COP29 at risk from graft, fossil fuel interests
PARIS, Oct 31: UN climate summits risk "being undermined by undue corporate influence and fossil fuel industry capture", two corruption watchdogs said Thursday as oil-and-gas producer Azerbaijan prepares the next global meeting. Azerbaijan's hosting of the COP29 talks in November is the second straight year the world's premier climate negotiations have been hosted in a country deeply tied to oil and gas. Azerbaijan's fossil fuel interests, entrenched levels of graft and "autocratic government" put the UN-led climate process at risk, Transparency International and the Anti-Corruption Data Collective said in a report. — AFP
Partial recount in Georgia election confirms ruling party win: electoral commission
TBILISI, Oct 31: A partial ballot recount in Georgia's contested parliamentary election confirmed the ruling party won, electoral officials said Thursday, after opposition parties alleged violations and Washington and Brussels demanded an investigation. Georgia plunged into political uncertainty following Saturday's election as the pro-Western opposition said the vote was "stolen" by the ruling Georgian Dream party and refused to recognise its results. Pro-European President Salome Zurabishvili-at loggerheads with the governing party-has declared the election results "illegitimate", alleging election interference by a "Russian special operation". — AFP
Germany to close Iranian consulates
BERLIN, Oct 31: Germany will close the three Iranian consulates on its soil in response to the execution of German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Thursday. "We have repeatedly and unequivocally made it clear to Tehran that the execution of a German citizen will have serious consequences," Baerbock said, announcing the closure of the consulates in Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg in a televised speech. The execution announced on Monday had already provoked tit-for tat diplomatic expulsions, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz calling it a "scandal". — AFP
90 Rohingya left 'stranded' on Indonesia beach
LHOKSEUMAWE, Oct 31: Human traffickers left dozens of Rohingya refugees, including children, stranded on a shoreline in westernmost Indonesia on Thursday, while six dead bodies were found nearby, local officials said. Members of the persecuted minority risk their lives each year on long and dangerous sea journeys, often crowding into rickety boats in the hopes of reaching Malaysia or Indonesia. The refugees were abandoned before dawn on Thursday around 100 metres off a beach in Aceh Province, Saiful Anwar, a village official in East Aceh, told AFP. The group included 46 women, 37 men and seven children, he said, while locals found two bodies on the shore and four floating in the sea. "According to information from residents, these people were stranded at around 4 am. — AFP
Russian bomb kills 3 in Ukraine
KYIV, Oct 31: Russian forces struck a residential building in Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv on Thursday, killing three, including two teenage boys, and injuring scores of others, and launched scores of other attacks as they continued their grinding onslaught in the country's east. Regional head Oleh Syniehubov said one of the boys, aged 12, was fatally injured when the building was hit by a Russian 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) glide bomb. “He was freed from under the rubble with severe head injuries and fractures," Syniehubov wrote on social media. "Doctors performed resuscitation measures for more than half an hour. Unfortunately, it was not possible to save the child.” Syniehubov said later that rescuers also retrieved the bodies of a 15-year-old boy and an unidentified man from the debris. — AP
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