Lockdowns brought temporary relief to some but, everywhere, test and trace is key
The first wave of coronavirus swept through a world unprepared. Authorities struggled to test for the disease, and didn’t know how to slow the spread of Covid-19.
Lockdowns brought the virus under temporary control in some places, including the UK, buying a window for the revival of education and the economy, and time to prepare for future waves that epidemiologists said were almost inevitable.
Continue reading...Attacks against the Muslim minority in Myanmar have gone unchecked as regional players focus on their own interests
The persecution, ethnic cleansing, and attempted genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine state is an affront to the rule of law, a well-documented atrocity and, according to a top international lawyer, a moral stain on “our collective conscience and humanity”. So why are the killings and other horrors continuing while known perpetrators go unpunished?
It’s a question with several possible answers. Maybe poor, isolated Myanmar, formerly Burma, is not important enough a state to warrant sustained international attention. Perhaps, in the western subconscious, the lives of a largely unseen, unknown, brown-skinned Muslim minority do not matter so much at a time of multiple racial, ethnic and refugee crises.
Continue reading...Demands for curbs on king’s wealth were unthinkable until emergence of radical grassroots movement
Thousands of Thai protesters have marched near the Grand Palace in Bangkok to hand over a series of demands for democratic reforms, including changes to the country’s powerful royal family, in a direct challenge to King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
Protesters, who had camped overnight in the capital following a major pro-democracy rally on Saturday, also called for a general strike.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has said he “approves a deal in concept” that will allow TikTok to continue to operate in the US, after threatening to ban the Chinese-owned app.
Related: China attacks US 'bullying' over ban on Tiktok and WeChat
Continue reading...Protesters in Bangkok call for new constitution and elections, and criticise monarchy
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Bangkok for a major rally on Saturday, demanding the resignation of Thailand’s prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, and reforms to the monarchy – an institution until recently considered beyond direct public criticism.
A grassroots pro-democracy movement led by students has swept across the country, upending decades of convention within months. Protesters have called for a range of democratic reforms, with some groups, including the organisers of Saturday’s rally, demanding the king’s powers and budget be curbed.
Continue reading...Deal is the first concrete implementation of the special arrangements for Northern Ireland
A £200m contract to implement Brexit checks on goods in the Irish Sea has been won by a consortium of companies led by Japanese company Fujistu.
HMRC announced on Friday that a two-year contract for the new trader support service (TSS) had been awarded to a consortium led by the tech company and its partners, the Customs Clearance Consortium, an organisation run by customs expert Robert Hardy and the Institute of Export and International Trade.
Continue reading...Beijing white paper says an average of 1.29 million workers a year have gone through ‘vocational training’ between 2014 and 2019
The Chinese Communist party government has defended its system of internment camps for Uighur and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, in a white paper that also revealed some details of the breadth of its labour program.
In the document published on Thursday, Beijing called them “vocational training centres” , saying: “Through its proactive labor and employment policies, Xinjiang has continuously improved the people’s material and cultural lives, and guaranteed and developed their human rights in every field.”
Continue reading...In an election that sorely needs alternative voices, small parties face an impossibly steep climb to be seen or heard
If you are a follower of New Zealand politics, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the 2020 general election is fundamentally a contest between New Zealand’s two major parties, Labour and National. This is the 28th election they have been in the main ring together, and every government formed since 1935 has been led by one of them.
Outside these two, there are 16 other political parties registered with the New Zealand Electoral Commission. Most, though not all, will be standing candidates and/or a list in this year’s MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) election. The three “minor” parties will also context the vote – the Greens, New Zealand First and ACT – and those which have been in parliament before, like the Māori Party. But even in New Zealand, most voters would be hard pressed to name many, if any, of those remaining.
Continue reading...Checkpoints prevent anyone entering or leaving city of Ruili; WHO warns against swift reopening in Latin America; New Zealand in recession
China has locked down a city on its border with Myanmar and launched a campaign to test the city’s entire population of more than 200,000 people.
Officials in Ruili in Yunnan province said the city had entered a state of “wartime” defences against Covid-19 after two new cases emerged among travellers from Myanmar. Residents have been ordered to stay at home and authorities have set up checkpoints to prevent anyone entering or leaving Ruili and restricting access to border areas nearby. Most businesses have been closed.
Continue reading...Taipei speaks of ‘real possibility’ of war as US undersecretary for economic affairs pays visit that Beijing regards as provocative
Taiwan’s foreign minister has called for the international community to help defend his country against an intensifying military threat from China, fearing “a real possibility” of war.
The comments from the minister, Joseph Wu, come before the expected arrival on Thursday in Taiwan of the US undersecretary for economic affairs, Keith Krach, with a delegation for a two-day visit.
