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Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai to visit native Pakistan for girls’ summit

Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai to visit native Pakistan for girls’ summit
“I am excited to join Muslim leaders from around the world for a critical conference on girls’ education,” she said Friday in a post on X. (AFP)
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Updated 11 January 2025
AFP
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Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai to visit native Pakistan for girls’ summit

Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai to visit native Pakistan for girls’ summit
  • Nobel peace prize laureate Malala Yousafzai will attend a summit on girls’ education hosted by her native Pakistan, where she was nearly killed by militants as a schoolgirl
Updated 11 January 2025
AFP
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ISLAMABAD: Nobel peace prize laureate Malala Yousafzai will attend a summit on girls’ education hosted by her native Pakistan, where she was nearly killed by militants as a schoolgirl.
Yousafzai was evacuated from the country in 2012 after being shot by the Pakistan Taliban, who were enraged by her activism, and she has returned to the country only a handful of times since.
“I am excited to join Muslim leaders from around the world for a critical conference on girls’ education,” she said Friday in a post on X.
“On Sunday, I will speak about protecting rights for all girls to go to school, and why leaders must hold the Taliban accountable for their crimes against Afghan women & girls.”
A spokesperson for her Malala Fund charity confirmed she will attend the summit in person.
The two-day summit will be held in the capital Islamabad on Saturday and Sunday, focusing on girls’ education in Muslim communities.

Topics: Pakistan Malala Yousafzai Islamabad Summit

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UK delaying reversal on Israeli arms export ban: Report

UK delaying reversal on Israeli arms export ban: Report
Updated 23 January 2025
Arab News
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UK delaying reversal on Israeli arms export ban: Report

UK delaying reversal on Israeli arms export ban: Report
  • British PM expects ‘sustained’ aid deliveries to Gaza before reversing partial weapons freeze
  • Israeli counterpart raised the matter during phone call on Tuesday
Updated 23 January 2025
Arab News

LONDON: The UK is delaying lifting its partial ban on arms exports to Israel until “sustained” humanitarian aid shipments arrive in Gaza, The Times reported.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who spoke to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone on Tuesday, is believed to be resisting pressure from Tel Aviv on the matter.

Starmer is expected to wait for formal legal advice that Israel’s policy on aid deliveries has improved before reversing the ban.

A source told The Times: “There are signs that the trucks are getting through. But we have told the Israelis we need that to be sustained and to see numbers increased.”

Last September, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy suspended 30 of 350 export licenses to Israel due to fears that the weapons could be used to commit violations of international law, implicating Britain in the process. Licenses are reviewed every six weeks as per government policy.

The government’s existing legal position on the banned export licenses cites credible claims of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners of war, as well as insufficient aid deliveries to Gaza. Israel could “reasonably do more to facilitate humanitarian access and distribution,” it says.

During Tuesday’s phone call, Netanyahu “raised the issue of the weapons export licenses to Israel that have been frozen in the UK,” according to an Israeli government report.

There are concerns that an Israeli law set to take effect next week designating the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees as a terrorist group could prevent it from helping with urgent aid deliveries.

UNRWA is the largest aid organization in Gaza, with about 13,000 staff in the Palestinian enclave.

Topics: UK Israel

Daesh claims responsibility for killing Chinese national in Afghanistan

Daesh claims responsibility for killing Chinese national in Afghanistan
Updated 23 January 2025
Reuters
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Daesh claims responsibility for killing Chinese national in Afghanistan

Daesh claims responsibility for killing Chinese national in Afghanistan
  • Daesh said it had targeted a vehicle carrying the Chinese citizen, which led to his death and damage to his vehicle
  • China said it was “deeply shocked” by the attack and demanded the Afghan side thoroughly investigate the incident
Updated 23 January 2025
Reuters

KABUL: Daesh (Islamic State) has claimed responsibility for the killing of a Chinese national in Afghanistan’s northern Takhar province, it said in a post on its Telegram channel late on Wednesday.

Afghan police in the province had said on Wednesday that a Chinese citizen was murdered and a preliminary investigation had been launched, but it was not clear who was behind the attack.

Daesh said it had targeted a vehicle carrying the Chinese citizen, which led to his death and damage to his vehicle.

China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday it was “deeply shocked” by the attack and had demanded that the Afghan side thoroughly investigate the incident and severely punish the perpetrators.

“We urge the Afghan interim government to take resolute and effective measures to ensure the security of Chinese civil institutions and projects in Afghanistan,” ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing.

China was the first country to appoint an ambassador to Afghanistan under the Taliban and has said it wants to boost trade and investment ties.

The Taliban took over in 2021, vowing to restore security to the war-torn nation.

Attacks have continued, including an assault in 2022 on a Kabul hotel popular with Chinese investors. Daesh has claimed responsibility for many of them.

Topics: Daesh China Afghanistan

NATO allies must pay ‘fair share’ before adding members: US envoy

NATO allies must pay ‘fair share’ before adding members: US envoy
Updated 23 January 2025
AFP
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NATO allies must pay ‘fair share’ before adding members: US envoy

NATO allies must pay ‘fair share’ before adding members: US envoy
  • NATO allies must pay their “fair share” on defense before considering enlarging the alliance, a US presidential envoy said Thursday, as NATO’s chief said members will need to ramp up defense spending
Updated 23 January 2025
AFP

DAVOS: NATO allies must pay their “fair share” on defense before considering enlarging the alliance, a US presidential envoy said Thursday, as NATO’s chief said members will need to ramp up defense spending.
“You cannot ask the American people to expand the umbrella of NATO when the current members aren’t paying their fair share, and that includes the Dutch who need to step up,” US envoy Richard Grenell said by video link at an event on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in response to NATO chief Mark Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister.
“We have collectively to move up and we will decide on the exact number later this year, but it will be considerably more than two (percent),” Rutte said, referring to the alliance’s target of defense spending of two percent of GDP.

