Safeen Dizayee, head of the (KRG’s) Department of Foreign Relations, has been visiting New York over the past week as a member of the Iraqi delegation, headed by President Barham Salih, to the opening of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly. Dizayee described the meetings as “very cordial and friendly.” Topics included the broader security situation in the Middle East, as well as Iraq, including the re-emergence of the so-called Islamic State.
Former French President Jacques Chirac who was born in 1939, has died at the age of 86 due to health complications. Parliamentarians observed a minute of silence in his memory, the president who has included his country among the group of countries dealing in the single European currency. Chirac is the second longest serving French president after ruling the country for 12 years from 1995-2007.
UAE astronaut Hazza Al Mansouri is in the International Space Station, becoming the first Arab to reach the station and the third Arab to go into space. Mansouri said in a press conference that he received global support for the “mission of dreams”, which starts from the base of Baikinur in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz shuttle. Mansouri’s mission lasts eight days and it is scheduled to return back to Earth on October 3rd.