Continue reading...Defence secretary promises future fleet including unmanned ships that will focus on Indo-Pacific region
The US secretary of defence, Mark Esper, has announced an ambitious plan to expand the US Navy with a range of unmanned and autonomous ships, submarines and aircraft to confront the growing maritime challenge from China.
The Pentagon chief said a sweeping review of US naval power dubbed “Future Forward” had laid out a “game-changer” plan that would expand the US sea fleet to more than 355 ships, from the current 293.
Continue reading...One regiment’s symbolic and often suicidal defence of a warehouse in bombed-out Shanghai is the subject of this tub-thumping war epic
The domestic release of this thunderous Chinese war epic was delayed last year for what trade magazine Variety described as “mysterious political reasons”. It is thought the film displeased Communist party academics by portraying rival Kuomintang army officers during the 1937 Sino-Japanese war in too positive a light. To an outsider, however, The Eight Hundred looks like a paragon of tub-thumping patriotism in its description of heroic Chinese soldiers defending the Sihang warehouse in the battle for Shanghai. Like Dunkirk for Brits, the incident is seen here as an honourable defeat, a moment to galvanise national pride.
Continue reading...Shortage of foreign workers behind plan by producers to employ inmates as a stopgap measure
Prisoners are expected to be put to work on Malaysia’s giant palm oil plantations to make up for an acute labour shortage heightened by the coronavirus pandemic.
But workers’ rights experts have warned that the proposal by the country’s palm oil producers may constitute “institutionalised forced labour” in an industry already accused of widespread abuse and exploitation of workers.
Continue reading...Teaching council says student teachers are not able to complete the requisite number of practical hours because of this year’s lockdowns
More than a thousand student teachers in New Zealand will graduate this year without having completed their classroom practice requirements amid the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand said Covid-19 had forced it to think creatively, because many student teachers had been unable to complete the required number of practical hours due to seven weeks of lockdown; and more in Auckland.
Continue reading...Outgoing leader holds final cabinet meeting as his successor, Yoshihide Suga, prepares to take over
Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has said he is “proud” of his legacy as he and his cabinet resigned, clearing the way for his successor to take the reins pending parliamentary confirmation on Wednesday.
Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, announced last month that he was stepping down because of health problems.
Continue reading...President says he has to ‘do something’ about the body after it rules that duties on $200bn worth of Chinese goods breached regulations
The United States has described the World Trade Organization as “completely inadequate” after it criticised the Trump administration’s tariffs on China.
The WTO said on Tuesday that the US breached global trading rules by imposing levies on more than $200bn of Chinese goods in the opening salvo of president Donald Trump’s trade war with Beijing two years ago.
Continue reading...‘Humanity at a crossroads’ after a decade in which all of the 2010 Aichi goals to protect wildlife and ecosystems have been missed
The world has failed to meet a single target to stem the destruction of wildlife and life-sustaining ecosystems in the last decade, according to a devastating new report from the UN on the state of nature.
From tackling pollution to protecting coral reefs, the international community did not fully achieve any of the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets agreed in Japan in 2010 to slow the loss of the natural world. It is the second consecutive decade that governments have failed to meet targets.
Continue reading...Revival prompts calls to divert boats to help protect native Indo-Pacific humpbacks
Large numbers of dolphins returned to Hong Kong waters within weeks of the Covid-19 crisis shutting down high-speed ferries, and researchers are now calling for protections before the ferries resume.
Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, also known as Chinese white dolphins and pink dolphins, are native to the Pearl River estuary, but typically avoided the waters between Hong Kong and Macau because of the high volume of high-speed boats.
Continue reading...New Zealand’s national language week will have little or no impact on most Kiwis, but we must protect te reo as a national treasure
I can already feel my heart begin to race when I know I am expected to speak te reo Māori, the Indigenous tongue of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Where I am from, people know me as this confident, fluent speaker of the Māori language. But here I am today, sweaty-palmed at the mere thought of saying a simple greeting and introduction in my mother tongue.
It is a far cry from the old me, who would win back-to-back Māori language speech competitions at a school where we learned everything in total immersion te reo Māori.
Continue reading...Cybersecurity experts concerned by possible intent behind use of big data to compile lists featuring everyone from low-key individuals to the royal family
The personal details of millions of people around the world have been swept up in a database compiled by a Chinese tech company with reported links to the country’s military and intelligence networks, according to a trove of leaked data.
About 2.4 million people are included in the database, assembled mostly based on public open-source data such as social media profiles, analysts said. It was compiled by Zhenhua Data, based in the south-eastern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
Continue reading...