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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell yesterday offered an explicit endorsement of interest rate cuts, saying further cooling in the job market would be unwelcome and expressing confidence that inflation was within reach of the US central bank’s 2% target.“The upside risks to inflation have diminished. And the downside risks to employment have increased,” Powell said in a highly anticipated speech to the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “The time has come for policy to adjust. The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.” Referencing the two goals that the Fed is tasked by Congress to achieve, Powell said his “confidence has grown that inflation is on a sustainable path back to 2%,” after rising to about 7% during the Covid-19 pandemic, while unemployment is increasing.While Powell said the jump of nearly a percentage point in the unemployment rate over the past year was due largely to rising labour supply and slowed hiring, not increased layoffs, he also was emphatic that the Fed wanted to prevent any further erosion — his prior talk of labour market “pain” as necessary to control inflation now a thing of the past. The current unemployment rate of 4.3% is roughly at the level Fed officials feel is consistent with stable inflation over the longer run.“We do not seek or welcome further cooling in labour market conditions,” Powell said. “We will do everything we can to support a strong labour market as we make further progress towards price stability. With an appropriate dialling back of policy restraint, there is good reason to think that the economy will get back to 2% inflation while maintaining a strong labour market.” Traders continued to bet on a quarter-percentage-point rate cut at the Fed’s September 17-18 meeting, but after Powell’s remarks priced in about a one-in-three chance of a bigger half-percentage-point cut, up from a little more than a one-in-four probability earlier.“Powell was clear about the first rate cut, but not so much about the next ones, so I don’t think he’ll be exploding out of the blocks with a 50-basis-point cut,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research. “I think slow and steady is how the Fed wants to pace this early part of the easing.” Markets are betting the rate cuts will be ongoing, with futures pricing in a Fed policy rate in the 3.00-3.25% range by the end of 2025, down from the current 5.25-5.50% range.Powell’s comments are as close as he is likely to come to declaring victory over the outbreak of inflation that rattled the economy at the start of the pandemic. The fast rise in prices led the Fed to increase its benchmark policy rate from the near-zero level to the current range, which is the highest in a quarter of a century.It has been held there for more than a year even as the economy defied frequent predictions of recession, inflation fell, and economic growth continued — the makings of a textbook “soft landing,” with the endgame of rate cuts now set to begin.“While the task is not complete, we have made a good deal of progress” toward restoring price stability, Powell said. The Fed defines price stability as 2% inflation, as measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index. The index is currently running at an annual rate of 2.5%.Powell spoke at the Jackson Lake Lodge in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park to a gathering of central bankers and economists that has become a global platform for officials to shape views of monetary policy and the economy. His comments largely cement a decision the Fed has telegraphed through earlier Powell comments and a readout of the central bank’s July meeting which said a “vast majority” of policymakers agreed rate cuts likely would begin next month.But his emphatic language has now put beyond doubt that the Fed is opening a new chapter in monetary policy.As in many of his prior Jackson Hole speeches, much of Powell’s remarks were explanatory in nature, in this case rehashing the combination of supply and demand shocks that caused inflation to rise at the start of the pandemic, why it persisted more than he and other policymakers thought it would, and how the unwinding of those shocks allowed inflation to fall without much initial damage to the job market.

HE Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani concluded Thursday a successful tour that included Australia and New Zealand, where HE held meetings with the Prime Ministers and several ministers of both countries, discussing means to develop and enhance cooperation in various fields. The meetings also addressed regional and international issues of common concern, particularly the developments in the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories.In Canberra, HE Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs met separately with Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense Richard Marles and Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong.During the meetings, they reviewed the cooperation relations between the two countries and discussed ways to support and enhance them at the defense level and in the areas of economy, mutual investment, energy, aviation, trade, clean energy, and technology. The meetings also discussed several regional and international issues, particularly the developments in the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories, mediation efforts aimed at reaching a ceasefire agreement in the Strip and the release of prisoners and detainees, and ways to reduce tensions in the Middle East to enhance regional and international security and stability, as well as the latest developments in Afghanistan.HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, during his meeting with the Australian Prime Minister, expressed the State of Qatar's appreciation for Australia's positions in supporting regional and international efforts aimed at achieving peace and stability in the region.Meanwhile, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense of Australia expressed his country's appreciation for the State of Qatar's support of regional and international efforts to achieve security and stability in the Middle East.The Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, in turn, expressed her country's support for mediation efforts aimed at reaching a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip. She also thanked the State of Qatar for its efforts in repatriating Australian citizens stranded during the COVID-19 pandemic via Qatar Airways, in addition to its role in evacuating Australians from Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip.In Wellington, HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs met separately with Prime Minister of New Zealand Christopher Luxon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister for Trade and Export Growth and Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs Todd McClay.During the meetings, the relations between the two countries and ways to support and develop them, economic cooperation, investment opportunities in the aviation, energy and investment sectors, cooperation in the fields of clean energy, technology research and international development, and enhancing trade exchange were reviewed.The meetings also discussed the developments in the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories, especially the humanitarian situation in the Strip, and the State of Qatar's mediation efforts aimed at ending the war in Gaza.

