Court grants prosecutors’ request to appeal against bail order on media mogul
The Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been returned to jail after the city’s highest court ruled in favour of prosecutors’ request for leave to appeal against his already highly restrictive bail order.
The decision will keep the 76-year-old in jail until at least February, even though he has not been accused of a violent crime and is not considered a flight risk.
Continue reading...Navy seizes UUV, likely a Chinese Sea Wing, that experts say could be used to plot routes for military subs
An Indonesian fisher has found what experts say is likely to be a Chinese submarine drone in waters on a strategic maritime route from the South China Sea to Australia.
According to Indonesian media the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) was found on 20 December near Selayar Island in South Sulawesi. Six days later it was handed to police and then transferred to the Indonesian military.
Continue reading...As China’s leadership celebrates national triumph over virus, some residents want an investigation into the start of the pandemic
Jianghan Road in Wuhan throngs with shoppers and strollers bundled up against the late December freeze. Bells ring out on the hour from the landmark Hankou Customs House where the road terminates near the wide banks of the Yangtze River.
Restaurants along the city’s main pedestrian thoroughfare are packed, even on an icy weekday night, and resound with loud conversation.
Continue reading...Group’s trial on the mainland lasted just one day and was held with few public witnesses
Ten people who tried to flee Hong Kong for Taiwan have been sentenced in a Chinese court to up to three years in jail, while two minors will be returned home without charge.
On Wednesday the Yantian people’s court ordered the group to serve varying sentences of between seven months and three years in jail. Of the two people charged with organising the illegal border crossing, one was sentenced to three years and fined RMB20,000 (£2,260), and the other to two years and fined RMB15,000.
Continue reading...Ankara has long welcomed Uighur and Turkic Muslims fleeing China but human rights groups fear the treaty will endanger them
Beijing has ratified an extradition treaty with Turkey that human rights groups warn could endanger Uighur families and activists fleeing persecution by Chinese authorities if it is adopted by Ankara.
The treaty, first signed in 2017, was formalised on the weekend at the national people’s congress, with state media saying it would be used for counter-terrorism purposes. Facing strong opposition within its parliament, Turkey’s government has not yet ratified the deal, and critics have urged the government to abandon it and prevent the treaty from “becoming an instrument of persecution”.
Continue reading... Police in China detain colleague of Yoozoo Games founder Lin Qi on suspicion of involvement in death
Shanghai police have detained a man in relation to the suspected poisoning death of the wealthy founder of a video games company.
Lin Qi, 39, died on Christmas Day, eight days after he was taken to hospital with “acute symptoms of illness”, according to his company, Yoozoo Games Co, known for the Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming strategy game and as the producer of a forthcoming Netflix adaptation of the science fiction hit The Three-Body Problem.
Continue reading...Prosecution of 10 Hong Kongers detained in mainland China after allegedly attempting to flee to Taiwan also began on Monday
Zhang Zhan, a 37-year-old former lawyer and citizen journalist who was arrested in May while reporting from Wuhan, has been sentenced to four years in jail.
Zhang was arrested for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – an accusation commonly used against dissidents, activists and journalists – with her video and blog reports from the Wuhan lockdown. Last month she was charged with disseminating false information.
Continue reading...Beloved bird that inspired toys and a picture book remembered by conservationists as a ‘precious taonga [treasure]’
A much-loved and extremely rare white kiwi has died following surgery, prompting an outpouring of grief among conservationists in New Zealand.
Manukura the North Island brown kiwi hatched in captivity in May 2011 with a rare genetic trait, leucism, that gave her striking white plumage.
Continue reading...Critic of UK decision to ban Huawei from 5G networks to be replaced by China’s vice-foreign minister
China’s long-serving envoy to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, a staunch defender of closer UK-China economic ties and the imposition of new security laws in Hong Kong, is standing down, marking the end of an era in relations between the two countries that hit a high in 2015 but has since worsened markedly.
He is being replaced by his country’s vice-foreign minister, Zheng Zeguang, a former Cardiff University law student once tipped to become China’s ambassador to the US, and still seen as a candidate for that post in a couple of years’ time.
Continue reading...Students among those who could face long sentences under sweeping lese-majesty law
Thailand’s authorities must stop targeting pro-democracy protesters with draconian legal action and instead enter into dialogue, according to the UN’s special rapporteur for freedom of assembly, who warned the country risks sliding into violence.
Clément Voule said he had written to the Thai government to express alarm at the use of the fierce lese-majesty law against dozens of protesters, including students as young as 16.
Continue reading...Centre for Economics and Business Research says it expects this to happen half a decade sooner than it forecast a year ago
China will overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy before the end of the decade after outperforming its rival during the global Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research said that it nowexpected the value of China’s economy when measured in dollars to exceed that of the US by 2028, half a decade sooner than it expected a year ago.
