Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Washington won’t stand for China ‘bullying’ US allies, Lloyd Austin tells summit

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Defence secretary also criticises Beijing’s unwillingness to engage with US on military crisis management

The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has vowed that Washington will not stand for any “coercion and bullying” of its allies and partners by China, while assuring Beijing that the US remains committed to maintaining the status quo on Taiwan and would prefer dialogue over conflict.

Speaking in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s top security summit, Austin lobbied for support for Washington’s vision of a “free, open and secure Indo-Pacific within a world of rules and rights” as the best course to counter increasing Chinese assertiveness in the region.

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US-China war not inevitable, Albanese says, urging countries to ‘prevent a worst-case scenario’

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Prime minister also seeks to reassure regional nations wary about Australia’s reasons for acquiring nuclear submarines under Aukus pact

Anthony Albanese has warned against “harmful” assumptions that the US and China are heading towards an inevitable war, and called for “practical structures to prevent a worst-case scenario”.

The Australian prime minister said a war in the Indo-Pacific would be “devastating for the world” and used a keynote speech to a regional security summit in Singapore to urge all countries to uphold peace and stability.

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Chinese censors remove protest site Sitong Bridge from online maps

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Amid usual scrubbing for Tiananmen Square anniversary, searches for bridge where protest was held in 2022 return no results

Chinese censors scrubbing the internet of any words or symbols that could be used to reference the Tiananmen Square massacre in the run-up to Sunday’s anniversary have a new target in their sights: a bridge in Beijing where a rare protest was staged last year.

As the 34th anniversary of the 1989 massacre approaches, anyone searching in Chinese for Sitong Bridge on Baidu maps will draw a blank.

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Weather tracker: Shanghai reports record high May temperature of 36.7C

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Heatwave continues in southern and eastern Asia as temperatures exceed 40C in vast swathes of region

Shanghai in China has reported a record high May temperature of 36.7C, breaking the previous record by 1C. The new high temperature on 29 May comes amid the heatwave affecting southern and eastern Asia since mid-April. Vast swathes of the region have had temperatures exceeding 40C, with parts of Pakistan reaching almost 50C in mid-May.

South-east Asia has been affected particularly badly, with record high national temperatures in Laos (43.5C), Vietnam (44.2C), and Thailand (45.4C). This is due to low amounts of rainfall over the previous winter resulting in drier soils, which can heat up more quickly than moist soils, thus exacerbating the effect.

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Japan’s ageing footballers get their kicks in over-80s league

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Soccer for Life league in Tokyo has about 40 players, enough for three teams, playing 30-minute matches

There are mops of silver hair, Bobby Charlton combovers and a fair number of creaking knees. But the Red Star and Blue Hawaii football teams can be forgiven for the hesitant start to their match: every man on the pitch is older than 80. Within minutes, though, they are running freely – and moaning at the referee – as they roll back the years with every pass and tackle.

With a combined age in four figures, the 22 men are defying the passage of time in the Tokyo Soccer for Life league for the over-80s, a sporting expression of Japan’s status as a “super-ageing” society where the average male life expectancy is 85.

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Vietnam: outcry after leading climate activist arrested, accused of tax evasion

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Critics say allegations against Hoang Thi Minh Hong are politically motivated, coming amid similar prosecutions against other environmental activists

Police in Vietnam have arrested a prominent environmental activist after accusing her of tax evasion, charges that have been dismissed by critics as politically motivated.

Hoang Thi Minh Hong, a former CEO of Change, an environment-focused NGO, was detained by police along with her husband, Nam Hoang, and former staff members of Change in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday.

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China swelters through record temperatures, putting pressure on power grids

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Record heat in May across parts of the country comes amid a year of rising temperatures and erratic weather in China

Temperatures across China reached or exceeded their records for the month of May, the country’s National Climate Centre has said.

Weather stations at 446 sites registered temperatures that were the same as, or greater than, the highest ever recorded for the month of May, deputy director of the National Climate Centre Gao Rong said at a press briefing on Friday.

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Twitter and Tesla’s interests at odds in Elon Musk’s quiet China visit

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The world’s richest person lapsed into an unusual silence on social media during his trip to the electric carmaker’s second largest market

Followers of Elon Musk didn’t know what to expect from his trip to China. Would he speak about Tesla, a company with a large market and manufacturing footprint there? Or SpaceX, with its symbiotic relationship with the American state? Or even Twitter, the social network he bought because “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy”?

The one thing no one expected: silence.

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Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator may face jail over alleged insider trading

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Prosecutors are reportedly seeking a prison term and a near-£1m fine for ex-Sega developer Yuji Naka

One of Sonic the Hedgehog’s creators is facing possible jail time and a fine of close to £1m for his alleged part in an insider trading scheme, according to a court report by Japanese media.

Yuji Naka, who co-created Sega’s blue-spiked mascot, was arrested in November last year over allegations he traded in stock with privileged information for a significant profit.

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Man accused of starting New Zealand hostel fire faces five murder charges

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Suspect, 48, was earlier charged with arson for allegedly setting fire to a couch and the hostel in Wellington

New Zealand police have filed five murder charges against the man they say lit a deadly fire at a Wellington hostel two weeks ago.

