Astronauts dock at the Tiangong station where they will remain for three months as Beijing presses on with extraterrestrial ambitions
Astronauts at China’s new space station conducted their first spacewalk Sunday, state media reported, as Beijing presses on with its extraterrestrial ambitions.
It was only the second time the country’s astronauts have stepped out of their craft while in space.
Continue reading...Over the past year, one of New Zealand’s news giants ditched Facebook, pivoted to ‘trust’ and gave shares to employees. Can it survive?
The question of trust has dogged journalists for decades. “A kind of confidence man,” Janet Malcolm labels the journalist, in The Journalist and the Murderer, “preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them”. That view seems to resonate with the public. Asked to rank their trusted professions, people rank journalism in the murky depths – beaten to the bottom only by politicians.
For reporters who prefer to see themselves as truth-tellers, holding power to account, or at least providing a useful public service, that rankles. For others, trust becomes a point of fascination – the missing piece in the puzzle of how to make digital news pay for itself.
Continue reading...Two new payment transfer companies will be opening in the Pacific, where fees to send money are among the highest in the world
Kereni Vuai has carried a lot of people through the pandemic.
Vuai, 27, works full-time at a Sydney nursing home, which pays her AU$1500 a fortnight. She sends almost a third of that - $AU400 – back to family and friends in Fiji, many of whom have lost their jobs since coronavirus caused economic devastation in the tourism-dependent country.
Continue reading...A huge landslide has swept away homes and left 19 people missing at a popular resort town in central Japan after days of heavy rain, local officials say.
Television footage on Saturday showed a torrent of mud obliterating some buildings and burying others in Atami, south-west of Tokyo, with people running away as it crashed over a hillside road.
Twenty people are still missing and two are dead after houses were obliterated in the mudslide
More than 1,000 rescuers have arrived at a Japanese town hit by a deadly landslide on Saturday that killed two people.
The rescuers climbed onto cracked roofs and searched cars thrown onto engulfed buildings, as more rain lashed the area.
Continue reading...Health authorities reported more than 6,200 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, setting a record for a third straight day
Health authorities in Thailand reported more than 6,200 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, setting a record for a third straight day, as concerns mounted over shortages of treatment facilities and vaccine supplies.
Officials also reported 41 deaths, bringing the total to 2,181.
Continue reading...Can New Zealand escape the resurgences that have hit other ‘elimination success story’ countries?
Last week was a sharp reminder for Dr Siouxsie Wiles, one of New Zealand’s most prominent pandemic communicators, of how close the country’s recent brush with Covid was. A Sydney tourist, infected with the Delta variant of Covid-19 had visited more than a dozen busy Wellington cafes, museums and eateries over the course of a weekend. As contact tracers went to work, Wiles’s own phone pinged: she was a potential contact, having stayed, like the tourist, at the Rydges Hotel.
In Wiles’s case, it emerged she had checked in hours after the man had checked out. The rest of the city has also emerged unscathed so far: despite 2,600 contacts identified, no infections have been reported. But the experience brought home once again, Wiles says, what a careful tightrope New Zealand is walking.
Continue reading...Spread of the Delta variant blamed for significant rise in cases that have threatened to overwhelm the medical system
Standing outside the glass wall at one of the emergency installations in a hospital in Tangerang, Benten, Uta Verina Maukar, 26, looked at her mother as she lay resting on a bed. She texted her mother, telling her that she was standing outside. Her mother looked at her from across the room, and with an oxygen mask on her face, tried to sit up so she could see her better. They both looked at each other like that for a while. That was the last time Uta saw her mother’s face.
She died from Covid the following day. She was 51.
Continue reading...No laws were broken but brands failed to ensure workers were paid properly during the pandemic, says Clean Clothes Campaign
Campaigners claim to have found evidence of “wage theft” in the supply chains of Primark, Nike and H&M in a report that outlines the devastating consequences of the pandemic on garment workers in Indonesia, Cambodia and Bangladesh.
Research by the Clean Clothes Campaign found that, while none of the brands had broken any laws, they had failed to ensure that their workers were properly paid throughout the pandemic.
Continue reading...Lawyers say commission’s emissions budgets are inconsistent with aim of limiting global warming to 1.5C
Hundreds of top New Zealand lawyers are suing the Climate Change Commission for what they say are substantial errors in its advice to the government over reducing carbon emissions.
Lawyers for Climate Action is a group of more than 300 solicitors, barristers and academics seeking to ensure Aotearoa New Zealand meets its international climate obligations.
Continue reading...Hospitals in Jakarta unable to cope with demand as Delta variant accounts for more than 60% of cases
Indonesia is tripling its oxygen supplies to hospitals as data suggests the Delta variant of coronavirus is now driving the country’s worsening outbreak, accounting for more than 60% of recent cases.
Indonesia’s health minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, told the Guardian that three-quarters of the national oxygen production used for industry would be redeployed to hospitals for the next two weeks.
