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Saudi Arabia, India eye new cooperation areas as FMs meet in Delhi

Special Saudi Arabia, India eye new cooperation areas as FMs meet in Delhi
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and his Indian counterpart, S. Jaishankar, pose for a photo during their meeting in New Delhi on Nov. 13, 2024. (Saudi Foreign Ministry)
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Updated 13 November 2024
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Saudi Arabia, India eye new cooperation areas as FMs meet in Delhi

Saudi Arabia, India eye new cooperation areas as FMs meet in Delhi
  • Last September, about 50 agreements were signed under Saudi-India Strategic Partnership Council
  • Saudi Vision 2030, India’s Viksit Bharat 2047 are complementary for new partnerships, Jaishankar says
Updated 13 November 2024
Sanjay Kumar
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NEW DELHI: Saudi Arabia and India held talks on Wednesday in New Delhi, led by their foreign ministers, aimed at identifying new partnerships.

Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal bin Farhan and India’s S. Jaishankar co-chaired the second meeting of the Ministerial Committee on Political, Security, Cultural and Social Affairs, which falls under the Saudi-India Strategic Partnership Council.

Their talks follow the council’s first leaders’ meeting last September, during which Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over the signing of about 50 initial pacts.

They had also agreed to form a joint task force to enable a $100 billion Saudi investment in India.

In a livestreamed video of his opening remarks, Prince Faisal said: “The inaugural meeting of the Saudi-India Strategic Partnership Council … has set the stage for a new era of cooperation across various fields and we look forward to further enhancing the council’s capabilities and efficiency in achieving our shared objectives.”

He added: “We are confident that advancing cooperation serves our mutual interests as well as benefits the region more broadly, and I look forward to exploring the diverse aspects of our cooperation.”

Saudi Arabia is home to about 2.6 million Indian nationals, making it the third-largest host country for the diaspora, after the UAE and the US.

The Kingdom is also India’s fifth-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade between the two countries at around $43 billion in 2023-2024.

Trade and investments are “important pillars” in Saudi-India relations, Jaishankar said during the meeting as he highlighted recent efforts to boost cooperation, including in technology and renewable energy.

“Saudi’s Vision 2030 and Viksit Bharat 2047 hold complementarities for our industries to build new partnerships. I am glad to note that our businesses are collaborating intensively,” he said, referring to the Kingdom’s transformation plan and India’s goal to become a developed nation.

“While we may be time-tested friends, but our partnership is premised on progress and focused on the future.”

 

Topics: Saudi Arabia India

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Former Kosovo rebel commander ordered to pay victims

Former Kosovo rebel commander ordered to pay victims
Updated 57 min 34 sec ago
AFP
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Former Kosovo rebel commander ordered to pay victims

Former Kosovo rebel commander ordered to pay victims
  • The judges “set the total reparation award for which Mr.Shala is liable at 208,000 euros” ($220,000),” Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague
  • Although the “responsibility to pay the compensation lies exclusively with Mr.Shala“” the judge said, “he does not appear to have the means to comply with the order“
Updated 57 min 34 sec ago
AFP

THE HAGUE: A special international court on Friday ordered a former Kosovo rebel commander to pay $220,000 in damages to victims of abuses suffered in 1999 during the Serbian province’s struggle for independence.
Pjeter Shala, 61, also known as “Commander Wolf,” was sentenced to 18 years behind bars in July for war crimes committed during the tiny country’s 1998-99 independence conflict, when separatist KLA rebels fought forces loyal to then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
The judges “set the total reparation award for which Mr.Shala is liable at 208,000 euros” ($220,000),” Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.
“Mr Shala is ordered to pay (damages) as compensation for the harm inflicted” on eight victims, she said.
The total amount comprised individual payments to the eight victims ranging from 8,000 to 100,000 euros, as well as a collective sum of 50,000 euros, the judge said.
Although the “responsibility to pay the compensation lies exclusively with Mr.Shala“” the judge said, “he does not appear to have the means to comply with the order.”
Kosovo’s current Crime Victim Compensation Program “could be one way to execute the Reparation Order,” Veldt-Foglia suggested.
However, the maximum sums per victim awarded by the program would be lower than those awarded by the court, she said.
Shala faced charges of murder, torture, arbitrary detention and cruel treatment of at least 18 civilian detainees accused of working as spies or collaborating with opposing Serb forces in mid-1999.
The judges acquitted him of cruel treatment and he was sentenced on the other three counts.
The judges said Shala was part of a group of KLA soldiers who severely mistreated detainees at a metal factory serving as a KLA headquarters in Kukes, northeastern Albania, at the time.
Shala was tried before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a court located in The Hague to prosecute mainly former KLA fighters for war crimes.
They included former KLA political commander Hashim Thaci, who dominated Kosovo’s politics after it declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and rose to become president of the tiny country.
Thaci resigned in 2020 to face war crimes and crimes against humanity charges, and has pleaded not guilty.

