UK officially joins Indo-Pacific trade bloc /node/2583113/world
UK officially joins Indo-Pacific trade bloc
Singapore's Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong, Vietnam's Minister of Trade and Industry Nguyen Hong Dien and British Secretary of State for Business and Trade Kemi Badenoch are seen together, on the day Britain signs the treaty to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, in Auckland, New Zealand July 16, 2023. (REUTERS)
Officials hope membership will boost Britain’s flagging economy by £2.0 billion a year
Created in 2018, alliance has been seen as a bulwark against Chinese dominance
Updated 15 December 2024
AFP
LONDON: Britain on Sunday became the first European nation to join a major Indo-Pacific trading bloc, in what has been hailed as the country’s biggest trade deal since Brexit.
The UK is officially now the 12th member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
The UK formally signed the accession treaty last year.
Officials hope membership will boost Britain’s flagging economy by as much as £2.0 billion ($2.5 billion) a year.
According to government figures, the value of UK total trade in the 12 months to the end of September was £1.7 trillion.
The alliance comprises fellow G7 members Canada and Japan, plus long-standing allies Australia and New Zealand, alongside Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
Created in 2018, it has been seen as a bulwark against Chinese dominance in the region, although Beijing has applied to join.
The bloc, which accounts for about 15 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), will give British businesses trade access to a market of more than 500 million people.
The previous Conservative government signed Britain up in July 2023, with then Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch calling it “the biggest trade deal” since the UK left the European Union.
Britain has secured a number of post-Brexit trade deals, including with Australia, New Zealand and Singapore since it left the EU’s single market at the start of 2021.
It is also pursuing one with Gulf countries, and last month Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that Britain and India are to resume stalled talks to agree a free trade deal.
A much sought-after trade deal with the United States remains elusive and could become even less likely when Donald Trump enters the White House in January.
A deal with Canada has also failed to materialize.
South Korea’s acting president moves to reassure allies, calm markets after impeachment
Main opposition party will not seek to impeach South Korea’s acting president, Han Duck-soo
Han was elevated to acting president while Yoon Suk Yeol’s case moves to the Constitutional Court
Updated 15 December 2024
Reuters
SEOUL: South Korea’s acting president, Han Duck-soo, moved on Sunday to reassure the country’s allies and calm financial markets a day after President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached and suspended from his duties over a martial law attempt.
Han spoke with US President Joe Biden by phone, the White House and Han’s office said.
“South Korea will carry out its foreign and security policies without disruption and strive to ensure the South Korea-US alliance is maintained and developed steadfastly,” Han said, according to a statement from his office.
In a further attempt to stabilize the country’s leadership, the main opposition party announced it would not seek to impeach Han for his involvement in Yoon’s Dec. 3 martial law decision.
“Given that the prime minister has already been confirmed as acting president and considering that excessive impeachments could lead to confusion in national governance, we have decided not to proceed with impeachment procedures,” Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung told reporters.
Han, a longtime technocrat picked by Yoon as prime minister, was elevated to acting president in accordance with the constitution while Yoon’s case moves to the Constitutional Court. NORTH KOREAN THREAT
Yoon’s surprise martial law declaration and the ensuing political crisis spooked markets and South Korea’s diplomatic partners worried over the country’s ability to deter nuclear-armed North Korea.
Biden told Han the ironclad US-South Korea alliance remained unchanged and Washington would work with Seoul to further develop and strengthen the alliance as well as trilateral cooperation including neighbor Japan, Han’s office said.
The White House said in a statement that the US president “expressed his appreciation for the resiliency of democracy and the rule of law in the ROK and reaffirmed the ironclad commitment of the United States to the people of the ROK,” using the abbreviation for the country’s formal name, the Republic of Korea.
“President Biden expressed his confidence that the Alliance will remain the linchpin for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region during Acting President Han’s tenure.”
Han convened his cabinet and National Security Council shortly after Saturday’s impeachment vote and vowed to maintain military readiness to prevent any breach of national security.
South Korea’s partners wanted to see a credible and constitutional temporary leadership put in place as soon as possible, said Philip Turner, a former New Zealand ambassador to South Korea.
“They will be pleased to see Prime Minister Han take over as acting president,” he said. “He is capable, experienced and well respected in foreign capitals.”
But even with an acting president in place, international partners face months of uncertainty before a new president can be elected and a new government established, Turner added.
The Constitutional Court has up to six months to decide whether to remove or reinstate Yoon. If he is removed or resigns, a new election will be held within 60 days.
“During that time Korea’s highly competent professional bureaucracy can be relied on to keep the country’s foreign policy running, but they will find it hard to provide clear direction,” Turner said.
Ukraine to set up mechanism to supply food to Syria, Zelensky says
Ukraine has been one of the world’s top grain and oilseeds exporters, and has been exporting wheat and corn to Middle Eastern countries, but not to Syria
Updated 15 December 2024
Reuters
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday he had instructed his government to set up supply mechanisms to deliver together with international organizations and partners food to Syria in the aftermath of the fall of President Bashar Assad.
