GERMANY
WHO pledges total US$1bn
The WHO said it received US$700 million in pledges for its 2025-2028 budget at an event in Berlin on Monday, in addition to US300 million already pledged by the EU and African Union. “The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that when health is at risk, everything is at risk,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the event. “Investments in WHO are therefore investments not only in protecting and promoting health, but also in more equitable, more stable and more secure societies and economies.” Berlin said it would provide at least 360 million euros (US$393 million). German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged more countries to share the responsibility, saying: “Every contribution counts — no matter how small.”
PAKISTAN
Li inaugurates new airport
Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強) on Monday took part in a ceremony during his four-day visit to inaugurate a Beijing-funded airport, in a volatile region where Chinese interests are routinely targeted by separatists. While Li did not travel to Balochistan, he “virtually” inaugurated Gwadar Airport at a ceremony in Islamabad, about 2,000km away. The airport is next to Gwadar Port, the cornerstone project of the multibillion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that connects China’s Xinjiang region to Pakistan’s coast. “China will continue to work with Pakistan to uphold the principle of planning together, building together and benefitting together,” Li said at the ceremony alongside Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. An aviation official said on condition of anonymity that the airport is yet to open for flights.
RUSSIA
Man rescued after 67 days
Authorities yesterday said they had rescued a man whose tiny boat had drifted for 67 days since August in waters edging the northwestern Pacific, but his brother and nephew died during the ordeal. Social media images showed a thin, bearded man wearing a hooded jacket and orange emergency vest in a catamaran-like sailboat flying a red flag from a small pole. “On Oct 14, a vessel was discovered in the waters of the Sea of ?Okhotsk,” legal authorities in the nation’s Far East said on the Telegram messaging app. “Two people died, one survived,” the regional prosecutors’ office charged with handling transport issues said. “He is receiving medical assistance.” The boat with the man and bodies aboard was finally sighted by fishers near the village of Ust-Khayruzovo, off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the post added. Authorities did not immediately identify the voyagers.
FRANCE
Global wine output weak
Bad weather means global wine production this year would remain near a 60-year low according to preliminary estimates, the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) said on Monday. “Early indications suggest that 2024 will be another year of relatively low production, most likely below 250 million hectoliters a year,” director-general John Barker said at the opening of the OIV’s 45th congress in Dijon. Last year, global output was about 237 million hectoliters, the lowest since 1961, as the various effects of climate change, such as drought, heatwaves and flooding, affected grape harvests. The preliminary forecast is based on figures from major producing nations that account for about three-quarters of global production, OIV head of statistics Giorgio Delgrosso said. Output from Spain, Italy, Australia and Argentina has improved, but remain far from their average, he said.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
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