Investors disappointed after hoped-for policy plans by Beijing to stimulate economy failed to materialise
Chinese stocks have suffered their worst fall in 27 years after efforts by Beijing to stimulate the world’s second-largest economy disappointed investors.
Stock markets in Asia fell sharply after China’s top economic planning authority failed to announce further measures to improve flagging growth.
Continue reading...IEA says faster clean energy rollout being led by solar power in China with country set to boast half of world’s renewables by 2030
China is expected to account for almost 60% of all renewable energy capacity installed worldwide between now and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.
The IEA’s highly influential renewable energy report found that over the next six years renewable energy projects will roll out at three times the pace of the previous six years, led by the clean energy programmes of China and India.
Continue reading...Pig hunters captured video of Tom Phillips and his three children in camouflage walking in rugged terrain in the Waikato region
A fugitive father and his three children have been spotted together for the first time in nearly three years, along the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
Just before Christmas 2021, Tom Phillips fled into the Waikato wilderness with his children Ember, now 8, Maverick, now 9, and Jayda, now 11, following a dispute with their mother.
Continue reading...Timor-Leste president’s trip comes amid mounting pressure for Labor to finalise an agreement
The $74bn Greater Sunrise gas project, which has been decades in the making, could be under way by the end of the year, the Timor-Leste president, José Ramos-Horta, said.
But he also said the pipeline and accompanying processing work must go to his nation, not Darwin.
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Continue reading...Beijing also considering duties on European petrol cars after EU imposed extra levies on Chinese electric vehicles
China has imposed tariffs on EU brandy imports in an escalating tit-for-tat trade row with Brussels over extra levies on Chinese-made electric vehicles.
Beijing also said it was considering duties on imported petrol cars from Europe.
Continue reading...Researchers in China say their suture can speed up wound healing and reduce risk of infection by producing a charge
The humble stitch plays a crucial role in surgery, holding a gash together while tissues repair. Now scientists have created a type of suture they say can help speed up wound healing and reduce the risk of infection.
Researchers in China have created a suture that when put under strain – as occurs during movement – electrically stimulates the wound.
Continue reading...Apollo Quiboloy is also wanted in US on charges of sex trafficking, including of children, and bulk cash smuggling
An influential Philippine pastor who is wanted by the FBI for sex trafficking children has registered to run in the senate election despite being in prison.
Apollo Quiboloy, who claims to be the “appointed son of God” and is an ally of the former president Rodrigo Duterte, was until recently one of the country’s most high-profile fugitives.
Continue reading...A wave of abusive consumers has prompted authorities to introduce the country’s first ordinance to protect service industry employees
Japan is celebrated for its exceptional levels of customer service. But the behaviour of a growing number of customers and clients leaves a lot to be desired.
The rise of the abusive consumer has prompted authorities in Tokyo to introduce the country’s first ordinance – a locally approved regulation – to protect service industry staff from kasuhara – the Japanese abbreviated form of “customer harassment”.
Continue reading...Former president to run in his home city of Davao despite ICC’s investigation into possible crime against humanity
The former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, whose anti-drugs crackdown is being investigated by the international criminal court as a possible crime against humanity, has registered to run for mayor of his home city.
Duterte, 79, filed his papers with the Election Commission in Davao City, where he had served as mayor for about two decades before winning the presidency in 2016. His son, incumbent Davao city mayor, Sebastian Duterte, would run as his vice-mayor in next year’s midterm elections, officials said.
Continue reading...US and EU are supporting infrastructure projects in Angola, which has historically been closer to Russia and China
When Joe Biden travels to Angola on Sunday, it will be the first trip to an African country of his presidency and the first to the continent by a sitting US president since Barack Obama visited Kenya and Ethiopia in 2015.
It is a marker of how Africa’s 54 countries are increasingly courted by global powers, drawn to the continent by geopolitical shifts and an abundance of minerals needed for electric cars and other battery-powered technologies.
Continue reading...Northern Thailand has been hit by severe floods over recent weeks, with Typhoon Yagi worsening the seasonal monsoon rains
Two elephants have drowned, while power was cut and hotels were forced to evacuate guests after the Thai tourist hotspot Chiang Mai was hit by its worst flooding in decades over the weekend.
Across Thailand, 20 provinces are flooded, including nine in the northern region, where 8,625 households are affected according to the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation.
Continue reading...All crew safe after specialist dive and hydrographic vessel ran aground near the southern coast of Upolu as it was conducting a reef survey
A Royal New Zealand Navy vessel has run aground and sunk off Samoa – the first time the navy has lost a ship since the second world war, the New Zealand Defence Force said in a statement on Sunday.
