More than 1,100 homes in North Korea were damaged, thousands of people evacuated and farms and roads washed away after days of heavy rains brought flooding, state media reported.
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Biden grants ‘safe haven’ to Hongkongers in US amid China crackdown
President signs memo allowing people from Hong Kong currently residing in US to live and work in country for 18 months
Joe Biden has granted temporary refuge to people from Hong Kong amid the Chinese government’s effort to crush the pro-democracy movement and tighten its control on a city once known for its freedom.
Related: Hong Kong singer and activist arrested over ‘corrupt conduct’
Continue reading...Chinese liquor and e-cigarette shares fall amid state ‘vice industry’ crackdown
Investors fear sectors may be next target after Beijing’s crackdown on digital gaming and tech companies
China’s liquor and e-cigarette companies have emerged as the latest market casualty in Beijing’s crackdown on “vice industries” after reports from state media that suggest they could be the next targets for stricter regulation.
Shares in e-cigarette and liquor makers slumped on Thursday after reports in the Chinese media of adolescent e-cigarette use and links between alcohol and cancer spooked investors who fear the state may be planning to broaden its crackdown on digital gaming and technology companies.
Continue reading...Indonesia Covid deaths pass 100,000 as Delta overwhelms hospitals
Frustrations with government response and anti-vaxxers as country struggles to cope with variant
Indonesia’s health ministry has recorded 1,747 new deaths of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, pushing the nation’s total deaths to 100,636.
The south-east Asian country has been struggling to cope with the highly contagious Delta variant since it was first discovered in Indonesia in late June. According to Our World in Data, Indonesia’s total number of infections has now reached 3.53 million.
Continue reading...Vaccine passports look inevitable, so what rights do New Zealanders have? | Claire Breen
Analysis: Proof of vaccination is nothing new and any requirement that people use a ‘health pass’ will involve balancing various rights
With greater numbers of people being vaccinated and countries looking to reopen borders safely, the introduction of some form of vaccine passport seems increasingly likely.
For New Zealand, where the elimination strategy has been largely successful but which remains vulnerable to border breaches, proof of vaccination may well be a condition of entry.
Continue reading...New Zealand farmers have avoided regulation for decades. Now their bill has come due | Baz Macdonald
It’s true farmers are facing a lot of regulation but only after decades of fighting off smaller reforms – we need them to change
In July, an estimated 60,000, mostly rural New Zealanders took to the streets to protest environmental regulations farmers say are unworkable. Angry and frustrated, they rolled into 57 towns and cities on tractors and trucks to form the country’s biggest farmer protest.
I grew up in rural New Zealand, and many of my family work in and around the dairy industry – so I have experienced a lot of this frustration first hand.
Continue reading...$5,800 whisky bottle given to Pompeo as gift missing, state department says
- Japan gave bottle to former secretary of state two years ago
- ‘Ongoing inquiry’ underway into what happened to the booze
The state department has said it is looking into the apparent disappearance of a nearly $6,000 bottle of whisky given more than two years ago to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by the government of Japan.
In a notice filed in the federal register, the department said it could find no trace of the bottle’s whereabouts and that there is an “ongoing inquiry” into what happened to the booze. The department reported the investigation in its annual accounting of gifts given to senior US officials by foreign governments and leaders.
Continue reading...‘Bad faith’ US prosecutors misled Canada in Huawei case, court hears in final arguments
Lawyers for Meng Wanzhou, whose detention has thrown US-China feud into focus, urge judge to throw out extradition request
Lawyers for Meng Wanzhou say American prosecutors acted in “bad faith” and abused the Canadian justice system when they pursued the Huawei chief financial officer, in final arguments of the telecoms executive’s closely watched extradition proceedings.
In a Vancouver courtroom on Wednesday, Meng’s legal team argued that American prosecutors misled the Canadian justice system in their legal summary of the allegations against Meng. Her team says this abuse of process obliges the judge overseeing the case to toss out the extradition request against Meng and set her free.
Continue reading...With Delta variant spreading is China ‘zero tolerance’ approach over?
Now it’s clear the virus is not going away debate about what approach the country should adopt next is emerging
As the highly transmissible Delta variant continues to spread across at least 17 provinces, China is facing a new dilemma: is its once-successful “zero tolerance” approach to containing the spread of the virus over, and what comes next?
Unlike Britain and Singapore, where officials have explicitly encouraged people to “learn to live with the virus”, China has yet to officially shift its messaging.
Continue reading...China shuts down transport routes as it battles worst Covid outbreak in months
Every province has advised residents not to leave as flights are cancelled and Beijing suspends more than a dozen rail lines
China has dramatically tightened travel restrictions as it seeks to control the country’s worst outbreak in months, with hundreds of Delta variant cases linked to airport employees.
The latest outbreak has so far infected more than 400 people in 25 cities, including the capital city Beijing, and in Wuhan for the first time since it contained the first Covid-19 outbreak last year. Cases have been reported in 17 of the 31 provinces.
Continue reading...Belarus sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya leaves Tokyo on flight to Vienna
Athlete is expected to head to Poland later after seeking protection at its embassy amid fears she would be punished if she returned home
Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya has left Japan on a Vienna-bound plane after she refused to fly home earlier this week.
