The cause of the accident in the country’s northern Shaanxi province is being investigated
Twenty-one people have been killed after a roof collapsed at a coalmine in northern China.
A total of 87 people were working underground in the mine in Shaanxi province at the time of the accident on Saturday afternoon, the official news agency Xinhua reported.
Continue reading...Saudi teen was granted asylum by Canada after flying to Thailand to escape her family
The Saudi woman who barricaded herself in a Thai hotel room in a desperate attempt to flee abuse landed in Canada on Saturday, capping a tumultuous and uncertain journey towards safety.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun arrived in Toronto, the country’s largest city. As she entered the airport’s arrivals area, she was accompanied by Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, Chrystia Freeland, who has been a vocal critic of Saudi Arabia’s jailing of female dissidents.
Continue reading...Wang Weijing was arrested on allegations of espionage by Polish authorities
The Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei said it had terminated the employment of a Chinese worker arrested on spying allegations in Poland.
Polish authorities arrested Wang Weijing and a former Polish security official on Friday , a move that could fuel western security concerns about the telecoms equipment maker.
Continue reading...China's space agency has released a video of its Chang'e 4 spacecraft landing on the side of the moon permanently hidden from Earth's view. On Friday, the National Space Administration released images from the lunar surface.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, fled to Thailand last week accusing her family of abuse
An 18-year-old Saudi woman who said she was abused by her family and feared for her life if deported back home has left Thailand for Canada, which has granted her asylum, officials said.
The fast-moving developments capped an eventful week for Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun. She fled her family while visiting Kuwait and flew to Bangkok, where she barricaded herself in an airport hotel to avoid deportation and grabbed global attention by mounting a social media campaign for asylum.
Continue reading...Former Nissan head says he is innocent, meaning he could remain in detention until trial begins
Carlos Ghosn could remain in detention for several months after prosecutors indicted him on two new charges of financial misconduct, days after the former Nissan chairman insisted he had been wrongly accused.
Ghosn was charged with aggravated breach of trust and for understating his pay by 4.3 billion yen for three years through March 2018, the Tokyo district court said.
Continue reading...Swedish furniture company’s long-awaited announcement revealed ... a long wait for a store
The stage was set, a tentative announcement had been made, and the foreign minister was already claiming credit for it. Breaking news alerts had been sent by the major media outlets and liveblogs prepared to transmit Ikea’s vision for New Zealand to the people. Even Sweden’s ambassador, Par Ahlberger, told those assembled that he was an ambassador for Ikea, according to Stuff.
But on Friday, as the tension reached fever pitch, reality came crashing down like a set of badly assembled drawers. The vision was more a back-of-envelope sketch showing Auckland would get a store and some point in a few years’ time, plus there would be another, smaller one, in the South Island.
Continue reading...The environmental education association Re-Think has launched The Guidebook of Marine Debris to highlight the 101 most commonly found plastic items washed up on Taiwan’s beaches. From Hello Kitty toys to cigarette lighters from thousands of kilometres away on the Midway Islands, Re-Think photographed the items in a bid to educate young people on the extent of the problem. The project took a year to complete with the help of beach clean-up volunteers around Taiwan and the Society of Wilderness.
The oldest piece of waste was a military food pack found in Kinmen dated 1988. It still carried the slogan: “Unite against the Communists and promote love for our compatriots.”
Continue reading...Investigation will now examine payments made to former Nissan chairman before 2017
Renault has said it has so far found no evidence of illegal or fraudulent payments to Carlos Ghosn, despite the chief executive of the French carmaker remaining under arrest in Japan.
Ghosn was arrested in November by Japanese authorities over allegations he under-reported income from Nissan, the carmaker he formerly led alongside Renault. He remains in the custody of Japanese authorities in Tokyo.
Continue reading...China’s endorsement has strengthened Kim’s hand, while a second US summit could show his independence
Kim Jong-un has told Xi Jinping he wants a second meeting with Donald Trump and is committed to “achieving results” amid an impasse over denuclearisation, according to state media reports of their meeting in Beijing this week.
