investigation

Swiss bar owners face wrath of bereaved families

exoplanets

Strange 'inside-out' planetary system baffles astronomers

BY BéNéDICTE SALVETAT REY

  • "Yet here is a small, rocky world, defying expectations," he added.
  • Surprised astronomers said Thursday they have discovered a star with planets in a bizarre order that defies scientific expectations -- and suggests these faraway worlds formed in a manner never seen before.
  • "Yet here is a small, rocky world, defying expectations," he added.
Surprised astronomers said Thursday they have discovered a star with planets in a bizarre order that defies scientific expectations -- and suggests these faraway worlds formed in a manner never seen before.
In our Solar System, the four planets closest to the Sun are small and rocky, while the four farther out are gas giants.
Scientists had thought this planetary order -- rocky first, then gaseous -- was consistent across the universe.
However, a star called LHS 1903 discovered in the Milky Way's thick disc suggests otherwise.
An international team of astronomers analysing data from several different telescopes had already spotted three planets orbiting the red dwarf star, which is cooler and less bright than our Sun.
The closest planet to the star was rocky, followed by two gas giants. That is the order scientists expect.
But digging into observations made by Europe's exoplanet-probing Cheops space telescope revealed a fourth planet farther out in the system -- and it is rocky.
"That makes this an inside-out system, with a planet order of rocky-gaseous-gaseous-and then rocky again," explained Thomas Wilson, the lead author of a new study describing the discovery in the journal Science.
"Rocky planets don't usually form so far away from their home star," the planetary astrophysicist from University of Warwick in the UK said in a statement.

One planet after another

Inner planets are expected to be small and rocky because intense radiation from the nearby star blasts most of the gas away from their rocky core.
But farther out in the cold reaches of the system, a thick atmosphere can form around cores, creating gas giants.
Puzzled by the weird LHS 1903 planetary system, the team of astronomers tried to figure out what could have happened.
After ruling out several possibilities, they came up with a scenario: what if the planets formed one at a time?
According to the most widely accepted theory, planets form simultaneously in a massive ring of gas and dust called a protoplanetary disc. This involves tiny dust grains clumping together then snowballing into cores that eventually evolve into mighty planets.
However, by the time the fourth planet orbiting LHS 1903 formed, "the system may have already run out of gas," Wilson said.
"Yet here is a small, rocky world, defying expectations," he added.
"It seems that we have found first evidence for a planet which formed in what we call a gas-depleted environment."
Since the 1990s, astronomers have discovered more than 6,000 planets outside our Solar System -- called exoplanets -- mostly by spotting slight changes in brightness as they cross in front of their star.
"Historically, our planet formation theories are based on what we see and know about our Solar System," said Isabel Rebollido, a planetary disc researcher at the European Space Agency.
"As we are seeing more and more different exoplanet systems, we are starting to revisit these theories."
ber-dl/jhb

US

Europe's most powerful rocket carries 32 satellites for Amazon Leo network into space

  • Rival Starlink, meanwhile, has nearly 9,400 satellites.
  • The most powerful version of Europe's Ariane 6 rocket Thursday carried 32 satellites into space for the Amazon Leo network, which aims to rival Elon Musk's Starlink.
  • Rival Starlink, meanwhile, has nearly 9,400 satellites.
The most powerful version of Europe's Ariane 6 rocket Thursday carried 32 satellites into space for the Amazon Leo network, which aims to rival Elon Musk's Starlink.
The launch from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America, is a first for Amazon Leo.
The largest number of satellites ever carried by an Ariane rocket successfully separated and set off toward their final orbit to applause from those following the event live at the control centre.
"What a day, what a launch!" exclaimed Arianespace CEO David Cavailloles, who said the operation proved the launcher's ability to "carry out the most complex missions".
"Amazon, your package has been delivered," French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X, speaking of a "European success".
US firm Amazon, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is the main commercial partner for the Ariane 6 despite the latter being touted as a symbol of European sovereignty in the sector.
To take on the 32 satellites, the Ariane 6 was upgraded with four strap-on boosters, instead of the two used on the first five flights.
The increased number marks "our largest payload that we have launched to date," Martijn Van Delden, head of commercial development for Europe at Amazon Leo, told AFP. 
With 175 satellites already in orbit, Amazon Leo aims to expand its constellation to 3,200. 
Rival Starlink, meanwhile, has nearly 9,400 satellites.
"We're looking to then increase the payload every time we have a new mission, especially as more powerful boosters come online on Ariane 6," Van Delden said. 
"Ariane 6 is a perfect launcher for constellations" of satellites, said Arianespace CEO Cavailloles during a press briefing. 
He said the Amazon launches would help in training for a flagship multi-orbital constellation project of the European Union aimed at ensuring secure and sovereign connectivity, with deployment slated to begin in 2029.

'Build market confidence'

Ludwig Moeller, director of the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), warned that "over time a sovereign European launcher cannot be primarily dependent on foreign markets".
Foreign partners "may negotiate priority handling backed by economic power or which may become unpredictable or inaccessible without notice, given the current geopolitical environment and trade wars," he told AFP.
But in the absence of European commercial customers -- many of whom work with Musk's SpaceX -- the Amazon partnership is crucial.
Four out of five anticipated launches took place in 2025 following Ariane's inaugural 2024 flight, unprecedented for a new launcher, according to ArianeGroup president Marc Sion.
Although Ariane 6 is eventually expected to carry out 10 launches per year, Pierre Lionnet, Eurospace research director, noted that at this stage this would not be possible without commercial customers like Amazon.
Long-term investment is expected to amount to billions of euros to the European space sector. 
"If things go well here, it will help build market confidence," said Philippe Clar, ArianeGroup's head of launchers.
neo/cc/ach 

Carnival

Dreaming of glory at Rio's carnival, far from elite parades

BY FRAN BLANDY

  • "Rio de Janeiro, for the most part, is made up of people from poor communities....
  • In a faded rehearsal hall in the gritty concrete sprawl of northern Rio de Janeiro, samba dancers and drummers fine-tune their rhythms for a grassroots carnival parade few tourists have heard of.
  • "Rio de Janeiro, for the most part, is made up of people from poor communities....
In a faded rehearsal hall in the gritty concrete sprawl of northern Rio de Janeiro, samba dancers and drummers fine-tune their rhythms for a grassroots carnival parade few tourists have heard of.
Remnants of donated props and floats from parades past lie around the space under a viaduct that doubles as a driving school parking lot.
The scene stands in stark contrast to the glittering spectacle of the world-famous Sambodrome parade, which critics say has grown increasingly distant from the poor neighborhoods that sustain the roots of samba.
Drum master Americo Teofilo, 37, dreams of performing among the greats, but is proud to parade in a parallel event in Rio de Janeiro's densely-populated north zone, which he describes as "more for the people."
"The one in the Sambodrome, I am not criticizing, but it is becoming more elitist. But I love both!" he said.
It has been 20 years since his storied samba school Caprichosos de Pilares, founded in 1949, last paraded down the Sambodrome avenue, before tumbling into the bottom division of a competition structured much like a football league.
Rio's Carnival period starts Friday, with the top schools kicking off three days of glittering parades on Sunday. 
Teofilo recalls how as a child his whole family, despite being poor, could afford front-row seats at the Sambodrome -- tickets which now cost around $300 each. 
This is roughly the minimum monthly wage in Brazil. The cheapest tickets in the grandstands are around $35.
"Nowadays it's very expensive..., it's impossible."
VIP boxes have multiplied along the avenue, with tickets selling for hundreds of dollars and the presence of celebrities such as footballer Neymar or supermodel Gisele Bundchen.
Some promote their own big-name DJs and music stars, which have drawn complaints and fines for drowning out the sounds of samba.
"Sometimes the parade is going on and the electronic music is there, you know?" said Teofilo.
The parade along Intendente Magalhaes avenue, where dozens of schools compete to claw their way up the ranks, is free to watch, and pure homegrown samba.

'Forgotten' roots

Rio's samba and carnival roots are deeply tied to poor, Afro-Brazilian neighborhoods, where community organizations known as samba schools evolved and work year round to make the show happen.
Performing in the top ranks now costs millions of dollars, which schools put towards towering floats, dazzling crystal and feather-covered outfits, and the pomp that make the parade a global attraction.
Rio's tourism agency Riotur president Bernardo Fellows told AFP that 52 million reais ($10 million) had been allocated to samba schools through the ranks.
"The transfer (of funds from city hall) is a bit disproportionate," to the lower-ranked schools, said carnival director for Caprichosos, Henrique Bianchi.
"Of course carnival is for everyone... but here it gets a little more forgotten. But the roots come from here, they come from the North Zone."
Schools like Caprichosos repurpose old floats and props donated by the wealthier schools from their grand parades.

