China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. holds a document during the ceremonial signing of the Philippine Maritime Zones and Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act. (Malacanang Presidential Communications Office/AP)

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Updated 09 November 2024

Reuters

November 08, 2024 22:14

China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

Laws aimed at reinforcing Philippine rights to territory, resources
China unlikely to recognize laws, senator says

Updated 09 November 2024

Reuters

November 08, 2024 22:14

BEIJING/MANILA: China summoned the Philippines’ ambassador on Friday to express its objection to two new laws in the Southeast Asian nation asserting maritime rights and sovereignty over disputed areas of the South China Sea, its foreign ministry said.
China made “solemn representations” to the ambassador shortly after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed the Maritime Zones Act and the Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act into law to strengthen his country’s maritime claims and bolster its territorial integrity.
The Maritime Zones law “illegally includes most of China’s Huangyan Island and Nansha Islands and related maritime areas in the Philippines’ maritime zones,” Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, using the Chinese names for Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands respectively.
Beijing has rejected a 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration which said its expansive maritime claims over the South China Sea had no legal basis, in a case that was brought by Manila. The United States, a Philippine ally, backs the court’s ruling.
Marcos said the two laws he signed, which define maritime entitlements and set designated sea lanes and air routes, were a demonstration of commitment to uphold the international rules-based order, and protect Manila’s rights to exploit resources peacefully in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
“Our people, especially our fisher folk, should be able to pursue their livelihood free from uncertainty and harassment,” Marcos said. “We must be able to harness mineral and energy resources in our sea bed.”
But Beijing said the laws were a “serious infringement” of its claims over the contested areas.
“China urges the Philippine side to effectively respect China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, to immediately stop taking any unilateral actions that may lead to the widening of the dispute and complicate the situation,” Mao said.
China, which also has sovereignty disputes with the other countries in the region, has enacted domestic laws covering the South China Sea, such as a coast guard law in 2021 that allows it to detain foreigners suspected of trespassing.
Beijing, which uses an armada of coast guard ships to assert its claims, routinely accuses vessels of trespassing in areas of the South China Sea that fall inside the EEZs of its neighbors, and has clashed repeatedly with the Philippines in the past year.
Philippine officials acknowledged the challenges they face in implementing the new laws, with one author, Senator Francis Tolentino, saying he did not expect a reduction in tensions.
“China will not recognize these, but the imprimatur that we’ll be getting from the international community would strengthen our position,” Tolentino told a press conference.
The United States on Friday backed the Philippines.
“The passage of the Maritime Zones Act by the Philippines is a routine matter and further clarifies Philippine maritime law,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.

At least 10 killed in Afghanistan attack, interior ministry says

Updated 9 sec ago

Reuters

November 22, 2024 08:27

At least 10 killed in Afghanistan attack, interior ministry says

The nature of the attack was not immediately clear

Updated 9 sec ago

Reuters

November 22, 2024 08:27

At least 10 people were killed in an attack in Afghanistan’s Baghlan province, a spokesperson for the interior ministry said on Friday.
The nature of the attack was not immediately clear.

China urges ICC to take ‘objective’ position after Netanyahu arrest warrant

Updated 6 min 13 sec ago

AFP

November 22, 2024 08:20

China urges ICC to take ‘objective’ position after Netanyahu arrest warrant

Warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant ‘for crimes against humanity and war crimes’
China, like Israel and the United States, is not a member of the International Criminal Court

