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Japan’s core inflation rate hits 19-month high

Scandale de Bétharram: les gardes à vue s’achèvent pour deux anciens surveillants

Vers de premières mises en cause dans le scandale de Bétharram? La garde à vue de deux anciens surveillants de l’établissement catholique du Béarn s’achève vendredi dans le cadre de l’enquête sur les violences physiques et sexuelles que dénoncent plus d’une centaine d’anciens élèves.Le parquet de Pau a “mis un terme”, jeudi, à l’interrogatoire d’un ex-prêtre nonagénaire, sans rien dire des suites de la procédure judiciaire.Les gendarmes enquêtent depuis un an sur cette institution longtemps réservée aux garçons. Les victimes, enfants ou adolescents à l’époque des faits, décrivent des masturbations et fellations imposées ou subies plusieurs fois par semaine, des châtiments corporels, menaces et humiliations.Des “faits graves”, “en contradiction totale avec l’esprit de l’enseignement catholique”, a dénoncé jeudi la Conférence des évêques de France (CEF).Les trois hommes, nés en 1931, 1955 et 1965, avaient été interpellés mercredi pour des “viols aggravés, agressions sexuelles aggravées et/ou violences aggravées”, sur une période allant de 1957 à 2004, selon le procureur Rodolphe Jarry.D’après une source proche du dossier, l’un des surveillants avait été démis de ses fonctions en février 2024, peu après l’ouverture de l’enquête, alors qu’il était visé par au moins huit plaintes. L’autre officia comme surveillant général.- “Cheval” -Des victimes interrogées par l’AFP mettent en cause les trois suspects.”J’ai subi des punitions, des violences, on nous caressait à la sortie des douches, personne ne disait rien, on avait neuf ans !”, enrage Brice Ducos, 49 ans, interne à Bétharram entre 1984 et 1991, ciblant celui que l’on surnommait “Cheval” à l’époque.Allusion à la chevalière qu’il portait à une main et qu’il retournait avant de gifler un élève, en lui disant: “Regarde ce que tu m’obliges à faire”, témoigne auprès de l’AFP un autre ancien, scolarisé de 1973 à 1980, qui a requis l’anonymat.Antoine (prénom modifié), 48 ans, incrimine, lui, le surveillant écarté l’an dernier. “J’ai été son protégé”, dit-il, évoquant des agressions sexuelles sous la tente lors de sorties scouts, puis des masturbations hebdomadaires, quatre ans durant, quand il habitait chez lui.Jean-Marie Delbos, 78 ans, accuse, lui, le nonagénaire, “jeune ecclésiastique” quand il le vit arriver au dortoir en 1957. Il “venait la nuit, soutane ouverte, s’accroupir au pied du lit pour faire des attouchements et des fellations”, raconte-t-il.- “Sérialité” -Parmi les 132 plaintes recensées par le collectif des victimes, une poignée ne sont pas frappées par la prescription, estime son porte-parole Alain Esquerre, lui-même ancien pensionnaire.Pour Me Jean-François Blanco, avocat en 1996 d’un élève victime d’une violente claque, la période retenue par le procureur, longue d’un demi-siècle, situe cependant “les crimes dans leur sérialité”, “critère fondamental” pour l’appréciation de la prescription.La loi de 2021 sur la protection des mineurs contre les crimes et délits sexuels permet de prolonger le délai de prescription d’un premier viol si la même personne récidive sur un autre mineur.Ces interpellations sont intervenues quatre jours après une réunion entre des victimes et François Bayrou, mis en cause depuis début février par plusieurs témoignages affirmant qu’il était au courant de premières accusations entourant l’établissement dans les années 1990, ce qu’il dément.Le chef du gouvernement, ministre de l’Éducation de 1993 à 1997, répète n’avoir “jamais été informé” dans le passé des violences sexuelles dans cet établissement qu’ont fréquenté plusieurs de ses enfants et où son épouse a enseigné le catéchisme.Une ancienne enseignante de Bétharram, Françoise Gullung, a maintenu pour sa part, dans une vidéo diffusée jeudi par Mediapart, l’avoir alerté de vive voix et par écrit, à l’époque, sur les violences et humiliations infligées aux élèves.Elle y raconte également avoir sollicité, en vain, une intervention de Mme Bayrou, un jour où toutes deux entendaient un enfant hurler sous les coups d’un membre de l’encadrement.Un rapport d’inspection du rectorat de Bordeaux, diligenté au printemps 1996 avant une visite de l’actuel Premier ministre à Bétharram, avait conclu que les élèves n’y étaient pas “brutalisés”.

