NEW YORK: It is time for the international community to shoulder its responsibilities to help find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and resolve other conflicts in the region, Saudi Arabia’s permanent representative to the UN said on Friday.
Speaking on behalf of the UN Arab regional group, Abdallah Al-Mouallimi told Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the Palestinian question has been “central to the UN agenda since its inception,” but “the process to resolve this issue has been at an impasse for decades.”
The envoy was speaking during an informal dialogue session at the UN General Assembly about the selection of the organization’s next secretary-general. In the absence of a serious challenger, Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal and UN refugee chief, was making his case for a second, five-year term.
After praising Guterres for his “excellent management of the COVID-19 crisis,” which had limited the spread of the virus within the UN organization, Al-Mouallimi urged the UN chief to make the Palestinian issue a priority during his second term.
He called on him to ensure “serious participation of the parties involved in the conflict” and revitalize the work of the Quartet on the Middle East — the UN, the US, the EU and Russia — “so we end up with a fair peace based on the international consensus as we have enshrined in the relevant resolutions and the international law.”
The Saudi envoy also asked the secretary-general to continue supporting the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) by striving to find a long-term sustainable funding model.
“Your personal commitment to this is very important,” said Al-Mouallimi. “So what are you planning to do to make sure that the peace process in the Middle East, and the Palestinian issue, move forward? What role can the UN play here?”
Guterres replied: “You can count on my total commitment to UNRWA. We have survived a very difficult moment,” he added, referring to the crisis in 2018 when US President Donald Trump withdrew US funding for the agency.
“But the situation looks more promising now and we are totally committed to move in the future in a more effective way.”
The secretary-general reiterated his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Jerusalem as a capital for both states. He pledged to do “everything possible” to revitalize the work of the Quartet and other forms of regional cooperation, but added that this “depends on the will of member states.”
Guterres also expressed his “appreciation for what has been a constructive attitude that Saudi Arabia has been demonstrating in our recent discussions” regarding the war in Yemen.
Al-Mouallimi asked him about his plans to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people and avoid an even greater economic and political disaster in the country.
While lamenting a few “hiccups” in the efforts to resolve the conflict, Guterres said he hoped that an agreement might still be in sight.
“We are moving in a direction, we are totally committed to it, and I am trying to talk to as many actors as possible to make sure pressure is put in this regard,” he added.
Turning to other regional conflicts and the challenges the UN faces in helping to resolve them, Guterres said that pushing for the next meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, for elections to take place at the right time in Libya, and for the withdrawal of foreign troops and mercenaries from conflict zones “is not easy but it must be a priority for all of us.”
Al-Mouallimi then raised the subject of nuclear weapons, saying: “Nuclear danger is present in the Middle East and threatens our people. What is your vision to make sure that the Middle East is an area free of nuclear weapons and that nuclear facilities in the region are subject to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards?”
“We have a number of initiatives taking place. You can count on my full engagement,” Guterres replied.
He also said that fighting desertification and water scarcity in the Arab world is another of his priorities.
The Saudi envoy then pressed the secretary-general on the unfair geographical distribution of senior leadership appointments at the UN, in particular the under-representation of the Arab world.
Many regional states and groups have expressed concerns that for decades the nominations and appointments of senior UN officials have been monopolized by the most powerful nations, especially the permanent members of the Security Council: the US, Russia, China, the UK and France.
Guterres said although some progress has been made in enhancing geographical parity, he laments the limitations on recruitment and promised to tackle the issue as part of UN reforms.
Al-Mouallimi asked him what the best formula might be to ensure the fairest representation on the Security Council.
“(Former Secretary-General) Kofi Anan already said it: There can’t be reforms of the UN without reforms of the Security Council,” said Guterres. “It all depends on the will of member states. We will always be at the disposal of member states. But we fully respect the autonomy of the UN bodies.”
In response to a question from Al-Mouallimi about the measures that are needed to tackle hate speech, and Islamophobia in particular, Guterres said the latter is a major concern that undermines the cohesion of many societies.
“You can be absolutely sure of my total commitment to fight Islamophobia,” he added.
As part of his vision during a second term, Guterres also called for a new social contract to better address “two seismic shifts” he said will shape this century: the climate crisis and digital transformation.
“Both could widen inequalities even further,” he said.
