World

GENEVA – Factfile on 2013, described by the UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) as a year of extreme heat and weather events:

- 2013 ranked with 2007 as the sixth warmest since modern records began in 1850. Earth's average surface temperature was 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average for 1961-1990.

- It adds to a string of above-average years for warming. Thirteen of the 14 warmest years on record have occurred in the 21st century. The hottest were 2010 and 2005.

- Global average sea levels reached a new record high. The current rise of 3.2 millimetres (0.12 inches) per year is double the 20th-century trend of 1.6 mm (0.06 inches), increasing the vulnerability of low-lying coastal regions.

- Arctic sea ice shrank to its sixth-smallest summer area, although this was a slight recovery from the unprecedented melt of 2012.

- According to US scientists, 2013 was the fourth warmest on record since 1880.

- Places that experienced record annual heat were Australia, parts of central Asia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, sections of the Arctic Ocean, the southwestern and central Pacific Ocean and the central Indian Ocean.

- Extreme events included Typhoon Haiyan, the most powerful tropical cyclone ever to make landfall and the deadliest storm to hit the Philippines; drought in Botswana, Namibia and Angola; and a heatwave that gripped southern China in July and August.

SOURCES: WMO interim report on 2013 temperatures, released February 5, 2014; WMO interim report on extreme weather and sea-level rise, released November 13, 2013; US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Global Summary Information for 2013, retrieved February 5 2014.

KIEV — Europe and the United States on Monday mulled a financial aid plan to help resolve Ukraine’s crisis in a boost for the opposition as it prepared to press its demands in parliament.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is due in Kiev this week, along with US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, as thousands of protesters remain camped out in the capital and across Ukraine.

There is growing international pressure for a swift end to the two-month confrontation, which has set off sparks between Russia and the West and claimed the lives of at least two protesters and two policemen.

EU sources said that Brussels, Washington and the International Monetary Fund were discussing different forms of possible aid for Ukraine, and a more concrete proposal could be put forward in the coming days.

Ashton’s spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said the talks were about “what we can do to help support the Ukrainian economy”, but stressed any aid would be linked to political reforms or the naming of a new government.

Asked to comment, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara said: “Nobody has discussed this with me”.

In a pointed reference to Ashton’s upcoming visit, Kozhara added: “Maybe she can clarify the situation”.

Opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk has asked for a “Marshall Plan” — a reference to massive post-war US aid for Europe — and said the minimum required was the $20-billion (11 billion euro) promised by Russia in a bailout that is now on hold.

But EU diplomats played down the prospect of big funds.

“It’ll be difficult to offer as much as the Russians,” said one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Ukraine’s recession-hit economy is hugely dependent on the Russian credit and Moscow tightened the screws further on Monday by reminding Ukraine it owed $3.3 billion for supplies in 2013 and so far in 2014.

Even as it ups the pressure, Russia has accused the West of massive interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine — Moscow’s former Soviet satellite — and has dismissed the protesters as far-right extremists.

Yatsenyuk and other protest chiefs, meanwhile, readied for a parliament session on Tuesday where they are set to request the immediate release of all detained protesters and reforms to reduce presidential powers.

President Viktor Yanukovych and his ruling Regions Party have passed an amnesty law that makes the release of scores of protesters conditional on occupied official buildings such as ministries being vacated in the next few days.

The opposition says this makes the jailed protesters “hostages” and has condemned what it calls a “secret repression” under way in which activists are allegedly taken away and beaten by pro-government vigilantes.

The case of Dmytro Bulatov, a beaten protest leader who said he was kidnapped and tortured for eight days before being dumped in a forest outside Kiev, is a particularly shocking example of these claims of abuse.

In a statement on Monday from the hospital in Vilnius where he is being treated, the 35-year-old father of three vowed to “keep fighting” for democracy — after EU and US leaders expressed shock over his treatment.

BANGKOK — Thai anti-government protesters who have been camped out in north Bangkok packed their tents and marched downtown on Monday as they consolidated efforts to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, a day after a disrupted general election.

Some joined protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban on foot and others followed in cars and six-wheel trucks as Thailand’s long-running political conflict showed no sign of ending.

They closed camps at two of the seven big intersections that they have blockaded since mid-January, at Victory Monument and Lat Phrao, and headed for the fringes of the central oasis of Lumpini Park.

A third camp run by an allied group at a big government administrative complex may also be closed.

Suthep said on Sunday this was being done out of safety concerns, but it could also be because their numbers are dwindling. Reuters put the number of marchers at about 3,000.

“Suthep’s movement is now crumbling, but it still has powerful unseen backers,” said Chris Baker, a historian and prominent Thailand scholar.

