ANKARA:Turkiye’s foreign minister will travel to Djibouti next week to attend a Turkiye-Africa ministerial meeting and discuss improving cooperation between Ankara and the continent, officials from his ministry said.
NATO member Turkiye has ramped up its presence and influence in Africa in recent years, increasing trade nearly eight-fold, giving diplomatic and military support to some countries, and inking deals in various fields.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Djibouti meeting would evaluate a previous conference held in 2021 and discuss possible moves to deepen cooperation.
The meeting will be held on Nov. 2-3 and will be attended by representatives from 14 African countries, along with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, the officials added.
It comes amid Turkish mediation efforts to resolve a dispute between Somalia and Ethiopia over a deal that Ethiopia agreed to lease a stretch of coastline from Somaliland, and at a time when West Africa struggles with surging terrorism.
The officials said the mediation was difficult due to the lack of trust between the parties, but that Ankara hoped for good news in coming days.
On Tuesday, Turkiye inked a cooperation agreement with Niger on mining, after having signed a similar cooperation deal with the West African nation on oil and gas in July.
Asked about the accord, the officials said Turkiye’s Mineral Research and Exploration authority had three gold mining fields in Niger, protected by Niger security forces, and planned to start production there by the end of the year.
Turkiye is competing with major powers like France, Russia and China for a foothold in Africa, forging partnerships with several nations and providing armed drones to Somalia, Ethiopia and others.
The officials said Turkiye’s provision of defense equipment and military training aimed to strengthen “national capabilities” and support counterterrorism.
“Countries that have acquired Turkish drones have increased their ground control in their countries,” said an official, citing Burkina Faso’s doubling the level of its control over the state to 65 percent using Turkish drones.
On Tuesday, Tuareg rebels in Mali said a drone strike using a Turkish drone had killed eight people and wounded 20 others.
Turkiye to seek improved Africa cooperation in Djibouti talks, officials say
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Turkiye to seek improved Africa cooperation in Djibouti talks, officials say
4 astronauts return to Earth after being delayed by Boeing’s capsule trouble
- A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachutes before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast
A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station mid-week.
The three Americans and one Russian should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas.
SpaceX launched the four — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin — in March. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us ... and helped us to roll with all those punches.”
Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.
The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven — four Americans and three Russians — after months of overflow.
Four killed in militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir
- Separatist militants have fought Indian forces for decades, with thousands killed in territory
- At least nine Indian soldiers were killed in two separate militant attacks in the region in July
SRINAGAR: At least four people, including two soldiers, were killed when militants ambushed an army vehicle in India’s restive Kashmir on Thursday night, officials said, the fourth attack in the region in a fortnight and the second this week.
The attacks come close on the heels of a government formed by an opposition alliance taking over in the territory where separatist militants have fought security forces for decades and thousands of people have been killed.
At least nine soldiers were killed in two separate militant attacks in the region in July.
Thursday’s attack occurred in the Bota Pathri area near Kashmir’s border with Pakistan, officials said, adding that two army porters were also killed in the incident and three soldiers injured.
“A massive search operation has been launched against the militants responsible for the attack...Additional reinforcements have been sent to the area,” said an army official who declined to be named.
Security forces are using drones and helicopters to scan the forest in the region where the incident occurred, a senior police officer said.
The People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), which Indian authorities say is an offshoot of Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-E-Mohammed, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulating on social media.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the authenticity of the statement.
Authorities closed Gulmarg town’s cable car — a popular tourist attraction that lies about 12 km(7 miles) from the spot of the attack — following the incident.
Around one million people use the cable car annually.
“The shutdown is a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of tourists and staff,” a senior official said.
At least six migrant workers and a doctor were shot dead in another attack in Kashmir this week when militants opened fire near a tunnel construction site.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, in a post on X, termed the “recent spate of attacks” in the region “a matter of serious concern.”
Kashmir is claimed in full but ruled in part by both India and Pakistan and the 2019 revocation of its special status, which saw it being split into two federally administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, led to the countries downgrading ties.
Japan PM on defensive as election prospects dim further
- Fresh survey suggest that Shigeru Ishiba’s ruling coalition could fall short of a majority in elections on Sunday
- Adding to Ishiba’s woes is the continuing fallout from a slush fund scandal within his Liberal Democratic Party
TOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba hit out at “biased” media reports related to a party scandal, as a fresh survey suggested that his ruling coalition could fall short of a majority in elections on Sunday.
This would be the worst result for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) — which has governed Japan for almost all of the past seven decades — since it last lost power from 2009 to 2012, as well as a major blow to Ishiba himself.
Adding to Ishiba’s woes is the continuing fallout from a slush fund scandal within the LDP that angered voters and helped torpedo his predecessor, Fumio Kishida.
Ishiba promised to not actively support LDP politicians caught up in the scandal running in the election, although they are still standing.
But according to media reports, the party has still provided 20 million yen ($132,000) each to district offices headed by these figures.
“It is truly frustrating that such reports come out at a time like this,” Ishiba said in a campaign speech on Thursday. “Those candidates will not use the money.”
“We cannot be defeated by those with biased views,” he added.
Opposition leaders pounced on Ishiba’s comments, including Yoshihiko Noda, a popular former prime minister who heads the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), the second-biggest in parliament.
