the identification and targeting of weapons supply networks using intelligence operations, law enforcement, and sanctions.”

A day after announcing the sanctions, Seoul said it had seized a vessel that was suspected of violating U.N. sanctions on North Korea. South Korea said it was investigating the DEYI, a cargo ship that was en route to Russia from North Korea via China, after seizing it in waters off the South Korean port city of Yeosu.

“This reinforces that countries can implement U.N. sanctions, on their own, as they have responsibility to do so,” especially after Russia blocked the U.N. experts panel’s mandate, said Anthony Ruggiero, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Ruggiero has over 19 years working on financial sanctions and proliferation issues, including ones involving North Korea.

There is a broad international and domestic set of legal authorities that countries like South Korea could rely on to go after illicit exports and maritime activities by North Korea, but it is a matter of “whether countries are willing to stop” vessels making illegal actions, Ruggiero said during a telephone interview on Monday. 

A U.N. Security Council resolution passed in 2017 authorizes member states to seize, inspect, freeze and impound vessels in their territorial waters found to be conducting illicit activities with Pyongyang and carrying banned goods from North Korea.  

A State Department spokesperson told VOA’s Korean Service on Thursday that the U.S. is “coordinating closely with the ROK in its investigation of this ship in connection with U.N. sanctions violations.”

“Despite Russia’s veto of the 1718 Committee Panel of Experts mandate in order to bury reporting on its violation of U.S. Security Council resolutions, U.N. sanctions on the DPRK remain in place, and all U.N. member states are still required to implement them,” the spokesperson said.

Nate Evans, the spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the U.N., said Monday that U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield will travel to South Korea and Japan next week to discuss ways to monitor international sanctions on North Korea.

South Korea estimated in March that North Korea has shipped about 7,000 containers full of munitions to Russia since last year. The U.S. assessed the same month the number of containers to be 10,000.

Joshua Stanton, an attorney based in Washington who helped draft the Sanctions and Policy Enforcement Act in 2016, told VOA on Monday via email that Seoul could seize ships carrying weapons from North Korea to Russia if certain criteria are met. 

Seoul could do so “if South Korea has reasonable cause to believe that the vessel is engaged in sanctions evasion, and if one of the following conditions is also met: the [vessel’s] flag state consents, the vessel is stateless, or the ship enters a South Korean port.”
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Turkey has announced restrictions on trade with Israel and Turkish Airlines has suspended flights to the country as a consequence of the war in Gaza. As Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the moves come as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reverses his rapprochement efforts, which proved unpopular among voters in last month’s elections
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Washington — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles Brown Jr. testified on Capitol Hill on Tuesday about the Pentagon’s $850 billion budget for 2025 as questions remained as to whether lawmakers will support current spending needs for Israel or Ukraine.

The Senate hearing was the first time lawmakers on both sides were able to question the Pentagon’s top civilian and military leadership on the administration’s Israel strategy following the country’s deadly strike on World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers in Gaza. It also follows continued desperate pleas by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that if the U.S. does not help soon, Kyiv will lose the war to Russia.

In their opening statements, both Austin and Brown emphasized that their 2025 budget is still shaped with the military’s long-term strategic goal in mind — to ready forces and weapons for a potential future conflict with China. About $100 billion of this year’s request is set aside for new space, nuclear weapons and cyber warfare systems the military says it must invest in now before Beijing’s capabilities surpass it.

But the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel are challenging a deeply-divided Congress and have resulted in months of delays in getting last year’s defense budget through, which was only passed by lawmakers a few weeks ago.

Austin’s opening remarks were temporarily interrupted by protesters lifting a Palestinian flag and shouting at him to stop sending weapons to Israel. “Stop the genocide,” they said, as they lifted their hands, stained in red, in the air.

The Pentagon scraped together about $300 million in ammunition to send to Kyiv in March but cannot send more without Congress’ support, and a separate $60 billion supplemental bill that would fund those efforts has been stalled for months.

“The price of U.S. leadership is real. But it is far lower than the price of U.S. abdication,” Austin told the senators.

If Kyiv falls, it could imperil Ukraine’s Baltic NATO member neighbors and potentially drag U.S. troops into a prolonged European war. If millions die in Gaza due to starvation, it could enrage Israel’s Arab neighbors and lead to a much wider, deadlier Middle East conflict — one that could also bring harm to U.S. troops and to U.S. relations in the region for decades.

