Nearly 200 countries signed the Glasgow Climate Pact at the end of the COP26 summit Saturday, pledging to speed up action on tackling climate change. However, last minute pressure from China and India saw key pledges on phasing out fossil fuels watered down. Henry Ridgwell reports from the summit. Camera: Henry Ridgwell …
The husband of a British-Iranian woman who has been detained for more than five years in Iran said Saturday that he is ending his hunger strike outside Britain’s Foreign Office after 21 days. Richard Ratcliffe has been sleeping in a tent outside the Foreign Office’s main entrance to pressure the British government to secure the release of his wife and other detained British-Iranian nationals. He began his demonstration last month after his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, lost her latest appeal in Iran. Ratcliffe, who was joined by the couple’s 7-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and several supporters as he announced the end of …
Polish police said Saturday that the body of a young Syrian man was found in the woods near the border with Belarus, the latest victim in a political standoff at the European Union’s eastern border. The regime in Minsk has for months been encouraging illegal migration across its border into the EU nations of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. All three countries are reinforcing their frontiers, seeking to block the newly opened migration route, and the situation is growing more dangerous as winter approaches. Polish police said the body of a Syrian man about 20 years old was found a day …
Britain is denying a report by human rights activists that Iran’s nuclear negotiator threatened to curtail his involvement in upcoming talks with world powers unless British officials shut down the independent Iran Atrocities Tribunal hearings in London that are investigating Tehran’s deadly crackdown on 2019 protests. “We do not recognize the report of recent meetings between representatives of the U.K. and Iran. No threat was made to the U.K. with regard to the events organized by human rights groups this week in London,” a British embassy spokesperson in Washington said in a statement emailed to VOA on Saturday. The tribunal — …
Almost 200 nations accepted a contentious climate compromise Saturday aimed at keeping a key global warming target alive, but it contained a last-minute change that watered down crucial language about coal. Several countries, including small island states, said they were deeply disappointed by the change promoted by India to “phase down,” rather than “phase out” coal power, the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Nation after nation had complained earlier on the final day of two weeks of U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, about how the deal did not go far or fast enough, but they said it …
A Greek newspaper is facing criminal prosecution in Turkey from Turkey’s president, who is said to be insulted by what he perceived to be a vulgar headline. The Greek newspaper is portraying the action as an unprecedented affront to free speech. But it is finding little support from the government in Athens. It is not the first time that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has acted to silence journalists and criticism against him. But editors of the Greek Dimokratia daily newspaper say they are the first Greek media group in the West to be targeted by the Turkish leader outside …
Several young African climate activists traveled thousands of miles to Glasgow, Scotland, to be part of the COP26 climate summit — and to convey their sense of urgency to world leaders. Henry Ridgwell spoke with some of them about their climate change experiences and what COP26 must deliver to help their communities back home. Camera: Henry Ridgwell. …
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that Europe remains the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting 2 million new cases last week, the region’s highest number since the pandemic began. At a briefing in Geneva, the WHO chief said the region also reported nearly 27,000 deaths last week, more than half of all COVID-19 deaths worldwide. Tedros said COVID-19 is surging in countries with lower vaccination rates in Eastern Europe, but also in countries with some of the world’s highest vaccination rates in Western Europe. He said it is a reminder that while vaccines reduce the risk …
Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch. UN staffers detained in Ethiopia Ethiopia’s federal government detained nearly two dozen of its nationals who work for the United Nations in the capital, Addis Ababa, earlier this week. More than 70 truck drivers contracted to drive humanitarian assistance into the northern Tigray region for the U.N. and international NGOs were also rounded up in the country’s north. The move comes amid reports that the government is targeting ethnic Tigrayans as tensions rise between …
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday the U.S. and France have renewed their “mutual commitment” to collaborate on combatting global terrorism, particularly in Africa’s troubled Sahel region. “We have a mutual concern there that relates to the ongoing challenges that the countries in the Sahel are facing. Among the many priorities that we share is a concern about what we need to do to address potential violence and ongoing violence,” Harris said at a Paris news conference. Harris is on a four-day visit to France as part of the Biden administration’s effort to improve soured relations between the longtime …
A new draft agreement was released Friday morning at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, detailing how countries plan to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the target agreed in Paris in 2015 and seen as critical in avoiding the worst effects of climate change. The deal must be agreed to and signed by all parties at the Glasgow summit, which is due to end at 6 p.m. local time Friday. However, negotiations could continue into the night and through the weekend. The new text is the second draft to be released this week. It …
