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In Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, inventor Newlove Kushiator is trying to make life easier for his fellow citizens by creating all kinds of machines from castoff parts. VOA’s Gildas Da has this story from Ouagadougou, and Jackson Mvunganyi narrates.

As Ramadan draws to a close, Muslims in Kenya and the rest of the world are getting ready for the festivities of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the holy month fasting period. But some are cutting back on their usual preparations because of high prices. Zainab Said reports from Nairobi.

Researchers in California are developing highly sensitive sensors to more quickly detect environmental changes. Genia Dulot has the story in this week’s episode of LogOn. (Camera: Genia Dulot)

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Beijing — Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Tuesday in a sign of mutual support and shared opposition to Western democracies amid Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.  "We would like to express our highest appreciation and admiration for the successes that you have achieved over the years and, above all, over the last decade under your leadership," Lavrov told Xi, according to Russian media.  "We are sincerely pleased with these successes, since these are the successes of friends, although not everyone in the world shares this attitude and are trying in every possible way to restrain the development of China — in fact just like the development of Russia," Lavrov said.  Russia's growing economic and diplomatic isolation has made it increasingly reliant on China, its former rival for leadership of the Communist bloc during the Cold War. In past decades, the two have closely aligned their foreign policies, held joint military exercises and sought to rally non-aligned states in groupings such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.  Lavrov held a news conference earlier Tuesday with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi at which they reaffirmed solidarity in international affairs.  Lavrov said Russia and China oppose any international events that do not take Russia's position into account.  He said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's "so-called peace formula" was "completely detached from any realities."  Zelensky has called for the withdrawal of Russian forces and the return of all occupied Ukrainian territory, but is heavily reliant on support from the U.S., where the Republican Party majority in the House of Representatives has been holding up a new military aid package.  China and Russia are each others most important diplomatic partners, both holding permanent seats on the United Nations security council and working together to block initiatives by the U.S. and its allies to spread democratic values and human rights from Venezuela to Syria.  While China has not provided direct military support for Russia, it has backed it diplomatically in blaming the West for provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to launch the war and refrained from calling it an invasion in deference to the Kremlin. China has also said it isn't providing Russia with arms or military assistance, although it has maintained robust economic connections with Moscow, alongside India and other countries. amid sanctions from Washington and its allies.  At their joint news conference Wang repeated China's calls for a ceasefire and "an end to the war soon."  "China supports the convening at an appropriate time of an international meeting that is recognized by both Russia and Ukraine, in which all parties can participate equally and discuss all peace solutions fairly," Wang said.  China's peace proposal has found little traction, in part due to the country's continuing support for Russia and lack of vision for what a future resolution would look like, particularly the fate of occupied Ukrainian territories and their residents.  Wang also said Xi and Putin would continue to maintain close exchanges this year amid expectations of visits to each other's capitals.  "China and Russia have gone through ups and downs, and both sides have drawn lessons from historical experience and found a correct path to promote the healthy and stable development of bilateral relations," Wang said. "Today's good relations between China and Russia are hard-won and deserve to be cherished and carefully maintained by both sides."  Lavrov arrived in China on Monday, while Wang and other leading Chinese figures have recently visited Russia and maintained China's line of largely backing Russia's views on the cause of the conflict.  China has at times taken an equally combative tone against the U.S. and its allies. China and Russia have held joint military drills, and are seen as seeking to supplant democracies with dictatorships in areas where they wield influence. China is involved in its own territorial disputes, particularly over the self-governing island of Taiwan and in the South China and East China Seas.  Just weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin visited Beijing for the opening of the 2022 Winter Olympics and the sides signed a pact pledging a "no limits" relationship that has China supporting Russia's line, even while formally urging peace talks.  In a phone call last week with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, U.S. President Joseph Biden pressed China over its defense relationship with Russia, which is seeking to rebuild its industrial base as it continues its invasion of Ukraine. And he called on Beijing to wield its influence over North Korea to rein in the isolated and erratic nuclear power.

