SYDNEY: Hundreds of well-wishers greeted Britain’s King Charles and Queen Camilla in Sydney on Sunday as the royal couple attended church, with the king saying it was a “great joy” to return to Australia in his first visit to an overseas realm as sovereign.
Charles’ 16th official visit to Australia, where he attended school for six months as a teenager in 1966, is also his first major foreign trip since being diagnosed with cancer.
“What a great joy it is to come to Australia for the first time as sovereign and to renew a love of this country and its people which I have cherished for so long,” he said in a speech at the New South Wales parliament.
New South Wales state lawmaker Kellie Sloane, whose electorate covers some of Sydney’s most famous beaches, wrote on social media platform X after chatting with the king that he “sends his best to the ‘amazing’ surf clubs at Bondi Beach.”
The royal couple were earlier greeted at St. Thomas’ Anglican Church by the archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, and children from the church’s Sunday school who waved Australian flags.
Camilla was given a flower bouquet by the minister’s wife, Ellie Mantle, who asked if they had recovered from jet lag after the long flight to Australia on Friday. “Sort of,” Camilla replied.
Inside the church, Charles and Camilla signed two bibles, including one that belonged to Australia’s first minister and chaplain of the First Fleet of ships that took convicts from Britain to the penal colony of Australia in 1788.
Outside, the royal couple shook hands and chatted with a large crowd of cheering fans, some singing “God Save the King.”
It was the public’s first opportunity to meet Charles and Camilla since they arrived in Australia’s biggest city on Friday night, and several hundred well wishers outnumbered a dozen protesters.
Traveling across Sydney Harbor, Charles visited the New South Wales parliament, marking the 200th anniversary of Australia’s oldest legislature.
The king presented the lawmakers with an hour glass to time their speeches, and highlighted the fundamental role of strong parliaments to democracies that serve today’s diverse societies.
“Democracy has, I believe, an extraordinary capacity for innovation, compromise and adaptability as well as stability,” he said.
The royal couple will travel to Canberra on Monday to meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the national parliament and visit the Australian War Memorial.
Albanese met the couple on Friday at Admiralty House, the historic government harborside residence where they are staying, for what he said was an informal drink and chat.
The king will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa after the six-day Australia tour.
Charles had made a significant personal donation to create a skills program to tackle climate change and boost higher education in small island states, including the Pacific Islands, the Association of Commonwealth Universities said on Sunday.
Mid-career professionals and civil servants will benefit from the fellowships, in a program that aims to retain talent in small island states and bolster resilience to the impacts of climate change such as rising sea levels.
Britain’s King Charles meets cheering Australian crowds, says ‘great joy’ to return
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Britain’s King Charles meets cheering Australian crowds, says ‘great joy’ to return
- Charles’ 16th official visit to Australia is also his first major foreign trip since cancer diagnosis
China families appeal to free relatives held by scam gangs in Myanmar
BEIJING/BANGKOK: The abduction and cross-border rescue had all the makings of the kind of action script struggling Chinese actor Wang Xing had hoped to land — only not as a reality star.
Wang, 22, flew to Bangkok earlier this month after getting an unsolicited offer to join a film that was shooting in Thailand.
There was no movie. Instead, like hundreds of other Chinese men, Wang had been duped by a job offer that he later acknowledged appeared too good to be true, as part of a trap set by a criminal syndicate.
Like others desperate for work, he was kidnapped and put to work in one of the online scam centers that operate just across the Thai border in Myanmar, according to his account and statements by police in China and Thailand.
But unlike most trafficked Chinese whose families wait in quiet anguish, Wang had a powerful advocate back home. His girlfriend, who goes by the nickname Jiajia, broadcast details of Wang’s abduction and started a social media campaign documenting her battle to get him back to China, picking up millions of followers and the support of Chinese celebrities.
When Wang was freed on Jan.7 by Thai police, who said he had been found in Myanmar but gave few details about his release, frustrated families of other Chinese people still detained in the Myanmar scam centers began to post details of their own cases in an attempt to capitalize on the attention.
Within days, the rare grassroots effort had collected the names of nearly 1,800 Chinese nationals that family members said had been trafficked into Myanmar from border areas of China and Thailand.
Social media disinformation fueling poor governance, Nigerian foreign minister tells WEF
- Yusuf Tuggar says Sahel countries suffer from foreign state-backed social media campaigns
- Comments come in WEF panel on what can be done to tackle poor governance
LONDON: Disinformation campaigns on social media, sometimes instigated by external countries, have fueled poor governance in parts of Africa, Nigeria’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.
