UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for safeguarding the rights of indigenous people to live in peace and dignity, in his message on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, observed annually on August 9.
Indigenous peoples represent around 6 per cent of the world’s population, but their stewardship signifies an outsized contribution to our global community, Guterres said on Friday.
Highlighting their roles as “keepers of knowledge and traditions” that help safeguard some of the most biodiverse areas of the planet, and as “guardians of the environment,” the UN chief said, “Their survival is our survival.”
While their unique way of life is a testament to the rich tapestry of humanity, Indigenous people also face serious challenges that threaten their very existence, Guterres warned, adding that they are often the victims of threats and violence, and extractive and productive sectors like mining, agriculture and transport have accelerated deforestation and land degradation, Xinhua news agency reported.
“Ancestral homelands and natural resources that they depend on for survival are coming under siege. And their rights to self-determination and agency — enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — are yet to be fulfilled,” he said.
Noting that this year’s theme “Protecting the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact” reminds us of their rights to protect themselves from unwanted contact, the UN chief warned that contact “can have a devastating impact,” including “exposure to infectious diseases, forced assimilation and the disruption of culture, language, and livelihoods”.
He called on the international community to “stand behind the rights of indigenous peoples to chart their own futures” and “safeguard their rights to live in peace and dignity”.
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in December 1994 to designate August 9 as the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.
According to the United Nations, there are an estimated 476 million indigenous people in the world living across 90 countries, making up less than 6 per cent of the world’s population. They speak an overwhelming majority of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages and represent 5,000 different cultures. AGENCIES
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has overrode a plea agreement reached earlier this week for the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks and two other defendants, reinstating them as death penalty cases, media reported.
The move comes two days after the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, announced it had reached plea deals with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accused accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa Al-Hawsawi, in the attacks, The Arab News reported.
Austin wrote in an order released on Friday night that “in light of the significance of the decision,” he had decided that the authority to decide on accepting the plea agreements was his. He nullified the agreements.
“I have determined that in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused… responsibility for such a decision should rest with me,” Austin said in a memorandum addressed to Susan Escallier, who oversaw the case.
“I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024, in the above-referenced case,” the memo said.
Letters sent to families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the Al-Qaeda attacks said the plea agreement stipulated the three would serve life sentences.
Some families of the attack’s victims condemned the deal for cutting off any possibility of full trials and possible death penalties.
Republicans were quick to fault the Biden administration for the deal, although the White House said after it was announced it had no knowledge of it, The Arab News reported.
Mohammed and the other defendants had been expected to formally enter their pleas under the deal as soon as next week.
The US military commission overseeing the cases of five defendants in the September 11 attacks has been stuck in pre-trial hearings and other preliminary court action since 2008.
The torture that the defendants underwent while in CIA custody has slowed the cases and left the prospect of full trials and verdicts still uncertain, in part because of the inadmissibility of evidence linked to the torture. AGENCIES
A US military helicopter on Saturday morning made an emergency landing in a rice field in the Japanese prefecture of Kanagawa, south of Tokyo, local media reported.
No injuries have been reported in the incident which took place in Ebina city, national broadcaster NHK reported citing the local fire department, Xinhua news agency reported.
According to the Kanagawa Prefectural Police Headquarters, a report was received at 10:56 a.m. local time stating that a helicopter marked with the word “Navy” had landed in a rice field in the city.
The police believed the helicopter to be a US military aircraft but its exact affiliation remains unknown.
When the police arrived, they were unable to approach the helicopter, but no damage to the aircraft or oil leakage was observed, and there were no reports of injuries or falling debris in the vicinity.
The helicopter left the scene by taking off at around 12:40 p.m. local time, heading towards the US military’s Atsugi base, according to media reports citing local officials.
Further details about the cause of the incident are still under investigation. AGENCIES
The US Defense Department will move a fighter jet squadron to the Middle East and maintain an aircraft carrier in the region, the Pentagon said, as President Joe Biden made good on his promise to beef up the American military presence to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies and also safeguard US troops.
In a statement, the department said on Friday that Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin also ordered additional ballistic missile defence-capable cruisers and destroyers to the European and Middle East regions and is taking steps to send more land-based ballistic missile defence weapons there.
The shifts come as US leaders worry about escalating violence in the Middle East in response to recent attacks by Israel on Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, which triggered threats of retaliation.
