NEW DELHI/LONDON, Oct 28,2023: India is unlikely to sign onto a global pledge to reduce cooling-related emissions at the COP 28 climate meeting, citing the need for the world’s most populous country to have affordable cooling, two government officials told Reuters.
The pledge to cut cooling-related carbon dioxide emissions by at least 68% by 2050 compared with 2022 levels was developed by the United Nations Environment Programme’s Cool Coalition and COP28 host the United Arab Emirates. The pledge would require major investments by countries to shift to sustainable cooling technologies and also raise the cost of such products.
It is expected nations will announce their decision on the cooling pledge at the annual climate conference in Dubai from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12.
New Delhi is not willing to undertake targets above those committed to in 1992 under the multilateral Montreal Protocol to regulate production and consumption of ozone depleting chemicals and hydrofluorocarbons used in refrigerators, air conditioners and insulating foams, the government officials said.
India’s environment ministry did not reply to a request for comments. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as India’s stand is still being considered.
The country aims to reduce its power demand for cooling across sectors by 20%-25% by 2038 under its own cooling action plan announced in 2019.
“India’s per capita emissions and energy consumption are very low. Its cooling requirements are set to grow multifold in the coming years and it cannot risk committing to investments that will make cooling expensive,” one of the government officials said.
The country’s electricity consumption for household air conditioners is expected to increase nine-fold by 2050, outpacing growth in every other major household appliance, according to data published this week by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Between 2019 and 2022, India’s electricity consumption for air conditioning increased 21% and nearly 10% of its electricity demand comes from those appliances. Its per capita carbon emissions are around 2 metric tons against the world average of around 5 metric tons.
The cooling pledge is an opportunity for countries to receive funding from other countries and philanthropies.
Jerusalem, Oct 27,2023: The positions of Israel and Russia on the Middle East conflict do not always coincide, but the sides continue close contacts and dialogue, Israeli Ambassador to Moscow Alexander Ben Zvi told Sputnik.
“We still have disagreements with the Russian side on various positions, for example at the UN. But we have close contacts, we meet often. I was just a couple of days ago at the Foreign Ministry and talked to Mr. Deputy Minister [Mikhail] Bogdanov. Our ministry is in close contact with the Russian ambassador to Israel,” Ben Zvi said.
“There are contacts. We do not always agree on our positions, but this is part of our dialogue. Each of us tries, I think, to present his position to the other side, explain why we think this way and try to convince otherwise. It doesn’t always work out, but this is part of the dialogue,” the ambassador said.
On October 7, Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip and breached the border, killing and abducting over 200 people in neighboring Israeli communities. Israel launched retaliatory strikes and ordered a complete blockade of Gaza, home to more than 2 million people, cutting off supplies of water, food and fuel. The conflict escalation has resulted in thousands of people killed and injured on both sides.
GENEVA/BEIRUT, Oct 24,2023: Almost 20,000 people have been internally displaced in south Lebanon and elsewhere since early October, a U.N. agency said on Monday, as violence escalates on the Lebanese-Israeli border following the eruption of the Gaza war.
The International Organization for Migration said 19,646 people had been displaced inside Lebanon since it began tracking movements on Oct. 8, the day after an assault on Israel by Hamas militants and an Israeli counteroffensive on Gaza.
It said the movements were mostly by those fleeing the south of Lebanon, while some people have also moved from other areas.
Israeli authorities have also been evacuating dozens of towns and communities from the north of Israel.
Lebanon’s heavily armed Hezbollah group and Israel have been exchanging fire on an increasingly frequent basis along the border in the worst escalation since the two sides fought a war in 2006.
Many who have fled south Lebanon have moved north to the coastal city of Tyre, which is 18 km (11 miles) from the border.
Inaya Ezzeddine, a lawmaker from Tyre, said the movement was putting a strain on families hosting the displaced and the government of a country struggling with an economic crisis.
[1/4]Yolla Ali Al Swaid, 43, who escaped from the south Lebanese village of Al- Dohira near the Israeli border, recounts how she was injured by what she claims was an Israeli shelling, while sitting in a school where she takes refuge in Tyre, Lebanon October 20, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra Acquire Licensing Rights“This war is happening amid a very big economic crisis and people don’t have provisions,” Ezzeddine said, adding that around 6,000 people had sought refuge in Tyre and three schools had been used to shelter some of them.
“We cannot open all schools because schools are still operating, every school we open (for the displaced) we’re depriving its pupils from using it,” she added.
