Xi -- who leads the planet's largest emitter of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change -- has not travelled outside of China since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and has not joined world leaders for COP26.

President Joko Widodo and United States counterpart Joe Biden finally met for in-person talks on the sidelines of the COP26 climate summit in Scotland, in efforts to normalize bilateral relations that have remained stagnant over the past few years.

"It's one minute to midnight and we need to act now," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was due to tell them, according to extracts from his speech. 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the host of the COP26 summit that opened on Sunday, said the pledge from world leaders after two days of talks in Rome was "not enough", and warned of the dire consequences for the planet.

Three sources told AFP that diplomats had approved language for a final summit communique going beyond what was agreed six years ago, when the landmark climate deal called for capping global warming at well below 2 degrees, and ideally closer to 1.5 degrees.

The summit of the world's major economies will be held away from Rome city centre, home to the Colosseum and the Pantheon, where the tourists, historic buildings and tiny streets pose a nightmare for security and access.

Johnson will host more than 120 leaders in Glasgow early next week, before the UN meeting spends a fortnight tackling the grinding work of deciding how to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

It is possible that the AY.4.2 variant will spread widely, RIA quoted the state consumer watchdog's senior researcher Kamil Khafizov as saying.

Poland has expressed enthusiasm for Indonesia's upcoming G20 presidency and participating as a dialogue partner by sharing Warsaw's experiences in renewables and digital governance.

On Oct. 17, 1961, under the orders of then Paris police chief Maurice Papon, police attacked a demonstration by 25,000 pro-National Liberation Front (FLN) Algerians protesting against a curfew imposed on Algerians.

"There were fears linked to radicalisation previously," Norwegian police official Ole Bredrup Saeverud told reporters, adding that police had followed up on him in 2020.

Two people, including an off-duty police officer, were wounded in the Wednesday evening attacks, which took place in different locations in the town, 68 km (42 miles) southwest of the capital, Oslo.

As the countdown begins to the first round on April 10 next year the centrist Macron can no longer be sure that the run-off two weeks later will be a repeat of the 2017 duel with far-right leader Marine Le Pen, which he won easily.

The move by Kurz, who denies wrongdoing, satisfied the demand by his junior coalition partner, the Greens, that he go even though he plans to stay on as his party's leader and become its top lawmaker in parliament, positions from which he can continue to influence government policy.

The two were awarded "for their courageous fight for freedom of expression" in their countries

The World Health Organization said every country that had fully immunised more than 40 percent of its population was doing too little to stop the Covid-19 crisis, as they should be ensuring doses go to nations left wide open to the virus.

So an official study by the Dutch national statistics office finding that they appear to be shrinking might be construed as good news -- even if it could threaten the Netherlands' number one spot.

The highlight of the Nobel season, the prestigious peace prize always elicits a flurry of speculation.

* The European Union's drugs regulator said people with weakened immune systems should get a third dose of a vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna, but left it to member states to decide if the wider population should get a booster.

The 75-year-old and two police officers were killed in a collision with an oncoming truck, Swedish police confirmed to AFP.

The dump of more than 11.9 million records, amounting to about 2.94 terabytes of data, came five years after the leak known as the "Panama Papers" exposed how money was hidden by the wealthy in ways that law enforcement agencies could not detect.

The man, nicknamed "Le Grele" ("pockmarked"), had been wanted by police since the 1980s for the murder and rape of young girls, but was never caught.

Grand Duke George Mikhailovich Romanov, 40, and his Italian fiance Rebecca Virginia Bettarini, 39, were preparing to say their vows at Saint Isaac's cathedral in the former imperial capital Saint Petersburg in the presence of dozens of European royals.

On the return flight to Turkey from the talks, Erdogan told reporters he also proposed working with Russia on construction of two more nuclear power plants, and Putin suggested developing platforms for space rocket launches, broadcaster NTV reported.

In a dozen countries with high vaccination rates in Asia, Europe and the United States, case rates that surged in August have mostly fallen back, according to local data and officials.

The threat against Rutte, who is known for riding his bike around town with little security, comes after the Dutch government pledged a crackdown on organised crime groups following the murder of a prominent investigative reporter in August.

The Petrol Retailers Association claimed that almost half of the UK's 8,000 fuel pumps had run out of petrol on Sunday, as desperate drivers formed long queues to fill up tanks.

The preliminary results are based on ballots counted in all constituencies. The result is the worst yet for Merkel's CDU-CSU bloc. 

The epochal election ushers in the end of 16 years in power for Merkel and places Germany, a byword for stability, in a new period of uncertainty.

In a joint statement issued after US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by telephone for 30 minutes, the two leaders agreed to launch in-depth consultations to rebuild trust, and to meet in Europe at the end of October.