The Pentagon has urged Congress to support new assistance for Ukraine for months, to no avail, and has tried to walk a perilous line between defending its ally Israel and maintaining ties with key regional Arab partners. Israel’s actions in Gaza have been used as a rallying cry by factions of Iranian-backed militant groups, including the Houthis in Yemen and Islamic Resistance groups across Iraq and Syria, to strike at U.S. interests. Three U.S. service members have already been killed as drone and missile attacks increased against U.S. bases in the region.

Six U.S. military ships with personnel and components to build a humanitarian aid pier are also still en route to Gaza but questions remain as to how food that arrives at the pier will be safely distributed inside the devastated territory.

Lawmakers are also seeing demands at home. For months, a handful of its far-right members have kept Congress from approving additional money or weapons for Ukraine until domestic needs like curbing the crush of migrants at the southern U.S. border are addressed. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is already facing a call to oust him as speaker by Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene because Johnson is trying to work out a compromise that would move the Ukraine aid forward.

On Israel, the World Central Kitchen strike led to a shift in tone from President Joe Biden on how Israel must protect civilian life in Gaza and drove dozens of House Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to call on Biden to halt weapons transfers to Israel.

Half the population of Gaza is starving and on the brink of famine due to Israel’s tight restrictions on allowing aid trucks through.
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NYON, Switzerland — This week’s Champions League games will go ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat, the governing body of European soccer said Tuesday. 

A media outlet linked to the terror group has issued multiple posts calling for attacks at the stadiums hosting quarterfinal matches in Paris, Madrid and London on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

“UEFA is aware of alleged terrorist threats made towards this week’s UEFA Champions League matches and is closely liaising with the authorities at the respective venues,” UEFA said in a statement. “All matches are planned to go ahead as scheduled with appropriate security arrangements in place.” 

There are two matches scheduled to be held in Madrid. Real Madrid hosts Manchester City on Tuesday, and Atletico Madrid welcomes Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday. 

Arsenal plays Bayern Munich in London on Tuesday, and Paris Saint-Germain hosts Barcelona the following day. 

“I want to reassure the public that we have a robust policing plan in place for tonight’s match [in London] and we continue to work closely alongside the club’s security team to ensure that the match passes peacefully,” Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Ade Adelekan said. 

France Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said police have considerably reinforced security around the Parc des Princes in Paris. 

“We have seen, among others, a statement from the Islamic State, which is particularly targeting stadiums. It’s not new,” Darmanin said. “This morning, we asked the general director of interior security to communicate the information we have with the other [security] services of the other countries hosting the quarterfinals.” 

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue outside Moscow on March 22 in which 144 people were killed. 

The return matches in the Champions League are scheduled for next week. 

PSG defender Danilo said he and his teammates “need to concentrate on the soccer,” but coach Luis Enrique said the threat was worrying. 

“Who wouldn’t be concerned by that? Of course we’re concerned,” the PSG coach said. “We hope it’s only a threat and that nothing will happen.” 
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STRASBOURG, France — Europe’s highest human rights court will rule Tuesday on a group of landmark climate change cases aimed at forcing countries to meet international obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The European Court of Human Rights will hand down decisions in a trio of cases brought by a French mayor, six Portuguese youngsters and more than 2,000 members of Senior Women for Climate Protection, who say their governments are not doing enough to combat climate change.

Lawyers for all three are hoping the Strasbourg court will find that national governments have a legal duty to make sure global warming is held to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, in line with the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

Although activists have had successes with lawsuits in domestic proceedings, this will be the first time an international court has ruled on climate change.

A decision against any of the countries involved could force them to reduce net emissions to zero by 2030. The EU, which doesn’t include Switzerland, currently has a target to be climate-neutral by 2050.

The decisions have “the potential to be a watershed moment in the global fight for a livable future. A victory for any of the three cases would be one of the most significant developments on climate change since the signing of the Paris Agreement,” said Gerry Liston, a lawyer with the Global Legal Action Network, which is supporting the Portuguese students.

“The extreme heat waves, the rainfalls, followed by heat waves, it is just choking us with greenhouse effects. And what worries me is the frequency in which they started happening more and more. That’s what really scared me. And, I thought to myself, well, what can I do?” 16-year-old André dos Santos Oliveira told reporters ahead of the decision.

Together with five more young people, Santos Oliveira took Portugal and 32 other nations to court, arguing the failure to stop emissions violated their fundamental rights.

At the other end of the age spectrum, a group of Swiss retirees are also demanding their government do more. Senior Women for Climate Protection, whose average age is 74, say older women’s rights are especially infringed on because they are most affected by the extreme heat that will become more frequent due to global warming.

