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Water crisis threatening world food production: report

By - Oct 17,2024 - Last updated at Oct 17,2024

PARIS — Inaction on the water crisis could put more than half of the world's food production at risk by 2050, experts warned in a major report published Thursday.
 
"Nearly 3 billion people and more than half of the world's food production are now in areas where total water storage is projected to decline," said the report by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water (GCEW).
 
The report also warned the water crisis could lead to an eight per cent drop in GDP on average for high-income countries by 2050 and as much as 15 per cent for lower-income countries.
 
Disruptions of the water cycle "have major global economic impacts," said the report.
 
The economic declines would be a consequence of "the combined effects of changing precipitation patterns and rising temperatures due to climate change, together with declining total water storage and lack of access to clean water and sanitation".
 
Facing this crisis, the report called for the water cycle to be viewed as a "global common good" and for a transformation of water governance at all levels. 
 
"The costs entailed in these actions are very small in comparison to the harm that continued inaction will inflict on economies and humanity," it said.
 
While water is often perceived as "an abundant gift of nature", the report stressed it was scarce and costly to transport. 
 
It called for the elimination of "harmful subsidies in water-intensive sectors or redirecting them towards water-saving solutions and providing targeted support for the poor and vulnerable".
 
"We have to couple the pricing of water with appropriate subsidies," said the World Trade Organisation's Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a co-chair of the GCEW, during an online briefing.
 
Another co-chair, Singaporean President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, insisted on the need to see water as a global problem, to "innovate and invest" to solve the crisis and "stabilise the global hydrological cycle".
 

Climate-hit Pacific Islands plot landmark UN court case

By - Oct 17,2024 - Last updated at Oct 17,2024

SYDNEY — Five Pacific nations on Thursday plotted how to prosecute a pivotal UN court case that aims to hold climate-polluting countries to account and safeguard their islands' survival. 
 
The International Court of Justice will start hearings on December 2 in a case that will test countries' climate obligations and whether they can be sued for failing to act.
 
Vanuatu's Attorney-General Arnold Kiel Loughman told AFP on Thursday that the case was "important" and could give climate-hit small island states more leverage to force change.
 
He met this week with his counterparts from Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea and Tuvalu to discuss the case, prepare legal arguments and meet experts.
 
"It concerns our very livelihood because climate change affects weather patterns, it affects our land and sea and basically the environment we live in," Loughman said. 
 
And while there were countless international forums talking about climate change, he said there had been very little "action". 
 
"As far as small island countries are concerned, we haven't seen much."
 
Despite emitting less than 0.02 per cent  of total greenhouse gas emissions, Pacific nations are more exposed to climate change impacts like rising sea levels.
 
In 2020, Vanuatu emitted 121,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, compared to neighbouring Australia's 379 million tonnes, according to data from the World Bank. 
 
"For too long, our region has withstood the brunt of climate impacts while contributing the least to the crisis," Loughman said. 
 
He estimated the nation of roughly 313,000 people needs about US$1.2 billion by 2030 to pay for climate adaptation, mitigation and to cover related losses.
 
'Matter of survival' 
 
In March 2023, UN members asked the Hague-based court to rule on "legal consequences" for states that "have caused significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment", as well as obligations to future generations.
 
A record 100 oral submissions will be heard over two weeks of court proceedings later this year.
 
The court's final opinion will not be binding, but it can carry significant legal, moral and political weight.
 
International Court of Justice opinions are often taken into account by national courts.
 
Climate experts fear Tuvalu and Kiribati will be among the first countries to be swallowed by rising sea levels, while Fiji has been relocating communities to higher grounds since 2014.
 
Fiji's Attorney-General Graham Leung said the court case was "not simply a legal issue , it is a matter of survival".
 
NASA analysis shows many Pacific nations will experience at least 15 centimetres of sea level rise in the next 30 years, which is particularly concerning given 90 per cent  of populations live within five kilometres of the coastline.
 