Africa accounts for nearly 18% of the global population, but just 2.1% of air transport activities, cargo and passenger segments combined.Clearly, the potential for aviation in Africa is huge. By closing the demand-supply gap, Africa can benefit from the much-needed connectivity, jobs and overall economic growth that aviation enables. Africa’s aviation industry holds significant potential for growth and development, given the continent’s rising population, economic prospects, increasing urbanisation and the need for improved connectivity.Africa has one of the fastest growing populations in the world. A burgeoning middle class with rising disposable incomes is expected to increase demand for air travel.Undoubtedly, many African countries are experiencing rapid economic growth, which boosts both business and leisure travel. This growth will potentially lead to increased investments in the continent’s aviation infrastructure.Africa is home to numerous tourist attractions, including wildlife reserves, historical sites, and beautiful landscapes. Improved air connectivity, therefore, will enhance tourism, which is a vital sector for many African economies. However, the continent also faces several challenges that need to be addressed to fully realise these opportunities.Many African countries lack adequate aviation infrastructure, including modern airports, efficient air traffic control systems, and maintenance facilities.Safety and security are also critical concerns in the African aviation industry. Ensuring compliance with international safety standards and improving security measures are essential for gaining passenger trust. The development of air connectivity in Africa also requires certainty that markets will abide by global standards with respect to the repatriation of funds from sales activities. Airlines still struggle with the inability to repatriate blocked funds efficiently and in line with international agreements and treaty obligations in several African markets.The amount of blocked funds in African countries as of June this year stood at $880mn, just over 52% of the $1.68bn in blocked funds globally. This is an improvement following Nigeria clearing 98% of the total funds blocked ($831mn). Recently IATA, the global trade body of airlines, announced that Africa’s airlines are expected to earn a collective net profit in 2024 for the second year in a row.That is a welcome and hard-won result reflecting the sector’s resilience in its post-Covid recovery. The expected $100mn profit, however, translates into just 90 cents per passenger — well below the global average of $6.14.“The demand to travel is there. To meet it, the African airline sector needs to overcome many challenges, not least of which are infrastructure deficiencies, high costs, onerous taxation, and the failure to broadly implement a continent-wide multilateral traffic rights regime,” Kamil Alawadhi, IATA’s regional vice-president (Africa and the Middle East) noted recently.Tuesday’s announcement by Qatar Airways that it will pick up a 25% stake in Airlink, which is a privately-owned, premium, full-service regional airline based in South Africa, shows the huge potential for aviation in the African continent. The announcement is a continuation of the national airline’s ambition to further develop its operations across the African continent.The investment in Airlink, which flies to more than 45 destinations in 15 African countries will enhance a code-sharing partnership between the two airlines.The deal will bolster Qatar Airways’ Africa growth strategy and cement its role as a key driver to the continent’s economic success.Speaking to Gulf Times on Tuesday, Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Officer Badr Mohamed al-Meer said: “Qatar Airways cannot cover the whole of Africa as an airline. The idea of having this partnership with Airlink is basically to cover as many destinations as possible, where we are not currently operating.“But we can now make sure we will be able to serve those passengers as well through Airlink. So, Airlink will be the airline that will be bringing all those passengers from that part of the continent where we don’t fly to.Qatar Airways fresh equity in Airlink will enable it to “shift to a high gear and grow faster”, noted the South African airline Chief Executive Rodger Foster.“This investment by Qatar Airways echoes Airlink’s faith in these markets and which we plan to add to our network in future. Crucially, Qatar Airways investments are set to bolster Airlink’s growth trajectory.The fresh equity will enable us to shift to a high gear, enabling the airline to grow faster, to unlock opportunities that enhance our competitiveness across all areas of our business,” Foster added.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and other African countries could start vaccinating against mpox within days, Africa’s top public health agency said yesterday.The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has been working with countries experiencing mpox outbreaks on logistics and communication strategies to roll out vaccine doses that are due to arrive following pledges by the European Union, vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic, the United States and Japan.The World Health Organisation last week declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years as a new variant of the disease spread rapidly in Africa.