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Washington, Nov 15 (IANS) Police have in custody a University of Virginia (UVA) student suspected to have fatally shot three people and injured two others at the schools main campus in Charlottesville.

"Police have the suspect in custody," the Charlottesville-based university tweeted on Monday.

The suspect has been identified as 22-year-old Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a UVA student and former football player, reports Xinhua news agency.

The shooting occurred late Sunday night and triggered a campus lockdown as well as a manhunt.

All three of the victims were football players, UVA President Jim Ryan told reporters on Monday.

Two students were wounded, with one in good condition and the other in critical condition, according to Ryan.

"I am devastated that this violence has visited the University of Virginia," he said in a message. "This is a traumatic incident for everyone in our community."

All classes were cancelled on Monday, with only designated UVA employees required to report to work.

It remains unclear what led to the shooting.

The suspect was listed on the UVA's athletic website as a running back for the football team in 2018.

In a statement on Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denounced the "senseless shooting".

She said that President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden were mourning with the UVA community.

"Our deepest condolences are with the countless families, friends, and neighbours grieving for those killed as well as those injured in this senseless shooting," the Press Secretary was quoted as saying in the statement.

"Too many families across America are bearing the awful burden of gun violence."

At least 68 shootings have occurred this year on US school grounds, including 15 on college campuses, with at least one person shot in each case, not including the shooter, according to CNN.

The deadliest school shooting in modern US history remains the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, where a 23-year-old student killed 32 people before dying by suicide.

The shooting at the Charlottesville campus is also one of nearly 600 mass shootings in the US this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.

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San Francisco, Nov 15 (IANS) Tens of thousands of workers at the University of California (UC) system went on a strike to demand for higher wages and better working conditions.

About 48,000 unionised academic workers across the University of California's 10 campuses walked off the job on Monday, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to a report in The Los Angeles Times, noting that those academic workers perform the majority of teaching and research at the premier higher education system in California.

The systemwide strike includes teaching assistants, postdoctoral scholars, graduate student researchers, tutors and fellows, as well as workers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and it is expected to cause major disruptions in classes and day-to-day campus life, said the repor.

The University of California, a leading public research university system in the country, has more than 280,000 students and 227,000 faculty and staff nowadays.

The university said on its official website that it is currently in contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers (UAW) which represents UC academic employee groups in four separate bargaining units: postdoctoral scholars, academic researchers, academic student employees (teaching assistants/readers/tutors), and graduate student researchers.

The UAW is demanding the University of California increase salaries so workers no longer have to live on what they described as "poverty wages", reported the Los Angeles-based KTLA TV station.

"Inflation has bitten into our earnings in a huge, huge way," the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Teaching Fellow/Union Representative Michael Dean was quoted as saying by KTLA.

He added that proposals made by the university so far don't even match the rate of inflation and "amounts to a real wage cut".

UAW Local 5810, the union of more than 11,000 postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers at all 10 campuses of the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, urged all 48,000 UC academic workers who are physically able, to walk out and strke.

"A huge turn-out at the picket line on day 1 is critical to demonstrating to UC that academic workers are united and determined to stop UC's obstruction," the statement added.

The University of California noted that it "strongly disagree with the UAW allegations that UC has engaged in unlawful behaviour" and "continues to negotiate in good faith" with the union and is committed to working collaboratively with the UAW to finding solutions to outstanding issues.

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New Delhi, Nov 15 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday underlined the need to ensure collective peace, harmony and security in the world.

Addressing the G20 summit in Bali, which got underway ealier in the day, Modi said, "The responsibility of creating a new world order for post-Covid lies on our shoulders. The need of the hour is to show concrete and collective resolve to ensure peace, harmony and security."

Referring to the next G20 meet which is scheduled to be held in India, the Prime Minister further said, "I am confident that when G20 meets in the holy land of Buddha and Gandhi, we'll agree to convey a strong message of peace to the world."

Referring to the Ukraine conflict, Modi emphasised that the world has to find a way to ensure ceasefire and return to diplomacy.

Citing the example of the second World War and the havoc created by it, the Prime Minister said that world leaders then had made serious efforts to ensure peace "and now it is our turn".

Global supply chains are in ruins, the Prime Minister noted due to the prevailing geopolitical situation, which has led to a crisis of essential goods globally.

"Today's fertilizer shortage is tomorrow's food crisis, for which the world will not have a solution. We should build a mutual agreement to maintain the supply chain of both manure and food grains," Modi said in his address in Bali.

