JOHANNESBURG: A meeting of foreign ministers from G20 countries will get underway in Johannesburg on Thursday, but US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not attend amid diplomatic tensions between South Africa and the US.
Diplomats including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi are expected to attend the gathering, while the US will be represented by acting ambassador to South Africa Dana Brown.
The European Union, the United Nations and the African Union, which is part of the G20, will also be in attendance.
Rubio snubbed the meeting after an executive order by US President Donald Trump stopped foreign aid to the country over a law that the White House said amounts to discrimination against the country’s white minority. The US is also displeased with South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola has said that Rubio’s decision was “not a complete boycott of South Africa’s G20.” He said the US would be represented in Johannesburg this week “in one form or shape or another.”
US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent has also confirmed his will not attend a meeting of G20 finance ministers scheduled to take place in South Africa next week.
Bessent said on the social media platform X that he would not participate in the event because of obligations in Washington. A senior Treasury official will attend in his place, he said.
Analysts say that Rubio and Bessent’s absence signalled the US was pulling back from the G20 and demonstrated how strained relations are.
“I think if we want to really know what message the US administration is trying to send, you have to know whether the treasury secretary will come next week or not. And if he chooses not to come as well, that’s a quite serious sign,” said political analyst Daniel Bradlow.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to officially open and address the gathering under the theme “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability,” which Rubio has described as a diversity, equality and inclusion framework — one that the new Trump administration vocally opposes.
South Africa will host over 130 working group meetings and 23 ministerial-level meetings this year as part of their G20 presidency, which began in December last year.
The US is expected to take over the G20 presidency in 2026 after South Africa’s tenure.
G20 meeting of foreign ministers gets underway in South Africa amid tensions with US
https://arab.news/bsnks
G20 meeting of foreign ministers gets underway in South Africa amid tensions with US
- Analysts say that Rubio and Bessent’s absence signalled the USwas pulling back from the G20 and demonstrated how strained relations are
Massive security operation for NATO summit turns parts of The Hague into a fortress
- Parts of the usually laid-back city are turning into a military fortress
- The Hague markets itself as the global hub of peace and justice
But the usual stream of visitors turned into a trickle when fences started rising outside as part of super-tight security around a meeting of NATO leaders that is smothering the Dutch city in a massive military and police operation called Orange Shield.
Parts of the usually laid-back city, where NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte used to ride his bicycle to work while munching on an apple when he was prime minister of the Netherlands, are turning into a military fortress.
“It’s dead,” Berlage owner Bianca Veenhof said as she looked at an almost empty terrace at the start of what should have been Wednesday’s lunchtime rush.
Parking spots have been blocked off by freshly installed security fencing, workers in nearby offices have been told to stay home and public transit lines near the grounds have been diverted.
The city that markets itself as the global hub of peace and justice because of the international courts it hosts is turning into a city of security and inconvenience for the June 24-25 meeting that is scheduled to feature leaders of the 32-nation alliance, including US President Donald Trump.
The summit comes as global geopolitical tensions soar and conflict escalates in the Middle East.
About half of the Netherlands’ police force will be on duty
In what they are calling the biggest security operation ever staged in the Netherlands, authorities are locking down parts of the city, closing off roads, and shutting down airspace.
Temporary barricades and metal mesh fences surrounding the World Forum summit venue are just a fraction of the measures that radiate out from The Hague.
Some 27,000 police officers – about half of the country’s entire force – will be on duty around the summit along with more than 10,000 defense personnel.
Military police will protect delegations. Frigates will patrol the North Sea, F-35 fighter jets and Apache helicopters will take to the skies and air defense systems will be on alert. Bomb squads will comb the venue for explosives.
Convoys carrying leaders will be whisked with military police escorts along closed-off highways from airports to their accommodations. While civilian drones are banned from the airspace around the summit and other key locations, police and military drones will buzz around the skies over the summit venue and other locations where leaders gather.
Police and riot police also will be on hand for several protests that have already been announced, including an effort by demonstrators to shut down a major highway into the city.
