United Nations, Dec 28: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is saddened by the passing of India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who played a “pivotal role” in shaping the nation’s “economic trajectory”, according to his Associate Spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay.

“The Secretary-General was saddened to learn of the passing of Dr Manmohan Singh,” she said in a statement on Friday.

He “played a pivotal role in India’s recent history, particularly in shaping its economic trajectory,” the statement said.

“As Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014, Singh oversaw a period of significant economic growth and development in India.”

“Under his leadership, India also strengthened its collaboration with the United Nations, contributing actively to global initiatives and partnerships,” it added.

Singh cooperated with Guterres’s two predecessors Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon during his 10 years as Prime Minister, meeting them at the UN headquarters in New York as well as at other international forums.

Singh addressed the UN General Assembly five times.

Fighting climate change has been a top item in the UN’s agenda along with sustainable development for poverty eradication.

In pursuing these goals, Singh reiterated India’s commitment but also constantly reminded world leaders that the developing countries’ historical context should be taken into account and the developed countries had a special responsibility in pursuing them.

At the UN Climate Change Conference in Denmark in 2009, he declared, “India was a latecomer to industrialisation and as such we have contributed very little to the accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions that caused global warming, but we are determined to be part of the solution.”

When the negotiations began while he was Prime Minister for the landmark Paris Climate Change Accord that was adopted in 2015, he made it a firm condition that it should be “equitable” taking into account the disproportionate role the developed countries had in creating the greenhouse gas crisis and its consequences suffered by developing countries.

He also attended the Rio+, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio De Janeiro in 2012.

While criticising the developed countries for their parsimony in funding development around the world, he also said, “Sustainable development mandates the efficient use of available natural resources. We have to be much more frugal in the way we use natural resources.”

While the UN was working on its ambitious 2030 Sustainable Development Goals that was adopted in 2015 after he left office, Singh emphasised that it should provide funding for developing countries and technology transfer.

In 2013 in his last address to the UN General Assembly, he said, “The problems of over a billion people living in abject poverty around the world need to be attacked more directly. Poverty remains a major political and economic challenge and its eradication requires special attention and a new collective thrust.”

“It is, therefore, important that the UN set clear and concise goals (for its sustainable development agenda) and provide practical and well-defined means of implementation, including the adequate flow of resources and transfer of technology, taking the views of developing countries fully into account,” he added.

Baku: Aviation experts said Thursday that Russian air defence fire was likely responsible for the Azerbaijani plane crash the day before that killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured.

Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for reasons still unclear and crashed while making an attempt to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying east across the Caspian Sea.

The plane went down about 3 km (2 miles) from Aktau. Cellphone footage circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before crashing into the ground and exploding in a fireball.

Other footage showed a part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft lying upside down on the grass.

Azerbaijan mourned the crash victims with national flags at half-staff across on Thursday. Traffic stopped at noon, and sirens sounded from ships and trains as it observed a nationwide moment of silence.

Speaking at a news conference Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that it was too soon to speculate on the reasons behind the crash, but said that the weather had forced the plane to change from its planned course.

“The information provided to me is that the plane changed its course between Baku and Grozny due to worsening weather conditions and headed to Aktau airport, where it crashed upon landing,” he said.

Bird Strike Led To Emergency On Board

Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said that preliminary information indicated the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird strike led to an emergency on board.

Authorities in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia were tight-lipped about a possible cause of the crash but a lawmaker in Azerbaijan blamed Moscow. Rasim Musabekov told the Azerbaijani news agency that the plane was fired on while in the skies over Grozny and urged Russia to offer an official apology.

“Those who did this must face criminal charges,” Musabekov was quoted by Azerbaijani news agency as saying, adding that compensations to the victims should also be paid. “If it doesn’t happen, relations will be affected.” As the official crash investigation started, some experts pointed out that holes seen in the plane’s tail section could indicate that it could have come under fire from Russian air defence systems fending off a Ukrainian drone attack.

Ukrainian drones had previously attacked Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, and other regions in the country’s North Caucasus. An official in Chechnya said another drone attack on the region was fended off on Wednesday, although federal authorities didn’t report it.

