‘Five years of fire’: Romanian farms wilt in drought

Iulia Blagu, 39, a local farmer poses in a dry-out corn field of her farm nearby Urziceni, July 29, 2024. (AFP)
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Iulia Blagu, 39, a local farmer poses in a dry-out corn field of her farm nearby Urziceni, July 29, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 17 August 2024
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‘Five years of fire’: Romanian farms wilt in drought

Iulia Blagu, 39, a local farmer poses in a dry-out corn field of her farm nearby Urziceni, July 29, 2024. (AFP)
  • The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has warned that it is “increasingly likely” 2024 will be the Earth’s hottest year on record
  • Romania is far from the only country hit by the blazing heat

URZICENI, Romania: Desiccated leaves crackled underfoot as Romanian farmer Iulia Blagu walked through her scorched cornfield, devastated by one of the country’s worst droughts in recent years.
She took over 300 hectares (750 acres) near Urziceni in southeastern Romania from her father half a decade ago — a baptism she describes as “five years of fire.”
“For Romanian agriculture, it’s not a question of if but when we will die,” the 39-year-old told AFP late last month.
Holding up an ear of corn no bigger than her hand, Blagu said the drought was eating away at her harvest “like an unstoppable steamroller,” forcing her for the first time to borrow money to pay her workers.
Romania is far from the only country hit by the blazing heat.
In neighboring Hungary, almost the entire country is on alert because of the high temperatures.
At the beginning of August, dozens of Hungarian farmers led two camels through downtown Budapest to draw attention to the impact of climate change on agriculture.
Both southern and eastern Europe are faced with “persistent and recurrent drought conditions,” according to the latest situation report by the European Union.
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has warned that it is “increasingly likely” 2024 will be the Earth’s hottest year on record.

In Romania, farmers have been promised compensation for the two million hectares of farmland which the government estimates have been damaged.
But one farmer told AFP that agriculture has become “a lottery,” and he feels “at God’s mercy.”
In hundreds of villages, wells have run dry and water restrictions imposed, while lakes are disappearing.
Orthodox priests have even gone into fields of cracked soil to pray for rain, while in another community, work has begun to dig the ground to try to revive springs.
But with a nearby lake at risk of drying out, villager Marian Florea felt glum about the future.
“The climate has changed. And nothing good is coming,” the construction worker, 53, told AFP.
“By the autumn, if this drought continues, there’ll be nothing left here.”
Meanwhile, farmers like Blagu are trying to adjust to the conditions.
She won’t sow corn — once the most profitable crop in the region — any more next year.
Instead, she has begun testing sorghum, a more heat-resistant grain native to Africa, and is also looking into planting coriander and chickpeas besides her wheat, sunflowers and other crops.

Further south, close to the Danube, a 100,000-hectare area of sandy soil nicknamed the “Romanian Sahara” has become a testing ground for alternative crops.
The country is losing 1,000 hectares of arable land every year to climate change, according to Romania’s environment minister Mircea Fechet, who fears that in 50 years the south could end up “completely desertified.”
Since 1959, a research station set up to try to “make the sands bear fruit” has been providing expertise and seeds to farmers.
With scientists warning that climate change caused by human greenhouse gas emissions is driving an increase in extreme weather, its mission has become more crucial than ever.
“Climate change is forcing us to come up with new things, to try other species,” the station’s head, Aurelia Diaconu, told AFP.
Among those grown at the station are persimmons, dates, kiwi and pistachios, species that “some time ago we did not even think that we would taste from our fields,” she said.
But all of the crops tested there are irrigated — something few Romanian farmers currently have access to.
Of the country’s nine million hectares of arable land, less than two million hectares have irrigation — Blagu’s parched cornfields among them.
“Without water we can’t do anything,” she sighed.
 

 


Philippines, Japan agree to boost military ties in ‘increasingly severe’ security environment 

Philippines’ Secretary of National Defence Gilberto Teodoro, right, shakes hands with Japan’s Defense Minister Gen Nakatani.
Philippines’ Secretary of National Defence Gilberto Teodoro, right, shakes hands with Japan’s Defense Minister Gen Nakatani.
Updated 58 min 58 sec ago
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Philippines, Japan agree to boost military ties in ‘increasingly severe’ security environment 

Philippines’ Secretary of National Defence Gilberto Teodoro, right, shakes hands with Japan’s Defense Minister Gen Nakatani.
  • Manila, Tokyo signed landmark defense pact last July, allowing troop deployment on each other’s soil
  • Both countries to increase operational cooperation, promoting collaboration in defense equipment, tech

MANILA: The Philippines and Japan have agreed to deepen defense cooperation in an “increasingly severe” security environment in the Indo-Pacific region, their defense chiefs said on Monday. 

Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani was on an official visit to Manila, where he held a meeting with his Philippine counterpart, Gilberto Teodoro, to discuss regional security issues, including the maritime situation in the East and South China Seas. 