Biden in a call on Thursday afternoon with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed new US military deployments to protect against possible attacks from ballistic missiles and drones, according to the White House.
In April, US forces intercepted dozens of missiles and drones fired by Iran against Israel and helped shoot down nearly all of them.
The assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday and senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Beirut on Tuesday risk escalating the fighting into an all-out regional war, with Iran also threatening to respond after the attack on its territory.
Israel has vowed to kill Hamas leaders over the group’s October 7 attack, which sparked the war.
Lloyd Austin is ordering the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East to replace the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which is in the Gulf of Oman but scheduled to come home later this summer. This decision suggests the Pentagon has decided to keep a carrier consistently in the region as a deterrent against Iran at least until next year.
The Pentagon did not say where the fighter jet squadron was coming from or where it would be based in the Middle East. A number of allies in the region are often willing to base US military forces but don’t want it made public.
The White House in a statement said that Biden “reaffirmed his commitment to Israel’s security against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis”.
Earlier on Friday, Sabrina Singh, Pentagon Spokeswoman, told reporters that moves were in the works.
She said Austin “will be directing multiple” force movements to provide additional support to Israel and increase protection for US troops in the region.
In addition, a US official said that two US Navy destroyers that are currently in the Middle East will be heading north up the Red Sea toward the Mediterranean Sea. At least one of those could linger in the Mediterranean if needed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss troop movements. AGENCIES
Death Valley, one of the hottest locations in the world at the height of summer, just experienced the hottest month on record this July, with an average 24-hour temperature of 108.5 degrees Fahrenheit (42.5 degrees Celsius), said US Death Valley National Park officials.
Park officials noted in a news release that this beats the park’s previous record of 108.1 degrees Fahrenheit (42.3 degrees Celsius) set in 2018, Xinhua news agency reported.
The average high temperature during the record-breaking month was a sweltering 121.9 degrees Fahrenheit (49.9 degrees Celsius), with the park experiencing nine days 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51.7 degrees Celsius) or greater and only seven days that didn’t reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit (48.9 degrees Celsius).
The highest temperature came on July 7 when the weather station at the park’s Furnace Creek area recorded 129.2 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius), according to the news release.
Park officials pointed out that “high temperatures only tell half the story,” as the average low temperature of 95.2 degrees Fahrenheit (35.1 degrees Celsius) meant that there was little relief overnight.
“We just experienced the hottest month in history in the hottest place on Earth! Six of the 10 hottest summers have come in the past 10 years, which should serve as a wake-up call,” said Mike Reynolds, the superintendent of Death Valley National Park. “Record-breaking months like this one could become the norm as we continue to see global temperatures rise,” he added.
Death Valley National Park rangers responded to multiple life-threatening heat-related incidents in July, including one fatality where heat was a factor and another incident where a man had to be rescued from sand dunes after losing his flip-flops and experiencing second-degree burns.
Park rangers urge summer travellers to Death Valley National Park to stay within a 10-minute walk of an air-conditioned vehicle, drink plenty of water, eat salty snacks, and wear a hat and sunscreen.
Death Valley, located between the US states of California and Nevada, is the hottest, lowest and driest place in the country. The world’s highest air temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.7 degrees Celsius) was recorded at Furnace Creek in the park on July 10, 1913, according to the US National Park Service. AGENCIES
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council has confirmed that President Nicolas Maduro won last week’s elections with 51.95 per cent of the vote.
With 96.87 per cent of the ballots counted, Maduro received 6,408,844 votes, while his main Opposition rival garnered 5,326,104 votes (43.18 per cent), according to Elvis Amoroso, Head of the National Electoral Council, on Friday.
Amoroso also announced the vote percentages for other candidates: Luis Martinez received 1.24 per cent of the vote, Antonio Ecarri, 0.94 per cent; Benjamin Rausseo, 0.75 per cent; Jose Brito, 0.68 per cent; Javier Bertucci, 0.52 per cent; Claudio Fermin, 0.33 per cent; Enrique Marquez, 0.24 per cent; and Daniel Ceballos, 0.16 per cent, Xinhua news agency reported.
He said a total of more than 12,386,000 votes were counted, representing 59.97 per cent of the eligible electorate, with a little more than 50,000 votes, or 0.41 per cent, declared invalid.
