Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has reiterated India’s support to the Palestinian cause while asserting New Delhi’s backing for a two-state solution to the conflict in West Asia.

Speaking at a meeting of the Ministerial Committee of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on Palestine here on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly Session on Wednesday, Sushma Swaraj recalled the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Palestine in February, the first by an Indian Prime Minister, and described it as a “historic occasion”.

“During the visit, the Prime Minister announced a substantial upscaling of our development partnership efforts in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” she said.

“India is investing in projects of healthcare, educational infrastructure, women empowerment and a printing press, in addition to other capacity building programmes.”

Sushma Swaraj said that development partnership projects in Palestine worth around $70 million are under implementation during the last five years.

“These include flagship projects like the super-specialty hospital in Beit Sahour and the India-Palestine Technology Park, which was inaugurated last year in Ramallah,” she stated.

She said that India’s longstanding friendship with Palestine is built around three core dimensions: solidarity with Palestinian people; steadfast support to the Palestinian cause; and development partnership to assist nation building and capacity building efforts.

Sushma Swaraj also mentioned India’s increasing of its contribution to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from $1.25 million to $5 million annually.

“A negotiated two-state solution remains the only viable solution to the issue to bring sustainable peace and lasting security,” she said.

Calling for restraint and moderation from all sides, she stated: “The stagnation since the collapse of talks four years ago and the deterioration in the security situation continues to cause serious concern. We hope for an early resumption of talks between Israel and Palestine that can move towards finding out a comprehensive resolution of the issue.”

The NAM Ministerial Committee on Palestine was established under India’s Presidency during the Seventh NAM Summit in New Delhi in 1983.

(IANS)

The Maldives’ President-elect Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend his oath-taking ceremony in November.

Solih’s spokesperson Mariya Ahmed Didi said on Wednesday that Modi was invited to the ceremony during a telephonic conversation between the two sides following Solih’s victory in the presidential elections on Sunday, The Edition reported.

Solih, the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party’s candidate, emerged victorious over incumbent President Abdulla Yameen. He will be sworn in on November 17 and his term is expected to continue until 2023.

India welcomed the election result and both sides agreed to work closely to strengthen bilateral relations.

The spokesperson said Modi had also invited Solih to make an official visit to India, which was accepted by the latter.

The atoll nation’s relations with India grew strained during Yameen’s rule, with tensions peaking after India criticized Male’s refusal to enforce a Supreme Court ruling quashing the convictions of nine opposition figures, among them former President Mohamed Nasheed.

(IANS)

An Indian woman is facing deportation in New Zealand after being duped by men who she says took more than $30,000 from her in return for work visas for jobs that did not exist.

Damanpreet Kaur told Radio New Zealand (RNZ) that she paid two Tauranga men over $18,000 for a work visa and job last year and later paid a Hamilton man $15,000 for the same.

In both cases, Kaur said she received a two-year work visa that restricted her to employment by the company named on the visa, but found there was no job, according to the report on Thursday.

The woman said she wanted justice served on the men and had already provided immigration authorities details of her claims in the hope that it will allow her to stay in the country.

Her immigration adviser, Tuariki Delamere, urged the New Zealand government to crack down on the group, who he described as “parasites”.

RNZ said that it first interviewed Kaur about her situation in February and though she shared secret recordings of the men who scammed her she was not ready to go public that time.

Now she has sent the Associate Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi a statement detailing the allegations, as well as bank statements showing payments to the two Tauranga men and to a company where the Hamilton man was a director, as well as cash withdrawals she said were later given to the men.

The Tauranga men denied the allegations while the Hamilton man didn’t return phone calls, according to RNZ.

Kaur said immigration officials had told her she could be served with a deportation notice because she was not working for the company specified on her current two-year work visa.

She said she was surviving by depending on money from her parents in India and support from her friends in New Zealand, but her parents would not support her if she returned to India.

Kaur admitted to have broken immigration rules by paying for a job, but said she found it too hard to find work in the field that she had studied. “It’s my mistake, I apologize… But I need one last chance from immigration.”

(IANS)

A woman was shot dead in the US city of Boston, leading to an extensive manhunt for her estranged husband who had allegedly chased her in a motor vehicle before the deadly attack.

Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz identified Allen Warner, 47, the woman’s “soon to be ex-husband”, as a person of interest in the shooting which took place on Monday evening on Main Street in Marshfield, reports The Boston Globe daily.

Warner is “considered armed and dangerous”, Cruz told the media on Monday night.

Cruz asked for the public’s help in finding Warner, who the police believe was driving a gray 2013 Toyota Corolla with a Massachusetts license plate.

The woman, believed to be in her late 30s, was taken to South Shore Hospital with a gunshot wound, where she was pronounced dead.

No weapons were recovered at the scene, authorities said.