Then there are the less visible but no less important measures being taken to provide cybersecurity. The country’s top counterterrorism official declined to go into details.
Boosting NATO spending and Ukraine are on the agenda
The leaders are scheduled to have dinner with Dutch King Willem-Alexander at his palace in a forest in the city Tuesday night before a meeting the next day where they are expected to agree a new defense spending target.
While the leaders are dining with the Dutch royals, foreign and defense ministers from NATO nations will hold meetings at the summit venue to discuss issues including the war in Ukraine.
When the government heads meet Wednesday, they will seek agreement on ramping up military spending as Trump insists Europe must look after its own security, while Washington focuses on China and its own borders.
The Hague is known for hosting international courts
The summit venue is a conference center and theater close to the building that once housed the UN tribunal for the former Yugoslavia where Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, his military chief Ratko Mladic, and others were convicted of war crimes.
The venue also is close to the headquarters of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the European Union’s law enforcement and judicial cooperation agencies.
Just down the road is the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor and four judges have been slapped with sanctions by Trump. Closer still is the top United Nations court, the International Court of Justice, whose judges settle disputes between nations.
Getting away from it all
Many residents near the summit are not sticking around to watch the event unfold.
At the end of the week, Berlage will close its doors and sunny terrace for a week, only reopening when the NATO bandwagon has moved on.
Veenhof estimates the enforced closure and weeks of plummeting bookings will cost the bistro up to €150,000 ($173,000) in lost earnings.
Veenhof and her partner Bauke van Schaik, who is the chef at Berlage, have had enough of the summit already and are fleeing the city for the duration.
“Good friends of ours live in Portugal, so we going there for a few days,” she said. “We’ll be a bit further away from all the misery and frustration.”
Putin and Xi condemn Israel over its Iran strikes in phone call, Kremlin says
- Kremlin: ‘Both men ‘strongly condemn Israel’s actions, which violate the UN Charter and other norms of international law’
ST PETERSBURG: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a phone call on Thursday during which both leaders condemned Israel for its strikes on Iran and agreed de-escalation was needed, the Kremlin said.
Both men “strongly condemn Israel’s actions, which violate the UN Charter and other norms of international law,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
“Both Moscow and Beijing fundamentally believe that there is no military solution to the current situation and issues related to Iran’s nuclear program.
“This solution must be achieved exclusively through political and diplomatic means,” said Ushakov.
Russia has warned of catastrophe should the Israel-Iran conflict, now in its seventh day, escalate further, and has urged the US not to join Israel’s bombardment.
Putin has been in touch with US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in recent days and has repeatedly said
Russia stands ready to mediate between the warring sides.
Thus far, no one has taken up Russia’s offer.
On Thursday, Putin reiterated that proposition in his phone call with Xi, a close ally.
The Chinese leader expressed support for the idea, Ushakov said, “as he believes it could serve to de-escalate the current acute situation.”
The two men agreed to keep in close contact in the coming days.
Putin says he does not want to discuss the possible Israeli-US killing of Iran’s supreme leader
- Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has openly speculated that Israel’s military attacks could result in regime change in Iran
- Donald Trump said US knows Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is ‘hiding but that Washington is not going to kill him ‘for now’
ST PETERSBURG, Russia: President Vladimir Putin on Thursday refused to discuss the possibility that Israel and the United States would kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and said the Iranian people were consolidating around the leadership in Tehran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly speculated that Israel’s military attacks could result in regime change in Iran while US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the US knew where Khamenei was “hiding” but that Washington was not going to kill him “for now.”
Asked what his reaction would be if Israel did kill Khamenei with the assistance of the United States, Putin said: “I do not even want to discuss this possibility. I do not want to.”
When pressed, Putin said he had heard the remarks about possibly killing Khamenei but that he did not want to discuss it.
“We see that today in Iran, with all the complexity of the internal political processes taking place there...that there is a consolidation of society around the country’s political leadership,” Putin told senior news agency editors in the northern Russian city of St. Petersburg.
Putin said all sides should look for ways to end hostilities in a way that ensured both Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power and Israel’s right to the unconditional security of the Jewish state.