Earth shattered global annual heat records in 2023, flirted with the world’s agreed-upon warming threshold, and showed more signs of a feverish planet, Copernicus, a European climate agency, said in January.

In all three cases, lawyers argued that the political and civil protections guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights are meaningless if the planet is uninhabitable.

The countries facing the legal challenges hope the cases will be dismissed. They say the blame for climate change cannot rest with any individual country.

Switzerland is not alone in being affected by global warming, said Alain Chablais, representative of the country at last year’s hearings. “This problem cannot be solved by Switzerland alone.”

Acknowledging the urgency of the climate crisis, the court fast-tracked all three cases, including a rare move allowing the Portuguese case to bypass domestic legal proceedings.

Judgments from the European Court of Human Rights aren’t legally binding against all 46 of its member states, but they set a legal precedent against which future lawsuits would be judged.
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WASHINGTON — For the 10th consecutive month, Earth in March set a new monthly record for global heat — with both air temperatures and the world’s oceans hitting an all-time high for the month, the European Union climate agency Copernicus said.

March 2024 averaged 14.14 degrees Celsius (57.9 degrees Fahrenheit), exceeding the previous record from 2016 by a tenth of a degree, according to Copernicus data. And it was 1.68 degrees C (3 degrees F) warmer than in the late 1800s, the base used for temperatures before the burning of fossil fuels began growing rapidly.

Since last June, the globe has broken heat records each month, with marine heat waves across large areas of the globe’s oceans contributing.

Scientists say the record-breaking heat during this time wasn’t entirely surprising due to a strong El Nino, a climatic condition that warms the central Pacific and changes global weather patterns.

“But its combination with the non-natural marine heat waves made these records so breathtaking,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis.

With El Nino waning, the margins by which global average temperatures are surpassed each month should go down, Francis said.

Climate scientists attribute most of the record heat to human-caused climate change from carbon dioxide and methane emissions produced by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

“The trajectory will not change until concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop rising,” Francis said, “which means we must stop burning fossil fuels, stop deforestation, and grow our food more sustainably as quickly as possible.”

Until then, expect more broken records, she said.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world set a goal to keep warming at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. Copernicus’ temperature data is monthly and uses a slightly different measurement system than the Paris threshold, which is averaged over two or three decades.

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said March’s record-breaking temperature wasn’t as exceptional as some other months in the past year that broke records by wider margins.

“We’ve had record-breaking months that have been even more unusual,” Burgess said, pointing to February 2024 and September 2023. But the “trajectory is not in the right direction,” she added.

The globe has now experienced 12 months with average monthly temperatures 1.58 degrees Celsius (2.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above the Paris threshold, according to Copernicus data.

In March, global sea surface temperature averaged 21.07 degrees Celsius (69.93 degrees Fahrenheit), the highest monthly value on record and slightly higher than what was recorded in February.

“We need more ambitious global action to ensure that we can get to net zero as soon as possible,” Burgess said.
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Copenhagen, Denmark — Sweden has expelled a Chinese journalist, saying the reporter was a threat to national security, Swedish media reported on Monday.

The journalist, an unnamed, 57-year-old woman, was arrested by the Swedish security service in October and expelled by the government in Stockholm last week, Swedish broadcaster SVT reported. She is banned from returning.

The woman arrived in the Scandinavian country some 20 years ago. She held a residence permit and was married to a Swedish man, with whom she has children, according to the broadcaster.

The woman has had contacts with the Chinese Embassy and with people in Sweden who are connected to the Chinese government, SVT said.

Her lawyer, Leutrim Kadriu, told SVT the woman doesn’t believe she poses a threat to Sweden.

“It is difficult for me to go into exact details given that much is shrouded in secrecy, as this is a national security matter,” Kadriu told the broadcaster.

In neighboring Norway, broadcaster NRK said the journalist had also reported from there, and from other Nordic countries including Denmark, Finland and Iceland.

Relations between Stockholm and Beijing have been tense for years.

In 2020, a court in eastern China sentenced Chinese-born Swedish national Gui Minhai to 10 years in prison for selling books that were critical of the ruling Communist Party. He was charged with “illegally providing intelligence overseas.”

China has rebuked Sweden’s demands for Gui’s release.

He first disappeared in 2015, when he was believed to have been abducted by Chinese agents from his seaside home in Thailand.