Topics: NATO

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Balkan air pollution crisis threatens public health, EU membership goals

Balkan air pollution crisis threatens public health, EU membership goals
Updated 23 January 2025
Reuters
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Balkan air pollution crisis threatens public health, EU membership goals

Balkan air pollution crisis threatens public health, EU membership goals
  • Old coal plants, cars keep Balkan pollution high
  • Economic hardship hinders progress toward reducing emissions
Updated 23 January 2025
Reuters

OBILIC: For 30 years, Shemsi Gara operated a giant digger in a Kosovo coal mine, churning up toxic dust that covered his face and got into his airways. Home life wasn’t much better: the power plants that the mine supplies constantly spew fumes over his village.
Gara died on Sunday aged 55 after three years of treatment failed to contain his lung cancer. In his final days, unable to walk, he lay on a couch at home, gaunt and in pain, as a machine pumped oxygen into his dying body.
“I kept telling him I wanted to help, but I couldn’t,” said his wife Xhejlane, who mourned in her living room with friends on Wednesday. “He would say ‘Only God knows the pain I have’.”
As much of the world moves to reduce the use of fossil fuels, pollution in Western Balkan countries remains stubbornly high due to household heating, outdated coal plants, old cars, and a lack of money to tackle the problem.
Relatively small cities such as Serbia’s capital Belgrade and Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo have frequently topped daily global pollution charts, according to websites that track air quality worldwide.
This has costly health impacts, and could also jeopardize such countries’ prospects of joining the European Union, which has stricter emissions standards.
“There are no resources in the region for the reduction of air pollution,” said Mirko Popovic, a director with the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute think-tank in Belgrade.
In the EU, net greenhouse gas emissions have dropped by about 40 percent since 1990, driven by the embrace of renewable energy, a European Commission report said in November.
Western Balkan nations have pledged to reduce carbon emissions but economic hardship has slowed progress.
Kosovo, one of Europe’s poorest countries, generates more than 90 percent of its power from coal. The World Bank estimates that a transition to a coal-free economy will cost 4.5 billion euros.

SMOG
The impact of pollution is clear across the region, especially in winter.
Smog has cloaked Belgrade this week, while Sarajevo sits in a valley that acts as a pollution trap. The Bosnian capital’s air quality was classed as “hazardous” on Tuesday, the worst in the world, according to IQAir, which tracks pollution levels.
In North Macedonia’s capital Skopje, mask-wearing locals often lose sight of nearby snow-capped mountains for days.
The rate of deaths attributable to ambient pollution is relatively high — 114 per 100,000 people in Bosnia and around 100 in Serbia and Montenegro, World Health Organization data show, compared with just 45 in Germany and 29 in France.
Gara was buried on Monday in a cemetery in Obilic, outside Kosovo’s capital Pristina. From the graveside, mourners could hear the chug of a nearby conveyor belt transporting coal from the mine to the power plants.
Gara’s doctor, Haki Jashari, blamed Gara’s cancer on his years at the coal mine, and on the polluting power plants.
Cancer rates more than doubled in Obilic over the last two years, Jashari said — the result, he added, of a generation of exposure to pollutants. He expects it will get worse.
Kosovo’s energy ministry told Reuters it was committed to reducing emissions and was investing in renewable energy projects and upgrading existing plants.
Jashari only wishes more could have been done sooner.
“They would have shut the plants down if we were part of the EU. It is unacceptable.”

Topics: Balkan EU Bosnia

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India says 'open' to return of undocumented immigrants in US

India says 'open' to return of undocumented immigrants in US
Updated 23 January 2025
AFP
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India says 'open' to return of undocumented immigrants in US

India says 'open' to return of undocumented immigrants in US
  • India was working with the Trump administration on the deportation of around 18,000 Indians
Updated 23 January 2025
AFP

Washington: India is prepared to take back its citizens residing illegally in the United States, foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has said after meeting the top diplomat of President Donald Trump’s new administration.
Jaishankar’s remarks came after a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on Tuesday a day after Trump’s inauguration.
Trump issued a raft of executive orders this week that aim to clamp down on illegal immigration and expedite his goal of deporting millions of immigrants.
Jaishankar said New Delhi was open to taking back undocumented Indians and was in the process of verifying those in the United States who could be deported to India.
“We want Indian talent and Indian skills to have the maximum opportunity at the global level. At the same time, we are also very firmly opposed to illegal mobility and illegal migration,” Jaishankar told a group of Indian reporters in Washington on Wednesday.
“So, with every country, and the US is no exception, we have always taken the view that if any of our citizens are here illegally, and if we are sure that they are our citizens, we have always been open to their legitimate return to India.”
Jaishankar was responding to a query on news reports that India was working with the Trump administration on the deportation of around 18,000 Indians who are either undocumented, or have overstayed their visas.
Rubio had “emphasized the Trump administration’s desire to work with India to advance economic ties and address concerns related to irregular migration,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a readout after Tuesday’s meeting.
India is the world’s fifth-largest economy and enjoys world-beating GDP growth, but hundreds of thousands of its citizens still leave the country each year seeking better opportunities abroad.
While its diaspora spans the globe, the United States remains the destination of choice.
The most recent US census showed its Indian-origin population had grown by 50 percent to 4.8 million in the decade to 2020, while more than a third of the nearly 1.3 million Indian students studying abroad in 2022 were in the United States.

Topics: India US illegal immigrants

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