"By 2030, half of our electricity will be generated from renewable sources. Therefore time-bound and affordable finance and sustainable supply of technology to developing countries is essential for inclusive energy transition," he noted further.

Highlighting the significance of India's energy-security, Modi said that it is important for global growth, since it's among the world's fastest growing economies.

"We must not allow any restrictions on supply of energy and therefore stability in the energy market should be ensured," he said, adding that India is committed to clean energy and environment.

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Bali, Nov 15 (IANS) The 17th G20 Summit kicked off on Tuesday in the Indonesian resort island of Bali, with issues pertaining to world economic recovery, world health systems and climate change taking the centre stage.

During the two-day summit under the theme "Recover Together, Recover Stronger", other issues including digital transformation and food and energy security will also be discussed, reports Xinhua news agency.

Addressing the opening ceremony of the summit, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said he hopes that the summit can be a catalyst for inclusive global economic recovery.

Being responsible means respecting international law and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter consistently, and creating win-win not zero-sum situation, the President stressed.

"We should not divide the world into parts," Widodo said, calling on the world to act wisely, shoulder the responsibility and show their leadership.

The summit comes as the world is facing multiple challenges such as the fragile economic recovery, the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic, an inflation higher than seen in several decades, tightening financial conditions in most regions, among others.

The International Monetary Fund in October projected the global economy to grow by 3.2 per cent this year and 2.7 per cent in 2023, with a downward 0.2-percentage-point revision for 2023 from the July forecast.

The international community pins its hope on major economies to strengthen coordination on macroeconomic policies and promote multilateralism, openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation at the summit.

Established in 1999, the G20 is a central forum for international cooperation on financial and economic issues.

It comprises 19 countries plus the European Union.

The countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, Britain and the US.

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Beijing, Nov 13 (IANS) A 5.0-magnitude quake jolted waters off the Taitung County, Taiwan, on Sunday, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).

The quake struck at a depth of 10 km at 9:47 a.m., Xinhua News Agency reported.

The epicentre was monitored at 22.44 degrees north latitude and 121.10 degrees east longitude.

--IANS
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By Arul Louis
New York, Nov 13 (IANS) With the defeat of a candidate backed by former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party has lost a shot at the control of the Senate which will remain in the hands of the Democrats.



With the victory of sitting Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto over Republican Adam Laxalt declared Saturday night, the Democratic Party will have at least 50 senators in the 100-member chamber and with Vice President Kamala Harris' tie-breaking vote a command a majority.

The one pending result is from Georgia where a runoff will be held next month, and even if the Republicans win it, the chamber will be split 50-50 with Harris tilting the balance.

A Christian Pastor, Raphael Warnock who is the Democratic Party candidate, polled more votes than the Trump candidate, former football star Herschel Walker, but narrowly fell short of the 50 per cent mark required to win in Georgia necessitating the repoll.

Trump appears in public undeterred by the series of setbacks to his loyalists that dashed Republican hopes of capturing the Senate and raised questions over his influence over voters at large.

He is going to announce on Tuesday that his plan to run for president in the 2024 election, his former campaign communications chief and member of his inner circle, Jason Miller, told a podcast on Friday night.

Politico reported that some members of Trump's inner circle had "begged him to wait till after the Georgia runoff because of his "toxic effect" on swing voters.

Now it may not matter as the outcome in that state will not change the Senate equation.

The Republicans, whose expectations of a "red wave" turned into a ripple, still have a chance at getting control of the House of Representatives, but they suffered a setback on Saturday when their candidate lost a House seat that they had held for over a decade in Washington State.

With 21 results pending, they lead Democrats, 211 to 203 in the 435-member House where 218 seats are needed for a majority.

In the Senate, the Democrats will continue to face the same problems they had because for many important matters they will not have the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles to legislate.

For Trump, at least, a Republican majority in the House, however slim, will matter more.

They could stop inquiries into Trump's affairs and delve into President Joe Biden's and his administration's.

The Republicans lacked a clear plan of action for the country's problems like inflation and immigration going into the midterm elections, and if they were to get control of the House, their leadership's capacity to act would be limited by the slender majority which could turn factions into spoilers.

Already, the dissensions within the Republican party have come to the fore over the election of its Congressional leaders.

