US would redirect aid from UNRWA to other agencies under Senate bill — State Dept

Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip February 1, 2024. (REUTERS)
Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip February 1, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 06 February 2024
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US would redirect aid from UNRWA to other agencies under Senate bill — State Dept

US would redirect aid from UNRWA to other agencies under Senate bill — State Dept
  • UNRWA warned last week that it might be forced to shut down its operations by the end of February if funding does not resume, after the United States and other important donors suspended funding

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration would redirect any funds for UNRWA to other aid agencies working in Gaza if Congress passes legislation that would bar funding of the main UN agency for Palestinians, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Monday.
Washington last month said it was temporarily pausing new funding to UNRWA while it investigates claims a dozen staff took part in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. A bill unveiled by senators on Sunday included a provision blocking the agency from receiving funds made available by the bill.
Patel said at a press briefing that the bill, negotiated by the Biden administration and a bipartisan group of senators, included $1.4 billion for humanitarian aid for Gaza, but that could be sent to the UN’s World Food Program (WFP), UNICEF or other aid groups.
“This is tangible money that we believe will save lives and have a direct impact on Palestinian civilians, and we will redirect funding for UNRWA to other partners to provide assistance in Gaza,” he said.
The State Department has said it has provided $121 million to UNRWA in the current fiscal year, and that only $300,000 of appropriated funds remained for the agency. Washington usually gives UNRWA between $300 million-$400 million annually.
UNRWA warned last week that it might be forced to shut down its operations by the end of February if funding does not resume, after the United States and other important donors suspended funding.
Israel alleged that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 staff in Gaza were involved in Hamas’ attacks that Israel said killed 1,200 people and sparked an Israeli assault that has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza authorities.
An Israeli official told Reuters that the Foreign Ministry has assigned a task force to put together a proposal for replacing UNRWA, and that among candidate agencies are the WFP and Washington’s USAID.
Washington backs UNRWA for its “critical work” as the main aid agency for Palestinians but wants to see “concrete results” from UNRWA’s investigation into Israel’s claims, Patel said, declining to say when the US would make a decision on restarting funding.
“We believe that we can continue to do important work through other NGOs and other partners and, simultaneously, we’ll continue have conversations with donor countries about supporting UNRWA,” Patel said.
 

 


France’s Macron names veteran centrist ally Bayrou as prime minister

France’s Macron names veteran centrist ally Bayrou as prime minister
Updated 15 sec ago
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France’s Macron names veteran centrist ally Bayrou as prime minister

France’s Macron names veteran centrist ally Bayrou as prime minister
  • The priority for Francois Bayrou, a close Macron ally, will be passing a special law to roll over the 2024 budget
  • Parliamentary pushback over the 2025 bill led to the downfall of former Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron named Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister of 2024 on Friday, tasking the veteran centrist with steering the country out of its second major political crisis in the last six months.
The priority for Bayrou, a close Macron ally, will be passing a special law to roll over the 2024 budget, with a nastier battle over the 2025 legislation looming early next year. Parliamentary pushback over the 2025 bill led to the downfall of former Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government.
Bayrou, 73, is expected to put forward his list of ministers in the coming days, but will likely face the same existential difficulties as Barnier in steering legislation through a hung parliament comprising three warring blocs. His proximity to the deeply unpopular Macron will also prove a vulnerability.
Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right National Rally party, said they would not be calling for an immediate no-confidence motion against Bayrou.
France’s festering political malaise has raised doubts about whether Macron will complete his second presidential term, which ends in 2027. It has also lifted French borrowing costs and left a power vacuum in the heart of Europe, just as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House.
Macron spent the days after Barnier’s ouster speaking to leaders from the conservatives to the Communists, seeking to lock in support for Bayrou. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and the hard-left France Unbowed were excluded.
Any involvement of the Socialist Party in a coalition may cost Macron in next year’s budget.
“Now we will see how many billions the support of the Socialist Party will cost,” a government adviser said on Friday.
NO LEGISLATIVE ELECTION BEFORE SUMMER
Macron will hope Bayrou can stave off no-confidence votes until at least July, when France will be able to hold a new parliamentary election, but his own future as president will inevitably be questioned if the government should fall again.
Bayrou, the founder of the Democratic Movement (MoDem) party which has been a part of Macron’s ruling alliance since 2017, has himself run for president three times, leaning on his rural roots as the longtime mayor of the south-western town of Pau.
Macron appointed Bayrou as justice minister in 2017 but he resigned only weeks later amid an investigation into his party’s alleged fraudulent employment of parliamentary assistants. He was cleared of fraud charges this year.
Bayrou’s first real test will come early in the new year when lawmakers need to pass a belt-tightening 2025 budget bill.
However, the fragmented nature of the National Assembly, rendered nigh-on ungovernable after Macron’s June snap election, means Bayrou will likely be living day-to-day, at the mercy of the president’s opponents, for the foreseeable future.
Barnier’s budget bill, which aimed for 60 billion euros in savings to assuage investors increasingly concerned by France’s 6 percent deficit, was deemed too miserly by the far-right and left, and the government’s failure to find a way out of the gridlock has seen French borrowing costs push higher still.


