05/02/2025

WEDNESDAY | FEB 5, 2025

9 Putin revives ‘Intervision’ music contest MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a decree on holding an international music contest called “Intervision” in Russia this year, after the country was banned from the Eurovision Song Contest. A contest of this name was held among countries allied with the USSR in the Soviet era. Russia has since made several attempts to revive the format. The European Broadcasting Union, the organiser of Eurovision, banned Russia after its February 2022 offensive in Ukraine, meaning it cannot enter or broadcast the contest. The Kremlin decree sets out a plan to hold the alternative contest, called Intervideniye in Russian, or Intervision, in Moscow and the surrounding region, with the aim of “developing international cultural and humanitarian cooperation”. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko was named as the head of the organising committee, Presidential envoy Mikhail Shvydkoi said the contest would be held in September, adding that “almost 20 countries” were ready to take part, including all the members of the BRICS and CIS blocs. BRICS members include Brazil, India and China, while the CIS is made up of the ex-Soviet countries still allied with Russia. The Intervision song contest was held in the 1960s and 1970s, principally involving countries from the eastern bloc, including Poland and Czechoslovakia. – AFP MOSCOW: A senior diplomat urged a top Hamas official on Monday to keep to its commitment to release a Russian hostage. Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov raised the issue in talks with Musa Abu Marzuk, a member of Hamas’ Politburo, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “It was again stressed from the Russian side that it was vital to fulfil the promise expressed by the Hamas leadership concerning the release of Russian citizen A. Trufanov and others being held hostage in the Gaza Strip,” it said. – Reuters OIL TANKER CROSSES RED SEA SAFELY CAIRO: Liberian-flagged crude oil tanker Chrysalis , which was attacked by Yemen’s Houthis last year, sailed through the Red Sea this week, the Suez Canal Auhority said on Monday, in one of the first voyages since the militia announced a halt in attacks on ships not linked to Israel. Shipping companies, many of which have suspended Red Sea voyages and rerouted vessels around southern Africa to avoid potential Houthi attacks, have been anxiously waiting for confirmation of safe voyages through the Red Sea since the Gaza ceasefire. – Reuters FREE RUSSIAN HOSTAGE: ENVOY

Palestinians waiting to buy bread in Gaza City on Monday. – REUTERSPIC

Arab nations oppose relocating Palestinians

WASHINGTON: Five Arab foreign ministers and a senior Palestinian official sent a joint letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio opposing plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza, as suggested by President Donald Trump in late January. The letter was sent on Monday and signed by the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, as well as Palestinian presidential adviser Hussein al-Sheikh. It was reported first by Axios, which said the top diplomats met in Cairo over the weekend. Trump first floated the suggestion of Jordan and Egypt taking in Palestinians from Gaza on Jan 25. When asked if he was suggesting that as a long-term or short-term solution, the president said: “Could be either.” Trump’s comments echoed long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes and were labelled as a proposal of ethnic cleansing by critics. Jordan, Egypt and other Arab nations opposed the proposal. “Reconstruction in Gaza should be through direct engagement with and participation of the people of Gaza. Palestinians will live in their land and help rebuild it. TOKYO: The Japanese government is considering offering medical care in the world’s fourth-largest economy for sick and wounded residents of Gaza, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said. Ishiba told a parliament session on Monday that his administration is working on a policy to provide support in Japan for “those who are ill or injured in Gaza”. He said that educational opportunities could also be offered to people from Gaza, which is under

educating future leaders of Syria as part of Japan’s long-term foreign aid policy, the official said. The Health Ministry in Gaza said 50 Palestinian patients, including 30 children with cancer, and their companions went through the reopened Rafah crossing to Egypt on Saturday as part of the ceasefire deal, which came into effect on Jan 19. The director of Gaza hospitals said 6,000 patients were ready to be transferred from the Palestinian territory. – AFP closely with Trump we can redraw it even further, and for the better,” he said. Witkoff, who met Netanyahu on Monday over terms for the second phase of the truce, said he was “certainly hopeful” the truce would stick. Under the Gaza ceasefire’s 42-day first phase, Hamas is to free 33 hostages in staggered releases in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Four hostage-prisoner exchanges have already taken place, and Hamas has freed 18 hostages so far in exchange of some 600 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. The truce has also led to a surge of food, fuel, medical and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, as well as allowing displaced Gazans to return to the territory’s north. – Reuters/AFP

o Israel, Hamas set for next phase of ceasefire

“And they should not be stripped of their agency during reconstruction as they must take ownership of the process with the support of the international community,” the letter said Israel and Hamas said they are ready for negotiations on a new phase in their fragile Gaza ceasefire. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel would send a delegation to the Qatari capital Doha later this week for negotiations. “Israel is preparing for the working-level delegation to leave for Doha at the end of this week to discuss technical details related to the continued implementation of the agreement,” the office said in a a fragile ceasefire with Israel. Ishiba was responding to a lawmaker who had asked whether a 2017 scheme to accept Syrian refugees as students could be used as a reference point to help Gaza residents. “We are thinking about launching a similar programme for Gaza, and the government will make efforts towards the realisation of this plan,” Ishiba said. The measures discussed in parliament are different to Japan’s

statement following meetings in Washington between Netanyahu and Trump’s advisers, including Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Hamas has said it is ready to negotiate the second stage of the ceasefire, mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States. The next phase aims to secure the release of remaining hostages and lay out steps towards ending the war, which has devastated the Palestinian territory of 2.4 million people. Before leaving for Washington, Netanyahu said Israel’s wars with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and its confrontations with Iran had “redrawn the map” in the Middle East. “But I believe that working main asylum policy, which has long been criticised for the low number of claims granted by the nation. In 2023, Japan accepted 1,310 people seeking asylum – less than 10% of the 13,823 applicants. Under a different framework, as of the end of last year, Japan had accepted 82 people as students from Syria who were recognised as refugees by the UN refugee agency, a Foreign Ministry official in charge of aid programmes said. That scheme was aimed at

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Japan mulls taking in sick and wounded Gaza residents