Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Japanese trans woman denied status as parent of own child – reports

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Tokyo high court rules that child born after woman’s legal gender change should not be recognised as her daughter

A Japanese court has ruled that a child born after a transgender woman went through her surgical and legal transition should not be recognised legally as her child, according to local media.

Japan requires that anyone who wants to legally change their gender have surgery to remove the sexual organs they were born with, a practice sharply criticised by human rights groups.

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Billionaire Xiao Jianhua jailed for 13 years in China

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Chinese-Canadian’s firm fined record 55.03bn yuan on charges including illegally taking funds from public

Xiao Jianhua, a Chinese-Canadian billionaire at the centre of an alleged abduction scandal in Hong Kong in 2017, has been sentenced by a Shanghai court to 13 years in prison and his company fined a record 55.03bn yuan (£6.8bn).

Xiao, 50, and his Tomorrow Holdings conglomerate were charged with illegally absorbing public deposits, betraying the use of entrusted property, and the illegal use of funds and bribery, the Shanghai first intermediate court said.

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Chinese city dims lights as record heatwave hits energy supplies

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Highs of over 40C in Chengdu dry up hydropower reservoirs and raise demand for air conditioning

A provincial capital in south-west China has dimmed outdoor advertisements, subway lighting and building signs to save energy as the area struggles with a power crunch triggered by record-high temperatures.

Temperatures rose past 40C (104F) in Sichuan province this week, fuelling massive demand for air conditioning and drying up reservoirs in a region reliant on dams for most of its electricity.

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Weather tracker: flash floods as Europe’s heatwave ends with thunderstorms

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Torrential rains hit parts of England, Italy, France and Belgium, while in China flooding leaves 18 dead

Prolonged heat across parts of northern and western Europe ended with torrential showers and thunderstorms this week.

On Wednesday, parts of southern England received 50-65mm of rainfall within a few hours, causing London’s Gatwick airport to delay and cancel dozens of flights.

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New Zealand floods could take years to clean up, with 1,200 people displaced

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A fourth straight day of rain brought by an ‘atmospheric river’ has damaged roads and homes and forced more than 400 households to evacuate

Torrential downpours that have battered New Zealand for four days straight have caused floods that could take years to clean up and displaced at least 1,200 people from their homes in the top of the South Island.

Friday’s rain comes on top of weeks of wet weather and is worsening conditions in New Zealand’s already sodden landscape. Experts have attributed the unseasonably wet weather to a narrow stream of water vapour, or “atmospheric river”, sitting above the country.

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Bali bomb maker Umar Patek could be released early from Indonesian jail

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Early release of ex-member of terror group linked to al-Qaida will cause distress for bereaved, says Australian PM

Umar Patek, the bomb maker who helped assemble the devices used in the 2002 bombing in Bali, could walk free early from prison this year.

The Indonesian ministry of law and human rights regional office in East Java has proposed the early release after the ex-member of Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian terror group linked to al-Qaida, completed two-thirds of his sentence, plus remissions.

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Timor-Leste warns it will work with China if Australia insists on pumping Timor Sea gas to Darwin

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Exclusive: President José Ramos-Horta says his country’s leadership ‘has to make decisions … if necessary a trip to China’

Timor-Leste’s president, José Ramos-Horta, has warned his nation will seek Chinese support if Australia and Woodside Energy fail to back a gas pipeline between the resource-rich Timor Sea and his country’s southern shore, rather than Darwin.

Ramos-Horta has warned Timor-Leste – Australia’s neighbour and ally – would “absolutely” look to Chinese investment to secure what he says is the “national strategic goal” of piping gas from the Greater Sunrise fields to his nation’s coast. The comments are likely to heighten concerns about Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific.

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Billionaire Peter Thiel refused consent for sprawling lodge in New Zealand

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Local council decides proposed bunker-like home would negatively impact surrounding landscape

The billionaire Peter Thiel’s plans for an elaborate bunker-like lodge in a remote part of New Zealand’s South Island have been thwarted, after the local council decided the home would have too great a negative impact on the surrounding landscape.

Second Star, a New Zealand company owned by the PayPal co-founder, had applied to build the sprawling lakeside complex in Wanaka, an alpine South Island region known for its natural beauty and isolation. The plans were fiercely opposed by conservationists, who claimed in submissions that the lodge would “destroy our beautiful lake environment”.

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Detained Hong Kong activists to plead guilty under China-style law

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Former student leader among 29 pro-democracy activists entering same plea on subversion charges after more than a year in jail

Joshua Wong and a group of 28 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists charged under a controversial national security law have entered guilty pleas, in the largest joint prosecution in the territory in recent years.

A total of 47 defendants, aged 23 to 64, were charged with conspiracy to commit subversion under the sweeping national security law. They were detained in 2021 over their involvement in an unofficial primary election in 2020 that authorities said was a plot to paralyse Hong Kong’s government. At the time, the primary showed strong support for candidates willing to challenge the Beijing-backed local government.

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City in China orders fish swabbed for Covid

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Coastal city of Xiamen tells workers on fishing boats, as well as their catch, to undergo testing as part of import controls

In the coastal Chinese city of Xiamen, it’s not just the mouths of fishers being swabbed for Covid-19, but also the fish they’ve caught.

As China maintains its commitment to zero Covid, city authorities are working to ensure there is no avenue for the virus to enter, ordering all fishers and their catch undergo a daily nucleic acid test.