The case led to an investigation of Sweden’s ambassador to China over a meeting she arranged between Gui’s daughter and two Chinese businessmen whom the daughter said threatened her father. The ambassador, Anna Lindstedt, was eventually cleared.

In 2018, a Swedish court found a man guilty of spying for China by gathering information on Tibetans who had fled to Sweden. Dorjee Gyantsan, a Tibetan who worked for a pro-Tibetan radio station, was found guilty of “gross illegal intelligence activity” and sentenced to 22 months in jail.
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Paris — French and British troops on Monday swapped roles to take part in the changing of the guard ceremonies outside the palaces of the other country’s head of state, in an unprecedented move to celebrate 120 years since the Entente Cordiale.

Signed in 1904, the Entente Cordiale accord cemented an improvement in relations after the Napoleonic Wars and is seen as the foundation of the two NATO members’ alliance to this day.

“Even after Brexit and with war back in Europe, “this entente cordiale is somehow the cornerstone… that allows us to maintain the bilateral relationship,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a video address on X, formerly Twitter.

“Long live the entente cordiale and long live the Franco-British friendship,” he said, switching to English.

Macron and British ambassador to France Menna Rawlings on Monday morning watched British guards taking part in the changing of the guard outside his Elysee Palace.

French guards were to do the same in London outside Buckingham Palace, the official residence of King Charles III.

At the Elysee, 16 members of the Number 7 Company Coldstream Guards of the UK embassy, wearing their traditional bearskin hats, relieved French counterparts from the first infantry regiment.

The French army choir then sang the two national anthems — God Save the King and La Marseillaise.

‘More to defeat Russia’

British Foreign Minister David Cameron and his French counterpart, Stephane Sejourne, celebrated their countries’ “close friendship” in a joint op-ed published late on Sunday.

They said it was key at a time when NATO is mobilized to ensure Ukraine does not lose its fight to repel the Russian invasion.

“Britain and France, two founding members and Europe’s nuclear powers, have a responsibility in driving the alliance to deal with the challenges before it,” the diplomats wrote in Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper.

“We must do even more to ensure we defeat Russia. The world is watching –- and will judge us if we fail.”

A French presidential official said it was “the first time in the history of the Elysee” that foreign troops had been invited to participate in the military ritual.

At the end of 2023, Macron made the changing of the Republican Guard public again, on the first Tuesday of each month, although the ceremony is much less spectacular than its counterpart outside Buckingham Palace.

Two sections of the 1st and 2nd Infantry Regiment of France’s Republican Guard were to participate in the London ceremony alongside guards from F Company Scots Guards and other British forces, the French presidential official said.

It would be watched by the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh — Prince Edward and his wife Sophie — accompanied by the UK chief of the general staff, General Patrick Sanders, and French chief of the army staff Pierre Schill.

The event on the forecourt of Buckingham Palace was to mark the first time a country from outside the Commonwealth — which mostly includes English-speaking former British colonies and possessions — has taken part in the changing of the guard.

Tensions after Brexit

The signing of the Entente Cordiale on April 8, 1904, is widely seen as preparing the way for France and Britain joining forces against Germany in World War I.

While the accord is often used as shorthand to describe the Franco-British relationship, ties have been bedeviled by tensions in recent years, particularly since the United Kingdom left the European Union. 

Migration has been a particular sticking point, with London pressuring Paris to halt the flow of migrants across the Channel.

But a state visit by King Charles last autumn — one of his last big foreign engagements before his cancer diagnosis — was widely seen as a resounding success that showed the fundamental strength of the relationship. 
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Vatican City — The Vatican on Monday declared sex change operations and surrogacy as grave threats to human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that violate God’s plan for human life.

The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.

In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory” or the idea that one’s gender can be changed. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said they must not tinker with that plan or try to “make oneself God.”

“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.

It distinguished between transitioning surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.

The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Pope Francis confidante.

He had cast it as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.

And while rejecting gender theory, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime” making the assertion now part of the Vatican’s doctrinal teaching.

The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”

The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking and forced migration.

In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child. While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican document focuses almost more on the resulting child.

“The child has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver,” the document said. “Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life.”

The Vatican published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.

It called gender fluidity a symptom of the “confused concept of freedom” and “momentary desires” that characterize post-modern culture. 

The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repurpose the 1986 language of a previous doctrinal document saying that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”

Francis has made reaching out to LGBTQ+ people a hallmark of his papacy, ministering to trans Catholics and insisting that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.

But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender and reproductive health.

“It needs to be emphasized that biological sex and the sociocultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated,’” the new document said.

