News in Brief

Date: 31 January 2023 - 21:37

News ID: ۱۱۱۹۸۲

OSLO (Reuters) -- Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, one of the world’s largest investors, on Tuesday reported a record loss of 1.64 trillion crowns ($164.4 billion) for 2022, bringing to an end a three-year run of soaring profits. The previous largest loss was 633 billion crowns in 2008. “The market was impacted by war in Europe, high inflation, and rising interest rates. This negatively impacted both the equity market and bond market at the same time, which is very unusual,” Chief Executive Nicolai Tangen said in a statement. The loss ends a record-breaking streak for the fund where annual returns exceeded one trillion crowns in each of the three years from 2019 to 2021, amounting to more than four trillion crowns combined. Founded in 1996, the fund invests revenue from Norway’s oil and gas sector and holds stakes in some 9,300 companies globally, owning 1.3% of all listed stocks. It also invests in bonds, unlisted real estate and renewable energy projects.

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BEIJING (Reuters) -- China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday condemned a phone call between Czech President-elect Petr Pavel and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen, accusing Pavel of going back on his word and lacking credibility. Tsai held a call with Pavel on Monday, a diplomatic breakthrough for the China-claimed island, which has no formal relations with Prague. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular news briefing that China expressed strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the call, and that it had made stern representations to the Czech side. Mao also questioned Pavel’s credibility for what she described as a change in his position that Beijing’s claims over the self-ruled island should be respected.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) -- The Kremlin said that former British prime minister Boris Johnson was lying when he said President Vladimir Putin had threatened him with a missile strike during a phone call in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that what Johnson said was not true, or “more precisely, a lie”. Johnson, speaking to the BBC for a documentary, said the Russian leader had threatened him with a missile strike that would “only take a minute”. “He threatened me at one point, and he said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute’ or something like that,” Johnson said. Peskov said: “There were no threats of missiles.” “It is either a deliberate lie - so you have to ask Mr. Johnson why he chose to put it that way - or it was an unconscious lie and he did not in fact understand what Putin was talking to him about.” Peskov said Putin had explained to Johnson how, if Ukraine joined the Western NATO alliance, U.S. or NATO missiles placed near Russia’s borders would mean any missile could reach Moscow in a matter of minutes, and suggested that there may have been a misunderstanding.

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GENEVA (Reuters) -- The world is “dangerously unprepared” for future pandemics, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) say in a report, calling on countries to update their preparedness plans by year-end. In its World Disasters Report 2022, the IFRC said “all countries remain dangerously unprepared for future outbreaks” despite COVID-19 killing more people than any earthquake, drought or hurricane in history. “The next pandemic could be just around the corner. If the experience of COVID-19 won’t quicken our steps toward preparedness, what will?” said Jagan Chapagain, secretary general of the IFRC, the world’s largest disaster response network. The report said that countries should review their legislation to ensure it is in line with their pandemic preparedness plans by the end of 2023 and adopt a new treaty and revised International Health Regulations by next year that would invest more in the readiness of local communities.

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ANTANARIVO, Madagascar (AP) — Flooding and landslides caused by the passage of tropical storm Cheneso across Madagascar caused 30 deaths, left 20 people missing and affected tens of thousands across the Indian Ocean island nation, according to a provisional assessment. The storm made landfall in the northeast of the island last Thursday and impacted close to 89,000 people, Madagascar’s National Office for Risk and Disaster Management said. Madagascar’s meteorological agency said the storm, which has now passed across the country into the Mozambique Channel, saw winds gusting up to 170 kilometres per hour (105.63 miles per hour) and unleashed torrential rains. Colonel Faly Aritiana, of the risk and disaster office, said there had been house collapses and landslides in which people have become trapped. The storm has damaged infrastructure, with many roads cut by rising waters, landslides and collapsed bridges.

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OUAGADOUGOU (AFP) -- Suspected takfiris have killed 13 people, most of them from the military, in the latest such attack in Burkina Faso’s restive north, the army said Tuesday. Ten military police officers, two members of an auxiliary force supporting the army, and a civilian died as a result of a “terrorist attack on Monday”, the army said in a statement. Ten other military police officers were missing and another five wounded in the attack, the army said. Burkina Faso is one of the poorest and most volatile countries in Africa. Thousands of troops, police and civilians have been killed and around two million people have fled their homes since takfiris launched an insurgency from neighboring Mali in 2015.