Amoroso blamed “massive cyberattacks” against the election technological infrastructure and the country’s main telecommunications companies for the delayed transmission of results and the delayed disclosure process.
Despite the burning of electoral offices, voting centres, and what he described as “terrorist attacks,” Amoroso said the National Electoral Council managed to transmit the majority of the results.
He expressed gratitude to the Armed Forces, international observers, and officials, who he said had made the July 28 presidential elections possible. AGENCIES
The water level at the cooling pond of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in Ukraine, which is vital for the facility’s nuclear safety, has continued to decrease over the past weeks, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.
“If this trend continues, ZNPP staff confirmed that it will soon become challenging to pump water from the pond,” the IAEA said on Friday in a statement.
“Maintaining the level of the pond is made more difficult by the hot summer weather.”
“The dwindling water levels in the cooling pond remains a potential source of concern,” IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said, adding that the agency would continue to closely monitor and observe the situation at the site to ensure a sufficient supply of cooling water for the plant’s needs at all times, Xinhua news agency reported.
The IAEA experts stationed at the ZNPP have continued to hear military activity at varying distances from the plant over the past week.
The team also “observed smoke in the distance multiple times in the past week, which the ZNPP reported was caused by fires,” the statement said.
All six reactors of the ZNPP remain in a state of cold shutdown, according to the United Nations nuclear watchdog. agencies
The United States will continue to monitor the possibility of North Korea conducting another nuclear test, a Pentagon spokesperson said, amid concerns that Pyongyang could engage in provocative acts around the US presidential election in November.
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh made the remarks on Friday after South Korean Defence Minister Shin Won-sik said in a recent interview with Bloomberg that South Korea is not ruling out the possibility of a North Korean nuclear test before or after the US general election, Yonhap news agency reported.
“It’s something that we’re going to continue to monitor and something that we will always work with our ROK and Japanese allies on and coordinate on,” she said, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.
“But any tests like that are incredibly destabilising to the region, and we will continue to monitor,” she added.
Singh also reiterated that the US wants to see the “denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.”
In the interview with Bloomberg, Shin said that Pyongyang has completed preparations to conduct what would be its seventh nuclear test “when a decision is made” and that the North could conduct it before or after the election to “raise its leverage against the US.” agencies
Considered to be one of the most influential figures in the history of Western art, Dutch Post – Impressionist master Vincent van Gogh is also a popular choice for modern, immersive exhibitions where technology meets art. The Real Van Gogh Immersive Experience will showcase in Chandigarh from August 2 at Nexus Elante Mall and will be on for a month. The exhibition will showcase around 265 artworks from the 2,100-collection scattered around the world in museums and private collections. Immersive experiences that transform the walls and floors of an exhibition space into a kind of technicolor Van Gogh dream world have popped up from New York, Paris, London, Singapore, Amsterdam, Chennai to Hyderabad. Chandigarh will host the Van Gogh experience for the first time, following its successful runs in Chennai and Hyderabad.
Expressing his excitement on bringing the experience to Chandigarh, the Executive Producer, and brand ambassador for the exhibit Nikhil Chinapa said, “The Real Van Gogh Immersive has become a new sensation among the youth and a trendsetter in the Indian art scene, igniting a renewed passion for art appreciation and consumption. I am thrilled we could bring this to Nexus Elante in Chandigarh, a city with design deeply interwoven into its identity.”
Speaking on the press conference, Nishank Joshi, CMO, Nexus Select Trust “Nexus Elante is thrilled to host the Real Van Gogh art exhibition to Chandigarh. This immersive experience offers visitors of all ages a unique opportunity to explore the iconic work of Van Gogh like never before. At Nexus we believe in providing exceptional experiences and services to our customers. We are always committed to bringing world-class cultural events to our location, and this exhibition is a testament to that dedication. We are proud to host such an immersive experience for the audience of this tricity at our mall.”
The Real Van Gogh Immersive Experience brings out the colours and emotions of the Dutch master’s paintings via an unparalleled visual spectacle, boasting India’s first 22000 lumen projection and largest screens in India, and a specially-created music score by Mitch de Klein that breathes new life into van Gogh’s timeless masterpieces. The paintings for The Real Van Gogh Immersive Experience were curated and animated by visual artists Hemali Vadalia and Naveen Boktapa of Motionvan Studios, with inputs by Executive Producer, Jay Punjabi.
