Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Papua New Guinea to impose ‘harsh control measures’ as Covid outbreak spirals

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Month-long restrictions to come into force as officials warn virus could rip through PNG’s fragile health system ‘like a tornado’

Papua New Guinea will go into a month-long nationwide isolation in an effort to arrest a spiralling Covid-19 outbreak that threatens to rip through the country’s fragile health system “like a tornado”, health officials say, shutting hospitals and leaving wards without sufficient staff.

Hospitals across the country have already been forced to shut wards and departments, overwhelmed by a combination of staff becoming infected with the coronavirus, surging patient demand, and swingeing budget cuts.

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Why Japan’s carmaking heavyweights could be facing an electric shock

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Analysis: The rapid development of battery-only cars is eclipsing petrol vehicles and even hybrids, leaving Japan’s big producers racing to catch up

Japan’s traditional carmaking giants need to raise their game in the race to develop pure, battery-driven electric vehicles or risk being left behind by Chinese, American and European producers, analysts have warned.

Despite dominating car production in Asia for decades, Japan’s big players have been slow to fully develop the battery-only technology that is now eclipsing hybrid vehicles as the most likely type of car to plug petrolheads into the automotive revolution.

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China to only allow foreign visitors who have had Chinese-made vaccine

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Move raises questions as China’s vaccines not approved in many countries to which it is opening travel

China is resuming visa processing for foreigners from dozens of countries, but only if they have been inoculated against Covid-19 with a Chinese-made vaccine.

The move has raised questions about the motivations behind the demand, given China’s vaccines are not approved in many of the countries to which it has opened travel and that it will not accept foreign vaccines made elsewhere, including those approved by the World Health Organization.

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UK urged to ban fur imports from China over animal abuse claims

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Investigation appears to show unnecessary cruelty, suffering and disregard for Covid health precautions at more than a dozen farms

Campaigners are urging the UK government to ban fur imports after an investigation appeared to show widespread animal abuse and disregard for Covid-19 health protocols at more than a dozen fur farms in China.

Videos and photos from 19 farms visited in northern and north-eastern China last November and December appear to show foxes and raccoon dogs packed tightly in unsanitary cages and animals being electrocuted in ways that prolong their pain before death, often in front of others awaiting the same fate.

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Landmark Japan court ruling says not allowing same-sex marriage is ‘unconstitutional’

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Ruling is a major symbolic victory in a country where the constitution defines marriage as being based on ‘the mutual consent of both sexes’

A Japanese district court has ruled that not allowing same-sex couples to marry is “unconstitutional“, setting a new precedent in the only G7 nation not to fully recognise same-sex partnership, though it rejected demands for damages to be paid.

The ruling, the first in Japan on the legality of same-sex marriages, is a major symbolic victory in a country where the constitution defines marriage as being based on “the mutual consent of both sexes”.

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Why home-produced Covid vaccine hasn’t helped India, Russia and China rollouts

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Challenge of reaching vast, far-flung populations is combined with a lack of public interest

The day India started coronavirus vaccinations, Amit Mehra’s name was on the priority list. But he never made an appointment. “I’m not inclined to get vaccinated just because it’s available,” says the 47-year-old Delhi hospital worker.

Two and a half thousand miles away, strolling past a popup inoculation centre near Red Square in Moscow, Magomed Zurabov is similarly reluctant. Suspicious that the pandemic was deliberately engineered, he has no intention of being vaccinated, he says. Instead, he is “taking the necessary precautions”: wearing a mask and using disinfectant.

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Ally or no, New Zealand must stand up to Australia over 501 deportees | Golriz Ghahraman

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Aotearoa has a proud history of protesting human rights abuses on the world stage. Now that means pushing back against our traditional trade partner

Today a 15-year-old waits alone in a New Zealand quarantine facility, facing an uncertain future. Deported from Australia, he is not ordinarily resident here, and government agencies normally engaged for child protection are making plans for his care. Although Australia was his home, he was not Australian enough to be simply sanctioned in that nation for whatever infraction he is deemed to have committed.

This dehumanising treatment is what passes for necessary hard-line immigration policy in Australia. In its very high human cost, failure of binding child rights standards, and international criticism, it is very much in line with Australia’s longstanding approach to migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Australia has been thought of as outside human rights norms and any moral standard of fairness for some time. In fact, our neighbour has been repeatedly found to be enforcing policy that amounts to literal torture on its offshore prison islands.

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UK defence policy review lacks clarity on China and Indo-Pacific

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Analysis: focus shifts away from cooperation with the EU but fails to balance far east investment and security issues

Prof John Bew, the historian appointed by Boris Johnson to write the foreign and defence security review, has privately insisted the document should not be seen as an apology for Brexit or a turning away from Europe, the charge sometimes levelled by pro-EU critics such as the former national security adviser Lord Ricketts and Sir Simon Fraser, the former foreign office permanent secretary.

It is instead intended as a hard-headed look at the new collective security threats facing Britain, many of which, notably the rise of China, the spread of authoritarianism, the challenge of the climate crisis and the ubiquity of cyberwarfare, the UK would have faced in or out of the European Union.

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China tells Alibaba to divest media assets to curb influence – report

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Beijing fears ecommerce giant has too much sway over public opinion through stakes in platforms such as Twitter-like Weibo, Wall Street Journal says

Beijing has reportedly told the Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba to divest its assets in the media sector out of concern over the company’s growing public influence.

Its founder, Jack Ma, the ebullient and unconventional billionaire who officially retired from Alibaba in 2019 but remains a large shareholder, has been in authorities’ crosshairs in recent months.

