Prime minister’s comments come after border worker diagnosed last week said to have missed two vaccine appointments
Border workers have until the end of April to be vaccinated before being moved to lower risk roles, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has said after a third worker from Auckland’s Grand Millenium managed isolation facility tested positive for Covid-19.
“We want everyone to be vaccinated on our frontline,” she told TVNZ’s Breakfast on Monday.
Continue reading...Joe Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Sunday the US is concerned about China’s aggressive actions against Taiwan and warned it would be a “serious mistake” for anyone to try to change the status quo in the western Pacific by force.
Related: Chaos Under Heaven: Trump as raging bull in a China policy shop
Continue reading...Quake hit offshore near city of Malang with country already reeling from cyclone disaster
At least seven people were killed after a 6.0 magnitude quake struck off the coast of Indonesia’s main Java island on Saturday, as the country reels from a cyclone disaster.
The afternoon quake hit offshore about 45 kilometres south-west of Malang city in East Java, damaging hundreds of homes as well as schools, government offices and mosques across the region.
Continue reading...In Kupang, Indonesia, residents wait for aid after torrential rain, destructive winds and flooding forced thousands into shelters
On Sunday at midnight, Linda Tagie, 29, rested her three-year-old baby on the bed. Linda, who lives together with her husband, 79-year-old mother-in-law and only child in Sikumana, Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia, was shocked by a strong wind and heavy rain. The electricity suddenly went off.
“I prayed and prayed in the dark,” she said. The wind eventually stopped on Monday morning. She walked out of the house and found the roof gone from the back part of the house. “Electricity cables, tin roofs, and trees lie on the street in front of our house,” she said.
Continue reading...Platform co-founded by Jack Ma, who has criticised Chinese authorities, misused its dominance, say state regulators
Chinese regulators have hit e-commerce company Alibaba with a fine of 18.2bn yuan (US$2.78bn) over practices deemed to be an abuse of its dominant market position, according to state-run media.
The Xinhua news agency said the state administration for market regulation had assessed the fine after concluding an investigation into Alibaba that began in December.
Continue reading...When the storm hit Vanuatu last year, the lack of international support gave local aid workers a chance to be heard
If someone had told me this time last year that Vanuatu was about to weather one of the worst cyclones of our recent history with our borders closed, I may not have believed you.
After Cyclone Pam in 2015, hundreds of aid workers rushed in from overseas, eager to deliver lifesaving aid to communities who had lost everything.
Continue reading...Island to pay visitors after tourism sector hammered by pandemic; EMA looking at reports of rare bleeding condition and four cases of rare blood clots in J&J jab
That’s it from the UK blog team. Thanks for following our coverage..
People who have had the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine are seeking help at A&E in England despite having only mild side-effects such as headaches, in the wake of the controversy over whether the jab causes blood clots.
Related: A&E ‘swamped’ with patients seeking help for mild Covid jab side-effects
Continue reading...UK grants protection to pro-democracy figure who is regarded by Beijing as ‘criminal suspect’
Chinese authorities have accused the UK of sheltering a “criminal suspect” after it granted asylum to Hong Kong activist and former politician Nathan Law.
Law, who fled Hong Kong in 2020, said on Wednesday he had been granted political asylum by the Home Office and the warrant for his arrest under the Beijing-imposed national security law showed he was “exposed to severe political persecution”. At least 100 pro-democracy figures have been arrested under the law.
Continue reading...Community leader says: ‘We don’t feel like a part of the “team of 5 million” when Indians are singled out like this’
Community leaders have questioned the New Zealand government’s decision to temporarily close the border to people travelling from India, and say they fear the move could prompt racism and stigma.
“The question of ‘Why India?’ must be asked, and a clear answer should be given,” said Sunil Kaushal, president of the Waitakere Indian Association. He asked why the ruling applied only to India, when other nations including the United States, Brazil, France and the UK had also experienced soaring infection rates, especially when compared per-capita.
Continue reading...This blood-splattered gangster flick with a romantic subplot follows Tae-Gu as he hides out from his enemies
This gleefully blood-splattered Korean gangster film with an unlikely romantic subplot looks for most of its running time like the sort of cult-friendly genre discovery one could watch and then crow over before an inevitable Hollywood remake comes out. That said, the ending is so relentlessly bleak that a faithful remake would be unlikely – while an unfaithful one with a happier conclusion would be absurd given the ruthless logic of writer-director Park Hoon-jung’s plotting.
The initiating setup is that after something really bad happens, moody pretty-boy gangster Tae-Gu (Eom Tae-goo) must hide out on a resort island in off-season before he is ultimately resettled in Vladivostok, Russia. En route he stays with a grumpy arms dealer, a former gangster himself, and that man’s troubled, taciturn niece Jae-Yeon (Jeon Yeo-been). But it soon transpires that there’s hidden depths in both Jae-Yeon and Tae-Gu, who after the de rigueur initial verbal sparring become unlikely friends – and maybe potential soul mates, especially when they end up bonding over their shared affection for mulhoe, a spicy raw fish soup which plays a significant role in the story. In fact, there are a lot of meals throughout, discussions of who is hungry and a key plot-furthering sit-down among gangsters in a restaurant that involves one of those huge rotating trivets typical of Korean restaurants so that people can share dishes more easily.
