LONDON: Rishi Sunak will on Tuesday be installed as Britain’s third prime minister this year, replacing the humiliated Liz Truss after just seven weeks and inheriting a daunting array of problems.

on Monday after rival contender Penny Mordaunt failed to secure enough nominations from Tory MPs, and Boris Johnson dramatically aborted a comeback bid.

The 42-year-old Hindu will be Britain’s first prime minister of colour and the youngest in more than two centuries.

Sunak will take power in a morning audience with King Charles III, who is anointing his first prime minister since ascending the throne just two days after his late mother Queen Elizabeth II appointed Truss.

The ceremony on September 6 was the last major public act of her record-breaking reign.

Truss will hold a final cabinet meeting before making a departing statement in Downing Street at around 10:15 am (0915 GMT), with Sunak expected to speak just over an hour later.

She leaves office as the shortest-serving premier in history, after a calamitous tax-slashing budget sparked economic and political turmoil.

The 47-year-old announced her Resigned last Thursday, admitting she could not deliver her “mandate” from Conservative members — who had chosen her over Sunak in the summer.

He has now staged a stunning turnaround in political fortunes, and vows to do the same for Britain as it confronts decades-high inflation, surging borrowing costs and imminent recession.

Addressing the public on Monday, Sunak promised “stability and unity” as well as bringing “our party and our country together”.

‘Choices‘ 
After delivering the now all-too-familiar new leader’s speech from the steps of Number 10 at around 11:35 am, Britain’s fifth prime minister in six years will start appointing his top team before facing his first session of “Prime Minister’s Questions” in parliament on Wednesday.

Finance minister Jeremy Hunt, appointed by Truss just 11 days ago in an ultimately futile bid to salvage her premiership, could remain in the role after stabilising the markets.

He endorsed Sunak on Sunday, writing in the Telegraph that he was a leader “willing to make the choices necessary for our long-term prosperity”.

Whoever heads the Treasury is set to unveil the government’s much-anticipated medium-term fiscal plans on October 31, Halloween, alongside independent assessments.

Sunak must also decide whether to appoint to his cabinet senior MPs who did not support him, such as Mordaunt, in a bid to unify his fractured party.

One so-called big beast unlikely to get a seat around the table is his former boss Johnson, who was driven out in July partly thanks to Sunak’s resignation.

The pair met late Saturday, when Johnson reportedly urged him to form a power-sharing partnership.

The ex-leader had only secured the public backing of a few dozen Tory MPs, compared to well over 100 for Sunak, and the offer was rebuffed.

A day later, Johnson bowed to political reality and announced he would not move forward with his audacious comeback.

“You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament,” he acknowledged.

‘No mandate’ 
Sunak, a wealthy descendant of immigrants from India and East Africa, is also facing calls for a general election after becoming the latest UK leader who lacks a direct mandate from the electorate.

Pollster Ipsos said Monday that 62 percent of voters want a vote by the end of the year.

“He has no mandate, no answers and no ideas,” Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner tweeted.

Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon, whose nationalist government wants to hold an independence referendum next year, echoed the comments — while recognising the significance of Britain getting its first leader of colour.

The next election is not due until January 2025 at the latest and opposition parties have no way to force one, unless dozens of Conservative MPs acquiesce.

That appears unlikely as a flurry of polls show Labour with its largest lead in decades.

YouGov modelling Monday showed Sunak faces an uphill battle to restore confidence in both the Tories and himself.

Weekend responses from 12,000 people found that Labour leader Keir Starmer was seen as the “best prime minister” in 389 constituencies, compared with Sunak’s 127.

former prime minister Imran Khan

Islamabad: In a major setback to former prime minister Imran Khan, Pakistan’s top election body on Friday disqualified him from holding public office for five years in the Toshakhana case for hiding proceeds from the sale of gifts he received from foreign leaders.

After the consensus ruling by a four-member bench headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikander Sultan Raja, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman cannot become a member of the parliament for five years.

