Tag: United Nations

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Dubai becomes UN-designated role model for smart, sustainable city

Dubai becomes UN-designated role model for smart, sustainable city

Sheikh Hamdan congratulated various government entities whose efforts led to this global recognition, and urged to continue to work to raise Dubai’s global sustainability rankings, reports Asian Lite Newsdesk

Dubai has gained the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s recognition as a role model for a smart, sustainable, and resilient city.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince and Chairman of The Executive Council, met with heads of government entities whose efforts helped Dubai gain the UN recognition.

UAE flag

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed said the vision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to transform Dubai into a model for future cities has been the driving force for achievements in sustainable development.

Powered by national and international talent, Dubai has implemented world-class projects and deployed state-of-the-art solutions to make it the world’s best place to work and live, he said.

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s recognition acknowledges Dubai’s adoption of best practices and innovative approaches in disaster risk reduction. Dubai was ranked first globally in term of resilience. It was also the only city to be recognised among 56 cities shortlisted from 4,357 competing cities.

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During the meeting that took place at Dubai World Trade Centre, Sheikh Hamdan congratulated various government entities whose efforts led to this global recognition. He urged the teams to continue to work to raise Dubai’s global sustainability rankings.

He also highlighted the importance of supporting innovative ideas that can help Dubai convert challenges into opportunities and create a brighter future.

The heads of government entities said the directives of Sheikh Mohammed, and the continuous follow up of Sheikh Hamdan and Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, have helped Dubai become a smart, sustainable and resilient city that provides a robust infrastructure and world-leading service quality.

The assessment of Dubai by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction focused on 10 Essentials for Making Cities Resilient, 117 indicator criteria, and other requirements and conditions.

Dubai’s risk and disaster management teams work to constantly raise their preparedness to deal with unforeseen crises and develop long term strategies to promote a culture of readiness to manage all kinds of risks.

Foreign trade

The Board of Directors of the newly formed Dubai International Chamber, one of the three chambers under the umbrella of the newly formed Dubai Chambers, held its first meeting at the Dubai Chamber headquarters where board members discussed priorities and new plans to boost Dubai’s trade with global markets.

The meeting was chaired by Sultan bin Sulayem, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dubai International Chamber, in the presence of other board members.

The board discussed ways to leverage the Chamber’s international network to tap into the 30 priority markets, which have been identified as high potential markets that can accelerate the growth of Dubai’s foreign trade.

Member companies of Dubai International Chamber will work towards achieving the target of boosting Dubai’s foreign trade to AED2 trillion within the next five years, consolidating Dubai’s position as global trade hub.

Sultan bin Sulayem, stated that trade is the cornerstone of Dubai’s economy and essential for its diversification and stated that the new board will focus its efforts on implementing as new strategy announced by Prime Minister, which aims to boost Dubai’s foreign trade to AED 2 trillion within the next five years and cement the emirate’s position as global trade hub.

Dubai International Chamber was established to strengthen partnerships with global corporations, investors and entrepreneurs and boost Dubai’s status as a major trade hub. Adopting a more specialised approach to driving Dubai’s foreign trade, the chamber will promote the opportunities that the emirate offers in facilitating trade flows.

The Chamber was established under the directives of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, as part of a recent government restructuring that aims to drive a comprehensive economic development in Dubai. 

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PAKISTAN World World News

Pak bats for Taliban, even as tensions rock across Durand Line

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi

The Taliban are struggling to accommodate other senior and influential commanders in the ruling setup who have not yet found any place…reports Asian Lite News

“The good news…the Taliban are listening, and they are not insensitive to what is being said by neighbours and the international community,” claims the Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, one of the biggest backers of the insurgent group.

But “how does he know they (Taliban) are listening?” asked the AP correspondent who interviewed Qureshi on the side-lines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York on Wednesday. Qureshi has all the details of the future planning of the Taliban after all it is the Pakistani military establishment’s ISI that is running the show and right from the top- the Pakistani Prime Minister to radical extremists organisations are heaping praises over the Taliban and its regime.

In defence of the Taliban, Qureshi said the group has included a few members of minority ethnic Shia community – Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras in their government to show the world their promise of an inclusive government. But changes are cosmetics and there is no woman in the Taliban regime.

“Yes, there are no women yet,” but let us let the situation evolve,” Qureshi told AP.

Interestingly, the Taliban had previously scoffed at Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s call for making change in the present “interim” government for an inclusive government, Reacting sharply, Mohammad Mobeen, a Taliban leader said that the group does not “give anyone the right to call for an inclusive government”.

ALSO READ: Pakistan wants strong ties with US: FM Qureshi

“Our system is inclusive even if someone likes it or not. Like Pakistan to decide its own system. Does the inclusive government mean that the neighbours have their representatives and spies in the system? Like Pakistan, we reserve the right to have our own system,” Mobeen told Afghanistan’s Ariana TV.

But according to multiple sources, the group is under internal pressure. The Taliban are struggling to accommodate other senior and influential commanders in the ruling setup who have not yet found any place. According to an estimate, 13 members of the Taliban’s powerful Rahbari Shura also known as Quetta Shura are waiting to be included.

Pakistan is also waiting. Despite being the “patron” of the Taliban, it has not recognised their regime yet, unlike in 1996 where it was first to do so.

On Tuesday, the UN said that the Taliban had sacked the Ghani appointed permanent rep, and , instead nominated Suhail as the new Afghan representative. The group asked the world body to allow their foreign minister to address the current session of the UNGA but since the Taliban regime is yet to get recognition, it was not possible. The Taliban’s deputy information minister Zabihullah Mujahid made it clear that the group would address international human rights concerns only after formal recognition by those countries.

