Greece has vowed to help neighboring Bulgaria after Russia decided to cut off its gas supply.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke to his Bulgarian counterpart Kiril Petkov over the phone on Wednesday morning, according to a statement from his office.

“During their discussion, the prime minister stated that Greece will assist Bulgaria in dealing with the new situation caused by the Russian decisions in the energy sector,” read the statement.

Russia’s Gazprom halted gas flows to Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday, saying it would keep supplies switched off until the two countries decide to pay in rubles.

Greece’s energy sufficiency and the wider implications of Russia's decisions to halt gas supplies were also the focus in a meeting chaired by Mitsotakis later in the day.

A statement from the premier’s office said Greece’s energy supplies are secured and no disruption is expected, with the next payment to Gazprom due to be made “in the last ten days of May.”/aa

Millions of Californians are set to face biting water restrictions that will affect residents across the US's most populous state as it battles a drought now on its third year. 

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which is responsible for the Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties, announced on Tuesday that it will limit the area's 6 million residents to watering outdoors just one day per week as the state grapples with warmer temperatures.

About one-third of the region is facing an emergency due to "severely limited" water supplies in northern California, which has traditionally served as a main resource for the water-starved south. But climate change has greatly impacted the state's status quo.

Snow pack has been particularly limited in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and the state just recorded its driest three-month start to any year on record. Water levels have also hit record lows in the Colorado River, another major waterway for California's populous south.

"The past three years are projected to be the driest in our state's history, leading to drought conditions unlike anything we've experienced before," the agency said on Twitter.

The record low water levels and above-average temperatures continue to stoke fears ahead of this year's wildfire season.

Further north, the East Bay Municipal Utility District voted on Tuesday to increase the region's water emergency level for some 1.4 million residents following California's "bleak" snow survey and "very low" precipitation over the past winter.

That means residents will have to reduce water consumption by 10%, limit outdoor watering to three times per week, and restaurants and cafes are being mandated to only provide water on request. The new emergency level also establishes fines for the area's largest water wasters who exceed a threshold of 1,646 gallons of water per day.

Those households will receive a $2 fine per every 748 gallons over the threshold.

"Despite a strong rainy start in October and December, the dry winter has compelled us to move into our next phase of action to ensure we have adequate supplies in case the drought continues next year,” Board President Douglas Linney said in a statement.

“We've spent decades planning and preparing for these events and are confident our efforts, combined with customer water savings, will get us through this drought," he added./aa

The State of Kuwait late Tuesday welcomed the UN’s “exceptional” resolution requiring veto justification. “It is natural to have opposing views on veto use, and this resolution would guarantee transparent and constructive discussions on the matter,” said Minister Plenipotentiary Bader Al-Munayekh, Acting Charge d’Affaire of Kuwait’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, addressing its assembly.

Earlier today, the UN’s 193-members General Assembly adopted the Liechtenstein-spearheaded resolution by consensus. Veto abuse had previously contributed in the Security Council’s inability to shoulder its responsibility, which eventually led to jeopardizing international peace and security, noted the Kuwaiti senior diplomat. “I anew, in this session, the State of Kuwait’s full commitment to multilateralism, coinciding with the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace,” he noted.

Tuesday’s resolution does not eliminate or limit the veto power of the permanent members – the US, Russia, Britain, France and China.
But for the first time it will require the General Assembly “to hold a debate on the situation” that sparks a veto in the Security Council within 10 working days. The US, Britain and France were among the majority of countries that joined Liechtenstein in co- sponsoring the reform. Neither Russia nor China were among the sponsors. – KUNA

The war in Ukraine has dealt a major shock to commodity markets, altering global patterns of trade, production, and consumption in ways that will keep prices at historically high levels through the end of 2024, according to the World Bank’s latest Commodity Markets Outlook report.

The increase in energy prices over the past two years has been the largest since the 1973 oil crisis.

Price increases for food commodities, of which Russia and Ukraine are large producers, and fertilizers, which rely on natural gas as a production input, have been the largest since 2008, it said. “Overall, this amounts to the largest commodity shock we’ve experienced since the 1970s. As was the case then, the shock is being aggravated by a surge in restrictions in trade of food, fuel and fertilizers,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank’s Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions.

