Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Halloween costumes in Shanghai poke fun at Chinese authorities

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People dress as Covid workers, surveillance cameras and Winnie-the-Pooh, a reference to Xi Jinping

Halloween revellers in Shanghai have poked fun at the Chinese authorities with their costumes, dressing up as Covid prevention workers, surveillance cameras and China’s falling stock market.

Videos posted on social media showed police shepherding away people with particularly subversive costumes on Tuesday night, including one dressed as Lu Xun, a Chinese writer from the early 20th century whose fable about a useless scholar has become a meme for China’s unemployed youth.

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Seoul to trial seatless subway carriages to cut rush-hour congestion

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From January, it will be standing room only in some carriages so people can use the South Korean capital’s metro lines ‘more comfortably and safely’

Seoul’s subway system plans to introduce trains with carriages with no seating in order to alleviate congestion during peak hours, its operator has announced.

The trial programme, set to start in January, will involve the removal of seats from two carriages on subway trains running on two of the South Korean’s capital’s nine major lines during morning and evening rush hours, Seoul Metro said on Wednesday. It forms part of a broader project aimed at reducing congestion on one of the world’s busiest metro systems.

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Hong Kong: over-the-top punishment for 2019 democracy protesters, report finds

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More than 10,000 arrests and nearly 3,000 prosecutions, with 82% given jail including ‘extraordinary high’ proportion of children

Protesters involved in the 2019-2020 pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong have been treated extraordinarily harshly by the criminal justice system compared with local and international norms, a report has found.

The surge in arrests, detentions and charges in the wake of the anti-extradition bill protests that saw millions of Hongkongers taking to the streets to oppose closer ties with mainland China meant that the criminal justice system was put under “extreme stress”, according to Jun Chan, Eric Yan-ho Lai and Thomas E Kellogg at the Center for Asian Law of Georgetown University.

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Biden expected to meet with Xi Jinping next month for ‘constructive’ talks

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White House comments come after China’s foreign minister made rare visit to Washington to pave way for Xi to meet Biden

Joe Biden is expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit in San Francisco in November for “constructive” talks, the White House said on Tuesday.

The comments came days after China’s foreign minister made a rare visit to Washington to pave the way for Xi to meet Biden at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.

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Police arrest suspected gunman and free hostage at Japanese post office

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Man detained after eight-hour standoff at building in Warabi and earlier shooting at nearby hospital

Japanese police have captured a suspected gunman who holed up at a post office and have rescued a member of staff who was held hostage, NHK television reported on Tuesday.

The arrest ended a more than eight-hour standoff with the man, reportedly in his 80s, who entered the post office with a gun in Warabi, north of Tokyo, an hour after a hospital shooting in which two people were wounded in the nearby city of Toda.

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Yang Hengjun’s family urges Albanese to negotiate with China for jailed Australian writer’s release

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Democracy activist ‘hasn’t enjoyed any direct sunlight for over four years’ and his children fear their father risks being left to die in a Chinese prison

The children of jailed Australian writer Yang Hengjun, detained for more than four years in China, have pleaded with Anthony Albanese to negotiate his release in Beijing this week, telling the prime minister his situation is critical and their father risks “being left to die”.

The writer and avowed democracy activist was arrested in January 2019 and charged with espionage. Yang has collapsed in prison and been told he has a 10cm cyst growing on his kidney, his sons said in a letter to Albanese, emphasising there was “a narrow window of opportunity” to secure his release.

In a prison, inmates are allowed to go outside to get fresh air and may eat in the canteen. Unlike the detention centre where I eat, drink, defecate and urinate all in a small room.

I haven’t enjoyed any direct sunlight for over four years. At most, some rays of sunlight occasionally come through one or two panes of glass and flicker fitfully.

Don’t forget I have not been convicted yet. According to Chinese law, I am still innocent, yet I have been locked up for more than four years, and I am almost destroyed … I’m talking about physically; mentally, no-one can destroy me.

I just hope I will be able to get out alive.

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‘Alarming’ rates of babies with antibiotic-resistant bugs in Asia-Pacific, Australian study finds

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Study urges Australia to research new drugs as it warns rate of mutated infections ‘much worse than anticipated’

“Alarming” rates of babies with infections resistant to common antibiotics in the Asia-Pacific region should prompt urgent investment into new drugs for treating childhood diseases, findings from a new study suggest.

The misuse and overuse of antibiotics is driving bugs to mutate so that common drugs are no longer effective to kill them, known as antimicrobial resistance. Dr Phoebe Williams, an infectious diseases paediatrician and antimicrobial resistance researcher with the University of Sydney, said she regularly travelled to work in hospitals in the south-east Asia and Pacific region where she found “entire wards of babies that have multi-drug resistant infections, and there is nothing left to treat them with”.

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Hong Kong leader defends elections after largest pro-democracy party shut out

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The Democratic party, the city’s largest pro-democracy party, failed to secure enough nominations under new rules introduced by authorities

Hong Kong’s leader has defended the rules for upcoming local elections as open and fair, even though an electoral overhaul means the city’s remaining pro-democracy activists won’t be part of the race.

The city’s largest pro-democracy party, the Democratic party, will be absent in December’s district council election for the first time since its establishment in 1994.

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White Island volcano eruption: Whakaari Management found guilty of ‘astonishing’ safety failures

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New Zealand judge Evangelos Thomas criticised failures of safety audits given ‘obvious risks’ that led to 2019 fatal eruption

A New Zealand court has found the owner of White Island/Whakaari, the offshore volcano that erupted in 2019, killing 22 people, guilty on one charge of breaching workplace safety laws.