Police had earlier filed arson charges against the 48-year-old, accusing him of setting fire to a couch and to the hostel itself. He has remained in jail since his arrest two days after the fire.

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China’s Xi Jinping calls for greater state control of AI to counter ‘dangerous storms’

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President says national security threats are increasing and urged greater oversight of artificial intelligence and data security

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and top officials have called for greater state oversight of artificial intelligence as part of work to counter “dangerous storms” facing the country, state media reported.

The president and other ruling Communist party officials agreed at a meeting of the National Security Commission to “improve security governance of network data and artificial intelligence”.

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UN experts express ‘grave concern’ over detention of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong

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Communication sent to Beijing government says media mogul’s prosecutions relate to his criticism of China

A group of UN experts have expressed “grave concern” over the arrest and detention of Jimmy Lai, a former media mogul in Hong Kong who has been charged with violating the territory’s national security law.

In a joint communication sent to the Chinese government, the experts from the UN working group on arbitrary detention and several special rapporteurs focused on human rights said Lai’s arrest and multiple prosecutions related to “his criticism of the Chinese government and his support for democracy in Hong Kong”.

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UK’s post-Brexit trade deals with Australia and New Zealand kick in

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Move called ‘historic’ but agreement with Australia forecast to raise Britain’s GDP by only 0.08% by 2035

The UK’s post-Brexit trade deals with Australia and New Zealand have come into force, a moment lauded by the government as “historic” despite critics arguing they give away “far too much for far too little”.

The trade agreements – the first of those negotiated after Britain’s EU exit to enter into force – come after George Eustice, who was the environment secretary when the UK-Australia trade pact was struck in December 2021, admitted it was “not actually a very good deal” for Britain.

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South Korea’s first ever same-sex marriage bill goes to parliament

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Symbolic bill sponsored by cross-party group of lawmakers is hailed a ‘historic moment’ in fight for marriage equality

Lawmakers in South Korea have proposed the country’s first same-sex marriage bill, in a move hailed by civic groups as a defining moment in the fight for equality.

The marriage equality bill, proposed by Jang Hye-yeong of the minor opposition Justice party and co-sponsored by 12 lawmakers across all the main parties, seeks to amend the country’s civil code to include persons of the same sex in marriage.

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Radio broadcaster shot dead in the Philippines, say police

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Cresenciano Bunduquin is the latest to be killed in a country that is one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist

A radio broadcaster was shot dead outside his home in the central Philippines on Wednesday, police said, the latest in a long list of journalists killed in the country.

Cresenciano Bunduquin, 50, was killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen in Calapan City in Oriental Mindoro province, Colonel Samuel Delorino told Agence France-Presse.

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North Korea’s first spy satellite launch ends in failure and promise to send up another

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State media say the projectile plunged into the sea, after briefly sparking emergency warnings in South Korea and Japan

North Korea’s first spy satellite launch has ended in failure after its second stage malfunctioned, sending the projectile plunging into the sea, with the regime vowing to conduct another launch soon.

The launch sparked emergency warnings on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa and in the South Korean capital Seoul, where the city briefly issued an evacuation warning in error. Both alerts were later lifted.

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Chinese pilot performed ‘aggressive maneuver’ near US plane, military says

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The incident is the latest in a season of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing this year

A Chinese fighter pilot performed an “unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” near an American surveillance aircraft operating over the South China Sea last week, according to US military.

The incident – which the Pentagon says is part of a pattern of behavior by China – comes at a time of already heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing over issues including Taiwan and an alleged Chinese spy balloon that was shot down after traversing the United States earlier this year.

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Japan PM fires son after pictures emerge of ‘inappropriate’ private party at official residence

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Fumio Kishida criticises actions of eldest son, Shotaro, after photos show him lying on the stairs and posing at a press conference podium

The eldest son of Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, is to resign as his executive policy secretary amid public outcry over his use of the leader’s official residence for a private party.

Photos published by the Shukan Bunshun weekly magazine showed Kishida’s son and his relatives posing or lying on the symbolically important red-carpeted stairs of the residence in an imitation of group photos of newly appointed cabinets. Kishida’s eldest son, Shotaro, is at the centre – the position reserved for the prime minister.

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World Health Assembly commits to boosting global access to rehabilitation

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‘Landmark’ resolution in Geneva seeks to boost neglected service in all healthcare sectors, from prosthetics to physical therapy

Rehabilitation needs are “largely unmet globally” and in many countries less than 50% of people receive the services they require, according to a “landmark” resolution adopted by the World Health Assembly in Geneva on Friday.

At the 76th World Health Assembly, World Health Organization (WHO) member states made a non-binding commitment to expand rehabilitation services to all levels of healthcare and to strengthen their financing mechanisms. Demand for the services is expected to grow as the burden of non-communicable diseases rises globally, says the document.

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Hong Kong court rebuffs effort to dismiss Jimmy Lai national security trial

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Lawyers acting for pro-democracy activist argued that proceedings could be biased due to judge selection

Hong Kong’s high court has rejected an attempt by lawyers acting for the jailed pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai to have his national security trial dismissed.

The court ruled on Monday that the argument the trial may appear to be biased had “no merits”, and gave the proceedings, which are scheduled to start in September, the green light.

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