Presented by The Silly Fellows in collaboration with creative entrepreneur Nikhil Chinapa, the Real Van Gogh Immersive Experience 2024 saw art enthusiasts and curious onlookers sell out show after show in Chennai and Hyderabad.
Van Gogh experienced life and the world intensely and his bold, dramatic brushstrokes conveyed joy, anxiety and anguish his mind held. A specially curated line-up featuring visually captivating pieces from van Gogh’s extraordinary collection, such as Starry Night, The Plain of Auvers, Wheatfield with Crows, Portrait of Theo, and The Potato Eaters, is on display.
“This isn’t just about art; it’s a bold move to redefine cultural experiences in our own backyard, giving every doorstep a front-row seat to the avant-garde of today’s creative narrative, and being able to showcase it to audiences beyond Tier 1 cities,” added The Silly Fellow’s co-founder Sharan John.
“Immersive experiences like this have taken the world by storm and ignited a love for art in the young generation in a way that speaks to them and we are very keen to take The Real Van Gogh Immersive Experience to every corner of the country,” Executive Producer, Jay Punjabi said.
The content for this captivating showcase was meticulously crafted over a span of nine months, ensuring a rich and engaging experience for visitors. The 60-minute journey through the exhibition unfolds across four carefully curated spaces, each designed to offer a distinct facet of the artist’s work.
The Education Room serves as an informative and insightful introduction, providing context and background to van Gogh’s life and artistic journey. The first room in the experience, it takes visitors through the tapestry of his work and life.
The Infinity Room, as the name suggests, is an expansive space where visitors find themselves in an immersive and awe-inspiring environment.
The Immersive Room transports attendees deeper into the world of Vincent van Gogh. Dynamic projections and sensory elements enhance the connection between the audience and the artist’s creations.
After the immersive journey, visitors can explore The Merchandise Store, where they can take home souvenirs and mementos related to the exhibition.
Exhibits like The Real Van Gogh Immersive Experience reflect a growing appetite for immersive and culturally enriching events, solidifying its place as a must-see, Instagram-friendly spectacle for the 21st century consumer.
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) on Thursday posted the highest-ever net profit at Rs 3,107 crore (up 47 per cent year-on-year) along with record EBITDA at Rs 4,848 crore for the quarter that ended June 30.
The Adani Group’s flagship company posted the highest-ever quarterly revenue at Rs 7,560 crore, a 21 per cent growth, as volume grew 8 per cent to 109 MT in the April-June quarter.
“FY25 has begun on a strong note for us with a stellar performance on both financial and growth fronts. On the financial front, we posted all-time high earnings. But for the temporary disruption in Gangavaram Port, which is now fully restored, our Q1 cargo volume would have been at 114.7 MMT, a 13 per cent increase,” said Ashwani Gupta, Whole-time Director and CEO, APSEZ.
“On the growth front, we won two new port concessions and a port O&M contract. We are proud that four of our ports featured in the World Bank’s Container Port Performance Index 2023,” Gupta added.
The cargo volume growth was primarily driven by containers (up 18 per cent YoY) and liquids and gas (up 11 per cent YoY).
The company had a temporary disruption leading to a loss of 5.7 MMT at the Gangavaram Port, which is now fully restored.
Mundra port handled the highest quarterly volume by any Indian port (51 MMT) in the quarter.
Mundra, Kattupalli, Hazira, and Krishnapatnam featured in the World Bank’s Container Port Performance Index 2023. The index benchmarks ports globally across multiple parameters, including productivity, efficiency and reliability.
Adani Ports signed a 30-year concession agreement with the Tanzania Ports Authority to operate and manage Container Terminal 2 at the Dar es Salaam Port, Tanzania.
The quarter also saw the first mothership arriving at the Vizhinjam Port, India’s first trans-shipment port equipped with South Asia’s most advanced container handling technology.
Last month, ‘San Fernando’, a vessel of the world’s second-largest shipping company Maersk, arrived at the Vizhinjam Port with over 2,000 containers on it.
Vizhinjam Port is a perfect example of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s triple focus — Ports for Prosperity, Ports for Progress and Ports for Productivity. AGENCIES