North Korea says constitution now defines South as 'hostile' state

By - Oct 17,2024 - Last updated at Oct 17,2024

A woman walks past a television screen showing a news broadcast with footage of an explosion on a road connecting North and South Korea on 15 October 2024, at a train station in Seoul on 16 October 2024 (AFP photo)

SEOUL — North Korea said Thursday that its constitution now defines the South as a "hostile" state, the first time Pyongyang has confirmed legal changes called for by leader Kim Jong Un earlier this year.
 
The country blew up roads and railways linking it to the South this week as "an inevitable and legitimate measure taken in keeping with the requirement of the DPRK Constitution which clearly defines the ROK as a hostile state," the official Korean Central News Agency said. 
 
South Korea's military on Tuesday released video footage of North Korean soldiers dynamiting deeply symbolic roads and railways connecting the two Koreas, days after Pyongyang's military had vowed to "permanently" seal the border with the South.
 
Relations between the two Koreas are at one of the lowest points in years, after Kim in January defined Seoul as his country's "principal enemy" and said they were no longer interested in reunification.
 
KCNA said Thursday that the army had taken "a measure to physically cut off the DPRK's roads and railways which lead to the ROK (South Korea)".
 
The move was "part of the phased complete separation of its territory, where its sovereignty is exercised, from the ROK's territory".
 
North Korea said that sections of the key inter-Korean roads and railways had "been completely blocked through blasting."
 
"This is an inevitable and legitimate measure taken in keeping with the requirement of the DPRK Constitution which clearly defines the ROK as a hostile state," it added. 
 
The North held a key meeting of its rubber-stamp parliament last week, and this is the first confirmation that the country's basic law was amended in line with Kim's demands.
 
The report did not provide further details about the constitutional changes. 
 
Previously, under a 1991 inter-Korean accord, relations between the North and South were defined as a "special relationship" as part of a process aimed at eventual reunification, not as state-to-state relations.
 
Kim called for the constitutional change in a speech in January, during which he threatened war if the South were to violate "even 0.001 mm of our territorial land, air and waters."
 
 Drones 
 
Seoul has said the North Korean military had been clearing land and laying fresh mines along the border for months, as part of a drive to reinforce the border, which the South claims is largely to prevent defections by Pyongyang's own citizens.
 
North Korea also recently accused Seoul of using drones to drop anti-regime propaganda leaflets on the capital Pyongyang, with Kim convening a security meeting to direct a plan of "immediate military action" in response, state media reported Tuesday. 
 
Seoul's military initially denied sending drones north but has subsequently declined to comment, even as Pyongyang has warned it would consider it "a declaration of war" if another drone was detected.
 
Activist groups in the South have long sent propaganda northwards, typically carried by balloons, but enthusiasts are also known to have flown small, hard-to-detect drones into the North.
 
Unlike conventional drones made of metal, the devices they used were constructed from expanded polypropylene, similar to Styrofoam, allowing them to go undetected by both South and North Korean authorities, according to enthusiasts who spoke to local media.
 
North Korea has itself sent drones southwards , in 2022, five of Pyongyang's drones crossed the border, prompting the South Korean military to fire warning shots and deploy fighter jets.
 
The jets failed to shoot down any of the drones.
 

German UNIFIL warship intercepts drone off Lebanon

By - Oct 17,2024 - Last updated at Oct 17,2024

The German Madgeburg F261 corvette docked at the port of Beirut on January 30, 2018 (AFP photo)

BERLIN — A German warship deployed as part of the UN's peacekeeping force in Lebanon has shot down a drone off the Lebanese coast, the German army said Thursday.
 
"An unidentifiable unmanned aerial vehicle was detected in the vicinity" of the "Ludwigshafen am Rhein" corvette and was "brought down in a controlled manner", an army spokesman said.
 
The spokesman said he was unable to provide further details for "reasons of operational security".
 
Andrea Tenenti, a UNIFIL spokesman, confirmed that earlier on Thursday "an unmanned aerial vehicle of unknown origin approached one of UNIFIL's Maritime Task Force ships off the southern Lebanese coast". 
 
"In accordance with procedure, electronic countermeasures were used and the UAV fell and exploded on its own," Tenenti said, adding that UNIFIL was "looking into the matter".
 