Scandale de Bétharram: les gardes à vue s’achèvent pour deux anciens surveillants

Israel says hostage body returned by Hamas not Bibas mother

Israel said Friday that one of the bodies returned from Gaza is not that of Shiri Bibas, as claimed by Hamas, and accused Palestinian “terrorists” of killing her two boys who have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal.Thousands of mourning Israelis had observed a moment of silence Thursday in honour of four dead hostages returned by Hamas, the first handover of bodies under the fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.Hamas said the remains included those of Bibas and her two young sons, whose father was released by the militant group this month.On Friday, however, Israel said the body purporting to be Shiri Bibas’s did not belong to her and “does not match any other kidnapped individuals”.Military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on Telegram that Israel had identified the remains of Bibas boys Ariel and Kfir, accusing Palestinian “terrorists” of killing them. “According to the assessment of the relevant authorities and based on available intelligence and diagnostic indicators, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally killed in captivity in November 2023 by Palestinian terrorists,” Adraee said. Hamas has long maintained an Israeli air strike killed the Bibas family early in the war.Hamas also handed over the body of a fourth hostage, Oded Lifshitz, a veteran journalist and long-time defender of Palestinian rights.The bodies’ repatriation is part of the six-week initial phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which took effect on January 19 and so far has led to the release of 19 living Israeli hostages in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.- Bus blasts -Palestinian militants on Thursday staged a ceremony to return the bodies at a former cemetery in the southern Gazan city of Khan Yunis.Ahead of the handover, Hamas and members of other armed Palestinian groups displayed four black coffins with small photos of the deceased, while mock-up missiles nearby carried the message: “They were killed by USA bombs,” a reference to Israel’s top military supplier. “We are all enraged at the monsters of Hamas,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said in a video message, vowing again to destroy the group. At around the same time as the handover, police in central Israel reported a “suspected terror attack”, saying three bombs had exploded on or around buses and more were being defused, though no injuries were immediately reported.”These are identical explosive devices with a timer,” a police spokesman told AFP.Security forces and bomb disposal units were seen by an AFP journalist as they inspected the remains of destroyed buses.Some Israeli media outlets reported bus drivers countrywide had been asked to stop and inspect their vehicles for other devices.Large numbers of police had been deployed to search for suspects, the police statement said.Defence Minister Israel Katz said that following the “serious attempted attacks”, he had ordered the military to “intensify operations” in the Tulkarem refugee camp and other areas of the occupied West Bank.- The youngest hostage -Earlier Thursday, flag-waving Israelis had lined the route along which a convoy carrying the returned bodies travelled from southern Israel to Tel Aviv.Tania Coen Uzzielli, 59, who had come to the Tel Aviv plaza dubbed “Hostages Square”, said it was “one of the hardest days, I think, since October 7”.During their attack that day in 2023 that triggered the Gaza war, Hamas filmed and later broadcast footage showing the Bibas family’s abduction from their home near the Gaza border.Ariel was then aged four, while Kfir was the youngest hostage at just nine months old. Yarden Bibas, the boys’ father and Shiri’s husband, was abducted separately and released in a previous hostage-prisoner swap on February 1.Hamas said in a statement that it and its armed wing had done “everything in their power to protect the prisoners (hostages) and preserve their lives”.Tahani Fayad, 40, was among the hundreds of people gathered to witness the handover ceremony in Gaza, which she called “proof that the occupation (Israel) will not defeat us”.- Next phase -Israel and Hamas announced a deal earlier this week for the return of eight hostages’ remains in two groups this week and next, as well as the release of the six living Israeli captives on Saturday.Palestinian prisoners are also set to be freed in Saturday’s swap, but were not part of Thursday’s handover.Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has said talks will begin this week on the truce’s second phase, aiming to lay out a more permanent end to the war.A Hamas spokesman on Thursday accused Netanyahu of “procrastinating regarding the second phase”, saying the group was “ready to engage”.Senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP on Wednesday that Hamas was ready to free all remaining hostages held in Gaza in a single swap during phase two.Hamas and its allies took 251 people hostage during the October 7 attack. Prior to Thursday’s handover, there were 70 hostages still in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military has said are dead.That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,319 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.