Seven people have nominated themselves as potential challengers to Guterres, including Rosalia Arteaga, the former president of former Ecuador, but none of them have received the backing of a UN member state.
“Of course, we would like to see more than one candidate,” Enyseh Teimory of 1 for 7 Billion, a global campaign committed to ensuring the selection of the best possible secretary-general, told Arab News.
“But the very fact that the secretary-general was in front of the General Assembly taking questions is a really important consolidation of the progress we saw in 2016.”
In 2016, the General Assembly for the first time hosted an open debate with the 13 candidates for secretary-general, seven of whom were women. For many years the selection was made behind closed doors by the two most powerful member nations: Russia and the US.
“We are in a good (position to ensure) that in 2026 we’re going to go even further to make sure that civil society is fully engaged in all steps of the election process. I think there’s now appetite for (this) on the part of member states.”
UN must shoulder responsibility to resolve Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Saudi envoy says
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UN must shoulder responsibility to resolve Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Saudi envoy says
- Abdallah Al-Mouallimi also pressed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on his plans to help bring peace to Syria, Yemen and Libya
- Guterres was making his case to the General Assembly for a second five-year term as UN chief, and answering questions
China’s robotic spacecraft headed for moon to carry payload from Pakistan
- China will send a robotic spacecraft in coming days on round trip to moon’s far side in first of three missions
- Chang’e-6 spacecraft will carry payloads from countries such as France, Italy, Sweden and Pakistan
BEIJING: China will send a robotic spacecraft in coming days on a round trip to the moon’s far side in the first of three technically demanding missions that will pave the way for an inaugural Chinese crewed landing and a base on the lunar south pole.
Since the first Chang’e mission in 2007, named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess, China has made leaps forward in its lunar exploration, narrowing the technological chasm with the United States and Russia.
In 2020, China brought back samples from the moon’s near side in the first sample retrieval in more than four decades, confirming for the first time it could safely return an uncrewed spacecraft to Earth from the lunar surface.
This week, China is expected to launch Chang’e-6 using the backup spacecraft from the 2020 mission, and collect soil and rocks from the side of the moon that permanently faces away from Earth.
With no direct line of sight with the Earth, Chang’e-6 must rely on a recently deployed relay satellite orbiting the moon during its 53-day mission, including a never-before attempted ascent from the moon’s “hidden” side on its return journey home.
The same relay satellite will support the uncrewed Chang’e-7 and 8 missions in 2026 and 2028, respectively, when China starts to explore the south pole for water and build a rudimentary outpost with Russia. China aims to put its astronauts on the moon by 2030.
Beijing’s polar plans have worried NASA, whose administrator, Bill Nelson, has repeatedly warned that China would claim any water resources as its own. Beijing says it remains committed to cooperation with all nations on building a “shared” future.
On Chang’e-6, China will carry payloads from France, Italy, Sweden and Pakistan, and on Chang’e-7, payloads from Russia, Switzerland and Thailand.
NASA is banned by US law from any collaboration, direct or indirect, with China.
Under the separate NASA-led Artemis program, US astronauts will land near the south pole in 2026, the first humans on the moon since 1972.
“International cooperation is key (to lunar exploration),” Clive Neal, professor of planetary geology at the University of Notre Dame, told Reuters. “It’s just that China and the US aren’t cooperating right now. I hope that will happen.”
SOUTH POLE AMBITIONS
Chang’e 6 will attempt to land on the northeastern side of the vast South Pole-Aitkin Basin, the oldest known impact crater in the solar system.
The southernmost landing ever was carried out in February by IM-1, a joint mission between NASA and the Texas-based private firm Intuitive Machines.
After touchdown at Malapert A, a site near the south pole that was believed to be relatively flat, the spacecraft tilted sharply to one side amid a host of technical problems, reflecting the high-risk nature of lunar landings.
The south pole has been described by scientists as the “golden belt” for lunar exploration.
Polar ice could sustain long-term research bases without relying on expensive resources transported from Earth. India’s Chandrayaan-1 launched in 2008 confirmed the existence of ice inside polar craters.
Chang’e-6’s sample return could also shed more light on the early evolution of the moon and the inner solar system.
The lack of volcanic activity on the moon’s far side means there are more craters not covered by ancient lava flows, preserving materials from the moon’s early formation.
