WORLD

Katowice, Poland | UN | After two weeks of crunch negotiations – with overtime – the almost 200 parties gathered in Katowice, Poland, for the United Nations COP24 two-week climate change conference, adopted on Saturday a “robust” set of implementing guidelines for the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, aimed at keeping …

Lusail, Qatar | AFP | Qatar on Saturday revealed the design for the stadium that will in four years’ time host the first ever World Cup finals game to be played in the Middle East. The 80,000-seat Lusail Stadium — also the venue for the 2022 World Cup final — …

Moscow, Russia | AFP | Six children and four adults died in house fires in several Russian cities on Sunday, Russian media reported. Three toddlers died in a house fire in a village in Bashkortostan, a region south of the Ural mountains, news agency RIA Novosti reported. The children, a …

Havana, Cuba | AFP | The Colombian crime film “Pajaros de Verano” has won the prized Coral Award at the 40th edition of the popular Havana Film Festival. The festival, which in its heyday in the 1980s drew a half-million moviegoers but of late has struggled with reduced budgets, continues …

New Delhi, India | AFP | Eleven people have died after eating rice that had likely been contaminated with a toxic substance at a Hindu temple ceremony, a health official said Saturday. Another 29 people were critically ill and undergoing emergency treatment across various hospitals in Mysore, a city in …

Shakopee, United States | AFP | A group of Amazon workers in Minnesota who are Somali refugees resettled in the Midwestern US state demanded better working conditions Friday during a protest outside one of the retailer’s warehouses. Hundreds braved frigid temperatures to demonstrate outside of the Amazon warehouse in the …

Washington, United States | AFP | A federal judge in Texas ruled Friday that the US health care law known as Obamacare is unconstitutional — a ruling that opposition Democrats vowed to appeal. US District Judge Reed O’Connor’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by several Republican state attorneys general and …

Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | The United Nations on Friday forecast that 5.3 million Venezuelans will have fled the country by the end of next year, an exodus that amounts to “a humanitarian earthquake”. The UN agencies for refugees (UNHCR) and migration (IOM) announced the estimates as they unveiled their …

Damascus, Syria | UN | More than 900 children in Syria were killed last year, making 2017 the deadliest year for children in the country’s ongoing conflict, a senior United Nations official told the Geneva-based Human Rights Council on Tuesday, warning that the grim statistics may only be the tip …

Damascus, Syria | UNICEF | Half of Syria’s children, that’s four million, have grown up only knowing a life of violence, as the war-battered country enters its eighth year of conflict, the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday. “Every eight-year-old in Syria has been growing up amidst danger, …