“These developments have started to raise the specter of stagflation. Policymakers should take every opportunity to increase economic growth at home and avoid actions that will bring harm to the global economy,” he said. Energy prices are expected to rise more than 50 percent in 2022 before easing in 2023 and 2024.

Non-energy prices, including agriculture and metals, are projected to increase almost 20 percent in 2022 and will also moderate in the following years, according to the report. Nevertheless, commodity prices are expected to remain well above the most recent five-year average. In the event of a prolonged war, or additional sanctions on Russia, prices could be even higher and more volatile than currently projected, it added.

Because of war-related trade and production disruptions, the price of Brent crude oil is expected to average USD 100 a barrel in 2022, its highest level since 2013 and an increase of more than 40 percent compared to 2021. Prices are expected to moderate to USD 92 in 2023 – well above the five-year average of USD 60 a barrel. Natural-gas prices (European) are expected to be twice as high in 2022 as they were in 2021, while coal prices are expected to be 80 percent higher, with both prices at all-time highs. Wheat prices are forecast to increase more than 40 percent, reaching an all-time high in nominal terms this year. That will put pressure on developing economies that rely on wheat imports, especially from Russia and Ukraine, it said.

Metal prices are projected to increase by 16 percent in 2022 before easing in 2023 but will remain at elevated levels. The report offers an in-depth exploration of the war’s impact on commodity markets. It also examines how commodity markets responded to similar shocks in the past. The analysis finds that the war’s impact could be longer-lasting than previous shocks for at least two reasons. First, there is less room now to substitute the most affected energy commodities for other fossil fuels.

The war is also leading to more costly patterns of trade that could result in longer-lasting inflation. In the near-term, higher prices threaten to disrupt or delay the transition to cleaner forms of energy. Several countries have announced plans to increase production of fossil fuels. High metal prices are also driving up the cost of renewable energy, which depends on metals such as aluminum and battery-grade nickel.

The report urges policymakers to act promptly to minimize harm to their citizens and to the global economy. It calls for targeted safety-net programs such as cash transfers, school feeding programs, and public work programs, rather than food and fuel subsidies.

A key priority should be to invest in energy efficiency, including weatherization of buildings. It also calls on countries to accelerate the development of zero-carbon sources of energy such as renewables. – KUNA

Harvard University has vowed to spend $100 million on research and atone for its extensive role in slavery, the school's president announced Tuesday, with plans to identify and support the descendants of enslaved people who labored at the Ivy League campus.

President Lawrence Bacow announced the funding as Harvard released a new report detailing many ways the college benefited from slavery and perpetuated racial inequality.

The report, commissioned by Bacow, found that Harvard's faculty, staff and leaders enslaved more than 70 Black and Native American people from the school's founding in 1636 to 1783. It cautions that the figure is "almost certainly an undercount." Using historical records, researchers were able to identify dozens of enslaved people by name, along with their connection to the university.

"Enslaved men and women served Harvard presidents and professors and fed and cared for Harvard students," researchers found. "Moreover, throughout this period and well into the 19th-century, the University and its donors benefited from extensive financial ties to slavery."

The report says the university "should make a significant monetary commitment, and it should invest in remedies of equal or greater breadth than other universities." But the report stops short of recommending direct financial reparations, and officials have no immediate plans for that kind of support.

Bacow said Harvard will attempt to redress its wrongs through "teaching, research and service." He is creating a committee to implement the report's suggestions.

Building on earlier research at Harvard, the report details how the nation's oldest and wealthiest college profited from the slave trade throughout its early history. It invested directly in the sugar and rum industries in the Caribbean, and the cotton and railroad industries in the United States. It also depended on wealthy donors who accumulated their wealth through the slave trade and industries that relied on it.

Later, after slavery was abolished, prominent scholars continued to promote concepts that fueled ideas of white supremacy, the report says. It cites work by 19th-century professor Louis Agassiz, who pushed discredited theories on "race science" and eugenics. Another scholar led a "physical education" program on campus that collected students' physical measurements to advance eugenic theories.

In his message, Bacow called the findings "disturbing and shocking," and he acknowledged that the school "perpetuated practices that were profoundly immoral."

"Consequently, I believe we bear a moral responsibility to do what we can to address the persistent corrosive effects of those historical practices on individuals, on Harvard, and our society," he wrote.

