Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Goldman Sachs plans to cut bonuses as 1MDB scandal deepens

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Investment bank might withhold cash from former boss Lloyd Blankfein over firm’s involvement in Malaysian affair

Goldman Sachs’s decision to potentially cut bonuses for top executives over the 1MDB scandal reflects an acknowledgement of shareholder and public outrage over the debacle.

The prestigious investment bank has announced that it could withhold millions of dollars in bonuses to former chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and two other retired executives depending on the outcome of ongoing inquiries into the Malaysian fund.

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Risk of global recession may be low but we are heading for slowdown

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Although there is a cloud over economy, the silver lining is central banks are more dovish

After the synchronised global economic expansion of 2017 came the asynchronous growth of 2018, when most countries other than the US started to experience slowdowns. Worries about US inflation, the US Federal Reserve’s policy trajectory, trade wars, Italian budget and debt woes, China’s slowdown and emerging-market fragilities led to a sharp fall in global equity markets toward the end of the year.

The good news at the start of 2019 is that the risk of an outright global recession is low. The bad news is that we are heading into a year of synchronised global deceleration; growth will fall toward – and, in some cases, below – potential in most regions.

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Princess’s shock entry to election race upends Thai politics | Simon Tisdall

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In what looks like a Thaksin Shinawatra masterstroke, the junta now has a real challenger

Call it Thaksin’s revenge. The shock announcement on Friday that a senior royal is running for prime minister has electrified Thai politics. It is a shot in the arm for a moribund democracy suffocated by authoritarian rule. It wrecks the traditional separation of crown and government. And it means next month’s election may prove a genuine contest, not merely a joyless coronation of Prayut Chan-o-cha, leader of the military junta.

Yet most telling is the fact that the nomination of Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi, elder sister of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, was put forward by the Thai Raksa Chart party. The party is closely allied to Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, both former prime ministers ousted in military coups in 2006 and 2014 respectively, the latter led by Prayut.

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‘Political earthquake’ as Thai princess runs for PM against military junta

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Surprise move pits Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi against leader of 2014 coup

The sister of Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn has entered the race to become prime minister in next month’s elections in an unprecedented move that redraws the country’s political landscape.

Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi said she was exercising her rights as a citizen in accepting an offer to represent the Thai Raksa Chart party. She is the first member of the royal family to run for the office of PM, and will face the coup leader and head of Thailand’s military junta, Prayut Chan-o-cha, who said on Friday he was running to “maintain peace and order”.

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No-deal Brexit: UK exporters risk being locked out of world’s harbours

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Goods dispatched in coming days may not arrive until after 29 March deadline

British exporters sending goods to far-flung destinations in the coming days risk being locked out of harbours around the world as a no-deal Brexit looms, business leaders have warned.

Independent trade experts and the UK’s biggest business groups said exporters could be dispatching goods from UK ports imminently that would not arrive until after the 29 March deadline. This raised the prospect of goods being stuck in ports or facing hefty additional costs in the event of a disorderly Brexit.

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Record numbers from China and Hong Kong applying to study in UK

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Chinese and Hongkonger university applicants now outnumber those from Wales

Record numbers of students from China and Hong Kong are applying for places at British universities, overtaking the number of applicants from Wales, according to official figures.

Data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) shows a spike in demand for undergraduate places from mainland China and a small rise in applications from the EU, despite fears over Brexit.

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R Kelly Australia tour raises ‘serious concerns’ amid sex abuse allegations

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R&B singer announces tour of Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka after explosive documentary detailing accusations

The R&B singer R Kelly, who is facing multiple accusations of sexual abuse, has announced a tour to Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka, prompting concern from members of the public and some MPs.

The tour, which was announced in social media posts from the singer – but was accompanied by no dates or venues – comes in the wake of an explosive documentary detailing allegations that the artist has been sexually and physically abusing women for decades. R Kelly has denied the allegations, and has faced no criminal convictions.

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Trump confirms second summit with Kim Jong-un will be in Vietnam within weeks

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The meeting between leaders of US and North Korea is expected to take place in either Danang or Hanoi on 27-28 February

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are to hold their second summit in Vietnam at the end of February, the US president has confirmed.

In his state of the union speech to Congress, Trump repeated an earlier claim to averted a major with his Korean diplomacy.

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North Korea trying to keep its nuclear missiles safe from US strikes, says UN report

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Measures said to include using civilian facilities to make and test missiles

North Korea is trying to ensure its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities are safe from US military strikes, a UN report has said, as officials from both countries prepared to meet to discuss a second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.

Trump is expected to meet the North Korean leader, possibly in Vietnam, at the end of the month to discuss measures that would lead to Pyongyang giving up its nuclear weapons in return for US security guarantees and other assurances.

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15 Thai election candidates change their names to those of former PMs

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Unusual strategy sees 10 men adopting the name Thaksin, and five women Yingluck in a bid to be memorable to voters

More than a dozen candidates in the forthcoming Thai elections have changed their names to those of former prime ministers.

