Category Archives: Asia Pacific

The defence review says Australia is at little risk of a land invasion – but that’s not where the threats end

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Cyber-warfare and the ‘missile age’ have radically reduced Australia’s geographical defensive benefits, report argues

Australia’s defence strategic review paints an alarming picture of the “radically different” security outlook in the Indo-Pacific, including the risk of “major conflict in the region that directly threatens our national interest”.

But it is important to be very clear about what Monday’s document does and doesn’t say about the threats Australia faces.

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2023 Goldman environmental prize winners include Texas Gulf coast defender

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Diane Wilson took on Formosa Plastics and won a $50m settlement to help clean up decades worth of toxic plastic waste

Grassroots activists who took on British mining giants and a serial plastics polluter – and won – are among this year’s recipients of the world’s most prestigious environmental prize.

The environmental campaigns led by the six 2023 Goldman prize winners highlight the hurdles faced by some local activists, who are often on the frontlines confronting the toxic mix of corporate greed and systemic corruption that is fuelling the climate emergency, biodiversity collapse and increasingly forced displacement.

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Myanmar: senior election official linked to junta shot dead by resistance group

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Killing in Yangon of Sai Kyaw Thu, a former lieutenant colonel, is confirmed by guerrilla group

A top election official in Myanmar has been fatally shot in his car in Yangon, in the latest attack attributed to militants opposed to military rule.

Sai Kyaw Thu, the deputy director general of the military-appointed Union Election Commission, was shot multiple times on Saturday, according to the military’s information office, media reports and a statement of responsibility from an urban guerrilla group.

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China ramps up coal power despite carbon neutral pledges

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Local governments approved more coal power in first three months of 2023 than all of 2021

Local governments in China approved more new coal power in the first three months of 2023 than in the whole of 2021, according to official documents.

The approvals, analysed by Greenpeace, reveal that between January and March this year, at least 20.45 gigawatts of coal power was approved, up from 8.63GW in the same period in 2022. In the whole of 2021, 18GW of coal was approved.

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‘We’d like the two periscopes’: the mission to save a piece of Australia’s first submarine

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The AE1 was found 103 years after it sank in the first world war. Now a team hopes to salvage part of the disintegrating wreck to be preserved in a museum

The wreck of Australia’s first submarine is disintegrating, sparking a new mission to salvage a relic from it for the Australian War Memorial.

HMAS AE1 disappeared with 35 crew on board while on a mission near the Duke of York Islands in Papua New Guinea in September 1914, less than two months after the outbreak of the first world war.

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Baltic states condemn China envoy’s remarks over sovereignty of ex-Soviet nations

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Lu Shaye’s comments raise fresh questions over China’s role in brokering peace in Ukraine

France, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have expressed dismay after China’s ambassador in Paris questioned the sovereignty not only of Ukraine, but all the former Soviet Republics including the Baltic states.

Lu Shaye’s remarks in a TV interview late on Friday raise fresh questions about the faith the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has placed in China to act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine.

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Chris Hipkins hails ‘biggest in a generation’ citizenship reforms for New Zealanders in Australia

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Prime minister welcomes move to let New Zealanders apply for Australian citizenship without becoming permanent residents first

A “historic” agreement allowing New Zealanders a faster pathway to Australian citizenship is the biggest change “in a generation” and will help the two countries forge even closer ties, the New Zealand prime minister, Chris Hipkins, has said.

Hipkins visited Australia on Sunday for talks with the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, after the decision to give New Zealanders the right to apply for Australian citizenship without becoming permanent residents first.

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Taiwan Strait: top EU diplomat calls for European navy patrols

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Josep Borrell says safeguard would show Europe’s commitment to the ‘absolutely crucial’ area

European navies should patrol the disputed Taiwan Strait, the EU foreign policy chief has said, echoing earlier comments stressing how crucial Taiwan is to Europe.

Josep Borrell wrote in an opinion piece in the Journal Du Dimanche that Taiwan “concerns us economically, commercially and technologically”.

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War of words: Australia can expect a hostile response from China to strategic defence review

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Experts say Australia should look beyond criticism that is largely for domestic Chinese consumption and engage on a broader level

Australia’s strategic defence review, to be made public on Monday, is likely to spark a hostile response from China and set off a new round of claim and counterclaim about the precarious relationship between the two countries.

Sir Angus Houston, the former head of the Australian military who led the review with the former defence minister Stephen Smith, said when it was launched last year the strategic circumstances were “the worst I have ever seen in my career and lifetime”.

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Japan’s ‘crying baby sumo’ festival returns for first time since pandemic

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Staff wearing demon masks try to make competing babies cry, with the first to bawl declared the winner in a centuries-old tradition

Dozens of bawling Japanese babies faced off in a traditional “crying sumo” ritual believed to bring the infants good health, which returned for the first time in four years after the pandemic.

