JAIPUR, India: India is seeking greater trade engagement with the Gulf Cooperation Council, its commerce minister told Arab News on Thursday, as delegates gathered for the G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting.
Held under India’s G20 presidency in the northern city of Jaipur, the meeting, which takes place from Aug. 24-25, is expected to feature talks on World Trade Organization reforms, and ongoing challenges to global trade logistics, investment, and integration of micro, small and medium enterprises into world commerce.
The Saudi delegation is led by Commerce Minister Majid bin Abdullah Al-Qasabi, who held a bilateral meeting with his Indian counterpart Piyush Goyal ahead of the summit.
“It was a very, very useful engagement,” Goyal said. “A lot of decisions have been made, about which you will hear in the days to come.”
While Saudi Arabia is a member of the G20, India has invited to the ministerial meeting delegates from the UAE, Oman and Egypt, which are not G20 states.
Their presence is seen as reflecting New Delhi’s growing ties with Arab countries, which are India’s largest trading partner, with the volume of bilateral trade exceeding $240 billion during the financial year 2022-23.
The bulk of India’s trade has been with GCC countries, especially the UAE, with which New Delhi signed a free trade pact last year, and with Saudi Arabia.
“We have large investments coming from GCC countries,” Goyal said.
“Our relations with the Middle East (countries) are on the growth trajectory. We are in dialogue with many of the GCC countries, Middle Eastern countries, for greater engagement in trade and furthering the shared interests of prosperity for both the region and India.”
The minister was expecting the two-day summit to conclude on Friday, with various agreements in place.
“I have the confidence looking at the first session this morning that we will all be able to agree on a broad consensus on all trade-related issues,” he said.
“There’s been significant progress in the deliberations at various levels to come up with a strong outcome document.”
India seeks greater engagement with GCC after G20 commerce meeting
https://arab.news/6nfxk
India seeks greater engagement with GCC after G20 commerce meeting
- G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting held in Jaipur
- Arab nations are the country’s largest trading partner
Billionaire bash: India’s lavish Ambani nuptials
- Ambani, 67, chairman of Reliance Industries, has a fortune of more than $123 billion, and is the 11th wealthiest person in the world
- His younger son Anant and fiancee Radhika Merchant, both 29, are set to marry in three-day Hindu ceremony in Mumbai starting Friday
MUMBAI: Billionaire Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani celebrates the lavish finale of his son’s wedding this week, highlighting his staggering wealth, as well as India’s rapid economic growth and stark financial inequalities.
Ambani’s younger son Anant and fiancee Radhika Merchant, both 29, are set to marry in a three-day Hindu ceremony in India’s financial capital Mumbai starting Friday.
Asia’s richest man is no stranger to throwing a costly wedding.
He held the most expensive wedding in India to date for his daughter in 2018, which reportedly cost up to $100 million and saw US singer Beyonce perform.
This week’s opulent celebrations are set to raise the bar, with celebrities, politicians and business elite jetting into the monsoon-hit megacity of Mumbai.
Pre-wedding parties for his son included multi-day galas, a European cruise for 1,200 guests, a specially built Hindu temple and entertainment provided by pop stars ranging from Rihanna to Justin Bieber.
Ambani, 67, the chairman of Reliance Industries, has a fortune of more than $123 billion, and is the 11th wealthiest person in the world, according to the Forbes billionaires list.
He is a key ally of India’s right-wing Hindu nationalist leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Ambani inherited a thriving industrial enterprise spanning oil, gas and petrochemicals.
He grew it into a commercial behemoth with lucrative interests in retail, telecommunications and an Indian Premier League cricket team.
Ambani’s family home Antilia is one of Mumbai’s most prominent landmarks. The 27-floor building reportedly cost more than $1 billion to erect and has a permanent staff of 600 servants.
Merchant is the daughter of pharmaceutical moguls.
Wedding celebrations began in March with a three-day gala for 1,500-plus guests in Gujarat state.
Rihanna performed her first concert since last year’s Super Bowl for wedding guests including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and ex-US president Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka.
David Blaine did magic tricks.
Festivities also involved a trip to the Ambani’s “animal rescue center” housing exotic animals, and a specially built Hindu temple complex.