Updated 6 min 13 sec ago

AFP

November 22, 2024 08:20

BEIJING: China urged the International Criminal Court on Friday to remain objective and fair after it issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“China hopes the ICC will uphold an objective and just position (and) exercise its powers in accordance with the law,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press conference in response to a question about the court’s warrant for Netanyahu.
The ICC issued warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday “for crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed between October 8, 2023, and May 20 this year.
It said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the pair bore “criminal responsibility” for using starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally attacking civilians.
Netanyahu denounced the move as anti-Semitic and the court’s accusations as “absurd and false.”
China, which like Israel and the United States is not a member of the ICC, said it “supports any efforts by the international community on the Palestinian issue that are conducive to achieving fairness and justice and upholding the authority of international law.”
Lin also accused the United States of “double standards” in response to a question about the US opposition to the court’s pursuit of Netanyahu, but its support for a warrant against Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“China consistently opposes certain countries only use international law when it suits them... and engaging in double standards,” Lin said.
US President Joe Biden has condemned the warrants against Israeli leaders, calling them “outrageous.”

COP29 host urges collaboration as deal negotiations enter final stage

Updated 12 min 48 sec ago

Reuters

November 22, 2024 08:13

COP29 host urges collaboration as deal negotiations enter final stage

Sweeping plan that would see rich nations pledge to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars to help poorer countries grapple with the worsening impacts of global warming

Updated 12 min 48 sec ago

Reuters

November 22, 2024 08:13

BAKU: COP29 climate summit host Azerbaijan urged participating countries to bridge their differences and come up with a finance deal on Friday, as negotiations at the two-week conference entered their final hours.
World governments represented at the meeting in the Caspian Sea city of Baku are tasked with agreeing a sweeping plan that would see rich nations pledge to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars to help poorer countries grapple with the worsening impacts of global warming.
Economists have said developing countries need at least $1 trillion annually by the end of the decade, but wealthy nations have so far been resisting. Negotiations have also been clouded by uncertainty over the role of the United States, the world’s top historic greenhouse gas emitter, ahead of climate skeptic President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
“We encourage parties to continue to collaborate within and across groups with the aim of proposing bridging proposals that will help us to finalize our work here in Baku,” the COP29 presidency said in a note to delegates on Friday morning.
It said a new draft deal would be released at midday in Baku, in the hopes of a deal by the end of the day.
Past COPs have traditionally run over time.
Division and discontent over the negotiations have already spilled into the open, after a fresh deal draft was released by the presidency on Thursday that offered two vastly different options that left no-one happy.
Although the 10-page document was slimmed to less than half the size of the previous versions issued at the summit, it avoided stating the total funds countries would aim to invest each year, leaving the space marked with an “X.”
It also reflected big divisions over issues such as whether funds should be offered as grants or loans, and the degree to which different types of non-public finance should count toward the final annual goal.
“I hope they find the sweet spot with this next iteration,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society, a veteran observer of COP summits. “Anything other than that may require rescheduling flights.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres returned to Baku from a G20 meeting in Brazil on Thursday, calling for a major push to get a deal and warning that “failure is not an option.”

Topics: COP29 climate climate change

Ireland’s anti-immigration right eyes election gains

Updated 22 November 2024

AFP

November 22, 2024 06:42

Ireland’s anti-immigration right eyes election gains

After recession and economic slowdown from 2008, immigration surged again following the coronavirus pandemic
Some 20 percent of Ireland’s 5.4-million population is now foreign-born

