News in Brief

Date: 11 October 2021 - 21:25

News ID: ۹۵۳۱۵

LONDON (AFP) -- Britain’s biggest police force says it has closed a review into allegations accusing Prince Andrew of sexual abuse brought in a U.S. civil suit by Virginia Giuffre. Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) chief Cressida Dick had said in August that “no one is above the law”, after Giuffre filed her claim alleging Queen Elizabeth II’s second son sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager. “As a matter of procedure MPS officers reviewed a document released in August 2021 as part of a U.S. civil action,” the Met said in a statement late Sunday. “This review has concluded and we are taking no further action,” it added, saying it would work further with other law enforcement agencies leading the investigation. According to Giuffre, the late U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein regularly abused her and lent her out to “powerful men” for sex. She alleged that Prince Andrew abused her at the London home of Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend, who is on remand in jail awaiting trial in New York. Andrew, 61, a divorced father of two and a former Royal Navy helicopter pilot, was forced to step back from frontline royal duties in late 2019 after defending his friendship with Epstein in a television interview.

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BEIJING (Reuters) -- The Chinese foreign ministry said on Monday that China has lodged stern representations with Australia over “inappropriate” comments by former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott about Taiwan. Abbott last week visited Taiwan, which is claimed by China, in a personal capacity, met Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, and told a security forum that China may lash out with its economy slowing and finances “creaking”. “The relevant words and actions by the Australian politician go against the One China Principle and send a seriously wrong signal,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesman at the Chinese foreign ministry, told a regular media briefing. “China is firmly opposed to this. We have made stern representations to Australia.”

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CAIRO (Reuters) -- Algerian President Abelmadjid Tebboune said the return of the North African country’s ambassador to Paris was conditional on France showing it fully respects Algeria, Ennahar TV reported. Algeria recalled its envoy to Paris last week, citing comments attributed to French President Emmanuel Macron in the newspaper Le Monde that Algeria’s rulers had rewritten the history of its colonization based on “a hatred of France”. The following day, Algeria closed its airspace to French military planes, according to France’s military. “France should forget that Algeria was once a colony,” said Tebboune who was speaking in a regular meeting with representatives of the local media. French President Emmanuel Macron said last week that he hoped diplomatic tensions with Algeria would soon ease, adding in an interview with France Inter Radio that he had “very cordial” relations with Algeria’s President.

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SANTIAGO (AFP) -- Riot police clashed with protesters during a rally by the indigenous Mapuche community, leaving 18 people injured and 10 arrested, authorities said. About a thousand activists marched in the center of Santiago, many wearing ponchos and traditional head ornaments, demanding autonomy for the Mapuche, when police moved in to disperse the protest with water cannons and tear gas. Protesters responded with sticks and stones in a confrontation that lasted about 40 minutes, according to an AFP photographer at the scene. The Chilean state has long been accused of discrimination against the Mapuche people, the country’s largest indigenous group, who centuries ago controlled vast areas of Chile but have since been marginalized. Considered the earliest inhabitants of parts of Chile, the Mapuche fought against the Spanish conquerors and later the Chilean army after the country’s independence in the 19th century. Their numbers were reduced to only 700,000, a fraction of Chile’s current population of 17 million. Demonstrators and police clash during a protest, in Rome, Saturday, Oct. 9, 2021. Thousands of demonstrators protested Saturday in Rome against the COVID-19 health pass that Italian workers, both the public and private sectors, must display to access their workplaces from Oct. 15 under a government decree. (Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse via AP) 1 of 10. Demonstrators and police clash during a protest, in Rome, Saturday, Oct. 9, 2021. Thousands of demonstrators protested Saturday in Rome against the COVID-19 health pass that Italian workers, both the public and private sectors, must display to access their workplaces from Oct. 15 under a government decree. (Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse via AP)

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ROME (AP) — Left-leaning Italian lawmakers and politicians called for measures to outlaw pro-fascism groups a day after anti-vaccine protesters, incited by extreme-right leaders, stormed a union office in Rome. Twelve protesters were either detained or arrested, authorities said, including Giuliano Castellino, leader of the extreme-right Forza Nuova party. Some 10,000 demonstrators turned out Saturday to express their outrage at a government-imposed requirement that employees have a “Green Pass” to enter their workplaces starting next Friday.

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KUNMING, China (Reuters) -- The world has now reached “a moment of truth” when it comes to protecting its vital ecosystems, UN biodiversity chief Elizabeth Maruma Mrema said on Monday as talks on a new global conservation treaty got underway in Kunming, China. Mrema, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Protection, said during the opening ceremony of the talks that the world had not achieved the necessary breakthroughs from 2011-2020 and was not yet able to safeguard ecosystems that were key to human wellbeing. The first round of the “COP15” talks on biodiversity will last from Oct. 11 to Oct. 15. A post-2020 biodiversity pact is expected to be finalized during the second round in April-May next year.