News in Brief

Date: 25 October 2021 - 21:33

News ID: ۹۵۸۱۳

BEIJING (Reuters) -- President Xi Jinping vowed on Monday that China would always uphold world peace and international rules. In a speech marking the 50th anniversary of China’s return to the United Nations, Xi said it would always be the “builder of world peace” and a “protector of international order,” state news agency Xinhua said. In 1971, the United Nations voted to recognize the People’s Republic of China, expelling Taiwan from the world body. “China resolutely opposes all forms of hegemony and power politics, unilateralism and protectionism,” Xi said, calling for greater global cooperation on issues such as regional conflicts, terrorism, climate change, cybersecurity and biosecurity. He urged all countries to promote the values of peace, development, justice, democracy, freedom, making use of a phrase the “common values of all mankind” that he coined and first mentioned in a July speech for the 100th anniversary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

***
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s president said Monday he’ll keep striving to promote peace with North Korea through dialogue until the end of his term next May. In his final policy speech at parliament, President Moon Jae-in said he’ll “make efforts to the end to help a new order for peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula be established through dialogue and diplomacy.” Moon, a champion of greater reconciliation with North Korea, once shuttled between Pyongyang and Washington to help facilitate now-stalled nuclear diplomacy between the two countries. Pyongyang turned a cold shoulder on Moon after its diplomacy with Washington broke down in early 2019 amid bickering over the sanctions. Moon acknowledged his push for peace through dialogue remains “incomplete.”

***
CAIRO (Reuters) – Daesh claimed responsibility for a bomb attack that killed at least one person in Uganda’s capital Kampala on Saturday night, the militant group said in a statement posted in an affiliated Telegram channel late on Sunday.The group said that some of its members detonated an explosive device in a bar where “members and spies of the Crusader Ugandan government were gathering” in Kampala. The bomb, packed with nails and shrapnel, targeted a pork restaurant on the outskirts of the capital, police said on Sunday. Information gathered indicated that three men, disguised as customers, visited the restaurant, placed a polythene bag under a table and left moments before the explosion, police said. The explosion killed a 20-year-old waitress and injured three people, two of whom were in critical condition, police said, adding all indications suggest an act of domestic terror. President Yoweri Museveni said the attack “seems to be a terrorist act”.

***
PARIS (AFP) -- France has successfully launched a state-of-the-art satellite into orbit, designed to allow all of France’s armed forces across the globe to communicate swiftly and securely. Paris created a space force command in July 2019, amongst concerns that rival countries were heavily investing in space technology, seen as a new military frontier. The satellite “is designed to resist military aggression from the ground and in space, as well as interference,” French air and space force spokesman Colonel Stephane Spet told AFP. The Ariane 5 rocket carrying the Syracuse 4A satellite took off from Kourou, in French Guiana, with the mission accomplished 38 minutes and 41 seconds after takeoff.

***
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Children as young as 3 will start receiving COVID-19 vaccines in China, where 76% of the population has been fully vaccinated and authorities are maintaining a zero-tolerance policy toward outbreaks. Local city and provincial level governments in at least five provinces issued notices in recent days announcing that children ages 3-11 will be required to get their vaccinations. The expansion of the vaccination campaign comes as parts of China take new clampdown measures to try to stamp out small outbreaks. Gansu, a northwestern province heavily dependent on tourism, closed all tourist sites Monday after finding new COVID-19 cases. Residents in parts of Inner Mongolia have been ordered to stay indoors due to an outbreak there. The National Health Commission reported 35 new cases of local transmission had been detected over the past 24 hours, four of them in Gansu. Another 19 cases were found in the Inner Mongolia region, with others scattered around the country.

***
GENEVA (AP) — The World Meteorological Organization reported Monday that greenhouse gas concentrations hit a new record high last year and increased at a faster rate than the annual average for the last decade despite a temporary reduction during pandemic-related lockdowns. In its annual report on heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the United Nations weather agency said concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide were all above levels in the pre-industrial era before 1750, when human activities “started disrupting Earth’s natural equilibrium.” The report’s release came days before the start of a U.N. climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Many environmental activists, policymakers and scientists say the Oct. 31-Nov. 12 event, known as COP26 for short, marks an important and even crucial opportunity for concrete commitments to the targets set out in the 2015 Paris climate accord.