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ABU DHABI: In one of the fastest growing economies in the region, what is more important than talent?
The third edition of Les Entretiens d’Abu Dhabi “UAE: Toward an International Hub of Talents” addressed this question at the Sorbonne University in the capital, with participants asserting that skills development was a key element for sustainable economic growth.
The event on Nov. 14 saw participants focusing on growing the partnerships between France and the UAE, and the importance of attracting and developing talented people for future industries.
Jean-Baptiste Chauvel, regional economic counsellor for the embassy of France in the Arabian Peninsula, said that strengthening relations was vital for “sustainable … and long-term growth.”
Opening the event, Martin Tronquit, vice treasurer at CCI France UAE, said that the gathering was an opportunity to identify synergies between the two nations in terms of scientific developments, and attracting talented people. “In France, we don’t have oil, but we have ideas … In the UAE we have both,” said Tronquit.
The UAE is home to more than 600 French companies. It also has the largest French community in the Middle East, totaling 30,000 people.
The Emirates ranks fourth in the world in terms of attracting talent, said Geoffroy Bunetel, president of CCI France UAE, referring to an INSEAD report.
The event was held under the patronage of Minister of State for Foreign Trade Dr. Thani Al-Zeyoudi, who said the UAE continued to diversify its economy and grow the technology and financial services sectors. “France remains an important partner, namely, the country’s third-largest trading partner.”
Al-Zeyoudi said the Emirates was planning for the next 50 years and expects to have a “thousand digital companies in the next five years, in robotics, artificial intelligence and agritech.”
The two nations have been strengthening economic ties, with President of the UAE Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed visiting France in July 2022 to focus on joint investments in key industries, including the small and medium enterprises sector.
Jean Yves LeDrian, France’s former minister for Europe and foreign affairs, spoke of the progress made over the past 10 years. “First, it is a relationship built on security (of the Gulf), as initiated by former President (Nicolas) Sarkozy, engaging France vis-a-vis the Emirates and the establishment of French enterprises,” said LeDrian.
LeDrian highlighted the importance of the commercial and cultural relations between the two countries, as marked by the fifth anniversary of the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
Zaki Nusseibeh, cultural adviser to the president of the UAE, highlighted the developments taking place in the country, including women taking up two-thirds of government positions. There were also significant investments being made in healthcare and education to ensure a socially cohesive society.
Another major topic tackled was higher education and the digitalization of learning. Prof. Silvia Serrano, vice chancellor of Sorbonne University, said online classes may be an alternative in specific situations, but the lesson derived from the COVID-19 pandemic was that it could not replace on-site education.
Serrano said education institutions must incorporate technological change, but their role in an increasingly digitalized world is to “teach what the machine will never be able to teach (ethics, privacy, regulation of new technologies).”
Elias Kassis from TotalEnergies and Ismail Abdulla of Strata manufacturing shared their insights on how to transition to a knowledge economy with dedicated, long-term training programs.
Mona AlHashmi, who focuses on social entrepreneurship at Ma’an Abu Dhabi, said that in addition to funding needed for businesses, it was important to upskill citizens through education.
The participants also discussed the UAE’s transformation into a post-oil, human capital-based economy that necessitates looking at how corporates hire and promote talent.
The Chalhoub Group, for instance, has launched a youth-oriented program in France and signed an agreement with Dar Al-Hekma in Saudi Arabia.
“Driving people’s growth and a focus on youth empowerment in line with the UAE vision and KSA Vision 2030 is instrumental when looking for talent,” said Florence Bulte, CSO at Chalhoub Group.
Les Entretiens d’Abu Dhabi was held in partnership with the French ambassy in the UAE, Sorbonne University and Les Entretiens Royaumont.
Originally published in Arab News France
GAZA CITY: Investigators said on Sunday that last week’s massive apartment fire in the Gaza Strip was ignited accidentally by a man using gasoline in a party trick, but did not explain how they reached that conclusion.
The blaze killed 22 members of the same family and there were no survivors who could have described the events.
The fire had erupted on Thursday in the third-floor apartment of the Abu Raya family home in the crowded Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Officials initially said 21 people were killed.
Gaza Attorney-General Mohammed Al-Nahal said on Sunday the death toll reached 22.
He said that Nader Abu Raya invited his parents, siblings and their children to celebrate the return of his older brother from a trip abroad.
With all the guests together at the family home, Nader began preparing in the living room what was suggested to be a party trick involving gasoline, Al-Nahal said.
“The cause of the blaze was Nader using gasoline in a celebratory show with fire during the party,” the Hamas-appointed attorney general said in a statement.
“He lost control and the flame reached the gasoline container nearby and the fire erupted.”