Mark Zee of OPSGroup, which monitors the world’s airspace and airports for risks, said that the analysis of the images of fragments of the crashed plane indicate that it was almost certainly hit by a surface-to-air missile, or SAM.

“Much more to investigate, but at high level we’d put the probability of it being a SAM attack on the aircraft at being well into the 90-99% bracket,” he said.

Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security firm based in the United Kingdom, warned its clients that the “Azerbaijan Airlines flight was likely shot down by a Russian military air-defense system.” Osprey provides analysis for carriers still flying into Russia after Western airlines halted their flights during the war.

Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson said that the company had issued more than 200 alerts regarding drone attacks and air defense systems in Russia during the war.

“This incident is a stark reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson posted online. “It is painful to know that despite our efforts, lives were lost in a way that could have been avoided.” Yan Matveyev, an independent Russian military expert, noted that images of the crashed plane’s tail reveal the damage compatible with shrapnel from a small surface-to-air missiles, such as the Pantsyr-S1 air defence system.

“It looks like the tail section of the plane was damaged by some missile fragments,” he said.

Matveyev added that it remains unclear why the pilots decided to fly hundreds of miles east across the Caspian Sea instead of trying to land at a closer airport in Russia after the plane was hit.

“Perhaps some of the plane’s systems kept working for some time and the crew believed that they could make it and land normally,” Matveyev said, adding that the crew could also have faced restrictions on landing at another venue in Russia.

Caliber, an Azerbaijani news website with good government connections, also claimed that the airliner was fired upon by a Russian Pantsyr-S air defence system as it was approaching Grozny. It questioned why Russian authorities failed to close the airport despite the apparent drone raid in the area. Khamzat Kadyrov, head of Chechnya’s Security Council, said that air defences downed drones attacking the region on Wednesday.

Caliber also wondered why Russian authorities didn’t allow the plane to make an emergency landing in Grozny or other Russian airports nearby after it was hit.

Russia Sharply Reacts On Claims

Asked about the claims that the plane had been fired upon by air defence assets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it would be wrong to make hypotheses before investigators make their verdict”.

Kazakhstan’s parliamentary speaker, Maulen Ashimbayev, also warned against rushing to conclusions based on pictures of the plane’s fragments, describing the allegations of air defence fire as unfounded and unethical.

According to Kazakh officials, those aboard the plane included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyzstan nationals. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry on Thursday flew nine Russian survivors to Moscow for treatment.

Cairo, Dec 27: Arab League (AL) Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit strongly condemned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s storming of East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, accompanied by a group of hardline settlers, as “a blatant provocation.”

“The incursion is a blatant provocation aimed at inflaming emotions and escalating the situation,” Aboul-Gheit was quoted in a statement by the pan-Arab, Cairo-based organisation as saying.

Ben-Gvir’s entry into the holy site under the protection of the Israeli “occupying police” reveals the nature of the Israeli government’s hostility to peaceful coexistence.

He said the incident is part of the Israeli government’s continued violations of the historical status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, is administered by the Jerusalem Awqaf Department, an Islamic religious trust affiliated with Jordan. Jews revere the site as the Temple Mount. This sacred site has long been a flashpoint for deadly violence between Jews and Muslims.

“Israel, through these rejected and condemned policies, is deliberately destroying all possibilities for peaceful coexistence among religions in the region,” Aboul-Gheit added.

Earlier in the day, Ben-Gvir said that he visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and “said a prayer,” which breached the long-standing status quo at the site, under which non-Muslims are permitted only to visit the hilltop compound but not allowed to pray there.

The Al-Aqsa compound in the Old City of Jerusalem is Islam’s holiest site after the mosques in Makkah Sharif and Madinah Sharif and is a symbol of Palestinian national identity.

The Saudi ministry on Thursday also condemned the Israeli occupation forces’ advance in southern Syria after the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in early December.

“The continuation of (Israeli) military operations in Syria is an attempt to sabotage Syria’s chances of restoring its security and stability,” the ministry said in a statement.