“Backdoor negotiations are needed because both sides will avoid any direct confrontation in public view. The business lobby should revive its efforts to play the intermediary role.”

Suthep’s supporters on the route showed no sign of crumbling, waving flags and handing over money.

The demonstrators blocked balloting in a fifth of the country’s constituencies on Sunday, saying Yingluck must resign and make way for an appointed “people’s council” to overhaul a political system they say has been taken hostage by her billionaire brother and former premier, Thaksin Shinawatra.

The election, boycotted by the main opposition Democrat Party, is almost certain to return Yingluck to power and, with voting passing off peacefully across the north and northeast, Yingluck’s supporters will no doubt claim a legitimate mandate.

But there was no indication of when re-votes of Sunday’s disrupted ballots will be held or when the election commission will be able to announce a result, which will be the object of legal challenges anyway, including from the leader of the Democrats, former premier Abhisit Vejjajiva.

The result is unlikely to change the dysfunctional status quo in a country popular with tourists and investors yet blighted by eight years of polarisation and turmoil, pitting the Bangkok-based middle-class and royalist establishment against the mostly poor, rural supporters of the Shinawatras.

The election was peaceful, apart from a few scuffles, with no repeat of the chaos seen the previous day, when supporters and opponents of Yingluck clashed in north Bangkok. Seven people were wounded by gunshots or explosions.

The protesters have rallied in Bangkok since November to try to oust Yingluck. They wanted electoral rules rewritten before any election and have vowed to keep up the protests.

“I’m confident this election won’t lead to the formation of a new government,” Suthep told supporters late on Sunday.

Giving provisional data on Monday, the election commission said 20.4 million people cast their vote on Sunday, just under 46 per cent of the 44.6 million eligible voters in 68 of 77 provinces. In the other nine provinces, no voting was possible.

Voting was disrupted in 18 per cent of constituencies, 67 out of 375, the commission said, revising data given Sunday.

It could be weeks before seats in the constituencies that saw disruption are filled and parliament can be convened, so Yingluck will remain a caretaker premier with no policy authority, unable to approve any new government spending.

“Having gone through more than two months of protests, the election will strengthen Yingluck’s position, but her troubles are not over yet,” said Kan Yuanyong, director of the Siam Intelligence Unit think tank.

“We’ll see a continuation of the conflict, the standoff remains and the likelihood of more violence could increase.”

The turmoil is taking an economic toll with tourism in particular being hit.

The protesters say former telecoms tycoon Thaksin has subverted a fragile democracy with populist politics such as subsidies, cheap loans and healthcare to woo the poor and guarantee victory for his parties in every election since 2001.

Thaksin’s critics also accuse him of disrespecting Thailand’s revered monarchy, which he denies.

Thaksin has lived abroad since 2008 to avoid a jail term for a graft conviction he says was politically motivated. Critics say Yingluck is merely a stand-in for him.

KARO, Indonesia — Indonesian officials searched through thick ash for bodies Sunday after Mount Sinabung volcano erupted, killing at least 15 people, with the only sign of life an ownerless mobile phone ringing inside an abandoned bag.

Dark, searing clouds engulfed victims during the eruption on Saturday, leaving rescuers with little hope of finding survivors as they searched through ash up to 30 centimetres thick.

Officials said about 170 people armed with chainsaws and oxygen apparatus spread out through the destruction in Suka meriah village, just 2.7 kilometres from Sinabung’s crater, Sunday before the search was called off.

“There’s no sign of human life. All the crops were gone. Many houses were damaged and those still standing were covered in thick white ash. It was hard to walk in ash which nearly reached my calves,” Gito, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.

“We didn’t find bodies but we picked up a bag belonging to one of the victims. The cell phone was ringing,” he added.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency, was unable to put a figure to the number of people still missing, but said there was a “chance” that the death toll might rise.

Residents had been evacuated from the village, located in the “red zone” around the volcano where human activities are strictly banned.

“It’s very dangerous and completely out of bounds. But many of the tourists still secretly went to the area to take photographs,” disaster official Tri Budiarto said.

The search was halted Sunday afternoon, said Lieutenant Colonel Asep Sukarna, who led the operation.

“After two visits to the village, the volcanology agency recommended that we stop search for safety reasons. Visibility is low because of the thick smog and we could hear volcanic tremors,” he told AFP.

They hoped to continue the search tomorrow, he said.

Sukarna was pessimistic about finding anyone alive.

“I doubt it would be possible for anyone to survive the heat clouds yesterday. So far, we have not found any more bodies,” he said.

The volcano on the western island of Sumatra started erupting in September, but on Saturday spewed hot rocks and ash 2,000 metres  into the air, blanketing the surrounding countryside with grey dust.