“As long as we are not recognised, and they make criticisms over rights violations, we think it is a one-sided approach. It would be good for them to treat us responsibly and recognise our current government as a responsible administration,” Mujahid told the TOLO news.

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-Top News World

Guterres sworn in for second term as UN chief

Antonio Guterres ran unopposed because none of the self-nominated candidates was sponsored by a member nation, reports Arul Louis

The UN General Assembly on Friday appointed Antonio Guterres, to a second term as the Secretary General to lead the world body through the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic and the fight against global warming, which he has made his priority.

After being sworn-in to his second term, Guterres said that he would work for a “breakthrough” for a world at “a critical moment in history”.

The world is “at the cusp of a new era”, he said. “We are truly at a crossroads, with consequential choices before us. Paradigms are shifting. Old orthodoxies are being flipped.”

The 193-member General Assembly’s resolution adopted by acclamation said that in “appreciation for the effective and dedicated service rendered to the United Nations”, it approved the Security Council recommendation to give the former Portuguese Prime Minister another five years starting in January as the world’s top diplomat.

Security Council President Sven Jurgenson said that Guterres conformed to the highest standards of competence and integrity.

The Assembly’s endorsement of the Council’s recommendation was only a formality because, in reality, the five permanent members of the Council through their veto powers control the selection and reappointment of the Secretary General.

Guterres ran unopposed because none of the self-nominated candidates was sponsored by a member nation.

India, which is a non-permanent member of the Security Council, supported Guterres’s re-election there and in the Assembly.

After a meeting with Guterres last month, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar tweeted that New Delhi “values” his leadership and would back his re-election.

Guterres said on Friday: “We are writing our own history with the choices we make right now.”

But he warned, “It can go either way: breakdown and perpetual crisis or breakthrough and prospect of a greener, safer and better future for all.”

However, he said that there were hopeful signs and “we feel a new momentum everywhere for an unequivocal commitment to come together to chart a course towards a better future” because of the pandemic’s lessons of “our shared vulnerability, our inter-connectedness and the absolute need for collective action”.

The cooperation seen now in the fight against Covid-19 may not have been possible a decade ago, he said.

ALSO READ – Guterres calls for ‘Global Vaccination Plan’

He said that the world was beset by “geostrategic divides and dysfunctional power relations” that are manifest in “too many asymmetries and paradoxes”.

They have to be met head-on and “we also need to be aware of how power plays out in today’s world when it comes to the distribution of resources and technology”, he said.

The global proliferation of mistrust is another problem that should not be allowed to overwhelm the world, he added.

Guterres
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, left foreground, at Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara in Pakistan in February 2020. (File Photo UNIAN)

Guterres displayed masterful diplomacy in navigating a deeply polarised Council without antagonising the permanent members while managing the reflexive opposition of former US President Donald Trump to the UN and China’s aggressive diplomacy.

Earlier this month announcing the Council’s recommendation for a second term for Guterres, Jurgenson described him as a “bridge-builder”.

Seven of Guterres’s predecessors were re-elected and only Boutros Boutros Ghali, an Egyptian, was limited to a single term because of Washington’s opposition.

During the Covid-19 crisis, Guterres pursued the equitable distribution of vaccines and other resources while fighting disinformation, and set an agenda for post-pandemic rebuilding to put the world back on track in pursuit of the UN’s sustainable development goals.

His first term was marked by his passionate advocacy of fighting global warming, which he has called an existential threat to humanity, and a top agenda item.

Guterres, who was a UN High Commissioner for Refugees, was the surprise consensus candidate in 2016 when the bets were on a woman, likely from East Europe, getting the job that had been held only by men and never by a East European.

In his first bid in 2016, he received the essential approval of the Security Council after six straw polls in which he outlasted 12 candidates, seven of them women.

But this time Guterres, who was nominated by Portugal, had no official rivals as the Security Council did not recognise at least seven other self-nominated candidates — including Arora Akanksha, a Canadian of Indian descent — because they lacked the backing of any nation.

The requirement for sponsorship by a UN member is not unambiguously stated in the UN Charter or its regulation, but the Council and the Assembly considered it a de facto qualification based on tradtion.

The Assembly resolution appointing Guterres to a second term, said it was “guided by the principles of transparency and inclusivity” as set out in its 2015 resolution that established a modicum of openness to a process that had been shrouded by backroom deals.

The Assembly required the candidates to appear before it to make a pitch for their election.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (Front) attends the screening of the United Nations Day Concert 2020 in the General Assembly Hall at the UN headquarters in New York, on Oct. 22, 2020. (Mark Garten/UN Photo/Handout via Xinhua)

This time only Guterres came before the Assembly to layout his vision for his second term and the others were excluded because they were not recognised.

Jugenson and General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir have maintained that a nomination by a member state is necessary — a requirement that would prevent a stampede of self-nominated candidates demanding equal time at the General Assembly with the officially nominated candidates.

Of the self-nominated candidates, only Rosalia Arteaga, a former President of Ecuador, had any shred of credibility and the self-nominations were publicity stunts.

Akanksha, 34, is an employee of the UN Development Programme who made a splashy campaign video pitching her youth and the need for change at a UN weighed down by a sclerotic bureaucracy.

Although she received media coverage, she could not get the support of even her country, Canada, or of India and Saudi Arabia, where she had lived earlier.

ALSO READ – UN chief Guterres upset over anti-Asian violence