Saudi minister talks innovation economics, female empowerment at G20 meeting

Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah Al-Swaha at the G20 digital ministers’ meeting in Bali. (SPA)
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Updated 01 September 2022
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Saudi minister talks innovation economics, female empowerment at G20 meeting

  • Kingdom has increased female workforce participation from 7% in 2017 to over 30%: Abdullah Al-Swaha

RIYADH: A Saudi minister on Thursday joined a high-level international meeting to discuss innovation economics and female empowerment in the workforce, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Abdullah Al-Swaha, minister of communications and information technology, took part in talks held during the Group of Twenty digital ministers’ meeting.

The G20 is a strategic multilateral platform connecting the world’s major developed and emerging economies. The theme of this year’s summit, held in Bali under Indonesia’s G20 presidency, is “Recover Together, Recover Stronger,” emphasizing the importance of collective action to tackle the ongoing global repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic

Al-Swaha told delegates that the world’s sustainable and comprehensive recovery paths relied on technology and innovation, citing Saudi Arabia’s proactive measures in line with Vision 2030 objectives as a model example.

He said the Saudi leadership’s support for the technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship sectors had contributed to the Kingdom’s pioneering status as a regional tech hub.

He noted that the qualitative growth in bold capital investments last year was 270 percent higher than that achieved in 2020 and 2019.

The minister added that Vision 2030 placed great importance on the role of Saudi women in advancing the Kingdom, and he pointed out that the country had increased its female workforce participation from 7 percent in 2017 to more than 30 percent this year.

As a regional hub for technology and innovation, Al-Swaha said Saudi Arabia aimed to train more than 600 women in the Middle East and North Africa region through its collaboration with the Apple Developer Academy. And he noted the country’s efforts to bridge the digital gap and enhance green energy projects in NEOM, a megacity in the Kingdom’s northwest.


Boat carrying migrants capsizes near Greek island

Updated 2 min 6 sec ago
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Boat carrying migrants capsizes near Greek island

  • Greece is one of the main entry points into the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty
  • The Greek government has cracked down with increased patrols at sea
ATHENS: A broad search and rescue operation was underway early Thursday near the eastern Greek island of Lesbos after a boat carrying migrants capsized while heading to the island from the nearby Turkish coast, Greece’s coast guard said.
Weather in the area was reported to be good, and it was unclear what caused the boat to overturn early Thursday morning. The coast guard said 23 people have been rescued. There was no immediate information on the survivors’ nationalities or the type of vessel they had been using.
There were no specific reports of missing people, but a sea and land search and rescue operation was continuing, with three coast guard vessels, an air force helicopter and a nearby boat searching for potential further victims.
Greece is one of the main entry points into the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, with many making the short but often treacherous journey from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands in inflatable dinghies.
The Greek government has cracked down with increased patrols at sea, and many smuggling rings have shifted their operations south, using larger boats to transport people from the northern coast of Africa to southern Greece.

Search for long-missing flight MH370 suspended: Malaysia minister

Updated 4 min 1 sec ago
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Search for long-missing flight MH370 suspended: Malaysia minister

  • The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Kuala Lumpur: The latest search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been suspended, Kuala Lumpur’s transport minister said, more than a decade after the plane went missing.
“They have stopped the operation for the time being, they will resume the search at the end of this year,” Transport Minister Anthony Loke said in a voice recording sent to AFP on Thursday by his aide.
The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane has not been found.
Loke’s comments come just one month after authorities said the search had resumed, following earlier failed attempts that covered vast swathes of the Indian Ocean.
An initial Australia-led search covered 120,000 square kilometers (46,300 square miles) in the Indian Ocean over three years, but found hardly any trace of the plane other than a few pieces of debris.
Maritime exploration firm Ocean Infinity, based in Britain and the United States, led an unsuccessful hunt in 2018, before agreeing to launch a new search this year.
“Right now, it’s not the season,” Loke said in the recording, which was made during an event at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Wednesday.
“Whether or not it will be found will be subject to the search, nobody can anticipate,” Loke said, referring to the wreckage of the plane.


Myanmar earthquake toll crosses 3,000; forecast rains pose new threat for rescuers

Updated 45 min 56 sec ago
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Myanmar earthquake toll crosses 3,000; forecast rains pose new threat for rescuers

  • Last Friday’s 7.7-magnitude quake jolted a region home to 28 million, toppling buildings and flattening communities
  • Conditions could get even tougher for the huge relief effort after weather officials warned of unseasonal rain