'Samba in our veins'

Paulinha Peixoto, 39, who leads the samba dancers, known for striking outfits and dizzying footwork, said putting on a show was "a team effort".
"We know that the costs are out of our own pockets ... One fixes the other's hair, one helps with the other's makeup. It's samba in our feet, samba in our veins, love in our hearts, and that's it."
She said making it to the Sambodrome was every dancer's dream.
"It's dazzling, it's enchanting. But there's a disconnect. Nowadays it's a luxury carnival, a carnival of feathers, sequins, VIP boxes."
Riotur's Fellows said the debate about Carnival becoming a product for the wealthy and tourists was "legitimate and important" and the growth should not come "at the expense of its popular soul."
For those seeking to spend less money, there are the thousands of street "blocos" or parties and several days of free public rehearsals at the Sambodrome.
But for many, this does not come close to the full-throttle extravaganza.
"There is no question that it's only for the rich," said Adriano Santos, 43, a social worker from the Rocinha favela watching the free rehearsals.
"Rio de Janeiro, for the most part, is made up of people from poor communities.... These people shouldn't just be there to parade to fill the samba school, they need to appreciate the spectacle as well." 
fb/sms

US

Rubio heads to Munich to heap pressure on Europeans

BY LéON BRUNEAU

  • "Honestly, they want to know where we're going, where we'd like to go, where we'd like to go with them," Rubio said, when asked Thursday about what Europe wants out of the conference.
  • US Secretary of State Marco Rubio departed Thursday for the Munich Security Conference, where his aim will be to keep up pressure on Europe, though the tone is expected to be less confrontational than last year.
  • "Honestly, they want to know where we're going, where we'd like to go, where we'd like to go with them," Rubio said, when asked Thursday about what Europe wants out of the conference.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio departed Thursday for the Munich Security Conference, where his aim will be to keep up pressure on Europe, though the tone is expected to be less confrontational than last year.
In 2025, President Donald Trump's newly minted Vice President JD Vance launched a stark attack on European policies on immigration, populist parties and free speech, saying that freedom of expression was "in retreat" across the continent.
Vance also seemed to embrace the views of far-right parties such as Germany's AfD.
But this year, the vice president -- who just finished a visit to Armenia and Azerbaijan -- is staying home.
Rubio, who is seen as less of an ideologue, will lead the US delegation to the annual security and defense talks, which run through Sunday in the Bavarian capital.
But even if the secretary of state is more diplomatic than Vance, the United States nevertheless intends to push its European allies, who are still reeling from the political crisis over Trump's demands to acquire Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory.
"We live in a new era in geopolitics, and it's going to require all of us to sort of re-examine what that looks like and what our role is going to be," Rubio told reporters aboard his plane before departing Washington.

Crisis of confidence

Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump -- who has said the European Union was created to "screw" the United States -- has had the continent in his sights.
In his new National Security Strategy, published in December, Trump slammed Europe as an over-regulated continent lacking in "self-confidence" and facing "civilizational erasure" due to immigration.
In Munich on Friday and Saturday, Rubio is expected to keep pushing Europe to share the burden, especially on matters of common defense.
But his trip comes amid a major breakdown in trust between Washington and European capitals in the wake of the Greenland drama, which rattled transatlantic relations.
What was once seen as inconceivable -- a NATO country threatening to seize territory from an ally -- became reality, forcing European nations to stand firm in protest.
The unpredictable Republican US president backed off his threats of seizure and tariffs at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, instead touting a framework deal with NATO for security in the Arctic.
But the incident left a trail of collateral damage, several European diplomats said on condition of anonymity.
For Philip Gordon, an expert at the Brookings Institution think tank and veteran of former Democratic administrations, Trump "doesn't see a unified Europe as a partner of the United States, but a threat to the United States."
"The more unified it is, the more he doesn't like it," Gordon told journalists last week.
A poll conducted by Politico showed that more than 50 percent of German respondents do not see the United States as a "reliable" ally.
"Honestly, they want to know where we're going, where we'd like to go, where we'd like to go with them," Rubio said, when asked Thursday about what Europe wants out of the conference.

Free speech

Besides Greenland, the agenda will also include the durability of transatlantic unity, the US security umbrella and the war in Ukraine -- as well as ties with Moscow.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who is making the trip to Germany, has said he hopes for a resumption of talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin. 
For now, such talks are only being held between Washington and Moscow.
The Munich meetings will take place just a few days before Trump convenes the inaugural session of his so-called "Board of Peace" on February 19 in Washington.
Trump initially set up the board to manage post-war Gaza, but it appears now that its purview may extend beyond the Palestinian territory. Some have criticized it as an apparent rival to the United Nations.
Even without Vance in town, the sensitive issue of free speech in Europe will be on the agenda in Munich, as Rubio will be accompanied by Sarah Rogers, his undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and a sharp critic of EU policies.
The United States has fought Europe on its moves to regulate Big Tech and fight disinformation, calling both a means of crippling free speech.
Rubio will head from Munich to Slovakia and then Hungary. Both are run by nationalist leaders who have earned Trump's support.
lb/sst/des/aha

law

Venezuela amnesty bill postponed amid row over application

BY JAVIER TOVAR

  • Members of the National Assembly backed the bill on a first reading last week and had been expected to adopt it on Thursday after a second reading.
  • Venezuelan lawmakers on Thursday postponed the adoption of a landmark amnesty bill designed to end the use of courts to crack down on dissent after failing to reach an agreement on how to apply it.
  • Members of the National Assembly backed the bill on a first reading last week and had been expected to adopt it on Thursday after a second reading.
Venezuelan lawmakers on Thursday postponed the adoption of a landmark amnesty bill designed to end the use of courts to crack down on dissent after failing to reach an agreement on how to apply it.
Thousands of opposition supporters poured into the streets of Caracas to demand the release of all remaining political prisoners before debate on the bill began.
The amnesty is expected to cover all charges brought against dissidents who opposed the rule of ousted leader Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez over the past 27 years.
Members of the National Assembly backed the bill on a first reading last week and had been expected to adopt it on Thursday after a second reading.
But it hit a snag, with pro-government and opposition lawmakers clashing over an article requiring would-be beneficiaries to appear in court to request the amnesty.
Opposition member Nora Bracho said that the requirement was "completely unnecessary" and said the amnesty should apply automatically to all the crimes covered by the law.
Pro-government lawmaker Iris Varela, however, argued it was important for beneficiaries to "acknowledge crimes they have committed" before having the cases against them closed. 
Lawmakers agreed to continue the debate on February 19.

'Free and fair'

The bill is the centerpiece of the reforms undertaken by acting President Delcy Rodriguez since Maduro's capture by US special forces in a deadly January 3 raid on Caracas.
It aims to turn the page on nearly three decades of state repression.
In an NBC News interview aired Thursday she went further, saying she was "absolutely" committed to holding free and fair elections.
"We will have elections in this country fair and free of course," she said, adding that the time frame would be decided as part of a future "political dialogue."

'We are not afraid'

Rodriguez took Maduro's place with the consent of US President Donald Trump, on condition she toe his line.
The United States has taken over control of Venezuela's oil sales, with Trump vowing a share for Washington in the profits.
On Thursday, Rodriguez toured oil facilities with visiting US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who has pushed for a "dramatic" increase in Venezuela's oil output.
The Trump administration has also pressured Rodriguez to release political prisoners.
The amnesty under debate would potentially see hundreds of activists still behind bars walk free.
More than 400 political prisoners have been released since December but over 600 remain in detention, according to rights group Foro Penal.
The relatives of some inmates chained themselves to the Zona 7 detention center in Caracas on Thursday to demand their freedom.
As the post-Maduro transition takes hold, the fear instilled by the state is beginning to dissipate.
Thousands of opposition demonstrators reclaimed the streets of Caracas on Thursday.
"We are not afraid," they chanted, in their biggest show of force in years.
"We spend a lot of time underground, silent in the face of all the repression Venezuela experienced... but today we are rising up and uniting to put forward demands for the country," Dannalice Anza, a 26-year-old geography student, told AFP.
The ruling socialist party organized a counter-demonstration that attracted thousands of pro-Maduro youths.

