Exclusive: VKG, where workers made jeans for Tesco’s Thai branch between 2017 and 2020, faces charges including fraud
Thai police have brought criminal charges against a clothing factory that was used by Tesco to make F&F clothes, over its treatment of workers.
The Guardian revealed in December that Burmese workers who produced F&F jeans for Tesco in Thailand reported being made to work 99-hour weeks for illegally low pay in terrible conditions.
Continue reading...Authorities scramble to contain leak from sunken tanker that was carrying about 800,000 litres of oil
Authorities in the Philippines are scrambling to contain an oil leak from a sunken tanker that could threaten the rich biodiversity of more than 20 marine protected areas.
The MT Princess Empress, which was carrying a cargo of about 800,000 litres of industrial oil, sank on Tuesday off the coast of Naujan, Oriental Mindoro province, after it experienced problems with its engine and began to drift due to rough seas. A passing cargo ship rescued the 20 crew onboard.
Continue reading...Kem Sokha, an opponent of Cambodian dictator Hun Sen, sentenced after treason trial widely seen as politically driven
Prominent Cambodian opposition politician Kem Sokha has been sentenced to 27 years in prison after being found guilty of treason, in a case widely condemned as politically motivated.
The former leader of the dissolved opposition party the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was arrested in 2017 and accused of conspiring with the US to oust Cambodia’s authoritarian leader, Hun Sen, who has ruled for almost four decades.
Continue reading...Lawyers for survivors and families of victims had urged postponement due to sheer volume of disclosure and delays in receiving, accessing and reviewing it
An inquest hearing into the deaths of 51 Muslims in a white supremacist terror attack on two Christchurch mosques has been postponed, after bereaved families and survivors raised “reasonable concerns” that vital evidence could be missed if it went ahead as scheduled, the coroner heading the inquiry says.
The inquiry will address questions not covered by previous investigations into the 15 March 2019 terrorist attack, in which an Australian gunman opened fire on worshipers during Friday prayers while livestreaming the massacre on Facebook.
Continue reading...No casualties have been reported since flames engulfed construction site in heart of busy Tsim Sha Tsui late on Thursday
Hong Kong firefighters have been battling a blaze that engulfed a construction site in the city’s shopping district.
Officials said the fire broke out at 11.11pm (1511 GMT) on Thursday in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui, a busy shopping and tourist area on the waterfront.
Continue reading...Stormy meeting in Delhi breaks up without joint statement as west and Moscow spar over Ukraine
Russia has accused the west of blackmail and threats and claimed it had China’s support for its position at a stormy meeting of G20 foreign ministers in India, dominated by the war in Ukraine.
The event broke up with no joint communique, only a summary of the meeting prepared by the host, India, the group’s current chair.
Continue reading...‘Relay loans’ that can pass on to children follow other moves to make borrowing more flexible
In an attempt to stimulate China’s flagging housing market, banks in some cities are extending the upper age limit on mortgages to between 80 and 95.
Although not a national policy, banks in Beijing, Hangzhou and other big cities have started offering “relay loans” to elderly customers, which pass on to their children in the event that they cannot repay.
Continue reading...‘We do not want a war within the PRC, a clash of civilizations,’ says ranking Democrat as new committee holds first hearing
Congress must act urgently to counter economic and national security threats posed by China, lawmakers on a newly created special House committee warned in its first primetime hearing.
China and the US are locked in an “existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century”, the Republican chairman, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, said.
Continue reading...Beijing propaganda includes messaging aligned with Moscow on Ukraine war, says James Rubin
The west has been slow to respond to China spending billions globally to spread poisonous disinformation, including messaging that is completely aligned with Russia on Ukraine, a US special envoy has claimed.
James Rubin, a coordinator for the Global Engagement Center, a US state department body set up to “expose and counter” foreign propaganda and disinformation, made the remarks during a European tour this week.
Continue reading...EU and parts of US already block access to Chinese-owned app amid concerns over data privacy and security
Canada has joined the US and EU in enacting a sweeping ban preventing TikTok from being installed on all government-issued mobile devices, as western officials take action over the Chinese-owned video-sharing app.
Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, did not rule out further action. “I suspect that as government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees that they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones, many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices,” he said.
Continue reading...Suggestion to abolish catch-all offence will be among thousands considered at Chinese Communist party summit
China should abolish the catch-all crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a political delegate has proposed before next week’s major Two Sessions legislative meeting.
