Dashti succeeds Amir Mahmoud Abdulla of Sudan, who served as the UN coordinator since August 2022, according to a press note from the UN chief’s office.
Dashti was the military defense attache of Kuwait in Belgium and the Kuwaiti mission’s representative to NATO from 2019 to 2020, and retired in 2021 from the Kuwaiti armed forces at the rank of vice admiral.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative was launched by Ukraine, Türkiye, Russia and the United Nations in July 2022, to enable the resumption of exports from Ukraine of grain, foodstuffs, and fertilizer, including ammonia, through a safe maritime humanitarian corridor.
Jointly released by the China Foundation for Human Rights Development and the New China Research under Xinhua News Agency, the report said China’s outlook on human rights has been continuously enriched and improved in practice, with its own cognitive perspective and ideological connotation based on the actual conditions of the country.
It has formed a contemporary Chinese outlook on human rights with “people” as the center, “development” as the driving force and “a life of contentment” as the goal, read the report titled “For a Life of Contentment — The Rationale for China’s Human Rights Development.”
Noting that human rights protection in China means concrete actions, rather than lip service, the report said the country has made achievements step by step, raising the living standards of its people from poverty to bare subsistence, and from moderate prosperity in general to moderate prosperity in all aspects.
Embarking on a journey toward a higher goal of common prosperity, China is committed to providing a “happy and dignified life for some one-fifth of the world’s population,” said the report.
China’s novel ideas, measures and practices in terms of how to respect and protect human rights may also offer inspiration for the rest of the world, especially for developing countries, noted the report.
It attributed China’s success in promoting human rights protection to the determined leadership of the Communist Party of China, down-to-earth approach, being development-oriented, legal guidance, and open-mindedness.
China advocates enhanced exchanges and mutual learning between civilizations, addressing the “governance deficit” of human rights, promoting fairer, more equitable, reasonable and inclusive global governance of human rights, and working together to build a human community with a shared future.
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“As our citizens are heavily hit by the inflation and the energy crisis, we are determined to ensure tax justice, in order for companies to pay their fair share,” France’s Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire and visiting German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said in a joint statement on Thursday.
Le Maire and Lindner said that the two countries “share the view that our common European fiscal framework has a critical role to play in helping both rebuild fiscal buffers in Europe and promote investment in the climate and digital transitions.”
They stressed the importance of “resilient and sustainable growth” in guaranteeing long-term fiscal sustainability.
Speaking of the current energy crisis, the two finance ministers pointed out the need for investments in Europe in order to reduce the EU’s energy dependencies, and tackle the energy, climate and digital transitions.
“We will keep on working jointly to reap the full potential of EU growth capacities, thus increasing our economic resilience and reducing our carbon footprint,” they said.
“The social gap is widening at the moment, and even more than during the pandemic,” Fratzscher told German media.
Since people with low incomes are spending a majority of their income on basic supplies such as energy and food, they are feeling the effects of inflation three times as strongly as those on high incomes, Fratzscher stressed.
A similar trend can also be seen among German companies. “Some of the big players are making big profits even in these times, while many medium-sized companies (…) are barely surviving,” Fratzscher said.
A study also published on Thursday by the Institute of Economic and Social Research at the Hans Boeckler Foundation found that the financial gap between households below the poverty line and the median income had already grown significantly before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This development was an “extremely poor starting position for the continued social stress tests” caused by the ongoing pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and record inflation, the foundation said.
Inflation in Germany climbed to 10.4 percent in October, the highest level since 1990, according to the Federal Statistical Office. The development was mainly driven by rising energy and food prices, which were up by 43 percent and 20 percent year-on-year, respectively.
“The number of the death toll has reached 268 people now,” Head of the National Disaster Management Agency Suharyanto told a press conference.
The 5.6-magnitude quake which hit Indonesia’s West Java province on Monday also left 1,083 people injured and forced 58,362 others to flee home as the tremors of the quake destroyed over 21,000 houses and infrastructure facilities, he said.
Search and rescue operations for the quake victims is still underway, Suharyanto said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo asked authorities to prioritize the operation and to rescue the victims first.
The government would compensate the houses damaged by the tremors, ranging from about 10 million rupiahs to 50 million rupiahs, the president said when visiting the quake-affected areas.
Widodo stressed that the new houses to be built must be able to resist the earthquake tremors.
The quake struck at 13:21 Jakarta time (0621 GMT) on Monday with the epicenter at 10 km southwest of the district of Cianjur in West Java province, and a depth of 10 km, the meteorological, climatological and geophysical agency said. (1 U.S. dollar equals 2,005 rupiah)
In Venice, Italy’s city of canals, the water level rose 170 centimeters above normal levels on Tuesday due to intense rains, the highest of this year, but still below the 187-centimeter rise — the highest in 50 years — reported in 2019, city authorities said.
Thanks to the “Mose” system of 78 separate mobile floodgates that went into partial operation in 2020, the latest water rise did not result in widespread flooding, said Venice’s Mayor Luigi Brugnaro.
“Mose,” which stands for “Experimental Electromechanical Module,” helped the city avert devastation, said Minister of Transportation Matteo Salvini, noting that torrential rain and strong gales could have been catastrophic.
The extreme weather was reported across Italy on Tuesday. Seven of all the 20 regions issued severe weather warnings and two issued red alerts — the island region of Sardinia and Abruzzo, east of Rome. Dozens of people were injured as the storm wreaked havoc.
The severe weather is expected to continue lashing parts of the country through Thursday.
This is the latest of a long series of severe weather events that have hit Italy this year. The country suffered unusually long heat waves and severe drought during the summer, which caused hundreds of death and slashed agricultural production, followed by flash floods and intense thunderstorms that killed at least 10 people and caused hundreds of millions of euros in damages.
The European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) said earlier that Italy recorded five times more extreme weather events than a decade ago.
“We will fully implement the trilateral memorandum,” Kristersson said at a joint press conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the capital Ankara.
“Sweden will take important steps with regards to the fight against terror,” he added.
Sweden plans to introduce new legislation by 2023 to fight terror groups, whether they pose risk to Sweden or Türkiye, the Swedish leader noted.
Kristersson said his country has designated the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization and his government was willing to support Türkiye in its fight against the group.
“Joining this alliance is a vital security issue for us. Being a NATO member means taking (security) responsibility for other allies,” he added.
Kristersson held talks with Erdogan on Tuesday in a bid to convince the Turkish leader to approve Sweden’s bid to join the NATO.
“Sweden wants NATO membership for its own security, and we want to see a Sweden that supports our own security concerns,” Erdogan said.
Finland and Sweden’s NATO bid was initially blocked by Ankara, which accused them of supporting anti-Türkiye groups as they rejected Ankara’s extradition requests for the suspects affiliated with the PKK and the Gulen movement.
On June 28, Türkiye, Sweden and Finland reached a trilateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) ahead of the NATO Madrid summit.
Sweden and Finland pledged to support Türkiye’s fight against terrorism and agreed to address Ankara’s pending deportation or extradition requests for terror suspects expeditiously and thoroughly.
Türkiye remains one of the two NATO members yet to ratify their accession, as Ankara has been complaining that the two countries have moved too slowly in fulfilling their commitments over the Turkish security concerns.
The PKK, listed as a terror organization by Türkiye, the United States and the EU, has been rebelling against the Turkish government for more than three decades.
The Gulen movement, led by the U.S.-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, has been accused by the Turkish government of masterminding the 2016 failed coup to topple Erdogan’s rule.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Podolyak said that a potential ceasefire deal at the current stage of the conflict would provide Russia with time to strengthen its positions.
“The ceasefire for Russia is a tactical pause for reinforcement,” Podolyak said.
While commenting on the reports that the representatives of the U.S. Pentagon and the Russian Defense Ministry are involved in talks, Podolyak said that “there are no negotiations between Russia and Western countries regarding Ukraine.”
“Our partners adhere to the principle of ‘nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.’ Neither side will be able to ensure the implementation of agreements without the support of the Ukrainian people,” he said.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict started on Feb. 24.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators held the latest round of face-to-face peace talks in Istanbul, Türkiye, on March 29.
“If we look at high-frequency indicators and the economic sentiment, we see that many things point to a contraction in economic activity this winter,” Gentiloni said at a press conference of the Eurogroup.
Paschal Donohoe, president of the Eurogroup, said everyone knows that the economy within the euro area is slowing down. In October, economic growth for the area stood at 0.5 percent.
The finance ministers, representing the 19-country euro area, met in Brussels on Monday to discuss the eurozone’s economic development, as well as budgetary measures to mitigate the impact of high energy prices.
According to estimates by the Commission, euro area governments have so far collectively spent about 200 billion euros, or 1.25 percent of the European Union’s (EU) gross domestic product (GDP), on energy support for the year.
Gentiloni said around 70 percent of the supporting measures adopted by the member states so far are untargeted, meaning “they benefit all, or a very large share, of the population.”
“We are aware of course that targeting is not always easy, politically and technically, especially if you have to react very quickly. This is also why we have the expectation that this targeting of measures can improve in the coming months,” he added.
Donohoe said the ministers noticed the challenges of significant supports and effectively managing the trade-off between reducing inflation, while supporting both vulnerable households and the euro area’s international competitiveness