SIEM REAP, Cambodia — A baby monkey struggles and squirms as it tries to escape the man holding it by the neck over a concrete cistern, repeatedly dousing it with water. In another video clip, a person plays with the genitals of a juvenile male macaque sitting on a limestone block from an ancient temple to get it excited for the camera. The abuse of monkeys at the Angkor UNESCO World Heritage Site in northwestern Cambodia is not always so graphic, but authorities say it is a growing problem as people look for new ways to draw online viewers to generate cash. “The monkey should be living in the wild, where they are supposed to be living, but the monkey nowadays is being treated like a domestic pet,” said Long Kosal, spokesperson for APSARA, the Cambodian office that oversees the Angkor archaeological site. “They're making the content to earn money by having the viewers on YouTube, so this is a very big issue for us.” APSARA has few tools itself to stop the YouTubers from filming in general, but has opened an investigation with the Ministry of Agriculture to collect evidence for legal action against the most serious abusers — who are rarely on camera themselves, Long Kosal said. “If we can build a case, they will be arrested for sure,” he said. “Any animal abuser will be seriously punished by law in Cambodia.” YouTube, Facebook and other sites remove the videos with graphic content, but scores of other clips of cute monkeys jumping and playing remain, generating thousands of views and subscribers. Just making those videos involves very close interaction with the monkeys, however, which authorities and animal-rights activists say creates a host of other problems, both for the macaques and people visiting one of Southeast Asia's most popular tourist sites. On a recent day outside Angkor's famous 12th-century Bayon Temple, at least a dozen YouTubers, all young men, crowded around a small group of long-tailed macaques, pushing in close to get shots of a mother with a baby on her back and tracking her everywhere she moved. The wild monkeys feasted on bananas tossed to them by YouTubers and drank from plastic bottles of water. One young macaque briefly amused itself with half-eaten neon-green popsicle discarded at the side of the path, before dropping it to move on to a banana. A blue-shirted APSARA warden looked on but those filming were unfazed, illustrating the main problem: Simply taking video of monkeys is OK, even though feeding them is frowned upon. At the same time, it's making them dependent upon handouts, and the close interaction with humans means they're increasingly becoming aggressive toward tourists. “The tourists carry their food, and they would snatch the food,” Long Kosal said, flipping through multiple photos on his phone of recent injuries caused by the macaques. “If the tourists resist, they bite and this is very dangerous.” The search for food from tourists also draws the monkeys from the surrounding jungle in to the ancient sites, where they pull away pieces of the temples and cause other damage, he added. Tourist Cadi Hutchings made sure to keep her distance from the monkeys, after being warned by her tour guide of the increasing risk of being bitten. “What they want is your food, but you also need to appreciate that there needs to be a boundary between human intervention in nature,” the 23-year-old from Wales said. “It's obviously a great thing that so many tourists come because it's such a lovely place, but at the same time, you have to be careful that with more and more people … the monkeys don't get too acclimatized.” Many other tourists, however, stopped to take their own photos and videos — some holding out bananas to draw them closer — before heading to the nearby temple site. YouTuber Ium Daro, who started filming Angkor monkeys about three months ago, followed a mother and a baby along a dirt path with his iPhone held on a selfie stick to get in close. The 41-year-old said he hadn't seen any monkeys physically abused, and that he didn't see a problem with what he and the others were doing to make a living. “The monkeys here are friendly,” he said. “After we take their pictures we give them food, so it is like we pay them for them giving us the chance to take their picture.” As he spoke, a young macaque scrambled up the leg of an onlooker, trying — unsuccessfully — to grab a plastic bottle of water out of his pocket. One YouTuber said he had started filming monkeys during the COVID-19 pandemic after the numbers of tourists plummeted, making it impossible to earn a living as a tuk-tuk driver. Daro said he was looking for a way to supplement his income as a rice vendor, and that he's too new at it to have realized many returns. Many, like Phut Phu, work as salaried employees of YouTube page operators. The 24-year-old said he started filming monkeys 2 1/2 years ago when he was looking for a job in the open air to help him deal with a lung problem. He's generally at it daily from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., earning $200 a month — equivalent to a Cambodian minimum-wage job — and said he hoped authorities wouldn't try and put an end to it. “I need these monkeys,” he said, holding a Nikon Coolpix camera with an extreme zoom that his employer provided, the same model most of the YouTubers were using. With the difficulties involved in identifying and catching those responsible for the physical abuse of the monkeys, coupled with the draw of easy money through YouTube videos, Long Kosal said APSARA's task is a tough one. “This is the problem for us,” he said. “We need to find solid reasons which we can use against them not to make content by abusing the monkeys.” For Nick Marx, director of wildlife rescue and care for the Wildlife Alliance — which implements conservation programs across Southeast Asia and is involved in releasing wildlife back into Angkor — the answer is simple, though perhaps equally as elusive. “The biggest problem is these [videos] are generated to make money,” he said in an interview from Phnom Penh. "If people that don’t like this kind of thing would stop watching them, that would really help solve the problem of abuse.”