“We didn’t start vaccinations yet. We’ll start in a few days, if we are sure that everything is in place. End of next week vaccines will start to arrive in DRC and other countries,” Africa CDC Director General Jean Kaseya told a briefing.“We need to make sure that the supply chain management, the logistics are ready...to ensure that this vaccine will be safely stored and can be safely administered to people who need them.”He said studies on the efficacy of different vaccines would continue in Africa while shots are being administered, so countries better understand which shots are appropriate in their context.African states reported more than 1,400 additional mpox cases over the past week, taking the total number of cases in the 12 African countries where mpox has been detected to almost 19,000 since the start of the 2024, an Africa CDC presentation showed.Cases are up more than 100% on the same period last year, and Kaseya said it was too early to say mpox outbreaks on the continent were improving.Mpox, a viral infection that causes pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms, is usually mild but can kill. More than one strain is spreading simultaneously in Africa.Kaseya said African countries wanted solidarity, rather than being treated unfairly like during the Covid-19 pandemic.“I clearly request our partners to stop thinking about travel bans against Africans, that one will bring us back on the unfair treatment that we had during the Covid time,” he said.“Solidarity means we need you to provide appropriate support in terms of medical counter-measures,” he added, saying African countries needed help increasing their testing rate as well as accessing vaccines.

The mpox outbreak is not another Covid-19, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday, because much is already known about the virus and the means to control it.While more research is needed on the Clade 1b strain which triggered the UN agency into declaring an international health emergency, the spread of mpox can be reined in, the WHO’s European director Hans Kluge said.“Mpox is not the new Covid,” he said.“We know how to control mpox. And, in the European region, the steps needed to eliminate its transmission altogether,” he told a media briefing in Geneva, via video-link.In July 2022, the WHO declared an emergency over the international outbreak of the less severe Clade 2b strain of mpox, which mostly affected men who have sex with men. The alarm was lifted in May 2023.“We controlled mpox in Europe thanks to the direct engagement with the most affected communities,” said Kluge.Robust surveillance, investigating case contacts, behaviour changes in the affected communities and vaccination all contributed to controlling the outbreak, he said.Kluge said the risk to the general population was low.“Are we going to go in lockdown in the WHO European region, (as if) it’s another Covid-19? The answer is clearly: ‘no’,” he said.Clade 1b is spreading mainly through sexual transmission among adults.Kluge said it was also possible that someone in the acute phase of mpox infection, especially with blisters in the mouth, may transmit the virus to close contacts by droplets, in circumstances such as in the home or in hospitals.“The modes of transmission are still a bit unclear. More research is required,” he said.WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the agency was not recommending the use of masks.“We are not recommending mass vaccination. We are recommending to use vaccines in outbreak settings for the groups who are most at risk,” he added.The WHO declared an international health emergency on August 14, concerned by the rise in cases of Clade 1b in the DR Congo and its spread to nearby countries.There are two subtypes of mpox: the more virulent and deadlier Clade 1, endemic in the Congo Basin in central Africa; and Clade 2, endemic in West Africa.Clade 1b is a new offshoot of Clade 1, which is now called Clade 1a.The Clade 1b outbreak in northeastern DRC was first detected in September last year and is spreading rapidly.Catherine Smallwood, WHO Europe’s emergency operations programme area manager, explained that the split of Clade 1 into 1a and 1b reflects “change in the evolution of the virus.”Clade 1a traditionally has outbreaks resulting from infections from sick animals, with some limited follow-on transmission between humans at the household level, or within communities.But with Clade 1B, “we have not isolated or detected zoonotic transmission of Clade 1b,” said Smallwood.“So it seems to be a strain of the virus that’s circulating exclusively within the human population.”Experts are trying to work out if there is a difference in disease severity between Clades 1a and 1b.The available vaccines were originally developed for smallpox, and are effective against other viruses in the wider orthopoxvirus family, such as mpox.Two mpox vaccines have been used in recent years — MVA-BN, produced by Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic, and Japan’s LC16.

