Category Archives: Asia Pacific

May hopes Japanese PM will back Brexit stance in London visit

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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.

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‘Most extraordinary millennial’ – why does China focus on Kim Jong-un’s age?

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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.”

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Snoozing on the job: Japanese firms tackle epidemic of sleeplessness

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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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North Korea’s Kim Jong-un arrives in China for meeting with Xi Jinping

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Beijing meeting comes as denuclearisation talks with the US have stalled

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrived in China on Monday for a three-day visit at the invitation of Chinese president Xi Jinping, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.

Kim’s visit, which state media confirmed would last for three days is his fourth summit with Xi, comes amid reports of advanced negotiations for a second summit between the North Korean leader and US president Donald Trump.

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Rahaf al-Qunun: Saudi woman under UN protection as Australia urges asylum claim

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Thai authorities say 18-year-old will not be forced to return with her father to the Middle East, where she claims her family will kill her

An 18-year-old Saudi woman who barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room to prevent her forcible return to a family she claims will kill her, has been taken under the protection of the UN high commissioner for refugees in Thailand.

The Australian government said on Monday night Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun’s situation was “deeply concerning” and it had lobbied the Thai government and the UNHCR to allow her to formally claim asylum.

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Japanese billionaire splashes cash to earn title of most retweeted post

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Yusaka Maezawa said 100 people who retweeted his message about sales of his fashion retailer would win one million yen

Months after he was named as the first passenger on Elon Musk’s planned rocket flight around the moon, the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has entered the record books for posting the most retweeted message in Twitter’s 13-year-history.

Writing in Japanese, Maezawa noted in his 5 January tweet that his online fashion retailer, Zozotown, had recorded astonishing sales, and to celebrate dangled a cash gift in front of followers who retweeted the message.

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Saudi woman shuts herself in Thai hotel room to avoid deportation

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Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun says she will be killed if forced to return to abusive family

An 18-year-old Saudi woman being detained in Bangkok having fled from her family after renouncing Islam fears she will be killed if she is repatriated, according to a close friend who said the threats to her life are real.

Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has barricaded herself in her hotel room for fear that Thai immigration officials, who have gathered outside her door, would force her on to a plane to leave the country. Thai immigration officials have confirmed she has been denied entry to the country.

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Go-getter: Japanese girl, nine, becomes strategy game’s youngest professional

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Sumire Nakamura is the product of a special programme to promote the ancient pursuit and compete with Korean and Chinese players

A nine-year-old girl in Japan will become the youngest-ever professional player of the strategy board game go when she makes her debut later this year.

Sumire Nakamura, who attends primary school in Osaka, started playing go at the age of three and will start her career at the lowest rank of shodan on 1 April, according to Japanese media.

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Mungau Dain, Tanna star and ‘Vanuatu’s Brad Pitt’, dies after untreated leg infection

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First-time actor, who starred in Oscar-nominated Australian-Vanuatu film, remembered as a ‘gentle soul’ and ‘deep family man’

Mungau Dain, who starred in the Oscar-nominated Australian-Vanuatu film Tanna – his first acting role – has died in Port Vila following an untreated infection in his leg.

The film’s co-directors, Bentley Dean and Martin Butler, and script editor Janita Suter, spoke to Guardian Australia after conversations with people on the island about Dain’s death.

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China feels the squeeze of Trump’s trade war as more tariffs loom

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Talks begin this week in Beijing to end the trade war – and even titans such as Apple are feeling its impact

It epitomises China’s position in the global economy that a seismic warning about its health last week came from a US company: Apple. The iPhone maker cut sales forecasts, citing the unforeseen “magnitude” of the economic slowdown in China – a vital growth market. At the same time the head of Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, warned his employees that “winter is coming” in the world’s second-largest economy.

If China is indeed entering an economic winter, then the chill will spread around the globe. Forty years after communist China opened its doors to trade with the west in a dash for growth, the country’s mix of free-market policies and central planning faces one of its sternest tests.