A second leg in June was a four-day Mediterranean cruise with 1,200 guests, Merchant told Vogue.
Singer Katy Perry performed at a masquerade ball at a French chateau in Cannes, while the Backstreet Boys and US rapper Pitbull also provided entertainment.
DJ David Guetta played at a toga party at sea.
The cruise ended in Italy’s Portofino, where tenor Andrea Bocelli serenaded the party in the town square.
The wedding invitation was an intricate chest incorporating a mini silver temple.
Merchant’s multiple dresses have been as elaborate.
They have included custom designs from Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, and a vintage Yves Saint Laurent for Dior, she told Vogue.
Another was a sweeping chiffon dress printed with a love letter from her fiancee, the magazine reported.
“I want to be able to show it to my kids and grandkids, and say that ‘this is what our love was’,” Merchant said.
India is the fastest-growing major economy, and the world’s fifth largest.
But despite massive advances, the world’s most populous country has a jobs crisis to match.
National per capita income is just $1,174, according to government data.
India was ranked 111 of 125 countries in the Global Hunger Index report last year, a peer-reviewed measure calculated by European aid agencies.
One percent of India’s 1.4 billion people earn more than a fifth of its wealth, according to the World Inequality Lab, an income share “among the very highest” in the world — greater than South Africa, Brazil or the United States.
Perhaps to preempt criticism, Ambani provided a feast for 50,000 people in his hometown of Jamnagar in Gujarat during the first round of parties.
Ambani also organized a mass wedding for 52 “underprivileged” couples near Mumbai, promising to support “hundreds more such weddings” across India.
63 missing after Nepal landslide sweeps two buses into river
- Dozens of search and rescue personnel combing the site for survivors of the accident in the central district of Chitwan
- Deadly crashes are common in the Himalayan republic because of poorly constructed roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving
KATMANDU: At least 63 people were missing in Nepal on Friday after a landslide triggered by heavy monsoon rains swept two buses off a highway and into a river, authorities said.
Dozens of search and rescue personnel were combing the site for survivors of the accident in the central district of Chitwan, district official Khimananda Bhusal told AFP.
Bhusal said that the buses were carrying at least 66 people between them but three passengers had been able to escape before they crashed into the Trishuli river and were now being treated in hospital.
“We are not sure of the total number because the buses could have picked up others on the road,” he said.
“The river has swollen and no one else has been found yet.”
The accident took place along the Narayanghat-Mugling highway, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of the capital Katmandu early Friday at 3:30 am local time (2145 GMT Thursday).
One bus was heading from the capital Katmandu to Gaur in Rautahat district in southern Nepal and the other was en route to Katmandu from southern Birgunj.
A driver was killed in a separate accident on the same road after a boulder hit his bus. He died as he was being treated at a hospital.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal expressed sadness over the accident in a post on social media platform X.
“I direct all agencies of the government, including the home administration, to search for and effectively rescue the passengers,” he said.
Deadly crashes are common in the Himalayan republic because of poorly constructed roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving.
Nearly 2,400 people lost their lives on Nepal’s roads in the 12 months to April, according to government figures.
Twelve people were killed and 24 were injured in an accident in January when a bus heading to Katmandu from Nepalgunj fell into a river.
Road travel becomes deadlier during the annual monsoon season as rains trigger landslides and floods across the mountainous republic.
Monsoon rains across South Asia from June to September offer respite from the summer heat and are crucial to replenishing water supplies, but also bring widespread death and destruction.
The rainfall is hard to forecast and varies considerably, but scientists say climate change is making the monsoon stronger and more erratic.
Floods, landslides and lightning strikes have killed 88 people across the country since the monsoon began in June, according to police figures.
In South Africa, Madiba shirts keep Mandela’s legacy alive
- Sonwabile Ndamas proud that the Madiba shirts he designed for Nelson Mandela 30 years ago endure as a legacy of South Africa’s first democratically elected leader
JOHANNESBURG: In his workshop stocked with piles of fabric and sewing machines, Sonwabile Ndamase is proud that the Madiba shirts he designed for Nelson Mandela 30 years ago endure as a legacy of South Africa’s first democratically elected leader.
