Billionaire Elon Musk enters courtroom showdown with OpenAI

Nepali guides on Tuesday opened the route past the icefall on Mount Everest, which was blocked for two weeks by a large chunk of dangerous ice.

A team of highly skilled mountaineers, known in Nepal as "icefall doctors", began fixing ropes and ladders on Everest last month, to prepare for the spring climbing season.

But a serac -- a block of glacial ice -- above the already treacherous Khumbu icefall disrupted their work, sparking fears of delays in the limited summit season on the world's highest peak.

"A team of 21, including eight icefall doctors, went up this morning, opening the route up to Camp 1," Lakpa Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, who coordinated the effort, told AFP.

"The serac is still there so the risk persists... We expect it will melt soon."

Sherpa said teams would work to set the route up to the summit to ensure there are no more delays.

The government has issued more than 900 climbing permits for various Himalayan mountains this season, including 425 for Everest.

A sea of tents to host more than 1,000 people -- foreign climbers and support staff -- has built up at the foot of Everest, readying to scale the 8,849-metre (29,032-foot) summit.

Climbers at the base camp have been anxiously watching the developments on the route. They must cross the icefall, a constantly shifting maze of crevasses and ice blocks, to reach higher on Everest.

"We are not yet sending people up," said Lukas Furtenbach of Furtenbach Adventures, saying he would await a decision from the committee which mobilises the icefall doctors. 

Nepal is home to eight of the world's 10 highest peaks and attracts hundreds of climbers each spring, when temperatures are warmer and winds calmer.

A climbing boom has made mountaineering a lucrative business since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa made the first ascent in 1953. 

Around 700 people reached Everest's summit last year from the Nepali side, according to the tourism department, with another 100 climbers believed to have reached the peak from the northern side, via China.

In 2023, three Nepali guides were killed when a falling block of glacial ice swept them into a deep crevasse as they were crossing the Khumbu icefall with supplies.

Autumn summits on Everest in 2019 were also thwarted by a serac.

In 2014, an immense tumbling wall of snow, ice and rock killed 16 Nepali guides on the icefall, one of the deadliest accidents in the Himalayas.

pm/pjm/mtp

An Indian billionaire's son offered on Tuesday to take hippos descended from those introduced to Colombia by drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, rather than have the animals killed.

Anant Ambani, the son of tycoon Mukesh Ambani, said he had formally requested the Colombian government to stay a decision to kill the animals, which have wreaked havoc on rivers in the South American nation.

Instead, he has asked to allow the "safe, scientifically-led translocation that would bring the 80 animals to a permanent home" at his Vantara animal centre.

The vast zoo in India's western state of Gujarat bills itself as the "one of the world's largest wildlife rescue, care and conservation centres".

Vantara is already home to hundreds of elephants, as well as 50 bears, 160 tigers, 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, among other animals, according to India's Central Zoo Authority.

Experts have repeatedly sounded the alarm on Vantara's massive animal intake, including the import of critically endangered and rare species.

Escobar brought hippos -- which are native only to Africa and can weigh up to several tonnes -- to Colombia in the 1980s.

After Escobar's death, hippos from his private zoo made a new life in the lush river banks of the Colombia's Magdalena River -- where they have attacked fishermen, prompting moves to cull them.

Anant Ambani, son of the billionaire head of the multinational conglomerate Reliance Industries, said he had submitted a detailed plan to give the animals a new home at Vantara.

The animal centre is sited alongside the Reliance Jamnagar Refinery Complex, which the conglomerate says is the world's largest crude oil refinery.

Summers there can get extremely hot, with temperatures soaring above 40C.

Ambani's proposal sets out a veterinary-led capture and transport, as well as the creation of a "purpose-designed naturalistic setting" for the hippos, according to a statement.

"Vantara has the expertise, infrastructure and resolve to support this effort, entirely on Colombia's terms," the statement said.

"These 80 hippos did not choose where they were born, nor did they create the circumstances they now face," Ambani added.

"They are living, sentient beings, and if we have the ability to save them through a safe and humane solution, we have a responsibility to try."

pjm/abh/ami

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel hit back on Monday at Donald Trump's call for him to lose his job over a joke about First Lady Melania Trump days before an alleged attempt to assassinate the US president.

Trump said Kimmel should be fired for likening the first lady to an "expectant widow" on Thursday, two days before a shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington that the couple attended.