School teacher Yolla Ali al Swaid fled to Tyre after she was injured in the shelling that hit her home in the border village of Dhaira, an area where there have regularly been exchanges of fire.
“The school’s four floors are all full. We’re 11 people in the room with my sister family,” Ali al Swaid told Reuters, adding the crowding was encouraging some people to consider going back home.
“There are people who are thinking about hanging white sheets on their homes when they go back there,” said Swaid, who also fled her home in the war in 2006.
Hezbollah says 27 of its fighters have been killed in the clashes since Oct. 7, while Lebanese security sources say 11 fighters from Palestinian groups in Lebanon, which are allied to Hezbollah, have also died.
Israel’s military says seven troops have been killed along the frontier area.
New Delhi, Oct 23,2023: India’s macroeconomic outlook for the current financial year 2023-24 is bright and is solidly underpinned by strong domestic fundamentals, a Finance Ministry report has stated even as it noted the challenges arising from geo-political tensions.
The Monthly Economic Review for the month of September released on Monday highlighted the uncertainties arising from the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East and noted that crude oil prices may push higher depending on how situations develop going forward.
Further, the report noted that the relentless supply of US Treasuries and continued restrictive monetary policy in the US could cause financial conditions to be restrictive.
“Fraught geopolitical conditions can cause a general increase in global risk aversion. If these risks worsen and are sustained, they can affect economic activity in other countries, including India,” it said.
The report said that sluggish global demand is affecting India’s trade but this is projected to recover from the second half of the current fiscal (H2FY24). It noted that with a lower trade deficit and a comfortable forex reserve position, India’s external account looks robust.
The Finance Ministry report highlighted that strong private consumption demand has been a major driver of India’s economic growth in the recent period and additional growth drivers have also emerged.
“The first is the gradual strengthening of investment demand. Investment has hitherto been propelled mainly by the capital spending of the Union Government and the crowding-in it induced for private corporate investment. While this continues unabated, increasing demand for residential properties, supported by responsive housing loan financing, has given a fillip to construction activity and the property markets,” the report said.
As per the report, the second growth driver is the firming of industrial activity, substantiated by recent data and credible perception surveys.
“Improving corporate balance sheets and their fledgling investment activity, supported by a strong and emerging banking system and financial market, makes this outlook brighter,” it said.
Mentioning about the latest upward growth revision by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the report said that the development shows growing confidence of global analysts in India’s economic strength amidst global uncertainties and fresh geo-political challenges.
Gaza, Oct 22,2023: The death toll of Palestinians from Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip has risen to 4,651, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, 14,245 Palestinians were wounded in the coastal enclave, the ministry said in a statement.
Among the victims, 1,873 were children and 1,023 were women, it added.
At least 266 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza in the last 24 hours, Ashraf al-Qedra, the ministry’s spokesperson, said in a press statement.
The Israeli airstrikes were triggered by a large-scale Hamas attack on Israeli military targets and towns on Oct. 7, which has so far killed at least 1,400 people in Israel.
Tel Aviv, Oct 22,2023: The number of people held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip has again increased to 212 despite efforts by a number of countries to ensure exchange of hostages and prisoners between the Palestinian movement and Israel, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Sunday.
On Saturday, the confirmed number of hostages stood at 210 after two US citizens, who also have Israeli citizenship, were released from captivity the day before.
“To date, we have notified the families of 212 abducted people and 307 deceased IDF soldiers,” Hagari told a press briefing.
The IDF also said 27 Hamas members had been arrested in the West Bank overnight, the Times of Israel newspaper reported. Since the beginning of the conflict, a total of 727 wanted Palestinians, including over 480 allegedly affiliated with Hamas, have been detained by Israeli forces, the newspaper reported.
On October 7, Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip and breached the border, killing and seizing people in neighboring Israeli communities. Israel launched retaliatory strikes and ordered a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to more than 2 million people, cutting off supplies of water, food and fuel. The blockade was later eased to allow trucks with humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. The escalation of the conflict has resulted in thousands of people killed and injured on both sides.
MUMBAI,Oct 21,2023: India on Saturday completed a key test in its ambitious crewed space mission Gaganyaan, hours after halting the planned lift-off, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said.
Isro posted on X, the platform formerly called Twitter that the reason for the launch hold had been “identified and corrected”.
“Crew escape system performed as intended. Mission Gaganyaan gets off on a successful note,” it added.
The agency did not specify the cause of the delay.