BANGKOK: The death toll from Myanmar’s devastating earthquake has surpassed 3,000, with hundreds more missing, as forecasts of unseasonal rain presented a new challenge for rescue and aid workers trying to reach people in a country riven by civil war.
Last Friday’s 7.7-magnitude quake, one of the Southeast Asian nation’s strongest in a century, jolted a region home to 28 million, toppling buildings, flattening communities and leaving many without food, water and shelter.
Deaths rose to 3,003 on Wednesday, with 4,515 injured and 351 missing, Myanmar’s embassy in Japan said on Facebook, while rescuers scramble to find more.
But conditions could get even tougher for the huge relief effort after weather officials warned unseasonal rain from Sunday to April 11 could threaten the areas hardest-hit by the quake, such as Mandalay, Sagaing and the capital Naypyidaw.
“Rain is incoming and there are still so many buried,” an aid worker in Myanmar told Reuters. “And in Mandalay, especially, if it starts to rain, people who are buried will drown even if they’ve survived until this point.”
There have been 53 airlifts of aid to Myanmar, the embassy in Japan added in its post, while more than 1,900 rescue workers arrived from 15 countries, including Southeast Asian neighbors and China, India and Russia.
Despite the devastation, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing will leave his disaster-stricken country on Thursday for a rare trip to a regional summit in Bangkok, state television said.
It is an uncommon foreign visit for a general regarded as a pariah by many countries and the subject of Western sanctions and an International Criminal Court investigation.
Unseasonal rain
The rains will add to the challenges faced by aid and rescue groups, which have called for access to all affected areas despite the strife of civil war.
The military has struggled to run Myanmar since its return to power in a 2021 coup that unseated the elected civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
The generals have been internationally isolated since the takeover and Myanmar’s economy and basic services, including health care, have been reduced to tatters amid the strife.
On Wednesday state-run MRTV said a unilateral government ceasefire would take immediate effect for 20 days, to support relief efforts after the quake, but warned authorities would “respond accordingly” if rebels launched attacks.
The move came after a major rebel alliance declared a ceasefire on Tuesday to assist the humanitarian effort.
Nearly a week after the quake, searchers in neighboring Thailand hunting for survivors combed a mountain of debris left after a skyscraper in the capital, Bangkok, collapsed while under construction.
Rescuers are using mechanical diggers and bulldozers to break up 100 tons of concrete to locate any still alive after the disaster that killed 15 people, with 72 still missing.
Thailand’s nationwide toll stands at 22.


UN rights council adopts Pakistan-led OIC resolution on Palestine seeking Israel’s accountability

Updated 12 min 26 sec ago
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UN rights council adopts Pakistan-led OIC resolution on Palestine seeking Israel’s accountability

  • Pakistan’s top diplomat at the UN council says impunity for human rights violations enables more and worse violations
  • The resolution calls for a mechanism to prosecute those responsible for the most serious crimes against Palestinians

ISLAMABAD: The United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday adopted a resolution presented by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), calling for accountability for Israel and justice for Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
The war in Gaza, which began in October 2023, has persisted despite multiple international efforts to broker a ceasefire. The Palestinian death toll, according to latest figures, has exceeded 50,000, with women and children making up a large share of the casualties.
Thousands remain missing under the rubble of buildings destroyed in Israeli airstrikes. In parallel, there have been mounting reports of harassment, arbitrary detentions, and even sexual assaults against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“Over the past eighteen months, the Palestinian people under occupation have faced horror upon horror,” Pakistan’s top diplomat at the UN mission in Geneva, Ambassador Bilal Ahmed, told the Council. “Whether in the desolate Gaza Strip or the West Bank including East Jerusalem, this Council has borne witness to a litany of crimes that demand justice.”
Ahmed said the resolution reflects the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion from July 2024, which declared Israel’s continued presence in the Palestinian territories illegal.
It also incorporates findings by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the widespread and systematic use of sexual violence against Palestinians, particularly women and girls.
The resolution emphasizes the need to prevent and punish “incitement to genocide in Gaza,” in line with the ICJ’s provisional measures issued in January 2024.
It further calls for the establishment of an independent mechanism to assist in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the most serious crimes under international law.
“We have long known that impunity for human rights violations enables more and worse violations,” Ahmed said. “The adoption of this resolution would signal the strong resolve of this Council to end impunity for serial violators. For the Palestinian people, it would be the light at the end of an unimaginably dark tunnel.”
Pakistan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva confirmed later that the resolution was adopted by an overwhelming majority.


South Korea discovers two tonnes of suspected cocaine on board ship

Updated 03 April 2025
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South Korea discovers two tonnes of suspected cocaine on board ship

  • Korea Customs Service and Coast Guard found 57 boxes of the suspected drug on a bulk ship docked at Gangneung city port
  • The ship started its voyage in Mexico and traveled via Ecuador, Panama and China before reaching Gangneung

SEOUL: South Korean authorities found about two tonnes of suspected cocaine on Wednesday on a ship docked at a port, the customs service said, in what appears to be the largest haul of smuggled drugs in the country’s history.
Korea Customs Service and Coast Guard found 57 boxes of the suspected drug on a bulk ship docked at Gangneung city port on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, the customs service said in a statement.
They searched the ship after receiving information from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations, South Korean authorities said.
The ship started its voyage in Mexico and traveled via Ecuador, Panama and China before reaching Gangneung, the statement said.
The customs agency had earlier estimated the weight of the suspected drugs at about one ton, but doubled it after weighing the boxes.
The suspected cocaine haul easily outweighs South Korea’s previous record for smuggled drugs, which was 404 kilograms of methamphetamine found in 2021, a customs spokesperson said.
South Korea has tough drug laws, and crimes are typically punishable by at least six months in prison or up to 15 years or more for repeat offenders and dealers.