Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd left Canberra for his first visit to Japan as leader yesterday, playing down criticism that he had taken too long to travel to the major Asian power.
Rudd, who was elected to office in late November, flew out of the national capital shortly after 9am for the visit, a spokeswoman said.
Opposition politicians have accused the prime minister of snubbing Tokyo in favor of Beijing by skipping Japan during his first lengthy foreign trip which saw him visit the US, Europe and China in March and April.
Ahead of his flight, Rudd said the relationship with Japan was in “first-class working order.”
But the avowed Sinophile, who spent years living in Beijing as a diplomat and who speaks fluent Mandarin, said that good relations were needed with all Asian partners.
“Japan is a partnership which is anchored in our comprehensive engagement on strategic matters, security matters and economic matters,” he said. “It goes back a long time.”
“Also, we’ve got other partners within the region as well. China and Japan between them are our largest trading partners. They are huge and so it’s important to attend to all of these relationships,” he said.
Rudd said he wanted to take Canberra’s partnership with Japan “to the next stage” and would discuss increasing security cooperation with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.
The issue of Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean — which Australia strongly opposes — will feature among talks, but Rudd said Canberra would seek to resolve the matter diplomatically rather than through international courts.
“We have clear principles when it comes to the proper protection of whales in the Southern Ocean. Japan has a different view,” Rudd said. “We’ll seek to resolve that diplomatically and let’s see how the diplomacy runs. But this is a disagreement among friends.”
Accelerating negotiations for a free-trade agreement are also expected to be on the table during Rudd’s meeting with Fukuda.
Also See: Australian team to join UN assistance mission in Darfur
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS