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Macron vows $150m towards rural hunger at Global Citizen festival

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday announced a $150 million commitment to the International Fund for Agricultural Development, which is currently the most promised by any government.

Macron vows $150m towards rural hunger at Global Citizen festival
French President Emmanuel Macron gestures after a visit to the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral. Photo: Daniel LEAL/AFP.

The French leader made the announcement via video at the Global Citizen Festival in New York’s Central Park, where artists including Lauryn Hill and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are slated to perform Saturday night.

The Global Citizen event, which has been staged since 2012 as world leaders gather in New York for the UN General Assembly, offers free tickets to supporters who pledge to take actions such as sending letters to their governments urging development aid.

Thousands of people had gathered by Saturday afternoon at the famed park stage in Manhattan despite a chill in the air and persistent rain.

“We have to fight together against poverty, climate change and for biodiversity,” Macron said. “This is why we want to take our part as well.”

The Rome-headquartered IFAD is an arm of the United Nations aimed at addressing poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries.

Global Citizen welcomed Macron’s commitment in a statement, adding that “much more needs to be done to provide crucial support to millions of smallholder farmers around the world, who produce 70 percent of food in low and middle-income countries.”

The institution urged governments to double their climate adaptation funding, and make sure IFAD reaches its funding target of $2 billion by the end of 2023.

Along with Macron, they said Norway had pledged $90 million to IFAD.

In addition to the night’s headliners Jungkook of BTS fame and Brazil’s Anitta are expected to perform.

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POLITICS

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

New Caledonia's main international airport will reopen from Monday after being shut last month during a spate of deadly unrest, the high commission in the French Pacific territory said, adding a curfew would also be reduced.

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

The commission said Sunday that it had “decided to reopen the airport during the day” and to “push back to 8:00 pm (from 6:00 pm) the start of the curfew as of Monday”.

The measures had been introduced after violence broke out on May 13 over a controversial voting reform that would have allowed long-term residents to participate in local polls.

The archipelago’s Indigenous Kanaks feared the move would dilute their vote, putting hopes for eventually winning independence definitively out of reach.

READ ALSO: Explained: What’s behind the violence on French island of New Caledonia?

Barricades, skirmishes with the police and looting left nine dead and hundreds injured, and inflicted hundreds of millions of euros in damage.

The full resumption of flights at Tontouta airport was made possible by the reopening of an expressway linking it to the capital Noumea that had been blocked by demonstrators, the commission said.

Previously the airport was only handling a small number of flights with special exemptions.

Meanwhile, the curfew, which runs until 6:00 am, was reduced “in light of the improvement in the situation and in order to facilitate the gradual return to normal life”, the commission added.

French President Emmanuel Macron had announced on Wednesday that the voting reform that touched off the unrest would be “suspended” in light of snap parliamentary polls.

Instead he aimed to “give full voice to local dialogue and the restoration of order”, he told reporters.

Although approved by both France’s National Assembly and Senate, the reform had been waiting on a constitutional congress of both houses to become part of the basic law.

Caledonian pro-independence movements had already considered reform dead given Macron’s call for snap elections.

“This should be a time for rebuilding peace and social ties,” the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika) said Wednesday before the announcement.

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