MOSCOW, October 12. /TASS/: The lower house of Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, has approved a federal constitutional law rescinding the requirement to officially inform the secretary general of the Council of Europe concerning the imposition or revocation of martial law and states of emergency in Russia.

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Many poor countries in Africa face the harshest effects of climate change: severe droughts, vicious heat and dry land, but also unpredictable rain and devastating flooding. The shocks worsen conflict and upend livelihoods because many people are farmers — work that is increasingly vulnerable in a warming world.

BRASILIA, Oct12 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called on the international community to intervene to stop the situation of children who are in the line of fire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

‘It is necessary that the Hamas movement releases Israeli children who have been kidnapped from their families. Also Israel should cease bombing so that Palestinian children and their mothers leave the Gaza Strip through the border with Egypt,’ Lula wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter).

Iran  Oct 11 (Reuters) - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Wednesday, in the first telephone call between the two leaders since a China-brokered deal between Tehran and Riyadh to resume ties.

The two leaders' call came as Israel carried out air strikes in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a deadly attack by Palestinian Hamas militants in Israel.

Raisi and the Saudi crown prince discussed the "need to end war crimes against Palestine," Iranian state media said.

Kyrgyzstan (AP) —President Vladimir Putin arrived in Kyrgyzstan on Thursday on a rare trip abroad for the Russian leader who was indicted earlier this year by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Ukraine.

Putin met with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov and was to take part on Friday in the Commonwealth of Independent States summit, which Kyrgyzstan is hosting. Leaders of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan will also attend the summit.

12 October 2023; MEMO: Egypt’s largest and oldest religious institution, Al-Azhar University, has called on Arabs and Muslims to take a united position in the face of the inhumane Western support for the Israeli occupation state’s violation of all Palestinian rights. Al-Azhar said on Wednesday that there should be an international investigation into the war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces against children, women and the elderly in the besieged and isolated Gaza Strip.

MOSCOW, October 12. /TASS/: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) until further notice after the Russian organization included Olympic councils of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) as well as of the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, the IOC said in a statement on Thursday.

"The Russian Olympic Committee is suspended with immediate effect until further notice," the statement reads.

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanian authorities said Thursday they found a crater from a suspected drone that may have exploded on impact on its territory near the border with Ukraine, reviving concerns about possible spillover of Russia’s war in Ukraine onto a NATO member country.

The pre-dawn discovery of the crater three kilometers (1.8 miles) west of the village of Plauru, which sits across the Danube River from the Ukrainian port of Izmail, was made after the Romanian Defense Ministry said it detected a series of drones heading towards Ukrainian river ports.

GAZA, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- At least 1,354 Palestinians were killed, and 6,049 others wounded by the ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, according to the Gaza-based health ministry.

In a press statement sent to Xinhua, the ministry said that "44 Palestinians were killed on Thursday as Israel intensified its air attacks on various areas of the Gaza Strip."

According to the sources, Israel's attacks also targeted residential neighborhoods and multi-story buildings in the Gaza Strip.

PARIS, Oct 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Consumers discard or possess disused electronic goods containing raw materials critical for the green energy transition and worth almost $10 billion every year, the United Nations said.

Toys, cables, electronic cigarettes, tools, electric toothbrushes, shavers, headphones and other domestic gadgets contain metals like lithium, gold, silver and copper.

Demand is expected to soar for these materials due to their crucial role in rapidly growing green industries such as electric vehicle battery production.

12 October 2023; MEMO: The war in Gaza has torn up diplomacy in the region, just as Israel was preparing to reach an agreement to normalise ties with Saudi Arabia, and months after Riyadh resumed ties with its regional rival Iran, Reuters has reported. Iran is a sponsor of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador sent more than 4,000 security forces into three communities on the outskirts of the capital to root out gang members Wednesday, as President Nayib Bukele prepared to request another extension of emergency powers to combat crime.

Bukele announced the pre-dawn operation in a slickly produced video posted to the platform X. Soldiers and police were sent to surround the densely populated communities of Popotlan, Valle Verde and La Campanera outside San Salvador, the president said.