Indonesia and China make joint call for permanent Gaza ceasefire

Indonesia and China make joint call for permanent Gaza ceasefire
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, listens as Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi delivers her press statement in Jakarta on April 18, 2024. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
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Updated 18 April 2024
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Indonesia and China make joint call for permanent Gaza ceasefire

Indonesia and China make joint call for permanent Gaza ceasefire
  • Countries’ foreign ministers also support Palestine’s bid for full UN membership
  • Both officials urge restraint following Israeli, Iranian strikes this month

JAKARTA: Indonesia and China made a joint call on Thursday for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and the implementation of the two-state solution in Palestine.

The move came after a meeting between Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Jakarta. The two ministers exchanged views on international security and stability amid fears of a regional conflict in the Middle East.

“The visit of the Chinese foreign minister comes at a time when we all have concerns about the evolving situation in the Middle East. We share the same view on the importance of all parties exercising restraint and the necessity of deescalation,” Marsudi told reporters during a joint press briefing.

“I am sure that China will use its influence to prevent escalation. We also shared the same views on the importance of a ceasefire in Gaza and the fair resolution on the issue of Palestine through a two-state solution,” she said.

“Indonesia will support full Palestinian membership at the UN. Stability in the Middle East cannot be achieved without a resolution of the Palestinian issue.”

Wang’s visit to Jakarta is part of a six-day tour that also involves trips to Papua New Guinea and Cambodia.

His meeting with Marsudi followed Iran’s attack on Israel last weekend. The attack was a response to an Israeli airstrike earlier this month that destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Damascus, Syria, killing 13 people, including two top military commanders.

“We urge all parties involved to maintain calm and restraint in order to avoid escalation of the situation, and prevent conflicts from spilling over. China supports the UN Security Council in promptly accepting Palestine as a full member of the UN,” Wang said.

The council is due to vote on Friday on a Palestinian request for full UN membership.

Beijing is also advocating “a larger, more authoritative and more effective international peace conference” that will formulate a timetable and road map to implement the two-state solution.

“Unconditional and lasting ceasefires need to be immediately implemented, and substantive action should be taken to protect civilians. Urgent humanitarian assistance should be sent to Gaza to ensure that supplies can be delivered quickly, safely and sustainably,” Wang added.

Six months on, Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 33,800 Palestinians as the UN warns of impending famine in the besieged enclave.

Although the UN Security Council in March adopted a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, there was no stop in the deadly Israeli attacks.


Russia launches 4th aerial attack in a week against Ukraine’s grain-exporting Odesa region

Russia launches 4th aerial attack in a week against Ukraine’s grain-exporting Odesa region
Updated 57 min 54 sec ago
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Russia launches 4th aerial attack in a week against Ukraine’s grain-exporting Odesa region

Russia launches 4th aerial attack in a week against Ukraine’s grain-exporting Odesa region
  • Four Russian missile and drone attacks on the Odesa region this week have killed 14 people and wounded around 20
  • The strikes have hit merchant ships and damaged port infrastructure in the region

KYIV: A nighttime Russian missile strike on Odesa killed at least four people including a 16-year-old girl, regional authorities said Friday, in the latest in a series of attacks this week on the southern Ukrainian region that are likely intended to disrupt the country’s grain exports.
Four Russian missile and drone attacks on the Odesa region this week have killed 14 people and wounded around 20, according to local officials. The strikes have hit merchant ships and damaged port infrastructure in the region, which is a vital hub for Ukraine’s agricultural exports through the Black Sea.
An attack on Odesa late Wednesday killed nine people and hit a container ship sailing under the Panamanian flag — the third attack on a merchant vessel in four days, according to regional Gov. Oleh Kiper.
The apparent Russian effort to frustrate Ukraine’s exports, which bring vital revenue for a national economy battered by more than two years of war, coincided with a renewed push by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to ensure continuing military and financial support from his country’s Western partners.
Ukraine’s stretched and short-handed army is currently under heavy pressure in the country’s eastern Donetsk region. Russian forces recently pushed it out of the Donetsk town of Vuhledar and are now in control of about half of nearby Toretsk, local administration chief Vasyl Chynchyk said Friday. To stop the losses, Zelensky needs to secure more help.
Russia last year tore up an agreement that allowed Ukraine — one of the world’s biggest suppliers of grain and other food staples, especially to developing nations — to export produce safely through the Black Sea.
Months later, and amid successful Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s Black Sea fleet which forced its navy to back away from the coast, Ukraine established a shipping corridor that hugs the coast down to Turkiye and opens a way to the Mediterranean Sea.
A special insurance program has provided affordable coverage to shippers who have carried millions of tons of cargo out of Ukraine, but the latest attacks could jeopardize that arrangement.