Zhu Zhengfu, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) advisory body, said the law risked undermining China’s legal system and was open to “selective enforcement” by authorities, according to state media.
Continue reading...Wave of permits for coal-fired power plants sparks concern as ambitions for GDP growth and lowering emissions come into conflict
China’s energy policies are fast creating a type of “emissions ambiguity”, as the twin goals of boosting GDP growth and reducing carbon emissions come into conflict.
The uncertainty is whether and when the world’s biggest carbon emitter will start to curb greenhouse gas pollution. The release of the country’s annual statistics communique on Tuesday did not clear things up.
Continue reading...Dentsu Group charged after arrest of Tokyo 2020 committee official accused of rigging Games-related tenders
Japan’s biggest advertising agency and five other companies have been indicted for allegedly violating an anti-monopoly law, in a corruption scandal over allegations of bid-rigging during the Tokyo Olympics.
The indictment followed the arrest this month of a senior Tokyo 2020 organising committee official and three others who were accused of rigging a string of Olympic Games-related tenders.
Continue reading...Leader says agriculture needs ‘fundamental transformation’ and makes hitting grain targets a priority as country isolated by sanctions struggles
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has urged government officials to engineer a “fundamental transformation” in agricultural production, state media reported, amid fears that the country’s food shortage is worsening.
Kim said hitting grain production targets this year was a priority and emphasised the importance of stable agriculture production during the second day of a key meeting of the Workers’ party, the state news agency KCNA said on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Remains taken for forensic testing to determine if they belong to influencer Abby Choi
The ex-husband and two former in-laws of a woman in Hong Kong have been charged with her murder, after police revealed they had found more body parts during a weekend search.
Abby Choi’s ex-husband, Alex Kwong Kong-chi, his father and his brother were formally charged with murder on Sunday. Kwong’s mother was charged with perverting the course of justice.
Continue reading...Concerns about energy shortages drive increase as projects progress at ‘extraordinary’ speed
China approved the construction of another 106 gigawatts of coal-fired power capacity last year, four times higher than a year earlier and the highest since 2015, research shows.
Over the year, 50GW of coal power capacity went into construction across the country – up by more than half compared with the previous year – driven by energy security considerations, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said on Monday.
Continue reading...Gang who captured Prof Bryce Barker and his research team wanted compensation after two members shot at logging site
The decision to take the Australian-based New Zealand archaeologist Prof Bryce Barker and his research team hostage near remote Mount Bosavi in Papua New Guinea was a “spur of the moment” decision by their captors, two of whom had been shot in an earlier encounter with security guards at a logging site.
The governor of Hela province, Philip Undialu, said his team had only been able to begin negotiations with the captors – a criminal gang of about 20 “runners” moving guns and drugs across New Guinea – once they had moved the hostages into an area with mobile phone coverage.
Continue reading...Tech dealmaker reported to be unreachable 10 days ago in latest case of a top executive going missing during Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive
The Chinese billionaire tech banker Bao Fan, who was reported missing 10 days ago, is cooperating with Chinese authorities conducting an investigation, a China-based boutique bank has said.
It is the first time China Renaissance Holdings has given a reason for the disappearance of its founder and chairman, though no details about the investigation were shared.
Continue reading...Updated finding a departure from previous studies on how the virus emerged and comes with ‘low confidence’
The virus which drove the Covid-19 pandemic most likely emerged from a laboratory leak but not as part of a weapons program, according to an updated and classified 2021 US energy department study provided to the White House and senior American lawmakers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
The department’s finding – a departure from previous studies on how the virus emerged – came in an update to a document from the office of National Intelligence director Avril Haines. It follows an FBI finding, issued with “moderate confidence”, that the virus spread after leaking out of a Chinese laboratory.
Continue reading...Crusading pathologist Raquel Fortun finds evidence of multiple murder at the direction of ‘a madman’ in the exhumed remains of young Filipinos
It was in an old university stockroom, with wooden tables salvaged from a junkyard, that Raquel Fortun began to investigate the merciless crackdown launched under the former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte.
Fortun, one of only two forensic pathologists in the country, has now spent more than 18 months examining the exhumed remains of dozens of victims of the so-called “war on drugs”, revealing serious irregularities in how their postmortems were performed – including multiple death certificates that wrongly attributed fatalities to natural causes.
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