Category Archives: Asia Pacific

China warns US: criticism of Uighur detentions is not ‘helpful’ for trade talks

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Beijing voices anger over ‘gross interference’ after 23 countries criticise arbitrary detentions in Xinjiang

China’s UN envoy has sounded a warning note over trade talks with Washington after the US joined 22 other countries at the UN in criticising Beijing over the detention of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims.

China has been widely condemned for setting up internment camps in the western region of Xinjiang that it describes as “vocational training centres” to stamp out extremism and give people new skills. The United Nations says at least a million Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained.

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Amelia Bambridge: search focuses on Koh Rong fishing boats

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Cambodian officials say six men have been interviewed about Briton’s disappearance

Cambodian officials looking for a British woman missing on Koh Rong island are focusing their search on fishing boats and have interviewed six men about her disappearance.

Amelia Bambridge, 21, from Sussex, was last seen at a beach party at about 3am on Thursday. Nearly 150 Cambodian officials and seven volunteers continued searching the island and surrounding areas on Tuesday, the fourth day of large-scale searches.

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Hong Kong’s reluctant policeman: ‘It’s not for us to deliver punishment’

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The battle with protesters is splitting the police force between those seeking power and others protecting freedoms

Larry Yeung* cuts a lonely figure in the police force these days.

He joined more than 20 years ago because it appealed to his sense of justice. Proudly showing off his graduation tie, he reminisces about his desire as a young recruit to serve society and help the disadvantaged.

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James Comey jokes he will move to New Zealand if Trump is re-elected – video

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The former FBI director James Comey joked he would move to New Zealand if Donald Trump was re-elected in 2020. Comey worked for the Obama administration, caused a storm over Hillary Clinton's emails in 2016 and was fired by Trump in May 2017. He also said US leaders 'can't be people who lie all the time'

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The ‘Lost Rambos’ of Papua New Guinea: how weapons and Hollywood changed tribal disputes – video

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Tribal fighting has long been present in the Papua New Guinea highlands but the influx of modern automatic weaponry in the 1990s turned local disputes into lethal exchanges that threatened to permanently reshape highlands culture. Bootleg copies of the US film Rambo circulated in remote communities, becoming a crude tutorial on the use of such weaponry. The film's influence was so pronounced that the term Rambo is used in Papuan dialects to describe hired mercenaries who are paid to support local combatants in violent tribal disputes. Here we meet the fighters and peacekeepers trying to navigate a path between tradition and modernity

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Hong Kong in recession after protests deal ‘comprehensive blow’

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Financial secretary calls fall in tourism an ‘emergency’ and says it will be extremely difficult for city to achieve any annual growth

Hong Kong’s financial secretary has said the region is in recession after more than five months of anti-government protests, and said it was unlikely to achieve annual economic growth this year.

“The blow to our economy is comprehensive,” Paul Chan said in a blog post on Sunday, adding that figures out on Thursday would show two successive quarters of contraction – the technical definition of a recession.

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Papua New Guinea’s PM given a Bentley bought for Apec summit

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All 111 members of parliament will get vehicles from the Apec fleet, but the fate of 40 Maseratis is not yet known

Papua New Guinea’s prime minister will receive one of the Bentley cars controversially purchased by the government at taxpayers’ expense for the 2018 Apec summit, officials have confirmed.

James Marape became PM in May with promises to crack down on corruption. The finance secretary, Ken Ngangan, has told the Post Courier newspaper that all 111 members of parliament will get vehicles from the Apec fleet for their electoral duties, though no one apart from the PM will receive a Maserati or Bentleys.

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Gutted but gracious: stunned New Zealanders concede ‘better team won’ rugby

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World Cup loss to England disappointing but not devastating as Eddie Jones praised for tactical masterclass

As New Zealand woke up on Sunday morning, the long weekend had lost its lustre.

On Saturday night, the All Blacks had crashed out of the Rugby World Cup in an underwhelming show against England, and the tantalising sweetness of a possible three-time World Cup victory was gone.

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It’s time to boycott any company doing business in Xinjiang | Michael Caster

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Forced labour in China’s internment camps taints the supply chains of many western companies. We need to take action

Any western company doing business in Xinjiang should consider their supply chains tainted by forced labour drawn from internment camps. Hardly a drop in the ocean of the vast global economy, this involves companies such as Ikea, H&M, Volkswagen and Siemens.

This month, the United States banned the import of products made by a firm in Xinjiang over its use of forced labour. It also blacklisted 28 Chinese entities for their role in the repression of Uighurs and issued visa restrictions on key Chinese officials. Following suit, two major Australian companies have now also announced they are ending partnership with their cotton supplier in Xinjiang.

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‘They accept that they might die’: Vietnamese in Britain recall perilous flight to safety

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Essex lorry tragedy has brought back painful memories for those who made similar decisions in search of a better life

For Loan Hoang, news of the tragedy in Essex brought memories rushing back of how her own brothers risked their lives to help their family flee Vietnam four decades ago.

In 1978, three of them were among 600 people crammed on to a boat made for 400. With the boat barely floating under the weight of its cargo, they set out to sea uncertain whether the voyage would end in safety or death.

