Chilean president cancels Apec and climate summits amid wave of unrest
Baku, October 31, AZERTAC
Chile’s embattled president has been forced to cancel two major international summits after government concessions failed to defuse weeks of violent protests, according to The Guardian.
Sebastián Piñera made the announcement on Wednesday morning, telling reporters Chile would no longer be able to host November’s Apec trade summit and the COP25 UN climate conference the following month.
World leaders including Donald Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, had been due to attend the first event while climate champions including the teenage activist Greta Thunberg were expected at the second.
Piñera blamed the “difficult circumstances” Chile was facing for the decision and said his government’s primary concern had to be “fully restoring public order, security and social peace”.
Patricia Espinosa, the UN’s climate change executive secretary, said the UN was “exploring alternative hosting options” for the climate summit after being informed of the decision in a letter from Chile’s environment minister.
Piñera said he had warned other world leaders of the cancellation.
Chile’s protests began in mid-October as a student-led fight against a 3.7% hike in metro fares. But those demonstrations quickly swelled into a much broader mutiny against inequality.
On Saturday an estimated 1 million people poured on to the streets of Santiago for a peaceful protest.
Other news in this section
