Category World News

China’s president Xi Jinping has informed 20 world leaders that he hosted a summit in northern Tianjin that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) security forum now bears “greater responsibility” for preserving regional peace and stability.

As he hosted and addressed the high-profile gathering at a banquet on Sunday evening, Xi also emphasized the SCO’s commitment to the development and prosperity of its member states.

According to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Xi was quoted as telling the assembled leaders that the ongoing SCO summit has the crucial task of fostering consensus among all parties and fostering momentum in cooperation.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one of the most notable guests at the two-day summit. This is his first visit to China since 2018 following years of tense relations following an Indian and Chinese troops clashed in 2020 at a disputed Himalayan border.

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, is also present, as is Vladimir Putin, who is facing a 2023 international criminal court (ICC) arrest warrant.

The court has no authority in China because it is not a member of the ICC and not a member of the original Rome Statute.

China and Russia have occasionally compared the SCO to the NATO military alliance. The summit, which will be held in Washington, is the first since Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States, which will begin in 2025. It is a powerful demonstration of global South solidarity in the face of global wars, conflicts, and Trump’s tariffs, which are shaking up the world’s economies.

A “meaningful direction”

Xi and Modi made a promise earlier on Sunday to work together and to improve cooperation along the border.

In his opening remarks, Modi claimed that “there is a peaceful environment at the borders after disengagement” and that ties with China have “moved in a meaningful direction.”

According to a statement from India’s Ministry of External Affairs, he also noted “the importance of peace and tranquillity on the border areas for the continuation of bilateral relations.”

Our cooperation is a “connection between our cooperation and the interests of 2.8 billion people in both countries.” Modi told Xi, “This will also open the door for the welfare of the entire humanity.”

The two most populous countries are fiercely allied to each other in South Asia as they vie for dominance. For the first time in five years at a summit in Russia, Modi and Xi had a meeting in October.

According to state broadcaster CCTV, Xi stated in regards to ties with India that he hoped the Tianjin meeting would “further elevate” and “promote the sustained, healthy, and stable development of bilateral relations.”

According to Xi, the two sides should “not let the border issue define the overall China-India relationship,” adding that their main concern should be economic development.

China-India relations will flourish and advance steadily as long as they keep their commitment to the overarching goal of being partners, not adversaries, and providing development opportunities, not threats, according to Xi.

Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, flew to New Delhi earlier in August to make an announcement about their reconciliation.

Both parties made promises to resume border negotiations and resume direct flight and visa issues.

The Global Sumud Flotilla has left Barcelona, Spain’s port city, with the intention of “reversing Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza.”

Around 3:30pm on Sunday, the boats started leaving the port, and there were crowds of supporters, supporters, and well-wishers waiting to see the crews.

“Nobody was expecting so many people to wave goodbye to the volunteers,” remarked Mauricio Morales, who was on board the Familia, one of the Flotilla boats. In this particular boat, people are strangers, and the spirits of each have a distinct role.

Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg and other prominent individuals who were sailing with the Flotilla spoke out hours before their departures about Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.

Israel’s statements regarding their genocidal intentions are very explicit. They want to oust Palestine as a whole. Thunberg criticized politicians and governments for “failing to uphold international law” and said they wanted to take control of the Gaza Strip.

She claimed that they are breaking their most fundamental legal obligations to take action to stop their complicity and support of the Palestinian occupation and genocide.

Palestinian activist Saif Abukeshek criticized Israel’s use of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in Gaza. He claimed that because of a government’s intentional starvation, “Palestinians are being starved to death.”

According to Abukeshek, “the government intentionally bombs Palestinian children and families every day to kill as many Palestinians as possible.” Your main objective is essentially to eliminate the presence of the Palestinian population when you bomb hospitals, bomb schools, or bomb educational facilities.

As part of its plan to overtake Gaza City and forcefully retake the area’s population, Israel stepped up its efforts to seize the city and forcefully retake the area, which was followed by the United Nations declaring a state of famine in Gaza this month.

“We will be back,” promises the statement.

Thunberg mentioned “dozens” of vessels, but the Global Sumud Flotilla, which describes itself as an independent organization unaffiliated with any political party or government, did not specify how many would sail or when would the ships would arrive.

