Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The Hong Kong activist Nathan Law has applied for asylum in the UK, six months after fleeing his home on the eve of the national security law coming into force.
Law revealed in an opinion article for the Guardian on Monday that he had submitted a refugee claim to the UK government. He said he had chosen Britain in the hope he could “sound an alarm” over threats to democracy in Europe from the Chinese Communist party.
Hong Kong’s court of final appeal has reinstated a full ban on wearing masks at public gatherings, ruling in favour the government’s use of colonial-era laws.
The decision overturns the ruling by an appeal court in April, which found the ban, made unilaterally by the city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, at the peak of 2019’s protests, was partly unconstitutional in that it could not be declared for lawful public gatherings. It also upheld the constitutionality of using the colonial-era ordinances for the first time in half a century.
Software could be used to identify videos filmed and uploaded by Uighur person, says IPVM
The Chinese tech company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd offered facial recognition software to clients which can identify the face of a Uighur person, according to a report.
The US-based surveillance industry research firm IPVM said on Thursday it had found the detection technology in Alibaba’s Cloud Shield service, which offers content moderation for websites.
Unmanned Chang’e-5 probe returns to Earth after first mission in four decades to collect lunar samples
An unmanned Chinese spacecraft carrying rocks and soil from the moon returned safely to Earth early on Thursday (local time) in the first mission in four decades to collect lunar samples, the Xinhua news agency said.
The capsule carrying the samples collected by the Chang’e-5 space probelanded in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region, Xinhua said, quoting the China National Space Administration (CNSA).The director of CNSA, Zhang Kejian, declared the mission a success, Xinhua added.
A severe weather warning has been issued for Wagga and much of the Riverina for flash flooding this afternoon.
Severe thunderstorms have been forecast for the entire region, all the way from Hay in the west, right across to the east coast, and from the Queensland border down to Tumbarumba.
⚡SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING⚡ for HEAVY RAINFALL. Warning current for much of central and eastern NSW and the ACT. 2hr Obs: 92mm @ Lismore. 30min Obs: 26mm @ Glen Alice, 25mm at Mt.Werong & 22mm @ Lake Burley Griffin. ⚠️Warnings: https://t.co/30woSZ6O2x#ifitsfloodedforgetitpic.twitter.com/L8OXMiSlAz
Victoria police commissioner Shane Patton has sought to differentiate between the police approach during the Black Lives Matter protest in Melbourne in early June and anti-lockdown protests that were broken up during the second wave, with many more fined.
Patton told a Victorian parliament Covid-19 committee on Wednesday that at the time of the BLM protest, the spread of Covid was not as big as it was later on in the second wave, and there weren’t the severe restrictions at the time that were seen later – in June, groups of up to 20 people could assemble.
We eventually made a decision to reluctantly allow that Black Lives Matter to go ahead, because of the emotion that was in the community, because of the emotion that was being displayed across the world.
Security expert claims Chinese surveillance may have affected tens of thousands of Americans
China appears to have used mobile phone networks in the Caribbean to surveil US mobile phone subscribers as part of its espionage campaign against Americans, according to a mobile network security expert who has analysed sensitive signals data.
The findings paint an alarming picture of how China has allegedly exploited decades-old vulnerabilities in the global telecommunications network to route “active” surveillance attacks through telecoms operators.
Nanaia Mahuta says Canberra and Beijing ‘will have to be willing to come together and concede in some areas’
New Zealand’s new foreign minister has said the country could help negotiate a truce between Australia and regional heavyweight China with the two nations caught in an escalating trade and diplomatic spat.
Nanaia Mahuta said on Tuesday that hosting the high-profile Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit next year presented an opportunity for New Zealand to bring both parties to the table.
Forced labour much more widespread than initially thought in China region that supplies a fifth of the world’s cotton
More than half a million people from ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang have been coerced into picking cotton, on a scale far greater than previously thought, new research has suggested.
The Xinjiang region produces more than 20% of the world’s cotton and 84% of China’s, but according to a new report released on Tuesday by the Center for Global Policy there is significant evidence that it is “tainted” by human rights abuses, including suspected forced labour of Uighur and other Turkic Muslim minority people.