The UN's peacekeeping force in Lebanon has come under repeated fire in the Israeli-Hezbollah war in recent days. 
 
Five peacekeepers were injured in a series of incidents last week, with the latest seeing the UN force accuse Israeli troops of breaking through a gate and entering one of their positions.
 
The Israeli military has said is not targeting UN peacekeepers, but the incidents have sparked a wave of international criticism.
 
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was set up in 1978 to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces after they invaded Lebanon to stem Palestinian attacks targeting northern Israel.
 
The peacekeeping mission includes about 10,000 personnel overall, with its Maritime Task Force focused on preventing arms smuggling by sea.
 

New sanctions monitoring team to track North Korea's violations

By - Oct 16,2024 - Last updated at Oct 16,2024

South Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun (C) attends a trilateral meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul on Wednesday (AFP photo)

SEOUL — Eleven countries, including South Korea, the United States and Japan, will launch a new joint mechanism to monitor North Korea sanctions violations, Seoul's foreign ministry said Wednesday.
 
The decision follows Russia's decision to veto the renewal of a panel of UN experts monitoring international sanctions on North Korea in March, effectively ending official oversight of sanctions imposed for the North's banned nuclear and weapons programs. 
 
Russia's veto was met with great criticism, with the United States calling it a "self-interested effort to bury the panel's reporting on its own collusion" with North Korea. 
 
Since then, Seoul and other countries have been working to apply different methods to continue sanctions monitoring, with the US ambassador to the UN saying they are exploring "some creative ways" and "out-of-the-box thinking" to ensure the continuation of monitoring activities.
 
Alongside South Korea, the United States and Japan, eight other countries , France, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and New Zealand ,will participate in the multilateral sanctions monitoring team (MSMT). 
 
The MSMT is "aligned in our commitment to uphold international peace and security and to safeguard the global non-proliferation regime and address the threat arising from (North Korea's) weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs," the countries said in a joint statement. 
 
The MSMT will "monitor and report violations and evasions of the sanction measures" of the UN Security Council resolutions, it said. 
 
"Our preference would have been to continue the previous regime," said US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell in a joint press conference in Seoul Wednesday. 
 
"That avenue was prevented by Russian intransigence, so this is the approach that we've taken," he added.
 
"This grouping of nations that are animated by common purpose has the potential to actually surpass some of the work and reporting that was done previously," said Campbell.
 
Kim Hong-kyun, South Korea's first vice foreign minister, said the North "continues to violate UN Security Council resolutions in various areas". 
 
The violations included "nuclear missile provocations, illegal arms deals with Russia, cyber theft of funds through hacking, and illegal ship-to-ship transfers at sea," said Kim. 
 
Historic allies Russia and North Korea have drawn ever closer since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
 
Seoul claims Pyongyang has been shipping arms to Moscow to use against Kyiv, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently accused the North of sending troops to Russia's army.
 
Pyongyang has denied any sanctions-busting weapons trade with Russia.
 

First migrants arrive to Albania under deal with Italy

By - Oct 16,2024 - Last updated at Oct 16,2024

A group of civil rights activists gather in protest, after the first group migrants intercepted in Italian waters, arrived at Shengjin port in Albania on October 16 (AFP photo)

SHËNGJIN, ALBANIA — A navy ship carrying migrants intercepted in Italian waters docked early Wednesday in Albania, nearly a year after Rome and Tirana reached a controversial deal to process asylum seekers.
 
Sixteen men from Bangladesh and Egypt disembarked from an Italian navy vessel at Shengjin port shortly before 10:00 am , AFP journalists saw.
 
The men were escorted in small groups towards the gates of the centre just a few meters from the vessel.
 
Amnesty International has called the centres a "cruel experiment (that) is a stain on the Italian government".
 
Italy will run two migrant centres in Albania, surrounded by high walls and security cameras , one in Shengjin and the other one in Gjader, 20 kilometres from the port.
 
The centres will be operated under Italian law, with Italian security and staff, and judges hearing cases by video from Rome.
 