So far, all lunar samples taken by the United States and the former Soviet Union in the 1970s and China in 2020 were from the moon’s near side, where volcanism had been far more active.
Chang’e-6, after a successful landing, will collect about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of samples with a mechanical scoop and a drill.
“If successful, China’s Chang’e-6 mission would be a milestone-making event,” Leonard David, author of “Moon Rush: The New Space Race,” told Reuters. “The robotic reach to the Moon’s far side, and bringing specimens back to Earth, helps fill in the blanks about the still-murky origin of our Moon.”
China firms go ‘underground’ on Russia payments as banks pull back
- The US has imposed an array of sanctions on Russia and Russian entities since the country invaded Ukraine in 2022
- Now the threat of extending these to banks in China is chilling the finance that lubricates trade from China to Russia
- Nearly all major Chinese banks have suspended settlements from Russia since the beginning of March, said a manager at a listed electronics company in Guangdong
An appliance maker in southern China is finding it hard to ship its products to Russia, not because of any problems with the gadgets but because China’s big banks are throttling payments for such transactions out of concern over US sanctions.
To settle payments for its electrical goods, the Guangdong-based company is considering using currency brokers active along China’s border with Russia, said the company’s founder, Wang, who asked to be identified only by his family name.
The US has imposed an array of sanctions on Russia and Russian entities since the country invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Now the threat of extending these to banks in China — a country Washington blames for “powering” Moscow’s war effort — is chilling the finance that lubricates even non-military trade from China to Russia.
This is posing a growing problem for small Chinese exporters, said seven trading and banking sources familiar with the situation.
As China’s big banks pull back from financing Russia-related transactions, some Chinese companies are turning to small banks on the border and underground financing channels such as money brokers — even banned cryptocurrency — the sources told Reuters.
Others have retreated entirely from the Russian market, the sources said.
“You simply cannot do business properly using the official channels,” Wang said, as big banks now take months rather than days to clear payments from Russia, forcing him to tap unorthodox payment channels or shrink his business.
Going ‘underground’
A manager at a large state-owned bank he previously used told Wang the lender was worried about possible US sanctions in dealing with Russian transactions, Wang said.
A banker at one of China’s Big Four state banks said it had tightened scrutiny of Russia-related businesses to avert sanctions risk. “The main reason is to avoid unnecessary troubles,” said the banker, who asked not to be named.
Since last month, Chinese banks have intensified their scrutiny of Russia-related transactions or halted business altogether to avoid being targeted by US sanctions, the sources said.
“Transactions between China and Russia will increasingly go through underground channels,” said the head of a trade body in a southeastern province that represents Chinese businesses with Russian interests. “But these methods carry significant risks.”
Making payments in crypto, banned in China since 2021, might be the only option, said a Moscow-based Russian banker, as “it’s impossible to pass through KYC (know-your-customer) at Chinese banks, big or small.”
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the topic. Reuters could not determine the extent of transactions that had shifted from major banks to more obscure routes.
China’s foreign ministry is not aware of the practices described by the businesspeople to arrange payments or troubles in settling payments through major Chinese banks, a spokesperson said, referring questions to “the relevant authorities.”
The People’s Bank of China and the National Financial Regulatory Administration, the country’s banking sector regulator, did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Sanctions warning
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after meeting China’s top diplomat Wang Yi for five and a half hours in Beijing on Friday, said he had expressed “serious concern” that Beijing was “powering Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Still, his visit, which included meeting President Xi Jinping, was the latest in a series of steps that have tempered the public acrimony that drove relations between the world’s biggest economies to historic lows last year.
While officials have warned that the United States was ready to take action against Chinese financial institutions facilitating trade in goods with dual civilian and military applications and the US preliminarily has discussed sanctions on some Chinese banks, a US official told Reuters last week Washington does not yet have a plan to implement such measures.
The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said, “China does not accept any illegal, unilateral sanctions. Normal trade cooperation between China and Russia is not subject to disruption by any third party.”
A State Department spokesperson, asked about Reuters findings that Chinese banks were curbing payments from Russia and the impact on some Chinese companies, said, “Fuelling Russia’s defense industrial base not only threatens Ukrainian security, it threatens European security.
“Beijing cannot achieve better relations with Europe while supporting the greatest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War,” the spokesperson said.