The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults. In addition, bills to govern youths’ pronouns, sports teams and bathrooms at school are also under consideration, as well as some books and school curriculums. 
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Preliminary hearings are opening Monday at the United Nations’ top court in a case that seeks an end to German military and other aid to Israel, based on claims that Berlin is enabling acts of genocide and breaches of international humanitarian law in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Nicaragua argues that by giving Israel political, financial and military support and by defunding the United Nations aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, “Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide and, in any case has failed in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide.”

While the case brought by Nicaragua centers on Germany, it indirectly takes aim at Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following the deadly Oct. 7 attacks when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Its toll doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it has said women and children make up the majority of the dead.

Israel strongly denies that its assault amounts to genocidal acts, saying it is acting in self defense. Israeli legal adviser Tal Becker told judges at the court earlier this year that the country is fighting a “war it did not start and did not want.”

Germany rejects the case brought by Nicaragua.

“Germany has breached neither the Genocide Convention nor international humanitarian law, and we will set this out in detail before the International Court of Justice,” German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sebastian Fischer told reporters in Berlin on Friday.

Nicaragua has asked the court to hand down preliminary orders known as provisional measures, including that Germany “immediately suspend its aid to Israel, in particular its military assistance including military equipment in so far as this aid may be used in the violation of the Genocide Convention” and international law.

The court will likely take weeks to deliver its preliminary decision, and Nicaragua’s case will probably drag on for years.

Monday’s hearing at the world court comes amid growing calls for allies to stop supplying arms to Israel as its six-month campaign continues to lay waste to Gaza.

The offensive has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s population. Food is scarce, the U.N. says famine is approaching and few Palestinians have been able to leave the besieged territory.

The case “will likely further galvanize opposition to any support for Israel,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law and international peace studies at the University of Notre Dame.

On Friday, the U.N.’s top human rights body called on countries to stop selling or shipping weapons to Israel. The United States and Germany opposed the resolution.

Also, hundreds of British jurists, including three retired Supreme Court judges, have called on their government to suspend arms sales to Israel after three U.K. citizens were among seven aid workers from the charity World Central Kitchen killed in Israeli strikes. Israel said the attack on the aid workers was a mistake caused by “misidentification.”

Germany has for decades been a staunch supporter of Israel. Days after the October 7 attack by Hamas, Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained why: “Our own history, our responsibility arising from the Holocaust, makes it a perpetual task for us to stand up for the security of the state of Israel,” he told lawmakers.

Berlin, however, has gradually shifted its tone as civilian casualties in Gaza have soared, becoming increasingly critical of the humanitarian situation in Gaza and speaking out against a ground offensive in Rafah.

Nicaragua’s government, which has historical links with Palestinian organizations dating back to their support for the 1979 Sandinista revolution, was itself accused earlier this year by U.N.-backed human rights experts of systematic human rights abuses “tantamount to crimes against humanity.” The government of President Daniel Ortega fiercely rejected the allegations.

In January, the International Court of Justice imposed provisional measures ordering Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and acts of genocide in Gaza. The orders came in a case filed by South Africa accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention.

The court last week ordered Israel to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including opening more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into the war-ravaged enclave.

 
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London — Find a globe in your local library or classroom and try this: Close the eyes, spin it and drop a finger randomly on its curved, glossy surface.

You’re likely to pinpoint a spot in the water, which covers 71% of the planet. Maybe you’ll alight on a place you’ve never heard of — or a spot that no longer exists after a war or because of climate change. Perhaps you’ll feel inspired to find out who lives there and what it’s like. Trace the path of totality ahead of Monday’s solar eclipse. Look carefully, and you’ll find the cartouche — the globemaker’s signature — and the antipode (point diametrically opposed) of where you’re standing right now.

In the age of Google Earth, watches that triangulate and cars with built-in GPS, there’s something about a globe — a spherical representation of the world in miniature — that somehow endures.

London globemaker Peter Bellerby thinks the human yearning to “find our place in the cosmos” has helped globes survive their original purpose — navigation — and the internet. He says it’s part of the reason he went into debt making a globe for his father’s 80th birthday in 2008. The experience helped inspire his company, and 16 years later — is keeping his team of about two dozen artists, cartographers and woodworkers employed.

“You don’t go onto Google Earth to get inspired,” Bellerby says in his airy studio, surrounded by dozens of globes in various languages and states of completion. “A globe is very much something that connects you to the planet that we live on.”

Building a globe amid breakneck change?

