Authorities from both sides dispatched rescue boats after a Chinese fishing vessel capsized in the early hours of Thursday, Taiwan’s coast guard said in a statement.

Two people were found dead, two were rescued, and two were still missing, it said.

Taiwan dispatched coast guard boats to join the rescue after Chinese authorities asked them for help, according to a senior Taiwan official who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

China’s coast guard last month began regular patrols around the Kinmen islands, which are close to China’s coast, after two Chinese nationals died trying to flee Taiwan’s coast guard after their boat entered prohibited waters.

The Chinese fishing boat capsized around 1.07 nautical miles west of Taiwan’s Dongding Island, Taiwan’s coast guard said. Taiwan’s armed forces stationed on the island were also involved in the rescue, it added without elaborating.

Taiwan dispatched four coast guard boats and their Chinese counterparts sent in six boats for the rescue, it said.

Taiwan’s top China policy-making body urged China last week not to change the “status quo” around waters there by sending coast guard boats into restricted areas, saying tension should be “controllable.” –Rappler.com

Officials said that 14 people had been discharged from the hospital, and that the initial indications were that a gas leak had caused the blast.

Last year, President Xi Jinping ordered a safety overhaul across China, calling on all regions to rectify safety risks and “hidden dangers” after 31 people died in a gas explosion at a barbecue restaurant.

The explosion on Wednesday at a fried chicken shop, in the town of Yanjiao in China’s northern province of Hebei, caused a massive orange fireball. The force ripped off the fronts of several buildings, crumpled cars on surrounding streets and left large pieces of debris on fire.

On-site rescue work has ended, cleanup at the scene is still ongoing and an investigation has begun, officials said in a statement. – Rappler.com

Prime Minister Ariel Henry said on Monday he would resign once a transitional council takes over, following escalating violence by powerful gangs that has caused thousands to flee their homes.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with regional Caribbean leaders and representatives from Haiti’s government and opposition in Jamaica this week, told reporters on Wednesday that he expects the transition council to come together in the next couple of days.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a regional intergovernmental organization, has detailed the sectors, political parties and alliances to make up the nine-member council, but has not yet said who will be appointed.

However, Haiti’s most powerful gang leader, Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier, who had threatened to overthrow Henry, “dismissed” the transitional council, the Miami Herald reported on Wednesday. Reuters was not able to independently confirm Cherizier’s position.

A day earlier, several dozen protested against the transition plan, burning tires in downtown Port-au-Prince, but the city was for the most part calm.

Henry traveled to Kenya last month to secure Nairobi’s leadership of a long-delayed security mission to fight the gangs, which the UN believes control most of the capital. Violence escalated in his absence and he remained stranded in Puerto Rico when he resigned.

Blinken said on Wednesday he had received assurances from Kenyan President William Ruto that the African nation was prepared to lead the mission “as soon as this new council is stood up” and an interim prime minister is picked.

Many details on the security force, such as its size, who will contribute troops, its funding, and how it will operate on the ground, have not been decided. Countries have been wary of involvement after abuses in past interventions.

Although progress continues to lag, in Canada, like Haiti a former French colony, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised his country would remain “very, very active,” without specifying commitments.

Meanwhile, US Southern Command – a military branch encompassing Latin America and the Caribbean – said it was deploying a team of anti-terrorism Marines to bolster embassy security and help “non-emergency” personnel leave Haiti.

Non-essential United Nations staff are also set to start leaving Haiti because of the volatile security, according to a UN spokesperson, who did not say how many were considered non-essential. The body employs 267 international staff and 1,220 locals in Haiti.

Neither body commented on the reason for the specific timing of their departures.

In the US state of Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, an anti-immigration hardliner, said state law enforcement would deploy more than 250 additional officers and soldiers and more than a dozen air and sea vessels to the southern coast “to protect our state.”

‘You cannot go anywhere’

Although many residents of Port-au-Prince resumed their business on Wednesday, buying produce from street vendors and collecting water in containers, people remain blocked from large parts of the capital that remain under gang control.

There was little sign of visible gang activity, however, and no new attacks reported on key infrastructure or government offices.

MSC said it had suspended all shipping calls at Haiti’s main cargo port terminal, which it said remained “not fully operational” after containers were looted. Shipments will be diverted to Caucedo in the Dominican Republic, it said.

“Things have gotten stranger. You cannot function. You cannot go around. You cannot go anywhere,” said Louis Jean Ezechiel, 31, from the hillside Petion-Ville district. “All other places in the country are inaccessible.”