The 24-year-old, who had sought refuge at the Polish embassy in Tokyo, had been expected to take a flight direct to Warsaw but switched at the last minute, an airport official told reporters.
Continue reading...Ardern’s popularity stumbles on New Zealand’s slow road to vaccination
Polls this week suggest the glacial speed of the Covid vaccine rollout is starting to affect Labour’s support, even as PM remains personally popular
An unbeatable leader in times of crisis, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s soaring popularity has teetered on the country’s slow road to vaccination.
This week, polling in New Zealand indicated some of the gloss may be fading from the Ardern government’s second term, which has enjoyed soaringly high popularity over the past year. The poll, conducted by Newshub/Reid Research, put Labour at 43%, down 9.7 percentage points. The results followed a similar trend line polling by TVNZ from May.
Continue reading...Ardern’s apology to Pacific peoples was just the beginning – we will continue the fight | Melani Anae
What was delivered was a watered-down version of what we called for – it will do little to dismantle systemic racism
When the Polynesian Panthers (PPP) activist group began calling for an apology for the dawn raids two years ago, we went into the process with eyes wide open. Government lobbyists seldom get everything they ask for, but our intent was honest and real and fuelled by our Panther legacy and love for the people.
We believe that the apology was, and is, a necessary step towards the healing and restoration of trust and relationships between the Pacific peoples and families who were adversely affected by government actions during the dawn raids and the government.
Continue reading...China’s crackdown on tutoring leaves parents with new problems
Public largely sceptical about effectiveness of move last month aimed at reducing pressure in hyper-competitive education field
In 2018, Ms Hu spent a third of her annual income sending her child to summer school in Shanghai. In the following year, the cost went up. Still, she and her partner paid the fees, such is the competitiveness in Chinese children’s education.
“My son started to learn English at age five. I feared he would be left behind if we don’t do so,” she said.
Continue reading...Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history
Yakei took top spot after roughing up Sanchu, the alpha male who had been leader of ‘troop B’ on the island of Kyushu for five years
In a rarely seen phenomenon in the simian world, a nine-year-old female known as Yakei has become the boss of a 677-strong troop of Japanese macaque monkeys at a nature reserve on the island of Kyushu in Japan.
Yakei’s path to the top began in April when she beat up her own mother to become the alpha female of the troop at the Takasakiyama natural zoological garden in Oita city. While that would have been the pinnacle for most female monkeys, Yakei decided to throw her 10kg weight around among the males.
Continue reading...Covid restrictions and screens linked to myopia in children, study shows
Hong Kong research suggests less time outdoors and more doing ‘near work’ accelerates short-sightedness
Spending more time indoors and on screens because of Covid restrictions may be linked to an increased rate of short-sightedness in children, researchers say.
The study, which looked at two groups of children aged six to eight in Hong Kong, is the latest to suggest that lockdowns and other restrictions may have taken a toll on eyesight: data from more than 120,000 children of a similar age in China, published earlier this year, suggested a threefold increase in the prevalence of shortsightedness, or myopia, in 2020.
Continue reading...Will Taiwan’s Olympic win over China herald the end of ‘Chinese Taipei’?
Victory in Tokyo has reignited debate over a decades-old compromise with the island’s goliath neighbour
In the hours between Taiwan winning gold and silver in Olympic badminton on the weekend, local courts in Taipei were packed with enthusiastic young players. The nail-biting matches had lit a fire of sporting patriotism – not least because both were against China, Taiwan’s goliath neighbour, which claims Taiwan as a province it must retake.
The doubles win by Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin was Taiwan’s second gold medal, after Kuo Hsing-Chun won in weightlifting, and added to its biggest medal haul in Olympic history. Taiwan sits 18th in the table. China is first. Nevertheless, social media was awash with celebrations.
Continue reading...Fiji’s emergency Covid-19 hotline fell silent during the rugby sevens final: we really needed this win | Sheldon Chanel
The men’s gold and women’s bronze medals meant everything to Fiji, which has the highest per-capita Covid infection rate in the world
When the Fijian men’s sevens team beat New Zealand to win gold at the Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday, the entire nation celebrated.
The win could not have come at a better time. Fiji is in the grip of a deadly second outbreak of Covid-19, on top of a potential political crisis over controversial native land legislation.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern apologises for New Zealand ‘dawn raids’ on Pasifika people in 1970s
The raids on Pasifika migrants and their subsequent deportations separated families and devastated communities
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has issued a formal apology for historic racist policing of Pacific people and offered scholarships to Pacific students.
Hundreds of people packed Auckland town hall on Sunday to hear the apology for the “dawn raids” of the 1970s during which authorities hunted for visa overstayers.
Continue reading...Home Office challenged over ‘sped-up’ removal of Vietnamese nationals
Signs that detainees were victims of trafficking are being overlooked, say campaigners
Lawyers are challenging the Home Office policy of deporting people to Vietnam who could be victims of trafficking after the UK sent a second charter flight to the country within a matter of weeks.
The challenge follows concern from lawyers and charities that some victims of trafficking could be wrongly removed from the UK under a speedy processing system for migrants in detention known as “detained asylum casework”.
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