VIENNA, 02 January 2021, (TON): Members of the OPEC group of oil producers and their partners will meet via videoconference on Monday to decide on production levels for February, in a hope to avert the downward trajectory seen in 2020.

After their last summit, from November 30-December 3, the OPEC+ members agreed to increase production by half a million barrels per day in January.

The 13 members of the OPEC cartel, led by Saudi Arabia, and their six allies led by Russia, also agreed to meet at the beginning of each month to decide on any adjustments to production volumes for the following month.

Russia and Saudi Arabia are respectively the second and third-biggest oil producers in the world after the United States.

Before the pandemic, OPEC members were content with two summits a year at the organisation’s headquarters in Vienna.

“Finally, we saw a strong demonstration of OPEC+ will and capability to manage the market, laying the groundwork for Brent’s recovery to over $50 per barrel despite remaining demand uncertainty in the market,” JBC Energy analysts said in a statement.

The OPEC+ ministerial meeting comes after oil consumption tanked in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

KHARTOUM, 02 January 2021, (TON): Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok on Friday announced the formation of the National Mechanism for Protection of Civilians.

"The formation of the national mechanism for the protection of civilians has completed," said Hamdok in a speech to the Sudanese people on Friday, the 65th anniversary of Sudan's independence.

"The mechanism includes a joint force from the regular forces and the peace parties, which will achieve security and stability for our citizens," he noted.

Hamdok vowed to provide protection for all the civilians, saying that the establishment of the national mechanism tends to impose security in all parts of the country, stop the extrajudicial killing, and prevent impunity.

Meanwhile, the prime minister announced the Council of Ministers' ratification of the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

He said the ratified conventions are to be approved by the joint meeting of the Sovereign Council and the cabinet to become effective.

The announcement of the formation of the national mechanism for the protection of civilians came days after the end of the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) mandate in Sudan.

ADDIS ABABA, 02 January 2021, (TON): The African Union (AU) has urged all the countries of the continent to ensure economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic as the New Year begins.

"As we mark the end of the year 2020, we also mark the end of one of the most extraordinary and challenging years in living memory," AU Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat as saying in a statement on Friday.

Mahamat warned that "the challenging task of protecting our health and livelihoods, while ensuring recovery of our economies, still lies ahead as we begin a new year".

According to Mahamat, the AU's continental response initiative, as part of the 55-member pan-African bloc's aspiration in supporting member states with preparedness, response and recovery from public health emergencies, kicked in early and fast by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

The public health agency of the AU said that a total of 2,289,156 people infected with Covid-19 have recovered across the continent so far.

TEHRAN, 02 January 2021, (TON): Iran has informed the United Nations nuclear watchdog it intends to enrich uranium to up to 20 percent purity, a level it achieved before its 2015 deal with major powers at its Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant buried inside a mountain.

“Iran has informed the Agency that in order to comply with a legal act recently passed by the country’s parliament, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran intends to produce low-enriched uranium (LEU) up to 20 percent at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant,” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement on Friday.

“Iran’s letter to the Agency … did not say when this enrichment activity would take place,” says IAEA in a statement.

Fordow was built inside a mountain, apparently to protect it from aerial bombardment, and the 2015 deal does not allow enrichment there.

Iran has breached many of the deal’s core restrictions on its nuclear activities in response to Washington’s withdrawal from the 2015 agreement and his reimposition of crippling economic sanctions.

Earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on all participants of the Iran nuclear deal to work constructively to address their differences within the dispute resolution mechanism outlined in the deal.

However, While the US insists that international sanctions against Iran prior to the JCPOA have been reinstated, the majority of Security Council members and Iran have made their positions clear that the US was not in a position to initiate the snapback mechanism as provided for in Resolution 2231 since the US was no longer a participant of the deal by the time it was trying to do so in August 2020.

ISLAMABAD, 02 January 2021, (TON): The Pakistan Hindu community has protested against the killing of their 11 members in India, and stressed the UN Secretary-General to take notice of the Indian government’s insensitivity to inaction to investigate the case.

