By Emma Rumney JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The world s children cannot afford more empty promises at this year s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), youth activists including Greta Thunberg said, after a U.N. report found virtually no child will escape the impact of global warming. In the first index of its kind, published on Friday, U.N. children s agency UNICEF found that almost all the world s 2.2 billion children are exposed to at least one climate or environmental risk, from catastrophic floods to toxic air. Last week a U.N. climate panel of the world s top atmospheric scientists warned that global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control, with deadly heat waves, hurricanes and other extreme events likely to keep getting worse. Thunberg, 18, said the UNICEF index confirmed children would be the worst affected, and when world leaders meet in Glasgow in November for COP26 they needed to act rather than just talk. I don t expect them to do that, but I woul
By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. government is laser focused on the potential for a terrorist attack in Afghanistan by a group like ISIS-K, a sworn enemy of the Taliban, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC Nightly News on Thursday. Sullivan told the NBC program that getting Americans out of Afghanistan was a risky operation given questions about whether the Taliban would continue to allow the safe passage of people to the airport and other contingencies such as possible attack by an Islamist group such as ISIS-K. One of the contingencies we are very focused on, laser focused on, is the potential for a terrorist attack by a group like ISIS-K, which of course is a sworn enemy of the Taliban, so we will keep working to minimize the risks and maximize the number of people on planes, Sullivan said. U.S. officials say they are working around the clock to evacuate Americans and those who aided U.S. forces out of Kabul, but that the security situation on
HONG KONG (Reuters) - China s top legislature has postponed a vote on extending an anti-sanctions law to Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post said on Friday, as global banks and other financial institutions fret over the impact it could have on their operations. Beijing was expected to formally approve the law for the Chinese-ruled city on Friday to counter actions by foreign governments amid escalating geopolitical tensions. The central government hopes to listen to further views on the matter, the newspaper cited a mainland source as saying. Financial firms have been closely watching a meeting this week of the National People s Congress Standing Committee, the highest body of China s parliament, for signs on how and when the legislation will be introduced in Hong Kong. Beijing introduced the law in mainland China in June under which individuals or entities involved in making or implementing discriminatory measures against Chinese citizens or entities could be put on a mainland ant
SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria s centre-right GERB party on Friday became the second political party to give up trying to form a new government since last month s inconclusive parliamentary poll, bringing the Balkan country closer to a third election this year. President Rumen Radev had asked GERB, the party of former long-serving premier Boyko Borissov, to try and lead the country after the anti-establishment There Is Such a People (ITN), which narrowly won the July 11 polls, abandoned efforts to form a minority government. But with just 63 seats in the 240-member parliament following the July election, just behind ITN s 65, GERB is well short of a majority and other parties have refused to cooperate with it due to public anger over entrenched corruption in the European Union s poorest member state. Before returning the mandate to Radev, GERB s Prime Minister-designate Daniel Mitov, already in campaign mode, presented to reporters a potential list of cabinet ministers so that people can m
The White House drew criticism for a proposal to use CMS financial clout for a vaccine mandate that would apply to nursing homes. Some called for a broader application of this planned initiative.