Record-breaking rainfall hit Auckland in January, only to be followed by Cyclone Gabrielle ravaging the North Island in February
The New Zealand government is allocating NZ$1.1bn to help communities recover from Cyclone Gabrielle and flooding.
The funds from the 2023 budget are to cover “basics” of rebuilding roads, rail and schools, as well as flood protection, the government announced on Sunday.
Continue reading...Young voters demand change but military-appointed senate poses hurdle to a non-establishment candidate becoming prime minister
Thais are voting on Sunday in an election that could lead to the defeat of the military-backed leader who has ruled Thailand for almost a decade.
However, a skewed election system means the shape of the new government is “very unpredictable”, say analysts, and it is not clear if pro-democracy candidates will succeed in unseating the generals.
Continue reading...Move Forward party leader’s promise in election campaign to end political stranglehold chimes with younger generation
When Pita Limjaroenrat took to the stage for his final big campaign event before Thailand’s elections, the cheers and screams were deafening. “Our time has come,” he told crowds of mostly young supporters in a packed stadium in Bangkok.
Pita’s Move Forward party has built a large and loyal support base among young Thais who are fed up with the political status quo. At rallies, he is met with long lines of students and young people queueing for selfies. On TikTok, fans post images of themselves with a special filter that displays his face smiling and lurking in the background.
Continue reading...The pair agreed to ‘step up’ dialogue to resolve outstanding trade issues and confirmed the review of China’s tariffs on Australian barley was ‘on track’
The Australian trade minister, Don Farrell, has invited the Chinese commerce minister to visit his family’s vineyard in South Australia after the pair met in Beijing on Friday night.
Speaking after the talks with Wang Wentao in Beijing, Farrell said he was “very pleased to confirm that we agreed to step up dialogue under our free trade agreement and other platforms to resolve our outstanding issues”.
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Continue reading...Josep Borrell says relations will worsen if Xi Jinping does not push Putin to withdraw from Ukraine
A Russian defeat in Ukraine will not derail China’s rise, while relations between Beijing and the EU will be “critically affected” if Xi Jinping does not push Vladimir Putin to withdraw his forces, European ministers have been told.
The message comes in a paper drawn up by the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, who is meeting the EU’s 27 foreign ministers on Friday in Stockholm to discuss how the bloc should “recalibrate” its policy towards Beijing.
Continue reading...Yang Maodong called it a ‘score-settling’ punishment for his two decades of rights advocacy
A Chinese court has sentenced a prominent rights activist to eight years in jail on subversion charges in what he said was a “score-settling” punishment for his two decades of rights advocacy.
Yang Maodong, who goes by the pen name Guo Feixiong, was sentenced on Thursday by the Guangzhou intermediate people’s court for “inciting subversion of state power,” his brother Yang Maoquan wrote on social media. Repeated phone calls to the court went unanswered on Friday.
Continue reading...Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS will be out on 9 July, ending feverish speculation that the previously untitled book was a Taylor Swift memoir
The guessing game began this week when a mysteriously untitled book, scheduled for publication in July and known only as “4C Untitled Flatiron Nonfiction Summer 2023”, appeared. It quickly became a bestseller when Taylor Swift fans began feverishly speculating that it was her surprise memoir.
But the mystery has been solved, with publishing house Flatiron Books bringing forward their announcement by a month to reveal the book is actually by another musical powerhouse: the K-pop boyband BTS.
Continue reading...Wong Kei-kwan, known as Zunzi, says it was a ‘mutual decision’ after the Ming Pao newspaper ended his column
A decades-old political cartoon column has been scrapped by a respected Hong Kong newspaper after it faced a barrage of criticism from officials, in a move widely seen as a further blow to the city’s freedoms since the implementation of the controversial national security law.
On Thursday, the Ming Pao newspaper announced it would stop publishing cartoons by Wong Kei-kwan, better known under his nom de plume “Zunzi”, from Sunday.
Continue reading...High-level meeting in Vienna was ‘candid’, says White House, amid signs tensions could be easing
The White House national security adviser met with China’s top diplomat in Vienna as both sides recognised the need to move beyond the spy balloon incident that caused a rupture in relations between the superpowers, a senior US official has said.
The meeting between Jake Sullivan and Wang Yi was not publicised by Washington or Beijing ahead of the talks on Wednesday and Thursday in the Austrian capital. The White House described the wide-ranging discussions, in which the two leaders spent more than eight hours together, as “candid” and “constructive”.
Continue reading...Amended legislation gives chief executive power to veto any foreign lawyer working on cases brought under national security law
Hong Kong has passed a law that allows authorities to ban foreign lawyers from working on national security cases, completing a months-long effort to block a UK practitioner from defending the media mogul and activist Jimmy Lai.
