RIYADH: Saudi Arabia possesses some of the healthiest coral reefs in the Red Sea, and is committed to preserving and restoring them, the Kingdom’s Deputy Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture, Dr. Osama Faqeeha, said.
His remarks came during the inaugural meeting of the governance committee of the Global Coral Reef Research and Development Accelerator Platform, which has been announced following a meeting of the initiative’s founding committee, which comprised 16 member states of the G20 in addition to the EU countries.
During the meeting, Faqeeha was elected inaugural chairman of the platform’s governance committee, while Jennifer Koss, director of the Coral Reef Conservation Program of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was elected vice president.
Faqeeha said: “We welcome the Global Coral Reef Research and Development Accelerator Platform, which was announced by G20 leaders with the aim of improving coral conservation operations around the world and restoring them with a set of superior scientific and technical methodologies, and as a much-needed international collaborative effort to secure the future of coral life.”
He said that “the emergence of vaccines to protect against COVID-19 in record time is a testament to the effectiveness of concerted international scientific efforts to confront global challenges. This is what we hope to achieve in this platform, to confront the deterioration of coral reefs and the possibility of their permanent extinction from the world’s seas and oceans.”
Koss, said: “The US was pleased when the Kingdom drew our attention, during its recent presidency of the G20, to the urgent need to allocate greater resources and employ more innovative technologies in order to conserve global coral.”
She added: “This platform provides a unique opportunity to bring together the world’s scientific and coral management experts to complement current coral research and continue efforts to protect them, at a time when we are defining the future of our coral reefs, which are the basis for countless services that we cannot afford to lose in our ecosystem.”
The platform will accelerate research and development of coral reefs, and promote the next generation of science and technology needed to secure a future for reefs in combatting climate change and other pressures.
The research program will engage a global multidisciplinary community of scientists, coastal managers, technologists and innovators, guided by a strategic plan and objectives proposed by the platform’s scientific and advisory committee.
The platform will also connect existing national, regional and international research and development programs, engage the private sector in supporting these efforts, provide advanced research training to scientists from all countries and will facilitate access to scientific information and research and testing facilities around the world.
It will then provide the resulting new technologies and sciences, and allow them to support efforts on the ground to conserve and restore coral reefs.
The platform has designated King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) to serve as a central meeting point for the platform and program management, in recognition of its proven track record in coral reef research, its proven capacity for global research collaboration, its management of proposals from scientific institutions around the world, and its state-of-the-art laboratories for coral reef research and world-class facilities to host international conferences and meetings. The university will support the center’s operations at no cost to the G20, as an extension of its strong commitment to saving the world’s coral reef ecosystems.
KAUST President Tony Chan said: “Since its establishment, coral reef research in the Red Sea has been one of the university’s focus and strengths, so this global effort motivates and inspires us, as we offered to be a central meeting point for the platform to direct the necessary resources, talents and efficient ideas to achieve the platform’s goals and protect disturbed coral ecosystems around the world.”
Carlos Duarte, professor of marine science at KAUST and acting executive director of the platform, called for the need “to act as custodians of our planet — for the health of our oceans, and for future generations.”
Saudi Arabia ‘working to safeguard the future of world’s coral reefs’
https://arab.news/jth3q
Saudi Arabia ‘working to safeguard the future of world’s coral reefs’
- The Kingdom possesses some of the healthiest coral reefs in the Red Sea
- The platform will promote the next generation of science and technology needed to secure a future for reefs in combatting climate change and other pressures
Ireland moves to ban trade with Israeli-occupied territories
- FM Spokesperson: ‘The government has agreed to advance legislation prohibiting trade in goods with illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory’
- FM Simon Harris: ‘When this small country in Europe makes the decision, I do hope it inspires other European countries to join us’
DUBLIN: The Irish government approved Tuesday the drafting of a bill to ban the import of goods from Israeli settlements considered illegal under international law, an unprecedented move for a European Union member.
The move comes after the International Court of Justice last year said Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip was illegal under international law, in an advisory opinion the Irish government said guided its decision.
“The government has agreed to advance legislation prohibiting trade in goods with illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told AFP.
“It is the government’s view that this is an obligation under international law.”
The settlements include residential, agricultural and business interests that lie outside Israel’s internationally recognized borders.
Before the cabinet decision, Foreign Minister Simon Harris told reporters he hoped other EU countries would follow Ireland’s lead.
“What I hope today is when this small country in Europe makes the decision and becomes one of the first countries, and probably the first country, in the Western world to consider legislation in this space, I do hope it inspires other European countries to join us,” said Harris — also Irish deputy prime minister.
Last May, Ireland — along with Spain, Norway and, a month later, Slovenia — recognized the Palestinian state, drawing retaliatory moves from Israel.
Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that Paris might move to recognize a Palestinian state as early as June.
Tuesday’s move by Dublin comes a week after the EU ordered a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a cooperation deal signed in 1995 that forms the basis for trade ties with Israel.
EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas said “a strong majority” of the 27 member states at a foreign ministers’ meeting backed the move in a bid to pressure Israel.
An Irish import ban would be symbolic and of minimal economic impact, as trade volumes with the territories — limited to goods such as fruit, vegetables and timber — were worth less than one million euros ($1.1 million) between 2020 and 2024.
