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.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
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