Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Hong Kong protesters use flashmob tactics to evade police

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Mass demonstrations continue ahead of city-wide strike and protests in seven districts

Protesters have taken to the streets of Hong Kong for another round of mass anti-government demonstrations as political unrest continues to roil the city.

Ahead of a city-wide strike and simultaneous protests in seven districts, on Sunday night protesters evaded and frustrated the police by holding flashmob demonstrations. Groups of protesters scattered, switching locations at the last minute and disappearing before riot police were able to arrive en masse.

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Mike Pompeo urges Australia to stand up for itself over trade with China

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US secretary of state dismisses warning by top security analyst, arguing ‘you can sell your soul for a pile of soy beans or you can protect your people’

The US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has declared “you can sell your soul for a pile of soy beans, or you can protect your people”, dismissing a warning from prominent Australian security analyst Hugh White that Australia should avoid following Donald Trump into a confrontation with Beijing that America probably can’t win.

Pompeo issued the provocative declaration during a question-and-answer session at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney on Sunday.

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Torres Strait search: child’s body in PNG probably not one of missing five, police say

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Queensland police say group that set off in boat for Dauan Island on 31 July are unlikely to be found alive

Queensland police have concluded the child’s body found on the Papua New Guinea mainland is unlikely to belong to one of five people missing from an empty boat found floating in the Torres Strait.

The search operation continued on Sunday with police vessels and aerial surveillance.

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Australia giving ‘serious consideration’ to US request to help it confront Iran

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Mike Pompeo hails ‘unbreakable’ relationship between Washington and Canberra as he urges Australia to join coalition to protect shipping in the Gulf

Australia’s defence minister Linda Reynolds says the Morrison government is giving “very serious consideration” to a formal request from the Trump administration to join a US-led coalition to protect shipping in the Gulf from Iranian military forces.

Reynolds told journalists on Sunday after annual security talks between the Australian and American foreign affairs and defence ministers that the Morrison government was deeply concerned by the heightened tensions in the region, and strongly condemned the attacks on shipping in the Gulf.

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Hong Kong protests: police arrest more than 20 after violent clashes

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Tense standoffs follow peaceful march with police resorting to teargas and pepper spray on third consecutive day of mass protest

Demonstrators in Hong Kong have clashed with riot police as the city entered its third consecutive day of mass protests.

On Sunday, the police said they had arrested 20 people during Saturday’s clashes for offences including unlawful assembly and assault.

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Hong Kong protesters risk arrest as Beijing steps up warnings

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Thousands gather in Kowloon as tension mounts in former British colony

Thousands of demonstrators marched in Hong Kong on Saturday, facing the threat of arrest and increasingly severe warnings from Beijing.

Protesters clad head to toe in black, carrying umbrellas and orange helmets, deviated from the route approved by police and took over a major road of the normally busy shopping district of Mongkok. One group held a black banner with the words: “The police have overstepped”, while others chanted for the release of protesters who have been arrested over the last two months of demonstrations.

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Activists scramble to prevent Uighur man’s deportation to China

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Ablikim Yusuf, who had been living in Pakistan, faces detention and torture if he is sent to China, say supporters

Human rights activists are scrambling to prevent the imminent deportation of a Uighur man to China, where they say he faces torture.

Ablikim Yusuf, 53, who has been living in Pakistan, posted a desperate video on Facebook asking for help from the overseas Uighur community. He says in the video, translated and circulated by activists on Saturday: “I am currently being held in Doha airport, about to be deported to Beijing, China. I need the world’s help. I am originally from Hotan.”

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First human-monkey chimera raises concern among scientists

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Researchers reprogrammed human cells before injecting them in the monkey embryo

Efforts to create human-animal chimeras have rebooted an ethical debate after reports emerged that scientists have produced monkey embryos containing human cells.

A chimera is an organism whose cells come from two or more “individuals”, with recent work looking at combinations from different species. The word comes from a beast from Greek mythology which was said to be part lion, part goat and part snake.

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Trump rattles markets as US economy adds 164,000 jobs in July – as it happened

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Markets fell sharply as Trump threatens fresh tariffs; US non-farm payrolls matched economists’ expectations in July, while June figures were revised down

The Bank of Finland governor Olli Rehn has confirmed that he has withdrawn from the race to become the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

EU is about to vote on Europe’s candidate for IMF managing director. It is an exceptionally meaningful and motivating job. However, at this stage I withdraw my name from the ballot, so that we can achieve a broad-based consensus for the European candidate, and world-wide support.

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Hong Kong civil servants protest in defiance of loyalty order

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Mass walkout from government offices at start of four days of mass demonstrations

Thousands of civil servants in Hong Kong have protested against the government in a rare display of defiance as the city braces for four consecutive days of mass demonstrations.

The public servants, who are normally politically neutral, defied a government order to remain “totally loyal” to Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, and crowded into a public park near government offices.

