PORT MORESBY (Reuters) -- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Papua New Guinea’s leader James Marape on Monday ahead of the expected signing of a defense agreement and a meeting with 14 Pacific Island leaders. Washington and its allies are seeking to deter Pacific Island nations from forming security ties with China, a rising concern amid tensions over Taiwan. Leaders of the islands, which span 40 million square kilometers (15 million square miles) of ocean, have said rising sea levels caused by climate change is their most pressing security priority. Blinken told Marape they were signing very important agreements and the United States would deepen its partnership across the board with PNG. Marape urged countries to think of small island states who “suffer as a result of big nations at play”. Marape said Russia’s war with Ukraine, for instance, had caused inflation and high fuel and power prices in the region’s small economies.

 

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HELSINKI (AP) — Estonia and Latvia plan jointly to acquire German air defense systems for the protection of the two NATO nations’ airspace in what would be the biggest defense cooperation deal between the Baltic neighbors that border Russia, the Estonian and Latvian defense ministries said. According to the provisional deal, deliveries of the medium-range IRIS-T SLM air defense system — manufactured by weapons maker Diehl Defence of Germany — could begin next year and the systems could be operational in 2025. The value of the deal and detailed information about the numbers of the system weren’t disclosed as talks with the supplier are still ongoing, defense ministries of the two countries said. The German air defense system, consisting of truck-mounted launchers, missiles and a separate command vehicle, is designed to protect cities, armies and civilian population from air attacks, and being effective at neutralizing planes and helicopters. The system can be used for protection from a host of other threats, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles and loitering munitions.

 

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ULAANBAATAR (AFP) -- Emmanuel Macron made a brief visit to Mongolia, the first by a French president to the country nestled between China and Russia that is of growing strategic interest in the West. The French head of state was greeted by a traditional Mongolian guard of honor after landing in the capital Ulaanbaatar following the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. Macron then attended a reception at Sukhbaatar Square, which contains a large statue of Mongolian revolutionary hero Damdin Sukhbaatar and a monument to Genghis Khan. In Ulaanbaatar, Macron attended a state dinner at the museum of Genghis Khan, named for the 13th-century Mongol conqueror. The vast north Asian country has been the subject of growing interest in recent years from the United States as part of a strategy to thwart the rise of China. Eighty-six percent of Mongolia’s total exports go to China, half of which is coal.

 

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MANILA (AFP) -- A huge fire destroyed a historic post office in the Philippine capital Manila, officials said Monday. More than 80 fire trucks were sent to the decades-old landmark after the blaze broke out late Sunday, the Bureau of Fire Protection said. Thick, black smoke billowed hundreds of meters into the sky as flames gutted the neo-classical Manila Central Post Office that overlooks the Pasig River. It took firefighters more than seven hours to get the inferno under control. “The whole building has burned down from the basement all the way to the fifth floor,” Postmaster General Luis Carlos told DZBB radio. The cause of the blaze was being investigated, he said. Originally built in 1926, the post office was once considered the “grandest building” in Manila, according to its website. It was destroyed in World War II as U.S. forces recaptured the capital from Japanese occupation forces, and rebuilt in 1946. The Philippine National Museum declared the building an “important cultural property” in 2018.

 

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KOUNGOU, France (AFP) -- Authorities on the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte on Monday began demolishing homes in a large slum in an operation against sub-standard housing and illegal migration, AFP journalists saw. France has deployed hundreds of police officers and gendarmes in Mayotte -- the country’s poorest department -- since April to prepare a major security measure called Operation Wuambushu (“Take Back” in the local language). The operation is due to last all week, Psylvia Dewas, the local official in charge of reducing illegal housing, told reporters. Some 135 dwellings will be razed out of around 1,000 sub-standard homes slated for destruction on Mayotte. Associations have denounced Wuambushu as a “brutal” measure violating the rights of migrants. The operation initially triggered clashes between youths and security forces in Mayotte and fuelled political tensions with the Comoros, with most of the French island’s undocumented migrants coming from the neighboring archipelago. Out of Mayotte’s estimated 350,000 residents, half do not possess French nationality.