World News in Brief: August 31

Senior officials from the Group of 20 major (G20) economies met for climate talks on the resort island of Bali on Wednesday, with host Indonesia warning that failure to work together to cut emissions would push the planet toward "unchartered territory".
The Republic of Korea will from Saturday no longer require travellers to the country to test for COVID-19 before departure, although they will still need to take a PCR test within 24 hours of arrival.
The Republic of Korea will from Saturday no longer require travellers to the country to test for COVID-19 before departure, although they will still need to take a PCR test within 24 hours of arrival.

* Former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev has died at 91, Russian media reported Tuesday. Gorbachev was born in March 1931, and served as president of the Soviet Union from March 1990 to December 1991.

* There are "signals" on a possible resumption of talks to extend the New START Treaty to control US and Russian nuclear arms, the Interfax news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Wednesday. However, there is no significant progress yet, Peskov added.

* A combined force of the Republic of Korea and US troops held a major live-fire exercise on Wednesday with artillery, tanks and other weapons as the allies step up their practice for war.

* Russia's largest gas producer Gazprom would temporarily halt gas deliveries through Nord Stream 1 pipeline for scheduled maintenance from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3, TASS reported on Wednesday.

* A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) set off on Wednesday from the Ukrainian capital towards the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to inspect for damage after shelling nearby sparked fears of a radiation disaster.

* Ukraine received 4.6 billion USD in international aid in August, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported Tuesday, citing Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko.

* Hungary must take action on changing its rule of law before it can receive any European Union recovery funds, the EU affairs chief of the Czech government, which holds the bloc's rotating presidency, said in an interview.

* Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi on Tuesday expressed his regret that the political conflict had reached the level of the use of weapons among Iraqi factions, warning that he would declare his post vacant if the dispute continued.

* Jordanian King Abdullah II on Tuesday stressed his country's full support for Iraq's efforts to maintain its unity and stability.

* The Iranian foreign minister said Tuesday that his upcoming trip to Moscow will be mainly aimed at helping resolve the crisis in Ukraine.

* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will travel to Pakistan next week for a solidarity visit in the wake of a historic flooding, his spokesman said on Tuesday.

* The Lao government plans to attract 900,000 foreign visitors in 2022, which is expected to generate more than 218 million USD.

* Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio said Wednesday that the daily cap on arrivals to the country will be raised from 20,000 to 50,000 on Sept. 7.

* Indonesia's central bank, Bank Indonesia, said Tuesday that the country would see its payment system to be fully connected to Singapore's starting 2023 through its Intercountry Quick Response Indonesia Standard (QRIS) code.

* The number of job openings in the United States rose to 11.2 million by the end of July, as the imbalances between labor market supply and demand remain, the US Labor Department reported Tuesday.

* The New Zealand economy is grappling with headwinds, primarily high inflation and rising interest rates, according to a report by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.

* Republic of Korea's terms of trade hit a record low last month due to faster growth in import costs than export prices, central bank data showed Wednesday.

* The leaders of nations bordering the Baltic Sea agreed on Tuesday to increase their offshore wind energy production seven-fold by 2030, Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told journalists in Copenhagen after hosting the Baltic Sea Energy Security Summit.

* Germany's Wintershall Dea and Norwegian Equinor have agreed to cooperate on a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project in the North Sea, the gas and oil companies said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

* The US government expects its supply of COVID-19 vaccines and antiviral treatments to run out over the next year and is preparing for them to be sold via the commercial market, the Department of Health and Human Services said.

* Advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet on Thursday to vote on whether to recommend the use of two COVID-19 vaccine boosters tailored against the Omicron variant.

* A new research institution being launched in Australia will aim to develop drugs to treat diseases caused by pathogens with the potential to cause global pandemics more quickly.

* Todos Medical said it was able to test for both COVID-19 and monkeypox from the same saliva sample.

* At least 36 people were killed and 1,941 others injured in heavy monsoon rain-triggered flash floods and other rain-related incidents in the last 24 hours in Pakistan, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said.

* Heavy rains in Afghanistan have killed 250 people this year, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday.

* France has suffered 33 days of heatwaves during summer 2022, establishing a new record, France's national meteorological service Meteo-France announced on Tuesday in a report.

VNA, Reuters, Xinhua