Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Philippines accuses Beijing of ‘dangerously’ firing flares near its aircraft in South China Sea

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Manila alleges ‘harassment’ in past week, including deploying flares just 15 metres away from its aircraft in latest confrontation on strategic waterway

The Philippine government accused China on Saturday of firing flares just metres away from one of its aircraft as it flew patrols over the South China Sea in the past week.

A Chinese fighter jet “engaged in irresponsible and dangerous manoeuvres” on 19 August as the plane from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) made a “maritime domain awareness flight” near Scarborough Shoal, the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea said.

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Woman missing after falling into sinkhole in Kuala Lumpur

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Excavator brought in as search continues for woman buried when eight metre hole opened in pavement

A woman is missing after falling into an eight metre (26ft) deep sinkhole in the Kuala Lumpur city centre on Friday after the pavement caved in, burying her, Malaysian authorities said.

It happened in the Dang Wangi area of the Malaysian capital. The local police chief, Sulizmie Affendy Sulaiman, said that based on witness accounts, the woman was walking along the pavement when the earth suddenly collapsed beneath her.

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Fashion retailer Shein finds child labour in its supply chain

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Disclosure comes as campaigners call on UK to oppose company’s planned listing on London Stock Exchange

The online fashion seller Shein has admitted it found two cases of child labour and factories failing to pay the minimum wage in its supply chain last year, as it tries to gain backing for a potential £50bn UK stock market flotation.

The disclosure, in Shein’s 2023 sustainability report, comes after workers’ rights campaigners called for the government to oppose a possible listing of Shein on the London Stock Exchange over concerns about a lack of transparency about its supply chain and ethical questions. The British Fashion Council (BFC) has also said the listing, which could be announced as early as next month, would be a “significant concern” to the industry.

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Thailand confirms Asia’s first known case of new deadlier mpox variant

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The department of disease control said tests on a traveller had confirmed he was infected with the Clade 1b strain of mpox

Thailand has confirmed Asia’s first known case of a new, deadlier strain of mpox in a patient who had travelled to the country from Africa.

The department of disease control said laboratory tests on the 66-year-old had confirmed he was infected with the mpox Clade 1b variant.

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PwC expecting six-month China ban over Evergrande audit

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Company tells clients it also expects to receive a large fine following property developer’s collapse

The auditor PwC China has reportedly told clients that it expects to receive a six-month ban from Chinese authorities, and potentially a large fine, as a punishment for its role in auditing the collapsed property developer Evergrande.

PwC expects to be banned from conducting regulated activities in China, such as signing off on financial results, for six months starting in September, the Financial Times reported.

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Senior Thai politician who slapped reporter to be investigated

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Thai parliament to investigate Prawit Wongsuwon after he repeatedly hit a journalist as she tried to ask him questions

Thailand’s parliament has said it will investigate a senior politician and former army chief after he was filmed slapping a reporter as she tried to ask him questions.

Prawit Wongsuwon lashed out at a journalist from the public broadcaster ThaiPBS on Friday as she asked him about the appointment of Paetongtarn Shinawatra as the kingdom’s new prime minister.

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China’s coal-fired power boom may be ending amid slowdown in permits

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Permits for coal-fired power plants drop by 83% despite leading world in construction as focus turns to renewables

Coal-fired power is still enjoying a construction boom in China, but a marked slowdown in the permitting of future plants has given experts hope that the world’s biggest emitter may be turning a corner.

China led the world in the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the first half of 2024, with work beginning on more than 41GW of new generation capacity, data published on Thursday showed.

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China begins anti-subsidy investigation into European dairy imports

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Inquiry into eight EU countries is latest chapter in hostility between Beijing and EU over trade

Chinese authorities have launched an anti-subsidy investigation into European dairy imports, in the latest sign of escalating trade tensions between Brussels and Beijing.

The announcement from China’s commerce ministry on Wednesday came a day after the European Commission revealed revised duties on Chinese electric vehicles as part of its examination into what it viewed as artificially cheap cars that posed a threat to jobs in Europe’s motor industry.

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Philippines president says ‘heads will roll’ after wanted mayor allegedly flees country

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Alice Guo, a mayor with alleged links to China, denies any wrongdoing amid human trafficking investigation sparked by raid on compound in her town

The controversy surrounding wanted Filipino mayor Alice Guo has taken another dramatic turn, with government officials alleging that she fled the Philippines in July.

Guo was mayor of the town of Bamban in Tarlac province and is at the centre of a mystery that began in March when officials raided a compound in the town and found about 1,000 workers, including victims of human trafficking, along with luxury villas, high-end cars, and expensive cognac.

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Japan broadcaster apologises after disputed Senkaku Islands called ‘Chinese territory’ on air

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Unscripted remarks about the Japanese-administered islands were made during during a Chinese-language programme on the public broadcaster NHK

Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK, has apologised after a member of staff referred to the disputed Senkaku Islands as “Chinese territory” during an internationally broadcast radio programme this week.

The presenter, a Chinese national in his 40s, made the unscripted remarks for about 20 seconds during a Chinese-language broadcast on Monday on the NHK World-Japan and Radio 2 channels, according to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

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More than 200 unexploded second world war shells found near Solomon Islands school

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Police dug up and removed the rust-caked projectiles, which belonged to US troops during the second world war

Workers at a school in Solomon Islands discovered a buried stockpile of the second world war munitions as they “dug a hole for sewage”, police said.