The decision was taken unanimously by the five-member bench. However, the member from Punjab was not present for the announcement.

The ruling coalition government lawmakers had filed a case with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in August against 70-year-old Khan seeking his disqualification for failing to reveal the proceeds from the sale of gifts that he purchased at a discounted price from the state repository, also called Toshakhana.

The ECP after hearing the case had reserved its judgment on September 19 on the conclusion of the proceedings.

The bench of the ECP on Friday unanimously ruled that Khan was involved in corrupt practices and was disqualified as a member of the parliament. It also announced that action would be taken against him under the corrupt practices laws.

Asad Umar, Secretary General of Khan’s party, announced that the decision would be challenged in the Islamabad High Court.

Fawad Chaudhry, another PTI leader, rejected the verdict and asked Khan’s followers to stage protests.

The ruling came days after Khan’s party on Monday swept the crucial by-elections, winning six out of eight National Assembly seats and two out of three provincial assembly seats.

Khan, who contested seven National Assembly seats in the crucial by-elections held on Sunday, emerged victorious in six constituencies.

Khan, who came to power in 2018, apparently received expensive gifts from rich Arab rulers during official visits, which were deposited in the Toshakhana. Later, he bought the same at a discounted price as per the relevant laws and sold the same at hefty profits.

Though morally apprehensive for rulers like Khan, who always takes a high moral ground and leaves no occasion to castigate his opponents as corrupt , the purchase and sale were legally allowed.

The former premier informed the ECP during the hearing that the sale of the gifts that he had procured from the state treasury after paying Rs 21.56 million fetched about Rs 58 million.

The gifts, among others, included a Graff wristwatch, a pair of cufflinks, an expensive pen, a ring and four Rolex watches.

According to his opponents, Khan failed to show the sales in the income tax returns, making him liable.

The case filed with the ECP seeks his disqualification under Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution which suggests disqualification if someone is not truthful.

Established in 1974, the Toshakhana is a department under the administrative control of the Cabinet Division and stores precious gifts given to rulers, parliamentarians, bureaucrats, and officials by heads of other governments and states and foreign dignitaries.

Khan was ousted from power in April after losing a no-confidence vote in his leadership, which he alleged was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of his independent foreign policy decisions on Russia, China and Afghanistan.

The cricketer-turned-politician, who came to power in 2018, is the only Pakistani Prime Minister to be ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament.

KATHMANDU: The Kathmandu District Court on Monday granted seven days of police custody remand to further investigate the rape-accused Nepali cricketer and former captain Sandeep Lamichhane

Lamichhane was presented to the court today.

The 22-year-old cricket star was arrested last week. He also led the national cricket team at an early age and was apprehended by Nepal Police upon his arrival at Tribhuwan International Airport on October 6.

A girl, 17, filed a case alleging that Lamichhane took her to various places in Kathmandu and Bhaktapur all day on August 21 and brought her to a hotel in Sinamangal of Kathmandu where she was raped the same night. Soon after the registration of complaints, Lamichhane was suspended from his post and an arrest warrant was issued from Kathmandu District Court. While the incident unfolded back in Nepal, the star cricketer was abroad to play Caribbean Premier League (CPL) from Jamaica Tallawahs.

The District Court issued the arrest warrant against him on September 7 while the complainant had claimed the incident to occur on the night of August 21 in Kathmandu.

For over a month, Lamichhane remained off the radar but updated posts on his social media accounts claiming his innocence.

Upon his arrival back to Nepal via Doha on a Qatar Airways flight, he was handcuffed and taken into custody by Nepal Police as, the leg spinner in his post hours before the arrival had announced his expected time of arrival back to Kathmandu.

The court now can grant time up to 25 days from his arrest to investigate the case before filing a criminal case against him.

The cricketer has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. He has said that he is seeking legal support against, what he said was wrongful prosecution and allegations.

“I am sure I will get justice and will return to the cricket ground soon to make the name and fame of my beloved country and I pray for a speedy trial. I will fully cooperate in all stages of the investigation and will fight a legal battle to prove my innocence. Let the justice prevail,” he had said in a Facebook post.

