Nov 04,2022:Climate change diplomacy between China and the United States cannot be separated from broader political tensions between the two sides, and Washington must take responsibility for the breakdown in talks, China’s foreign ministry said.
Nov,2022:Nearly 200 countries are about to gather in the town of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt for another round of global climate negotiations but diplomatic tensions between the two biggest sources of climate-warming greenhouse gas have threatened to overshadow the meeting, known as COP27.
Agreements and joint declarations by Beijing and Washington helped drive through the landmark Paris Agreement in 2015. But China suspended all bilateral discussions in August following US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, a self-ruled island China claims as part of its territory.
“China and the United States previously developed good cooperation in the area of climate change, working together to get the Paris Agreement reached and brought into effect,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement late on Thursday.
“At the same time, China-U.S. climate cooperation cannot be separated from the broad climate of bilateral ties,” the spokesperson added, noting that Pelosi’s “serious breach of Chinese sovereignty” in Taiwan had left China with no choice but to suspend the talks.
“The United States side must take responsibility for this.”
China has not suspended cooperation with other countries and would continue to support the multilateral climate negotiation process, the spokesperson said, adding that China was “willing to communicate and coordinate with all parties” to ensure COP27 was successful.
Expectations ahead of COP27 were already low amid global concerns about energy supplies, brought about by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the worsening China-US relationship has driven those expectations even lower, experts said.
The United States has responded to reports of threats from Iran against Saudi Arabia by saying it is concerned and will not hesitate to respond if necessary.
“We are concerned about the threat picture, and we remain in constant contact through military and intelligence channels with the Saudis,” the National Security Council said in a statement on Tuesday. “We will not hesitate to act in the defence of our interests and partners in the region.”
The United States has responded to reports of threats from Iran against Saudi Arabia by saying it is concerned and will not hesitate to respond if necessary.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanani, responded to the report on Wednesday by calling it “baseless” and aimed at tarnishing Tehran’s relations with its neighbours.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran considers the establishment and improvement of stability and security in the region to be possible through constructive engagement with neighbours and will pursue it seriously,” he said.
Iran has alleged, without providing evidence, that Saudi Arabia and other rivals have been behind anti-government protests that have been ongoing in the country since mid-September.
In October, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned Saudi Arabia to tone down coverage of the protests in Iran by Farsi-language satellite news channels, including Iran International, a Saudi-backed satellite television channel based in London.
“This is our last warning, because you are interfering in our internal affairs through these media,” Major-General Hossein Salami said. “You are involved in this matter and know that you are vulnerable.”
The heightened concerns about a potential attack on Riyadh come as the Biden administration criticises Tehran for its crackdown on the protests and condemned it for sending hundreds of drones – as well as technical support – to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine.
Nov 03,2022:The parties in the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray have agreed on a “permanent cessation of hostilities”, the African Union mediator said, just more than a week after formal peace talks began in South Africa.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, in the first briefing on the peace talks, also said on Wednesday that Ethiopia’s government and Tigrayan authorities have agreed on “orderly, smooth and coordinated disarmament” along with “restoration of law and order,” “restoration of services” and “unhindered access to humanitarian supplies”.
The agreement marked a new “dawn” for Ethiopia, he said, speaking at a news conference.
The war, which broke out in November 2020, has pitted regional forces from Tigray against Ethiopia’s federal army and its allies, which include forces from other regions and from neighbouring Eritrea.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hailed Wednesday’s breakthrough deal and said it would be implemented.
Tigray’s rebels hailed the deal and said they had made concessions.
BERLIN ,Nov 02,2022: Serbia must decide whether it wants to join the European Union or enter into a partnership with Russia, Germany told Belgrade on Tuesday, two days before six Western Balkan countries are scheduled to discuss closer cooperation in Berlin.
“The need for a decision is coming to a head in view of geopolitical developments,” a German government representative said in reference to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Serbia, which was bombed by NATO two decades ago but now seeks to join the European Union, has long struggled to balance historically close ties with Russia against aspirations for economic and political integration with the West.
An agreement between Serbia and Russia on enhanced cooperation had been met with surprise and disappointment, and was a poor fit with expectations that EU accession candidates should also adopt EU sanctions against Russia, the representative said.
Serbia, an accession candidate since 2012, decided in September to hold regular foreign policy consultations on bilateral and multilateral activities with Russia. The move prompted harsh criticism from the EU. One got the impression that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was well aware of his pendulum position, the German government representative said.
If he decided to lead his country in the direction of the European Union, he had the German government’s support.
“Should he decide to go the other way, this will have consequences in reverse.”