“We are not only to enhance existing alliances in terms of the scale of mutually cooperative activities, but also to the scope of these arrangements by also inviting like-minded partners potentially to join these alliances,” Teodoro said at a joint press conference. 

“We share also the common cause of resisting any unilateral attempt to reshape the global order without the consent of the participants of this global order and the attempt to reshape international law by force. And this endeavor we will resist.”

The Philippines, China and several other countries have overlapping claims in the disputed South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which billions of dollars of goods pass each year.

Beijing has maintained its expansive claims of the area, despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling that China’s historical assertion to it had no basis.

Security ties between Manila and Tokyo — both US allies — have strengthened in the past two years over shared concerns in the region, with the two countries signing a landmark military pact in 2024, allowing the deployment of their forces on each other's soil for joint military drills. It was Japan’s first such pact in Asia. 

Japan has a long-standing territorial dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea, while Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy ships have been involved in a series of tense incidents in the South China Sea. 

During their talks on Monday, Nakatani and Teodoro agreed to strengthen operational cooperation by establishing a strategic dialogue mechanism, enhanced people-to-people exchange and by promoting collaboration in defense equipment and technology. 

“In today's Japan-Philippines defense meeting, first of all, Secretary Teodoro and I firmly concurred that the security environment surrounding us is becoming increasingly severe,” Nakatani said through a translator. 

“It is necessary for the two countries as strategic partners to further enhance defense cooperation and collaboration in order to maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific amid such a situation.”

Prof. Renato De Castro, an international studies expert and professor at De La Salle University in Manila, said defense cooperation with Japan is closely linked with the Philippines-US security ties. 

“Now Japan is a very vibrant and reliable security partner … You cannot actually separate it from the security relationship with the United States. It’s also the enhancement of what I call the base of the US-Japan-Philippines security partnership that was formed last year,” De Castro told Arab News, referring to a summit of the three countries’ leaders last April. 

“It’s really very important in terms of enhancing the capabilities of the three parties to conduct maritime cooperative activities primarily in the South China Sea, and also as preparation for possible contingency in Taiwan.”


Saudi, Indonesian officials agree on closer cooperation to improve health workforce

Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin and Saudi Health Minister Fahad Abdulrahman Al-Jalajel are seen after a meeting.
Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin and Saudi Health Minister Fahad Abdulrahman Al-Jalajel are seen after a meeting.
Updated 24 February 2025
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Saudi, Indonesian officials agree on closer cooperation to improve health workforce

Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin and Saudi Health Minister Fahad Abdulrahman Al-Jalajel are seen after a meeting.
  • Kingdom’s Health Minister Fahad Abdulrahman Al-Jalajel is on 2-day visit to Indonesia 
  • Saudi doctors been training Indonesian colleagues in child heart surgery since last year

JAKARTA: Saudi Arabia and Indonesia signed on Monday a new agreement on the training and exchange of medical workers, as the Southeast Asian nation seeks closer partnership with the Kingdom to improve its healthcare system.

The Kingdom’s Health Minister Fahad Abdulrahman Al-Jalajel is on a two-day visit to Indonesia, leading a high-level delegation of officials.

As a part of the visit, Al-Jalajel and his Indonesian counterpart, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, held talks in Jakarta and witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on health workforce cooperation between their countries.

“The MoU covered various areas of cooperation, including collaboration for Saudi doctors to practice in Indonesia, and for Indonesian doctors to study in Saudi Arabia,” the Indonesian Ministry of Health said in a statement.

The deal also covers nursing scholarships, a fellowship program and exchange of health workers, it added.

“Through the exchange of health workforce, we hope to increase the standard of education and health services, while also strengthening the capacity of our human resources here in Indonesia,” Sadikin said after the bilateral meeting.

Saudi Arabia-Indonesia ties in the healthcare sector have been growing over the years. 

Last year, Saudi doctors trained their Indonesian health colleagues in child heart surgery and helped expand access to pediatric cardiac care in the country, through programs sponsored by KSrelief, the Kingdom’s aid agency. 

Sadikin hopes more Saudi doctors will come to Indonesia for child heart surgeries, as only half of an estimated 12,000 Indonesian children who are born with cardiac disease get treatment. 

“Around 6,000 among them are uncared for and die as a result. I hope more doctors from KSrelief will come and help increase the number of cardiac surgeries in Indonesia,” he said. 

The Saudi Arabia delegation also signed several agreements with Indonesia universities to train medical workers from the two countries. 

“This cooperation will cover training in both countries, with the hopes that it will create a better and improved health workforce,” Al-Jalajel said.


