DOHA: The head of Qatar Airways voiced skepticism on Tuesday over an aviation industry target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, citing inadequate supplies of Sustainable Aviation Fuel and alternative hydrogen designs in their infancy.
“I don’t think that we will be able to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Everybody’s talking about it, but let us be realistic — there is not enough production of sustainable aviation fuel,” Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker told the Qatar Economic Forum, organized by Bloomberg.
The warning by one of the industry’s most high-profile leaders come days before global airlines are due to discuss how to implement the climate pledge at an annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Istanbul in June.
Because aviation emissions are seen as hard to abate without radical technology, the main focus has been on “drop-in” fuels that can be placed in the existing generation of jet engines, like plant- or waste-based SAF and synthetic alternatives.
“Really the only significant contributor by way of change in technology is Sustainable Aviation Fuel. That’s the only thing that moves the needle between now and (2050),” Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told the same Doha event.
In a stand-off with the energy industry over supplies available for aviation, airlines are concerned that a gap would hamper efforts to reach the target. There is also little consensus on who should pay to ramp up production, while some environmental groups say the plans are too modest.
Airbus is promoting efforts to develop a small commercial airplane powered by hydrogen by 2035.
Boeing’s Calhoun said such technology would mature only in the second half of the century.
In 2021, nations at a United Nations body agreed to a long-term aspirational goal for net-zero aviation emissions by 2050, giving political weight to a target adopted by IATA and other industry groups including airports and planemakers in 2019.
Qatar Airways CEO suggests 2050 net-zero goal beyond reach
https://arab.news/vqqdg
Qatar Airways CEO suggests 2050 net-zero goal beyond reach
- "There is not enough production of sustainable aviation fuel,” Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker said
What we know of the latest talks for a Gaza ceasefire
JERUSALEM: Efforts to strike a Gaza truce and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly failed over key stumbling blocks, but recent negotiations have raised hope of an agreement.
On Tuesday, Washington expressed “cautious optimism” on the possibility of an “imminent deal.”
This comes following reported indirect negotiations mediated by Qatar along with Egypt and the United States.
Diplomatic sources told AFP that US President-elect Donald Trump’s recent declaration that a deal should be struck before his return to office on January 20 had an impact on the latest round of talks.
One diplomatic source said that Hamas, isolated after the weakening of its Lebanese ally Hezbollah and the overthrow of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad, is keen to reach a deal before the end of the year.
“A lot of people see (a deal) as the perfect Christmas gift,” the source said.
Another noted that since Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar’s death, Hamas leaders abroad, known as more pragmatic than the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war, have been conducting negotiations.
A high-ranking Hamas official told AFP on Tuesday that the talks were at the “final details” stage and that Qatar and Egypt would announce the agreement once negotiations end.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer declined to comment on the proposed deal at a media briefing on Wednesday, stating “the less said the better.”
During their attack on Israel on October 7 last year, Palestinian militants led by Hamas seized 251 hostages.
Ninety-six of them are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Hamas officials told AFP that the current framework for a deal would see the implementation of a ceasefire and the gradual release of hostages over three phases.
In the first, six-week phase, Israeli civilian hostages and female soldiers would be released in exchange for “hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.”
The source close to Hamas said that during this phase, Israel would withdraw its forces “from west of the Rafah crossing” on the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land cleared and controlled by Israel along Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Israeli forces would also “partly withdraw” from the Netzarim Corridor, another, wider strip of land cleared and controlled by Israel that splits the territory in two just south of Gaza City, and gradually leave Palestinian refugee camps.
Lastly, the first phase would see the gradual return of displaced residents to Gaza City and the north via the coastal highway under Israeli army monitoring.
The second phase would see the release of Israeli male soldiers in exchange for “a number” of Palestinian prisoners, “including at least 100 with long-term sentences.”
During this phase, Israel would complete its military withdrawal but would maintain forces on the eastern and northern border areas with Israel.
Under the last phase of the proposed deal, “the war will be officially declared over” and reconstruction efforts will begin in the territory where the UN satellite agency said that 66 percent of all structures have been damaged.
Lastly, the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border would be jointly managed by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, in coordination with Egypt and the European Union.
Despite numerous rounds of indirect talks, Israel and Hamas have agreed just one week-long truce at the end of 2023.
Negotiations between Hamas and Israel have faced multiple challenges since then, with the primary point of contention being the establishment of a lasting ceasefire.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also repeatedly stated that he does not want to withdraw Israeli troops from the Philadelphi Corridor.
One of the diplomatic sources AFP spoke to said Israel would “never” exit the border strip, and at most would leave the small border crossing for others to manage.
Another unresolved issue is the governance of post-war Gaza.
It remains a highly contentious issue, including within the Palestinian leadership.
Israel has said repeatedly that it will not allow Hamas to run the territory ever again.
And while a Hamas official told AFP on Wednesday that “Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, the United Nations and the United States will guarantee the implementation of the agreement,” none of them have confirmed that.
North Korea slams ‘reckless’ US-led criticism of involvement in Ukraine
SEOUL: North Korea on Thursday lashed out at the United States and its allies for criticizing its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, including the deployment of troops, rejecting what it called a “reckless provocation.”
In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, a foreign ministry spokesman said the declaration by 10 nations and the European Union was “distorting and slandering” Pyongyang’s “normal cooperative” ties with Moscow.
Saudi aid agency KSrelief launches pediatric surgical program in war-ravaged Sudan
- Medical team assesses 15 children and carries out 7 successful operations during first few days of the project, which is staffed by volunteers
RIYADH: Saudi aid agency KSrelief this week launched a volunteer pediatric surgical program in the Sudanese city of Port Sudan.