ORSK — Flood sirens blared out in two Russian cities on Tuesday, warning thousands more people to evacuate immediately as two major rivers swelled to bursting point in some of the worst flooding in at least 70 years. Swiftly melting snow across swathes of the Ural Mountains and Siberia has swelled some of the biggest rivers which surge across the wilds of Russia, with at least 10,500 homes recorded as flooded so far and many thousands more at risk. The Ural River, Europe's third largest which flows into the Caspian, burst through an embankment dam on Friday flooding the city of Orsk just south of the Ural Mountains. Downstream, water levels in Orenburg, a city of around 550,000, were rising. Sirens in Kurgan, a city on the Tobol river, a tributary of the Irtysh, warned people to evacuate immediately and Governor Vadim Shumkov urged residents to take the warnings seriously. "We understand you very well: It is hard to leave your possessions and move somewhere at the call of the local authorities," Shumkov said, adding that those demanding to stay in their houses were foolish. "It's better that we laugh at the hydrologists together later and praise God for the miracle of our common salvation. But let's do it alive." The peak is expected in Orenburg on Wednesday. President Vladimir Putin has been monitoring the floods from Moscow but anger boiled over in Orsk when at least 100 Russians begged the Kremlin chief to help and chanted "shame on you" at local officials who they said had done too little. With so much water flowing into rivers, emergencies were declared in Orenburg, Kurgan and Tyumen, a major oil producing region of Western Siberia - the largest hydrocarbon basin in the world. In Kurgan, a region with around 800,000 residents, drone footage showed traditional Russian wooden houses and the golden kupolas of Russian Orthodox Churches stranded among a vast expanse of water. In Zverinogolovskoye, a town in Kurgan region, the water levels of the Tobol rose 74 centimeters in just two hours. More than 19,000 people are risk in Kurgan, the TASS news agency reported. The head of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, Alexander Kurenkov, flew to Orenburg region on Tuesday to monitor the situation after being tasked to do so by Putin, the ministry said. Kurenkov will also visit the Kurgan and Tyumen regions in the Urals, the ministry added. "Preventive measures are already being taken there, rescue teams have been strengthened, and the forces and means of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations have been put on high alert," the ministry said.  Rising water was also forecast in Siberia's Ishim river, a tributary of the Irtysh river, which along with its parent, the Ob, forms the world's seventh longest river system. It was not immediately clear why this year's floods were so bad as the snow melt is an annual event in Russia. Scientists say climate change has made flooding more frequent worldwide. 

STRASBOURG, France — Europe's highest human rights court ruled Tuesday that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change, siding with a group of older Swiss women against their government in a landmark ruling that could have implications across the continent. The European Court of Human Rights rejected two other, similar cases on procedural grounds — a high-profile one brought by Portuguese young people and another by a French mayor that sought to force governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But the Swiss case, nonetheless, sets a legal precedent in the Council of Europe's 46 member states against which future lawsuits will be judged. "This is a turning point," said Corina Heri, an expert in climate change litigation at the University of Zurich. Although activists have had success with lawsuits in domestic proceedings, this was the first time an international court ruled on climate change — and the first decision confirming that countries have an obligation to protect people from its effects, according to Heri. She said it would open the door to more legal challenges in the countries that are members of the Council of Europe, which includes the 27 EU nations as well as many others from Britain to Turkey. The Swiss ruling softened the blow for those who lost Tuesday. "The most important thing is that the court has said in the Swiss women's case that governments must cut their emissions more to protect human rights," said 19-year-od Sofia Oliveira, one of the Portuguese plaintiffs. "Their win is a win for us, too, and a win for everyone!" The court — which is unrelated to the European Union — ruled that Switzerland "had failed to comply with its duties" to combat climate change and meet emissions targets. That, the court said, was a violation of the women's rights, noting that the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees people "effective protection by the state authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on their lives, health, well-being and quality of life." A group called Senior Women for Climate Protection, whose average age is 74, had argued that they were particularly affected because older women are most vulnerable to the extreme heat that is becoming more frequent. "The court recognized our fundamental right to a healthy climate and to have our country do what it failed to do until now: that is to say taking ambitious measures to protect our health and protect the future of all," said Anne Mahrer, a member of the group. Switzerland said it would study the decision to see what steps would be needed. "We have to, in good faith, implement and execute the judgment," Alain Chablais, who