As Lamichhane was arrested on Thursday (6 October) on the 11th day of Dashain and it would be the fourth day of his being kept in jail, the Police would now have a total of 21 days to investigate the matter.

Upon Lamichhane’s arrival back in Kathmandu via Doha, the Police conducted his medical examinations and kept him in custody. With the countdown Dashain holidays ending on Sunday and re-opening the government offices, the Police are sure to face a shortness of time to investigate and file a stronger case. 

UNITED NATIONS: Ukraine denounced Russia as a “terrorist state” at an urgent United Nations General Assembly meeting Monday following its neighbour’s latest attacks, as Western powers sought to underscore Moscow’s isolation.

The UN called the debate to discuss Russia’s declared annexation of four partly occupied Ukrainian regions, but the debate was overshadowed by strikes on Kyiv and other cities in one of the most punishing assaults on Ukraine in months.

“Russia has proven once again that this is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways,” said Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN in his opening remarks, adding his own immediate family had come under attack.

“Unfortunately, you can hardly call for a stable and sane peace as long as an unstable and insane dictatorship exists in your vicinity,” he added, telling member states at least 14 civilians were killed and 97 wounded in the attacks.

Responding, Vasily Nebenzya of Russia did not directly address the missile strikes but defended his country’s annexation of Ukrainian regions.

“We are being accused when we are trying to protect our brothers and sisters in eastern Ukraine,” he said.

Ahead of the General Assembly session, and with tensions at a boiling point, UN chief Antonio Guterres described Russia’s attacks as an “unacceptable escalation of the war,” his spokesman said.

US President Joe Biden, meanwhile, condemned the strikes in stark terms, saying they “demonstrate the utter brutality” of Putin’s “illegal war.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed even more “severe” retaliation after the recent explosion that damaged a key bridge in Moscow-annexed Crimea.

– ‘Illegal annexations’ –

The decision to bring the annexation matter before the General Assembly, where the 193 UN members have one vote each — and no one wields veto power — was taken after Russia used its veto in a Security Council meeting September 30 to block a similar proposal.

The vote is expected no sooner than Wednesday.

“We do not and will never recognise the illegal so-called ‘referenda’ that Russia has engineered as a pretext for this further violation of Ukraine’s independence,” said Silvio Gonzato, a representative of the European Union, which helped draft the text.

The resolution condemns Russia’s “attempted illegal annexations” of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson following “so-called referendums,” and it stresses these actions have “no validity under international law.”

It calls on all states, international organizations and agencies not to recognize the annexations, and demands the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.

In response to the resolution, Russia had written to all member states in a letter attacking “Western delegations” whose actions “have nothing to do with the protection of international law and the principles of the UN Charter.”

Nebenzya said that given the circumstances, the General Assembly should vote by secret ballot — a highly unusual procedure normally reserved for matters like electing the rotating members of the Security Council.

– ‘A bit of desperation’ –

But Albania tabled a resolution against a secret ballot, winning with 107 votes in favour, 13 against, and 39 abstentions. Russia lost a subsequent appeal to the motion.

Guterres himself has bluntly denounced the annexations as being “against everything the international community is meant to stand for,” he said.

“It has no place in the modern world. It must not be accepted.”

During last month’s Security Council vote, no other country sided with Russia, though four delegations — China, India, Brazil and Gabon — abstained.

Some developing countries have complained the West is devoting all its attention to Ukraine, and others might be tempted to join them this week.

The vote will provide a clear picture of exactly how isolated Russia has become. Given the high stakes, backers of the draft are going all out to win over potential abstentionists.

On Monday, Ukrainian diplomat Dmytro Kuleba issued a plea to African nations, telling them: “Neutrality will only encourage Russia to continue its aggression and malign activities across the world, including in Africa.”

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy | Ukrainian Presidential Press Office

Kyiv: Ukraine’s president says his country is submitting an accelerated application to join the NATO military alliance.