Continue reading...Cases emerge as Russia becomes latest country to tighten controls on travel from Britain
Five cases of the new coronavirus variant spreading fast across the UK have been found in Japan, and Russia has become the latest country to impose stricter quarantine on travellers from Britain.
Japan has avoided the huge infection numbers seen in countries from the US to Europe, but cases are rising sharply and daily numbers passed 3,000 for the first time this month.
Continue reading...Pope addresses fewer than 200 people in St Peter’s; China and US take action against UK amid concerns about new variant; South Korea reports daily case record
The coronavirus pandemic cast a pall over Christmas celebrations worldwide, with the pope holding a reduced St Peter’s mass, and further restrictions imposed on arrivals from the UK and South Africa amid concerns about potentially more transmissible variants of the virus.
China said it would halt UK flight arrivals indefinitely, deciding to follow the example of dozens of countries that introduced bans this week following the emergence of a new mutation in the virus. There are currently eight weekly flights between mainland China and Britain, including two by British Airways.
Continue reading...Some 53 vessels have been waiting offshore for more than four weeks while coal ships from other countries have delivered their loads
More than 50 Australian coal ships are still stranded off China’s coast, held up by a Chinese government import ban, despite the country facing coal shortages and one of its worst power blackouts in years.
China has rejected suggestions that its October ban on Australian coal has contributed to the coal shortage but the ban has been linked to higher domestic prices. Analysts have said that under the current circumstances any incoming coal would help.
Continue reading...Country’s ‘slick branding machine’ can’t hide ‘entrenched inequality’, says Ricardo Menéndez March
New Zealand’s first Latin American MP has had a controversial start: he’s been labelled “disrespectful” for his attitude to senior citizens, called out the government for hypocrisy over the country’s “100% Pure” marketing campaign, and upset monarchists with a chihuahua meme about having to swear allegiance to the Queen.
Ricardo Menéndez March, who describes himself as a “proud socialist, transgressive queer”, is one of three new Green party MPs in parliament after a huge swing to the left in October’s general election.
Continue reading...Country’s expected ascension to human rights council presidency is being challenged by a China-backed bid by Bahrain
For a small country in the South Pacific that joined the UN’s powerful human rights council for the first time in 2019, Fiji has made giant strides within the organisation: right to the very top ... almost.
By consensus, Fiji’s chief diplomat in Geneva, ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan, was set to assume the presidency of the council for 2021, a historic first not only for Fiji, but for a Pacific region consistently under-represented on the global stage.
Continue reading...Guests grounded by Covid can ‘wake up to the refreshing view of the majestic HSBC Rain Vortex’ or peg a bargain in the shops
Singapore’s Changi airport is charging customers up to $269 per night for the chance to camp in a tent in its retail wing, the latest unusual travel experience aimed at boosting revenue during the pandemic.
Tickets for the “glamping” experience, which have already sold out, offer guests the chance to “wake up to the refreshing view of the majestic HSBC Rain Vortex”, the world’s largest indoor waterfall. Tents are four metres in diameter and come with blankets. Shopping discounts are also included.
Continue reading...Inspired by Xi Jinping’s ‘operation empty plate’, new law means restaurants will be able to charge patrons for leaving leftovers
Xi Jinping’s war on waste is set to be enshrined in law, with the submission of draft legislation to China’s highest legal committee recommending large fines for businesses that enable or promote wasting food.
In August the Chinese leader said the amount of food wasted nationally was shocking and distressing, declaring in a speech that: “waste is shameful and thriftiness is honourable”.
Continue reading...We are what we read; a bookcase is an X-ray of its owner, their ambitions and fears, their IQ and their desires
A politician anywhere near a book is a rare and incongruous sight. They exist as creatures who act on a range of terrible decisions. It doesn’t do for them to be seen floating around in the nebulous, dreamy world of literature, with its nuances and its conflicting ideas. But all photo opportunities are good photo opportunities when you’re running for office, and I had every confidence that New Zealand’s political leaders would say yes when I approached them this year to pose beside their bookcases.
It was for the series of photographs I run every Friday to illustrate the weekly best-seller chart at Newsroom, where I serve as books editor. For quite a long time I asked authors and various other literary types to send in photographs of their bookcases. Most of the photos appeared without any response. They were kind of interesting at the same time as being kind of really boring. Eventually I realised it might be a better idea to ask the authors to be in the photographs as well, and I extended the idea to invite political leaders in 2020 as an election year carrot.
Continue reading...Mission involving two Russian and four Chinese aircraft signals stronger military ties between Moscow and Beijing
Russian and Chinese bombers have flown a joint patrol mission over the western Pacific in a show of increasingly close military ties between Moscow and Beijing.
The Russian military said a pair of its Tu-95 strategic bombers and four Chinese H-6K bombers flew over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea on Tuesday.
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