Kimmel portrayed himself in a monologue as the MC of that upcoming banquet. It included a segment in which he addressed the first lady in the audience and said: "Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow."

Trump turns 80 in June and is the oldest president to take office in the United States. His wife, a former model who was born in Slovenia, is 56.

The first lady also lashed out at Kimmel in a rare statement, calling on US broadcaster ABC to "take a stand" against the late-night host over his comments.

However, Kimmel brushed off the criticism in a monologue on his talk show, "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" late on Monday, saying that the gag was "obviously... a joke about their age difference."

"It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am," Kimmel said.

"It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination, and they know that."

Kimmel also appeared to invite Trump onto his show to discuss "hateful" rhetoric -- an apparent reference to the president's inflammatory comments about groups including migrants, political opponents and the media.

"I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject," Kimmel said.

"I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it," he added, addressing the first lady.

The president had earlier accused Kimmel in a Truth Social post of a "despicable call to violence" and said he should "be immediately fired."

As a prominent late-night comedy host, Kimmel has been at the heart of the debate over constitutionally protected speech.

He was briefly suspended from his show last September following government pressure after he said Trump's hard-right MAGA movement was trying to make political capital from the assassination of influencer Charlie Kirk.

bur-cms/pbt

A 21-year-old man went on trial in Austria on Tuesday over a plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert, which led to shows by the US megastar in the Alpine nation to be scrapped in 2024.

Three dates in Swift's record-breaking "Eras" tour were cancelled in the summer of 2024 after authorities warned of the plot. 

Beran A., who was led into the courtroom by masked police personnel, has been in detention since his arrest in August 2024 and is facing terror offences and other charges.

The Austrian is accused of having been a member of a terror organisation from May 2023 "by planning and preparing a terrorist attack on the concert of singer Taylor Swift", prosecutors have said.

By sharing Islamic State (IS) propaganda through various messaging services and other offences, he participated and "openly aligned himself" with IS, they added.

Planning the attack on the concert, he allegedly tried to get weapons and worked on making a shrapnel bomb "specific to IS attacks" and received instructions from other IS members on handling explosives, according to prosecutors.

- Attack plans abroad -

He is also alleged to have been involved in other attack plans abroad, including in Dubai and Istanbul though those attacks never materialised.

Another 21-year-old, Arda K., is standing trial together with Beran A., according to Austrian news agency APA.

The duo, together with a third man, Hasan E. imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, are accused of forming a "highly dangerous IS terror cell" planning to carry out several attacks in the name of IS, prosecutors say.

The trial of the two defendants has been scheduled to last four days.

If found guilty, Beran A. faces up to 20 years in prison.

Last year, a Berlin court convicted a Syrian teenager of contributing to the plot to attack the Swift concert.

The 16-year-old was given an 18-month suspended sentence.

The plot was thwarted with the help of US intelligence.

Swift later wrote on social media that "the reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many had planned on coming to those shows".

jza/phz

The latest developments in the Middle East war:

- US mulls Iran proposal -

The White House said Monday it was examining Iran's latest proposal to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, two months after a US and Israeli offensive sent shockwaves through the global economy.

President Donald Trump met top security advisors to discuss an Iranian proposal after Tehran passed "written messages" to Washington via Pakistan, spelling out its red lines in negotiations including on nuclear issues and the Strait of Hormuz, the Fars news agency reported. 

The proposal was "being discussed," spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told a White House briefing.

- Oil rises, stocks drop -

Oil prices jumped and stocks sank Tuesday as the Iran-US impasse dragged on and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained choked.

- Iran security guarantees -

 Iran needs guarantees against another US-Israeli attack before it can ensure security in the oil-rich Gulf, Tehran's envoy to the United Nations said Monday.

"A durable and permanent cessation of aggression against Iran supplemented by credible guarantees of non-recurrence and full respect for the legitimate sovereign rights and interests of Iran" were needed, Amir Saeid Iravani told a Security Council session.

- Four dead in Lebanon -

Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes on the country's south on Monday killed four people including a woman and wounded 51 others, three of them children, despite a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

- Israel's 'year of fighting' -

Israel's chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir warned that the country's military was likely to be fighting on multiple fronts throughout 2026, as it fights wars against Iran and Tehran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

"Since 7 October (2023), the IDF has been engaged in fighting in an ongoing multi-front campaign ... 2026 is likely to be another year of fighting on all of those fronts," he said, citing the date of Hamas's attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.