American author Mitch Albom said he, his wife and eight others working at an orphanage in Haiti were evacuated overnight on Monday by helicopter with help from Republican lawmakers.

Haiti has long been impoverished and politically volatile, but has become increasingly lawless since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, with the country’s outgunned police struggling to maintain security against increasingly powerful and brutal gangs and with protests against the unelected Henry.

James Boyard, a security expert at the State University of Haiti, said calls from some sectors in Haiti for an amnesty for gang leaders constituted “a deliberate strategy to make this idea more morally acceptable.”

If such an amnesty were issued, he said, this could see gangs’ alleged financial backers, who have been subjected to international sanctions, off the hook.

Haitian immigrants in New York voiced wariness of more international intervention and worry about family members facing insecurity back home, children who cannot go to school and a growing exodus of educated young people moving abroad.

Radio Soleil station director Ricot Dupuy said people were “cautiously optimistic” on the plan brokered with CARICOM in Jamaica but feared if the gangs remained uncontrollable, more people would flee the country.

The UN estimates more than 360,000 people have been internally displaced and thousands killed amid food shortages and widespread reports of rape, torture, arson, ransom kidnappings by gang members.

“Haiti has been transformed into hell and the international community contributed significantly to that,” Dupuy said. “When a house is on fire, you can put all the police, all the guns you want, but I’m not going to stay in a house that is burning. I’m going to run. And when I run, I won’t care where I go.” – Rappler.com

The bill passed 352-65 in a lopsided bipartisan vote, but it faces a more uncertain path in the Senate where some favor a different approach to regulating foreign-owned apps posing security concerns. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate will review the legislation.

“This is a critical national security issue. The Senate must take this up and pass it,” No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise said on social media platform X.

The fate of TikTok, used by about 170 million Americans, has become a major issue in Washington. Lawmakers said their offices had received large volumes of calls from teenage TikTok users who oppose the legislation.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday “we want to see the Senate take swift action.”

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a video posted Wednesday the legislation if signed into law “will lead to a ban on TikTok in the United States… and would take billions of dollars out of the pockets of creators and small businesses. It will put 300,000 American jobs at risk.”

He added the company will “not stop fighting” and will exercise its legal rights to prevent a ban.

He visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday on a previously scheduled trip and plans to return Thursday, a source briefed on the matter said, amid popular support for the app.

The measure is the latest in a series of moves in Washington to respond to US national security concerns about China, from connected vehicles to advanced artificial intelligence chips to cranes at US ports.

The political climate is growing in favor of the bill. President Joe Biden said last week he would sign it and White Hous national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday asked “Do we want TikTok, as a platform, to be owned by an American company or owned by China? Do we want the data from TikTok – children’s data, adults’ data – to be going, to be staying here in America or going to China?”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry criticized the legislation Tuesday, arguing “though the U.S. has never found any evidence of TikTok posing a threat to the US’s national security, it has never stopped going after TikTok.”

A number of prominent Democrats in the House voted against the bill including House Democratic Whip Kathleen Clark, Arizona Senate candidate Ruben Gallego, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as well as the top Democrats on the Judiciary, Ways and Means, Transportation and Intelligence committees.

“There are serious antitrust and privacy questions here, and any national security concerns should be laid out to the public prior to a vote,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell, who will play an important role in the Senate’s next move, said she wants legislation “that could hold up in court,” and is considering a separate bill, but is not sure what her next step is.

The vote comes just over a week since the bill was proposed following one public hearing with little debate, and after action in Congress had stalled for more than a year. Last month, President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign joined TikTok, raising hopes among TikTok officials that legislation was unlikely this year.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee last week voted 50-0 in favor of the bill, setting it up for a vote before the full House.

Several dozen TikTok users rallied outside the Capitol before the vote. The company paid for their travel to Washington and accommodations, a TikTok spokesperson said.

But the political climate is growing in favor of the bill. Biden said last week he would sign it and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday said the goal was ending Chinese ownership, not banning TikTok.

“Do we want TikTok, as a platform, to be owned by an American company or owned by China? Do we want the data from TikTok – children’s data, adults’ data – to be going, to be staying here in America or going to China?” he said.

It is unclear whether China would approve any sale or if TikTok’s U.S. assets could be divested in six months.

If ByteDance failed to do so, app stores operated by Apple, Alphabet’s Google, and others could not legally offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications.

