Pacific island leaders in China amid intensifying regional competition
Voice of America
FILE - A Vanuatu flag flutters outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, May 27, 2019. The prime ministers of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are visiting China this week.
Jeremiah Manele and Charlot Salwai, the prime ministers of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, are in China this week. Their visits come as Beijing seeks to grow its bilateral ties with the two South Pacific nations and as China is increasingly competing for influence in the region with Australia, the United States and others.
This photo provided by the Elephant Nature Park shows three of the roughly 100 elephants stuck in rising floodwaters at the park in Chiang Mai Province, Thailand, Oct. 3, 2024. (Darrick Thompson/Elephant Nature Park via AP) Tourists leave a flood-hit area in Chiang Mai Province, Thailand, Oct. 5, 2024.
Smoke rises after Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Oct. 5, 2024. People stand near damaged vehicles at the site hit by an Israeli strike that, according to a security source, killed a Hamas leader, Saeed Atallah, and three family members, in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Oct. 5, 2024. A man walks past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Israeli strikes, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in the Chiyah area of Dahiyeh, Beirut, Oct. 5, 2024.
FILE - Restaurant owner Shin Byung-chul looks from behind a flyer he put up of Kenneth Barthel, who was abandoned in the area as a child and later adopted to Hawaii at 6 years old, at his restaurant in Busan, South Korea, May 17, 2024. FILE - Kenneth Barthel, left, who was adopted to the United States at age 6, and his wife, Napela, comfort each other as they leave the Busan Metropolitan City Child Protection Center in Busan, South Korea, May 17, 2024, after searching for documents related to his birth family.