Less than two months before the long-awaited elections, excitement is running high. Almost 6,000 candidates turned up on the first day of registration on Monday, no one wants to miss a chance to win a seat.

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Japan’s deputy PM blames women for nation’s falling population

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Anger after Taro Aso appears to say women not giving birth are the ‘problem’

Japan’s gaffe-prone deputy prime minister, Taro Aso, has been forced to retract remarks that appeared to blame women who do not have children for problems associated with the country’s low birthrate and ageing population.

Aso, who doubles as finance minister, told a constituency meeting in Fukuoka, south-west Japan, at the weekend that older people were being unfairly singled out to explain the country’s demographic crisis.

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Mystery mud on new volcanic island baffles Nasa scientists

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Island sprang up near Tonga three years ago, giving researchers a glimpse of how flora and fauna colonise it

Nasa scientists have landed for the first time on one of the world’s newest islands, and discovered the three-year-old land mass is now covered in a sticky, mysterious mud, as well as vegetation and bird life.

The volcanic island sprang up in the ocean surrounding Tonga three years ago, one of only three new islands to emerge in the last 150 years that have survived more than a few months.

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Inside Chengdu: can China’s megacity version of the garden city work?

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The next 15 megacities #13: It may be China’s most liveable burgeoning megacity, but Chengdu’s park city plans bear a price tag of forced evictions and relocations

Read the rest of our megacities series here

“The goal is that every 300 metres you see green,” says Chen Lan, an expert in urban design and planning at Sichuan University in the emerging Chinese megacity of Chengdu. “You open a window, you see green, you see a park …”

With its mild weather, teahouses, quiet leafy streets and internationally known food, Chengdu in south-west China has long been rated one of the country’s most liveable cities.

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The Guardian view on the pope in the Gulf: an important signal | Editorial

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As the first leader of the Catholic church to visit the Arabian peninsula, Francis knows his contact with Muslims will be as important as the mass he hosts for the Christian minority

Pope Francis’s visit to the United Arab Emirates this week will be greeted enthusiastically. Some 120,000 people are expected to turn out for his mass in a sports stadium in Abu Dhabi – as many as turned out in Dublin when he travelled to historically Catholic Ireland last year. The first visit by a pontiff to the Arabian peninsula, the birthplace of Islam, highlights the complications of the religious situation in the Middle East, and more widely the issues of Christian-Muslim relations.

There may be as many as 2 million Christians in the Middle East today. Despite nearly 16 years of war and sometimes brutal persecution in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, many remain in the lands that were the cradle of Christianity. In part this is because it is still made as hard as possible for them to leave the region. The Christians of Iraq have largely been driven from their homes by persecution, as have some of the Christians of Syria, where a number have taken the side of the Assad dictatorship. But they have ended up in refugee camps rather than reaching notionally Christian Europe.

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Venezuelan opposition leader urges China to abandon Maduro

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Call from Juan Guaidó comes after Beijing hints support may not be everlasting

Juan Guaidó, the opposition politician leading the push to topple Nicolás Maduro, has urged one of the Venezuelan president’s key international backers, China, to abandon him.

His remark comes after Beijing said it hoped to continue working with Caracas “no matter how the situation evolves”, suggesting China was now preparing for a future without Maduro.

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Yang Hengjun: lawyers denied access to Australian held in China

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Authorities say Chinese-born writer refused to see legal team but secretive process means claim can not be verified

Two lawyers hired by the wife of an Australian detained in Beijing for suspected espionage have said they were denied access to him by Chinese authorities, who said the detainee had not agreed to their appointment.

Yang Hengjun, a 53-year-old Chinese-born writer, was detained in the southern city of Guangzhou while waiting for a transfer to Shanghai in January. He had flown in from New York.

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‘Divide and conquer’: China puts the pressure on US allies

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Criticism of Canada’s case against Meng Wanzhou seen as part of attempt to isolate US

As tensions between China and the US mount over trade and the extradition of a senior Huawei executive, Beijing has reserved its most colourful language for America’s allies.

On Tuesday, China’s ministry of foreign affairs called on Canada to “stop pulling chestnuts out of the fire for the US” after the unsealing of a 13-count indictment against the Huawei chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada in December. An editorial in the state-run Global Times put it more bluntly: “You cannot live the life of a whore and expect a monument to your chastity … If Canada insists on wrong practice, it must pay for it.”

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Fake eyelash company fined $1m over North Korean imports

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ELF Cosmetics managed to bat away more than $40m in penalties after reporting its breach of sanctions to authorities

A California cosmetics company has agreed to pay a nearly US$1m fine for importing fake eyelashes containing materials from North Korea in breach of sanctions, the US treasury has announced.

Between 2012 and 2017 the company imported “156 shipments of false eyelash kits from two suppliers located in the People’s Republic of China that contained materials sourced by these suppliers” from North Korea, said a treasury statement.

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