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North Korea’s Kim Jong Un Checks Out Putin’s Ride at Russia Summit 

In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un responds as Russian President Vladimir Putin sends him off from the Vostochny cosmodrome outside the city of Tsiolkovsky, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the city of Blagoveshchensk in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un responds as Russian President Vladimir Putin sends him off from the Vostochny cosmodrome outside the city of Tsiolkovsky, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the city of Blagoveshchensk in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
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North Korea’s Kim Jong Un Checks Out Putin’s Ride at Russia Summit 

In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un responds as Russian President Vladimir Putin sends him off from the Vostochny cosmodrome outside the city of Tsiolkovsky, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the city of Blagoveshchensk in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un responds as Russian President Vladimir Putin sends him off from the Vostochny cosmodrome outside the city of Tsiolkovsky, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the city of Blagoveshchensk in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to check out his Russian-made limousine on Wednesday ahead of their summit, ceding the spacious back seat to his guest.

Putin and Kim on Wednesday inspected the space launch facilities of the modern Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East ahead of their summit, according to state television footage.

As they strolled to the main complex engaged in casual conversation, they came to Putin's presidential Aurus limousine parked in the driveway, and the Russian president gestured to the vehicle as Kim stood seemingly curious.

Putin invited Kim to climb into the back seat and walked around to slide in next to the North Korean leader, who sat beaming.

North Korea's KCNA news agency said on Thursday "Putin showed his private car to Kim Jong Un before having a warm talk".

The Aurus Senat limousine was developed by the Russian state automotive institute known by its acronym NAMI.

Putin drove in the Aurus for the first time at his fourth inauguration in 2018, ditching his old stretch Mercedes in a patriotic message of self-sufficiency.

Kim drove to the space station on Wednesday in his personal Maybach limousine, brought onboard the special train he travelled in from Pyongyang with a large entourage.

Kim is believed to be an automobile enthusiast, having been seen in several luxury cars, including different Mercedes models, a Lexus sports utility vehicle and a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Those vehicles fall under luxury goods that UN member countries are banned from exporting to North Korea and are believed to have been smuggled in.

German manufacturer Daimler, which makes the Maybach, has said it had no idea how the vehicle and other Mercedes cars have been taken into the North and that it had no formal dealings with Pyongyang.

North Korea has a feeble auto industry with a handful of home-grown brands that build sedans and passenger buses. The most prominent is Pyeonghwa Motors, founded as a joint venture with investment from the South Korean company of the same name.

In 2018, then US President Donald Trump allowed Kim a peek inside the US presidential limousine known as "The Beast" during a break in their first summit in Singapore.

That time Kim did not get to climb in.

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Varieties

Australia Sweats Through Hottest 12 Months on Record

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
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Australia Sweats Through Hottest 12 Months on Record

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a weather official said Thursday, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching.

Senior government climatologist Simon Grainger said the rolling 12-month period between April 2024 and March 2025 was 1.61 degrees Celsius (34.9 degrees Fahrenheit) above average -- the hottest since records began more than a century ago.

"This is certainly part of a sustained global pattern," he told AFP.

"We've been seeing temperatures since about April 2023 that were globally much warmer than anything we have seen in the global historical record."

The previous hottest period was in 2019, Grainger said, when temperatures were 1.51 degrees Celsius above average.

"That is a pretty significant difference," Grainger said.

"It's well above what we would expect just from uncertainties due to rounding. The difference is much larger than that."

The record was measured on a rolling 12-month basis -- rather than as a calendar year.

Australia has also recorded its hottest-ever March, Grainger said, with temperatures more than two degrees above what would normally be seen.

"There has basically been sustained warmth through pretty much all of Australia," he said.

"We saw a lot of heatwave conditions, particularly in Western Australia. And we didn't really see many periods of cool weather -- we didn't see many cold fronts come through."

Sickly white coral

From the arid outback to the tropical coast, swaths of Australia have been pummeled by wild weather in recent months.

Unusually warm waters in the Coral Sea stoked a tropical cyclone that pummeled densely populated seaside hamlets on the country's eastern coast in March.

Whole herds of cattle have drowned in vast inland floods still flowing across outback Queensland.

And a celebrated coral reef off Western Australia has turned a sickly shade of white as hotter seas fuel an unfolding mass bleaching event.

The average sea surface temperature around Australia was the "highest on record" in 2024, according to a recent study by Australian National University.

This record run looked to have continued throughout January and February, said Grainger.

"We haven't seen much cooling in sea surface temperatures."

Moisture collects in the atmosphere as oceans evaporate in hotter temperatures -- eventually leading to more intense downpours and storms.

Australia follows a slew of heat records that have been toppling across the planet.

Six major international datasets confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record.

Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming.

Australia sits on bulging deposits of coal, gas, metals and minerals, with mining and fossil fuels stoking decades of near-unbroken economic growth.

But it is increasingly suffering from more intense heatwaves, bushfires and drought, which scientists have linked to climate change.