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Hindustan Times
16 minutes ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Nations urged to make UN summit a 'turning point' for oceans
Nations will be under pressure to deliver more than just rhetoric at a UN oceans summit in France next week, including much-needed funds to better protect the world's overexploited and polluted seas. The third UN Ocean Conference seeks to build global unity and raise money for marine conservation even as nations disagree over deep-sea mining, plastic trash and overfishing. On Sunday, hosts France are expecting about 70 heads of state and government to arrive in Nice for a pre-conference opening ceremony, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Oceans are "in a state of emergency" and the June 9 to 13 meeting "will not be just another routine gathering", said UN under-secretary-general Li Junhua. "There's still time to change our course if we act collectively," he told reporters. Most countries are expected to send ministers or lower-level delegates to the summit, which does not carry the weight of a climate COP or UN treaty negotiation or make legally binding decisions. The United States under President Donald Trump whose recent push to fast-track seabed mining in international waters sparked global outrage is unlikely to send a delegation at all. France has promised the summit will do for ocean conservation what the Paris Agreement did for global climate action. Nations present are expected to adopt a "Nice Declaration": a statement of support for greater ocean protection, coupled with voluntary additional commitments by individual governments. Greenpeace has slammed the text which was agreed after months of negotiation as "weak" and said it risked making Nice "a meaningless talking shop". Pacific leaders are expected to turn out in force and demand, in particular, concrete financial commitments from governments. "The message is clear: voluntary pledges are not enough", Ralph Regenvanu, environment minister for Vanuatu, told reporters. The summit will also host business leaders, international donors and ocean activists, while a science convention beforehand is expected to draw 2,000 ocean experts. France has set a high bar of securing by Nice the 60 ratifications needed to enact a landmark treaty to protect marine habitats outside national jurisdiction. So far, only 28 countries and the European Union have done so. Olivier Poivre d'Arvor, France's oceans envoy, says that without the numbers the conference "will be a failure". Bringing the high seas treaty into force is seen as crucial to meeting the globally-agreed target of protecting 30 percent of oceans by 2030. The summit could also prove influential on other higher-level negotiations in the months ahead and provide "a temperature check in terms of ambition", said Megan Randles, head of Greenpeace's delegation at the Nice conference. In July the International Seabed Authority will deliberate over a long-awaited mining code for the deep oceans, one that Trump has skirted despite major ecological concerns. That comes in the face of growing calls for governments to support an international moratorium on seabed mining, something France and roughly 30 other countries have already backed. And in August, nations will again seek to finalise a binding global treaty to tackle plastic trash after previous negotiation rounds collapsed. Countries and civil society groups are likely to use the Nice meeting to try to shore up support ahead of these proceedings, close observers said. Nations meeting at UN conferences have struggled recently to find consensus and much-needed finance to combat climate change and other environmental threats. Oceans are the least funded of all the UN's sustainable development goals but it wasn't clear if Nice would shift the status quo, said Angelique Pouponneau, a lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States. "With so many competing crises and distractions on the global agenda, it's hard to be confident that the level of ambition needed will actually show up," Pouponneau told AFP. Costa Rica, which is co-hosting the conference with France, said public and private commitments of $100 billion with "clear timelines, budgets and accountability mechanisms" could be expected. "This is what is different this time around zero rhetoric, maximum results," Maritza Chan Valverde, Costa Rica's permanent representative to the UN, told reporters. Pepe Clarke, oceans practice leader from WWF, told AFP there was "an understandable level of scepticism about conferences". But he said Nice must be "a turning point... because to date the actions have fallen far short of what's needed to sustain a healthy ocean into the future". np-aag/klm/phz
Economic Times
a day ago
- Business
- Economic Times
Saab CEO Micael Johansson sees Europe streamlining defence demands amid spending push
Reuters FILE PHOTO: President and CEO of Saab Group Micael Johansson attends a meeting with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Saab Marcus Wallenberg, at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil November 23, 2023. FILE PHOTO; REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino/File Photo The European defence market needs to align requirements and demand in order to create scale as it attempts to boost capability, the CEO of Swedish defence group Saab said. "The important thing is that you cannot have every country, sort of tailoring the requirements to different sorts of versions, then it becomes difficult," Micael Johansson told Reuters in an interview on Saturday on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security meeting in Singapore. The European Union's 23 members are expected to agree at a summit in June to raise the defence spending target above the current 2% of national output as countries bend to pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to spend more. "Europe has a big catch up to do in terms of capability that we need to have in place to take care of our own security," Johansson said, adding that defence capabilities will still need to be built up even if a peace deal in Ukraine is achieved. Beyond improving capabilities in Europe, he said that he has seen a greater willingness for collaboration between countries other than the U.S. for defence products, and that European players are prepared to establish sovereign capabilities in the countries they partner. "That's what we're prepared to do, if we're part of this of course, to help, and that includes technology transfer and collaboration, and not just selling," he said. The Thai Air Force chose to purchase its Gripen fighter jets in August last year, selecting Saab over Lockheed Martin's F-16 fighter jets even though Thailand is a security ally of the United States. He also noted that the company's fighter jet programme is building more unmanned capabilities as air defence systems and lethal weapons capabilities improve. "Because of the congested environment that you have to operate in, the suppression of enemy air defence systems, you have to take bigger risks and you have to think about attrition. Then you don't want to send your fighter pilots into something that's really, really dangerous," he said.