In 2020, then-President Donald Trump sought to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat but was blocked by the courts. In recent days he had raised concerns about a ban but nearly all House Republicans shrugged those off.

Representative Mike Gallagher, one of the bill’s authors, said they don’t want a ban but divestiture and said Trump if re-elected in November “may have an opportunity to consummate the deal of the century” in a TikTok sale.

It remains unclear if Tencent’s WeChat or other high-profile Chinese-owned apps could face a ban under the legislation.

Any forced TikTok divestment from the US would almost certainly face legal challenges, which the company would need to file within 165 days of the bill being signed by the president.

There are still potential legal issues with the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups arguing the bill is unconstitutional on free speech and other grounds.

In November, a US judge blocked a Montana state ban on TikTok use after the company sued. – Rappler.com

The investigation by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), summarized in a report seen by Reuters, said its personnel did not record any exchange of fire across the border between Israel and Lebanon for more than 40 minutes before the Israeli Merkava tank opened fire.

“The firing at civilians, in this instance clearly identifiable journalists, constitutes a violation of UNSCR 1701 (2006) and international law,” the UNIFIL report said, referring to Security Council resolution 1701.

The seven-page report dated February 27 said further: “It is assessed that there was no exchange of fire across the Blue Line at the time of the incident. The reason for the strikes on the journalists is not known.”

Under resolution 1701, adopted in 2006 to bring an end to the war between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, UN peacekeepers were deployed to monitor a ceasefire along the 120 kilometer (75 mile) demarcation line, or Blue Line, between Israel and Lebanon.

As part of their mission, UN troops record violations of the ceasefire and investigate the most egregious cases.

Besides killing Abdallah, the two tank rounds also wounded six other journalists at the scene.

Asked about the UNIFIL report, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Nir Dinar said Hezbollah had attacked the IDF near the Israeli community of Hanita on October 13. It responded with artillery and tank fire to remove the threat and subsequently received a report that journalists had been injured.

“The IDF deplores any injury to uninvolved parties, and does not deliberately shoot at civilians, including journalists,” Dinar said. “The IDF considers the freedom of the press to be of utmost importance while clarifying that being in a war zone is dangerous.”

He said the General Staff’s Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism, which is responsible for reviewing exceptional events, will continue to examine the incident.

According to the IDF’s website, the fact finding team submits its reviews to the Israeli military’s legal affairs department, which decides whether a case warrants a criminal investigation.

Visuals of the incident

Reuters editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni has called on Israel to explain how the attack that killed Abdallah, 37, could have happened and to hold those responsible to account.

The UNIFIL report was sent to the United Nations in New York on February 28 and has been shared with the Lebanese and Israeli militaries, two people familiar with the matter said.

“(The) IDF should conduct an investigation into the incident and a full review of their procedures at the time to avoid a recurrence,” the report said in its recommendations. “The IDF should share their investigation’s findings with UNIFIL.”

For its investigation, UNIFIL sent a team to visit the site on October 14, and also received contributions from the Lebanese Armed Forces and from an unnamed witness who was present on the hill when the strikes occurred, the report said.

Details of incidents in UNIFIL’s area of operations are included in regular reports by the UN Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701. UNIFIL’s investigations, however, are not usually made public and Reuters was unable to determine if there would be any UN follow-up.

UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said he was not in a position to discuss the investigation.

UNIFIL’s findings lend further support to a Reuters investigation published on December 7 that showed that seven journalists from Agence France-Presse, Al Jazeera and Reuters, were hit by two 120 mm rounds fired by a tank 1.34 km away in Israel.

The group of reporters had been filming cross-border shelling from a distance in open area on a hill near the Lebanese village of Alma al-Chaab for nearly an hour before the attack.

The day afterwards, the IDF said it already had visuals of the incident and it was being investigated. The IDF has not published a report of its findings to date.

UNIFIL said in its report that it sent a letter and a questionnaire to the IDF requesting their assistance. The IDF replied with a letter but did not answer the questionnaire.

Reuters has not seen a copy of the IDF letter, the contents of which were summarized in the UNIFIL report. – Rappler.com

The two broods – one concentrated in US Midwestern states and the other in the South and Midwest, with a small area of overlap in Illinois – emerge together only once every 221 years.

Here is an explanation of what is expected to occur during this “dual emergence.”

What is a cicada?