Treason and terrorism

The amnesty bill covers charges of "treason," "terrorism" and spreading "hate" that were used to lock up dissidents.
Venezuela's attorney general Tarek William Saab told AFP that it should apply to opposition members and "chavistas," as supporters of Chavez and Maduro are known, alike.
That included Maduro himself, he said.
The amnesty also lifts bans on several opposition members, including Nobel Peace laureate Maria Corina Machado, on running for office.
Machado, a figure of hate for Chavistas, who is living in exile in the United States, has said she wants to return home soon.
Asked by NBC about Machado's eventual return, Rodriguez said ensuring her safety was "not something that is up to me."
She added that Machado would "have to answer to Venezuela" about her support for US sanctions and military action in the country.
bc-atm-pgf/cb/aha

vote

Bangladesh's BNP heading for 'sweeping' election win

BY SHEIKH SABIHA ALAM

  • The Islamist-led coalition headed by Jamaat-e-Islami had won 63 seats, the stations projected, a huge leap from its past results but far short of the outright win it had campaigned for.
  • The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by Tarique Rahman is heading for a thumping win in the first elections held since a deadly 2024 uprising, Bangladeshi TV stations projected Friday.
  • The Islamist-led coalition headed by Jamaat-e-Islami had won 63 seats, the stations projected, a huge leap from its past results but far short of the outright win it had campaigned for.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by Tarique Rahman is heading for a thumping win in the first elections held since a deadly 2024 uprising, Bangladeshi TV stations projected Friday.
Senior BNP leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, in a party statement, claimed a "sweeping victory", without giving figures, calling for followers to give thanks in prayer on Friday rather than celebrate on the streets.
"There will be no victory rally despite the BNP's sweeping victory," the statement said. "We will hold special prayers at mosques after Jumma (Friday) prayers across the country."
At 5:30 am (2330 GMT Thursday), broadcasters projected that the BNP had pushed well past the 150-seat threshold to secure a clear majority in parliament.
Jamuna and Somoy television channels reported that the BNP had secured 197 seats.
The Islamist-led coalition headed by Jamaat-e-Islami had won 63 seats, the stations projected, a huge leap from its past results but far short of the outright win it had campaigned for.
The results are not official and counting continues for a total of the 299 constituencies of 300 in which voting took place. 
A further 50 seats in parliament reserved for women will be named from party lists.
The BNP's Rahman, 60, now poised to become the next prime minister, was bullish in the run-up to the vote.
He told AFP two days before polling he was "confident" that his party -- crushed during the 15 years of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina's autocratic rule -- would regain power in the South Asian nation of 170 million people.

Peaceful polls

BNP election committee spokesman Mahdi Amin told reporters the party was on track to win at least two-thirds of seats. 
"Buoyed by strong public support, the BNP will secure a two-thirds majority and form the government," Amin told reporters, adding that Rahman had won "both seats" he had run in.
Party workers spent the whole night in front of the BNP offices.
"We will join the nation-building effort led by Tarique Rahman," Md Fazlur Rahman, 45, told AFP.
"Over the last 17 years, we have suffered a lot, faced multiple politically motivated cases and lost a factory I owned."
The Election Commission has not released final results, suggesting it will have those ready by late Friday morning.
Heavy deployments of security forces are posted countrywide, and UN experts warned ahead of the voting of "growing intolerance, threats and attacks" and a "tsunami of disinformation".
Political clashes killed five people and injured more than 600 during campaigning, police records show.
But polling day was largely peaceful, according to the Election Commission, which reported only "a few minor disruptions".

'Ended the nightmare'

Interim leader Muhammad Yunus, who will step down once the new government takes power, has urged all sides to stay calm.
"We may have differences of opinion, but we must remain united in the greater national interest," he said.
The 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner has led Bangladesh since Hasina's rule ended with her ouster in August 2024.
His administration barred her Awami League party from contesting the polls.
Yunus, after casting his vote, said that the country had "ended the nightmare and begun a new dream".
Hasina, 78, sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity, issued a statement from hiding in India, where she called the vote an "illegal and unconstitutional election".
Yunus has championed a sweeping democratic reform charter to overhaul what he called a "completely broken" system of government and to prevent a return to one-party rule.
Voters also took part in a referendum on the charter and whether to endorse its proposals for prime ministerial term limits, a new upper house of parliament, stronger presidential powers and greater judicial independence.
Television projections suggested the electorate had backed the charter.
sa/pjm/mjw

Liberal

Australia's Liberals elect net zero opponent as new leader

  • And in November the party dropped its commitment to net zero, introduced in 2021 by former leader Scott Morrison when he was prime minister.
  • Australia's centre-right opposition Liberal Party on Friday elected as leader a conservative who lobbied to drop its commitment to net zero emissions, local media reported.
  • And in November the party dropped its commitment to net zero, introduced in 2021 by former leader Scott Morrison when he was prime minister.
Australia's centre-right opposition Liberal Party on Friday elected as leader a conservative who lobbied to drop its commitment to net zero emissions, local media reported.
Angus Taylor -- a former energy minister -- replaces Sussan Ley, the party's first female leader who had been in office for less than a year.
Ley was ousted after a leadership challenge was called on Thursday, leading multiple members of her team to resign.
The Liberals have endured an agonising existential crisis since a disastrous election showing last year, torn between centrist factions arguing for a more moderate stance and right-wingers skeptical of climate legislation and multiculturalism.
The party leadership has also been spooked by recent opinion polling showing it falling behind the right-wing populist One Nation.
Last month, Ley endured a very public spat with longtime coalition partners the Nationals, with whom the Liberal Party has governed Australia for much of the past century.
And in November the party dropped its commitment to net zero, introduced in 2021 by former leader Scott Morrison when he was prime minister.
Australia's "climate wars" -- a years-long domestic fight over emissions policy -- stalled progress and the country remains dependent on its fossil fuel economy for growth.
New leader Taylor was seen as a key proponent of the decision to drop the commitment to zero emissions.
The son of a sheep farmer, he is seen as part of the Liberal's conservative "national right" faction.
He attracted online ridicule in 2019 when he replied to his own social media post with: "Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus".
The next general election must be held by May 2028 after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's centre-left Labor Party won power by a wide margin last year.
oho/md

drone

N. Korea warns of 'terrible response' if more drone incursions from South

  • South Korea's disgraced ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol was accused of using unmanned drones to scatter propaganda leaflets over North Korea in 2024. 
  • North Korea on Friday threatened a "terrible response" in the event of another drone incursion from the South, after Seoul announced a probe into a cross-border incident reported last month.
  • South Korea's disgraced ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol was accused of using unmanned drones to scatter propaganda leaflets over North Korea in 2024. 
North Korea on Friday threatened a "terrible response" in the event of another drone incursion from the South, after Seoul announced a probe into a cross-border incident reported last month.
South Korean investigators on Tuesday raided the offices of the country's spy agency, as they sought to establish who was responsible for a January incident in which Pyongyang says it shot down a surveillance drone near its industrial hub of Kaesong.
"I give advance warning that reoccurrence of such provocation as violating the inalienable sovereignty of the DPRK will surely provoke a terrible response," Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement carried by state-run Korean Central News Agency.
While acknowledging that the South had taken "sensible" steps in the wake of January's incursion, Kim said the violation of the North's sovereignty was unacceptable no matter what the circumstances.
"We don't care who the very manipulator of the drone infiltration into the airspace of the DPRK is and whether it is an individual or a civilian organization," she said.
The incident heightened tensions and threatened to undermine Seoul's efforts to repair relations with Pyongyang. 
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has sought to mend ties with his nation's nuclear-armed neighbour, vowing to stop the drones that buzzed across the border under his predecessor. 
South Korea initially denied any official involvement in the January incident, but a joint military-police task force announced earlier this week it was investigating three active-duty soldiers and one spy agency staffer in an effort to "thoroughly establish the truth".
Investigators raided 18 locations of interest on Tuesday, including the Defense Intelligence Command and the National Intelligence Service. 
In her statement, Kim warned Seoul that such incidents would not be tolerated.
"I warn the ROK authorities to pay heed to prevention so that such a foolish deed would never recur again inside their country," Kim said.
The North Korean military charged that the downed drone was carrying "surveillance equipment" and had stored footage of "important targets."
Photos showed the wreckage of a winged craft scattered across the ground next to a collection of grey and blue components.
South Korea's disgraced ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol was accused of using unmanned drones to scatter propaganda leaflets over North Korea in 2024. 
South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young has previously suggested the incursion may have involved government officials still loyal to Yoon.
Three civilians have already been charged over their alleged role in the drone scandal. 
bur-md/des