Indian Express
3 days ago
- Business
- Indian Express
China issues countrywide ban on Brazilian poultry imports
China has issued a ban on all imports of poultry and related products from Brazil over an avian influenza outbreak, two weeks after suspending import applications from the country's poultry farms. All direct and indirect Brazilian poultry imports are banned, and will be returned or destroyed if brought or mailed into the country, China's General Administration of Customs said in a website notice dated May 29. It also said all animal and plant waste from inbound ships from Brazil must be treated under customs' supervision and not discarded without authorisation. Brazil, the world's largest poultry exporter and China's biggest chicken meat supplier, confirmed a bird flu outbreak on a commercial poultry farm in the city of Montenegro in its southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul on May 16, triggering a slew of international trade bans. The Brazilian government had asked China to restrict its embargo to poultry products just from the city where the outbreak occurred, but Beijing's announcement showed it had shrugged off the call for a limited ban. China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are among the main destinations for Brazil's chicken exports. The other three countries imposed only statewide bans. The European Union and South Korea have also banned Brazilian chicken. Brazil exported some $10 billion of chicken meat in 2024, accounting for about 35% of global trade, making a nationwide ban painful not just for Brazilian farmers but also major importers. Brazilian farmers have been counting on warming relations between President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Chinese President Xi Jinping to ease the poultry trade ban.
Straits Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
In Latin America, carrots trump sticks – and China knows it
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva with Chinese President Xi Jinping after a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 13. PHOTO: REUTERS In 1823, US President James Monroe fired off a warning that the US considered the Western Hemisphere as its sphere of influence and that it would view any foreign interference as a hostile act. The Monroe Doctrine, enunciated in his annual message to Congress, was directed then at European colonial powers. Some 200 years on, the irony is that a new power – China – is making inroads into the region notwithstanding that foreign policy declaration. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Middle East Eye
3 days ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Brazilian oil trade unions urge Lula to impose energy embargo on Israel
Two of the largest federations of trade unions for oil workers in Brazil have called on the government to impose an energy embargo on Israel. The National Federation of Oil Workers and the Single Federation of Oil Workers sent a joint letter to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and key ministers in the Brazilian government on Wednesday, urging them to take more concrete action against Israel's 'genocide' in Gaza. Referring to comments made by Lula in February, the federations said that Brazil needs to go beyond public rhetoric and implement an energy embargo against Israel in accordance with its international legal obligations to prevent the 'ongoing Nakba' - meaning 'catastrophe' in Arabic and referring to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948 when Israel was created. In February, President Lula, while he was attending the African Union Summit in Ethiopia, accused Israel of committing 'genocide' against Palestinians in Gaza and compared its war on Gaza with Nazi Germany's extermination of Jews. The letter highlighted that 2.7m barrels of crude oil were exported from Brazil to Israel in 2024 alone, representing a significant portion of Israel's military fuel supply, and Brazil had a global responsibility to avoid complicity in war crimes, as articulated by legal experts and international judicial bodies. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The letter cited action taken by other countries, such as Colombia's suspension of coal exports to Israel, and global grassroots campaigns such as #BlockTheBoat, where dockworkers around the world have refused to load Israeli ships and cargo and transport arms to Israel. In the United States, Block the Boat was organised by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center in San Francisco. In addition to the immediate suspension of oil exports to Israel, the federations urge the Brazilian government to suspend projects with Israeli energy companies, and support United Nations-led sanctions and measures to hold Israel to account. Signatories said this was an opportunity for Brazil to 'honor its diplomatic legacy, affirm its position on the right side of history, and ensure that its economic policies reflect its ethical and legal commitments to human rights and international law". The Single Federation of Oil Workers is a national trade union, while the National Federation of Oil Workers is a trade union federation comprised of independently operating oil workers' unions. Diplomatic backlash to Lula's comments Lula has been a longtime supporter of Palestine. His comment to reporters on 17 February in Ethiopia sparked a diplomatic backlash when he said that Israel's actions in Gaza were not a war, "It's a genocide". "It's not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It's a war between a highly prepared army, and women and children," he said. "What's happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn't happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lula's Nazi Germany comparison was 'disgraceful and grave', while Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that Lula would be 'a persona non grata in Israel' until he took back his comments. Lula refused to take back his comments and recalled Brazil's ambassador from Israel. Reuters reported that his approval ratings fell from 54 percent to 51 percent after his comments. Lula also backed South Africa's International Court of Justice case against Israel in January, which ruled that a 'plausible genocide' was happening in Gaza. An official statement highlighted Lula's role in the decision: 'The president expressed his support for South Africa's initiative to bring Israel before the ICJ to determine that Israel immediately ceases all acts and measures that may constitute genocide or related crimes under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.'
