US, China ratify Paris pact on cutting greenhouse emissions

Here is a round-up of global news developments:

• The US and China have ratified the Paris agreement on climate change, bringing the deal a major step closer to going into effect. China is the top producer of global carbon emissions, followed by the US. The two countries together produce around 40 percent of the world's man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
   
• Uzbekistan holds a funeral ceremony for late President Islam Karimov in his hometown of Samarkand. Senior officials from several regional countries including Iran and Russia attended the ceremony. The Uzbek government has announced three days of mourning over Karimov's death. The Uzbek president died on Friday after 27 years in power.
   
• Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for the start of a new era in relations with Russia. Abe called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the 70-year dispute over the Kuril Islands in the Pacific. Putin has also said Moscow is ready to take decisive steps to resolve the row.
   
• The Philippine President has declared a state of lawlessness in Davao after a blast killed 14 people at a market on Friday. Rodrigo Duterte called on police to beef up security and set up checkpoints to arrest suspected criminals. He also slammed the blast as an act of terror.
   
• Turkey says ten government troops have been killed and many others wounded in clashes with militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ party, PKK. The clashes between the Turkish troops and the PKK took place in the eastern province of Van. Eleven militants were also killed in the fighting.
   
• Media reports say two Saudi soldiers have been shot and a vehicle destroyed in retaliatory attacks by Yemeni forces. The attacks in Saudi Arabia’s Asir region were staged hours after Yemeni troops fired a domestically-built ballistic missile at a military position in the southeastern Saudi city of Ta'if.
   
• More than one million workers from different trade unions in India have gone on a strike to demand higher wages. Major trade unions across India accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of failing to address their grievances. They say the government’s economic reforms will weaken state-run firms.
   
• The Malaysian health ministry has announced it has detected the first case of a locally transmitted Zika infection in the state of Sabah. The infected person is a man who has not travelled abroad recently and has been bitten by a mosquito carrying the Zika virus.

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