分类： world

LONDON – In a historic legal proceeding that marked the first test of Britain’s 2001 International Criminal Court Act against an alleged perpetrator of atrocities abroad, a British judge has ruled that a former Syrian air force colonel is medically unfit to face a full criminal trial on charges of murder, torture, and crimes against humanity.

Fifty-eight-year-old Salem al-Salem was accused of orchestrating and participating in the killing of three civilian protesters and the torture of three detainees during the Syrian regime’s violent 2011 crackdown on Arab Spring-era anti-government demonstrations. Charges were brought under UK law that grants domestic courts jurisdiction over grave international offenses including crimes against humanity and torture, regardless of where the alleged acts took place. This marked the first time British prosecutors had brought a charge of murder as a crime against humanity under the 2001 legislation.

Prosecutors formally accepted medical assessments confirming al-Salem suffers from an advanced, progressive and fatal motor neuron disease that has left him quadriplegic, with significant cognitive impairment and severely limited communication abilities. According to medical evidence submitted to the Central Criminal Court, the former colonel can only communicate in monosyllables, is only understandable to close family members, and also suffers from clinical depression and apathy that leave him unable to participate meaningfully in legal proceedings. Not guilty pleas were formally entered on his behalf by court representatives following the judge’s ruling.

Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb announced that while al-Salem cannot face a full trial that could result in a conviction, a non-conviction trial of facts will be held in 2025 to examine the evidence to determine whether the alleged acts actually occurred. Al-Salem will not be required to attend the proceeding, even remotely, due to the severity of his health condition.

Prosecutors outlined the allegations against al-Salem during earlier hearings, saying he was a senior member of a Syrian Air Force Intelligence unit deployed to suppress pro-democracy demonstrations in Jobar, a suburb of Damascus, at the start of the Syrian uprising. Prosecutor Emilie Pottle told the court that al-Salem was directly tasked with quelling civilian protests against the government of then-President Bashar Assad, and personally ordered his subordinates to open fire on unarmed demonstrators, as well as taking part in shootings himself. Prosecutors allege the three killings for which he was charged took place between April and July 2011, and that the murders constituted part of a widespread, systematic attack on the civilian population aligned with opposition to the Assad regime.

Beyond the murder charges, al-Salem also faces allegations of official torture: prosecutors say he directly participated in interrogations of detained opposition supporters, during which detainees were subjected to beatings, electric shock torture, and suspension from ceilings by their handcuffs. He also faces a single charge of conduct ancillary to murder in connection with an additional death linked to his unit’s operations.

A devastating record-breaking heatwave that swept across Western Europe in late June has left a sharp spike in mortality, with new official figures revealing thousands of excess deaths in France and the Netherlands alone. As communities begin to tally the human cost of the extreme heat event, meteorological agencies across the continent are already warning of another round of searing temperatures set to hit large swathes of Europe starting this weekend, compounding risks of wildfires and public health crises.

The mortality data from France’s public health agency, released Friday, confirms that between June 22 and 28 — the peak of the June heatwave — total deaths rose by 2,025, a 29% increase compared to the previous week. In the Paris region, death rates jumped by a staggering 62% compared to baseline figures. French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist noted that the sharpest rise in fatalities was recorded among people over 45 years old, and agency officials warned that the initial death count is likely an underestimate, meaning the final toll will be even higher.

Beyond heat-related health complications, the heatwave also led to a surge in recreational drowning deaths as crowds sought relief from high temperatures in bodies of water. French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez confirmed that 72 people have drowned across the country since June 18, when the extreme heat event began.

To the north, Dutch authorities released their own mortality data Thursday, reporting approximately 480 excess deaths during last week’s unprecedented heat, which pushed temperatures to nearly 40°C in parts of the Netherlands. The vast majority of these fatalities were adults aged 80 and older, with most deaths concentrated in the country’s hotter southern and eastern regions.

The June heatwave made history for France: on June 24, the country recorded its hottest ever average national temperature, with Paris hitting nearly 41°C and half of the country placed under the highest-level red heat alert. The extreme heat has also created tinder-dry conditions across southern France, spawning thousands of wildfires that have burned more than 8,700 hectares of land since the start of summer. On Thursday alone, a fast-spreading wildfire that ignited in Sainte-Marie-la-Mer forced nearly 3,000 residents to evacuate as it spread to the nearby town of Canet-en-Roussillon. In response, Météo-France has issued red wildfire alerts for Friday and Saturday across southern France, warning that current conditions leave a “very high” risk of new fire outbreaks compared to typical summer seasons.

As the continent recovers from the June heat event, a new mass of high pressure is building across the Atlantic, moving from the Azores toward the Iberian Peninsula, BBC Weather reports. By this weekend, the system is expected to push temperatures soaring back across France and into southern Britain. Forecasts predict temperatures will reach 40°C in southern France, with high temperatures between 36°C and 37°C expected in the cities of Bordeaux, Toulouse and Agen.

