Top ministers from 21 economies ringing the Pacific Ocean gathered in Chile to convene high-level talks on free trade and global security as university students clashed with police to protest the summit and weekend visit of US President George W. Bush.
Police in Chile's second-biggest city of Valparaiso used tear gas and water trucks Tuesday to disperse scores of masked protesters who threw Molotov cocktails and burned an American flag.
Authorities said one police officer and two television cameramen were injured. At least two demonstrators were detained.
More demonstrations against the annual APEC forum are planned throughout the week, including a government-authorized march tomorrow through the streets of Santiago.
APEC foreign ministers and trade ministers were to hold meetings yesterday and today on issues ranging from fighting terrorism and corruption to a proposal to create a free trade area that would link the Americas to Asia. Leaders gather on Saturday and Sunday.
The ministers are under some pressure from the APEC Business Advisory Council, or ABAC, which recently proposed creating a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific that would stretch from China to California and from Australia to Chile's southern tip.
The group asked APEC leaders to establish a task force to study the issue, but a trade zone spanning the Pacific Ocean would take years to create.
Experts say the FTAAP zone won't be taken seriously until the APEC nations decide on a framework for actual negotiations. Huang Chih-peng (黃志鵬), a top Taiwanese trade official, said ministers are sure to discuss the idea but said it's unclear what the world leaders will decide.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not