climate

Trump dismantles legal basis for US climate rules

BY ISSAM AHMED

  • The president dismissed concerns that the repeal could cost lives by worsening climate change, reiterating his belief that human-caused global warming is a hoax. 
  • President Donald Trump on Thursday revoked a landmark scientific finding underpinning US regulations to curb planet-warming pollution, marking his biggest rollback of climate policy to date.
  • The president dismissed concerns that the repeal could cost lives by worsening climate change, reiterating his belief that human-caused global warming is a hoax. 
President Donald Trump on Thursday revoked a landmark scientific finding underpinning US regulations to curb planet-warming pollution, marking his biggest rollback of climate policy to date.
The repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency's 2009 "endangerment finding" was paired with the immediate elimination of greenhouse gas standards on automobiles.
But it also places a host of other climate rules in jeopardy, including carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and methane leaks for oil and gas producers. 
Legal challenges are expected to follow swiftly.

Climate change 'a scam'

"This determination had no basis in fact, had none whatsoever, and no basis in law," Trump said at a White House event.
The president dismissed concerns that the repeal could cost lives by worsening climate change, reiterating his belief that human-caused global warming is a hoax. 
"I tell them, don't worry about it, because it has nothing to do with public health," Trump said. "This was all a scam, a giant scam."
The administration also framed the measure as a cost-saving move, claiming it would generate more than $1 trillion in regulatory savings and bring down new car costs by thousands of dollars.
The announcement immediately drew condemnation from Democrats and green groups.
"We'll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change -- all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money," warned former president Barack Obama, under whose government the finding was created. 
Manish Bapna, president of the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, told AFP it was the "single biggest attack in history on the United States federal government's efforts to tackle the climate crisis."

Key finding

The 2009 "endangerment finding" was a determination based on overwhelming scientific consensus that six greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare by fueling climate change.
It came about as a result of a prolonged legal battle ending in a 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which ruled that greenhouse gases qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act and directed the EPA to determine whether they pose a danger to public health and welfare.
While it initially applied only to vehicle emissions, it later became the legal foundation for a broader suite of climate regulations, which are now vulnerable.  

Legal case

The final text of the repeal will be closely scrutinized.
Procedurally, the draft proposal argued that greenhouse gases should not be treated as pollutants in the traditional sense because their effects on human health are indirect and global rather than local.  
Regulating them within US borders, it contends, cannot meaningfully resolve a worldwide problem.
But the Supreme Court has re-affirmed the endangerment finding multiple times -- including as recently as 2022, when the court's composition was much the same as today.

Shaky science

The scientific arguments are just as shaky, critics say. The draft repeal sought to downplay the impact of human-caused climate change, citing a study commissioned by an Energy Department working group of skeptics to produce a report challenging the scientific consensus. 
That report was widely panned by researchers, who said it was riddled with errors and misrepresented the studies it cited. The working group itself was disbanded following a lawsuit by nonprofits that argued it was improperly convened. 
The administration has also leaned heavily on putative cost savings, without detailing how its figures have been calculated.
Environmental advocates say the administration is ignoring the other side of the ledger, including lives saved from reduced pollution and fuel savings from more efficient vehicles.
They also warn the rollback would further skew the market toward more gas-guzzling cars and trucks, undermining the American auto industry's ability to compete in the global race toward electric vehicles.
ia/mlm

Global Edition

Neighbor of Canada mass shooter grieves after 'heartbreaking' attack

BY BEN SIMON

  • "How much do you know a (teenager)," said Laroque, who lived in Saudi Arabia with her oil worker husband, and in Edmonton, before settling in Tumbler Ridge 12 years ago.
  • Linda Laroque, a soft-spoken grandmother in the tiny town of Tumbler Ridge, lives two doors down from the person who carried out one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history.
  • "How much do you know a (teenager)," said Laroque, who lived in Saudi Arabia with her oil worker husband, and in Edmonton, before settling in Tumbler Ridge 12 years ago.
Linda Laroque, a soft-spoken grandmother in the tiny town of Tumbler Ridge, lives two doors down from the person who carried out one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history.
Before heading into a support group at a local church on Thursday, Laroque told AFP she was full of compassion for everyone in the shattered community of 2,400 people, including the shooter's family.
"My heart goes out to them," she said. "It's heartbreaking for everyone here."
Laroque said she met Jesse Van Rootselaar -- the transgender woman who killed her mother, stepbrother and six people at the local school before shooting herself -- "a few times," but they were not close.
"How much do you know a (teenager)," said Laroque, who lived in Saudi Arabia with her oil worker husband, and in Edmonton, before settling in Tumbler Ridge 12 years ago.
Laroque's 13-year-old granddaughter was at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School during Tuesday's attack.
"She was locked in a closet with 16 other kids. She said it smelled like wet dog."
Laroque said her granddaughter listened to the gunshots in the packed closet "including the last one when the shooter killed (herself)."
"She doesn't want to go back to school," Laroque said of her granddaughter.
"She doesn't think she can walk into that room again."

'Softer, kinder'

The picturesque town in a Rocky Mountain valley has been shaken by Tuesday's violence, which saw a 39-year-old female teacher, three 12-year-old girls and two boys, aged 13 and 12, shot dead at the school.
Residents have shown frustration at the surge of media attention, and some have expressed regret the mining town with stunning views will forever be synonymous with tragedy.
For Pastor George Rowe of the Tumbler Ridge Fellowship Baptist Church, the community's response since Tuesday may ultimately serve to highlight its strength.
If people see a tiny community rallying together after an unimaginable nightmare, they'll think, "there must be something there," he said.
"This will not break us," Rowe told AFP in his sparsely furnished church office.
"I think we're going to be OK."
While he remains optimistic about the future, Rowe was rattled by the hours following the attack.
He said he went to the community center once the lockdown was lifted, and sought to comfort families waiting to learn whether their children had survived.
"The silence was such that it was almost explosive," he said.
Police said the shooter was known to have mental health challenges, and there has been significant focus in the days following the attack on difficulty accessing mental healthcare in remote northern communities like Tumbler Ridge.
This was also a concern for Laroque, who said she was worried about people suffering with no access to support.
Since Tuesday's shooting, she's noticed a change in people's attitudes.
"People's voices are softer, kinder and gentler."
She told AFP she's been asked in recent days if she has any plans to leave.
"Why would I want to leave?... This is an amazing place with amazing people in it."
bs/des

politics

Trump ends immigration crackdown in Minnesota

  • "The Twin Cities, Minnesota in general, are and will continue to be, much safer for the communities here because of what we have accomplished under President Trump's leadership," Homan said at the briefing on the outskirts of Minneapolis and neighboring St. Paul.
  • President Donald Trump's pointman on Thursday announced the end of an aggressive immigration operation in Minnesota that triggered large protests and nationwide outrage following the killing of two US citizens.
  • "The Twin Cities, Minnesota in general, are and will continue to be, much safer for the communities here because of what we have accomplished under President Trump's leadership," Homan said at the briefing on the outskirts of Minneapolis and neighboring St. Paul.
President Donald Trump's pointman on Thursday announced the end of an aggressive immigration operation in Minnesota that triggered large protests and nationwide outrage following the killing of two US citizens.
Thousands of federal agents including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducted weeks of sweeping raids and arrests in what the administration claims were targeted missions against criminals.
"I have proposed and President Trump has concurred that this surge operation conclude," Trump official Tom Homan told a briefing outside Minneapolis. "A significant drawdown has already been underway this week and will continue through the next week."
The operation sparked tense demonstrations in the Minneapolis area, and the fatal separate shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti last month led to a wave of criticism.
Homan raised the prospect that the officers would move to another location but gave no details, and speculation is rife about which city might be targeted next.
"In the next week, we're going to deploy the officers here on detail, back to their home stations or other areas of the country where they are needed. But we're going to continue to enforce immigration law," he said.
Campaigning against illegal immigration helped Trump get elected in 2024, but daily videos from Minnesota of violent masked agents, and multiple reports of people being targeted on flimsy evidence, helped send the president's approval ratings plummeting.
The case of Liam Conejo Ramos, five, who was detained on January 20, also stoked anger.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the ICE operation in his city "had been catastrophic for our neighbors and businesses, and now it's time for a great comeback. 
"We will show the same commitment to our immigrant residents," he added.