Putin was speaking as Trump kept the world guessing whether the US would join Israel’s bombardment of Iranian nuclear and missile sites and as residents of Iran’s capital streamed out of the city on the sixth day of the air assault.
Putin said he had been in touch with Trump and with Netanyahu, and that he had conveyed Moscow’s ideas on resolving the conflict while ensuring Iran’s continued access to civil nuclear energy.
Iranian nuclear facilities
Questioned about possible regime change in Iran, Putin said that before getting into something, one should always look at whether or not the main aim is being achieved before starting something.
He said Iran’s underground uranium enrichment facilities were still intact.
“These underground factories, they exist, nothing has happened to them,” Putin said.
“It seems to me that it would be right for everyone to look for ways to end hostilities and find ways for all parties to this conflict to come to an agreement with each other,” Putin said. “In my opinion, in general, such a solution can be found.”
Asked if Russia was ready to provide Iran with modern weapons to defend itself against Israeli strikes, Putin said a strategic partnership treaty signed with Tehran in January did not envisage military cooperation and that Iran had not made any formal request for assistance.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday that Moscow was telling the United States not to strike Iran because it would radically destabilize the Middle East.
A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry also warned that Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities risked triggering a nuclear catastrophe.
Putin said that Israel had given Moscow assurances that Russian specialists helping to build two more reactors at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran would not be hurt in air strikes.
Putin said that Moscow had “a very good relationship with Iran” and that Russia could ensure Iran’s interests in nuclear energy.
Russia has offered to take enriched uranium from Iran and to supply nuclear fuel to the country’s civil energy program.
“It is possible to ensure Iran’s interests in the field of peaceful nuclear energy. And at the same time, to address Israel’s concerns about its security,” Putin said. “We have outlined them (our ideas) to our partners from the USA, Israel and Iran.”
Thai PM faces growing calls to quit following Cambodia phone row
- Coalition government led by Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai party appears on the brink of collapse
- The conservative Bhumjaithai party, Pheu Thai’s biggest partner, pulled out on Wednesday
BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra faced mounting calls Thursday to resign after a leaked phone call she had with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen provoked widespread anger and prompted a key coalition partner to quit.
The coalition government led by Paetongtarn’s Pheu Thai party appears on the brink of collapse, throwing the kingdom into a fresh round of political instability as it seeks to boost its spluttering economy and avoid US President Donald Trump’s swinging trade tariffs.
The conservative Bhumjaithai party, Pheu Thai’s biggest partner, pulled out on Wednesday saying Paetongtarn’s conduct in the leaked call had wounded the country and the army’s dignity.
Thailand’s foreign ministry said Cambodia’s disclosure of a recording of a private conversation between Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and former Prime Minister Hun Sen were unacceptable.
“It is a breach of diplomatic etiquette, a serious violation of trust, and undermines conduct between two neighboring countries,” spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura said on Thursday.
In the call, Paetongtarn is heard discussing an ongoing border dispute with Hun Sen – who stepped down as Cambodian prime minister in 2023 after four decades but still wields considerable influence.
She addresses the veteran leader as “uncle” and refers to the Thai army commander in the country’s northeast as her opponent, a remark that sparked fierce criticism on social media.
Losing Bhumjaithai’s 69 MPs leaves Paetongtarn with barely enough votes to scrape a majority in parliament, and a snap election looks a clear possibility – barely two years after the last one in May 2023.
Two coalition parties, the United Thai Nation and Democrat Party, will hold meetings to discuss the situation later Thursday.
Losing either would likely mean the end of Paetongtarn’s government, and either an election or a bid by other parties to stitch together a new coalition.
Thailand’s military said in a statement that army chief General Pana Claewplodtook “affirms commitment to democratic principles and national sovereignty protection.”
“The Chief of Army emphasized that the paramount imperative is for ‘Thai people to stand united’ in collectively defending national sovereignty,” it added.
Thailand’s armed forces have long played a powerful role in the kingdom’s politics, and politicians are usually careful not to antagonize them.
