Philippines sends first business mission to Saudi Arabia since pandemic

A Philippine business delegation organized by the Department of Trade and Industry meets with officials from the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry in this photo shared on Feb. 13, 2024. (Philippine Embassy in Riyadh)

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Updated 14 February 2024

Ellie Aben

February 14, 2024 15:33

Philippines sends first business mission to Saudi Arabia since pandemic

Philippine trade delegation will continue their GCC trip to UAE
Mission follows President Marcos’ trip to Kingdom last October

Updated 14 February 2024

Ellie Aben

February 14, 2024 15:33

MANILA: The Philippines promoted its export products in Saudi Arabia this week in the first business-matching mission to the Kingdom since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Philippine delegation, organized by the Department of Trade and Industry and comprising food, beverage and personal care exporters, began their activities in Riyadh over the weekend and concluded their activities in Dammam on Wednesday, after which they will visit the UAE.

“The primary objective of the (mission) is to create greater opportunities for Philippine brands and products to expand their geographical reach in the GCC region,” Rommel Romato, charge d’affaires of the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh, told Arab News.

“The mission is a positive step towards increasing the global mindshare of Philippine brands through expansion and diversification of the country’s exports and their destinations.”

During its visit, the delegation met with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam, as well as various Saudi companies.

Philippine officials are seeking to boost trade relations further following the rise of Philippine-Saudi trade volume from 2022 to 2023, which Romato said reflected “the complementarity of the two economies and the potential for further diversification.”

The Philippines is promoting one of its top exports, tropical fruits, in Saudi Arabia, as it hopes to tap into the Kingdom’s demand for the product.

“There is a huge demand for tropical fruits here in Saudi Arabia and these have the potential for more trade growth … Bananas could be a lucrative product for the Philippines to increase its market share in Saudi Arabia among other produce such as cacao, pineapples and mangoes,” Romato said.

The business-matching mission follows President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s visit to Riyadh in October, during which a $4.26 billion investment agreement was signed with Saudi business leaders.

Lionheart Farms, which produces coconut sap-based products and is part of the trade delegation, is optimistic about the outcome of the visit to the Kingdom.

“Saudi Arabia is opening up to the world and it is a fantastic privilege to present our organic, sustainable products to the KSA market,” Christian Eyde Moeller, president and CEO of Lionheart Farms, said in a statement.

“This mission will pave the way for further growth and success for Lionheart Farms and other Filipino brands in the region.”

Topics: Philippines Saudi Arabia

UK vows to smash gangs as courts jail people traffickers

Updated 51 min 54 sec ago

AFP

September 06, 2024 15:48

UK vows to smash gangs as courts jail people traffickers

Anas Al-Mustafa, originally from Syria, found guilty in August of assisting unlawful migration by trafficking seven people

Updated 51 min 54 sec ago

AFP

September 06, 2024 15:48

LONDON: UK interior minister Yvette Cooper vowed Friday that her government “will not rest” until people-smuggling gangs are dismantled, following a series of shocking migrant incidents including a deadly boat wreck in the Channel.
Her comments came shortly after a van driver received a 10-year prison term for smuggling migrants in a secret compartment where they were found screaming for help and starved of oxygen.
Anas Al-Mustafa, 43, originally from Syria, was found guilty in August of assisting unlawful migration by trafficking the seven people in a specially adapted van.
Cooper spoke at a gathering of senior crime-fighting and intelligence officials that she chaired on Friday.
It came after at least 12 people perished trying to cross the Channel on Tuesday, when their small boat was ripped apart off the northern French coast.
Ahead of the summit, Cooper said that “exploiting vulnerable people is at the heart of the business model of these despicable criminal smuggling gangs.
“At least 12 people were killed as part of this evil trade. We will not rest until these networks have been dismantled and brought to justice.”
While much of the focus has been on crossings of the Channel by small boat, smugglers also use more traditional routes to move people from mainland Europe to the UK.
Al-Mustafa was caught when crew members on a car ferry between Dieppe in northern France and Newhaven on England’s south coast heard pleas from inside the van.
The six men and one woman were found crammed into an overheated concealed space described as no more than “the width of a human chest.”
Crew members used an axe to free the migrants by breaking down the fake partition.
By the time they were rescued two had lost consciousness. None of the migrants had been supplied with water, the court was told.
Prosecutors said that the younger migrants recovered from their dehydration but that one man had a possible heart attack, the woman suffered an acute kidney injury and another man went to hospital in a comatose state and suffered a stroke.
“Desperate people are prepared to risk their lives to come into the UK, often with tragic consequences,” judge Christine Laing said. “They are exploited by those who profit from this trade and pay little attention to their safety.”
Border Security and Asylum Minister Angela Eagle said the case underlined the need to dismantle the smuggling gangs.
“This evil criminal put seven people’s lives at risk for cash, it is a miracle they are still alive after the conditions they were put in,” she said in a statement.
In a separate case, a UK national who attempted to smuggle five migrants, including a five-year-old child, was jailed for three years after being found guilty of assisting unlawful immigration at trial.
Border Force officers caught Joshua Bynoe, 29, in Coquelles, France, as he drove his motorhome, in which five Afghan nationals were hiding, toward the UK.
Immigration was a major issue at the general election in July that brought Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour party to power.
One of his first acts as prime minister was to abolish the last Conservative government’s plan to deport migrants to Rwanda as a deterrent to small boats crossings, calling it an expensive “gimmick.”
The Tories had spent £700 million ($900 million) on the scheme but only four migrants had relocated to Rwanda — and they went voluntarily, Cooper told parliament in July.
According to the latest UK government figures, 22,240 migrants have been detected and brought ashore so far this year.
There are also concerns about an increase in the size of boats being used to try to cross the busy shipping lane.

