China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam plan to build more than 600 coal power units
Five Asian countries are jeopardising global climate ambitions by investing in 80% of the world’s planned new coal plants, according to a report.
Carbon Tracker, a financial thinktank, has found that China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam plan to build more than 600 coal power units, even though renewable energy is cheaper than most new coal plants.
Continue reading...Beijing lodges diplomatic protest with Japan after defence minister calls island a ‘democratic country’
China and Japan are once again embroiled in a diplomatic row over Taiwan, in the latest example of Beijing’s extreme sensitivity over the status of the self-ruled island and Tokyo’s changing attitude towards Beijing.
Speaking to the US conservative thinktank Hudson Institute on Monday, Japan’s state minister of defence, Yasuhide Nakayama, spoke of a growing threat posed by Chinese and Russian collaboration, and said it was necessary to “wake up” to Beijing’s pressure on Taiwan and protect the island “as a democratic country”.
Continue reading...Lockdown hit LGBTQ+ communities hard but even as Pride events are called off there is hope and a promise that the parades will return
This month, for the second year in a row, there was no Pride parade in San Francisco, arguably the city most laden with history and symbolism for the LGBTQ+ community.
It is a decision Fred Lopez, who took over as executive director of San Francisco Pride at the beginning of last year describes as “heartbreaking”.
Continue reading...Authorities consider giving other jabs to medics after 10 fully vaccinated doctors die in June
At least 10 out of 26 Indonesian doctors who have died from Covid-19 this month had been fully vaccinated with Sinovac, prompting authorities to consider whether medics should receive alternative doses to boost immunity.
Indonesia, which has relied on the Chinese-made vaccine for its health workers, is struggling with a new surge in coronavirus cases. The latest outbreak, driven by new variants, has overwhelmed hospitals and burial sites in Jakarta and on the island of Java. On Monday the country announced 20,694 new infections.
Continue reading...Ban on plastics including cotton buds, packaging, cutlery, straws and fruit labels to be phased in from next year
New Zealanders will be farewelling their plastics – bags, ear buds, spoons and straws – as the government attempts to match the country’s reality to its “clean green” reputation.
Currently one of the top 10 per-capita producers of landfill waste in the world, New Zealand has announced it will ban a swathe of single-use plastics, including cotton buds, bags, cutlery, plates and bowls, straws and fruit labels.
Continue reading...Authorities investigated after defanged and declawed animal was seen in TikTok videos in Phnom Penh
Cambodian authorities have confiscated a defanged and declawed pet lion that appeared in TikTok videos taken at a Phnom Penh villa.
The 18-month-old male, weighing 70kg (154lbs), had been imported from overseas by the owner, a Chinese national, to be raised in his home, environment ministry spokesman Neth Pheaktra said.
Continue reading...Fung Wai-kong is seventh senior figure from publication to be arrested in two weeks
Hong Kong police have arrested a former senior Apple Daily journalist at the airport while he was attempting to leave the city.
The 57-year-old journalist is the seventh staff member of the now-closed pro-democracy newspaper to be detained, after police accused them and the paper of foreign collusion under the national security law.
Continue reading...As China marks the centenary of its ruling party, we examine key episodes in its tempestuous history, including the Long March, Mao’s purges and Xi Jinping’s rise to the top of an emerging superpower
Anyone visiting First Meeting Hall in Shanghai, the museum recreating the site of the first conclave of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) in 1921, will also find themselves in one of the city’s fanciest districts.
Continue reading...Workers like Darsiman sometimes work 16-hour days in the mud to handle the coffins brought out from a line of waiting ambulances
It is only noon and the grave diggers at Rorotan cemetery have buried 23 bodies of Covid-19 patients since they started work at 7am.
At least two excavators are on standby because the hard soil in the area makes it difficult to dig with just shovels.
Continue reading...Raymond Siu blames protests on ‘fake news’ – but critics fear the label will be used to muzzle dissent
Hong Kong’s new police chief has called for a “fake news” law to tackle “hostility against the police”, in what analysts see as an indication of the next phase of the crackdown on free speech in the former British overseas territory.
“I understand that there are residents who are still hostile against us,” Raymond Siu, 55, said at his first media briefing since taking office on Friday. “In this regard, I told my colleagues that many of these torn relationships and hostility against the police are due to fake news.”
Continue reading...Local media say victims of the fire in central China were boarding pupils aged between seven and 16
At least 18 people have been killed and 16 injured after a fire broke out at a martial arts school in central China, according to the local government.
Official state news agency Xinhua reported that all victims were boarding pupils, while local media said they were aged between seven and 16.
Continue reading...Cases of transnational repression found in 28 countries are ‘just the tip of the iceberg’, say rights researchers
China is using its unprecedented economic clout across vast swathes of Asia and the Middle East to target Uyghur Muslims living beyond its borders through a sprawling system of transnational repression, a new report says.
