Category Archives: Asia Pacific

North Korea fires missile over Japan prompting warnings for residents to shelter

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Launch is the first time the North has apparently sent a missile over Japanese territory since 2017

North Korea has launched a intermediate-range ballistic missile over northern Japan for the first time in five years, prompting the government to urge people to shelter from falling debris, in an apparent escalation of recent weapons tests by Kim Jong-un’s regime.

Japan’s government had activated its J-Alert system on Tuesday morning for residents in the northernmost main island of Hokkaido and the country’s north-eastern Aomori prefecture. Train services were temporarily halted in the region.

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‘Ordinary’ Chinese vase sells for almost €8m after ferocious bidding war

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Tianqiuping-style porcelain sells for nearly 4,000 times its estimated value after buyers are convinced it is a rare artefact

An “ordinary” Chinese vase put up for auction in France and valued at €2,000 (£1,745) has sold for almost €8m after a ferocious bidding war among buyers convinced it was a rare 18th-century artefact.

At the sale in Fontainebleau near Paris, auctioneers were astonished as the offers from about 30 mainly Chinese bidders kept on coming. When the hammer fell the vase had been sold for €7.7m – almost 4,000 times its estimated value. With the seller’s fees, the final purchase price was €9.12m.

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Indonesia football stadium disaster: police chief sacked as investigation launched

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Officers investigated after teargas fired and at least 125 people, including 32 children, killed in crush

An Indonesian police chief and nine elite officers were removed from their posts and 18 others were being investigated for responsibility in the firing of teargas inside a soccer stadium that led to a crush, killing at least 125 people, officials said.

Indonesian police are facing increasing pressure over their management of crowds during the Kanjuruhan stadium disaster.

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High-profile China #MeToo case settled in US out of court

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Liu Jingyao launched civil proceedings in 2019 against retail billionaire Liu Qiangdong

One of China’s biggest and most divisive #MeToo cases, which had been set to play out with extraordinary transparency because of its US location and was closely watched by millions inside China, has been settled out of court.

Liu Qiangdong, a 49-year-old online retail billionaire who also goes by Richard Liu and is known as China’s Jeff Bezos, had been accused of sexually assaulting a then 21-year-old Chinese graduate when she was studying at the University of Minnesota and he was visiting on a business trip. Liu has always denied the assault accusations, saying it was consensual.

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125 dead after crowd crush at Indonesian football match

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Police and match organisers under scrutiny after officers fired teargas in response to rioting fans

At least 125 people have been killed and around 320 injured at a football match in Indonesia in one of the world’s worst ever sports stadium disasters.

Police used teargas in response to a pitch invasion by rioting fans, causing a crush among panicked spectators.

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North Korea fires ballistic missiles in fourth launch in a week after naval drills

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Launch follows joint military drills by South Korea, Japan and the US and visit by Kamala Harris

North Korea has fired two more ballistic missiles, South Korea’s military said, its fourth such launch this week as Seoul, Tokyo and Washington ramp up joint military drills.

The launch early on Saturday came after the navies of South Korea, the United States and Japan staged trilateral anti-submarine exercises on Friday for the first time in five years, and the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, made a visit to the region this week.

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BBC accused of endangering World Service Vietnamese staff

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Cost-cutting plan to move staff from London to Bangkok will put them at risk of abduction, reporters say

Journalists at the BBC World Service have said plans to move its Vietnamese service from London to Thailand pose a danger to press freedom.

Several reporters at the World Service raised concerns that the Vietnamese state had a history of abducting journalists from Thailand. They also suggested that BBC bosses failed to comprehend that just because both countries were in south-east Asia, it did not mean Vietnamese people were naturally at home in Thailand.

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Anger after Thai court rules 2014 coup leader can carry on as PM

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Threats of mass protests after former general Prayuth Chan-ocha judged not to have exceeded term limit

Thailand’s constitutional court has allowed the prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, to remain in his job after suspending him in August while it considered whether he had overstayed his term limit.

The court ruled Prayuth, a former army general who first came to power in a military coup in 2014, had not yet reached the limit of his term, even though prime ministers are barred from serving for more than eight years under Thailand’s constitution. The case had been brought by opposition MPs who argued Prayuth had violated the limit.

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Weather tracker: Typhoon Noru wreaks havoc across south-east Asia

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As Hurricane Ian hits the Americas, Noru has been ripping through the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand

Hurricane Ian has been in the headlines but it is not the only storm that has been causing havoc in the past week.

On Tuesday, Typhoon Noru struck south of the city of Da Nang in Vietnam, heading westwards to Thailand. Initially a tropical storm, Noru originated in the Philippine Sea on 23 September, propagating westwards while gathering moisture and strengthening.

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Australia-New Zealand refugee deal: UN blames mental health toll after just 36 people take up offer

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UN refugee agency says many refugees have been traumatised by years in Australian detention camps, hampering uptake of the offer

In nearly six months, just 36 people have taken up New Zealand’s offer to resettle refugees held in Australian detention camps such as Nauru, with UN’s refugee agency saying the brutality of Australia’s immigration regime is partly to blame.

