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Presidential campaign posters of French President and centrist candidate for reelection Emmanuel Macron and French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on Apr 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Bob Edme) - 

France began voting in a presidential runoff election Sunday (Apr 24) in a race between incumbent Emmanuel Macron and far-right politician Marine Le Pen.

Macron is in pole position to win reelection in the country’s presidential runoff, yet his lead over Le Pen depends on one major uncertainty: Voters who could decide to stay home.

A Macron victory in this vote — which could have far-reaching repercussions for Europe’s future direction and Western efforts to stop the war in Ukraine — would make him the first French president in 20 years to win a second term.

All opinion polls in recent days converge toward a win for the 44-year-old pro-European centrist — yet the margin over his nationalist rival varies broadly, from 6 to 15 percentage points, depending on the poll. Polls also forecast a possibly record-high number of people who will either cast a blank vote or not vote at all//CNA

File photo. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to the media regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, US, on Mar 14, 2022. (Photo: Reuters/Andrew Kelly) - 

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit Ankara before heading to Moscow next week to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and then to Ukraine for talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a UN statement said on Saturday (Apr 23).

Guterres will visit the Turkish capital on Monday, where he will be received by President Tayyip Erdogan, the statement said. The UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, said on Apr 18 that Turkey was a valuable host for humanitarian talks between Ukraine and Russia.

Eri Kaneko, Guterres' associate spokesperson, told a news briefing on Friday that Guterres would head to Moscow on Tuesday and meet Putin as well as have a working meeting and lunch with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, hoping to discuss what can be done to bring peace to Ukraine.

The United Nations also said on Friday that Guterres would meet with Zelenskyy on Thursday, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and staff at UN agencies to discuss the scaling up of humanitarian assistance efforts//CNA

Smoke and steam rise from towers at the coal-fired Urumqi Thermal Power Plant in western China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on Apr 21, 2021. (File photo: AP/Mark Schiefelbein) - 

China is promoting coal-fired power as the ruling Communist Party tries to revive a sluggish economy, prompting warnings Beijing is setting back efforts to cut climate-changing carbon emissions from the biggest global source.

Official plans call for boosting coal production capacity by 300 million tons this year, according to news reports. That is equal to 7 per cent of last year’s output of 4.1 billion tons, which was an increase of 5.7 per cent over 2020.

China is one of the biggest investors in wind and solar, but jittery leaders called for more coal-fired power after economic growth plunged last year and shortages caused blackouts and factory shutdowns. Russia’s attack on Ukraine added to anxiety that foreign oil and coal supplies might be disrupted.

“This mentality of ensuring energy security has become dominant, trumping carbon neutrality,” said Li Shuo, a senior global policy adviser for Greenpeace. “We are moving into a relatively unfavorable time period for climate action in China.”

Officials face political pressure to ensure stability as President Xi Jinping prepares to try to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term as ruling party leader in the autumn.

Coal is important for “energy security,” Cabinet officials said at an Apr 20 meeting that approved plans to expand production capacity, according to Caixin, a business news magazine.

The ruling party also is building power plants to inject money into the economy and revive growth that sank to 4 per cent over a year earlier in the final quarter of 2021, down from the full year's 8.1 per cent expansion.

Governments have pledged to try to limit warming of the atmosphere to 2 degrees Celsius above the level of pre-industrial times. Leaders say what they really want is a limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Scientists say even if the world hits the 2-degree goal in the 2015 Paris climate pact and the 2021 Glasgow follow-up agreement, that still will lead to higher seas, stronger storms, extinctions of plants and animals and more people dying from heat, smog and infectious diseases.

China is the top producer and consumer of coal. Global trends hinge on what Beijing does.

The Communist Party has rejected binding emissions commitments, citing its economic development needs. Beijing has avoided joining governments that promised to phase out use of coal-fired power.