Sun seekers are turning to package holidays in Europe as soaring hotel and flight prices revive demand for the all-inclusive deals that had fallen from favour, bolstering the balance sheets of some travel companies.The combination of a cost-of-living crisis and disruption from strikes and glitches has added to the appeal of a fixed-price package without unexpected add-on costs and easier redress when things go wrong.After years of travellers using the internet to compile their own itineraries, travel analysts say a trend of buying a ready-made package that began last year has accelerated this summer, the busiest for travel since the pandemic.“It’s something that you think would have died out back in the seventies,” Stuart Hatcher, chief economist at aviation data analysis firm IBA, said. “Since Covid, more people are booking package trips.”Spending on package holidays in Europe — most popular among Britons and Germans — is expected to reach $117bn this year, up 11% from a year ago and will hit a new peak of $125.9bn next year, according to Euromonitor.The resurgence helped TUI, Europe’s biggest tour operator, to report on Wednesday quarterly results that beat expectations.The fixed upfront costs and value for money are appealing, said Caroline Bremner, Euromonitor senior industry manager for travel.“In times of peak inflation, as over the past two years, (packages) enable consumers to budget more efficiently,” she said.Britons on average spend about $450 per capita on these getaways, Euromonitor’s figures show, as the package holiday provider negotiates deals with hotels, transport companies and other players to drive down costs.But even packages will get more expensive, the market research company forecasts. It predicts prices will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.5% between 2024 and 2029, faster than before the pandemic when they rose at a pace of about 1.3% from 2014-2019.The zest for the holiday package business is a bright spot for the travel industry as worries have grown that the post-pandemic enthusiasm for air travel will ebb as travellers baulk at higher fares.Particularly in Europe and North America, airfares rose sharply after the pandemic.Second-quarter results by major carriers pointed to tougher market conditions across the aviation sector.Last month, Lufthansa warned of a fall in third-quarter earnings as the German airlines group grapples with higher wage costs and limited room to raise ticket prices while Ryanair and Air France-KLM reported plunging quarterly profits. Shares in Europe’s major airlines and travel companies have fallen this year. In contrast, easyJet raised its full-year outlook for its package holiday business, which launched in 2019 and accounted for more than a quarter of group pretax profit last year.Package holiday bookings for UK-travel company Jet2 are up 7% this summer, representing about 72% of overall flown passengers, it said in its annual report published last week. Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, mainland Spain, the Balearic Islands, the Canaries and Turkiye are all popular. The company this week extended flights to Bodrum in Turkiye until mid-November due to strong demand.Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Carnival and Royal Caribbean Group also raised their annual profit forecasts as people flock to its cruises. Package tours have typically appealed to lower-to-middle income holidaymakers seeking sun and sea with all-inclusive options and family-friendly activities such as beach clubs, Euromonitor’s Bremner said. Greece, Italy and Spain are among the most popular destinations. Ready-made holidays, which involve little flexibility, account for about half of packages booked over the last year, according to UK travel agent group ABTA.Typically, they have been favoured by baby boomers, aged over 65 years old, who remember the first wave of enthusiasm for package deals.Now younger travellers are also keen, tempted by less rigid packages compared with those of the past.About 56% of 25- to 34-year-olds went for a shopping-basket style package, choosing between flight and accommodation options, ABTA data shows.To adapt to younger tastes, TUI CEO Sebastian Ebel said the company has been offering more flexibility for its packages, such as letting customers book with another airline or adjust the timing of the trip. Some 800,000 customers selected a flexible package in the quarter to end-June, up 14% from a year earlier, its report said.“People have a misconception when it comes to packages. They are much more flexible now,” Sean Tipton, ABTA spokesperson, said. Their main draws, however, are the same. — Reuters

Armand Duplantis and Letsile Tebogo headline a raft of Olympic champions who will descend on Lausanne for the first Diamond League meeting since the end of the Paris Games. Some 18 current Olympic or world champions will be present in the Swiss city for tomorrow’s meet, coming just 12 days after the last of the track and field action at the Stade de France. Duplantis defended his gold in France’s national stadium and improved his own world record to 6.25 metres. In Lausanne, the Swede will take part in a City Event held on an esplanade bordering Lac Leman – better known in English as Lake Geneva – tomorrow, 24 hours before the main fare at the Stade Olympique de la Pontaise. Duplantis will be up against American Sam Kendricks, the silver medallist in Paris, and also Renaud Lavillenie, the 2012 Olympic champion and former world record holder who failed to qualify for what would have been his home Games. “It’s the only pole vault event next to a lake,” Duplantis said. “I love to have it scenic, fun, more like a show. It suits us well. I jumped 6.10m in Lausanne last time and have felt well rested since Paris. I think there are still some good jumps in my legs,” said