The test launch had been set for 8am (10.30am Singapore time) but could not initially be completed. It was successfully completed at 10am, Isro said.
The Gaganyaan mission is aimed at developing a human-habitable space capsule that will carry a three-member crew into an orbit of 400km for three days, before splashing down in the Indian Ocean.
Isro has said it will explore ways to achieve a sustained human presence in space once Gaganyaan is completed.
About 90 billion Indian rupees (S$1.5 billion) has been allocated for the mission, which follows the agency’s historic landing of its Chandrayaan-3 craft on the lunar south pole in August.
The Gaganyaan mission is expected to launch from the country’s main spaceport in Sriharikota before 2024, although a schedule has not been announced.
Oct 18,2023: The United Nations Security Council will now vote on Wednesday on a Brazilian-drafted resolution that calls for humanitarian pauses in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas to allow humanitarian aid access to the Gaza Strip.
The council is then expected to discuss – at the request of the United Arab Emirates and Russia – a Gaza hospital blast that killed hundreds of people on Tuesday, diplomats said.
Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour blamed Israeli forces for the “massacre” at the hospital, calling for an immediate ceasefire. Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan issued a statement accusing the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group of responsibility.
Islamic Jihad has denied the allegations. Reuters could not independently verify who was responsible for the blast.
The 15-member council had initially been due to vote Monday on the Brazilian draft, but it was postponed 24 hours to allow more time to negotiate. The United States then pushed for a further delay as President Joe Biden visits Israel on Wednesday.
It was unclear if the United States, a veto-power who traditionally shields its ally Israel from any Security Council action, would allow the resolution to pass. The draft text also urges Israel – without naming it – to rescind its order for Gaza civilians to move to the south of the Palestinian enclave.
Israel last week ordered some 1.1 million people in Gaza – almost half the population – to move south as it prepares for a ground offensive in retaliation for the worst Hamas attack on civilians in Israel’s 75-year-old history.
The Brazilian draft is essentially a more detailed version of a Russian text that failed to pass in a vote on Monday, except it specifically condemns “the terrorist attacks by Hamas”. Instead of calling for a ceasefire, it calls for humanitarian pauses in the conflict to allow aid access to Gaza.
Israel has put Gaza under a total siege and subjected it the most intense bombardment ever. It has vowed to annihilate Hamas after it killed 1,300 people and seized hostages in an October 7 attack on Israel. Some 3,000 Palestinians have been killed.
United Nations, Oct 18,2023: Marking six months since fighting began in Sudan on April 15, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday almost 4,000 people were killed and thousands of others injured.
UN humanitarians said the fighting also sent hundreds of thousands of people into neighboring South Sudan and Chad.
Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported that the majority of the casualties between April 15 and August are believed to have been targeted mainly due to their ethnicity, particularly in West Darfur.
Dujarric said at least 29 cities, towns and villages were looted and razed across Darfur.
“UNHCR and partners provided displaced families in North and West Darfur with core relief items,” he said. “And of course, the agency, and all of us at the UN, continue to call on the parties to the conflict to guarantee the protection of civilians, including refugees and internally displaced human beings, and to ensure safe passage of humanitarian assistance wherever it’s needed.”
The fighting erupted first in the capital, Khartoum, between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the previously allied Rapid Support Forces and spread throughout the country.
The violence sent thousands fleeing to safer locations within Sudan and neighboring nations.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported thousands of people continue to arrive daily in South Sudan. As of Friday, 310,000 people crossed the border into South Sudan, most of them returning South Sudanese refugees. The number also included Sudanese refugees and third-country nationals.
The humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, Marie-Helene Verney, warns that as the weeks go by, people are arriving with fewer and fewer resources and in an increasingly poor state of health. Malnutrition is also rising among new arrivals as conditions in Sudan deteriorate further.
The International Organization for Migration and its partners helped 150,000 people reach their final destinations. South Sudan also transported thousands of people while many others found their own way.
The humanitarians said additional funding is needed to provide life-saving nutrition services to thousands of children arriving from Sudan. There is also an urgent need to provide adequate space in overcrowded transit centers to reduce the risks of disease outbreaks and gender-based violence.
“South Sudan continues to face overlapping crises, including floods, conflict and food insecurity,” OCHA said. “Some 9.4 million people – 76 percent of the population – need humanitarian assistance. The 1.7 billion U.S. dollar Humanitarian Response Plan for South Sudan is just more than half funded.”