The kingdom has had a dozen coups since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, and the current crisis has inevitably triggered rumors that another may be in the offing.
If Paetongtarn is ousted in a coup she would be the third member of her family, after her aunt Yingluck and father Thaksin Shinawatra, to be kicked out of office by the military.
The main opposition People’s Party, which won most seats in 2023 but was blocked by conservative senators from forming a government, called on Paetongtarn to organize an election.
“What happened yesterday was a leadership crisis that destroyed people’s trust,” People’s Party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut said in a statement.
The Palang Pracharath party, which led the government up to 2023 and is headed by General Prawit Wongsuwan – who supported a 2014 coup against Paetongtarn’s aunt Yingluck – said the leaked recording showed she was weak and inexperienced, incapable of managing the country’s security.
Hundreds of anti-government protesters, some of them veterans of the royalist, anti-Thaksin “Yellow Shirt” movement of the late 2000s, demonstrated outside Government House Thursday demanding Paetongtarn quit.
Paetongtarn, 38, came to power in August 2024 at the head of an uneasy coalition between Pheu Thai and a group of conservative, pro-military parties whose members have spent much of the last 20 years battling against her father.
Growing tensions within the coalition erupted into open warfare in the past week as Pheu Thai tried to take the interior minister job away from Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul.
The loss of Bhumjaithai leaves Pheu Thai’s coalition with just a handful more votes than the 248 needed for a majority.
The battle between the conservative pro-royal establishment and Thaksin’s political movement has dominated Thai politics for more than 20 years.
Former Manchester City owner Thaksin, 75, still enjoys huge support from the rural base whose lives he transformed with populist policies in the early 2000s.
But he is despised by Thailand’s powerful elites, who saw his rule as corrupt, authoritarian and socially destabilizing.
The current Pheu Thai-led government has already lost one prime minister, former businessman Srettha Thavisin, who was kicked out by a court order last year that brought Paetongtarn to office.
– with Reuters
Australia mushroom murder suspect fell sick from same meal: defense
- Erin Patterson has steadfastly maintained her innocence during her weeks-long trial
- The prosecution maintains Patterson did not consume the fatal fungi and faked her symptoms
SYDNEY: An Australian woman accused of killing three lunch guests with toxic mushrooms fell sick from the same meal, her defense said Thursday, rejecting claims she faked her symptoms.
Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with murdering her estranged husband’s parents and aunt in July 2023 by spiking their beef Wellington lunch with death cap mushrooms.
She is also accused of attempting to murder a fourth guest – her husband’s uncle – who survived the lunch after a long stay in hospital.
Patterson has steadfastly maintained her innocence during a seven-week-long trial that has made headlines from New York to New Delhi.
As the trial came to its closing stages, defense lawyer Colin Mandy poked holes in the prosecutor’s case, saying his client, too, fell ill after consuming the beef-and-pastry dish.
Patterson’s medical tests at the hospital revealed symptoms “that can’t be faked,” including low potassium and elevated hemoglobin, he said.
“She was not as sick as the other lunch guests, nor did she represent she was,” Mandy said.
The prosecution maintains Patterson did not consume the fatal fungi and faked her symptoms.
Mandy said his client lied in panic in the days after the lunch, trying to “conceal the fact that foraged mushrooms went into the meal.”
“If that was found out, she feared she would be held responsible,” her defense said.
“She panicked when confronted with the terrible possibility, the terrible realization, that her actions had caused the illness of people she liked.”
Mandy said he was not “making an excuse” for Patterson’s behavior after the lunch, but that it did not mean she meant to harm or kill her guests.
Patterson originally invited her estranged husband Simon to join the family lunch at her secluded home in the farming village of Leongatha in Victoria state.
But he turned down the invitation on the eve of the meal, saying he felt uncomfortable going, the court heard earlier.
The pair were long estranged but still legally married.
Simon Patterson’s parents Don and Gail, and his aunt Heather Wilkinson, attended the lunch.
All three were dead within days. Heather Wilkinson’s husband Ian fell gravely ill but eventually recovered.
The trial in Morwell, southeast of Melbourne, is in its final stages.
