The European Union has expressed support for Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s candidate for the position of Director-General of the World Trade Organisation as the race enters its final month.
According to Bloomberg, the EU also agreed in Brussels to select the South Korean candidate, Yoo Myung-hee, who is the country’s Trade Minister, as the second candidate for the job.
The WTO’s General Council is expected to meet today to reduce the five candidates still in the race for DG to two.
Hungary swung behind the planned recommendation after being the only EU country to withhold support at a lower-level meeting last Friday of officials representing the 27-nation bloc.
It plans to announce two finalists after October 6 and name a winner by November 7.
Brazilian Roberto Azevedo had stepped down from the job at the end of August – a year before his term ended.
By PTI
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has decided to file its opposition in the European Union in response to India’s application for an exclusive Geographical Indications (GI) tag to Basmati rice in the 27-member bloc, a media report said on Tuesday.
This was decided during a meeting chaired by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce Razak Dawood on Monday.
The meeting was attended by Secretary Commerce, Chairman, Intellectual Property Organisation (IPO-Pakistan), representatives of Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP), and the legal fraternity, the Dawn newspaper reported.
It said that during the meeting, REAP representatives were of the view that Pakistan was a major grower and producer of Basmati rice and India’s application for exclusivity is unjustified. India has said that it is an Indian-origin product in its application, published in the EU‘s official journal on September 11.
Dawood said that Pakistan will vehemently oppose India’s application in the European Union and restrain New Delhi from obtaining an exclusive GI tag of Basmati rice. He supported the concerns of REAP and relevant stakeholders and ensured that their claim for Basmati rice as GI will be protected, the report said.
Pakistan enacted the Geographical Indications (Registration and Protection) Act in March this year, which gives it the right to oppose Indian application for registration of Basmati rice’s exclusive rights.
Turkey today condemned French President Emmanuel Macron’s bid to rid France of ‘Islamic separatism’, saying his statements ‘encourage Islamophobia’.
Eighteen months before a French presidential election in which he is expected to face a challenge from the right, Macron described Islam as a religion ‘in crisis’ worldwide on Friday.
Turkish President Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Macron’s ‘dangerous and provocative’ vision ‘encourages Islamophobia and anti-Muslim populism’.
The ruling AKP party’s spokesman Omer Celik added Macron‘s ‘talk about a “French Islam” is a dictatorial approach and utter ignorance’.
He said: ‘Macron’s point of view only provides ideological munitions to terror groups like the Islamic State.’
On Sunday, the Turkish foreign ministry said Macron’s initiative would have ‘grave consequences rather than solve France’s problems’.
Macron’s plan to ‘liberate Islam in France from foreign influences’ adds to a growing list of disputes between the French leader and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkish officials frequently attack Macron, who last year said NATO was showing signs of ‘brain death’ by failing to stand up to Turkey’s unilateral military intervention in Syria.
Macron and Erdogan are currently feuding over maritime rights in the eastern Mediterranean, Libya, Syria and, most recently, the escalating conflict in Azerbaijan’s Armenian separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Emmanuel Macron described Islam as ‘a religion that is in crisis all over the world’ as he unveiled his proposal to battle Islamic radicalism, saying it had created a ‘parallel society’ living outside of French values.
In a keynote speech lasting more than an hour, France’s head of state said on Friday that Islam was in crisis due to ‘an extreme hardening’ of positions in recent years.
He said the government would this year present a draft law aimed at strengthening secularism in France against what Macron described as ‘Islamist separatism’ in the country.
Macron insisted ‘no concessions’ would be made in a new drive to push religion out of education and the public sector across the country.
He coined the term ‘separatism’ to describe the underworld that thrives in some neighborhoods around France where Muslims with a radical vision of their religion take control of the local population to inculcate their beliefs.
But members of the nation’s six-million-strong Muslim community — the largest in Western Europe — immediately accused him of stirring up Islamophobic and racist feeling so as to appeal to far-Right voters ahead of the presidential elections.
In a speech broadcast live from Les Mureaux, north of Paris, Mr Macron said ‘we must tackle Islamist separatism’ while not ‘stigmatising all Muslims’.
A new law will allow the dissolution of religious groups that ‘attack the dignity of people, using psychological or physical pressure, and break the values of France’.
There will also be an end to the system of ‘seconded Imams’ which allows extremist clerics and other preachers to be trained abroad before moving to France.
