MI5 concluded three Beijing security ministry employees used cover of working for Chinese press agencies
Britain quietly expelled three Chinese spies last year who it said were posing as journalists, it has emerged, as tensions flare between the two countries over a range of media issues.
The intelligence agency MI5 concluded the three worked for China’s powerful Ministry of State Security (MSS) but had been using the cover of working for the country’s press agencies.
Continue reading...Māori memories of past epidemics meant iwi were instrumental in forcing Jacinda Ardern’s government to act quickly
In the space of a few days in 2017 New Zealand’s Labour caucus made Jacinda Ardern their leader. In the space of a month the country made her their prime minister, and in the space of a few years the rest of the English-speaking world would turn to her as a global leader. That might sound cliché, and in a small sense it is, but it captures the adoration and esteem in which large parts of New Zealand and the world hold Ardern. She has apparently committed to a social democratic programme of old, from public housing to subsidised tertiary education, and – more importantly – she has dealt successfully with the virus. Global business leaders and others rightly rate New Zealand’s Covid-19 response as the best in the world.
But is it equally right to simply credit Ardern and her government for this success?
Continue reading...Animation features an owl teaching young children about the need for the controversial law in crackdown on education
Hong Kong students as young as six will be taught about the national security law under a dramatic overhaul of the education curriculum.
Notices sent out on Thursday require schools to prevent participation in political activities, increase monitoring of employees and teaching materials, remove books and flyers deemed to endanger national security, and to report to authorities if necessary.
Continue reading...Indonesian men, women and children are risking their health wearing metallic paint to earn money as the economic impact of coronavirus worsens
It was 8pm on one of the busiest intersections in western Jakarta. Three men in metallic paint from head to toe stood on the footpath. Each was holding a silver can.
Alfan, 25, was one. When the light turned red, he walked in silence, barefoot, and stood in front of the stopped traffic. He bowed deeply for a few seconds and then struck a pose like a statue: standing straight, he raised his right hand to his temple and gave a salute in silence for about a minute without blinking.
Continue reading...Colonisation has had a particular effect on Indigenous wahine that disadvantages them to this day
The Mana Wahine Kaupapa Inquiry hearings will begin this week, investigating claims regarding the specific tiriti violations of the crown that have led to injustice against wahine Māori across social, physical, spiritual, economic, political and cultural dimensions.
It has been a long time coming, having first been filed in 1993 and led out by the Māori Women’s Welfare League, and then initiated as an inquiry in 2018. While it can be said that all Waitangi inquiry hearings are traumatic, frustrating and difficult, it’s expected that this one in particular will reveal a history that is as foundational, on a national scale, as it is disturbing.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and Nauru question whether to remain members amid bullying claims
Leaders of Micronesian countries are contemplating abandoning the Pacific Islands Forum altogether, after a fractious vote for a new secretary general sidelined the north Pacific countries, who say they are bullied by larger nations, and left with “crumbs”.
The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) is the Pacific region’s most important political body and a powerful voice for the Pacific on the global stage, but the election of former Cook Islands prime minister Henry Puna as secretary general has exposed a deep fracture between north and south Pacific nations.
Continue reading...Foreign ministry said it terminated agreement with Taiwan to open office after Beijing urged country to ‘correct their mistake’
Guyana has abruptly terminated an agreement with Taiwan to open an office in the South American country, hours after China urged Georgetown to “correct their mistake”.
Earlier on Thursday, Taiwan’s foreign ministry announced it had signed an agreement with Guyana to open a Taiwan office – effectively a de facto embassy for the island that China claims as its sovereign territory with no right to diplomatic ties.
Continue reading...Presence of Pal Ahluwalia deemed ‘prejudicial to peace’: a report by the vice-chancellor alleged widespread financial mismanagement at University of the South Pacific
Fiji police have carried out a midnight raid at the home of the vice-chancellor of the prestigious University of the South Pacific and summarily deported him on orders of the prime minister, in a move described by students as a “coup” and likened by staff to “gestapo tactics”.
Up to 15 immigration, police and military officials forced their way into Pal Ahluwalia’s home in Suva on Wednesday night, revoked his work permit and escorted the vice-chancellor and his wife, Sandra Price, to Nadi international airport. He was then forced on to a flight under military guard to Australia on Thursday.
Continue reading...Alexandra Daddario’s American English teacher drinks, parties and explores BDSM in this cool movie that only occasionally veers into orientalism
Author and artist Catherine Hanrahan has adapted her novel of the same name for the screen and William Olsson directs. It is the story of Margaret, a young American woman in Tokyo, who has snagged a job teaching trainee flight attendants how to enunciate their English properly. Margaret drinks a lot, parties a lot, shows up hungover and late to work; she is also into BDSM, and is a sub, but can’t find any satisfactory partner, until she chances across Kazu (Takehiro Hira), a yakuza mobster whose naked body naturally turns out to be almost completely covered in scary tattoos. He has exactly the right fiercely negligent ruthlessness when he takes her to love hotels, but through an ironic quirk of fate turns out to have a softer side – something that this liaison with Margaret has unlocked, and in bed confesses to her mournfully that he is about to get married, and this lends something weirdly poignant and melancholy to their eroticism.
Continue reading...While China pushes for more industrialised farms, Buddhist monks urge now-sedentary nomads to embrace vegetarianism
Former free-roaming nomads now mostly resettled in rows of sun-baked block houses in Tibet are facing a struggle for their identity, their spiritual and cultural practices – and even their stomachs.