“However you look at it, it is cash to secretly endorse them. Mr. Ishiba is making excuses that no one understands,” Noda, 67, said in a campaign speech.
“He is angry with these reports? What are you saying? It is the Japanese people who are angry.”
Ishiba, 67, only became party leader — on his fifth attempt — last month and took office as prime minister on October 1, calling snap elections within days to shore up his position.
LDP members picked the self-confessed defense “geek” as party leader, believing that his popularity among ordinary voters would restore the party’s fortunes.
The fan of trains, 1970s pop idols and making military models promised to create a “new Japan (that) will drastically change the nature of Japanese society.”
He pledged to revitalize depressed rural regions and to address the “quiet emergency” of Japan’s falling population by supporting families with policies like flexible working hours.
But he has rowed back his position on issues including allowing married couples to take separate surnames, and only named two women ministers in his cabinet.
Friday’s new poll by the Yomiuri Shimbun daily suggested that the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito might struggle to get the necessary 233 lower house seats needed for a majority.
Ishiba has set this threshold as his objective, and missing it would undermine his position in the LDP and mean finding other coalition partners or leading a minority government.
In voting districts, only 87 of the LDP’s 266 candidates are ahead of their rivals, while 133 are in neck-and-neck battles, many of them against CDP candidates, the top-selling Yomiuri said.
The LDP was also set to lose dozens of seats determined by proportional representation under Japan’s hybrid electoral system, the paper added.
“Regardless of what the election results are, Ishiba’s longevity as prime minister is in question,” said Rintaro Nishimura at think-tank The Asia Group.
UN report says planet to warm by 3.1 degrees Celsius without greater action
- Nations to discuss updated emissions strategies at COP29
- 1.5°C target likely out of reach without climate overshoot
TORONTO: Current climate policies will result in global warming of more than 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, according to a United Nations report on Thursday, more than twice the rise agreed to nearly a decade ago.
The annual Emissions Gap report, which takes stock of countries’ promises to tackle climate change compared with what is needed, finds the world faces as much as 3.1 C (5.6 F) of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100 if governments do not take greater action on slashing planet-warming emissions.
Governments in 2015 signed up to the Paris Agreement and a cap of 1.5 C (2.7 F) warming to prevent a cascade of dangerous impacts.
“We’re teetering on a planetary tight rope,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a speech on Thursday. “Either leaders bridge the emissions gap, or we plunge headlong into climate disaster.”
Global greenhouse gas emissions rose by 1.3 percent between 2022 and 2023, to a new high of 57.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent, the report said.
Under current pledges to take future action, temperatures would still rise between 2.6 C (4.7 F) and 2.8 C (5 F) by 2100, the report found. That is in line with findings from the past three years.
“If we look at the progress toward 2030 targets, especially of the G20 member states ... they have not made a lot of progress toward their current climate targets for 2030,” said Anne Olhoff, chief scientific editor of the report.
The world has currently warmed by about 1.3 C (2.3 F).
Nations will gather next month at the annual United Nations climate summit (COP29) in Azerbaijan, where they will work to build on an agreement made last year to transition away from fossil fuels.
Negotiations in Baku will help to inform each country’s updated emissions-cutting strategy, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which are due in February 2025.
The report suggests that nations must collectively commit to and implement a cut of 42 percent on yearly greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and reach 57 percent by 2035 for any hope of preventing warming beyond 1.5 C — a target now seen as likely out of reach.
Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, urged countries to use the Baku talks to increase action in their NDCs. “Every fraction of a degree avoided counts,” she said.
Trees and power lines flattened as Cyclone Dana hits India
- Cyclones are a regular and deadly menace in the northern Indian Ocean
- At least 1.1 million people in the states of Odisha and West Bengal were relocated to storm shelters
KOLKATA: Cyclone Dana uprooted trees and power lines after making landfall on India’s east coast, with officials warning of more fierce weather on Friday.
Cyclones — the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the northwestern Pacific — are a regular and deadly menace in the northern Indian Ocean.
At least 1.1 million people in the states of Odisha and West Bengal were relocated to storm shelters before the eye of the cyclone reached the coast just after midnight.
District official Siddarth Swain said that the storm had left a “trail of destruction” in the coastal town of Puri.
“Many trees and electric poles are uprooted,” he added. “Makeshift shops on the sprawling beach have been blown away.”
No casualties have been reported so far.
Dana flooded parts of the coast after triggering a surge in sea levels of up to 1.15 meters (3.75 feet).
On landfall the storm had gusting winds up to 120 kilometers per hour, Kolkata-based weather bureau forecaster Somenath Dutta said.
The Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world, was hit by a “gale force wind” that caused hundreds of trees to be uprooted, West Bengal minister Bankim Chandra Hazra said.
“The cyclone also damaged hundreds of homes, blowing off roofs in coastal areas,” he added.
Major airports have been shut since Thursday night in Kolkata, India’s third-biggest city and a key travel hub, which was lashed by heavy rains.
Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world heats up due to climate change driven by burning fossil fuels.
Warmer ocean surfaces release more water vapor, which provides additional energy for storms, strengthening winds.
A warming atmosphere also allows storms to hold more water, boosting heavy rainfall.
But better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced death tolls.
In May, Cyclone Remal killed at least 48 people in India and at least 17 people in Bangladesh, according to government figures.
