USA

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 04 (APP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that the benefits of making cities more environmentally friendly are “enormous”, and include reduced climate risk, more jobs, and better health and well-being.

“City leadership in using green materials and constructing energy-efficient, resilient buildings powered by renewable energy, is essential to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050,” he said in his message for World Habitat Day, marked on Monday.

WASHINGTON, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Lawyers for an 84-year-old Iranian American, who was formerly imprisoned by Iran and whose son remains jailed there, urged Tehran on Monday to let him leave the country for medical care, saying he needs immediate surgery for an arterial blockage.

Baquer Namazi was convicted of "collaboration with a hostile government" in 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Iranian authorities released him on medical grounds in 2018 and closed his case last year, commuting his sentence to time served.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Some residents, business owners and environmentalists questioned whether authorities reacted quickly enough to contain one of the largest oil spills in recent California history, caused by a suspected leak in an underwater pipeline that fouled the sands of famed Huntington Beach and could keep the beaches there closed for weeks or longer.

(AP) --- Hundreds of world leaders, powerful politicians, billionaires, celebrities, religious leaders and drug dealers have been hiding their investments in mansions, exclusive beachfront property, yachts and other assets for the past quarter-century, according to a review of nearly 12 million files obtained from 14 firms located around the world.

NEW YORK, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- The United States has set the pace to expand the spectrum of COVID-19 vaccines, while its vaccination campaign drags on as it hit a grim milestone of 700,000 deaths in the pandemic that has entered its 19th month.

Topping the world, the United States on Friday surpassed 700,000 deaths from COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University's data. Meanwhile, the average number of people getting vaccinated, at 270,531 per day, is the lowest it has been since Aug. 15, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal judge in Florida to force Twitter to restore his account, which the company suspended in January following the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s attorneys on Friday filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Miami seeking a preliminary injunction against Twitter and its CEO, Jack Dorsey. They argue that Twitter is censoring Trump in violation of his First Amendment rights, according to the motion.

Twitter declined to comment Saturday on Trump’s filing.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 01 (APP): The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, Friday called for a prompt, thorough, and effective investigation into the killing of a veteran Rohingya refugee activist at a refugee camp in Bangladesh.

Mohib Ullah, chair of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPH), was shot dead on Wednesday by unknown assailants in the Kutupalong /Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, located in the south of the country.

Oct 1 (Reuters) - Worldwide deaths related to COVID-19 surpassed 5 million on Friday, according to a Reuters tally, with unvaccinated people particularly exposed to the virulent Delta strain.

The variant has exposed the wide disparities in vaccination rates between rich and poor nations, and the upshot of vaccine hesitancy in some western nations.

More than half of all global deaths reported on a seven-day average were in the United States, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and India.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- At his first press conference since the annual high-level week ended, UN General Assembly (UNGA) President Abdulla Shahid said on Friday that multilateralism remains the only way to tackle common challenges.

COVID-19 remains a major challenge that "will not be over until we achieve universal vaccination," Shahid told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York, announcing a plan to convene a high-level meeting in January to take stock of the global inoculation effort.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- The recently announced security agreement between the United States, Britain and Australia, known as AUKUS, which involves providing Australia with nuclear-powered submarine know-how, has set a bad precedent for the non-proliferation regime, Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear policy expert and former U.S. Department of State official, has warned.