Judge denies union bid to halt Trump firing of government workers

A US judge on Thursday denied a union bid to temporarily halt the firing of thousands of federal employees on probationary status, handing President Donald Trump another legal win in his plan to slash the government workforce.District Judge Christopher Cooper said he lacked the jurisdiction to handle the complaint, one of several filed in courts in recent days in an effort to pause the mass sackings.The judge’s decision comes as around 6,700 workers at the 100,000-strong Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who were on probation were being laid off.”The anxiety was running through the floor, like I personally felt anxious because I was one of (the) last people to get that email,” an IRS probationary worker who was laid off Thursday told AFP.A former IRS official said most of the IRS employees being let go were part of the US tax agency’s enforcement teams, less than two months before the US income tax filing deadline of April 15. A number of IRS employees posted messages on LinkedIn saying they had been abruptly terminated and were seeking other opportunities.The National Treasury Employees Union and four other unions that represent federal employees had asked Cooper to issue a temporary restraining order preventing termination of their members who are probationary employees.Cooper, an appointee of former president Barack Obama, said his court lacks jurisdiction to hear their claims and they should instead be brought before the Federal Labor Relations Authority, a body that adjudicates federal labor disputes.”Federal district judges are duty-bound to decide legal issues based on even-handed application of law and precedent — no matter the identity of the litigants or, regrettably at times, the consequences of their rulings for average people,” the judge said.- Managers had ‘no idea’ -The probationary worker who spoke to AFP, on condition of anonymity to freely discuss his former employer, said that managers at the agency had “no idea” the layoffs were coming.”I think DOGE has been very careful to make it seem like the agencies themselves are making the decisions, when I can tell, our managers yesterday were just as shocked as we were,” he said. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is a free-ranging entity run by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a top Trump ally and donor.On Thursday, the laid-off IRS worker said staff at his agency were “a little resigned, a little defeated, including our managers… some of them were, seemed like they were on the verge of tears.”The worker had been a revenue agent on a team that oversaw tax collection for corporations and wealthy individuals.”I think Republicans have really kind of twisted the narrative in the press to say that the IRS has hired a bunch of people to go after middle- or working-class folks, when really a lot of the people that were hired were hired to go after large corporations and high net worth individuals,” he said. – ‘Cruel’ -In his opinion, Cooper said the federal government employs 220,000 probationary employees and he noted that workers with that status at the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Park Service and other agencies have already been sacked.On Wednesday, another federal judge declined a request to temporarily block DOGE from firing federal employees.Fourteen Democratic-ruled states had filed suit last week contesting Musk’s legal authority but District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied their emergency request to pause his actions.Musk’s cost-cutting spree has been met with legal pushback on a number of fronts and a mixed bag of rulings.A judge last week lifted a freeze he had temporarily imposed on a mass buyout plan offered by the Trump administration to federal workers.According to the White House, more than 75,000 federal employees signed on to the buyout offer from the Office of Personnel Management.The fired IRS worker said he had felt “between a rock and a hard place” when he received the buyout offer, facing either quitting his job or being fired anyway.”For all of this to happen in such a cruel fashion, just it doesn’t make sense to me,” he said.

