Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Vanuatu to ban disposable nappies in plastics crackdown: ‘We had no choice’

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Nation suffering disproportionately from climate emergency to phase in ban, believed to be world first, by December

It is but a tiny speck in the Pacific Ocean, but the island state of Vanuatu is leading the global fight against plastic waste. The nation, which has already introduced one of the toughest single-use plastic bans in the world, is believed to be the first to propose a ban on disposable nappies, to be phased in at the end of this year.

At a meeting in London this week, chaired by Patricia Scotland, the secretary general of the Commonwealth, Vanuatu was hailed as a “champion” nation, one of 12 who are forging ahead in tackling ocean and climate emergency challenges.

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Hong Kong protesters disperse after blockade of police HQ

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City heads into third weekend of potential unrest about extradition bill that is before legislature

Thousands of protesters who had blockaded police headquarters in Asia’s leading financial centre had mostly dispersed by Saturday morning with some roads reopened for traffic as normal, but it remained unclear whether further mass protests would take place.

Hong Kong has been bracing for a third weekend of widespread protests against an extradition bill that has plunged the Chinese-ruled city into crisis, posing the greatest popular challenge to President Xi Jinping since he took power on the mainland in 2012.

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Hong Kong, China and universal values | Letter

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Michael Minden says we must grapple with the different realities of those who think and feel not as we do

I agree with Natalie Nougayrède’s point that “universalism is not a dirty word” (Hong Kong’s struggles are ours too, Journal, 19 June), but I don’t think it is “beautiful” either.

As I understand it, it entails a challenge to all of us to assume responsibility for our condition. This cannot be achieved by affirming values as universal because they belong to our particular vocabulary (“basic human aspirations”, “fundamental rights and freedom”, “essential, individual rights”, etc). It can only be achieved by grappling with the different realities of those who think and feel not as we do.

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Milk, bread, democracy: New Zealanders get to vote in supermarkets

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Shake-up of voting laws by Labour government will also allow same-day registration

As well as picking up a carton of milk and a loaf of bread at the supermarket, voters in New Zealand will also be able to pick their new prime minister at the next election, after a shake-up of voting laws allowed for ballot boxes to be placed in busy shops and malls.

The new regulations announced this week will also allow same-day registration and voting.

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North Korea rolls out red carpet for Xi Jinping – in pictures

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Xi Jinping is greeted warmly in North Korea on his first state visit there as China’s president. He has backed North Korea’s new focus on economic development, saying in a speech in the capital that the nation under leader Kim Jong-un had ‘initiated a new strategic line of economic development and improving people’s livelihoods, raising socialist construction in the country to a new high tide.’ North Korea remains heavily dependent on aid, mainly from China and food security is a constant concern.

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‘Like the mafia’: Bangkok’s motorbike taxi drivers locked in deadly turf war

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Tensions between rival moto gangs in the Thai capital escalated after the arrival of ride-hailing apps. Now two men are dead

On Thursday morning on Soi Udomsuk, a market-flanked road in east-central Bangkok, nine police officers on plastic chairs are keeping watch.

The officers, their peaked brown hats neatly lined up on trestle tables, are on the lookout for any signs of trouble between rival motorbike taxi gangs after carnage erupted in this pocket of the city on Saturday when a brutal fight broke out between two groups of drivers.

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Hong Kong: thousands gather for fresh protest against extradition bill

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Demonstrators blocks key road and mass outside police headquarters in fourth protest in two weeks

Protestors in Hong Kong have blocked a key road through the city centre and massed outside police headquarters to demand the total withdrawal of a controversial extradition law, the release of detained activists and apologies for police brutality.

The protest on Friday is the fourth major demonstration in the city in less than two weeks.

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Fresh Hong Kong protests planned for Friday

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Calls for new demonstrations come as government fails to respond to a list of protester demands

Hong Kong is braced for another round of demonstrations after the government failed to respond to a list of protester demands including an investigation into police brutality and the withdrawal of an extradition bill by a Thursday afternoon deadline.

After cut-off set by protest leaders passed without word from the government, messages began circulating on social media calling people to come to central Hong Kong from 7am on Friday.

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Shanghai Sacred: inside China’s religious revival – photo essay

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Photographer and anthropologist Liz Hingley uncovers the spiritual landscape of China’s largest city, revealing the spaces and rituals of this cosmopolitan megalopolis that is home to 26 million people – and to religious groups from Buddhism to Islam, Christianity to Baha’ism, Hinduism to Taoism

  • Shanghai Sacred is at the Victoria Art Gallery & Museum at the University of Liverpool until 26 September as part of LOOK Photo Biennale, the forthcoming book will be published by GOST in November

By ritual, heaven and earth harmoniously combine

For the last thirty to forty years China has been undergoing one of the great religious revivals of our time. Alongside the country’s rapid pace of development, the search for meaning and celebration of the Sacred are shaping China’s future in new and significant ways.

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‘Not welcome’ in Australia: from Tampa refugee to Fulbright scholar, via New Zealand

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New Zealand gave a home, and hope, to Abbas Nazari. He wishes all refugee children could be given the same chance

Abbas Nazari was stranded on a ship in the Indian ocean when he first heard the words “New Zealand”.

