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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Stephen Biegun says Kim Jong-un has committed to ‘destruction’ of plutonium and uranium sites ahead of talks
The US’s special envoy for North Korea has said Donald Trump was willing to offer diplomatic relations and economic aid in return for progress towards “closing the door on 70 years of war and hostility” on the Korean peninsula.
Stephen Biegun, who is due to visit Seoul on Sunday for talks with his counterpart, Kim Hyok-chol, warned that Washington has “contingencies” in place if denuclearisation talks fail, but said: “President Trump is ready to end this war. It is over. It is done. We’re not going to invade North Korea. We are not seeking to topple the regime.”
Continue reading...South-east Asia has three countries in the top five, while Japan comes in last
South-east Asia is one of the most internet-addicted regions on the planet, with the Philippines topping the global list with an average 10 hours and 2 minutes of screen time every day.
The country was joined in the top five by Thailand and Indonesia, according to findings in a new report on online habits released by HootSuite and We Are Social.
Continue reading...Olympic authorities reduce crowd size to make evacuations easier
The organisers of next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo have decided to cut the number of spectators for the sailing events by a third so they can be quickly evacuated to higher ground in the event of a tsunami.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics organising committee had initially planned to allow up to 5,000 people to watch the sailing events off Enoshima island, just south of the Japanese capital, according to the public broadcaster NHK.
Continue reading...Two men wielding a crowbar raid wild nests in Napier, possibly to sell the animals into the illegal wildlife trade
Two of the world’s smallest and most vulnerable penguins have been stolen in a brazen overnight raid on their nests in New Zealand.
Little blue penguins – or kororā – are native to New Zealand and are listed by the Department of Conservation (DoC) as an at-risk, declining population. Little blues are the world’s smallest penguin, and are threatened by common predators such as dogs and cats, urban development on their coastal environment and being hit by cars, boats or caught in nets.
Continue reading...Company is accused of adding synthetic chemicals, including one used in tanning lotion, to honey
A mānuka honey company is being prosecuted by New Zealand’s food safety agency over claims it added artificial chemicals to its product.
In the first case of its kind, the company is accused of adding synthetic chemicals – including one commonly used in tanning lotion – to honey it sold as “mānuka”.
Continue reading...The next 15 megacities #12: The ancient capital of China is pulling out all the stops in a bid to defuse its ticking demographic timebomb
Tan Jingquan is exactly the kind of person the ancient Chinese city of Nanjing wants to attract. The 38-year-old had been searching rival cities for possible sites for his biotech startup for years – until the Nanjing government finally made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“I visited and explored opportunities in nearly a dozen cities,” recalls Tan, a native of Wuhan in central China. “It turned out Nanjing has the best combination of policy incentives and market potential for small startups.”
Continue reading...A technique developed by a Jesuit priest is producing bigger harvests – and reducing emissions of a crop responsible for 1.5% of greenhouse gases
The fragrant jasmine rice growing on the left side of Kreaougkra Junpeng’s five-acre field stands nearly five feet tall.
Each plant has 15 or more tillers, or stalks, and the grains hang heavy from them. The Thai farmer says this will be his best-ever harvest in 30 years and he will reap it four weeks earlier than usual.
Continue reading...Thai capital has been shrouded in murky haze for weeks, forcing residents to don masks and sparking criticism of government
Toxic smog forced Bangkok authorities to issue an unprecedented order to shut nearly 450 schools on Wednesday as authorities struggled to manage a pollution crisis that has stirred widespread concern.
The Thai capital has been shrouded in murky haze for weeks, forcing residents to don masks and sparking social media criticism of the uneven response by the government.
Continue reading...Extradition case in Canada drags on as Donald Trump prepares to meet Beijing’s top trade envoy in Washington
The chief financial officer of Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, has made her first appearance in a Canadian court in more than a month, part of a high-stakes dispute that threatens to cast a pall over this week’s US-China trade talks.
Meng, the daughter of the Chinese telecoms company’s founder, attended the hearing in British Columbia supreme court on Tuesday, just two days before Donald Trump and Chinese vice premier Liu He are scheduled to meet in Washington.
Continue reading...UNHCHR wants access after Indonesian military crackdown in response to guerrilla attack
Indonesia has agreed in principle to allow the UN office of the human rights commissioner into West Papua amid continuing violence in the region.
The long-running low-level insurgency violently escalated late last year, after West Papuan guerrillas attacked a construction site in Nduga, killing at least 17 people they claimed were Indonesian military but who Jakarta insists were civilian workers.
Continue reading...Indictments packed with emails and transactions allegedly showing how technology giant carried out criminal conspiracies
The twin criminal indictments against Huawei unveiled by US authorities on Monday are packed with emails and financial transactions allegedly showing how the Chinese technology giant carried out criminal conspiracies.
But the finer points of the 23 charges are less important than the overall shot they deliver across China’s bows. The US considers Huawei to be an arm of the Chinese state – and their devices to be potential spying equipment for Beijing.
Continue reading...Part of the Philippine urban landscape for decades, jeepneys, small buses originally made from military vehicles left by the Americans after the second world war, are being phased out. Pollution and safety concerns mean jeepneys 15 years or older will be taken off the streets by 2020. Also threatened are the livelihoods of artists who customise them
Continue reading...I signed the agreement to resettle some of Australia’s refugees from Nauru and Manus Island in the US. I wanted to see how they are faring now
Two years ago, Australia’s then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull called to congratulate Donald Trump on his inauguration, and to elicit the new president’s support for continuing an agreement between Australia and the US. Australia had stopped thousands of asylum seekers from reaching its shores and had arranged to detain them on islands in the South Pacific; the US had agreed to resettle some in America. The transcript of the phone conversation makes clear that the deal was a top priority for Turnbull and an unwelcome surprise for Trump, who called it “a rotten deal”.
Related: US believed Australia would take more refugees in exchange for Nauru and Manus deal
Continue reading...• Al-Araibi has been detained in Thailand since November
• ‘We are clearly facing a human rights emergency’
Activists campaigning for the release of the Bahraini refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi, who has been detained in Thailand since November after an Interpol red notice was wrongly issued against him, say his plight has become an emergency.
The warnings came from Brendan Schwab of the World Players Association and the former Australia captain Craig Foster after news that Bahrain has formally submitted an extradition request for Al-Araibi’s return.
Continue reading...The next 15 megacities #10: As Malaysia’s ever-expanding capital swallows up their rainforest habitat, the macaques are turning to guerrilla warfare
The gang stop and stare, attention spiked by our car doors slamming. Ten pairs of eyes flit between our backpacks and our faces. Is it worth mugging us? Do our bags contain bananas or useless, inedible wallets and cameras? The monkeys of Kuala Lumpur’s Ampang district decide against it and head further down the road in the hunt for victims. The morning joggers here run with sticks.
“Twenty years ago this was jungle,” says Viswa Hattan, an accountant jogging in the area. Gated high-rises loom ahead of us, the roads leading to them flanked by forest too dense to enter without machetes. Four macaques, babies clinging to their chests, loiter on a metal road barrier uphill from a construction site. “This was their area,” says Hattan as a nearby male macaque begins vigorously masturbating. “We’ve taken it from them.”
Continue reading...Lawyer who defended activists, victims of land seizures, and members of Falun Gong found guilty of ‘subversion of state power’
The prominent Chinese rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for subversion.
A court in Tianjin heard on Monday that Wang had been found “guilty of subversion of state power”.
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