The comment Friday by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came just after Russia said it would annex four region of Ukraine it seized amid its war and held gunpoint referendums viewed as illegitimate by the international community.

Zelenskyy said: We are taking our decisive step by signing Ukraine’s application for accelerated accession to NATO.

It wasn’t immediately clear what an accelerated application would mean, as ascension to NATO requires the unanimous support of the alliance’s members.

De facto, we have already proven compatibility with alliance standards. They are real for Ukraine — real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction, Zelenskyy said. We trust each other, we help each other, and we protect each other. This is the alliance.

Zelenskyy also repeated his pledge to reunite all of the Ukrainian territory now held by Russia.

The entire territory of our country will be liberated from this enemy – the enemy not only of Ukraine, but also of life itself, humanity, law and truth, he said. Russia already knows this. It feels our power. It sees that it is here, in Ukraine, that we prove the strength of our values.

Responding to Putin’s call for negotiations, Zelenskyy added: We are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but with another president of Russia.

The war has rapidly accelerated Ukraine’s shift toward the West. During Russia’s seven-month war, the country has shifted off Soviet-era weapon systems and used NATO-standard ordinance and weapons, though the process is still ongoing.

In June, the European Union agreed to put Ukraine on the path toward EU membership. That swiftness of that move — nearly unthinkable only months earlier — required unanimous approval among the bloc’s often fractious members.

While there is considerable overlap among the members of the EU and NATO, securing agreement to allow Ukraine into the security alliance and its guarantee of mutual defense could be considerably more difficult. One immediate impediment to Ukraine joining is that it is already engaged in an active military conflict on its soil.

Marta Temido

Lisbon: The tragic death of a pregnant Indian woman in Portugal while being shifted between crisis-hit hospitals here has led to the resignation of the country’s health minister Marta Temido while authorities have launched an investigation into the incident.

The 34-year-old Indian woman reportedly suffered a cardiac arrest during an ambulance transfer from Santa Maria hospital, which had no vacancies in the neonatology service, to another hospital in the capital.

It follows a string of incidents this summer that critics blame on a staffing crisis across Portuguese natal units, the BBC reported on Wednesday.

Temido had been the health minister since 2018, and is credited with steering Portugal through the Covid-19 pandemic.

But on Tuesday, the government said in a statement that Temido had “realised that she no longer had the conditions to remain in office”.

Portugal’s Prime Minister Antonio Costa said the woman’s death was “the last straw” that led to Temido’s resignation, the report quoted Portugal’s Lusa news agency as saying.

I am grateful for all the work carried out by Dr. Marta Temido, especially in the exceptional period of combating the COVID19 pandemic. The @govpt continue the ongoing reforms with a view to strengthening the SNS and improving healthcare provided to the Portuguese, Costa, an Indian-origin leader, said in a tweet.

His remarks came after a storm of criticism over the Portuguese government’s handling of staff shortages in maternity units, by temporarily closing some of them and forcing pregnant women to undergo risky transfers between hospitals.

Local media reported that the pregnant tourist died while being moved from Lisbon’s Santa Maria Hospital – the largest in Portugal – because its neonatology unit was full.

Her baby was delivered in good health following an emergency caesarean section, authorities said. An investigation into the woman’s death has been launched, the report said.

There have been similar incidents across Portugal in recent months – including the separate deaths of two infants whose mothers had apparently been transferred between hospitals and endured long delays, it said.

Portugal’s shortage of health staff, especially those specialising in gynaecology and obstetrics, has led to the government considering hiring from abroad.

The closure of some natal units has led to overflowing maternity wards and long wait times, with opposition parties, doctors and nurses pointing blame at the former health minister.

Speaking to local outlet RTP, the chair of the Portuguese doctors association Miguel Guimaraes said Temido quit because she did not have any way of resolving the current crisis – before going on to praise her record in office.

However, Gustavo Tato Borges, the president of Portugal’s public health association, told RTP he did not expect her resignation, and was “surprised” that she had stepped down while there are “acute problems” in the health sector.

