Indonesia election 2024: from trade to security, what it could mean for Australia

Australia has signalled it wants stronger ties with Indonesia. With Prabowo Subianto leading in the polls, we look ahead to the post-Jokowi landscape

Indonesia is electing a new president on 14 February, with citizens of the world’s third-largest democracy heading to the polls in a huge day of voting and festivities.

The current president, Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, has been in power since 2014 but will not be returning to the top job due to term limits.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

ADF chief unaware Fijian officer handed senior Australian army role was accused of torture, parliament told

Angus Campbell tells parliament recently appointed brigade deputy commander Penioni (Ben) Naliva is entitled to presumption of innocence

The chief of the Australian defence force has told a parliamentary committee he was unaware of serious allegations against a Fijian military officer before approving his appointment to an Australian army brigade.

Colonel Penioni (Ben) Naliva, an officer from the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF), was named last month as a deputy commander of the 7th Brigade based at Gallipoli barracks in Brisbane.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Indonesia’s defence minister vows to be leader for all as polls suggest election win

Sample counts show Prabowo Subianto, former special commander under Suharto dictatorship, taking 59% of vote

The Indonesian defence minister, Prabowo Subianto, a former general dogged by allegations of human rights abuses, has promised to be a leader for all Indonesians after unofficial figures showed he was on course to win the country’s presidential race.

More than 200 million people were eligible to vote on Wednesday in the world’s largest single-day election, a race to decide who should succeed the popular outgoing president, Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, as well as future executive and legislative representatives at all administrative levels across the country.

Continue reading...

Post-Brexit watchdog ‘ready’ to investigate flood of cheaper Chinese electric cars

Remarks by head of trade authority come amid fears UK firms could be undercut ‘to extinction’

The head of Britain’s post-Brexit trade watchdog has said it is ready to follow Brussels in launching an investigation into Chinese companies flooding the market for electric cars, but the government has not asked it to do so.

Oliver Griffiths, the chief executive of the UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), which advises the government on trade defence, said it was keeping lines of communication open with ministers and had been in close contact with the car industry. “We’ll be ready to go if anyone does come to us,” he told the Guardian in an interview.

Continue reading...

David Cameron to have first meeting with Chinese foreign minister

Exclusive: Cameron urged to raise human rights and security concerns in first meeting with Wang Yi since Sunak made him foreign secretary

David Cameron is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, this weekend for the first time since becoming British foreign secretary.

The Foreign Office has pencilled in a meeting between Cameron and Wang at the Munich security conference, according to two government sources.

Continue reading...

Jailed former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra to be freed

Billionaire politician was jailed on corruption charges in August last year after returning from self-imposed exile

Jailed former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is to be freed, the kingdom’s justice minister has said, possibly as soon as the weekend – just six months after returning from 15 years of self-imposed exile.

The controversial billionaire, twice elected premier and ousted in a 2006 military coup, was jailed for eight years on graft and abuse of power charges in August, but within days had his sentence cut to one year by King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

Continue reading...

Indonesia election: president criticised over alleged interference on behalf of Prabowo

The presidential office denies that Joko Widodo has interfered in the upcoming vote

Indonesian President Joko Widodo is facing mounting criticism over alleged interference in the country’s looming elections, as the country prepares to hold the world’s biggest single day vote.

More than 200 million people are eligible to vote in Indonesia’s elections on Wednesday, in which the country’s next president will be selected, as well as future executive and legislative representatives at all administrative levels.

Continue reading...

Australia paid companies linked to suspected drug and weapons smuggling to run offshore detention, review finds

Home affairs minister Clare O’Neil says scathing report shows offshore processing ‘used as a slush fund by suspected criminals’

Contractors suspected of drug smuggling and weapons trafficking were handed multimillion dollar contracts due to a lack of due diligence in the administration of Australia’s offshore detention regime, a scathing report has found.

The home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, has seized on the findings of the inquiry to claim that the now opposition leader, Peter Dutton, oversaw “an offshore processing regime being used as a slush fund by suspected criminals” when he was the responsible minister.

A company whose owners were suspected, through the ownership of another company, of seeking to circumvent US sanctions against Iran, and with extensive suspicious money movements suggesting money laundering, bribery and other criminal activity;

Companies under investigation by the Australian federal police (AFP)

A company whose chief executive was being investigated for possible drugs and arms smuggling into Australia, “although, at the time it would have been unrealistic to have expected those responsible for contract and procurement to be aware of this”; and

An enterprise suspected of corruption.

Continue reading...

Fujitsu won £1.4bn in new government contracts after court ruling on Post Office software bugs

MPs find Treasury-affiliated bodies have engaged Horizon firm since damning 2019 high court judgment

The Japanese technology company Fujitsu, whose flawed technology for the Post Office led to the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of subpostmasters, is confirmed to have held contracts worth more than £3.4bn linked to the Treasury since 2019.

Figures published by the Commons’ treasury committee show £1.4bn of contracts were awarded to Treasury-affiliated organisations after a high court ruling in December 2019 over the company’s software. The judgment found that “bugs, errors and defects” in Fujitsu’s Horizon system could cause shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts.

Continue reading...

Philippines rescuers find girl alive 60 hours after landslide

Three-year-old has given fresh hope of finding more survivors in a gold-mining village where death toll has climbed to 27

The rescue of a child nearly 60 hours after a landslide hit a gold-mining village in the southern Philippines has been hailed as a “miracle” after searchers had given up hope of finding more survivors.

