Category: 2. World

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BEIJING, Jul 10 (APP):Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar met with Cao Shumin, Deputy Head of the CPC Publicity Department and Minister of National Radio and Television Administration of China (NRTA) China, to explore broadening cooperation through joint productions, combating disinformation, launching training initiatives, and fostering cultural exchange.

Both leaders characterized the media partnership as a testament to mutual trust and a deep-rooted friendship.

Speaking on the occasion, Attaullah Tarar stated that Pakistan has much to learn from China’s experience in media and communication.

He praised China’s expertise in digital media, public service broadcasting, and cultural content promotion as truly commendable.

Pakistan and China have agreed to expand cooperation and joint broadcasting projects between their state media organizations. This initiative aims to more effectively counter fake news and disinformation.

Both leaders also endorsed a unified stance against fake news, along with plans for technical training and institutional collaboration.

The meeting further featured discussions on a proposed agreement between China Central Television (CCTV) and Pakistan Television (PTV) to promote information exchange and strengthen media cooperation.

Discussions during the meeting also touched on facilitating exchange visits of digital influencers from Pakistan and China to strengthen cultural ties and mutual engagement.

Attaullah Tarar stated that under the agreement, both institutions will enhance cooperation in news coverage, documentary production, training resources, and technical support.

Attaullah Tarar noted that during the recent tensions between Pakistan and India, youth from China and Pakistan demonstrated strong solidarity, a sentiment that gained widespread attention across social media platforms.

Attaullah Tarar remarked that in today’s digital age, the exchange of influencers and social media representatives from both countries can bring renewed vitality to bilateral relations.

He affirmed Pakistan’s commitment to turning mutual media cooperation into concrete actions.

Tarar emphasized that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) serves as a cornerstone for a promising future between the two nations.

Attaullah Tarar said that Pakistan Television, Radio Pakistan, and the national news agency APP are instrumental in highlighting China’s development, the Belt and Road Initiative, CPEC, cultural ties, and mutual cooperation to the people of both Pakistan and China.

He noted that Pakistan Television (PTV) is fostering intellectual and cultural ties between the two nations by broadcasting Chinese programs, documentaries, and news reports in Urdu.

Likewise, APP’s China News Service has made notable strides in delivering Pakistan’s narrative to Chinese readers effectively.

Federal Minister for Information stated that media organizations in both countries are playing a key role in fostering closer ties between the people of China and Pakistan, promoting social understanding, and enhancing mutual harmony.

He added that further opportunities for collaboration in media and culture exist and can be pursued through active institutional frameworks.

Ms Cao Shumin highlighted China’s recognition of Pakistan as a trusted partner, noting that media organizations from both nations can deepen their collaboration by sharing experiences. She further emphasized that greater cooperation in media and technology will be mutually advantageous.

Discussions during the meeting also focused on shaping a joint narrative around civilizational exchange and innovation between Pakistan and China.

Both sides agreed that media, culture, and public relations hold the potential to deepen the bilateral relationship, with future efforts to be advanced through a coordinated strategy.

Reuters

Reuters

Reuters

 

MANILA: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will visit Washington this month, the Philippine Foreign Ministry said on Friday, making this the first trip of a Southeast Asian leader since Donald Trump took office.

The trip, which follows Trump’s tariffs announcement earlier this week, will take place from July 20 to 22, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, adding that details of the visit are not yet finalized.

Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez told reporters that Marcos is the “first ASEAN head of state invited by Trump,” referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Trade and security will likely be the focus of discussions, according to Prof. Ranjit Sing Rye, president of OCTA Research.

 

“I think it’s a very significant meeting of both leaders of the Philippines and the US, especially at this time when there’s so much dynamics in the … South China Sea,” Rye told Arab News.

“It signifies and symbolizes the broadening and deepening of US-Philippine relations under the Trump administration.”

Tensions have continued to run high between the Philippines and China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which billions of dollars of goods pass each year.

Manila and Beijing have been involved in frequent maritime confrontations in recent years, with China maintaining its expansive claims of the area, despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling the historical assertion to it had no basis.