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Block on GM rice ‘has cost millions of lives and led to child blindness’

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Eco groups and global treaty blamed for delay in supply of vitamin-A enriched Golden Rice

Stifling international regulations have been blamed for delaying the approval of a food that could have helped save millions of lives this century. The claim is made in a new investigation of the controversy surrounding the development of Golden Rice by a team of international scientists.

Golden Rice is a form of normal white rice that has been genetically modified to provide vitamin A to counter blindness and other diseases in children in the developing world. It was developed two decades ago but is still struggling to gain approval in most nations.

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Thousands attend Taiwan’s first pride since legalisation of gay marriage

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Revellers march through Taipei as same-sex equality continues to divide country

Nearly 200,000 revellers have marched through Taipei in a riot of rainbow colours and celebration as Taiwan held its first pride parade since making history in Asia by legalising gay marriage.

The island has long hosted the region’s largest pride marches but this year Taiwan’s LGBT community and its supporters had an extra reason to celebrate on Saturday.

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Volunteers join search for UK woman missing on Cambodian island

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Amelia Bambridge, 21, from Sussex, was last seen in early hours of Thursday at beach party on Koh Rong

Police and volunteers in Cambodia are searching for a missing British woman last seen by friends in the early hours of Thursday at a beach party on the island of Koh Rong.

Amelia Bambridge, 21, from Worthing in Sussex, went to a party on Wednesday at Police Beach, which is popular with backpackers and located off the south-west coast of the South-East Asian country. Her handbag, containing her phone and bank cards, was found on the beach on Thursday but she has not been seen since the event.

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Solomons’ government vetoes Chinese attempt to lease an island

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Agreement for Tulagi, a former Japanese naval base with a deep-water harbour, ‘unlawful’

A Chinese company’s attempt to lease an entire island in the Solomon Islands was unlawful and will not be allowed to go ahead, the Pacific archipelago’s government has announced.

The deal between the Solomons’ Central Province and the state-owned China Sam Group was “unlawful, unenforceable and must be terminated with immediate effect”, prime minister Manasseh Sogavare’s office said in a statement.

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Protests rage around the world – but what comes next?

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Unrest is seemingly everywhere. We look at the some of the reasons for and responses to it in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Chile, Catalonia and Iraq

In Lebanon they are against a tax on WhatsApp and endemic corruption. In Chile, a hike in the metro fare and rampant inequality. In Hong Kong, an extradition bill and creeping authoritarianism. In Algeria, a fifth term for an ageing president and decades of military rule.

The protests raging today and in the past months on the streets of cities around the world have varying triggers. But the fuel is familiar: stagnating middle classes, stifled democracy and the bone-deep conviction that things can be different – even if the alternative is not always clear.

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Lion Air crash report ‘criticises design, maintenance and pilot error’

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Advance copy of report says several factors were to blame for crash that killed 189 in Indonesia

The final report by Indonesian investigators into the crash of a Boeing 737 Max plane flown by Indonesia’s Lion Air that left 189 people dead has found that problems with Boeing’s design, the airline’s maintenance of the jet and pilot errors contributed to the disaster.

The report into the October 2018 crash criticised the US planemaker’s new anti-stall system, MCAS, that automatically pushed the plane’s nose down, leaving pilots fighting for control.

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Chinese orienteering team disqualified for cheating at Military World Games

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Athletes lose moral compass after using secret paths and markings to win contest

A Chinese orienteering team has been disqualified for cheating at the Military World Games in China.

Chinese runners in the middle-distance competition on Sunday initially came first, second, and fourth among the women and second among the men.

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Ardern tells New Zealand farmers to cut carbon emissions or face penalties

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Farmers given until 2022 to make changes or pay higher taxes as party of net-zero emissions by 2050 policy

New Zealand farmers have five years to reduce their carbon emissions before the government introduces financial penalties, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.

Ardern’s Labour coalition government has committed to making New Zealand carbon net-zero by 2050, with the PM likening the climate change battle to the previous generations’ struggle against the rise of nuclear power.

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Auckland fire: heart of city shuts down as firefighting effort enters day three

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Hundreds of firefighters brought in to tackle blaze as Jacinda Ardern promises to restore venue

A fire in Auckland’s city centre continues to smoulder 48 hours after thousands of people were evacuated from the heart of New Zealand’s largest city.

Hundreds of firefighters have been working in shifts to put out the blaze on the roof of the SkyCity convention centre, with reinforcements called in from towns as far away as Hamilton, two hours to the south, which provided 30 firetrucks.

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Thai king sacks six royal officials over ‘evil actions’, days after removing consort

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Royal household bureau members including a nurse and vet sacked for breaching ‘disciplinary conduct’

Thailand’s king has fired six senior palace officials for their “evil actions”, the palace announced Wednesday, days after the monarch stripped his consort of all her titles for “disloyalty”.

In a week of palace intrigue which has gripped the country, King Maha Vajiralongkorn fired six high-ranking officials from the royal household bureau, including “a nurse at the bedroom guard service” and a veterinarian, according to two separate announcements released by palace mouthpiece the Royal Gazette.

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