Beyond the existential and historical appeal, earthly matters such as cost and geopolitics hover over globemaking. Bellerby says his company has experience with customs officials in regions with disputed borders such as India, China, North Africa and the Middle East.

And there is a real question about whether globes — especially handmade orbs — remain relevant as more than works of art and history for those who can afford them.

They are, after all, snapshots of the past — of the way their patrons and makers saw the world at a certain point in time. So, they’re inherently inaccurate representations of a planet in constant flux.

“Do globes play a relevant role in our time? If so, then in my opinion, this is due to their appearance as a three-dimensional body, the hard-to-control desire to turn them, and the attractiveness of their map image,” says Jan Mokre, vice president of the International Coronelli Society for the Study of Globes in Vienna.

Joshua Nall, Director of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge, says a globe remains a display of “the learning, the erudition, the political interests of its owner.”

How, and how much?

Bellerby’s globes aren’t cheap. They run from about 1,290 British pounds (about $1,900) for the smallest to six figures for the 50-inch Churchill model. He makes about 600 orbs a year of varying size, framing and ornamentation.

The imagery painted on the globes runs the gamut, from constellations to mountains and sea creatures. And here, The Associated Press can confirm, be dragons.

Who buys a globe these days?

Bellerby doesn’t name clients, but he says they come from more socioeconomic levels than you’d think — from families to businesses and heads of state. Private art collectors come calling. So do moviemakers.

Bellerby says in his book that the company made four globes for the 2011 movie, “Hugo.” One globe can be seen in the 2023 movie “Tetris,” including one, a freestanding straight-leg Galileo model, which features prominently in a scene.

‘A political minefield’

There is no international standard for a correctly drawn earth. Countries, like people, view the world differently, and some are highly sensitive about how their territory is depicted. To offend them with “incorrectly” drawn borders on a globe is to risk impoundment of the orbs at customs.

“Globemaking,” Bellerby writes, “is a political minefield.”

China doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a country. Morocco doesn’t recognize Western Sahara. India’s northern border is disputed. Many Arab countries, such as Lebanon, don’t acknowledge Israel.

Bellerby says the company marks disputed borders as disputed: “We cannot change or rewrite history.”

Speaking of history, here’s the ‘earth apple’

Scientists since antiquity, famously Plato and Aristotle, posited that the earth is not flat but closer to a sphere. (More precisely, it’s a spheroid — bulging at the equator, squashed at the poles).

No one knows when the first terrestrial globe was created. But the oldest known surviving one dates to 1492. No one in Europe knew of the existence of North or South America at the time.

It’s called the “Erdapfel,” which translates to “earth apple” or “potato.” The orb was made by German navigator and geographer Martin Behaim, who was working for the king of Portugal, according to the Whipple Museum in Cambridge. It contained more than just the cartographical information then known, but also details such as commodities overseas, marketplaces and local trading protocols.

It’s also a record of a troubled time.

“The Behaim Globe is today a central document of the European world conquest and the Atlantic slave trade,” according to the German National Museum’s web page on the globe, exhibited there. In the 15th century, the museum notes, “Africa was not only to be circumnavigated in search of India, but also to be developed economically.

“The globe makes it clear how much the creation of our modern world was based on the violent appropriation of raw materials, the slave trade and plantation farming,” the museum notes, or “the first stage of European subjugation and division of the world.”

Twin globes for Churchill and Roosevelt during WWII

If you’ve got a globe of any sort, you’re in good company. During World War II, two in particular were commissioned for leaders on opposite sides of the Atlantic as symbols of power and partnership.

For Christmas in 1942, the United States delivered gigantic twin globes to American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. They were 50 inches in diameter and hundreds of pounds each, believed to be the largest and most accurate globes of the time.

It took more than 50 government geographers, cartographers, and draftsmen to compile the information to make the globe, constructed by the Weber Costello Company of Chicago Heights, Illinois.

The Roosevelt globe now sits at the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, N.Y., and Churchill’s globe is at Chartwell House, the Churchill family home in Kent, England, according to the U.S. Library of Congress.

In theory, the leaders could use the globes simultaneously to formulate war strategy. “In reality, however,” Bellerby writes, “the gift of the globes was a simple PR exercise, an important weapon in modern warfare.”
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London — The U.S., Britain and Australia are set to begin talks on bringing new members into their AUKUS security pact as Washington pushes for Japan to be involved as a deterrent against China, the Financial Times reported.