NEW DELHI: Nepal is worried about the survival of its tea sector over the possibility of India imposing levies on their tea exports

“Diplomatically India says that Nepal for India is like a younger sister, however, they are threatening us with heavy levies which will lead to a crisis in the sector and endanger livelihoods of thousands of workers,’’ says former Vice Chairman, Tea and Coffee Board of Nepal, Santosh C Kunwar.

The issue gained momentum after India’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce in June recommended that the Indian government apply stringent norms for certification of tea that came in from Nepal, in addition to duties.

“The Parliamentary committee also pointed out that the entry of low-quality products from the neighbouring countries was jeopardising the Indian tea industry, and asked that anti-dumping duty ranging from 40-100 per cent be imposed. The panel has also asked that the Indo-Nepal Treaty of 1950 be reviewed,’’ said sources.

India is Nepal’s largest customer for its tea. Out of the 30 million kg of CTC (crush, tear, and curl) tea that India imports annually half the amount at 15 million kg comes from Nepal.

“India suspects that tea from Nepal (which is much cheaper than what is grown within their country) is being surreptitiously blended with Indian tea before being packed and sold in the market. Do we have any control on what the traders do locally?”, Kunwar added.

The blending of Orthodox tea imported from Nepal with Darjeeling tea is also allegedly being done in India. The cost of Orthodox tea from Nepal is less than half of what it costs in India. These are also factors responsible for the possible levies that tea imports from Nepal will attract.

Meanwhile, Nepalese tea planters say they have to follow rigorous quarantine regulations once their supplies land in India – which includes a certification they need from the Central Food Laboratory in Kolkata.

“This certification is valid for only six months for one buyer and costs Rs 30,000. If we intend to sell the same product to another buyer, we need another certification. Tea planters of Nepal are making a presentation to Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to convince Indian authorities not to levy more taxes. If bill number 171 (recommended by the Indian Parliamentary Standing Committee) gets cleared, it would be a death knell for Nepal’s tea sector,’’ lamented Kunwar.

Tea produced in Nepal which is cheaper than Rs 250 per kg isn’t allowed to be exported to India at present as it would create challenges for tea producers in India.

Nepalese tea growers are also highlighting the fact that consideration be given to them as they import goods worth $9 billion from India every year as they are almost entirely dependent on India.

Nepal’s tea planters are hoping against hope that the Indian government doesn’t impose heavy duties on their tea and are optimistic that diplomatic ties between the two nations will thwart this possible move.

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden announced Monday that the United States had killed Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the world’s most wanted terrorists and a mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, in a drone strike in Kabul.

In a somber televised address, Biden said he gave the final go-ahead for the high-precision strike that successfully targeted Zawahiri in the Afghan capital over the weekend.

“Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said, adding that he hoped Zawahiri’s death would bring “closure” to families of the 3,000 people killed in the United States on 9/11.

A senior administration official said Zawahiri was on the balcony of a house in Kabul when he was targeted with two Hellfire missiles, an hour after sunrise on July 31, and that there had been no US boots on the ground in Afghanistan.

“We are not aware of him ever leaving the safe house. We identified Zawahiri on multiple occasions for sustained periods of time on the balcony of where he was ultimately struck,” the official said.

According to the official’s account, the president gave his green light for the strike on July 25 — as he was recovering in isolation from Covid-19. Biden said there were no civilian casualties in the operation.

The US official called Zawahiri’s presence in the Afghan capital Kabul a “clear violation” of a deal the Taliban had signed with the US in Doha in 2020 that paved the way for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

It was the first known over-the-horizon strike by the United States on an Al-Qaeda target in Afghanistan since American forces withdrew from the country on August 31, 2021.

Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon who grew up in a comfortable Cairo household before turning to violent radicalism, had been on the run for 20 years since the 9/11 attacks. He took over Al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Pakistan in 2011, and had a $25 million US bounty on his head.