Ukraine has been one of the world’s top grain and oilseeds exporters, and has been exporting wheat and corn to Middle Eastern countries, but not to Syria.
Syria imported food from Russia during the Assad era, but Russian wheat supplies have been suspended amid the uncertainty and payment delays, Russian and Syrian sources said on Friday.
“We are ready to assist Syria in preventing a food crisis, particularly through the humanitarian program ‘Grain from Ukraine’,” Zelensky wrote on X.
“I have instructed the government to establish food supply mechanisms in cooperation with international organizations and partners who can help.”
Ukraine’s exports were buffeted by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, which severely reduced shipments via the Black Sea. Ukraine has since broken a de facto sea blockade and revived exports from its southern ports of Odesa.
Russia using North Korean troops in bid to reclaim Kursk: Zelensky
“Today, we already have preliminary data that the Russians have begun to use North Korean soldiers in their assaults,” said Zelensky
“The Russians include them in combined units and use them in operations in the Kursk region“
Updated 14 December 2024
AFP
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that Russia had begun deploying North Korean soldiers to storm Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region.
He spoke after Russian authorities said their firefighters were battling a blaze in the western Oryol region caused by a drone attack, with Ukraine saying it had hit a major oil terminal.
“Today, we already have preliminary data that the Russians have begun to use North Korean soldiers in their assaults. A significant number of them,” said Zelensky in his evening address.
“The Russians include them in combined units and use them in operations in the Kursk region,” he said.
While so far they had only been deployed there, they might also be sent to other parts of the frontline, he said, adding: “There are also already noticeable losses in this category.”
Washington and Seoul have accused Pyongyang of sending more than 10,000 soldiers to help Moscow, after Russia and North Korea signed a landmark defense pact this summer.
The two US foes have strengthened their military ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Zelensky said last month that 11,000 North Korean troops were in Russia’s western Kursk region and had already sustained losses.
Taken by surprise by the Kursk incursion, Russia has since steadily clawed back territory, halting Ukraine’s advance and rushing reinforcements to the region.
A Ukrainian army source told AFP last month that Kyiv still controlled 800 square kilometers (300 square miles) of the Kursk region, down from previous claims it controlled almost 1,400 square kilometers.
Earlier Saturday, Russian officials said firefighters were battling a blaze caused by a drone attack in the western Oryol region.
Ukraine has been targeting fuel depots in Russia in retaliation for Moscow’s strikes wreaking havoc on its power-generation network.
The Ukrainian military said Saturday morning that its forces had attacked a major oil depot in Stalnoi Kon, about 165 kilometers (100 miles) into Russian territory.
One of the largest terminals in Russia, it served Russia’s “military industrial complex” supplying the army, the General Staff said.
The governor of Oryol region, Andrei Klychkov, said on Telegram that a fire was blazing at “a fuel infrastructure facility” in Stalnoi Kon after a “massive drone attack.”
By Saturday evening, he said, firefighters appeared to be getting it under control, but local residents were advised to keep windows closed and not go out.
Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that the attack targeted a facility owned by Transneft-Druzhba, which operates the Druzhba oil pipeline, a key supply route for Russian oil heading to much of central Europe.
Russian media showed images, purportedly of the attack, with clouds of smoke billowing up into the night sky from a fire.
Governor Klychkov said there were no casualties in the attack, during which air defenses had downed 11 drones.
In Russia’s Belgorod region, which also borders Ukraine, a drone attack killed a nine-year-old boy and wounded his mother and baby sister, said the governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
He posted photos of the family’s home with a huge hole in the facade and the roof partially torn off.
Ukraine regularly attacks military and energy infrastructure in Russia, sometimes deep into its neighbor’s territory, in response to Russian attacks on its own infrastructure.
Kyiv’s General Staff said Russia had attacked overnight with 132 drones, claiming 130 of them were downed or failed to reach targets.
Russia’s military said Saturday that it had meanwhile downed 60 drones overnight.
Five die after boat carrying Pakistanis, other migrants capsizes off Greek island
So far 39 men, most of them from Pakistan, have been rescued by cargo vessels
They have been transferred to the island of Crete, the Greek coast guard said
Updated 14 December 2024
Reuters
ATHENS: At least five migrants drowned after their wooden boat capsized off Greece’s southern island of Gavdos, the coast guard said on Saturday, and witnesses said many were still missing as search operations continued.
So far 39 men — most of them from Pakistan — have been rescued by cargo vessels sailing in the area. They have been transferred to the island of Crete, the coast guard said, adding that the number of those missing had not yet been confirmed.
Coast Guard boats, merchant vessels, an Italian frigate and naval aircraft have been searching the area since Greek authorities were alerted about the incident on Friday night.
In separate incidents on Saturday, a Malta-flagged cargo vessel rescued 47 migrants from a boat sailing about 40 nautical miles off Gavdos, while a tanker rescued another 88 migrants some 28 nautical miles off the tiny island in Greece’s south.
According to initial information, coast guard officials believe the boats left together from Libya.