Indian man sets Guinness record with largest collection of radios

Indian man sets Guinness record with largest collection of radios
Updated 50 min 4 sec ago
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Indian man sets Guinness record with largest collection of radios

Indian man sets Guinness record with largest collection of radios
  • Ram Singh Bouddh’s collection consists of 1,400 radio sets
  • Oldest is a 1920 model designed by radio inventor Guglielmo Marconi

NEW DELHI:In an increasingly digital world, Ram Singh Bouddh remains committed to radio for entertainment and news, always carrying a pocket set — one of 1,400 in his collection that has recently won him international fame.

A retired supervisor at Warehouse Corp. of India, Bouddh has been collecting various items for the past few decades, but it was radios that eventually won and took over his home in Gajraula in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

He now has the largest collection of radios in the world and last week received certification from the Guinness World Records.

Although Bouddh’s collection consists of 1,400 radios, the guidelines required that each be unique, so the official number is 1,257.

“The process started in December last year and the Guinness World Records verified each model and found 1,257 of them unique and after a long rigorous process, they announced my name,” the 69-year-old told Arab News.

“It gave me immense pleasure to get my name registered.”

Plans to establish India’s first radio museum emerged when Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned the collection in his monthly radio program “Mann Ki Baat” in November last year.

“That gave me lots of encouragement,” Bouddh said. “There is one radio museum in Britain ... and besides that, there is no other.”

The British Vintage Wireless and Television Museum he referred to was established by Gerry Wells at his home in West Dulwich in the 1970s and has 1,300 wireless receivers on show.

Bouddh’s collection is already bigger, with the oldest radio being a 1920 model from Marconi, a British company founded by Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi — the inventor of radio and a pioneer of mass media broadcasting.

He also has US military models from the 1930s and other vintage sets he bought or received from across India.
“Most of the radios are in working condition,” he said. “I keep them in two big rooms in the school that I run near my house. My family supports me. My wife and two daughters help me in the pursuit of my passion.”

The family’s efforts are now focused on gathering enough funds to open a proper display.

“Radio has been an important part of human life. TV and mobile are the byproducts of radio. Radio has played an important role in our life ... Hope the Indian government helps me in setting up the country’s first radio museum,” Bouddh said.

“My museum is for future generations, and I want them to know that there was this wonderful medium of communication, which once was part of everybody’s life.”


Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan

Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan
Updated 11 October 2024
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Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan

Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan
  • More than 1,000 people, many of them teenagers, joined a peaceful march in the northern Italian city organized by Fridays For Future, the climate change movement Thunberg helped found

MILAN: Swedish activist Greta Thunberg attended a climate change and pro-Palestinian rally in Milan on Friday, days after her criticism of Israel sparked a row over protests in Germany.
More than 1,000 people, many of them teenagers, joined a peaceful march in the northern Italian city organized by Fridays For Future, the climate change movement Thunberg helped found.
Wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional scarf symbolising the Palestinian struggle against Israel, Thunberg walked near the front of the procession as other protesters waved flags, held banners and danced to music.
“Palestinians have been living under suffocating oppression for decades by an apartheid regime, and during the last year with Israel’s live broadcasted genocide, the world has once again abandoned Palestine,” the 21-year-old said in a speech.
The Gaza war began on October 7 last year, when Hamas militants stormed across the border and carried out the worst attack on Israel in its history.
The militants took 251 people hostage in an attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 people, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged the figures to be reliable.
Thunberg drew a link between global warming and the weapons industry.
“The fight for climate justice is a fight against the fossil fuel industry, just as much as it is a fight against the weapon industries, militarization and the over-extraction of natural resources,” she said.
German police on Tuesday closed a pro-Palestinian protest camp that had invited Thunberg after a rally she attended in Berlin Monday — the anniversary of the Hamas attack — ended in clashes with police.
She accused Germany of “silencing and threatening activists.”
The Milan march was part of a “national strike for the climate,” a series of protests organized by Fridays For Future across Italy.
“Demonstrating is the only weapon we have against the injustice that we suffer,” said protester Sofia Parisi, 17.