IANS

India will be focusing on a multilateral agenda at the high-level UN General Assembly (UNGA) session that begins on Tuesday and let Pakistan be a “one-trick pony” on Kashmir if it wants to, India’s Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin has said.

The UN works best on the basis of multilateralism and “India’s positions based on partnerships get a great resonance”, he said on Sunday at a news conference while replying to a reporter’s query about the possibility of Pakistan raising Kashmir at the UNGA.

He said: “If somebody else would like to be a one-trick pony, it is for them to regurgitate that act. We’ve handled this act many times in the past and are confident we’ll do so again.”

“Solo players in a multilateral context have neither a past nor a future” and get “no resonance in such matters”, he added.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that Islamabad would bring up Kashmir at the UNGA and give “unequivocal support to the cause”, Radio Pakistan has reported.

Pakistan has been raising Kashmir at all UN forums, regardless of the topic of the meetings, but no other country has joined it in making it an issue or even talking about it.

During the 2017 UNGA meeting, Pakistani zeal produced a major embarrassment when its Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi was caught out trying to pass off a picture of a wounded Palestinian girl as a Kashmiri.

Akbaruddin said that even when India talks about terrorism, it does not treat it as just a bilateral issue but deals with it in the international context of havoc it wreaks around the world, for example the Boko Haram in Africa, and terrorist groups elsewhere.

Led by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the UN session, India will focus on five topics: reformed multilateralism, climate change action, health, development and peacekeeping, he said.

Fresh from India’s launch of the world’s biggest public health insurance programme, Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda will be joining the Indian delegation to represent the country at a high-level event on Ending Tuberculosis and on Non-Communicable Diseases.

Sushma Swaraj is scheduled to address the UNGA on Saturday at the morning session scheduled to start at 9 a.m. Listed as the fifth speaker, she will likely speak around 7.15 p.m. (India time).

Qureshi’s speech is set for Saturday’s afternoon session, which will give him an opportunity to react to Sushma Swaraj’s address.

If he raises issues relating to India, the nation would have a right of reply which could take place towards the end of that session or Monday’s session.

Customarily a junior diplomat exercises the right of reply at the UNGA high-level meeting.

IANS

The ongoing trade war between the US and China has escalated after American President Donald Trump’s administration’s new 10 per cent tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods kicked in on Monday, spanning thousands of products, including food seasonings, baseball gloves, network routers and industrial machinery parts.

China retaliated immediately with new taxes of 5 to 10 per cent on $60 billion of US goods such as meat, chemicals, clothes and auto parts, reports CNN.

Trump’s latest tariffs on China now apply to over $250 billion of Chinese goods, roughly half the amount the country sells to the US.

The latest round affects thousands of products bought by US consumers, including hundreds of millions of dollars of furniture and electronics imports.

The US tariffs imposed earlier in the year mostly hit industrial goods.

The measures are meant to punish China for what the Trump administration says are unfair trade practices, such as intellectual property theft.

Beijing has rejected the US assertions, accusing Washington of protectionism and bullying. It has fired back with tariffs on American goods worth more than $110 billion.

Monday’s tariffs are set to increase at the end of the year from 10 to 25 per cent, CNN said.

Trump has also threatened tariffs on another $267 billion of Chinese products which would mean the US measures effectively cover all Beijing’s annual goods exports to Washington (the total for 2017 was about $506 billion).

Trump’s decision to move ahead rapidly with the latest tariffs appears to have put the brakes on plans for a new round of negotiations between the two sides.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had invited Chinese negotiators to Washington to resume talks, but a senior White House official said on Friday that no new meetings are planned for the time being.

(IANS)

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that despite Indias reluctance, Islamabad would not close doors on its efforts to promote peace in the region.

“India is reluctant, we will not close our doors,” the Minister said while addressing a news conference at the Pakistan Embassy here on Sunday.

“Hiding away from issues will not make them disappear. It will not improve the situation in Kashmir,” Dawn online quoted Qureshi as saying.

The Minister said he was unable to understand India’s refusal to participate in peace talks with Pakistan.

“Engagement, no-engagement. Coming, not coming. We desired talks as we believe the sensible way is to meet and talk. They agreed, and then disagreed.”

He pointed out that India’s response to Pakistan’s peace offer was harsh and non-diplomatic.

“We did not use a non-diplomatic language in our rejoinder. Our response was matured and measured. They adopted a new approach, and moved back.”

Qureshi said that Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s “language and tone was unbecoming of a foreign minister”, Dawn online reported.

Asked if tensions between India and Pakistan could lead to a war between the two countries, the Minister said: “Who is talking of war? Not us. We want peace, stability, employment and improving lives. You identify where is the reluctance.”

Qureshi said that Pakistan’s desire for peace should not be mistaken for a sign of weakness.

“We want peace. It does not mean, we cannot defend ourselves against aggression. We can but we do not have an aggressive mindset,” he said.

