Category: Foreign

Pilgrims in the Great Mosque of Mecca in Saudi Arabia can once again touch and kiss one of Islam’s most revered relics – the Black Stone set in the sacred Kaaba building.

A barrier around the Kaaba that was set up at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic has now finally been removed.

The barrier, set up for social distancing, has been removed just in time for the Umrah pilgrimage season. The Hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims who are able to must perform at least once in their lifetime. It takes place at a set time of year: in 2022, it ran from 7 to 12 July.

The Umrah pilgrimage can be undertaken at any time of the year and attracts millions from around the world. Pilgrims may also visit the holy city of Medina.

Saudi Arabia dropped most of its stringent Covid-19 restrictions earlier this year, which meant that the Hajj pilgrimage last month was nearly back to normal for the first time since the pandemic started.

In 2020, only 1,000 people were allowed to attend Hajj, which is the holiest of all pilgrimages for Muslims. Only worshippers from Saudi Arabia were allowed to take part, and international pilgrims were banned.

Attendance increased to 60,000 in 2021, and in July this year, there were more than a million pilgrims worshipping in Mecca.

However that is still low compared to the pre-Covid numbers – in 2019 an estimated 2.5 million people travelled to Mecca for Hajj, according to Statistica, making it the world’s largest human gathering.

In Islamic tradition, the Black Stone, which is set into the eastern corner of the iconic square Kaaba, is believed to date back to the time of Adam and Eve. It was already held as sacred before the rise of Islam, and is said to have originally been white, but turned black through receiving the sins of those who touched it.

 

Both the governing coalition and the main opposition in Senegal have claimed victory in the country’s parliamentary elections.

The head of President Macky Sall’s coalition, Aminata Toure, said on television that it had won 30 of the country’s 46 administrative departments, giving it a slim parliamentary majority.

But the opposition Yewwi Wallu coalition disputed her remarks and claimed it had a “comfortable majority”, after gaining ground in the capital, Dakar.

Provisional overall results are expected no later than Friday from the electoral commission.

These polls are an important test for President Sall, after local elections in March saw the opposition win in several major cities.

He has promised to appoint a prime minister from whichever coalition wins.

The United States Mission has announced the arrival of new Consul General at the U.S. Consulate General, Will Stevens, in Lagos.

A statement by the mission yesterday stated that Stevens arrived in Lagos on Friday, following consultations in Washington, D.C.

He succeeds Claire Pierangelo, who led the U.S. Consulate General Lagos from August 2019 to April 2022.

As Consul General in Lagos, Stevens is the senior U.S. Government representative to the Nigerian people throughout the 17 states in southern Nigeria.

He is responsible for leading and overseeing U.S. government activities that enhance trade and investment relations and bilateral people-to-people ties across the region.

“My family and I look forward to getting to know Nigeria first-hand – exploring the region, experiencing the culture, and most importantly, meeting the people,” Consul General Stevens said.

The consul general has served more than 19 years in the U.S. Department of State as a career Foreign Service Officer with overseas experience in South Africa, Russia, Turkmenistan, Israel, and Belarus, as well as experience in Washington at the Foreign Service Institute, the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, and the Bureau of African Affairs.

Before arriving in Nigeria, Stevens served as the Acting Consul General in Cape Town, South Africa, where he directed the U.S. government’s engagement in South Africa’s three Cape provinces.

Under his leadership, US-South Africa’s trade and investment expanded by 50 percent over two years, and he coordinated the U.S. government’s response to COVID-19 in the Cape.

In 2014, he received the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy, the State Department’s highest award in public diplomacy, for leading the U.S. Government’s Interagency Task Force on countering Russian propaganda during the Ukraine crisis.

In the Bureau of African Affairs, he served as Senior Advisor on countering violent extremism and, as the Bureau’s Spokesperson. He directed the public affairs planning and messaging for the 2014 U.S.-Africa Heads of State Summit that brought together 50 African leaders in Washington for the first time.

Stevens was the Director of the Foreign Service Institute’s Public Diplomacy (PD) Training Division from 2017-2019, where he coordinated the training of the State Department’s entire public affairs and public diplomacy corps.

His leadership and the team were recognised in the Public Diplomacy Council’s annual “Ten Best” for the “Best Use of Social Media by an Embassy while serving as the Spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow between 2014 and 2016.

He has also served as Chief of Staff at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, chief of public affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Turkmenistan, and in the press and cultural affairs offices at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.

The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned the world that “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”

Guterres gave the dire warning at the opening of the long-delayed high-level meeting to review the landmark 50-year-old treaty aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually achieving a nuclear-free world.

He cited especially the war in Ukraine and the threat of nuclear weapons to conflicts in the Middle East and Asia, two regions “edging towards catastrophe.”

Guterres told many ministers, officials, and diplomats attending the month-long conference to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that the meeting is taking place “at a critical juncture for our collective peace and security” and “at a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War.”

The conference is “an opportunity to hammer out the measures that will help avoid certain disaster, and to put humanity on a new path towards a world free of nuclear weapons,” the secretary-general said.

But Guterres warned that “geopolitical weapons are reaching new highs,” almost 13,000 nuclear weapons are in arsenals around the world, and countries seeking “false security” are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on “doomsday weapons.”

“All this at a time when the risks of proliferation are growing and guardrails to prevent escalation are weakening,” he said, “And when crises — with nuclear undertones — are festering from the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Guterres called on conference participants to take several actions: urgently reinforce and reaffirm “the 77-year-old norm against the use of nuclear weapons,” work relentlessly toward the elimination of nuclear weapons with new commitments to reduce arsenals, address “the simmering tensions in the Middle Est and Asia,” and promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology.