On Tuesday, Auckland district court ruled Whakaari Management Limited (WML), the holding company of landowners Andrew, James and Peter Buttle, had not met its obligations to visitors to the volcano.

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China’s billionaires looking to move their cash, and themselves, out

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Crackdowns on financiers, roiling political climate and slowing economy under Xi Jinping has many seeking exit plans

Billionaires are notoriously difficult to track. It’s no surprise – the easier they and their assets are to find, the easier they are to tax. But by all accounts, the number of uber-wealthy people in China is in decline. Of the world’s estimated 2,640 billionaires, at least 562 are thought to be in China, according to Forbes, down from 607 last year.

With crackdowns on financiers and a roiling political climate, many of China’s rich people are looking to move their money, and themselves, out of the country.

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PNG to investigate corruption claims in Australia-funded refugee program

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Papua New Guinea’s immigration minister John Rosso says whistleblower’s ‘serious allegations’ revealed by the Guardian have prompted audit

Allegations of widespread corruption and mismanagement within the Australia-funded refugee support program in Papua New Guinea will be formally investigated by the Port Moresby government.

After allegations from a whistleblower inside PNG’s immigration authority that millions of dollars had potentially been misused, PNG’s deputy prime minister, also the minister for immigration, John Rosso, has ordered an audit into where the money has gone.

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Higher interest rates help HSBC to more than double profits

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Bank criticised by MPs for being too slow to reward savers as it announces 15% rise in net interest income and $3bn share buyback

Higher interest rates helped HSBC to more than double its profits and hand over $3bn (£2.5bn) to shareholders, as MPs criticised the largest UK banks for being too slow to reward savers.

The London-headquartered bank said it was launching a share buyback, and paying a dividend worth 10 cents a share, after what its chief executive, Noel Quinn, hailed as “three consecutive quarters of strong financial performance”.

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Why the rusting wreck of a second world war ship is so important to China

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The Sierra Madre, deliberately marooned by the Philippines in 1999, is crumbling but repair is being made impossible by an effective blockade by Beijing

It is perhaps the most unlikely kind of military base. For more than two decades, a second world war-era ship, BRP Sierra Madre, has stood deliberately grounded in the remote, shallow waters of the fiercely contested South China Sea, carrying the Philippine flag and guarding against Chinese expansion.

But its future is increasingly precarious, and the ship has become a growing flashpoint in one of the world’s most disputed waters.

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Sharp rise in bear attacks in Japan as they struggle to find food

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Amid lack of acorns and beechnuts in natural habitats, bears have injured 158 people and killed two since April

Experts in Japan have warned that bear attacks are rising at an unprecedented rate, as the animals struggle to find food in their natural habitat.

Bears have caused at least 158 injuries and two deaths since April, equalling the record set in 2020, according to media reports. Most of the attacks occurred in the northern part of Honshu, Japan’s biggest island, the environment ministry said.

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Overseas students and workers targeted in illicit UK visa trade

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Brokers in south Asia charging up to £800 for appointments that should be free

UK visa appointments are being booked up by brokers and sold on for hundreds of pounds in an illicit trade targeting overseas workers and students.

An Observer investigation has found brokers in some parts of south Asia charging up to £800 for the biometric appointments, which are widely advertised on Facebook and the Telegram messaging service.

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Joe Biden and Xi Jinping meeting a step closer, says US

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US president and senior aides meet with Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, after which White House says it is ‘working towards’ top-level talks

The US and China have agreed to work towards setting up a meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping after the US president met with China’s foreign minister on Friday.

Biden has invited Xi to San Francisco in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit. The Chinese president has not yet confirmed he will come.

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Captain of Thai cave football team took his own life at UK school, coroner rules

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Inquest finds death of Duangphet Phromthep, 17, could not have been foreseen or prevented

The captain of the Thai football team who were trapped in a cave for several days in 2018 took his own life while at school in the UK, a coroner has ruled.

Duangphet Phromthep died at Kettering general hospital on 14 February, two days after being found unconscious at Brooke House College in Market Harborough, Leicestershire.

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Evidence mounts of North Korean arms to Russia in threat for Ukraine

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Despite questions over quality, scale of munition shipments indicates Moscow plans to continue conflict for long time

In pouring rain, a jubilant crowd waving pompoms and flowers greeted the Russian foreign minister as he stepped on to the airport asphalt in Pyongyang.

While the heavily choreographed welcoming scenes were a familiar sight in totalitarian North Korea, Sergei Lavrov’s rare visit to the country came amid mounting evidence that Pyongyang has started to provide artillery rounds to Russia, opening up a supply line that could have profound implications for the war in Ukraine.

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Taiwan election may open window for better China ties, report says

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International Crisis Group urges all parties including US to re-establish a baseline level of trust

Taiwan’s presidential election in January is a window of opportunity to resume dialogue between Taipei and Beijing, reduce tensions and lower the risk of conflict, an NGO has said.

A war over Taiwan is not inevitable but “the current trajectory is dangerous”, a report by the International Crisis Group says.

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Fukushima nuclear plant workers sent to hospital after being splashed with tainted water

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The operator Tepco says the workers came in contact with the wastewater when a hose came off accidentally and have been taken to hospital as a precaution

Four workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant were splashed with water containing radioactive materials, with two of them taken to hospital as a precaution, according to the plant operator.

The incident, which took place on Wednesday, highlights the dangers Japan still faces in decommissioning the plant. The reactor was knocked out by an immense tsunami in 2011 in the world’s worst atomic disaster since Chornobyl in 1986.

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