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1st Ministerial Council of Middle East Green Initiative Adopts Decisions to Launch Implementation

The first session of the Ministerial Council of the Middle East Green Initiative was held in Jeddah with the participation of 29 countries and international organizations. (SPA)
The first session of the Ministerial Council of the Middle East Green Initiative was held in Jeddah with the participation of 29 countries and international organizations. (SPA)
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1st Ministerial Council of Middle East Green Initiative Adopts Decisions to Launch Implementation

The first session of the Ministerial Council of the Middle East Green Initiative was held in Jeddah with the participation of 29 countries and international organizations. (SPA)
The first session of the Ministerial Council of the Middle East Green Initiative was held in Jeddah with the participation of 29 countries and international organizations. (SPA)

Saudi Arabia reiterated on Wednesday the importance of strengthened regional collaboration to protect the environment and enhance vegetation cover to boost food and water security, safeguard biodiversity, preserve ecosystems, and promote climate change adaptation.

The Kingdom noted that the Middle East Green Initiative (MGI) is a significant step toward improving regional governance in fighting desertification, drought, and climate change challenges.

Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture Abdulrahman Alfadley made the statements during the first session of the Ministerial Council of the Middle East Green Initiative in Jeddah with the participation of 29 countries and international organizations.

Alfadley confirmed that the initiative, launched by the Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, in 2021, marks the first regional alliance of its kind, designed to reduce the impacts of climate change across the Middle East and North Africa.

He noted that the final version of the initiative's charter was agreed upon during the founding countries' ministerial meeting in October 2022.

Alfadley stressed that the Middle East, one of the regions hardest hit by desertification and drought, requires intensified collective efforts to address environmental challenges

The ministerial council approved the MGI secretariat's organizational structure and its internal policies, appointed the MGI Secretary General and Fund Trustee, and took several other key decisions to enable the launch of MGI's implementation phase.

It extended its deepest gratitude to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and Crown Prince Mohammed for launching the initiative in 2021.

The council renewed its commitment to strengthening regional collaboration to combat land degradation, desertification, and drought while mitigating their significant environmental and socio-economic impacts.

It welcomed the accession of 11 countries as regional members of the MGI and emphasized the important role they will play in achieving the initiative's ambitious objectives. It also invited regional countries to join the MGI.

It also welcomed the United Kingdom's accession to the MGI as a non-regional contributor with observer status. The council encourages other non-regional countries to participate, underscoring their vital role in providing technical and financial support to help achieve regional objectives and address global environmental challenges.

The council highlighted the importance of continued efforts by regional member countries to set ambitious future goals and develop policies and national strategies for land rehabilitation and vegetation cover development, aligned with relevant multilateral environmental agreements and conventions. The council urged member countries to incorporate these national targets into the MGI's regional framework.

Moreover, the council underlined the significance of bolstering international multilateral efforts and the vital role of the private sector, financial institutions, and civil society in addressing the global challenges of land degradation, desertification, and drought while supporting regional initiatives.

The council commended the landmark resolution adopted during the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) in February 2024, which focused on strengthening international efforts to combat land degradation and desertification while enhancing resilience to drought.

In addition, the council praised Saudi Arabia for hosting the last World Environment Day celebration on June 5, 2024, and the United Nations Environment Program for designating "Our Land, Our Future" as the theme for World Environment Day 2024.

Furthermore, the council said it looks forward to the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) that will be held in Riyadh in December.

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Varieties

Digital Age Brings Denmark’s 400-Year-Run Postal Service to Historic End

Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
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Digital Age Brings Denmark’s 400-Year-Run Postal Service to Historic End

Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

Beside the railroad tracks of Copenhagen’s train station, right in the heart of the Danish capital, stands a red-brick building with an ornate façade and a copper-clad cupola still turning green over time.

When it opened in 1912 as the Central Post Building, its grandeur echoed the booming postal and telegraph services that crisscrossed Denmark, connecting Danes to one another.

A little over a century later and that building, now a luxury hotel, presides over a city, and a country, where the postal service no longer delivers letters, according to CNN.

Denmark’s state-run postal service, PostNord, will deliver its last ever letter on Tuesday, as the digital age brings its 400-year-run to an end. This makes Denmark the first country in the world to decide that physical mail is no longer either essential or economically viable.

Denmark’s postal service delivered more than 90% fewer letters in 2024 than in 2000. The US Postal Service delivered 50% less mail in 2024 than in 2006.
And as our correspondence has moved largely online – transfiguring into WhatsApp messages, video calls, or just an exchange of memes – our communication and language have changed accordingly.

