NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal brings you a round-up of today’s news.

IRELAND

Author Emer O’Neill (with her new book) and 11-year-old Jack Siron launch paper boats on the river Liffey for the Dublin Book Festival. Mark Stedman Mark Stedman

• CMO Dr Tony Holohan urged people to reduce their contacts over the coming weeks, as Covid-19 incidence has increased across all age groups and behaviours
• There are 33 towns and villages in Ireland where raw sewage is released every day because they are not connected to treatment plants, an EPA report found
• Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen suggested that the ESB may have “orchestrated” the current energy crisis for its own benefit 
• The average occupancy of a 756-room HSE-run isolation facility in Citywest was just 13.8% during the first six months of the pandemic
• One in five people are worried they could have missed out on a diagnosis and treatment due to the Covid-19 pandemic, new research from Pfizer shows.
• The Lotto jackpot has been capped at just over €19 million since 2 October – a statistician explains why no one has yet managed to win it.

WORLD

Little Amal, a 3.5 metre-tall artwork of a Syrian refugee child that has travelled across Europe, pictured in Rochdale in England. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#TIGRAY REGION: The UN rights chief slammed the extreme brutality characterising the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, following a joint UN-Ethiopian report warning of possible “crimes against humanity” by all sides.

#CLEO: Australian police released body camera footage of the rescue of four-year-old Cleo Smith who was missing for 18 days in a remote part of Western Australia.

#HOOKED: The British trawler that was impounded by France amid the post-Brexit fishing row was released by the French authorities and is setting sail from Le Havre.

#BELLWETHER: The Republican candidate pulled off a stunning upset to win the governor’s mansion in the US state of Virginia, US television networks projected.

PARTING SHOT

“This COP cannot save the world, and there will be a COP27.”

That’s what our reporter Orla Dwyer was told by a long-time COP attendee at the hotly-anticipated climate conference in Glasgow.

Now that world leaders have been and gone, the real work is just starting, she writes in The Journal‘s daily newsletter of the event (sign up here). 

Conor O’Neill, Christian Aid Ireland’s policy and advocacy advisor, told Orla this afternoon that the level of commitment to the $100 billion fund for developing countries will be an “acid test for the sincerity” of richer countries.

Many won’t hold their breath on that. You can follow Orla’s tweets here, or sign up for that newsletter we mentioned…

📢 Our daily newsletter from #COP26 in Glasgow, written by @orladwyer_ , will be sent out to subscribers in the next hour. Here's a sneak preview of what will be in it, featuring @shine_tara

You can sign up for it here: https://t.co/3Up68SRZjz pic.twitter.com/YnEr23TdnF

— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) November 3, 2021