‘We ourselves are going to train our Imams and Chanters in France, and therefore we must detach this link which is what is called consular Islam,’ said Macron.
He said all French Imams would have to be certified from now on and could be shut down at any time.
The equivalent of more than £9.7million will be spent to work France’s Islam Foundation – a moderate organisation which promotes traditional Muslim study in culture, history and science.
Macron said this would help to ensure the dominance of a religion ‘respects the values of the Republic’.
The head of state added that there would also be closer scrutiny of the curriculum at private schools and stricter limits on home-schooling for reasons other than a child’s health problems.
Some 1,700 private Muslim school and colleges currently teach around 85,000 children in France.
Community associations that receive state subsidies will have to sign a contract avowing their commitment to secularism and the values of France.
The new measures will also include a ban on the wearing of religious symbols for employees of subcontractors providing public services, such as transport operators.
The rule already applies to public servants.
Macron said there had been increased reports of abuses by sub-contracting staff, including bus drivers refusing women entry for wearing clothing considered too revealing.
He emphasised that it was necessary to ‘liberate Islam in France from foreign influences,’ naming countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.
Macron stressed that the measures did not seek to stigmatise or alienate France’s Muslims but to bolster ‘our ability to live together’.
He urged better understanding of Islam and said the problem of radicalisation was partly a product of the ‘ghettoisation’ of French cities and towns where ‘we constructed our own separatism’.
‘We have concentrated populations based on their origins, we have not sufficiently created diversity, or ensured economic and social mobility in segregated areas,’ he said.
Radical Islamists have swooped in, taking advantage of ‘our withdrawal, our cowardice,’ he added.
But Macron was immediately criticised for stirring up Islamophobic and racist feeling to appeal to far-Right voters ahead of the presidential elections.
Yassar Louati, a prominent civil liberties activist based in Paris, has said: ‘The repression of Muslims has been a threat, now it is a promise.
‘In a one-hour speech #Macron burried #laicite, emboldened the far right, anti-Muslim leftists and threatened the lives of Muslim students by calling for drastic limits on home schooling despite a global pandemic.’
Rim-Sarah Alaoune, a French academic, also took to social media to say: ‘President Macron described Islam as “a religion that is in crisis all over the world today”. I don’t even know what to say.
‘This remark is so dumb (sorry it is) that it does not need any further analysis… I won’t hide that I am concerned.
‘No mention of white supremacy even though we are the country that exported the racist and white supremacist theory of the “great replacement”, used by the terrorist who committed the horrific massacre in #Christchurch.’
Friday’s speech came as a trial was underway in Paris over the deadly January 2015 attacks on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket by French-born Islamic extremists.
Last week, a man from Pakistan stabbed two people near Charlie Hebdo’s former offices in anger over its publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Earlier this month, divisions were highlighted when MPs walked out when a university student entered parliament in a headscarf.
And in January, a renewed debate about freedom of expression erupted when a teenager received death threats for attacking Islam in an expletive-laden Instagram rant.
Macron’s long-awaited address came 18 months before presidential elections where he is set to face a challenge from the right, as public concern grows over security in France.
The proposed law is expected to go before parliament for debate in the first part of next year.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
Vatican News English Africa Service – Vatican City
“They bring bloodshed; they kill. Instead of freedom, they bring prison. They bring violence and imprison all those who oppose them. The only thing they know is violence,” This is the unflinching assessment of the Bishop of Chinhoyi on the government’s way of dealing with citizens.
In a sign of widespread disenchantment, especially among church leaders, with the Zimbabwe Government’s policies, the Bishop of Chinhoyi, Raymond Tapiwa Mupandasekwa, C.Ss.R., has criticised the government’s heavy-handedness in dealing with protests. The Bishop also deplored the way the government has gone about managing the COVID-19 emergency. In particular, he condemned the Government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa for prolonged arrests and the denial of bail to political activists and journalists accused of ‘lotting the unconstitutional removal of the government.’
Vice President’s decree to recruit doctors into military
The Bishop further criticised a recent decree by the country’s Vice President to enlist junior doctors in the army. Labour Unions say the move is aimed at stopping doctors from going on regular strikes due to unresolved pay disputes. Zim.Live Online reports that the country’s Health Minister and Vice President, Constantino Chiwenga, a former army general, has decreed that junior doctors be recruited as military doctors, or they would not be allowed to work in government hospitals. About 230 medical students completed their final examinations recently. They were due to be sent to public hospitals as Junior Resident Medical Officers (JRMOs) for three years of on-the-job-training. The three years is required before one can be allowed to practice in the private sector.