Continue reading...Xi Jinping himself has warned China’s wealth gap is not only economic but political and could threaten party’s legitimacy
When Wang Zhenyu moved out of his small village in central Henan province to the coastal city of Dalian at 18, he was astonished. “It was like a culture shock for me, even though it was just a big city in my country, not a foreign land.” A few years later when he was enrolled in Peking University as a graduate student, he found much fewer students in the country’s top university coming from a similar background to his.
Growing up in a small village of 2,000 farmers, many of Wang’s childhood friends dropped out of school after finishing their nine years of compulsory education. Now with a decent academic job, Wang begins to experience “reverse culture shock” every time he goes back to his village for the annual lunar new year.
Continue reading...Satellite footage shows ‘alarming development’ that signals possible expansion of nuclear capabilities
China is building more than 100 missile silos in the desert, according to an analysis of satellite photos, which researchers say signals a possible expansion of the country’s nuclear capabilities.
Analysts warned the expansion signified an “alarming development” but also urged caution against “worst-case thinking”, noting tension between major nuclear powers over disarmament.
Continue reading...Commonwealth research says UVI is better measure of small island states’ aid needs, especially on climate
Small island nations on the climate crisis frontlines have been overlooked in overseas aid, according to a new index.
Urging a move away from the current benchmark of using gross domestic product (GDP) to measure aid allocation, researchers from the Commonwealth secretariat and the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (Ferdi), a French thinktank, have developed the universal vulnerability index (UVI) as an alternative. GDP, they claim, fails to reflect the realities nations face, particularly on climate.
Continue reading...The apex predators show preferences for certain individuals and avoid others, according to new research on sharks in Fiji
They reach 3.5 metres long, weigh more than 200kg and are an apex predator. But even apex predators need friends. And, according to new research, bull sharks may be capable of making them.
A recently published study from Fiji shows that bull sharks develop companionships – with some sharks showing preferences for certain individuals and avoiding others.
Continue reading...Comments by New Zealand PM came during a parliamentary debate on the country’s new hate speech laws
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has suggested her opposition party counterpart could be called a “Karen” during a fierce debate in parliament over laws governing hate speech.
Judith Collins, the leader of the opposition, has argued strongly against changes to the country’s hate speech laws, saying the new rules could mean “people feeling insulted being able to criminalise people who make them feel insulted.” After the 15 March mosque attacks by a white supremacist, the New Zealand government has proposed introducing much harsher penalties for those who incite or “normalise” discrimination or hatred.
Continue reading...Only the most hardcore action junkies will have the stamina for what is essentially one marathon sword-fighting scene
The craziness is all in the idea of this singular Japanese action movie: essentially one marathon battle scene, filmed in a single take, in which a master swordsman takes down several hundred assailants. The execution, as it were, is a triumph of stuntwork, strategy and stamina, but in the watching it gets rather repetitive and wearying. Few but the most hardcore action junkies will really be up for it.
The set-up is quickly dealt with: a clan rallies in the forest around its newly anointed leader, a small boy, in anticipation of an attack. Attack there swiftly comes, in the form of Musashi Miyamoto: real-life master swordsman, 17th-century folk hero, and fixture of Japanese pop culture (Toshiro Mifune played him four times; Kinnosuke Nakamura played him seven times). Here, the role is filled with focused athleticism by local action hero Tak Sakaguchi, although acting abilities play a distant second to sword-swinging skills. The battle progresses through woodlands then into an abandoned village, with Miyamoto dispatching most of his inept assailants with a few efficient strokes: a slash to the neck, a chop to the top of the head, slashes across the belly as they practically hurl themselves into the path of his blade.
Continue reading...Statement seen as warning to judiciary to uphold Beijing’s interests or risk losing independence
Hong Kong’s judicial system should reflect the will and interests of the Chinese nation, a senior official overseeing the national security law has said.
The comments have been interpreted as a clear instruction from Beijing that Hong Kong’s once-vaunted court system is now expected to operate in the interests of the central government in Beijing, rather than the rule of law.
Continue reading...Leader speaks of a grave incident and sacks officials for neglecting duties in fighting ‘global health crisis’
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has sacked several senior party officials over a “grave” coronavirus incident that had threatened public safety, fuelling speculation that the coronavirus has breached the country’s defences.
“In neglecting important decisions by the party that called for organisational, material and science and technological measures to support prolonged anti-epidemic work in face of a global health crisis, the officials in charge have caused a grave incident that created a huge crisis for the safety of the country and its people,” the state-run KCNA news agency quoted Kim as telling a meeting of the ruling party’s politburo.
Continue reading...Analiza Guevarra ended up in a living hell in London after fleeing poverty in the Philippines. Now, her organisation rescues scores of people in domestic servitude every year
The streets of west London were dark and empty as Analiza Guevarra walked towards a large, white mansion block in South Kensington in February 2019.
Just after 5am, she stood at a corner, well away from any street lights. “I’m here,” she tapped into her phone. Seconds later, her phone pinged back. “I’m coming, I’m carrying a green bag. Please wait for me.”
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