SWITZERLAND

2019 confirmed as second-hottest year

Last year was the second-hottest year on record after 2016, just as the past five years are the top five hottest and the past 10 years also the top 10, the World Meteorological Organization, or WMO, said on Wednesday, expecting more extreme weather throughout 2020 and the coming decades. The latest WMO data show that average temperatures for the five-year (2015-19) and 10-year (2010-19) periods were the highest on record. Since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one, and the trend is expected to continue because of record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The year 2016 remains the hottest year on record, because of the combination of a very strong El Nino event, which has a warming impact, and long-term climate change.

JAPAN

Ghosn's lawyer quits after client's escape

The Japanese lawyer nicknamed the "Razor" who was spearheading Carlos Ghosn's defense said on Thursday he is quitting the case after his client skipped bail and fled Japan for Lebanon. Junichiro Hironaka's office issued a brief statement saying they had "filed with the Tokyo District Court letters of resignation for all lawyers... connected with all cases related to Mr Carlos Ghosn". Hironaka, 74, who earned his nickname for sharp legal strategies and an enviable acquittal record, has said he was "dumbfounded" by Ghosn's escape, which he discovered via the media on the morning his client fled. Ghosn is believed to have left Japan by hiding in a large case for audio equipment on a private jet, aided by a team of operatives.

INDIA

6.5-km cake touted as world's longest

It was a record-baking effort. Hundreds of bakers and chefs in southern India came together on Wednesday to create what they said is the world's longest cake－about 6.5 kilometers. They spread chocolate ganache on the serpentine dessert stretched out on thousands of tables and desks at a festival ground and adjoining roads in the coastal state of Kerala's Thrissur city. The vanilla cake, 10 centimeters wide and thick, weighed in at about 27,000 kilograms. About 1,500 bakers and chefs, wearing traditional whites and toque blanche caps, spent nearly four hours to put it together using 12,000 kg of sugar and flour.

Agencies - Xinhua