Pairs of toddlers wearing ceremonial sumo aprons were held up by their parents and faced each other in the sumo ring at Sensoji Temple in Tokyo on Saturday.

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New Zealanders to gain faster pathway to Australian citizenship under major changes to immigration rules

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In a move that restores reciprocity to rights of expats, about 380,000 New Zealanders living in Australia will no longer have to become permanent residents first

About 380,000 New Zealanders will gain the right to apply for Australian citizenship without becoming permanent residents first, under sweeping changes restoring reciprocity to the rights of expats of the two countries.

On Saturday the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, and immigration minister, Andrew Giles, will announce the changes ahead of a visit by New Zealand prime minister Chris Hipkins.

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DeSantis to meet UK foreign secretary with eye on US presidential bid

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Florida governor lines up four-nation tour in attempt to boost credentials as credible leader on world stage

Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, is to meet the UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, in London at the end of the month as he attempts to burnish his credentials as a credible Republican leader capable of operating on a global stage ahead of a widely expected run for US president.

He is to lead a Florida trade delegation on a four-nation tour taking in Japan, South Korea, Israel and the UK.

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Taiwan foreign minister warns of conflict with China in 2027

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Comments indicate extent to which Taiwan is trying to bolster western support before possible invasion

Taiwan’s foreign minister has said he is preparing for the possibility of a conflict with China in 2027.

Speaking on LBC’s Tonight with Andrew Marr, Joseph Wu said: “We are taking the Chinese military threat very seriously … I think 2027 is the year that we need to be serious about.”

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Britain’s top diplomat James Cleverly skips part of Pacific tour to focus on Sudan

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Foreign secretary cancelled plans in Samoa and New Zealand due to crisis in Sudan, his office said

The British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has skipped planned meetings to New Zealand and Samoa to focus on coordinating the UK’s response to the crisis in Sudan.

Cleverly had been scheduled to join the New Zealand foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, in Samoa on Wednesday for a series of trilateral meetings with the Samoan government, and then travel on with Mahuta to New Zealand.

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‘Otherworldly’ hybrid solar eclipse reaches totality over Australia – as it happened

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This blog is closed

Among those in Exmouth, Australia today are the Solar Wind Sherpas, an international team of scientific adventurers who have tracked solar eclipses across the Sahara and Mongolia, in Svalbard and Antarctica.

There are 13 sherpas and they come from countries including Germany, the Czech Republic and the US.

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Moonbin, K-pop star and member of boy band Astro, dies aged 25

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The pop star was found unresponsive on Wednesday evening in his Gangnam apartment

K-pop star Moonbin, a member of the boy band Astro, has died at the age of 25, his music label Fantagio announced on Thursday.

Local media, citing the police, reported that Moonbin had been found unresponsive on Wednesday evening in his apartment in the upscale Gangnam neighbourhood of Seoul.

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HSBC shareholders urged to vote against break-up of business

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Bank warns spinning off more profitable Asia business would be complex and would lower dividends

HSBC’s board has urged shareholders to vote against a proposed break-up of its business at its annual meeting, arguing that a split would result in a “material loss” and lower dividends.

In response to calls for the split from its largest shareholder, the Chinese insurer Ping An, HSBC warned on Wednesday that spinning off its more profitable Asian business from the rest of the bank would also require approval from regulators in approximately 25 jurisdictions, and force it to make changes to customer services.

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Australia would be ‘naive’ to think China’s new Antarctic station not for surveillance, analyst says

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National security experts express concern over resumed construction of a Chinese station which could be used for intelligence operations

Australia should be concerned about the prospect of China using a new research station in Antarctica to assist surveillance operations in the southern hemisphere, according to national security experts.

Satellite imagery collected by Washington-based thinktank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), shows construction of the station on Inexpressible Island near the Ross Sea has resumed for the first time since 2018.

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India’s population set to overtake China’s by June, UN figures show

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UN population officials say it is not possible to pinpoint a date because of uncertainty about data

India is expected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country with almost 3 million more people by the middle of this year, according to UN figures.

The State of World Population 2023 report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates India’s population will be 1.4286 billion by the end of June, compared with China’s 1.4257 billion.

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Twelve people arrested over Beijing hospital fire that killed 29

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Director of Changfeng hospital among those detained after deadliest fire in China’s capital since 2002

Chinese authorities have said they have detained a dozen people over a hospital fire in Beijing that left at least 29 dead and forced desperate survivors to jump out of windows to escape.

The fire, which broke out on Tuesday afternoon at the Changfeng hospital in China’s capital, killed mostly patients, and left scores of other people injured.

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