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In a video message released in advance of the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, marked on Monday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the world loses 24 billion tons of fertile land every year, and that the degradation in land quality is responsible for a reduction in the national domestic product of up to eight per cent every year.
Photo: Safalta
Bangladesh and Uzbekistan have been exploring ways to deepen the bilateral relationship. In Dushanbe, to
Free media have directly contributed to the rapid development of a still growing civil society and have empowered such vulnerable groups as women, youth, and the poor—a clear majority in Afghanistan—to increasingly exercise their rights under the country’s progressive constitution.
Photo: Afghanistan Government Media and Information Centre
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is a mechanism for multilateral cooperation that plays an important role in maintaining regional peace and stability and in facilitating the prosperity and development of the Member States.
The SCO is a China-led eight-member economic and security bloc with India and Pakistan being admitted to the grouping in 2017.
It is in this backdrop that Modi’s visits to Maldives and Sri Lanka – his first official overseas destinations in his second term as Prime Minister – is expected to herald the second chapter for Modi’s Neighbourhood First policy. Its second edition is expected to mark a shift from India’s immediate to extended neighbourhood and from disputed land borders to maritime expanse making Modi an Indo-Pacific Prime Minister.
The MoU will be signed on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, later this week.
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Xi Jinping, along with other leaders of the group including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is in the Kyrgyz capital to attend the two-day Summit beginning Thursday.
Photo: Twitter
On a visit to Japan last month, U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed Abe’s help in dealing with Iran, highlighting what he called the “very good relationship” between Tokyo and Tehran. As a U.S. ally that also has good diplomatic relations with Iran, Japan could be in a unique position to mediate between the Islamic Republic and the United States.
Photo: Courtesy Japan Times
Even without SAARC, India and Pakistan will have to engage with each other within the very framework of the SCO. So why not that bilateral meeting between South Asia’s midnight’s children to start afresh.