- Hezbollah 'threats' -

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said rockets and drones possessed by Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah remained a key threat that demanded further military action by Israel's military in Lebanon.

"There are still two central threats from Hezbollah: the 122mm rockets and the drones. This demands a combination of operational and technological activity," Netanyahu said in a statement. 

"They have about 10 percent of the missiles they had at the start of the war. But these still trouble the residents of the north," he added.

burs/yad/rmb 

A South Korean appeals court increased the corruption sentence for former first lady Kim Keon Hee on Tuesday to four years in jail after finding her guilty of stock manipulation and bribery.

Kim, the wife of jailed ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol, was handed 20 months in jail for bribery at an initial trial in January, but was acquitted of acting to rig stock prices and other charges.

She appealed the verdict in the hope of clearing her name, while prosecutors also did so arguing that the sentence was too lenient and the acquittals were wrongful.

On Tuesday, the Seoul High Court overturned her acquittal for stock price fraud and maintained her initial graft conviction, resulting in a much heavier penalty.

"The court sentences the defendant to four years in prison and imposes a 50 million won ($34,000) fine," the court said in a televised verdict.

It found Kim guilty of manipulating the share price of Deutsch Motors, a South Korean car dealer, which it ruled a "collusive... trading act constituting market manipulation".

"The defendant appears to have participated in such conduct," the court said as it overturned her acquittal.

Kim, who appeared in court wearing a white face mask, kept her head lowered as the verdict was announced.

The court said the 53-year-old had "failed to acknowledge her culpability and has instead consistently resorted to excuses".

As a result of her accepting bribes, "public trust in the transparency of state affairs and the fair execution of national policy was undermined", it added.

The court said it had taken Kim's lack of a prior criminal record into account in its sentencing.

Lawyers for Kim told AFP they would appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court.

- Dogged by scandals -  

Kim, a self-proclaimed animal lover known for her campaigns to ban the dog-meat trade in South Korea, was at the centre of several scandals that often eclipsed her husband's tenure in office.

In 2023, covertly filmed footage emerged that appeared to show her accepting a luxury Dior handbag, in an episode that further eroded Yoon's already low approval ratings.

The furore fed into a defeat for Yoon's party in the April 2024 general elections, when it failed to regain a parliamentary majority.

Yoon subsequently vetoed three opposition-backed bills seeking investigations into allegations surrounding Kim, including the Dior bag case, with the final veto cast in November 2024.

A week later, he declared martial law -- but failed, leading to his impeachment, removal from office and sentencing in February this year to life imprisonment for insurrection.

He has appealed against the conviction, insisting his martial law declaration was "solely for the sake of the nation".

The verdict in another appeal, against his five-year sentence for obstructing justice and other crimes linked to the declaration, is expected on Wednesday.

- Chanel bags, Graff jewellery -

Kim's bribery case has also implicated Han Hak-ja, leader of the cult-like Unification Church, which claims 10 million followers worldwide and runs a vast business empire.

The 83-year-old is standing trial on bribery and other charges while in custody, although she has been temporarily released to hospital for medical treatment.

Kim was found to have accepted two Chanel handbags and a Graff necklace from the church, with the court ruling on Tuesday that all three items were bribes.

In the lower court ruling, one of the handbags was not recognised as a bribe because it had been gifted to Kim before her husband's presidential inauguration.

kjk/mjw/mtp

Australian film star Rebel Wilson dismissed as "nonsense" claims she had bullied women on the set of her directorial debut film "The Deb", as she gave evidence in a Sydney court on Tuesday.

Wilson -- star of Hollywood hits including "Bridesmaids" and "Pitch Perfect" -- is accused of defamation by actress Charlotte MacInnes.

The claims centre around Instagram posts and comments by Wilson suggesting MacInnes changed an account of having been victim of sexual harassment in order to advance her career.

The federal court case focuses on an incident where MacInnes and Amanda Ghost, a producer of "The Deb", shared a bath in an apartment after swimming at Bondi Beach.

"It felt like she was making a sexual harassment complaint to me," Wilson told the court on Tuesday according to Australian national broadcaster ABC, referring to communication she had with MacInnes.

An affidavit from Ghost tendered in court on Tuesday described how she and MacInnes had swum at the beach in the early evening of September 2023, returning to her apartment feeling cold.

The pair got into a hot bath while wearing swimming costumes to warm up, it said.

"It was an oversized bath, with plenty of room for two people to sit without touching (and we didn't touch)," Ghost said in the statement tendered to court.

Two days later, Wilson phoned Ghost to say MacInnes had felt uncomfortable about the bath.

MacInnes has denied telling Wilson that and has told the court Wilson had shamed her to 11 million followers on Instagram.

Wilson on Tuesday denied she mistreated women while making "The Deb", saying this was "nonsense".

She told the court she had made truthful statements about MacInnes and Ghost.

kln/oho/jm

British energy giant BP on Tuesday reported a sharp increase in profits in the first quarter as crude oil prices soared amid the Middle East war.

Oil prices have risen since the start of the US-Iran conflict on February 28, often swinging violently in response to the war's ever changing headlines. 

BP's profit after tax jumped to $3.8 billion for the January-March period from $687 million in the same period a year earlier, London-listed BP said in an earnings statement.

The closely followed underlying profit figure more than doubled to $3.2 billion from $1.4 billion the previous year, a figure that "reflects exceptional oil trading contribution", the statement said.

"Overall, our business continues to run well. This was another quarter of strong operational and financial delivery, and we made further progress towards our 2027 targets," said CEO Meg O'Neill, who was appointed at the end of last year to replace Murray Auchincloss.

The group had announced in mid-April that it expected to benefit from rising oil prices, noting that the price of Brent North Sea crude, the international benchmark, averaged $81.13 a barrel in the first quarter, up from $63.73 in the fourth quarter of last year.

Oil prices have been volatile due to the war, coming close to $120 a barrel in March, which BP traders were able to profit from.

The company said in mid-April that each one dollar variation in the price of a barrel has a $340 million on its annual operating profit before tax.

BP "has been working relentlessly to keep our assets producing safely, reliably and efficiently," while working "in an environment of conflict and complexity," O'Neill said.

The American CEO took up her post in early April with a mission of implementing a recovery plan for the struggling group, whose profit after tax in 2025 plunged 86 percent year-on-year to $55 million.

- 'Simpler, stronger' -

BP's performance has generally fallen behind that of its rivals in recent years, and last year the company mounted a boardroom shakeup after slashing clean energy investment and pivoting back to its more profitable oil and gas business.

O'Neill plans to reorganise the company, clearly separating its upstream and downstream activities.

Her aim is to make BP "a simpler, stronger, more valuable company," she said Tuesday.

"Now, we have to capitalise on the opportunity that exists across our portfolio, simplifying how we work, unlocking growth and driving improved returns," she added.

The new CEO faced a stinging rebuke from shareholders last week at the annual general meeting where they largely rejected two board proposals as a step backwards on transparency, particularly concerning climate strategy.

One proposal aimed to revoke two resolutions adopted at previous general meetings, which required BP to publish certain climate-related information. 

The other was intended to authorise holding shareholder meetings exclusively online.

BP chairman Albert Manifold, who took office on October 1, faced a personal rebuke, with around 18 percent of shareholders voting against his election.

zap-am/jkb/gv

When is a Chinese AI startup not a Chinese AI startup? When it's based in Singapore, or elsewhere, to distance itself legally and politically from Beijing.

The practice known as "Singapore-washing" is under scrutiny after China blocked a major US acquisition on national security grounds.

China's top economic planning body said Monday it prohibited the deal between Facebook owner Meta and the Chinese-developed, Singapore-based artificial intelligence agent tool Manus.

That came after a report said two Manus co-founders were prevented from leaving China during a review of the deal.

Here, AFP examines what that means:

- What is Singapore-washing? -

Firms move abroad "who seek a combination of funding overseas, a laxer regulatory environment, or to appeal to a global customer base without an explicitly Chinese image", said Wendy Chang at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS).

"Beijing has heretofore tolerated this practice, but the Manus case marks a major turning point" as the US-China AI race heats up, she told AFP.

The move signals "to its own tech leaders, more than to anybody else, that attempts to bypass national regulation will not be tolerated".

Other Chinese tech companies in the Southeast Asian city-state include e-commerce giant Shein, and TikTok -- a subsidiary of ByteDance, which is still based in China.

