DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “China airlifts third batch of flood relief goods to Bangkok” plus 9 more

BANGKOK, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Three cargo planes of the Air Force of China arrived in Bangkok on Saturday morning to deliver the third batch of flood relief goods to Thai government.

Chinese Ambassador to Thailand Guan Mu, along with Thai Deputy Prime Minister Yongyuth Wichaidit, presided over the delivering ceremony at Don Muang Airport.

China has donated 259 hovercrafts, 150 water pumps, 210 water filters and 1,300 tents among others worth about 40 million Chinese yuan (6.3 million U.S. dollars) as well as 1 million U.S. dollars in cash to Thailand, according to the press release of the Chinese embassy.

At least 356 people were confirmed dead in the worst floods in five decades that have inundated the upper part of the country for almost three months.

ANKARA, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Thirty two rebels of the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) were killed in a large-scale operation in Cuukurca town of Hakkari province in southeastern Turkey late Friday and early Saturday, private Dogan news agency reported on Saturday.

The Turkish army continuously dispatched troops by helicopters to fight with PKK militants in the region of Kazan Valley and Isikli in Cuukurca town of Hakkari province, according to the report.

However, no official statement on the armed clashes between the Turkish soldiers and PKK members was available.

On Wednesday, a large group of the PKK members attacked several military and police buildings and killed 24 soldiers and police officers in several locations in the predominately Kurdish Hakkari province near the Iraqi border, a day after they killed five police officers and three civilians in Bitlis province in southeastern Turkey.

Listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK took up arms in 1984 to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey. More than 40,000 people have been killed in conflicts involving the PKK during the past over two decades.

COPENHAGEN, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Denmark looks forward to a final end of NATO's military operation in Libya, the country's foreign minister Villy Soevnda said Saturday.

"I have noticed with a great pleasure NATO has set up the completion of the mission in Libya on October 31. The gradual dismantling of the operation will start immediately. It means that the peace in Libya has come a step closer," said Soevndal in an official statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"NATO will run the monitoring progress during this period. It is important that we ensure that the situation will not go to an unexpected twist," Soevndal said.

"I look forward to a final end of the military operation in Libya," he added.

The military operation will be ended when NATO is 100 percent sure that it no longer has a task to complete, the minister said.

Denmark as a NATO member has sent several fighter jets to participate in the alliance's military campaign in Libya.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Friday said the Libya mission is very close to completion, and that it has taken a preliminary decision to end it on October 31.

NANNING, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government encourages domestic companies to invest in ASEAN countries and will provide necessary supports to them, Vice Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng said here on Saturday at the eighth China-ASEAN Expo.

Gao said two-way investment between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) totaled 90 billion U.S. dollars by the end of August, and Chinese companies made a total investment of 22.3 billion U.S. dollars in ASEAN countries by August.

"Since the establishment of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) in 2010, investment between both sides has entered a stage of more rapid expansion," Gao said.

Gao also said China will strive to build economic and trade cooperation zones with all ASEAN countries separately in five years to serve as platforms for Chinese companies' investment in the region.

The eighth China-ASEAN Expo kicked off in Nanning, capital city of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Friday, with economic cooperation and environmental protection at the top of the agenda.

ASEAN is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

BANGKOK, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- One Chinese tourist was killed and more than 20 others injured in a bus accident in Phuket in southern Thailand, a Chinese diplomat told Xinhua Saturday.

The bus carrying 26 Chinese tourists from Chongqing in southwest China lost control and veered off the road on Saturday morning, said Wu Xiufeng, a diplomat with the Chinese consulate in Phuket.

The injured people were sent to hospital, two of them were seriously injured, she added.

BERLIN, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Trade between China and Germany is expected to reach new highs, as mutual trade and investment will continue expanding, Chinese Ambassador Wu Hongbo said Friday.

Bilateral trade between China and Germany, both economic powers in the world, totalled 142.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2010, Wu told a press briefing.

The prospect of bilateral trade remains promising for the rest of this year, as it already hit 127 billion dollars in the first nine months, despite the sweeping global economic and financial crisis, he said.

While mutual direct investment has gained momentum in recent years, a huge imbalance still exists. According to official statistics, German direct investment in China had reached 18.03 billion dollars by the end of August, more than 10-fold that of Chinese direct investment in Germany, which stood at only 1.73 billion dollars.

As Chinese investment accounts for only 0.3 percent of Germany's total foreign direct investment, Chinese enterprises have huge potential to increase direct investment to Germany.

"The economic structures of the two countries are reciprocally complementary than competitive," Wu said, noting that Chinese enterprises are encouraged to expand various forms of cooperation with their German counterparts.

