UAE boat mishap: 7-year-old NRI boy dies in hospital amid treatment

Bolstering food security, Abu Dhabi-headquartered retail giant LuLu Group International has opened its world-class sourcing, food processing and export hub in Italy.

The facility located ideally at World Trade Center Malpensa Airport Milan will further boost LuLu Group’s sourcing operations not only from Italy but from nearby European countries thereby ensuring uninterrupted supply and price stability of food products. The group aims to export food products worth 200 million euros in 2 years.

Y International Italia, the sourcing division of Lulu Group, was inaugurated by Guido Guidesi, a Regional Minister for Economic Development, in the presence of Yusuffali MA, chairman and managing director of LuLu Group.

Guidesi welcomed the UAE-based group’s new project in Italy and assured the highest level of support and cooperation that will further enhance trade ties between Italy and the Arab world.

Yusuffali noted: “As a key partner in the food security sector in the Middle East, it is our ongoing strategy to set up our own sourcing and food processing units around the world to ensure uninterrupted supply and ensure competitive pricing by eliminating middlemen.”

The state-of-the-art facility will primarily focus on sourcing, processing, storing, packaging and exporting top-quality food products from Italy to more than 255 LuLu Hypermarkets spread across GCC countries, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The focus categories will be varieties of cheeses, chocolates, fruit jams, sweet and puff pastries, organic pasta, infused extra-virgin olive oil, and high-quality sea salt from well-known Italian brands. Apart from packed food, the centre will also source and export a wide range of fruits and vegetables mainly apples, grapes, kiwi, olives, etc.

“Italy has some unique cuisines, a vast variety of fruits, vegetables, and various commodities, and we are working closely with the Italian Trade Agency to boost the export of these products to our hypermarkets. We will work closely with all stakeholders to promote the Italian brands by organising ‘Italian Food Festivals’ across our hypermarkets,” Yusuffali said.

The new project will target food exports worth 200 million euros in 2 years and create jobs in Italy.

“We will be initially exporting worth 50 million euros and expect to reach 200 million euros in 2 years. We are tying up with farmers’ cooperative societies to source fruits and vegetables, which will surely have a positive impact on the agricultural sector of Italy. In addition, this project will also generate significant employment in Italy,” Yusuffali added.

The group has similar food processing centres in the UK, the US, Spain, Turkey, Vietnam, Thailand, China, and South Africa, among others.

Gaza City, Sept 20: Israeli occupation forces have killed three Palestinians during a raid in the occupied West Bank, and another Palestinian in a separate incident in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Palestinian health officials said the West Bank assault took place on Tuesday in the Jenin refugee camp, with some 20 others also injured.

The officials did not identify the martyred Palestinians.

The 25-year-old Palestinian man killed in Gaza was identified as Yousef Salem Radwan.

He was shot dead by Israeli forces at the border fence east of Khan Yunis, in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The victim was shot in the head. At least nine others were injured, one of them critically.

Separately, two others were injured from live bullets east of Jabalya in the north of Gaza and many others suffered from suffocation after inhaling tear gas fired by the Israeli soldiers.

Protests at the Gaza border have been taking place for several days against Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israeli jails and the repeated desecration of al-Aqsa Mosque by extremist Israeli settlers.

This came as Israeli forces brutally assaulted Muslim worshipers at one of the main entrances to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied Old City of al-Quds.

The assault took place as the occupation soldiers beat up three worshipers, including an elderly man and an elderly woman, near Bab as-Silsila (the Chain Gate) on Sunday morning.

Earlier in the day, Israeli occupation troops intensified their presence around the al-Aqsa Mosque complex, restricting the access of Muslim worshipers to the sacred site and preventing the entry of Palestinian citizens.

They also allowed scores of Israeli settlers to enter the compound in separate groups.

The Jordan-run Islamic Waqf Department, which is in charge of al-Aqsa Mosque affairs, said in a statement that Israeli forces had permitted the provocative settler incursion.

The regime soldiers also assaulted Muslim worshipers and tried to forcibly evacuate them from the al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard, it noted.

Israeli settler incursions into al-Aqsa Mosque and violence against Palestinians have been on the rise since the far-right extremist cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office last December.

This is while only Muslims are allowed to pray in the al-Aqsa Mosque complex under a status quo arrangement originally reached more than a century ago. Non-Muslim visitors are allowed visits at certain times and only to certain areas.

Mohammad Hamadeh, the spokesman for Hamas in occupied al-Quds, recently emphasized that the break-ins into the al-Aqsa are a continuation of the occupiers’ acts of aggression.

He also stressed that the Palestinian resistance would go on until the decline and elimination of the usurping regime.

The Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement has censured the Israeli regime’s police officers for their repeated “fascist” calls for settlers to carry guns while commemorating the Rosh HaShanah holidays for the Jewish New Year.

In a statement on Saturday, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the renewed calls on settlers to bear firearms are a public incitement to murder that encourages the Jewish extremists to commit further crimes against Palestinian people.

“This fascist call and other similar calls by Zionist officials require clear condemnation from the international community and measures to hold them accountable before international courts,” he said.

Earlier, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates warned about increasing calls for Israeli settlers to carry guns, terming it “a racist incitement against Palestinians.”

The ministry said in a Friday statement that it “views the calls by the commander of Moriya police station in al-Quds for Israeli settlers to carry guns as an extreme danger.”

The statement described such calls as “An official incitement to carry out extrajudicial killings of Palestinians and an authorization for fanatics to take the law into their own hands motivated by their dark agenda.”

The Palestinian foreign ministry held the Israeli regime, particularly far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for the fallout of these moves.

Official data has shown that more than 160,000 Israelis carry guns, in addition to the police, security personnel and the army.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in over 280 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

The international community views the settlements – hundreds of which have been built across the West Bank since Tel Aviv’s occupation of the territory in 1967 – as illegal under international law and the Geneva Conventions due to their construction on the occupied territories.

The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.