Manus shifted operations to Singapore last year, but "it's unclear whether it has moved the official registration as well, which may give Beijing more leverage", Chang said.

AFP has approached Singaporean authorities for comment.

- Can the deal be undone? -

Meta and Manus announced the acquisition, reportedly worth around US$2 billion, in December.

Meta said Monday that "the transaction complied fully with applicable law", and "we anticipate an appropriate resolution".

The Wall Street Journal later reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that the US giant was preparing to backtrack on its acquisition after the Chinese edict.

"It may be challenging or even impossible to ultimately reverse this transaction," said Nicholas Cook, a partner at law firm Nixon Peabody CWL.

But for Chinese regulators, "no matter the exact deal structure, sensitive AI technology seen as vital to China's national interests... has found its way into the hands of a major US tech actor".

"How much the Manus deal can actually be unwound is, in my view, a secondary issue," Angela Zhang, a law professor at the University of Southern California, told AFP.

She said China's objective "is to set a precedent and to remind entrepreneurs that they should not transfer critical and sensitive technical know-how overseas without government approval".

- What's at stake? -

China wants to prevent leakage of "talent, tech data, capital", said Dylan Loh at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.

The country's AI engineers are a key asset, added Chang at MERICS.

"The Meta deal was an 'acquihire', as much about absorbing the talent behind the startup as its technology," she explained.

Other analysts said the matter could be a bargaining chip between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US counterpart Donald Trump at upcoming talks.

The deal may also have woken Beijing up to the possibility that other companies -- including top AI startup DeepSeek -- could also one day set up shop overseas.

- What next for other firms? -

Cook warned that Chinese AI founders "would be well advised to think twice before following in Manus' footsteps".

The Financial Times last month said Beijing had restricted two Manus co-founders from leaving China while the review was underway.

For Chinese companies using other countries to reach international markets, "this case shows Beijing is not accepting your corporate identity at face value", said Lizzi Lee at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

"So if your tech, founders, or talent base are Chinese, then the company is still strategically Chinese, regardless of where it's incorporated," she told AFP.

Founders now have a fundamental choice, she said: stay within China and scale domestically, or genuinely relocate even sooner.

burs-kaf/dan

North Korea dramatically increased executions during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly for consuming South Korean dramas, K-pop and other foreign culture and political offences, a report published Tuesday showed.

Pyongyang closed its borders in January 2020 to stop the spread of the coronavirus, with research and media reports indicating that the diplomatically isolated nation spent subsequent years bolstering security along its frontiers.

Campaigners have said the shutdown worsened longstanding human rights abuses in North Korea, whose government is widely seen as one of the world's most repressive.

The report by the Transitional Justice Working Group, an advocacy NGO, found that the number of executions and death sentencings more than doubled in the nearly five years after the border closure, compared to the same period before it.

The number of condemned people also more than tripled over the same time frame, according to the findings.

The group drew data from hundreds of North Korean escapees and several media outlets that maintain networks of sources inside the secretive nation, where there is no independent media and little international presence.

It analysed 144 known cases of executions and death sentencings, involving hundreds of people in total.

Since the pandemic, authorities have ramped up the use of capital punishment for offences such as consuming South Korean movies, dramas and music, it said.

Death penalty cases related to foreign culture, religion and "superstition" jumped by 250 percent after the border closure.

Another major spike in executions for political crimes, such as criticising leader Kim Jong Un, may suggest the government is "responding to growing internal dissatisfaction or intensifying state violence to suppress political discontent", the report said. 

Nearly three-quarters of the executions were carried out in public, with most people shot to death, it said.

It added that killings had taken place in dozens of cities and counties since Kim rose to power in the early 2010s.

They included several sites in the capital Pyongyang, as well as public grounds such as defunct airfields, riverbanks, farmland and open-storage yards for mine waste.

The North Korean government is accused of rights abuses including torture, forced labour and severe restrictions on freedom of expression and movement.

It is said to operate four political prison camps where up to 65,000 people are subjected to hard labour, according to a 2025 report by the Korea Institute for National Unification.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said last year that the overall human rights situation in North Korea over the past decade had shown no improvement and in many cases had worsened.

North Korea has consistently rejected allegations of abuses, accusing the United Nations of politicising human rights to undermine the regime.

mjw/cdl/mtp