World

Macron thanks Qatar for Afghan evacuations

French President Emmanuel Macron, on a visit to the Gulf, expressed appreciation to Qatar on Saturday for helping to organize the latest evacuation to France of more than 250 threatened Afghans.

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Qatar has played a significant role both in diplomacy and evacuations at the end of a 20-year war in Afghanistan by Western nations.

“I thank Qatar for the role it has played since the start of the crisis, and which permitted the organization of several evacuations,” said Macron, before heading to Saudi Arabia for the final leg of his two-day Gulf tour.

Macron met on Friday evening with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.

A flight chartered by Paris flew out the 258 Afghans who were “particularly threatened because of their activities, especially journalists, or because of their links to France, including former locally-recruited civilian personnel for our armies,” the French foreign ministry said on Friday.

The same flight carried 11 French nationals and about 60 from The Netherlands, along with dependents.

The ministry said that since September 10, 110 French nationals and their dependents as well as 396 Afghans have been evacuated on 10 flights organized by Qatar.

“We are going to continue,” Macron said.

Around half of the 124,000 Westerners and Western-allied Afghans flown out of Afghanistan in the waning days of the US-led military involvement in Afghanistan transited through Qatar.

Several European countries are considering opening a common site for diplomatic representation in the country’s capital, Kabul, after the departure of their ambassadors following the capital’s fall to the extremist Taliban in August, Macron said.

Qatar has long hosted a Taliban political office.

After his stay overnight Friday in Qatar, the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, Macron was heading to the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah on Saturday.

Macron will become one of the first Western leaders to meet the Kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman since 2018.

The United Arab Emirates signed a record 14-billion-euro ($15.8 billion) contract for 80 Rafale warplanes at the start of Macron’s visit.

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World

Dubai announces new timings for paid parking, metro, buses during Ramadan 2023

Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) announced new timings for paid parking zones and public transportation during Ramadan on Tuesday.
The revised timings for the Islamic holy month will go into effect from Thursday, officially the first day of Ramadan.

Paid Parking

The paid parking zones across the city will be split into two payable time slots. The first shift will start at 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., and the second paid shift will begin at 8:00 p.m. until midnight from Monday to Saturday.
The Tecom zone F was not included in the revision so paid parking is still enforced from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Parking in paid zones will remain free on Sundays and multi-story car parks are 24-hour paid parking zones.

Public Transportation

Metro
The Dubai metro will run from 5:00 a.m. to midnight, from Monday to Thursday and on Saturday.
On Friday, both the red and green lines will operate from 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. the following day.
On Sunday, both lines will run from 8:00 a.m. to midnight.
Tram
The Dubai tram will run from 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. the following day, from Monday to Saturday.
On Sunday, the light rail system will operate from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. the following day.
Bus
All current intercity bus routes operating from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Sharjah, Ajman, and Fujairah will run from 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. the following day.
The metro feeder bus service within Dubai will coincide with the first and last metro timing.
Vehicle testing centers, including Tasjeel and Shamil will be closed on Sundays during the holy month.
A detailed list of revised timings for other means of public transportation including the water bus, Abra, and Dubai Ferry, and other RTA services are available online.

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World

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet thwarts drone attack on Crimea’s Sevastopol

The Russian navy “repelled” a drone attack on the port of Sevastopol in Moscow-annexed Crimea early on Wednesday, the Kremlin-backed governor of the city said.
The peninsula, seized by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, is home to Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet and has been hit by a series of drone attacks since the Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine.
The attack came just four days after President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Sevastopol.
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“In total, three objects have been destroyed,” the Russian-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram.
He said military personnel had shot at the drones with “small arms” and that “air defense was also working.”
Razvozhayev added there were no casualties and claimed no ships had been damaged, but said that the explosions blew out windows in nearby buildings.
These included the Moscow House cultural center, a well-known building that is beyond the port.
But Razvozhayev downplayed the attack, saying the navy “confidently and calmly” repelled it. He urged calm saying the “situation was under control.”
In a later post, he dismissed reports that people were leaving Crimea, saying it was a “lie” spread by Kyiv.
“Information is spreading about evacuations from the peninsula by ferry crossings and other such nonsense,” he said.
A day earlier Kyiv said Russian missiles were destroyed in a blast in Crimea, but denied responsibility for the incident.
In October, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was hit by a major drone attack that the Kremlin blamed on Ukraine.
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World

Taliban acting finance minister becomes central bank governor

The Taliban administration’s former acting finance minister, Mullah Hidayatullah Badri, has been appointed as governor of Afghanistan’s central bank, a finance ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.

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Badri, who acted as the Taliban’s finance minister and oversaw budgets after they regained power in 2021, had already taken up his new role, finance ministry spokesman Ahmad Wali Haqmal told Reuters.

The reason for the appointment and who would replace Badri at the finance ministry were not immediately clear. His predecessor as central bank governor was Haji Mohammad Idris.

Badri was head of the economic commission of the Taliban government, as they conducted a 20-year insurgency against the former Western-backed government of Afghanistan, according to Taliban officials. In that time, he ran most of the Taliban’s fundraising, they say.

Afghanistan’s central bank appointments have been closely watched by Washington, which froze billions of the bank’s reserves held in the US and later transferred half of the money to a trust fund in Switzerland overseen by US, Swiss and Afghan trustees.

One of several proposed US conditions on considering letting the central bank access to the funds has been replacement of senior Taliban members at the institution with experienced professionals. The aim would be to build confidence in the central bank being insulated from political interference.

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