The spokesman said on Monday that Violette Kakyomya, the humanitarian coordinator in Sudan’s neighbor to the west, Chad, reported the conflict triggered a refugee rush, initiating multiple humanitarian crises.
Speaking in Geneva, she said most of the nearly 490,000 refugees crossing the border into eastern Chad to seek safety and protection are mostly women and children.
The influx brought the total number of refugees living in Chad to one million, Dujarric said, meaning that one in 17 people who live in Chad is a refugee.
He said the conflict in Sudan also affects Chad’s supply chain, with the region’s prices of basic food commodities more than doubled. Food insecurity and malnutrition affect 5.7 million people.
” Kakyomya underlined the extreme generosity of the people in Chad who continue to welcome refugees and call for support to ensure a sustained humanitarian support as 7 million Chadians – out of 18 million – need humanitarian assistance this year,” Dujarric said.
The 921 million U.S. dollar Humanitarian Response Plan for Chad is a little more than 25 percent funded.
Jerusalem, Oct 18,2023: Hundreds of people were killed in an airstrike on the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital in the Palestinian enclave on Tuesday.
Gaza’s health ministry said the airstrike was carried out by Israel while the Israeli military said the Islamic Jihad organization is responsible for the “failed shooting” that targeted Israel.
“According to intelligence information from a number of sources we have, Islamic Jihad terrorist organization is responsible for the failed rocket launch that hit the hospital,” said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a statement posted on social media X.
Several Arab and regional countries including Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan and Türkiye have condemned Israel over the airstrikes.
After the attack, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas canceled his participation in a four-way summit to be held in Amman, the capital of Jordan on Wednesday and returned to Ramallah. He was expected to meet with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, and U.S. President Joe Biden at the summit.
Biden is expected to arrive in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ceremonial President Isaac Herzog before heading to Jordan to attend the quartet summit. Biden’s schedule also includes a meeting with Israel’s new wartime Cabinet, according to state-owned Kan TV news.
The Israeli military was in preparations for continuing the fight against the Gaza-ruling Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), following the rampage by Hamas militants in Israel on Oct. 7.
“We are preparing for the next stages of war,” Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israeli army, told reporters in a briefing on Tuesday. “We haven’t disclosed what they will be. Everyone is discussing the possibility of a ground offensive, but it might be something different.”
Meanwhile, Netanyahu toured southern Israel and warned that “the battle (in Gaza) will be carried out with mighty force in the next few days.”
Fresh clashes broke out along the Israeli-Lebanese border on Tuesday. The Israeli military stated that observation troops noticed “a squad attempting to infiltrate the security border fence and plant an explosive device.” At least four of them were killed, the military said. An Israeli attack also targeted “a military infrastructure of Hezbollah” in response to fire directed at Israel on Monday.
Later, an anti-tank missile from Lebanon was launched toward the town of Metula on the Israeli side of the border, triggering Israeli tank strikes in response.
“If Hezbollah makes the mistake of attacking Israel, it will be destroyed,” Israel’s military chief Herzi Halevi warned during a tour in the Northern Command.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Israel on Tuesday to show solidarity with Israel, saying in a statement alongside Netanyahu that he was on “a visit to friends in difficult times.”
The total number of fatalities in Gaza has reached at least 3,000 in the 11-day ongoing war, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The death toll in Israel remains at about 1,300, with most of them killed on Oct. 7 in the Hamas surprise attacks on southern communities.
Gaza, Oct 17,2023: More than 3,000 people have been killed and 11,000 injured in the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, and more than 1 million have fled their homes in the north of the enclave, Palestinian Ambassador to Russia Abdel Hafiz Nofal said on Tuesday.
“There are many dead and wounded in Gaza now. According to the latest statistics, there are more than 3,000 dead people, 11,000 injured and thousands of homes destroyed in the Gaza Strip. More than a million people have fled their homes in the northern Gaza Strip,” the ambassador told the Solovyov Live media outlet.
On October 7, Palestinian movement Hamas launched a surprise large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip, prompting Israel to declare a state of war the following day and launch retaliatory strikes. On Monday, Israel ordered a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to more than 2 million people, cutting off supplies of water, food and fuel. Israel has reported over 1,000 deaths as a result of the hostilities.
Over the weekend, the Israeli military urged Gazans to evacuate the north of the enclave and head south, warning of imminent attacks on Hamas targets. Numerous international organizations and rights groups condemned the ultimatum, saying the mass displacement would have grave humanitarian consequences.