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North Korea missile tests could be effort to divide US, Japan and South

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Three launches in eight days point to ulterior motive amid strained relations between its neighbours and Washington

The series of short-range missile tests by North Korea over the last eight days could be an attempt by Pyongyang to exploit strained US-Japan-South Korea relations, analysts have said.

The latest launches, at about 3am on Friday from North Korea’s east coast, involved the firing of two unidentified projectiles into the Sea of Japan. They follow two tests in the past eight days.

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Māori land rights leader calls on Jacinda Ardern to recognise Indigenous ‘crisis’

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Activist leading Ihumātao dispute calls on PM to visit site and act on Māori disadvantage

The leader of a major Indigenous land dispute in New Zealand has criticised Jacinda Ardern’s government for its lack of action on confronting systemic Māori disadvantage, and says the Māori nation is in “a state of emergency” and “crisis”.

Hundreds of activists camped out in tents and cars continue to occupy a sliver of land at Ihumātao in South Auckland – land they say is sacred to Māori, but which has been sold to a private developer and slated for private housing.

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‘This isn’t true’: Uighur families angered by China claim relatives freed

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China’s claim it has freed 90% of people in Xinjiang detention camps has been met with anger and scepticism

When news broke that senior officials in China were saying 90% of Uighurs detained in Xinjiang’s notorious detention centres had been released, Nurgul Sawut’s phone started going crazy.

“My Whatsapp, my Signal, my Facebook, everyone was tagging me in their posts,” said Sawut, a Uighur community leader based in Canberra. “Everyone started reacting. They were saying: ‘If 90%, where are my relatives, where are my family and friends?’ We’re not seeing any of those people in the community, who are you releasing?”

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Trump’s threat of new China tariffs sparks backlash from US retailers

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Industry warns of job losses and higher consumer prices after president targets another $300bn in imports

US retailers were lining up on Thursday night against Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on a fresh $300bn of Chinese imports in September, if a US-China trade deal can’t be struck.

Financial experts warned of an “economic drag” in the further escalation of trade tensions with China – after the president said that China had not stuck to various promises over trade that he had previously touted as signs of progress.

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Uighurs challenge China to prove missing relatives are free

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Diaspora sceptical over claim most inmates released from Xinjiang detainment centres

China’s claim that most inmates have been released from mass detention centres in Xinjiang region has been met with scepticism by the Uighur diaspora, which has launched a social media campaign challenging Beijing to prove it.

Rights groups and experts say more than 1 million mostly Muslim ethnic minorities have been detained in internment camps in the tightly controlled north-west region, home to China’s ethnic Uighur population.

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Hong Kong protests: China releases dramatic army propaganda video

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Chinese military garrison chief in Hong Kong says army is determined to protect China’s sovereignty, stoking fears of intervention

China has released a dramatic video showing off its army’s capabilities as the head of the armed forces in Hong Kong said the unrest in the province had seriously threatened the life and safety” of the people and should not be tolerated.

The commander of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) garrison in Hong Kong warned it was “determined to protect national sovereignty, security, stability and the prosperity of Hong Kong”.

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Hong Kong protesters charged with rioting as violence flares

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Supporters gather outside court where accused appeared, chanting ‘liberate Hong Kong’

More than 20 people have appeared in court in Hong Kong charged with rioting, as hundreds of supporters gathered outside the building chanting “revolution of our time” and “liberate Hong Kong”.

The hearings marked the first time authorities have resorted to the serious charges of rioting since the beginning of a wave of unrest that has plunged the former British colony into its biggest political crisis since its return to Chinese rule in 1997.

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North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, South Korean report says

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Projectiles were fired early Wednesday, Yonhap news agency reported, citing South Korean military’s joint chiefs of staff

North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles early on Wednesday, less than a week after firing two new short-range ballistic missiles, the South Korean military’s joint chiefs of staff (JCS) said.

The latest launches were from the Hodo peninsula on North Korea’s east coast, the same area from where last week’s were conducted, the JCS said in a statement. It said it was monitoring the situation in case of additional launches and maintaining a readiness posture.

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‘Five Eyes’ nations discuss backdoor access to WhatsApp

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Countries focus on increasingly effective encryption of communications

British, American and other intelligence agencies from English-speaking countries have concluded a two-day meeting in London amid calls for spies and police officers to be given special, backdoor access to WhatsApp and other encrypted communications.

The meeting of the “Five Eyes” nations – the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – was hosted by new home secretary, Priti Patel, in an effort to coordinate efforts to combat terrorism and child abuse.

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Children in Pacific suffer ‘shockingly high’ levels of violence, report finds

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Aid organisations call out ‘dramatic underinvestment’ by Australia and other donors in tackling ‘endemic’ problem

Violence against children in the Pacific region has reached “endemic” levels, with children subject to brutal physical discipline in the home, as well as sexual violence, a new report has found.

More than 4 million children across the region had experienced violent discipline in the home and in Papua New Guinea 27% of parents or caregivers used physical punishment “over and over as hard as they could”, the report by leading NGOs working in the region found.

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