Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Chinese official’s ‘repugnant’ tweet of Australia soldier likely amplified by fake accounts, experts say

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Australian experts and Israeli cybersecurity firm allege ‘unusual behaviour’ by Twitter accounts retweeting or liking Zhao Lijian’s tweet

A Chinese official’s tweet of an image of an Australian soldier that sparked a furious reaction from Canberra was amplified across social media by unusual accounts, of which half were likely fake, Australian experts and an Israeli cybersecurity firm say.

The digitally created image that purported to show an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of an Afghan child was tweeted by China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, on Monday.

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‘Where is the fairness?’ Fiji’s British Army veterans fight for a life in UK

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Taitusi Ratucaucau served 11 years in the Royal Logistics Corps, only for his contract to be terminated and his life left in limbo

Two decades ago, when Taitusi Ratucaucau signed his papers, there was such hope. A career in the British Army would bring security, adventure, a sense, too, of service.

In 2000, his homeland Fiji, roiled by a protracted and violent coup, held little hope. A career in the British military was Ratucaucau’s ticket to a wider world.

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Coronavirus live news: Biden vows to get vaccinated in public; Cyprus to waive tests for vaccinated visitors

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Biden will ask Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office; Cyprus announces new measure to ease travel; Iran’s cases top 1m

In the UK saliva tests for Covid-19, which are being introduced for NHS workers as part of the government’s mass testing programme, pick up only 13% of people with low levels of the virus and not 91%, as the official assessment has claimed, according to experts.

Two members of the Royal Statistical Society’s working group looking at the accuracy of Covid tests have questioned the results and the way they have been evaluated.

Related: Experts question claimed accuracy of Covid-19 saliva tests

Revelations of distorted corona virus tallies have caused growing controversy in Greece reports our correspondent Helena Smith in Athens.

Figures released by the government nightly have been slammed for not reflecting the truth after reports of mismanagement by the national public health organisation, EODY.

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China hits back at US spy chief’s ‘greatest threat to freedom’ claim

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Chinese official says article labelling it as biggest threat to democracy since WW2 is ‘concoction of lies’

China has rejected as a “concoction of lies” an incendiary article by the US’s most senior intelligence official, who labelled China the biggest threat to democracy and freedom since the second world war.

In a Wall Street Journal column, John Ratcliffe, the US director of national intelligence, said China was bent on world domination and the US needed to prepare for an “open-ended period of confrontation”.

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China the ‘greatest threat to democracy and freedom’, US spy chief warns

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Director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe accuses Beijing of stealing US technology to aid military modernization plan

The top US intelligence official has stepped up Donald Trump’s attacks on Beijing, labeling China the biggest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide since the second world war and saying it was bent on global domination.

Related: US sets records for Covid deaths and hospitalizations as it nears 14m cases – live updates

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Coronavirus live news: US records highest daily deaths since April; Obama, Bush and Clinton offer to get vaccines on TV

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French ex-president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing has died of Covid-related complications; US suffers highest daily deaths since April; Former US presidents hope to inspire public confidence in vaccine

Hi there - this is Archie Bland picking up the global coronavirus liveblog, and beginning in Russia, where 28,145 new cases, a record high, and 554 deaths have been recorded in the last 24 hours.

Those figures compare with 25,345 new cases and 589 deaths, the latter figure also a record, the previous day.

Hundreds of thousands of masked students in South Korea, including 35 confirmed Covid-19 patients, took the highly competitive university entrance exam today despite the viral resurgence that has forced authorities to toughen social distancing rules.

About 493,430 students were taking the one-day exam at about 1,380 sites across the nation, including hospitals and other medical facilities where the 35 virus patients and hundreds of other test-takers in self-quarantine sat separately from others, according to the education ministry.

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Coronavirus live news: Global death toll passes 1.5m

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World passes grim tally with a death reported every nine seconds on average; Italy registers 993 new deaths and 23,255 new cases; Iran goes past 1m cases

More than 1.5 million people have lost their lives due to Covid-19 with one death reported every nine seconds on a weekly average, as vaccinations are set to begin in December in a handful of developed nations.

Reuters reports that half a million deaths occurred in just the last two months, indicating that the severity of the pandemic is far from over. Nearly 65 million people globally have been infected by the disease and the worst affected country, United States, is currently battling a third wave of coronavirus infections.

I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.