Oct 31,2022:The death toll in the horrifying cable bridge collapse in Gujarat’s Morbi crossed 132 on Monday morning after the National Disaster Response Force and Indian Navy personnel fished out more bodies from the Machchhu river bed, state home minister Harsh Sanghavi informed.
Taking responsibility of the accident, Sanghavi said that those guilty will face strict punishment.
At 6.40 pm on Sunday evening, the 756-metre-long suspended cable bridge snapped with 400-500 people on it, more than thrice its capacity, resulting in hundreds of people falling into the river. Most of the people had assembled there for Chhath Puja celebrations.
The bridge was reopened after renovation on October 26 on the occasion of the Gujarati New Year.
A case under sections 304 and 308 of the Indian Penal Code has been registered and a five-member committee has been formed to unearth the lapses in repair and renovation of the bridge, Sanghavi said.
Oct 30,2022: The crowd crush disaster, which happened shortly after 10pm local (13:00GMT) when a huge crowd thronged a narrow alley near the Hamilton Hotel, the deadliest such incident in South Korean history.
It happened at the first Halloween celebrations in Seoul in three years, after the country lifted COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing. Tens of thousands of partygoers, wearing masks and Halloween costumes, had reportedly gone to Itaewon for the event.
Witnesses described scrambling to get out of the suffocating crowd in the downhill alley as people ended up piling on top of one another.
“People kept pushing down into a downhill club alley, resulting in other people screaming and falling down like dominos,” one unidentified witness was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency. “I thought I would be crushed to death too as people kept pushing without realizing there were people falling down at the start of the stampede.”
The cause of the crush was not immediately clear, though some local media said it happened after a large group of people rushed to a bar in the area after hearing an unidentified celebrity visited there.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has declared a period of national mourning following a deadly Halloween crush in the country’s capital, Seoul, as distraught relatives flocked to the city’s hospitals searching for their missing family members.
Oct 29,2022:The Philippines has officially recorded 45 deaths from Tropical Storm Nalgae, which has brought flash floods and landslides to provinces in the south of the country, revising downward an earlier figure of more than 70, officials said.
The tropical storm, which has maximum sustained winds of 95km (59 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 160kph (99.4 mph), made landfall in the eastern Catanduanes province early on Saturday.
The southern region of Mindanao has been the hardest hit with 40 bodies recovered so far, national civil defence chief Rafaelito Alejandro said at a news conference in Manila.
Fatalities were also reported earlier in Sultan Kudarat, in South Cotabato, and in the Visayas region in central Philippines.
Earlier on Saturday the civil defence office had reported 72 dead, but Alejandro said the toll was reduced after local “validation”.
More than 30 people have been injured and 15 are missing, spokesman and civil defence chief for the southern region Naguib Sinarimbo told Agence-France Presse.
TOKYO :The United States, Japan and South Korea warned on Wednesday that an “unparalleled” scale of response would be warranted if North Korea conducts a seventh nuclear bomb test.
Washington and its allies believe North Korea could be about to resume nuclear bomb testing for the first time since 2017.
“We agreed that an unparalleled scale of response would be necessary if North Korea pushes ahead with a seventh nuclear test,” South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong told a news conference in Tokyo.
Cho was speaking alongside his Japanese and U.S. counterparts, Vice Foreign Minister Takeo Mori and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.
“We urge (North Korea) to refrain from further provocations,” Sherman said, calling them “reckless and deeply destabilising for the region.
North Korea has been carrying out weapons tests at an unprecedented pace this year, firing more than two dozen ballistic missiles, including one that flew over Japan.
Angered by South Korea’s military activities, Pyongyang last week fired hundreds of artillery shells off its coasts in what it called a grave warning to its neighbour to the south.
Oct 25,2022:Air strikes by Myanmar’s military killed as many as 80 people, including singers and musicians, attending an anniversary celebration of the Kachin ethnic minority’s main political organization, members of the group and a rescue worker said Monday.
The reported attack comes three days before Southeast Asian foreign ministers are to hold a special meeting in Indonesia to discuss widening violence in Myanmar.
Myanmar: Villagers say military beheaded high school teacher
The number of casualties at Sunday night’s celebration by the Kachin Independence Organization in the northern state of Kachin appeared to be the most in a single air attack since the military seized power in February last year from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Initial reports put the death toll at around 60, but later tallies raised it to about 80.
It was impossible to independently confirm details of the incident, though media sympathetic to the Kachin posted videos showing what was said to be the attack’s aftermath, with splintered and flattened wooden structures.
The military government’s information office confirmed in a statement late Monday that there was an attack on what it described as the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army’s 9th Brigade, calling it a “necessary operation” in response to “terrorist” acts carried out by the Kachin group.