the US-born Swede, who left Paris the day after the event for a “much-needed vacation with my girlfriend to chill as much as I could”. Botswana’s Tebogo will race the 200m tomorrow, the event he won in Paris when he outstripped a Covid-hit Noah Lyles. The American, a three-time world champion in the distance and the 100m winner in the French capital, has called time on his season. Tebogo will be up against Fred Kerley, the triple world champion (100m and relay) and 100m bronze medallist in Paris, and his US teammate Erriyon Knighton. The 21-year-old Botswanan raced to victory in an African record of 19.46sec, a time that took him to fifth on the all-time list. He also became the first African to win the Olympic 200m metres. The men’s 800m race in this 11th stage of the Diamond League circuit also promises to be a thriller. Four men in the Olympic final dipped under the 1min 42sec mark for the first time ever. And four of the top five finishers from the Games will run in Lausanne: Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya, the third fastest man in history, Olympic silver medallist and world champion Marco Arop of Canada, and the fourth and fifth-placed finishers in Paris, American Bryce Hoppel and Spain’s Mohamed Attaoui. Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen will bid to put the disappointment of his 1500m outing at the Paris Games behind him when takes on a strong field in Switzerland. American Cole Hocker stormed to an upset victory in Paris, outsprinting world champion Josh Kerr of Britain, American Yared Nuguse and Ingebrigtsen. The Norwegian finished fourth, left ruing an insanely fast opening 400m that left him vulnerable to a late attack. Ingebrigtsen did, however, rebound to win the Olympic 5,000m title and now has an immediate chance of redemption over the shorter distance, with Hocker also listed. There is also a high-quality field assembled in the women’s high jump, Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh up against Australia’s Paris silver and bronze medallists Nicola Olyslagers and Eleanor Patterson. Mahuchikh set a new world record of 2.10m at the Paris Diamond League meet and while not reaching those same heights at the Olympics, seems in unbeatable form. Femke Bol is another athlete on show, competing in the 400m hurdles, in which she won bronze in Paris behind record-setting Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Anna Cockrell.

The world’s oldest person, Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera, who was born in the United States and lived through two world wars, died yesterday at the age of 117, her family said.Guinness World Records had officially acknowledged Branyas’s status as the world’s oldest person in January 2023 following the death of French nun Lucile Randon aged 118.“Maria Branyas has left us. She died as she wished: in her sleep, peacefully and without pain,” her family wrote on her account on social network X. “We will always remember her for her advice and her kindness.”Branyas, who had lived for the last two decades in the Santa Maria del Tura nursing home in the town of Olot in the northeastern region of Catalonia, had warned in a post on Monday that she felt “weak”.“The time is near. Don’t cry, I don’t like tears. And above all, don’t suffer for me. Wherever I go, I will be happy,” she added on the account which is run by her family.In the wake of Branyas’s death, the oldest living person in the world is Japan’s Tomiko Itooka, who was born on May 23, 1908 and is 116 years old, according to the US-based Gerontology Research Group.Branyas, who lived through the 1918 flu, World War I and World War II and Spain’s civil war, got Covid-19 in 2020 just weeks after ringing in her 113th birthday but made a full recovery.Her youngest daughter, Rosa Moret, once attributed her mother’s longevity to “genetics”.“She has never gone to the hospital, she has never broken any bones, she is fine, she has no pain,” Moret told regional Catalan television in 2023.The head of the regional government of Catalonia, former health minister Salvador Illa, expressed his “heartfelt condolences” to Branyas’s family in a message posted on X.“We lose an endearing woman, who has taught us the value of life and the wisdom of the years,” he said, calling her “Catalonia’s grandmother”.Branyas was born in San Francisco on March 4, 1907 shortly after her family moved to the United States from Mexico.The entire family decided to return to their native Spain in 1915 as World War I was under way, which complicated the ship voyage across the Atlantic.The crossing was also marked by tragedy — her father died from tuberculosis towards the end of the voyage, and his coffin was put into the sea.Branyas and her mother settled in Barcelona and in 1931 — five years before the start of Spain’s 1936-39 civil war — she married a doctor.The couple lived together for four decades until her husband died aged 72. She had three children, including one who has already died, 11 grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren. “I haven’t done anything extraordinary, the only thing I did was live,” Branyas told Catalan daily newspaper La Vanguardia in 2019.Manel Esteller, part of a team of researchers from the University of Barcelona who studied Branyas’s DNA to determine the source of her longevity told daily Spanish newspaper ABC in October 2023 he was surprised by her good health.“Her mind is completely lucid. She remembers with impressive clarity episodes from when she was only four years old, and she has no cardiovascular disease, which is common in the elderly. The only things she has are mobility and hearing problems. It’s incredible,” the genetics professor said.The oldest verified person to have ever lived was Frenchwoman Jeanne Louise Calment who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days old.

