Month: June 2024

China has been a key focus of the Group of Seven talks in Puglia, amid souring trade relations between Beijing and the West and concerns that its supplies of equipment to Moscow are fuelling Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“We call on China to cease the transfer of dual-use materials, including weapons components and equipment, that are inputs for Russia’s defence sector,” according to a draft statement seen by AFP.

The Group of Seven also took aim at what it called “dangerous” incursions by China in the South China Sea, where worries of a military escalation between Beijing and its neighbours are rising.

Says UN agencies must work unhindered in Gaza Strip

“We oppose China’s militarisation, and coercive and intimidation activities in the South China Sea,” the statement read, using stronger language than at last year’s summit in Japan.

After a first day dominated by Ukraine, US Presi­dent Joe Biden and the leaders of Japan, France, Germany, Cana­da, Britain and host country Italy turned their focus to the world’s second-largest economy, a superpower whose oversized influence on geopolitics and global trade cannot be underestimated.

“G7 countries are on the same page vis-a-vis China,” a Japanese government source told AFP.

Thursday’s talks, attended by Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky, were marked by a strong show of G7 support for Kyiv, with an agreement to use profits from frozen Russian assets to provide a new $50-billion loan to Ukraine.

With the war in its third year, the G7 statement said the deal sent an “unmistakeable signal” to Russian President Vladimir Putin that they would back Kyiv for “as long as it takes”.

 

The G7 leaders said the UN Palestinian refugee agency must be allowed to work unhindered in Gaza. “We agree it is critical that UNRWA and other UN organisations and agencies’ distribution networks be fully able to deliver aid to those who need it most, fulfilling their mandate effectively,” they said.

They called for all parties to facilitate “rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need” in Gaza, particularly women and children.

“Securing full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access in all its forms — consistent with international humanitarian law, and through all relevant land crossing points, including the Rafah crossing, through maritime delivery routes, including through Ashdod Port — and throughout all of Gaza remains an absolute priority,” they said.

UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has been in crisis since January, when Israel accused about a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza employees of being involved in the October 7 attack.

That prompted many governments, including top donor the United States, to suspend funding to the agency, threatening its effo­rts to deliver aid in Gaza, although several have since resumed payments.

In the draft statement, the G7 leaders repeated concern at the “unacceptable number of civilian casualties” in the Gaza conflict, now into its ninth month. They again endorse a truce and prisoner release deal.

Jannata had been largely spared more than eight months of clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli forces as war rages in Gaza, but the Lebanese village was shaken by an overnight strike that officials say killed two civilians.

“We were sitting on the balcony at night, and we felt a rocket fly over our heads. Then the world started to shake,” resident Khadija Husseini told AFP.

On Friday morning, she found that her clothing store had been damaged in the strike which targeted a building about 200 metres (650 feet) away. “There was shattered glass everywhere” from the shop window, she said.

Hezbollah launches rocket barrage against targets in Israel

Lebanon’s official National News Agency said a building was hit in Jannata, 20km from the Israeli border. The village’s deputy mayor, Hassan Shur, told AFP that two civilians, both women, were killed in a nearby building.

Rescuers said at least nine people were wounded in the strike on Jannata, including an infant and two children.

 

The strike, which the Israeli military has not commented on, comes on the heels of a major Hezbollah attack.

Hezbollah launched barrages of rockets and drones on Wednesday and Thursday targeting Israeli military sites across the border, after an Israeli strike earlier this week killed a senior commander.

Israeli forces struck Gaza and battled Hamas fighters on Friday as truce efforts failed to make progress. Witnesses reported strikes on the southern city of Rafah and central areas of the Gaza Strip.

At Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah, men gathered over the body of an 11-year-old boy who died during a bombardment of nearby Bureij refugee camp.

In a black singlet, the child lay on a floor smeared with fresh blood, a white bandage covering the top half of his face, AFP images showed.

The Israeli military said troops continued operations in central Gaza, where warplanes struck a fighters’ cell in the Zeitun area.

