PM Modi meets Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi; India, UAE sign 5 pacts

Agencies
February 12, 2018

Abu Dhabi, Feb 12: Prime Minister Narendra Modi held wide-ranging talks with Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan as the two sides signed five agreements including a historic pact awarding a consortium of Indian oil companies a 10 per cent stake in an offshore oilfield here.

Modi, who arrived here from Jordan on the second leg of his three-nation tour, was received by Mohammed Bin Zayed and other members of the Royal family at the airport last evening. The two leaders hugged each other and exchanged pleasantries.

The Prime Minister thanked the Crown Prince for the special gesture of receiving him at the airport and said his visit will have a positive impact on India-UAE ties.

"We warmly welcome our state guest and valued friend, the Indian Prime Minister H.E.@narendramodi to the UAE. His visit reflects our longstanding historical ties and is testament to our friendly bilateral relationship," Mohammed Bin Zayed, also the Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, tweeted.

Prime Minister Modi, who is here on his second visit to the UAE, led the delegation-level talks with Mohammed Bin Zayed at the Royal Palace last evening. Modi had first visited the UAE as prime minister in August, 2015.

He is the first foreign leader to be invited to this palace by the Crown Prince, who appreciated the role played by Indian workers in the development of UAE as a modern nation.

"Delighted to meet my friend, HH Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. We had extensive deliberations on boosting India-UAE cooperation and how this can benefit our nations as well as the whole world," the Prime Minister tweeted.

Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said that Prime Minister Modi had a Tete-a-tete with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi before the delegation level talks.

"The two leaders discussed steps to upgrade the relationship," Kumar said.

After their talks, the two sides signed five agreements related to energy sector, railways, manpower and financial services.

An MOU between Indian Consortium (OVL, BPRL & IOCL) and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) was signed for the acquisition of a 10 per cent participating interest in the Abu Dhabi's offshore Lower Zakum Concession, a statement issued by the Indian embassy here said.

The concession will be for 40 years from 2018 to 2057. Sixty per cent of the participating interest will be retained by ADNOC and remaining 30 per cent will be awarded to other international oil companies, the statement said.

"This is the first Indian Investment in upstream oil sector of UAE, transforming the traditional buyer-seller relationship to a long-term investor relationship," it added.

To cooperate in the field of manpower, India and the UAE signed an MoU that aims to institutionalise the collaborative administration of contractual employment of Indian workers in the Gulf country.

Under the MoU, both the sides will work to integrate their labour related e-platforms for ending the existing malpractices, combat trafficking and organise collaborative programs for education and awareness of contractual workers.

An MoU for technical cooperation in railways was also signed between the two sides. The MoU aims at cooperation in infrastructure sector especially railways.

"The MoU will facilitate development of joint projects, knowledge sharing, joint research and technology transfer. The MoU envisages formation of a Joint Working Group for institutionalising the cooperation mechanism," the statement said.

To deepen bilateral cooperation in the field of finance, an MoU between Bombay Stock Exchange and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange was also signed. It aims at enhancing cooperation between both the countries in financial services industry.

The MoU would facilitate investment in financial markets by investors from both the countries.

An MoU between Government of Jammu and Kashmir and DP World was also signed to establish multi-modal logistics park and hub in Jammu comprising warehouses and specialised storage solutions.

Various buildings in Abu Dhabi were lit in the Indian tricolor as the city was decked up to welcome Prime Minister Modi, who also attended a state banquet hosted by the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince.

The Prime Minister today visited Wahat Al Karama, the UAE martyr's war memorial here, in Abu Dhabi and paid tributes to brave soldiers of UAE who made ultimate sacrifice.

Wahat Al Karama, which literally means 'the oasis of dignity', is a permanent tribute to UAE's soldiers and other Emiratis who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving the country.

From the UAE, Modi will travel to Oman.

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News Network
November 10,2024

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The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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News Network
November 12,2024

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The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement says its fighters have killed at least 20 Israeli soldiers in northern parts of the besieged Gaza Strip in just two days, in retaliation for the occupying regime’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

In a statement on Monday evening, Hamas said that fighters of its military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, “killed at least five occupation soldiers” in northern parts of the coastal territory earlier in the day.

It added that Hamas fighters also killed 15 Israeli soldiers in the war-ravaged region on Sunday.

The resistance movement’s “qualitative operation … confirms once again the failure of the criminal Zionist entity to suppress and eradicate the Palestinian resistance, which continues to direct qualitative strikes against its terrorist soldiers,” Hamas further said on its Telegram channel.

Palestinians have increased their resistance operations in the face of intensified Israeli aggression in northern Gaza that has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 over the past weeks.

“Our valiant resistance is waging a war of attrition with the criminal enemy, inflicting daily losses on its soldiers and vehicles, and all of [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s bets and dreams of achieving any of his goals are failing,” the Gaza-based resistance movement added.

Hamas also vowed that Israel’s ongoing crimes and aggression against Gaza would be met with increased resistance and painful strikes, which will continue until the aggression against Palestinians ends and the regime fully withdraws from the blockaded territory.

As the war in Gaza enters its 14th month, the Health Ministry reports that Israeli attacks have killed at least 43,603 Palestinians and wounded 102,929 others.

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News Network
November 4,2024

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Hundreds of Israeli settlers conducted a brutal attack in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The settlers set fire to numerous homes and vehicles of Palestinians and then moved to the main road connecting Ramallah to other cities, targeting Palestinian cars passing by.

They stormed the city of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, and burned Palestinian property and vehicles.

A woman sustained injuries after the settlers hurled stones at her vehicle, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank because of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 43,341 people, mostly women and children, since last year’s October.

The Monday settler attack came as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warned of Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank and drive Palestinians out.

“We warn of the grave danger posed by the plans led by the extremist occupation regime and illegal settler groups to displace the residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank,” Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said.

Israel's far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the full annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last week.

Smotrich asserted that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

He repeated his proposal of expanding Israeli settlements within the West Bank and other occupied territories.

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