Worn untucked and without a jacket, the loose Madiba shirts remain a favorite among South African politicians, making a statement 10 years after Mandela’s death.
Madiba is the clan name by which Mandela is known in South Africa.
Ndamase’s clients include South Africa’s current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, as well as his predecessors, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. The country’s political and business elite — including ministers, government spokesmen and local politicians — regularly place orders.
Even former US president Bill Clinton and boxing great Mike Tyson have a Madiba shirt.
“Anybody who wants to live a Mandela legacy or who wants to live Mandela ethos in life, guess what they are doing? They will go and pick up Madiba shirts,” Ndamase told AFP.
The jovial 64-year-old designer recalls when he was contacted by Winnie Mandela soon after the apartheid government released her husband from prison in 1990.
Having spent 27 years in jail, the hero of the fight against white-minority rule and South Africa’s soon-to-be president needed new clothes.
Ndamase met Mandela in his home Johannesburg’s Soweto. “He started to tell me that he wanted something that could look conservative enough for him to go and address the captains of industry and... then also to address the masses without having to change,” he said.
Mandela wanted a style that would make him stand out among other statesmen and did not require a tie.
The self-taught designer came up with the loose-fitting, casual-but-smart silk shirts with bold patterns that are associated with Mandela even after his death in 2013 at the age of 95.
The shirts often feature oriental-style patterns. Some boast deep colors such as burgundy, dark grey and royal blue, with playful designs; others are of cooler, tan hues, depicting elements from nature like leaves or twigs.
All are recognizable as the signature Mandela look. It is a style that Ndamase, who suffered a mild stroke in March 2024, is passing on to a new generation of garment-makers.
The jocular designer — whose perfect impersonation of Mandela is a testament to their time spent together — is taking his know-how to New York in September when he will host a masterclass for young designers.
On the same trip, he will showcase his Vukani brand’s new collection at an event for celebrity and elite buyers that will pay tribute to the 30 years of democracy since South Africa’s first all-race election in 1994.
The collection takes on a more casual, loungewear aesthetic, a breakaway from his usual style, Ndamase said. The occasion will feature in a documentary by a US-based filmmaker about his career.
Sporting a grey goatee, Ndamase laughs off the many other designers who claim to have pioneered the Madiba shirt or sell versions resembling his own, which today cost around 1,800 rand ($90) apiece.
Once described by the late Winnie Mandela as “part of the furniture,” he says never wanted to use the Mandela name commercial purposes. “I dressed one generation to another,” he said. “The relationship I had was a family relationship.”
Born in the Mdantsane township on the southeastern coast, Ndamase still spends time behind the sewing machine in his Johannesburg workshop.
“It’s a dream come true,” he said, squinting at shirt he is working on. “It’s a legacy collection,” he said, pointing to a T-shirt from the new range that is emblazoned “BE THE LEGACY” and features a famous silhouette of Nelson and Winnie Mandela walking free in 1990.
South Korea to deploy ‘StarWars’ lasers against North’s drones
- The new laser weapons are invisible and noise-free, require no additional ammunition
- The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty
SEOUL: South Korea will begin deploying drone-melting laser weapons designed to shoot down North Korean UAVs this year, the country’s arms procurement agency said Friday.
The new laser weapons — dubbed the “StarWars Project” by the South — are invisible and noise-free, require no additional ammunition, operate solely on electricity and cost only about 2,000 won ($1.45) per shot, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA).
The “Block-I” system, developed by Hanwha Aerospace, will be “put into operational deployment in the military this year,” Lee Sang-yoon, a DAPA official, said.
The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
In December 2022, Seoul said five North Korean drones crossed into the South, the first such incident in five years, prompting its military to fire warning shots and deploy fighter jets, but they failed to shoot any of them down.
The South’s “ability to respond to North Korea’s drone provocations will be significantly enhanced” by the laser weapons system, DAPA said in a statement Thursday.
It has successfully achieved a 100 percent shoot-down rate in previous tests, and with future improvements, it could become a “game-changing” weapons system capable of countering aircraft and ballistic missiles in the future, DAPA said.
The “StarWars” system — a “weapon of the future” according to official Lee — neutralizes targets by directly hitting them with laser light generated from optical fiber.