"This will be conducive to bringing to full play China's comparative advantages in manufacturing and Germany's technological ones," he said. "It will help open more sales channels in the Chinese market for German products and will also help boost employment in Germany."

Of the 1,300 Chinese-funded enterprises which have set up branch offices in Germany, Shenyang Machine Tool (Group) Co. Ltd is a good example. It has ploughed an accumulative investment worth some 200 billion dollars since it acquired the German company SCHIESS in 2004.

Among major Chinese enterprises which have stepped up direct investment in Germany, Huawei, a leading global networking and telecommunication provider, has also established its European headquarters and R&D center in Germany.

KABUL, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Afghan troops, backed by NATO-led coalition forces, have killed 24 Taliban insurgents and captured 10 others over the past 24 hours, Afghan Interior Ministry said Saturday.

"Afghan National Police (ANP), Afghan army and coalition forces have launched five joint operations in Kabul, Ghazni and Kandahar provinces over the past 24 hours, killing 24 armed insurgents and detaining 10 suspects," the ministry said in a statement.

ANP also confiscated 12 AK-47 guns, 3 pistols, one PKM machine gun, one vehicle, 568 light bullets, 100kg explosives, 2kg hashish in the operations, it added.

Afghan and NATO forces keep up pressure on insurgents all over the country as over 560 insurgents have been killed and around 750 detained since Sept. 1, according to the interior ministry.

NANNING, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- China is working on an agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to settle trade in yuan, an official with China's central bank said Saturday.

"It's currently underway," Jin Qi, assistant to the governor of the People's Bank of China, told Xinhua when asked to comment on recent reports that China and ASEAN will sign a yuan-denominated trade settlement agreement.

She made the brief remark on the sidelines of the third China-ASEAN Summit Forum on Financial Cooperation and Development held in Nanning, capital city of southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The framework agreement between China and ASEAN, which is likely to be signed late this year or early next year, will pave the way for banks in China and ASEAN countries to start exchanging yuan for ASEAN currencies, according to a Reuters report released Thursday quoting anonymous sources.

Analysts said a China-ASEAN agreement on settling trade in yuan would benefit the region, largely due to the stability of the yuan, or Renminbi.

Once signed, such an agreement would greatly boost China-ASEAN trade, investment and other aspects of economic cooperation, Bank of Communications chief economist Lian Ping told Xinhua on the sidelines at the forum.

"The U.S. dollar has been the dominant currency in payment and settlement in this region but will certainly become volatile in future," said Lian. "If a stable currency like Renminbi can play a bigger role in the region, it will be good for both trade and regional financial stability."

The yuan has appreciated by more than 30 percent against the U.S. dollar since July 2005 when the country scrapped the yuan's peg to the greenback and adopted a managed-floating currency system, according to a central bank report released earlier this month.

China has pledged to increase the yuan's flexibility, while stressing that exchange rate policy will be reformed in a gradual and controlled manner and the currency's basic stability will be maintained.

The government has pushed for the internationalization of the yuan by encouraging the use of the currency in cross-border trade and investment settlement.

In her speech at Saturday's forum, Jin urged advancing bilateral yuan-denominated settlement between China and ASEAN and providing conveniences for regional trade and investment.

"We should speed up the work of signing and improving bilateral agreements on local currency-denominated settlement," she said.

She also called for active efforts to allow trading between yuan and ASEAN countries' currencies on inter-bank foreign exchange markets in China and ASEAN member countries.

China and ASEAN have seen stable growth in cross-border trade settlement in yuan, said Jin, who noted that there are now more than 30 banking institutions set up by ASEAN in China while Chinese-funded financial institutions have 11 branches in ASEAN countries.

The Chinese government first allowed trials of cross-border trade settlement in yuan in some cities in July 2009. Hong Kong, Macao and ASEAN were the first overseas pilot regions.

The trial scheme has now been extended to all parts of China and all countries and regions overseas.

China's yuan settlement in cross-border trade surged to 957.57 billion yuan (149.62 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of 2011, 13.3 times more than that for the same period of last year, according to statistics from the central bank.

The forum was held along with the six-day eighth China-ASEAN Expo that opened in Nanning on Friday.

BANGKOK, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- One Chinese tourist was killed and other Chinese injured in a bus accident in Phuket in southern Thailand, TPBS channel reported on Saturday.

KABUL, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan troops, backed by NATO- led coalition forces, have killed 24 insurgents and detained 10 others over the past 24 hours, Afghan Interior Ministry said Saturday.