Category: World News

The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has also called for a settlement of the Cyprus problem on the basis of United Nations’ resolutions

The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, has slammed a visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north of Cyprus on Sunday during which he called for a “two-state” solution, the media reported.

The EU foreign policy chief has also called for a settlement of the Cyprus problem on the basis of United Nations’ resolutions, Kathimerini reported.

According to the report, Mr Borrell said the  actions “should be urgently reversed” since it will cause “greater distrust and tension in the region.”

It has been reported that Erdogan visited Varosha, a beach resort abandoned by Greek Cypriots fleeing Turkey’s invasion in 1974.

Meanwhile, Erdogan asked the parliament to authorize sending soldiers to Azerbaijan to establish a “peacekeeping center” with Russia to monitor a truce over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, the Arab News reported.

Erdogan’s request followed two days of talks in Ankara with Russian officials about how the two regional powers intend to jointly implement a Russian-brokered cease-fire signed last week.

Turkey is one of Azerbaijan’s closest allies and has strongly defended its right to reclaim lands it lost to ethnic Armenian separatists in a 1988-94 war.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed an order to set up an inter-departmental humanitarian response centre to resolve humanitarian issues and rebuild civil infrastructure in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

According to the order published by the Kremlin, the centre is tasked with facilitating the return of displaced people to their home in the conflict-ridden Nagorno-Karabakh, reports Xinhua news agency.

Putin also asked the centre to help state bodies of Azerbaijan and Armenia to restore civil infrastructure in Nagorno-Karabakh and create proper conditions for its people to live a normal life.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at loggerheads over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh since 1988. The latest round of armed conflict broke out in the region in September, causing heavy casualties and property losses.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Putin signed a joint statement on Monday, agreeing on a complete ceasefire in the region.

As agreed, Russia will deploy a peacekeeping contingent consisting of 1,960 servicemen with small arms, 90 armoured personnel carriers, and 380 vehicles to the region.

This is the fourth ceasefire since last month.

Exchange of bodies

Azerbaijan and Armenia exchanged the bodies of a number of servicemen who were killed during the fighting around the city of Shusha in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, according to the defence authorities in Baku.

An unspecified number of bodies of the Armenian armed forces were handed over on Saturday, while the bodies of six Azerbaijani servicemen were returned, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Russian peacekeeping force stationed in the Nagorno-Karabakh region also took part in the event, Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the search and retrieval of the conflict victims are underway with the involvement of the Russian peacekeepers and the Red Cross, according to the Defence Ministry of Armenia.

The exchange was organized in accordance with Article 8 of a joint statement signed on November 8 by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, agreeing on a complete ceasefire in the conflict-ridden region.

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For the second time in the span of 10 days after the US elections, there’s a Covid-19 gamechanger on the horizon with US pharma giant Moderna announcing that its vaccine has shown more than 94 per cent effectiveness in preliminary data from the company’s ongoing study.

Pfizer Inc had announced 90 per cent efficacy exactly a week ago. Taken together, these two vaccines are firmly on course to seek emergency use authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration if results hold out in final study results due soon.

Anthony Fauci from Trump’s coronavirus task force is optimistic that these early vaccines will change the course of “everything we do” over the next few months.

Pfizer’s final results are due in the third week of November – around the time of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Covid cases in the US crossed 11 million by November 15, with the latest 1 million coming in a week. The country’s death toll is the world’s highest – more than 246,000 at last count.

Roughly 20 million people could be vaccinated against the coronavirus in December, the chief of the Donald Trump administration’s vaccine coordination programme has indicated. Anywhere from 25 to 30 million people could be vaccinated each month after that.

The US is working with a portfolio of six vaccines, using three different platform technologies and two candidates from each platform: Messenger RNA, live viral vectors and recombinant protein.

Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines use the messenger RNA platform, Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca in partnership with Oxford University are on the live vector path while Novavax and Sanofi/GlaxoSmithKline are building out their vaccine candidates on the recombinant protein platform.

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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on all countries to stop building new coal power plants in his video message to the East Asia Summit 2020.

“To reach carbon neutrality by 2050, I am calling for all countries to stop building new coal power plants and for partners to stop financing them,” said the Secretary-General.

“Countries also need to put a price on carbon and end subsidies for fossil fuels. Our response to the Covid-19 crisis must be aligned with the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals. In all these efforts, you can count on the support of the United Nations system,” the UN chief added.

Guterres noted that efforts must be made to “use the Covid-19 recovery effort to build green climate-resilient economies and work towards carbon neutrality by 2050,” the Xinhua news agency reported.

“This will, incidentally, also drive the job creation that will reduce inequality and address the air pollution that is choking many Asian cities. I commend the recent decisions of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea committing to net zero emissions,” the Secretary-General added.

The East Asia Summit (EAS) is a regional forum held annually by leaders of, initially, 16 countries in the East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian and Oceanian regions, based on the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism. Membership expanded to 18 countries including Russia and the United States in 2011. Since its establishment, ASEAN has held the central role and leadership in the forum. EAS meetings are held after the annual ASEAN leaders’ meetings, and plays an important role in the regional architecture of Asia-Pacific.

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Saudi Arabia is gearing up to host the upcoming two-day virtual summit of G20 leaders, an international forum for the governments and central bank governors, from 19 countries and the European Union (EU) from November 21.

In 2021, Italy will host the G20 Summit and in 2022 India will host the summit, when the country celebrates its 75th year of Independence.

Saudi Arabia assumed the G20 presidency in December last year, but as the Covid-19 pandemic crippled the world economies and health systems, it was decided to hold the summit on a virtual platform.

In December 2019, Saudi Arabia had unveiled an ambitious theme for its G20 presidency, namely ‘Realising Opportunities of the 21st Century for All’.

The three pillars of the theme included empowering people, safeguarding the planet and shaping new frontiers.

The Saudi Arabia G20 presidency has been driving harmonious efforts to address social and economic inequalities between men and women with the aim of ‘Realising Opportunities of the 21st Century for All’.

The upcoming meeting on November 21-22 is going to be a landmark one. Coupled with key ministerial meetings and leaders’ summits, the G20 has attached great attention to the work of the eight engagement groups, as they constituted the core of the efforts of the G20 for this year, with the aim of building a more resilient and better world for all.

However, the presidency had to redirect its focus towards addressing the immediate and the future fallouts of the pandemic and engage all the leaders on a regular basis to form coordinated responses to the pandemic.

Even then, holistic development and access to equal opportunities for all remained the focus of all efforts by G20 countries.

Through coordinated efforts and constant virtual engagements, the group has implanted a number of schemes at the global level to deal with the economic, health and social challenges resulting from the pandemic.

The first extraordinary G20 leaders’ virtual summit was held on March 26 where leaders agreed to take all necessary measures to contain the pandemic.

The meeting was also a result of a discussion between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia had pledged $500 million to relevant international organizations to support global efforts in combating the pandemic. Since then, virtual conferences and ministerial meetings have been held at regular intervals. During the second virtual meeting, the countries agreed to suspend debt service payments for the world’s poorest countries through the end of the year.

During the third meeting, the ministers welcomed the progress achieved under the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI). It has benefitted 43 countries till date and the relief has been extended by six months.

Since March, the G20 nations have injected $11 trillion as part of targeted fiscal policy and economic measures. The G20 has contributed over $21 billion to support the production, distribution, and access to diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines.

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