Papua New Guinea police warn against circulation of fake news as negotiations continue with gunmen
A woman who was taken hostage in Papua New Guinea has been released while an Australian professor and two local researchers are still held captive by an armed group in the country’s remote highlands.
The remaining three captives are believed to be in reasonable health, despite being held in difficult terrain.
Continue reading...On eve of Ukraine invasion anniversary Russian leader says China relations ‘proceeding as planned’
China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, has met Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as China and Russia reaffirm their close bilateral relationship just days before the first anniversary of the start of the Ukraine war.
In brief televised remarks Wang said China and Russia were ready to deepen their strategic cooperation. Earlier on Wednesday, Wang met Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, where he said he expected to reach a “new consensus” on advancing the relationship between the two allies.
Continue reading...Firms urged to allow contracts with Deloitte, KPMG, EY and PwC to expire
The Chinese government has reportedly instructed state-owned companies to phase out contracts with the big four accounting including KPMG and EY, as authorities try to address security concerns and curb the influence of western-linked auditors.
China’s finance ministry is among the government entities that have issued informal guidance last month, urging state-owned corporations to let contracts with Deloitte, KPMG, EY and PwC expire, according to Bloomberg News.
Continue reading...Officials meet in Tokyo to discuss concerns at China’s cooperation with Russia and Japan’s military buildup
Chinese and Japanese officials met in Tokyo on Wednesday for formal security talks for the first time in four years, in a meeting aimed at stabilising increasingly strained relations.
In Japan’s national security strategy, released in December, China was described as “the greatest strategic challenge” to Japan’s peace and security.
Continue reading...About 1.5 metres in diameter, the mysterious metal sphere has been the source of intense speculation online
Police and residents in a Japanese coastal town have been left baffled by a large iron ball that has washed up on a local beach, with authorities admitting they have no idea what it is – only that it isn’t about to explode.
The sphere, measuring about 1.5 metres in diameter, has been at the centre of fevered speculation since it washed up on Enshu beach in the city of Hamamatsu on the country’s Pacific coast, local media reports said.
Continue reading...Local media report inquiry launched over application by Chinese scientist He Jiankui, whose work sparked ethics storm
Hong Kong has reportedly revoked a visa for the controversial gene therapy scientist He Jiankui less than a day after it was revealed he’d been granted one, despite having a criminal record in China for illegal medical practices.
Hong Kong immigration officials said his visa was rescinded and a criminal investigation launched into allegations He had lied on his application form, the South China Morning Post reported.
Continue reading...Qin Gang ‘deeply concerned’ about war spiralling out of control and appears to hit back at US for ‘shifting blame to China’
China’s new foreign minister has accused the US of shifting blame for the Ukraine war on to China, in an apparent pushback against warnings from Washington that China is considering supplying weapons to Russia.
Speaking on Tuesday morning, at the launch of a Chinese government paper on its global security initiative, Qin Gang said China was “deeply concerned” about the war in Ukraine escalating and possibly “spiralling out of control”.
Continue reading...Former prime minister likens covert operations to famous scene in Casablanca and warns influence register should be more than ‘box ticking’
Australian security agencies know China is carrying out “blatant” influence operations despite the lack of listings on the country’s transparency register, the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has told an inquiry.
Turnbull said on Tuesday he was “puzzled” the legislation his government introduced was not more rigorously enforced and that officials should not treat it as a “robotic box-ticking exercise”.
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Continue reading...Family of British antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford, who died in 2020 while awaiting trial for art trafficking, returns 77 Khmer artefacts
Dozens of pieces of Angkorian crown jewellery stolen from Cambodia, many never seen by the public, have been returned after resurfacing in London, the Cambodian culture ministry said on Monday.
The trove includes crowns, necklaces, amulets and other treasures from the Angkor period, which ran from the ninth to the 14th century AD, when the Khmer empire was a dominant force in south-east Asia.
Continue reading...The academic, who was conducting studies in the highlands, was taken hostage along with three other researchers
Police in Papua New Guinea have launched a rescue operation to find an Australian professor and three local researchers who were taken hostage in the country’s remote highlands, the Pacific island nation’s police commissioner has announced.
An armed gang had demanded a ransom for the captives, commissioner of police David Manning said in a statement, describing the gunmen as “opportunists” and the situation as “delicate”.
Continue reading...Punk IPA maker says it wants to sell more of its craft beer in world’s biggest market
BrewDog has said it plans to brew in China as part of a deal with Budweiser China to expand sales in the world’s biggest market for beer.
Budweiser China would start brewing BrewDog’s Punk IPA, Hazy Jane and Elvis Juice beers by the end of March at its Putian craft brewery near the south-east coast, the companies announced on Monday.