Fourteen people — mainly local tourists, including four high school students on a sightseeing trip — were killed by lethal heat clouds which cascaded down the volcano.

Amid the apocalyptic scenes were ash-covered bodies, their faces swollen and their tongues sticking out, an AFP reporter on the ground said Saturday.

A 24-year-old man who was accompanying his father to pay respects at the graves of their relatives died from his injuries early Sunday, raising the death toll to 15, Nugroho said.

Two other people are being treated for serious burns at a local hospital.

Officials are putting up more signs to warn people not to enter the area, officials said.

Mount Sinabung is one of 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia that straddle major tectonic fault lines, known as the Pacific Ring of Fire.

The country’s most active volcano, Mount Merapi in central Java, killed more than 350 people in a series of eruptions in 2010.

KABUL — Afghanistan’s presidential candidates held rallies in Kabul on Sunday at the start of a campaign to elect Hamid Karzai’s successor, as the killing of a frontrunner’s aides highlighted the security threat to the poll.

Gunmen shot dead two members of former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah’s team in the western city of Herat on Saturday, dealing an early blow to hopes of a peaceful campaign as the country prepares for its first democratic transfer of power.

The April 5 election is seen as a key test of the effectiveness of the 350,000-strong Afghan security forces as foreign troops prepare to exit the country, while the future of US troops in the country beyond 2014 is set to dominate the agenda.

Earlier in the day, thousands of people, mostly men, gathered in giant wedding halls where candidates delivered speeches and called on war-weary Afghans to vote for them.

The elder brother of President Hamid Karzai, Qayum Karzai started his campaign in the Loya Jirga, a traditional gathering venue.

“We will keep all the positive achievements of of the current government and we will work on those works that this government has not done yet,” he said in front of thousands of supporters.

Earlier, Abdullah, who came second to Karzai in the chaotic and fraud-riddled 2009 election, conveyed his condolences to the families of his slain aides and outlined his priorities as “security in the far villages of Afghanistan, fighting corruption, [and] enforcing rule of law”.

He said the signing of a bilateral security agreement (BSA), which would allow about 10,000 US troops to be deployed in the country after NATO withdraws by December, was essential to safeguarding the country’s future.

“Afghanistan is in a place, in a position that needs the continuation of international cooperation and help,” Abdullah said.

“Inshallah [God willing], with the signing of this agreement, the problems... will be solved.”

Abdullah’s rival Ashraf Ghani, a 64-year-old academic, told one packed hall: “Reforms will begin with us: myself, Mr Dostum and Mr Danish.”

He was referring to his running mates, the former Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum and ethnic Hazara tribal chieftain Sarwar Danish.

Security was tight at the rallies, which were guarded by the Afghan national army.

But the killing of Abdullah’s aides weighed heavily on some people’s minds.

Voters ‘concerned’ 

Arefa Alizada, an 18-year-old Abdullah supporter who attended one of the rallies, said: “I am concerned about security of the election, especially after I heard that two campaigners were killed yesterday. If it worsens, I and many other people won’t be able to vote.”

Afghanistan has been gripped by a deadly insurgency for the past 12 years. Most US and NATO troops are set to leave at the end of this year, leaving Afghans in charge of their own security.

President Karzai had been expected to sign the BSA late last year.

But he has stalled and said his successor might now complete negotiations — plunging relations with the US, Afghanistan’s key donor, to a fresh low.

Hamid Karzai has ruled the country since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, surviving assassination attempts and the treacherous currents of Afghan political life as billions of dollars of military and development aid poured into the country.

He is barred from seeking a third term, leaving an open field to compete in the April 5 vote, which is likely to trigger a second-round run-off in late May between the two strongest candidates.

MUNICH, Germany — The United States and EU traded unusually sharp barbs with Russia Saturday over Ukraine’s future amid concerns that Kiev could resort to possible military intervention to end anti-government protests.

Neither side pulled any punches, with US Secretary of State John Kerry saying what happens in Ukraine is crucial for Europe’s future while his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov blasted wilful and two-faced Western interference.

“Nowhere is the fight for a democratic, European future more important today than in Ukraine,” Kerry told political, diplomatic and military leaders at the Munich Security Conference.

“The United States and EU stand with the people of Ukraine in that fight,” said Kerry who later Saturday met Ukrainian opposition leaders including former world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko in Munich.

Kerry, speaking on a panel with US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel alongside, said the “vast majority of Ukrainians want to live freely in a safe, prosperous country”.

“They are fighting for the right to associate with partners who will help them realise their aspirations — and they have decided that means their futures do not have to lie with one country alone, and certainly not coerced.”

Earlier Saturday, the party of opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk said he had warned European officials it was “very likely” Kiev would “resort to a use of force scenario, including with the involvement of the Ukranian army”.