Updated 22 November 2024

AFP

November 22, 2024 06:42

Dublin: The Dublin office of lawyer Malachy Steenson doubles as his election campaign headquarters. Outside is an Irish tricolor and a sign reading: “Take back our nation.”
Inside, Steenson summarised his platform for the November 29 vote. “We need to close the borders and stop any more migrants coming in,” he told AFP.
Ireland is one of the few European Union members without any large established far-right party. But for the first time, immigration has become a frontline election issue.
Steenson, white-haired and 61, is part of an emerging group of ultra-nationalist politicians who performed well at local elections this year and now aim to gain a foothold in parliament.
Elected to Dublin City Council in June, he is running as an independent in the inner-city Dublin Central constituency that is now one of Ireland’s most ethnically diverse.
Most mainstream parties have spent much of the campaign bickering over solutions to Ireland’s acute housing shortage.
But for Steenson, migrants and asylum-seekers are exacerbating that crisis.
“If you import people who are going to sit around on welfare in accommodation that should be available to Irish nationals you’re just creating a bigger problem,” he said.
Ireland’s economy has attracted immigrants since the 1990s when eye-popping growth earned it the “Celtic Tiger” moniker.
After recession and economic slowdown from 2008, immigration surged again following the coronavirus pandemic, plugging job vacancies in booming tech, construction, and hospitality sectors, as well as health care.
Some 20 percent of Ireland’s 5.4-million population is now foreign-born. Official data showed a population increase fueled by migration of around 100,000 in the year to April 2024 — the largest since 2007.
But rapid demographic growth has heaped pressure on housing, services and infrastructure strained by lack of investment, fanning anti-migrant sentiment and hitting still largely favorable attitudes to immigration.
“Immigration is on everyone’s minds,” said Caroline Alwright, a fruit and vegetable stall-owner on Moore Street, a historic city-center market which has become a multicultural meeting place for different nationalities.
“A lot of people will vote for independent candidates, they see what is going on in this country,” said Alwright, 62, a veteran trader nicknamed by customers the “Queen of Moore Street.”
“This street has gone downhill, the country is being robbed blind with money given to people doing nothing on welfare,” she added, gesturing toward a group of Eastern European Romani.
In Kennedy’s pub across the constituency several punters also murmured discontent.
“The buses are full of foreigners, I would vote for anyone saying ‘Ireland is full’ and promising to do something about it,” said Mick Fanning, 74.
Around 110,000 Ukrainians have arrived in Ireland since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, one of the highest numbers per head of population in the EU.
Meanwhile asylum applications have surged to record levels since 2022, with this year’s figures driven by a fourfold increase in people arriving from Nigeria.
The large inflow and the housing crisis has prompted the government to stop providing accommodation to all asylum seekers last year.
That forced hundreds of single male applicants to sleep rough in tents, sparking hostile reactions from some anti-migrant locals.
Ireland has also seen a spike in arson attacks on buildings rumored or earmarked to provide reception centers for asylum seekers.
Last year the largest riot seen in Dublin for decades was triggered by a knife attack on children by an Irish national of immigrant origin.
At the other end of the ward, students at Dublin City University were supportive of immigration.
“We are not full, that’s a closed mindset,” said Carla Keogh, 19, a teaching student.
“If we look into our own past, Irish people left to find help and support in other places, as humans we need to open ourselves up.”
The ultra-nationalist vote is fragmented by micro parties and independents, with few, if any, expected to make an electoral breakthrough.
Anti-immigration votes will rather channel toward moderate independents “who are more outspoken on migration” than more radical options, said political scientist Eoin O’Malley, from Dublin City University.
Most mainstream parties have also pledged to tighten up the asylum system.
The number of arrivals from Ukraine dropped this year after the government slashed allowances and accommodation benefits for newly arrived refugees.
“We were called fascists, racists, far-right, when we proposed the same things two years ago, when in fact we are none of those things,” said Steenson who self-describes as a nationalist.

Topics: Ireland immigration

South Korea’s mountain of plastic waste shows limits of recycling

Updated 22 November 2024

Reuters

November 22, 2024 05:07

South Korea’s mountain of plastic waste shows limits of recycling

South Korea says that it recycles 7% of its plastic waste, compared to about 5%-6% in the US