Speaking during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Yusuf Tuggar said that while social media could have a positive effect on governance and improving transparency, disinformation spread on its platforms was something Nigeria was having to deal with.
He pointed to countries neighboring or near to Nigeria where foreign powers had been blamed for sophisticated social media campaigns that helped to swell support for military regimes.
Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso underwent military coups in recent years and broke away from the Economic Community of West African States — ECOWAS — last year to form their own alliance.
Disinformation or misinformation had a “deleterious effect on governments and governance, and sometimes it’s even destructive,” Tuggar said during a panel on the threat of poor governance.
“It’s so sophisticated, and then sometimes you also have external interference where you have other states sponsoring such attacks, if you will, on others.”
While he did not name any countries in particular, Tuggar said that this was something Nigeria was contending with in discussions about the three countries leaving ECOWAS. Nigeria is the most powerful member of the economic bloc, which is regarded as having helped to improve financial and political stability in the region.
“That sort of negative campaign sways public opinion one way or the other, and if you’re relying on votes on openness and transparency, then, you know, it’s not a fair game,” Tuggar said.
A study released last year by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, which is based at the US Department of Defense, found Russia to be the leading source of disinformation in Africa, with West Africa and the Sahel the most targeted.
Tuggar’s comments came as the panel discussed how leaders could tackle the poor level of governance globally that is blamed for eroding global cooperation and stalling progress on critical social, economic and environmental issues.
Ngaire Woods, dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University, said that good governance was about whether people could continue to trust you when you got things wrong.
“Resilience in leadership takes legitimacy as well as effectiveness,” she said. “Legitimacy is about the trust you engender among those you govern or those that you lead in your company.”
Johan Andresen, chairman of the Norwegian private investment company Ferd, said that good governance needed to be handled in two ways — risk and responsibility.
“You have to have management of the risks in the organizations, but you should also try to experiment with how much responsibility can you actually take,” he said.
Trump tells Putin to make Ukraine deal ‘now’ or face tougher sanctions
- “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions,” Trump said
- Trump said he was “not looking to hurt Russia” and had “always had a very good relationship with President Putin“
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump stepped up the pressure on Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine Wednesday, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war.
Trump’s warning in a Truth Social post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term.
“If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” Trump said.
Trump said he was “not looking to hurt Russia” and had “always had a very good relationship with President Putin,” a leader for whom he has expressed admiration in the past.
“All of that being said, I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE.”
He added: “Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way — and the easy way is always better. It’s time to ‘MAKE A DEAL.’“
Russia already faces crushing US sanctions over the war since invading Ukraine in 2022 and trade has slowed to a trickle. Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden’s administration imposed sweeping sanctions against Moscow’s energy sector earlier this month.
But Trump — a billionaire tycoon famed for his book “The Art of the Deal” — and his administration reportedly believe there are ways of toughening measures to press Putin.
The United States imported $2.9 billion in goods from Russia from January to November 2024 — down sharply from $4.3 billion over the same period in 2023, according to the US Department of Commerce.
Top US imports from Russia include fertilizers and precious metals.
It was Trump’s toughest line on Putin since he returned to the White House this week, and comes despite fears that it was Kyiv rather than Moscow that he would strongarm into making a peace deal.
During a White House press conference on Tuesday Trump said only that it “sounds likely” that he would apply additional sanctions if Putin did not come to the table.
The US president however declined to say whether he would continue Biden’s policy of sending billions of dollars in weaponry to help Ukraine.
“We’re looking at that,” he said at the press conference. “We’re talking to (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky, we’re going to be talking to President Putin very soon.”
Trump has also said he expects to meet Putin — with whom he had a summit in his first term in Helsinki — soon.
Prior to beginning his new inauguration on Monday, Trump had vowed to end Ukraine war “within 24 hours” and before even taking office, raising expectations he would leverage aid to force Kyiv to make territorial concessions to Moscow.
But his promised breakthrough has proved elusive.
In unusually critical remarks of Putin on Monday, Trump said the Russian president was “destroying Russia by not making a deal.”
Trump added that Zelensky had told him he wanted a peace agreement to end the war.
Putin congratulated Trump on his inauguration for a second term on Monday.
The Russian leader added that he was “open to dialogue” on Ukraine conflict with Trump’s incoming US administration, adding he hoped any settlement would ensure “lasting peace.”
Trump has repeatedly praised Putin, whose hyper-masculine style and professed attachment to traditional values has increasingly found favor among some US Christian conservatives.
US special counsel Robert Mueller and the FBI both investigated alleged collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign — which Trump in his post on Wednesday dubbed once again the “Russia hoax.”
Mueller won convictions of six members of the Trump campaign but said he found no evidence of criminal cooperation with Russia by the Trump campaign.