Witnesses in Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, reported helicopter fire on the city’s west and centre, while Hamas’s armed wing said its fighters fired mortar rounds at Israeli troops near the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood.

WASHINGTON: Pointing out a strategic imbalance in South Asia and Washington’s tilt towards New Delhi, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Masood Khan urged the Biden administration to follow a balanced approach.

“US heavy tilt towards India is accentuating strategic imbalance which is fraught with serious risks,” he said on Thursday while addressing a gathering of scholars, policy-makers, legislators, and professionals at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, Washington.

The ambassador also emphasised on full restoration of Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and assistance to fight continued threats from terrorists in the region.

Khan gave a detailed perspective on Pak-US relations, war on terror, re-calibration of Pak-US relationship post-withdrawal period, Pakistan-India relations and the issues of regional stability.

While highlighting existing investment and trade opportunities, Ambassador Khan offered US companies to manufacture in Pakistan, where they could find 240 million consumers.

“Pakistan is a big market for American manufacturers. If you manufacture state-of-the-art products, you have 240 million consumers in Pakistan,” he said.

Referring to the historic role played by Pakistan in bringing China and the US closer to each other in the early 70s, Khan has said Pakistan was willing to play the role of economic bridge between the two countries in the present age.

The envoy reiterated that Pakistan’s relations with China were not at the expense of its ties with the US.

Adding his perspective to the most recent collaboration of the two countries in the war against terror, Masood Khan said: “Pakistan was blamed at times for the Mission failure. Although, I personally believe that we have accomplished a lot in the war against terrorism. We collaborated and together we broke the backbone of terrorist organisations.”

“al-Qaida is not where it was in 2001-02. There is awareness all around the world about the asymmetric threat of terrorism to international civilisation and how to tackle it,” he said.

He said that in late 2021 and early 2022, the leadership of the two countries decided to recalibrate their relationship.

They decided that “while we will continue our cooperation in counter-terrorism, promote regional stability, maintain a dialogue, we would like to secure the region from any nuclear instability and so on.”

He also said the number of Pakistani students in the US had significantly risen.

“When I came here in 2022, the number of Pak students in American universities was 7,000. Now it is more than 10,000,” he said.

A massive fire at an oil refinery in Iraqi Kurdistan injured at least 13 people including firefighters battling to control the blaze, which was ongoing Thursday, an official said.

The fire broke out in a major crude oil tank on Wednesday night before spreading to a second refinery on a road southwest of Arbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, the civil defence agency said.

Thick plumes of black smoke and balls of orange flame rose into the sky above the facility, an AFP photographer reported.

The civil defence agency said the fire “started in one refinery before spreading to another”.

“More than 10 people were injured, mainly men from the Arbil civil defence,” it said in a statement, adding four fuel tanks and three fire trucks were burned.

Arbil governor Omed Khoshnaw said three rescuers were being treated in hospitals for burns and another 10 suffered breathing difficulties.

The main tank that was impacted contained over 5,000 tonnes of fuel, he said, putting the estimated cost of the damage caused at $8 million.

“So far, we don’t know what caused it,” said Khoshnaw, adding it could have been an electrical short circuit.

The fire still was still raging on Thursday afternoon despite the deployment of 30 rescue teams who were trying to prevent it from spreading further, the civil defence agency said.

With Iraq experiencing scorching summers, the country has seen multiple fires in recent weeks, affecting shopping centres, warehouses and hospitals.

Iraq is one of the world’s biggest oil producers and crude oil sales make up 90 percent of Iraqi budget revenues.

But exports from the Kurdistan region have been halted for more than a year in a dispute over legal and technical issues.

 

The performance of Pakistan’s 16th National Assembly, which concluded its first 100 days following the oath-taking of legislators on February 29, has been described as “slow-paced despite high attendance”.

According to a report published by the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), the assembly’s focus on “parliamentary transparency and gender responsiveness” was described as a defining characteristic of NA’s first 100 days.

