RIYADH: Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus advised youths not to run after jobs after graduation but to prepare themselves for a career in social businesses.
Yunus is known throughout the world as a pioneer of the microcredit concept that uses small loans made at affordable interest rates to transform the lives of impoverished people, mostly women. The founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Yunus and Grameen were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
The Nobel laureate was speaking on “Unpacking global citizenship: Decision making challenges” at the Four Seasons Hotel on Tuesday at the MiSK Global Forum.
“To develop a successful business, we need only young people and technology,” he said, adding that everyone can be an entrepreneur.
The Micro-finance pioneer Yunus further stressed that youth and technology can solve the problems of poverty.
“You decide what’s the destination in your life, then you work for it,” he said.
“Problems are common – there’s unemployment, poverty, old age, single mothers, welfare, healthcare. There’s a common thread,” Yunus said.
Those common problems can all be combatted through the creation and maintenance of social businesses. Social businesses are cause-driven businesses that are created to solve social issues such as poverty. The social business model, as conceived by Yunus, is designed for the investor/owner to gradually recoup the money invested but not reap a profit.
During his speech, Yunus shared with the audience how he started the Grameen Bank in a village and helped women to start social businesses in 1976.
“At the time there was no collateral and no document for the loans given but there was trust between the two parties,” he said, pointing out that now there are some nine million beneficiaries with a rolling capital of $1.5 billion in his country.
His first was through creating microcredit by loaning poor people small amounts of money.
It began in a tiny village near the university where he was teaching.
During a famine, Yunus walked the village trying to make himself useful to the people and got his idea to loan small amounts of money so the people wouldn’t have to borrow from loan sharks.
He said that there are 18 such banks in the United States, including eight in the city of New York. There are some 85,000 borrowers and the repayment rate is 99.5 percent, he added.
He insisted that poverty is not the fault of the people, it is the fault of the system.
Yunus’ efforts to combine business with selflessness earned him the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service and other awards.
Muhammad Yunus: Microcredit has big role
Muhammad Yunus: Microcredit has big role
Saudi Arabia has told Iran not to attack it, warns of possible retaliation, sources say
Saudi Arabia has told Tehran that while it favors a diplomatic settlement to Iran’s conflict with the United States, continued attacks on the kingdom and its energy sector could push Riyadh to respond in kind, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The message was conveyed before a speech on Saturday in which Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian apologized to neighboring Gulf states for Tehran’s actions – an apparent attempt to defuse regional anger over Iranian strikes that hit civilian targets.
Two days earlier, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan spoke to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and set out Riyadh’s position with clarity, the sources said.
Saudi Arabia is open to any form of mediation aimed at de‑escalation and a negotiated settlement, the sources quoted the minister as saying, underlining that neither Riyadh nor other Gulf states had let the US use their airspace or territory to launch airstrikes on Iran.
But Prince Faisal was also quoted by the sources as saying that if Iranian attacks persisted against Saudi territory or energy infrastructure, Saudi Arabia would be forced to permit US forces to use their bases there for military operations. Riyadh would retaliate if attacks on the kingdom’s critical energy facilities continued, he said.
The sources said the kingdom had remained in regular contact with Tehran through its ambassador since the US and Israeli military campaign against Iran began on February 28 following the collapse of talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
The Saudi and Iranian foreign ministries did not respond to requests for comment.
Drone and missile attacks on Gulf states
The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have all come under heavy drone and missile fire from Iran over the past week.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed on the first day of the war. Tehran responded by hitting Israel and Gulf Arab states hosting US military installations, and Israel has attacked Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah armed group.
Araghchi said in an interview on Saturday that he remained in constant contact with his Saudi counterpart and other Saudi officials, adding that Riyadh had assured Tehran it was fully committed to not allowing its territory, waters or airspace to be used for attacks against Iran.
Pezeshkian said Iran’s temporary leadership council had approved suspending attacks on nearby countries – unless an attack on Iran came from those nations.
“I personally apologize to neighboring countries that were affected by Iran’s actions,” he said.
To what extent Pezeshkian’s remarks signal a change is unclear. There were further reports of strikes directed at Gulf states on Saturday.
Also, in a sign of possible divisions within Iran’s leadership, Khatam Al-Anbiya Central Headquarters – the unified combatant command of the Iranian armed forces – said in a statement afterwards that US and Israeli bases and interests across the region would remain targets.
The command said Iran’s armed forces respected the sovereignty and interests of neighboring states and had not taken action against them so far. But it said US and Israeli military bases and assets on land, at sea and in the air across the region would be treated as primary targets and face “powerful and heavy” strikes by Iran’s forces.
US President Donald Trump said in a social media post that Iran had “apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore. This promise was only made because of the relentless US and Israeli attack.”
Two Iranian sources confirmed that a call had taken place in which Riyadh warned Tehran to halt attacks on Saudi Arabia and neighboring Gulf states. Iran, they said, reiterated its position that the strikes were not aimed at Gulf countries themselves but at US interests and military bases hosted on their territory.
One Iranian source said that Tehran had in response demanded that US bases in the region be closed and some Gulf states stop sharing intelligence with Washington that Iran believes is being used to carry out attacks against it.
Another Iranian source said some military commanders were pressing to continue the strikes, accusing the US of using bases in Gulf states and these countries’ airspace to conduct operations against Iran.
Iran had in recent years mended fences with its Gulf neighbors, including former regional archrival Saudi Arabia. The diplomatic campaign imploded in the blitz of drones and missiles launched by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the past week.
