COP27 entered its final week Monday with rich carbon polluters and developing nations at loggerheads over how to speed up and fund reductions in emissions to slow global warming.
The standoff comes with wealthy nations pressed into acknowledging the need to compensate emerging economies for accelerating climate change, and as total funding needs appear poised to run into trillions, rather than billions, of dollars.
Turkey on Monday accused a Syrian woman of planting a bomb that killed six people in Istanbul, blaming the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for carrying out the attack.
Two girls, aged nine and 15, were among those killed when the bomb exploded shortly after 4:00 pm (1300 GMT) on Sunday in Istiklal Avenue, home to smart boutiques and European consulates. More than 80 other people were wounded.
"The person who planted the bomb has been arrested," Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in a statement broadcast by the official Anadolu news agency early Monday.
French President Emmanuel Macron called for international sanctions on Iranian officials in response to the regime’s crackdown on the protest movement he again described as a "revolution", in an interview broadcast on Monday.
Macron angered Iranian officials on Friday by hosting four prominent women who have strongly supported the two months of protests, which have become the biggest challenge for the Islamic republic since the 1979 ousting of the shah.
Turkey vowed Sunday to complete construction of 100,000 houses in war-torn Syria, as Ankara pushes to settle Syrian refugees who fled more than a decade of fighting ahead of elections.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, speaking Sunday on a visit to open 600 basic homes in Syria's rebel-held Idlib region, said 75,000 houses had been constructed in the past two years.
Iran launched new cross-border missile and drone strikes Monday against Iraq-based Kurdish opposition groups it accuses of stoking unrest at home, killing at least one person according to local authorities.
Iran has been rocked by almost two months of protests sparked by the death of Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, 22, after her arrest by the notorious morality police for allegedly breaching the strict dress code for women.
Britain agreed to pay France another 72.2 million euros ($74.5 million) to prevent migrant boat crossings under a new deal signed on Monday that underlines improving ties between the neighbours.
Around 40,000 people -- most of them Albanians, Iranians and Afghans -- have crossed the Channel to England from France this year.
The figure is well over last year's 28,561, which was a thousand-fold increase from 2018 when migrants and asylum seekers first began sailing inflatables across one of the world's busiest shipping channels.
COP27 entered its final week Monday with countries that grew rich burning fossil fuels and developing nations reeling from climate impacts at loggerheads over how to speed and fund reductions in carbon pollution.
Somewhere in the middle, China -- accounting for 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, by far the largest share -- is feeling pressure from both sides, not only to enhance its carbon cutting goals but to step up as a donor nation, negotiators and analysts say.
The lawyer for Egypt's jailed hunger-striker Alaa Abdel Fattah said Sunday he had been denied access to his client for a second time in days, as fears for the activist's health mount.
Seven months into a hunger strike, Abdel Fattah began refusing water on November 6 as world leaders arrived in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for the COP27 climate summit.
A key figure in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak, he is serving a five-year prison sentence for "spreading false news" by sharing a Facebook post about police brutality.
Six candidates including one woman won seats in a first phase of Bahrain's parliamentary election, while others will compete for the remaining 34 seats in the main event next week, authorities announced Sunday.
Bahraini voters cast their ballots in polling stations across the small Gulf kingdom on Saturday, but in the absence of two major opposition groups that were dissolved years ago.
Justice Minister Nawaf bin Mohammed Al-Maawda told reporters late Saturday that turnout was 73 percent in the poll, contested by a record number of candidates.
Qatar's World Cup will be the first on Arab soil but despite excitement in the Middle East, the fervour is not universal in a region usually united by its passion for football.
Although the November 20-December 18 tournament is geographically close for many Arab fans, high costs are a problem as a cocktail of crises and economic woes plague much of the Middle East and North Africa.
