Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Japan tourist boat sinking: child among 11 confirmed dead

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Fifteen remain missing as questions grow as to why the Kazu I sailed in rough weather off the hazardous Shiretoko peninsula

Rescuers searching since a tour boat carrying 26 people apparently sank off far north-eastern Japan have found the body of an 11th victim – a child – as questions intensify about why the vessel sailed in rough weather at a known hazardous location.

The child was found late Sunday and later confirmed dead, the coast guard said Monday. The bodies of 10 victims – seven men and three women – were found earlier Sunday.

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Beijing braces for rise in Covid cases amid outcry over Shanghai blockade

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Official says Covid ‘spreading invisibly’ within capital as Shanghai residents complain about barriers at residential buildings

Authorities in Beijing are on high alert for a surge in coronavirus cases amid a fresh outcry in Shanghai over buildings blockaded under China’s zero Covid policy.

The number of new cases in the capital rose by 22 on Sunday – all locally transmitted – compared with six the day before, according to official reports. Beijing authorities have so far not taken steps to lock down the capital, but they have ordered a number of gyms and after-school activity providers to suspend in-person classes.

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Nine people found from tour boat that went missing in rough waters off Japan

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Twenty-six people were on board vessel before crew reported it sinking off island of Hokkaidō and authorities lost contact

Nine people, most of them unresponsive, have been found by rescuers after a tour boat sank off Japan’s northern coast with 26 people on board a day earlier.

“As of 11am (0200GMT), coastguard aircraft have rescued four people, local police aircraft rescued four people and a Self Defence Force aircraft rescued one person from waters or rocky coastal areas,” Japan’s coastguard said in a press release on Sunday.

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South Korea split in row over military service for BTS

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The K-pop superstars add billions to the economy, so should they be exempt from conscription?

They generate billions for the South Korean economy and have helped turned the country into a cultural superpower, but must Jin, Jimin, V, RM, J-Hope, Suga and Jungkook – the seven members of the K-pop phenomenon BTS – start swapping their stage outfits for military uniforms?

Less than three weeks before South Korea’s new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, takes office, the country is gripped by a debate over who, if anyone, should be exempt from compulsory national service – long seen as essential preparation for a potential conflict with its volatile neighbour, North Korea.

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Taiwan won’t go into lockdown like Shanghai despite Covid surge, premier says

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Taiwan opts to live with the virus in contrast to Shanghai, which has been criticised for measures taken as part of zero-Covid approach

Taiwan will not go into a Shanghai-like lockdown to control a rise in Covid-19 cases as the vast majority of those infected have no symptoms or show only minor symptoms, the premier, Su Tseng-chang, has said.

Taiwan has been dealing with a spike in local cases since the start of the year, but the numbers overall remain small – 18,436 since 1 January for a population of some 23 million – and just four people have died.

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Shanghai: video maker urges people to stop sharing film critical of Covid lockdown

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Plea comes after ‘Voices of April’ spreads on social media as users get creative to bypass China’s censors

The author of a viral video about Shanghai’s Covid-19 lockdown that sparked a rare show of defiance on China’s social media has urged users to stop sharing it, saying he worried about his work being taken in directions he did not wish to see.

The creator, who goes by his online moniker Strawberry Fields Forever, said in a post on Saturday that the quick spread of the video, titled Voices of April, was “unexpected” to him, and he was “touched” by messages received from fellow internet users.

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New clues shed light on ‘pivotal’ moment in the great Pacific migration

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Archaeologists say find of tools and bones changes our understanding of the Lapita people, the first to make landfall in Remote Oceania

The peopling of the Pacific is one of the most significant migrations in human history. And now an archaeological discovery on a small island in Papua New Guinea has recast the early scope of this settlement, in a finding archaeologists say could explain the migration east three millennia ago.

The unearthing of animal bones and tools on Brooker Island, 200km east of mainland Papua New Guinea, suggests that the migration of Lapita people throughout Papua New Guinea was far more extensive than previously thought.

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Singapore editor jailed for defamation over corruption claims

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Terry Xu was convicted last year after publishing a letter alleging ‘corruption at the highest echelons’

The editor of a now-closed Singaporean news outlet has been jailed for three weeks for defamation over a letter published on the site that alleged corruption among government ministers.

Terry Xu, the former editor of the Online Citizen, was convicted last year for the publication of a letter that said there was “corruption at the highest echelons”.

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Shanghai further tightens Covid restrictions after weeks of strict lockdown

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China vows to eradicate virus, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, amid frustration among residents

Authorities in Shanghai have further tightened restrictions on the movement of residents in some districts and warned its 25 million inhabitants that strict measures would continue until Covid-19 was eradicated, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

After three weeks of stringent lockdown that has fuelled discontent in China’s largest metropolis, some districts were told that restrictions would be tightened even when they met the criteria for people to be allowed to leave their homes.

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China is exerting ‘enormous pressure’ on Pacific island nations, Scott Morrison says

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Morrison dodges questions on whether Australia knew of Solomon Islands-China pact amid ministers’ conflicting accounts

Scott Morrison says China is exerting “enormous pressure” on Pacific island countries, as the Australian prime minister fends off questions about whether his government was caught off-guard by the security deal with Solomon Islands.

Morrison said it was not “just as easy as picking up the phone or sending a foreign minister”, after Labor characterised the signing of the deal as the biggest Australian foreign policy failure in the Pacific since the second world war.

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Jacinda Ardern greeted by giant sad dancing kiwifruit during visit to Japan

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Two large mascots, dancing to sorrowful music, helped welcome the New Zealand prime minister on her first trip overseas since the pandemic began

New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern has been met in Japan on her first trip outside the country in two years by a duo of enormous, mournfully dancing kiwifruit.

The two large mascots welcomed the prime minister with a gentle swaying routine, set to a piece of slow, somewhat sorrowful chamber music. They had a sombre audience of suited men.

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New Zealand faces global pressure over move to let resident be extradited to China

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MPs from around the world tell Jacinda Ardern that case of murder suspect Kyung Yup Kim could set ‘dangerous precedent’

New Zealand is under international pressure to stop the extradition of a resident to China, after a landmark supreme court decision allowed the government to send a man accused of murder to Shanghai to face trial.

The decision was a reversal of previous court rulings, which blocked extradition on the grounds that Kyung Yup Kim, the accused, would be at high risk of torture or an unfair trial.

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South Korea’s highest court overturns military convictions of two gay soldiers

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Court rules long-criticised military sodomy law shouldn’t apply to consensual sex off base in off-duty hours

South Korea’s supreme court has thrown out a military court ruling that convicted two gay soldiers for having sex outside their military facilities, saying it stretched the reading of the country’s widely criticised military sodomy law.

The court’s decision on Thursday to send the case back to the high court for armed forces was welcomed by human rights advocates, who had long protested the country’s 1962 military criminal act’s article 92-6, which prohibits same-sex conduct among soldiers in the country’s predominantly male military.

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One in five older children in Philippines suffer online sexual abuse, study says

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Research into 12- to 17-year-olds adds to concerns that Covid has left them more vulnerable in their country

One in five children aged between 12 and 17 were subjected to grave instances of online sexual abuse while using the internet in the Philippines in 2020, research suggests.

The study adds to concerns that the pandemic has heightened the vulnerability of children in the country, which was already considered a global centre of such abuse.

In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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Tibet builds makeshift Covid hospitals amid China’s latest outbreak

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The move in Tibet, which has reported one Covid case since 2020, comes as 16 million people remain in lockdown in Shanghai

Authorities in Tibet are building massive Covid isolation and care facilities in anticipation of further outbreaks in China even though the remote territory has reported only one case during the pandemic.

Temporary hospitals – a key feature of China’s Covid response – with at least 1,000 beds each are being built in Lhasa and Shigatse by the Chinese firm Jiangsu Qi’an Construction Group. The firm said it had been tasked with building the hospitals in late March and given “less than half a month” to complete them. More than 400 personnel are working across three shifts to get the job done.

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Australia rejects claim its security forces in Solomon Islands were told not to protect Chinese-built buildings

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Former PM alleged Australian personnel twice failed to prevent the burning of Honiara’s Chinatown

Australia has refuted claims that Australian security forces deployed to Solomon Islands’ capital Honiara to quell last November’s riots were instructed not to protect Chinese-built infrastructure.

The claim was made by former Solomon Islands prime minister, Danny Philip, who is now the chair of the current government’s, foreign policy advisory subcommittee.

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Sharma labels Deves’s comments on trans people ‘reprehensible’ – as it happened

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Dave Sharma condemns comments of Warringah candidate Katherine Deves; Labor MP Terri Butler’s electorate office hit by car; nation records at least 50 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

Q: But senator, I do want to take you up on that. This was the debate we were having in the dying days of the parliament, and all the national security experts and veterans in the field say it was unhelpful and that the ALP was anything other than supporting Australia’s policy, so why are you continuing this line of attack?

Simon Birmingham:

The Labor party have created the points of difference in the way they expressed themselves and the language they used. When last in office, let our investment in our defence forces whittle away to the lowest share of the economy. We brought it back to 2% of the GDP, and having that credible investment is what has enabled us to strike new defence pacts and partnerships with countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, making us a credible partner for defence and strategic investment in areas of artificial intelligence, in missile equipment and investment, and the nuclear-powered submarines.

I think we have seen a Labor party, who when China were making decisions to apply trade sanctions and tariffs against Australia, Labor seemed to want us to reach a compromise with China rather than to stand up for Australia.

Anthony Albanese spoke at the National Press Club not that long ago – he suggested we should negotiate or settle some of the points with the Labor party – sorry, with China. Well, ultimately, we have to stand up for Australian interests.

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Australia’s coal export boom forecast to end abruptly amid big drop in demand from China

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Study finds Chinese consumption will fall within two to three years as Australian coalmining communities warned to reduce dependence on industry

Australia’s coal export boom will come to an abrupt end because of an “imminent and substantial” drop in purchases by China, and local coal mining communities should brace for the change, the lead author of a new study says.

The peer-reviewed paper, published on Thursday in the journal Joule, forecasts China’s thermal coal imports will contract at least a quarter from 2019 levels of 210m tonnes by 2025, mostly as improved transport links will give local suppliers an edge.

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Taiwan news channel accidentally airs false report of Chinese invasion

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CTS apologises for panic caused by broadcast of mocked-up captions it says it created for security drills

A Taiwanese news channel has broadcast by mistake a fictional news alert that said Chinese armed forces had launched an invasion, firing missiles at cities and ports surrounding the capital, Taipei.

Several news captions declaring a violent attack by China’s People’s Liberation Army had been mocked up for forthcoming security drills, but were broadcast accidentally to Taiwanese viewers at 7am on Wednesday.

Additional reporting by Chi Hui Lin and Xiaoqian Zhu

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Scott Morrison fends off claim Solomon Islands-China pact is worst foreign policy failure since 1945

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Prime minister defends Canberra’s ‘calibrated’ approach to Honiara and tries to turn criticism back on Labor

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has fended off accusations that he is responsible for “the worst Australian foreign policy failure” in the Pacific since the end of the second world war after the Solomon Islands struck a new security pact with China.

Labor has seized on the new agreement as evidence that Australia has been asleep at the wheel while China has cemented its influence in the region, with leader Anthony Albanese saying more should have been done to prevent it from going ahead.

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