MANAUS, Brazil, Oct 16 (Reuters) - The Amazon River fell to its lowest level in over a century on Monday at the heart of the Brazilian rainforest as a record drought upends the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and damages the jungle ecosystem.
The port of Manaus, the region’s most populous city, at the meeting of the Rio Negro and the Amazon River, recorded 13.59 meters (44.6 ft) of water on Monday compared to 17.60 a year ago, according to its website.
After months without rain, rainforest villager Pedro Mendonca was relieved when a Brazilian NGO delivered supplies to his riverside community near Manaus late last week.
Brazil’s Science Ministry blames the drought on this year’s onset of the El Nino climate phenomenon, which is driving extreme weather patterns globally.
Late last week, workers from Brazilian NGO Fundacao Amazonia Sustentavel (FAS) fanned out across the parched region near Manaus to deliver food and supplies to vulnerable villages.
Nelson Mendonca, a community leader in Santa Helena do Ingles, said some areas are still reachable by canoe, but many boats have not been able to bring supplies along the river, so most goods are arriving by tractors or on foot.
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Click here to see the summaryBelgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo confirmed on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that the victims were Swedish, but not their number. The alleged assailant, calling himself Abdesalem Al Guilani and a fighter for Allah, put the number of victims at three, rather than two. The shooting comes at a time of heightened security concerns in some European countries linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict. France is deploying 7,000 extra troops onto its streets after a teacher was fatally stabbed on Friday in an attack President Emmanuel Macron condemned as “barbaric Islamic terrorism.” A spokesperson for Brussels prosecutors, who are handling the case, also declined to give any details concerning the victims or any possible motive. Video footage posted on the Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper website showed a man in an orange jacket on a scooter at a street intersection with a rifle first firing two shots, then three more, then running into a building, firing two more shots, leaving, taking a few steps back again and shooting one more time. — Saved 66% of original text.
Oct 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. will take steps to prevent American chipmakers from selling semiconductors to China that circumvent government restrictions, a U.S. official said, as part of the Biden administration’s upcoming actions to block more AI chip exports.
The new rules, details of which Reuters is reporting for the first time, will be added to sweeping U.S. restrictions on shipments of advanced chips and chipmaking equipment to China unveiled last October.
The new rules will block some AI chips that fall just under current technical parameters while demanding companies report shipments of others, said the official, who provided information on condition of anonymity.
Several senior members of the Biden administration have met their Chinese counterparts in recent months, and the latest round of rules risks complicating the diplomatic effort.
While the official declined to identify which additional chips will be effectively banned, Nvidia’s H800 is a semiconductor sources have suggested the administration has wanted to block.
The Biden administration told Beijing of its plans to update the contentious rules this month, Reuters reported earlier in October, as part of a policy aimed at stabilizing relations between the superpowers.
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Some 1,300 people were killed in the surprise onslaught, with graphic mobile phone video footage and reports from medical and emergency services of atrocities in the overrun towns and kibbutzes.
Some residents said they would not leave, remembering the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” of 1948 when many Palestinians were forced from their homes during the war that accompanied Israel’s creation.
Health officials have resorted to storing bodies in ice cream freezer trucks because moving them to hospitals is too risky and cemeteries are short of space.
In Khan Younis, southern Gaza, Mohamed Abo Dakka said his family was still under the rubble after an Israeli strike.
The expected Israeli ground offensive and the air strikes have raised fears of unprecedented suffering in the narrow, impoverished enclave, one of the most crowded places in the world.
Witnesses in Gaza City told Reuters the Israeli offensive had forced more people from their homes, some seeking shelter at medical facilities.
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Marchenko said “a geopolitical shift and internal political context in different countries” was dampening governments’ appetite to support Ukraine, mentioning elections scheduled in the U.S. and the European Union next year.
Ukraine has earmarked additional tax receipts and funds to be raised from internal debt, but it will be dependent on outside help for the bulk of next year’s spending requirements.
Marchenko welcomed the efforts to harness frozen Russian state assets, saying that what was previously portrayed by Western backers as an “achievable goal” now “sounds like a plan”.
Since Moscow’s February 2022 invasion, most of Ukraine’s bilateral lenders have suspended repayment obligations until 2027, and the country has agreed a two-year freeze on $20 billion of international bonds that runs through August.