The decree is unconstitutional
Bishop Mupandasekwa said the Government has failed to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and was resorting to measures that are causing “great distress” to doctors with this “unconstitutional proposal. The freedom party (ZANU-PF) has refused to give freedom of choice to young doctors,” said the Bishop. The prelate cautioned that if the decree is not reversed, the country would find itself with insufficient doctors.
Strikes and demands for better conditions
Medical personnel in Zimbabwe regularly stage strikes due to low wages, poor conditions of service and to seek improvement to the inadequately resourced public health facilities.
Zimbabwe’s public hospitals face constant shortages of medicines and vital equipment. With the onset of COVI-19, essential PPEs (Personal Protective Equipment) were also said to be in short supply. Senior government officials, including Vice President Chiwenga, often seek medical assistance outside the country.
The country’s 2,000 junior doctors have gone on strike twice in the past 12 months, denouncing wages of up to Z$ 9,450 (About US$ 115) per month. Many are ready to leave if they find better-paid jobs in the region or elsewhere.
Bishops’ Pastoral Letter
The message of the Bishop of Chinhoyi comes in the wake of a Pastoral Letter released on 14 August 2020 by the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference (ZCBC) entitled, “The march is not over”.
Pastoral Letter asked Government to stop suppression of citizens
Following the Zimbabwe Government’s 31 July crackdown on national protests, the country’s Catholic Bishops criticised the constant unleashing of the police and military on the people. In reaction to the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Senator Monica Mutsvangwa issued a strong and personal statement attacking the Catholic Church leadership.
Personal attack on Archbishop Ndlovu
Although all Catholic Bishops in Zimbabwe had signed the Pastoral Letter, the Information Minister chose to isolate and target Archbishop Robert Christopher Ndlovu for a personal attack in the Statement she released. Archbishop Ndlovu is the current President of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference.
Senator Mutsvangwa’s criticism on Archbishop Ndlovu met with an unprecedented backlash from citizens, various local Church leaders who all expressed solidarity with Archbishop Ndlovu and the all the country’s Bishops. The Holy See’s Apostolic Nuncio to Zimbabwe, Archbishop Paolo Rudelli, was among the first to offer his solidarity to the Archbishop of Harare. Later, several regional and international Catholic Bishops’ bodies and rights groups also joined with messages of solidarity for Zimbabwe’s Catholic leadership.
The humanitarian, development and advocacy arm of the Catholic Church in India is among several entities and personalities who have been honoured for their services and battle against the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.
Caritas India, the official charity arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) was among those felicitated at the Healthgiri Awards 2020 ceremony held virtually on 2 October, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, leader of India’s independence movement.
“Caritas India is happy to receive this award as this is a recognition of our humble efforts to mitigate the sufferings of humanity in the wake of this COVID Pandemic,” said Executive Director of Caritas India, Father Paul Moonjely, in his speech on receiving the Healthgiri Award 2020 for best NGO for Healthcare Services.
The award was presented by Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare to Fr. Paul Moonjely.
Healthgiri Award
Every year since 2014, the India Today Group, one of the biggest media conglomerates in the country, has been organizing the Safaigiri Award, after the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiated a country-wide cleanliness campaign called the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA), or the “Clean India Mission”.
This year, the Safaigiri Award took the form of Healthgiri Awards 2020, to pay homage to the invincible spirit of corona warriors who have led the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.
In his acceptance speech, Father Moonjely dedicated the award to Caritas’ “health warriors and volunteers, both in the community and institutional levels”. “It gives us added courage and heightened motivation to march forward with our mission of love and care even amid new challenges,” he said, adding, “We are honoured and humbled by this award”.
The priest said, “There was a lot of fear of pandemic and hopelessness amplified with the exodus of migrants.” “But the institutional strength of the Church as a humanitarian collective helped us together to team up and reach out to the last mile with the amazing support of the Church leadership.”
The award ceremony on 2 October assumed an added significance for Caritas India, as it was on that day in 1962 that it was founded.
Caritas’ action plan
Father Moonjely explained that during the pandemic, Caritas pitched in with a 5-point strategic orientation: be trained, be informed, be cautioned and be compassionate. They reached out to almost 6.4 million people through their partner networks. They serve the community, institutions, first-level treatment centres, Covid warriors, government institutions, including the police force.
