French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday announced that France was ending its Barkhane anti-jihadist mission in Africa after over a decade, saying a new strategy would be worked out with African partners.. Macron said that in the coming days exchanges would be launched with African nations and regional organisations and allies "to change the status, format and mission" of French bases in Africa.
A trickle of climate "loss and damage" funding pledges from rich countries at the COP27 summit in Egypt have been welcomed by observers and developing nations, who say they must pave the way for a broad global financing deal. . Meanwhile, Germany is touting its "global shield" project, due to be officially launched in Egypt next week, as a way to provide climate risk insurance and prevention to vulnerable countries.
Investment in renewable energy in Africa fell to its lowest level in more than decade last year despite the continent's huge potential, experts said Wednesday at the COP27 climate conference.. Renewable energy investments rose nine percent worldwide between 2020 and 2021 to reach a record high, but they fell 35 percent in Africa, it said.
King Charles III and his wife Queen Consort Camilla narrowly avoided being hit with eggs thrown at them during a visit to northern England on Wednesday, leading to one arrest.. The 73-year-old monarch and Camilla, 75, were targeted with three eggs which landed near them during a walkabout in York, before they were ushered away by minders.
The US midterms made waves Wednesday at a UN climate summit on the shores of Egypt, with activists urging President Joe Biden to take bolder action against global warming regardless of the result.. "I think it would be a catastrophic mistake if President Biden does not seize this literally once-in-the-universe opportunity now to be the climate president that the world needs him to be," said Jean Su, energy justice programme director at the Center for Biological Diversity, a US environmental group.
Cities in western Iran went on strike Wednesday in solidarity with mourners marking 40 days since security forces killed dozens in a crackdown on protests in the country's strife-torn southeast, a rights group said.. Widespread strikes were underway in the Kurdish western cities of Baneh, Kermanshah, Marivan, Sanandaj and Amini's hometown of Saqez, said the Hengaw rights group.
Joe Biden's Democrats seem to have escaped a feared drubbing in Tuesday's midterm elections, but it remains to be seen whether that will revive the US president's flagging fortunes until 2024 -- or beyond.. - Choppy waters - The president's party has traditionally lost seats in midterm elections and with Biden's approval ratings stuck in the low 40s, and sky-high inflation topping voter concerns, Republicans had high hopes of seizing both chambers of Congress in a "red wave."
Russia is moving US basketball star Brittney Griner to a penal colony after she lost an appeal against a drug conviction, her lawyers said Wednesday, drawing a sharp rebuke from the White House.. She "is now on her way to a penal colony," lawyers Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov said in a statement.
Fractured relations between the United States and China have cast further doubt on whether Beijing will sign up to more climate promises, with pressure mounting on the world's biggest emitter.. Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate change think tank E3G, said cooperation between China and the United States on key issues such as methane and deforestation was essential.
The family of Egypt's jailed dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is refusing food and water, demanded information on his health Wednesday amid what they said were "rumours of force-feeding".. The dissident's aunt, novelist Ahdaf Soueif, tweeted that "we cannot explain two days without letters" and said that the family was concerned about "rumours of force-feeding and of sleep-inducing drugs".