 The protest was arranged by All Hindu Panchayat Balmike Sabha Pakistan and was addressed by President Pundit Chana Lal, Secretary-General Oum Parkash Narain, District Rawalpindi President Dilip Kumar.

 Dozens of the Hindu community members while holding a protest demonstration before the Foreign Ministry and carried the placards, condemned the mysterious killing, and sought justice. They chanted slogans against Indian Premier Narendra Modi and demanded the Indian government to ensure a fair probe into the case.

 On August 9, 11 people including children from a single-family, who had migrated to India from Pakistan, were found dead in a field in the Jodhpur district. The protestors said the Indian government had not even handed over the bodies of the slain Hindus. They viewed that the Modi government had failed to address the issues confronting the minorities.

 The protestors said that considering the Indian government’s callous attitude, they were satisfied with their forefathers’ decision to reside in Pakistan and not to migrate to India. They said in the true spirit of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the minorities in Pakistan enjoyed due respect, constitutional rights religious freedom without any discrimination.

 The Hindu community resolved to continue protest until the victim families got justice and the Indian government mends its conduct.

ISLAMABAD, 02 January 2021, (TON): A senior foreign ministry official criticised the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for differently treating Pakistani and Indian applications for membership, while regretting that the multilateral export control regime is politicised.

A webinar hosted by Strategic Vision Institute (SVI), on “The politics of NSG: The current dimensions”, issued a media statement on Friday in which the director general of the foreign ministry’s Arms Control and Disarmament Division, Kamran Akhtar, said: “NSG very much epitomises the politics of non-proliferation at the global level.”

He accused the NSG of according “precedence to the interests of the nuclear supplier states”.

Pakistan is better qualified than India, even going by the formula proposed by Ambassador Rafael Grossi in 2016, as it does not have a mix of safeguarded and unsafeguarded facilities and has been more forthcoming in accepting legally binding commitments, said Mr Akhtar.

Speaking about India, he said: “If there was an argument that mainstreaming of India would benefit the non-proliferation regime, the Indian behaviour since joining Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) belies that argument.”

Mr Akhtar said there should not be two different standards for judging the membership applications from India and Pakistan. “Unfortunately, that’s what is happening now,” he lamented.

A former official of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Dr Tariq Rauf, identified major problems and deficiencies in the export control regimes. He said the regimes did not adapt to the changing international situations and there was a lack of universality and legitimacy in them, besides having inconsistent internal implementation.

A former permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament and the UN in Geneva, Ambassador Zamir Akram, also noted that the working of NSG was driven by geopolitics.

KABUL, 02 January 2021, (TON): Bismillah Adil Aimaq, a journalist and civil society activist in Ghor, was killed in an attack by unknown armed men in the city of Feroz Koh, the center of the province, local officials said, the fifth journalist to be killed in 2 months.

Ghor governor's spokesman Mohammad Aref Abir said that Adil was head of a local radio station, Radio Sada-e-Ghor, and was killed in an attack by unknown armed men in Dara-e-Taimoor village on the outskirts of Feroz Koh.

The Afghan Journalists Safety Committee, a group working for the security of journalists in the violence-wracked country, confirmed the incident.

This comes a week after a journalist in Ghazni, Rahmatullah Nikzad, who was head of the journalists' union in the province, was killed in an attack by armed men outside his home in Ghazni city.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for Aimaq’s murder.

WASHINGTON, 01 January 2021, (TON): US President Donald Trump has extended the visa sanctions on countries refusing to repatriate their citizens who violated laws in the United States.

Previously, set to expire on December 31, Trump issued a memorandum on April 10 which empowered the Secretary of State and the homeland security secretary to deny visas to countries refusing to accept their citizens who violated American laws.

“In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the continuing public health risk it poses to Americans,” Trump said in a memorandum issued on Wednesday that his April 10 “memorandum shall continue in force until terminated by the president”.