More than 300 Italian soldiers, doctors and judges are involved in the operation, according to Italian diplomats.
 
After disembarking in Shengjin, the migrants will be registered and undergo health checks. They will then be transferred to the Gjader centre.
 
There they will be accommodated in prefabricated houses of some 12 square metres and wait processing of their asylum claims.
 
Cells have been set up on site for applicants whose asylum requests are refused.
 
Courageous' or 'Cruel
 
Rights groups have questioned whether there will be enough protection for asylum seekers and have expressed doubts as to whether the move complies with international law.
 
But Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni brushed aside criticism in comments on Tuesday.
 
"It is a new, courageous, unprecedented path, but one that perfectly reflects the European spirit and has everything it takes to be followed also with other non-EU nations," she said.
 
The arrangement between the two countries is a European first, which other leaders in the region are watching closely.
 
The migrants' arrival in Albania comes ahead of a European Union summit in Brussels this week, where migration is on the table.
 
In a letter to member states ahead of the talks, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc would "be able to draw lessons from this (Albania) experience in practice".
 
The project was agreed in a November 2023 deal between Meloni and her Albanian counterpart Edi Rama. Set to last five years, it will cost Italy an estimated 160 million euros a year.
 
That money "could have been used for public health to reduce waiting lists, but we are throwing them out the window to deport migrants and trample on their rights", Elly Schlein, leader of Italy's centre-left Democratic Party, said in an interview with the Corriere della Sera daily paper on Wednesday.
 
The migrants intercepted in Italian water who are deemed the most vulnerable , like women and children  , are due to be taken to Italy.
 
Albania's centres will have a capacity of 1,000 initially growing to 3,000 in the long term.
 
Its critics say that given such numbers, the scheme cannot be justified.
 
"Over the last three years, more than 1,600 migrants have landed in Italy," migration researcher Matteo Villa of Datalab Europe posted on X. "An Italian navy vessels is taking 16 to Albania."
 
"I don't think I need to add anything else."
 

'We must do everything to explore' ways Ukraine war might end - Scholz

By - Oct 16,2024 - Last updated at Oct 16,2024

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday that Berlin wants to explore ways of ending the war in Ukraine (AFP photo)

 

BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday that Berlin wanted to explore ways towards ending the conflict in Ukraine sparked by Russia's invasion, while stressing this had to happen in concert with Kyiv.

"Alongside clear support for Ukraine, it is time for us to do everything we can to explore how we can get to a situation where this war doesn't carry on indefinitely," Scholz told Germany's parliament, saying he was open to talks involving Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"When we are asked, 'Will we also speak to the Russian president', we say, 'Yes, this is the case'," Scholz said.

However, the chancellor added that "decisions will never be taken over the heads of Ukraine and without the agreement of our close partners".

Germany has been Ukraine's second largest military backer behind the United States.

Scholz's comments came on the same day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unveiled his long-awaited Victory Plan to end Russia's invasion, rejecting any territorial concessions and urging ramped-up Western backing.

Eastern Turkey rattled by magnitude 5.9 quake

By - Oct 16,2024 - Last updated at Oct 16,2024

Many areas of eastern Turkey were shaken up by a 5.9-magnitude quake on Wednesday (AFP photo)

 

ISTANBUL — Many areas of eastern Turkey were shaken up by a 5.9-magnitude quake on Wednesday although there were no immediate reports of injuries, officials said.

The tremor happened at 10:46 am in Kale in Malatya, a province that was badly hit by the violent 7.8-magnitude earthquake which struck on February 6, 2023, killing more than 53,500 people in Turkey and almost 6,000 in neighbouring Syria. 

"For now, there has been no loss of life nor destruction of property following the magnitude 5.9 earthquake," the state's AFAD disaster management agency wrote on X. 

Shortly afterwards, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said three buildings had "partially collapsed" in three separate areas and that the emergency services had received several dozen calls for help.

Local officials in Malatya also said there were no "negative developments" to report at this stage, although the provincial governor said all primary and secondary schools would be closed for the day. 

The tremor was strongly felt in several large cities in the region, including Diyarbakir which lies some 140 kilometres to the southeast, according to AFP correspondents on the ground. 