“When a laser weapon transfers heat to a drone, its surface melts. As the surface melts, the internal components catch fire, causing the drone to eventually fall,” Lee said.
“This laser weapon uses electricity, so simply increasing the output allows it to travel at the speed of light,” he said.
“Laser weapons can travel even further in space where there is no air,” which gives it a significant advantage over conventional weapons, he added.
But some analysts said it was too early to be sure about the weapon’s capabilities.
“Laser weapons have not yet been put to practical use worldwide, and further verification and more time are needed to determine whether they can be utilized as a practical weapon system,” Hong Sung-pyo, senior researcher at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs, said.
“Laser weapons also have an operational range. While it may be possible to shoot down (North Korean) drones that come within this range, it is difficult to target those that are outside of it,” he added.
Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with Pyongyang ramping up weapons testing as it draws ever closer to Russia.
After Pyongyang sent multiple barrages of trash-carrying balloons across the border, Seoul last month fully suspended a tension-reducing military deal and resumed live-fire drills on border islands and by the demilitarised zone that divides the Korean peninsula.
Hungary’s Orban, a NATO outlier on Ukraine, talks ‘peace mission’ with Trump
WASHINGTON: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with Donald Trump on Thursday and the pair discussed the “possibilities of peace,” a spokesperson for the prime minister said as he pushes for a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Trump and Orban met at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida “as the next stop of his peace mission,” Orban’s spokesperson said. “The discussion was about the possibilities of peace“
Nationalist leader Orban, a long-time Trump supporter, made surprise visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing in the past two weeks on a self-styled “peace mission,” angering NATO allies.
His meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin in particular vexed some other NATO members, who said the trip handed legitimacy to Putin when the West wants to isolate him over his war in Ukraine.
Orban traveled to Kyiv before visiting Moscow but did not tell Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about his mission to Russia, Zelensky said, dismissing Orban’s ambition of playing the peacemaker.
“Not all the leaders can make negotiations. You need to have some power for this,” Zelensky said earlier at a news conference at the NATO summit.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, when asked about Orban’s initiative, said Ukraine would be rightly concerned about any attempt to negotiate a peace deal without involving Kyiv.
“Whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukraine’s consent or support is not something that’s consistent with our policy, the foreign policy of the United States,” Sullivan said.
Orban’s self-styled peace mission has also irked many members of the European Union, whose rotating presidency Hungary took over at the start of this month.
The Hungarian embassy in Washington declined to comment on the planned meeting with Trump, which was first reported by Bloomberg.
Orban has been attending a NATO summit hosted by Democratic President Joe Biden. Hungary’s delegation voiced opposition to key NATO positions, while not blocking the alliance from taking action.
Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Reuters on Wednesday that Hungary believes a second Trump presidency would boost hopes for peace in Ukraine.
Orban hoped to bring an end to the war through peace talks involving both Russia and Ukraine, according to Szijjarto.
Trump has said he would quickly end the war. He has not offered a detailed plan to achieve that, but Reuters reported last month that advisers to the former president had presented him with a plan to end the war in part by making future aid to Kyiv conditional on Ukraine joining peace talks.
In the past several months, foreign officials have regularly sought meetings with Trump and his key advisers to discuss his foreign policy should he beat Biden in the Nov. 5 election. Polls show Trump widening his lead over Biden.
One adviser, Keith Kellogg, has met with several high-ranking foreign officials on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Reuters reported this week.
NATO FRUSTRATION
Orban appeared isolated at the opening of a NATO meeting on Ukraine on Thursday, sitting alone while other leaders talked in a huddle.
Two European diplomats told Reuters that NATO allies were frustrated with Orban’s actions around the summit, but stressed that he had not blocked the alliance from taking action on Ukraine.
Multiple EU leaders made clear Orban was not speaking for the bloc in his discussions on the war in Ukraine.
“I don’t think there’s any point in having conversations with authoritarian regimes that are violating international law,” said Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
Hungary also diverged from its NATO allies on China, which the alliance said is an enabler of Russia’s war effort and poses challenges to security. Hungary does not want NATO to become an “anti-China” bloc, and will not support it doing so, Szijjarto said on Thursday.
