Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was heckled as he gave a speech at the opening of a five-day conference on racism yesterday, with delegates streaming out of the auditorium as he spoke.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the conference earlier saying he was “profoundly disappointed” at boycotts by some Western countries, while all forms of racism persist.
Ban also released a statement condemning those who might deny or minimize the Holocaust as the conference began in Geneva.
PHOTO: AP
“We dream of moving in a new direction yet too many of us cling to the past,” the UN chief said.
“We speak of finding a new unity as times demand. Yet we remain weak and divided and stuck in old ways,” he said, adding that he was “profoundly disappointed” about mutual recriminations and absent countries.
“Some nations who by rights should be helping us to forge a path to a better future are not here. Outside these halls, interest groups of many political and ideological stripes shout against one another in acrimony,” he said.
“They too should be with us here,” Ban said. “I deeply regret that some have chosen to stand aside. I hope they will not do so for long.”
Poland yesterday joined the US, Israel, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and New Zealand in boycotting the UN meeting over fears that it would degenerate into a forum for anti-Semitic views.
Ahmadinejad has on previous occasions called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and described the Holocaust as a “myth.”
A UN spokeswoman said Ban “condemns Holocaust denial and those who minimize the importance of the Holocaust.”
Ban pointed out that in 2007, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution saying that “ignoring the historical fact of those terrible events increases the risk they will be repeated,” to mark the beginning of Holocaust Remembrance Day.
He later met Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the conference, which is to review progress in combating racism since a gathering in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.
Ban also told the meeting that the Holocaust was also a reminder that racism may be institutionalized.
“Alternately it may express itself less formally as the hatred of a particular people or class — as anti-Semitism, for example, or the newer Islamophobia,” he said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
RSS