Trump opposes Mitch McConnell, the party's leader in the Senate, and some senators have called for delaying the election so they can work out their strategy.

Kevin McCarthy, who is the leader of the Republican Party in the House, is seeking re-election to the post, which would make him the speaker if the party gets the majority.

Several media reports said that he is opposed by the Freedom Caucus, a right-wing faction of the Republican Party in Congress, and even if he wins the party's leadership in his bid for speaker he would still need almost every vote of party members in the house for the 218 votes needed in the House.

In Nevada, Laxalt lost by under 5,000 votes or a half per cent and he was one of the stronger candidates Trump had backed.

He was the state's attorney general and came from an influential political lineage - his father Pete Domenici had been a senator and his grandfather Paul Laxalt was a former Nevada governor and senator.

Some of Trump's proteges had hardly any political credentials.

Mehmet Oz, who lost in Pennsylvania was a TV personality, who was defeated by Democrat John Fetterman, a man recovering from a stroke and had communication problems.

Blake Masters who lost in Arizona was a venture capitalist without a political base.

In New Hampshire, retired US Army Brigadier General Don Bolduc was another Trump protege to lose the Senate battle.

Walker, the former football star, was burdened by allegations that he had made two women get abortions even though he made banning the procedure a key element of his campaign.

The negative Trump effect was evident in Georgia where the Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who had defied Trump and had drawn his wrath, won reelection against the popular Democrat Stacy Abrams by nearly 300,000 votes, while Walker polled about 200,000 fewer votes than Kemp.

If the Republicans have a shot at House majority, it because of its strong performance in New York state where the candidates kept him away.

Before his election in 2016, Trump had boasted that if he were to shoot someone in the middle of New York, he still wouldn't lose any voters.

And he got away with several scandals and snafus before and after his election.

But that changed after his 2020 defeat and even more now with voters.

His loyalists - and the Republican Party that was cringing under his shadow - couldn't outdo a president with a disapproval rating of 54.6 per cent according to an aggregation by RealClear Politics, and eight in ten voters saying in a VoteCast poll the economy was in a bad shape.

The January 6 riots last year by Trump supporters who broke into the Capitol in a failed attempt to force Congress to declare him the winner appeared to have weighed more with independent voters, an issue repeatedly spotlit by Biden.

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)

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Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt), Nov 11 (IANS) As part of global efforts to slow climate change by tackling methane, the UN on Friday announced a new satellite-based system to detect emissions of the climate warming gas and allow governments and businesses to respond.

The Methane Alert and Response System (MARS), launched at the 27th UN Climate Change Conference, is a data-to-action platform set up as part of the UNEP International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) strategy to get policy-relevant data into the right hands for emissions mitigation.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, contributing at least a quarter of today's climate warming.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we must cut methane emissions at least 30 per cent by 2030 -- the goal of the Global Methane Pledge -- to keep the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature limit within reach.

Developed in the framework of the Global Methane Pledge Energy Pathway -- with initial funding from the European Commission, the US government, Global Methane Hub, and the Bezos Earth Fund -- MARS will allow UNEP to corroborate emissions reported by companies and characterize changes over time.

MARS will be implemented with partners, including the International Energy Agency, and the UNEP-hosted Climate and Clean Air Coalition.

"As UNEP's Emissions Gap Report showed before this climate summit, the world is far off track on efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius," said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.

"Reducing methane emissions can make a big and rapid difference, as this gas leaves the atmosphere far quicker than carbon dioxide. The Methane Alert and Response System is a big step in helping governments and companies deliver on this important short-term climate goal."

In addition to supporting MARS, the Global Methane Hub and the Bezos Earth Fund are providing funding for other UNEP IMEO activities. These include baseline studies and initial work on agricultural methane emissions, where integrating multi-scale ground measurements with emerging satellite capacity is expected to provide improved quantification.

MARS will be the first publicly available global system capable of transparently connecting methane detection to notification processes.

It will use state-of-the-art satellite data to identify major emission events, notify relevant stakeholders, and support and track mitigation progress.

Beginning with very large point sources from the energy sector, MARS will integrate data from the rapidly expanding system of methane-detecting satellites to include lower-emitting area sources and more frequent detection.

Data on coal, waste, livestock and rice will be added gradually to MARS to support Global Methane Pledge implementation.

"Cutting methane is the fastest opportunity to reduce warming and keep 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach, and this new alert and response system is going to be a critical tool for helping all of us deliver on the Global Methane Pledge," said John Kerry, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.