In March 2022, Australia’s government accepted a longstanding offer from New Zealand to resettle up to 450 refugees from Australia’s regional processing centres over the next three years, at a rate of up to 150 per year. But after nearly six months, uptake has been slow – stymied by the dire mental health of prospective applicants.

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Thumbs down to ‘middle finger’ health campaign in New Zealand

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Hepatitis C awareness ads that feature smiling actors raising their middle fingers are deemed too offensive to be aired

A New Zealand health campaign designed to help curb hepatitis C has hit a stumbling block after one of its advertisements showing people raising the middle finger was deemed too offensive to air.

The associate health minister, Ayesha Verrall, launched the “Stick it to Hep C” campaign in July, to raise awareness over the virus, which kills roughly 200 New Zealanders a year.

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Could a digital twin of Tuvalu preserve the island nation before it’s lost to the collapsing climate?

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With rising seas expected to submerge the nation by 2100, official says ‘we should always be able to remember Tuvalu as it is, before it disappears’

When Tuvalu vanishes beneath rising seas, its diaspora still want somewhere to call home – and that could be a virtual version of the tiny Pacific nation.

Global heating is threatening to submerge Tuvalu by the end of the century, and its 12,000 inhabitants are considering the future.

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Kamala Harris hits out at North Korea’s ‘provocative nuclear rhetoric’ on DMZ visit

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Pyongyang fired ballistic missiles into the sea just hours before US vice-president arrived in Seoul

The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, has condemned North Korea’s “provocative nuclear rhetoric” during a trip to South Korea that included a visit to the heavily armed border dividing the peninsula.

Harris arrived in Seoul on Thursday, hours after North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea, in a move that underlines Washington’s struggle to rein in the regime’s weapons programme.

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Hong Kong pro-democracy figure Ted Hui sentenced to jail over 2019 protests

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Former legislator, who fled to Australia last year, said earlier that any sentence would not harm his reputation or lobbying work

A Hong Kong court has sentenced pro-democracy figure in exile Ted Hui to three-and-a-half years in jail over charges related to the 2019 protest movement.

The ruling in Hong Kong’s high court on Thursday, reported by local media, is the first time someone has been sentenced in absentia over the protests.

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New Zealand bans live animal exports from April 2023

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Animal welfare law passes two years after sinking of Gulf Livestock 1 in a typhoon killed crew and 6,000 cattle

New Zealand will ban live animal exports from next April, two years after storms sank a livestock ship, killing 41 crew members and 6,000 cattle.

The death of two New Zealanders among the crew of the Gulf Livestock 1, which sank in a September 2020 typhoon, helped galvanise the movement to ban exports of live sheep and cattle.

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Myanmar model who criticised junta says Canada has granted her asylum

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Thaw Nandar Aung, AKA Han Lay, feared being sent home after she was stopped at Thai border last week

A Myanmar fashion model who was denied entry to Thailand and feared arrest by the military government in Yangon if she was forced back home from exile has flown to Canada, which she says has granted her asylum.

Thaw Nandar Aung, also known as Han Lay, left on a flight from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport early on Wednesday, according to Archayon Kraithong, a deputy commissioner of Thailand’s Immigration Bureau. He said he was not authorised to reveal her destination.

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PNG election violence: 90,000 displaced since May, 25,000 children unable to attend school

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Fighting since country’s election in July has continued in the highlands, with women and children most vulnerable

An estimated 90,000 people have been displaced by violence in the highlands of Papua New Guinea since May, with about 25,000 children unable to attend school and reports of rape, kidnapping and other violence, say the UN and local officials.

The fighting has been related in many cases to the recent national elections, in which around 50 people were killed and schools and other public buildings burnt down.

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Return to Dust, Chinese hit film about rural hardships, disappears from streaming platforms

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Film’s sudden disappearance in China prompts censorship accusations amid heightened sensitivity ahead of key Communist party meeting

A popular Chinese film depicting a love story amid the hardships of life in rural China has been removed from all streaming services just weeks after its release, and discussion of it censored on social media.

Return to Dust had been widely praised by audiences for its realistic and moving depiction of rural life in China. For the same reason it had also drawn criticism from nationalistic voices accusing it of portraying China in a negative light.

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Kamala Harris to visit Korean demilitarised zone as naval drills stoke tensions

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DMZ trip comes days after North Korea warned that the South and the US risked ‘triggering conflict’ with joint naval drills

The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, is to visit the heavily armed border separating North and South Korea on Thursday, amid rising tensions on the peninsula.

Harris will arrive at the demilitarised zone (DMZ) on the southern side of the border, days after the regime in Pyongyang warned that South Korea and the US risked “triggering a conflict” following the launch of large-scale naval exercises for the first time in five years.

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Apple shifts some iPhone 14 production from China to India

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Move taken against background of China’s Covid lockdowns and geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington

Apple has begun making iPhone 14s in India, as it moves some production away from China for the first time against a backdrop of Chinese Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and geopolitical tensions between the US and the country’s communist government.

A production line in Chennai has begun operation, assembling the iPhone 14 for the domestic Indian market. The move, which marks the first time the company has assembled iPhones outside of China in the same year they were released, is part of a plan to disentangle its manufacturing operations from the Chinese state.

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