Blinken made clear to Chinese officials “that ensuring transatlantic security is a core US interest,” the spokesperson said. “If China does not address this problem, the United States will.”
Nearly all major Chinese banks have suspended settlements from Russia since the beginning of March, said a manager at a listed electronics company in Guangdong.
Some of the biggest state-owned lenders have reported drops in Russia-related business, reversing a surge in assets after Russia’s invasion.
Among the Big Four, China Construction Bank posted a drop of 14 percent in its Russian subsidiary’s assets last year and Agricultural Bank of China a 7 percent decline, according to their latest filings.
By contrast, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China , the country’s biggest lender, reported a 43 percent jump in assets of its Russian unit. Bank of China (BOC), the fourth-largest, did not give the breakdown.
‘Channel can be shut’
The four banks did not respond to requests for comment on their Russian businesses or the impact on Chinese companies.
Some rural banks in northeast China along the Russian border can still collect payments, but this has led to a bottleneck, with some businesspeople saying they have been lining up for months to open accounts.
A chemical and machinery company in Jiangsu province has been waiting for three months to open an account at Jilin Hunchun Rural Commercial Bank in the northeastern province of Jilin, said Liu, who works at the firm and also asked to be identified by family name.
Calls to the bank seeking comment went unanswered.
BOC has blocked a payment from Liu’s Russian clients since February, and a bank loan officer said firms exporting heavy equipment face more stringent reviews in receiving payments, Liu said.
The manager at the listed Guangdong company said their firm had opened accounts at seven banks since last month but none agreed to accept payments from Russia.
“We gave up on the Russian market,” the manager said. “We eventually didn’t receive more than 10 million yuan ($1.4 million) in payments from the Russian side, and we just gave up. The process of collecting payments is extremely annoying.”
Wang is also having second thoughts about his Russian business.
“I may gradually shrink my business in Russia as the slow process of collecting money is not good for the company’s liquidity management,” he said.
“What’s more, you don’t know what will happen in the future. The channel can be shut completely one day.”
Pedro Sanchez, a risk-taker with a flair for survival
- Sanchez said on Wednesday that he was considering stepping down
MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who will on Monday announce whether he remains in his post, is an expert in political survival who has built a career on taking political gambles.
“I have learned to push myself until the referee blows the final whistle,” the head of Spain’s Socialist party and a former basketball player wrote in his 2019 autobiography, “Resistance Manual.”
On Wednesday, he said that he was considering stepping down after a Madrid court announced an investigation into his wife Begona Gomez for alleged influence-peddling and corruption.
“I need to stop and think,” he wrote in a four-page letter posted on X.
With a charming smile and affable personality, the 52-year-old — often referred to as Mr.Handsome early in his career — has been written off politically on several occasions, only to bounce back.
He “has never had it easy,” said Paloma Roman, a political scientist at Madrid’s Complutense University, noting his “political flair” for getting out of complicated situations.
Sanchez emerged from obscurity in 2014 as a little-known MP to seize the reins of Spain’s oldest political party.
A leap-year baby born in Madrid on February 29, 1972, he grew up in a well-off family, the son of an entrepreneur father and civil servant mother.
He studied economics before obtaining a master’s degree in political economy at the Free University of Brussels and a doctorate from a private Spanish university.
Elected to the Socialist Party leadership in 2014, Sanchez’s future was quickly put in doubt after he led the party to its worst-ever electoral defeats in 2015 and 2016.
Ejected from the leadership, he unexpectedly won his job back in a primary in May 2017 after a cross-country campaign in his 2005 Peugeot to rally support.
Within barely a year, the father of two teenage girls took over as premier in June 2018 after an ambitious gamble that saw him topple conservative Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy in a no-confidence vote.
Always immaculately dressed, the telegenic politician — who likes running and looms over his rivals at 1.90 meters (6 foot 2 inches) tall — has earned a reputation as being tenacious to the point of stubbornness.
Over the past six years, he has had to play a delicate balancing act to stay in power.
In February 2019, the fragile alliance of left-wing factions and pro-independence Basque and Catalan parties that had catapulted him to the premiership cracked, prompting him to call early elections.
Although his Socialists won, they fell short of an absolute majority, and Sanchez was unable to secure support to stay in power, so he called a repeat election later that year.
He was then forced into a marriage of convenience with the hard-left Podemos, despite much gnashing of teeth inside his own party.