Greece was a favored gateway to the European Union for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia in 2015-2016, when nearly 1 million people landed on its islands, mostly via inflatable dinghies.
Incidents with migrant boats and shipwrecks off Crete and its tiny neighbor Gavdos, which are relatively isolated in the central Mediterranean, have increased over the past year.
In 2023, hundreds of migrants drowned when an overcrowded vessel capsized and sank in international waters off the southwestern Greek coastal town of Pylos. It was one of the deadliest boat disasters ever in the Mediterranean Sea.
Habitat loss stokes rabid jackal attacks in Bangladesh
Urbanisation, logging have led to major human encroachment on habitats where much of Bangladesh's jackal population resides
According to monitoring group Global Forest Watch, Bangladesh last year lost 17,800 hectares (44,000 acres) of forest cover
Updated 14 December 2024
AFP
DHAKA: Few in the Jahan family's remote Bangladeshi village had seen a jackal up close before the morning one stalked Musqan through the paddy fields, pounced on her, and maimed the four-year-old for life.
Violent and unprovoked attacks by rabid canines are rising around the South Asian nation due to rampant deforestation and habitat loss -- a trend experts say has been worsened by climate change.
Musqan is still recovering from the horrific injuries she sustained in the mauling last month by the rabid jackal. While she is rabies-free thanks to prompt treatment, her face is disfigured by bite wounds and one of her eyes remains swollen shut.
"It happened in broad daylight," her aunt Ishrat Jahan told AFP.
"A jackal pushed her to the ground and blindly bit her. Other villagers later killed it, but they are still traumatised by what happened."
In this photograph taken on November 24, 2024, Musqan (C) rests at the infectious diseases hospital in Dhaka, after she was bitten by a jackal. (AFP)
Golden jackals like the one that maimed Musqan are slender, wolf-like creatures found across Bangladesh, about the same size as a greyhound but lighter in weight.
What made the attack on Musqan unusual was its timing -- she was bitten in the daytime, but golden jackals are a nocturnal species.
Animal researcher Zoheb Mahmud of Independent University in Dhaka told AFP that his studies of golden jackals over eight years showed that the "gradual erosion of habitats" had altered their behaviour.
"I found the once-shy creatures had begun staring at us," he said. "They are supposed to come out in the evening or at night, but we saw them during the day."
Urbanisation and logging have led to major human encroachment on the habitats where much of Bangladesh's jackal population resides.
According to monitoring group Global Forest Watch, Bangladesh last year lost 17,800 hectares (44,000 acres) of forest cover -- an area roughly three times the size of Manhattan.
Mahmud warned that jackal attacks on humans "would not stop" if the habitat loss continued.
Bangladesh is one the countries ranked most vulnerable to climate change, and there are signs that more extreme weather is making attacks more likely.
The country saw widespread flooding in September that displaced millions of people in the worst-hit areas for the second year running, with floodwaters coursing through forests and driving out their canine inhabitants.
"Due to the flood, the jackals lost their dwellings and food," jackal bite victim Obaidul Islam told AFP from Nilphamari in the country's north.
"So they came and bit more than a dozen people in our village."
A jackal rests at the zoo in Dhaka on December 12, 2024. (AFP)
Rakibul Hasan Mukul, executive director of civil society wildlife group Arannayk, told AFP that climate change was driving more extreme and frequent flooding in Bangladesh.
He said changes to the weather were also eroding farmlands, displacing their human inhabitants and prompting them to cut down more forests.
"The loss of land has also resulted in increased conflicts between humans and wildlife," he added.
"People are cutting bushes around wetlands and their homesteads for farming. As a result, small mammals are in crisis, losing their habitats."
While Bangladesh's health ministry does not maintain specific records on jackal bites, reports from hospitals indicate an alarming and possibly unprecedented frequency of attacks this year.
The Munshiganj District Hospital, south of Dhaka, treated 20 people for bites on just a single day in September.
"I have never seen so many people coming in with jackal bites on a single day before," hospital superintendent Dewan Nizam Uddin Ahmed told AFP.
Another hospital administrator in Dinajpur, on the other side of the country, told AFP there had been 12 cases in one day at his facility.
"We are regularly getting bite patients," Dinajpur Hospital superintendent Mohammad Fazlur Rahman said. "The jackals are roaming freely through the farmland."
Golden jackals are by nature shy and usually avoid human contact unless they contract rabies, a disease that quickly turns them bold and aggressive as its symptoms take hold.
Endemic across Bangladesh, rabies spreads quickly among canine species when infected animals bite and draw blood from other creatures.
The disease is almost guaranteed to lead to a prolonged and painful death in humans once symptoms show. Prompt intervention is needed to stop the disease in its tracks.
After Musqan was bitten last month, she received treatment for three days to prevent a rabies infection, followed by a month in hospital for surgeries related to her wounds, and is still deeply traumatised by the attack.
"We can prevent rabies with vaccines," Ariful Bashar, one of the doctors at the hospital treating Musqan, told AFP.
"But most of the time, jackals rip out flesh, deforming their victims. Almost all of them then need reconstructive surgery."