The report added that the House encouraged bipartisanship by allocating nearly 54% of the time used for points of order to the opposition.

Following the February 8 general elections, the Pakistani government descended into instability as no political party secured a clear majority. However, several of the winning parties formed an alliance with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), forming a coalition government at the Centre.

The PML-N, therefore, formed the federal government with the support of eight parties, including the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), Pakistan Muslim League Quaid (PML-Q), Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP), Pakistan Muslim League Zia (PML-Z), Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) and the National Party (NP).

The House, however, still remains short of 26 members.

Plenary proceedings

According to Fafen, at least 23 sessions have been conducted in the lower house of the Parliament up until now, spanning over 66 hours and 33 minutes. The speaker and deputy speaker chaired 84% of the proceedings.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has, so far, attended only two sessions, which makes up 10% of his attendence as compared to former premier and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan’s 29% in the first 100 days of his ousted government.

Fafen added that the assembly elected its standing committee on May 17 after a month-long delay. In the first 100

The Fafen report highlights that at least 159 members, or 51%, actively participated by sponsoring agenda items or participating in discussions out of the 310 members, 61% of which were females and 49% males.

On average, 230 members were present in one session, with a maximum attendance of 302 and a minimum of 176.

The House addressed 76% of its business, including 20 legislative bills, 93 questions, 28 calling attention notices (CANs), and 11 resolutions.

In his maiden speech, PM Shehbaz outlined his government’s plans for foreign relations, agriculture, economic affairs, tax reforms, energy, human development, and law and order, the Fafen report maintained.

Specific commitments, it added, included providing high-quality seeds to farmers, creating export zones, broad tax reforms, renewable energy projects, scholarships for students, and addressing terrorism as well as the issue of missing persons in Balochistan.

The report underscored that the details from the assembly proceedings are available on the National Assembly’s website, but live streams or video recordings remain limited and largely restricted.

Additionally, the citizens’ access to the Common Man’s gallery has been restricted on the pretext of security concerns, read the report.

The NA, in general, displayed a gender-sensitive and responsive outlook towards female issues, stated the Fafen report, while the House censored the use of inappropriate language against women lawmakers by adopting a Treasury-sponsored resolution.

The lower house of the Parliament also constituted a Parliamentary Committee on Gender Mainstreaming to solicit recommendations on women’s empowerment.

Dozens of countries at the United Nations blasted North Korea’s human rights record Wednesday, overriding objections from China and Russia to even raising the issue on the Security Council.

South Korea’s UN ambassador, Joonkook Hwang, said the isolated dictatorship in Pyongyang “continues to commit systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations and abuses.”

Laying out a joint statement signed by 57 countries, which included the United States, he said that violations have increased in tandem with North Korea’s growing focus on building its military.

“The abysmal human rights and humanitarian situation… is closely intertwined with the advancement of its weapons programs, like two sides of the same coin,” he said.

Pyongyang “is diverting its scarce resources towards development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, at the expense of the well being of people…, alongside political impunity for its human rights violations.”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk echoed this, saying that “it is not possible to divorce” the human rights situation from the country’s militarization.

North Korea is “a country sealed off from the world, a stifling, claustrophobic environment, where life is a daily struggle devoid of hope,” Turk said.

However, the world body has only limited influence over North Korea, with China and Russia backing Pyongyang on the UN Security Council.

The council has not been able to pass any resolution on North Korea since 2017, with Beijing and Moscow both using their veto to stop a 2022 resolution on imposing new sanctions over the regime’s ongoing missile testing.

On Wednesday, China and Russia attempted to prevent the discussion in the Security Council, but failed.

North Korea’s human rights situation “does not constitute a threat to international peace and security,” China’s deputy ambassador, Geng Shuang, said.

Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya cited “a shameful situation where a narrow group of states is attempting to exploit the Security Council, the United Nations, as a tool for the advancement of their own geopolitical agenda.”