Rubbish has been washing up on its isolated beaches in the Pitcairn chain at a rate of several thousand bits of plastic a day
Henderson Island, uninhabited and a day’s sea crossing from the nearest sign of civilisation, should be an untouched paradise.
Instead its beaches, which were awarded Unesco world heritage status in 1988, are a monument to humanity’s destructive, disposable culture.
Continue reading...Huang Qi, who ran a website reporting on sensitive topics, is accused of leaking state secrets
China’s first “cyber-dissident”, whose website reported on sensitive topics including human rights, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for leaking state secrets.
Huang Qi ran a website called 64 Tianwang – named after the bloody 4 June 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protesters.
Continue reading...Beijing offers full support to region’s leader in rare remarks from government office
China has offered its full support to Hong Kong’s embattled leader and its police force, and said violent protesters must be swiftly punished, in rare remarks by the government office that oversees policy towards the territory.
Hong Kong has been rocked by two months of escalating pro-democracy protests that have posed the most significant challenge to Beijing’s authority since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Continue reading...Police fired several rounds of teargas at protesters in resdiential areas of Hong Kong in the third day of mass protests as political unrest deepens. Riot police advanced through thick clouds of tear gas as they fired rounds towards protesters, with protesters arming themselves with umbrellas, scrambling to douse the gas canisters with water and throwing them back towards police lines in the city's Sai Wan district. Police were seen arresting a handful of protesters who were led away in handcuffs.
Continue reading...Demonstrators defy ban on marching and set up barricades as unrest deepens
Police fired several rounds of teargas at protesters in residential areas of Hong Kong in the third day of mass protests as political unrest in Hong Kong deepens.
Groups of protesters attending an anti-government rally on Sunday defied police orders and fanned out from the sanctioned area in central Hong Kong, streaming west and east, occupying roads and setting up barricades, prompting major roads and shops to close.
Continue reading...It sounds unpleasant, even painful. But as they ponder the linked challenges posed by China and Russia, Pentagon strategists are earnestly discussing whether Vladimir Putin, Russia’s famously athletic leader, will perform a “reverse Nixon”.
This is neither a daring swivel on the parallel bars nor an unusual sexual position. At issue is whether Putin will emulate the 37th US president, Richard Nixon, whose groundbreaking 1972 cold war outreach to China tilted the strategic balance in America’s favour.
Continue reading...Activists defy police ban to stage protest at site of last weekend’s violent clash
A peaceful march in the town of Yuen Long to condemn an attack by suspected gang members on commuters turned violent as Hong Kong riot police fired teargas and rubber bullets on the crowd and used batons to beat protesters.
On Sunday, the government said 11 men had been arrested, aged between 18 and 68, for unlawful assembly, possession of an offensive weapon and assaulting a police officer. “Police condemn the deliberate attacks by violent protestors and will investigate all illegal and violent acts,” the government said in a statement.
Continue reading...Two South Koreans killed and athletes from US, New Zealand, Netherlands, Italy and Brazil injured
Two South Koreans have died and several others, including athletes attending the world aquatic championships, have been injured after a structure collapsed in a nightclub in the city of Gwangju early on Saturday, a fire department official has said.
The deaths happened when a two-level structure in the club, which is next to the athletes’ village, collapsed at about 2am local time, hitting and pinning revellers, the official said.
Continue reading...James Marape says Australia, with New Zealand and PNG, has a moral obligation to listen to the voices of smaller island nations
Australia has a responsibility to protect the Pacific region from the impacts of climate change, PNG’s newly appointed prime minister has said.
James Marape told the Guardian Australia had “a moral responsibility … to the upkeep of the planet”, particularly given the extreme effect it was having on smaller Pacific nations.
Continue reading...Staff at Hong Kong international airport have begun an 11-hour protest in an attempt to hold the government to account for violent attacks on residents by suspected gang members last week. Flight attendants and airport staff were joined by demonstrators dressed in black, the signature colour of the territory's protest movement. Protesters could be heard chanting 'free Hong Kong' as travellers arrived at the terminal
Continue reading...Flight attendants and airport staff join protesters to condemn government and police
Flight attendants and airport staff have begun a planned 11-hour protest at Hong Kong international airport to call on the government to account for a violent attack on residents by suspected gang members last week.
The aviation staff were joined by demonstrators dressed in black, the signature colour of the Chinese territory’s protest movement, who filled the airport’s arrival hall on Friday. They sat on the ground chanting “Free Hong Kong” as shocked travellers walked through the terminal.
Continue reading...Proposal to replace restrictive legislation with independent media council could end closures of outlets but campaigners remain wary
The Malaysian government is considering repealing a restrictive media law and creating an independent watchdog to regulate the industry.
In a move that activists hope will become the first of many to improve press freedom in the country, the government is discussing the abolition of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA).
Continue reading...Row over plans to build 500 homes on sacred land in Auckland escalates with seven protesters arrested
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, is being accused of a “lack of leadership” over an escalating land dispute between Māori and a construction company which plans to build 500 homes on sacred land in south Auckland.