Deemed politically dead after his party again suffered a drubbing in local and regional elections in 2023, Sanchez surprised the country by calling an early general election for July.
While his Socialists finished second in the general election, behind the conservative Popular Party (PP), Sanchez cobbled together a majority in parliament with the support of the far-left party Sumar and smaller regional parties, including Catalan separatists.
In exchange for their support, Catalonia’s two main separatist parties demanded a controversial amnesty for hundreds of people facing legal action over their roles in the northeastern region’s failed push for independence in 2017.
Sanchez had previously opposed such a move but he now agreed to it to remain in power, sparking several mass protests staged by the right.
On the international stage, Sanchez, Spain’s first premier fluent in English, has made a name for himself by criticizing the operation Israel launched in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas attack on October 7, and by promising Spain’s swift recognition of a Palestinian state.
South Korea’s Yoon to meet opposition leader amid bid to reset presidency
SEOUL: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will meet opposition leader Lee Jae-myung for talks on Monday after a crushing election defeat for the president’s ruling party led to widespread calls for him to change his style of leadership.
Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP) failed to make inroads into the opposition’s grip on parliament in the April 10 election, which was widely seen as a referendum on the conservative leader’s first two years in power.
The meeting is the first Yoon has held with Lee since taking office and comes as analysts have said he may have slipped into lame duck status after his combative political stance appeared to have alienated many voters.
Both the opposition and his own PPP urged Yoon to change course, especially after he initially appeared to shrug off the election result which in turn sent his support ratings in opinion polls plunging to their lowest point of around 20 percent.
At stake was whether he could try to regain the initiative for his pledges to cut taxes, ease business regulations and expand family support in the world’s fastest-aging society while safeguarding fiscal responsibility.
Yoon also faces a tough dilemma in his push for health care reforms. Young doctors walked off the job more than two months ago in protest over the centerpiece plan of increasing the number of doctors, and more are threatening to join the protest.
There are, however, questions over whether Monday’s meeting will be able to make any breakthroughs to unlock the stalemate in government. Lee’s Democratic Party (DP) is firmly in control of parliament, hamstringing Yoon’s ability to pass legislation.
In a sign of the political wrangling to get an upper hand, aides to Yoon and Lee struggled to agree on the time and agenda for their meeting for more than a week before Lee proposed to sit down with no preconditions or set agenda.
Lee has called for a one-time allowance of 250,000 won ($182) for all South Koreans to help cope with inflation, but PPP has called it the kind of populist policy that would make the situation worse and cost 13 trillion won for the government budget.
Blinken speaks to Azeri, Armenian leaders about peace talks
- Blinken reaffirmed Washington’s support for a peace treaty between the South Caucasus neighbors in separate calls with their leaders
- Azeri President Ilham Aliyev's press service later said Azerbaijan's FM will soon meet with his Armenian counterpart to continue negotiations
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken to the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan and reaffirmed Washington’s support for a peace treaty between the South Caucasus neighbors, the State Department said on Sunday.
Yerevan suffered a major defeat last September when Baku’s forces retook the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which while part of Azerbaijan had a predominantly Armenian population.
Peace talks have become bogged down in issues including demarcation of the two countries’ 1,000-km (620-mile) border, which remains closed and heavily militarized.
Blinken spoke to Azeri President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday and urged him “to keep up the momentum with his Armenian counterpart, reiterating US willingness to support those efforts,” the State Department said in a statement.
Aliyev’s press service said on Sunday that foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia will soon hold a meeting in Almaty in Kazakhstan to continue negotiations.
“The president considers an important step that ... Azerbaijan and Armenia have begun the process of border demarcation,” Russia’s Interfax news agency cited the press service as saying.
In a separate call with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Blinken reaffirmed US support for progress on a durable and dignified peace agreement, the department said, but did not specify when the call took place.
In his call with Aliyev, Blinken also welcomed the transfer to house arrest last week of a prominent Azerbaijani economist and opposition politician who has been imprisoned since last July while awaiting trial.
Azerbaijan has also detained a string of independent reporters since late last year. Several are now facing trial on charges unrelated to journalistic activity, such as smuggling.
“Secretary Blinken again urged Azerbaijan to adhere to its international human rights obligations and commitments and release those unjustly detained in Azerbaijan,” the State Department said.