The resulting blaze was the deadliest incident in recent years outside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Those killed were from three generations — a couple, their five sons and one daughter, two daughters-in-law and at least 11 grandchildren.
Neighbors tried to get to the burning floor but were delayed by the outside door of the three-story building which was locked.
Investigators talked to a relative of Nader Abu Raya who does not live in the building.
The woman said that he liked to perform party stunts with fire.
The prosecutor presented previously recorded videos from Nader’s mobile phone.
He said the videos showed a home packed with potentially flammable objects, including painted car tires hanging from the ceiling.
Initially, Hamas said the fire broke out due to the storage of gasoline, which is not uncommon given the severe energy crisis engulfing Gaza since the Hamas group took over control in 2007.
Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on the territory at the time to isolate Hamas.
The fire further exposed Gaza’s poor infrastructure.
Witnesses said a lone fire truck arrived at the scene, but it was not equipped with a ladder to get firefighters to the third floor.
Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from stockpiling weapons.
Critics view it as a form of collective punishment against Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.
PARIS: Activists have expressed alarm that Iran was implementing a major crackdown in a Kurdish-populated town that has seen intense anti-regime protests in the last few days.
Reinforcements of the security forces were sent to the city of Mahabad in western Iran, rights groups said, while images and audio files of heavy gunfire and screams were posted overnight.
Iran’s clerical leadership has been shaken by more than two months of protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman of Kurdish origin who had been arrested by the Tehran morality police.
The very first protests took place in Kurdish-populated areas of Iran including at Amini’s funeral in her home town of Saqez, before spreading nationwide.
Rights groups had earlier posted footage of defiant protests in Mahabad, including after the funerals of victims of the state’s crackdown on the protests, with people staging sit-ins in the streets and setting up barricades.
The Norway-based Hengaw rights group said “armed troops” had been despatched to Mahabad from Urmia, the main city of West Azerbaijan province.
“In Mahabad’s residential areas, there is a lot of gunfire,” it wrote on Twitter.
The group posted footage of helicopters flying over Mahabad which it said carried members of the Revolutionary Guards sent to quell the protests.
Business owners throughout the area were going to observe a strike on Sunday to protest against the violence by the security forces, it said.
The Iran Human Rights group, also Norway based, posted footage Saturday-Sunday that it said showed gunfire echoing around the city.
Its director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam wrote that authorities “cut electricity and machine gun shooting is heard … Unconfirmed reports of protesters being killed or wounded.”
He posted an audio file in which screams are clearly heard amid continuous gunfire.
Kurds make up one of Iran’s most important non-Persian ethnic minority groups and generally adhere to Sunni Islam rather than the Shiism dominant in the country.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency accused “rioters” of “spreading terror” in the town by setting fire to houses belonging to security and military personnel and blocking streets.
It claimed most of the the perpetrators had been arrested, with nobody killed, saying security had returned and denying the reports of a general strike.
Mahabad has particular resonance for Kurds as the main town of the short-lived Republic of Mahabad, an unrecognised Kurdish statelet which sprung up with Soviet support in 1946 in the aftermath of World War II but existed for less than a year before Iran reasserted control.
Hengaw had on Saturday warned the situation was “critical” in the town of Divandarreh in the western province of Kurdistan, where government forces had shot dead at least three civilians.
It also expressed concern about the situation in other Kurdish-populated towns with explosions heard in Bukan and Saqez, as well as gunfire in Bukan.
Hengaw also posted footage it said was from the town of Sanandaj, also in the region, which it said showed a woman being fired upon in a river bed by security forces as she tried to escape.
With the protests cutting across social classes and ethnicities in Iran, the movement represents the biggest challenge to the country’s leadership under Ali Khamenei since the revolution of 1979.
The state has responded with a crackdown that IHR said in an updated toll on Saturday had left at least 378 people dead, among them 47 children.
Protesters have been killed in 25 of Iran’s 31 provinces, including 123 in eastern Sistan-Baluchistan where the protests had a distinct origin but have fed into the nationwide anger, it said.
Authorities have also issued death sentences to five unnamed people over the protests, with Amnesty International saying at least 21 people so far have been charged with crimes over the demonstrations that could see them sentenced to death.
Khamenei on Saturday vowed “punishment” for “murders” and vandalism during the protests across the country.
He was quoted by state television as saying foreign powers “were trying to get people out on the streets” and “exhaust the authorities,” but said they had failed.
CAIRO: Customs at Cairo International Airport have thwarted an attempt to smuggle three ivory statues that are prohibited from being exported or traded.
The statues were seized, preventing their export in a shipment of personal belongings to Lebanon.
Legal measures are underway in accordance with Presidential Decree No. 102 of 1983 to implement Egypt’s accession to the CITES convention and Egyptian Environmental Law No. 4 of 1994, and its amendments.