Kim told Xi that North Korea would “continue sticking to the stance of denuclearisation” and “make efforts for the second summit between the [North Korean] and US leaders to achieve results”, Chinese state media reported.
Continue reading...China’s new guidelines come after a year in which the government stepped up censorship efforts
China released new guidelines on censoring short videos on Wednesday, prohibiting everything from foot fetishes to spoofing the national anthem, as Beijing continues to clamp down on “harmful” information.
The China Netcasting Services Association, one of the country’s largest government-backed internet associations, published a detailed list of 100 types of content that short video platforms must scrub.
Continue reading...Some residents of Baldwin Street in Dunedin suggest resurfacing top of street to see off challenge from Harlech in Wales
The Welsh town of Harlech is challenging New Zealand’s claim to the steepest street in the world, forcing the city of Dunedin to contemplate losing one of its most famous and lucrative tourist attractions.
Baldwin Street in Dunedin draws in thousands of tourists a year since being crowned the steepest street in the world by Guinness World Records, with an exhausting 1:3 gradient.
Continue reading...Bill Shorten urges Scott Morrison to accept Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun now that the UN has validated her refugee claim
Labor has said the Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun should be resettled in Australia now that her refugee claim had been validated.
The party’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, told ABC radio on Thursday Bill Shorten had written to Scott Morrison urging him to accept Qunun.
Continue reading...Ambassador Lu Shaye wrote in an op-ed for an Ottawa-based paper that western countries are employing a ‘double standard’
China’s ambassador to Canada has accused the country of “white supremacy” in calling for the release of two Canadians detained in China last month.
The arrests were in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a top Chinese tech executive in Canada.
Continue reading...Animal welfare charity appeals for information after dozens of birds found dead or injured
Dozens of birds in New Zealand have been found dead or injured with Christmas decorations tied around them, prompting calls for anyone with information on who is behind the cruel attacks to come forward.
The Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) said a number of sparrows and pigeons have been reported with “decorative trinkets” tied to them in the capital, Wellington.
Continue reading...Australia to consider asylum request after home affairs minister says she would not get ‘special treatment’
Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has been found to be a refugee by the United Nations, and the Australian government will now consider her asylum request, according to the Department of Home Affairs.
The 18-year-old woman barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room on Sunday to prevent her forcible return to Saudi Arabia, where she claims her family will kill her because she has renounced Islam.
Continue reading...Shinzō Abe will first visit the Netherlands, where many Japanese firms are relocating ahead of Brexit
Japan’s prime minister, Shinzō Abe, who is to meet Theresa May in London on Thursday, will underscore the damage Brexit is likely to have on Japanese investment in Britain by first visiting the Netherlands, the country to which many UK-based Japanese firms are redeploying ahead of the UK’s departure from the EU.
The choice of the Netherlands as the other stop on Abe’s mini-European tour is not a coincidence since he will also be given a chance to be briefed on how a no-deal Brexit could clog the flow of trade into Rotterdam, the main gateway for Japanese and British firms into the EU single market.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s picture editors bring you photo highlights from around the world
Continue reading...Mixed messages of welcome greet North Korean leader on three-day trip to Beijing
In China, Kim Jong-un is regarded not only as North Korea’s supreme leader, he is a millennial. As Kim arrived in Beijing on Monday for a three-day visit, Chinese media went out of their way to flatter the young leader.
“The millennial who commands the wind and clouds has arrived in Beijing,” wrote Liu Hong, the Chinese editor of a Xinhua affiliate, on his public WeChat account. “To come to China for a heart-to-heart ahead of such momentous change is a sign of the complexity of the situation and the ability of the millennial to seize the moment.”
Continue reading...Companies offer napping at work as lack of proper rest is estimated to cost economy $138bn a year
Imagine working for an employer who, aware that you’re probably not sleeping enough at night, allows you to down tools and nap as part of your regular work duties – and not just forty winks at your desk, but a restorative snooze in a quiet room.
These are some of the measures being used by a growing number of companies in Japan to counter an epidemic of sleeplessness that costs its economy an estimated $138bn (£108bn) a year.
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