The Ukrainian defence ministry has warned that protestors’ seizure of government buildings was unacceptable and that “further escalation of the confrontation threatens the country’s territorial integrity”.

Ukraine’s SBU security service meanwhile announced a criminal investigation into what it said was an opposition attempt to seize power.

Yatsenyuk’s party, which has jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko as its head, told AFP that “an announcement by the SBU is an element of a use-of-force scenario, planning the possible introduction of a state of emergency”.

For his part, Klitschko warned of “a spiral of escalation” and told journalists that in Ukraine “we must avoid the start of a civil war”.

He also said that “I would support sanctions” against the government of President Victor Yanukovych because “it is the only language understood by today’s dictators of Ukraine”. 

‘Ukraine’s future with Europe’ 

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy told another panel that the EU wanted good relations with Russia, but that the Ukrainian people had to have the right to choose their own future, a future with Europe.

The West and Russia have been at loggerheads over Ukraine since Yanukovych ditched an EU association accord in November under pressure from a Moscow trying to bring its former Soviet satellite back into the fold.

His decision sparked off massive anti-government protests, which turned increasingly violent last month after he rushed through a series of curbs on protests.

Kerry’s meeting with the Ukraine opposition may have explained the unequivocally harsh remarks by Lavrov who accused the West of stoking the violence in Kiev in a clear example of double standards.

“Why are many prominent EU politicians actually encouraging such actions although back home they are quick to severely punish any violations of the law?” Lavrov told the conference.

“What does incitement of increasingly violent street protests have to do with promoting democracy?,” he said, speaking at the same panel as Van Rompuy.

“Why don’t we hear condemnation of those who seize and hold government buildings, attack the police, torture police, use racist and anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans?” Lavrov said.

Spheres of influence

EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton is due to visit Kiev again next week, having previously met the government and opposition figures several times there to call for peaceful dialogue.

Other prominent EU, US and international figures have also been frequent visitors to Kiev, drawing a strong government and Russian response although Lavrov’s remarks Saturday were unusually blunt in comparison.

Describing the situation in Ukraine as raising “fundamental questions” about EU-Russia relations, he said that in this case “a choice is being imposed.”

Europe’s future should “not be about new spheres of influence... it should be about how all countries” cooperate in the interest of all, he said.

For his part, Kerry said “Russia and other countries should not view the European integration of their neighbours as a zero-sum game”.

“The lesson of the last half-century is that we can accomplish much more when the United States, Russia and Europe work together,” he added.

KARO, Indonesia — Fourteen people, including four schoolchildren, were killed Saturday after they were engulfed in scorching ash clouds spat out by Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung in its biggest eruption in recent days, officials said.

Dark, searing clouds rolling down the mountain left apocalyptic scenes of ash-covered bodies scattered by a roadside in Sukameriah village, just 2.7 kilometres from the volcano’s crater, an AFP witness who helped with the evacuation said.

Officials fear there could be more fatalities from Saturday’s eruptions, but due to the high potential of lethal heat clouds spewing from the mountain, a search and rescue mission has been grounded, officials said.

“We suspect there are more victims but we cannot recover them because the victims are in the path of the hot [ash] clouds,” said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency.

All 14 bodies have been identified. Four of them were high school students on a sightseeing trip to the volcano on the western island of Sumatra, he added.

“The bodies were in a state where, even though their skin did not peel, their faces were swollen and the tongues were sticking out,” an AFP reporter on the ground said.

Three other people — a father and his son who wanted to pay respects at the graves of their relatives, and a man who came to the village to check his long-abandoned house — were also trapped and injured by the deadly clouds, Karo district official Johnson Tarigan told AFP.

He said the three were in the intensive care unit of a local hospital.

Thirty thousand people have been evacuated from the area since the volcano started erupting in September.

But some residents had returned home on Friday following advice from the Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation that houses outside the five-kilometre radius from the mountain were safe.

The volcano erupted again on Saturday morning, sending hot rocks and ash up 2,000 metres into the air, blanketing the surrounding countryside with grey dust, said volcanologist Kristianto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

Sukameriah village is located in the red zone, where human activities are strictly banned, but locals often trespassed the restricted area to check on their houses and belongings as well as their crops, officials said.

Nugroho said the evacuation will resume on Sunday.

Mount Sinabung is one of 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia that straddle major tectonic fault lines, known as the Pacific Ring of Fire.

It had been quiet for around 400 years until it rumbled back to life in 2010, and again in September last year.

In August 2013, five people were killed and hundreds evacuated when a volcano on a small island in East Nusa Tenggara province erupted.

The country’s most active volcano, Mount Merapi in central Java, killed more than 350 people in a series of eruptions in 2010.