The US has a seven-decade-old mutual defense treaty with the Philippines and Washington has repeatedly warned that a Chinese attack on Filipino ships could trigger a US military response.

Philippine and US forces have increasingly upped mutual defense engagements, including large-scale combat exercises in the Philippines.

Manila is also sending trade officials to the US next week to hold further negotiations on tariffs, after Trump raised a planned tariff on Philippine exports to the US to 20 percent from 17 percent.

It is not immediately clear if the Marcos visit will coincide with that of Manila’s tariff-negotiating team.

“Over the next three years, there will be, in my view, a broadening and deepening of US-Philippine relations on many levels, not just economic, not just socioeconomic, but also in trade, but also in security relations,” Rye said.

“And maybe some of these details will be threshed out during that meeting.”

This will be Marcos’ third visit to the US since he became president in 2022.

His last trip was in April 2024, when he met with then President Joe Biden and former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the first trilateral summit among the treaty allies. 

• Workers in central Texas continue to comb through piles of muddy debris.
• Death toll rises to 119 with over 160 people still reported missing.
• Tragedy “as horrific as it is, could have been so much worse,” says official.

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HUNT: The Texas flash floods death toll rose to 119 on Wednesday, as worries grew that the figure could more than double with over 160 people still reported missing.

Workers in central Texas continued to comb through piles of muddy debris from the July 4 floods as Governor Greg Abbott ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff over the tragedy.

Officials in Kerr County, the epicentre of the flooding, on Wednesday confirmed 161 people were known to be missing in the county.

Part of a Hill Country region in central Texas known as “Flash Flood Alley,” Kerr County suffered the most damage, with at least 95 fatalities including 36 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha told reporters.

Among them, counselors and 27 girls at a summer camp who went missing early Friday when the Guadalupe River burst its banks.

Five campers and one counselor from Camp Mystic were still missing as of Wednesday, along with another child not associated with the camp, Leitha said.

Two dozen other people have been confirmed dead elsewhere in the state, according to an AFP tally of official reports.

More than 2,000 rescue personnel, police and experts have descended on the flood zone in what Leitha described as an “all hands on deck” operation.

Ben Baker, with the Texas Game Wardens, said search and rescue efforts involving helicopters, drones and dogs were difficult because of the water, mud and debris.

“When we´re trying to make these recoveries, these large piles can be very obstructive, and to get in deep into these piles, it’s very hazardous,” Baker said.

Meanwhile, questions intensified over whether US President Donald Trump´s government funding cuts had weakened warning systems, and over the handling of the rescue operation.

During sometimes tense news conferences Tuesday and Wednesday, officials skirted questions on the speed of the emergency response.

“There´s going to be an after-action” review of what happened, Sheriff Leitha said, adding “those questions need to be answered.”

But officials stressed that the immediate focus was on locating the missing and reuniting families.

‘Door to door’

Kerrville police officer Jonathan Lamb spoke of heroic rescues by authorities and volunteers who evacuated hundreds of people from their homes or vehicles.

Officers went “door to door, waking people up” in Kerr County early Friday and in some cases “pulling them out of windows” of flooding homes and trailers, Lamb told reporters.

The tragedy, “as horrific as it is, could have been so much worse,” he added.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has forecast scattered storms on Wednesday in the Hill Country, including isolated pockets of heavy rain.

In the neighboring state of New Mexico, flash flooding left three people dead Tuesday in Ruidoso, the village website said in a statement, adding the Ruidoso River rose to a record-breaking 20 feet (six meters).

Bodies in the mud

In the Texas town of Hunt, an AFP team saw recovery workers combing through piles of debris with helicopters flying overhead.

Javier Torres, 24, was digging through mud as he searched for his grandmother, after having located the body of his grandfather.

He also discovered the bodies of two children, apparently washed up by the river.

Trump is due to visit Texas on Friday with First Lady Melania Trump.

“We brought in a lot of helicopters from all over… They were real pros, and they were responsible for pulling out a lot of people,” Trump said of the response.

Shel Winkley, a weather expert at the Climate Central research group, blamed the extent of the disaster on geography and exceptional drought, when dry soil absorbs less rainfall.