Topics: Kosovo Pjeter Shala The Hague

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Germany indicts Turkish national for spying on alleged Gulen activists

Germany indicts Turkish national for spying on alleged Gulen activists
Updated 29 November 2024
Reuters
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Germany indicts Turkish national for spying on alleged Gulen activists

Germany indicts Turkish national for spying on alleged Gulen activists
  • Gulen built a powerful Islamic movement in Turkiye and beyond
Updated 29 November 2024
Reuters

BERLIN: German federal prosecutors on Friday said they had indicted a Turkish national for alleged spying on individuals that he associated with cleric Fethullah Gulen.
The suspect, who is not in jail and was only identified as Mehmet K., in line with German privacy laws, contacted Turkiye’s police and intelligence service via anonymous letters, prosecutors added.
Gulen built a powerful Islamic movement in Turkiye and beyond, but spent his later years in the US mired in accusations of orchestrating an attempted coup against Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan.
Gulen died last month.

Topics: France Germany Turkiye Fethullah Gulen spying

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At least 15 dead, 113 missing, in Uganda landslides

At least 15 dead, 113 missing, in Uganda landslides
Updated 29 November 2024
AFP
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At least 15 dead, 113 missing, in Uganda landslides

At least 15 dead, 113 missing, in Uganda landslides
  • Landslides late on Wednesday hit the village of Masugu in the eastern Bulambuli district, about five hours from the capital, Kampala
  • Images on local media showed huge swathes of fallen earth covering the land
Updated 29 November 2024
AFP

KAMPALA: Landslides that hit several villages in eastern Uganda killed 15 people and left more than 100 unaccounted for, police said Thursday.
The East African country has been deluged by heavy rains in past days, with the government issuing a national disaster alert after reports of flooding and landslides.
Landslides late on Wednesday hit the village of Masugu in the eastern Bulambuli district, about five hours from the capital, Kampala.
Images on local media showed huge swathes of fallen earth covering the land.
“A total of 15 bodies have been retrieved,” the Ugandan police said in a statement posted on X, adding that another 15 people had been taken to hospital.
“Unfortunately, 113 people are still missing, but efforts are underway to locate them,” it said.
The statement said five villages — Masugu, Namachele, Natola, Namagugu, and Tagalu — had been impacted.
Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja told NBS television that they “believe” all the missing were presumed dead.
“We are trying to exhume the bodies of those missing people,” she said, adding that at least 19 people had been injured, two of them in critical condition.
District commissioner Faheera Mpalanyi said early Thursday that six bodies, including a baby, had been recovered so far from Masugu village.
“Given the devastation and the size of the area affected and from what the affected families are telling us, several people are missing and probably buried in the debris,” she said.
Ugandan Red Cross spokesperson Irene Nakasiita said on X that 15 bodies had been recovered, including seven children.
Some 45 homes had been “completely buried,” she added.
Police said rescue operations were being hindered by impassable roads, blocking ambulances and rescue vehicles from reaching the scene.
A Uganda Red Cross video showed a huddle of people desperately digging through earth as women wailed in the background.
Some 500 soldiers had been deployed to help with the rescue but only 120 had managed to reach the villages, Nabbanja said.
The scale of the multiple landslides was unclear.
Videos and photographs shared on social media purported to show people digging for survivors in Kimono village, also located in the Bulambuli district.
The Ugandan prime minister’s office issued an alert, writing on X: “Heavy rains on Wednesday in parts of Uganda have led to disaster situations in many areas.”
The rains caused flooding in the northwest after a tributary of the Nile River burst its banks.
Emergency teams were deployed to rescue stranded motorists.
A major road connecting the country with South Sudan was obstructed late on Wednesday, with emergency boat crews deployed near the town of Pakwach.
“Unfortunately, one of the boats capsized, resulting in the death of one engineer,” Uganda’s defense forces said on X.
The deadliest landslide in Africa ravaged Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown in August 2017, when 1,141 people perished.
Mudslides in the Mount Elgon region of eastern Uganda killed more than 350 people in February 2010.
Earlier this year, more than 30 people died in Kampala after a massive rubbish landslide.

