The EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton travels to Gaza today in a rare visit by a senior Western official to the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.
She is the first senior European diplomat to secure Israeli permission to visit the Gaza Strip since the Israeli assault more than a year ago.
Earlier this week Lady Ashton condemned Israel's plan to build 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem at a speech she made to the Arab League in Cairo and expressed her intention to visit Gaza during this week's trip.
"The blockade of Gaza is unacceptable. It has created enormous human suffering and greatly harms the potential to move forward," she said on Monday.
The EU is a major contributor of aid to Palestine, providing ?1 billion (Dh5bn) a year, including support to Palestine refugees through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Lady Ashton said: "I will travel to Gaza myself to meet with the population and at the same time assess how our support is working on the ground."
The EU presently supports the present West Bank prime minister Salam Fayyad's state building plan.
"Continued Palestinian divisions do not serve their interests," she added. "The political and physical separation between Gaza and the West Bank is dangerous. Palestinian reconciliation is more crucial than ever."
Lady Ashton, 53, a former junior minister and leader of the House of Lords before becoming EU trade commissioner in 2008, was appointed high representative amid the horse trading that eventually resulted in Herman van Rompuy, the Belgian prime minister, getting the job as the EU's first full-time president.
Tony Blair had been regarded as the natural choice for the presidential post. But when this was blocked by Europe's smaller nations, the post of high representative was offered to a UK candidate as an apparent consolation prize.
The job, which is arguably more important than the president's, is to represent the EU at summits throughout the world. But David Miliband, Britain's foreign secretary, turned it down and prime minister Gordon Brown, to virtually everyone's astonishment, put forward Lady Ashton.
With reporting from AFP
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A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
How to apply for a drone permit
- Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
- Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
- Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
- Submit their request
What are the regulations?
- Fly it within visual line of sight
- Never over populated areas
- Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
- Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
- Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
- Should have a live feed of the drone flight
- Drones must weigh 5 kg or less
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.