Ahmed Abdel Mohsen El-Shahawi, director general of Air Export Customs, executed the legal measures and issued a seizure report, implementing instructions from the head of the Customs Authority.
Customs officers led by El-Shahawi were able to intercept the smuggling attempt.
The seizure came as customs officer Ramadan Abu Raya became suspicious of 31 parcels of baggage listed in export documents as personal belongings.
When the parcels were inspected by a committee led by Mohamed Kamal — director of an investigation unit — it was found that there were two elephant statues as well as a gazelle statue.
When presented to the Wildlife Department, officials were informed that the statues and bases were ivory.
Separately, customs officers in the First Administration of Terminal 1 at the airport foiled three attempts to smuggle a quantity of medical supplies for orthopedics, in violation of Quarantine Law No. 44 of 1955 and its amendments.
Last week, customs officers at the Second Department of Passenger Building No. 2 at the airport thwarted an attempt to smuggle a quantity of diamonds, silverware and precious stones.
The smugglers were in violation of the provisions of Law No. 68 of 1976 regarding the control of precious metals and valuable stones, and its amendments.
The seizure came during inspection procedures for passengers arriving from Amman on a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight.
CAIRO: Eleven people were killed and 27 injured on Sunday when a bus collided with a heavy-duty truck on the Zafarana-Ras Ghareb Road, 40 kilometers north of Ras Ghareb city in the Red Sea Governorate, southeast of Egypt.
The deceased and injured were taken to Ras Gharib Central Hospital. Legal action is being initiated by the families of the victims.
Fifteen ambulances were dispatched to the scene of the accident when the governorate’s operations room received notification of the collision.
A security source said the dead and injured were all Egyptians.
The bus had been traveling from Cairo to Hurghada.
Last Tuesday, 14 people were killed in a collision between a truck and a minibus in the New Valley Governorate, southwest of Cairo.
And on Saturday, 20 people were killed after the minibus they were traveling in flipped over and landed in a canal in the Nile Delta region of northern Egypt, according to prosecutors.
The driver, who was one of eight people hurt in the accident in Dakahlia Governorate, had tested positive for drugs, according to prosecutors.
Traffic accidents are a regular occurrence in Egypt where roads are neglected and laws frequently broken. In addition, many vehicles are not roadworthy.
Egypt is facing a rise in road accident victims. According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, 7,000 people were killed in accidents last year.
At the end 2020, over 57,000 people had been injured in traffic accidents.
NEW YORK CITY: Granting Palestine full state membership status at the UN would be a “practical” step that could preserve the two-state solution and help reinvigorate the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, according to Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN.
Mansour initiated consultations this year with members of the UN Security Council to push for a resolution to elevate Palestine from its current status as an observer state at the global organization and recognize it as a full member.
In an exclusive interview with Arab News at the UN headquarters in New York, Mansour, whose official title is Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, said his initiative is anchored in Palestine’s “natural and legal right to become a full member in (the) UN system.”
The quest for statehood is all the more urgent, he said, amid Israeli attempts to unilaterally undermine the prospect of a reasonable solution that can deliver an independent Palestinian state, by “creating not only a one-state reality (but) an apartheid reality.”
Mansour said he has already gained enough support from members of the Security Council — including votes from Ireland, Albania and Norway — to secure its recommendation that Palestine be granted full state membership in the General Assembly.
Paulina Kubiak Greer, a spokesperson for the president of the General Assembly, told Arab News: “Article 4 of the UN Charter states that membership is a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. The General Assembly cannot decide on membership without the recommendation from the Security Council.”
Although granting full state membership status to Palestine would be consistent with the current US administration’s pursuit of “practical measures” to achieve a two-state solution, Mansour said Washington “is not enthusiastic about the idea.”
He said: “I told Linda (Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN), in more than one meeting, that if you do not like our idea, put on the table your alternative — a practical idea to shield and protect the two-state solution. But if you tell me you don’t like my idea, and you are not proposing an alternative solution, that is unacceptable.”
Mansour believes the reticence in Washington relates to its preference for a “negotiated two-state solution,” an avenue Mansour said the Palestinians continue to support.
Palestinians “have no objection to negotiating with anyone, including the Israeli side — (provided the talks are conducted) on the basis of international law and the global consensus, including the Arab Peace Initiative — if the Israeli side is willing to do so.”
The Arab Peace Initiative is a Saudi-initiated proposal for an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict that was initially endorsed by the Arab League in 2002. It includes the offer of normalization of relations between Arab states and Israel in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories, a “just settlement” of the Palestinian refugee issue, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Mansour thanked Arab countries for remaining united in support of Palestine at the UN and never failing to vote in its favor. In particular, he highlighted the role played by Saudi Arabia.
