Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Friday (August 2) visited one of the four Pacific islands disputed between Russia and Japan, to the disappointment of Tokyo.
Medvedev visited
the Island of Iturup
known as Etorofu in Japanese, one of the four islands called Southern Kurils in
Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.
Visits like
Medvedev's are incompatible with Japan's
position on the Northern Territories
and hurt the feelings of the Japanese people, the Japanese Foreign Ministry
said Friday.
Russia, however, dismissed the Japanese
statement. "This is our land. This is a subject of the Russian Federation,"
Medvedev said at a press conference on the island, according to an official
transcript.
Moscow and Tokyo have failed to sign a postwar peace
treaty due to their rival claims to the four islands.
According to a
joint declaration signed in 1956, the then Soviet Union agreed to return two of
the islands on condition that a bilateral peace treaty was signed, which was
rejected by Japan, the pre-war owner of the islands.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed during their
meeting last November in Singapore
to start peace talks based on the 1956 joint declaration.
No significant
progress has been made so far despite several rounds of talks.
Source: NDO
The Foreign Ministers’ Meeting of the world’s leading developed and emerging economies (G20) recently held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil emphasised the need to reform global governance institutions, especially the United Nations Security Council. The meeting is also an opportunity for G20 to find solutions to a series of hot issues facing the world, such as poverty, climate change, and conflict.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers on December 30 issued a statement on maintaining and promoting stability in the maritime sphere in Southeast Asia.
The world economy has overcome a challenging year, but has proven more resilient than expected. The Financial Times (UK) commented that 2023 was a positive year for the world economy as the economic surprise index collated by Citigroup shew that actual data have underwhelmed economists’ predictions for much of the past months. These economic trends are the basis for optimism about the world economy in 2024.
Laos has announced the theme and logo for its the Chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2024.
Vietnam was elected a Vice President of the 42nd session of the UNESCO’s General Conference, representing the Asia-Pacific, on November 8.
Since the "blockbuster" ChatGPT was launched a year ago, the prospects for the development of artificial intelligence (AI), as well as concerns about the risks from this technology, have become hot topics in the technology world.