India’s environment minister late on Friday likened Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa to a “goddess” as she won rave reviews for brokering a deal on climate change.
At a late-night session of the talks in Cancun, Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh urged all nations to support the “balanced” compromise that he said took account of the points of view of all sides.
REVOLUTIONARIES
PHOTO: AFP
“The great Mexican revolutionary leader Porfirio Diaz had said the big challenge for Mexico is it is very close to its northern neighbor, but very far away from God,” Ramesh said. “But tonight, God has been very close to Mexico.”
“If I may say so, since I come from a country which has more goddesses than gods, not only has God been present, but a goddess has been present today,” he said.
HIGH MARKS
Espinosa won high marks for ensuring transparency after last year’s chaotic Copenhagen summit, including by pairing developed and developing nations to work out key issues.
“Most importantly, you have restored the confidence of the world community in multilateralism and in the multilateral process,” Ramesh said.
The draft agreement, brokered over nearly two days of round-the-clock negotiations, sets up a new global fund to administer billions of dollars in financial assistance to developing countries.
‘DEEP CUTS’
It also calls anew on nations to make “deep cuts” in carbon emissions blamed for global warming, with a goal of keeping a rise in temperatures at no more than 2° above pre-industrial levels.
In his speech, Ramesh referred to an oft-quoted phrase attributed to Porfirio Diaz, a dictator who was overthrown shortly after the start of the Mexican revolution in 1910.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS