Category Archives: Asia Pacific

South Korea election contenders neck and neck, according to exit polls

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Contest between People Power party candidate Yoon Suk-yeol and Democratic party rival Lee Jae-myung too close to call

Exit polls in South Korea showed the two main contenders in the presidential election neck and neck, after a campaign overshadowed by personal attacks and the country’s worst coronavirus wave of the pandemic.

The People Power party’s candidate, Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative who supports a tougher stance on North Korea, has 48.4% of the vote, according to a joint exit poll by three TV networks, while his Democratic party opponent, Lee Jae-myung, was on 47.8%.

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China builds new bridge to Hong Kong to rush in workers as Covid cases surge

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The temporary bridge will aid work on a makeshift hospital as the city’s Covid death rate reaches world’s highest per 1m people

A temporary bridge linking Shenzhen and Hong Kong has been erected to help workers and materials from the mainland to enter the city as work began on a Covid-19 makeshift hospital to relieve pressure on the city’s overwhelmed medical system.

Almost 2,000 Chinese contractors from the China State Construction Engineering are in Hong Kong this week to build the makeshift facility near Hong Kong’s border with the mainland, which is expected to provide 1,000 more hospital beds and quarantine rooms for up to 10,000 people.

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New Zealand police find more remains in Pike River mine after 2010 disaster

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An explosion at the mine killed 29 workers and police are still conducting a criminal investigation into the tragedy

The remains of two more men killed in the Pike River mine tragedy, one of New Zealand’s worst mining disasters, have been found more than a decade after the disaster.

The blast in November 2010 killed 29 workers and many of the families have been fighting to have the remains of their loved ones found ever since.

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Energy crisis: UK could learn from Fukushima response, MPs told

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Japanese measures including turning down the heating and slower trains could ease pressure on British households, say experts

Britain could learn from Japan’s response to the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster by reducing energy consumption to deal with soaring global gas prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, academics have said.

Suggesting a coordinated response to record gas prices could help ease the pressure on households, experts told MPs on the Commons business committee that steps to reduce national demand for gas-fired power next winter could be deployed.

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UN human rights chief to visit China, including Xinjiang, in May

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Michelle Bachelet’s announcement comes as 192 groups call for release of long-postponed report into region

The UN rights chief has announced that she will make a long-delayed visit to China in May, including to Xinjiang, where activists and western lawmakers say Beijing is subjecting Uyghur people to genocide.

“I am pleased to announce that we have recently reached an agreement with the government of China for a visit,” Michelle Bachelet told the UN human rights council on Tuesday.

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Chinese government adviser calls for law to ban ‘fake news’

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Jia Qingguo claims the proliferation of misinformation online has fuelled tensions between China and foreign countries

An adviser to the Chinese government has called for new laws to ban “fabricating and disseminating fake information online”, blaming the rampant disinformation on the internet for polarising Chinese public opinion.

Jia Qingguo, a member of China’s highest political advisory body, said he also believed the proliferation of misinformation online had fuelled tensions between China and foreign countries.

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‘Women of the wild’: the platform giving India’s nature experts a voice

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Frustrated by a lack of female representation, film-maker Akanksha Sood Singh set up an Instagram account to showcase ‘the untold stories of women working for science and nature’

“I wish these things wouldn’t happen to anyone,” says Akanksha Sood Singh, a wildlife film-maker based in Delhi. “But if it has happened, this is a safe space for women to come and to share their experiences.”

The safe space Sood Singh is referring to is the Instagram account Women of the Wild – India, which showcases “the untold stories of women working for science and nature”. The platform gives them a chance to promote their expertise, but also somewhere to share their experiences of working in what are often male-dominated fields where sexual harassment can often feature.

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UK faces large EU bill over Chinese imports fraud

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Court rules government failed to fulfil obligation to collect correct amount of customs duties and VAT

The British government faces paying a hefty charge to the EU after the European court of justice ruled it had been negligent in allowing criminal gangs to flood European markets with cheap Chinese-made clothes and shoes.

Publishing its final ruling on Tuesday, the court concluded that the UK as member state had “failed to fulfil its obligations” under EU law to combat fraud and collect the correct amount of customs duties and VAT on imported Chinese goods. The failures by HMRC date from 2011 to 2017.

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North Korea: satellite images suggest building work at nuclear test site for first time since 2018

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Images captured by satellite showed very early signs of activity at the Punggye-ri site

Commercial satellite imagery shows construction at North Korea’s nuclear testing site for the first time since it was closed in 2018, US-based analysts said on Tuesday, adding to concerns the country could resume testing major weapons.

Images captured by satellite on Friday showed very early signs of activity at the Punggye-ri site, including construction of a new building, repair of another building, and what is possibly some lumber and sawdust, specialists at the California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) said in a report.

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New Zealand to ramp up Russia sanctions with ‘first of its kind’ law

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Bill would allow government to freeze assets and also prevent Russian yachts and aircraft from entering New Zealand

New Zealand will rush a bill through parliament this week that will significantly ramp up its sanctions against Russia and its oligarchs, in line with its western allies.

The Russia Sanctions Bill is the “first of its kind” in New Zealand, which has no legal framework for passing broader, unilateral sanctions and usually only does so when called on by the UN security council. As a permanent member of the body, Moscow has vetoed any action against it.

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South Korea’s poisonous gender politics a test for next president

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As election campaign enters final stages, the two leading candidates have been accused of pandering to sexism to win the votes of aggrieved young men

The identity of South Korea’s next leader will be determined this week by the economy, housing prices and incomes, but the road to the presidential Blue House will also be dotted with the wreckage of the country’s poisonous gender politics.

