Saudi crown prince, Canadian prime minister discuss bilateral relations
RIYADH: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney shared a call on Thursday and discussed bilateral relations.
The pair also reviewed the situation in the Middle East, agreeing on the need for sustainable peace in the region.
Carney was victorious in a May election after taken over as prime minister in March following the resignation of his predecessor Justin Trudeau.
The crown prince and Carney discussed energy security and deepening trade between Riyadh and Ottawa, according to a readout from the Canadian premier's office.
Both leaders agreed to remain in close contact, it read.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
an hour ago
- Arab News
Saudi Arabia elected vice chair of WHO Executive Board
GENEVA: Saudi Arabia was elected Friday as vice chair of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Executive Board for the 2025–2028 term. The election was held during the board's first meeting of its 57th session in Geneva following the conclusion of the 78th session of the World Health Assembly. Saudi Arabia's delegation to the session was led by Rakan Khalid Bin Dohaish, Ministry of Health undersecretary for international cooperation, reporesenting Health Minister Fahad Al-Jalajel, SPA reported. Composed of 34 members from various member states, the WHO Executive Board is responsible for implementing the resolutions and recommendations of the World Health Assembly — the supreme decision-making body of the WHO. The Executive Board oversees priority health programs and policies at both regional and international levels. Elected chairman of the Executive Board was Australia, represented by Blair Comley, secretary of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Also elected to the Board's three other vice chair positions were Norway, Togo and Thailand. A statement by the Saudi delegation, quoted by SPA, said the Kingdom's election to the WHO Executive Board underscores "the growing international confidence in the Kingdom's leadership and its significant role in advancing global public health." According to the WHO, Saudi Arabia has since 2018 consistently supported the organization, contributing over $385 million to global health initiatives and emergency-related operations in various countries including the occupied Palestinian territories, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
Trump vowed to remake aid. Is Gaza the future?
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has slashed US aid and vowed a major rethink on helping the world. A controversial effort to bring food to Gaza may offer clues on what's to come. Administered by contracted US security with Israeli troops at the perimeter, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is distributing food through several hubs in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. An officially private effort with opaque funding, the GHF began operations on May 26 after Israel completely cut off supplies into Gaza for over two months, sparking warnings of mass famine. The organization said it had distributed 2.1 million meals as of Friday. The initiative excludes the UN, which has long coordinated aid distribution in the war-ravaged territory and has infrastructure and systems in place to deliver assistance on a large scale. The UN and other major aid groups have refused to cooperate with GHF, saying it violates basic humanitarian principles, and appears crafted to cater to Israeli military objectives. 'What we have seen is chaotic, it's tragic and it's resulted in hundreds of thousands of people scrambling in an incredibly undignified and unsafe way to access a tiny trickle of aid,' said Ciaran Donnelly, senior vice president of international programs at the International Rescue Committee . Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said his aid group stopped work in Gaza in 2015 when Hamas militants invaded its office and that it refused to cooperate in Syria when former strongman Bashar Assad was pressuring opposition-held areas by withholding food. 'Why on earth would we be willing to let the Israeli military decide how, where and to whom we give our aid as part of their military strategy to herd people around Gaza?' said Egeland. 'It's a violation of everything we stand for. It is the biggest and reddest line there is that we cannot cross.' The UN said that 47 people were injured Tuesday when hungry and desperate crowds rushed a GHF site — most of them by Israeli gunfire — while a Palestinian medical source said at least one person had died. The Israeli military denied its soldiers fired on civilians and the GHF denied any injuries or deaths. Israel has relentlessly attacked Gaza since Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel has vowed to sideline the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, accusing it of bias and of harboring Hamas militants. UNRWA said that nine out of thousands of staff may have been involved in the October 7 attack and dismissed them, but accuses Israel of trying to throw a distraction. John Hannah, a former senior US policymaker who led a study last year that gave birth to the concepts behind the GHF, said the UN seemed to be 'completely lacking in self-reflection' on the need for a new approach to aid after Hamas built a 'terror kingdom.' 'I fear that people could be on the brink of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good instead of figuring out how do we take part in this effort, improve it, make it better, scale it up,' said Hannah, who is not involved in implementing the GHF. Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, defended the use of private contractors, saying that many had extensive Middle East experience from the US-led 'war on terror.' 'We would have been happy if there were volunteers from capable and trusted national forces... but the fact is, nobody's volunteering,' he said. He said he would rather that aid workers coordinate with Israel than Hamas. 'Inevitably, any humanitarian effort in a war zone has to make some compromises with a ruling authority that carries the guns,' he said. Hannah's study had discouraged a major Israeli role in humanitarian work in Gaza, urging instead involvement by Arab states to bring greater legitimacy. Arab states have balked at supporting US efforts as Israel pounds Gaza and after Trump mused about forcibly displacing the whole Gaza population and constructing luxury hotels. Israel and Hamas are negotiating a new Gaza ceasefire that could see a resumption of UN-backed efforts. Aid groups say they have vast amounts of aid ready for Gaza that remain blocked. Donnelly said the IRC had 27 tons of supplies waiting to enter Gaza, faulting the GHF for distributing items like pasta and tinned fish that require cooking supplies — not therapeutic food and treatment for malnourished children. He called for distributing relief in communities where people need it, instead of through militarized hubs. 'If anyone really cares about distributing aid in a transparent, accountable, effective way, the way to do that is to use the expertise and infrastructure of aid organizations that have been doing this for decades,' Donnelly said.
Al Arabiya
2 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Israel accuses France's Macron of ‘crusade against the Jewish state'
Israel accused French President Emmanuel Macron of undertaking a 'crusade against the Jewish state' on Friday after he called for European countries to harden their stance on Israel if the humanitarian situation in Gaza did not improve. 'There is no humanitarian blockade. That is a blatant lie,' Israel's foreign ministry said in a statement, defending its efforts to allow in aid. 'But instead of applying pressure on the jihadist terrorists, Macron wants to reward them with a Palestinian state. No doubt its national day will be October 7,' it added, alluding to the date of Hamas's 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war. Israel last week partially lifted a more than two-month blockade on supplies entering Gaza, which is enduring severe shortages of food and medicines even as truckloads of humanitarian assistance have begun to trickle in. Macron, meanwhile, has stepped up his statements of support for the Palestinians of late. On Friday he said European countries should 'harden the collective position' against Israel if it did not respond appropriately to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including keeping open the possibility of sanctions. 'If we abandon Gaza, if we consider there is a free pass for Israel, even if we do condemn the terrorist attacks, we will kill our credibility,' Macron told a top defence forum in Singapore. He also called the recognition of a Palestinian state, with some conditions, 'not only a moral duty, but a political necessity.' France is co-hosting with Saudi Arabia an international conference at the UN in New York meant to resurrect the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- an outcome the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X Friday that his country supported a 'demilitarized' Palestinian state within a 'regional security architecture integrating Israel.' 'This is in the interest of Israelis and their security. The only alternative to the permanent state of war,' he added. Responding to the post, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar pointed to past flare-ups in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adding: 'You will not decide for the Israelis what their interests are.' 'The people of Israel firmly oppose the creation of a Palestinian state in the heart of their homeland,' he added.