Cicadas are relatively large insects – 1-2 inches (2.5-5 cm) long – possessing sturdy bodies, bulging compound eyes and membranous wings. There are many different kinds of cicadas.

Using needle-like mouthparts, cicadas feed on plant juices, called xylem, drawn from the roots of deciduous trees and shrubs. They spend much of their life cycle – years on end – underground as nymphs feeding on roots and drinking xylem.

After they emerge, adult males “sing” to attract females using special organs called tymbals on the first segment of the abdomen. The song pitch, tone, frequency and volume are specific to individual species. Cicadas live as adults for just a few weeks, then die after reproducing. Numerous birds and mammals eat cicadas.

How do periodical and annual cicadas differ?

With annual cicadas, some individuals emerge during any given year. They spend one to nine years underground as nymphs, varying by species, and do not have a synchronized emergence. Instead, they emerge on a staggered basis.

Periodical cicadas have more specific and longer lengths of time spent underground as nymphs – generally 13 years or 17 years – and a synchronized emergence. That means that all members of a particular brood emerge the same year, from late April into June, depending on their location. All of the periodical cicadas sharing the same life cycle that emerge together in a given year are called a brood, although any one species may be part of different broods.

There are more than 3,000 species of cicadas worldwide, but only nine are periodical, and seven of those – of the genus Magicicada – are found in North America. In India, a periodical species of the genus Chremistica emerges every four years, while in Fiji, a periodical species of the genus Raiataena emerges every eight years.

What 2 broods are involved in this year’s dual emergence?

Brood XIII, on a 17-year cycle, is restricted mostly to northern Illinois, eastern Iowa, southern Wisconsin and a few counties in extreme northwestern Indiana, according to entomologist Floyd Shockley of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington. Brood XIII includes three Magicicada species.

Brood XIX, on a 13-year cycle, is widely distributed from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – a total of 15 states, according to Shockley. Brood XIX includes four Magicicada species.

These two broods together span parts of 17 states but overlap only in a small area in central Illinois. They are close enough potentially to have some interbreeding between broods.

When will this dual emergence occur?

Periodical cicadas are expected to begin emerging in the southern parts of their geographical distribution in mid-April. The emergence continues northward into June. Given that most broods produce localized population numbers exceeding 1.5 million cicadas per acre (0.4 hectare) in densely populated areas of their distribution, there easily will be more than a trillion cicadas during this emergence, according to Shockley.

When was the last such ‘dual emergence’?

This will mark the first time that a 13-year brood emerges in the same year as a 17-year brood since 2015. The last time that adjacent 13-and 17-year broods emerged in the same year was 1998, according to University of Connecticut evolutionary biologist John Cooley. Brood XIX, one of the two popping out this year, emerged in 1998 at the same time as Brood IV, which spans Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.

The next time two 13-and 17-year broods will emerge the same year will not be until 2037 and the next time adjacent 13-and 17-year broods emerge together will not be until 2076, Cooley said.

What do cicadas do when they emerge?

The cicadas begin emerging, mainly at night, once the soil warms to about 64 degrees Fahrenheit (17.8 degrees C), according to George Washington University entomologist John Lill. These nymphs crawl up any hard surfaces – tree trunks, fences, vegetation – and molt into adult winged cicadas.

After a few days, adults fly into the tree canopy, where males form loud “choruses,” calling to females by vibrating their tymbals. Males have rather hollow abdomens, serving as echo chambers to amplify their calls. Cicadas are among the loudest insects. Females that are attracted to a particular male’s call respond with wing flicks, which also make a sound. Pairs then mate.

Once mated, female cicadas seek pencil-sized branches of trees and shrubs in sunny locations to lay their eggs into slits they cut in branches, according to Lill. These eggs develop for about six to seven weeks, after which hatched nymphs drop to the ground and burrow to begin the next generation of periodical cicadas.

When will this bug-tastic event occur next?

These two broods last emerged in the same year in 1803. The next time is set for 2245. – Rappler.com

Here are key facts about Russia’s nuclear arsenal:

Nuclear superpower

Russia, which inherited the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons, has the world’s biggest store of nuclear warheads.

Putin controls about 5,580 nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

Of those about 1,200 are retired but largely intact and around 4,380 are stockpiled for use by long-range strategic launchers and shorter-range tactical nuclear forces, according to the FAS.

Of the stockpiled warheads, 1,710 strategic warheads are deployed: about 870 on land-based ballistic missiles, about 640 on submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and possibly 200 at heavy bomber bases, FAS said.

