After spending hundreds of hours in virtual meetings to complete this week’s major UN climate report, scientists Piers Forster and Joeri Rogelj celebrated in a way their peers could not: by hugging. 

Some 40 Hungarian husbands, with their wives on their backs, clambered over rough terrain on Saturday in the nation’s second wife-carrying contest.

Calling for “massive” pressure to fight climate change after yesterday’s dire report by a UN science panel, activist Greta Thunberg said she plans to go to this year’s global climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, after all.

“Today’s report makes for sobering reading, and it is clear that the next decade is going to be pivotal to securing the future of our planet.” BRITISH PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON

The colourful tins piled high around Belgian collector Yvette Dardenne used to contain goods ranging from chocolates, toffees, coffee and rice to tobacco, talc and shoe polish, and come from as far away as India.

Passes and vaccine passports are increasingly being used across the world to limit entry to public places to those who have been vaccinated, recovered from Covid-19 or tested negative. 

About 40 migrants were feared dead after a boat carrying about 50 people travelling from Western Sahara to Spain’s Canary Islands capsized, a Spanish non-governmental organisation, said on Friday.

North Korea continued developing its nuclear and ballistic missile programs during the first half of 2021 in violation of international sanctions and despite the country’s worsening economic situation, according to an excerpt of a confidential United Nations report seen by Reuters on Friday. 

Hundreds of firefighters yesterday fought wildfires and flare-ups that have devoured record numbers of woodlands in Greece and left hundreds of families homeless, but heavy rains brought some respite to hard-hit Turkey. 

Representatives from 195 countries yesterday approved a critical UN science report that will provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment yet of the state of Earth’s climate. 

Millions more Mexicans have fallen into poverty because of the coronavirus pandemic, with people living in one of the country’s top tourist destinations hit particularly hard, official data showed Thursday.

Russia has formally banned organisations established by jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny as the opposition says the authorities are trying to stifle dissent ahead of parliamentary elections.

The United Nations yesterday said it urgently needed funds to feed people in Myanmar amid fears that up to 6.2 million could be plunged into hunger by October. 

Thousands of people fled their homes on the outskirts of Athens on Friday as emergency crews struggled to stop wildfires from spreading to more towns while scorching winds fuelled blazes across Greece for the fourth day.

Bosnia’s new top international envoy Christian Schmidt said Wednesday he would use the tools at his disposal to make the ethnically-divided country more functional, even as Bosnian Serb leaders rejected his legitimacy.

The European Union yesterday condemned the Taliban’s latest deadly attacks in Afghanistan and demanded “an urgent, comprehensive and permanent ceasefire”. 

1914 - Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia, and Serbia declared war on Germany in WWI.

Mexico said it filed a lawsuit against major US gunmakers in a Boston court on Wednesday over illegal cross-border arms flows that it blamed for fueling rampant drug-related violence.

With nearly 200 million people known to have had Covid-19, the WHO said it was deeply concerned by the unknown numbers who may still be suffering with Long Covid. 

Australia will provide one-off cash payments of US$60,000 to many Indigenous Australians who were forcibly removed from their families as children, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced yesterday, to redress what he described as a “shameful” period in the nation’s history.