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani met Tuesday with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense of Australia Richard Marles.During the meeting, they discussed co-operation relations and ways to support and enhance them at the defense level between the two countries.The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense of Australia voiced his country's appreciation for Qatar's support for regional and international efforts aimed at achieving security and stability in the Middle East.HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani met Tuesday with Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia Penny Wong.The meeting discussed bilateral co-operation relations and ways to support and develop them in the fields of economy, trade exchange, clean energy and technology.Moreover, it discussed a number of regional and international issues, especially developments in the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories and ways to reduce tension in the Middle East region in such a way as to enhance regional and international security and stability, along with discussing the latest developments in Afghanistan.During the meeting, the Australian Foreign Minister expressed her country's support for the joint efforts to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. She also commended Qatar's efforts in repatriating Australian citizens stranded during the Covid-19 Pandemic via Qatar Airways, in addition to its role in evacuating Australians from Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip.HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani started Tuesday a tour of Australia and New Zealand, Official Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dr Majed bin Mohammed al-Ansari said.Dr al-Ansari said that HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs will hold extensive talks with leaders and senior officials in both countries, aimed at bolstering and elevating the relations to broader horizons of cooperation and partnership, mainly in economy, energy, investment and trade. The talks will also touch on regional and international issues of common concern.HE Sheikh Mohammed's tour adds to his previous visits of a number of countries in the region in light of Qatar's openness to various continents, stemming from its foreign policy based on strengthening common interests, promoting international co-operation, and contributing to consolidating peace, security and stability at the regional and global levels, the official spokesperson said.

David Mattison, a retired postal worker, had spent nearly all of his life in this remote corner of Wisconsin, watching family farms fail and small businesses go under with the hollowing out of the rural economy. So he had approached this year’s presidential election with a sense of detachment, not yet convinced either the Democratic or Republican candidates spoke to his concerns as a voter in rural America — until Minnesota Governor Tim Walz joined the Democratic ticket as Kamala Harris’ running mate. Mattison, who has voted for Republicans and Democrats, would have been open to a more conservative candidate. But he said he did not like Republican contender Donald Trump’s divisiveness. And, while Mattison admitted he was unfamiliar with Walz’s policies, he identified with the governor’s background as a Midwesterner who was also raised in farm country.“He’s kind of a homegrown boy,” Mattison, 68, told Reuters outside of a Walmart Supercenter in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, a city with a population of around 3,500 about 60 miles from the Minnesota state border. Harris campaign officials are betting Walz’s folksy style, Midwestern roots and life story as a former farmer, teacher and National Guard member, will appeal to some of the white men in rural areas who voted for Trump by huge margins in the last two elections — and help deliver the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania for the Democrats.But that is a tall order, especially in the Midwestern states where the electorate skews older, whiter and more blue collar: Trump’s strongest demographic.Reuters interviewed about 40 voters in northwest Wisconsin, one of the most closely fought areas of the state, about the candidates and their running mates, speaking to Democratic, Republican and undecided voters. Many of those voters said they had made up their minds before Harris tapped Walz as her running mate.But Mattison and one other independent voter said Harris’ choice of Walz has pushed them toward the Democratic ticket this year. One former Trump voter had a favourable view of Walz but wasn’t sure how he would vote. Another handful said they remained undecided.Such incremental movements could be decisive in battleground states. Modest gains in a few segments of the electorate — such as white, working class voters — could make all the difference, said Chris Borick, a pollster and professor at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. President Joe Biden secured his 2020 election victory over Trump in part because he outperformed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance among white, working class voters.Biden still lost the segment overall, Borick said, “but he was able to nudge the dial up a few points and that made a big difference.”Still, it remains difficult for the Harris campaign to galvanise sceptical voters, even those who dislike Trump.Kevin Dunning, 65, a Republican voter who previously owned a commercial painting company, told Reuters that he has never cast a vote for Trump and never would.But he disliked Walz’s actions as governor during the Covid-19 pandemic, when he ordered the temporary closures of dine-in restaurants, fitness centres and other businesses.