The amendment, which was passed unanimously by the Legislative Council on Thursday, gives the chief executive the power to veto any foreign lawyer from working on cases brought under the 2020 National Security Law (NSL).
Continue reading...Alicia Kearns, foreign affairs select committee chair, launches blistering attack on former prime minister
The Conservative chair of the foreign affairs select committee has launched a blistering attack on Liz Truss over the former prime minister’s planned trip to Taiwan, calling it “the worst kind of Instagram diplomacy”.
Alicia Kearns said she thought Truss’s trip planned for next week was little more than a vanity project aimed at keeping her profile high after her brief spell as prime minister last year.
Continue reading...Sebastien Lai, son of Jimmy, also criticises Vatican over failure to hold China to account over human rights abuses
The British son of the jailed Hong Kong media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has criticised Britain and the Vatican for failing to speak out strongly against the crackdown on dissent in the Chinese territory.
At a Washington event about the human rights situation in Hong Kong, Sebastien Lai said self-censorship in the former British colony was the anticipated result of the national security crackdown there, but the “hypocrisy” of some governments trying to trade with China was unexpected.
Continue reading...First British ministerial visit to Hong Kong since Chinese crackdown focused on attracting investment
The first British ministerial visit to Hong Kong since the introduction of draconian Chinese security laws five years ago was a chance to demand that China unlock more than £2bn in pensions belonging to British overseas passport holders who fled for the UK, former cabinet ministers have told the Foreign Office.
A letter signed by more than 90 MPs, including 10 former ministers, urges the trade minister Dominic Johnson to do more to release frozen savings belonging to thousands of Hongkongers.
Continue reading...Group reportedly got into difficulty as torrential rain hit during outing in Northland region
Searchers in New Zealand have found the body of a teenager who died on Tuesday as torrential rain fell during a school trip into caves in the Northland region.
The deluge swamped parts of the North Island, including Northland, where damage from record floods in February was still evident. In New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, inspections of 120 water-damaged buildings began on Wednesday morning as the weather cleared.
Continue reading...New genetics study finds some of the first arrivals came during the last ice age, and shortly after, in two distinct migrations
Some of the first humans to arrive in the Americas included people from what is now China, who arrived in two distinct migrations during and after the last ice age, a new genetics study has found.
“Our findings indicate that besides the previously indicated ancestral sources of Native Americans in Siberia, the northern coastal China also served as a genetic reservoir contributing to the gene pool,” said Yu-Chun Li, one of the report authors.
Continue reading...Xu Zaozao’s case is widely followed in a country where women’s rights have become increasingly prominent
A single Chinese woman has begun an appeal in her legal battle for the right to freeze her eggs, a procedure only available in China to married couples.
Xu Zaozao took legal action in 2019 after a Beijing hospital refused to freeze her eggs but a Beijing court dismissed her case in July 2022.
Continue reading...After big-spending Aukus and defence announcements, Labor switches focus to diplomacy
The military and police will expand links with Pacific Island countries as part of a nearly $2bn budget package aimed at boosting Australia’s influence across the region.
After two months of rolling out big-spending defence announcements – including the Aukus nuclear-powered submarines – the Albanese government used Tuesday night’s budget to signal renewed interest in diplomacy and regional engagement.
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Continue reading...Ex-PM, who is trying to revive career, says she will ‘show solidarity’ with Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi visit sparked furore
Liz Truss is to visit Taiwan next week, where she will deliver a speech likely to anger Beijing and potentially upset the UK government’s careful approach to China relations.
The former prime minister said on Tuesday: “Taiwan is a beacon of freedom and democracy. I’m looking forward to showing solidarity with the Taiwanese people in person in the face of increasingly aggressive behaviour and rhetoric from the regime in Beijing.”
Continue reading...Beijing says US, Australia and New Zealand have ‘a cold war mentality’ and are driving up geopolitical tensions
China has accused Australia of attempting to sabotage its relationships in the Pacific, saying Australia has a “cold war mentality” and is blinded by “ideological prejudice”.
Senior Chinese diplomats said Australia has undermined Beijing’s security and law enforcement cooperation with Fiji, alleging its relations with Fiji are being “targeted” by Australia, the US and New Zealand.
Continue reading...China’s foreign ministry said it would expel Canadian envoy for Ottawa’s ‘unreasonable action’ of ejecting Chinese diplomat
Canada will not be intimidated by China’s tit-for-tat expulsion of a Canadian consul in retaliation for Ottawa’s ejection of a Chinese official, Justin Trudeau has said.
Canada expelled the Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei on Tuesday over allegations he tried to intimidate a Canadian lawmaker critical of China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority. Hours later, China’s ministry of foreign affairs said it would expel a Canadian diplomat from Shanghai in retaliation for what it called Ottawa’s “unreasonable actions”.
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