Then aged 7, Nazari’s mother, father and four siblings were among 430 asylum seekers, predominantly of the ethnic minority Hazaras of Afghanistan, plucked from a sinking fishing boat by the Norwegian cargo ship, the Tampa. They were later transferred to the HMAS Manoora, where they waited for asylum after Australia refused to accept them; creating an international quagmire over which country would, or should, offer sanctuary on humanitarian grounds.

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Federal court overturns attempt to block medevac transfer from Nauru

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Appearing to set an important precedent, judge rules doctors don’t have to speak to patient to make assessment

The federal court has overturned the home affairs department’s attempt to block the medevac transfer of a critically ill 29-year-old Iraqi man from Nauru, by ruling that doctors don’t have to speak to a patient in order to make a medical assessment.

In a judgement delivered on Tuesday, Justice Mordecai Bromberg found in favour of the refugee, whose lawyers had claimed the department secretary, Mike Pezzullo, had refused to notify the minister of the man’s application for a medical transfer, which would commence the process.

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‘This is everyone’s problem’: protests fail to save Taipei veterans’ village

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Fewer than 30 of 879 villages built to house nationalist KMT soldiers and their families remain in Taiwan. After a lengthy battle, Daguan is to be demolished this week

At 22, Cynthia Tang was one-third the average age of the other people crowded into the abandoned Taipei storefront that served as the office of the Daguan Anti-Eviction Movement.

Looking fervently through the frames of her large round glasses, Tang, a student at the prestigious National Taiwan University, addressed the small crowd. “Two of our student activists have been arrested,” she said. “Now the government is suing them. This is not only their problem – this is everyone’s problem.”

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Fears Hong Kong protests could turn violent amid calls to ‘escalate action’

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Protesters have given authorities until Thursday afternoon to answer demands to retract extradition bill

Hong Kong is bracing for fresh rallies on Friday, which many fear could turn violent, as protesters gave city authorities until Thursday to meet their demands on the retraction of the city’s controversial extradition bill.

Anonymous messages have circulated on social media and messaging services calling for people to gather outside the government headquarters in the Admiralty business district to “escalate their actions” if the Hong Kong government fails to meet their demands by 5pm on Thursday. It called on people to strike, close shops and stay off school on Friday. On one popular chat platform alone, the message received nearly 89,000 “likes”. A user called this “Hong Kong’s last battle”.

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Carrie Lam ignored public opinion, says freed activist

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Joshua Wong blames Hong Kong leader for city’s protests, despite her apology

Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, is the person responsible for mobilising the biggest protests in the city’s history, the freed student activist Joshua Wong has said.

The 22-year-old, who was the face of the last major demonstrations in Hong Kong in 2014, was released from jail on Monday following a two-month term for contempt of court.

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Sound of Hong Kong’s defiance reverberates in Beijing

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Beijing’s public support for Hong Kong leader likely hides private fury, but letting her go would be another humiliation

The most obvious casualty of Hong Kong’s extraordinary uprising against chief executive, Carrie Lam, and her campaign to tie the city more closely to China, will be the bureaucrat-turned-politician’s own career. If she stays on, it will only be as a lame duck leader.

But the city’s turmoil is also a major challenge to her boss and patron, Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

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China is harvesting organs from detainees, tribunal concludes

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Victims include imprisoned followers of Falun Gong movement, China Tribunal says

An independent tribunal sitting in London has concluded that the killing of detainees in China for organ transplants is continuing, and victims include imprisoned followers of the Falun Gong movement.

The China Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who was a prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said in a unanimous determination at the end of its hearings it was “certain that Falun Gong were used for forced organ harvesting”.

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Where does your plastic go? Global investigation reveals America’s dirty secret

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A Guardian report from 11 countries tracks how US waste makes its way across the world – and overwhelms the poorest nations

What happens to your plastic after you drop it in a recycling bin?

According to promotional materials from America’s plastics industry, it is whisked off to a factory where it is seamlessly transformed into something new.

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Hong Kong: pressure builds on Carrie Lam as public rejects apology

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Calls for leader to stand down after estimated 2 million march over unpopular extradition bill

Protesters have kept up pressure on Hong Kong’s leader by blocking streets outside the shuttered legislature building and welcoming the city’s most prominent political activist, Joshua Wong, on his release from jail.

As the political crisis entered its second week, Hong Kong’s police chief admitted that his officers had sought to arrest wounded demonstrators in hospitals after a previous protest, but claimed criminal screening was routine for anyone arriving at A&E.

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Man falls to his death to become Hong Kong protest’s first ‘martyr’

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Crowds mourn the unknown activist, praising his passion and sense of justice

Many among the vast crowds that marched through Hong Kong on Sunday carried white flowers tributes to an anonymous man who had fallen to his death the previous evening after unfurling a large protest banner on scaffolding near government headquarters.

No one knew the man’s name, or why he was there, even though protesters and an opposition politician spent hours trying to persuade him to come down with hymns and exhortations.

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