“Saudi Arabia has a very, very important and powerful position,” he said. “We are grateful for the fact that Saudis do not deviate from supporting the rights of the Palestinian people. And they don’t deviate from honoring and respecting the Arab Peace Initiative, which they launched 20 years ago at the Arab summit in Beirut.
“We are also grateful for Saudi when they very clearly and courageously, at the Jeddah summit, in the presence of President Joe Biden, said that the Palestine question is a central question for Arab countries and that the Arab Peace Initiative is still honored and respected.
“These things to us constitute the essence of the Arab position (and) we expect from them no less than that.”
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, has lately stepped up the push for full state membership status at the UN. Since the summer he has raised the matter with French President Emmanuel Macron and King Abdullah II of Jordan, and with Biden during the US president’s visit to Bethlehem in July.
“The key to peace and security in our region begins with recognizing the state of Palestine,” Abbas told Biden at the time.
The Palestinian National Authority first applied for full membership status of the UN in 2011. It argued that the organization in 1947 adopted Resolution 181, which partitioned Palestinian land into two states, an act that effectively served as “the birth certificate for Israel.” It said the UN now has a “moral and historic duty” to salvage the chances for peace by issuing a similar birth certificate for Palestine.
The matter was referred to the Committee on the Admission of New Members for consideration but opposition at the time from the administration of US President Barack Obama prevented the committee from issuing a unanimous recommendation to the Security Council.
In 2012, a majority in the General Assembly voted to elevate the status of Palestine from a mere “entity” to that of an observer state, the same status granted to the Vatican; 138 countries voted in favor, nine against and 41 abstained.
The vote was largely symbolic, as observer states cannot vote on General Assembly resolutions, but it nevertheless led to the Palestinians joining more than 100 international treaties and conventions as a state party.
These have allowed Palestinians, Mansour said, “to be part of humanity,” taking their place in the world and sharing in its concerns.
US authorities have sought to convince the Palestinians not to go through with their efforts to gain full membership of the UN, repeating their same arguments that it would merely circumvent proper peace negotiations with Israel.
“The US has been clear about our opposition to the Palestinian bid for full membership at the UN,” a US official told Arab News. “There are no shortcuts to Palestinian statehood outside direct negotiations between the parties.
“The US is focused on trying to bring the Palestinians and Israelis closer together in pursuit of this goal of two states, for two peoples, living side by side in peace and security. The US remains committed to a two-state solution. As President Biden said, alongside President Abbas in July, ‘The Palestinian people deserve a state of their own that’s independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous.’
“The only realistic path to a comprehensive and lasting peace that ends this conflict permanently is through direct negotiations between the parties. As we have seen, those conditions are not yet present for direct negotiations. That said, US efforts are aimed at setting such conditions.”
It is a familiar argument that has been applied by the US on previous occasions when the UN adopted measures seen as advancing Palestinian representation on the world stage. Washington described the 2012 resolution granting Palestine observer status as “unfortunate and counterproductive” and a “grand pronouncement that would soon fade.”
In the same vein, Washington also opposed a 2015 decision to allow Palestinians to fly their flag at the UN headquarters in New York. And when Palestine was admitted to UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in 2011, the US Congress cut all US funding for the agency. Former President Donald Trump went so far as to withdraw the US entirely from UNESCO in 2019, accusing it of anti-Israel bias.
Although a Democrat-controlled Congress recently authorized a US return to UNESCO, it was on the condition that Palestine is not granted membership of other UN bodies. US lawmakers have even enacted legislation prohibiting funding for any UN agency that admits Palestine as a member.
“That offensive reaction means that even the small steps that Palestinians are creating with this initiative, this momentum … I don’t want to say they are afraid of our initiative but they take it seriously,” said Mansour.
After experiencing years of alienation during the Trump administration, Mansour expressed gratitude to the Biden White House for reinstating humanitarian funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and taking “practical steps” toward achieving peace.
But he lamented what he described as Biden’s reluctance to deal with the political dimensions of the issue, given that a number of promises, such as the reopening of the US consulate in East Jerusalem and the Palestinian Liberation Organization office in Washington, remain unfulfilled.
“While we appreciate the economic and humanitarian help, (we) need a political process to move (toward) the end of this occupation and actualize the global consensus over the two-state solution,” said Mansour.
“With regard to that issue, we don’t see progress and they keep telling us to wait. We’ve been waiting since the Nakba, almost 75 years. Waiting since the occupation of 1967, which is almost 55 years. How much longer do you want us to keep waiting?
“If (the Americans) did not have the veto power to stop us, then we would have been a member state a long time ago.”
UAE, France hold dialogue on entrepreneurship and talent – Arab News
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