Topics: Uganda Landslides

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Dozens feared dead in Nigeria boat accident

Dozens feared dead in Nigeria boat accident
Updated 29 November 2024
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Dozens feared dead in Nigeria boat accident

Dozens feared dead in Nigeria boat accident
  • Rescue operations were currently underway, but the exact number of fatalities was unknown
Updated 29 November 2024
Reuters

ABUJA: Dozens of people were feared dead after a boat capsized on the Niger River in central Nigeria, a waterways agency spokesperson said on Friday.
National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) spokesperson Makama Suleiman said the boat was carrying mostly traders from Missa community in the central Kogi state heading to a weekly market in the neighboring Niger state.
Suleiman said that rescue operations were currently underway, but the exact number of fatalities was unknown.
None of the passengers were wearing life jackets, which significantly increased the risk of fatalities, he said.

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UK spy chief says Russia behind ‘staggeringly reckless’ sabotage in Europe

UK spy chief says Russia behind ‘staggeringly reckless’ sabotage in Europe
Updated 29 November 2024
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UK spy chief says Russia behind ‘staggeringly reckless’ sabotage in Europe

UK spy chief says Russia behind ‘staggeringly reckless’ sabotage in Europe
  • Richard Moore, head of MI6, said: “We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe”
  • “If Putin succeeds China would weigh the implications, North Korea would be emboldened and Iran would become still more dangerous“
Updated 29 November 2024
Reuters

PARIS: Britain’s foreign spy chief accused Russia on Friday of waging a “staggeringly reckless campaign” of sabotage in Europe while also stepping up its nuclear sabre-rattling to scare other countries off from backing Ukraine.
Richard Moore, head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6, said that any softening in support for Ukraine against Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion would embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies.
In what appeared a message to incoming US President Donald Trump’s administration and some European allies that have questioned continued support for Ukraine in the grinding war, Moore argued that Europe and its transatlantic partners must hold firm in the face of what he said was growing aggression.
“We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe, even as Putin and his acolytes resort to nuclear sabre-rattling to sow fear about the consequences of aiding Ukraine,” he said in a speech in Paris.
“The cost of supporting Ukraine is well known but the cost of not doing so would be infinitely higher. If Putin succeeds China would weigh the implications, North Korea would be emboldened and Iran would become still more dangerous.”
In September, Moore said Russia’s intelligence services had gone “a bit feral” in the latest warning by NATO and other Western spy chiefs about what they call hostile Russian actions, ranging from repeated cyberattacks to Moscow-linked arson.
Moscow has denied responsibility for all such incidents. The Russian embassy in London did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Moore’s remarks.
Last month the UK’s domestic spy chief said Russia’s GRU military intelligence service was seeking to cause “mayhem.” Sources familiar with US intelligence have told Reuters Moscow is likely to step up its campaign against European targets to increase pressure on the West over its support for Kyiv.

LOOKING FORWARD TO TRUMP
Much of Moore’s speech was focused on the importance of Western solidarity, saying the collective strength of Britain’s allies would outmatch Putin who, he said, was becoming increasingly in hock to China, North Korea and Iran.
Trump, who has vowed to quickly end the war in Ukraine, without saying how, and other Republicans in the US have expressed reservations about Washington’s strong strategic support and heavy weapons supplies for Kyiv.
“If Putin is allowed to succeed in reducing Ukraine to a vassal state he will not stop there. Our security — British, French, European and transatlantic — will be jeopardized,” Moore said.
In general terms, Moore said the world was in its most dangerous state in his 37 years working in the intelligence world, with Daesh on the rise again, Iran’s nuclear ambitions a continued threat, and the radicalising impact of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel not yet fully known.
Nicolas Lerner, head of France’s foreign spy agency DGSE, said French and UK intelligence were working closely together “to face what is undoubtedly one of the threats — if not the threat — in my opinion, the possible atomic proliferation in Iran.” Iran has repeatedly denied seeking nuclear weapons.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Richard Moore Britain Secret Intelligence Service MI6 Europe sabotage

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