It “breaks a decades-long, failed deadlock at EU level of criticizing the settlements as illegal and a barrier to peace on the one hand, while providing them with crucial economic support on the other,” said Conor O’Neill, head of advocacy and policy at Christian Aid Ireland, who helped draft a previous version of the Irish legislation in 2018.
“After decades of saying and repeating that illegal settlements are totally illegal and that the EU is opposed to them, this is the first time that words are being matched with action,” O’Neill told AFP.
The foreign ministry spokesperson said an update on the draft legislation would be brought to the government “in the coming weeks.”
The bill is not expected to pass into law before autumn.
Israeli strike on south Lebanon kills one: ministry
- The ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike” on a motorcycle killed one man in Yater
- The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on south Lebanon killed one man on Tuesday, the latest attack despite a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.
In a statement, the ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike” on a motorcycle killed one man in Yater, in south Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil district.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack, which came after it said it killed a Hezbollah member in south Lebanon’s Majdal Zoun on Monday.
Israel has continued to launch strikes on its northern neighbor despite the November truce that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of full-blown war.
Under the terms of the ceasefire deal, only UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army should be deployed in southern Lebanon, though Israel has kept its forces in five areas it has declared strategic.
Lebanon has called on the international community to pressure Israel to end its attacks and withdraw all its troops.
UN says it has no information over Gaza aid group deliveries
GENEVA: The United Nations said on Tuesday it had no information on whether the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed aid group, had actually delivered any supplies inside the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
The little-known group, which has stirred controversy since surfacing in early May, announced on Monday it had begun distributing truckloads of food in the Gaza Strip.
But officials from the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, and UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said they were unaware whether any aid had actually been distributed.
The UN and international aid agencies have said they will not cooperate with the GHF, amid accusations it is working with Israel without any Palestinian involvement.
“It is a distraction from what is actually needed, which is a reopening of all the crossings in to Gaza; a secure environment within Gaza; and faster facilitation of permissions and final approvals of all the emergency supplies that we have just outside the border that need to get in,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told a press briefing in Geneva.
UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma told journalists aid to Gaza was still “very, very far” from what was needed: a minimum of 500 to 600 trucks per day loaded with food, medical aid, fuel, water and other basic supplies, she said, speaking via video-link from Amman.
Israel, which recently stepped up its offensive against militant group Hamas, drew international condemnation after implementing a blockade on March 2 that has sparked severe food and medical shortages.
Humanitarian aid has begun trickling back into Gaza in recent days after Israel lifted the 11-week blockade.
Touma said no UNRWA supplies had gone in since March 2, while Laerke said he had no information on how many UN trucks had passed through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the last 24 hours, partly because Israel does not allow them to have a fixed presence there.
17 bodies found in abandoned house in Mexico
- Ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs were used to locate the bodies last week in Irapuato
- Knives, machetes, pickaxes, and shovels were also found
MEXICO: Missing persons investigators found 17 bodies in an abandoned house in a central Mexican region plagued by criminal violence, the state prosecutor’s office said.
Ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs were used to locate the bodies last week in Irapuato in Guanajuato state, according to a statement released late Monday.
Knives, machetes, pickaxes, and shovels were also found.
Five of the victims — four men and one woman --- have been identified as missing persons, according to prosecutors.
“Their families are being informed,” a Guanajuato state official, Jorge Jimenez, told reporters.
Guanajuato is a thriving industrial hub and home to several popular tourist destinations, but it is also Mexico’s deadliest state due to gang turf wars, according to official homicide statistics.
Criminal violence, most of it linked to drug trafficking, has claimed around 480,000 lives in Mexico since 2006 and left more than 120,000 people missing.
Civil society groups formed by relatives who denounce government inaction risk their own lives searching for remains in unmarked graves, often in areas where cartel gunmen are active.
Much of the violence in Guanajuato is linked to conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of the most powerful in the Latin American nation.
Guanajuato recorded more than 3,000 murders last year, the most of any Mexican state, according to official figures.
That was equivalent to just over 10 percent of the nationwide total.
Israeli forces raid foreign exchange stores across West Bank
- One killed, eight other people were injured by Israeli forces during a raid in Nablus
RAMALLAH: Israeli forces raided foreign exchange stores in several West Bank cities including Ramallah and Nablus on Tuesday, accusing their parent company of “connections with terrorist organizations,” according to an army closure notice.
“Israeli forces are taking action against Al-Khaleej Exchange Company due to its connections with terrorist organizations,” a leaflet left at the company’s Ramallah location read.
An AFP journalist present at the scene reported several army vehicles at the store’s entrance while soldiers came out carrying items covered by a cloth.
Two army vehicles escorted one of the store’s employees away from the premises.
In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli forces raided a second foreign exchange store belonging to the Al-Khaleej company, as well as a gold store, according to another AFP journalist.
Some Palestinian residents of Nablus were seen clashing with the army during the raid, throwing objects at troops.
The Ramallah-based Ministry of Health said one man was killed and eight other people were injured by Israeli forces’ live ammunition during a raid in Nablus on Tuesday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it treated 20 people for tear gas inhalation and three others who were injured by rubber bullets.
The Palestinian movement Hamas condemned the raids on foreign exchange shops.
“These assaults on economic institutions, accompanied by the looting of large sums of money and the confiscation of property, are an extension of the piracy policies adopted by the (Israeli) government,” the group said in a statement, adding that the targeted companies were “operating within the law.”
