JAKARTA: Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto will set off on his first foreign tour next month, with stops in China and the United States, local media reported Tuesday, as the new leader seeks a more prominent position for Jakarta on the world stage.
The 73-year-old ex-general was sworn in on October 20, pledging to stick to Jakarta’s traditionally non-aligned foreign policy while making the world’s fourth-most populous nation more active abroad.
On his first planned foreign visits since taking power, he plans to visit China, the United States, Peru, Brazil and Britain, newspaper Kompas reported, citing presidential palace sources.
He will reportedly embark on a state visit to Beijing on November 8 to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Qiang before heading to Washington to meet US President Joe Biden.
The date of his Washington visit was not reported but the US election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump falls on November 5, days before Prabowo is scheduled to leave Indonesia.
A former general under late autocrat Suharto, Prabowo was once put on a US visa blacklist over his rights record in Indonesia and East Timor, but the Trump administration lifted it years later.
Prabowo will then fly on to Peru to meet President Dina Boluarte and attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Peruvian capital Lima, before heading to the G20 summit in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, the report said.
His tour will end in Britain where he will meet King Charles III and Prime Minister Keir Starmer, it said.
“I can’t confirm his visits yet,” Hasan Nasbi, the presidential palace spokesman, told AFP.
The foreign ministry did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
“The issue of cooperation and efforts to improve the welfare of each country will be a central issue during the visits,” Kompas wrote.
After his election win in February, Prabowo used his eight-month transition period to visit more than a dozen countries to showcase a more active foreign policy than his predecessor Joko Widodo, who focused more on domestic issues like the economy.
Indonesia’s Prabowo to visit China, US on first foreign trip: report
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Indonesia’s Prabowo to visit China, US on first foreign trip: report
- He plans to visit China, US, Peru, Brazil and Britain
- The date of his Washington visit was not reported
Afghan hunger crisis deepens as aid funding falls short, UN says
- International aid to war-torn Afghanistan has dwindled significantly since 2021
- “For the first time in decades, WFP cannot launch a significant winter response,” the UN agency said
KABUL: The UN World Food Programme is unable for the first time in decades to provide effective aid to millions of Afghans suffering from malnutrition, with deaths especially among children likely to rise this winter, the WFP said on Tuesday.
International aid to war-torn Afghanistan has dwindled significantly since 2021, when US-led forces exited the country and the Taliban regained power. The crisis has been compounded by multiple natural calamities such as earthquakes.
“For the first time in decades, WFP cannot launch a significant winter response, while also scaling up emergency and nutrition support nationwide,” the UN agency said in a statement, adding that it needed over $460 million to deliver food assistance to six million most vulnerable Afghans.
“With child malnutrition already at its highest level in decades, and unprecedented reductions in (international) funding for agencies providing essential services, access to treatment is increasingly scarce,” it said.
Child deaths are likely to rise during Afghanistan’s freezing winter months when food is scarcest, it said.
The WFP estimates that 17 million people face hunger, up about 3 million from last year, a rise driven in part by millions of Afghans deported from neighboring Iran and Pakistan under programs to send back migrants and refugees.
Humanitarian agencies have warned that Afghanistan lacks the infrastructure to absorb a sudden influx of returnees.
“We are only 12 percent funded. This is an obstacle,” Jean-Martin Bauer, WFP Director of Food Security and Nutrition Analysis, told a press briefing in Geneva. He added that 3.7 million Afghan children were acutely malnourished, 1 million of whom were severe cases. “So yes, children are dying,” he said.
