Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Japan pledges to have women in third of top boardroom roles by 2030

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Prime minister Fumio Kishida says diversity in listed companies is key to ‘achieving new capitalism and an inclusive society’

Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has said he wants almost a third of executive positions at the country’s top companies to be occupied by women by the end of the decade.

In an apparent attempt to address Japan’s poor record on gender equality ahead of the G7 leaders’ summit in Hiroshima next month, Kishida said more boardroom diversity would boost the world’s third-biggest economy.

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Chinese TB-001 drone flies around Taiwan in rare encirclement, says island’s military

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‘Twin-tailed scorpion’ drone that entered air defence identification zone is touted as being capable of high-altitude, long-range missions

A Chinese combat drone that state media says can carry a heavy weapons payload has flown around Taiwan, according to the island’s defence ministry.

The ministry said a TB-001 drone was one of 19 military aircraft that had entered the island’s air defence identification zone in 24 hours.

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‘Endless record heat’ in Asia as highest April temperatures recorded

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Record figures for month recorded in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, China and South Asia

Asia is experiencing weeks of “endless record heat”, with sweltering temperatures causing school closures and surges in energy use.

Record April temperatures have been recorded at monitoring stations across Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, as well as in China and South Asia.

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Xi-Zelenskiy call may have been prompted by ambassador’s undiplomatic comments

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The Chinese leader’s surprise contact with his Ukrainian counterpart is suspected to be a corrective move

A long-awaited phone call between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been cautiously welcomed, but China analysts say the timing suggests it could be partly an act of damage control after controversial comments by China’s ambassador to France.

Ambassador Lu Shaye, one of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats with a history of fiery remarks, caused outrage across Europe this week when he denied the sovereignty of former Soviet states, saying they “did not have effective status”. The comments were roundly condemned, with several European nations summoning Chinese envoys for rebuke, and politicians suggesting it demonstrated China’s untrustworthiness as a neutral party in the Ukraine war.

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UK and Europe are falling behind US and China in biotech, says AstraZeneca boss

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Pascal Soriot says decline in startups across Europe differs markedly from ‘explosion’ of firms and clinical trials in China

The boss of Britain’s biggest drugmaker has said that the UK and the rest of Europe are falling behind China and the US in the creation of biotech firms and clinical trials of new medicines.

Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, said that while China had seen an “explosion of biotech companies”, and a “rapid expansion of clinical trials” that puts it ahead of the US, the UK and EU had posted declines.

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China widens ‘already breathtaking’ scope to arrest foreigners for espionage

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Authorities can swoop over anything they deem relevant to national security in toughening of law already used against expatriates or Chinese contacts

China has drastically broadened its anti-espionage laws in amendments that legal experts warn could further heighten risk to foreign individuals and organisations operating in the country.

The amendments were passed by Beijing’s rubber-stamp parliament on Wednesday afternoon. The long-foreshadowed changes broaden the law’s scope to encompass anything deemed by authorities to cover national security, and expand the search and seizure powers of authorities, as well as the implementation of entry and exit bans on individuals.

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Chinese vice-president’s coronation appearance would be ‘outrageous’, say Tories

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Senior MPs say attendance of Han Zheng, accused of breaching Sino-British treaty with Hong Kong crackdown, would be insult

Senior Conservative MPs have labelled the expected attendance of China’s vice-president at King Charles’s coronation as “outrageous”.

Han Zheng, who was recently appointed as president Xi Jinping’s deputy, is expected to represent China at the May event, Politico reported.

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US nuclear-armed submarines to resume visits to South Korea for first time in 30 years

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Yoon Suk-yeol meets Joe Biden in Washington amid concerns in South over North’s nuclear buildup

The US and South Korea have reaffirmed their alliance, agreeing that nuclear-armed submarines would resume port visits and threatening a “swift, overwhelming and decisive response” to any North Korean nuclear attack, including retaliation in kind by the US.

The South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, said that response would include US nuclear weapons, making explicit an element of the alliance that normally remains unspoken.

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Last images taken by Japanese journalist killed in Myanmar in 2007 released

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News outlet obtains camera of Kenji Nagai, who was reporting on Saffron Revolution when he was shot

The family of a Japanese journalist killed while reporting on Myanmar’s 2007 Saffron Revolution have released his last pictures, sharing footage from a recently obtained video camera missing since his fatal shooting 15 years ago.

The final pictures from 50-year-old Kenji Nagai during an anti-government protest were obtained by Myanmar-focused news outlet the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), which returned the camera on Wednesday to Nagai’s family in Bangkok.

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Chinese trend for using photo of film star to get better service sweeps social media

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Growing number of social media users find using Korean American actor Ma Dong-seok’s image as avatar gets better response

Chinese social media users are turning to a Korean American action star for help in their daily lives, with a growing trend of swapping out their online avatar for Ma Dong-seok’s photo to get better responses from landlords and customer service agents.

In recent weeks a growing number of Chinese people have changed their profile photos to shots of Ma, who also goes by the name Don Lee and has starred in horror-action film Train to Busan and Marvel’s The Eternals, saying “it makes life easier”.

