BANGKOK: Leaders gathering for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Thailand should “rise above differences,” the host said on Thursday, after a series of summits in the region were dominated by geopolitical tension over the war in Ukraine.
Thailand’s Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said the meeting of the 21-member bloc, which starts Friday, “takes place at a pivotal juncture” with the world facing multiple risks.
“Cancel mentality... permeates every conversation and action, (and) makes any compromise appear impossible,” he said in a statement after a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers ahead of the main summit.
“That’s why APEC this year must rise above these challenges and deliver hope to the world at large.”
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha at a pre-summit business event said the focus of meetings would be “new trade and investment narratives... the need to reconnect supply chains and travel, and the global sustainability agenda.”
On the APEC sidelines, Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to have talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida later in the day. Xi had been due to give an address to a business forum but canceled, organizers said.
US Vice President Kamala Harris and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are among those also attending the main meeting, while French President Emmanuel Macron is a special guest.
The APEC meeting comes on the heels of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Bali where countries unanimously adopted a declaration saying most members condemned the war in Ukraine, but that also acknowledged some countries saw the conflict differently.
Host Indonesia said the Ukraine war had been the most contentious issue.
The war also figured prominently at the East Asia Summit and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summits in Cambodia at the weekend, as did the crisis in Myanmar, whose ruling generals were barred from attending due to failure to follow a peace process.
On Thursday, as leaders prepared for the APEC meeting, the junta in neighboring Myanmar announced it would free 5,774 political prisoners, among them a Japanese filmmaker, a former British ambassador and an Australian economist and former adviser to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi,
Activists and the military’s opponents welcomed the amnesty, but warned the world not to be tricked by the junta, which they said was using people as bargaining chips.
Tensions also simmered elsewhere at the G20 summit in Bali when Xi criticized Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in person over alleged leaks of their closed-door meeting, a rare public display of annoyance by the Chinese leader.
Russia is a member of both G20 and APEC but President Vladimir Putin has stayed away. First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov will stand in for him at APEC.
Geopolitics to stay in focus at APEC summit in Thailand
https://arab.news/p95sv
Geopolitics to stay in focus at APEC summit in Thailand
- Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to have talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida
- US Vice President Kamala Harris and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are among those attending
South Africa declares national disaster as floods batter region
- Authorities continued to search for survivors and recover bodies at the weekend, but flooding had started receding in some areas
- Rivers burst their banks and swallowed entire neighborhoods in several regions of Mozambique
JOHANNESBURG: South Africa on Sunday declared a national disaster after widespread flooding that destroyed homes and killed dozens, while thousands sought shelter in neighboring Mozambique.
Heavy rains and storms have battered the two southern African countries for weeks, claiming more than 30 lives in South Africa’s northeastern Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces.
Rivers burst their banks and swallowed entire neighborhoods in several regions of Mozambique, displacing thousands including a woman who was forced to give birth on a roof as she sheltered from flood waters.
“I classify the disaster as a national disaster,” the head of South Africa’s National Disaster Management Center Elias Sithole said in a statement Sunday.
Authorities continued to search for survivors and recover bodies at the weekend, but flooding had started receding in some areas, including the famed Kruger National Park, which had been forced to close and evacuate guests Thursday.
“Day visitation to the park will resume as of tomorrow,” South African National Parks announced on social media, still urging visitors to “exercise caution.”
- Baby born on a roof -
In Mozambique, rescue efforts were slow to reach survivors who sheltered on roofs and in trees.
At least eight people had died in the country since December 21, according to official data, but numbers were expected to rise as more people were declared missing.
A resident of Gaza province north of Maputo, Chauna Macuacua, told AFP that her sister-in-law had given birth on a roof where the family was waiting to be rescued since Thursday.
“We’ve been here for 4 days. My nephew was born yesterday around 11 PM (2100 GMT), and we still haven’t had any rescue or assistance for the baby and mother,” she said.
Wilker Dias, the director of a civil society group called Plataforma Decide, said he had received reports of several people missing.
“I think the numbers of dead will increase in the next hours,” he told AFP.
South Africa also dispatched rescue teams to southern Mozambique Sunday after a car carrying five members of a South African mayoral delegation was swept away by floodwaters in Chokwe, 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Maputo.
According to the latest figures released by the Mozambican government on Friday, more than 173,000 people had been affected by the floods across the country.