China’s Xi affirms ‘no limits’ partnership with Putin in call on Ukraine war anniversary

China’s Xi affirms ‘no limits’ partnership with Putin in call on Ukraine war anniversary
Updated 24 February 2025
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China’s Xi affirms ‘no limits’ partnership with Putin in call on Ukraine war anniversary

China’s Xi affirms ‘no limits’ partnership with Putin in call on Ukraine war anniversary
  • ‘China-Russia relations have strong internal driving force and unique strategic value, and are not aimed at, nor are they influenced by, any third party’

BEIJING: China’s President Xi Jinping affirmed his “no limits” partnership in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, China’s state media reported, on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The leaders held the talks as US President Donald Trump has pushed for a quick deal to end the Ukraine war, raising the prospect that Washington could draw a wedge between Xi and Putin and focus on competing with the world’s second largest economy.

The call appeared aimed at dispelling any such prospects — the two leaders underscored the durability and the “long-term” nature of their alliance, with its own “internal dynamics” that would not be impacted by any “third party.”

“China-Russia relations have strong internal driving force and unique strategic value, and are not aimed at, nor are they influenced by, any third party,” said Xi, according to the official readout published by Chinese state media.

“The development strategies and foreign policies of China and Russia are long-term,” said Xi, adding that the two countries “are good neighbors that cannot be moved apart.”

Trump has alarmed Washington’s European allies by leaving them and Ukraine out of talks with Russia last week and blaming Ukraine for Russia’s 2022 invasion.

On Ukraine, Xi said that China was “pleased to see the positive efforts made by Russia and all parties concerned to defuse the crisis,” noting China’s initiatives such as the creation of a group of nations called “friends of peace.”

“All in appearance is normal and seems nothing happened to Sino-Russian partnership, but either side must know that many things could be different after Trump-Putin bilateral diplomacy, though itself highly confusing and uncertain,” said Shi Yinhong, professor at the School of International Studies, Renmin University.

This was the second call both leaders have held this year, after they discussed how to build ties with Trump in January.

China and Russia declared a “no limits” strategic partnership, days before Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Xi has met Putin over 40 times in the past decade and Putin in recent months described China as an “ally.”

Beijing has refused to condemn Moscow for its role in the war, straining its ties with Europe and the US as a result.

Both sides also discussed preparations for the commemoration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two. Earlier this month Xi accepted Russia’s invitation to attend the event.


Turkiye says Ukraine-Russia talks should involve ‘both sides’

Turkiye says Ukraine-Russia talks should involve ‘both sides’
Updated 24 February 2025
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Turkiye says Ukraine-Russia talks should involve ‘both sides’

Turkiye says Ukraine-Russia talks should involve ‘both sides’
  • Moscow and Washington have begun a direct dialogue in recent weeks
  • Russian and US officials held talks in Saudi Arabia in a meeting denounced by Volodymyr Zelensky

ANKARA: Turkiye’s foreign minister on Monday said Ankara backed a US initiative to end the Ukraine-Russia conflict but stressed that talks should involve both warring sides.
Moscow and Washington have begun a direct dialogue in recent weeks, against a backdrop of rapprochement between new US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“We attach great importance to the new US initiative as a result-oriented approach. We believe that a solution can be reached through negotiations in which both sides participate,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told a news conference with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Ankara.
Lavrov’s visit comes on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to the Turkish capital.
Lavrov said Russia is ready for negotiations on the Ukraine war but will only stop fighting when a peace settlement “suits” Moscow.
“We will stop hostilities only when these negotiations produce a firm and sustainable result that suits the Russian Federation,” he said.
Russian and US officials held talks in Saudi Arabia in a meeting denounced by Zelensky, who fears an agreement reached without him.
Fidan, whose country hosted talks between Ukraine and Russia during the start of the war, said Turkiye was ready to take any step that would help bring peace.
“Turkiye is always prepared to assume any facilitating or accelerating role... Our goal is to end this devastating war as soon as possible and to heal the wounds in the region,” he said.
NATO member Turkiye has sought to maintain good relations with its warring Black Sea neighbors, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pitching himself as a key go-between and possible peacemaker between the two.
Ankara has provided drones for Ukraine but shied away from Western-led sanctions on Moscow.
Lavrov is due to meet with Erdogan later in the day.


Russia says blasts at Marseille consulate look like terrorism, TASS reports

Russia says blasts at Marseille consulate look like terrorism, TASS reports
Updated 24 February 2025
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Russia says blasts at Marseille consulate look like terrorism, TASS reports

Russia says blasts at Marseille consulate look like terrorism, TASS reports
  • There was no word on any casualties, and no immediate information on the extent of any damage

MOSCOW: Russia on Monday demanded a full French investigation into explosions at its consulate in Marseille which it said looked like an act of terrorism, state news agency TASS said.
There was no word on any casualties, and no immediate information on the extent of any damage.
“The explosions on the territory of the Russian Consulate General in Marseille have all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack,” TASS quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.
“We demand (from France) exhaustive and prompt measures to investigate, as well as steps to strengthen the security of Russian foreign missions.”
The incident in the southern French city took place on the third anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine war.
French media earlier reported that a blast was heard near the consulate and firemen were at the site.