India celebrates Gukesh Dommaraju’s historic win as youngest world chess champ

India celebrates Gukesh Dommaraju’s historic win as youngest world chess champ
Updated 2 min 22 sec ago
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India celebrates Gukesh Dommaraju’s historic win as youngest world chess champ

India celebrates Gukesh Dommaraju’s historic win as youngest world chess champ
  • Gukesh Dommaraju defeated titleholder Ding Liren at the World Chess Championship
  • Dommaraju is four years younger than Garry Kasparov was when he won his first title

NEW DELHI: Gukesh Dommaraju’s historic win at the World Chess Championship marks the “beginning of a new era” for the game in India, his country’s chess federation said on Friday, as declarations of pride poured in from across his homeland.

Dommaraju, an 18-year-old from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, became the world’s youngest chess champion on Thursday, after defeating titleholder Ding Liren of China — 14 years his senior — in Singapore.

“It’s the beginning of a new era of chess in our country,” Nitin Narang, president of the All India Chess Federation, told Arab News. “It’s an incredible feat and what Gukesh has brought to our nation is a moment of pride for 1.4 billion Indians ... I think this is going to catalyze the new generation of chess players in India.”

Narang was with Dommaraju and his father and coach during the championship.

“It was surreal, and I was so emotional to see how he hugged his dad and how he hugged his coach. For me, that was the peak of the entire championship,” he said.

The Indian teenager snatched victory in the final contest of their three-week match when Ding made a blunder. Video footage from the game showed Dommaraju beaming with excitement as he spotted it.

“When I realized it, it was probably the best moment of my life,” Gukesh told reporters. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment for more than 10 years.”

He is bringing home the most prestigious chess title and the $1.35 million winner’s share of the $2.5 million championship prize fund.

At the age of 12, Dommaraju became the third-youngest grandmaster in the history of chess. He is the second Indian to win the World Chess Championship after Viswanathan Anand, who won it five times, and who became the first grandmaster from India in 1988.

Anand, also a Tamil Nadu native, has played a vital role in mentoring Dommaraju at his chess academy in Chennai.

“It’s a proud moment for chess, a proud moment for India, a proud moment for WACA (WestBridge Anand Chess Academy), and for me, a very personal moment of pride,” Anand wrote on X, as congratulations and declarations of pride poured in from across India and abroad.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Dommaraju on his “remarkable accomplishment” and posted on X that “his triumph has not only etched his name in the annals of chess history but has also inspired millions of young minds to dream big and pursue excellence.”

India’s president, Draupadi Murmu, said the win “stamps the authority of India as a chess powerhouse.”

At 18, Dommaraju is four years younger than the Russian legend Garry Kasparov was when he won the title in 1985.

In a series of posts on X, Kasparov said: “Gukesh impressively surmounted every obstacle and opponent in his path, especially considering his age” and that his victory “caps a phenomenal year for India.”