Caritas India partners and religious congregations joined hands to focus on four key areas – food support; health, hygiene and sanitation; psychosocial support and creating awareness.
“Our medical colleges, tertiary hospitals and community workers,” Father Moonjely said, “did a commendable job in reaching out to the peripheries and serving the poor, all out of love and humanitarian concern,” because, he said, they believe service to humanity is service to God.
Re-committed
In conclusion, Father Moonjely reiterated Caritas’ “continued commitment and service to humanity.”
The nation of 1.3 billion people is among the worst hit by Covid-19. With over 103,500 deaths, India ranks after the United States and Brazil in fatalities. However, its caseload of over 6.6 million is the second highest after the US.
Drawing attention to the “the unparalleled challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic to maritime workers globally”, three United Nations entities have appealed to those related to the shipping and maritime industry, especially businesses, to help address the crisis faced by the workers.
“The situation of workers of the international shipping industry stranded at sea because of the pandemic, which UN agencies have recently qualified as a ‘humanitarian crisis’, requires an urgent and concrete response from all actors involved – including the business sector,” said the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), the UN Global Compact, and the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, in a joint statement on Tuesday.
The group underscored the indispensable service that the maritime shipping industry renders in sustaining the global supply chains. The workers’ role has become even “more vital during the pandemic, as they work to ensure the continuous flow of medical equipment, food and other essential goods”.
Yet, they have become the “collateral victims of the anti-Covid-19 measures imposed by governments. Measures such as travel bans, embarkation and disembarkation restrictions or suspension in the issuance of travel documents, the UN group said, have severely strained the working conditions in the global shipping sector.
As a result, the group lamented, some 800,000 seafarers are currently stranded on vessels, or are prevented from returning to ships, either to earn their living or to return home. Those trapped on ships are often forced to extend their 11-month maximum period on board, according to international labour standards. The UN group said similar conditions exist in the fishing industry and on off-shore platforms.
Human rights
OHCHR, UN Global Compact and the UN Working Group said the “situation has severe impacts over the basic human rights of seafarers and other marine personnel, including the right to physical and mental health, the right to freedom of movement, and the right to family life”.
“It also increases dramatically the risks of security and environmental hazards.”
UN Secretary-General has appealed that seafarers and other marine personnel be designated as “key workers,” to ensure regular and safe crew changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The UN group said the response to the crisis will require concerted efforts from relevant actors, such as international organizations, trade unions, but most importantly the business sector.
Especially businesses
The responsibility of defending the rights of maritime workers extends to the thousands of business enterprises that use the services of maritime freight transport – which accounts for almost 90 per cent of world trade.
OHCHR, UN Global Compact and the UN Working Group encouraged a meaningful dialogue and consultation with seafarers’ and other worker’s organizations, trade unions, civil society, and other stakeholders in the design of relevant measures and actions.
Fratelli tutti is “a devastating challenge to our ecological, political, economic and social life”, but above all, it is the “proclamation of an ineradicable, joyful truth, presented as a well-spring for a fatigued world.”
This is according to Professor Anna Rowlands, a renowned political theologian and member of the panel that presented Pope Francis’ third Encyclical in the Vatican’s new Synod Hall on Sunday.
Speaking to Vatican Radio’s Christopher Wells, Professor Rowlands said Fratelli tutti, with its powerful social meditation on the Good Samaritan, who recognises love and attention as the preeminent law and model for creative social friendship, Is a call to everyone to take action.
Listen to the interview with Professor Anna Rowlands
“I think that the core of this document is a call for us to stop and find a way to look at the world in a different way,” Prof. Rowlands said, noting that Pope Francis is asking us to stop looking at the world with the eyes of indifference or cynicism.
He is asking us, she explained, “to stop and to begin to look again.”
Rowlands said the document contains a list of social actions, the first being the command that we “pay attention to the world around us, to what truly is.”
Pope Francis, she continued sees reality and tells us that the only true perception of that reality is through encounter with “the reality of all the people and of the created order.”
“His first call to us is simply to pay attention, to be with what is, and what is both the suffering and the difficulty of the world, but also its beauty and its grace,“ she said.
She noted that he finds a contemplative starting point for his social teaching in his deep association with Saint Francis of Assisi, and that this is imbued in a political mysticism.
Church’s social teaching rooted in reality
Rowlands recalled that all the social teaching documents from 1891 onwards stem from a meditation by the respective Pope on the world, and on the action of the world.
