Six In The Morning Saturday 30 October 2021

 

G20: Climate and Covid top agenda as world leaders meet

Climate change and Covid are top of the agenda of leaders from the world's major economies meeting in Italy.

It is the first time the G20 leaders are meeting face-to-face since the start of the pandemic.

However, China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin are not in Rome for the summit, choosing to appear via video link instead.

The talks come amid increasingly dire warnings for the future if urgent action is not taken to cut emissions.

Here to stay or gone in 30 years? Inside the fight over the future of the oil industry

By Julia Horowitz, CNN Business

Updated 0451 GMT (1251 HKT) October 30, 2021

The people who made their fortunes in the oil capital of Europe need a new plan.

For decades, Aberdeen, a port city on Scotland's northeast coast, has served as the commercial gateway to the North Sea, where powerful companies have navigated deep and dangerous waters to extract tens of billions of barrels of crude.

But the basin isn't what it used to be, even with oil back above $80 per barrel. Production has been on the decline since the turn of the century. Downturns caused by twin price shocks — one in 2015 and one triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic — are harrowing reminders of what happens when a boom turns bust.

Ethiopia: Tigrayan forces ‘seize strategic town in Amhara region’

TPLF fighters say they have captured Dessie, the furthest south they have reached since July

Reuters in Addis Ababa

Sat 30 Oct 2021 13.49 BS

Tigrayan forces said on Saturday that they had seized the strategic town of Dessie in Ethiopia’s Amhara region where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge from an escalation in the conflict.

Fighters with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had pushed Ethiopian government forces from Dessie and were advancing toward the town of Kombolcha, a TPLF spokesman, Getachew Reda, said by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.

He also said numerous Ethiopian soldiers had been captured.

‘It won’t end well’: French fishermen gloomy over latest high seas spat with Britain

French fishermen called for restrictions on British vessels in light of the dispute

Zoe Tidman

In Le Havre

The escalating fishing row between the UK and France “will not end well” and a solution needs to be found before any further hostilities, fishermen in the French city where a British fishing boat is being held have warned.

Andre Tesson told The Independent from behind a stall at a local fishing market that he did not think English boats should be fishing in French waters, if the reverse is not allowed.

As he handled fish at his stall in Le Havre, a British fishing boat was at a standstill a few miles away on the other side of the port.

Why cricket in Pakistan is infused with religion and nationalism

Cricket in Pakistan has become all about politics and religion, with narratives like "avenging" the "mistreatment" of Muslims by defeating India, or "teaching a lesson" to New Zealand for walking away from a match.

Soon after Pakistan defeated India in a T20 Cricket World Cup match on Sunday, the South Asian country's interior minister, Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad, said the win was the "victory of Islam."

"Muslims all over the world are rejoicing," the minister said in a video message on Twitter.

It was the first time Pakistan dominated India in a World Cup match. Celebrations were naturally in order, with people across the country taking to the streets, chanting patriotic slogans, dancing and waving national flags.

Demonstrations turn deadly as thousands of defiant Sudanese protest coup

Sudanese security forces shot dead two people Saturday during mass protests against the country's recent military coup, a doctors' union said. The shootings came despite repeated appeals by the West to Sudan's new military rulers to show restraint and allow peaceful protests.

During the protests, thousands of Sudanese marched into the streets, chanting “revolution, revolution” to the sound of whistles and drums, to protest against the coup that is threatening to derail the country’s fitful transition to democracy.

Pro-democracy groups had called for protests across the country to press demands for re-instating a deposed transitional government and releasing senior political figures from detention.