These yak-tending herders have always eaten meat. In addition to the milk, butter and cheese they derived from yaks, meat was a necessity in their harsh lives.
But a movement spurred by Tibetan Buddhist monks in the region over the past two decades has increasingly urged now sedentary nomads to practise vegetarianism, to pay a “life ransom” for the release of animals destined for the slaughterhouse, and to abandon the slaughter of their own animals because they have settled down.
Continue reading...State department says ‘atrocities’ against detained Uighur and Muslim women in region must be ‘met with serious consequences’
The United States government is “deeply disturbed” by reports of systematic rape and sexual torture of women detained in China’s Xinjiang camps for ethnic Uighur and other Muslims, and demanded serious consequences.
The US state department was responding to a BBC report, published on Wednesday, detailing horrific allegations rape, sexual abuse and torture, based on interviews with several former detainees and a guard. The interviewees told the BBC “they experienced or saw evidence of an organised system of mass rape, sexual abuse and torture”.
Continue reading...She is impossible to miss, understands both sides of the Māori debate and speaks up on foreign policy in a way that works well for Jacinda Ardern
In a room of dignitaries, New Zealand’s foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta is impossible to miss.
She is the first woman to sit in the country’s parliament wearing a moko kauae, an ancient Māori tattoo form. Koru patterns wrap around her chin, framing it in rich black inks, a visual statement that “I am Māori”.
Continue reading...The idea that Hong Kong migration will give the UK an entrepreneurial rocket boost is based on imperial stereotypes
Ministers swell with pride as they speak of profound ties of history and friendship, while polling shows that a substantial majority of Britons are in favour and newspaper headlines are overwhelmingly positive.
Immigration has always been a contentious issue in Britain. So why, as the UK opens a path to citizenship for millions of Hong Kong residents, is it different this time?
Continue reading...Authorities take to sealing off residential blocks without warning and can break into homes if people do not submit to testing
Hong Kong is locking down entire residential blocks without warning as part of a controversial new strategy to contain outbreaks of Covid-19.
Over the past 10 days, squads of Hong Kong police officers have launched “ambush-style” lockdowns of residences, forcing everyone to be tested for Covid-19 or be fined HK$5,000 ($645). Viral footage of one operation showed dozens of officers sprinting up a street, unfurling a roll of tape to cordon off a building and its occupants, as bystanders jump out of the way.
Continue reading...Thierry Santa’s multi-party government collapses a few months after narrow referendum vote to remain within French republic
Even as Tropical Cyclone Lucas bears down on New Caledonia, the French Pacific dependency also faces a political storm, with the collapse of the multi-party government led by President Thierry Santa.
Five members of the government, representing the pro-independence groups UC-FLNKS and the Union nationale pour l’indépendance (UNI) resigned on 2 February. Both groups are members of the Front de libération nationale kanak et socialiste (FLNKS), which campaigns for independence from France.
Continue reading...Billed as a celebration of humankind’s victory over coronavirus, Games could fall foul of pandemic for a second time
The Olympic rings have been spruced up and are once again overlooking Tokyo Bay. Countdown clocks have been reset, telling passersby there are just 171 days to go until the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games begin.
They are supposed to build excitement in the host city and among sports fans around the world. But Japan’s Olympic dream is quickly turning sour in the face of the worst global health crisis for a century.
Continue reading...Civilian leader urges the public to protest against any return to a military dictatorship
Myanmar has been placed on knife edge, with activists fearing a further clampdown after the military detained Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders in early morning raids and took direct control of the country in a coup.
A statement attributed to Aung San Suu Kyi said the military, which directly ruled Myanmar for more than 50 years, was trying to reimpose a dictatorship. “I urge people not to accept this, to respond and wholeheartedly to protest against the coup by the military,” it said. It is not possible to verify the message.
Continue reading...Pacific diplomacy hinges on in-person discussion but web-only meetings have fed a growing dispute over the forum’s leadership and purpose
In the Pacific, it is all about the talanoa: the conversation and the consensus.
For the 50 years of the Pacific Islands Forum (beginning life as the South Pacific Forum), meetings have always happened in person, and it is the power of the leaders being together that has given the forum its rare ability to find common ground.
Continue reading...Prioritising Māori for the vaccine would be a concrete sign the government is committed to improving our health
A Māori doctor on the government’s immunisation implementation advisory group, Dr Rawiri Jansen, said recently that Māori would be prioritised in the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out. A predictable outcry ensued, with familiar protestations about “race-based policy” and convenient ignorance displayed about the other priority groups being discussed – the elderly, those with known risk factors, front-line workers.
New Zealand’s first Covid-19 community case in months was confirmed two weeks out from Waitangi Day. The new case is awkwardly located in Northland – the site of the annual commemorations of the signing of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, an event attended by politicians, iwi leaders, whānau, lobbyists and tourists from all over the country.
Continue reading...Energy watchdog’s Fatih Birol says shift away from coal in key regions needs to be made a global priority
Dependency on coal in key parts of the world is preventing a global green recovery from taking off, and the shift away from coal needs to be made a global priority, the head of the world’s energy watchdog has said
Coal still forms a key part of China’s energy system, and plans are in train for further coal-fired power plants in the country. India is also heavily dependent on coal, and despite increasing its renewable energy generation has shown little sign of reducing its use of the fossil fuel.
Continue reading...