“Rerum Novarum was inspired by the action of local bishops in Germany and in the UK involved in the dockworkers strike and in industrial relations. Later documents were also inspired by movements on the ground, often ecclesial movements,” she explained.
Pope Francis, she added, is very clear that this encyclical was inspired by an interfaith dialogue and by visits and encounters he has had all over the world.
So, she continued, it begins with his engagement with a world of action and then moves into a reflective phase in which “the Pope gathers, reflects, prays, discerns and then presents this reflective response to reality.” He does this in the hope of impelling a kind of revolution, a change of dynamics that will lead to action towards the common good.
“I think that what he imagines really is this world which is based on a cycle of constant meditation and action, contemplation and action,” she said. This vision is at the heart of monastic life, it is what Bishops in the wider episcopal community are meant to do, and most certainly, it is at the heart of the task of the Bishop of Rome.
The call for a concrete response
In Fratelli tutti, Rowlands said, Pope Francis calls for a concrete response from all people of goodwill, regardless of their religious belonging. He does so using the parable of the Good Samaritan, because it is “utterly concrete, utterly practical, utterly immediate and utterly devastating in terms of what it means for an individual.”
He’s asking us, she explained, “to be interrupted in the flow of our everyday lives; to stop and pay attention to those whom he describes as ‘foreign in our own neighbourhoods’, and he doesn’t just literally mean coming from a foreign place, he means the divisions of wealth and poverty in a street, in a neighbourhood, in a city.”
He wants us, she continued, to think about the roles that we occupy in our professional lives “and he has a lot to say about the vocation of those in politics, of those in business etc.”
Rowlands noted that the Pope also talks about the role of grass-root movements and of the importance of building a new world together with those who are most marginalized and excluded, not “for them or on their behalf.”
This is an action, she said, that requires us to build relationships in every stratum of our everyday lives.
He, Pope Francis, believes that the transformation of the world will stem from that basis, but it is essential that we let ourselves be disrupted and disturbed in our normal routines, “to learn that pattern of attention and the gifts it brings.”
Social friendship
Finally, Rowlands reflected on the meaning for Pope Francis of social friendship.
She expressed her belief that according to his conception of universal fraternity that envisages a world in which we are all interconnected, brothers and sisters and children of the same God, and said that ‘social friendship’ is the concrete response to that realisation.
It’s a vision, she concluded, that leads to a structural commitment, “to forms of action together in the world”. So, “social friendship is the set of practices that allow us to realise universal friendship as a way of life, as a habit.”
Emmanuel Macron has been sharply criticised by the Deputy General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Ibrahim Munir, after the French president announced a law against religious “separatism” aimed at freeing Islam in France from “foreign influences”. The 42-year-old, who faces a tough bid for re-election against stiff opposition from the far-right, sparked controversy with remarks that appeared to condemn Islam and Muslims in general.
“Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today, we are not just seeing this in our country,” the French president said over the weekend in a speech introducing a new bill to strengthen France’s state ideology of militant secularism, known as Laicite.
With the French Republic struggling to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Macron’s comments were widely condemned over their timing and divisive message. In his condemnation of Macron, Munir, who expressed dismay that “such utterances would come from the lips of a President of France,” accused Macron of mischaracterising the Muslim Brotherhood and turning his back on the values and principals of the French Revolution.
“The French Revolution has not served the inheritors of the Revolution” said Munir in his letter to Macron, a copy of which was obtained by MEMO, pointing out that the president’s remark had “blatantly contradicted the thought of its philosophers” who had “ignited the passion of people and their longing for humanity’s freedom, equality and their right to articulate their beliefs.”
Dismissing Macron’s comments, which appeared to single out the Muslim Brotherhood for condemnation, Munir added: “They [the Brotherhood] resist the excesses of regimes that deliberately seek to force them to abandon their faith and distort their image through illegal and inhuman acts.”
“We affirm the truth which the whole world knows; that the Muslim Brotherhood sincerely adhere to their Islamic thought and covenants,” insisted Munir. “They uphold the social responsibilities and rights of the countries of their abode. They respect their laws; knowing that this is the basis of their presence therein. They fulfil their duties and protect the security of their countries.”
Critics of the anti-separatism bill, particularly members of France’s roughly six-million-strong Muslim community — Western Europe’s largest— worry it will deepen anti-Muslim sentiment they say has been on the rise in recent years.