From December 2019, when an unknown virus was found in China, to the release of vaccines for Covid-19 – here are the points where momentum shifted
From December 2019, when an unknown virus was found in China, to the release of vaccines for Covid-19, it has been an extraordinary year. Here’s how the momentum shifted
Our foreign correspondents reflect on the practical and cultural importance of fluency in a country’s native tongue
During the worst of the coronavirus outbreak in China, people described to us deeply personal and traumatic experiences – losing their parents, suffering the death of a child, being harassed and intimidated for trying to speak out. Having these conversations in Mandarin was important not just for capturing nuance and detail but for a sense of empathy.
Trials in the United Arab Emirates have shown that China’s Sinopharm vaccine has 86% efficacy. So what is the Chinese treatment, where is it being trialled and will it challenge the vaccines being developed in western countries?
Boosted iron ore prices due to anxious markets are likely to help federal budget’s bottom line, Deloitte says
Australia’s losses from trade tensions with China are being offset by rising iron ore prices, according to new analysis, which also predicts the Morrison government will announce a smaller budget deficit than originally forecast.
Deloitte Access Economics said Chinese government moves against wine, beef, barley, lobsters and thermal coal have cost Australia money “but we’ve more than made that up in overall terms thanks to iron ore – and the taxman will be a considerable beneficiary of that”.
The 72-year-old media tycoon was charged under China’s draconian new security law on Friday
The Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai has been denied bail, after being charged with colluding with foreign entities under the city’s new national security law.
Lai, who marked his 72nd birthday in jail this week, appeared in court on Saturday handcuffed to a chain around his waist, and led by a police officer.
When Chinese scientists alerted colleagues to a new virus last December, suspicion fell on a Wuhan market. What have health officials learned since then?
Maria van Kerkhove was staying with her sister in the US for the Christmas holidays, but checking her emails. As always. Every day there are signals of potential trouble, said the World Health Organization virologist who was to become a household name and face within weeks.
“There’s always something that happens at Christmas time. There’s always some alert, or a signal of a suspected case. The last several years it’s been Mers [Middle East respiratory syndrome] – a suspect case travelling to Malaysia or Indonesia or Korea or somewhere in Asia from the Middle East. So there’s always some kind of signal. There’s always something that happens,” she said.
Survey finds more than 600,000 may want to move to Britain, many within two years of January start date
Hong Kong residents are likely to move to the UK faster than the British government has anticipated, and more should be done to prepare for their arrival, a new advocacy group has said.
HongKongers in Britain (HKB) surveyed city residents hoping to emigrate under a new British government scheme that opens in January, allowing those with colonial-era British National Overseas (BNO) status to obtain visas and pursue a “path to citizenship”.
Court expected to rule there is still insufficient evidence against China, but file to be kept open
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has asked for more evidence before it will be willing to open an investigation into claims of genocide against Uighur people by China, but has said it will keep the file open for such further evidence to be submitted.
With Beijing not a signatory to the ICC, those bringing the claim of genocide have pointed to the alleged forcing of Uighur people from Tajikistan and Cambodia into China as evidence. Both countries are signatories to the Rome statute setting up the ICC.
Automation is revolutionising China’s pork farms but leaving independent farmers behind
A slender snout. Shapely, upright ears. Like humans, pigs have idiosyncratic faces, and new players in the Chinese pork market are taking notice, experimenting with increasingly sophisticated versions of facial recognition software for pigs.
China is the world’s largest exporter of pork, and is set to increase production next year by 9%. As the nation’s pork farms grow in scale, more farmers are turning to AI systems like facial recognition technology – known as FRT – to continuously monitor, identify, and even feed their herds.
The United Arab Emirates said a Chinese coronavirus vaccine tested in the federation of sheikhdoms has 86% efficacy, in a statement that provided few details but marked the first public release of information on the performance of the shot.
The announcement brought yet another contender into the worldwide race for a vaccine to end the pandemic, a scientific effort in which China and Russia are competing with western firms to develop an effective inoculation.
Agents travelled from China at Swiss taxpayers’ expense to interview deportation targets
The full text of a secret deal between Switzerland and China that allowed Chinese security officials access to the country at Swiss taxpayers’ expense has been revealed for the first time as the government pushes to renew it.
The five-year “readmission agreement”, which was signed in 2015 and expired on Monday, lay out terms for Chinese agents to travel to Switzerland and interview suspected Chinese nationals that Swiss authorities wished to deport.