Topics: UK migrants Syria

Zelensky appeals for weapons as Russia advances

Updated 06 September 2024

AFP

September 06, 2024 17:58

Zelensky appeals for weapons as Russia advances

“We need more weapons to drive Russian forces off our land,” said Zelensky
The Ukrainian leader again called for restrictions to be lifted on the use of long-range Western weapons to hit targets inside Russia

Updated 06 September 2024

AFP

September 06, 2024 17:58

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany: President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed on Friday to Ukraine’s backers for additional weapons as Kyiv faces advancing Russian forces in the east and devastating strikes by Moscow.
The Ukrainian leader pressed his nation’s case to allies meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where Washington unveiled a new $250 million in military aid.
“We need more weapons to drive Russian forces off our land,” said Zelensky, who also met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and was to head to Italy for talks.
The gathering comes as Moscow’s forces advance in the Donbas region, with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday declaring that capturing the eastern area was his “primary objective” in the conflict.
Zelensky urged Kyiv’s supporters to follow through on previous commitments, saying: “The number of air defense systems that have not been delivered is significant.”
The Ukrainian leader again called for restrictions to be lifted on the use of long-range Western weapons to hit targets inside Russia.
“We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the occupied territory of Ukraine, but also on the Russian territory,” Zelensky said.
In Italy, Zelensky is due to hold talks with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and attend The European House-Ambrosetti forum in Cernobbio, on Lake Como.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — who upset his EU counterparts and Zelensky by meeting Putin in Moscow in July — is also attending the three-day economic forum.
Italy has strongly supported Ukraine and has sent weapons to help it defend itself against Russian forces, while insisting these must only be used on Ukrainian soil.
At the meeting at the US base in Germany, US defense chief Lloyd Austin announced that Washington will provide $250 million in new military aid for Ukraine.
The package “will surge in more capabilities to meet Ukraine’s evolving requirements,” Austin told the meeting.
The assistance is expected to include ammunition for HIMARS precision rocket launchers, artillery rounds, anti-tank and anti-air weapons, a US defense official said on condition of anonymity.
The talks in Germany, with representatives from some 50 nations, were to focus on areas including bolstering Ukraine’s air defenses and encouraging allies to boost their defense industries, Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said ahead of the meeting.
Since the start of Russia’s offensive in February 2022 when it failed to seize the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Moscow has adapted its aims, concentrating instead on trying to conquer eastern Ukraine.
While Ukraine’s surprise push into Russia’s Kursk region last month caught Russian forces off-guard, Putin stressed that the move had failed to slow Moscow’s advance.
Ukraine on Friday claimed to have recaptured a part of the eastern Ukrainian town of New York, in the first success for Kyiv on this part of the front for months.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking in Oslo Friday, said Ukraine needs more military support and that the “quickest way to end this war is to provide weapons to Ukraine.”
“Putin must realize that he cannot win on the battlefield, but must accept a just and lasting peace where Ukraine prevails as a sovereign and independent nation,” he said.
The United States has been Ukraine’s biggest backer during the conflict, providing military aid worth more than $55 billion (50 billion euros) since February 2022.
But uncertainty looms over the future of that funding as a US election in November could see Ukraine-skeptic Donald Trump back in the White House.
Germany — Ukraine’s second-biggest backer — has also come under pressure domestically over its aid for Kyiv, which has been at the center of a protracted row over the 2025 budget.
German officials have repeatedly pushed back at criticism over a planned reduction in financial support next year.
After talks with Zelensky in Frankfurt Friday, Scholz posted on X that “Germany is and will remain the strongest supporter of Ukraine in Europe.”
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also announced on the sidelines of the meeting that his country would provide 12 artillery pieces valued at 150 million euros to Ukraine.
“I’m grateful to Germany, its government, and its people for all their support,” Zelensky said in a social media post after meeting with Pistorius.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

