Long queues and inflated prices amid fears that flu could complicate anti-Covid effort
A surge in demand for flu shots in Chinese cities has caused shortages, long lines and triple markups on vaccines by scalpers selling them online.
Residents, afraid of the possibility of catching both the flu and Covid-19 – what some have called a “twindemic”, have rushed to clinics since China began its flu vaccine campaign in September.
Continue reading...The landmark Japanese cyberpunk animation from 1988 re-emerges as a deeply strange nightmare about destruction and rebirth
A deeply strange message from the future is what this movie is here to (re)deliver: both post- and pre-apocalyptic, a nuclear-age parable of anxiety to compare with Godzilla. Akira, released in 1988, is the cult Japanese cyberpunk animation from director Katsuhiro Ôtomo, who also created the original manga serial. (It is set in the impossibly futuristic year of 2019, so maybe last year would actually have been the time to rerelease it.)
Thirty years on from a devastating explosion that razed the city, a new capital – Neo-Tokyo – has been born: sprawling, chaotic, like the LA of Blade Runner. The city is beset with violence from warring motorbike gangs, and by protesters rioting against unfair taxes. A hatchet-faced army officer says that Neo-Tokyo is “a garbage heap made of hedonistic fools”.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins both bring B-game to seemingly interminable show
Are we there yet? Is it election day? Is it possible to bring the date forward a little bit from 17 October? Not by too much – things have to be put in place, pens secured to pieces of string and the like. How’s tomorrow?
Election fatigue hit hard during Tuesday night’s leaders’ debate. It was a long programme. It could have been worse: it could still be going. Mind you, it feels like it still is and always will be; that the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the opposition leader, Judith Collins, will go at it unhappily ever after in front of a live audience in a dark room in Christchurch.
Continue reading...Scientists say hotter and longer summers make such an unusually fierce fire more likely
A bushfire that destroyed most of a village in New Zealand’s South Island has sparked a fierce debate between high-country farmers and conservationists, as those affected struggle to understand the unusually fierce nature of the blaze.
Lake Ōhau village is located at the foothills of the Ben Ohau mountain range, and is home to just 15 permanent residents but its numbers swell significantly during the holiday season. On Sunday morning, a fire tore through the foothills and into the village, forcing 90 people to evacuate.
Continue reading...New law to boost investment is a ‘tragic miscalculation’, campaigners say, as unions plan strike action in protest
Indonesia has passed a wide-ranging bill that will weaken environmental protections and workers’ rights in an attempt to boost investment, a move condemned as a “tragic miscalculation” that could lead to “uncontrolled deforestation”.
Groups representing millions of workers said they would strike on Tuesday in response to protest against the bill, which will amend about 1,200 provisions in 79 existing laws after it was pushed through parliament with unprecedented speed. Police said that a permit for the protest had not been approved, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...Injured surfers and large number of dead sea creatures reported in Kamchatka region
Water pollution in Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula that caused sea creatures to wash up dead on beaches has prompted fears that rocket fuel stored in the region’s military testing grounds may have leaked.
The pollution came to light late last month after surfers reported stinging eyes and said the water had changed colour and developed an odour. Officials later confirmed the surfers had sustained mild burns to their corneas.
Continue reading...New Zealand’s largest city to move to level 1 as Jacinda Ardern says there is 95% probability Auckland cluster is eliminated
Coronavirus restrictions in New Zealand’s largest city will be lifted this week, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said, as she expressed confidence a second wave of Covid-19 infections in Auckland has been almost eliminated.
The city will move to alert level 1 from 11.59pm on Wednesday, joining the rest of the country, after reporting no new cases in the Auckland cluster for 10 consecutive days.
Continue reading...A tongue-in-cheek campaign is urging eligible overseas New Zealanders to vote in this month’s general election. Here’s how easy – and important – it is
Two weeks out from the election, New Zealanders based overseas are being called on to make their voice heard by the “team of 5 million” back home.
Every Kiwi Vote Counts, a new non-partisan initiative, is seeking to increase low turnout among overseas voters with a tongue-in-cheek social media campaign encouraging Kiwis offshore to “meddle” in their election.
Continue reading...The South Pacific nation went to a referendum for the second time in two years on Sunday. The ‘non’ vote prevailed – 53.3% to 46.7%. But an increased ‘oui’ vote in support of independence has laid the foundations for a third referendum in two years’ time
Continue reading...Takada was the first Japanese designer to make a mark on the Paris fashion scene
The Japanese fashion designer Kenzo Takada has died in Paris after contracting Covid-19, a spokesperson has announced. He was 81.
Takada, known best by his first name, was the first designer from Japan to break into the city’s exclusive fashion milieu in the 1970s.