In September, Dommaraju won a team gold and an individual gold medal at the 45th Chess Olympiad in Hungary, where India’s women’s team also claimed gold.

-ENDS-


Macron names key centrist ally Francois Bayrou as new French prime minister

Macron names key centrist ally Francois Bayrou as new French prime minister
Updated 57 min 16 sec ago
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Macron names key centrist ally Francois Bayrou as new French prime minister

Macron names key centrist ally Francois Bayrou as new French prime minister
  • Francois Bayrou is French president’s third prime minister of 2024
  • He is expected to put forward his list of ministers in the coming days

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday named Francois Bayrou his third prime minister of 2024, tasking the veteran centrist with steering the country out of its second major political crisis in the last six months.

The priority for Bayrou, a close Macron ally, will be passing a special law to roll over the 2024 budget, with a nastier battle over the 2025 legislation looming early next year. Parliamentary pushback over the 2025 bill led to the downfall of former Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government.

Bayrou, 73, is expected to put forward his list of ministers in the coming days, but will likely face the same existential difficulties as Barnier in steering legislation through a hung parliament comprising three warring blocs. His proximity to the deeply unpopular Macron will also prove a vulnerability.

France’s festering political malaise has raised doubts about whether Macron will complete his second presidential term, which ends in 2027. It has also lifted French borrowing costs and left a power vacuum in the heart of Europe, just as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House.

Macron spent the days after Barnier’s ouster speaking to leaders from the conservatives to the Communists, seeking to lock in support for Bayrou. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and the hard-left France Unbowed were excluded.

Any involvement of the Socialist Party in a coalition may cost Macron in next year’s budget.

“Now we will see how many billions the support of the Socialist Party will cost,” a government adviser said on Friday.

NO LEGISLATIVE ELECTION BEFORE SUMMER

Macron will hope Bayrou can stave off no-confidence votes until at least July, when France will be able to hold a new parliamentary election, but his own future as president will inevitably be questioned if the government should fall again.

Bayrou, the founder of the Democratic Movement (MoDem) party which has been a part of Macron’s ruling alliance since 2017, has himself run for president three times, leaning on his rural roots as the longtime mayor of the south-western town of Pau.

Macron appointed Bayrou as justice minister in 2017 but he resigned only weeks later amid an investigation into his party’s alleged fraudulent employment of parliamentary assistants. He was cleared of fraud charges this year.

Bayrou’s first real test will come early in the new year when lawmakers need to pass a belt-tightening 2025 budget bill.

However, the fragmented nature of the National Assembly, rendered nigh-on ungovernable after Macron’s June snap election, means Bayrou will likely be living day-to-day, at the mercy of the president’s opponents, for the foreseeable future.

Barnier’s budget bill, which aimed for 60 billion euros in savings to assuage investors increasingly concerned by France’s 6 percent deficit, was deemed too miserly by the far-right and left, and the government’s failure to find a way out of the gridlock has seen French borrowing costs push higher still.


‘Lives at risk’: Women’s medical training ban threatens Afghan health sector

‘Lives at risk’: Women’s medical training ban threatens Afghan health sector
Updated 13 December 2024
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‘Lives at risk’: Women’s medical training ban threatens Afghan health sector

‘Lives at risk’: Women’s medical training ban threatens Afghan health sector
  • From her private hospital in Afghanistan’s capital, doctor Najmussama Shefajo predicts a rise in maternal mortality rates “within three or four years“