Trump lawyers fight to overturn jury’s finding that he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll

Updated 06 September 2024

September 06, 2024 17:33

Trump lawyers fight to overturn jury’s finding that he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll

“This case is a textbook example of implausible allegations being propped up by highly inflammatory, inadmissible” evidence, attorney D. John Sauer said
Trump did not attend the 2023 trial and has expressed regret he was not there

Updated 06 September 2024

September 06, 2024 17:33

NEW YORK: A lawyer for former President Donald Trump fought Friday to overturn a verdict finding him liable for sexual abuse and slander, telling federal appeals judges that the civil trial in a lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll was muddied by improper evidence.
“This case is a textbook example of implausible allegations being propped up by highly inflammatory, inadmissible” evidence, attorney D. John Sauer said, noting that the jury was allowed to consider such items as the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted years ago about grabbing women’s genitals.
The Republican presidential nominee’s motorcade arrived Friday morning at the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, where three judges were hearing arguments in his appeal of a jury’s finding that he sexually abused Carroll. She says Trump attacked her in a department store dressing room in 1996. Trump denies it. That jury awarded Carroll $5 million.
Trump’s lawyers say the jury’s verdict should be tossed because evidence was allowed at trial that should have been excluded and other evidence was excluded that should have been permitted.
Trump did not attend the 2023 trial and has expressed regret he was not there.
The court is unlikely to issue a ruling before November’s presidential election.
The civil case has both political and financial implications for Trump.
Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, has jabbed at Trump over the jury’s verdict, noting repeatedly that he had been found liable for sexual abuse.
And last January, a second jury awarded Carroll another $83.3 million in damages for comments Trump had made about her while he was president, finding that they were defamatory. That jury had been instructed by the judge that it had to accept the first jury’s finding that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll. The second trial was largely held to determine how badly Carroll had been harmed by Trump’s comments and how severely he should be punished.
Trump, 77, testified less than three minutes at the trial and was not permitted to refute conclusions reached by the May 2023 jury. Still, he was animated in the courtroom throughout the two-week trial, and jurors could hear him grumbling about the case.
The appeal of that trial’s outcome, which Trump labeled “absolutely ridiculous!” immediately afterward, will be heard by the appeals court at a later date.
Carroll, 80, testified during both trials that her life as an Elle magazine columnist was spoiled by Trump’s public comments, which she said ignited such hate against her that she received death threats and feared going outside the upstate New York cabin where she lives.
Lawyers for Trump said in court papers that he deserves a new trial in part because the trial judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, permitted two other women to testify about similar acts of sex abuse they say Trump committed against them in the 1970s and in 2005.
They also argued that Kaplan wrongly disallowed evidence that Carroll lied during her deposition, and other evidence they say would reveal bias and motives to lie for Carroll and other witnesses against Trump. The verdict, they wrote, was “unjust and erroneous,” resulting from “flawed and prejudicial evidentiary rulings.”
Trump has insisted that Carroll made up the story about being attacked to sell a new book. He has denied knowing her.
Trump’s lawyers also challenged repeated airing at trial of an “Access Hollywood” videotape from 2005 in which Trump is heard saying that he sometimes just starts kissing beautiful women and “when you’re a star they let you do it.” He also said that a star can grab women’s genitals because “You can do anything.”
In their written arguments, Carroll’s lawyers said Trump was wrongly demanding “a do-over” based on unfounded “sweeping complaints of unfairness” and other “distortions of the record, misstatements or misapplications of the law, and a steadfast disregard of the district court’s reasoning.”
“There was no error here, let alone a violation of Trump’s substantial rights. This Court should affirm,” Carroll’s lawyers said.