It has also been suggested that the bill is politically motivated ahead of France’s 2022 elections, while others — notably the leading opposition far-right National Rally party — have complained that the bill does not go far enough.
Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and Army chief General MM Naravane meet Myanmar State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi [Photo: Twitter/India in Myanmar]By — Shyamal Sinha
Army Chief General MM Naravane and Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla during their visit to Myanmar presented 3,000 vials of Remdesivir to the State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as a symbol of “India’s commitment to assist Myanmar in its fight against the pandemic”.
The Indian dignitaries also indicated India’s willingness to prioritise Myanmar in sharing vaccines as and when these become available.
During their two-day visit, Naravane and Shringla called on State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the Commander in Chief of Defense Services Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. Naravane also met Vice Senior General Soe Win, Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Myanmar Armed Services. Shringla met U Soe Han, Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Myanmar.
According to an official statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), “Shringla and Naravane presented 3,000 vials of Remdesivir to the State Counsellor, symbolic of India’s commitment to assist Myanmar in its fight against the pandemic. FS indicated India’s willingness to prioritise Myanmar in sharing vaccines as and when these become available.”
Meanwhile, Myanmar appreciated India’s decision to provide debt service relief under the G-20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative, for the period up to December 31, 2020, the statement read.
India and Myanmar also agreed to further strengthen their partnership in connectivity projects, capacity building, power and energy, deepen economic and trade ties, further facilitate people to people and cultural exchanges, and broad-base their defense exchanges across all the three services.
India and Myanmar have also agreed to deepen cooperation to overcome the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The MEA further said, “Both sides also discussed progress in the ongoing Indian-assisted infrastructure projects such as the Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project. They exchanged views on an early initiation of work on fresh initiatives such as the upgradation of Yamethin Women’s Police Academy, Basic Technical Training School and measures to provide long term sustainability to projects such as the Myanmar Institute of Information Technology. They agreed to work towards operationalisation of Sittwe Port in the Rakhine State in the first quarter of 2021.”
During the visit of Naravane and Shringla, the project agreement on the upgrading of agricultural mechanisation under the Rakhine State Development Programme (RSDP) was also signed.
“Both sides noted the considerable progress made under the Rakhine State Development Programme (RSDP) and proposed finalising projects under Phase-III of the programme, including setting up of a skills training centre. FS conveyed India’s support for ensuring safe, sustainable and speedy return of displaced persons to the Rakhine State,” the statement said.
The two sides also discussed maintenance of security and stability in their border areas and reiterated their mutual commitment not to allow their respective territories to be used for activities inimical to each other. India expressed appreciation to Myanmar for handing over of 22 cadres of Indian insurgent groups to India, the statement read.
Besides, India also announced a grant of USD 2 million for the construction of the border haat bridge at Byanyu/Sarsichauk in Chin State that will provide increased economic connectivity between Mizoram and Myanmar. “A quota of 1.5 lakh tonnes of Urad (Vigna mungo) for import from Myanmar till March 31 in 2021 was also announced. The Centre of Excellence in Software Development and Training in Myitkyina, was virtually inaugurated. FS also inaugurated the Embassy Liaison Office in Nay Pyi Taw along with U Soe Han, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Myanmar,” the MEA stated.
Myanmar expressed appreciation for Indian assistance in the preservation of cultural heritage, including the repair and conservation of Bagan pagodas that had been damaged in the 2016 earthquake.
The two sides discussed plans to install a bust of Lokmanya Tilak in Mandalay to commemorate his 100th death anniversary as it was during his incarceration in Mandalay jail that Lokmanya Tilak wrote Gita Rahasya, an exposition of the Bhagvadgita.
Shrimadh Bhagvad Gita Rahasya, popularly also known as Gita Rahasya or Karmayog Shashtra, is a 1915 Marathi language book authored by Indian social reformer and independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak while he was in prison at Mandalay, Burma. It is the analysis of Karma yoga which finds its source in the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred book for Hindus. According to him, the real message behind the Bhagavad Gita is Nishkam Karmayoga (selfless action), rather than Karma Sanyasa (renouncing of actions), which had become the popular message of Gita after Adi Shankara.
Other areas of cooperation in culture that were discussed included translation of Indian epics into the Burmese language, the MEA said. Shringla congratulated Myanmar for successfully holding the fourth meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference and assured India’s continued support in sharing experiences in constitutionalism and federalism to assist Myanmar in its democratic transition. The visit of COAS and FS to Myanmar reflects the high priority both countries attach to sustaining the momentum in their expanding bilateral ties, the MEA said.