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Pandemic forcing girls in south-east Asia and Pacific out of school and into marriage – study

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Female children are seen as an economic burden, and tough times are setting back progress by a generation, gender equality charity says

Thousands of adolescent girls across south-east Asia and the Pacific are being forced to leave school and get married instead as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a charity has warned, saying “a generation of girls could be lost”.

A new report by Plan International Australia highlighted the importance of secondary education for girls, and detailed the increased risk and long-term impacts of child, early and forced marriage in the region.

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Sandstorm and pollution turn Beijing sky orange – video

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A sandstorm has combined with already high air pollution to turn the sky over Beijing an eerie orange. Air quality indexes recorded a “hazardous” 999 rating on Monday as commuters travelled to work through the thick, dark air across China’s capital and further west. Large-scale deforestation is considered a factor in the spring dust storms that are relatively common at this time of year and are usually attributed to winds blowing across the Gobi desert

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Why Britain is tilting to the Indo-Pacific region

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Critics warn of imperial fantasy but the economic and political forces pulling the UK back to the region are real

Some will call it a tilt, others a rebalancing and yet others a pivot but, either way, the new big idea due to emerge from the government’s foreign and defence policy review on Tuesday will be the importance of the Indo-Pacific region – a British return east of Suez more than 50 years after the then defence secretary Denis Healey announced the UK’s cash-strapped retreat in 1968.

Boris Johnson and his admirals are billing the focus on a zone stretching through some of the world’s most vital seaways east from India to Japan and south from China to Australia as Britain stepping out in the world after 47 years locked in the EU’s protectionist cupboard. Others warn Johnson is indulging a hubristic and militarily dangerous imperial fantasy.

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Beijing skies turn orange as sandstorm and pollution send readings off the scale

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Capital of China suffers ‘hazardous’ levels of air pollution with authorities issuing second-highest safety alert

A massive sandstorm has combined with already high air pollution to turn the skies in Beijing an eerie orange, and send some air quality measurements off the charts.

Air quality indexes recorded a “hazardous” 999 rating on Monday as commuters travelled to work through the thick, dark air across China’s capital and further west.

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Livestreaming bill introduced after Christchurch could criminalise innocent people | Anjum Rahman

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The government’s proposal on criminalising the streaming of offensive content is open to misuse and could lead to unnecessary harassment

Two years on from the horrific mass murders at Al-Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch, we know the grief is fresh in the hearts of many. As we think about those directly and indirectly impacted, we must also continue to think about what needs to change.

In December 2020, the report of the royal commission into these events was made public. The findings were a disappointment in not holding any person or agency negligent, though the body of the report detailed a number of failings. The government has committed to implementing the 44 recommendations, with some announcements already made.

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Australia plans travel bubble with Singapore

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If deal goes ahead Singapore could become a quarantine gateway for vaccinated stranded Australians and other travellers

The Australian government is working on a plan to create a travel bubble with Singapore.

If struck, the deal could also establish Singapore as a quarantine gateway for travellers on their way to Australia, the Age and Sydney Morning Herald report. Deputy prime minister Michael McCormack confirmed the government was working on the plan on the ABC on Sunday morning.

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Trade war fallout: how reliant is Australia’s economy on China?

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China’s importance to the Australian economy has exploded in recent years – but data shows Australia is not nearly so important to China

China’s importance to the Australian economy has exploded over the past decade, fuelled by an apparently insatiable need for iron ore and helped along by increasing demand for luxury goods as the country became richer, analysis of UN trade data by Guardian Australia reveals.

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Hong Kong: UK accuses China of breaching joint declaration

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Beijing guilty of ‘ongoing non-compliance’ with 1984 deal, says foreign secretary Dominic Raab

Dominic Raab has accused China of breaching the legal deal over the governance of Hong Kong, amid criticisms of Beijing’s attempts to tighten its control over the territory.

In a major escalation of diplomatic tensions, the foreign secretary said the UK considered China to be in a “state of ongoing non-compliance” with the Sino-British joint declaration as he condemned Beijing’s decision to reduce the role of the public in picking Hong Kong’s leaders. China has instead handed power to a pro-Beijing committee, which will appoint more council members.

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Fund communities, not the agencies that failed to anticipate the Christchurch shooting | Faisal Al-Asaad

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History shows that granting further powers to state bodies generally hurts minorities more than others

Last year’s report into the Christchurch mosque attacks was met with scepticism and disappointment from many in the Muslim community, and understandably so. Among its findings, one in particular stands out. Regarding the ability of police and Security and Intelligence Services (SIS) to anticipate the perpetrator’s planning of the attack, the report said: “there was no plausible way he could have been detected except by chance”.

Despite also concluding that these same agencies have been characterised by systemic failure, it suggested giving them greater powers and resources. The government has also embraced the treatment of white supremacy as a form of “violent extremism” and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) policies as an antidote. But overseas examples and our own history – including instances where we’ve seen them target specific communities such as Māori and environmental activists as well as refugees and asylum seekers – show us that these are the wrong strategies because they actually end up hurting the communities they purport to protect.

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‘They are us’: Christchurch shooting victims remembered two years on

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New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern pledges to fight racism as she joins around 1,000 people to mark the second anniversary of the mosque attacks

The 51 worshippers murdered in the Christchurch mosque attacks almost two years ago by a white supremacist have been remembered at a national service with songs, prayers, speeches and pledges to rebuild the community.

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the governor general, Patsy Reddy, joined around 1,000 members of the community at Christchurch’s Horncastle arena on Saturday for the service.

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Sea of resilience: how the Pacific fought against Covid

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A new documentary shows that while the health impacts of the pandemic have - so far - been largely avoided, the effects of isolation on families, communities, and livelihoods has been profound

Faith, family, and a little bit of farming.

The Pacific’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been one of self-reliance and resistance: to turn to its communities and churches, its lands and seas.

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