US considering waivers on Iran oil sanctions
Reuters, Washington:
The United States is actively considering sanctions waivers for countries that are reducing their imports of Iranian oil, a U.S. government official said on Friday.
The Trump administration withdrew from a deal over Tehran’s nuclear programme in May and is unilaterally reimposing sanctions on Iran’s crude oil consumers on Nov. 4. The sanctions aim to force Tehran to stop its involvement in conflicts in Syria and Iraq and halt its ballistic missile programme. Iran says it has abided by the 2015 nuclear deal, which was struck with five other world powers, besides the United States.
S Arabia threatens to block key UN
climate report
AFP, Incheon
Oil giant Saudi Arabia is seeking to block adoption of a key UN climate change report unless a passage highlighting the inadequacy of national carbon-cutting pledges is removed or altered, multiple sources told AFP.
Already in overtime, a meeting of the 195-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Incheon, South Korea is vetting a major report that traces pathways for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
Japan joins
historic Philippine
war games
AFP, San Antonio
Japanese troops stormed a beach in the Philippines Saturday in joint exercises with US and Filipino troops that officials said marked the first time Tokyo’s armoured vehicles rolled on foreign soil since World War II.
The small Japanese contingent played a humanitarian support role in the drill after US and Filipino marines made an amphibious landing to retake Philippine territory from a “terrorist” group.
Romania votes in
controversial
marriage referendum
AFP, Bucarest
Romania goes to the polls this weekend in a referendum on a narrow definition of marriage that the ruling Social Democrats hope will re-energise flagging grassroots support among the country’s overwhelmingly Orthodox population.
Nearly 19 million Romanians are entitled to vote in the plebiscite which aims to alter the wording of the constitution to define marriage explicitly as between a man and woman, rather than simply “spouses” as it has stated since 1991.
13 militants killed in eastern Afghan provinces
Xinhua, Kabul
Thirteen militants have been killed in separate incidents in two eastern Afghan provinces, the country’s Defense Ministry said Saturday.
In one incident, nine Taliban militants were killed and three others wounded after Afghan army troops launched a cleanup operation in Andar district of Ghazni province on Friday, the ministry said in a statement.
