Europe

PARIS, Sept 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France’s Naval Group said it will send a “detailed and calculated proposal” to Australia in the coming weeks of the costs it expects Canberra to pay for scrapping a massive contract to purchase French submarines.

Australia in 2016 agreed to buy 12 diesel-powered submarines built by Naval Group in a deal dubbed the “contract of the century” worth A$50 billion (US$36.5 billion), later revalued to €56 billion (US$65 billion).

GENEVA, Sept 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Myanmar is facing the alarming prospect of an escalating civil war as an uprising against the military junta widens, the UN’s human rights chief warned on Thursday.

Michelle Bachelet told the United Nations Human Rights Council that time was running out for other countries to step up efforts to restore democracy and prevent a broader conflict.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since Aung San Suu Kyi’s government was ousted by the military in February, sparking a nationwide uprising that the junta has tried to crush.

KYIV, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Ukraine's parliament passed a law on Thursday to order "oligarchs" to register and stay out of politics, a day after an attempt to kill a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, which officials said could have been a response to the reform.

The law provides a definition for an oligarch and gives a body headed by the president, the National Security and Defence Council, the power to determine who meets the criteria.

GENEVA, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is poised to command wide support for a second term as head of the World Health Organisation, formally nominated by more than 12 European Union members and also backed by countries in other regions, diplomats said on Thursday.

Tedros, a former health and foreign minister of Ethiopia, elected as WHO's first African director-general in May 2017, has led the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

MOSCOW, Sept 23 (Reuters) - A coalition of defeated parliamentary candidates in Moscow who allege they were cheated of victory in a parliamentary election by a crooked online voting system said on Thursday they would try to overturn the results via lawsuits and public pressure.

Some of the defeated candidates, most of whom are Communists, have called on voters to gather in Moscow on Saturday after eight parliamentary seats where the Communists had been ahead suddenly flipped to the ruling United Russia party once online voting results were added in.

DUISBURG, Germany, Sept 23 (Reuters) - German Social Democrat (SPD) candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz promised on Thursday to help the steel industry convert to climate-friendly production if his party, clinging to a narrow lead in polls, wins Sunday's federal election.

Trying to shore up support in the industrial heartland of the Ruhr, Scholz campaigned at a steel plant as a poll showed support for the SPD down one point at 25%, its lead over Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives now just four points.

BRUSSELS, Sept 23 (Reuters) - European Union countries are struggling to agree their negotiating position for the COP26 climate change conference, with rifts emerging over timeframes for emissions-cutting pledges, according to officials and documents seen by Reuters.

The EU is drafting its position ahead of the November COP26 talks, where countries will attempt to finish the technical rules to put the Paris Agreement into effect.

One issue they will try to settle is whether countries' climate targets under the 2015 accord should follow a "common timeframe".

STOCKHOLM, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) - Due to the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's Nobel Prize laureates will receive their awards in their home countries for the second year running, the Nobel Foundation said here on Thursday.

The traditional banquet will be canceled, but the award ceremony will be held at Stockholm's City Hall on Dec. 10 in the presence of a local audience. The event will be broadcast on TV and on the Nobel Foundation's social media channels.

GENEVA, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- A senior official from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Thursday told a webinar that things have continued to develop on a positive trend there, thanks to the Hong Kong National Security Law and the improvement to its electoral system.

Chris Tang Ping-keung, secretary for security of the HKSAR, said at the webinar organised by the Chinese Mission to UN at Geneva as a side-event of the on-going 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council that Hong Kong is now being back on the path of growth and prosperity.

REYKJAVIK , Iceland (AP) — Climate change is top of the agenda when voters in Iceland head to the polls for general elections on Saturday, following an exceptionally warm summer and an election campaign defined by a wide-reaching debate on global warming.

All nine parties running for seats at the North Atlantic island nation’s Parliament, or Althing, acknowledge global warming as a force of change in a sub-Arctic landscape.