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SINGAPORE: Thailand accused Cambodia on Tuesday of “playing the role of a victim” in a dispute over maritime resources, as the Southeast Asian neighbours brought their long-standing feud before international mediators.

The hearing at the Singapore outpost of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) comes after the countries fought two rounds of deadly border clashes last year.

In May this year, Thailand unilaterally pulled out of a framework agreement with Cambodia that aimed to resolve overlapping maritime border claims, but denied any link to their land dispute.

Cambodia subsequently initiated a UN-backed conciliation process at the PCA, saying it hoped to return to constructive negotiations.

Opening Bangkok’s case before a five-member panel of international legal experts, Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said Cambodia sought to “vilify Thailand through false narratives, distortion of facts, and unfounded accusations… including at international forums”.

“It does this by playing the role of a victim with a sense of self-righteousness aimed at claiming the moral high ground,” he said.

Last year’s clashes left dozens of people dead and displaced more than a million before a truce was agreed.

Thailand has said it withdrew from the framework agreement, called “MoU 44”, because “no progress had been made” in implementing it. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul denied the move was linked to the fighting.

The 2001 memorandum of understanding covers a resource-rich maritime territory of around 27,000 square kilometres (10,500 square miles) to which both Cambodia and Thailand lay claim.

Cambodia said last week that it had resorted to conciliation “after Thailand unilaterally terminated the agreed bilateral framework” through which the two nations had “negotiated their overlapping maritime claims for more than two decades”.

Prime Minister Hun Manet said in June that the move was also to “protect Cambodia’s sovereignty and maritime rights in accordance with international law”.

Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn told the PCA panel on Tuesday that Phnom Penh saw the process “as a means to rebuild trust, not as a form of escalation”.

Cambodia’s goal was to agree with Thailand on a “single, all-purpose maritime boundary”, or alternatively agree to jointly develop and equitably share resources until a boundary is drawn, he said.

“Cambodia sincerely hopes that Thailand will engage constructively in this process.”

Sihasak said Thailand was also seeking maritime delimitation and to rebuild trust.

Set up in 1899, the PCA is the world’s oldest intergovernmental dispute-resolution body and resolves disputes between countries and private parties by referring to contracts, special agreements and various treaties, such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The PCA office in Singapore is the Hague-based court’s first in Asia.

The commission’s recommendations are not binding and will take about a year to be decided.

WASHINGTON: The IMF said the global economy had weathered the energy shock caused by the war in the Middle East better than feared and global economic output was still expected to expand by about 3 percent in 2026, but it cautioned that risks remained high.

Julie Kozack, spokesperson for the International Monetary Fund, said oil and gas prices remained elevated and the energy shock from the war was not over.

Global debt pressures were also mounting and the disinflation process over the 2022 cost-of-living crisis had stalled.

Global inflationary expectations have risen but remain well-anchored ‌over the longer ‌run, Kozack told a regular IMF briefing.

“So far, despite six months of ‌war in the Middle East, the global economy has been resilient,” Kozack said, adding that the use of oil and gas reserves had allowed some countries to cope with energy shocks caused by the war, while others had shifted to new energy sources or acted to curb demand.

“We remain on track for world growth of around 3 percent but uncertainty, as we’ve been saying for quite some time, continues to remain high,” she said.

The IMF in July forecast 2026 global growth at a sluggish 3 percent, compared with an average of 3.5 percent seen in 2024 and 2025, and its April forecast of 3.1 percent.

At the time, it said that forecast assumed ‌the war would wind down in mid-July, but Iran and ‌the US have both escalated their attacks and the war has widened with increased military activity in Yemen.

The ‌global lender will release an updated forecast during the annual meetings of the IMF and the ‌World Bank in Bangkok from Oct. 12 to 18.

Pulled in opposite directions

Kozack said the global economy was being pulled in opposite directions by the negative energy supply shock that was driving prices of energy, fertilizers, food and other commodities sharply higher, while the AI-led technology cycle was providing a positive demand shock.

Risks remain high, with many countries needing to ‌restock their oil and gas reserves, and energy demands set to rise as winter approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, she said.

Pressures are also mounting on global public debt, which is already at nearly 100 percent of gross domestic product — the highest level since World War Two — and is set to rise further, Kozack said. Many advanced economies have particularly high public-debt-to-GDP ratios.

Liquidity problems are also building in developing countries, including in Africa, partly due to a reduction in bilateral assistance, Kozack said.

The IMF is urging central bankers to stick to their price stability mandates, while encouraging fiscal policymakers to develop medium-term consolidation plans, she said.

“We’re not in a situation where fiscal consolidation needs to take place overnight, but having a clear, laid-out plan and strategy for how deficits and debt are going to come down is very important for fiscal authorities,” Kozack said.

The IMF was also urging authorities to focus on lifting growth prospects through structural reforms and removing “self-inflicted” barriers to growth, she said.