The 130-page report included a series of recommendations that Bacow endorsed. The $100 million will be used to carry out the work, including some funding that will be available now and more to be held in an endowment. The university itself has an endowment of more than $50 billion, the largest in the nation.

The report calls on Harvard to identify the direct descendants of enslaved people and engage with them "through dialogue, programming, information sharing, relationship building, and educational support."

"Through such efforts, these descendants can recover their histories, tell their stories and pursue empowering knowledge," the report said.

In acknowledgment of the enslavement of Native Americans, the report also calls on Harvard to build closer ties with New England tribes. Harvard should recruit more students from tribal communities, the report says, and organize a national conference promoting research on colonialism and the enslavement of Indigenous people.

The report calls on Harvard to help address racial inequities in the United States and the Caribbean, including through expanded education programs for underserved communities. And it urges the university to build closer relationships with historically Black colleges across the country, with funding to bring students and scholars to Harvard for up to a year at a time.

Harvard joins a growing number of U.S. universities taking steps to acknowledge and make amends for their involvement with slavery.

Georgetown University in 2019 promised to raise $400,000 a year for the descendants of enslaved people sold by the school. The Princeton Theological Seminary created a $27.6 million reparative endowment. The University of Virginia established scholarships for the descendants of enslaved people.

Harvard formally began exploring its ties to slavery in 2016, when former President Drew Gilpin Faust acknowledged that the school was "directly complicit in America's system of racial bondage." Faust organized a committee to study the topic and had a plaque installed on campus honoring enslaved people who labored there.

Bacow commissioned the new report in 2019, building on that work.

"The Harvard that I have known, while far from perfect, has always tried to be better - to bring our lived experience ever closer to our high ideals," Bacow wrote. "In releasing this report and committing ourselves to follow through on its recommendations, we continue a long tradition of embracing the challenges before us."/AP

Urgent action is needed to protect vulnerable women, children and adolescents and the health care workers supporting them in conflict-affected states in the Middle East,” The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH), a multi-constituency partnership hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO), said in a statement late Tuesday.

“Women, children and adolescents, and the health and aid workers who provide their care and support are facing growing challenges and life-threatening risks in these times of escalating conflict and humanitarian crises worldwide, according to a commentary published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) this week to coincide with World Immunisation Week (April 24-30),” the statement said, adding that “while the recent devastating hostilities in Ukraine have captured the interest of the world, there are several other long-standing and growing conflicts that also deserve attention and political mobilization from the global community.”

“In 2020, for example, a record 56 active conflicts were documented globally, including in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq.”

“Commentary co-authors, the Rt. Hon. Helen Clark, PMNCH Board Chair and former New Zealand prime minister and Kersti Kaljulaid, U.N. Secretary General’s Global Advocate for Every Woman Every Child, former president of Estonia, call for a multi-sectoral response to ensure continuity of services for women, children and adolescents in conflict and humanitarian settings,” PMNCH added, underlining that the officials “urge global leaders to commit to greater investment in safety and protection measures for health and aid workers who risk their own lives striving to provide services, support and care to vulnerable women, children, and adolescents in the most challenging circumstances.”

The statement also emphasized that polio, a normally eradicated illness, has started reemerging in underdeveloped countries suffering from violence.

“Conflict has caused polio to reemerge in otherwise polio-free countries. For example, Syria and Iraq saw the emergence of polio outbreaks for the first time in decades after the onset of the Syrian civil war,” it added.

“In Afghanistan – one of the few countries where polio is still endemic despite global efforts to achieve eradication – because of the killing of eight polio workers in February 2022, the national polio vaccine campaign was suspended in two provinces.”

The statement also included remarks by Göknur Topçu, president of the World Association of Trainees Obstetrics and Gynaecology and member of PMNCH.

“Lifesaving vaccines and basic humanitarian supplies must be delivered to vulnerable individuals, especially pregnant women, and children in conflict settings throughout the region. It is crucial that health and aid workers’ timely and unconditional access to women, children, and adolescents in urgent medical need are ensured,” she said in the article.

“Humanitarian crises are causing previously eradicated diseases to re-emerge. While the world is continuing to battle with COVID-19, other vaccine-preventable diseases still pose a threat to regions under instability and violence. Governments and the international community must take urgent action for the wellbeing of all lives living under threat.”/agencies