Arindam Bagchi, the present Additional Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs and a 1995 batch Indian Foreign Services (IFS) Officer, has been appointed as the next Ambassador/Permanent Representative of India to the UN and other International Organisations in Geneva.
A 16-member delegation of Indian opposition leaders, including parliamentarians and politicians, met the Palestinian Ambassador Adnan Abu Alhaija on 16 October. The delegation expressed solidarity with the Palestinians and stressed the international community’s need to step up efforts to resolve the Israel-Hamas war peacefully. The grouping strongly condemned the “indiscriminate bombing of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel” and called for “urgent and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid” to the people of Gaza. Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, CPI general secretary D. Raja, and CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, among others, were a part of the delegation.
On Monday night, two Swedish nationals were killed, and another was injured after an attack in central Brussels. A man claiming to be an Islamic State member claimed responsibility for the attack in a video posted online. Some witnesses reportedly noticed the shooter shouting “Allahu Akbar” before he fired the shots.
Defence Minister Bill Blair criticised the interception of a Canadian military plane over international seas by Chinese fighter planes on Monday as unacceptable and “dangerous and reckless.” Blair commented after Global News reported that a Chinese jet had come within five metres (16 feet) of a Canadian surveillance plane engaged in a UN mission to implement sanctions against North Korea. Blair stated that while the Chinese Air Force regularly interacts with planes on UN missions, the incident on Monday put the Canadian aircraft in serious jeopardy.
The EU declared on Monday that it would launch a humanitarian air bridge operation that would include “several flights” to Egypt to transport supplies to humanitarian organisations on the ground in Gaza. In a statement, the EU said, “The first two flights will take place this week, carrying humanitarian cargo from UNICEF including shelter items, medicines and hygiene kits.”
North Korea’s nuclear programme is a self-defensive initiative designed to deter a nuclear war in the face of the US’ pursuit of “nuclear supremacy,” its state media said on Tuesday. The report also cited Kim Kwang Myong, a researcher at the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for Disarmament and Peace, accusing the US of inciting regional tensions with its own nuclear programme and creating strategic instability, thus destroying world peace.
Russia has joined China in restricting seafood imports from Japan after the latter began releasing treated radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean in August, Russia’s agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said on Monday. This is despite Tokyo insisting multiple times that the release is perfectly safe.