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New Zealand firefighters to hold first ever strike over staffing and equipment ‘crisis’

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Professional firefighters will walk off the job for an hour in culmination of 13-month dispute over pay and conditions

Nearly 2,000 professional firefighters will walk off the job for the first time in New Zealand’s history, citing a “crisis” within the sector and ongoing problems with poor pay, understaffing and unreliable fire equipment.

Members of the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union have voted to strike for an hour on Friday morning in a complete work stoppage, after talks with employer Fire and Emergency (Fenz) broke down last week.

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Huge fireball erupts on fuel barge in Vanuatu bay

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The vessel was delivering fuel in mangrove-rich South West Bay on Malekula Island when it burst into flames, injuring at least three people

A massive fireball has erupted after a fuel transport barge caught fire in a pristine bay on a remote Vanuatu island, injuring at least three people.

The Western Star, a barge fitted out to carry fuel and cargo, burst into flames at South West Bay on Malekula, Vanuatu’s second largest island, on Wednesday.

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China deploys cloud-seeding planes and cuts electricity use as record heatwave takes toll

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China battling its longest heatwave on record, with energy-intensive industries suspended and dams opened to boost flagging hydropower

China is scrambling to alleviate power shortages and bring more water to the drought-hit basin of the Yangtze river as it battles a record-breaking heatwave by seeding clouds, deploying relief funds and developing new sources of supply.

For more than two months, baking temperatures have disrupted crop growth, threatened livestock and forced industries in the hydropower-dependent regions of the south-west to shut down to ensure electricity supplies for homes.

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China to send troops to Russia for joint week-long military drills

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Beijing says its participation in Vostok exercises ‘unrelated’ to current events and part of ongoing cooperation with Moscow

Chinese troops will travel to Russia for large military exercises amid heightened tensions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The joint exercises in Russia’s far east, which will include India, Belarus, Mongolia, Tajikistan and other countries, are held every four years. But the week-long manoeuvres will be presented by Russia as a symbol of international support despite sanctions and other efforts to isolate the country due to its war with Ukraine.

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Indonesian boys wrongly imprisoned by Australia ask attorney general for new appeal

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Exclusive: Lawyers for two Indonesian children wrongly jailed for people smuggling ask Mark Dreyfus to refer case for appeal, calling Christian Porter’s ruling on the case a ‘mockery of justice’

Two Indonesian children who were imprisoned as adult people smugglers using deeply flawed evidence have asked attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, to use his mercy powers and resolve the “mockery of justice” overseen by his predecessor Christian Porter.

Earlier this year, Guardian Australia used a trove of internal documents to reveal how federal police had placed fictitious dates of birth on sworn legal documents to prosecute eight Indonesian children as adult people smugglers, relying on a wrist X-ray age assessment technique they knew at the time to be questionable.

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Japan tax office launches campaign to help encourage drinking

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Contest asks young adults for ideas to revitalise popularity of alcoholic drinks after big fall in tax revenues

The Japanese government has launched a nationwide competition calling for ideas to encourage people to drink more alcohol after a change in attitudes among the young resulted in a slide in tax revenues.

The Sake Viva! campaign, which is being run by the National Tax Agency (NTA), asks 20- to 39-year-olds to come up with proposals to help revitalise the popularity of alcoholic drinks, which have fallen out of favour because of lifestyle changes during the coronavirus pandemic and among young people.

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North Korea – a model for Grant Shapps’ bicycle licence plate proposal?

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The secretive state demands each cycle display a registration number – although officially women are banned from bikes

• UK cyclists could be made to have registration plates

If the British transport secretary, Grant Shapps, is looking for a “model” for his bicycle registration plates proposal he could turn to one of the world’s most illiberal countries: North Korea.

After decades of being frowned upon as a primitive means of transport for citizens of a modern, socialist paradise, cycling gained official acceptance in the secretive state in 1992 – although it is officially banned for women.

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Thai instant noodle makers seek government approval for first price hike in 14 years

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Plea to government, which controls prices on some essentials, to allow rise as war in Ukraine and extreme weather drive up costs

Five major producers of instant noodles have urged the Thai government to allow them to increase their prices within a week, warning of soaring production costs affecting one of the country’s most popular grocery items.

The war in Ukraine, as well as droughts and floods over the past year, have caused the cost of wheat, energy and transport costs to rise sharply, affecting noodle prices across Asia.

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Chinese navy vessel arrives at Sri Lanka port to security concerns from India

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Yuan Wang 5 is officially described as a ‘scientific research ship’ but India suspects it has military functions

A Chinese navy vessel has arrived at a southern Sri Lankan port that Beijing leases from the government, prompting renewed security fears from India.

On Tuesday morning, the Yuan Wang 5 sailed into the Hambantota port, which was built by Beijing, and was welcomed by senior Sri Lankan and Chinese officials in a traditional ceremony that involved red carpet and a massive banner that read: “Hello Sri Lanka, Long Live Sri Lanka-China Friendship.”

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Chinese ambassador warns UK not to cross ‘red lines’ over Taiwan

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Zheng Zeguang says Britain would face serious consequences if it were to ‘follow in the footsteps of the US’

China’s ambassador to the UK has said Britain would face “serious consequences” if it crossed the “red lines” over Taiwan and warned against following in the footsteps of the US.

In a Guardian opinion piece that comes days after Liz Truss said China’s actions “threaten peace and stability in the region”, Zheng Zeguang wrote that Taiwan had become a “touchstone” for bilateral relations that he warned were “at an important juncture”.

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