Nation lifts two-day curfew amid rise in mandatory vaccinations and arrest of ‘anti-vaxxer’
Samoa has said nearly 90% of eligible people have been vaccinated against measles as it lifted a two-day curfew imposed amid an outbreak that has killed 65 in recent weeks.
There were, however, 103 new cases of measles reported since Friday, Samoa’s health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
Continue reading...President says China has plenty of money amid market jitters about trade talks and Beijing vow to be ‘strong backup’ for Hong Kong police
Donald Trump has called for the World Bank to stop lending money to China, a day after the institution adopted a lending plan to Beijing despite Washington’s objections.
The World Bank on Thursday adopted a plan to aid China with $1bn to $1.5bn in low-interest loans annually until 2025. The plan called for lending to “gradually decline” from the previous five-year average of $1.8bn.
Continue reading...Heavy rain has led to rivers bursting their banks, forcing the closure of shops and restaurants
Streets in the South Island tourist towns of Wanaka and Queenstown were slowly going under water on Friday, after Lake Wanaka and Lake Wakatipu burst their banks earlier in the week, flooding businesses and sewerage systems.
Water and large debris closed the main street of Wanaka, a popular spot with Instagrammers thanks to its famous tree that appears to have grown out of the lake. On Friday businesses were sandbagging as heavy rain continued to fall.
Continue reading...Rushan Abbas says countries doing business with China are enabling its mass detention of 3 million people, including her sister
A leading Uighur activist, Rushan Abbas, has urged Australian MPs to take a stronger stance against the Chinese regime, while backing controversial comparisons between the state’s authoritarianism and Nazi Germany.
Abbas, who met with MPs in Canberra on Thursday and held a roundtable at the US Embassy on the plight of the Uighur Muslim minority in western China’s Xinjiang province, said that “modern day” concentration camps holding as many as 3 million Uighurs were a case of “history repeating itself”.
Continue reading...PM signals he is preparing to shut Chinese firm out after lobbying from Donald Trump
Boris Johnson has cast doubt on whether the UK will allow Huawei to invest in its 5G network, suggesting it might “prejudice” the Five Eyes intelligence relationship, after Donald Trump applied pressure for other countries to adopt the US ban.
In his strongest signal so far that he is preparing to shut Huawei out of the network, Johnson said that security concerns were paramount in the decision about the Chinese company.
Continue reading...Police have fired 10,000 canisters in protests, sparking health scare over possible harmful effects
Angel Chan is more cautious about where she takes her two children, aged three and five, to play these days.
“Police have thrown teargas all over the city – some of my friends say their children have come out in rashes,” Chan said. “I simply don’t know where to find a safe spot any more.”
Continue reading...The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, rode a white horse up a sacred mountain on his second symbolic visit to the site in less than two months. Photos showed Kim, his wife and top lieutenants, on horseback as they travelled to snow-covered Mount Paektu, the highest peak on the Korean peninsula
Continue reading...From the shanty towns of Khlong Toei to the hidden parts of Chinatown, Cody Ellingham walked Thailand’s capital every night for five weeks to photograph the city for his book Bangkok Phosphors
Asian markets plunge after Trump comments about trade deal delay made worse by possible Xinjiang sanctions
Global financial markets have gone into a tailspin amid mounting concern that the US and China are not going to conclude an interim trade agreement before a new set of American tariffs hit Chinese goods on 15 December.
Asian markets saw heavy selling on Wednesday after Donald Trump said a trade deal could wait until next year’s presidential election, scotching widely held expectations that he was ready to give the go ahead for an agreement.
Continue reading...Billionaire entrepreneur admits he ‘would say very little at all if I just said sense’
When Elon Musk took the stand on Tuesday, the question was whether he defamed a British cave explorer by calling him a “pedo guy”, but at times it seemed the real issue was more fundamental – the fragility of male egos.
“This is a case about insults between two men,” said Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, in his opening statement to the jury in a federal courthouse in Los Angeles on the first day of the trial.
Continue reading...He Jiankui’s original research, published for the first time, could have failed, scientists say
The gene editing performed on Chinese twins to immunise them against HIV may have failed and created unintended mutations, scientists have said after the original research was made public for the first time.
Excerpts from the manuscript were released by the MIT Technology Review to show how Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui ignored ethical and scientific norms in creating the twins Lula and Nana, whose birth in late 2018 sent shockwaves through the scientific world.