The girl, who the Philippine Red Cross said was three years old, had been among scores of people missing after the rain-induced landslide hit the village.

Continue reading...

Beijing accused of using spying, threats and blackmail against Tibetan exiles

China ‘threatens relatives in Tibet’ to exert control over activists in exile, with greater transnational repression at Tibetan new year

Thousands of Tibetans around the world have been subjected to spying, blackmail and threats against family members still living in Tibet, according to a new report.

The Chinese government’s repressive policies in Tibet continue to be documented, but the new report by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) is the first to investigate the widespread targeting of exiles in countries including the US, India, France, Australia and Canada, researchers say.

Continue reading...

German firm BASF to pull out of Xinjiang after Uyghur abuse claims

Chemicals producer says audits revealed no wrongdoing but recent media reports crossed red line

The German chemicals producer BASF has said it will withdraw from its two joint ventures in Xinjiang, after media reports about alleged human rights abuses relating to its partner company, which BASF’s CEO said crossed a red line.

In a statement on Friday, BASF said that while “regular due diligence measures including internal and external audits have not found any evidence of human rights violations in the two joint ventures”, the recent reports “indicate activities inconsistent with BASF’s values”.

Continue reading...

China has seen a fourth month of falling prices, but will it act to curb deflation?

Plunge in consumer prices has fuelled calls for a stimulus package – yet Beijing may stick to the new normal of lower growth

• China consumer prices plunge at fastest rate for 15 years

China’s economy has gone from bad to worse – and it is only February.

Figures released on Thursday showed consumer prices fell by 0.8% in January compared with a year earlier, outstripping economists’ expectations and marking the biggest contraction in 15 years.

Continue reading...

China consumer prices plunge at fastest rate for 15 years as deflation fears deepen

Plummeting food prices feed steep annual drop amid renewed calls to stimulate economy and offset weakening demand

China’s consumer prices fell at their fastest pace in 15 years in January, as the world’s second-largest economy sank deeper into deflation amid weakening demand.

Data released on Thursday showed that China’s consumer price index tumbled last month, falling by 0.8% compared with a year earlier. It marks the fourth consecutive month of declines, as well as the sharpest drop since September 2009, when the global economy was still grappling with aftershocks from the 2008 banking crisis.

Continue reading...

Lionel Messi: outcry in China and Hong Kong after star returns from injury in time for Japan match

Hong Kong fans need answers over missed fixture, government says, amid online furore over Inter Miami tour

Chinese state media, Hong Kong politicians and fans have cried foul after Lionel Messi played in a match in Japan, just days after he stayed on the bench for a highly-anticipated match in Hong Kong.

Many in Hong Kong were dismayed on Sunday when the 36-year-old Argentinian player did not come on to the field during a much-hyped Inter Miami fixture to a sell-out crowd with fans demanding answers and a refund. Miami’s head coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino said Messi was deemed unfit to play in Sunday’s match in the Hong Kong friendly.

Continue reading...

Japan court lets transgender man change official status without sterilisation in legal first

Ruling comes months after supreme court ruled that requiring sterilisation before a change of gender in official records was unconstitutional

A court in western Japan has approved a transgender man’s request to have his gender changed in official records without undergoing sterilisation surgery, the first known ruling of its kind since the country’s top court struck down a surgery requirement for such record changes.

Tacaquito Usui, 50, could get the gender listed for him in his family registry updated to male, the Okayama family court’s Tsuyama branch ruled on Wednesday. Usui’s original application for the revision was rejected five years ago.

Continue reading...

Killer whales trapped in drift ice off Japan’s Hokkaido coast escape

Pod of orcas in north Japan freed themselves as gaps between the ice grew, officials say

A pod of killer whales trapped by drift ice off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island, have apparently safely escaped, officials have said.

The orcas were initially spotted by a fisher who reported them to officials in the town of Rausu, on the north-east coast of Hokkaido, on Tuesday morning.

Continue reading...

New Zealand pilot kidnapped a year ago in West Papua will be freed, rebel group says

Separatist fighters who seized Phillip Mehrtens say he will be released to protect humanity and safeguard human rights, but did not say when

Rebels in Indonesia’s West Papua region have said they will release a New Zealand pilot who was taken hostage a year ago as a bargaining chip for their independence movement.

The chief of general staff of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPN-PB), Terianus Satto, said in a statement the pilot would be released in order to protect humanity and safeguard human rights.

Continue reading...

Blizzards disrupt lunar new year travel for millions in China

Flights and trains cancelled as heavy snow and freezing rain leave many stranded during busiest travel period

Millions of people in China have had their annual visit home for lunar new year disrupted by blizzards and freezing rain, with delayed or cancelled transport leaving travellers stranded.

Videos on social media showed people hacking away at thick layers of ice that have brought roads to a standstill as millions of people try to get home before spring festival, which starts on 10 February.

Continue reading...

German firm BASF urged to quit Xinjiang over ‘gross abuses’ of Uyghurs

Exclusive: Politicians say chemicals producer ‘appears to be implicated’ in abuses of minorities in Chinese province

The German chemicals producer BASF “appears to be implicated in gross abuses” of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and should withdraw from the Chinese province, a group of politicians from around the world have said.

The group made the allegation in a letter to BASF’s chair, Martin Brudermüller, on Monday, after the German media outlets Der Spiegel and ZDF published a joint investigation on Friday.

Continue reading...