Such numbers mean that Moscow could destroy the world many times over.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had a peak of around 40,000 nuclear warheads, while the US peak was around 30,000.

Putin warns the West: Russia is ready for nuclear war

Under what circumstances would they be used?

Russia’s published 2020 nuclear doctrine sets out the conditions under which a Russian president would consider using a nuclear weapon: broadly as a response to an attack using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, or to the use of conventional weapons against Russia “when the very existence of the state is put under threat.”

Newer nukes

The United States said in its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review that Russia and China were expanding and modernizing their nuclear forces, and that Washington would pursue an approach based on arms control to head off costly arms races.

“While Russia’s nuclear statements and threatening rhetoric are of great concern, Russia’s nuclear arsenal and operations have changed little since our 2023 estimates beyond the ongoing modernization,” the FAS said in its 2024 analysis of Russian forces.

“In the future, however, the number of warheads assigned to Russian strategic forces may increase as single-warhead missiles are replaced with missiles equipped with multiple warheads,” FAS said.

Testing

Putin has said Russia would consider testing a nuclear weapon if the United States did.

Last year, he signed a law withdrawing Russia’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Post-Soviet Russia has not carried out a nuclear test.

Since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, only a few countries have tested nuclear weapons, according to the Arms Control Association: the United States last tested in 1992, China and France in 1996, India and Pakistan in 1998, and North Korea in 2017.

The Soviet Union last tested in 1990.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty was signed by Russia in 1996 and ratified in 2000. The United States signed the treaty in 1996 but has not yet ratified it.

Who would give the Russian launch order?

The Russian president is the ultimate decision maker on the use of Russian nuclear weapons.

The so-called nuclear briefcase, or “Cheget” (named after Mount Cheget in the Caucasus Mountains), is with the president at all times. The Russian defence minister, currently Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of the general staff, currently Valery Gerasimov, are also thought to have such briefcases.

Essentially, the briefcase is a communication tool that links the president to his military top brass and thence to rocket forces via the highly secret “Kazbek” electronic command-and-control network. Kazbek supports another system known as “Kavkaz”.

Footage shown by Russia’s Zvezda television channel in 2019 showed what it said was one of the briefcases with an array of buttons. In a section called “command” there are two buttons: a white “launch” button and a red “cancel” button. The briefcase is activated by a special flashcard, according to Zvezda.

If Russia thought it faced a strategic nuclear attack, the president, via the briefcases, would send a direct launch order to general staff command and reserve command units that hold nuclear codes. Such orders cascade swiftly down different communications systems to strategic rocket force units, which then fire at the United States and Europe.

If a nuclear attack were confirmed, Putin could activate the so-called “Dead Hand” or “Perimetr” system of last resort: essentially computers would decide doomsday. A control rocket would order nuclear strikes from across Russia’s vast armory. – Rappler.com

Putin, speaking just days before a March 15-17 election which is certain to give him another six years in power, said the nuclear war scenario was not “rushing” up and he saw no need for the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

“From a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready,” Putin, 71, told Rossiya-1 television and news agency RIA in response to a question whether the country was really ready for a nuclear war.

Putin said the US understood that if it deployed American troops on Russian territory – or to Ukraine – Russia would treat the move as an intervention.

“(In the US) there are enough specialists in the field of Russian-American relations and in the field of strategic restraint,” said Putin, the ultimate decision maker in the world’s biggest nuclear power.

“Therefore, I don’t think that here everything is rushing to it (nuclear confrontation), but we are ready for this.”

Putin’s nuclear warning came alongside another offer for talks on Ukraine as part of a new post-Cold War demarcation of European security. The US says Putin is not ready for serious talks over Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine has triggered the deepest crisis in Russia’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and Putin has warned several times the West risks provoking a nuclear war if it sends troops to fight in Ukraine.

Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering full-scale war after eight years of conflict in eastern Ukraine between Ukrainian forces on one side and pro-Russian Ukrainians and Russian proxies on the other.

Nuclear war?

In a US election year, the West is grappling with how to support Kyiv against Russia, which now controls almost one-fifth of Ukrainian territory and is rearming much faster than the West and Ukraine.

Kyiv says it is defending itself against an imperial-style war of conquest designed to erase its national identity. Russia says the areas it controls in Ukraine are now Russia.

Putin has sent a series of public nuclear warnings to the US aimed at discouraging greater involvement in Ukraine – a move the Kremlin says would mark a slide into world war.