By Wednesday, the medical team had assessed 15 children and carried out seven successful surgeries, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
Sudan is locked in a civil war between two rival factions of the country’s military government that began in April 2023. It has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced about 12 million people.
The conflict has also had a devastating effect on healthcare, with more than two-thirds of major hospitals in out of service, according to the World Health Organization.
Zelensky huddles with European leaders as Trump looms
- “Europe needs a strong, united position to ensure lasting peace,” Zelensky stressed as he arrived in the Belgian capital
BRUSSELS, Belgium: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with NATO chief Mark Rutte and key European leaders in Brussels Wednesday to strategize over Russia’s war ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Addressing reporters alongside Rutte, Zelensky called it a “very good opportunity to speak about security guarantees for Ukraine, for today and for tomorrow.”
The pair were to be joined later in the evening at the NATO’s chief’s official residence by leaders from Germany, Poland, Italy, Denmark, The Netherlands and the European Union’s main institutions.
French President Emmanuel Macron and British premier Keir Starmer were to miss the gathering due to schedule clashes — sending their foreign ministers instead — but Macron met Zelensky for bilateral talks just beforehand.
The huddle came just over a month before Trump reclaims the US presidency, having pledged to bring a swift end to a conflict that NATO says has left more than one million dead and wounded since Russia’s 2022 invasion.
There are fears that Trump could pull US support for Kyiv and force it to make painful concessions to Moscow. European leaders, keen not to be left on the sidelines, are scrambling to come up with their own plans.
“Europe needs a strong, united position to ensure lasting peace,” Zelensky stressed as he arrived in the Belgian capital.
European leaders insist that only Ukraine should decide when it is ready to negotiate with Russia.
The meeting’s top focus, Rutte said, was to make sure that Ukraine was “in the best possible position one day, when they decide to start the peace talks.”
Likewise German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters earlier in Brussels the priority was to secure the “sovereignty of Ukraine — and that it will not be forced to submit to a dictated peace.”
But discussions have begun between some capitals over the potential deployment of European troops to Ukraine to secure any eventual ceasefire.
While this was raised at a recent meeting between Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, diplomats say it remains too early to draw up concrete proposals.
Scholz told reporters that discussing boots on the ground was premature, saying it “does not make sense” at this stage.
Rutte instead said Kyiv’s allies should focus on ramping up arms supplies — and urged them not to debate possible peace conditions in public as it risks playing into Moscow’s hands.
“If we now start to discuss among ourselves what a deal could look like, we make it so easy for the Russians,” he said.
Western backers are seeking to shore up Ukraine’s forces as Kyiv’s fatigued troops are losing ground across the frontline and Moscow has deployed North Koreans to the battlefield.
Zelensky — who will also attend an EU summit on Thursday — said he wanted to discuss “how to urgently strengthen Ukraine on the battlefield, politically and geopolitically.”
Most immediately Zelensky is pleading for over a dozen more air defense systems to try to help stave off Russian barrages against Ukraine’s power grid.
But Ukraine’s leader has said Trump’s arrival could mean the war ends next year, and has called for allies to help secure a peace deal that Moscow cannot violate.
As the change of guard approached in the US, Zelensky has appeared to soften his stance on any potential peace push.
He has said that if Ukraine is given firm security guarantees by NATO and enough weaponry it could agree to a ceasefire along current lines and look to regain the rest of its territory through diplomatic means.
But NATO members have rebuffed Kyiv’s calls for an invitation to join their alliance right away, sparking speculation that sending peacekeepers could be an alternative.
“Officially that is not on the agenda, but since there will be a lot of important people in the same room, it cannot entirely be ruled out,” a NATO diplomat said.
The meeting is “basically about Zelensky asking for more military aid,” the diplomat added.
Germany jails Syrian for 10 years for Assad-era war crimes
- Berlin has warned that Assad’s supporters will continue to face justice in Germany for crimes they committed
- Germany, in 2022, jailed former Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan for life in the first international trial over state-sponsored torture in Syrian prisons
BERLIN: A German court handed a 10-year jail term to a Syrian former militia leader on Wednesday for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed under former president Bashar Assad.
The man, named only as Ahmad H., 47, had come to Germany in 2016 at the height of the influx of migrants to Europe.
Assad was toppled last week by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, and Berlin has since warned that his supporters will continue to face justice in Germany for crimes they committed.
Ahmad H. was found guilty of crimes including torture, deprivation of liberty and enslavement, a spokeswoman for the higher regional court in Hamburg told AFP.
Prosecutors said he carried out the crimes between 2012 and 2015 as a local leader of the pro-government “shabiha” militia in Damascus tasked with helping to crush dissent.
The militia operated checkpoints where “people were arrested arbitrarily so that they or their family members could be extorted for money, committed to forced labor or tortured,” they said.
The fighters also plundered the homes of regime opponents, sold the spoils and kept the profits, they added, charging that Ahmad H. took part “personally in the abuse of civilians.”
When Ahmad H. was detained in Germany in July 2023, the Washington-based Syrian Justice & Accountability Center, which tracks human rights abuses in Syria, said its investigations had led to the arrest.
It had launched its probe after a witness told the agency in May 2020 that the suspect was living in Germany.
Europe’s biggest economy, then ruled by chancellor Angela Merkel, granted safe haven to hundreds of thousands of Syrians during the 2015-16 refugee influx.
NGOs warned at the time of the danger that militiamen accused of committing some of the most barbaric atrocities against civilians for Assad’s government were arriving incognito in Europe and obtaining asylum.
Germany has previously used the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows the prosecution of certain grave crimes regardless of where they took place, to try Syrians over atrocities committed during the civil war.
In January 2022, Germany jailed former Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan for life in the first international trial over state-sponsored torture in Syrian prisons.