“Walz has destroyed Minnesota,” Dunning said.Instead, Dunning plans to write in his own name and that of his niece for president and vice president, while casting votes for candidates in other races.The majority of states sway solidly Republican or Democrat, leaving the presidential race to be decided by a handful of battleground states that are legitimately up for grabs.While Harris and Trump are largely tied in national opinion polls, they draw from very different demographics.Harris significantly leads Trump among voters with college degrees, as well as Black and young voters, polls show. Trump has an outsize advantage among white voters who didn’t go to college, leading Harris 59% to 29% in July, according to an analysis of four Reuters/Ipsos polls.That also gives him an edge in former industrial states Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which are older and whiter than the rest of the country.While campaign officials expect Harris to drive up energy and turnout in diverse cities like Philadelphia and Detroit and reproduce Biden’s huge margins in the suburbs, early polls show she faces more scepticism than Biden among white, working class voters. On the Republican ticket, US Senator J D Vance from Ohio shares Trump’s political beliefs, which mix isolationism and economic populism. Though Vance may help boost the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania and Michigan, his conservative views may be a turn-off for less extreme voters.Walz learned how to sell the Democratic Party’s liberal policies to sceptical white working-class voters when he was first elected to Congress in a conservative district in 2006.In 2010, Walz was re-elected to Congress against a Republican landslide that sunk many other Democrats. Six years later he escaped with a win despite Trump’s 15-point victory over Clinton.Walz’s performance against the backdrop of Republican landslides drew Harris advisers’ attention when vetting vice presidential candidates, according to two sources familiar with the process.Walz’s district flipped to the Republican Party immediately after he left to run for governor in 2018.Mary Brown, 69 and a job coach in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was the second voter Reuters spoke with who swayed toward Harris after Walz joined the ticket.She said she would never vote for Trump and had been leaning toward voting Democratic in the presidential race. But she had been waiting to see Harris’ choice as vice president; Brown liked that Walz, like her, was a former teacher.In other races, Brown will vote based on the candidate instead of along party lines, she said.Peter Norvold, a 68-year-old retiree with Democratic views, said he was “fan enough” of Harris, but appreciated Walz’s steady demeanour.Norvold’s hometown of Hudson, Wisconsin is separated from Minnesota by the St. Croix River, and he said he had seen Walz on television.“He just always appears to be normal,” Norvold said. “He just seems calm and secure, not worried. Doesn’t seem to me to get angry, it doesn’t look like.”Jason Nachreiner, 39 and a heating and air conditioning technician, has not been persuaded by either Harris or Trump. Harris is unproven, he said, while he thinks Trump might make the economy better but does not like the “turmoil” he brings.He had voted for Trump in the last election, and for Clinton in 2016. He is going to vote this time around, but he has no idea how he will decide.What could influence him?“I don’t even know,” Nachreiner said, laughing. “An epiphany? — Reuters

Donald Trump launched fresh personal attacks against White House rival Kamala Harris on Saturday, as new polling showed her making major gains in key battleground states ahead of next week’s Democratic National Convention.Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump began by blaming Vice-President Harris for unleashing “devastating” inflation – one of the biggest issues of the campaign – but he soon drifted off script, mocking Harris’s laugh and calling her a “communist” and a “lunatic”.At one point, criticising a portrait of Harris on the cover of Time magazine, Trump insisted he was “much better looking than her”.Republicans and Trump advisers – concerned by Harris’s energised campaign – have publicly urged him to stick to the issues and lay off the personal attacks which they believe play badly with the undecided and independent voters he needs to win the November 5 election.However, the former president has shown no sign of changing his populist, confrontational style.“You don’t mind if I go off teleprompter for a second, do you?” he asked the crowd about 15 minutes into his speech, before proceeding to reel off a now familiar list of insults at Harris.“People say, please don’t use bad language. Please don’t call people stupid,” Trump declared, adding: “Please, don’t call her a lunatic. And I said, but that’s what she is, she’s a lunatic.”He also said that he believed Harris will be easier to beat than President Joe Biden, even as some polls showed her edging ahead in the race for the November 5 presidential election.