Washington says it has seen no major changes to Russia’s nuclear posture but Putin’s public nuclear warnings – which break with the extreme caution of the Soviet leadership over such remarks – have sown concern in Washington.

Putin reiterated the use of nuclear weapons was spelled out in the Kremlin’s nuclear doctrine, which sets out the conditions under which it would use such a weapon: broadly a response to an attack using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, or the use of conventional weapons against Russia “when the very existence of the state is put under threat.”

“Weapons exist in order to use them,” Putin said. “We have our own principles.”

CNN reported on Saturday the administration of US President Joe Biden was specifically concerned in 2022 that Russia might use a tactical or battlefield nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

Putin said he had never felt the need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Talks?

Putin said Russia was ready for serious talks on Ukraine.

“Russia is ready for negotiations on Ukraine, but they should be based on reality – and not on cravings after the use of psychotropic drugs,” Putin said.

Reuters reported last month that Putin’s suggestion of a ceasefire in Ukraine to freeze the war was rejected by the US after contacts between intermediaries.

US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns warned earlier this week that if the West did not provide proper support for Ukraine, Kyiv would lose more territory to Russia which would embolden Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Burns, a former US ambassador to Russia, told the Senate Intelligence Committee it was in US interests to support Ukraine to allow it to get into a stronger position before talks.

Putin said he trusted no one and Russia would need written security guarantees in the event of a settlement.

“I don’t trust anyone, but we need guarantees, and guarantees must be spelled out, they must be such that we would be satisfied,” Putin said. – Rappler.com

The case, filed on Wednesday, March 13, at the Tournai commercial court, is the first climate change-related lawsuit in Belgium to target a multinational company.

It follows a case in which thousands of citizens successfully sued the Belgian government to demand stronger greenhouse gas emissions cuts.

A spokesperson for TotalEnergies declined to comment on the case.

Hugues Falys, who farms a herd of cattle in the municipality of Lessines, argues that, as one of the world’s top 20 CO2-emitting companies, TotalEnergies is partly responsible for damage extreme weather did to his operations from 2016-2022.

During that period, successive droughts reduced the yield of his meadows where he grows fodder for the animals – forcing him to buy feed and, eventually, reduce the size of his herd.

“We are an activity completely dependent on the climate,” Falys told Reuters.

He argues TotalEnergies has failed to comply with Belgian law, which states anyone who causes damage must make reparations for it. It is a similar argument to the one used against the Belgian government in the previous climate case.

Falys and three campaign groups joining the legal action are seeking an injunction that would force TotalEnergies to overhaul its business plan.

Their demands include that the company immediately halt investments in new fossil fuel projects, and reduce its oil and gas production each by 47% by 2030.

They also seek damages – which, if awarded, Falys intends to donate to a sustainable farming organization in Belgium. – Rappler.com

The blast happened at about 8 am in the county of Sanhe, state broadcaster CCTV News said, roughly 80 km (50 miles) from the center of Beijing, the capital, where key annual parliament sessions had just concluded.

Videos on social media platform Weibo showed a large orange fireball over the site, followed by billows of grey smoke, and scenes of the destroyed frontage of buildings, mangled cars, with glass shards in the streets, and some objects still ablaze.

A suspected gas leak triggered the accident in a shop selling fried chicken in the town of Yanjiao, city emergency officials said in a statement, drawing rescuers, firefighters, health and other officials to the scene.

“I was at home when I heard a loud blast, I initially thought it might be a gunshot,” said Zhao Li, a middle-aged woman who lives about a kilometer from the blast site.

“The loud explosion was accompanied by a crash of glass and clouds of smoke,” said Zhao, adding that police sealed off the street to the site.

The fire had been brought under control, fire officials said in an earlier statement, adding that 36 vehicles and 154 people had been dispatched to the site and were carrying out rescue work.

China’s latest deadly gas explosion at an eatery comes after the government issued detailed guidelines last year on the use of gas appliances and cookers to avert safety risks.

Social media posters on Weibo said the explosion occurred near a cultural centre in the town. Construction of a metro line was taking place nearby, Chinese weekly the Economic Observer posted on its social media account.

City emergency authorities sent an investigation team, according to social media posts.

Regional supplier Taida Gas suspended service in several surrounding areas, as a precaution to prevent secondary injuries, it said in a statement.

“Our company … will resume supply after ensuring safety,” it added in the statement, although it said it did not service the area where the shop is located. – Rappler.com