Topics: US Dnald Trump Thurgood Marshall Courthouse E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse

UN nuclear chief in Russia reiterates safety concerns

Updated 06 September 2024

AFP

September 06, 2024 17:24

UN nuclear chief in Russia reiterates safety concerns

He has already issued warnings over the situation at both the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the Kursk power plant
Grossi met the head of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency Alexei Likhachev in Kaliningrad

Updated 06 September 2024

AFP

September 06, 2024 17:24

MOSCOW: UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi held more talks with Russian officials Friday over safety concerns at two nuclear power plants threatened by the fighting between Moscow and Kyiv.
He has already issued warnings over the situation at both the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the Kursk power plant, near to where Kyiv has mounted its incursion into Russia.
Grossi met the head of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency Alexei Likhachev in Kaliningrad, after visiting the Zaporizhzhia plant in southeast Ukraine this week and the Kursk plant the week before.
He met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday.
“The times remain very difficult,” Grossi told Likhachev, Russian news agencies reported.
The situation at the Kursk power plant — some 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Kyiv’s forces — was “worrying,” he said.
But both officials said the plant’s functioning was stable, and Grossi again urged both sides to refrain from attacking power plants.
“I said this in Zaporizhzhia, I said this in Kyiv and now I say this in Kaliningrad: power plants can never be legitimate targets in an armed conflict,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of trying to strike the Kursk plant, without providing evidence.
Likhachev said Russia “expects an adequate response” from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk is now a month long, with Kyiv laying claim to dozens of Russian border settlements.
Putin said this week that Moscow has “gradually” started to push out Kyiv’s forces from Kursk.
The Zaporizhzhia plant fell to Moscow in the first days of its offensive in 2022.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict IAEA Rafael Grossi Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant Kursk

New bus to help Jewish Londoners feel safer

Updated 06 September 2024

AFP

September 06, 2024 16:33

New bus to help Jewish Londoners feel safer

London mayor Sadiq Khan said he had been struck by the fear felt by Jews who told him they had received abuse when changing buses to travel between the two areas
The new service was welcomed by Jewish groups

Updated 06 September 2024

AP AFP

September 06, 2024 16:33

LONDON: Transport authorities in London have introduced a new public bus service linking two areas of the capital with large Jewish populations, as anti-Semitic incidents hit record levels.
London mayor Sadiq Khan said he had been struck by the fear felt by Jews who told him they had received abuse when changing buses to travel between the two areas.
The new service, which began this week, provides a direct link between Golders Green and Stamford Hill, removing the need for passengers to change buses.
The new service was welcomed by Jewish groups.
“In a period where our community is encountering unprecedented anti-Semitism, any measure that bolsters the confidence of Jewish individuals in using public transport is immensely valued,” said co-chairs of the London Jewish Forum Andrew Gilbert and Adrian Cohen.
Khan said the Jewish community has been campaigning for a direct transport link for 16 years.
The Jewish community was “frightened because of a mass increase in anti-Semitism since October 7 last year” when Hamas attacked southern Israel, he told BBC radio.
“I was told stories by families who, where they changed buses from Stamford Hill to Golders Green at Finsbury Park, were frightened about the abuse they had received,” he said.
Passengers using the service on Friday told AFP they were happy it was now available.
“I feel safer and its very convenient,” said one woman with her four-year-old son wearing a kippa.
She said she had “never had a problem myself. But antisemitism is rising for sure.”
“I avoid going out in the evening,” she added.
Another passenger, Jochanan, 70, said he usually took a taxi to visit family in Golders Green because the area where you had to change buses was “known to be violent.”
He said he was very concerned about the current situation in London.
“The old generation say the situation now reminds them of Germany before the war in the 1930s,” he said.
Anti-Semitic incidents in the UK hit record levels in the first half of this year, according to one Jewish charity.
The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors anti-Semitism in Britain, recorded 1,978 such incidents from January to June, its highest six-month tally since it began its count in 1984.
It said it was the continuation of a surge seen after the October 7 attack.
The number represented a 105-percent increase on the 964 incidents recorded in the same period in 2023, the trust added.

Topics: London transport Jewish Stamford Hills anti-Semitic

Philippines sends first business mission to Saudi Arabia since pandemic

Philippines sends first business mission to Saudi Arabia since pandemic

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Zelensky appeals for weapons as Russia advances

Zelensky appeals for weapons as Russia advances

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Zelensky demands ‘tangible results’ after major government shake-up

Trump lawyers fight to overturn jury’s finding that he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll

Trump lawyers fight to overturn jury’s finding that he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll

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UN nuclear chief in Russia reiterates safety concerns

UN nuclear chief in Russia reiterates safety concerns

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New bus to help Jewish Londoners feel safer

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Philippines sends first business mission to Saudi Arabia since pandemic

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