https://news.sina.com.cn/w/2021-05-23/doc-ikmxzfmm4132394.shtml
VISION 2040
VISION 2040 from this year’s APEC includes:
-Trade & Investiment: reaffirm support for rules of WTO in multilateral trading system -Innovation & Digitalization: strengthen digital infrastructure, accelerate transformation, narrow digital divide, cooperate to facilitate data flow.
APEC PUTRAJAYA VISION 2040
Our Vision is an open, dynamic, resilient and peaceful Asia-Pacific community by 2040, for the prosperity of all our people and future generations.
Remaining committed to APEC’s mission and its voluntary, non-binding and consensus-building principles, we will achieve this Vision by pursuing the following three economic drivers:
Trade and Investment: To ensure that the Asia-Pacific remains the world’s most dynamic and interconnected regional economy, we acknowledge the importance of, and will continue to work together to deliver, a free, open, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent and predictable trade and investment environment. We reaffirm our support for agreed upon rules of the WTO in delivering a well-functioning multilateral trading system and promoting the stability and predictability of international trade flows. We will further advance the Bogor Goals and economic integration in the region in a manner that is market-driven, including through the work on the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) agenda which contributes to high standard and comprehensive regional undertakings. We will promote seamless connectivity, resilient supply chains and responsible business conduct.
Innovation and Digitalisation:To empower all our people and businessesto participate and grow in an interconnected global economy, we will foster an enabling environment that is, among others, market-driven and supported by digital economy and innovation. We will pursue structural reforms and sound economic policies to promote innovation as well as improve productivity and dynamism. We will strengthen digital infrastructure, accelerate digital transformation, narrow the digital divide, as well as cooperate on facilitating the flow of data and strengthening consumer and business trust in digital transactions.
Strong, Balanced, Secure, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth: To ensure that the Asia-Pacific region is resilient to shocks, crises, pandemics and other emergencies, we will foster quality growth that brings palpable benefits and greater health and wellbeing to all, including MSMEs, women and others with untapped economic potential. We will intensify inclusive human resource development as well as economic and technical cooperation to better equip our people with the skills and knowledge for the future. We will promote economic policies, cooperation and growth which support global efforts to comprehensively address all environmental challenges, including climate change, extreme weather and natural disasters, for a sustainable planet.
To maintain APEC’s unique position as the premier forum for regional economic cooperation as well as a modern, efficient and effective incubator of ideas, we will embrace continuous improvement of APEC as an institution through good governance and stakeholder engagements. We will advance the APEC Putrajaya Vision 2040 with a spirit of equal partnership, shared responsibility, mutual respect, common interest, and common benefit. We will achieve the Vision by 2040, with an appropriate implementation plan and review of its progress.
Global Tiger Day 29 July
Drone war is the future
- From Strato Energetics: The Stinger is our first mass-produced mini-weapon. It’s fully autonomous with wide-field cameras, tactical sensors, facial recognition, processors that can react 100 times faster than a human, and its stochastic motion is an anti-sniper feature. Inside it are three grams of shaped explosives that offer just enough power to penetrate the skull and kill the target with surgical precision.
- In 8-18, two drones loaded with C4 explosives swept past a parade of soldiers to launch an attack on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
- 9-14-19 Drone attacks claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck two key oil installations inside Saudi Arabia on Saturday, damaging facilities that process the vast majority of the country’s crude output and raising the risk of a disruption in world oil supplies.
- 1-2-20 Iran’s top security and intelligence commander Qassim Suleimani was killed early Friday in a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport that was authorized by President Trump, American officials said.
- 9-28-20 A major conflict has erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the long-disputed mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region, with casualties being reported on both sides after just two days of fighting. The Azerbaijani military says that its expanding drone fleet, which may now include Turkey’s increasingly popular Bayraktar TB2, has been particularly active already, destroying multiple Armenian mobile air defense systems, tanks, and other vehicles.