Manawanui, the navy’s specialist dive and hydrographic vessel, ran aground near the southern coast of Upolu on Saturday night as it was conducting a reef survey, Commodore Shane Arndell, the maritime component commander of the New Zealand Defence Force, said in a statement. All 75 crew and passengers were safe.
Continue reading...Lai Ching-te argues the reverse may be true because the Republic of China – the mantle that nationalists carried with them to Taiwan – predates the People’s Republic
It is “impossible” for the People’s Republic of China to become Taiwan’s motherland because Taiwan has older political roots, the island’s president has said.
Lai Ching-te, who took office in May, is condemned by Beijing as a separatist. He rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying the island is a country called the Republic of China that traces its origins back to the 1911 revolution overthrowing the last imperial dynasty.
Continue reading...Several missing and more than 120 injured after storm makes landfall in Kaohsiung, with authorities pleading for people to stay inside
Typhoon Krathon has made landfall in Taiwan, bringing destructive wind and rain to the island’s second biggest city.
The storm has killed at least two people, with several more reported missing and more than 120 injured.
Continue reading...The H5N1 virus killed 47 tigers, three lions and a panther at the My Quynh safari park and the Vuon Xoai zoo, according to state media
Forty-seven tigers, three lions and a panther have died in zoos in south Vietnam due to the H5N1 bird flu virus, state media reported.
The deaths occurred in August and September at the private My Quynh safari park in Long An province and the Vuon Xoai zoo in Dong Nai, near the capital Ho Chi Minh City, the official Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Defectors seeking to cross back into North Korea from the South are rare, though many struggle to adapt to life in their democratic, capitalist neighbour
A North Korean defector living in South Korea has been detained after ramming a stolen bus into a barricade on a bridge near the heavily militarised border, in a failed attempt to return to his isolated homeland.
The man – who fled to the South in 2011 – ignored warnings from soldiers to stop while attempting on Tuesday to drive through the Tongil Bridge in Paju, just south of the heavily fortified demilitarised zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas, according to media reports citing South Korean provincial police.
Continue reading...Seventy reported injured as schools, offices and financial markets shut and people urged to stay at home
One person has been killed, two are missing and 70 injured in bad weather from a typhoon approaching Taiwan, which grounded flights and closed all schools, offices and financial markets for Wednesday and Thursday.
Typhoon Krathon reached super typhoon status in recent days but movement stalled overnight and its intensity has weakened as it moves slowly towards Taiwan’s south-west. Authorities warned the threat of strong winds and storm surges remained for coastal and low-lying communities on the densely populated west coast, and the mountainous areas remained at high risk of landslides and torrential rain.
Continue reading...Unexpected blast at Miyazaki airport makes crater in taxiway and leads to grounding of 80 flights but no injuries
A US bomb from the second world war that had been buried at a Japanese airport has exploded, causing a large crater in a taxiway and the cancellation of more than 80 flights but no injuries, Japanese officials said.
Land and transport ministry officials said there were no aircraft nearby when the bomb exploded at Miyazaki airport in south-western Japan on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Museum features consoles from 1983’s Famicom to 2017’s Switch, as well as honouring Nintendo’s pre-video-game era
Traditionally, visitors to Kyoto in October come for momijigari, the turning of the autumn leaves in the city’s picturesque parks. This autumn, however, there is a new draw: a Nintendo museum.
The new attraction, which opens on Wednesday, is best described as a chapel of video game nostalgia. Upstairs, Nintendo’s many video game consoles, from 1983’s Famicom through 1996’s Nintendo 64 to 2017’s Switch, are displayed reverently alongside their most famous games. On the back wall, visitors can also peer at toys, playing cards and other artefacts from the Japanese company’s pre-video-game history, stretching back to its founding as a hanafuda playing card manufacturer in 1889. Downstairs, there are interactive exhibits with comically gigantic controllers and floor-projected playing cards.
Continue reading...The French Pacific territory has been hit by violent unrest between communities loyal to Paris and pro-independence Indigenous Kanaks
France’s new prime minister, Michel Barnier, has announced that a provincial election scheduled for December in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia has been postponed for a year.
During his inaugural address to parliament on Tuesday, Barnier also said a controversial bill proposed by President Emmanuel Macron to amend the constitution to change voting lists in the territory would not be forwarded to a joint meeting of parliament for ratification. The territory’s Indigenous Kanak people fear changes to the voting registry would favour recent arrivals to the Pacific archipelago.
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