Continue reading...Vorayuth Yoovidhya faces fresh charges after public outrage led to further investigations
Interpol has issued a “red notice” to arrest the fugitive Thai heir to the Red Bull billions over his role in a fatal hit-and-run incident in Bangkok, police have said.
The move by the international police organisation is the latest in the years-long saga surrounding Vorayuth “Boss” Yoovidhya who crashed his Ferrari in 2012, killing a police officer.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern says her country will not open up until Australia records a month without community transmission of Covid-19
New Zealand will not reciprocate quarantine-free trips across the Tasman as the Australian Capital Territory joins Australia’s travel bubble with the country.
On Friday, Australia’s deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, announced New South Wales and the Northern Territory would allow Kiwis to bypass the compulsory fortnight of quarantine on arrival from 16 October.
Continue reading...Beijing formally confirmed death to UN but man’s daughter disputes suggestion he died of ‘pneumonia and tuberculosis’ in 2018
The Chinese government has taken the rare step of formally confirming to the UN the death of a Uighur man whose family believe had been held in a Xinjiang internment camp since 2017.
More than one million people from the Uighur and Turkic Muslim communities in the far western region of Xinjiang are believed to have been detained in camps since 2017, under a crackdown on ethnic minorities which experts say amounts to cultural genocide. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has repeatedly refused requests by international bodies to independently visit and investigate the region, despite growing international backlash.
Continue reading...An invasion may not be imminent but experts say armed forces could have capacity to mount one by the end of the decade
Soon after China imposed the new national security law that effectively ended Hong Kong’s limited autonomy, a hawkish legal academic in Beijing spelt out a warning to Taiwan.
The law was not just about ending a year of protests in Hong Kong, Tian Feilong said in an interview with DW News, it was also sending a message to Taipei – and to Washington, which has recently approved new arms sales and high-level visits by US officials to self-rule Taiwan.
Continue reading...The Mana Motuhake policy is a 25-year plan to improve the outcomes of whānau Māori that the mainstream major parties have failed to deliver on
In an election campaign that has so far been largely a bidding contest over who can fund the most “shovel-ready projects”, create the most jobs and support the most apprentices post-Covid, many commentators have bemoaned the absence of any visionary debate about the type of New Zealand we want to become.
It was therefore refreshing to see the Māori party announce its Mana Motuhake policy this week. As far as timing goes, the policy hasn’t gained a lot of media attention. The news has been dominated by the Serious Fraud Office’s charging of two individuals in connection with the New Zealand First Foundation, a new poll and the second leaders’ debate. Many also think the Māori party is inconsequential in 2020, sitting only on 1–1.5% party vote support in public opinion polls, and not looking like they are going to win back any electorate seats.
Continue reading...Life is busy again in the Chinese capital after the coronavirus outbreak shuttered businesses and hampered tourism. Now firms are looking to this week’s national holiday to ramp up spending
Outside a shopping mall in Beijing
Continue reading...In case that has shocked country and led to new Twitter rules, Takahiro Shiraishi assaulted and strangled victims
A 29-year-old man has pleaded guilty in a Tokyo court to all charges related to killing and dismembering eight young women and one man in 2017, in a case that has shocked the country.
Takahiro Shiraishi told the court he had contacted women via Twitter and other social media platforms who had expressed suicidal thoughts. He then took them to his apartment in Zama, about 25 miles (40km) south-west of Tokyo, where he sexually assaulted them, robbed some and strangled them.
Continue reading...Coronavirus tracking measures handing ‘unchecked powers’ to authoritarian regimes, experts warn
Draconian surveillance measures introduced during the Covid-19 epidemic are handing “unchecked powers” to authoritarian regimes across Asia, human rights experts are warning.
In a report out today, risk analysts warn that “extreme measures and unchecked powers” brought in to tackle Covid-19 could become permanent features of government across the region, and have an impact on the rights and privacy of millions of people.
Continue reading...Dissidents and exiles write to Hongkongers to express solidarity and offer hope for the future
Mainland Chinese residents, activists and writers have watched with dismay as Hong Kong – a city that was once a haven of free speech and political expression – becomes more like those across the border as China cracks down on dissent.
Three months on from the launch of Beijing’s national security law, several have shared advice, empathy and thoughts through letters to their counterparts in Hong Kong.
Continue reading...Beijing’s national security law has prompted the exit of people from all walks of life in fear they or their children are at risk
Joe Kwong* loves Hong Kong. But he knows he has to leave.
A university-educated construction worker in his 30s, he is just one of many Hongkongers who have uprooted their lives in recent months – or are now planning to – because of fears over the rapid demise of the rule of law and civil liberties. Hong Kong’s descent into effective Chinese control has been swift, and was cemented in June by the introduction of the national security law, which prohibits acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces.
Continue reading...