The Iberian Peninsula is also bracing for new extreme heat. Portugal’s government has declared a state of alert running through midnight Tuesday, with forecasts showing temperatures exceeding 40°C in some regions, and even overnight lows staying above 25°C. In neighboring Spain, parts of the southwest are under orange heat alert, with 40°C highs expected across multiple areas.

The repeated extreme heat events come against a backdrop of human-caused climate change, which has accelerated warming across Europe far faster than the global average. The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirms Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at twice the rate of the global average. This long-term warming has driven a steady increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of summer heatwaves, straining water supplies, worsening wildfire risk, and creating persistent public health dangers across the continent.

The wave of extreme heat is not limited to Europe: millions of Americans gathering for July Fourth holiday weekend across central and eastern parts of the U.S. are already grappling with prolonged extreme heat combined with stifling high humidity, triggering public health warnings across multiple U.S. states.

PARIS – In a major update to the investigation into a deadly targeted bombing in Monaco last week, international police agency Interpol has publicly named a 39-year-old Ukrainian woman as the primary suspect and issued an urgent global Red Notice calling for her immediate arrest. The woman, identified as Anastasiia Berezovska, remains at large more than a week after the explosion that rocked a residential building in the small Mediterranean principality.

The blast, which detonated at the entrance of a Monaco apartment building on Monday, wounded five people total. Three members of a single family were directly targeted in the attack, local authorities confirmed, among them prominent Ukrainian construction magnate Vadym Yermolaiev, multiple independent media outlets have reported. Yermolaiev, who gave up his Ukrainian citizenship roughly 10 years ago, was placed under Ukrainian sanctions in 2023 over his well-documented business and political ties to Russia. Alongside the tycoon, a woman and a young child were also injured in the explosion. As of Friday, one victim remained in critical, life-threatening condition, while two additional bystanders suffered minor injuries in the attack, Monaco’s prosecution team confirmed.

Initial witness reports and early CCTV analysis led investigators to misidentify the suspect as a heavyset man wearing dark long sleeves, pale shorts and a black bucket hat. But a re-examination of surveillance footage from the days leading up to the attack, combined with new witness testimony, shifted the investigation’s focus: the suspect was actually a woman disguised as a man, authorities confirmed at a joint press conference Friday. According to Interpol’s Red Notice filing, Berezovska was born in Ukraine, has dark hair, speaks fluent German, and bears a distinctive snake tattoo that stretches from her right shoulder down to her elbow. The notice includes two public photos of the suspect: in one, she is pictured on a public street holding an electronic device with a trailing cable in her left hand, wearing a white t-shirt with dark vertical stripes.

Monaco Deputy Prosecutor Morgan Raymond told reporters the explosive device was triggered remotely via a remote control, and residual fragments of the bomb have been sent to forensic experts across the border in France for detailed analysis. Berezovska is being sought on charges of attempted murder, unauthorized placement of an explosive device in a public space with criminal intent, and criminal conspiracy.

Investigators say the complexity of the explosive and the operational planning behind the attack strongly suggests Berezovska did not act alone. “The relative sophistication of the explosive device and the modus operandi suggest that the person who planted the device did not act alone,” Raymond told reporters. Two men were detained earlier this week for questioning as potential accomplices, but both have since been released without charge.

Authorities have already traced the suspect’s movements after the attack: she used a rented vehicle with German license plates to flee Monaco, traveling first from France into Italy before crossing through multiple other European countries to reach her last known country of residence. According to Raymond, Berezovska’s most recent confirmed address is in Germany, a nation that maintains robust, active judicial cooperation with Monaco on cross-border criminal cases.

The brazen attack has sent shockwaves through Monaco, one of the world’s smallest sovereign states and a global hub for high-net-worth individuals. Prince Albert II, Monaco’s ruling monarch, called the bombing “an odious act” and confirmed that all of the principality’s public security services have been mobilized to assist the investigation and prevent further attacks.

The bombing comes amid a growing pattern of targeted attacks linked to the ongoing war in Ukraine. While Ukraine has acknowledged carrying out targeted strikes against Russian-aligned figures during the conflict, most of these operations have been limited to Ukrainian or Russian territory. In December 2024, Ukraine’s security service claimed responsibility for the assassination of the head of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical military defense corps. Western intelligence agencies have also noted in recent months that Russia has significantly expanded its own global campaign of targeted killings against dissidents and opponents since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

As Ukraine ramps up long-range strikes on Russian energy infrastructure that have triggered widespread fuel shortages across the world’s second-largest oil exporter, Vladimir Putin has remained defiant, dismissing the disruptions as non-critical and rejecting all ceasefire proposals to continue his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Russian leader’s unflinching stance comes amid escalating tit-for-tat strikes that have pushed the conflict to new levels of intensity, with a massive 11-hour Russian aerial assault on Kyiv overnight Thursday killing at least 30 people, marking one of the deadliest single attacks on the Ukrainian capital since the 2022 full-scale invasion began.