Updated 22 November 2024

Reuters

November 22, 2024 05:07

SEOUL: South Korea has won international praise for its recycling efforts, but as it prepares to host talks for a global plastic waste agreement, experts say the country’s approach highlights its limits.
When the talks known as INC-5 kick off in Busan next week, debate is expected to center around whether a UN treaty should seek to limit the amount of plastic being made in the first place.
South Korea says that it recycles 73 percent of its plastic waste, compared to about 5 percent-6 percent in the United States, and the country might seem to be a model for a waste management approach.
The bi-monthly MIT Technology Review magazine has rated South Korea as “one of the world’s best recycling economies,” and the only Asian country out of the top 10 on its Green Future Index in 2022.
But environmental activists and members of the waste management industry say the recycling numbers don’t tell the whole story.
South Korea’s claimed rate of 73 percent “is a false number, because it just counts plastic waste that arrived at the recycling screening facility — whether it is recycled, incinerated, or landfilled afterward, we don’t know,” said Seo Hee-won, a researcher at local activist group Climate Change Center.
Greenpeace estimates South Korea recycles only 27 percent of its total plastic waste. The environment ministry says the definition of waste, recycling methods and statistical calculation vary from country to country, making it difficult to evaluate uniformly.
South Korea’s plastic waste generation increased from 9.6 million tons in 2019 to 12.6 million tons in 2022, a 31 percent jump in three years partly due to increased plastic packaging of food, gifts and other online orders that mushroomed during the pandemic, activists said. Data for 2023 has not been released.
A significant amount of that plastic is not being recycled, according to industry and government sources and activists, sometimes for financial reasons.
At a shuttered plastic recycling site in Asan, about 85km south of Seoul, a mountain of about 19,000 tonnes of finely ground plastic waste is piled up untreated, emitting a slightly noxious smell. Local officials said the owner had run into money problems, but could not provide details.
“It will probably take more than 2-3 billion won ($1.43 million-$2.14 million) to remove,” said an Asan regional government official. “The owner is believed unable to pay, so the cleanup is low priority for us.”
Reuters has reported that more than 90 percent of plastic waste gets dumped or incinerated because there is no cheap way to repurpose it, according to a 2017 study.
NO CONCRETE GOALS
South Korean government’s regulations on single-use plastic products have also been criticized for being inconsistent. In November 2023, the environment ministry eased restrictions on single-use plastic including straws and bags, rolling back rules it had strengthened just a year earlier.
“South Korea lacks concrete goals toward reducing plastic use outright, and reusing plastic,” said Hong Su-yeol, director of Resource Circulation Society and Economy Institute and an expert on the country’s waste management.
Nara Kim, a Seoul-based campaigner for plastic use reduction at Greenpeace, said South Korea’s culture of valuing elaborate packaging of gifts and other items needs to change, while other activists pointed to the influence of the country’s petrochemical producers.
“Companies are the ones that pay the money, the taxes,” said a recycling industry official who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, adding that this enabled them to wield influence. “The environment ministry is the weakest ministry in the government.”
The environment ministry said South Korea manages waste over the entire cycle from generation to recycling and final disposal.
The government has made some moves to encourage Korea Inc. to recycle, including its petrochemical industry that ranks fifth in global market share.
President Yoon Suk Yeol said at the G-20 summit on Tuesday that “efforts to reduce plastic pollution must also be made” for sustainable development, and that his government will support next week’s talks.
The government has changed regulations to allow companies like leading petrochemical producer LG Chem to generate naphtha, its primary feedstock, by recycling plastic via pyrolysis. SK Chemicals’ depolymerization chemical recycling output has already been used in products such as water bottles as well as tires for high-end EVs.
Pyrolysis involves heating waste plastic to extremely high temperatures causing it to break down into molecules that can be repurposed as a fuel or to create second-life plastic products. But the process is costly, and there is also criticism that it increases carbon emissions.
“Companies have to be behind this,” said Jorg Weberndorfer, Minister Counsellor at the trade section of the EU Delegation to South Korea.
“You need companies who really believe in this and want to have this change. I think there should be an alliance between public authorities and companies.”

Topics: plastic recycling South Korea

China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

At least 10 killed in Afghanistan attack, interior ministry says

At least 10 killed in Afghanistan attack, interior ministry says

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China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

At least 10 killed in Afghanistan attack, interior ministry says

China urges ICC to take ‘objective’ position after Netanyahu arrest warrant

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