Over the weekend the Afghan interior ministry denied reports circulating on social media of a drone strike in Kabul, telling AFP a rocket struck “an empty house” in the capital, causing no casualties.

Early Tuesday in Kabul, however, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted that an “aerial attack” was carried out on a residence in the Sherpur area of the city.

“The nature of the incident was not revealed at first. The security and intelligence agencies of the Islamic Emirate investigated the incident and found in their preliminary investigations that the attack was carried out by American drones,” his tweet said.

The news comes a month before the first anniversary of the final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, leaving the country in the control of the Taliban insurgency that fought Western forces over the preceding two decades.

Under the 2020 Doha deal, the Taliban promised not to allow Afghanistan to be used again as a launchpad for international jihadism, but experts believe the group never broke their ties with Al-Qaeda.

“What we know is that the senior Haqqani Taliban were aware of his presence in Kabul,” the Biden official said.

Taliban interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani also heads the feared Haqqani Network, a brutal subset of the Taliban blamed for some of the worst violence of the past 20 years and which has been described by US officials as a “veritable arm” of Pakistani intelligence.

Doctor turned jihadist

Zawahiri, 71, lacked the potent charisma that helped bin Laden rally jihadists around the world, but willingly channelled his analytical skills into the Al-Qaeda cause. He was believed to be the main strategist — the real mastermind who steered operations, including the September 11 attacks, as well as bin Laden’s personal doctor.

Al-Qaeda is believed to have been degraded in the years since the US invasion of Afghanistan, and the White House official said Zawahiri was “one of the last remaining figures who carried this kind of significance.”

The organization, agreed Soufan Center researcher Colin Clarke, is “at a crossroads.”

“Despite Zawahiri’s leadership, which minimized AQ’s losses while rebuilding, the group still faces serious challenges going forward. For one, there’s the question of who will lead al Qaeda after Zawahiri’s gone,” he said.

Zawahiri’s father was a renowned physician and his grandfather a prayer leader at Cairo’s Al-Azhar institute, the highest authority for Sunni Muslims.

He became involved with Egypt’s radical Muslim community at a young age and published several books which came for many to symbolize the radical Islamist movement.

He left Egypt in the mid-1980s, heading for Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar where the resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was based.

It was at that time, when thousands of Islamist fighters flooded into Afghanistan during the 1980s, that Zawahiri and bin Laden met, and in 1998 he became one of five signatories to bin Laden’s “fatwa” calling for attacks against Americans.

Jihadist monitor SITE said some militants were questioning the veracity of the report he had been killed, while others believed Zawahiri had achieved his desire of “martyrdom.”

As for Al-Qaeda’s future without him, SITE said jihadists were bullish, with one writing: “If Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri is dead, there are a thousand Aymans.”

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe

Colombo: Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has written to members of Parliament, inviting them to form an all-party national government to help the bankrupt country to recover from the worst economic crisis.

The government is currently engaged in great efforts to gradually restore normalcy to the political and social unrest created by the economic crisis that the country is facing today,” Wickremesinghe said in the letter on Friday.

“Accordingly, initial plans required to implement a systematic economic programme are being formulated while preliminary measures are also being undertaken for the creation of economic stability, he added.

Wickremesinghe said a programme could only be implemented with the participation of all political parties represented in Parliament, expert groups and civil society.

He also proposed to start a dialogue with parties on the reintroduction of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

The 19A adopted in 2015 pruned presidential powers by empowering Parliament above the executive president. Wickremesinghe was the main sponsor of the 19th Amendment in 2015.

However, the 19A was scrapped after Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the November 2019 presidential election.

Sri Lankan MPs on July 20 elected Wickremesinghe as the country’s new president, with the majority of the vote coming from lawmakers representing ousted President Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party.

There were only two non-SLPP lawmakers in the Cabinet appointed on Friday. Constitutionally, the Cabinet can be extended up to 30 members.

The 73-year-old President was appointed for the rest of the term of Rajapaksa who initially fled to the Maldives and then to Singapore.