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Fears grow in Africa that the flood of funds from China will start to ebb

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Slowing growth and rising debt at home may affect Beijing’s ability to keep up its vast investments in the developing world

Concerns over Chinese growth could spell problems for Africa and other parts of the developing world. Beijing funded an overseas investment boom in the past few decades as it strove to become the world’s second largest economic superpower, while also buying vast amounts of the natural resources produced by emerging nations.

The scale of the expansion forms part of China’s multibillion-dollar “Belt and Road” Initiative, a state-backed campaign to promote its influence around the world, while providing stimulus for its own slowing economy. The transcontinental development project, launched by China’s president, Xi Jinping, in 2013, aims to improve infrastructure links between Asia, Europe and Africa, with the aim for China to reap the benefits from increasing levels of global trade.

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Tropical Storm Pabuk batters Thailand coast but tourists are spared the worst

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Nearly 30,000 people are forced into emergency shelters as the waning weather system skirts Koh Samui

Floods and blackouts caused by Tropical Storm Pabuk have left nearly 30,000 people in evacuation shelters across southern Thailand, but tourists stranded on holiday islands were spared the worst and began to plot routes home.

Pabuk, a once in three-decades weather system, packed winds of up to 75km (45 miles) an hour and brought heavy rains and storm surges as it lashed the entire south of the kingdom on Friday, downing power cables and causing widespread flooding.

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Sushi king pays record $3.1m for endangered bluefin tuna in Japan

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The winning auction bid for the enormous tuna was more than double the price fetched five years ago

A record $3.1 m (£2.4 m) has been paid for a giant bluefin tuna at Tokyo’s new fish market, which replaced the world-famous Tsukiji late last year.

The winning bid for the prized but endangered species at the predawn auction was more than double the 2013 annual New Year auction.

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Canada says 13 citizens detained in China since Huawei CFO’s arrest

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Diplomatic tensions between the two countries have escalated since Meng Wanzhou’s arrest on 1 December

Canada has said 13 of its citizens have been detained in China since the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in December in Vancouver at the request of the US.

“At least” eight of those 13 have since been released, a Canadian government statement said, without disclosing what charges if any had been laid.

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China thinks it can arbitrarily detain anyone. It is time for change | Michael Caster

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The lack of global outcry over the detention of two Canadians virtually guarantees the next such case

Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, has called China’s detention of Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor a “worrying precedent” but for many China watchers it is all too familiar.

It reminds us of the detentions of other foreign citizens, such as Canadian Kevin Garratt, Briton Peter Humphrey, Sweden’s Gui Minhai, or Taiwanese Lee Ming-che, and that over the years China has institutionalised arbitrary and secret detention affecting innumerable Chinese citizens, and with little international consequence.

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Tropical Storm Pabuk buffets Thailand’s east coast

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Trees felled and roads flooded but storm appears to have done less damage than feared

Rain, wind and surging seawater from a tropical storm has buffeted coastal villages and tourist resorts on southern Thailand’s east coast, knocking down trees and utility poles and flooding roads.

One person was reported dead and another missing after a fishing boat with a crew of six capsized in high waves, but by nightfall it appeared that Tropical Storm Pabuk had caused less damage than feared.

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iPhone slump: the rivals taking a bite out of Apple

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As firm’s stock falls over sales warnings, it has competition in bid to be the best smartphone

As Apple’s shares tumble after its cut in forecasts, the company is laying the blame squarely on the economic slowdown in China. But that is only part of the problem.

Never before has Apple faced such fierce competition from a multitude of rivals from around the globe, all vying for a slice of the lucrative premium smartphone market. Matching or exceeding Apple’s iPhone on hardware quality, these phones are arguably more capable, often cheaper and, perhaps crucially for China, made by local firms, not only those from the US and South Korea.

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Far side of the moon: China’s Chang’e 4 probe makes historic touchdown

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Lander sends back first close-up shot of previously unexplored side of the moon

A Chinese spacecraft has become the first ever to land on the far side of the moon, according to state-run media, in a giant leap for human space exploration.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) landed the robotic probe Chang’e 4 in the unexplored South Pole-Aitken basin, the largest, oldest, deepest, crater on the moon’s surface.

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