KABUL: From her private hospital in Afghanistan’s capital, doctor Najmussama Shefajo predicts a rise in maternal mortality rates “within three or four years,” following the latest restrictions on women’s education.
The Taliban’s supreme leader is reportedly behind a ban on women studying midwifery and nursing at training institutes across the country, already among the worst in the world for deaths in childbirth.
“We may not see the impact very quickly but after three to four years we will see the maternal mortality rate go up and up,” said Shefajo.
“People will for sure have more babies at home. But what about complications? What about operations? Many procedures cannot be done at home.”
Since the Taliban government banned women from universities two years ago, Shefajo has been giving on-the-job medical training, including in midwifery and nursing.
But she said she doesn’t have the capacity or facilities to take on every woman keen to learn in her hospital, despite no shortage of volunteers.
“Midwifery and nursing are like the two wings of the doctors; if the bird doesn’t have wings, it cannot fly,” she added, ducking behind curtains to treat patients.
Already Afghanistan is facing a “desperate shortage of trained health care workers, especially women,” according to the UN children’s agency UNICEF.
No official notice has been issued by the Taliban government, but health ministry sources and managers of training institutes said this month that they had been told to block women from classes.


Restricting medical training is the latest action against women’s education since the Taliban authorities swept to power in 2021, imposing rules the United Nations has called “gender apartheid.”
“In a country where women and children depend on female health professionals for culturally sensitive care, cutting the pipeline of future health providers would put lives at risk,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement.
Training institutes had ensured women would continue to learn health care skills, such as midwifery and nursing, or laboratory work, pharmacy and dentistry.
The ban would impact about 35,000 women studying at medical training centers, according to a figure from a health ministry source.
“We are concerned about the effects on the already fragile health care system,” said Achille Despres, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan, where the organization offers health services and training.
International NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which runs some of its busiest maternity hospitals in Afghanistan, also warned of the consequences of the ban, given that the nation’s “medical needs... are huge.”
“There is no health care system without educated female health practitioners,” country representative Mickael Le Paih said in a statement.
Afghanistan and MSF already face a dearth of obstetrician-gynaecologists (OB-GYNs) in a country with high fertility rates where women often have children from a young age, Le Paih told AFP.
And demand is only likely to increase, he added, as almost half of Afghanistan’s population is under 15 years old, according to a 2022 health ministry report.
“You can imagine the impact in several years’ time when you will have a large number of women reaching childbearing age,” he said.
The ban will undoubtedly further strain access for the 70 percent of the population living in rural areas.
After news of a ban spread last week, some training facilities closed their doors immediately, while others rushed to hold final exams and graduations, as still others said they would open as normal after the winter break unless they received a written order.
Shefajo and others want to provide online lessons, but say the lack of practical experience would be detrimental to learning.
Hadiya, 22, recently finished her first year studying midwifery, after having been forced to quit computer science studies at university and English courses.
“We may have midwives now, but medicine is changing every day... and it is clear that the situation in Afghanistan in the field of child and mother health is getting worse,” Hadiya told AFP.
“It’s like we’re in a cage, all the girls are thinking of finding a way to leave here so we can at least continue our studies and reach our goals,” she said.
“When I see the situation in Afghanistan, I think no child should be born here.”


Six dead, 30 injured in hospital fire in India 

Six dead, 30 injured in hospital fire in India 
Updated 13 December 2024
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Six dead, 30 injured in hospital fire in India 

Six dead, 30 injured in hospital fire in India 
  • Fire broke out late Thursday night in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and its cause is still being investigated
  • Building fires are common in India due to lack of firefighting equipment, routine disregard for regulations

NEW DELHI: A fire at a private hospital in southern India killed at least six people, police said Friday, with more than two dozen others injured in the blaze.

Building fires are common in India due to a lack of firefighting equipment and a routine disregard for safety regulations.

The fire broke out late Thursday night in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, and its cause is still being investigated.

All six victims were found unconscious inside a lift at the hospital in the city of Dindigul, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Police superintendent A. Pradeep told AFP that around 30 people had been injured but all were “stable.”

The fire started at the reception area on the ground floor and rapidly spread to the other floors, the Times of India newspaper reported.

The blaze came just weeks after 10 newborns were killed when a fire engulfed a hospital in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Earlier this year, a similar fire broke out at a children’s hospital in New Delhi that killed six infants.

At least 27 people were killed, including several children, when a fire broke out at a packed amusement park arcade in May in the western state of Gujarat.