A partial lockdown will begin this weekend in the Gaza Strip after Covid-19 infections surged in the densely populated territory, Gaza’s interior ministry declared on Thursday.

Mosques, schools, universities and kindergartens - excluding high schools and nurseries - will be closed during the day, although many businesses will be allowed to remain open until a night-time curfew from 6pm to 8am forces Gazans to stay at home. There will be a full closure at weekends.

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Why a giant fictional penguin could be the cure for millennial burnout

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Pengsoo was created for children’s television, yet it became such a sensation with adults that it was named South Korea’s person of the year. Now it’s ready to take over the globe

Growing up in the South Pole, Pengsoo was to his penguin peers what Rudolph was to Santa’s reindeers: an outcast shunned for being different. Bullies latched on to Pengsoo’s towering frame – at nearly 7ft, Pengsoo is almost twice the height of the average emperor penguin – and its large, unblinking eyes.

“The other penguins didn’t play with me because I was too big,” 10-year-old Pengsoo told producers at a studio in the Korea Educational Broadcasting System (EBS) headquarters in Seoul in April 2019. Sitting in a gray room, empty save a too-small chair positioned beside a childish self-portrait, Pengsoo stared at the producers as it spoke. Pengsoo had swum to South Korea from the Antarctic “not too long ago”, it said, in the hopes of becoming the next big sensation on YouTube, which was “getting very popular” in its homeland. But the bullying there had been too much.

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Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy figure Jimmy Lai charged with fraud

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Lai, whose newspaper Apple daily was raided by police this year, is denied bail until April amid accusations of improper use of his office space

Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy activist whose Apple Daily newspaper was raided by police earlier this year, has been denied bail after being charged with fraud. Lai – the owner of Hong Kong tabloid and founder of Next Digital Media – will be held on remand until his next court date in April next year.

Lai has been one of the loudest pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong, amid a worsening crackdown on dissent. On Wednesday Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, and Ivan Lam were jailed for their activism.

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China targeting Biden team, intelligence chief warns, amid fresh trade war measures

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William Evanina speaks of Beijing’s influence campaign ‘on steroids’, as Congress passes bill targeting big companies such as Alibaba

A counterintelligence chief in the US has warned that Chinese agents are already targeting the personnel of President-elect Joe Biden, as well as those close to his team, as Congress unveiled more measures targeting big Chinese companies.

William Evanina, from the office of the US Director of National Intelligence, told the Aspen Institute Cyber Summit on Wednesday it was an influence campaign “on steroids”.

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China lands spacecraft on moon to collect lunar rocks – video

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China has successfully landed a probe on the moon's surface, according to state media. The Chang'e-5 spacecraft drilled into the surface of the moon to collect soil early on Wednesday, the first probe to collect lunar samples in four decades.

If the return journey is successful, China will be only the third country to have retrieved samples from the moon, following the US and the Soviet Union in the 60s and 70s

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Why has wedding of Japan’s Princess Mako still not gone ahead?

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Plans still on hold after revelations about finances of would-be groom’s mother two years ago

They have been together since university, their emotional bond apparently stronger than ever despite being separated by an ocean and a continent. And they have the blessing of a likely future emperor.

But for Japan’s Princess Mako – the eldest daughter of the first in line to the Chrysanthemum throne – and her boyfriend, Kei Komuro, the sound of wedding bells has grown more distant in the three years since they made their relationship public.

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Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong jailed for 13 and a half months over protest

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Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam also sentenced over pro-democracy protest at police HQ last year

The high-profile Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong will spend more than a year in jail over an unauthorised protest outside police headquarters in June last year, a court in the city has ruled.

Fellow activists Agnes Chow, 23, and Ivan Lam, 26, were sentenced to 10 months and seven months respectively.

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Australian politics live: economy grows 3.3% in September quarter, national accounts reveal

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OECD warns Australia over China exports; agriculture and trade ministers to meet wine producers – follow the latest updates

Philip Lowe is accompanied at today’s hearing by Guy Debelle, a deputy RBA governor. Debelle has just shown Lowe the growth number in the national accounts.

The governor is pleased. It’s very good, he says. (Lowe was hoping for more than 2% in today’s numbers. The growth number is 3.3%).

