Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd landed in tsunami-hit Aceh Province, Indonesia, yesterday to see first hand Canberra’s billion-dollar effort to help rebuild the province.
Rudd inaugurated a primary school rebuilt with Australian aid money after it was flattened in the 2004 tsunami, which killed more than 168,000 people in the province alone.
Rudd pledged A$50 million (US$46.8 million) to boost reconstruction funding in the province, which comes as part of Australia’s A$2.5 billion 2009-2014 development partnership with Indonesia.
PHOTO: AP
The money would be spent on education, fostering economic development and improving access to government services, Rudd said at the school after being greeted by children in traditional costume.
In the wake of the tsunami, Australia pledged Indonesia more than A$1 billion, which has been spent both inside and outside Aceh.
After visiting the school, Rudd inspected an foreign-funded coastal fish farm in the village of Ujung Batee before having lunch with provincial governor Irwandi Yusuf in the capital Banda Aceh.
Rudd is scheduled to meet Australian and Indonesian aid workers before leaving on an air force jet for Australia.
Rudd met with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and senior ministers in Jakarta on Friday during his first state visit to Indonesia.
He promised a “new phase of cooperation” with Indonesia on issues such as disaster response and the environment, and praised the “very strong friendship” between the two neighbors.
The two leaders agreed that the recent cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province underlined the need for a more coordinated regional approach to dealing with disasters.
“We do not know where a natural disaster will hit but between us we believe we can take a good and strong proposal” for a regional disaster-response system to the APEC meeting next year, Rudd said on Friday.
Rudd also used the visit to test support for his ambitious plan announced last week to create an Asia-Pacific Community including the US, Japan, India and China by 2020.
He has said the new bloc would not infringe on national sovereignty or replace existing structures, but had to be capable of addressing security and political issues in addition to the mainly economic focus of ASEAN and APEC.
The idea received warm backing from ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, who told reporters on Friday that the plan was a “natural progression” for regional cooperation.
Yudhoyono has so far not commented on the proposal, but a foreign ministry spokesman last week said Indonesia was “really keen” to examine the plan.
Rudd, who took office after a landslide election win last November, has put closer engagement with Asia at the top of his foreign policy agenda.
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
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
‘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
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