The successor to Moon Jae-in, who is restricted by law to a single five-year term, will not be able to ignore the fallout from a campaign defined by the culture war being waged in the world’s 10th-biggest economy.

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Chatham Islands, one of world’s most remote places, records first Covid cases

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The islands, 800km east of New Zealand, had been among several other isolated nations and territories that had so far evaded the virus

After nearly two years of dodging Covid-19, one of the most remote inhabited places in the world has recorded its first ever cases of the virus.

Rēkohu, or the Chatham Islands, are just over 800km east of New Zealand’s mainland and are home to roughly 600 permanent residents.

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South Korea’s presidential candidates face balancing act amid rising anti-China sentiment

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With an election days away, the two leading candidates must negotiate pitfalls of a reliance on US for security and on China for trade

When Moon Jae-in, the outgoing president of South Korea, returned home from Washington in May last year, his foreign minister, Chung Eui-yong, rushed to clarify the mention of Taiwan in his joint statement with Joe Biden – a highly sensitive subject for South Korea’s biggest trading partner, China.

“The Taiwan-related expressions [in the joint statement] are ‘very general expressions’,” Chung said a day after the statement was released. As if this clarification was not enough, Chung’s deputy, Choi Jong-gun, added: “China would appreciate the fact that South Korea does not see China as an enemy.”

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Elizabeth Hurley mourns ‘Lionheart’ Shane Warne after shock death

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Cricket star’s former fiancee among many to pay tribute to bowler after suspected heart attack

Actor Elizabeth Hurley paid tribute to her former fiance and “beloved Lionheart”, Shane Warne, as fresh details of the Australian cricket star’s sudden death in Thailand emerged.

Hurley, who was engaged to Warne for more than two years until they split in December 2013, said that “the sun has gone behind a cloud forever”.

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Sydney is no place to build a Māori meeting house – it is disrespectful to Aboriginal people | Morgan Godfery

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Marae embody deep connections to the land and are a statement of indigeneity – but Māori aren’t indigenous in Australia

When most New Zealanders hear the term “marae” they think of the typical Māori meeting house.

The angular facade, decorated in red and white carvings, and the open space for the “encounter” where guests arrive in the warmth of welcome, in the grief of a tangi (funeral), or in the uncertainty of a disagreement.

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Shane Warne death: authorities reveal attempts to save life of cricket legend

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Thai police say Warne was taken to hospital after being found unconscious at the Samujana Villas resort

The desperate attempts to save the life of cricket legend Shane Warne have been detailed by police officers and rescue teams on the Thai island of Koh Samui, as the sports world mourns and the 52-year-old leg-spinner’s final moments are pieced together by authorities.

Warne was on a week-long holiday with three friends at the Samujana Villas resort, the start of a three-month lay-off after covering the 2021-22 Ashes series for Fox Sports.

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China sets lowest economic growth target in decades at annual meeting

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Premier Li Keqiang warns of risks in economic outlook as the coronavirus, a property slump and uncertainty in Ukraine play out

China has set its lowest annual GDP target in decades, as premier Li Keqiang warned of a “grave and uncertain” outlook against the backdrop of the coronavirus, a slowing economy and uncertainty over the war in Ukraine.

Li announced on Saturday the unusually modest target of about 5.5% growth for 2022 – the lowest since 1991 – in an address to about 3,000 members of the National People’s Congress in Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People.

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The hidden lives of New Zealand’s ‘takeout kids’

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A new documentary explores a common experience of many immigrant children – working at the family’s takeway shop

“The customers teach me about life. Working teaches me about life. Basically, everything here at the restaurant is life,” says Rama Bani Khalid, a charismatic, curly-haired 12-year-old. Rama is a takeout kid: one of many New Zealand children who work in the country’s innumerable takeaway and fast food joints. There, she mans the phones and till, hustles for tips and tops up the water bottles.

“I’m a waiter and I help out a lot,” says Rama, who spends much of her days in her family’s Jordanian restaurant, Petra Shawarma, in Auckland. “I think I know pretty much everyone on the street.”

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Bangkok’s illicit craft brewers risk arrest under draconian laws

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Big brewers maintain monopoly as smaller operations incur huge fines for even sharing photos of their beer

Naamcial’s craft beers often have distinctly Thai flavours, as he experiments with the country’s native produce, boiling the pulp of jackfruit and mango to mix into different creations. Yet his homemade products are forbidden in the kingdom.

Talking to the Guardian under a pseudonym, Naamcial says he would like to operate a legal brewery, but Thailand’s laws around alcohol production make this ambition almost impossible for newcomers. Current laws restrict brewing licences to manufacturers that have capital of 10 million baht (£230,000), while brewpubs must produce at least 100,000 litres a year and only serve their beer on their premises. The legislation effectively blocks new, small breweries from opening, and tips the market firmly in favour of two powerful companies – Thai Beverage, which produces Chang beer, and Boon Rawd Brewery, which produces Singha and Leo.

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Hong Kong shops ration food and drugs to curb panic buying amid Covid lockdown fears

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Government is planning to test entire population for virus but insists it will not impose ‘complete lockdown’

Soaring Covid-19 cases in Hong Kong have led to court services being suspended for a month as the two largest consumer retail chains ration certain items.

The Asian financial hub has recorded more than 50,000 new coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day in what the authorities called a “fifth wave”, overwhelming hospitals and shattering the city’s zero-Covid strategy.

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