Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Police investigating after she asked her followers to choose death or life and 69% voted for death
A 16 year-old girl has reportedly killed herself in Malaysia, after posting a poll on her Instagram account asking followers if she should die or not, and 69% of responders voting that she should.
Police in the east Malaysia state Sarawak said the girl, who has not been named, posted the poll on the photo sharing app with the message: “Really Important, Help Me Choose D/L”. After most responders voted for “death”, she killed herself.
New Zealand prime minister says laws changed after massacres in her country and in Australia
New Zealand’s prime minister has said she cannot understand America’s failure to ban automatic and semi-automatic guns, despite dozens of mass shootings.
Jacinda Ardern told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in unusually blunt language: “Australia experienced a massacre and changed its laws. New Zealand has had its experience and changed its laws. To be honest with you, I don’t understand the United States.”
Antonio Guterres hears from leaders at Fiji summit who warn region is facing ‘an unprecedented global catastrophe’
Governments around the world must introduce carbon taxes, halt plans for new coal plants and accelerate the closure of existing ones if damage to the Pacific from climate change is to be limited, the UN secretary general has told Pacific leaders on his first visit to the region.
Antonio Guterres met leaders of Pacific countries in Fiji, on a trip that will also see him visit Vanuatu, considered one of the countries most vulnerable to natural disasters due to climate change, and Tuvalu, which is at risk of sinking under rising waters.
Loyalists’ victories in midterm elections will hand populist president more power
The architect of Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal campaign against illegal drugs in the Philippines has almost certainly won a senate seat in the country’s midterm elections, prompting concerns among victims’ groups.
Former police chief Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa is among Duterte’s allies who were on track to take nine of 12 open seats in the upper house, with 95% of ballots counted. The senate has previously been a bulwark against some of the president’s most controversial proposals.
Unofficial results show president’s allies have won nine key upper house seats, traditionally a bulwark against his controversial policies
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s allies were poised for victory in midterm polls, according to unofficial results on Tuesday, signalling firm approval of his policies and clearing a path for his most controversial plans.
Duterte’s deadly drug war has drawn international censure, but is central to the populist appeal that has buoyed his remarkable popularity among Filipinos since taking the presidency in 2016.
At least six widows are taking up the political fight in this year’s midterm elections
At least six widows of slain male politicians are standing in the Philippines’ midterm elections, extending a decades-long tradition of women in the country refusing to let their murdered spouses’ agendas die with them.
“I have a lot of things to do for Rodel, for the people of Daraga,” said Gertrudes Batocabe, who took over her late husband Rodel’s mayor candidacy in the central Philippines city of Daraga when he was shot dead in December. “It’s not really automatic that the wife takes over, but in this case I cannot see my opponents sitting down,” she told AFP.
New Zealand PM will reportedly urge nations to enforce laws banning extremist material and set rules for reporting on terrorism
Details have emerged of a plan by New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern and French president Emmanuel Macron to eliminate terrorist and violent content online.
Ardern and Macron will meet in Paris this week on the sidelines of a meeting of digital ministers from the Group of 7 nations to discuss the plan – named the “Christchurch Call” – and urge other leaders to sign up.
Election seen as referendum on president’s policies, with critics of the government fearing president’s grip on power will tighten
Filipinos have started voting in midterm polls that are being seen as a crucial referendum on Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal crackdown on illegal drugs, unorthodox style and contentious embrace of China.
The poll is expected to strengthen the controversial president’s grip on power, paving the way for him to deliver on pledges to restore the death penalty and rewrite the constitution.
Ballot comes six months after closer-than-expected referendum raised questions over French control of islands
Voters in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia cast ballots for their local Congress on Sunday, with separatists hoping to win a majority.
The ballot comes six months after a closer-than-expected referendum raised questions over France’s control of the strategic islands, which sit on a quarter of the world’s known supplies of nickel, a vital electronics component.
The president’s bullish advisers may be taking a hard line, but the chances of a deal are better than they look
During Donald Trump’s campaign to be president, he regularly cited China’s export subsidies as “evil”, and in his manifesto he pledged to “cut a better deal with China that helps American businesses and workers compete”.
The president turned decades of musings into a policy mission after his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, handed him a book by the academics Peter Navarro and Greg Autry – Death by China – which set out to explain how China manipulated the global trade system for its own ends.