“Future generations are counting on your commitment to step back from the abyss,” he implored the ministers and diplomats. “This is our moment to meet this fundamental test and lift the cloud of nuclear annihilation once and for all.”

In force since 1970, the Nonproliferation Treaty known as the NPT has the widest adherence of any arms control agreement, with some 191 countries that are members.

Under its provisions, the five original nuclear powers — the United States, China, Russia (then the Soviet Union), Britain, and France — agreed to negotiate toward eliminating their arsenals someday and nations without nuclear weapons promised not to acquire them in exchange for a guarantee to be able to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

 

 

India and Pakistan, which did not join the NPT, went on to get the bomb. So did North Korea, which ratified the pact, but later announced it was withdrawing. Non-signatory Israel is believed to have a nuclear arsenal, but neither confirms nor denies it. Nonetheless, the treaty has been credited with limiting the number of nuclear newcomers (US President John F. Kennedy once foresaw as many as 20 nuclear-armed nations) as a framework for international cooperation on disarmament. HE United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned the world that “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”

Guterres gave the dire warning at the opening of the long-delayed high-level meeting to review the landmark 50-year-old treaty aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually achieving a nuclear-free world.

He cited especially the war in Ukraine and the threat of nuclear weapons to conflicts in the Middle East and Asia, two regions “edging towards catastrophe.”

Guterres told many ministers, officials, and diplomats attending the month-long conference to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that the meeting is taking place “at a critical juncture for our collective peace and security” and “at a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War.”

The conference is “an opportunity to hammer out the measures that will help avoid certain disaster, and to put humanity on a new path towards a world free of nuclear weapons,” the secretary-general said.

But Guterres warned that “geopolitical weapons are reaching new highs,” almost 13,000 nuclear weapons are in arsenals around the world, and countries seeking “false security” are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on “doomsday weapons.”

“All this at a time when the risks of proliferation are growing and guardrails to prevent escalation are weakening,” he said, “And when crises — with nuclear undertones — are festering from the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Guterres called on conference participants to take several actions: urgently reinforce and reaffirm “the 77-year-old norm against the use of nuclear weapons,” work relentlessly toward the elimination of nuclear weapons with new commitments to reduce arsenals, address “the simmering tensions in the Middle Est and Asia,” and promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology.

“Future generations are counting on your commitment to step back from the abyss,” he implored the ministers and diplomats. “This is our moment to meet this fundamental test and lift the cloud of nuclear annihilation once and for all.”

In force since 1970, the Nonproliferation Treaty known as the NPT has the widest adherence of any arms control agreement, with some 191 countries that are members.

Under its provisions, the five original nuclear powers — the United States, China, Russia (then the Soviet Union), Britain, and France — agreed to negotiate toward eliminating their arsenals someday and nations without nuclear weapons promised not to acquire them in exchange for a guarantee to be able to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

 

 

India and Pakistan, which did not join the NPT, went on to get the bomb. So did North Korea, which ratified the pact, but later announced it was withdrawing. Non-signatory Israel is believed to have a nuclear arsenal, but neither confirms nor denies it. Nonetheless, the treaty has been credited with limiting the number of nuclear newcomers (US President John F. Kennedy once foresaw as many as 20 nuclear-armed nations) as a framework for international cooperation on disarmament.

China is preparing to take further action, including possible “military provocations,” amid heightened tensions over a potential visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the White House said yesterday.

The warning comes after Beijing carried out a live fire military exercise in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday amid mounting tensions over Pelosi’s prospective visit to the island, which has maintained its independence for decades, but which China views as a “breakaway province.”

“China appears to be positioning itself to potentially take further steps in the coming days and perhaps over longer time horizons,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

“These potential steps from China could include military provocations, such as firing missiles in the Taiwan Strait or around Taiwan, operations that break historical norms, such as large-scale air entry into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, air or naval activities that cross the median line, and military exercises that can be highly publicized,” he added.

Pelosi has not tipped her hand, but if she goes ahead with the visit, she will be the first sitting U.S. House speaker to visit Taiwan in 25 years, following Republican Newt Gingrich’s 1997 trip to meet then-President Lee Teng-hui.

In a briefing on Thursday, Wu Qian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Defense Ministry, said the People’s Liberation Army will “never tolerate Taiwan independence separatist acts and external interference.”

Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, also repeated Beijing’s “firm opposition” to the potential visit.

Interactions between Washington and Taipei have grown significantly, with former and sitting lawmakers and officials making trips to the island, which is home to over 25 million people.

The US formally recognized China in 1979 and shifted diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing, including Taiwan as part of mainland China under Washington’s One China policy.

The Canadian government said yesterday that Pope Francis’ apology for the abuse of Indigenous children in the country’s church-run schools was not enough

It argued that the Catholic Church should acknowledge its central role in the scandal.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has, therefore, demanded “apologies for the role that the Roman Catholic Church, as an institution, played in the mistreatment on the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical and sexual abuse that Indigenous children suffered in residential schools run by the church,” while speaking before Pope Francis, according to the Associated Press.

At issue is the decades-long abuse Canadian Indigenous children faced in the country’s residential schools that were run by the government and the church in an effort to make students assimilate into Canadian culture.

The children were forcibly removed from their homes and separated from the influence of their parents and native culture at the schools, where the Canadian government said sexual abuse was common and students were beaten for speaking their native languages.

Francis was in Canada as part of a “penitential pilgrimage” to atone for the church’s role in the scandal, though the pope has been reluctant to name the Catholic Church as the institution responsible for the abuse.

The pope on Monday apologised for the “evil” of the church personnel who took part in the abuse and the “catastrophic” effect the system had on the Indigenous children.

In a Wednesday speech before the Canadian government, Francis apologised again and called the school system “deplorable.”