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Thai conservatives vow to legalise sex toys in bid to shake up election

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Freedom to use devices could curb prostitution, divorce and sex-related crimes, says Democrat party politician

A conservative Thai political party has backed the legalisation of sex toys as it seeks to revive its appeal before a looming general election.

The Democrat party representative Ratchada Thanadirek said sex toys were being smuggled into Thailand regardless of laws that prohibit their sale, and that the government was missing out on collecting taxes and regulating such products.

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Japan’s ispace says moon lander probably crashed on lunar surface

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Hakuto-R may have miscalculated altitude, says company after losing contact with spacecraft

Japan’s ispace said its attempt to make the first private moon landing had failed after losing contact with its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander when it unexpectedly accelerated and probably crashed on the lunar surface.

The startup said it was possible that as the lander approached the moon, its altitude measurement system had miscalculated the distance to the surface.

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Revealed: most of EU delegation to crucial fishing talks made up of fishery lobbyists

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Europe accused of ‘neocolonialism’ for using vassal small island states to sway policy and continue ‘disgraceful plundering’ of distant waters

More than half of the EU’s delegation to a crucial body of tuna stock regulators is made up of fishing industry lobbyists, the Guardian’s Seascape project can reveal, as Europe is accused of “neocolonial” overfishing in the Indian Ocean.

The numbers could shed some light on why the EU recently objected to an agreement by African and Asian coastal nations to restrict harmful fish aggregating devices (FADs) that disproportionately harvest juvenile tuna. Stocks of yellowfin tuna are overfished in the Indian Ocean.

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Poached sea cucumber: Japan police arrest five for stealing 600kg of the coveted creature

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Japan’s criminal syndicates have increasingly targeted the marine animal which is considered an expensive delicacy

Police in Japan have arrested several people for allegedly poaching a huge haul of sea cucumbers – an unsightly but expensive delicacy that has attracted the attention of the country’s crime syndicates.

The five men were arrested for stealing more than 600kg of the marine creates in seas off Fukuoka, south-east Japan, in what local media are calling one of the largest sea cucumber-poaching incidents since the echinoderms achieved coveted status among criminals several years ago.

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Singapore executes man over plot to smuggle 1kg of cannabis

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Tangaraju Suppiah was hanged despite international pleas to reconsider capital punishment for drugs offences

Singapore has hanged a prisoner for conspiracy to smuggle one kilogram of cannabis, authorities said, ignoring international protests and concerns that he lacked full access to a lawyer or interpreter.

The United Nations Human Rights Office had called for Singapore to “urgently reconsider” the hanging and British tycoon Richard Branson had urged the city state halt it.

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Joe Biden to visit Australia in May as Sydney hosts 2023 Quad leaders’ summit

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Meeting will bring together leaders of the US, India, Japan and Australia at the Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House will be the focus of a major security operation when the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, welcomes the US president, Joe Biden and the prime ministers of India and Japan for a key diplomatic event.

Albanese said on Wednesday that “Australia’s most recognisable building” would be the venue for the Quad leaders’ summit on 24 May.

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If China invaded Taiwan it would destroy world trade, says James Cleverly

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UK foreign secretary warns a war across Taiwan strait and likely destruction of semiconductor industry would have global effects

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would destroy world trade, and distance would offer no protection to the inevitable catastrophic blow to the global economy, the UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, warned in a set piece speech on Britain’s relations with Beijing.

In remarks that differ from French president Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to distance Europe from any potential US involvement in a future conflict over Taiwan, and which firmly support continued if guarded engagement with Beijing, Cleverly said “no country could shield itself from the repercussions of a war in Taiwan”.

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Japanese firm’s pioneering moon landing fails

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Ispace loses communication with Hakuto-R lunar lander, ending a mission that began more than four months ago

A Japanese startup attempting the first private landing on the moon has lost communication with its spacecraft and said that it assumes the lunar mission had failed.

Ispace said that it could not establish communication with the uncrewed Hakuto-R lunar lander after its expected landing time, a frustrating end to a mission that began with a launch from the US more than four months ago.

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Thai police investigate 10 deaths as woman accused of poisoning friend

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Woman had been travelling with friend who was found to have cyanide in her body at autopsy, police say

A woman has been arrested on suspicion of premeditated murder after she was accused of poisoning a friend using cyanide in Ratchaburi, central Thailand, with police saying they are also investigating the circumstances of nine further deaths.

The accused, identified in Thai media as Sararath Rangsiwutthiporn, or Am, had travelled with her friend, Siriporn Khanwong, known as Koi, to make merit by releasing fish at a pier in Ratchaburi on 14 April.

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Indian ministers rebuke Der Spiegel for ‘racist’ cartoon mocking population size

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German magazine accused of putting down India with caricature depicting population overtaking China

A cartoon in the German magazine Der Spiegel poking fun at India as it becomes more populous than China has been castigated as “racist” by Indian ministers.

The cartoon shows a rickety old Indian train packed with people and swarms of passengers atop it. On a parallel track, a sleek Chinese bullet train is seen with just two drivers, looking surprised at the sight of the Indian train.

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