International
New Zealand PM announces China trade visit
New Zealand Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins announced on Monday a visit to China later this month aimed at boosting trade ties, despite deepening concerns about Beijing’s actions in the Pacific.
“Today I can announce that I’ll be leading a major trade delegation to China at the end of this month,” Hipkins said.
With stops in Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai, it will be the first visit to China by a New Zealand leader since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is not yet clear whether he will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, and an exact date has not yet been announced.
Almost a quarter of New Zealand’s export earnings come from China, making it one of the Western nations most dependent on ties with Beijing.
“Our trade links, underpinned by our recently upgraded free trade agreement, have proven incredibly resilient in recent years,” Hipkins said.
He added that ties with China were among the nation’s most “significant, wide-ranging and complex”.
That close relationship, coupled with aggressive Chinese efforts to develop influence and leverage in New Zealand, has long worried Wellington’s allies.
Hipkins expressed hope that the relationship would remain “stable and consistent”, while vowing to raise issues of concern when necessary.
“Where we have human rights concerns we will raise them, where we have concerns around trade or any other policy issue we will raise those,” he said.
New Zealand has in the past been notably less critical of Chinese influence operations overseas — as well as its threats to Taiwan and its crackdowns in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and elsewhere — than its allies in Washington or Canberra.
Hipkins also announced on Monday that he would be visiting Brussels in the coming weeks and would attend a NATO summit in Lithuania — a nod to the importance of New Zealand’s relationships with fellow democracies.
With New Zealand’s economy slowing and an election planned for October, Hipkins is under pressure to juice the economy.
GDP growth is forecast to come in at a slender one percent this year.
New Zealand currently exports large quantities of wood, meat and dairy products to China, but Hipkins said he wanted to diversify exports to include things like video game-related products.
AFP
International
Zimbabwe Wins UN Security Council Seat for 2027-2028
The five countries were elected by the 193-member General Assembly to serve as non-permanent members of the Security Council for two-year terms beginning on January 1, 2027.
Zimbabwe has been elected to a non-permanent, two-year term on the United Nations Security Council, the third time the country will be represented on the body mandated to maintain international peace and security.
Voice of Nigeria reports that the other countries that secured seats around the iconic horseshoe table are Austria, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago, and Kyrgyzstan.
The five countries were elected by the 193-member General Assembly to serve as non-permanent members of the Security Council for two-year terms beginning on January 1, 2027.
Austria and Portugal won the two seats allocated to the Western European and other States (WEOG) Group, while Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe were elected from the Latin American and Caribbean Group and the African Group, respectively.
Kyrgyzstan secured the Asia-Pacific seat after defeating the Philippines in four rounds of voting.
International
Finland’s president says EU should expand to 40 states — including Canada
His comments come as the Trump administration’s actions, alongside Russia’s war with Ukraine, prompt some countries to reconsider the benefits of EU membership.
• Finland’s president Alexander Stubb
Finnish President Alexander Stubb has stressed the need for a much larger European Union, saying the 27-nation bloc should increase its membership to 40 states and named the U.K., Canada, Turkey, Norway and Iceland as potential candidates to join.
Stubb made the call at an energy conference in the Finnish capital on Wednesday.
His comments come as the Trump administration’s actions, alongside Russia’s war with Ukraine, prompt some countries to reconsider the benefits of EU membership.
Stubb told the Eurelectric Power Summit that “the window of opportunity” for EU enlargement “is quite short because when the war in Ukraine ends and perhaps when the U.S. administration changes, I don’t know, then people are going to take their foot off the gas pedal and start heckling about unnecessary stuff again.”
Stubb added that “European strategic autonomy or European geopolitical power” is “often based on size and scale and I think the best European policy ever has been European enlargement.”
“In this moment, we need to think big and geographically, we need to enlarge or at least create memberships which are flexible enough to bring in a sum total of 40 European states — or even non-European,” Stubb said.
Finland’s president said the EU should look to its western flank and bring the U.K., which left the bloc in 2020, back into the fold, or at least “as close as possible
.”Canada should be considered as another option, Stubb said. “Wouldn’t it be lovely if Canada was the 28th state of the European Union rather than the 51st state of the United States?”
International
Iran Kuwait’s airport attack injures 63
Health ministry spokesman Abdullah al-Sanad said 25 ambulances were dispatched at Kuwait International Airport, adding that “63 injured individuals were received and distributed among hospitals.
Today Wednesday June 3: Kuwait International Airport was hit by Iranian drones.
An Iranian attack on Kuwait’s airport wounded at least 63 people on Wednesday, the health ministry said, with authorities earlier reporting one person killed.
Health ministry spokesman Abdullah al-Sanad said 25 ambulances were dispatched at Kuwait International Airport, adding that “63 injured individuals were received and distributed among hospitals.
This includes serious injuries… including head wounds, cerebral hemorrhages, amputations and injuries resulting from explosions.”
An airport source told AFP that the death in Kuwait was an Indian national at the airport.
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