Trump aid cut imperils water scheme in Pakistan’s hottest city

In Pakistan’s hottest city, fresh and filtered water can quench the searing onslaught of climate change — but US President Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze threatens its vital supply, an NGO says.Sun-parched Jacobabad city in southern Sindh province sometimes surpasses 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in increasing heatwaves causing critical health problems like dehydration and heat-stroke.In 2012, USAID committed a $66 million grant to uplift Sindh’s municipal services, including the flagship renovation of a plant pumping and purifying water from a canal 22 kilometres (14 miles) away.But Pakistani non-profit HANDS says Trump’s aid embargo has blocked $1.5 million earmarked to make the scheme viable in the long-term, putting the project at risk “within a few months”.”This has transformed our lives,” 25-year-old Tufail Ahmed told AFP in Jacobabad, where wintertime temperatures are already forecast to pass 30C next week.”If the water supply is cut off it will be very difficult for us,” he added. “Survival will be challenging, as water is the most essential thing for life.”Between September and mid-January Sindh saw rainfall 52 percent below average according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department, with “moderate drought” predicted in the coming months.Heatwaves are becoming hotter, longer and more frequent due to climate change, scientists say.- Services withdrawn – The project pipes in 1.5 million gallons (5.7 million litres) daily and serves about 350,000 people in Jacobabad, HANDS says — a city where grinding poverty is commonplace.HANDS said it discovered Trump’s 90-day freeze on foreign assistance through media reports with no prior warning.”Since everything is just suspended we have to withdraw our staff and we have to withdraw all services for this water project,” HANDS CEO Shaikh Tanveer Ahmed told AFP.Forty-seven staff, including experts who manage the water purification and service the infrastructure, have been sent home.The service will likely stop functioning “within the next few months”, Ahmed predicted, and the project will be “a total failure” unless another funder steps in.The scheme is currently in the hands of the local government who lack the technical or revenue collection expertise HANDS was developing to fund the supply from bill payments, rather than donations.The international aid community has been in a tailspin over Trump’s campaign to downsize or dismantle swathes of the US government — led by his top donor and the world’s richest man Elon Musk.The most concentrated fire has been on Washington’s aid agency USAID, whose $42.8 billion budget represents 42 percent of humanitarian aid disbursed worldwide.But it accounts for only between 0.7 and 1.4 percent of total US government spending in the last quarter century, according to the Pew Research Center.Trump has claimed USAID is “run by radical lunatics” while Musk has described it as a “criminal organisation” needing to be put “through the woodchipper”.In Jacobabad, 47-year-old local social activist Abdul Ghani pleaded for its work to continue.”If the supply is cut off it will severely affect the public,” he said. “Poverty is widespread here and we cannot afford alternatives.”- ‘Supply cannot be stopped’ -Residents complain the Jacobabad supply is patchy but still describe it as an invaluable service in a city where the alternative is buying water from private donkey-drawn tankers.Eighteen-year-old student Noor Ahmed said before “our women had to walk for hours” to collect water. HANDS says the private tankers have a monthly cost of up to 10 times more than their rate of 500 rupees ($1.80) and often contain contaminants like arsenic. “The dirty water we used to buy was harmful to our health and falling ill would cost us even more,” said 55-year-old Sadruddin Lashari.”This water is clean. The supply cannot be stopped,” he added.Pakistan — home to more than 240 million people — ranks as the nation most affected by climate change, according to non-profit Germanwatch’s Climate Risk Index released this year and analysing data from 2022.That year a third of the country was inundated by unprecedented monsoon floods killing more than 1,700 and causing an estimated $14.9 billion in damages after a punishing summer heatwave.Jacobabad’s water system also suffered heavy damage in the 2010 floods which killed almost 1,800 and affected 21 million.Pakistan produces less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions which scientists say are driving human-made climate change.Islamabad has consistently called for countries which emit more to contribute to aid for its population suffering on the front line of climate change.”It’s incredibly hot here year-round,” said Lashari. “We need water constantly.”

Pékin affirme qu’une “fenêtre sur la paix” s’ouvre en Ukraine

De Guantanamo au Venezuela: nouvelles expulsions américaines après les accords Maduro-Trump

