Functioning as a professional social network, the digital platform will unite women leaders from Georgia and the whole region of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus and provide them with tools for networking, exchanging experiences, and international business expansion.

Tbilisi, 27 April, 2023  - Visa announced the launch of the She’s Next digital community platform for female entrepreneurs from Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus created in partnership with Emerging Europe, a prominent growth hub with thorough expertise in the region. The website launch was announced in Georgia and in this regard, Visa organized an informal meeting with Georgian women entrepreneurs and Visa partners.

At the meeting Visa team in Georgia introduced the opportunities and characteristics of the platform as it is intended to connect businesswomen from various countries and facilitate networking, exchanging experiences, and international business expansion.

“The She’s Next Empowered by Visa initiative is not only about empowerment but about creating a community of motivated and aspiring women,” commented Diana Kiguradze, Visa Regional Manager for the Caucasus. “Hosting events dedicated to female entrepreneurship, we noticed an interesting detail: She’s Next alumni from different countries tended to connect based on shared interests and values. The latest She’s Next research results in Georgia revealed that 82% of Georgian SMBs are eager to join the international community of entrepreneurs. So, we created it for them to share best practices, learn from each other, and grow as leaders. I believe the She’s Next digital community platform will be a real game-changer for all businesswomen from Georgia and the whole region.”

The digital platform includes all functions of a professional social network—a newsfeed, interest groups, and tools for posting and messaging—and will allow female leaders and entrepreneurs to communicate, search for business contacts, suppliers, or investors, and develop their personal brand. All potential platform users will undergo a verification process upon signing up to prevent fraud and ensure they are real persons and reliable partners for cooperation.

The She’s Next digital community platform is open to everyone interested in entrepreneurship, from those with a business idea but no existing business to startup owners and women with well-established enterprises. To learn more and join, please visit https://shesnext.emergingeurope.org/.

###

About Visa

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating payments transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at visa.com.ge

HMM (Hyundai Merchant Marine), a leading shipping company in the Republic of Korea, on Thursday opened a new direct container shipping route linking north China's Tianjin Port with major European ports.

According to the company, HMM will put 12 24,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) ultra-large container ships into weekly operation.

The shipping route will connect Tianjin with major European ports, including Algeciras in Spain, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Hamburg in Germany and Antwerp in Belgium.

The maritime route aims to offer convenient and efficient shipping services for exports of China-made mechanical and electrical equipment and daily necessities.

Tianjin Port is a major port in north China. Its container throughput exceeded 21 million TEUs last year, ranking eighth globally.

Produced by Xinhua Global Service

A freight train departing from Beijing arrived at Bely Rast Terminal Logistics Center in Moscow on Saturday. It is the first direct China-Europe freight train service from Beijing.

Produced by Xinhua Global Service

China saw its first export of 50-meter steel rails to Europe. A total of 22,000 tonnes of rails will be shipped to support the construction of the Hungary-Serbia Railway. #GLOBALink

Produced by Xinhua Global Service

Strategies for the Practice and Development of Peace Education

On January 27, HWPL held an online New Year's Conference for Peace Education with 37 participants from 6 countries. This New Year's Conference, with attendees from each continent, including Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, was promoted to share the activities of 2022, communicate with each other, and emphasize the need for active movement by peace teachers. There have been 43 peace educators in the MENA region, with 26 MOU and 2 MOAs contracted until now.

HWPL is an international peace NGO seeking ways to help students become leaders who create global harmony and achieve peace by interacting with global educators and UNESCO ambassadors as promoting a culture of peace and non-violence through education is one of UNESCO’s core missions. HWPL has its own Peace Education Curriculum from which students learn about the meaning of peace and its value and how to be qualified as a citizen of peace.

The peace activities of the countries cooperated with HWPL Global 2 branch, and the peace goals for this year were shared useful in overcoming to overcome difficulties in education that occurred in each country, such as the prolonged pandemic and educational inequality, and seek directions for development.

Iraq's Dr. Muayad Tahseen Yousif Altawi, Lecturer of the University of Mosul also shared action plans and strategies, and said “What we want is to have further cooperation with constant talks about the Peace Education. Of course, with SNS promotion of HWPL and its work" expressing his desire to create tangible results in 2023.

Mr. Elias Gudissa, a Consultant of Ethiopian Civil Service University, who had conducted peace education together, expressed her welcoming feelings about the peace initiatives continuing despite the pandemic crisis. “I can’t wait to affiliate with other universities through the Peace Education of HWPL. If there is a chance of taking part in activities of HWPL other than peace education, then I am willing to join as well” The attendees were online, but they were willing to open up about what they learned and felt and resolved to overcome the pandemic and share better examples next year.

Since having established designated HWPL Peace Academies in Israel and India School in Israel for the first time in 2015, HWPL has signed MOUs with 314 institutions and schools and MOAs with 13 countries, to prepare peace education at the government level.

Many cooperation projects, big and small, have witnessed the deepened economic and trade exchanges between China and Europe.

In the Lynk&Co Yuyao plant of Geely Auto Group in east China, brand-new vehicles are moving orderly on the production line.

