The European Union on Friday said it is looking forward to welcome the African Union as a permanent member of the G20 at its New Delhi summit
Published Date – 12:20 PM, Fri – 8 September 23
New Delhi: The European Union on Friday said it is looking forward to welcome the African Union as a permanent member of the G20 at its New Delhi summit.
President of European Council Charles Michel said this a day ahead of the G20 summit being hosted by India. “The European Union is looking forward to welcome African Union as a permanent member of the G20,” Michel said at a media briefing.
“The European Union supports African Union’s entry into G20,” he said.
In June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote to the G-20 leaders pitching for according the African Union the full membership of the grouping at its New Delhi summit.
Weeks later, the proposal was formally included in the draft communique for the summit during the third G-20 Sherpas meeting that took place in Karnataka’s Hampi in July.
A final decision on the proposal would be taken at the G-20 summit.
The African Union (AU) is an influential organisation comprising 55 member states that make up the countries of the African continent. On the Ukraine crisis, Michel said Russia continues to attack innocent civilians in Ukraine and that EU will continue to back Ukraine.
“The EU’s position on Ukraine crisis is crystal clear. We condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine,” he said and added that, “We support Ukrainian President’s peace formula to resolve Ukraine crisis”. Asked whether the G20 will be able to come out with the leaders’ declaration at the summit in view of differences over the Ukraine conflict, he said it is still being negotiated.
On Thursday, vandals spray-painted the outer walls of Shree Mata Bhameshwari Durga Society Mandir in Surrey, bearing slogans that read, “Punjab is not India” and “Modi is a terrorist”.
Updated On – 12:53 PM, Fri – 8 September 23
Toronto: In a latest attack on Hindu places of worship in Canada, a prominent temple in the British Columbia province has been vandalised with anti-India and pro-Khalistan graffiti.
The outer walls of Shree Mata Bhameshwari Durga Society Mandir in Surrey were spray painted on Thursday with slogans reading, “Punjab is not India” and “Modi is a terrorist”.
“A Hindu temple Shree Mata Bhameshwari Durga Devi Society has been vandalised with black spray paint. These kinds of cowardly attacks are on rise to create terror amongst the community,” Sameer Kaushal, News Director at Radio AM600 in Richmond, wrote on X.
Kaushal said that the Surrey detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have been notified about the incident.
The development comes just ahead of a Khalistan Referendum event, scheduled for September 10, and threats from banned group Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) to “lock down” India’s Consulate in Vancouver.
The referendum event, scheduled to take place at a school in Surrey, was cancelled after images of weapons on the poster were brought to the school authorities’ notice by concerned residents.
The poster featured a kirpan (dagger) as well as an AK-47 machine gun, along with the name of SFJ.
It also had pictures of Khalistani leaders Hardip Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead in June at a parking lot in Surrey and Talwinder Singh Parmar, the mastermind of the 1985 Air India Flight bombing.
Despite New Delhi registering strong protests, an anti-India campaign continues in Canada with pro-Khalistani graffiti and posters targeting Indian diplomats and temples across the country.
Last month, anti-India and pro-Khalistan posters were found pasted on the front and rear walls of the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir in Surrey.
Beginning this year, the BAPS Swaminarayan temple in Ontario and the Gauri Shankar temple in Brampton were targeted in April and January with anti-India graffiti.
Canadian authorities are investigating them as “hate-motivated incidents”.
This marks President Biden’s inaugural visit to India since assuming office in January 2021.
Updated On – 12:53 PM, Fri – 8 September 23
New Delhi:US President Joe Biden will arrive in New Delhi at around 7 p.m. on Friday evening to attend the two-day G20 Leaders’ Summit scheduled to begin on Saturday, officials sources said.
This is Biden’s first trip to India after taking office as President in January 2021.
The President left the US for Delhi on Thursday night (US time).
He will follow Covid-19 guidelines set by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during his visit to India, the White House has said.
On Monday, First Lady Jill Biden had tested positive for Covid, following which the President was also tested for the virus for two days.
Besides Biden, China’s Premier Li Qiang, UAE president Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will also arrive in the national capital on Friday.
The Chinese Premier is expected to land by 7.45 p.m.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Bangaladesh Prime Pinister Sheikh Hasina will also be arriving for the Summit.
Moreover, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has also confirmed his visit to India for the G20 summit, sources informed.
Ahead of the G20 summit, the member nations of the grouping had agreed to grant permanent membership to the African Union, a continental body of 55 member states.
With this, the African Union has earned the same status as the European Union.
The G20 grouping comprises of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, the US and the European Union.
Iran’s security forces have arrested a team linked to terrorist groups that had plotted to shoot at people in an illegal gathering in the western province of Kurdestan on the first anniversary of last year’s foreign-back unrest.
The terrorists had entered Iran from Iraq’s Kurdistan region and sought to carry out the shooting attack in the city of Saqqez on Saturday, Tasnim news agency reported.
The Iranian security forces thwarted the plot and arrested four members of the terrorist teams.
A series of weapons and equipment including Kalashnikov rifles, handguns, hunting shotguns, two sets of Iranian military force uniforms and a number of cold weapons were also confiscated from the terrorists.
The discovery of Iranian military forces’ uniforms shows that the terrorists had hatched a plot to shoot at the people and accuse the Iranian law enforcement forces of the criminal act.
Inquiries are underway from the terrorist arrestees.
Terrorist groups based in Iraq’s Kurdistan region have staged several attacks inside Iran concurrent with the 2022 riots in the country.
Last month, Chief Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hossein Salami warned of a new plot by enemies to stir unrest in the country on the anniversary of the riots that broke out following the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman of Kurdish descent.
“The enemy intends to sow sedition once again on the anniversary” of the riots that broke out in September 2022, Salami said.
However, he emphasized that the Iranian nation’s preparedness and vigilance would thwart any such attempts, saying preventive measures are the best strategy to foil the enemy’s scheme.
The 22-year-old Amini died in a hospital in Tehran, days after she was detained by police on September 15.
Despite clarification on the circumstances surrounding her death, protests erupted in the country, which later turned violent and led to attacks on security officers and acts of vandalism against public property as well as police vehicles and ambulances.
The foreign-backed violent riots claimed dozens of lives from both security forces and innocent people as the Western media and Persian-language news networks continued to instigate unrest in Iran.
Turkiye may part ways with the European Union, implying that the country is thinking about ending its bid to join the 27-nation bloc, said Erdogan
Published Date – 08:14 PM, Sat – 16 September 23
Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gestures as he speaks during a press conference at the end of the G20 Summit, in New Delhi, India, Sunday, Sept.10, 2023. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
Istanbul: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that Turkiye may part ways with the European Union, implying that the country is thinking about ending its bid to join the 27-nation bloc.
“The EU is making efforts to sever ties with Turkiye,” he told reporters before departing for the 78th UN General Assembly in New York.
“We will evaluate the situation, and if needed we will part ways with the EU.” He was responding to a question about a recent report adopted by the European Parliament, which stated “the accession process cannot resume under the current circumstances, and calls on EU to explore a parallel and realistic framework’ for EU-Türkiye relations.”
Turkiye applied to join the European Union in 1999, and accession talks began in 2005. Accession negotiations were frozen in 2018 because of “democratic backsliding,” according to the European Parliament.
Erdogan’s statement on Saturday came more than a week after Turkiye’s foreign minister affirmed his country’s resolve to join the EU and urged the bloc to take courageous steps to advance its bid.
Heavy rains caused by Mediterranean storm Daniel caused deadly flooding across eastern Libya last weekend
Published Date – 05:12 PM, Sat – 16 September 23
A general view shows destruction left by floods after the Mediterranean storm “Daniel” hit Libyas eastern city of Derna, on September 14, 2023. Aid groups have warned of growing risk posed by the spread of disease that could compound the humanitarian crisis in Libya, as hopes of finding more survivors fade days after the deadly flooding. (Photo by Abdullah DOMA / AFP)
Derna: Libyan authorities have opened an investigation into the collapse of two dams that caused a devastating flood in a coastal city as rescue teams searched for bodies on Saturday, nearly a week after the deluge killed more than 11,000 people.
Heavy rains caused by Mediterranean storm Daniel caused deadly flooding across eastern Libya last weekend.
The floods overwhelmed two dams, sending a wall of water several metres (yards) high through the centre of Derna, destroying entire neighbourhoods and sweeping people out to sea.
More than 10,000 are missing, according to the Libyan Red Crescent. Six days on, searchers are still digging through mud and hollowed-out buildings, looking for bodies and possible survivors. The Red Crescent has confirmed 11,300 deaths so far.
Claire Nicolet, who heads the emergencies department of the Doctors Without Borders aid group, said rescuers found “a lot of bodies” on Friday and were still searching.
“It was a big number … the sea is still ejecting lots of dead bodies unfortunately,” she told The Associated Press.
She said massive aid efforts were still needed, including urgent psychological support for those who lost their families. She said the burial of bodies is still a significant challenge, despite some progress in coordinating search and rescue efforts and the distribution of aid.
Authorities and aid groups have voiced concern about the spread of waterborne diseases and shifting of explosive ordnance from Libya’s recent conflicts.
