The Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, tested positive for COVID-19 at the G20 summit, just days after the country hosted world leaders in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. The PM announced his positive test result on his Facebook page on Monday night.
In the post, Mr Sen said his test had been confirmed by an Indonesian physician, adding that he was returning to Cambodia and cancelling his meetings at the G20 as well as the following APEC economic forum in Bangkok.
Although the bulk of the G20 meetings will take place in the Indonesian capital, Bali, Cambodia hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nation summit that ended on Sunday.
It comes after the news that G20 will issue a statement at the close of the summit condemning the war on Ukraine, a senior US official has said.
According to AFP, an official explained how most world leaders saw the war as the root of the world’s current economic and humanitarian issues.
He said: “I think you’re going to see most members of the G20 make clear that they condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine, that they see Russia’s war in Ukraine as the root source of immense economic and humanitarian suffering in the world.”
This morning, Indonesian president Joko Widodo said the world must be careful not to descend into another Cold War, and that it would be “difficult for the world to move forward” unless the war ends.
Furthermore, during his virtual address to other world leaders, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told G-20: “Now is the time when Russia’s war must and can be stopped.
He went on: “We will not allow Russia to wait out and build up its forces.”
The group of 20 is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 major nations as well as the European Union, working together to address issues related to the global economy.
Alongside the war on Ukraine, a major tension point at this year’s summit is US-China relations.
US President Joe Biden told Cambodian journalists there “need not be a new cold war” between the US and China and that Xi Jinping is “willing to compromise” on some issues as the two leaders met for a three-hour summit in Bali yesterday.
“We had an open and candid conversation about our intentions and our priorities,” the president said.
“It was clear – he was clear and I was clear that we’ll defend American interests and values, promote universal human rights, and stand up to the international order and work in lockstep with our allies and partners,” he said at a news conference after the meeting.
The president said both countries were dedicated to the “One China policy” as well as being committed to keeping the peace with Taiwan.
In response to a question, Biden said he “absolutely” believed there would not be a new Cold War with China and that he did not think there was any “imminent attempt” on the part of China to invade Taiwan.
When asked about North Korea, he said China had an “obligation to attempt” to stop the country from carrying out a new nuclear weapons test, but he said he wasn’t fully certain that China could control North Korea.
The talks took place on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
Other major boxing points at the summit will include UK prime minister Rishi Sunak’s confrontation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
It is set to be his first in-person meeting with a Russian government official since the Ukrainian invasion and Mr Sunak vowed to “call out Putin’s regime”.
The Prime Minister said: “At the G20, leaders need to step up to fix weaknesses in the international economic system which Putin has exploited for years.”
At the first-ever G20 amid a war in Europe, the Prime Minister will sit down with the leaders of the world’s 19 largest economies and vowed that Putin’s regime “will hear the chorus of global opposition”.