The countries’ defense ministers will announce discussions Monday on “Pillar Two” of the pact, which commits the members to jointly developing quantum computing, undersea, hypersonic, artificial intelligence and cyber technology, the newspaper reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the situation.

They are not considering expanding the first pillar, which is designed to deliver nuclear-powered attack submarines to Australia, the Financial Times said.

AUKUS, formed by the three countries in 2021, is part of their efforts to push back against China’s growing power in the Indo-Pacific region. China has called the AUKUS pact dangerous and warned it could spur a regional arms race.

U.S. President Joe Biden has sought to step up partnerships with U.S. allies in Asia, including Japan and the Philippines, amid China’s historic military build-up and its growing territorial assertiveness.

Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo, wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that Japan was “about to become the first additional Pillar II partner.”

A senior U.S. administration official told Reuters on Wednesday that some sort of announcement could be expected in the coming week about Japan’s involvement but gave no details.

Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will likely discuss expanding AUKUS to include Japan when the president hosts the prime minister in Washington on Wednesday, a source with knowledge of the talks said.

Australia, however, is wary of beginning new projects until more progress has been made on supplying Canberra with nuclear-powered submarines, said the source, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

Obstacles for Japan

A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council and China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the FT report.

A Japanese foreign ministry spokesperson said the ministry could not immediately comment.

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles has said they would “seek opportunities to engage close partners in AUKUS Pillar II” and any involvement of more countries would be decided and announced by the three partners, a spokesperson from his office said.

Britain’s defense ministry said it too would like to involve more allies in this work, subject to joint agreement.

While the U.S. is keen to see Japanese involvement in Pillar Two, officials and experts say obstacles remain, given a need for Japan to introduce better cyber defenses and stricter rules for guarding secrets.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, an architect of U.S. Indo-Pacific policy, said Wednesday the U.S. was encouraging Japan to do more to protect intellectual property and hold officials accountable for secrets. “It’s fair to say that Japan has taken some of those steps, but not all of them,” he said.

The United States has long said that other countries in Europe and Asia are expected to join the second pillar of AUKUS.

The senior U.S. official said any decisions about who would be involved in Pillar Two would be made by the three AUKUS members, whose defense ministers had been considering the questions for many months, based on what countries could bring to the project.

Campbell said that other countries had expressed interest in participating in AUKUS.

“I think you’ll hear that we have something to say about that next week and there also will be further engagement among the three defense ministers of the United States, Australia, and Great Britain as they focus on this effort as well,” Campbell told the Center for a New American Security think tank.

Campbell also said Wednesday the AUKUS submarine project could help deter any Chinese move against Taiwan, the democratically governed island that Beijing claims as part of China.

Biden, Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. are to hold a trilateral summit Thursday.
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Paris — China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao is due in Paris Sunday for talks that are expected to cover China’s fast-growing export of cheap electric vehicles (EVs) into the European market.

Four sources briefed on Wang’s trip told Reuters in late March that the discussions would focus on a European Commission investigation into whether China’s EV industry has benefited from unfair subsidies.

European carmakers have a fight on their hands to produce lower-cost electric vehicles and erase China’s lead in developing cheaper models.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm which forecasts China’s share of EVs sold in Europe could reach 15% of the market in 2025, says Chinese EVs benefit from huge state subsidies and is examining whether to impose punitive tariffs.

China contests the claim its EV industry has boomed because of subsidies and has called the EU inquiry “protectionist.” Analysts say factors, including China’s dominance of the battery supply chain, innovation and cut-throat competition in a crowded domestic market have also reduced prices.

Wang is due Sunday to meet Renault chief executive Luca de Meo, who is also acting chairman of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), a person briefed on the meeting said.

He is also expected to attend a dinner later Sunday with executives from the cosmetics industry, two other sources familiar with the plans said.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has said he will hold talks with Wang on Monday. The Chinese trade ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

European Commission investigators inspected leading Chinese automakers BYD, Geely Automobile Holdings and SAIC earlier this year as part of their inquiries. Paris backed the anti-subsidy probe.

BYD’s Europe chief executive Michael Shu will accompany Wang during his trip, said a person briefed on the matter. Representatives of SAIC and Geely were also due to accompany Wang, Reuters reported last month.

BYD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China launched its own anti-dumping investigation into brandy in January in response to Europe’s EV probe. France accounts for almost all EU brandy exports to China.

Wang will meet Monday with the Bureau National Interprofessional du Cognac (BNIC), a brandy trade group, along with company executives, said an association official.

China has said it is selecting Martell & Co, Societe Jas Hennessy & Co, and E. Remy Martin & Co as sample companies for its own investigation.