'Unprecedented federal invasion'

After killings of Good and Pretti, the Republican president withdrew combative Customs and Border Protection commander Gregory Bovino and replaced him with Homan who sought to engage local Democratic leaders.
Minneapolis is a Democratic-run "sanctuary" city where local police do not cooperate with federal immigration officials.
Resident and banking product manager Molly, 42, told AFP "I don't buy it."
"They pulled the same public relations (stunt) in Los Angeles," she said referring to an immigration crackdown to the Californian city last summer.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called the ICE deployment in his state an "unprecedented federal invasion in all aspects of life."
"This is something I don't think any state has ever experienced," he said Thursday, adding that he was "cautiously optimistic" about the withdrawal.
Democrats have called for major reforms to ICE, including ending mobile patrols, prohibiting agents from concealing their faces and requiring warrants.
If political negotiations over ICE fail in Washington, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) could face a funding shortfall starting Saturday.
On Thursday Democrats in the Senate blocked a push to fund DHS following an acrimonious four-hour hearing on the immigration crackdown.
Customs and Border Protection and ICE operations could continue using funds approved by Congress last year, but other sub-agencies such as federal disaster organization FEMA could be affected.
Homan said that some officers would stay behind in Minnesota but did not give a figure.
"The Twin Cities, Minnesota in general, are and will continue to be, much safer for the communities here because of what we have accomplished under President Trump's leadership," Homan said at the briefing on the outskirts of Minneapolis and neighboring St. Paul.
He said more than 200 people had been arrested during the operation for interfering with federal officers, but gave no estimate for the number of immigration-linked arrests and deportations.
"The lasting impact of these traumas will reverberate for years, but our communities have shown how connected and resilient we are," Liz Digitale Anderson, a community organizer, told AFP.
gw/bgs

investigation

Swiss bar owners face wrath of bereaved families

BY CHARLENE PERSONNAZ

  • Gulcin Kaya, the mother of an 18-year-old who died in the fire, approached the Morettis in the scrum as they arrived, shouting at them: "Where is my son?
  • Bereaved relatives on Thursday angrily confronted the owners of a Swiss bar that caught fire during New Year celebrations, heckling them as they arrived to face questions over the fatal tragedy.
  • Gulcin Kaya, the mother of an 18-year-old who died in the fire, approached the Morettis in the scrum as they arrived, shouting at them: "Where is my son?
Bereaved relatives on Thursday angrily confronted the owners of a Swiss bar that caught fire during New Year celebrations, heckling them as they arrived to face questions over the fatal tragedy.
Ten or so relatives were outside the hearing venue in Sion, waiting for French couple Jacques and Jessica Moretti, who own Le Constellation in the ski resort of Crans-Montana.
The bar caught fire in the early hours of January 1, with 41 people, mostly teenagers, losing their lives, and another 115 injured in the blaze, most of whom remain in hospitals and rehabilitation clinics.
Prosecutors believe the fire started when champagne bottles with sparklers attached were raised too close to the ceiling in the bar's basement level, igniting the sound insulation foam.
Gulcin Kaya, the mother of an 18-year-old who died in the fire, approached the Morettis in the scrum as they arrived, shouting at them: "Where is my son? Where is he?"
Jacques Moretti replied: "We will take responsibility, we will face up to it, we promise you, we are here for justice," while his wife, in tears, struggled to make her way inside.

Families 'destroyed'

"You killed my big brother, you bitch, do you understand! Look me in the eyes: you killed my brother," shouted 14-year-old Tobyas, the brother of Trystan Pidoux, 17, who died in the fire.
He told reporters: "I'd like her to see how she destroyed families. Not only did she kill people, but she destroyed the families behind them."
He said of his brother: "I can't believe I'll never see him again."
The boys' father Christian Pidoux wore a t-shirt bearing a picture of his deceased son.
"We're doing this so that it never happens again. That's our goal: never again," he told reporters.
"It's only so that they see the eyes of the fathers, brothers, sisters," he said.
"Some children melted -- they no longer have a face, a nose, a mouth, an ear."
Samhare Saleh, a friend of the Pidoux family, said: "We demand justice, we demand the truth for all those children who have died and those who are still in the hospital, who are between life and death."
Switzerland's Federal Office for Civil Protection told AFP that as of Monday, 39 patients were being treated in burns centres abroad, while Swiss news agency ATS said 25 remained in Swiss hospitals, with further patients in rehabilitation clinics.

Call for calm

The Morettis are under criminal investigation, facing charges of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence.
Two others are also under criminal investigation -- Crans-Montana's current head of public safety and a former fire safety officer in the town.
Lawyer Romain Jordan, who represents several families, called for "dignity, serenity and respect" all round.
He said the deputy public prosecutor had "appealed for calm", adding: "I believe that call was heard."

'No forgiveness'

Trystan Pidoux's mother Vinciane Stucky went inside and witnessed Thursday's interview.
During the hearing, "Jacques Moretti tried to ask me for forgiveness, but I told him to look away and stare at the floor, because you don't ask for forgiveness for things like that," she said.
During a break on Wednesday, the Morettis met with Leila Micheloud, the mother of two daughters injured in the blaze. They spoke for around 20 minutes.
"There was no forgiveness... I do not forgive them, I listened to them and that's where it stops," Micheloud said Thursday on Facebook, adding that the meeting was "impromptu".
Alain Viscolo, a lawyer representing two victims, said it was time for the investigation to start considering the role of the authorities, "namely those who had the power to oversee fire safety".
He told AFP that a complaint had been filed against the president of Crans-Montana commune.
str-apo/rjm/rlp

film

Less glamour, more content, says Wim Wenders of Berlin Film Fest

BY JASTINDER KHERA

  • Later on the red carpet Wenders told AFP that this year's films reflected a trend towards "less glamour, but more content".
  • Berlin Film Festival jury president Wim Wenders said Thursday that this year's 76th edition of the festival would have "less glamour" but "more content" in its eclectic selection.
  • Later on the red carpet Wenders told AFP that this year's films reflected a trend towards "less glamour, but more content".
Berlin Film Festival jury president Wim Wenders said Thursday that this year's 76th edition of the festival would have "less glamour" but "more content" in its eclectic selection.
At a news conference to mark the beginning of the festival on Thursday morning, Wenders hailed the power of cinema to "change the world" while cautioning that "no movie has really changed any politician's idea".
"We can change the idea that people have of how they should live," said 80-year-old Wenders, who himself won an honorary Golden Bear award at the festival in 2015 in recognition of an illustrious career stretching back to the 1970s.
The Berlinale is the first major international festival on the annual film calendar, and has a reputation for topical and progressive programming.
This year's edition takes place against the backdrop of international tensions, the bloody crackdown on protests in Iran and global threats to human rights.
Later on the red carpet Wenders told AFP that this year's films reflected a trend towards "less glamour, but more content".
"I love glamour but I love it even more if movies are about who we are and what we are doing," he said.
Asked about his relationship with American filmmakers working in the tense current climate under President Donald Trump, Wenders said: "I have a lot of allies in America and they make some movies that are extremely necessary right now.
"You followed the Superbowl, so America is waking up in many ways," said Wenders, alluding to Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny's groundbreaking Spanish-language set.

'Opportunity' for Afghan cinema

The festival's opening film, "No Good Men", by Iran-born Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat, tells the story of Naru, a reporter at a Kabul TV station going through an acrimonious separation from her husband and who is increasingly questioning her beliefs about men.
The film is set in the run-up to the Taliban authorities' seizure of power in 2021, which led Sadat herself to leave the country. She now lives in Hamburg.
Sadat, who also plays the lead role of Naru, told AFP she was delighted and "surprised" to be chosen to open the festival.
"It took time until I could put myself together and realise what a big honour it is for me," Sadat told AFP.
Afghan filmmakers are "trying to figure out... what does it mean to be the storyteller of our own stories", Sadat said.
"So I think for the young Afghan cinema it's really a great opportunity," she said.
Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, who won the Best Actress Oscar in 2023 for "Everything Everywhere All at Once", received an Honorary Golden Bear at this year's festival.
Speaking at the opening ceremony Yeoh said: "In a world that so easily divides us, gathering in the dark to share a story feels quietly radical."
More than 200 films will be shown over the 10 days of the festival, of which 22 will be in competition for the top prize, the Golden Bear.
As was the case last year, around 40 percent of films being shown at the festival are from women directors, including nine of the 22 films in official competition.