Continue reading...Legislation in response to crackdown in Xinjiang prompts angry response from Beijing
The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would require the Trump administration to toughen its response to China’s crackdown on its Muslim minority in Xinjiang, drawing swift condemnation from Beijing.
The Uighur Act of 2019 is a stronger version of a bill that angered Beijing when it passed the Senate in September. It calls on the president, Donald Trump, to impose sanctions for the first time on a member of China’s powerful politburo even as he seeks a trade deal with Beijing.
Continue reading...North Korea yesterday issued a thinly veiled warning it could resume long-distance missile tests in the next few weeks if the US does not change its negotiating position on the regime’s nuclear disarmament, saying “it is entirely up to the US what Christmas gift it will select to get”.
Related: North Korea's Kim Jong-un opens new city and 'socialist utopia' of Samjiyon
Continue reading...Cha becomes third young Korean star to die in space of two months
South Korean pop star and actor Cha In Ha has been found dead at the age of 27, the third young Korean star to die in the space of two months.
Cha, who was a member of the K-pop group Surprise U and also had a fledgling acting career, was found at his home. His South Korean talent agency Fantagio saying it was “filled with grief at this news that is still hard to believe”.
Continue reading...More than 200,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, say officials, after Typhoon Kammuri slammed into the central Philippines.
The typhoon, the country's 20th this year, brought winds of up to 124mph (200km/h) and caused flooding and landslides. Hundreds of flights at Manila's Ninoy Aquino airport were cancelled. At least three people are reported to have been killed
Continue reading...New Zealand’s political system relies on an untraceable flow of donations from rich individuals with personal agendas. That won’t change
The press release was triumphant. The justice minister, Andrew Little, announced that the government was banning foreign political donations, a move that would “protect New Zealand from foreign interference in our elections”.
This is a good thing. Across the Tasman, Australian politics has been roiled by allegations of Chinese interference. One donor, Huang Xiangmo, who had donated at least A$2.7m to both major parties, had his residency cancelled when his connections to Chinese Communist party-linked organisations were exposed. More recently Bond-esque revelations, including a Chinese defector, a dead businessman and a million-dollar donation, have emerged. Given that Australia is facing such a severe challenge to its democratic integrity, the attention Little is giving to this issue should be welcomed.
Continue reading...LA court to hear Vernon Unsworth’s lawsuit over comments after Thai cave rescue
It was a gripping tale of peril and prowess that captivated the world for more than two tense weeks in the summer of 2018. Twelve boys and their football coach were lost in a subterranean maze in the Tham Luong caves in Thailand. An international team of cave divers raced to rescue them before monsoon rains were due to flood the caves. The story was destined to be fodder for a Hollywood blockbuster – and that was before an eccentric billionaire got involved.
On Tuesday, a postscript to the feelgood tale of the Tham Luang cave rescue will play out in a federal courthouse in Los Angeles, California, as the trial begins in a defamation case brought by the British caver Vernon Unsworth against Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk.
Continue reading...Justice minister cites risk of foreign meddling in 2020 election and says further action could be taken
New Zealand will ban foreign donations to politicians and tighten disclosure rules for political advertising, the government has said, as concerns over foreign interference intensify ahead of an election next year.
The government said it would introduce legislation on Tuesday banning donations over NZ$50 ($32) to political parties and candidates by foreigners.
Continue reading...Police admit that at least one person had been able to access other firearm owners’ personal information online
New Zealand’s high profile gun buyback scheme, enacted by the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, after the Christchurch mosque attacks, has been thrown into disarray after police admitted that at least one person had been able to access other firearm owners’ personal information online.
The error became public on Monday when a gun lobby group said it had spoken to 15 people who were able to access information on a website where firearms owners registered weapons to be relinquished. It included their names, addresses, dates of birth, firearms licence numbers and bank account details, the group said.
Continue reading...Cities around the world are scaling up their use of surveillance cameras and facial recognition systems – but which ones are watching their citizens most closely?
Qiu Rui, a policeman in Chongqing, was on duty this summer when he received an alert from a facial recognition system at a local square. There was a high probability a man caught on camera was a suspect in a 2002 murder case, the system told him.
The depth, breadth and intrusiveness of China's mass surveillance may be unprecedented in modern history
Continue reading...