China to amplify Global South's voice for solidarity, cooperation with Africa: spokesman

China will join hands with African countries to amplify the voice of the Global South for solidarity and cooperation, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a press briefing in Beijing on Friday.

"Wang Yi, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and foreign minister, will attend the Ministerial Meeting of Coordinators on the Implementation of the Follow-up Actions of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the opening ceremony of the Fourth China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo in Changsha, Hunan from June 10 to 12," Lin said.

The spokesman elaborated on details regarding these events in response to a media inquiry.

"In September last year, the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was successfully held. President Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony of the summit and delivered a keynote speech. China and Africa reached a broad consensus on joining hands to advance modernization and build an all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future for the new era. The China-Africa relationship is now at its best in history. After the summit, China and Africa cooperated closely to actively implement the consensus of the leaders and the outcomes of the summit, making significant progress and achieving a large number of 'early harvests,'" Lin said.

"China will focus on strengthening coordination with Africa to implement President Xi Jinping's six propositions on modernization and 10 partnership actions that China and Africa can pursue together. This effort aims to enable the outcomes of the summit to benefit the peoples of China and Africa more and better, writing new chapters in the high-quality development of China-Africa cooperation and amplifying the voice of the Global South for solidarity and cooperation," he said.

China to amplify Global South's voice for solidarity, cooperation with Africa: spokesman

China to amplify Global South's voice for solidarity, cooperation with Africa: spokesman

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