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday people have a duty to be inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine as a way of protecting not only themselves, but others as well. She made the comments in a virtual conversation with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. COVID-19 cases are soaring in Germany. A record high daily count of 50,000 new infections were reported Thursday. A week ago, the daily tally was 33,000 new cases. “The virus is still among us and threatens the health of its citizens,” German Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz …
Fans of England’s Crystal Palace soccer club were in a taunting mood. They unfurled a banner in the stands at the team’s stadium in south London during a match against Newcastle United, mocking their rivals’ new owner — the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who was portrayed wielding a blood-stained scimitar. The banner included a mock-up of the pseudo-categories the Palace fans suggested English football authorities require of owners of the country’s top soccer teams. The requirements included terrorism, beheadings, civil rights abuses and murder, and they were ticked off on a clipboard in the banner under the heading “Premier …
The United States and European members of the U.N. Security Council condemned Belarus on Thursday for what they called the “cynical instrumentalization of migrants,” as tensions simmered along the Polish-Belarusian border. “We … condemn the orchestrated instrumentalization of human beings whose lives and well-being have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus, with the objective of destabilizing neighboring countries and the European Union’s external border and diverting attention away from its own increasing human rights violations,” Estonian Ambassador Sven Jürgenson said on behalf of seven Western nations. The flow of migrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan rose …
The mix of parties now working to form the next Czech government spans the spectrum from conservative to liberal, but all appear to share a commitment to the democratic principles espoused by founding President Vaclav Havel. And that, says a former Havel aide, could be bad news for China and Russia. Havel, the erudite playwright whose writings and dissident activities helped undermine communism in Europe, “would be quite pleased” with the state of his country following last month’s parliamentary election, said Jiri Pehe, who advised the former Czech president in the late 1990s. Havel died in 2011. The election unseated …
Germany’s carnival season, a series of festivals among German Catholics, began Thursday but under strict COVID-19 restrictions, because of a surge in new infections in the nation. Costumed revelers in the western city of Cologne had to line up Thursday to show proof of their COVID-19 vaccinations before they could start the outdoor celebrations. Last year’s festivals were canceled altogether because of the coronavirus pandemic. The carnivals are being held despite the fact Germany is undergoing a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, setting a record Wednesday for the number of daily infections. And while the vaccine requirement was strictly enforced, …
German Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the presumptive leader of the next government, presented an updated financial forecast Thursday indicating increased revenues for future government projects. At a news conference in Berlin, Scholz said that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent “fourth wave” of new infections and the worldwide supply chain problems, Germany’s tax revenue over the next few years would be higher than the estimates made in May. Scholz said the new revenue forecast showed all levels of government collecting about $205 billion more in revenue through 2025 than the earlier prediction. He credited the higher-than-expected revenue to “a …
Russia’s best known human rights group, Memorial, said on Thursday it had been notified by the Supreme Court that prosecutors had demanded it be dismantled over violations of the “foreign agents” law, a move it said was politically motivated. The move threatens to silence an organization that was born out of the “glasnost” reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s and became a leading voice in civil society. Focused in its early days on the crimes of the Stalinist era, Memorial has spoken out more recently against the repression of opposition figures, activists, journalists and others under President …
The European Commission lowered its forecast for Spanish growth this year as the country’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic lagged behind other European nations. The commission said Thursday it estimates that the rise of Spanish gross domestic product will be 4.6% this year and 5.5% next year, almost two points less than earlier forecasts of 6.5% this year and 7% in 2022. Spain was the European economy hit hardest by COVID-19, and its recovery has been slower than those of its continental neighbors. At the end of the third quarter, Italy’s GDP was 1.4% below its level at the end …
Iran is facing renewed scrutiny for its deadly suppression of nationwide protests in 2019, as a London tribunal organized by rights groups began hearing testimony Wednesday from relatives of those killed and others regarding alleged crimes committed in the crackdown. The event known as an international people’s tribunal opened in London’s Church House conference center. Its goal is to investigate alleged Iranian atrocities, including the alleged killing by security forces of hundreds of protesters and wounding of thousands more during the November 2019 protests. A panel of human rights law and international relations experts from Britain, Indonesia, Libya, South Africa and the United States led the …