Letters themselves “will change status” too, often coming to represent more intimate messages than their digital counterparts, said Dirk van Miert, a professor at the Huygens Institute in the Netherlands who specializes in early modern knowledge networks.

The knowledge networks that letters facilitated for centuries are “only expanding” in their online form, expediting both access to that knowledge as well as the rise of disinformation, he told CNN.

PostNord has been removing the 1,500 mailboxes scattered across Denmark since June. When it sold them off to raise money for charity on December 10, hundreds of thousands of Danes tried to buy one.

For each mailbox, they paid either 2,000 ($315) or 1,500 ($236) Danish krone, depending on how worn they were.

Instead of posting letters, Danes will now have to drop them off at kiosks in shops, from where they will be couriered by private company DAO to both domestic and international addresses. PostNord will continue delivering parcels, however, as online shopping remains ever popular.

Denmark is one of the world’s most digital nations; even its public sector utilizes several online portals, minimizing any physical government correspondence and making it much less reliant on postal services than many other countries.

Still, the need for physical correspondence continues around the world, even if it is diminished.

Almost 2.6 billion people remain offline, according to the UN-affiliated Universal Postal Union, and many more “lack meaningful connectivity,” thanks to inadequate devices, poor coverage and limited digital skills. Rural communities, women and those living in poverty are among the worst affected, it added.

And even in countries like Denmark, some groups who are more reliant on postal services, like older people, may be adversely affected by the changes, advocacy groups say.

“It’s very easy for us to access our mail on the phone or a website... but we forgot to give the same possibilities to those who are not digital,” said Marlene Rishoej Cordes, a spokesperson for the DaneAge Association, which advocates for older people.

The letter has undergone transformations before, in both medium and style. “It changed formats from papyrus or wax tablets... then paper later on, vellum in the Middle Ages, and now we have electronic devices,” said Van Miert.

In the 17th century, following the traditions laid down by great philosopher-letter-writers, like Cicero and Erasmus, students were taught “how to write a proper letter, a letter of consolation, praise or congratulations,” he added. “For a diplomatic letter, a wholly different style was required than for a personal, or what they called a familiar, letter.”

Letters have come to represent an “element of nostalgia” and a permanence that technology cannot match, Nicole Ellison, a professor at the University of Michigan specializing in computer-mediated communication, told CNN.

Still, like the students who altered their letter-writing styles according to different contexts, digital communication has evolved to compensate for some of the personal touches and emotional cues a handwritten letter can convey.

Nonetheless, the demise of the letter is already sparking nostalgia in Denmark.

“Look closely at the picture here,” one Danish user on X said, alongside a photo of a mailbox. “Now in 5 years I will be able to explain to a 5-year-old what a mailbox was in the old days.”

Varieties

Cities Around the World Welcome 2026 with Fireworks and Heightened Security

Fireworks are seen over Sydney Harbour during the New Year's Eve midnight display, at Mrs Macquaries Point in Sydney, 01 January 2026. EPA/DAN HIMBRECHTS
Fireworks are seen over Sydney Harbour during the New Year's Eve midnight display, at Mrs Macquaries Point in Sydney, 01 January 2026. EPA/DAN HIMBRECHTS
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Cities Around the World Welcome 2026 with Fireworks and Heightened Security

Fireworks are seen over Sydney Harbour during the New Year's Eve midnight display, at Mrs Macquaries Point in Sydney, 01 January 2026. EPA/DAN HIMBRECHTS
Fireworks are seen over Sydney Harbour during the New Year's Eve midnight display, at Mrs Macquaries Point in Sydney, 01 January 2026. EPA/DAN HIMBRECHTS

From Sydney to Paris to New York City, crowds rang in the new year with exuberant celebrations filled with thunderous fireworks or light shows, while others took a more subdued approach.

As the clock struck midnight in Japan, temple bells rang and some climbed mountains to see the year’s first sunrise, while a light show with somersaulting jet skis twinkled in Dubai. The countdown to 2026 was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, while in Moscow people celebrated in the snow, The Associated Press reported.

In New York City's Times Square, revelers braved frigid temperatures to celebrate with the famed New Year’s Eve ball drop.

In Rio de Janeiro, crowds packed more than 4 kilometers (2 1/2 miles) of the city’s Copacabana Beach for concerts and a 12-minute fireworks show, despite high tides and large waves that rocked barges carrying fireworks.

Other events were more subdued. Hong Kong held limited celebrations following a recent fire at an apartment complex that killed 161 people.

Australia saluted the new year with defiance less than a month after its worst mass shooting in almost 30 years.