represented the country at last year's hearings, told The Associated Press. Judge Siofra O'Leary, the court's president, stressed that it would be up to governments to decide how to approach climate change obligations. Activists have argued that many governments have not grasped the gravity of the climate change — and are increasingly looking to the courts to force them to do more to ensure global warming is held to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, in line with the goals of the Paris climate agreement. As part of meeting those goals, the European Union, which doesn't include Switzerland, currently has a target to be climate-neutral by 2050. Despite those efforts, the Earth shattered global annual heat records in 2023 and flirted with the world's agreed-upon warming threshold, Copernicus, a European climate agency, said in January. Celebrity climate activist Greta Thunberg was in the courtroom as the decision was announced. "These rulings are a call to action. They underscore the importance of taking our national governments to court," the 21-year-old Swede told the AP. "The first ruling by an international human rights court on the inadequacy of states' climate action leaves no doubt," said Joie Chowdhury, senior attorney with the Center for International Environmental Law, "the climate crisis is a human rights crisis."

Yangon — Residents of a Myanmar trade hub fled across the border to Thailand on Tuesday amid the sounds of explosions and after an ethnic minority armed group said they had seized a key military base nearby, locals told AFP. Fighters from the Karen National Union (KNU) said Saturday that they had seized a military base around 10 kilometers (6 miles) west of Myawaddy and that more than 600 soldiers, police and their families had surrendered. Contacted by AFP on Tuesday, residents said they could hear gunfire and explosions. "Some people fled already, especially those staying around the police station," one resident told AFP, requesting anonymity for security reasons. "We are hearing gunfire and explosions at this moment. We heard planes flying over." They said it did not appear KNU fighters were inside the town and that a bridge connecting Myawaddy to the Thai town of Mae Sot just over the border was still open. "I heard two loud explosions," another resident of Myawaddy told AFP, also asking to remain anonymous for security reasons. "Most of the shops are closed today and locals are leaving for Thailand." Myanmar mobile phone services were not working, they said, adding that residents were using Thai SIM cards. The junta has not responded to requests for comment on the KNU claim of the surrenders at the base at Thingannyinaung. AFP has asked the KNU for comment.   A resident of Thingannyinaung said she had fled her home weeks ago following previous clashes and was now sheltering at the Thai border.  "Many IDPs are now staying near the river between Thailand and Myanmar," she said, referring to internally displaced people. "We can see thousands of people from villages are coming to cross the border every day," added the resident, who requested anonymity. Thailand's foreign minister said on Tuesday the country was prepared to accept 100,000 people fleeing Myanmar, as reports of clashes emerged.  Thailand shares a 2,400-kilometre (1,490-mile) border with Myanmar, which has been embroiled in a civil war since the junta overthrew the democratically elected government in 2021. Myawaddy sits on the Asia Highway that runs from the Thai border to Myanmar's biggest city Yangon. It passes through Karen state, which has been riven by decades of fighting between the military and the KNU, which says it is seeking autonomy for the Karen population. Since the military's 2021 coup, the KNU has given shelter to political opponents of the junta and trained newer "People's Defense Forces" battling to overthrow the military's rule. Over $1.1 billion worth of trade passed through Myawaddy from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, according to the junta's commerce ministry.  The Karen State Border Guard Force, a local military-aligned militia that controls much of Myawaddy town, announced this year that it would no longer take orders from the junta. Analysts said the move would further weaken the military's position in Karen state. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

washington — U.S. President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, hold very different views on key foreign and domestic issues. Here’s an overview of where each nominee stands on domestic policy. Reproductive rights Biden: The Biden administration has protected access to abortion, including: FDA-approved medication abortion; defended access to emergency medical care; supported the ability to travel for reproductive health care; strengthened access to high-quality, affordable contraception; safeguarded the privacy of patients and health care providers and ensured access to accurate information and legal resources, according to a March 7, 2024 White House fact sheet. On March 26, 2024, Biden said, “If America sends me a Congress that are Democrats, I promise you, Kamala and I will restore Roe vs. Wade is the law of the land again." He also warned on March 8, 2024, that “states are passing bans criminalizing doctors, forcing rape and incest victims to leave their state to get care. And now MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump want to pass a national ban on the right to choose, period. Well. Take it seriously, folks, because that's what they're heading for. Hear me loud and clear. This will not happen on my watch.” Trump: Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees during his presidency shifted the balance of the court, resulting in an overturning of Roe vs. Wade, sending the decision to legalize abortion back to the states. Trump announced on April 8, 2024, that he believed abortion legislation should be left up to each state. Previously, he suggested a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks, saying, “Fifteen weeks seems to be a number that people are agreeing at.” Economy Biden: In a December 5, 2023, speech in Boston, Biden said the economy had created 14 million new jobs — more jobs than any president has created in a four-year term; record economic growth — over 5% just the last quarter; unemployment under 4% for 20 months in a row, and the lowest inflation rate of any of the world’s major economies. Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which authorized $550 billion in new spending. Trump: According to his campaign website, during his presidency, “President Donald J. Trump passed record-setting tax relief for the middle class, doubled the child tax credit, and slashed more job-killing regulations than any administration had ever done before. Real wages quickly increased as a result, and median household income reached the highest level in the history of our country, while poverty reached a record low.” Immigration/border security Biden: President Biden supported the bipartisan Senate Border Security Act that would have provided billions of dollars in additional funding for security and enabled him to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border if daily and weekly border encounters surpassed certain metrics. Former President Trump pressured Republican lawmakers to reject the border security deal, resulting in its failure to pass in the U.S. Congress. On March 9, 2024, Biden said, “On my first day in office as president, I introduced a comprehensive, comprehensive plan to fix our immigration system, secure our border, provide a pathway for citizenship for dreamers and their families, farmworkers, essential workers who helped us through the pandemic and are part of the fabric of our community.” Trump: On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump has pledged to conduct the largest deportation in U.S. history, shift “massive portions of federal law enforcement to immigration enforcement” and terminate the visas of Hamas sympathizers on college campuses. On his campaign website, Trump said that in cooperative states, he will deputize the National Guard and local law enforcement to assist with rapidly removing illegal alien gang members and criminals. He also pledged to deliver a merit-based immigration system that protects American labor and promotes American values. During his presidency, Trump issued an executive order suspending entry into the United States for everyone from Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen for 90 days and indefinitely for Syrian refugees. He began construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Criminal justice Biden: In multiple executive orders, the president has directed the Justice Department not to renew contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities; directed billions of dollars in public funds to community safety initiatives; and expanded community grants to keep guns off the streets. During his State of the Union speech on March 7, 2024, Biden said, “I'm demanding a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Pass universal background checks. None of this. None of this. I taught the Second Amendment for 12 years. None of this violates the Second Amendment or vilifies responsible gun owners." Trump: During his presidency, Trump launched Operation Legend to combat a surge of violent crime in cities, resulting in more than 5,500 arrests and signed the Safe Policing for Safe Communities executive order to incentivize local police department reforms in line with law and order. The former president made hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of surplus military equipment available to local law enforcement, signed an executive order to help prevent violence against law enforcement officers and signed the bipartisan First Step Act into law, the first landmark criminal justice reform legislation ever passed to reduce recidivism and help former inmates successfully rejoin society. On the campaign trail this year, Trump has made the case he will combat crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. “I do great with the suburban housewives because they want to remain safe. But they [undocumented immigrants] loot the jewelry, they take their purses, electronics, watches, all of their cash. And the people come back and they say, what happened? If you don't want illegal alien criminals crawling through your windows and ransacking your drawers, then you must vote for the fact that we have to throw Crooked Joe Biden out as fast as possible,” he said on April 2, 2024. Climate/energy production Biden: The Democratic president rejoined the Paris climate agreement and signed the Inflation Reduction Act, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy, electric vehicles and environmental justice. His administration also met goals of cutting emissions by at least 50% by 2030 and was among the leaders who launched the Global Methane Pledge, tackling super polluters. Trump: During his presidency, Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement and claimed that Earth’s temperatures “will start getting cooler.” Trump appointees dismantled fossil fuel agreements, kept coal-burning power plants open and launched an anti-trust probe of automakers who agreed to clean air standards. “President Trump will unleash the production of domestic energy resources, reduce the soaring price of gasoline, diesel and natural gas, promote energy security for our friends around the world, eliminate the socialist Green New Deal and ensure the United States is never again at the mercy of a foreign supplier of energy,” according to his campaign website.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