More than 200 rust-caked projectiles – which once belonged to US troops – have been dug up and removed after they were found near a school staff member’s house, the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force said.

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Australia and Indonesia to deepen military ties after striking ‘historic’ security pact

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Anthony Albanese and Prabowo Subianto announce conclusion of treaty negotiations but reporters weren’t able to ask questions about new deal

Australia and Indonesia have struck a new security pact that will lead to more joint military exercises and visits, prompting human rights advocates to call for safeguards.

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told the Indonesian defence minister and president-elect, Prabowo Subianto, in Canberra on Tuesday that there was “no more important relationship than the one between our two great nations”.

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North Korean soldier crosses militarised border to defect to South – report

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South Korean military says it is investigating but can’t confirm the person’s ‘exact motivations and goals’

A North Korean has defected to South Korea by crossing the militarised border in the eastern part of the Korean peninsula, with Yonhap news agency reporting that the defector is a soldier.

Seoul’s military said on Tuesday it had picked up “one suspected North Korean individual on the eastern front and handed them over to the relevant authorities”. Yonhap news agency reported that the person was a staff sergeant.

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Nearly half of New Zealanders say government policies increasing racial tensions, poll finds

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1News Verian poll comes amid growing concern the coalition’s policy direction will wind back Māori rights

Nearly half of New Zealanders believe the government’s policies have increased racial tensions, new polling shows, as pressure mounts on the government over policy changes that many fear will undermine Māori rights.

The 1News Verian poll released on Monday found 46% of voters believed racial tensions have worsened as a result of the coalition’s policies, while 37% said there had been no difference and 10% thought tensions had reduced. Another 7% of respondents said they didn’t know or preferred not to comment.

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Owner of 7-Eleven stores receives buyout offer from Canadian rival

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Proposal to Tokyo-based Seven & i by ACT could become biggest foreign takeover of a Japanese firm

The owner of the global convenience store chain 7-Eleven has received an offer from a Canadian rival to buy the company, in what could be Japan’s biggest ever foreign takeover.

The Tokyo-based Seven & i revealed on Monday that it had received a bid from the Canadian convenience store multinational Alimentation Couche-Tard (ACT) to buy its stake in the company.

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Chinese and Philippine ships collide near disputed Sabina Shoal in South China Sea

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Philippines says two coast guard vessels damaged by China’s ‘unlawful manoeuvres’, while Beijing says it took ‘control measures’ after vessels illegally entered waters around shoal

Chinese and Philippine vessels collided on Monday during a confrontation near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, the two countries said.

Both countries blamed each other for the incident near the Sabina Shoal.

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‘Monument to history’ battle between US and China over future of Mao’s secretary’s diary

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Beijing is believed to be behind court bid to secure account of life inside Communist HQ

In the early hours of 4 June 1989, Li Rui, a veteran of the Chinese Communist party (CCP), was standing on the balcony of his apartment on Chang’an Boulevard in central Beijing. He could see tanks rolling towards Tiananmen Square.

For weeks, up to a million protesters had been gathering peacefully in Beijing’s plaza, demanding political reform. But they failed. Instead, as Li observed from his unique vantage point, troops opened fire, killing an estimated several thousands of civilians. It was the worst massacre in recent Chinese history. “Soldiers firing randomly with their machine guns, sometimes shooting the ground and sometimes shooting toward the sky,” Li wrote in his diary. A “black weekend”.

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Chinese woman loses final appeal in her fight to freeze her eggs

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Beijing court rejects lawsuit brought by Xu Zaozao, who was seeking to widen access to fertility treatment in China

A Chinese woman who filed a groundbreaking lawsuit to win the right to freeze her eggs has lost her final appeal, exhausting the legal avenues in her fight to widen access to fertility treatment in China.

Beijing No 3 intermediate people’s court ruled that Xu Zaozao’s rights had not been violated when Beijing obstetrics and gynaecology hospital refused to freeze her eggs in 2018. Chinese regulations stipulate that assisted reproductive technology is only for married couples with fertility issues. Xu, now 36, said the doctor gave her some friendly advice instead: hurry up, get married and have children now.

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Paetongtarn Shinawatra becomes Thailand’s youngest prime minister

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Daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra approved as PM after frantic negotiations triggered by ousting of Srettha Thavisin

Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of the billionaire former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has become Thailand’s youngest prime minister, taking office just days after her predecessor was ousted by a shock court ruling.

Paetongtarn was approved as the new head of government in a parliamentary vote that came after 24 hours of frantic negotiations triggered by a court judgment ordering Srettha Thavisin to step down as prime minister.

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China adds new clean power equivalent to UK’s entire electricity output

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Data shows continued surge in wind and solar power amid hopes Chinese greenhouse gas emissions may have peaked

China added as much new clean energy generation in the first half of this year as the UK produced from all sources in the same period last year, data shows, as wind and solar power generation continued to surge in the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Electricity generation from coal and gas dropped by 5% in China in July, year on year, according to an update from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) thinktank, basing its analysis on data released by the Chinese government on Thursday.

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