During Dec. 1-18, over 4,400 vehicles were delivered from Ningbo Port, Shanghai Nangang Port and other Chinese ports, arriving at Belgium's Port of Zeebrugge in a month.

On Dec. 15, the X8026 "Yiwu-Xinjiang-Europe" freight train (Geely special express) loaded with 100 TEUs of auto parts departed from Yiwu, heading to Belarusian capital Minsk.

Till Tuesday, a total of 1,559 "Yiwu-Xinjiang-Europe" trains have left the Yiwu platform this year, with a year-on-year growth of 24.5 percent.

Since autumn, small heating facilities such as electric blankets and fan heaters have gained noticeable popularity in Europe, most of which are produced in China.

Data from e-commerce giant Alibaba showed that at the peak of export, the demand for heating appliances increased by nearly 50 percent year-on-year, and most products would go to the Netherlands, France, Germany and Poland.

According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, in the first 10 months of 2022, China-EU trade value hit 711.4 billion U.S. dollars, up 6.3 percent year-on-year.

China remains the largest trading partner of the European Union (EU), and the EU remains China's second-largest trading partner.

 Produced by Xinhua Global Service

From 23-25 November, EU NEIGHBOURS east is partnering with the  European Journalism Symposium to bring journalists from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova to this major international event, taking place in Brussels around the theme “Being a journalist in Europe today”.

This free event will bring together around 100 speakers from at least 25 different countries, offering a unique opportunity for networking and professional exchanges between visiting journalists from the Eastern Partnership region, the Southern Mediterranean and the EU, around discussions on the role of the media in their countries. 

Organised for the first time, the European Journalism Symposium aims to become a major biannual meeting where professionals will be able to discuss the challenges of their professions with the public, researchers, political and economic experts, and civil society representatives. 

“Today, as the war in Ukraine is bloodying the heart of Europe and smearing the right to have access to free and fair information, we need to create this space for dialogue and reaffirm the role of a free and pluralistic information system, at the service of peace and democracy,” the organisers say.

The programme includes sessions on a wide range of topics, including propaganda and fake news, threats to journalism, media literacy, cyberattacks, and press freedom. On 24 November, there will be a special evening, organised with Reporters without Borders, on ‘Telling the war in Ukraine’, with the participation of journalists from Ukraine and Belgium.

The event is co-organised by IHECS (the Institut des hautes études des communications sociales – École de journalisme de Bruxelles) and the French association Journalisme & Citoyenneté.

Find out more

Press release

Programme

During the address at the autumn session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the member of Parliament of Ukraine, Serhii Soboliev said that it's impossible to realise how Europe and the European Union can be without such nations as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia.

“it's very important to understand that as well, as it's impossible to realise how Europe and the European Union can be without the free nations of the Western Balkans, including Kosovo. It's also impossible to realise how Europe and the European Union can be without such nations as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. This report has the excellent possibility to understand that now we are all in one boat: a boat of democracy, but this boat must be protected, and must be protected not only by economical methods, but by military methods as well”, - said Serhii Soboliev.

In addition, the member of the Social Democratic Party Titus Corlățean noted: “all the time the EU enlargement process was a huge asset for the European Union”.

“It was the case with the Central Eastern former communist countries; it is the case now with some of the Eastern partners, such as Ukraine, Republic of Moldova, and I hope also Georgia before the end of the year. It should definitely be the case, but not only in making reference to a European perspective. We should use the proper words”, - said Titus Corlățean.

The senator of the French Senate, member of the Union Centrists group, Claude Kern also addressed to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He said that the European perspective of the Western Balkans should be strongly reaffirmed, without the difficulties associated with joining the European Union.

“The same goes for Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova – and perhaps, I hope, one day for Georgia. But the pre-accession phase is a crucial step if we are to avoid importing systemic problems into the European Union”, - said Claude Kern.

Remind you that the autumn session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is holding in Strasbourg from 10 to 14 October.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to address the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe by videoconference on Thursday.

There will also be addresses by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, and the President of the Swiss Confederation, Ignazio Cassis, as well as the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama.

Thomas Byrne, Ireland’s European Affairs Minister, will present the Communication from the Committee of Ministers in the framework of the Irish Presidency of the Council of Europe.

The Organization’s Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić will hold the usual question time with PACE members.

STRASBOURG. Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins has called for a longer-term vision of the Council of Europe’s role in a post-conflict Europe, and how that might fit within the wider multilateral architecture, in order to effectively uphold human rights, the rule of law and democracy whilst ensuring there is no immunity for human rights violations.

Speaking to the Parliamentary Assembly in the context of Ireland’s Presidency of the Committee of Ministers, President Higgins stressed that we should revert to the Council of Europe’s fundamental strengths in rebuilding peace, notably the European Convention on Human Rights.

“It must be re-invoked, extended, bolstered, re-asserted, resourced and become part of the discourse of the European street,” said President Higgins, calling for Council of Europe and UN associations to be created in member states.

President Higgins underlined that we must focus on the indivisibility of human rights and commit to a wider definition of comprehensive security on the continent, as a European step towards a universal human rights-based approach to security – including food security.

Any review of the Convention framework must incorporate additional basic rights, said the President, such as the right to a clean environment and the right to be free from hunger.