A brawl broke out in Hong Kong’s legislature on Saturday as pro-democracy lawmakers and those loyal to China discussed an extradition law that would extend Beijing’s powers over the financial hub. The former British colony is trying to enact rules that would allow people accused of a crime, including foreigners, to be extradited to countries without formal extradition agreements, including mainland China where they could face vague national security charges and unfair trials
One person apparently fainted during melee prompted by row over extradition law
Hong Kong’s legislative assembly descended into chaos on Saturday as lawmakers for and against amendments to the territory’s extradition law clashed over access to the chamber.
At least one lawmaker was taken from the chamber on a stretcher after apparently fainting during the morning melee, in which legislators pushed and shoved each other on the floor and in an adjoining hallway.
Incurable virus detected in a pig imported from Guangdong province in mainland China
Hong Kong will cull 6,000 pigs after its first ever case of African swine fever was found in an animal at a slaughterhouse close to the border with mainland China.
Britain’s construction sector grew by 1% in the last quarter, as building firms got busier.
But Clive Docwra, managing director of construction consulting and design agency McBains, says Brexit is still hurting the sector.
“Today’s figures mark another increase in output, coming after last month’s statistics showed unexpected moderate growth during February.
“However, this was driven by repair and maintenance - there was no growth in new work across the first quarter of the year, including a decrease in private commercial and housing work.
Britain’s politicians are predictably split on whether the UK is romping along healthily, or simply scrambling to protect itself from Brexit.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, takes an upbeat view on today’s growth figures, pointing out that we’ve now enjoyed nine years of growth.
“Today’s figures show the economy remains robust, with growth of 0.5% in Q1 benefitting every major sector.
“The economy has grown for nine consecutive years, debt is falling, employment is at a record high and wages are rising at their fastest pace in over a decade.
“It’s not surprising to see households and businesses protecting themselves against a potentially disastrous Tory No Deal Brexit.
“With this government increasingly resembling a business entering administration it’s time they admitted the failure of their approach and stood aside for a General Election.
Deputy prime minister denies reports that Thailand is holding the three activists in custody
Three Thai activists facing charges of insulting the monarchy have disappeared after reportedly being arrested in Vietnam, rights groups said, months after two exiled critics of the military and monarchy died.
Thailand’s deputy prime minister, Prawit Wongsuwan, denied the activists were in Thai custody, as has been reported by the Thai Alliance for Human Rights.
Stigma and ignorance drive young people to undertake high-risk treatment without telling families, Amnesty researchers say
Young transgender people in China are risking their lives and health by taking unsafe hormones and attempting surgery on themselves, according to researchers at Amnesty International.
An “alarming” lack of knowledge and expertise within the country’s public health system, as well as restrictive eligibility requirements, has made it almost impossible for trans people to access safe hormone therapy or other gender-affirming treatment, said the human rights group in a report published on Friday.
Donald Trump has insisted that there is “no rush” to secure a deal with China despite growing business and Wall Street fears that the ratcheting up of US tariffs risks a full-blown trade war between the world’s two economic superpowers.
US shares, which were falling for much of the day, staged a late rally on Friday night after Trump tweeted that trade talks “will continue” after the hiking of tariffs on $200bn of Chinese goods.
Launching of two suspected short-range missiles casts doubt on nuclear talks with US
North Korea has fired two suspected short-range missiles, South Korea’s military has said, its second weapons launch in five days and a possible warning that nuclear disarmament talks with Washington could be in danger.
South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said the weapons flew 420km (260 miles) and 270km (167 miles), respectively. It said it was working with the US to determine more details, such as the type of weapon that was fired.
US president tells rally China ‘broke the deal’ and publishes list of imported products that will face higher tariffs from Friday
Donald Trump has warned that China has “broke the deal … so they’ll be paying” as the US and China moved to within 36 hours of a full-scale trade war and the US trade representative’s office filed the formal paperwork needed to increase duties on $200bn (£153bn) of Chinese goods.
Speaking at a rally in Panama City, Florida, on Wednesday night, the US president accused China of going back on their deal. “By the way, you see the tariffs we’re doing?” he asked supporters. “Because they broke the deal. They broke the deal. So they’re flying in, the vice premier tomorrow’s flying in – good man – but they broke the deal. They can’t do that, so they’ll be paying.”
The president added: “If we don’t make the deal, nothing wrong with taking it over $100bn a year – $100bn, we never did that before.”
Scientists have identified a spike in ‘vagrant’ species of fish including damselfish, wrasse and triggerfish
Warming ocean temperatures have been blamed for luring tropical fish thousands of kilometres into New Zealand waters, threatening vulnerable native species as they compete for resources.
Scientists have identified increasing numbers of what they call “vagrant” species rarely seen in the New Zealand’s oceans and said their extended visits were raising concerns about how the islands’ unique local wildlife would adapt.