BEIJING, July 4 (APP): Iran on Tuesday officially became a member state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The flag of Iran was raised at the SCO Secretariat during an impressive ceremony attended by Secretary General SCO, Zhang Ming, Iranian Ambassador Mohsen Bakhtiar and the envoys and senior officials of the SCO member states.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — The prime ministers of the Netherlands and Luxembourg on Monday urged Serbia and Kosovo to act to defuse recent tensions that have threatened to push the Balkan region into instability as Europe faces Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

Dutch PM Mark Rutte and Xavier Bettel, the Luxembourg PM, spoke after meeting Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade. Rutte and Bettel travel to Kosovo on Tuesday for meetings with top officials there.

GENEVA, July 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The El Nino weather phenomenon, which triggers higher global temperatures, is set to continue throughout 2023 and will be “at least of moderate strength”, the United Nations said.

El Nino is a naturally occurring climate pattern typically associated with increased heat worldwide, as well as drought in some parts of the world and heavy rains elsewhere.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on June 8 that El Nino had arrived, warning that it “could lead to new records for temperatures”.

PARIS (AP) — France has returned 35 people — 10 women and 25 minors — from a sprawling camp in northeast Syria housing thousands of people linked to Islamic State extremists.

Al-Hol Camp — named after a town near the Iraqi border — holds about 51,000 people, including many widows, wives and children of Islamic State fighters. Iraqis make up nearly half the population, but a sizeable minority are from outside the Middle East.

BHUBANESWAR, India, July 4 (Reuters) - Workers repairing a rail-road barrier in India made faulty connections in the automated signalling system on the network, leading to the country's worst rail disaster in two decades, an official probe has found.

The June 2 crash at Bahanaga Bazar station, in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, killed 288 people and injured more than 1,000.

The disaster struck when a passenger train hit a stationary freight train, jumped off the tracks and hit another passenger train coming from the opposite direction.

TOKYO, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Japan on Tuesday stated that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s safety report does not necessarily greenlight the Japanese government's plan to discharge nuclear-tainted water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean this summer.

MOSCOW, July 4. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed Iran’s accession to membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), noting the importance of assisting Tehran in adapting to all of the alliance’s processes.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran will now participate in our organization in a full-fledged format. I would like to extend congratulations on this occasion to the president of Iran, Mr. Ebrahim Raisi, and sincere greetings to him," the Russian leader said at the SCO’s virtual online summit being hosted by India, the current one-year SCO chair.

HAVANA, July 4 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cuban President, welcomed the participants of the 14th International Convention on Environment and Development, which gathers authorities of the G-77 and China from Monday until July 7.    

On Tweeter, he welcomed the high authorities of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation of the member countries of the integration block, who will discuss the crucial issue in favor of climate, environment and the promotion of sustainable development.

MOSCOW, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Five Ukrainian drones were shot down over the New Moscow region in Russia on Tuesday morning with no casualties reported, causing disruptions at the Vnukovo airport for almost three hours.

According to RIA Novosti, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the drones were targeting objects in the Moscow region and the New Moscow region, and that four of them were destroyed by air defense and one by electronic warfare.

BEIJING, July 4. /TASS/: The countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should counteract hegemonism and power politics on the international stage, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday.

"It is necessary to implement multilateralism and fine-tune global management; we must stand up for shared human values, defend the UN-centric international system and world order based on international law, counteract hegemonism and power politics," he said during the 23rd session of the SCO Heads of State Council held in an online format under India’s chairmanship.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s central bank left its benchmark interest rate at 4.1% at a policy meeting Tuesday after inflation fell to 5.6% in May from 6.5% a month earlier.

The Reserve Bank has lifted the cash rate 12 times since May last year to reduce inflation to a target range of 2% to 3%.

Higher interest rates raise the cost of borrowing for both businesses and consumers, slowing economic activity and helping to relieve price pressures that have flared after the slowdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic.

KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 (NNN-Bernama) — Despite the complex geopolitical processes, conflicts and various crises taking place in the world, Uzbekistan promotes its national interests and effectively implements its peaceful foreign policy as a full-fledged actor of international relations.