'Biting satire'

In comparison with Cannes or Venice, Berlin attracts fewer big productions with A-list-heavy casts.
But Russell Crowe and Ethan Hawke star in "The Weight", a tale of a man forced to smuggle gold through the lethal wilderness of Depression-era rural Oregon.
Southern Germany stands in for the US Northwest in the film, one of an increasing number of US productions choosing to shoot abroad to save on costs.
In official competition, one of the most eagerly awaited films is "Rosebush Pruning", from Berlinale favourite Karim Ainouz, billed as "a biting satire about the absurdity of the traditional patriarchal family".
The cast boasts Elle Fanning, Callum Turner, Jamie Bell and Pamela Anderson, who are sure to be some of Saturday's red-carpet highlights.
German actress Sandra Hueller, who attracted international acclaim for her roles in "Anatomy of a Fall" and "The Zone of Interest", stars in Markus Schleinzer's "Rose". She plays a woman passing herself off as a male soldier returning to a German village in the early 17th century.
Also in competition, Amy Adams stars as a woman leaving rehab and confronting buried trauma in Kornel Mundruczo's "At the Sea".
And in Beth de Araujo's "Josephine", Channing Tatum plays the father of a child traumatised by witnessing a violent crime.
agu-pyv-jsk/jj

diplomacy

What is going on with Iran-US talks?

BY STUART WILLIAMS AND SUSANNAH WALDEN

  • - Trump has never ruled out military action on Iran after its crackdown on protests, although he is now focusing on a deal over the nuclear drive.
  • Iran and the United States have yet to set a date for a new round of talks after an initial encounter last week on the contested Iranian nuclear programme but, for now, US President Donald Trump is not rushing to launch military action against the Islamic republic.
  • - Trump has never ruled out military action on Iran after its crackdown on protests, although he is now focusing on a deal over the nuclear drive.
Iran and the United States have yet to set a date for a new round of talks after an initial encounter last week on the contested Iranian nuclear programme but, for now, US President Donald Trump is not rushing to launch military action against the Islamic republic.
AFP looks at a critical juncture in the modern history of Iran in the wake of the crackdown on the biggest protests in years in January that according to rights groups has left thousands dead.

Where is diplomacy?

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on February 6 held talks in Oman with US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's influential son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The talks were indirect, with the Omanis acting as mediator, although Tehran did later confirm that there was a handshake.
Iran's supreme national security council head Ali Larijani, a mainstay of the establishment for the last decades, this week followed this up with visits to Oman and then US ally Qatar.
There was speculation about the contents of a piece of paper he brandished during the visit to Oman, but so far no new date for talks has been set.
"We didn't have a letter for the Americans, but our Omani friends had some communications," Larijani told Iranian state television.
"There were some remarks the Omani side told us on behalf of the Americans," he added, without offering further clues.
Trump had hailed the Oman talks as "very good" and said there would be another meeting "early" this week, something that has not materialised.

Is there room for compromise?

In an upbeat interview with the Financial Times, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan indicated that compromise was possible on the key sticking point of uranium enrichment.
The West believes Iran is seeking a nuclear bomb, a charge Tehran denies, and wants a halt to uranium enrichment, a key step in weaponising an atomic programme.
"It is positive that the Americans appear willing to tolerate Iranian enrichment within clearly set boundaries," said Fidan, who has held talks with Iranian and American counterparts.
In a statement after meeting Trump on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the American president thinks he is creating conditions that could achieve "a good deal".
But Netanyahu expressed "general scepticism" and demanded that any deal also consider Iran's ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies and not just the nuclear programme.
However, Iran's number one, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who for years has pushed a line of confrontation with Washington, has yet to give any public blessing to the diplomacy.
"The enemies who sought to subjugate the Iranian nation through their statements and plans have been thwarted," he said in a message broadcast by state television hailing the turnout Wednesday at rallies commemorating the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Is Trump still threatening Iran?

Trump has never ruled out military action on Iran after its crackdown on protests, although he is now focusing on a deal over the nuclear drive.
More than 7,000 people were killed, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency NGO, the vast majority of them -- 6,506 -- protesters.
An American naval group led by aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and dubbed an "armada" by Trump remains in Middle Eastern waters in a clear warning to Iran.
But the talks in Washington on Wednesday between Trump and Netanyahu, who has long urged a tougher US line on Iran, ended with Trump saying he had insisted "negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated".
Trump added on Thursday: "We have to make a deal, otherwise it's going to be very traumatic, very traumatic. I don't want that to happen, but we have to make a deal."
The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington was readying the deployment of a second aircraft carrier strike group to the region, even if no final decision had been taken and plans could change.
The deployment could take place within a timescale of two weeks and the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush could be ready to "expedite" exercises it was currently involved in, it said.
Israel in June waged a 12-day war with Iran backed by the US that was widely seen as degrading -- but not destroying -- Iranian nuclear and ballistic capabilities.

What happens next?

Ross Harrison, senior fellow with the US-based Middle East Institute and author of "Decoding Iran's Foreign Policy", argued that the talks represented more of a US "ultimatum" towards Iran rather than "true negotiations".
By participating, Iran was trying to "buy some time, so they can rebuild their missile programme and so forth -- not necessarily the nuclear programme -- but the missile programme", he said, adding that the target audience of Tehran's diplomatic efforts was not necessarily Washington.
"Israel is pushing Trump towards more aggression, but Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and the UAE (United Arab Emirates) are trying to push Trump towards an authentic diplomatic track," he said.
"What the Iranians are doing is showing some good faith by attending these talks, but the real target is not the United States. I think it's our Gulf Arab allies that can possibly forestall a military attack," he added.
sjw/sw/amj

elephants

The secret to an elephant's grace? Whiskers

BY MAGGY DONALDSON

  • New research published Thursday in the journal Science details how the whiskers that cover an elephant's trunk have unique properties that lend the largest land mammals remarkable dexterity.
  • An elephant's trunk can surpass a human's height and lift trees -- a marvel of strength that's conversely so gentle it can grasp a tortilla chip without breaking it.
  • New research published Thursday in the journal Science details how the whiskers that cover an elephant's trunk have unique properties that lend the largest land mammals remarkable dexterity.
An elephant's trunk can surpass a human's height and lift trees -- a marvel of strength that's conversely so gentle it can grasp a tortilla chip without breaking it.
So how do the thick-skinned animals with poor eyesight pull off such delicate tasks? In a word, whiskers.
New research published Thursday in the journal Science details how the whiskers that cover an elephant's trunk have unique properties that lend the largest land mammals remarkable dexterity.
Elephants are born with about 1,000 of these bristles, lead author Andrew Schulz told AFP, many of them anchored in the trunk's wrinkles to act like feelers and help the animals assess their surroundings.
A team of engineers, materials scientists and neuroscientists analyzed the geometry, porosity and material properties of these whiskers, and expected them to mimic the whiskers found on mice or rats -- circular at a cross-section, solid and uniformly stiff.
In fact, elephant whiskers are almost blade-like, with a porous architecture similar to sheep horns, which helps with shock absorption while eating.
And a gradiated shape and structure from base to tip allows for an amplified sense of touch, Schulz said.
"The craziest finding that we had, I think, was that these whiskers have this transition from a really, really rigid base to a very, very soft tip," said the researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany.
Part of elephants' whisker evolution is to prevent breakage, said Schulz. Unlike most mammals with whiskers, those of elephants don't grow back.