Crowds bundled up against the chilly temperatures cheered and embraced as the New Year’s Eve ball covered in more than 5,000 crystals descended down a pole and confetti fell in Times Square.

Revelers wearing tall celebratory hats and light-up necklaces had waited for hours to see the 12,350-pound (5,602-kilograms) ball drop. The festivities also included Tones and I performing John Lennon's “Imagine” just before midnight.

The television hosts interviewed visitors who were attending from such places as Florida, Mexico and South Korea, and read people's wishes for the new year.

A sixth grader from Dallas, Texas, told one of the hosts that he wants to get good grades in 2026 and have a better year.

Police in the city had planned additional anti-terrorism measures at the ball drop, with “mobile screening teams.” It was not in response to a specific threat, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

Moments after the ball dropped it rose again, sparkling in red, white and blue, to mark the country’s upcoming 250th birthday.

A few miles away in a decommissioned subway station, Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor during a private event just after midnight Thursday.

A heavy police presence monitored crowds watching fireworks in Sydney.

Many officers openly carried rapid-fire rifles, a first for the event, after two gunmen targeted a Hannukah celebration at Bondi Beach on Dec. 14, killing 15.

An hour before midnight, victims were commemorated with a minute of silence, and the crowd was invited to show solidarity with Australia’s Jewish community.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns had urged residents not to stay away from festivities, saying extremists would interpret smaller crowds as a victory: “We have to show defiance in the face of this terrible crime."

Indonesia scaled back festivities in solidarity with communities devastated by floods and landslides in parts of Sumatra a month ago that killed over 1,100. Fireworks on the tourist island of Bali were replaced with traditional dances.

Hong Kong rang in 2026 without fireworks over Victoria Harbor after the massive fire in November. Facades of landmarks were turned into countdown clocks and a light show at midnight.

And in Gaza, Palestinians said they hope the new year brings an end to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“The war humiliated us,” said Mirvat Abed Al-Aal, displaced from the southern city of Rafah.

Around Europe Pope Leo XIV closed out the year with a plea for the city of Rome to welcome foreigners and the fragile. Fireworks erupted over European landmarks, from the Colosseum in Rome to the London Eye.

In Paris, revelers converged around the glittering Champs-Élysées avenue. Taissiya Girda, a 27-year-old tourist from Kazakhstan, expressed hope for a calmer 2026.

“I would like to see happy people around me, no war anywhere,” she said.

“Russia, Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, I want everybody to be happy and in peace."

In Scotland, where New Year’s is known as Hogmanay, First Minister John Swinney urged Scots to follow the message of “Auld Lang Syne” by national poet Robert Burns and show small acts of kindness.

Greece and Cyprus turned down the volume, replacing traditional fireworks with low-noise pyrotechnics in capitals. Officials said the change was intended to make celebrations more welcoming for children and pets.

Varieties

Heavy Snow in Poland Leaves Drivers Stranded in Tailbacks of up to 20 Km

Cars drive on a road during heavy snowfall in central Warsaw, Poland, 30 December 2025. (EPA)
Cars drive on a road during heavy snowfall in central Warsaw, Poland, 30 December 2025. (EPA)
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Heavy Snow in Poland Leaves Drivers Stranded in Tailbacks of up to 20 Km

Cars drive on a road during heavy snowfall in central Warsaw, Poland, 30 December 2025. (EPA)
Cars drive on a road during heavy snowfall in central Warsaw, Poland, 30 December 2025. (EPA)

Heavy snowfall in Poland caused tailbacks stretching as far as 20 km (12.43 miles) on a motorway between ​the capital Warsaw and the Baltic port city of Gdansk during the night, police said on Wednesday.

While the situation left hundreds of people trapped in their cars in freezing conditions, by the early hours of ‌Wednesday morning traffic ‌was moving again, ‌according ⁠to ​police.

"The ‌difficult situation began yesterday after 4 p.m., when the first trucks on the S7 route... began having trouble approaching the slopes," said Tomasz Markowski, a spokesperson for police in the northern city of ⁠Olsztyn.

"This led to a traffic jam stretching approximately ‌20 kilometers overnight." Deputy Infrastructure Minister ‍Stanislaw Bukowiec ‍told a press conference that nobody had ‍been hurt as a result of the difficult situation on the roads.

Anna Karczewska, a spokesperson for police in Ostroda, said officers had ​tried to help drivers who found themselves stuck. Ostroda lies on ⁠the highway about 40 km west of Olsztyn.

"We helped as much as we could, and we had coffee and hot tea for the drivers, which the Ostroda City Hall had prepared for us," she said.

State news agency PAP reported that there had also been some disruption to railways and airports, ‌but that services were returning to normal.