On feeling the quake, residents in several cities immediately rushed into the streets, according to images broadcast by Turkish television stations.

UNRWA chief warns of 'real risk' of Gaza famine

By - Oct 16,2024 - Last updated at Oct 16,2024

BERLIN — The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned Wednesday of the risk of famine in Gaza, a day after the United States said Israel had been warned to improve aid deliveries to the territory.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a press conference in Berlin that "there is a real risk today... that we enter a situation where famine or acute malnutrition is unfortunately again a likelihood," pointing to the upcoming winter and the weakened immune systems of Gaza's population.

Vast areas of Gaza have been devastated by Israel's retaliatory assault on the territory after the October 7 attack last year by Hamas.

Israel has been intensifying operations in the north of the besieged Palestinian territory, where the UN has warned hundreds of thousands of people are trapped.

Lazzarini painted a dire picture of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, saying it had "become a kind of wasteland, which I would say is almost unliveable".

In relation to aid deliveries to Gaza he said that "over the last two to three weeks there was no convoy entering into the north except yesterday".

"We have a huge drop of convoys in the south with only an average of fifty to sixty for two million people, while we estimate the number needed much, much higher," Lazzarini said.

He pointed out that the convoys which had managed to enter had been subject to looting "because of the total breakdown of law and order". 

However, he stressed that with appropriate action a hunger crisis in Gaza "can be avoided" if convoys and food are allowed to enter.

"We have shown that we can have a polio campaign, so why can we not bring food?" he asked.

On Tuesday the US State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent a joint letter making "clear to the government of Israel that there are changes that they need to make again to see that the level of assistance making it into Gaza comes back up from the very, very low levels that it is at today".

COGAT, the Israeli military body supervising civilian affairs in Palestinian territories, said on Wednesday that "50 trucks carrying humanitarian aid -- including food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment provided by Jordan -- were transferred today to northern Gaza".

Commenting on the issue of aid flows into Gaza, Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said Wednesday that "the problem in Gaza is not lack of aid", adding: "The problem is Hamas, which hijacks the aid, stealing, storing and selling it to feed their terror machine, while civilians suffer."

Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz told Germany's Bild newspaper on Wednesday that "we are doing everything to let the international community supply humanitarian aid to Gaza."

"I think that we did, and [are] doing more than any other country ever did for their enemies," he said.

Election officials in US state of Georgia must certify results — judge

By - Oct 15,2024 - Last updated at Oct 15,2024

WASHINGTON — A judge in the closely watched US swing state of Georgia ruled on Tuesday that local election board members must certify vote results in a decision that could impact the upcoming presidential contest.

Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney's ruling came after a Republican appointee to the election board in Fulton County, which includes large parts of Atlanta, refused earlier this year to certify the results of Georgia's presidential primary.

Julie Adams, in a lawsuit backed by the America First Policy Institute, a group aligned with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, had sought a judgment from the court that the certification of election results was "discretionary".

McBurney rejected Adams's claim.

"If election superintendents were, as Plaintiff urges, free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge and so — because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud — refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters would be silenced," McBurney wrote.

"Our Constitution and our Election Code do not allow for that to happen."

The judge said there are "some things an election superintendent must do, either in a certain way or by a certain time, with no discretion to do otherwise."

"Certification is one of those things," he said. "Election superintendents in Georgia have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results."

Trump is facing racketeering charges in the southern state over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

The certification case is one of a number of election-related cases that are being heard in courts in Georgia, which is expected to be one of seven key states that will determine the outcome of the November election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Another case involves a controversial requirement passed by a pro-Trump majority on the Georgia State Election Board that counties manually hand count their ballots.

Georgia officials from both sides of the political aisle say the count is not only superfluous — machines already count the ballots — but also a potential tool to sow doubt by slowing the process and creating space for disinformation.

The state election board passed the rule by a three-to-two vote — those in favour being staunch Trump backers praised by the ex-president as "pit bulls" fighting for "victory."

The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Georgia sued to block the rule with the Harris campaign's backing.

 

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