Continue reading...‘Crises will multiply’ if escalating repression by governments under pretext of pandemic ignored, says secretary general
Neglected human rights crises around the world have the potential to undermine already precarious global security as governments continue to use Covid as a cover to push authoritarian agendas, Amnesty International has warned.
The organisation said ignoring escalating hotspots for human rights violations and allowing states to perpetrate abuses with impunity could jeopardise efforts to rebuild after the pandemic.
Continue reading...Cheng Jingye hosted a media event at his residence in Canberra that included a two-hour video conference with officials in Xinjiang
China’s ambassador to Australia has warned that Beijing would respond “in kind” if Canberra followed other countries in imposing sanctions against its officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
The ambassador, Cheng Jingye, said people should not be under the illusion “that China would swallow the bitter pill” of meddling in its internal affairs, nor attempts to mount a “pressure” campaign.
Continue reading...At least 150 people killed in Indonesia and Timor-Leste after tropical cyclone Seroja hit region
In Tasitolu, a suburb in the west of the capital, Dili, Batista Elo balances his young daughter on his hip as he stands in flood waters that reach up his thighs.
“I saved my family first and after that just got into the belongings, but there were some things that didn’t get saved,” recalls Batista of the wild Saturday night when his home was suddenly flooded.
Continue reading...Lucy Maino faced intense online harassment over clip in incident that critics say highlights misogyny in PNG
Miss Papua New Guinea has been stripped of her crown after sharing a video of herself twerking on TikTok, with critics saying the incident reveals a deep-seated culture of misogyny in the country.
Lucy Maino, 25, who has also served as co-captain of Papua New Guinea’s women’s football team, faced intense online harassment after she shared a video of herself twerking on the video-sharing app TikTok.
Continue reading...With the Games just months away, the regime’s sports ministry says it wants to protect athletes from the ‘global health crisis’
North Korea’s sports ministry said on Tuesday that it will not participate in the Tokyo Olympics this year to protect its athletes amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The decision was made at a meeting of North Korea’s Olympic committee, including its sports minister Kim Il guk, on 25 March the ministry said on its website, called Joson Sports. “The committee decided not to join the 32nd Olympics Games to protect athletes from the global health crisis caused by the coronavirus,” it said.
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern warns that further Covid-19 outbreaks could mean border closures return
After nearly a year shut off from the world, New Zealand is cracking open its borders, with a trans-Tasman travel bubble allowing two-way quarantine-free travel with Australia.
The NZ prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced on Tuesday the bubble would open from 19 April, allowing quarantine-free travel between the two nations. Travellers from New Zealand have been able to enter selected Australian states without quarantining since October but the arrangements did not apply in the other direction.
Continue reading...Researchers at the University of the Philippines Los Baños aim to catch thousands of bats to develop a Japanese-funded simulation model over the next three years that they believe could help avert potential pandemics. They hope the bats will help in predicting the dynamics of a coronavirus outbreak by analysing factors such as climate, temperature and ease of spread
Continue reading...Finds include 1980s time capsules, old collection boxes and a nativity scene with figures heads ‘taken clean off’
Ten years on from Christchurch’s devastating earthquake, the Catholic Diocese has discovered that it is missing a pair of angels.
As work continues to deconstruct the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on Barbadoes Street – extensively damaged in the 2011 quake, along with most of the central city – many treasures thought lost have been recovered.
Continue reading...When it comes to mental health, New Zealand’s government has lost sight of what’s important
They call it a last resort, but for people placed in seclusion in New Zealand mental health units it can feel like the beginning of a nightmare. “Seclusion” itself is something of a euphemism, a gentle name for locking someone in a room for an average of 27 hours at a time. It’s meant to be a last resort to stop people from hurting themselves or others, but the practice can itself be traumatising. One woman, recalling her seclusion experience, describes how – even now – she doesn’t like the sound of keys being rattled. It reminds her of being locked up, she says, of feeling hopeless, frightened and alone.
“Being taken into seclusion is absolutely awful, scary and daunting.”
Continue reading...Oh Tae-yang was spurred to run for mayor by the deaths of high-profile LGBT figures, and has upset some in conservative South Korea
One morning in late March, Oh Tae-yang awoke to news that his campaign banners, which feature rainbow flags and pledges to work toward same-sex marriage, had been vandalised, torn down and strewn across the ground.
After he got over the initial surprise, he noticed a particular detail in the destruction. “The banners had been ripped horizontally just below my neck, as if the person who did it was thinking of cutting my head off,” Oh said.
Continue reading...