التصنيف: أخبار

Temperatures in southern Spain today reached just over 28C – the second-highest value recorded in January since 1985.

AEMET, Spain’s state meteorological agency, reported that maximum temperatures recorded at one observatory in the Mediterranean region of Murcia hit 28.2C.

At another, provisional data showed the temperature peaked at 28.5C.

The unusually warm weather came close to breaking records, becoming the second-highest value recorded at one observatory for January in 38 years, the agency said in a post on X.

Many other parts of Spain also enjoyed temperatures in the 20s, including Alicante which had a maximum temperature of 25C and Granada with 26C.

The warm weather lured people outside, with many pictured sunbathing or playing volleyball on a beach in Valencia, which also reached temperatures in the mid-20s.

Despite enjoying the weather, some tourists expressed concern for the unusually hot temperatures.

“We’re a bit surprised that it’s so pleasantly warm… And it’s nice for us now, but we don’t think it’s completely normal,” Thorsten Petersen, 66, said while in Madrid.

Adela, a local pensioner, added: “Those who say there is no climate change just have to look at what’s happening: it’s either too cold or too warm. I think this is a disaster.”

Scientists have linked scorching temperatures and dry and windy conditions in many parts of the world, including southern Europe, to climate change.

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Last year was confirmed as the hottest on record, according to data, with the global average air surface temperature hitting 14.98C in 2023 – beating the previous record set in 2016.

In Spain alone, the record temperatures caused consecutive heatwaves which sparked wildfires and droughts.

Temperatures in neighbouring Portugal also reached 23C in some regions on Thursday, with the weather agency IPMA expecting Friday to reach 24C – around eight to nine degrees above normal levels.

Donald Trump gave evidence for just three minutes on Thursday in a defamation trial to determine how much he may owe a writer for calling her a liar after she accused him in 2019 of rape.

E Jean Carroll, 80, is seeking more than $10m (£7.87m) in damages over his denials when he was US president that he attacked her in a Manhattan shop in the mid-1990s.

She claimed Trump ruined her reputation when she accused him in a memoir of sexually abusing her in 1996 in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store.

The limits on Trump’s testimony in the civil case were placed on him by US District Judge Lewis Kaplan.

The judge told jurors they must accept the findings of another New York jury that awarded Ms Carroll $5m (£3.93m) after concluding he sexually abused her at the store and defamed her in a similar denial in October 2022.

The current trial at Manhattan federal court focuses only on statements Trump made in June 2019 while he was US leader. Those claims had been delayed for four years by appeals.

During his brief stint testifying, Trump answered questions from his lawyer Alina Habba.

The former president said that Ms Carroll “said something I considered a false accusation”.

A lawyer for Ms Carroll objected and Judge Kaplan told the jury to disregard the remark.

Trump later said: “I just wanted to defend myself, my family and frankly, the presidency.”

That also drew an objection and another instruction from the judge for the jury to disregard it.

As Trump left the New York courtroom, he shook his head and repeatedly said: “This is not America. This is not America. This is not America.”

Trump, 77, has denied the accusations for the last five years and continues to attack the former Elle columnist on the presidential election campaign trail.

Ms Carroll was present as Trump was sworn in as a witness in court.

The former president, who had big victories in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday and the Iowa caucuses last week, appeared relatively subdued in court before his testimony compared to previous appearances.

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Trump is also facing four criminal cases as the presidential primary season heats up.

He has been juggling court and campaign appearances, using both to argue that he is being persecuted by Democrats.

Cautious anticipation hovers over the cluster of South African communities that have consistently organised on behalf of Palestinians in the months of lethal Israeli military assault on Gaza that followed Hamas’s 7 October attacks.

An interim ruling from the International Court of Justice on South Africa v Israel is imminent, with a decision expected to come from the Hague at midday on Friday.

It is a pivotal moment in the case that South Africa has launched against Israel which could secure an interim ceasefire and increased humanitarian aid to Gaza if ruled in South Africa’s favour.

South Africa alleges Israeli forces have carried out genocidal acts including killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing serious mental and bodily harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions meant to “bring about their physical destruction as a group”.

Israel has vehemently taken issue with South Africa’s claims, arguing that it is acting in self-defence against what it calls the genocidal threat to its existence posed by Hamas.

“In general, this is just a hugely profound moment looking at the history of both Israel’s support for the apartheid government in South Africa and the ongoing solidarity between anti-apartheid movements globally for South Africa and for Palestine,” says Jo Bluen, an international relations scholar and organiser at South African Jews for a Free Palestine.

South African Jews for a Free Palestine have been at the forefront of Johannesburg’s protests decrying Israel’s actions in Gaza.

At a gathering for the Jewish New Year of the Trees, an ecological awareness day in Israel, she told Sky News that the moment has been marked – no matter the outcome.

“Whatever the ruling is and whatever Israel decides to do with that – because powerful actors very rarely comply with legal rulings – it is a remarkable moment. South Africa has really pushed the law to its limits,” Ms Bluen said.

Images of Nelson Mandela in a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf and moments of him side-by-side with former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat flooded the internet as South Africa’s legal team laid out their argument.

After the case had been made, crowds of Palestinians rejoiced at the Nelson Mandela statue in Ramallah in the West Bank.

The enduring solidarity between South African and Palestinian liberation movements has been well-documented over the years but scholars here also stress the historic links between Israel and South Africa’s apartheid government.

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“Most South Africans also recognise Israel’s complicity in our own oppression. For example, Israel was an important arms supplier to apartheid South Africa, despite the international arms embargo. As late as 1980, 35% of Israel’s arms exports were destined for our country,” says Professor Salim Vally, director for the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg.

“When the global anti-apartheid movement forced countries to impose sanctions on the apartheid regime, Israel imported South African goods and re-exported them to the world as a form of inter-racist solidarity,” he adds.

“Israel was loyal to the apartheid state and clung to this friendship when almost all other relationships dissolved.”

Anti-apartheid veterans active at the time agree with this assessment.

Reverend Frank Chikane was a key figure in South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement and was detained and tortured on multiple occasions between 1977 and 1982.

I asked him why the links are so strong between South African and Palestinian liberation movements.

“Because we were in the trenches together,” he responded, matter-of-factly.

“There were colonialists in Kenya and Zimbabwe and other places here [in Africa] but the colonialists here became settlers. The Afrikaners became part of South Africa and they don’t have the home to go to.

“They created an apartheid system, including Bantustans, where you can govern yourself but have no powers to be a state and then you couldn’t also have a passport outside.”

He says he saw restrictions enforced on Palestinian civilians on his recent trip to the occupied Palestinian territories with a global religious delegation.

“The PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, found itself in the ANC [African National Congress] and when we grew up, we grew up knowing that the PLO were comrades. I mean, it’s as simple as that. There was no debate.”