Elephant-inspired advances

Many animals have sensory hairs that can act as a radar, but few quite so precise as the elephant's.
Schulz said a rat's whiskers, for example, also picks up vibrations -- but it's akin to smashing down a handful of keys on a piano.
To an elephant's whiskers, it's more like hitting specific notes.
Researchers voiced excitement that cat whiskers have a similar kind of material intelligence and stiffness gradient.
The elephant's gradiated structure can help with things like object differentiation while foraging and eating -- which they spend the vast majority of their time doing.
Elephants are also well-documented using their trunks for social touch -- "they're using the outside of their trunk," Schulz said, "so they're using those portions that are covered in the whiskers."
Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell -- a behavioral ecologist and elephant expert who has focused on how the giant mammals communicate and detect signals through their feet -- called the findings "fascinating."
"This is really exciting for me to see just more affirmation of how sensitive their trunks really are," she told AFP.
"There's some really interesting, intriguing thoughts for the next steps, for what one could ask in terms of the behavioral application of this," O'Connell-Rodwell said.
"Not only would this allow them to say, reach up into a tree and feel around for fruit or a seed pod with better agility, but it also has implications for communication."
There's also a wealth of technological possibilities elephant whiskers could inspire, not least when it comes to robotics, Schulz said.
And "part of the novelty of this work is functional gradients exist everywhere in biology," the researcher said. 
The stiff base-to-soft tip structure also appears in rotator cuffs or ACL ligaments, he said for example -- and better understanding those structures and how they might impact sensing could perhaps allow for improved repair techniques.
mdo/sms

science

Chance glimpse of star collapse offers new insight into black hole formation

BY MAGGY DONALDSON

  • The astronomer also said the star identified was slightly smaller than one scientists would "nominally expect to turn into a black hole."
  • A watched pot never boils and love happens when you least expect it -- turns out, the same logic applies to capturing a star as it collapses into a black hole.
  • The astronomer also said the star identified was slightly smaller than one scientists would "nominally expect to turn into a black hole."
A watched pot never boils and love happens when you least expect it -- turns out, the same logic applies to capturing a star as it collapses into a black hole.
At least that proved true for one group of researchers whose work took a turn when they accidentally witnessed what appears to be an example of the astronomical unicorn, a "surprise" discovery they detailed in findings published Thursday in the journal Science.
It's the strongest observational record yet of the long-theorized phenomenon that some stars simply fade into black holes, the authors say.
Lead author and astrophysicist Kishalay De told AFP the project began as something quite different, a study of stars under infrared light in the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy.
But the team encountered an unusual stellar object that brightened... and then dimmed until it disappeared.
"That's where the mystery really started," said De, a professor at New York's Columbia University and researcher at the Flatiron Institute. 
Researchers were using long-term observations from NASA's NEOWISE mission, which used a space telescope that surveyed the sky in infrared to detect and characterize near-Earth objects.
They were able to piece together a large data set, going back through those archives and others more than a decade to study what they'd seen.
It's not the first time scientists have spotted a convincing example of a "failed supernova" -- when a star's core collapses directly into a black hole and starts shedding its turbulent outer layers without a dazzling explosion.
Another prime candidate was identified in research published about a decade ago. 
De said this new observation offers another clue -- and one that comes from the closest galaxy to ours, about 2.5 million light-years from Earth, meaning it was much brighter and easier to examine.
Daniel Holz -- a University of Chicago astrophysicist focused on black holes, who was not involved in the study -- told AFP the "serendipitous" nature of the latest example makes it particularly exciting.
Because it popped up within a larger-scale data collection, there was a backlog of images to analyze -- what Holz likened to "baby pictures," or earlier documentation that could tie together the research.

'Dying gasp'

Scientists have long carried out efforts trying to find individual stars in nearby galaxies that abruptly disappear, "but to catch them in the act is hard," Holz said, explaining that the death of a star often comes after billions of years of living.
"You have to be really lucky," he said. "You can't just look at one star and say, 'I'm just going to sit here and wait.'"
De said that's precisely why this new research could be door-opening.
When stars die they're thought to shed their outer layers and thus appear brighter for a time -- in this case, that shift "was flagged to us in infrared light, and that's what led to the discovery," De said.
"It really points us to a completely new method of identifying the disappearance of stars, by not just looking for the individual stars disappearing, but to look for the infrared brightening that's associated with the process," De said, what he called the star's "dying gasp."
The astronomer also said the star identified was slightly smaller than one scientists would "nominally expect to turn into a black hole."
At the end of its life, De said it would have been approximately five times the mass of the Sun -- giant, but about half the size they might have anticipated.
"What this really tells us is that what we've assumed about the landscape of stars that turn into black holes might be much wider than what we've anticipated in the past," he said.
Holz said this latest research is an "exciting step" in "teasing out the role of black holes in the universe."
"This is another example of, you know, they're really out there," he said. "And that's just really, unbelievably cool."
mdo/sms

UN

UN climate chief says 'new world disorder' threatens cooperation

BY HAZEL WARD WITH LAURENT THOMET IN PARIS

  • Stiell warned that international climate cooperation was "under unprecedented threat: from those determined to use their power to defy economic and scientific logic, and increase dependence on polluting coal, oil and gas".
  • The UN's climate chief on Thursday urged countries to unite against an "unprecedented threat" to international cooperation from pro-fossil fuel forces -- issuing the appeal as US President Donald Trump rattles the global order.
  • Stiell warned that international climate cooperation was "under unprecedented threat: from those determined to use their power to defy economic and scientific logic, and increase dependence on polluting coal, oil and gas".
The UN's climate chief on Thursday urged countries to unite against an "unprecedented threat" to international cooperation from pro-fossil fuel forces -- issuing the appeal as US President Donald Trump rattles the global order.
Simon Stiell, the head of the United Nations climate body, spoke in Istanbul as Turkey prepares to host the COP31 climate summit on its Mediterranean coast later this year, with Australia leading the negotiations.
"COP31 in Antalya will take place in extraordinary times. We find ourselves in a new world disorder," Stiell said in an address alongside the president-designate of COP31, Turkish environment minister Murat Kurum.
"This is a period of instability and insecurity. Of strong arms and trade wars. The very concept of international cooperation is under attack," he said.
He did not name any countries but his plea comes as climate action is competing with concerns over security and economic growth around the world.
Trump has championed oil, gas and coal while moving to withdraw the United States from the UN's bedrock climate treaty after pulling out of the Paris Agreement, the landmark deal reached in 2015 on curbing global warming.
Stiell said in a news conference that the "door remains open" to welcoming the United States back to the fold.
The American leader, who has called global warming a "hoax", revoked on Thursday a landmark scientific finding that underpins US regulations aimed at curbing planet-warming pollution.
Trump has also rattled European allies with his desire to acquire Greenland, as shrinking Arctic sea ice is turning the region into a strategic battleground.

'Antidote to the chaos'

Other nations have resisted moving away from oil, gas and coal.
The COP30 summit in Brazil late last year ended with a modest deal that lacked any explicit mention of fossil fuels amid opposition from oil giants such as Saudi Arabia, coal producer India and others.
The United States, the world's top economy and second-biggest polluter after China, shunned COP30.
The last three years have been the hottest globally on record, driven by rising greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.
Stiell warned that international climate cooperation was "under unprecedented threat: from those determined to use their power to defy economic and scientific logic, and increase dependence on polluting coal, oil and gas".
"Those forces are undeniably strong. But they need not prevail. There is a clear alternative to this chaos and regression," he said.
"And that is countries standing together, building on all we have achieved to date, to make it (international global cooperation) go further and faster."
He noted that investment in clean energy was more than double that of fossil fuels last year, while renewables overtook coal as the top electricity source.
"Security is the word on most leaders' lips, yet many cling to a definition that is dangerously narrow," Stiell said, warning that rising greenhouse gases mean "escalating climate extremes fuelling famine, displacement, and war".
Stiell urged nations to deliver on their 2023 agreement at COP28 in Dubai to triple clean energy capacity by 2030 and transition away from fossil fuels, and for the most ambitious to form "coalitions of the willing".
"Climate cooperation is an antidote to the chaos and coercion of this moment, and clean energy is the obvious solution to spiralling fossil fuel costs, both human and economic," he said.
Turkey will host COP31 while Australia will chair the negotiations under a compromise that was agreed late last year to end a dispute over where the event would take place.
Kurum said Turkey and Australia would work together to present a "robust" COP31 action agenda in March.
"Regression in global climate action is unacceptable," Kurum said.
bur-lt/phz/cc