Political will, financial empowerment essential for gender equality: WEF panelists
- Alicia Barcena Ibarra: When women have economic autonomy, it’s easier for them to participate on many fronts
- Ibarra: We don’t want only women or only men. We need both because they have complementary visions
DUBAI: Political will is crucial for bridging the global gender gap and protecting women from pressing challenges, a panel of experts told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
Panelists acknowledged some progress in advancing female political representation, as 15.5 percent of heads of state around the world have been women over the past decade.
However, they called for more concerted efforts to bridge the gender gap in political power. According to WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report, it will take 168 years to reach gender parity, but if every economy had a gender-balanced Cabinet, global gender parity could be within reach in 54 years.
Alicia Barcena Ibarra, Mexico’s secretary of environment and natural resources, stressed that building women’s economic autonomy was key to advancing their political representation.
“When women have economic autonomy, it’s easier for them to participate on many fronts because when they are dependent on economic terms, that’s when they are vulnerable to corruption, dependency and abuse,” Ibarra said.
In Mexico, the first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, was elected in October last year in a historic moment for the country. Under law, Congress now has to include 50 percent women, paving the way for the the first woman to lead the country’s Supreme Court, as well as the first female governor of the central bank.
While these strides on the political level have reflected positively on women’s social participation and inspired a young generation of Mexicans, Ibarra said that it revealed the pressure on women to perform.
Complementing her sentiments, Francois Valerian, chair of Transparency International, said that the lack of financial resources for women compared to men made females more vulnerable to abuses of power, state corruption and climate change.
“Pakistan’s floods, for example, left many women and children in need to receive aid,” said Valerian, calling for parity in political power to solve these issues at the community level.
Even during elections, women needed more financial resources for their campaigns “because they have less money, they are outsiders, and need to convince people they are to be trusted. Also, they need money for their safety in many countries,” Valerian said, as he urged governments to empower women to run for election through dedicating funds for this.
Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, minister of state and minister of foreign affairs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, stressed that gender parity was necessary in all sectors to advance peacemaking and peacebuilding initiatives. So far, women’s inclusion had been achieved at the grassroot level.
She said that women needed to be included in decision-making and negotiating peace at the top level to ensure female concerns were well represented.
“There’s a need to think about how do we make sure that this is a cross-cutting approach and not just women at the local level who then have to own what is decided at the top level,” Wagner said.
At the UN General Assembly last year, only 19 speakers were women, including five heads of state and three heads of government, according to UN figures.
Wagner said that the starting point should be international organizations reflecting the progress on gender equality, and called for a female UN secretary-general.
“I think all our eyes are shifting toward Latin America because of the geographic rotation, with a lot of expectations that a continent that has distinguished itself with so many women that have assumed positions of leadership will also help us achieve that important milestone,” she said.
In peacemaking, the role of both genders was necessary for progress. “We don’t want only women or only men. We need both because they have complementary visions,” Mexico’s Ibarra said.
At least 12 rail passengers killed in western India after jumping onto tracks over fire alert
- Accident occurred in Maharashtra State, near Pardhade railroad station 410 km southwest of Mumbai
- Hundreds of accidents occur every year on India’s railways, the largest train network under one management
NEW DELHI: At least 12 train passengers were killed on Wednesday after being hit by another service on an adjacent track in western India after they jumped from their coaches in panic to escape a rumored fire incident, the Press Trust of India reported.
At least six other people were injured and taken to nearby hospitals, the news agency cited police officer Dattatraya Karale as saying.
The accident occurred in Maharashtra State, near the Pardhade railroad station, 410 kilometers (255 miles) southwest of Mumbai, India’s financial capital.
PTI said the victims jumped off the Pushpak Express train, which had stopped after some passengers pulled an emergency chain. Those who disembarked were hit by another express train on the adjacent railroad track, PTI quoted railway spokesman Swapnil Nila as saying.
“Our preliminary information is that there were sparks inside one of the coaches of Pushpak Express due to either ‘hot axle’ or ‘brake-binding’ (jamming), and some passengers panicked. They pulled the chain, and some of them jumped down on the tracks. At the same time, Karnataka Express was passing on the adjoining track,” a senior railway official told PTI.
Despite government efforts to improve rail safety, hundreds of accidents occur every year on India’s railways, which is the largest train network under one management in the world.
In 2023, two passenger trains collided after derailing in eastern India, killing more than 280 people and injuring hundreds in one of the country’s deadliest rail crashes in decades.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focussing on the modernization of the British colonial-era railroad network in India, which has become the world’s most populous country with 1.42 billion.