Haider al-Saeih, head of Libya’s centre for combating diseases, said in televised comments Saturday that at least 150 people had suffered from diarrhea after drinking contaminated water in Derna.
He urged residents to only drink bottled water, which is being shipped in as part of relief efforts.
Libya’s General Prosecutor, al-Sediq al-Sour, said prosecutors would investigate the collapse of the two dams, which were built in the 1970s, as well as the allocation of maintenance funds.
He said prosecutors would investigate local authorities in the city, as well as previous governments.
“I reassure citizens that whoever made mistakes or negligence, prosecutors will certainly take firm measures, file a criminal case against him and send him to trial,” he told a news conference in Derna late Friday.
It’s unclear how such an investigation can be carried out in the North African country, which plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
For most of the past decade, Libya has been split between rival administrations — one in the east, the other in the west — each backed by powerful militias and international patrons.
One result has been the neglect of crucial infrastructure, even as climate change makes extreme weather events more frequent and severe.
Local officials in the city had warned the public about the coming storm and last Saturday ordered residents to evacuate coastal areas in Derna, fearing a surge from the sea. But there was no warning about the dams, which collapsed early Monday as most residents were asleep in their homes.
A report by a state-run audit agency in 2021 said the two dams had not been maintained despite the allocation of more than USD 2 million for that purpose in 2012 and 2013.
A Turkish firm was contracted in 2007 to carry out maintenance on the two dams and build another dam in between.
The firm, Arsel Construction Company Limited, said on its website that it completed its work in November 2012. It did not respond to an email seeking further comment.
Local and international rescue teams were meanwhile working around the clock, searching for bodies and potential survivors in the city of 90,000 people.
Ayoub said his father and nephew died in Derna on Monday, a day after the family had fled flooding in the nearby town of Bayda.
He said his mother and sister raced upstairs to the roof but the others didn’t make it. “I found the kid in the water next to his grandfather,” said Ayoub, who only gave his first name. “I am wandering around and I still don’t believe what happened.” Al-Sour, the top prosecutor, called on residents who have missing relatives to report to a forensic committee that works on documenting and identifying retrieved bodies.
“We ask citizens to cooperate and quickly proceed to the committee’s headquarters so that we can finish the work as quickly as possible,” he said.
Libyan authorities have restricted access to the flooded city to make it easier for searchers to dig through the mud and hollowed-out buildings for the more than 10,000 people still missing.
Many bodies were believed to have been buried under rubble or swept out into the Mediterranean Sea, they said.
The storm hit other areas in eastern Libya, including the towns of Bayda, Susa, Marj and Shahatt. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in the region and took shelter in schools and other government buildings.
Dozens of foreigners were among those killed, including people who had fled war and unrest elsewhere in the region.
Others had come to Libya to work or were travelling through in hopes of migrating to Europe. At least 74 men from one village in Egypt perished in the flood, as well as dozens of people who had travelled to Libya from war-torn Syria.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) says it has dispatched a consignment of 40 tonnes of humanitarian assistance to those affected by flash flooding in eastern Libya.
The IRCS President Pirhossein Kolivand said on Saturday that the humanitarian cargo contained relief tents, blankets, moquette, sanitary items and food packages which was sent to help the flood-hit victims in Libya.
He added that three IRCS rescue and relief teams were also dispatched to Libya to help and distribute the items.
Kolivand noted that the IRCS shoulders a “humanitarian and religious” duty to help the victims of incidents and the needy.
The IRCS, as a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, carries out all it can to help the victims of accidents around the world, he said.
According to Libyan Red Crescent, at least 11,300 people have lost their lives and another 10,100 are missing, after Mediterranean Storm Daniel hit the North African country earlier in the week.
The northeastern city of Derna is the worst affected, where heavy rainfall led to the collapse of two dams, wiping out a quarter of the area and sweeping bodies out to sea.
According to local officials, the port city has been declared a disaster zone, with electricity and communication having been cut off.
In a letter to President of Libyan Red Crescent Society Omar Agouda on September 11, Kolivand said the IRCS is ready to “send humanitarian relief consignment, relief items as well as dispatch the medical and relief teams to assist the flood affected people and humanitarian operation in Libya.”
Meanwhile, in a message addressed to Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah on September 12, Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi also voiced Tehran’s readiness to send relief aid and provide medical assistance and supplies to flood-hit Libya.
“The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran expresses its readiness to send relief aid and dispatch medical assistance and supplies to [flood-] stricken areas,” Raeisi wrote, while offering condolences to the Libyan nation.
“Karachi division reported 1,834 malaria cases in last eight months with no deaths,” a health department report shared, as per ARY News.
Published Date – 07:19 PM, Sat – 16 September 23
Sindh: The death toll of children dying from malaria has risen to six in a week as the disease continues to wreak havoc across Sindh, ARY News reported on Saturday.
Malaria-infected 11-month-old child from Samandar Khoso village was brought to Jacobabad Hospital in critical condition.
Citing hospital sources, ARY News reported that the child’s death was caused by a delay in receiving medical care. 2,69,596 malaria cases have been documented in the province, according to recent data from the Sindh Health Department.
“From January to August 1,32,441 malaria cases reported in Hyderabad division,” sharing eight months figures of the disease, the health department said, ARY News reported.
According to the report, the Mirpur Khas division recorded 65,807 instances of the disease spread by mosquitoes, and the Larkana division reported 48,499 cases.
“The number of patients of the disease in Sukkur division were 11,591 and 4,924 patients reported in Shaheed Benazirabad division,” according to the health department report.
“Karachi division reported 1,834 malaria cases in last eight months with no deaths,” a health department report shared, as per ARY News.
The extraordinary rainfall and flooding in Sindh last year, which are still present in some parts, were cited by health experts as the primary reason for the province’s spike in malaria cases.
Hassan Yazdani, who reached the quarterfinals with 2 wins against opponents from Australia and Mongolia, faced his rival from San Marino on Friday.
He won easily with a score of 7-2 and reached the semi-finals.
Yazdani twice scored four points off a driving double-leg tackle before finishing off an 11-0 technical fall with a step out to advance to the 70kg semifinals.
The 2023 World Wrestling Championships are underway from September 16 through 24 in Belgrade, Serbia.
The petitioner pointed out how there was no mechanism to determine the prices of the products and that the increase in prices of petroleum products would lead to a new wave of inflation.
Published Date – 05:32 PM, Sat – 16 September 23
Representational Image
Islamabad: Amid double-digit inflation, Pakistan’s caretaker government has effected yet another hike in the prices of petrol and diesel taking them to a historic high – over Rs 330 per litre – prompting immediate protests and a legal challenge too.
As on Saturday, USD 1 was equivalent to 296.41 Pakistani Rupee.
The Ministry of Finance on Friday night announced the price hike of petrol by Rs 26.02 and diesel by Rs 17.34 per litre.
After the hike, petrol and high-speed diesel (HSD) are costing over Rs 330 at the filling stations, “a psychological barrier that has been crossed for the first time in the country’s history,” the Dawn newspaper wrote.
The fuel price hike comes on the heels of over 27.4 per cent increase in the rate of inflation in August, putting an unbearable burden on the masses, as petrol and HSD are used by all private and public service vehicles.
The caretaker government on September 1 jacking up the petrol and diesel prices by over Rs 14.
The rise is on top of Rs 32.41 and Rs 38.49 per litre increase in petrol and HSD prices since August 15.
Petrol and diesel have become costlier by 20 per cent since the caretaker government took over in August.
Meanwhile, the hike in the petrol and diesel prices has prompted Pakistan’s opposition parties to vociferously criticize it even as a judicial activist challenged it in the Lahore High Court.
Rejecting the massive increase in petroleum prices, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) announced sit-ins outside the governors’ houses in all four provinces of Pakistan. JI chief Sirajul Haq said the government has made the life of a common man miserable by increasing the petroleum prices on the directions of the IMF, Dunya News channel’s website reported on Saturday.
Sardar Abdul Rahim of the Grand Democratic Alliance too rejected the increase as he said that the PDM, i.e. the consortium Pakistan Democratic Movement’s agreement with IMF has “proved to be fatal for Pakistan’s economy.” In Lahore, advocate Azhar Siddique, the head of the Judicial Activism Panel, has filed an application in the Lahore High Court, in which the caretaker federal government has been made a party, Dunya News said in another report.
The petitioner pointed out how there was no mechanism to determine the prices of the products and that the increase in prices of petroleum products would lead to a new wave of inflation.
Earlier, the Finance Ministry blamed “the increasing trend of petroleum prices in the international market” for revising the existing consumer prices of petroleum products.
The government is charging Rs 60 per litre petroleum development levy (PDL) on petrol and Rs 50 each on HSD under the commitment with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In July, the IMF transferred USD 1.2 billion to cash-strapped Pakistan, part of the USD 3 billion bailout programme for nine months to support the government’s efforts to stabilise the country’s ailing economy. Pakistan’s economy has been in a free fall mode for the last many years, bringing untold pressure on the poor masses in the form of unchecked inflation.
