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.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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