The United Arab Emirates on Thursday named Sultan al-Jaber, a veteran technocrat who leads Abu Dhabi's state-run oil company and oversees its renewable energy efforts to be the president of the upcoming United Nations climate negotiations in Dubai. The COP 28 UAE is scheduled to take place at Expo City Dubai from 30 November to 12 December 2023. Sultan al-Jaber, a trusted confidant of UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, serves as CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., which pumps about 4 million barrels of crude a day and hopes to expand to 5 million daily. Jaber once also led
Egypt’s Deputy Minister of Finance for Economic Affairs Sherine ElSharkawy has called India an interesting destination both for ‘tourism and investment’. She also stressed that India has a lot of opportunities, especially in the information technology sector. Sherine El Sharkawy made the remarks during the cultural programme and dinner organised for the G20 delegates on the cruise ship, The Bengal Paddle, in Kolkata. The Bengal Paddle was a British-era ship named PS Bhopal that has been renovated by a private company. International delegates visiting Kolkata for the first Global Part
Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the world’s longest river Cruise, MV Ganga Vilas in Varanasi via video conferencing on Friday. He also inaugurated the tent city at Varanasi and laid the foundation stones for several other inland waterways projects worth more than Rs 1,000 crore. MV Ganga Vilas is the first-ever cruise vessel to be made in India. The river cruise will go through Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bangladesh till Dibrugarh. It will begin its journey from Varanasi in UP and travel around 3,200 km in 51 days to reach Dibrugarh in Assam via Bangladesh,
Japan has the world’s strongest passport, followed by Singapore, South Korea and Germany, says the Henley Passport Index 2023. India is on the 85th position in the index, which ranks 109 countries. The Afghanistan passport has been ranked the lowest in the index. The index jointly listed Singapore and South Korea passports as the second most powerful in the world. Both Asian countries were followed by Germany and Spain, then Finland, Italy and Luxembourg. According to the Henley Passport Index, Japanese passport holders can visit 193 out of 227 countries and regions visa-free. An Indi
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will sign a reciprocal access agreement for military officers, said a newspaper report. The leaders are expected to sign the pact during Kishida’s visit to the UK on January 10. The reciprocal access agreement (RAA), which relaxes immigration controls for military officers, aims to strengthen security ties between the two countries to counter rising threats from Russia and China. The two countries are expected to sign the RAA, which would serve as a legal basis for joint exercises and logistics cooperation. An agr
India will host the Voice of Global South Summit on January 12-13. As many as 120 countries are expected to participate in the summit. Ten to 20 countries will be part of one session, and two lead sessions will be hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vinay Kwatra, the Foreign Secretary of India said on Friday. The Voice of Global South Summit will focus on issues such as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine conflict, and increasing food, fertilisers, and fuel prices. The Global South largely refers to countries in Asia, Africa and South America. This summit, under the theme
US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will discuss key issues from climate change to critical technologies, including through the Quad (comprising Australia, Japan, India and the US) and advance a free and open Indo-Pacific during Kishida’s visit to the US on January 13. Over the past year, the two leaders have worked closely together to modernise the US-Japan alliance. During the meeting, the leaders will discuss a range of regional and global issues, including North Korea’s unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes, Russian invas
India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Foreign Minister of Cyprus Ioannis Kasoulides signed three key agreements in a joint press conference held in Nicosia, Cyprus in December 2022. The leaders signed a Memorandum of Understanding on defence and military cooperation, a letter of intent on Migration and Mobility Partnership – to provide a common framework of arrangement and cooperation to facilitate the mobility of students, academics, business people and professionals and help combat irregular migration – and the framework agreement on International Solar Alliance by Cyp
India is planning to speed up its ambitious plans to convert the strategically located Andaman and Nicobar Islands into a shipping and tourism hub with links to South-East Asia, say news reports. Building links between Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India and Aceh in Indonesia, situated 150 km apart, is part of the Shared Vision for Maritime Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific signed in 2018 between the two countries. Officials from both the countries in a recent meeting agreed to “encourage sail tourism, cruise ship visits, and interaction between tour operators” to increase connectivity
Croatia adopted the euro as its currency on 1 January 2023. With this, Croatia has officially become the 20th European Union (EU) member state to do so. Beginning Sunday, the euro will gradually replace the kuna as the currency of Croatia, at a conversion rate of 1 euro for 7.53450 Croatian kuna. The two currencies will be used alongside each other for a period of two weeks. When receiving a payment in kuna, the change will be given in euro. The Balkan nation joined the EU nearly a decade ago, but had to wait until now to qualify as a Eurozone country. Croatia has also become a member o