Since the start of March, Ukraine has launched more than 50 documented strikes against oil refineries, storage depots, and other energy facilities across mainland Russia and illegally annexed Crimea, a strategic campaign Kyiv says is designed to bring the costs of the war home to ordinary Russians and pressure the Kremlin to negotiate an end to the conflict. The campaign has already succeeded in undermining Putin’s long-held narrative that the war does not disrupt daily life for Russian citizens, breaking through the controlled narrative most Russians consume through state media.

Industry analysts estimate that roughly one-third of Russia’s total oil refining capacity has been taken offline by the strikes, with damage that will cost billions of rubles to repair. Even Moscow’s top domestic refinery, protected by layers of advanced air defense systems, has been hit twice; the second strike in mid-June sparked a large fire that damaged critical infrastructure, with repairs expected to last through the end of 2025. Official Russian government data confirms domestic gasoline production has dropped by 17% to 850,000 barrels per day, forcing regional authorities to implement fuel rationing that has left motorists waiting in multi-hour lines to refuel across large swathes of the country. To alleviate immediate shortfalls, the Kremlin has authorized the sale of lower-quality gasoline with elevated sulfur content through the end of the year. The illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula has faced the most severe shortages, with authorities periodically halting all gasoline sales to civilian consumers entirely.

During a televised meeting with senior government officials last weekend to address the growing fuel crisis, Putin acknowledged the country is navigating a “difficult period” but downplayed the long-term impact of the strikes, framing the shortages as strictly temporary. He outlined a series of emergency steps to address the gap: accelerating repair work on damaged energy facilities, exploring gasoline imports to boost domestic supply, and ramping up production of air defense systems to prevent future strikes on key infrastructure. Putin characterized Ukraine’s energy strike campaign as a deliberate attempt to split Russian society, disrupt Moscow’s battlefield offensive, and force the Kremlin into negotiations on terms favorable to Kyiv.

“We will not give them that chance,” Putin stated firmly.

While Putin claims Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy facilities have “absolutely no effect on the situation at the front,” Western military analysts disagree, noting that midrange strikes on Russian logistics and supply lines over recent months have hampered military operations and slowed the pace of Russian advances, leaving most of the frontline locked in a tense stalemate. On Friday, Putin visited the Russian military command center overseeing operations in Ukraine to receive what Russian state media called an update on the capture of Kostyantynivka, a key industrial and transportation hub in the Donetsk region after weeks of brutal street fighting. Dressed in military fatigues, Putin hailed the capture as a major strategic step toward seizing Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the last major heavily fortified Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk’s forest belt.

Ukrainian officials have not confirmed Russia’s claim of seizing Kostyantynivka, and earlier Friday the Ukrainian General Staff reported that its forces had repelled 24 separate Russian assaults in the Kostyantynivka area and surrounding settlements. Putin also issued new warnings Friday, arguing that increased Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian infrastructure will force Russia to expand a “security zone” inside Ukrainian territory to prevent future attacks. He also issued a veiled threat to Western countries supplying military aid to Ukraine, saying Russia would complete an analysis of Western “engagement in hostilities” to guide future “responsible decisions.”

Putin has also flatly rejected multiple ceasefire proposals put forward by Kyiv and its Western allies, responding to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s offer of direct talks by demanding Zelenskyy travel to Moscow — a non-starter for the Ukrainian government. Putin argues any truce would only allow Ukrainian forces time to rest, rearm, and regroup, making any ceasefire conditional on full Ukrainian withdrawal from the remaining territory Ukraine holds in Donetsk region, a demand Kyiv has already rejected outright. He also said any final peace agreement must require Ukraine to abandon its bid for NATO membership, demilitarize its armed forces, and enshrine legal protections for the Russian language and Russian cultural identity within Ukraine.

In a recent interview, Putin claimed Ukrainian officials had tabled a confidential proposal to limit active fighting to the four regions Russia illegally annexed in 2022 — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — none of which Russia controls fully. Putin said he rejected the proposal, arguing it would allow Ukraine to reposition troops from other fronts to reinforce defensive positions in the four regions. “Faced with a catastrophic shortage of personnel, the armed forces of Ukraine apparently believe this could be their salvation,” Putin said. “Saving the Kyiv regime is not part of our plans.” The Kremlin has said the offer was communicated through backchannel diplomatic routes, but Ukrainian officials have never publicly acknowledged any such proposal.

Putin also dismissed a separate Ukrainian proposal for a mutual moratorium on deep strikes into each other’s territory, noting that Russian deep strikes are “much more powerful, sensitive and, frankly speaking, destructive” than those Ukraine carries out. Thursday’s massive barrage on Kyiv followed that pattern, with Russian missiles and drones striking multiple residential neighborhoods despite Russian claims that all attacks targeted military infrastructure. Unlike Russian strikes, which regularly hit civilian residential areas and infrastructure, the vast majority of Ukrainian strikes inside Russia have targeted energy facilities, weapons production plants, and other military-related infrastructure.

More than three years into the full-scale invasion, United Nations data records that more than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since the war began, with tens of thousands more injured and millions displaced from their homes.