Ukraine has been sounding out major investors over plans to restructure the international debt and the possibility of raising fresh financing, Reuters reported on Oct. 9, citing people with knowledge of the discussions.
Marchenko said credit enhancement notes could be “one of the ways” to raise funds, but that how such guarantees would work depends on the future of Ukraine’s growth, among other economic factors.
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KABUL, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The Taliban will attend China’s Belt and Road Forum next week, a spokesman said on Saturday, underscoring Beijing’s growing official ties with the administration, despite its lack of formal recognition by any government.
Taliban officials and ministers have at times travelled to regional meetings, mostly those focussed on Afghanistan, but the Belt and Road Forum is among the highest-profile multilateral summits it has been invited to attend.
The Taliban’s acting minister for commerce and industry, Haji Nooruddin Azizi, will travel to Beijing in the coming days, ministry spokesman Akhundzada Abdul Salam Jawad said in a text message to Reuters.
Azizi will continue discussions in Beijing on plans to build a road through the Wakhan corridor, a thin, mountainous strip in northern Afghanistan, to provide direct access to China, Akhundzada said.
A series of restrictions on women’s access to public life and the barring of many female NGO staff from work has increased roadblocks to recognition, especially by Western countries, officials and international relations analysts say.
Other nations have kept on previous ambassadors or appointed heads of mission in a charge d’affaires capacity that does not involve formally presenting credentials to the government.
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MARRAKECH, Morocco, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Hiroshi Wanatabe, Japan’s former top currency diplomat, recalls how Chinese policymakers eagerly studied ways to avert a Japan-style burst of an asset bubble that led to prolonged deflation and economic stagnation - until around 2015.
Inflation is stalling and its deepening real estate crisis was identified as among the biggest risks to global growth during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting being held in Marrakech Oct. 9-15.
Some Japanese policymakers are voicing concern partly since a prolonged slump in Japan’s biggest trading partner will deal a huge blow to their export-reliant economy.
In its World Economic Outlook, the IMF cut China’s growth forecast for this year to 5.0% from 5.2% in April, and warned that its property sector crisis could deepen with global spillovers.
That contrasts with Japan, where slumping property prices left banks nationwide with a huge pile of bad loans, causing a broad-based credit crunch that prolonged the economic downturn.
For now, the IMF does not see a big risk of China sliding into deflation with inflation seen accelerating, backed by a recovery in demand, Krishna Srinivasan, director of the lender’s Asia and Pacific Department, told a briefing on Friday.
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MARRAKECH, Morocco, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Hiroshi Wanatabe, Japan’s former top currency diplomat, recalls how Chinese policymakers eagerly studied ways to avert a Japan-style burst of an asset bubble that led to prolonged deflation and economic stagnation - until around 2015.
Inflation is stalling and its deepening real estate crisis was identified as among the biggest risks to global growth during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting being held in Marrakech Oct. 9-15.
Some Japanese policymakers are voicing concern partly since a prolonged slump in Japan’s biggest trading partner will deal a huge blow to their export-reliant economy.
In its World Economic Outlook, the IMF cut China’s growth forecast for this year to 5.0% from 5.2% in April, and warned that its property sector crisis could deepen with global spillovers.
That contrasts with Japan, where slumping property prices left banks nationwide with a huge pile of bad loans, causing a broad-based credit crunch that prolonged the economic downturn.
For now, the IMF does not see a big risk of China sliding into deflation with inflation seen accelerating, backed by a recovery in demand, Krishna Srinivasan, director of the lender’s Asia and Pacific Department, told a briefing on Friday.
The original article contains 547 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
JERUSALEM, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Israel of using white phosphorus munitions in its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, saying the use of such weapons puts civilians at risk of serious and long-term injury.
Israel has been bombarding Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas rampage in southern Israeli towns that killed at least 1,300 people this week.
It provided links to two videos posted on social media that it said show “155mm white phosphorus artillery projectiles being used, apparently as smokescreens, marking, or signaling”.
Palestinian TV channels have broadcast video in recent days showing thin plumes of white smoke lining the sky over Gaza that they say was caused by such munitions.
Israel’s military in 2013 said it was phasing out white phosphorus smokescreen munitions used during its 2008-2009 offensive in Gaza, which drew war crimes allegations from various rights groups.
White phosphorus munitions can legally be used on battlefields to make smoke screens, generate illumination, mark targets or burn bunkers and buildings.
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