World News in Brief: November 4

Cubans on Thursday celebrated the overwhelming support they received from the international community at a United Nations vote condemning the US trade embargo against the Caribbean nation.
Qatar has trained more than 50,000 people to provide security during the World Cup, the interior ministry said on Thursday, with foreign forces helping out under Qatari command.
Qatar has trained more than 50,000 people to provide security during the World Cup, the interior ministry said on Thursday, with foreign forces helping out under Qatari command.

* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that climate adaptation must be treated with a seriousness that reflects the equal worth of all members of the human family.

* Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the first G7 leader to visit China since the COVID pandemic began, warning of the ease with which mutual political trust can be destroyed.

* The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Thursday that its experts have completed inspections at three locations in Ukraine, and have not found "any indications of undeclared nuclear activities and materials" there.

* Israel Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Thursday congratulated Benjamin Netanyahu on his election win as final results confirmed the former premier's triumphant comeback at the head of a solidly right-wing alliance.

* Ishmael Kalsakau, president of the Union of Moderate Parties, was sworn in as Vanuatu's prime minister after being elected by an overwhelming majority of 50 out of the 52 members of the country's parliament on Friday.

* Czech ruling coalition parties agreed on Friday on the final form of the government's planned windfall taxes, Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura said, without providing further details.

* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called for the renewal of the Ukraine grain deal, and for the application of the same spirit of multilateralism at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Egypt, or COP27.

* India called on rich countries on Friday to live up to their promise of providing $100 billion in annual climate finance to developing nations and urged them to increase the amount for future years at next week's U.N. climate conference.

* Some forty of the 119 countries that pledged last year to slash emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane will unveil their plans to do so at the UN climate summit next week, according to a senior US official.

* The Japanese and Chinese governments have started planning a meeting between Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and China's President Xi Jinping for mid-November, the Sankei newspaper reported on Friday.

* The United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea are finalising arrangements for a trilateral meeting of their leaders in mid-November, Kyodo news agency reported on Friday, citing a Japanese government source.

* Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that he had agreed with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that grains sent under the Black Sea export deal should go to poor African countries for free.

* The UK government will not call fresh elections in Northern Ireland before the end of the year and will announce how it intends to proceed beyond that next week, the British minister for the region said on Friday.

* The United States is possibly discriminating against European companies through its new Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) law, an EU industry chief said on Thursday, as Germany saw talks with Washington as necessary to avoid a "trade war".

* Italy's new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made her first foreign trip in office on Thursday to the heart of the European Union, showcasing her commitment to the bloc mindful of her nationalistic views and spending plans.

* Sweden and Finland have fulfilled their obligations to Türkiye and should be allowed entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday.

* Poland has submitted an official request to the European Union to suspend fines of 1 million euros a day imposed by the bloc's top court over Warsaw's failure to implement a court order concerning judicial reforms, a Polish minister said on Friday.

* Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Thursday that his country has "absolute readiness" to conclude nuclear talks "as soon as possible."

* President Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman said the process of the United States approving the sale of F-16 fighter jets to NATO member Turkey was going well and could be completed within a couple of months.

* Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday that primary schools in the Indian capital region will be closed in the wake of increasing levels of air pollution. The schools would be closed from Saturday.

* Cambodia's famed Angkor Archaeological Park received 169,349 international tourists in the first 10 months of 2022, up 2,224 percent compared to the same period last year, said an official report on Friday.

* Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi held in Amman on Thursday a meeting with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during which the two sides discussed, among others, bilateral ties and the Syrian crisis.

* Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye said on Thursday that the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories must end and the Palestinians won't accept more "collective punishment."

* Chinese markets soared and the yuan rose on Friday, with about a trillion dollars added to the value of Chinese stocks in week, as rumours and news reports fed hopes for twin relief in US-China tension and China's COVID rules.

* US stocks dropped on Thursday as investors cautiously assessed the Federal Reserve's policy path.

* Malaysia's central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia, has raised the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) by 25 basis points (bps) to 2.75 percent.

* Year-on-year inflation rate in the Philippines accelerated to 7.7 percent in October from 6.9 percent in September, the highest since October 2018, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Friday.

* Türkiye's annual inflation surged to 85.51 percent in October, the highest in 24 years, the Turkish Statistical Institute announced on Thursday.

* The Bank of England (BoE) on Thursday raised its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points to 3 percent, its highest level since November 2008, to battle the current double-digit inflation.

* German industrial orders fell by more than expected in September as foreign demand slumped, putting Europe's largest economy on course for recession, data showed on Friday.

* The Canadian government released its 2022 Fall Economic Statement on Thursday, warning that the country is likely to enter a mild recession in the first quarter of 2023.

* Europe could face a shortage of as much as 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas during the key summer period for refilling its gas storage sites in 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned on Thursday.

* Russia's newest nuclear-powered submarine Generalissimo Suvorov test-launched a Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Thursday.

* Rescuers in India's western state of Gujarat have called off search operations recovering the bodies in the Machchu River five days after a century-old British-era pedestrian suspension bridge collapsed, killing 135 people, local media reported Friday.

* Thousands of residents in several inland towns in Australia's most populous state of New South Wales evacuated their homes overnight with more than 100 flood warnings in place on Friday after swollen rivers burst banks and neared record flood levels.

* Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso announced on Thursday that 668 people have been arrested since Tuesday in the wake of violent attacks by criminal gangs during a prisoner transfer in the country.

* A forest fire in central Chile's Maule region has razed at least 3,600 hectares, damaged several homes and has yet to be brought under control, authorities said Thursday.

Xinhua/Reuters/VNA