Opposition to the project boiled over this week over when a group that had been illegally occupying the land was served an eviction notice.
Continue reading...Much of modern China’s epic growth was driven by private enterprise – but under Xi Jinping, the Communist party has returned to being the ultimate authority in business as well as politics. By Richard McGregor
When Xi Jinping took power in 2012, he extolled the importance of the state economy at every turn, while all around him watched as China’s high-speed economy was driven by private entrepreneurs. Since then, Xi has engineered an unmistakable shift in policy. At the time he took office, private firms were responsible for about 50% of all investment in China and about 75% of economic output. But as Nicholas Lardy, a US economist who has long studied the Chinese economy, concluded in a recent study, “Since 2012, private, market-driven growth has given way to a resurgence of the role of the state.”
From the Mao era onwards, Chinese state firms have always had a predominant role in the economy, and the Communist party has always maintained direct control over state firms. For more than a decade, the party has also tried to ensure it played a role inside private businesses. But in his first term in office, Xi has overseen a sea change in how the party approaches the economy, dramatically strengthening the party’s role in both government and private businesses.
Continue reading...Sleepy town of Yuen Long becomes battleground after suspected gangster attack on commuters
Yuen Long, a quiet residential area close to the Chinese border, has become the unlikely next battleground of Hong Kong’s protest movement.
Over the last seven weeks, demonstrators have planned rallies across the territory – in parks, along main roads, in the airport and outside government offices – calling for the withdrawal of an extradition bill and making other political demands. But Yuen Long, known as one of the more remote, isolated areas in the north-west, had never been on the agenda.
Continue reading...This ruminative collection of vignettes steeped in everyday reality was inspired by newspaper accounts of bizarre tragedies
Not a Bond film. In Damien Hirst’s celebrated creation, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was a tiger shark suspended in a tank. In this brief, ruminative piece from Thai film-maker Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, that impossibility is something else – it’s the formaldehyde that the shark’s floating in, or that we’re all floating in, or it’s the banal glass tank itself, or it’s the people milling around the artwork in the gallery, peering at it, shrugging, and then leaving to get on with their day.
This feature is a collection of short stories or realist vignettes, based on or otherwise inspired by newspaper stories about tragic or bizarre deaths. A story about a female student killed by a truck that careered off the road – a woman who, just a few moments before, had been hanging out with her friends in a hotel room and had volunteered to step out to get beer – is dramatised with a simple scene showing the ordinary, undramatic, untragic hanging out: chatting, laughing. Later, a maid silently comes to clean the empty room.
Continue reading...When you’re the child of migrants, your forebears may as well have come from the moon. So I set out to rediscover mine
Growing up in Queensland as ABCs (Australian-born Chinese), my siblings and I would get our backs up whenever strangers complimented us on our English – which was often. “Why wouldn’t I be fluent?” I’d think, fuming. “I was born in Nambour.” It didn’t matter: white Australians around us seemed as impressed by our English, as much as our Hong Kong relatives pitied our butchered Cantonese.
Yet I have an admission. Whenever I saw or encountered other Chinese-Australians speaking fluent English myself, my jaw would hang in disbelief. Seeing Chinese-Australians – or any Asian-Australians, really – on TV was rare in the 1980s and 1990s. But when people like Annette Shun Wah presented on SBS, Elizabeth Chong showed Bert Newton how to stuff a chicken with spring onions, or Dr Cindy Pan discussed prophylactics on Sex/Life – and with Australian accents, like mine! – my brain couldn’t process it. Weren’t my family the only ones?
Continue reading...Foreign affairs ministry and state media accuse US of seeking to bring down the region
Beijing has blamed political unrest in Hong Kong on “black hands” from the US, advising America to remember that “Hong Kong is China’s Hong Kong”.
“We can see that US officials are behind such incidents. Can US officials honestly tell the world what role they played and what are their aims?” said, Hua Chunying, a ministry of foreign affairs spokeswoman, on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Sales of holidays, beer and even tickets to see Butt Detective the Movie slump amid trade tensions
Petrol stations and garages in South Korea are refusing to fill up or service Japanese cars as part of a growing boycott of Japanese goods sparked by trade and political tensions.
Sales of trips to Japan, Japanese beer and even tickets for the anime work Butt Detective the Movie have all been affected, and there are demonstrations outside Japan’s embassy in Seoul, though some now worry the campaign is setting Koreans against each other.
Continue reading...Moscow says it carried out its first long-range operation with Beijing, prompting warning shots from South Korean jets
Russia has said it carried out its first long-range joint air patrol with China in the Asia-Pacific region, a mission that triggered hundreds of warning shots from South Korean jets and a strong protest from Japan.
The flight by two Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers, backed up by a Russian A-50 early warning plane and its Chinese counterpart, a KJ-2000, marks a notable ramping-up of military cooperation between Beijing and Moscow.
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