SEOUL, South Korea — The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations will travel to the heavily armed Korean border and meet North Korean defectors in South Korea, her office said on Monday, amid faltering U.N. efforts to ensure sanctions enforcement against the North. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield's trip, set for April 14-20, came after Russia rejected the annual renewal of the multinational panel of experts, which has over the past 15 years worked on the implementation of U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. Washington, Seoul and Tokyo criticized Moscow's veto and China's abstention, which experts said would undermine the sanctions enforcement, with a South Korean envoy likening it to "destroying a CCTV to avoid being caught red-handed." Thomas-Greenfield's trip, which will also include a stop in Japan, was meant to advance bilateral and trilateral cooperation on the sanctions and beyond, U.S. mission to the U.N. spokesperson Nate Evans said. Both South Korea and Japan are currently members of the Security Council. "In both countries, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield will discuss next steps to ensure a continuation of independent and accurate reporting of the DPRK's ongoing weapons proliferation and sanctions evasion activities," Evans said in a statement, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In South Korea, Thomas-Greenfield will travel to the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas, meet young North Korean defectors as well as students at Ewha Womans University, Evans said. In Japan, she will also meet family members of Japanese citizens who were abducted in the early 2000s by North Korea, and visit Nagasaki, which was hit by U.S. nuclear bombing in 1945.

STRASBOURG, France — Europe’s highest human rights court will rule Tuesday on a group of landmark climate change cases aimed at forcing countries to meet international obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The European Court of Human Rights will hand down decisions in a trio of cases brought by a French mayor, six Portuguese youngsters and more than 2,000 members of Senior Women for Climate Protection, who say their governments are not doing enough to combat climate change. Lawyers for all three are hoping the Strasbourg court will find that national governments have a legal duty to make sure global warming is held to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, in line with the goals of the Paris climate agreement. Although activists have had successes with lawsuits in domestic proceedings, this will be the first time an international court has ruled on climate change. A decision against any of the countries involved could force them to reduce net emissions to zero by 2030. The EU, which doesn't include Switzerland, currently has a target to be climate-neutral by 2050. The decisions have “the potential to be a watershed moment in the global fight for a livable future. A victory for any of the three cases would be one of the most significant developments on climate change since the signing of the Paris Agreement,” said Gerry Liston, a lawyer with the Global Legal Action Network, which is supporting the Portuguese students. “The extreme heat waves, the rainfalls, followed by heat waves, it is just choking us with greenhouse effects. And what worries me is the frequency in which they started happening more and more. That’s what really scared me. And, I thought to myself, well, what can I do?” 16-year-old André dos Santos Oliveira told reporters ahead of the decision. Together with five more young people, Santos Oliveira took Portugal and 32 other nations to court, arguing the failure to stop emissions violated their fundamental rights. At the other end of the age spectrum, a group of Swiss retirees are also demanding their government do more. Senior Women for Climate Protection, whose average age is 74, say older women’s rights are especially infringed on because they are most affected by the extreme heat that will become more frequent due to global warming. Earth shattered global annual heat records in 2023, flirted with the world’s agreed-upon warming threshold, and showed more signs of a feverish planet, Copernicus, a European climate agency, said in January. In all three cases, lawyers argued that the political and civil protections guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights are meaningless if the planet is uninhabitable. The countries facing the legal challenges hope the cases will be dismissed. They say the blame for climate change cannot rest with any individual country. Switzerland is not alone in being affected by global warming, said Alain Chablais, representative of the country at last year's hearings. “This problem cannot be solved by Switzerland alone.” Acknowledging the urgency of the climate crisis, the court fast-tracked all three cases, including a rare move allowing the Portuguese case to bypass domestic legal proceedings. Judgments from the European Court of Human Rights aren’t legally binding against all 46 of its member states, but they set a legal precedent against which future lawsuits would be judged.