The Minister also reiterated Pakistan’s offer to open the Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara corridor for allowing devotees to visit the historic gurdwara on the 550th birth anniversary of Sri Guru Nanak Dev.

Qureshi’s statement comes after India on Friday cancelled his and Sushma Swaraj’s meeting that was scheduled to be held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) session this week.

New Delhi blamed Pakistan for the killing of security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir and accusing it of glorifying terrorism, in terms of releasing a postage stamp featuring Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani who was killed by Indian security forces last year.

India announced its decision just 24 hours after Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in his media briefing on Thursday that New Delhi has accepted Islamabad’s request for a meeting between the two foreign ministers.

(IANS)

(140530) — BERLIN, May 30, 2014 (Xinhua) — Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak attends a press conference after a trilateral talks in Berlin, Germany, May 30, 2014. Representatives from the European Union (EU), Russia and Ukraine met here on Friday for a new round of trilateral talks in a bid to settle the ongoing gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine, days before a deadline set by Russia to cut the flow of gas if Ukraine does not pay unpaid bills. (Xinhua/Zhang Fan)

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has accused the US of destabilising the global oil market, urging for wider cooperation between OPEC and non-OPEC producers to reach long-term stability.

“The sanctions and the trade wars imposed by some powers will have an impact on the global economy and therefore on the oil market,” Novak said on Sunday in his opening notes at the 10th OPEC and non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, Xinhua reported.

The Russian Minister was referring to the sanctions imposed by the US on Iran, a key oil producer, while “the trade wars” were referring to the ongoing trade conflict between the US and China.

Novak also said that when the production cut-off agreement reached in Algiers in 2016 expires at the end of 2018, “it will be necessary to think carefully to expand our cooperation to meet the rising challenges we face today and in the future.”

“While oil markets are, for the moment, better off for both consumers and producers, we still have to avoid challenges that affect both parties,” he said.

“All market stakeholders, either producers or consumers, are expecting from us to consolidate our solidarity and the approach we have created in order to maintain a long-term global market balance,” the minister concluded.

The JMMC, co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and Russia, comprises four OPEC member countries, namely Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Venezuela, and two non-OPEC member countries, namely Russia and Oman.

It aims to ensure the achievement of the objectives of the Declaration of Algiers on reducing oil outputs by 1.8 million barrels a day to adjust production in the range of 32.5 to 33 million barrels per day to boost plunging prices.

Algiers meeting is expected to extend the 2016 agreement to an additional period to maintain prices at the current level.

IANS

Canadian lawmakers have unanimously voted to declare crimes committed against Rohingya Muslims by the Myanmar military to be genocide.

The House of Commons endorsed on Thursday the findingsof a UN fact-finding mission on Myanmar that found “crimes against humanity have been committed against the Rohingya” and that these acts were sanctioned by top Myanmar military commanders.

Who are the Rohingya?
In a motion, Canadian lawmakers said they “recognise that these crimes against the Rohingya constitute genocide”.

Rights organisations have accused Myanmar military of committing extrajudicial killings, gang rape, and arson during their bloody campaign launched in August last year after army posts came under attack from Rohingya rebels.

More than 700,000 Rohingya people have forced to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh, where they now live in cramped refugee camps.

They also urged the UN Security Council to refer the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC), while also calling for Myanmar’s generals to be investigated and prosecuted “for the crime of genocide”.

“I want to underscore how tragic, how horrific the crimes against the Rohingya are,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said. “We are leading an international effort for justice and accountability for the Rohingya.”

Human rights observers called the declaration as a significant milestone.

The UN report published last month said military generals, including Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, must face investigation and prosecution for “genocidal intent” in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, as well as crimes against humanity and other war crimes in the states of Kachin and Shan.

Myanmar denies any organised abuses.

Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an agreement last year to repatriate the Muslim minority – but it has stalled as the Rohingya fear returning to Myanmar’s Rakhine State without their safety and rights guaranteed.

Aljazeera

The White House has announced the schedule of US President Donald Trump regarding the upcoming UN General Assembly next week.

According to a statement of the White House on Thursday, Trump will participate in a slew of UN General Assembly (UNGA) events and bilateral meetings from September 24-27, Xinhua news agency reported.

On September 24, he will make remarks at the “Global Call to Action on the World Drug Problem” event to talk about counter-narcotics issue and receive heads of state coming to attend the meeting.

On September 25, he will address the 73rd Session of the UNGA, have pull-asides with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the president of the 73rd Session of the UNGA, Maria Fernanda Espinosa, and attend US Ambassador Nikki Haley’s Security Council Presidency Reception.

On September 26, Trump will give remarks at a United Nations Security Council briefing he chaired to discuss counter-proliferation.

Trump has so far been confirmed to participate in bilateral meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, French President Emmanuel Macron, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and British Prime Minister Theresa May, the White House added.

IANS