Beijing’s crackdown on Xinjiang province, where more than 1 million people are thought to have been detained in a network of internment camps in recent years, has coincided with a rise in efforts to control Uyghurs living overseas, the report found.
Continue reading...Newspaper’s closure shows how pro-democracy movement and press freedom are being crushed
On Wednesday morning, the Apple Daily reporter Angel Kwan was at a government press conference for the Hong Kong census when her phone started buzzing with notifications. Six days earlier, hundreds of police had raided her workplace, arrested her bosses and seized dozens of computers. On Monday, the company board had said it would have to shut the paper unless authorities unfroze its finances.
As she stood holding her microphone towards the government official, Kwan did not dare look at her phone and the news it heralded: Apple Daily was shutting down. Today.
Continue reading...Coalition facing growing pressure – including from own MPs – to join international efforts to curb modern slavery
A top union leader has called on the Morrison government to urgently introduce laws to prevent Australian businesses from “profiting by importing goods made by slavery”, as the push gains support from across the political spectrum.
The president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Michele O’Neil, told Guardian Australia it “should appall all Australians that there is no ban on the importation of goods produced by forced labour”.
Continue reading...The outspoken tabloid’s closure is a chilling moment. But as Beijing silences dissent, the spirit of resistance endures
Apple Daily is dead. At midnight on Wednesday, Hong Kong’s biggest pro-democracy news outlet closed, forced out of business after authorities froze the assets of the 26-year-old tabloid and arrested executives and journalists. Through its outspoken support for protests, it had come to stand for resistance itself: for the freedom to know what is happening, to challenge authorities, and to imagine and demand another Hong Kong.
Beijing is determined to crush that resistance. Each day it turns the screws further. Many have fallen silent already, but Apple Daily was defiant. Its owner, Jimmy Lai, already jailed over a protest, could face life in prison due to further charges under the draconian national security law. The editor-in-chief and chief executive of its parent company have been charged with conspiracy to collude with “external elements” after 500 officers raided its headquarters last week. Authorities say that the case relates to articles calling for sanctions on the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, some published before the imposition of the security law, which is not supposed to be retroactive. This vindictive action marks the criminalisation of journalism. On Wednesday, the company announced it was closing overnight, citing employee safety and staffing levels after officers arrested its lead opinion writer.
Continue reading...Naruhito said to be ‘extremely worried’ and shares widespread public unease over the Games
Japan’s emperor has voiced concern over the possible spread of coronavirus during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, in an unexpected intervention in the debate over holding the Games in the middle of a pandemic.
Naruhito, who ascended the Chrysanthemum throne in 2019 after his father, Akihito, abdicated, said he shared widespread public concern about the Games, which open in a month’s time.
Continue reading...Large crowds have queued in Hong Kong to buy the final edition of the Apple Daily. The closure of Hong Kong's largest pro-democracy newspaper comes one week after five high-profile staff were arrested, the company's office raided and millions of dollars in assets frozen in Beijing's crackdown on the media outlet. Sales of the newspaper began at 1am with some vendors selling out of copies within hours
The international media’s adulation of the New Zealand prime minister has complicated her challenges at home
Jacinda Ardern rarely repeats her mistakes. When she rose to power in 2017 New Zealand’s newly elected prime minister became a subject of fascination for progressives around the world; they regarded her as a kind of avatar of anti-Trumpism; a symbol of resistance to rightwing populism. This fascination intensified when she announced her pregnancy in early 2018. It grew again in the wake of the 15 March terror attack in 2019. She was praised as a beacon of hope; her image projected on to the side of the Burj Khalifa. The flattering media profiles multiplied.
Initially, Ardern leaned into this. New Zealand is small and remote – publishers of international maps forget we’re down here. So we’re often flattered when distance looks our way. Someone noticed we exist! Ardern’s international coverage was picked up by local media, delivering coverage the prime minister’s competitors couldn’t possibly match. Her global news presence was a deliberate strategy and a powerful weapon.
Continue reading...Tabloid founded by Jimmy Lai and targeted by police raid last week will print final edition on Thursday
Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, will shut down online at midnight on Wednesday and print its final edition on Thursday, in a move observers fear signals the death knell for press freedom in the territory.
The paper and its activist founder, Jimmy Lai, had become symbols of the pro-democracy movement and a thorn in the side of Hong Kong’s government and police, making it a prime target in the government’s efforts to stifle Hong Kong’s media.
Continue reading...Analysis: a palpable chill has run through the Hong Kong media, amid warnings about ‘fake news’
The fate of Apple Daily, one of Hong Kong’s bestselling tabloids, should not come as a surprise. On the day Jimmy Lai, its founder, was sentenced to 14 months in prison in April, a commentary in the pro-Beijing newspaper Ta Kung Pao called for a ban on Apple Daily in order to “close national security loopholes”.
The 72-year-old media tycoon and his 26-year-old newspaper have been among the most high-profile critics of Beijing and the controversial national security law (NSL), which they deem “draconian”, but which the authorities say is “necessary”. The law bars secession, subversion and foreign collusion.
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