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THAILAND: Southeast Asian Ministers opened a key summit focused on the global economic meltdown Friday at which they were expected to sign a major free trade deal with Australia and New Zealand.

Ministers will also discuss forming a long-awaited human rights body, but the annual meeting in the Thai beach resort of Hua Hin is set to be dominated by efforts to shield their export-driven economies from turmoil elsewhere.

With the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) suffering plummeting demand from its developed trading partners, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva called for cooperation to ride out the crisis.

“We must not resort to protectionist tendencies at trying times,” Abhisit said in a speech to business leaders. “We must continue to believe in free and fair trade that shall remain the cornerstone of our ASEAN economic community.”

The deal to set up a free trade area with Australia and New Zealand is the most comprehensive ever agreed by the bloc, which comprises nearly 600 million people.

ASEAN is starting to feel the effects of the global economic crisis, with its financial hub Singapore facing its worst recession since independence and others including Thailand sliding in the same direction.

Officials said the pact with the two Pacific countries was expected to be signed later Friday, nearly four years after talks on the deal first began.

It covers trade in goods and services, investment, financial services, telecoms, electronic commerce, intellectual property, competition policy and economic cooperation.

Australia is ASEAN’s sixth-biggest trading partner and New Zealand the ninth, while ASEAN collectively is Australia’s biggest overseas market.

The agreement is part of a raft of measures mooted by the organisation to ride out the crisis.

Leaders will sign a declaration on a roadmap for forming a European Union-style community by 2015 and discuss a 120-billion-dollar emergency fund agreed on by Asian finance ministers on Sunday.

Foreign ministers discussed the fund on Thursday night and called for it to be implemented as a “matter of urgency” to fight the global downturn, ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan told reporters.

He said they agreed it should be completed “most desirably” before the 10 ASEAN leaders meet with their Chinese, Japanese and South Korean counterparts from April 10-12. That meeting was originally due to take place in December alongside the summit, but both were postponed because of political turmoil in Thailand.

The ASEAN grouping, whose diverse members include a military dictatorship, an absolute monarchy, several young democracies and some communist countries, faces its perennially tricky problem of human rights.

Foreign ministers are due to meet Friday on a human rights body due to be set up under ASEAN’s new charter, signed in December, but critics say it will be toothless because of the bloc’s policy of non-interference.

The top problem in this department remains military-ruled Myanmar. Rights watchdogs urged the group again on Thursday to press the country’s generals to end rights abuses and introduce political reform.

These abuses include the treatment of the Muslim Rohingya boat people, who hit the headlines earlier this year when Thai security forces allegedly abandoned hundreds of the migrants at sea.

The ASEAN summit itself also faces accusations of lacking relevance because of the absence of major regional partners and key economic powers China, Japan and South Korea.

They said they were unable to attend after the summit was delayed.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

UN: Iran Thursday lashed out at the U.S. statement on its nuclear program and alleged engagement in terrorism, calling such allegations “baseless and absurd.”

In a letter circulated to the UN Security Council president, the Iranian permanent representative to the United Nations, Mohammad Khazaee, said, “It is unfortunate that the Security Council yet again heard some baseless allegations against the Islamic Republic of Iran by the representative of the United States in today’s meting of the council on Iraq.”

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said the new U.S. administration will seek to end Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its support for terrorism.

This comments at the end of an open meeting of the UN Security Council on Iraq drew an immediate rebuke Thursday from Iranian UN ambassador.

“Despite the allegations made by the U.S. representative, Iran’ s nuclear program has been, is and will remain absolutely peaceful and Iran has never tried nor will ever try to acquire nuclear weapons,” the letter said.

“It is unfortunate that, yet again, we are hearing the same tired, unwarranted and groundless allegations that used to be unjustifiably and futilely repeated by the previous U.S. administration,” the letter said.

The Iranian asked Japanese UN ambassador Yukio Takasu, who holds the council presidency for the month of February, to circulate the letter as a Security Council document “since the format of the said (council) meeting did not allow my delegation to make a statement on the council’s meeting,” it said.

“The allegation made against Iran on terrorism is also equally baseless and absurd,” the letter said.

“As a victim of terrorism, we have always condemned terrorism in all its aspects and manifestations.”

“Instead of raising allegations against others, the United States had better take concrete and meaningful steps in correcting its past wrong policies and practices vis-a-vis other nations including the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the letter added.

Egypt: Rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas agreed on Thursday to work together to set up a unity government after Egyptian-sponsored reconciliation talks aimed at ending long-running factional feuding.

“It is indeed a historic day,” former Palestinian premier Ahmed Qorei said at a press conference announcing the creation of five joint committees, including one tasked with forming a national unity government.

Qorei, a member of the Fatah faction of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, said the committees, which will also cover issues such as security, national reconcilation, elections and reform of the umbrella group the Palestine Liberation Organisation, would complete their work by the end of March.

“We have started a new chapter of reconciliation and unity.”

Fatah and Hamas have long been rivals but their feuding came to a head in June 2007 when the Islamists seized control of Gaza, routing forces loyal to Abbas after days of deadly street battles.

