Asia

Shanghai axes some Covid testing requirements

Beijing, China (AFP) Authorities in China’s financial hub of Shanghai will from Monday scrap some testing requirements in the country’s latest relaxing of its strict zero-Covid policy following nationwide protests unseen in decades. Multiple cities have started to roll back some restrictions after public resentment at harsh and prolonged containment measures reached a boiling point last weekend, when spontaneous protests broke out in multiple Chinese cities. Shanghai residents will no longer need a 48-hour negative […]

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Indonesia’s Mount Semeru erupts, forcing thousands to flee

Lumajang, Indonesia (AFP) by Agus Harianto with Agnes Anya in Jakarta Indonesia’s Mount Semeru erupted Sunday spewing hot ash clouds a mile high and rivers of lava down its side while sparking the evacuation of nearly 2,000 people exactly one year after its last major eruption killed dozens. The burst from the highest mountain on Indonesia’s main island of Java, around 800 kilometres (500 miles) southeast of the capital Jakarta, prompted authorities to raise the alert […]

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Concern rises as new Turkish media law squeezes dissent

Istanbul, Turkey (AFP) by Fulya OZERKAN A new law gives Turkey fresh ammunition to censor the media and silence dissent ahead of elections in which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to prolong his two decades in office, journalists and activists say. Since 2014, when Erdogan became president, tens of thousands of people, from high-school teens to a former Miss Turkey have been prosecuted under a long-standing law that criminalises insulting the president. The law, passed […]

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Guard shot in ‘assassination attempt’ at Pakistan’s Kabul embassy

  Kabul, Afghanistan (AFP) A security guard was wounded Friday by shots fired at Pakistan’s embassy in the Afghan capital in what Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called “an assassination attempt” on the head of the mission. “I demand immediate investigation & action against perpetrators of this heinous act,” Sharif tweeted. Although Pakistan does not officially recognise Afghanistan’s Taliban government, it kept its embassy open even as the hardline Islamists took over in August last year, […]

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Pres. Xi signalled to EU chief China may adopt more openness in Covid response

  Bruxelles, Belgium (AFP) China’s President Xi Jinping suggested in talks with EU chief Charles Michel that the spread of the less lethal Omicron strain of Covid-19 may allow Beijing to ease lockdown rules, European officials said Friday. Michel met the Chinese leader in Beijing on Thursday. According to an account of the meeting from a senior European official, Xi told Michel that Chinese “people were frustrated” after three years of the coronavirus epidemic. Anger […]

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Hair transplant fad turns deadly in India

by Abhaya SRIVASTAVA Agence France-Presse NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — All that balding Indian television executive Athar Rasheed wanted was to look handsome and get married. But the 30-year-old’s seemingly harmless hair transplant went fatally wrong. Women have been judged on their appearance for millennia, but in an increasingly materialistic Indian society, men are also feeling pressure to look young and presentable for fear of losing their social standing. More and more prematurely balding men […]

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China mourns former leader Jiang as funeral preparations begin

Shanghai, China (AFP) by Matthew WALSH and Michael ZHANG Mobile apps and state media websites turned black-and-white, flags on some government buildings in Beijing were at half-mast, and flowers were laid as China on Thursday mourned the death of former leader Jiang Zemin. State media said Jiang had died of leukaemia and multiple organ failure in Shanghai on Wednesday at the age of 96 after all medical treatments failed, and that funeral preparations had begun. […]

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China Covid lockdowns shut delivery workers out of their homes

BEIJING, China (AFP) – Overworked, underpaid and thoroughly fed up, Wang’s troubles deepened even further when authorities abruptly locked down the delivery driver’s Beijing apartment block earlier this month. Officials in the Chinese capital have doubled down on the country’s hallmark zero-Covid policy in recent weeks, one of an array of cities to impose sweeping shutdowns, mass testing and teleworking mandates as caseloads have hit all-time highs. Wang is not alone in feeling frustrated. The ruling […]

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Bad abbot: Thai temple left empty after monks fail drug tests

BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — A Buddhist temple in central Thailand has been left without monks after all its holy men failed drug tests and were defrocked, a local official said Tuesday. Four monks including an abbot at a temple in Phetchabun province’s Bung Sam Phan district tested positive for methamphetamine on Monday, district official Boonlert Thintapthai told AFP. The monks have been sent to a health clinic to undergo drug rehabilitation, the official said. “The […]

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China cities under heavy policing after protests

by Matthew WALSH with Ludovic EHRET in Beijing Agence France-Presse SHANGHAI, China (AFP) — China’s major cities of Beijing and Shanghai were blanketed with security on Tuesday in the wake of nationwide rallies calling for political freedoms and an end to Covid lockdowns. The country’s leadership is facing a wave of protest not seen in decades, fuelled by anger over the unrelenting lockdowns as well as deep-rooted frustrations over China’s political direction. A deadly fire […]

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Japan PM wants defense budget to reach 2% of GDP by 2027

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has told his cabinet to increase defense spending to two percent of GDP by 2027, up from a longstanding level of around one percent. Kishida announced the plan to his defense and finance ministers late Monday, as Japan overhauls its defense and security strategies to address growing threats from China as well as the changing geopolitical landscape after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In August, the defense […]

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Xi tells Kim China willing to work with N.Korea for ‘world peace’: KCNA

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping told North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that Beijing was willing to work with Pyongyang for world peace, North Korean state media said Saturday. The message from Xi came days after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile in one of its most powerful tests yet, declaring it would meet perceived US nuclear threats with nukes of its own. North Korea has conducted a record-breaking blitz […]

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