Sumud in Arabic means “persistence.”

Everyone who signed up for the Flotilla has a strong belief in its goal.

From aboard the Familia, Morales said, “It was difficult to say goodbye to my two kids, but I’m doing this because I think keeping track of what our colleagues in Gaza and the West Bank are doing… this is easy compared to what they endure every day.”

The flotilla, which is made up of delegations from 44 nations, will be joined by “many more boats from different ports” in Greece, Italy, and Tunisia, according to Yasemin Acar, the organizer of the flotilla.

By mid-September, the maritime convoy is anticipated to arrive in Gaza along with activists, European legislators, and prominent public figures.

The flotilla was “a legal mission under international law,” according to left-leaning Portuguese lawmaker Mariana Mortagua, who will join the mission, last week.

Israel had previously blocked two attempts by activists to send aid by ship to Gaza.

12 activists on board the Madleen were detained by Israeli forces 185 kilometers (115 miles) west of Gaza in June. Acar and Thunberg were among the passengers who were detained and eventually expelled.

21 activists from 10 nations were detained on a different vessel, the Handala, as they attempted to get to Gaza in July.

We attempted to sail with the Handala two months ago, according to the Madleen. And the Zionist entity also targeted, abducted, and brought our way against our will. However, Acar claimed that they did say they would return.

The flotilla was “an important act of symbolic resistance” that would “create a spectacle,” according to Mohamad Elmasry of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, with Israel likely finding it “logistically challenging” to deal with the number of vessels arriving at the same time.

They will ultimately be intercepted, they say. They will be detained or otherwise returned, he said. The famine won’t be solved by this, says one expert. Governments doing their jobs to stop genocide and deliberate starvation are ultimately what will solve the famine.

In the most recent of the country’s recent rail accidents, a passenger train derailed in western Egypt, killing at least three people and injuring 94 others, according to authorities.

The train slammed on Saturday as it headed for Cairo’s capital from Matrouh, a province in the western Mediterranean, according to railway officials, who issued a statement.

Two of its wagons slammed into the tracks, leaving only one more.

The Health Ministry provided a detailed list of deaths and injuries, and 30 ambulances were dispatched to transport injured people to hospitals.

According to a statement from the railroad authorities, an investigation is currently being conducted to determine the accident’s cause.

Egypt’s ageing railway system, which has also been plagued by mismanagement, has a high rate of train accidents and derailments.

At least one person was killed and several others were hurt when a train crashed into the tail of a Cairo-bound passenger train in southern Egypt last October.

At least 32 people died and more than 100 were hurt in a collision between two trains in southern Egypt in 2021, which resulted in the deaths of at least 32 people and injuries.

Relief workers carried out a massive rescue operation in eastern Pakistan, reporting that nearly half a million people had been displaced by flooding after days of heavy rain had swollen rivers.

More than 2,300 villages have been affected by the swollen transboundary rivers that pass through Punjab province, which borders India.

The Punjab government’s relief services, led by Nabeel Javed, announced on Saturday that 481 000 people had been evacuated along with 405 000 livestock and that 481 000 had been stranded by the floods.

More than 1.5 million people, including those in Lahore, the provincial capital and the second-largest city, have been affected by the flooding overall.

At a press conference, Irfan Ali Khan, the provincial’s director of disaster management, said, “This is the biggest rescue operation in Punjab’s history.”

He claimed that more than 800 boats and 1,300 rescuers were evacuating families from the affected areas, the majority of which were rural areas close to the three rivers.

He claimed that there have been 30 fatalities in the most recent monsoon flooding since the start of the week, with hundreds more still missing throughout the heavier-than-usual season that started in June.

“No one is unattended with their lives,” the statement read. According to Khan, “every kind of rescue effort is still going on.”

Families and their livestock can now find shelter in more than 500 relief camps. Difficulty families gathered in a school in the impoverished town of Shahdara, which is near Lahore, after fleeing their homes’ rising water.

More than 400 Pakistanis were killed in just a few days in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the only province held by the opposition to the federal government, in the course of a matter of days as a result of torrential rain on the other side of the nation.