Continue reading...The Cessna 340 with former Santos employees Simon Chipperfield and Karthi Santhanam lost contact on Saturday
Two Australian men are feared dead after a plane lost contact in the Philippines with four people on board, as crews work to verify if a wreckage spotted near the crater of a restive volcano is the missing plane.
The plane, which was bound for the capital Manila, lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday, three minutes after it departed Bicol international airport in Albay province, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said in a statement.
Continue reading...Visit to Taipei by Shanghai officials was arranged by mayor from opposition Kuomintang party, attracting accusations of secrecy
A Chinese government delegation has visited Taiwan for the first time since the start of the pandemic, sparking some partisan tension on the island over cross-strait interactions as Beijing reiterated its intentions to annex it.
The delegation of six officials, including the deputy head of the Shanghai office of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Li Xiaodong, arrived in Taipei with plans to visit the Lantern festival and hold talks with local officials. They were invited by the city government, led by mayor Chiang Wan-an, of the opposition Kuomintang party (KMT).
Continue reading...Kim Yo-jong blames escalation on US forces in the region, as head of South Korea’s ruling party calls for Seoul to have its own nuclear deterrent
North Korea fired two ballistic missiles off its east coast Monday, South Korea’s military said, as the powerful sister of the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, warned the nuclear-armed state could turn the Pacific into a “firing range”.
The tests prompted the head of the ruling party in South Korea to warn that continued provocations by Pyongyang would only strengthen calls for the South to develop its own nuclear deterrent – a move that would dramatically raise tensions on the peninsula.
Continue reading...A week after the storm struck the North Island, police say two more bodies were found in hard-hit Hawke’s Bay area
The death toll from Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand climbed to 11 as many people not yet contacted a week later.
The cyclone hit the North Island’s uppermost region on 12 February and tracked down the east coast, inflicting widespread devastation. The prime minister, Chris Hipkins, has called Gabrielle New Zealand’s biggest natural disaster this century.
Continue reading...Wang Yi also says China is preparing to outline position on Russian war against Ukraine
China’s most senior diplomat has described the shooting down of a balloon by the US as “absurd and hysterical”, as well as an abuse of the use of force.
Speaking on stage at the Munich security conference on Saturday, Wang Yi said: “It does not show the US is strong; on the contrary it shows it is weak”. The foreign affairs director said he believed the shooting down was part of an attempt to divert attention from the domestic problems of the Biden administration.
Continue reading...Ding Jiaxi tells his lawyer he is also worried about his own health after being held for more than three years
The detained human rights activist Ding Jiaxi has expressed concern for the young protesters who have disappeared since participating in the “blank paper” protests against zero-Covid that stunned China last year.
At least 16 of them are still in police detention, according to names gathered by activists, while Ding himself has been detained for more than three years.
Continue reading...Pyongyang confirms rapid launch drill after warning of strong response to upcoming US-South Korea military exercises
North Korea has fired a ballistic missile toward the sea off its east coast, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said, after Pyongyang warned of a strong response to upcoming US-South Korea military drills.
Japan’s coastguard also said North Korea fired what could be a ballistic missile on Saturday.
Continue reading...‘Electronics and optics’ among wreckage of suspected surveillance craft shot down off South Carolina after recovery efforts end
The US has finished work to recover sunken remnants of the Chinese balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina and the debris reinforces that it was for spying, officials have said.
The White House national security spokesman, John Kirby, said the wreckage included “electronics and optics” but declined to say what the US had learned from it so far.
Continue reading...Residents of Eskdale, in New Zealand, recount fears on night of flooding as they return to salvage belongings and rescuers continue search for bodies
Crouched in the dark, gripping the slick corrugated iron, Michael and Kelly McKendry hauled themselves and their daughter on to their rooftop. A few feet below, the flood moved in a seething brown mass, roiling under the gutters. “I couldn’t feel anything, I was just doing,” says Kelly. “As we went out our kitchen window, we heard a woman go past in the water screaming.”
Almost a week after Cyclone Gabrielle hit New Zealand, the couple have returned to find the green valley where they made their home a moonscape. Orchard vines are stripped from the wires, cornfields are flattened, and everything is coated in a metres-thick layer of iron-grey sludge. Motorhomes and caravans lie tossed across the landscape, windscreens smashed, metalwork caved in, some upside down and stacked on top of one another, others submerged to their roofs in the mud. The railway line running through the valley has buckled in on itself, twisted into looping ribbons. One house has been carried almost a kilometre from its foundations, logs impaled through walls shredded like damp cardboard.
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