Les Etats-Unis ont renvoyé de leur base cubaine de Guantanamo 170 migrants vénézuéliens vers leur pays, avec une escale au Honduras, à la demande des autorités vénézuéliennes, dans un nouveau signe de coopération entre Washington et Caracas.Ce groupe s’ajoute aux 190 migrants vénézuéliens renvoyés chez eux il y a 10 jours dans le cadre de la politique d’expulsions massives promise par le président Donald Trump à son retour au pouvoir.Le Venezuela et les Etats-Unis ont rompu leurs relations diplomatiques en 2019, au cours de la première administration Trump qui menait l’offensive internationale contre le président Nicolás Maduro à coups de sanctions.Et si la position officielle de Washington reste de ne pas reconnaître M. Maduro, qui a prêté serment pour un troisième mandat après une élection contestée, le président américain a initié des contacts avec son homologue axés sur la migration et la libération de ressortissants américains emprisonnés au Venezuela.Un avion américain a transféré les 170 Vénézuéliens de Guantanamo au Honduras, où ils doivent embarquer sur un vol vénézuélien à destination de leur pays.Ce retour a été demandé par Caracas, qui a estimé qu’ils avaient été “injustement emmenés” vers la base cubaine de Guantanamo, connue pour sa prison militaire ouverte après les attentats du 11-Septembre 2001 et qui héberge toujours une trentaine de détenus accusés de “terrorisme”.Le gouvernement américain a signalé début février le transfert de dix membres du gang vénézuélien “Tren de Aragua” vers Guantanamo où 30.000 lits ont été installés pour les migrants.Cette organisation a été désignée par les Etats-Unis et le Canada comme terroriste. “Si l’un des rapatriés se trouve dans une situation correspondant à l’une des formes de criminalité établies dans notre système juridique, les autorités compétentes agiront conformément à la loi”, a déclaré le Venezuela, qui a réaffirmé que le gang “a été démantelé” dans le pays. – “Externalisation des frontières” -Donald Trump mène une vaste offensive contre l’immigration illégale, avec notamment des raids dans plusieurs villes et des expulsions massives, ainsi que la suspension des programmes humanitaires lancés par son prédécesseur, Joe Biden, qui bénéficiaient aux Vénézuéliens, aux Cubains et aux Nicaraguayens. Washington reçoit le soutien de plusieurs pays d’Amérique centrale, comme le Panama et le Costa Rica, pour accueillir les personnes expulsées avant qu’elles ne soient renvoyées dans leurs pays d’origine.Le Costa Rica a d’ailleurs annoncé jeudi que 135 migrants de diverses nationalités, dont 65 enfants, expulsés par les Etats-Unis étaient arrivés dans le pays, d’où ils seront rapatriés chez eux.Il s’agit d’un système d'”externalisation des frontières” par lequel les Etats-Unis transfèrent le lent processus de rapatriement à un pays tiers, a expliqué Carlos Sandoval, chercheur en sciences sociales et expert en migration.Les personnes expulsées vers l’Amérique centrale sont des ressortissants de pays qui n’acceptent pas les vols de rapatriement, ou avec lesquels Washington entretient des relations tendues.Parmi les 299 personnes arrivées au Panama la semaine dernière figurent des ressortissants de l’Iran, de la Chine, de l’Afghanistan, du Pakistan, de l’Inde, de l’Ouzbékistan, de la Turquie, du Népal, du Sri Lanka et du Vietnam.Les accords avec le Venezuela ont même permis à deux avions de la compagnie aérienne sanctionnée Conviasa d’entrer sur le territoire américain pour récupérer les 190 premiers ressortissants. Le Honduras a précisé que sa participation au transfert de jeudi ne faisait pas de lui un “pays tiers sûr” ou un “pont” pour les migrants expulsés par l’administration Trump, a souligné auprèsde l’AFP le vice-ministre hondurien des Affaires étrangères, Tony Garcia. “C’est un transfert”, les migrants “changent d’avion et continuent” vers leur pays, ils ne restent pas dans des refuges, a-t-il souligné.

Bus blasts rock central Israel in ‘suspected terror attack’

Israeli police said that bombs on three buses exploded in the central city of Bat Yam on Thursday evening, with a local official saying there were no injuries.Defence Minister Israel Katz accused “Palestinian terrorist organisations” of carrying out the blasts, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to hold a security meeting.”Preliminary report – Suspected terror attack. Multiple reports have been received of explosions involving several buses at different locations in Bat Yam,” the police said in a statement. Three devices exploded on buses while two were being defused, a police spokesman told AFP.A large number of police were deployed to search for suspects, the police statement said.”Police bomb disposal units are scanning for additional suspicious objects. We urge the public to avoid the areas and remain alert for any suspicious items,” it added.Tzvika Brot, the mayor of Bat Yam, said in a video statement that there were “no injured in these incidents”.Television footage aired by some Israeli networks showed a completely burnt-out bus and another that was on fire.Israeli media said that bus drivers countrywide had been asked to stop and inspect their vehicles for additional explosive devices.- ‘Very serious’ -A police commander from central Israel, Haim Sargarof said in a televised breifing that the devices used to set off the blasts were similar to those found in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.Following the blasts, Netanyahu was set to hold a security meeting, his office said.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been receiving ongoing updates from his military secretary on the IED (improvised-explosive-device) incidents in the Dan (central) area and will soon hold a security assessment,” the office said in a statement.An official in the prime minister’s office said Netanyahu “views the placing of explosives on buses as a very serious incident and will order decisive action against terror elements in the West Bank”.In a separate statement, Katz said he had ordered the military to step up its offensives across the occupied territory, particularly in refugee camps.”In light of the serious attempted attacks in the Gush Dan (central) area by Palestinian terrorist organisations against the civilian population in Israel, I have instructed the IDF (military) to intensify operations to thwart terrorism in the Tulkarem refugee camp and in all the refugee camps in Judea and Samaria,” Katz said in a statement, using the biblical term for the West Bank.The military has been carrying out near-daily raids in several West Bank cities and camps for several weeks now targeting Palestinian militants.Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has escalated since the October 2023 outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip.At least 897 Palestinians including militants have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza war began, according to an AFP tally based on figures provided by the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah.At least 32 Israelis, including some soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or confrontations during Israeli operations in the West Bank over the same period, according to official Israeli figures.