Ukraine’s Zelensky arrives in Berlin to meet with Scholz

Ukraine’s Zelensky arrives in Berlin to meet with Scholz
Updated 11 October 2024
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Ukraine’s Zelensky arrives in Berlin to meet with Scholz

Ukraine’s Zelensky arrives in Berlin to meet with Scholz
  • The Ukrainian leader has been seeking fresh military and financial aid from his European allies as Kyiv faces a tough winter
  • He is set to renew his push for Germany to deliver more weapons including long-range missiles

BERLIN: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Kyiv’s presidency said Friday, the final leg of his whirlwind tour of European leaders.
The plane carrying Zelensky has landed, the Ukrainian presidency told AFP.
The Ukrainian leader has been seeking fresh military and financial aid from his European allies as Kyiv faces a tough winter.
He is set to renew his push for Germany, the biggest military aid supplier after the United States, to deliver more weapons including long-range missiles.
However, Scholz has rejected sending the German long-range Taurus missile system, fearing an escalation of NATO’s tense standoff with nuclear-armed Russia.
Zelensky has been on a two-day tour of London, Paris, Rome and now Berlin, amid fears of dwindling Western support if Donald Trump is elected US president next month.
A scheduled Ukraine defense meeting Saturday at the Ramstein US air base in western Germany was postponed after US President Joe Biden called off a state visit to Germany because of Hurricane Milton.
Russian forces have made advances across the eastern frontline and targeted the war-battered country’s power grid as Ukraine faces its toughest winter since the full-scale Russian invasion started in February 2022.
Russia said Friday its forces had captured the frontline villages of Zhelanne Druge and Ostrivske, the latest in a string of territorial gains for Moscow.
Zelensky has pushed for clearance to use long-range weapons supplied by allies, including British Storm Shadow missiles, to strike military targets deep inside Russia.
Washington and London have stalled on giving approval over fears it could draw NATO allies into direct conflict with Russia.
In Germany, Scholz’s refusal to deliver Taurus missiles is controversial, even within his own three-party coalition with the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP).
“We must supply Ukraine with significantly more air defense, ammunition and long-range weapons,” said the Greens’ European MP Anton Hofreiter.
“Restrictions on the range of weapons supplied do not contribute to de-escalation but rather enable further Russian attacks.”
The FDP’s defense expert Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann told the same newspaper: “I very much hope that Zelensky will make it clear to the Chancellor once again that if Ukraine loses this war, this will not be the last war in Europe.”


Thai national killed by anti-tank missile in north Israel: first responders

Thai national killed by anti-tank missile in north Israel: first responders
Updated 11 October 2024
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Thai national killed by anti-tank missile in north Israel: first responders

Thai national killed by anti-tank missile in north Israel: first responders
  • Israel has been battling Hezbollah since the Iran-backed militant group started launching cross-border attacks from Lebanon in support of its Palestine

JERUSALEM: A Thai agricultural worker was killed by an anti-tank missile fired into northern Israel, Israeli emergency services said on Friday, while the army confirmed that two civilians were injured in a strike from Lebanon.
Israel has been battling Hezbollah since the Iran-backed militant group started launching cross-border attacks from Lebanon in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following the October 7, 2023 attack.
“Following an anti-tank missile strike on farmland in Upper Galilee, (rescue workers) declared the death of a 27-year-old Thai foreign worker,” according to a statement from emergency service provider Magen David Adom (MDA).
Thai nationals in Israel have been particularly hard hit since the start of the war with Hamas, with at least 39 killed as a result of the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
More than two dozen are believed to have been captured by militants during the attack.
During a brief November truce, 23 Thais were released from captivity.
The Israeli army said two Thai nationals had died in captivity in Gaza in May.
About 30,000 Thai nationals live in Israel, where salaries are much higher than in the southeast Asian kingdom.
After over eleven months of cross-border clashes that displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, the Israeli army intensified its air strikes against Hezbollah from mid-September and later launched limited ground operations in southern Lebanon.