The takeover, branded a coup by Abbas, split the Palestinian territories into two separate entities and dealt a major blow to international efforts to forge a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Earlier, officials from two smaller Palestinian factions said the groups involved in talks had agreed to form a unity government by the end of March but Qorei did not confirm this deadline.

“No doubt some of the results of the committees will be immediately implemented, such as the government committee…it will be immediately formed and take full charge in Gaza and the West Bank,” Hamas delegation leader Mussa Abu Marzuk told the press conference.

As part of the agreement, the factions have also agreed to release prisoners held by Hamas and Fatah and to end a war of words being played out in the media, Qorei said.

The international community has been pushing the Palestinians to try to form a government it would find acceptable, as Hamas is boycotted as a terrorist outfit by Israel and the West.

Thursday’s agreement comes just days ahead of an aid meeting for Gaza being held on Monday in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the Palestinians are seeking billions of dollars from international donors.

Egypt had originally called for Palestinian reconciliation talks in November, but Hamas withdrew at the last minute, complaining that Fatah was continuing to arrest Hamas members in the West Bank.

The reconciliation process was relaunched by Egypt after Israel’s 22-day war on Gaza that ended last month with more than 1,300 Palestinians killed and buildings and infrastructure throughout the impoverished territory destroyed.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa with Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister of Afghanistan Mohammad Kabir Farahi, Foreign Affairs Minister of Bangaldesh Dr. Dipu Moni, Foreign Affairs Minister of Bhutan Lyonpo Ugyen Tshering, India State Minister for External Affairs E. Ahamed, Maldivian Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, Foreign Affairs Minister of Nepal Upendra Yadav, State Foreign Affairs Minister of Pakistan Nawabsada Malik Amad Khan and Sri Lankan Foreign Affairs Minister Rohitha Bogollagama.
Picture by Sudath Nishantha

The instability caused by the global financial crisis can be considered quite similar to the threat caused by terrorism to our societies and to our region, President Mahinda Rajapaksa addressing the SAARC Foreign Ministers Conference in Colombo said yesterday.

“The effects of synchronised slow-down in developed economies, can reach us sooner than later.

“And, as the crisis deepens in the developed world, it is likely that protectionist sentiments can spread and even take root,” he added.

On the global financial melt down, President Rajapaksa further said: “The depression in the commodity market is adversely affecting most of us, even negating the gains resulting from the declining oil prices. Trade flows, production lines and the service sector are suffering from the domino effect of this crisis and there are looming liquidity problems.

“Unless definite counter measures are taken, this downward spiral has the potential to adversely affect our economies and impact on the living standards of our people.

“While we in South Asia can take comfort that economies of our countries are so far functioning well, and financial sectors have been well-regulated and stable, we cannot take for granted that we are fully insulated from the ongoing global economic crisis.”

Stressing on the need to re-double our efforts to combat the menace of terrorism individually and collectively the President said: “We cannot shy away from taking firm and forceful action to combat terrorism, including internationally. We, among other measures, should uphold democracy, support each other’s democracies and make it a vehicle towards defeating terrorism.”

The President briefly outlined a host of key issues for the region, pursued at the last summit in Colombo, including energy, environment, water resources, poverty alleviation, ICT development, Science and Technology, tourism, education, women and children and the most important ‘Terrorism’.

In all these endeavors, he reiterated, we have highlighted the importance of connectivity at all levels, so that we could work as one SAARC family.

He also expressed his profound gratitude and appreciation to the SAARC, in their effort in accelerating the implementation of the Colombo Statement on Food Security, inclusive of making the Food Bank a reality.

Making the welcome remarks at the ceremony, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagamma pointed out that under the leadership of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the SAARC possessed a people-centric vision to pursue common objectives and goals for regional cooperation within the SAARC countries.

He outlined briefly the programs under way and the progress of the eight-member SAARC organisation, with special emphasis on a world free of terrorism, progress made on the issue of Food Security, the Development Fund, the establishment of the Standards Organisation and the SAARC university among others. He also briefed on the role of the Observers in the SAARC.

SAARC Secretary General Dr. Sheel Kant Sharma stated that their energies should be focussed on actioning agreed policies and the approaches to ‘Poverty Alleviation’, the foremost goal of SAARC.

Cabinet Spokesman and Media and Information Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said the Human Rights Watch among other Non Governmental Organisations are engaged in disseminating inaccurate and baseless information with regard to the provision of humanitarian assistance to the people fleeing from the uncleared areas.

Addressing the weekly Cabinet briefing at the Information Ministry, Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said certain Non Governmental Organisations including Human Rights Watch are attempting to create a wrong picture among the international community quoting various websites whose origin is not known to anybody.

UN Under Secretary-General John Holmes was content with what the Government is doing for the IDPs who came from the uncleared areas. The Government has provided all assistance to these civilians.

Sir John Holmes has given a clear guarantee to the international community that the Government is capable in handling this issue and its program to ensure their safety and welfare is exemplary.

The Forces in compliance with international ethics and norms are striving to eliminate terrorism from the country by ensuing zero level hindrance to the civilians in the uncleared areas.

The Minister said certain media Organisations with malicious intent are involved in propagating false information to the world at a time when the Government Ministers and officials are taking tremendous effort in disseminating correct and accurate news relating the humanitarian assistance and Forces action against the LTTE terrorists, he said.