According to the April 10 memorandum, the secretary of state is authorised to “initiate a plan to impose the visa sanctions” if the Homeland Security Department determines a country not accepting returnees is delaying or impeding operations “necessary to respond to the ongoing pandemic”.

The April 10 memorandum noted that countries “denying or unreasonably delaying” the repatriation of their citizens would be deemed to be causing “unacceptable public health risks for Americans”.    

CAIRO, 01 January 2021, (TON): Egypt’s foreign ministry has said it has summoned Ethiopia’s top diplomat in Cairo over comments by an Addis Ababa official regarding a controversial dam on the Nile.

The Egyptian ministry “summoned the Ethiopian Charge d’Affaires in Cairo to explain comments by the spokesperson for the Ethiopian Ministry for Foreign Affairs regarding domestic Egyptian affairs,” it said late on Wednesday.

“They know the GERD won’t harm them, it’s a diversion from internal problems,” Dina Mufti, the Ethiopian ministry’s spokesman and a former ambassador to Egypt, said on Tuesday.

Mufti contended that without this “distraction”, Egypt and Sudan would “have to deal with many local issues waiting to explode, especially up there [in Egypt]”.

In a new statement on Thursday, the Egyptian ministry condemned what it called an “attack on the Egyptian state” and accused Addis Ababa of using an “aggressive tone … to hide Ethiopia’s multiple failures at home and abroad”.

“It would have been better for the spokesman to pay attention to the deteriorating situation in his country, which is witnessing multiple conflicts and humanitarian crises that have killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands of innocent civilians,” it said.

Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have been in talks since 2011 but have failed to reach a deal on filling the dam. The negotiations have been stalled since August.

Ethiopia views the dam as essential for its growing power needs and insists that the flow of water downstream will not be affected. Egypt opposes unilateral moves by Ethiopia and along with Sudan, it has called for a legally binding political solution to the dispute.

NEW YORK, 1 January, 2021, (TON): The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday approved 3.231 billion U.S. dollars to fund the world body's regular budget for 2021.

The UNGA's body dealing with UN administrative and budgetary matters, the Fifth Committee, discussed and approved the budget Thursday afternoon before the plenary voted in favor of the financial plan.

Back in October, the UN chief had proposed a programme budget of $2.99 billion – a net reduction of 2.8 per cent over 2020.

Secretary-General António Guterres had told the Fifth Committee that despite the pandemic and liquidity crunch, “our new processes and structures have proven instrumental in enabling us to remain open and function effectively…we are running this Organization from thousands of dining tables and home offices”.

"We worked together to build consensus, exercise prudence and flexibility, at a critical time in history," UNGA President Volkan Bozkir told the final plenary of the year.

Bozkir said that the Assembly's performance throughout this difficult year was a testament to the high caliber of diplomacy practiced in the Assembly Hall, which also encompassed efforts to ensure a more gender-inclusive chamber.

"In 2020, the General Assembly continued to lead on the world stage and fully function, in order to implement its mandates ... to meet the needs of the people we serve," said this senior diplomat from Turkey.

Bozkir on Tuesday expressed his disappointment at the world body's failure to adopt the budget and plan for 2021.

He said that if member states failed to reach an agreement, the consequences on the work of the United Nations would be "dire."

At the last 2020 plenary, the UNGA president urged the member states to harness multilateralism to end the COVID-19 pandemic and "address the needs of those furthest behind first."

He pushed for actions toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, while "greening the blue" and noted that despite the pandemic, "climate change continues to destabilize the world."

Bozkir encouraged the ambassadors of the member states to create a better future by joining him in re-committing to the UN Charter and strengthening multilateralism.

"Our work here in the General Assembly requires us to recognize the great responsibility placed upon us by the people we serve," he said, calling it "our solemn duty" to engage in constructive dialogue to pursue the UN's noble goals of universal peace, human rights and sustainable development.

The UNGA on December 27, 2019 adopted a regular budget of 3.07 billion dollars for the world body to cover the year 2020.