Wang will also attend a China-Italy business forum Friday in Verona, Italy, alongside the country’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, the Italian government said.
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Moscow — Flood waters were rising in two cities in Russia’s Ural mountains on Sunday after Europe’s third longest river burst through a dam, flooding at least 6,000 homes and forcing thousands of people to flee with just their pets and a few belongings. 

A string of Russian regions in the Ural Mountains and Siberia, alongside parts of neighboring Kazakhstan have been hit in recent days by some of the worst floods in decades. 

The Ural River, which rises in the Ural Mountains and flows into the Caspian Sea, swelled several meters in just hours on Friday due to melt water, bursting through a dam embankment in the city of Orsk, 1,800 km (1,100 miles) east of Moscow. 

More than 4,000 people were evacuated in Orsk as swathes of the city of 230,000 were flooded. Footage published by the Emergencies Ministry showed people wading through neck-high waters, rescuing stranded dogs and traveling along flooded roads in boats and canoes.  

President Vladimir Putin ordered Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov to fly to the region. The Kremlin said on Sunday that flooding was now also inevitable in the Urals region of Kurgan and the Siberian region of Tyumen. 

Putin had spoken to the governors of the regions by telephone, the Kremlin said. 

The Orenburg region’s governor, Denis Pasler, said the floods were the worst to hit the region since records began. 

He said that flooding had been recorded along the entire course of the 2,400 km (1,500 mile) Ural River, which flows through Orenburg region and then through Kazakhstan into the Caspian Sea.  

Russian media cited Orenburg region authorities as estimating the cost of flood damage locally as around $227 million, and saying that flood waters would dissipate only after April 20. 

In Kazakhstan, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Saturday the floods were his country’s largest natural disaster in terms of scale and impact for 80 years. 

Flood warnings were issued in other Russian regions and Kurenkov said the situation could get worse very fast.  

“The water is coming, and in the coming days its level will only rise,” said Sergei Salmin, the mayor of Orenburg, a city of at least 550,000 people. “The flood situation remains critical.” 

Emergencies Minister Kurenkov said bottled water and mobile treatment plants were needed, while local health officials said vaccinations against Hepatitis A were being conducted in flooded areas.  

Local officials said the dam in Orsk was built for a water level of 5.5 meters (18 feet)yet the Ural River rose to 9.6 meters (31.5 feet). 

Federal investigators opened a criminal case for negligence and the violation of safety rules over the construction of the 2010 dam, which prosecutors said had not been maintained properly. 

The Orsk oil refinery suspended work on Sunday due to the flooding. Last year, the Orsk Refinery processed 4.5 million tons of oil.
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Moscow — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit China on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine and the deepening partnership between Moscow and Beijing.

Talks between Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who extended the invitation to the Russian minister, will include bilateral cooperation as well as “hot topics,” such as the crisis in Ukraine and the Asia-Pacific, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Reuters reported last month that Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to China in May for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in what could be the Kremlin chief’s first overseas trip of his new presidential term.

China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing just days before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, triggering the deadliest land war in Europe since World War II.

The United States casts China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest nation-state threat, while U.S. President Joe Biden argues that this century will be defined by an existential contest between democracies and autocracies.

Putin and Xi share a broad world view, which sees the West as decadent and in decline just as China challenges U.S. supremacy in everything from quantum computing and synthetic biology to espionage and hard military power.

China-Russian trade hit a record of $240.1 billion in 2023, up 26.3% from a year earlier, according to Chinese customs data.

Chinese shipments to Russia jumped 46.9% in 2023 while imports from Russia rose 13%.

China-United States trade fell 11.6% to $664.5 billion in 2023, according to the Chinese customs data.

One year into the Ukraine war, China in 2023 published a 12-point position paper on settling the Ukraine crisis. Russia has said China’s position is reasonable.

Switzerland in January agreed to hold a peace summit at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has put forward a peace formula that calls for a full Russian withdrawal from all territory controlled by Russian forces.

Reuters reported in February that Putin’s suggestion of a cease-fire in Ukraine to freeze the war was rejected by the United States after contacts between intermediaries.

Moscow says that Zelenskyy’s proposals amount to a ridiculous ultimatum and that the proposed meeting in Switzerland was being used by the West to try to garner support for Ukraine among the Global South.

Russia says that any peace in Ukraine would have to accept the reality of its control over just under one fifth of Ukraine and include a broader agreement on European security.

Ukraine says it will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory.
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