Rajapaksa is accused of mishandling the economic crisis, the worst since 1948. Wickremesinghe was appointed prime minister by Rajapaksa in mid-May.

He was tasked with reviving the economy by giving early solutions to fuel, cooking gas and power shortage problems, which triggered mass agitations against Rajapaksa.

The government declared bankruptcy in mid-April by refusing to honour its international debt.

Wickremesinghe on Wednesday said his government’s main priorities are to fix the country’s ailing economy and end the severe fuel shortage that has exacerbated after the last shipment under the Indian credit line arrived in the country in June.

Macron said last week that his government would prepare a “sobriety plan’ to conserve energy and that France keeps looking to diversify gas sources.

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting the leader of the United Arab Emirates on Monday to ensure energy supplies from the oil-rich Gulf country as Europe prepares for the possibility of a total cutoff of Russian natural gas in retaliation for sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is in Paris on the first state visit to France since he was appointed president of the Western-allied nation of seven sheikhdoms in May.

Sheikh Mohammed has been the nation’s de facto leader since 2014 and has built new alliances across the Middle East and Europe. He met with US President Joe Biden over the weekend. France has deep ties to the UAE, and the two leaders have developed a personal relationship.

It paid off during Macron’s visit to Abu Dhabi last year resulting in a 16 billion-euro (USD 18 billion) arms deal with the Gulf ally, the largest-ever French weapons contract for export.

The leaders will focus on the war in Ukraine and the resulting energy supply issues for France and Europe, according to a French presidency official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity in line with customary policy.

The official added that Macron and Sheikh Mohammed are “working on the signing of a bilateral agreement on hydrocarbons and on guarantees for the supply of hydrocarbons”to France.

As the war in Ukraine rages into the sixth month and Europe is in the grip of a sweltering heat wave, the European Union countries are bracing for a potential Russian gas shutdown amid soaring energy prices, inflation and a cost-of-living crisis across the 27-member bloc.

Russia has cut off or reduced natural gas —which keeps the industry running generates electricity and heats homes in the winter —to a dozen European countries.

A major gas pipeline also closed for scheduled maintenance last week, and there are fears that flow through Nord Stream 1 between Russia and Germany will not restart. Leaders have been scrambling to fill underground storage by the beginning of fall in an effort to avert an economic and political crisis in winter.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is visiting Algeria on Monday to finalise deals boosting natural gas supplies from the North African country to Italy.

Macron said last week that his government would prepare a “sobriety plan’ to conserve energy and that France keeps looking to diversify gas sources. He called for a faster shift toward offshore wind farms and more European cross-border energy cooperation “as we prepare ourselves for the scenario where we have to go without all Russian gas.”

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said last month that the country has been in discussions with the UAE regarding supplies of oil and diesel to find “an alternative to Russian petrol”. The UAE could provide a “temporary solution”, Le Maire told the French radio station Europe1.

TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said in Parliament last week that the French energy giant is “discussing an agreement to have access to diesel and fuel from the Emirates this winter.”

He said the company’s efforts are part of the French initiative to secure sufficient energy and make up for the loss of Russian supplies. The UAE’s energy exports to France are dominated by refined petroleum products and reached the record sum of 1.5 billion euros in 2019.

The US Energy Information Agency cites figures estimating the UAE holds the seventh-largest proven reserves of natural gas in the world, at over 215 trillion cubic feet.

The country, which lies on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula along the Persian Gulf, is among the world’s 10 largest oil producers, with most of the country’s oil and gas wealth concentrated in Abu Dhabi. Human rights groups have called on Macron to remind his UAE counterpart of his country’s poor human rights record.

“For years, the UAE has systematically crushed dissent,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement ahead of Monday’s visit. “Activists, lawyers, teachers, students, and those deemed critics are arrested, prosecuted, and detained, women and LGBT people face discrimination.”

In an example of the ties between the nations, French warplanes and personnel are stationed in a major facility outside the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi, which is also the home of The Louvre museum and Sorbonne university outlets in the Gulf nation.