Emmanuel Macron has been attacked for “Islamophobia” by the Turkish government in the wake of his announcement that France will ban homeschooling to ‘protect children from religion’, as part of plans to combat so-called “separatism” in the country.
In a speech highlighting some of the problems France has had with “radical Islamists” in recent years, the French president cited the example of an unregistered religious school where Muslim children were taught mostly just prayers and the Koran, by women wearing niqabs.
Speaking to an audience in Les Mureaux on Friday, a suburb near Paris where people of Arab and African ancestry reportedly make up the majority of the population, he disclosed that illegal schools, run by religious extremists, were being closed down every week by authorities in France.
“Confronted by these abuses which exclude thousands of children from education and citizenship, access to culture, our history, our values… I have taken a decision: from September 2021, instruction at school will be made obligatory for everyone from age three years,” declared Macron, adding that “instruction at home will be strictly limited to health reasons”.
While much of his speech was focused on ‘separatism’ promoted by some adherents of Islam, which he described as “a religion in crisis all over the world today that is corrupted by radical forms”, the globalist premier made clear that Christians would also be targeted by the radical education plans.
Proclaiming it to be “the republican melting pot”, Macron said French schooling is what “makes it possible for us to protect our children in a complete way from any religious sign, from religion”.
Calling schools in France “truly the heart of the space of secularism”, and where teachers “train citizens, not believers”, he alleged that they are the “place where we form consciences so that children become free, rational citizens, able to choose their own lives”.
Responding to the president’s speech, parents who homeschool their children vowed to fight plans to ban the practice, pointing out that Islamic terrorists who have attacked France over the years were not the products of homeschooling.
“I don’t understand: I hear about Islamism, about Koranic school. These must exist, but they really are not the majority. We are atheists for the most part and we have nothing against school,” said one mother, reporting that she and her husband were “in shock” at Macron’s announcement.
Gwenaëlle Spenlé, from the homeschooling association Children First, reported that government regulation of the practice has been repeatedly stepped up over the past two decades, “first under the guise of fighting against sects and today against religious radicalism”.
“We will not let this law pass through Parliament. We will fight to keep our children at home,” the mother-of-five said, vowing to mobilise other parents against the government’s plans.
The claim by President Macron that “Islam is in crisis” is a dangerous and provocative statement, encouraging Islamophobia and anti-Muslim populism. Blaming Islam and Muslims as a scapegoat for the failures of the the French Republic is a far cry from rational politics.
Some left-wingers and Muslims hit out at the proposed law as “racist”, and some criticism was international. The Cairo-based Al-Azhar Islamic Research Center blasted Macron’s speech for containing “false accusations against Islam”.
Demanding an end to “attacks” on the Islamic faith in order to prevent “hate speech”, the centre stated that “such racist statements are likely to inflame the feelings of two billion Muslims around the world”.
The Turkish government itself spoke out against Macron’s plan on Monday, with government spokesman Ibrahim Kalin accusing the French President of “encouraging Islamophobia”.
Mr Kalin said: “The claim by President Macron that “Islam is in crisis” is a dangerous and provocative statement, encouraging Islamophobia and anti-Muslim populism. Blaming Islam and Muslims as a scapegoat for the failures of the the French Republic is a far cry from rational politics.”
Macron: Migrant Violence, Terror Is Europe’s Fault, ‘Not Linked’ to Mass Immigration https://t.co/pRI7DA2utZ
In addition to mandatory schooling and the ban on homeschooling, Macron announced a host of other measures aimed at tackling religious “separatism” including tighter controls over the funding of mosques and of associations with an Islamist ideology, and restrictions on foreign-trained imams.
“The country has been hit by Islamic terrorism since 2012 and we have progressively rearmed against this threat,” the president said in his speech, though he made sure also to blame ‘colonialism’ and housing policy for the problems of non-European migrant groups living in France.
The supposedly ‘centrist’ leader has made similar comments in the past, having previously insisted that violent crime, terror attacks, and soaring sexual assault rates in Europe were “not linked” to mass migration, and instead were the product of “discrimination” and inequality.
Macron: Europe Entering Age of ‘Unprecedented’ Mass Migration, ‘Shares Destiny’ with Africa https://t.co/pg9tmMbJBC