In a 2020 speech to the United Nations, Xi said carbon emissions will peak by 2030, but he announced no target for the amount. Xi said China aims for carbon neutrality, or removing as much from the atmosphere by planting trees and other tactics as is emitted by industry and households, by 2060.

China accounts for 26.1 per cent of global emissions, more than double the US share of 12.8 per cent, according to the World Resources Institute. Rhodium Group, a research firm, says China emits more than all developed economies combined.

Per person, China’s 1.4 billion people on average emit the equivalent of 8.4 tons of carbon dioxide annually, according to WRI. That is less than half the US average of 17.7 tons but more than the European Union’s 7.5 tons.

China has abundant supplies of coal and produced more than 90 per cent of the 4.4 billion tons it burned last year. More than half of its oil and gas is imported and leaders see that as a strategic risk.

China’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2060 appears to be on track, but using more coal “could jeopardise this, or at least slow it down and make it more costly", Clare Perry of the Environmental Investigations Agency said in an email.

Promoting coal will make emissions “much higher than they need to be” by the 2030 peak year, said Perry.

“This move runs entirely counter to the science,” she said.

Beijing has spent tens of billions of dollars on building solar and wind farms to reduce reliance on imported oil and gas and clean up its smog-choked cities. China accounted for about half of global investment in wind and solar in 2020.

Still, coal is expected to supply 60 per cent of its power in the near future.

Beijing is cutting millions of jobs to shrink its bloated, state-owned coal mining industry, but output and consumption still are rising.

Authorities say they are shrinking carbon emissions per unit of economic output. The government reported a reduction of 3.8 per cent last year, better than 2020′s 1 per cent but down from a 5.1 per cent cut in 2017.

Last year’s total energy use increased 5.2 per cent over 2020 after a revival of global demand for Chinese exports propelled a manufacturing boom, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Stimulus spending also might raise carbon output if it pays for building more bridges, train stations and other public works. That would encourage carbon-intensive steel and cement production.

China’s coal-fired power plants operate at about half their capacity on average, but building more creates jobs and economic activity, said Greenpeace’s Li. He said even if the power isn’t needed now, local leaders face pressure to make them pay for themselves.

“That locks China into a more high-carbon path,” Li said. “It’s very difficult to fix.”//CNA

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gestures as he watches the test-firing of a new-type tactical guided weapon in this undated photo released on Apr 16, 2022 by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency. (Photo: KCNA via Reuters) - 

North Korean state media on Sunday (Apr 24) trumpeted how the country has gained an "invincible power that the world cannot ignore and no one can touch" under Kim Jong Un, an apparent reference to its nuclear weapons, as Pyongyang prepares for a military holiday.

Monday will mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, and international monitors say North Korea may stage a major military parade or conduct other weapons displays.

North Korea has conducted an unprecedented flurry of ballistic missile tests this year, and American and South Korean officials say there are signs it could resume nuclear weapons testing for the first time since 2017.

A report by state news agency KCNA on Sunday listed the history of North Korea's military achievements, from its battles against the United States in the 1950-1953 Korean War and smaller skirmishes throughout the Cold War to the 2010 bombardment of South Korea's Yeonpyeong island, which hit both military and civilian targets.

The North's military is equipped with offensive and defensive capabilities that can "cope with any modern warfare," KCNA said.

It praised Kim's "genius military ideology and outstanding military command and unparalleled courage and guts", and his leadership in gaining the country's "invincible power".

For weeks commercial satellite imagery has shown thousands of North Korean troops practicing marching in formation at a parade training ground in Pyongyang, the capital.

Analysts had predicted a military parade on Apr 15, which was the 110th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the late communist founder of North Korea, and the nation's biggest holiday, but only a small, civilian "procession" was reported.

Preparations have been ongoing, suggesting a parade could now happen on or around Monday's army holiday, according to 38 North, a US-based programme, and NK News, a Seoul-based website that tracks the North.

North Korea's most recent parades have been held at night, and were used to unveil new weapons, including its largest Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)//CNA