- 9-29-20 China’s first independently developed unmanned helicopter that will focus on plateau operation successfully completed its maiden flight in a plateau region, a milestone that demonstrates the capability of this agile drone. The AR-500C prototype completed its first plateau flight at the Daocheng Yading Airport, which is the world’s highest civilian airport with an elevation of 4,411 meters, the state-owned Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC), the aircraft’s developer, said in a statement on Monday. This flight broke the record for the elevation at which a domestically built unmanned helicopter took off and landed.
Unlike fixed-wing drones, a helicopter drone is more flexible since it does not require long runways.
UN Adopts Resolution Calling For Global Cooperation To Fight COVID-19, 169 countries in favour, US against
The United States voted against a COVID-19 resolution in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on September 11 that sought a “comprehensive and coordinated response” to the pandemic and also called for recognition of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) leadership role. The United States, which withdrew from the UN health body this July, along with Israel, voted against the resolution that was adopted by an overwhelming majority with 169 countries voting in favour of the text. Washington had accused WHO of mismanaging the COVID-19 pandemic and also siding with China before officially withdrawing from the global health agency this summer.
Out of 193 nations, 169 voted in favour of the resolution, Ukraine and Hungary abstained from voting, while the United States and Israel voted against the text, that calls for international cooperation to contain and overcome the pandemic and its consequences.
‘World’s loneliest elephant’ allowed to leave zoo for better life
Dubbed the “world’s loneliest elephant” by his supporters, Kaavan has languished at a zoo in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad for more than 35 years.
Martin Bauer, a spokesman for Four Paws, said on Saturday that the elephant has finally been given medical approval to travel, most likely to Cambodia, where he will find companionship and better conditions.
Kaavan, who is overweight, underwent a full medical examination at the zoo on Friday, said Bauer.
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A car-sized asteroid just skimmed past Earth in the closest space rock fly-by ever recorded. And none of our planetary defense systems saw it coming until it had already passed by.
Total failure: United States fails in its attempt to get the Security Council to to extend arms embargo to Iran
This is the reaction that the United States has found in the UN Security Council to its proposal to extend indefinitely the arms embargo on Iran that expires next October, according to the Efe news agency this Thursday at dawn. Of the 15 members of this body, only the Dominican Republic has supported Washington’s request, far from the nine votes needed to move the project forward. China, Russia, France, Germany and the United Kingdom had already advanced the veto to the proposal before the vote. The remaining eight members of the UN’s highest body have chosen to abstain, leading the initiative to total failure.
China welcomes Russia’s Friday proposal of a video summit with the United States and the remaining parties to the nuclear deal – China, Britain, France, Germany and Iran – to try to avoid further “confrontation and escalation” at the United Nations over Iran
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he would not participate in the summit on Iran that Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed on Friday. “Probably not,” Trump said when asked whether he would join the Putin-proposed video summit during a news conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Trump also confirmed to reporters that the United States “will be doing a snapback” against Iran, referring to restoring all pre-2015 UN sanctions against Iran. “You will be watching it next week,” he added.
8-19-20 Trump demands full restoration of UN sanctions on Iran, as Pompeo warns Russia & China not to meddle.
“Today I’m directing the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to notify the United Nations Security Council that the United States intends to restore virtually all of the United Nations sanctions on Iran – it’s a snap back, not uncommon,” Trump told reporters during a White House press conference on Wednesday.
8-20-20 The US exited the Iran nuclear deal and therefore has no right to demand a ‘snapback’ of UN sanctions on Tehran, the foreign ministers of three European powers involved in the JCPOA said in response to Washington’s latest push.
“France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the so-called E3, note that the United States has not been a member of the JCPOA since their withdrawal from the agreement on May 8, 2018,” their respective foreign ministers Jean-Yves Le Drian,Heiko Maas and Dominic Raab said in a statement on Thursday. Therefore, the E3 “cannot support” the US demand for UN sanctions against Iran to be reimposed, as it is “inconsistent” with their current efforts to implement the deal, the trio added.
Mount Sinabung eruption
Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung 锡纳朋火山 spewed ash over 5,000 meters high in the air on Monday as it erupted for the second time in 3 days. No deaths or injuries have so far been reported from the eruption.
Fake video of Beirut explosion