Oly

Ukraine says Russia behind fake posts targeting Winter Olympics team

BY ANNA MALPAS WITH EDUARD STARKBAUER IN BRATISLAVA

  • "Russians have rolled out an information campaign to discredit Ukraine," Kyiv's centre for countering disinformation said Thursday.
  • Ukraine blamed a Russian disinformation campaign Thursday after fake news posted online about its Winter Olympics team, including a story criticising an athlete disqualified for trying to highlight war deaths.
  • "Russians have rolled out an information campaign to discredit Ukraine," Kyiv's centre for countering disinformation said Thursday.
Ukraine blamed a Russian disinformation campaign Thursday after fake news posted online about its Winter Olympics team, including a story criticising an athlete disqualified for trying to highlight war deaths.
The fake posts, which racked up over a million views across multiple platforms, included a claim about Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, banned from competing Thursday for wearing a helmet with images of athletes killed in the war.
"Russians have rolled out an information campaign to discredit Ukraine," Kyiv's centre for countering disinformation said Thursday.
"With such fakes, Russia is trying to discredit Ukrainians and undermine international support for Ukraine," Ukraine's sports minister Matviy Bidny told AFP.
One post digitally manipulated a text story by Reuters news agency about Heraskevych. It added false claims that his brother recruited soldiers for the war and a Hungarian athlete wore a sticker saying "we're all fed up with U(kraine)".
AFP saw Russian-language accounts on X make similar claims.
Other false stories online included claims that Ukrainian team members had been housed separately due to "toxic" behaviour; that doping controls had been eased for them to take "psychoactive substances"; and that 52 of their translators had absconded.
A fake video with a logo similar to US E! News entertainment television claimed rapper Snoop Dogg -- who is covering the games for US network NBC -- had refused a photo with the Ukraine team because of the country's army's "Nazism".
The posts are part of a Russian-aligned campaign called Operation Overload that was also active during the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, said Pablo Maristany de las Casas, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank.
Some posts impersonate media such as Euronews while others imitate the Israeli espionage agency Mossad and even the Italian health ministry, he said.
The campaign aims to discredit not just Ukrainian athletes but also refugees, he said, with a message that "Ukrainians are sowing chaos".

'Propaganda network'

Other false claims included that the Ukrainian feminist collective Femen had vandalised the Colosseum, and that Ukraine had taken away the passports of athletes' family members to stop them defecting.
Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation said it had identified a "coordinated" campaign of "completely falsified" stories that had first appeared on Russian-language Telegram channels.
These were then "amplified by a network of propaganda accounts", it added.
Canadian broadcaster CBC released its own fact check of a fake news video about Ukrainian athletes. The fake report had used the first 15 seconds of a genuine video from its social media, featuring CBC chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault, it said.
Then an "AI-generated version of Adrienne's voice takes over", said CBC fact-check producer Avneet Dhillon.
The reporter appears to say the Ukrainian team has been accommodated "as far away as possible" from others because the athletes were "extremely toxic" at the Paris Olympics.
The real video did not mention Ukraine or Ukrainian athletes, CBC said.
The International Olympic Committee's press team told AFP the Ukrainians were in the same facilities as other teams. It called the video "absolutely false and an attempt at deliberate misrepresentation".
This video began circulating on a Russian-language Telegram channel called "Odessa for Victory" on February 5, said Provereno Media, a fact-checking organisation based in Estonia.
The posts, amplified by bots, have been viewed over one million times, it added -- and the story has been picked up by pro-Kremlin media citing it as coming from CBC.
An AFP fact-checker saw also this claim circulating on Slovak-language accounts on Facebook.
burs-es-am/nla/jj

politics

Thousands of Venezuelans stage march for end to repression

  • Referring to the slow release of prisoners over the past five weeks, the demonstrators chanted: "Not one or two, but all."
  • Thousands of Venezuelans demonstrated on Thursday to demand the release of all remaining political prisoners and full freedoms a month after the overthrow of autocratic leader Nicolas Maduro.
  • Referring to the slow release of prisoners over the past five weeks, the demonstrators chanted: "Not one or two, but all."
Thousands of Venezuelans demonstrated on Thursday to demand the release of all remaining political prisoners and full freedoms a month after the overthrow of autocratic leader Nicolas Maduro.
"We are not afraid," the demonstrators chanted at the first major opposition rally since Maduro's capture by US forces, creating scenes that would have been unthinkable during his repressive rule.
Elsewhere in Caracas, thousands of people attended a counter-demonstration in support of the post-Maduro government allowed to remain in place by President Donald Trump, who asserts that he in effect controls Venezuela and its oil wealth.
The opposition demonstration called by student organizations came as lawmakers prepared to debate a bill granting amnesty to all political prisoners for alleged offenses over 27 years of socialist rule.
Referring to the slow release of prisoners over the past five weeks, the demonstrators chanted: "Not one or two, but all."
"Amnesty now!" read a banner hanging at the entrance to the Central University of Venezuela, where the demonstrators gathered.
"We spend a lot of time underground, silent in the face of all the repression Venezuela experienced...but today we are rising up and uniting to put forward demands for the country," Dannalice Anza, a 26-year-old geography student, told AFP.
"VENEZUELA WILL BE FREE! Long live our students!," exiled opposition leader Maria Corina Machado wrote on X, alongside a video of a Caracas street thronged with demonstrators, some of whom waved Venezuelan flags.
The administration of Maduro's successor, Delcy Rodriguez, organized a counter-demonstration, which attracted thousands of pro-Maduro demonstrators on Venezuela Youth Day.
bc-atm-pgf/cb/dw

women

Iranian state TV's broadcast of women without hijab angers critics

BY STUART WILLIAMS

  • At the annual nationwide rallies on Wednesday marking the anniversary of the revolution, state television for the first time showed women taking part who proclaimed their support for the authorities but were bareheaded.
  • The broadcast by Iranian state-controlled television of interviews with several women not wearing the Muslim headscarf during a rally commemorating the Islamic revolution has angered critics of the clerical system who accused authorities of hypocrisy.
  • At the annual nationwide rallies on Wednesday marking the anniversary of the revolution, state television for the first time showed women taking part who proclaimed their support for the authorities but were bareheaded.
The broadcast by Iranian state-controlled television of interviews with several women not wearing the Muslim headscarf during a rally commemorating the Islamic revolution has angered critics of the clerical system who accused authorities of hypocrisy.
Since shortly after the 1979 revolution, it has been obligatory for women to cover their heads in public, although in recent months there has been growing evidence of women openly flouting the rule, especially in the capital Tehran.
At the annual nationwide rallies on Wednesday marking the anniversary of the revolution, state television for the first time showed women taking part who proclaimed their support for the authorities but were bareheaded.
Critics accused authorities of a cynical move after the Islamic republic was shaken by protests last month that were suppressed by a crackdown that according to rights groups left thousands of people dead.
Some social media users also raised the memory of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian-Kurdish woman whose death in custody in 2022 after being arrested for allegedly flouting the dress code for women led to months of protests.
In one interview widely shared on social media, a woman without a hijab head covering, her hair slicked back into a bun, was asked why she had decided to attend the annual rally for the first time.
"Given the recent events that took place in the country, I wanted to say that resistance is alive in the name of Iran and in our hearts," said the woman, who was not named.
Asked if she had a message for Iran's enemies, she replied: "Either death or the homeland."
Several similar interviews were broadcast from the Tehran rally, which was marked as usual by slogans of hostility against Iran's arch-foe the United States.
Jason Brodsky, policy director at US-based group United Against Nuclear Iran, said the move to feature women without hijab served as "a pressure valve" at home and abroad amid the protest crackdown.

'Only a fool'

The Israeli government's Persian-language account on X, run by the foreign ministry, posted images of the footage and asked: "Why did the Islamic republic of Iran murder Mahsa Amini?"
German journalist and author of Iranian origin Golineh Atai said that despite appearances, "mandatory hijab enforcement continues, in increasingly insidious ways".
"This regime is all about appearances, the show, the facade in order to hide its ugly face," she said.
In another widely shared intervention that attracted vehement criticism, British Muslim commentator and influencer of Pakistani origin Bushra Shaikh filmed herself in Tehran walking amid the crowds without a headscarf.
"What's amazing guys is that I have walked this entire rally in the middle of Iran without a hijab on!" she told social media followers in a video.
"That for you, my friends, is the reality of news when it's brought to you live from the country!"
US-based Iranian dissident and women's rights campaigner Masih Alinejad responded to her on X, saying: "Only a fool would look at a staged rally in a brutal regime and call it legitimacy."
Shaikh, who in the UK has been accused by Jewish groups of antisemitism, later commented on the rallies on state-run Iranian English-language channel Press TV, wearing a hijab and denouncing "propagandised" media coverage of Iran by the West.
sjw/amj