“I believe she will be easier to beat than him,” said Trump.The momentum in the White House race has shifted dramatically since Biden abruptly pulled out on July 21, with Harris’s whirlwind entry enthusing the Democratic Party base.A survey by the New York Times and Siena College published on Saturday had Harris storming back into contention in four critical battleground states that Trump had looked set to win comfortably against Biden.The poll will likely trigger further consternation in Trump’s campaign team, with the vice-president now ahead in Arizona and North Carolina, and getting closer in Nevada and Georgia.At the rally on Saturday in Wilkes-Barre, Trump skewered Harris on her historic opposition to fracking – an unpopular stance in Pennsylvania which is the second-largest natural gas-producing US state after Texas.However, he spent far longer reviewing his debate performance against Biden back in June, and on meandering anecdotes about everyone from Italian screen legend Sophia Loren to French President Emmanuel Macron.In a meandering speech, Trump repeated his false claim that he lost the 2020 election due to fraud, dismissed the threat of climate change and said his plan to impose across-the-board tariffs on foreign goods would not act as a tax on US consumers, an assertion that most economists contest.The Mohegan Sun Arena, where Trump appeared, has a capacity of roughly 8,000 and was nearly full when he started speaking.However, the crowd began to thin after the one-hour mark. He spoke for more than 100 minutes in total.With polls showing the head-to-head race very close, it is the swing states – especially Pennsylvania – that will decide the final result under the US electoral college system.Trump lost the state by a narrow margin against Biden in 2020 but has strong support in rural areas and small towns.A separate New York Times/Siena poll last week showed Harris narrowly ahead in Pennsylvania and the two other northern battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin.Harris was in Pennsylvania yesterday, making several stops on her campaign bus near Pittsburgh before heading to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention that opens today (see lead story above).She will be hoping to sustain her poll momentum at the four-day event which will include keynote speeches from party leaders like Biden and former president Barack Obama.Harris will round out the proceedings on Thursday evening, with her own speech to formally accept the party nomination.Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by about 44,000 votes, a margin of less than one percentage point, while Biden prevailed by just over 80,000 votes in 2020, a 1.2-point margin.Both campaigns have made the state a top priority, blanketing the airwaves with advertisements.Of the more than $110mn spent on advertising in seven battleground states since Biden dropped out in late July, roughly $42mn was in Pennsylvania, more than twice any other state, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing data from the tracking site AdImpact.Democratic and Republican groups have already reserved $114mn in ad time in Pennsylvania from late August through the election, more than twice as much as the $55mn reserved in Arizona, the next highest total, according to AdImpact.The Harris campaign said on Saturday that it planned to spend at least $370mn on digital and television ads nationwide between the Labour Day holiday on September 2 and Election Day.With election day rapidly approaching, Harris is trying to distance herself from unpopular Biden policies, while getting ahead of Trump’s attempts to brand her a liberal extremist.The past week has seen the two sides home in on voters’ worries about the economy.Trump hammered the vice-president on Saturday, saying that her push for a federal ban on price-gouging by companies that unfairly raise prices was the sort of policy favoured by communist countries.On Friday, Harris held an event in North Carolina to unveil a series of proposals to ease the burden of post-coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic inflation.She noted that the US economy was booming while conceding that “many Americans don’t yet feel that progress in their daily lives”.“Donald Trump fights for billionaires and large corporations,” she said. “I will fight to give money back to working- and middle-class Americans.”

United Development Company (UDC), the master developer of The Pearl and Gewan islands, has been honoured with the international ‘Business Continuity Global award’ by the Continuity Insurance & Risk ‘CIR Magazine’, United Kingdom.The award recognises UDC's exceptional achievements in Business Continuity and Resilience, crucial for ensuring uninterrupted delivery of high-quality products and services to the company’s stakeholders at The Pearl Island.The ceremony took place recently at the London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square, in London, where UDC was distinguished following a comprehensive external review of its business operations.This assessment encompassed the management of engineering and construction activities, residential and retail management, community services, and the maintenance of commercial and residential infrastructure, facilities, buildings, and assets owned and operated by UDC.This accolade establishes UDC as the pioneering developer and The Pearl Island as Qatar's first community to be recognised for implementing robust Business Continuity Management systems and strategies.These systems ensure the timely update, control, and deployment of effective plans, accounting for contingencies, capabilities, and business needs to manage disruptive incidents while continuing essential functions.Additionally, the certification underscores UDC’s commitment to operational excellence and resilience amid unprecedented challenges, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change, highlighting its ability to efficiently manage business interruption, disaster recovery, and uphold The Pearl Island's status as a premier lifestyle destination.Having initiated the implementation of its Business Continuity Management System in 2017, UDC’s receipt of the related ISO award (ISO 22301:2019) further assures residents, customers, and business partners of its reliability during crises.The award reinforces UDC’s dedication to business continuity and resilience, supported by rigorous testing and exercising activities including announced and unannounced drills. UDC’s collaboration with the National Cyber Security Agency at the national level further enhances its resilience and recovery time objectives.