“This part of Texas, at least in the Kerr County flood specifically, was in an extreme to exceptional drought…. We know that since May, temperatures have been above average,” Winkley told reporters.

LAGOS: The four wealthiest individuals in Africa now hold more wealth than roughly half of the continent’s 750 million people, anti-poverty organisation Oxfam warned in a report released on Thursday, cautioning that widening inequality is undermining democratic progress.

While Oxfam named only Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, the other top earners, according to Forbes, include South Africans Johann Rupert and Nicky Oppenheimer, as well as Egyptian tycoon Nassef Sawiris.

Over the past five years, African billionaires have seen their wealth soar by 56%, with the richest among them recording even higher gains, Oxfam said.

Nearly half of the top 50 most unequal countries in the world are also on the continent, according to the report.

Oxfam argued that government policies are skewed against the poor and provide leeway for the continent’s super-rich to amass even more wealth.

“Most African countries are not fully leveraging progressive taxation to effectively tax the super-rich and address inequality,” the report said.

However, it also blamed mounting inequality on “regressive” International Monetary Fund policies and illicit financial flows — notably the use of tax havens to hide wealth abroad.

The NGO said that inequality is hindering democracy, hampering poverty reduction and worsening the climate crisis, with “political capture” by the wealthy undermining “pro-poor government policies and the effectiveness of public institutions”.

For instance, in Africa’s biggest democracy, Nigeria, people seeking political office are often priced out of running by exorbitant fees demanded by political parties.

Meanwhile vote-buying is rampant in a country where tens of millions of people are desperately poor.

Despite the issue, Oxfam said that nearly nine-in-ten African countries since 2022 have backtracked on policies on taxation, labour rights and minimum wages which the charity says are necessary to help tackle inequality.

Oxfam recommended an overhaul of tax administrations on the continent.

Currently, Africa’s tax systems are nearly three times less effective at redistributing income from the richest one percent than the global average, it said.

Additionally, the continent loses an estimated $88.6 billion annually through illicit financial flows.

A review of the tax systems of 151 countries found that “Africa was the only region in which countries have not increased effective tax rates since 1980”, the charity said.

LAGOS: The four richest Africans are wealthier than about half of the continent’s 750 million people, anti-poverty charity Oxfam said in a report published on Thursday, warning widening inequality was hampering democracy.

Oxfam named only Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, the continent’s richest man, in its report.

But according to Forbes, the top four are rounded out by South Africans Johann Rupert and Nicky Oppenheimer, along with Egyptian businessman Nassef Sawiris.

Over the past five years, African billionaires have seen their wealth soar by 56%, with the richest among them recording even higher gains, Oxfam said.

Nearly half of the top 50 most unequal countries in the world are also on the continent, according to the report.

Oxfam argued that government policies are skewed against the poor and provide leeway for the continent’s super-rich to amass even more wealth.

“Most African countries are not fully leveraging progressive taxation to effectively tax the super-rich and address inequality,” the report said.

However, it also blamed mounting inequality on “regressive” International Monetary Fund policies and illicit financial flows — notably the use of tax havens to hide wealth abroad.

The NGO said that inequality is hindering democracy, hampering poverty reduction and worsening the climate crisis, with “political capture” by the wealthy undermining “pro-poor government policies and the effectiveness of public institutions”.

For instance, in Africa’s biggest democracy, Nigeria, people seeking political office are often priced out of running by exorbitant fees demanded by political parties.

Meanwhile vote-buying is rampant in a country where tens of millions of people are desperately poor.

Despite the issue, Oxfam said that nearly nine-in-ten African countries since 2022 have backtracked on policies on taxation, labour rights and minimum wages which the charity says are necessary to help tackle inequality.

Oxfam recommended an overhaul of tax administrations on the continent.

Currently, Africa’s tax systems are nearly three times less effective at redistributing income from the richest one percent than the global average, it said.

Additionally, the continent loses an estimated $88.6 billion annually through illicit financial flows.

A review of the tax systems of 151 countries found that “Africa was the only region in which countries have not increased effective tax rates since 1980”, the charity said.