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New Delhi, Nov 11 (IANS) Visiting US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday said her country is using a tactic called "friendshoring" to minimise supply chain vulnerabilities, in an era where certain countries are using trade as a geopolitical weapon.

Yellen explained this approach in her address at the Microsoft's office in Noida, where she met several tech leaders.

"Let me explain an approach that the United States is taking to minimise supply chainvulnerabilities. It's called friendshoring," she said.

"We must vigorously promote our global economic integration and continue to reap its benefits. As we do so, I believe that we must also account for the probability of disruptions to trade. Recent disruptions have contributed to higher prices in both of our countries and sapped economic output," the Treasury Secretary explained.

Giving the example of disruptions caused due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Yellen said: "For too long, countries around the world have been overly dependent on risky countries or a single source for critical inputs. Take Russian energy exports. Russia has long presented itself as a reliable energy partner.

"But for the better part of this year, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin has weaponised Russia's natural gas supply against the people of Europe. It's an example of how malicious actors can use their market positions to try to gain geopolitical leverage or disrupt trade for their own gain."

In this context, she said that the US is pursuing an approach called "friendshoring" to diversify away from countries that present geopolitical and security risks to its supply chain.

"To do so, we are proactively deepening economic integration with trusted trading partners like India. Our strategy will also create redundancies in our supply chain to mitigate over-concentration risks. And we are also addressing our reliance on manufacturers whose approaches clash with our human rights," she explained.

To be very clear, friendshoring is not limited to an exclusive club of countries, Yellen stressed.

"We seek integration with the large group of countries that we can count on developing countries and advanced economies alike. In fact, part of our 'friendshoring' approach involves partnering with developing countries to grow local industries and connect them to the global supply chain.

"For example, our development finance institution is providing America's largest solar manufacturer with up to $500 million in debt financing to build a facility in Tamil Nadu in India. This facility will boost India's solar manufacturing capacity. At the same time, it will help diversify supply chains away from China, which currently dominates over 80 per cent of global solar panel production.

"Our investments are also consistent with our values like certain solar panel materials produced in China, like those from the Xinjiang region, are known to be produced with forced labour," she informed.

The Treasury Secretary further said that new supply chains are developing across regions from Asia to the European Union.

"We are also seeing signs that Western firms are diversifying their supply chains beyond China. Technology companies like Amazon and Google are investing in India and Vietnam. Apple recently announced that it was shifting some iPhone manufacturing from China to India. The US will continue to deepen our business and commercial ties with India as we pursue our friendshoring agenda," she added.

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Wellington, Nov 11 (IANS) Food prices in New Zealand were 10.1 per cent higher in October year on year, marking a 14-year high, the country's statistics department Stats NZ said on Friday.

"This was the highest annual increase since November 2008," said consumer prices senior manager Nicola Growden.

In October 2022, the annual increase was due to rises across all the broad food categories measured, Xinhua news agency reported citing Stats NZ as saying.

Compared with October 2021, grocery food prices increased by 9.7 per cent, fruit and vegetable prices increased by 17 per cent, and meat, poultry, and fish prices increased by 10 per cent, Growden said.

Monthly food prices were 0.8 per cent higher in October compared with September, he said.

"Previous patterns of seasonal price movement for fruit and vegetables suggest it's more typical to see a larger fall in fruit and vegetables for the October month," Growden noted.

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Miami, Nov 11 (IANS) More than 272,000 customers were without power across the US state of Florida, due to the impact of tropical storm Nicole, according to utility tracker Poweroutage.us.

Nicole made landfall along the east coast of Florida just south of Vero Beach as a Category 1 hurricane on Thursday morning and later weakened to a tropical storm, reports Xinhua news agency.

Florida's emergency management tweeted later in the day that tropical storm conditions are still being experienced across much of the state due to Nicole.

"Please don't go out & visit impacted areas," the management warned.

"Not only is it unsafe, but it also inhibits first responders."

Additional weakening is forecast while Nicole moves over land during the next day or two, and the storm is likely to become a tropical depression over Georgia Thursday night or early Friday.

Nicole is an unusual development for Florida for November as state has been hit by hurricanes in the month only twice before in 1935 and 1985.

Nicole's late arrival follows a relatively quiet storm season -- for the first time since 1997 not a single hurricane or tropical storm formed in the Atlantic basin this August.

--IANS
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