Kozack said the IMF would look closely at the impact of new US sanctions against Iran, including secondary sanctions aimed at firms in third countries that support Tehran.

A fuller report was expected in the upcoming global outlook, she said.

MANILA: Saudi Arabia’s new national carrier Riyadh Air launched its first flight to Manila on Wednesday, marking the latest addition to its growing network of global destinations.

Riyadh Air operated a 290-seat Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft for the route between the Saudi and Philippine capital, with its arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport around 3:55 p.m. marking the first operation of the service.

“The new … service adds another option for passengers traveling between the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, and another international carrier to NAIA’s growing network. Welcome to Manila, Riyadh Air!” NAIA said in a statement announcing the Riyadh Air service.

There are more than 910,000 Filipinos living and working in Saudi Arabia, as the Kingdom hosts the biggest number of overseas Filipino workers and was their top destination in 2024, according to Philippine government data.

In that year alone, almost 22 percent of Filipinos, or more than 480,000, who sought work abroad chose the Kingdom, driven in part by the Saudi Vision 2030 economic diversification program.

Saudi tourists are also one of the Philippines’ fastest-growing and highest-value markets, according to the Philippine Department of Tourism, with tourism receipts reaching over $37 million in 2024, a 46-percent rise from the previous year.

The Saudi carrier has swiftly expanded its air links with Asia with the launch of multiple flights across the region in recent months, including to Malaysia, Pakistan, India and Thailand.

Riyadh Air’s Manila route followed the airline’s launch of its Bangkok service last week, with Thailand eyeing more high-value tourism from the Middle East.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand is expecting about 600,000 travelers from the Middle East this year, after recording about 210,000 arrivals in the first half of 2026.

It shows similar trends across Asia, where popular holiday destinations are increasingly targeting tourists from the Middle East as part of their tourism growth strategy.

Reading scores among 15-year-olds in the United States have fallen to the lowest level in about 25 years, according to an international education assessment.

On Tuesday, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released findings from the 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a global metric for educational achievement.

The results showed that US reading scores fell 14 points from 2022, the last time PISA results were released.

The decline was part of a broader international trend, with an OECD average from 23 countries also dropping 16 points.

But the US stood out for the size of its performance gap. Some 25.7 percent of US students were ranked as low performers in reading, while 13.3 percent were flagged as top performers.

“Looking across all 90 participating countries, there was not a single country with significantly wider inequality in reading scores than the US,” Michael Kieffer, a professor of literacy education at New York University, told Al Jazeera. “What is clear is that we are under-serving many students.”

The PISA results come as the administration of US President Donald Trump seeks to reshape the federal government’s role in education.

In March 2025, Trump issued an executive order calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of dismantling the Department of Education, a federal agency that tracks student achievement, distributes federal education funds and enforces civil rights in schools.

The Education Department, however, does not establish school curriculums or academic standards. That responsibility has traditionally fallen to state and local authorities.

Still, Trump pointed to slipping test scores as a reason to shutter the department. He has also denounced the department for its “entrenched bureaucracy” and called for its responsibilities to be redistributed to the states.

In response to a request for comment on Tuesday, McMahon sent a statement to Al Jazeera echoing Trump’s push.

“The United States of America is a nation built to lead the world, yet our one-size-fits-all federal education bureaucracy has shortchanged our children and stifled our future,” McMahon wrote.

The White House has argued that federal education spending is excessive and has failed to translate into higher standardised test scores.

Since the Education Department was founded in 1979, it has spent more than $3 trillion, according to the White House.

“This moment is a stress test for our nation’s future,” McMahon said in her statement to Al Jazeera. “To pass it, we must enact a hard reset that stops protecting a failed status quo and instead builds a system that empowers state leaders and embraces innovative learning options through school choice.”

“School choice” has been a rallying cry for many US conservatives. The term refers to the practice of diverting taxpayer money away from public education to help parents finance alternative choices for their child’s schooling, like charter schools, homeschooling or private institutions.

The practice is controversial. Critics have accused the “school choice” system of weakening public education in favour of less regulated school systems that receive money with little oversight.

But since returning to office in 2025, Trump has embraced “school choice” as a form of “educational freedom”.

Last year, the Education Department announced $500m for its Charter School Program, touting the funds as the “largest investment” the initiative has ever received.

The money was earmarked to allow states to expand their charter school systems and fund new charter-school developers.

In July 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – Trump’s signature piece of legislation – also created the first federal tax credit for donations to organisations that provide scholarships for primary and secondary school students, including for private-school tuition and tutoring.

Last month, Trump hosted a “school choice”-themed event at the White House to kick off the start of the new school year.

But critics warn that greater investment in education is needed across the board to reverse diminishing test scores.

“PISA 2025 shows that reversing declines in student performance is urgent,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said in a statement.

“The most successful education systems focus on fewer areas in greater depth, invest in teachers, engage parents and provide targeted support for the students and schools that need it the most.”