China highly appreciates the pragmatic cooperation results supported by the United Nations Fund for South-South Cooperation (UNFSSC) and has always taken South-South cooperation as a priority for international cooperation, said Fu Cong, China's permanent representative to the UN, on Friday.
Speaking at a special commemorative event at the UN headquarters in New York to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the UNFSSC, Fu said China has always firmly upheld the development pillar of the United Nations and true multilateralism.
Noting that China, as the world's largest developing country, will always be a member of the Global South, the Chinese envoy said that China encourages the UNFSSC to continue to adhere to the basic principles of South-South cooperation and calls on stakeholders to form synergy by strengthening partnership to create win-win results.
The UNFSSC was established in 1995 and is managed by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation.
The fund aims to promote sustainable development and technology transfer through cooperation among developing countries and help Global South countries address the common development challenges they face.
China takes South-South cooperation as priority: envoy
The death toll from a landfill collapse in the central Philippine city of Cebu has risen to eight by Monday morning as search and rescue operations continued for another 28 missing people.
The landfill collapse occurred on Thursday as dozens of sanitation workers were working at the site. The disaster has already caused injuries of 18 people.
Family members of the missing people said the rescue progress is slow, and the hope for the survival of their loved ones is fading.
"For me, maybe I’ve accepted the worst result already because the garbage is poisonous and yesterday, it was raining very hard the whole day. Maybe they’ve been poisoned. For us, alive or dead, I hope we can get their bodies out of the garbage rubble," said Maria Kareen Rubin, a family member of a victim.
Families have set up camps on high ground near the landfill, awaiting news of their relatives. Some people at the site said cries for help could still be heard hours after the landfill collapsed, but these voices gradually faded away.
Bienvenido Ranido, who lost his wife in the disaster, said he can't believe all that happened.
"After they gave my wife oxygen, my kids and I were expecting that she would be saved that night because she was still alive. But the night came and till the next morning, they didn't manage to save her," he said.
Death toll in central Philippine landfill collapse rises to eight