Jim Chalmers has responded:

Today’s headline number is cold comfort for millions of Australians looking for work, or more work. For many people what looks like a recovery on paper will still feel like a recession. #auspol

What really matters is not one quarterly GDP number on a page but how Australians are actually faring and whether they can provide for their loved ones. #auspol

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Coronavirus live news: CDC suggests first vaccines to US healthcare workers; England enters tier system

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US hospitalisations surge; New tier system replaces lockdown; BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna file for EU approval of Covid-19 vaccine

The national accounts, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics just now, shows that rise in seasonally adjusted chain volume measures, after a 7% fall in the June quarter.

In the US, a government panel on Tuesday formally recommended early doses of Covid-19 vaccines be given first to healthcare workers and long-term care facility residents in the US, generally seen as people who live in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Together, that group would represent roughly 23 million Americans, disproportionately including women, people of color and low-wage workers who makeup the healthcare labor force.

Related: CDC panel recommends giving Covid-19 vaccines to healthcare workers first

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Coronavirus live news: WHO says vaccines won’t prevent short-term surge; Putin orders start of mass inoculation

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Health body says there won’t be enough doses to prevent new wave in cases in next six months; Russian president says programme should start next week

Morocco hopes to launch an ambitious vaccination campaign against the coronavirus by year-end, but its efforts have sparked suspicion and rumours in the country, hard-hit by the pandemic.

The North African kingdom is hoping to immunise 20 million adults against Covid-19 within three months, using vaccinations from China’s Sinopharm and a UK-sourced shot developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

Boris Johnson might be persuaded to take a Covid-19 vaccination on television to show it is safe but he would not have one before those in greater need, his press secretary has said.

Johnson, 56, who spent time in intensive care earlier this year after contracting Covid-19, has hailed the UK approval of Pfizer’s vaccine as a global win and ray of hope.

I don’t think it would be something he would rule out.

But I think we also know that he wouldn’t want to take a jab that should be for someone who is extremely vulnerable, clinically vulnerable, and who should be getting it before him.

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China to collect first moon rocks since 1970s after successful probe landing

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Chang’e-5 spacecraft completes 112-hour journey from Earth, according to Beijing’s space agency

A Chinese probe sent to the moon to bring back the first lunar samples in four decades has successfully landed, according to Beijing’s space agency.

China has poured billions into its military-run space programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022 and eventually sending humans to the moon.

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Australian politics live: Chinese embassy accuses Canberra of overreacting to tweet on Afghan killings

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Embassy official dismisses ‘rage and roar’ over tweet; new WA border rules not requiring quarantine to start on 8 December; Paul Fletcher complains to ABC chair about Four Corners program. Follow latest updates

And that’s where we’ll leave the blog for today. Thanks as always for reading, we’ll be back tomorrow, with Amy Remeikis at the helm in the morning.

Here’s what happened today:

And in further weather news, severe thunderstorms are set to hit Sydney in a few minutes. The Bureau of Meteorology has warned of damaging winds and large hailstones.

⚡Detailed Severe Thunderstorm Warning⚡
for DAMAGING WINDS and LARGE HAILSTONES. Forecast to affect Hornsby, Parramatta and Richmond by 7:05 pm and Sydney City, Sydney Olympic Park, Mona Vale and waters off Bondi Beach by 7:35 pm.
⚠️Warnings: https://t.co/qF3XejM6Tv pic.twitter.com/qnSGNfqZND

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France and New Zealand join Australia’s criticism of Chinese government tweet

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Former diplomat urges more countries to stand against ‘coercion’ from Beijing, as Chinese state media says Australia is ‘treating China’s goodwill with evil’

France and New Zealand have joined Australia in criticising the Chinese government for its inflammatory tweet about Australian soldiers, as a former senior diplomat called for more countries to take a stand against Beijing’s “coercion”.

The tensions between China and Australia showed no sign of abating on Tuesday, with the Chinese embassy in Canberra accusing the Morrison government of overreacting to the social media post and of stoking the issue for domestic political purposes.

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Fijian British army veterans lose court battle to remain in UK

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Judge tells eight who served in Iraq and Afghanistan that courts not concerned with misadministration

Eight Fijian-born soldiers who served with the British army in Iraq and Afghanistan have failed in a legal effort to overturn what they say were bureaucratic errors that have left them living illegally in the country they once served.

The group were refused leave for a judicial review of their cases by Mr Justice Garnham, who concluded the veterans had made their claim too late and that the courts were concerned with “illegality not misadministration” or an “unfocused idea of fairness”.

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