ROME: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday challenged the G-20 leaders to overcome dangerous levels of mistrust among themselves and between developed and developing nations to try to avoid climate catastrophe as well as narrow an immoral gap on global vaccine distribution and pandemic recovery aid. Guterres spoke to reporters in Rome on the eve […]
Facebook Inc is now called Meta, the company said on Thursday, in a rebrand that focuses on building the “metaverse”, a shared virtual environment that it bets will be the successor to the mobile internet. The name change comes as the world’s largest social media company battles criticisms from lawmakers and regulators over its market power, algorithmic […]
BEIJING: China insisted on Wednesday that Taiwan had no right to join the United Nations, after the United States ratcheted up tensions with a call for the democratic island to have greater involvement in the world body. In a statement marking 50 years since the UN General Assembly voted to seat Beijing and boot out […]
GENEVA: The Covid-19 crisis is far from over, the World Health Organisation’s emergency committee said on Tuesday as it called for research into next-generation vaccines for long-term control of the pandemic. The 19-member committee meets every three months to discuss the pandemic and make recommendations. “While progress has been made through increased uptake of Covid-19 […]
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Monday pledged more than $1 billion for new environmental initiatives, as the world’s top oil exporter took further steps to bolster its green credentials ahead of next week’s COP26 climate summit. Two days after targeting carbon neutrality by 2060, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced two initiatives to fund the […]
BUCHAREST: The number of coronavirus infections recorded so far in eastern Europe surpassed 20 million on Sunday, according to a tally, as the region grapples with its worst outbreak since the pandemic started and inoculation efforts lag. Countries in the region have the lowest vaccination rates in Europe, with less than half of the population […]
President Joe Biden on Thursday said the United States would come to the defence of Taiwan if the island were attacked by China, which considers it part of its territory. “Yes,” he responded when asked in a CNN town hall about defending Taiwan. “We have a commitment to that.” Biden’s statement was at odds with the long-held […]
DAMASCUS: A rare bombing of an army bus in Damascus and government shelling shortly after of a town in rebel-held northwest Syria killed at least 27 people on Wednesday, in the deadliest flare-up in months. Two bombs planted on an army bus in central Damascus were detonated early in the morning, killing 14 people, in […]
Russia hosts the Taliban for talks in Moscow on Wednesday, seeking to assert its influence on Central Asia and push for action against Islamic State (IS) fighters which it says have massed in perennially volatile Afghanistan. The talks, which draw officials from 10 countries including China and Pakistan, are one of the Taliban’s most significant international meetings […]
Africa’s fabled eastern glaciers will vanish in two decades, 118 million poor people face imminent drought, floods or extreme heat, and climate change could also shave three per cent off continental GDP by mid-century, the UN climate agency warned on Tuesday. The latest report on the state of Africa’s climate by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), partnered […]